his head, the baby raptor cooed all cute and cuddly.
"Dr. Grant?" said a voice faintly.
Grant didn't listen; he was too busy looking at this deadly predator.
"DR. GRANT!?" said the voice again.
It was much louder and clearer and it caught Grant's attention this time. The voice was Henry's.
"You okay? You looked like you went into a comma there for a second." said Henry.
"Oh, I'm... I'm fine." said Grant.
But deep down he wasn't so sure. Grant put the raptor back in the nest and took off the rubber gloves.
"Alright now." said Masrani. "Would you five care to see the adults?"
"Adults?" said Grant, Billy, and Ellie all at the same time.
Meanwhile somewhere else in the visitor center, Zach, Gray, and Zara had just entered the building. The kids had finally gotten their V.I.P wrist bands and now had access to places most visitors didn't. As they walked in Gray looked around, eager to check everything out. Right in the center of the main room were several holographic displays. There was a small one of the earth that showed off were different species of dinosaurs once roamed, and a large one in the center of the room that displayed all the species in the park. At the back, there were little digging pits with plastic fossils for little kids to dig up and pretend to be paleontologists. There were TV screens hanging on the walls that played many dinosaur documentaries for people to watch. There was a staircase as well for visitors to climb up and look at displayed dinosaur fossils.
Once again Gray ran ahead, he raced over to a holographic touch screen that showed off the different kinds of DNA the parks scientists used to bring back the dinosaurs. He clicked on four different parts of DNA labels.
"Cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. The same four things in everything that ever lived." He said to himself. Zach caught up to him.
"Hey, don't wander off, all right? Mom's not paying me for babysitting." said Zach.
"Zach? Gray is that you?" said a women's voice. The boys turned around to Claire walking down the stairs.
"Aunt Claire!" yelled Gray excitedly. He rushed over to her.
"Hi Gray!" said Claire.
Gray hugged her.
"Oh my gosh, you've gotten so strong." She said.
Gray looked up and smiled at Claire. Zach walked over to her.
"Wow, Zach. Last time I saw you, you were like.... this tall." she said showing off how big Zach used to be with her hand. "That was what.... three, four years ago?"
"Uh eight. Eight years, but, you know close." said Zach.
"I see you both got your wrist bands." said Claire.
She handed Zach an envelope with money in it.
"Here, this is for food, and Zara here is going to take great care of you until I'm done working tonight. Okay?" she said.
"You're not coming with us?" asked Gray disappointed.
"Oh sweaty I really wish I could, but I have some very important to do first. But... tomorrow I can take you into the control room... show you behind the scenes and all of that. That'll be cool, right?" said Claire. "I'll see you tonight at eight. What time do you two go to sleep? Or do you go to sleep at different times?"
Zach and Gray just looked at each other and said nothing.
"Okay, so uhh..... Have fun, and take very good care of them." Claire continued.
With that, she walked away to finish her work. Meanwhile Masrani had taken his guests to the visitor center garage. The garage was big, inside there were three jeeps that had a T. Rex Skeleton on both front doors that said 'Jurassic Universe'. There were also shelves with tool boxes and paint buckets.
"Hello!?" shouted Masrani. His voice echoed around the room.
"Oh, Mr. Masrani sir." said a voice.
The group turned towards a man wearing a dark blueish/green jacket. The man had brown hair but the top of his head was bald, and had a very trim beard around his face.
"Ah, Eddi." said Masrani. The two shook hands. "How are you today my man?"
"Very good sir." said Eddie.
"Ah, my guests, this is Eddie Carr. A great mechanic, he helps to fix any of our vehicles that are in need of repairing. Eddi, this is Alan Grant-"
"Pleasure to meet you." said Grant.
He and Eddie shook hands.
"Ellie Sattler-" said Masrani.
She and Eddie shook hands as well.
"Billy Brennan-" said Masrani.
He and Eddie shook hands too.
"Sarah Harding-"
Sarah waved at him.
"And Ian Malchom." finished Masrani.
"Nice to meet you." said Ian.
"Same to you." said Eddie. The two of them shook hands.
"You know, you kinda remind me of an old collage buddy of mine."
"Really." said Eddie.
"Yea, he was a mechanic just like you, except he worked on laptops and computers." said Ian.
"Eddie here will be taking you five to see the adult Velociraptors." said Masrani.
"What about you sir?" asked Sarah.
"Aren't you coming with us?" asked Billy.
"I'm afraid not. I have something very important to take care of first, (he pulled out a watch) and I'm running late." said Masrani. "I'll have to catch up with you later."
"Well, good luck." said Grant.
He and Masrani shook hands goodbye.
"I'll see you all in two hours if my errands don't take too long." said Masrani.
