[ 7 ]

THE ZAP PAD

I run as fast I can, pushing my way through the crowds of cadets.

I’ve got my wings extended just slightly to help me stay balanced.

For a dragon, I’m a pretty good sprinter. My MAX RUN SPEED is 79 MPH.

Now some dragon degenerates I know are so slow they couldn’t run their way out of a tortoise shell. Their MAX RUN SPEED is maybe 3 MPH. We call them snailheads. ’Course those fools, they usually can fly real fast. Me, I can fly pretty fast too.

Anyway, my hind legs are pounding the ground and because of how fast I’m running my red cape is blowing behind me. And I don’t have to look around to know that these other dragon bastards are enviously eyeballing my fiendish cape as it flaps in the wind. We dragons may be high-tech, but some things are timeless. And there’s nothing like a cape to turn heads. I choose to ignore the one dragon fool who shouts, “Nice cape, assface!”

Anyway, as I’m running I can see Runcita just up ahead, and I’m closing the gap fast. Runcita is squatting directly on top of the Zap Pad, which is a yellow circle that’s about fifteen feet wide out in the middle of the lava pits. When you’re teleporting, the Zap Pad glows with a bright yellow light and you can look down and see your green webbed feet all lit up from underneath. Above Runcita hangs the giant glass tube that conducts the particle accelerator energy.

When Dean Floop first had the Zap Pad installed a couple months back, it was a highly controversial move. There was a big article about the teleportation pad controversy posted on WarWings’ datastream, The Digital Fire-Breather. It said there were concerns about the long-term health effects of teleportation and what it might do to our internal organs over time.

I mean it’s true that a lot of weird stuff has happened to us since they installed the Zap Pad. Like according to that post on The Digital Fire-Breather, there was one fella who zapped into Central Campus and materialized in front of his locker and his heart exploded right out his scaly chest like a small meat bomb.

Then of course you hear these horror stories about the cadets who’ve zapped onto campus and materialized at their destination with one of their organs on the outside of their scaly green body.

There’s one dragon you see scrouching around the island with his gallbladder in a plastic bag, and the bag has a tube running into his belly.

So yeah, it’s definitely a gamble every time you step onto the Zap Pad. But me personally, I’m willing to live with the risks. Because I like the way teleportation feels. Especially that one moment where you can feel yourself whizzing through the air, but you don’t technically exist because you’re not a solid form in one place or the other.

Anyway, I’m running toward my Queen, and the parking lot abruptly ends.

Without missing a beat, I leap forward into the lava pits and start splashing my way forward. I look up ahead and see Runcita give a little wave to Rexro. This big evil dragon Rexro is the Chief of WarWings Security here on the island.

You want to get into WarWings Central Campus, you got to go through Rexro. And this morning he’s squatting inside his Safety Cage, which sits out there in the lava pits about three hundred yards off from the teleportation pad. He’s wearing full Conquer Gear, including a bright red helmet with his big black horns sticking out the top of it. The way the system works is, from inside his Safety Cage, Rexro presses the button that teleports us cadets onto Central Campus each morning.

Now squatting up on the Zap Pad, Runcita smiles at Rexro.

“Good morning, Rexro!” she shouts.

Rexro squirts blacksmoke out his nostrils and shouts: “Good morning, Runcita!” Rexro speaks through an intercom, so his voice booms out over the lava pits. But his voice sounds a little crackly, like one of the intercom wires is loose. “You want to go straight to your first-period classroom? Or should I zap you to your locker?”

Then Runcita shouts something back at him and I practically sprain my eardrums trying to catch her answer. But because of how hard I’m running I can’t for the life of me make out what she says. Does she want to get zapped to her locker? Or does she want to get zapped to her first-period classroom? I have no freaking idea.

There’s the crazed splash splash splash of my webbed feet blasting across the lava.

And then Runcita flaps her leathery wings and smiles a beakful of fangs at Rexro.

“OK, Runcita, have a nice day!” shouts Rexro.

There’s a monstrous crowd of scaly dragon cadets waiting in line for the Zap Pad.

Well by this point I’m still sprinting through the lava pits but have seriously closed the gap. I am only a hundred yards away from Runcita.

