Dragonshift

by Linton Bowers

  The store was dark, and dust motes drifted through the beams of sunlight that got by all the flat screen televisions in the front display windows. A glass top counter ran the length of the left side showing several drones and laptops underneath. Two square shelves with wares on all four sides sat evenly spaced on the right side. Miranda was not there, but a bead curtain in a door at the rear swayed and clicked as the beads bounced off of each other.

  “We’re in the back,” Miranda thought to me.

  I went to the curtain with Tabitha on my heels. Behind the curtain was a space half the size of the store filled with shelving and junk. Electronics were disassembled and stored haphazardly on the shelves. There had to be thousands of dollars worth of electronic junk. Miranda stood next to a workbench on the far left wall sandwich between two heavy duty shelves. A woman sat at the workbench with her back to me. She was wearing coveralls and had short cut dark hair above a tanned neck.

  “And here he is,” Miranda said.

  The woman in the chair spun and faced me. She wasn’t a knockout like Miranda or Tabitha, but she was pretty. She became more appealing as she smiled with her wide mouth and thin lips. The woman, Nick if the store sign was correct, rose from the chair and took a step in my direction. She was a foot shorter than Miranda making her somewhere in the neighborhood of four feet five inches.

  “Hi,” She said.

  Instantly I found myself in the dark place of my mind. Nick stood across from me wearing nothing but her birthday suit. She was slim with narrow hips and waist. Unlike my Tua, she was fit enough for me to see definition in her arms and legs without being too muscular. Her abs were segmented into a nice sixpack. A look down revealed me to also be naked and just as fit with thicker muscles in my arms and legs. I would have to find a way to bottle Tuatha and make a fortune on the fitness market.

  “Wow, this is amazing,” Nick said as she looked around. “I suppose we need to get this part over with.”

  Nick dropped to her knees and looked up meeting my eyes. “Oh great Tuatha Lord, I ask that you accept me into your pack and make me Tua like Miranda, please?”

  I stepped closer and bent down grabbing her shoulders. Standing, I pulled her up with me. “That isn’t how this works, Nick. It is Nick, right?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah, sorry. I probably should have introduced myself first.” She placed one hand on her chest. “I’m Nick, it’s short Nicolia. Last name Kowalski. My parents were immigrants from Poland. But please, call me Nick. Everyone worth knowing does. Um…” She placed one hand on her hip and scratched her temple with the other. “Oh yeah, I like electronics and computers, and by like I mean they are everything. I went to MIT until I figured out they don’t know half of what I know so I dropped out. What else? I don’t like walks on the beach or any of that stupid shit.”

  “Nick?”

  “Huh?” She looked up meeting my gaze.

  “Maybe you could tell me what kind of Lycan you are? I mean, to be here with me you have to be a Lycan, right?” I asked.

  “Oh, right!” She smacked her forehead. “I’m a ferret.”

  “Really?” I asked amazed. “That is awesome! Can you show me?”

  “Can I do that here?” She asked.

  “I think so. Give it a shot,” I replied.

  “You got it, boss.”

  The short woman instantly grew three feet taller and sported chestnut brown fur. Her face elongated and there was no question that she was exactly what she said. Just as quickly as she shifted she turned back to her fitness girl form.

  “Much like the animal, I’m sneaky as hell. So much more so when in animal form. I think you will find me most useful. So…” She looked down and put her hands behind her back which gave me a good look at her small yet perky breasts. “Do I get the job?”

  I chuckled. “This isn’t a job, Nick. You will be part of a pack. I think you won’t really need a job since you have a shop, and the fact that Miranda has vouched for you meant you were already in. You just need to accept.” I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Nicolia Kowalski, will you join my pack and become one of my Tua?”

  “Hell yeah!” She beamed that very nice smile up at me.

  We were back in the shop with Nick standing across the room from me. She shook her head and looked around. “That’s trippy,” She said.

