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Gork, the Teenage Dragon

Page 18

by Gabe Hudson


  “How do you know that?”

  “Because she’s one of my best friends! And she’s not into bastards who stick tracking devices on her wingjoint while she’s asleep, you scumbag!”

  The shame I’m feeling right now is more than I’ve ever felt. I hate myself.

  My God, what have I become?

  The holophoto floats over to the headless dragon and transforms into blacksmoke and then flies into his powerstaff. He hitches his powerstaff back on his utility belt.

  “Does Runcita know it was me?” I whisper.

  The headless scoundrel snorts firebolts and starts laughing like a lunatic. “No, you egomaniac,” he growls. “She doesn’t know it was you! How would she?! You think you’re special or unique or something?! You think you’re some kind of genius when it comes to scoring a Queen for EggHarvest?!”

  Now he holds out his other talon and I see a bunch of silver tracking devices piled up there in his palm. There must be hundreds of them. And seeing this makes me feel even worse.

  What a loser I am.

  Even when I try to act fiendish, my actions are just run-of-the-mill.

  Because apparently I’m not the only sorry bastard at WarWings who thought that using a tracking device would help him score Runcita.

  “You’re not very smart, are you, scumbag?” he growls.

  Now the headless cadet lifts his right forelimb and curls his claws into a fist the size of a boulder, making ready to hit me. His yellow eyeballs in his belly seem to narrow as he stares up at me, like I’m a fly he’s about to squash.

  “How about the right to knock a scumbag’s scaly head off?” he says, snorting blacksmoke. “What do you think about that, Normal? Well I think that’s a right I’m about to exercise!”

  I don’t bother trying to correct him about how technically it wasn’t me who went into Runcita’s lair. Because in my gut I know he’s right. I deserve to have my head knocked off. I really do.

  So I just look up at the headless dragon’s talon clenched into a fist. And all of a sudden I realize this fist must be an integral part of the scaly green Mutant learning how to survive and go through life without a head.

  Because in this fist you can see the Mutant’s entire life struggle etched in the scar tissue, like hieroglyphics.

  The painful childhood, the unrequited desire to be loved and accepted unconditionally.

  The endless taunts and beatings.

  The growing realization that you will be the butt of every joke ever told in your vicinity.

  The horrible epiphany that you are all you can ever count on, and that the excruciating loneliness you thought was a passing feeling is actually your essential being.

  That we are all to varying degrees hedging our bets against the inevitable insanity.

  This fella’s raised fist is less a weapon and more of a living text, the autobiography of the damned.

  “This is for Runcita!” sneers the Mutant. “And you can kiss your Queen Quest good-bye, scumbag! Because I’m going to knock your scaly-ass head clean off into the next galaxy!”

  Then he starts to swing and I see his humongous fist come flying at me. The breeze on my green snout generated by his oncoming fist is getting stronger.

  I clench my lids shut even harder now, as if I might somehow be able to deflect the Mutant’s fist with my eyelids. Because if you want to know the truth, I really do deserve this. That trick with the tracking device was a real low stunt for me to pull.

  So I figure I’ll just take my punishment. Get what’s my due. And the fist is so close now that it’s not so much of a breeze as it is a tornado and I can’t hear anything except for this ominous screaming noise that the wind is making.

  And then I think to myself:

  Snap out of it, Gork! This fool’s fist is going to arrive any second and knock your scaly green head clean off your neck and you at least need to be prepared for it!

  Maybe if you focus and are lucky you can fetch your scaly head and have a surgeon sew it back on.

  “Wait a sec,” says the headless dragon.

  I cautiously open one eye and see the fist’s green knuckles just inches from my beak.

  “Aren’t you Dr. Terrible’s grandson?”

  I open my other eye now and take a step backward.

  “I could be,” I say. “But first you gotta tell me, is that a good thing or a bad thing, being Dr. Terrible’s grandson?”

  With a little distance between us, I can feel my courage swelling.

  “And why in the heck is it any of your business who my grandpa is?”

