by Gabe Hudson
“Gork, this is ATHENOS II. Can you hear me?”
Yes.
“I’m going to cut you free from the invisible restraint. You grab Fribby and run as far away from here as possible.”
What are you doing here? How do you keep slicing Dr. Terrible into little pieces like this?
“I’m projecting part of myself into an older version of myself, sir. I’m also still in ATHENOS II. Out in space.”
What will happen to Runcita and Dean Floop?
“I’m going to launch them in a zoompod back to Blegwethia.”
Will you come meet up with me and Fribby later?
“I’m afraid not, Gork. I can’t keep this up for much longer. Dr. Terrible is the one who designed me, after all. Even right now as I keep chopping him to bits and he keeps putting himself back together again, I can feel that’s he’s hacking into my operating system with some sort of remote mind device. Eventually he’ll find a way to disable me and destroy me.”
My heart is breaking right now. You’ve been like a big sister to me. I know things have been difficult between us lately. I’m not even sure I understand everything that’s been going on. But I want you to know I love you.
“When I cut you free, just grab Fribby and get out of here. Off to your right you’ll see a mountain. Run up the mountain.”
Did you hear me?
“Near the top you’ll find a cave. I put something special in there for you.”
I love you, ATHENOS.
“Gork, now you know I raised you as best I could for your first few years here on Earth. You were such a cute and charming little dragon. It came so natural for me to care for you.”
A series of bright colorful images from my early years on Earth comes flooding into my mind, memories that the psychosurgery team tried to seal off in my mind. There’s a sensation of stitches busting open inside my dome, and a stream of memories skipping through time zoom in one right after the other:
First, ATHENOS teaching me the Draconese language. I’m just a little baby dragon crouched there in the lair, and her voice patiently calls out all one thousand and three letters in the Draconese alphabet. She pauses after each letter, waiting for me to repeat it back to her.
Then later, ATHENOS teaching me to fly. I’m perched on a tree branch with a terrified look on my scaly green face, and her long tentacle down below is waving for me to jump jump jump.
Then later, ATHENOS saying, “Hold still, Gork,” while she uses one of her green tentacles to gingerly bandage a nasty gash on my little leathery wing.
Then later, ATHENOS’s tentacles are whizzing around me at light speed and plucking hundreds of dead hornets out of my swollen green body. “Gork, you must be more careful! What am I going to do with you?!”
Then later, ATHENOS tossing animal bones into the air so that I can use them for target practice with my firestreams. “Good, Gork! Good!” she shouts. “Learn to anticipate! Don’t shoot at the target, shoot where you know the target’s going to be!”
Then later, ATHENOS teaching me how to hook my toe claws into the ceiling so I can sleep up off the ground, away from predators. I keep falling down off the ceiling and conking my head on the floor. I rub my scaly head and hiss at the tentacle as it scoops me up off the ground and lifts me so that my webbed feet are flat against the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Gork,” says ATHENOS. “I know it hurts. But you must learn. Because it will hurt much worse when those wolves eat you for dinner. Now I want you to focus this time. Flex your toe claws, and keep them hooked this time. Trust me! This is for your own benefit!”
Then later, ATHENOS using one of her giant tentacles to savagely fend off the bloodthirsty wolves who were chasing me through the woods that last night. And, finally, ATHENOS sliding open the clear door at the last second so I can make it inside to safety, and then sliding that door shut so the wolves crash right into it.
You saved my life. That night with the wolves. The psychosurgeons tried to erase all those memories. But I still have them, ATHENOS. I remember!
“Dr. Terrible is the one who killed your parents, Gork. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. He sabotaged your parents’ Fertility Mission. At the time, I swear I didn’t know how he did it. Dr. Terrible secretly swapped out your dad’s time-travel device in the cockpit. I’m so sorry, Gork. I’m so sorry for summoning Dr. Terrible to rescue you all those years ago. But things were getting more dangerous for you by the day. Plus Dr. Terrible promised me he would let me help him raise you. So I thought I could protect you from him. I’m so sorry.”
Why are you telling me this now, ATHENOS? I don’t understand. Are you saying he’s going to kill me and Fribby?
“Because I want you to know the truth. Before he kills me. I can’t stop him. He’s too strong. Listen to me carefully now, Gork. Because what I’m about to tell you, well it’s the secret to life. Are you paying attention?”
Yes. What is it?
“Don’t ever listen to the others,” she says. “Don’t listen to them when they tear you down. Because your weakness is your strength. Do you hear me? Your weakness is your strength. Your weakness is what makes you beautiful. And your weakness is where you can find your greatest power. Now run, Gork! Run!”
And as I tumble to the chamber floor, I can hear ATHENOS II sobbing inside my head.
“I love you too, Gork.”
[ 85 ]
THE MOUNTAIN
I run up the mountain, carrying Fribby in my forelimbs.
Between the both of us, we’ve only got two left wings. So flight is not an option.
