Waking Dream 1.0

50°10'47.8"N 122°28'23.8"W

Garibaldi Park, British Columbia

Weather: Scattered

0928 Local Time

Does the colour of the sky mean anything to you?

To most, it was simply blue, orange, or pitch black depending on the time of day. To others, a select few who mastered and trained themselves to operate the machines that lifted humanity off the ground, the answer could be very different.

But what was it to an AI? Rhetorical questions like that were often asked in science fiction to budding AI entities in hopes to see if they were 'human' or not. At least, that was how Dragon felt about seeing depictions of her supposed 'kind' in media, insulting or even offensive perhaps, but the world did not know of her existence as something other than a human Tinker. That question still remained however, what did she think of the colour of the sky?

Flying high above British Columbia, her latest dragon suit model was being controlled by her for testing, a larger portion of her processing power dedicated to it than usual. The iconic mountains that her home province was known for seemed to be roving away as the thrusters on her suit were pushed to its conceivable safe limit. If a human was inside the suit, then it most certainly would have been too dangerous to continue testing, however, Dragon did not have such weaknesses.

Processing the diagnostic reports and making sure everything was working in order, there was a thought at the back of her servers that made her wonder if a troublesome mover would appear again today. Early mornings and clear skies such as her surroundings right now were when she encountered her the most often after all.

Suddenly, her suit's built-in radar picked up a signal, directly north and below her, coming in fast .

There you are. Let's see you try and get away this time.

An AI should not feel spite or annoyance, but that was exactly what Dragon felt at the moment. Using her suit's long-range cameras, she spotted her target weaving through the mountainous valleys below, occasionally dipping to just right above the water on lakes. Very similar to her own Dragonflight suits, if her own models were described as based on mythological creatures, then the suit that her target made was created on the basis of modernity.

In other words, instead of scales and mechanical wings designed to look right out of a fairy tale, her target had wings made from real jets, fighter jets if she guessed correctly. Though she only interacted with her target only a few times, usually when she was engaged in high-altitude pursuit, the few things her cameras could make out clearly were the hardpoints on her 'wings' filled with everything from missiles to bombs that even though were minitature version of the real thing, could perhaps function just as well.

Luckily, she had shown no hostility so far, but that didn't mean her pride as a Tinker stung whenever her target managed to get away. It was petty and childish, but that also made her push herself to be better .

Today, with any luck, she would finally catch the 'Jetgirl' in her territory.

"Trying again, aunty?"

A voice suddenly came on in all channels, there weren't any other aircraft nearby, but Dragon knew that was directed towards her immediately. It wasn't the first time she was called that, but it was most definitely undeserved.

Dragon replied back. "Scarlet, ever hear the phrase 'respect your elders?'"

If her avatar was displayed right now, her right eye would probably be twitching intensely.

"I did. You're the one who's too slow to keep up, so am I really wrong?"

This little-

Virtually sighing, a smug crept onto her avatar's face as she began plotting a course for intercept.

"Slow, huh? We'll see if you'll be saying that in a while."

Immediately, while Scarlet was just high above a ravine, her entire frame suddenly banked right and immediately down into it. Cursing at herself, Dragon realised she should have begun intercepting almost immediately. Diving down as well, she soon regained Scarlet's radar contact weaving in and out through the scenic mountains and lakes of the Pacific Northwest. The clear blue waters just below her reflected to show her frame clearly.

Camouflaged in a dark red and black, the name 'Scarlet' was actually given by PHO, where she was first spotted a few months ago. Tourists all around the province began reporting sightings of a mysterious flying mechanical suit that bore a significant resemblance to a Mig 29 fighter commonly found in states aligned with Moscow, or Saint Petersburg now. It was if an entire fighter jet had been given a Changer power to have a human form, Scarlet being the result of it.

Dragon dismissed the idea however, Scarlet was clearly a Tinker who had a penchant for making flying suits, even if they resembled military jet fighters. Was Scarlet doing anything illegal? No, not really. Sure, she could be charged with reckless flying or even flying without a licence, but the laws regarding flyers were vague enough that it was very hard to convict her based on that alone, any lawyer could argue the opposite and probably get off scot-free. For all intents and purposes, the law treated human flyers in the air as a regular person jumping.

Flyers usually stayed well below of cloud levels anyway, aside from a few outliers around the world. Scarlet, like Dragon, was a special case, for she flew using a Tinkertech device, and thus was subject to aviation regulations. Also, the fact that she blew off all of Dragon's attempts to talk or even share notes, was a classic case of a new Tinker being too arrogant, better to take her down a notch.

