by Jadyn Chase
At the sound of the alarm, Rose had jumped up out of her bed and thrown on the first available clothes. After racing to the Cavern, she immediately scanned the caves for the sight of the dragons and fervently hoped they were safe.
But the Jewels were not there any longer. Inside each of their caves stood a naked human man.
With her pale blonde hair tangled and falling into her eyes, Rose walked slowly across the center of the enormous cavern. She made her way through the perpetually dim light of center area and its many, many workstations.
But right now, no one was watching those screens. All of the techs just stood behind their chairs in complete silence as they stared into the three caves.
Very slowly, Rose walked to the large window that covered the cave of The Diamond . . . and the man who stood behind it now.
He was very tall and robust, with very fair skin. His hair was somewhere between white and blonde. He was entirely naked but seemed unaware of it, and in any case, Rose's first glance was drawn to his eyes . . . eyes that were such a pale grey that they were nearly transparent, like crystal.
She blushed a little as her eyes roamed over his naked form. His body was sculpted, sinewy muscle, and she wondered what it must feel like, since it still had almost the appearance of hard, impenetrable scales. She felt a tug of lust in her core as her eyes glanced over his proud manhood – but then she forced her gaze back to his face. He might not care that he was naked, but she still felt like she was violating his privacy, or looking upon something that should never have been seen.
The Diamond had eyes only for the other two caves, where two other men stood who, until tonight, had been the dragons known as The Sapphire and The Obsidian.
Rose’s heart pounded. She began to feel very light, as though her feet hardly touched the floor as she approached the window. When she was close enough to touch it, the man moved his head just slightly in her direction – though he still did not make eye contact.
"Hello, Rose," he said.
She did not know how long she had been unconscious. Rose only knew that she had opened her eyes to find herself sitting against the window in front of The Diamond's cave, with a few of the other techs fussing over her. And she nearly fainted again when she realized that she had not imagined any of this. It was not a dream. She was awake and The Diamond was standing right there in front of her, entirely in human form.
Gentle hands behind her helped her to her feet. "You all right?" asked Ellie, as the other people moved away. "Don't feel bad. I damn near passed out myself when I saw this. The other two changed, too. Both The Sapphire and The Obsidian."
"He spoke to me," whispered Rose. "I'm sure of it. But how could I hear him through – "
"Through the glass? You couldn't. But it seems there are speakers up in the roof. Who knew? Not us lowly controllers and geneticists."
Rose did not care. All that mattered was that he was here. And he had spoken to her. She gazed at him again, and thought that perhaps there was a flicker of movement in his eyes. "Is it really you?" she whispered. "Is this really possible?"
"Of course it is possible," he said, though still gazing out towards the other two caves and their now human inhabitants. "No one would know that better than you. You created us."
She nodded slowly, trying to maintain her composure. She looked at the small door beside the huge window – all that stood between her and Adam. She would have given anything to key in the code to that door, walk inside, and take him in her arms at last. Surely he would welcome it, after such a strange occurrence . . . surely he would welcome her presence in there with him.
But she did not know the door code. Very few people did, and only those who did not work directly with the dragons could get it. Rose only sat down on the stone floor again as she had done so often in the past. "Please tell me," she asked him. "What do you remember of your life as a man, before – before now?"
His head moved slightly, and for an instant she thought he might look at her. "Don't you know?"
"No. I'm sorry. I do not. The identities of the three men who provided the human DNA for the dragons was the most closely guarded of secrets. I never saw any records. It was said that all records were destroyed once the cloning was finalized."
"I see. Now I must apologize to you. I remember almost nothing about living as a human being, although it is obvious that I must have done so once. I recall more about flying very high and being able to see prey at great distances – "
Those would be the memories of the falcon, she realized.
" – and especially of chasing prey through the water and taking it back to a cave for others to eat."
And of life as a Lizard. Perhaps that's why his manner is so cold – so reptilian – because that life is the one he remembers most.
"Of being a man, all I can see is being near water. Not in it. Very near it. Walking on a surface just above it, a surface that moved and traveled."
A ship. He must have been in the navy. It would make sense that all of the donors would have been military men of the highest quality.
"Tell me," she begged, "do you remember a name? Your name as a man?"
A very slight cock of the head. "No. I recall no name. But I have heard you call me Adam."
For a moment the world threatened to fade to black again, but Rose steadied herself against the window and took deep breaths of the cold air. "Yes. Adam. From the Greek word for a diamond. May I call you that?"
He paused for a long time, to the point where Rose thought he had chosen to disregard her. Then, still looking away, he finally answered.
"You may."
During the following week, all of the Fleet Dragons began shapeshifting too, and after a few days, every one of them turned up in human form inside their great caverns.
Of course, all of the Birdies looked just like the man who had been The Sapphire's human DNA donor; the Glassies had a darker complexion with straight black hair; and the Shinies were rather pale, with the white-blond hair and transparent grey eyes of Adam.
