JurassiQuest – Chapter 1: The Orb

A/N: Hello guys and gals! The story you are about to read is probably quite different from any other story ever written for fanfiction. I've been brainstorming on this project for a long time since the idea was first proposed to me last December (so that's late 2013). The idea behind this story was given to me by creative fanfiction writer TomSurfing. This story set in a universe/canon all its own, and therefore distinct Jurassic Park cannon (that is, it isn't in the movie, novel, game or comic cannons or "story lines"). However, as the story moves along, many of the characters, concepts and details from the movie, novels and games will be incorporated into this story. What you are about to read is the first story of a three-part trilogy that will take you on an exciting adventure through the world of genetic engineering, paleontology and you'll see how careless actions done by humans can be dangerous in the long run. Please enjoy!

A/N 2: Just to be clear, even though the story is rated T, you won't find any profanity, sexual content or other uses of foul language in my story. It is rated T for minor violence.

PS. If at anytime I refer to this story as "Jurassic World" it's because that was the initial title for this story. I changed it to JurassiQuest to avoid confusion with the upcoming movie by the same name.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.

Dr. Henry Wu stared at the computer screen in one of his laboratories. Why wasn't this program working? This laboratory wasn't much, just a small room inside the large company known as International Genetic Technologies, or InGen for short.

InGen was a large bioengineering company located in Palo Alto, California. It was founded by the respectable John Parker Hammond in 2002. InGen's early start was made possible due to support of the Hammond Foundation, the Law Offices of Cowan, Swain and Ross and several Japanese investment firms. Ever since, the results of their projects had been quite revolutionary.

One of their most recent and successful projects was headed by the head geneticist Dr. Henry Wu, and the project involved causing E. coli bacteria – a lab-friendly bacteria often studied in labs around the world that usually produces a stinky odor – to produce wintergreeen-smelling E. coli. Dr. Wu and the other scientists at InGen had inserted mint-smelling genetic material into the E. coli bacteria they were experimenting on and were able to get them to emit the pleasant smell. This was the normal work of InGen scientists. But not today.

Today, Dr. Wu was in a small dark laboratory room, sitting in front of his computer screen, typing ferociously. Dr. Henry Wu was an only child from China; he was a slender man of thirty-three. Wu gained early attention from his undergraduate thesis at MIT when he was 23 before he was hired by InGen. Now, for the past ten years, he has been co-head of the geneticist department at InGen.

Since six months, he and his assistants had been working on a new prototype that was quite different than anything ever attempted by a genetic engineering company anywhere in the world; in fact, it wasn't really so much genetic engineering, but as Hammond was Wu's boss, he's have to do anything he requested. For months now, Wu and the others had been trying to decode the mystery of making the mechanism actually work, and they hadn't gotten this close before. Today might be the day the prototype would actually work.

Wu glanced beside him at Raymond "Ray" Arnold sitting beside him, staring at his own monitor. Ray was a thin, bespectacled, African-American man and a chronic worker. He was the chief engineer at InGen, was very experienced with computers and his job mainly consisted of running InGen's computer systems. But over the past six months, he had been assisting Wu with his latest project.

"How's it coming along?" Henry asked.

Arnold sighed. While he took a stick of gum from his pocket and put it in his mouth he said, "If I can just get past these calculations, we'll be on our way."

"Well, you might want to have a look at this."

Arnold leaned over to look at Henry's computer. He grinned. "Yes, that's the calculation. How'd you figure it out?"

"You had a number in the wrong place somewhere between line 001 and 0053. I fixed the equation and I believe it or not, I think we might be able to experiment with the new prototype today."

"It's about time," said a voice from behind them. The two men turned back to watch as Dennis Nedry typed in some numbers into his computer at his desk. He was working on the same project as Wu and Arnold. Nedry was an obese, chief computer programmer at InGen. He wore glasses and sat at a clutter-filled desk littered with computer manuals, candy wrappers, soda cans, straws and even a pizza box from three months ago with more clutter and a slice of cold pizza from a couple of days ago inside. Despite his appearance, like Arnold, he was very intelligent around computers. In fact, he'd been responsible for rigging up the entire InGen computer system.

Ray turned back to the computer. He was about to look back at Nedry when suddenly he realized that his plastic cup with his lemonade was gone. "Henry, have you seen my drink?"

"It was sitting right next to you, wasn't it?"

"Last I saw it was before we left on our break. When we came back a few minutes ago, I had forgotten about it till now."

"No matter," Henry said. He pushed his chair away from the desk. "In just a few moments, we could very well have a working prototype." He, Arnold and Nedry got up from their chairs and walked over to a pair of large and mechanical cylinders about 10 feet away from each other; they were each about four feet tall. And facing toward the center was a ray gun attached to each cylinder. In the center, was an empty space. This is where the "magic" would take place.

