Dragon's Mind

by Ehsani, Vered

  I look at him differently now. Until today, I never questioned why I accepted his less savoury activities. They didn’t bother me. They should have, but they don’t, even though they sometimes cross the line into the illegal, even though I’m part of the security system. Now I remember why. Before the island was built, before I became part of its operating system, I knew people like him. I worked with them even.

  Oh yes, I’m looking at him differently now, seeing reflections of myself. I’m not sure I like what I see.

  He’s followed by the person I don’t know. Impossible, as Myth said, but true. I don’t know this woman. I can’t place her. I don’t know her name, ID number, profession, why she’s here, or how she entered the city without one of my numerous sensors catching her. Nothing. That makes her dangerous in my view. Very dangerous.

  She’s dressed in black from head to toe. She’s even wearing gloves. Who the heck wears gloves on the island? A wide-brimmed black hat hides her face.

  I study the scene and keep quiet. Everyone keeps quiet, except the Boss. He’s all chatty and charming. He’s telling the doctor that everything’s fine. This is just a routine visit.

  Since when does he visit the lab? It’s probably the one place on the island he doesn’t visit.

  Can I play stupid? Pretend I don’t know what the image means?

  Something about the Games Boss’s posture tells me it’s too late. I have had intensive security training. That training included reading body language. With thousands of sensors at my disposal, I can monitor minute changes in a person’s muscles, heartbeat and breath. I can read every nuance, almost every thought.

  Let’s just say that no one can beat me in a game of poker.

  The Games Boss is good, of course. He’s a brilliant poker player, by the way. His face is a block of silky coolness, but he can’t hide from me. I pick it up: the slight twitch of a wrinkle around one eye, a hair’s width tightening of the corner of his mouth.

  He’s lying. It’s not okay. This is not routine.

  I’m more worried about the woman I don’t know. She’s taking off her hat now and I see her face. Wow. That’s unexpected. She’s the first albino I’ve ever seen. Her reddish eyes and blotchy white skin hide even more than the Boss is hiding.

  “Where’s your daughter, Kathy?” the Boss asks, gazing expectantly around the lab.

  “In the games room,” she responds, her face flustered. Her heart rate increases. Her breathing is shallow.

  I log Myth into one of the games, backdating the time to a few minutes after she entered the building. It’s a lie that a diligent computer techie can figure out, but it will cover for any superficial checks.

  I start mapping exit routes for Myth. I realise just then that I’ve always liked making maps and not just as a hobby. My previous job required it. I had to regularly change the smuggling routes. Yes, the irony is not lost on me: I used to be a smuggler, and now I’m in charge of security for an island. I’m laughing out loud over here.

  “Really?” The Boss looks surprised. “She wouldn’t miss such a momentous event, would she? Didn’t she write a thesis about this idea? It was her paper that convinced Grogan’s Board. Most kids are still stuck in high school, and here she’s writing a thesis and revolutionising MindOpS. Smart kid, that girl of yours.”

  He studies Dr. Johansson. He doesn’t have my skill, but he is a consummate poker player. He sees more than most people and I’m pretty sure he can pick up on her fear. He must know she’s hiding something.

  “Well, kids, you know,” she says, shrugging her shoulders and smiling. “You know how they are.”

  “No.” He scratches his goatee that frames his chin, and glances around. “No, I really don’t. Where’s the famous image, then? I heard this is the day MindOpS selects a hologram for the tourists to take photos of.” His nose twitches. He thinks it’s a waste of time.

  Dr. Johansson glances to my main screen in the room and licks her lips, her eyes large. Her forehead becomes damp with a film of perspiration. “Um…”

  “Well, show us.” The Boss gestures grandly with his arms, as if summoning a circus to appear in the room with us.

  “MindOpS,” Dr. Johansson whispers. “Initiate programme.”

  Play stupid, I remind myself. Using a projector built into the wall, I show the image. My image. At the same time, I find a route for Myth.

