A ding announced the top floor, where their private rooms were. "So, here's the deal. Because all of the staff is using these rooms for personal use, since the staff building isn't quite finished yet, there's only one two-person suite available. But I'm staying in a two-person by myself, so one of you can share with me." He smiled as Pythagoras as if there was any choice in the matter. Jason and Hercules knew Py had spent more time with him than they had, so of course he was going to share with the warden.

"Alright," Pythagoras agreed. So Hercules and Jason were left at their room, and Pythagoras followed the brown curly back of Icarus's head towards the end of the hall, and into a suite 28.

"It's a perfect number."

"What?" Icarus tossed his hair as he turned to look at Pythagoras.

"28. It's… It's a perfect number. Um… A number that's equal to the sum of its proper positive dividers. They always end in 6 or 8. They're quite rare, actually. Sorry, that's probably boring. Just, something I know."

"No, no. I love when people can see things other people can't. I saw a room number, but you saw something rare, and beautiful. I like that." Py chewed his lip, smiling wide with the bit of his mouth between his teeth while walking in behind Icarus. The room was too large to ever feel full, no matter how much they put in it.

"This one's yours." Icarus pointed to the bed closest to the door, where Py then deposited his bag. The two got ready for bed in a subtle silence. They were talking, but it wasn't really conversation coming out, just words, words, words. Icarus made some calls before crawling into bed, and used his phone to check dinosaur encasements for structural integrity. Then it was actually silent. But no one was sleeping.

"Pythagoras?"

"Yes."

"I thought about what you said earlier."

"Oh?" Py turned over to face Icarus in his separate bed, but he was looking at the ceiling with intensity. "What did I say?"

"About what we're doing here. I guess… I understand what you mean. But if we weren't meant to do this, why were we able to?"

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I can throw myself off a cliff, but I don't, because I know better. We can create dinosaurs, but then we're right back on that cliff, aren't we?" Pythagoras explained. Icarus just stared up and up, and didn't look down.

"You're friends seem to think its fine." He said, finally. Pythagoras had also noticed his friend's distinct joy at the return of the extinct.

"Well, I think they wanted this more. They spent their lives seeing these things buried in the ground, and now they can see them as they were meant to be seen."

"And their experiences aren't yours?" Icarus asked.

"My experience?" Pythagoras said. "Oh, I've never actually been anywhere past my museum."

"Really? But I thought-"

"No, they assumed I traveled with Jason. I just didn't correct them." A pause. "I knew they wouldn't let me come if they knew I was just the museum worker who happened to have degrees in paleontology." Another pause.

"Why did you want to come so bad? You didn't even know what this was. It could have been something awful. What's so wrong with being a museum worker?" Icarus turned his gaze to face Pythagoras who couldn't have noticed with his eyes now turned to the sky.

"I just wanted to be useful. Or at least know that I can be. Is that selfish?"

"Yes. But you say that like it's wrong to want things for yourself. Be selfish. Prove your worth, even if it's to nobody but you. You'll feel better."

"Thank you." The conversation was dropped and the darkness of the room removed the idea of starting another one, so Icarus shut his eyes. Pythagoras faced the sleeping Icarus and thought he should be doing the same, but instead he just watched the breath go in and out of the game warden's lungs. Watched his hair twist and writhe with every little movement. Watched him live, and exist, just to make sure something here was real. Only then did he go to sleep.

By sunrise Pythagoras was up and ready to start the day. They were going to get close to the dinosaurs today, and the containment units. Perhaps a look at the safety features would calm the ache in Py's nerves. Icarus's eyes followed the paleontologist as he went through his morning routine of eating, reading, brushing his teeth, reading, writing, reading, and finally getting dressed, which Pythagoras did discreetly in the bathroom. Icarus was ready in half the time Py was, which wasn't shocking because everyone always was.

They met everyone else outside at the elevator. Py approached Jason first.

"How was your night?" He asked

"Are you kidding?" Jason squawked. "What, you couldn't hear Hercules from your room? I'm shocked we didn't get calls from our neighbors about a dinosaur loose!" Py laughed, and Jason followed before asking the same question in return. "So, how was your night with the warden?"

Pythagoras looked over at the man he'd shared the room with, who was patiently waiting for the elevator to rise up. "Fine. He's very nice, I think." The two continued with small talk and pleasant conversation as the boarded the elevator and rode it down to the ground floor, where only Ariadne was waiting for them.

