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Truth be told, I get a little tired of listening to Da talk on and on about how it used to be. Pointing out every last pile of rubbish and every lump of concrete and telling me what it was once a part of and how important it all was for the people who aren't here anymore. Telling how once upon a time the stores had food that was fresh and the radio played a hundred different stations with a hundred different kinds of music, and there were big groups of people who got together and called themselves countries and the countries didn't always get along with other countries, and neither did the different colors of people.

There really aren't enough people left to worry about what color they are, or whether or not they want to be part of a country. The worst is when he gets all misty-eyed when I ask a question. Like when I asked if the "police" were anything like the dragonriders, and he almost started to cry. I don't ask hardly any questions anymore.

I mean, I get that everything is different as different can be from how he grew up. And I get that it's not really fair to expect him to just forget about how life used to be one big party and now you have to keep on your toes and sleep with one eye open.

I just wish he'd try to understand, the way Ma does, that not everything now is worse. She's the one who's always saying things like, "You see that chipmunk? You never used to see those in the city," and, "Let's go explore that building/sewer/church," and, "When I was a girl, most people didn't even know we had dragons at all."

"No dragons?" I had asked. "Then what did they think stopped the Threadfall?"

"There was no Threadfall when I was a girl. And even after it started, most people didn't know about it."

That made me think all the people who lived B.I. (Before Infection) must have been a bit dim, but I didn't say anything. I mean, what did they think the big red eye staring down at them was, a balloon? And what did they think the dragon silos were?

But it hardly matters now.

What matters is that I'm sixteen now, old enough to go out on Search, and maybe make an Impression.

Da says Search used to be made by men in smart dark suits and dark glasses, zipping around on little blue dragons at night, landing near (or on) a house at midnight and flashing official I.D. to sweep off bright young men and women for a Hatching. All very hush hush. All very terrifying. He knows because he was one of the ones who were chosen.

When I told him I didn't get the reasons for the secrecy, he said it was because of the Red Eye. None of the leaders of the world wanted people in general to know how close we all still were to destruction, that the big asteroid that had so completely panicked everyone and led to mass rioting and death was really still a threat. No one knew about Threadfall until too late, until after we'd already made heroic movies celebrating the people who died to keep the asteroid from colliding with Earth. Until after the governments had learned to fear a panicked population.

So they kept the dragonrider program a secret. Only called it a special recruitment program. And the major cities built dragon silos and trained people to fly Thread, swearing all the riders to secrecy for fear the truth would get out.

Too bad they hadn't thought to fear Infection. Da says they were the ones who designed it themselves, building it up to be worse than any disease ever encountered before. It was supposed to be a weapon, but no one got around to making a cure before it got out. And that was the end of us.

Serves us right, I say.

But I don't let Da hear me, nor his brown dragon, Tiveth. They'd both have to tell me again about how awful those first days were, with the Infected everywhere and the Infected dragons flaming the few survivors. And then, with no firestone being manufactured, and the green dragons clutching all the time, how the skies went thick with new waves of dragons. Swarms darkening the sky, swooping and whirling and keening. Wild dragons who had never known a rider.

And who saved us by eating most of the Infected. The Infected these days are meeker now. More timid about showing their faces unless they're really awfully hungry.

I can remember when there were more of them, and more dangerous ones. I can remember the attack that left me with one leg shorter than the other. Da was different then, talking much more about how to tie different kinds of knots, and how to make harness out of old tires and bits of shoes, and how I would have my own dragon one day, as big and fine as Tiveth. But as the Infected started pulling out of the cities, it seemed like they took Da with them, and all he can see now is the way the world was before I was ever born.

Ma says he had another family, before us, and he misses them, and not to bother him too much.

I try not to, and I try to remember, when he gets on my nerves, that it's better not to feel jealous or bitter about how things have changed. He's the unlucky one, the one who had everything and lost it all. I got to be born A.I. and so I'll never really understand what he's talking about. Sometimes I can get him to change the subject, if I start talking with him about my own Search, and how it will be just the opposite of his.

It used to be, there were so many people and so few dragons, the dragons had to choose who they wanted. Now, if you can get close enough to an egg when it hatches, you have a good chance. You'll either get yourself a dragon, or get eaten. One or the other.

I've already helped four others find their dragons, because I know where a lot of greens have their clutches, but they aren't the ones I'm after. In the heart of downtown, there's a huge old building that's been torn in half vertically. And in it, I've seen a queen, her body folded gold in the midst of burned brick arches that support nothing now. Every time I see her, I know it will be a lucky day. I've been Taming her for two years now, getting closer and closer with sides of beef and with dead Infected. She tolerates me, even enough that she only raises her head and hisses if I get too close to her eggs.

And this year, she's had a golden one. A queen egg, shining like the sun.

I know... that's the one for me.

That, I think, is the best part about being born A. I.

Now, there's no special program that will turn me down because of my big goggle glasses and the limp I got from being thrown down the stairs to save my life. Now, everyone who's brave enough to try can have a dragon of their own.

It may be that most everyone is dead.

But anyone who's left can fly.