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Chris, Dave and Sean leaned against the railing on the walkway outside Carnoc's habitat, watching the cave entrance while they talked.

"Do you think he'll really stay in there all day?" Sean asked.

"He's nocturnal, of course he will. And if I know him, even if he can't fall asleep he won't come out here. He doesn't like being near people he doesn't know even when he has to; it took him most of a year just to get used to having Sarah on the property."

"Who's Sarah?"

Chris looked at the ground. "My wife. Passed away from lung cancer three years ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Sean said.

Chris nodded, then sighed and brought his head back up. "So, how are we going to get him out?" he asked, deliberately avoiding using Carnoc's name, just in case.

"Well, it seems like the only thing that's really holding him in is the barriers. If we could find some way to remove or deactivate those, he'd be free to go."

"It seems. Could be he's inside the cave because there's something holding him there."

"No, it'd be a waste of space for him to be held in there if they had this whole habitat build for him," Dave said. "The barriers are probably the only thing, but there are other things for us to worry about, too. Jim had me sink a tracer into his neck when we first caught him; he easily could have given its locator codes to the staff here. Though come to think of it he didn't ask me for the codes, so he probably didn't... but they could have put in their own."

"Is there a way to remove a tracer, or deactivate it somehow? I don't like the idea of people being able to know where he is after we get him out."

"Depends. How fast do their scales regrow?"

"Oh, they'll shed 'em out for new ones all the time, but I don't really know how long it takes for a broken one to come back in. It probably differs from dragon to dragon, or even from scale to scale. Is it hard to find the tracer if you can't find the spot from the broken scale?"

"That depends on whether or not he would mind me somehow finding a way to x-ray his entire neck."

"Ah... Well, I suppose we'll worry about that when we get there. So the only thing we'll have to do is find a way to get him past the barriers... How are we supposed to do that?"

Sean looked around at the other people moving along the walkway; nobody seemed to be eavesdropping on their conversation. "Everything has a power source," he said after a moment. "If we can find the power cables for the barriers and sever them, then he'll be able to leave."

"They could well run underground for all we know, and we can't get to them if they are."

"The cables have to carry power from somewhere, too," Chris said. "We could somehow sabotage that."

"Disney World has its own generators," Sean said. "And unless you want to cut the power to the entire resort..."

"Couldn't we identify the wires that ran in the direction of Animal Kingdom, and cut them?"

"You have any idea how much power runs through those? Touch them and you get electrocuted, insulation or not."

"We could always shoot them," Dave said.

"Haven't lasers always had trouble with rubber materials?"

"No, they fixed that at least twenty years ago. A good shot would split the cables in half, I'd bet."

"I'd like to have that tested somehow before we throw the weight of the plan on it."

"Either way, I think we'd have to worry more about a backup system. They paid a lot of money to bring him here; there's got to be a second level of security."

"Well, Dave, you're the biologist," Chris said. "What would be an ideal backup system?"

"Containment security isn't exactly my area of expertise, but... A secondary generator just for his barriers, maybe; redundant power cables from the other parts of the resort; any number of things."

"Wouldn't those take a short while to activate, though? It takes time to reroute power, or to turn on a generator, and in that brief period he would be able to fly out."

"If he knew what to do beforehand, which I really doubt would be possible... Hold it, quiet for a minute. Security guards over to the left."

The three of them stayed silent until the pair of security guards had passed. Then Chris said, "as I was saying, there really is no way we could get close enough to tell him to be ready for us."

"I could do it," Sean said. "Well, in theory. I could circle above his habitat, and that would be sure to get his attention."

"His and all of the night staff's, and area police are sure to have radar. You'd be spotted, and probably shot down."

"I do have a radar blackout," Chris said. "But that's back at the house, and we need it there to keep the UN global and national radar systems from picking up the clan when they go out to fly at night. So we can't use that anyway."

"Isn't that highly illegal?"

Chris shrugged. "It's worked well enough."

"Doesn't matter. Sean, you could still be seen from the ground with or without radar," Dave said.

"Didn't say it was perfect. Said it was possible."

