Claire Dearing (S/F)

Claire Dearing, age 36 (2022)

Claire Dearing is an American animal rights activist and former Operations Manager of Jurassic World. She is widely known for founding the Dinosaur Protection Group, a San Francisco-based de-extinct animal rights advocacy organization, and for acting as Senior Assets Manager at Jurassic World in addition to being Operations Manager between 2007 and the park’s closure in late 2015. From 2016 onward, she has been a prominent political figure in the controversy surrounding the rights and protections of de-extinct animal life, using social media and political lobbying to promote the idea that de-extinct life should have the same protections as naturally extant species.

Between mid-2018 and early 2022, she was a person of interest to the Central Intelligence Agency’s Dangerous Species Division due to her involvement with the 2018 incidents on Isla Nublar and at Lockwood Manor and for her subsequent acts of ecoterrorism. Following the conclusion of the 2022 Biosyn Valley incident, she has apparently been cleared of any charges and resides at a cabin in the Sierra Nevada range with Owen Grady and Maisie Lockwood.

Name

The given name Claire comes from French, originally of Latin or Viking origin. It means “clear” or “famous,” and was originally a male given name spelled Clair. The surname Dearing is of Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the given names Deoring and Dyring, which mean “dear” and “beloved” respectively.

Biography
Early life

Dearing was born in the mid-1980s in the United States, somewhere on the East Coast (dialogue from The Evolution of Claire strongly implies that she grew up in Vermont). She was said to be twelve years old as of the 1997 San Diego incident and was nineteen between August and early September 2004; this means that her date of birth falls between mid-September 1984 and May 30, 1985.

She was the younger of two siblings, having an older sister named Karen. Her family lived on a two-acre flat near a white beech grove; her father was an avid beekeeper, carpenter, apple farmer, and mechanic. Her mother was skilled at baking, ceramics, and sewing. Dearing had few friends as a child, being closest with her sister. Many of her traits and interests were considered unconventional, both for her suburban family and for young girls during that period of time. She was interested in science and in animals (not just mammals as was commonly expected of young girls, but also insects and reptiles), and for much of her life was determined to travel out into the world rather than remain near home.

Dearing practiced tap dance during her early childhood. Her memoirs in The Evolution of Claire describe her, at the age of five, forgetting her solo during a recital and freezing up on stage. She stopped practicing dance entirely sometime after this. At home, the family would often have bonfires which their father built, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs together. They would often camp out together away from home. Dearing’s father taught her how to shoot a rifle; however, she did not go hunting with him despite his offers.

At the age of eight, she adopted a pet female blue-tongued skink which she named Sally Ride after a famous astronaut. This was her first pet, and the first animal in her care.

Dearing was a member of a local Girl Scout troop. According to Jurassic World: The Game, she went to summer camp at Lake Elmore in Elmore, Vermont.

In the early morning of May 30, 1997, when Dearing was twelve years old, the world became aware of the de-extinction of Mesozoic animal and plant life when a male Tyrannosaurus rex was loosed into San Diego, California. Photographs of the animal and its son, as well as other creatures cloned by Dr. John Hammond’s company International Genetic Technologies on Isla Sorna, soon surfaced to the public; while many decried this as a nightmare scenario, Dearing considered it a wonderful opportunity to preserve life forms once thought lost forever. Even when she learned of InGen’s Jurassic Park, a tourist attraction which had failed behind closed doors in 1993, she remained enamored by the animals the company had brought to life. According to her sister, over the next year Dearing would often play pretend that she was a tyrannosaur and chase Karen around the family yard.

When she was twelve years old, Dearing had her first experience with animal cruelty. A man in her neighborhood kept a dog chained outside his warehouse down the street from the school all throughout the year in poor conditions, leaving enough food and water out to keep Animal Control from intervening. Dearing read up on animal cruelty laws, and throughout that year, she (with her father’s help and encouragement) kept a logbook and photographic record of the dog’s condition. For six months, she regularly called Animal Control to give updates, but was always informed that the owner had not technically committed any violations yet. When the warehouse owner left for two weeks and left the dog behind, Dearing reported this to Animal Control, and the dog was promptly taken away. Dearing’s mother arranged for the local animal rescue to take in the dog, and Dearing helped the abused animal recover. He was eventually adopted by a family in the state of Maine, who named him Roo and regularly sent Dearing pictures of him during the Christmas holidays.

Dearing’s interest in science persisted from an early age. When she was twelve, her father hand-built her a telescope; in eighth grade, she created a highly detailed Solar System model and star chart on her bedroom ceiling. She still had few friends other than her sister and pets, and throughout high school her ceiling model motivated her to do well enough to get accepted into college where she could reach her potential. She sneaked black coffee during high school without her mother’s knowledge in order to be more alert during morning classes. Dearing was well aware that her being a woman meant she was at a disadvantage, as society generally did not view women as being suited for professional work. One Christmas, she was gifted a book chronicling many influential women, including numerous scientists, which further inspired her to buck the stereotype and become a force for change in her world.

In high school, she volunteered at a local animal shelter; there she met a female dog who had been found wandering the nearby freeway with various infections. Dearing helped to nurse this dog back to health, though the animal’s infected right eye had to be removed, and won the dog’s trust; she would go on to adopt her once she was healthy. The Dearings named her Earhart, both after famous pilot Amelia Earhart and after the heart-shaped scar on her ear.

For her sixteenth birthday, she was gifted a plaid cashmere blanket scarf from Karen.

In 2002, when Dearing would have been finishing her junior year of high school and starting her senior year, a bizarre viral marketing campaign involved people from around the world. Packages containing amber-capped paleontological tools and unmarked cards with tyrannosaur skeleton stamps were shipped to journalists, internet personalities, pop stars, professors, and scientists, and eventually various random people. A second package was shipped to each recipient, this one containing a compass bearing a tyrannosaur skeletal symbol. A third package was then shipped to each recipient, containing a theropod dinosaur tooth, an ink illustration of a gate, and a key not designed to unlock anything. A Bolivian farmer’s son disassembled the third box and discovered that the key fit into an indentation on the lid, activating a hologram chip which announced a mysterious date of May 30, 2005. The day after, Indian billionaire CEO Simon Masrani announced in a brief and sudden press conference that a re-imagined version of Jurassic Park, now called Jurassic World, would be opening on that date. This fascinated and excited Dearing, who saw it as an opportunity to reshape the future of biological science and more. By this time, the Masrani Corporation owned InGen and its property on Isla Nublar which would be used for Jurassic World.

Dearing realized long before leaving for college that in order to create real change in animal welfare, a person would need significant political influence or money. Though animal rights was her main passion, Dearing began to focus on law so she could achieve this goal.

Karen moved away as a young adult, but remained in touch. At one point, Dearing tended to an injured fox in Karen’s room, which frightened Karen’s roommate; this was partly in retribution for said roommate frequently insisting that Karen yield the room for her roommate’s sexual conquests. Karen returned home before her sister left for college in 2003, so Claire spent at least her final pre-college summer vacation with her sister by her side again. Karen married into the Mitchell family sometime prior to 1999 and had her first child, a son named Zach, by the end of that year. Claire was less involved with Karen’s married life; even into her adulthood she commonly misremembered her nephew’s age.

College career and Bright Minds internship

Dearing began college in the fall of 2003, at the age of eighteen. She attended a university six hours away from home (fourteen hours by bus, as she did not yet own a car), living on the upper floor of a dorm building with a roommate named Regina. Dearing excelled at most science classes, though she found molecular biology challenging. Her biggest struggle in her freshman year, however, was Poetry 101, taught by one Professor Gillian. Dearing passed this class largely thanks to the help provided by her roommate, whom she grew close with. She also made other friends at university, finally finding a social setting where she fit in.

During her freshman year, she went on several dates with a young man named Jackson who one of her friends had set her up with. The two did not enter an official relationship, and according to Dearing, Jackson often made disparaging comments about Dearing’s room decorations and pet skink. His frequent insults about Dearing’s pet led to her breaking off their budding relationship, which led to him showing up to her room to lash out at her. Dearing’s roommate Regina made a show of solidarity with Dearing, and Jackson did not harass her further after this incident and instead avoided her on campus. Dearing discerned that Jackson’s interest in her had been purely sexual, and so did not lament the end of their relationship.

During her fall semester in 2003, Dearing took a weightlifting class to fulfill a general education credit requirement. Dearing visited her family twice during the fall semester, once during Thanksgiving and once during Christmas. She did not go home for spring break during the spring semester, instead traveling with Regina; the latter went bungee jumping, but out of concerns for her own safety, Dearing did not participate.

One of Dearing’s educators, a Professor Broadhurst, offered to mentor Dearing during her freshman year; it was unusual for freshmen to be chosen. At this point, Dearing’s ultimate goal was to become a U.S. senator, which would ensure she could most effectively advocate for animal rights. Broadhurst encouraged her to apply to various internships to gain opportunity for advancement. She applied to six different internships in 2004 after spending the winter weighing her options, including four with law firms (one in Washington, D.C.), one with a Ninth Circuit judge, and the Bright Minds internship hosted by Masrani Global Corporation‘s Simon Masrani. While she became ineligible for the Washington internship when its age requirement was unexpectedly raised to 20 (she was nineteen at the time), the hosts of this internship asked her to keep them in mind the following year, and she was accepted to the remaining law internships and the one with the judge. Her acceptance letter for the Bright Minds program arrived shortly before the deadline, though it had been delayed in the mail and almost caused her to miss her opportunity. Waiting for the Bright Minds internship put her at risk of missing out on the other four internships; her acceptance letter arrived the Friday before the internship’s deadline, and the other internships’ deadlines were on the following Monday. She had not called to respond to any of these others, holding out hope that Bright Minds would accept her.

Family difficulties affected the Dearings in the years leading up to 2004. Her father had made an investment which did not pan out, and the family’s finances suffered as a result. The Dearing parents were unable to provide for Claire’s college because of this, so she relied entirely on loans, scholarships, and her own income. Their maternal grandmother had also recently passed away, with their mother caring for her during her final year. This had put a great stress on their mother, who was also worried that her youngest daughter would not come home like Karen after going away to college. Claire, during her freshman year, had seldom visited home except for holidays due to the long commute, but did not realize the strain this caused her parents until the summer began. By this time, her parents were in marriage counseling, attempting to mend their relationship; Karen was aware of this, but Claire was not informed until Karen arrived to bring her home for the summer.

Dearing’s acceptance into the Bright Minds internship further concerned her mother, who believed this would further encourage her to move away from the family. While Dearing did worry about the stress her mother was under, she ultimately did decide to take the internship. She hoped that, in fifteen years when she hoped to become a U.S. senator, that she would have made an impression on Simon Masrani and gained the billionaire’s financial support.

Within a few days of emailing the Masrani Corporation’s internship management and announcing her acceptance, Dearing departed for Isla Nublar. Four hours away from home, she flew out from an international airport to Costa Rica. On the flight, she met a fellow intern, a business student named Justin Hendricks, whom she became immediately drawn to due to his conventional attractiveness, intelligence, and feminist leanings. They bonded over their shared acrophobia and interest in paleontology. After landing in Costa Rica, they took a shuttle van to the docks and from there took a ferry to Isla Nublar’s harbor.

On the drive to the ferry, Dearing and Hendricks met the Skye twins, Tanya and Eric; the former was a botany student, while the latter was a photographer. Tanya quickly befriended Dearing, and the two were to be roommates on the island. They arrived in the evening, near nightfall, and were brought to their lodging on the fourth floor of the hotel. Dearing and Skye shared a northwest-facing room overlooking the Jurassic World Lagoon. A total of twelve interns were selected for the program: Wyatt, the son of one of Masrani Global’s company board members; Ronnie Torres, a soon-to-be West Point cadet; Art, who intended to become a veterinarian; Amanda, a marine biology student; and others.

The program began nine months before opening day, in August, and the interns were given a tour of the island on their first day after being greeted by Simon Masrani himself. The island’s central valley was the main part of the tour; Dearing and the other interns were brought to the site of the future Gyrosphere attraction, and they bore witness to a juvenile Triceratops named Lovelace becoming the sixteenth member of her species to inhabit the valley. The internship director, Beverly Jamison, showed them the park with the assistance of lead herbivore trainer Bertie. Later they toured the Hammond Creation Lab and met Dr. Henry Wu. After the day’s tours, Dearing visited the greenhouses with Hendricks and several other interns in their free time. As early as the first day, she made a positive impression on Simon Masrani, who admitted that her personal essay was one of his favorites of all the interns because of her focus on the future. She also made a minor impression on Dr. Wu, who described her as having some amount of foresight.

Dearing and Tanya Skye stayed in a hotel room which had previously been utilized by intern Isobel James, whose death that previous March had been covered up. Dearing inadvertently discovered James’s journal hidden inside her bedframe, though the journal did not give any indication of James’s identity or the fact that she had died. However, Dearing had learned the “phantom interns” conspiracy theory regarding a failed internship program before Bright Minds. The second day of the program, Dearing and the other interns assisted with fieldwork in the valley. While there, they found that the Triceratops Lovelace had become injured and fallen into a small gully where she remained trapped. While the trainers, veterinarians, and ACU went to secure the area and obtain medical supplies, Dearing orchestrated an unauthorized veterinary operation to calm Lovelace using jazz music and remove a thorny branch from her wounded flank. This helped the animal, though it gained the ire of the head of the ACU as the interns acted without authorization.

Two weeks into the program, Dearing and the others had largely settled into their roles. Dearing commonly helped with the veterinarians and trainers. During an evening when she was cataloguing training supplies, she became suspicious that someone was sneaking around the supply shed; her superiors Beverly Jamison and Jessica acted as though they were hiding something, which further made her more suspicious. However, she did not voice her concerns to anyone yet.

She and Hendricks test-drove a gyrosphere in the central valley to help with its machine learning techniques and calibrate its sensors. The vehicle was meant to be able to analyze its surroundings and respond appropriately to ensure visitor safety during operation. While on this mission, the gyrosphere became trapped in a forested area and communication was lost; the duo had to get out to free the vehicle, but were interrupted by a young Brachiosaurus named Pearl who was known for playing with empty gyrospheres. This led to Dearing and several other interns coming up with a behavioral training program to redirect her play behavior away from the vehicles. She and Hendricks vandalized a small area of pavement on the Lagoon boardwalk near Main Street; Dearing’s contribution was her own handprint, next to that of Hendricks.

Dearing was also assigned by Dr. Wu to monitor the eggs of a new Pteranodon breed, the first new creatures to hatch at Jurassic World. Tanya Skye was also selected for this program; Wyatt joined them later. This program was highly classified at the time. Though she could not discuss its details with her friends, she did plan with Tanya Skye, Amanda, and Ronnie Torres various behavioral programs for Pearl during the fourth and fifth weeks of their internship. They ultimately decided to create new toys for her by painting designated gyrospheres with patterns that stimulated Pearl’s neurological pleasure centers the most. This plan was proposed to Bertie over dinner and implemented shortly after. Meanwhile, Dearing began trying to discover the identity of Izzie, the writer of the journal she discovered. Staff did not divulge any information, though the head veterinarian Dr. Tim O’Donnell acted as though he was hiding the truth.

Through her sleuthing, Dearing did eventually discover Izzy James’s true identity, and that she was reported dead on March 4. According to her obituary, she passed away at her parents’ Boston home, but her final journal entry (dated March 4) was a regular brachiosaur health report from Isla Nublar, meaning she died on the island. Weather records corroborated stories Dearing had heard of a large storm front striking Isla Nublar on the night of March 4, suggesting that this was how James died. She remained suspicious of the company, knowing that the death would have had to be covered up. Dearing also found evidence that James had been under possible threat while investigating an illness affecting the dinosaurs of the valley.

In James’s journal, Dearing discovered an investigation into plant life. The valley’s flora was listed with either acidity or alkalinity indicated near the names. Cyanobacteria was listed as highly acidic, and therefore possibly the cause of the disease. After two days of planning, Dearing devised a mission to get into the valley on Monday, September 6 without ACU or the veterinarians knowing, using a gyrosphere to reach the small lagoon where the acidic cyanobacteria supposedly could be found. She convinced Hendricks, openly not telling him the whole story, to assist. They collected samples of the microorganism from mats growing behind a waterfall, performing an acidic versus alkaline test to determine that the cyanobacteria’s internal fluids were, as James had noted, alarmingly acidic. After the experiment, back at the hotel, Dearing initiated a first kiss with Hendricks.

Two days after this, Dearing contacted her sister, who encouraged her to tell Hendricks the full story and also informed her that their parents were reconnecting while spending time apple-picking upstate. Dearing took her sister’s advice, telling Hendricks all that she had yet discovered about the Izzy James situation. She and Hendricks broke into the room shared by Eric Skye and Wyatt while the other interns were watching a movie to keep them occupied while a female Velociraptor was delivered to the carnivore quarantine paddock. They believed they could find more information about the previous interns among Wyatt’s belongings. In the bathroom they discovered a tranquilizer dart hidden in a rolled towel, as well as waterproof bags hidden in the toilet tank containing fusion bandage compound, memory cards, and security information. This led them to believe that Wyatt was engaging in corporate espionage and might be planning on stealing one of the Pteranodon eggs or a small dinosaur such as a Compsognathus using the items he had acquired.

According to other interns, Wyatt had not attended the film screening, claiming to have a headache. Since he was not in his room, Dearing and Hendricks assumed he had gone out to commit further acts of espionage. They intended to warn Masrani, believing him to be at the carnivore quarantine in the western part of the island rather than at the command center celebrating the dinosaur’s arrival. They took a jeep to the paddock. Inside the training yard, they discovered not Wyatt, but the Skye twins having hacked into the paddock’s control system to steal data. Their actions had caused a system malfunction, and when Dearing and Hendricks confronted them, Eric accidentally cut a wire to the main power port. This caused the paddock gates and emergency hatch to open, leaving the raptor with an open route to the rest of the island. The raptor blocked their path to the emergency escape tunnel, so they fled into the main paddock area instead.

Dearing managed to close the paddock gates by triggering an emergency alarm, temporarily trapping the raptor as the gates shut on its tail. Trapped inside, but with the raptor stalled, the four interns attempted to find a tree they could use to reach the top of the paddock wall and escape safely. The Skye twins managed to climb a tree close enough to the wall to escape. Hendricks followed; Dearing was the last to try and leave, but the raptor had freed itself and cut off her escape. She hid among a eucalyptus grove while the animal tried to attack. Hendricks gave up escaping to aid Dearing, putting himself at risk to distract the animal so Dearing could get to safety. Using the dense eucalyptus grove to evade the animal, the two remaining interns attempted to reach the habitat’s weapons cache to arm themselves. The raptor stalked them to the paddock wall, and Hendricks chose to put himself in peril again by luring the raptor away so that Dearing could reach the weapons cache. Dearing armed herself with a stun gun and a tranquilizer rifle and pursued the raptor and Hendricks into the paddock’s forested area. Dearing confronted the raptor, attacking it with bear spray before stunning it. She found Hendricks shortly thereafter, but he had been badly mauled and died within minutes. Dearing was the last person to see him alive.

Following Hendricks’s death, the internship program was put on hold. Dearing was treated for her injuries, and was comforted by her superiors and fellow interns. The Skye twins were apprehended; Dearing learned two days later that they had committed their acts of espionage for Mosby Health, a corporate rival to Masrani Global Corporation, in exchange for Mosby providing their younger sister Victory with experimental treatment for her heart condition free of charge. Dearing was instrumental in gaining the confession, as Tanya had refused to talk to ACU before speaking to Dearing, and Eric followed her lead. She also demonstrated the acidic cyanobacteria to Dr. Wu; it was determined that a calcium-boosting supplement added to the valley’s water supplies had unexpectedly combined with igneous rock to form a previously-unknown mutagen that resulted in a mutant strain of cyanobacteria. Wu was enormously impressed with Dearing’s work, stating in no uncertain terms right then and there that he believed she had the analytical skills necessary to succeed at Jurassic World and possibly even run the park one day.

Dearing then confronted Simon Masrani himself. She learned that the raptor had been euthanized, and that the FDA would be shutting down the Mosby Health trials. This, naturally, would mean that Victory Skye would most likely succumb to her heart condition as she would no longer receive treatment. Dearing threatened to reveal Hendricks’s death to the public if Masrani did not agree to her terms, including that the medical trials would be funded to completion and that Victory’s education would be fully paid for. Despite having been essentially blackmailed, Masrani was impressed that Dearing asked for nothing for herself and only that Victory and other ailing children would be saved. She revealed her knowledge of Isobel James, and Masrani explained how she had died: during the storm, a fuse box in the quarantine paddock had blown due to a power surge and the brachiosaur inside was threatened by smoke inhalation. James had gone back to manually open the gates and save the animal, but died in a vehicle accident on the way to the dock. Masrani chose to cover up the incident to ensure that the park still opened on time. Though Dearing was understandably angry about the whole situation, Masrani was still incredibly impressed with her devotion to solving the problems she discovered on the island, and offered her a job at Jurassic World when the internship ended. Dearing, still determined to fix the island’s problems and potentially learn any more to Izzie James’s story, accepted Masrani’s offer.

Career at Jurassic World

From late 2004 onward, Dearing was employed in the management and administration divisions at Jurassic World. She rose through the ranks quickly, and as she did, she spent more time on Isla Nublar and less on the mainland. To commemorate her first year on the island, Masrani gifted Dearing a package containing her Bright Minds intern badge and Izzy James’s journal; along with these were objects given to her by friends and family, such as an amber cicada pin from her college roommate Regina and postcards from Karen. It is unknown if Dearing finished her college education remotely and gained her political science degree, but if she did, she would have graduated in the spring of 2007.

By 2007, Dearing had become Jurassic World’s Senior Assets Manager, one of the highest-ranking positions on the island. At this point she would have been twenty-two years old; along with attaining this position incredibly quickly in only three years, she would also have been one of the youngest such authority figures in any major company. At this point, she lived in Isla Nublar’s staff hotel almost full-time; the last time she visited her family in person was in 2008. By this time, her nephew Zach would have been eight years old and Karen had a second son, Gray, who would at that point have been four years old. Including this visit, Dearing saw her family in person only three times prior to 2015; two of these visits were for funerals.

Jurassic World grew dramatically after its opening day on May 30, 2005, including the additions of new attractions and new animals as well as new corporate sponsors. Dearing’s responsibilities grew along with the park’s scope. Despite the park’s promising growth, operating costs rose faster than profits, and in early 2008 Masrani Global’s Board of Directors held a meeting with their CEO to discuss a solution. Simon Masrani believed that Dr. Wu’s work into genetic hybridization could hold a possible answer, authorizing him to create a new animal genus to draw investors and guests. Dearing approved of this solution, also signing off on the company approval for Wu.

Dearing’s contributions to Jurassic World were not limited to operations within the company. She also managed relationships with other organizations, such as partner corporations and nonprofits. In the early 2010s, she negotiated a partnership between Jurassic World and the Lockwood Foundation, run by the deceased Dr. Hammond’s former business partner Benjamin Lockwood. She met Lockwood’s financial manager, Eli Mills, at this time. The partnership was successful, and Dearing maintained a friendly relationship with Lockwood for years after.

Jurassic World, though it did face financial difficulties, continued to grow and succeed throughout the early 2010s. In 2012, InGen Security began the I.B.R.I.S. Project, with U.S. Navy veteran Owen Grady being hired into the project to research Velociraptor intelligence in order to integrate the animals into the park. That year also saw the successful hatching of two Indominus rex, a hybrid theropod genus created by Dr. Wu under Dearing’s authorization. One did not survive, being cannibalized by its sister. Dearing was publicly supportive of the Indominus project, but in person displayed signs of wariness about the hybrid’s nature; she was not provided with full knowledge of its genome or physiology, which likely worried her, and she showed some signs of concern regarding its aggressive behavior patterns. However, by this point in time, Dearing had become entirely consumed by her role in the corporate structure, showing less interest in the animals’ wellbeing and more in the park’s financial success. She only occasionally interacted with the animals directly, spending more time in the park’s administrative facilities. At some point, she was promoted to Operations Manager in addition to being Senior Assets Manager and hired a secretary, Zara Young, to help manage her schedule.

