Eli Mills (S/F)

Eli Mills (2018)

Eli Mills was an American financier best known for his employment with the Lockwood Foundation, which he managed until his death in 2018. He was also the executor of estate for British philanthropist and businessman Benjamin Lockwood. Mills is also known for his involvement with the partnership between the Lockwood Foundation and Jurassic World. He utilized money from his employer to fund the creation of the Indominus rex, and is also responsible for the illegal relocation of many de-extinct animal species from Isla Nublar to the Pacific Northwest.

He died during the night of June 24, 2018 after holding a black-market auction at the Lockwood estate without the knowledge of his employer, who died earlier the same night. After holding numerous animals captive within the building, those that were not auctioned off were released without his knowledge. Mills was killed by one of the released animals while attempting to flee the estate.

Name

The name Eli is of Hebrew origin and comes from Abrahamic texts; its translation is “ascent.” It may also be short for names such as Elijah and Eliezer, meaning “my god.” The surname Mills is English or Scottish in origin and has a topographical meaning, referring to someone who lives near (or works near) a mill. This surname originates from medieval Old English.

Biography
Early life

Details about Mills’s early life are currently undisclosed, including his place and date of birth. Since he had graduated college by 2010 or 2011, and assuming that he completed at least four years of college and began at age 18, his date of birth is no later than 1988.

When he was young, he would have probably heard Dr. Ian Malcolm‘s outlandish claims in 1995 that International Genetic Technologies had cloned prehistoric animals on the Costa Rican island of Isla Nublar. InGen and the Costa Rican government denied these claims, branding Malcolm as a conspiracy theorist and a fraud. Two years later, though, a genuine bull tyrannosaur was filmed in the city of San Diego before it was captured and returned to another island owned by InGen, Isla Sorna. This proved that Malcolm had been telling the truth despite the unbelievable nature of his claims.

Mills eventually learned that the dinosaurs had been cloned by InGen under the direction of its former CEO, John Hammond, who passed away some time after the San Diego incident. Hammond had wanted to construct a theme park on Isla Nublar called Jurassic Park where he would showcase the animals to the world; Isla Sorna had been used for research and development. A year after this became public knowledge, InGen was bought by Masrani Global Corporation, which spent the next few years revitalizing the Jurassic Park project and rebranding it Jurassic World.

In his young adulthood, Mills went to college, probably for business. He graduated sometime prior to the early 2010s.

Partnership with Jurassic World

Mills’s first, and only, known job after college was to be the executor of Sir Benjamin Lockwood’s estate and manager of the associated Lockwood Foundation. He was hired right out of college, selected for his youthful ambition and idealism. Lockwood was the former business partner of John Hammond and one of InGen’s founding members, and one of his major ambitions was to mend the gap between himself and the company he had helped to start. He and Hammond had disagreed on issues of bioethics, with Lockwood endorsing human cloning and Hammond opposing it. This had eventually driven them apart.

Lockwood wanted to partner his foundation with Jurassic World, a task which he entrusted Mills with completing. At a fundraiser in 2010 or 2011, Mills met with Claire Dearing, the park’s Operations Manager and Assets Manager, cementing the partnership and forging connections in the park. Among these connections were Vic Hoskins, the seasoned leader of InGen Security, and Dr. Henry Wu, the MIT geneticist who had created most of InGen’s de-extinct animals since 1986.

At the Lockwood estate, Mills met Lockwood’s granddaughter Maisie. Her mother Charlotte, Lockwood’s daughter, had passed away in 2008; Maisie was Lockwood’s only surviving family, and thus the heir to his enormous fortune. She was chiefly cared for by the household’s caregiver Iris Carroll, who had served the Lockwood family for decades. Lockwood himself was in ailing health, and Carroll was not young, so Lockwood entrusted Mills with Maisie’s future along with the future of his estate.

Maisie, though, was not all she appeared. There were signs of something strange in her past; he was told she was nine years old by 2018, placing her date of birth a year after her mother had supposedly died, and while there were no photographs of Maisie anywhere, pictures of Charlotte showed that she had looked uncannily like her daughter when she was the same age. The story eventually had to come out: after Lockwood’s daughter had died, he had turned to cloning technology in his grief and recreated her. Mills became one of very few people to hear this tale; not even Maisie herself was aware of her origins. Mills was horrified that Lockwood would do such a thing, but did not make his feelings known.

Probably through his InGen connections, Mills learned that while Jurassic World had been a massive success when it opened, it was facing financial difficulties. People were growing accustomed to dinosaurs, viewing them as simple exotic animals instead of the living miracles they had been when the world learned of them in 1997. The park’s operating costs continued to rise as more and more animals and attractions came into its facilities, but its income showed signs of an upcoming plateau. In order to counteract this, the Board of Directors along with Dearing and CEO Simon Masrani had authorized Dr. Wu to create a new biological attraction which would in theory boost attendance numbers. This had been demonstrated with prior new attractions, since new dinosaurs always drew large crowds.

Vic Hoskins, however, did not have confidence that new attractions would be enough to save the park and keep InGen profits in the black. He had long wanted to expand the partnerships between InGen Security and other branches of the company, as had already been done with other Masrani Global subsidiaries. He was enamored with the idea of military animals, having been one of the minds behind InGen’s I.B.R.I.S. Project which began in 2012. With the genetic technology at their disposal, Hoskins believed that InGen’s scientists could engineer groundbreaking advances in military animals by using the full arsenal of Earth’s evolutionary past. Mills and Hoskins agreed that, to save InGen, they had to market its technology to military interests. Hoskins approached Dr. Wu, knowing that Masrani had entrusted him with bioengineering a new park attraction, and proposed that this new creature be inclined toward combat. Wu agreed, with the project and his associated research being funded by the Lockwood Foundation as arranged by Mills. It is unlikely that Benjamin Lockwood was aware of how this money was being utilized.

Hoskins intended to use their creations to benefit the United States Armed Forces, though Mills was only concerned with adding to the Lockwood fortune. As Maisie’s appointed caretaker, and with Maisie’s existence a secret, it was only natural that Mills would be willed all of Lockwood’s properties and money in order to continue caring for Maisie. From this point on, Mills became intent on taking any opportunity to guide Lockwood’s wealth into the future for himself, rather than for Maisie and his employer’s philanthropic aims. In 2012, the fruits of their labor hatched in the Hammond Creation Lab; two genetically-modified theropod hybrids belonging to a species InGen named Indominus rex entered the world. The creatures had been created by Wu through the use of the Tyrannosaurus rex genome as a template, adding select genes from other animals including Velociraptor in order to facilitate the development of particular traits. To ensure that Dearing, Masrani, and the Board did not become suspicious of the plot between Hoskins and Mills, the animal’s genetic makeup was kept classified by Dr. Wu, and the three men did not openly reveal that they were working together on anything at all.

Mills did not personally involve himself with Jurassic World following his meeting with Dearing in the early 2010s, instead using Hoskins as his contact. The one surviving Indominus grew quickly, approaching its adult size by late 2015. Its aggressive behavior made it unsuitable as a military animal, but Hoskins believed that the solution to this problem lay within I.B.R.I.S., a Velociraptor training program spearheaded by former Navy animal trainer Owen Grady. Since these intelligent animals could be trained to recognize commands, Hoskins reasoned that by engineering such traits into future military hybrid animals, they could solve the obedience problem. Furthermore, creatures smaller than the Indominus would be able to more easily navigate into areas where enemy insurgents would be holed up, so engineering a raptor-sized animal was overall a better objective.

Disaster struck in late 2015. On December 22, the Indominus was accidentally released due to corporate mismanagement. InGen Security attempted to recapture it, but due to the secrecy surrounding the hybrid, they were woefully unprepared and suffered heavy losses. The animal managed to evade capture throughout the day, and all the while Hoskins failed to do his duty to the park as he was preoccupied with forcing an I.B.R.I.S. field test to hunt the Indominus. He got his wish after nightfall, but by that time, his inaction had led to wanton destruction of park infrastructure and the death of Simon Masrani. The field test was also a failure: rather than attack one another, the raptors and Indominus took the opportunity to free themselves from human control and attacked park staff. It was obvious that the park was never going to recover after this day, so Wu and many of his specimens were evacuated from the island by Hoskins’s Security taskforce. In the hours that followed, Hoskins died while helping InGen Security remove more of Wu’s research materials, all of the raptors save an individual named Blue were killed, and the Indominus was also killed. The island was evacuated under the direction of Kurt Reed, InGen’s head of Special Operations, following Hoskins’s death. Jurassic World closed permanently.

Continuing research

Henry Wu was evacuated from Isla Nublar to the Lockwood estate, where Mills helped him hide from the inevitable investigation. This was not a moment too soon, as Wu was soon found guilty of bioethical misconduct by the U.S. House Committee on Science and stripped of his credentials in March. The government raided his laboratory facilities, confiscating most of his research materials including all of his hybrid genome samples. This made continuing Wu’s research difficult, as he had only limited samples to work with and none of them were the completed Indominus genome. March also saw the loss of Kurt Reed during an operation on Isla Nublar, resulting in the final termination of I.B.R.I.S. Wu had gained good data from Reed’s program, though, so it was not a total loss.

In order to continue his work, Wu needed a sample to use as a base. Mills arranged to have a team of mercenaries accompany Wu and retrieve such a sample from the only place he knew to find one: the body of the original animal itself, which now lay at the bottom of the Jurassic World Lagoon. Alternatively, Wu could use the genomic data from his experiments to reconstruct the genome; this data was stored on a single laptop, which was left behind when the park was unexpectedly evacuated. In June of 2016, the operation took place, successfully retrieving a sample of Indominus rib despite suffering losses to the team and the destruction of Wu’s research laptop.

With the Indominus genome in his possession again, Wu resumed his work, aiming to create a hybrid animal that would suit the purposes he and Hoskins had planned. It was designed to be smaller and sleeker, but with a greater intelligence than its predecessor which hopefully would make it trainable and loyal. To help with this, Mills retrofitted the Lockwood estate’s laboratory, the very same lab where ancient DNA had first been extracted from amber, and hired the best geneticists money could buy to assist Wu. Sometime after the 2016 operation, Wu succeeded in hatching a prototype of their new hybrid; he created it by increasing the proportion of Velociraptor DNA in the Indominus genome, so he called the result the Indoraptor.

