CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Clients
Our meeting with the DOD was at nine a.m. the following morning. Evelyn had invited them early for coffee up in her office, which gave me enough time to get in and slug down a latte myself. Then I went to the conference room. The moment I walked in, I thought I’d gone into the wrong meeting. There stood two men and a woman, all of them in crisp uniforms of the United States armed forces. Army, Navy, and Air Force, if I had to guess. I’ll be totally honest—I would have to guess. The military was an area where sadly I had little firsthand knowledge. Even so, there were things to glean. They all stood in front of their chairs, exhibiting excellent posture but somehow exuding a sense of comfort. Came with the territory, I supposed.
“Here he is now,” Evelyn said. “Noah Parker is our Director of Design.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, almost by instinct.
Evelyn gestured to the bureaucratic-looking white guy in the dark blue uniform. “This is Lieutenant Commander McGregor.” She swept her arm to include the others. “These are Majors Johnson and Nakamura.” The first was a black guy who could have been an ex-quarterback. Major Nakamura was an Asian woman who, despite being a head shorter than Johnson and a third of his size, somehow came off more intimidating.
The shock of encountering three officers in uniform hadn’t quite worn off. I remembered myself enough to shake their hands and look them in the eye while doing so. McGregor had a normal handshake. Major Nakamura’s was cold and hard. Johnson’s hand wrapped around mine like I was a small child.
“Would you like coffee or anything else to drink?” Evelyn asked them.
They all took coffee from the silver carafe that waited. McGregor poured for the other two and took cream and sugar. Johnson took milk, and Nakamura drank it black. Hard core. They found chairs and sat without ceremony. I did the same and felt terribly awkward, but at least relieved that I’d chugged my own coffee before this.
“Thank you for coming all this way,” Evelyn said.
“Part of the job,” McGregor said. The others sat sipping their coffee. Clearly they expected us to run this meeting. Which I supposed made sense; they were the clients with deep pockets. We were just another technology firm hoping to supply them.
“We have been reading the statement of work,” Evelyn said.
“What do you think of the specs?” McGregor asked.
Evelyn smiled at me. “Noah has been working on some prototype designs.”
Noah and Wong worked until nine last night, I wanted to say. Instead, I picked up my tablet—which was hot-linked to my workstation and already had its display synched with the conference room projectors. “We’ll develop at least three designs to meet your requirements. This is the infantry model.”
I’d designed it by starting with the Guardian, the original hog-hunting reptile on which our company was founded. I’d disabled the points system—this was only a demo, after all—and enhanced all the features: claws, teeth, musculature, everything. The Guardian had looked fierce in a feral sort of way. This model, when it bloomed into three-dimensional existence above the conference table, resembled the dragon version of a Rottweiler. It had a solid stance and broad shoulders balanced by a muscular tail. Rotating slowly above the table, it looked damn intimidating. I issued another command and the thing began running. It moved like a lizard—sinuous, with the head and tail moving back and forth in hypnotic rhythm—but with the husky frame and bristling claws, it was intimidating. And fast. All three of the officers were watching.
Since I’d piqued their interest, I flipped to the aquatic model. “This is the prototype for the marine reptile. It won’t be quite as fast on land, but it’ll make up for that in wet environments.” The body reflected that—it was more streamlined, and I’d reduced the size of the claws in favor of webbed feet. It had a low center of gravity, too, which would give it an advantage on both shorelines and open water.
Reading the officers’ reactions to this dragon was harder. Nakamura said something quietly to Johnson, but neither of them offered comment to the room.
“Let’s see the third design, Noah,” Evelyn said.
This was a bit of planned theater on our part. We’d saved the flying model for last. Given the time crunch and the importance of wowing them, I’d gotten Evelyn’s permission to revive the Condor model that had nearly gotten me fired under her predecessor. Only half a dozen of them had ever been printed, but they’d flown better than any dragon we’d designed. In my opinion, anyway.
“This is our flying model,” I said, bringing the modified Condor design up in my simulator. It had a lower mass than the infantry model but the huge wingspan made an impression. Since there was no point system to worry about, I pulled out all the stops to make the prototype strong and nimble, with an extremely high metabolism. That also meant a high calorie intake, but I figured that was the military’s problem, not mine. I told the simulator to show it in flight. The visual was pretty close—each movement based on a realistic simulation of the muscle movement—but nothing did justice to what my Condors could do in the air.
“Impressive,” said Johnson.
“And you think these models will meet all of the requirements?” Nakamura asked.
“These are theoretical designs, but yes, I think they should be feasible,” Evelyn said.
The change in demeanor was palpable. Suddenly they were frowning at us, and I felt like a kid who’d brought home a bad report card.
“With all due respect,” McGregor said, “we don’t need the theoretical on the battlefield.”
“Hence the statement of work,” Nakamura added.
“The dragons will be real enough,” Evelyn said. “Drones and other technologies have their uses, I’m sure, but they’re expensive. They break down. Our dragons are genetically engineered to be healthy, low-maintenance assets.”
McGregor perked up a little. “Do you think it would be feasible to use the same dragon for multiple applications in the field?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “A lot of our current dragons are multiuse. I’ve designed customs that were family pets, hunting companions, and security dragons all in one.”
Evelyn jumped back in. “Take this flying model, for example. It’s nimble but it has endurance, too. The same dragon can be trained to do recon, base security, aerial surveillance . . . whatever you need.”
I hid my smile. With five minutes of prep time, Evelyn could talk to anyone about anything. Despite their stony appearance, the officers were nodding along.
“What about specialized applications?” Nakamura asked quietly.
Something about the way she said specialized held extra meaning, but I didn’t know what it was.
“That’s why I brought our director of dragon design,” Evelyn said.
