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She'd worked through lunch and her dragon was protesting. It was time to just go somewhere and eat even though she was alone. Most of her meals were with someone so that made it seem kind of awkward to be going alone. Maybe she should just send for a meal and not worry about going anywhere. That was what she started to do when Ranger came in.
“Have you eaten yet?”
“I was thinking about having something brought in.”
“Forget about that, I'm taking you to the place at the lowest level.” Ranger said and he took her hand and helped her up.
They have discussed the place since it served Asian food and they had not been there, and he had promised to take her before everything had interfered. He led her to the elevator, and they went down to a subfloor. Yes, she found that a little bit odd. It was rare but she had been to subfloors that had banquet rooms and other things of that variety.
When they exited the elevator the smell of delicious food slapped her in the face and made her dragon’s stomach growl. There was an open area where chefs were grilling on sizable grills. Even from here she could see that they were doing tricks and making fancy foods that they slid on plates then gave to customers. She had seen places like this but had never actually eaten there. This was making her excited and ready to eat.
As soon as they noticed Ranger, someone rushed over and found them a quiet place to sit that was either private or at least gave the illusion of privacy. Appetizers and drinks came immediately without even being requested. Either he had come here a lot, or they knew something about him. She was just too hungry to care, and she got one of the small plates and began to load it with appetizers.
“Are you having a bad day?” Toni asked.
“Things were going better and then three parks were attacked. Two guards were injured because somehow, they seem to realize the dragons had been pulled back and all we had were humans.”
“Someone is feeding them information. I didn't even know that the dragons had been pulled back. I doubt that many people did. Someone, or at least some dragons will need to be sent to a park. I realize your numbers are limited and you cannot cover them all but maybe you can get lucky and cover one of them every day and move around with the hope of catching someone. If it's kept quiet the first time they will be surprised. After that they will be more careful because they will never know when a dragon is covering the park and when it's humans. I'm sure that some of the humans have equipment that can injure a dragon.”
“You are right. If the ship was in orbit there would be no issue because they can do surveillance on the parks and send someone down almost immediately. The problem is they are running people to the home world or one of its territories and we are on our own for now.” Ranger admitted.
“That doesn't sound like something hard for them to find out about either. Since you are trying to get people to go, anyone that is keeping track of your program would know when the ship leaves.”
“Again, you're right. We were able to get some pictures, so we have identified some of those that are damaging property. I'm not sure it will help since they're hiding out in areas where there are few people around.”
“Are you saying they are dragons?”
“Yes, I believe they are some rogues that ran from the home planet and didn't like the territories that were available to them. They thought Earth much easier to live on. It makes no sense to me they hate all things Earth and yet they are willing to live here.”
“People do not always mean exactly what they say. Maybe it is not Earth and those from Earth that they don't like. Maybe it is simply that they do not want them treated fairly. Their view may be that they are superior to those from earth and should be treated better.” Toni suggested.
“A primitive view but some of them have expressed that usually those that are terrible examples of dragons and would not get anywhere on their own when competing against other dragons.”
“So, they saw an influx of humans as a chance to get a higher level and when that didn't work they were overwhelmed with their disappointment.”
“That is entirely possible. And since they could convince some humans into fighting for them, so they were risking nothing they took that chance. The thing is that now they do not have these large numbers of humans and occasionally they are being caught or injured and even 1 or 2 have died. Is the life of an ordinary dragon really so bad to risk death to escape it?” Ranger asked.
“I would take a guess if I knew anything about the life of an ordinary dragon. All I know is they act like some terrorist groups we have on Earth.” Toni observed.
“That was what Dori suggested as well.”
“Terrorists as a whole are pretty crazy and they have absolutely no value for life not even their own most of the time.”
“What does your government do?” Ranger wondered.
“Usually not enough. They investigate, they have a higher alert level at airports, and if they have any information that they can follow up on law enforcement checks it out. Once in a while they'll get somebody undercover in one of their organizations. They will usually either get information or sometimes be killed.”
“That would worry me. How would you even select someone for such a scary job.”
“I've heard there are two ways that are usually used. Sometimes someone volunteers and the other way is they might catch someone in a lower level and make a deal so that they will let them go back to their organization and inform on them.” Toni offered.
“With those guys, that would be a violent and painful death if they were caught.”
She was certain that was true, and it would just be as bad with the mob that she had been dealing with lately. The sad part was the most violent members usually avoided those deaths by making deals from jail. They deserved to be tortured to death more than anyone. Toni was beginning to believe that Joe would never pay for anything that he had done, and he might even never be stopped from continuing what he was doing.
“You never did say if you made a decision on how you are going to handle these rogues?”
“I haven't decided yet. Maybe we will sleep on it and then have a meeting in the morning with our upper management group. All of us have been dealing with these rogues for a long time and someone may have an idea they have not presented before because we were not desperate enough. Maybe we are not desperate yet either, but I am getting tired of them.” Ranger admitted.
