I took the ride to the Science Centre as an excuse to let my mind drift. I used to come here a lot as a kid. Mostly alone. Weekends were never really “family time” for us. My dad ran a money changer and he was almost always at the shop. My mum… I did not want to go there right now. Not with dinosaurs on the agenda.

  Back then, getting into the Science Centre was cheap. It was only a dollar for students. I learned early how to scrape together a dollar. I would spend my morning digging empty cans out of bins and hauling them to those recycling points at petrol stations, watching the machine swallow aluminium and spit out coins. By the time I was done, I usually had enough for the ticket, a bottle of water, and if I was lucky, maybe a bit left for lunch.

  Inside, I would disappear for hours wandering around the outdoor eco gardens and the exhibits. When I got bored, I'd pop into the Omni-Theatre with the immersive space and desert shows that made you feel like you were somewhere else entirely. It was bittersweet, thinking about it now. I had been alone, but I did not remember feeling lonely. I had exhibits. I had noise. I had them for company.

  Now, as the Science Centre came into view, another memory surfaced. I had read about some year-end display that brought in “real dinosaur fossils.”

  I rode the Phantom right up to the entrance and stopped just outside the large double doors. Shawn jumped off the bike the second I killed the engine. We waited a beat for Siva, who came sputtering in behind us, wobbling but upright.

  Shah had stopped messaging. Her last update said upper hall.

  We readied our weapons and stepped through the glass doors to an empty lobby.

  It looked newer than I remembered, sleeker, too clean for a place that should have been torn apart by the switchover. For a second, the quiet almost fooled me. Then a familiar twumph echoed down the corridor, like a spell detonating in the distance, followed immediately by a scream that turned my stomach cold.

  We followed it.

  Through corridors and smaller halls, past abandoned signboards and dark exhibit rooms, moving faster each time another shout hit the air. The sound led us deeper until the hallway opened into the main exhibit area.

  And that was when I understood why nobody had simply run out.

  There was only one way out of the exhibit hall, and it was blocked by a Tyrannosaurus.

  Not a living one.

  A complete skeletal T-Rex display, towering over the exit like a bouncer from hell. Its back was to us. Its tail swished from side to side with an angry, deliberate rhythm, and when it threw its skull back to roar, the sound somehow came out full and deep, like it had lungs.

  Then it breathed fire.

  A stream of flame blasted into the hall, lighting the displays and throwing shadows across the floor as people scrambled away from it.

  Siva’s voice cut into party chat, sharp and confused in the middle of the chaos.

  Siva: How is it roaring? It’s a skeleton. It doesn’t have vocal cords.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Shawn said, stepping forward. “It’s all bones. I got this.”

  He raised a hand toward the creature’s spine and stopped so abruptly it was like he had hit an invisible wall.

  “Uh… guys…” Shawn said, backing away.

  We stared at him as he returned to us, the nervous smile already creeping onto his face.

  “I don’t think those are real bones,” he said. “I can’t feel them.”

  Of course.

  The “real dinosaur fossil” exhibit was not real.

  Another scream tore through the hall, close enough that I could hear the panic crack in it, and whatever comfort my childhood memories had tried to offer evaporated on the spot.

  Great. Just fucking great.

  We took one quick look at each other, then back at the huge skeleton blocking the only exit.

  And then we moved.

  We sprinted straight under the T-Rex’s ribs and split hard to either side the moment we were clear. It did not even turn to follow. It stayed planted in front of the exit like it had been assigned there, a living barricade made of bone and fire. The exhibit hall beyond was a slaughterhouse, chewed-up bodies scattered across the floor. I ducked a stray blast that scorched past my ear and caught movement through the smoke. A pack of full-bodied velociraptors, not skeletons, was tearing after a Temple member who was firing kinetic bursts from a shoulder-mounted gun that jutted backward like a mechanical stinger.

  From the upper level, [Magic Missiles] arced over the parapet and slammed into the velociraptors. They caught on fire but continued chasing that one man.

  Of course they did. Because why would anything ever die cleanly in this world. I pinged Shah in the party chat.

  Chris: Shah, Second floor where? Give me a landmark.

  I did not receive a reply.

  Shawn grabbed my shoulder and yanked me sideways just as something small and fast blurred past where my head had been. Claws scraped across the floor and the sound made my stomach twist.

  A raptor skidded, corrected, and snapped its head toward us.

