Disclaimer: I do not own the Jurassic Park franchise or any of it's characters; I only own the characters and plots of my own mind.

4. Rock-a-Bye Raptor

"We can finally see if brachiosaurs eat foliage below its full neck height!" Gwyn enthused as the jeep rolled up to the visitor's center. "Scientists were never able to tell because… well… all the dinosaurs are dead––were dead! Now we've got the chance to–to see just whatever it is we've gotten wrong! Scientists weren't sure if brachiosaurs could rear on their hind legs…"

Alan beamed down at her and ducked his head so their foreheads were pressed together. "And look at what they've done," he chuckled, grinning the brightest grin Gwyn had possibly ever seen on his face. Gwyn giggled excitedly as they came to a stop in front of the visitor's center. The building was built out of white stone, the windows were tall and spotless, and the cone shaped roofs looked like they were thatched with some sort or reed or straw. Three small flights of stone steps lead up to an ornate door the handle of which was shaped vaguely in an egg shape, which mimicked the design that had been set into the doors. Around those doors was meticulously carved stone to look like jurassic era foliage as well as a tyrannosaurus-rex skeleton at the top. A handful of workers were doing finishing touches on exterior walls, but, otherwise, everything about the building seemed perfect.

They followed Hammond up the steps with their bags in hand, the doors being pulled open by two park employees on the inside. The main lobby was spacious, with a set of stairs that curved up to a second floor. There were two skeletons occupying the center of the room––one of a tyrannosaurus-rex, the other of a sauropod––that were having the finishing touches put on them by a small number of workers who stood on hanging platforms. There was scaffolding throughout the lobby, numerous workers continuing to work on plastering and painting walls, polishing floors, and making sure everything was spotless. A banner hung overhead, reading 'When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth' in big red letters. Gwyn felt another thrill go up her spine when she saw the fully assembled skeletons dangling from the wires they were set up on. All of it had been perfectly too much––it felt like a dream that she didn't want to wake up from. She wanted to giggle and run about, wanted to see each dinosaur that called the island home. She wanted to sit down and just watch them, see how they moved, hear how they sounded, smell how they smelled; it was all too much, and she loved it.

"This is the most advanced amusement park in the world, combining all the latest technologies," Hammond explained as they headed for the grand, curving staircase that wrapped itself around one side of the sauropod skeleton. "I'm not talking just about rides, you know. Everybody has rides. No, we have made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet!"

As they climbed the stairs, Ellie smiled at the back of Alan's head. "So, what're you thinking?" she asked him. Alan chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at her.

"That we're out of a job," he deadpanned jokingly. There was a note of seriousness in his voice, however. If this was truly the future… then what he'd just said would be true. Ian threw up a finger and looked to Alan, whom he was walking beside.

"Don't you mean 'extinct'?" Ian inquired cheekily. Alan rolled his eyes, a faint smirk rising to his lips at the horrible pun that Ian had put out there. Gwyn giggled at the charming man's comment. Ellie then smiled down at her, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear before tugging out a blade of grass that had gotten stuck in her braid.

"How about you? What do you think?" Gywn grinned up at Ellie and excitedly took another look at the room around them. Her excitement could not be put into words that she could easily convey. Perhaps if she were older and had a better list of descriptive words, Gwyn would have been able to do her feelings justice, but she had to settle for a downplayed version.

"I love it. I haven't seen all of it, but I love it!" she giggled, beaming as wide as her lips could allow. A childish glee had filled her eyes, an emotion that was so bright and pure and beautiful. Ellie laughed and placed her hand fondly on the girl's shoulder, keeping her close to her side as they reached the landing. Gwyn wound an arm around Ellie's middle and the two continued to chat as they followed Hammond towards 'the presentation room' as he called it.

