All this administrative jargon was draining. But it was part of the job… and at least he didn't have much to do. and reflected. Drew Luczynski sat back and reflected on his duties. The park had been open for about six months now. For some people, him included, it was a bit of a culture shock. He chastised himself for this mindset. He knew that this place was meant for the public and had been since the very beginning; people came here, from all over the world, and saw the animals. That was how they earned money. He could get used to it… eventually.
It was strange; how different the park seemed. A large hotel, with tennis courts and a swimming pool had been constructed, to allow multi-day guests to stay – and others were under construction. Car parks, with over 20,000 spaces had been built to accommodate the multitudes flocking to the park from around the world. The park had become a bigger place; from empty, under-construction and quiet, to a loud, opulent juggernaut seeing 20,000 guests a day, not counting the ones who stayed for several days.
It had been a shockingly jarring change. Up until now, most of the visitors had been Novum officials, inspectors, creditors or lawyers, stressing the extreme seriousness of the situation, the enormous amount of work ahead and the disastrous consequences if it all went wrong. And, now, here they were; they'd got it right and they were the talk of the world.
There had been worries on how some of the animals, especially the more skittish ones, might react to this sudden influx of crowds and noise. But they'd adjusted almost instantaneously; some of the animals had even been showboating for their new public. The staff had been showered with comments, praise and positive feedback. It had been a long haul for them too, in very trying times, with a level of uncertainty which most had not experienced. What they had experienced was the public. They were at ease moving through the crowds, giving impromptu talks and then getting on with their routines. It made sense; none of the keepers had worked in an empty zoo before they came here, crowds were normal.
It was somehow hard to comprehend. All of this; the escapes, the arguments, the headaches big and small (both human and animal in cause), had all led to this moment. The moment where they opened their gates and shared their achievements with the world. That moment and how it might happen had been paramount in his head ever since they passed the inspection; a thousand different scenarios had played in his head. Every possible reaction; surprise, disbelief, shock, indifference. Now the moment had come and it was a staggering anti-climax. It was a strange feeling; a nagging feeling that the moment had arrived, but not in the way you had envisaged it. To be honest, he didn't know what he had expected; fireworks and a national holiday, maybe.
From opening day, interest in Prehistoric Park had skyrocketed. Palaeontologists had flocked to the place to see and study actual prehistoric animals as flesh and blood animals. Khatin had even talked about universities doing courses in the study of de-extinct animals as living creatures; the beginnings of a whole new scientific field, whilst the park itself could do research projects with many of the world's great universities. As for the mainstream public, they were eager to see the weird and wonderful menagerie of creatures that PP had brought back, some of which they hadn't even heard of before coming. Whilst some exhibits were more popular than others (generally the ones exhibiting well-known, large or impressive-looking creatures), there wasn't one that was ignored per se.
Prehistoric Park was well liked by most of the world. Several giant corporations poured sponsorship and money into the park; many had sponsored some of the park's newest exhibits. For example, Hell's Aquarium had been sponsored by the car company Toyota. Celebrities also visited the park, with some having entirely mercenary motives; after all, having a picture with a cute animal would show your sensitive side. But most seemed genuinely keen. In the hotel, there was a plaque commemorating the arrivals of famous guests; film stars, musicians and even politicians, who had all visited the park and written glowing reviews.
Several important conservation groups had also supported them, with the WWF amongst others, writing glowingly of the park; there was a breeding program planned to restore dodos, broad-billed parrots and other creatures to the wilds of Mauritius, with other recently extinct animals intended to follow. The only slight blot on the landscape was criticism from, ahem, certain groups of people – and only the lunatic fringe of those people at that. But that didn't matter; ultimately, the rest of the world was behind them. That mattered.
Why did the prospect of opening bother him?
Maybe it was the prospect of a traditional managerial job; the prospect of arranging celebrity appearances, telling film crews what they could and couldn't do with the park's animals for advertisements, filling out paperwork from the Novum creditors about the monthly expenditure notes (some of which had to be guessed) and having information from a thousand fronts fielded into his head. On any given day, he would be arranging dates with some Disney starlet's people about a visit to the park, fill out the monthly expenditure notes for the Novum finances department, arrange a meeting with a corporate sponsor about potential funding for a new exhibit, resolve staff arguments and dealing with guest incidents every day.
