The footage spins to Mom’s VW Beetle—bright fucking yellow—racing straight for the charging Green, horn blaring. Two blocks before they meet, Mom veers to the right and disappears down a street.
The dragon shifts course, belching fire at its new target. The Bug races toward the Potomac, a yellow blur that pops in and out of view. One after another, houses erupt into bonfires, the Green only a half block away from Mom before they disappear off camera.
I close my eyes, shut down the tears, knowing what comes next. A crisp black-and-white military video, taken from a drone, that shows dragon and car exiting the suburbs and crossing barren fields toward the river.
“Whoa!” Konrad says, and my eyes snap open.
The video isn’t the one from the drone. It’s faster, lower to the ground, swerving back and forth. Tinged at the edges in a green glow. A cloud of fire at the bottom of the screen reaches toward the yellow car.
It takes me a few seconds to find my breath. There was a camera on the dragon. In all that blackness, it should have been disoriented, should have crashed into a building or into the street itself. Yet it never did. The news nicknamed the dragon Leprechaun. But it wasn’t luck that kept it aloft.
Someone was guiding it, being its eyes.
The Green performs a midair somersault, turning its attention from Mom’s car to the two drones flying toward it. Three missiles blast into its chest. A shaking explosion fills the screen. When it clears, the dragon’s on the ground, the camera pointed at the yellow Bug flipped over in a field cluttered with weeds and the remnants of a fourth missile.
The video cuts to static.
“Your mother died saving you, your family, and countless others from that murderous Green,” Simon says. “But you don’t blame the dragon for her death, do you, Ms. Callahan? You blame the military.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes. The makeup job must be ruined, but Simon looks pleased.
“Well, Ms. Callahan?”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
“But you blame them most,” he says.
I don’t answer.
He sneers. “Your mother was quite the hero.”
They know about Mom. They’re going to out her. There’s nothing I can do to stop them, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me come any more unglued. So I blink away the last tears, and meet him and his cameras with the best go-fuck-yourself face I can muster.
With a tiny smirk, Simon shifts his attention to Konrad. Several minutes of farmboy answers to generic questions. (“She’s cute, and I prefer blondes. That’s a good look for you, Callahan.” “Maybe I should have seen it coming. She tended to be quiet in class. Kept to herself.” “I just thought she was stuck up. Good grades, teacher’s pet, you know the type.”)
Finally, in his concerned talk-show-host voice, Simon asks, “Is there anything you’d like to say to Ms. Callahan?”
“Melissa, I know you’re angry. My mother was killed a long time ago by dragons, too. The military’s doing the best it can to keep us safe. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes our loved ones die. Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense.” Konrad adopts a contemplative look that’s almost comical. “It’s enough to drive someone crazy. You confuse friend—”
“You aren’t my friend, Konrad. And I’m not a traitor.”
“No talking, Ms. Callahan,” Simon says. “Start again, Mr. Kline.”
“It’s enough to drive someone crazy. You confuse friend and enemy, right and wrong, good and evil. The dragons have taken so much from us, but if we let them take our humanity, if we give up on each other, they win. Mel, I don’t blame you for all this. I feel sorry for you.”
“You always were an idiot, Konrad.”
He shrugs, stands, and removes a transceiver from his ear. “We done here?”
Simon nods.
“Good luck, Callahan. I really do feel sorry for you.”
After Cosmo Kim returns me to my dragon-queen best, Simon orders Mr. D-man to handcuff my wrists to the chair arms.
“You don’t deserve this,” he whispers as he applies the cuffs. He backs away. “She’s secure.”
“Not yet.” Simon pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffs it in my mouth. “Can’t have you ruining the surprise.”
Sam enters tentatively, shies from the cameras, covers his eyes against their bright lights. I call his name through the gag, but it comes out as a moan.
My brother turns toward me, but Simon and the cameras converge around him and obscure our view of each other.
“Hello, Sam,” Simon says. “Do you know who I am?”
“Simon Montpellier. Are Frank, Kevin, Mac, and L.T. here, too?”
