Dragons Suck

Chapter One

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They called themselves Torentale, but trust me, nobody running up on a fifteen-foot, fire-breathing lizard with fangs and claws and giant bat wings is gonna call them anything but ‘Dragons.’ I would never have even seen one at all, but what are you gonna do when the flipping Council let any kind of wanked-out, hot-wired and lizard-brain creeper inside the so-called Safe Zones these days. Used to be real human people were protected from the Enhanced and the alien crossbreeds, but that all changed with the New Ways Acts.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no bigot. I don’t give a flying fart who somebody gets it on with, or what kind of offspring they make. I just don’t want to get bitten in half by something that starts out looking like a rock statue and then opens up its whole head and uses teeth the size of my big feet to take me out. But when you’re making your living on the dark side of Aziopia Colony, taking on whatever job a jaded P.I. can find, and your landlord doesn’t give a rat’s dirty asset about your personal problems, you bite the bullet and follow whatever trail you can find.

I’m Ecila Elag, and I’ve been making my own way on the once-innovative Aziopia Colony since I was 11 years old and got dumped here in the Human Expansion Project. It was no picnic either, living inside an artificial environment that was mostly some kind of fancy metal and rubber, with no access to the green areas and nobody to push for your education or training. I was supposed to be getting a “new start” as a skinny orphan in the government system on Earth, but it was more like “get rid of the surplus population by dumping them on the most remote place we can find.” Never mind; I survived, I grew… and grew. I was only 4”6 at age 11, but at 19 I’d topped out at over six feet. And you can bet my ebony ass that I used every inch of it to fight my way out of the low expectations into some kind of real life.

I said once innovative for the colony cause that was a long time ago, and the old girl’s taken some hits since then- financial neglect, bigger fish to fry, and a general loss of interest in a place that doesn’t hang close to the “mainline” trade routes. Add in contact and integration with actual alien life forms, and this “fated expansion of human beings from the great Earth home-world” just kept getting smaller and smaller, and dirtier and dimmer and, well, crappy. Hey, it’s my home, so I can say it.

I had a contract from Celar Moze to track his rebellious niece, who’d disappeared some nine days ago. I wouldn’t usually take a contract from a gangster, but by all accounts he really did care for his niece, and he didn’t do any dirt that involved killing people of any kind. He had a strong suspicion she’d run off with a new male in her life, and the young person (species unclear) was known to frequent the Lower Levels of the colony, down below the newer structures, where lighting was limited, and the dwellings were mostly pieced together supply containers from the old days. Can you say “grubby?” or “sleazy?” Yeah that would describe those spaces well.

Anyway, I was sitting in the Smiling Cat Bar just south of the Cusco Junction, nursing a White Rabbit as the lowlifes and small-time criminals did their business in the dim light and foggy atmosphere. Foggy because the air-ventilators were jury-rigged junk older than a conman’s smile. Most of the Lower Levels dealt with the wafting fog, and they didn’t complain because they didn’t officially exist anyway. Why bring attention when you didn’t want attention? There was a Carpian slinging drinks at the bar, its six tentacles working overtime to keep up with the demand. Its six eyes seemed able to listen to at least three customers at a time. And they weren’t even the weirdest aliens on Aziopia either. There was a group of mint green Snarth at one of the metal tables, connecting to each other through tube-like antenna. They looked like some kind of stick insects that you saw in your mid-level Earth classes. They could be holding a conversation or sharing a high from each other’s drinks; weird, right? The rest of the crowd ran to crossbreeds and humans, or nearly humans, like me.

I’d gotten a tip from Rudic, a little cleaning drudge who gave out info on the sly, if you were nice to him and slipped him a few creds. He was a fellow dumpee, a few years younger than me, but he trusted me because of the connection. I’d slid up to him during his break from the Chapeau Insense and just asked him if any higher-class females had passed through recently, looking like she was more wary than like she was slumming. Azio is a big place, but the areas were like small towns, and an outsider might as well be a gunslinger pushing through saloon doors chewing on a piece of straw. (Yeah, we get Vids out here.) Would the locals tell what they knew? that was the question. Clever me, I’d gotten an answer.