Glance down at my powerstaff to check my RUN SPEED. I’ve built up a good head of steam. I’m galloping at 42 MPH.

Now to the cadets standing around watching, I know I look like a green blur with a splash of red mixed in from my cape. Whereas for my scaly green ass, I can see every fiend around me with perfect clarity. Like most dragons, the faster I go, the stronger my powers of perception.

I can see Runcita standing right up ahead on the Zap Pad.

She can’t see me, though, because I am running at her from the side.

Now obviously I haven’t thought this whole thing through.

Because I really don’t know what I’ll do when I reach Runcita. I mean for the past three days I’ve rehearsed asking her to be my Queen in front of the Talking Mirror and I know exactly what I’m going to say, down to the word.

But I hadn’t planned on having to intercept her at the teleportation pad out here in the lava pits. I’d planned on cornering her back in the parking lot and offering her my crown out there, long before she ever thought about getting herself zapped into Central Campus.

These are the things I’m thinking about as I run right at her:

Should I tackle her to make sure she doesn’t teleport before I can ask her? Or should I rush up and get down on one haunch right there in front of everybody, and hold out my crown and ask her to be my Queen?

Because of how fast I’m running, it’s making it real hard to think. My mind is a jumble. And my lungs are heaving so hard it feels like they’re going to pop. Now as I run my powerstaff vibrates and so I lift it up and see there’s a message from Fribby:

Sorry for being so aggro earlier!

Me and my stupid robot brain. Ha-ha.

Anyway good luck with getting Runcita to be yer queen!

If you need my help, let me know.

I’ll be in there soon! Xo

Cool, I think. I never can stand it when Ms. Cyber Scales is sore at me. I mean sure she still can be a royal pain in the ass. There’s that, of course. And yes, sometimes when I look up and find her staring at me with those glowing red eyes, well it makes the scales on the back of my long green neck stand up. There’s that, too.

But that’s not all of it. No sir. Because there’s also the way Fribby always saves a seat for me in the Dining Hall at lunch. Even when a while back I was a dumb-ass and started trying to pretend like I didn’t know her. This was back when my grandpa Dr. Terrible tried to fill my head with a bunch of DataHater garbage during our weekly WILL TO POWER sessions.

So for about a week there, I took to pretending like I didn’t know her. And when I did that, well Fribby just comes over to where I was sitting by myself in the Dining Hall and asks me what the heck I’m doing sitting way over here. Meanwhile some of the DataHaters around us would start snickering, but she didn’t pay them any mind. That robot would just keep standing over me, asking me what the heck I was doing. Until finally I would sigh and get up and go back over with her to the empty seat she was saving for me.

Like I said, it was a dumb-ass thing for me to do. And I sure didn’t enjoy it, I can tell you that. After a couple days I finally gave up on pretending like I didn’t know her, because it hurt me in my big old heart, if you want to know the truth. Of course Dr. Terrible chewed me out for it during our weekly WTP sessions. I think it was the one time when I took a stand against my grandpa like that.

Most days here at school Fribby is the only one who acknowledges that I’m even alive. And is glad that I am too. Alive, that is. Like I told you before, she finds me amusing. I guess what I aim to say here is Ms. Cyber Scales is my best friend. And Dr. Terrible says that’s why my BIOCON LEVS are such a wreck, because of how I mostly only fraternize with Datalizards.

My grandpa says call him a DataHater if you want, but if I don’t respect myself then none of the other Normals at WarWings will respect me either. Then he reminds me that respect isn’t even the half of it. Because what I should really be aiming for is to have my fellow cadets fear me.

But after today, that won’t matter anymore.

On account of everything will be different then.

Me and my Queen Runcita will be laying plans for invading a planet together. Soon I’ll be out in space on my Fertility Mission, and me and Runcita will be “bumping scales,” so she can lay my eggs.

I’m running so fast right now you’d think I was going to leap headfirst into another dimension.

Runcita will be wearing my crown in a jiffy.

My cape is snapping and popping behind me, and my powerstaff shows my current RUN SPEED ramping to 53 MPH.

Will my plan to get Runcita to be my Queen work? I sure hope so.

