by Paul Cude
* * *
Starting with a tiny, bright light on the upper floor, instantly it increased to blinding proportions. A rip roaring explosion of the kind which, before today, the earth had rarely seen, tore apart the fairly new clubhouse, shredding every last part of it. The noise was brutal. Violently the earth shook. Fire and magical energy of every different colour swirled inside the invisible barrier that Tank had crafted. On finding no way out to the sides, the raging torrent of destruction flooded downwards into the ground, and upwards into the sky. It must have been more than three miles into the air before the cylinder of energy exploded outwards into the relative safety of the atmosphere, at first running over the sides like a cup full to the brim, being constantly topped up, and then forcing its way across the sky, like thunder clouds in a storm. From out of nowhere, a harsh, churning breeze snaked across the heavens, scattering the deadly particles throughout the atmosphere, reducing their concentration to a safe level.
On the ground things were very different. Some of the kinetic energy from the blast had been forced downwards by the mantra, creating a crater the exact diameter of the clubhouse, nearly a quarter of a mile deep. Smoke and fire raged up and out of the fissure, the steamy surface of the bedrock surrounding it looking like an alien landscape from the future. Nothing physical remained of the clubhouse itself. No windows, doors, bricks, furniture... NOTHING! Every last molecule had been obliterated on impact.
Luckily for the two dragon friends, Tank's complicated mantra had contained the deadly psychic wave that was a side effect of all the laminium bombs. That too had been directed harmlessly up into the sky and down into the ground. No part of the dragon domain lay directly beneath the sports club, so no dragons were affected.
Most of the crowd had been knocked to the ground, by the deafening sound and surprise rather than anything else. But not Tank and Peter. They stood looking on, knowing that nothing, either human or dragon, could have withstood that kind of blast. Their friend was gone. No more. Tears streamed down their cheeks. Fatigue tore at their ravaged bodies. Even if they'd wanted to go into the crater and look for the remains, they couldn't. Understandably, they were spent.
Peter was startled out of thoughts of his friend first, as a face appeared right in front of his. A policeman was moving his mouth... talking, but Peter, like most of the others, was having trouble hearing, what with the explosion and all the screaming, shouting and crying going on all around him.
'Odd,' he thought, 'the policeman seems mad, angry even.' It made no sense at all to the young dragon. After all, it was he who'd just lost a best friend. Tank as well. All the others had effectively been saved. Just as he was about to tell the officer exactly what he could do in a biologically specific way, he felt something grab his hands from behind, forcing them together. Instinctively, he tried to turn round, but a firm pressure on his neck prevented him from doing so. Wondering just what on earth was going on, it was then that he spotted Tank being wrestled to the ground by three police officers.
'Have they all gone mad?' he thought, struggling more than a little. But it was all to no avail. Even the mighty Tank could offer little in the way of resistance, not with practically all his energy depleted.
With their hands cable tied behind their backs, both friends were forcibly marched towards the waiting police cars. As they passed the crowd, angry shouts and jeers assaulted their ears. Neither friend had any idea what was going on, their heads still ringing and their hearing more than a little impaired from the sound of the blast. That is until a lacrosse player carrying an infant in her arms came right up to them and shouted,
"WHY? Why did you do it? Why blow up our lovely clubhouse? WHY?"
As the mother and infant were pushed out of the way by the heavy handed police officers, Tank and Peter exchanged horrified glances. But worse was to come, well, for Peter anyway. While Tank was squeezed forcibly into the back seat of one of the police cars, a familiar figure approached the edge of the crowd, right next to where Peter stood. The look on her face cut his heart like a knife. The pain he felt there and then was a hundred times worse than anything he'd felt while battling Manson on the artificial pitch less than a year ago. Tears streaked down her beautiful face, smudging what little make up she wore. Her look said it all... betrayal, hurt, injustice... LIES! Opening his mouth to explain, to explain how they'd both saved them all, it was too late. She'd turned and disappeared back into the crowd, whilst he was now being firmly shoved into the other police car. As the ignition in the car purred into life and the driver spun around and headed out onto the main road, he couldn't help but think about everything he'd just lost.