So I’m sitting there wondering if I should try one of the other main hangouts in the area when Teekae Mers pushes the door in, looking like an over-dressed pimp on his way to a player’s ball. He was actually dang attractive, but he was also Enhanced, so who knew how much of that look was manufactured? He spotted me and made a beeline for my booth. Teekae’d had the hots for me for years; I think because I didn’t fall all over him like he expected. I’d been known to make use of his affection when it served my needs though, no pun intended.

“Hello, beautiful Ecila,” he crooned, sliding in the booth and trying to take my hand. I pulled it back before he could do something gross like kiss it.

“Hey yourself, Mers.” He hated when I called him that.

“Ecila! After all this time!” he gripped. “We have been friends for so long, and still you don’t call me Teekae.”

“I’m just kidding, Teekae,” I answered. See, I’d already given him something.

He waved to one of the waitress botts, and one strutted over. “Let me freshen you drink,” Teekae said.

“No thanks,” I answered. “I’m good. But help yourself.” I was being so dang generous I could hardly stand it.

“Dakar 7,” he ordered, not bothering to coax me. Hm, so maybe he had his own agenda, beyond the usual.

The bott moved away and Teekae smiled at me some more. “So, to what do we owe the honor?” he asked with more slime in his tone than he knew. “You don’t usually haunt the Lower Levels.”

I pushed up the arm of my techno jacket and pushed some buttons on my PID. A human girl’s picture broke onto my forearm. “Lara Helios,” I said. “I’m looking for her.”

Teekae leaned over and took a look. Then shook his head. “Never had the pleasure,” he answered. “And I would have surely noticed someone as lovely as that.” He meant potentially profitable working for him.

“She’s Celar Moze’s niece,” I said, and watched all the smarm leek out of his face. I nodded. “The young lady apparently ditched her guardian during Renewal Festival.”

“Good time to do it,” he answered. Then leaned forward. “Ecila, are you sure you want to be getting into this?” He asked, and I could tell from his tone that he meant more than working for Moze.

“What do you mean? It’s just finding a stupid kid.” I waited as he made eye contact. It was a silent battle, with his wondering what I knew and me wondering what he would tell. Because Lara Helios wasn’t the first teen to go missing on Azio just recently. And it didn’t seem to matter whether you lived in the Valley or the Lower Levels, if you were legit or connected or even a crime boss. Add to that, something was going on with the Council too. No way should they be letting predatory species interact with preys, but they’d done it. Something was up on Aziopia, and I wasn’t sure what it would all mean in the end.

Teekae broke first, reaching out and taking my hand. I let him. “I know you’re special Ecila. I know you have a tendency to come out of these things unscathed, but… this is different.”

“I appreciate the concern, Teekae; but I’m just trying to do my job. You know? make a few bucks.”

He shook his head, squeezing my hand as he did it. “You do more than that, and you know it. More importantly, others know it. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt or… Disappeared.”

A chill went down my spine. I slowly pulled my hand back. “Is that a threat?”

“No, darling,” he answered. “It’s a warning.” With that he slid out of my booth and made his way to the bar. In no time at all he had three ladies of three different species around him, laughing.

I sat there watching, knowing he had been sincere. I could feel it in my gut, like a bad meal, churning. Something wrong, and big, was going on around my home. I had reason to pursue it too, for reasons I wasn’t at liberty to discuss. And I had reason for extra caution. Like, you recall when I was listing all the folks not to be liked on Aziopia. Well, I’m one of them; not because I’m Enhanced or a crossbreed. But because I’ve got something they don’t know how to make sense of yet- Something outside of the sophisticated scientific world I lived in. And it is something a lot of folks don’t like. Some call it “the gift” or “the power,” but you might as well go ahead and call it “magic.”