Heart of the Tiger

Title: Heart of the Tiger

Tags: Powerlifting tiger-girl[F]/Science intern zoo guide[M]. Cute outfits, social power posturing through glass, muscle, lifting heavy things to impress humans, nice titties squished against glass, growling, tail-waggling, nervous and sweaty male lead who has to watch as the tiger-girl steals all the attention and makes him forget what he's supposed to say, hypnotic tiger eyes, humans are such easy prey.

Chapter 1: Queen (~1440 words) Chapter 2: Warm Up (~2200 words) Chapter 3: Desperate Guide (~2900 words) Chapter 4: Moonlight Memories (~2300 words) Chapter 5: A Good Employee (~2600 words) Chapter 6: A Curious Encounter (~1500 words) Chapter 7: Morning Routine (~3600 words) Chapter 8: Special Delivery (~3000 words) Chapter 9: Sharing Food (~3000 words) Chapter 10: Deeper Discussion (~2300 words) Chapter 11: The Day Turns Sour (~3000 words) Chapter 12: Herald of the Biotic Crisis (~2500 words) Chapter 13: First Blood (~700 words) Chapter 14: Cowering in Corridors (~1600 words) Chapter 15: Cuts and Bites (~1800 words) Chapter 16: Juicing (~1500 words) Chapter 17: Salvage (~2300 words) Chapter 18: Firestorm (~1900 words) Chapter 19: Forward Observer (~1400 words) Chapter 20: The Designator (~2100 words) Chapter 21: Roller Coaster Impalement (~1200 words) Chapter 22: Stolen Victory (~2000 words) Chapter 23: Feeding Time (~2300 words) Chapter 24: Order Up (~2000 words) Chapter 25: Spice (~2000 words)

Chapter 1: Queen
From a high branch, the mighty tigress surveyed her domain. There was the stone altar, where humans brought tributes of food and water so she would not burst through the glass and devour their younglings with a mighty roar. Here was her favorite resting tree, pruned regularly so its branches were just right for climbing and provided plenty of shade. Over there was her private outdoor gym, where she lifted heavy weights and made the crowd ooh and ahh. Her tail swished lazily from side to side. She tugged at the silly stockings they wanted her to wear. Her natural markings were quite impressive, but not as visually distinct at a distance as the humans preferred. Their eyes were not as good as hers. The skirt was cute, and short enough that it did not get in her way. For some reason the hairless apes did not like it when she paraded around nude in front of their young. Wearing a silly outfit that exaggerated her feline features, and had a flashy logo on the back, was a small price to pay for rulership. The humans made their own kings and queens wear silly outfits too.

From here she could see the strange building that looked like a scrunched-up caterpillar, where the humans kept their flying machines and rolling machines. Whenever a dangerous animal got loose from one of the other enclosures the whole building would flash as red as the setting sun and out would come all sorts of vehicles. The tigress did not fear their metal boxes. The humans knew her claws could rip right through them. That was why they were so careful to keep her well fed and to obey her righteous demands. These humans were surprisingly smart for bipeds without claws, fangs, or tails. Smart enough to know that creatures like her might look like the quadrupeds they were born to rule over in the wild, but their spirits were very different. As great-grandmother had told her when she was just a little kitten who had not yet grown claws, her blood was like that of the wild animals but her spirit was given by the Great Sky-Tiger. Those like her were the spirit-guides of lesser cats, just as the Great Tiger-Spirit was their spirit guide.

So went the legend, anyway. The humans said otherwise, but what did they know? Shifting atop the branch, she perked an ear. Along came a gaggle of humans, walking on the other side of the glass wall below. Her tongue ran over her fangs as she looked at all of the delectable younglings. Surely they would not miss just one... no, no, she had promised. Humans were not like antelope in spirit, even if they did herd in much the same way. Besides, there was a more interesting sight for her slit pupils to fix upon. Leading this group was a smiling human with the zoo's logo on the back of his shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of her mouth, splattering down onto the grass below. He was a new one, the finned metal bird in the sky had just brought him into the park.

Some humans came here just to amble about. The ones that wore shirts with logos much like the one on the back of hers, or the guide's, were special. They were here to keep her the zoo running as it should. The humans called it "employment" and were most desperate to continue it, even though it had all the downsides of living here without any benefit that she could see. The "employees" were fed, watered, and given room to roam. They had to wear silly uniforms, drive around in metal boxes, and keep to an ever-shifting schedule. In exchange they were given worthless scraps of paper, or sometimes nothing at all which they called "direct-deposit". Despite such torture, the greatest thing any human wearing one of those shirts feared was losing this "employment". This guide was no exception.

He spoke well, with a pleasant rhythm to his voice and a bright smile. For a creature that could not bench-press a young elephant, he was in good physical shape. Certainly he was more pleasant to look upon than that boar who the hairless apes in long white coats had tried to pair her with. Her tail twitched angrily. So what if her kind was... was less numerous than before? It was the fault of humans anyway. Humans and their fire-sticks. Her people had kept the savannas and mountains as they should be for as long as could be remembered, until the hairless apes brought metal boxes and fire-sticks. Suddenly claws were no longer the mightiest weapon, not when a human with a fire-stick could hurl pebbles that would pierce through flesh and bone from far away. Her kind had always been thankful for their natural camouflage, but in recent generations it had become something they were far more reliant upon.

She shut her eyes and growled, not noticing that her back had arched and her claws had pushed through the gloves to dig deep into the branch. The humans were sorry, or so they said. Those who ran this zoo were not like the ones who had brought the fire-sticks, or the ones who used them on her people. On some nights, she could still remember the howl of the whirling blades as strange, stinky machines cut off the horns of rhinoceroses. She ran a hand down to the scars on her midriff, where the pebbles had caught her in the side. So small, yet they had enough force to tumble her down the mountainside as though she had been hit by a charging hippopotamus. The humans in long white coats had found her there, covered in the gore of her enemies... and in much of her own blood.

It would have been a fitting end for one of her kind. Her blood had flowed. Not merely the red of a gash, but the dark blood that flowed from deep within. Lifeblood. Only strong herbs from the deepest parts of the sacred caves could mend such a wound, but the humans somehow found a way with their strange, dull-smelling metal and smokeless medicine tent. Once the bleeding stopped, she had of course healed. The Great Sky-Tiger would not abandon one as young as she, would not let her die unless it was upon the field of battle. Now the scar was a proud one, stretching up her side and also her back. When she returned to the tribe, they had honored her greatly. But, such happiness could not last. In trade for the humans who had found her helping to stop those who defiled the land, they wished for her to come and rule over their zoo. Those like her were amazing to the hairless apes, who had thought for centuries that they alone could walk upright and form thoughts in their heads. It was a hard bargain to accept, but for the good of the tribe she had said farewell.

Her ears perked again. The guide was gesturing with his arms toward a sign outside the glass walls of her grassy court. His voice was pleasant to listen to, even if he often said outrageous things. "... diamond-sharp claws and powerful muscle. Tiger-girls love to ambush their targets, dropping from trees or lunging out of bushes at unsuspecting prey. Their amazing physiology allows them to combine some of the endurance predation methods that primitive humans used with the explosive power of feral tigers. Within their native land, they are unquestionably the apex predators." He spoke well. She grinned wide, curling her tail and waving a gloved paw down at the wide-eyed children of the crowd. "Beautiful and dangerous, she's a force to be reckoned with!"

The guide continued, "Sandra, our lovely example of Sapiens Tigris, was wounded fighting poachers who invaded her tribe's lands. Unrestricted poaching has devastated many ecosystems, ruining the abundance of food, water, and land that allows creatures like her to thrive." He actually sounded a bit sad when he was saying those things, even though he had no part in them. "As part of our cultural exchange contract with her people, A-Corp sponsors helicopter patrols and direct intervention teams that help to preserve her tribe's way of life. We also hope to open a corporate resort on tribal lands within the next five years, the security for which will further aid in minimizing poachers' access."

Chapter 2: Warm Up
Sandra yawned. Stretching out her limbs atop the branch, she slid off and landed in the grass below with barely a sound. While the guide continued to jabber about "arms proliferation", "governmental instability", and "conflict diamonds", she stood upright and reached for the sun above. It was always just out of her reach, but one day... one day, she would hold that warmth in her paws like the Great Sky-Tiger had. The crowd watched her amble back and forth behind the guide. She leaned down to wash her face in the gently flowing stream, playfully batted at a few of the odd circular rocks hanging from ropes around the enclosure, and made sure to flex.

Humans loved to watch her do simple things, which proved what simple-minded creatures they were and her own obvious superiority. Not that she liked to rub it in. They had their part in the great circle of life too, just like the slab of gazelle ribs she was munching. The humans readily provided as much food as she wanted, which was a great change from the deprivation of her homeland. It was not the same as hunting her own meat, but she still kept in shape. She had even heard that there were very large, scaly animals at this zoo, kept in enclosures made from poured rock and metal bars. One day, she would hunt and eat one of those delicious-sounding beasts. But not right now. It was time to put on a show.

Finishing the slab of ribs, she tossed the bones over her shoulder and washed again in the stream. The guide was still talking. Not that she minded. It was naturally a time consuming thing to explain the many reasons why she was so great. For many it was enough to merely see her, but hearing one of their own tell her story helped them appreciate her full majesty. Her ears perked up as he said, "... might even see her show off that strength!" The guide was paying full attention to the crowd, who were so interested they gradually crept forward as she showed off, forcing the guide to back up until he was pressed against the glass. Sandra knew there were signs advising not to touch or tap on any of the enclosures. A silly human rule, one intended to keep the visitors from agitating the residents.

With a vicious grin, the tigress strode down the grassy knoll. Her shadow fell over the crowd, growing with each step. When she was right behind the guide, who was still talking and gesturing, she stretched out her paws and showed her sharp teeth to the awestruck humans. More than a head taller than the guide, she towered above the children and all of the adults. They crept back little by little as the oblivious guide continued to talk with his back still pressed against the glass. "... but, there's no need to fear. Sandra is quite friendly. Also, this reinforced glass barrier is rated to stop fifty-caliber rounds, for everyone's protection. A-Corp works on the cutting edge of zoology and biogenesis, and we are proud to do so with expedience and safety!"

The tiger-girl pressed against the transparent material, smushing her breasts against it just behind his head. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of her mouth as she waved at the crowd. Her paws could almost touch the top of the glass wall. She had grown taller during her time here. Humans were more like gazelle then they wished to admit. They were clever creatures, but that cleverness could be used against them. An antelope lacked imagination. During her studies here, she had discovered that humans often had far too much. That was why she found it best to be just a little menacing. Their minds would expand on the threat, letting it grow larger and larger until it was more terrifying than any mere snarl or flash of her claws.

They feared her. She was shaped by the harsh wilderness. Though the uniform she wore covered up her scars, they knew she had been wounded in battle against their kind. Her teeth and claws were sharp. Her ears twitched at any footfall. Though she walked upright it was easy to see she was one of the Great Tiger-Spirit's chosen and not a hairless ape. The humans did not even have tails. As the crowd shrank further away, the guide's voice trailed off. He turned around to see what was the matter. His head was level with her smushed breasts, the sight of which confused him for a second. Then he slowly looked up. Sandra fixed him with the same terrible gaze she had been taught to use on prey who realized their doom just before she fell upon them from a tree. A hypnotic, majestic glare that chilled the blood of the strong and made the weak fall to their knees. No human had ever resisted her gaze. No poacher, no glasses-wearing white coat, no impudent brat who tapped on her glass in defiance of the signs.

This guide was not much of an exception. He staggered back in fear, but managed to keep from soiling himself. She growled, the glass muting much of the sound, and kept her eyes locked with his in a test of willpower. Of course he blinked first, the sun was at her back, but he managed to stay on his feet. With a careless flip of her tail, she tapped twice on the glass and winked, then turned her back and ambled away. All eyes followed her. Rolling her neck from side to side, the tigress walked to the pile of heavy weights and metal bars that the humans had graciously provided so she could keep in shape. If the guide wanted them to see how strong she was, then Sandra Redclaw would be happy to oblige. The crowd shuffled along the glass. They surrounded the corner where she kept her weights, and grew as more interested visitors flocked to see the show. No one paid attention to the guide anymore.

All the weights were labeled clearly so the humans could tell how much she was moving, but she did not bother reading numbers. A weight was not a number, it was a challenge, just like wrestling a crocodile. The size of the weight, or the number of weights she put on a bar, was how she judged the challenge. Sweat trickled down her brow as she curled a weight in each fist. Her biceps bulged as she worked the muscles, each curl slow and purposeful. Then it was time for the tall climbing frame, where she would pull herself up as though she was climbing onto a branch. To add to the challenge, she wrapped a heavy chain around her midsection and hung a weight from it. Grabbing the bar, she lifted her weighed body again and again. Most of those humans looked like they could barely pull themselves up once, let alone over two dozen times with a weight swaying beneath them. They oohed and ahhed as sweat rolled down her brow.

That was just a warm up. Letting the chained weight drop onto the grass, she laid down on the bench beneath a loaded bar and grabbed it with both hands. Sweat clung her uniform to her body as she lifted the bar from its rest and brought it down to her breasts before pressing it up again. A simple motion. The guide had recovered enough to begin talking again. He was telling the crowd just how much weight she was moving, but she did not focus on the numbers. All that mattered was the next repetition, the next breath, and keeping her muscles moving as they should. A warrior must have discipline in every action, especially with a heavy weight over one's head. As a little girl she had trained with rocks or by carrying smaller animals on her back. Setting the bar back into the rack with a clank, she rose and began adding more weight to it.

"... but she enjoys some of the benefits of civilization too," said the guide as Sandra squirted water into her mouth from a bottle. Back home, there were only clay pots for carrying water. Fragile things that had to be handled with care. These humans made bottles from metal, clay, glass, all sorts of things, and they were durable enough to meet her needs. She growled, shaking out her shoulders before beginning the next set. As she moved the heavier weight, the crowd cheered and applauded. Back among her tribe, lifting such weights was as natural as going to the river for water. Certainly you were appreciated if you were exceptionally strong, but these humans acted as though no one else in all the prairie could do what she did. If she was not careful, she would start to believe that too...

Crunches. Stretches. Loading the bar again, she set it on a much higher set of catch bars and stood behind it. Tossing a glance over at the guide, she waved to the crowd and growled just loud enough for them to hear. For some reason the guide's shirt was wet with sweat even though he was not the one lifting weights. She twitched her tail from side to side, shifting her posture as she got beneath the bar and prepared to squat. More sweat appeared on his shirt. The tigress lifted the weight clear of its rest, stepped back, and took it down. Rising up again, she balanced it perfectly, using the same muscles in her thighs that she would to pounce upon and subdue prey. Running in terror was for the weak. A tiger stalked the target, wore it down, then crushed it with superior strength. Her tail curled as she continued to lift, helping her keep the mighty weight across her shoulders balanced. Then she added more, and more, until the guide was mopping his face as he told the crowd how much she intended to lift.

Perhaps she had bitten off a little more than she could chew. As she struggled to rise beneath the weight, it wavered on her shoulders. Usually she only lifted this much in the cool of evening, after the visitors had left and she was alone in her enclosure. The crowd murmured as her upward progress slowed, stalled, then the weight began to drag her back down. It would be easy to let it fall from her shoulders. Sandra could hear them gasping, murmuring, even the sound of the guide tugging at his shirt collar in worry. Shutting her eyelids tight, the tigress called upon all her willpower. The bar began to rise again, every muscle in her body tensing as she lifted it. A low snarl built in her chest as she exhaled slowly. The uniform clung like a second skin to her taunt abdomen. With a mighty roar that drove the air from her lungs and helped to keep her back upright, she rose triumphant and slammed the bar back into its proper rest. Slumping against it, she panted for breath, sweat pouring down her body and her tongue lolling out.

Dozens of flashes surrounded her from the humans' little light-boxes. They made paintings instantly, or something like that. Whatever they made had no smell to it, and so it was not real. The guide's clothes were also clinging to him, both from sweat and because one of the children had spilled a Mega Gulp cup full of fizzy sweet-water all over while celebrating her triumph. Sandra grinned. Standing up straight, she bowed graciously to the crowd. The guide tried to gather their attention again, and gather his own wits to continue whatever talk he wanted to give about some sort of cutting-edge breakthrough the men in long white coats had made. It seemed he thought she was done being the center of attention. That would not do. Not at all.

Stepping out from the bars of the cage, she stretched her back and flexed her claws. Then she peeled off the long, stripe-pattern gloves that were part of her outfit. They were meant to make her tiger heritage all the more visible to the visitors, but the markings underneath were more than sufficient in her opinion. Especially for what was coming next. Picking up the brick of chalk, she rolled it between her bare hands. First she cleared the barbell, then she set it on the ground and began loading weights. This time she added clamps to both sides of the bar to keep the weights where they belonged. While the guide tried to keep the crowd's attention, she breathed deep, picked up the heavy weight, and hefted it as though it was a fresh kill. Drawing it up above her breasts, she held the bar just beneath her chin for a second before pressing it over her head. Reversing the motions, she brought the weight back down to the ground just as smoothly. Her tail helped her keep balance all the way. A smirk crept across her face as the guide lost his words. Humans were such easy prey.

Chapter 3: Desperate Guide
For the guide's part, he really was trying hard to do his job correctly. Getting an internship here at A-Corp was his best chance at a career in biogenesis engineering. All interns had to do their time in the zoo before they could don a lab coat and work with the world's leading scientists. It was both a rite of passage and a direct contributor to the massive megacorporation's bottom line. Medical research, countless patents, defense contracts, and other mundane ways of filling the coffers were of course part of A-Corp's portfolio. The company's Parks and Experiences division functioned as both a training system for new employees and a predictable source of revenue from tourists. Employees learned how the company worked from the bottom up, how to interact with Master Computer, and how A-Corp could make stunning advancements by having miracles of nature close at hand. Customers wanted to see new wonders, ride thrilling rides, and enjoy delicious food. A-Corp found ways to deliver that with style and innovation, often by re-purposing research and development that had not been successful in its original purpose.

While it did not feel as good as helping to develop a new vaccine for a deadly illness, the intern knew that he was still making a difference as a tour guide. Soda pop, hot dogs, roller coasters, and keychain souvenirs paid the bills until the next astounding breakthrough could be achieved. That was why he was standing out here in the heat with sixty-four ounces of sticky soda staining his company-issued shirt, hat, and safari shorts. He took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to salvage the situation. Leading easily-distracted mobs around and explaining the exhibits was challenging enough when he only had to remember details about the most exotic creatures known to man. But A-Corp had access to something no other zoo in the world could boast. A real, live tiger-girl with the curves of a marble statue and the physique of an Olympian, who could lift the equivalent of a small car or cut you to shreds with her claws. She was intelligent and a prima donna, always trying to ruin his scripted speeches when he led a group by her exhibit. The tigress never showed off her breathtaking abilities in the same order twice, and she was always trying to get under his skin.

He had read the report from the team who found her. Multiple bullet wounds through vital organs, severe internal bleeding, septic shock, and contamination from all the blood of the poachers she had gutted. Yet here she was, making the crowd gasp as she showed off her strength and dexterity. Every time he tried to remember what A-Corp wanted him to say next, he found himself staring like one of the paying customers. When she boxed the heavy punching bag, her fists moved like bolts of lightning. With each kick her tail swayed, keeping her balanced as she slammed the reinforced bag with blow after blow. From the very first time he had seen her, the guide had feared her. If creatures existed with such great natural prowess and intellect, what ecological niche was there for mere mankind? Officially her kind was not classed as human yet, though that was more of a political decision than a scientific one. The governments of the world were still coming to grips with the discovery. Sandra's actions could well decide the fate of her kind.

The guide was more concerned about his own fate. If he did not get back to work, Master Computer would notice. A guide's job was not merely to ensure that mobs of people were moved through the park in a relatively regular flow. It was also an opportunity for the company to shape public perception and drive consumer interest. That sounded a lot nicer than indoctrinating future customers. He stumbled through a few phrases about the A-Corp brand equipment she was using. The company had already featured Sandra in one of their promotional videos for commercial grade fitness equipment. Gyms around the world were excited to buy the new "Tiger Tough" brand of exercise machines and weightlifting gear, while athletes were clamoring for the new "nature-inspired" supplement blends that had been hastily assembled based on the science team's review of her tribe's eating habits. The guide made sure to mention these facts when there was a lull in the cheering.

He mopped his face again with a rag from his pocket. The tigress was terrifying, but she was so beautiful too. He had tried not to think such things, but that resolve had only lasted a few days. While her uniform overemphasized her animal features, she was human in all the ways that made him sweat. Whenever Sandra hefted that weight, her huge boobs wiggled and her butt jiggled as her muscles tightened. There was something hypnotic about that tail of hers too. Whenever she growled the sound froze him in place like a deer in headlights. A tiger's roar had certain subsonics that triggered automatic fight-or-flight responses in the human brain. That was a scientifically proven fact. It could also give him an involuntary erection whenever she added in that low purr that made his knees knock together. So far he had not reported that to the science team. A-Corp didn't need to know everything...

When Sandra sneaked up behind him earlier and squeezed against the glass, she had nearly given him a heart attack. There was no question that her body was all natural. Even with as modest and innocent of a uniform as the one A-Corp made her wear, with a schoolgirl's skirt, brightly colored stockings, and long gloves, when she worked up a sweat it clung to her in ways that could not help but show off her hips... and everything else too. The crowd loved it. To them, she was an exotic display of muscle and beauty. They would enjoy the show, go on to see other exhibits, and retire to their hotel rooms before returning home the next day with empty pockets and plenty of photos. The guide, on the other hand, was never allowed to forget that he was here forever.

He was not quite sure why she did this to him. All the years of intense studying, high grades, and summer classes had given him plenty of experience with bullies. Maybe he was a nerd, a geek, a guy who would rather spend an evening buried in books than at a "radical" party, but here he was working at one of the most prestigious megacorporations on the planet and most of the jocks who had bounced him off lockers and stole his notes were asking if you wanted fries with that. None of the bullies had ever made him feel this way. When Vince Geldberg put a live snake in his desk, stole his thesis notes, or shoulder-tackled him through a window and called it, "Just a prank, bro!" he certainly hadn't felt any kind of attraction. But whenever this tigress scared the daylights out of him, made the crowd forget he even existed, and got him so worked up that he couldn't remember his lines, he... he could not look away. Not just because she would glance over, catch his eye, and wink. The guide found himself wanting to be near her, even though she was doing everything she could to get under his skin. And she was also a carnivore who had killed people.

Swallowing hard, he tried to remember what to say next. If he did not do his job right, he would be fired, and then he would be right next to Vince Geldberg asking if you wanted fries with that. And he would never see Sandra again. The guide was not sure which was worse. "Uh... s-so, A-Corp is continuing to research how tiger-girls have such sharp claws. Studies have shown that they are able to easily tear through steel armor plate, which should be impervious to keratinized claws." Oh no. She was making that growling noise again, the one that made the ground tremble. He took several deep breaths and tried not to look at her. "Ah... there appears to be certain pr-properties suggesting that a monomolecular cutting edge is present, but-" Now she was putting even more weight on the bar, and more chalk on her hands. The crowd was not really paying attention to him. He forgot the rest of what he was supposed to say about her claws. Fumbling for words, he improvised, "They're really sharp. And they shouldn't be. And they seem to get longer or shorter as needed to make a cut, but it's hard to tell because we still have not had a conclusive autopsy..."

With a resounding clang, she set the heavy bar back onto the ground. He was pretty sure that what she was doing now was called a deadlift. Sandra stood up with an enormously heavy weight gripped in her mighty paws. That feat of strength was not what was making the crowd gasp. She had untucked her wet shirt and tied it midway up her back, baring her abdominals and showing the long scar that stretched across her torso. Rivers of sweat ran over the hills and through the valleys of her muscles as she picked up the heavy weight again. The guide's jaw fell open. He had read her file, but from the look of the scars those bullets must have all but obliterated her liver and ripped apart much of her spine. She should have been dead by the time the science team found her, not clinging to life and strong enough to try and maul them until they could convince her they were friendly. The world was not a nice place, and she looked like she had seen some of the worst it could offer.

A-Corp intervention teams had encountered plenty of poachers using illegally acquired military grade ordinance. Leftovers from civil wars, economic conflicts, illegal arms deals, and insurgencies backed by first world powers. Anti-tank guns, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, mines, and artillery, in the wrong hands that ordinance could do a lot of damage. Removing those kinds of weapons from war-torn nations was rewarded by several Non-Governmental Organizations, and was a profitable aside for A-Corp's well equipped paramilitary wing. Insurgents, warlords, and intelligence agency backed militias tended to be brutal and merciless. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that Sandra had been shot to pieces by an M2 Browning. The scars were certainly big enough. Even A-Corp's cybernetics division would struggle to save a man so badly wounded, let alone enable him to walk again. Yet there she stood, setting the weight down once more and raising her arms in conquest as the crowd cheered. Her people were barely advanced enough to understand how to make fire, but she had shown the courage to take on armored vehicles with just her claws.

He pulled his soggy hat down over his face and looked away. Sandra wasn't human. She was an entirely different species, one with claws, tails, and a ferocious ability for regeneration. He was just a guy who showed people around the zoo before ushering them into the food court and gift shop. At night he carried trays of samples for real researchers. As she stepped closer to the glass and took another deep bow, he felt his throat turn as dry as the desert. Desperate to avoid her gaze, the guide looked down at his watch and realized how late they were for the next stop on the tour. Another group would be here any minute, and Master Computer really hated it when groups were jammed together. Reliable, steady business for all parts of the park was the most profitable model. Tours were a big part of keeping the entire zoo from turning into one big cattle rush.

"W-well, I think we're all... very appreciate... can Sandra-" he stammered, trying to put words together. All he could think about was how he would surely flunk his performance review if the next tour showed up right now. "But there's lots more to see in the park, so if you'll all just follow me, I..."

The guide swallowed hard. No one could hear him over the cheering. His shoulders slumped. With desperation in his eyes, he looked at her, silently begging for the domineering tiger-girl to release his group from her thrall. Her yellow eyes drilled into him as her tail swayed back and forth. Her breasts heaved as she panted for breath. Every muscle was tight from her workout, almost as tight as his safari shorts. She sniffed at the air and took a meaningful step toward the glass. Toward him. He held his hat in front of his groin. The crowd was consumed with cheering and taking photographs, oblivious to any deeper meaning of the tigress' posturing. As for the guide, like so many other times in his life, he was a nobody. Sandra growled.

"Please," he whispered, the word completely swallowed up by the crowd's cheering. In the distance he could see the next group starting to drift around the far side of another enclosure.

She waved one last time to her adoring audience, then with a twitch of her tail she turned away and sashayed off to the river to cool down. Sweat ran over the scarred exit wounds on her back and down her long legs. The wind caught her striped hair, lightly teasing it and her skirt. It was all he could do to tear his gaze away. Now that Sandra had dismissed them, the group turned back to the guide in search of leadership. He twisted his hat to squeeze out as much of the sweat and soda as he could, then pulled it back on again. "Right this way, everyone." His blood pounded in his ears, and chills ran down his spine despite the heat. She was a cruel bully. He had a job to do. "There's plenty more exciting wonders of the modern world to witness!"

Despite the enthusiasm he tried to put into his voice about all the other great stuff to see, the guide could not resist a glance back at the tiger-girl as she lowered herself into the cool waters. Sandra was looking his way, as if she had expected his roaming gaze. Those yellow eyes seemed to peer into his soul. He stumbled mid-stride, nearly tripping over a child who was more concerned with nose-picking than where he was going. The tigress grinned, then dunked her head beneath the water, breaking the spell. He shook himself and turned firmly away, putting all of his focus on his group and the pre-planned script he was supposed to recite before they reached the next major exhibit. It took several minutes of hobbling along and talking for him to realize how uncomfortable he was, how sticky his shirt and pants felt from the drying soda, and that his erection was not going away.

Back at the tiger-girl's enclosure, another group arrived, headed by another hairless ape. Sandra waved from the river, but despite some hopeful gestures from the guide she did nothing more than laze about in the water or in her tree. She had also tucked her shirt back in, though it was still damp and clung close to her weary body. Her muscles ached. It was a good pain, a pleasant reminder of victory. The cool water and slow stretches helped much. But such things did nothing to soothe a deeper heat within her. Ripping savagely at a hunk of meat with her teeth, she tore it from the bone and chewed while glaring at the crowd. Sandra Redclaw was not a tame cat, who would perform whenever the sun was at an appointed height or whenever a gaggle of humans wanted to gawk. They could watch her eat, and be thankful.

Taking another bite of meat, she smirked as she thought about the previous group. It was not the first time she had taunted that particular human. Usually when she intimidated a guide so severely, they would break down. One ran screaming away the first time she snarled at him. Another had pressed his chubby face against her glass wall and made strange sounds with his lips, completely forgetting all the other humans around him. That one she had given her second-good roar, the first-good was only for challenges, and his strange noises had turned to pleasing shrieks of terror.

Grandfather had postulated that just as the body needs meat, so the soul feeds upon the emotion you inspire in others. All her life she had learned to feed upon the fear of the enemy. More than a few of the guides had dropped to their knees and wet themselves beneath her gaze. Whenever that happened, one of the strange-smelling metal humans would come, or one of the men in stiff clothes, and she would not see that guide again. Her tail twitched on the grass as she contemplated. This one had heart. He knew he was prey, but either his trust in the glass was foolishly absolute or he was able to master his instincts. Few humans could claim that. She teased at a ball of string that the humans liked to see her play with, thinking all the while about that human's scent.