And he walked back into the building.
"So, shall we get going?" asked Eddie.
Meanwhile Claire had just walked into the main control room. Here, almost all of the parks controls were done. There were several computers on-top of long extended tables, and at the front of the room was a large computer screen that showed the map of the whole park. The Island on the map was split into two sections. Most of it was the park, but the top of the island was restricted. Claire walked up to two people, one was a lady. She had blond hair and was wearing a blue sweatshirt with a white tee shirt underneath. The other person was a man, he had black hair, was wearing a light grey with red Polk-a-dot shirt, and had glasses and a short beard.
"Hello Vivian, Lowery." said Claire.
"Oh, hello Claire." said Vivian.
"What's the live count?" asked Claire.
"22,216." said Vivian.
"Any incidents?" asked Claire.
"We've got six kids in the "Lost and Found", 28 down with heatstroke, and some idiot tried to feed ice cream to a Triceratops." said Lowery.
Lowery was a bit of a dino nerd, he even had some plastic toy dinosaurs on his desk, along with a coke, and some french-fries.
"Did you close the deal?" asked Vivian.
"Looks like it." said Claire. "Verizon Wireless presents the Indominus rex."
"Ugh.... that is sssoooo terrible." Lowery sighed, hating the new name. "When we first opened we didn't need any genetically modified hybrids, we just needed real live dinosaurs. Why not just go the distance, and just let these corporations name the dinosaurs? They've got all the ballparks. Why stop there?"
Claire interrupted him.
"Why are the West Plains closed?" she asked pointing towards a red spot marked on the map.
"Another Styracosaur was found roaming outside of its zone." said Vivian.
"Security said the invisible fences were a no-fail. That is the second time this month." said Claire getting angry.
"Their implants short out when they fight for dominance." said Lowery.
Claire walked over to another man who looked a bit like Lowery, only allot more fat and he didn't have a beard.
"Dennis, our parks reputation is in your hands and you have butter fingers?!" she snapped.
"I am totally unappreciated in my time." said Dennis "We run the whole park from this room, with minimal staff, for up to a week. You think that kind of automation is easy, or cheap? You know anybody who can network eight Connection Machines and de-bug two million lines of code for what I bid this job because I'd sure as hell like to see them try."
"I'm sorry about your financial problems. I really am. But they are your problems." said Claire.
She was getting more and more annoyed.
"You're right, Claire. You're absolutely right. Everything's my problem." said Dennis.
"Look, okay I'm done talking about...... financial problems. Do you think you can fix the Styracosaurs implants?" she asked annoyed.
"Yea, yea, yea, I'll fix it tonight okay? Okay?! I'll check ALL the dinosaurs, see if there's a way to stop the implants from shorting out, debug any glitches in them, I'll even kiss them and-"
Dennis rambled on and on but Claire just started to ignore him and left to find Masrani. Dennis sighed.
"Nobody ever takes me seriously here anymore. But that's all gonna change soon." he said quietly looking at his barbasol can.
Claire drove over to the helicopter pad where Masrani was waiting for her. As she bored the helicopter she was surprised to see Masrani in the pilot chair. "Mr. Masrani, your flying." she said a bit worried.
"I finally got my license." he said. "How's my park doing?"
"Great, we're up two and a half percent over last year. A bit lower than our initial prediction-" said Claire. Masrani interrupted her.
"No, no, no, how's it doing? Are the guests having fun? Are the animals enjoying life?" he asked.
"Well, guest satisfaction is steady in the low 90's. We don't have a way to measure the animals' emotional experience." said Claire.
"Sure you do. You can see in their eyes." he joked.
"Of course." replied Claire.
"Okay. Now show me my new dinosaur." said Masrani.
The two put on some head-phones with mics so they communicate better over the loud blades. At last they took off. It was a bit jumpy at first but Masrani soon got the hand of it.
Meanwhile Masrani's guests Grant, Ellie, Billy, Ian, and Sarah were driving over to the raptor pen with Eddie.
"So how long have you been working here Eddie?" asked Ian.
"Ever since the park first opened." replied Eddie. "Why do you ask?"
"Eh, just curious." said Ian. The group was driving in the middle of a light forest with a river running beside it.
"Hey Ian." said Ellie. "I've been meaning to ask you. What exactly IS.... the essence of chaos?"
"It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems." said Ian. "It's only principle is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine."
"Whaaaat?" said Ellie now more confused than ever.
"Well let's just say it means you can't actually always predict everything."
"Hey Eddie, could you pull over for a minute?" asked Grant. "I have to use the bathroom."
"Alright." said Eddie.
