I had certainly remembered my conversation with Governor Korrel about the fence and that it was put in place to combat the uniquely evolved wildlife on the planet as well as the bigger animals, but I had not been remotely prepared for what I was currently seeing through the singular window of the control room.

  In fact, for a moment, I was quite sure I was seeing things and this couldn’t possibly be real. There was no way I was not now looking at what looked like a creature that might have easily passed for a dinosaur in Earth’s prehistoric times. And yet, there it stood with its impressive size, standing taller than the building we were currently occupying and the creature’s massive elongated head open and showing its tooth studded mouth. And that animal also happened to be charging toward the building on its powerful back legs like it was coming right for us.

  “Oh. My. God.” I breathed and automatically started backpedaling toward the exit. “How did it get through the fence!”

  Quinton was off her stool and doing the same. “I don’t know, but I think we need to be elsewhere.”

  I didn’t have to be told twice. The both of us quickly backed toward the exit. Right before we got to the door, metal slats slammed down across the window. A moment after that, the entire building shook as the creature slammed into the wall. A mighty roar filled our ears, and my heart shuddered at the sound.

  “What the actual hell?!” I heard myself exclaim as Quinton cried out.

  “What’s going on?” I heard Markus yell over the alarm.

  He had stepped back into the room, but kept himself in the center of the doorway to keep it from closing behind him.

  Quinton and I turned and made right for the man. Markus stepped out of the way, allowing the door to close once we were on the other side of it. The lights in the corridor flickered, and the alarm kept up its earsplitting scream.

  “A big animal just rammed the building,” I said. “It looked like it knew exactly where we were.”

  “It did,” Quinton said after she had a moment to get herself back under control. She looked as rattled as I felt. “That’s a rappavore, and they can detect heat signatures. It must have picked up on us since we are the only ones currently in the building. It doesn’t help that we were on the outer wall.”

  The building shook again, letting us know that the big scary creature was still too close for comfort. The lights in the hall suddenly cut off, plunging us into darkness for a long moment, and then they flickered back on.

  Markus gestured for us to follow, turned, and started up the corridor. The control center had been at the far end of the administration building, and I knew immediately what Markus was thinking.

  “So if we go further into the building, then we will have protection from the rappavore?” I asked Quinton since she seemed knowledgeable about the creature.

  “It should help, but something must have made that animal angry. It’s the only thing I can think of that would explain such aggressive behavior. I agree that putting as many walls and real estate between us and the rappavore is a good thing.” She said as the three of us walked quickly from the corridor we were on and turned onto another that would lead us deeper into the building complex.

  “The thing I don’t understand is how there’s a rappavore here,” she continued. “Reptilian predators like that aren’t nearly as common as they once were. In fact, I thought rappavores were dying out and nearly extinct.”

  “Well, obviously there are still some around,” I said as I fast-walked beside Quinton down the hallway.

  “Obviously, though it’s curious that the Governor didn’t mention them,” the Lieutenant said. “It’s usually a common courteously to visitors, especially to someone like yourself, to be more transparent about anything that might be a potential threat.”

  “There’s that massive fence out there,” I replied. “So maybe that’s why he didn’t bother saying anything. He didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  Markus shook his head. “The Governor specifically told me that as long as we stayed in the fenced-in area there would be no trouble. I have the Verity Dome-ni. If he had been dishonest in any way, then I would have caught it.”

  “That means he must have truly believed the fenced area would be safe,” I said. “Then something must have affected the integrity of the fence. Something the Governor wasn’t expecting. Markus, what did the Governor say when you tried to contact him about what Gayle had reported?” I stopped in my tracks as I remembered that the woman was outside with the rappavore. Fear for her safety rushed through me. “My God, what about Gayle? She’s out there with that thing.”

  I felt through the bond the tension in Markus flare, but he kept a tight control of it. “She will have to take care of herself. The priority is keeping you safe.”

  I didn’t like that one bit, and I stayed rooted in place in the corridor. “I’m not leaving Gayle out there to fend for herself,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. The building shook again, and dust floated down from the ceiling. “She’s part of our team.”

  Markus’s jaw clenched as he came to a stop, reversed course, and halted in front of me. “Correction. She’s part of your protection team. You are invalidating her job if you put yourself in danger to help her. Gayle is a Protectorate graduate. She knows what to do in these sorts of situations.”

  I snorted at the incredibility of his words. “These sorts of situations? The College really trains you to face off with a building-sized aggressive animal?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Markus let out a heavy sigh. “This isn’t up for discussion, Adar. You agreed to follow my orders when it came to your protection. And right now, I am telling you to forget about Gayle. She can take care of herself. We need to focus on finding the most secure location for you and for your teammate Lieutenant Quinton.”

  I still didn’t like that Markus was writing off Gayle like that, though I could feel the man’s escalating stress. He was worried about her too, but he had a job to do and was going to see it through no matter what. I let my arms fall to my side and gave a short nod.

  The relief was visible on my Protector’s face, and he wheeled around and began to lead us up the corridor once again. I felt a gentle but quick touch on my arm. I looked beside me, and Quinton had an encouraging smile on her face.

  “I’m sure she will be fine. As long as the rappavore is attacking the building, he isn’t going after her. It will give her time to find shelter.”

  I nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  The building shook once more and plunged us into darkness again. The lights stayed off long enough that we had to stop so as not to trip over ourselves. Several heartbeats later, they turned on and we could resume our dash down the corridor.

