7
Blayze
The comradery that usually filled the helicopter: jokes, teasing, and stories of time spent having fun, were noticeably absent on the flight to the oil rig. Tension and anger took its place. Most of it emanated from Blayze, who was confused by his own feelings. He knew, deep down, that these men were his friends, and yet he did not trust them. For no obvious reason, he wanted to pick a fight, which would end with him burning them to ashes. It did not make sense, especially since every time he thought about using dragon fire, the pain in his head got worse.
The other men watched him warily, as if they could see inside his head or hear an unspoken threat to their lives. Blayze groaned as nausea overwhelmed him. The headache would not allow him to think straight. He felt a serious lack of control of his mind and body. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back and completely ignored the glares he was subject to.
Finally, he set foot on the rig, and the aching eased. This was familiar territory, and work would wash away the past month. Should he confide in these men about how he had spent the last four weeks? Would they consider him insane? He was beginning to. Had the kidnapping really happened or was it all in his mind? As time passed, it became less real. Sliding his fingers into his hair and touching the scar was all that held him together. He was not crazy.
He listened as the departing crew explained everything they had done and what was left for Blayze and his crew to perform. For the first time ever, they appeared hostile to him. Their grins became sneers in his mind and the excitement to be going home that he knew to be in their eyes became steely glares.
"Blayze, are you listening? The second level has a weak spot. We need you to repair it. You can overlay it with a metal grill. Just weld it into place so that it holds weight. Do it as soon as you've put your bag away. We ran out of time. See you soon, man. Have a good month."
The words registered slowly. He had duties to perform; that was what the man meant. He could do that. It was a simple enough task. Blayze dropped his duffel onto his cot without unpacking. What difference did it make if his clothes were a wrinkled mess? Life was different now and caring about appearances was so far down his list of priorities that it did not even exist.
The heavy metal grill, which took two human men to carry, was lifted in one hand by Blayze. No one cared or noticed. They had grown used to his extraordinary strength. Blayze noticed a difference. It was harder to carry than it would have been before. His muscle tone was less. He was weaker. It just made him angrier.
He found the weak spot and let the grill drop with a loud clank. He moved it around until it was in the correct position and readied himself to meld the metals together. He was looking forward to having an excuse to use dragon fire. He opened his mouth to summon his gift, and the searing pain in his head caused him to collapse. He rolled on top of the metal grill. It tore his shirt and scraped the skin off beneath it. Holding his head, he writhed on the deck. "It isn't time," he kept hearing in his mind.
He had no way to calculate how long the pain lasted; although it seemed like hours, it was probably only seconds. When it ended, he was drenched in sweat and bloody from the scrapes. It was finally clear to him. Dragon fire was forbidden unless the voice told him differently. Obediently, he went to a supply room for a portable welder. He never saw the shocked faces he passed or the gaping mouths when he returned with the welder.
Belle
Another call was coming in. This one from an unknown number. Belle was tempted to ignore it, but there was a slim chance it could be Blayze. She dropped her bag and answered, forgetting the camera had been disabled. It wasn't necessary. The perky voice was easily recognizable.
"Hi, is this Belle, the CIA lady? I'm Blayze's neighbor. Remember me?"
"Yes, I remember. Has he shown up? Is he okay?" she asked the blank screen.
"Yeah, he's here. He looks awful. His hair's too long. He has an ugly beard. His clothes are torn and stiff with sea salt and he wasn't even wearing shoes. I've seen cleaner homeless people. He was nasty. His personality sucked too. I was so nice and he just blew me off. Anyway, I promised to call, so I did."
"He hasn't said anything about where he's been? Would you know if he left?" Belle inquired.
"He didn't tell me anything at all, just shoved his hand up in my face and went inside his apartment. It's not like him to be so rude. He didn't even ask if I was okay or say he missed me. It was really strange. I'm still sort of mad at him. I guess I would hear if he left, unless he decided to fly from the roof. He does that sometimes, only it's usually dark when he does it. He's so afraid of scaring kids. I think they would see it as cool, not scary."
"If you hear him start to leave, can you distract him or at least convince him to wait for me? I'm coming right now."
"Not today, lady. He's not himself, and I don't like the person he is right now. He's putting off bad vibes, if you know what I mean. You're on your own this time. Sorry, got to go. Bye!"
