“Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit!” a young male employee shouted, running out of the bathroom as he pulled up his pants.

  “Spider Glyphs are successfully installed on the men’s toilets and have passed three successive tests,” Alexander said after marking off his last checklist. “Optimally adjusted to five and a half minutes.” Alexander scrawled another note on his to-do list to put up a sign in the stalls for signs of constipation and when to see a doctor.

  Ending his shift, he clocked out, gathered his things from the break room lockers, and as he was headed to the door, he passed Ridley. She ran up to him, waving a hand in the air, not in greeting, however. Alexander saw she was showing off her tattoo on her hand.

  “Howdy, Alex! Guess what, guess what, guess what!” she prodded, bouncing from foot to foot.

  “You got a cell phone?”

  “Ugh, no. My new debit card is coming in the mail. I need that first.”

  “I am glad you successfully set up your bank account. That is good news. Have a pleasant day of work.”

  “No! Look!” She pointed at the doodle on her hand as she leaned in closer to whisper.

  “I can use this… to shoot lightning!” she said, almost keeping her voice in check, but her joy overcame her.

  Alexander was able to completely keep his face neutral. It was obviously not that Alexander didn’t believe her; it was simply that he had a small dragon shoot lightning at him just the day before. Speaking of… meet halfway.

  “That is very exciting, Crew Member Ridley. I am happy for you. Have this Congo magnet for your refrigerator.”

  Ridley rolled her eyes. So Alexander followed up by asking a question.

  “Tell me, how are you enjoying the evening shift?”

  “Well, at least it’s keeping me out of the house. It provides a great excuse for when I hunt monsters. I haven’t found any new magic rings lately. Have you?”

  “I have been too busy recently to pursue my collection.”

  “Everyone is pretty nice and a bit closer to my age. A lot of them are super lazy, though.”

  “Who? Which ones? If you don’t know their names, you can describe them to me,” Alexander rushed, pulling out a pen and notepad.

  “Alex, the first rule of the streets is snitches get stitches,” she mocked, shaking her head.

  Alexander wasn’t too disappointed as he put away his notepad.

  “I suppose it would be bad for you if you created a hostile work environment. Keep working diligently, and you will be promoted quickly.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said as she went to put away her lunch. “Don’t work yourself bald too early, Alex.” She waved at him.

  Sitting in his bathroom, Alexander prepared to do battle.

  “Reptile-safe soap, check. Lukewarm water…”

  Alexander measured the water with his temperature gauge. “98.3 Fahrenheit, check.”

  “Towel, check.”

  Alexander pulled open a bag and put on some giant yellow gloves.

  “Electrician’s high-voltage insulating gloves, check.”

  This morning, Alexander had dished out some raw turkey bacon that Flick had very much enjoyed. His bond went up to 5%, so food was going to be a major factor in growing his bond. There was one problem. Flick stank. The smell of a pungent old reptile cage radiated off him. He could only assume the time in the cocoon did not lend itself to smelling like a fresh breeze.

  Flick’s demeanor had been very catlike so far: spinning in circles, aloof, and arrogant. So he wasn’t about to assume that Flick would enjoy a bath. On the way home, he purchased the gloves, bath detergent, and a secret weapon.

  Alexander unwrapped a piece of New York strip steak fresh from the market.

  “Flick! I have something for you.” From the hallway, he heard some scrambling, scratching sounds as Flick’s legs tried to catch the slick tile floor. He kept an eye on the bathroom door, just catching a black streak dive into the shadow of the door.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  A pair of round eyes appeared in the shadow, gazing at the packaged steak. Alexander peeled back the plastic wrapping and set it down near the bath. Flick slithered out of the shadow and crawled low on its belly, stopping just outside Alexander’s reach. He lifted his head to peer suspiciously at the steak as he sniffed the air and looked at the side of the bathtub. Flick made a nervous trill noise in his throat.

  Alexander didn’t move. He let Flick move up to the steak and nibble the edge before Alexander pulled the steak up in the air. Flick growled at him in response.

  “I will give this to you. A piece of it at least… one quarter, if and only if you take a bath.”

  Flick tilted his head, not recognizing the word.

  Reaching out, Alexander slowly, gently picked up the little dragon. Flick seemed uncomfortable, but okay until Alexander hovered him over the water and almost dropped him into it. Flick’s back foot came in contact with the water, and he began to shriek and claw at Alexander’s gloves. He caught Alexander just at the top of the forearm and gave him a shallow cut.

