Radioactive Evolution

by Richard Hummel

  Do not fear. I will not harm you, and I will try to answer any questions you may have.

  Jared squeezed his eyes shut hoping it would all just go away. The voice suffused his mind and made his skin crawl. Realizing he wasn’t dreaming, Jared took a steadying breath, trying to calm his fluttering nerves.

  “All right, okay. First, can you please tell me how you’re talking into my mind? It’s—I—it feels strange.”

  Telepathy.

  “Telepathy? You can’t mean--”

  I’m speaking to you with my mind.

  Is this some kind of trick? Jared wondered. Some machination of those above? Telepathy and dragons? It seemed too fantastical to be real. While he sorted through the jumble of thoughts that was his mind, Jared moved against the far wall, keeping his Colt held at the ready in case it attacked. It took him several minutes to compose himself sufficiently before he was ready to continue his conversation with this otherworldly being.

  Tentatively at first, but with increasing speed Jared asked about dragons, their existence, the nanites he’d used, the bond he’d seen in some weird message, and finally about the Companion Unlocked message. The questions tumbled out of his mouth in rapid succession, barely giving him time to breathe.

  Scarlet’s laughter tinkled in his head. I’ll answer the easy questions first. I hatched now because it was time, and the injection of nanites expedited the process. As for the history of dragons, we’ll get to that eventually, but it is a long story and told better by my mother.

  The tiny lizard paced in a small circle before finding a place to lie down and curling into a ball, its head resting on the coiled body to look at him.

  Do you remember the message you read before you blacked out?

  “I think I remember most of it,” Jared said, trying to recall the whole message. The message flared into view causing him to flinch back. “Whoa! Did you?”

  Yes.

  Irritated at the invasion into his mind, Jared expressed that irritation with Scarlet. “Please let me know before you do something like that. This is already a bit overwhelming. Your—telepathy, the images from the dream, and now this. It feels…” Jared paused.

  What did it feel like?

  It felt like cool tendrils, the silky voice sending shivers down his spine and calming his nerves.

  Very well.

  Shaking the remnants of confusion away, Jared re-read the message. Some of the dreams came flooding back as he read about the techno-virus, and rage flooded into him.

  What now? Jared thought. There were no instructions, nothing about dragons.

  His voice shaky, Jared asked, “I see Igor’s note about bonding, but what do we do now?”

  I… Scarlet paused, lifted her tiny angular head and said, I must see my mother.

  “Let me guess, she was the one destroying the city after I stole your egg?”

  Correct, she was very angry. If not for our bond, I have no doubt she would flay your mind open and destroy you.

  Jared blinked and turned an ashen color. A hollow pit opened in his stomach and he suddenly had zero desire to see another dragon in his lifetime.

  Do not worry. She will not harm you any longer. The bond prevents her from killing you, because it could kill or severely harm me.

  “How do you know all of this?” Jared asked, sounding incredulous. “You were just born—er, hatched!”

  Jared, I incubated for five hundred years.

  “Wait a sec. You incubated for half a millennium?”

  Correct, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that my mother left the den she’d made beneath the earth’s surface.

  “Incredible,” responded Jared. “Were you aware while in the egg? Is that how you know so much?”

  I was conscious for hundreds of years, and I shared a mental connection with my mother that allowed us to share our thoughts.

  “Scarlet, your mother. I’m sorry for stealing you away. I didn’t know,” whispered Jared. He truly meant the words. If he could have just a few more hours with his own mother, nothing would stand in his way.

  She has come to peace with it.

  Alarmed, Jared asked, “Wait, how does she know?”

  We communicated while our bond completed. She is unhappy but will not harm you.

  “If you could talk to her this far away, why didn’t she find us when I carried your egg? She could’ve easily caught up to me.”

  Prior to hatching, I was only able to communicate through physical contact. Now that I am out, I can speak with her from any distance.

  “Still, what’s to stop her from coming here and whisking you away, bond notwithstanding?”

  For starters, my mother does not have much time left before she leaves this world. dragons live for thousands of years, but a matriarch dies after birthing another female dragon. There is only one female dragon of each domain alive at one time, save for the few days to hand off their lineage to the next in line. She will pass a part of herself to me before she dies. I’ll need to be by her side when that happens.

  “So, what happens if all of the females die? dragons just cease to exist? What is a domain?”

  It is hard to explain, but our gender is determined by our position, rather than physical traits. When the last female dragon dies, the eldest male becomes the matriarch, able to pass on the lineage.

  Jared blinked in confusion, taken aback at the idea. “Then any dragon can…lay eggs?”

  Not exactly. Again, only one female exists at a time, but when there are no females left, the eldest male becomes the female, the matriarch, and is capable of laying an egg to produce an heir.

  “I’m not going to lie—that’s extremely confusing to me.”

  If it helps, you may consider us genderless, since physically there is no difference between us save for our voices.

