Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  Kamala snapped a couple photos and held them up so Jack could see as well, rather than dangling precariously over the side. She expanded the photo and peered down at it, tilting her head. “The pattern is different. The blood didn’t just drip down like she was already wounded and there’s no trail leading up to it. I would guess that she gripped the stone at a bad angle and it dug in between the scales on the bottom of her claws. She must have multiple layers of epidermal and that was some kind of soft spot. She survived an explosion without a scratch, and yet here she got a cut. Curious.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Maybe she’s not like a reptile. In the photos, her scales were much more dense; thicker than anything I’ve seen aside from an armadillo. They’re packed tightly together on top of each other rather than in a single layer, but perhaps that leads to vulnerabilities near her joints and appendages.”

  Jack glanced at Caroline. “Were there any cameras in this area?”

  “Unfortunately, no. They’re still combing through traffic cameras, though. Something might turn up.”

  He grimaced. “We won’t have time to wait. All we’re doing is an initial sweep to learn as much about her as we can before we form the search party.”

  “In that case, Godspeed. You’ll need it.”

  “Definitely. Do you have anything else for us?”

  She shuffled a few papers on her clipboard and handed Jack a file folder. “I’ve at least got the lab results for the chemical fire. It’s a full report. Hopefully, it’ll help somehow.”

  “I’m sure it will. Thanks a lot.”

  “Good luck.”

  5

  ASSEMBLE!

  The Embassy of the United States in Tokyo was far more welcoming the second time Kamala visited, mostly because this time she wasn’t riding on the back of an enormous dragon. It was still an impressive building with some of the most gorgeous inner architecture she’d been able to see recently. After greeting the proper officials, the pair of scientists was led to a private meeting room where the rest of their party had finally been gathered.

  The room had white walls, beige-and-gold furniture, an artful rug spread beneath said furniture, and a large wooden table at the far end facing a projector. Fry was already seated, sipping from a paper cup and flipping through a thick textbook.

  Across from him sat an olive-skinned woman with overflowing auburn ringlets cascading down her shoulders. She wore a navy suit jacket over a black button-up shirt, blue jeans, and brown leather boots. Hard blue eyes flicked up to scan them as Jack and Kamala walked in, and they both immediately stiffened upon seeing her.

  The only person standing was an average height, grey-haired black man with a pair of glasses propped on his forehead as he shuffled through the papers in the manila folder in front of his seat. He perched the glasses down onto his nose after hearing Jack and Kamala’s arrival and smiled warmly at them.

  “Dr. Jackson and Dr. Anjali, I presume?”

  “You presume correctly, Dr. Hudson,” Jack said, smiling back.

  The older man did a bit of a double take. “Have we met before?”

  “Not at all. I took a course at MIT that taught one of your books and I saw one of your lectures in undergrad. It’s a pleasure to actually get to meet you, let alone work with you.”

  Dr. Hudson chuckled and shook Jack’s hand. “Alright, son, that’s enough. Any more and you’ll have me blushing.”

  He shook Kamala’s next. “Pleasure to meet you as well, Dr. Anjali.”

  “Delighted, Dr. Hudson. I’m afraid I share Jack’s high opinion of you. You’re practically a titan of history as far as we’re concerned.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, sweeping a hand. “I’m just an old man who’s read too many books.”

  “No such thing.”

  “Heh. Point taken. Well, you already know your handler, so I guess introductions are in order for this young lady here.”

  “Not particularly,” Kamala said, her smile disintegrating. “We both know full well who she is. Juniper Snow.”

  Dr. Hudson glanced between the silent woman and the scowling scientists. “Uh, am I missing something? You’ve met before?”

  “Yes. Jack and I did a presentation at the institute earlier this year and she was an attendee who interrupted the lecture by accusing us of being ‘thoughtless, reckless, meddling faux-intellectuals who will send the planet back into the Dark Ages.’ End quote.”