Although she became significantly more corporate in personality during the 2010s, Dearing was not without more human inclinations. Some point before 2015, she and animal trainer Owen Grady went on a date; Dearing printed out an itinerary for the occasion, which was one of several points of contention between herself and Grady. Others included her refusal to drink margaritas for dietary reasons, and Grady’s overly casual attire. The date, according to Dearing, did not go well, though Grady has described it somewhat more positively. In any case, the date put a strain on the working relationship between the two.

Preparations for the Indominus exhibit took up much of the park’s resources during the mid-2010s, as the animal was maintained in the far-north Paddock 11 until its exhibit was ready. It continued to cause security concerns. Simon Masrani was busy with the continuing expansion of his corporate empire, and therefore was away from Isla Nublar for some years. This left Dearing in charge of day-to-day park operations. Jurassic World partially relied on Dearing for public relations; she was often quoted in promotional material and on the Masrani Global website. Dearing’s personal life also became stressful, as Karen and her husband Scott had marriage difficulties leading to divorce; Karen began to rely on her sister for support.

Dearing presenting during the InGen-Verizon negotiations

Early 2015 saw the limited reveal of the Indominus on Simon Masrani’s corporate blog, though the man himself kept having to delay his visit to Isla Nublar to see the animal for the first time. Ticket sales for the park skyrocketed as the public was thrilled by the announcement of a new dinosaur, as the Board and CEO had predicted. While Dearing (now thirty years old) appears to have held some reservations about the animal, she continued to be outwardly supportive of it, negotiating with Verizon Wireless for a sponsorship on the animal’s upcoming exhibit. In her personal life, she agreed to watch her nephews over the winter holiday to help Karen delay the boys’ learning about their parents’ divorce. Simon Masrani was able to visit his park in mid-December, a few short weeks before the Indominus was slated to be moved to its new exhibit and shown to the public. With the Verizon deal, Masrani’s arrival, the hybrid’s debut, and her nephews’ visit all coming up at once, chaos overwhelmed Dearing’s schedule.

2015 incident

On December 22, 2015, Dearing successfully sealed the deal with Verizon Wireless to sponsor the Indominus exhibit with the help of Dr. Wu. Her nephews arrived on the island the same day, meeting her at the Innovation Center at midday; however, she was unable to stay with them due to her overloaded schedule. She tasked her assistant Zara Young with watching the boys, promising to spend time with them the following day once Masrani’s visit was no longer top priority. The boys were supposed to spend their time at Camp Cretaceous, which had opened three days prior to a select group of youths, but they did not attend it (at the request of the head counselor Roxie).

Masrani arrived to the control room via his helicopter JW001, at the helm to Dearing’s surprise. He flew them north to see the Indominus, Dearing updating him on the park’s overall status and the hybrid’s progress (as well as its worrying behavior). Masrani was impressed with the hybrid, though he too showed concerns regarding its aggression and intelligence and requested that Owen Grady reivew Paddock 11 for weaknesses. Dearing was reluctant, considering her history with Grady, but complied with her CEO’s request.

Dearing and Grady discuss the Indominus

During her drive to Grady’s bungalow in the island’s eastern zone, Dearing was contacted by her sister, who was upset that Dearing was not spending time with her nephews. As before, she promised to bring them on a tour of the facilities the following day. She was unable to do any more for them at that time due to her meeting with Grady; she was able to convince him to observe Paddock 11 for weaknesses as Masrani had instructed. During the discussion, Grady openly flirted with her, though Dearing showed restraint in her responses and attempted to maintain a professional demeanor.

They returned to Paddock 11 for the inspection, but the animal did not show itself. Thermal scans failed to locate it, and Grady discovered large claw marks on the paddock’s interior wall which he assumed meant it had escaped confinement. Personnel acted rashly due to this panic; Dearing immediately drove for the control room and was partway there by the time she contacted control room technicians to gain the animal’s location via the tracking implant. Technician Lowery Cruthers reported that the animal was still inside Paddock 11 as normal, but spotted on surveillance cameras that three employees including Grady were within the paddock as well. Dearing instructed their immediate evacuation; in the ensuing chaos, she was not updated on what was going on and could only hear her coworkers’ panicked screams and the sound of tearing flesh. She was eventually informed that Grady was the only survivor from the three employees who had entered the paddock, and that the animal had broken free before the gate could be remotely closed. The animal was found to have manually reduced its body temperature to ambient levels, rendering it invisible to creatures (or technology) using infrared sensing methods.

A plan was devised to recapture the animal. Dearing and Masrani instructed two ACU teams to head north, locate the animal via its tracking implant, and subdue it. Grady arrived to the control room to confront her, blaming her for the hybrid’s escape (though it was actually his own unauthorized investigation which allowed it to get out). He joined them to watch ACU’s attempt to capture the animal using nonlethal weapons; it was discovered that the Indominus had clawed out its implant when it began administering electric shocks. ACU was ambushed by the creature, which had camouflaged itself in the forest by changing its skin color; many members of ACU were killed in the attack and the animal escaped a second time.

Grady demanded that the entire island be evacuated until the animal was dead, but other staff including Dearing considered this unnecessarily extreme. She did order the control room to initiate a Real World scenario, closing down rides north of the valley and concentrating visitors in Sector 3 for their own safety. However, Dearing was informed by Young that her nephews had evaded her and were still out in the park; Cruthers determined that one gyrosphere was not responding to the return order due to being under manual control. Assuming that this rogue sphere was being driven by the Mitchell boys, Dearing attempted to recruit help to retrieve them; with ACU and other Security personnel busy with the Real World protocols, she located and enlisted Grady instead. They took Mercedes 05 and headed in the direction of the gyrosphere’s tracking chip, which indicated it had passed into the restricted Sector 5 and therefore dangerously near the Indominus‘s last known location.

Dearing and Grady comfort a dying Apatosaurus during the incident (12/22/2015)

Passing through Gallimimus Valley on their way to the gyrosphere, they encountered a herd of Apatosaurus which appeared to have all died from large lacerations on their necks and flanks. The gashes matched the claw size and height of the Indominus, but there were no signs of the hybrid having fed from its kills. One of the six apatosaurs was still alive, but mortally wounded; without the time or supplies to save its life, Dearing and Grady could only comfort the pained animal as it took its final breaths. This was the first close encounter Dearing had with a dinosaur in some time, and the harrowing experience reminded her of her original passion for animal welfare. Realizing that she had betrayed not only the animals but also herself, she was emotionally shaken.

The remains of Gyrosphere 07 were discovered in the forest just north of the Sector 5 boundary fence. Dearing initially assumed the worst, but human and Indominus footprints in the soil indicated that the boys had fled the destroyed sphere with the dinosaur in pursuit. The prints led to a nearby waterfall, suggesting that they had escaped by jumping into the river below. Grady attempted to dissuade Dearing from accompanying him any further, but she insisted on taking responsibility for her nephews’ safety. Disguising their scent using Indominus dung, they continued the search.

They were drawn to the Jurassic Park Visitors’ Centre ruins in Sector 4, following the sound of an old jeep being started up. They found that one of the jeeps had been outfitted with a new battery and driven south out of the abandoned building, back toward Sector 3 and safety. However, the sound of the jeep also attracted the Indominus, which menaced them inside the ruins. They were saved by Simon Masrani passing overhead in JW001, gunners at the ready, and escaped the building as the dinosaur fled from the attacking aircraft.

The chase crossed the island’s valley until it reached the Aviary, where the hybrid damaged the structure to break inside. Pteranodons fled the building at the hybrid’s invasion, and the agitated reptiles took JW001 to be a threat as well and attacked it. This resulted in the helicopter crashing into the Aviary, frightening out all of its inhabitants and killing Simon Masrani. Dearing, alongside Grady, was helpless to stop the carnage; they fled into the forest to avoid the panicked pterosaurs.

With the danger to the park escalated, Dearing and Grady reached Main Street via ATV and were contacted by Young. She informed them that the Mitchell boys had been spotted at Gate 5 to the west of Main Street and had been let inside. They were followed by the pterosaur flock, which had pursued the jeep southward and now targeted the park guests. A feeding frenzy occurred, causing scores of injuries and Young’s death. While Grady rallied the park security to stave off the attack, Dearing ignored the danger to try and locate her nephews. Shortly after spotting them, she was forced to kill a frenzied Dimorphodon which attacked Grady, and he kissed her in response. Though she had not expected this, she was only surprised rather than offended and accepted it.

Bringing the boys to safety from the reptiles and the panicked hordes of tourists, Dearing was informed by Cruthers that the head of InGen Security Vic Hoskins had commandeered the control room following Masrani’s death and that Security was taking over the operation. Hoskins intended to utilize the I.B.R.I.S. Velociraptors to hunt down the Indominus via scent, not only as a way to bring the incident to a close but also as a proof-of-concept for the raptors as military animals. Dearing, when informed of this, agreed with Grady that this was an unacceptable solution.

Shortly after nightfall, she traveled with Grady and raptor trainer Barry Sembène in MVU-12 to the raptor paddock to confront Hoskins and prevent his ill-advised field test. She refused to leave her nephews behind, so the boys came with her to the raptor paddock and stayed in the MVU for safety. She and Grady were unable to dissuade Hoskins, who pulled rank and outgunned them anyway. Dearing remained with the boys while Grady and the other Security members carried out the mission. Dearing watched the event unfold via camera feed, attempting to console the boys; the hunt failed spectacularly when the Indominus unexpectedly persuaded the raptors to turn on the InGen soldiers. Three of the raptors (the leader Blue and her subordinates Delta and Echo) attacked the MVU, pursuing it southward; Dearing and the boys were able to fend off the attack and the raptors retreated to regroup in the jungle.

Dearing and the others reached Main Street and headed for the Hammond Creation Lab, which was believed to be a secure area and was much closer than the hotel. Upon arrival, they found that Hoskins and InGen Security had evacuated the lab and were removing Dr. Wu’s supplies from his private research quarters. Wu himself was already off-island. As the Security members finished removing Wu’s research materials, Hoskins explained his plans to engineer smaller versions of the Indominus to be more combat-ready and train them using Grady’s methods pioneered in I.B.R.I.S. As the lab was left unguarded with Hoskins the only remaining Security member inside, the raptor Delta was able to break in without resistance and attack Hoskins. Dearing and Grady led the boys to flee, first attempting to make for the control room. Delta blocked their escape, forcing them out of the Innovation Center and onto Main Street where Blue and Echo cornered them. Grady was able to calm Blue, and she opted to let her father figure and his companions live. The Indominus caught up with the raptors, giving a kill order; when Blue defied this, the hybrid slapped her into a wall where she appeared dead. Grady and the surviving raptors held off the Indominus while Dearing sheltered her nephews inside the Jurassic Traders outpost.

Dearing uses her knowledge of the tyrannosaur’s behavioral conditioning to lure it into combat

As the animals fought, Gray asserted that their side needed “more teeth,” this having been a part of the promotional catchphrase advertising the Indominus over the past year. Dearing was struck with inspiration, coming up with an outlandish and desparate plan to kill the hybrid animal. Leaving the boys where she hoped they would be safe, she went to the Paddock 9 dinosaur gates and ordered Cruthers to open them (under the threat that his manhood would be insulted if he did not). Cruthers complied, and Dearing armed herself with a road flare to lure the Tyrannosaurus onto Main Street where its territorial instincts drove it to challenge the other predator. By this time, Echo and Delta had been killed, leaving only the two giant theropods until Blue unexpectedly recovered from her blow and entered the fray.

Dearing and the others were out of options for their own survival other than staying out of the way. Fortune finally was on their side, however, as the Indominus lingered too close to the Jurassic World Lagoon during the clash and was ambushed by the park’s Mosasaurus. This enormous reptile finally presented a challenge too great for the hybrid to fight its way through, and the Indominus was killed. The tyrannosaur was exhausted from the struggle and stalked off into the forest to lick its wounds, and Blue had no further reason to threaten them. With the park hopelessly lost but her nephews’ safety preserved, Dearing was evacuated from the island via ferry with the rest of the tourists and staff.

Aftermath of the Jurassic World incident

The permanent closure of Jurassic World spelled the end of Dearing’s corporate career. She accompanied her nephews to the mainland, where a medical camp was set up by Costa Rican authorities to treat the wounded. She ensured that the Mitchells were all safely reunited; after this, she and Grady left the camp together and returned to the United States.

The incident on Isla Nublar had put Dearing and Grady in perilous situations together, and this adrenaline reignited the spark of romantic attraction between them. After the incident, the two spent some time traveling together. It was not long before constant close proximity brought out the personality traits that had originally prevented a long-term relationship; Grady did not want Dearing to drive his van, while Dearing saw this as him preventing her from having control. Eventually, they parted ways again and did not speak for some time. Dearing moved in with the Mitchell family in Madison, Wisconsin for a time; by the end of December, she got her own one-bedroom apartment (presumably in San Francisco, as she was living here as of 2018). She was still traumatized by the incident and frequently woke up screaming.

Shortly after the incident, before the end of 2015, Dearing spoke at a public testimonial regarding Jurassic World. The public was quick to blame the animals for what had happened, particularly with harrowing footage of the pterosaur attack being posted online. Dearing had anticipated this, and tried to shift the blame onto the actual guilty party: the Masrani Global Corporation employees who allowed corruption to spread in Jurassic World. She acknowledged her role in the incident, but did not consider herself among the guilty due to her efforts to protect human and animal life during the events on the island. She primarily blamed InGen Security and specifically Henry Wu, who had mysteriously vanished following his evacuation. Dearing spoke out against the use of military bioengineering or the use of dinosaurs as military animals, and demanded legal protection for them as endangered species. Meanwhile, the United States government investigated InGen and Wu for bioethical misconduct as reported by survivors.

Dearing’s stance against InGen was not taken lightly by Masrani Global, who sought to distance themselves from Jurassic World to mitigate bad publicity. Dearing’s political activism brought them uncomfortably close to the incident’s memory, and for that, she lost their support. Dearing was able to live off of her savings, but could no longer live in the kind of luxury she had enjoyed as Operations Manager of Jurassic World. The investigation that began in 2015 resulted in corruption being exposed at all levels of Masrani Global Corporation as well as some U.S. government offices, and Dearing’s testimony as well as that of other whistleblowers resulted in several Masrani corporate officials being arrested and imprisoned.

By March of 2016, the U.S. Congress had officially opened inquiries into violations of the Gene Guard Act and bioethical misconduct performed by Henry Wu and his associates at InGen. Much of this was thanks to Dearing’s testimony, as she had more insight into this than most any other surviving former staff. Perhaps encouraged by Dearing, several more whistleblowers came forward from Masrani Global to reveal evidence of corrupt practices.

Although the incident had spelled disaster for Masrani Global (and Dearing’s testimony made her an enemy of the company), she was not entirely without support. Her efforts to protect her nephews during the incident painted her in a positive light, and she was on the news for months after the incident occurred. While she was blamed by some for the incident, her actions made others view her as a heroic icon.

Dinosaur Protection Group

In February of 2017, tectonic activity under Isla Nublar caused high-pressure magma reserves to connect with the island’s long dormant stratovolcano Mount Sibo. This was not discovered immediately, and despite some evidence of volcanic activity on the island, the Costa Rican Institute for Volcanology announced that there was no threat of eruption. In March, Dearing officially founded the Dinosaur Protection Group (DPG) out of the Mission District of San Francisco, California. She recruited around thirty animal rights activists to her organization, including former offsite Jurassic World technician Franklin Webb and paleoveterinary graduate Zia Rodriguez, with whom she became close friends. The organization intended to use political lobbying and crowdsourcing to fund expeditions to Isla Nublar in order to provide nutritional and medical care to the now free-roaming dinosaurs rather than abandoning them to their fate as Masrani Global’s new management had evidently decided.

Claire Dearing in a DPG promotional video, 2018

The fear that Mount Sibo might erupt increased throughout 2017, with illegal tourists spotting liquid lava inside the mountain’s crater in September. This sighting provoked research into the island, though the presence of many dinosaurs made research risky. Costa Rican scientists discovered the new magma chambers and the dangerously high pressure they were under, predicting that a powerful eruption would occur within a year. This alarmed Dearing, since an eruption of this magnitude could easily overwhelm such a small island and cause the animals to die out. The DPG increased its lobbying and activism efforts, orchestrating marches and other demonstrations as well as advocating on social media. Their ultimate goal now was to find and secure an area where the de-extinct animals could be safely relocated and preserved.

With de-extinction an increasinly controversial topic, the DPG was supported by a large number of private citizens but no official U.S. government offices. In Costa Rica, the Department of Biological Preserves supported the DPG’s proposed rescue mission, as did a number of local lifeguards. Some private citizens such as Dr. Ian Malcolm strongly opposed the rescue mission, as did anti-GMO organizations such as Extinction Now! and U.S. political figures including the 45th President of the United States.

In January of 2018, just a month after the Dinosaur Protection Group website went live, Costa Rica and the United States withdrew all scientific monitoring equipment from Isla Nublar. Dearing continued her activist efforts, posting on the DPG website to educate her followers and gain more support. With an eruption date predicted for approximately June 22, Dearing’s time was limited, and little political support had come from any government yet. Masrani Global still made no effort to assist, claiming they lacked the resources to do anything.

Claire Dearing’s memoir about the Bright Minds program, The Evolution of Claire, was published in early 2018. There is no actual evidence that the book was published in-universe, but it is told in the first person by Dearing with a prologue set in the present day of 2018.

As June arrived and the situation became more dire, it became obvious that the government would take no action. This was confirmed after a Senate hearing on the morning of June 22. Mere seconds after the announcement, Dearing was called by Benjamin Lockwood’s secretary, who invited her to the Lockwood residence near Orick, CA. There, she met with Lockwood himself, who proposed a plan to illegally relocate the dinosaurs to an island called Sanctuary. Here, he claimed, they would be able to live out their natural lives without human interference, the way Hammond had proposed in 1997.

Lockwood’s aide Eli Mills, who Dearing had previously met during the Jurassic World years, elaborated on their plan to extract the dinosaurs. The plan was to move north to a still-functional radio tower, restart the power, and use Dearing’s biosignature to log into the RFID tracking system and locate the animals they needed. He was particularly interested in Blue, who was believed to still be alive as the endling of her species. Dearing was skeptical that the animal could be outmaneuvered and captured, doubting that Mills or Lockwood had a raptor handler on their extraction team. Mills admitted that they did not, but proposed that Dearing recruit Owen Grady. Once again, Dearing was hesitant but ultimately agreed.

She met Grady at his property in northern California where he was building his cabin. Grady accepted her offer to go out for drinks, but did not agree to help the DPG, having closed himself off from emotional memories of Blue. Dearing gave up on recruiting him, assembling her team of herself, Rodriguez, and Webb at the plane provided by Lockwood on June 23 at sunrise. They found Grady waiting for them, having changed his mind after Dearing left. The plane departed for Isla Nublar, far to the south.

2018 incidents

Arrival on Isla Nublar was in the late morning. The chartered flight landed at a makeshift airfield in western Isla Nublar, a few miles south of Mount Sibo. Upon arrival, it was clear that something was amiss; the operation appeared firmly entrenched on the island despite Lockwood only authorizing it yesterday, and the personnel hired for the job appeared to be mercenaries rather than professional hunters. They met the extraction team’s lead hunter, Ken Wheatley, to whom Dearing’s associates took an almost immediate dislike. Despite his off-putting manner, Dearing resolved to work with him to accomplish the mission.

They followed the plan that had been outlined at the Lockwood estate: a convoy left from the camp to access Sector 3 to the southeast, reaching it via one of the island’s still-operational gates. They made a brief observational stop at Main Street, where they encountered one of the island’s oldest Brachiosaurus. From here they traveled north again, entering Sector 5 and locating Radio Bunker 02-17. Webb got them inside, and Dearing used her handprint ID to access the dinosaurs’ RFID tracking chips. She was surprised to see a large concentration of dinosaurs at the Jurassic World East Dock, which Wheatley explained was the group of animals his team had already loaded onto the cargo vessel S.S. Arcadia; he claimed this was mostly large herbivores that were easy to spot in the field. However, the number of captures that had already occurred increased Dearing’s suspicion of Wheatley and his team.

Blue was easily located using the tracking system, and Grady was taken by Wheatley and most of the mercenary team into the jungle west of Mount Sibo to seek her. Dearing and Webb remained behind in the radio bunker to monitor the mission with a couple of mercenaries guarding the doors.

While the retrieval mission was ongoing, Mount Sibo’s magma chamber was breached. An explosive outgassing event occurred as the mountain ruptured from the ground up. The mercenaries guarding the bunker fled, but not before closing and deadlocking the doors to trap Dearing and Webb inside. Initially confused, the two decided that the mercenaries intended to leave them for dead in order to stop them from interfering with some kind of ulterior plan rather than sealing them inside for protection. Dearing and Webb intended to utilize the maintenance tunnels to escape, but as the tunnels and bunker began to flood with lava, the eruption drove a Baryonyx up the tunnel leading to the bunker. The frightened animal lashed out at them, but they were able to escape up an emergency hatch to the top of the bunker. When the dinosaur attempted to follow them, they were forced to seal it inside for their own protection.

On top of the bunker, they were now exposed to the full fury of Mount Sibo’s ongoing eruption. They were rejoined by Grady, who had been betrayed by Wheatley as well and similarly left to die in the eruption. Together, the three fled to the northeast ahead of herds of panicked dinosaurs, taking shelter in the still-functional Gyrosphere 08. Unfortunately, Grady was unable to enter the vehicle before its doors automatically locked when it was pushed by a Carnotaurus which had entered the scene to pick off stragglers from the stampede.

Dearing and Webb used the gyrosphere to flee to the northeast toward the ocean cliffs, Grady sprinting to keep up. The vehicle was partly driven, partly blown over the cliffs and into the ocean and began to leak, filling with seawater even faster after being struck by volcanic debris. Grady was able to puncture the hull of the sphere and use his hunting knife to pry the door open, and the three swam to relative safety on the eastern coast of the island. Dearing, recovering from the ordeal, was forced to realize that there had never been a rescue mission; Wheatley had betrayed them, likely at Mills’s orders.

From here, they plotted to sneak on board the Arcadia. With the eruption worsening, Wheatley’s team haphazardly boarded the ship while loading on the last dinosaurs in their possession. From a vantage point on the rocks above the dock, Dearing and the others spotted Rodriguez being held captive alongside a wounded Blue. Dearing took the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5020 which the mercenaries had abandoned when it had difficulty starting. It started successfully for her, and she drove it onto the Arcadia before the ship had gotten too far away to reach. In the chaos of the unplanned evacuation, Wheatley’s team did not spot the three departing the vehicle and taking shelter on the ship. Isla Nublar, and the last of its inhabitants, burned behind them.

To avoid Wheatley discovering their presence, Dearing and the others located Rodriguez and Blue and took shelter in the transport container with them. Rodriguez informed them of the plan to sell the dinosaurs on the black market, but Blue was destined for something darker. A bullet was lodged in one of Blue’s arteries, threatening her life with shock and blood loss; Dearing volunteered to obtain a blood sample for xenotransfusion. She and Grady snuck through the mostly-unattended cargo hold and took a blood sample from the Tyrannosaurus, which Rodriguez believed would be compatible, though doing so was not without great risk as the tyrannosaur awoke from her tranquilizers midway through the operation. Nonetheless, Dearing and Grady were able to complete the mission without major injury and brought the blood bag in for the xenotransfusion.