  “What about Governor Korrel, Markus? Did he say what might be causing the agitation in the wildlife?”

  “No, I could not get the comm to connect. I tried several times. I think the Nanite Network is down.”

  Of course I knew that, but I had hoped Markus had reached the Governor before the system had crashed. So not only were we being chased by an aggressive predator, we also had no way of letting anyone know about what was going on.

  “Great,” I breathed under my breath as Markus stopped in front of a door. He palmed it open and urged us both forward. After we were inside, my Protector stepped in behind us and closed the door.

  “As far as I can tell, this is the very heart of the building,” Markus said. “That rappavore can slam against the building all it wants, but it can’t get at us from here. How long until it gives up and goes elsewhere?” He asked this question of Lieutenant Quinton.

  The Lieutenant’s face looked pale as she pressed her back against the wall to steady herself. She shook her head. “I’m not sure. My brother is a conservation scientist. It’s the only reason I know what I do about rappavores. I know they perceive the world through sensing heat more than through physical vision. I know they can get aggressive if they feel threatened. But I thought they shied away from settled areas. They don’t like technology or man-made environments. I would have thought that fence out there would have been enough to make it turn tail and go in the other direction. I don’t know why this one is being so persistent.”

  The building shook again, the lights flickered, and I heard a low groan of metal from somewhere. I swallowed hard. Whatever confidence I had that we would be safe in here was evaporating like water on a hot stove.

  “Well, if we stay hidden and out of its reach, then maybe it will give up,” Markus replied as he took up a position near the door.

  I sat down in a chair at a small table close by and attempted to get myself under control, because I realized that in my fear of the situation, the strong emotions of Markus and Quinton were bleeding through and was ramping me up to a near manic state.

  I needed a few moments to center myself. So, I closed my eyes and went through the breathing and visualization method Caretaker Thaddeus had taught me. It took longer than I wanted, but by the time I opened my eyes back up, I was feeling a calmness where fear had once been.

  The first thing I noticed was that we were actually in a small commissary with a dozen small tables and a long counter on the wall opposite the door that we entered, which during normal hours would be full of freshly made food. There was also a smaller counter on the wall to my left that held clean and stacked dinnerware, several bins full of pellet meals, and a food synthesizer that could instantly turn the pellets into hot and ready meals for after kitchen hours eating. My head then swiveled to the dark open doorway to the right, which I knew would lead to the kitchen where all the fresh food was cooked, and a thought bubbled up from my calm center.

  I opened my mouth to ask a question, and then stopped when I saw Lieutenant Quinton, who still looked pale and nervous, but she’d taken a seat at the table next to mine and her breathing had settled down at least a little. I knew I couldn’t ask my question, or she might wonder why I had asked it. Instead, I stood up and made my way toward the darkened door.

  I was almost there before Markus called out. “Where are you going?”

  “Just checking on something,” I said, stepping through the door.

  One thing I loved about Ethia was how much everything was simplified. It was nice not to ever have to turn a knob to open a door, or even wait for an elevator to show up to move from one floor to the next. Much of the basics of Ethian life was automatic and instant. Including stepping into an unlit room as I traveled through the open doorway, the lights in the kitchen turned on to illuminate the space before me.

  Believe it or not, I had been in Ethia for five months and had yet to set foot inside a kitchen. Much of the time I ate pellet meals because they were fast and convenient and tasted quite good. And when I had eaten fresh food, it was always cooked and brought to me whether I was eating in my living quarters or having a formal dinner with others. A Prince of the Empire had no reason to step foot into a kitchen. Until now, that is.

  The space stretched before me, larger than I had expected, with gleaming counters and industrial cooking equipment that looked sophisticated even by Ethian standards. But what caught my attention immediately was the back wall—or rather, what should have been the back wall. Instead, there was a wide opening that led directly into a small greenhouse. I could see small rows of leafy greens growing just beyond a wall of glass. Hot lamps were placed at strategic places along the rows. Some were on and some were off. I imagined that whoever cared for the greenhouse used the lights to keep careful control over the growing environment.

  I was stunned and immediately flooded with questions. Did all Ethian kitchens have their own greenhouses like this? And that was why the freshly cooked food always tasted so good. How hard was it to manage something like this, especially in an artificial environment?

  I shook my head. Nope. I needed to focus. While this was interesting, it was not the reason I had come in here. I stood in place and continued to let my eyes wander the room, wondering if I was even going to find what I needed. Maybe they didn’t have what I was looking for? Maybe there was a small farm attached to the kitchen where they could make fresh kills and serve the meat up for dinner straight from the slaughter? But my eyes finally rested on a large steel door at the far back corner of the kitchen, and I knew I had found what I was looking for.

  That was when Markus stuck his head into the kitchen. “What are you doing here? This is no time for fixing food,” he said, which was almost funny coming from a man who seemed to have a bottomless pit for a stomach.

  I pointed to the steel door at the far side of the kitchen. “Is that a walk-in freezer?” I asked.

  Markus eyed the door, but he didn’t give me a hard time for asking such an obvious question. He knew I had not been raised in Ethia, and while I had recently gotten my childhood memories of Ethia back, there were some things I simply did not know because I had left the Empire at the young age of five.

  “Yes, why––” and then he stopped himself as he finally put two and two together. He nodded. “Yep, that would work. I’ll go get Quinton.”