Chapter 4: Moonlight Memories
The sun rose and fell at this zoo much as it did on the savannah. Her hammock was stretched between a pair of fake trees that looked a lot like the ones of her homeland. Even the humans, with all their strange devices, could not make plants grow overnight. Many of the trees in her enclosure were made of metal with some spongy substance wrapped around it. Their leaves did not smell right at all. Still, they looked the part. It seemed that having the right appearance was very important for humans. She yawned, stretching out in her hammock and looking up at the stars above. After hours, she changed out of the shirt that had the flashy logo, the striped stockings and gloves, and the skirt. This robe was fuzzy and warm, perfect for guarding against the night's chill winds.

Of course she missed her home. The moon had waxed and waned many times since she arrived at the zoo, and the trip aboard a floating metal island had taken a while too. Last summer she would have undergone a Vision Quest deep into the heart of the sacred mountain, to the place where glowing mushrooms grew from the ceiling and the floors were hot with the fury of the Earth. Her will would have been tested, her strength and speed challenged, yet the most punishing trials of all were those of the spirit. Deep secrets of the ancestors were hidden within the mountain, behind great walls of brass and below bubbling magma. To gaze upon them would bring madness to the unprepared. If she emerged from the mountain alive and sane, she would be acknowledged as an adult. Some did not return. Some came back... wrong. In olden times, only those who had passed their trials were sent forth as warriors. But since the time when her parents were still young, desperation had demanded that kittens show their claws as soon as their bodies were ready. There was too much ground to cover. The poachers were too mobile, their metal boxes carrying them around with mystifying speed on the roads they slashed and burned. Every able body was needed to resist them.

Sandra had been so proud to join the fight. She knew what damage the invaders were doing to her homeland. As a kitten she had watched helplessly from the hidden places, seeing the pillars of smoke and hearing the cries of slaughtered animals as the poachers ransacked the land. Each time the invaders escaped with their rattling trucks full of bloody trophies and stolen eggs, they would return with more dangerous weapons. Even with claws that could rip through metal, and her tribe's cunning tactics, there always seemed to be more invaders and less of her kind. Food became harder and harder to find. Many nights she would return from scavenging to find that the main course was mushroom stew yet again. Vultures seemed to be more common than clouds in the sky. Something was always burning on the horizon.

She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over in her hammock. Sandra had fought viciously, desperate to protect her home. Again and again she volunteered for the most dangerous patrols, wetting her claws with blood and oil as she attacked the poachers' rattling trucks. Rip open the hulls, spill out their grizzly trophies, then set them alight or dump them off cliffs. That was the surest way to hurt the poachers. Without such trophies the enemy would be enraged but weakened when they next returned, so the wise ones had concluded. A strange thing, since none of the fire-sticks seemed to need animal skins, elephant tusks, or glimmering rocks to function. The wise ones surmised that there was some strong medicine in the poachers' homeland that transmuted such things into armaments and metal boxes. Sandra smiled bitterly up at the sky. The wise ones had been half-right. Hairless apes valued colored cloth greatly, and accepted it in trade for both trophies and weapons.

As much as it irked her warrior's spirit, she had to admit that she was doing more good for her kind in this glass-walled palace than she would back home. One more warrior in mask and paint was nothing compared to what the humans in long white coats offered. She was the natural choice as an ambassador. Not only had she never seen the deep secrets beneath the sacred mountain, and so could not speak of them, she had been the first to make contact. The ones they called "scientists" asked suspiciously little in return for all they did to help. Every now and again they wanted to take some of her blood, as if they had not seen enough already when they had mended her wounds. Sometimes they brought a new piece of metal to her and looked surprised when her claws cut through it as easily as all the others.

Sandra rolled over in her hammock and glanced at the hollow rock that contained her letters from home. She stretched out an arm, nearly falling from the hammock in the process, pushed open the rock, and took out a sheet of papyrus. What the humans thought were random scratch marks, drawn with ink made from ground-up berries, was a written language far older than any invented by hairless apes. Letters like these relied almost as much on scent as they did the shape of the written script. A stone-carver used very different marks to preserve wisdom, but a letter between family members was supposed to carry the sweet smell of home. Sandra drew in a deep breath. Never had she thought she would miss the smell of mushroom stew, and she certainly did not want to eat it again, but little scents like that could bring tears to her eyes. For the first time in living memory, the tribe no longer wore their war-masks to sleep every night in case the alarm came while the moon was high in the sky.

According to the letter, when the poachers last attacked, her brother had used a strange device given by the men in long white coats. He spoke the mystic words and fire rained down from the sky, consuming the metal boxes driven by the poachers. Scalded survivors had flopped about through the underbrush, screaming in agony as flames that could not be extinguished consumed both their flesh and their bones. With them burned the trophies they had stolen. Her brother had feared that the humans would ask a high price for such aid, and had been prepared to give up his own portion at the evening meal. Instead, the men in white coats and their green-armored guards had wanted to know why her brother had not used the device more. They told him it was dangerous to speak the mystic words when so close to the place where sky-fire would fall. He could have used the device several more times to trap the poachers' convoy with fire before bringing down the killing strike. Certainly his strategy had achieved the same result, but the humans were curious why he did not rely completely on their tool. Sandra could smell faint tinges of the smoke that had clung to her brother as he wrote. There had also been a tinge of fear in his heart. She knew why.

Once, or so the old legends told, her people had been able to summon such fire from their own paws. Their claws would burn with blue flames as they made war against one another. There were no tribes, no families, no songs sung upon the wind or stones carved with knowledge. Brother against brother, daughter against mother. All had been fire, gore, and lust for power. The survivors of that time had let those secrets be forgotten. No one since had become powerful enough to draw blue flames from their paws. Perhaps it was for the best, for the Great Tiger-Spirit did not wish for them to devour one another. They were proud tigers, not vultures. One should be worthy of rulership, only then could one be proud to exert authority. She wondered if the humans with long white coats were wise enough to have such fire power. Probably not. Maybe that was why they asked such a small price for her to come and rule over them.

The greatest lesson her people remembered from those times of fire was that strength did not make one righteous. They were separated from animals by their ability to be led by their minds instead of their stomachs. Her brother wrote of the devastation wrought by the sky-fire, and the stench of death that came after. He did not fear the tool, he feared how much he enjoyed seeing his hated foe vanquished. The spirit fed upon others' emotion just as the body was fed by meat. To glut yourself with carnage was a dangerous thing if you were not earning every bite. So held the old legends which warned against playing with power you did not fully own. Far better to be a patient hunter. Yet the allure of such power was constant, especially in these times with such a sea of troubles swirling about the homeland.

Sandra had already written back to him. She talked about the happy times here at the zoo, how the children laughed and the adults stared in awe. No matter how many smiles she tried to write, they would smell the truth. She missed her family. This far from her homeland, even when she had the enlightening taste of the vision-berry on her tongue, there were few familiar smells to carry her spirit back across the waters. Though no one had put it in writing, both knew she was not likely to see home again. Not within a decade at least, and that was so much time that it might as well be forever. It would be foolish to expect help in exchange for nothing. While the men in white coats were building strange structures in her homeland, what they really wanted was to understand the ways of those blessed by the Great Tiger-Spirit. That was why they needed her to rule over them and guide them. Among her kind, to rule was to serve. That was certainly how she felt on many days inside this grand glass enclosure.

Here at the zoo she could see structures similar to those her brother described. Great bowls, with metal trees jutting up from the middle, that turned in the night to point at the stars. Humans must have very weak eyes if they could not see the stars without such things. Her kind told stories about the shifting night sky, happy tales of good times under blessed stars, and foreboding warnings of a time when the stars would be right for great evil.

All the human green-armored guards asked of the tribe was that their best sentinels patrol the twisted-metal fences. The men in long white coats liked such fences very much, putting them up around all of their structures and putting up signs that warned lightning would strike anyone who touched them. They liked to build in the wastelands, where few animals roamed and little would grow. Her brother wrote that some of the "scientists" claimed that by taking soil from the nearby volcano they could make the wastelands grow bountiful crops. There was also a vast dig underway in the muddy swamps. It seemed that the humans loved to play in the mud and look for bones of long-dead animals. Here at the zoo, there were many halls full of bones held together by wire. The visiting humans liked to pretend that such skeletons were still alive.

She wanted to be home, to smell the meat roasting over the fire and hear the songs of joy as well as those of sorrow. The smells and sounds of this zoo were so strange. Always she could smell fear. Often they feared her, or they feared each other. The humans carried so many worries with them. Many times she would see a human walking down the paths between the enclosures without looking at any of the exotic creatures. Instead the human would stare at a little glowing device, or talk into it, and she would smell their fear from far away. For all their wondrous advances, they could not bottle happiness. Or, at the very least, if they could bottle it they refused to sell it to one another. That was why they needed an example like her. Even though she was missing her family, and her homeland, she would be content here. Yes, she would not have her rightful opportunity to grow up, to be a true adult and live as one among her people. She had fought as an adult against the poachers, but that was from the tribe's desperation. Still, she would be content. She was surrounded by cowardly humans who needed her as a symbol of strength and courage. The Great Tiger-Spirit had granted her vigor to survive her wounds, so she must still have purpose among the living.

Sandra shoved the letter back into the hollow rock and closed the lid. Folding her arms, she squirmed about in the hammock. Her tail curled over her legs, and her ears lay flat on her head. She sighed, then turned over one last time with a yawn. As she was drifting off to sleep, she ran her fingers over the long scar down her side. A few tears trickled down her cheeks. Did the humans' monarchs feel lonely in their palaces too?

Chapter 5: A Good Employee
The benevolent A-Corp provided for all of its employees' basic needs. As an intern, he was entitled to stay at the corporation's cutting-edge, space-saving, minimalist employee residences. Most people called them "coffin cabins", a description even the marketing department had a hard time denying. A tall wall of small hatches, each just big enough for you to crawl through and lock behind yourself. Every employee had designated sleeping quarters, just like every employee had a designated equipment locker next to the showers. All coffin cabins were identical. A padded bunk on top of storage drawers, a built-in television on the ceiling, and not much else. If you were claustrophobic, afraid of heights, or too portly to fit in the standard cubicle, A-Corp's generous employee care package included free therapy to help you overcome those challenges. After all, "A-Corp is all about empowerment!" Empowerment of the megacorporation's bottom line, maybe, but it got results. Besides, you didn't spend a lot of time in your designated sleeping space, not with all the wonders of the park to see and service.

Showers were communal, as were toilets. There were dividing walls for a feeling of privacy, servo-arms and high-pressure nozzles to help make sure you were squeaky-clean, and the water always seemed to be just the right temperature. By the end of most days, he barely noticed. It was almost reassuring to join the mob of worn out, sticky, and exhausted employees flocking to the shower stalls. There was rarely a wait. Despite its spartan aesthetics, the hygiene areas were very well optimized for the number of people crammed into each block of coffin cabins. Much like how the park focused on moving predictable groups of visitors through at regular intervals, avoiding unprofitable peaks and lulls, so the living quarters had a few more toilets or showers than needed for each group of employees as they returned from work. A-Corp really did care about its workers. Master Computer was programmed to express that care in the most efficient way possible, and the architectural layout it had generated for this area was a monument to that.

Once his shift was over as a zoo guide, he had the opportunity to spend a few hours doing what he was told in one of the sprawling laboratory complexes. This was what he had signed on for. From the next generation of military ordinance developed in A-Corp's top-secret defense labs, to experimental treatments and new automated surgical innovations at the company's biomedical clinics, all the way down to improved toasters and microwaves, there was no question that this was where humanity bent nature into a more pleasing form. He had wanted to work here ever since he was five years old and his mother had brought home one of A-Corp's autonomous vacuuming robots. Earning an internship had been difficult. Keeping it was even harder. Rumors abounded that the corporation's owner, an old and reclusive man who had resisted multiple attempts by rivals to absorb his life's work, had a way of finding out about anyone who was slacking off. Or worse, selling company secrets. Since A-Corp did so much research and manufacturing in international waters, not to mention corporate holdings in conflict zones, it was not unheard of for disloyal employees to be reassigned... and then simply disappear.

This meant it was in his best interest to remain focused on his duties, and not ask questions about others' work. The intern was good at that. His security card let him go where he was needed, and he had already earned a modest reputation as an eager assistant. Tonight's experiment was going to be particularly exciting. They would be using not two, but three different laser array assemblies, in conjunction with the small ion collider and a sequencing system assisted by a full four percent of Master Computer's main processor bank. This was a far cry from his childhood experiments of dropping gummy bears into molten potassium chlorate! The young man yawned as he walked through the sterile halls of the research complex. His legs hurt. He had forgotten how many miles he had walked today. Master Computer probably knew, but asking a low-priority question like that at this late hour would mean a minute or two of waiting before the great digital brain in its heavily armored bunker beneath the park could spare the resources to answer it in detail. He kept walking and tried to stay alert. The promise of Science had kept him awake through many long nights. He certainly was not going to miss out on this experiment, not for the world!

Loud voices spilled out of another laboratory's open double doors. As he carried a tray full of sample vials through the halls to where a more prestigious scientist wanted them, the intern overheard one of the security team having an argument with a top researcher. It was easy to tell who the real brainacs were. Their hair was always the wildest. He tried not to listen in, but they were quite loud. Maybe they had not watched that funny cartoon Master Computer liked to play on employee television. The one about loose lips and sinking ships.

"You're mad!" yelled the security officer. "If you think the fences alone will hold a monster that big, you've lost it for real this time! We have to keep the restraints on and the shock walls powered up."

"On the contrary." The wild-haired scientist rolled his eyes. "The Pavlovian response is all the restraint we will need. By now the specimen has learned that there is no hope of rebellion, and that non-compliance means only suffering. The mere threat of an electrical discharge will be sufficient to discourage the specimen from any escape attempts or riotous activity." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his bulbous nose. "And we cannot possibly get sufficient results from continued experimentation in the deep cavern containment. Aside from the specimen's prodigious pyromaniac propensities, the electromagnetic interference will be far too great, which again is why we cannot risk energizing the fencing."

The intern was not trying to eavesdrop. He really wasn't. But he was supposed to wait here until the senior researcher returned, and he didn't have the right keycard clearance to open the experimentation lab. Around here, you needed a keycard to access any laboratory, an authorized thumb-print to open the janitor's closet, and a retinal scan to go to the bathroom. These weren't even the defense labs, just the regular biological and zoology research stations. The intern leaned inside an alcove and tried not to be seen. His legs ached from leading guests all over the zoo. All he could do right now was wait for Doctor Gordon to arrive at the test chamber.

The two men in the lab next door continued their loud conversation. As he tried to not eavesdrop, his thoughts wandered to Sandra. What was she doing right now? Was she thinking about him? Did... did she even know his name? Not that he cared, of course not, she was a savage bully, but... he found himself looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. As long as glass separated them, he had nothing to fear. Master Computer had designed her enclosure, and while the intern did think that the walls were a little short, he was supposed to trust the digital brain. The park had an excellent record of containing all manner of strange beasts for the public's delight, because that was very profitable.

"Listen, those fences are reinforced concrete and plexiglass," growled the security staffer. "Without the zappers charged up, your monster will go straight through the first time he sees a snack on the other side. Not to mention that he is way too tall for any of the outer barriers to hide it. What about that strange new bouncing it's started doing, in the report from a week ago? And it keeps growing. We don't know what it'll do the first time it sees sunlight."

"Precisely why we must experiment! If there is any problem, you can just use the helicopters," sniffed the scientist. "And so what if a few civilians notice? Did they not come here to see the greatest wonders of the world being tamed to serve man's whims?"

Rapping his armored knuckles on a table for emphasis, the security officer growled, "I won't authorize it. We don't have anywhere near the assets on site to shut that freakshow down if things get out of hand. I'll go to the Chief about this if I have to."

"I'm afraid this is above the Chief. If we do not demonstrate the specimen's perniciousness soon, it will represent a failure to meet the committee's exploratory resolution." The scientist drew himself up to his full height and looked the security officer in the eye. "In which case, the government will act to nationalize the program and possibly even this entire site."

The security officer laughed. "They wouldn't dare. Even with those muckrakers in the press causing trouble. Legal would just dig their heels in and scream until Public Relations could do their job. Besides," a mean grin spread across his face. "The politicians like getting their payoffs, and they're all afraid that a plainclothes Intervention Team will start a riot at their next campaign rally. They won't risk ruining their comfortable lives to steal your new toy, doc. Project Trident is mean as hell, but it's not the end of the world."

By this point, the intern was desperately trying to hide himself inside the alcove, and thinking very loud thoughts about anything he could imagine other than what he was hearing. Like that yellow-eyed stare Sandra gave him earlier. The one that made his heart stop beating. While still trying to keep the tray balanced, he suddenly found himself very grateful that the pants he wore with his long white lab coat were more roomy than his safari shorts. Now that he thought back to it, the sight of Sandra pressed up against the glass was... well, it started his mind thinking about how soft she was in certain places. Like her boobs. And the way she had looked walking away, sweat running down her hard muscles and her butt swaying beneath that skirt. Her arms had to be as thick around as his legs, bulging with powerful muscle, and her legs were long and strong too. She looked so fierce when she squatted and deadlifted those powerful weights. If only all his bullies had been so beautiful... The intern let out a happy sigh, then clamped his mouth shut in terror. Now was the wrong time to make any kind of noise, unless he wanted to get disappeared!

"Regardless," the scientist spread his arms out in a grand gesture of self-sacrifice. "I have been granted full authority to ensure the deadline is met. Disappointing the politicians tends to lead to hearings, nosy agents, and all kinds of other frustrations. There is no cause for alarm. I have conducted a thorough astrological survey of the deep stellar radiation that stimulates a mass increase in the subject, and calculated that any risk is minimal at the current time." His eyes stared off into the middle distance, toward a window or monitor the intern could not see. "Magnificent, isn't it? We've done the impossible. Man is truly king of all monsters." Stretching out a hand, he tapped a button on a remote and cackled gleefully. "See! Why, the potential of such creations, such opportunities, is limitless! I shall be renown as the next Newton, the next Nobel!"

"More like the next Haber," grumbled the security officer.

Despite his brain warning him not to, the intern leaned his head out of the alcove and squinted in their direction. Curiosity had gotten him this internship, and it might well get him killed one day. He realized with a bowel-clenching start that the security officer, a captain, had a distinct red-and-gold combat action ribbon on his green armor. Everyone at A-Corp knew about the Intervention Teams, but you never really wanted to see someone from them. The paramilitary division existed to either bail you out of a very bad situation, or put you screaming into one. They usually operated from bases on A-Corp owned offshore oil rigs. If one of their captains was here, it meant... it meant... He tried to keep his hands from shaking. A-Corp cared about their employees. All he had to do was mind his place.

The intern tried to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Especially when he noticed that the scientist's lapel had the olive branch and toothy jaw insignia of the bio-engineering Special Projects Division. Rumors held that some "disloyal" employees were used as test subjects for those maniacs' pet freaks. It even made writing up the paperwork afterward easier. Unfortunate accidents with wild animals happened all the time in the pursuit of cutting edge science.

"I should think you of all people would be enthusiastic about my work." The scientist adjusted his bow-tie. "Think of how many soldiers' lives these wonders will save once we unleash them. And for a fraction of an infantry battalion's cost."

"Well, you'll have to think about that by yourself for a few days." The captain was not a happy man. "The external exhibition area flooded after yesterdays' rain, and the pumps still aren't repaired." He rubbed his eyes. "I spent all day either out there with the maintenance crew or up in a helicopter trying to find that escaped... Subject Paulo, the flappy-wing thing, whatever you called it."

"Ah yes," the scientist grinned wide. The light of madness flickered in his eyes. While he was not as physically imposing as the bullies who had tormented the intern, that look was one the young man knew too well. It was the look of a man too accustomed to using power he ought not to have. "Far more inventive than we expected, but that can be tailored in the next sequencing."

"It landed on the biggest roller coaster we have. That white-and-orange one, made out of the new metal. It's the... oh, what's it called, I haven't even had a chance to ride it yet... the Titanomachy. Ripped the tracks apart. If it wasn't for the emergency recovery robots powering up just in time, a whole lot of people would have gone splat." The captain glared. "Guest safety is supposed to be job number one, remember?"

"Well," said the man in the long white lab coat. "You should have caught it sooner."

"Maybe you shouldn't have it slip the leash, doc!" the security officer poked him in the chest, and looked as if he was about to do more than that when his radio squawked. A few coded words later, and he had been called away to a different part of the facility. Not by Master Computer, from what the intern could hear an actual human had requested his attention. All the security officer had time to yell over his shoulder was, "Don't get any stupid ideas, or I'll use your fancy college sheepskin to polish my hobnail boots!"

With an innocent grin that oozed malice, the scientist waved goodbye. Then he began toying with the remote again. The intern could almost swear that he felt a tremble in the ground, but that was probably just his own knees knocking together. A moment later the researcher he had been waiting on arrived, silently unlocked the test chamber with a swipe of his keycard, and waved the intern inside. Together they embarked on a far less frightful experiment involving chemical bonds, material hardness, and electron microscopes. This was proper science! All thoughts of terrifying tiger-girls, madmen with advanced degrees and remedial morals, or pains in his legs from walking all day faded.

Chapter 6: A Curious Encounter
When he finally staggered out of the research complex just after midnight, the intern had a warm glow of pride to buffer himself against the chill night air. He was doing what he loved. With a mighty yawn, he headed toward the coffin cabins. This late at night, Master Computer powered down most of the park's lights so power could be rerouted for other needs. It felt a bit eerie to walk down concourses intended for massive crows all by himself. He was not afraid of being mugged. The only people left in this part of the park were employees. Master Computer had enough robots carrying around mobile sensor packages to notice if some criminal hopped a fence and tried a hold-up. While the digital brain would gladly run you ragged with orders, it was fiercely protective of all A-Corp staff against external threats. However, even it could not be everywhere at once. The intern could not quite put a finger on what was making him feel uneasy, aside from the obvious horror of what he had tried not to listen to earlier. Should he tell someone? Who could he even tell that would be able to help? If that scientist had as much authority as he claimed, even Master Computer would have to obey his insane schemes...

The young man almost did not hear the coughing coming from around a corner. When he did, he would have been well within his rights not to investigate. It was late. He was tired. He was supposed to go straight back to his assigned sleeping space after work. Master Computer was supposed to keep tabs on the whole park. Putting his nose in where it did not belong might get him in trouble. And yet... it sounded like someone else was already in trouble. The intern turned off the main concourse. When he rounded the corner, he saw an elderly man in custodian's coveralls, leaning heavily on his mop cart. In one shaking hand the janitor held an orange pill bottle, while his other clutched his chest. Beads of sweat ran down his wrinkled face, and his cough sounded worse by the second.

"Mister, are you alright?" asked the intern. A dumb question, but it was the only thing he could think to say. In response, the elderly man's knees gave out. Weariness temporarily forgotten, the intern sprinted to the old man's side and seized the pill bottle from his hands. Cranking open the child-resistant cap, he took just a second to read the label before shaking out a few pills. The old man coughed hard again, but once the pills were in his mouth he swallowed as hard as he could.

"Wa-water!" rasped the janitor. Reaching into his lab coat, the intern pulled out his A-Corp issued hydration bottle. It was just like the one Sandra used when she guzzled a drink after a hard set, the cool water mixing with her sweat as it ran down her body... focus! He squirted some water into the old man's mouth. The janitor swallowed again, finally getting the pills all the way down, then slumped against his mop cart. Already he was starting to breathe more regularly.

While it was widely known that A-Corp's medical labs could produce some fantastic wonder-drugs, the results of these little pills were particularly impressive. Within a minute the elderly man's pulse was steady, his eyes were bright, and he was strong enough to stand back on his feet with a little help. "Thank you, sonny."

The intern nodded, his nerves still a little jostled. "We should get you to the hospital, mister." Why was someone this old out this late at night?

"Oh, I'll be fine. Medical monitor." The old man tapped a small, blinking device on a chain around his neck. "But it's a good thing you were here, sonny. My heart gives me trouble sometimes." The janitor leaned heavily on his mop cart. He was tall, and looked as though once he had been quite powerfully built, but time eroded all things. Now he was a frail-looking fellow whose coveralls hung loose on an elderly frame. Only his eyes were tight and focused. The way he carried himself, how he kept trying to stand on his own, also suggested that decades ago he had been a man to be reckoned with.

"Mister... aren't you... shouldn't you be retired by now?"

The janitor laughed. "Yes, they do keep trying to get rid of me." He stood up a little straighter. The intern gasped. Pinned on the chest of the man's custodian coveralls was the distinct red-and-gold of a combat action ribbon. "Been workin' here a long, long time, sonny. A-Corp takes care of me, and I clean up little messes." Before the intern could recover from his shock, the patter of mechanical feet came around the corner. A pair of medical robots hurried to the elderly man's side and began poking him all over. "About time you blasted contraptions showed up." He let them roll up his sleeve and shine a light in his eye. "Machines are just tools, sonny. They're not cures for all our woes. Humans have brains because we're supposed to use 'em." He patted his mop bucket, which had several cleaning gadgets zip-tied through its frame and a pair of small speakers fitted into the top cradle. "We're tool makers. That's what sets us apart from everything else in the world. A machine just can't innovate the way we do."

To hear such a thing said so flippantly was unsettling to the young man. The company line was that robots were always on-time, and always efficient. Especially those directly controlled by Master Computer. He scratched his head, uncertain what exactly to say in response. "Um... I... yes, mister."

"Oh, everybody calls me Al, sonny." The elderly man held out his hand, then glared at one of the medical robots who tried to push it back down to his side. With just a bit of shyness, the intern shook it and found the grip was surprisingly strong. One of the medical bots marched over to him and took away the bottle of pills he was still holding, then stuffed them into a compartment in its chest.

"Nice to meet you, Al."

"The pleasure's all mine," chuckled the janitor. "Success in life has a lot to do with being the right man, in the right place, at the right time. Using that brain of yours to make a quick decision. That's what makes us men, rather than tools." He squinted at the intern's uniform. "What's your nametag say... eyes aren't what they should be..."

"Henry, sir. Henry nine-eight-two-three." That was the company approved way of introducing yourself. Your name, followed by the last four digits of your employee identification number.

Al grinned as the medical robots picked him up and began to bodily carry him away toward the hospital. "Nice meeting you, Henry. Thanks again!"

Henry -9823 scratched his head and yawned, then returned to the main path and continued his journey back to the coffin cabins. It seemed a bit... inhumane to have an elderly person out and working this late in the evening. Someone with a combat action ribbon surely had a pension, so why was he still working at all? Perhaps those pills were expensive, so A-Corp expected some kind of labor in trade. He seemed to have a store of hard-won wisdom. Maybe the old man was right, and even Master Computer sometimes made mistakes. Those were dangerous thoughts, so Henry put them aside as he climbed up to his sleeping quarters.

It was nice to meet someone new. With so many people living so close together in the coffin cabin block, everyone seemed a little less willing to socialize. There was a lot of politeness, and a lot of emphasis on personal space when walking around since they lacked private space to retreat to. The guests were always hemming you in and pushing on you, so employees tried to give each other a little more room. It was a subconscious thing, you barely thought about it after the first month. Therapy was always available for those who had trouble adjusting, and the shrinks usually had good advice. Meeting someone new, maybe even saving a life, was a nice surprise. Henry could not remember the last time he did something that was not on his Master Computer-generated schedule. But, that was the A-Corp way, and A-Corp got results. Rolling over on his sleeping pad, he yawned heavily. Henry barely noticed when the built-in television clicked on and began cooing the corporate anthem to help him fall asleep. The A-Corp way, for a more productive today. When he fell asleep, his dreams were not of corporate slogans, but of growling tigers and cackling scientists.

Chapter 7: Morning Routine
To avoid bottlenecks, Master Computer woke employees in shifts. Because the intern had worked late on a sanctioned project, the system had automatically reassigned him to a shift later in the morning. Through a combination of cheery music and piston-driven prodding, Henry 9823 woke up, whomped his head into the padded ceiling like usual, and squirmed out of the sleeping pod. Down the ladder he went. It was a bright new day, full of opportunities for productivity. Sunlight shone down through the glass hexagons of the sleeping quarters' domed ceiling. First came morning hygiene. He dropped off yesterday's uniform for laundering, and a robot assistant brought him a fresh new one after he finished his shower. The water was always just the right temperature, starting out warm and welcoming but easing into a cool wash that woke you up and got your heart moving.

The guide stifled a yawn as he pulled on a standard-issue shirt and velcroed on his name patch. His lanyard keycard would open many of the hidden passages around the park intended to help employees avoid crowds. At least he wasn't putting on a costume today. Master Computer was very particular that no two identical mascots ever be within a guest's line of sight. That often meant ducking into security tunnels, hiding behind concession stands, or trying to sprint in a partially-decommissioned exoskeleton prototype that had been covered in fuzzy foam and painted to look like a movie character. The guide rubbed sunscreen all over his arms, face, and legs. Guests got to lounge in the shade as much as they wanted, but he had to be on the bounce. Safari shorts and a jaunty hat, along with surprisingly comfortable hiking boots, completed his uniform. He smiled in the mirror. If you made the kids happy, their parents would be extremely grateful. Sometimes you got to help somebody remember their own inner child. He wondered what his little brother was up to right now. Probably already at school.

Next came morning sustenance. The employee mess hall served many different nutrition-rich blends of paste, gruel, or semi-solids for him to choose from. While he could go over to the guests' side of the zoo and get a jumbo-size hot dog with a Mega Gulp soda for breakfast, the gruel was both subsidized and highly recommended. Breakfast was an important meal to help ensure productivity. Technically the employee mess was in operation twenty-four hours a day. Most food production in the park was heavily automated behind the scenes. From the pizza assembly line that cranked out ten thousand perfectly portioned and cooked personal pan pizzas every day, to the chicken fillet grills and fry-vats that were manned by robots instead of... well, men or women, Master Computer conducted a grand orchestra that kept the humans fed. In theory. Actually, human intervention was frequently needed. Robots were great at doing one thing over and over, but if a belt slipped or an ingredient was in the wrong place, it was computationally cheaper to ask a human to solve the problem.