It was a shock to Rose every time she saw them, as they sat quietly talking or resting or walking around in the vast cavern that was their home.
And it was a shock to those who did not have the emotional ties to the dragons that Rose and Dr. Winborne and Dr. Montgomery had. There were suddenly many, many questions about the experiment that would have to be resolved.
The three women immediately wanted their Dragonmen to be allowed out of
the caves and given human quarters. Rose only thought of how much she wanted to spend every moment, now, with Adam. She had waited so long for him and she wanted to speak to him while she could, record his every word while she had the chance . . . and take what might be her only chance to put her arms around him and have him do the same for her.
But this request was flatly refused. Those in charge of the base insisted that the human-shifted dragons could not be allowed out of their caves. No one knew if, or when, they might shift back into dragon form again. What if that happened while they were outside of their caves, especially if they were in regular-sized quarters?
It was unthinkable. Beds and other furnishings suitable for men were brought in for them, as well as properly prepared meals, but there was no further discussion of allowing them out of their caves.
But that was only one of the considerations. There was the practical matter of how the dragons could be used as weapons if they were now in human form.
Was the change permanent? Could they be made to change back? Could they change back and forth at will? Could that be controlled? And was there a shred of ethical value left in this experiment?
It was an unforeseen consequence both terrifying and miraculous. And nobody had the slightest idea of what to do about it.
Two weeks after the Three Jewels had changed to human form, some of the questions had been answered. No, the change was not permanent. Yes, the dragons were learning to change back and forth at will. It was not known if the humans mana
ging this experiment could control that in any way – and what if they could? What if they couldn't? The ethical questions only got thornier by the day.
One night, feeling completely exhausted after endless vigils outside of Adam's cave, watching him slowly change from human to dragon and then back again – always while tightly curled up in the back of his cave, always while sleeping – Rose decided she must get some real sleep herself.
All three of the Jewels were presently in dragon form, so she could not talk to Adam right now in any case. She went back to her small room and lay down in her own comfortable bed, wanting nothing else but to sleep for hours and escape it all as best she could, if only for a little while.
Chapter 7
Rose did not know how long she had slept before the screaming sirens that were the base emergency alarms suddenly went off. Again.
Once she managed to get out of bed and grab her clothes, all she could do was wonder what it was this time. Dragon escape? Uprising while they were in human form? Fire in one of the buildings? Some other kind of attack, launched by the outside world?
It could be anything at all. Rose made her way through the endless corridors and finally dashed into the Cavern of the Three Jewels.
Immediately she saw that the dragons were still in dragon form, though they seemed quite agitated near their windows. But her attention was caught, as it never had been before, by the many techs and support personnel sitting at all those workstations in the middle of the cavern.
Every last one of the techs was standing and yelling and trying to get the attention of someone else. Their computer screens flickered and shifted, and some were entirely black. A few of the techs tried to use their controls to get more information on their screens, but apparently got nothing and went back to yelling.
Rose tried to decipher what they were saying.
"It's knocked out everything!"
"The power grid is down. Most all of it."
"The whole planet?"
"Yes! Most places have no power. I can't see a thing."
"Internet is struggling. Hardware is rerouting but it won't stay up long without juice."
"The coastal cities got the worst of it. Multiple worldwide tsunamis finished them off."
She walked up to one of them and demanded an answer. "What are all of you talking about? What's happened?"
The tech just glanced at her and went back to trying to get an online screen to come up. "Asteroid," he said, between clenched teeth. "We always knew it would happen. We just didn't know when."
Rose stood in silence and tried to take in the shock. In the blankness that was her mind, there floated a little poem she'd read as a child.
In pretty moonlight,
Tiny deadly things sweep past
Gone, until next time.
"Next time," it seemed, had finally come.
The twenty-four hours after the asteroid struck were filled with very fast and final decision making. If it had done nothing else, the asteroid and the worldwide destruction it had brought had answered the ethical questions regarding Project: Reborn Fire. It was clear right away that there was no way for humans to support this project any longer.
With the worldwide power grid sporadic at best, and virtually no Internet or satellite connections left, any and all resources had to be diverted to keeping the humans alive at the base.
There was not enough electrical power to use to keep the dragons' control systems functioning. And even if there was, it operated largely through the GPS array. The satellites might still be working up there in space but the base would never know, for without the Internet, there was no relay.
The immediate priority was to get rid of the dragons. No one wanted them to stay at the base in human form, for no one knew when they might change back again. It was far too dangerous. They would all be set free – the Three Jewels and the Fleet Dragons, too – to make their own lives wherever they wished.
The world belonged to them now, it seemed.
Ever since the asteroid strike, all of the dragons had remained in dragon form. No doubt that was how they felt the safest with so much destruction going on. And just over a day after the hit, Rose stood beside The Diamond at his window and watched him for what she knew would almost certainly be the last time.
