D.R.A.G.O.N

Chapter 1

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. I had heard of them before from Father. Old tales about winged beast that breathe fire. Who would have thought that I’d be able to see them for real? From this position on the summit, I could see them squirming down below. They were huge monstrous beasts. Nothing I could have imagined; completely different from all other animal life we’d documented. There were three…four…six of them down below. Each one a mass of raw power and ferocity. They had arrived three days ago. At first, it was just the one. I assumed it was just a large animal not typically found in this region, but after some subtle interrogation of Father and Mother, I had determined that this wasn’t any creature that we had any consistent information about.

That first night, I witnessed the fire. I had wandered out of the encampment to sit and watch the constellations, a typical pastime for me on a clear night. I had heard something. A distant clicking and then the flame. A huge blast of fire into the sky. It was so dark in the Valley that it could have happened in any variety of ways, except I saw it. The shining face of the dragon illuminated in the orange background of the flame coming from the beast’s mouth. Even from this distance, it was clear that it was a face, but nothing I had ever heard of could breathe fire. I asked Father and Mother the next day about creatures with the ability to create fire from their breath and while they were confused as to where I had heard such things, they did tell me of ancient lore humans used to have about dragons. Ancient tales of heroic people who fought fierce dragons for glory and honor, tales of greedy dragons hoarding gold in caverns, tales of their thick hides able to repel spears and arrows, tales of strength so powerful that a single swipe of their tail could drive a third of the stars from the heavens.

I was safe here, but if I wanted to get a good read, I’d have to move much closer. Maybe even…close enough to touch one. That was a crazy thought. Of course I couldn’t…wouldn’t! Wouldn’t touch one. They ate people…or at least, in the stories I’d heard, they weren’t particularly partial to humans. So little so that sometimes they became snacks. Then again, those were just stories. No one who lived actually ever saw a live dragon. This was a new discovery. MY discovery. The last thing I’m going to do is hand it over to another person to take all the credit and toss me in as an honorable mention. “Yeah, that settles it. I need to get into the Valley,” I said convincing my body to shift and start making my way down the steep path. The dragon’s hides glinted in the sunlight of the Komoran. These mountains had been around for at least a million years. Our camp was just on the other side of its summit. It’s my job to check on the terrain to ensure that no dangerous wildlife starts coming towards our encampment.

The summit was the safest place for humans. Everything else lives just below the Timberline…for the most part. We usually don’t have to deal with dangerous creatures. Just curious ones. Very infrequently we get the hungry pack of wolves that manage to sniff out the scent of our camp and become bold enough to take a look. Wolves are scary, but they’re easy to be rid of with our pneumatic gear. The nitrogen reclaimer provides us with a conceptually infinite source of energy for our pressurized tools. I paused after traversing a hundred feet or so down the Alpine zone. I lifted my wrist to check the BC; my Blanar Calculator. It calculated a distance of 5.23 miles and with my average pace, which it was also capable of calculating through machine learning algorithms that had been tracking my movements since birth, that I should be able to make it down to the valley within approximately four hours. I was certain that I could shave off some the time, but considering that I will have to be more careful in the Colline zone near the dragons to not get eaten, it might actually be accurate. There was no way the BC could detect the dragons from here. To detect any object or lifeform, the BC needed to be at least within 20 yards of the subject so that it could capture LiDAR data and a holoanalyses. I tapped the monitor a couple times to calculate the return trip…7 hours. I looked up at the sky. Cirronimbus clouds scattered the skies in the distance; acid rain, but that wouldn’t be a problem until tomorrow once they combine into a Supernimbostratus. As long as I don’t get stuck out here in the night, I won’t have to worry about being melted. On the other hand, because such a devastating storm was on its way, I was almost guaranteed that there wouldn’t be any particularly dangerous wildlife wandering the Montane or Colline zones. But that still begged the question. Why did the dragons emerge from their legendary habitats? I intend to find out.