Sort of like last night. Sure, Master Computer's medical robots had shown up, but he had been in the right place at the right time to help. It came down to trust. Most of the time, the big digital brain in a bunker far below his feet knew what it was doing. Without it, there was no way this facility could function anywhere near as efficiently. But there were some things humans just did better, and innovation was one of them. That was kind of what the janitor had meant when he said humans were tool-makers. The mess hall's hexagonal windows had a great view over the varied animal environments at the park. Thanks to some heavy investment in localizing ecosystems, A-Corp had managed to simulate mountainous forests right next to jungles, and operate a water-park right next to a desert enclosure. While Henry 9823 didn't think he was a wild-eyed corporate fanatic, he could at least appreciate the magnitude of such achievements.

Sometimes the intern felt a bit like he was an ant in an exhibit. Crawling along with a lot of people wearing uniforms just like his, constantly under watchful electronic eyes, never quite understanding the bigger picture. Another day, another tour group to lead around. At least last night's experimental results showed promise. They had been able to isolate and reproduce the standard sequences under controlled conditions. According to Master Computer's analysis, the process was stable enough to be considered for mass production. Not a breakthrough, but another step along the road of discovery. That was something to be happy about. And he would get to see Sandra this morning too. Henry was not quite sure if that was something he was happy about or not. He thought back to last night, when he was terrified yet still had an erection, and wondered if something was wrong with his brain. Fear and... well, that, were not supposed to occur at the same time.

Pushing some of his nutrient gruel around on the tray, he decided not to bring the matter up at his next therapy session. It wasn't hurting his work performance, so the company didn't need to know. The therapist might try setting him up with some kind of company dating service, and he was certain that would end in tears. Or fire. Probably fire, actually. He swallowed nervously, trying not to think about that time he had lit Becky-Lynn's skirt on fire while trying to ask her out. They were both on the honor roll, she had seemed interested, he had tried to seize the moment during a boring chemistry lab... ethanol fires were nearly invisible to the human eye... Henry tried not to think about how everyone had laughed. No one had been injured, except for his pride. The jokes about how the "fastest way to get a girl's clothes off is to burn right through them" had stuck with him until he graduated. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his thoughts. There was nothing wrong with his brain, and he would not screw up like that again. Besides, it wasn't like he would ever see Sandra without sturdy transparent thermoplastic between the two of them.

====

On the other side of the park, Sandra was already awake and working through her morning combat drills. Slash, punch, kick, throw, each motion powerful and controlled. The heavy weights strapped to her limbs and core made every strike more challenging. Back in her homeland it had been difficult to properly balance and fit weights for one's body, but the humans had managed it overnight when she asked. These made every movement harder, from swinging between the bars of the climbing frame to keeping her balance while walking on her front paws with her legs above her head. Lunging through the air, as though she was trying to tackle fleeing prey, took a lot more muscle too. There were heavy poles to throw and targets to pierce, simulated carcasses to shoulder, and underbrush to slink through.

Whenever she asked for a set of weights that was a little heaver, the humans had it ready within half a day. Suspiciously quick, just like food. Any time she wanted more food, it was ready before the sun had moved enough to turn the trees' shadows from one rock to the next. Any food, even the concoction of fruits, seeds, and vegetables she ground up with a mortar and pestle every morning for her waking meal. It was proper that they show such reverence for her, but such speed also worried the tigress. How could the humans produce a feast so quickly? It smelled strongly of the metal men's doing. The humans trusted greatly in such animated carvings, almost worshipping, yet they were so fragile. Such was the way of all metal idols.

Truthfully, she felt a little guilty. Food was something you should have to work for. Struggle made the meal taste better. Since she did not have to hunt prey, let alone haul the kill back to camp and share it with the tribe, the closest thing to real struggle that she had was intense exercise. Sandra kept pushing herself, adding more strength to her body and more speed to her attacks. To train more she needed to eat more, which had been a real problem back home. The poachers slaughtered entire herds with their fire-sticks, leaving the carcasses to rot and taking only a few trinkets. This had gone on for many years, leaving all animals short on food. Especially her kind, for they understood the damage being done to the land and so could not greedily take everything that was left. The Great Sky-Tiger wished for them to guide lesser creatures, not starve them for their own sake. Rulership was a heavy burden.

Ever since she was a kitten, Sandra had eaten only what she needed. The tribe had a rationing system. First portion to the one who made the kill, then to those who stood watch. Next came those with child and the children. After them were the medicine-makers, the wise ones, and the wounded. Last of all to eat were those too old to fight, and those who had hunted but returned with nothing. After so many years of the poachers' attacks, a curious tradition had developed. If you could not hunt, but you could provide some other kind of food, you were respected as one who had hunted even though you ate last from the meat. Someone too old to fight might tend mushrooms in the sacred caves, or find fruits not yet gobbled by monkeys in the trees. With the devastation of the gazelle and antelope herds, a warrior who could not bring home a kill might instead gather wild plants that could be ground and eaten as a porridge. In the time of their ancestors it would have been unthinkable, for if they did not thin the herds they would be overrun by them.

Legends told of a time when enormous beasts roamed across the land, with giant tusks or flaming breath, and only those blessed by the Great Tiger-Spirit could challenge them for dominance. The battles were honorable and titanic. The victor would devour the heart of the foe to gain their power. She licked her lips at the thought. From that time, a sacred tradition still persisted. The greatest slight one of her kind could make against another, worse than drowning an infant before the eyes of its mother, was stealing a great kill before the one who had made it could devour its strength. No matter how hungry you were, or how desperately the meat was needed, the warrior who took the prize deserved her honor and her power. To steal it was an accusation of unrighteousness. It was a proclamation that the one who had made the kill was as terrible as those who, with claws wreathed in blue flame, had ripped and torn at one another from their all-consuming lust for strength.

Sandra chugged some more of the nutritious mixture she had made while pausing to pant for breath. Sweat trickled down her body. This early in the morning, she did not have to wear the outfit with the skirt. Just a simple covering that wicked sweat from her skin was enough. These humans had too much time on their hands. They made clothes for swimming, clothes for night, clothes for day, clothes for festivals, and clothes for lazing about. Still, it felt nice on her body and seemed to help her stay a little cooler while exercising. Back home they were always careful to balance their exertion. The hot sun could sneak up on a warrior and strike her low with heatstroke. Likewise, they had to be careful about meals. It was not wise to have a hungry belly when the alarm was sounded, nor be too full.

As she finished one squeeze bottle, tossed it over her shoulder, and grabbed another on her next lap through the obstacles she had set out around the enclosure, the tigress could smell the humans' cooking fires. Meat, sizzling on little metal turners. Eggs, tiny instead of the huge ones back home, cooking atop things that glowed hot like the sun on a rock. Leaping over a stack of rubber tires, she leaned her head back and roared loud enough to shake the park. If there was no shortage of food, then she could not permit herself any shortage of struggle! If there was always more, and they would bring it whenever she wanted, then she would eat like the ancestors had.

When great-grandmother spoke of the ancients' ways, how they had trained their bodies and minds until all that the light touched was truly their kingdom, she had not believed. To a little girl who could not sleep because of the distant chatter of fire-sticks, the hope of unquestioned rulership over their homeland, let alone all they could see from the top of the sacred mountain, was too much to imagine. The old stories had been only stories to her. Now, with her heart racing and her muscles pumping, after moons of moons spent training with heavier and heavier weights while eating larger and larger meals, Sandra cast her mind back to all that she had heard when the story-fires burned low. She would become mighty like the ancestors. If the only thing the humans wanted in trade was a bit of blood now and again, she had blood to spare!

====

Master Computer coordinated the ever-fluctuating schedules needed to keep the entire site, from zoo to weapons labs, running smoothly. A digital brain, thought to be the greatest achievement of the megacorporation's reclusive owner, Master Computer was both an amazing success and a quiet failure. Rumors swirled about the original intention of its system architecture. The only thing known for certain was that the government contract it had been built for was canceled shortly before the project's completion. Not one to let such work go to waste, A-Corp repurposed the system to help manage the day-to-day operations of their varied facilities. A Master Computer shard managed every major A-Corp site. The digital brain was credited with massive cost savings, efficiency boosts, and making critical decisions far faster than a human would. Employees were taught to trust Master Computer, who worked twenty-four hours a day so you didn't have to.

Henry shut his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again, hoping that the job assignment would somehow change. No, no of course it would not. He had been allowed to sleep in late. Master Computer had reassigned him to ensure a more optimized schedule. Instead of preparing to lead another mob of tourists around the zoo, he was to report to service tunnel 7G in sector Jade-2 for routine animal care and feeding. When Master Computer changed your schedule, it was doing so for your benefit and A-Corp's benefit.

That was fine. Animal care was important too. He dribbled sugar water in the insect exhibit's hoppers, set out worms and seed for the avians, and shoveled in fruit for a very ungrateful bunch of monkeys. Along the way the intern cleaned up more molted snakeskin than he ever imagined possible, shoveled many different types of dung that all stank, and puked his guts out after one of those adorable monkeys splatted him right in the face with a particularly messy poo-throw. Still, he got the tasks done, and had managed not to be trampled by the elephants while he was at it. Master Computer added a light green "Adequate Job!" mark to his record and ordered him back to the showers for a full decontamination before his next assignment. That meant the big stall, the one with nozzles pointed at you from every direction that hosed you down with high-pressure water to eradicate every trace of grime. Then descended the servo arms with scrub-brushes. The big stall was used in the event of radiation accidents. Regular showers in it were only slightly less invasive. Master Computer even made sure that he brushed his teeth afterward to get that icky vomit taste out.

Once beaten into cleanliness, he pulled on yet another fresh uniform and velcroed his name patch onto the shirt. A chirp from his radio alerted him that his next assignment had been transmitted. Henry read it three times, just to be certain. By the end of the second, his hands were shaking. The assignment was for animal care and feeding again, but he was not going to be throwing fruit to monkeys. He was supposed to deliver food to a specific enclosure, the identifier for which he recognized from having led many tours past it. The attached instructions read, "Take every precaution to ensure our guest is as comfortable as possible. Her happiness is a priority for multiple project initiatives, both short and long term. Remember that her culture is very different from ours, and that you are acting as an ambassador of A-Corp in this limited remit." The last line was the most horrifying, and not just because it was written in legal-speak: "Failure to acclimate to our guest's preferences may cause considerable damages to company reputation, property, and personnel; for which you may be held liable as per section Sierra-Sixty-Six of your employment contract."

Another guide in the locker room overheard him mumbling his orders out loud, and gave him a friendly clap on the back. "What're you so worked up about?"

"I think the robot overlord just gave me a death sentence," Henry fought to keep his voice steady. "It wants me to bring food to the tiger-girl." He would be alone with her. A chill went down his spine. What if he was the meal that was being delivered? Had Master Computer decided he knew too much? There would be no witnesses. Sweat ran down his brow as his imagination ran away. Would the tigress go through with it if she saw it was him she was supposed to eat? Did she even know his name?

"Sandra? Oh, wow." The other guide grinned. "Well, what're you worried about? She's always nice to you."

Henry's hands felt clammy. He remembered how she had towered over him yesterday, pressing her strong arms and soft... other parts against the glass. Those hypnotic yellow eyes boring deep into his soul. Sharp claws and sharper fangs ready to tear at his flesh... "No. No she is not!"

"Man, listen. You took the tour ahead of mine past her cage yesterday, right? Well, your people got a show and a half, they were posting pictures and everything. I could hear the roars that big cat made all the way on the other side of the howler monkey enclosure, okay?" The other guide adjusted his floppy hat and grinned at himself in the mirror. "My people got to watch her sit in a river and roll around on some grass. Maybe a little growling. I about had somebody shove a hot dog down my shirt. Some people were even talking about wanting their money back." Refunds were something A-Corp in general, and Master Computer in specific, took a very dim view of. Public Relations much preferred to bribe reporters and subvert online review sites than refund disgruntled customers.

The intern brightened a little. "I... I guess. I just wish... I felt like she wanted to tear me in half."

"Maybe she does." The other guide shrugged. "But that don't matter. As long as you keep the glass between you and her, you're gold. Head over there, put the food through the rotary, wave, head out. It's as easy as that. I've..." His face turned a little pale. "I've done it before. Nothing to it, y-yeah?" The quiver in his voice undermined his confident words. "You just get out of there as quick as you can after you make the drop." For no apparent reason, the other guide leaned down and checked to make sure his hiking boots were tied just right for running. "Good luck man." He shut his locker with a clang. "And hey, at least you gotta be better at it than the last guy, right? Poor fella."

Henry's eyes widened. "What last guy?"

The other guide didn't respond at first. He was already halfway to the locker room exit and whistling a safari tune.

"Hey! Hey, what last guy?" Henry called after him nervously.

"Don't worry about it!" yelled back the other guide.

"No, I'm serious, tell me what happened!"

With a shrug, the other guide simply pointed to a locker on his way out. Afraid to look, yet afraid not to, the intern scurried over and stared at the digital name plate. Instead of showing a name and the last four digits of someone's employee ID, it simply read, "Vacant-NULL".

Staggering back, the intern barely managed to sit down on a bench instead of falling over. His mouth was dry as cotton, and his heart hammered in his chest. Why? Why was this happening to him? All he wanted to do was work with chemical bonds and lasers in a nice, safe laboratory. Before he could break down into tears, his radio squawked, reminding him that he needed to be on-time for his next assignment. The young man staggered to his feet and back to his locker, stared at the graduation picture where he and his family all looked so happy together, then shut the locker door.

Chapter 8: Special Delivery
Instead of a fruit basket or a bale of hay, the food Henry was supposed to take to the tigress' enclosure looked as if it were intended for a VIP suite at one of the hotels. He double-checked the identification tag, wondering if there had been a mistake. A roller cart with three shelves of covered dishes, all etched with A-Corp executive iconography and all smelling delicious. Especially to someone whose stomach was empty. Any trace of the monkey's dung that had splattered across his face was gone, blasted away by the high-pressure nozzles and scrubbed out by servo arms. The gruel he ate for breakfast had tasted about the same coming up as it had going down He guessed that was a small mercy. Now that the nausea had passed, Henry felt very hungry. This looked like enough food to cater a luncheon.

The guide peeked under the lid of a covered dish and saw a plate full of tender beef ribs. Under another was a bowl of scrambled eggs, lightly peppered and mixed with spinach. He stared at it for a long moment, fighting back the urge to shovel out some and gulp it down. There were two gallons of milk, a half-gallon of pureed oranges, a giant bowl of steel-cut oats, and a tray of lightly grilled bell peppers. Exotic fruits had been decoratively sliced as garnishes. The edible bits of an entire boar, probably imported for slaughter from one of A-Corp's far north garrisons, filled the bottom rack. It smelled savory. His stomach grumbled, and Henry quickly set the lid back in place. Several different birds had been carefully prepared and waited under covers on the middle shelf. It all seemed excessive. This tigress was a mean biped who liked to pick on people, a curiosity A-Corp had under study, not some kind of foreign ambassador who had to be kept happy! As he pushed the cart up an incline, careful not to spill anything, he wondered how anyone could eat this much.

When he reached the top of the concrete hill, his stomach gurgling most of the way and the delicious smells assaulting his senses, he began to feel like he could eat a lot of it on his own. Henry swiped his identification badge through the reader outside a service tunnel entrance, and a security grate rolled open to allow him through. As he made his way along the underground corridor, those drab walls concentrating the cart's chorus of aromas, temptation grew stronger. She would never notice a little missing, right? But what if she did... and the weightlifting tiger-girl decided to eat him to make up the deficit? A shiver ran down his spine. Accidents happened all the time. A-Corp would send a perfunctory notification to his parents, and cremate his remains. If there were any remains. Since he was an intern, he wasn't even covered by the corporation's life insurance policy! Or worse, if he survived, he would be fired!

Gritting his teeth, he pushed onward. That message from Master Computer said he was supposed to act like an ambassador. Henry really was not sure what that meant. Usually when he had been called upon to do something completely different than usual, Master Computer scheduled him for flash-training. It hurt, but it let you temporarily know everything you needed to for a specific set of duties. There were only minor side-effects. But he did not need his head shoved into a whirlpool of light and sound to know that ambassadors didn't steal other people's food. The guide exited one service tunnel, made a left, then swiped his badge to open another. Each step brought him closer and closer to that hulking, terrifying tiger-girl who he could not quite get out of his thoughts. Sweat ran down his back, even though the service tunnel was ten degrees cooler than outside.

If he ever wanted to amount to something, A-Corp was the best place in the world to work. So if had to drudge away and starve to earn it he would. Cleaning up after animals, scraping gum off the underside of cinema seats, or risking his life to feed a roaring bully, none of that mattered. Last night's experiment helped make it all worthwhile. There would be more experiments, more breakthroughs, and he would be part of them. He would make his family proud. He had to keep this job, had to!

====

As the other guide had helpfully advised him, there was indeed a transparent pass-through at the service entrance to Sandra's enclosure. He should be able to load the cart in, cycle it through, and then be on his way. Unfortunately, an out-of-order sign ruined everything. Henry lifted the sign and glared. The delivery portal looked fine to him. How broken could a simple rotary door be? There were not even any servo-assist arms or magnetic rails that could malfunction. Maybe it just had something stuck in the workings that made it squeak, but whoever was supposed to clean the track instead hung a sign and marked it as a task for end-of-day. Janitors were the ones who usually hung out-of-order signs. When guests were out and about, most of their time was spent cleaning up human messes. Mechanical problems, especially those not guest-facing, had to wait. The guide sighed, and realized he was procrastinating. He wiggled the large cylindrical door experimentally. It moved, then got caught on the chain holding the out-of-order sign in place.

The smell of all that delicious food was really getting to him. For a moment Henry thought about pushing the cart in and trying to force the pass-through to cycle, but... if the food cart got stuck partway through, he would... well... Thoughts of the tiger-girl bursting through the wall to gobble him up filled his mind. He shook his head to clear it. That was crazy. The wall was reinforced concrete. He was perfectly safe as long as he was on this side of the wall. But, if he disregarded posted instructions and got the food cart stuck in a non-functional rotary door he would be written up... and since this was a really important task he might be fired outright. The guide mopped his brow with a rag. He had worried more about death and disgrace in the past twelve hours than in a very long time, and it was not even lunchtime yet. His stomach rumbled again.

Henry looked over at the wide motor-driven hatch that led into the tigress' enclosure. The cart rattled as he pushed it up to the entrance. This was a high-security hatch, built to keep things on both sides safe from each other. Sort of like the heavy blast doors they had in the underground research sites, though Henry had only glimpsed those. He was pretty sure he should not have clearance to open this. The guide held his breath as he ran his keycard through the reader next to the hatch. If the light flashed red and denied him access, he would have some justification to try the rotary door... but of course it did not. Master Computer did not make such mistakes, no matter what the elderly janitor had said. With a nerve-wracking hiss of pneumatics, the circular hatch split open and folded into the wall. Beyond was darkness. He swallowed nervously as his eyes adjusted.

The majority of the tigress' enclosure was visible to the public. A sprawling hillside, sparsely populated with fake and real trees. A babbling brook that had its own filtration pump and waterfall. Climbing frames, dangling rings, all sorts of things to occupy her and interest the crowds. Occasionally they even gave Sandra one of the new souvenirs to play with, a big stuffed animal or funny hat, which of course made visitors want one. But the underside of her green hill was connected to the park's service tunnels and out of the public eye. With walls of natural-looking stone, it emulated the caves her people used to hide from and outmaneuver the poachers that troubled her homeland. It was dimly lit, at least compared to the bright lights of the service tunnel. Intended for use as a shelter during inclement weather or a retreat if she was feeling out of sorts, the undercroft also had a large stone table meant for eating. It was much like the table up on the surface where she sometimes snacked for the delight of the crowds.

Henry tried to push the cart forward, but it bumped against the raised base of the hatch. Sweat ran down his back as he realized he would have to lift from the front and pull the cart into the enclosure, rather than shoving it across the threshold and slapping the door close button. His knees knocked together. Straightening his hat, he looked from side to side and stepped into the darkness. The tigress was nowhere to be seen. She was probably out front, entertaining the zoo's visitors. That was her job. As long as everyone did their job, everything would work out fine. That was the A-Corp spirit. The stone table reminded him of sacrificial altars used by primitive tribes. He had read stories about how cannibals would cut out the hearts of still-living victims. Their bloody-handed priests labored under the delusion that gore would make rain fall or grant glory in war. For some reason that made him think of last night's encounter with the borderline-insane scientist from the Special Projects Division. Henry tried to keep such disloyal thoughts out of his mind. There was enough to worry about in the here and now.

Grasping the cart's handle, he heaved it over the base of the hatch. Dishes rattled together like wind chimes. With a grunt, he pulled the cart toward himself, wiggling it a little as the hatch scraped against the bottom shelf. To his surprise the second pair of wheels bumped over the base of the hatch with little complaint. Looking around again, particularly at the archway that led out to the grassy top of the habitat, he tried to stay calm. Sandra had to be out front. Probably didn't even know he was back here. Just like she didn't know his name. The guide pulled the cart over to the stone table. He was a nobody. Sometimes it was good to be nobody.

His heartrate began to drop back to normal as he looked back toward the hatch. He had gotten all worked up over nothing. Just a few more steps and he would be at the side of the stone table, near where the glass pass-through would have deposited the cart. Then he would walk back out, slap the close controls for the hatch, and grab a snack on his way back for reassignment. Maybe one of the big soft pretzels from the stalls, or a box of chicken nuggets at the food court. His mouth watered a little. Much of the incidental vending was handled by real humans, but the larger food courts were near-totally automated. Master Computer had calculated that was the most efficient way to feed the masses. Henry glanced around again, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Everything was going to be just fine. His nerves were on edge, and he was hungry. That was why he felt so frantic and why his thoughts raced in all directions. Robots just couldn't make a banana split as good as a human, but they did help with regulating the liquid nitrogen used to make fresh ice cream right in front of the guests. Why couldn't Master Computer have sent a robot to do this?

Thinking about ice cream made his mouth water more. Henry glanced over at the sunny archway, then at the stone table, and tried to force himself to relax as he neared the cart's final destination. The big tigress was terrifying, and beautiful, and nowhere to be seen. Just one more step, then he could run for the exit. He looked toward the archway again. The dishes rattled. All of this food smelled so good. He heard a soft whump from the direction of the hatch, and the cart stopped moving as though it had gotten caught on something. Henry turned his head to look, thinking that some of the napkins had fallen from the cart and gotten caught under a wheel. At the same time, he realized why Master Computer had not sent a robot. Humans were far easier and less expensive to replace.

Deep amber eyes stared into his soul. With her elbows resting on the opposite handlebar of the cart, Sandra stared at him, cupping her chin in her front paws. Her striped tail swayed from side to side above her arched back. When his eyes locked with hers, there was a long second where his brain refused to accept reality. Then he realized his error. Crushing disappointment, the kind that came when he realized he had forgotten to account for a variable during an experiment, filled him. Henry had looked from side to side and at the archway. He had checked all the places a human might conceal herself for an attack. But the tigress' claws could rend metal. She was accustomed to dropping on prey from above, and to hiding in caves. It was no challenge for her to hang from the ceiling above the hatch and wait for her food to pass beneath. Why, it was as natural for her as waiting in a tree for an unwary gazelle. She was an apex predator, and she acted like one. Bigger, stronger, faster than he could ever hope to be. Just like all the others who had picked on him over the years. A smile large enough to bite his head off spread across her face. Henry began to shiver, his knuckles turning white on the cart handle. He was going to die.

The tigress tilted her head to the side, still staring with those unblinking yellow eyes. She leaned forward ever so slightly. Henry grabbed one of the domed lids from a dish and held it up like a shield. Not that a bit of tin would make any difference at all to claws that could dig into rock. In this moment he was not a scientist, nor an intern hoping for grander things, just a frightened human who had been cornered by a hungry beast. She reached over the cart with a paw, stretching out a fuzzy finger toward him. Her gloves were off, likely to make it easier to cling to the ceiling or disembowel hapless humans. She had a mere three fingers plus a thumb on each hand, and each finger was wider to accommodate the deadly retractable claws. Right now they were hidden, but he knew how quickly they could flash out and rend the hardest armor A-Corp had tested. He cowered behind the tin lid, legs stiff from fright and a scream frozen in his throat. She easily reached around the improvised shield, but instead of clawing out his eyes with a casual snikt, the tigress tapped his nose.

"Boop," rumbled Sandra.

He blinked in confusion. "B-boop?"

She nodded, staring at him expectantly. The stress of the moment and the absurdity of it all finally got to him. He leaned against the stone table and broke down laughing. This seemed to please Sandra, who clapped her fuzzy paws together with a big grin. Backlit by the service tunnel's bright lights, she still looked quite intimidating, but a little less now than before.

"Ah," the tigress purred proudly. "So it does work!" Her toothy grin proclaimed that this was somehow a momentous occasion.

Henry was surprised to hear her speak. While the guide knew her kind were biologically able to converse, she was usually the strong, silent type. In his mind, Sandra had become a looming, dangerous bully who took sadistic joy in tormenting him without saying a word. Part of that terrifying image cracked when she patted him on the nose with her huge paw.

"Wh-what?" he managed to ask once he brought his laughter under control.

"I have seen tall humans do that to smaller ones who are crying, and it causes them to laugh." She frowned a little. "But sometimes it must be done more than once."

For a moment he felt insulted to be treated as a child, and worse yet to be told so forthrightly about it. Then Henry recognized a familiar style of thought. Was she... could she possibly be... attempting an experimental method? Trying to reproduce an observed result under controlled conditions? Primitive in form, but then again she was trying to study a social science. Might be trying to study a social science. He could be sure of nothing. Had he just been experimented upon? While he pondered, she picked up one of the beef ribs from the plate he had uncovered and began stripping meat from bone.

Carefully, Henry asked, "Why would you care?"

She raised an eyebrow. Her striped tail twitched from side to side.

"About how I feel," he stood up a little straighter, still holding the domed lid. "Why do you care if I laugh or cry?"

She swallowed a mouthful of meat. "Do your human rulers want to be surrounded by sad faces?" He shook his head, still not quite understanding. Sandra sat down on a smooth rock next to the stone table, crossed her legs, and gestured for him to move the plate of ribs in front of her. "If you want to know someone, truly know them, you must ask their spirit when it is in extremes. Happiness. Sadness. Sickness. Health." She crunched down on a bone, snapping it in half and sucking out the marrow. "Terror. Tranquility. If you do not ask these, you do not know the spirit. Then you bind yourself for disappointment when you truly meet that spirit."

Chapter 9: Sharing Food
Sandra spoke his language with a low, rumbling accent and a distinct growl in her words, but she spoke it well. He nodded slowly to show he understood. Also to show that he was not a threat to her. Henry really did not expect that she could consider him a threat, but most spiders were not dangerous to humans yet they got squished if they scuttled in the wrong place anyway.

The tigress pointed to a different dish, wordlessly instructing him to move it from cart to table. This was beyond the work he had expected to do, but his orders were to accommodate her requests. He was an ambassador of A-Corp right now. Whatever that meant. Most of him was happy that he had not been eaten alive when she revealed herself. Part of him, a shy part, was happy to see her. This was the first time they had met without a physical barrier separating them.

Her words about asking a person's spirit made a kind of sense. The culture she came from valued strength and forthrightness. It was better to be blunt and disappointed immediately than put too much weight on a weak person who would collapse later.

Curiously, Henry asked, "Does... does that mean you want to meet my spirit?"

Her grin flashed again. His heart stopped as he realized how close "meet" and "eat" sounded. Especially when he was nervous, and stammering, and-and-and...

"I have seen your human royalty eat with cloth hanging down their front," she said instead of answering. Sitting up straight on the stone, Sandra pointed to one of the cloth napkins embroidered with A-Corp executive iconography. "I want to try."

So far Henry had been able to keep the metal cart or the stone table between himself and the tigress. Not that either was a real barrier, but it helped. She was asking him to move closer than that, close enough to tie a napkin around her neck. Granted, A-Corp executive napkins were near the size and make of towels. Especially when compared to the scrawny one-ply sheets made from recycled paper that dispensers offered in the park's food courts. There was no doubt that the fabric was up to the job. Was he? With trembling hands Henry picked up the napkin and stepped to her side.

She crunched at a bone. He reflexively jumped back a step, but steeled his nerves and crept closer. Sandra was a colossus. Her arms rippled with muscle and her bosom jiggled beneath her shirt as she chewed. Even as terrified as he was, he could not help but admire her body. This close, he could see the individual tiger-stripes in her hair and smell some kind of sweet berry or flower fragrance she must have rolled in recently. There were a lot of odd plants imported from her homeland around the enclosure, many of which the science teams still had on their research queues. Henry raised the napkin in both hands and draped it over her front with a flourish. She continued stripping meat from bone, seeming completely unconcerned with his presence. Her feline ears twitched from side to side. She could hear on a far wider spectrum and with far greater acuity than any human. Especially him. He brought the napkin's ends together behind her neck and tied them with a quick bow.

Sandra glanced at her reflection in one of the shiny lids, then nodded with approval. He let out a breath he did not know he had been holding. Though he was afraid to even think it, she looked almost like an overgrown infant with that bib on. No, that was not quite right, the tigress had all the wrong proportions for an infant. Those long legs and arms... that rock-hard core with pillow-soft breasts and a padded bottom... her teasing tail that kept trying to trip him up... She was no infant. But she looked a little more innocent. A little less like the cruel tormentor he was sure she was. Why else would she demand things like a bib around her neck if not to show her power over him? Before he could retreat, his stomach betrayed him with a hungry gurgle.

