Grant's alarm clock woke him up with a start. Hedragged himself out of bed, got dressed, and, as he always did in the morning, made himself a coffee. He went outside for the day's edition of the newspaper (March 11th, 1995), and had his breakfast, consisting solely of toast. As he ate his toast, Grant opened the paper and read the first headline.

10 Killed in Car Bombing Outside Pakistan Mosque

Immediately, Grant closed the paper. Reading about peoples' grisly deaths was not exactly something he wanted to do while eating - nor would it show the victims much respect. Instead, he wandered into the living room to put on the local news. Except he didn't. He actually had breakfast watching Saturday morning cartoons.

It was a normal Floridian morning. Except it wasn' was a big day. It was his birthday, and he was turning thirty. Besides that, however, it was an even bigger day - the day history would be made, as he and two other palaeontologists, would make history by becoming the world's first time travellers.

Providing everything went right.
After finishing the rest of his morning routine, Grant got into his car and put the key in the ignition, taking himself on his morning commute. Even though it was a Saturday, the roads were still congested - plenty of people in Central Florida worked jobs that weren't 9 to 5 office jobs. Many people, Grant included, worked in the tourism sector, and that made for a lot of odd working hours. Though Grant didn't work for one of the three main Central Orlando theme parks, Universal Studios, Sea World, and Disney World (okay, Disney World actually consisted of six theme parks, but whatever). He worked for the Dino Institute, an institute of higher learning, museum, and fossil dig site. Next door was Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama… the tackiest theme park in Central Florida.

If it could even be called a theme park, that is. Grant was pretty sure it legally couldn't.

Chester and Hester were… they were nice enough people. They were just miserly. So, everything in their mom and pop tourist trap suffered for their extreme frugality. One day, someone would be killed there, and Grant was certain of that.

Grant pulled up at the Dino Institute and parked his car. He sat there, staring ahead for a few minutes, psyching himself up inside his head.

He was eager to be part of the experiment, but at the same time, something was telling him… that he shouldn't. That he should back out, take Mary with him, and leave it all to Shirley. But that wouldn't be fair to Shirley.

A knock on his car door distracted Grant from his thoughts. It was the middle aged proprietor of the Dino-Rama, Hester, but this time she was without her husband, wound down his window.

'Dr Seeker. Grant. We weren't expecting you in work today. Can I interest you in some game tokens for when you have your lunch break? We're having a deal today; five tokens for five dollars -'

'Hester, the game tokens are a dollar each anyway, so that's not really a deal.'

'The deal is you get to buy them in bulk, not that you get money off when you buy them in bulk,' Hester said.

Grant nodded. 'Right,' he said. He opened his car door and started winding his window back up. 'I'm sorry, but no. I'm only coming in today because there's a very important project I'm working on.'

'You're mounting a new dinosaur, aren't you?' asked Hester.

Grant stood up out of his car. 'I'm not at liberty to say, Hester,' said Grant.

'You can't say or you won't say?'

'I can't say,' said Grant. 'I signed a non-disclosure agreement.'

Hester nodded. 'Interesting,' she said. 'Isn't today your birthday?' she asked, as Grant locked his car door. 'The big three - oh?'

'Yes, I am thirty today,' said Grant.

'Come to the Dino-Rama!' Hester said cheerfully. 'We can give you the Birthday Discount -'

'No thanks, I'm not interested in a dollar off admission.'

'That was last year's deal. This year, it's fifty cents off admission!'

Grant groaned internally. 'Still. No thanks.'

'You're missing out.'

'I don't think so.' Grant walked to the entrance of the Dino Institute, his place of work and study. It wasn't that he disliked Hester Lester, or Chester Lester for that matter, it was just that he'd spent the last almost twelve years here. Studying. Digging. Writing. Reading. Pranking. Falling off roofs. But now all the blood, sweat, and tears he'd put into his work was paying off.

He walked through the museum wing, curated by his friend-ish, Diana, whose last name was even punnier than his own (her full name was Diana Sore. An awkward name for a palaeontologist for sure). But at least it gave them something to bond over (his own full name was Grant Seeker, a terribly appropriate name for a scientist).

As he entered his office, he was greeted by his boss, Helen Marsh. 'Dr Seeker. Happy birthday.'

'You remembered,' Grant said. He opened the door to his lab and grabbed his lab coat.

'It's hard to forget an event I witnessed,' said Helen. 'In this case, your birth.'

'Of course,' Grant muttered as he put on his lab coat.

