9

What do you think?" I asked Taylor, rolling my shoulders. "It's been awhile since I've worn anything like this."

Brutes without bullshit automatic intrinsic control tended to wear cheap, in bulk, or have their accountants set portions of their budgets aside and try to declare it a business expense.

Taylor took one look at me and grunted. "Meh, not your color."

"Picky, picky." I teased with as soft a rumble as I could manage. "I think I pull off the silvery sheen pretty well."

<Funny. Very funny.>

For an invisible, inaudible voice in my head, it certainly could be dry.

What? I said I was going to see Taylor.

<My heart, which I don't think I actually have as I am now, leapt into my nonexistent throat when you said that.>

"Bout damn time you took me up on that offer o' mine," Taylor grunted. "I was beginning to think I'd never pay it off."

"I never forget a debt," I stated primly. "Or a favor."

I literally couldn't.

Still, me being serious, even for a minute, as always, drained the vitality from the room. I had to distract the man before the air could get any worse.

Dragons seldom bring levity to a party.

"Tell me, Wong," I asked, as close to a whisper as I could get, which meant it was still quite harsh, low, and loud. "How did your family pick up that name?"

Wong Taylor the IV looked up at me -as most Asians had to- and shrugged, cloth tape flapping around his neck. "Not much to say about it really. Great-Grandpa came across the water from China and his English was absolute shit." He turned to pick some fabric swatches and hold them against my chest. "He thought they asked him what he could do and he said 'Wong Tailor', so that's what they wrote on his card."

"By the time he figured out that they were asking for his name, well, by then he was used to being called Tailor, though it irritated him immensely. So he told his son, my Grandpa, who had been to some English school, to get it corrected. And since Grandpa was a lazy bastard, so said my Pops, he simply anglicized the name to 'Taylor'. Great-Grandpa took his revenge by legally renaming Grandpa into Wong Taylor junior. And 'Junior' did it to his kid, Pops, and by then it was a family tradition and you know how those go."

Finally narrowing it down to two choices, he handed me two fabrics. "These are the two best in terms of give and toughness, though it's still just cloth. If you're careful, you should be able to get most of your range of motion in the shoulders."

What do you think?

<Go with that orangish-brown one. Not the black, You'll never keep it clean.>

I handed the bronze pinstripe swath to Wong. "That one."

"How is my grandson doing?" He squinted at me as he accepted the cloth. He was trying to remain casual, but I heard the quiet urgency.

"He is a guard for the Seventh Sons, and still off drugs last I've smelled him. The move to the bi'an section keeps him out of mischief."

When Lung picks you up like a doll and says 'don't do drugs', you don't do drugs.

Wong looked relieved. Just for a second though, before the grizzled old man made of leather, grit, and spite came back.

"Good. "he gruffed. "Anyway, I can have something for you in that fabric in three days. In the mean time, I should have something in here that will fit you until it's ready."

A rental? I felt trepidation.

<What, does the mighty Lung not do rentals?>

The mighty Lung has never had a rented anything last three days.

It's always something. Usually poor attempts at suppressive automatic fire.

I motioned for Lee to offer the credit card. "I shall try, but be prepared to bill me for this."

Lee signed the recipe with a stylized 'Lung'. Pens and I do not work well together, always breaking or leaking from the heat of my hands. Give me a pencil. Stubby, thick pencils I could lightly run over a paper and maybe not tear everything worked best.

He took my rental suit and placed it in the bag he always carried when I went to purchase things. If he didn't have it, he couldn't put things into it and was stuck with carrying two items at best. Then, as per routine whenever I shopped, he moved towards the door, opened it so I wouldn't have to worry about breaking it, turned, and froze when he saw my outstretched hand.

I pointed at the little raised platform in the middle of the room. "It's your turn now." The door shut to the jangle of chimes.

As he strode to be measured I easily resisted the urge to sigh. "Hand me the bag before you stand there."