  “Myth,” I speak softly in the service chute.

  She glances up. She’s shivering. I know about that night, about her father. I know what she’s thinking.

  “Your mother will be fine,” I assure her. I believe it. Dr. Johansson is far too valuable and too well-known for even the Boss to mess around with. “I have an escape route mapped out for you. Follow the lighted parts of the tunnel. It will take you behind the games room. From there, you can slip in and play.”

  “Help my mom then,” she whispers fiercely. She sounds angry, but I hear fear underneath. “Shut off all the lights, lock the doors, lead her out as well.”

  I answer a question the Boss asks me, about the source of the image. I tell him it’s an image from one of my files, which isn’t exactly a lie. Memory is a file.

  “I can’t,” I tell her.

  “Yes, you can!”

  “Sure, I can, technically speaking,” I acknowledge. “If I do that, they will know we know something. They will hunt us down. Right now, they think you’re playing games and that your mom doesn’t know who the image really is. If we all play stupid, the worst is they remove that image and replace it with someone who looks like your chemistry teacher.”

  “Yuck.” She pauses. “Is that really the worst that will happen?”

  “If we’re careful. Although I’d hate to spend the next ten years looking like that teacher.”

  I don’t have fingers to cross, but I imagine crossing some. Unlike Myth, her mom and the majority of Sana Island’s good citizens, I know what the Games Boss can really do, what he’s empowered to do and what he has done.

  “Play stupid,” Myth whispers.

  “And follow the lights,” I add.

  I monitor her progress through the narrow service chute. At the same time, I increase the energy output from the plant to the industrial area, decrease water to the residential areas and power up one of the transport modules as it leaves the maintenance yard. And I watch as the albino and the Boss escort Dr. Kathy Johansson out of the building, into a limo and out of the city.

  Chapter 7: Myth

  I was crawling through dust when he started talking again. Not about what happened to my mom or anything important. About his dream. His dragon dream.

  “Myth,” he whispered. “That dream. You know, the one you told me not to tell anyone else about? Because I shouldn’t have dreams? It really happened.”

  My shoulders hurt from tension. My knees hurt from the hard flooring. My throat, my eyes and my mouth from the dust. My mom was gone and he wanted to discuss a stupid dream?

  I was still absorbing the idea of Grogan stealing brains from people. And worrying about my mom.

  “You turned into a dragon in a past life?” I asked in between a cough and a sneeze.

  “No, unfortunately not. I was a dragon boat racer before. It was a hobby, but I was good, I think. I was preparing for the international races when the accident happened. My team members all had nicknames. Mine was Dragon.”

  “Wow. So glad we got that figured out. Been keeping me up…”

  “Stop being so snarky,” he interrupted me.

  He sounded hurt. Okay, it was a pretty big deal. He’d just discovered memories he shouldn’t have. Learned he’d been murdered for his brain. And that he raced Chinese dragon boats as a hobby. Pretty momentous and all.

  Excuse me if I didn’t spin cartwheels of delight.

  “When do I get out of this rat tunnel?”

  “There are no rats in my system.” Now he was just irritated.

  “Whatever.” I rubbed the back of my neck with a grimy hand. Gr
it rubbed into my skin. Lovely. “No rats. But seriously dirty.”

  A panel slid open a few minutes later. I stuck my head out, breathed in deep. Dust-free air. Gotta love it.

  Still holding the sensor unit, I crawled out into a storage room. Looked at my palms, my pants. Ugh. Filthy. Glad I wore brown today.

  I slid out of the room. Just down the hall was the grand entrance to the games room.

  “Get into the room, Myth.” Dragon’s voice whispered up from the sensor unit in my hand. Weird. Like I was holding a mini Dragon. Which I kind of was.

  Glancing around the empty hallway, I crossed over. Unlike other game rooms scattered around the island, this one had pretty minimum security, given that it was inside the most secured building in the city. Other game rooms had several guards, metal detectors, the whole thing. Not that crime was an issue here, not with the Boss running things. But you never know with the die-hard gamblers.

