A Leg Up II --- Chapter Four

A Leg Up II

A Post - Transformative Tale

Chapter Four

Just the Facts

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 As we sat there, the hatchlings continued squirming and calling out, prompting me to remember some of the words that the dragon mothers in the council were saying to calm the one I had seen. I recognized the little visitor from last week by his markings, so asked Edge to let me see if I could try to calm him.

  While the little one grasped me while nibbling on my ID hanging from its neck-strap, began repeating some of the words from then, soon he was calming and sleeping with a purring sound. A surprised looking Elsie and Edge began to do the same with equal results.

  A few hours later, the bomb team started sending out bits and pieces of dismantled hardware, carts filled with wiring, followed by blocks of C4. As worrying as these were, soon the squad was bringing over fork trucks that came out with 55 gallon drums of explosive! Someone had been formulating big-time, as they carted past us, one drum slipped slightly but didn’t move further. I gasped, as Draco sniffed saying “Tritonol filling in those”.
   
  “Were we far enough away here?” I asked him, getting a side to side head-shake from him.

  The little one, sensing my heart racing, put a paw closer around my neck to give a different sound which started immediately relaxing me. I looked down and his eyes were open, looking to mine. My smile made him go back to his regular purr and grip, amazing. My thoughts turned to how little of the memories from my earliest days were with me now, I hoped it could be so for these little ones.

  Soon the chief came over to sit in front of us, exhausted. Suddenly all four hatchlings pulled away to swarm onto him, as he laughed and smiled, while they started nuzzling plus the sounds. Elsie was shooting this with her phone-cam.

  The chief said “Agent Edge, please call Homeland security, they had an arsenal in there you would not believe- also have them flag CIA. as you can see, I can’t get to my phone! Agent Elsie, please call US Marshall’s to book the next possible trip on the Jailbird back home for 6 agents, plus 12 witnesses.”

  Finally the all-clear from bomb squad came by noon and the EMT’s went in along with the sheriffs who would release the caged couples. Chief gave us the heads up to go in to bring all the incubating eggs outside.

  I carried the last one as Zorath borrowed a bomb squad cart and had most of the rest on it, along with a few in our agents grasp. We began placing them into one ambulance as the driver said to us “Hey, this vehicle is only for live patients or deceased, you can’t bring those in here!” As if on signal, one egg cracked as a small head lifted the shell up partway, peering out at us. “Any objections now?” I said to the driver, who rolled his eyes and said “Happy Birthday” then waved me to the van.

   Stepping onto the ramp truck the next morning, the cargo door on the Jailbird opened for us revealing smiling muzzles of Dr. Crazikc with his volunteers... good thinking! They could start with those captives earlier now.

   Over the next week, more information from the Alabama site reached us back in Chicago, the owners of the farm were arrested in another state, they had fled a day before our arrival. The site was a centerpiece of 5 hate groups and some of the surrounding farms were also full of evidence, but no more dragons.

  I was simmering level angry, after talking with the captive couples on the plane and later, it would take a while to cool down. Since the anger seemed to focus on humans, I made a special effort to get the feelings out of my mind.

  As I was cataloging yet more data on the case, Zorath walked by and stopped, asking “Agent, are you getting taller?” I replied not that I was aware of. He shrugged then went about his day.

 Later in the day, I measured the height, just to satisfy my... he was right , almost 4” taller... plus, while using the steel yardstick, noticed that the outermost of my four digits on hands and feet were withering. Looks like a call to Doc Chellis was in the day’s plan.

  I was on the phone making that call as Edge came by, when he pricked up his ears, stopped then sat on the desk top. After hanging up I zoned out, contemplating what Brad had just told me.

 “You gonna be Ok?” from Edge.

  “Probably, but not fully” I replied. He crossed his arms as in - spill it, all of it.

  On my asking the Doc noted that a small number of dragons were having minor “adjustments” in parts of their physiology, with the most extreme ones being called “TF2” as in Second Transformation. Usually these were involving a shift to larger size to some degree as well as color and markings changes. I should keep him up to date on height changes, plus any color or markings shifting. Elsie had eavesdropped also then put a paw on my shoulder saying “Meh, there will just be more of you for us to love!” I blushed heavily as she snickered and said “Now here comes the color shift!”, with Edge smiling. They were right though, this was not the end of the world, but it might be a big change to it that was coming soon.

