Bentwhistle the Dragon Box

by Paul Cude

  Leaning forward, he whispered in Janice's ear.

  "Do you have a key to the chairman's office?"

  "No," she answered firmly. "There was a spare one behind the bar, but it's been missing for some time. The chairman's been promising to get a new one cut for weeks now, but never has, well... not to my knowledge anyway."

  'Damn,' he thought. It would have been so much easier if Tank and I could have gone up there to take a look. Oh well, at least by telling Tank I'll be sharing the problem, and just maybe something will occur to him, that hasn't to me.'

  Gripping Janice's hand, Peter turned to her.

  "Would you do me a small favour and repeat to Tank everything you told me about the black box and the metal inside it?"

  "Sure," she replied, all smiley.

  "But let's try and do it in some place a bit more... private," he added, trying to pick Tank out of the rugby crowd.

  Approaching, holding hands, Peter and Janice could both see Tank, all animated about something rugby related, his giant hands whipping through the air, whisking up vivid scenes of balls, tries and tackles, his dark blazer balanced precariously on the back of his chair, his white shirt was stained with beer, his tie dishevelled as though it had been pulled more times than a church bell. Both lovers waited patiently for Tank to finish explaining something from the game to one of the other coaches, before he politely nodded and took his leave. As Tank turned around, it was only then that Peter noticed the injuries to his face. Janice let out a squeaky little gasp.

  "It's alright... I'm fine," he stated. "You should see the other guy!"

  "And just where would he be?" asked Peter, more than a little concerned.

  "In hospital, as a matter of fact. Broke quite a few bones in his hand, apparently," announced Tank, grinning from ear to ear, or at least trying to. With injuries to both eyes, his nose and lips, he looked like a cross between the Joker out of Batman, and Rocky after twelve rounds in the ring.

  "So let me get this straight," exclaimed Peter, incredulously. "He broke his hand on your face?"

  Chuckling to himself ever so slightly, Tank nodded.

  Turning to Janice, Peter shrugged his shoulders and ventured,

  "He's mad. Absolutely mad."

  Smiling, Janice did the most unexpected thing. Walking up to Tank, she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the chin.

  "Well, I think he's very brave," she said, pulling away. The faces of both young dragons were a picture.

  "So anyway, what exactly can I do for you both?" asked Tank, having recovered from the shock somewhat. "Gonna let me buy you both a beer, or have you come to buy me one?"

  Peter's thoughts turned back to the matter at hand.

  "We couldn't have a quiet word, could we?" he whispered, indicating the double doors leading to the stairwell.

  Intrigued, Tank, still holding his half full pint of beer, squeezed past the two of them before heading through the doors, followed immediately by Janice and Peter.

  "I'm all ears," slurred the rugby playing dragon, slightly intoxicated from drinking with all his teammates.

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Peter burst into laughter at the exact same time as Janice. Tank watched them both, with a less than amused look on his face.

  "Well, you're not eyes, or a nose, are you?" mocked Peter through a fit of giggles, referring to his rugby inflicted injuries.

  A few seconds passed, during which time Peter and Janice shrugged off their giggles. Peter wanted Janice to tell Tank exactly what she'd told him, but first there was something else he had to do.

  "In some ways it's a shame you've had so much alcohol. I could really use you being sober for all of this," pleaded Peter.

  "Well, it's a bit too late for that now," chipped in Janice, wondering why Peter would even mention such a thing. "We could of course make him drink a million cups of coffee, if you like?"

  Having turned to face Peter while saying all of this, she'd failed to notice Tank's barely audible whispers to himself. Janice turned back just in time for the rugby playing dragon to give her his biggest smile.

  "I'll be alright," he announced, clear as a bell. "In fact, I'm already feeling a lot better. What is it that's so important, you needed to drag me out here... all secretly? Engagement announcement?"

  Peter started coughing furiously as Janice looked on, and Tank just smiled. Fun over, Peter asked Janice to recount exactly what she'd told him, word for word. When she got to the part about the black box and the metal inside, Tank stopped her.

  "Uhhhh... can you just repeat the last part please?"

  She did, and the concerned look on Peter's face mirrored itself on his friend's.

  "Did he take it with him?" asked Tank.

  Peter shook his head in response to his friend's question.

  "We have to get a look inside his office," exclaimed Tank.

  "There are no spare keys, and the chairman's gone off with his," answered the bubbly blonde, wondering what on earth was going on.

  "Who said anything about needing a key?" whispered the rugby player, squeezing between the two of them, starting to climb the stairs.

  Both Janice and Peter followed.

  "What's so important about the box and the metal inside?" asked Janice, all innocently.

  Deciding he should take this one, particularly as it was he who'd gotten her involved in all of this, Peter spoke in hushed tones, even though they were the only ones in the stairwell and probably on the whole of the upper level.

  "It's probably nothing," he replied, hoping this would be enough. But from the look on her face, it clearly wasn't. In return, she raised her eyebrows at him sceptically, on reaching the top of the stairs.

  "It's related to my job at Cropptech. I can't tell you all about it because it's top secret I'm afraid."

