The Dragon's Wave

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Professor Burns read the words on a three-by-five card as he prepared to give a speech to students. It was a part of his lecture, but as he prepared to start his current series, he cringed that it was something he now had to teach. As a professor of archaeology, Jason Burns still found the new normal hard to believe.

Looking out at his students, he started to utter the first sentence, finding himself reconsidering his notes. Most of the kids in his lecture hall were old enough to remember the days before the dragons. Many of his students grew up in the Valley before the event.

"You're all old enough that my open remark doesn't make sense," Professor Burns told his students as he threw a notecard over his shoulder. "I imagine most of you know someone who died during the event or...died before the settlement."

Professor Burns took a clicker out of his pocket and started his projector. On the screen appeared an image of a city on fire. The second image he put on the screen was a city in ashes, burnt and gray against a charcoal sky. It was Moline, Illinois. He flipped through multiple images, sharing the history of "The Event" with his students. When he reached the final picture, a satellite overlay of the Mississippi Valley Region, he turned to his students and watched their faces as they sat in awe.

"For whatever reason, the beasts made their way into the Valley and settled there. They migrate down into the gulf in the winter and return in the warmer months," explained Professor Burns.

The professor stopped for a moment, looking at his notes before pressing his clicker again. A series of photos from around the world began playing as he called off the names and countries suffering what he referred to as infestations. In every country on Earth, the human race faced the same extinction-level event. The rise of the Dragons heralded the death of nearly 4.5 billion people.

A biologist and a mechanical engineer came together as humanity faced its' mortality. The two scientists produced what came to be known as the "Dragon Wave" and used it to keep the beasts from entering populated areas. While it might have been safe for humans to cross the barrier, the barrier was lethal to the dragons.

"So," the professor loudly said, "where did they come from?"

The students all looked around the room. Professor Burns asked the question on the first day, each time he used the dragon series for his lecture subject. The truth was that nobody knew for sure from where they came. Even years later, the dragons were a mystery to the world.

"No theories?" asked Professor Burns.

The professor turned around, using a pointer to aim at the screen. He described how the dragons of Earth were not the ones in mythology, folklore, or legends. In fairy tales, myths, and legends, dragons were feared and respected for their power. In some fairy tales, they were heroes, and their fates aligned with the greatest warriors and knights of the kingdom. In myths and legends, they were destructive and rampaging beasts that controlled the skies.

While Professor Burns spoke, two men in suits and a man in uniform walked into the lecture hall. They strolled from the rear down to the platform where Professor Burns stood. When one of the students loudly cleared their throat, the professor turned around.

"Um," he said, a confused feeling coming out, "Can I help you, gentlemen?"

"Professor Jason Burns?" asked the man in uniform.

"Yes, that's me," answered Jason.

"Sir, we need you to come with us," explained the man.

"And you are?" asked Jason.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a card, "General Rick Hammond, and I'm here on a matter of national security."

"Well, alright. I guess, class dismissed," stuttered Jason.

As Jason gathered up his things, his students slowly exited the lecture hall. His hands shook as he picked up his bag. Nothing about a General in his classroom sat well with him. Jason questioned what in the world he could have to do with a matter of national security.

"Can you guys tell me what this is about?" Jason asked the General and his two companions.

"No."

General Hammond was unaware of what Professor Burns's importance was. The General was following orders. He only knew that people wanted Jason Burns brought to the White House.

"If you'd follow us, your chopper is on the fifty-yard line."

"Wait...what?" Jason questioned.

Minutes later, Jason followed General Hammond across the campus and could see the chopper waiting on the fifty-yard line of the football field. Jason's guts felt like they were in knots. Being escorted through the crowd of kids, football players, coaches, and bystanders, Jason told everybody it would be alright as they asked him what was going on. He knew he was lying. Jason had no idea what was going on or where the military was taking him.

Jason sat in his seat, watching the students, players, and coaches disappear as they got smaller and smaller. The chopper lifted off and into the clouds. Before long, Jason couldn't see the ground beneath them. He just sat there, his head against the backrest, his eyes closed and focusing on his breathing.

"What's the matter? You're not afraid of flying, are you?" asked the General.

Hesitantly, he answered. "I'm not overly fond of it."

"Then you're probably not going to like this," said the General, "but put this on."