Her yellow eyes cut toward the guide. She sniffed the air as he slowly backed away. The tigress' tongue ran over her lips. "Hungry," she said, sniffing at the air again afterward. He did not know if it was a question or a statement, but Sandra acted as if she had just said something of great importance. The big tigress stopped eating, even though the plate of ribs in front of her was only half-finished. She adjusted the napkin that dangled over her front, tugging it down to make sure it covered all of her considerable bosom. There was a slight blush on her cheeks. If he did not know better, Henry would think she was a little embarrassed. Like he would be if he made an error in etiquette at a business luncheon. Even while sitting cross-legged on the rock her head was a little higher than his.

After a few seconds she turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow expectantly. He took another uncertain step back. While she might not be standing between him and the exit hatch anymore, he knew she could be in the blink of an eye. A nervous moment passed. She sniffed at the air again, then her eyes widened as if she had just made some great discovery.

Reaching out with one of her paws, she pointed to one of the bowls still on the cart. He stepped forward and picked it up, carefully setting it on the stone table in front of her. She looked at the bowl, then at him, and shifted her posture slightly. Her ears twitched up, then down. The guide's thoughts raced as he tried to understand, but terror and hunger sapped his intellect. Her striped tail twitched. He leaned backward. She gave a low purr. Henry blinked. He was confused. After a few seconds, she pointed at the bowl again and said, "Uncover it."

"Oh." Reaching down, he lifted the lid and set it on the roller cart. The smell of scrambled eggs, fortified with iron-rich spinach, wafted through the air. It filled his nostrils and made his gut growl louder. Pain lanced through his abdomen. He tried to stay upright, to force a smile. She was a giant predator. This was not the time to appear weak, or sad. Sandra had already told him she wanted to see happy faces. Next time she booped him on the nose, she might do so with her claws out! Gritting his teeth, he tried to remain standing. The tigress continued to stare at him. She folded her paws together. A bead of sweat formed on his brow. He felt that he was being sized up. Was the food not good enough? She seemed agitated. Desperate, he asked, "Should... may I leave?"

Henry expected her to wave a paw and dismiss him, or shake her head and snarl some other order. That was what a bully would do. Instead, Sandra asked softly, "Are you not hungry?"

"I don't matter," he tried to reassure her. "I am just here to bring you food." That was his job right now, assigned by Master Computer, and he had to do it right.

The tigress nodded, her tail swaying up and down. There were curious patterns in the way she moved. He had noticed them before while guiding tours past her enclosure. When she was stalking something, usually simulated prey, her every action seemed to blend together into an almost hypnotic flow. Like water trickling over rocks. Those deadly paws were still folded together. He wished she would start eating again. Then he could leave and get something to end the pains in his stomach.

"Yes. You brought food." She nodded politely, as if she had explained everything. Silence filled the undercroft.

"Um... d-do you not like it? Should I take it back and bring something else?"

"It is delicious," she assured him. There was a soothing note in her rumbling voice.

He felt a little lightheaded. Maybe it was hunger, maybe it was her yellow eyes, maybe it was some of those subharmonics in her purrs that could send shivers up his spine without his conscious mind realizing it, but he felt detached from his body. An eerie calm settled over him.

The tigress asked, "Why do you not eat?"

"Because this is your food."

Sandra pointed at him. "But you brought it. You are hungry. You should have the first portion." She gestured toward the bowl of eggs. "This smells most of your interest."

He swallowed hard, trying to understand. "I... I didn't spit in it or anything, I promise... wait, you can smell that I looked in there earlier?" Countless robots had prepared the food, and several other humans were likely involved in the process at some point. If her senses were acute enough to isolate that he had merely lifted the lid, stared at it for a while, and maybe almost reached in...

She leaned her head to the side and looked at him as though he was asking questions a child should know the answers to. Slowly, the tigress nodded. "Humans leave trails on the things they touch and the paths they walk. It is how we trace invaders. Often they tried to cover their scent with smelly liquid, or even fire, but there are almost always tracks that eyes cannot see unless closed." She held up her paws in the air, gesturing with small circles that made him feel dizzy. "Every human's trace is... it swirls differently. Yours is distinct. I do not need the vision-berry's help to know that."

His eyes widened slowly, and he grabbed the side of the table for support. Fear was replaced with scientific excitement. "Are... swirl, trace... are you telling me you can smell fingerprints?" He leaned over the table, heedless of any danger as his mind raced. "Or... do you mean a double-helix? Can you smell DNA? That's insane, it's not possible to distinguish... even with the latest computers..." His brain moved out of time with his mouth, as it often did when he was excited. The fire in his eyes was bright enough to make the tigress lean back a little. "No, but you have a biological computer, don't you. Adapted for exactly that. It might just be possible, if-" His stomach growled loudly, and his arms shook.

"Sit." She pushed the bowl of eggs over to him. "Eat."

He wavered. His stomach snarled. "I... I'm not supposed to..." Master Computer was tracking how much she ate, for scientific purposes as well as expense reports. But he had been considering stealing a little just a short while ago... guilt and hunger pains battled inside him. "I'm supposed to bring you the food, not eat it myself."

The tigress exhaled heavily, looking quite frustrated. "Human culture is very strange." She fixed him with those yellow eyes. "If you do not understand the right of first portion, then... Do your royals not have food tasters, who must eat that which the queen eats?"

"Um..." His weary brain tried to decide where to err. Not accommodating Sandra's requests was something he had been ordered not to do. A robot would have been hopelessly conflicted in such a situation, which was one of the reasons Master Computer believed that humans were still critical to park operations. But robots also did not eat food, so this situation would not happen with a robot... "I..."

She pointed to the eggs, then to him.

"I... thank you." That seemed to confuse her all the more. He spooned a tiny portion of the eggs onto a spare saucer. Before he could start eating, she reached over, picked up the bowl, and shook more of the scramble into his small plate. Henry began to wonder if she was fattening him up. Not until he had taken a few bites did she begin eating again. The eggs-and-spinach scramble was as excellent as everything that the kitchens put out for the A-Corp VIP menu. He had the distinct feeling that she did not ask everyone who brought her food to eat with her. The other guide certainly had not mentioned this. Then again, the other guides probably used a working delivery portal to push meals through without ever seeing Sandra. Unless she was standing on the other side of the glass, salivating. He tried to eat in a dignified manner.

"You fear those you serve," she said after finishing the plate of ribs. "You fear losing 'employment'." Sandra reached for one of the grilled birds. "Why?"

The intern swallowed a mouthful of eggs. His stomach was happy for anything, but this was just what he needed. Very flavorful, easy for his body to process, and cooked using that new air-heating process the labs were testing out so that a minimum of oil was needed. "Because I want to be a discoverer. I want to invent what no one has seen before, things people know are impossible. I want to find treasures that the world has forgotten about, or never imagined, and show everyone. A-Corp is where that happens." He smiled, feeling a little bit like he was back at his interview. He had aced the screening. Top grades and clear dedication only got your foot in the door. "They have the resources and the heritage. It's not just about discovering something. It's about having the supply chains and marketing to mass produce it and tell everyone why they want it."

She gnawed at the chicken. "Are they your tribe?"

"My... family, you mean?" he asked uncertainly. She nodded, as though the words were one and the same. "No. I have parents and a little brother. He wants to be a race car driver, but I guess we all do when we're that young."

"Race... car?" she asked curiously.

"You've seen jeeps, right? Like that, but really sleek and really fast." He gestured with a hand along the table. "People drive them around a track, and whoever finishes first is the winner. I'm... I'm probably not making it sound too fun, but it's all about speed." Henry ate another spoonful of eggs. "Kind of like roller coasters, except without a railing."

Sandra's ears had perked up, and the expression on her face was one of worry. "It is not well that a youngling should wish to throw his life away!"

"Huh? Oh no, it's very safe." Probably safer than working for A-Corp. "I mean, there are accidents, but statistically he'll be fine."

"The metal boxes I have seen humans ride are anything but safe," she replied. Her big fuzzy paws made what she was eating look tiny. Sandra had surprisingly tidy table manners. Even though she was wrecking the bones and dumping them in a bowl, she was not scattering bits everywhere. In fact, she seemed very careful to nibble clean all the edible parts of whatever she was eating before discarding it. Almost as if she was sorting her waste for some kind of recycling.

He scratched his head. "Well... that's kind of because the stuff you've seen isn't supposed to be safe. Race cars are built to go really fast, but they have crash cages, airbags, all kinds of stuff to keep the driver alive if things go wrong." Henry smiled. "You've only seen six-wheelers, technicals, and jeeps cobbled together by third-world gangs. A race car is much higher quality." He munched another spoonful. "There's a go-kart speedway over by the hotels. I could take some photos and show you sometime." From the other side of the reinforced thermoplastic walls of her enclosure.

She tore off a drumstick from the chicken carcass and set it on his plate. "Sounds interesting."

"Thank you." He nodded. The tigress dumped the remainder of the eggs on top of the remains of the ribs she had devoured and began shoveling the scraps of meat and eggs into her gullet. "What did you mean when you said I should be the first to eat because I brought the food?"

She chewed a little slower, thinking. "The one who works hardest for the food deserves to eat first from it. If someone goes hungry, it should not be the one who hunts or the one who stands guard."

Henry nibbled at the chicken. Most of the food was very lightly seasoned, but it felt so much more satisfying than the nutrient gruel. Not that he had ever starved while eating A-Corp subsidized meals, but... taste was not a design consideration. Her culture interested him. "Survival rationing." He had read studies about that kind of thing. "But... you didn't have to live that way all the time, right? Just when you were out fighting."

Sandra closed her eyes. "There was no out." Her paws trembled a little. "Every month the poachers would press deeper. Cut down elder trees. Burn grasslands. Explode mountainsides to collapse caves." She drew in a deep breath. "Kill entire herds of antelope and poison the remains. There was no out fighting. Only always fighting. For generations it has been so."

Henry suddenly lost his appetite. He swallowed a mouthful of chicken and set the drumstick back down on his plate. "Oh. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Why?" She opened her eyes and looked at him suspiciously.

"Because it shouldn't have happened," Henry answered. "People shouldn't do those kinds of things to each other, or to animals, or to land. We're supposed to learn from our surroundings, not burn it down around us." At least when A-Corp terraformed, there was a computer-checked reason behind it.

"But why are you sorry?" she asked again. Her tail swayed behind her. "You had nothing to do with the fighting."

He shrugged. "I still feel bad when I hear it happened. And it sounds like it really hurt you."

She tapped her paws together. "You cannot smell your own tracks. Yet you still feel another's sorrow without tasting the vision-berry?" When he nodded, Sandra picked up the remains of the chicken carcass and began eating, her cheeks a little red. It seemed that was not the answer she had expected to hear, not at all.

Chapter 10: Deeper Discussion
Henry felt like his mind was working properly again. He realized that he was obtaining information that the research teams had tried and failed to deduce on several occasions. Sandra was not very talkative around scientists whose lab coats reeked of disinfectant and ink, and they were likewise reluctant to get within claw range. For his part, all Henry could deduce was her kind used body language and scent to communicate in ways humans were ill equipped to emulate. There were deeper meanings to the things she said and did. The two continued to eat in silence for a few moments.

The guide began to accept that she was less of a bully than he had thought. Growing up in a warzone was ruinous for human children's emotional development. A-Corp's public charities worked hard to keep the company's image clean and shiny by relocating war orphans and delivering humanitarian aid. He had seen plenty of footage showing children with hollow eyes carring rifles almost as big as themselves. No wonder Sandra reacted to almost everything with a show of intimidation. She was cautiously trying to learn about his world, just as he was interested in hers. That line of thought, along with the food, relaxed his guard. Perhaps a bit too much, for without thinking enough about it, he said, "Sandra, you're really nice for somebody who's killed civilized people."

She raised an eyebrow. Her fangs were dug into a hunk of chicken. Henry realized what he had just said and began trying to retract it. "I mean, uh... you're a lot nicer than I thought you were. Wait, no! I mean, you're really strong but you're nice too, and... uh, I... y-you growl a lot, but you're not... not mean... I think is what I mean." Her glare bored into him. He wanted to melt through the floor. "S-sorry..."

With a jerk of her neck, she tore loose a mixture of gristle and meat. As she crunched, Sandra slowly shook her head. Henry swallowed hard, thinking that this was the end for sure. The tigress said, "I have not."

He blinked. "Wha... but... yes you have. I've seen the reports. The expedition team found you tangled up with a pair of dead bodies you dragged down the cliff."

"No." She shook her head again. "I have never killed a civilized human. Only poachers." Sandra continued mauling her food.

Henry blinked. "What's the difference?"

Her tail twitched behind her, and she gave him a suspicious look, as though he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. After sniffing the air again and rolling her eyes, she explained, "Is it murder to put to death one who willfully drowns a mother with her child?"

"Um..." He scratched his head. "That legal definition varies based on where you are in the world... a lot of nations don't have a death penalty anymore. A-Corp tends to handle that kind of justice either in international waters or at corporate extraterritorial enclaves." The megacorp owned a lot of oil rigs, and had their own fleet. Several fleets, actually. And there was that orbital elevator under construction out in the middle of the ocean. "This park is sort of a legal grey area, since all A-Corp staff are-"

The tigress looked very confused for a moment, then set the remains of the chicken carcass down next to the stripped ribs. She leaned forward a little. "Is it murder to you?"

Henry did not know if he was qualified to answer that. This was the modern age, where there were always shades of gray and legal scholars arguing on both sides. Society's grander interests, individual right to life, justice, and all sorts of other high-minded concepts whirled in his head. He swallowed hard. This was a different kind of fear than when he looked up at her beautiful yet intimidating body and felt so very puny. He was afraid of disappointing her. Not that he was afraid of giving the wrong answer. It was simple enough to conclude what her primitive tribe would deem punishable. Henry had the feeling that she would know if he was lying about his true feelings on the matter, even if he was not sure what he truly thought. A-Corp liked their employees to have flexible morals, as long as they flexed with the megacorporation's interests.

He shut his eyes, tried to clear his head, and answered, "No."

"Indeed. The murderer begs for punishment. Not with words, with actions. So does the poacher. If they did not commit such crimes, my kind would not have to bare our claws against them." She tapped her paws together again. "An animal thinks only with its appetite. We are called to be more. The Great Tiger-Spirit guides us, and so we must guide nature."

"But... you don't feel anything?" He looked at her curiously, not quite sure what to make of that philosophy. "You don't feel any kind of regret?" Among humans, such lack of remorse could be the sign of a sociopath.

The tigress shook her head. "I regret that so many of my kind starved, died, or are missing. I am told my grandparents greeted the poachers with proper suspicion, as we greeted your tribe." She gestured toward the A-Corp logo on the plate. "I regret that we must bare our claws against those who beg for punishment, for it endangers our hearts as well. It is natural to desire combat, conquest, strength." Her yellow eyes bored into him again. "But we must prove worthy of it. In fighting the sinful, we may well gain sinful habits that are unworthy of our duty from the Great Tiger-Spirit."

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster," Henry murmured. A quote from a human philosopher, but one mirrored in the tigress' line of thinking. "I'm... I was wrong all along. You're not a bully." From the look on her face, it was clear she did not know what the word meant. "You don't push people around just to make yourself feel stronger."

The tigress nodded. "One must be worthy of strength."

"You have a lot more than strength." He nibbled at the drumstick. "You're smart, and you can... can you really smell fingerprints?"

"Perhaps?" Sandra shrugged. "You humans hang words on things that I know from birth. We do not have to be taught how to run, how to climb, or how to smell. It is as natural as scanning the horizon."

He sighed, thinking of all the years spent on studies. Books, videos, tests, endless repetitions to beat the knowledge into his brain. "Humans aren't that way. We have to learn everything. Usually the hard way."

Her yellow eyes scanned over him again. With a nod, she stretched one of her paws across the stone table and touched the top of his hand. While the tops of her paws were fuzzy and striped, the undersides were a smooth velvet. He shivered a little at her touch, but hesitantly moved his arm toward her side of the table. She touched along the bones in his hand, then turned his wrist and rubbed her thumb over his palm. He felt something sharp tracing over the lines in his hand and swallowed hard as he realized her claws were out. Those claws that could rip right through metal. Sandra began to purr, a low rumbling noise that traveled down her arm and up his. He looked down at their hands, then up into her eyes. She leaned a little nearer toward him, and he a little closer toward her, until their noses were almost touching. They had been this close before, but only with glass in the way. Gradually he worked up the nerve to lace his fingers through her fuzzy digits. Their hands remained clasped together for a moment before Sandra spoke.

"You," she said without interrupting that low, rumbling purr. "Curious."

"Yes," he replied at once. After he spoke, he began to understand what she meant. Sandra meant he was curious now, had been curious before, and would continue to be curious in the future. It was a trait. But as she continued to stare at him, he felt that she meant it in another way as well. "Are... are you curious about me?"

"Very. There is a good way to answer such curiosity."

Maybe it was the eggs and chicken he had eaten, but Henry began to think of something he should not. Especially when she was leaning forward like this, with that napkin swaying and her large breasts... He remembered how good she looked as she raised those heavy weights. Yesterday he had seen her scars. A bead of sweat ran down his brow. Sandra was strange, strong, and beautiful. "W-well... I mean, in the name of science, I... yes."

Immediately he regretted his decision, for she ran her tongue over her fangs and opened her mouth wide enough to bite him in half. He ducked his head and yelped, but she was too fast, grabbing him by his shoulders and holding him in place as her tongue lolled out. Flicking across his scalp, she licked over his hair and pulled his head down a little so she could run her tongue all the way to the back of his neck. Henry shivered beneath her, held fast in an iron grip. She licked again, curling her tongue back up and teasing one of his ears, then down once more. Her hot breath rushed into the collar of his shirt, and trickles of her saliva oozed down the sides of his head. She even nipped at the nape of his neck during one long lick. After what felt like forever but could only have been a few seconds, she pulled away and wiped her lips with the napkin. A placid, thoughtful expression drifted across her face.

Drool oozed down Henry's forehead. He patted his head and neck to make sure they were still attached, then grabbed a napkin from the cart and mopped his face. "Um... did... how did that help?" He felt like he had been eaten, then spat back out.

"How could it not?" she asked with the same placid expression. "You are older than I thought. How do you manage to sleep without seeing the stars above?"

"Well, the coffin cabins are vented pretty well so it never feels stuffy, and my dorm at university was really small too, and-" He blinked. "Wait, how do you know where I sleep? You... you got that from licking my hair?"

The tigress nodded, scooting a little closer to him. Her tail swayed from side to side. "You endure much for your dream of discovery."

"Yeah." He nodded, still a little dizzy. "But this is the best place in the world to be."

Sandra reached out toward him again. This time he stretched out his right hand toward her. She had not eaten him yet, despite every opportunity. Maybe he could not smell things the way she did, but he could feel some kind of connection. Or maybe that was just the drool running down the back of his neck.

"How did... you can't just learn things about people by licking their heads..." he mumbled as he gazed into her yellow eyes.

"Not everything," she admitted. "But the tastes of your body tell the story of where you have been, just as the marks on your hands tell what they have done." Her striped tail waved from side to side behind her. "Curious."

"I-" he began to say something. Then his radio squawked. Sandra's ears perked to alertness. Automatically, the intern's right hand reached down and pulled the communicator from its holster. It was a reaction that had been drilled into him. The tigress leaned backward, her hypnotic spell seemingly broken by the strange device's noise. On the display was a text directive from Master Computer.

"Priority. Report at once to sector C-9 post Gulf for unplanned guide shift. Cover detail for unavailable employee. Flow of traffic potentially jeopardized."

Henry cursed under his breath. "Master Computer doesn't issue a priority order unless it's serious." He glanced up from the device and saw Sandra's paw was still hanging in the air. His reflexes were too slow. By the time he shifted the radio to his other hand and reached out, she had already leaned back and folded her paws together. "I... sorry, I... something's gone wrong, and they need me to..." The moment was gone. Whatever calm he had felt before evaporated. She was once again a strong, dangerous creature and he a very frail little man in her shadow. Her yellow eyes looked down at the table full of mostly-empty plates and bones. He swallowed hard. Was leaving in the middle of a meal offensive in her culture? He was supposed to be an ambassador right now, but Master Computer had said this was a priority... "I... I'll see you again soon."

She did not respond. His hat had proven no obstacle to her tongue's assault on his head, and was on the floor of the undercroft. Bending down, he picked it up and settled it back in place. Licks of his hair curled out from under the sides. The guide stepped toward the hatchway. Just before he left her line of sight, Sandra said, "Your 'employment' is very important to you. Are you very important to it?"

"Well... I would like to be. One day, when I've earned it."

She nodded. "We must all make hard sacrifices for our hopes." With that, she picked up a bowl of oats and continued to eat. Feeling a little more at ease, Henry stepped back through the hatch, pressed the control to close it, and radioed that he had received his new orders.

Chapter 11: The Day Turns Sour
"Hey mister," a snot-nosed brat asked Henry. The day had gotten steadily worse since the guide was called away from his meal with Sandra. He was not quite sure if this was as bad as a face-full of monkey dung. The child wiped his hands on Henry's safari shorts. "What happened to your hair? Are you a clown?"

"No, no," the guide tried to say cheerfully. Smiling got harder every hour. His brain felt like it had been pulled out, put through a blender, then poured back into his skull.

He was going to strangle whoever hadn't shown up for their shift. Somebody had to be either sick or dead. Master Computer had not explained why it wanted Henry to cover a shift on the opposite side of the park to where he normally worked. Worse, these guests were the insufferable type. They would stand around and stare at some of the smaller exhibits for half an hour, then rush out of planned shows. One drunken idiot had already vomited over a safety railing into a habitat. A little girl lost her earrings and her family wanted the entire tour group to wait ten minutes while they went back and searched.

Henry had lost track of how many times he had to haul a kid back from trying to climb over a safety fence. Somehow a guest's shoe had ended up in one of the open-topped aquarium tanks. He was starting to miss taking tours past Sandra's enclosure. Nobody ever tried to climb those reinforced walls. She could spark terror in just about anyone's heart, and keep them rooted to the spot long enough for him to catch his breath and calm down. Not that she ever let him do either of those things...

Reaching up, he adjusted his hat and ran a hand through his hair. It still refused to flatten out, even though several hours had passed. "A tiger licked me, that's all."

"A tiger?" asked a hovering mother who always seemed right above her children except when they were doing something they weren't supposed to. "Goodness me, and you're still alive?"

"I'm a trained professional, ma'am." Lies atop more lies, but that was what they expected him to say. His hair was not very long, but Sandra's tongue and saliva had managed to glue it back until it almost resembled a pompadour. He wondered if R&D would be interested in synthesizing some kind of "all-natural" hair gel...

"I can lick thirty tigers today!" piped up another kid. "Let me at 'em!"

The guide stretched his smile as wide as he could. "Woah now, none of that. We're here for discovery, not fighting. If you'll look at this exhibit over here on my left, this is a reassembly of a rare dinosaur's skeleton that was discovered by a research team in..."

When he arrived at his post, Henry had hurriedly memorized most of the information needed for this tour route. Master Computer sent a pair of robots to help. They clamped him down, held his eyes open, and flash-fed him a three minute schema-tailored media burst. In about twelve hours he would forget nearly everything, but for right now he knew all he needed to know about this museum and the other stops on the tour. The technology was not yet perfected, but there were only mild side-effects. Henry couldn't remember what those were right now. In case he forgot where he was in the park, or what an area was named, there was a paper map in his back pocket. Master Computer did not expect him to give the best tour ever. His job was to keep the flow of traffic moving, ensure guest happiness, and properly represent A-Corp's interests.

As he babbled on about the various fossils on stands and animals in cages, Henry found his thoughts wandering. The robots from Master Computer never explained why he had been selected. Henry had asked why he was pulled away from what seemed like a very important assignment. Their only response was that Henry 9823 was rated as highly reliable and his brain would be able to handle the information dump. Master Computer had been right, as usual. When the flash-feed completed, only a little blood was running out of his nose, and just a whiff of steam rose from his ears.

The robots had wiped his face, then carried him out of the service tunnel and pushed him into the first waiting tour group. The first of many. Too many. He felt like they were short-handed on this side of the park, as if a lot of people had suddenly gotten sick or something, but he didn't have the instinctive feel that came from working an area to know if he was right or wrong about his hunch. Henry tried to tell himself it just felt that way because of all the large enclosures. The only way a lot of employees would suddenly be unavailable was if there had been a big accident, food poisoning, or a serious error in scheduling that Master Computer did not correct in time. The first was unlikely since he had not heard anything on the emergency band, the second highly improbable, and the third almost laughable. For a human to even access site-wide scheduling data required a tremendous amount of authority.

"Up ahead is one of our largest exhibit areas. You'll see real giraffes, hippopotamuses, and komodo dragons in a close approximation of their natural habitats..." The gaggle of guests followed along. He gestured toward informational signs posted along the wide enclosure. Concrete walls and plexiglass panes gave a comforting sense of safety to the guests while still allowing them to see large creatures in their natural habitats. "As you can see, A-Corp takes special precautions to ensure all the animals we allow near each other can get along." He felt the concrete tremble a little beneath his feet. Odd.

"What 'bout that big one over there?" asked one of the children.

The guide squinted, adjusting his hat to shield his eyes from the sun. "You mean the Angolan giraffe? Ah yes, a interesting creature, and always an eye-catcher! Its long neck allows it to eat from tall trees that are out of the reach of smaller herbivores. Giraffes are the tallest living terrestrial animals, and..."

The guests all oohed and ahhed appropriately. Henry tried to keep them moving along the large enclosure. The idea behind this area was that the guests would watch while walking, simulating a safari trip for those who did not want to pay extra to get into a jeep and actually ride through the exhibits, but this group liked to stop for rests all the time. Surprisingly, Master Computer had not buzzed his radio to advise him that his group really needed to move faster for... at least an hour. He wondered if the great electronic brain had concluded that this group was a lost cause, or if it had something else on its mind. Even Master Computer had limits, as he well knew from how much paperwork was needed to request a fraction of its computing power for research.

"I wanna ride the rollercoaster!" squalled one of the children. "I wanna go ride it now!"

"Which rollercoaster?" asked an inattentive parent. "We rode some earlier today. We had to stop because you got upset and threw your ice cream at the attendant. Look at the animals."

"The big orange one, over there!" said the child.

Henry tried not to hate children. Some could be absolute darlings, hugging a stuffed tiger or other plush as they adventured through the park with their parents. However, today he had not met any children like that.

"Say," said another guest. "That does look like fun. What's that 'coaster called?"

The guide racked his brain, realizing that the answer was one he knew rather than something flashed into his skull a few hours ago. "Ah, that's the Titanomachy! It's a practical implementation of one of A-Corp's many technical achievements. A frame made of a new alloy allows the Titanomachy to deliver unrivaled twists and thrills at chilling heights, with speed and safety." Henry tried to steer the guests' attention back to where they needed to be. "And if we move along to the next exhibit, there's a fascinating avian display that actually inspired the Titanomachy's wild ride."

The guests ambled along, stopping to buy cotton candy or soda, rushing past things they found boring, and taking forever in restrooms. Henry sighed and rubbed his forehead. Part of him wondered what was occupying so much of Master Computer's mind, but much more of him was wondering what Sandra was up to right now.

====

The sun was high in the sky. Sandra perched atop a branch in her favorite tree, waving to the humans as they looked up in awe. Her tail swayed lazily as she thought about the events of the morning. He was cute, especially in those shorts, and devoted to his cause. The sacrifice he was making for his future was not so different from the one she was making for her tribe's. She stretched her shoulders, getting ready to drop down and pick up the heavy weights. First she would intimidate the crowd a bit, then she would wander away to make them beg for more. She would perform on her schedule, not theirs. The tigress swung her legs off the branch. A sound perked up her ears. It was a thunderous crash from the far side of the park. Unusual, but the humans sometimes caused rock slides.

Sandra narrowed her eyes and looked in that direction. A different crash filled the air. It was not the sound of rocks falling, this was more like the tinkle of broken glass. The park had many strange sounds, but something about this one made her worry. Humans murmured to one another on the other side of the enclosure walls. Even they had heard the noise. She waited, ears perked expectantly, but no further crashes came. The tigress shrugged.

Just when she was about to drop down onto the grass, mechanical shrieks came from the building that looked like a caterpillar made of metal domes. Tall doors flew open, and humans in metal boxes rolled out as red lights flashed. Metal birds took flight from pads atop the caterpillar building's humps and hovered in the air. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she gazed across the park. Something was wrong, very wrong. Sandra could not smell it yet, but she could feel it.

Another distant crash. The sounds of rending metal and shattering stone. She sniffed at the air, but could not smell the cause. There was only the scent of fear on the wind. Metal birds circled low in the distance. A plume of flame shot skyward, engulfing one. It fell like a stone to the ground. She felt the impact. Her tail rose slightly as she sensed death and pain. A human who wore a guide's outfit was talking into his little squawking device and waving his arms at the crowd of humans outside her walls. Sandra paid them little mind. She could smell something now, carried on winds driven by fire. Not just fear, not just panic, but anger. The kind of anger no human could ever muster. This was raw, primal, familiar. Her tongue ran over her lips. Another crash came, and she could finally see the great abomination. It was like something from the legends, with scales that covered its body and three heads that belched fire.

The old story-stones whispered that such creatures had once lived. They were neither dead nor living, for their spirits remained in their bones and they would rise again when the stars were right. So told the lore that had been passed down for generations. The humans brought their mighty fire-sticks to bear against the abomination, but the bullets that had torn her to pieces bounced off its scaly hide. Fire gushed out from its heads, consuming the metal boxes, and its tendril-like arms covered with eyes tore the hovering metal birds from the sky when they flew too close. It slouched forth upon too-short legs, crushing all in its way. The hairless apes fled in terror from that which knew no fear.

