You stared blankly at the report that you'd just been given by your assistant. Urgent, top priority from the zoologists handling Rexy, undersigned by Dr. Harding. Flipping the cover page over, you started reading. And then stopped as a single sentence fragment leapt out at you. "Primary estimates of adult length may have been faulty, continued growth and development indicates potential to become up to 70% larger than previous models indicated."
You rubbed at your forehead as you laid the paper down. That much larger? How could Wu or Sorkin have missed this? Going back through though, you think you spot the issue. All of the prior models and estimates were made using the fossil record as the basis. And what actual dinosaurs ended up being fossils were a fraction of a fraction of the actual living population of each species. Which meant that not only was it likely, it was
probable that the fossils being used to estimate the possible sizes of the creatures were juveniles, or more likely early adults. Even apex predators in the present were lucky to reach "full size." So it was statistically unlikely in the extreme that you were going to be dealing with intact fully grown fossils.
Genetic engineering and revivification were sciences that were very much still in their infancy; mistakes and unexpected wrinkles were to be expected. Taking the new potential size into account, coupled with her behavior so far, you checked the amount of land allotted for the T-Rex paddock. Making some calculations you nodded to yourself and reached for your phone.
"Ah, hello Oscar. No, there's no complaints with the work schedule, your team has been moving at an exceptional pace. I'm calling because I'm afraid I need to make a modification to enclosure 9. Yes, I know it's almost completed, and you and your team will be receiving appropriate compensation for the last-minute change. I need you to cancel the forestation of sectors 4 and 5 within the enclosure and instead mark them off as further grasslands." You paused as he took that in before throwing a rapid series of questions at you.
"The saplings? You should be able to use them for enclosure 10 instead. Yes, I'll make sure that Finance is made aware of the extra expenditure and that it's coming from me. Thank you, Oscar. Once you and your crew have finished Enclosure 10 tell them that they can expect at least a month of shore leave. Heh, no Oscar, I'm not stupid enough to volunteer to pick up the tab for those boys. Nice try though." You chuckle as you end the call with Oscar Herrera, the man coordinating the construction of the eventual exhibits.
===
[X][Punishment]Second Chance
Never let it be said that you weren't willing to take circumstances into consideration. The young lady before you looked like she'd just been handed a stay of execution by the governor. Which, given some of the dire consequences Legal had been drawing up, may not have been that far off the mark; at least for her career. But she also understands that everything she touches is going to be checked and that she'll have to empty her pockets and subject herself to a prison-style pat-down before she can leave the premises of any lab.
You hated that there was now a light pall of suspicion in the labs though. You'd seen coworkers giving each other cursory glances many times now. Sorkin and Wu at least seemed to be above it all, but the others... You'd spoken to Nicte about your thoughts while sharing a beer and she'd grilled you on which people in particular seemed to be the most antsy. You'd told her, not thinking too much of it, and been shocked when she groaned and began saying something in her native language that you couldn't understand. Fixing you with an exasperated look, she finally switches back to English.
'Elliot, those aren't suspicious looks, those are
flirting looks. You've got these people working on a dream project with other people that can meet them at their level of both male and female varieties. And after what happened with Krouse all of them are going to be wary of being approached by people outside the project. So naturally they look to their coworkers instead." She leans forward and flicks you in the forehead before finishing the rest of her beer. She heads off to her bungalow still grumbling what you can only presume are dire insults in regards to your social graces or lack thereof.
[][Personal]Offer to take Nicte to dinner to make up for apparently being an idiot about people? You just know she's mad at you and you really don't like it.
[][Personal]Let things lie. Nicte will cool off in a few days, she always does. In the meantime just avoid her areas while she's on shift so you don't end up with a face full of feces. Again.
===
The grand opening of Isla Matanceros has, so far, proven to be a massive learning experience. The Imagineers from Disney had been invaluable in helping troubleshoot any major problems. While your own experience with zoos coupled with Nicte helping with training the zookeepers means that the new group of zookeepers are gathering valuable experience dealing with the animals. Of course, not everything could go smoothly.
"I'm sorry, this woman wants
what?" You had to have misheard that. Semola, the woman who was heading the training of the facility personnel heaves a sigh. She looks very much like she wished to be anywhere else.
"She wants to have a photo session with the Terror Birds. When the guide with her tour informed her that they weren't allowed to interact with the animals in that kind of capacity she began demanding it." Your expression hardened.
"Not only no but
hell no. And tell her that if she continues to demand such access to the animals then she'll be expelled from the island. Lifetime ban if she attempts to enter the enclosures herself. I will
not tolerate idiots like that endangering themselves and putting the animals, keepers, and other park-goers at risk. In fact, I am going to codify that right the hell now. Take some security personnel with you to inform her of the policy, okay Semola?" The native woman nodded, looking grateful.
