Uncontrollably spinning, the JW-001 touring helicopter came closer and closer to the top of dome and hit the mesh hard, creating a breach.

The helicopter, whose tail had broken on the impact, entered in the aviary, falling straight down towards the trees.

The passengers of the aircraft were definitely doomed but they weren't the only victims of the accident since in its fall, the helicopter sliced the cables of the gondola lift and the cabins, immobilised following the earthquake and still with passengers aboard for some, were pulled by the broken cable's pendular movement and crashed in the trees, in the river or worse, into an observation gallery where a certain number of the aviary's visitors had taken refuge.

The resident pterosaurs, also stressed because of the eruption, panicked and abandoned their eyries and feeding areas, all converging towards the breach before, once outside, scattering in every direction but the north, where the sky was roaring, and south, where some of their gigantic distant kin were pursuing the remaining two helicopters that were flying to Burroughs.
The other quetzalcoatluses were already at the city's gates, so high in the sky that the only ones to be aware of their presence there were Hoskins and the control room's staff.

X

"Am I an idiot or they're heading toward us?" Hoskins had realised when he saw the dots corresponding to the first escaped pterosaurs rapidly advancing towards Burroughs on the real-time map, just before the touring helicopters were attacked.

Without losing a second, he had ordered:

"Bring everyone inside. To arms!"

He then turned to Harriman:

"What is the garrison's status?"

"Being prepared. They will be deployed in the city within ten minutes."

As the technicians were busy transmitting the instructions of the security division's director, Krill turned towards the place where Young had sat with her laptop to look at the pictures of the camera traps.
While the computer had been left on the ground, its owner was gone.

"Where is Zara?" She asked.

"Claire's nephews arrived at the bridge a few moments ago. She left to pick them up at the visitors' infirmary," one of her colleagues told her.

"I didn't hear her leave," Cruthers admitted with a hint of guilt. "I would have told her to stay here."

The chief technician's gaze was drawn to the CCTV footage of Burroughs streets, showing the crowd of visitors, contained with difficulty by the employees, getting agitated.

"It's such a mess outside..." he added, worried.