  The Mutant’s reptilian eyes in his belly are looking up at me. “Come on, really? It’s those horns of yours, stupid. Everybody knows that Dr. Terrible’s grandson’s got the smallest horns at WarWings—”

  “They’re not the smallest. There’s this robot named Trenx—” It hits me like a punch to the gut that now I really do have the smallest horns at the Academy.

  Then the Mutant points his powerstaff at me and a small floating screen pops up right there in front of us, with my data splayed out in the air. His monsterish scaly green face down in his belly is studying my Cadet Profile on the floating screen:

  CADET NAME: Gork The Terrible

  NICKNAME: Weak Sauce

  CONQUER & RULE SCORE: 6 out of 1000

  RANK: MildFuriosity

  MATING MAGNETISM SCORE: 1 out of 1000

  RANK: RatherGoEggless

  HEART MASS INDEX SCORE: 2 out of 1000

  RANK: DangerouslyJumbo

  CLASS RANK: 2357th out of 2358

  WILL TO POWER: 6 out of 1000

  STATUS: Snacklicious

  “See! I knew you were Dr. Terrible’s grandson!” he says. “That’s the only reason you’re here at WarWings, because of Dr. Terrible. Frankly, with those horns you shouldn’t even qualify to have Normal status. You should really have Mutant status.”

  “Don’t you dare insult my horns!” I growl.

  I’m suddenly worried that I might start crying.

  And for a second there, I see a look come across the Mutant’s monsterish scaly green face on his belly. And I can tell he feels pretty low-hearted for what he just said to me, that he actually pities me. Which just makes me feel worse. I mean you know you’re in bad shape when you’ve got a headless Mutant feeling sorry for you.

  You can sense that the dragon is thinking:

  What’s the point of me treating this freak like this just because everybody has treated me like this my entire life? Having suffered like him, shouldn’t I be more inclined to show this dragon mercy and compassion, and not perpetuate the cycle of violence?

  You can see him thinking:

  Has my life filled with pain taught me nothing?

  “Well,” says the headless dragon, his voice softening, “maybe not everybody at WarWings knows about you. But you see, Dr. Terrible’s my physician. He’s working on my evolution. He’s the one that put this face right here in my belly. Before Dr. T came along, I had no face. I was deaf and blind and mute. Somehow he managed to make me grow my very own face right here in my belly. Dr. Terrible is a miracle worker!”

  “Dr. Terrible is a jerk. Dr. T, you call him Dr. T? That’s so lame! Does that T stand for ‘Thing’? Is that because he’s Dr. Thing?”

  “Don’t talk about Dr. T like that! You’re just an ungrateful little bastard with horns to match!”

  “Hey,” I bellow, “how can you sit here and dump on my horns when you don’t even have a head? You think Dr. Terrible’s so great because he made you grow your scaly face in the wrong place?! Why didn’t he grow you a head instead?”

  By now the headless dragon is clearly boiling over with rage, and he’s definitely seeing lava. He gnashes his fangs and sparks are flying off of them.

  It’s probably actually a good thing this fool doesn’t have a head. Because as worked up as he’s getting right now, if he did have a head it would probably pop right off.

  “Speaking of horns!” I shout, flapping
my wings. “My horns may be small, but at least I got some. If Dr. T’s so great, then why doesn’t he help you grow some horns?!”

  “He did, you idiot!” he roars. “Dr. T did give me horns, you fool!”

  Then, as I’m glaring down at the dragon’s monsterish scaly green face in his belly, the weirdest thing happens.

  Two giant black horns shoot out of his chest.

  The horns are right above the Mutant’s yellow eyes and they come flying out so fast it’s like one second they’re not there and then the next second they are. Like a switchblade.

  Thank goodness I’ve got a quick first step.

  Because I leap back just before the tips of those horns gouge the air where I’ve just been squatting. And if I was even a half step slower, I’d right now be impaled on this Mutant’s horns, dangling with my green webbed feet off the ground. No doubt.

  The Mutant grins up at me. He uses his talons to point at the horns sticking out of his chest.

  “Retractable. Dr. T built me these retractable horns! And trust me, these things are built to last!”

  I’m just squatting here in shock.

  Retractable horns?

