The hospital hadn't changed much since last night. Or at all, I should say. The difference is that it was sunlight and there were actually more than a dozen cars in the parking lot. I managed to find one remaining stall in the mount section, next to another deer-like. The other mount moved closer to Shiva but she turned away in disinterest. Every registered mount was injected with a special magical signal and mounts were trained to ignore monsters with that signal. This prevented mounts from attacking each other. The mounts that weren’t … Well, usually their owners did it on purpose. If it was discovered, those mounts were put down and the owners were heavily punished. But that’s only if it’s discovered.

I walked into the hospital and waited in the line at the front desk. Several people lingered in the sitting room, staring up at the TV depicting a scene of a middle-aged looking man in a dark suit standing on the top of a marble staircase in front of a large, white marble building. Dozens of news reporters stood around him, yelling out questions and trying to dodge around the bodyguards that kept them at bay. The hospital lobby was quiet enough that I could hear snippets of the questions that he was pelted with.

“Senator Jenkins! Rumor is that the Montana Wilds have rejected the peaceful agreement to return the land they stole fifty years ago. This is the second time the proposal has been rejected. What is the next step?”

“Senator Jenkins! Is it true that the Montana Wilds resistance are prepping for war?”

I paused, shocked. If there was a war with the Montana Wilds, the first place to be affected would be Boulder, since it was the closest settlement to it. Damn.

Senator Jenkins waved his hands, trying to ward off the questions. “Negotiations have been stalled, that is true,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that–”

“Is it true that the award-winning geneticist Anthony Davidson defected to the Montana Wilds and stole hundreds of DNA vials from the DNA bank last night!” a female reporter yelled at the top of her lungs.

The rest of the reporters instantly hushed and looked from her to the senator.

My eyes widened in shock. The DNA bank was … broken into last night? Oh, my god.

When the newly introduced monsters started wiping out the animals on Earth, humanity panicked. They started saving the DNA of as many animal species as they could. Even when they faced extinction themselves, they still believed that one day, things would settle down enough to restore Earth to what it once was. Those DNA vials were stored in the DNA bank hidden somewhere in New York and treated like national treasures. It wasn’t just the USA that created DNA banks. Every still existing country had one – some countries in Europe that absorbed another country, even had two DNA Banks.

It was such a big deal that as soon as the energy and food crisis was solved after the Gates disappeared, scientists focused on perfecting the cloning process. They had a lot of success in the last thirty years. There were even two zoos in New York with a couple hundred cloned Earth animals in it, where the animals were treated like precious porcelain dolls.

And Dr. Anthony Davidson was responsible for seventy percent of the development. Even a new high school grad like me knew that.

On the TV screen, Senator Jenkins went pale and his relaxed posture stiffened. His mouth opened and closed for a second. “Where did you…” His voice died out when he realized that he just slipped up.

That slip was all the reporters needed to jump on him like staving Vale wolves. They pushed hard against the bodyguards, who looked just as shocked as they did.

“Is it true, Senator Jenkins?”

“The DNA bank was broken into last night?”

“Dr. Davidson is responsible for most of the modern DNA and cloning technology today. How are we going to bring back the extinct animals without him or their DNA?”

“Are there any plans on how to recover our stolen DNA vials?”

“Do you think the meeting with Montana Wilds Governor Cruz was a ploy to enable Dr. Davidson to steal the DNA vials?”

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The senator babbled and stalled, denying any questions, but he couldn’t stop the reporters dissolving in chaos, hurling questions at him. Everything he said simply solidified that it actually happened.

Even the people in the lobby glanced at each other and muttered in shock. The simple fact that the Montana Wild negotiations fell apart was bad enough, but to lose hundreds of DNA vials? That was huge! Like, war-inducing-huge.

“Miss? Can I help you, miss?” A feminine voice asked loudly from my left.

It took me a second to realize that she was talking to me. Startled out of my thoughts, I turned in the direction of the voice.

