CHAPTER ONE
The Missing
My first day back at Build-A-Dragon should have been a triumphant return.
Part of me wondered if it was a dream. Six weeks had passed since I’d left this building for the last time. My ID badge still worked to get me into the parking garage; I supposed that was something. Forget the grand return; if I’d had to park my Tesla in the guest lot I wasn’t going in. Simple as that.
Going back felt weird. I’d gotten in earlier than usual—on purpose, because I didn’t want to deal with any uncomfortable encounters—so I met no one as I walked into the sleek steel-and-glass building and took an elevator to the seventh floor. Design and Hatchery. On impulse, I took the shortcut through the hatchery proper, expecting that the cost might be dodging the ever-present egg carts and white-garbed workers. But no one was in there, and all but one of the hatching pods were empty. The sole occupant of the only active pod was a large egg with beige and black tones. Judging by the shape and size it was a Rover model. I wondered how many we’d keep selling of those now that dogs were coming back. I moved on, tugging open the pressure-heavy door to the design lab.
Anyone who walked into this part of the building couldn’t help but notice the God Machine—the biological printer that produced viable dragon eggs was the only one of its kind. It was also massive. Minivan-sized, you might call it. The robotic arms hung still in the cool air of the lab, which wasn’t all that unusual. Eggs printed quickly, and judging by the state of the hatchery, business had slowed. But I found no one sitting in the cubicle-workstations that were arrayed like honeycombs around the bio printer. The whole design lab was empty. Not a worker or a projection monitor in sight.
Something’s wrong.
A strange masochistic part of me speculated that they were all hiding somewhere, waiting for me like it was a surprise party. That would have been awkward enough, but at least it would have offered some explanation for the ghost town feel. I probably needed to go find Evelyn to learn what the hell was going on, but I couldn’t resist the urge to sit down at my old workstation. It was strange how familiar it all was—the softness of my chair cushion, the cool metallic surface of the desk, and the faint metallic smell from the warm air rushing out from the computer servers that surrounded the God Machine. They were called Switchblades, and a photo of them in a magazine years ago was what had brought me to this place. Raw computing power was a valuable commodity in genetic engineering. The human genome alone had more than three billion base pairs. The dragon genome wasn’t that large, but it was far more exotic. Lizards and amphibians and all manner of creatures had contributed DNA sequences to it. The thought of being able to engineer dragons again brought a thrill to my stomach.
A new sound intruded over the steady hum of the machinery, a staccato of heeled shoes clacking on the tile floors. The frenetic energy of those footsteps made me smile.
Evelyn Chang entered every room like she was running late for a meeting. Which she probably was. She was a head shorter than me, petite but not frail. She looked younger than her thirty-nine years. She also wore a new power suit that fit her perfectly. As long as I’d known her, she’d found a way to exude an intimidating air of extreme competence. But she looked at me and smiled, and I found myself smiling back.
“Noah Parker,” she said.
“Evelyn Chang.”
“It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be here.” I cleared my throat and glanced around. “Where is everyone?”
“I didn’t want to overwhelm you on your first day.”
That’s why it’s a ghost town. I relaxed a little. “I can handle it, I promise.”
“We have a lot to talk about.”
“I know.” I waved it off with a casual air. The tension was still draining away. Then I looked at her and saw how she’d pressed her lips together. Evelyn pressed her lips together in a certain way. I knew that look. “What is it?”
“When I announced that you would be promoted to my old position, not everyone was pleased to hear the news,” she said, seeming to choose her words carefully.
“Who was displeased?”
“O’Connell felt that he should be the new triple-D.”
Director of Dragon Design, she meant. It was the coveted title here, and the one she’d dangled in front of me to get me to come back. I nodded, hardly surprised. Brian O’Connell had been the senior designer when I joined the design department. He was a brilliant programmer and had written the code for our biological printer. Sometimes I think the design work chafed at him, though. He wasn’t happy that Wong and I cracked domestication together. Nor did he like it when I was tasked to design a replacement for his flying model, the Pterodactyl. Or Terrible-dactyl, as some had taken to calling it. O’Connell never gave me the time of day after that. I think he took it as a personal affront. “He was here the longest,” I said. “You didn’t want him for the role?”
