by Alix Nichols
The lab coats washed their hands and put on medical masks and gloves.
“I’m Hist Boboker, the chief medical officer here.” The oldest of the three pointed to the others. “My assistants, Zewug and Thaissa.”
Chev pulled a chair out and sat down facing Geru. “Just think about it for a moment, what we’ve achieved here. The received wisdom at present is that you can’t graft any kind of implant onto a rich-blood, right?”
He stared at Geru, tilting his head slightly to the side. Was he expecting an answer? For one, Geru had no idea what the received wisdom with respect to implants and rich-bloods was. More importantly, he didn’t give a damn.
“I’m no rich-blood,” he gritted. “What’s the point of giving your genius tick to me?”
Chev laughed. His minions took their cue from him and chuckled obsequiously. The cyborgs didn’t even smirk, their postures tense, blasters drawn, and eyes on Geru.
“The reason rich-bloods shun any kind of augmentation,” Chev said, “is that it’s impossible to predict how they’d react to an invasive foreign object. As a general rule, implants weaken or completely suppress a rich-blood’s gift.”
The female lab coat, Thaissa, came to stand next to Chev. “The mechanism behind that effect is not clear, but it’s been demonstrated over and over again. What’s worse, the gifts don’t come back after the implant is removed, which is why rich-bloods tend to steer clear of any form of cyborg implants.”
Chev handed her the tray. “That’s where our TIC comes in. It’s a tweaked living organism, not a mechanical device. It will latch onto you from outside and control your brain with magnetic signals. No ruining gifts, no cerebral damage—just control on our part and obedience on yours.”
Geru thrashed again causing cyborgs to twitch and grip their blasters tighter.
“Want to know how it works?” Chev asked, clearly too psyched to shut up and let his minions continue. “I got the inspiration for it from the way my own gift works. Through pain.”
Geru stared at him.
“Pulling nails out isn’t such a terrible thing, if you think of it,” Chev said.
Geru glanced at his bandaged hand.
Chev continued. “They grow back eventually, so no permanent damage is done. But when a pair of pliers get to work, the pain receptors in my fingertips tell my brain a different story. They overdramatize and exaggerate and quash all rational thought. The level of pain my brain registers makes it believe I’m dying. And that triggers my seeing gift.”
“Is it wise to share that information, sir?” one of the cyborgs asked.
“Why ever not?” Chev waved dismissively. “What can he do with it? Besides, he’s dissociated. It’s an incurable condition. He won’t remember anything I said in his alt shape.”
“Even if he does,” Boboker said, “his understanding of the mechanism doesn’t mean he can fight the controller. The TIC’s signal is too strong. The pain is quite unbearable, trust me. You can’t fight it with knowledge. Or with anything else, for that matter.”
“The icing on the cake?” Chev grinned. “The TIC doubles as a tracker, which means I won’t need to hurt myself to find you if you ever get away. You see why I’m so proud of it?”
Boboker picked up a pair of tweezers. Thaissa held up the metal tray for him.
“It will only hurt for a brief moment,” Chev said. “If you wish, we can administer an anesthetic first.”
Geru growled, exasperated with his own helplessness.
Shrugging, Chev stepped behind Geru’s back. “No anesthetic then.”
Boboker grabbed the TIC from the tray and stepped closer. Thaissa picked up a scalpel. Zewug held Geru’s head down. Something sharp sliced through the skin at the base of Geru’s neck. Then something even sharper stabbed his flesh and bore down. Geru groaned and arched up in pain. A ripple of additional, weaker, stings followed. When they ceased, someone tugged sharply as though trying to dislodge the TIC.
“It’s locked in,” Chev said. “Good job on the first phase, everyone!”
“Are you going to proceed to the second phase immediately?” the cyborg holding his gun to Geru’s temple asked.
Skirting the surgical bed, Chev planted himself in front of Geru, a small commlet-like device in his hand. “Yes. We want to be sure the TIC is working as it should by tomorrow when Governor Horbell comes by to see him.”
