THERE BE DRAGONS!
Chapter 3: Leaking the Truth One person at a Time
The next morning, a very disgruntled Jake woke much later than was usual for him. He still felt a bit tired but then he would since he'd been up till nearly dawn in the first place. Sighing he shoved his bedding off and made for the bathroom.
He might have been late getting up, but Chance was still sleeping as usual by the time Jake left the bathroom and dressed for work. He paused at his friend's door.
Banging on it, he shouted, "come on, Chance....up and at 'em. We've got work to do!"
A grumbled response filtered through the door causing Jake to smile. He went on down the stairs and to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast. He was finished and setting his cereal bowl in the sink when his partner finally showed himself. Still looking sleepy, Chance went about making himself breakfast and muttered a good morning to his friend.
Jake just grinned and left him alone as he went down to the garage to open it for the day. The sun was shining through the door as Jake worked on a tuneup, one of two he needed to get done before leaving to get the part for the Buick.
Chance came in and headed for the brake job on an enforcer sedan. They worked companionably for a couple of hours before Jake finished and took the second car out into the yard then called the owners to pick up the two cars.
"Hey Chance!"
"Yeah?"
"I'm leaving now to get that part we needed. You need anything else while I'm out?"
"Uhm, why don't you pick up some lunch on your way back. That way we don't have to stop to order later."
"Sure, good idea. Hey, there are two cars I've done, whose owners will be coming by to pick up."
"Gotcha!"
Jake went into the office and grabbed the keys for the tow truck.. Before he left, however, he went back upstairs and used the other trapdoor in the kitchen to slip into the hangar. There he retrieved his SWAT Kat g-suit then went back upstairs, grabbed a paper bag and stuffed his suit into it before heading back down to the truck.
He planned on changing to Razor before slipping into the museum to see Dr. Sinian. Though he was going to give away his species, no way did he intend to give away his Kat identity as well....or at least not all of it anyway.
He drove out of the yard and headed into town to get the part first. It took only about an hour to retrieve the part, stop to pick up a pair of sub sandwiches with fixin's for lunch, then head to the heart of the city to the far side of Megakat Part where the museum was located.
Pulling into a visitor's parking lot, he grabbed his bag then climbed out. He set a sophisticated alarm on the truck before walking casually over to the museum. Before he reached the sidewalk where other Kats were mingling and heading inside he veered off toward the back of the museum using the abundant landscaping to hide himself.
Jake soon found a private area where no cameras were pointed and no people were around before changing his clothes. He hid the bag with his civilian clothing behind a thick bush then went further back behind the museum. Here he used his grappling line to scale the section of the building that housed the airplane exhibit and had a glass ceiling. He slipped through a transom window, the two of them used many times before, walked along the girders in the shadowed areas waiting for the coast to be clear below him before repelling down to the floor.
From there he hurried to Dr. Sinian's offices which were located on the third floor of the building. This floor was quieter due to it being the offices and research area of the museum. He lucked out, the doctor was in her office, drinking coffee and reading some reports on her desk.
She looked up in surprise when he stepped through her open door, closing and locking it behind him.
"Razor?"
"Hello, Dr. Sinian. I have a matter of grave importance to discuss with you and I can't have anyone interrupting. Do you have time to talk with me?"
"Oh, certainly. You're in luck, I don't have a meeting until after lunch. I'm just trying to catch up on this paperwork that always has a way of piling up whenever I'm away," she said warmly.
Razor smiled tightly, nervous butterflies swarming his belly as he prepared to give away one of his secrets. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he marshaled his thoughts for what was to come.
Abi Sinian eyed the SWAT Kat in concern. It was obvious to her that whatever Razor had to say was enough to make him extremely nervous and tense, something she rarely witnessed in the powerful defender.
"How much do you know about the ancient dragon city and the findings of the archeologists there?"
She blinked in surprise. 'What on earth did he want to know that for?' She wondered in bewilderment.
