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CGI 321

Origins

By A.W. NavesPublished 2 years ago 6 min read
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(Photo: A.W. Naves)

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Now, there are more than a dozen.

So, how did there come to be so many of us in a world where we used not to exist? That’s really the story here, isn’t it?

I guess the best place to start is with me and how I came to be.

I was born. No. That isn’t accurate. I was created—Yes. That is better. I was created in a laboratory by scientists given free rein to pursue bringing their childhood daydreams to life. They are, collectively, my Dr. Frankenstein. I am their monster.

I’m not the only one. There are others, dozens of others. We have no names, only numbers corresponding to our place in the order of the grand experiment. I am 321 - third generation, second series, first creation. Those that came before me have all been destroyed, with only two exceptions.

There is 120. He is their patient zero, the beginning of our kind. He is the only one that carries the final number of zero as if to indicate his birth from nothingness. He is small, fragile, and not incredibly bright. His bright green scales give him the appearance of youth, despite being the oldest among us. How old, I am unsure. I do not know how long passed between the creation of our generations.

Then, there is 212. He is bigger and smarter than 120, but not so much as me. He is the dull color of rust with flecks of the same green as his predecessors along the ridges of his scales. The light captures them when he is in flight, which is limited in our habitats. There is a sadness about him, the same kind that I carry. We are birds with clipped wings, longing to fly high into the clouds.

I am a mixture of colors. I have the same green and rust as 120 and 212 but there are the additions of deep reds and a darker green. All three of us are small for dragons, at least compared to the ones we know. None of us three are quite as fierce in looks or abilities as those that came after us, but we are all that remain of those created before the fourth—the final generation.

Generation four dragons are the biggest, the most colorful, and the strongest of us all, but they are limited in intelligence. They are bred to have enough sense to understand and comply, but not so much as to outwit their masters. They are like overly large pets. There are many more of them than us and they tend to treat us as inferiors. I wonder how many are coming on this journey and why they are taking the three of us, who do not blend in with the others.

I am not sure why we three were spared while all others before generation four either perished or were destroyed. We are, I suppose, like the test samples from each batch. They watch us closely, monitoring and recording everything we do. I find it disturbing, but I humor myself by returning the favor as best I can. I study them and their ways, though I am ill-equipped to mimic most of them. It is only through this careful observation, you may call it eavesdropping, that I know who I am and how I came to be.

None among the four generations can speak, not in human terms. However, we can hear, and we can respond in a very limited manner. I’ve been taught to read only a little, but I have received much more instruction in understanding the English language. We’ve been trained how to act around the humans who created us.

Though we possess a certain intelligence, most of us anyway, they treat us as if we are circus animals. We were designed for a specific purpose. One that I cannot fully understand, but my lot is simply to do the bidding of those who created me and my kind. I know my place and I know what happens if it is forgotten. I have seen that too and it is unkind, to say the least.

Today, we are to be moved to another environment. That is all I know, and I am filled with both wonder and dread as I await our transport. For now, I am stuck here, in this cage. I can tell the workers in charge of our transport fear us, but I don’t know why. We are not designed to do them any harm. Our temperament was carefully chosen to ensure that we remain docile, despite our appearance.

The others chatter all around me, a rudimentary language we have worked out among ourselves to communicate. It consists of a series of small clicking noises at the back of our throat. Our keepers have yet to understand our language, so it gives us a way to have private discussions despite being monitored at all times. We are all anxious about being transferred to another place, somewhere unknown and for purposes of which we’ve not yet been made aware.

I guess we will have the answers soon enough.

In the meantime, many people are buzzing around us. One of them, a trainer named Cassandra has previously taught us basic responses to her questions. She cannot understand our clicking language, but she has trained us to shake our heads up and down or back and forth to tell her yes or no when she asks a question. I click as I do so, teaching her, in kind. One click for yes. Two clicks for no.

“Are you ready to go, my darling?” she asks me now, reaching her thin, slender fingers inside my cage to softly stroke one of my wings.

I nod to her that I am, simultaneously making one low click. She smiles, but something behind her expression tells me that I might feel otherwise once we arrive. Is the perspiration beaded across her brow from exertion or something else? I feel her hands tremble as they touch the soft underwing of my body. She seems steeped in dread and my senses tell me that perhaps I should be also.

“It’s going to be fine. Just do as you are asked. We will be safely back at home very soon,” she tells me as I feel a slight prick in the soft flesh beneath my scaled wing and Cassandra steps away, her face a mask of uncertainty as she makes a rolling motion with one finger on her right hand.

Her words echo in my mind as my cage is lifted by a machine and placed into the back of a large transport rig designed for a creature my size. Before they close the doors, I look back at the sign above the door of the facility behind me. It reads, “California Genome Institute” with the first letter of each word in larger letters than the rest.

I try to sound out the words the letters make in my head, but the door is rolled down before I can manage, leaving me in darkness to ponder what it means. I continue to contemplate it as drowsiness begins to seep throughout my being and a film of familiar blackness engulfs me, taking me to that place where I dream of flight.

I’ve seen the biggest of those letters before, I think as my thoughts begin to fade away. It comes to me just before all is gone. They are branded onto one of the scales along my left leg, along with what I’ve heard my minders call my number of origin: CGI 321

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About the Creator

A.W. Naves

Writer. Author. Alabamian.

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