Dragon conjurer 4, p.16
Dragon Conjurer 4, page 16
Dozens of scientists in bright white lab coats bustled around the room. Some held clipboards and took readings from the computers that filled the room, but others were more focused on the tables covered in beakers and test tubes that bubbled and smoked. There were a few scientists carrying surgical trays in and out of the rooms that lined the back wall of the main area, and even a few who gingerly transported what looked like bits of flesh and severed limbs.
Regardless of what they were doing, every scientist who walked past gave a respectful nod to Dr. Hastings while she led me toward the wall of doors at the back of the room.
The good doctor marched forward, and I pulled my gaze away from the hustle and bustle of the lab so I could follow her without getting swept up in all the incredible science experiments happening around me.
We stopped at the third door from the left, and while Dr. Hastings used the keypad to unlock it, I peered in through the window on the door.
It appeared to be another small examination room like the one where we’d been alone previously, and another memory of the doctor touching me sent delightful tingles down my spine.
I followed the echo of the sexy doctor’s heels into the room, and as the thick steel door slammed shut behind us, I looked around and gulped.
The walls reflected the intense gleam from the buzzing fluorescent lights, but instead of bright white walls, there were sickly, hospital-green tiles. The floor was dull cement, and instead of a fancy-looking dentist chair, there was a bare exam table with four thick, metal restraints at the corners. It sat next to a wheeled metal table covered in doctor’s instruments including a butterfly needle, several glass vials in a small rack, and another thermometer.
Given the primitive state of the instruments the last time she’d examined me, I was relieved the syringe wasn’t half a foot long and made of metal.
The room also contained a desk with a closed black laptop and a thin stack of manila folders resting on the surface. A worn-out revolving chair was neatly pushed in, and a small, chrome lab table with several colorful samples in test tubes sat off to the side.
As the door to the chamber slammed shut, Dr. Hastings whirled around on her stilettos and grinned at me like a sexy crocodile. Her platinum-blonde hair was pulled up into a tight bun today, and the harsh hairstyle contrasted nicely with her plump crimson lips.
“So, Mr. Cooper, I trust you aren’t afraid of needles?” the doctor purred. She stood over me by an inch or two, and the way she was looking down at me was both erotic and unsettling.
“No,” I partially lied. I really wasn’t afraid of needles, but I was slightly nervous about what exactly this testing was about. “Of course not.”
“I’ll be there to hold your hand,” the good doctor said with a wink so quick, I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it, and then she held out her arm to the exam table like a hostess leading a guest to a sofa. “Please, sit, Mr. Cooper.”
“You want me to just… hop up there?” I asked. “No chair this time?”
“This is a monster examination room,” Dr. Hastings said in an indulgent tone.
It seemed I had no choice but to follow the beautiful doctor’s directions, and when I’d perched myself uncomfortably on the metal like a kid at the pediatrician, she came to stand next to me and placed a hand on the metal tray of instruments.
“So, uh, you’re comparing my blood with monsters…” I said in a slightly nervous voice as I tapped my fingers against the top of the exam table.
“The science is highly experimental, Mr. Cooper.” The doctor took my arm in an almost sensual way, turned it over, and began to run her slender, manicured fingers down my veins. Her long nails were the same scarlet tone as her lips, and her touch was whisper soft on the sensitive parts of my skin. “But I have made some discoveries you might be interested in, and I’ll get to that in a moment. Let me focus on your procedure first.”
“It’s just a blood draw, right?” I asked.
“Right, just a blood draw,” the doctor purred in a husky voice as she reached over to grab a thin black strip of rubber. She gently stroked her other palm with the strap, and I was immediately reminded of a dominatrix with a whip. “You have… nice veins, Mr. Cooper.”
I cleared my throat and put my free hand in my lap in case of another blood flow emergency.
