by Kyanna Skye
It was Rayna’s understanding that he did orientation for all the newbies, but he spoke with the excitement one would expect from someone doing this for the first time.
He showed her through the upper levels; the administrative offices, marketing and development, and the secretarial pool, before taking her down to the subterranean floor.
“This is where the magic not only happens but is created,” he said as they took the elevator down. Rayna felt her pulse quicken. It was obviously a nerd reaction, but she was excited to see what was down there. She had never been. There were all kinds of stories about what might or might not be in the laboratory, and she wanted to know which were real. Even her father didn’t tell her these things. He always said it was indeed a matter of national security. He always said it with a wink and a grin, but something on gut level told Rayna her father was very serious. He wasn’t the kind of man to kid about anything.
“Your primary job will be to take specimens from the subjects on a daily basis, and to monitor any changes- chemical or behavioral- for each one. You’ll deal with five subjects alone, which is a procedure we have established over years of trial and error. One person will easily spot what several different people will miss.”
“Specimens?” Rayna asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Edwards said with a smile. He slid his key card against a reader attached to the wall, and a pair of steel doors slid open with a mechanical whoosh. This was the lab, the secret heart of the company.
The doctor walked her over to what looked like an aquarium, with a small, octopus-like creature floating inside it. Rayna blinked when she realized the squid was floating in the air, not water. Rayna guessed it couldn’t be longer than five inches in diameter. Its tentacles were pink. The creature swam towards the doctor as he tapped his fingers along the glass casing.
“We’re not encouraged to give our friends here names, but I do anyway. We spend so much time with them, it’s almost impossible not to. This is Johnny. He’s the smallest we have here but don’t be fooled. If he gets out of his casing its hell to get him back in. Last time that happened it took a week to find him, and he’d somehow managed to get into the air conditioning vent. Very slippery little fellow.”
Rayna wasn’t sure what to say to that. Dr. Edwards ushered her through another door.
“We keep each of these creatures in separate rooms,” he explained. “We can’t have them colluding or exciting each other.”
“That would insinuate they’re sentient.”
“Well of course they are!” the doctor exclaimed as if this should be completely obvious.
They came to stand in front of the next glass enclosure. “Umm. Is this alive?” Rayna asked.
The thing inside the glass appeared to be a blue, gelatinous goo, the same blue as window spray or toilet bowl cleaner. No sooner than the words were out of her mouth, the thing began to move, flowing up the glass. It curved into something like a face.
“It’s mimicking you,” Dr. Edwards said. “We don’t know why exactly it does that, but we believe it’s a social adaptation rather than a predatory behavior. This would be its way of saying hello.”
“It?” Rayna echoed.
“Well, we haven’t been able to determine the gender, or of this species even has distinct genders, to be honest. We believe it breaks off in pieces as a form of reproduction. We call it Mimi. You won’t have to open this one’s cage. We have a tube that will allow you to catch its secretions in a cup, and you’ll use that for your daily specimen.”
Rayna frowned. “How dangerous is this job?”
“Not at all if you do it correctly, dear,” the doctor replied.
She braced herself as they went through the next door.
This exhibit contained what looked to be an ordinary gorilla. Until he stood. Primates usually bent, their knuckles dragging the ground. This gorilla stood up straight and tall like any man. Apparently, he was also modest. He’d been supplied with a pair of tan shorts. He slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded congenially. “Dr. Edwards, good afternoon,” he said. “Miss,” he nodded towards Rayna.
“Um, hello sir,” Rayna answered. She couldn’t believe she was talking to a gorilla.
“His name is Poe,” Dr. Edwards informed Rayna. “You’ll find he is the friendliest of our guests. He’s been with us since he was an infant. One of our old research assistants used to read Poe to him regularly, and when he spoke for the first time, he quoted the author. So that’s what we named him. Poe, this is Rayna. She’ll be working with you. I do hope you’ll be nice to her when she attempts to draw your blood.”
“Yes. Pleased to meet you Rayna,” the gorilla said.
“Same here,” Rayna muttered. She pinched herself, just in case she was in bed still sleeping. No such luck.
As they passed into the next room, Rayna couldn’t help but ask. “Where did we get these creatures from?”
“Different parts of the universe. Exactly which planets, I couldn’t tell you. That’s information which the military doesn’t give us.”
“Oh,” Rayna said. “Right.”
“Well, we’ve come to the last of your charges,” Dr. Edwards said. “I know it’s quite a lot to take in at once, but you’ll get used to it, dear.”
The doctor flipped a switch, and the lights came up inside the glass enclosure. This one was huge, the size of an airplane hangar. Rayna’s mouth dropped open. At first, she couldn’t believe what she was looking at. A huge dragon loomed above them, its eyes a brilliant amber. They were close enough to see scales and claws. The dragon opened its mouth, revealing a serpent like tongue and fangs.
“How am I supposed to get a sample from him?” Rayna cried. She trembled.
