A few months ago
"So this is heaven huh." I asked myself, staring up at tree branches as I was splayed on my back.
"It looks… Different from what I imagined." I glanced around, looking at the various trees. There was cedar, oak, some fir trees. Wait, why am I thinking about the tree types?
I sat up, using my hands for support on the soft grass. Taking another look around, I didn't spot anyone or anything.
"If this is heaven, shouldn't there be God? Or angels? Something?" I let out a sigh as I stood up. I was in the attire I put on this morning. And my backpack was laying right next to me. So this can't be heaven then? Right? Does this mean I'm not dead?
I narrowed my eyes as I thought to myself, picking my backpack up and starting to walk forward, looking for anything really. I was on my way to a science expo. Maybe this was some sick experriment.
Soon the forest turned into a grassy plain as I continued walking. My legs soon became tired from traversing the seemingly endless terrain.
"Where the hell am I at." I whined to no one, sitting down for a break. My stomach grumbled as I began to feel hungry.
"Oh wait a minute…" I mumbled to myself as I pushed my hand into my pocket. "Yeah it's here." I mumble, pulling my cellphone out from my pants. I turned it on and checked the signal.
"Damn, nothing. Not even 2G." I sighed again as I stared up at the blue sky. It appeared to be about midday wherever I was. I chewed the side of my cheek a bit as I pondered, looking around.
"Hm? What's that over there?" I then spotted something shiny in the distance. Like a table in the middle of no where, about four football fields away. I nodded to myself and got back up.
"Let's check it out I suppose…" I told myself, walking over to it. As I got closer, I noticed a simple pavement black top with a big letter H on it. A helipad? Probably.
"So there's some sort of civilization…" I mumbled to myself. The silver thing I noticed was indeed a table. A table sitting in the middle of nowhere with nothing on it, an ocean facing the back of it.
"Wait, what's this?" Scratch that, there was a clipboard with a piece of paper on it, reading
'Welcome to your new life! You have been selected based on your knowledge of the subject as well as skills you possess! Your mission here is to genetically engineer and clone living and breathing dinosaurs and have them as attractions to a theme park!'
Is this thing for real? This is a dumb experiment. There seems to be more,
'You'll start with two million dollars, use it wisely. You can make purchases with your laptop in your backpack. When you make your first purchase, materials and workers will be delivered, as well as an assistant to help you manage the park. You can select the assistant on the purchase screen. Well that's all, tah tah for now.'
And with that the letter ended. This was a joke right? I mean if it's not, many questions will need to be answered. Such as the ethics of kidnapping a person for example. Either way, I should at least attempt to verify.
"Don't see how I can make purchases without any service out here. Can't even use my hotspot." I grumbled, opening my bag and taking the laptop out. Truth be told, I didn't even know if it was charged, or properly working. I set the device on the table, opening the lid and pressing the on button.
"Well, it's got power." I muttered, a little surprised. I looked around the area as it booted up. Around the plain I was in were the trees I saw when I awoke, beyond that were other, larger trees, and even further was a mountain range, just barely visible from behind the trees. The landscape must dip a little towards the mountains. Behind me was the ocean, the waves crashing against the banks.
As the pc booted, instead of showing my normal desktop, it was a completely different operating system. 'Triassictop' it called itself. Very punny. Wait, where did my data go? I had importantresearch papers on here! I backed those up right? Anyways, after half lamenting my lost data half hoping it could never be found by anyone, I looked for the settings and proceeded in making a password, as in my opinion that should be the first thing done on a system.
I then went to the browser 'Jurassic Explorer.' Who came up with these. I sighed as I died a little on the inside. The browser had its own homepage, an animation popping up on it.
"Hello, welcome, I'll be your guide through the start of this wonderful journey!" A cartoon Tyrannosaurus greeted me, waving it's little arms around. "First please type in your name!" As it spoke, a text box appeared, and I complied.
"Nice to meet you! Are you a boy or a girl?" What was with this tutorial. I let out a sigh, clicking. "Nice! Now do you prefer boys, or girls?" I furrowed my brow. The hell kind of question is this? I proceeded to click again.