Still dazed from the procedure, Geru was untied, and dragged out of the ward down the hallway, and down several flights of stairs to a vast basement. The cyborgs pushed him to the wall and stepped back. Chev pressed something on a dashboard, and a thick iron grate came down, separating him from the others.
Chev, his three aides, and all of the cyborgs went to the opposite wall and strapped themselves to it.
“Oh, just one more thing, before you turn.” Chev called to Geru. “Did you do anything unusual two days ago?”
Geru responded with a cold stare.
“I tried to look for you,” Chev said, “to establish if you were still on Norbal or back on Hente—and I couldn’t see you.”
Geru closed his eyes and slid down to the cold and humid stone floor. Pulling his knees up, he set his elbows on them and took his head in his hands. He hadn’t the slightest inclination to answer Chev’s question and, thanks to the truth serum vaccine, he didn’t feel compelled to do it. What bothered him—aside from his abduction and the TIC—was that he didn’t even understand it.
Chev frowned. “It’s just… It was as if your cellular makeup, your rich-blood signature, if you will, had been altered to the extent that you became invisible to me. I was fumbling in the dark.”
Two days ago… Geru pictured himself sitting on the floor in Marye’s room. What was he doing there? How had he gotten there? Why was he naked and holding her in his arms?
“I have no idea what I was doing two days ago,” he said.
“Do you at least remember how you got from Norbal to Hente? Our man on Norbal checked all spaceports. No cruiser departures were registered between your last sighting on Norbal and turning up on Hente.”
Geru shrugged.
“Was it a private ship? Whose? Who gave you a lift to Hente?”
“Like I said, no clue.”
“Why does it matter?” the most jittery of the cyborgs asked. “So, he paid some private transport owner to get him to Hente. What of it?”
“I’m not sure…” Chev released a sigh. “I suppose I just want to know everything there is to know about the dragon.”
Geru lifted his gaze. “Who?”
“Never mind.” Chev pressed something on the device in his hand. “It’s playtime!”
9
More pain invaded Geru’s whole body this time. His tissues expanded, bones ached, skin hardened, becoming striated as if embossed from inside.
Chev turned to his aides. “Observe the subtle changes. It’s the intermediary, pre-alt shape. In theory, he’s able to stay in it for days on end, but I want him to keep turning.”
He fingered the device in his hand.
Geru bellowed in agony.
His nails hardened, turning into claws and pushing out. The odor of Ra-humans’ fear filled the room.
The jumpy cyborg’s voice broke the silence. “Sir, if you’re going to drop the second wall, now is the time.”
“Risp nearly killed him during his first conditioning, sir,” another cyborg said. “That’s why he’s so nervous.”
“I do seem to recall that,” the Ra-human with the little object in his hands said. He seemed to be the alpha in the group.
Chev? Bev? Hev?
Ra-dragon could no longer remember the man’s name. His ribs began to straighten, bursting out of his sides, ripping his clothes, extending. He roared.
The alpha pushed a big button on the wall behind him.
A second barrier came down, even thicker than the first. This one was a solid transparent block.
Ra-dragon’s skull and jaws elongated. His teeth lengthen
ed in his mouth as his head pounded. The basement started to shrink as he grew.
That’s it! He was shifting to his dragon form. Except this time, it wasn’t so that he could vault to his mate. Nor was it to go back to Norbal and take care of that important business he could never recall the specifics of. Ra-dragon was turning because he couldn’t help it.
Because something was making him.
His gaze fell on the Ra-human alpha. Not something. Someone.
Their gazes met.
“Stop this, or I’ll blow your brains out,” Ra-dragon growled.
The alpha raised the object to his face. “Stand down. Easy. Turn around.”
Against his will, Ra-dragon obeyed.
“Spread your wings and fly up to the ceiling,” the alpha commanded when the transformation was over.
Dragon executed.
“Now turn left and blow at the wall, gently.”
He did, creating a small tornado around him.
“Seems to work just fine, sir,” one of the lower-ranking individuals said. “Shouldn’t we let him rest so he’s in top form tomorrow when the governor arrives?”
The alpha ordered Dragon down, made him shift to Ra-dragon, and then shift to Ra-human.