Mills kept this entire operation secret from Lockwood and the other inhabitants of the estate, especially the curious Maisie and the ever-watchful Carroll. Fortunately, Carroll was chiefly occupied with caring for the growing young girl as well as her employer’s failing health. Lockwood himself was still invested in the well-being of the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar. In 2017, volcanic activity began at Mount Sibo, a long-dormant stratovolcano in the northern region of the island, and a public controversy initiated over whether humanity had an obligation to protect the animals it had brought to life. Public opinion sided with the opinion that the animals had a right to live, and this position was strongly supported by the Dinosaur Protection Group, but governmental and corporate entities chose to allow the animals to die. Lockwood planned to take action himself should the authorities make an official declaration of non-action.

In the meantime, Mills grew frustrated with the prototype, which demonstrated none of the traits that Wu had hoped. While it was astoundingly intelligent, it had no use as a military animal since it did not express loyalty; it even killed one of the lab technicians. However, they did have success in teaching it one command; it was trained to select a target identified by a laser sight, and then kill when it heard a high-pitched signal. This, the prototype did excellently.

By 2018, it became clear that a new generation of Indoraptors would be necessary before they could start selling them. In February, Wu tasked Mills with recruiting a team to recover genomic data from the North Mount Sibo Genetics Centre on Isla Nublar; Mills hired two pilots, a mercenary, and Wu’s former colleague Dr. Amelia Everett to complete this task. The mission ran into difficulty, and Mills insisted that more compensation was necessary to justify the risk of mounting such an operation. This compensation came in the form of a physical DNA sample out of cryopreservation from the most successful I.B.R.I.S. Velociraptor, Blue. Despite the challenges of the retrieval mission, it ultimately succeeded in getting Wu the data and genetic sample, but even this was not enough.

Wu insisted that Mills put another team together to retrieve Blue herself. Though Mills was growing tired of the project’s struggles, he agreed with Wu, but also understood that the research needed a new source of funding: the Lockwood Foundation could only cover so much of the expenses.

A solution came from an unexpected place. Lockwood had already planned out much of the rescue mission to Isla Nublar; he hoped to use Claire Dearing’s handprint biosignature to access the park’s RFID tracking system, thereby allowing a ground team to quickly locate and collect the dinosaurs. From here, the animals would be loaded onto Lockwood’s personal cargo ship, the S.S. Arcadia, and transported to their new home on the uninhabited and privately-owned Sanctuary Island. Mills helped with the planning stages of this mission, hiring a team of mercenaries led by supposed big-game hunter Ken Wheatley to act as the ground team. As the government’s June 22 decision on Isla Nublar grew close, Mills had Wheatley take the Arcadia to Isla Nublar and start the roundup ahead of time. Mills had no intention of sending the dinosaurs to Sanctuary: he understood the value these animals had, with each species possessing unique biopharmaceutical properties that could not be found in modern organisms. By selling these animals on the black market, Mills could fund Wu’s research into the next phase. Eleven species were specifically requested, but he was sure to plan for capturing more if possible. This operation would also help him retrieve Blue. Mills paid Wheatley handsomely for his complicity, promising him a substantial bonus if he successfully captured Blue.

Mills arranged with Gunnar Eversoll, an auctioneer with extensive connections on the black market, to hold an auction at the Lockwood estate on June 24. He planned to have the animals at the mansion by morning of that day, though this would not be without difficulty; Lockwood’s ailing state kept him from being able to investigate, but Carroll acted as his eyes and ears in the mansion, and Maisie was all too likely to ask questions about how the rescue mission was going. Mills knew that so long as Lockwood did not get suspicious, he could bully Carroll into leaving him alone, so it was imperative that Lockwood be kept in the dark.

Capturing Blue proved to be almost as difficult as keeping the operation secret. Despite Wheatley’s best efforts, the raptor evaded him, though she did attack several of his men. On June 22, the U.S. Congress announced that it would take no action regarding Isla Nublar, and Lockwood’s plan was put into action: though Lockwood did not know that the Arcadia was already at Isla Nublar and animals had been captured, he summoned Claire Dearing to his home to explain the plan to her. Mills greeted Dearing fondly, helping Lockwood lay out the mission. Dearing accepted, and when Mills explained later that they would need Owen Grady’s help in capturing a Velociraptor, she reluctantly agreed to recruit him.

Wheatley was informed of the Dinosaur Protection Group’s arrival. Mills knew that Dearing and her allies would try to stop him once they found out the truth about his mission, so he instructed Wheatley to deal with them once they were no longer useful. It is unknown at this time if Wheatley was explicitly told to kill them or leave them behind, or if Mills allowed Wheatley the freedom to make this judgment call himself.

2018 incident and death

The operation set out by airplane from Lockwood’s private airfield the following morning, reaching Isla Nublar by midday. Conditions on the island were deteriorating fast, with Mount Sibo showing signs of imminent eruption. Mills monitored the operation from his office in the Lockwood estate, though Wheatley remained out of contact as not to rouse suspicion with their unwitting allies.

By the afternoon, Mills got a communication from Wheatley with a welcome status update: Blue had been captured, and they were on their way to the ship. Mills, however, was alarmed to hear loud geological noise in the background of the call: Mount Sibo was in the process of erupting, forcing the operation to end. Mills could only watch his computer screen helplessly as, completely out of his control, the Arcadia and its precious living cargo departed the Jurassic World East Dock just minutes ahead of the clouds of toxic gas and dust. While he observed these events taking place, he was interrupted by Maisie, who wanted to know how the rescue mission was going. Already high-strung from the disaster threatening his operation, he snapped at her angrily, but quickly apologized and assured her that everything was fine. Hoping that he had not made her suspicious, he ushered her from his office, telling her that he would update her when the dinosaurs were truly safe.

After the Arcadia narrowly escaped Isla Nublar, Mills was updated on the mission. All the species he had requested were captured, plus some (including the famous Tyrannosaurus rex from the park, the oldest surviving dinosaur). Some of Wheatley’s mercenaries had locked Dearing and her associate Franklin Webb in the radio bunker from which they had tracked Blue, with the eruption sealing their fate. Wheatley had shot Grady personally, aiming to overdose him on carfentanil; Grady had been rescued by DPG paleoveterinarian Zia Rodriguez, but was abandoned in the jungle shortly before the eruption. Rodriguez was the only surviving member of Dearing’s team. The bad news was that Blue had been shot by a mercenary during the fight to capture her, and she was in danger of bleeding out; Wheatley had Rodriguez trying to save the animal under threat of death.

Though the Isla Nublar dinosaurs were on their way, the danger of losing Blue put a strain on Mills’s operation, and more problems were to come. Eversoll, the auctioneer, arrived; he was upset that the dinosaurs had not yet been delivered, since Mills had expected them here by now. Mills tried to convince Eversoll that the animals were en route and that they would sell for millions of dollars, but Eversoll had begun to doubt whether the auction would be a success, claiming that the high profits Mills promised were not as impressive as he thought. To convince Eversoll that they should still go through with the auction, Mills brought him into the laboratory in the sub-basement, entering into a sales pitch for the Indoraptor and explaining that the Isla Nublar dinosaurs were just seed money for this more lucrative venture. Eversoll was impressed with Mills’s plan, realizing that the Indoraptor would attract buyers of the highest caliber, and agreed to go forth with the auction.

The following day, Mills met with Wu to discuss the future of his research. Wu was angry that Blue might not survive, though Mills was sure they could simply breed more raptors. This did not give any comfort to Wu, who insisted that Blue’s I.B.R.I.S. training and demonstrable empathy made her the only behavioral specimen they could use. He explained that he believed the reason the prototype lacked empathy or loyalty was because it had not been raised by its own kind, and since there were no other Indoraptors in existence, only a Velociraptor could substitute. By using Blue as a surrogate mother, they could hopefully raise the next generation of Indoraptors to adopt her behavioral traits. Mills had by now grown frustrated with the difficulties of Wu’s research, and more frustrated still with Wu’s views on genetic engineering as an art form rather than a business venture.

Feathers ruffled over their differing ambitions, Mills and Wu left one another, but Mills did not have long before another crisis reared its head. A scream alerted him to an intruder in the lab, and he suddenly ran into Maisie, who had discovered the prototype Indoraptor. She demanded to know what the creature was, but Mills had no time to explain. Not knowing how much she had overheard and what she knew, but knowing she could warn Lockwood and halt the auction, Mills locked her in her bedroom and instructed the appalled Carroll to keep her there. Carroll did not dare cross Mills, but relayed a message: Lockwood wanted to see Mills, and her tone suggested that Mills’s worst fear had already come to pass. Lockwood knew.

Mills did not immediately go to see Lockwood, putting off the inevitable until that night as the preparations for the auction came underway. The mansion’s huge garage was retrofitted into an auction hall, and as night fell, the Arcadia arrived to Lockwood’s harbor and the dinosaurs were loaded onto a convoy bound for the mansion. Blue had been nursed back to health by Rodriguez, saving that aspect of Mills’s project; both the raptor and the paleoveterinarian were transported to the laboratory for Wu. The other dinosaurs were not far behind, transported by Wheatley and his team along the private road and loaded into the lowest level of the manor. There they would be held until the auction. Wheatley’s mercenaries arrived, turning from hunters into security guards for the estate.

Once the dinosaurs were already at the manor, Mills knew that Lockwood would be less capable of stopping him, so he steeled himself to face his employer. Lockwood condemned Mills’s actions, and though Mills tried to justify himself (claiming that he had only sought to increase the Lockwood fortune and guide it into the future like he was hired to do), Lockwood refused to hear his excuses. Instead, Lockwood instructed Mills to call the local police and confess, turning himself in and preventing the auction. Mills moved to the phone, but hesitated, stopping. They were alone; there would be no witnesses, and Lockwood was already at death’s door due to his health. There would be no halting the auction that night. Mills finally admitted to Lockwood that he considered Maisie’s cloning to be a sinful action, justifying his own crimes by equating them to Lockwood’s. He took one of the decorative pillows in the bedroom and smothered his employer. Lockwood, in his frail state, was unable to fight off the younger, stronger man, and died.

Mills had crossed a moral threshold from which there was no returning, and he understood this. His abandonment of morality came at an opportune time for him, as another threat to his auction unexpectedly arrived. He was informed by Wheatley that Dearing and Grady had somehow survived Isla Nublar and stowed away on the Arcadia, and were now imprisoned in the dinosaur cells in the sub-basement. Mills went to see them and attempted to instill feelings of guilt in both of his enemies, accusing them of laying the groundwork for his ambitions through the creation of the Indominus rex and the results of I.B.R.I.S. respectively. Much like with Lockwood, Mills justified his actions by claiming that his critics were just as guilty in other ways.