"Fine," Chris said. "So Dave will cut the power lines, assuming we can find them, and you'll be above the habitat to tell him to fly out. What do we do next? I don't think they'd be happy to just watch Carnoc fly away."

"I haven't used it much since I got my Callahan," Sean said, "but I have a transponder from when I used to fly cross-country in my other form. Identifies me on radar screens as... well, as me, and can be used to two-way communicate if I wear a headset. I could give it to him, and he could use it to fly back to the mountains without anyone attacking him."

"Wouldn't it be better to just not have him show up on screens at all?"

"Without the transponder he'll show up as a bogey, and those are always investigated these days. He'll need it."

"Hmm... It could work."

"It just might."

"All right, then," Chris said. "Let's go see if we can find these power lines."

---

This time Carnoc was awake when Allison switched on the overhead lights and came back into his cave, after it was dark and quiet again outside. She backed in through the two doors, carrying another tray of meat, and he sniffed the air to identify it; it smelled like beef, but didn't seem at all fresh. Maybe if it was fresh, it would be like taking a cow from Chris' herds, almost. Except that he didn't even get to kill it himself... And this wasn't even fresh in the first place.

"Any particular reason why you're refusing to go outside? Everyone would have liked to see you today."

He growled from his corner. "I'm nocturnal. Getting dragged here didn't change that."

"The other dragons didn't seem to mind the change."

"What?" He cocked his head in her direction. "What others? Where are they?"

"Well, there's one out west at the San Diego zoo. He's only a little dragon, but he was up and putting on some aerial displays, and I heard they were going to try to teach him to act in shows for the guests to watch, too. And the one in St. Louis was moving around and talking to humans all day; he didn't mind their company, either. So why can't you at least make an effort?"

He ignored her question. "What about the rest of the clan?"

Allison put down the tray of beef in front of him. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, hu-- Allison. The other dragons. What happened to all of them?"

"Oh. Well..." She paused for a moment. "Wait, do you even know all of what's happened?"

"Obviously I have no idea what happened," he snarled. "One morning I was falling asleep back home, and the next thing I knew I was tied down inside some metal box, then I woke up here. I don't even know how long it's been since then."

"Oh. Well, the best I know, you were captured about three weeks ago. Your whole... clan, that is. Then you were all auctioned off. All of you were sold, but... Something happened. All but three of you were freed by some humans. There are a lot of people looking for them, but so far there hasn't been any sign of the dragons who escaped or the people who freed them. It's just you, and the two others I mentioned at the other zoos, who are in captivity."

"Any idea what their names are?"

Allison shook her head. "No, I don't know them. Now, I answered your questions, so how about you answer mine: why can't you try entertaining? Not necessarily talking to the visitors, or acting, but at least move around a little, or put on a flying show, or sleep in the sun, or something! There was a news van here earlier today hoping to get some footage of you, and some visitors apparently said they thought you were a hoax put on by the park. Do you want them to think that?"

Carnoc stood and glared down at her. "Just because I'm your prisoner doesn't mean I have to do everything you want me to do. I don't want to be here, and I certainly don't want to show myself off for a bunch of humans. I don't care what they think of me; they can stand out there all day if they want to, but I'm not going to put myself on display for their entertainment." He dipped his head towards the tray and sniffed at it, teeth bared. "Don't you have something that's actually alive? Only the sick and the injured don't hunt their own prey."

"You didn't complain this morning."

"I was more worried about starving to death."

"We don't keep live feed here," Allison said, spreading her hands. "This is the best I can do."

"Then at least find something more fresh next time," he growled, and tore into the tray of beef without waiting for a reply.

Allison stepped back this time to avoid the mess Carnoc made while he fed, having learned her lesson the hard way that morning. "You can't stay the same way forever," she finally said, once he was done eating and had started to clean off his face and claws. "You can adapt to your surroundings. Adjust to your new way of life, find a way to make yourself happy and please the visitors. They are paying money in hopes of seeing you, you know."

"I don't care what you humans do with your money," he snarled, then walked over to the cave entrance. He sat down again at the entrance and continued washing himself, oblivious of the human staring at him.