The General held out an oxygen mask in front of Jason. He didn't need to know why. If they were headed East, across the Valley, they would have to reach heights above five miles. He looked around at the General and the other two soldiers, watched them put on their masks, and followed suit.

"I didn't know choppers flew this high," he commented.

"Before the dragons, they didn't," answered General Hammond.

He sat with his mask on, feeling the difference in how he was breathing. Soon, Jason began to relax. He knew there had been advancements in technology because of the dragons. The Dragon Wave was just one of them that he'd read about in the past decade. Advancements like choppers achieving new heights were part of a world where humans weren't at the top of the food chain. Flying across the United States in the age of dragons was a far more dangerous task than before.

Dragons could fly as high as ten miles in the air. Past ten miles, dragon metabolisms were unable to function due to the temperature change. Dragon metabolisms were akin to modern-day lizards. It was modern-day lizards that scientists used to develop the Dragon Wave. Most of the knowledge and advancements made in fighting the creatures was discovered by studying modern-day specimen.

After flying across the burnt territory, their craft landed at what was the old Chicago Airport. It was controlled by military personnel and used for refueling. Before the flight crew returned, General Hammond arrived. He sat across from Jason, bags in each hand.

"Hungry?" he asked Jason.

Jason nodded. He watched as General Hammond pulled a sandwich out of one bag and handed it to him. As Jason unwrapped it, General Hammond passed him a bottle of water.

"Awfully nice of you," Jason admitted, chewing through some slightly tough meat. Halfway through his second bite, he started to pass out.

"That didn't take long," remarked General Hammond. "Alright, let's get her into the air."

It was six hours later when General Hammond's chopper started descending. After the craft landed, General Hammond woke up his guest at a classified site in New York's upstate area.

"Where in the hell are we?" asked Jason.

He looked around the chamber he was in, finding dozens of soldiers running around, moving equipment, and working on a transport vehicle. They'd landed in a military compound. Where they were was a mystery.

"You're in the IHC's main outpost," explained General Hammond.

Jason looked around, watching the movements in the hangar as he followed the General. That there was an entire base like this astounded him. Jason began to ponder a theory. He followed the General from the center of the hangar and into a corridor. The corridor stretched as far as the eye could see. Wherever they were, the hallways were long, maybe as much as a mile long.

"How deep into the ground are we?" he asked General Hammond.

The General laughed. Burns was very intuitive. He had already figured out that they were deep within the surface of the Earth. Hammond wanted to wait for the young professor to come up with the rest of their location. He questioned how much Jason Burns could ascertain without being told.

"Why don't you tell me?"

Jason took in a deep breath. He was breathing manufactured air. As they walked up the corridor, Jason put his hand on the wall as they made their way down the elongated hallway. The walls were cold, colder than they should be. They were someplace underground.

"The Adirondacks or Appalachian Mountains, I would guess. There are at least five hundred feet of Earth above us, if not more."

"They were right about you," the General admitted.

"They?"

"Before we chose you, we checked around. You came highly recommended," explained General Hammond. "In here."

The General led Jason into a conference room. Several people were waiting for them. Of the group, Jason only knew one other member. It was President Williams. The General took a seat next to the president and told Jason to sit down.

"Let's cut to the chase, ladies and gentlemen," announced the president. "The Dragon Wave is failing."

The room erupted in a chorus of shocked gasps and surprised ahhs. Jason sat there, stunned by the briefing and that he was there. If the Dragon Wave was failing, Earth was doomed. It was the only thing that held the beasts at bay.

The president looked at Jason, announcing he knew that the professor was working on the origins of the dragons. President Williams knew everything about the research that Jason had been doing. He knew that Jason had a dragon bone and DNA samplings. Jason was comparing them to samples of fossils from around the globe.

"So, Professor Burns, do you have a point of origin?" President Williams asked.

He was a small university professor and worked with a museum. Jason was now looking across the table at the president. He opened the computer in front of him and began typing. Jason was pulling up images from the internet. One of them was an image of the border of China and Nepal. Along the border between China and Nepal lies Mount Everest.

"Judging by the carbon-dated fossils found in China, the samples from the border, and the samples of the dragons I've examined, I believe it is here."

"People have been climbing there for years," General Hammond commented.

Jason hacked the room and put up images on the viewscreen. He walked over to the photos and pointed at Mount Everest before the event.

"This is Mount Everest in 2021," announced Jason. "As you can see, the snowpack is degraded already. New fissures were already opening along the mountains' north face. In the years before the event, global warming was changing the face of Mount Everest."