He attempted to apologize to Dearing for taking advantage of her good nature, claiming that it was not his pleasure to do so, but she refused his apology. Grady threatened to break Mills’s arm, but was talked down by Dearing, though she subsequently assaulted Mills instead by slamming his face into a cage bar. Wheatley implied that the two prisoners would have to be executed in order to ensure their silence, but Mills left them alive for the time being. Dearing was a public figure and in good health, so her death could not be so easily covered up; it could be claimed that she died on Isla Nublar during the eruption, but doing so would risk revealing Mills’s own culpability in the operation. Therefore, Mills postponed his enemies’ deaths, probably to give himself time to concoct a believable cover story for the press. It is implied in the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom junior novelization that he decided to leave them to starve.

Auction bidders began to arrive. They included dozens of wealthy customers from all over the world, many of whom Eversoll was familiar with. The auctioneer introduced Mills to some of the guests, including development representatives for Aldaris Pharmaceuticals, horse buyers representing Texan oil baron Rand Mangus, proxies for Slovenian arms dealer Gregor Adlrich, and notorious Russian mobster Anton Orlov. Even more bidders were prepared to attend remotely using the internet or phone connections. Eversoll greeted those he was familiar with and briefed Mills on what the buyers were each interested in; Mangus, for example, wanted to buy his son a baby Triceratops, while Orlov wanted carnivores for a cage match. Eversoll predicted a full house, assuming Lockwood would be pleased, and asked Mills if Lockwood would be attending. Mills did not admit that Lockwood was dead, nervously saying that his employer would probably not show.

With cover stories on the mind, he needed to explain away Lockwood’s death, but this was no difficulty at all. He summoned Carroll to Lockwood’s bedroom, making it appear as though he had discovered Lockwood having passed away in his sleep. Despite Carroll’s shocked protest, he dismissed her from service to the Lockwood family, ensuring that no one could stand in his way as Maisie’s caretaker and inheritor of the Lockwood fortune. The despondent Carroll left the estate, the mercenaries’ intimidating presence ensuring that she could do nothing to stop the auction as she departed. After she left, Mills briefly thought he heard the bedroom’s dumbwaiter being used from below, but an investigation showed no suspicious signs. Besides, even if Maisie had escaped her bedroom, he had separated her from Carroll, ensuring that there were no adults left to help her.

With all his obstacles dealt with, Mills was ready to commence the auction. The first animal sold was an Ankylosaurus, which went to bidder 81 over the phone for US $10,000,000. Second was a subadult Allosaurus, sold for an even higher amount. Mills tracked their earnings as the auction went on, thrilled and astounded as his newly-inherited wealth increased by tens of millions with each sale. Sales went on; a case of DNA samples was sold, as were a Stegosaurus and a Baryonyx, among other animals. By that time in the auction, Mills had added $128,000,000 to his coffers, and at least one more $21,000,000 sale followed.

It was now the halfway point, and Mills had planned to give the buyers a taste of what was to come to whet their appetites. Eversoll dramatically introduced the Indoraptor, advertising its lethality and demonstrating its training. It was explicitly said to be a prototype and was not for sale, existing simply as a tempting teaser, but the Russian bidder Orlov offered twenty million dollars for the animal. Mills indicated to Eversoll that bidding on the prototype would be allowed. Wu protested this, confronting Mills with concerns about the prototype falling into the hands of rival scientists. Mills ignored Wu’s fears, concerned only with the rapidly-rising price tag on the hybrid animal, claiming that they could simply use the money from the sale to make more Indoraptors after losing the useless prototype. Wu, warning that his rivals could breed Indoraptors too if they got their hands on its DNA, retreated to his lab to accelerate his research.

The prototype sold to Orlov, its original bidder, for $43,000,000. Its cage was prepped to be loaded onto a transport truck from the catwalk. Before it could be loaded out, though, a commotion began near the elevator: a Stygimoloch had suddenly appeared in the auction hall, and the screams of frightened attendees agitated the herbivore. It charged the crowd, ramming people out of the way as it made a bid for freedom. Mills commanded his mercenaries to get the Indoraptor out as the auction descended into chaos. While he himself made his escape, he caught sight of the reason for the freed dinosaur: Owen Grady, fighting off the distracted mercenaries and stopping the catwalk from delivering the Indoraptor‘s cage. Mills protected himself from the Stygimoloch using a human shield and fled to find loyal mercenaries to apprehend Grady, who escaped into the maintenance corridors as the dinosaur found its way into the outdoors.

Mills and two of his henchmen scoured the maintenance corridors, eventually finding Grady and Dearing as well as Maisie. He demanded that they hand the child over, establishing that he was her guardian now, but they refused. To convince them, Mills revealed that Maisie was not a natural-born child, but a clone of Lockwood’s deceased daughter. Still, Dearing and Grady refused to relinquish Maisie. Before Mills could use force, his armed guards were suddenly ambushed by the Indoraptor, which had somehow escaped. He fled, with his enemies taking another route.

With his mercenaries being picked off one by one, Mills made his escape from the estate. He packed up all the assets he could, loading them into his van with two of the surviving security staff. These included the sample of Indominus bone retrieved from Isla Nublar. Wu himself did not join Mills, though he had been evacuated separately after being attacked in the lab by Dearing’s allies.

As he loaded the rest of his precious supplies to flee the manor grounds, he and his guards heard an ominous rumbling from the mansion’s access corridor leading to the sub-basement. Before any of them could react, an angry Pteranodon emerged and tossed one of Mills’s guards into the front of his car, killing the man. This was followed by the rest of the unsold animals from the basement, which trampled his second guard; Mills took shelter beneath his van as the panicked creatures stampeded by. He was forced to abandon the rib bone sample to save himself.

Though his van took heavy damage, Mills survived, and the rib remained undamaged. Thankful for this one piece of good luck, he made to collect the rib and leave with it. However, theropods began to emerge from the wreckage, all with their eyes on the cause of their suffering. The first to strike was the tyrannosaur, which clamped her jaws around Mills’s upper body, thrashing him around. His screaming did not stop until she pinned him down and pulled his left leg out of its socket, suggesting that he died due to the internal and external damage to his body at that point. His right leg became detached while the tyrannosaur swallowed his mangled body, and was briefly grabbed by a Carnotaurus but was dropped, and then both legs were mostly eaten by several Compsognathus. Almost none of his body remained after being consumed by the theropods.

Because Mills murdered Lockwood with no witnesses and never confessed, he took this crime to his early grave. No one was there to witness his own death, either, and so unless the scrap of his leg was found and used for DNA identification, Mills’s deceased status may forever be unknown to the public. Tyrannosaurs do not digest bone, however; his entire body save the missing leg was swallowed, and disarticulated fragments of his skeleton may have been recoverable from the tyrannosaur’s dung in the ensuing days. Still, it is most likely he was defecated out in the wilderness, so his remains may not be found or properly identified.

Lockwood most likely willed all of his properties to Mills in the hopes that Mills would use that wealth to care for Maisie, who could not inherit anything due to her existence being secret. Since Mills died, and is not believed to have had any children, Lockwood’s money would instead have been divided between his living relatives on his mother’s and father’s side. This will probably remain the case unless Maisie is proven to be the rightful heir to Benjamin Lockwood.

Skills
Finances

Hired out of college by the wealthy philanthropist Benjamin Lockwood, Mills had many years of experience in finance management. Executing the business transactions of the Lockwood Foundation would certainly have been a daunting task, but Mills demonstrated that he was up for it, successfully navigating partnerships and fundraisers for the foundation.

Over time, he became more and more confident, and started investing in higher-risk projects such as the military bioengineering work of Dr. Henry Wu as proposed by Vic Hoskins. Mills understood that funding this research would allow him to reap enormous rewards down the line as the results could be sold for far more than what it cost to produce them. Even when the initial phase of the project failed, he pushed it toward completion himself, utilizing other assets as seed money to fund the project further.

Management

Along with his business experience, Mills grew his management skills while acting as the executor of estate for Benjamin Lockwood and helping run the Lockwood Foundation. He organized fundraisers, negotiated partnerships, and allocated funds from the foundation to its various interests, and assisted with daily goings-on at the Lockwood estate for his employer. Mills eventually used these management skills to his own advantage without Lockwood’s knowledge, not only acting as benefactor on the military bioengineering projects of Dr. Henry Wu, but also helping Wu continue his work in secret after he was branded a criminal in 2015.

From late 2015 until mid-2018, Mills hired geneticists, technicians, and security personnel to assist with research and development, along with refurbishing the Lockwood laboratory to bring its technology and facilities up-to-date. He did all of this while avoiding the prying eyes of the estate’s housekeeper Iris Carroll and Lockwood’s precocious granddaughter Maisie, managing to avoid suspicion by keeping his activities limited to the restricted sub-basement and his own office. His hired personnel probably used the back entrance, or otherwise posed as business guests and maintenance staff while entering and exiting. Since he was still managing the Lockwood Foundation, he would have had plenty of excuses to cover for his increasing number of visitors.

Mills’s position as Lockwood’s trusted estate manager allowed him to easily take control of the rescue mission to Isla Nublar. Most of the details of the operation up until departure from the island were to be executed essentially as Lockwood had planned, though once the S.S. Arcadia left Isla Nublar, it would not proceed to Sanctuary Island but rather to Orick and Lockwood’s private harbor. The mercenaries hired to carry out this mission, including hunters, drivers, and ship crew, were all hired by Mills rather than Lockwood, including the operation’s leader Ken Wheatley. Lockwood trusted Mills to hire only the best, and Mills did so; he merely chose the best for his own intentions, rather than his employer’s.

During the operation, however, Mills was under immense pressure to complete the job without anyone discovering his betrayal. He became stressed and behaved erratically, causing his leadership to falter. He was known to get into heated arguments with his partners, such as Henry Wu, even ignoring Wu’s expertise and legitimate concerns. There were several incidents that jeopardized the mission, and Mills was hard-pressed to keep everything from falling apart; his management of these unexpected complications was rather poor. Eventually, his ability to control the situation completely collapsed due to a growing number of factors he had not accounted for, leading up to his death.

Social skills

Mills was considered to have a charming and amicable personality, and was actually originally hired by Lockwood largely for his youthful idealism. Because people found him quite likable, Mills discovered it was easy for him to be persuasive and even manipulative. As he grew older, he continued to use his skills of persuasion to benefit the Lockwood Foundation as well as himself, successfully bringing the foundation into partnership with Jurassic World and acting as the beneficiary of the military bioengineering project headed by Vic Hoskins and Dr. Henry Wu.