With that, Eddie pulled over to let Grant off. As Grant got off, he thought he heard something. It sounded like a soft roar. Grant stood still in wonder for about a minute. He heard a knock from the car window. He turned around to see Eddie rolling down the window.
"What are you doing standing around? I thought you were gonna go use the bathroom." said Eddie.
"I.... I was, but I tho-" before he could finish, the soft roar came again.
"What was that?" asked Sarah.
"Was it a Tyrannosaur?" asked Billy.
"N...no because the T. Rex Exhibit is all the way back at the main street." said Eddie.
Without thinking, Grant walked off to see what the roaring was coming from.
"Dr. Grant?" said Sarah. "Were you going?"
But Grant didn't answer.
"Alan?" said Ellie.
She jumped out of the car and followed him. It wasn't long before everyone else jumped out to follow Grant. They all followed him through the forest, the roaring got louder and louder. At last they caught up with Grant who was standing in front of an unconscious Stegosaurus lying on its side. Two other people with jeeps were also there.
"Oh my god!" said Ellie as she approached Grant.
"Come on, it's okay. She's sick." said a staff member.
"Beautiful. Is it okay? Can I touch it?" asked Grant.
"Sure." replied the staff member.
Ellie crouched down and began to pet the Stego's head. She began to cry with happiness.
"This was one of my favorites growing up as a kid." said Grant. "Seeing her now, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Ellie noticed something on the animals tongue. She used her nails she scratched it off. The Stegosaurus groaned miserably.
"Shhhh, it's okay. I won't hurt you." whispered Ellie. "Micro vesicles, that's interesting." she said observing the shiny piece she picked up.
"Could I help Ellie?" asked Sarah. "I'm an expert on most modern day animals and their diseases."
"Sure, you can help." replied Ellie.
Sarah looked at the Stegosaurus's eyes. She took out her phone and shone its light into the animal's eye to get a better look.
"These are dilated. Take a look." said Sarah talking to Ellie.
"They are?" asked a staff member.
Ellie crawled over to take a look.
"That's pharmacological. From local plant life." said Ellie.
Sarah looked around at the grassy field and saw lots of blackish/blue berries growing. "There's allot of poisonous berries around here, maybe she ate some" she said. Grant walked over to the two of them.
"What kind of berries?" he asked.
Sarah walked over to a bush of the berries to get a better look.
"I think their West Indian lilac." she replied.
"Aren't those toxic?" asked Ellie to the staff man.
"Yes, I believe those are." said the staff member.
"This branch right here looks like it was bitten off." said Sarah examining a bush. "Maybe she ate some of the berries here."
"That would definitely explain it." said Ellie.
"Uh lady's." said Eddie. "I think we should get moving remember I have to take you to see the raptors."
"Actually I think I'm gonna stay here to finish up with the Stego, if that's okay with you boys." said Ellie.
"I'll stay to help you out." said Sarah.
"Alright then, we'll meet you back at the visitor center." said Eddie. "You think you can take them back there when you're all done?" he asked to the staff man.
"Sure thing." he said.
So the men went back to Eddie's jeep while Ellie and Sarah stayed behind to help cure the sick Stego.
Meanwhile Masrani's helicopter had finally landed. They landed in-front of a new paddock that was soon planned to be released to the public. Workmen were still adding the final touches to the walls. Masrani shut off the helicopter and he and Claire got off. Masrani looked at the men working on the concrete walls.
"I thought you said the walls were already finished." he said.
"Asset Containment insisted we build the walls up higher. It's bigger than expected." replied Claire.
The two entered the viewing paddock, inside were several security camera screens to show where the dinosaur was, and a bullet proof glass wall more than ten inches thick to keep the dinosaur out of the viewing paddock.
"We hit a few speed bumps early on. It began to anticipate where the food would come from. One of the handlers nearly lost an arm, the others threatened to quit if I couldn't guarantee their safety." she finished.
The two walked over to the glass wall.
"She's intelligent then?" asked Masrani.
"For a dinosaur, yes." said Claire.
"And that?" said Masrani pointing to a large crack on the glass.
"It tried to break the glass." replied Claire.
"I like her spirit." chuckled Masrani.
Suddenly the two heard a crunch coming from a fallen tree. Masrani looked harder into the paddock, trees were rustling and branches were snapping off from the dense trees. At last he saw the creature; it was white and looked like it had tiny little bumps on its back.
"It's white. You never told me it was white." said Masrani.
"Think she'll scare the kids?" asked Claire.
The creature snorted loudly in the background.
"The kids.... This will give the parents nightmares." replied Masrani.
"Is that....... good?" asked Claire.
"Its fantastic." whispered Masrani.
The dinosaur blinked with a clear piece of skin like a lizard as she looked through the trees in her habitat.