   Later that night, at home, I noticed that my clothes were getting harder to fit. Looks like a visit to the store coming up for those. As I passed through a doorway to the Kitchen, banged my head on the top of it and while turning around, wedged my tail behind me. Hoped I wasn’t going to the realtor after the clothes shop!

   It was a Wednesday morning, which meant time to head over to the Medlab for a venom extraction. Our second surviving venom donor was being kept under guard up in Canada, close to the Doc plus their team.

  Entering and signing in, I made my way upstairs to the donor room. This room was specially fitted as a dragon research center, there were elements testing chambers plus a group of diagnostic imaging tables. I knew how to sit into the machine I was to use inside a ventilated booth to deal with any fumes given off. A lab tech hooked up the hoses then secured the mouthpieces while we chatted idly.

  “Good thing you dropped by today, Russ- we might run out of Venin concentrates otherwise,” said the tech.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, we are having a hard time locating our big source flask, with 5 gallons still aboard - for some reason’” he replied. This was something serious but he was being rather light heart-ed about it. That much, equivalent of two weeks of my donations, could in the wrong hands kill or transform thousands of humans. I decided to finish my extract quick, then do some investigating here.

  About halfway into the procedure, the air valve opened, which only did so as the gland reached empty, sure enough, the sacs were empty as both the tech and I felt them. Another mystery  for today as this would be my third one of the week, while I had noticed that the safety hood over the booth could barely close this time when I had entered it also when leaving.

  I had the tech come with me while we went to the lab manager explaining the missing flask. Room after room, Lab after lab our search went on, we had to be sure because what was coming next was drastic. It was well into the afternoon when we simply failed at our last place it could be to find it. There was a lock-down now in place but the last anyone could recall the container being sighted was a full day earlier.

 I placed a call to the chief to get the alert underway. Someone was carrying about a weapon of mass destruction, to who knows where. The lab manager had done a calculation on the amount remaining at last inventory. Enough to cause 4,000 fatalities or 10,000 injuries, or give the city a 12 hour nap. Another potential was approximately 7500 transformations; human - to - dragon. This last would require about 80 pints of draconic blood type V or L, sure enough, both were missing in quantity from their blood bank.

  All the agencies were there plus a news blackout was in place soon after. It was going to be a long week!

   The case grew cold after some days, no trail could be uncovered.

   I was searching the computer down at the Bureau not long after when I noticed a report from China of a mysterious death, a subject found covered partially in scales with digigraded feet, but a normal head. This came up as a dead end though, from those investigating...oh crap, here we go.

   Another similar death in New Jersey and in Brazil during the next week. An email from Brad arrived after I had posted him on these noting that it was likely, in his opinion, that the black market pharmacists were trying not to simply formulate transformative serum, they could do that without fatalities. Instead, he was pretty sure that the chemists were trying to synthesize it, so it could be mass produced!

   I dialed his skype to ask him if it was possible to synthesize the compound.

  “Russ, we have been using synthetic serum here at my lab in Canada for the last few months in all transformations. The donor venom is now dedicated completely to vaccine plus other research for human and veterinary applications since then.” he replied.
 
  He added that they had not any fatalities in their own synthetics program, so the reports that I gave him indicated that the bootleg chemists were likely trying to go beyond a simple human to dragon transform.

  “So what are they doing to cause test subjects to die?” I asked.

  “Because they are probably trying to enhance the strains or breed of dragon that are possible,” he said.

   There was a long silence between us followed by him saying “I’m Sorry, Russell”

   “Not your fault, Brad” I replied. All he had ever wanted was to give some of us a leg up, but now the human mind was going to turn the tools he had created instead into giving society a big kick in the head, or the pants.

  “While I got you on the phone, Russ...are you experiencing any more TF2 since our last chat?” he asked, breaking me away from comprehending the darkest scenarios.

