The important ponies Applebloom had to greet were sponsors looking to see if the upcoming attraction was worth their time. If she failed the park would lose funding. Time to use her skills.
"While year over year, revenue continues to climb...operating costs are higher than ever." The southern mare said, leading the potential sponsors on a trip through the lab. "Our shareholders have been patient but let's be honest...no one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore. Twenty years ago, de-extinction was right up there with regular ponies becoming alicorns. These days, kids look at a Stegosaurus like an elephant from the city zoo." Applebloom said, stopping as the lab doors slid open. She smiled at the tourist watching with great interest.
"That doesn't mean asset development is falling behind. Our DNA excavators discover new species every year. But consumers want them bigger, louder, more teeth." She said, walking through the lab, the potential investors nodded their heads in agreement. "The good news? Our advances in gene splicing have opened up a whole new frontier. We've learned more from genetics in the past decade... than a century of digging up bones." The pony came to a stop in front of several monitors showing the 3-d model of a DNA strand.
"So... when you say you want to sponsor an attraction... what do you have in mind?" Applebloom turned and flicked a touchscreen with a hoof, making the DNA image in it spin for visual effect, probably earning her a few more brownie points. The investors shared a look with each other.
"We want to be thrilled"
"Don't we all." Applebloom said, stopping the spinning DNA strand. "I give you.....The Indominus Rex. Our first genetically modified hybrid." The mare said proudly. One investor looked at the strand.
"How did you get two different kinds of dinosaurs to....you know..." One investor asked with a curious look.
"Oh, Indominus wasn't bred," The sponsors turned and found the head researcher Sunset Shimmer standing with them, a proud smile on her face. The older mare had a few grey steaks in her red and orange mane, but otherwise looked happy on the job. She began to clarify. "She was made. Her base structure is a T Rex, and the rest is classified. "When fully grown she'll be larger than the T-Rex." Sunset explained.
"Every time we've unveiled a new asset, attendance has spiked." Applebloom said, knowing the words the investors wanted to hear. "Global news coverage... celebrity visitors. Eyes of the entire world." The investors whispered to each other excitedly.
"When will she be ready?" Applebloom gave a knowing smirk.
"She already is....."
"Scoots, quit dragging your hooves!" Sweetie whines as she galloped to the visitor center. In the center of the room a hologram of various dinosaurs walks about, pretending to interact with the visitors while they mill about.
"Welcome to the Innovation Center, where technology meets prehistory." The voice over said as Sweetie galloped through the door. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shared an impressed look as Crystal squeezed through the door after them. Various forms of activity we're going on around them three.
Colts and fillies were digging up bones in on exhibit; another exhibit had a tour guide playing a video explaining how dinosaurs went extinct. One of the hologram panels was opened for tourist to use, and Sweetie took full advantage of it. Gleefully she tapped the four icons of the acids used in DNA, and to her delight the same DNA cartoon from the original park appears on the pane of glass in front of her.
"Cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. The same four things in everything that ever lived." Mr. DNA said to the mare.
"Don't run off. I'm being not paid to foalsit you." Scootaloo said. From the second floor the very pony they were looking for came trotting into the room on her phone.
"Sweetie Belle? Scootaloo?" Applebloom said happily. "I gotta go.” She said on her phone, before hanging up.
"Applebloom!" Sweetie charged right over, and tackled her fellow Crusader with a hug. Laughing, Applebloom happily returned the hug while Scoot watched.
"Don't leave me hanging!" Scootaloo said, jumping into the hug.
"Pony pile!" Sweetie squeals with glee. "Applebloom we missed you so much!"
"I missed you guys too! How long has it been? Three....four months?" Applebloom asked. The orange pegasus frowned.
"A year and a half." She said.
"Close enough." The mare finally separated from the hug. "Good, you got the passes, and these are for food." She passed over a pair of vouchers for free food, signed by the owner himself. "And Crystal here will be with you guys until I'm done working tonight ok?"
“Sweet." Sweetie cheered. "About what time will that be?"
"....pretty late...." Applebloom admitted. "I really wish that I could go with you guys, but... tomorrow I can take you into the control room... show you behind the scenes and all of that." Scootaloo looked unamused. "That's gonna be cool, right? Okay, so I will see you tonight at... 9:00. No, no, no. Don't forget you have the..." Scootaloo held up the passes.