  “Since that is done,” Miranda said. “How about you show our boy here what you have for him? I want him protected at all times like we talked about on the phone.”

  “Oh, right!” Nick snapped her fingers and spun around leaning over her workbench. There was a rapid series of clicks as she typed on a keyboard then she stood and turned smiling. “Amy, please activate the troops and get them ready.”

  “As you command, Glorious Leader.” A female voice came from speakers all around. Nick went red and her eyes went wide.

  “What have I told you about that Glorious Leader stuff in front of others?”

  The female voice just laughed.

  “Oh, that’s rich,” Miranda said.

  “Anyway,” Nick said. “Amy is my AI. I designed her from the ground up and she is far more advanced than anything available now.”

  “Amy an acronym for something then?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is, clever boy. A, I, M, E. It stands for Artificial Intelligent … Um … Me? Yeah, that’s it. Artificial, Intelligent, Me. That’s what it is.”

  “Still working on that one huh?” Tabitha asked.

  “No,” Nick said with incredulity thick in her voice. “That’s my name for her and tha’s how it is. If you don’t like it, then go design your own AI.”

  “It works for me, what does she do?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s the question. She does everything, but in this case… Amy, send in the drones!”

  Two quad copter drones lifted off of a shelf and flew over to hover above Nick. One drone was white while the other was black, but both appeared to be the same model. They were about four inches long and two inches wide with a camera lens in the front and one at the bottom in the center.

  A third drone lifted off the top of the shelf to the left of Nick’s desk and lowered to hover in front of her. This one was all black with a blue stripe down the sides. Its shape was the same rectangular shape as the smaller ones but it was much bigger. Where the smaller ones had four propeller blades this one had eight, four on each side. It was two feet wide and three feet long as well as a foot tall. There were a series of various sized lenses at the nose and in the belly.

  “Amy, warm up the lasers, we are scanning a new target and prep the drones to receive the full Nick protocol package,” Nick said.

  “Are you sure you wish to do that? We hardly know this man and yet you are…”

  “I’m sure, Amy. I know all I need to know.”

  “As you say most Glorious One from on high,” The AI responded.

  Nick groaned as she turned to face me. “Please stand over there. I need to get you into the system so Amy knows who to guard and obey.” She pointed to a corner with a raised round disk and four pillars that looked to be made of metal and stood eight feet tall.

  I went to the spot she pointed to standing on the disk. “Perfect, Terry,” Nick said. “Just stand still until the lasers die out.”

  “Lasers?” I asked.

  Green beams of light shot out of each tower and lengthened to be as tall as I was. The beams swept back and forth over my body on all four sides at once. After a couple seconds the beams died.

  “Okay, you can come back now,” Nick said. “You got everything you need, Amy?”

  “Affirmative. Scan complete and I have recorded the subject’s likeness from the lasers as well as all three drone cameras.” The big drone moved to hover in front of my face then the A.I. spoke, but her voice came from the big drone this time. “Please state your name for voice recognition imprinting.”

  “Uh sure, I’m Terry.”

  “Your full name please, Terry,” the drone asked.

&nbs
p; “Right. Terrance Cole.”

  “Thank you, Terry. Wait, a moment for the protocols to activate.” The drone said.

  “Sure?” I asked with a raised eyebrow as I looked at Nick.

  “Almost done, Terry. Then you will have command of the drones.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. They will go where you go and observe everything. The big one has defensive and offensive capabilities while the small ones are all about surveillance, both audio and visual. The big one uses real-time data from all three to determine it’s needed actions.”

  A banging sound came from the roof in the center of the room. I looked up in time to see a panel swing up leaving an opening big enough for the large drone. The two smaller drones flew up and out, going off in different directions. The big drone stayed where it was.

  “What do I call this thing?” I asked.

  “I am Amy,” the drone responded. My processes have been copied to this unit so that I could directly control it without the need of an external connection as per the Nick Protocols.”

  “So this was set up in case you found yourself in trouble?” Miranda asked as she turned to Nick.