36 Houston... There Seems To Be A Problem!
In all, fourteen laminium bombs had exploded across the world, making it the bloodiest and deadliest day in the planet's history. Places hit included Montreal Canada, Seattle USA, Wong Chan Thailand, Chicago USA, Macclesfield UK, Moscow Russia, Melbourne Australia, Ankara Turkey, Cape Town South Africa, Mumbai India, Balikpapan Indonesia, Shanghai China, Lisbon Portugal and of course the clubhouse in Salisbridge. If the bomb at the laminium ball match, the one that had Steel clinging to life by just a thread, was taken into account, then altogether that made fifteen... the exact number of chunks of metal the evil dragon Manson had stolen from Cropptech. At least, that was the council's thinking, and indeed their hope that there would be no more. No more devastation, no more loss of life. In dragon terms, the death toll was still being revised, but it numbered well into the tens of thousands. For the humans, it was different. Because of where the bombs had been placed, mainly in built up urban areas of highly populated cities, the death toll and casualty count were much higher. At least a hundred thousand people had died across the world, with many more injured and wounded. Significantly, the count was still continuing, and growing.
Almost every dragon on the planet, including the king and his councillors, hadn't slept a wink since the terrorism had started. For that's what it was... TERRORISM! As for who'd committed it and what their goal was, the dragon council were still trying to figure that out. To start with, the priority had been to respond to those in need, dragon and human alike, with the King's Guard having been dispatched to each site with instructions to use their abilities to help both sets of communities. They'd been warned that it would be unlikely they would find injured dragons, given the power of the psychic blast waves. They would be either dead, killed by the wave, or alive and relatively healthy. And so there was little they could do below ground, in which case they were all instructed to help the human world above in any way that they could. There would also be dragons disguised as humans who'd been killed by the deadly psychic blast wave on the surface, some being well out of the physical radius of the explosion. It was important to recover their bodies before the humans did. While it was almost impossible to distinguish a dragon in human form from an actual human, the council didn't want to take the chance of autopsies being performed on their kind, just in case the psychic wave had done some molecular damage to the dead dragon's DNA. King's Guards from across the planet scrambled to get to the nearest site, not only to help with the rescue efforts, but to effect the recovery of all the dragon corpses, leaving only a skeleton force left to cope with their normal duties, if anything could be described as 'normal' ever again. At least having agreed on that much, but very little else, the council was as fragmented as it had ever been, holed up inside the council chambers. Watching from on high, the king was frustrated beyond belief at the arguing going on below him. Most of the councillors were up in wings about something, a couple stressing their point that it must have been one of the many human terrorist groups that had committed the atrocities, and that they should be hunted down and punished. Others argued against, claiming it was highly unlikely. And so it went on. Some argued that it was the dark dragon Manson; after all, he'd stolen the laminium from which the bombs had been crafted. There was a further call to round up all the King's Guards across the planet in an attempt to find th
e deadly dragon and bring him to justice, rather than waste valuable resources and time helping out the humans on the surface. And so it continued, all the time the king watching them like a hawk, studying each and every one of them, particularly what they said.
* * *
It had taken some fifteen hours for the first dragons to arrive at the site of the Salisbridge explosion, a travesty in dragon terms. Every single witness had long since disappeared, making it impossible to erase their memories of the event. Dragon investigators, disguised as government officials, took in the huge, still smouldering, crater from its edge. One or two marvelled at the ingenuity of the mantra used to contain the blast and prevent the same destruction that had occurred elsewhere across the planet. Others scoured the dark, smoky depths for signs of anything at all amongst the rubble and scorched earth.
* * *
Five miles away, Peter and Tank were being released from their incarceration, neither of them too happy about how things had played out. They'd endured all sorts of verbal abuse from everyone, officers and prisoners alike. And despite their dragon training against such things, everything that was said... HURT! Words cut like the sharpest chainsaw sliding through butter, the looks felt as though they'd been gutted with a screwdriver, while the small, unnecessary punches and pushes when they'd been moved about, tore at their very being. They'd saved everyone, lost their best friend in the process and then for Peter, there was... JANICE! Regardless of their magical energy recharging, the two friends were devastated, emotional and washed out. Despite being locked up for over fifteen hours, they kept their counsel and waited for what they hoped would be a dragon rescue of some sort. Unable to believe that it had taken this long, that is until they were briefed on what had happed across the world by another prisoner who'd just arrived, to say they were staggered was an understatement. When the chief constable (a dragon of course) finally got round to signing their release papers, he explained that because of Tank's actions in creating the mantra surrounding the clubhouse, the whole site had been deemed secondary to the other emergencies across the globe, hence the reason why no dragon had attended the scene up until now, and why their fate had only just come to light.
