Zara Mbele's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

The alarm on Zara's tablet woke her at dawn—motion detected on the southern border. She grabbed her gear and rushed to the control station. On the screen, her guardian robot sat motionless in the dirt, its camera feed showing nothing but static. She radioed it twice. No response. Her chest tightened as she loaded her jeep and drove out to find it. When she arrived, the robot lay on its side, one wheel missing and its sensor array smashed. Fresh boot prints surrounded it in the dust. Poachers had found her guardian and destroyed it while she slept. She knelt beside the damaged machine, anger and disappointment burning in her throat. All those hours of building, all that hope for automated protection—gone in one night. The reserve still needed her, but her confidence in her robots had just taken its first real hit. She followed the boot prints to the fence line. A jagged hole gaped in the wire mesh, the metal edges twisted and cut. The poachers had used wire cutters, working fast in the dark while her robot lay broken. She examined the ground on both sides of the fence. Hoofprints led out through the gap—zebras, maybe antelope. Animals had escaped through the opening during the night. Her stomach dropped. The fence was supposed to protect them, keep them inside where her patrols could watch over them. Now they were out in unprotected territory where poachers could hunt freely. Back at the clinic, she checked her supplies and noticed the medicinal herbs growing in the old tire outside. Aloe and wild garlic pushed up through the soil, plants she'd been cultivating to treat injured animals. But what good were healing herbs when she couldn't stop the injuries from happening? She'd built a clinic, created robots, fortified the borders—and the poachers still got through. Her hands shook as she refilled her water bottle. Maybe her robots weren't enough. Maybe she wasn't enough. She walked past the metal statue near the clinic entrance—a rhino welded from scrap, its plaque reading "Gone but never forgotten." Someone had built it years ago to remember the animals that didn't make it. She stopped and stared at the rough metal curves. Her robot had failed, the fence had failed, but giving up wasn't an option. The poachers had won last night, but the fight wasn't over. She headed back to her workshop to start repairs. The reserve still needed protection, and she would find a better way to provide it.