A Leg Up II --- Chapter Seven + Conclusion

A Leg Up II

A Post - Transformative Tale

Chapter Seven

Stellar Leg

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True to Doc Crazikc’s prediction, Yours truly along with most of the other recipients of TF2 simply adapted to life for the second time then went on about our way. In hindsight, it was actually the one remaining slice of normal we each probably had at the time. This was because the Earth was quickly changing ...not the planet, but the forms that lived on it.

  After synthetic transformation came the audio actuated method, which was uncovered in the Council’s music library. The subject of transformation widened far beyond dragons to include most of the anthro’ genre and in a wide variation of both the degree of departure from human plus the mixtures of different creatures with it. The sky was pretty much the limit now.

  A few things remained the same, the sun came up each morning and after 24 hours, returned to that same spot in the sky. There were still the 9 to 5, traffic jams, classes, exams, workdays, bills, taxes, and all the rest.

  Dodging any promotions down at the Bureau while still wondering what to do next, my main focus was training new agents on arrival, getting them set up for an ever wider array of cases.

  A new routine began to set in, which could only mean one thing... something new was coming along to shake it all up again.

   It started like any other Tuesday that I could remember, me with my new partner Bryce DragonBac were working the day watch out of Central, following up on leads in a wolf-gang shooting...

  As Bryce was bagging evidence in the crime scene, I was checking other parts of Grant Park for witnesses. Since the gang was a faction that was national, we were assisting Chicago PD. on this one.

  “Rex, you about finished down there?” called Bryce from the mobile crime lab.

  I nodded then started back toward him from a pair of witnesses that had been questioned.

  B’ was placing bags of spent shells in the lab, over 50 of them, each cataloged and marked.

  “Why can’t they just bite each other like they used to?” I commented as he bagged up all of the dropped guns and lasers from the case next.

  A flat chuckling sound from Bryce was the reply, he was just starting to un-focus as the lab van closed up then it pulled away from the curb.

  “Whats’ next, Boss?” from B’. I was about to, as usual, say that we needed to get back to HQ to catch up on all the paperwork we were ignoring. Chief Elsie had her limits as to how much of that we could get away with!

   A scream rolled over the park from the direction of the band shell near the corner of Columbus and Jackson’.

   Taking wing then coming in low over the trees we were surprised to see a young dragon that had his foot snared and tied, while a small group of boys, both wolves, cats’ and humans were jeering while pushing him around.

  “Bullies!” Bryce snarled. We had seen enough of these to have the response down pat. So while the Park patrol  was the responsible group, we certainly didn’t mind stepping in. Zero tolerance for what they were doing.

 Landing behind them, I latched onto two of them while B’ corralled the other two.

  “Are you alright?” I asked the dragon, getting a small nod.

  “Wait there, we’ll help you get that trap off safely.” I continued.

  Bryce had called the juvenile division to send a van over as I had a decision to make. The wolfen anthro youngster had not been harassing the victim, plus he was not acting with the group. I had hoped B’ had seen this.

  “Rex, the one in the blue shirt was not participating, you wanna’ set him aside?” I gave him a nod, good catch, B’ I wanted to know more so the wolf was going to join me for a chat, along with the Dragon.

  The Cat bully yelled “Why do you want to let him go?” while pointing to the wolf, then saying “Sure you guys show up to protect a dragon, but where were you when I was getting my butt kicked last week?

  Facing the Cat, Bryce responded “Ok then, when we get to juve-hall, we are going to talk with you all about that incident as well. Besides- who says we were here to just protect a dragon? He showed a lot of restraint in not torching your clothes off or worse.”

  “This bites! “ yelled the human in my left grip, taking another swing at the dragon and missing.

  “No, actually its’ when your parents find out, is when your day gets flushed down the toilet!” I replied, adding “By the way, what did the dragon here do to you?”  He chose not to say anything. I was ready to listen, too- these stories can have as many sides as participants.

 Bryce asked the group the same thing, no answer. The van had arrived he would ride with the 3 Stooges downtown. I could now be freed up to carefully open the sling on the young whelp, which had not caused him permanent harm. Making a motion for the two to follow me, walked over to one on the bench seats and had them sit there.

  Soon had both names, Billy for the Dragon and Jason as the wolf. The wolf had not joined in because he felt it was wrong but was too scared to do anything beyond stand there.