She followed him out, leaning back against the rock wall of the cave entrance and watching while he licked and rubbed away the blood and bits of leftover beef from his meal. "I don't think you understand what I'm trying to do," she said. "I'm just trying to make you happy, Carnoc. I want to help you out however I can so you can enjoy your days here. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do. But I would like to see you enjoying yourself, and maybe letting some of our visitors see you while you did."

He didn't look at her. "You want me to be happy? Let me go."

"You know perfectly well I can't do that. The executives paid a lot of money to have you come here."

"Their own fault."

"I don't choose the investments they make, I just protect the ones they send my way. If it weren't for me your habitat would be half this size, you wouldn't have a cave, and there would probably be a chain around your leg to slow you down. I'm trying to help you, not control you."

"But you still try to tell me what to do," he snorted. "Go outside during the day. Fly around your cage, put on a show, please the guests. Pretend to be happy for them."

"What, you don't enjoy showing off? Seems to me like it'd be fun to fly around and do tricks for everyone to see."

"Seems to you. It doesn't sound at all enjoyable to me, and you humans shouldn't be so excited to see me trapped in a cage like this."

Allison shrugged. "Come on, you know it's not that bad. And what's wrong with people wanting to see you? Do you have any idea how spectacular you look? When I was finishing my rounds with the other animals last night and I saw you drifting up there in the sky... I had to stop what I was doing and just watch you fly. I can't believe how beautiful you are with your wings spread wide."

He swung his head around and snarled at her. "Is that all I am to you? Some kind of rare pet to put onto display for everyone else to enjoy, a prized beast to show off to your guests? You lock me in here regardless of what I have to say about it, then tell me you expect me to show myself off to them! Did it ever even occur to you that I might have a little dignity?"

"Asking you to be a bit of a showman has nothing to do with your self-respect."

"Yes it does!" he roared. "You act like it's not a big deal, but what you're really asking me to do is put my body on display. Not my intelligence or my fighting skill, my strength or even Vidac's bolt, but me. To actually enjoy that sort of life like you want me to, I'd have to have the self-respect of some human prostitute."

She gaped at him. "Carnoc, that's not what I'm asking you and you know it! Just that you put on the occasional aerial show, that's all I'm asking you for. You can sleep in the sun, or even in your cave the rest of the time, but you should try it. You may find yourself liking it more than you expect to."

"And you act like I should enjoy being forced into that sort of life! Do you seriously expect me to be happy traipsing around like a circus animal?"

"A-- How could you think something like that? We don't force you to carry us around on your back, we don't chain you up and let the guests walk up and taunt you, we don't stick you in the middle of the park to put on a show..."

"If this isn't the center of the park it's pretty close, and you've asked me repeatedly to 'put on a show,' in those exact words."

"You know we treat you better than that. Besides, you'll only feel that way if you let yourself feel it. Just look at it differently, and you'll realize that things aren't as bad as you think they are."

He growled and reached over to wash his other side. "Go away, human."

She just stared at him. For a moment, her hand started to drift towards her pocket, but she shook her head and turned away instead. "See you in the morning," she mumbled, head down, and left him alone in his pen.

Good riddance, Carnoc thought. He was holding his blood in check for now, because he thought it was what his father would want him to do, but if she annoyed him much more he could very easily lose control. And if he did... He snarled in the direction she had left in, bloodlust making his temper flare. It wouldn't end well for her.

After washing for a few more minutes, he rose, jumped into the air and glided across the cage to the stream for a drink. He drank his fill, and he was just spreading his wings to fly when the high, beeping alarm sounded. Carnoc knew he was supposed to return immediately to the cushion and allow the humans to strap him down. He growled and took off instead, circling higher in the cage; what he wanted to do and what he was supposed to do were two entirely different things.

He had just leveled off near the top of the cage when a human, the dark-skinned man Allison had called Simon, ran out of his cave. "Dragon!" he yelled. "Don't you hear the alarm? Get inside, quickly!"

Carnoc just roared back at him, drifting to the far side of the cage.

