Something was happening beneath the zoo. The elephants felt it. And whatever it was… it was getting worse. By noon, the zoo had been quietly closed to visitors. Staff gathered behind temporary barriers, murmuring anxiously as a line of utility trucks rolled into the service lot, white vans marked with hazard symbols, the kind used by maintenance crews.
Their arrival didn’t scream disaster, but it definitely wasn’t routine. Maria met the engineering team at the gate, her pulse still running hot from the chaos of the morning. “You’re the crew they called?” she asked.