The operation transpired successfully, saving Blue’s life. In the evening of June 24, when the ship neared Lockwood’s private harbor, Wheatley checked up on Blue to ensure she was alive; Dearing, Grady, and Webb hid to avoid being caught. The planned to sneak onto the estate to figure out what was going on and prevent any further harm to human or animal life. Webb was lost to them when he was mistaken for deck crew and conscripted into service, and while Dearing and Grady intended to rescue him, they quickly forgot about his plight when they were noticed by one of Wheatley’s mercenaries and apprehended by Wheatley himself.

Imprisoned along with the dinosaurs in Lockwood Manor’s sub-basement laboratory, Dearing and Grady were confronted by Mills and Wheatley, confirming Dearing’s suspicion that Mills, rather than Lockwood, was the operation’s mastermind. Mills tried at first to appeal to Dearing, but she assaulted him through the cage bars and he heavily implied that he was going to kill them once he had a convenient way to do so and dispose of them quietly. They discovered that Mills was planning on furthering I.B.R.I.S. research using Blue, greatly implying that he had been Hoskins and Wu’s mysterious benefactor on the Indominus project as well. Dearing blamed herself for being naive enough to help Mills, assuming his motive to be pure; however, Grady took the blame this time, since it was his I.B.R.I.S. research that led Mills to believe raptors could be used as military animals. Despite their dire situation, Grady was unwilling to wait for Mills to determine how and when it would be most convenient to murder them, and began thinking up an escape plan.

Finding a recently-awoken Stygimoloch in the next holding cell over, Grady provoked it into charging the wall separating their cells. Though it was slow going, the animal eventually broke through the brick and mortar, and Grady provoked it one more time to ram the locked cell gate to break it open. Dearing and Grady were now free to rescue Rodriguez and Webb, reach the authorities, and put a stop to the auction happening in the garage above the lab. While they began planning, they ran into Lockwood’s young orphan granddaughter Maisie, whom Dearing had briefly seen when she came to the manor two days ago. Maisie initially tried to flee from them, visibly distraught, but recognized Grady from I.B.R.I.S. training logs she had witnessed. She decided to trust Dearing, since she was a friend of Grady’s and therefore a friend of the dinosaurs and an enemy of Mills. They learned from Maisie that Benjamin Lockwood had been found dead in his room earlier that day, leaving Mills in a position to inherit the Lockwood fortune.

The three snuck to the floor above the garage via the maintenance corridors of the manor, witnessing the auction take place. At the halfway point of the auction, an unfamiliar animal was brought out: an artificial hybrid which the auctioneer called an Indoraptor, created by increasing the proportion of Velociraptor DNA in the Indominus rex genome. Maisie confirmed that Henry Wu had created the animal in the sub-basement lab, and Wu himself had been secretly living in the manor. The Indoraptor was described as the perfect living weapon Hoskins had envisioned, not only due to its superior physiology and high intelligence but because of the training regimen it had been subject to. It was able to kill on command, with a laser sight setting its target and a high-pitched noise triggering its attack. Dearing agreed that this animal could not be sent out, but Mills was permitting guests to bid on it despite it only being a prototype. Grady was able to hotwire a cargo elevator which he used to reach the garage to disrupt the auction, luring the Stygimoloch into the elevator to cause enough chaos to distract Mills’s mercenaries. Dearing kept Maisie safe in the maintenance corridor while Grady stopped the prototype from leaving with its Russian buyer. He rejoined them, but Mills had spotted him already.

Mills tracked them down in the corridors, confronting them and asserting his status as Maisie’s guardian. With two armed mercenaries by his side, he had the advantage, although Dearing and Grady were unwilling to back down. Mills informed them that Maisie was more than just her mother‘s daughter; she was the same on a genetic level—she was her mother’s clone. Mills’s victory was short-lived, however, as the Indoraptor had somehow escaped and tackled the gun-toting mercenaries. As the animal killed the only armed humans in the corridor, Dearing fled with Grady and Maisie while Mills was forced to flee in another direction.

The three attempted to evade the prototype through the mansion’s display room. The animal had killed another mercenary and eaten him, but still pursued Dearing and the others; they hid in a closet while the animal struggled to climb a narrow spiral staircase, temporarily evading it. However, its acute senses of smell and hearing would lead it to them soon enough. They snuck into the dinosaur dioramas on the side of the room, shutting the lights down to reduce visibility; however, even with the glass blocking their scent, the animal could still hear their minute movements and continued to stalk the room. Lights were turned back on remotely, which revealed the Indoraptor having already located them. The features of the diorama formed a kind of defense against the large creature’s attack, but Dearing was wounded just above her right knee by the prototype’s left hand claw. Maisie fled, and the animal chased after her; Dearing entrusted Grady with rescuing the child since Dearing could no longer run. She kissed him quickly before he left, in the event that they did not see each other again.

While Grady went off on his own to aid Maisie, Dearing recovered the modified rifle used to give the prototype’s kill orders. This weapon, while not lethal in and of itself, could be used to distract the Indoraptor or trick it into running into a trap. In spite of her injury, Dearing managed to make her way to the building’s roof while following the trail of destruction the Indoraptor left in its wake. There she found the animal on the glass sunroof over the display room, Grady and Maisie trapped at the edge of the roof. She attempted to get the animal’s attention, saving the lives of the others, and quickly planned to use the gun to trick the Indoraptor into slipping and falling to its death. Grady put his own life at risk to act as the gun’s target, diving underneath the pouncing animal. However, it managed to recover and did not fall as planned. The glass of the sunroof broke under its weight, but the metal supports held. The group was saved by an ambush from Blue, who had fought viciously to defend her father figure from the prototype earlier; she pounced on the larger animal and their combined weight broke the metal supports of the sunroof. The Indoraptor landed directly on a fossil display and sustained fatal injuries, dying almost immediately.

Dearing and the others were reunited with Webb and Rodriguez, who reported that the lab had sustained damage during the conflict which resulted in a hydrogen cyanide leak. The deadly gas, on the verge of precipitating, had sunk into the lowest level of the manor where the animals were being held. To save the dinosaurs from this fate, Dearing opened the cage doors to let them out, but was warned by Grady against opening the main door leading outside. Dearing made the painful decision to let the animals die in the gas rather than let them into the world outside her control. The other adults silently agreed with her choice, knowing that saving the animals would unavoidably mean letting them into a world where protecting them (or the people and modern animals they would encounter) would be impossible. Dearing and the others steeled themselves for the dinosaurs’ final moments.

Maisie, however, did not agree with Dearing’s choice and made the executive decision to override it by opening the main door and letting the animals free. By the time Dearing and the others made it outside, most of the animals had already fled, killing at least two more mercenaries as well as Mills himself and destroying the last known sample of Indominus DNA. Blue was the last dinosaur to leave the manor, and while Grady attempted to bring her into captivity, she refused and disappeared into the coastal Pacific wilds.

A new age begins

Dearing, along with Grady, took it upon herself to become Maisie’s primary caregiver following the deaths of Lockwood and Mills. In the aftermath of the incident, the two headed north away from the Lockwood estate with Maisie, now having violated U.S. and international law and also having to contend with new roles for de-extinct life in the modern world: many animals were now roaming the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and those they had failed to save from the auction were in the hands of international criminals the world over. So too was the technology to make more.

The next few years were as troubled as one might imagine. They traveled the western United States, staying west of the Rocky Mountains and spending much of their time in California where the animals had first gotten free. People across the state had no knowledge of how to deal with the animals, and the animals likewise were in a world radically different from what they had been accustomed to on Isla Nublar; by mid-2019 there were already news reports of animals breeding on American soil. The world needed help, but Claire Dearing and her family also needed to keep a low profile. So they used aliases, traveling in Grady’s old camper van “Pumpkin,” stopping in rural areas to aid where needed. The state government had set up some sanctuaries where de-exctinct animals could be contained, with the newly-formed Department of Prehistoric Wildlife aiding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in managing these. The national government was making an effort to restructure, but as was so often the case, change came too slowly; none of the sanctuaries were approved for housing carnivorous animals, and the chaos was fueling a boom in the dinosaur-poaching market. Illegally sold InGen technology was obtained easily enough by those with means, giving them powerful new ways to capture animals that the licensed authorities had no access to.

To counteract this criminal threat, animal rights activists took up hidden tactics of their own. The underground dinosaur-rights movement had grown from its origins with the DPG even as the organization came under government investigation, and with Claire Dearing on the lam, she became emblematic of that movement. At its highest levels, the movement had members stationed in the U.S. National Park Service, utilizing unpopulated areas of National Parks to house dinosaurs away from anyone whose agenda might threaten their health or safety. This was done without the knowledge of the National Park Service on the whole, and certainly without the knowledge of the federal government. Dearing, however, was well aware of the underground movement and in communication with select members. Grady, whose involvement with the 2018 incidents was never known to the public (or the government), was able to show his face more freely and used this to his new family’s advantage.

By the early 2020s, their days of traveling had to come to a close. Maisie Lockwood’s existence had finally made the news, including her supposed origin as a human clone. None of them knew how this information had been leaked, although rumors about Maisie had begun to circulate among poachers and conspiracy theorists only a couple years after the incident. Now, Dearing considered it unsafe to bring Maisie anywhere people might see her. They took up permanent residence at Grady’s now-completed cabin in the Sierra Nevada range. A small town nearby was the only local civilization, and Grady found work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to support himself, Dearing, and Maisie. Blue, who they had spent some time tracking before this, settled into the woods nearby; they seldom saw her, but she was never far away. Having her so close was a double-edged sword; on the one hand, a wild raptor would scare away curious civilians, but she might also unwittingly be a lure for poachers.

Although the situation with the dinosaurs was still very much inconclusive, there were some new developments. The United States Congress had contracted Biosyn Genetics, a bioengineering corporation that had once been competition for InGen and focused on biopharmaceuticals and agriculture, to contain any animals captured on U.S. soil at their discretion. The year after Jurassic World closed, the company had begun setting up a facility in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy, including their headquarters; by this time an entire valley had been designated the Biosyn Genetics Sanctuary. The company’s CEO Lewis Dodgson was eager to place the wild animals into a naturalistic kind of containment, letting them live as they would in the wild and studying their immune systems for any medical knowledge they might yield. Although his motives seemed trustworthy enough, one could not deny that Biosyn’s profit margin certainly benefited from the disaster, as the United States and other countries paid them to deal with problem dinosaurs. The 2020s were host to plenty of other crises as well, including the emergence of an invasive species of large locust in the American Midwest that began to threaten cropland.

Raising Maisie in isolation was a challenge too. She turned fourteen by early 2022, and as she grew up, her understanding of the world and her place in it became more complex. Maisie became frustrated with her inability to see the world for herself. She was allowed to roam as far as a disused truss bridge, but from time to time she would defy this boundary and venture into town against Dearing and Grady’s wishes. Although this was a point of contention for both of Maisie’s adoptive parents, Dearing tried to be understanding, knowing that Maisie was living through a far stranger coming-of-age than perhaps any other child in the modern day. According to Bryce Dallas Howard, who portrays Claire Dearing in the films, Grady proposed to Dearing during this time, but Dearing chose instead to practice a non-municipal life partnership.

While hiding from the authorities and trying her best to parent Maisie, Dearing also kept up with the underground dinosaur movement, taking bold risks to defend animal welfare. Whenever exploitation was discovered, she would document evidence and submit it anonymously to Fish and Wildlife authorities. Other members of the movement, such as her DPG allies Rodriguez and Webb, typically accompanied her.

Early in 2022, this crew of three embarked to intrude upon the Saw Ridge Cattle Company, a corporate ranch in rural Nevada where it was believed more than just cows were being reared. Webb was with their getaway vehicle while Rodriguez led the way into the barn. Inside, they discovered baby Nasutoceratops, less than a year old, cramped in cages; this cruel practice kept costs down. While filming under the cover of night, they discovered one of the males caged away from the others; Rodriguez listened to his heartbeat, and while it wasn’t yet clear what kind of health issue he had, his low pulse suggested he was severely unhealthy. Rodriguez suspected he would not survive long. Dearing, knowing that this creature would not live long enough for the authorities to arrive, decided that an anonymous tip would not be enough this time. She and Rodriguez brought the weak animal out to the rendezvous point.

Their trespass had not gone unnoticed. Several of the farm’s staff members had spotted them and sounded the alarm, taking a small fleet of vehicles in pursuit of the getaway van. Dearing, the most competent driver of the three, took the wheel while her comrades tried to protect the dinosaur in the back. As they fled, they came under fire, the guards aiming to blow out their wheels; if they were caught, there was no telling whether the criminals would even let them live, so Dearing drove them straight into the pasture where the adult dinosaurs fed and bred. Not only Nasutoceratops but groups of Sinoceratops and Triceratops were penned here, and as the vehicles sped through the pasture, the ceratopsians became alarmed and moved to defend themselves. Dearing, the first in line, had the advantage here: by the time the animals noticed the high-speed chase, the DPG was already passing them by, leaving their pursuers on the receiving end of the dinosaurs’ horns.

Thanks to her superb skill behind the wheel, they lost their pursuers, who suffered the brunt of the ceratopsians’ aggression. As day broke, the three of them reached a safe distance from the farm and stopped to recuperate. Dearing was determined to return to Saw Ridge and break in a second time to resume the fight, but Rodriguez and Webb admitted they could not follow. Webb had been injured during the escape, and as Rodriguez patched up his injured hand she was forced to the realization that their lonesome vigilante missions were not making enough of a global impact to justify the extreme risk to their lives. If poachers or illegal breeders shot them to death, their days of saving animals would be over long before any real political change came along. But the real nail in the coffin was Webb’s job offer. He had been interviewed by the Central Intelligence Agency, which had developed the new Dangerous Species Division in recent years and was now playing a role in monitoring the spread of de-extinct life. Webb believed that he could make more of a difference if he had more resources at his disposal, so he had taken the offer. Dearing came to realize that while she had truly wanted to protect the animals, she was even more so trying to compensate for the harm her complacency had caused the creatures at Jurassic World. Her allies were right; they needed a new strategy. After transferring the young Nasutoceratops to Fish and Wildlife to be treated and rehomed at the Biosyn Genetics Sanctuary, the Dinosaur Protection Group disbanded.

This was the end of an era for Dearing. She was unsure of how to move forward; Webb and Rodriguez were finding new avenues to protect de-extinct animal welfare, but she could not exactly apply to a job. Despite the change in government leadership in the 2020 Presidential election, politics had not shifted by much, and she was still a wanted person. For now, she had to focus on being a parent. Upon her return to Grady’s cabin, she burned the blankets they had used to transport the baby dinosaur. Maisie arrived on her bike, and Dearing suspected that Maisie had gone into town while she was away. Initially evasive, Maisie admitted to going into town, knowing the risk of being identified but considering that preferable to total isolation.

Grady returned from work not long after, and after he greeted his family, Dearing told him about Maisie’s trip into town. Around a campfire that night, he attempted to talk to her at Dearing’s prompting, but only succeeded at aggravating Maisie and driving her away in frustration. While she sulked in her room, Dearing questioned her own ability as a parent. Grady was comforting, understanding that Maisie was a teenager and naturally prone to outbursts as she developed her own sense of identity, but Dearing believed there was more going on than this. Knowing that she was a clone would make Maisie’s journey toward self-identity a more complicated one than most teenagers. Her mother, Charlotte Lockwood, was genetically Maisie’s twin sister—Maisie existed only on the whim of her creator, who had wanted a replacement for the child he had lost. This, even more than the vague idea of hostile agencies seeking her out or her own role in the fate of the dinosaurs, was at the root of Maisie’s emotional troubles, and Dearing was uncertain whether she had the answers.

Kidnapping of Maisie Lockwood

Winter was now wearing into spring, and that meant more people would be outdoors. Hunters were not unknown near Grady’s property, and sometimes gunshots could be heard in the nearby woods. Both of them worried about Blue being harmed, and about their family being discovered. It was already hard enough with Grady’s job often putting him at odds with dangerous poachers.

One morning, while Maisie was eating breakfast outside, there was some kind of commotion. Grady was around to ensure Maisie’s safety, and did not raise the alarm, so when things went quieter Dearing did not worry. Soon after while Dearing was preparing lunch, Maisie stormed through the house, evidently upset about something. When she took her bike, Dearing knew she intended to head into town and pressed her to admit where she was going, but Maisie was not receptive: declaring that Dearing was not her mother, she biked off. Dearing, too hurt to react and knowing she had no control over where Maisie chose to go, simply retreated inside.

A short while later, though, Grady returned in a panic. Maisie had been found by a gang of poachers that Grady had run afoul of a few weeks ago, and he believed their leader had followed him back to their house. He was already gearing up to pursue the kidnappers, and Dearing went to get the car ready, only to find Blue waiting outside the door. The raptor was angrier than Dearing had ever seen her, and Grady quickly explained that she had a child of her own who had been taken by the same poachers. Blue’s attention shifted to Grady as soon as he was within sight, and Dearing watched in terror as the furious raptor threatened Grady. He tried to calm her down, promising to rescue her offspring as well as his own, but Blue lashed out and sliced open his palm. Grady did not retreat, and Blue ceased her attack, storming off into the woods to start a search of her own. Dearing, collecting her thoughts now that the immediate threat had passed, got in the car with Grady and developed a plan to catch Maisie’s kidnappers.

Several of Dearing’s former InGen coworkers were now employed at the CIA Dangerous Species Division, with Franklin Webb being the most recent. Since many of Grady’s enemies were themselves wanted persons like herself, she reasoned Webb would be their best bet at identifying the culprits. While on the road, she called Webb, who was alarmed to be contacted at work by someone his employer was actively trying to find; if he made contact and kept it a secret, he would likely be fired. Dearing was not calling to negotiate, though: she and Grady had already reached DSD headquarters and just now entered the courtyard outside Webb’s office.

Meeting covertly with him outside headquarters, he showed a list of wanted poachers the DSD was keeping tabs on and Grady was able to identify the one who had taken Maisie. Webb identified him as Rainn Delacourt, a poacher who had recently become an international problem and was actively being followed by an undercover operative named Wyatt Huntley. Webb was moved to help upon learning that Maisie had been kidnapped; he had disagreed with Dearing’s decision to take the girl, believing they should have gone through the proper channels with the authorities, but they were beyond such debate now. According to Huntley’s intel, Delacourt would make a cash-for-cargo exchange in Valletta, Malta the following day; there was no mention of a child or any human trafficking, but it was a place to start. Dearing and Grady were adamant about getting transport to Valletta, even though this would mean sacrificing their secrecy from the government. Grady’s old friend, Barry Sembène, was working undercover for French Intelligence in Valletta already and would be able to help them. Webb quickly worked out a deal with the American government, allowing Dearing and Grady to ride along on the mission.

They landed in Valletta ahead of the trade. A combined task force of American and French intelligence operatives were in place for a sting operation, and while Dearing and Grady were told to stay on the sidelines, their insider information could still prove useful. Sembène greeted them cheerfully, happy to see his old friends after so long; when Dearing questioned why he did not take on a quieter line of work after Jurassic World, he simply remarked that he had tried, and it did not suit him. Beyond that, with the world facing one crisis after another, he could hardly sit by and do nothing.

Sembène informed them that Delacourt had been hired by a far more notorious figure, Soyona Santos, who was a major player in the dinosaur black market. Animals, their byproducts, and technology needed to create and modify new species from the world’s ancient past were her specialties, and she had carved out an empire for herself in Malta known as the Amber Clave. It was she whom Delacourt was to meet with today, and if the operatives could catch them in the act, they could both be arrested and Maisie could be rescued. Huntley had provided them with the location of the exchange, an alley near the harbor accessible through a black market locale.

Sembène brought Dearing and Grady into the Amber Clave, instructing them on how to act inconspicuous and avoid conflict with the night market’s dangerous clientele. In here, Dearing bore firsthand witness to everything she had fought against since Jurassic World fell. Dinosaurs were sold as exotic pets, and some were forced to fight to the death as spectators placed bets. To her disgust, many of the fighters appeared to be juvenile animals, though some ominously large cages on one side of the marketplace suggested that more spectacular clashes might be planned. Dinosaur bone powder, purported to be some kind of folk medicine, and other animal byproducts were for sale; she saw pelts and leather goods such as purses (which Sembène said were mostly fake, in the novelization), and exotic meats of all kinds (which were decidedly not fake). She even caught sight of giant locust specimens, the same kind now terrorizing the Midwest, kept in cages and being roasted on spits.

Grady and Sembène took a hidden position over the alley where the exchange was to take place, operatives from both agencies stationed on rooftops and hidden from view around corners. Dearing remained in the marketplace. While in the restroom, she encountered a woman who caught her staring and asked sarcastically if Dearing was lost; surprised that this woman was American, Dearing introduced herself and hoped to make an ally. Her efforts were met with resistance, though, as the woman was not interested in making friends. She advised Dearing to take a souvenir and head back to her hotel before she got herself into trouble. Dearing was undeterred despite this setback, pestering the woman for a moment of her attention and showing a childhood photo of Charlotte (lacking any recent photos of Maisie, this was the closest they had, though they did look identical). The woman seemed to recognize the person in the picture, but claimed she could not help. As she walked away, Dearing was left with no choice but to just follow the CIA’s plan.

Grady contacted Dearing via her earpiece, advising her that Delacourt had showed on time. She spotted him and conveyed his position. Delacourt headed for the alley, Huntley by his side ready to spring the trap. Santos acknowledged their previous job’s completion and offered them a new one, the transport of four genetically-engineered Atrociraptors to Riyadh. Delacourt accepted the offer, but Maisie was nowhere to be seen. When Delacourt accepted Santos’s offer to transport the raptors, the operatives made their move, but any hope of arresting Santos and Delacourt to find Maisie’s location was quashed when Santos’s heavily-armed bodyguards opened fire. The alley turned into a war zone in seconds, and Dearing ducked away into the relative safety of the market.

The truck containing the raptors sped off, and the operatives laid out a spikestrip to blow out its tires. This caused it to crash into a boathouse, its cargo scattered. Dearing caught up with the operatives as they surrounded the crash site, and Grady contacted her again to give her an update: although Delacourt had not had Maisie with him during the exchange, he had handed her off to Santos earlier, meaning that this menacing woman was now Dearing’s best bet at finding her daughter. At the crash site, the animal cages were unlocked, releasing the creatures. Dearing watched at a distance as each of the agents was targeted by a red laser beam, and the raptors suddenly focused on each agent in turn. This was a technology Dearing had seen four years prior: it had been used by Mills to train the prototype Indoraptor to kill select targets, and now that technology had evolved into a sophisticated pocket-sized form. With the signal given, the raptors launched into battle.

Despite the horrific spectacle, Dearing remained laser-focused on her own objective. She confirmed with Grady that she had eyes on Santos, and pursued her quarry into the streets of Valletta. Santos knew she had been spotted by Dearing now and was moving quickly. Dearing armed herself with a dinosaur taser from one of the animal cages.

Santos intruded into an apartment, and Dearing was close behind. Before Dearing could speak, Santos had already pressed a button on a wristwatch-like device, no doubt to summon a raptor to her aid. Dearing tried pleading with her enemy, begging to know where Maisie had been taken, but Santos was in no mood to talk: she launched right into combat, throwing objects and lashing out with a steak knife. Dearing defended herself with the taser, taking a hit as Santos slammed her head through a window and threw her to the floor. Once again Santos came at her with the knife, slashing wildly, but Dearing managed to land a low blow with the taser from her position on the floor and knocked Santos back. While her foe was briefly incapacitated (though more annoyed than hurt), Dearing demanded to know what had become of Maisie. Santos bitterly remarked that Dearing had no right to the girl, but was forced to admit that she had been sent to Biosyn headquarters. She taunted Dearing with the knowledge that Maisie was already en route, and that it was too late to stop her flight out from Valletta. Before Dearing could pursue this conversation any further, one of the Atrociraptors—a specimen called Tiger—arrived in response to her summons and sprung to the defense of her master. Santos wasted no time in marking Dearing for death with her laser pointer.