Geru woke up in a room that looked a lot like the cell where Ultek had held him in Iltaqa. Except this room was a lot cleaner. All its walls, ceiling, and floor were padded. The door was padded, too, with the exception of a tiny window insert.
Outside, he could hear doors slamming, fists banging, footsteps rushing, things beeping, and other things being dragged across hard floors.
His door opened and a cyborg squad rushed in.
Geru was led out of his cell without any restraints this time. The cyborgs marched him out of the building and into a large yard enclosed with several layers of thick chain link fence, which rose above the tallest trees outside. Overhead, more layers of chain link formed a ceiling. One of its walls backed to a concrete hangar.
The cyborgs trotted out, locking him within the enclosure.
A few minutes later, Chev and the man from the tarmac climbed out of a motorized vehicle and strode to the chain link wall.
“I’m Sir Polit Horbell, governor of this planet-sized zoo you’ve been brought to.” The man from the tarmac peered at Geru. “My men had a lot of trouble finding and capturing you, dragon.”
“You might want to have your eyes checked, governor.” Geru gave him a humorless stare. “Even in Eia, we have spectacles. That being said, spectacles won’t help if you’re seeing a dragon… Party too hard last night, Your Grace?”
Horbell turned to Chev. “He’s spunky. I like that.”
Chev grinned, visibly pleased.
“Can he breathe fire?” Horbell asked.
“No, Your Grace. But he’s formidable enough without it.”
“Let’s see what he can do.” Horbell rubbed his hands together. “I wonder if he’s as good as Risp.”
Risp… Geru had heard that name before here on Tastassi.
One of the cyborgs marched up to Chev and Horbell. “Everything is in place. We can start on your signal.”
Horbell pulled a small device out of his pocket, mumbling, “Can’t wait.”
Geru’s body began to change.
“By Aheya, he’s huge,” the new alpha Ra-human said to yesterday’s alpha—now the beta—when Dragon shook some Ra-human garment off his talon and growled. “Almost as big as Risp. And look at those claws!”
“But I believe he’s able to convert his carbon into graphene as efficiently as Hassine used to do,” the beta said. “And he combines the excess iron in his blood with carbon for the steel of his claws.”
A nauseating odor filled Dragon’s nostrils. Next, he heard angry hissing and wings swishing. The hangar gate opened, and a swarm of giant, two-headed, unnatural bats filled the enclosure. They had powerful steel jaws and daggerlike teeth.
The bats gathered in midair above Dragon’s head and watched him with red, rotating eyes.
“Attack!” someone shouted from outside.
The bats descended in unison with their alpha, which was as big as Dragon, leading the way. Strangely calm, Dragon launched himself up. He could feel the wind beneath his wings. It lifted him, carried him. Breaching the black mantle of sharp-toothed bats and sending a few crashing to the ground, Dragon rose above them. He sucked in a big breath of air and blew.
For the next moment, it rained bats inside the enclosure as the creatures dropped with deafening thuds, shaking the ground.
The alpha bounced off the chain link wall and charged Dragon. As they collided in the air, the bat’s massive jaws closed around Dragon’s throat, and its swordlike claws scored gashes on his sides. Dragon scrabbled at the beast, finding himself in free fall. The bat pressed its jaws down harder, clinging to Dragon, trying to pierce his scales.
Contorting his body, Dragon drove his own claws into the bat’s back. Opening its mouth wide, the creature emitted a shrill, ear-piercing scream. Its grip on Dragon loosened.
It would be easy to shake it off now, except… Dragon glanced down. The paved floor of the enclosure was flying into his face, a dizzying blur of stone and blood. He made up his mind and sank his fangs into the bat’s throat while tucking his talons somewhere under its ribcage.
They hit the ground together, Dragon landing on top of the bat and crushing it beneath his body.
“See what he did there?” The Ra-human beta turned to the alpha, shaking with excitement. “He used the bat to cushion his fall!”
“My new super weapon is a fine tactician,” the alpha said with a smug smile.
Dragon climbed off the bat’s carcass and looked around. Most of the swarm were dead. A few flailed and whimpered, broken in multiple places.
