Start the Tour

Hammond was leading the visitors down the stairs from the second-floor balcony since all of them finished their lunch. Gray Mitchell was now with them after he finished his own lunch and spent some bonding time with his mother, Karen Mitchell, who happened to be on lunch break away from her duty as one of the park's secretary. His older brother and his father already had their lunch break a half an hour earlier before them. As of right now, the two were now working on setting up the wiring of the operation systems for one of the park's newest rides, so it would be quite some time before he could even see them. Not to mention that his mother would be late working at the desk till around 9'o clock in the evening. Thus, he acted on his mother's suggestions to savor whatever time he could spend with his two of his childhood friends, Ruby and Yang, as well making new friends with the older crowd before the tour would be over and the Huntsmen had to return to the outside world. Thankfully, the elderly, grandfatherly InGen CEO didn't mind Gray tagging along interacting with the Huntsmen-in-training, much to Ruby's delight while more business-minded persons like Gennaro were baffled as to why Hammond's letting children that were younger than Ruby to be part of the tour. Hammond, in Gennaro's mind, wasn't taking this as seriously as he ought to be since this was a business inspection of Jurassic Kingdom after all, not a vacation excursion.

If they thought Hammond was done baffling them, he hadn't even begun when they heard two younger voices cry out to him in particular,

"GRANDPA!"

Two kids, slightly around Gray's age and older, rushed from the visitor center's entrance. The first one was a young boy around nine years of age with more dirty, brown-blondish, short hair, who was wearing a light blue vest, a red and white striped shirt underneath it, and brown short jeans while carrying a blue backpack on his back. The other kid was an older girl around 12 years old, wearing a blue baseball cap that covered her messy blonde hair tied in a ponytail braid. She wore a dark maroon t-shirt and blue jeans.

"Kids!" Hammond opened wide his arms with a bright smile on his face. Tim and Lex Murphy, Hammond's grandkids, rushed up to him up the stairs and toppled him backwards over as they hugged him gleefully.

"Oh, hey careful with me! HAHAHA!" Hammond and they laughed jovially as he embraced them.

"We've missed you!" Lex cried out.

"We loved the presents!" Tim said next.

"Good, good, did you enjoy the Bullhead?" Hammond asked. As the grandkids dived into their excited retelling of their trip, Ruby and Weiss cooed at the sight of grandfatherly reunion with most of her peers giggling and chuckling in response while some stayed silent either out of surprise or had no idea of what just happened. Gray was kind of surprised that he'd meet more kids that were closer to his age than say, Ruby, or Yang. Ellie was smiling with amusement and Alan looked at her, just knowing that she was going to use this against him. Professor Port merrily laughed with the scene while Oobleck and Ozpin had neutral expressions to them. Malcolm was like them because he had seen this before. Ironwood and Winter were shocked that Hammond would risk bringing his grandkids, never mind the Mitchell brothers, into an unfinished park filled with prehistoric monsters and the defense systems still in the works. Gennaro wore a look of exasperation, as if he already knew what he was going to be doing today.

As the group, sans the soldiers, whom Ironwood ordered them along with Winter to go follow Hammond to the Control Room, exited the Samsung Innovation Center with their new charges in tow, four of the red, green, and yellow SUVs, a brown, black, and yellow bus, and a blue, gray, and white minibus pulled up alongside. The SUVs had glass sunroofs, and a trio of lights on top. The bus had a set of five lights sitting on the roof. Most curiously of all, there were no drivers in the SUVs unlike the minibus, whom the driver was none other than Ed Regis' daughter, Wendy. As for the bus, it was piloted by an android model specifically created by the park to be the bus driver and tour guide. The kids were extremely excited, and Hammond had to try to keep them from being accidentally run over. As soon as they stopped, Lex climbed in one of the SUV's and started looking around.

"Aren't they lovely? Aren't they glorious? These will be your transports for the afternoon as they will direct you to different parts of the park. Wendy will be in charge of the sub tour of our Jurassic OceanSphere, which is about to the right of the tribune," Hammond said proudly.

"No drivers in the SUV's?" Gennaro asked, somewhat confused.