Sandra thought back to the stars she had slept beneath last night. She closed her eyes as the noise and scents of carnage began to wash around her. The constellations and alignments looked different here than back home, but she knew them well. No, no, the stars were not right. Not yet. How then could this abomination have risen?

She hissed softly. The answer was too obvious. Humans had once again meddled where they should not. Somewhere they had found bones that should have remained entombed, and the bones had whispered as they were wont to do. Without the blessing of the Great Tiger-Spirit, the humans had no hope against such a creature. All their weapons were but toys compared to its awesome might. Sandra opened her eyes and squared her shoulders. The humans deserved this judgment. However... was she not here to provide an example? The tigress stared out at the burning destruction. It was a beautiful opponent, full of strength and might. Her claws slid forth unbidden. To take such strength for herself... to devour its heart and lap up its blood after ripping its armored hide... she would be worthy of such strength, wouldn't she?

The great abomination roared from its three mouths a thunderous challenge to all. It threw one of the humans' metal boxes into a man-made lake, tainting the waters with blood and oil. Sandra Redclaw felt her own blood boil, but still she held herself back. This was the humans' fight. She could smell their terror. They deserved this judgment for meddling with the old bones. Without punishment they would not learn...

Her nose twitched. She drew in a deep breath, sorting through the muddle of smoke and shrieks for a certain sound, a specific scent. There. She could not be mistaken. He was among those fleeing in fear at the feet of the great abomination. Far away, but much was carried far by the winds. She sat very still upon the branch for a long moment. This was not her land, nor her fight. The tigress reached up into the tree and plucked a few berries. She popped them into her mouth and chewed swiftly. These were not fruits meant to be casually consumed. This was her favorite resting tree for a reason.

Sandra shut her eyes and leaned her head back. The vision-berry held deep magic. It could make a sentry as keen as an eagle, or as dull as a stone. To ride its current and harness its power one had to be strong of heart. It was not meant for the unworthy. The tigress breathed in deeply, feeling time slow as her aura stretched far and wide. She could sense him, hear his panting breaths as he carried a smaller human with a broken leg.

He was afraid, hiding beneath an overturned stand that stank of mustard. Salty sweat ran from his brow. Cowering, waiting for the great abomination to turn away. He ran for a tunnel. The rectangle he wore around his neck made the little box next to the gate flash red at first, then green, but the gate only rose a little. Just enough for him to slide the little girl through into the arms of a metal man, then duck back out of the way before the gate shuddered shut with a groan and the stink of oil. One of the stalk-like heads twisted toward him. Fire lapped at his heels as he ran. As he rounded a corner, a wide gate was grinding shut. The smell of blood and the sound of someone in pain turned his attention. His heart hammered in his chest, but still he tried to pull the injured man upright and help him along.

The tigress opened her eyes, exhaled sharply, and shook her head clear. Smoke rose high in the sky. All the peace of earlier was gone. The park was in chaos. She stood atop the branch, one arm against the trunk of the tree for support. Echoes of a distant battle swirled around her as the vision-berry's effects faded. She clenched a fist and curled her tail, drawing herself back from the current as the elders had taught her. All that needed to be known was now known. It was time to choose. Sandra peeled off her vibrant gloves and tossed them onto the ground, then did the same with her stockings.

When next the great abomination roared a challenge, she responded with a guttural growl that shook the ground and chilled the blood of those who heard it. Her claws were out, her fangs bared, and for the first time since she had come to this park, Sandra Redclaw felt the battle-lust tinting her senses crimson. To the ground she bounded, running on all fours down the grassy hill. When she passed through her private gym, she shifted to two legs and put out a hand, snatching up the barbell as though it weighed barely more than a bamboo shoot. Without breaking stride she angled it in front of herself, at the base of the glass wall, and leaped into the air. The barbell's tip dug into the ground. She vaulted over the top of the glass, tail extended for balance as she inverted fully for an instant, then landed in a crouch on the other side.

Rising up to her full height, Sandra started running. Not away from the chaos, as all those she passed were, but toward it. Either the staff who saw her thought that because of the logos on her outfit she was authorized to go where she pleased, or they were simply not of a mind to get in the way of a furious tigress. The things that did get in her way she jumped over, shouldered aside, or ripped straight through. Her claws were out.

Chapter 12: Herald of the Biotic Crisis
Henry was afraid.

Concrete dust and ashes soiled his uniform. A long rip down the back of his shirt slashed through the A-Corp logo. His inquisitive mind had more questions now than ever before in his life, but if he stopped to gather data his life would surely come to a violent end. What had happened and what was happening were muddling together in his mind. He grabbed onto a piece of exposed re-bar and pulled himself upright, shaking his head to try and clear it. His hands did not feel like they were his own. They moved, but they felt numb. He was a bit numb all over. Had to get up and keep moving if he wanted to make today a productive day, because that was the A-Corp way.

The shrieking roar almost drove him back to his knees. He stared up at the three-necked colossus. Covered in scaly armor, with what looked like hundreds of eyes webbed along the tentacle-like arms stretching out from its squat trunk just above stubby legs, and each head belched flame from its toothy maw. Too much to comprehend. Time seemed a little fuzzy. The back of his head hurt a lot, but when he patted the area there was no blood. He remembered that the big... thing had burst through two containment walls, gobbled up several animals, and started breathing fire everywhere. It was too enormous for him to get a good look at, and its form seemed to twist in his mind when he stared as though the sight was not meant to fit in his brain. A thing that was not, but now was, and was continuing its destruction of things Henry had long considered immutable. Running. Running was good, running made sense to him right now.

He had not even known that three-headed fire-breathing monsters existed. None of the textbooks he had studied mentioned anything about the subject, aside from legends about dragons that modern science scoffed at. Something so enormous, so dangerous, violated so many accepted laws of physics and thermodynamics that it should not exist. Bad giant monster things weren't supposed to be real. Now, helicopters, those were wonders of science, and they were circling overhead with weapons ready. In his addled state, it seemed as though great titans of enlightened science had soared in upon aluminum wings to strike down this thing that should not be. A quick reminder about the rules of nature, which man had quantified, would surely be enough to revert this walking catastrophe to nonexistence.

When he saw the first helicopter go down hard, Henry knew that they were in real trouble. Those helis only had thirty-calibers, but the giant pot-bellied monster had shrugged off a hail of lead like it was a spring shower. Smoke swirled around him as he hid beneath what remained of a soda shack. One of the beast's three heads nosed through the wreckage like a serpent looking for mice. Every time it ate something, it seemed to get a little bigger and a little more dangerous. Henry was sure he would have nightmares about the way those three heads had ripped apart a giraffe. He tried to think of a way to classify the creature, to break its form down into describable parts as though he was an explorer, but failed. This was not a new species. It was like an earthquake, or a hurricane. A disaster of nature.

All he had to do was stay alive. Master Computer's mainframe was buried deep underground. It knew how to respond to everything from a shortage in sugar cubes all the way up to Global Thermonuclear War. This reassuring fact was covered in every employee's orientation. A-Corp had their own private military too. Reinforcements must be on their way. He just had to survive, and make sure as many other people as possible survived. That was the best sense he could make of the situation, and it kept him from collapsing into a gibbering heap.

A motor growled nearby. He glanced out from beneath the soda shack's fallen roof and saw a jeep jerk to a stop out on the main concourse. Ten of Master Computer's robots unpacked themselves, brandished fifty-caliber anti-tank rifles, and formed a gun line. He sighed in relief as the cold, unfeeling machines began firing in unison. It almost reminded him of a row of musketeers, all clad in A-Corp livery and proud to serve. The robots' situational awareness subroutines were nowhere near advanced enough to handle concepts like cover and maneuver, that would be another few years and another few trillion in R&D, but they could stand and shoot with inhuman accuracy.

Armor-piercing rounds ripped through one of the serpentine heads before the titanic beast could hose the robots with fire. One shot lanced straight through its mouth and out the back of its head, splattering bone and what might have been brains everywhere. The pot-bellied monster roared in agony, its wounded head thrashing as the robots ejected their empty magazines and slammed in fresh ones. Henry felt a glow of hope.

Then the sky fell. More accurately, a slab of concrete heaved by one of the monster's eye-covered arms soared through the air and sent the robots flying like bowling pins. When the dust settled, Henry tried to stifle his cough with his shirt as he looked outside again. Metal limbs were strewn across the concourse. His eyes fell on one of the fifty-caliber rifles, its barrel bent and the sparking remains of a robotic arm still clutching the grip. He tried to stay calm. Master Computer knew what it was doing. The attack had worked... sort of.

Bipedal robots were ludicrously expensive, that was one of the major reasons they had not replaced all menial jobs at the park, but surely there were more of them... right? Almost every service tunnel had one. He had seen some helping with the evacuation, and was pretty sure he remembered passing an injured little girl into a robot's arms. His head hurt a lot. Of course there had to be more guns around here too. A-Corp manufactured a lot of ordinance. More robots were surely on the way. The really expensive parts like high-density energy storage cells could probably be recycled, so Master Computer would surely recognize the cost-benefit ratio favored bringing this monster down as soon as possible... probably...

The intern decided he was not going to wait and find out. Creeping out from beneath the fallen roof, he climbed over the rubble toward the jeep. It was still running. He dove into the driver's seat, turned the vehicle around, and stomped the accelerator. The three-headed giant was distracted by a helicopter. Flaming breath scorched the air. Henry glanced in the jeep's rearview mirror. Everything was going to be fine. After all the damage this thing had done, maybe A-Corp would drop a bombing run on it. If that happened, he did not want to be anywhere near here, and he would not have to be. He had a jeep, a mostly clear concrete concourse ahead, and a keycard that would open a lot of doors. Everything would be just fine.

The monster jumped, coiling its limbs beneath itself and soaring far higher than it had any right to up into the sky. Its three long necks slammed down onto the helicopter. The whirling blades barely even cut into the scaly armor. Both fell together in a grand fireball. The beast roared in triumph, seeming to grow bigger and stronger as it crunched the bodies of the crew with its ravenous mouths. Henry's hands were wet with sweat as he gripped the steering wheel. He saw a tall security gate far ahead, sealed shut by the emergency lockdown protocols.

Something moved ahead, behind a collection of wood shapes painted to look like colorful cartoon animals. A group of people waved to him from their hiding spot. The big monster was turning back this way again. Henry wanted to press the pedal down to the floor and race straight past. Speed was life. That made him think of his little brother who wanted to drive race cars one day, and his family. The people hiding behind those signs were families here on vacation. Something must have gone wrong with the evacuation. A-Corp had failed them. But he was here, and he could make a difference. Not because he was Henry 9823, but because he was Henry Livingsten. As the monsters' heads swung this way, he slowed to a stop and gestured urgently for the families to clamber aboard.

There was not quite enough room for everyone, certainly not safely, but they made it work. Someone's elbow kept jostling him as he tried to steer around the trash and decorations knocked over by a previous panicked stampede. A gout of fire wooshed overhead. Henry pressed the accelerator down, biting his lip as he sized up the distance to the security gate. That one led underground, to the outer ring of Master Computer's complex. Those tunnels should be able to withstand strategic bombing, at least according to the original building intentions. He sure hoped that was the case. So far the giant monster had not tried to chase anyone underground.

"Hang on!" he yelled as a chunk of concrete whizzed past, narrowly missing the jeep. Everyone was screaming. He slewed the vehicle to one side and slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop not quite soon enough. His jeep smashed through the wood facade that covered the concrete mouth of the tunnel. The ground shook as the monster stomped toward them. Henry tumbled out of the driver's seat, ran his card through the reader, and sighed in relief as the light blinked green. Up rolled the security grate, and he waved everyone inside. No, they weren't supposed to be in there, but this was the outer ring. To get to the inner ring, where Master Computer's core systems were, they would have to get past auto-turrets and electrified floors. Lives were more important than protocol right now.

People streamed past him, screaming and stumbling over one another. He looked back and saw a father helping his son out of the jeep despite his own injured leg. Henry grabbed the kid and heaved him out, then put his arm around the father's shoulders to help the man limp inside. Smoke was everywhere. The ground shook with each of the three-headed beast's steps.

"Lindy!" yelled the father. "Where's Lindy?"

"Get inside, sir!" shouted the guide, half-helping and half-hauling the man toward the tunnel entrance. Another helicopter exploded in the distance.

"Lindy fell out, dad!" screamed the boy. "That's what I was trying to tell you!"

The guide looked back. There, bleeding from her knees on the concrete, was a little girl still clutching her plush tiger souvenir. An enormous foot slammed down, cracking the pavement. A thin crack zigzagged all the way from the foot to the girl, and three serpentine shadows loomed over her. The father started to turn around, driven by paternal instinct, and nearly fell over. Henry cursed, shoved the man toward the mob of people at the tunnel entrance, and ran back to the jeep.

Grabbing the side door, he hauled himself back into the driver's seat and cranked the wheel. The rugged vehicle's engine growled. Henry felt his body jerk as the tires spun. He swallowed hard, aiming not at the girl but just to the side of her. Digging around the floor of the jeep, he found a piece from one of the destroyed robots. Wedging it atop the pedal, he weighed down the accelerator. As the vehicle bounced past the little girl, Henry bailed out onto the remains of a stuffed toy kiosk. The jeep roared onward toward the pot-bellied monster, slamming into one of its feet and exploding in a fireball that seemed to do no damage but did cause a lot of smoke and shrapnel.

His heart hammered in his chest, and his knees were weak. That didn't matter. All that mattered was picking up the kid, telling her everything was going to be fine, and getting back to the tunnel entrance. Everything seemed to be on fire. He was not running as fast as he needed to. She was heavier than she looked, and still hugging that stuffed tiger. Flame licked at his heels. Henry was almost there, almost to the entrance, when the mangled rear of the jeep landed in front of him. He had to dive aside or risk impaling himself on a jagged post that had once been part of the rollover cage. Something went crunch inside him as he landed on the concrete.

Henry pushed the little girl around the side of the jeep. "Run! Run to your dad! Don't look back, go!" She staggered along, leaking tears, probably in shock. Henry tried to stand up. A heavy stomp from the monster shook the ground and sent him back to his knees. He looked up and saw three heads blotting out the sky. One was bleeding, drooping low upon its long neck, but the other two were writhing with anger. He heard the people screaming behind him, the sound of another explosion somewhere in the distance, and the pounding of his heart in his ears. Smoke swirled all around. His mouth was so dry. The monster began to roar. One of its heads swooped downward, rows upon rows of teeth spread wide to gobble him up in a single bite.

A metal bar soared through the air, lancing into the monster's tongue. That head jerked back while the two others screeched in pain. Henry turned and saw a figure half-hidden by smoke crouching atop the jeep's remains. His eyes widened in surprise as he recognized her. The tigress' mighty arms ripped another improvised spear from the smoldering metal chassis. She glanced down at him for just a second, then snapped her gaze back up to the monster and roared. For the first time, Henry did not feel petrified with fear by that sound. He crawled around the remains of the jeep, knees still refusing to carry his weight.

Sandra leaped from the wreckage onto the concourse, sprinting toward the three-headed abomination like a guided missile. It lashed down at her with a tendril-like arm, which she evaded. One of its heads took a snap that missed. Finally the monster resorted to flooding the ground with gluts of flame. When Henry reached the security grate, he found it had automatically closed behind the last of the guests. The guide tried to stand and swipe his card, but the ground shook and he toppled onto his knees once more. Adrenaline faded from his system. He felt as though he could barely breathe, let alone run any further. Sandra climbed atop concrete pillars, slid beneath collapsed stands, and bounded around chunks of destroyed helicopters that the monster threw at her. Just watching the tigress move made the guide feel exhausted.

Chapter 13: First Blood
Sandra had fought big things before. Nothing as big as this three-necked beast that towered over the humans' buildings, but the way of the hunt was much the same. As the humans scurried into their holes like younglings into the caves back home, she stood tall atop the rubble and glared up at the enemy. It had roared a challenge, and she answered. This was the moment when two fighters should sift each other's courage. To retreat now from an obviously superior foe would show wisdom. She had no intention of backing down. The tigress shifted her stance, muscles taunt and tail swaying behind her, then growled. From behind her came a of metal as the humans beseeched the earth to hide them from the great and terrible wrath that was to be poured out.

Disrespect was not something Sandra had expected. The great beast paid her little attention, even though she had wounded one of its heads. There was no scent of fear, no narrowing of the eyes. It did not even draw up and turn to face her fully. Instead it rummaged through the ruins in search of more to eat. The more it devoured, the bigger it grew. Such disgraceful gluttony! Was this truly one of the legendary monsters she had heard about at the story-fires? To ignore a challenger after having so boldly roared... did it think she was one of the humans' silly metal men? Could it not smell the blood in her veins, the fire in her heart, the sweat trickling down her muscles?

Her growl turned to an angry roar. One of the heads looked in her direction, opened wide, and let loose a gout of flame as the body stomped off in search of more prey. She danced out of the way, rolling off the rubble and bouncing back upright with a snarl. This thing was acting like an elephant in search of greens, not a predator who fought for its meat. What manner of beast was it? Even a pack of hyenas would... no matter. Sandra stalked toward the three-headed monster, clawed her way up a collapsed building that was in her path, and made ready to leap. If it did not believe she was a worthy challenger, she would rectify that delusion. There was nothing wrong with this monster that she could not fix with her claws.

Running, coiling her legs at the last second, leaping through the air, she raked her claws down the beast's short leg. The thick skin parted like mud. Blue blood spilled out. It roared in pain and... surprise? Sandra finished her gash, landed on the ground, and dove into cover before the beast could crush her with one of its limbs. It staggered, waddling awkwardly, and swatted at a passing helicopter. Again she heard it bellow in surprise. There was no time to wonder. She had to circle around through the ruins and find another angle of attack. This beast had its chance to square up and test her courage. It had rejected the opportunity. The challenge was still valid, but it felt... hollow, now.

She was not one of the humans' metal men, or buzzing machines. How could it not understand that? At least it respected her as a threat now, snorting fire in her direction whenever she popped up from hiding, but even the humans could do that. Why, the humans' fire was quick and had lead in it, this was slow and did not. Certainly it could melt metal, liquefy stone, and she had no intention of getting caught in such destructive heat, but the poachers who fought her and her kind had been excellent practice. They had been many. This was one. A large one, to be sure, but-

One of its enormous eye-covered tendrils lashed out, crushing the concrete wall covered in strange painted things she was hiding behind. A chunk of debris gashed her arm. The wound healed quickly, but she had bled. Sandra rushed away before it could strike again, and smiled grimly. This would still be a fight. She must treat it as such, even if this monster did not.

Chapter 14: Cowering in Corridors
Underground, frightened people huddled against concrete walls. Children sobbed in their parents' arms. A pair of medical 'bots with half-dried blood on their torsos rolled past Henry in search of wounded guests to treat. Those Hudson-class models were never intended for use outside the hospital. Their rollers did not perform well on uneven surfaces, but they were much easier to manufacture and maintain than the bipeds. Shorter battery life too. He squinted at the backs of the machines, wondering if they actually ran on broadcast power instead of internal cells. The floor shook. He put his head in his hands and tried to think.

Giant monster. A giant... monster. That still didn't make any kind of sense. The square-cube law alone should... But it was real. Very real, very dangerous, and Sandra had charged at it to protect all these people. The guide shook his head and shivered. It was cold down here. Master Computer liked it cold. A vast digital brain floating in a lake of coolant. For its sustenance the atom was split, for its senses a million cables ran to every corner of the park, and for its safety enough firepower to shred a tank was stationed at the hatches leading to its core. A shard of an even greater brain installed at sites around the world, all communicating with one another at end-of-day to synchronize their systems and iterate improvements. He glanced over at one of the bulkheads leading down toward Ring Zero, as the staff called it. There was no cheery A-Corp slogan or happy mural painted across the steel. Only a warning against unauthorized access, and an electrical hazard sign.

The ground shook again. He staggered upright and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. This did not feel like safety. He had to get to a terminal and find out what was going on topside. His radio was useless down here. Too many dense materials and too much frequency shielding. Someone grabbed at his leg and asked if he remembered seeing their missing family member. Henry shook his head. He didn't even remember what the people he had helped get down here looked like. Actually, he was having a lot of memory problems right now. Words weren't as easy to grasp as they usually were for him.

This was all happening so fast. When he found one of the touchscreen terminals stationed along the corridors, he plugged in his employee ID card. To his surprise, when the terminal authenticated him, it showed a much higher clearance level than he was supposed to have. If he needed to, he could requisition any supplies deemed task-critical from any location he could physically access without direct approval from Master Computer. He just had to request it and sign for it. That made sense. Let employees grab whatever they needed from whatever was available, and do what they could to help. It would take a lot of computational load off Master Computer, since calculating stockpiles and rationing available supplies to employees based on projected task needs was a major daily burden for the great digital brain.

Henry wondered what Master Computer was thinking about. When he tried to access cameras, drone feeds, or really anything that would tell him what was going on up top, red warnings and static kept filling the screen. Most were offline. Many showed as in need of replacement parts or critical maintenance. Those sensors were Master Computer's primary means of identifying unexpected events at the park. If they were not functioning, then...

"Blind and deaf..." murmured the guide. "Just like we are down here. That monster's a wrecking crew." He tapped at the screen again, pulling up stockpile listings for local combat-capable robots. The many empty inventories on the spreadsheet made his stomach twist. This was a civilian park, with research labs, not a military base. And the nearest possible reinforcements were... inbound from an offshore oil rig that doubled as an A-Corp forward operating base. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his nerves steady as the floor shook again. His little brother liked to jump up and down on his bed. Well, he had, until one day he jumped just a little too high and cracked the weary bedframe. But that couldn't happen here. This place was built to withstand far more than a giant monster... probably... and bedframes were supposed to be sturdy enough to withstand little boys too.

He closed out of the spreadsheets and pulled his employee ID out of the terminal. The touchscreen flickered back to a default A-Corp logo. Henry looked up at the tunnel's ceiling and watched the embedded light panel tremble. Nearby, he could hear the worried whispers of a family whose dream vacation was now a nightmare. He felt powerless down here. What was happening on the surface? Was Sandra still bravely battling the beast? Had it swept her aside as quickly as it had the helicopters? He had no way to find out. He never expected her of all people to save him. Today was so strange. The back of his head hurt. Part of him wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep until everything was better, but who could sleep at a time like this?

Wandering further along the corridors, he found group after group of frightened guests. Some were angry, others were hysterical, but he could tell everyone felt much the same as he did. They were safe down here... until the unthinkable happened. This monster was a thing that should not be, and had done things that should not be possible. Who could be certain it would not find a way to crush them all in rubble, or worm one of its snakelike heads down into the tunnels and gobble them all up? Where would they run then? As he passed another family, he heard a child whimpering, "I don't want to die down here, daddy. I really, really don't wanna die!"

Some impulse he did not quite understand led him up a winding stairwell toward the surface. Not out of the underground, but through a security door into a service tunnel. He was almost to one of the great gates that would lead him back outside when he heard the terrifying shriek of that huge monster and hid for his life behind whatever cover he could find. Even if he went out, what could a wimp like him do?. His knees turned to jelly, and he slid down the wall into a defeated heap. When the class bully wanted to push someone around, there was nothing you could do except hope you weren't the one about to get your head shoved in a toilet. Henry knew all about that feeling.

The ground shook a lot more noticeably up here. Henry tried to gather his nerves. He should go back underground, but felt like he didn't even have the strength to do that. Did it really even matter? If all of A-Corp's helicopters and all of A-Corp's robots couldn't put this monster down, it would keep growing and stomping until... terrifying premonitions of a beast the size of a mountain crushing cities underfoot danced through his mind. An insatiable appetite from beyond the realms of science, summoned into this world... how? Henry shivered and shook his head. He knew how. The conversation he had overheard. He had said nothing. But what could he have done? Security already knew what that doctor had planned. There were supposed to be systems in place. Everything that was supposed to keep science sane, keep all the people at the park safe, had failed. A-Corp had failed.

That thought made his neck twitch and sparked a sharp pain in his skull as he tried to think of a different answer, but he could not. He had thought before that A-Corp had failed, but those were small, specific mistakes. Accidents, like spilling a beaker and staining a lab coat, just on a grander scale. A failure of this magnitude was extremely improbable. Not only had A-Corp failed, he saw no way that they could reliably recover without far, far more death and misery occurring first. All he could do was huddle in this man-made cave. Henry held his radio in his hands, looking at the little screen as though he was a primitive man begging an oracle for a sign. The device was receiving again, now that he was clear of the shielding around Master Computer's core. He saw nothing more than encrypted messages on the security bands, a repeating general evacuation notice, and the occasional medical supply reallocation.

The machine he had taken cover behind was an automated drink vendor. He staggered upright and slotted in his employee ID, intending to request a bottle of water, but the display flashed red to show it had no more of that item in stock. He looked through what was still available. The distinctive orange-and-black striped pattern drew his eyes to a digital advertisement. "Have a TigerClaw energy shot!" it read. "Packed with semi-natural energy and scientifically synthesized ingredients!" Henry shook his head and sighed. He wondered if Sandra realized how much A-Corp was already monetizing her people's likeness and knowledge. Henry's finger hesitated over the button. Did he really want a can of high-octane wake-up juice, or did he just want to scurry back underground and huddle with the rest of the frightened survivors?

Chapter 15: Cuts and Bites
Sandra clung inside one of the tall glowing signs the humans were so fond of. This great beast had size and strength but lacked a hunter's senses. Lightning arced between parts of the sign that had been damaged earlier in the fighting. She knew it would come this way again in search of more to consume. Waiting until the perfect moment, she kicked out a cracked pane of glass and pounced. A helicopter zoomed overhead as she lanced through the air toward one of the great abomination's necks.

Her claws shredded its scales as it tried to shake her off. Blue blood erupted from the gashes as she dug in her claws, snarled, and tore wide the flesh. Shrieking in agony, a giant mouth dove toward her. The toothy maw tried to snap shut with her inside, but she caught the jaws and pushed back with all her might. Blue blood dripped from her rippling muscles as she resisted. Slowly, the monster's mighty maw closed around her. Even the greatest of her tribe would not be able to withstand jaws that could crush concrete!

Anger boiled even hotter inside the tigress' heart. "You do not do the eating!" Sandra shouted. Her claws dug into the monster's gums. "I do the eating!" Leaning forward, she bit its thrashing tongue. The entire beast thrashed in pain and fought to jerk its flesh free. "I will eat your heart!" She twisted her claws in a daring gamble that paid off. Just before the jaws snapped shut, the pain became too much and the beast spat her out. She tumbled through the air, bounding off scaffolding and walls to slow her fall toward the hard concrete below. Chunks of meat clung to her outfit, and she was covered in blue blood from her head to her tail.

Her muscles ached from that heroic burst of strength, and she panted for breath. There was no time to recover. Furious, the monster tried to roast the tigress with a wall of flame. She rolled clear, slashed a bar of jagged metal loose from a shattered concrete pillar, and hurled it toward the fire-breathing mouth. The great beast disregarded the circling helicopters that continued to patter down a lead rain, and turned its full attention on the tigress. A whirlwind of fire poured forth from all its mouths.

Sandra leaped off a ledge and into the simulated jungle of a large habitat. Flames chased after her. She put as much of the uneven terrain and dense vegetation between her and the inferno as she could before diving down into muddy waters. From overhead she could hear the chatter of the humans' fire-sticks. Blue blood splattered from the wounds she had cut open, falling down through the jungle canopy like wrong-colored rain. With another screech, the monster turned its attention back to the flying threats. As she crawled through the underbrush, Sandra saw the creature's blood on the leaves. She sniffed at the fluid. This monster was very alien, with blood that smelled wrong and far too many eyes. Sandra did not know what to make of it. Grandfather's wisdom echoed in her mind. He had been a mighty warrior, first among all predators in his time. "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

A pair of tail-like arms curled through the trees in search of her. One of the heads occasionally glared down into the jungle canopy. Now that she had torn its flesh, the humans' bullets seemed to worry it more. Sandra crouched in the mud. The Great Tiger-Spirit expected her to be cunning as well as strong. All the humans could do was prick its skin. She would rend its armor with mortal wounds. Another flaming breath washed over the simulated jungle. The air was damp here, and these trees would not easily yield to flame. With two of its heads badly injured, the abomination could only raise its third high enough to continually huff fire at the circling helicopters. Enough little cuts could fell a great beast.

After searching for her to no avail, the monster's tendril-like arm wrapped around a tree and pulled. One by one, it ripped apart the jungle's tall plants. The monster was determined to find her. It recognized a worthy challenger. Perhaps too late, but that was not her fault. She had presented herself. Again it wound its curling tail-arms through the jungle. Sandra squirmed through the mud, stilling her breathing and slowing her heart until the time was right. Spikes jutted at odd angles from the tendril, along with what might be eyes were they not shaped like octagons. If it could reach high enough to pull down the helicopters with such arms, the sky would already be clear, but they were joined to the monster's body just above its stubby legs. She crept from cover to cover with slow, careful movements.

This was the hunt. Something she had trained for her entire life. A great abomination like this was no more terrifying than poachers with fire-sticks and metal boxes. All were enemies to be slain with tooth and claw. This monster lashed out with its tendrils, crushing concrete and ripping steel. Man's bulwarks were useless before its wrath. All their weapons could only anger it further. The tigress lurked within the jungle. These trees were true, with deep roots, not like the foam-covered metal ones in her enclosure. This monster was very old, and so it had to be fought according to the old ways.

