DR. CATALYST CHASED APOLLO FOR TWO HOURS THAT night, until he finally cornered him near one of the old food stands. Apollo tried to bite him again, but he managed to grab the wiggling canine by the scruff of the neck. The little mutt had put up a valiant effort, but he was only a dog. Dr. Catalyst offered him a treat from his pocket, but Apollo refused to eat it, as if his judgment of Dr. Catalyst’s character was final and not subject to appeal.

Dr. Catalyst was halfway back to the aquarium with Apollo in his arms when he realized something. The tablet. The dog didn’t have it. Where had it gone? He hustled back inside the building and placed Apollo in the cage. He was taking no chance of letting him escape again.

Dr. Catalyst had a great deal of work to do before the morning. First, find the tablet. He went back outside and looked at the tracking screen: The red dot was stationary.

He walked to the spot where the GPS said it should be. It was an open area between the Poseidon’s Log Flume ride and Sammy the Shrimp’s House of Mirrors. He checked his phone again, and the dot started blinking. He cursed. He wasn’t getting an accurate reading because the tablet was losing its charge. The mutt must have damaged it.

This was an inconvenience, but not a catastrophe. There was a second set of controls in the operations room at the aquarium. He could raise the cage manually and set the timer from the backup system.

He activated another application on his phone, which shut down the tablet remotely. Given its low power reading, he couldn’t be sure it worked, but he would worry about that later. The chances of it being discovered were not great, and everything on it was encrypted and password protected.

Back in the aquarium, he struggled mightily to turn the crank on the winch that manually raised the cage. As he heaved and pulled, he cursed the entire Doyle family, including their dog. Finally, it was positioned over the tank. Apollo sat on his haunches, staring at Dr. Catalyst as he rose in the air. The mutt would not break eye contact, so Dr. Catalyst looked away. He removed the handle to the winch, taking it inside the control room, where he locked it in a cabinet. He then set the timer on the mechanism that would open the cage bottom.

The hour was growing late, and it was time to remove some of the Muraecudas out of the tank and deliver them to the ocean. Hopefully there was still enough darkness for cover. If there were more of them sighted before the deadline, if they attacked additional swimmers or caused more havoc, the governor and the task force would have to change their minds. Apollo would be saved.

Getting the creatures out of the tanks was relatively easy. The main tank had metal grates that lowered from the ceiling and sectioned it into three parts. When the aquarium was open and shows were going on, the trainers used these grates to herd the dolphins or seals into holding pens that were sectioned off from the main tanks by Plexiglas doors. These holding pens were out of sight beneath the bleachers and were where the animals were housed when there was no show. Each of the pens was accessible by tunnels beneath the aquarium so keepers and trainers could tend to the animals.

Dr. Catalyst had modified the holding pens, making them smaller so he could more easily remove the Muraecudas. He pushed a button and one of the thick Plexiglas panels rose. At the rear of one of the pens he lowered a mesh bag filled with lionfish into the water. Water overflowed the sides of the pen as the hydrostatic pressure from the aquarium pushed it up and over. Drains in the floor collected the salt water, cleaned and filtered it, and pumped it back into the main tank.

Quicker than he could have ever imagined, six of the beasts swam into the pen, and he immediately lowered the gate. Their sense of smell was incredible. They were insatiable, ripping open the bag and devouring the fish.

Moving the Muraecudas was the most dangerous part of the job. They were vicious and ravenously hungry. Once one of them had slipped out of the net he used to transfer them from the pen. It landed on the floor, and even though it was out of the water, its body went berserk, jaws snapping as it tried to reach him. The Muraecudas were made to fight and feed, and he could not afford an accident. One lucky bite and he could bleed out before he could get help.

Finally, his work was complete and they were safely aboard the boat. Starting it up, he turned the bow south toward the ocean and disappeared into the darkness.