by Milana Jacks
The Cy who separated from the group—I called him Forehead, because of an ugly dent on his forehead—stepped inside the plasma barrier surrounding me. His step was sure and confident, his jaw firm. Forehead stopped near my wing and bent as if to touch it. I shook my wing, and he jumped six feet in the air and landed, featherlight, on my wing. I could barely feel his weight. Cy were light and agile. I learned something today.
But oh boy, my skin started crawling. I got an itch. I was allergic to them fuckers. I scratched under my wing with my foot, then wiggled to shake him off. Everything took a fucking effort. They must’ve injected me with downers.
As the Cy walked on me, I shook my wing again, swiped, and lifted, but I couldn’t get the fucker off. Feeling tired, my eyelids drooped and, again, I wanted to sleep. The Cy walked up and down my wing, stopping at the holes in it. Forehead shouted, and the roof opened.
I looked up. A round robot descended some wires and stopped for the Cy, who crouched near the hole in my wing. There was also something in his hand, a clear object, almost like an extension of his finger. The robot produced a smooth, sharp foot-long metal tool, and the Cy took it. He lifted the skin of my wing. I felt a tiny burn as the metal in his hand turned blue and lit up. I presumed it was a go. The Cy circled the hole in my wing, then scrubbed his jaw. Man, what a human thing to do. He was thinking. At first, I thought he’d take a sample of my wing. As soon as the thin metal object descended and he grabbed it and worked to fit it into the hole, I knew what the motherfucker was doing.
He was testing me for fucking implants.
With every breath I had left, I roared and jerked my wing. It crashed against the plasma, and the plasma zapped it. The current traveled along my wing to my spine, and I bent back, then flopped on the ground. I peeled open one eye. Forehead was a splatter on the wall. The Cy blood was dark blue. Learned quite a bit today. And so I slept.
Seeing as I couldn’t heal without sleeping, I slept as much as I could. The Cy, patient and determined fuckers that they were, implanted a metal circle into the hole in my wing. My allergies took on a life of their own. Pustules formed on my skin, and I itched everywhere. Once they realized I could barely breathe because my throat was swelling, and that I might die, instead of taking the implant out, they hooked me up to various medical devices then force-fed me liquids. Probably not too much so I couldn’t recover completely, but enough to keep me alive. The only thing I had going for me was my will. And I didn’t know where that will came from either.
Rose had betrayed me.
I should let the Cy make a fucking mechatronic monster out of me.
And if my nature allowed it, I probably would let them. But Creatures of Earth, clearly, couldn’t take implants. It confirmed the reason Mother Nature had removed Rose’s spirit. It was that or death for Rose. For the first time, I was grateful. Bitter as hell, but grateful. Rose was destined for great things. I was a distraction she couldn’t afford.
I awoke in the dark to something thumping on the cold floor. I turned my long neck and sniffed. The implant. Ha! My wing had spit it out. Officially, I was an implant reject. I chuckled. They couldn’t implant me. They’d probably kill me. Nah. The Cy didn’t seem like the killing kind. What day was it again? I had no idea.
I slept.
I’d been here forever, falling in and out of slumber.
The Cy visited with me daily, rarely ever leaving me alone. They kept trying and failing to implant me, but they probably figured if they put all their energy into my implants, eventually, one would take. Their persistence reminded me of Rose.
I released a painful sigh and covered my body with my wings. I wondered if she thought about me. I wondered if she regretted telling on me. Most of all, I wondered if I’d been here long enough for her to forget me. By now, I was mostly healed, almost as good as new. Nonetheless, I would sleep. Perhaps an earth elemental became fatigued when away from Earth. I couldn’t tell. And where the fuck was Mother Nature when you needed her? Nowhere. If I ever saw her again, I’d be tempted to eat her.