  “Ouch, darn it!” he swore.

  Flick locked eyes with Alexander as he struggled. Then the yellow highlight on the crest started to glow, and he opened his mouth, revealing the electricity sparking between his teeth.

  Alexander just took his glove and shoved it over his muzzle, casually clamping down his mouth.

  Bzzzt!

  Alexander waited a second and removed his hand. Flick’s jaw sat open in a frozen stupor. His whole body was rigid at the indignity of Alexander’s casual counter to his ultimate attack. Flick was so affronted that he didn’t notice as Alexander placed him in the water and started scrubbing him.

  ^

  Your bond with Flick has been reduced to 2%

  Alexander sighed in exasperation. “Parenting is hard. Everyone warned me.”

  After Flick’s deep offense wore off, he seemed to realize he didn’t much mind being scrubbed by a servant. He voluntarily shifted his body, allowing the peasant to scrub an itch he had under its wing. Alexander noticed Flick’s tail wagging back and forth, skipping on the top of the water and splashing a bit out of the tub, getting him wet.

  When he was done, he reached out to lift Flick out of the water onto the towel, but Flick just jumped out and began to shake off before grooming itself, preening much like a cat.

  When he looked like he was mostly dry, Alexander offered a plate of sliced raw steak.

  “As promised,” he said.

  Flick lunged at the plate, scarfing down the first piece. Flick jumped and pivoted a second later when he heard an electronic clicking noise. Alexander had pulled out his cell phone and taken a few pictures for his records.

  Flick watched him out of the corner of his eye as he dried the tile near the bathtub and put everything away. Leaving him to his meal.

  ^

  Your bond with Flick has reached 6%

  Alexander smiled as he walked over to his desk and sat down. He pulled out his laptop and booted it up while checking over his schedule. He had shifted around a lot to justify this hobby. Flick was a pet, so no work to care for him could count against his time. Painting and piano time had taken the biggest hits. His one hour of research still held, but he had let his hobby infect work life, cooking time, and now had a category for geocaching. That was just him looking for resources.

  He was on the cusp of confessing something to himself when his computer popped open, and he heard a series of notifications. He clicked around for a few minutes and opened his bookmarked subreddit page for cryptozoologists. He had uploaded a dozen pictures last week and was resoundingly mocked for trying to spread his impressive Photoshop work.

  It seemed that in the past two days, the page had exploded with new images of creatures or monsters. Alexander recognized the Hell Rat right away, but most of the rest were completely mesmerizing. There was a corpse of what looked like a snake but made of rusty metal scales, a gerbil with abnormally long fangs—half of them were so unrecognizable he had nothing to compare them to.

  There was more than a fair share of fraud claims. With AI art making a breakthrough, people claimed photorealism had swamped the thread and destroyed the credible claims of the legitimate cryptozoologists on this page. Everyone was “muddying the waters” of progress. Alexander, however, noted some of the more respected members of the community were withholding judgment or even sharing that they were getting bombarded with calls from legitimately concerned authorities. The figurative trolls were out for blood, though, and took both sides, hurling snide jokes to provoke the group. Fortunately, the cryptozoology community was good at weeding out the chaff from their many years of dealing with it.

  Alexander decided to see if the unusual encounters had a geographical pattern to them. The locations the original posters placed beside the images—and barring that, in their bios—had them all over the globe: India, Ghana, Russia, Ireland… a dozen locations just today. The size of it hit Alexander with a scenario he wasn’t prepared for. This was a global outbreak, and the world might not go back to a state of homeostasis.

  He went to his existing thread about the Pagona and posted a new picture and update for his last question about the cocoon state and hit submit. Curious, he went over to the Cryptobotany page to see if they were experiencing similar phenomena. The “hot post” at the top was something altogether disturbing. A plant had popped up in the middle of a shopping mall that emitted a gas that put people to sleep when they neared it. There were pictures of people lying on the ground, being lassoed and dragged out of the affected area.

  Looking at the clock, he decided that he should end this for the day and start dusting the apartment. He had a whole new room to sweep as well. Looking down at the shallow scratch, he added that now could also be a good time to measure healing times.

  ^

  New Quest!

  Who's the Boss?

  A denizen of the nature preserve is going on a rampage.

  Objective: Slay or subdue the mini-boss

  Quest rewards:

  -12 silver

  -1500 xp

  -Novice Wizard’s Staff

  Or not.