“Unfortunately they’re out filming other sequences. Ellen explained to you what we’re doing?”
“Shooting the pilot for a potential Kissing Dragons spin-off. The Insurgent Epidemic. That’s an okay name, I guess, but I’d go with The Other Side. It’s simpler, right, and more mysterious.”
“It’s a working title, but we’ll take your suggestion under advisement,” Simon says, laughing. “Did Ellen mention why we invited you here?”
Sam gives some answer about discussing the recent attack by insurgents on Mason-Kline. He doesn’t have a clue what they’re going to spring on him, who they’re going to spring on him.
“. . . and she told me I’d get to meet one of those bastards. They nearly killed my father, and they kidnapped my sister,” Sam continues, his tone shifting from angry to anxious. “Ellen says you guys know what’s happened to her. If Mel’s dead—”
“She’s not dead, Sam,” Simon says. He steps back, the cameramen part, and Sam’s looking at me.
“Mel?” He turns to Simon. “What . . . what’s happened to her?”
“They call it Stockholm Syndrome,” Simon says.
“No, not my sister.” Sam squints at me, blinks several times in fast succession. “Not Melissa. She hates dragons. They killed our mother.”
“Maybe she thought that once.” Simon guides him to the chair next to mine. “Who knows why this happens, son? Grief does strange things to people.”
Sam sits, looks at me every couple of seconds, hurt and uncertainty in each glance.
Once the cameramen have repositioned themselves, Simon removes the gag. “Don’t listen to a thing they say, Sam. I’m not an insurgent. Don’t believe them. Don’t believe . . .” I follow Sam’s gaze to the thinscreen.
It shows the doctored image of me atop Old Man Blue.
“It’s a lie, Sam. You know that! Sam, look at me. You know I’m not a traitor. Look at me, dammit!”
But he doesn’t. The screen switches to the video of me helping James escape the medical tent. This one’s not doctored in any way.
Sam clenches and unclenches his hands, his jaw quivering.
“Sam, they were going to hurt—”
“No!” He leaps up, his face redder than his hair. “You helped him? How could you?”
“James isn’t a bad person, Sam, he’s not—”
“James? James! What about Dad? What about Dad?” He takes a step toward me, then smashes his fists against the desk.
“I’m not a traitor, Sam,” I whisper, but any hope that he might believe me is destroyed when the next clip appears.
Taken at a distance, zooming in, it shows me hanging from the ladder of a red dragon, James holding me. Mason-Kline gets pulverized behind us.
“How could you, Melissa? How could you? After what they did to Mom?”
“Oh, Sam. It’s—”
“No, Mel. You don’t talk to me.” He raises his fist, gives me one last glare, and storms from the room.
“Wait! What about Dad? Sam?”
The slam of the door is the only answer I get.
“I’m done,” I say. “Take me back to my hole.”
Simon shakes his head. “Patience, Ms. Callahan. Just one more, and you’ll be finished.”
Finished? All that’s left in this puppet
show is Dad. He wouldn’t believe their lies. He’d trust me, believe me . . . love me.
No matter what?
19
The person they bring in isn’t my father.
It’s James.
Two agents drag him in, shackles around his hands and feet, one of those metal circlets on his head. He’s skinnier than I remember. Sunken cheeks and multiple bruises hide behind a layer of makeup. They’ve dressed him in a fancy white suit, complete with a silver dragon pin on the lapel.
His brilliant blue eyes burn hatred for everyone in the room, but soften when they meet mine. He doesn’t seem surprised I’m here. Just sad. The D-men put him in his chair, then take up positions in the corner of the room.
“What happened?” I ask.
“It was—”
“You two will have plenty of time to chat later, Ms. Callahan,” Simon says. “Until then, speak when spoken to.”
“Rot in hell.”
Simon reaches into his jacket, pulls out a PDA, taps the screen. My CENSIR delivers an electric jolt that sets my body shaking. Sizzling agony shoots through my head, the world blinks out, and I scream.