  It wasn't a lie a such, because the laminium was part of his job at Cropptech, and he couldn't tell her all about it. But the look that she gave him left him in no doubt at all that she really wasn't buying it.

  Following Tank's giant strides across the thick, lush carpet of the function room until they arrived at the locked door to the chairman's office, given that there were no windows to see through, it was hard to see what was going to happen next. Leaning against the door, Tank quickly came to the conclusion that it was locked and quite sturdy. Turning to Janice, he asked,

  "Whereabouts in the office did you say the box was?"

  "On a wooden desk on the left hand side, about... hmmm, let me see. About eight feet in."

  "That's all I need to know," uttered Tank, deep in thought.

  Peter had a fair idea what his friend had in mind, but not exactly how he was going to do it though. And he was pretty sure Janice should be as far away as possible.

  Leaning into her, the delicate scent of the perfume she was wearing intoxicating him momentarily, he just about recovered before whispering,

  "I think perhaps it's better if you leave. I don't want you to get into any trouble."

  In response, she jabbed a sharp finger into his chest.

  "TROUBLE! I think I'm already in quite deep... don't you? And besides, I want to see exactly what the two of you are up to."

  Turning, Tank gave him a look. Peter just shook his head in response.

  "Well," announced Tank, "if you're staying, then you'd better stand back." While the other two had been talking, Tank had been busy casting a mantra he was used to working with back at the Emporium. Basically the mantra formed a magical shield around anything that was being worked on, which came in handy in his line of work. You wouldn't believe the number of completely unknown or uncategorised mantras, spells and artefacts the old shopkeeper had found himself with over the centuries. Sometimes barely a day passed without an explosion going off that would level a human house. If not for the shield mantra and the other mantras crisscrossing the shop's substructure, the whole area would have been decimated many times over. What the dragons living around there thought, goodness only knows.r />
  Anyhow, Tank had cast the relatively simple shield mantra to take shape behind the office door, some three feet back. It should in theory catch the door itself, and any flying fragments from the wood, lock or hinges. With Peter and Janice both having stood back, Tank took four steps back, turned and... CHARGED! Hitting the door smack bang in the middle with his left shoulder, adding just enough of his dragon power to make sure there was no doubt about the outcome, in an ear splitting CRUNCH the door flew inwards and came to a stop as it hit the invisible wall that was Tank's cunning mantra. Janice looked on, astonished, as Tank straightened himself up, brushed himself off and set about pulling the door out of the office, placing it up against one of the walls of the much bigger function room.

  "Ohhh this is going to be sooo bad," the petite little blonde muttered, hardly able to comprehend what she'd got herself into. It was a good job she didn't know what was really going on.

  Walking over, Peter was just about to step through the door when Tank's outstretched arm stopped him.

  "One second," he said, muttering something under his breath, the flicker of a faint blue light dispelling the shield mantra, freeing the room of any obstacles. As one, the two friends gazed in and sure enough, sitting exactly where Janice had said, was the black box in question.

  Having already decided to keep a look out after the deafening noise of the door coming off, Janice was sure staff would be charging up the stairs at any moment to find out exactly what was going on. She had no idea how on earth she was going to get out of all of this, but it seemed massively important to Peter to go through with it, and she did trust him implicitly. What she didn't know was that as well as the shield mantra, Tank had also added a simple noise suppression mantra that any eleventh year nursery ring student could have come up with. Nobody else would have heard the sound of the door coming off, not even if they'd been in the adjacent corridor.

  Tiptoeing beneath the threshold of the office, careful not to make any noise at all, Tank and Peter approached the box as if it were a bomb about to go off. It wouldn't be long before they realised the irony.

  Putting his hand on his friend's shoulder, Tank indicated that he should go first, and Peter was in no mood to argue. Carefully, Tank got within an arm's length of it. From where he was, he moved in a semicircle around the box, examining it from all angles, mindful of touching the surface it sat on. All the time, Peter stood and watched, holding his breath. Part of him hoped that it had all been a mistake and that on busting the door down, there would be no sign of any box, or the rare metal that it contained. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and that sinking feeling had once again started to wrap itself around his insides.

  There was nothing else for it, Tank thought to himself; he was going to have to go in even closer. It was by no means the best solution, and might well end up getting them all killed, but he needed to examine the box in more detail. Everything he'd observed so far concerned him greatly, but it was impossible to see everything from where he stood. Partly concealed digits seemed to be changing all the time indicating, if he was right, the presence of a timer of some sort. Needing to know more, taking a breath, he stepped forward as gently as he could, desperate not to move the table, even a hair's breadth. Nothing happened, apart from his heart beating faster... so much so, he could feel it pounding in his ears. He tried to put that to one side, just to ignore it. But it wasn't easy, particularly given what he could see now that he was a little closer. As well as the metal, which was most certainly laminium, he could just make out the edge of what looked like a gyroscope.