The bag dangled off a single finger of mine as he stood there and waited. He was good at waiting.

"Black, I think Wong. The other fabric of your two selections for me will do." I paused and thought for a moment. "And for a rental, he will need a cheap suit, gray, slightly ill-fitting…"

---===---​

A week for both to be made, with a standing order for replacements, which I knew I would need in spades. The rentals now, in the bag, and ready for tomorrow.

But a small price for the peace of mind, minds rather, it would bring.

Lung, in the mask and jeans, it had its place. But I had much more to do and be now.

And you must always be correctly dressed for the role.

Any other suggestions? Anything I should add to this?

There was silence in my mind.

Taylor?

<It wants to see.>

Who? Wait... It wants to see?

<I've been talking to it, trying to figure out why I'm here, why I'm not put on the shelf with all the copies of you it keeps in case your head gets blown off.>

And?

<You didn't trigger correctly.>

I triggered, shot through the heart, dying, in a small mountain of cocaine. As far as triggers events go that's fairly bad, but not as bad as some I've heard of.

<I think it was the drugs. You're like an Ikea table with a leg too short. To it, you always ask for the same thing, over and over and over, and so it gives it to you and escalates based on the damage it can sense on your scales, but->

-Thanks to last night now it understands that I'm not asking for that, since you were able to make it give me something different. That means if I am the table you get stuck with at school during group projects-

<-I am the the textbook that gets jammed under the leg to stabilize it. It's using me to see and interpret what's going on. And so->

-It wants more.

<Yes.>

I was quiet for a moment, processing what I had been told.

Thankfully I am Lung and a veteran of much.

What does it propose?

There was silence for several seconds.

---===---​

It had so many organs, collected from so many worlds.

And Taylor had to see them all. See what it could offer its host.

And she couldn't go mad. It wouldn't let her.

Her mind was just another organ it had copied.

Scales, scales with heat based circuitry. From a world with an average surface temperature that could liquefy copper.

But like the man she was tied at the brain to, she was also a veteran of many things terrible and dreadful.

<No, not that one, nor that one, nor that...>

She could think very quickly now, and a second could take weeks to pass.

She needed it, there was so much to see.

<That one.>

No one would lose their lunch if that was growing off of him.

[WHERE?]

<You know how a spine works? The bones?>

[YES.]

It had repaired them many times.

<Extend off the last one on the bottom.>

It didn't approve, she could feel it.

[SLOT.]

As best she could understand it, Lung had only so many places for weapons. Claws, fangs, horns, wings. And this would take one of them, potentially making it weaker.

<Don't worry, it's like him being able to speak, you can use it as a weapon, just differently.>

It was skeptical.

<Fine, put spikes on the end of it.>

[AGREED.]

<Retractable ones!> She was quick to add. <Or he'll never get his pants on.>

[PANTS?]

---===---​

The change came with no warning.

The seat of my jeans tore as something shot out of my skin, tearing it's way out and sending a spray of blood across the glass of Wong's display window.

The pain was endurable, the implications were not.

If she could do this to me...

Never do that again Taylor Hebert. Not without asking me.

<It wasn't me I swear! It just did that when I said that one would probably do.>

I looked at Lee, who hadn't bothered to wipe the stripe of blood off of his face.

I looked at Wong, who was understandably shaken at the blood in his shop, even if no one was permanently hurt.

I sighed. "Power problems. Tally up the damages and add it to my bill."

As he nodded I turned to look at what had been done to me.

Without my consent.

<Sorry.>

She understood, more than most, what kind of violation she had caused.

You are Lung, you cannot be sorry. You won't be able to get anything done if you are. Just... don't do that again without asking.

<Understood.>

I had a tail now.

I've had a tail many times before, typically briefly, but this one was different from the one I normally grow when I pass twenty feet or so. There weren't any scales for one, and it was segmented like a worm in smooth layered metal plates.