Dearing sought a defensible hiding place, but the apartment’s inhabitants were still inside, and rather than risk their lives she chose to flee out a window. Tumbling onto the rooftop outside, she fled across the cityscape with Tiger in hot pursuit. The dinosaur had the advantage of speed, so Dearing desperately sought any advantage at her disposal, making tight unpredictable turns and using laundry on rooftop clotheslines to impede the raptor’s pursuit. A staircase took her indoors, but this route had a dead end at a balcony overlooking a narrow street. Another balcony was across the way, and Dearing leapt for it, Tiger hot on her heels. Unfortunately, she did not quite make the jump, managing only to cling onto the railing. Tiger, on the other hand, sailed over her head and into the apartment on the other side. Climbing up was no longer an option, and the bed of a Honda Acty laden with construction supplies sat below. She was reluctant to drop, but the alternative was certain death, so she suffered a painful fall into the truck bed.

To her surprise, someone had just gotten into the truck’s cabin, and to her greater surprise, it was the American woman from the black market, who advised her to hang on and stepped on the gas. Tiger was still not far behind, so she was far from safe yet, but the truck gave her a boost in speed and the construction supplies made good enough weapons in a pinch. Dearing’s new ally affirmed that she was going to fly them both out of Valletta and to wherever Dearing’s destination lay; she was displeased to learn that Dearing was headed for Biosyn, but she knew the way and was willing to help. Dearing contacted Grady via his earpiece, directing him to a disused airfield north of the city where their rescuer’s airplane was waiting. During the chase, Dearing caught a brief glimpse of him on a stolen motorcycle, two more Atrociraptors chasing after him too.

Tiger was still doggedly in pursuit. The driver attempted to lose the dinosaur on the crowded side streets, dodging traffic and careening through construction scaffolding. In the truck bed, Dearing tried to be of help, looking for obstacles that might hinder the animal, but nothing seemed to be enough; even a sideswipe from the Acty only knocked their pursuer over for a moment before she was right back on her feet. Dearing needed an obstacle that Tiger would not see coming. As she fended the animal off using a bar from the truck bed, she suddenly had an idea, and turned the bar to the side to get both ends caught in the windshields of cars parked on either side of the road. Before Tiger could process the hazard she had run right into it, clotheslined and stunned. Dearing and her rescuer made for the north, escaping from the city without further opposition.

It was only a matter of time before Santos or her animals caught up, though. Dearing’s ally drove them to the airfield and they boarded her plane, a beaten-up Fairchild Flying Boxcar dubbed the Midnight Oiler. Dearing remained desperately hopeful that Grady had escaped danger as well, though she had not seen him since they parted ways at the Amber Clave. As the plane was prepped for takeoff, Dearing’s rescuer was anxious to make way before their enemies caught up, but Dearing spotted Grady on the stolen motorcycle coming over the hill. The Atrociraptors were right on his tail, and the plane was already heading down the dirt runway. Dearing came up with a last-ditch plan to get them all into the air alive: she advised the pilot to open the cargo bay door on the rear of the plane, allowing Grady to drive into it before they were airborne. She held on tight as the pilot reluctantly complied, motioning for Grady to follow; one of the raptors stumbled during the chase, but the other was still determinedly on him. He managed to make the jump onto the cargo bay ramp just as the plane lifted off, falling off the motorcycle. Dearing caught him, ensuring he did not fall out the open door. The raptor leapt after him, boarding the plane but being struck by the motorcycle as the Midnight Oiler tilted skyward and dumped anything unsecured out its rear. Both vehicle and raptor tumbled out into the Mediterranean, and the ramp closed behind them. Dearing and Grady were saved.

Each relieved that the other was alive, they now worried over each other’s injuries, but thankfully neither of them had suffered anything lethal. Their rescuer now gave her name, Kayla Watts, and promised that she would get them to Biosyn Valley but warned them that the mission to save Maisie would be frought with danger. Clearly Biosyn was more than the philanthropy shown in their commericals; just like any other company, corruption lurked beneath its surface. Dearing likely learned from Grady that Santos had been arrested by Sembène, who had thankfully survived the attack, and that Delacourt had died after being attacked by pit-fighting animals. The abused creatures had taken bloody vengeance, and several others had also escaped the black market. These animals were now roaming the streets, but capturing them would have to fall on the surviving intelligence operatives. Dearing and Grady were bound for Italy.

That afternoon, the Midnight Oiler crossed through Italian airspace into the Marmarole group of the Dolomites, where Biosyn Valley was located. They approached the valley from the northeast, heading southwest. This was a route Watts had flown many times, delivering supplies (most of them living creatures) to Biosyn under the nose of the law. Although she had successfully evaded capture from the authorities, Biosyn would likely be suspicious of her making an unscheduled landing at their airfield, so they would need to be quick and accept the risks inherent in their mission. Watts contacted the facility’s control tower, fabricating a cover story about perishable cargo that needed immediate unloading. The air traffic controller declined her request to land, apparently having been tipped off about Dearing and Grady’s attempted intrusion. She warned them that if they did not turn back, the Midnight Oiler would be forced out of the sky. Watts tried blackmailing the woman in the control tower, with whom she apparently had a salacious history, but was met with further refusal; before she could make good on her threat, Biosyn made good on theirs.

A warning light flashed in the cockpit, which Watts explained to her passengers was a beacon for the valley’s Aerial Deterrent System—the restraining technology that worked with the animals’ neural implants to ensure that none of the flying creatures could approach aircraft. The control tower had switched off the ADS, meaning they were now in potential danger. This became evident within mere seconds of the ADS being deactivated: a huge pterosaur, identified by Watts as a Quetzalcoatlus, had been stalking the plane and was now permitted to reach it. First the animal assumed a dominant position overhead, then pulled away to execute a flying tackle. As the damaged engines caught fire, the animal disengaged, but the Midnight Oiler was going down over the valley.

As it happened, Dearing was sitting in the plane’s ejector seat, and thus had the only safe way out of the crash. Watts had always traveled alone, so she had no spare parachutes. When Dearing learned this she was horrified to realize that she would be the sole survivor, but Grady was adamant. He quickly talked her through how to operate the ejector seat’s parachutes, reassuring her that as Maisie’s mother she was her best chance at rescue. With a loving farewell, Grady ejected Dearing out of the plane.

Thousands of feet in the air, she hurtled through the sky and began to fall toward the forest, still strapped in. The parachute opened automatically as Grady had described, slowing her fall to non-lethal speeds. However, she was not alone: although the Quetzalcoatlus had flown off when the engine exploded, other pterosaurs were still in the area, drawn to the havoc. She was harassed by Pteranodons, and several of them tore holes in the parachute’s canopy. Dearing began to plummet again, and while she was able to get the secondary chute deployed, this only barely slowed her fall enough to be survivable. She crashed into the woodland, the parachute entangled with the canopy of a tall European larch.

Having just fallen thousands of feet through hostile airspace from a crashing plane, Dearing sat in the ejector seat stunned and dazed for a short time, still hanging about twenty feet off the ground. She was in unfamiliar territory, and the sounds of animals surrounded her. Some of the creatures here, she knew, were those she was familiar with from Jurassic World, but there were just as many animals taken from illegal breeders and brought back from extinction by Biosyn itself. The first animal she encountered was not de-extinct, though; it was simply a red deer, the same kind she could have seen anywhere in the surrounding countryside. A louder noise soon caught her attention—a deep, echoing sound, clearly made by a large animal. Moments later, the source revealed itself. A theropod dinosaur emerged from the trees, passing close enough that she could have touched its face. It looked her right in the eyes, but its own eyes were ravaged with cataracts; the dinosaur was blind. The animal, a Therizinosaurus, approached the deer slowly as the mammal fed from a hawthorn shrub. Using a set of massive claws, the dinosaur struck the deer, slicing open its belly. However, this was not a predatory attack. Instead the dinosaur was defending its food source, the hawthorn. It ignored the deer bleeding to death nearby and instead began to feed from the shrub.

The animal was blind, and a herbivore, but Dearing had just witnessed firsthand that this was a fatally dangerous animal if provoked—and it seemed easy to provoke. If she was to escape before it happened across her, she would need to be stealthy. While it was distracted by its food, she extricated herself from the ejector seat and fell the remaining twenty feet to the ground, stifling any sounds of pain. The thump as she hit the ground was cushioned by leaf litter, but still loud enough for the therizinosaur to notice, and it began to seek her out, using its claws to feel along the forest floor. Dearing, too weak to run or even stand, crawled across the ground, dragging herself toward a nearby pond. She made her way to the deepest point and submerged herself in the grimy water as the dinosaur stood overhead. Unable to hear or smell her, it waited a few moments before giving an intimidating scream and stalking away. When she could no longer hold her breath, Dearing reemerged, weakly pulling herself out of the pond. The dinosaur had departed, and her vantage point near a hillside gave her a clear view of the valley to the southwest, where the plane had gone down. A plume of black smoke rising from above the huge hydroelectric dam told her all she needed to know. The Midnight Oiler had crashed and burned with Grady and Watts still inside.

Dearing had two options. She could either make for the dam ahead of her, or she could turn around and head for the research facility where Biosyn was headquartered on the opposite side of the valley. Maisie was probably in the main headquarters, and while the dam was closer, there was no way to be sure Grady or Watts were alive. Making the painful decision to act as though she was the lone survivor, Dearing made for the northeast.

The trek was perilous and took longer than she had imagined. By nightfall, she was only just within sight of headquarters, and the valley’s nocturnal residents were beginning to emerge. Exhausted, she approached the nearest sign of human civilization, Research Outpost 04. The outpost appeared to be unstaffed at the moment; there would be no one within to help or hinder Dearing with her mission. Access to the building appeared to be primarily underground, but there was a ladder that led up to a catwalk surrounding the elevated outpost, probably so that researchers and security staff could access the valley floor or enter the outpost in an emergency. The ladder was currently raised away from the ground to prevent animals from getting inside, so Dearing located a switch to operate the mechanism that lowered it. Unfortunately, the noise drew unwanted attention from the emerging nocturnal wildlife. Dearing spotted a predator, a venomous Dilophosaurus, eyeing her from the edge of the forest. Its pack was beginning to move in, knowing she was weak from her ordeals. In this state she had no hope of reaching the ladder before they attacked, let alone fight them off. As the pack’s leader took point, she had little choice but to accept her fate. The dinosaur unfurled its cowl, preparing its venomous attack.

Suddenly, its attack was halted as someone gripped its throat, preventing it from spitting. Owen Grady was restraining the dinosaur just as he had been trained at Jurassic World, and the startled animal was too taken by surprise to retaliate. Before it could get its bearings and fight him, Kayla Watts stepped in with her dinosaur taser, shocking the Dilophosaurus. It fell to the ground, struggling to its feet and fleeing from Watts and Grady in fear. Their alpha defeated, the other members of the pack were demoralized and joined their leader’s retreat. Dearing was surprised and overjoyed to see her companions alive.

Grady and Watts had learned enough on their own journey from the dam to know that the outposts were all connected underground by a hyperloop system, and that this same system connected the outposts to other facilities such as the headquarters. If they could get inside, they could rescue Maisie. Unfortunately, the outpost was locked, and none of them had an ID card or knew the access code. Watts suggested breaking in, and they began looking for anything they could use to pry the door open. As they did, they bore witness to a terrifying phenomenon: what appeared to be a cloud of fire was burning its way across the night sky, showering embers down upon the forest. Some of these flaming objects were larger, and as they started to plummet to the ground, it became clear what they were. It was a swarm of giant locusts, like the ones devouring American cropland, the same species Dearing had seen in the black market. They were in this valley too, and somehow, they had been lit ablaze. As the frightened insects swarmed across the valley and burned to death, they were sparking wildfires across the sanctuary’s woodland.

As the fires started to spread, the small clearing around Outpost 04 was host to yet another disaster, this time a dramatic vehicle crash. A Biosyn-branded Jeep Gladiator tumbled down a nearby embankment, rolling upside down as it came to a stop at the bottom of the hill. Dearing, Watts, and Grady approached cautiously, hearing human voices inside revealing that the vehicle’s occupants were alive. The loudest voice was unmistakable. Dearing recognized Maisie within moments, and rushed to help. She and Grady embraced their daughter, who was equally overwhelmed with happiness to see them again. They explained how Watts had brought them here to save her, and Maisie revealed that she had help escaping the headquarters as well. Three more people emerged from the crashed Gladiator. To Dearing’s disbelief, they were all famous scientists: the paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm, and paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant. All three of them had borne witness to the tragic incident on Isla Nublar in 1993 and were world-renowned not just for their experiences but also their views on the kinds of science InGen had pioneered. Sattler seemed to be their leader; Dearing thanked her and her colleagues for helping Maisie escape.

In just a few minutes, Dearing had gone from a lone, imperiled survivor to part of a trio and now suddenly a team of seven people. Not only that, but she already had Maisie, and now their only order of business was to get out of the valley and back to civilization. Their reunion would be cut short, though, by the appearance of a giant menacing figure emerging from the forest. Alan Grant identified it as a Giganotosaurus, the largest land predator known to paleontologists. It had wandered into the clearing chasing after burning locusts as they fluttered to their deaths, but now it spotted larger quarry in the form of the seven humans. It approached, slowly and curiously at first, as they all sheltered behind the overturned Gladiator. When they saw an opening to the ladder, they made a break for it. Watts scrambled up the ladder first, crowbar in hand to pry the door, followed closely by Dearing and her family. They sent Maisie up next, giving her the best chance at survival, but were forced away from the ladder when the theropod made its move. She had climbed as far as a protective cage on the upper part of the ladder, which saved her life as the dinosaur clamped its jaws around it. Dearing’s instinct was to run into the fray, and had it not been for Grady’s restraint, she would have rushed straight into the animal’s path in a fit of adrenaline-fueled panic. Fortunately the cage broke free of the ladder instead of breaking under pressure; the dinosaur struggled to get the deformed metal out of its mouth and Maisie overcame her terror to finish the climb. Dearing and the others followed right behind her.

On the catwalk Watts began to work at the door, but before she could get it open, the Giganotosaurus freed up its jaws and strode up to the outpost. Dearing and the others were high up, but not high enough to be out of reach, and the theropod fixated on Maisie once more. Dearing and Watts were defiant, willing to die if it meant keeping Maisie away from its cavernous jaws, but luckily it did not come to this. Malcolm, who had stayed behind on the ground while the others ran for the ladder, speared a burning locust carcass to draw the creature’s attention. Dearing herself had used a similar tactic to lure the Tyrannosaurus into combat during the battle for Jurassic World, but there was no other target to distract the theropod this time. Moments before the dinosaur would have swallowed Malcolm whole, the mathematician hurled his makeshift spear into his adversary’s throat. As flames licked its vulnerable soft tissues, Malcolm was able to join the rest of the group. The distraction had bought Dearing, Watts, and Maisie enough time to get the door open, and everyone piled inside. Dearing had been ahead of Grady, who now lagged behind to help the others get into the outpost; as Dearing watched, he narrowly avoided the dinosaur’s jaws as it tore the catwalk apart around him.

Grady got inside without injury, but the theropod was now well and truly enraged, and it shoved its head through the glass window of the outpost. Dearing helped him to his feet as the dinosaur attempted to grab him, but as she did, she inadvertently stepped her right foot into a loop of cable as the dinosaur’s lower jaw snagged that same cable. When it pulled its head out of the window, its teeth dragged the cable and Dearing with it. Seeing an opportunity, the Giganotosaurus aimed its next bite at her. Grady came to her aid as she had come to his, helping her roll out of the way and freeing her leg with his hunting knife. Then he turned that knife on the attacking animal, stabbing the left side of its snout while Watts hit it with a tranquilizer dart from the other side. Maisie grabbed Watts’s taser and passed it to Dearing, who joined the assault by shocking the dinosaur’s left eye socket. The combined defense frustrated the animal, which finally withdrew and stormed off in search of an easier meal.

With the immediate threat having passed, the seven were finally able to recuperate. Dearing learned why the three scientists were there; Dr. Malcolm had learned that Biosyn deliberately engineered the giant locusts as a part of an agribusiness program called Hexapod Allies, but Dodgson’s poor management had turned it into a global disaster. Malcolm had enlisted Drs. Sattler and Grant to recover evidence, which Sattler had successfully obtained, but now Dodgson was attempting to cover his tracks by incinerating the locusts held in the research facility. Somehow they had escaped confinement. Maisie had come across Grant and Sattler while they were also trying to escape. Biosyn had apparently ordered Maisie’s kidnapping, along with Blue’s offspring (whom Maisie had named Beta), for research purposes related to the locust plague. The most stunning revelation of all was that Maisie had not been cloned by Benjamin Lockwood after Charlotte’s death, but rather by Charlotte herself. Furthermore, Charlotte had not died in a car crash, but instead due to a genetic disorder. Maisie would have suffered from the same disease had Charlotte not developed a revolutionary cure. She had only had the time and resources to treat one person, and sacrificed her own life for Maisie’s. Benjamin Lockwood had kept all this a secret to protect Maisie. It was for this medical breakthrough that Biosyn needed Maisie, and Beta would serve as a control group, since she had not been modified in the same way.

After everyone had recovered, gotten their injuries treated, and made the acquaintance of the other half of the group, they formed an escape plan. The phone lines and other technologies were down, probably because of the fire, so to reach the headquarters they would have to walk through the hyperloop tunnels. Watts could get them out of the valley using one of the helicopters Biosyn used for personnel transport. Grady still intended to keep his promise to bring Beta home, so before they evacuated, they would be adding one dinosaur to their party. Together, they embarked through the hyperloop tunnels. Fortunately for them, the transit system was shut down along with most everything else, so they were safe for once as they made their way underground to the headquarters.

Once they reached the research facility they found it all but abandoned, the staff members having taken shelter as the scattered fires had grown into an inferno spanning most of the valley. The view from the control room showed them the full scope of the disaster: hundreds of animal lives were in peril, and there was nothing Dearing or her allies could do to save them this time. The animals would have to fend for themselves. All she could do was help her friends escape. She took to one of the abandoned computer terminals, recognizing the operating system that Biosyn used. Evidently the company had adapted Jurassic World’s computer management strategies down to the very same programming. The ADS had been shut off along with many other technologies, and Dearing was unable to reactivate it; she got an Error 99 message, one she had not seen at the park. They were met by Ramsay Cole, an employee of Biosyn Communications who was working to expose corruption in the company, who explained to them that Error 99 meant the system on the whole did not have enough power to execute the command. The fire had taxed the facility’s infrastructure to its limits, and now the primary system was seizing all available power to keep itself running. In order to bypass this security measure, they would need to reroute power away from the primary system by rebooting it. Cole directed them to Server Room 3, where they could complete this task.

The group divided four ways. Watts went to prep the helicopter for their escape. Grady, Maisie, and Grant went to collect Beta from where she had holed up in the facility’s water treatment center. Dearing teamed up with Dr. Sattler to reboot the system and restore ADS functionality, which would allow their helicopter to escape safely without being harassed by pterosaurs. This was especially vital, as with a fire like this one burning outside, no animal that could fly would dare stay on the forest floor. Meanwhile, Malcolm and Cole stayed in the control room to coordinate everyone’s efforts.

On their way to the control room, Dearing and Sattler exchanged their feelings about the events of the past several decades that had led to this point. Both of them had nightmares about their respective traumas, and both wished they could have acted differently given the knowledge they now possessed. But while Dearing had held onto this regret and let her desire for absolution shape her actions in the present, Sattler had learned to focus on the future, learning from the past but pushing aside the persistent desire to change what had already happened. Their talk was reassuring to Dearing; Sattler’s experiences had been different from Dearing’s, but they still had much in common, and advice from an older, wiser woman was just what Dearing needed to better understand how to proceed in her own life.

In the server room, they found that a group of locusts had broken through a ventilation shaft in their desperation to escape their burning swarm. Now the insects were piled on the floor, most of them twitching but none airborne. They carefully navigated the heap of dying creatures, ignoring Malcolm’s radio-borne insistence that they could move faster to their goal. Once they reached the breakers, Malcolm and Cole directed them through the reboot procedure. At first it appeared to have worked, but the system automatically turned back on, the primary system refusing to give up its hold on all the available power left in the facility’s circuits. As it turned back on, the loud noise of the activation agitated the locusts, sending those that could still fly into the air. They were bludgeoned by the insects’ frenzy, Sattler wielding a taser to stun them into submission while Dearing retrieved a fire axe from the wall. Hacking through the insects gave her inspiration, and she turned the axe upon a power cable connecting the primary system servers to the facility’s power source. With Sattler’s aid she severed the cable, preventing the primary system from enacting its power draw and allowing the secondary systems to come back online. The ADS was active.

The whole group, minus Watts in the helicopter, reconvened in the control room. Grady’s team had successfully tranquilized and retrieved Beta, and Watts was on her way from the helipad now. As they prepared to leave, they were suddenly met with none other than Henry Wu, who had presumably been clandestinely working for Biosyn since he vanished from the Lockwood estate four years prior. This was not the confident, haughty Dr. Wu who Dearing had known so well at Jurassic World, nor the frustrated megalomaniac she had witnessed at Lockwood Manor. This version of Wu had been thoroughly worn down by the events of not just the past four years, but everything that had happened before, and now he was desperate to set right whatever he could. He was responsible for the locust plague, but he believed that Maisie and Beta held the key to stopping it and saving millions of lives. At first no one took him at his word, and they were ready to leave him behind, but Maisie accepted his offer. With Maisie’s claim that Charlotte would have given Wu this chance to do what was right, no one argued any further. Despite all the harm he had caused, Dearing had to have some sympathy for Wu, now that he could see the consequences of his actions in a clearer light. He had ended up just as tired and broken as the rest of them.

Watts arrived with the helicopter, but escaping would be something of an ordeal. Biosyn’s emergency protocols required that the animals be herded into a bunker beneath the mountain, and the entrance was within the research facility itself; to enter, they would have to pass through the courtyard, which was also the only safe landing place—the only part of the valley not currently on fire. With no other choice, Watts dodged the frightened animals to land, and Dearing went with the rest of the evacuees to board. Seeing the dinosaurs up close was still an awe-inspiring experience, with a colossal Dreadnoughtus passing by before them, but wonder was mixed with horror; even these titanic creatures were helpless against the unfeeling blaze outside. All they could do was run.

Before they could reach the helicopter, they were confronted with a familiar face. Among the last of the dinosaurs to enter the courtyard was a Tyrannosaurus, one whom Dearing knew quite well. This was the very same animal from Jurassic World, and from Jurassic Park before that, the creature who had almost died at the jaws of the Indominus when Dearing led her into battle nearly seven years ago. For a moment, it seemed that this age-old carnivore was now turning her sights on the humans, but the true subject of her attention was quickly revealed. The Giganotosaurus had also found itself a straggler, and now the two apex predators were forced into a bottleneck by the very security protocols meant to protect them from the fire. With nowhere to run from each other, there was little left to do but fight.

The humans in the courtyard scattered. Dearing stayed with her family, and Cole was alongside them. They tried to skirt around the edges of the clash tearing the courtyard apart, and at first, the fight strayed closer to the other group. But then, the theropods shifted; while Dr. Sattler’s group made it to the helicopter with their precious evidence against Biosyn, the brawling dinosaurs now blocked Dearing’s group. The tyrannosaur had taken a heavy beating and was now thrown onto one of the courtyard’s copper sculptures, toppling it and trapping Dearing and her companions. For the moment the sculpture did not crush them, held up at an angle, but the weight of the tyrannosaur and her rival pinning her down threatened to collapse the whole thing. If they stayed, they would likely die. If they ran, the Giganotosaurus would see them and surely give chase, endangering everyone at the helicopter too.

Watts intervened, firing off a flare to divert the predator’s attention. As the light trailed across the courtyard, it settled down near one final straggler coming in from the blaze, the blind Therizinosaurus that Dearing had seen in the forest. The Giganotosaurus, still pumped full of adrenaline and itching to fight, charged off to confront this new enemy. With the tyrannosaur lying motionless on the sculpture, Dearing and her allies were clear to make a break for it. They boarded the helicopter, and now with the vehicle as loaded as it could get while still able to fly, they took off.

