Prologue
They were meant to be only pets.
Our executives asked us to breed them something exclusive. Something consumers could get from nowhere else. They decided to draw on the imaginations of children, teens, and adults everywhere. They asked us to play God, which was no new or unabashed concept to us, and breed legends to sell as domesticated, tamed animals.
We didn’t know then our mistake. We used a combination of reptiles, bats, birds, electric eels, frogs, and snakes for our base coding of their genomes. We gave them the scales, the wings, everything that made them the kings of legend and lore. But an unknown factor made folly of the fantasy we were tasked to create...
They were clever. Devilishly so, I might say. They’d go on for weeks, earning your trust, loving you, depending on you, only to rip you to crimson ribbons as a meal on a moment’s whim. They didn’t stop there. They used our naiveté, our stupidity about our own creations, to escape. We had bred 20 prototypes. They flew off into the Rockies, high flying and bound for destruction. We never caught them.
I had wanted to go public immediately. I begged and pleaded with the CEO of the company, to no avail. He told us to wait, and see if our creations would pose a threat. But while we discussed how to deal with this, our creations evolved in those mountains. They completely lost what domestication we gave them. They crossbred with each other, giving rise to several subspecies, and these subspecies had features of their base animals we hadn’t incorporated. Bright, vibrant underwing patterns to ward off what slim amount of predators they had at first. Frills. Horns. Venom. They had bipedal, quadrupedal, slithering, and stooped bodies. Big and small. Winged and wingless. Some neutral scavengers, reminiscent of city pests. Others highly territorial and aggressive, like the lions of the savannahs. The one trait they all shared at first was fire. Made of a composite natural gas their bladders cooked up every time they ate. That fire could melt through most anything we put in their cages after enough time. And I remember distinctly the day Corporate told us to warn the public of what we had done…
"So, Dr. Fitzgerald, you’re telling me that you and your team of scientists, who worked in a top-secret lab in the Rocky Mountains, genetically engineered a line of pet dragons, then let them escape? That’s got to be the biggest helping of bullshit I’ve ever been given in my life." the Police Chief said, as he fiddled with his Denver Police Department badge, trying to keep it pinned to his uniform.
I got up from my seat, leaning forward on his desk.
"I have my credentials. Call my superiors. They most certainly will reassure you that what I have said is true. And, more importantly, the danger these creatures pose. If they were to-" An officer at the door interrupted me, timidly knocking on the glass barrier between his office and the rest of the Department.
"Hey, chief, we got a call on line 8 you may want to hear..."
The chief sighed, and picked up the phone, switching the received line to 8.”Denver Police Department, how may I-" he was cut off by screams of pain. "Chief Gulley! You’ve got to send help! These things are everywhere! They-" the man on the other end was cut off mid-sentence. "We’re sorry. The line you are speaking to has been disconnected. Please try again." the automated message chimed pleasantly, almost to take the edge off what had just happened.
The chief got up from his chair. "If you’ll excuse me, Dr. Fitzgerald, I have a job to do." the portly officer said, his tone mocking my plea for his ear. He walked out onto the office floor. "Macready, where did that call come from?" the officer who told the Chief about the call looked up.
"It came just outside of Redburg, a little farming town on the foot of the mountains."
The chief looked to another officer. "Can we get a satellite over that?" the officer nodded, and began furiously pounding at the keys, ordering the orbiting object into position. In 2022, it wasn’t uncommon to see these sorts of thing in the hands of mere law enforcement. But, the police had power, and a lot of it. They wanted it, the government granted it. The entire nation was gripped in fear of another national riot at the wrongful death of a teenager, or a bombing from some God-fearing nationalist, and so, the entire nation did anything to prevent it.
I sighed in exasperation, running my hands through my hair. I wanted to convince the chief. But I didn’t know how. I sat there, pondering my predicament with great caution. I jumped three feet from my seat when the chief burst back in, though. "Dr. Fitzgerald, how do we kill them?!" he shouted, his panic apparent in his jittery hands and stained underarms. I jogged back out to the office floor, and looked at the screen. The screen looked to be broken and black at first. But as I looked closer, my fears from three years ago, when my creations, my beautiful dragons, had first escaped, was staring me right in the face.
It was smoke. Miles of smoke, covering the entire city they had focused on. On the outskirts of the town, near the fields and pastures of the farms, we saw the grasses stained red with blood. Only a few of the dragons were left, gnawing on half eaten corpses of cows, horses, the farmers, and everything in-between. Off to the west of the city, they saw a huge group of them, flocking as though they were migratory birds. Heading for the next city. I shuddered, pushing the shock and awe in my system to the back, and putting my mind on overdrive.
"It seems they seek new food sources. They’ve most likely exhausted all their possible options in the Rockies. They’ll clear the next city, then the next, going on and on, until they reach..." the satellite panned over, and focused on the bright, shining metropolis, the Mile High City itself. "Right here in Denver." I said. I turned to the officers, and put on my best face of determination, trying ever so desperately to give my terror a suitable mask. "Notify everyone. Tell the ERs to expect many casualties. Especially burns. We need to prepare the city… We need to prepare the world."
I flicked to the next part of my presentation, the main part of my grandfather’s story out of the way. It had taken a week to coax the whole story out of him, but when I was finished, I knew it would be perfect for my project.
