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CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Ghosts


We made an odd procession as we hiked around the perimeter of the desert facility. Redwood led the way, accompanied by a motley assortment of dragons. Some were recognizable Build-A-Dragon production models—most commonly Rovers and K-10s—but others had a wilder look to them, like the ferals I’d encountered at his house. The facility’s layout reminded me of a medieval fortress, with the long lines of holding pens as the outer walls. Redwood’s dragons led us to the middle of the southern edge where there was a gap.

Summer hesitated on the threshold and glanced behind us.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The tracks don’t come in here.”

“Maybe they don’t keep dragons on the inside.”

She furrowed her brow but said nothing. We passed into the inner ring. There were no enclosures on the inside of the walls. Only the tall, unmarked steel inner walls. There was another building within, a dark hexagonal building whose glass-and-steel walls reminded me, strangely, of Build-A-Dragon’s office downtown. It had an oddly corporate feel that contrasted sharply with the rugged vivarium. The air around was hot and still, but the building itself hummed.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“No idea,” Redwood said. “It wasn’t part of the specs for this place.”

The dragons were acting strangely. They perched on the vivarium’s inner rooftop, or sat on their haunches below, keeping some distance between themselves and the black building. There was a single door on the front with a metal frame and tinted glass panels. I saw the access panel beside it and felt a wave of disappointment. A biometric lock. All this time, all this way, and now we’d never know what lay at the center of this odd place. Time was running short, too. I could sense it. Whoever Fulton had spoken to on the phone would be trying to reach him, demanding an update. When he didn’t respond, they’d send another team.

I approached the panel and touched it with a knuckle. The screen flickered to life and confirmed my fear. “It’s a biometric lock. I’m sure I don’t have access.” There was someone who probably did. Ben Fulton. But I knew what that would probably take, and I didn’t have it in me. “Damn.”

Redwood stumped up next to me. “Here’s a crazy idea.” He put his hand on the scanner. The light scanned it, and two wonderful words flashed in bright green letters. Access Granted.

I stared in disbelief. “How?”

“Funny thing about being dead. No one thinks to remove your profiles from the biometric locks.”

A buzzer sounded, and I yanked the door open before the system could change its mind. A roaring cacophony sounded from the opening, a noise so loud and unexpected that I nearly let go of the door.

“Is that—” Summer started to say.

“Dogs barking,” I said.

The dragons around us shrank back even more, hissing and unfurling their wings. And no wonder. It was a daunting, staccato sound that no dragon had ever heard. I pulled the door open and walked in. Motion-activated lights illuminated the entryway as Summer and Redwood followed me in. The light quieted the barking some and made its source clear. Holding pens lined both sides of the central corridor, and each one of them held a dog. A living dog. The first one was a black lab. Beyond that was a small terrier, then a yellow lab, and then . . . 

“Ooh,” Summer breathed. “A golden.” She reached through the bars and scratched him behind the ears.

“I’m not sure we should—” I started, but there was no point in protesting. Summer laughed as the retriever panted and basked in her attentions. God, I’d forgotten the warm fuzzy feeling that a joyful dog brought, even to the darkest of times.

“It’s probably all right,” Redwood said quietly at my shoulder.

“What about the disease?”

“See the scars on his muzzle?”

I saw them just as he said it, the hairless furrows along the bottom jaw. “He’s already got it.” I felt a pang of sadness, remembering when the unmistakable signs of fate had marked my own dog.

Had it,” Redwood said. “Those scars are old.”

“So he got better?” That didn’t sound right. Dogs didn’t survive the epidemic.

Summer glanced back at us. “How is that possible?”

Redwood scratched his head. “If I had to guess, this dog was successfully treated.” He marched forward, checking the other enclosures. Each one held a dog of a different breed. I couldn’t pick out the scar on the bulldog, but they were plain on the snouts of the German shepherd and the beagle.

“I feel like I’m watching the AKC dog show,” Summer said.

She was right. I shook my head, still amazed. “It’s like, one of every major breed.” I turned to Redwood, who’d pursed his lips in thoughtfulness. So why isn’t he surprised? “What is this place?”

“A ghost of Robert’s past.”

“What?”

