The Bird and The Dragon

02-344 Sandau

Naked Astrida was lying with Patrik on the office sofa. The braid in her dark hair was immaculate, but a few loose strands had escaped to her brow. Patrik gave an affectionate kiss to Astrida’s ear and hugged her tighter permitting himself to enjoy the lingering feelings a little longer.

“Did you add the new assistant to the calculation?” Astrida asked returning the situation to normal. It was a late evening; they were in Patrik’s office in Sandau and had finalized the second draft of the budget. Astrida and Patrik were colleagues and their intimate relationship included sex, but almost nothing more. It had worked well for the past few years, although Patrik wouldn’t have minded sharing more of his life with the woman he had grown to like and planned he would one day make to fall in love with him.

“Yes, together with the costs related to the required education,” Patrik said without releasing his hug.

“Very good, that allows us to allocate the operational…” Astrida fell silent and raised her head, the trained muscles in her stomach tensing under Patrik’s fingers. In the upstairs, something fell heavily to the floor.

“Is he…” Patrik started.

“In the office since the dinner.”

“I’ll check him.” Patrik stood and started to dress. Astrida disappeared to the side room. The sounds testified Commander Anhava was once again having one of his hazy moments. Patrik put the shoes on and buttoned his shirt while walking towards the door. He didn’t make it before the door was slammed with a force that made the door handle sink to the wooden wall shaking the paintings.

Anhava strode in with a crumbled paper in his hand. He was a tall, muscular man, whose heavily lidded eyes gave a dreamy look to his otherwise coarse features. His greying brown hair was gathered in a ponytail flowing smoothly to his back. Anhava was wearing black as always.

“Fifteen dead, double the number wounded and you are sitting here like it’s none of your concern?” Anhava’s voice was calm, but Patrik recognized the sharp tones and the quirky movements that told the commander was furious. The gestures were not fully his own betraying the man standing in the room was not Anhava as Patrik knew him. Sometimes the memories the commander had picked from the great matrix weighed more than his thoughts and this seemed to be one of those nights.

Patrik stood his ground waiting. In this state of mind, Anhava was unpredictable and his actions depended on the memory he used to filter the reality. If accent told anything Anhava was far away in the past world.

“They are shutting down a part of the system. Take your position and stop it.” Anhava’s gaze was focused on someone ten centimeters taller than Patrik.

“Of course, may I…” Patrik took the paper and skimmed it though. It was an ordinary report about the shipping fees, and he watched his commander a questioning look on his face. Anhava stared into an existence that didn’t fully include Patrik, but his eyes narrowed in concentration. Anhava knew he had occasional challenges with realities and was trying to pick his way through the alien memories.

“An attempted robbery in the national gallery. The thief was stopped but…him…” Anhava said.

“Sandau, year 130 since the rebellion. You are commander Anhava and Agiisha is the only dragon on the planet,” Patrik said in his line with a forced calm. He had used the same words too many times during the past years, only changing the year. “You were finalizing the budget estimate.”

“Indeed. Your summary missed the write-offs from closing the Giza operations.” Anhava returned to reality without missing a step as he had never been lost in time and space.

“Those are included under the logistics,” Patrik said, but he was interrupted by a thump and something rolling down the stairs.

“Astrida, I know you are here. There is a man on the stairs, deal with it. I need Patrik,” Anhava said.

Anhava strode to the door without looking back and Patrik could only take his jacket and follow him. Below the stairs was a paperweight usually found in Anhava’s room and Patrik saw a hand hanging above the staircase. He recognized the unconscious man by his light brown hair as the office caretaker, who should have known to step lightly around Anhava when he was having one of his moments. The commander continued downstairs.

“What happened?” Patrik asked cautiously. He had followed Anhava’s command without questioning it, but the frustration towards the consequences of commander’s repeating moments of madness had grown for years. The commander had chosen his condition voluntarily, but despite the dragon’s approval, Anhava’s erratic fluctuations guided by the dead memories were an excessive encumbrance for his subordinates.

“The thief exploded something, and the gallery is on fire. Go and find out what happened.”

“I mean Pederson, commander.” Anhava looked at Patrik like he didn’t understand the implication. “Why did you attack the caretaker?”

“It’s just a concussion.”

“You can’t abuse the workforce.” Anhava dismissed his words and continued downwards. Patrik took hold of his shoulder. “What happened in your head?”

Anhava stopped and met Patrik’s eyes. The commander was taller than Patrik and he knew he couldn’t win Anhava in a physical conflict if it started like this, without preparation. Still, Patrik felt that he couldn’t anymore accept the commander’s deeds. Something had to initiate the change. Because the dragon was inactive someone else had to do it and there was only Patrik.

The men stared at each other, but there was nothing in the cold surface of Anhava’s eyes. Patrik saw no anger, no remorse, no emotions at all to give a starting point. Finally, he turned his gaze and let go of Anhava’s shoulder. Astrida’s steps went upstairs.

“Any information on the target?” Patrik asked returning to normal.