 “That’s all right Jason, you did what you felt was right, so if you will make a statement, you can do more about this event,” I said, getting a nod in reply.

  I turned to the other “Billy, could you tell me anything about what these kids were upset about to attack you?”

  “I used their fountain,” he said.

   “As in WATER fountain?” I asked in return, to which he nodded. I remembered as a young boy traveling in the southern US, seeing a few of the last drinking fountains marked as “colored only” and “white only” before they thankfully disappeared. No such segregation of anyone was present today, but apparently a few, including these gang youngsters thought differently.

   Pulling out a tablet, set the app for statement dictation as we now had plenty to start with. While going down the list, I found out from Jason that he was also not allowed to use certain facilities at school by the gangs...

   “Like being this way was my choice!” Jason blurted. Uh ohh, a family transformation, I thought.

  There was a growing problem with children in families with transformed members. The growing and developing patchwork of laws were very lacking on a good policy for minors with regards to transformation.

  With the newer methods, the minimum transformation age was down to 7, but it was the matter of consent that was tricky. Parents could in fact have their children transformed if they wished it (the family unity clause- which tended to weaken families in reality) for them. On the other hand a child interested had to wait until 16. Not exactly level, is it?

  Jason looked really upset as he related more details about his lot in life. Fascinatingly it was Billy who tried to comfort him about this, relating that he too was a famtran’ so he knew how it must feel. A brave new world for kids, something I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams at their age.

  Turning to Jason, I noted “Jason, I’ll let you in on a little preview, here. I know the Doctor who started the whole transformation concept, in fact I was the second dragon to begin with. The doctor knows about your feelings as well as a few others like you, so in not long a time, will have a transformation serum that can have you fully human on your 16th birthday if you decide for that,” I said. He seemed to brighten up a bit, hearing of this.

  “All right you two, I need to escort you both home according to my procedures, so I tell you what, lets fly there, if you are ok with a dragon-ride, Jason?” I said. He smiled and shook his head, delighted. “Good, you can sit at my shoulders then hold on to the utility belt at my neck and I’ll secure your feet. He jumped on getting in position, while I asked Billy to follow alongside.

  We were airborne while turning along the downtown to gain height before heading over the tall buildings when I heard Billy and Jason talking about video games then one commented that he was playing the hunger games’ these days so the other noted he was too. I broke in with “Why is that?” to which Billy said that the bullies barred “lizards and dogs” from the cafeteria. I rolled my eyes then asked about bathrooms, nope they were going outdoors! More for my report...Just then I heard two stomachs growl and they were not mine.

   “Who’s up for an Ice Cream float?” I called, getting two yes votes.

   “Follow me, then- Billy” as I turned towards that donut shop atop the Prudential center.

   Landing there, we nudged through the crowd of Chicago PD to reach the counter where we had a pair of seats for the boys plus a clear spot for me. While the sign was donut, they had an excellent soda fountain as well.

   The Counter Server, Dave came over saying “What can I get you, Agent?”

   “Three Barq’s floats for me and my junior G-men here!” I smiled. He grinned then went to prepare our snack.

   While waiting, I noticed a Lung Dragon of Blue scales with yellow mane and scutes on the stool to my left in CPD uniform. “Shinkou-San, good afternoon.” I said as he turned and replied “Hi Rex, whats new?”

  “Well today, I’m helping out juvvie Division- it looks like. You still on the Chinatown beat?”

   “Oh yeah, plus Little Tokyo as well, now.” he chuckled. His radio crackled a message then he replied, while standing. He bowed to Dave, asking him to put it on his tab, getting an ‘ok’ hand sign in reply then giving me a pat on the shoulder before he sped off.

   Jason asked “Are you guys always on duty all the time?”

 I smiled then borrowed a line from Chief Robinton and said  “We’re never off-duty”.

 After our order arrived and we began, a human came over to sit in Shinkou’s spot while asking Dave a few questions. He was dressed in a trench coat/duster with a matched hat. Later as he left, with a coffee to go, it wasn’t on the elevator but he stepped onto a really fascinating anti-gravity type of motorcycle then took off.

  “You know him?” Dave asked, to which I said no. On my asking he said the man’s name was Blake Tyxamous and he was asking for information about where the Australian Embassy was! I creased my eye ridges as Dave showed me what the stranger had paid with, what looked like solid gold coins! As Dave swung them back from in front of my eyes, he crossed them over my watch making the radiation detector jump. (Why do we have radiation monitors on our bureau issue watches? Well I could tell you but then I’d have to eat you!)