A storm had blown in, and they needed to move before conditions worsened, but they did all take one final look at the carnage below them. The tyrannosaur appeared dead, but then suddenly showed signs of life. The battered animal staggered to its feet, announcing its survival. Now the Giganotosaurus was torn between two enemies, and while it was unable to defend itself against both at once, the tyrannosaur threw her rival at the third theropod. The Giganotosaurus was killed, and the remaining dinosaurs were able to reach sanctuary in the emergency bunker. As the helicopter cleared the valley, the storm brought heavy rain, extinguishing the fire.

Aftermath, and into the future

Watts flew them to the Biosyn airstrip upriver from the dam, where they waited for the authorities. An international crisis response team arrived in the morning to deal with the incident, interviewing Cole and Dr. Malcolm about the corruption in Biosyn while treating the injured members of the party. Dearing had suffered through more in the past two days than she normally did in whole years, and was thoroughly ready for it all to be over. Thankfully, it nearly was. Her cooperation with the sting in Malta, and the role she played in bringing corrupt Biosyn executives to heel, earned her a pardon for her crimes and safe passage back to the United States. Thanks to her help, Dr. Sattler was able to conclusively prove that Biosyn had created the hybrid locusts. Thanks to Maisie and Beta’s help, Wu was able to apply the same methods Charlotte Lockwood had used to cure Maisie’s genetic disorder to the locusts, distributing a genetic modification between insects in a swarm as though they were cells in a single organism’s body. This would shorten their lifespans and curb their rapid reproduction, bringing an end to the plague before the damage became irreversible.

Dearing, Grady, and Maisie returned home, bringing Beta with them. It is unclear exactly how they got Beta past the American authorities after having her secured at the airstrip; since the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Prehistoric Wildlife probably would not have approved of releasing a Velociraptor into the wild, it may be that Watts engaged in one final smuggling operation, this time for the good of the animal. Dearing oversaw Beta’s return to the mountains where she had been born. Blue was not too difficult to track down; she had not strayed too far from her nest near Grady’s cabin. Beta and Blue had their happy reunion. After exchanging a look with Grady, a look one could interpret as thankful, Blue led her daughter off into the wild. They disappeared, but Dearing could rest well knowing that their small family had been made whole again.

As for her own family, it was perhaps more whole than it had been before. Maisie had learned the truth about her genetic family; she had not been orphaned meaninglessly by fate, nor had she been created as a mere replacement by the selfish whim of her grandfather. Instead, she had been created by her own mother, who gave up her own life so that Maisie could have a chance at lifelong health. Maisie was now more mature for knowing this, and had already begun choosing to pass that goodwill on into the future. Dearing, to her credit, took Dr. Sattler’s advice to heart. She had made mistakes in the past, and some of those had irrevocably changed the fates of many people and animals. Dwelling on these mistakes and taking drastic action to compensate would not change the fact that they happened; the best she could do now was learn from her past and build a better future for those who would come after her. There are things in the world she cannot control, and she has learned to live with that. The future, she understands, belongs to Maisie, and to other young people like her; and it belongs to the creatures that inhabit the world, and the ecosystems they are a part of, and the living things that have now progressed beyond the grasp of those who brought them to life. Claire Dearing now understands the truth of her own evolution: it does not concern just her own story, but the link she forms in the great chain of history.

Skills
Politics and interpersonal skills

Dearing originally attended college on the East Coast for political science, and had a fifteen-year plan as of 2004 to attain a law degree despite her humble origins and become a U.S. senator. While her law school and political career plans did not pan out and she became a Jurassic World manager instead, and it is unknown if she finished her undergraduate degree, Dearing retained a comprehensive knowledge of animal rights law and American politics where it was relevant to her interests and values. She considered herself to have good social skills, a necessary trait for a politician—particularly a female politician, as women are traditionally placed under far greater scrutiny than men of similar authority. A personal essay she submitted to the Bright Minds program was personally selected by Simon Masrani; one of only twelve to be accepted out of possibly hundreds or thousands, Masrani himself considered it his favorite. However, some people have criticized Dearing’s social behavior as being naive, myopic, or even egocentric.

Dearing featured in a promotional image for Jurassic World (2015)

She does have extensive experience performing public relations work, even during a period of time between 2004 and 2015 when she became progressively detached as a result of her administrative position at Jurassic World. During this time, she often appeared in promotional material for the park, and contributed to Masrani Global’s corporate website. After 2015, Dearing returned to her political roots and utilized her experience and skills to manage the Dinosaur Protection Group both online and offline. She was the organization’s primary architect, designing its policies, practices, and imagery to appeal to the public as well as gain support from politically powerful entities. Ultimately, though, in a period of time in which environmentalism and animal rights were strongly opposed by many governments including that of the United States, she did not receive support from governmental powers other than the Costa Rican Department of Biological Preserves. She was active in lobbying during 2018, and in the final days of the Isla Nublar debates she was able to convince at least one U.S. congresswoman to support the Dinosaur Protection Group. Her use of legal knowledge and activism has been a feature since her childhood; she first used photographic evidence and written documentation to bring legal action in a case of animal abuse at the age of twelve. After the events of 2018 led to her becoming a person of interest to the government, her activism took on a more vigilante nature, though her in-depth knowledge of how the government operated still allowed her to ensure her goals were still accomplished efficiently. In 2022 she negotiated a pardon for her crimes in exchange for aiding the Central Intelligence Agency in capturing a notorious international criminal.

In person, Dearing has often struggled to maintain close friendships. As a child and young adult, her interests were considered unconventional for a girl, which caused her to be socially isolated (though she was still very close with her immediate family). She developed a strong sense of independence and ambition, which meant that her male peers often found her intimidating. In college, however, she made a number of friends who shared her interests, and made more friends at the Bright Minds internship program. During her career at Jurassic World, her personality was overtaken by a sense of detached professionalism and she was disliked by some of her coworkers because of this, though her employer Simon Masrani continued to see her value. She was apparently unaware of the way in which her personality became more restricted during her career. After the 2015 incident, which had caused her to realize the ways in which she had changed, she sought to return the social skills she had developed during her young adulthood. Though she was generally more capable of maintaining friendships after this, she also returned to a tendency to be more trusting than is perhaps advisable in many situations. She tends to assume that most people are willing to talk through their issues, so when she encounters anyone who prefers to dive directly into conflict, she is at a disadvantage.

Dearing struggles with romantic relationships due to Western cultural standards. In Western culture, especially prior to the late 2010s, women are expected to be submissive, whereas Dearing strongly values independence and the ability to maintain control over her life and surroundings. While this ensures that she can detect an unhealthy relationship fairly quickly, it also leads to some people perceiving her as being overly controlling and unwilling to take risks or relax.

Skill with animals

Due to a combination of her childhood love of animals and her small social circle, Dearing has developed a not-insubstantial skill at understanding and caring for animals. She has owned at least two pets, a blue-tongued skink named Sally Ride and a dog named Earhart. The latter was adopted from a local animal shelter where Dearing volunteered during high school, where she helped to rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome many local animals. She was said to be highly skilled at winning the animals’ trust, including some feral dogs and some which had been taken from abusive backgrounds. Dearing may have had another dog later in life, as in 2018 her work desk had a flipbook including photographs of a golden retriever. She learned to care for wild animals as well; while her sister Karen was in college, she rehabilitated an injured fox with help from wildlife authorities.

Dearing’s skill with animals was implemented during the Bright Minds program, in which she worked extensively with Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, and unhatched Pteranodon. Her knowledge of contemporary animal behavior and physiology came into play here, though these animals presented a challenge to even seasoned biologists due to the fact that they did not exist a mere eighteen years before 2004. Neopaleontology as a science was extremely new (the name had not even been coined yet) and little was known about the animals’ behavior or psychology. Dearing excelled at learning what scientists had already discovered and making novel conclusions based on this, and worked with InGen employees and interns to improve dinosaur welfare. Notably, she and several of her fellow interns during Bright Minds were able to develop a positive-reinforcement corrective behavioral program for a juvenile Brachiosaurus, which greatly improved the animal’s wellbeing and enabled her to be safely integrated into the park.

She lost some of her skills between 2004 and 2015, when her career in administration took her farther away from the animals. She held the position of Senior Assets Manager, and gradually came to refer to the dinosaurs as “assets” as was common in the administrative management division. As of 2015, she did not believe that there was a way to visually discern animals’ emotional wellbeing. However, she was still considered skilled at making decisions to better the animals’ welfare. During the 2015 incident, the deaths of several animals in the park caused her to reconsider her position and her skills began to return. At one point during the incident, she attempted to comfort an Apatosaurus that had sustained fatal wounds, calling back on skills she had learned during her youth to alleviate the animal’s fear during its last moments. Since then, she has regained her skill at understanding and empathizing with animals, though she is known to prioritize human safety over animal welfare in some cases. She is more of an advocate than an animal handler by any measure; although she cares deeply about animal life and has aided wild animals from time to time, she is more suited to keeping pets than she is to treating wildlife.

Skill with children

For most of her adult life, having children was never a goal for Dearing (much to the dismay of her more traditional family members). While she enjoyed seeing children express similar interests to her, she was not a naturally adept teacher, and as her job at Jurassic World kept her almost exclusively among adults she was ill-accustomed to interacting with children or teenagers. She was noticeably awkward around minors, either talking to them as though they were adults or being unintentionally condescending. This even extended to her family members, such as her nephews Zach and Gray Mitchell.

After the incident that closed Jurassic World, Dearing spent time re-learning the kind of person she had been before her career overtook her, which meant reconnecting with her youth. She spent much time thinking about how her childhood experiences had shaped her, and during her time advocating with the Dinosaur Protection Group, she sought to get children involved with political activism. This time, she managed to describe political issues in an age-appropriate way and learned to be a positive and effective role model. This newly-developed skill proved invaluable during the incident at Lockwood Manor in 2018, when she encountered the orphaned Maisie Lockwood and chose to protect her from threats both human and otherwise. Upon learning that Maisie was an illegal clone, Dearing took it upon herself to keep her from the law; it was uncertain what Maisie’s legal fate would be if found, and Dearing believed she could give the young girl a better chance at something resembling a normal life. Although raising a growing child under such strange circumstances was both confusing and exhausting, Dearing has continued to perform to the best of her ability. Her strength at empathizing and resolving conflict have continued to develop as Maisie has grown more mature.

Business

While her main interests lay in politics and animal welfare, Dearing’s career gave her eleven years of experience working for and eventually running a multibillion-dollar commercial enterprise. Jurassic World saw around twenty thousand visitors on an average day, with even more coming during the summer and winter holidays. By 2015, Dearing was able to efficiently manage this traffic and maintain high ratings among the guests. She is exceptionally skilled at management, having consulted in process management and project implementation services since early in her career and headed dozens of staff members at all levels of the corporate structure. Dearing’s biggest challenge in business management was the 2015 incident at Jurassic World, though her failures during this event were largely due to corruption within her company that she was unaware of. Once the nature of the threat was actually known, she revised her strategy and took a more aggressive approach in dealing with the events.

Dearing also has some experience running nonprofits. She founded the Dinosaur Protection Group, a de-extinct animal rights lobbying organization, and managed it from 2017 onward. While it did not succeed in its lobbying goals due to general anti-dinosaur sentiment and scientific ignorance in the U.S. government, it did maintain a very large amount of public support in at least two countries. Events in 2018 started the organization down a path to its eventual disbanding in 2022 following years of government investigations, but she has retained the skills she picked up during the years it was active.

Scientific knowledge and problem-solving

Having at least one year of college education and eleven years of experience working at a theme park which ran on genetic engineering, Dearing has picked up a fair amount of scientific knowledge despite her career focus being law and business. She is known to have struggled with molecular biology, but worked closely with famous geneticist Dr. Henry Wu from the summer of 2004 until the winter of 2015 and learned much about genetics from him. She does not have expertise in one particular area of science, but has more than a layman’s understanding of astronomy, animal psychology and behavior, biochemistry, ecology, embryology, and volcanology. The latter is a result of her studying the effects of the stratovolcano Mount Sibo on the artificial ecosystem of Isla Nublar during 2017 and 2018. Her main scientific interests throughout her youth were paleontology, about which her knowledge was particularly extensive and up-to-date, as well as astronomy and animal behavior. She was an avid reader of the Journal of Avocational Paleontology as of 2004.

She has a good understanding of scientific methodology. This, and her knowledge of biochemistry, were utilized during the Bright Minds internship to study and discern the cause of a health issue affecting dinosaurs on Isla Nublar. She built off of the studies of a previous intern to identify the cause, piecing together scientific evidence which Jurassic World’s employees had overlooked. Dearing’s skill at problem-solving aided her in securing her position at Jurassic World in 2004 and rising through the company ranks until, by 2015, she was essentially second-in-command to Simon Masrani himself in terms of the park.

After the 2015 incident, she was able to use her knowledge of animal behavior and ecology to provide scientific arguments in favor of the Dinosaur Protection Group’s aims.

Investigative skills

Her experiences during the Bright Minds program demonstrate that Dearing has some limited sleuthing ability. She exercises rigorous scientific testing and attempts to come prepared for whatever situation she anticipates, skills which have also helped her to some degree in her business career later in life. Her investigation into the Izzy James situation was generally a better example than her investigation into the dinosaurs’ infections, since the latter had already been solved by James and Dearing simply rediscovered James’s conclusion. During the James investigation, she was able to use basic blackmailing techniques to obtain useful information from a source, but also tipped off a non-complying source which nearly ended her investigation altogether. She correctly deduced that a coverup had occurred on the island, but did not determine the nature of said coverup herself. If she has further investigated that incident since 2004, she has not spoken publicly about her findings.

She also attempted to deduce the identity of a corporate spy on the island in 2004, but fell for a red herring due to the incriminating evidence not being tied to a specific person.

Driving

Dearing did not own a car until later in life, though she did have her first valid U.S. driver’s license sometime before 2004 (at which point she was nineteen, but did not own a car yet). During the Bright Minds program, she demonstrated skill at driving jeeps and the then-experimental gyrospheres.

By December 2015, she owned a 2015 Mercedes Benz GLE450 AMG Coupé, meaning she possessed a valid U.S. driver’s license at that time. She was also capable of driving a 2014 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 4000, which Jurassic World used as Mobile Veterinary Units. After the 2015 incident, she either left her car on the island or sold it, as she drove a 2014 Ford Fiesta in 2018. During the Isla Nublar incident that year, she also was able to drive a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5020, likely thanks to her experience driving MVUs. While it was not her primary vehicle and was instead rented by the renegade DPG remnant in 2022, she also took the wheel of a 1995 Ford Econoline during an escape from a vigilante mission.

During the 2015 and 2018 incidents, Dearing demonstrated very high proficiency at driving when under severe duress. She has driven vehicles while under assault by predatory animals, under enemy gunfire, and while surviving natural disasters, and is able to maintain superior control over her vehicles even when in extreme conditions.

Weapons skill

While Dearing does not commonly use weapons, she was able to utilize a modified, nonlethal SIG SG 552 during the Lockwood Manor incident to confront the Indoraptor. The weapon used a laser sight and did not contain any ammunition, being designed to emit a high-pitched noise to command the animal instead. During the Bright Minds program at the age of nineteen, she utilized stun guns and shock prods against a Velociraptor. She has used a semi-automatic multi-dart tranquilizer rifle custom made by InGen’s Asset Containment Unit to shoot an escaped Dimorphodon, as well as beating the animal with the rifle’s stock. Dearing learned how to handle firearms from her father, who was a gun owner and practiced responsible hunting; he taught Dearing using a traditional hunting rifle during her childhood.

During the 2022 incident while she tracked Maisie Lockwood’s kidnappers, she also used a more conventional animal taser in hand-to-hand combat, and later used construction supplies as improvised weapons against an Atrociraptor.

Phlebotomy

Dearing has some basic phlebotomy skill due to volunteering with the American Red Cross. She has also helped to draw blood from a de-extinct animal, particularly the external jugular vein of a Tyrannosaurus rex, in order to perform a xenotransfusion with a Velociraptor.

Physical ability

In 2003, Dearing took a weightlifting course at college and stated that she enjoyed this form of exercise. She maintained good physical shape during her youth.

Between 2005 and 2015, Dearing’s job was not particularly physically demanding, but she did maintain an athletic ability. She performed fieldwork during the Bright Minds internship and likely some of her early employment at Jurassic World, including carrying heavy loads and spending hours on her feet. Even when acting in a business-professional environment, Dearing maintained a fieldwork-ready form. She typically wore high heels at all times during her business career and developed an excellent sense of balance because of this; she was able to maintain balance in this footwear even on uneven ground or while running for short distances.

She remains in good shape now because of her years of experience in animal rights activism. The government’s decision to let the de-extinct creatures suffer and die out led Dearing to realize that she could not achieve her goals by calling in to her local politicians, and instead, she took to the field once more. Between 2018 and 2022, she spent much of her time performing raids on facilities suspected of animal exploitation, often running from danger after collecting evidence. Stealth and strength were both her friends on these missions. At the same time, she was living off the grid in a remote cabin, and this also meant some amount of physically demanding work. These skills came in handy during the 2022 incident, which saw her running for her life, chasing kidnappers, fighting human and animal foes, trekking through miles of uninhabited forest, and performing numerous other extreme physical feats all in the span of roughly twenty-four hours. Needless to say, this pushed her to the very limits of what she could endure and still survive.

Dance

At the age of five, Dearing practiced tap dance. She appears to have ceased any practice of dance after making an unrecoverable mistake during a tap dance recital. As of her 2018 memoirs, she claims that she does not dance.

Art

Dearing is not artistically-minded, having more of an analytical personality and struggling with ideas like symbolism and artistic liberty. This created tension between herself and her sister and mother, both of whom are much more artistically inclined than she is. However, she has practiced a limited amount of scientific illustration, such as creating a detailed Solar System diagram on her bedroom ceiling in high school. In more recent years, she has helped to design logos, and has also taken up stitching and embroidery; she has added numerous patches to her daughter Maisie’s jacket.

Language skills

While Dearing is highly skilled at public speaking and communication, she is noted to struggle with the more artistic aspects of language. Poetry was her most challenging subject in college, and she credits her friends with being able to pass the class at all. She is not known to speak any languages other than English, despite the international scope of her career. Her memoirs, The Evolution of Claire, are written at the young-adult level despite being published in her early thirties (whether or not the book was actually published in-universe).

By her own admission in 2004, Dearing has a terrible singing voice.

Gardening and cooking

Dearing is unskilled at gardening, describing herself as having “the opposite of a green thumb.” She does, however, have some experience in digging plots and bagging fertilizer. Her cooking skills are a little better, though raising a child has been a major driving force in her learning how to prepare more types of meals. Owen Grady is the more skilled cook of the family, but during Dearing’s years in hiding he was the only one of the two of them who could have a job, so she started learning more about food preparation while Grady did not have the time.

Views
Political views

Dearing espouses generally liberal political views, though they are still fairly moderate by non-American international standards. She has maintained a firm stance on animal rights since a young age, strongly opposing animal cruelty of any kind and intending to facilitate the creation of new laws protecting animal welfare. Her stance on animal rights faltered sometime during her tenure as Senior Assets Manager at Jurassic World, a position that required her to simplify the animals in her care due to the sheer number of them she managed. Her devotion to animal rights was rekindled due to the 2015 Isla Nublar incident; de-extinct animal rights in particular became her main talking point and was the impetus for her founding the Dinosaur Protection Group. Since 2015, she has lobbied for de-extinct animals to be granted the same rights as naturally-extant endangered species.

She also has a firm stance on women’s rights, though this has become a secondary issue to Dearing as she currently focuses primarily on ecological welfare and bioethics. Dearing has supported the idea of women in STEM fields since her young adulthood, as well as women in positions of leadership. Dearing supported the women’s shelter Ivy Rose House as of 2004, buying Ivy Rose Cosmetics products to financially support the shelter. She strongly endorses diversity in the workplace, and practiced this in her own nonprofit organization by hiring employees of varying racial backgrounds, sexualities, and other attributes. In all of her political beliefs, Dearing is not beyond confronting any percieved injustice or people who perpetuate it.

On genetic engineering

Like many people, Dearing’s stance on genetic engineering is variable and conditional. Since her childhood she has endorsed de-extinction, considering it to be one of the modern day’s most significant scientific achievements. She supports the recreation of extinct forms of life for both their scientific and intrinsic value, and firmly disagrees with the idea that de-extinct animals should be considered the property of their creators. Her current stance is at odds with her beliefs from her time as Jurassic World’s Senior Assets Manager, during which time she considered de-extinct life to be InGen property and existed solely for research and entertainment purposes.

However, other aspects of genetic engineering are not endorsed by Dearing. While she was one of the authorities who signed off on the creation of the Indominus rex, her commentary and mannerisms regarding the result suggest that she had reservations about the artificial creation of species. By 2018, she expressed no empathy toward the Indoraptor and appears to have viewed it as an unnatural creature with no place in the modern world. De-extinct animals belonging to natural genera are universally viewed by Dearing as deserving of quality life, even though they were created by human intervention and their natural ecology died out milllions of years ago. Hybrids belonging to artificial genera are seldom, if ever, considered worthy of life by Dearing, who has directly contributed to efforts to kill two different hybrid animals. However, these animals were deliberately designed to act as living weapons; Dearing’s opinions on less violent hybrid species would likely be more positive.

Dearing, as of 2015, believed that the development of neopaleontology was largely beneficial to society and dismissed traditional paleontology as an outdated science. However, as of 2018, she did acknowledge the contributions of traditional paleontologists such as Dr. Alan Grant and Billy Brennan to the overall understanding of prehistoric and de-extinct life.

On economics and business

Though she was a political science major in college, Dearing’s career ultimately took her into the capitalist world of business. Her passion was originally animal welfare; the reason she had gone into political science was due to an early realization that only through the possession of wealth could a person make real change in a capitalist society. As of such, she sought the endorsement of Simon Masrani in the hopes that he would support her political career in the future. Dearing has long believed that capitalism can be used to solve many global issues such as animal welfare by encouraging the wealthy to contribute their resources, a view which some people consider naive. After the incidents of 2018 she has come to doubt the trustworthiness of the wealthy somewhat, although in general, she still believes that the most powerful members of society are no more or less moral than the average person.

Her views aligned with those of Simon Masrani, who wanted to use his wealth to encourage people to appreciate and preserve nature. Dearing came to agree with his stance on business and the methods he used, even though when she first began at Jurassic World as an intern she took issue with the way he handled incidents in the park. The long-term survival of Jurassic World briefly overtook human and animal welfare in Dearing’s priorities, though the 2015 incident reset her views to the way they had been before she was Senior Assets Manager. From that point onward, she refocused on animal welfare in particular, wanting to atone for the damage she failed to prevent at Jurassic World. With the Dinosaur Protection Group, she engaged with political figures through lobbying, rather than becoming directly involved as a Senator like she had planned in her youth. She also encouraged crowdfunding of the proposed rescue operation, relying on the support of common people. Despite this more left-leaning methodology, she was still quick to take the help of Benjamin Lockwood and his immense fortune, so Dearing still held out hope that the wealthy would ultimately be kindhearted and generous when push came to shove. This left her vulnerable to the machinations of Eli Mills, though Lockwood himself actually was acting altruistically. Even when dealing with known criminals such as Soyona Santos, she has shown an unwavering assumption that people are more willing to talk through their problems than resort to fighting, an assumption that can be disastrous when proven wrong.