Alan glanced over his shoulder at the two and found his lips naturally drawn into a smile. He knew that Ellie would make a fantastic mother. Such a thought was only reinforced by the fact that she had been acting as one to Gwyn for such a long time. It would come as no surprise to him if Gwyn told him that Ellie was her mother figure. The two were already so close and inseparable at times. She ran crying to Ellie just as much as she ran crying to Alan. Albeit, the paleobotanist handled it with more grace than he did, but he did have his moments. It always warmed his heart and his chest when he saw the two together, smiling over this and laughing over that. It was a shame that Gwyn would never get the chance to meet her biological mother, seeing as she had passed away not too long after Gwyn's birth; but Alan was inexplicably glad that she had someone like Ellie to lovingly play the part––for lack of a better phrase. Ellie wasn't playing a role or a part, she was genuinely happy to be there for aspiring paleontologist. They genuinely loved one another.

The presentation room was a small auditorium with a number of seats facing a screen that displayed the Jurassic Park logo. It was pleasantly air conditioned, and everyone slipped into the seats as Hammond ushered them to do so. Gwyn sat between Alan and Ellie, excitedly clutching the arms of her chair. Unlike the kids in her classes, she had a love for documentaries, so whatever it was she was about to watch was likely to capture her attention. As they sat down, Hammond gestured to the screen excitedly.

"Oh, here he comes! Here I come," he amended. As he said, on the screen, a video image of himself appeared, all smiles and excitement.

"Hello!" said the virtual Hammond with a laugh. The real Hammond approached the screen and waved a hand at his tiny audience in a prompting manner.

"Say hello!"

One by one, they all awkwardly said 'hello,' in tern. Ellie had slipped on her glasses and Gwyn had excitedly pulled her knees up to her chest. Alan placed both his hands atop her knees and pushed down gently, a quiet order to keep her muddy boots off the brand new seats. Gwyn, too excited to be deterred, followed his silent request and watched the screen avidly.

"Hello, John!" said virtual Hammond, turning to the left as though he were facing the real version of himself.

"Oh!" Hammond murmured, searching around for a set of note cards stored away in his pocket. He slipped his glasses into place and then extracted the small set of cards. "I've got lines."

"I'm fine, I guess. But, uh, how did I get here?"

Hammond finished flipping through the cards that displayed his lost lines and arrived at the one he was supposed to say next. "Uh… well, let me show you. First, I'll need a drop of blood. Your blood." Virtual Hammond gestured to himself as though he was surprised. He then held out his hand as the real Hammond leaned forward and pretended to prick his finger.

"John, that hurt," virtual Hammond told him. Gwyn giggled quietly and leaned forward so she could rest her forearms on the the top of a metal bar in front of her. Her chin rested atop her arms and she gnawed at her bottom lip silently.

"Relax, John. It's all part of the miracle of cloning!"

On screen, one by one, more Hammonds stepped out from behind the original virtual one, as though he were being cloned. Alan leaned to the side, facing Ellie and Ian as Gwyn watched the film play out on screen.

"Cloning from what? Loy extraction has never recreated an intact DNA strand!" Alan murmured to his colleague and acquaintance. As they spoke, Hammond retreated to the seats, leaning heavily on his cane.

"Not without massive sequence gaps," agreed Ian in a hushed voice.

"Paleo-DNA… from what source? Where do you get one-hundred million year old dinosaur blood?" Ellie inquired as they all sat forward in their seats and faced front again. Behind them Gennaro––who had taken up Gwyn's way of sitting––hissed out a 'shhh!'

On screen a whoosh of colorful little dots swirled out of virtual Hammond's 'pin-pricked' finger. Gwyn cocked her head to the side curiously as the dots flew to the other side of the screen to form a double-helix strand with arms, hands, and eyes. It zipped about a moment, and virtual Hammond laughed a bit.

"Oh! Mr. DNA! Where did you come from?" virtual Hammond asked.