“Brian is an excellent programmer,” she said.
But not a leader, was the unspoken end of that sentence. “I hope you made the right call.”
“You are the right choice, Noah Parker. I have no doubts.”
I tried to counter the flood of pride by reminding myself that hiring back the corporate whistleblower had plenty of PR advantages, too. “Sorry it cost you a good designer.”
“Two good designers.”
“The Frogman quit, too?”
“He told me ‘I go if he goes.’” She shrugged. “So he went.”
Damn. I bit my lip. It shouldn’t have surprised me, because O’Connell and the Frogman were tight. Even so, it grated just a little. And with the Frogman, we lost a lot of serious design expertise. He had a background in developmental genetics—in other words, how organisms developed before birth—and that knowledge had proven incredibly useful in designing some of our early models. “What about Korrapati?”
“She’s taking some time off, given the recent events.”
“I see.” That was a bit disconcerting, but it didn’t sound permanent. “Well, where’s Wong?”
Andrew Wong worked in the cubicle next to mine, and he’d been my closest work friend when I’d been here before. He was a great sounding board, too. More than once, I’d thought about consulting him on what to do to prove my brother’s mutation caused his disease—a necessary step to get him into gene therapy trials—but I hadn’t wanted to put him at risk. He’d come here on a work visa that required a corporate sponsor. No one worked harder than he did.
“Wong is back in China,” Evelyn said.
“Oh, hell.” Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I was looking forward to seeing the guy and his crooked grin. “Voluntarily?”
“He went home to visit family. His sister was getting married.”
I exhaled. “You had me worried.” The way she’d said back in China had made it sound like a more permanent thing. And something in her face made me concerned. “When does he get back?”
“We are not sure.”
Uh-oh. This was starting to sound more like one of those immigration horror stories. It actually surprised me that he’d taken the chance to go back. He really wanted to stay in the U.S. as long as he could. “Is his family okay?”
“Yes, they are well. But he was not allowed to book a return flight.”
I opened my mouth to say that we needed Wong, and demand to know what she was doing about it. That’s what the old hotheaded Noah Parker might do. But I was the Director of Dragon Design now, so I should start acting like a leader. I forced myself to take a calming breath. “I would like to help however I can.”
That was the last thing Evelyn expected me to say, based on the flicker of surprise that crossed her face. “That is very kind of you.”
“So, what, did he have a problem renewing his visa?”
“His US visa is fine according to our contacts at the State Department.”
“But you said he might not be allowed to come here.”
“Correct.”
I shook my head. “I’m confused.”
“The US is not preventing Wong from coming here,” Evelyn said. “China is preventing him from leaving.”
“They can do that?”
“Yes.”
“But why would they do that?”
She shrugged. “Any number of reasons. If he or any of his relatives were political dissidents, or involved in criminal activities, or criticized the government in public.”
“You don’t think that’s it, though, do you?” I asked.
“No. I think it’s not about Wong directly.”
I felt like she was making me extract every bit of information by force, and I had to push down a wave of irritation. When she did this it was because she wanted to test me, or at the very least to teach me something important. So what is the undercurrent here? Wong was a really good guy, and he’d left his former laboratory in Shenzhen on good terms. And here Evelyn was saying she thought it wasn’t about him at all.
“They want something,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Do we know what that is?”
“Not yet, but I have a call scheduled with them tonight.”
“Would you like me on it?”
She pursed her lips, and I could tell she was playing out some kind of mental chess match in her head. “Yes, if you don’t mind. I think your participation might throw them off a bit.”
“Will they speak English?”
“If we ask them to.”
“Good.” First day back and I was already in over my head, but I knew in my bones that whatever we were going to do, we needed Wong.