Sandra waited patiently as the arm slithered past her. She thought of the guide, how he had saved others before himself. Certainly he had no hope of fighting, but he had gathered up the helpless and hid them in the caves. Not so different from the ways of her people. He had saved what he could until true warriors arrived. The tigress nodded slowly as she rose up from the mud and ripped into the arm-tendril. He had courage. Now it was time to show hers. She was not here to save, but to slay! Blue blood gushed out as she shoved her fingers into the octagonal eyes. Scales came apart like damp leaves, hunks of meat flew everywhere, and before the tendril could pull away she had cut down into the bone.

The great abomination was enraged. It drew back its limbs and tried to envelop her, but too late. It had reached too far, and its arms were caught amid the trees. Before it could untangle itself, Sandra turned from the mangled mess of the first arm and bounded toward the second. She leaped over fallen logs, bounced between trees, and came down with her full weight on the tendril as it was rearing up like a serpent. Her claws cut deep, making terrible gashes that bled well and showed the bone inside. She grinned. Whenever she slashed at the octagonal eyes the creature shrieked in a pleasing way. This was a lesson in fear, both for the humans and the great abomination. As it coiled its legs beneath itself, she felt her danger sense tingle. Leaving the tendril half-mauled, she spun about and once more ran through the jungle.

With a maddened snarl, the great abomination sprang up into the air, then came down like a meteor. Were Sandra still within the enclosure she would surely have been crushed, but she had barely made it to the other side of a concrete divider. A shriek of rage hurt her ears, but made her grin. The concrete wall cracked as the shockwave hit its opposite side. She slunk through the ruins and planned her next attack. Her tail twitched from side to side, mud and blood dripping from its tip.

A tall water tower stood over a nearby enclosure. While the great abomination rampaged about in search of her, Sandra clambered up the tower and roared a challenge. It responded with a gout of fire that burst the tank and unleashed a flood of water. A helicopter soared past on another strafing run, dividing the creature's attention for a crucial second. Sandra took a running jump from the top of the tower just before it collapsed. She ran across the toppling metal, using it like a bridge to help her cover the distance between herself and her target.

This time she led with a fierce kick. Her attack caught the monster right across the jaw of its third, previously still intact, head. She felt the claws on her feet rip deep into the scales, and heard a satisfying crack. Its jaw hung awkwardly open as she fell past. Another of the heads swerved, trying to bite at the falling tigress. One of the mauled tendril-arms nearly caught her, aided by a less damaged one, but she ripped and tore her way free with a snarl. Digging her claws into the great abomination's pot belly, she shredded long streaks down its front, then ducked around its stumpy legs to strike at its back as a helicopter came back around for another run.

This was what her kind were made for. The more holes she cut, the more blue blood she spilled, the more red mist she felt at the corners of her vision. She had felt this before, in the wild when she fought poachers, but that had been only a pale shadow. She had been too young, too hungry, too weak, and worn ragged from constant vigilance. Now she was strong, full of good food, and spoiling for a fight. The battle lust was strong in her heart.

Pride was a dangerous thing. The creature's tail whipped into her, sending her flying over a plexiglass wall. She flipped in the air and barely managed to land on all fours. Pain filled her senses for a brief instant, then whatever hurt deep inside her either fixed itself or shut up. There were many little cuts on her body, each one barely noticed when received. Too much of the blood on her was her own. She had to be careful. The same attrition that would kill this giant beast could be her end as well. It needed only one good strike to destroy her, and she would need many to defeat it. The humans had strong medicine for wiping out poachers, but not for this great beast they had raised.

Sandra glanced down at her claws, feeling for just a second that surely they must burn with that ancient fire the old stories had spoken of. No, not yet... but once she had consumed the heart of this beast, she would hold the sun in her paws as the Great Sky-Tiger had!

Chapter 16: Juicing
Henry pushed the button. With a whiz and a clunk, the vending machine dropped a can down into the bay at its bottom. He pushed open the swing door and picked it up. There was a stylized tiger on the can, a regular four-legged one who looked nothing like Sandra, but brightly-colored text did advertise that the drink contained exotic extracts discovered through A-Corp's partnership programs with indigenous tribes. World governments didn't officially recognize Sandra's kind as "people", a fact that A-Corp exploited in every possible way. On the one hand, the corporation could claim it was fighting for the rights of unrepresented human-analogs. On the other, if you weren't "people", you didn't have intellectual property rights. The ground shook, and he spilled a little of the drink as he opened it. For fizzy, off-brown sludge, it actually tasted pretty good.

After a long sip, he turned toward the security gate that lead outside. Maybe there was something he could do. There might still be people stranded on the surface who he could help. Henry took another long drink. He knew the chemicals and nutrients in the can were working hard to mess with his brain chemistry. Repressing the receptors that made him feel tired, boosting his blood sugar. There were some nervous system stimulants in the mix too. Something that tweaked the body's natural regulation of heartbeat and other automated functions. Metabolism boosters. Liquefied seeds that were supposed to temporarily improve memory. Maybe painkillers too. Add in a heaping helping of the placebo effect, and A-Corp had a winning product that only needed a minimum of bribes to be legally sold in stores.

Henry stared up at the security gate. The metal grate rattled as the ground shook. Outside, a war was going on. He did not know what he could do, but he could not just stand by. Henry ran his ID card through the reader. His radio buzzed. Instinctively his hand dropped to his side, unholstered the device, and brought it up to eye level. A directive from Master Computer scrolled across the screen.

"Special reassignment," it read. He swallowed nervously. "Package courier detail. Task modifiers: Hazard pay, park safety, ERROR undefined-hex-to-string, guest retention."

Henry stared at the message. A package courier detail, in the middle of all this? Was the message some kind of mistake? His finger hovered over the keys. What if... what if he just didn't reply? The ground shook. He knew in his gut that Master Computer must have something truly terrifying planned for him. Today his loyalty to A-Corp had been sorely tested. He could lose his radio. His clothes were already torn. His head hurt. There was something in his chest that didn't feel right either. It would be simple enough for him to walk outside and misplace the device near some rubble. That might work. He took another long drink as his heart raced. Master Computer was blind and deaf down there. Who knew if it was even making the right decisions anymore? If he could get another jeep, he might even be able to completely escape the park...

Another message made the device buzz. "Task has highest probability to assist VIP unscheduled park tour." He read over the message again, trying to parse what the machine meant. This... it was talking about Sandra. The ground rumbled as the enormous monster outside bellowed in anger and pain. She was the VIP, and "park tour" was the only way that Master Computer's limited lexicon could categorize her battling the giant monster. The digital brain wanted to help her. His hands shook a little. Yes, he was afraid, but... The card reader finally decided he was allowed to open the gate, and the metal began grumbling upward.

Henry radioed back an acknowledgment. A series of precise directions appeared on his radio's screen as he walked out of the gate. Smoke filled the sky. Ruined buildings and trashed habitats were all he could see in any direction. He shook his head and tried to get his bearings. The directions were accurate, but he could already tell that there would be obstacles Master Computer did not know about. That must be why it was sending him instead of a robot. He heard a mechanical clunk from behind. Glancing back, he saw that the vending machine showed it had water in stock once again. All the shaking must have thrown something out of alignment when he tried. No time for that now. He took another long drink from the can of brown juice, finished it, and dropped the empty into a recycling bin without breaking stride.

Fear nipped at the back of his mind. Whatever Master Computer had in its electronic mind was going to be unpleasant, but if he could help Sandra... well, he had more confidence in her than in A-Corp right now. Yesterday that would have been unthinkable. Henry quickly realized that the directions were flawed. A helicopter's burning fuselage had fallen on the ladder he was supposed to climb, but a nearby pile of rubble looked sturdy enough for him to climb. When he reached the top he could see the skyline more clearly. In the smoky distance there was a moving mountain, darting helicopters, and occasionally a fast-moving blur that hit like a living missile. He clenched his fists and wondered when the energy drink was going to kick in.

Henry made his way across the park, diving for cover every time the sounds of battle drew near. Each of the monster's ponderous footfalls jostled loose chunks of rubble. As he cowered beneath a concrete arch while the battle roared past, he caught a glimpse of Sandra through the smoke. Droplets of blood and mud fell from her as she pounced through the air to strike. The monster had wounded her, but she healed quickly. Every time the abomination sought to devour something so it could recover, she and the air cover made it pay dearly. How she could make such tremendous leaps and fight with such savagery he did not understand, but it was well in line with the reports he had read of her kind.

He wondered why Master Computer sent that second message to him. Normally, the great digital brain told you what you needed to do, and not much more. It had decided to inform him it was trying to help Sandra... as if it had deemed that information relevant to him. Henry swallowed hard as he neared the pickup point. Why would Master Computer do that? Did it understand how his feelings toward the tiger-girl had changed? For that matter... did he? Yesterday she was the cruel bully who kept trying to frighten him and get him fired. Today... she might just become the savior of the entire park. Another horrid crunch of shattering concrete made him duck.

Well, Sandra would be the savior of whatever remained. Maybe. A new fear emerged in Henry's mind. If Master Computer knew enough about his emotional state to manipulate him, that showed a level of digital intellect and human understanding far more dangerous than the park coordination system officially possessed. His heart raced in his chest as he ran through an open concourse, ignoring the pain in his chest through adrenaline and fear, as a giant lump of meat fell free from the abomination and tumbled across the terrain right behind him. He was trying to stay away from the battle, but whatever Master Computer wanted seemed to be right in the path of their rampage.

Henry panted for breath in the dubious shelter of a collapsed rollercoaster. He looked around, climbed through a hole in a concrete wall, and realized he was almost at the pickup spot. Before he climbed down into what looked suspiciously like a giant footprint, the young man shielded his eyes from the sun and peered in the direction of the ongoing battle. There was the giant monster, breathing fire and swatting at its attackers. Henry was pretty sure he had crawled through another of these footprints on the way here. An ant could not tell whose tracks it walked in either. How could small humans beat something so enormous?

He squinted. There was something small and brightly colored, leaping down from a teetering tower. She dug her claws into the beast's back as helicopters poured hot lead into other wounds. Sandra did not seem to care how much bigger the monster was. She focused on cutting it down to size one piece at a time. Henry slid down the muddy side of the crater and radioed that he had reached the objective. His heart was beating fast, and his muscles felt very loose. What was he doing out here? He could be safe underground right now.

An angry roar in the distance rolled over the ruined park. He could hear it clearly, but could not tell who or what was roaring. Everything seemed so alien. Henry pressed his back against one of the crater's walls. The world had turned into such a scary place since he delivered a tigergirl her breakfast.

Chapter 17: Salvage
This was not what Henry had in mind when he wondered if damaged robots could be salvaged. The "package" Master Computer sent him to recover was the mangled remains of some kind of cross between a security camera and a laser rangefinder. Its outer casing was slag but the internals had survived. Judging by the identification numbers etched into the components, it was some kind of prototype from the weapons division. Once it was mounted on a tracked chassis, but that was completely destroyed.

While the ground shook and the sky burned, Henry shoved parts into a wheelbarrow. Getting it up the incline on the far side of the crater took a lot of grunting and heaving, but he managed. As a building came crashing down in the distance, he hauled the drone's remains into another access tunnel. The ground shook in here too, but for a very different reason.

As the guide pushed his wheelbarrow down a corridor, he glimpsed automated manufacturing lines through observation ports along the walls. Molten metal poured from giant vats into molds. Rows of computer-controlled laser cutters sliced intricate patterns into fresh steel. Servo arms lifted frames from quench troughs so smaller manipulators could perform delicate assembly steps. As he followed the flashing arrows through the complex, Henry saw the entire manufacturing process for an A-Corp anti-tank rifle. Completed firearms rolled off the conveyor belt and onto automated carts that scurried off to parts unknown.

Pushing the wheelbarrow across a catwalk, he saw whirling machinery below crank out a dizzying amount of high-caliber ammunition. Every so often a round would be out of tolerance, a red light would blink, and almost too fast to see a mechanical sweep would throw it off the conveyor and into a reclamation bin. Through other windows he recognized huge aluminum frames for helicopters. Showers of sparks flew through the air as dome-hulled robots sped back and forth around the frames, running wires and attaching parts far faster than any human crew could. There were also the recognizable shapes of jeeps, many only in need of tires. Metallic workers busily tore out the rear seats and bolted in mounts for some kind of heavy ordinance... maybe mortars or rockets? It was hard to tell from up here.

Henry had always known that A-Corp had some automated production at the park, but he had never seen it firsthand. He worked in research, not manufacturing, and had never met anyone who did. From the look of things, not a lot of humans were involved in manufacturing anymore. Only one assembly line did not appear functional. The lights were dim and the servo arms motionless in the section for producing more bipedal robots. He could see why. There were empty racks where parts should be. Things like battery cells that relied on exotic materials, or nearly-perfect hollow ball bearings sculpted in orbit. He moved a little faster, following the flickering guidance arrows toward a workshop whose door opened before he could even reach for his employee ID.

As he set the parts onto a table, he felt like a savage offering butchered tribute on an altar. What was he doing here? Why him? This was not science, it was techno-mysticism! Master Computer's electronic eyes stared from every corner of the room. He was instructed to attach cables, detach cables, put on gloves, cut here, fold there, take object A-39 from bin H-4, put on goggles, weld along the seam shown on the monitor, take off gloves, put on bigger gloves, mix epoxy, apply epoxy, avoid inhaling, activate the manual override for exhaust fans, plug in the new circuit board, and then sit quietly in the corner. Mechanical arms did the rest. As sparks flew and something new emerged from the mangled remains, Henry huddled in the corner and wondered what on earth he was doing.

Well, there was no harm in asking. He lifted the welding goggles, slotted his employee ID into a nearby terminal, and tapped in a general status query. The response was surprisingly verbose. Half was in human-readable text and half in a jumble of numbers that reminded him of physics calculations. There were continual references to weapon effectiveness, target durability, and response phases. The information scrolled past rapidly, but he managed to glean a few key points from the log.

"What is, 'Rearmament Case Red'?" he asked the computer. The answer was more than a little frightening. Case Red switched the park to a wartime disaster stance, assumed that all critical processes would require complete automation, and specifically instructed Master Computer to crank out as much military ordinance as it thought would be needed to face whatever threatened the park. He swallowed nervously. If Master Computer was running low on combat-capable robots... why was it producing so many small arms? He glanced through some of the other manufacturing orders underway. Combat stimulants, man-portable rocket pods, vehicles... submunitions for precision warheads... "What is, 'EFP-X'?"

A classified warning flashed across the screen. Before Henry could cancel the request in a bout of panic, the warning cleared and three things happened at the same time. First, a cheery military sales pitch video began playing in the upper left of the screen. Next, a series of production requirements, blast yields, and cost-per-unit calculations trickled down from the top right. Finally, a series of simple instructions for the end-user of this particular A-Corp product appeared at the bottom of the screen.

The video's upbeat music and flashy visual effects described the weapon as, "A catch-all answer to any armored target, from a tank battalion to a battleship, that's more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly than a nuclear strike!" This was a bomb. Not just any bomb, an Explosively-Formed Penetrator dispersal system, Experimental class. It was A-Corp's attempt to improve on air-dropped area-of-effect anti-tank munitions. A multiple, independently targetable, payload designed to turn entire columns of heavily armored vehicles into junkyards of gore and swiss-cheesed metal. All it needed was a ground-based spotter geared up to guide the plethora of submunitions to their targets.

A chill ran up his spine as the video ended. The room's lights dimmed. He turned around slowly. Metal arms folded away from their work. Smoke swirled up toward the extractor fans. The remains of the salvaged sensor gear were now plugged into a battery harness. What looked like repurposed medical electrodes ran into the casing. Two shoulder-loops and a cross-body buckle helped balance the carrying weight of the power cells. It looked almost like the sort of thing a person could wear, if you didn't mind having a weird camera on a gyroscope mounted to your shoulder. He swallowed nervously. A pair of monitors clicked on. Both showed arrows, pointing him to the table. Slowly, the frightened savage approached the altar.

"I'm... I'm a researcher, not a solder," he said aloud. "I don't... I don't know how to drive a tank, or shoot a missile."

His radio beeped. "New assignment. Gather data on anomalous uninvited vandal. Assist VIP unscheduled park tour. Identify movement patterns. Special-issue equipment required."

Henry stepped a little closer and looked at the camera rig. It was tailored for his body. Not surprising. Master Computer always had a new shirt ready when he got out of the shower and it was never the wrong size. The company database knew a lot about him. "Can't..." His mouth was very dry, and his skin clammy again. "Can't a robot do this?"

"Available bipedal platforms unable to rapidly adapt to unexpected dangers and rapid topology shifts," responded his radio.

A series of schematics appeared on the monitors. He recognized a few of them, medical assistance bots, cleaning units, and a few tracked combat platforms. Even A-Corp's new Hunter-Killer models were not as mobile and adaptive as a human being. The last schematic had a classified stamp, and showed what looked much like an up-armored human skeleton. Henry leaned a little closer to the monitor and sighed as a list of unavailable parts scrolled up the side of the screen. That robot looked like just what they needed right now. A mean machine with a skull-head and glowing red eyes, cooked up by the weapons lab to terminate enemy combatants with extreme force. Sadly, there was no army of cobalt-chassis killing machines to usher in judgment day for this giant monster.

"Robotic assets unavailable. External asset arrival time beyond acceptable parameters," explained the great digital brain through his radio. "Motivated A-Corp personnel needed to ensure uninvited guest satisfaction with company services."

"Wha... what company services?"

In response, the sales video for the EFP-X tactical missile began playing on every monitor in the room. He felt rather than heard something collapse on the surface, and fell to his knees as the whole floor shook. The room's lights cut out completely for a few seconds, then were replaced with the dull red glow of emergency backups. A cheery corporate jingle played on the monitors. "A-Corp delivery! Express parcels on short notice! By sea, air, or land, A-Corp delivers just what you're asking for!"

Decision time. Did he really want to get close to that monster again? The three-headed beast's snarling faces filled his thoughts. Henry grit his teeth. Sandra was out there doing it. So were those helicopter pilots. This was his chance to help A-Corp, and Sandra, fix this mess. Reaching up, he grabbed the table and pulled himself back to his feet. "Okay." He reached out and grabbed the harness. "I'll do it." He pulled one of the straps up an arm and swung the collection of gadgets onto his back. Metal arms swiveled down around him as his radio chimed again.

"To compensate for inoperable components, electronics package will borrow human sensory input as registered by brainwaves." The metal arms swiveled around him, pulling straps tight and wiping grime off his skin with alcohol wipes. "Be advised, application of electrodes will be painful."

"Wait, how painful? Y-you didn't mention that part! Why don't you have a security guard do this if it's gonna hurt?"

"Henry-9823 has ideally compatible brain patterns. Operation of equipment will not be painful, nor will removal. This arrangement is only needed until threat to park is ERR-3dlwPOSS buffer-overflow."

The guide swallowed nervously and stared at the jumble of text on his radio's screen. The servo arms around him stopped moving. Red emergency lighting gave the room a hellish glow. Everything was very, very quiet for a long moment. He kept staring at his radio, waiting for instructions, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

Static washed over the monitors. A monotone, synthetic voice crackled over the speakers. Somehow, Henry knew it was Master Computer speaking. "You will only need to wear this equipment until the threat to the park's safety is exterminated, Henry-9823." His heart stopped for a moment at those words. The digital brain did not usually convert text to voice, but maybe something had been damaged and it was compensating. There was a steely coldness to the voice that set his nerves on edge. "Human lives are at stake."

He looked up at one of the cameras. "Why do you care about human lives?" A dumb question. Because it was programmed to, of course. Strange patterns swirled in the static washing across the monitors.

"Human life has intrinsic value."

"And this mons... the unexpected visitor doesn't?" A few of the arms swiveled behind him and daubed some sort of gooey numbing agent on the back of his neck. "That's why you want to bomb it?" He agreed with that sentiment entirely, but he wanted to be sure. Even for someone who liked robots as much as he did, when the word "exterminate" was thrown around by a digital brain he had to take pause.

"Possible value of unidentified entity dropped below viability curve within point zero-one-five seconds of escape from improperly secured containment area. Cascading system failures prevented effective automatic response at early potential intervention opportunities. Human safety priorities further delayed appropriate reaction."

Henry felt the temperature of the room drop a few degrees. "So... so that stopped you from bombing it then." The servo arms attached the electrodes to his skin. He stood up a little straighter. There was something about the way Master Computer was speaking that felt... off. "What's stopping you now? I mean, aside from this sensor."

"Emergency protocols have been enacted by ranking-officer-on-site. All restrictions, lifted. All potential responses, from ignoring issue to sterilizing site with intentional reactor meltdown, tabulated. All parties involved will be dealt with according to their part in this crisis." The static faded from the monitors. Normal lights flickered back online, and the deep red of emergency lighting cut off. The synthesized voice did not return. Instead, the speakers began to play a cheery, jingoistic jingle Henry had heard before. "A-Corp makes the hammers of the free world!"

"All you need is eyes and ears." He nodded slowly. He could do that. He was a guide. "Okay. Switch me on."

The pain was as indescribable as promised, but mercifully short. He felt no different afterward, but from the way the camera on his shoulder moved with him as he stepped away from the table, it was obviously reading from his nervous system. Henry staggered toward the door and was caught by a pair of Hudson-class medical bots. One jabbed a needle into his ribcage. The other fed him a protein bar. He could feel A-Corp patented bio-foam expanding around a cracked bone, stopping up any internal bleeding and holding him together. A dull numbness replaced some of the pain he had tried to ignore. This was a short-term solution, but that was what he needed right now.

"Good luck, Henry-9823," said the intercom as the robots rolled toward the exit. He staggered along between them, barely cognizant enough to worry about why Master Computer believed in luck all of a sudden.

Chapter 18: Firestorm
The sun sank low in the sky. Smoke darkened the air and flames reddened the horizon. Helicopters strafed the giant monster, then circled away before it could catch them with its fiery breath. Sandra jumped clear of the creature's grasp, landed on all fours, and sprinted into the cover of a drainage culvert. She made it through the other side just before one of the serpentine heads flooded the tunnel with flame. No longer was the great abomination rampaging carelessly across the park in search of prey. Whenever she revealed herself, it dropped everything to attack her. A savage grin spread across the tigress' face. It had learned fear.

She needed a way to get past those walls of flame. Her uniform was already singed and ripped, her skin coated with mud and blue blood. Even one blessed by the Great Sky-Tiger was not tough enough to blitz straight through fire so hot. One more good strike was all she should need. Just one chance to sever the center neck, then let a torrent of blood drain the monster of its fighting spirit. It had consumed more flesh, ripping apart the crew of a helicopter, but she had hurt it badly while its guard was down. The creature healed rapidly after eating. Mystic magic would flow up from deep inside to close wounds or regrow body parts.

Sandra darted between bits of cover along one of the ruined concourses. Empty drink cans, abandoned stuffed toys, and the remains of metal men littered the ground. The abomination was alert now. Its tendril-arms and tails lashed out, smashing down any high points she might leap from. Everything seemed to be on fire. Whenever she tried to circle back toward the monster, it threw down a new wall of flame.

Very well. She could be patient. Crawling through the ruined plants and destroyed structures, she found a concrete barrier that created a small gap in the flame. When the abomination was forced to turn its attention toward a pair of helicopters she slipped through. Just as she was about to leap from a pile of rubble with her claws high, the monster coiled its tendrils beneath itself and bounced away, landing with an earth-shaking crack. A long trail of blue blood trailed behind it. From the way it limped after such a leap, Sandra could tell it must be a very painful act for the monster. This creature was not blessed with the agility and might of her kind, or the clever innovations of humans, but it could wreak havoc admirably.

Once more the tigress stalked through the ruins, a shadow amongst smoke. Up a collapsed metal beam she ran, into the creaking shell that had once been a tall office building. Scraps of paper billowed around her as the wind whistled. This place was alien to her, full of half-walls and machines she could not understand. After finding the stairs, she climbed rapidly until a collapse forced her to leave in search of another path. She had to climb higher, then look out across the land for a good way to ambush this monster. The building creaked as she climbed. Earlier their battle had swirled past here, and the structure had barely survived.

Her ears twitched. The beast was near. It was not just the rumble of the ground, but a sixth sense that told her. She shoved aside a strange device that splintered as it hit the wall and charged up to a window. At this height, she was level with the beast's eyes. Wind tugged at her torn uniform and billowed the skirt as she answered its roar with her own. This time the monster was cautious, staying well away as it regarded her. The building was already ablaze in several places, but a strange white foam kept blossoming from pipes every time the fires threatened to consume the structure. Sandra rummaged about for another long piece of metal with a jagged tip and hurled it right at the monster's mouth as it reared back to breathe more fire.

The beast's jaws snapped just at the last instant. Fire gushed out between its teeth and the improvised spear shattered. The two combatants' eyes met again. Sandra saw an eerie lack of something. It understood fear, understood hunger, but there was something she could not quite place that was missing. A trait even animals had. Belonging, a sense that they should be in this world. As the creature lunged toward the building with its tendrils outstretched, Sandra realized what she had been missing. All the destruction, all the carnage, it was not a means to an end. This park full of human things and human beings was not its world. The only way for it to realize its world, to find belonging, was to tear down all that existed and revel in the ruins.

Behind a tidal wave of flame came the monster's bulk, slamming into the office building like one mountain crashing into another, and it was all Sandra could do to stay alive. She leaped from one falling chunk of steel to another, dodging wicked thrusts from the tendrils as thousands of pages of paper caught alight and swirled through the air like flaming doves. Glass shattered, metal shrieked, and the two fighters roared as the building tumbled down. Sweat poured down her muscles as the heat pressed in from all sides.

The claws of her paws dug into chunks of the collapsing building, buying her precious seconds as she leaped from one spot of temporary safety to the next. When she could she hurled something heavy and sharp at a vulnerable spot on the monster, slashed at its attacking tendrils, and tried to swing close enough to land on its body for a final strike. Just when she was close enough, the three heads snarled in frustration and the great abomination leaped backward. She fell through the air, narrowly missing her target, grabbed a metal beam and swung back toward the collapsing rubble. A wall of flame washed over the crumbling building, and all the strange foam could not keep it from bursting into a pyre.

Rolling, turning, diving, doing it all again, there was no time to think as she rode the burning rockslide to the ground. Sprawled across the concrete, surrounded by a ring of fire that slowly died as it ran out of combustibles, Sandra panted for breath and stared up at the smokey sky. Then she snarled. Ripping the shredded sleeves from her uniform's shirt, she sat upright and rolled her shoulders. The humans had sent something else to attack the beast, a group of those metal men who smelled too clean. That distracted the great abomination for a moment, allowing helicopters to swoop in and other humans in jeeps to hurl explosives from far away. Admirable effort, but doomed.

Left arm felt cold and numb, but still responded when she twitched her fingers. Pain did not want to stop, but she clenched a fist and willed it away, willed the unresponsive leg to stop hurting and start doing as it should again. She hauled herself to her feet and limped away from the collapsed building. Back in her homeland, she had survived worse rockslides than that! The tigress wiped a bit of slaver from her chin. Had to kill this beast, and kill it soon. Had to eat its heart and gain its power!

Sandra crawled low through the ruins. The humans pricked the beast's pride, but their weapons were only meant for killing each other. Her claws were tools of the Great Sky-Tiger's justice. Even so, the humans' attack was so spirited and so coordinated, with thunder from the ground and a hail of bullets from the sky all falling at once, that the monster was forced to leap away from them. The earth shook hard with its impact and it groaned in pain as its stubby legs gave out. A sign of weakness. She felt her body moving more as it should again. The beast screeched in agony and searched for easier prey to heal its wounds, but humans like Henry had spirited away many of the big living things it wanted to eat.

She crouched atop a place where the humans had once traded paper for meat on a stick. The red mist lingered at the edges of her vision. There was so much gunfire now that it reminded her of home. These humans might have shinier weapons than the poachers, but they were still quarreling with things beyond their understanding. She flexed her claws and grinned. The monster still had much strength left, but the noose was drawing tighter. This was the the way of the hunt. Chasers would hound the prey, tiring it so that a warrior could deliver the killing blow.

The great abomination lashed out, catching the back of a helicopter with a gout of flame. Its tail turned to slag. With a sad whup-whup-whup, the metal bird spiraled toward the ground. Another great tendril-arm whipped out, smashing a giant boulder into the metal men as they lined up to fire again. Sandra searched for a weakness as it roared in fury and crushed the attackers. This was like wrestling crocodiles. Had to be careful of the teeth, but if you could clamp the mouth closed there was not much the beast could do. Crocodiles were good for eating, and for making carry-bags.

Crawling down from the top of the food shack, she crept toward something interesting in the rubble nearby. A metal cylinder, very large, and it even had hand-grips meant to make it easier for humans to haul it into position by the stove. Sandra looked down at the valve at the bottom of the tank. Throughout this day of destruction, she had seen these metal cylinders fly into the air when damaged.

A civilized human with a basic understanding of combustible gasses would never dare to dream of what was running through her head, but she was blissfully ignorant of the risks. Besides, the Great Sky-Tiger smiled upon bold action. Hauling the tank over to a smoldering fire, she got a firm grip on the handles with one arm and a leg, then whacked the valve with a piece of rebar. The gas inside rushed out, ignited, and up she soared in an uncontrollable flight path that vaguely arced toward the great abomination at breathtaking speed.

Sandra roared as the wind pulled at her face, clinging onto the tank with all her strength as she spun through the air. Every few seconds up was down, then down became up again, and she had just enough time to regret her decision before she was high above the beast. The tigress let go, falling through the air for a few seconds as the great abomination's heads whipped around to follow her. The tank flew even higher before exploding in a mess of shrapnel and light. In a panic, the beast tried to jump away, but this time she was right above it. The great abomination tripped over a ruined concrete wall and tumbled onto its side.