“Leave her alone!” James yells.
The pain subsides and my vision returns. Simon’s scrutinizing the PDA with an expression of approval. “Are you going to behave, Ms. Callahan?”
I grit my teeth and nod.
“I’m sorry, Mel—”
“Shhh.” Simon waggles a finger at James. “I’ve got you in here, too. Play along now, and we’ll be done shortly.” He drops into narrator voice. “Mr. Everett, when did you first meet Melissa?”
“At Dragon Hill, several months ago.”
I want to correct him—we met little more than a week ago—but the sharp headache behind my eyes convinces me to remain quiet.
Simon indicates the image of me atop Old Man Blue. “Did you take this picture?”
“No, my lieutenant did the initial probing. He made sure she fit our profile before I swooped in.”
That’s a flat-out lie. It doesn’t even sound like James. Did they stick him in a hellhole too? Are his thoughts still scrambled?
“Profile?” Simon prompts.
“Strong spirit, fragile mind.” His expression grows serious. “I thought it would be a run-of-the-mill recruiting trip, but when I met her, she absolutely floored me.”
“How so?”
“Look at her,” James says. “Not the hair or the makeup or the dress. Look into her eyes. There’s something magical in them. I’ve never met anybody like her.”
“What happened after that?”
“I took her back to my cave, taught her how to ride dragons and fire guns. One thing led to another—”
“That’s all bullshit—” A sharp jolt from my CENSIR turns the rest of my words into a garbled mess.
“No more interruptions, Ms. Callahan.” Simon makes a cutting motion across his neck to the cameras, looks to James.
“Start over. What happened after that?”
“I took her back to my cave, taught her how to ride dragons and fire guns. One thing led to another and, well, you know.”
No, he’s not scrambled. He’s got a transceiver in his ear and someone’s feeding him lines. He made a deal with them?
I glare at him, and he has the gall to wink at me. I wonder if they scripted that, too. He seems to be enjoying himself. “She’s quite feisty.”
Simon laughs. “Yes she is. And evidently quite talented as well.”
“Oh, yeah. She climbed our ranks quickly. She was a natural with the dragons.”
Simon plays a clip of me and Baby in our battle with the gunships. Except they’ve digitized Baby from a Silver to a Red and changed her ice to fire. The shaky video, shot from a cockpit, runs for about a minute showing that I do, in fact, look like a talented dragon rider. Until I get blown off Baby’s back.
I can’t help laughing.
“You find this funny, Ms. Callahan?” Simon asks.
“Fucking hilarious.”
I get a shock for that. I bite hard into my lip to stifle the scream. Out of the corner of my eye, I see James flinch.
“You’re going to answer my questions now, Ms. Callahan. You will refrain from using inappropriate language. Do you understand?”
“But aren’t I the batshit fragile-minded dragon—”
This shock is sharper. My teeth rattle. James’s eyes pinch with worry. He gives a slight shake of his head. I ignore him. “It’s gonna be a short interview, asshole, if you keep doing that.”
“Good point. We’re done with him, however, aren’t we?” Simon taps the PDA again, holds his finger there, grins as James spasms. His hands clatter against the tabletop, his feet drum the ground. I stare straight ahead. He begins to groan.
“I’m told that brain malfunction ensues after prolonged exposure,” Simon says over the loudening groans. “Or paralysis. The studies are still unclear. You never know what might happen with this new technology.”
“You think I care?” I say.
He looks at his PDA. “I know you do. That little crown on your head tells me everything you feel.”
I chew the inside of my lip and shrug. “Your software must be glitchy.”
“Quite fascinating, really, isn’t it?” Simon says, running his finger along the PDA screen. “Maybe his heart will give out first.”
James’s mouth suddenly falls open in a silent scream. His breaths come in hitching, staccato bursts. His eyes widen. His face vibrates.
I break. “Stop it!”
Simon cocks his head as James’s entire body seizes and shudders.
“Stop it! Stop it! I’ll do what you want!”
“What did you say?” Simon asks.