'How are you feeling today?' asked Helen. 'Excited? Nervous?'

'Bit of both,' Grant said. 'Chrono-Tech have tested their CTX Rovers, haven't they? Mary, Shirley, and I aren't going to, I don't know, disintegrate into nothing, are we?'

'Yes, Chrono-Tech have tested their technology quite rigorously. And no, you will not disintegrate into nothing,' said Helen. 'You've seen Back to the Future.'

'Yeah.'

'Think of the CTX Rover as Doc Brown's DeLorean -'

'That makes me feel a lot better, Helen,' Grant said sarcastically.

'That's Dr Marsh to you,' Helen corrected. 'Remember, formalities, Dr Seeker, for we are at work.'

'Formalities. Right,' said Grant.

'That's why I'm calling you Dr Seeker instead of Little Grant,' said Helen.

'I thought it was because I was thirty today.'

'Don't push it,' said Helen, warningly.

'Wouldn't dream of it.' Grant wandered over to his lab table and pulled out his notebook.

'How's your back?' asked Helen.

'It's fine,' said Grant. 'Healed up in 89.'

'And your neck?'

'It's fine.'

'And your heart?'

It was at that point, Grant looked up from his notes. 'Dr Marsh. Why are you asking me this?'

'Concern,' said Helen.

'I've been cleared to time travel,' said Grant. 'Chrono-Tech's physical -'

'I know.' Helen nodded. 'I was just making sure.'

Grant hummed sceptically. 'I doubt Jonathan Blaine would send me out on an experimental time travel trip to the Cretaceous period if he knew I had a bad heart and was going to drop down dead on my thirtieth birthday.'

'No,' Helen agreed. 'Logically, he wouldn't.'

Grant simply nodded and picked up his notebook. 'I'm going now,' he said.

'Where?' Helen demanded.

'To… to Shirley. And Mary,' said Grant. 'Mary's my girlfriend. You don't think I want to be with her?'

'Yes. Of course. Go ahead,' Helen said. 'I suppose I'll be seeing you again when it's time for the big experiment.'

Grant slipped his notebook in his pocket and ran down the hall, passing through the museum out front and the throngs of tourists within. Bill Nye the Science Guy's voice came from the loudspeaker overhead, talking about the large, recently discovered, carnotaurus skeleton that was in the centre of the room.

'Hi. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Busy palaeontologist passing through,' he said, squeezing past the tourists, visitors, and families. It was a Saturday morning, after all.

In a few hours, Grant would be seeing some of these extinct, fossilised creatures alive and in their natural habitat. All going well, of course.

He saw an arm raised, waving towards him. 'Grant!'

'Mary!' he called out, rushing as fast as he could over to her.

Mary took his hand. 'Are you ready?'

'For what?' asked Grant as he checked his watch. 'The thing isn't for another two hours.'

'Final checks, you dork.' Mary nudged him teasingly, but stopped when she saw his expression. 'Is something wrong?' she asked. 'Or are you worried I forgot your birthday?'

'I'm just… excited,' said Grant. He slipped through an employee door, and Mary followed him through.

'Ah yes. The look of excitement,' said Mary. 'You do look very excited.'

'Hm. Sarcasm.'

'Seriously, babe, what's wrong?'

'You don't call me "babe",' said Grant.

'What's eating you, Gilbert Grape?' asked Mary.

'Nothing. I'm just excited,' said Grant. 'Nervous. Too. I mean, I've dedicated my whole life to the study of dinosaurs. What if I don't… Mary, what if the Cretaceous period doesn't live up to my expectations?'

Mary squeezed Grant's hand. 'It will. Like you said, you've studied dinosaurs your whole life. And now you're having the chance to see them. In the scales.'

'And feathers,' Grant pointed out. 'Archaeopteryx definitely had feathers. And if archaeopteryx did, there's a good chance other dinosaurs did as well. My parents were, and are, proponents of the "birds evolved from dinosaurs" theory proposed back in 1860. And so am I.'

'I'm not saying you're not right about that, but -'

'If I can't convince you, you need to read Robert Bakker,' said Grant. 'I know it's almost ten years old at this point, but his book, The Dinosaur Heresies, argues for the evidence that shows dinosaurs are closer to birds than they are reptiles, and -'

'I'm going to stop you there, Grant,' said Mary.

'Any particular reason?'

'No, I just want to stop you.'

Grant huffed.

'Look, you can talk to me all you like about your dinosaur theories, but you can do itafter the big time travel experiment,' said Mary. 'I know you can talk for hours about dinosaurs, but you can't do that today. You might miss the experiment -'

'It's a time travel experiment, Mary,' said Grant. 'With a time machine.'