"Well, I know Dr. Farator and his team have determined the city was built by skilled artisans and the inhabitants were dragons so it's safe to assume they were intelligent creatures during that time. The debate now is do they still exist or have they reverted to mindless bestiality with the passage of time and died out. The main argument right now is, if the dragons are still around, how are they hiding themselves. It's a debate that's causing a lot of division in the scientific community between those that hold with the dragons being extinct and those that think they could still be alive and hiding somewhere," she told him candidly.
He sighed mentally. 'This was better than I'd hoped. There are actually scientists who think we're still around.' "Doc, which camp are you in?" He asked cautiously.
"Well, I believe they might be extinct, but there have been reports of sightings of them over the years. The fact the sightings still occur to this day suggests that perhaps dragons could indeed still be around but how they hide themselves is what has me on the fence," she said honestly. She tilted her head and studied her visitor. "Why the interest?"
"I can tell you how they hide themselves but I'm going to tell you a story first. Once dragons and Katkind lived in harmony. Each had their own cities and traded wares between them but as time went on, Katkind began to spread out and need more and more territory. Kats breed faster than dragon kind and soon began to push dragons out of their own territory.
Fights ensued and bitter rivalry began over water, land and food. Even though there were undiscovered lands still to be found elsewhere, the Kats living near dragon enclaves refused to seek it out. Though dragons told them they needed the hot springs and volcanoes for their well being and couldn't move, Kats refused to listen because the lands in those areas were generally warm all year round so food was plentiful as was animal life. The clashes intensified and though stronger, capable of flight, and longer lived....dragons were badly outnumbered and Kats were learning to be cunning hunters.
Soon Katkind was systematically exterminating dragons until they were fewer than a thousand of a once proud race of more than 100,000. In desperation, dragons took to hiding in places where Kats couldn't live or access but it was a harsh life and the, already low birthrate, took a devastating plunge.
To keep from dying out completely, the dragons found a way to alter their form. It took decades to accomplish but soon they were able to change their shape at will and were now able to walk among Katkind unnoticed because they looked just like their enemy. In this fashion, dragons succeeded in staying alive but it wasn't a happy life because they had lost their identity and the freedom of the skies for the sake of survival," Razor said ending his sad tale.
Dr. Sinian stared at Razor in open mouthed shock. When he had stopped speaking, she said, hesitantly, "I'm not sure how you know all this, but are you saying dragons live among us but look like Kats?"
"Yes, I am."
"Oh my! This is incredible. But how do you know this and why tell me this if it's true?" She asked in confusion and rising excitement.
"Because, Kat kind is on the verge of finding us. Modern technology will ferret us out of our hiding places very soon and we intend to reveal ourselves first before being forced out by your kind," he said grimly.
Abi went still, her eyes widened. She hadn't missed Razor's switch of pronouns. "You're a dragon?" She whispered in hushed amazement.
"Yes, I am. Your office is just large enough....watch and see!" He said solemnly as he stepped to the center of her large office and morphed to his red dragon form.
"My true name is Adair," he rumbled, his voice coming from deep in his chest.
Sinian gaped in wonder. The red dragon was tall enough to have to bend to prevent hitting the ceiling. His wings were pressed tightly to his body so he wouldn't knock anything over but she guessed them to be at least ten feet wide when spread open. His scales gleamed a deep scarlet while his chest was armored plated, colored a lighter reddish yellow. His tail was curled around his feet and had a spike at its tip. His eyes were twin jewels of ruby red and his mouth was filled with rows of sharp white teeth, a forked red tongue flickered out when he talked. Surprisingly, he had no horns but did have a thick fall of reddish brown hair that flowed from his forehead to just about three inches below his ears.
"You look amazing!" She breathed in awe.
"Thank you." He held his form for a few minutes more than morphed back to his Kat form once more.
"Why tell me?"
Razor sighed and walked over to sit on the edge of her desk. "Like I said, your race is close to discovering out last hiding place. Many of us are tired of hiding in Kat form and want the freedom to fly the skies once more. Also, more concerning to us is the loss of some of our people due to fear. They have made the decision to never take their dragon form again and in some cases, divorcing themselves completely from dragon kind. This division can only hasten our demise. We must act now to save our kind or we will be nothing more than a myth Katkind thinks we are already," he said grimly.
