Carmody and the Electric Dragon

Prologue

10th District Maintenance Tunnels, Pan City

Monday October 8th 2046

Santo Green was a Sanitation Drone Supervisor according to the payslip that he received each month. He oversaw the operation of a small squad of robots, drones and automated pipe cleaners, controlling them all using the special computer implants in his head.

In reality, he was a glorified plumber, sticking his hand up blocked pipes and draining all kinds of sludge into buckets. It was a messy, smelly job but he liked it. The hours were good, the pay was decent and he did not have to deal with people at all during his work shifts.

“Hey, Santo, how is that blocked pump going on level three?” asked his supervisor over the communications headset he wore. That was Jake Long, his boss and occasional drinking buddy after work.

“Looks like we got some weird black sludge in there” Santo replied, wiping his gloved hands on his coveralls. “I sent in the pipe cleaner but it just shorted out or something. I’ll try a manual extraction”

Jake laughed down the line at him.

“You just can’t resist sticking your hand up them pipes! One day you are going to lose an arm, Santo. Be careful”

Santo did not really like interacting with people, preferring his silent little robots and drones for company. Still, he had to admit that Jake was a good guy.

“I’ll be fine” he assured his boss and disconnected the call. He pulled his long gloves up past his elbows, shooed his hovering drones out of the way and plunged his arm into the open pump.

He pushed his hand down deep, feeling the strange black sludge ooze around his searching fingers. With a small shout of relief he located his missing pipe cleaner and dragged it out into the open air.

The poor thing was limp in his hand, black oil smeared all over it. It was shaped like a long worm with rings of bristles like collars running the length of its body. He held it close to his face, sniffing the mysterious goo. His boss said it was a gross habit, but Santo swore he could identify every possible type of liquid he encountered using his skilled nostrils.

This was a new one to him. Definitely a hint of organic matter in the pipe, the kind of stuff he normally found, but the sludge was mostly a weird black gunk. The odour it gave off was unusual, maybe a product from one of the research labs here in Pan City.

“What are you?” he wondered aloud, “And what have you done to my little pipe cleaner?”

He dropped the broken drone into a bucket of cleaning solution and examined the open pump housing once more. Definitely more of that stuff in there he realised, so dove his arm in once again. This was the life of a plumber he thought with satisfaction, sticking your arm into pipes and trying to unblock them.

With a loud sucking sound he pulled his arm from the opening, a huge gob of goo clutched in his hand. This had to be the culprit he knew and held it up for inspection. Black goo ran like oil down his upheld arm, dripping onto the concrete floor of the maintenance tunnel.

“Rats, I’ll have to clean that up” Santo muttered to himself. He was the only person who ever came down into these tunnels, dozens of meters below the city streets, yet he could not stand for them to be dirty.

He dropped the handful of sludge into another bucket where it landed with a wet plop. His cleaning rag was tucked in his back pocket so he grabbed that and started to wipe down his thick rubber gloves.

“Hey, when did I get a hole in my glove?” he asked himself. Santo spoke to himself quite a bit during his solitary working days. Sometimes he spoke to his drones and robots too, but they had no real brains of their own and could not hold up their end of a conversation.

“Maybe when you found me” said a voice in his head. Santo stopped rubbing at his gloves and paused in shock. This was the first time he had ever answered himself like that.

“Did I just say that?” he asked aloud, looking around himself. He could see the tunnel running off in the distance, illuminated by the overhead lights, the big pump unit attached to the waste pipes, and his crew of cleaning and maintenance robots. There was no-one else with him, not even one of those filthy rats that ran around his tunnels.

“What is your name, human?” said the voice and Santo began to feel afraid. He took his big heavy torch from his toolbox and flicked it on, shining it all around him in the corners the overhead lights could not reach. Still there was nobody else to be seen.

“Ah, my name is Santo, Santo Green” he said, his voice quivering a little. Santo had never been a coward, yet he avoided conflict whenever he could. Having a voice speak to him out of nowhere was totally freaking him out.

“Don’t be afraid, Santo Santo Green” continued the voice. It sounded so close to him now, like it was right inside of his head.

“Who are you?” Santo shouted, his voice echoing from the concrete walls of the tunnel, bouncing like a rubber ball into the far distance.

“I am the Emissary” it answered and Santo went rigid with fright. He could swear that had been his own voice, coming from his own lips.

“Where are you?” Santo asked, leaning against the pump, his body numb with terror.

“I am here” said his voice and he watched in horror as one hand took the glove off the other. It was the hand he had plunged into the black goo, the one that had the hole in the glove. The hand lifted in front of his eyes, turning back and forth in the lights. It was covered in the dark oily sludge and as he watched it absorbed into his skin until there was no sign of it at all on the outside.