She tried to tell herself it was for the best. Such magnificent creatures deserved far better than to be held in caves and fed raw fish like zoo animals. And he was far more than an animal – she knew that – he had spoken to her, he was a man, he was not just –
But before she knew it, his roof doors began to open. It seemed that The Diamond was to be the first to go, and before she could even say goodbye, he immediately flew up and disappeared through the doors. Rose could just see the fleet of Shinies out there waiting to join him.
He's going home with his children, she tried to tell herself. They'll be safe – they'll live as they should – it's for the best –
But it was as though he was taking a piece of her soul with him as he flew away. He hadn't even looked back . . . he had not spared a thought for her at all.
Rose sank down and sat leaning against the window with her head in her hands. She was vaguely aware that the other two dragons – The Obsidian and The Sapphire – were being released, too, one at a time, into their waiting fleets.
The cavern was empty and silent. All of the techs just stood watching from their mostly useless stations. The lights flickered, for the auxiliary power often tripped and reset, and there was the echoing sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance.
Slowly, all three sets of roof doors began to close. Rose had never noticed before how they creaked and groaned. No longer was this the Cavern of the Three Jewels, the heart of Project: Reborn Fire. Now it was just a big cave filled with empty zoo enclosures and with frightened humans who now had to figure out what to do next.
But she raised her head at a sudden huge noise from the roof. The doors had stopped abruptly and were beginning to open again. And as Rose slowly got to her feet and leaned against the window, she realized that The Diamond had landed on the edge of the roof doors and was preparing to fly down inside his cave once more.
All three of the Jewels had come back, leaving their fleets safely separated over the sea. To the joy and amazement of Dr. Winborne, Dr. Montgomery, and Dr. Morgan, each of the Jewels crouched down at the window, right in front of each woman, and extended a foreleg.
It could only be an invitation for the women to travel with them wherever they were going.
Rose's heart pounded at the sight. He was back. He was here. He wanted her to go with him. He could have flown off with his children and never come back again, but he had not. This magnificent creature, who was also the man she called Adam, had returned specifically for her and waited for her now.
"Of course I will go," she whispered, not knowing if he could hear her or not. "Of course I will! Oh, thank you – thank you for not leaving me behind."
The other two women accepted, too, of course. In minutes, they had all thrown a few things into a nylon bag and pulled on the high-tech, dark blue Warmsuits that were supposed to keep anyone alive in the most brutal cold – at least, for a while.
Before she could think, before she could change her mind, Rose pulled a helmet and goggles down over her head and slung the nylon bag over her neck and shoulders. Then she did something she had always wanted to do but hadn't dared.
She tried her own personal code on the small, heavy door that had always stood between her and The Diamond's cave . . . and the door opened for her.
At last she walked inside. He was right there, standing up on all four of his legs, and she looked up and up at the towering creature. Even sitting in front of his window for so many years was not the same as actually being right here with him, and she was struck by how large he really was. It was like standing beside a jetliner at an airport.
Slowly she moved towards him until she stood directly alongside The Diamond. As always, he looked el
sewhere, as though she hardly existed; but Rose saw his head move slightly in her direction and believed he was responding to her in his own way.
Being this close to him at last, with no thick window between them, allowed her to see the delicate traces of real diamond dust in the armor that was his skin. Then, at long last, Rose reached out with her fingertips and touched the gleaming, glittering dragon.
The scales were tough, like leather and stone. Yet she could see that he was aware of her touch, for he would respond slightly with small movements of his head. His white wings were like the most rugged leather, though with a soft velvety surface, and with bones made of the hardest diamond. His wings were somewhat warmer than the rest of him, and he raised them slightly at her touch but did not move away.
She would have expected a fire-breathing dragon to be warm, but he was cold, so very cold, and so very strong. Unbreakable.
Adam.
Then his head moved again. This time, he lowered it to lie flat on the stone floor with his neck outstretched.
There could be no mistaking this invitation. Rose took a deep breath and slid her right leg across the cold rough neck, settling in as best she could. Then, she held on tight as The Diamond raised his head, lifted his wings, and flew out through the roof of his cave.
Chapter 8
It was at once the most terrifying and exhilarating experience of Rose Morgan's life. She'd never hoped to touch The Diamond, much less sit astride his great neck and fly with him – fly with him up into the brilliant sunlight and freezing air of the Antarctic.
Rose held on tight, all but blinded by the glare from the ice and snow, despite her dark goggles, and hearing only the powerful swish and thump of his enormous leathery white wings behind her.
There was a movement from off to one side. She became aware of many other dragons rising up to fly alongside The Diamond and saw that it was the rest of the Shinies. Every one of them had a human in a dark blue Warmsuit clinging to its neck, just like she was clinging to The Diamond.