The middle-aged receptionist sat at her desk with an empty gap between us. Her red lips were pressed together and her thin eyebrows arched high in near impatience. I’d been so distracted with the news on the TV, I didn’t even notice when the line before me cleared out. From the receptionist’s expression, I’d committed a crime.

I quickly stepped up to the desk, everything on TV thrown to the back of my mind. “Ah, yes. Um, I was here last night … Well, I mean, I went to the ER.” The woman didn’t look too impressed with my fumbling. I took a breath to collect my thoughts and started again. “What I mean is, I brought a little girl I found in the woods into the ER last night. She was unconscious at the time and had a dog tag that said Una. I’m not related to her, but I wanted to see if she was awake. And if she was, I wanted to check on her.”

The woman’s expression went from slightly annoyed to surprised. “It’s not policy for non-related guests to be allowed to visit lost children,” she said slowly.

I nodded, keeping the polite smile that I perfected at the shop on my face. “Yes, I understand. But I was hoping that I could at least tell her goodbye and actually get to ask her name.” I should have asked for her name before, I was so busy at the time, it slipped my mind.

I remember when I spent a week in this hospital after Mom died. Even though Dad, Uncle Maveric and Grandpa Moore took turns to stay with me round the clock, I remember how scary it was. The sterile smell, the beeping machines, the busy nurses, and the knowledge that I just watched someone I knew die. What if Una didn’t have anyone to stay with her? I just wanted to make sure she was okay.

The receptionist looked me up and down with a frown. Then she sighed and reluctantly tapped on the computer keyboard to her right. “Let’s see,” she said slowly. “Since you were the one that found her, there might be a special exception for you…”

I watched her click away on the keyboard. Each clack was like a tick on the clock, drawn out and endless.

Finally she hummed. “I found the girl’s records, but she’s not in the hospital anymore.”

I blinked in surprise. “Seriously? It’s been less than twelve hours since I left her here.”

The receptionist nodded. “Yes. The girl’s parental guardian came and checked her out an hour ago.”

“Her parents?” I asked with relief. Good, so she wasn’t alone. My relief only lasted a second before another question came to my mind. “Why did they check her out already?” Children were so precious, how was it possible for Una’s parents to check her out already? After everything she’d been through, shouldn’t she be kept for a couple days at least to make sure she was one hundred percent okay?

The receptionist shook her head and kept clicking on the keyboard. “I’m not at liberty to tell you that.”

That made sense. “Then, what are their names?” I could at least ask them myself in person.

The receptionist shook her head again and finally stopped typing. “I also can’t tell you that. But they left you a note, in case you came back and asked.” The receptionist got up and walked to a tall, thin filing cabinet in the back of her office area. She opened the top drawer and leafed through it for a second then came back. She handed me a white envelope.

I took it and tore open the top. Inside was a single, three folded piece of paper. I quickly pulled it out. It simply read: Thank you for finding our little girl. She’s in good hands now.

I stared at the paper. “That’s it?” I asked and turned the paper over to look at the back, looking for more words. It was as blank as the front. It didn’t say her name, how was her condition, nothing. Not even how I could get a hold of them to ask the questions in person. What was the point of even leaving a note at all?

I glanced at the receptionist in shock.

The older woman shook her head and shrugged. She’d obviously seen how empty the paper was when I waved it around, and was just as lost as I was. “That’s it,” she said with a trace of pity. “Now, if that’s everything, I need to help the next person in line.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you for the help.” I stepped to the side, holding the note. I couldn’t help glancing at it again and again, as if the next time I looked, more letters would magically appear on it. I was left disappointed every time.

I slowly walked out of the hospital, but the letter still hadn’t changed by the time I got to Shiva. The sun beat down overhead, already noticeably hotter than when I went into the hospital just twenty minutes ago.

I slipped the letter into Shiva’s saddle bag and patted her neck. “Well, girl, should we go register?” I asked in a low voice.

Shiva bumped her chin against my forehead as if to say, ‘Let’s go!’