  “I’m sorry you have to lose your mother, Scarlet. I know how hard that can be.” Jared shuddered at the memories he’d relived the previous night.

  I know how much you loved your parents. That love you had for your parents and the reverence you hold for life is the only reason you’re still alive. The dream you experienced was part of the bonding process as I sifted through your core memories. I assessed your character to determine if I should let the bond continue. It resonated with that of dragons, and I deemed our companionship complementary to one another. I believe we can help each other in the days ahead.

  “You really could’ve stopped the bond?”

  I would have killed you before the nanites assimilated.

  Jared glared daggers at the little lizard. “You what?”

  I am sorry if that offends you, but I am the future of my kind. I do not value one life more than the remainder of my brothers.

  The answer made him re-evaluate this bond. He was already reeling from the influx of information. Now he was irreversibly bonded to a dragon that held the fate of her kind over his own life. They stared at each other across the room, a frown creasing his brow.

  I can see you are upset. I…did not mean to upset you, but you must also know that I have a duty to my kind. Though, I believe we can aid each other. I will help you with your vow to seek vengeance, and you can help me protect and re-introduce dragons into the world.

  “You know how all of this works?”

  The professor explained it in his note. We kill other creatures and absorb their nanites to grow in strength.

  “Wait, I can increase my strength or other physical attributes too?” Jared asked excitedly.

  Yes. Though I have had a decade to study these tiny machines, my mother and I were unable to instruct them. Seeing this message, it is clear to me now why.

  Curious, Jared looked to the corner of his vision where the status screen lived. The display changed little from what he could see, but it was also hard to tell with it just barely in his peri
phery. It showed a simple outline of his body, basic descriptors of the nanites in his body and a percentage of viability that ticked down towards his next injection. As Jared’s eyes relaxed, he flicked his gaze over to the screen, and it expanded to cover his entire view.

  “Whoa...”

  There was much more information than he’d noticed on the minimized version. He also found an outline of Scarlet he could toggle between. The descriptive text around the outline of his character showed percentages, all zeroed out, but a notification showing 100% available floated on top. The areas he could modify included Mind and body, but there were dozens of sub-aspects for each.

  body included Physical Augmentation and Physical Enhancement. Augmentation included things like Muscle Mass, Physical Defense, and body Manipulation. Within the defense category, he could harden his skin, increase Toughness, and obtain Natural Armor. The manipulation category was a bit more cryptic, and he didn’t immediately understand categories such as Regeneration, Density, and Remodeling.

  The Physical Enhancements category was much easier to understand and allowed him to increase Strength, Reflex, Senses, Speed, Stamina, and Endurance.

  “I understand most of these body augmentations and enhancements, but I’m not sure about Regeneration, Remodeling, Natural Armor, and Density.”

  I created the descriptors to help you understand what the nanites can do. Regeneration lets you heal your body faster, Remodeling allows you to change and shape your body, Natural Armor creates a nanite barrier next to your skin for protection, and Density increases the density of your bones and muscles. The last shouldn’t be confused with Strength. It doesn’t make you stronger, but it enables you to get stronger by making bones and muscle more durable.

  “You created these categories?”

  Yes and no. The actual names of them were already pre-programmed, but I put them into a decision tree to help you make selections. I do not know if the professor ever thought about how this would look to a human host, since there was no interface.

  “Is it possible for you to put descriptive text by each one? Like, if I focus on one of them, I can get an explanation from you on how it works?”

  Scarlet tilted her head back, before answering.

  Done.

  “That’s it? How...” Jared cut off his question and just pulled up one of the Mind abilities.

  Telepathy

  Telepathy is a form of non-verbal communication. Dedicating nanites to the development of this area will allow near instantaneous communication between sentient beings at the speed of thought.

  “Wow, this is intense! I feel like I’m in a video game.”

  What is a video game?

  “Oh, uh...do you know what electricity is?”

  Scarlet blinked at him and narrowed her eyes. I may not know your culture, but I am not an idiot.

  “Hey now, I didn’t mean to offend you! It was a serious question. I’ve no idea how much you know about current technology, but we can do a brain dump on current state of the world later. Let’s get through the rest of these options first.”

  Listed under Mind, one main category, Brain Augmentation, branched out into several individual areas including: Hyper-Cognition, Telepathy, Memory Recall, Enhanced Senses, Intelligence Enhancement, and Perception.

  “Most of these I understand, but what is Hyper-Cognition?”

  Hyper-Cognition allows you to accelerate your speed of thought significantly. You will think in an accelerated state and the world will slow to a crawl, although your physical body remains at normal speed.

  Jared marveled at the information before him. Telepathy was something he didn’t know existed, and now he could augment his brain to use the ability.

  “I have zero percent in all categories and one-hundred percent to allocate. If I’ve nothing in Telepathy how are you talking in my head right now?”

  You do not need it to hear a dragon’s voice, but we are bonded, and you would be able to use it with any bonded creature.