  “That’s right. I’ll have to build another set of drones so I can have them in case I need them, but I think this works well for now,” Nick replied.

  “Me too,” Miranda said.

  “So do I get to fuck him now?” Nick asked.

  Chapter 5

  “I can’t believe you didn’t let me fuck him,” Nick said from the back seat of the SUV.

  “I told you we didn’t have time for that,” Miranda said. “There will be plenty of time for that later, but for now we have stuff that needs to get done.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “We’re going to a gun shop,” Tabitha said. “For some reason, Miranda seems to think guns will make our life easier.”

  “What if we come across those kids that were changed against their will?” I asked. “I don’t want to kill them.”

  “Me neither, Terry, but we could use firepower against others like Arnold and his pack. Trust me when I say we will have to kill them if we want to survive. Unfortunately, it’s how things are done in the animal kingdom.”

  “Preach it, sister,” Nick said.

  Shortly after leaving Nick’s shop we pulled up to an unassuming gun shop. We all piled out except for Nick. I took a couple steps away from the vehicle when I noticed she felt like she was getting farther away. Opening the door and sticking my head in I saw she had taken out a laptop and was typing furiously on the keyboard.

  “Not coming in?” I asked my Ferret.

  “Nope, I have some tweaking to do to Amy. Calibrating her for your use if you will.”

  “Ah, I see. Be back in a bit then. Don’t have all the fun without us.”

  “Dude,” Nick said as she stopped typing and looked up at me. “I’m programming. There is no way I’m not going to have all the fun.” She pulled another laptop up out of her bag. “I have a spare if you want to get in on this.” Her tone and facial expression made it clear that she hadn’t caught the joke.

  “Raincheck. I need to go in and get outfitted apparently,” I replied.

  “Oh, right? You do that then, boss.” She went back to typing without waiting to see if I had more to say so I left her to it.

  Miranda spoke with a rotund man at the counter while Tabatha waited for me by the door. I took my serpent by the hand and led her to the counter.

  “This is the guy in question. I need a full load out with spare ammo and cleaning kits for all the gear.” She turned and addressed me next. “Terry, this is Shawn, we call him the Repairman. He will get you set up with everything you will need.” She looked back at the Repairman. “You still have my locker?”

  “You know it,” the Repairman replied in a slight British accent. “So, Terry, every fire a gun?”

  “Not really, no. Unless videos games count?”

  “Afraid they don’t, mate. That means we’re setting you up with a shotgun. Easiest weapon I have for hitting your target, but you will probably need to be close to do it. That all right with you?”

  “You’re the expert here. You say a shotgun is best then so be it, Shawn,” I replied.

  The Repairman looked at Miranda. “I like him, has a sensible head on his shoulders.” He returned his gaze to me as he moved down the counter. “Follow me, lad. I’ll have you ready for war in no time.”

  The Repairman led me to a back room where he had me wait. He closed the door and left me there alone.

  “Shawn is the best in the business,” Miranda thought to me. “He will take good care of you, Terry.”

  “Why do I need this?” I asked.

  “I told you, sometimes firearms are the right level of response. Imagine if we would have been in that building underground with weapon loaded with tranq darts. We could have cleared the place out and not suffered the pain we had.”

  Miranda and Tabitha had both been cut open when we were in the facility where we found Cassie the weredragon. As I understood it dragons didn’t really exist and Cassie was a combination of many Lycans made to look and function like a dragon.

  “Yeah, I see your point,” I said feeling bad about what my Tua went through. As the Tuatha, it was my job to protect them and I had failed.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Terry,” Tabitha thought to me. “You only just learned what you are and about the real world we live in. No one expects you to be able to do everything on your own, not so quickly anyway.”

  “She is right. Most Alphas are trained from a young age to lead. You are doing really well considering how long you have been doing it. We all have faith in you,” Miranda said.

  “Even Izzy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tabitha added.

  “Who is Izzy, and how are we talking in our heads?” Nick asked.