Redwood turned to face me. “You seem to know your recent history, so let me ask you this. Do you know what Robert Greaves did before he came to Reptilian?”

“Biotech,” I answered. “One of the big pharmas. I can’t remember which.”

“Bingham Pharmaceuticals. He ran the canuzimab trial.”

Which failed right after he left. I still remembered the news cycle from that week. We’d been waiting for them to announce the trial’s success, which would mean that every dog still alive had a shot at effective treatment. Instead, canuzimab totally failed, and the collective dismay robbed the world of any meaningful enthusiasm for finding a cure. That was the week we knew dogs were doomed. “These are the test cases. The ones that got the medicine.”

“Why would he intentionally sink his own trial?” Summer asked.

“Because if dogs come back, we’ll sell a lot fewer dragons,” I said.

Redwood pointed at me and touched a finger to his nose.

“What an asshole,” Summer said.

“Seriously.” I turned to Redwood. “So, what are we going to do?”

“Don’t ask me.” He grinned. “I’m dead, remember?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I assure you, I’m not. Death suits me for the time being.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. Well, we need a record of this at the very least. I took out my phone and took a video of the healthy, boisterous dogs as we walked back to the door. They must have sensed that we were leaving, because their barks grew to a near-deafening level. I was forced to stop my video to cover my ears.

We stepped back out into the Arizona sunlight. A welcome respite, or at least it would have been, were it not for the full-on animal brawl happening outside the door. I’d totally forgotten: we’d left Riker alone with all the dragons.


Two of Redwood’s dragons had pinned Riker up against the wall of the inner building. They were lean, muscular things. Big, too. Guardians. The original hog-hunting dragons. Of course, they’d go after him. They were bred to hunt wild hogs. They’d have killed him already, except for the handful of little dragons barring their way. Octavius and his five littermates formed a protective half-ring around the pig, wings spread and fangs bared. The Guardians circled and snapped at them but couldn’t get through. I would have intervened, but Summer took two steps and kicked the nearest Guardian right in the chops. It grunted in surprise and hissed at her. Summer wound up again. The dragon thought better of it and ran off. So did its fellow. Summer glared after them.

“Where did you find her?” Redwood asked me quietly.

“Out in the desert.”

“Don’t let her go.”

I laughed softly. “Not planning on it.”

“Something tells me I should take my dragons out of here before any of them are injured.”

“Probably a wise idea.” I turned at him and shook his hand. “Thanks for . . . everything.”

Summer hugged him goodbye, and I tried to suppress the natural flare of jealousy. Then he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. He walked back up the ridge where he’d first appeared. Most of the dragons followed. It was like watching the end of the strangest parade ever.

“We should get moving,” I said.

“Yeah. Wait, did you get what you needed from the Condor?”

The biopsy. I shook my head. “They’re long gone.”

“Let’s find the others.”

“We don’t have time. If Greaves sent another team, they’ll get here any minute.”

Summer eyed the route back to the rock formation and our cars. “They might see us if we’re on the rocks.”

She was right, and if they did, they could drive around to intercept us before we reached the highway. Granted, we could hide at the base of the rock formation and wait them out, but that would put us in the direct sun for hours. With virtually no water. I jogged over to the control panel where the lights still shone steadily green over most of the switches. I picked twenty or so buttons at random and pushed them in. You know what? Screw it. I pushed the rest of them. The hydraulics whirred into motion.

I jogged back to Summer. “That ought to keep them busy for a while.”


An hour later, Summer and I crested the final ridge and saw our cars waiting for us. Talk about pure euphoria. It was like hatching-my-first-dragon euphoria. Or first-kiss-with-Summer euphoria. We grinned at one another, both of us nearly dancing with relief.

“Uh, I hate to ask you this,” I said.

“You can come over to my place.”

“How’d you know?”

“Your company knows where you live, don’t they?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Do they know about me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t go bragging about me to your coworkers?”

I felt my cheeks turning red. If I’d thought I was allowed to brag, or had someone to brag to, I would have. Because Summer was totally bragworthy. “I don’t really talk about personal stuff at work.”

“That’s good,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it. She muttered something about how I “could have bragged a little.” Then she beamed her address to my watch. I disabled the Tesla’s alarm, opened the door and dug my flashlight out of the console. Then I knelt on the ground and used it to look up under the car.

