Domesticating Dragons

by Dan Koboldt

  “I think he’s got you, Octavius,” I said.

  Octavius uncoiled from the little fruit basket on top of the fridge. He stretched languidly, as if just waking up. His eyes flicked open, and he acted all surprised to see us. He even gave me his good-morning chirp, like he was up and ready for breakfast.

  “You little ham,” I said.

  “So, what are we eating?” Summer asked.

  “Tacos. Is that okay?”

  She gave me a dubious look. “You can cook?”

  “Uh, I’m a scientist.”

  “I never saw you cook anything,” she said.

  “We were in college. I lived on pizza and cheap beer.”

  She laughed softly. “Didn’t we all?”

  Talking about the old days still had the edge of discomfort to it. Even if we didn’t say her name, Jane was our common denominator. I didn’t want to relive the bad moments, which seemed to drown out the good as time went on. So I steered clear and changed the subject.

  “Do you want fish, or chicken?” I asked. “I have both.”

  “What, no tofu?”

  Oh, God, was she a vegetarian? I’d never considered that. “Seriously?”

  She was biting her lip not to laugh. Her eyes sparkled.

  “You’re screwing with me,” I said.

  “Totally. I wouldn’t last a day without meat.”

  I shook my head and turned on the stove. “You were almost dead to me.”

  “What kind of fish do you have?”

  “Mahi-mahi,” I said. Wild-caught, too, not the crap that they farm-raised in China. I’d spared no expense on this dinner. There was too much at stake. The deep thrill of just having her here started to well up in my stomach. I forced it back down.

  “I love mahi,” she said. “How about fish and chicken?”

  “Attagirl.”

  “Need any help?”

  It was tempting, but my kitchen barely had enough room for me. And I was a little worried I’d screw something up. “Actually, would you mind letting Octavius out onto the balcony? He likes to watch the sunset.”

  “I suppose I owe him one.” She took her margarita to the balcony. Riker and Octavius wandered out after her.

  I hardly touched my own drink. Tacos were my favorite thing to make, and I didn’t half-ass it. Ten minutes later, she came in for a refill. That gave me another butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling, because I knew she meant to stick around a while. I took the meat off the stove, just as Riker trotted in to do his begging routine. Perfect timing. Summer just laughed and shooed him away. Octavius winged in to the top of the mini-fridge and trilled at me. He wanted in on it, too.

  “All right, it’s coming.” I flipped him a few pieces of meat I’d set aside.

  “Can’t he go out and . . . hunt birds or something?” Summer asked.

  My mind went to the Condor, and the way it had handled itself so beautifully during the field trial. The memory sobered me. “He’s got limited range.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Mm. Sounds like his genetic engineer screwed up.”

  I snorted. “I did it on purpose.”

  “You love to play God, don’t you?”

  “Maybe just a little.”

  We ate out on the balcony while the sun painted the desert in crimson hues. Riker and Octavius tore into their little bowls of cubed meat and were done in about thirty seconds. They settled down on the stone while Summer and I ate. I suppose I could have gone with the tablecloth-and-candles type of meal, but it just didn’t feel right. Come on—this was tacos, and we were sharing the meal with a pig and a dragon.

  Summer sat perfectly straight in her chair, with her plate balanced on her lap, and took these adorable teeny-tiny bites.

  “You’re so proper,” I said.

  “My parents were pretty strict about table manners.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “In case we had dinner with the Queen someday.”

  I nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “How’s that coming along?”

  “No invitations yet, but I’m hopeful.”

  “You know, the royals came and toured Build-A-Dragon last year.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Shut up!”

  “They brought in their daughter to see her dragon hatch.”

  “Did you get to meet them?”

  “Me? Oh, hell no. Greaves wanted all of us automatons in the background. Want to hear something cool, though?” I leaned closer to her and lowered my voice. “I designed her dragon. The daughter’s, I mean.”

  Summer put her plate aside, turned to face me, and said, “Tell me everything.”

  We talked for hours, while the sky grew dark and the margaritas melted. The desert air brought its usual nighttime chill, but the balcony’s heat-retaining concrete kept us comfortable. Riker and Octavius had curled up in the two outer corners where it was warmest. Their bodies rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep.

  I got up, quietly as I could, to clear away the dishes. Summer brought the margarita glasses. I started loading the compact autoclave. All my dishes were high-heat stoneware; with all the water shortages, autoclaves had replaced dishwashers almost entirely. The Pyrex margarita glasses went in, too.

  It only took about ten minutes, everything being small and close-together as it was in my kitchen. We tiptoed back to the balcony door to check on Riker and Octavius. They were still out. Summer slipped her arm in mine and pulled me back. I turned and she was there, I mean right there, kind of giving me a little smile.

  Instinct took over. The next thing I knew we were kissing.

  We moved to the couch, fumbling for it because we wouldn’t separate. I thought that if we did, it might stop. So I ended up crammed against the back of the cushion, with her soft slender body right up against me. My neck was at an almost painful angle, but I powered through.

  We kept at it, until I let my hand stray down to her waist.

  She pulled away just a little. “I should get home,” she said.

