One Problem at a Time Chapter 8
EVEN DRAGONS HAVE THEIR ENDING
Fairy tales are more than true,
Not because they tell us dragons exist,
But because they tell us dragons can be beaten.
~Neil Gaiman
It was dark when the plane landed on the abandoned highway, surrounded by velvety darkness and the empty desert. The hybrid repellant frequency was radiating around the plane, acting as protection from whatever monsters were lurking out there, but just in case it wasn't effective against dragons Abe, Mitch, Jamie and Clementine all waited in the vehicle bay, heavily armed and tense as the cargo door dropped. Mitch rubbed his clean shaven jaw, feeling almost a little naked without the scruffy, stubbly beard but every time he had seen himself in the mirror the reflection was Duncan and he was ready to rid himself of the last vestiges of Duncan-hood once and for all. He had even enlisted Clementine to do something approximating cutting his hair, though she had warned him beforehand that she was better with a wrench than a pair of scissors. Still, the result was passable and he started to feel a little less like Post-tank Mitch, and more like himself, a feeling bolstered when he found one of his old plaid shirts hanging in the back of Jamie's closet, and he grinned as he slid it on, Jamie's soft scent wafting up from it.
When he had joined them all in the bay, Abe saw him first and bellowed, "Well! Hello Mitch Morgan!" with a chuckle, Jamie glanced up from the weapon rack quizzically and her breath caught in her throat but she recovered quickly, looking him over and breaking into a brilliant smile before turning her attention back to the armory. With the press of a button the gun rack opened to reveal a deep, recessed shelf behind it she reached in and pulled out a long, wide case, and Mitch lunged forward to help her with it as she slid it out of the compartment.
He grunted as he caught the end of the case and helped her lower it to the ground. "Ugh, this is heavy. What is it, a case of bricks?" Jamie was busily unlatching the case and she swung it open in triumph, revealing a rocket launcher and a pair of wicked looking missiles. "A rocket launcher?" he asked incredulously, "Really?”
She shrugged, picking up the massive weapon with practiced ease. "You never know when you'll have to blow another plane out of the sky. Or a fire breathing dragon."
“I don't even want to know where you got that thing," he said as she swung it up to her shoulder, opening the sighting mechanism in one swift movement. "Or how you know how to handle it like that.”
Clem piped up, "Speaking of fire-breathing dragon, how long exactly would the plane hold up under an attack from one?"
That had been concerning Jamie too. "The carbon fiber is rated for high temperatures but only for short periods of time. I don't know how hot dragonfire is but I am going to assume that anything longer than three or four minutes will burn through the sheathing and to the actual skin of the plane, which would be very, very bad. Let's hope we don't have to worry about it.”
Now they waited in the open bay; the night air was cool and Jamie felt prickles on her arms, whether from the chill or fear she wasn't sure. A light flashed in the distance and everyone snapped to attention, watching the light as it bobbed closer; within a few seconds moving shadows were visible, though they stayed silent as they approached the plane. The shadows finally trotted onto the plane and Clem immediately pulled the lever to close the bay door, and as it clanged closed they all let out a collective breath and greeted each other enthusiastically. Abe hugged Dariela tight, then drew Jackson to him in a giant bear hug. Jackson thrust two vials at Mitch and panted, "They were refrigerated until we left the dam, about forty minutes ago. I couldn't risk trying to carry the cooler.”
Mitch patted him on the back, cutting him off, "No, this is great. I'm going to go get them in the lab right away.”
"Sorry l couldn't get the dragon or the snake, it was just too dangerous," Jackson apologized, unconsciously touching his injured wrist. "Those are rhino and goat.”
“These are great, two more pieces to the puzzle," Mitch replied, and he motioned at Jackson's injury. "Get Abe to check that wrist. Tomorrow we are going on a little hunting trip and we’re gonna need you in good working order.”
Jackson wasn't really surprised that the plan was in place to go after the dragon and the snake, but he asked, "Are you sure that's a good idea?”
Mitch shook his head. "No, but I'm sure l'm on the right track here, Jackson, know in my gut that these samples are the key to stopping Abigail, the hybrids, fixing everything. We need them and if we have to battle a dragon to get one, that's what we have to do.”