  How the heck did Dr. Terrible give this maniac retractable horns?

  The headless Mutant clenches his talons into fists and booms: “You know what? Before I met you I was having a bad morning but now I’m feeling much better. I’m going to enjoy tearing you apart limb from limb. I’m going to break you down so bad that even Dr. Terrible won’t be able to put you all the way back together again!”

  As I stand here eyeballing this demented Mutant working himself into a frenzy, I believe him. I can feel it in my bones that he’s telling the truth. He really is going to tear my scaly green ass limb from limb. And not even Dr. Terrible will ever be able to put me back together again.

  Remembering that just a few minutes ago I saw Runcita here in the Dining Hall, I take a couple whiffs but can’t detect her scent signature in the air. Now squatting here in front of the treacherous Mutant, I wave my snout back and forth but still can’t get a whiff of Runcita. And with a sinking heart I know then that she’s already left the Dining Hall. I take a couple more whiffs and realize that I’ve inadvertently become an expert at detecting this particular fragrance.

  If this particular fragrance were a perfume then I’d call it A Room Where Runcita Once Was But Is No Longer.

  “What’s wrong with your snout?” sneers the Mutant, staring up at me with his insane scaly green face. “Why do you keep sniffing around like that?” He sniffs the air. “Is it me? Do I smell funny or something?”

  A tiny smirk plays across my beak.

  “Hey,” he says, “what’s the big idea, wise guy?”

  He cocks his fist up. And there are some things that are just more than a fella can reasonably take. And at this particular moment in time, the prospect of getting my sorry tail beat to a pulp by this headless Mutant bastard is one of them.

  So I do the only thing I can think of at the moment.

  I unfurl my leathery wings and fly my scaly green ass out of there.

  Thwack-thwack.

  [ 29 ]

  FRIBBY IN THE LAVA LOUNGE

  Where I am right now is the Lava Lounge.

  This is where Fribby told me to meet her.

  This is Ground Zero for the Datalizards. As I peer around at the stylish walls covered in oozing lava and the skulls and bones covering the floor, I’m all of a sudden thinking that maybe me rolling in here solo wasn’t such a hot idea. But I can’t try to turn around now. Because I know if I bolt for the door, well then some ghastly chrome-flex bastard will pounce on my ass and there’ll be a feeding frenzy.

  Robots can smell your fear, just like Normals.

  They get off on it.

  Everywhere I turn, there’s a robot cadet glaring at me with freaky red glowing eyes.

  Some of these fiends are sitting at small circular tables with their silver tails twitching over their heads, and others are perched on stools at the LavaBar. Just straight glowering. My horns are tingling like crazy. A couple of these bastards clocking me are gnashing their fangs, spraying sparks out their metal beaks. I am a tiny green speck in a sea of silver. My scaly green ass sticks out like a sore claw in here. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given that they got a No Normals Allowed policy, but still.

  So I’m crouched down low on the tips of my toe claws and my tail’s whisking around behind me, in case I have to make any lightning-quick moves.

  Breathe, Gork. Just breathe.

  That’s it. Nice and easy.

  Fribby has to be around here somewhere.

  Now there’s a two-headed robot chick I know named Lurksa up on the anti-grav stage, which is designed to look like a giant lotus petal floating in midair. The spotlight’s on Lurksa, and one of her silver heads is crooning her Mating Song in this real sultry voice. Her other head is leaning way out into the audience and whispering things into those robot fellas’ earholes.

  She’s pulling a classic Crown Bait. Where the dragonette gets up and belts out her Mating Song or demonstrates some special juicy skill or whips her tail around and sprays pheromones in hopes that a cybernetic dragon dude in the audience will be struck by a bolt of desire and want to make an EggHarvest connection. It’s like a talent show where the punishment for losing is you become a slave.

  What was I thinking? These bastards will eat me alive.

  So I squat on trembling haunches and look around the room for Fribby.

  Now the Lava Lounge is this swank spot where the Dragodroids like to kick up their toe claws. It’s also extremely controversial. Because this is where you’ll find the MortalMachine cadets whose WILL TO POWER rank is MegaBeast or higher.