"Wonderful choice! Now we can get you started. Here on this browser you can order buildings, workers, vehicles, and anything else in which you may need! But be careful, spend all your money and you can go into the red pretty quickly. You can view your total amount in the bottom right corner. Everything else should be self explanatory, we look forward to your progression, have fun!" And with that the animation was over.
I sighed a bit. "I don't fully understand why they had an animation. A simple addition to the dumb notes would have worked." I scrolled through the page, selecting the tab for buildings.
"Well, let's at least entertain this mastermind for a bit. A science laboratory would be first." There were three kinds of labs, I figured I'd choose the basic one as the other two costed a decent chunk more.
"So that's 500k, next… a dig team, 100k. Let's see.. If this is real the workers will need food and a place to sleep…" I scrolled a bit more, adding a small restaurant for 80k. "The cheapest hotel is 500k…" It had eight floors with ten on each except the top floor, having four rooms. "It kinda sucks for price, but I suppose…" I selected it, adding to one million, one hundred eighty thousand dollars.
"Roads can come later… I'll save the rest of the money for an emergency or something." I mumbled, going to the cart and confirming the purchase, sighing again. "Hopefully it comes soon." I then shut the computer off. In that moment my stomach growled.
"Wait a moment… The hell do I do for food in the meantime?!" I frantically looked around the table. "Oh no…" I let out a sigh. What's the point of letting your experiment die of starvation. I clicked my tongue, looking out over the water behind me. I left my bag at the table, spotting a suspicious tree. As I walked to it, my lab coat fluttered behind me with the sea breeze. Getting closer to the tree, I looked up, spotting the furry brown rocks I was looking for.
"Aha! There's the coconuts I was looking for." I stroked my chin, wondering how to get to them. Looking around I spotted a rock about the size of my fist. I took it up and threw it. Miss. I threw another. Miss. Another. A hit! But nothing...
I huffed, trying to avoid climbing as I gathered more rocks. After a bit of this, and my hunger growing, I lamented my failure, starting to climb the tree, hoping it wouldn't ruin my shoes, but not wanting to chance sand in my socks.
As I made it nearly to the top, a sudden loud noise reverberated. Looking around I spotted the source. A helicopter, a Chinook maybe? With a load of materials hanging from a rope. My eyes squinted at it as I pursed my lips. Am I imagining things now?
The Chinook unloaded its payload in front of the table, landing on the helipad. My mouth opened up partially as I shook my head in confusion. As it landed a humvee and a jeep drove from the door, as though they were trying to escape. As the people parked the humvee next to the payload and began loading, the chinook took off, back over the ocean. As it did, it left a single, small figure in its place.
The figure seemed to be looking right at me, walking towards me. Unlike the other people, this one was obviously different. She was of much shorter stature, and in a maid outfit. In the middle of no where. With this climate no less.
Wait, why were there even people unloaded? I furrowed my brow and repursed my lips as I watched the girl walk towards me.
"You're Dr. Sattler, correct?" She asked, looking up at me. I nodded my head in response.
"I suppose, yeah. But who the hell are you?" I asked in response. At least she called me by my doctor title, unlike my peers. So what if I don't have a PHD, the lab coat makes the man. I huffed.
"My name is Anna, Anna Lewis." She replied. "I'm you're assistant." She added, her reddish brown bangs flowing with the breeze, followed by her fixing it. Wasn't I supposed to choose my assistant? I do not recall this choice. "So what are you doing up there sir?" She asked.
"Psshh... What does it look like, sciency things obviously." I avoided her stare, still hanging from the tree, not to sure on how to get down anymore. "Anyways.. What kind of cruel experiment is this, not even giving me food." Anna tilted her head at my words.
"This is no experiment. You read the letter correct? Anyways, we have food, its with the-" She jumped back a bit as I dropped down from the tree, bracing the ground before standing straight up. "Other things.. we brought..." She finished.
"Well what are we waiting for then, I'm starving." I exclaimed, my stomach growling as though proof. She nodded and walked towards the helipad.
"Follow me sir." She stated. Anna seemed
like a kind girl. Wait, did she just sigh?