Brooklyn - 2014

Driving the van, Mario, 37 and growing a mustache, was doing it fast, faster than anything. His younger brother, Luigi, 25, was obviously not comfortable with his brother's driving, not happy at all. Frustrated, he burst out: "Mario, why the hell did you have to sell Donkey Kong? The ape was racking in the dough. This job is not worth dying over!"

"Pauline said it was an emergency!" Mario declared.

"So what, she lives next to a plumber that isn't us!" Luigi protested. "A plumber who owns a corporation larger than even dad did! A plumber whose got more than just cell phones and panel trucks, he's got new ASUS GPS computers and dispatchers. What's the worst that can happen, lets just do the small jobs. It's not like we're broke or anything, the monkey did get us publicity and money. I mean, in a few weeks our other trucks and dispatcher's will arrive. Grace, Gene and the boys'll do a good enough job alone, let's just take a vacation! You're driving like a maniac!"

"Pauline said it was an emergency!" Mario declared, again.

"The monkey is not going to break out of a crate on it's way back to Kong Island with it's kid, again, to attack you!" Luigi cried out.

Arriving in front of her apartment, Mario groaned out in frustration. It was the Rescue Rooter's Truck right out there. Pauline met Mario in front of the truck, "You guys're too late. I told the landlady you guys could handle their problems, Doug was out on a different job. I didn't think he'd be back soon enough."

"Ah, that's okay," Mario waved it off. "How're you doing, now that all this publicity is finally fading... are you all right?"

"We can talk about that later," Pauline said bluntly. "Hey Luigi. See you later guys."

As they drove off, Luigi heard the Rooter's dispatcher, a job at the River's Cafe. "Let's head there," he suggested, and they were off. "Times change Mario, pretty soon we'll all be 2014 as well. Hell, maybe if we learn a trick or two from the Rooter's we can hit the heights like dad did."

"Luigi, dad had values!" Mario protested as he drove. "He had values and that was what kept us alive."

"Now what kept us alive was the monkey you won when you thought you wanted to be a circus maestro," Luigi answered. "That is what payed off Big Eddie and the loan sharks. Mario we need disregard a value or two, learn a trick or four and get a big score."

By the East River, at that exact same time, an excavation sponsored by Scapelli Construction was in progress. It was a project that had gained significant attention over the past few months, primarily by groups deemed "rednecks" by the general populace. These groups, whom the public claimed to have no place in the city, had been protesting the entire time. Living true to their name, they had been drinking and threatening violence, but the threats were empty as ever. They were protesting the pollution effects it could have on the river, a viable concern, but the fact that actual environmentalists cared little, made the situation even more preposterous. That may have been a picket line, but actual construction workers were picketing the site. It was a project that Scapelli and Columbia University were doing in conjunction to help the archaeology students, although Scapelli had essentially been forced into the deal and wanted out. The academics present at the site were constantly checking up and consulting their clipboards, studying, bagging and tagging rare rocks, fossils and minerals. Walking out of the main tunnel being excavated, one that had collapsed at least twenty years prior, was clearly the most beautiful woman on the site: Daisy.

As she walked out of the tunnel, the crystal pendent on her neck, tied up by a leather cord, flared as the sun hit it. Shining brightly, she quickly advanced into broad daylight. Here eyes were emerald, haunting but surprisingly comforting and amazing. A fellow student came up to her and asked of a bone. She answered 'hadrosaur' almost immediately. All of this came to her almost instantaneously, it was like she was meant to do this, study the bones of the real Jurassic Park. Of course she was also very interested in botany and worked in a florist's shop. She hated being alone, though working part time at a florist's shop and as a waitress just to get by and pay for her university tuition. Most of her friends didn't even have jobs, they relied on their parents for stuff like that.