Santo’s little robots watched impassively with their camera eyes as their master twisted and thrashed in the narrow tunnel, his mouth open in a silent scream. Without concern they observed his face and neck turn oily black, the substance covering him completely. His eyes went last, their staring whites slowly filling in with darkness.

At last Santo Green stopped his violent movements and stood upright once more, still and quiet. On the outside he was the same as always, a short, dark haired man in his early thirties. The kind of man you would walk past on the street without a second glance, completely normal and ordinary, even if he did leave a strong odour of sewage as he went by.

The Emissary looked at his new body, feeling around inside at the memories and thoughts of Santo Green.

“This will suffice” he said. The body reminded him in many ways of the previous host, Bob Crepsley, a school janitor. Yet this one had so much more potential. It could control machines using the implants in Santo’s head, sending commands using computer signals to all the little robots in his crew.

With a sense of completion, Santo closed the pump housing and set it back to work. With a gurgle and thump the pipes began to flow again, sending their waste liquids through the kilometres of pipes and tunnels beneath Pan City.

“Santo, did you get that pump fixed?” came a call from Jake, the boss of Santo.

“Yes, all fixed now Jake” said the new Santo. “Everything down here is going exactly as I hoped”

“Okay, glad to hear it. Did you want to catch up after your shift for a beer or six?”

“No thank you, Jake” he answered. “I have some plans for the evening”

“Oh, what are you up to?” Jake asked in a friendly manner.

“I am going to make some new friends” said Santo, looking at his collection of robots.

“Good for you!” responded Jake and ended the call.

Santo Green had been happy with his life, working away out of sight beneath the great Pan City. He had no ambitions, no desires other than a hot dinner at night and some entertaining TV to watch. Now he had been filled by the Emissary and that being had a purpose he needed Santo to complete.

Originally the Emissary had come to this world to open a portal for its master. A gateway between worlds for the Abyss to send an army of dragons through to conquer this strange new realm.

Yet those plans had been stopped, thwarted by two young human girls and a dragon. The dragon was a Dracoris Vapora, one of the powerful ancient Guardians of the Realms. It was the son of the matriarch of the Clan Vapora, a young dragon named Stanlevitariously the Third. Still inexperienced but already a potent foe.

One of the girls had turned out to be a Dracoris Familia, the legendary Dragon Speakers, able to speak and interact with all dragon kind. Her name was Sarah Evermore, a girl child of amazing tenacity and skill.

Finally there was the other girl, the one that concerned the Emissary most of all. Her name was Carmody Brentwood and she was claimed to be a Dracoris Terminus, one of the Dragon Slayers. If she was truly such a creature, she would be the greatest threat to his plans. There was something about her that the Emissary could not understand, a connection to itself that defied its knowledge.

Whatever she was, Carmody Brentwood represented a danger to the Emissary and would need to be dealt with.

Santo Green wiped down his tools, placed his gloves into a bucket, then set off along the tunnel. With a mental command, his little group of mechanical servants followed him, flying, crawling and wriggling in his wake. He was the Pied Piper of sewage robots and they obeyed him with unwavering loyalty.

He smiled, happy to be doing such important work. Somewhere above him in the vast city were his enemies, oblivious to his plans. They would not expect the attacks to come nor the direction they would arrive from.

Santo whistled as he walked, looking forward to the days ahead.

=====

10th District Junior High School, Pan City

Thursday October 25th 2046

Carmody Brentwood was a Dragon Slayer, at least that was what her friend Sarah kept calling her. Her job was to hunt down and destroy Dracoris, the creatures from another world that humans called Dragons.

The big, scaly beasts with giant claws, viciously barbed tails and mouths full of razor sharp teeth. Everyone knew what a Dragon was and if they had the misfortune to meet one would be absolutely terrified.

So why was she sitting here drinking tea and eating scones with a dragon?

“I must say, these scones are absolutely delicious” said Stanley the Steam Dragon, popping another buttered scone into his mouth using a long talon. He puffed smoke rings from his nostrils as he savoured the treat, sending a waft of flower scented hot air though the room.

“I am glad you like them Stanley” Carmody told the dragon. “My mum made them for you specially”. Carmody neglected to mention that her mother thought Stanley was a school friend and not a four meter long blue dragon that could blast steam from his snout.

“Sorry I forgot the strawberry jam and cream” she added. “I’ll bring some next time so you can get the full English Scone experience”

Stanley paused with his fourth scone just about to drop into his mouth.

