Fragment 51

Magic. He didn't believe in it. But… he had no explanation for the dragon. Not only should it be impossible for something that large to fly, but it could obviously see him. It was watching him, tracking his silent movement with its disturbing eyes, while the surveillance camera remained as oblivious to his presence as the dogs sleeping below.

As soon as he thought of them, one of the dogs raised its head and snorted. A moment later they were all on their feet and barking their heads off, but not a single one of them was looking toward him, they were all looking at the dragon.

The dragon glanced down, and growled. All but one of the dogs immediately fell silent and stepped back to huddle against the wall below him. A single tiny dog barked even more loudly and bounced against the end of its tether, as though if it were released it would happily dash forward and apply its tiny teeth to the dragon, despite the fact that a single claw was larger than its whole body.

The stupid little animal was all spine and no brain. The dragon's growl had seemed to vibrate through his bones as much as his ears, and his instincts told him to run, but his brain quickly presented logical arguments. He was clinging to a vertical surface at the moment, and trying to run could be fatal.

A door opened, and a tired voice said loudly, "It's just Jenkins again."

Another voice answered, but he couldn't make out what they said.

A beam of light shot into the darkness and swept across the grass in front of the small angry dog. "Nothing's there! Shut up you idiot!" the man insisted.

One of the other dogs dared a whimper, and the light moved toward the huddle of larger dogs. "Hey, I think maybe something's actually wrong…"

Indecision was his worst enemy, but he honestly didn't know whether to move or to stay where he was. The dragon was still watching him, but nothing else seemed to be aware of his presence, and surely the moment they noticed it, it would hold all of their attention. They couldn't possibly miss something that big for long.

Filters protected his vision as lights illuminated the building and the grounds around it a moment later. The dragon blinked in surprise, or perhaps momentary blindness. The little dog actually stopped barking, and it sneezed as it stood proudly in front of the large dogs who were blinking blindly at the sudden change and huddling even closer together.

Any moment now and they would see the dragon. Any… the dragon was gone.

--

He couldn't quite believe that he hadn't been spotted in the search for, "Whatever scared the dogs and set Jenkins off."

He sagged against the cool padded seat kilometers away from the residence. His fingers trembled as he fumbled with the fastenings that held the mask of his high tech stealth suit in place. He supposed that he could even call the venture a success, but his mind wavered even more than his hands. The image of the impossible dragon staring at him when nothing else could see him was going to haunt his dreams forever.

Old royalty and legends. In this modern age of computers where the scariest thing in the world was too small to see, impossibly large dragons were completely out of place. Next thing you know people would be waving swords around and declaring themselves the rightful King. He didn't even know if he should report it. It would probably be safer not to.

There was a polite tapping against his window that made his blood run cold. Slowly, he turned his head, and then blinked. The claw delicately tapped the glass again.

After a moment he rolled down the window.

"I'm very curious," the dragon began conversationally.

--

"I don't understand how people can just dismiss all of the evidence. Actual dragons are flying over cities with millions of people in them, and we have a few news articles that get less views than the latest celebrity who's tested positive for the virus," Emily complained.

"Who cares. The real question is how they can see electricity. We've pretty much proven that they can, but how are they doing it?" Karl muttered.

Emily sighed and reluctantly focused on the screen. "Well, we also pretty much proved that it's not infrared, or heat? What does that leave? Maybe they really can see life force or whatever, and electricity overlaps that spectrum? Why does it matter how they are seeing it? Shouldn't how they can change their shape be a lot more important? I mean, what are they really? Those blood tests say they are some kind of amphibian, but frogs don't have scales, and there's no chameleon on Earth that can just change its size and shape like magic."

Karl shook his head. "Magic is just something we don't understand. If we can figure out how they see, we'll be able to detect these strings that they keep talking about."

"Right, the strings," Emily said sourly. "I mean, step back from the details for a moment and ask yourself which video game we're playing."

Everyone on their team paused whatever they were doing and turned to look at her.

She lifted her chin and insisted, "In the middle of an epic virus outbreak, straight out of an apocalyptic storyline, elder beings that look like dragons suddenly start appearing all over the world at once. As soon as they get access to people with real power they start telling them about this invisible, undetectable, network of life that wraps the entire planet, which just happens to be suddenly dissolving because of like… pollution and stuff, which is actually way down on a global scale this year because of the stupid super virus. And if we are good little humans and improve our eco footprint enough, everything will get better and we'll all live happily ever after?"

"You don't understand, they aren't telling us that everything will get better." Karl objected. "I mean, they did say we can coexist peacefully if we can keep reducing our pollution levels, but c'mon, that has to happen eventually anyway, or we have to find a new planet. These invisible nets that bind the world that are weakening, and how the world is going to turn upside down, the thing is… I can't help wondering if part of what if they can actually see is magnetism."

"You mean like how a few years ago they were claiming that all the accidents caused by gps errors were impossible to prevent because the poles are wandering and North and South are going to swap places? But they've proven since then that the flips actually take centuries haven't they?" Andre spoke up.

Emily threw up her hands and pointed out dryly, "Since that's all supposed to be happening inside the Earth's core, how exactly are you linking it with these magical life nets that supposedly criss cross the surface anyway?"

"That's just it, it's incredibly unlikely that there is some kind of life net that no one has ever discovered. But lots of creatures can actually detect magnetic direction, and we don't really understand how they are doing it. If that's what they are seeing, if that net is actually the flow of magnetism, which does vary across the surface…" Karl replied seriously, ignoring her tone. "…then the warning that the world is about to turn upside down becomes very literal. We don't know how to detect it very well, but we already know about the South Atlantic Anomaly, and that the poles themselves are actually moving by kilometers every year. There are theories that there are actually hundreds of large magnetic fields interacting within the core, so maybe if you could literally see that, you could see nets of flow. I don't know, it's just a theory."

--

"If the strings on the other side of the world are decaying at the same rate…" Amaru muttered.

"Okay, I get it, I think. So… I've obviously got more experience with the world than you do, so leave it to me, and I'll figure out some way to get you there faster than you can fly," Chris told the older dragon with a world weary sigh.

Sometimes it was actually easier if he still thought of himself as an ancient, centuries old vampire, instead of a young dragon with no idea what he was doing. An ancient vampire was quite familiar with 'the rules' of human society, and could thus break the rules whenever it was convenient, and hide his tracks well.

The key to living well when you were old was to keep changing with the times after all. He started by setting a budget based on the amount of gold Amaru currently had, and searching the discount vacation packages being advertised by desperate travel agencies who were going out of business because of the world wide quarantines. If he could get Amaru to within a thousand kilometers, the older dragon could be skulking around the Forbidden City within a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks.

Actually… humans could be pretty dumb. You just had to meet their expectations.