“Oh, he has a human form. You’ll take a blood draw from him when he’s not so testy. He’s only been here for forty-eight hours, and I suspect it hasn’t been a good couple of days for him. He’ll calm down.”
Rayna could have been imagining it- she highly suspected that she might have imagined the entire last thirty minutes of her life- but the dragon looked her in the eye. She was rooted to the spot as it inhaled, breast heaving, and then exhaled fire.
The glass (which was heat resistant) protected Rayna and Dr. Edwards.
Rayna still felt the heat. The animal’s eyes were angry, but she could have sworn there was something pleading in the look as well. She was reminded of a hysterical, terrified animal at the shelter who understood his number would soon be up, barking and hurling himself at walls and anyone who dared approach him. Begging for attention before his protests were too late.
Only this was no puppy. This was a thing with scales and teeth and fire, at least five stories high, tethered down by chains. A vision from the depths of hell itself.
Rayna felt like the floor beneath her was flipped upside down. She was going down fast but couldn’t do anything to stop herself. She was aware of the doctor’s arms coming around her before she hit the concrete floor.
“Oh my!” he exclaimed. “Rayna, dear…!”
Well, this isn’t a good impression on my first day, she thought, as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Rayna woke up.
She was lying on a couch in a dim room, with a cool compress against her head. She sat up and was relieved to see Dr. Edwards smiling at her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked kindly.
“Better now,” Rayna said. “I am so sorry and embarrassed.”
“No need for that. You handled it well. I have seen others react much worse than you did.”
“My father will be humiliated once he finds out.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” he said. “As soon as you can give it another try, I don’t see any reason he should be told. We don’t say anything about what’s going on in the lab unless it’s something he absolutely must know, and I don’t think this minor mishap qualifies. Agreed?”
Rayna tried for a shaky smile. Even though she didn’t want to go back to the lab, she was aware
her father would never let her hear the end of it if she didn’t. “Agreed,” she said.
“I will give you credit Rayna, we don’t usually have dragons in our keeping,” the doctor said as they made their way out of his office and down the hallway. “He is a magnificent beast! I am told he’s calm now. Since he is the one that really scared you, I think we should go back to him first.”
Excellent, Rayna thought. All I need is to fall over again to prove I’m not cut out for this job.
Rayna attempted to brace herself for what she would see when the door opened this time. Pulse racing, she held her breath.
The door opened, and she exhaled.
Standing near the glass was perhaps the most good-looking man she had ever seen. His amber eyes followed her across the room. With some shock, she realized this was the dragon she’d seen, in his human form.
He had black hair which laid in waves across his crown. His skin was tan. He had full lips, and aquiline nose, and a cleft chin. His thick muscles and long body were close to masculine perfection. And his muscular, sculpted form was completely nude. Rayna blushed. The dragon held her eyes. He seemed not at all uncomfortable naked in front of these two strangers.
“I am sorry I frightened you before,” he said. “It was not my intention.”
“You speak English?” Rayna asked.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “I can communicate in a way that allows you to hear my language in your native tongue. And I hear yours the same way. My name is Kirin. What are you called?”
“Rayna,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Rayna,” he said. His smile slowed her heartbeat to a thump.
Rayna smiled back. She tried with all her might not to let her eyes stray downward to his manhood. While she wasn’t entirely successful in the effort, she hoped she at least was not obvious about it.
Dr. Edwards showed her where she could get the supplies she needed for a blood draw. “I forgot to mention since he’s new we’ll also need to get a cheek swab for a DNA analysis.”
Rayna listened carefully to his instructions. Once she had everything that she needed, he keyed in another code which let her into the enclosure with Kirin.
“I won’t hurt you,” Kirin said gently. He looked into her eyes, and she was actually inclined to believe him. She felt a wave of calm flow over her. She knew he was influencing her somehow, but she couldn’t help it. At least, for now, his influence wasn’t interfering with her job. Who knew what this alien dragon was capable of? She worried that he might want to lull her into a sense of false security, only to do something that harmed her.
“Let’s do the swab first,” she said. He opened his mouth and let her take the swab. He followed her every order, never taking those beautiful eyes off of her. She found herself daydreaming about those sensual lips on hers, his powerful arms wrapped around her. Her hands shook as she took the blood sample but she managed it anyway. She was relieved to see that his blood was actually red, even though she was sure it was composed of different stuff than human blood. It was very thick. She would have found it somehow more upsetting if his blood was green or blue, some other color she didn’t associate with life.
“I was infuriated when I saw you before,” he whispered. “I have been separated from my men, my people. I don’t know what’s happened to them.”
“I’m sorry,” Rayna said. “I didn’t know, but I can only imagine how upsetting that was.” She made a mental note to herself to be as kind as possible. Obviously, upset brought out the primal side of his nature. It wasn’t productive for either of them for him to be angry.
Kirin smiled, seeming to understand her train of thought. “Thank you for the empathy,” he said. “It appears to be lacking here.”
