Lost Change

Chapter 36

Ivy was quiet for a long moment while I tried to absorb the news that there were a hundred other survivors like myself.  After a moment I realized she was watching me patiently, and I felt a bit of embarrassment and gratitude that she had given me a moment to recover.  I tried to think of something else to say to continue the conversation again.

I eyed the two Kymari talking on the couch and remembered the few times Ivy had spoken about the male Kymari.  Trenil, I think she had called him.  “How did you come to be with a Kymari?  Do the rest of the flock live with them?”

The feeling of a laugh came from Ivy, though I didn’t think it was directed at me.  “Oh, no; most of us are terrified of the Kymari.  Because of what happened at the lab, it’s really hard for us to feel safe around them.  Almost all of us live out in a park in one of their cities, the same way you did.  I was rescued after a fox attacked me while I was sunbathing, a little over nine months ago; I drove it off but it broke my wing before I could scare it away.  They took care of me while I healed, and after that I decided to live with them.  Counting myself there are five of us who live with the Kymari, and all of us have pretty much the same story.  We got injured, a Kymari rescued us, and we decided to stay with them.”  She paused and tilted her head a little.  “Well, except for Tom.  He wasn’t injured himself, but he stayed with Serena when she was injured.”

“...oh.”  I tried not to sound like I had regretted asking the question, but… I had no idea who Tom or Serena was, and I hadn’t expected quite as long of an answer to that question.  I stared blankly at the glass wall of the cage and tried to think of something else to say.

“Do you know how you survived in the lab?”  Ivy’s question rescued me from having to think up anything else.  “All the eggs we checked on had gotten cold when we went back.  The power had gone out, and there wasn’t anything keeping them alive.”  She didn’t sound suspicious, just curious.

“I think I saw those.”  I remembered back to the broken egg I had seen eight years ago, and the cold body inside, and the rumbling in my chest stopped.  “I got ‘lucky’, I think.  The Votak attacked before the scientists could move me to where the other eggs were being held.  That… room… was wired to a backup generator.  Solar power kept the heat lamp and a few other things in that room running.”  I tried not to shiver as I thought back to what I had seen in that building.

Ivy gave me a soft nudge with her head.  “Nobody else likes talking about what happened in that place either.  I’m sorry.  If it helps, at least you didn’t have to go through what they would have done to you after you hatched.”

I did shiver at that.

“What about your life before?”  Ivy spoke suddenly, as if trying to change the subject.  “I was a college student before I was kidnapped, studying for an economics degree.  What was your life like?”

I found it getting easier to talk to the green dragonet, both in using the mindspeech and in just opening up to her.  It felt nice to finally have somebody to talk to again.  “Mine was pretty average, I guess.  I lived on my own.  I actually worked at that lab, if you can believe it.”

“Wait - you did?”  Ivy’s ear tufts went up in sudden alarm.

“Yeah.  I was an electrician there.  A friend of mine from college got me the job, and one day I stumbled into an area I wasn’t supposed to go into.  I saw him with a dragonet, and… then they turned me into one.”

Ivy was silent.  I looked over at her and found her staring at me.  “What?  What is it?”

She fidgeted and pulled a little away from me.  “You… worked for them?  You helped those people?”