Dr. Hastings pushed the table out of the way and tied the strap tightly around my upper arm. She was close enough to me that I could feel a hint of her warm breaths on my ear, and I could faintly smell cinnamon gum. I wasn’t sure how she was navigating so deftly with her pointed nails extending far past her fingertips, but her cool hands seemed steady and competent.
“Sooo, Mr. Cooper,” the doctor continued. “I’m sure you know how impressed I was when you spoke with the Siguanaba. It was just another expression of your incredibly rare talents, and as you know, I’ve been wanting to learn more about what exactly it is that makes you so very special.”
“I’m interested, too,” I responded. “I want to know more about what’s making these monsters rise up against humanity, and if that means understanding myself a little better along the way, then so be it.”
“Exactly,” the doctor chuckled. “I’m glad you’re willing to cooperate.”
“Anything to help,” I said with a grin.
“Okay, just a little prick,” Dr. Hastings said as she rubbed my inner arm with a freezing-cold alcohol wipe, and before I knew it, she’d stuck the needle in my vein. After she’d released the tourniquet and the blood began to flow through the tube into a vial, she smirked and turned her gaze to my lap. “Or is it a big one? Oops, sorry.”
I felt the blood rush to my face when I realized what she’d said.
I suspected the good doctor had been toying with me, but this practically confirmed it. At least I thought it might. Maybe. She did actually prod me quite hard with that needle.
For now, I just tried to think of anything except what the doctor said, since being around her was a constant losing battle with my loins.
“That didn’t hurt a bit,” I chuckled lightly. “I’m always eager to give a little something for science.”
“Oh, this is beyond science, Mr. Cooper, as you well know,” the doctor said as she bandaged my arm, stood up, and transferred the vials of my blood to the lab table. “How does it feel to know that a simple substance from your own body may, in fact, be responsible for saving the world?”
“Oh, um, when you put it that way…” I trailed off. “Hey, no pressure or anything.”
“It’s nothing the best can’t handle, Mr. Cooper,” Dr. Hastings responded as she turned back to me with a dazzling smile. “Now, let’s talk a little more.”
The blonde scientist walked over to the desk, and she sat down in the wheeled chair, opened her laptop, and crossed her long legs. Then she slipped on her green reading glasses and peered intently at the glowing screen.
“Pull up a chair,” the doctor offered and pointed to a smaller chair in the corner. “I have some things I’d like to show you.”
I hopped off the exam table and headed to the corner to grab the small chair, and once I brought it to the doctor’s desk, I rested it a couple feet away from her.
The miniature piece of furniture was the same gleaming chrome as the surface where all the samples rested, and I struggled awkwardly for a moment to settle myself on the seat that was just a tad too narrow for me.
Dr. Hastings leaned back in her chair and recrossed her legs at the knee. Her navy pencil skirt ran up her thighs in the process, and today, instead of pantyhose, I thought I caught a glimpse of lace at the top of her stockings. Her stiletto pumps were almost the exact same beige color as her stockings, and the effect made her stockinged legs look even longer.
“So, Mr. Cooper, you’re well aware that you’re the only male Dragon Conjurer we’ve ever known about.” Dr. Hastings steepled her fingers in front of her smile as she trained her gray eyes on me. “However, there have been other Conjurers in the past at AIMM, and I’m sure you know about that, too.”
“Sure,” I said with a nod. “Headmaster Burkhard told me a little about it. The other Conjurers created these things like atronachs using the elements. They had tattoos, too, but theirs were strictly elemental, like an image of flames.”
“Correct,” the doctor said as she narrowed her eyes in a pleased expression. “You’re well informed. But of course, they couldn’t summon anything close to a dragon in power, and they were limited to a single element. The creatures they summoned were more like familiars who could assist them while they were fighting. There were also Conjurers who drew their power from benevolent spirits, such as those of the forest, but there is nothing to indicate that any of them were anything close to what you are in battle, Mr. Cooper. So, well done. Here, take a look at these files.”
