Firedrake - Volume Two

by T. Mike McCurley

  “Had a little disagreement with the refrigerator. New door, no big deal. Happens to all of us from time to time, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. Tore up a couple myself.”

  “So, uh, the fight? Looked fun, but kinda rough,” she said, arching an eyebrow. Drake knew that not only was Sala no slouch when it came to fighting, but she actually seemed to relish the opportunity to engage in a good brawl. The comment could have been a compliment as easily as an attempt to get information about the fight.

  “I’ve had worse. The trip to the dentist afterward wasn’t much fun, I’ll tell you that much,” Drake said with a chuckle. He drank deeply from the coffee, barely noticing the taste. “Turns out I can regenerate my teeth, too. Who knew?”

  Sala laughed and stepped over to the chair, exchanging a knuckle-to-knuckle tap with Drake before leaving. The strength of her hand surprised Drake for a second. He wondered about it only for a brief moment before Monster rumbled back into the room. His hands clutched a sheet of paper close to his breast.

  “Close your eyes!” he ordered. Drake complied, waving a hand in front of him to emphasize his self-imposed blindness.

  “Ooh, I can’t see, I can’t see,” he said, trying his best to sound helpless. It did not hurt the effort when the lack of vision brought back memories of having been blinded by the gunshot in Austin.

  “Hold out your hands,” Monster prompted. Drake stopped waving and extended his hand, palm up. A moment later, he felt the softness of the paper even as his ears picked up the crinkling sound of Monster placing it there.

  “Now open.”

  Drake opened his eyes, blinking once, and broke into a wide grin as he saw the image on the paper. Scrawled in crayon, with a distinctive lack of professional skill that he had come to associate with drawings by Monster, was a picture of Drake standing on stage beside Patriot. Drake was little more than a green shape with wings, but he was pleased to see that he was larger than Patriot - who was essentially a blue blob with black hands and feet.

  “Did you draw this?” he asked.

  “Yes, I did,” Monster replied, beaming as he rocked back and forth on his feet. “All by myself.”

  “By yourself? All right!” Drake crowed, reaching out to wrap the young man in a hug. Moments later, when they had separated, he grinned up at the towering figure of his younger brother.

  “You hungry?” he asked, cocking his head to the right. If Monster was surprised by the sudden change of topic, it did not show.

  “Yeah. You want pizza?” Monster asked, looking over his shoulder at the telephone that hung on one wall of the living room.

  “No delivery tonight. I was thinking one of those ‘all you can eat’ kind of places,” Drake countered. “Little bit of everything to choose from? Sound good?”

  Monster nodded enthusiastically, the effort causing two vertebrae to pop loudly in the room.

  “Yeah. Me too,” Drake said. He stood from the chair, stretching his wings out slightly with a rustling sound. Not turning, he simply yelled. “Hey, Sala! Get your stuff. Let’s go eat.”

  Stepping around the door, the security specialist merely nodded as she finished putting on a light leather jacket. Something looked odd about the jumpsuit until Drake realized she was not wearing the holstered automatic at her hip. He pointed it out and she shrugged.

  “You said you wanted to go out, so I packed it under the jacket. Didn’t want the hassles.”

  “Put on a shield. Any questions, you’re with me,” Drake said, tapping at the gold badge on his belt.

  “Better this way,” she countered. “All the attention goes to you. I blend into the background. No one sees me unless it’s too late.”

  “Good point.”

  Monster ran back to his room and came out a minute later dressed in baggy BDU pants in the same tiger-striped pattern Drake wore, topped off with a brightly-grinning happy-face tee shirt. Well-worn sneakers covered his feet, and he had tied back his hair with an odd headband. Dark in color, it was dominated by a metal plate that curved across his forehead. The plate was engraved with a swirling pictogram, and Drake leaned close to examine it.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “My ninja head protector,” Monster said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Drake turned to regard Sala, who stood leaning casually against the door frame, trying her best to conceal a quiet chuckle.

