Steel Dragon

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Sir, I thought we were practicing entries, not solving episodes of the Twilight Zone,” Washington complained.

  “In case you didn’t realize it, we live in a city a dragon used its psychic powers to try to attack. We need to be ready for anything,” the team leader replied, his voice terse.

  “We wouldn’t if we didn’t have a dragon on the team.” He glared at her.

  She very politely flipped him off.

  “You know, that gives me an idea. Wonderkid, Hall, you two are together until further notice.”

  “No way,” Jim complained.

  “I agree with the Wonderkid, sir.” She tried to keep any emotion out of her voice, even though she thought this was ridiculous. “He’s perfectly capable. I need to be with Keith or Hernandez to make sure nothing happens to them.”

  Drew smiled at that and shook his head. “And you were so close, Hall. So close.” He held up two fingers a hair’s breadth apart. “But you’re still too focused on keeping your team safe and not on the mission. Maybe if you’re with Washington, you’ll focus on the task at hand instead of babysitting.”

  She groaned but didn’t argue further.

  “Sir, it’s a waste of my talents to partner me with her.”

  “See, the thing is, I don’t give a shit about your prejudices,” the other man said. “I don’t care if a dragon ate your grandmother, Hall is one of us and now, the Wonderkid is too. You both need to accept that.”

  They raised their voices to protest further, but he simply put a whistle to his lips and blew it until they shut up.

  “Now, like I said—hostiles inside, silverware flying everywhere. And…go!”

  “Right, you take the east stairs and we’ll take the west,” Kristen said to Keith and Beanpole.

  “Got it.”

  “Drew, can we assume the power to elevators has been cut?”

  “Elevators not working but the building still has power.”

  “Is that important?” Washington asked.

  Drew only smiled. That meant he was up to something. “Time’s ticking. If you do this in less than five, the next box of donuts is on me.”

  “Let’s move, people,” Butters shouted, and everyone laughed as they ran into the abandoned practice building.

  Jim followed her toward the west stairway and she made a conscious effort not to race ahead although it wasn’t easy. She was used to moving fast in these situations. To have to move at his speed felt like being in molasses.

  “Here, I’ll get the door,” he said when they made it to the entrance.

  She shrugged but let him do it.

  He had to kick it three times before it opened. She tried not to let him see how much time she knew he had wasted.

  They raced up the three flights of stairs without stopping. When they made it to the top, her partner had to suck in a few deep breaths to steady himself. Kristen wasn’t even faintly winded.

  “Okay…I’ll take point,” he said between breaths.

  “No way. You’re winded and I have better reflexes.”

  “Because you’re a dragon.”

  “So what? Do you want to get shot when you don’t have to?”

  “Drew said—”

  “Drew said he wants us to work together,” she reminded him sharply. “He didn’t say anything about you doing everything while I watch. Now, I’m taking point.”

  “Okay… Okay, that’s fine, but don’t turn to steel.”

  “Why not?” she asked and fought down the reflex to transform.

  “Because Drew said the TVs are messing up and the silverware is sticking to ceilings. It sounds like a magnet to me.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Drew cares about you. I don’t know why, but he does. I’m telling you, don’t use your powers. Well, not if you can help it. Do you mind getting these doors?”

  Kristen nodded and wiped her face. He was exhausting to work with. In one second, he told her not to use her powers, then he wanted her to use her strength to open the doors. It was inconsistent and annoying. Still, it was better than watching him tire himself out opening everything in the hallway.

  They started down the corridor. The building was old so it wasn’t particularly appealing. Old tile, stained in a few places where water had gotten in, greyish walls, and cheap fluorescent lights all made the place feel decidedly grimy. Not that it was much different than how many people lived in the United States.

  The only thing that set this apartment complex apart from any number of other aging structures that needed to be updated or demolished were the doors. SWAT chewed through doors, so they were constantly replaced. In this hallway alone were three bright red doors, a purple one, a green one, and—oddly—a screen door.

  She made a point of trying each knob before she kicked them open. The first three rooms were abandoned but the fourth showed light under the green door.

  “SWAT! Open up,” she yelled.

  “Die, bitch! My mutants will rule this world in a way you have not,” Hernandez shouted in response. She played the hostile on this practice mission and apparently, her teammate was more into roleplaying than she had realized.

  “I’m gonna force the door,” she said.

  “Do it, but don’t turn to steel,” Jim reminded her.

  “Like if I need to stop you from getting shot?”

  He glowered at her but didn’t respond.

  “I’m coming in,” she yelled and kicked the door in the middle, using her dragon strength despite her partner’s admonishment not to do so. It snapped and the pieces catapulted inward. Whoops, maybe she had overdone it.

  She stepped inside the room, her weapon up, and moved to the left. Washington entered directly behind her and went right. It felt sluggish to have to move at human speed, but she could do this. She could work on a team.

  “I have you now, you stupid fucking dragon. I will smash your eggs and extinguish your flames,” Hernandez shouted from the other room. Apparently, she was playing a Russian mobster or, at least, that’s what the accent suggested.