"Nope. These are AI and their data feed is directly inputted from our Control Hub Center, which is also our own version of CCT tower. They take you wherever we want them to. Totally non-polluting, top-of-the-line. We spared no expense. The bus is piloted by our bus driver android and it also gets it commands from Control Room. Same with our AI, electric submarine, which Wendy is in command of. So we control most of the electronics from the Control Hub Center."

"It has an interactive HD computer monitor!" Lex said excitedly as she messed with the touch screen on the dash, "See this? If you just push the right part of the screen, it will pull up a menu with a variety of stuff!"

"I heard they're going to install something similar into the Gyrospheres in some of the exhibits once the park's more established," Gray responded as he was in the car with her, and Tim.

"That's so awesome! The ones that are like moving spheres of glass?" Tim asked.

"Yeah! I think they'd be operable one month before it is officially open. And their glass is said to be durable enough to endure being punched by an Ankylosaur tail club," Gray answered, to which Tim said enthusiastically,

"That'll be a real blast to see those things up close! I wonder if the Gyrospheres be available throughout the park," Tim wondered.

"Maybe with the ones that eat veggies..." Lex responded as Hammond came up to them.

"That'd be correct, darling, but not every exhibit will have a Gyrosphere, which is why we have these SUV's for more rugged terrain," John said, directing traffic, "Dr. Sattler, come with me. Dr. Grant, sit in the fourth car. Professors Bart and Port, you can sit in the bus while, Taiyang, Qrow and Ozpin will be in the fourth SUV. The Huntsmen-in-training can choose whichever vehicle they want, though, I would like to ask General Ironwood, Team NDGO, Ciel, and Penny to go with Wendy...if any of you don't mind doing so."

"I'm gonna ride with Dr. Sattler," Dr. Malcolm said, trying to sound casual.

Hammond had already begun ascending up the staircase back into the Samsung's Innovation Center by the time Grant started walking back to the fourth SUV. He saw Teams CFVY, SSSN, ARBN, and BRNZ going up the bus while Teams RWBY, and JNPR trying to choose between the SUVs. He stopped when he noticed Tim in his way. The boy looked up at him with recognition and slight admiration.

"I read your book," Tim said.

"Oh, that's- that's great," Grant replied stiffly.

"Do you really think that big dinosaurs like T. rex are feathered like birds?"

"Well, a few of the tyrannosaurs, particularly the small ones, have been discovered with impressions of a feathery coat." He grunted as he climbed into the car with Tim hot on his wheels, which made the boy more annoying personally than Gray to him.

"Cuz they look kinda ridiculous and silly with feathers." Tim said with a chuckle. Grant looked to Ellie for help, but he saw that she was enjoying this. He got out of the car with Tim following him. "I heard that there was this big meteor that hit Remnant someplace down in southern Vale, and made this big crater~"

"Listen..." Grant interrupted, pausing to try and remember the boy's name.

"Tim." The boy finished for him.

"Tim, which car were you planning on?"

"Whichever one you are," He replied.

Taking this into account, Grant formulated a plan. He started walking towards the lead car and held the door for Tim while Tim was talking the whole way non-stop, "Then I heard about this thing in Omni, about this meteor making all this heat and it made a bunch of diamond dust. And that changed the weather. And then my teacher tells about this other book by a guy named Raxton. And he says-" at the mention of his rival, Raxton Marsh, Grant closed the door on Tim and turned back to the fourth car, only to see Lex accompanied by Gray, Ruby, Zwei, and Yang standing before him.

"She said we should ride with you cuz it'd be good for you." Lex said innocently.

"Well, um, I think that's already been taken care of with Beacon's-," Grant tried to excuse himself, but Ruby wasn't having any of it as she zipped right in front of him.

"Nope!" Ruby said, "Quite the opposite, Mr. Grant. You'd be spending time with us for real this time...well, at with some of us, like me and Yang. Plus you will get to see a side of us that's more than just battling monsters."

"What about the rest of your team though?" Grant pointed to Weiss and Blake sitting in the second car.

"Actually, we talked about it with Ellie when she came to us for help. We concurred that you really need to get out of your shell. No intended disrespect of course." Yang chimed in as she flung her golden hair to the side. "So we thought this might be the best if you and I babysit with my lil' sister and the kids."