"From your blood! 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!" Mr. DNA informed brightly. The video switched over to a fully animated production to explain the process of how they were able to bring dinosaurs back to life. Gwyn, in her excitement, sat too far forward and slipped off the edge of her seat. She caught herself, brushed away Ellie's concerned hand, and returned to her enthralled seating position. "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 a 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!" The film cut to footage of a lab somewhere, where scientists cut into hunks of amber containing the mentioned mosquitos. "This fossilized tree sap––which we call amber waited millions of years, with the mosquito inside until Jurassic Park's scientists came along! Using sophisticated techniques, they extract the preserved blood from the mosquito, and––" the footage showed a large needle being inserted into the amber surrounded mosquito, drawing away the blood that remained inside it, "bingo! Dino DNA!"

Gwyn would later deny the fact that her mouth had been hanging agape as the science was explained, but it would be a lie. She was in awe of what she was hearing and watching, all of it making complete sense. Of course that would be how they got the DNA! Of course! What better source than a mosquito that has been perfectly preserved for millions of years?

"A full DNA strand contains three billion genetic codes! 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 strand! It's that long! And since it's so old, it's full of holes! 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! Since most animal DNA is ninety percent identical, we use the complete DNA of a frog––"

"What kind of frog?" Gwyn wondered out loud, a thumb pressed to her lips. She sat back in her seat and tilted her head to the side.

"––to fill in the holes and complete the code! Whew! And now, we can make a baby dinosaur!"

"This score is only temporary. It's all very dramatic, of course––da dum da dum da dum dum––a march or something, it's not written yet, and the tour moves on!" Hammond pressed a button and the metal bar that Gwyn had previously been leaning against moved forward to be placed across their laps––almost like a rollercoaster ride. Similar bars came down across the laps of the others and the seats shifted sideways. They peered through a window that allowed them a look at the laboratory, where scientists buzzed about doing this and that. Some compared charts, others worked over test tubes.

"Our fertilization department is where the dinosaur DNA takes the place of the DNA in unfertilized emu or ostrich eggs––" Gwyn perked up even more when they moved further to the side towards another laboratory, in which scientists gingerly carried around large eggs that contained baby dinosaurs inside. She strained as far out of her seat as possible, positively quaking with excitement. She had to get a closer look––no, she needed to! "––and then it's on to the nursery, where we welcome the dinosaurs back into the world!" They were swept further away from the lab, the wall disrupting their view of the laboratory. Alan's hand shot out and a question bumbled out of his lips.

"Wait a minute! How do you interrupt the cellular mitosis?!" he asked Hammond, twisting around in his seat.

"Can you tell what kind of dinosaur you're getting just from the DNA?" Gwyn inquired.

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

"Shortly, shortly…" Hammond assured patiently.

All of the adults in the front row were just as excited as the only child amongst them. They wanted to get out of the seats and go see everything first hand and up close. Alan strained to push the bar off his lap and let out a frustrated huff when the attempt proved fruitless.

"Can't you stop this thing!?" he demanded.

"Sorry! It's sort of a ride…" Hammond trailed off. Alan and Ian shared a look and, together, they forced the lap bars upwards, causing the locking mechanisms to squeal unpleasantly. In any other situation, both Ellie and Gwyn might have protested at them doing such a thing, but the two were too excited to care. The four in the front row jumped to their feet and made for the door, fully ignoring Gennaro's call of 'you can't do that!'

Hammond managed to push his way to the front of the excited group and led them into the laboratory. They were led down the stairs as an announcement played over the intercom; every scientist was working diligently and efficiently, doing their respective job with precision and ease. It was amazing to watch, Gwyn thought to herself, as she followed closely behind her father.

"Good day, Henry," Hammond greeted one of the scientists.

"Oh, good day, sir!" Henry Wu replied enthusiastically as he erased something off of his clipboard. He was young, likely in his twenties, and of Asian descent; he used the side of his hand to brush the eraser shavings off the document on the clipboard. Gwyn glanced his way and caught hold of his gaze. He tilted his head to the side, arched an eyebrow and looked as though he might've crossed his arms if he weren't holding the clipboard. "Aren't you a bit young to be in here, little lady?" Gwyn's eyes widened in as much indignance as she could have at her age and held her chin a little higher. 'Little lady.' She didn't like that; it made her feel small and unwanted.