I made the next hour count. Carefully, but swiftly stepping and climbing down the boulders of the Alpine and making my way through the wooded areas leading towards the Valley. The brush became much thicker at about 1600 meters so I stopped to check my satchel. I grabbed my pen. Arguably, the most important tool in the human repertoire. I checked the tip to ensure that there were no blockages and then removed the back cap to analyze the battery. As useful as the device was, they were terribly finicky and held components that were easily destroyed, particularly by loose electro-charges and shifting magnets. Mine, however, was still in pristine condition. I checked it every day for sanity. You never know when you’ll need it, and let’s be honest, anyone who has to travel outside of the encampment would perish without one. If they encountered any hungry animal willing to take a chance on a tasty human snack, the pen would be the one tool even a child could count on to save their lives. I pointed the pen outward and double tapped the side of the pen to set the mode and clicked the cap. A short high pitched charging sound emitted from the pen and with a burst of energy, the nega-plasma emitted. It stretched outward about two feet; that’s what I had set mine to. “Nega” was the abbreviation for “negatively charged.” Having negatively charged plasma allowed for the control of the plasma beam through powerful ferrodymium magnets which created a sort of vortex of magnetism that rotated the beam in and out in a convection, but never losing control of the particles. The length could be set with a maximum of four feet, but usually those lengths were only used for security systems to protect the camps in the event that animals did wander into the Nival. That was typically reserved for bears, but in the months when they were out of hibernation. Two feet was enough for me to burn through the brush and branches along my projected path as if they were bits of paper or gnats to a flame. I continued forward stepping down the Montane towards the Valley. The Colline was just as dense, but, for the most part, I could step over a lot of the brush and the trees were well spread out so it wasn’t as treacherous, except for the pit viper that I disturbed as I walked across the forest floor.

I heard the hiss merely a split second before it was sinking its venom into my ankle. I stood frozen in place and looked down. It was a vicious yellow with spots like a leopard and a head with horns spreading towards its back. Like a mini dragon…based on the stories at least. The shield on my ankle pulsed a dim blue repelling the snake inches from my skin. I lifted my BC and tapped through the options to the analysis tab. I pointed the sensor down at the snake and hit analyze. It sent out a laser scan and a second later showed an image of the snake with its information.

“Fer-de-lance,” I said to myself looking at the info. “Injects 105mg of venom per bite on average…deadly dose…50mg.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise looking down at the creature. “Death in a small package.” I reached down and grabbed its body. The snake immediately swooped backwards mouth agape and shot down on my hand…or inches from it. The shield kept it from breaking skin. I moved it close to my face to observe the design and spines. It slithered and struck frequently attempting to end my existence. I reached up with my other hand and caught it close to its head and peeled its mouth open to observe its fangs; two nearly transparent curved needles less than a centimeter in length dripping with venom extended from the top of its mouth, two much smaller fangs sat at the bottom jaw just as sharp and also curved inward. “Clever adaptation,” I said to myself. “Anything that it latched onto would instinctively attempt to move away but with the curvature of the fangs inward you’d keep a tight grip and probably trigger the venom glands to inject even more venom into your victim. Fascinating.” I knelt down and gently tossed the snake a few feet away. It hissed again at me and held its ground for a moment. Curiously, I watched. It turned and began to slither away almost immediately blending back into the forest ground and becoming nearly impossible to spot even before it slid under the brush. “What a hazard,” I said considering the dangers that humans would have to deal with without anti-gravity amplifiers.

I considered this thought as I made my way down towards Alt-zero. Mother had told me a story once about how humans once very long ago considered gravity to be a force of nature. They thought that gravity was something that happened because of massive objects and escape velocities. They were partially correct, but they didn’t quite understand that gravity wasn’t just the pull of large celestial masses, but all mass; like the gnats that find themselves constantly falling into the face of humans. It’s not that they want to land on our faces, it’s just that our mass compared to their own is comparable at a certain orbit to anything falling from space towards the earth; we pull them, whether we want to or not. And the only thing moving away from them does is create the kind of gravity that ancient humans were familiar with; displacement. We warp the liquid space as we move from one position to the next and those low mass creatures have no choice but to fall towards the cavity of space until excess space fills it in, but that just leaves them in approximately the same position relative to the dodging human and thus they still fall onto our faces. What future humans learned from that annoying lesson, however, was that there is a small force exerted once that space is filled; like the splash of two opposing waves. With that small amount of force, the gnat gets pushed back or, more accurately, away from the human. Through some small, but targeted, sound technology it became possible to very inexpensively synchronize to and amplify a person’s natural resonance, or gravitational pull and then reflect that. Add a bit of energy to that frequency and you can amplify the sound and by proxy, the force, hence our force shields. Of course, the initial products were…considerably loud. But luckily, humanity already had noise cancelling technology which was immediately applied to cancel out the frequencies while leaving the shield intact. It made life for humans on earth much safer. It still can’t protect the clumsy from the injuries of falls or significant force damage, but something as low mass as a snake? No problem.