On nature

Dearing’s love for animals has shaped her interventionist view of nature. In contrast to some respected scientists such as Dr. Ian Malcolm, who opposed the Dinosaur Protection Group in 2018, Dearing believes that humans should intervene to improve conditions in the natural world rather than simply reduce their impact and leave nature to itself. Much of this view was shaped by her experience in Jurassic World, an environment where nature appeared to be largely under human control. In the park, the illusion of control led to a state of complacency that ended with great damage being done to the artificial ecosystem on the island. Once the island was abandoned, nature took hold, but this caused the dinosaurs to begin to die out first due to intense competition for resources and then due to changing natural conditions. While the extinction of the dinosaurs would have been a completely natural event, Dearing believed that humans had an obligation to protect the dinosaurs from extinction.

Dearing firmly opposes animal cruelty. As of 2004, she made an effort to use only vegan cosmetics, such as those produced by Ivy Rose. However, in terms of diet, she is not a vegan or even vegetarian, enjoying meats such as breakfast sausage and turkey. She vehemently opposes trophy hunting, but supports the practice of responsible and sustainable subsistence hunting. She also opposes inhumane farming practices; this has overlapped with her focus on de-extinct animal rights as these creatures have entered the black market and are farmed for their meat, hides, bones, and other products.

For the most part, Dearing’s interventionist environmentalistm focuses on de-extinct animals, which is due to her feelings of guilt about Jurassic World. She appears to support the protection of naturally-extant animals from human-caused ecological damage, but does not seem to have objections to extinctions of modern life due to natural disasters (for example, the Nublar tufted deer is most likely extinct due to the eruption of Mount Sibo, but the DPG has not brought up this fact at any point). These issues may simply be escaping her notice as she focuses on her primary goal. In a non-canon advertisement, she endorses Wild Aid, particularly advocating for the protection of the rhinoceros.

On gender roles and family

Family relationships among the Dearings have not always been stable. While her sister Karen stayed close to home for many years, Claire Dearing moved away at the first opportunity and has never shared her sister’s focus on having children. During her eleven years on Isla Nublar (from age nineteen to age thirty), she did express guilt at not seeing her family more often, but chose to focus on her work. Much of this was due to the pressures put on her as a woman in a STEM-oriented environment; even today, women are typically expected to not take positions of power or perform intellectual work. Dearing was often under immense stress to meet and exceed the expectations of skeptics, and she believed that having children would be more than she could handle. Karen is known to have tried to pressure her sister into having children anyway.

Although Dearing did not intend to have children, she was certainly not above romantic relationships. However, she would not stay in relationships where control was taken away from her. Currently, she is known to have had at least three romantic interests; two out of those three were rejected (more than once, in the case of Owen Grady) due to Dearing’s sense of control being threatened. Her romantic interests may not even realize that they are infringing on her comfort zone simply due to societal traditions; in these cases, such as with Grady, she will typically give them second chances. If a romantic interest is clearly attempting to remove her sense of independence on purpose, Dearing is unafraid to push them away.

Dearing’s choice to not have children does not mean she does not like children. She cares deeply about her younger relatives, such as her nephews Zach and Gray Mitchell, and as leader of the DPG she strove to get children involved in  activism. Dearing’s own childhood experiences were instrumental in shaping her current views, so she understands very well the importance of children in the politics of the future and encourages them to make their voices heard. From mid-2018 onward, she has taken up caring for Maisie Lockwood, whom she met when the latter was nine years old and had recently lost her only family. She now considers herself Maisie’s adoptive mother. Although she has struggled with this (before 2022, Maisie did not even legally exist, and so her unofficial adoption was legally kidnapping), Dearing’s efforts are genuinely in earnest. During her exile between 2018 and 2022, she was unable to work due to being a wanted criminal, and so she spent much of her time around the home and only left for vigilante missions. Because of this, she did learn a number of domestic roles such as cooking, which previously had not been of interest to her; however, she did this out of practicality rather than any sort of embracing of traditional gender roles. When both she and Grady were home at the same time, Grady tended to be the family cook since his skill in the kitchen was considered the best among all of them.

Although Dearing herself strives to push boundaries and challenge gender stereotypes, she is not immune to them, nor does she dislike them when applied to other people. She is routinely attracted to traditionally masculine men, which frequently comes in conflict with her desire for independence and control in a relationship. Dearing is herself guilty of pushing gender stereotypes on men, for example threatening her coworker Lowery Cruthers’s masculinity by telling him to “be a man and do something for once in [his] life” as a way of motivating him. This, however, appears to mostly come out when she is under stress, and since outbursts like these have become less frequent, it seems to be something she is actively working on improving.

Fears

At the age of nineteen, Dearing was acrophobic, which resulted in her experiencing great discomfort while flying. She could not fly in an airplane with the window open. However, fourteen years later at the age of thirty-three, she had overcome this discomfort and could watch out the window of an airplane in flight without difficulty. It is unknown if she still suffers acrophobia otherwise. She also has a strong dislike of needles, but this is an aversion rather than a phobia. The 2015 incident left her with trauma that still affects her to this day, but she does not have a fear of dinosaurs.

Dietary preferences

While Dearing supports animal rights, she is not a vegan or vegetarian. As of 2004, her favorite breakfast foods included pancakes, sausage, and orange juice. She was a heavy coffee drinker and did not prefer tea. As of 2015, she was on a diet and would not drink alcohol, but has gone off of this diet as of 2018 and is willing to drink alcohol again. Her drink of choice appears to be Beck’s domestic pilsner.

As of 2004, one of her favored meals was flatbread pizza with extra cheese and sauce. She also enjoyed turkey-and-swiss sandwiches and salads. Although she was never an especially skilled cook, she has learned more culinary skills during her time in exile between 2018 and 2022.

Relationships
Family

Claire Dearing’s first friends were her family, and she has tried to keep in touch with them into her adulthood despite moving far away. She was born on the East Coast, where her parents lived for the rest of their lives. Her father was a carpenter, mechanic, beekeeper, hunter, and agriculturalist; he wanted Dearing to remain close to home, but also supported her endeavors in any way he could. Despite having grown up in a less feminist age, Dearing’s father firmly believed that she could be whatever she worked toward and taught her not to let society pressure her into a role she did not want.

Dearing’s mother was more artistic than her father, and as Dearing had a great interest in science but not art, they had less in common. Her mother tended to worry, and was much more vocal about wanting to keep Dearing close to home. Ultimately, when Dearing had the opportunity to move away, her mother respected her decision, but was clear about her discomfort with her youngest child leaving. Dearing felt guilt about leaving her mother behind, as they did share a genuine familial love for each other. In 2004, the Dearing parents experienced marital difficulties, and Dearing partially blamed herself for not helping them more.

Her sister Karen was more like their mother than Claire herself was, so they had a similar relationship. Dearing often likened her sister to her mother, especially as her sister became an adult and had a family of her own. Karen married into the Mitchell family, having her first child before Dearing went to college and a second child after the Bright Minds program. Dearing cared about her nephews, but when her career at Jurassic World began, she could only see them occasionally. The longest she went without visiting was from 2008 until 2015. At the end of 2015, Dearing agreed to have her nephews visit Jurassic World to delay their discovery of the fact that Karen and her husband were divorcing. She planned to spend time with them, but could not do so on the day they arrived due to ongoing developments with the park. Later on that day, an emergency situation developed on the island and Dearing took it upon herself to protect her nephews from danger and ensure that they safely returned to their parents. For the first time in perhaps her entire life, she neglected her professional duties to protect her family members. After the incident, which caused her to lose her job, the Mitchells helped her get back on her feet.

Dearing’s relationship with her grandparents appears to have been positive. However, when her maternal grandmother died prior to 2004, only Dearing’s mother provided palliative care, which Dearing later experienced guilt about.

In her childhood, Dearing had two pets. Her first pet was a female blue-tongued skink she named Sally Ride after a famous astronaut, who she got when she was eight years old. When she was in high school, she helped to rescue a feral female dog and win her trust, later adopting her out of the local animal shelter where she volunteered and naming the dog Earhart. This dog was a mutt with some Labrador and Rottweiler heritage. By all accounts, Dearing was an exellent pet parent and had a loving relationship with her pets.

Since 2018, Dearing has formed a family of her own, partnering with Owen Grady to unofficially adopt (and later, presumably, officially adopt) Maisie Lockwood, who was a preteen when Dearing met her. They currently live in the northern Sierra Nevada range of rural California.

Fellow college students and professors

In grade school, Dearing had fairly few friends, but in college was able to connect with people who had similar views and interests to herself. Her freshman-year roommate, Regina, was initially shocked that Dearing was keeping crickets in their shared minifridge, but learned that these were food for Dearing’s pet skink. Dearing and Regina became close friends, despite Regina’s interest in literature and poetry while Dearing struggled in these subjects. Many of Dearing’s other friends were interested in literature as well.

She had one brief romantic interest in her freshman year of college, a young man named Jackson who her friends set her up with. According to Dearing, they went on a few dates, but their relationship quickly went south as Jackson would make snide commentary about Dearing’s choice of decorations and appeared to be uneasy about her lizard. Eventually Dearing broke off their relationship due to his constant negging, which resulted in him coming to her dorm room to give an angry outburst. Regina made a show of solidarity with Dearing, and Jackson began to avoid her as he realized he could not assert dominance. Dearing eventually learned that he had not cared for her beyond simple sexual attraction, so she did not consider this a loss.

Dearing also grew close to some of her professors during college. Professor Gillian, her Poetry 101 professor, taught her most challenging course; she was particularly close with Professor Broadhurst, who offered to be her mentor despite Dearing only being a freshman. It was Professor Broadhurst who first saw Dearing’s potential and recommended the Bright Minds internship to her, which would result in Dearing starting her career at Jurassic World.

Simon Masrani

In the spring of 2004, Simon Masrani opened a second (though first on official records) internship program for Jurassic World called Bright Minds. Twelve college students, mostly first years from the United States, were selected based on their academic performance and personal essays. Masrani was particularly interested by Dearing’s essay, which focused on her long-terms plans for the future and how she hoped to make a difference by becoming a U.S. senator. When Dearing arrived to Isla Nublar in August of that year, he personally spoke to her about her ambition and was impressed as she surpassed his expectations. Masrani continued to support her throughout the program.

When an incident in September resulted in the death of one of the interns, Masrani personally comforted the traumatized Dearing and relied on her to get the guilty party (Dearing’s friends Tanya and Eric Skye) to speak. Dearing used leverage from information she had learned about the park’s shady past to persuade Masrani to negate some of the retribution for the Skye twins and also fund an expensive medical trial, from which their younger sibling was benefiting, to completion. Masrani was impressed that the favors she asked were to help a sick child and her desperate siblings, asking nothing for herself. Masrani offered Dearing a job at Jurassic World when the internship concluded, which she accepted.

Masrani and Dearing worked closely over the next eleven years, with his trust in Dearing helping her ascend the ranks at Jurassic World. Eventually, she became Senior Assets Manager and Operations Manager at the park, being among the top brass at the park and within Masrani Global. She was present for many executive decisions about the park’s future, including authorizing the creation of the Indominus rex which Masrani and Henry Wu had proposed. Between 2012 and 2015, Masrani was too busy to visit Isla Nublar, so during that time Dearing managed almost all aspects of the park without his help.

On December 22, 2015, Masrani was able to visit Jurassic World and see the nearly-mature Indominus alongside Dearing. He and she disagreed on some aspects of animal welfare; Dearing’s administrative position made it necessary for her to view the animals as “numbers on a spreadsheet” as there were so many of them, but she also no longer believed that there was an accurate means to gauge their emotional state. Masrani believed that an animal’s emotion could be discerned through body language such as expressions in its eyes. Despite their differences, Masrani still considered Dearing a highly capable and valuable employee who he entirely trusted, even if he wished she would take time to relax and care for herself. He was responsible for bringing her and animal behaviorist Owen Grady, with whom she had previously had a romantic relationship, together while preparing the park for the Indominus. It is unclear if he was aware of Dearing and Grady’s history, as Grady was hired in 2012 shortly before Masrani left Isla Nublar for three years.

Masrani did not blame Dearing for the Indominus escape, recognizing that the incident was the fault of Jurassic World’s management as a whole and that Henry Wu deserved most of the blame for keeping secrets from administration. Rather than bicker about assigning blame, Masrani endeavored to solve the problem and worked with Dearing to recapture the animal. When efforts failed, he took to the field himself, inadvertently saving Dearing by drawing the animal away from her and Grady after it ambushed them. Using his helicopter JW001, he pursued it across the island while Dearing and Grady followed; this culminated in an incident at the Jurassic World Aviary in which JW001 crashed. Dearing and Grady were present when this occurred, but were helpless to stop the disaster from unfolding. Simon Masrani died in the helicopter crash.

Dearing honored Masrani’s memory on the Dinosaur Protection Group website, remembering him as a champion of animal rights whose philosophy was sadly not carried on by his successors at Masrani Global Corporation.

Justin Hendricks

When she was accepted into the Bright Minds internship program, the first of her fellow interns that Dearing met was a business student from Portland, Maine named Justin Hendricks. He and Dearing took the same direct flight to Costa Rica from the Northeastern United States. Upon realizing he was sitting next to her, Hendricks immediately made it clear that he was not going to harass her, which the then-nineteen Dearing found both attractive and amusing. On the flight, they bonded over shared discomfort with flying and discussed paleontology and ethics, becoming romantically drawn to each other before the plane had even lifted off.

Throughout the internship program, Hendricks and Dearing chose to work closely together on numerous projects due to their mutual attraction. Hendricks frequently defended her against one particular mysogynistic intern. They almost kissed on a few occasions, but Hendricks would always wait for Dearing to initiate because he believed this was more respectful than attempting to initiate himself. They did actually kiss on one occasion, but never officially claimed that they were in a relationship. Hendricks was the only person on the island who Dearing trusted completely, and thus was the first person she ever told about discovering Izzy James’s journal and the suspicious events which had plagued the island earlier that year. Together, they discovered the true source of an ailment which affected some of the dinosaurs in the valley, and uncovered evidence of corporate espionage occurring within Bright Minds.

Hendricks was Dearing’s choice to attempt to stop the aforementioned espionage during a night in September after a female Velociraptor was delivered to the island. Unfortunately, while trying to find and warn park administration, they were caught up in an accidental release of the animal by corporate spies Tanya and Eric Skye; in the ensuing chaos, Hendricks sacrificed himself to save Dearing’s life. While Dearing also put herself in mortal danger attempting to save him in turn, she was too late to help, and he was severely mauled and bled to death. Dearing was the last person to see him alive, and was present when he died. His memory has stuck strongly with her, and he still sets many of her standards for romantic relationships.

Skye family

When they arrived to Costa Rica, the second and third Bright Minds interns who Dearing met were twins, botanist Tanya Skye and video documentarian Eric Skye. Dearing took an immediate liking to Tanya because of her openly feminist beliefs (more explicit than Dearing’s own). Tanya became Dearing’s roommate during the program. The two became friends, and Dearing worked frequently with her and occasionally her brother. Projects on which they cooperated included fieldwork with a juvenile Triceratops, fertilization at the greenhouses, behavioral therapy with a juvenile Brachiosaurus, and top-secret monitoring of a new breed of Pteranodon for Dr. Henry Wu. Tanya was the first to recognize the unspoken romantic attraction between Dearing and business intern Justin Hendricks, and often backed up Dearing during disagreements or conflict with other interns or Jurassic World staff.

Dearing also became acquainted via videochat with the Skye twins’ younger sister, eight-year-old Victory Skye, who suffered from a congenital cardiovascular condition that threatened her life. Victory was a participant in an expensive experimental medical trial carried out by Mosby Health. Dearing took a liking to Victory during the occasion that they met, likening her name to a superhero and her appearance to a pixie. She sympathized with her condition upon learning that she was chronically ill.

Dearing suspected their fellow intern Wyatt of being a corporate spy because of his history of obtaining information through illicit means as well as his generally unlikable personality. This caused her to miss the signs that the Skye twins were corporate spies, having been bribed by Mosby Health to steal trade secrets from InGen in return for Victory getting free healthcare including participation in her medical trial. When Dearing and Hendricks arrived to the quarantine paddock intending to alert Simon Masrani to the espionage they believed was happening, they instead found the Skye twins attempting to steal data from the paddock’s control system. Eric, the hacker, reacted in surprise and accidentally cut a wire which triggered the paddock’s gates to open as per the emergency power loss protocol. The emergency exit hatch also opened; when the paddock was finished, this would have led to a secondary paddock area, but at this point it only led to the jungle outside. A female Velociraptor was released from the holding pen; Dearing, Hendricks and the twins fled into the holding pen when the animal prevented their escape via the hatch. Dearing activated an emergency button which closed the holding pen gates and sent an emergency alert, but the animal managed to get inside before the gates shut. The Skye twins were able to escape the paddock with Dearing’s help, but the incident led to Hendricks being mauled to death and Dearing coming close to the same fate before ACU arrived.

The Skye twins were held by InGen Security after being apprehended. Tanya refused to speak to the head of ACU before she had a chance to speak to Dearing, and Eric followed suit. Dearing agreed to talk to her. Tanya explained her motives, and while Dearing sympathized with her plight, she did not openly forgive her for causing Hendricks’s death. After they spoke, Tanya confessed to ACU.

While Dearing did not speak with members of the Skye family after this, she did act on their behalf one more time. Simon Masrani intended to turn them over to the authorities, which would cause an FDA investigation of the Mosby Health trials and the program’s termination. Dearing blackmailed Simon Masrani, requesting that their crime not be made known and that the health trial be funded to completion (as well as Victory Skye getting a complete education funded by money from Masrani Global Corporation). Masrani, surprised that Dearing would use her leverage to help Victory rather than herself, accepted her terms and effectively nullified the Skye twins’ crimes as well as ensuring Victory and the other children in the trial would get the healthcare they desperately needed.

Other Bright Minds interns

Dearing was friends with several of the other Bright Minds interns, particularly marine biology student Amanda and future West Point cadet Veronica “Ronnie” Torres. These two young women helped Dearing and Tanya Skye with the behavioral modification project for Pearl the juvenile Brachiosaurus. Dearing also liked veterinary student Art, her only male friend on the island aside from her love interest Justin Hendricks, though she was not as close with Art as she was with her female friends.

Her only real enemy on the island was Harvard student Wyatt, who was in Bright Minds chiefly because his father (a Masrani Global board member) pulled strings in his favor. Wyatt had highly disparaging opinions about women but lacked any particular skills or experience to make him otherwise useful or even likable. Somehow, perhaps due to his unfounded self-confidence, Dearing’s friend Amanda was briefly attracted to him; Dearing and her friends caused Wyatt to embarass himself in front of her and she eventually lost interest. Wyatt frequently irritated Dearing on purpose, attempting to make her appear unqualified for the internship, but largely failed at this and actually ended up revealing his own incompetence instead. Nonetheless, Dearing had to persist at ignoring his taunts during the months of the internship. He did help her on one occasion, though it was not by choice; he knew about the original internship program which ran from January to March and ended with the death of Izzy James, and Dearing blackmailed him into giving her the names of the interns in that program using a recorded confession of his breaking and entering into his father’s private office to obtain said information.

Wyatt was, most likely due to his father’s connections, selected for a covert monitoring project by Dr. Henry Wu involving the eggs of an entirely new Pteranodon breed. He joined Dearing and Tanya Skye in this project, though he was demonstrably less motivated and refused to participate in the work. Dearing suspected that Wyatt was a corporate spy, though it turned out that he was actually just incompetent.

Isobel “Izzy” James

A freshman college student from Boston, Massachusetts, Izzy James was an intern in a classified program that preceeded Bright Minds. She stayed in the same room at the Isla Nublar Hilton that Claire Dearing would stay in several months later, and kept a journal of her experiences on the island. During her time there, she investigated an unidentified bronchial affliction that affected some of the dinosaurs in the central valley, but was herself under investigation by an unknown party. During a storm on March 3, she stayed behind when the island was evacuated to save one of the animals from smoke inhalation, but the boat left without her when conditions worsened. James died, supposedly, in a jeep crash on the road to Ferry Landing. As a result, she and Dearing never met.

However, her journal was left hidden inside the frame of one of the beds in her hotel room, and Dearing discovered it during the Bright Minds program. Learning about the infection and earlier events on the island, Dearing built upon James’s work to find the source of the disease and discover the identity of the journal’s author. She eventually discovered who Izzy James was and the fact that her obituary lied about the cause and location of her death. She also used James’s research to discern that the disease was caused by mutant cyanobacteria in one of the valley’s water sources, finally relaying this information to Jurassic World staff in September. She learned from Simon Masrani that James died in a vehicular accident after rescuing a dinosaur during a fire caused by the severe storm, but Dearing retained suspicions that foul play may have been involved. Discerning whether the story given by Masrani was a secondary cover-up was one of the factors that motivated Dearing to accept the job at Jurassic World, though it is currently unknown whether she verified Masrani’s explanation or found evidence to the contrary.

Benjamin Lockwood and staff members

In 2010 or 2011, Dearing facilitated a partnership between Jurassic World and the Lockwood Foundation, which was created by the deceased Dr. John Hammond‘s former business partner Sir Benjamin Lockwood. Though the men had parted due to moral disagreements over bioethics, Lockwood’s memory of Hammond softened after the latter’s death in 1997 and he sought to make amends. Dearing successfully negotiated the partnership between Jurassic World and the Lockwood Foundation, and also gained a friend in Lockwood himself. During the negotiations, she became acquainted with Lockwood’s estate manager Eli Mills. Although she and Mills did not stay in contact afterward, they remembered their meeting fondly. Their interactions upon meeting again in 2018 have been interpreted as having minor romantic undertones. Notably, Mills bore a passing resemblance to Justin Hendricks, Dearing’s first adult relationship; they also had similar professions, since Hendricks had been a business student and Mills was a financier.

Jurassic World closed in late 2015, but not before Dearing inadvertently helped Mills with his interests in the bioengineering sector. She authorized the creation of the Indominus rex by InGen’s Dr. Henry Wu in 2012, shortly after the Lockwood partnership was established; Mills bankrolled this endeavor using Lockwood Foundation money without Dearing’s knowledge. The purpose of this was military bioengineering; Mills partnered with InGen Security head Vic Hoskins to create the perfect military animal with intent to sell it to the U.S. Armed Forces or other such organizations. Mills credited Dearing in part with his success on the later Indoraptor project, claiming that had she not authorized the creation of the Indominus, it never would have succeeded.

Lockwood continued to follow Dearing’s work after the Jurassic World incident, noting a similarity between her Dinosaur Protection Group (founded in 2017) and John Hammond’s dying wishes regarding dinosaur rights. When the United States Senate announced in 2018 that they would not authorize action to protect Isla Nublar’s dinosaurs, Lockwood immediately had his secretary call Dearing and bring her to his estate to discuss an alternate plan. He had her chauffered north; she was greeted by his in-home caregiver Iris Carroll as well as Eli Mills. Lockwood and Mills explained the illegal rescue operation to her, and she agreed to help.

On Isla Nublar, they were joined by Mills’s lead hunter Ken Wheatley and his team of mercenaries. Despite Wheatley’s mysogynistic opinions, Dearing did not confront him as she typically would someone she had moral disagreements with, recognizing that she needed his cooperation. She and her allies would ultimately be betrayed by Wheatley, who attempted to leave them on the island to die; she managed to stow away on their ship the S.S. Arcadia along with her team members. At the Lockwood estate, she discovered that it was Mills who had orchestrated the betrayal, though it is unclear if he intended them to die. Mills made as though to apologize to Dearing for what had happened, but she did not forgive him and physically assaulted him. Wheatley offered to quietly kill Dearing and Owen Grady later, though Mills seemed more inclined to abandon them in the basement to starve.

After escaping confinement, Dearing worked to stop the black market auction that Mills was operating in the Lockwood estate. She learned that Lockwood himself was dead, and correctly surmised that Lockwood had never been aware of Mills’s machinations. Dearing was captured by Mills while trying to vacate the mansion, but when Mills’s armed guards were killed by the escaped Indoraptor, they were all forced to flee. Carroll and Lockwood’s other staff were no longer in the building, and Wheatley had been among the escaped animal’s victims, so Mills was the last remaining staff member (other than Henry Wu, who was not technically employed by Lockwood). Dearing did not encounter Mills again; when she finally emerged from the estate, it was seconds after Mills had died via animal attack.