  It was not big, not compared to the T-Rex, but it did not need to be. It had that predatory economy about it.

  Siva appeared next to it like he had been teleported there, twin blades flashing under the light. He did not bother with fancy. He stepped in, cut once, then again, and the raptor’s body folded like someone had switched it off.

  Two more vaulted over a broken exhibit railing.

  Then four.

  They came in low, spreading, trying to make Siva pick a direction.

  “Do not let them get behind us,” I said, and I noted how calm my own voice sounded. This was beginning to feel normal. I didn't know how I felt about that.

  Shawn nodded once and lifted a hand. The ground in front of the nearest raptor softened like wet clay, then dropped. The creature’s back half plunged into a sudden pit. It screeched, claws scrabbling, and that was all the opening Siva needed. He drove a blade straight down into the base of its skull and yanked free.

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  I nocked an arrow and drew, aiming past Siva’s shoulder at one of the raptors circling wider. It was trying to flank, trying to get into the space behind us where Chris-the-archer was standing like a free meal.

  I let the arrow go.

  It hit the raptor in the chest with a heavy thunk and staggered it, but it did not drop. It rushed anyway, jaws open, and for a second my brain registered teeth and saliva and the sick certainty of pain.

  Then Shawn stepped in and kicked the raptor in the ribs like he was punting a football.

  It flew sideways into a glass display case. The case exploded into glittering shards. The raptor landed, twisted, and tried to stand on broken limbs.

  Siva finished it without looking, like he was clearing trash off a walkway.

  “Up,” I said, pointing toward the nearest staircase. “We get to the second floor and we find Shah. This place is a maze.”

  Shawn glanced up at the parapet. More [Magic Missiles] were firing from above, but I could not see the caster clearly. There were too many bodies, too much movement, too many shadows.

  A roar shook the hall. The skeletal T-Rex, still stationed by the exit, had turned its skull and spat another jet of flame into the exhibit.

  The fire washed over a cluster of bodies. Some of them were just bodies. Some of them moved and screamed.

  The Temple guy with the shoulder-mounted weapon stumbled, trying to keep his footing as he fired kinetic blasts into the raptors chasing him. He was running on panic and luck. Neither of those lasted long.

  One raptor leapt, latched onto his thigh, and dragged him down like he weighed nothing. Another went for his arm.

  He flailed, trying to aim, trying to cast, trying to do anything.

  I watched his mouth open in a silent shout and remembered Jess’s [Mute] scrolls. I remembered how helpless silence looked on someone who needed to call for help.

  Then I forced myself to look away.

  Not my problem right now.

  We moved.

  Staying low, we kept to the edges and cut along the perimeter displays. The exhibit hall was open and tall, with a central void and walkways above like a shopping mall. Some of the ceiling panels were cracked, letting in a strip of sunlight that cut through dust and smoke. It lit the floating debris in thin gold lines, and if we weren't busy avoiding getting eaten, the scene would have been beautiful.

  Along the side corridor, something skittered across the floor.

  I saw a blur of small shapes with too many legs and moving fast.

  “Do not tell me those are baby dinosaurs,” Shawn muttered.

  They were not babies. They were the size of cats, and they moved like a swarm, teeth flashing as they poured out from under a collapsed kiosk.

  Compys. Or whatever the system decided Compys were.

  Siva swore under his breath and stepped forward, blades whirling like a spinning dervish, but the swarm split around him. They were not stupid either. They flowed like water, searching for the gaps.

  I fired two arrows into the densest part of the swarm. The first one pinned something to the ground. The second one punched through two bodies in a row, but it did not slow the rest. They kept coming, climbing over the dead easily.

  Shawn slammed his boot down and the ground rippled. A ridge of earth rose up between us and the swarm, forming a waist-high barrier in seconds. The Compys hit it, scrambled, squealed, and tried to climb.

  “Move,” Shawn snapped, and we did.

  We ran along the corridor, past smashed exhibits and toppled signboards. Somewhere to our left, the main hall erupted in screams again as something large slammed into the floor hard enough to make the walls vibrate.

  We reached the staircase.

  Halfway up, the air changed. It felt tighter, hotter, and filled with that sharp electric smell that always followed spellcasting. The kind that made the inside of your mouth taste like coins.

  A Temple adherent stood on the landing above, robe scorched at the hem, palms glowing. He looked down and saw us.

  He started to raise his hands.

