Dino World

Arrival At The Island

The plane journey to 'Dino World' island took a couple of hours, by which time the girls were able to forget their worries and start to enjoy themselves a bit more. They had just finished watching a movie on the inflight entertainment system, when the island came into view of the passenger window.

"Whoa, that is one big island," breather Clover as she gaped at the sight of the vast jurassic forests and jagged mountains that dominated the island that stood isolated in the middle of the vast ocean.

"Hey, I think I can see something moving amongst those trees," said Alex, pointing at the jungle down below them.

Sam got out a pair of binoculars and looked through them in the direction that Alex was pointing.

"Wow, that looks like a whole load of Brontosauruses down there!" she breathed, astonished at the sheer size of the long-necked dinosaurs that were calmly munching on the leaves of the trees. "Jerry wasn't kidding when he said those robots are full-size replicas of the real thing!"

While the girls marvelled at the sight before them, the plane began to make its descent down towards a runway placed on a large jetty that led from the ocean to a small reception area on the shore. As soon as the plane touched down and drew to a halt, a gangplank was attached and the passengers began to disembark. At the bottom, they were greeted by an attractive woman with light-brown skin and long black hair, dressed in an expensive-looking suit and wearing what looked like a bluetooth earpiece in her left ear.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," said the woman with a friendly smile. "My name is Dr. Sarah Dearing, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to 'Dino World'! Here, we strive to give you a real taste of jurassic history, taking you back to a period when dinosaurs were the dominant creatures on the planet and ruled the world! I think I can safely promise each and every one of you the ultimate Dinosaur experience here. We hope you'll enjoy your visit and come to love 'Dino World' as much as we do."

"Sounds cool!" said one little boy excitedly. "But, um, won't the dinosaurs try to eat us all?"

Dearing laughed. "No fear of that! Safety of our guests is our top priority and we wouldn't want a bad review from any of our visitors. All the dinosaur animatronics have an inbuilt inhibitor which prohibits them from causing harm to humans, either indirectly or deliberately. They are also monitored by our advanced 'Dino-Auto-Navigator' computer, nicknamed 'DAN' for short, and he supervises all security on this island to make sure that no danger comes to those on this island."

"Phew that's a relief," said Clover under her breath.

"Now if you would all like to clamber onboard these fully-automatic vehicles," continued Dearing, gesturing to a series of safari-style jeeps placed on the edge of the road that led into the vast jungle, "you'll be taken directly to the reception area connected to the hotel suite where you'll be able to place all your belongings and freshen yourselves up, before your tour begins."

Her speech over, Dearing led the way to the vehicles and clambered onboard the leading one, as visitors started to take their seats on the jeeps.

"Um, where's the steering wheel?" asked Alex as she, Sam and Clover got on the nearest jeep and settled in their seats.

"They don't need them on these jeeps. They must be totally remote-controlled by DAN," answered Sam. She couldn't help but be a little worried by this. Suppose the jeeps broke down in the the middle of the jungle in the middle of a storm or something? As far as Sam was concerned, no option for manual control was a recipe for trouble.

But as the jeeps began moving down the road into the jungle, Sam had to concede that the ride was comfortable and well-driven. As they got further into the dense forest, she saw a Triceratops poke its head out of the foliage to watch with interest the guests that were driving through its territory.

Sam gave a nervous wave to the great beast and it gave a small growling sound that she hoped was it simply saying 'hello'.

Finally the jeeps pulled into a wide clearing dominated a large circular-shaped building, designed to resemble a jungle temple. The moment the vehicles came to a halt, everyone jumped out and made their way with their suitcases through the open double doors of the main entrance and into the reception area. Inside, the reception area looked like an average first-class hotel reception area, only with a skeletal display of some dinosaurs in the centre of the room and a number of dinosaur-themed banners and balloons hanging about the place.

"Just look at this place! Must have cost a fortune getting all this set up!" remarked Clover as she and her friends made their way to the welcome desk.

"Good afternoon, ladies, and welcome to 'Dino World'," said the receptionist pleasantly as he handed them some keys. "You'll find your suite rooms on the first floor. A member of staff will see your luggage is safely delivered there."

"Thanks," said Alex, before turning to Clover. "I don't know about you, but I'm going to go for a quick dip in the pool here before we get started."

"Same here," said Clover. "How about you, Sam?"

But Sam wasn't listening. She was busy looking at a large display board showing a map of the island and its different displays, such as a 'Pterodactyl dome' and a 'Mosasaurs aquarium'. What had caught her eye was the largest mountain in the centre of the island, marked 'MOUNT MULDOON - PROHIBITED AREA'.

"Now why is that area out of bounds?" she mused to herself thoughtfully.

******

Later on, Sam was still deep in thought by the time she rejoined Alex and Clover, who were happily splashing about in the large heated hotel swimming pool, after first making sure all their rooms were well sorted and their cases properly unpacked.

"Why would they sanction off that whole mountain?" asked Sam as she gently tread water. "It doesn't seem to be particularly hazardous and there don't seem to be any construction sites of any kind there, so why would they want visitors to stay away from there?"

"Hey, you don't suppose that the missing guests might be being held there, could you?" asked Alex, as she slid down a water slide and landed in the water with a loud splash.

"Well I guess it seems a bit too obvious for Mount Muldoon to be a super-villain's HQ," admitted Sam, "but if I were a power-crazed baddie who wanted to hide some kidnapped guests, then that'd probably be the place I'd pick for my hideout, since it's so isolated and everything."

"Well it certainly sounds like the first place we ought to check out," said Clover. "Why don't we try and take a look at the place tomorrow during the tour?"

"Sounds good to me," said Sam. "But first, maybe we ought to check out the computer in the security room of this building. We might be able to learn something there."

"Good idea," said Alex as she picked up a beach ball from the poolside. "But in the meantime, who's up for a game of catch?"

She tossed over the ball, which landed with a splash right in front of Clover.

"Oh, you are so on!" laughed Clover as the three of them cheerily began tossing the ball back and forth between themselves.