Marianne "Mia" Nelson smiled warmly as she observed the male dunkleosteus swimming sedately past the glass from her position at one of the tank's viewing areas. She'd always been fascinated with aquatic life, and the mighty dunkleosteus was no exception. At the moment, this one was just patrolling its territory. The other three were patrolling their own territories.

The sonar deterrents had been designed by chief technician Darryl Reyes with assistance from junior technician Ramsey Gray, as a means of separating large tanks into subsections without the need for additional glass barriers. Whenever an animal got to close to one, it would send out a brief, but loud hum, to deter the animal from going any further. Since they were basically invisible, this added a touch of realism to the park's exhibits, allowing for the animals to settle in a bit more.

But taking care of these animals was no easy task. Most people didn't think aquarists had particularly hard jobs – after all, fish were easy to care for, right? No. Taking care of any fish, let alone one the size of the dunkleosteus and titanicthys, required a lot of work. But someone had to do it. And the way she and the other aquarists saw it, the rewards more than outweighed the exhaustingly long hours of work.

She then directed a meaningful look towards the door to the keeper area. She remembered the crane with the large metal platform, used whenever they needed to feed the huge placoderms – it was a nerve-wracking experience.

"Enjoying the dunkleosteus, I see."

Mia grinned, rolled her eyes in amusement, and turned around in time to see her friend and fellow aquarist Laura Allen leaning against the railing. "You could say that," she admitted before gesturing to the dunkleosteus, "Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Yup", Laura nodded, before looking around the building, "Man, these animals are so cool. Some days I wish I could tell my nephews what sort of animals I really work with. Don't you wish you could tell your family?"

"Yeah – pity there was the ND contract," Mia stated. "Yeah," said Laura. "And it's for the best – can you imagine how annoying it would be to be trailed by a camera crew every day whilst you're trying to work out how to care for animals nobody's ever maintained? And I'm not sure Drew and his team would like having to babysit them".

"Yeah, that would be the dumbest thing ever. However, I don't think they'd let the film crew talk to you – I don't think people would like what you'd say…"

Mia nodded her head. Even before she and Laura had accepted the offer to work at Prehistoric Park, everyone knew that Laura was a gossip – if you had a secret, telling Laura about it was usually an unspoken guarantee of it becoming common knowledge by the end of the hour.

"What can I say? I like chatting with people." Mia raised her eyebrow and said, "I assume that's why you wanted to talk to me?"

"Correct." Laura chuckled, "The onychodus still need to be fed, the rhenopterus exhibit needs a temperature check, and the gogoselachus and stethacanthus are probably going to need a filter check. And considering that we'll probably be needed when Sinbad gets returned to his exhibit, we'd best get these done."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Mia agreed as she nodded her head. Sinbad, one of the male thalattoarchon, was undergoing a checkup. She and Laura had been around to assist with the extraction and they'd probably be called in to assist with the return.

"Glad to hear that." Laura nodded her head. "Well I suppose we'd best get back to work," she then said as she walked towards the onychodus tank, "The onychodus ain't gonna feed themselves. And the sooner we can help with Sinbad, the better."

. . . . .

Stavros Ballas couldn't help but smile as he watched the nothosaurus pod peacefully swimming around in the waters of their tank, whilst the tanystropheus were baking on rocks in the land. Ever since the mission to Triassic Switzerland, he'd always enjoyed dropping by to visit the small aquatic reptiles. To really put it simply, they'd grown on him. The fact that Nemo had been successfully integrated with the pod was the icing on the cake.

The captain of the Ancient Mariner directed his gaze closer towards the marine reptiles, his eyes narrowed in concentration. As a general rule, the animal care staff tried not to pick favourites - he and his crew included. In between missions, he and his crew helped out with the aquarists – despite lacking formal qualifications, they all knew a lot about marine animals.

But even so, he had to admit that the nothosaurus had really come to grow on him – perhaps it was due to spending so much time with Nemo on the Triassic mission. He'd spent weeks helping the young nothosaurus become integrated in the pod.

"Watching the nothosaurus again, I see."

Stavros rolled his eyes in mock annoyance, an amused grin forming on his face at the sound of the familiar voice behind him. He turned around. Sure enough, there was Kira. "Good to see you, too." The captain nodded his head. "I take it that things went well at the placodont tank?"

Kira nodded his head. He and the rest of the Ancient Mariner crew had been helping some of the aquarists handle a routine cleanup at the placodont tank. "Hai, the tank's been cleaned up."

"That's good to hear."

Stavros looked back towards the nothosaurus. "I suppose this means you're going to help with the nothosaur feeding."

Kira nodded, "Provided we don't end up on another unscheduled swim, certainly."

Stavros let a cheeky grin come on his face at the memory of the incident A few days ago, Kira had been helping with the nothosaurus feeding, only to end up falling into the tank alongside the aquarist he was aiding, when the last platform had collapsed from under their feet – a prank by Jack and the reptile team, who had sawn through half of it. Even now he could still remember Kira's fury. "You take yourself too seriously, my friend. It was all in good fun."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one who ended up falling in there," the first mate grumbled.

"I'd find it funny if I had." Stavros nodded once more. "Like I said, it was a harmless joke. At least it wasn't the cymbospondylus tank."

"If you say so.", Kira then thought to himself. "Speaking of which…"

This immediately got Stavros's attention, "Sinbad's checkup is done?"

Kira nodded his head. "Yes, and he's going to be back at his tank soon enough."

"I see." Stavros took one last quick glance at the nothosaurus. "Well in that case," he said, "Let's not keep them waiting."

. . . . .

"Steady now," said Linda. "We don't want to drop him."

At the moment, she and a group of aquarists were standing nearby the holding tank of the cymbospondylus, watching as Sinbad was slowly lowered down towards the water on a stretcher attached to a large crane. Due to both his size and the risk of dropping him, all the staff were trying to be as careful as possible. They remembered how hard it had been to get him out.

As the mighty ichthyosaur was carefully lowered closer and closer towards the holding tank, everyone went tense. After a few, nail-biting minutes, Sinbad finally was lowered into the water and the stretcher was released, allowing him to swim away.

"Good job," Linda said, flashing a thumbs up towards the worker handling the crane.

"Thank goodness nothing went wrong," said Stavros. "Hai," said Kira, "A mistake could have been disastrous." Whilst Mia and Laura both rolled their eyes, they couldn't help but agree that it was a relief that things had gone seamlessly.

Linda nodded, before turning around to the assembled workers. "Alright everyone," she said. "Show's over. Let's get back to work."

With this, they all split off, all happy that things were still going well. For now, the park was sailing smoothly. However, they all were ready for when any storms came into view.

Did you notice the bit where Laura and Mia diss the concept behind the original series? I felt I had to add it because self-depreciation is a great indication that you don't take yourself too seriously. It's also a fun way to show how PP fandom has evolved.