The Last Dragon

by James Riley

  Fort gave Rachel an annoyed look. “First, she’s not imaginary. Second, I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet today, but she told me she’d be ready when the time came.”

  “You can trust her,” Jia confirmed. “But we need to know for sure she’ll be here at the exact right moment. If she’s late or doesn’t show, then we’re all going to get kicked out of school, if not something worse.”

  Cyrus held up a hand to interrupt. “Ah, I think we’re going to have to cut this short. Something’s about to happen.”

  Fort stared at him. “Something like… another attack? Or more like someone’s about to spill their cereal?”

  “And here, students, we have the cafeteria!” shouted a voice from the twin yellow doors leading out to the halls. “This, of course, is where you’ll be eating all your meals.”

  They all turned to find Colonel Charles leading a bunch of kids through the doors, walking backward like he was some kind of tour guide. Strangely, Fort didn’t recognize any of the students he was talking to. Was the school bringing in more students?

  “And to our older students,” Colonel Charles continued, turning around to address those already in the cafeteria. “I want to introduce you to our new class here at the Oppenheimer School. Please mentor them whenever you can, so they can follow in your footsteps.”

  Fort threw a glance at Rachel, raising an eyebrow. New students?

  She shrugged, not seeming to know what was going on either.

  And then Fort caught Sebastian’s eye, and the other boy grinned evilly.

  “Enjoy your lunch, kids,” Colonel Charles said. “I’ll be back when you’re through to show you where your classes will be starting tomorrow.” He nodded as the students dispersed, then walked over to Fort’s table, where everyone straightened up at his approach.

  “Colonel!” Rachel said, and saluted him, then stuck her hand in the air.

  Colonel Charles smiled slightly and high-fived her. “I’m actually here for Forsythe, Rachel.” He turned to Fort. “Can I speak to you for a moment alone? There will be some… changes in your situation.”

  Fort’s eyes widened, and he glanced at the others, who seemed just as worried.

  “Changes?” Fort asked, his mouth suddenly dry. After the attack at the old school, he’d assumed he’d be expelled for breaking so many rules, but Colonel Charles had assured him at the time that he was going to be kept on, as they needed more healers. But now, with so many new students, maybe something had changed.

  “You’ll see,” Colonel Charles said. “Let’s take a walk over to the dormitory. You’ll need to gather all your things.”

  - THREE -

  COLONEL CHARLES LED FORT TO the door as the Chads all clapped ironically. Jia and Rachel both looked worried, while Cyrus gave him a pitying look, which was never a good sign from someone who could see the future.

  Once they stepped outside the cafeteria, Fort assumed the colonel would stop and share whatever was happening, but the man kept moving, walking just ahead of Fort in silence, back to the dormitory. When they reached it, he waved Fort inside. “Grab everything you’ve got here, please.”

  Fort didn’t move. “Are you… expelling me?” If it was happening, then Fort would have to do… something. He wasn’t sure what, but there was no way he could leave now, not when he was so close. If he got sent home, he’d be giving up his chance to rescue his father forever.

  “Expelling? Of course not,” Colonel Charles said, and Fort let out a huge sigh of relief. “But you’ll be moving out of the dormitory here. So do as I say, please.”

  That didn’t make any sense, but Fort went to gather his things, which didn’t amount to much. He’d packed a bag when he’d left his aunt’s apartment almost a month ago now, but the bag had never reached the school, so all he really had were his uniforms and boots. That, and the last thing his father had given him, a brochure of the Gettysburg Address translated into multiple languages. Fortunately, he kept the brochure with him in his pocket at all times anyway.

  The only other things that were sort of his were some old mystery novels he and Cyrus had found lying around in unused rooms here at the new school. He took one he hadn’t finished and left the rest for Cyrus. For some reason, Cyrus loved the books, probably because he refused to use his magic to see how they ended.

  With Fort’s hands full of clothes and boots, Colonel Charles turned and walked back out of the dormitory without another word. Fort took a long look at his home of the past two weeks, beginning to worry again. Where was he going? And why was he being separated from his best friend?