  “He’s been watching 'Naruto' videos,” she explained. “Now he’s decided he wants to be a ninja.”

  “Beats wanting to be a politician,” Drake muttered. “Still, you got my kid brother watching those weird cartoon things?”

  “Anime,” Sala corrected gently as she gripped the knob of the door to the garage. “And they’re fun. You should watch some sometime.”

  “I’ll pass. So can you get these videos anywhere?” Drake asked, trying to sound casual.

  Sala held the door wide, exposing a muted green Hummer. Monster scampered happily up beside the vehicle, letting himself into the front passenger seat. He zipped the seat belt into place and looked behind him as Drake struggled to climb into the back.

  “Movie stores have some,” Sala said. She closed her own door and adjusted her restraints as Drake settled into place. He looked forward, seeing her eyes reflected in the mirror. “Why? You decide you want some after all?”

  “Nah. Not my style,” Drake said with a shake of his head. His eyes, however, flicked forward as he lowered his head slightly. Sala caught the gesture, knowing that he was indicating his brother, and inclined her head the tiniest of fractions before hitting the button for the garage door opener. She paused a second to scan the surroundings before starting the vehicle and backing out of the drive.

  The three joked back and forth for a while as they drove, and then Drake leaned forward with a sharpness that was almost frightening. His arm shot across the space in the Hummer, finger pointing unerringly toward a massive building in the distance.

  “There. We’re going there,” he declared.

  “That’s a mall,” Sala said slowly, dragging out the last syllable as she looked into the mirror at Drake. He laughed aloud as Monster clapped his hands in glee.

  “Why, yes it is,” Drake said. He reached forward and dropped a hand on Monster’s left shoulder. “We’re going shopping,” he declared.

  “A shopping mall,” Sala reiterated. “Full of people.”

  “What’s the matter? They too good for me and Monster?”

  “No. They’re too fragile for the horrible things that always happen when you go out in public,” she said, finally letting a smile slip onto her face.

  “Hey, I haven’t broken anyone… well, unless you count Onslaught….oh, and that media guy…and… Never mind.”

  Sala laughed. “Thought so,” she said. “All right. The Drake brothers want to go to the mall, then to the mall it is!”

  Monster clapped his hands again, his face lighting up at the thought of going shopping. From his own seat, Drake’s expression hardened a bit. He knew that the Department had kept a close rein on Monster ever since he had been brought to the community for his protection. This might well be his first real chance to get out and experience life outside of one of the many secure locations that had been provided. Even the hospital where he was checked once a week was within the bounds of the guarded community. Most of their supplies were trucked in and distributed through Department networks, and the businesses that did operate within their coverage area were carefully screened and their employees vetted by the government.

  He’s a prisoner, Drake thought, looking at the happily-smiling face of his brother, visible as it was in the side mirror. He can’t leave. Not now, not ever, if they have their way.

  Monster’s strength had continued to grow when the blocking agents Colleen Hart had authorized were stopped under Drake’s threats of bodily harm. The progress reports Drake had seen showed him that his brother’s physical power would soon eclipse his own, and they had advised him t
hat there was no way of determining just how far it would progress. Were Monster a so-called ‘normal kid’, it would be of little issue. He would be another genebooster, making his way in whatever manner he felt best. But due to his mental and emotional retardations, Monster was a special case. No one could predict what he might do, and the men and women who made their livings in offices far above Drake’s pay grade had decided that he was, therefore, a risk that they could not take. Far better to seal him away in the boundaries of a secured town than to have him loose upon the world.

  Drake hoped that the one thing that none of them had counted on was the fact that he would do what he wanted where Monster was concerned, and accept the consequences of his actions as necessary. He had done so for years before the government had stepped in and taken custody of the younger Drake brother, citing the lifestyle and instability of the older as a reason to safeguard Monster. Even had Drake been able to hire more than a bargain-basement attorney, there would have been little chance of beating the case that the government threw at him. Drake’s own past had doomed him from the start.

