Venturing: Same Ticks

The door opened before us, we stepped back to allow whoever owned the building to come forth and revealed himself. The owner was a middle age dragon. Gray scaled, yellow underbelly. His horns were sharp and pointy as if he had used a pencil sharpener. HIs tail was long and narrowed. Something sharp was at the end of his tail. The owner had a white apron on him. Covering his belly and chest. As his eyes darted from me to Natty, he asked in a grumpy voice. “What do you guys wanted? We do not host tours here in Dragosea. Inc.” “Relax.” I answered, raising my claw up between us and waved it off. “We are not tourists. We’re police. We cam here to-” “Are you here because I stole something from an rival company?” The owner blurted out, narrowing his eyes at us before realizing what he had just said. And covered his mouth while me and Natty exchanged looks before departing and staring back to the owner. Natty raised her claw at him, growling “We will investigate that later. As of now.” She started, “We need to interview you and explore your building for a moment, sir. We are led here to believe that you are the owner of these devices.”

“The devices? You mean those round circular things that looked like UFOs?” The owner asked, I narrowed my eyes looking deadpanned. Oh how much I wanted to kill this guy and rule this case as closed. Natty, on the other claw, decided to ignore the owner’s stupidity and raised her claw up to his face. Holding in her claw was the device that we were talking about. The owner nodded in silence, turned around and stepped inside. The door remained opened for us as he disappeared. Natty looked over to me, I said nothing but a tail wagged to pass the time. In ponderance of what the owner was doing, I wonder sometimes if the owner was trying to escape from his arrest or capture. Or was he getting something in his workshop? Who knows. But in preparation, I grabbed a pair of handcuffs from my pants readying them while I squinted my eyes upon the door. He was only gone for a short time.

Silence had fallen between us, we heard footsteps emerging from the inner of the door. Raising our heads up, we spotted the owner again with the same device in his claw. We stepped forth closer to him and looked upon his claw. It was the same device. Grayish and black shading of color. The device looked like indeed an UFO. ‘How did we not see that earlier?’ I wondered questioning myself as my eyes were kept upon it. The owner nodded slowly and motioned us inside. He turned around and headed back, we were in tow as he followed him. Inside, the huge empty place was pitch darkness. Except for the center of the room where a large bulb of light flickered. It circumference was huge that we saw a part of the stairs. As me and Natty looked about upon the pitch black room surrounding us, the owner started speaking. Explaining about the device that he had.

“The team and me were trying to come up with a plan that would transport the raw fishes we have here into the markets. And after a few months of argument and overtalking of one another, we came up with something. A device, mind you. So we decided to design the devices and sent them over across the realm-” “Wait wait. Across the realm?” I questioned the owner, my eyes went wide and my mouth hanged opened as I stared at him, “So it was you!” Natty growled and snatched the handcuffs from my claw walking up to the owner in an attempt to grab him. But before she could, I grabbed her tail and pulled her to my line. Shaking my head, she pouted at me. Red rose cheeks shimmer upon my eyes as her eyes darted away. Her wings folded but curved. I smiled faintly before motioning the owner to continue. The dragon took it as a sign and split opened his mouth once again.

“Then after three days, maybe more, we were contacted by a mysterious lovely vixen. Although we could see her face because it was all darkened out. And only her neck was visible.” “A mysterious lovely vixen?” I trailed, blinking a couple of times frowning before looking to the owner who nodded then resumed, “The vixen did say that they were the best in programming and so sought to insert a code into the device that would transport all the goods we have into the desire destination that we had needed. We agreed without thinking of the consequences.” “And that consequences is…” Natty asked, but the owner heard her not and kept on going, “So after a while. They sent back the device over here. But we were clueless to see that another stroke of blue lightning light had emerged from our window. Which was dropped perhaps at that stadium where the games would begin. Receiving the package, I would turn the device on and place it at the end of the conveyor belt where the fishes would be dropped. And here we are!”

“Interesting story,” I finished nodding my head as Natty crossed her arms and questioned “Then what did you do after when the devices did not go as planned?” “We turned it off. But we were surprise to see the news of fishes still flying in the stadium. Thousands of dragons sick. I tried to contact the vixen again. But no reply. I guess she wanted the blame to us.” “Who is that vixen?” I asked, the owner shook his head. “I do not know. We could not see her face. Just the neck.” Me and Natty exchanged looks again frowning. It was the only lead we got. A neck. The face was covered. How are we going to arrest someone with that kind of information? Groaning with a palm directly onto my face, my wings flapped in irritation while Natty asked the owner, “May we have a look around?” “Sure. Go up the stairs towards the top floor above us. You would see the stuff we do and where we had contacted the vixen.” “Come on Ling.” Natty spoke, I nodded in silence. We spread our wings and jumped into the air, flapping them rapidly and flying high through the wraps of the steps and floors that had surrounded us. Until we reached the very top was when we hovered before landing down onto the floor.

A hard hit upon the ground entered our ears as me and Natty looked around. The floor was empty. The equipment looked old and worn out. A grayish computer was to Natty’s far right. Struck upon the corner of the floor. We stepped forward to the center of the floor, then I extended my claw outward shouting random things before a visual came before us. Natty opened her mouth in surprise; shocked to see a digital map. She could see that the map was indeed Vaster Village. Thousands of buildings all laid scattered across the map. Not one space was empty. The streets were clear. The lights flashes on and off. A roar of dragons erupted from the stadium. But nothing else after. As Natty began to extend her claw also and swipe at the diameter of the map. It suddenly changed to the building map.