  “Don’t make me wait on you, Fitzgerald,” Colonel Charles said from outside the door, and Fort hurried to catch up.

  The colonel led them through the ugly green halls, down corridors Fort had never been in, which just made him more lost than ever. Thick green pipes ran along the top of each wall, with black wires snaking in and out of them. Here and there, a construction worker adjusted wiring inside the walls, bright blue sparks flying.

  “This bunker was built for Congress, in the event of a catastrophe,” Colonel Charles said, walking Fort past one of the workers. “That was back in the late nineteen-fifties, if you couldn’t tell by the decor.”

  “What are they doing?” Fort asked as someone pushed a cart with two huge metal barrels down the hall past them.

  “Renovations,” Colonel Charles said. “All of the electronics in here were out of date, and we needed communications to the outside world that wouldn’t go out the first time a Destruction student learned how to cast an electromagnetic pulse.” He snorted, and Fort figured that was supposed to be a joke.

  Somehow, he couldn’t make himself laugh. “So the school isn’t ready? I thought classes were going to start tomorrow.”

  “Oh, it’s ready enough,” Colonel Charles said as they passed a horribly carpeted room that looked like it had enough desks and chairs to fit almost five hundred people, all facing a raised podium in front. Maybe that was where Congress would have met? “This was our backup school from the beginning. But ever since the attack, and thanks to your discovery about Healing magic hurting the Old One, we decided to increase attendance. And that required upgrading more of the facility than we’d originally planned on.”

  They passed by another large room, this one with glass walls so Fort could see soldiers inside sitting at computers that at least looked more modern than the rest of the place. He also noticed several televisions around the ceiling of the room, televisions that showed—

  Fort’s breath caught in his throat, throwing him into a coughing fit as he struggled to believe what he’d just seen.

  Colonel Charles paused and followed Fort’s gaze to where the television showed pictures of Damian, the boy who’d been taken over by the Old One, and Sierra, the girl who’d linked to Fort’s mind accidentally during the attack that had taken his father.

  And the text above each picture labeled them as terrorists.

  “We’re saying they’re part of the Gathering Storm,” Colonel Charles said, turning back to Fort now. “It’s a bit easier to say that than reveal that the girl wiped our memories and escaped after waking up from a coma and destroying the first Oppenheimer School. And we do want people afraid of them, so the public will be on the lookout. It makes sense all around.”

  Fort stared at the screens for a moment, then realized what he’d heard. “Wiped our… memories?” he asked.

  Colonel Charles stared at him for a moment, then pulled out a small tablet. “That brings us to the first thing I needed to speak to you about.” He typed something on the screen that Fort couldn’t see. “Did you know we had cameras up all over the base, back at the old school?”

  “Sure,” Fort said, not liking where this was going.

  “Now, during the attack, most of them were destroyed,” the colonel said, then paused his typing and gave Fort a long look. “Most, but not all.”

  A deep chill went sailing down Fort’s spine. When Sierra
and Damian had left, Sierra had wiped herself out of Colonel Charles’s memory entirely, so that he wouldn’t hunt them down while she and Damian tried to find the other books of magic. Clearly something had changed, since Colonel Charles knew exactly who she was now. Sierra had left Dr. Opps with his memory of everything, so maybe the doctor had betrayed them, or—

  Colonel Charles turned the tablet around, and Fort’s eyes widened as he saw himself on the screen, waving his arms around while talking to Damian and Sierra. The three of them looked like they were arguing for a moment, then Damian and Sierra passed Fort and ran offscreen. There was no sound, but from Fort’s perspective, what had happened was pretty obvious.

  His mouth suddenly as dry as a desert, Fort blinked, not sure what he could possibly say here. There he was on camera, letting two wanted magicians go free. At the time, he’d wanted Damian to stay, to get judged for what he’d done—even if Damian had been possessed by the Old One when he’d done it—but Sierra had convinced Fort that she and Damian would never be treated fairly.

