It was near closing time and like every other day, the last visitors of Youtopia were making their way to the exit. Alec was cleaning up after another succesful entertaining event when his A.I. assistent Alice beeped more frequently than usual. "Alec, I am detecting anomalies at the front gate." she said with a female yet electronical voice.
Alec looked in the general direction of the park's entrance. "Let's go see what all the fuss is about then. I was about to head to the showers anyway."

At the entrance, there seemed to be people upset over something. "Excuse me, miss, what seems to be the problem?" he asked one of them. "The gates are locked, we can't get out!" the woman in question practically yelled back.
Alec frowned and tried to open the gates. She was right. "That is odd..." he mumbled to himself. "Alice, could you ask the staff what is going on?" Alice beeped a few times and then replied "I am sorry, Alec, no one seems to be available."

Alec frowned again and noticed how the people trapped inside were getting more and more restless, even agressive towards each other. "Alice, try to contact Adeline." Alice beeped a few times again. "I was succesful in contacting her. She should be on her way. Despite that, Alec still felt worried. "I have a bad feeling about this, Alice."

"You have an incoming call on the emergency line." - the synthetic voice of her appointed A.I. broke the silence of her room, which dubbed as a secondary office. Adeline had already retired for the night, but as a dedicated workaholic, she never did forget to take her job "home" with her.

"All right, let it through."
It was indeed a distress signal - Alice's account of the situation was succinct. It was not new that things would malfunction around the park, though they seemed to have a nasty habit of doing so more often of late - a frustrating situation, to be sure.
Adeline contacted the heads of security and tech departments in order to notify them of the malfunction and made her way quickly to the site herself.

The scene that awaited her was something she'd become used to. As were the shouts demanding refunds. She used a voice amplifier to drown the angry voices all around her as she made her way up to the crowd and in order to attract everyone's attention.
"If you will all just give me a moment of your time. I realise this is causing you distress and I am deeply sorry about that, we're working on fixing the issue as soon as possible, but we rely on your cooperation and understanding to maximise our efficiency."
She sounded almost robotic herself, Adeline thought. How many times had she used the same line to the same crowd? The people were likely as tired of hearing it as she was of delivering it.

As staff showed up to take care of the issue with no way of telling whether they'd be successful or not, Adeline approached Alec with a tired smile. "Looks like another late night, eh?" she sighed.

"I wonder if we would get fired if we would unleash the dinosaurs from Prehistoric Valley upon them." Alec joked to Adeline with a smirk on his face. "Alec!" Alice protested right away. "Unleashing the dinosaurs would..."

"Oh, hold your sensors, Alice. Really, we should program you with a sense of humor." Alec said to his A.I. assistant while giving Adeline a subtle wink. Alice clearly took information literally. "I will scan for a humor download pack, Alec."

Ignoring Alice's comment, Alec turned back to Adeline. "Could you keep the crowd calm while I try to force the doors open? Honestly, where are our bosses all the time?"

But before Alec could force the doors, a mysterious gas slowly made its way from the front gates towards the crowd. It looked so creepy and somehow dangerous that people immediatly backed away from it, avoiding contact with the gas. This forced everyone to go deeper into the theme park again, being even further away from leaving. "Is that coming from one of the attractions? I've never seen it before." Alec asked out loud.

Adeline let out a snort as Alice and Alec had their usual back and forth. Dinosaurs being unleashed upon the crowd - no, she'd seen those movies and they were all clear indicators that the public in close proximity to any attractions not meant to be enjoyed up close was bad, bad news.

She nodded when Alec requested that she try to appeal to the crowd again and she did find herself sympathising with the man - she, too, felt helpless and a little frustrated with the lack of higher level personnel present at the scene. She was sure she'd sent an emergency notification to all, yet she had gotten no reply.
It was unusual.

But not nearly as unusual as what happened next - gas came pouring from the gates, heading towards the crowd at a slow, but hungry pace. Adeline gasped audibly - where was it coming from? What sort of gas was it?
"Activate all security protocols." she barked immediately to her artificial companion, which immediately complied, only to return no more than a few seconds later with a message she dreaded: "It would appear that my access to security protocols has been restricted by an unidentified party."

"What?" was all she could mumble as the crowd pushed further back into the park, some resuming their angry shouts and threats.
"It's not coming from any of the attractions." Adeline answered, her brow furrowed. "And it would appear we're as trapped here as the rest of the crowd."

If the fog wasn't coming from the attractions, then where was it coming from? "Alice, scan that fog please."
Beep,beep. "I detect a 25% toxic substance, Alec."

Right after the analysis, Alec moved a little faster so he would not touch the fog at all. "This is bad, I bet someone already tweeted about it." As he grabbed his phone, he noticed there was no internet connection. Looking at the frustrated customers, he guessed they had a similar problem.

"Should we try to back entrance?" he asked Adeline, fully aware that it would take them quite some time to get there. All of a sudden an angry woman stormed towards Alec and smashed her purse towards his face. Alec noticed it only right before it would hit him but instead it went right through him, as if he was some sort of hologram. "You can be glad I missed you!" the woman shouted and calmed herself down a bit. "Ma'm, please, we will try to get you out but we can only help you if you stay calm." Alec replied.

Stepping a little closer to Adeline, he whispered "It missed me? I would've sworn she hit me right in the face but I didn't feel a thing."

Clearly, the fog wasn't the only strange thing going on.