Thankfully the issue is resolved, though the woman seems absolutely astonished at not getting her way. Not your problem, and from the reactions of other park-goers she'd been ruining their day almost as much as your employees.
This did lead you to a thought though. While you had a staff of zookeepers that were being acclimated to the insanity of caring for dinosaurs; perhaps you should establish a secondary force to keep an eye on the exhibits. A sort of park ranger to ensure that if by some horrific mischance, a guest
did manage to get into the enclosures, there'd be some way to quickly find and retrieve them while the zookeepers kept the animals distracted.
Alternatively, they could be a form of secondary zookeeper, assisting in keeping track of the health of the dinosaurs; becoming as familiar to the animals as their normal handlers, and thus able to move through enclosures with relatively little fear.
[][Ranger]Have them be a dedicated part of the security force specifically for going through the enclosures. This means that they'll usually be folded into regular security unless specifically requested.
[][Ranger]Have them be subsidiaries to the animal handlers. It'll make them effectively their own sub-department and will have them constantly on the move through the park.
===
While finding Adrian Krouse's current whereabouts was looking for a needle in a haystack during a windstorm, backtracking his movements was much easier. The man liked to stand out and blew through money like it was water, tipping lavishly wherever he ate or drank, always ordering from the top shelf, etc.In essence, doing his absolute damndest to look like he was big money in order to hook some woman that thought he was on her level financially.
It also meant that he had developed habits that were hard to break even while meeting clandestinely. The investigators from inside the company, both former police detectives, had eventually managed to find a spot where Krouse had met with another man for a discreet meeting at a sort of tropical themed restaurant.
The man Krouse had met had been trying
way too hard to look like a tourist according to what you got back. He stuck out in the wait staffs' memories because of his stiffness, and the fact that he had refused to take his sunglasses off even while he was in the shade and wearing a hat to boot.
The trail had seemingly gone cold then, until your men investigated the incoming flights for that day. Getting access to the passenger lists had required burning a bit more capital than you'd have liked, but they'd managed eventually. And one name in particular had leapt out at them.
Dr. Lewis Dodgson, one of the main movers and shakers behind BioSyn and a man with a decidedly checkered past. Pharmaceuticals and medicines were their stock in trade, and InGen was their biggest competitor in the field of genetic engineering, with Mantah Corp trailing far behind the other two tech companies.
And speaking of Mantah Corp, it seemed that Krouse may have been double-dipping. A woman named Katelyn Boyd had arrived on a different flight, and after some further investigation had met Krouse at a nightclub the same day that he'd met Dodgson. The two had spent most of the night at their table where the music and the crowd covered any hope of them being overheard, at least according to the servers that your investigators had interviewed. Some further digging had turned up a connection, albeit tenuous, to Mantah Corp.
[][Espionage]Follow up on Biosyn, they've got a long-standing rivalry with InGen apparently.
[][Espionage]Follow up on Mantah Corp. While lagging behind, getting your procedures would give them a massive boost in the genetics race. They may be desperate.
[][Espionage]Follow up neither. You know who your probable enemies are now. Prepare for the potential of further attempts at espionage.
===
[X][Revival]Pyrenean Ibex
Wu's eyes had lit up with excitement as he had been given the new revival project. "Excellent, birds were starting to get rather boring. Of course there's the question of whether you'd like me to try and create some kind of mechanism to act as a womb..." he trailed off at your expression. You'd read far too many science-fiction stories to want to make anything approaching that kind of technology on a large scale basis.
After a moment Wu took up his thought process again. "Then I suppose we're going to need some Ibex to act as surrogates. I don't want to try this with anything too genetically distinct, not the first time anyway." You nodded in agreement, that made sense. Now comes the tricky question. While you were much less rushed than your father, you wanted to have your two star scientists able to really see what they could do.
"How would you judge the lab techs' ability to begin performing revivals without your or Dr. Sorkin's direct oversight?" Dr. Wu considered the question carefully.
"I believe that you'd be able to split off small teams to work on relatively easy projects involving established dinosaurs, as well as birds and reptiles, yes. Anything more complex like monotremes, marsupials or mammals will need I or Dr. Sorkin providing oversight though."
You nod. You'd reached much the same conclusion, and you were happy to note that Wu was giving Sorkin credit as his equal in oversight of the projects. That also meant that, so long as you didn't overload the teams or stretch them too thin you can now begin accepting contracts for birds and reptiles without impacting the workload of your core scientists. Which was a good thing too...
