I'M ASSUMING THEY ALL HAVE SILLY NAMES TOO?

ADELINE was so excited that she got to drive one of the Jeeps around the island. While her father and Gennaro were being driven by an attendant, Ellie filed into the front of Adeline's vehicle while Alan and Ian were sentenced to the back seat. The three scientists listened intently as Adeline chattered away, pointing out some of her favorite landmarks of the island.

She drove ahead of her father's Jeep but knew good and well when a good time to stop was — they'd be driving past the open Brachiosaurus enclosure, which would sure give their guests a warm and exciting welcome. 

Silly Alan had tried to had Adeline three more times what kind of park it was, but she'd just change the subject.

"Father purchased apparently the best fencing money can buy," she mused, tilting her head to the side.

"And what needs to be fenced?" Alan asked anxiously, leaning forward.

Adeline just looked at him over her shoulder, grinning brightly. Then she glanced at an amused Ian. "Are you up for a drinking game, my friends?"

"Drinking game? How old are you?" Ellie asked with a frown, still used to American drinking laws.

"I came prepared," Ian said, smirking as he pulled a silver flask from his jacket, making her laugh before focusing on the road.

"Take a drink every time you hear Father boast that he spared no expense," Adeline said, still giggling. And when she heard Ian let out a huff of a laugh, she looked back again just to see his beautiful, wide smile.

Realizing that he wasn't going to get an answer to his question, Alan just pouted and looked to the side, admiring the scenery. Only to glance at Adeline again and gap in disbelief as she pulled out a film camera and snapped a photograph of the land, holding the steering wheel with her goddamn knees.

"Hey, now! Hold the wheel!" he exclaimed, seemingly hating cars as much as helicopters — at least when being driven as roughly as Adeline was.

"It's fine, Dr. Grant," she laughed. But Adeline did at least set her camera back down on the center console.

Meanwhile, Ellie was studying the foliage, squinting as she tried to make out specific species. Finally, she grew restless and just reached out, grabbing a leaf and ripping it free as they drove by. A secret smile made its way onto Adeline's face, figuring the paleobotanist would be able to realize they'd brought back certain extinct species of greenery.

And it was perfect timing as Adeline spotted something up ahead and to the left. She brought the Jeep to a slow stop, her eyes already on the approaching creature as Ellie was too invested in the floppy leaf.

"This shouldn't be here," she was muttering.

Both Alan and Ian had been watching Adeline, wondering why she was stopping. But both noticed the stars in her eyes as she looked off in the distance, so they followed her gaze. And Alan swore he couldn't breathe as he stood in his seat to get a better look, pulling off his sunglasses.

Adeline looked back at Ian, seeing how his mouth was hanging open, rendered silent by the sight.

And poor Ellie was still focused on the leaf. "Alan, this species of veriforman has been extinct since the Cretaceous period. I mean this thing—"

Adeline could only giggle again as Alan grabbed the top of Ellie's head and turned it to the left so that she'd pay attention, which only annoyed her at first.

"What—" A loud gasp escaped her mouth as she stood up, trembling as she removed her sunglasses to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

There in the distance was a massive Brachiosaurus, it towering over the trees that it was snacking on. And in the distance were two others, the little family traveling together for their lunch.

As soon as Ellie and Alan clamored out of the Jeep, Adeline just looked at Ian, who was still looking in awe.

"You did it. You crazy son-of-a-bitch, you did it," Ian breathed out, clearly not thinking that John would've been able to accomplish anything like this.

"Don't let him hear you. It'll go right to his head," Adeline said to him, grinning as Ian looked at her. Then she giggled and grabbed his hand, dragging him from the Jeep while using her free hand to grab her camera. "Come on! Meet Millie!"

"Millie," he whispered, unable to believe she'd named the dinosaur.

Ian let Adeline lead him by his hand to the others, listening in as Alan and Ellie rambled about the creatures, already studying them intently — Alan wasn't complaining any more about Adeline's camera, who was back to taking pictures, documenting it all.

But she was taking pictures of them, not of Millie — she had a hundred of Millie. No, she wanted to document the moment that all of their lives changed. And she wanted to capture Ian's smile for all of eternity.

"We could tear up the book on cold-bloodedness. It doesn't apply. They're totally wrong. This is a warm-blooded creature," Alan was saying.

"This thing doesn't live in a swamp," Ellie laughed.

"This thing's got a... twenty-five? Twenty-seven-foot neck?" Alan guessed, just eyeballing it.

"Millie? Thirty," Adeline told him, lowering her camera. "She's the tallest though."

