Dinosaur Island -1994- (2027)

“You remember my father,” Lena said. It wasn’t a question.

Lena had seen the blueprints in the bunker: laboratories, hatcheries, a veterinary station, a cafeteria, and at the center of it all, a four-story tower with a helipad on top. The tower was where Hammond had kept his office. It was also where the geothermal plant was housed—the island’s heart, still beating. Dinosaur Island -1994-

Lena knew the name. Everyone in paleontology did. John Hammond had been a showman, a billionaire, a laughingstock—the man who’d tried to build a dinosaur theme park in the 1980s, only to have his “living attractions” die in transit or escape into the wild. The project had been shut down by 1988. Lawsuits had buried him. He’d died in ‘92, penniless and disgraced, still insisting that his failures had been “operational, not conceptual.” “You remember my father,” Lena said

The tyrannosaur took a step forward. Then another. It lowered its head until its nostril was inches from her face, breathing hot and wet against her skin. Its pupil contracted, focusing. The tower was where Hammond had kept his office