He was decently good at maintaining his composure under stress, but this had limits. Those limits were tested during the incidents of June 2018, in which he went behind his employer’s back to quietly commandeer an already-illegal rescue mission on Isla Nublar. Mills was already harboring Henry Wu, now wanted for bioethical misconduct, in the manor’s lower levels and running an illegal genetics operation beneath his employer’s home. The risk was only increased by Mills’s plan to sell the rescued dinosaurs from Isla Nublar on the black market within the mansion itself, and he was under intense pressure to keep it all hidden. His stress caused him to give an angry outburst at Maisie, his first blunder and one of the key factors in his later failure. Mills tried to apologize for shouting, but Maisie was now suspicious that he was hiding something, and investigated. Mills also had heated arguments with Wu about the time and expenses of the genetic engineering project they were working on.

Mills did successfully convince Claire Dearing to participate in the rescue operation, using their past connection to frame himself as a friendly face from the old days. He played up his more likable personality traits, behaving sweet and caring. This was highly effective, partly due to Dearing’s naturally extroverted and trusting personality, and Mills even convinced her to recruit her ex-boyfriend and former I.B.R.I.S. animal handler Owen Grady for an essential part of the mission. However, when Mills’s actual plan was discovered, no amount of apologies and kind words were enough to make Dearing sympathetic toward him again. When this failed, he instead attacked her sense of self-worth, blaming her for the creation of the Indominus.

When confronted with his own moral failings, Mills often attempted to justify his actions by pointing out the misdeeds of others around him. He was well aware that some of the means he used to accomplish his goals were considered morally wrong, and even showed weak signs of guilt. By equivocating his actions with those of others, he could refocus the argument on his enemies’ mistakes and wrongdoings rather than his own; this was also a tactic he used to convince himself that he was no more evil than the people who opposed him. He used this against Claire Dearing and Owen Grady, telling them that their past actions with InGen had essentially laid the groundwork for his own operations and that the only difference between them and himself was that he was willing to admit the harm his actions could cause. He also used this against Benjamin Lockwood, claiming that the latter’s human cloning was just as morally wrong as selling endangered animals on the black market. Since he said this while about to murder Lockwood, this statement was not so much meant to absolve himself in Lockwood’s eyes as it was meant to justify his own actions to himself.

Driving

As of 2018, Mills owned a 2009 Chrysler Town & Country, though a man of his means could probably hire a chauffeur to drive him around. It is currently unknown if he possessed a valid U.S. driver’s license at the time of his death, nor is it known how good of a driver he was.

Physical ability

Mills was a businessman by trade and not especially athletic, mostly relying on others for his safety and protection. He was not physically weak, being able to yank a confused auction-goer into the path of an aggressive dinosaur to protect himself. He was also resilient, showing no signs of harm after a blow to his nose and later surviving a surprisingly long time in the jaws of an adult female Tyrannosaurus, even attempting to fight back by flailing at its jaws.

He was farsighted, requiring corrective lenses when viewing close-up text on computer screens and such.

Views
Political views

While he is described as having been idealistic in his youth, Mills himself admitted that this was no longer the case as he grew older. His views shifted toward the political right, and he eventually came to eschew conventional morality, local and governmental authority, and any form of regulation in favor of increasing profits. At the time of his death, his political views most closely aligned with anarcho-capitalist libertarianism, though he did not explicitly identify any political movement or organization as his own and appears to have stood only for himself.

Mills supported developing sciences at the time of his death, though he grew frustrated with the expenses and time involved with novel experimentation. Support for science is a traditionally (but not exclusively) liberal view in the United States, while some of Mills’s other views, such as his generalized misanthropy and exploitative capitalist practices, are traditionally (but again, not exclusively) considered conservative.

On business ethics

By 2011 or 2012, Mills had already begun showing signs of business tactics that many people might consider ethically dubious. He supported the creation of the Indominus rex, a genus and species of genetically-engineered animal which was intended for modern military conflicts. When this stage of the project failed, Mills helped to shelter its lead scientist Henry Wu from government inquiry and assisted him in furthering his research. It is also likely that Mills supported I.B.R.I.S., a research program studying Velociraptor cognition. Vic Hoskins, the head of InGen Security and one of the minds behind the Indominus, also led I.B.R.I.S. and intended to utilize its results to introduce new species of military animal.

Mills was not actually concerned with strengthening the U.S. Armed Forces like Hoskins intended; his intentions were solely to make money. He had been entrusted with managing the Lockwood Foundation’s finances, and took advantage of this position to fund InGen’s covert military bioengineering program (and eventually take it over once it was out of InGen hands). Mills understood that there was money to be made in weapons, with the U.S. military budget in 2018 being close to seven hundred billion dollars, and sought to take advantage of this in order to increase the Lockwood fortune. He planned to eventually inherit this fortune through unofficially adopting Benjamin Lockwood’s granddaughter, who lacked legal documentation and could not inherit this money herself.

At the end of the day, Mills’s approach to business was simultaneously ruthless and opportunistic, pushing forward through any obstacle while taking any chance to benefit. He believed that it was in the best interest of a business to increase its profits even when doing so meant violating the law, societal norms, and the safety of lower-class people. On the other hand, he was unwilling to put his own safety at risk for profit, quickly evacuating when danger arose. Mills relied heavily on other people’s sacrifices to keep himself and his profits safe, since he could replace his employees. During his operations between 2015 and 2018, he managed to keep his surviving employees loyal through considerable compensation and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

On nature

In line with his capitalist philosophy, Mills viewed all of nature as a potentially exploitable resource and believed that it was in civilization’s best interest to harvest and utilize it. The advent of de-extinction introduced an entirely new way to make use of the natural world, including those parts of it that were long considered unrecoverable. While industry had already discovered ways to use prehistoric deposits of oil and coal as fuel in the short term, de-extinction used ancient DNA to recreate species from Earth’s evolutionary past.

Much like with the discovery of new species in the modern world, de-extinction promised not only to entertain people with exotic wildlife but to provide new scientific developments in biology and related fields. Many species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms have yielded medicines and inspired technology; with the secret to de-extinction unlocked, such benefits could now be reaped from hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Mills understood that de-extinct animals and plants could provide biopharmaceuticals available nowhere in the modern world, making them incredibly valuable. It was not long before paramilitary interests sought to use these organisms’ biological properties to develop better weapons technology, and by the early 2010s InGen Security was even looking into training de-extinct creatures as military animals. Mills, who had a thorough understanding of the history of biological weapons, agreed with InGen Security and assisted in the creation of new biological weapons from the ancient DNA its scientists discovered.

Unlike other proponents of military bioengineering such as Vic Hoskins, Mills had no particular reverence for nature. He never attempted to humanize or anthropomorphize animals, even those that he knew were highly intelligent, nor did he appear to understand the ramifications of exploiting natural resources that could not be replenished. Many capitalists oppose the concept of ecology, believing that individual entities in nature have minimal effect on one another and that the whole of nature cannot be fully depleted; Mills seems to have at least leaned toward this view.

On bioethics

Like many of his other philosophical views, Mills’s take on bioethics was essentially based around exploitative capitalism. He fully endorsed research into genetic engineering, and as early as 2011 or 2012 he had begun funding a military bioengineering project started by InGen Security. When the project’s lead genetic biologist Dr. Henry Wu was branded a criminal in late 2015 for bioethical misconduct, Mills voluntarily took Wu under his wing, protecting him from federal prosecution by keeping him hidden. While Wu remained on the lam, Mills provided him with all the equipment and assistants he would need to continue his research mostly unhindered. This does not necessarily mean that Mills considered Wu to be innocent, since he may have only protected Wu and his research in order to ensure that his investment in the project was not in vain.

Mills understood that genetic engineering could be a highly lucrative field of research, yielding results applicable to medicine, military technology, and beyond. Jurassic World had already proven its usefulness in entertainment and education. Still, despite the promise of profit, Mills often expressed frustration with the time taken to complete bioengineering projects. He and Wu had creative differences, as Wu was not really interested in providing weapons to paramilitary organizations so much as pushing the limits of genetic technology for innovation’s sake. Mills did not fully understand the processes Wu used, only their costs and potential profits.

While Mills did appreciate the intelligence of some of the animals he worked with (and had a hand in creating), he did not recognize their emotional state or consider their need for stimulation. The highly intelligent Indoraptor was kept for nearly its entire life in a cage barely large enough for it to pace back and forth, never given a chance to exercise or live in nature. It had no form of stimulation, other than a light bulb and the bones of a technician it had killed at one point; its cage was otherwise bare. Mills hypocritically accused Claire Dearing of doing the same to the Indominus rex, though the paddock housing the Indominus was at least outdoors, quite large, and furnished with live trees. He made this accusation largely to justify his own mistreatment of animals; he did not actually care about their well-being so long as they turned a profit. Mills was willing and eager to sell de-extinct animals to international criminals, at least one of whom explicitly wanted to pit two carnivores against one another in a gladiatorial spectacle. He also showed no concern for the treatment of the animals under Ken Wheatley, allowing his lead hunter to pull teeth from the animals to keep as trophies.

Despite his general disregard for bioethical issues, Mills opposed human cloning for reproductive purposes. Paraphrasing John Hammond, he once referred to human cloning as “unholy,” referring specifically to the act of Benjamin Lockwood cloning his daughter in an act of grief after her untimely death. Mills did not outwardly mistreat the clone Maisie Lockwood, though some of the language he later used to describe her was dehumanizing. His use of the term “unholy” might imply a religiously-derived opposition to human cloning, though he has not expressed any religious belief, or he may have simply been quoting what he believed to be John Hammond’s statements made to Lockwood at some point before 1993.

On humanity

Mills held a largely misanthropic view of his fellow human beings. Unlike his business partner Vic Hoskins, who considered war to be a part of nature, Mills considered war to be a part of human nature. While he certainly acknowledged that violence is a major driver of evolutionary adaptation, he believed that humans are especially prone to large-scale violent behavior. Whether he believed that violent behavior was exacerbated by the evolution of intelligence, or that the evolution of intelligence was itself the reason for violent behavior in the first place, was never discussed. However, Mills considered war inevitable, referring to the humanity’s past as a “sorry history” marred by incessant conflict.