"Thirty feet," he breathed out in disbelief, shaking his head.

Then Millie reared up on her hind legs, taking a bite of leaves from the very top of the tallest tree. When she dropped back down to the ground, it shook violently. Adeline swayed a bit, but given that he was still holding her hand, Ian just pulled her closer.

"How fast are they?" Alan asked them.

"Janet has been clocked at thirty-two miles an hour," Adeline recounted.

"And Janet is?" Ian asked a bit amused, looking down at her.

"The T-Rex, of course," John replied, looking over at them. Only to notice that Adeline was holding the older man's hand, which earned a low grumble from him.

At his reply, Ellie's eyes went wide as she stuttered. "T - T-Rex?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You said you've got a T-Rex?" she asked again, now looking at Adeline, as if she'd lie to her.

"Her name is Janet!" she explained brightly.

"Say again?" Alan asked breathlessly.

"We have a T-Rex named Janet!" John said giddily.

Completely overwhelmed, Alan kneeled over, feeling faint despite the wide smile on his face as Adeline took another picture of him. Ellie laughed and put a hand on his back while not looking away from Millie. "Put your - put your head between your knees and breathe."

John just chucked at their dramatics. "Dr. Grant. Dr. Malcom. My dear Dr. Sattler. Welcome to Jurassic Park."

They all looked out at the horizon, seeing a herd of Bachiosaur in the distance now joined by a group of Parasaurolophus, drinking from the lake calmly and undisturbed. Ian couldn't help but lean down, his lips brushing the top of Adeline's ear.

"I'm assuming they all have silly names too?"

"Careful calling them silly," she said in a low tone so the others wouldn't be interrupted. "I might name one Ian just to spite you."

He grinned boyishly down at her. "Just means you think I'm as majestic as these creatures."

"Or I think you're a fossil," she teased, poking at his age. Then she let go of his hand and walked over to Alan, who was wishing he had a set of binoculars.

"They're moving in herds — they do move in herds," he said, looking ready to cry. Then he glanced at John curiously. "How did you do this?"

"I'll show you."

☽︎

Admittedly, he couldn't show them right away — there was still quite a drive to the Visitor's Center. The building was still a work in progress and undergoing a lot of construction, clearly as workers moved about it, trying to put up the last outter wall.

Once the Jeeps stopped, Adeline and her father took up the front of the group, leading them through the large front doors. Sure, Adeline didn't care much about the park aspect of it all, but she adored the giant T-Rex skeleton that greeted them at the center of the entryway.

As they walked, John chattered away, boasting as much as he could. "Now the most advanced amusement park in the entire world, incorporating all the latest technologies — and I'm not talking just about rides, you know, everybody has rides. But we've made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet."

"So what are you thinking?" Ellie asked Alan lowly.

"That we're out of a job," Alan mumbled, not feeling too bad about it given that he'd just seen a real dinosaur.

"Don't you mean 'extinct'?" Ian joked, earning a laugh from Adeline as the others rolled their eyes playfully. And Ian looked quite pleased with himself over being able to make Adeline laugh — not like it was hard given that her only forms of entertainment from day to day were her father and workers like Dennis Nedry and Ray Arnold, neither of whom had shining personalities.

Eventually, the tour led them to a room that appeared to be a movie theater — though Adeline knew it would turn into a ride given that there were protective bars over the seats like a roller coaster.

"Why don't you all sit down?" John asked them, ushering them to the seats as he remained standing. "Uh, Donald, sit down, sit down."

Gennaro held out an arm, offering Adeline the seat next to him, but she pulled a rather rude face and slid in next to Ian, who had Alan and Ellie on his other side. They all got comfortable and faced the screen where John was standing. To all their surprise — sans Adeline — another John appeared on the screen, "walking up" toward the real one.

"Here, Here he comes. Well, here I come, yes," the real John said excitedly.

"Hello, Hello."

John looked out at the others. "Say hello, say hello!"

As the others weakly replied with a greeting, Ian half-heartedly waved before slinging his arm over the back of Adeline's seat casually. She stiffened a bit as his fingertips brushed her shoulder before relaxing and focusing on the childish show.

"Hello, John!" the fake one greeted.

Her father perked up and began digging in his pocket. "Oh, yes. I've got lines."

"Well, fine, fine, I guess. But, uh, how did I get here?" the projection went on.

John cleared his throat and read off the sheet of paper in his hand. "Uh, well, let me show you. First, I'll need a drop of blood. Your blood."

"Right."

The John on the screen extended his finger only for the real one to mime pricking it, making Adeline smile as he committed to the bit.