  “Well,” the woman said softly, revealing a Scottish accent. “Remind me again why we’re here, won’t you?”

  Kamala took a single step forward. Jack caught her jacket sleeve. “Kam.”

  “I’m fine,” she said through her teeth.

  “Pants on fire.”

  She glared at him. He let go. “Just sayin’. We’re in the embassy. We can’t exactly throw down when we’re representing the United States.”

  He paused. “Granted, that would be an accurate representation, but we’re supposed to be civil nonetheless.”

  “Listen to your boyfriend, lass,” Snow said with a sneer.

  Jack’s brown eyes snapped to her blue ones. “Don’t bring it here, lady. Wasn’t talking to you and I don’t plan on doing so any time soon.”

  Fry shook his head. “Boy, oh, boy, is this going to be a fun mission. Settle down, kids. We’re all here for a reason. Let’s save the fighting for the field, huh?”

  “The field?” Kamala snapped. “You expect us to go out into the field with a raving psychotic who has a history of violence against the scientific community? What reason could you possibly have to recruit her to retrieve Baba Yaga?”

  “Because the ‘raving psychotic’ is a direct descendant of Captain Archibald Demeter, the only man in history to take down Baba Yaga.”

  Both scientists froze. Fry’s smirk widened. “Yeah. What a twist, right? Now, if you don’t mind, have a seat and let the doc get started on the briefing. Time’s a-wasting.”

  “Fine,” Kamala said. “But let me make one thing clear, Snow. I’m not up on a stage right now. Try throwing a chair at me again and I’ll shove my fist so far down your throat that you’ll shit gold rings for a week.”

  With that, she strode to the couch and took a seat facing the projector. Jack cleared his throat, gave a menacing “I’ve got my eye on you” motion with his hand at Snow, and then sat next to Kamala. Dr. Hudson finished setting up his laptop slideshow in the stagnant silence.

  Jack leaned into Kamala’s side slightly, his voice low. “Is it wrong that I thought that was kind of hot?”

  Kamala shook her head. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  She elbowed him in the side, but her lips still twisted up at one end.

  “Well,” Dr. Hudson said, sending a glance around the room. “Now that we’ve all gotten, uh, acquainted, I’ll do a broad sweep over the facts and then we’ll get down to the lesser known aspects of Baba Yaga.”

  He clicked to the first slide. It showed the only fully intact Baba Yaga skeleton ever recovered, currently making its home in its own exhibit inside Romer Hall at the Harvard museum. “Species: seraphim tenebris. Baba Yaga has a pretty sordid history that’s been hard to narrow down even with advanced science, but here’s the most accurate information we’ve been presented with so far. The species existed primarily during the Triassic period, but after whatever event caused the dinosaurs and almost all subsequent life on earth to cease, her descendants managed to be within a handful of those that survived. The remains we’ve gathered over the years lead us to believe that during the Triassic period, she may have been even larger than we predicted, but as evolution ran its course, her species slimmed down to compete with other predators for her food source. By the time humans were walking around, seraphim tenebris were already on the highly endangered species list, with a population of only a dozen. She was so highly sought after that she helped give birth to the mad race to hunt dragons that wiped out the entire breed in the late 1400’s.
The very last one died at sea, chased to exhaustion by sailing dragon slayers off the coast of Australia.”

  Dr. Hudson switched to a new slide. This one showed a large patch of dried grey dragon skin, about the size of a large blanket. “However, the preserved remains of an adult Baba Yaga were unearthed last month and they answered a lot of the questions we’ve been asking for so many years. We have the initial analysis from the dracologists that give us a picture of her physiology and anatomy. For example, Baba Yaga has the toughest scales of any animal on the planet. They’ve tested what it can withstand, even at its current deterioration, and estimate that she could withstand gunfire.”

  “What kind of caliber?” Fry asked.

  “Based on the readings, anything less than a .50 cal.”