This language suggests that Mills did not personally support war, even if he knew he could profiteer off of it. He frequently justified his own wrongdoings by pointing out the moral failings in others, claiming that if they could be allowed their mistakes and crimes, he could be allowed his. Mills appears to have considered himself superior to other people; this was largely fueled by his belief that he alone was willing to admit when he was doing something morally wrong. Through acknowledging his own evils, he promoted himself above traditional morality. He also expressed feelings of superiority over other humans by condemning historical acts of violence and war, though he was not above using violence to accomplish his goals (he notably became uncomfortable when discussing Lockwood after murdering him, suggesting that this was a serious challenge to his notion of being above the violent behaviors he looked down upon). Mills’s sense of psychological and intellectual superiority was also a great downfall of his; he frequently underestimated his enemies, never considering that they might outsmart him.

Mills showed few signs of genuine empathy toward other people, only viewing them as resources or tools to achieve his own aims. This may not have always been the case; he was originally hired because Lockwood saw him as young and idealistic, and Mills admitted in 2018 that he had lost his idealism over time. While some of his behaviors are consistent with various personality disorders, he had no confirmed diagnosis, and in any case this would not have been the core cause for his corrupt behaviors. Instead, Mills’s descent into amorality was driven by a growing desire for wealth and power. In many cases, the human brain’s ability to empathize is reduced when the individual comes to control more resources, leading to wealthier people choosing to hoard their money rather than utilize it to help their fellows. This appears to have happened with Mills.

Relationships
Sir Benjamin Lockwood

Right out of college, the young Eli Mills was hired by wealthy British philanthropist Sir Benjamin Lockwood to become the financial manager of the Lockwood Foundation. As manager, he kept watch over the foundation’s investments, expenses, and incomes, ensuring that its resources were always growing. His duties included negotiating partnerships and holding fundraisers, which was how he became acquainted with Claire Dearing and other Jurassic World staff. Mills was also made the executor of Lockwood’s estate, as Lockwood was getting on in years and became terminally ill by 2018.

Lockwood hired Mills because he saw in the young man a kind of idealism, which Lockwood believed was best for guiding the foundation and his fortune into the future. This money was intended to help build a better world for the next generation, setting an example for the youth to look up to and exemplify. Lockwood trusted Mills entirely, appointing him as the caretaker of his granddaughter Maisie in the event that he and her then-current caretaker Iris Carroll could no longer provide for her. These feelings were not necessarily mutual. When Mills discovered that Maisie was not Lockwood’s natural granddaughter, but a clone of his real daughter intended as a replacement, he was appalled. Lockwood had abused his wealth and resources in an act of grief, creating an entire person simply to fill the emotional void left by his daughter’s death. Over time, Mills himself began to see the ways that such enormous wealth could be used to satisfy his whims, and as Maisie’s future caretaker, he was set to inherit that wealth. He planned to increase the Lockwood fortune as much as possible before inheriting it.

The last mission Lockwood and Mills worked on together, and the one closest to Lockwood’s heart, was the Isla Nublar rescue mission in June of 2018. With the last dinosaurs on Isla Nublar in mortal peril, Lockwood sought to set things right. Mills was entrusted with arranging virtually the entire mission; Lockwood’s health was in decline and he could not participate as much as he would have wished. While Lockwood endeavored to bring the animals to a safe sanctuary, Mills went behind his employer’s back; he planned instead to bring the animals to the manor and sell them on the black market, using that seed money to fund Henry Wu’s military bioengineering research. This technology could then be sold to military and paramilitary organizations, creating a vastly lucrative source of income for the Lockwood fortune.

Lockwood eventually learned of this betrayal and confronted Mills over it. Despite this reveal, he still expected that Mills would obey his orders like the loyal assistant he had been many years ago. Instead, Mills rebelled against his first and only employer, murdering the defenseless elderly man by smothering as a last-ditch effort to protect his ambitions. Before killing Lockwood, Mills revealed his true feelings about human cloning (and by extent Maisie), using Lockwood’s crime to justify his own. There were no witnesses, which was one of the key reasons Mills committed this act, and so he was never incriminated in Lockwood’s death. Still, killing Lockwood made Mills guilty of the very thing he hated: the violence he thought to be inherent in humanity but not in himself. This was a major test of his feelings of superiority, but while it gave him discomfort, he ultimately overcame this. In effect, murdering Lockwood freed him of any sense of moral obligation, giving him the impression that he could do as he wished without consequence.

Mills did not inherit anything from Lockwood, though, due to dying mere hours later.

Iris Carroll

The housekeeper of the Lockwood mansion, Iris Carroll, had already worked there for many years by the time Eli Mills came to be its financier. Though their duties were different, Lockwood trusted both of them to prepare for the future, and so they often worked together. Carroll had cared for Lockwood’s daughter and now his granddaughter Maisie, but both she and Lockwood were getting on in years; Mills was appointed Maisie’s caretaker upon the occasion that neither of her current guardians could continue.

Carroll does not appear to have trusted Mills as readily as Lockwood did. Whether their relationship was more amicable in earlier years is unknown, but by 2018 Mills had lost his sense of idealism and became corrupted by greed. This may have been exacerbated by his learning how Maisie had come to be, that she was a clone rather than Lockwood’s natural granddaughter. By the end of their relationship, Carroll appears to have suspected that Mills intended to inherit his employer’s fortune, this being the reason for his enthusiastic support. Unfortunately, Lockwood still gave Mills his complete trust, and so if Carroll had any suspicions about Mills’s motives, she could not disclose them to Lockwood. Because of this, Mills could intimidate her into silence.

During the incident of June 24, 2018, Lockwood learned of Mills’s corruption via Maisie, and most likely entrusted Carroll to investigate further. It is probable that Carroll knew about Mills’s strange visitors, who Mills most likely excused as business partners and guests; he probably changed the access code to the sub-basement levels of the building so she could not discover his operation. Now, she knew the truth about Mills’s activities over the past few years, and with Lockwood aware of them too, she could confront him. Carroll found Mills at Maisie’s room, and he instructed her to leave Maisie locked in; she dared not challenge him, knowing he had a full security team at his disposal, but she instructed him to see Lockwood. Carroll did not let Maisie out, but left the key in the door. It is certain that Carroll knew about Maisie’s knack for escaping, so she may have left the key there on purpose to give Maisie the means to sneak out.

Carroll was replaced by a guard from Mills’s team during the night. Mills summoned her to Lockwood’s bedroom, revealing that Lockwood had passed away, apparently in his sleep. With their employer dead, Mills dismissed Carroll from service in spite of her tearful insistence that Maisie needed her. She was forced to leave the estate, and with her out of the way, Maisie and the Lockwood fortune belonged to Mills.

Maisie Lockwood

When Mills came to work at the Lockwood estate, he would have met Benjamin Lockwood’s granddaughter Maisie Lockwood, who was allegedly born in 2009. Her mother had (again, allegedly) passed away in a car accident, leaving her grandfather as her sole remaining close family.

Eventually, Mills learned that Maisie was not what she appeared. It is unknown whether Lockwood told him directly, or if he became suspicious on his own; if the latter is the case, there were certainly details that hinted at the truth. He now knew that Maisie was not her mother’s daughter, but her clone. Lockwood had (allegedly) used advanced technology and his enormous wealth to recreate his daughter as an act of grief. Mills found this misuse of power unethical, but did not disclose his feelings about it. His treatment of Maisie was outwardly no different than that of other adults, but some of the language he used to describe her in private comes across as mildly dehumanizing. In any case, Lockwood was unaware of Mills’s feelings, and trusted Mills enough to appoint him Maisie’s guardian in the event that neither Lockwood nor his housekeeper Iris Carroll could continue caring for her.

Maisie did not quite view Mills as a father figure, as this role was essentially filled by Lockwood, but she did seem to consider him a part of her little family. She was particularly excited for the 2018 operation to save her beloved dinosaurs from Isla Nublar, which Mills was in charge of. Mills, on the other hand, mostly viewed Maisie as a means to an end; she did not legally exist, since human cloning is illegal in California, so she could only be heir to the Lockwood fortune by proxy. Mills was that proxy, set to inherit Lockwood’s properties.

During the 2018 incident, Maisie became suspicious when Mills suddenly shouted at her for prying into the dinosaurs’ condition. He quickly apologized, but she began spying on him as he discussed business with his auctioneer Gunnar Eversoll. As a result, Maisie discovered Mills’s plans, and she investigated the lab to gather evidence. Mills discovered her intrusion after she found the prototype Indoraptor; Mills locked Maisie in her room to prevent her interfering further, but the damage was already done, and Lockwood had found out the truth.

Maisie escaped her room during the night, narrowly avoiding Mills by hiding in a dumbwaiter which she used to access the sub-basement. He did not expect her to escape, nor did he expect her to ally with Claire Dearing and Owen Grady; Mills had murdered Lockwood and dismissed Carroll, putting himself in the position of Maisie’s sole guardian, and this complication threatened his plan to inherit the Lockwood fortune. Now that outsiders knew about Maisie, her existence might be revealed and his inheritance could be brought into question. Mills explained to the others that Maisie was a clone, hoping that this might dissuade them from adopting her. Not only did his effort at manipulation fail, his guards were attacked by the escaped prototype, and Mills fled another way down the maintenance corridors. He saw Maisie for the last time that night.

However, just because he never saw her again did not mean she was no longer relevant to him. Just as Maisie would never know Mills had murdered her grandfather, Mills had no way of knowing that it was Maisie who had released the dinosaurs that ran down him and his guards. She had freed the animals to save their lives, not knowing that Mills was directly in their escape path. By the time Maisie exited the manor, all that remained of Mills was a mostly-eaten leg, which may have gone unnoticed in the wreckage.

The reality of Maisie is even more twisted than Mills was allowed to believe. She was a clone as he had learned, but she had not been created by Sir Benjamin. Instead, she was around a year older than he had been told, and she had been cloned by Charlotte Lockwood herself. Not only this, but Charlotte had not died in a car crash, but rather as a result of a genetic disorder. She managed to invent a revolutionary vaccine to save Maisie from the same disorder, but had never had time to cure herself. Had Mills known the real truth, he would have recognized the significance of Maisie’s genome to medical science, which could have put Maisie at even greater risk for exploitation.

Other Lockwood staff

A few other people were employed at the Lockwood mansion, including at least one chauffeur. There were presumably cooks, groundskeepers, maintenance workers, and others, as well as any visiting medical professionals seeing to Lockwood’s health. None of these other staff members appear to have lived on-site like Mills and Carroll did, and Mills’s relationships to them are largely unknown.