  I looked at the display learning the coins were a gold isotope in fact, plus were also giving me both a Tachyon and a Polaron reading!

  For my notes, I wanted to meet this “Tyxamous” character again.

  After we finished, I escorted Billy and Jason to their homes then returned to the office. That school of theirs was my next phone call, to inform them of the cafeteria and bathroom aparthied going on under their noses.

  Paper work was next...

  Ironically, although I couldn’t know it yet, those three bullies were my last case as a DBI agent, and in retrospect- one I was very glad to have a claw in.

  The Universe had decided that my life was apparently too sedate and orderly once again so it had something new in the works...

 Some days, I do a little something I used to do as a human. At the end of shift, while my contemporaries would charge toward the building exits like they were the bulls at Pamplona, often I would just sit back a bit to think about the day plus what it had been. Not too long though, just for ten or fifteen minutes. Enough for the parking lot to empty out.

  So as the sun was setting, I took a seat atop the fed building, watching Chicago come alive for the night shift. Watching the streams of lights chasing down the highways while in the air, the dragons moving in their two’s and threes. I hoped that Billy and Jason could get their acts together, being a teen and young adult was no picnic, not even in my day.

  I watched Draco step off the elevator but instead of a spring into the air, he walked over casually to sit down by me. “Thought I might find you here.” he smiled.

  Just a nod from me, as my voice was pretty well spent by now.

  “Just thought I would say goodbye, while getting a quiet moment,” he said.

   Finding more voice, I asked “Where to?” Thinking he was maybe returning to his firearms firms after having a few years of Agent work.

  “Alpha Draconis Seven” he smiled.

  “Where is that ?” I asked, highly suspecting Silicon Valley in California.

   He pointed up then said “Find the big dipper up there and use the two end stars in the bowl, now draw a line through them about then go five times the distance that the two stars are apart. Go for that five times in the direction of up from the bowl.”   I soon had that located, there was a bright star there, so I nodded.

  “All right, that is the north star or Polaris, now trace from it a similar  but smaller shape as the big dipper, remembering that polaris is in the end of the handle. Go to the bowl of that little dipper next.” he said.

  “Got it, although I’m admiring that long chain of stars curling all around it before ending up in a rhombus.” I said.

  “As well you should, as that group is the body of Draco, the Dragon. Our kinda place, just like Chicago is ‘my kinda town’ so anyway, that star closest to the little dipper bowl , that’s Alpha Draconis and the Seventh planet is the actual destination,” he said, followed by “What do you think?”

  “I think you picked the lock into the narcotics evidence room,” I chuckled, followed by him.

   “Would have agreed with you yesterday, but that was before a chat with Arghenib today,” he said.

   Seeing my complete attention turned his way he said that there was now a method of bringing dragons between worlds, just perfected by the mages of the Council. A few of them wanted to try a period on Earth with a similar number of Terran Dragons for exchange were open for those wanting to go from Earth to Al-Drac 7 as it is called.

   “This isn’t BS, is it?” I asked.

   “Nope!” his reply.

 “So, who’s going, so far?” I asked.

   “A lot of us who are already in the research group into their culture. We would be easiest in adapting to their society after all. So far, with me will be Doc Chellis, Captain Larsen, Doc Crazikc, Farm’ and Skyder.” he said. Then he added. “So we still need one more to balance the numbers exchanging, a two year stay but options to stay further.” giving me a very big grin.

  My feet were tingling, along with tail and then everything else.

   “Where and when do we depart?” I asked.

    He pointed down at the isthmus at the Lakefront, with the old ivy-cloaked dome at its end, The Adler Planetarium, while saying “24 hours from now!”

   What a nice touch, a perfect place to depart from, I had thought for a second it would be a bad choice like the departure lounge at O’Hare or something like that, but this was inspired thinking. This spot would become the next Plymouth Rock.

   “Could I sleep on it?” I asked.

  “Sure, we can even discuss it in council too then!” he reminded. He turned and took off after a nod.

   Found that I was quietly laughing and shaking my muzzle in amazement.

   Life was just a roller coaster ride sometimes.

   In many ways I was still getting used to being an older fellow,  then a dragon, next a Canadian, finally a government agent, plus a bigger dragon, and now .... to decide.

   Hang around here or take the next leg up ?

   wayyyy up.