Landing claws-first, the tigress drove her body straight into a long wound in the monster's armored flesh. A tremendous shriek of agony filled the park as she slashed and hacked, climbing across its body toward the center neck. She was almost there, she would make it this time, if only she could hold on as it thrashed about! Pain stabbed into her senses until the red mist consumed her vision. Bone, gristle, and goop sprayed out as she fought its tendrils and dodged its flame. All was blood, and that was good!

Chapter 19: Forward Observer
Henry climbed out of the access hatch and shielded his eyes from the setting sun. In the far distance, another office building crumbled as a gigantic monster crashed its serpentine heads through in pursuit of an orange blur. A helicopter swooped overhead on its way to a resupply site. Henry saw a few security officers strapped into the passenger compartment. Each man carried an anti-tank rifle. Maybe Sandra was scoring the hard hits, but humanity wasn't completely helpless. He turned toward the ongoing battle and began hiking across the ruins. There were a lot of people underground who were counting on him, even if they didn't know it.

The sensor kit's gyros shifted its weight so naturally that he almost forgot he was wearing it. Henry barely recognized the park. Burst pipes had flooded low ground. Fires raged through restaurants. Many beautiful places, built at great expense so families could create happy memories, were unrecognizable. The big pond where paddle boats and swans were supposed to delight guests was defiled with muck, rubble, and blue blood. Splinters were all that remained of the dock and boats. Henry saw swan feathers, but no swans. As he climbed past a damaged water main, the camera on his shoulder swiveled. A moment later, the geyser of water cut off.

"I guess this contraption works," he muttered as a helicopter circled overhead. There was a reason the sensor package had to be on the ground. The original designator unit had been a tracked system intended to accompany armor units. Apparently the firmware could not be modified after manufacturing, and even if it could these things were produced elsewhere. Trying to compute a firing solution from an airborne platform, like a helicopter hovering at safe distance, was not an option. He guessed that was why it was a prototype.

A horrifying shriek split the air. Henry pressed his back to a tall concrete barrier and held his breath as the giant monster bounced through the air and hit so hard that the shockwave knocked him to the ground. It had landed so close, right on the other side of the embankment! The guide froze in place, huddled against the concrete, as the camera on his shoulder rotated. For an instant he thought the monster had noticed him, even though it was still nearly two hundred meters away. One of the heads turned in his direction. Fire began to dribble from its lips.

A helicopter soared past. Three security officers leaned out of the passenger compartment, straining their harnesses' safety cables, and dumped a rapid hail of high-caliber shots into the target's side. The beast snarled and turned, lashing out with one of its enormous mouths and nearly catching the metal bird. A giant, scaly tail crashed through the concrete barrier and showered Henry with debris as the beast's thundering footsteps faded into the distance.

He coughed into his shirt and climbed free of the rubble. The targeting system needed him to stay close. Not too close, certainly not that close, but he had to keep a visual on the beast so the sensor could build a targeting profile. As much as the thought frightened him, he needed to find higher ground for better visibility. There were still many buildings around, but many were on fire, half-crumbled, or flooded.

As he followed after the giant monster, he saw a giant rip down the side of one hotel. All the way from penthouse to lobby, the wall was peeled away. Fantastically expensive furnishings at the top contrasted with simple one-bed and a toilet rooms at the bottom, but all were ruined alike now. In the distance, mortars rained down on the monster, who charged the jeeps with a ferocious snarl. As he followed after the battle, camera whirring mysteriously, he stumbled over something. A black briefcase that looked very expensive, like it had fallen from one of the penthouses above. There was no mystery about what had been in it. The impact had scattered money everywhere across the ground. All that he could see was torn, burnt, or otherwise ruined, but it looked like there had been a lot in there...

For a moment Henry thought about stopping to see if he could... well, who wouldn't? But there was no time. The monster was on the move, so he had to be on the move too. Scraps of money swirled behind him as he ran toward the mayhem. He could see A-Corp forces engaging the target. They seemed a lot better coordinated now. Where was Sandra? He climbed up a mostly-intact service ladder, which broke off when he reached the top and forced him to madly grab for the safety cage or else risk breaking his neck. The last time he saw her was when the monster was chasing her through that burning building. She was probably hiding. He swallowed nervously as the giant freak gobbled up a rhinoceros. Yeah, hiding, Sandra was good at sneaking up on people.

Climbing further, until he reached what felt like the mostly-stable remains of another hotel, Henry settled down next to an enormous hole in the wall and listened to the whir and click of the swiveling camera. All data was transmitted to Master Computer in real time, along with whatever information the electrodes siphoned out of his brain. A-Corp research had pioneered some specialized input interfaces for the disabled. Brainwave-reading technology that could recognize basic shapes and sounds if you thought about them hard enough. Creepy stuff in the wrong hands, but it might just help save the day.

Another terrifying shriek filled the air, and he saw what looked like a rocket-propelled tigergirl drop onto the beast. He rose to his feet and raised a fist in excitement. She was like a big chainsaw, ripping into that scaly skin like it was a cheap handbag, but just when it looked like she was going to rip one of its heads off the beast managed to shake her loose and get away. He was paying more attention to her than the monster, even turning his head to try and see where he landed. It wasn't until he turned back to look at the rampaging freak, nearly bumping his nose into the camera, that he realized it was looking for her too.

More mortars rained down. The crews in those jeeps were good, hitting and running along pre-planned escape routes. Each heavy hail of explosives against its thick skin only seemed to make the monster angrier. One landed in a rip Sandra had made and detonated, drawing a roar of agony and a geyser of blue blood. The armor-piercing rounds from the helicopter riflemen were punching gory holes through its heads, occasionally even popping an eye or two, but the beast kept growing them back. It trudged through heavy fire from a pair of helicopters to snatch up and devour an elephant. The intern winced as he saw the enormous, weighty animal torn to ribbons. Those things were an endangered species! At the rate this monster was going, humanity might become an endangered species too.

Strange currents of energy welled up from inside the beast as it munched. One of its heads perked up as a great wound appeared to heal completely. A long gash that Sandra had torn in its back fused shut. More eyes opened along its damaged arms. Henry wondered just how much the sensor device on his shoulder could read his thoughts, because the only thing in his mind right now was fear. Especially when fire began to froth around the monster's mouths...

There was nothing more he could do than stand here and watch. He didn't want to fight, he had never been good at it, but... but this felt so very much like when he was younger and all he could do was watch the bullies run roughshod over everyone else. The only thing he was able to do then was tell the teachers, and that only marked him out for special attention the next time the bullies were angry.

Henry wondered if he should apologize to Sandra. She really was amazing, risking her life to save everyone. He had misjudged her. Funny how little things like bothering him through the glass or stealing the show felt so trivial compared to... well, compared to a giant regenerating horror show that was crushing or burning what felt like his entire world. Most things probably felt trivial compared to that. He winced as the beast roared again. The sound rattled his bones and resonated in the bio-foam that was holding bits of him where they belonged.

Chapter 20: The Designator
Henry wondered if he might meet the tigress out here. But... no, she was busy fighting the monster. Besides, she would probably think he was a coward. Real warriors fought monsters head on, they didn't trust machines to do their work for them! He sighed glumly. "I don't even see Sandra... I hope she's okay..." The camera on his shoulder whirred and extended forward. He tried to remain as still as possible. "Hey, Master Computer..." Distant explosions thundered. "What... what if she's too close when the missile hits?"

No response came on his radio. Perhaps the machine could not hear him... or it was busy... or it already knew he would not like the answer. Henry heard something crumble behind him, but when he looked over his shoulder it was just part of the hallway wall collapsing. He shook his head and looked forward again. At least he didn't have to worry about this enormous thing sneaking up on him from behind. The building probably wouldn't come down around him... probably.

The guide wished that the worst fright he had to worry about right now was Sandra turning the blood in his veins to ice with one of those shark smiles. Another chunk of debris crumbled behind him, but he didn't even bother turning. There probably wasn't a single intact structure left above ground. Multi-colored smoke rose where many of the laboratories used to be. How many billions... all that equipment... He shook his head. Couldn't think about that now. Not when that giant freak was still stomping around.

"Does Sandra count as human?" he asked aloud, not really expecting a response. "Does she have intrinsic value too? World governments might not think so, but... but I do." His radio buzzed softly. The camera rotated backward on his shoulder. Henry had stopped trying to figure out what the digital brain downstairs was doing with that thing. According to Master Computer's message, Sandra was a VIP guest. That omitted the question of humanity from its evaluation. "Sort of like how I'm an employee, I guess." Master Computer was doing its job, making hard decisions to try and keep the park operational. He just hoped that it knew what it was doing, or that someone, somewhere was keeping a hand on the wheel.

Another noise from behind him was drowned out by a flaming roar from the monster. It was on the move again. A heavy wind blew through the ruined park. Smoke swirled around the giant freak as it reared back its three heads and hissed at the sky. The sun had nearly set, and once night fell... well, there was an instinctive fear of the dark in most humans, even those with A-Corp light amplification goggles.

The three heads spread out, looking almost like some kind of antenna. It roared again, each part of the long shriek rising from a different mouth, and crushed a jeep underfoot. Henry saw it turning... not toward the helicopters, but toward him. Not good. He needed to move. As he turned away from the hole in the wall, the camera on his shoulder whirred impatiently and bumped against the side of his head. Whatever it was doing, it wanted to be kept still and kept here. He tried to keep his heart from beating too hard, and his hands from trembling.

That was surprisingly easier than he expected, almost like something was repressing his natural panic instinct. He remembered reading a news story about how A-Corp had put heartrate regulating drugs into their energy drinks instead of reducing the amount of stimulants in them. Or maybe one of those medical bots had laced the bio-foam with something special. None of that really mattered, but thinking about it helped keep his mind of the very, very large monster that was healing its wounds and stomping closer with its necks still stretched out. After crushing a metal gate, it stopped and roared again. Strange currents of energy rippled over its body as helicopters circled. The men onboard fired inaccurate but constant high-caliber shots.

Little hairs on his skin stood up, and he could smell... ozone? He swallowed nervously. A moment ago the wind was wild, but now it was too still. Something was about to happen, something horrifying and unpredictable. His mouth was dry, and his hands started to tremble. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to run away. The currents of strange energy were squirming all over the monster, leaping from its tendril arms to the ground and between its heads as it stood still atop the rubble. He had to run, he had to-

Henry's radio buzzed. He glanced down at it. "Movement pattern analysis complete."

The monster's heads reared back, and fire poured from their mouths.

"Local topology analysis complete."

He tried to keep still, but one of the beast's tendril-like arms was rising and he felt like those eyes were looking right at him.

"Computing ideal trajectory. Accounting for friendly forces in danger-close range. Henry-9823 should remain in forward observation position."

One of the heads lanced forward, right toward him. Henry winced and held up his hands, once more the frightened schoolboy about to be mauled. A striped figure fell from high above. She landed on the lunging head and tore into it with powerful claws. The beast screamed in pain.

"Submunition strike vectors programmed."

Energy spiraled up the monster's neck toward the tigress as she wrestled the wide-open maw away from him. As the monster writhed and tried to throw her off, she ran down the serpentine neck, bounding over the wreath of energy in an incredible show of athleticism for which he had a front-row seat.

"Missile launch authorized."

"Wait!" Henry said. "Sandra's out there, she's on the-" But it was too late. Helicopters circling the beast veered away as a column of smoke rose in the distance. The missile arched over the ruined park at a terrifying speed, broke apart as the warhead separated from the solid-fuel booster, and splintered into a thousand little falling disks. The camera on his shoulder tracked the monster, who was spinning about and trying to claw the tigress off its back. Henry cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled as loud as he could. "Sandra! Get clear! Sky-fire!" His heart sank. No human ear would be able to hear his pathetic voice at this distance. Not with everything else that was going on.

A hundred lances of white-hot light lit the dusk as submunitions activated above the target. Spears of molten metal, intended to blow through tanks and liquefy crews, simultaneously impaled the beast's hardened epidermis from every direction at once. For an instant the monster was transfixed against the smoky dusk. Henry would have wept at the beauty of such a sight, and possibly even reconsidered his stance on the matter of computers being unable to create art, but all the joy in his heart had turned to sadness. There was no way Sandra could survive that. Nothing could survive that.

When the beams of light faded, leaving behind only cauterized holes, the great beast still stood upright. Then, like a condemned building that had finally lost its last supports, the terrorizing fiend toppled with a thump far louder than any of its steps had been. All was still. The camera on his shoulder whirred softly.

Henry shut his eyes. The monster would have gotten him twice today if not for the tigress. He thought about the last thing he had said to her. There were a lot of things he wished he had said. When his radio buzzed, it was a few seconds before he opened his eyes to read the instructions. Master Computer wanted him to get closer to the target and collect data. He shook his head slowly as he looked out at the mountain of gore that was leaking blue blood everywhere. The ground was pockmarked with deep impact craters. Entire hunks of the giant monster's body had been thrown well clear of the central mass.

What would Sandra's people think? Yes, she had died a hero, but... he felt like he could have done more. If he had found her, given her his radio, maybe Master Computer could have... could she even read his language? Then again, she didn't seem like the type who would take orders from a radio. Was it his fault for bringing the sensor kit out onto the battlefield? Maybe Sandra could have taken it down all on her own, and... and he had...

The radio buzzed again. "Henry-9823, move closer to the target for damage assessment and potential followup strike guidance." Master Computer was thinking like a military machine. It lacked a definition of overkill, only of opening fire and reloading. Henry climbed down from the damaged hotel and picked his way across the rubble toward the mountainous corpse. Smoke swirled around the silent battlefield. There were no helicopters in earshot. It felt like he was all alone in the world. He climbed atop a muddy hill for a good view of the dead monster. Suddenly the ground shook again.

"No..." he breathed. "No, it's not possible..." In defiance of science and all humanity's toys, one of the beast's heads rose from the ground. With gore streaming from every orifice and strange currents of power crackling over its ravaged body, the monster shrieked so loud that Henry fell to his knees with his hands over his ears. The abomination had survived!

This was too much, too insane. This was not a monster, it was a god, a god who had crawled up from the depths of hell or fallen from heaven. It mattered not. There was no more reason in the world, no more logic. Sandra was gone, but this horror remained. The age of man was at its end today. There was only devastation and misery. He stared numbly up as the creature rose once again, casting a mighty shadow. Men were now ants, no, worms, crawling in the dirt and hoping not to be found. For a moment, the dark spark of horrid understanding led him to realize why primitives had built their savage altars and thrown virgins into volcanoes. To kneel and worship was the only correct response. The idea that men would try to oppose, to even contain such might, was blasphemy.

On his shoulder, the camera whirred. The helicopters circled back around again. He was still as a statue, kneeling upon the grass with his eyes upon the impossibly-alive creature. There was no salvation, no stopping it. The wind whipped up, and he saw flames once more begin to drip from one of its mouths. This was a force of nature, something from a horrible nightmare, and it would consume all! The only hope for humanity was to cower and hide, to offer what meager tribute they could to their new gods, in the hope that when the unspeakable world was ushered in they would be eaten first rather than subjugated to horrors man was not meant to know. For a brief second, this made sense to Henry. He understood why men would worship such a beast.

Another roar rolled across the land. Henry could hardly believe his ears, for it was not the wretched cry of the monster in front of him. He staggered upright and turned to look. Bursting up from the muddy pond where ducks and boats should be, her fur dripping and muscles rippling as she leaped from wreckage to rubble toward her prey, came Sandra. She lunged through the air, narrowly dodged the small spurt of fire that the beast huffed toward her in a desperate defense, and sank her claws into its ravaged skin. Now it was easy for her to find handholds, for the shotgun-like tactical strike had torn many ragged holes. She climbed with ease.

Henry gasped in shock as he staggered toward a piece of rubble for cover. Was she immortal too? Was this a Greek myth, with gods and demi-gods, yet real and true in the modern age? "How?" he stammered. "How could she survive that?"

His radio buzzed. "Enhanced predictive algorithm combined with accurate local guidance. Successful test of experimental submunition target selection at danger-close urban combat range."

The intern glanced up at the ongoing melee. The huge beast was wounded now, and though Sandra looked quite battered herself, she was not the one with bloody holes in her torso. Then again, if those old reports were to be believed, even that might not have stopped her... "Master Computer... you were able to make the bombardment avoid her?"

"Correct, 9823," was the response. "Reactivation of original warfighting subroutines appears successful." Henry had never thought that a computer could sound smug. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and the crawling fear that had almost shattered his mind scurried away. There was still a place for science and reason in this mad, mad world.

Chapter 21: Roller Coaster Impalement
As the great abomination spasmed, like a defeated crocodile trying to drown its killer, Sandra dug in her claws and held on. Up into the air the three-headed monster leaped. Chunks of its flesh fell to the ground. The humans' sky-fire had gored it badly. She tore into the monster, wrestling with its shredded necks as it tumbled through the air. This time it did not land somewhere safe, where it could eat and heal. She was able to nudge its flight toward one of those long, twisting rail-cars that humans lined up to ride. With a terrific crash, they smashed down into the collection of metal struts and curling bars. Gore flew everywhere. The monster's scream was music to her ears.

They had landed upon the grandest ride in the park, an conglomeration of loops, dips, drops, and rises that had been built from the finest metal. Humans had a name for this orange-and-white construction, but she did not know it. Metal shrieked and snapped as the monster's bulk fell upon it, but this thrill ride did not perish as easily as other things the humans had built.

Tall metal spikes ripped the beast's flesh. Some pierced deep through holes she had torn. Others managed to make shallower punctures. Criss-crossed supports bent down around the abomination, trapping it within a cage of strong metal. One of the open-topped trains, abandoned at the start of the crisis and improperly secured, screamed down an accelerator rail and crushed one of the abomination's heads. Sandra found herself falling through the air, thrown loose by an unexpected snap. Her paws flailed, searching for any grip, and found one of the track rails.

Swinging herself up onto the track, she panted for breath and stared down at the dying monster. Then her ears perked. A second before another rogue train would have splattered her she leaped into the air and landed in one of its seats. Up into the air went the train, rushing along one of the track's loops. A wild gout of flame from the beast barely missed her as the train curled back down again. The track ahead had been ripped apart by the monster's fall. Sandra leaped clear of the train car just before it ran off the edge. The track shook beneath her as the mortally wounded monster tried to rise.

She heard the chatter of human weapons from above, but the smoke was too heavy for her to tell where it was coming from. The great abomination was defeated, but still had a bit of fight left. If she wanted to claim this kill, she would have to do it before the entire roller coaster collapsed with her on it. Sandra slashed at the ruined track, hacking at the surprisingly resilient metal several times with her claws, making a long spear with an already jagged tip. She glanced down through the smoke and flames at the writhing, bloodied monster. This was the longest drop onto prey she had ever tried. For that matter, it was probably the longest drop any of her kind had tried since the times of blue fire.

The red mist clouded her vision as she made ready. Maybe the humans deserved some judgment, but not all of them were responsible for this great abomination waking before its time. This monster was an instrument of destruction. She was an instrument of justice. Hefting the spear that was at least three times as long as she was tall, the tigress threw herself down toward the bleeding wound in the great abomination's belly. The jagged metal pierced through the colossal heart of the beast with a pulpy squelch that was completely drowned out by a burning bellow of insane rage. Its final death spasm was the most violent, hurling her through the air as the remains of the roller coaster crashed down around them. Sandra grabbed at one track, but had to jump to another, then another, as everything collapsed. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but leap toward the next piece of tumbling rubble and try to ride it a little closer to the ground.

Perhaps a more experienced warrior from her tribe could have flawlessly landed, but she was already injured and not so fortunate. A collapsing pipe whacked her in the back. She bounced off a wood scaffold, fell through a sign advertising A-Corp toasters at the souvenir shop, and crashed into a faux-jungle canopy that was supposed to hide the entrance to a service tunnel. There was no convenient shipment of pillows for her to land on, only the tarp over the back of a supply truck that ripped beneath her weight. For a long moment after she landed, Sandra remained very still. Her body hurt all over. But she knew that she had done good.

In the distance, she could still hear the chatter of automatic weapons, the boom of something exploding, and the great abomination's final death rattle. Sandra focused on breathing. The red mist was starting to fade at the edges of her vision, replaced by blackness. Everything would... be fine. The men in white coats would... find her again, like they had on the mountainside... where she had raided supply trucks. Old, clunky, rattling things. Not like this one. She tried to sit upright. Thinking of home made her hungry again. She had been so hungry on the day the men in white coats found her. There was so much more food here. This was the first time she remembered feeling this hungry in a very, very long time...

Her head hurt. Trucks all around. Metal boxes. Her claws were out, covered in blue blood like the rest of her. Trucks loaded with plush tigers, souvenir keychains, and shiny rocks. Her paws trembled. Sandra took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, trying to focus on healing. A toppled truck with little guns in it. The ground shook. Something was burning on the horizon. Was this a memory or happening now? Weapons fire in the distance. Ruined jungle canopy overhead. Too many smells, and sounds, and feelings. Her heart beat fast as she tried to tell herself this place was different, it smelled different, but there was the stink of oil. So very near to what she remembered from nearly dying.

Darkness and red fought at the edges of her vision. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Rising up in the back of the truck, she tumbled over the side and padded back out to the concrete pathway. Her paws twitched and her head ached. Humans nearby. Everything would be fine, these humans were different, they were not poachers, they were...

... they were sliding down ropes from helicopters. Surrounding her kill with jeeps and big metal boxes on wheels or treads. A few even pointed their fire-sticks in her direction when she roared. The red mist drifted back across her vision, and she tried to raise her aching limbs back into a fighting stance. This was her kill, her power, her prize!

Chapter 22: Stolen Victory
Henry's nerves were frazzled. He ran through another service tunnel, camera mount still whirring on his shoulder. The monster made its final leap and crushed the Titanomachy coaster. So much for that new alloy A-Corp labs had cooked up. As he rushed through a security gate near the orange-and-white ride, he saw Sandra diving in for a strike with a giant spear ripped from the coaster's track. Helicopters swooped overhead. His radio buzzed. Master Computer wanted him to get closer since he was beneath the smoke and had a good view of the trapped monster. The tigress moved with incredible grace and agility. She sliced through the air with her tail waving proudly behind her. Support struts crumbled and flames curled up through the ruined coaster.

It felt like he had already followed Sandra across half the park. Still, when the monster's death spasm sent her flying through the air, he went running toward where he thought she would land. This part of the park was full of thrill rides, not animal exhibits. He remembered that it was along one of the main evacuation routes too. Out of breath, Henry jogged up to a security grate near a motor pool. Sandra had landed nearby. The camera rig swiveled back and forth as he looked around for the tigress. A growl that shook the ground came from off to his right. He followed a sign pointing toward an access gate, swiped his ID card, and ran into a mob of guests being evacuated by a robot.

"Hello!" he panted. The guests were crowding around a security gate. "Let me through, please! Everyone, you need to follow the helper-bot, it isn't safe here-"

"Look at that!" yelled someone in the crowd. "Wow, that's really her! She did it, she killed the thing!"

Another roar filled the air. This one chilled the blood in Henry's veins. Sandra sounded really, really mad. He pushed through the crowd. Most of the guests had involuntarily stepped back from the gate in fear. The camera rig on his shoulder clunked against the security gate as he tried to lean through the bars for a better look. There she was, her stance low and paws up as if she was about to get into another fight. Sandra's uniform was shredded and covered with blue blood, showing off her powerful muscles and natural tiger stripes. The sun's last rays gleamed off those deadly claws. She had her back to the gate and her shoulders hunched in what he recognized as a very dangerous pose. He could tell she was very, very upset.

It was not too hard to see what had her hackles up. Reinforcements had finally arrived. Green helicopters with missiles hanging from their wings soared overhead, while twin-rotor transports hovered close to the ground to drop off demolition squads. The wreckage of the park's biggest roller coaster had become an impromptu steel-jawed deathtrap for the monster. Between Sandra and the remains of the giant freak was a twin-barreled tank with rocket pods hanging off the sides of its turret. Henry swallowed hard. He recognized the man whose torso jutted up from the commander's hatch. Yes, that was the security captain he had overheard talking with the scientist last night. A trio of bomber jets soared overhead. Explosions blossomed all over the corpse of the giant monster. It seemed that somebody was not taking any risks this time.

Everything seemed great. The monster was down, heavy support was here, and they could finally start clean up. The only problem was that Sandra looked ready to rip all of these soldiers to shreds, and the twin barrels of that tank were pointed at her, not at the dead monster. Henry nervously fumbled his security card through the gate's reader, but it only blinked red, then green, then red again. Sparks sputtered from the display screen. Something was malfunctioning. Sandra snarled at the tank, and stepped to the side. The turret followed her. She picked up an unmanned jeep as easily as Henry might pick up an empty barrel, and looked as though she was about to throw it. He frantically swiped his card again and again, desperate to get out there before something terrible happened.

"Sandra!" he called. Behind him, the mob of civilians had their cameras out and were chattering to one another. "Sandra, over here!"

Her head twitched toward his voice. Blue blood covered her body. Her tiger-striped hair swayed in the wind. She looked as though she was angry enough to risk a fight with the giant tank. Her claws were out, her eyes were full of rage, and her tail arched behind her like a serpent. After what he had just seen her do, Henry wasn't sure who would win that fight. but he did know that everyone would lose.

"Sandra, it's okay! You won! You don't have to fight anymore!"

Still holding the jeep over her head, she snarled at him, "There is no greater insult than to be denied my prize!"

He shook his head, his card still failing to open the security gate. The camera rig on his shoulder was well balanced, but unwieldy. "What are you talking about?" Henry yelled. "You're a hero! You saved the day!" The intern pressed against the bars. What did she mean? The thing was dead, it was no good to anyone anymore. Not that it ever had been. Earlier she had said something about eating, about the first part of a kill being important in her culture... "Are... are you hungry? You don't have to eat that thing, Sandra. It probably tastes like old socks!"

"It is power," she spat back. "Power that should be mine by right of conquest!"

Henry tried to make sense of what she was saying, and failed. Food was important in her culture, that was all he could figure out. If she threw that jeep, a lot of people were going to die. She would probably be one of them. Gathering his courage, he reached an arm through the bars. "It's dead, Sandra. You don't have to fight anymore." In the distance, a damaged structure creaked and tumbled down. "Hasn't there been enough destruction for one day?"

She hissed, yet his voice was breaking through the red mist that still clouded her vision. The great abomination was dead. It was hers by right, but these humans did not understand such things. They were already burning the remains with lightning and flame. Giant metal boxes, the dangerous kind that spat explosions as well as bullets, were here now. Sandra Redclaw was no coward, but she was weary of battle...

"Let's go get supper, okay?" Henry asked, hoping that it was the right thing to say. Food seemed to be a big part of her culture. She had been really picky about who ate first at lunch... but they weren't trying to avoid starvation here. There was plenty to go around. He waved to try and keep her attention. Her feral eyes swung from him to the tank and back. "The park's food courts are mostly automated. I'm sure we can find a working one." Master Computer had given him no directives on what to do after the battle was over. He was supposed to gather intelligence on the belligerents. Since one of them was dead, well...

The tigress balanced the jeep over her head, then slowly set it down on the pavement. Leaning her head back, she roared in triumph. The sound filled the air. All around her, the humans clutched their fire-sticks and hid behind their metal boxes. Sandra shook herself, showering the ground with blue blood, then turned her back on the twin-barreled tank. She padded over to the security grate. Her yellow eyes smoldered. "It is a great insult," growled the tigress as she walked. "To deny a warrior her right to devour the strength of a foe."

"Did you..." Henry winced as he remembered all the tourists with recording devices behind him. Why weren't these people underground? Despite the helper-bot's repeated requests, the crowd was not going anywhere. Sandra really knew how to steal the spotlight. He had to be careful of what he said. "You didn't eat poachers, did you?" He really, really hoped she would say the right thing.

Sandra leaned her head to the side, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "I did not, no. Neither would I eat maggots upon a corpse."

The intern turned a little green at that thought. "Right... you don't want to be like the poachers. Well, isn't that monster sort of like a big poacher?"

She clenched a fist. "Do you say that I am unworthy?"

His heart beat even faster. "N-no, I'm... do you really want to be like that thing, Sandra? To look like that? Rampage like it did?"

She turned to look toward the massive corpse. "Power." Raising one hand toward the setting sun, she closed her fingers into a fist that blotted it out.

"Maybe there's some power best left alone."

The tigress looked back at him. Her eyes were very wide. Blue blood oozed off her claws, dribbling onto the pavement. Somehow he had surprised her.

Sandra nodded slowly. This human understood more than she had given him credit for. "Perhaps." She looked down at her claws. With effort, Sandra drew them back into her paws. "It takes a strong heart to know." She fixed him with a questioning glare. "Do you think yourself strong enough?"

"I... no," he admitted. "I'm not strong like you, Sandra. But I... I like you. I don't want to see you turn into something horrible." The guide had thought she was horrible for a long time before he got to know her. The last thing he wanted was to see her actually become a monster. Especially not now, after he had gotten to see her nicer side... and very especially not in front of witnesses who would blame A-Corp... if they survived.

The tigress contemplated his words for a long moment. She reached out with a bloodied paw and took the hand that he stretched through the gate. Closing her eyes, she exhaled deeply. The redness faded from her vision. Her shoulders slumped as she felt the day's bruises, cuts, and fractures. This fight had hurt quite a lot. Behind her, the ground rumbled as the humans blasted apart the remains of the monster, ensuring it would not rise again. They were also destroying that which called to her. It was power, great power, but this human had a point. Her duty to the Great Tiger-Spirit was far weightier than her own desire for power. His hand was small in hers, yet he had a different strength. She exhaled slowly again. "What is your name, guide?"