Dr. Hastings handed me the manila folders, and I quickly flipped through to take a look at some of the names and what appeared to be an assortment of school photos from various eras.
I took a small, stapled pack of papers out of the top folder to examine it, and I leafed through the pages. The file I was looking at was for a cadet named Jane Freeman, and it was dated 1947. The first page consisted of basic demographic information about the young woman, who appeared to be in her early twenties. I read on the second page that Jane had been able to summon the sprite-like spirits of the wind, and I wondered what she would have thought of Goldie. I paged through a couple more of the folders, and I saw similar information on cadets from different eras who could conjure their own fire imps, lightning elementals, and even “haze bugs,” whatever that meant.
“Harold Johnson, Stephen Barnes, Kimberly Lopez,” I read more names aloud from the files. “I don’t suppose you know how these Conjurers from earlier in the twentieth century got their powers, do you? That’s been a question I’ve had about my own powers lately.”
“No, research wasn’t nearly as advanced back then,” the doctor said as she shook her head regretfully. “We didn’t do the same sort of testing on cadets then as we do now, since the doctors at the time didn’t see how useful blood samples could be. We only have limited data on the cadets from then. Their vital signs, their heights, their weights, and so on, were recorded, but that’s about it. I can’t blame them, since we’re only just beginning to understand Conjurers now, not to mention how much more advanced our equipment is than what was available a century, or even a couple decades, ago.”
“That makes sense,” I said with a nod. “I would love to know exactly where my dragons came from in the first place, since without Ky, and now Beyblade and Goldie, of course, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“Which is exactly why we need to do this research,” Dr. Hastings purred as she adjusted her skirt across her thighs. “The more Conjurers we have to fight against monsters, the stronger AIMM’s forces will be. If there’s any way we can… encourage the development of conjuring skills using data from a cadet like you, it would be to the benefit of the world as a whole. And there’s even something else I’d like you to see. Here, take a look at my computer.”
The doctor smoothed her pale-blonde hair back against her head, and then she began typing on her laptop. After a moment, she turned the screen toward me, and I saw she’d brought up a page that reminded me of a classic police website with a mugshot and identifying information.
Then she clicked once, and the mugshot was replaced with a picture of a magnificent creature.
“It’s a qilin,” I breathed. “Does this mean…”
The Chinese, dragon-like creature was colored in the bright red, green, and gold hues of a Ming Dynasty painting. The magnificent, bearded “unicorn” had both antlers and a single golden horn that extended from the top of its head. Long whiskers, sharp teeth, and cloven hooves completed the picture.
“If you’re thinking we’ve discovered a past Qilin Conjurer, you’d be correct, Mr. Cooper.” Dr. Hastings flashed me an encouraging smile over the top of her screen. “With a little help from my research team, I’ve discovered a young woman from the 1970s who was listed in the Japanese registry.”
“You got this information from Japan?” I asked, but the good doctor put a finger to her lips to quiet me as she concentrated.
The doctor clicked a few more keys on her laptop and turned it toward me again, and when I looked at the screen, the yellowed tone of the page immediately reminded me of the newspapers I’d seen on microfiche back at Berkeley.
The site showed a form that had been filled out in blue ink, and it was partially concealed by a paperclipped Kodachrome photograph. The photograph was a headshot of a young, smiling teenage girl with straight black hair and tan skin, and the form had mostly been completed in Kanji, but a name printed in English stood out to me.
“Li Na,” I read aloud. “Is she Chinese?”
The sexy doctor nodded and leaned forward in her excitement, and her deep-blue skirt rode even further up her stockinged thigh. She cleared her throat and adjusted it as she looked me right in the eyes, and I had to take a deep breath as I tried to focus on the important conversation.
“You said the 70’s at MAJK?” I asked. “What could the link possibly be between Li Na and me? And with Lia, for that matter?”