  As the mall loomed closer in the view of the Hummer, Drake remembered the powerlessness he had felt, sitting in that courtroom. His hands and feet had been shackled - ‘for security purposes’, they had explained - and an enormous muzzle made of durite clamps and high-strength polymers covered his face for the same reason. He was forced to communicate with his attorney through a pen and paper, a skill which he had at that time not trained to a great degree. His talents were based on staying alive, and writing had not been a large part of that particular skill set.

  They brought up his history, describing in graphic detail the violence which had followed him through his younger years - both at home and later on the streets. His time at a training academy of sorts, where he had been part of a group that was later listed as a violent gang by the FBI following their forcible extraction from a jail cell of a ‘terrorist’ whose only crime had been his inability to control his electrical generation powers. His self-imposed exile to the wilderness, where he spent almost two years living alone and away from society in general. His own tendency to solve problems with physical force rather than seeking peaceful alternatives. They wrapped up their case by discussing his father’s murder and the subsequent incarceration of his mother, followed by the fact that Drake had taken over raising Monster.

  In the end he was vilified by the whole process. Classed as a danger to the safety of the Nation, he was forced to watch as custody of his brother was taken over by the government. Monster was screaming and crying, and seven bailiffs were required to move him. Drake very nearly shattered his restraints in an effort to stop them leading the frightened boy out of the courtroom, but was stopped by the arrival of a single woman.

  She was dressed severely, in a business suit that gave her an aura of authority and with hair razor-cut to exacting standards. Her eyes were as icy as her demeanor, but it was the fact that she looked at him as though he was an equal rather than a terrifying creature that made him take pause. She dropped a business card on the table before him, nodded once, and walked away.

  The card had belonged to Colleen Hart, who had just been placed in a position to deploy superhuman agents at the request of the government. He still had a couple of those cards in his ID carrier, but these days they were mostly to pass on to people he had offended so that they could efficiently file their complaints.

  Hart had explained to him that she was in need of someone with his particular abilities, and, should he be interested, she could see to it that he would be able to spend time with Monster. She seemed understanding, if a bit mercenary, and Drake had jumped at the chance. His only other option at the time had been to call on some old debts and tear Monster away from the Feds who were holding him, then try to make a break for it. He knew the chances of that succeeding were slim to none. Where would they go that they could not be recognized?

  Months of intensive training followed, with Drake spending more time in a classroom than he had in many years. He was fast-tracked through his G.E.D. and then taught the basics of law enforcement. Once his training had ended he was placed with a Department advisor who took him through a series of tests to determine his aptitudes, and was then placed where they believed he could do the most good.

  At times, Drake still had the same bad taste in his mouth about the things he was forced to do as he had experienced on that day in the courtroom. Most often, Hart simply pointed him at a problem and let him deal with it in whatever manner he felt was best, but occasionally she placed him into situations that required drastic solutions - such as the one with Onslaught. He knew that there were better ways of dealing with that particular situation than his maiming of the man, but no one else in the Department had stepped up to implement those measures.

  He shook off the dreary thoughts as Sala pulled them into a parking place and threw the vehicle into Park. Monster was already shrugging out of his safety belt when Drake once more placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  “Be good,” he warned. The words were simple, but were delivered with every bit of Drake’s authority. Monster nodded solemnly, then waited for Drake to exit the Hummer before he followed suit. He held out his hand and Drake enveloped it with his own, feeling the coolness of the flesh against his scales.

  Sala kept pace behind them by a few feet, managing to look as though she was not immediately connected to the pair as they walked across the parking lot. Monster looked at the building, his head tilting back and forth, up and down, as he tried to take it all in. His face was stretched wide with a smile. To his right, the enormous figure of Drake smiled as well, but in reaction to the pleasure of his brother.