When I practiced with the Talking Mirror it always said, “Yes sir, I will be your Queen.” But then again the Talking Mirror is part of my spaceship and so really, what else is the Talking Mirror going to say? Because I mean it’s not like Runcita is ever in a million years going to call me “sir.” So in terms of verisimilitude, I’ll be the first to admit these practice runs with the Talking Mirror haven’t done a ton to boost my confidence.

Anyway, this morning there will be no helpful mirror. This morning there’s going to be a real dragonette and her name is Runcita.

Because Crown Day is the ultimate test of our WILL TO POWER. Plus our STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION CAPABILITY. Plus our MATING MAGNETISM. And even more importantly, it’s a showcase for our CONQUER & RULE FACULTIES. The true display of what we are as dragons: how fiendish we are, how hideous we are, and ultimately how prepared we are to be Planet Conquerors.

Because for us senior cadets, Crown Day represents the culmination of all our academic work at WarWings over the last four years. It’s the final task of our demented training and education, the crucible that defines you.

EggHarvest cuts to the core of who we are as a species.

Three hundred thousand years ago, this is exactly how we dragons settled here. A young dragon fella and a young dragon chick known as the Original Couple landed their spaceship on Blegwethia.

At that time, human beings were the dominant species on Blegwethia. And all the man-creatures went around naked. And according to our WarWings history texts, it was a heinous sight to behold.

So the Original Couple climbed out of their spaceship and went to war with the man-creatures. And the dragons won.

And those two dragons rounded up the surviving humans and made them their slaves. And the first thing the Original Couple did was force the man-creatures to put on some clothes. Then, after conquering the humans on Blegwethia, the dragon chick hatched a clutch of eggs and raised a Colony of dragons.

Not long after, the man-creatures went extinct.

Then this Original Couple, well they started a school and named it WarWings. They wanted to ensure that the EggHarvest tradition would continue forever and that dragons would always have a place to grow and develop their WTP. So that dragons of the future would be able to take the Original Couple’s fundamental lesson of Conquer and Reproduce and apply it to the universe.

Though according to some eminent dragon historians, two man-creatures escaped from Blegwethia in a stolen spaceship. A female and a male. These historians claim the two human beings eventually landed on the planet called Earth.

Now fast-forward three hundred thousand years, and we seniors at WarWings are still proudly replicating the ritual of that Original Couple who landed on Blegwethia.

And as far as the humans go, every once in a while some dragon here on Blegwethia will dig up some old fossilized man-creature bones and it’ll make the news. I remember earlier this year when a human skull made the news because it fetched two hundred pounds of gold on the black market.

Recently there’ve been rumors around WarWings that some of the dragon professors in the Creative Evolution Lab have discovered a way to clone humans. Supposedly they’re using DNA found in the stomachs of ancient Snow Dragons buried deep in their arctic ice tombs.

Honestly I don’t think any of us dragons cares one way or the other about the prospect of bringing the man-creature species back. I mean, considering how easily they’d let themselves go extinct, it’s kind of tough for younger dragons to get jazzed about human beings. Though I hear they might make good pets.

Cadets here at WarWings are still utilizing the Original Couple’s fundamental lesson of Conquer and Reproduce. And we call that ritual EggHarvest. And if I don’t get an official Queen by sundown today then my rights as a dragon will be revoked. I’ll be demoted to slave status.

So if I don’t get luscious Runcita Floop to agree to be my Queen, then I’ll have to spend the rest of my days working as a slave on some lame Colony Planet in one of the Outer Galaxies. Ugh.

Anyway, my green webbed feet are flying right now. I’m flashing across the lava pits.

My powerstaff shows my current RUN SPEED ramping up to 63 MPH.

Runcita is right here in front of me, standing on the teleportation pad.

Now I guess at this moment Rexro must be pressing the button there inside his Safety Cage. Because instantly the bright yellow light starts glowing under Runcita’s green webbed feet.

And right there in front of me, Runcita’s image starts to get wavy.

Because the machine is whipping up her subatomic particles.

And then there’s a crackle of lightning in the giant glass tube overhead and poof—Runcita is gone.