Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

The Dragons of Taman were without names, even if minds such as theirs could grasp such a thing, they had no need. They were great metal constructs, with minds closer to animals than that of men, though a great wisdom was buried in their very beings, all thanks to their lives before; Lives that played out repeatedly in the great simulation known, among mankind, as the ‘Hub’.

The dragon recently dubbed Plaguecat, by passing humans, was buried deep within the foliage, eyes ever pointed skyward. The dragon needed to stay clear of his kind, for he believed he was their undoing. He could hear their calls in the distance; their communication was primal and simplistic, though carried through their territory far and wide. He could warn them away, he could cry out with a primal call that signaled them to stay away. Though the details could not be conveyed, thus it would only be a matter of time until they came to find out why.

He would remain hidden for as long as he could, quiet, lurking, like a wood mouse. A giant metal wood mouse clamoring ‘quietly’ through the trees; He knew he needed a better plan.

That was before he came across the man hiding within the great jungle.

He had recognized the man immediately, recognized that this was the other captive of the woman. The woman, the barred teeth woman, which always seemed to be snarling at him; that had often preened over them all as though they were her prized litter, as though she had bore them within her belly, and pushed them out into the world. She liked to call them her kitties. She did not make him. His lives had made him, numerous lives; a simulation to most, but to him, it was once his only reality.

Plaguecat had at first deemed this man not a threat at all, though as he watched him, studied him, something about the man shifted. The great dragon, emboldened by centuries of animal instincts, found that his virtual hackles went up with the man’s sudden shift from cowering prey, to competing rival within his territory.

Instinct took over for the ancient beast, the dragon attacked. An attempt to force the man back from his newfound confidence, tried to force him back into that cowering wreck the dragon was fully prepared to dismiss. The man refused, again and again.

The thundering blows of the man came unrelenting; it was as though thunder cracked through his great horned head. He could not believe the power of the man before him. Blow after blow the fury of the man rained down on his head. The man was fast and agile; the dragon’s snapping maw kept coming up empty.

The battle carried on as the two beings railed against each other, like a pair of bucks in the wood, each trying to force the other to submit. It was a battle for territory, a battle for the greatest, strongest, to determine the alpha. But more than that, it was a battle of a man coming to terms with what it was to stay human, and that of a demigod coming to terms with where he stood above a natural order that had once cradled him.

The combatants had more in common then they knew. Both had been infused with an outside, unseen, force. A great cloud of nanite technology had dispersed around the dragon, spread out from the mechanical bot form. He was ground zero for a plague of nanites, the microscopic machine’s only goal- to find and destroy any dragon other than the host, Plaguecat.

The man’s unseen force though, a technology long separated from the known technology of the Second Sun, was of a different sort. These mysterious nanites, which once threatened to blindly choke him to death, now had infiltrated the man’s body, coursed through his very veins, his mind. They did what they could to keep him alive, protected; to keep him strong. For without a host- they no longer had a purpose.

The shadow passed above.

Plaguecat found his attention pulled back skyward, two of his siblings had arrived, probably scouting the wrecked ship. He became so angry that he could be so careless; he was tempted to finish the whole battle with a great gush of fire from his maw. But he knew such an assault would devastate the surrounding life, and if they had not seen him yet, would definitely call the attention of his family above.

Plaguecat backed away from the man, barred his teeth, and once again let the hot air vent through his teeth, threateningly.

The man halted as well, and followed the dragon’s gaze skyward. The man’s eyes grew wide as he spotted two more dragons circling in the sky above.

“There he is!” a strange man’s voice bellowed behind them. “I told you I saw him running out this way.”

It was one of the humans from the wrecked ship. They’d followed the man.

Suddenly more men arrived in the wood, all with rifles. A barrage of bullets rang out, taking the dragon full in the chest. Plaguecat was armored, but the bullets still stung. He knew the bullet fire called his sibling’s attention to them. He roared, enraged. In response, he snapped out with his great maw of sharpened teeth, snatched his distracted combatant up by his leg, gnashed down clear through the bone, and hurled the man back into the new group of men.

Plaguecat turned and lunged through the foliage, desperate to get some distance between him and those flying overhead. He heard his siblings call to him and knew he had already ruined everything. He spat the severed leg from his mouth, and called for those flying above to stay away. It was a primal call, a warning that announced that it was not safe. They soared above, there was no chance he could outdistance them. They may stay above for a time, though they could see no threat. He knew it was only a matter of time until they ignored his warning, to try and help him. Then, he feared, they would be destroyed.

The man’s blood coated his teeth, his jaws, dripped down his neck, and lay splattered across his chest. This was not regular blood, this was blood filled with nanites. Nanites that would mix and intermingle with those that were being exuded from the mechanical dragon’s metal form. It only took one of the foreign nanites to seize control of one of the destructive plague nanites, to change the whole situation.

The two technologies fused, became stronger. What once was blind to the new solar system around them- suddenly had a grasp of more than just the man they’d infiltrated. Gave them an ability to communicate with the new tech. And what once could only destroy, found that it could create- Its programming was overwritten. The nanites all fused, discarding what made them weak, and kept that which made them stronger.

As the dragon raced through the foliage, inexplicably, the metal nubs at his shoulders suddenly reactivated. Plaguecat recognized this immediately, great feathery wings of solid light erupted from his back, and the dragon launched into the air. Calling out once more for his siblings to stay clear, he rocketed up into the skies, and then further. He soared up and up until the air burned around him. He tore like a fireball into orbit.

At last the dragon hovered there in the blackness of space, as far from his siblings as he could, his lush green home of Taman far below him. He did not know what changed, or that the man’s blood had been the catalyst… New information flowed through his systems, showed him the solar system in its entirety, showed him all the moons and planets; Showed him a small moon nearby, a desert moon, completely barren of his kind. The great wings, all but useless in the void of space, spread wide as the built in thrusters within his great claws, launched the tireless primal bot, through the nothing.