  And now Colonel Charles had Fort on video letting them walk. “Uh…,” he said, trying to decide if he should run, and if the colonel could catch him if he did.

  But then Colonel Charles put his hand on his shoulder, and it was too late. “So first of all, I just want to tell you,” the colonel said, “that I’m proud of you.”

  That was it, he was getting kicked out, and… wait, what?

  “You’re… proud of me?” Fort said, his voice breaking.

  “From what I see here, you tried to stop them,” Colonel Charles said. He squeezed Fort’s shoulder, then removed his hand, and Fort almost collapsed, not able to believe his luck. “Considering you had no magic at that point, and both of them could control your mind, that speaks highly of your bravery.”

  “It… does?” Fort said, still struggling to catch up.

  “Not many would have done it,” the colonel continued. “In fact, it looks like you’re the only one who tried. Probably because they’d already paralyzed the others, so they must have assumed you were no threat. Still, I want you to know that I saw what you did, even if like the rest of us, you got your mind wiped so don’t remember doing it. I saw it, and I admire that you tried.”

  “I… I don’t remember it, no,” Fort said, just happy that he wasn’t about to be thrown in jail or something.

  “And don’t you worry,” Colonel Charles continued. “We’ve got agents in the field tracking Sierra and Damian down as we speak. Each agent is fully protected against mind magic, so it shouldn’t be long before we have them back in custody.”

  “Oh, that’s… that’s great,” Fort said. “Where, um, are they looking?”

  “Oh, here and there,” the colonel said. “And don’t worry about not remembering, either: One of these two wiped my mind completely of both of them. I had to be caught up to date by my staff, once we determined Sierra and Damian had gone missing during the attack. Do you know how embarrassing that is?”

  Fort just shook his head silently, not trusting himself to say anything.

  The colonel gave him a sympathetic look, then his eyebrows furrowed. “By the way, Forsythe, I’m told that you were once… connected to Sierra, from when she used her mind magic on you, back at the National Mall. I’m even told you could see her memories while she was in a coma. You don’t still feel any sort of connection to her now, do you?”

  Fort looked Colonel Charles right in the eye, knowing there was only one right answer to this question. “No, I don’t. Whatever that was, it’s completely gone now.”

  The colonel nodded. “As I suspected. It must have been something unconscious while she was in the coma. Now follow me, I’ll take you to your new room.” And with that, he set off down the hall.

  Next to Fort, a brown-haired girl wearing a black leather jacket and ripped pants appeared in the hallway, glowing yellow. “Completely gone?” Sierra said, raising an eyebrow at Fort.

  “Maybe not, like, a hundred percent,” Fort said, and grinned at her.

  - FOUR -

  SIERRA’S MENTALLY PROJECTED IMAGE followed Fort down the hall after Colonel Charles, and for some reason Fort felt much better having her along.

  Where are you two right now? he asked her in his mind.

  “Oh, we’re still trying to get a flight to the UK,” she said, stopping to stare into various rooms. “Wow, this place is old, huh? Glad we got nice rooms in NSA headquarters.”

  He grinned. How’s the savior of the world?

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Give Damian a break. He feels really bad about what happened. And now he’s doing everything he can to make sure we can fight them, if they ever come back.”

  Assuming he’s not the one to let them in again. How do you put up with his attitude all the time?

  She laughed. “You’d be surprised. Last night, I actually almost got him to talk about where he came from before Dr. Opps brought him to the school. That would have been a major victory.” She clenched her jaw, giving Fort her most serious look. “But no,” she said, mimicking Damian’s voice. “I couldn’t possibly burden you with my secrets. The enemy could pull them from your mind, and then we’d all be lost.”

  Fort groaned out loud, forgetting where he was. Colonel Charles turned to give him a questioning look, and Fort coughed to cover it. “Sorry, something caught in my throat at lunch,” he said, turning red as Sierra moved behind Colonel Charles to make faces at the man.

  “We’re here, anyway,” the colonel said, and knocked on a random door in a long line of them in a hallway Fort wasn’t sure he could find again with a map. “Gabriel? Can we come in?”