Simon took a pistol from its holster on his belt and fired at Carnoc's chest, the low-power laser enough to hurt him but not enough to bring him down. He roared again, falling into a looping dive before rising up again on the other side of the cage. Simon's arm tracked with him, the pistol's aim following his path, but his second shot went wide and was absorbed by the barrier at the top of the cage. He continued to wheel and dive through the cage, not stopping anywhere long enough for the human to get any opportunity to shoot again.

"Get down here right now, or the next one's going in your face!" Simon shouted up at him.

"No!" he roared back, stalling in midair and winging backward for a couple of beats before he dove again, keeping his eyes on the man with the gun. But he didn't pay enough attention to his flight path, and he plowed full-speed into the field of the barrier encircling the metal track. He bellowed at the pain and tried to flap away, but one of his wings struck the solid edge of the barrier and he blacked out.

He woke up again to find himself back under the harness. He growled and struggled for a moment, but he was bound up again, good and tight; at least they hadn't muzzled him this time. He sighed, then looked around and noticed Allison standing before him.

She knelt in front of him, reaching down to put a hand on his forehead; he snarled at her touch and glared at her, tail lashing back and forth in the straps that pinned it, but she didn't move her hand away. "Are you hurt anywhere?" she asked.

He paused, surprised by her concern. His back and his right wing tingled a little, but other than that he seemed to be fine... He started to open his mouth, but he could barely speak past the strap of the harness that ran across his snout and held it shut. "No."

The human sighed, though he wasn't sure whether it was from relief or displeasure. "Well, I hope you've at least learned your lesson. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get you down?"

Carnoc grunted.

"I can't believe you weren't injured," she shook her head. "We had to deactivate the barrier you crashed on before it electrocuted you, but without it to hold you up you fell onto the track beneath it. Somehow you got your tail tangled up in it and that kept you from falling all the way to the ground, but we still had to deactivate all the habitat barriers so a crane could come in and lift you down before the track collapsed under your weight. You could have died! Is it really worth all that just to be disobedient?"

He snorted. "I'm not going to let you humans bind me for no reason."

She took her hand off his forehead. "It's called a drill, Carnoc. So we can practice what we would have to do in the event of an actual emergency. That alarm could go off for any number of reasons. Storms, power outages, burglary, maybe even bomb threats; who knows? The important thing is to get all the animals somewhere safe as quickly as possible, and for you that safe place is right here. It's for your own protection."

"The way you put it, I'd be safer back home than I am here."

Allison shrugged. "In your opinion. But I'm glad to know you're all right." She hesitated, then reached down, touched the softer scales behind his jaw and earhole and began to tickle the spot with her fingertips. He squirmed in his harness and tried to get away from her fingers, but he could barely move a claw's width, immobilized as he was. After a moment, though, he had to stifle an involuntary purr; the tickling felt good, but no pleasing sensation was worth human contact.

"Stop it," he said, trying to hide the faint purr that rumbled from his throat by covering it with a growl. Only a dragon's mate was supposed to touch his face like that.

"Ooh, I think the dragon likes being scratched behind the earhole," she said, and kept going. He tried to maintain his growl, but he couldn't; it just felt too good. He leaned into her touch and started purring.

She laughed. "You're like a giant cat!" She kept it up for another half-minute or so, then took her hand away, and Carnoc couldn't help but sigh and close his eyes contentedly, wishing the fingers could have tickled for even longer. "I knew I could find something about humans you'd like," she said, laughing again.

"I could scratch myself if you'd just let me up." The purr faded away, replaced by another of his irritated growls.

Allison stepped back, pulled a small grey remote from her pocket and pressed a few buttons, and the straps of his harness whirred away. He stood and stretched, then walked over to his corner of the cave without looking at her, tail twitching.

"You and I need to practice this one more time before I leave for the night," she said. "Even if you don't like it, you have to understand the safety procedures, so you have to be used to letting somebody harness you."

He growled and curled up with his back to her. "Isn't this about protecting me?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, wouldn't it be better for me if I was able to move around or defend myself, if something happened?"