They fed me, but I vomited. I didn’t feel hungry anymore. The dragon was me and I was him, aware of what was happening. I prepared for hibernation, a natural form of self-preservation. My cave, if you will, wasn’t safe but I knew that a dead dragon was of no use to them, so they’d preserve me. They tended to me all the time, the way humans would tend to their wounded favorite pet.
The jolt to my head awoke me. I grunted and tried to snap open my eyes, but my lids weighed a ton, and so I did nothing but huffed a breath and continued sleeping.
Zap.
Fuck.
I shifted away. Maybe in my sleep, I had swung my tail and hit the stupid plasma. I tucked my tail near my body, scratched an itch on my flank with it.
Zap.
Christ. My eyelids opened to see a group of Cy standing in front of me. There were three of them, and they wore shiny gold plates on their chests. It looked like armor, but I knew better. Armor was used by violent races, and Cy weren’t that. Perhaps the plates indicated some sort of higher status, like say the Cy…presidents. I blinked and huffed. What now?
“Greetings, dragon man,” a Cy said without opening his mouth.
What the hell? “Hello, alien man,” I said. It came out as a yawn. In dragon, I couldn’t talk.
They chatted in their clicking language, and all three of them nodded. They’d agreed on something.
“We three are the Cy mastermind. We seek knowledge of the universe. You are here so that we may learn the science behind the dragon man. We ask that you cooperate and assume your human form.”
I closed my eyes and wanted to sleep again. This wasn’t the way I imagined my chat with the Cy would go. I lifted my head. It felt like a ton of bricks. I’d obsessed over the Cy even before the Ice Age. In my teens, I’d always wanted to meet one. And now that I had, a chance to study them presented itself. I couldn’t let it go to waste.
My brothers couldn’t fight an enemy they didn’t understand. And we understood nothing about the Cy. If I cooperated—to an extent, of course—perhaps they would grant me a boon and inform me of their intentions. I had nothing to lose anymore. Rose had exposed the Craig persona I’d taken up in the habitat. I’d already lost everything that mattered. I didn’t know why I bothered with the Cy.
White light burst, and my feet hit the cold tile.
Naturally, the Cy’s eyes were three times the size of human’s eyes, but now they grew to the size of apples. All three Cy squealed.
They’d never seen anything like me, and I enjoyed their shock. “You like what you see?” I asked. I turned around and flexed my buttocks. “Can you do that?”
I spun back around and wiggled my hips. My dicks slapped against my thighs, and one Cy pointed at them. I opted to call that one She. Done with my show of vanity, I sat cross-legged on the floor. Heat warmed my butt. Boy, the Cy really hated the cold. Their floors were constantly heated.
They sat across from me and stared, their eyes slowly shrinking into normal plum size. I wanted to laugh, but it was rude, so I didn’t. “If you tell me what you’re doing on Earth, I will tell you how I became a dragon.”
Throats made clicking noises, then, “Humans are known as a deceiving species. Your promise holds no…weight.”
“You have my word. As a dragon, I cannot lie. It’s the curse of the dragon, if you will.” They were hungry for me. I could see it in the gleam of their eyes and how their gazes had moved over my dragon body with wonder and awe. She-Cy stared at my private parts. Human males had one dick, and She seemed particularly fascinated. Perhaps that one really was a female. I winked at her. Nothing. Wasted charm.
“We seek to improve the human race,” one Cy said.
“That’s fine. What’s in it for you?”
Tongues clicking. “We seek to create a more powerful race.”
I lay on my side and bent one leg. “You already said that.”
“We have no malicious intent.”
&
nbsp; “Really? Decades from now, there will be no humans to speak of, and implants are directly related to low birth rate. The humans who inhabit Earth now will freeze to death. The temperatures are dropping.”
“They must all accept implants. It is…logical.”
Okay. It was like talking to a wall. “What will you do when there are no more humans?”
“We would move on to another race in the universe. We are the Cy, and we seek to learn and improve primitive species.”
“We’re not that primitive, you know.”