This seemed like a good moment to take a break and rehydrate and make a meal. I sat on the ground and tossed my satchel over my shoulder onto my lap. I reached in and pulled out the pouch of H2O; in this form it wouldn’t be drinkable. Pure H2O is hazardous for consumption, everyone knows that. Drinking it in this form would cause significant irritation to my mouth and body and would likely incapacitate me for most of tomorrow. For that reason, it was important to check the pouch for any punctures. It any existed, I would have to reseal the pouch before popping the pneumatic seal that would drag the lingering minerals and elements from the atmosphere into the pouch to mingle with the H20 making it potable. No damage. I nodded and took hold of the ring for the pneumatic seal pulling it. It hissed and the pouch quickly inflated. A second later, the motion stopped. I shook the pouch for good measure and then opened the cap bringing it to my mouth. There was nothing quite like the taste of potable water that is only moments old. The taste is indescribably fresh. We still don’t quite know what it is, but there’s something in the atmosphere that mixes with water that has a half-life of 5 minutes before its decay exponentially modifies the taste of water. After about an hour the change in taste would be so insignificant that there would be no distinguishable difference between water drunk then or after 50 years, but between zero seconds and ten minutes it tasted divine. Neutrinos was my hypothesis, but I never had the chance to investigate it, plus, H20 was a precious commodity that we couldn’t afford to be experimenting with just to figure out why it tasted better in its infancy as opposed to its “matured” state; potable was potable after all.

As I made my way through the Colline, I saw the edge of the woods in the distance. Obler’s paradox went through my mind as I stared just beyond the last tree at the bits of short grass that started the Valley. Excitement welled as I neared. My heartbeat heavily in my chest with anticipation and a bit of fatigue. I checked my BC. 149bpm. Acceptable. I continued forward as quietly as I could. The crunch of the leaves and branches underfoot gave me anxiety; what if the dragons heard? Would they run? Would they fly? Or more terrifyingly…would they fight? None of those scenarios were particularly good for me. In any case, I wouldn’t be able to gather any data on the dragons to bring back to the encampment. I gulped and stepped through the woods taking great care with each step to ensure not to encounter any scenario, but especially not the third. Something glinted in the ahead. Silvery. I stopped and waited looking around and hoping to catch sight of what it was. The sound of low clicking of machinery followed by a screech of grinding metal. I waited, my eyes darting from side to side. Nothing more. The wind blew shaking the leaves and brush. I decided to step with the wind to reduce the sound of my footfalls. It seemed to work, at least from my perspective. I moved with the wind and when it stopped, I stopped. As the trees became more infrequent and started to open up to the new biome, I slowed and hid behind a tree to gaze out into the Valley.

At first I didn’t see anything, but a few moments later just beyond the bounder, I saw the glint. The creature stepped from behind the stone into the open; its body even more massive than I’d imagined. Its hide reflected the sunlight and the sky like a sheet of aluminum. It was silver and reflective. After a moment of stunned silence, I pulled up my BC and tapped the interface. The scanner was just within range to get a read on the creature. “Unknown” read the BC. I furrowed my brow. How could it be unknown? I tapped the re-analyze button. “Unknown.” What could that mean? I looked back at the dragon circling its area. I looked back at the BC and tabbed through the data to see what else it could provide. “Primary Element: Sn, Atomic mass 11.8.71, Density 7.31 g/cc. Tin?” I looked back up at the dragon. It craned its neck towards the sky and spread its wings outward; the width of this creature had to be at least thirty feet. At this moment I realized something pivotal about those ancient stories. Dragons weren’t living creature. They were elementals. The movement of its scales across one another generated a gently screech of grinding metal. I looked back at the BC tabbing to the electrical analysis page. There is was! “Power source: Nuclear” Astonished, I looked at the dragon. This was a machine. Which meant that it was built by other humans. But more fascinating than that fact…it had to have been built by ancient humans. That means that this creature shouldn’t have the typical tendencies of other animals; things like territorial, aggressive, driven by hunger, fear of humans. Fear of humans wouldn’t exist in a creature created by humans. A machine created by humans. I looked at the BC and tabbed to the bio pane. 166bpm. “Yeah, that’s about right,” I said to myself. My heart was racing as I considered my next move. I stepped out into the light of the Valley walking a perpendicular path to the dragon’s perspective.

The dragon’s head snapped in my direction. I heard the sound of charging pneumatics, much like the ones we used in the encampment. The dragon suddenly lunged forward towards me, its feet crushing the ground beneath its feet as it quickly closed the distance between us. Its mouth opened wide as it neared and I could see the gears churning inside and glowing orange. The dragon stopped mere inches from my face; the heat from the chemical reaction happening in some compartment uncomfortably close. My eyes were closed in the moment I thought it might clamp down and sever not only my body, but my chances of sharing a significant discovery with my people. There was a silence.