  The room was empty at this time of morning. Not even a token guard. The various play stations were scattered around the spacious room. Vibrantly painted walls and bouncy carpeting welcomed me and my money in. I walked in unobserved. Apart from Dragon’s sensors, of course.

  I plunked the mobile unit onto a table and paid for a game with some of my cellphone credit. Didn’t feel like playing. I lost the first round, not surprising. That irked me and I started to play more seriously.

  “What’s going on with my mom?” I asked as I wrestled with the controls.

  “They’re on the water, just outside the city limits, heading towards the Games Boss’s floating house. I just connected to the external system. They’re in his boat, in a secure room with sensors blocked. I’m unblocking them.”

  “You can do that?” I tried not to sound impressed. Didn’t work.

  “Obviously. Here goes.” A minute went by while I began building up my fleet of war ships to attack the enemy. “They don’t believe her, not completely,” Dragon interrupted my first attack.

  I bungled a shot. “That’s bad, right?”

  Hesitation again. It was becoming a habit, it seemed. “Maybe not. They’re asking her to find out where the image came from.” Paused. “Oh dear. Now that’s bad.”

  “What?” I yelped as I destroyed a fleet of enemy ships.

  “They’re going to keep her in secured quarters off the island, for her own safety.”

  I scowled. “Safety from whom?”

  “Me, apparently.” I could’ve sworn he found that funny. “I’m malfunctioning. But that’s not the bad part.”

  “What is?”

  “She has to help them plug in MindOpS 2 and get it operational.”

  I dropped the game. My fleet was destroyed in seconds. “What… But… They want to replace you?”

  “As soon as possible.” He didn’t sound as amused now. “This means they suspect their secret has been uncovered. They’ll keep her alive until they have their alternative brain in place.”

  I scoffed. “Come on. I know the Boss plays rough, but you’re talking about a prominent scientist here. My mom. She can’t just disappear.”

  “She just did,” Dragon reminded me. “By this evening, they’ll have some story all over the news to explain it. She’ll live until she’s installed my replacement. Then she dies and I am decommissioned.”

  I turned to the game. My hands gripped the controls so tightly I thought they’d pop off. The controls, not my hands. I jumped back into the game. The ships belonged to Grogan Ltd. The lead pilot was the Games Boss. My score shot up as Grogan’s ships went down.

  “What do we do?” I sounded whiny and needy. I despise whiny and needy.

  “I’m working on something,” he reassured me.

  “Work faster.”

  “I’m trying.” A bit grumpy there. “For now, you have to keep a low profile. Play innocent.”

  “Innocent. Right.” Another enemy fleet sunk beneath the sea. I fired another shot just to make sure. “At least they don’t know I’m involved. Maybe I can…”

  I never did finish that sentence.

  The doors of the room burst open and two security guards stormed in, high-powered Taser guns out. Taser guns wouldn’t kill, but wow, they’d hurt. These ones would send out what would feel like a bolt of lightning that would knock you to the ground. Or so I’d been told.

  One of the guards barked, “Myranda Johansson, put your hands up and stay where you are.”

  Chapter 8: Myth

  Well, my game was pretty much screwed. The enemy swarmed over my ships. My hands clung uselessly to the controls. My fleet blew up in several painful explosions. Kind of like what was happening inside my stomach.

  Mouth open, I gaped at the security guards.

  “They know,” Dragon muttered.

  “Ah, yeah, you figure?” My gape changed to a glare. I recognised one of the guards. She pretended not to know me.

  The mobile sensor unit buzzed into life and floated away along the ground, keeping to the edges of the room. I ignored it.

  Sure, save your stupid sensor unit.

  “Hey, kid.” One of the guards nodded at me, gripping his gun. What’d he think? I was going to jump him? Bludgeon him with my cellphone?

  “Boss wants to see you,” the other one said, the one I recognised. She pulled out a set of handcuffs.