  They approached the glass doors to the mall, stepping in under an overhang after they had carefully negotiated a crosswalk. Drake was allowing Monster to call the shots on how they proceeded, and he laughed quietly as the younger Drake brother held out an arm to bar their path until he could look both ways to make certain no vehicles were approaching them. Once they were clear, he nodded and led them across.

  “So where do we wanna go first?” Drake asked as they stepped into the shade from the overhang. “I’m thinking we see what kind of video games they have, maybe snag a couple of those giant pretzel things…”

  He reached out to open the door, holding it for both Monster and Sala and following them inside. Monster was looking wide-eyed around them, his face split with a massive grin as he tried to take in everything at one time. Seeing the younger man on the verge of sensory overload, Drake patted him on the shoulder and winked down at him.

  “Let’s start with a pretzel,” he suggested. They walked into the mall, stepping around the base of a dual escalator, and the enormity of the place hit home for Monster. Two floors of shops, all brightly lit, with overlapping music and television sound, the mingling smells of bath products and hot food, and the constant underlying hum of voices made him giggle a bit. He pointed to a nearby store.

  “What’s that?” he asked. Drake followed his finger.

  “Bed O’ Nails,” Drake said. “Manicures and stuff. You want your fingernails painted?”

  “No,” Monster said, looking at Drake as though he had suddenly gone insane. “That’s for girls.”

  “Sure is,” Sala said, grinning. She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “It’d take ‘em an hour to paint Drake’s claws, anyway,” she told him. They both laughed. Drake made a show of examining his talons, as if he was actually considering the process. Monster tugged on the left strap of his shoulder holster to urge him onward.

  “Come on, Francis,” he said. The trio moved further into the mall, drawing stares from the patrons. Most were frightened at the sight of the walking dragon, and the expressions on their faces were dead giveaways to that fact. They moved rapidly away from the perceived threat, which was fine with Drake. He had, in fact, been counting on that to give them more room to move about. A dozen or more patrons raised cell phones to snap photograph
s with their built-in cameras. Drake tried to give them his most non-threatening grin, conscious more now than ever before of his public image and how it could affect the Department at large.

  The neared a standing column with a glowing map of the mall emblazoned on it. Drake traced a yellow talon down the list of shops until he found the place he wanted. “Pretzels,” he announced, once more ruffling Monster’s hair. As Monster worked to rearrange the unruly mop, Drake slipped a hand into his pocket and emerged with a black nylon wallet. He quickly extracted a couple of hundred-dollar bills and slipped them to Sala. Still watching his brother, Drake used the tip of his tail to indicate a store called Hot Flicks on the map and winked at the woman.

  “I gotta grab something first,” Sala said aloud. “I’ll meet you guys at the pretzel place in ten.”

  She took off before another word could be said.

  “Well, looks like just you and me, monkey-man,” Drake said, once again taking Monster’s hand in his own. They began a slow walk through the interior of the mall, with Drake pointing out shops and making jokes about what they carried. As before, he noted that the majority of people were moving away from them. A quartet of security officers, however, were vectoring toward them. They were unarmed, Drake noted, save for one who carried a canister of what Drake figured to be pepper spray or tear gas on his left hip. Casually, he let his right hand drift downward, talons clicking on the badge attached to his belt. He slipped out his credentials as well, flipping open the thin wallet to display them.

  “Afternoon, gents,” he said as the two groups neared one another. “Francis Drake, Department of Justice.”

  “Is there a problem here, sir?” asked the one with the canister spray. His voice was trembling a bit in the presence of the two massive Drake brothers. Behind him, one of the other officers leaned to his partner and whispered. Drake could not hear what was being said.

  “No problem. None at all. Just out to do a bit of shopping.”

  “We’re gonna have a pretzel,” Monster declared, nodding and smiling. He was scratching at his left ear, one finger trying in vain to fit into the canal.