"You know," she said after a short pause, "you may be right. I'll have to think about it. Originally the emergency plan had you being harnessed simply because we weren't sure how you would act in a crisis, but I suppose, maybe if you just came into the cave and we fit some sort of collapsible door over it, or had a barrier that could seal it... I'll have to think about that. But for now, this is what we're going to do." She pressed a button on her remote, and a quieter version of the alarm emanated from it.

He didn't move.

"Come on, Carnoc. It will only take a couple of minutes."

"I'm not getting into that thing again."

"I've already had a very stressful night, getting you down from the track safely. Please, just do this with me, then I'll leave you alone until morning. It won't take long."

"You've already put me into it at least twice. I think you have enough experience already."

"I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for you. You have to be used to allowing someone to put you in the harness, because in a crisis we won't have time for you to be shy of it. Come on."

"No."

"I'll scratch you behind the earhole again."

He picked his head up and roared at her. "If you ever touch me like that again, I'll kill you."

"Just get in the harness. I have more important things to do than argue with you."

"Then you should probably go do them."

Allison's voice turned hard. "Carnoc, you have five seconds to get onto this cushion, or I will get angry. And you don't want me to be angry at you, seeing as I'm the one who decides when you're fed." When he didn't move, she said, "five, four, three..."

"Threatening to starve me will only give me more of an excuse not to go outside," he said, laying his head down on his front claws, out of her view.

"Two, one. You asked for it." She pressed a button on her remote, and Carnoc felt a sharp electric shock run through him. He scrambled to his feet and bellowed out in pain, head darting back and forth as he searched for his assailant. There was Allison, but she didn't have any sort of weapon... So who had shocked him?

"Will you come here now?" He almost took a step forward, to obey just to avoid the pain, then shook his head and growled at her, still looking around the room. Maybe the human was hiding behind the door in the barrier, the one place in the cave he couldn't see from where he was standing... And if the human was there, then he would be able see it, dodge its attacks and avoid any further shocks. "Fine," she said, and pressed the button again. Another shock ran through his body, and he jumped, crying out again.

"Come here," Allison commanded.

It was her! She had to be doing it, he was sure; she was the one shocking him. But how? She didn't have a gun, and there wasn't any sort of automated gun visible; how could he escape what he couldn't see? Wait-- That collar they'd put on him, that had to be it!

"There's another shock coming," she said, resting her thumb on top of the button.

He practically ran to the cushion, curling up into a ball on top of it as she directed him. He might even let her scratch him behind the earhole again, if it would help him avoid another painful shock; desire to avoid the pain overrode even his temper, and it took considerable effort to keep himself from shivering.

"Thank you," she said, then pressed a different button. The top of each strap of his harness rose up through the cushion, and Allison took them in her hands and began to loop them over his body and limbs, starting at his tail and working her way around towards his head. Carnoc almost flinched and swiped at her several times, but he just managed to control himself--though after a little while it was the harness holding his movements in check instead of his judgment.

"There," she said as she walked over to secure the final few bands across his head and neck. "Not so bad, is it?"

He growled, but laid still as she finished strapping him down.

"See? It's easy. Not bad at all."

"Just let me up."

Allison thought for a moment. "You know, now that you're harnessed again, I should probably just leave you this way until morning. It would certainly help teach you to be more obedient."

He snarled and bucked once against his harness, temper flaring.

"On the other hand, I think you've had a tough enough night, haven't you," she said, reaching down and tickling behind his earhole again.

That was the last straw. Carnoc bellowed and thrashed in the harness, then lit a bolt, snapping the band across his snout right off as Allison hurried to back away from him. He bellowed again at the pain of the explosion that had nearly been contained in his mouth and tried to pull his head up off the cushion, but there were still a number of straps fastened across his neck, so he turned his head towards Allison and roared, then fired another bolt right into her chest.

The bolt tore right through her, splattering both of them with blood, and the resulting explosion threw her almost all the way to the laser barrier at the back of the cave. But a new alarm sounded and more humans ran into the room even as she crumpled to the ground; Carnoc turned his bolt on them all and managed to hit two of them, but he couldn't turn his head far enough in the harness to finish his sweep and the humans that remained brought up their rifles, aimed and shot him.