"We know all of this. What's your point?" asked the president.

Jason moved to another image of a mountain. It was less snow-packed and displayed a large cave circled in red. The numbers next to the cave read 21,000.

"The carbon-dated fossils that match that of what we believed was a class of Pterosaurs are what we now believe to be a match for the dragons that infested the world after the event," explained Jason.

"So we blow up the mountain," said General Hammond.

"No," Jason replied. "We don't know what's up there. An asteroid impact punched through the mountainside. It released thousands. If you start firing missiles up there, there's no telling how many more we'll see."

"There has to be something we can do," the vice president added.

"If they came from the Chinese side of the mountain range, we need to get in there and find out what they were doing there. We don't know how they got there or why the things came out during the event," explained Jason.

"So, you go to China," ordered the president. "You find something we can use to either destroy the last of the monsters or put them back under control."

"It may not be that easy, sir," sighed Jason. "I just want you to know that going into this."

"That, Professor Burns, is why you're going along with the team we're sending to excavate. You're the expert after all."

Stunned, the 30yr old professor sat motionless as the president and his staff cleared the room. Jason had gone on a few digs. He spent a year in Cairo, a summer in Thailand, and part of 2025 excavating a pyramid in the middle of Antarctica. Now, the president of the United States was ordering him to lead a mission into the unexplored caves of Mount Everest.

"He can't be serious," Jason said, looking at General Hammond.

"I'm afraid so," answered General Hammond, "and you have no time to spare. The mission to Everest is all ready to go. We just needed you and authorization from the president. Now, we have both."

Two soldiers grabbed Jason by the arms and helped him to his feet. He was escorted back into the hall and in a different direction. When he reached the end of the hall, he stared at an Osperey. Until now, Jason had only seen Osperey's in movies. The idea of riding on one of them excited Jason to his bones.

"If we're getting on that, I can walk without your help. I don't need you two dragging me," Jason told the two MP's.

He was the second one to arrive on the plane. When Jason climbed aboard, his eyes darted to an attractive redhead sitting with her nose already in a book. At least, thought Jason, he wasn't the only one Shanghaied into this mess.

Jason and his red-haired companion were enjoying a drink when the Osperey rose into the air before propelling forward. It wasn't long before the cocktails had the desired effect. Both the non-military travelers were unconscious before their plane hit the Atlantic ocean. Jason didn't know it, but General Hammond had arranged to keep the science team sedated until they reached Nepal.

Nearly eighteen hours passed before Jason opened his eyes. General Hammond was standing at the front of the craft, leaning over the co-pilot's shoulder. The plane approached the opening to the peak of Everest. Moments passed as the Osperey's vertical propellers carried them through the slightly narrow passage. They had arrived on the Chinese side of Mt. Everest.

"Rise and shine, boys and girls," yelled Hammond. "We're here."

Jason unhooked his harness and stretched his muscles. Eighteen hours in a seat was far too long. He felt every bit of his body aching from the stiffening of an eighteen-hour flight.

One of the soldiers told Jason to grab his gear and make his way to the ramp. They were exiting the rear of the plane, which was toward the interior of the cave system. As nervous as he was, Jason felt the excitement of the moment. They were about to step foot where no human had been for at least seven thousand years.

His red-haired companion woke up and grabbed her duffel. She pushed past Jason and straight to General Hammond, scolding him for something Jason couldn't hear. Whatever it was, she was fuming mad. Her cheeks were flush because she was so angry with the General.

"Come along, Professor Burns. See what your notes have discovered," General Hammond ordered as he stood at the top of the ramp, preparing to put his boots on the ground.

Hammond, Jason, and the red-haired woman walked down the ramp with five soldiers behind them. When they reached the bottom, each was in awe of what they had found.

Jason took pictures from the end of the ramp as the team realized what they saw was real. In the middle of the cave system stood a massive structure, the likes unseen by human eyes in nearly ten thousand years. It was amazing and scary, as it shouldn't exist.

"Well, professor. What the hell is that?" asked General Hammond.

I don't know, thought Jason. He had traveled around the world, witnessed many of its' great wonders, and there was no way of explaining what was in front of him. At over 20,000 thousand feet, just shy of the top of the world, what Jason saw was impossible.

Jason picked up a rock and flung it toward the mysterious gray structure. A metallic ping echoed through the chamber.