Owen Grady

In 2012, InGen hired former U.S. Navy animal trainer Owen Grady out of the Marine Mammal Program to work in InGen’s I.B.R.I.S. project. Sometime after his arrival to the island, he went on a date with Dearing, who considerably outranked him in the Masrani Global corporate hierarchy. It is unknown which person asked out the other, but it would have been the first known romantic interaction of Dearing’s adult life. However, the date ended badly. Dearing brought an itinerary and refused to consume alcohol for dietary reasons, and Grady dressed very casually for the occasion. Grady accused Dearing of being controlling, and Dearing considered Grady’s manner highly unprofessional; she broke off the relationship. They still harbored feelings for one another, though only Grady was transparent about this.

Dearing was made to interact with Grady again after Simon Masrani arrived to Isla Nublar on December 22, 2015 to see the Indominus. Dearing reluctantly agreed to recruit Grady to check Paddock 11 for security weaknesses; he gladly took the opportunity to flirt with her again, and her responses appeared to be actively trying to hide signs that she was flirting as well. Dearing appears to have generally been embarassed about their past. Grady disagreed with the concept of creating artificial genera, while Dearing believed that it was the most viable solution to the park’s diminishing returns on investment.

After the Indominus escaped because of Grady’s unauthorized in-paddock examination, he blamed Dearing for the escape instead, claiming that it was her lack of knowledge of the animal’s physiology that permitted it to trick paddock workers into letting it out. He never admitted his own responsibility in the incident, and only slightly blamed the animal’s creator Dr. Henry Wu for being extremely secretive about the creature. Despite Grady’s outburst, Dearing looked to him for help in protecting her nephews on the island when she learned ACU was preoccupied with the evacuation. Grady, having calmed down, agreed to help find the boys, though he still harbored some resentment toward Dearing and criticized her for not knowing her nephews’ age.

They butted heads during the search. She was very out of her element in the wild, but refused to abandon the search, taking full responsibility for her nephews’ safety. During their mission, Grady discovered a newfound respect for Dearing as he saw her refusal to give up, and Dearing likewise found that she could respect Grady one she witnessed him in a serious, rather than casual, situation. She relied on him for survival when they confronted the escaped Indominus.

Dearing later saved Grady during the pterosaur feeding frenzy on Main Street. Grady fell under attack by a Dimorphodon while protecting visitors, and Dearing struck the animal with the butt of a rifle and then overdosed it on tranquilizers, killing it. This act of protection led to Grady kissing Dearing, to her surprise; she did not protest, however. Grady was later described as her “boyfriend,” a statement which she did not correct. They continued to protect one another during the incident and entered into an official romantic relationship after the events concluded. Dearing had forced Grady to confront his sexist assumptions about her, and reconsider his feelings about women in general, causing him to develop a more mature approach toward romantic relationships.

Their relationship lasted only a short time, however. With the adrenaline-inducing events of the incident behind them, the same personality traits that had prevented a relationship before became problematic again. After a period of time spent traveling together, they parted ways, believing that they would never see each other again. Dearing went to live with family in Madison before moving to San Francisco, while Grady traveled Northern California in his Airstream before buying a plot of land in the Sierra Nevadas and starting to build a cabin by himself.

He and Dearing would be unexpectedly reunited in June 2018. Once again, Dearing was asked to recruit him for a dinosaur-related operation, this time by Eli Mills of the Lockwood Foundation to gain Grady’s help in capturing Blue off Isla Nublar. Once again, she begrudgingly agreed. Grady was disappointed to see her, but agreed to go out to discuss the matter over drinks. He refused to assist, however, and Dearing decided to proceed with the rescue mission without his help. That night, Grady changed his mind and waited for her at Lockwood’s private airstrip. During the operation on June 23, Grady teased Dearing from time to time but otherwise behaved amicably toward her. Being in Jurassic World appears to have brought back memories of their shared experiences (both positive and negative), leading to their romantic feelings reigniting. Both of them came to realize that they had changed and matured as people in the intervening time, and this led to a newfound mutual respect between the two.

When Dearing and her allies were betrayed by their employer, Grady’s demeanor toward Dearing became protective rather than teasing. In danger together for a second time, they took up their roles looking out for one another and cooperated to escape the island alive. Grady was responsible for saving Dearing’s life when she was threatened by drowning in the ocean, and Dearing saved Grady by getting him onto the S.S. Arcadia in a commandeered vehicle. From there, they cooperated to reach the mainland and stop the black-market operation orchestrated by Eli Mills. They also jointly acted as protectors for Ben Lockwood’s orphaned granddaughter Maisie, who helped them survive during the incident at Lockwood Manor on June 24. Dearing kissed Grady during that incident at a point when neither of them knew whether the other would survive.

In a stunning reversal of his behavior during the 2015 incident, Grady showed this time that he had complete respect for Dearing’s decisions. The dinosaurs, which Dearing had worked so hard to save, were under threat of death with the only solution being to release them into the wild. Grady cautioned against doing this, but made no attempt to force Dearing’s hand. Instead, he trusted that she would make the right choice, and supported her either way. This, along with his protective paternal behavior toward both Blue and Maisie, proved to Dearing that he had grown out of his immature, boyish ways and into a man worthy of a real adult relationship.

Another life-threatening incident shared together, along with the responsibility of protecting Maisie following the irreversible consequences of the Lockwood Manor incident, led to Dearing and Grady experiencing romantic feelings for one another again. During the chaotic early 2020s, they endured the various political, economic, and biological crises that would come to define the decade, and their relationship did not falter despite these hardships. Once Maisie became a teenager and attained a better grasp on just how strange her own situation was, both Grady and Dearing struggled to help her through this difficult understanding. Dearing tried to be gentle with Maisie, while Grady tended to be more firm, but both of them were willing to try each others’ strategies as best they could and managed not to be in conflict. Grady was able to provide for the family by getting a job, which Dearing could not due to being wanted by the government; he did not stop her from leaving on dangerous missions, understanding that her activism was integral to her moral sense of self and that she was fully capable of protecting herself. According to actress Bryce Dallas Howard (who portrays Dearing) in response to a fan question, Dearing and Grady are not married, and are instead practicing life partnership. Grady did propose, but Dearing turned him down in favor of their current arrangement; he seems to have come to terms with it since.

In the spring of 2022, Maisie was kidnapped after four years of hiding. Dearing and Grady cooperated far better on this mission than previous ones they had gone on: finally their goals were in perfect alignment, and both of them were willing to do whatever it took to bring their daughter home. They also aimed to rescue Beta, a juvenile Velociraptor who lived near their property and was taken by the same people; this goal also worked for both of them, as they were not only protecting dinosaurian life but specifically one who was related to Grady’s raptor Blue. By the time of the 2022 incidents, Dearing and Grady worked in perfect synchronization, playing to each others’ strengths and communicating without much trouble. Their only conflict was during a plane crash, when Grady insisted upon Dearing taking the only parachute—her opposition was only due to the fact that Grady might not survive. However, she agreed to his insistence in order to rescue Maisie. In the end, both of them did survive the incident, and their family made it home safely.

Today, all three members of Dearing’s family live at the cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. The world has changed around them, and so too has each one of them changed, but they have grown together and learned how to be a functional unit. Dearing and Grady have learned respect for each others’ areas of expertise, know each other’s strengths and cover for each others’ weaknesses, and are thoroughly in love.

Zara Young

Sometime between 2007 and 2015, Dearing hired a personal assistant, Zara Young. They had a close working relationship, but did not appear to be friends. Young was responsible for maintaining Dearing’s busy schedule and ensuring Dearing did not forget business obligations. Young continued to work at Jurassic World shortly before her planned wedding, even being tasked with watching Dearing’s nephews when they visited the park on December 22, 2015. Young died during the incident, but Dearing has not made public comment on this.

In soft-canon books and other material published after 2015, Young’s last name is given as Shealy, so this is assumed to be her would-be married name. One of these books, the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Survival Guide, is written as though it was authored by Claire Dearing. This implies that Dearing was aware of Young’s upcoming wedding and uses her would-be married name as though it is legally her married name out of respect for her assistant’s lost future.

Other Masrani Global employees

Dearing has worked closely with other employees of Masrani Global companies on many occasions, particularly the head of InGen Security Vic Hoskins and the company’s chief geneticist Dr. Henry Wu. In particular, she worked with Wu on many occasions beginning with her internship in 2004. Wu initially considered her merely above-average due to her foresight, but trusted her to monitor highly-classified new breeds of animal. Dearing found Wu intimidating, but by September, she won his respect through her dedication and analytical skills. From that point onward, Wu considered Dearing an exceptional scientific mind despite her background in politics and believed that she was the most promising out of the Bright Minds interns. They still worked together occasionally in Jurassic World, such as convincing Verizon Wireless to sponsor the Indominus rex attraction. After the animal was demonstrated to be far more dangerous than was reasonably necessary for a park attraction, Dearing still believed that Wu would help them and brought her nephews to shelter in his lab. She seemed surprised to learn that Wu had voluntarily helped Hoskins make the Indominus a military animal and that he had acted against Masrani’s desires.

She managed scores of employees in the park; with the exceptions of Security and Henry Wu’s classified projects, all Jurassic World employees answered either directly or indirectly to her. She had a close, though far from harmonious, relationship with control room technician Lowery Cruthers. Dearing relied on Lowery and his coworker Vivian Krill to communicate her orders to various parts of the park, but disagreed with Cruthers’s nostalgic view of the original Jurassic Park (which was, in reality, a financial and legal disaster). Cruthers disliked the corporate sponsorship of Jurassic World, wishing that the park would instead operate without relying on income from partnerships with other companies. This offended Dearing, whose job entailed negotiating the corporate partnerships which Jurassic World’s continued operation relied on.

Dearing was a part of the Camp Cretaceous program to a limited degree, being the direct supervisor of head counselor Roxie. While their relationship was professional and Roxie was to refer to her superior as “Ms. Dearing,” she would sometimes call her by her first name when agitated, which Dearing found disrespectful. During the 2015 incident, Roxie attempted to call Dearing on a few occasions, but failed to get through to her due to the chaos occurring on the island.

The 2015 incident ruined her working relationships with Hoskins and Wu, as it turned out that they had conspired to make the Indominus a bioengineered military animal rather than a park asset. She expressed anger toward Hoskins, though he appeared to believe she would come to understand his reasoning. Hoskins died during the incident. Wu was evacuated from the park before she could see him about the issue, and she took this as a sign of guilt: from late 2015 onward, she has openly accused Wu of being almost completely responsible for the incident. Lowery Cruthers, however, displayed loyalty to her during the incident and stayed behind to help her resist Hoskins’s forcible takeover of the park (even if he did this largely to impress a coworker he had a crush on). He was instrumental in Dearing’s slapshod plan to save the park, being the only one capable of opening the Paddock 9 dinosaur gates, though he doubted Dearing’s judgment and only complied after his manhood was insulted.

Other employees at Jurassic World she worked with included intern supervisor Beverly Jamison and her assistants Jessica and Miranda. The latter was less involved with the interns, but on one occasion brought Dearing to Jamison’s office after Dearing was caught investigating the Izzy James coverup; Jamison threatened Dearing to discourage her from probing further. Dearing also worked with head veterinarian Dr. Tim O’Donnell during the internship program, though by 2014 Dr. O’Donnell would be replaced by Dr. Suzanne de Lange. During Bright Minds, Dearing worked closely with head herbivore trainer Bertie and her second-in-command Sarah on several occasions, particularly the successful brachiosaur training program in August. She was frequently at odds with the head of ACU, a man named Oscar, who was deeply distrustful of the interns due to the threat of corporate espionage. Dearing’s later relationships with these employees she met during her internship are unknown.

After she lost her job due to the 2015 incident, Dearing’s relationship to Masrani Global changed drastically. They were among the entities she implored to help with the rescue mission, but the corporation (which was managed by COO Richard Wiesner for a period of time after the incident) claimed that it did not have the resources to assist. Dearing came to believe that they were actually trying to distance themselves from anything Jurassic World for public relations purposes. Her public testimonial about the incident led to the arrests of several Masrani Global employees who had engaged in corrupt practices from 2004 onward, as well as the resignations of others; some came forward as whistleblowers after Dearing inspired them to do so. Some of those involved were board members who were responsible for the Indominus rex being engineered. Other former Masrani employees joined with Dearing in the Dinosaur Protection Group. The corporation, which still owns Isla Sorna, did not provide that island to the DPG to use for the rescue mission, forcing them to search for another sanctuary.

Dearing has maintained friendships with some ex-InGen employees. Barry Sembène, a friend of Owen’s who worked in the raptor paddock and aided Dearing during the 2015 incident, is a friend of her family; she does not hear from him often because of his employment with French Intelligence, but is always happy to see him. Franklin Webb, a Masrani Global IT employee, was given a leadership position in the Dinosaur Protection Group and remains Dearing’s ally. Altered scenes also leave us with the implication that she remains friends with Lowery Cruthers, who works along with Franklin Webb and Vivian Krill at the Central Intelligence Agency’s Dangerous Species Division.

De-extinct life

Ever since seeing a live Tyrannosaurus rex on television in 1997, Dearing has held a fascination for de-extinct animals and has spent much of her adulthood advocating for their legal protection. She worked at Jurassic World until its closure, during which time she was responsible for management of the park’s creatures.

Dearing was hired as an intern at Jurassic World in 2004, nine months before the park opened to the public. During her internship, she cared for Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, and unhatched Pteranodon eggs. She encountered other animals, including Parasaurolophus and Gallimimus, but did not work with these. At one point, she was given an exclusive visit to the Tyrannosaurus paddock, though none of the interns worked here.

Her animal empathy was useful in projects involving those species that she did work with, particularly the Brachiosaurus; she and several other interns developed a behavioral program to train a juvenile brachiosaur named Pearl. This animal was known for playing with unoccupied gyrospheres, making her a potential hazard in Gyrosphere Valley. Pearl, on one occasion, actually was a danger to Dearing directly while Dearing was working on calibrating gyrospheres in the valley. To avoid Pearl being relocated away from her home or possibly even euthanized, Dearing developed toys which were used to redirect Pearl’s play behaviors to objects other than gyrospheres, meaning it was safe for her to remain in the valley.

On one occasion during the internship program, Dearing orchestrated an unauthorized operation on an injured juvenile Triceratops named Lovelace. The animal had fallen into a gully and become wounded. Dearing had one of her fellow interns soothe the creature while she removed debris from the injury, despite this going against her superiors’ orders to wait for help to arrive.

Dearing also had a caretaker relationship with the twelve first Pteranodon longiceps masranii ever to be bred by Dr. Wu. She, along with two other interns, monitored the pterosaurs as they developed in their eggs to ensure they remained in good health. Dozens of these pterosaurs, as well as Dimorphodon which was bred later, were eventually housed in the Jurassic World Aviary until the 2015 incident accidentally released them. When this happened, Dearing was put in direct conflict with the reptiles she had helped to nurture; she killed a Dimorphodon during the attack in order to protect Owen Grady.

She also has had a troubled relationship with Velociraptor. The first of these animals to be delivered to the island, a female V. a. nublarensis, arrived during the internship program in 2004. Dearing was present at the quarantine paddock where it was held because she had attempted to warn park administration of an act of corporate espionage she believed was occurring. She was incorrect, and discovered an entirely different act of espionage at the quarantine paddock; when she interrupted it, the animal was accidentally released, and in the ensuing chaos it killed intern Justin Hendricks whom Dearing had fallen in love with. The animal was euthanized by ACU. Raptors were utilized in a research project by InGen Security called I.B.R.I.S., with a new breed (V. a. masranii) being created by Dr. Wu with the intent to make them more suitable to park use. Four animals (Blue, Delta, Echo, and Charlie) survived to adulthood. Dearing would not personally meet the project’s animals until the 2015 incident, when they were commandeered by InGen Security head Vic Hoskins to perform an unplanned field test. This test was a failure, as the animals turned on their handlers at the first suggestion and threatened Dearing as well. At the end of the incident, all but Blue had died, but the animals did contribue to Dearing’s survival.

As Senior Assets Manager of Jurassic World, she was in charge of all animal management. She was generally considered to have performed her job well, as Jurassic World successfully housed hundreds of de-extinct animals with few reported incidents. However, there were numerous issues with animal welfare behind the scenes which did not come up until after the park’s closure. In 2008, Dearing authorized Dr. Henry Wu to create an artificial genus of animal, beginning an age of advanced genetic hybridization. The first result of this was the Indominus rex, a theropod hybrid intended by Dearing and Masrani to draw more visitors to Jurassic World but intended by Wu to be a military animal as suggested by Vic Hoskins. No other employees were aware of this ulterior motive, even ACU members who worked indirectly for Hoskins. As a result of Dearing’s lack of information, the Indominus was able to escape on December 22, 2015. It threatened Dearing on a few occasions as she worked to subdue it, and she ultimately contributed significantly to its death that night. The animal was killed by the park’s Mosasaurus. Three years later, Dearing discovered a second theropod hybrid of the same genetic line and also contributed to killing it.

The park’s eldest Tyrannosaurus rex has also had a relationship to Dearing, though the animal is not confirmed to recognize her in any way. She first met it in 2004 while she was an intern, and during the 2015 incident she intentionally drew the tyrannosaur into battle against the Indominus as a desperate last-ditch attempt to kill the hybrid. This attempt, due to the intervention of Blue and the park’s Mosasaurus, was successful. The tyrannosaur was later encountered during the 2018 operation on Isla Nublar; in order to save a seriously wounded Blue, Dearing extracted blood from the tyrannosaur in order to perform a xenotransfusion. The animal, while restrained, woke up from a tranquilized state during the operation and briefly was a danger to Dearing, but she was able to escape before it could maneuver in its crate to reach her. She later had a brief encounter with the same animal at the Biosyn Genetics Sanctuary in 2022, but the dinosaur did not pay her any attention.

Dearing lost much of her empathy for animals when her job reduced the amount of time she could spend with them. Her feelings about animals were restored due to the 2015 incident, during which she comforted a dying Apatosaurus. Perhaps reminding her of the work she did with sauropods during her first months on Isla Nublar, she quickly returned to her old position on animal rights and began working to defend the dinosaurs from further harm. These aims led to her founding the Dinosaur Protection Group in 2017. She did not blame the animals for the harm they had caused in 2015, understanding that they had been acting on their natural instincts and that it was human error which caused the carnage. Dearing lobbied politically to gain rights for de-extinct animals and eventually to protect them from an impending natural disaster, though no major U.S. government entities or corporations agreed with her position. Instead, Dearing and a few DPG members took part in an illegal operation to relocate the animals anyway. This operation turned out to be a front, with the animals being sold on the black market rather than relocated to a safe place. The only solution to save them, due to various circumstances, was to release them into the Pacific Northwest; Dearing ultimately chose to let them die instead, though this decision was not an easy one to make. It was, however, overriden by Maisie Lockwood, who chose to save the dinosaurs regardless of what doing so might cause.

While Dearing has been an avid supporter of de-extinct animal rights, she has sometimes caused the deaths of these animals. A Velociraptor was euthanized in 2004 because it attacked her and killed another intern, though its accidental release was mostly the fault of corporate spies. During the 2015 incident, she killed a Dimorphodon to protect Owen Grady, and actively contributed to the death of the Indominus while also risking the life of a Tyrannosaurus. During the 2018 incidents, she sealed a Baryonyx inside a lava-filled bunker to protect herself and her associates, and actively contributed to the death of the Indoraptor prototype. She blames herself for the deaths of all animals that could not be evacuated off of Isla Nublar in 2018, as well as the fates of those animals sold to black-market buyers, though the criminal activity and political failure surrounding these events should be considered the primary reason for the animals’ deaths. Her intervention is the reason that the endling of the V. a. masranii bloodline survived, even if the animal was held captive and wounded at points during the incident.

Dearing still carries feelings of guilt for the harm her professional detachment caused the dinosaurs at Jurassic World, and for any harm she could have prevented by being more successful with her activism. This guilt was a driving force behind her vigilantism during the early 2020s; she would, along with her allies, often break into places where suspected animal abuse was occurring and document evidence. The final of these missions was into the Saw Ridge Cattle Company, which was illegally breeding ceratopsian dinosaurs (specifically Triceratops, Sinoceratops, and Nasutoceratops) in cruel conditions. During the mission, she rescued a sick juvenile Nasutoceratops, knowing that it might not live long enough for the authorities to respond to her anonymous tip. Despite the vehemence of her efforts, it was pointed out by one of her colleagues that she was allowing her desire for absolution to affect her judgment; after they barely escaped Saw Ridge with their lives, the group disbanded.

At the cabin where she now lives, de-extinct life is not far away. Grady’s old I.B.R.I.S. raptor, Blue, lives in the woodlands adjacent to the property with her parthenote offspring Beta. For the most part, the raptor and human families keep a respectful distance from each other, but they tend to keep an eye on each other as well. Their most notable interaction was the incident in 2022 in which Beta was kidnapped alongside Maisie Lockwood. Blue, angry and needing to lash out, blamed Grady for the tragedy; Dearing was nearly caught in the crossfire, but was spared when Grady was able to get Blue to allow them safe passage off the property. Beta and Maisie had been taken to the Biosyn Genetics Sanctuary, where many of the dinosaurs (including the old Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic World) were being transported once caught. Their journey to the sanctuary took them through the black market, where Dearing witnessed firsthand many of the cruelties she had fought for years to stop. She could not take action here or risk blowing her cover. Escaping the black market led to her fighting an Atrociraptor called Tiger, and later the plane she took to Biosyn was downed by a Quetzalcoatlus which Biosyn deliberately allowed to attack them. Dearing faced threats from Pteranodons, a Therizinosaurus, a pack of Dilophosaurus, and a Giganotosaurus on the way to find Maisie and Beta, barely escaping with her life. She also witnessed a new kind of hybrid animal, this time a species of large locust engineered by Biosyn.

Despite the dangers, she was able to get out safely with Beta and Maisie in tow. Once again the incident led to animal suffering, which Dearing had little choice but to endure; on a few occasions she had to fight to save herself, particularly against Tiger, the Giganotosaurus, and a small contingent of the locusts. Eventually the Giganotosaurus died in combat when forced into confinement with the old tyrannosaur and the Therizinosaurus, but this was at least not Dearing’s fault but Biosyn’s. In the end, she was able to get Beta home to Blue, resulting in a happy ending for the raptor family. Having righted this wrong, Dearing was able to be at peace. She has, with some encouragement from those more experienced, come to terms with the fact that the dinosaurs are outside of her control, and that the best she can do is help them where she can. They are now in her world, and she will certainly encounter them time and time again, but she has accepted for good that their lives in the ecosystem are as independent as her own.

United States government

Dearing held political ambitions since her high school years, hoping to get a political science degree, graduate law school, and become a U.S. senator by 2019. However, this plan would not pan out, as she instead became Senior Assets Manager at Jurassic World. In her younger years, she believed that the government was not doing enough to protect animal rights, but held out hope that the system could be changed by altruistic wealthy individuals acting as benefactors to the right politicians.

Following the 2015 incident at Jurassic World, Dearing spoke at a public testimonial regarding what had happened on the island. Her testimony, as well as that of other former Masrani Corporation employees, helped the U.S. House Committee on Science initiate its inquiries into bioethical misconduct by InGen and Henry Wu as well as violations of the Gene Guard Act of 1997. In spite of her cooperation with the U.S. government during 2015 and 2016, the presidential election of 2016 changed the American political climate on a drastic scale, and when the Dinosaur Protection Group was founded in 2017 it was strongly opposed by the 45th President of the United States himself. At least one member of Congress did choose to support the DPG on June 22, 2018. On that same day, the Senate, the very organization Dearing had once hoped to join, voted to do nothing with regards to Isla Nublar’s animals and to allow them to become extinct.