“You can eat these with jam and cream?” He seemed entranced by the idea and looked at the remaining half dozen scones on the tray, sitting on a table between the two of them. There was a pot of tea, a jug of milk and a small container of sugar lumps alongside as well, since Carmody’s mum always insisted you had to have tea with your scones. Stanley took his tea with six sugar lumps which made the young girl wonder if dragons could get diabetes.

Carmody took a sip from her tea (milk, two sugars only as was proper) and wondered how to broach the subject she had really come for today. She decided to bite the bullet, or maybe the scone, and just go ahead and ask him.

“Stanley, where do the dragons come from?”

“Pardon?” said the dragon, about to put his fifth scone ‘down the hatch’ as his friend Sarah always said. “We come from my world, on the other side of the Portal”

“Yeah, I get that” Carmody replied somewhat impatiently. “But what is your world like? What is your own Realm like, the one you called Avalon?”

Stanley sat back on his haunches and regarded her. For a dragon, even a small species like the Dracoris Vapora, he was small. Just over four meters long from tip of snout to end of barbed tail, covered in blue scales across most of his body. His stomach was white, darkening to blue then finally into a deep black along his spine. Quite a good looking dragon, if scaly lizards that could fly was your kind of thing.

“Very well, Carmody, I shall tell you what I know of my world” he began. He drew a long breath and started, describing what lay beyond the world she lived in.

“Our world is not like yours, so it is hard to describe. Each Dragon species lives in its own Realm, kind of like big islands and even continents, floating in an endless sky. These Realms are in layers, with the Realms of Light at the uppermost level, bathed in endless bright light.

Avalon and Xanadu lie in the upper realms, beautiful Realms full of forests and mountains, rivers and deserts.

In the Middle layers, the Twilight Realms, there are periods of darkness and light as the upper Realms block the glow from above. This is where lie Realms such as Atlantis, home to the Dracoris Sympata, the White Dragons.

Finally, there are the Night Realms, those existing in shadows and utter blackness. They are at the deepest layers of our world and are unhappy places. Perdition lies here and even deeper than that, far below all others, lies the Abyss.

That dark Realm is the home of the Dracoris Abyssal, the Black Dragons”

“So each Realm is separated by air?” wondered Carmody. “How come they don’t all fall down into the deep?”

“They are indeed separated by open air” agreed Stanley, “Much like your islands and continents are divided by oceans. All Dragons can fly of course, so moving from one Realm to another is possible, it just takes time to fly there”

Stanley paused, thinking about the second part of her question.

“I don’t know why the Realms don’t all fall down into the deep. I am sure our lore masters would know the answer, but to be honest I did not always pay attention in school. My mother scolded me for my poor exam results every year”

Carmody was beginning to understand why Sarah and Stanley were such good friends. They had a lot of very similar habits!

“So how did your Realms come to exist? How were they created?”

“There are many legends about that, Carmody” the dragon replied. “My Clan believes the oldest tale, that all the Realms and all the Dracoris were created by the First Dragon, Urthe the Great Mother.

She was born from the darkness, hatched in the very bottom of the Deep. Urthe roamed in that dark place, growing bigger and stronger, yet always alone. Tired of such solitude, she flew upwards, ever upwards. As she rose the darkness lessened to twilight and finally she arose into pure light.

The light was beautiful and yet Urthe was still alone, with no other Dracoris to share the wonder all around her. So she flew even higher, right up into the heart of the light. There Urthe met her only companion, the light god we call Soloris. They were the opposites of each other yet they fell immediately in love.

From their union a mighty egg was born and Urthe and Soloris rejoiced. This joy was short-lived as although they nursed the egg with all their love, it would not hatch. In fact it started to grow colder and colder and would soon turn to stone.

Urthe and Soloris wept many tears and sought any means to let their beloved egg hatch. They knew that inside the egg were their children, the many species of Dracoris, waiting to be born.

On the last day, the egg had nearly hardened to solid rock. Urthe made a decision, one made with utter love for her children to come. She said her goodbyes to her husband and surrendered all of her life essence, her Soul Spark, into the huge egg.

Soloris wept more tears, yet he promised Urthe he would watch over their children for all of time to come. Urthe merged into the rock hard shell of the egg and her power finally made it crack open, releasing the Dracoris into the world.

The vast egg had broken into many pieces, some as huge as continents, others the size of a pebble. Each and every piece of shell was part of Urthe, containing all her hopes, dreams and fears.

These pieces became the Realms, drifting through the air, settling into the different layers. Each species of Dracoris sought out a Realm to live in, their own desires and needs sending them to find the Realm that matched their own hearts.

They exist there still, floating in the light of their father, Soloris”

Carmody sat speechless as Stanley finished the tale, mesmerised by images of vast lands floating in a never ending sky, dragons flitting from one to the other.

