[ 31 ]

DR. TERRIBLE’S SCREAM OPERAS ARE IN FULL EFFECT

Inside, it looks like business as usual.

But then, when I take a closer study of the bustling entranceway, I can tell something is definitely off, though I can’t quite put my claw on what it is.

The first thing I notice is that I don’t smell Dr. Terrible in the air, not even a trace of him. And usually this place just flat out reeks of Dr. Terrible. I used to joke with my grandpa that he could bottle his fiendish dragon scent and sell it as a cologne called Depravity.

The second thing I notice here inside the entranceway is my black horns are tingling like crazy. I flick my scaly green tail around behind me, keeping it ready to help propel me with lightning speed if I need to make any sudden movements.

Now this Center for Combat & Conquer represents the apex in Dr. Terrible’s pedagogy. And if pumping up BIOCON LEVS is your thing, then this is definitely the hottest game on the island.

I squat here for a moment taking in the scene. Dragon cadets decked out in combat gear are flying this way and that, heading into the bowels of the building for their advanced training. WarWings professors in their robes and cloaks are flapping their wings and flying about.

Injured cadets on gurneys wheel by. These wounded dragons have ghastly smoking charred patches on their scales and their fried flesh is showing through. I see where one of the dragons being wheeled by has had his hind legs chopped off and now there’s just these bandaged bloodied stumps.

Another dragon cadet being wheeled by has a sucking chest wound. His bandaged head is jerking back and forth so fast you’d think he was being electrocuted. Another dragon going by is laid out on his belly and you can plainly see where his wings have been chewed off right up to the joint. Some of these poor bastards have got their beaks twisted up and are shrieking in agony while others are blacked out and unconscious, leaking fluids onto the floor.

Then I see a brain floating inside a big glass jar, being wheeled on a gurney. The floating brain has all these wires and tubes running into it.

And the dragon medic who’s wheeling the gurney uses his talon knuckles to rap on the brain’s glass container, and says, “How you holding up in there, cadet?”

“I reckon I’m doing OK, sir,” says the brain’s voice through some sort of microphone. “Boy, I thought for sure I was going to die during this morning’s training, sir. It was the weirdest thing. When I stumbled upon them barbarian dwarves and they unloaded on me with those acid-vaporizer guns, well I figured I was a goner, sir. I swear I could feel myself dissolving and I remember thinking how I was definitely dying right then!”

“Well, son,” says the dragon medic, “it was a real close call. That’s a tough strain of dwarf you were trying to conquer this morning. We imported them from the planet Krolnix. And when we’re not using those dwarves for training, we keep them in our maximum-containment facility. Those Krolnix dwarves are real nasty bastards. That’s why we welded those muzzles onto their heads. But you performed well this morning, son. And because of our advanced technology here at the Institute, we were able to evac you from that bunker in the nick of time.”

“Say, sir,” says the brain in the glass container, “when do I get to take this gauze off my head and open my eyes? You said it would only be a few minutes. And I know this may sound crazy, but I could swear it feels like it’s already been several days since you said that. When do I get to open my eyes, sir?”

“Well, son,” says the dragon medic, “we’re nearly finished prepping the wound. It’ll be just a few seconds. We’re almost there. But first we have to—” And then the medic reaches out with his talon and starts shaking the glass container super hard and the brain with all those wires in it is getting sloshed around.

“What was that, sir?” says the jiggling brain. “You’re breaking up, sir. I’m afraid I’m feeling sort of dizzy, sir. I may need to take a short rest…”

Well the mortality rate for training here at the Center for Combat & Conquer is through the roof. And before a dragon can begin training here, he or she has to make a last will and testament for their hoard and lair.

And when I made my will, I went ahead and bequeathed everything I owned to Fribby. At first the WarWings administration had made a big stink about me leaving my hoard to Fribby and they said it wasn’t allowed, because she was a robot and all. But eventually my will and testament was run up the WarWings chain of command and was finally approved. Because Fribby is a MortalMachine dragon and she’d been hatched in the WarWings Creative Evolution Lab, so what could they say, really?