He felt more removed from the staff and the animals than he'd ever been – he couldn't just go out in the park anymore, help with the animals… because his administrative duties got in the way.
What didn't really help matters was that everyone treated Matthew Pike like he was the one in charge – or Jenny if he wasn't available. Even his old crew, his compadres, those who had joined him on this journey subtly deferred to Matthew now, not Drew. It felt like a boardroom coup – whatever one of those was – and it was one everyone had just accepted. Some seemed to prefer it.
The only reprieve he had was the missions – going back in time, rescuing animals, escaping prehistoric apex predators armed with nothing but his wits… that was what he lived for. The missions were what kept him going… at least on missions, Matthew Pike wasn't there. At least he could pretend that nothing had changed…
But the truth was… things had changed; the park had gone from empty, under-construction and quiet, to a loud, opulent juggernaut seeing 20,000 guests a day, not counting the ones who stayed for several days. Sometimes he felt like he hadn't changed whilst everything else had – like he'd been thrown in the middle of a lake and expected to swim all the way to shore. At this, Drew shook his head and reminded himself of one thing; this was the moment he and Theodore had been working towards ever since they had started. And he'd have to accept it; paperwork and all.
. . . . .
Matthew Pike sighed and looked at the day's itinerary – or, perhaps, more bluntly all the paperwork. As much as he disliked it, he was used to administrative details – after all, from US Fish and Game to the WWF, 90% of what he did had been paperwork. He hated it, but he knew how to do it. And, besides, with him working alongside Jenny – and all the horror of the past they shared – and Drew, who still seemed to view him as some sort of interloper, it helped free his mind. Kept him focused.
Weirdly, the paperwork triggered some deeper thoughts. From anyone's standpoint, Prehistoric Park was the most ambitious visitor attraction in human history – the long-time staff didn't think about it, nor did the visitors, but he, from his outsider's perspective (and he was still, in his mind, an outsider), did.
They had all the problems of any major theme park and all the problems of any major zoo – a distinction that, he found, was becoming increasingly blurred in recent years. Many theme parks, especially in Europe and the UK, now kept at least some live animals on site – whilst more elaborate setups did exist, this mostly took the form of petting barns, with domestic animals or easily-acquired and cared-for exotics (mostly birds, insects and reptiles) or aquariums. And many zoos had what could be best described as "rides" – mostly tours of various exhibits, with boat rides, gondolas and trains being common, but carousels, rope courses and other things were also there.
And Prehistoric Park was no different. Trail of the Kings, the exhibit in which the Kem Kem animals lived, had a boat ride running through it, where visitors went on a series of boats following underwater tracks, getting up-close views (as safe as possible, of course) of the giant dinosaurs and crocodiles that called the area home. Other large paddocks had gondola rides going over them or open-air bus tours, whilst self-guided off-road tours were being looked at for those who wanted a bit more of a private experience
Some people on the board were even talking about attaching a waterpark to the still-in-construction second hotel and theming it around prehistoric marine life – with ideas such as a waterslide running through a tank containing one of the smaller, less dangerous marine reptiles or archaeocetes and a lazy river that went through an aviary.
But, as he saw it, they had one major, unprecedented problem – caring for a population of animals that nobody had ever tried to maintain before.
From the very beginning, Theodore and the board's view had been that the animals, however exotic and unusual, would fundamentally behave like animals in zoos anywhere. They would learn the regularities of their care, and they would respond. For the most part, this had been true.
However, teething problems emerged… principally because they still knew so little about the animals other than what could be guessed from inanimate remains. If it had not been for Jack having a hunch, nobody would have even vaguely suspected the sphenacodonts were venomous, for instance. For the vast majority of the creatures there, this was the first time they had been studied alive – surprises were common, even among the longer-standing residents. For a scientist, this was a dream… for someone trying to figure out how to best maintain them, it was a nightmare.