  Fry whistled. “Tough son of a bitch. How’s that even possible? The force of the bullet alone is what should kill the animal, not just the hardness of a lead bullet.”

  Dr. Hudson motioned with a laser pointer, circling the dried scales. “Look closely. It’s not apparent by the naked eye, but under a microscope, we’ve been able to see that her skin cells are packed so tightly that not even water can penetrate it. It’s completely impermeable. Furthermore, while this is still under review, we’ve been led to believe that it’s not just the tough scales. We think that the reason Baba Yaga was the terror of the mid-15th century is because she absorbs heat and energy and reflects it back like a mirror. In a sense, her entire body is covered in a bulletproof vest that can conduct heat better than metal or anything else on the planet.”

  “That sounds accurate,” Kamala said. “When we visited the lab, the explosion that caused her escape didn’t leave a scratch on her, despite the fact that it would have been at a massive temperature that should have killed her. If she absorbs kinetic energy at that kind of a rate, then it would mean she’s damn near impervious to harm.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. Hudson said. “Still, we’re looking at a corpse. Perhaps conventional methods don’t work against her, but the same laws of nature apply to the animal itself. She needs food, water, and shelter nonetheless.”

  He flipped to a new slide. This one showed a cavern burrowed into the earth. It appeared to be at least one hundred feet long and clearly wasn’t man-made. There were bare, stripped skeletons decaying along the ground. “Baba Yaga was a cave-dwelling dragon. She would build a nest and spend her days protecting it until her younglings hatched and she would exit in order to teach them to hunt and fly. The gestation period is unknown, but based on the literature, the species mates in the summer, gestates the eggs in the winter, and then emerges during the spring. She appears to hibernate, or at the very least, enter a state at which she expends very little energy to conserve it during the cold months of the year. Aokigahara seems like the natural choice for her to settle down, as it’s in an area with deeply packed trees and plenty of protection from the harsher elements. However, that’s also the bad news. Aokigahara doesn’t have much wildlife. An animal that large will need to sustain itself on copious quantities of meat, especially if she intends to bed down for the winter. More than likely, her rampage in Tokyo was to test the response of her potential prey. She may venture out of the forest to hunt sooner rather than later. Time is of the essence.”

  “I’ll say,” Jack sighed, rubbing his face as he stared up at the cave. “If you’re saying nothing less than a 50-cal can bring her down, what are we supposed to do in order to subdue her? If that’s the kind of firepower it takes to stop her, we’re massively unqualified.”

  Jack paused. “No pun intended.”

  “Excellent question,” Dr. Hudson said. “That’s the good news. What works for her can also work for us. Baba Yaga draws energy from her environment and uses it to do those amazing and terrible things we’ve seen her do. So far, we believe that massively decreasing the temperature would cause her to fall into her dormant state, almost like going into a coma. For the last few hours, we’ve been working with a local lab to mix a few chemicals that can be shot through a nozzle to rapidly cool her and the area around her so that she can be captured and safely transported elsewhere.”

  “I hope you have a strong belief system, doc,” Fry said. “Otherwise, we’re ash. One blast from that fire and the story’s over.”

  “It’s a hell of a task, I know. We’re working as fast as we can to find anything else that would allow the dragon to be taken alive, but…”

  Kamala frowned. “But what?”

  Dr. Hudson cleared his throat and nodded towards Fry. “That’s his department, I’m afraid.”

  “What is his department?”

  Fry folded his hands in his lap. “Let me explain how this is going to work. The reason you two are on the team is to make a concerted effort to track the dragon and capture it with what you’ve learned about the varanus lacerto you resurrected. The reason Dr. Hudson is here is to provide as much information about Baba Yaga as possible to prepare us for the trip. The reason I am here is to oversee the hunt and to make the final decision if the dragon can be taken alive. The reason Ms. Snow is here is in case I decide that Baba Yaga cannot be subdued and instead needs to be put down. If I determine that it’s too great a task, the military will move in to eliminate her.”