Claire Dearing

In the early 2010s, Mills negotiated a partnership between the Lockwood Foundation and Jurassic World on behalf of his employer. At a fundraiser, he met Claire Dearing, then the Senior Assets Manager and Operations Manager of Jurassic World. Her position made her one of the most powerful employees at the park and in InGen as a whole, being second only to the Board of Directors and Simon Masrani himself. Mills became acquainted with her during this fundraiser, and though they did not remain in contact afterward, they both remembered one another fondly. Mills notably bears some physical resemblance to Dearing’s old boyfriend Justin Hendricks, who passed away in 2004, and Mills possessed at that time a youthful idealism that aligned with Dearing’s.

Over the years, both Mills and Dearing lost their sense of idealism separately. Mills became increasingly obsessed with profit, while Dearing grew detached and impersonal due to the nature of her job. The 2015 incident was partly both of their faults, as Dearing had agreed with Masrani and the Board in authorizing Henry Wu to create the Indominus and permitted him to operate with minimal oversight while Mills actually funded Wu’s research in private. Their reactions to the incident, however, were wholly different. Dearing rediscovered the ideals that had driven her during her youth, committing herself to animal rights as well as human safety. Mills, on the other hand, had departed too far from his youthful idealism to rediscover it. He doubled down, harboring Henry Wu in the Lockwood estate and continuing his research.

Mills would have heard of Dearing founding the Dinosaur Protection Group from Lockwood, who was following the controversy. She was not essential to his plan to capture the dinosaurs, though her access to Jurassic World’s tracking system would certainly make it easier, but she was his only means to convince I.B.R.I.S. trainer Owen Grady to help capture Blue. Lockwood had already planned on enlisting her, not knowing how much Mills was already capable of doing just with his mercenary team, and so Dearing became a part of Mills’s plan too.

When they met again for the first time in many years, they both expressed fondness of their shared memories, though Mills was pleasantly surprised that Dearing remembered him. Their interactions have been interpreted as having mildly flirtatious undertones, but this was not explored further due to the urgency of the mission. Dearing was convinced to participate, and Mills even managed to get her to enlist Grady. While at the manor, Dearing accidentally saw Maisie Lockwood, who was supposed to remain hidden as her existence was not legal, and Mills gave Dearing the usual explanation that Maisie was Benjamin Lockwood’s natural granddaughter.

It is unclear whether Mills intended for Dearing to be killed during the operation, or if he allowed his lead hunter Ken Wheatley to make that call. Nevertheless, Mills seems to have been surprised that she lived, as he was informed that Wheatley had captured and imprisoned both her and Grady in the mansion after the operation returned to Orick. He attempted to apologize for taking advantage of her trust, reassuring her that it was not his intention to hurt her, but she rejected his apology and refused his excuses. She did talk Grady down from breaking Mills’s arm, but this was only so that she could get a chance to assault him herself. After this, Mills made no effort to be cordial, implying that he would come up with a way to dispose of her and Grady quietly.

Mills did not anticipate that Dearing would escape custody, nor that she and Grady would find and befriend Maisie. He confronted them in the maintenance corridors with armed guards, revealing Maisie’s origins in the hopes that this would convince Dearing and Grady to hand over the girl. They refused, however, and Mills’s guards were attacked by the escaped Indoraptor. He fled a different way down the halls, and never saw Dearing again as he died that night.

Henry Wu

The hybrid Indominus rex was the brainchild of Dr. Henry Wu, whose research into hybridization between genera commenced in 1993 and first yielded favorable results in early 1997. He was the chief geneticist at InGen during the Jurassic Park project and was formally promoted in December 2000 to the position of senior genetic biologist. Wu began work on the Indominus in 2008, taking an offer from Vic Hoskins to design the animal for battlefield combat. Sometime in the early 2010s, funds for this project were provided by Mills using money from the Lockwood Foundation. Unlike Mills, who saw the capitalistic value in militarized genetic engineering, Wu simply wanted a stable source of funding for his creations. Wu viewed his work both as a science and an art, rather than as a business like Mills or a security initiative like Hoskins.

It is not believed that Mills visited Isla Nublar during the creation and rearing of the Indominus, most likely communicating remotely with his contacts on the island. In 2015, when Jurassic World was permanently closed due to bad press surrounding the incident that December, Wu was evacuated from Isla Nublar to the Lockwood estate. This was done in anticipation of legal investigations into the Indominus, which shortly thereafter came to pass as predicted; Mills sheltered Wu in the mansion as the government raided his labs. In the meantime, Mills had some of Wu’s assets moved to the Lockwood estate, and refurbished the mansion’s sub-basement laboratory for Wu’s research to continue. Hoskins died in the incident, but he, Mills, and Wu had already made plans to further the hybrid project with improved specimens.

Among the assets seized by the government included all of the Indominus materials not including the remains of the subadult. Without a genome to use as a template, Wu would have to start over from scratch, making continuation near impossible. Mills, eager to continue their work and bring it to fruition, funded an expedition to Isla Nublar in mid-2016 to retrieve a sample of the Indominus genome from the subadult’s remains, which now lay at the bottom of the Jurassic World Lagoon. The operation succeeded, permitting Wu to continue his work once more.

However, progress on the new hybrid (called the Indoraptor) was slow, and the prototype developed by 2018 expressed numerous behavioral problems which Wu hypothesized stemmed from a lack of empathy. Wu believed that empathy was a taught behavior, rather than an innate one, and constructed a plan to introduce a surrogate mother for future Indoraptors to solve this problem. Mills appears to have been unaware of Wu’s hypotheses, suggesting that communication between these co-conspirators was lacking. Wu was heard frustratedly explaining these concepts to Mills after the 2018 expedition was already returning to the Lockwood estate, while Mills was only concerned with how expensive the operation was becoming and how time-consuming it turned out to be. Mills had arranged for the Isla Nublar dinosaurs to be captured and sold on the black market to fund future Indoraptors, with the exception of a female Velociraptor named Blue who was to be used as the surrogate mother.

Wu attended the auction Mills held on June 24, 2018 at the estate, witnessing his once-proud creations sold to criminals. Nonetheless, these animals were no longer necessary and were soon to be replaced by new genetically-engineered species. The prototype Indoraptor was showcased at the halfway point, but since Wu still had work to do before its kind was perfected, he and Mills did not plan to sell it. Despite this agreement, over-eager bidders began competing to purchase the prototype anyway, and Mills permitted this. Wu demanded that it be stopped, citing his concerns about an up-and-coming creation falling into his rivals’ hands. Mills ignored Wu’s warnings, reassuring his business partner that they could easily make more Indoraptors with the money from the auction. Wu stormed off, angered that Mills had finally stopped heeding his advice.

In the lab, Wu attempted to accelerate his research. Both Wu’s work and the auction were stopped by activists from the Dinosaur Protection Group, who made an unplanned two-pronged attack on the Lockwood estate in the laboratory and the auction hall. Mills and Wu did not see one another again, and Wu was never actually aware of the battle taking place above. He was assaulted and left unconscious during the fight in the lab; security guards hired by Mills dragged him to safety, but by the time he recovered, his former benefactor had died.

Vic Hoskins

The idea for military bioengineering originally came from Vic Hoskins, the Head of InGen Security from 2001 until 2015. Mills probably learned about the Indominus rex in the early 2010s through Hoskins, and offered to fund the project. Hoskins believed that bioengineering could be applied to the concept of military animals, creating superior combat-oriented species which could then be sold to the U.S. Armed Forces. Mills, on the other hand, was only concerned with making money, planning to eventually inherit the Lockwood fortune. Both men understood the value that InGen technology held as well as the money to be made in weapons.

In 2012, two Indominus hatched, though only one would survive. The remaining specimen showed unpredictable and highly aggressive behavior, making it unsuitable as a military animal. Hoskins and Mills agreed that the solution lay in increasing the raptor-like qualities of the hybrid, making it smaller and more capable of emotional intelligence. Plans began for such improvements by 2015.

Unfortunately, in late 2015, the Indominus breached containment largely due to the park administration’s lack of knowledge about the animal’s capabilities. Hoskins failed to direct InGen Security properly to recapture it, hoping to prove that conventional means could not stop the animal and that the I.B.R.I.S. specimens were up to the task where humans would fail. This ambition led to the deaths of numerous InGen personnel and animals, as well as the accidental failures of security technology that caused scores of visitor injuries. By the end of the day, Hoskins had been granted his field test, which failed miserably; the raptors attacked InGen personnel after being turned loose, and by the end of the night the casualties included all but one raptor, the Indominus, and Hoskins himself. The publicity of the disaster forced Mills to harbor Wu at the Lockwood estate while the government hunted him down, bringing the whole operation underground. Still, Mills continued the project without Hoskins’s help, basing their next steps off of their plans for Indominus as well as data from the I.B.R.I.S. project. Without Hoskins, Mills aimed to sell genetically-engineered military animals to the highest bidders rather than solely to the United States government.

Indominus rex

Mills used money from the Lockwood foundation to fund the creation of two Indominus rex in 2012, the first step in Henry Wu’s military bioengineering project as proposed by Vic Hoskins. Only one of these animals would survive, and it was considered inadequate for military use because of its cumbersome size and violent unpredictability. Hoskins proposed engineering the next species in the lineage to be smaller and more raptor-like, hopefully making it more suited to social behavior. Mills is not believed to have visited the animal himself, and probably only heard about it from Hoskins.

In 2015, the surviving Indominus was accidentally released from containment, causing a massive security incident which led to the permanent closure of Jurassic World. The animal did not survive, but a sample from its remains was collected by a team hired by Mills in 2016. This sample was used as a source of DNA to use as a template from which Henry Wu created the Indoraptor prototype, the next step in military bioengineering.

Lockwood Estate scientists

After Henry Wu was branded a criminal by the U.S. House Committee on Science and went into hiding, Mills took measures to ensure he could continue his work without fear of discovery. He had the Lockwood laboratory refurbished and brought up-to-date, allowing Wu to continue to work with cutting-edge technology like he had in Jurassic World. Mills also hired a team of about a dozen geneticists from around the world; some may have been former InGen scientists who Wu trusted, but Mills described the geneticists as “imported,” suggesting that most were not InGen.

