Domesticating Dragons Page 13

  Okay, so he was a little hungrier than I thought.

  I’d reasoned that with all the reductions to physical traits, he might not have the same appetite as our prototypes typically did. Swing and a miss on that logic. He was an omnivore like most of our dragons, but he must have been starving to resort to processed grains. It wasn’t the mess that really bothered me, but the silence. If he’d given up on the cereal and gone looking for better food, where was he? Half-chewed cereal pieces formed a trail that led around the counter, out of the kitchen, and straight at the balcony.

  Did I lock the balcony door? My heart plummeted even as I stalked across the living room and fumbled it open.

  I stepped out into warm Phoenix sunset, scanning the horizon for a little flying form. At the same moment, it occurred to me that I’d had to lift the latch to open the door, which meant it couldn’t have been closed from the outside. So there really wasn’t a way he could have been out here. Which meant the cereal-breadcrumbs were a red herring.

  Or a trap.

  I spun around at the door, which I’d left half-open. Dark green wings spread wide as Octavius shot through the gap toward me.

  “No!” I jumped and caught his legs. He came down thrashing, battering me with his wings. I cursed and clung to him long enough to charge back inside. I tossed him at the couch. He caught wing and tried a U-turn on me. I kicked the door shut in time for him to slam into it. He screeched in indignation, flung himself at it again, and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  “No, Octavius,” I said. “You’d die out there!”

  I collapsed on the couch to catch my breath.

  That had been a close one. If he’d gotten out and flown off, I doubt I’d have found him again. Nor did I think he’d be able to pick out my balcony from the hundreds of others like it in my condominium complex. I could hardly go posting “missing: Illegal Dragon” notices around the neighborhood. Not unless I wanted Fulton to show up at my door.

  Once the panic subsided, I dug the last of the frozen pork out of my microfridge and sliced it into dragonet-bite-size pieces. Octavius played dead on the floor, but his tongue betrayed him, flicking in and out at the smell of the raw meat.

  “Come on, I know you’re hungry.” I set the bowl on the floor and backed off three paces, so he wouldn’t feel threatened.

  After another minute, he revived miraculously, and scampered into the kitchen to devour the still-frozen meat. I wanted him to stay so badly, but not because I forcibly kept him prisoner. Here he was a day out of the shell and had already manipulated me into nearly letting him escape. Something that clever wouldn’t be foiled for long, especially since I had to leave every day to go to work. I needed him to want to stay.

  I cleaned up the cereal mess while he ate. We kept looking at one another without being obvious about it. The weird sudden tension between us made my shoulders ache. I retreated to the couch and started drawing up the plan to better secure my condo. Octavius wolfed down the rest of the meat and waddled in from the kitchen. He didn’t try to climb up on the couch this time, but circled and stretched out on the floor, just out of arm’s reach.

  “Feeling a little gun-shy, huh?” I asked.

  Not that I could blame him. Being manhandled and thrown bodily back into my condo undoubtedly represented the most traumatic thing he’d gone through in his short life. That’s assuming the destruction of half my pantry hadn’t traumatized him. I’m guessing it hadn’t.

  He seemed so morose that I felt like I should offer something, anything, to give him a glimpse of freedom. “Tell you what. If you promise not to try and escape, we can watch the sunset out on the balcony.”

  He perked up and trilled an affirmative with the carefree enthusiasm of youth. I slid the glass door open and went first. Then I had to use all the self-restraint I could muster as he crept out after me and looked up at the open sky. He hopped up onto the other plastic deck chair so suddenly that I almost grabbed him.

  I forced myself to breathe as he settled down to watch the big orange heat-lamp drop below the horizon. The deep longing on his face was a powerful thing to behold. Freedom and blue skies pulled at him in some primal way.

  I watched him out of the corner of my eye, weighing his too-short claws and too-small teeth against the harsh environment of the Arizona desert. He wouldn’t last a week out there. No matter how clever he might be.

  “Listen, buddy.” I made my voice as soft as I could, like I was trying to talk Jane down from one of her episodes. “I know that you’d love to go out there and fly free. But you never find your way back to my condo.”

  He lifted his head and chirped three syllables at me; they sounded eerily like yes, I would.

  “It’s not safe out there. Especially for a little guy like you.”

  He cocked his head while I said that. Either he didn’t understand the words, or he thought I was a total moron.

  “This is Arizona. Everything out there is dangerous, and you barely have teeth or claws.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I was the one who’d reduced all his normal dragon features, basically to prove a point.

  He crooned a soft, plaintive note and laid down again. Which only made me feel worse. He’d probably never be able to do much outside, certainly not without me watching over him.

  I sighed. “Sorry, buddy. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  His gaze wandered away from me and to the glass door, which glowed with the ruddy haze of approaching sunset.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Disturbing Signs

  When I shared the good news about cracking domestication, Mom forcibly invited me to a celebration dinner in Tempe. Connor was still living at home while he finished engineering school, so I didn’t mind going. I got there early but didn’t see his car. Maybe he was out somewhere, gallivanting around. Getting home late for dinner. Such a slacker.