  They followed the voice down a tiny hallway and into a bedroom.

  Hernandez waited there, armed with a gun. She held it up and fired at Kristen’s face.

  “You forgot your helmet, Red,” the woman chided as Kristen held up a hand to block the airsoft.

  “Hall, don’t.”

  She ignored Washington. If he was such a great partner, he should have told her to put her helmet on before they entered the building—not that it would have mattered. The face shields on the helmets were hardly bulletproof.

  Her hand blocked the airsoft pellets easily. They stung, though, so she turned her hand to steel.

  “Gotcha, dragon capitalist pig,” Hernandez crowed and stamped on some kind of foot pedal from which black wires ran to the wall behind her.

  A hum was immediately followed by a strong pull that drew her steel hand back.

  “Change, Hall,” her partner yelled.

  She resented him for telling her what to do. That tiny ping of anger plus the sensation of her hand out of her control made her act reflexively. She transformed her body to steel. There was no way that whatever force dragged at her would be able to move a steel body.

  Unless, of course, it was a bank of electromagnets.

  Their power was immediately apparent when her body turned to metal.

  They pulled on every inch of her and hauled her inexorably backward. She tried to lean against them and fight her way free from the force using her muscles that could lift her tremendous weight, but the magnets were too strong.

  She was yanked into the back wall.

  “Bang! Bang!” Hernandez said and pretended to execute her, then Washington. “Democracy dies in darkness, you stupid Americans.”

  Kristen tried to pull off the wall, but she couldn’t. She was stuck until the other woman stamped on the foot pedal that had activated the magnetic contraption. It killed the power and she was free once more.

  �
�How’d they do?” Drew’s voice asked over the radio.

  “Not good. Kristen turned to metal and was trapped.” The demolitions expert sneered somewhat smugly.

  “I told you not to turn to steel,” Washington said.

  “Oh, whatever. You merely don’t want me to use my powers because it makes you look bad,” she retorted.

  “I said there was something magnetic. The silverware and TVs were a damn clue.”

  She clenched her jaw. Dammit, he had said that.

  “You could have simply changed back to human,” Hernandez said, obviously quite pleased with herself and her wall of magnets.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I guess if we have a fight in a garbage dump, I’ll keep that in mind.” She waved her hand dismissively at the other woman and started out of the building.

  Her two teammates were right, of course. If she’d only turned her steel skin off, she would have been free to pursue Hernandez. The problem was, she’d spent every day since she’d learned that she was a dragon honing her reflexes to turn her steel skin on if there was a threat. It clearly wouldn’t be easy to unlearn that.

  They walked down the three flights, collected Keith and Beanpole who hadn’t made it to the room because Hernandez had locked the door to their stairwell with a couple of chains, and went out to the van.

  “We still have training to do,” Drew said. “Which means no donuts today.”

  “I can buy,” Butters protested.

  He shook his head. “Doggies don’t get treats when they can’t sit.”

  “Come on, Drew, magnets? Really?” Kristen complained.

  “You were literally stopped because of magnets.” He shrugged and looked way too proud of himself for her taste. “I’m not so thick as to think they’ll use the identical trap again, but we’d be foolish to overlook the possibility. This is a very specific threat to you. I think we need to be ready in case they try to use it.”

  “But a wall of magnets?” She snorted. It was ridiculous.

  “They were fucking slick, right? Those were mostly car speakers, plus like every volt of electricity running through that building,” Hernandez said smugly.

  “Right, but who will have time for something like that?”

  “The same people who demolished an entire building in hopes of eliminating you,” Washington said, his brow furrowed like it was obvious.

  She sighed and finally accepted that it was possible.

  “Plus, I may be handy, but I don’t know how to design a damn magnetic taser to practice with.” The other woman shrugged but looked disappointed.

  “But we have their tasers,” she pointed out.

  “The batteries are all dead and the tech is weird. I don’t even know how they charged them,” Hernandez explained.

  “Can we go back to the station?” Kristen said. “I want a damn shower.”

  “I bet. I had to cut the power to the air conditioning to have enough juice to run the magnet. You stink.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She was frustrated, tired, and yes, stinky. She thought they were supposed to be training to be on a team, and yet it felt like Drew simply tried to come up with ways to stop her from using her powers. It was exhausting and it felt petty and childish.

  Did other dragons let humans do this to them? Test them for weaknesses? Boss them around? Hold them to a double standard? She doubted it and couldn’t exactly imagine that Stonequest guy from Dragon SWAT letting people chip away at him with chisels or whatever.

  With a heavy sigh, she realized that she didn’t know if Stonequest’s last name meant he had different powers than a regular dragon. There was still so much she didn’t know, and her team wasn’t helping by limiting her powers. They should be embracing her abilities, not trying to find loopholes.

  These thoughts filled her mind and distracted her all the way back to the station. When they arrived and exited the van, she was almost surprised that they were already there.

  “Okay. Showers, then I want you in the lounge in twenty. I have more ideas for team building,” Drew sounded like he was really enjoying coming up with specific ways to torture her.