"She's the daughter of a paleontologist, Henry, she can be trusted!" Hammond assured, sending a wink Gwyn's way. "I'm sure she's very practiced in being careful." Gwyn nodded to the older man before turning to look at the scientist with a narrowed gaze.

"I'm eleven, I'm perfectly old enough," she shot back. Wu's lips quirked to the side in a heavy smirk and he held up his hands as though he were admitting defeat. Gwyn spun on her heel and jogged forward a couple more steps. She gripped onto Alan's belt so she could keep up with him. Just then, he had begun to move slowly, leaning forward as they approached a most curious device. It appeared to be an open-topped incubator, with the eggs settled in grass and moss to cradle them. A bright light and heat lamp hovered over it and a device whizzed around the edges, a sturdy but gentle claw picking up and rotating the eggs inside.

"It's turning the eggs," Ellie noted. Gwyn caught sight of one particular egg, near the edge, had begun to wobble about. Her hand tightened around Alan's belt excitedly and she thrust a finger outwards to point to it.

"Dad, look!" she exclaimed in hushed excitement. Alan's eyes widened and the two Grants took a few side steps to gain a closer look. The large egg rocked back and forth, the creature inside of it trying to break through.

"Oh, perfect timing!" Wu praised with a bright smile, gesturing to the incubator. "I'd hoped they'd hatch before I had to go to the boat."

"Henry, Henry, Henry! Why didn't you tell me?" Hammond stepped forward and slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. "I insist on being here when they're born." The claw stretched forward and gently took hold of the egg, as though to prevent it from falling over. "Come on… come on! Come on, little one!"

Gwyn watched in wide-eyed awe as something managed to crack the shell in one particular spot. The shell and membrane stretched forward as the creature inside tried to break through. A tiny little squeak was emitted and Gwyn bit down on the insides of her cheeks to keep from gasping in unadulterated excitement. She was witnessing the birth of a dinosaur. A dinosaur! What human could say they watched a dinosaur be born? Answer: very, very few. And she was now one of them. Hammond leaned closer and continued to murmur word of encouragement as though the ancient creature would understand what he was saying. Finally, out of the shell, appeared a head.

"Oh, my god…" Ellie murmured excitedly. Gwyn giggled as a tiny clawed hand appeared and weakly pushed at the shell. She immediately wondered what sort of dinosaur it must be, with its wide golden eyes and its tiny claws. Hammond chuckled happily and reached out to gently pull away the cracked portions of shell. They were all hovering over the newly hatched creature, which stretched its head upwards and let out a croaking cry.

"They… imprint on the first creature they come in contact with," Hammond informed as the baby dinosaur began to gain its bearings. It twisted and pushed around, trying to fully free itself from its previous confinement. Alan pointed at himself in boyish hope that he was the first creature the dinosaur saw. Gwyn giggled and nudged his side with her elbow. It was clearly Mr. Hammond that it had come in contact with first… though, it would be exciting if it were, say, her. "It helps them to trust me. I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island!"

"Surely not the ones that have bred in the wild?" Ian inquired. Wu swept up to stand beside Gwyn, beaming brightly as he prepared to answer Ian's question. Gwyn gave him as shifty a look an eleven year-old could manage. His earlier comment still rubbed her the wrong way.

"Actually, they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions here. There is no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park," Wu informed them.

"How do you know they can't breed?"

"Well, because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've engineered them that way."

Gwyn resisted the urge to lean closer as Hammond fully removed the baby dinosaur from its egg, cradling it in both of his palms with all the gentleness in the world. Alan reached out to place his fingers just beneath the creature's jaw, feeling the temperature of its skin.