  I did not give him time.

  I drew and fired. The arrow hit his shoulder and knocked him back against the railing. He did not fall, but his spell fizzled.

  Siva took the rest of the stairs three at a time. He reached the landing and punched him so hard his head snapped back against the railing and he fell to the floor, unconscious. Siva did not even pause. He just kept going up.

  Shawn followed and stood over the unconscious man for a moment, looking like he was ready to swing the deadly blow but stopped. “You got lucky.” Shawn muttered, then followed.

  I took the staircase last, eyes flicking over the balcony edge into the main hall below. The fight had spread. Raptors were everywhere. Compys were swarming around bodies. And in the middle of it all, the skeletal T-Rex stood like a flaming monument, still guarding the only obvious exit.

  So yes. Maze was correct.

  At the top of the stairs, the second floor walkway opened out into a wide corridor of glass and metal. The parapet overlooked the main hall, and from this angle I could finally see where the [Magic Missiles] were coming from.

  It wasn't Shah.

  Two Temple casters were on their knees behind a row of overturned benches, firing up and over the railing like they were in a war movie. Their missiles curved down and struck raptors below, setting them alight.

  The raptors, in response, kept doing the exact opposite of dying.

  One of the flaming raptors turned, locked onto the upper walkway, and sprinted straight for the staircase we had just climbed.

  “Incoming,” I said.

  Siva stepped forward, blades up, but the raptor did not aim for him. It leapt over Siva and kept its forward momentum.

  Towards me.

  I threw myself sideways, shoulder slamming into the railing, and the raptor sailed past where my chest had been.

  Shawn’s scythe flashed. He hooked it mid-air and yanked.

  The raptor hit the ground hard, flame licking up its spine.

  Siva took its head off before it could even twitch.

  The Temple casters stared at us, eyes wide. One of them started to speak but apparently decided that talking to us was not the best use of his remaining lifespan.

  He raised his hands again.

  Shawn lifted a finger and the floor under the caster’s feet dropped an inch, just enough to break his stance. The spell misfired, flashing into the ceiling in a crackling bolt that shattered a light fixture.

  Glass rained down.

  “Keep moving,” I said. “We are not here to save Temple idiots.”

  “No. But one more of those idiots aim something at me, they're dead.” Shawn replied, but he was already moving with me.

  We pushed along the second-floor corridor, following the sound of fighting. It was louder up here, sharper, more distinct. I could hear steel on bone and shouted commands. The thump of something heavy being slammed into a wall.

  We turned a corner and saw it.

  Shaheerah.

  She was half-crouched behind a toppled display panel, hair stuck to her face with sweat and soot. Her team was scattered around her in a messy defensive line. Ten people, just like she said, but they looked like they had been through hell already.

  Two were down. Not dead, I hoped, but not fighting.

  Farah was not with them. That meant she either hadn’t arrived yet, or worse…

  Shah’s head snapped up when she saw us. Relief flickered across her face, but it was the kind of relief you get right before you remember you are still in trouble.

  “Finally,” she shouted. “Took you long enough.”

  “Talk to me,” I shouted back, ducking as something slammed into the wall behind her and sent chips of plaster flying.

  She jerked her chin toward the far end of the corridor.

  A dinosaur the size of a small car charged past the doorway there, horns lowered, hide thick and ridged. It was not a skeleton. It was fully, horribly alive. Its feet hammered the floor hard enough to make the walkway shudder.

  It turned its head and bellowed into the corridor, then slammed forward again.

  A Triceratops. Or something close enough that my childhood self would have been thrilled and my adult self wanted to set the entire Science Centre on fire.

  Behind it, Temple fighters were pressing in, using the chaos as cover. I saw the glint of metal augmentations. Not on hands this time. But on legs and spine and something at the side of someone’s skull that pulsed faintly when they cast.

  Shah’s team was pinned between dinosaurs and Temple, and the corridor only had so many places to run.

  Shah met my eyes across the chaos.

  “They came out of the exhibits,” she shouted. “Then the Temple trapped us in here.”

  Siva stepped up beside me, blades ready. Shawn’s hand tightened around his scythe.

  I exhaled once, slow and controlled, like that would make any of this sane.

  “Okay,” I said. “We clear the corridor. We get your people out. Then we burn down Jurassic Park.”

  Another bellow shook the walkway, closer this time.

  And the Triceratops charged straight toward us.