heart beat double time as she walked away from Tem’s cage.

Tem. He asked me to call him Tem.

She felt honored, but knew she shouldn’t be. It was a tactic the prisoner used to try to gain her trust. From her Psychology of Inmates class, she understood this very well.

Astrid couldn’t be sure if the dragon had worked arcane magic on her to skew her feelings toward helping him. The iron shackles were supposed to shut down the magic, but in truth there was still much they did not know about dragons. And Astrid remembered the manifestation of Tem’s dragon eyes. That shouldn’t happen either. Perhaps the iron was not a sufficient deterrent to a dragon’s powers? Or maybe older dragons had more power than their human keepers realized? Certainly planning a breakout from a secure facility was a radical notion even for her. She wanted to work with dragons and learn more about them. But she didn’t want to become a criminal to do so.

And she didn’t put it past Tem to hide his abilities to keep what small margin of advantage he had over his human keepers.

Still, Mrs. Parks’ announcement of Tem’s execution had galled her.

Tem was the oldest dragon in captivity; he might be the elder of all the dragons on the face of the Earth. Her intuition told her no, that the older dragons were too cagey to get caught. But then again, Tem wasn’t exactly caught, but maneuvered into a certain position before his capture. At least that was what a review of his case file told her. But the upper crust manner in which he lived his life, the kinds of connections he had, told her he was a man who knew powerful people. Usually such individuals did not end up in prison unless they ran afoul of the powerful. This, she suspected, was Tem’s real crime.

Not something for which he should suffer execution.

Still, she was one woman against a huge organization, and she was supposed to be working for it, not against it.

Astrid walked into the security room and sat in the chair next to Tim, the technician that monitored the equipment and the alarm systems through the grounds.

“They’ve taken a liking to you,” he said simply.

Tim was about her age, with spiky blond hair and several piercings in his ears and above his eyebrow. Astrid didn’t know how he got away with “being out of uniform,” as the employment manual put it, but he did his work efficiently and Mrs. Parks seemed to like him. At least, she didn’t scowl at him like she did Astrid and the absent-without-leave Jane. Astrid hadn’t had a chance yet to get a feel for his politics on the matter of dragon incarceration. But if he was as vetted as thoroughly as everyone else, he was a law-and-order man, despite the metal in his face.

“They do.”

“Are you going to give him his sponge bath?”

His face was carefully composed but she could swear his voice held a smirk.

“Why would you care?”

“It would be seriously hot to see you wash him down. Do you think you can manage to pull his sweats down? I’m sure that area needs to be cleaned too.”

He spoke the words so evenly and in such a quiet voice that Astrid was caught off guard at the suggestive nature of his words.

“Tim,” she said just as evenly. “Are you a pervert?”

“Nope. Gay. I was seriously cheesed that Mrs. Parks made me leave the room last night so I didn’t get to see him again. And then she secured the recording so I couldn’t watch it. Took me all night to hack her passcode. By then it was time for day mode to come onboard.”

Astrid looked at Tim with new appreciation. Not that hacking evoked her admiration, but his persistence in trying to secure a piece of information did. Like her brother, now a computer systems student at University, Tim had a drive to master whatever systems in his charge, whether he was allowed that information or not.

“I was wrong. You aren’t a pervert. You’re a data daemon.”

He smiled. “Sorta. But instead of a program that initiates actions when a program is tripped, I’m more like a data dragon. I run in the background and keep an accounting of information.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It’s my job,” he said cryptically.

What? Did he mean he was a watcher of the facility employees? Who did he work for? She felt as if the floor was falling underneath her. How deep of a situation was she in?

“Should I call you Inspector Gadget?”

“Luv, that’s classified information. On a need to know basis only.”

She swallowed hard. “So why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I’d hate to see a nice bird like you get fouled by nasty politics.”

“And that’s what you think this place is?”

“Not my place to say. And there’s one thing about me that you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t do more than what the program calls for.”

“Strict protocol, eh?”

He gave her a glance and shrugged his shoulders. “Government pension, luv. I don’t corrupt the data stream. And the data stream says the dragons are a danger.”

Astrid sat and studied the monitor. She came to study the dragons. She studied hard for four years to get a chance for this work. But things were rapidly devolving into an untenable situation. Calvin Porter was obviously dying, a suicide by refusing to eat. Evan Waters didn’t belong here at all. And Templeton Rawlins was slated for the executioner’s axe.

Her hands curled at her side in her frustration. This was not what the government told the people. It certainly wasn’t justice. And, if allowed, the government would let the race of dragons die from unnatural causes.

What did Tim mean when he said he didn’t do more than what the program calls for? That if he guessed she was going to do something foolish he wouldn’t stop her? Or did it mean that he’d follow ‘strict protocols’ and alert the others if she did something to help the dragons?

Tim sat with his eyes flicking from monitor to monitor. He was a serious and thorough worker but the expression on his face was inscrutable. Astrid simply had no compass here to help her decide what to do.

“So, you’ll keep a good watch on me if I go in and give him that sponge bath?”

“It’s my job,” he said with a crooked smile. “Unless, of course, I have to go the bathroom.”

“The bathroom?”

“Yes,” he said with a smirk. “I might have to rub one off, and I can’t mess up the monitors.”

“Pervert,” she said.

“There are little perks to this job.”

She clapped him on the shoulder.

“I hope you enjoy yourself then.”

“Wait a second,” he said. “I have to use the john now. Keep an eye on the boards. I’ll be right back.”

Tim launched from his seat and out the door before she could say anything. She sat looking at the screens at a loss for what to do. Then at Tim’s station she saw a blinking strip at the bottom of his main screen. With a shock she realized they were the day codes for the electric locks on the doors and shackles. Her brand new key card would handle the doors, but the codes for the shackles had to be input either from the central board here, or as a back-up, on the shackles themselves.

Astrid swallowed hard. It didn’t matter if Tim made a mistake leaving these codes in full view or did it deliberately. There was no way she’d get this information again. If she was going to do something to help the dragons, it had to be today and it had to be soon before Mrs. Parks returned from her meeting with the commandant.

Tim returned in a rush and fell into his swivel chair.

“Everything okay?” he said.

“Nothing happened.”

“Sure? These dragons are tricky.”

“If I didn’t catch it, I’m sure it’s on the tapes.”

“Right. So then, are you going to give Rawlins his sponge bath?”

“Should I?” she said.

“That’s up to you, luv,” he said staring at the screens. “That’s up to you.”