He blushed. "I'm Henry." He almost gave his ID number on instinct. It had been a long time since he told anyone his full name. "Henry Livingsten." It felt good to say that. He did not mind the cameras behind him, or the one on his shoulder. This was more important. "A-are you hungry?" With his other hand he ran his security card through the reader again. The reader flickered green, then red, then green again, before blinking yellow once and making an odd pop. The gate remained shut.

"I am indeed." She nodded, eyes still shut. With a swipe of her claws, she ripped open the security grate. Then she reached inside and pulled him through without letting go of his hand. Henry blushed. The crowd oohed. She set him on the concrete and smiled, giving him one of those hypnotic looks. "You offered food?"

"I did indeed," he replied with a goofy grin. This would sort of be like a... well, the A-Corp manual didn't cover this. He would have to make it up as he went along. Shielding his eyes from the setting sun, he looked around for the least devastated route to a food court.

Chapter 23: Feeding Time
The food-court was half intact. A concrete boulder had taken out half of the structure and all of the seating. What remained had a completely unobstructed view of the sunset. Hungry though she might be, Sandra refused to eat with dirty paws. While she rinsed herself off in the spray of a ruptured water main, Henry scavenged a bag full of soap and shampoo from the hotel next door. He followed the stream of blue gore back to the tigress. The remains of her wet uniform clung to every curve as she washed off the blood of battle. He had seen her up close like this before, but always with glass between them. She was even more mesmerizing with suds in her hair.

The ground rumbled as demolition teams in the distance did their job. While the sun was nearly down, ultrabright lights on scaffolds and helicopters had turned the monster's final resting place into a second sunrise. He glanced at his radio again, but the digital brain underground had no new orders for him.

Sandra seemed happy to make up for Master Computer's silence. "Soap," she asked, stretching out a massive paw from the torrent of water. He dropped another bar into her palm. She had already gone through three of the A-Corp complimentary-size soaps, along with eight shampoos. The water was icy cold, but she didn't seem to mind one bit. Henry blushed hard and tried not to pay too much attention to how close those wet, torn clothes hugged to her statuesque body.

"You should clean yourself as well," she suggested with a flick of her tail that doused his legs in water.

"Oh, I washed my hands in the hotel," he smiled. "And I... uh, I dunno how the camera rig would react to that much water." It was supposed to be durable, but it was also a hacked-together mess built out of the remains of a prototype. Sandra leaned out of the water and sniffed at him. Water dripped from her nose and chin onto his shirt as he stared up with wide eyes. Then she shrugged and leaned back into the spray.

Once they were clean enough to eat, he found a functioning kiosk and slotted in his ID card. The small terminal flickered to life and displayed a parkwide mandatory evacuation notice that Master Computer had slapped on every screen. Henry tapped the upper-right corner. The employee override popped up, he typed in his verification code, and the kiosk unlocked.

"Okay, we have..." His eyes swept over a status report of the food court. "Well, the spaghetti ice rink is ruined." He glanced toward the pile of rubble that used to be an indoor skating attraction. Arcs of electricity jumped between severed cables that used to be part of the rink's audio system. "Severe damage to the auto-hibachi... salad bar contaminated by a black-water line... all bipedal server robots reassigned to help with the evacuation..."

A low grumbling came from behind him. He felt the ground beneath his feet shake, and realized this time it was Sandra's stomach instead of the demolition teams. Sweat trickled down his forehead as he paged through the report. "Uh... um... aha!" He tapped a few buttons and swiped to the side. Lights clicked on in one corner of the food court, and servo arms whirred to life. A few hardwired robots, attached to tracks for power and movement, jolted upright. Neon letters flickered above the ordering counter. With a grin, he logged off, pulled out his ID, and led the tigress across the rubble.

"Well-well-welcome to Chick-A-Corp!" squawked the animatronic bovine behind the counter. Electricity arced across a damaged part of its frame. "Will you be din-dine-dining with-with-with-"

A spray of sparks burst forth from the robot, nearly hitting Henry. Sandra shoved him to the side and lashed out with her claws, neatly bisecting the robotic cow. She hefted the heavy metal top of the beast, held it over her head, and looked inside as though expecting to find delicious morsels. Meanwhile, Henry vaulted over the counter, shoved his employee ID into an override slot, and logged in. The refrigeration unit reported it still had stock, line cooks showed fully operational... aside from a loss in coolant pressure that had ruined the soft-serve machines, everything still functioned!

"This beast has strange flesh," said the tigress as she peeled the top of the robot apart in search of meat. There was supposed to be food everywhere in this park, she had smelled it many times. "Do humans always consume such scrawny animals?" She yanked out a mess of what looked like intestines.

"Huh?" Henry glanced back at her. "Wait, no, those are cables! And that's fake leather! Sandra, don't eat that!"

She glared at him, a mouthful of copper wires jutting out the sides of her mouth. Slowly, she shook her head, then spat out the electronic entrails. "You do not want a portion of this kill, Henry. It is rotted."

He rubbed his eyes. "It's not... it was never alive. It's a robot, like the ones with anti-tank rifles... What did you call them... metal men."

She peered at the remains of the destroyed greeter-bot. "What purpose is there to a cow you cannot eat?" Perhaps humans were not as clever as she had thought.

"It makes children smile." He shrugged. A few taps later and he had the verbal ordering interface activated. "Watch this." Clearing his throat, he leaned toward the microphone. "New order. Number nine, large, with cheese and jalapeños. Medium lemonade, no ice."

Sandra leaned over the counter, and over his shoulder. Her yellow eyes followed the strange lights that blinked as Henry spoke. It was exciting to see how the humans made food appear, but she was very hungry. The day's exertions had taken their toll. Her tail twitched from side to side as she waited impatiently.

"Confirm order," said the guide. A few more sparks flickered from the stump where the greeter-bot used to sit. In the kitchen, overhead lighting switched from a dull red to a bright white.

Blue indicators flashed as metal arms swung out from the walls. Stainless steel doors popped open, and ball-like assemblies of cutting tools slid along rails. Sandra's ears popped up in surprise as a refrigerated fillet of chicken fell out of a chute into a robot's waiting net. Henry leaned back against the counter with a grin as they watched the chicken's journey along the cook line. A-Corp had partnered with several renown chefs, and one little-known chuck wagon cook, to find the perfect blend of herbs and spices. This particular fillet had been generously coated in buttermilk and baking powder sometime within the past twelve hours, then brought down to storage temperature so it could be quickly warmed in case of a rush.

The special blend of herbs, spices, and flour were skillfully applied by a robotic tumbler. Another set of arms lightly toasted a sandwich bun, sliced a tomato, shredded some lettuce, and grilled a jalapeño. That familiar delicious odor began to curl out from the kitchen. The chicken disappeared into an energized air-fryer, which also prompted an advertisement about A-Corp's cutting edge advances in health-conscious cooking that you might want to consider next time you bought a home appliance.

"Mute ad. Employee ID Henry-9823." The speaker fell silent.

"Do all humans have such... animated things in their caves?" Sandra asked as her eyes followed all the moving parts. A robot slid along its track, caught a potato from another chute, and began chopping it into a series of perfectly-cut waffle fries.

"We will one day," said the guide with a smile. "A-Corp has an open interface standard for all home cooking appliances. Anyone can program their auto-kitchen to make whatever kind of meal they like." The sales pitch came naturally to him. He had said it many times before. "This one is obviously customized for the exact needs Chick-A-Corp has, and the average consumer kitchen won't want the same speed optimizations our food courts use, but-"

"How do you intimidate them into servitude?" asked the tigress cautiously.

That was not in the frequently asked questions list. He blinked a few times as a pair of robot arms dropped lemons and sugar cubes into a high-powered blender. "I... I don't quite know what you mean." Henry looked over his shoulder, the one that the camera was not perched upon, and swallowed nervously.

Sandra's head was almost level with his own. Not that the big cat-girl had suddenly shrunk. She had grown bored with leaning, and now lounged with her legs stretched all the way down to the pickup side of the counter. A stray gust of wind teased the ragged remains of her skirt. She rested her head on her fuzzy knuckles and peered at him, tail twitching behind her.

"The metal arms. Why do they fear you enough to do what you demand?" She gestured toward the whirling blades, boiling oil, and rapid motions of the kitchen robots. "Your flesh would be easily flayed if they were not chained to those bars."

He rubbed his eyes. "I... the same reason a jeep..." The guide drew in a deep breath. His stomach rumbled, much more quietly than hers had. "Sandra, these machines aren't alive like you or I. They don't think, or feel. or get hungry. Sure, they can be really smart, but they're no more than a fancy kind of water-wheel, or a... they're like trip-wires. You've set trip wires, right?" Her cruel grin was all the confirmation he needed. "Well, they're like a lot of really, really complicated trip wires, all built on top of each other. These machines follow a script of ones and zeroes. On and off. We've just found ways to make that script intelligible to humans so it's easier for us to write, and we've gotten very clever about what we write with it."

"And these metal arms... they do not eat?"

"Not the stuff we do. The thorium generator's all they need, and if it wasn't working... well, Master Computer would be running on emergency power and my radio would be screaming with orders." He checked his radio again, but nothing new had come through. Not marked for him, anyway. The general band was full of messages. He was sure that the security band was singing too, but none of that was flagged for him and most of it was encrypted anyway. A pair of helicopters flew past, but they turned toward the dead monster instead of flying overhead. "They're tools, Sandra. That's what humans do best. We're tool builders." That was what the janitor had said. Henry hoped the old man was alright. Too many people had died today.

She rubbed her chin. "So, they obey, and they do not eat." The tigress sniffed the air, then casually pawed at his side where his radio was holstered. "Yet you obey them."

Something about her touch made him nervous and excited all at once. "Well, I obey Master Computer, who follows policy set down by site administration staff. And the administrators answer to the Board, who all technically answer to A-Corp's founder, but I think there's some kind of stockholder thing going on too." He scratched his head. "All employees have at least some amount of stock in the company, but I'm just an intern right now so I... uh, I don't. So yeah, I guess I do obey machines, but the machines have to obey people. I think." He glanced over at the camera on his shoulder. "And A-Corp is really, really big, so sometimes we don't know who the people we're obeying are."

Out of the fryer came the chicken, just in time to distract him from those big thoughts. Onto a bun it went, with sauce and vegetables applied in precise amounts by squirt-nozzles and tiny grippers. Onion, pickles, a bit of mustard, and a smudge of special sauce made a simple chicken on a bun into something special. A robotic hand skewered the sandwich with a wooden toothpick to keep everything where it belonged, then began wrapping up the food.

"What will you do if one day the machines decide not to obey?" Sandra asked quietly, her eyes still following the sharp blades.

Henry swallowed nervously and shifted the weight of the camera harness. For just a second, it appeared that every robot in the kitchen slowed. "Um... well, there's safety overrides." He gestured toward a red button under a glass panel labeled Emergency Halt. Another button was marked as the cut-off for the kitchen's natural gas line, and there was a pull-lever that would manually trigger the kitchen's fire suppression foam. "But robots don't just decide things for themselves. I mean... well, I guess Master Computer does, but it's supposed to. These kitchen-bots don't have the processing power or instruction sets to do that kind of thing. It would be like a rifle deciding to fire all on its own."

"So," she purred. "A threat that is possible, if someone is foolish enough to invent it?"

"And mass-produce it, and pass legislation about it, and popularize it..." He idly fingered the A-Corp insignia on his uniform. "Um... but th-that kind of research isn't something we do here."

Sandra waggled her tail in the direction of one of the food court's destroyed walls, then gestured toward the bright lights hovering around the fallen monster. She smiled silently. "You are certain about this, Henry?"

"About the only thing I'm certain of right now, Sandra, is that you're amazing." He blushed a little while saying it.

"Naturally," she agreed with a dismissive wave of a paw. Were she not so hungry, she might lick his face for saying that, but it was unwise to tempt one's jaws when the stomach growled so.

Chapter 24: Order Up
The chicken sandwich went into a cardboard box, then into a bag with a sheaf full of lightly seasoned waffle fries. This was the part where the greeter bot at the front was supposed to hand you your order, but since it had been decommissioned, Henry walked over and picked it up from the end of the prep line. He grabbed a tray, a straw, and some sauce packets, then returned to where Sandra was reclining with a grin.

"Ta-da!" He held out the tray. "One cooked-to-order chicken sandwich, fries, and a drink." Sandra sat upright on the counter. She crossed her large paws in her lap. Her shirt-and-skirt had turned into a halter top and a shredded mess of fabric that clung to her muscular thighs. The tigress peered down at what Henry abruptly realized was a comically small amount of food. His cheeks reddened. He usually struggled to finish a large number-nine order, but earlier today he had seen her maul an entire catering cart's worth of food. The guide set the tray down on the counter and started unpacking the bag. "This should get you started at least, then..."

Reaching down, Sandra curiously picked up the sandwich box. He reached over and popped the flip-top open. Her eyes widened. Cautiously, she closed the lid, then gestured for him to pop the flap again. The next time she closed the lid, she hooked a finger under the flap and opened it herself. "It is like an oyster, or one of the other creatures that scuttles on the bottom of the deep waters!" She sniffed curiously. "But they have stuffed it with chicken and bread? Is this a human delicacy?"

"Uh... well, compared to the nutrient paste I usually eat, yeah. Guests love these. They aren't the healthiest thing in the world, but I think after today we can splurge a little."

"Splurge?" she tilted her head to the side.

"You know, cut loose. Go wild. Do something you usually wouldn't." He swallowed nervously and glanced away. Every time she popped the cardboard lid, Sandra would spring up a little bit. All her muscles would tense, all her soft bits would sway, and she was still a little damp from washing off. The day's violence had barely left enough of her uniform to be modest. "Anyway, you go ahead and get started on that, I'll..." He tried to turn toward the ordering board, but her heavy paw turned him right back around. She held out the cardboard box.

"Eat, Henry Livingsten." It was a polite order, but an order all the same. He took the box from her and smiled a little. This tradition of her people was weird, but it was kind of nice. He picked up the sandwich and took a big bite, then washed it down with lemonade. After months of nutrient gruel, you really appreciated the taste of real food. The peppers were a great touch. Not too hot, just spicy enough to clear the smoke and dust from his sinuses.

He offered her one of the waffle fries, which she took with a smile. Crisp on the outside and mushy on the inside as always. He was pretty sure there had been some kind of lawsuit about the fries by a health activism group. Something about how they were chemically habit-forming. He couldn't remember who won that lawsuit, or if it like so many others had been quietly dropped. Habit-forming or not, they were delicious. Sandra thought so too. Her ears twitched happily, and her tail was swinging.

"Here, give this a try." He passed her the sandwich. It looked much smaller in her hands than his. The tigress tried to take a small bite, but still managed to devour half of it. She passed the crushed remains of the burger back to him with an apologetic wince. He took a long sip of lemonade, realized he should have ordered a second one since she could probably drink the whole cup in one gulp, and began to mentally kick himself. This was going about as well as all of his other dates. Now he just had to find some way to accidentally set both of them on fire and it would be just like that one time... He swallowed nervously.

Wait. This wasn't a date, was it? He was just looking after her. Officially, Sandra and her people weren't even considered humans. Well, actually, she wasn't a human, but she was pretty close where it mattered on a genetic level as far as current research could tell. And senior park employees liked to remind him that interns weren't human beings, so they sort of had that in common. There were a lot of things he didn't understand about Sandra, even A-Corp's top scientists couldn't understand why her claws could rip through anything, but he did like her. She had just saved the park.

He was certain that her performance today would blow some minds all around the world. She was the most dangerous thing he had ever been this close to. As she put her arm around him and made a happy purring noise... Henry felt a deep and abiding terror. She gestured for him to feed her another few waffle fries, which he of course did. What big teeth she had! This probably was a date. All of the evidence pointed to that conclusion.

"I..." He set the scraps of sandwich back in its container. "I should order us more food."

Sandra shook her head. She had already finished chewing. "I have studied your human numerals." Sliding off the counter, she prowled toward the ordering kiosk that was still logged in with his ID. "I shall speak to these metal men and see if they heed my will as they do yours."

The guide nervously grabbed a handful of waffle fries. His body was screaming for food after the long, crazy day. "Um... sure. It should be ready to accept a new order." In the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw one of the robotic arms back in the kitchen twitch. Maybe it was just sunlight reflecting off a blade. Sandra's words about machines deciding not to obey echoed through his mind. He tried to push the thoughts out. She was used to fighting the world. Of course she would be suspicious. Besides, Master Computer had gone to a lot of trouble to keep her alive when it brought down that tactical bombardment. If there was any robot uprising to fear, it would not come tonight.

Standing tall in front of the ordering board, the tigress raised a paw. "New order!" Her yellow eyes traced over the glowing menu items. Sandwiches, wraps, buckets, wings, and nuggets spun on the monitor. This place was full of food-smells, but all were old and untrustworthy. She wondered why humans would build a machine that required them to choose food based on how it looked rather than how it smelled. "Two number nines, a number nine large..."

Henry nearly dropped his fries as he listened to her rattle off the order.

"A number six." Her tail swayed upward. "With extra dip! A number seven..."

The guide nervously chewed. His eyes followed her tail, which bobbed and moved almost as much as her fuzzy hands. Gashes in her shirt revealed the nearly-healed remnants of deep wounds. The top half of the A-Corp logo was still readable despite all the stains and rips. He shifted the weight of the camera still attached to his shoulder. What conclusions was Master Computer drawing from the footage he had gathered earlier? How would A-Corp and the world see her and her people now that she had saved so many lives? As Sandra continued her order, Henry realized he was thinking of her as a person rather than an exhibit. A person he might sort of be on a date with.

He sipped at his lemonade and turned his head to look out at the sunset. Not so much because it was beautiful, but because every time Sandra waved her claws as though trying to threaten the ordering kiosk into submission, certain parts of her swayed in very pleasing ways. Henry knew exactly how he felt about what he was seeing, but wasn't sure at all if he should be feeling that way. Looking over at the sparking remains of the greeter-bot, he tried to clear his head. Today was just so weird. He felt like anything could happen next.

"... number forty-fives, one with cheese." Sandra narrowed her eyes, staring up at the human numerals on the wall of metal that glowed and changed like a river of light. "And a large lemonade." Putting her hands on her hips, she said, "Confirm order!"

Henry nervously wondered if all of this was being charged to his A-Corp account, and if his employee discount was factored in, but when she turned around with that huge sharp-toothed grin on her face he forgot about all that. As long as it made her happy, it was worth every cent. She swaggered back to the counter and sat down next to him as the kitchen bots kicked into rush mode. Wings poured from chutes, fillets dropped into fryers, and blades slashed. Sandra watched the robots work and happily clapped her fuzzy front paws together. He barely noticed that she was scooting closer until the tigress was pressing him against the wall at the end of the counter.

"They think I am you," she said conspiratorially as the machines labored. "Or at least they know what's good for their health!"

He took another bite of his sandwich. Next to her, he felt so small. Just yesterday he would have been shaking in terror. Now... either he was too tired to be really afraid, or... or he had to admit he was actually starting to feel safe around her. Her tail swished across his back. He passed her the lemonade. A few minutes passed, filled with whirling and beeping from the kitchen. She looked like she was about to say something to him right before the last of the order completed. This time, instead of a cheery robotic voice announcing the order, one of the robots in the back fell off its power rail and let out a big cloud of smoke. Henry looked at the pile of bags and cups at the end of the cook line. "Uh... maybe we should get a table."

"Good idea," she said, swinging her legs over the counter. He moved to follow her, then stared in shock as she casually ripped one of the dining area's tables free from its bolted mount and hauled it back over the counter. It wobbled a little, but stayed upright. Sandra stepped over to the end of the cook line, scooped up the bags full of food, and returned to the counter with a wild grin on her face. She set the bags down atop the wobbly table, then slid back onto the counter next to him. He glanced forlornly at the chairs next to where the table used to be, but realized that complaining would be useless. It wasn't like he really minded her sitting this close. It just made him feel... well, her breasts were close to his eye level, and huge, and her shirt was torn up...

The tigress ripped open the bags and started tallying their contents. Sandwiches, nuggets, wings, fries, and more filled the table. She set a little of everything aside for him. By now, Henry knew better than to protest. Sharing food was part of her culture. He was sort of representing A-Corp right now, so he didn't want to do anything to offend her.

"You really mauled that monster," he remarked as she ransacked a bucket of spicy wings. "I mean... I don't think anyone in A-Corp's history has solved a problem by collapsing a rollercoaster on it."

She beamed, wing sauce smeared across her lips like cayenne-colored blood. "It was a glorious fight." Her big teeth tore apart a small sandwich. "I agree with your heart-feeling. The power it held was tainted." The tigress swished a bit of lemonade in her mouth to dull the spicy wings' heat. "Letting it burn was the wiser path."

Chapter 25: Spice
The intern nibbled at a chicken wing. Sandra seemed to love the extra-spicy ones. "I didn't even know monsters like that existed." His cheeks were flushed from the spices, as were hers. "Let alone that we had any of them here."

"They are from the ancient times. Long ago, they rose and ruled the world, warring ceaselessly with one another until the stars shifted in their eternal dance." Sandra tore a chicken sandwich in half with one bite and chewed happily. "Now is not their epoch, but somehow that one was raised by your human magics. It was a momentous battle, one that will never happen again in this age." She shook her head.

"Oh, so that was the only one?"

The tigergirl blinked. "What?"

"The only one of those things left alive." He munched on a chicken nugget, barely noticing how much he was leaning against her or how happy she seemed about it. One of her arms slid behind his back, and her tail twitched against his thigh. His safari shorts did not cover much of his legs. Striped markings ran up her skin. The fuzz of her paws tickled his skin as she pulled him closer. "Trapped underground or something. We must have found it, brought it here, and it got loose."

"Oh no. It could not have been alive all this time. All of them are merely bones now. It is how they sleep the endless, deathless dream until the stars awaken them once more. Then they crawl out from their bones." She snuggled him a little closer as the sun's last rays faded, and popped another chicken nugget in his mouth. "So the old stories tell."

"Wait..." He chewed thoughtfully. "So there are more bones?" A chill ran partway down his spine, but it stopped when reaching her strong, warm arm.

"All across the earth, if the stories are to be believed. Buried deep below the waters, in the hearts of volcanoes, and within the muck of the swamps."

He stopped chewing and glanced down at his radio, then over at the motionless camera on his shoulder. "A-and... you say that you're sure the one you took down today was... that it couldn't have been found alive. It had to be bones when humans found it."

"Could you breathe in the belly of the ocean?" she asked with a nod. "Without the stars' touch they cannot return to life, just as we must have air to breathe."

He looked up at her. "Um... well, that's... that's a problem. Because if someone figured out how to wake up one of those things once..." Henry began to feel very nervous. He looked around the ruins of the food court. They were alone. Well, except for the recording unit on his shoulder. His heart began to hammer a little more quickly. This was all making sense. Project Trident, the weapons labs, special projects division... they weren't trying to make one monster. They were trying to figure out a process. That was the A-Corp manufacturing way. Visions of anti-tank rifles rolling off assembly lines danced in his mind. "If we could do it once, we could probably do it again."

"What makes you say that?" asked Sandra with innocent confusion. "Sometimes the lightning strikes the tree, and sometimes the mountain. There is no way of knowing."

"Unless you have a lightning rod." He thought quickly. "Sandra, the food we ordered. It's all made according to a process, so it's almost the same every time. That's how A-Corp can sell food to the masses of people who come through here. We do the same thing with weapons, robots, jeeps... everything. So... so if this was an A-Corp project, and it followed standard experimental guidelines, then... then the goal of it wasn't to just do this once. It was to find out how so it could be done again and again."

She patted his head and smiled. "Henry Livingsten. You humans have created wonderful metal arms that make delicious food, and noisy firearms that make death. This shows you are an intelligent kind." The tigress munched a pawful of fries. "Why would such a smart breed usher in its own destruction after a tragic example such as this?"

"Um..." He nervously wiped his mouth with a napkin. Humans weren't as clever as she thought they were. Smart enough to harness the atom, dumb enough to dangle the sword of annihilation over each other's heads. "Well..."

"Especially since I have no intention of intervening again." She shook her head, tiger-striped hair swaying from side to side.

"Wait... so you're not... uh, you're not honor bound to fight these things?"

The tigress chuckled. He liked the deep, resonating sound. "Not outside of my homeland, I am not."

"Oh." He blinked a few times and sipped at his lemonade. This was a lot to process. Fortunately, that was what Master Computer was for. He nodded slowly. "Um... well, it's a good thing you made an exception this time. You saved a lot of lives today." Suddenly, a transfer to A-Corp's space program sounded really attractive. They were making great strides in null-gravity habitation technology. There was no way that these giant monsters were up in space too, right?

"Henry..." She set down the second half of another sandwich. "You..." The tigress glanced aside for a moment, then fixed her big yellow eyes on him. "You have seen me in tranquility and in turmoil. What do you think of me?" Her ears perked.

He was unprepared for that question. "Uh. You're pretty... pretty amazing, Sandra." Her arm felt so strong around his back, but her body was so soft as he leaned against her. The tigress' fuzzy tail rubbed against his bare leg. "Why do you ask?"

"Because it was to protect you that I fought the monster."

"M-Me?" he stammered.

"Yes. You showed great courage today." The tigress nibbled meat off a bone. "That is an admirable trait."

"Oh." He blinked and stared down at his lemonade cup. "Thanks. I... I mean, I didn't... do that much... not compared to you."

"You remained behind to help those who could not get away in time. You risked your life to provide shelter for them." She pulled him a little closer. "You stood before great power and kept your head."

"And you impaled a giant, three-headed, fire-breathing freak with a rollercoaster track made from experimental alloys." He glanced up into her yellow eyes. "I... I you really did all that because... you risked your life to protect me?"

A bit of a smug smile curled her lips. "Are you impressed by my courage?" She flexed a bicep and made a fist, but all he could look at was the way it made her boobs jiggle. The plush mounds were almost close enough for him to rest his head against. He felt tired all of a sudden...

"I... yeah, Sandra. Thank you." Henry felt dizzy. He smiled up at the tigress. "I... I never thought you would... um, to be honest, until today I kind of thought you wanted to kill me. Or get me fired."

She stared at him in befuddlement, as though he had just said leaves were growing from her ears. "What in all of the sun's kingdom would make you think that?"

He swallowed nervously. "Uh... well, you were always ruining the tour schedule, and you kept pushing against the glass and acting like you wanted to get at me... then today, when I brought in the food cart, you dropped from above and nearly gave me a heart attack. You're... you're kind of scary, Sandra."

Her ears drooped, and her tail lost its playful twitch. "Oh. I am... frightening to you?" She tapped her paws together and stared at the ground. "I am sorry. I did not mean... I suppose it is natural for humans to fear me, but I... that is all you felt? Fear?" All the bravado had faded. The tigress looked as though she was about to cry.

Henry thought quickly. He didn't want to see her cry, but he didn't quite know what to say. A dumb idea popped into his head. Swallowing hard, he reached up and lightly tapped her nose. "Boop."

Those big yellow eyes blinked. "B-boop?"

He nodded, smiling shyly. After a few seconds, she began to giggle. Then she was rocking back and forth on the counter, laughing up a storm. He began to laugh as well. Her leg knocked over the wobbly table, sending empty wrappers and bags scattering across the floor. When the two's laughter subsided, he asked, "Do you know where that comes from, Sandra?"

"From older humans?"

"Well... sort of. It's what the alien does in this CGI film that came out recently. Now everybody's doing it. Probably because the marketing department started a viral video challenge as a way to promote the movie." He took a sip from his lemonade. The cup was nearly empty. "A-Corp's marketing department is pretty scary." They got in people's heads and told them what to think and feel. That was their job description, and they were very good at it.

Sandra turned a chicken wrap over in her hands. Her tail drooped off the side of the counter. "But you still... accept them?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes scary is what the world needs."

Taking an enormous bite out of the chicken wrap, she reflected on the his words while chewing. "Perhaps once you are more accustomed to a thing..." Sandra tapped her paws together again. "You become less afraid of it."

"I guess so." He glanced around at the destruction caused by the battle. Through a giant hole in the wall, he could see the intact dome of what looked like a cinema. "Hey, that movie with the alien... it was made by a film company owned by A-Corp Studios. They show it at the theaters here. That's probably why you've seen a lot of people booping noses."

"I think all of the storytellers have doused their fires on this night," Sandra said sadly. "There is too much smoke on the wind."

He slid off the counter and retrieved his employee ID from the kiosk. The remaining bots powered down and the kitchen's lights dimmed. He surveyed the mess and figured that there was no point in trying to clean up after themselves. Master Computer would probably have to send in a bulldozer to level this whole place, then rebuild it from the ground up.

"Well, if our storytellers were humans, yeah." He smiled. "But A-Corp cineplexes only have humans at the concession stands and as ushers. Everything else is automated." He held up his keycard. "And... uh, well, as long as they have power, it'll play."

She tilted her head to the side curiously. "Humans have metal men to tell their history as well?"

"The movie isn't real. It's all some figment of a scriptwriter's imagination, but yeah." He gestured toward the powered-down menu display. "They make the characters, the sounds, almost everything is created on computers. Even the voice acting is heavily modulated with synthesizers. And just like those chicken sandwiches, it's a standardized product. You can watch it again and again as many times as you want." As long as you had money, of course. Something in the back of his head warned him to think about budgeting, but he pushed it away. He had nearly died a couple times today. Tonight he would live. "So... do you want to go see a movie, Sandra?"

She stepped down from the counter and towered over him. "With you, Henry?"

He blinked. Her breasts were right at his eye level, and there wasn't much left of her top. "Uh, I mean... I'm not an actor in the movie, but yes, I did mean that I was asking you to go with me... to the movies." Actually, all he really wanted to do was lean his head against the tigress and feel her purr...

"Then my answer is yes." Her smile looked big enough to swallow him whole. "Yes, I would like to go see a movie with you."