I opened my eyes to the sight of the intricate gear work and shifting metal. A familiar red light appeared from somewhere within the dragon’s mouth. It was a scanner! It scanned my face and after a moment, the gears wound down and the dragon slowly stepped back closing its mouth and stared at me. I hesitantly stepped towards the dragon. It watched me though eyes that appeared to be mother of pearl with something I couldn’t quite make out. I stepped to the side. It followed me with its head, but didn’t make any other movements. I gulped and stepped towards the dragon again raising my hand outward towards its nostrils. As I reached it, the dragon moved its head forward to meet my hand. It was freezing to the touch. I pulled my hand back at first as my brain deciphered whether it was cold or that I’d been burned. Realizing that it was just cold, I reached out and touched it again rubbing my hand slowly up its face. I looked into the dragon’s eyes; it stared back at me with a calculated look. More specifically, it was actually calculating. There was a rudimentary perception module installed in its iris; a sort of camera, probably, infra-red, that could detect light and heat, I assumed color on the visual spectrum, but this dragon wouldn’t be able to detect things that LiDAR tech could like density and thereby see though things like wooded areas. This truly was a piece of ancient technology, but by the looks of it, it was practically brand new; not a scratch in sight as if it could have been created yesterday. Moreover, despite its age, the likelihood that anyone in the encampment would be able to disassemble and reassemble this dragon was non-existent. This was dark age tech. Things that humanity had forgotten when we first set sail for the outer planets as millennia ago.

Global warming had caused the catastrophic meltdown (almost literally) of the planet. For a long time, humans called it Climate Change, but I don’t think they were aware at the time that climate change was just the catalyst for the warming, which raised the surface temperature to rates similar to Venus. It wasn’t long before Earth became uninhabitable, but by then, a number of space colonization efforts had been launched. What we know of that period of time was that the world did eventually unite in an effort to preserve humanity, though it was a little too late. The colonies managed to acquire enough resources for survival on other planets for at least a couple millennia with some of their reclaimer technologies, however, due to various unforeseen difficulties, many colonies were lost to the excesses of space and the inner terrestrial planets, most notably the gravitational event that wiped out a fourth of the fleet when Planet X, a theoretical planet within the Sol system thought to be only myth actually returned from its long orbit and passed by Mars pulling the ships out of their geosynchronous orbits and crashing them onto the surface of the dark planet. It’s assumed no one could have survived, but I like to believe that some might and that we’ll find them again someday. That left the Luna colony ship as the sole survivor of the human race. Several quiet centuries past with advances in technology and science while thermal dynamic equilibrium corrected the effects of global warming on the surface of Earth. Four generations ago, my great grandparents lived up on the Herodotus when a stray asteroid struck the hull and forced an emergency landing. As grandmother told me the story, they had two options. Crash on Luna, or crash on Earth. They couldn’t be sure that Earth was ready to be inhabited again, though it had started looking more like the Earth of old, but the other option was the barren desert land of Luna and with that option the only thing humanity was guaranteed was starvation. They had placed their bets on Earth and it looks like they made the right choice. “What are you?” I asked the dragon pondering its existence. I heard gears spinning up again and then a series of clicking. This seemed a bit different from the clicking I heard earlier. These clicks were more systematic…as much more systematic as it could have been coming from a mechanical dragon. No. This sounded like…like language. There were recognizable silences between clicks and some patterns could be discerned. “Morse code?” I said aloud. That would be brilliant! I reached down to my BC and tabbed through to the language screen. Even though all people spoke common now, what records we managed to salvage from the Herodotus when it crashed on the Komoran included a complete Rosetta Stone of the existing languages of Earth including ciphered communications. I hit the translate button. The BC showed me an ellipsis as it began to translate the communication.

“D.R.A.G.O.N 66935A/SN,” It read. “Go Live: 06/04/2022 Life Cycle: 1288y Status Report.” Another set of ellipses as it continued to click out its response. “Anomaly detected 07/04/3286 – Significant increase in tectonic shifting in Nazca and South American plates. Collison imminent. Projected magnitude 13. Collateral Nearby Volcano – Cerro Gaucha Magnitude 7. Assets Secured. Directive: Self-Preservation. Updated Directive: Human Preservation.”