Jackson stared him steadily in the eye but he knew Mitch was right, fighting monsters was what they had been doing for twelve years and he wanted to stop his sister - the biggest monster of them all - more than anything in the world. Destroying what she probably considered a masterpiece of genetic manipulation would be satisfying, but he would never be happy until the hybrids were exterminated and she was behind bars- or dead. He nodded solemnly at Mitch and said, “We’ll do what we have to do.”
Mitch stayed in the lab while everyone else retired to the bar, but Jamie brought him a drink that he accepted gratefully, taking a long swallow before joining her at the computer where he had been working. "They're upstairs talking about the dragon,” Jamie picked up one of the vials of blood and turned it this way and that, studying it in the dim, metallic light of the lab. "Dariela said it was basically a flying razorback the size of an elephant that breathes a jet of fire a hundred feet long. So, you know, nothing we can’t handle," She smiled and gestured at his array of screens. "Find anything out?" she asked, and he hurriedly swallowed the last of drink before plunking the glass down on the desk and taking the vial from her, placing it back in its tray and taking her hand.
“Not yet, I am still processing the samples. I needed to chill them first to keep them stable before I actually started working, so I’ll be here a while." He glanced sideways at her and asked, "Wanna stay with me? Help save the world again?"
She kissed him, his lips bitter with the taste of the vodka, his arms warm around her, but she pulled away after a few seconds, slightly breathless and flushed. "Rain check. Gotta take care of a few things, but I'll be back to help you because that's me, Jamie Campbell, helper of saving stuff.” She motioned at the computers, “You get back to work, Doctor.”
He did just that, losing himself in the work, the answer to puzzle that would save them all. His brain was in science mode, and the next time he looked at the clock he realized she had been gone for two hours. He wondered vaguely where she was but he was too busy to wonder for long. The next time he looked up, Jamie had poked her head into the lab, and asked him, "Are you hungry?”
He was famished, suddenly, and he nodded, stripping off his gloves and washing his hands quickly before making his way into the kitchen, where Jamie had set out two bacon and cheese sandwiches and two glasses of chocolate milk. He gave her a lingering kiss of gratitude, then plopped down at the bar and dug into the food. Jamie picked at hers, mostly watching Mitch, and after a few seconds he stopped chewing and asked, "Why exactly, are you staring at me?”
Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at him. "I like you without the beard. You don't look so grumpy.”
He rolled his eyes slightly and teased, "Is that why you haven’t been able to keep your eyes of me all night? Don't think I didn’t notice.”
Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. "You got me. That's exactly why." Her eyes wouldn't meet his and she swallowed as she said softly, "It was a shock. It's was like I’d gone back ten years, and we were on a beach, making plans to go to Maine to get Clementine, to be a family," Her face softened at the memory, and the years fell away from her and suddenly he was with her there on the beach, making plans for a future they would never have and it dawned on him what his ten year absence had really cost her. Allison Shaw's voice echoed back to him through the years. I know you think she's special and you’re meant to be together, but as someone who knows you very well, you’re not. You’re going to destroy each other. And so they had. But Jamie had destroyed the old Mitch that Allison knew long before Shaw slithered her way back into his life; he had destroyed Jamie when the last tattered remnants of hope she'd managed to cobble together with him after New Brunswick had been snatched away so violently and abruptly that she'd been shattered, and only through vengeance and anger had Jamie pieced herself back together, leaving jagged and sharp edges to protect herself. For the first time he felt a twinge of pity for Logan, because he knew from experience how sharp those edges could be and how deeply she was willing to cut to suit her needs.
“We can start over," Mitch said, taking her face gently in his hands. "We can just pick up from the beach, pretend like the last ten years never happened." He squinted at her. "Might be a bit easier for me than for you."
"I'm sure it would." She shook her head. "But learned a long time ago that there is no going back, so this is where we move on.”
More words that echoed from the past, more visiting ghosts.
Can we do what people do sometimes and start over?
Sure, let's...move on.
His face fell, though he tried to hide it behind his glasses, and she put her hand on his arm. Sometimes she forgot that it hadn’t been ten years for him, so those words were still fresh in his mind. "Move on to the next step, together.”
***
Daylight found Mitch still working in the lab, though Jamie had eventually gone to bed since she knew from experience that, like her, Mitch was single-minded in his own way and once he had a problem in his teeth he was going to worry it to pieces. She stayed with him long enough to learn that the goat's blood and the rhino blood had the same molecular signature as the other samples, and they also had different anomalies. Mitch had worked the anomalous molecules into a figure but there were only four of them it wasn't anything but a bunch of angled lines. They needed more.