"Pasiphae had to handle something or other in the park, but she said she would meet you during the day. I guess that puts me in charge of your journey today, but I will ask our game warden's opinion. What would you like them to see first?" Ariadne asked, facing Icarus.

"Velociraptors are my favourite." He answered almost immediately. Jason and Hercules nodded overly-enthusiastically, but Icarus was looking to Pythagoras, who gave a vague non-committal shoulder shrug of agreement. So off they set, traveling again through the tropical forest, past signs pointing to various dinosaur exhibits. Jason, Hercules and Pythagoras found this an excellent time to start doing Dinosaur Trivia based on names they passed, and Pythagoras was winning when they pulled up to a crowd in front of the raptor encasement. Icarus looked concerned, and jumped out of the car as soon as it was stopped.

"Stay in here, okay?" He ordered, but none of them listened, and stepped out of the car with him. Pasiphae was with the group of what appeared to be armed workers. "What's going on?" It was Pythagoras's guess that their group was not going to be told if something was wrong, and he was right. Pasiphae immediately saw them and shuffled over, a smile plastered across her face.

"Nothing, just a little aggressive behavior from the raptors." Pasiphae said "We're going to need to steal the Game Warden for right now, but you can continue on your tour with Ariadne to the lab, if you please. Icarus, come with me." She seemed flustered, and that bothered Py. Something bigger was going on, and he wanted to know. Ariadne went back to her Jeep, motioning for the others to climb in. Jason and Hercules followed, and the three of them were so unsettled by the current situation that none noticed Pythagoras disappearing after Icarus. As quiet as he could he climbed into the back of Icarus's Jeep and listened. The only voices he recognized were Pasiphae and Icarus's, the others must have been some of the armed people.

"Aggressive behavior? That's the best you could come up with? What's actually happening?" That was Icarus.

"We're not sure how she did it, but one of the raptors managed to dig out from under the encasement."

"Dig out! Where is she!?"

"Icarus!" And there was Pasiphae. "Keep your voice down. We don't know exactly. That's what your job is. Check her tracking device on your phone and go find her."

"Yeah, alright, but how did we even allow this to happ-" Icarus started but was apparently visually stopped by someone, because he didn't continue. Pasiphae continued with her orders.

"Go out, bring the tranquilizer, get her and bring her back. We'll deal with the digging issue when she's found."

"But-"

"Icarus, every second you waste she gets farther away. Go." There was an exasperated sigh and to Py it sounded like someone gave Icarus a weapon of some kind before he climbed into the Jeep and took off. This was, of course, the Jeep Pythagoras was hiding in the back of and now he was regretting choosing it as his place of hiding. Now he had several choices. He could remain silent and if that rouge dinosaur came it would probably eat him first and there was nothing anyone could do about it, or he could speak up and potentially get thrown out of the Jeep and park for spying. Py decided he preferred living over getting chucked out, and propped himself up.

"Ehm, um, Icarus…" The game warden jammed on the breaks and whipped his head around to see a very embarrassed Pythagoras pulling himself off the floor of the Jeep.

"What are you doing? Why didn't you leave with Ariadne? Were you… You were listening, weren't you?" Icarus wasn't shouting, which Py considered a blessing, but he did seem upset.

"I don't like being lied to. Especially when there's a dinosaur loose in the park. I think we had a right to know that!" Py hadn't meant to start shouting, but somehow he was. "What happens if it's following the other Jeep? Is this how this park is usually run?"

"No!" Icarus shouted. "This has never happened before. We've never had a breech like this. But you know what, I told them we should have put metal flooring in, and they didn't listen. They wanted the ground to feel 'natural'. How could no one have noticed a hole appearing in the floor? This is why we needed more staff." He was ranting, and seemed to forget that Py was there for a short while until he used his voice again.

"At least it happened before the park opened." Py offered. "This could have been a lot messier." Icarus stared at the disheveled paleontologist for a short second before sighing and pulling his tranquilizer gun of the passenger seat.

"If we're gonna keep talking you might as well hop up here." Icarus said, putting the gun on his lap and offering Py a hand to help climb up front. Pythagoras took it and got comfortable in the front while Icarus checked his phone for the raptors current location. "She should be up ahead." Py leaned over and looked at the phone, which currently showed a map and a blinking red dot moving further away.