"Blood temperature feels like high eighties," he hypothesized as Wu handed Hammond some tissues.

"Ninety-one," Wu corrected.

"Homeopathic? It holds that temperature?" Ellie inquired. Wu nodded his confirmation. Gwyn stretched up on her toes and craned her head forward to try and get a better look at the dinosaur Hammond cradled in his hands. It was slowly stretching all of its limbs, gaining a grasp on the world it now found itself living it. What a beautiful thing to have witnessed… the birth of an animal that had not set foot on this earth for millions of years. To see it take its first breath, cry its first cry, stretch its limbs for the first time… it was awe-inspiring.

"But again, how do you know they're all female? Does someone go into the park and, uh––pull up the dinosaurs' skirts?" Ian asked. Alan sent him a sharp look for saying something mildly crude in front of his young daughter. Ian didn't seem to notice. Gwyn hadn't seemed to notice either, having been too interested in watching Hammond wipe the baby clean with soft sheets of tissue.

"We control their chromosomes," Wu informed. "All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway. It takes an extra hormone at the right developmental stage to create a male, and we simply deny them that."

"Deny them that?" Ellie asked quietly, almost sounding sad. Ian, who had gone to sit on a nearby stool, turned his attention to the man who owned the whole of the island.

"John, the kind of control you're attempting is not possible. If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, It crashes through barriers. Painfully, maybe even… dangerously, but uh… well, there it is," Ian gestured to the dinosaur eggs.

"You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed?" Wu asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"No, I'm simply saying that life, uh… finds a way."

Hammond nodded to a small box of plastic gloves sitting on the edge of the incubator; Alan immediately pulled out a pair, and Hammond smiled at the youngest Grant.

"Would you like to hold her?" he asked. Gwyn's eyes widened.

"Can I?" she asked in a hushed voice that barely contained her excitement. Hammond nodded and she immediately began to pull on a pair of gloves far too big for her hands. Wu perked up from where he was doing more paperwork, brows pinching together.

"Are you… sure you want to let her do that?" Wu asked hammond. Gwyn shot him a dry look over the incubator, one that nearly perfectly mimicked the one Alan had just given to Ian. "She's only eleven."

"And I assure you that she'll be very careful. Correct, Gwyn?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Hammond," she agreed with an enthusiastic nod.

"It's settled then." Wu seemed to hide a grimace as he turned back to his paperwork. "Just cup your hands together… yes, like that. Now, be sure to support the head, just as you would a human baby…" Hammond carefully transferred the dinosaur into Gwyn's hands.

A quiet gasp left Gwyn's mouth as she felt the creature's body heat permeate through the thin plastic gloves. The dinosaur stretched out its quaking limbs and let out a quiet little cry as it repeatedly blinked its eyes. She could feel its tiny muscles twitching, feel its skin crinkle as it turned its head this way and that. She was holding a dinosaur… a bonafide, living, breathing dinosaur. Her heart was pounding, her lips were quirking into a smile. It had to have been the best moment of her life thus far, and she never wanted to forget it. The infant looked up at Gwyn with mottled golden eyes and snake-like pupils, observing her with a gaze shockingly acute for a creature that had just hatched. Alan watched from over her shoulder, just as awestruck as his daughter. That awe slowly began to morph into something darker, something that sank into the pit of his stomach like a stone. Something that made him want his daughter as far away from the dinosaur as possible. He thought of how its bone structure must be organized, what its skull must look like… he took note of the proportions of its limbs, and pieced together what kind of dinosaur his daughter was holding.

"Gwyn… may I?" Alan asked. Gwyn nodded and Hammond helped her pass the dinosaur off to her father. He held it in both his hands and observed it more closely for a fleeting moment as it peeped and stretched and gazed around. He dreaded the answer to the question he was about to ask. He quietly turned away from the incubator, feeling his own hands beginning to tremble as much as the infant dinosaur that he held in them.