  “Izzy is…”

  “And here we go,” Shawn said as he opened the curtain and stepped in. “Try on this body suit. If it fits, then go ahead and put your clothes on over it. It’s a special blend of materials that is pretty much impervious to most calibers of hand-held weapons. You will bruise though, and it will still hurt like a bitch. Here is a holster for the shotgun so you can strap it on when you need to. If the suit doesn’t fit like a second skin, let me know and we will adjust. Once that is done it’s off to the range.”

  The body suit fit like a second skin, which made it a little uncomfortable around the crotch. My clothes went on over the suit with no issues. After I was dressed I picked up the rest of the gear in the dressing room and left. The Repairman led me to the firing range and to a stall that had a shotgun waiting for me with a box of ammo.

  “This is as simple a weapon as you can get,” he told me. “Load shells into the weapon like this.” He loaded a couple shells. “Then pump like so, aim and squeeze the trigger.”

  The shotgun boomed. The paper target hanging close to us jerked as a large hole was torn through it. The Repairman held the gun up.

  Taking the weapon, I loaded a couple shells, placed it up against my shoulder and pulled the trigger. The shotgun barked again, but the target didn’t dance.

  “Remember to squeeze the trigger and not jerk it,” The Repairman said. He pushed the gun into my shoulder. “Keep it right to your shoulder like so and fire after you exhale. Once you get used to shooting, you will not have to think about these things. Try again.”

  I did as I was told and the shotgun boomed again. This time the target jerked as a new hole appeared. It was low and to the right, but still progress.

  “Good, now keep practicing. I’m going to go check on Miranda.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” I said before he could walk away.

  “You’re most welcome, mate.”

  The remaining ammo went quickly. Once finished, I packed up the gun in the hard plastic case leaning against the wall of the stall. Miranda and Tabitha were at the counter talking to The Repairman when I wal
ked out. Both of my Tua gave me wide grins when I joined them.

  “What do I owe you?” Miranda asked The Repairman.

  “All of it comes to twenty-seven K. That is with your discount,” He said.

  “Holy shit. That much?” I asked.

  “No worries,” Tabitha said. “Miranda has it.”

  “Yeah, but that is more than I have ever seen spent at one time. Not counting financing a car.”

  Miranda laughed. “Don’t worry, Terry, your sugar momma has you covered.”

  “Terry, I need your help, now!” Izzy thought to me. Her mental voice was full of fear and desperation.

  “Miranda, we have to go now,” I whispered to my wolf.

  “I have to go. Let’s wrap this up,” Miranda said. “Terry, dear heart, would you mind taking everything outside?”

  “Sure thing,” I said as I picked up bags.

  “What’s wrong, Izzy?” I sent to Izzy as I loaded the gear into the trunk next to Nick’s gear.

  “Under attack. No time to talk.” She replied as I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Where are you?” I asked my turtle.

  “At precinct.”

  “We’re coming.”

  “What’s wrong?” Miranda asked as she took her seat behind the wheel.

  “Izzy sent me a message. She says the precinct is under attack and she needs help. Says she doesn’t have time to elaborate,” I replied.

  “Then let’s get our asses moving,” Miranda said.

  “Which police precinct?” Nick asked. “We can send the drones to scout ahead.”

  “Fifth Ward Precinct,” Miranda and I said at the same time.

  “Jinx, you owe me a coke,” Miranda said.

  “Drones will be there in four minutes.”

  “How can I see what the drones see, Nick?” I asked.

  “Oh, shit!” My ferret rummaged around in her bag until she found what she wanted. “Got it! You put these on,” she said as she passed me a set of plain looking black-framed glasses.

  “So these are like Google glass?” I asked confused because the gases seemed to be missing the bulky portion containing the electronics.

  Nick laughed. “Your cute. No, not Google glass. These little babies will use lasers to beam data straight to your retina making the info seem like it’s hovering in front of you. Try em out.”