"Right, of course. I will see you tonight at 11:00." Applebloom said, before her phone rang again. "Ok I gotta go." turning to trot away she answered her phone. "Hello? No I'm here." She said, leaving her friends behind. Sweetie watched her go with a sad expression.
"...I have that feeling like I had when we heard Babs got her Cutie Mark..."
“It'll be alright." Scoots said, giving her friend a warm hug. "She just has a job and needs to work on it." Sweetie sighed.
"I know... But she got this job to help other find dinosaur Cutie Marks. But if we can't find time for our fellow crusaders then..." Scootaloo put a hoof around her friend's shoulder.
"We'll see her tonight, now pick where we're going!"
Applebloom trotted up the stairs and into the elevator, taking it all the way into the control room. This was where they could see everything that was happening inside the park, and thanks to her connections she was able to get a few ponies from her childhood a job here, right where they felt comfortable.
"What's the live count guys?" She asked the two ponies at the stations. On Applebloom right sat a light pink mare with a curly purple and white mane. The features that made her stand out however were the propeller hat she wore on her head, and her spiral eyes.
"22,216." Screwball said.
"Any incidents?" On Applebloom left sat a brown earth pony stallion, who like the mare next to him, also wore a propeller hat.
"Yeah, we have six kids in the Lost and Found...twenty eight down with heatstroke..." Button Mash rambled on until Applebloom noticed the shirt he was wearing. A black Jurassic Park tee shirt to be exact.
“Where did you get that?” The mare asked, frowning deeply.
"Oh, this? I got it on HoofBay." Button said.
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing." Screwball said, rolling her hypnotic eyes.
"I got it for three hundred bits but the mint condition one goes for one thousand..."
"Didn't occur to you maybe that's in poor taste?" Applebloom asked, frowning deeply.
"The shirt? Yeah, no, it did. I understand ponies died......and you were there. It was terrible... but that first park was legit. I have a lot of respect for it. They didn't need these genetic hybrids. They just needed dinosaurs, real dinosaurs."
"Okay, please don't wear it again." The mare said, shutting the subject down. Button Mash sighs, and then takes a drink out of a cup of soda beside the computer he's at.
"Did you close the deal?" Screw asked.
"Looks like it." Applebloom said happily. "Microcolt presents the Indominus rex." The stallion with little dinosaur figurines on his work station scoffed at the idea.
"Why not just go the distance, and just let these corporations name the dinosaurs? They've got all the hoofball parks." He said. Screwball facehoofs, she and Applebloom mentally praying for the patience to deal with the game but beside them.
"Why are the West Plains closed?" Applebloom asked, looking at the map.
"Another Pachy roaming outside his zone." Screw said. "But he's fully sedated and ready for relocation."
"Security said the invisible fences were a no-fail. That is the second time this month." The manager said, highly disappointed.
"The Pachys short out their implants when they butt heads."
"The Nike-Saurus," Button muses to himself with a partially bored expression.
"How much longer until they get it out of there?" Applebloom asked, ignoring the stallion.
"He just got five milligrams of carfentanil."
"Yes, he's very stoned. So why don't we show a little sympathy?" Button asked. "I mean you do understand these are actual animals, right?"
"Clean up your workspace. It's chaotic." Applebloom said to the stallion.
“She’s the chaotic one.” Button said, pointing to Screw Ball offended as he sets his drink down, and gestures to the multitude of sticky notes, and dinosaur miniatures. "I prefer to think of it as my own little working ecosystem..." Reaching out he adjusts one of the miniatures with a smile. Applebloom slid the trashcan over as Button accidentally pushed his drink off and into said can. Button looked down with a blink, realizing what just happened, and smiles up at Applebloom sheepishly.
"Inbound chopper, Jurassic 1. ETA, 5 minutes." A voice on the radio said. Applebloom dismissed herself from her two friends and quickly trotted to the roof to see a helicopter coming inbound quickly.
A dark blue civilian helicopter hovers its way down to the landing pad. At the pilot seat is the owner of Jurassic World, the same brown buck who had hired Applebloom, a mister DeLance.
"Applebloom." Mr. Delance greeted.
"Mr. Delance..... you're flying." The mare said surprised, climbing into the seat in the back.
"I got my license!" The pilot next to him shook his head. "Well two more days." The owner admitted. As Applebloom straps herself into the helicopter seat behind the instructor DeLance asked "So how is my park doing?"
"We're up two and a half percent over last year. A bit lower than our initial prediction." The mare said, looking at a clipboard she had.
