I put my talon against the lit circle on the machine and then the circle flashes.
“Hey,” I say. “Where’s Tokira?”
The receptionist is busy looking at something on the floating screen next to her scaly green head, like she’s reading something off my talon printout. Without looking at me, she snarls, “Who?”
“Tokira,” I say, flapping my wings. “The dragonette who normally works reception here. I’ve never seen you here before. What’s your name?”
The old dragonette glances up and gives me a look with her hooded yellow eyes that makes my toe claws shudder. Then my eyes’ peripheral zoom feature activates itself just in time to see the dragonette slide an index claw under her console and frantically commence pushing a button.
“Gork,” she purrs, “we seem to be having some problems with your Cadet ID. I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’m going to have to ask you to wait over there at the LavaBar until we can get this cleared up. Feel free to have a lavatov cocktail. It’s on the house.”
She points a long yellow claw at said LavaBar over in the corner of the lobby. But I happen to know the bar is just a front for its true identity, which is the Apprehension Chamber. Lucky for my scaly green ass, I was raised by the demented bastard who drew up the blueprints for this building.
“Yes ma’am,” I say. “I’ll just go suck down a lavatov cocktail while you get things straightened out. Just give me a holler when you need me. I’ll be at the LavaBar.”
I notice her left lid twitches.
And that’s when I bolt.
I explode off my haunches and run like a bastard. I bound right through the yellow smartfoam? security blockade and strike out running on my hind legs into the interior of the building. And while I run, I can feel the smartfoam? clinging to my green scales as it starts to harden and congeal and try to make me as still as a statue.
My toe claws are clacking frantically on the floor as I run.
I know when it comes to smartfoam? the key is to keep moving. Because if you keep your RUN SPEED at 20 MPH or above, then the smartfoam? can’t get a grip and lock you up like it has been designed to do. So as I race along, I don’t slow down or even stop to try and wipe the burning acidic foam off my green scales. Because once I stop I’ll never be able to start moving again.
“Hey!” roars the receptionist. “You’re not allowed back there!” Then she shouts, “Security! Security!” And that’s when the alarm explodes inside the building, and a mega siren commences booming over and over and over. And as I bound on my hind legs I spread my wings and flap them twice and burst into flight.
And as I fly down the corridor, for the very first time this morning a smile blooms across my beak.
Yes sir.
It sure does feel good to be back.
The siren continues to explode around me. It’s a high-pitched screeching sound, blasting down the corridors with a rhythmic throbbing noise.
As I flap my wings and fly onward, the yellow smartfoam? is falling off me like strips of hide and I’m grateful to be free of the nasty stuff. My green scales are still stinging from the smartfoam?’s poison though.
Now as I whip round a corner and shoot forth I happen to look up and:
Uh-oh.
Crouched there at the other end of the corridor is a psychotic-looking dragon Commando fool from the security detail I’d seen near the front of the Institute. And this WarWings Commando bastard is wearing full Conquer Gear and his giant black horns are sticking out of his red helmet. A real nasty piece of work. And I can’t help but admire how even with his beak closed his giant fangs protrude like tusks.
Now the Commando snorts flames out his nostrils and aims his powerstaff at me and bellows, “Halt!”
Anyway, I know I don’t have enough BIOCON juice to launch into close-quarter combat with this Commando bastard. So I do the only thing I can do at this point. I just keep flying right at this sonuvabitch. With no plan or even a shred of hope I decide my best bet is improvised combat, or what my grandpa Dr. Terrible calls ImproBattle.
Thwack-thwack.
And I suddenly become aware of my oversized heart in my rib cage, which is hammering away like crazy. I’m seeing yellow dots swimming in the air and I can feel myself starting to faint. Which for a dragon fool is one of the scariest things that can happen to you, to black out in midflight. Because when this happens one thing is for sure, you will crash. Even as I’m in the middle of fainting here in the corridor, some part of my fading brain knows I’m in big trouble.
And this is exactly what happens to me as I’m flying directly at that Commando bastard. I can feel my jumbo heart crank up inside my chest, and then I faint. Blackout.
But I only black out for a half second. Or a second, max.
And when I come to, I’m still flying.
I’m still airborne.
I’m dazed and terrified.
Now the Commando fool snorts flames out his nostrils and takes careful aim with his powerstaff.
“This is your last warning!” he shouts. “Halt now!”
Yeah right, buddy. Like I even have a choice anymore.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m fainting all over the place here. So you can scream at me all you want to. Cuz I’m not stopping.
And then the Commando flips open his beak and shoots his tongue at me like a bullet.
Zing.
The red blur whizzes straight for my head. And I can tell by how the Commando is crouched there on his scaly muscular hind legs, with his wings spread wide and his tail lifted high, that he’s trained in the dragon martial art of tongue-fu.
Now tongue-fu is no joke, and this bastard looks like he means business. I swear he looks like he’s aiming to take my scaly head off with his tongue.
So I’m hurtling toward this Security Commando and now he’s added his lethal tongue into the mix. And because my WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY are completely zonked I spin out of control and bounce headfirst off the wall. But this maniac hasn’t calculated for my loss of control and his red tongue rockets right by me, missing me by an inch. And his tongue zooms another forty feet past me and then strikes the middle of the ceiling and stays embedded there.
Whoa.
Now the Commando is frantically whipping his long green neck back and forth, trying to rip his tongue free from the ceiling and retract it fifty feet down the corridor and back into his beak.
So I blast this fool with a supersonic fireball. But my aim is even worse than normal. Now my supersonic fireball ricochets off the ceiling and zooms right at the Commando’s green webbed feet and the bastard leaps up just slightly to avoid it. But this turns out to be a big mistake. Because like a tape measure, his tongue’s retracting feature automatically initiates.
Zing.
He instantly shoots forward and rockets down the long corridor. I have my back to the wall and watch the Commando fly right past me. He slams into the ceiling face-first. Now he’s just hanging there stuck to the ceiling, while little bits of stone rain down.
Then the Commando falls to the ground.