"I'm pretty sure I'd not be the best person to babysit a group of kids, let alone one." Grant shook his head exasperatedly.

"Yang's pretty good. She'll teach you the way of babysitting. After all, how do you think I made it till Signal when I have my sister looking out for me." Ruby replied.

"Yeah, but that's different because you girls are family," Grant rebutted. However, Yang patted him on the back, which almost make him lose his balance, a testament to the blonde's buxom insane superhuman strength.

"Don't worry, Mr. Dino-Man. I can teach you the basics on the go. Think of this as a family outing with you being the dad to five kids and a Corgi," Yang said, thinking that she was reassuring him, but her words had the opposite effect as Grant turned pale at the thought of being a dad, being almost numb to the world around him even with Zwei woofing.

Ellie laughed in the fourth car at the scene as she found it too hilarious to pass up.

In the control room, Masrani led Hammond in, briefing him on a weather report he had just received from Muldoon.

"National Weather Service is tracking a tropical storm, about 75 miles west of us," Masrani said to his boss, while taking a sip of ice tea from its bottle can he had purchased from the vending machine.

"Ay yay yay yay, why didn't I build the park in Vale?" Hammond said to himself, but loud enough for all to hear.

"I'll keep an eye on it," Muldoon spoke up, reassuring him, "Maybe it'll swing south, like the last one."

"Let' hope so," Hammond replied, "It'd be a shame if we stop because of a storm."

"We can only hope for the best, sir. If push comes to shove, we will just have to push completing the tour tomorrow in the unlikely scenario should it happen," Masrani said of the backup plan he, Hammond, and Claire discussed two nights before, to which Hammond nodded reluctantly, glad that they still had some plan in place to counter it.

"How is everything in the park, Ms. Claire?" Hammond asked Claire Dearing, who was already overseeing a collection of computer screens which had people frantically typing away. All of them faced a large holographic screen with various statistics and side cameras flashing on and off occasionally. It also showed the map portraying the enormous expanse of the Jurassic Kingdom Park that was close to the size of Colorado. Most of the geographical features on the map were lowland jungles and grasslands in the center of the park; two rows of mountains to the east of the center where they face each other, forming a large valley with a long river coming from further inland bisecting through it all the way to the coast and smaller patches of jungles formed at the base of the mountains; the upper northeasterly corner of the park consisted of smaller mountains and hills covered in highland jungles and some alpine forests and upper plains where they were at the eastern side of Mt. Sibo; the western side of the park is a huge patchwork of lowland jungles and highland jungles closer to the foothills of another range of mountains. Further up the mountains were forests be mostly redwood forests mixed with some small patches of araucaria trees.

The keepers, Asset Containment Unit, or general security would be in charge of the majority of the security cameras, but Control would have control over some of them. It was a precautionary measure advised by Cabot Finch along with some cameras being switched from one security department to another at half hour intervals. It was to help avoid the boredom looking at the same screen all the time, which could cause someone to miss something important.

"We hit some speed bumps with some of our attractions like two of our Pachies got into a headbutting scuffle with each other that would have turned serious had our park rangers not tranquilized them in the nick of time." Claire explained with some irritation in her voice as in her worldview, a park should professionally organized and not be plagued with so many problems.

"What about the T. rex?" Hammond asked about the park's lone resident Tyrannosaurus, who would be one of Jurassic Kingdom's mega superstars and flagship attraction, residing in the aptly named paddock, T. Rex Kingdom on the eastern side of the island closer to the mountains.

"Keeper Lebowski reported that Rexy is still moody even after the meds we have given her when we found she was suffering from Campylobacter after eating a sick cow. We don't have a good clue what's making her act up, but he suspects it must be the coming storm." Ed Regis replied, as he sipped some lemonade from his bottle.

"Oh codswallop...so what's Lebowski doing with her?" Hammond shook his head as he asked another question.