[][Hatching]Have the lab techs begin cloning dinosaurs that are on the approved list while Sorkin and Wu focus solely on new variants. It will mean a much higher rate of hatching for the park's dinosaur population. When the time comes the Park will have something approaching the same number of dinosaurs as in canon, but they won't be as well socialized as otherwise. More dinosaurs means more split focuses and less ability to document their behaviors.
[][Hatching]Continue the slow and steady pace of having the scientists work on a singular species of dinosaur at a time. There will be fewer dinosaurs than in canon but they will be more robust, socialized, and better understood.
It had only taken a few weeks for Wu to get the sequences right, and after making sure that all of the embryos were viable, you'd added a herd of Ibex to your Mantanceros exhibits with a big "coming soon!" sign. Now though, Wu is hungry to get back at the dinosaurs. Which species do you greenlight for him this time?
[][Wu Next Step]Triceratops. One of the Big Names of the dinosaur world, as recognizable as the T-Rex by any child around the globe. Also probably going to be the
second third biggest herbivore you give the okay on reviving. You and Gerry are likely going to need to lean heavily on how Rhino calves are dealt with, as well as making damn sure no one loses any body parts to that beak. You've seen what an alligator snapping turtle can do to a man. A Triceratops eclipses that by several orders of magnitude.
[][Wu Next Step]Utahraptors. Since you've already gotten the biggest predator that you're going to be reviving in play, might as well go smaller. The Utahraptors would also be the ultimate stress test of your policies for raising these animals. They were big enough to see a person as prey, and if the theories about them hunting in packs are correct, you'd be looking at something as or even more dangerous to raise than lions, let alone the wolves or hyenas that these animals have been compared to.
[][Wu Next Step]Stegosaurus. Easily being another childhood favorite of millions thanks to it's distinctive thagomizer (
Heh, you still can't believe that a cartoonist came up with that name and then it stuck), and the plates along its spine. Another large herbivore, and one that likely would be in a mixed setting (you hoped), the current estimates on their potential size are pretty large, even larger than Triceratops after some corrections to the growth models by Wu and Sorkin.
===
[X][Sorkin Next Step]Ankylosaurus
Dr. Sorkin had been absolutely thrilled to begin working on the Ankylosaurs. She was working on ways to better differentiate the same genetic line in order to keep from having identical clones running around. That would likely only end up confusing the poor animals in the end. The herbivores always demanded more members in a batch due to likely herd behavior as well anyway.
Though for all you knew, these dinosaurs had been like tortoises; independent grazers that had some place to wallow or otherwise sleep that afforded them protection from most predators. Time would tell, you supposed. Focusing back in on Sorkin as she gestured towards a sandy bowl containing six large eggs.
"And here's the best batch I could come up with. Though I have to warn you, with the variegated genome it's likely that they're not going to see each other as clutch mates the way the Plateosaurus' do..." She looks pensieve.
"You're afraid they may start breeding in the enclosures?" It was possible, yes. Especially with the larger groups. Dr. Sorkin nodded.
"Dr. Wu has put forward a possible contingency in making all of the broods going forward either all female, or introducing some other kind of contingency to control or prevent breeding. I'm... unsure as to whether or not that may be a wise idea. We have no idea what these creatures' sex drives will do to them mentally when they fully mature, to say nothing of being unable to fulfill it in any way."
[][Breeding]Engage some manner of breeding contingency in order to keep the dinosaurs from breeding out of control. No breeding within the park thanks to Sorkin's work with Wu circumventing the frog gene issue. All new animals will come from the labs.
[][Breeding]Rely on the future rangers/keepers and the system you're setting up to track the dinosaurs to monitor their numbers. Begin drawing up a base plan for entering enclosures to check potential nests, and ways in which you could control their numbers and genetic diversity even with a breeding population.
Sorkin was also intrigued by the latest batch of de-extinction projects that had come in; and had asked to see them without having to even be told that it was "her turn". It seemed that both of your scientists had internalized this process as the new norm. Good, it made having to convince them that much easier.
[][Revival]Passenger Pigeon. The President is looking to get some points with the ecologically-minded voters. And bringing back a species that Americans had wiped out should work quite well. The biggest problem will be getting enough genetic samples. But compared to pulling the DNA of a T-Rex together it'll be child's play.
[][Revival]Thylacine. One of the poster species of extinction, the Tasmanian government has requested your efforts to revive the species. Possibly the most complex project yet due to the subject being a marsupial. But also a much more recent extinction event than the Terror Birds.
[][Revival]Dodo.
The poster species for extinction in recent history. There are plenty of samples to be found thankfully, and while unlike the other species it wouldn't be able to be reintroduced into its home range, The World Wildlife Foundation was willing to shell out a lot of funds to bring it back. Sort of a whole "man wiped them out and then man brought them back. We just had to
try," thing to bring more focus on ecological husbandry and conservation.