Once in her room she tried to relax but she couldn't, she had pushed him too fast and she knew it. But that was her, wasn't it? Relentless, obstinate Jamie- let her get something on her mind and there was no dislodging it until she was satisfied. It had been the night that they left the plane for the barrier and Abe collapsed from the deflated lung, Clementine thrust Sam into her arms while she grabbed a knitting needle from her bag to save Abe, and while everything else was going on Jamie looked down into that sweet little face and felt that little hand grip her finger, and it was like the rest of the world had ceased to exist until she looked up and Mitch's eyes met hers, and suddenly she wanted it, motherhood. With Mitch.
As the sun came up the crew gathered in the lab to discuss the next move and the plan was pretty simple, to fly over the dam and as soon as the dragon came into range, shoot with the sample collector and then turn on the repellant frequency and hope it didn't have time to fry anyone. It was a sketchy plan, the best they could come up with, but as soon as they told Jackson he shook his head. "That won't work," he said, "the thing is covered in spikes and scales, bullets just bounced right off of it. And the range of that crossbow is only what, a hundred feet at best? We’ll all be fried to a crisp before we get close enough. Bad plan. We have to think of something else.”
Jamie looked thoughtful, then asked Mitch. "Could we use a missile on it?"
"You really just want to blow something up. don’t you?" Mitch grinned at her over his glasses but shook his head. “I’m not sure there would be enough left of it to collect samples from, and what was left would probably be contaminated. So, no. Try again."
Jamie went to the armory and pulled out another case, opening it next to the launcher. Snug in the padded lining were three small missiles, roughly the size of beer bottles, and a fitting that Dariela picked up and inspected. "Nice, a rifled missile adapter." She picked up one of the missiles and looked it over. "And Demon fire missiles. Tipped with titanium drillbits, the rifling makes them spin at high speeds, basically creating a drill that carries the explosive deep inside whatever the target is before it explodes."
Jamie chimed in. "A small charge. The missile counts on being internalized before exploding, rather than a huge explosive charge. It would probably scramble the dragon's insides a bit but it won't blow it to pieces and that should leave some part of it uncontaminated, right?"
"Could be," Mitch picked one up and hefted it in his hands before looking around the group. "Anyone have a better idea?" They all looked around at each other but no one volunteered a solution.
Jamie spoke again. "We also need to be firing from a stationary place, not the plane." She pulled up some satellite pictures of the dam and the surrounding area. "See this bluff here? There's a straight line of sight to the dam from here. Set me down there with the missile launcher, and you guys bring the plane over as bait.”
Mitch shook his head vehemently. "NO. You are not going down there by yourself, I'm going with you. Jackson obviously knows how to work the plane, he can play captain.”
Dariela said, "I should go to. IF-" she emphasized, "anything should happen to Jamie I am the only one who knows how to use the rocket launcher.
Jamie, Mitch and Dariela perched on a high bluff, some distance from the dam itself, watching the plane as it flew overhead. They could see Jackson and Abe standing on the opened ramp at the rear as they passed. The dragon flew up from the foggy depths of the river and blew a jet of fire at the retreating plane, as it hovered just below the lip of the dam. Jamie pulled the trigger on the launcher, firing a missile that caught the dragon in its long sinuous neck. It screamed in pain and thrashed as the missile bored its way through the flesh and out the other side, drilling into the dam behind it with a horrendous screech, quivering for a scant second before it exploded through the concrete. "Oh, shit," Jamie breathed as the dam slowly, slowly, began to crack, water pouring out of the fissure, spilling concrete and debris down on to the dragon who was flying awkwardly as blood streamed from the open hole in its scaly neck. It screamed again and tried to haltingly fly away from the dam but suddenly the levee split wide, the entirety of the reservoir pouring over the crumbling lip of the ruined dam, the giant water snake slithered out, landing on the back of the dragon and instantly wrapping itself around the flying beast and they both plummeted downward, two behemoths locked in tooth and claw battle.
Everyone stared open-mouthed as the two hybrids, carried on a wave of water as the dam finally completely broke, washed downstream, writhing and screeching amongst the debris and boulders from the shattered dam.