Diseases were another big concern – both how the animals coped with modern diseases and bringing back their own diseases. Case in point, there were occasional outbreaks of oral trichomoniasis among the phorusrhacids, dromaeosaurids and troodonts – a problem which Drew, somewhat uncharacteristically, had put his all into trying to solve… however, they'd come up with a blank. Matthew resolved to contact Asha Sengupta, the curator of flying vertebrates, and see if she could get to the bottom of it.
Now, the staff were pretty open about this – you couldn't figure out the exact ins-and-outs of a given animal in eighteen months, after all. This was a new frontier – something that was universally accepted. But, even once the kinks were ironed out, there was still the future to think about.
The success of the breeding programmes had been both a blessing and a curse – for some of the animals, their populations had more than doubled and more and more new arrivals were on the way. Very soon space was going to be a problem – and the issue of what to do with all the excess animals was going to come up.
Whilst culling was absolutely off the table as a management strategy, something clearly was going to have to be done. Other options were going to have to be explored – now, whilst Matthew had no idea what went on in the Halls of the Mighty at Novum HQ at San Francisco, he had heard there had been whispers that the board were talking about setting up other parks elsewhere.
But that was speculation.
However, there was another issue not related to overcrowding. For many of the species the park had, inbreeding was going to be an issue – whilst most of the smaller animals were in large enough populations to stave that off for a generation or two, most of the larger animals were represented by small groups, family units or even single breeding pairs. More simply had to be brought back at some point for a viable self-sustaining population to be built up.
But all that lay in the far future.
Perhaps it was best to focus on the issues that needed to be addressed now – not ones that lay in the past and couldn't be changed, nor the ones that lay in the unknowable future. It was far more manageable that way – and caused less headaches.
He sighed.
Here goes another day
So the point of this was to get in both Drew and Matthew's heads and establish a couple of things.
The first and most important thing is to compare them to each other directly and see how similar they are – which is part of the reason why they don't get on. Basically, Matthew Pike is everything Drew wishes he was, but is painfully aware that he's not… which is a little bit galling, because Drew does have a little bit of an ego (one he can back up, but still…).
Everybody's sort of subtly deferred to him – you'll see this in a couple of Extras stories – and some seem to prefer it. And I think Drew views that as kind of a betrayal – like, they'd been through a lot together and had gotten to opening night together. For all his faults, they'd shared that experience.
So this whole thing knocked Drew a little sideways - he was ready to carry on from where he left off and the higher-ups decided rather high-handedly, 'Yeah, you are going to be running the park with this guy whether you like it or not.' And everybody is just okay with this.
I think, had that not happened, Drew would have more readily learned the lessons that he was learning in Phases One and Two. In all probability, he would have built more upon those foundations if it weren't for this guy who, as much as he'd hate to admit it, threatens him. In the face of this, Drew has sort relapsed into old habits.
The other thing is to really see, from a semi-outsider's perspective, what has actually been accomplished here. This isn't really a deconstruction, it's more taking a closer look at the premise.
Not many PP fics really explore the place as a visitor attraction – Mortal's A Keeper's Story does, as does Back From The Ashes (which has, seemingly, gone from ) – so I really wanted to go a bit more in-depth and show a level of detail that hadn't really appeared before.
Matthew's thoughts about zoos and theme parks starting to blur is very much in line with thoughts I've had in reality – admittedly based on a rather limited evidence pool (I live in the UK, where one can really see this blurring). A lot of the "rides" mentioned are based on similar things in zoos around the world – we're going to be seeing a full breakdown at some point.
As for the "waterpark hotel", it's partly based on SeaWorld's Aquatica and partly on the Splash Landings Hotel at Alton Towers. Will it end up being built? Watch this space.
Now, the issues of inbreeding and overcrowding have been brought up on-and-off for a while now – but I feel that these topics are never really brought up in PP fanfiction.
You bring back extinct animals and maintain them in a park setting, and even breed them… what do you do with all the excess animals? Space is going to be an issue at some point. And, relating to that, how do you maintain genetic diversity? You're going to have to bring more back at some point… but the problem of what to do with them when space is already an issue starts coming up.
The whispers Matthew discusses about other Prehistoric Parks… yes, this is future story fodder. Exactly where, we can't say yet – but this won't be for a while in the future.