  “How long do we have to retrieve the dragon?”

  “We’ll be limited to daylight only. If we can’t find her by sundown, I’ll call them in.”

  “One day? That forest is too dense to find her in only a day.”

  “That’s why you brought that tracker, right? It should get us in her vicinity long before then.”

  “I’m getting the distinct impression that there isn’t a Plan B,” Jack said grimly.

  “Afraid not.”

  “Dr. Hudson,” Kamala said. “Can you send us a copy of all the information you went over?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She handed him her business card. “How long before the prototypes for the weapons are finished?”

  Dr. Hudson checked his watch. “Within the hour. The head of the project will meet you outside of the forest. You’d better head that way now. Don’t get testy if you have questions. I’ll be on-call all day long during the hunt. If you need anything, I’ll be here for you.”

  “Thank you.” The two scientists rose and headed out of the conference room to their escort. A limousine sat idling in a space, its driver blowing a furl of smoke out into the cool air. Jack and Kamala took seats across from Snow and Fry, and the limo driver waited for the policeman on the motorcycle to halt traffic before pulling into the street.

  “Now that we’ve gotten the basics down for the target,” Fry said. “Why don’t we get some insight into what you two have discovered? What’s the connection between your dragon and this new one?”

  “The growth spurt is the most obvious similarity,” Kamala said, already checking her iPhone for an email from Dr. Hudson so she could review the notes. “Baba Yaga wouldn’t have matured to that size until at least ten years, so whoever created her definitely had access to our project. Secondly, there may be some kind of correlation between their behaviors.”

  “How so?”

  “Most dragons would simply run away if they were confused. They tend not to attack unless it has to do with hunger or being cornered in some way. After she broke out of the facility, she should have just fled to the forest, but she didn’t. She was seen attacking numerous things and while we have confirmed deaths, we don’t yet know if she ate any of those people. This could simply be that she was disoriented, or it could be something more troublesome. For example, we have observed behaviors in Pete that are unlike any animal in her species. She seems fully capable of emotional retention. She shows affection towards us as if we were part of her pack, and shows disdain for all others, even after repeated attempts to build rapport. We’ve managed to deduce that she is capable of cognition that is normally only seen in mammals. What if Baba Yaga is the same? What if her siege on Tokyo was more than just a frightened animal? What if it
was rage?”

  Fry sighed. “A pissed off twenty-five-foot dragon? Well, this just got a whole lot easier.”

  “It gets better,” Jack said. “Since they haven’t recovered any data yet, we also have to consider whether she’ll continue growing or if she’s reached her adult size. For all we know, we go in to find a T-Rex and end up hunting a goddamn Megalodon. However, the good news is that we were able to get Pete’s defective growth gene under control with treatment. There is a chance that if she does have that same gene, she’ll die within a day from her body being unable to handle the stress. We can’t assume that without more data, but it’s at least a factor to consider.”

  “With that in mind, we’ll talk strategy after we’re all suited up,” Fry said. “We’ll have to assume that she’ll kill any of us on sight, and so every move we make will be covert and from a safe distance. We’ll have choppers on standby if we haven’t found her by sundown. All you’ll need to do is shoot a flare and they’ll come get us.”

  “Understood. There is one more thing I want answered before we get moving. What if we’re not the only ones out there?”

  Fry frowned. “I highly doubt that’ll happen, doc.”

  Jack held up his hands. “Humor me. Jin told us there was a set of footprints that were unaccounted for at the site where Baba Yaga broke out. How do we know we’re not going to butt heads with the people who made her?”

  The frown flattened out into neutrality. The alarm bells in Jack’s head immediately started clanging. “Again, I would say the likelihood is minimal. The entire area is closed off to the public and already quarantined by the authorities. Even if they were already there, we’re not going in unarmed. I’ve got your backs, trust me.”