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Valley of the Dragons

Uprising

By James BellPublished 2 years ago 7 min read
2

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Or rather, there were never dragons in the Valley. Sure, there are drakes, little flying reptiles people keep as pets. Some as big as a hand, others as small as a shot glass, bred in myriad arrangements of colours from shimmering purples to deep calico. Even the rarest Fire Drakes, so named not because they breathed fire, but for their translucent orange-red hue. All available at your local pet store. And then there are the dervils. They are about the size of a badger, and just as vicious. Normally you run into them in the alleyways or popping up from the sewer grates to feed on rodents, felines, and small dogs. They don’t fly well, but sometimes, right at dusk, you can watch them glide from the tops of the skyscrapers. There are some who keep them, but you have to have a license, and for the most part, are only used as pest control in the agricultural districts.

But dragons? Real dragons? Like they have on the screens, or in the movies, that breathe fire and are as large as ships? They are a myth, a story, told to us by our parents to lull us into slumber; or told to us by society to lull us into the slumber of our existence. I mean, everyone in Corin City knew the stories. We grow up being told of how the world was once plagued with dragons, agents of chaos and darkness that ravaged humanity. We used to be mesmerized by the tale of the god Saerand, who came down from the Beyond in human form to rid the world of these creatures and restore order. We were regaled by the story of how Saerand came upon the King of Dragons, Valgrinder, and sacrificed his hand to stop the chaos from overtaking the world; and how that sacrifice cost him the ability to rule. It’s not uncommon to see people wearing pendants of Saerand’s hand on necklaces. Even I wear one.

But they are just stories. None of it is real, not Saerand, not the dragons. Only the chaos. And the darkness. They are real, and they are everywhere. They always have been. And now, they are in you, they are in me, and like a plague, they get into your skin, into your veins, and go viral. It all started with the chips. Little microprocessors implanted into the hands of the uberwealthy. It stored their financial information, their medical files, and their international visas. They could board planes, yachts, and ships without checking in lines, travel the world, wine and dine in the most luxurious places, make multi-billion-dollar deals, and never be afraid of losing their wallet.

Then came the SatNav updates. Now the microprocessors could also locate you anywhere in the world if you’d ever gotten lost or kidnapped. The children of the uberwealthy were to first to be outfitted. Little Baron and Katarina could never be kidnapped, or runaway, again. The Federation instantly saw the potential in this technology and started placing them in criminals. If you escaped prison, were on probation or parole, or were on house-arrest, law enforcement knew exactly where you were. You couldn’t run or hide. When your sentence was over, you could get the microprocessor removed, but you had to pay for the luxury, and most convicted criminals couldn’t afford the exorbitant fees, so they left them in. And with the prison corporations having an almost eighty-nine percent prisoner recidivism rate, what was the point? The Federation also started advertising the chip to the population. Want to protect your child from human trafficking? Have them implanted and know where they are at all times. Mom and Dad wandering the city streets with dementia? Help them be safe with implantation. It was all so innocent them. All for the greater good, for a better society. Until the Federation made it illegal to not have the implant. They made it abuse to not have your child or the elderly microchipped. And then after only one generation, the entire population was implanted. They knew who you were, where you were, and what you were doing. Always.

The Federation really started clawing their way into you when they invented the Neural Pathway. This was a new chip, with all the implementation of the old microprocessor, but now, the Federation could watch everything in real time, and even monitor your emotions. This was not a big deal at first, until you got angry about something, and the cops showed up at your door; or you got depressed because your partner broke up with you, and you get a knock from a team from the department of mental health services. To the Federation, everything was a problem they had to solve, every emotion was harmful and needed to be suppressed.

But the greatest innovation, the one advancement that solidified the Federation’s hold on society, was the NeuraLink. It’s a beautiful piece of technology. A microchip implanted into your body that interfaces with your very own neural network. Angry at the new law passed by the Federation Parliament? The Federation knows, and the NeuraLink makes your body release dopamine to calm you down. Feeling depressed because of a tragedy in your life? NeuraLink releases serotonin. Too tired to work that extra shift? The Federation can help, and NeuraLink releases adrenaline. The Federation. With you. Always.

What can I do? You can’t fight the system when the Federation is the system. When the Parliament are the members of the board of directors of the largest banking conglomerate in the world, and they happen to own all the major corporations on the planet, including the makers of NeuraLink, and the president of the International Finance Directorate is also the President of the Federation, what can you do? What can I do?

So I stopped playing their game. I became an outlaw. They labelled me a criminal, a young girl making her way in Corin City with all the other riff raff. And our crime? We removed ourselves from the Link. We had our chips removed. Of all the crimes in the Federation, this was the one that could get you killed. To remove your chip was worse than rioting, theft, or murder. Removing your chip was blatant disobedience. We want life on our terms. And so what if we fail? At least we did on our own. We are free, and fiercely so, even if that comes at a cost. And there are more like us, wakening up everyday to the Federation’s psychopathic control. So, we started this thing, this underground network so to speak, where we traffic those who remove their implants and get them to safety. We call this network the Valley, because when you’re high atop the mountain, you pay no attention to the happenings in the valley. So we move people, and remove their implants, and get them to safety. For that, they hunt us, they call us criminals. Somebody once remarked that when the implant is removed, the scar that remains curves ever so distinctly, that it looks like a dragon. We who work in the Valley tattoo our scars with a simple glyph that looks like a dragon. We become dragons. Agents of order in this chaotic existence. Agents of chaos in this mind numbingly ordered world.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but there are now. Thousands of us. Legion. We are waiting for our time to strike, to swoop down upon those who oppress the people, to burn this world to the ground and start anew. There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Now that’s all that’s left. And we are coming. There will be an uprising.

Fantasy
2

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