“You are primitive.”
“What will you do about the reproduction problem?”
“We will clone.”
“I don’t believe your clones are able to reproduce. I think it’s a hoax.”
Tongues clicked. The chatter escalated. They were arguing. I’d struck a chord, so I pushed on. “See, thing is, I know this person. Let’s call her Mother Nature. She’s adamant about nature, and cloning a human isn’t natural. It threatens the most powerful drive that makes us do the things we do.”
“What is the drive?”
“Sex. We must have it.” Well, the majority of us, at least.
“We have determined sex is unnecessary for reproduction.”
“Because you’ve never had sex. How are you reproducing?”
“We do not wish to speak of ourselves anymore.”
Something about reproduction. They didn’t want to talk about it. From before the Ice Age, we’d known that the Cy race that had docked in Earth’s orbit numbered only in the thousands, whereas humans were in the billions. It was one of the reasons the governments of the world had agreed to allow them to stay. The Cy might have long lives, but I doubted they were immortal. They likely cloned themselves, but if that were true, I’d have seen a lot more of the same around here.
They looked the same, but like us, they were all different. Some shorter, some taller, some with longer legs than others, some with elongated faces, some with round, light gray eyes, some with dark gray eyes, some with black eyes. The lines of their faces also differed. I could tell them apart.
“You can’t clone, can you?” I sat up. “You can’t reproduce either. You are a race with no home and have picked Earth to settle on. Then the Ice Age came, and you couldn’t handle the cold. You seek knowledge. We are a sex-driven race, and you are not. You have to know how it works. Sex. Right?”
“The cyborgs are our children,” She-Cy said. She stood and approached me, and I stood too. Goose bumps rose over my skin, and I looked up. She was about seven feet tall, and when she cupped my face, I wanted to snap her neck. I fisted my hands and allowed her to touch me. “You will become my child.”
“The implants won’t work,” I told her. This was some twisted shit. I believed I understood them. They provided for humans the way they would provide for their pets.
“It takes time for us to develop the perfect implant,” she said and traced my brow with her finger. “But we have time. Tell me, how can a human man become a dragon?”
I thought about what She said. From years of scamming people, I had a bit of experience and a healthy instinct from my street and jail days. “I was made by Mother Nature. So you see, I am already someone’s child.”
I struck a chord again. She removed her hands from my face. “Who is this Mother Nature?”
“She’s the reason humans have survived the Ice Age. You didn’t help us. You’ve done nothing but make machines who cannot advance on their own. The cyborgs depend on you for everything. This isn’t how child-rearing works. Your actions are malicious.”
“We have harmed no one.”
“You will never inhabit Earth.”
“We will land in few days’ time and live with our children.”
“You cannot settle onto Earth during the Ice Age.”
“We will extend the habitats until the Ice Age has passed. We have detected several minor earthquakes and determined Earth’s core heat is on the rise. The ice will melt.”
“Yes, and it will flood the surface.”
“We will build a solution for that.”
My nostrils flared. Who were these fucks to speak of my element as if they could control it? “I will end the Ice Age when I’m good and ready. If ever.” I gritted my teeth. I should’ve kept my tongue in check.
The Cy chatted, then the one in the middle said, “We understand you now. Mother Nature is a figure from human mythos. You believe she has created you, the dragon man. We understand that the dragon man must be the evolution of a human, naturally brought about by the Ice Age. There are three other dragons identified. We seek to understand the evolutionary human.”
They couldn’t wrap their minds around shape-shifting. They believed in science and technology. No faith. No courage. I straight-out told them about Mother Nature, and they didn’t believe me. “Hear me, motherfuckers. The Ice Age will never end. Clone all you like, make as many cyborgs as you like, it will get colder and colder, and we will all fucking die. Your habitats can’t withstand fires, floods, or freezing air. Leave our orbit or your…children will all die.”
“We seek Mother Nature.”