"The city was under martial law by the end of the day. Thousands of calls came in after they had broadcasted a report from Police Headquarters about the situation. The Governor had declared a state emergency. The President sent Marines. The entire Western front of the city was walled, barricaded, and had more guns manning it than Berlin had in the Cold war. Citizens cowered in fear as they waited for the coming doom. The police waited, armed in new fire-safe gear. They had military grade guns, armored transports, and the like. They looked more like soldiers than police. Avid hunters, mercenary groups looking for a reward, and many more joined the marines and police. And they waited. Eventually they all coalesced into the City Defense Force, an organization made by city, for the city, and pledged to the city. Many other states followed suit, preparing for the worst. But it never came. The huge, mile long Great Flock, as it came to be called, dispersed after a year of ravaging the countryside, burning everything and eating anything. The CDF never dispersed, though, and they stayed the prime force of both military and law enforcement in the US. Each city runs their own CDF, and the government can call on who they need when they march to war. They keep the cities safe with an iron fist and no tolerance for crime." I said, flipping my brunette hair and small beads of sweat out of my face as I moved to the next slide of my presentation, which would decide whether or not I failed 11th grade biology.
Chapter One: The Grade
"The smaller ones, what became known as Scalings, moved to the cities, taking roost with the birds and rats as a metropolis’ main pests. But the true dragons, the ones that were modeled after stories, the great horned beasts, moved into the forests, mountains, deserts, and tundras of the world. They dominated the food chains, becoming apex predators, the exemplars of hunting, evolving more and more to suit their chosen biome.” Countless diagrams flicked by as I talked, not really focusing on myself or my audience. “Meanwhile, the wingless breeds filled the niche of pets, like Dr. Fitzgerald had worked for. These drakes acted like dogs and cats combined. It mostly depends on what breed you adopt. But in the end, after days of terror and fear of them, legends came to life, and now coexist with us in harmony in our beautiful, modern world."
One of my classmates’ hands went into the air.
"How can we live in harmony with something we have to cower from every time it migrates?" Aron said. I sighed. Aron was a prick, but he was a smart one, and knew what questions to ask, and when to ask them. But I was smarter.
"We don’t have to. The domes are simply a precaution. What if a migrating Redback decided to come down and toast you for lunch, all juicy and well done?" I said, crossing my arms and glaring at him. Aron sighed, and put his hand down, his discontent with defeat obvious in his expression.
I grinned, and turned to Mrs. Ballinger. She smiled, but something about her expression seemed... Off.
"Very good, Annie. An excellent presentation, but... Well, who here can tell me what Mrs. Fitzgerald did wrong here?" Every single hand in the room shot up. I gulped. What did I do? What had doomed me?
I shook a little in my shoes as she called again on Aron.
"She forgot her works cited slide, Mrs. Ballinger." She nodded, and looked to me with an empathetic shrug.
"I’m sorry, Ms. Fitzgerald, but without your citations, I can’t count this for a grade. You... You get an F. But, I’ll cut you a break, since I’m sure you got most, if not all of this from your grandpa. Make me a slideshow on the anatomy of the Redback, and their feeding habits, and I’ll give you full points, as long as you remember citations."
I sighed in relief. I wasn’t dead yet. "Thank you, Mrs. B. You’re the best." I said, as I grabbed my papers, and returned to my desk. "Don’t forget, you can leave once you’ve presented." I nodded, packed my bag, and bolted out of the classroom.
I silently reprimanded myself. How could I have forgotten the works cited?! I thought as I collided with the door leading out of the charter school, the sun hitting my face. In my defense, it’s quite hard to put ”Grandpa” as your only work cited for your entire presentation, despite how true it was. I could smell flowers and various herbs and spices. They must have the windows of the Greenhouse open. Not that I was surprised. It was a gorgeous day today. The early spring in Detroit isn’t the nicest some years. But, nowadays, it was pleasant. My Grandpa said that the spring in his hometown used to be much worse back in his day. Smog hung low in freezing air, over dilapidated apartments in a broken city. But, that broken city came back, returning to its former glory as the automotive industry capital. Clean energy had its big boom on the market, and Detroit became a pioneering example of what cities could become. It was entirely self-sustaining. We had solar roadways, and pollution cleaning hydroelectric dams in the river. We were also the first to install my grandfather’s Dragon Protection Dome, to keep us safe from any migrating flocks. I crossed endless streets, overpasses, and bridges from the rerouted Detroit River, diverted for the inner-city roof farms that fed a good 75% of the city. I finally turned onto Baker Street, my street, and eyed the immense apartment complex I lived in. I lived in the top penthouse. Perks of being the granddaughter of the inventor of dragons, I suppose. But, I wouldn’t be living with him if the accident had never happened… No Annie. That’s in the past. I reprimanded myself as I kept walking. Mom and Dad were gone, taken by a rogue Frilled American Wyvern when I was eight. Now, they existed to me only as headstones in Motor Park Memorial Cemetery.
I pushed open the door to my apartment complex. The head security guard nodded to me, in-between bites of his Italian hoagie. “Hey, Annie! How yah doing’ today?” He said, waving politely. He looked utterly ridiculous, his feet propped up on his desk, a couple of stray lettuce strands staining his shirt. “I’m alright, Mr. Jonas. How’s the hoagie?” I asked, trying to hold in my laughter at the impromptu salad that was forming on the front of his shirt.
He smiled blissfully, and held up an O.K. hand gesture, his index finger and thumb making a circle, the rest of his digits sticking up behind them. “Absolutely stunning.” he said, the response muffled by the half-chewed wad of meats, veggies, and spices making it hard to talk for him. “Good. Keep up the good work, man.” I joked as I slid by him towards the elevator. The elevator dinged, the doors parted for me, and I climbed on, prepared to draw once more on the immeasurable resource of knowledge on dragons that is my grandfather.