Hugo was very much focused on his work as he carefully scrubbed the walls of the manmade pond in the centre of the large terrarium where the park's beelzebufo lived. The smaller Maeverano animals all fell into their jurisdiction – even the gondwanatheres and enantiornithines. The same applied to the Morrison and Hell Creek forest buildings – it was decided that the small mammals, pterosaurs and birds in those buildings would fall into their jurisdiction simply because of convenience. The mammal and flying teams had their own sections to worry about.

It had been three days since the park's opening was confirmed. In the days since the opening announcement, people had reacted in a number of different ways – some people were excited, others rather more pensive and some in-between. Hugo, and the rest of the reptile team fell mostly in the first category – he couldn't wait for the world to know what they had done. And, ultimately, not much had changed with the announcement for them – as Jack put it, "They told us. We acknowledged it. We went back to work. Whatever." It wasn't hanging over his head, unlike some people.

As Hugo threw mealworms and dead mice to the giant frogs, he couldn't help but notice one nearest to the terrarium's edge – a male named Kermit, who he'd become rather fond of. He smiled, before turning to Aaron, realising that his friend was – uncharacteristically – quiet today. Turning to his friend, Hugo asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"The opening – I mean, I'm excited for it. We all are, but…", Aaron said, calmly, "You just know, don't you? There's gonna be a shitload of shady types who want to get their hands on these for whatever stupid fucking reason." Hugo's eyes widened – he knew exactly what his friend was inferring.

They – Hugo, Aaron, Carmen, Maria and Jack – all knew the illegal animal trade – when they had been stationed in Costa Rica, they had seen it firsthand. On many occasions, they had to help authorities identify animals, often in poor condition confiscated from some smuggler who had been apprehended at the airport with his ill-gotten cargo – and, for every one that got caught, two slipped through the net.

One day, they had been at turtle nesting beaches, placing fake eggs made by a 3D printer and embedded with satellite tags in sea turtle nests to trick particularly inept smugglers – who stole the eggs to sell them to restaurants, bars and individuals as a delicacy – into unintentionally ratting out them, their traffickers and the eventual consumers when they stole the decoys. The smugglers, fortunately, fell for it more often than not – and placing the decoys didn't damage the real embryos.

This would be even worse for these animals. These animals had no legal rights – since they had, until very recently, been extinct, there was no need to grant them any. Perhaps they would eventually gain the protections other species had, but, until then… At this, Hugo shrugged, "Yeah – however, that just means we're gonna have to work harder to protect them."

At this, Aaron nodded, "Yeah – the world's going to change, but then, we're just going to change with it. That's what life's about."

. . . . .

In the Hell Creek Forest building, Maria and Carmen had very similar thoughts on their minds as they worked to take care of the axestemys and basilemys in the exhibit they shared with the brodavis.

The brodavis eggs had hatched several months ago, shortly after the Shutdown – amazingly, whilst some of the brodavis had been injured, not one of the eggs had been destroyed or parents killed when Dag and his pack had attempted to raid the Hell Creek Forest building. If Jack, Collete and the dire wolves hadn't shown up when they did, the story would have probably been much, much different.

Carmen turned to see Toby basking on a rock and smiled. Whilst the basilemys, being mostly vegetarian, would likely pose little danger to the brodavis, Jack had been worried that the axestemys would see the hatchlings as prey – however, the smaller, faster birds were good at avoiding the turtles. The regular food supply of water plants, day-old-chicks and dead mice was also a factor in keeping the astexymys from being interested in hunting the brodavis chicks – and the little hesperornithiforms were now too big to be worthwhile prey for the turtles.

In the immediate period after the Shutdown, the turtles themselves had bred, and the female astexymys and basilemys had buried eggs along the shore of the pool. The eggs had been removed and placed in incubators in the vet station – softshell turtles were prone to cannibalism, so it was important that potential prey be removed.

As they checked on the birds and turtles, they noticed how much more crowded the exhibit seemed, now that the brodavis chicks hatched. Each brodavis pair had laid between one and three eggs, leading to sixteen hatchlings in total – and so the flock had increased in size from eighteen to thirty-four.

