Again, she had no answers.
Kiera shivered a little and crossed her arms over herself, though it wasn’t really because she was cold. Her body still felt warm all over from the dream and there was a definite pulse of heat low between her thighs that had nothing to do with the morning air.
Get a grip, she told herself sternly. You are not standing outside mooning over your weird wolf—man dream. You have work to do!
She took a breath, tried to clear her head, and looked out over the sanctuary…and froze.
Two theebles were loose again.
One was perched on top of a low fence post near the petting—zoo section, fluffing its hot pink fur and cheeping, “Good boy! Good boy!” to absolutely nobody.
Another was hopping through the silver—threaded meadow grass with a strip of something shiny in its beak.
Kiera frowned.
“What the…?”
Then she saw something larger moving farther off. But it wasn’t just one creature…it was several.
A schoonie ambled past the edge of its own enclosure, humming to itself as though it had every right in the galaxy to be wandering free. Beyond that, she caught sight of a spooler hanging upside down from a cinnamon—trunked tree outside its habitat.
The last traces of dream—fog vanished from her mind instantly.
“What the hell is going on?” she whispered. “Are they all free?”
Buck, who had come out beside her with his usual silent grace, went instantly alert. His ears pricked forward, and he let out a low, uneasy chuff.
“Come on, Buck,” she said sharply, already moving. “Come on!”
She broke into a run, heading first for the petting—zoo section. But the farther she got from the home-dome, the worse things looked.
Animals were wandering loose everywhere.
Some were just milling around near their usual habitats, apparently too stupid or too content to realize they had escaped. Others had already drifted farther afield. A pair of tiny orange jibblets were darting in and out of the chiming trees like striped little missiles. One of the spoolers had somehow gotten itself onto the roof of the feed storage shed and was dangling there by its feathered tail, looking smug about the whole thing.
“Oh no!” Kiera moaned. She spun in a circle, trying to take in the extent of the disaster. “How are they all out?” she demanded of no one in particular.
Then realization hit her–the emergency cutoff.
There was a manual safety switch around the back of the home-dome—an override installed in case the fence grid ever started malfunctioning and needed to be powered down quickly without taking down the entire sanctuary systems network. It was housed inside a reinforced weatherproof control box and connected directly to the barrier distribution manifold. You couldn’t trigger it accidentally–you had to physically unlatch the cover, disengage the safety clip, and throw the lever by hand.
Kiera’s stomach dropped–no work—bot would do that. They were specifically programmed to stay away from the cutoff system unless she or Commander Rarev authorized diagnostic access.
Which meant…
“Higgs,” she breathed, her hands tightening into fists.
She ran around the back of the home-dome, with Buck right beside her and sure enough–there was the control box mounted to the outer curve of the dome wall, its protective panel hanging open. The heavy red emergency lever had been thrown all the way down to GRID OFFLINE.
“Son of a bitch!”
Kiera grabbed the lever and tried to force it back up, but it had a stiff mechanical lock built into the hinge so it couldn’t be toggled by accident. Her hand slipped and Buck whined impatiently beside her.
“Just a second!” she snapped, more from panic than anger. Then she caught it–the smell. Or should she say the stench?
Lingering on the morning air, caught in the stillness behind the dome it assaulted her nose–body odor and sour—cream—and—onion—chips.
“Oh, you bastard,” she muttered. So Higgs had done this. The reek of his big, sweaty pickle—body wiped away any doubt from her mind.