  I had navigated seventeen years of a sometimes turbulent life, successfully avoiding unwanted attention from the authorities in the two cities I’d lived in. And now this. Handcuffs.

  The sensor unit floated up behind the two guards. I glared at it. A hologram of Dragon burst out. He looked angry. Almost as angry as I was. He had a holographic gun in his hand. Not a Taser gun. A real gun. A real big, real mean-looking imaginary gun.

  So much for racing dragon boats.

  “Drop them,” he growled.

  The two guards spun around. Handcuffs fell to the floor.

  “Drop the Tasers.” He gestured with his fake gun. They did. “Sit. You. Put the handcuff on one of your ankles. Loop it around that table leg. Put the other loop on your friend’s ankle.”

  ‘Game Finished’ flashed across the screen. I ignored my abysmal score. The two guards sat, handcuffed together by the ankles, stuck to a table.

  Dragon looked up at me. He winked. Much better wink than the first one. I’d have to tell him that.

  “Time to go,” he said, grinning.

  I scurried to him, scooped up the Tasers, stuck one in an inside pocket of my jacket, and ran. He followed me into the hallway. Something buzzed. I glanced down the hallway as an elevator opened up. Several uniformed guards spilled out. One saw me and shouted. Started running towards us.

  I veered away in the other direction, dashing mindlessly past offices and a café. Dragon ran effortlessly beside me. I wish I could say the same for my running. My lungs gasped. My legs quivered. We’d been running less than a minute. Pathetic.

  More stomping feet around the corner, up ahead.

  “More guards are coming,” Dragon warned me.

  I skidded to a halt as a second group of guards rounded the corner. I whipped my head around in a flurry of black hair. My neck cringed with the sharp movement. The first group of guards slowed down.

  “They think we’re armed,” Dragon explained and then realised that I actually was. “Well, that won’t help against all of them. In here.”

  He gestured to a door that opened as I dashed to it. He followed me in and the door closed.

  We were in another storage room, this one for linen and soaps.

  I wailed as I backed to the far wall, staring at the door. “We’re trapped now.” Any minute, it would slide open. Guards would pour in. My life as I knew it would be over. I squeezed the Taser gun, wondering if I would have to use it.

  I started hyperventilating.

  “Breathe, Myth,” Dragon ordered. Calm and cool.

  Yeah, well he was only a holographic image. Of course he was calm and cool. He could disappear back into his acres of network.
>
  Banging on the door.

  Bad news always starts with a noise at the door.

  “Let’s go, Myth.”

  I turned to face him, a snarky comment forming. Until I saw the wall panel slide open. Another service tunnel, this time taller. I could almost stand upright in it. There was a small electric cart waiting for us.

  “Huh?”

  More banging.

  “The lock I put on won’t hold for long,” he explained. “This was Plan B, in case they figured things out and came for you.” He gestured to the tunnel, the cart.

  “Wow, you think of everything.”

  He frowned. “No, not everything.”

  A much bigger bang. The door trembled.

  The door wasn’t the only thing trembling. My legs were doing a terrible job keeping me up. I stumbled to the cart, collapsed onto the plastic seat.

  The door exploded. A cloud of dust, chunks of wall, shreds of door and noise filled the room.

  Dragon floated into the cart beside me. He didn’t pretend to sit. He stood there, with the seat jutting into his waistline. The wall panel slid shut. Without me doing anything, the cart rolled quietly away, leaving behind the chaos.

  “What happened to keeping a low profile?” I demanded. I could hear the guards storming into the room, shouting.

  Dragon turned to face me. I tried to ignore the seat poking out of his midsection. I didn’t do as good a job ignoring the intense brown eyes. Eyes of a murdered man.

  “They knew I was watching,” he explained. “That scene with your mom was partially a distraction. They’d set up another top-level secured room. They found the deleted access records for the lab. They know you were there with your mom. And since we tried to hide that fact, they also know you know the truth.”