"Where is she going?" Py mused aloud as they continued driving. "Carnivorous dinosaurs basically live to hunt, but we've passed plenty of places where she could have stopped to eat. And look at her pattern of movement," He continued, grabbing the phone from Icarus, who was equal parts invested in watching the road and listening to Pythagoras. "She's not exploring her surroundings at all. She's moving in almost a straight line. It's like she has a destination in mind." Icarus leaned over for a second to see what Py meant.

"Yeah. But where is she going? Do you think she's trying to leave the park?" Icarus suggested, but Py shook his head.

"She has no way to know that there's anything beyond this park, or even that she's in one. If you left your house, you wouldn't assume there's a cage around the outdoors, would you? No, it has to be something here. This isn't a random pattern…" Pythagoras trailed off, continuing to watch the blip on the screen trek ahead of them.

They followed for about 20 minutes, eventually going off-road to try and catch up with the velociraptor. They passed containment units, paddocks, almost finished park features, and several select stops for the safari ride. The beginning of the ride had consisted of the fear that the raptor wouldn't be found, but now the concern for Pythagoras was finding the raptor. Pythagoras had no experience with dead dinosaurs, but he had even less with live ones.

"When we find her, you do know what you're doing, right? With that," Pythagoras asked, gesturing to the gun on Icarus's lap. He was trying to not sound insulting or patronizing, but his concern at the moment seemed more important than anyone's ego. Icarus didn't seem upset when he looked over, though.

"Hey, we're gonna be fine." He said, putting his hand on Pythagoras's shoulder. "It's just a raptor. One hit and she'll be out. If anything goes wrong, I'll be here. I'll keep you safe." Just then the dot on the phone stopped moving. Icarus hit the gas and speed ahead, trying to reach the creature before it started moving again. "It looks like she hit the T-Rex fence. If she did, that wall goes on for miles; she'll never get around it before we catch her."

"Wait, no," Pythagoras objected. "She's gone."

"What? No, that's impossible. Did you hit something?" Icarus was still flying ahead, but his eyes were darting to the phone. "Unless she's dead, she'll show up on that." Pythagoras tried with desperate vigor to get the red dot back on the screen, but to no avail. He was still fiddling with the device when a large wired fence came into view. It towered over everything around them, with signs declaring it held tens of thousands of electric volts inside each wire.

Py and Icarus stepped out of the car on it had been stopped, looking to see if there was any evidence of the raptor.

"Icarus. Look…" Pythagoras pointed to a spot on the fence that was splayed with blood and flesh. "Do you think she ran into it an electrocuted herself?" He asked, as Icarus leaned over to inspect.

"No. She's too clever for that." He said, carefully looking over the area. "And there wouldn't really be blood."

"Wait look, there's something hanging on that bit." Py grabbed the warden's arm with one hand and pointed to the bloodiest spot with another where a medium sized device was hanging. "What is that-" Pythagoras approached the wall to inspect the anomaly but suddenly slipped down a groove and tumbled to the ground. Icarus desperately grabbed for Pythagoras's waist and shoulders, yanking himself to the floor as well, barely managing to keep Py from smashing into the whirring electric fence on their way down. The breath smacked out of both of them as they collapsed into something deep in the ground, Pythagoras landing smack on top of Icarus.

"Pythagoras. Py are you alright, can you hear me? Did you touch the wall?" Icarus sounded frantic, flipping himself over so he was almost on top of Pythagoras. The paleontologist wanted to say he was fine, to say thank you for pulling him to safety, but there was dark brown hair that wasn't his own falling into his eyes and there was a hand around his waist that didn't belong to him and there was a heart beating close enough to his own that he could feel it pounding through Icarus's flesh and all of a sudden speaking became a challenge to impossible to attempt. Instead, after several moments' deliberation, he decided to forfeit speaking altogether and shuffled himself a little to look and see what had made him fall.

"Oh, I think we have bigger problems than me touching the wall, Icarus." Pythagoras said, returning his gaze to the warden with a panicked expression. On their way down they had dislodged what was hanging on the wall. It was fried, and broken beyond repair, but it was definitely the velociraptors tracking device. And the groove they were currently lying in was most definitely a hole deep enough to allow a velociraptor to get into the tyrannosaurus encasement.

"Shit."