Now over the audiomembranes they are playing the booms of a volcano erupting overlaid with the near constant scream of a terrified creature. Well, I know these screams are part of Dr. Terrible’s advancements in the field of Sound Therapy Training for WarWings cadets. Because there’s not a dragon on Blegwethia who doesn’t consider the scream of a terrified creature to be liquid gold to the earholes.

The most acclaimed musicians on our planet are dragons who stick a foreign creature in a torture device and then proceed to press buttons so that the creature’s agonized screams form a rapturous melody. For dragons these tortured screams are what we call classical music.

But my scaly green grandpa took the whole concept one step further and applied it to the combat training of WarWings cadets. So with an eye to jacking up cadets’ BIOCON LEVS, he composed a series of what he calls scientifically informed Scream Operas, which are designed to enhance and fortify a dragon’s WILL TO POWER.

Dr. Terrible’s research results confirmed that regular auditory exposure to his Scream Operas boost a dragon’s scores in nearly every conceivable category: WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY, SCALE DENSITY & LUSTER, FIRESTREAM BLAST RADIUS, CORE FLAME TEMP, MATING MAGNETISM, TRAUMA SURVIVAL READINESS, CONQUERING CAPABILITY, HORN DENSITY & MASS, TONGUE SHOOTING ACCURACY, VENOM POTENCY & VISCOSITY, and of course the all-important HEART MASS REDUCTION & SHRINKAGE.

Even I have to admit the repetitive sound of Dr. Terrible’s Scream Opera right now blasting over the audiomembranes is getting my juices going. My toe claws involuntarily shoot out and my nostrils flare.

Who am I kidding?

I’ve missed this place over the last couple months, and I didn’t realize how much I’ve been missing it until now.

It feels good to be back.

I snort firebolts out my nostrils and swagger forth.

Now as I step up to the greeting console, this old crusty Admin dragonette eyeballs me through the glasses perched on the end of her scaly green snout.

“I’m here for my Friday session,” I say.

This old dragonette keeps glancing up at the top of my head, like she’s clocking my tiny horns. “We’ll need your talon match,” she snarls. “Just put your palm against that biometric ID scanner, and it’ll do the rest.”

I put my talon against the lit circle on the machine and then the circle flashes.

“Hey,” I say. “Where’s Tokira?”

The receptionist is busy looking at something on the floating screen next to her scaly green head, like she’s reading something off my talon printout. Without looking at me, she snarls, “Who?”

“Tokira,” I say, flapping my wings. “The dragonette who normally works reception here. I’ve never seen you here before. What’s your name?”

The old dragonette glances up and gives me a look with her hooded yellow eyes that makes my toe claws shudder. Then my eyes’ peripheral zoom feature activates itself just in time to see the dragonette slide an index claw under her console and frantically commence pushing a button.

“Gork,” she purrs, “we seem to be having some problems with your Cadet ID. I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’m going to have to ask you to wait over there at the LavaBar until we can get this cleared up. Feel free to have a lavatov cocktail. It’s on the house.”

She points a long yellow claw at said LavaBar over in the corner of the lobby. But I happen to know the bar is just a front for its true identity, which is the Apprehension Chamber. Lucky for my scaly green ass, I was raised by the demented bastard who drew up the blueprints for this building.

“Yes ma’am,” I say. “I’ll just go suck down a lavatov cocktail while you get things straightened out. Just give me a holler when you need me. I’ll be at the LavaBar.”

I notice her left lid twitches.

And that’s when I bolt.

I explode off my haunches and run like a bastard. I bound right through the yellow smartfoam^® security blockade and strike out running on my hind legs into the interior of the building. And while I run, I can feel the smartfoam^® clinging to my green scales as it starts to harden and congeal and try to make me as still as a statue.

My toe claws are clacking frantically on the floor as I run.

I know when it comes to smartfoam^® the key is to keep moving. Because if you keep your RUN SPEED at 20 MPH or above, then the smartfoam^® can’t get a grip and lock you up like it has been designed to do. So as I race along, I don’t slow down or even stop to try and wipe the burning acidic foam off my green scales. Because once I stop I’ll never be able to start moving again.

“Hey!” roars the receptionist. “You’re not allowed back there!” Then she shouts, “Security! Security!” And that’s when the alarm explodes inside the building, and a mega siren commences booming over and over and over. And as I bound on my hind legs I spread my wings and flap them twice and burst into flight.