  “You can stay,” I whispered. I tried pulling her back to me, but she put a hand on my chest, and kept a little distance between us.

  “It’s really late.”

  I may have pouted a little, but I let her go. She stood up and sort of straightened her clothes. Riker poked his head in and gave a little high-pitched whine.

  “Ready to go home?” she asked him.

  I walked them to the door. “I’m glad you came,” I said.

  “Me too. Thanks for dinner.”

  I kissed her again on the threshold. And I loved the fact that I could do that. It wasn’t a peck, either. It was a warm, lingering kind of kiss that had me hoping she might come right back in. Which I wanted so, so bad right then. After a minute, she eased back, out of reach.

  “See you,” she whispered.

  It physically hurt to watch her leave, but after I closed the door, I reminded myself that it had gone well. Really well. If I kept this up, Summer and I might even become a thing. A warm twinge of excitement washed over me at the thought of it. Between that, and the help from Simon Redwood, things were looking up. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I could actually draw a full breath.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Extreme Measures

  The events of the last couple of days put me into a dreamy, weightless haze. Food tasted better. The air seemed fresher. Hell, I didn’t even mind the omnipresent heat of the Arizona sun as much. I got back into my work again and found that I rather enjoyed it. Even if there was a slight chance that any dragon I designed would end up in the killing heap at the “farm.”

  I wondered how Redwood would execute his plan. He had a lot of options—going to the press, or the in-house counsel, or even the board. The hour or so I’d spent with him still felt like a dream. I reported bits and pieces of it back to Summer, but kept remembering these little details—an offhand comment he’d made, or a funny little machine I’d spotted in the corner of his greatroom—and they never seemed to end.

&
nbsp; To her credit, Summer put up with my incessant fangirling. Only once or twice did I catch her in a half eye-roll when I’d say, “Did I tell you what Simon Redwood said about this?”

  Of course, I didn’t dare tell anyone at work what I’d done. It wouldn’t take an above-average IQ to connect the dots when he brought the hammer down. I didn’t want to go down in Build-A-Dragon’s history as the guy who tattled to Simon Redwood. So when Wong popped his head over the wall between their offices, I tried to play it cool.

  “Noah Parker,” he said, with that infectious grin. “Did you hear the news?”

  “What?” I gave him a fleeting glance from the custom I had up on my simulator.

  “Simon Redwood is coming to the board meeting.”

  “Get out! Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Thursday.”

  Redwood wasn’t wasting any time. “Where did you hear this from?”

  “Friends.”

  Friends meant Wong’s network of Chinese connections in the company. I liked to give him trouble that he seemed to know every Asian person in Phoenix, but sometimes I wondered if that really might be the case.

  “Wonder what he wants,” I breathed. And how Greaves will take the news.

  Thursday morning, I left my condo earlier than usual to head to work, figuring that the press would make everything chaotic. Redwood’s presence brought them like flies to a picnic. He’d warned me not to contact him before he made his move, or to show any undue interest. Build-A-Dragon monitors everything, he’d said.

  Traffic was heavy, but I managed to beat all the news vans downtown. In fact, I didn’t see a single one parked out in front of the building. That seemed a little off. I cracked open the door to the main floor lobby, figuring the crowds must be inside. Cool, dim emptiness awaited me instead. Where was everyone? Surely, I wasn’t the only Redwood fanatic working at the company he’d founded.

  I spotted Virginia at the information desk and strolled over to her. “Did they move the press conference, or—” I trailed off when she looked up at me. Her eyes were moist and red-rimmed. A single tear traced a translucent streak in her normally perfect makeup. “Oh, what’s wrong?”

  “I was supposed to meet him today,” she whispered.

  “Meet who?”

  She dropped her eyes to a wooden cube on top of her desk. It was about four inches to a side. Inside its thick wooden frame, a ball bearing danced in perpetual circles between two conical magnets. Balanced Infinity. That was the name of the child’s puzzle, and I recognized it because I’d memorized every one of Simon Redwood’s inventions.

  A chill of uncertain dread crept down my spine as it all came together: the lack of media, the empty vans, the somber pretty redhead. Oh, no.

  “What happened?” I croaked.

  “There was a fire at his house.”

  I wondered if she was having a stroke, or maybe I was having a stroke, because her words made no sense. “When?”

  “Last night.” She sniffed and dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue. “They said it was the wiring or something.”

  Bullshit. I’d been to Redwood’s house. That guy could have done the wiring on an F-15 if he wanted to. And if he did, it would fly better than the current F-15 did. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know.”

  “Well . . . is he all right?”

  She let out a little sob and shook her head. “They’re still searching, but the place burned to the ground.”

  Oh my God, the house. There went the jetpack, and who knows how many other Simon Redwood inventions? Damn it all. What a waste.

  This wasn’t a freak house fire. I knew damn well that someone got word of his plans and took action before he could make the fight public. The grim realization knocked the wind out of me. I leaned against the information desk, too shaken to move.

  “It’s not fair.” I whispered.

  Virginia said nothing, but sobbed softly, her slender little frame trembling. I sagged against the cold steel of her reception desk. My legs didn’t have the strength to find the elevator, even if I wanted to. Which I absolutely did not.

