the practise and here, but I’m sure we can come to a solution that works for everyone.”
She shot me an excited grin, something I returned without really feeling it. This was a cold, impersonal place. Beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to hang out in here all day. The old prison, even with its piss-soaked decay, was somehow better than this. More honest at least. But I wasn’t going to be expected to sit in this cavernous lobby.
“Now, if you’d like to come through here.”
Guards stood by the metal doors that led into the rest of the institute, Hollingsworth moving to swipe his card through the reader by the door. It opened with a beep, and we walked farther into the belly of the beast.
The belly of many beasts, I soon found out. Stuart and Nick came to stand beside me as we looked out into the freaking massive space in shock. Huge glass walled habitats, looking for all the world like a slickly designed private zoo, filled what had once been the prison block. The old Harvest Grove Prison used to house most of the prisoners in the state. Built back in the 1950s, people hadn’t liked the idea of prisoners being near the major metropolitan areas, so they’d shipped them out here, supplementing the ring-ins with our own people. Then the state got sick of footing the transport bills and built a new one closer to the big smoke.
“That’s…” Nick said, pointing to the nearest habitat, where a very unhappy looking snow leopard was curled up. I recognised what it was because I’d seen it in books but… Both of us were drawn closer as if pulled on strings, only stopping when we hit the glass.
It was a strange thing to see an animal you’d only ever seen in books or documentaries in real life. The glass between us helped maintain that feeling of unreality, as if I was watching footage played out on a massive TV screen.
It curled up into a tighter ball inside the faux den it had been given in its evidently climate-controlled habitat, if the frost on the ground was real. Go away…go away…go away… was all I got from the animal. Not the words, just the feeling, pulsing against my brain. Its comparatively smaller ears flattened against its skull, and it hissed at us, causing the two of us to jerk back.
We looked at each other and then burst out laughing, more due to surprise than anything else. But our eyes strayed, searching the other habitats.
“So, if you’d like to come with me…”
The man’s voice dropped away as we walked from one cage to the other, scarcely able to believe what we were seeing.
“That’s a—”
“Timber wolf,” I finished, the beautiful creature lifting his head when he saw us, watching us for a moment with those golden yellow eyes before he continued his pacing, having already worn a track in the turf.
I flinched away from the glass, the waves of maddening boredom rising now that he was no longer interested in us. Back and forth, back and forth the animal strode, trying and failing to stave off the miasma of unhappiness. I watched it move, and found there was something equally disturbing and hypnotic about its movements.
“Bengal tiger?” Nick said as I bumped into his shoulder. We’d had to walk some distance, but now we stood in front of another particularly large habitat.
“Siberian maybe.” I scanned the beast’s head and shoulders. “He’s huge,” I replied.
“You know a lot about animal species,” he replied, looking away from the tiger as he sank into the large pond he’d been given. A deep one by the look. He dropped down, only his eyes and ears sticking up over the surface of the water for a moment.
“Used to read Nan’s bestiaries exhaustively,” I replied. “But what is the deal with this place? Every single animal is male, and there’s only one per cage.”
“An excellent question,” Hollingsworth replied, “and an astute observation.” His smile was genuine, but no less creepy. “You have employed good staff, Stuart.”
Our boss just shrugged, looking over the complex with a frown. I felt more than that. My teeth had clamped down unconsciously as I felt it—all the waves of unhappiness, anger, and fear coming from the animals. Why? I wondered. While being locked in a cage was never gonna be great for a wild animal, the habitats were large, spreading out from where we stood far out beyond where the old prison ended. It must