Both friends nodded, glad to be free and leaving this god-awful place. The chief constable also informed them that a story had been put out that instead of being the perpetrators of this awful crime, they had in fact tried to disarm the bomb, which was pretty much the truth anyway. Either way, they were free to go and shouldn't get any more hassle from anyone, quite the opposite in fact. For Peter, it all felt like déjà vu. People would once again be praising him for something he hadn't really done... it was the Astroturf incident with the dragon Manson, all over again.
* * *
Having wasted no time in getting stuck in, the dragon investigators were quick workers. Huge two hundred foot barriers had been erected around the circumference of the bomb blast, with the only way now to see into the crater being from the air, and they'd made sure that all flying privileges in the area had been revoked. Large excavation machinery littered the car park, its purpose clear. But the dragons had no intention of using it. Blanketed by the giant barriers, and with one of their group acting as a lookout, they were free to use the entire range of their magical powers. And so it was that mantra after mantra started to be cast. Huge chunks of rubble magically threw themselves up and over the rim of the crater, as well as tiny, water-like streams of dirt and stone. Ordered to leave no stone unturned (ironic, given what they were doing) in trying to find anything that would aid their investigation, each of the dragons knew that this was just the place to start, given that all the other bombs had exploded over a much larger area.
* * *
Across Melbourne, Montreal and Cape Town, it was much the same as in all the other affected cities across the planet. Emergency aid stations were still in operation, with tireless emergency service personnel scouring hundreds of tons of rubble for survivors with specialist equipment. Schools, sports centres, town halls, anything with a large enough capacity, had been set up to accommodate the homeless, of which there were tens of thousands. It was truly a global disaster of epic proportions.
* * *
Below ground, it was a little different. In more than a dozen places, the worldwide monorail had been closed for the first time in its history. Bereavement Grottos were working flat out, with the council having passed an emergency mandate, stipulating that dragons would be put to rest without a formal ceremony for each of them. Instead, one whole day of mourning would be held, worldwide, exactly one week on from the very first bomb blast. As you can imagine, this caused uproar in most dragon enclaves. Disappointment was widespread. But the dragon council explained their stance in the telepathic papers, by stating that so many dragons had died, it would take months, if not years, to give them all the personal service they so deserved, something not a single dragon would wish for. On top of that, there was the health and safety aspect. While dragons, once dead, don't normally decompose, well... not at the rate of a human corpse, they do, ever so slightly, give off a putrid odour that attracts insects from far and wide. So many bodies, all in the same areas, would be something of a nightmare. Finally, the council announced, that with dragon and human kind both suffering tragic attacks on an epic scale, it was time to concentrate on helping the living and safeguard both the dragon domain and the world above, against a repeat of these senseless attacks. For most dragons, the council seemed to make sense. But not for all.
* * *
As they both walked across the uneven paving slabs towards the waiting police car that had been provided to take them home, Flash pulled his shiny black phone away from his ear, having just listened to a voicemail message. For the first time in what seemed like a week, a small smile snaked its way across the rough features of his face. Peter gave him an enquiring look.
"Everything alright?"
"You have to listen to this," laughed Tank, handing Peter the phone, having already started to play the message again.
Holding the phone to his ear, Peter listened intently. After a hushed beep, and a few seconds of crackle, a voice he recognised gently hissed into life.
"Ummmmmm... hello? Is that... is that Mr Tank's phone machine? It's... it's his... ummmmm... uncle, that's it! Uncle. It's his uncle here... just checking to see if everything's... um... okay. Perhaps... um... machine, you could tell him to phone. NO! Not phone. You could tell him. I mean ask him to... um... contact me, at his earliest convenience. Thank you so kindly for taking my message. His uncle."
