All of Beacon was on an airship, headed for Isla Nublar. Jurassic Park. RWBY was excited because the park hadn't even opened yet and they were about to gain admission.
Ruby had fallen asleep leaning on Jaune, who was reading fan fiction on his scroll. Weiss was doing her nails. Blake was reading a book, and Yang was asleep. Ruby was suddenly woken by Jaune, who pointed out the window to the magnificent view of the island.
When they got off, Ren was trying to scare Nora, by telling her about the raptors and the others were listening. "You would see one in front of you, but the attack won't be coming from the front, but from the sides. They'll drag their sharp claws horizontally across your stomach, spilling out your intestines. It would be a slow and painful death." Ren said. He didn't scare Nora, but managed to scare Ruby, who became even more worried when they had to put their weapons in lockers, as the park didn't allow weapons of any kind among the victims—I mean visitors.
"I don't believe you." Nora said, crossing her arms.
"Trust me." An old man with a white beard said. "The raptors are not a force to trifle with." He walked over to Yang and Ruby. "Where have I seen the two of you before?" He asked. "Oh yes, that's right. You're Taiyang's daughters!"
"Hello, Mr. Hammond." Ruby said.
"Hello...Yang?"
"I'm Ruby."
"Oh, yes. Ruby, red. Yang, yellow."
"How did you know that guy?" Jaune asked Ruby as they walked away. "He owns the park and my dad works here." She said.
They all went down a narrow path that wound down the hill. The air was chilly and damp. As they moved lower, the most around them thinned, and Weiss could see the landscape better. It looked, she thought, rather like Vacuo.
Down below, they could see the white roofs of large buildings, nestled among the planting. Weiss was surprised: the construction was elaborate. They moved lower, out of the mist, now she could see the full extent of the island, stretching away to the south, it was mostly covered in tropical forest.
To the south, rising above the palm trees, Yang saw a single trunk with no leaves at all, just a big curving stump. Then the stump moved, and twisted around to face the new arrivals. Yang realized that she was not seeing a tree at all.
She was looking at the graceful, curving neck of an enormous creature, rising fifty feet into the air.
She was looking at a dinosaur.
"My God," Blake said softly. They were all staring at the animal above the trees. "My God."
Her first thought was that the dinosaur was extraordinarily beautiful. Books portrayed them as oversize, dumpy creatures, but this long-necked animal had gracefulness, almost a dignity, about its movements. And it was quick—there was nothing lumbering or dull about its behavior. The sauropod peered alertly at them, and made a low trumpeting sound, rather like an elephant. A moment later, a second head rose above the foliage, and then a third, and a fourth.
"My God," Blake said again.
Ruby was speechless. She had known all along what to expect—she had known about it for years—but she had somehow never believed it would happen, and now, she was shocked into silence. The awesome power of new genetic technology, which she had formerly considered to be words in her father's overwrought sales pitch—the power became clear to her. These animals were so big! They were enormous! Big as a house! And so many of them! Actual damned dinosaurs! Just as real as you could want. She hoped to God the island was safe.
Ozpin stood on the path on the side of the hill, with the midst on his face, staring at the gray necks craning above the palms. He felt dizzy, as if the ground were sloping away too steeply. He had trouble getting his breath. Because he was looking at something he had never expected to see in his life. Yet he was seeing it.
The animals in the midst were perfect apatosaurs, medium-size sauropods. His stunned mind made academic association: Northern herbivores, late Jurassic horizon. Commonly called "brontosaurs." First discovered by E. D. Cope in Vale in 1876. Specimens associated with Morrison formation strata in Atlas, Vale, and Vacuo. Recently Berman and McIntosh had reclassified it as diplodocus based on skill appearance. Traditionally, Brontosaurus was thought to spend most of its time in shallow water, which would help support its large bulk. Although this animal was clearly not in water, it was moving much too quickly, the head and neck shifting above the palms in a very active manner—a surprisingly active manner—
Ozpin began to laugh.
"What is it?" Hammond said, worried. "Is something wrong?" Ozpin just shook his head and continued to laugh. He couldn't tell them that what was funny was that he had seen the animal for only a few seconds, but he had already begun to accept it—and to use his observations to answer long-standing questions in the paleontologist field.
He was still laughing as he saw a fifth and sixth neck crane up above the palm trees. The sauropods watched the people and faunas arrive. They reminded Ozpin of oversized giraffes—they had the same pleasant, rather stupid gaze.