    I noted that I was sitting at my desk without a chair, just sitting on the floor like the chief does in order to still use the computer. I was putting on wingspan at twice the rate of my body plus had turned in my car keys back to the Bureau yesterday, no way to use it. In 60 to 90 days, I would rival the chief in size according to Draco’.

   The Doc was reasonably sure that I would not expand beyond that size, given the study of the fossils that had started this whole ride originally. As he hung up later, I wondered how big a dragon could get if you were purposefully trying to make one that way?

 I called the Doc back asking him to meet me tonight in the council chambers as we were about to leave for the day at DBI.

  Sometime post-midnight central standard time (USA) I zoned out to find my way to the hallways of the Council, when I next ran into Mr. Compas. We shared a few recent observations and while waiting for Brad to arrive, I updated him on our case of the missing venom as well as the dragon-mill.

  “Getting to have a dark side to this dragon adventure, huh? he asked.

  “No, Ethan... its more about getting to see a dark side of what HUMANs are all about,” I shot back, at the sssame time hitting a few deep breaths. He noticed my calming exercises so just smiled. Some notes for my next visit with Dr. Crazikc to be sure. A sudden flash of an idea or theory, was my anger with humansss driving me to go into TF2, or was TF2 making me angry about humans?

  “Let me try to lift your spirits a bit”, he said as waved for me to follow. Soon we were in the music conservatory rooms, which I had been trying to take a look at the last two times I visited, to no avail.

  Music was always a passion, it was something that I am sure both human and dragon could agree on as being essential in a having a good life. Here were songs and instrumentals from several galaxies all in one area. A few student musicians were here studying wearing headsets. The room was essentially quiet because of this, so it might look as a library or a accountants’ chambers by eye.

  Ethan offered me a headset, white to match my scales, then said to prepare for amazement. He picked up a red colored headphone set, which matched his scales, plugged both into a console then leafed through a book, stopped while simply waving his hand over a page.

  I had to sit, my knees were getting weak. It was the most relaxing yet uplifting sounds I had ever heard, my eyes closed while images formed. At the end of the 4 minute piece, I opened my eyes to see Doc Chellis standing in between us with a huge grin.

  Taking off our headphones, we turned to him as he said to us “Best medicine there is, I highly prescribe it and use it whenever I can.”

  We talked about all the genres of music here, I was sure that I could get lost in here for a lifetime. Often in such moments there is a mental snap where you almost look on a moment as too good to be true then the next thing you hear triggers it so you simply try and move away to another topic, afraid of going deeper into exploring that wonder all at once.

  For me it came when Doc next said that in a conversation with a music student here some weeks back he was told something remarkable.

  Other societies could in fact use music, or more scientifically tones and beats to guide the mind along with physical sensations,... yes... even initiate species transformations if listened to deeply enough.

 While Ethan simply smiled in amazement, I gasped in fright. So someone could literally bring an mp3 of this to earth to plug it into the internet plus the sound system at the Super Bowl halftime to just sit back to watch the planet grow scales!

 Hah! leave it to me, Mr. Agent man, to think of something so beautiful in concept as a potential sneak attack tool!

 Then I remembered that when we have visited this world, we could only take back what we remembered as having seen, not so much as a piece of paper or a disk drive or anything else could go along. So we were safe back on Earth, until a musician or an orchestra conductor visited here then went back home, sitting down to write....

  Ethan reminded me that I had something for the Doc so he gave a parting gesture then returned to the hallway. My cue to focus then talk about the idea for setting up a simple stake - out, right here.

  “What I would like to do Doc, is have you suspend all human to dragon transformations for about 36 hours starting at noon tomorrow.” I began.

   “Sure, most of those who are there to have the procedure stay for five days, so a day and a half is okay, as long as we catch up the time afterwards. What will it do though?” he asked.

   “Well, as you remember, anyone who enters dragonhood, does so into that hatchlings room down the corridor here, just as we did. I plan to sit in there for 12 hours with another Agent the next 12 following. We’ll leave 6 hours on either side so that we swap Agents when areas least populated on Earth swing by. With your group shut down, the only arrivals here from Earth will be hatchlings - and those transformed outside of your operation.” I said.