And as I fly down the corridor, for the very first time this morning a smile blooms across my beak.

Yes sir.

It sure does feel good to be back.

The siren continues to explode around me. It’s a high-pitched screeching sound, blasting down the corridors with a rhythmic throbbing noise.

As I flap my wings and fly onward, the yellow smartfoam^® is falling off me like strips of hide and I’m grateful to be free of the nasty stuff. My green scales are still stinging from the smartfoam^®’s poison though.

Now as I whip round a corner and shoot forth I happen to look up and:

Uh-oh.

Crouched there at the other end of the corridor is a psychotic-looking dragon Commando fool from the security detail I’d seen near the front of the Institute. And this WarWings Commando bastard is wearing full Conquer Gear and his giant black horns are sticking out of his red helmet. A real nasty piece of work. And I can’t help but admire how even with his beak closed his giant fangs protrude like tusks.

Now the Commando snorts flames out his nostrils and aims his powerstaff at me and bellows, “Halt!”

Anyway, I know I don’t have enough BIOCON juice to launch into close-quarter combat with this Commando bastard. So I do the only thing I can do at this point. I just keep flying right at this sonuvabitch. With no plan or even a shred of hope I decide my best bet is improvised combat, or what my grandpa Dr. Terrible calls ImproBattle.

Thwack-thwack.

And I suddenly become aware of my oversized heart in my rib cage, which is hammering away like crazy. I’m seeing yellow dots swimming in the air and I can feel myself starting to faint. Which for a dragon fool is one of the scariest things that can happen to you, to black out in midflight. Because when this happens one thing is for sure, you will crash. Even as I’m in the middle of fainting here in the corridor, some part of my fading brain knows I’m in big trouble.

And this is exactly what happens to me as I’m flying directly at that Commando bastard. I can feel my jumbo heart crank up inside my chest, and then I faint. Blackout.

But I only black out for a half second. Or a second, max.

And when I come to, I’m still flying.

I’m still airborne.

I’m dazed and terrified.

Now the Commando fool snorts flames out his nostrils and takes careful aim with his powerstaff.

“This is your last warning!” he shouts. “Halt now!”

Yeah right, buddy. Like I even have a choice anymore.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m fainting all over the place here. So you can scream at me all you want to. Cuz I’m not stopping.

And then the Commando flips open his beak and shoots his tongue at me like a bullet.

Zing.

The red blur whizzes straight for my head. And I can tell by how the Commando is crouched there on his scaly muscular hind legs, with his wings spread wide and his tail lifted high, that he’s trained in the dragon martial art of tongue-fu.

Now tongue-fu is no joke, and this bastard looks like he means business. I swear he looks like he’s aiming to take my scaly head off with his tongue.

So I’m hurtling toward this Security Commando and now he’s added his lethal tongue into the mix. And because my WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY are completely zonked I spin out of control and bounce headfirst off the wall. But this maniac hasn’t calculated for my loss of control and his red tongue rockets right by me, missing me by an inch. And his tongue zooms another forty feet past me and then strikes the middle of the ceiling and stays embedded there.

Whoa.

Now the Commando is frantically whipping his long green neck back and forth, trying to rip his tongue free from the ceiling and retract it fifty feet down the corridor and back into his beak.

So I blast this fool with a supersonic fireball. But my aim is even worse than normal. Now my supersonic fireball ricochets off the ceiling and zooms right at the Commando’s green webbed feet and the bastard leaps up just slightly to avoid it. But this turns out to be a big mistake. Because like a tape measure, his tongue’s retracting feature automatically initiates.

Zing.

He instantly shoots forward and rockets down the long corridor. I have my back to the wall and watch the Commando fly right past me. He slams into the ceiling face-first. Now he’s just hanging there stuck to the ceiling, while little bits of stone rain down.

Then the Commando falls to the ground.

Plunk.

I squat there gasping. And I peer down the corridor at the dragon’s still form sprawled out in the dust and rubble.

I sure hope he gave himself amnesia. Otherwise, when that fool wakes up, he’s never going to stop until he finds me!

And then using the last precious drops of my BIOCON juice, I whirl around and flap my wings and shoot down the corridor in the opposite direction from where the Commando is laid out.

Thwack-thwack.