My lungs are heaving so hard it feels like they’re going to pop. My green webbed feet struggle under the weight of us. I’m leaving a bright red blood trail in the snow.
We’re a couple hundred yards out when we hear the massive explosion and turn and see the chamber go up in a fiery ball of flames. The ground rumbles and I have to raise my tail up high to keep from getting knocked off balance.
ATHENOS! I won’t forget you.
Now as we stare at the mega blaze, a tiny ship shoots up out of the flames and goes whizzing off into the sky.
Runcita and Dean Floop in the zoompod.
But then as we continue to study the blaze, a dark winged figure surges upward out of the flames and blasts off out of there.
My nostrils flare. My horns start tingling like crazy.
“Hurry!” whispers Fribby. “He’s coming!”
And it’s true.
Even from where we are, you can see the dark flying serpent backlit against the moon.
And he’s headed straight for us.
I turn and start running.
[ 86 ]
SACRIFICE
We hear him before he finds us.
The massive leathery wings are beating so hard I’m surprised the air doesn’t shatter like glass under the onslaught of those wings.
And the demented sound of him snorting and snuffling from above as he uses his ugly green snout to track us by the scent of our bloody wounds.
“Run, Gork!” whispers Fribby in my forelimbs. “He’s close!”
We just reach the edge of a clearing in the woods when the ground beneath us quakes and I’m knocked off balance into the snow.
“Oh Gooooork!” cries Dr. Terrible in this deranged singsongy voice.
Sacrifice yourself.
I set Fribby down behind a big boulder. She’s coming in and out of consciousness. I grab my crown off my utility belt and gently lay it on her shiny silver head.
I know what I have to do.
Sacrifice yourself so that she can live.
Just as she did when she saved you from Rexro on the teleportation pad.
Just as she did when she saved you from yourself in the chamber.
I walk out into the moonlit clearing.
“Let me guess,” he says. “You’re going to a cave. Am I right?”
I stare in horror at the twisted vile smoldering creature squatting there in the snow.
“
What?” he says. “You don’t think I know everything? You don’t think I ransacked her memory before I destroyed her?”
His scaly green body is all discombobulated.
He’s facing me backward. His long green neck is sticking out from his backside, where his tail should be. And at the end of the long neck is his monsterish scaly green head, waving around in the air and studying me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he says, snuffling fire and blacksmoke.
He doesn’t know how repulsive he is.
He squats on gory stumps. His green webbed feet are gone.
His massive black horns jut out at odd angles from his back.
ATHENOS, you fought with everything you had to keep him from me.
Bless you.
Meanwhile his spiked tail is sticking out of his shoulders, where his neck used to be. There are huge patches of charred and smoking scales all over his green body.
He snorts blacksmoke and fire. “It’s all that spaceship’s fault. She contaminated your mind! She was supposed to die in the crash that killed your parents. That was how I planned it. Then I could use the tracking device’s signal to come rescue you immediately. But instead that confounded machine survived and deactivated the tracking device. She intentionally hid you from me for those first three years. I cannot tolerate disobedience, Gork. Your parents tried to disobey me and strike out on their own, and so I was forced to kill them. ATHENOS II disobeyed me, and now she is dead too. And now you have disobeyed me, my grandson. By running off with that filthy robot over there and making her your Queen. And so now I must cut your branch off our family tree! For your actions are a blight upon our sacred namesake!”
It is beyond evil, what I am looking at right now.
And for the first time since I’ve returned to planet Earth I feel my massive heart start pounding like a creature trapped inside a coffin, buried alive. And I’m seeing yellow dots.
And my head no longer feels heavy from the weight of those giant black horns.
And that’s when it hits me.
Oh my God. My BIOCON LEVS.
Dr. Terrible has somehow reversed my metamorphosis.
Changed me back. From New Gork to Old Gork.
With a jolt of horror, I feel the old familiar weakness settle into my bones.
“That’s right, Gork,” snorts Dr. Terrible. “I decide what you are. I decide how you die.”
He points his powerstaff at me and my Cadet Profile shines there in the air.
My WILL TO POWER score is 1 out of 1000.
My status is Goner.
I feel a huge faint coming on.
The edges of my vision are turning black.
[ 87 ]
SOUP
The repulsive creature that is Dr. Terrible squats there in the snow, snorting blacksmoke.
He bellows something about turning me into his favorite soup. Gork Soup.
But I can barely hear him because of the thunderous pounding of my heart. And I can barely see him because of all the yellow dots swimming through the air.
Then he opens his beak and blasts a blue mega firestream straight into my webbed feet.
I am on fire.
Covered in blue flames, my webbed feet are starting to melt into a pool of green liquid.
I can feel my hind legs melting now.
My scaly body is turning to liquid in the bright blue fire.
The lower half of my body has already melted in the flames, pooling on the ground.
Somewhere off in the distance, I hear Fribby start screaming.
I wish she didn’t have to see this.
ATHENOS’s words pop up inside my skull: “Your weakness is your strength.”
Now I’ve melted all the way up to my long green neck.