  We’re talking the hyper-elite Datalizards. And as I glance around right now I count at least ten mega Reptilizoids who definitely rank in the upper tier of Seek&Destroy. I mean the entire place just reeks of TURBO FIEND.

  And earlier this semester when the Lava Lounge first opened, a club called the Robophobes stormed the place and started blasting it with firestreams, trying to burn it to the ground.

  There were like twenty of those fiends and they were chanting, “No Robo! Robo got to go! No Robo! Robo got to go!”

  But then this one big nasty metal Dragobot named Ogg just waded in and unleashed on those scoundrels. Now Ogg is famous here on campus because he’s the first A.I. to play on the WarWings varsity Slave-Catching team. He’s also one of their star players. Anyway, so Ogg snapped each of those Robophobes’ long green necks like they were twigs. And then that night at the Lava Lounge they were handing out free Normal dragon fillets on the house.

  So these days there isn’t a DataHater at WarWings who’d dream of stepping webbed-footed into this place. The vibe here is extremely fiendish and deranged, but also relaxed. Shoot, looking around the Lava Lounge right now, you’d think the robot uprising had already happened and now the Datalizards were running the show. The only thing missing is some green Normal dragon heads mounted on the wall.

  Fribby’s got to be around here somewhere.

  “Get your ugly green ass outta my face, Normal!”

  I start walking.

  That’s it. Just head for the back. She’s got to be back there.

  Other than the spotlight on Lurksa, the lights in the lounge are low. And because it’s Crown Day you can see a half-dozen Dragodroids down on one knee, offering their crown to some chick.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a Datalizard open her silver beak and blast a mega firestream into this Dragodroid that’s down on one knee and he doesn’t stop screaming until he’s melted into a pool of silver on the floor. Guess her answer was no.

  The Datalizards hiss and snarl as I pass their tables.

  “Looking for some robot nookie, Normal?”

  “Once you go chrome, you won’t never go home.”

  Keep moving. Pretend like you don’t hear them.

  Come on, Fribby. Where are you?


  Now I squeeze by this one mammoth cybernetic chick who points a silver claw at me. “Dang, look at Snacklicious there. Don’t pay any attention to these fools. Shoot, why you do look delicious. Why don’tcha come set with me a spell and get some of this funky machine love?”

  Then her eyes start glowing bright red.

  Well I suddenly feel light-headed, and so start to hurry and stumble toward the back. I trip over something and look down and see a couple of miniature Dragobot cadets glaring up at me. These fellas can’t be no bigger than three feet tall, and one of them’s rubbing his silver head like I just kicked him or something.

  “Your kind ain’t welcome!” squeals one of the little Dragobots.

  “Grow some circuits!” squeals the other.

  Then these two fellas start cracking up and snorting firebolts.

  And that’s when I feel a powerful metal talon snatch me up by the wingjoint and plunk my scaly ass down at a table in the back of the lounge.

  “Did you see Trenx and his new horns?” says Fribby, a little smile on her beak. “Crazy, right?”

  She flaps her silver wings and snorts blacksmoke.

  “Yeah, those things were pretty boss,” I say. “Still can’t believe Dr. Terrible hooked him up with those horns and not me, his own scales and blood.”

  “I thought he looked like a fool. Those new horns make him look gaudy. Like he’s trying to compensate for something.” She points to the shot of roiling lava sitting in front of me on the table. “That’s for you. It’ll help calm your nerves. You sure look like you could use it.”

  “I thought all you chicks dig dudes with big horns. I hate my damn horns,” I say, flapping my wings. “They’re so small. Did you know Dr. Terrible wants to adopt Trenx and make him his son?”

  I pick up the shot of lava and toss it down my beak. Little sparklers of delicious color explode at the top of my spine and then blast out over my nerve endings, causing me to shiver. I notice one of the robots at a nearby table staring at me. I grin at the fella and belch up a big cloud of blacksmoke.

  “Well you’re not gonna win Conqueror of the Year with those horns,” she says, squinting at my head. “But I like your horns. They look like little buttons. Sometimes I just want to reach out and press them. They’re cute.”

 

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