'That needs someone to be in it,' said Mary.

'What if I backed out?'

'Well, that's your prerogative. Nobody is asking you to stay. Though you are under an NDA, just as Shirley and I are.'

Grant sighed.

'I'm sure you'll feel better about time travelling as we prepare for it,' said Mary. She pecked him on the cheek. 'Come on. We have to meet Shirley anyway.' She pulled an access card from her pocket.

'What's that?' asked Grant.

'Don't tell me you forgot your access card,' said Mary. She shook her head. 'Oh, Grant-kun, what are we going to do with you?'

They came to a door labelled "Top Secret". Mary swiped her access card and the door opened to a dark, barely lit corridor. So, down they went.

Down. And further down.

And Grant was pretty sure the corridor was sloping at this point. And when he made a wrong step and slid down some stairs, he was definitely sure they were underground.

Mary just laughed and helped him to his feet. And they turned a corner and walked down another dimly lit corridor. But at the end, there was light.

Grant stumbled out into the light to see Shirley Woo, his colleague, and the enigmatic and seldom seen CEO of the Chrono-Tech corporation, Jonathan Blaine.

'Dr Seeker,' Jonathan Blaine greeted. 'Dr Wakayama. Welcome to the Time Tunnel.'

His eyes still adjusting to the light, Grant looked around. It was still poorly lit, but much better than the secret tunnels to get down here. There were pipes and tubing all over the place. Vats, cylinders. And the flooring seemed to be made of metal grates. He looked up at the piping - one of the labels caught his eye.

'Flux Duct?' he asked. 'Dr Blaine, have you been watching too much Back to the Future? You know, Doc Brown's Flux Capacitor?'

Jonathan Blaine waved his hand dismissively. 'No, no. Of course not.'

Grant narrowed his eyes slightly.

'In just two hours time, you three palaeontologists will be making history -'

'I'm a palaeoecologist,' Shirley interrupted.

'And I'm a palaeobotanist,' said Mary. 'Like Laura Dern's character in Jurassic Park, but I chose my career path before Jurassic Park, of course.'

'What about you?' Jonathan Blaine pointed to Grant. 'Any more interruptions from you?'

'Uh. No,' said Grant. 'I am a palaeontologist.'

'Whatever your jobs are, you study prehistoric life,' said Jonathan Blaine. 'And you're going to be time travelling back to the Cretaceous period in two hours -'

'Why not the Devonian period?' asked Mary. 'What have you got against trilobites?'

'We don't know if we can travel that far back yet,' Jonathan Blaine said. 'Now -'

'Are yousure you didn't get the idea for the Flux Duct from Back to the Future?' asked Shirley.

Jonathan Blaine looked at the three scientists in front of him. Two women, one man - all troublesome. 'Yes. I didn't,' he said. 'Now. Let me, without any further interruptions or comments, brief you on what will be happening today.'

Grant put his hand up like he was a small child in a classroom. 'It's my birthday today. I'm thirty.'

'How nice for you,' said Jonathan Blaine. He sighed in resignation and concluded to himself that palaeontologists were nothing but grown up children who had never left their dinosaur phase.

A/N: Grant Seeker's birthday isn't given in canon. Neither is his age. Therefore, I'm using the birthday and age of that of his actor, meaning on 11th March 1995, it very well would have been his thirtieth birthday.

On 10th March 1995, there was indeed a car bombing/mass shooting outside a mosque in Pakistan. 17 people were now known to have been killed, but as we know, in early days, death counts get underestimated. So, Grant would have been reading about that in his paper the next day.
The six Disney World theme parks referenced are not the six Disney World theme parks that are there today. The ones from the story are Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM Studios, River Country, Typhoon Lagoon, and Discovery Island (the ones today are Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, and Blizzard Beach). There was no Islands of Adventure, so Universal Studios is referred to as one park.

Lester is not the canon last name of Chaster and Hester, it's just one I've given them for the sake of maintaining the rhyme.

The carnotaurus is important.

Bill Nye the Science guy does give voice overs in the museum part of the ride queue.
Robert Bakker does indeed argue dinosaurs are birds in The Dinosaur Heresies. He also argues dinosaurs were warm blooded, rather than cold blooded.

Yes! One of the pipes before you board the Dinosaur ride vehicle is labelled "Flux Duct". I don't know if it is a nod to Back to the Future or not, but I definitely laughed when I noticed it.