Belle didn't take time to call for an official vehicle. She took a private transport. She needed to get to Blayze quickly, or the director would arrest him first. She was out of breath when she reached his floor. He didn't answer the buzzer or the pounding on his door. She found an access to the roof on the far end of the hallway.
He had been there. The weredragon's claws had scraped the rooftop, leaving marks. The access door to his apartment was still open. She climbed down in hopes that he had returned from a short flight. The apartment was empty. Drawers were open, spilling clothes onto the floor. The trash held the torn, stiff clothes his neighbor had described. She found a plastic bag to put them in. They might contain evidence, and she wanted to discover the clues before her superior had a chance. In the bathroom, she found another trash bin. This one was full of hair; scissors and a razor lay on the counter. He had cleaned himself up. She checked his COM link and found a recent incoming call. She ran the name through her registry access and learned that it belonged to a man in his crew. She surmised that he had returned to his job on the oil rig, though he had left in a big hurry.
She didn't call the rig. It would be better to make certain he was there, then take a CIA copter and talk to him in person. She took the bag of supposed evidence and left the same way she had entered, although she closed his access door, just in case the director had ideas of searching the apartment without a warrant. Not that there was anything incriminating to find.
All was quiet in the CIA building: too quiet for comfort. The hallways should be buzzing with theories and gossip considering the idea of a weredragon conspiracy. The director's door was closed; his glass-fronted office had the privacy screen activated. That was fine with Belle. She didn't want him to see her any more than he wanted to be seen. The only reason she had shown up in the building at all was to check her secured message site. Her friends knew not to leave messages on her home or personal COM link that had anything to do with this case. Instead, they had been told to leave all the covert knowledge on her secured message site, encrypted. No one, including the director, could get into the system, especially since they had no clue as to where to find it. Her superiors didn't even know it existed. It had been an exciting discovery when she received the office assignment. Whoever had been given the office before must have had reasons to hide things too. When the lock on the room had been set to her palm print, the one to the secured message site had changed as well. She had accidentally activated it on her first day, made a new code, and added the requirement of an eye scan.
Belle took every possible precaution to avoid detection. She closed her door, locked it, enabled the privacy screen, disabled the security cameras, and swept the room for rogue listening devices and hidden cameras. On her wrist COM link, she entered a code; silently the wall screen moved backward and a new one slid out of the wall in front of it. She stepped close to let the beam it emitted to scan both of her eyes. It came to life. She placed a palm on the bottom center of the screen, activating the message display. There were several encrypted messages. Three codes later, she was able to read them.
The first displayed photos of the autopsy reports. In both cases residue, metallic in composition, had been found in the weredragons' throats; specifically in the part that generated dragon fire. The biologic was concentrated in the same area, although it had spread throughout the bodies as well. The weredragons never had a chance of surviving. The director's notes had been added. In his opinion, it was a suicide mission, much like the ones in ancient wars. He claimed the weredragons volunteered to die in order to destroy the humans.
It made no sense. Had the weredragons truly wished to kill humans they could have done so without the biologic. Dragon fire alone was enough, and they would have survived. Why target the small town? No one important lived there. The military group made slightly more sense, but not the villagers. She couldn't dispute the evidence. The biologic had come from the weredragons, without a doubt. Yet, she didn't believe they were behind the attacks. They didn't kill innocents. They had risked their lives to save an imprisoned human female on the Savra planet, given up their anonymity for the crashed spaceship, and even fought Earth's enemy, the Xycon, to save all humanity. Why harm them now? Why die in the process?
The second message was about the microchip. It did contain a recorded message. Little of it was understandable. However, they had retrieved a few garbled words: 'mine to command, obey, wish dead, destroy you. It sounded like old-fashioned brainwashing to Belle. The problems came in with the fact that she couldn't prove it had anything to do with the Talonians or who was responsible for the message.
The last message showed a very nervous man, who continually glanced over his shoulder. He was whispering. "Belle, I just overheard something. The director is going to have all the weredragons rounded up immediately. There's been another incident. The Chinese stock market was decimated. The traders are all dead, thousands of them. It's rumored that there were diplomatic representatives in attendance. A weredragon was found, still alive. He didn't last long but mumbled the words 'no control' just before he died. They've already taken in the other Talonians based there. They didn't resist or protest when they locked them away."
The message had been received less than ten minutes before Belle's arrival. Why hadn't the director notified her? Where was everyone? Why was he locked in his office, or was he? She couldn't see in, so it was entirely possible he wasn't there. Where would he go?
