Roarn Rex's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Roarn crouched behind the ridge and stared at the sealed door below. The lab was a squat block of black metal, ringed with glass tubes that glowed green and purple. Cables snaked along the roof. Vents hissed. Somewhere inside, the egg was going into whatever Dr. Darkness meant to do with it. Roarn started forward, then stopped. He had no idea what waited past that door. Rush in blind, and he'd walk right into a trap. A hum cut the air behind him. He spun, sword up. An orange raptor car floated over the rocks and dropped to a hover. The kid on it grinned under a raptor hood. Heat Meat. His cousin Ron ran the Rangers up north, and Ron had told Heat Meat to stay out of trouble. Heat Meat had clearly ignored him. "Heard you had a lab problem," Heat Meat said. "So I came." "You shouldn't be here." "Neither should you, alone. So." He tossed something rolled and yellowed. Roarn caught it. A map. Dark ink, tight corridors, small rooms labeled in a spidery hand. Containment Vault. Toxic Reagent Stores. Security Gallery. "Where'd you get this?" "Traded for it. Doesn't matter. It's real." Roarn unrolled it on the stone. The main door fed into a hall. The hall split. One branch went to the vault where Dr. Darkness would keep the egg. The other went past a room marked DO NOT ENTER. Roarn traced a route with his finger, skipping the marked rooms, keeping to service passages. Then a shadow fell across the paper. Roarn looked up. Brutus Grimm stood at the ridge's edge, the word DARKNESS stretched across his gray chest. Behind him came a woman in a dark coat with red lining, wand already out. Her hair stuck up like she'd been running. "Little lizards," Mrs. Not Nice said. "With a map." Heat Meat gunned the boosters. "Move!" Roarn rolled off the ridge as the wand cracked. A patch of stone beside him turned gray and still. He came up sprinting, map clenched in his fist. Heat Meat's car swept low and Roarn grabbed the side. They tore down the slope toward the tree line. Brutus thundered after them. Fast heroes were the worst. He couldn't grab them. He knew it and hated it and kept running anyway. Dr. Darkness stepped out of the lab door and watched them go. He did not chase. He looked at his sister and said one flat sentence. "They have the map. Move the egg." Roarn and Heat Meat skidded into cover a ridge away. Roarn spread the paper on his knee, breathing hard. He had the layout now. He knew where the vault was, where the traps waited, where the service halls ran. He also knew Dr. Darkness had seen the map in his hand. Whatever room the egg sat in now, it would not be there tomorrow.