The nest was empty, and Roarn Rex had been staring at it for an hour. He was a kid in a red T-Rex costume with armor plates sewn into the chest, and he led the Dino Rangers, and none of that had stopped someone from walking into their valley and taking the egg. The egg was supposed to hatch into the guardian the Rangers needed. Without it, the valley stayed open. Roarn set his hand on the sword at his hip and made himself look at the shell dust one more time. The raider had left nothing. No prints in the soft dirt. No broken branches. The trail he needed did not exist, and every hour the egg went farther. Sky landed beside him in her pink pterodactyl suit, wings folding in. "I flew the whole ridge. Nothing." Her voice was flat. She did not sugar it. "We're losing it, Roarn." Brachio came up behind them in yellow, his head low in the base of the long neck. "River's clean too. Whoever took it didn't walk out." Roarn looked up. "Then they were carried." He cut west, past the nest, into the rocks the Rangers rarely patrolled. Sky flew overhead. Brachio swung his heavy tail through brush to clear a path. Roarn kept his eyes on the ground until the ground stopped him. The print was pressed into stone. A foot the size of a table, five deep toe marks, the heel cracked into the rock like something enormous had stood there and pushed off. Roarn knelt. The edges were fresh. "That's not an animal," Sky said. "It's a man," Brachio said. "A big one." Roarn had heard the name in warnings from grown-ups. A gray giant with a word tattooed across his chest. The henchman. The one who guarded the lab. A rustle came from the scrub. Roarn drew the sword. A low creature slid out on clawed forelimbs, snout down, sniffing the print. Scaled back, sharp ears, curious eyes. It looked up at Roarn and did not run. "It's tracking him too," Sky said. Roarn lowered the sword a little. The creature snuffled at the footprint, then at Roarn's boot, then turned and started padding west along a line only its nose could see. They followed. The snoutclaw led them to a ridge that dropped into a hollow Roarn had never seen before. Below, half-buried in the rock, sat a squat building with black vents. A gray giant stood at the door with arms crossed, the word DARKNESS across his chest. Beside him, in a black coat and heavy goggles, a thin man cradled something round and pale against his ribs. The egg. Dr. Darkness lifted his head as if he had heard the thought. He did not look surprised. "You're early," he said. "Brutus. Inside." The door slid shut behind them. Roarn had his trail. He also had a locked lab, and the egg was already through the door.

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.