“Wow” she breathed at last. “I want to go there and see all of that”

“Me too” agreed a homesick Stanley, the story telling reminding him once again that he had no way of getting back to his home.

“Stanley, does that mean Avalon is some kind of living being?” Carmody asked.

“Yes, she is in a way” Stanley replied. “The Realms are not only vast tracts of rock and sand, they are also sentient, living creatures. They are far beyond the power of the Dracoris who inhabit them, they are fragments of our goddess Urthe”

“So is Avalon a good person?” Carmody pondered. Ultimately this was what she was so desperate to know.

“Every creature that exists can choose to do good or evil, whether they are a human girl child or a Dracoris” he answered. “Avalon is benevolent, I believe that with all of my heart”

Stanley looked at Carmody with his large blue eyes and she met his gaze without flinching.

“The question is, Dragon Slayer, will you take the word of a Dragon?”

=====

Carmody had one more stop to make after she had visited Stanley. He lived now in a special series of chambers built on top of her high school buildings, with his own sleeping room, bath, kitchen, living space and coal bunker.

The last one room was very important, as that contained the Black Rock, or coal as humans called it, that fuelled Stanley’s deadly Vapora steam breath. He had been eating a lot of it since he had agreed to join the AURA project, keeping his power ready to fight any sudden attacks from Black Dragons.

A side effect of that was it had triggered a growth spurt, since he was technically still a young dragon at only one hundred years old. In the span of a few weeks he grown a full meter longer, his chest and shoulders bulking out as well.

Carmody wondered just how big he would eventually grow with the rich diet he enjoyed now in the human world. If he got too big, would she have any chance of stopping him if he turned against his human friends?

Her feet had carried her without thinking to the Guard post on the roof, a short distance from Stanley’s home. It was where she had intended to go anyway so she looked about for her friend, the Guard clone designated F-Zero-Three.

The clone was what most people called a Jill, a female clone soldier created to serve in the Guard. Carmody had originally met her some weeks ago when the pair of them had been given the task of killing the Black Dragon known as Vertigore. It had been a scout for the planned invasion of the human world by an entity called The Abyss. With Carmody’s guidance the trained sniper had shot and destroyed the dangerous dragon, a feat neither could have done without the help of the other.

When Carmody and her friends had agreed to join the AURA project, a Guard squad had been deployed to protect them here at the school. More importantly, the Guards were here to keep an eye on Stanley, as like Carmody the people in charge of Pan City did not entirely trust the powerful creature.

“Good morning, Miss Brentwood” said a firm yet emotionless woman’s voice. Carmody looked up from her thoughts and saw Unit F-Zero-Three was standing at the entrance to the Guard Post, watching her with one cybernetic eye and one organic. The female clone was dressed in her usual dark blue uniform, with an armoured vest over her torso and a cap on her head. A long barrelled rifle was slung over her shoulder, ready for use if anyone was foolish enough to attack the school.

“Morning, F-Zero-Three!” she called out cheerily in response. Carmody ran up to the tall woman and smiled broadly at her. “I am glad you are on duty today. I have something I wanted to give you”

She dropped her school bag and lunchbox on the concrete roof surface, her cricket bat Excalibur sliding off her shoulder too. As she delved in her bag, she idly grabbed her bat and held it in her left hand.

“Are you still carrying that bat everywhere?” asked F-Zero-Three. Carmody looked up in surprise as she could have sworn she detected a note of amusement in the clone’s voice. Her friend’s face was as bland as ever, but she was positive there was a gleam in her natural left eye.

“Of course I am” Carmody answered. “You never know when you might need to thump somebody” She found what she had wanted in her bag and straightened up, presenting a brightly coloured bag tied with a red ribbon to the woman. “Taa-dah!”

Unit F-Zero-Three took the bag carefully in both hands, holding it like it might explode.

“What is a Taa-Dah?” she asked calmly.

“Don’t be silly. It’s a bag of cookies for you to share with the other Guards” Carmody explained. “I made them last night with my mum’s help. The ones with pink icing are strawberry and the brown ones are chocolate. They are really delicious!”

“I see” responded the clone, looking from Carmody’s expectant face to the bag of cookies. The moment stretched on and Carmody’s face started to fall.

“Don’t you like cookies?” she asked, a slight tremble in her lips. Unit F-Zero-Three might have looked embarrassed, if that were actually possible.