Suddenly, the dragon stood up tall on its hind legs and reached its wings outward. Its sheer size covered the light from the sun hiding me in its shadow. The dragon’s mouth opened and a series of high beeps were emitted. This sounded like the satellite systems that we had in the encampment. They were designed for the sake of determining whether any ships had survived so we could communicate if any passed by Earth, but after hundreds of years, it was more white noise than anything useful. I heard a stirring just behind the dragon. I moved behind the dragon, which maintained its position and saw another dragon emerging from what appeared to be a cavern; this one was gold. Another dragon followed it. I pulled up my BC’s analysis tab. The second dragon was Gold, followed by a Beryllium dragon, then Copper, Bismuth, and Vanadium; all massive, all magnificent. They stepped slowly towards the Tin dragon and surrounded me.

They didn’t show any sort of hostility like the first dragon did. It must have communicated the existence of humans to the rest. The tin dragon stopped its broadcast and looked down at me as the rest did. I looked around at them; this was amazing. I had to get them back to the encampment. I looked down at my BC. I almost considered typing out a message to relay, but then I realized that if these were human made machines, then even if they couldn’t communicate in common, they should be able to understand human speech. “Can you transport me somewhere?” I asked. The dragon didn’t respond, but it lowered its head and wing to the ground. I walked over to its side and stepped on the wing, hesitant at first; I didn’t want to hurt it. It was a weird thought. The metal under my foot was cold and hard. There were certainly no nerve endings or blood keeping this creature alive. It probably couldn’t feel anything. I sat on its spine and grasped the spikes on its back. “Take me to the northern summit of this mountain…please.” I said.

The dragon’s insides hummed and vibrated. I felt it vibrating through my body and into my bones along with a slight warmth. The frequency increased as a much louder roar sounded and the dragon lifted off the ground. I couldn’t see it from my vantage point, but by looking at the other dragons, I could see that they had some form of jet propulsion within them that lifted them off the ground as their wings remained fixed outward. The dragons yawed themselves towards encampment and after another engine wound up they blasted off towards the summit. The sheer force nearly caused me to lose my grip. That would have been a terrible end to this adventure. The air flew past me as I watched with amazement at the ground receding below and the sun dropping behind the southern summit. This must be what humans felt like the first time they lifted off the ground for flight.

Within moments, we were at the summit. I instructed the dragon to head to the encampment. A few seconds later and they were hovering over the encampment slowly lowering themselves to the ground in the center. I looked around spotting many of the crew members cowering in their homes, but peeking out to see what was happening. Father and Mother too were within our dwelling looking out. They locked eyes with me. As the dragons landed, the tin dragon lowered its wing and I stepped off and ran towards home. Father and Mother stepped outside and walked cautiously towards me. I could see Father wanted an explanation, but he was too stunned to ask. I assured him that the dragons weren’t dangerous…“well, at least not to humans,” I said remembering how the tin dragon nearly ate me the moment it saw me, but there was no way I was going to tell him that.

We walked out to the dragons which sat and glanced around at the crew as they stared to emerge from their dwellings and surround them carefully observing and inspecting them. Someone even boldly knocked on the head of the Vanadium dragon. I half expected it to swallow him and grind his bones in its gears, but that moment of held breath past when he wasn’t eaten alive. Pretty soon Mother and Father had their BCs out like the others as I explained how I had initially spotted one of the dragons a couple days ago and then decided to investigate today. I then told them about how I’d already run preliminary analyses and about the Morse code and voice recognition software these dragons were installed with. Father looked at Mother. “A cataclysm?” He said concerned. She nodded grimly. He looked at the dragon. “How long do we have?” he asked the dragon. It didn’t respond. He turned to me. I turned to the tin dragon and relayed the question. The dragon ticked its message. I glanced at Father. We both understood in that moment that they had imprinted on me. I was their owner now, for whatever than meant. I checked the BC. “Countdown 00:04:06:23” I showed Father the message. He turned to mother moving my BC so she could see it as well. “What are we going to do?” Father asked. I turned to the dragon. “You said your directive was updated to human preservation. You must have had an idea of where we could go to preserve the human species,” I said. “Can you take us to somewhere safe from the cataclysm?” The dragon reared onto its hind legs again and began to signal the other dragons. They all whirred and buzzed and then propelled themselves off of the ground into the air. They moved closer to each other and shifted their forms merging and connecting at various points until what was left was a single giant spaceship hovering above the encampment. A side door opened and the ship hovered lowering a platform to the ground for entry. I looked at Father and Mother mischievously. “Ever ride a dragon?”