Chapter 3
BUCKY
Raptor Paddock
Ex-Navy/Army soldier, James Buchacan "Bucky" Barnes stood on the raised walkways above the Raptor Paddock, listening to the frightful squeals of the small pig that was running for its life through the foliage. He could hear four creatures chasing after the frightened pig, hunting and stalking. He could hear them getting closer and closer until a small, pink body burst out of out and to the trapdoor that was on the wall, its safe haven. It ran in and the trapdoor closed. Not a few seconds later, a white scaled blur came out of the foliage.
"Whoah!" Bucky called down, causing the blur to skid to a stop. A raptor stood there, scales primarily white with dark grey going down its back and stripes going to and around its eye, making its cold, amber eyes pop out more. Behind it, three more burst out and skid to a stop. The one on the white raptor's right was a dark brown color with a tanned underbelly and darker brown stripes going down its back. The raptor on the right was a rusty color through and through with only white splodges all over it except for the tip of the tail, which was completely right. The final raptor, the one in the back, was a little smaller but just as menacing as the other three. It was completely dark grey with dark green striping all over it.
"Hey!" Bucky called down again, causing the four raptors to look up at him and he clicked the clicker that was in his hand. "Okay, eyes on me."
The white raptor was looking anywhere but him, as if testing him so to speak.
"Winter." When she didn't look up, he clicked in rapid succession. "Winter! Watch it."
Winter's head craned up to look at him, a gurgle noise coming from its throat. The dark grey raptor seemed to be doing the same thing that Winter did, much to Bucky's annoyance.
"Goat- hey! Don't give me any of that shit!" snapped Bucky, making the smallest, Goat, look up at him. The dark brown raptor seemed to fidget for a moment. "Captain, lock it up."
They all kept their attention at Bucky and he clicked his clicker a few times. "Good! And...we're moving."
He began to walk along the walkway, the raptor following his every move...well, as closely as they could while they snapped and hissed at each other. He ignored that and got to the metal bucket while letting out a loud 'Oooh'. They stopped and stood at attention, staring up at him. "Okay, that's good. That is damn good you four."
He clicked several times before reaching into the bucket and pulled out small chunks of meat. "Very good! See? Goat!"
He threw the chunk of meat. Goat jumped up and snapped the chunk up. "That's what you get. Skull!"
The rusty colored raptor jumped up and snapped its chunk up. "Here you go. Captain!"
Captain jumped and snapped its chunk up as well. Bucky pulled out a large rat and held it so his beta could see it. "Winter. This one's for you."
He threw the rat and Winter snapped it up, apparently savoring the taste. "Hold! Eyes up!"
The four raptors held their head up high, waiting, their muscles twitching under their scales. Then, Bucky let his hand swing down. "Go!"
The four raptors took off with a screech and the humans along the raised walkways, patting each other on the back at the rather successful demonstration.
"You finally did it! About damn time." grinned Samuel "Sam" Wilson as he gave Bucky a friendly slap on the back. Bucky just snorted and rolled his eyes before a call of his name made him look. He could see Alexander Pierce walking over to him and Sam. He made sure to steel himself, already knowing what Alexander would want to talk about and he wasn't looking forward to it.
"I was starting to wonder if I had gotten the wrong guy for this job." Alexander stopped in front of the two. "You have them eating out of your palm."
"Well, you came on a good day. It isn't usually a happy ending." Bucky politely shook hands with Alexander.
"Is that why you're not sending in your reports?"
"We've been busy." stated Sam.
"I can attest to that." piped up James "Rhodey" Rhodes, a man in the standard ACU uniform called from from behind Alexander, making Sam look at him with a grateful look.
"What do you need?" questioned Bucky.
"Field test." Alexander answered, hands on his hips. Bucky did his best to not roll his eyes before turning, grabbing and lifting the bucket by the handle and began to walk away, Alexander following. "Hey! I've just seen that they can respond to commands. You need to take the research and get it on its feet."
"Their wild animals Pierce. Trust me, you don't want them in the field."
"I just saw a bond. A real bond between man and beasts. Come on, Bucky. We know the military needs to reduce casualties. Some people think that robots are the future- like Stark Industries. Look, nature gave us the most effective killing machines seventy-five-million years ago and now we know they can take orders."
Bucky stepped off the last step, now on the ground before turning back towards Alexander. Sam got down to the ground as well before walking over to the,. "Man, we finally make progress and the first thing he says..make a weapon."