  “So, I can talk to you using Telepathy right now?”

  Testing...Um, can you hear me? Am I doing this right?

  A soft snort escaped Scarlet’s mouth. Yes, I can hear you, but you do not need to shout.

  Oh, sorry.

  You will get used to it in time. Once you increase your Telepathy sufficiently, you may gain the ability to speak with other humans. dragons have much more complex methods of communication, which you may learn in time.

  “Well, I’m going to keep talking out loud for now. It’s still a little weird having a voice in my head and even more weird speaking with my thoughts.”

  All of these abilities will require adaptation. They are not like your night vision and temperature regulating. Those two abilities were a natural progression of the nanites. The rest of these will force big changes.

  “It’s a lot to wrap my head around.” Jared was grateful he had someone to help him understand all of this. He shuddered to think what would’ve happened if he bonded with something lacking intelligence.

  A dragon, thought Jared. Surely there’s nothing stronger and more intelligent in this world, right? The mere existence of dragons amazed him. But if one legend proved accurate, what was to stop others from also being true? The idea that all the creatures of myths and legends existed made his heart flutter. There were a lot of fantastical beings in the stories told to him as a child. If they were all real, his view of the world needed some major tweaking.

  Pushing those thoughts to the side, Jared focused on the nanite descriptions and assignments. He had one hundred percent to assign after all.

  “I think I should increase my physical attributes first,” Jared muttered. He thought back to the recent encounters with the lizards in the subway. He was much too weak and had no defenses outside his current set of clothes and weapons, which were still caked in layers of gore.

  Physical upgrades would be good. Scarlet looked him up and down as she said this, and a hint of condescension entered her tone.

  “Hey now, just cause I’m not like some of the barbarians you might have in your memories, doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own in a fight.” Although he had ample muscle, he was leaner, with an athletic build more so than a fighter.

  “Okay, so physical enhancements for most of the nanites I currently have, and a little into enhancing my senses. I could’ve used the boost to them in that tunnel. I might’ve noticed the lizard clinging to the ceiling before it nearly pounced on my head.”

  His choices primarily focused on Physical Enhancements.

  Jared – Nanites Available: 100%

  body

  Physical Enhancement

  Strength - 30%

  Reflex - 20%

  Muscle Mass - 20%

  Speed - 10%

  MIND

  Brain Augmentation

  Enhanced Senses - 10%

  Perception - 10%

  Maybe I should increase speed and endurance some, mused Jared.

  In the end, he decided that he’d survived the last two years without any enhancements and left them alone. The little boost he’d get from these changes should suffice for now. He moved the sliders around to match his choices and tensed, waiting for the changes to occur.

  “Um, Scarlet? Why is nothing happening? I feel no changes, and nothing happened when I moved the sliders.”

  Although the message from Igor did not say it, the changes only take place when you are unconscious. Your mind could break under the strain on your body during the change. Do you recall the pain you felt when we bonded?

  “Yes,” Jared responded tentatively. “How could I forget that? It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt,” Jared added, cringing at the memory. He still felt the twinges of pain, and his body ached like he’d spent the day doing intense weight training.

  The process the nanites used to c
hange your body and mind are the same, and you would feel the same agony once again. Waiting until a sleep cycle, the nanites render you unconscious, shielding your mind from the pain.

  “What about you? Did the changes hurt you?”

  I also went through some of the changes when the nanites converted to your DNA structure, but I can separate my mind from the pain, so it will not incapacitate me.

  Jared stared at the little dragon in wonder. If a newly-hatched dragon was this smart and could do so much, he wondered what her mother was capable of. A part of him was still in denial about the existence of dragons even though he sat across from one. Deciding he could come to grips with his new reality later, he minimized his status screen and focused on Scarlet’s.

  Standing at just over a foot tall and three feet long, Scarlet resembled a lizard or snake with legs more than a dragon and could do with a little physical augmentation. She didn’t have wings yet, and the scales on her body appeared more akin to patterned skin than individual scales. Her body matched the color of blood, save for tiny claws and nubs on her head, which were black as ebony. Scarlet was definitely a fitting name for her, but Jared was curious if that was her given name. It seemed too human.

  “Scarlet? Is that your full name?”

  It is the name of the explorer whose gear you found. It… resonated with me. However, my given name is Sildrainen Maildrel. It is a dragon name and not meant for human lips. It seemed more appropriate to use Scarlet, being bonded to a human. dragons are selective about sharing their true names, and we only do so to true friends of our kind.

  “Sildrainen Maildrel.” Jared attempted to pronounce the name and failed miserably, making Scarlet chuckle at his ineptitude. “What does it mean?”

  It is difficult to explain in words, but it means first of the fire dragons, firstborn of the fierce and powerful dragon queen. It is meant to be more of an impression, rather than a title, that other dragons understand. The name represents my heritage and the nature of my mother.