“A man. He tried to open one of the display cases. He used technology, no resonance. Smoke, possibly a fire. No reported casualties. Information is unclear if he stole something.”

“I’ll check the situation and initiate tracking him.”

“Follow the chain to the next steps, the target has a buyer for the item he was going to fetch.”

“Of course.”

“And if it someone of importance…”

“I’ll let Astrida deal with it;” Patrik filled in. Astrida’s role was to interrogate the subjects on matters related to the unsanctioned use of the matrixes and all the actions endangering the great matrix or bloodline in general. Practically this cause was used in cases where the the subject’s status would have hindered the legal operations.

Patrik strode the last steps down and opened the outdoor to Anhava. The commander walked to the paved street and waved Patrik away. Patrik disappeared to the stables, the national gallery was on the other side of the river, and he needed a ride.

The block around the National Gallery was a controlled chaos and Patrik guided his well-trained horse in the middle. The dark grey horse stepped into the mob and people gave way. Some smoke was billowing out from the building’s second-floor windows, but no flames were visible. Patrik rode to the people controlling the crowd and picked a woman wearing the insignia of the city guardians, the local police force.

“Strategej, don’t go closer, please. We haven’t identified the smoke. It may include harmful substances.”

“There was a reported theft. Who saw it?”

“I was there, strategej.”

“Report, please.”

“Strategej, lieutenant Orwen. At 22:30 I was with my group securing the gallery after the evening gala. I was downstairs in the war history department when there was an alarm. I reached the hallway below the stairs when there was an explosion upstairs. I fell and saw a man escaping downstairs.”

“What was the gala about?”

“A birthday party for the gallery’s chairman.”

“Describe the man you saw, please.”

“Middle height, maybe 175 centimeters. Brown hair in a ponytail. A well-cut suit of that fashionable velvety fabric, his looks fitted the other guests. I thought he was a late visitor running away from the explosion, but the guard in the entrance hall said he didn’t come that way.”

“The only other route is to the room for the student exhibitions.”

“That’s correct, strategej. There is a broken window in the back alley. The thief went that way.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. You’ll supply a written report by the morning and explain why he was not followed.”

Patrik left the horse to the guards and walked behind the gallery. The broken window was easy to find, there were shards of glass on the pavement and spilled blood like the thief had cut his hand. The man picked a bloody piece of glass to draw a test matrix on the gallery’s white wall. It was the only clue Patrik had for now.

The untidy lines were clear against the light background, but nothing happened, the matrix remained inactive. Patrik observed the lines closer, but there was nothing, not the slightest change of color or other signs of the power converting to fuel the simple matrix. Patrik was sure of his lines and the blood was fresh, which meant the blood belonged to a non-ainadu.

The strategej frowned. Sandau’s inhabitants included only a handful of southerners and they were under surveillance. Someone had surely noticed a bloody man running away; the alley joined a wide street with regular traffic despite the hour. Patrik let his eyes follow the alley considering how the southerner would plan his escape.

The house opposite was part of his mother’s theater, being its maintenance building. The alley had a door there, a narrow staircase below the street. Patrik’s eyes found drops of blood on the wall and when he stepped down, he noticed the lock had been broken.

Patrik stepped in without hesitation. He knew the door led to a corridor running under the building. All the storage rooms, the different shops for the people creating the sets, props and clothes, training rooms and more had been fitted to the building moving the walls and opening more doors when required. Patrik didn’t know the floor plan by heart, but he remembered the only route out from the bottom level was by the stairs on the other end of the building. The theater was closed for now meaning the thief was locked in.

Patrik walked in the darkness using his dragon sight, but the escaping man hadn’t had such a trick at his disposal. He had opened random doors and based on the look of things had been desperate enough to consider hiding. Patrik noted he was gaining on the man because the energy in his tracks was becoming visible. The heat in footsteps didn’t survive readable for long, but the drops and smears of blood kept the warmth a little better.

Someone was walking the corridor with Patrik. But it was not a person, it was a déjà vu on walking a slightly similar corridor in a life Patrik had never lived. It was just a flicker of memory carried by the great matrix, but he sensed the strength of the young muscles and the confidence the inevitable setbacks of life hadn’t yet ground away. Another man’s smile curved his lips.

Alone in the dark, that memory felt comforting, and Patrik knew he could just sink into it, take hold of the memory with all his skills, and make room for it in his blood, in his soul, and in the very existence of what he was composed of. That was what Anhava had done, but the commander didn’t choose the happy moments for memories. Patrik let his sight close and felt the alien feeling pass. He had decided to keep to his memories only after seeing how the dead memories could break the mind.

Patrik followed the thief up the stairs and along another corridor to a heavy, black velvety curtain. He took an automatic step backwards noticing he was on the platform circulating the main stage. Only a lightweight rail separated him from a four-meter drop to the wooden floor. Voices were coming from the stage and Patrik looked down between the curtains.

There were scattered papers on the stage together with a long tape measure. A woman stood in the middle of the space, tapping a pen against her leg. In front of her, a man with brown hair was sitting on the floor, pressing a rag to his palm.