All three officers’ gazes swiveled from Evelyn to me.
“What kind of specialized are we talking about?” I asked.
“Weapons,” Nakamura said.
Dragons with weapons? Now there was a question I hadn’t counted on. “Some of our dragons can operate basic tools, but it would have to be pretty simple weaponry,” I said.
“That’s not exactly what they have in mind, Noah,” Evelyn said.
It dawned on me then. Dragons would be the weapons. “Oh, right. Of course.” I’m such a moron.
“There is precedent,” Evelyn said, and she gave me a guarded look, as if not sure how I’d take this. “Some of our custom models may be close to what you need.”
She means the attack dragons. In spite of our huggable-family-pet messaging, customized attack dragons had become one of the more popular custom jobs. I’d designed many myself because they were often the most challenging orders. And sometimes I’d done a little too well. One of mine had slaughtered someone’s pink-and-white pet dragon moments after they both hatched. Right in front of a little girl on her birthday, too.
But the other incident, the one that haunted me, was shortly after we’d found the dogs. Ben Fulton, Build-A-Dragon’s head of security, had caught me and Summer at the desert facility that day. When Redwood and the dragons came to our rescue, there were attack models with them. Summer and I had had Octavius to vouch for us, thank God. Fulton had left his little dragon at home.
There had been so much blood. I shuddered just remembering it. “Dragons are natural predators.”
McGregor was unimpressed. “It seems unlikely that something made for civilians would push the envelope enough.”
“You’d be surprised,” Evelyn said.
I smiled, because I’d had the same thought. “Some of our most clever designs are in response to the customization requests we’ve gotten from customers. Everyone wants something different.”
“You got any examples?” McGregor asked.
“One customer wanted a dragon that had rainbow fur instead of scales,” I said. “Because of the way the ectoderm develops, we had to make it a genetic mosaic. Seven different dragons in one. Another customer needed a dragon to guard livestock, and so we altered its metabolism to give it a vegetarian diet.” Even as I shared these, I realized that they probably didn’t offer the best examples to clients who wanted killing machines, but the science was still sound. Hopefully I wouldn’t completely underwhelm.
“You can do that?” McGregor asked.
“Absolutely. We’re tweaking the metabolism all the time.”
McGregor gave me the nod, and looked to Major Johnson.
“Let’s talk about implementation,” Johnson said.
“What do you want to know?” Evelyn smiled, while I took the first full breath in what seemed like a while. She’d promised to handle the prep for this part. I was rather curious to hear what she had to say.
“Will these dragons follow orders?”
I nearly barked a laugh, but the guy was serious. Then I thought of Octavius and his sometimes-stubborn siblings, and felt immensely relieved I wasn’t on the hook to answer this question.
“As well as any domesticated animal,” Evelyn answered. “They’re intelligent creatures and extremely trainable.”
“What does that involve?” Johnson asked.
“It’s a similar program to what’s been developed for canines and other service animals. Obedience training as a foundation, and then layering on special skills as they develop.”
“Who trains the dragons?”
“Your people,” Evelyn said.
“All right. Who trains our people?”
“Our dragon wranglers.”
Johnson cracked a smile. “Dragon wranglers, eh? Can’t say I’ve heard of them.”
“No one knows more about reptilian behavior. Especially the head of their division, Tom Johnson.”
“The reptile guy? You’re kidding.”
“I spoke to Tom yesterday, and he’s agreed to personally oversee the training program.”
I might have uttered a soft gasp at that. Tom Johnson was part animal tamer, part television star, and part legend. He also cared deeply for dragons and other living creatures. Getting him to oversee the training was a major coup. God only knew what Evelyn had to promise him. Probably that he could hunt me for sport or something.
Now Johnson gave us the nod, and all eyes went to Nakamura.
“What you’re proposing to do has promise,” she said. “But for me to take this to my boss, I’ll need something more tangible.”
“I’m sure we could produce prototypes to accompany our proposal,” Evelyn said. “To show that we can do it.”
“A live demonstration would go a long way,” Nakamura said.
“We have a facility outside this building where we demonstrate prototypes,” Evelyn continued. She meant the amphitheater where the epic—or infamous, depending on who you asked—trials of my Condor flying prototype had taken place.
Nakamura shook her head. “We need to see real tests of the dragon prototypes. Measurable tasks in challenging environments.”
Evelyn’s brow furrowed, the first wrinkle in her smooth confidence. “We don’t really have the experience in setting up something like that.”
“Fortunately, we do,” Nakamura said. “How soon can you have something ready?”
Three months, I was thinking.
“Six weeks,” Evelyn said.
I managed not to groan audibly. Six weeks to produce field-ready prototypes. That was going to be tight. Hell, the incubation period would take two of those weeks.
Nakamura smiled, but it was not reassuring. “We look forward to it.”
Something told me that she was going to make damn sure our dragons met their match. That pretty much settled the meeting. Evelyn walked the visitors out, and came back to find me still collecting my things in the conference room.
“Nice work, Noah,” she said.
“Nice work to you. The training program is impressive,” I said.
“I thought it might help sway them.”
“Kind of wish we had longer to prep, though.”
“So do I, but the government acquisition takes a long time. We need to set it in motion for this to help.”
“We still have a lot of design work to do before these prototypes are ready.”
“Yes. And they need to impress the DOD.”
I rubbed my eyes; they were aching again. “I’ll figure out a way to get it done. We need another designer.”
“So get one,” Evelyn said.
Perfect. Another thing to do. Finding genetic engineers with the right skill set was time-consuming, even in Phoenix. Training someone new took even longer. Then it hit me. We didn’t need someone new, we needed someone old.
We needed Priti Korrapati.