At the sight of some of the juveniles fighting over some dead fish, leftover from the morning feed, Carmen muttered, "Does the aviary seem a little crowded to you?" Nodding, Maria sighed, "The brodavis population has almost doubled – and the turtle population is going to be increasing twentyfold when those eggs hatch. And next year, both generations are going to be breeding again. Very soon, space is going to be a problem – the problem of what to do with all these excess animals…"

Carmen nodded – for most zoos, transferring surplus animals to other collections in order to reduce overcrowding wouldn't be a problem. But, for now, this was the only place these species could be maintained – perhaps that would change when the park opened. But, for now, space was going to be an issue, especially for the smaller animals.

There was another issue – for most of the animals, inbreeding would soon be prove to be a problem. Whilst most of the smaller Hell Creek animals were in large enough populations to stave that off for a generation or two, most of the larger animals were in small groups or even single breeding pairs – and Custer the alamosaurus was the only one of his kind. More would have to be brought back at some point for a self-sustaining population to be maintained.

As she was deep in thought, she noticed Toby sitting by a rock staring at her expectantly – this was feeding time, after all. Awkwardly, she smiled, "Sorry, buddy – got too deep in my own thoughts." She reached into a small pouch she had on her belt, drawing out a mouse in the process, which she lowered down towards Toby. Within seconds, the prehistoric turtle had started eagerly munching on the rodent. She chuckled affectionately, to which Maria rolled her eyes, "You spoil him, you know that?"

Carmen shook her head and chuckled, "It's just nice not to think about what's coming – I'm excited about the opening, but the consequences of revealing to the world the truth about this place…" Maria sighed, "Yeah. The world's going to change, but that's the way of the world, isn't it? We just prepare."

. . . . .

That evening, all four of the young herpetology keepers had gathered together at a bench nearby the deinosuchus paddock, where Boggs and Dil were currently basking peacefully upon the land portion while Swampy, Ally, and Cranky were squabbling over the fish. They were waiting for Jack – who had asked for them to meet "and bring some Coke". He needed someone to talk to in the days since the mammoth mission.

"Glad to see y'all were early!"

They suddenly turned to see Jack walking towards them, a grin on his face. Sitting down next to Hugo and pouring himself a Coke, he said, "I'm happy to see you all turn up – anyone want to discuss anything? Anything to get my mind off nearly being strangled to death by a yeti." Aaron shook his head, "If it weren't for Nikolai, I'd have taken that story with a grain of salt. Your throat still hurt?" Jack nodded, "A bit." He sighed, "I'm on two Paracetamols a day – and Nikolai taught me some things to get through the nightmares." At this Maria smiled, "He seems to have taken quite a liking to you.", to which Jack chuckled.

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Hugo said, "Anyway, we were all thinking about the opening day – it's what we've been working towards and… it's not until it's in sight you realise what's gonna happen and how things are gonna change. Aaron was talking about how we're not always going to be the only people…" To this Maria, sitting across from him, nodded, "Yeah – I never thought about that." Jack nodded too, "Yeah, things are gonna change – and we aren't always gonna be the only ones with sole access to these things." He smiled, "However, the future's only gloomy if you look at It that way – when you open a new chapter of a book, there's good and bad stuff. And that's what this is going to be." He picked up his glass and said, "To the future!"

The four others raised their drinks in toast.

"To the future!"

Foreshadowing? Moi?

Yeah – some of the discussions in this chapter are going to come back in the future of this story. They're going to be a fundamental part of the post-Phase Three world – what happens when the PP crew are not the only ones who could have access to a dinosaur and what happens when people try to use them for purposes other than simple display?

This is a multi-layered question with a lot of answers – and that's what we're going to see in the post-Phase Three world. We're going to go to territory that no PP fic has ever gone to before – aside from putting the portal in the context of a bigger, stranger phenomenon with a long history, we're also going to be bringing de-extinct animals into the outside world and see what happens there.

The other big discussion is something that isn't really brought up in these fics – many of the animals are represented by comparatively few individuals. At least, in our case, all but one of those species are represented by a potentially breeding population. Inbreeding and overcrowding are both going to become problems in the future – how would PP cope with that? You'll have to read to find out.