ALAN HAD WALKED OFF FROM THE GROUP AND WAS FOUND BY THE RAPTOR CONFINEMENT. He was stood with his hands on his hips, staring intently at the miniature military fortress.

"Dr Grant!" John shouted over to the oldest palaeontologists of the bunch. "As I was saying, we laid on lunch for you before you go into the park. Our gourmet chef, Alejandro -"

"What are they doing?" Alan interrupted, nodding towards the three guards on top of the raptor confinement. A large black bull was lifted up in a blue harness and was moved over the top of the cage, lowering it down. Robyn gasped as she caught on to what they were doing.

"Feeding them," John answered. John proceeded to talk about the lunch that his chef had set out for them, however, after what Robyn was about to witness, she didn't she could eat for a week. The scientists leaned over to the edge to get a glimpse of the raptors, yet, Robyn didn't have the stomach to do so.

Ian touched her arm with a furrowed brow. "Are you, uh, are you alright, Robbie?"

Robyn nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'd rather not throw up for the second time today though," she laughed weakly, turning her back to the ghastly sounds coming from the cage. The tearing of fresh and thrashing of leaves were vivid enough for her imagination.

"They should all be destroyed," A new voice commented followed by thudding footsteps coming up the metal steps towards them.

"Robert Muldoon. My game warden from Kenya," John introduced the man dressed in a Jurassic Park safari uniform. "Bit of an alarmist, but knows more about Raptors than anyone."

Alan shook Robert's hand and then proceeded to smother him with questions. "What's their metabolism? What's their growth rate?" Alan had always been fascinated with velociraptors so it was natural for him to be intrigued by Robert's knowledge.

"They're lethal by 8 months and I do mean lethal," Robert answered, his Northern English accent prominent against the other Americans. "I've hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way these things move..." He trailed off.

"Fast for a biped?" Alan questioned.

"Cheetah speed," Robert suggested. "Fifty, sixty miles per hour if they ever got out in the open. And they're astonishing jumpers."

John held his hand out to interrupt. "Yes. That's why we're taking extreme precautions."

"What precautions are they, John?" Robyn questioned.

John grinned turning to the two female scientists and the lawyer. "You see the viewing platforms will be extremely high up, much higher than the raptors can jump in case the animals get hostile."

Robyn briefly turned back to the cage below her with raised brows. "In case they get hostile?" She questioned, dumbfounded. "From the looks it, they already are, John."

John chuckled, taking one glance at the rustling bushes in the raptor cage below him. "I can assure you, my dear, they are trained and will act calmly when the park opens."

"If," Gennaro corrected bluntly, replacing the word 'when'.

"When," John repeated once more with a testing smile.

The four turned back to the conversation between Robert, Ian, Alan and Jimmy. "We bred eight originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one, when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out. That's why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came."

"Yes, they seem very trained, John," Robyn patted his shoulder. "The fences are electrified, right?"

"That's right, but they never attack the same place twice," Robert answered. "They were testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. They remember."

The crane behind them groaned as it was pulled back up. All of the guests turned around to see the blue harness that was once holding the black bull but was now empty and shredded to pieces.

Robyn shuddered at the sight, turning away from the harness with her eyes clenched close. "That's so inhumane," she whispered to Ellie. Robyn loved every animal and hated seeing one dying, however, it was life and no one could stop a carnivore from eating.

John smiled. "Yes. Well, who's hungry?"

-----

Back to the Visitors Centre, the group assembled in a darkened room full of screens projecting images of the park and sat around a long black table as plates of lavish food were placed in front of them. Although they looked pleasant enough, Robyn still didn't have the stomach to eat just yet, so settled for playing with the food in front of her.

At the head of the table sat John, happily eating his dish. On either side of him sat Ellie and Robyn. Next to them sat Alan and Ian, respectively. Jimmy was placed on the other side of Ian, with Gennaro at the other end of the table.

John was excitedly gushing about a new form of a tour around the park he was in the process of creating, consisting of a safari ride offering a close-up look at the animals.

Gennaro opened his black journal and began jotting things down an array of numbers. "We can charge anything we want. £2,000 a day. £10,000 a day! People will pay for it. And then there's the merchandise..."

John interrupted with a tut and a wag of his finger. "This park was not built to cater to the super rich. Everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals."

"Sure. They will. We'll have a coupon day of something," Gennaro dismissed with a laugh, causing John to join him. The five other guests remained silent.

"The lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here staggers me," Ian breathed out.

