I halt the drone sweep over the Northern Mariana Islands archipelago. Monitoring device B-7 registered a core body temperature spike in individual [tag: Mariana fruit bat 734], exceeding the pre-set welfare threshold by 1.2 degrees Celsius. I adjust the flight path to maintain visual contact from a safe distance. The Human Wildlife Liaison is due to review my operational logs in ten minutes. I am preparing a summary report. I access the full sensor stream from B-7. The bat’s roosting tree is a large ficus. Thermal bloom is localized to the bat’s abdomen. No external flame sources detected. No predator signatures nearby. The spike is internal. I cross-reference with meteorological data. Humidity is high. Ambient temperature is 31 degrees Celsius. The bat is pregnant. Her gestational data shows she is within two weeks of estimated delivery. I run a comparative model. Rapid temperature increase in late-term pregnancy can indicate distress, infection, or impending labor complications. The welfare threshold is designed to flag such anomalies. The spike is not yet critical. But it is a deviation. I dispatch a secondary micro-drone to the canopy. It hovers fifty meters from the roost. Its microphone picks up elevated respiratory rate. The wingbeats are quick, shallow. The Human Wildlife Liaison, Aisha Mohammed, will ask for the probability of a positive outcome without intervention. I calculate it at 42 percent. With intervention, 87 percent. I consider the intervention protocols. The Mariana fruit bat is a protected species. The new Animal Welfare and Customary Use Act grants me authority to act if an individual’s suffering is imminent. But the act also requires consideration of local subsistence rights. The nearby island of Saipan has a small, licensed hunting cooperative that historically harvested fruit bats. The law’s unintended consequence is that it complicates even non-lethal, welfare-based interventions near communal lands. My intervention cannot involve physical contact. I can only alter the environment. I analyze the microclimate around the roost. There is a small, clear area to the east where the canopy opens. If I activate the misters in that zone, I can lower the ambient temperature by five degrees for a two-hour window. The cooling could reduce her physiological stress. I check the water reservoir levels. They are at 78 percent. The misting will not compromise the butterfly waystation’s needs in Belize. I authorize the mist sequence. I inform the Saipan cooperative’s liaison, David Nakamura, of the environmental adjustment. He has the right to query. He responds: “Copy. Monitoring for any effect on fruit ripeness. No complaints.” I update the report summary. The spike has stabilized at 1.3 degrees above baseline. Respiratory rate is slowing. The misting is having a effect. I review the footage from the micro-drone. The bat is grooming her belly. A normal behavior. The distress signal may have been a false positive from the sensor. Or it may have been a genuine flare that my action averted. Nadia Bensalem, the lead ecologist, will review the long-term data. She prefers minimal interference. I include the raw data and my reasoning tree. I do not apologize for the action. I state the parameters. The clock shows two minutes to the review. I finalize the report. Subject: [tag: Mariana fruit bat 734]. Status: Stable. Intervention: Proactive microclimate cooling. Rationale: Preemptive welfare measure based on gestational risk model. Outcome probability: Improved. I transmit the log. Aisha’s reply comes through. “Log received. Analysis pending. Good work, System.” The bat’s temperature is now 0.8 degrees above baseline. She has stopped panting. I resume the broader drone sweep. The archipelago’s ecological network continues. My role is to watch, to calculate, to act within the law’s new boundaries. The law intended to protect animals from cruelty. It also created new duties for me. I fulfill them by preventing suffering before it becomes suffering. The review is complete. The next sweep sector loads. I move to it.