  When Virginia’s phone rang, I sucked in a breath and turned tail for the parking garage. They can charge me a personal day. I don’t give a shit.

  My childhood hero was gone, taking so many of his wonderful creations with him. Even worse, the best chance of righting all the wrongs at Build-A-Dragon had been cut away.

  And I couldn’t help but think that it might be my fault.

  * * *

  I don’t remember giving my Tesla the destination, but it took me to my mom’s house anyway. She was at work, of course, it being mid-morning on a Thursday. But Connor was home. The door buzzed open even before I could ring the doorbell. He must have been watching the cameras, must have known I was coming. I’d have known it, too, in his shoes. Call it some kind of brotherly intuition.

  I found him in the living room, sprawled out on a chair, still in his pajamas. The wheelchair sat beside him. A set of medical monitors glowed on a portable nearby. That was new. His face looked like I felt. Bewildered, exhausted, and angry at the world.

  He already knows. “Hey,” I said.

  He gestured at the projection screen, which had four news channels running at once. Three of them were on mute. The one with volume showed Casey Quinn, the beauty-queen anchorwoman for channel five, her face schooled to somberness. “On a sadder note, Phoenix lost a visionary inventor today. Simon Redwood is believed to have passed away tragically in a fire at his home.”

  “Oh, damn.” I wasn’t sure I could stomach hearing about this again.

  “You believe this shit?”

  “I know, man. It’s messed up.”

  Casey continued, “We’re being told from a source close to Redwood that old wiring sparked the three-alarm blaze, which left his mansion in absolute rubble.”

  Connor muted her and shook his head. “That’s crap. Redwood never does anything less than perfect.”

  “He could have run the NSA from that house.” I sensed the hand of Build-A-Dragon’s powerful PR department once again. Spinning the story. Turning the unpalatable tragedy into an understandable accident. The type of thing that could happen to anybody. But this wasn’t just anybody. This was the white knight who was going to turn it all around. More legend than man. Untouchable, or so I’d thought.

  “So what happened?” Connor asked. “I thought you were going to try to talk to him.”

  “Oh, I talked to him. Right after some of his dragons nearly ripped my face off.”

  He sat up straighter. “You met Simon Redwood?”

  I pointed at the screen, which showed news-drone footage of Redwood’s mansion before it had burned. “In that house.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m serious. That’s where we hatched the plan.”

  “What was he going to do?”

  “He called a meeting with the board.” I shrugged. “I guess he was going to confront Greaves about the desert facility.”

  “Christ. No wonder they had him killed,” Connor said.

  Hearing that brought a chill to my guts. I’d dismissed the fire as a likely cover story without really thinking it through. Someone had killed him and set the blaze to cover their tracks. Someone with a lot to lose. Someone like Robert Greaves. Well, no, the rich and powerful didn’t get their own hands dirty. They had people for that. People like Ben Fulton’s faceless security goons.

  “Of course, there is an alternative explanation,” Connor said.

  I’d have given anything for a new narrative about what happened to my hero. “What would that be?”

  “You went to his house, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  The corner of his lips twitched, as if he were fighting a smile. “Well, you’re a little clumsy sometimes, so it’s possible that . . .” he gestured as if for me to fill in the blanks. “You know.”

  I gave him a flat look
. “I did not start the fire that killed Simon Redwood.”

  “Can we know that for absolute certainty, though?”

  “Oh my God.” I laughed, because the sheer ridiculousness of it all was just too much.

  “Seriously, man, what’s going to happen now?”

  I shrugged. “I guess they’ll get away with it.”

  He pointed at me. “You could say something.”

  “Oh, because that went so well for Redwood.”

  “Redwood called a public meeting. They saw him coming.”

  He had a point. Redwood had a brilliant mind for invention, but human interaction wasn’t his strongest suit. Still, the guy had serious clout. “I’m just a cog in the machine.” An idea struck then. A crazy, foolish idea. “You may have stumbled on a good point, though.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Well, accidents do tend to happen around me.”

  He pursed his lips, as if giving the idea serious consideration. “An accident at the right place and time could be most inconvenient for some people.”

  “And the best part is, I can probably play dumb,” I said.

  “Definitely.” Connor kept his voice casual. “I mean, for you, it’s not really an act.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Spirals

  That night, I pored over the satellite footage of the area surrounding the killing fields. Even with a paid upgrade from GeoEye, the area that might otherwise show a massive animal care facility just happened to remain blurry. It had to be some kind of paid exclusion. Greaves was no fool. He didn’t want high-res satellite imaging of Build-A-Dragon’s dirty laundry out there for the world to see. I stayed up too late, obsessing over the desert facility and what secret might be there that was worth killing over.

  Though the next morning came painfully early, I had to return to work like everything was normal. That was the shittiest part of all. Lots of people missed work the day Redwood died—he had plenty of acolytes at Build-A-Dragon—but life must go on, as Greaves put in his company-wide e-mail lamenting Redwood’s death.

  “Nihao, Wong,” I called over the wall as I got into my workstation.