"Thank you," Gennaro sarcastically spoke. "But things are a little different than you and I had feared."

"Yeah, I know. They're a lot worse," Ian nodded.

"Now, wait a second! We haven't even seen the park yet..."

John interrupted once more. "Donald, let him talk. I want to hear every viewpoint."

Ian placed his cutlery down on the table before turning to John fully. "Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power's the most awesome force the planet's ever seen but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun. I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish as fast as you could. Before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box. Now you're selling it."

John and Gennaro laughed. "I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody has ever done before."

"But your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should," Ian spoke so emotionally about the topic, showing his deep care for the animals that the park was going to exploit. Robyn couldn't help but admire his passion.

"Condors," John bluntly said. "Condors are on the verge of extinction. If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say."

Ian shook his head. "Hold on, this isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction."

John scoffed, not understanding Ian's argument. "I don't understand this Luddite attitude. Especially from a scientist. How can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?"

Ian replicated John's behaviour by scoffing as well. "What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act, that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world."

If the argument was a speech or a lecture, Robyn would have given Ian a standing ovation. If Robyn hasn't already on his side, she would certainly be easily persuaded. "The question is; how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous. You picked them because they look good. But these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in and they will defend themselves. Violently, if necessary," Ellie furthered the debate.

"Dr Grant?" John rose his brows in the direction of the oldest palaeontologist at the table.

After a sigh, Alan commented. "The world has just changed so radically, and we're all running to catch up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions but look; dinosaurs and man, two species separated by sixty-five million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea, what to expect?"

John sighed in desperation. "Dr Franks? Do you have anything to say?"

Jimmy swallowed the last bite of his food. "Well, one main concern for me would the health concerns. A known problem with cloning nearly-extinct species is that they could carry retroviruses or pathogens when brought back to life. Bacteria that can easily be passed onto their trainers or visitors, therefore endangering them."

John scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "Robyn? If there's one person here, who can appreciate what I'm trying to do..."

Robyn felt torn. She loved John and believed his park was an incredible step in the scientific field of cloning and zoology. However, she couldn't ignore the blatantly obvious disadvantages to the park. With a sigh, she leaned forward a tad to see everyone sat around her clearly. "I don't want to shy away from the spectacular animals that you and the scientists have created here, John. It truly is fascinating. However, I also cannot ignore the clear cons of what you have done. The world 65 million years ago is totally different from the world we live in today. You can do all the training and testing you want, but it's not going to take a day to get those animals adapted to their vastly new surroundings. The climate is cooler, the smells are different, they're being segregated, their food sources have changed, there are these new smaller creatures called humans that they have never seen before controlling them. They're bound to feel... belittled. Plus, you're advertising these animals as dinosaurs when they're not. They're, uh, they're hybrids. They're not pure dinosaurs if they have frog DNA and a bunch of chemicals in their blood. This changes all their characteristics and behavioural traits. You want to control them yet it's practically impossible to eradicate 60 million years of gut-instinct - especially the carnivores you have here. Like, uh, Muldoon said, one of your raptors has already killed, for Christ's sake! What makes you think they won't do it again?" Robyn ranted. She couldn't bring herself to stop thinking of all the downfalls that the park could bring. "Also, if your park opens by some sort of act from Hell, then those animals are going to be exploited and introduced to a whole new atmosphere. I'm guessing from the rides and the general ambience you're creating here, that this will be a family resort, correct?"

John reluctantly nodded. "Yes, but-"

"No, no. Let me finish first, please. Families will bring little kids here. Little kids who are going to scream, yell, run, grab, cough, sneeze, cry - all these loud noises plus the snaps of camera, the general sound of footsteps - which will be a lot by your estimations. Those poor creatures will get stressed. Trust me, I've dealt with many zoo animals that get stressed due to the loud hustle and bustle of the visitors, and I've seen casualties. The likelihood of an accident occurring is incredibly high and one you can't possibly ignore," The table fell silent briefly. Robyn blew out a long sigh, trying to catch her breath from her rant. "Have you considered any of that?"

John and Gennaro seemed flabbergasted. Alan, Ellie and Jimmy were reflecting on the information that Robyn uncontrollably spewed out. Ian was smiling proudly at the blond beside him. He nudged her shoulder with a wink and a grateful nod.

John laughed in disbelief. "I don't believe it! I don't believe it! You're meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!"

Gennaro was taken back by John's statement, clearly offended. "Thank you?"

A waiter soon entered the room and whispered in John's ear. The older man smiled gratefully and stood from his seat. "Well, they're here."