   He nodded, saying that he hoped to at least find how many rogue transforms were occurring. To keep me asleep for a full 12, Doc would email a prescription to Chicago tomorrow for dragon size tranquilizer tablets to be ready!

   I was still unsure of what to do on this stakeout though, confront them for questioning, or just tally how many- if any. As I sat down in the chamber of arrivals the next day, it was still in my mind what to do, so I guess it would just be a wing-it moment if it happened.

  By the 8 hour mark, just a few hatchlings, none Terran, so I was feeling both better but also disappointed. As 12 hours came by then passed , I decided to just stay as long as I did not wake up at the other end. Soon Zorath appeared, so we sat together discussing more of the mill’ case to keep me focused.

  About at my 16 hours point, a full dragon appeared. We both looked at each other then I made the call, lets greet him, but not as agents, just new friends. As we stood up, I faded back to Earth into my bedroom! Just great!

  So, I sat there on the edge of my bed for awhile then realized that Zorath would simply do what we were going to do, afterwards would sit there until his shift’ was done.

   Down at the Bureau the next day, I awaited him until Zorath arrived about mid-day.

   With the squad assembled in the chiefs’ office we went over what happened after I departed. With a simple greeting, Zorath had attracted the newcomer then asked him to sit and enjoy himself. While they chatted about everything, Zorath gleaned that the individual was from Denver, Colorado- also had been asked by a friend to have his transformation in the US versus going to Canada. But the name of the friend or the individual who did the injection were not forthcoming.

  While they had their chat a stranger sat near them who turned out to be one of Arghenib’s scryers. The new arrival faded after a few minutes followed by the scryer giving Zorath the location on Earth the new dragon was at during his visit. As I thought, Zorath stayed the rest of the time plus a few hours then returned. We huddled over the monitor as the geo coordinates went into Google Earth and ... huh? The pointer was in the middle of the parking lots for Mile-High Stadium. We found a web cam showing the lot was empty, as we suspected, it wasn’t the season for Bronco’s games.

 Whoever it was, probably did the procedure in a van or RV parked there. Was likely that it could be a different parking lot each time, since it was the goal to be untraceable. Enough was known about transformation along with the aftereffects like the council visit publicly for our perpetrators to take this extra step.

  The result was we knew that the formula was out now plus likely to spread. It had been a safe transform, the visitor to council looked intact while he spoke alright to Zorath. We would work remotely with Denver PD alongside the DEA on this as “Transformatives” were now quickly placed on the controlled substances list. We each quietly knew however that even if we caught one operator, another would just spring up. Like narcotics, Transformatives would be impossible to stop if someone was willing to buy them.

  A way to keep safety in the picture was that Doc Chellis dusted off a plan he had for this eventuality opening a clinic in the US while making the procedure free of charge, pulling the rug out from under the imitators. It was one way that potential users could be given a quick mental screening before the injection, as was the procedure all along.  

  How essential this step really was became evident in the days ahead...

  Each Wednesday, there was an all-agents meeting in the chiefs’ office, an hour to go over the past week, plan what we could of the next. These were both boring but necessary, so we all crammed in and began. The missing venom case was still cold as were the bootleg transformations business.

  Edge provided an interesting bit of new information from a friend in the Army, soldiers were being screened about their desire to become dragon troops if needed in future. Draco noted that this was probably being done to provide a response to when other nations began fielding their own scaled legions. One more of Doc’s greatest fears, coming soon to a planet near you...

  The desk phone rang, with the chief talking for a few seconds while turning to uncover a buried TV monitor in the corner. He turned it on, selecting a news channel, saying to his caller “Thanks, we got it” then hung up.

  It was a frightening banner plus crawler as images of what looked like an air battle being captured from a news helicopter. There were A-10 jets with gunship helicopters swirling around what looked like, a large black dragon!
On the banner was “Demonic Dragon Scourges the Skies”, the location of the event- Gunnison, Colorado.