"He's ordered a goat to be brought into Rexy's enclosure. Hopefully, that should motivate her to snap out of whatever funk she's in in time for the tour when the visitors arrive to her enclosure," said the chief engineer and by default, the head of the Control Room, John Ray Arnold. He had everything nice and clean on his desk: a photo from his days in the Atlesian Navy, his family portrait, various highly detailed diagrams showing of the park attractions and exhibits, and survey maps showcasing the different parts of the park and the island. In contrast, Lowry had pieces of paper strewn all over his work station with the occasional empty sweet wrapper or soda can, miniature plastic dinosaur toys lining the edge of his desk. If you ask Lowry, how on Remnant he could keep track of his stuff through the mess, he would tell you that this would be something called 'organized chaos' like an ecosystem. At least, he was dedicated to his work. Dennis Nedry was a complete slob in every way with stacks of eaten food wrappers and drink cans accumulated over weeks. A larger stack of papers containing written programming algorithms was precariously placed on his desk in a manner more akin to a paper junkyard.

"Oum help us,." Hammond said before he went over and patted Arnold on the shoulder, "Arnold, start the tour program."

Arnold swung around in his chair and began typing on his keyboard. In his mouth was a lit cigarette, which seemed fairly new as very little of it was ash.

"Hold onto your butts, fellas," he said. He clicked on the final line of code and jumpstarted the program.

Outside, Taiyang was in the driver's seat of the lead car with Gennaro sitting in the other front seat. Lex, Tim, Gray, and Ruby were in the back playing with Zwei excitedly with Lex squealing at how cute the Black Corgi was much to the dog's delight. The rest of Team RWBY were in the second car with Yang and Qrow sitting in the front seats, and Weiss and Blake at the back. Team JNPR were in the third car with Jaune and Pyrrha in the front seats. Grant, Malcolm, Ellie, and Ozpin were in the rear car with Ellie and Ozpin in the front. The larger bus followed the SUVs while the minibus deviated away from them in the opposite direction towards the lagoon. As the vehicles moved, little snippets of dialogue could be heard as there were various conversations about.

"You want to join the future, right?" Gennaro said to Taiyang in the car.

"Oum help us, we're in the hands of engineers," Malcolm said sarcastically.

"This takes me back to a time I went out on a Grimm Hunting Safari in the northern plains of Atlas with just me and Mr. Tembo Sr. on the trail for the dreaded Arctursus!" Port was heard recalling a distant memory in story form, much to the chagrin on everyone on the bus.

As the cars moved along the bumpy trail, a voice came over the radio system, narrating,

"During most of your tour, the appropriate information will be automatically selected and displayed for you on the screen. Simply touch the area of the screen displaying the appropriate icon."

Tim leaned over the driver's seat and looked ahead, seeing a massive gateway comprised of a dark stone arch with torches set in, and massive wooden doors. "Hey, look!"

"Are we going to hit that?" Lex asked.

"That would be the least of our problems till there's a giant gorilla on the other side," He joked, grinning cheekily.

"Oh, how I hate that overgrown Beringel," She grumbled, not wanting to relieve the nightmares she had about Beringels.

"Welcome to Jurassic Kingdom!" the computer voice announced.

As the cars passed through the gate, Malcolm looked up and made his own joke, "What have they got in there, King Beringel?"

Back in the control room, Hammond was at a computer terminal wearing a headset. He entered a short line of code, and the interior of the lead car came on screen. "The voice you're now hearing is Richard Kiley. We spared no expense."

A/N: Okay, I know this is a short chapter. Relatively longer than the last one, but still short nonetheless. I mainly needed to get this chapter off of my chest. Sorry for taking so long as I was suffering from another period of writer's block and I had a lot of real life thrown at me to keep me very busy. Second, this chapter is more like the gateway into the actual meat of the story. The only thing is to figure out who will see what while keeping the main story moving forward. Other than that, I was also working on another chapter for a previous story of mine, and I was caught up in the hype surrounding Detective Pikachu and Godzilla King of the Monsters.

I'm sorry I took this long to finish it, but I hope you will enjoy it.

Jurassic Park Trivia: Both in the novel and film, Richard Kiley voiced as the tour guide for the park. In the film, that role was originally given to James Earl Jones, the very actor who had voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars and later on, Mufasa from Lion King, before it went to Richard Kiley as the actor was mentioned in the books before. However, James Earl Jones took the opportunity to host a documentary about the behind the scenes of Jurassic Park.