A large long narrowed stairway towards the ceiling emerged before us. Its steps were grayish. The railing was red. I looked to Natty who was busy studying the map laid before her. And fell silent as I stepped back and left her to her own while I explore the floor about. The floor was huge. Red railings emerged in every direction. Equipment such as the computer and visual maps were here, ready to be use. A conveyor belt emerged in the corner of my eye as I walked past it and headed further off towards the right side of where Natty was standing. Towards the edges of the floor, I walked into the computer. Its screen was huge that it looked like a motherboard from a certain show. Sometimes, I had wonder if turning it on would get that huge woman head to appear upon the screen. Chuckling and mesmerizing myself upon an old hatchling hood show, I shook my head and returned back into the reality while I scanned the computer for anything that caught my eye.

And it seems I had spotted something. A yellow small note emerged at the bottom of the computer. In between the keyboard and the computer screen, I stepped forth to it and snatched the note from where it was place. And raised it up onto my face before reading the contents inside. ‘Do not dissect the device.’ “Of course there be programming inside of it…” I trailed, but was curious about the word’ dissect’. As I wondered and pondered about the code that this mysterious vixen had place inside of, does it had any leads towards the present problem that lay before us? I frowned, unknowingly having place my claw upon the chin of my head whenever I was thinking. As my eyes raised back to the poster note, I turned around and shouted for Natty. “We got to see what was contained inside that device.” “All it is just a bunch of wires, duh Ling.” Natty started, crossing her arms as she looked to me. I argued back, “But it is important.” “How important?” “If we do and look inside the code. Then we can find the animal that did this.” But Natty laughed and shook her head. A claw slammed upon my shoulder while I looked to her with disbelief, she smiled faintly before that had faded off. “You are silly. No matter who made the code. It is impossible to pinpoint who did it. The code language is always the same. No matter what.” She glared, fire in her eyes as I nodded. “Besides, if we are talking international coding then-”

An explosion emerged below of us. As it snapped through Natty’s words, both of us widened our eyes and quickly ran straight for the railing a few steps before us. And grabbed onto it before leaning forward glancing downward. To where the owner was, he seems to be panicking somehow. His face was pale and his body seems to be wincing as if he was in pain. With our wings spread, we flew up from the grounds beneath us just as the rumbling had started up. Vibrations coming from the stairs all intensified while the owner was screaming and shouting. The tower had fallen. And crashed onto the wall on the side, creating a huge hole that emerged. A clear sunny day. Warm. As the birds started chirping outside, we descended slowly to the ground floor below us. Joining up with the owner who started exclaiming random words. His topic was perhaps the ‘vixen’ that he kept on talking about. Looking to one another, me and Natty stepped forth to the owner. While Natty wrapped the owner around with her claws and wings, I questioned him. 

“What was that all about? Did this vixen did this? Why?” “Vix.. en did it all.” The owner started, but his words were shot and stuttering much that we could not piece together what he was trying to mutter about. It was like was frozen by shock. At his masterpiece fallen to the ground. I would to if something were to happen to my private stuff too. He started talking and stuttering about the vixen. As he went on rambling on and on, we stopped him when something caught our eye. We forced him to repeat himself. He nodded without hesitation and went back a few sentences before resuming again. He spoke about how they made a deal about the usage of their coding and his devices. And the secret line of code that was implemented inside the coding. However, to his knowledge, he never knew what this secret line was. Or where it was. As Natty glanced over to me, I nodded slowly. And pulled back, standing up straight before pondering it over. And as I do so, Natty hoisted the owner up to his feet. The owner gave her the device suddenly and without explanation before running off towards the door. Disappearing shortly afterwards.

Natty glanced to me, I said nothing in response. But a sense of sorrow was read so easily upon our faces. I sighed and spread my wings, only speaking softly to Natty “Let us go rejoin with the others. Zander and Kyro must be worry after hearing that explosion lately.” “No need to…” Natty trailed, glancing back at the opened door. Spotting both officer dragons as they landed upon the ground. Then came running towards us. “They are already here.” I smiled before lowering my eyes. Down onto the device that Natty was holding, I began to question my own thoughts’ theories and answers. I clenched my claw, until it turned pure white. In ponderance of what did the owner meant by ‘the secret coding’?

Natty, Kyro and Zentro started speaking to one another. Panic and raised rapid voices emerged from the male dragons as Natty laughed it off and shook her head, “Nah we are fine.” She kept on repeating. Reassuring to them that we were indeed fine. The explosion only affected the tower. But that was the thing. Why did the tower explode? From what I had checked before being dragged by Natty was that no other blinking lights were upon the structure that supported the stairs. Everything was safe. And that map that Natty was studying. How did the owner acquire the map of Vaster village? I frowned and casted my eyes back upon the opened door as to where the owner had left us to ourselves, screaming and yelling as he ran away disappearing. “And why did the owner ran off? Was it not his own business building?” I wondered, muttering something unknowingly outloud which caught the attention of Zander, Kyro and Natty as they turned to me.

A nudge snapped my thoughts from my own fantasy world as I looked to them blinking and shaking my head, Zander laughed. A smile emerged from his mouth as Kyro wrapped his arm around me while Zander spoke, “Yang had visited us moments after you had left with Natty.” “Yang?” I asked, with eyes blinking while Zander nodded, “Yup. The dragoness wanted to tell you something. But kept it a secret from us and only said that. Guess it must be important.” “I bet.” Natty agreed and pushed me while I exclaimed at them. “Come on Ling!” Kyro started as he followed me out. Then Natty and Zander. “Let not keep her waiting.” “Right.” I started before we flew off as a group. Many questions enter and exited my mind like a train to a stop. But unlike the train stop, my mind was disorganized which caused me a headache. As I growled bearing my fangs, I looked ahead towards the horizon to calm myself down. Maybe a date with Yang would perhaps clear things out a bit?