“I’ll cooperate!” I yell. “Just stop it!”
Simon waits another few seconds before relenting. James goes limp. His head bangs against the table.
“James?” I whisper.
He lets out a soft moan.
“Eyes forward, Ms. Callahan.” I comply.
“Go into a close-up on her,” Simon instructs the cameramen. He reverts to his narrator voice. “Ms. Callahan, when did you find yourself having feelings for Mr. Everett?”
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“The truth.”
I snort. “The truth is I’m not a traitor. I never meant to hurt anybody. I never wanted to talk to dragons, or—”
“You think you can talk to dragons, Ms. Callahan?”
“She’s lost it,” James mumbles quickly. “Probably ate too much dragon meat.”
“Mr. Everett, remain quiet until further notice or I will turn you into a drooling cripple.” Simon steps forward. “Ms. Callahan, answer the question.”
“I never wanted to be a part of any of this. I wanted the dragons to go away, the military to go away. . . . Guess I’m screwed.”
“So your mother never told you the truth?” Simon asks.
James bursts from the chair, launching himself over the table at Simon. He tackles him, gets his cuffed hands around his neck for all of a second before a pair of BoDA agents are pulling him off. He snarls at Simon. “You promised to keep her out of this!”
Simon picks up the PDA from the floor, examines it with a frown, presses a button. “Let’s see if you can play possum with this.”
James spasms so hard that the agents lose their grip on him. He collapses to the floor, twitches once, then goes deathly still. The D-men scowl at Simon.
Simon checks James’s pulse. “No worries, still ticking. Get him out of here and get him prepped for transport.”
They leave.
Simon’s eyes narrow on me. “Keep in mind that I can make sure he stops ticking.”
I don’t know if he’s authorized to kill him, but it’s a chance I cannot afford to take, so I nod and we return to the farce.
“Did you ever find it odd that your mother was so concerned with dragon welfare?” Simon asks. A picture appears on the screen: Mom at a protest r
ally. “She saw people killed every day, and while most everyone else thought they were monsters, she never did.”
“It’s called having a heart.”
“A heart of gold . . . or maybe red, green, and blue. Just like her daughter?” he says. “You two were close, weren’t you? Similar in so many ways.”
“I can only hope so.”
He puts another picture up. One I’ve never seen. The coup de grace.
Mom stands on the balcony of Shadow Mountain Lookout, elbows on the railing, chin cupped in her hands. Tired, but happy. On her left is a black man who looks vaguely familiar, for some reason. James, younger, sits on the railing, legs dangled over the edge. Behind him, a handsome man holds a smiling woman. I don’t recognize him, but I saw her a week ago, dead on a gurney.
In the background, through the trees, are six dragons. Five Reds, one Green. A part of me wonders if that’s the Green that killed her. Or maybe it’s just another fabrication.
“Is that your mother in the picture?” Simon asks.
I don’t answer.
He points. “Those are dragons, right?”
I don’t answer.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Ms. Callahan, but it appears that those dragons are wearing harnesses.”
Good and evil, right and wrong, all that’s gone sideways in my head, but there is one truth I will never surrender. “You can paint her however you want,” I say. “But my mother was a hero.”
“No, she was a traitor. Just like you, Ms. Callahan. Just like you.”
He heads for the door.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
He hesitates, turns toward me. “Because lots of us had mothers. Lots of us had sons and wives. You’re no different from any of us, except you sided with them. You deserve everything that’s going to happen to you, Ms. Callahan. May God save your soul.”
PART II
RECONDITIONING
20
A BoDA agent escorts me to an SUV. Minutes later, we arrive at a runway where a cargo plane idles. A dull silver glow comes from inside the cabin.
Baby!
We drive up the ramp that extends from the rear of the plane and park at the top. The agent guides me past several rows of crates strapped to the walls, and there she is. My momentary happiness evaporates. Metal bands around her snout, back, and tail clamp her to the metal slab. The cold-restrictor collar pinches deep into her neck. Tranquilizers protrude from her body.
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