  My mom opened the door on my second knock. “Hi, honey!” She squeezed me into her usual too-long hug, an embarrassment mitigated only by the unparalleled aroma of roast beef.

  “Smells good in here,” I said. “Where’s Connor?”

  “Where do you think? In his room.”

  “I didn’t see his car out front. Did it break down again?”

  She looked away from me. “We sold the car.”

  “The Conmobile! You’re kidding me.” I shook my head. His junker was the only vehicle that made mine look decent. “Why?”

  “He doesn’t drive so great anymore. It’s hard with his legs.”

  “He’s never driven so great, if you ask me.” I brushed her off and went to give him some crap about it while the insults were fresh.

  His door was closed. From beyond came the muted sound of machine-gun fire, interspersed with Connor yelling out orders. I banged on the door. “Con Air!”

  The video game went silent. “Yes’m?” he called. His own version of yes ma’am.

  “I’m coming in, so turn off the porno.”

  I shoved his door open. The room was cleaner than usual, which meant Mom was cleaning it for him. The only mar on the cleanliness was a series of pockmarks all over the carpet, almost like footprints, but round. A grin found its way to my face. “What, are you doing a pogo stick in—”

  Then I spotted the cane leaning up against his chair, and the barb died in my mouth. “Shit. What happened?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just temporary. Been having some balance problems.”

  I didn’t buy that. When someone with a muscular disease needed support, it was only temporary until they needed something more. “What about the physical therapy?”

  “I’m taking a break from it.”

  “It’s supposed to help you keep your strength up.”

  “Then you do it.” He tugged off his headphones and flung them on his desk, where a monitor flashed the words you are dead in bright red letters.

  I didn’t want to pick a fight when I’d just arrived, so I nodded at his monitor. “Is that Halo 16?”

>   “It’s Halo 17.”

  “You dog! How did you get early access?”

  “It’s been out two months.”

  “Damn.” I’d essentially given up video games to focus on my thesis work, but I still missed them. “I didn’t even realize.”

  “It’s probably for the best, since you’re not that good at it.”

  Oh, I know he didn’t. “I think I have a few minutes to remind you who’s the alpha brother.”

  “Bring it on!”

  We played for probably half an hour, during which time Mom opened a bottle of wine and shouted increasingly slurred threats down the hallway. At last, I set down my controller with an air of finality. “Must be your lucky day.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, dude.”

  I couldn’t resist a parting shot. “Can you gimp it down to the kitchen or do you need me to carry you?”

  “Psh.” He grabbed the cane and let it clunk me on the head on his way out to show what he thought of that. Then he raised his voice. “No, Noah, I’m not playing another game. Mom’s waiting for us!”

  Judas. I cursed and scrambled after him, but he beat me to the table and left me with most of Mom’s ire.

  “It’s half cold already,” she said.

  “Looks amazing, Mom,” I said.

  “It really does,” Connor said.

  “You’re the best cook in a hundred miles, I’ve always said it.”

  “In the entire state, if you ask me.”

  She tried to keep frowning at us, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward. “I expect clean plates.”

  “You bet,” I said.

  “Noah’ll even do the dishes,” Connor added.

  Double Judas.

  The second dinner ended, he compounded the betrayal by claiming he had a study group session. He disappeared into his room, and I swear I heard the sound of distant video game gunfire. I didn’t want to abandon Mom, though, so I cleared the table while she loaded the dishwasher. I double-checked to make sure he wasn’t within earshot, then lowered my voice. “How long has he had the cane?”

  “About two weeks. I insisted, after he kept falling.” She was careful not to make eye contact.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know how he is.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s only temporary.”

  I gave her a dubious look. We both knew that was a lie. “Any luck with the clinical trials?”

  “Dr. Miller has a resident monitoring the registries for us.”

  That meant no, he hadn’t qualified for any. And he’d continue not to qualify, as long as his mutation has its “uncertain significance” status. I didn’t have the heart to voice the thought, though. The whole situation sucked. It really did.

  No one was going to fix it for us, either. It was all on me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Customization

  To be fair, work was keeping me busier than ever. I’d hardly settled in my chair in the lab the next morning when I heard the click-clack of heels approaching.

  “Good morning, Noah,” Evelyn said.

  “Morning,” I said. I wished I’d stopped for coffee. If she was on me this early, it meant a long day.

  “We had some new orders come in.”

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  “Jesus.” A single custom dragon usually took me a few hours. I was looking at a two-day workload, at least. “Did we have a sale or something?”

  “The new ad campaign rolled out.”

  “Of course it did,” I muttered.

  Build-A-Dragon’s customization program was currently the company darling. It allowed us to squeeze the maximum revenue out of one-percenters, the kind of people who could afford not only to buy our dragons but have them customized to their whims. The enormous profit margins for those underwrote our whole department. Every new marketing campaign brought a deluge of custom orders. These went into a queue of sorts, and Evelyn’s team took them pretty much at random.

  “Which order’s the priority?”

  “They’re all the priority,” she said.