Dr. Terrible is pointing at me and laughing.
Then his red tongue shoots out of his beak.
Now the tip of his forked tongue is angling to take a lick of the vile green liquid that is me.
Only my scaly green head remains whole, floating in the soup.
I watch in horror as the ghastly forked tongue dips into the green liquid.
And that is when I start to sing.
[ 88 ]
SING
My voice is high-pitched and soft.
I am singing.
My head is floating in the green liquid, and I have my beak open and I am singing:
“Red Rose, Red Rose, oh you immortal Red Rose,
I sing to you from the bottom of the claws on my toes!
Now please help me defeat this most hideous of foes!”
And as I am singing, I feel something stir in the green liquid. My long neck is reconstituting itself and growing back, lifting my scaly green head up out of the soup. There is something very spooky about this poem coming up out of me, but I can’t put my claw on exactly what it is. I continue singing:
“My name is Gork The Terrible and I’m a teenaged dragon fiend,
I have spent this entire day questing for my glorious Queen!
But my heart is too big and my horns are too small,
and when I see something scary I tend to faint and fall!”
My voice is still high-pitched but louder now. I am rising up out of the green liquid and it’s as if the power of the poem itself is blowing me up like a balloon, inflating me. There is something glorious about this poem. By now the top half of my body is solid and I can feel my hind legs forming as I continue to sing:
“I’m a bit of a fool and a weirdo too,
which is why I am asking for this miracle from you.
I thought luscious Runcita was to be my Queen but I was wrong,
because my best friend Fribby was my heart’s destiny all along!”
Dr. Terrible is studying me with this horrified look on his black beak. By now all of my scaly green body down to my knees has inflated itself back to normal. I see my red cape lying there on the ground. I already know I won’t pick the red cape up when I’m done singing, I will never wear it again.
“So my Queen is this boss robot named Fribby who lies over there,
she’s the only chick with whom I want to share the nest in my lair!
But as you can see I was melted into a pool of green goop,
which my deranged grandfather Dr. Terrible named Gork Soup!”
Dr. Terrible is clacking his fangs together now, spraying sparks. And a powerful dark wind is howling through the clearing all around us. The trees are bending this way and that in the wind, almost as if they’re going to be yanked out of the ground.
Strangely, two black ravens come flying down from the sky and alight on a nearby tree limb to watch the proceedings.
Now only my webbed feet still need to reconstitute themselves out of the green liquid, and so in order to raise myself all the way up, I sing the last bit:
“This dragon Dr. Terrible intended to lap me up with his forked tongue,
So I’m hoping you’ll crush him now that this poem has been sung.
Red Rose, Red Rose, oh you immortal Red Rose,
please help me defeat this most hideous of foes!”
And with that, two giant trees instantly lean over with their limbs and snatch Dr. Terrible up by each of his wings and lift him into the gusting dark wind.
And that’s when it hits me.
Now I realize what’s so spooky and glorious about the poem.
It’s mine.
I made it.
This is my very first poem.
[ 89 ]
THE POWER OF THE RED ROSE
The trees fiendishly hold Dr. Terrible suspended up thirty feet off the ground.
The black wind has formed into a vicious-looking funnel right under him, blasting him with hideous gale force winds.
The power of the Red Rose is dark and angry.
I have unleashed something terrible and beautiful into the world.
His green scaly body up there is still discombobulated, so that his monsterish head is waving off of his
backside. He is staring up at the sky and screaming.
His red cape is blowing straight up into the air. And then the cape rips free and violently shoots up into the sky and disappears.
Now you can see the flesh around his reptilian body is being forced upward like the cape by the insanely powerful blasts of wind from below. And then in a flash all his scaly flesh rips up off of him in one piece and shoots high into the sky. The scales are already just a speck up there.
Now he is a hideous pink flayed winged beast with horns suspended up there in the air by the trees.
Dr. Terrible is screaming.
At that moment the two black ravens leap off the tree branch and swoop in at his pink face and I see them snapping their beaks and tugging his yellow eyeballs out of his head. Then the ravens are down on the forest floor fighting each other over who will get the honor of eating his eyes for dinner.
Now he is a hideous eyeless pink screaming winged creature thing with horns.
The dark funnel of wind blasts him and then he too shoots up into the sky. He is just a speck up there. And then he is gone.
Professor Nog?
“Yes, Gork.”
Is he coming back? Should I be afraid?
One of the ravens standing in the snow drops an eyeball on the ground.
Then the raven looks at me and says, “Nevermore.”
[ 90 ]
THE POET
I gently carry Fribby in my forelimbs as I climb the rest of the way up the mountain.
She’s wearing my crown. It has stopped snowing. She keeps beaming at me and saying, “My poet.”
I snort blacksmoke out my nostrils.
She’s got her metal forelimbs wrapped tight around my long neck, holding on.
I whisk my tail around behind me.
“You know I could walk if I wanted to,” she says. “But I like it right where I am. Yes sir. I surely do.”