“Well done, Geru,” the alpha said to Dragon, manipulating the object in his hand. “Now sit back and let my cyborgs clean up the mess.”
While a score of Ra-humans dragged the bats into the adjacent hangar, the alpha turned to his second. “He’s strong. And not just physically. The poison our man had given him on Norbal didn’t work. I couldn’t maintain the connection.”
“We’ll try again, Your Grace, with a bigger dose.”
The alpha nodded. “What’s next for today?”
“We’ll make him fight on the ground against armored combat vehicles and cyborgs,” the beta said.
Six mechanical beasts—large, heavy, encased in iron—rolled into the enclosure. They surrounded Dragon, lifted their rigid trunks, and sent fire blasts at him. His scales deflected most of the heat. His body absorbed the rest.
Dragon roared with anger. Why can’t they leave me alone?
He drew in an enormous breath and blew. The beasts reeled, flipped over and rolled back until they smashed into the metal fence, denting it.
“Let’s see what you can do without flying or blowing,” the alpha said, locking his gaze with Dragon’s.
A few dozen bulky Ra-humans poured into the enclosure in formation. The ones in front held tall shields. The ones behind them wielded weapons.
On the alpha’s order, the men aimed them at Dragon and hit him with many fiery jets. He deflected all, his body temperature rising more. Some of the weapons sent lightning fast metal projectiles at him. They felt like needle pricks when they crashed into his body and clattered off his scales.
Dragon tried to soar above them and blow, but he couldn’t. An unbearable pain erupted in his head and forced him to stay where he was.
As the men tried to circle behind him, he attacked, using his talons and jaws, and lashing his powerful tail. In a fit of blinding rage, he tossed them against the chain link fence, crushed them to the ground, broke their shields, armor, weapons… bones.
“Enough!” the alpha shouted. “Everyone stand down.”
Dragon froze, his mind aflame, his blood boiling, but his muscles refusing to flex.
The men who’d remained standing, picked up the ones on the ground and rushed from the enclo
sure.
“What do you think, Your Grace?” the beta asked.
“I think…” The alpha surveyed Dragon before turning to his second. “I think Geru here has taken us several years—perhaps a whole decade—closer to our goal.”
The beta gazed at his alpha, infusing the air with a sticky smell of suppressed longing.
“Are you going to follow the same protocol as with Risp?” the alpha asked him, failing to respond to—or even register—the beta’s desire.
Shouldn’t their roles be reversed, Dragon wondered absently, his muscles still petrified and his mind detached. The beta was the larger specimen, heavier built, no doubt stronger. Yet, he bowed to the other man. The Ra-human ways were a mystery to Dragon.
He should work harder to decode them, to grasp at least some of the subtle meanings and unspoken understandings that governed their lives. His mate was Ra-human. She cared for him—he knew that—and their bond was strong, but sometimes he felt he wasn’t living up to her expectations. As if he couldn’t give her something she needed from him.
He’d ask her, Dragon decided.
As soon as he was free from the control exerted over him by this planet’s alpha, he’d vault to her. He’d ask her about his failings, ask her to help him give her what she needed, be a better mate to her.
“Yes, Your Grace, the exact same protocol,” the beta said. “We’ll condition him every second or third day in his alt form and let him recuperate in his Ra-human form. The pre-alt form is of little value, so he won’t stay in it beyond the transitions.”
“Excellent.” With a nod, the alpha patted his second’s arm. “Keep up the good work, Chev.”
After he left, the beta picked up the small object he’d used to control Dragon. But instead of releasing him from his stupor, he made him turn to Ra-dragon and then to Ra-human.
Geru found himself outdoors, naked, and clueless. Yet again. Cyborgs came into the fenced yard, gave him a pair of pants and a shirt. He pulled them on.
How long had he been here?
It seemed like a few seconds… but it had to be much longer, seeing as the red sun had reached its zenith. On impulse, Geru touched the side of his neck, expecting to find an insect bite or a scratch, not that he could explain why. But his fingers encountered only smooth skin.