  “All right, then pick two.” I knew it would make her crazy. In Evelyn’s perfect world, I’d get them all done at once, in record time, and she’d bask in the praise of the company board. But a good dragon design, a worthy design, didn’t happen instantly.

  She consulted her tablet, which was hotlinked into my workstation. She pulled up the order queue on my monitor, scanned the entries, and highlighted a couple. “These two,” she said. “They’re new customers and paid for express delivery.”

  Express delivery was something of an inside joke at Build-A-Dragon, but I didn’t say as much. We might get to the orders a little sooner, but designs took a certain minimum amount of time no matter how quickly a customer wanted them. Then again, if someone was willing to pay extra for the appearance of a faster turnaround, Build-A-Dragon was more than happy to let them.

  “I’m on it,” I said.

  “I was also wondering if you’d like to develop another prototype.”

  “I like the custom jobs,” I said, by way of avoidance. In truth, I was a little gun-shy after she killed the design that produced Octavius. Despite the early morning wakeups, I’d already taken a shine to the little guy. But I couldn’t exactly tell her how I’d gotten the market research, so I had to let it go. “They’re keeping me plenty busy.”

  “The customs are important, but they’re short-term jobs. We need to think about the larger plan, and that means new prototypes.”

  I sighed. I’d have to pay the piper sooner or later. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking a long-range flier.”

  “Ooh,” I said, betraying my eagerness. There was something inherently fascinating about a dragon that could fly. Korrapati’s short-range suburban flier—called the Harrier—were pretty good at it. The high metabolism gave them a lot of energy, and we made sure their bodies were light enough that they could maneuver as well as any bird. We were already shipping a lot of those, especially to urban areas where a smaller dragon made sense.

  The long-range flier prototype was another story. O’Brien and the Frogman did their best, but because of the infamous point restrictions, the largest flying dragon got the smallest brain. The so-called Pterodactyl flew decently enough during our field trials to get the thumbs-up for manufacturing, but no one thought to point out that these took place in a large open space out behind the building. Soon after it hit the market, we learned that the Pterodactyl had a frightening tendency to crash into stationary objects.

  Some genius had started an internet petition to rename it the “Terribledactyl” and collected a thousand signatures. Sales plummeted, and they pulled the model from our catalog.

  “It’s an obvious gap in our product lines right now. Customers want a dragon that can fly faster and farther.”

  “Without crashing into things?”

  She cracked a hint of a smile but forced it away. “It won’t be easy, Noah.”

  “Not with the point limitations, no.”

  “You’re good at solving problems. You showed that with the trifecta.”

  She knows me too well. But my mind had taken a different tack already. A long-distance flier would necessarily have strength, agility, stamina . . . traits that might be useful for other purposes. “I suppose I could give it a shot.”

  “After the customs.”

  “Right.”

  “Thanks.” She click-clacked away.

  I sighed and got to work. The first custom order was a household dragon. Small frame, slow-growing, and a coloring that came right out of a five-year-old girl’s imagination. It took a certain kind of overindulgent parent to throw down the cash for one of our dragons and let it be pink with white polka dots.

  I opened DragonDraft3D on the computer and started a basic flightless Rover model. We had walkthroughs and prel
oaded configurations for dragons like these, but I liked to do them by hand. That way every dragon had the mark of Noah Parker on it. Maybe one day that would be worth something.

  This customer wanted a mild temperament, which meant tuning the oxytocin receptor to high efficiency. No claws, obviously, so I knocked out a few keratin genes. I trimmed back the growth time on the scales so they’d end up small and pliable. Pigmentation came next. I have to admit, my fingers fought me on the colors they’d requested. Pink and white just felt wrong.

  Every step I took, I ran through the biological simulator to ensure viability. Dragon biology, malleable as it might seem, required a delicate balancing act. Since I’d curtailed the physical traits, I could have given the birthday job a larger cranium, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. Intelligence contradicted loyalty in dragons, and this one would need a lot of love. Especially once it got a look in the mirror.

  I hit the Print button, and the God Machine got to work. Ten minutes later, a hot pink egg slid out on the conveyor belt.

  I shook my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Wong chose that moment to pop his head over the divider. “Very nice, Noah Parker!”

  I groaned. “It’s a custom.”

  “You should get a matching shirt.”

  “Get back to work, will you?”

  I opened another window on my system to make sure hatchery staffers had gotten the transfer request. I had to get that thing out of my line of vision as soon as possible but Build-A-Dragon didn’t want designers so much as touching the eggs. It was hard to argue with them about not trusting me with fragile objects, though. I spilled something on my desk or my person about once a week.

  Two white-garbed hatchery staffers appeared a few minutes later.

  “Hey guys,” I said.

  “Hey,” they answered, in a distracted sort of way.

  The hatchery staffers had grown even more obsessive in their care of dragon eggs since business picked up. Then again, they did spend a lot of hours in the relentless heat of the Arizona sun. Dressed in stifling white jumpsuits, no less. Anyone who did that every day was bound to end up a little sun-touched, as they say.