As I am a member of a fairly small club who has had to learn how to use a tail -smaller still to have to do it under overlapping fields of fire - I didn't break anything by slowly moving it and seeing how it worked on the inside.

Believe me, if you don't put in serious practice it gets caught in doors, knocks over lamps, and is an immense hassle.

With ease, I brought it up to my face to examine it closely. The tip still had skin, blood, muscle and bits of fat on it, which I wiped off with a cloth helpfully provided by Lee.

The tip felt like it had something more it can do.

A twitch of the nerves and a flex of newly regrown muscles and six flat spikes popped out, three to a side, like the teeth of a saw.

<Sorry, it wouldn't approve of anything unless it had spikes on it.> I could feel her shudder. <You don't want to know the things it could have selected if I hadn't said no to them.>

"Is that... going to go away?" Wong asked carefully, as people often do when Lung did anything. "Want me to patch your jeans up?"

"I think I'll be keeping it out for the time being," I said as wryly as my voice could manage. "Please, take some measurements for the pants, and possibly see into putting a bit of leather or a riveted metal band along the perimeter."

Yes, I was making a tailor do metal work. I am Lung, that's how things go sometimes.

---===---​

The ride back was quiet, at least verbally.

Thankfully, the tail did not shoot directly out of my ass, sitting in a chair with any sort of back would be murder… for the chair.

My expenses were bad enough as it was.

And it could swivel almost like it was attached to a ball bearing meant it- rather I- could coil it sideways and almost comfortably hold it in my lap like a gentleman's hat in the early automobile days.

Many who worked for me would say I was brooding, I'd heard them despite their quiet whispers, but that was simply how my bloodshot eyes made me look.

Lee knew me better. He knew I was thinking and not to bother me.

Or at least he used to. Hard to tell.

So, it sees with this?

<We human beings don't have the equivalent sense. Even specialized to heat and metal like yours powers are, it has like thirty-seven distinct senses. This one either tastes radio waves, or senses… something around you.>

I see. Now, before any other surprises start abruptly growing out of me, was there anything you wanted to add? Something to make... this... more bearable for you? After all, this is a new Lung for the world, it should have your mark upon it as much as the old one had Lee's.

<Umm, let me ask it if it's possible.>

Five seconds would pass. Ten.

<All right, I've asked it to wait till I warned you. Ready?>

I am Lung. Of course, I am ready.

Whether I was or not.

<This may feel a bit weird, but tell me if you're okay with this.>

I felt the itch start at both my temples and from the bridge of my nose towards them. They met at my eyes, and my vision was lost briefly before the single, large, round, scale went translucent.

I carefully flipped the passenger visor down and looked in the vanity mirror.

I had glasses. Glasses grown from scale with round lenses. As I watched, tiny scales shifted around the perimeter of the center, revising the shape.

<I had to call it 'eye protection' to get it approved, but I feel weird without my glasses. Um, are you okay with this?>

Had she toes she would have shuffled them in the carpet.

I remembered my own glasses when I was little, remembered how much my family had to put aside to get me contact lenses so I could perform without them. How I knew I could relax when they came back on, as the performance was over.

A weight left my shoulders.

These will do.

"Interesting." a flat voice came from my left.

I looked at Lee, who had resumed keeping his eyes on the road.

"Oh?" I asked. "What do you think?"

I saw the corners of his mouth twitch upward ever so slightly.

"{A decent performance. But two steps off pace. Kenta, you need more practice.}" That line he delivered in Japanese.

The line he always gave me when I was done practice in Kabuki.

How long had it been since he gave it to me?

How long had I been Lung?

Had I ever stepped off of the stage?

"We can rest only for an hour," I whispered, far quieter than I had ever been able to in a long time. My clothes felt loose on me. "Another performance is needed tonight."

I felt drowsy. How long had it been since I'd felt that?

"Rest. Only for an hour." I whispered just above a breath.

I slept for two until Lee woke me.