Boxcar liked being petted or patted, but he didn't like being surprised - or if the patting was too hard to be comfortable or nice.  Jaiden did both of those things, plus his hostile smell set off Boxcar's instincts, so he did snap at the offending hand.  Jaiden's hand pulled away in the nick of time, however, as if he had expected Boxcar's reaction.

[i]Yeah, we'll see how many times that works, wise guy,[/i] thought Boxcar with a snuffling huff as he watched Jaiden go off into the woods behind the lodge.

Then, after listening to Sam, Boxcar's ears perked as he heard the sound of wolves off in the distance.  Well, at least he had some company around here.  Boxcar stretched and yawned.  "I think I'll head inside too, catch some early shuteye.  It's been kind of a long, weird day."

So Boxcar made his way inside with Sam, and the door closed behind the both of them.
[center]* * *[/center]
[b][u]Later, around midnight[/u][/b]

The sky overhead, so far away from Segaso City or other sources of artificial illumination, was full of stars.  The lodge sat in relative darkness, though Faiza's triple moons shone down at different angles and reflected across the lake like rippling clones of their skyward sisters.  There was enough ambient light from the moons that it made it easy to see in the dark.  As night fell, a cacophony of chirping insect noises rose from the grass and trees.  The hooting of a nocturnal bird of prey occasionally sounded nearby, with just a shadow of an echo.  And fireflies floated lazily about through the air, occasionally marking their locations with a glow from their abdomens, like airplanes signaling their location in the night.

Inside the lodge itself, the only lights still remaining on were a series of small glowing nightlights that gave pale illumination along the stairs and hallways, without being so bright that they would disturb anyone sleeping in the bedrooms or even out on the couches.  Well, perhaps those, and any lights that any of the lodgers may have left on in their rooms; but the doors were so well-placed that no light escaped through the cracks in the doors as long as they were shut all the way.  The background noise of the night life of bugs and animals outside could be heard through the window, if it were left open and the protective energy screen activated (to prevent bugs and other unwanted intruders from entering the window, but allowing air to move through); but it might almost be an eerie quiet if it were shut entirely, for those not used to sleeping without background noise.

Deep under the lodge, something stirred.  Systems that had been put into temporary stasis booted online as they were triggered by the readings that the building's integrated sensors relayed down into the depths.  Electronic life flared in a network of computer cores as the security system detected multiple red flags in the building above.  Life forms, none of them identified as the Master, now resided in the lodge.  This was not acceptable; the Master's secrets were to be protected at all costs, and there had even been a recorded breach of the main entrance earlier that day.  Were it not for the delay programmed deliberately into the security system, there would already have been a reaction - but the Master had not wanted a response to just a temporary intruder who visited the lodge and left again after a few hours.  A response that quick would only arouse suspicion and investigation.  But now, there were not just visitors.  There were [i]residents[/i], unauthorized and with apparent intent to infiltrate the Master's lair.  That the Master had not had the foresight to place locks or require identification to open the door in the first place was not something this system questioned for an instant.

The security system, using data from the sensor network, determined that most of these invaders were asleep or at least in a mode of lesser activity.  Now was an ideal time to strike, and either cause the invaders to vacate the lodge - or to cease functioning altogether.  A sentry drone powered up inside of its storage bay, and the multi-legged and segmented drone crawled out of its hiding place with a programmed assignment.  Each segment was a magnetized gunmetal sphere with two pairs of angular insect-like legs each and a pair of angry-looking glowing red sensor clusters facing forward.  Like a robotic centipede, the drone crawled with tapping steps across the metallic panels of its subterranean home toward the hidden entrance to the secret lair.

The door in the basement of the lodge - the disguised door that Boxcar had accidentally stumbled upon earlier - slid open with hardly a whisper, and the drone crept along the cement floor with a clatter of robot limbs.  It easily climbed the stairs and used its forelegs to open the door that led into the rec room.  From here, the drone's pointed feet made less noise on the carpeting and wooden floors, as it became more cautious in its movements, moved with a deliberate slowness to avoid giving away its position by excessive sound or motion.  It curled around the corner of the rec room door and began to climb the stairs, each sphere bobbing up in regular intervals as they mounted further upward, until the whole drone made a peculiar zigzag along the length of the stairs.  Its blazing red sensor clusters stood out in the relative darkness of the lodge.

The drone hesitated only for the briefest of seconds at the top of the stairs before it chose one of the bedroom doors - it knew that it had picked one with one of the intruders inside, because it had access to the sensor information the security system provided it - and reared up like a snake, then latched onto the door handle with its four legs.  A hatch opened on the front of the foremost sphere, and it deployed a tiny array of spike-like tools that it used to lock-pick the door.  It opened the door with stealthy purpose, just enough for it to crawl around the door and slip inside.

It scanned the room, ready to leap and attack with its pointed metal legs.  Red targeting lasers created vibrant strobing dots that crawled across the floor and up the walls.  Fear, tension, retreat - these were not a part of this drone's programming.  It would not stop until it fulfilled its purpose, or was destroyed in the process.