  “Gabriel?” Sierra said, raising her eyebrows. “Who’s that?”

  Fort shrugged as the door opened, revealing a boy at least a foot taller than Fort, with long dark hair that fell over his face. He was built like a football player, and could probably give the soldiers guarding the school a fight if it came to that. His eyes had dark rings beneath them, as if he hadn’t slept in a while. He saluted when he saw Colonel Charles, and the colonel saluted back. “Yes, sir?” Gabriel said to the colonel.

  “Whoa,” Sierra said, moving within inches of Gabriel’s face to give him a closer look. “Look at the size of him!”

  “Gabriel Torrence, I’d like to introduce your new roommate,” Colonel Charles said, turning to gesture to Fort. “This is Forsythe Fitzgerald. He’s been at the school before, but only for about a week, so he’ll be joining you first-years in class.”

  “He’ll be what?” Sierra said, grinning widely.

  “I’ll be what?” Fort said, much less enthused than Sierra.

  Colonel Charles gave him a patronizing smile. “From what you’ve told me, you had all the magic erased from your mind during the fight against that creature, back at the old school. So now you’re starting over from scratch. We wouldn’t want the more experienced students being held back, waiting for you to catch up.” He turned back to Gabriel. “Forsythe will be showing you around and tutoring you in Healing. I’ve arranged for special access to the magic book for you both, in the hopes that you can eventually catch up to the second-years and potentially join their class.”

  “Tutoring?” Sierra said, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t he know you’re terrible at magic?”

  Right? Fort thought in shock. What is going on? I don’t have time to tutor someone. And I can’t be his roommate! What if he finds out about the plan?

  Gabriel turned toward Fort, who unconsciously took a step back. His new roommate was big. “Nice to meet you, kid,” Gabriel said, smiling slightly, before turning back to Colonel Charles. “Respectfully, sir, I don’t think I need a tutor or a roommate. He might be better off helping someone else.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Gabriel,” Colonel Charles said. “I wasn’t asking. Consider this an order.”

  Gabriel blinked, then nodded. “Yes, sir. Then I’ll do my best to learn from him.” With that, he gave Fort a look that almost see
med apologetic.

  “That’s all the school can ask,” Colonel Charles said, then nodded. “Dismissed. Forsythe, stay out here with me for a moment.”

  Gabriel nodded and closed the door as Colonel Charles led Fort a few feet down the hallway. “Gabriel is a special project of mine,” Colonel Charles said, putting a hand on Fort’s shoulder. “He has… a lot of potential, and I’d like to see what might come of it. For that, I think you’re uniquely qualified to help, Forsythe.”

  Fort just stared at the colonel in confusion. “You want me to tutor him? Why? Was he born on Discovery Day?”

  For a second Colonel Charles looked like he was going to say something, but he seemed to change his mind.

  “No, his birthday is in January,” the colonel said. “However, that shouldn’t limit him any more than it does you.” Behind the colonel, Sierra began making faces at him again. “I’d view this as a personal favor if you’ll take him under your wing, Forsythe. Show him around, eat meals with him, become his friend. But most of all, get him up to speed as quickly as you can on magic. Consider Gabriel your top priority at the school, even over your own studies. Do I make myself clear?”

  What? Who was this kid? “Not especially, sir,” Fort said, more confused than ever.

  “Then consider it an order,” Colonel Charles said, growing irritated. “And if I find out you’re not following my instructions, then we’ll reassess your usefulness in remaining at the school. Does that help clarify things?”

  Fort nodded, glaring back at the colonel.

  “Good,” Colonel Charles said. “Now go bond with your new roommate. Classes won’t begin until tomorrow, so you’ll have plenty of time today to get to know each other.”

  With that, the colonel turned and walked back down the hall they’d come from, with Fort just watching him go, not even sure what to say to any of this.

  “Well,” Sierra said, wincing. “This isn’t going to make stealing the book of Summoning any easier, that’s for sure!”