I threw my hands up. “Me too! Call me when you find her.” They stared at me. I continued. “Mother Nature is anywhere and everywhere. But if the humans die out, you will too, because the Ice Age will never end. In fact, the longer I remain here, the worse it’ll get down there.” The only thing they could do was build more habitats. I believed the Cy were done with living up here and eager to live on Earth. They’d waited a long time for it. Over five decades. I couldn’t imagine what this advanced race had come up with in five decades. My cloning-the-Cy theory was simply a guess. I still had no idea how many Cy there were. Was this their mother ship? Where the fuck was I in the first place? Who gave a shit where I was when Rose wasn’t with me? “I’m going into hibernation. Look it up. It’s what dragons do. I won’t awake for thousands of years. By the time I do awake, the people will have died out.” Seeing as I was on a roll, I might as well continue. “And by the way, you can’t live on Earth if the earth elemental sleeps. It’s not how it works.” Right?
“We will not allow you to hibernate, dragon.”
The way He-Cy said “dragon” indicated I’d pissed him off.
“It’s a natural thing for me to do. You can’t fight nature. It always wins. It has gotten colder and colder over the past years. What does that tell you? You want to inhabit a planet where you can’t survive? I don’t believe so.”
“The North American continent will be saved.”
“How?”
“We will structure a habitat over North America.”
I laughed. “Are you crazy?”
“We are sane.”
“I’m gonna tell you a secret.” I leaned in. “Ready?”
They leaned toward me, eyes expanding.
“You can’t control the Ice Age,” I said. “I control the Earth. You may build as many habitats as you want, but without me, you have nothing.”
“What do you mean when you say you control the Earth?”
“Exactly what I said. Now fuck off and let me sleep.”
The third Cy, one with a long nose hanging down past his chin, spoke for the first time. “We are familiar with the primary elements of nature. Water, fire, air, and earth. When we land and inhabit the Earth, we will use our advanced science to manipulate all those elements and end the Ice Age.”
“Okay, Cocky, and why haven’t you already done that?”
“We must work on the ground.”
“If you land, the ground will swallow you. I swear it.”
14
Rose
It had been a week since Cy had captured Arthur, but only one day since they’d confirmed their descent into the Detroit habitat, the last habitat with an intact barrier to protect us from the elements. And boy, outside was cold. Winds howled, the snow fell, and we hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.
In the south, the habitats burned.
In the east, all plasmas cracked.
All the Cy previously working inside habitats died of either cold or other elements. The cyborgs were migrating to the north along with all their military power. Satellites recorded history once again, and we watched it on our megatrons. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. It reminded me of the apocalypse.
Cy ships from across the country had flown into their mother ship, currently hovering somewhere above Detroit. Arthur’s face was plastered all over the habitat. There was nowhere I could go where I didn’t see him. I couldn’t meditate. I barely functioned. I thought about him every waking moment and wondered if the Cy would find any value in him so that they’d keep him alive. I hoped the dragon itself was something they would want to poke and prod. As bad as it sounded, it would keep him alive.
I had asked—begged—my dad to pull strings and let me see Arthur. When Dad realized I loved him, he made me promise never to speak of Arthur again. It would ruin our family’s reputation. We couldn’t have any personal contact with the enemy, and Dad had gone through great lengths to dismiss any rumors I was Knight’s sister. It was easy. People who spoke up died.
I didn’t know what to do.
I was extra mad at my brother for not coming here.
It was noon. I should be in class. Instead, I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured a glass, then lay down on my couch and fired up the screen. Advertisement after advertisement, and I watched them all. I didn’t know how older generations fell into the habitat-life trap, but I knew I no longer liked it. We were trapped in these habitats. We couldn’t travel anywhere and see anything different because all the habitats sported similar layouts. There were no beaches to visit, no ski resorts, and Hawaii had sunk like a ship during the Ice Age. There was nothing. What was the point of us?