“Son of a bitch.” There it was. A black rectangular shape with a rubber antenna, and a blinking green LED. I squeezed my shoulder under the car, grabbed it, and tore it loose. They’d had to use an adhesive, because the Tesla’s frame was a non-magnetic alloy.

“They tagged your Tesla,” Summer said.

“Taste of my own medicine, I guess.”

Later, halfway to Summer’s place, I pulled into a gas station to get rid of the tag. The first lane offered an appealing option: a mud-spattered 4x4 plastered with bumper stickers for energy drinks. The owner was probably inside stocking up on some of those. Or a six-pack. It looked like the start of a promising off-roading expedition out in the desert.

I tossed the tracker into the back and zipped away. Greaves would need a Jeep to track that one down. Or a helicopter.

My last task made me a little sad. The Tesla’s GPS and computer were on the same circuit. I wouldn’t put it past Greaves to have someone hack the system as a backup. I pried off the lid of the fuse panel.

“Just what do you think you are doing, Noah?” asked the car.

I laughed. God love the engineers at Tesla for that little Easter egg. “Sorry about this, beautiful,” I said. “I have to pull your fuse for a while.”

“Tampering with the fuse panel will void your warranty.”

“I know.” I half-expected her to keep up the classic dialogue. I’m sorry, Noah, I can’t let you do that.

But she made no further protests. I pulled the chip and the screen went dark. Everything was manual now: no autopilot, no navigation, no traffic avoidance. Back to the basics.

Summer had a condo in a green development in Scottsdale. She swiped me in to the underground parking complex so I could stash my car. We rode the elevator up to her floor, with our animals in tow. We didn’t talk. She probably sensed that I needed quiet to figure out what to do next.

Summer’s condo was roomy compared to mine. But with water prices being what they were, the real perk was the eco-shower. It was a deluxe model, with no less than six cycles: spray, foam, mist, lather, rinse, turbine dry. I fed Riker and the dragons while she used it, and then I had a go myself. It was absolute bliss. No wonder she smelled so good.

By the time I dried off, Riker had fallen asleep in his crate. The dragons were all piled in a heap around it. Summer, meanwhile, had dressed in a pair of shorts and a skimpy tank top. Her damp hair was the color of shadowed honey.

“You forgot to close Riker’s crate,” I whispered.

“I never do. It’s his little fortress of solitude.”

“Even while you’re at work?”

“Of course,” she said. “He behaves himself.”

“How do you know?”

“Piggy cam.”

I started to ask where the camera was, but she twined my fingers with her and pulled me down the hallway. It seemed like a good time to avoid idle conversation. I followed her on cat feet, praying I wouldn’t trip and wake the pets. She pulled me into the dimness of her bedroom and eased the door into the doorframe. Snick.

I slid my arms around her waist and pulled her up against me. She let out a soft little breath and leaned back so I could kiss her. She started to turn around, but I held her there, kissed her again. Slid my hands up under her shirt. She wasn’t wearing anything under it. Her breath was hot against my cheek. She turned around then, and her hungry lips found mine.

My phone rang. I fumbled with one hand to try to turn it off, but Summer heard the incessant buzzing and pulled back. “Is that your phone?”

“It’s not important.” I tried to kiss her again.

She dodged me giggling. “You’d better check it.”

I sighed dramatically and dug it out of my pocket. Connor. He and I rarely had phone conversations that lasted more than two minutes, so I hit the button to answer. “Hey, C-biscuit.”

Summer tried to slip away but I held her around her waist. She protested silently. I struggled not to laugh.

“N-terminal. Need you here, pronto.” His voice had a strange sense of urgency to it. Excitement, maybe.

God, what now? “What for? Is something wrong with Mom?”

“Mom’s on wine tour, dummy. I just need you here, Aquarius.”

Connor and I had code words, too. It had been years since we talked about them, but I still remembered. Aquarius meant no more questions.

I put the phone to my chest and whispered to Summer. “Connor needs me.”

“Go,” she said.

“Be there in twenty,” I told Connor, and then hung up. And this had better be important.



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Framed