3

Needles perforated each arm, pumping god-knew-what through my system. An acrid scent hung in the air, iodine perhaps. My body was weak and limp, strapped down to a hard metal table. I was alive, but far from well. Somewhere, a high-pitched scream echoed. It was cut off midway through. I couldn't bring myself to care.

My leg twitched involuntarily. I looked down to see a familiar face leering at me. He was dressed in a white lab coat, wielding a syringe that was entirely longer than it needed to be, and holding a clip board I'm sure made him feel official. The Doctor was all I ever knew him by.

"Another defect," he stated, bland like milk toast.

"Can I go, then?" I asked. I couldn't stop dream me from doing so. It was what had happened, so it was what I did.

"No, can't have you telling anyone about this place."

"What is this, then? It's not like I'll live to tell anyone." My curiosity has always been a little out of check.

"It's an armory. We make weak, useless being such as yourself into something powerful." He said all this without emotion, without expression, still staring down at his clip board making little notes.

"You realize if I shifted you'd all be toast." To this day, I don't know why I said that. It was a terrible mistake.

His eyes lit up, burning gold in the florescent light. "You can shift? Ah, now this changes things."

I flinched away from him, eyes downcast. "My form's not really that strong. I made that up." I had to backpedal now! I had been so close to escaping, I just needed a few more days to find a weakness, some way to escape my bonds. Then I could shift and be gone. I'd already tried shifting while bound, but one of the drugs must have inhibited my ability, as I'd been unable to even form scales.

"Well, it doesn't have to be." He hurried over to a large refrigerated box in the corner. I'm pretty sure all the rooms had one, just in case. After shoving aside some poor lab assistant, his hands found the latch and he took exaggerated care in removing the correct vial and inserting his syringe into the top, flipping it upside down, flicking it to remove air bubbles, and finally, so, so slowly, withdrawing the proper amount of medication. Or poison.

His steps echoed louder as he came toward me, holding the syringe with deadly intent. I shrank back, trying to force the dragon out of me, trying to shake one or both of the IVs in my arms loose, trying to do anything that might stop the inevitable from happening. Even in the dream, I remembered what happened next. I couldn't let that become a reality again.

"No, no, no, not again," I muttered. There had to be some way out. Something. Suddenly, a hand was on my shoulder, shaking me, pulling me out of the fitful slumber. A scent filled my nostrils, warm and welcoming, and I was jerking upright, shifting my claws out, holding them to the throat of that awful scientist, other hand snaking behind his neck, pulling him down, preparing to shred his jugular.

"Oi, hold up! Sorry, sorry, never wake a lady, I know!"

I blinked, stopping. That wasn't his voice. My surroundings became clear in an instant, Tau's brown eyes staring at me in fright, my own hand grasping his neat blond hair, my other hand already at his throat, one deadly claw drawing a scarlet drop of blood from the sensitive skin there.

"You're back," I said, releasing him abruptly.

"Yeah, and I made food. Look, what just happened?"

"I wake up in a bad mood sometimes. It happens." Hopefully I hadn't been talking in my sleep.

"No, you were dreaming. You looked terrified. I only woke you up after you screamed." I looked down, realizing only now that I was drenched in sweat, still shivering a bit after the fright of what I'd started to relive.

"Yeah, well, I'm awake now, and just fine, thank you." I was in no mood for this. Hunger and fear had made me a bit on the crotchety side.

He sat back on his haunches, studying me. Eventually, he seemed to let it go. "Alright, well do you have water here?"

"Y-yeah," I said, voice breaking. Not suspicious at all. I led him to a broken pipe in the kitchen area. I'd hijacked it for water. It had a rubber stopper to halt the flow, and a metal bucket beneath. Top notch.

"Clearly, upgrades are needed."

"Shut up." I noticed he'd brought back a toaster oven. He seemed to have already plugged it into the finicky electrical wiring I'd awkwardly taped to the wall from his room to reach the mini fridge. I nodded in approval, gesturing at it. "This is one improvement I can stand."

"Oh, this old thing?" he asked, patting the top of it like it was a vintage car.

"It's brand new," I said, noticing the stickers. He'd already disposed of the packaging. "And I smell pizza."

"Store-bought crust," he said, like that was a bad thing. I shrugged and opened the microwave oven to reveal. . .melty perfection. He closed it again. "It's not done yet."

"Looks edible."

"Yes, but it'll be better this way."

"If you burn this work of art, I swear. . . " I left the threat hanging. I hadn't had pizza in entirely too long.