Mills’s relationships to these employees is not known; they probably came and went through the rear entrance to the building rather than the main entrance to avoid detection, but no specifics have been given on how he concealed the operation. The scientists were seen working in the morning of Saturday, June 23 and in the night of Sunday, June 24, but were absent on that Sunday morning, suggesting that they had Sunday mornings off. Their working conditions were sometimes hazardous; the aggressive Indoraptor prototype was left alive with caution tape marking the extent of its reach, and it is known to have killed at least one technician during its time there. To ensure the other employees’ silence in spite of incidents like this, Mills must have compensated them handsomely.

Despite all their progress, the scientists’ work was undone during the 2018 incident when Mills’s guards got into a gunfight with a released dinosaur and accidentally triggered a hydrogen explosion in the lab. This destroyed much of Wu’s work, and nearly killed the remaining live specimens held in the lower level. Many of the lab assets had been evacuated, since the auction above was disrupted and Mills feared discovery, but assuredly many of their specimens were lost (some of their genetic samples were even sold on the black market). With the lab destroyed, Mills dead, and the Indominus DNA sample lost in the incident, the scientists Mills hired were out of a job. Since they had aided a known criminal in pursuing a line of work deemed bioethically reprehensible, these scientists’ best course of action would be to lay low from that point onward.

Indoraptor prototype

When the Indominus rex was determined to be unsuitable for military use, Mills and Hoskins agreed that the best solution was to increase the expression of Velociraptor traits. These desired traits included smaller size, tactical intelligence, and social behaviors such as empathy and loyalty. Hoskins died before this vision could be properly realized, but Mills and Henry Wu were able to continue the project without him and ultimately create a prototype for this new genus, which they called Indoraptor.

Unfortunately, this prototype still did not possess all the desired traits. It was still too aggressive despite its heightened intelligence, and did not display any form of empathy. While it could be trained, it was not loyal. Wu continued to work on perfecting the next generation, but Mills had no further use for the defective prototype and left it in a small cage in the sub-basement to live out the rest of its days.

Mills’s neglect for the prototype was probably a contributing factor in its behavioral problems. He still did see one form of use for this failure of a creature: it could be used to advertise its future descendants to potential buyers. At the auction on June 24, 2018, the prototype was shown to attendees as a teaser, not intended to be sold. Mills had his guards shock the animal to get it into an aggressive mood, then display its kill-command training using a modified gun. Although Mills had only intended to whet the bidders’ appetites, they eagerly began bidding on the prototype anyway, and he allowed it to be sold to a Russian mobster. As it was being prepared for loading into a truck, the auction was disrupted by the Dinosaur Protection Group’s ally Owen Grady, preventing the prototype from being removed from the estate.

In the maintenance corridors within the mansion, Mills had confronted Grady, Claire Dearing, and Maisie Lockwood with his armed guards when the prototype attacked. Mills had no way of knowing how the animal had escaped, but it ambushed his guards from right in front of him and forced everyone else to flee. Mills quickly began evacuating assets from the mansion, probably unaware of what was going on within; he never saw the Indoraptor in person again. It died before he did, but Mills was not around to witness its defeat.

Hired mercenaries

Mills often hired outside contractors to perform difficult or dangerous jobs. The first known example was in 2016, when he hired a man named Hawkes to oversee the retrieval of valuable research materials from Isla Nublar. His relationship with Hawkes was unknown; Hawkes was primarily concerned with money, but also saw his success or failure as integral to his reputation as a mercenary. Several of the people under his employ including an unnamed female helicopter pilot, Hansen, Jack, the two Marine One operators, Reed, and Dawson perished during the incident, and he could not recover Henry Wu’s research laptop; he surely faced some serious consequences for these failures. One of the two mission objectives, numerous supplies, and two expensive vehicles were lost, so the reward was probably cut. However, the loss of seven team members might have meant that the individual payout was higher for each mercenary.

For the mission to Isla Nublar in 2018, Mills contracted Ken Wheatley, a supposed big-game hunter and effective team leader. A group of mercenaries was assembled to manage the operation, with Wheatley in command. The silence of these men was imperative, since the mission was leaving on Benjamin Lockwood’s ship the S.S. Arcadia ahead of schedule without Lockwood’s knowledge. Furthermore, Lockwood planned to transport the animals to Sanctuary Island, whereas Mills’s plan was to bring them back to Orick and sell them on the black market. He did not disclose to Wheatley what the money would fund, though some of the mercenaries acting as security staff at the estate were well aware of the prototype Indoraptor and even helped train it. Some of these security staff may have included former InGen Security members who had worked with Hoskins. It is unknown whether the Marine One, Air One, and Land One team members involved with the 2016 incident belonged to related organizations; of these, only Air One survived the incident.

Wheatley was paid handsomely for his services and his secrecy, but was promised a hefty bonus for the live capture of a Velociraptor specimen named Blue. This task proved much more difficult than rounding up the other species Mills had identified, with some mercenaries sustaining serious injuries in the hunt. Mills’s solution to this was to manipulate former I.B.R.I.S. animal trainer Owen Grady into joining the Dinosaur Protection Group on the mission, trusting that his knowledge of Blue’s behavior would aid in capturing her. Once Grady and the DPG were no longer of use, Wheatley planned to quietly kill them. It is unknown whether Mills specifically told Wheatley to do this, or whether Wheatley made these plans of his own accord. In any case, it meant that Wheatley would do the dirty work while Mills kept his own hands clean.

On June 23, 2018, the DPG group arrived to Isla Nublar and within a relatively short time had trekked north across the island to locate and capture Blue. Mills received a status update around midday, learning that Blue was captured but in critical condition after a mercenary shot her during a fight (the man responsible had died), but that the DPG were being left behind save for their paleoveterinarian who was now treating Blue. The volcanic eruption was underway, forcing a hasty evacuation of Isla Nublar. Mills panicked at learning of these complications, and at considering the challenges ahead.

Once the Arcadia arrived at Orick with its cargo in the evening of June 24, Wheatley accosted Grady and Dearing as they attempted to sneak onto the Lockwood estate. Mills accompanied Wheatley in confronting them after they were imprisoned, with Wheatley threatening to shoot Grady in order to protect Mills (he did not threaten Dearing when she actually did assault Mills, and instead appeared mildly amused). Wheatley implied that Grady and Dearing would have to be killed to protect their plans, though Mills did not authorize this; he most likely needed to give time to assemble a proper cover story. In the meantime, the other mercenaries loaded the animals from trucks into the sub-basement in preparation for the night’s events.

During the black-market auction at the estate that night, Wheatley acted as head of security for Mills, commanding his mercenaries from the island alongside Mills’s security guards at the estate. Several animals were successfully sold, transported away from the estate under direction of the mercenaries. Some of the guards helped Mills to run the auction, particularly during displays of carnivore aggression in which they used shock prods to torment the animals. At the halfway point of the auction, Owen Grady appeared and released a Stygimoloch into the crowd; a mercenary attempted to fatally shoot the dinosaur, but was stopped by Grady. Instead, the bullets peppered the ceiling of the auction hall, terrifying the guests and causing a panic. Grady took advantage of the chaos to slip through the crowd as the mercenaries tried to get the situation under control. He fought off several of the guards in hand-to-hand combat, preventing the prototype Indoraptor‘s cage from leaving the auction hall and disappearing before the guards could regroup.

Wheatley was unaware of all this, but knew something was wrong when dozens of frightened guests and one freed dinosaur left the building. He tried to find Mills, who had taken two mercenaries to sweep the maintenance corridors for Grady. Wheatley understood that the auction had failed, but since he had upheld his end of the bargain, he wanted his bonus. He and Mills never saw one another again, but Wheatley’s actions soon caused disaster for Mills. The hunter accidentally released the Indoraptor, underestimating the creature’s intelligence and abilities; Mills and the other mercenaries did not know of this, and Wheatley’s death ensured he could not warn them. The escaped animal killed Mills’s guards in the maintenance corridors and proceeded to attack and eat at least one other mercenary, a man named Dan, before being killed.

Remaining security staff evacuated Henry Wu and many of his lab assets from the estate during the attack (in which at least two more guards were killed), and probably worked in transporting the sold animals and DNA samples to their buyers. Two guards helped Mills move the precious Indominus bone sample to Mills’s van, but as they did, they were suddenly attacked by an escaped Pteranodon. The reptile hefted one of the guards into the air and dropped him before Mills or the other guard could act, fatally tossing the victim into the windshield of Mills’s van. A stampede of escaped animals suddenly overwhelmed them, trampling the second guard to death. Mills was killed not long after.

The surviving guards continued to assist with transporting the auction’s sold lots, though Mills no longer being around to ensure they kept getting paid probably led to many of them quitting after this job was done. What has happened to many of Mills’s former security staff is unknown.

Gunnar Eversoll

In 2018, Mills struck up a business partnership with auctioneer Gunnar Eversoll, a man with considerable connections in the black market. Mills promised that the dinosaurs would arrive to the manor by the morning of June 24, and appears to have at least implied to Eversoll that Lockwood was aware of the auction and supported it.

Eversoll arrived to the manor on June 24 to find that the dinosaurs were not there. Mills promised him that they were en route, but Eversoll was unimpressed, and furthermore doubted that the animals would really sell for notable amounts. After all, the world had known about these creatures’ existence for twenty-one years, and their novelty had faded. Mills assured him that the dinosaurs would indeed sell for millions and that each one had unique biopharmaceutical properties that made them desirable, but Eversoll was still doubtful. In response, Mills briefed Eversoll on his plans while touring the laboratory: the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar were merely seed money, used to fund a grander scheme. His scientists had turned to genetic engineering to build better military animals, since weapons were always a reliable market, and had created an evolved form of the Indominus rex: a new genus called Indoraptor. A prototype had already been grown, though it still needed work before it could be sold. Eversoll was finally impressed and allowed the auction to take place.

The dinosaurs arrived that night and were loaded into the sub-basement laboratory. Eversoll greeted the bidders as they arrived: he introdued Mills to those he had met before, and explained what some of the buyers were interested in. This was useful information to Mills, since it would give him an idea of which bidders were most invested in which species. Knowing this, Mills could gauge how much money each species should make. Eversoll asked whether Lockwood would attend the auction, and Mills uncomfortably said that he did not think Lockwood would make an appearance.

