Dragon in the Dark (Kindred Tales)

The hall was carpeted in a strange, curly-Q pattern of interlocking swirls of pastel colors like nothing Iyanna had never seen before.

“That’s very psychedelic looking,” she remarked, because the pattern of the carpet continued up onto the walls and ceiling, making her feel a little like she was in the middle of some strange fun house.

“And very fucking long,” Dra’vik remarked. “Wonder where those foot trams the robot talked about are?”

They soon found them—a row of scooter-like things docked in a rack across from the elevators. They were painted a businesslike black, unlike the colorful hallway, and each had a handlebar at the front and a luggage rack at the back. But none of them had wheels.

“How do these go, though?” Iyanna asked, frowning in confusion as Dra’vik strapped her golden case to the back of one of them.

“Hover propulsion. Step on and I’ll show you.”

Holding the scooter’s handle with one hand, he motioned for Iyanna to step up and stand on the narrow platform, placing one foot in front of the other. When she was in position, he pressed a button on one of the handles.

“Oh!” Iyanna gasped as the scooter began to rise until it was hovering about six inches above the soft, multi-colored carpet. She gripped the handles. “How do I make it go?”

“Let me see…” Dra’vik stepped on a scooter himself, which whined a bit under his muscular weight. It hovered barely an inch above the ground with him on it, no doubt because the big Drake probably weighed at least four hundred pounds of solid muscle, Iyanna thought as she watched him. The foot tram/hover scooter looked like a toy in his big hands.

After adjusting the height of the handles, so he didn’t have to hunch over, Dra’vik experimented with the foot tram for a moment and then nodded.

“Okay, just twist the right handle forward to go, and twist the left one back to stop,” he said. “See—like this.”

He showed Iyanna what he meant by hovering a few feet down the hallway and then stopping to turn and wait for her.

“Okay, here goes,” Iyanna muttered. She’d had a scooter—the kind with wheels of course—back when she was a kid, but she hadn’t been on one in years. And she’d certainly never been on one that floated six inches above the floor.

She twisted the right handle and the scooter whizzed forward, giving her a giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach. But she managed to hold her balance well enough—it seemed that her muscles remembered how to ride even if her mind had forgotten.

“Watch out, little girl—don’t run into anything,” Dra’vik warned, but he was grinning at her and Iyanna found that she was grinning back. The speedy little scooter woke up the part of her that loved roller coasters and thrill rides at the amusement park. It was the physical sensation of speed that gave her a hit of joy, which she loved.

“Hey,” she said to Dra’vik. “Wanna race? Bet I can beat you to our room.”

“I doubt it, little girl,” he said dryly. “Since you’re going the wrong way.”

He pointed to a sign on the wall that said, Rooms 1-1000, please take Left Corridor. Rooms 1001-2000, please take Right corridor.

There were arrows pointing as well and Iyanna saw that she was, indeed, headed the wrong direction.

“Oops,” she said, and managed to get the scooter turned around and headed down the correct hallway. “I guess you’re right—there’s no way I could win a race against a big, experienced warrior like you,” she said, batting her eyelashes at the big Drake.

“Look, I never said I was a—” Dra’vik began.

Before he could finish, Iyanna had twisted the right handle of her scooter down as far as it could go and was flying down the hallway.

“Gonna beat you!” she called over her shoulder, laughter bubbling up inside her as she whizzed noiselessly down the strange, psychedelic hallway. “Gonna beat your ass, Drake!”

“Little cheater!” she heard Dra’vik roar from behind her as he tried to catch up. But there was laughter in his voice too. “You’ll never win!”

“Will too! There’s no way you can go as fast—you’re too big and muscly!” Iyanna yelled back.

And indeed, she could hear his hover scooter whining as he pushed it to keep up with her. There was no doubt it was working overtime to drag his muscular ass down the long hallway. She was leaving him in the dust!

Iyanna wondered if his scooter was going to give out before they reached their room. The thought of the big Drake broken down as she rushed ahead made her giggle madly and push her scooter even harder. She could feel the wind whipping through her locs as she maneuvered down the hall, grinning all the way.

Iyanna had always had a bubbly personality and though the events of the scanning room had hurt her, she didn’t think they had scarred her irrevocably. It felt good to laugh—good to feel like herself again. This was the real Iyanna—the girl who loved adventures and trying new things!