"I've never had someone call my cooking a work of art before. I'm touched," Tau said, putting a hand on his heart and feigning pride. He waited a few more minutes before taking the pizza out. He was probably right about it being better like this, but I didn't care. Pizza would have been good no matter how long it was cooked. It's pizza either way, right?

I grabbed a large kitchen knife from the wall, slicing the pie with deft accuracy. I used my hoodie to clean stray bits of sauce and cheese off the knife before hanging it back on the wall. Tau looked mildly concerned, but refrained from commenting.

I waited until he'd started eating before beginning on my own serving. Can never be too careful when someone breaks into your house.

After supper, I lay back on the couch and waited for Tau to retreat to his own room. He didn't. Instead, he went straight to my clunky computer, pulled a screwdriver out of his jacket, and started disassembling it. I figured I could go through it later and check for trackers or other problems.

"So how exactly are we gonna steal this thing? Also, how will I know what to grab?" I asked, lifting my head up to gauge his reaction.

He sighed, plugged one of the computer's circuit boards back in, and booted it up. "Blue prints. It's in a metal filing cabinet, the file marked 'E-56-D'. Blue folder." The computer went through its exaggerated start sequence and finally the diagram Tau was after popped up. He scrolled through a few pages worth of floors before settling on one. "So honestly, this won't be super difficult. I just needed someone who could fly."

"Why didn't you get a low tier, then?" I was confused. Someone else would have done it for less payment, and would have been less likely to murder him.

"Needed it done right. I can't afford this being screwed up. Plus, you're the perfect person to infiltrate. You're small, female, and young. In other words, completely invisible to the corporate eye." He noticed the glare I was sending his way. "In this form, that is. Another point is that nobody knows what your human form looks like. Everyone has their own idea, but you always manage to look larger than life down there in the arena, so it's not like anyone even has a good idea of your weight, let alone age and gender."

"Fair enough," I said, "surely you could just disguise someone, though?"

"Not well enough," Tau muttered, shaking his head. "I tried it myself, last week. For starters, an EM wave was enough to wipe out my tech. Bye, holo gear. That revealed my face, and made it so my pack didn't work right."

"Wait, a jetpack?"

"Yes. It was my original escape plan, but I had to use the fire escape instead." He pointed to a room toward the center of the diagram. "Here's where the file is. It's adjacent to the air filtration system, right through the access hatch here." He gestured to a blip on the map. "Plan is you sneak in the front. I can provide a keycard and uniform so you look the part. Next hurdle is getting into the room. It's locked electronically, so I'll need you to place this device on it so I can remotely hack the lock," he held up a black box with two silver pegs on it, "then you can enter. The filing cabinet should be in the far-right corner from the entrance. It's gunmetal grey, just a basic metal filing cabinet. Pick the lock or break it, I don't care." He tossed me a small parcel, which I opened to reveal a set of lockpicks. Several were just flat bits of metal bent at the end, and some had a wavy pattern to them.

"Should I be writing this down?" I asked, genuinely serious.

"No, we'll go over it again. I'd say give it another three days to ensure the security has relaxed from my attempt." He paused, gathering his thoughts, then went on. "Next. Same deal with the lock on the AC handler. Just crawl through the tubes. You're small enough. Keep one hand on the left wall at all times and you'll be fine."

"All this preparation and you don't even have a map of the air ducts?"

"Not the central ones. Some are larger than others and they all showed up as the same size on my map, but regardless, follow my advice and you'll make it to the intake. Kick off the cover and take off. By my estimate, you should be at about the eighteenth floor. Take off, be discrete and hit the ground as soon as you can. They have drones and cameras, so I would recommend changing color if you can, or at least bringing some body paint for your scales."

I nodded. I could alter my color with some effort, but he didn't need to know that. Several details about myself were also changeable, though I rarely bothered to. It was a reflex to make my form, like drawing something simple. A table, perhaps. Making that different was like trying to sketch the Mona Lisa. Tricky, timely, do-able. Wouldn't look fantastic, though.

"I think that's about it," Tau said, unfolding himself from the chair to go grab another piece of pizza.

"Fantastic. You want me to go three days from now?"

"Yep. Pretty simple, right? I've got backups for everything. We'll go over those later. For now, just stay here and wait. I'll start investigating whoever set up that camera tomorrow." He yawned, turned back to my computer, and continued mutilating it. I wrapped a blanket around myself and settled down, preparing for an exceptionally long night.