After she was done with Kirin, Poe was next. Rayna realized she felt better to those she could speak with. She could talk herself into believing Poe was actually a man in an ape suit, and she could even tell herself the beautiful dragon would not hurt her. The gelatinous goo (Mimi) and the octopus creature (Johnny) bothered her more. In fact, Johnny was the most difficult. He floated in the opposite direction whenever her hand came near him in the tank. By the time she got her sample from him, she was sweating.
“Good job,” Dr. Edwards said when they were done. “Just so you know, your boss will be Dr. Sidell. I won’t mention today’s bit of confusion to him, but he’s very exacting. Mind your P’s and Q’s, because he would not have tolerated what happened. But this is a job like any other, I understand you have to learn. When you do samples tomorrow there may be added protocols, so make sure to check your email before you come in. Mind yourself around all of them. Especially our young dragon because he hasn’t been here long enough for us to know his behaviors yet.”
It was a stressful day. Rayna showered as soon as she got home, put on pajamas and climbed into bed. The sun was still out, but she didn’t care. She was frazzled and worried about what the coming days and weeks held for her. She’d left home thinking she was starting work at a relatively normal job. Now, barely eight hours later, she was coming to grips with the realization that not only were humans not alone in the universe—but the cosmos was peopled with all kinds of sentient beings, with all kinds of powers…
Even as she drifted to sleep, she thought of the beautiful Kirin, and how he captivated her. She could not understand the strange attraction she had to him. She only knew the way he looked at her created a surge of warmth beneath her skin. And though she knew the power of the dragon he could become, she wanted to know the man.
The next morning, Rayna took Dr. Edward’s advice and logged into her work computer to find several long, detailed emails from her new boss, Dr. Sidell. She was surprised he was expecting her to take and prepare all the samples on her own, without anyone watching. She would have hoped someone would be in the room with her until she became more comfortable with the procedure. But that was not the case. To make the entire thing more challenging, there was an added list of procedures to be done on Kirin. The only explanation Sidell gave for this was Kirin’s profile was “limited” and they needed to gather further “pertinent information.”
Rayna took this to mean they had never studied a being like Kirin before, and they needed him poked and prodded as much as possible in order to try and figure out what his species’ version of DNA looked like. Brilliant.
She scribbled the long list of requested tests onto a notepad and sighed. It took nearly twenty minutes to procure the items she needed from the supply cabinet. Once she was done there, Rayna keyed herself into the room where Kirin was being kept.
“Hello,” he said.
The man was standing there, back against the wall, arms crossed, still naked. And though he didn’t seem to mind, it would have helped her concentration immensely if he had a pair of shorts like Poe’s. Seriously, she wouldn’t mind a shirt either. Maybe it would be worth it to buy him some herself. “If I brought you some clothes, would you wear them?”
He cocked his head in her direction, seeming to listen to something more than the handful of words which were spoken. “On my home world, the climate is generally warm, and we don’t feel the need for clothing, except for certain occasions. It gets ruined when we phase into our other form. But since it’s local custom, and more so, to make sure you’re comfortable, I wouldn’t mind it. I was wearing clothes when they captured me. I assume they were destroyed.”
“You read minds,” Rayna said.
“When it suits me,” Kirin’s amber eyes sparkled.
“Clever,” Rayna replied. She couldn’t help but smile.
What was worse, she wasn’t sure; letting her eyes roam his body or looking into those eyes, which made her body go still while her heart beat frantically. She was sure that when the ancient Greeks chiseled their statues, this man would have been the prototype for their gods. Knowing he could hear her inappropriate thoughts didn’t help her cause. She blushed, and he smiled knowingly. I must be stroking his ego right about now.
&n
bsp; Either way, she wasn't productive by just standing there, staring. She rolled a tray with wheels into his space so she could lay out all the objects the samples she needed to take.
“I’m afraid they want me to do a battery of tests, different than the ones I performed yesterday. Some of these will hurt.”
“We should get it over then,” he said.
Rayna thought it best to get the easier of the testing done first. Two more cheek swabs were requested, along with more blood. She had to clip a bit of his hair as a sample.
“I’m surprised they don’t ask you to take these samples after I have phased into my dragon,” Kirin said. “Might be interesting to see you remove a scale or two.”
Rayna raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t give them any ideas.”
He chuckled.
“You find me amusing?” she asked.
“Yes and no.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I find you intriguing,” he said softly.
Rather than get into what that meant, Rayna tried to focus. He was distracting enough without being charming on top of it. She feared he was amused by her inner thoughts, which was all about how hot he was. She had no control over it. She blushed.
“These next few are going to hurt,” Rayna said.
He only nodded this time. Dr. Sidell wanted skin samples, and these were not the regular. She was instructed to actually cut a bit of skin away. She decided to take the skin from his back.
He groaned when she cut him the first time. He bit down on his lip. She also took skin samples from his arm and leg.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. She found herself patting his shoulder to comfort him.
“It’s not your fault,” he grimaced. “But your superiors and all of the people in this place are going to be sorry when my people get here.”