"We of the Megakat City tribe, feel revealing ourselves here will be more successful than anywhere else due to the public's ability to accept and deal with all the bizarre things that have gone on here for more than a decade. After all, if the Katizens here can handle seeing walking mushrooms, mummies, and dinosaurs, with such aplomb then they should be able to handle real dragons. If acceptance is made here, then other countries will try next," Razor said, a small sound of hope in his voice.
"As for why we chose you......I know you and trust your integrity. We want you to 'leak' our existence to the scientific population and, hopefully, they in turn will publish the truth so the public will know as well. When enough data has been leaked out, only then will we begin to show ourselves," he said, laying their case before her.
"Oh my......that is a lot of responsibility you are laying on me. I'm honored you think so highly of me and trust me but I'm not so sure Katkind could be trusted not to finish the job of exterminating you," she said unhappily.
Razor grimaced and spread his paws wide. "Then what would you have us do, doctor? We're vanishing because of fear already."
She sighed and shook her head. "It's a very nasty position your kind is in and you are right, delay will only cost you even more of who you are. So I'm guessing you're willing to risk being hunted again than stay invisible any longer?"
"A grim way to put it but....yes."
"Then I can do no less than to aid you and pray your kind will be allowed to flourish once more. I grieve for the loss of even one more of your kind. I promise to do the best I can for you."
Razor sighed and gave her a wane smile of gratitude. "Thank you. We will do this gradually so as not to shock the public too much but since they are already hyped up about the dragon exhibits, they should accept this news more readily than if they had to receive it cold."
"You're right about that. So, how do you propose we do this? The scientific community respects me but even so, they must have absolute proof to even begin believing what I'm telling them," she said honestly.
"Yes, I understand that, however, I'm not in a hurry for others to know that I'm a dragon. My reputation as a vigilante could cause damage to the image we're trying to convey about my race. We don't need it muddied by my dual identity."
"That' very true, unfortunately. Then how do you expect me to convince my colleagues?"
"I only meant your colleagues could not know I'm Razor but if you display me in my form as Adair, they don't need to know who I am in my Kat form."
"Well, that could work, I suppose, however, there will be ones who will refuse to believe you can take a Kat form," she worried.
Razor sighed "Then I'll have to wear some kind of different disguise to hide my identity. Either way, who I am will be protected. Even if one of my fellow dragons were willing to reveal themselves, they too would not give away their last form of protection, that being their Kat identity."
"I understand completely. However, for this to work the way you need it to, you will have to plan on hiding your identity some way because only changing from Kat to dragon and back will impress the ones we are trying to convince," Abi told him, hating that it was true.
"Yeah, I guess you're right about that, alright, disguised I will be then. So how are you going to do this?"
"I will invite the scientists I know are involved with the dragon project to come and see a real dragon. None will be able to resist coming, if only to try to discredit me for daring to make such a claim," she smirked at him.
Razor had to smile. "Very good. I like it. How soon can you get this done?"
"Well, I'll have to send wires to those further away and it will take them time to get here. I'm afraid it will take a few weeks. I'll notify you when I've been able to set a date, alright?" She asked, making notes on a notepad. She reached for a digital camera on her desk. "One more thing will convince them to come even faster......a picture of you."
Razor's mouth opened to object then snapped it shut. Of course she would need a 'carrot' to lure her fellow scientists in. Rolling his eyes, he obliged by stepping back to the middle of the room and taking his true form again. Dr. Sinian took three pics and nodded her satisfaction.
"I'll make this a priority and get our plan into motion immediately," she said distractedly as her mind worked out the things she needed to accomplish.
"Thank you again, doc. I'll be waiting for word from you. Here's a signaler. Use it only when you're ready for me to make my appearance." Razor handed her one of their special communicators then made for the office door. "See you soon."
"You too, Razor and please be careful."
"I always try to doc." With that, Razor unlocked the door and slipped off in the direction he had come. Soon he was swiftly changing his clothes then walking innocently out to his truck.