It was all Peter could do not to laugh out loud at the fact that the old shopkeeper had obviously been chasing Tank, because he hadn't turned up to work when he should have, and then the news about the bombs had probably freaked him out, especially the Salisbridge one. Shaking his head, he caught his friend's eye as they both got into the back of the police car, on a very different journey this time. As he handed Tank back his phone, they both had the same thought. Perhaps someone needs to give Gee Tee some human interaction lessons. But who? That was the 64 million dollar question.
* * *
"Well?" demanded a silky smooth voice from the shadows of a dark and dreary building somewhere in North America.
"It all went off according to plan, with one exception."
"What exception?" screamed the voice from the shadows. Whoever planted the one that didn't go off would be summarily punished. NO... KILLED, and he'd see to it himself.
In the form of a twenty-something human male, the cowering naga seemed almost too frightened to speak. Once again, the voice asked, only this time with a whole lot of menace behind the words.
"WELL?"
"It was the one in Salisbridge, Sire," he nervously volunteered.
"WHAT?" challenged the hidden voice. "You've got to be kidding me."
In response, the human shaped naga shook his head, sorry that he'd been selected to deliver the bad news. A loud CRASH, followed almost immediately by a SMASH, echoed from o
ut of the darkness. The naga had heard tales of this being's temper and had hoped never to experience it firsthand. He had, however, always thought them exaggerated more than a little. I mean, how bad could it really be? Before he had the chance to find out, the PUFF of a silenced gunshot sounded out from somewhere in front of him. Pain from his chest exploded through him as he crumpled to the floor, vision darkening.
'Pretty bad, as it turns out,' he thought, answering his own question.
With the naga lying dead in a pool of radiant blood, the human shape limped out into the light to inspect his work. Silently he cursed, and thought,
'Of all the bombs not to go off, it would have to be the one I planted. Well, it's not like I'm going to kill myself, is it? I wonder what happened? Was it something that idiot of a chairman did, or maybe something else? Typical! That was the one out of all of them that I was most looking forward to savouring. DAMN!'
In his frustration, he took a great big kick at the limp and lifeless body before him on the ground, which only really served to get blood up one side of his immaculate trousers. But despite the relatively minor setback of Salisbridge, things were, for the moment, going as planned. It wouldn't be long now. Not long at all. And then he'd be able to choose when and where to visit retribution. All the residents of Salisbridge had done was buy themselves a little more time. Turning, he climbed the stairs in search of a new pair of trousers.
* * *
Climbing out of the police car, he thanked the officer for the lift, before heading along the pavement towards his house. Just before he got to the gate he spotted his car, parked on the opposite side of the road, just as the officer had said it would be. By all accounts the police had moved it while he'd been in custody, with the car park at the sports club having been cleared, under orders of the so called government agents, who he'd subsequently found out were a dragon squad of specialist King's Guards. Glad his car was back safe and sound, though in the scale of things it mattered little. Richie was dead, Janice had turned away from him, the clubhouse was destroyed and in less than an hour, the planet had been decimated. Meandering up the crazy paving path, the emotional rollercoaster that he'd been on finally came to a halt, hitting him like a rampaging bull. Sitting down on his doorstep, not even bothering to open the door, he felt confused, lonely and sad. Of course he still had Tank, his friend the old shopkeeper, Flash, wherever in the world he was, and the king. But Richie, oh Richie. She was his first ever friend, and he could recall playing with her in the nursery ring, both of them the tiniest of dragonlings. Even then they seemed inseparable, having grown up together, taken every class together; she'd jumped in and saved him more times than he cared to remember. By now the tears were like a river coming to life in the rainforest at the behest of a newly started rainy season. All sense of time was lost. Images of Richie played through his head, for once, his near perfect memory doing him no favours at all. Passersby on the street gave him strange looks, one even offering to help. He ignored them all, the only thing on his mind was Richie. Turning his thoughts to the future, he couldn't see how he could go on without her. Knowing that losing someone special happened all the time to people and dragons throughout the world, he also knew that eventually, most of them came to terms with it. But not him. NEVER! It would be... impossible.
