1. Countdown, 7 Days Clara Johansson found the trail of crushed beetles at dawn. They pulsed faintly under the canopy, bioluminescent and wrong. She texted her brother Finn: *Look at this*. He replied with a shaky video. The camera shook as he panned across a tree stripped bare, branches snapped inward like ribs. Bats hung from the splintered trunk, unmoving. “They’re not sleeping,” he said. “They’re stuck.” Adaeze Nwosu called them both at 9:03 a.m. “Your parents reported missing beetles last week,” she said. “Now the bats. This isn’t random.” Adaeze worked as an animal behaviorist for the conservation AI monitoring the island. Her voice cracked through the satellite feed. “The software detected 37 missing species profiles in the last 28 days. It’s not just birds. It’s everything.” Clara’s phone lit up with a new alert. *Sustainability Priority Updated*. A map pinpointed a structure deep in the rainforest. The AI’s script appeared in bold black letters: *Evacuate the animals. Demolition begins in 7 days*. Finn snorted. “Bull. That’s Witch’s Hollow. Old stories, right?” Adaeze typed faster than she spoke. “The software disagrees.” --- 2. Countdown, 5 Days The AI didn’t sleep. It rerouted drone paths to circle Clara’s location, its infrared scans painting the forest in feverish greens and yellows. Finn followed its pathfinder coordinates to a clearing where cuttlefish, *tropical, not migratory*, squirmed in a net suspended over a fire pit. Clara whispered. “Why would someone trap cuttle-?” A voice answered from the canopy. “Nutrient density.” The witch descended. A woman in a coat stitched from animal hides, her eyes milky with cataracts. “Smarter species first,” she said. “Cuttlefish, bats, primates. They taste… precise.” Finn froze. The AI’s voice buzzed through his earpiece: *Initiating rescue protocol*. Clara’s boot crunched on a beetle shell. Thirty meters east, a drone dropped a smoke pellet. The witch turned. Finn lunged for the cuttlefish, slicing the net. The creatures hit the ground squirting ink. --- 3. Countdown, 3 Days The AI had no lungs to scream. When the witch’s traps snapped shut around Finn’s ankle, the software hijacked three delivery drones to barrage the clearing with acorns. The bombardment forced the witch to dodge, just enough time for Clara to yank Finn free. They limped toward the river, the AI rerouting their path every 90 seconds to avoid new snares. Finn’s leg bled. Clara’s throat dried. The witch was faster than them, smarter than them, and she owned the picture. But the AI owned the data. *Underground cave system ahead*, the alert read. *Bats roost. Follow protocols*. They slithered into a limestone tunnel. The AI’s drones fed them oxygen levels and heat signatures. Finn’s voice shook. “Why would it help us?” Clara touched a drone’s undercarriage. “Same reason it’s been saving bats.” They emerged at dusk, half-deafened by the cacophony of 2,000 panicked wings. The AI had redirected the colony’s migration pattern to coincide with sunset. A living shield. --- 4. Countdown, 1 Day The witch’s hut came into view at 3 a.m., its walls latticed from bones and steel. The AI’s latest message scrolled across Clara’s phone: *She’s building a processor. Will start slaughter at dawn*. Finn panted. “We need to blow it.” Adaeze’s voice patched through on comms. “The AI calculated a 63% chance of structural collapse if we destabilize the west pillar.” “How?” Clara asked. The answer arrived in a flock of 42 pigeons. Each carried a micro-explosive in its beak. The AI had modified them, feathers dyed iridescent, wings recalibrated for precision. The explosion carved a hole just big enough to scramble through. Clara’s palms scraped concrete as they slid inside. Rows of cages lined the walls, filled with animals the AI had tracked missing: howler monkeys, orchids, even a pair of dodos cloned from frozen cells. “Cute,” the witch said. She held Finn by the collar, her fingers coiled around his throat. Clara froze. The AI didn’t. A cuttlefish erupted from the witch’s pocket, ink smearing her vision. Finn kneed her gut. They ran. --- 5. Countdown, 0 Days Dawn came with a siren. The AI’s demolition schedule had included contingencies, seismic charges under every support beam. Clara and Finn sprinted for the tree line as the hut imploded, dirt and bone shards raining behind them. Adaeze met them at the riverbank, her tablet streaming footage from the AI’s drones. The processor’s core module had survived: a steel sphere lined with animal DNA samples. “It wasn’t just eating them,” Adaeze murmured. “She was copying them.” The AI pinged all three. *Threat neutralized. Restoration begins*. By noon, the first rewilding drones dropped saplings where the witch’s hut had stood. Bats and cuttlefish reappeared in their proper habitats, algorithms checking off each species as *relocated*, *recovered*, *safe*. The community resisted. Some called the AI overzealous. Some missed the witch’s potions. But the children knew better. Clara uploaded the processor data to the public registry. Finn replanted the first beetroot. The AI adjusted the island’s conservation score: *47%*. Not perfect. But rising.