“I have never eaten a cookie, Miss Brentwood” the woman answered in a matter of fact tone. “Guard Units are not permitted to consume any food other than that supplied to us by our commanding officers”

“Oh, I had not realised that” said a crestfallen Carmody. “So you only eat those protein bars? I remember seeing you and the other Guards eating them sometimes”

“That is correct, Miss Brentwood. In the morning our barracks provide us a large bowl of protein gruel to eat. On patrol we supplement that with a protein bar as you have observed”

“Sounds boring, if that is all you get to eat” commented Carmody, feeling suddenly sorry for the lives the Guard clones must lead. She thought for a moment then inspiration hit like a bolt of lightning.

“Hey, F-Zero-Three, weren’t you guys told to follow my orders when we fought the Black Dragon?”

Unit F-Zero-Three thought this over for a moment and nodded her head in agreement.

“Affirmative, Miss Brentwood” she replied. “That order from Jericho-Two has not been rescinded”

“Rescinded?” wondered a confused Carmody.

“It means the order remains in force” explained F-Zero-Three. “You may still issue commands to myself and the four Guard Units deployed here”

“Excellent!” Carmody said with pleasure. “In that case I order you and the other Guards to enjoy the cookies!”

“Copy that” confirmed Unit F-Zero-Three and opened the bag. The contents did indeed look delicious, a sugary scent of strawberry and chocolate wafting out and into her nostrils.

“Thank you for the gift, Miss Brentwood” said the clone and bowed to her from the waist.

Carmody was beaming with pleasure, then her face adopted a more serious expression.

“Ah, F-Zero-Three, could you please call me Carmody? You sound like a teacher when you call me Miss Brentwood”

“Very well, I shall address you as Carmody”

“Great. Then how about another thing? I feel really silly calling you F-Zero-Three all the time. Is there another name you would prefer?”

The clone woman went utterly still as she thought about this.

“I have only ever been identified by my Squad designation” she answered. “We don’t think of ourselves as having an individual name. Do you have a name you would prefer?”

It was Carmody’s turn to go still as she mulled this over. She had never had to give anyone a name before, not even a pet goldfish. The girl realised the clone woman was watching her intently, almost eagerly. Despite what she had said, Carmody knew this meant a lot to her friend.

“Well, you kind of remind me of a lady who works at my mum’s restaurant. Her name is Fiona, and that is a little bit like F-Zero-Three I guess”

“That is acceptable. Please call me Fiona from now on” said Fiona and bowed to Carmody once more.

“Great. Pleased to meet you, Fiona!” Carmody said and held out her right hand. Fiona took it and solemnly shook her hand, a trace of a smile on her lips.

“Okay, I have to head off to class now” said the girl. “See you later Fiona!”

With that Carmody picked up her bags, slung her bat over a shoulder once more and rushed off, heading to the stairwell door that lead to the school below.

=====

Fiona was seated at a table in the Guard Post when one of her brother clones entered, fresh from a patrol around the school rooftops. He could see she had a number of small baked items on a plate in front of her, dividing them into piles.

“What are you doing, F-Zero-Three?” he messaged to her via the quantum network. This was how they spoke to each other, rarely using their own voices. Talking out loud was only something they had to do with the humans.

“Our commander, Miss Brentwood, has provided the squad with additional food” she explained to F-Thirteen via the same network. He moved closer, his artificial eye focussing intently on the items on the table. She had sorted them into five piles, one pink and two brown baked items per pile. There were two left over, a single pink and brown one. He ran an internal memory search and identified these items as a high calorie snack known as a ‘cookie’.

“We are not permitted to consume food that is supplied by a member of the public” F-Thirteen reminded his sister clone. All of the clones referred to their male and female soldiers as brothers and sisters, since they shared the same genetic material.

F-Zero-Three fixed him with her own unblinking gaze, a hint of a frown above her eyes.

“Miss Brentwood is still in command of our squad, as per direct order from Jericho-Two” she reminded her brother. “She has provided this food for us and ordered us to enjoy it”

The male clone took only a half second to register this and accept it as true. F-Thirteen glanced at the extra two cookies that had not been allocated to a pile. They were obviously unable to be split evenly between the five Guard Units in the squad.

“May I have one of the extra cookies?” he asked his sister. She examined the two cookies that sat to one side, a strawberry one and a chocolate one according to instructions provided by Carmody.

“You can have the pink one” she announced and scooped the other one into her mouth. As promised it was delicious and she crunched the cookie with slow and deliberate enjoyment. Her brother took the pink one, licked it speculatively, then with a wide grin popped it into his mouth and gobbled it down.

The two clones had finished their cookies and looked at each other. Not even a crumb had been missed, the cookies consumed entirely.

“Don’t tell the others about the extra cookies” she said with her own voice, meaning only F-Thirteen could hear her.

“Copy that” her brother answered in the same way.