"What species is it?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"Uh… it's a velociraptor," Wu informed casually, gesturing to the eggs with the end of his pencil.

The look that Gwyn watched overtake her father's face made her excitement drop a couple of notches. There was dread in his eyes, well hidden by the stern look that smoothed itself across his face and pinched his brows. The excitement dropped a couple notches more when she realized the weight of what Dr. Wu had just informed them. Velociraptors. They'd brought one of history's most dangerous species back to life, and they were being very casual about it.

"You bred raptors?" Alan asked in a deadly, flat voice. Wu looked back up and offered a simple nod. Slowly, Alan looked back down at the baby raptor in his hands and gently slid his finger over the top of its head. Through the euphoria and excitement he'd felt since seeing the brachiosaur, a cold, hard truth appeared: this was a dream that had every capability of becoming a nightmare.

Afterword: Sorry it's been so long! I haven't had access to the movie since I moved to the UK, and my wifi has been consistently terrible, so finding a version online was out. BUT, I've got it all worked out and have managed to finish this chapter! Huzzah! And so the terrifying adventure begins… well, not quite yet, but we're getting there!

Review replies!

Xx High By The Beach xX: I'll have to rewatch the second movie to see if it's at all possible to squeeze her in there somehow, even if I just put her in the scenes on the mainland. But, we'll get to that when it comes to it. I'm glad that I nailed the last chapter, and hope I managed to keep doing the film justice. Thanks again, I hope you enjoyed!

1066AndAllThat: You've hit the nail on the head in regards to Alan's protectiveness––as the events of the movie progress, he'll get consistently more protective of her. Ahh, how the emotions shall arise. There'll be more scenes that allow Alan and Gwyn to bond, and scenes where they respectively realize things about the other, and I'm super excited to get to those moments. I hope that you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks again!

NicoleR85: Gwyn's really gonna have to prove her mettle once everything goes to hell; it'll serve to show how she may or may not react to what happens at Jurassic World down the line… and yes, actually, she will show up at the beginning of Jurassic Park III––she won't go to the island, but I plan on writing the scenes she could be fit into back on the mainland as she waits for her father to come home. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks again!

Crystal-Wolf-Guardain-967: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Alex B. Goode: I will try to keep the work good :) I hope you enjoyed the chapter; thanks again!

CarlyJo: I'm glad the last line came off as foreboding––it was supposed to. And I'm glad little Gwyn is loveable, I'm always like 'ack, she's a cinnamon roll, she doesn't deserve what's coming to her.' I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks again!

RJNorth: Super glad that it seems like little Gwyn and adult Gwyn are the same person––I have to try really hard to picture a character of my own creation as a child… make sure the mannerisms are correct but also make sure that the mannerisms are age appropriate. I hope you enjoyed the chapter; thanks again!

KD: Sorry for the wait! The move was really tiresome and I momentarily didn't have the ability to reference the movie. But I'm back! I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

HappyElspeth: Thank you so much! I am very flattered by your previous review. I always strive to keep my writing as professional as I can, and I'm glad that I've maintained the balance between professional and fun. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks again!
MichelleJoy: I hope you enjoyed what more I've written! Thanks again!

Gage the Hedgehog: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the newest installment!

LeviIsMySpiritAnimal: I'm glad you love it and hope you've stuck around despite my horrendous updating schedule. Thanks again; hope you enjoyed!

Mzfeebs: I'm very happy that you're enjoying Gwynn as an addition to the Jurassic Park events––I hope you keep on reading! Thanks again!

Boomer1125: I have updated! I hope you enjoyed it!
And thank you to those that have added this to their follows/favorites; it means a lot to me!

And that's it for now. I hope to update relatively soon––I go back home in about a week, so that means good wifi and DVDs for all! (Or, rather, just me, but you all probably get the point). ANYWAY, I hope you enjoyed this little installment in Gwyn's adventures in Jurassic Park! Thanks again!

~Mary