With help from Sir Benjamin Lockwood and his enormous fortune, Dearing acted against the orders of the U.S. government to participate in a supposed rescue mission on Isla Nublar the day after the Senate’s final decision. The subsequent release of de-extinct animals into the Pacific Northwest as well as the sale of several animals and DNA samples on the black market have caused problems for the U.S. government from mid-2018 onward. Dearing herself became a person of interest to the Central Intelligence Agency’s newly-formed Dangerous Species Division, which deals heavily with genetic engineering threats. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also plays a role in de-extinct animal relocation, and during her years on the lam, Dearing often submitted anonymous reports to the USFWS regarding animal exploitation in the hopes that they would intervene on behalf of the creatures. She also kept in touch with members of the U.S. National Park Service who, without their organization’s knowledge, were using areas of unmonitored federal parkland to house animals for their own safety.

After four years of anonymous vigilantism and hiding from the CIA, Dearing became involved with an international crisis when her unofficially-adopted daughter Maisie Lockwood was kidnapped on the order of Biosyn Genetics. In order to rescue Maisie, Dearing broke her anonymity and revealed her presence to the U.S. government when it became clear that this was the only way to get the resources she needed. In exchange for giving the government vital information and aiding in the operation, Dearing was pardoned of her offenses. However, she did not follow orders during the operation, instead hitching a ride out of Malta with an internationally-wanted smuggler and trespassing onto Biosyn property, all without updating her government contacts. In the end, though, Dearing helped expose wanton corruption within Biosyn and bring an end to a looming global agricultural crisis, and for these actions, it seems the government is now content to let her be.

Scientific community and general public

Dearing’s background is in politics and business, but she does have a deep-seated interest in science and generally supports scientific development and research. As a result, she has a respectful view of the scientific community, and has helped U.S. government scientists in their investigation of geneticist Henry Wu’s bioethical misconduct. However, her advocacy for de-extinct animal rights is not universally accepted by all scientists, and her support for neopaleontology contributes to the decline of traditional paleontology. Prominent wildlife activist Ozwald Brook and animal conservationist Heather Sharpley, for example, are notable critics of Dearing’s, believing that her advocacy for de-extinct animal rights takes attention away from the wider animal rights movement. On the other hand, the DPG’s quoted supporters included scientists, even some paleontology students.

Dearing has interacted with members of the general public as well both through her career as Operations Manager at Jurassic World and as founder of the DPG. She commonly attended press releases and other events at Jurassic World where the public would be present and was responsible for the safety of 20,000 or more visitors on a daily basis. Dearing frequently was quoted in publicity pieces and appeared on promotional material for the park, developing a professional public persona which would be presented on these occasions. When her job ended due to the 2015 incident and she began a new occupation running a nonprofit, she changed her public persona to better fit her animal rights activism. As head of the DPG and primarily in charge of its public relations, she commonly appeared in public to organize educational sessions and orchestrate protests. Numerous members of the public, including at least one firefighter who had witnessed the 1997 San Diego incident, supported the DPG due to her actions. However, the organization was opposed by others such as Extinction Now! which garnered some support to encourage the death of all genetically engineered de-extinct life. The Dinosaur Protection Group was highly active on social media until the 2018 incident, but strictly did not follow or interact with any other accounts. The exception to this was the Extinction Now! account, which had occasional public confrontations with the DPG account.

Dearing’s decision not to save the dinosaurs when doing so would release them into the Pacific Northwest was partly due to a concern for the general public, as many of these animals were quite large and some were carnivorous, and all were panicked. Releasing the animals could have caused people in the nearby area to come to harm, which would have justified anti-dinosaur sentiments and undo much of the progress made by the DPG over the past year. She has never come forward about the animals’ release actually being Maisie’s choice, probably to protect the girl from an angry and potentially violent public. For four years, Dearing was something of an urban legend, traveling the western United States under aliases and never actually confirmed by anyone, appearing in small towns to aid with dinosaur problems and then vanishing before she could be identified. She also performed raids on facilities that exploited de-extinct animals, causing havoc for poachers and breeders in the American West. Between 2018 and 2022 she avoided detection and capture by her enemies both in the government and private sector; when she emerged from hiding in 2022, it was by choice, having decided it was the best way to rescue her kidnapped daughter. Today, she still lives in rural Northern California with her new family, away from prying eyes, but is no less adamant about animal rights than she was before.

During the 2022 incident, she briefly teamed up with several famous scientists with noteworthy views on de-extinction and genetic engineering: the paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (whose research into theropods was well-known to park staff), the mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (a vociferous critic of Jurassic World), and most closely the paleobotanist and ecologist Dr. Ellie Sattler. Between them, Sattler was her best ally; they had similarly endured the harrowing history of de-extinction in ways few others had. Sattler admitted to still suffering nightmares, and Dearing expressed her regrets for the role she played in animal exploitation at Jurassic World. It was Sattler who finally broke through to Dearing, convincing her to accept that while she could not change the actions she took in the past, she did have the ability to better the future, and that by learning from her mistakes and moving on she could be more effective than if she continued to punish herself. Dearing has taken this advice to heart.

Dinosaur Protection Group members

In March 2017, Dearing founded the Dinosaur Protection Group, a nonprofit organization devoted to advocating for de-extinct animal rights. Its volunteers included around thirty people, some of which were former Masrani Corporation employees such as offsite IT worker Franklin Webb. It also included paleoveterinary student Zia Rodriguez, who had hoped to work at Jurassic World but did not graduate before the park closed. Dearing trusted Webb and Rodriguez, placing the former in charge of website and other technical operations and putting the latter in charge of medical services in the event that they actually reached Isla Nublar. Both were also partly in charge of running the DPG’s social media account and performing public outreach. Webb claims to have joined because his father encouraged him to do volunteer work, but he appears to have been fully devoted to the DPG’s goals.

Over time, Dearing became close friends with Webb and Rodriguez, and the three leaders of the organization supported one another in times of need. In particular, Rodriguez was very much an inspiration to Dearing, who had always admired strong women. When the opportunity arose for the DPG to participate in an illegal rescue mission, Dearing chose Webb and Rodriguez to accompany her, and they agreed to do so. Webb in particular had to face several of his main fears such as airplanes, tropical diseases, and large carnivorous animals to accompany Dearing, but did so anyway. He was an instrumental part of their plan to locate Blue, as without him they could not have restored power to the radio bunker they needed to use.

Rodriguez and Owen Grady were separated from Dearing and Webb during the mission when they were betrayed by their employers. Dearing and Webb had to cooperate under duress to survive until Grady rejoined them, then working as a trio to stow away on the transport ship and escape alive. They joined Rodriguez on board, but were ultimately separated again upon arrival to Benjamin Lockwood’s harbor. Rodriguez and Webb operated independently, accidentally endangering Dearing and her companions by reactivating lights that had been intentionally left off for evasion purposes, but all members did survive the incident and were reunited. Despite their stance on animal rights, Webb and Rodriguez did not protest Dearing’s decision to sacrifice the dinosaurs rather than let them out of human control, understanding that she was deeply saddened by what she believed was a necessary evil.

The dinosaurs, of course, did not die that day. Maisie Lockwood released them, unable to bear watching them succumb to the poison. A new age began when the incidents of 2018 ended; the animals that managed to escape into the wild went on to live in an unfamiliar world, and many of them had fallen into the black market during the auction. Over the next four years, Dearing continued to try and protect the animals as best she could, but after the Lockwood incident she was considered a wanted person by the U.S. government. Rodriguez and Webb, whose names were not linked to the incident, evaded government attention. This allowed them to help Dearing while she was in hiding; they could provide her with information about the outside world and investigate situations where she could not afford to show her face. Rodriguez and Webb often accompanied Dearing on missions to expose animal exploitation, anonymously yielding their evidence to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

This all came to an end in early 2022, when Dearing led a break-in at the Saw Ridge Cattle Company. They discovered that rumors about an illegal ceratopsian breeding operation were true, and upon discovering a sick baby animal, Dearing opted to rescue it from the inhumane conditions since it might not survive until the authorities arrived. Rodriguez was reluctant to risk drawing attention to them, but agreed that they were this animal’s best chance at survival. True to her concerns, though, they were detected by company security and chased off the property under fire. Webb, who had waited with the getaway van, was injured in the escape. After they got away, Webb accused Dearing of being so hyperfocused on absolving her feelings of guilt surrounding Jurassic World that she failed to see the bigger picture; Rodriguez was not as harsh, but did agree that their methods weren’t working to achieve large-scale change. The three of them parted ways after this, Rodriguez and Webb finding paying careers that would allow them to help the animals while supporting themselves and not regularly getting into mortal peril.

This is not to say their friendships ended. Although they went their separate ways, Rodriguez and Webb were still willing to aid Dearing if she needed it. They never disclosed her illegal unofficial adoption of Maisie, although Webb in particular had opposed her not getting the authorities involved. Webb also did not give up Dearing’s location, despite working for a government agency that was actively looking for her. When Maisie was kidnapped a few weeks after the Saw Ridge raid, Webb used his connections to discover where she had been taken, and helped Dearing make a deal with the U.S. government to partake in the rescue operation as well as being pardoned for her crimes in exchange for her assistance and intel.

Maisie Lockwood

While discussing the supposed rescue mission with Benjamin Lockwood and Eli Mills, Dearing briefly saw Lockwood’s granddaughter Maisie and learned that her mother, the geneticist Charlotte Lockwood, had died in a vehicle accident years ago. She did not question this, as she had no reason to and also there were more pressing matters.

During the incident at the Lockwood estate in the night of June 23, 2018, Dearing and Owen Grady met Maisie in the manor’s sub-basement. She had fled down the dumbwaiter and was clearly in an emotionally distraught state; she tried to flee from them at first, not knowing whether they could be trusted. However, she recognized Grady from I.B.R.I.S. training videos, and reasoned that if these people cared about dinosaurs then they must be trustworthy. She relayed to them that Lockwood had died and helped them navigate the mansion to stop Mills’s black-market auction.

Maisie also informed Dearing that Henry Wu, who Mills had sheltered from the law, had designed and bred an Indoraptor. Dearing and Grady strove to destroy the creature, also protecting Maisie from it when the animal somehow escaped. Mills briefly confronted them, asserting himself as Maisie’s primary caretaker and explaining that she was a clone of her mother, but Dearing refused to abandon the girl. As the carnage at the manor continued, Dearing was seriously wounded and relied on Grady to protect Maisie while she tried to free herself and treat her wound. She was able to recover enough to obtain the Indoraptor‘s targeting gun, luring the creature to its death with the help of Grady and the recovered Blue.

Upon learning that the captured animals were dying of hydrogen cyanide poisoning, Dearing moved to free them into the wild to save their lives. Ultimately she decided against it, realizing that doing so would put the situation wholly out of her or anyone else’s control. Maisie disagreed with this decision and refused to let the animals die; she released them into the surrounding woodland. This action came to symbolize the irrevocable change genetic engineering had caused for the world, and it also marked the beginning of a new era for both Dearing and Maisie. Since she was a clone, created illegally, Maisie’s fate in the outside world was uncertain, and Dearing would likely face serious consequences for her own role in the incident if she were caught now. So, with Grady’s help, the three headed north toward Grady’s cabin where they would be able to keep off the grid.

Over the next four years, the three of them formed a family, Dearing acting as a mother figure for Maisie. This was a major change in the girl’s life; the only mother-like figure she had ever known was her caretaker Iris Carroll, and her real “mother” had actually been more like a twin sister she could never have met. As Maisie grew up from a child into an early teenager, Dearing did try to give her the closest thing to a normal childhood she could manage. But things like going to school and making friends were impeded by their need to live under false identities and keep their faces away from anyone looking for them, this latter need being heightened when Maisie’s existence was leaked to the news and people around the world began to look for her. The growing danger led to their lifestyle becoming increasingly isolated, and Dearing eventually had to end even her vigilante dinosaur-rights activity. Maisie, too, found their life difficult. She knew that she was missing out on experiencing the wider world, and despite the threat of being found and taken away by the authorities, she snuck glimpses of the town beyond Grady’s property whenever she could. Dearing and Grady attempted to curb these explorations, but Maisie grew more and more restless as she matured, also coming to doubt her own personhood as the reality of being a clone set in.

Dearing’s relationship with Maisie, in many ways, was not unlike her relationship with the dinosaurs. She wanted to protect her adopted daughter, but the only way she knew to do this was by keeping her someplace she would be safe, no matter how much she wanted to venture out and discover who she was really meant to be. Dearing provided Maisie with everything she could manage, but believed giving her freedom would b too risky. Ultimately, like with the dinosaurs, this need for control led to disaster. In the spring of 2022, Maisie stormed off toward town, denying Dearing’s insistence to stop by reminding Dearing that she was not Maisie’s real mother. Hurt by this, Dearing let Maisie leave, only to discover not long after that Maisie had been found by poachers and kidnapped. This led to a desperate, globetrotting mission to get her back, and Dearing sacrificed her hidden existence to do so.

It was only through collaboration with numerous allies both new and old that Dearing was able to find Maisie and bring her home safely. During her own journey, Maisie had discovered new details about her origin: the tale Eli Mills had been told by Benjamin Lockwood and Iris Carroll, and therefore the version of the story that Maisie had learned, was a fabrication meant to protect both her and Charlotte Lockwood’s memory. She had not been cloned by her grandfather in a fit of grief after Charlotte’s death; instead, she had been created by Charlotte herself, cloned while her mother was still alive. The real reason her mother had died was not a car crash; this, too, was a fabrication meant to hide the truth. Charlotte had suffered from an invariably fatal genetic defect, and Maisie, being genetically identical, had it too. Charlotte developed a revolutionary cure, but only had the time and resources to treat one person, and chose Maisie. This was evidence enough for Maisie to realize her mother truly did love her.

Maisie has been able to find peace with her own identity, and Dearing still loves her just as much as ever. Having had a real brush with the dangers the world presents to her, Maisie does have a better understanding of just why Dearing was so anxious about keeping her safe. At the same time, Maisie has a clear newfound level of maturity that Dearing cannot ignore. As Maisie grows up, the kind of role Dearing plays in her life must too evolve. But so long as they both know that the other’s love is true, their family always will remain a safe place for them.

Underground dinosaur movement

When it became clear in 2018 that the U.S. government was either too inept or too unwilling to protect de-extinct animal rights, many people turned to strategies outside the law to ensure the animals’ welfare. Claire Dearing first dipped her toes into this underground world during the 2018 Isla Nublar incident, which was funded by Benjamin Lockwood; while Lockwood’s aim was to relocate the Isla Nublar animals safely to a sanctuary he already owned, his estate manager Eli Mills was given full control over the operation and opted instead to sell the animals on the black market. This was how the animals wound up on the American mainland and in back alleys around the world. Although this first foray beyond the bounds of legality was far from what she had imagined, Dearing was not too disillusioned to try again, and before long she was conducting raids on private property where animals were being exploited.

For the most part, Dearing would document evidence and submit it anonymously to the authorities, but she was well aware that some people were doing more than this. The dinosaur rights movement was and still is widespread, and even some people in positions of power have chosen to help. Most notable among these are the National Park rangers who utilize areas of the parks where people do not venture, or areas of parks that are unused during the off-seasons, to house dinosaurs. Sometimes they are kept here long term, while on other occasions they are temporarily housed before being moved someplace safer. The authority of the National Park Service is kept unaware of this use of federal land. Dearing keeps in touch with such renegades as these using radio communication, and upon meeting other members of the movement, they identify each other using code phrases. Over time, the idea of de-extinct animal rights is becoming normalized, and as laws change with the times, the efforts of activists can become more public.

Dinosaur black market

The urgency of the underground dinosaur-rights movement becomes clear when one realizes how much monetary value each de-extinct organism represents, and the kinds of exploitation they face for it. Ever since people have had access to de-extinct life, they have sought to profit from it; the very reason it was bred in the first place was for exhibition in a luxury theme park and zoo. Since the fall of Jurassic World in 2015, the primary focus has shifted to darker avenues. Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures are valued as luxury pets, or are killed for exotic meats and pelts. In recent years, powder made from their bones is said to have curative powers and is sold as a kind of high-end drug. The animals are still considered valuable to corporations, some of which even make their use of the creatures known to the public; the main use in these cases is biopharmaceutical in nature. Since they went extinct so long ago, they are sources of organic compounds found nowhere in the modern world, making them potential sources of all manner of medicine.

Claire Dearing had her first encounter with the black market in 2018. She had believed she was participating in a rescue operation that would bring the Jurassic World dinosaurs to sanctuary, but in reality, the man organizing the mission had intents to profit handsomely off it. The animals were brought to the mainland and sold to criminals on an international scale, ranging from pharmaceutical companies to mobsters and arms dealers. The creatures’ fates were many, but none were to be pleasant. Even those that were saved from the auction and fled into the wild often ended up running straight into the waiting traps of poachers, and as the technology to create de-extinct life was sold alongside the animals themselves, new organisms began to pop up around the world.

Dearing and others of like mind did their best to combat the rise in wildlife crime. For Dearing herself, though, her ability to fight was hindered by her own role in the 2018 incident, which earned her a spot on the CIA’s watchlists. She also needed to keep a low profile to protect her unofficially-adopted daughter, Maisie Lockwood, who was an illegal human clone. Despite these obstacles, Dearing and her allies did succeed at besting poachers and animal breeders on a number of occasions, culminating with a raid on the Saw Ridge Cattle Company where ceratopsians were being illegally bred in inhumane conditions. This put Dearing’s allies in enough peril that they had to call off future missions.

A few weeks later, poachers would intervene in Dearing’s life in a more personal way. Maisie was found and kidnapped, with the supposed culprit being identified as Rainn Delacourt. With the aid of the government, who Dearing had struck a deal with, she traveled to Valletta, Malta where Delacourt was going to meet with his employer, the Amber Clave market broker Soyona Santos; it was she who had hired Delacourt to poach Beta the Velociraptor, and so she likely had Maisie. Although Santos and Delacourt were caught in a sting operation by combined American and French forces, Maisie was nowhere to be found; Dearing personally chased down Santos and demanded Maisie’s location, only to learn that Santos had herself been contracted by yet higher forces to kidnap the girl. Sadly, Dearing was powerless to help the animals in the black market this time, and even had to fight Santos’s killer Atrociraptor to escape.

She did, however, find an unexpected ally in the black market. An American expat and Air Force dropout by the name of Kayla Watts had seen Maisie during the handoff with Santos, and eventually agreed to help rescue her. She had smuggled dinosaurs in and out of Biosyn Valley, where Maisie was now being held, for years; she knew the route, and seeing human trafficking was the final straw that convinced her to turn on her benefactors. Watts was instrumental in rescuing Maisie from Biosyn, flying Dearing and Grady into the valley at great personal cost. During the mission, Watts ensured Dearing’s survival on a number of occasions, including rescuing her from a hunting Dilophosaurus. Both Watts and Dearing wanted absolution for the sins of their pasts, and by aiding one another in Maisie’s rescue, both were able to come to terms with their mistakes and aim for a better future.

Biosyn Genetics

One of Dearing’s most recent foes was the biotech giant Biosyn Genetics, which eagerly filled the economic vacuum created by the collapse of InGen. Historically they had been a rival to InGen but fell behind long ago, and it was not until the 2010s that they began to revitalize. They had little relevance to Dearing on the surface; she knew that they were contracted to house dinosaurs captured by U.S. authorities in a sanctuary they had built in Italy, but so long as the animals were not being mistreated, they were a non-issue to her. As best as outsiders could tell, the dinosaurs were healthy, and allowed to live in semi-wild conditions away from people they might have conflict with.

Biosyn suddenly became all too relevant to Dearing in 2022 when they hired poachers and smugglers for the kidnapping of not just the Velociraptor Beta, but also Dearing’s adopted daughter Maisie Lockwood. In the early 2020s, the American Midwest had become plagued by giant locusts; no one knew where they had come from, but Dearing would learn during the incident that Biosyn’s geneticists had created the insects as a part of an agribusiness venture that they drastically lost control of. They had been aided by none other than Henry Wu, a scientist who had once been Dearing’s coworker. While he had created the insects, he was now horrified by the potential they had to destroy livelihoods and ecosystems around the world. Maisie had been cured of a genetic disease during her infancy using a revolutionary technique developed by her mother, and Wu believed that by applying these same techniques to the locusts, he could curb their reproduction and shorten their lifespans. For this reason, Wu had convinced Biosyn’s CEO Lewis Dodgson to bring Maisie and Beta to Biosyn’s headquarters to study.

While flying into Biosyn Valley on board Kayla Watts’s airplane the Midnight Oiler, Dearing and her allies came under assault on Dodgson’s orders. Denise Roberts the air traffic controller had advised them to turn around, since Dearing and Grady’s presence had been given away by Santos, and when Watts refused to turn back Dodgson ordered the protective technologies deactivated. This resulted in a pterosaur strike that nearly killed the three of them, with Dearing separated from the others deep in the woodland.

After this, the events in the valley resulted in Dearing not actually encountering any Biosyn staff members save one, the head of Biosyn Communications Ramsay Cole. Dearing encountered him after she and her allies finally reached Biosyn’s main research compound, which had been evacuated due to an emergency Dodgson accidentally caused while hurriedly trying to cover evidence of his mistakes. Cole, who had learned about Dodgson’s blunder with the locusts, had been working to expose him if he would not come clean on his own. Thanks to Cole’s assistance, Dearing was able to access the servers for the facility and reroute power to the defense technology that would allow them to leave unhindered. During the final evacuation, they protected one another from peril, and both got out with their lives.

Cole exposed corruption among his company to the authorities, resulting in the United Nations stepping in to closely monitor Biosyn and the valley facility. Dodgson himself disappeared during the evacuation (his mostly-eaten remains were probably found in the ensuing investigation, having been killed while fleeing), but other corrupt executives were arrested. For her role in exposing Biosyn, and in averting a global food crisis by helping Wu get out of the valley alive, Dearing appears to have been pardoned by the American government and allowed to continue living with Maisie. So in the end, although Biosyn was responsible for traumatizing Dearing’s family and putting them all in peril, the disaster did give her the opportunity she needed to set things right.

Portrayal

Claire Dearing is portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard. In a brief voice-only cameo in Episode 6 of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, her voice is provided by Secunda Wood. In the prequel novel The Evolution of Claire, her first-person narrative is provided by author Tess Sharpe. She is not based on any specific character from Michael Crichton‘s novels. Her name has been commented on by the filmmakers as deliberately evocative of her personality; Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly respectively described her first and last names as conveying the idea that she is hard on the surface, but ultimately loving. This characterization mainly applies to Jurassic World, since her character has grown in the later films.

The character of Claire Dearing was initially decried as sexist when Jurassic World was released in 2015 due to accusations of outdated gender stereotypes; her detached professional demeanor and opposition to having children both being portrayed as negative traits were commonly cited. However, the clickbait culture on social media heavily focused on her ability to run in high heels as being supposedly the greatest issue, even though this trait was actually added at the suggestion of Bryce Dallas Howard herself. Due to the backlash, Howard responded on social media that wearing high heels is preferable to going barefoot when those are the only two options available. With the release of the young adult novel The Evolution of Claire and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the character has been expanded and given a much more feminist spin, and both character and actress have become endeared to many feminist fans.

According to Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow, Claire Dearing’s name was originally planned to be Whitney. In earlier scripts, she was the main villainous character, stealing DNA from a Chinese paleontologist to clone a Malusaurus (the conceptual predecessor to the Indominus) for the park. She may have evolved from a character named Beth from older Jurassic Park IV scripts; in this version Beth was the love interest, while Claire Dearing is instead the protagonist of the first two Jurassic World films and a lead character of the third. Despite this, she is given second billing in the film credits due to the industry tradition of billing the male lead first.