 As we watched, the creature deftly shook off the jets following him then turned on a pursuing Apache helo and covered it in fire as the crew ejected. With a swish of its tail, it smashed the rotors off a second one with ease. Ducking into a cloud, he emerged again to pull the tails off an A-10 as another fired a set of small missiles that glanced off the wings of the black nightmare before exploding.

  The remaining jet circled away from the dragon protecting the descending parachutes in case the dragon were to try for them. The predator had however disappeared into clouds again. The news helicopter crew scanned the skies looking for any sign as one of them said “Lets get out of here, we’re alone!” The copter banked hard only to present the crew with an oncoming maw of teeth....   =Signal Lost=  audio for a few seconds more, screams, crash sound, then static.

  Replaying the video, Draco paused it to find a scene with a jet near the dragon, it was three times the length of an A-10 Thunderbolt! My question about how big you could grow a dragon if you tried to was answered.

  While this was being examined the chief was on the phone, hanging up the call, he announced “We have a ride to Colorado, everyone to assemble at Midway in 30 minutes, Move!”

 Assembling on the roof, the last up was Draco carting a big load of items off the elevator. He had been busy building body armor for us, including the chief plus some big carry cases to bring along. The vests would not offer much protection from those claws however.

  Edge shouldered a vest plus a case and was ready to leap skyward when the chief said “Stand fast agent, put on your armor now, everyone, I have a feeling about this.” We donned the gear, picked up cases then dove from the rooftop.

  The chiefs’ worries were borne out as we were fired on from buildings in the city., by the time the shots reached us, they were very much spent so just stung the wing hide or thudded off the armor, but the thought was there... we were the enemy now. Was this black dragon a maniac who had bought a dose of the altered serum to fulfill some fantasy of theirs or was it a human supremist, trying to turn one species against the other?

  We did not descend to the airport in fear of gunfire so arrived high over the field and corkscrewed down to the ground while over the runways. As we landed, a group of National Guard surrounded us, for our protection but trained as many rifles on us as the protesters at the airport fence. There were jetliners at the terminal evacuating passengers into the building. Until the threat was better known NORAD had grounded all flights, the first time since that 11th of September...

  Out of the hangar came a gray C-17 transport plane which stopped ahead of us, lowering its rear cargo ramp. A pilot and load-master appeared then waved us to board the jet. As we climbed up the ramp the Captain said “We will air drop you over Petersen AFB, north of the attack area. That is the closest we will get you.” We nodded as the co-pilot also turned to the cockpit but turned back to us saying “I have friends who are Warthog (A-10) drivers at Petersen... if that scaly buzzard hurt any of them this morning, there is no place on this earth that you can hide,” waving his hand at us. The Pilot shouted for him to return to his job.

   Leveling off, our transport with a pair of F-15’s became the sole air traffic over the US, heading directly west changing height every few minutes while occasionally zig-zagging to offer a less than easy target.

   Draco opened the first of the carry cases. We were going to deal with very thick scales along with a possibly quick regenerative anatomy, so he brought the big stuff. Normally the big bang available to us was the standard Barrett .50, but the rifle he brought for each of us was the Thunderstrike, the next step up in sniping technology, likely to be the last non-railgun weapon in armories. The “Strike” fired a caseless ammunition using a propellant that was classified, putting velocity into overkill. When fired on our outdoor range, it registered on University seismographs. One for each of us except the chief, who would carry the Mk 495 Minigun with its own special rounds. We also swapped our standard sidearms for his HVUS pistols with hypermag shells. In the open air, these devices that could shred a neighborhood (why they were seldom cleared for standard enforcement) might save ourselves in the air. We had to be able to hit from outside the reach of those claws along with most of the fire.

      Beside these were some special shells filled with tranquilizers plus others with poison. “Why do we need these, when we got the Venom-King with us?” said Zorath, patting my shoulder.

  “Tell him why, “ the chief asked me.

   I said, holding up my upper limbs, which had lost an outer claw fully ”Besides the 4th digit, my venom glands have also disappeared, as of last week..” Another casualty of TF2.

   We refueled in the air, then gained height, getting behind a weather front to hide us. The F-15s were gone, replaced by F-22s, stealth jets.  

   We began to discuss our plans as the time drew near.