  'So no picking it up or touching it in any way, shape or form,' he thought. Cautiously, he leant over the top of it, twisting his neck to get a better angle from which to look through the glass panel. If it was supposed to show the numbers inside, counting down, somebody had done a terrible job on that count. Or perhaps the digital display had slipped across and dropped down out of sight of the window. Either way, he needed to know exactly how much time remained on that countdown. Closing his eyes, he scrolled through all the mantras he knew, to see if anything there could help him.

  Behind him, Peter whispered,

  "Is it safe to come forward?"

  "Slowly and carefully," Tank responded. "I'm pretty sure there's a gyroscope inside. I guess if it moves even a fraction, it'll go off."

  "It's a bomb then?"

  "That would be my best guess... yes," answered Tank in a hushed tone.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "First things first. We need to know exactly how long's left on the timer. But it's impossible to see the numbers, as the display looks like it's been dislodged."

  Looking at the box close up for the first time, Peter craned his head to see if he could see what Tank meant. Looking closely at the slightly curved edge of the laminium that could be seen, he noticed the tiniest speckle of red light. It changed slightly. And again. It was a mirror image reflection of the countdown, clearly from the light of the numbers bouncing around inside the dark metal frame of the box. Instantly he told his friend. Having a look, the butch rugby player agreed at once and then, with a little of his power, flooded his vision to enhance the sensory capacity of both eyes. Once done, he had little problem zooming in right onto the image on the rare metal. It was then just a case of working out the numbers, because the image had been mirrored... easy for any dragon. The answer shook him to his very core. Fourteen minutes, twenty seven seconds... and counting!

  From the look on his friend's face, Peter knew things were bad, he just didn't know how bad. Tank told him.

  "We need to contact the King's Guards... NOW!" cried Peter.

  "We need to evacuate the building first," announced Tank.

  "You're right of course... but how?"

  Just then, Janice appeared at the gap that only minutes earlier had held an office door, now convinced that no one downstairs had heard what had gone on.

  "Well...?" she asked, wanting to know what was happening.

  Peter swallowed nervously.

  "We need to get everyone out of here... this instant!"

  "Why?" she responded. "What is it?"

  Turning, he looked in Tank's direction. The huge rugby playing dragon nodded his approval.

  "It's a bomb," Peter announced, turning back towards the woman of his dreams.

  "A BOMB!" cried Janice. "How the hell can it be a bomb?"

  "It would take too long to explain," added Peter, putting his arm around the petite blonde's waist. "And it's time we really don't have. Do you think you can help?" he pleaded.

  "What am I going to tell everybody?"

  "You won't have to tell them anything," declared Tank, strolling purposefully to the far end of the function room that overlooked the sports pitches through a majestically curved, giant glass window.

  "I'm not sure what you..." Janice's voice trailed off as Tank moved away from the architecturally stunning windows to one of the adjoining walls, stopping right next to a bright red square... one of the fire alarms.

  "All you have to do is help get everybody out, and to the far side of the car park, as far away from here as possible. As you go down the stairs, tell them the upper level is clear, but make sure... everyone is out!"

  Nodding, making it clear she understood exactly what was expected of her, she still had one last thing to ask, despite the urgency of the situation.

  "But what about the two of you?"

  "We'll stay a while and see if there's anything we can do. Don't worry," whispered Peter, smiling all the while, "we'll be out in time. You have my word."

  Leaning down, he kissed her passionately on the lips. Tank smiled, and then put his fist through the glass of the alarm, a high pitched wail shattering the peace, infusing the whole building with a sense of urgency. Pulling away from Peter, Janice sprinted out into the corridor, heading towards the stairs. Looking at each other for a brief moment, the two friends shared the surreal moment. For Peter, it felt like the whole bonfire night scenario all
over again.

  In the end, it was Tank who broke the silence (well... not quite).

  "Time to contact the King's Guard."

  "Do you want to do it?" asked Peter.

  "Why don't we both do it? That way they'll get some sense of urgency, and perhaps send the best dragons for the job.

  Nodding his agreement at the suggestion, both friends closed their eyes and reached out with their minds.

  * * *

  Approximately twenty minutes ago, it had all started. First in Montreal, Canada, with an initial explosion that was huge and had originated somewhere close to the Old Port. As well as devastating everything within a two mile radius, the blast had unleashed a deadly tidal wave up and down the St Lawrence river, demolishing everything in or around the shore on both sides of the waterway. The Victoria Bridge to the south had been wiped from the face of the earth, while the Concord Bridge, almost at the centre of things, had been decimated instantly. Because the bomb was made from laminium, a psychic wave, fatal to any dragons in an even larger radius, accompanied the original detonation.

  Buildings had been reduced to rubble as far as the eye could see. Cars and boats had been flung great distances, as if they were toys discarded by a toddler's tantrum. Fires raged. The earth shook. Thick black smoke littered the sky line. Dead and broken bodies lay everywhere. Dragons in their human guises up to twenty miles away collapsed and died instantaneously. The Montreal part of the dragon domain crumbled in on itself, despite all the mantras supposedly keeping it safe, crushing hundreds of dragons all at once, as well as trapping others in shops, cafes, houses and stricken monorail carriages.