As soon as school ended Ritu left the campus. It was 2:30pm and she had to hurry if she wanted to finish her business and return by seven. Thankfully she managed to get a cab right away. Ritu gave the driver an address.
The driver said, "Ma'am that's restricted area."
Ritu nodded, "I know you drop me at the MPP"
The car took off. Half an hour later it stopped near an electric barricade about twenty metres tall. At the foot was a sign saying Maximum Permissible Perimeter.
Ritu paid for the fare and got off. Then she went around the barricade for a short distance and reached a gate which was heavily guarded by armed forces. They scanned her ID and let her in.
A forest greeted her. Humongous trees, colourful shrubs and countless varieties of plants covered the ground and the view up front. Ritu moved further in and turned left. A big cottage also guarded by soldiers came into view. She scanned her ID too and let her in. At the entrance of the cottage was another sign saying, Pan Shivalik Reserve Forest
Inside the cottage, another soldier sat opposite the entrance who scanned Ritu's ID, checked biometrics and synced her watch with the Board. Then she was allowed to get her uniform. The cottage was full of gigantic cabinets with hundreds of small compartments, each having several sets of uniform for each Ranger. Ritu went to the compartment bearing her name and scanned her ID. It opened up, giving her access to a camouflage suit bearing the PSRF logo.
Aside from their all-encompassing education system, Ketu allowed students to work in any field of work the students desired. Since the education was free, these opportunities solely existed to boost the students' experience in their chosen work force. Until their graduation, they could choose to work in one or more fields. They not only received guidance from their teachers on how to develop their skills in that job but also received salary depending on the post they start in. If they worked long enough they even got promoted. All this, however, were separate from the main work force of that field. If any student wanted, they could get a job there after graduation and become a permanent employee. Employment was much easier because the management already knew about their quality of work and discipline.
Ritutandra had worked in the PSRF from the very beginning and now she was a senior Ranger. The entire Shivalik range had multiple hotspots and reserved forests, this was the entrance to one of many and one of the largest forests.
By the time she was done it was 3:30pm without wasting a second Ritu ran into the depths of the jungle. This was her second home, any time she was not needed at school, she spent here, as such she was familiar with every nook and crany. It did not take long for her to reach the area of black panthers and as if sensing her arrival a big ball of black mass darted towards her from the top branch of a tree. Ritu braced herself as the ball leapt on her, tackling her to the ground and started licking her face.
"Oh, Pace, how are you sweetie. Hahaha." Ritu laughed and scratched Pace's ear.
"You're heavy you know." She smiled at the baby jaguar who apparently thought she weighed nothing, laying on top of Ritu.
With a lot of difficulty Ritu managed to move Pace to the ground and took a deep breath.
"You almost suffocated me to death baby girls." She said patting the shiny black belly.
Ritu had rescued Pace as a baby after her mother died at the hands of poachers and took care of her personally hence they developed a special bond. This was also why Pace was a lot more friendly towards humans than the other Panthers.
After lots of scratches, belly rubs and cuddling Ritu got to get a good look at her wound which had healed very poorly. She got worried. It was not unnatural for these animals to rip healing wounds but not to this extent. It seemed like Pace was literally scratching that spot or worse biting it. Seeing her get impatient and start growling, Ritu did not poke around the wound any more and dressed it. Pace licked the place and yawned.
"I'll get going, you get your beauty nap, okie?" Ritu scratched Pace's ear some more and left.
She was also in charge of the elephants so to the elephant area she went. After making sure everything were alright there she went on to check the security drones near the Panther zone. Ritu sorted the footage of Pace on the day she escaped and went to Ketu. As she rewinded the video to that day evening, Ritu saw Pace being strangely hostile towards a Ranger. She could not recognise that person. Apart from her, there were two other Rangers who worked for the Panthers but this person was neither of them. Their face was not visible but she could tell from the silhouette. It also could not be a new Ranger because she would have been informed about them first.
The next suspicious thing was their weapon. The animals were extremely familiar with their caretakers and never tried to attack them because all Rangers learnt about the boundaries of the animals they had to protect first and foremost and respect that. Ritu saw them getting closer to Pace with something on their hand. When Pace attack them they swung it. A tiny knife glinted against her black fur and slashed her hind leg. Pace still tried to fight back but the attacker kicked her injured spot and fled. Ritu tried to track them but they seemed to know the blind spots of the drones well. She came back to the footage of Pace and saw her stumbling around as if she were drunk then break into a sprint.