“Well, Mr. Cooper, with more cooperation between academies, we’d be able to conduct more research,” Dr. Hastings sighed. “Of course, Russia hasn’t offered us anything about Lia, and until very recently, we wouldn’t have known anything about Ms. Li, either. But we’re lucky that the recent communications with Japan have coincided with our discovery of you and your special talents, and that has even enabled us to obtain a frozen blood sample of Ms. Li to compare with your blood as well as that of the five sentient monsters I mentioned before.”
“That’s amazing,” I observed. “I wonder where this girl, or woman, is now.”
“Once magic users retire, they’re no longer in our main system,” Dr. Hastings explained. “I’m assuming someone with her great strength is still alive, but there’s not much chance I’d be able to find her. Even if MAJK knew where she was currently, that’s not the kind of thing they’d share. We’re fortunate enough to have gotten this.”
“That makes sense,” I concurred. “Do you have any idea what you’re hoping to find from my samples?”
“It’s all part of the mystery, Mr. Cooper,” Dr. Hastings replied with a sly smile as she pushed her glasses back up onto her nose. “It’s possible that since you have been able to communicate with the sentient monsters, the connection has something to do with the genetics of language acquisition. And that’s part of what we’re hoping your blood samples are going to help us figure out. Scroll down further to see more about Ms. Li.”
When I reached the second page of the form, I saw two full-body shots of the young Chinese girl. One was taken from the front, and the other was from the side. She was wearing a tank top, so more of her skin was exposed, and there was a huge gold qilin tattoo that wound its way up her arm from her narrow wrist to her shoulder.
“I bet they weren’t used to a chick with all that ink back then,” I chuckled. “Not to mention, she looks like she’s about fourteen.”
“And that’s why MAJK was certainly the safest place for her,” Dr. Hastings responded as she gazed at me intently with a glint in her gray eyes. “As AIMM is for you, Mr. Cooper.”
“Yeah…” I mused. “People talk a lot about everything I’m doing for AIMM, but I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for what AIMM is doing for me. I suppose I owe you a lot for finding me and bringing me here.”
“Oh… yes,” The good doctor’s eyes seemed to hypnotize me while neither of us broke eye contact. “Well, you need not thank me, Mr. Cooper, but I am certainly always happy to accept your… gratitude.”
I swallowed hard and managed to smile, but the heat of my blood was making it hard to really think straight.
I could definitely think of a few ways I’d love to give my gratitude to the good doctor, though.
“And speaking of gratitude,” the good doctor sighed lightly, “we are very lucky to have found this blood sample. It took a long string of attacks for me to convince the Headmistress of MAJK to unearth something decades old in the first place. And of course, it’s incredible that the Academy had the cryogenic technology to preserve it.”
“It’s all super fascinating,” I responded as I pushed my hair back from my forehead. “I’ve always been so interested in the mythological side of monsters, but I’m learning more and more about the actual science lately.”
“As are we.” Dr. Hastings turned the computer back around toward herself. “If we make comparisons, and it does seem to be language-related, we’ll need to do more testing, of course. Nothing too invasive, just MRIs, that sort of thing. We’re lucky to have the right experts in-house because it’s not as if we could get help from the outside world so easily. Mr. Romine is our resident specialist in monster psychology, and he knows more about the brains of monsters than some of the medical doctors. He’s more than capable of performing some of the evaluations, if needed.”
“There are a lot of smart people around here,” I observed.
“AIMM attracts only the best and brightest,” the doctor assured me as she rested a hand on my knee and looked into my eyes again, and I caught another whiff of that Big Red aroma again over a clean, floral scent.
If the doctor didn’t get away from me soon, I was afraid I was going to lose my mind from wanting her, and I suddenly found myself wondering if a woman as drop dead gorgeous and experienced as her would have a few little tricks she could teach me and my other lovers sometimes. Maybe all four of us could come together for a study with the good doctor one day, or maybe I’d just keep our private examinations all for myself.