"It's Titanium."

General Hammond turned to the red-haired woman in the group, asking if she was certain?

"Not entirely," she told him. "It's a titanium alloy of some sort. Parts of what I'm detecting aren't even on the periodic table. None of this makes sense, but this is beyond current day technology."

"7,500 years, minimum," said an excited Jason.

"What?"

"It was going to be your next question," he insisted. "How long has this been up here?"

General Hammond looked at him in disgust. He didn't want to hear science fiction. The General needed simpler to understand facts, things men like President Williams could understand. Hammond eyeballed the two scientists, telling them to get set up. Each of them was given a crate, complete with a tent, portable heater, and all of their necessary gear.

"As soon as you're ready, we'd love to make this a short trip," said Hammond.

"Yes, sir," said the woman. She walked over to Jason with her hand extended in front of her. "I'm Dr. Beth Mathison."

It took a couple of hours before Jason, Dr. Mathison, General Hammond, and the soldiers accompanying them finished setting up basecamp. When they did, Jason and Dr. Mathison had a fully functioning lab.

Jason was already at work, running a program for a drone. As Dr. Mathison approached, he pressed a button that launched the drone ten feet over his head. Jason picked up a controller and began piloting the drone toward the massive barrier, flying it higher as it got closer. He looked at Dr. Mathison as she stood in front of him, a look of approval etched on her face.

"That's one way to get a better look at the other side of the gates," she commented.

"Gates," he repeated.

"Readings from the barrier tell me that the center of that wall opens. I'm not sure how, but these are gates," explained Dr. Mathison.

"Gates to what?" asked Jason.

Beth pointed at his drone as he took it to the top of the barrier. Two hundred feet above them, Jason piloted the drone over the top of the wall.

"Is that what you were expecting?" asked Beth.

Jason looked at a monitor, nearly forgetting to keep the drone stable. The monitor lit up in the center, a light as bright as the sun. The drone hovered in place, recording everything on the opposite side of the barrier. He hesitated to take the drone further.

"Can we get readings from the other side?" asked Jason.

"We can try?"

General Hammond was standing behind them, quietly watching the monitor. He ordered Jason to take the drone in closer. They brought a dozen drones with them, so the General wasn't concerned with crashing or losing one.

"Try to fly it into the light," he ordered.

"Aye," sighed Jason, already annoyed at getting ordered around.

Jason took the drone to 250 feet before he dived it at a 50-degree angle and started flying toward the mysterious field of light they were all watching. As the drone got closer to the epicenter, it began to shake and detect interference. The General noticed the screen starting to get staticky, asking if it was the light wave.

"Whatever that is, it's definitely wreaking havoc on our instruments," said Beth.

"General, if I get much closer with this thing, we may not get it back," Jason announced.

The General ordered Jason to fly the drone through the light wave. "Let's see how far you can take that thing."

Jason flew the drone closer to the light, the screen getting increasingly staticky as the drone flew nearer to the light. At the point of no return, Jason hesitated before diving the drone into the light. The screen they were watching flashed bright, then went completely white.

"See, we lost it,"

"No, no, wait a minute..." Beth excitedly told them.

The two men turned their attention to the screen, the jaws simultaneously opening as the monitor began to clear. The drone was through the light and off their radar in the cave. Jason typed on a computer as he tried unsuccessfully to ping the device.

"What is this?" asked General Hammond, staring at an image of a valley covered in deep greens, and strange hues of blue, red, and yellow.

The drone continued flying, slowly hovering through a valley filled with wildlife, vast rivers, miles of plant life, and something more astonishing. Beth began to smile from ear to ear, like an excited little girl at Christmas.

"Dragons," sighed Jason.

"Dragons," gleamed Beth.

They had discovered how dragons came to be on Earth. The field of light was a rift through space and time. It opened up a gateway to another world, a world their drone was now exploring. Jason and Beth looked nervously at each other, both aware that the answers they looked for were on the other side of the rift.

"We need to launch the excavation drones. We get some samples of that world's air, water supply, and vegetation, and we may have the answers we need."

"Well, professor, I guess you were the right man for the job," said the General. "Now, we can find a way to rid Earth of these things before the Dragon Wave system fails completely."

"Are you thinking what I am?" asked Beth, watching the General storm away.

Jason looked her in the eyes, afraid he knew what she was thinking. She wanted to go through the rift.