There was a light tapping on the door; it must have been the boss, but Wu wanted to be sure.

"Who is it?" Wu asked.

"It's John and Laura," the male voice behind the door said. Wu went over to the door and opened it, allowing John Hammond and Dr. Sorkin to enter the room. As you are already aware, Hammond is the CEO of InGen, and Dr. Laura Sorkin is the company's co-head geneticist. Raised on her family's farm in Arkansas, Dr. Sorkin was a tall scientist of 40 years of age with short blond hair and glasses. She had also been assisting Henry, Nedry and Arnold with the prototype from time to time.

Today, Hammond was as hopeful as ever. This wasn't the first time Wu had opened the door to him so that he could see how the prototype would work, but the others times the prototype was completely unsuccessful. "How's the prototype coming along?"

"We corrected a lot of calculations if that's what you mean," Arnold said. "I just wish this stuff wasn't so complicated. I have other work to do in the other divisions of this facility–"

"You're willing to miss out on what could be one of the grandest opportunities in the history of mankind?" Henry asked. "All the time you've put into this project?"

"This machine's never worked before."

"It needs to work," Dr. Sorkin said. "We need to move to the next step."

After Hammond stepped through the door, a miniature elephant followed in his footsteps. The little creature stood only nine inches high and 12 inches in length, the size of a gopher, a creature straight from Henry's bioengineering department in another part of the facility. The elephant was much like a baby Asian elephant in almost every way except its size. It also had a pair of small white tusks. The elephant trumpeted loudly and flapped its little ears.

"Shh!" Hammond said as he closed the door. "Dianthus, you can't make loud noise in here. No one's supposed to know what's going on in this room except us."

The elephant shook his head and took a seat on the floor.

"You think this thing's gonna work?" Nedry asked.

Hammond shrugged. "Well, there's only one way to find out. Ray, start the program."

Arnold went over to his computer and punched some calculations that he'd been solving on the keyboard. Then the machine began firing up. Little lights on the sides of the cylinders flickered as rotors began to whir. "It's just got to warm up a bit first," Arnold reminded the others.

Several seconds passed by; the only source of sounds were from the motors as they prepared for action.

Henry rubbed his temples eagerly. "10 years of research . . . millions invested . . . if this thing works, our little project could be the most revolutionary thing since the invention of the cellphone!"

"Think of all the additional research we can accomplish if this device works," Dr. Sorkin breathed.

The rotors grew noisier; Dianthus ran underneath a desk to hide. The ray guns shot a beam of white light and energy towards the center of the prototype . . . this was where the process stopped before. But this time it didn't. Ten seconds went by and the beam remained until suddenly a bright flash of light occurred when the beams intensity grew stronger, forming a ball of light and energy between the two guns.

"Oh my gosh," Arnold breathed.

Suddenly, a "whispered" explosion of light and energy caused the energy ball to mushroom into a large orb! The orb was six feet in diameter. White light as bright as the sun filled the room and then the ball spat out what looked like shards of glass from its core. The shards floated and twirled around the orb – it was now a calm force of energy. The machine had worked. Hammond and the five scientists cheered with glee.

"I don't believe it!" Henry cried. "I don't believe it! It worked! It actually works!"

"Way to go you guys," Dr. Sorkin cheered. "This is so amazing."

"I knew we'd figure it out," Hammond said, "that just goes to show you that if you apply a little elbow grease and spare no expense, you can accomplish almost anything."

Henry admired the work he'd put into the project as the orb glimmered calmly in space. 10 years of research, six months of constructing and fine-tuning the prototype and millions of dollars spent . . . and their invention was actually working.

"Ha, ha! And all the scientists we asked said it couldn't be done," Arnold scoffed. "I guess we'll show them!"

Nedry went over to his desk and opened his next can of soda. "Don't give your hopes up too high," he said.

The other men frowned and looked in his direction. "What are you saying?" Hammond questioned. "Of course it works."

Nedry took a sip of his soda. "We've created an orb of light and energy. Big deal. We need to prove it actually works in the way it's supposed to."

Henry nodded. True, maybe his optimism was a bit premature. Maybe he'd judged the situation too soon. But he still felt a sense of victory inside, because he, Arnold, Sorkin and Nedry had done something that had never been accomplished by mankind before.

A/N: So what do you think of the story so far? I know this first chapter was a bit short, so I'll publish another one today. Some of you might be wondering about Hammond's little elephant. Well, in the original novel, it is mentioned that one of InGen's projects in bioengineering was genetically engineering an pint-sized elephant; this made investors eager to support InGen's projects. I'm not sure if Dianthus will make many more appearances in the story, but we should be seeing him again soon! Please be sure to follow, favorite and review on this story. And in your reviews, please don't post any profane or rude comments. Constructive criticism will do. Anyway, if you like Jurassic World so far, be sure to check out chapter 2!