"Come on, gentlemen, it's grown up time. Drones can't search tunnels and caves- and they're hackable. The minute a real war breaks out, all that fancy tech will go dark and we all know it."
"That tech's not gonna eat them if they forget to feed it." Bucky pointed out, wanting this conversation to be done already.
"Look, They've got millions of years of instinct in their cells- instincts we can program. Loyalty cannot be bought. These guys are gonna run straight into the enemy's teeth and eat them, belt buckle and all."
"What if they decide that they don't want to be controlled?" asked Sam.
"Well, we'll remind them who is. We'll terminate the rogues. Promote only royal bloodlines."
Sam didn't say anything before he began to chuckle, shaking his head. Then, he walked around the two, still chucking and ignoring Alexander's inquiries and instead, walked over to a watching Rhodey.
"What's so funny?" Alexander frowned before he looked at Bucky questionably.
"It's just that...you come around here, never learning anything and you think you own them after you created them."
"Well, we do own them in every sense of the word. Extinct animals have no rights."
"They aren't extinct anymore, Pierce."
"Exactly. We're sitting on a gold mine. Masrani is using it to stock a petting zoo."
"He wants to teach people some humility. He doesn't make weapons."
"You think that a rich man is only into oil, telecom and family fun parks? He's so diversified, he doesn't know what he owns."
Bucky bit the inside of his cheek, words almost bursting forth 'You mean two rich men who's into family fun parks' and instead, took a moment to think up a new response. "How long has InGen been practicing this pitch?"
"Since they day we hired you out of the navy. You knew the endgame. These animals will replace thousands of troops on the ground. How many lives would that save?"
Bucky walked into a cage that was attached to the main paddock and set the bucket down before turning back to Pierce, intending to say something back when frightened pig squeals filled the air that was accompanied by a bang and the shouts 'Pig loose'. He looked into the compound and noticed a fairly young guy with a long animal catching pool running along the raised walkway before thrusting the pole down and catching the pig for a split second. One of the raptors snapped the pig up in their jaws as they bolted across, making the guy loosing his balance and falling hard on his back.
Bucky didn't waste anytime with opening the gate that lead into the paddock as the raptors began to close in on the guy. As soon as there was a big enough gap, he crawled through it and quickly planted himself between the raptors and the guy, a hand raised towards the hissing animals. He glanced up and saw men pointing their tranquilizer guns at the raptors. "Hey! No! Hold your fire, hold your fire! Do not fire! Put twelve amps in these animals, they will never trust me again."
He eyed the four raptors before he solely focused on the white one in front of him, seemingly poised to pounce with how low to the ground the body is. "Winter, stand down. Stand down."
Winter gave a snap at the air in front of his snout, as if talking back so to speak. "Hey- hey! What did I just say?!"
He glanced to the left and saw Captain coming closer. "Captain, I see you. Back up! You too, Skull. Goat, stay right there."
Bucky's eyes found Winter's once more and the two seemingly stared at each other for a long moment before Winter let out a snort and a small gurgling in his throat before letting out sharp barks to the others. Skull hissed at Winter but the beta snapped at him with a growls, making Skull back down. Goat was the only other raptor that also made a gurgling noise before Bucky carefully backed up and pressed the bottom, letting the gate slide back closed. The raptors let out angry screeches before they all went on their way, snorting and huffing.
Bucky helped the guy up, who introduced himself as Leon and who was grateful before Leon walked away, presumably to shake off what just happened. Bucky did not look at Pierce, knowing that he would not like the look on the other man's face, and walked out and it was only then when he was approached by Sam and Rhodey.
"You are absolutely crazy!" Sam stated but he had a smile on his face. "So damn crazy that you managed to make it work."
"I kinda wish I didn't." sighed Bucky, making Sam loose his smile in realization. Of course, he had forgotten that Pierce had watched the whole thing.
"I could always call Tony." Rhodey offered. "He'd try to do something about the guy."
"No, it's fine. We'll figure something out." Bucky assured him. He knew who Tony Stark was- everyone did- and he had caught glimpses of the man at times, mainly when Tony was milling around the park. He had to admit, the Operations Manager was quite attractive, especially when the man had join in with help educating some of the kids when some of the handlers brought out young dinosaurs when they are still at the appropriate sized to be carried. He would never expect an operations manager would could any kind of baby dinosaur in their arms like Tony did.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, Rhodes, I'm sure. I've been handing Pierce for this long, I can handle him a little while longer."