"No no," DeLance interrupts. "I mean how is it doing? The ponies, the dinosaurs, are they happy?"
"Well, guest satisfaction is steady in the low 90s." Applebloom admitted. "We don't have a way to measure the animals' emotional experience."
"Sure you can, just see it in their eyes, yeah?" Smiling he pulls back on the stick, and the helicopter wobbles a few feet off the ground. The helicopter began beeping; Applebloom clung to the seat in front of her.
"Whooooaaaaa got it... Got it," DeLance says as he focuses intently on the controls, making the chopper fly a bit more smoothly as they complete takeoff, headed for the northernmost part of the island.The owner of Jurassic World glanced back at Applebloom, taking a little amusement on how she was reacting.
"You look tense, Applebloom."
"Maybe you should just focus on the controls." The mare said, clearly shaken up. DeLance smiles, and holds up an informative hoof.
"The key to a happy life is to accept that you are never actually in control."
"Bird!!" Applebloom said, pointing frantically as a bird flew close to the helicopter. They swerved to avoid it, and DeLance for his part looks like he's having the time of his life.
"You know, you really need a day at the beach Applebloom."
"Right, so... Marketing thought we could offset some of the costs by--"
"Enough about cost." Mr. Delance said, cutting her off. "Scorch Firefly entrusted me with his dream, and not once did he mention profits. "Spare no expense," he used to say."
"I appreciate that, but the reality of operating a theme park requires--"
"Remember why Jurassic World exists," DeLance interrupts. "To show us how new, and small we are... You can't put a price on that. Now please, we're flying." He pauses long enough to put on sunglasses, "Breathe..." Then he opens the throttle, making the helicopter charge forward at full speed.
As the helicopter grew closer to the ground, the stallion piloting finally pulled up, bringing the vehicles to a rocky landing. Giving a sigh of relief, Applebloom climbed out while the pony next to Mr. Delance scrambled out, before promptly vomitting into the bushes.
"Is he ok?" The southern mare asked her boss. "Are you ok?" She called to the sick pony.
"Oh he's just being dramatic," DeLance said as he looks over the crews working on the paddock they landed by. "We're still building?"
"We planned to open in May..." Applebloom admitted. "But Asset Containment insisted we build the walls up higher. It's bigger than expected." He smiles as he trots for the stairs into the observation room.
"It's a good sign."
"We hit a few speed bumps early on. It began to anticipate where the food would come from. One of the handlers nearly lost an arm. The others threatened to quit if I couldn't guarantee their safety." Applebloom said, looking out into the holding pen. DeLance smiles as he peers into the tropical plant life through the observation window.
"...It's intelligent."
"For a dinosaur." Applebloom said, typing into the panel in front of her. The owner nodded, and then points to some busted up windows that are mostly intact.
"And that?"
"It tried to break the glass." Applebloom said casually. DeLance nods as his attention returns to the outside. He blinks when he glimpses something pushing through the foliage. He steps closer to the glass in wonder.
"...It's white? Nopony told me it was white."
"Think it will scare the kids?" Applebloom asked, watching as the creature stared right at them through the foliage.
"Are you kidding," DeLance said softly. "...this will give the parents nightmares."
"......is that a good thing?" Applebloom asked confused.
"...It's fantastic," DeLance said breathlessly as his eye finally catches the eye of the Indominus. “Think she can see us?"
"They say it can sense thermal radiation. Like snakes." The mare explained. DeLance nodded slowly.
"Hold on, I thought there were two of them."
"It was made with a sibling in case one didnt survive." Applebloom explained. He furrows his eyebrows as he tries to spot it.
"So where is it?"
"......she ate it." Applebloom said calmly. DeLance gave her a surprised look, and subconsciously takes a step back.
"So the Paddock's quite safe then?"
"We have the best structural engineers in the world." Applebloom said confidently.
"So did Firefly," DeLance said with a frown, leaning on a window. Then he slowly starts to pace the room. "There’s a unicorn we hired to handle the dinosaurs on a more personal level. You saw him your first day here, a mister Shooting Star..."
"I know who he is." The mare said with slight disdain in her voice.
"Many of his animals have tried to escape, they're smart.” He said solemnly. "He has to be smarter."
"He only thinks he's smarter." Applebloom muttered. DeLance raises an eyebrow.
"I want you to bring him here, and have him inspect the paddock....maybe he can see something we can't." Applebloom sighed. That pony in particular was one of the last ponies she ever wanted to speak to.