Sorry for long update, was very busy. Beta-read by Mondhase, given support from JokerandHarley4Ever, thanks so much.
Dedicated to: The whole Jurassic Park cast, my friends, my blood, etc.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC's.
"So, uh, you guys dig up dinosaurs?" Dr. Malcolm asked. I was fiddling around with my raptor claw and looked up at him. Ellie chuckled and looked at me.
"Well, try to." I said, with a slight smile on my face. He laughed, but it was mixed with a bit of snarling in it. I frowned a bit. It was going to be a long flight if he continued to be this annoying.
It was a rather cramped helicopter, fitting me, Ellie, Rick, and Mariah in one corner, Dr. Malcolm, Ashley Macolm, who I was told was Dr. Malcolm's sister, Vanessa Malcolm, Dr. Malcolm's niece, and his kids, Kelly and Arby, were all cramped in one corner, with Arby having to sit on Ashley's lap. Then, there was the lawyer, Donald Gennaro, and his daughter, Deliah. They sat next to the Malcolm's. Next us, we had Mr. Hammond and a famous paleontologist, Richard Levine.
"You'll have to get use to Dr. Malcolm! He suffers from a deplorable excess of personality, especially for a mathematician!" Mr. Hammond was saying.
"Chaotician, actually! Chaotician!" Dr. Malcolm corrected Mr. Hammond. I looked at Ellie with a confused look and she just shrugged. Mr. Hammond snorted, not even trying to cover up just how he felt about Dr. Malcolm.
"John doesn't subscribe to Chaos, particularly what it has to say about his little science project!" Dr. Malcolm said in our general direction.
"Codswallop! Ian, you've never come close to explaining these concerns of yours about this island!" Mr. Hammond told Dr. Malcolm, ignoring everyone else in the helicopter.
"You know, Dad, he's kind of right." Kelly told her dad. Dr. Malcolm glared at his daughter, but resumed arguing with Mr. Hammond.
"You know he's right, Ian." Dr. Levine gestured to Mr. Hammond.
"I certainly have! Very clearly! Because of the behavior of the system in phase space!" Dr. Malcolm tried to defend himself.
"A load, if I may say so, of fashionable number crunching!" Mr. Hammond said, arverting his attention to looking outside of the window.
"John, John." Malcolm poked Mr. Hammonds's knee.
"Ian." Ashley groaned as she pulled her brother back by the collar of his shirt.
"I wish you wouldn't do that." Hammond shot at Ian.
"Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, you've heard of Chaos Theory?" Malcolm asked us. We just shook our heads.
"No." Ellie said.
"No? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors?" Again, Ellie shrugged. "Dr. Sattler, I refuse to believe that you're not familiar with the concept of attraction." Malcolm told Ellie. I looked at him and then at Ellie, who smiled and looked down, and enjoying my envy. I looked at Rick who just shrugged. I was tired of shrugging, I wanted answers.
"Ian, stop it." Ashley lightly whacked the back of her brother's head. Ian glared at her.
"I bring scientists, you bring a rock star." Hammond gave Gennaro a look. Gennaro looked slightly confused and glanced at his daughter, who just smiled.
"There it is!" Hammond rose from his seat a bit, and pointed over my shoulder. I looked and saw an island, heavy fog all around it. The island was covered in trees, I found it hard to imagine having an attraction there.
"Bad wind shears! We have to drop pretty fast! Hold on, this can be a little thrilling!" Hammond went on to explain. Gennaro immediately began to buckle himself, his daughter, too. I picked up two belts and tried connecting them, but the darn pieces wouldn't fit. I could hear Hammond in the background telling me to do something else, but I just tied the pieces together. I noticed Ellie was looking at me with a humorous look on her face and I just smiled. Then, the helicopter began bouncing around. Outside, we could see cliff walls racing by us, uncomfortably close, finally we landed on the helicopter pad with a bump. Hammond got out first, followed by the kids, then the Gennaros, Malcolms, Dr. Levine, and finally we got out.
We all got separated into three jeeps, my little group went into the first jeep, the Malcolms in the second car, with Arby having to sit on Vanessa's lap. The Gennaros, Hammond, and Dr. Levine got into the last jeep. As we all drove away, the humming of the helicopter became more distant. We drove through a giant electrified fence that was about thirty feet tall and had a sign on it that said 'Warning! Electrified Fence! 10,000 volts.' Ellie looked back as we passed the fence.
Then, as we were going through a tunnel of trees, Ellie looked at the leaves and grabbed one, examining it. We then went up a grassy hill. I was looking critically at all the trees. There were about three to four trees that were just gray and bare, but just as thick as all the other trees. They were also leafless. I kept looking up until I realized, that wasn't any tree. That was a leg. I snatched my hat off, and stood up in the Jeep. With my hands shaking, I took off my sun-glasses.
"Uncle Al, what are you..." I heard Rick say, but his voice seemed so far, when in fact he was sitting right next to me. He stood up on his seat, and stared in awe.
"Alan, this species of vermiform was been extinct since the Cretaceous period. This thing..." Ellie was saying, still examining the leaf. Without tearing my eyes off of the gentle giant, I reached over and turned her head in the direction I was looking at. She gasped and I'm sure she stood up and stared.
There was a dinosaur. A living, breathing dinosaur standing in front of me. Rick, Ellie, Mariah, and I climbed out of our Jeep and approached the creature, which stood about fifty, sixty feet tall.
"Uh...it's...it's a dinosaur!" I said as I gestured to it. Ellie and Mariah nodded timidly. Dr. Levine had now appeared next to us, his dark brown eyes never leaving the Brachiosaur. It was rather agile, not a lumbering beast like most people thought and taught. Hammond began to walk to where we were.
"The movement!" Dr. Levine observed, staring in awe.
"The agility! You were right, Alan!" Ellie praised me, but I couldn't really acknowledge it at the moment.
"Ellie, we can tear up the rule book on cold-bloodedness. It doesn't apply, they're totally wrong! This is a warm-blooded creature. They're totally wrong." I was beyond heaven. All my career life, I had tried to tell my grad students that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. This confirmed it.
"They were wrong. Case closed. This thing doesn't live in a swamp to support its body weight for God's sake!" Ellie added on. I nodded excitedly. Just then, the Brachiosaur stood effortlessly on its hind legs and ate a very high branch of a tree. The ground shook as the Brachiosaur set its legs back on the ground.
"It's got a, what, twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven feet long neck." Dr. Levine turned to Hammond.
"The Brachiosaur? Thirty." Hammond said.
"This is like a knockout punch for warm-bloodedness." Rick told me, a look of bewilderment in his eyes.
"No more wrestling shows for you." Mariah lightly punched him in the shoulder. He didn't acknowledge that though.
"How fast is it?" Ellie asked Hammond.
"Well, we clocked the T-Rex at around thirty miles per an hour." Hammond said. I whipped around and faced him.
"You got a T-Rex?" Ellie asked him.
"Say again." I grabbed one of his shoulders. He smiled.
"We have a T-Rex." He confirmed. I felt faint as I slowly fell down.
"Honey, put your head in between your knees..." Ellie was instructing me. I sat down and looked beyond the Brachiosaur. It was a beautiful seen, almost reminded me of the African Plains that my sister had told me about. There were Brachiosaurs and Parasaurolophous in herds.
"They do move in herds." I muttered.
"You were right." Mariah sat down next to me and gave me a pat on the back.
"How did you do this?" Dr. Levine asked Hammond.
"I'll show you." Hammond promised.