"Ooh! John, that hurt!" the fake one whined.

Ian leaned down to whisper in Adeline's ear. "This is riveting stuff."

She snickered before pinching the back of his hand that was on her shoulder, making him squirm and swat her.

All the while, John went on with his show. "Relax, John. It's all part of the miracle of cloning!"

As he spoke, a second John appeared on the screen, followed by a third and then a fourth, and then countless others that all began greeting each other.

"Cloned from what?" Alan asked with a confused frown. "Loy extraction hasn't recreated an intact DNA strand."

"Not without massive sequence gaps," Ian agreed.

"Paleo-DNA — from what source?" Ellie questioned. "Where do you get a hundred million-year-old dinosaur blood?"

"Well, from—"

Before Adeline could spoil it, Gennaro shushed them all. She rolled her eyes before focusing back on the screen where an animated swirl appeared from the fake blood of John's finger. It morphed into a cartoon DNA strand. They watched as it tapped behind John's back and then disappeared, making him turn around and look foolish.

"What? What?" the fake John asked in mock alarm before spotting the strand. "Oh! Mr. DNA! Where did you come from?"

"From your blood!" Mr. DNA answered. "Just one drop of your blood contains billions of strands of DNA, the building blocks of life. A DNA strand, like me, is a blueprint for building a living thing. And sometimes animals that went extinct millions of years ago, like dinosaurs, left their blueprints behind for us to find."

"We just had to know where to look. A hundred million years ago, there were mosquitoes just like today. And just like today, they fed on the blood of animals. Even dinosaurs. Sometimes after biting a dinosaur, the mosquito would land on the branch of a tree and get stuck in the sap. After a long time, the tree sap would get hard, and become fossilized just like a dinosaur bone, preserving the mosquito inside."

"This fossilized tree sap, which we call 'amber,' waited for millions of years with the mosquito inside! Until Jurassic Park scientists came along, using sophisticated techniques, they extract the preserved blood from the mosquito, and, bingo: Dino DNA! A full DNA strand contains three billion genetic codes."

As the animated DNA strand gave a science lesson, various clips played alongside it for visuals before ending with a long list of code flying everywhere.

"If we looked at screens like these, once a second for eight hours a day, it'd take two years to look at the entire DNA strand. It's that long. Since it's so old—"

Suddenly, Mr. DNA was dragged offscreen when he was caught by a flying data chunk. Then he was back and talking even more — Adeline thought this was so boring compared to the dinosaurs. But the scientists were hanging on every word so that they could understand how this happened.

"—it's full of holes. Now, that's where our geneticists take over. Thinking machine supercomputers and gene sequencers break down the strand in minutes, and virtual reality displays show our geneticists the gaps in the DNA sequence. We used the complete DNA of a frog to fill in the holes and complete the code! And now we can make a baby dinosaur."

Music played, and John had to chime in. "This score is only temporary. It all has very dramatic music, of course. 'Rum pum pum.' A little march or something that hasn't been written yet and then, of course—" John clicked a button on a remote to activate the ride, "—the tour moves on."

The safety bars clicked into place as the seats began to move. Ian frowned and removed his arm from around Adeline to hold on. They all watched as the seats carried them past glass windows, displaying scientists hard at work. But it was moving too fast to really study what they were doing as Mr. DNA kept talking.

"Well, looky here! Those hard-working cowpokes you see behind the glass—"

"This is overwhelming, John," Genaro said, speaking over the ride. "Are these characters auto-erotica?"

"No, we have no animatronics here. These people are the real miracle workers of Jurassic Park," John explained.

"Wait a minute!" Alan cried. "How do you interrupt the cellular mitosis?"

"Can't we see the unfertilized eggs?" Ellie pleaded.

"Shortly, shortly," John promised.

Alan huffed as the lab passed by. "Can't you stop these things?"

"I'm sorry. It's kind of a ride," he frowned.

"The bars are cheap," Adeline whispered to Ian, who got the idea.

The put his hands on the bars, and the others followed. Alan counted to three, and then all four of them pushed on the bars, getting out of the seats. Ian grabbed Adeline's hand and pulled her off the ride, Alan leading them to the lab. John just scoffed at their impatience and followed after them.

It left Gennaro sitting still in his seat, a frown on his face as he sat in the abandoned ride. "Uh, you can't do that. Can they do that?"

[ this was sort of a boring chapter but had lots of hand holding. and sorry I've kind of fallen off with updates after first starting this but my announcement page sort of explains why and I don't really feel like talking about it much. just expect updates to come slower I guess ]