Eversoll presided over the auction, hyping up each animal as the lots were presented. Mills did not participate as actively, monitoring the transactions as they came through, though he and Eversoll maintained communication as to best manage the auction. Together, they made well over a hundred million dollars by the halfway point. At halfway, they demonstrated the Indoraptor, showing off its training and aggressive behaviors. Eversoll explained that it was a work in progress and not yet ready for sale, but Russian bidder Anton Orlov began the bidding on this defective creature anyway. Eversoll tried to discourage the bidders, but at a signal from Mills, he opened bidding and proceeded as normal. Orlov eventually won the prototype, but before it could be shipped out, the auction was interrupted by an escaped dinosaur. A guard’s gun shot up the ceiling, terrifying guests and causing a mass panic.

As the dinosaur, frightened guests, and agitated guards brawled in the auction hall, Mills and Eversoll were separated. Mills fled the auction hall in pursuit of the animal rights activists who had disrupted the auction, while Eversoll cowered behind his podium. The prototype was stalled on the catwalk, unable to be moved out. Mills and Eversoll never saw one another again; both men died that night under different circumstances.

De-extinct animals

Mills was young in 1997 when the world was shocked to learn that de-extinction had been accomplished. A male Tyrannosaurus rex was accidentally loosed in San Diego, California after being transported there along with its son from Isla Sorna, Costa Rica. This began decades’ worth of animal rights and genetic engineering controversies, which Mills would one day find himself deeply embroiled in.

For the time being, though, he became the executor of estate for Benjamin Lockwood and the financial manager of Lockwood’s philanthropic foundation. It is unknown how many times, if at all, Mills personally visited Jurassic World between 2005 and 2015, but he was well aware of the value its de-extinct inhabitants held. These included the Velociraptors used in the I.B.R.I.S. project, which was run by Mills’s associate Vic Hoskins.

Mills and Hoskins eventually collaborated to create the Indominus rex with the help of Henry Wu, but it is unknown whether Mills personally selected any of the other de-extinct animals used as gene donors for the Indominus. Its genome’s primary components originated from Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, intended to make it powerful but intelligent. While these traits were achieved, they came without the capacity for trainability, leading to an incident that resulted in the deaths of dozens of de-extinct animals alongside Jurassic World staff members and InGen Security soldiers. Wu had worked on a potential successor, which was also deemed a failure.

For the next three years, Mills had minimal involvement with the animals of Isla Nublar. He was unconcerned with their well-being, since his work with Henry Wu was now focused almost entirely on continued hybridization research. Eggs belonging to unknown species were kept at the Lockwood laboratory, but no live animals aside from the Indoraptor prototype were present by 2018. The operation in 2016 to retrieve a sample of Indominus DNA was subject to attacks by the Mosasaurus of Jurassic World, which was released from its containment by the team hired by Mills. This result was unintended. Another operation in February 2018 was hindered by various predatory dinosaurs which had by then established territories on the island.

Research was slow and expensive, and Mills eventually needed a source of income to ensure it could continue. The Isla Nublar dinosaurs were his solution: Lockwood already planned on rescuing the animals from a volcanic eruption should the U.S. government and Masrani Global fail to do so, and he was going to enlist the Dinosaur Protection Group for this. Mills pretended to go along with this mission, though he selected target species not based on their intrinsic value but based on their value on the black market. These included eleven species, each of which had biological properties that made them useful. Mills also planned to capture other species if time allowed. He used all the data he could gather to determine the different species’ locations on the island, sending a team of mercenaries to capture them.

Of special interest was an I.B.R.I.S. Velociraptor named Blue, who was known for her emotional intelligence and empathic behavior patterns. She was intended by Henry Wu as a behavioral specimen, and Wu considered her irreplaceable (though Mills was sure any Velociraptor they cloned would do). The mission to Isla Nublar took place in mid-June, completing on June 23 as the eruption became violent. Species captured by this mission included Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, ApatosaurusBaryonyxBrachiosaurus, Carnotaurus, CompsognathusDilophosaurus, GallimimusNasutoceratops, ParasaurolophusPteranodon, Sinoceratops, StegosaurusStygimoloch, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, and Velociraptor, along with possibly others. With the exception of Pteranodon, all of these rescues saved their species from extinction, at least for that period of time. The tyrannosaur and Blue were believed to be the last of their kinds, and with most of the other species only a handful of individuals were rescued.

Although these animals were spared a terrible death, Mills had no care for their well-being other than that they survived. He was distressed by the idea that Blue might die of a gunshot wound, though he did believe that simply cloning more raptors would solve that problem; he did not understand her particular behavioral traits being significant to Wu’s research. Aside from Blue, all of the animals were intended to be sold on the black market. They were fed, but mistreated, by Mills’s hired staff members. As the night went on, they were transported from the sub-basement up to the garage, which was converted into an auction hall. Under Mills’s supervision, several animals were sold, including an Ankylosaurus, a juvenile male Allosaurus, a Stegosaurus, a Baryonyx, and others, as well as a case of DNA samples. These creatures were transported to various locations around the world, where their fate is currently unknown.

At the halfway point of the auction, while the prototype Indoraptor was being sold off, a female Stygimoloch was released into the auction hall. A guard’s effort to gun it down was stopped by Owen Grady, causing a panic as the ceiling was peppered with gunfire. This animal directly threatened Mills at one point as he tried to flee, and Mills used one of his customers as a human shield to protect himself. He escaped, but in the ensuing carnage, it was all he could do to flee the estate with important lab assets and some loyal staff.

As he tried to escape, Mills’s guards were attacked, one by an irate Pteranodon and another by a protective adult Triceratops. The unsold animals had been freed and now stampeded to safety in the woods, nearly crushing Mills as he sheltered beneath his van. He survived the passing of the stampede, but after reemerging, he was surrounded by theropods and killed by the Tyrannosaurus despite futile attempts to defend himself. During the attack, his leg was detached; the tyrannosaur swallowed his entire body save the leg, and a Carnotaurus attempted to eat the leg. Mills’s leg was dropped while the larger theropod fought the smaller one off, and was then mostly consumed by a group of scavenging Compsognathus.

Despite Mills’s poor treatment and lack of care for these animals, they are ultimately alive on the North American mainland partly because of his actions. Today, these creatures can be found throughout the wild, and are gradually integrating into the modern ecosystem. They still suffer mistreatment when returned to captivity, but as Mills’s operation has disbanded with his death, he can no longer be blamed for these incidents.

International black market

Mills had a brief foray into the black market shortly before his death. Through auctioneer Gunnar Eversoll, he arranged for dozens of wealthy buyers to meet at the Lockwood estate on June 24 to purchase de-extinct animals harvested from Isla Nublar as well as gene samples that had been constructed by Henry Wu. Mills only briefly interacted with the guests when they arrived, greeting them while Eversoll introduced each one with a short explanation of what they were interested in bidding on. Mills supervised the auction, keeping track of the transactions taking place. Overall, he made around US $149,000,000 that night, and this was only from half of the lots planned to be sold; the auction was disrupted at the halfway point. This occurred just after the Indoraptor prototype sold to Russian mobster Anton Orlov for $43,000,000, which would have pushed Mills’s total profits to at least $192,000,000. Selling the prototype was Mills’s executive decision made against the cautions of his lead scientist; the prototype was not suitable for team combat, so Mills was essentially selling a defective weapon to his customer.

Had the auction been successful, Mills would have gone on to sell perfected Indoraptors and other assets to future buyers. However, since it was disrupted, his guests fled and several were killed; the prototype was never delivered to Orlov’s vehicle. Mills did not survive the night. A few of the animals he sold were successfully shipped off to locations currently unknown; several including an Allosaurus may still be within the United States, while an Ankylosaurus was won by an Indonesian bidder and a Baryonyx was shipped to Russia. A case of DNA samples from Henry Wu’s laboratory were also shipped on the same airplane to Russia, meaning that an unknown criminal party now has the technology and means to clone de-extinct animals.

Owen Grady

It is highly likely that Mills was invested in the I.B.R.I.S. program run by InGen Security, and so he would have taken particular interest to its lead researcher Owen Grady. A former U.S. Navy sailor and military animal trainer, Grady had experience with intelligent animal behavior and was hired to work with the problematic Velociraptors. His greatest success was an individual named Blue, who expressed exceptional levels of emotional intelligence.

Mills was not interested in animal empathy, but was greatly intrigued by the fact that raptors could be taught to understand commands. At the time, he was also invested in military bioengineering, a concept that he, Vic Hoskins, and Henry Wu were working on. After the fall of Jurassic World in 2015, Mills sought to apply the results of I.B.R.I.S. to military bioengineering, combining the two to create what Hoskins had conceptualized as the perfect attack animal.

When the prototype Indoraptor failed to exhibit the traits Wu had hoped, such as empathy, Wu insisted that they obtain Blue as a behavioral specimen for future generations to imprint on. Mills did not fully understand what Wu meant, but he still made it a point to capture Blue. Early attempts were unsuccessful, and Mills turned to Grady. He knew that Claire Dearing had previously had a romantic relationship with Grady, and so used her to hire Grady by proxy. Grady eventually agreed to the mission, though Mills had no use for him after Blue was captured.

It is not known if Mills had planned for Grady to be murdered from the start or if this was improvised by Mills’s lead hunter Ken Wheatley. In any case, Mills was astonished to find that Grady had survived Isla Nublar and escaped in one piece. By this time these men were enemies, though Mills still appreciated how Grady’s work with I.B.R.I.S. had formed the basis of Mills’s current project. Instead of expressing even fake gratitude, though, Mills aimed to instill feelings of guilt into Grady for helping him. By establishing that Grady was not innocent, Mills justified his own actions, and also temporarily broke down Grady’s resolve.

However, he underestimated his enemy. Through means unknown to Mills, Grady escaped imprisonment and released a dinosaur into the auction hall, then prevented the Indoraptor from being shipped out to its buyer while keeping Mills’s guards at bay. Mills took guards into the maintenance corridors to track down Grady, who he found with Dearing protecting Maisie. Mills tried to take his young charge back, even revealing that she had been created in Lockwood’s laboratory as an ethically murky act of grief. Grady did not show any signs of handing the girl over, though; before Mills could have his guards use force, they were attacked by the Indoraptor. As he fled a different way, Mills’s brief enmity with Grady ended, and the two would never see one another alive again.

Portrayal

Eli Mills is portrayed by Rafe Spall. He is not based on any specific character from Michael Crichton‘s two novels. Instead, he is a personification of the franchise’s theme of capitalistic exploitation of nature, represented in the film through his desire to capture and sell de-extinct animals for profit without any care for their welfare. Mills has been interpreted as a harsh criticism of capitalism, drawing criticism from capitalist fans of the franchise (who, apparently, were unaware of the franchise’s anti-capitalist stance until this point).