  Kristen nodded and headed toward the showers. It had been a long morning and she simply wanted to go home. There were still hours of the day left, however, which meant time to review more tactics or whatever else their team leader would demand they look at until it lost all meaning.

  She removed her bulletproof vest—Drew had insisted she wear it—her gun belt, and her boots and crammed them in a locker. Her uniform shirt drew a grimace of distaste when she noticed that she’d managed to sweat through her undershirt and through the outer one as well.

  Gunshots echoed through the building as she was about to strip down and get into the shower.

  “Code red. I repeat, code red! Hostiles in the—” Her radio began to blare feedback.

  Instinctively, she turned her skin to steel and raced from the locker room.

  As she ran—despite using her dragon speed to go as quickly as possible—she heard multiple weapons unload tons of rounds.

  By the time she made it out of the hallway and into the main office space of the station, it was a mess. Bullet holes riddled the walls, computers were destroyed, and loose paperwork was everywhere. The hostiles were still at the doorway, all wearing ski masks.

  No sooner did she stop to scan the scene than they began to shoot at her.

  She ducked back—training to not use her powers had worked to some degree—and took a moment to assess the situation. She was unarmed, underdressed, without bulletproof armor or even shoes, and she was alone. It seemed like the perfect time to activate her powers and show these assholes what happened when they brought the fight to her territory.

  Kristen flexed to confirm that her entire body was steel and prepared to race across the room when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Wait. Butters and Beanpole are almost in position.” Washington had made it farther along in his shower than she had, obviously. He was shirtless and smelled pleasantly of soap, but he hadn’t put his shoes or armor on either. Fortunately, he wore more than a towel.

  “I can take them,” she said and turned away from him.

  “Give your team a chance.”

  She scowled but she waited.

  A second later, Beanpole darted out of the lounge with a shotgun and fired it three times to force the hostiles to take cover behind the front desk. As soon as they did so, Butters emerged with a rifle.

  He took two shots—and missed both times—before the intruders tried to flee out the front door.

  One of the men slipped on one of the papers, landed hard, and pushed himself up. He slid again, then pulled his ski mask back to reveal a light-skinned face and a brown mustache.

  “I got him,” Butters said.

  “No, wait.” Washington stumbled toward the sniper and blocked his shot.

  “Dammit, Wonderkid!”

  Kristen glared at Jim. He didn’t return the look and seemed too distracted to notice. There was something odd in his expression, though. Surprise? Fear? Recognition?

  The invaders used the opportunity created by the brief moment of confusion to race out the door and the advantage was lost.

  “I got them,” she said. They’d barely cleared the front door and she could make it there no problem. If she put her steel skin on, she could even stop their getaway vehicle.

  “No! No, wait,” Washington said and scrambled in her path.

  “They’ll get away.” Kristen put a hand on his shoulder as a reminder that she could fling him across the room if she wanted to.

  “Exactly. Even though they didn’t do shit besides make a mess, they’re already running off. This has to be a trap.”

  “He might be right,” Drew said from down the corridor. “Hall, don’t pursue.”

  She obeyed, but she also made a note to talk to their team leader about Washington later. Why had he stopped Butters from taking that shot? What had she seen in his eyes?
Could she trust him?

  In the moment of stillness that followed the attack, her mind raced. He had been there on that day in the demolished building. In fact, he’d wanted to leave her behind. Now, he covered for hostiles brazen enough to attack the station?

  Given all that, she decided she didn’t mind having him as her new partner. At least this way, she could keep an eye on him and snap his neck if she found out he couldn’t be trusted.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Kristen had the next two days off which, with Drew’s new obsession with them being a team, meant that she wasn’t allowed to come into work. Apparently, part of being a team meant letting her team do their jobs without her babysitting them. Captain Hansen might have still allowed it—she liked the publicity their dragon brought in—but she didn’t want to go above Drew’s head. She respected him too much for that.

  So instead, she moped around her apartment, called her mom on the phone, and in a moment of true desperation, dropped in to visit her folks and play videogames with her brother.

  After destroying her mercilessly in three different games, Brian threw his controller down. “You’re not even trying. You used to be good at Pro Skater.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” She put her controller down as well and stood to get a snack from the freezer. Despite the fact that her mom often joked that her brother was a man-child, they still fed him like one. She found a freezer full of ice cream sandwiches, corn dogs, and frozen burger patties.

  “So, what’s up?” he asked as he loaded a one-player first-person shooter. He seemed to like that style of game more now that she was on SWAT.

  She selected a corndog and put it in the microwave. “You know how in Pro Skater, there are some levels where you can’t use your special bar?”

  “Yeah, the worst levels. I hate that shit. The best part of the game is using your cool moves, so why limit it?”

  “Exactly! Well, that’s what it’s like at work right now. They don’t want me to use my dragon powers, even though I know that if I had more, I would be a bigger asset.”

  He shrugged, his gaze still fixed on the screen. “It makes sense to me. Leveling up makes everything easier.”