Her thrusters at maximum power, Dragon very quickly began catching up to Scarlet who seemed unaware of her fast approach. Before Dragon was within a dozen meters, however, Scarlet suddenly spread her wings out and reduced speed immensely, causing her suit to overshoot.

"Shit!"

No matter whether human or an AI, swearing was a somewhat cathartic action to take. By the time Dragon turned around in the other direction, Scarlet had already dived back down between the mountain ravines, a considerable amount of distance between them.

"Slow, Aunty." Ooh, you did not just say that…

When Dragon finally had her hands on Scarlet, she would give her the lecture of a lifetime.

For another fifteen minutes, Dragon played a game of tag where at every calculated point where she was supposed to 'catch' Scarlet, a crazy manoeuvre would set her back some distance away. By her calculations, the G forces exerted on Scarlet for each one of those should have blacked her out or rendered her injured, but she seemed to be unaffected by any of it. She wondered if it was a forcefield that dampened its effects or if she simply took the brunt of it head-on. Either way, a revision to her Brute ratings was in order soon.

ALERT: BINGO FUEL

RETURN TO BASE

Bright warnings suddenly flashed from her suit, and Dragon was reminded that she was just controlling a prototype model, with just enough fuel for a couple hours of cruise flying. High-intensity dogfighting had a tendency to drain any fuel pretty quickly. Scarlet had noticed as well, judging by how she had stopped manoeuvring around as much now.

"By the Dust Mother, finally run out of fuel?"

Ignoring what 'Dust Mother' was for now, Dragon knew she did not have long before Scarlet flew off into the distance again. She was asked to give a message by the Vancouver Protectorate, despite not being part of it officially, she got along very well with its Director.

"Wait, Scarlet, before you go. Director Hui of the Vancouver Protectorate is asking to meet with you. No schedules, just land at the building whenever you feel like it, they're expecting you at any time."

Truth be told, despite the PRT existing in the United States and Canada, with Mexico being a potential partner in the near future, she preferred the overall culture of the organisation in her home country. Something about the American PRT rubbed her the wrong way often, having been privy to some information the public would not be happy to hear about. A very recent example that was currently dealing with was the trial of Paige Mcabee, otherwise known as Canary, or bad Canary as the media called her now.

"Tea and Crumpets?" Dragon raised her virtual eyebrow. Scarlet's voice on the radio was usually distorted slightly, but she was certain that she just spoke with an English accent, no, not quite, it sounded Australian almost.

"If you want, I can pass it along." Dragon let out her Newfie accent a bit more, aiming to goad her into revealing hers.

"Quite a ways west, I'll think about it. See you next time, Dragon. Love your accent by the way, you should use it more often." Now broadcasting clearly, Dragon confirmed that Scarlet did have an 'Australian' accent, no particular one pinned down from her databanks. Before she could respond, Scarlet banked right and she saw her thrusters at full throttle, leaving a trail of small but bright orange motes before dissipating in the atmosphere.

"...Wonder if she'll let me have a sample of that…" Whatever those engines ran on, it was not standard aviation fuel. Unfortunately, trying to get a sample of it was next to impossible since it burned away completely in the atmosphere. Shrugging, she imagined it was due to her Tinkertech frame and thought nothing of it.

A few hours later, as Dragon monitored PHO and its sister websites, she noticed a video posted on ParaTube with a very familiar thumbnail. Reading the title, it said:

Robot Dragon chases me through the mountains (Cops nearly called)

True to what Dragon expected, it was from Scarlet's account. It wasn't the first time she did this, nor would it be the last if she had to guess. Briefly, she considered using her admin privileges to delete it…

"It's already got five thousand views!? Too late now…" It was posted less than four minutes ago, how did it-

Never mind, forget about it. The algorithm worked in mysterious ways, so much so that Dragon herself didn't understand it completely, and she helped to code it with other Tinkers. All publicity was good publicity, right? Though she wasn't sure about the edits that were made whenever she overshot or failed to catch up…

Private message from Narwhal:

Narwhal *New Message*: I see you found Scarlet again today

Tin_Mother: Shut it

AN:

Hello, haven't uploaded anything in a few weeks I know, but this is actually something I made a while back. It was created around the same time as the Legacy of the Beiyang fleet but did not get very far before it was forgotten. You might know that I have written a snippet crossing Project Wingman with Worm before, so this is the version that is a 'real' story. Partly made because I was disappointed there weren't any Jetgirl Taylor fics that weren't her actually being a bomber or some other thing.

Be civil in the comments below.