"I take it they're not animatronic," Oobleck said. "They're very life-like."
"Yes, they certainly are," Hammond said. "Well, they should be, shouldn't they?"
From the distance, they heard the trumpeting sound again. First one animal made it, and then the others joined in.
"I would assume that's their call," Ren said. "Welcoming us to the island."
Jaune stood and listened for a moment, entranced.
"You probably want to know what happens next," Hammond was saying, continuing down the path. "We've scheduled a complete tour of the facilities for you, and a trip to see the dinosaurs in the park later this afternoon. I'll be joining you for dinner, and will answer any questions you may have then. Now, if you'll go with Mr. Regis..."
The group followed Ed Regis toward the nearest buildings. Over the path, a crude hand-painted sign read: "Welcome to Jurassic Park."
They moved into a green tunnel of overarching palms leading toward the main visitor building. Everywhere, extensive and elaborate planting emphasized the feeling that they were entering a new world, a prehistoric tropical world, and leaving the normal world.
Ruby said to Blake, "They look pretty good."
"Yes," Blake said. "I want to see them up close. I want to lift up their toe pads and inspect their claws and feel their skin and open their jaws and have a look at their teeth. Until then I don't know for sure. But yes, they look good."
Blake shook her head. "This has been discussed. Many people imagined it was coming. But not so soon."
"Story of our species," Ruby said, laughing. "Everybody knows it coming, but not so soon."
As they walked down the path, they could no longer see the dinosaurs, but they could hear them, trumpeting softly in the distance.
Blake said, "My only question is, where'd they get the DNA?" Blake was aware of serious speculation in laboratories in Vale, Mystral, and Atlas that it might eventually be possible to clone an extinct species such as a dinosaur—if you could get some dinosaur DNA to work with. The problem was that all known dinosaurs were fossils, and the fossilization destroyed most DNA, replacing it with inorganic material. Of course, if a dinosaur was frozen, or preserved in a peat bog, or mummified in a desert environment, then its DNA might be recoverable.
But nobody had ever found a frozen or mummified dinosaur. So cloning was therefore impossible. There was nothing to clone from. All the modern genetic technology was useless. It was like have a Xerox copier but nothing to copy with it.
Ren said, "You can't reproduce a real dinosaur, because you can't get real dinosaur DNA."
"Unless there's a way we haven't thought of," Blake said.
"Like what?" He said.
"I don't know," Blake said.
Beyond a fence, they came to the swimming pool, which spilled over into a series of waterfalls and smaller rocky pools. The area was planted with huge ferns. "Isn't this extraordinary?" Ed Regis said. "Especially on a misty day, these plants really contribute to the prehistoric atmosphere. These are authentic Jurassic ferns, of course."
"Isn't it just wonderful?" Ed Regis was saying. "If you look up ahead, you will see our Safari Lodge." Ruby saw a dramatic, low building, with a series of glass pyramids on the roof. "That's where you'll be staying here in Jurassic Park."
RWBY and JNPR's suite was done in beige tones, the rattan furniture in green jungle print motifs. The room wasn't quite finished; there were stacks of lumber in the closet, and pieces of electrical conduit on the floor. There was a TV in the corner, with a card on top:
Channel 2: Hypsilophodon Highlands
Channel 3: Triceratops Territory
Channel 4: Sauropod Swamp
Channel 5: Carnivore Country
Channel 6: Stegosaurus South
Channel 7: Velociraptor Valley
Channel 8: Pterosaur Peak
Blake found the names irritatingly cute. She turned on the television but got nothing but static. She shut it off and went one if the two eight bed bedrooms, tossed her suitcase on one of the beds. Directly over the middle of the room was a large pyramidal skylight. It created a tented feeling, like sleeping under the stars. Unfortunately the glass had to be protected by heavy bars, so that the striped shadows fell across the beds. Blake paused. She had seen the plans for the lodge, and she didn't remember bars on the skylight. In fact, these bars appeared to be a rather crude addition. A black steel frame had been constructed outside the glass walls, and the bars welded to the frame.
Puzzled, Blake moved from the bedroom to the living room. The window looked out on the swimming pool. The entire lodge was enclosed within a fence, with bars of thick inch-steel. The fence was gracefully landscaped and painted black to resemble wrought iron, but no cosmetic effort could disguise the thickness of the metal, or its twelve-foot height.
"It looks to me like they've turned this place into a fortress." Ruby said. Blake looked at her watch. "We'll be sure to ask why," she said. "The tour starts in twenty minutes."