Upon Feathers of Change

Chapter 3

Within a few days, the scientist I had gotten in trouble was gone, and a new egg was added within a few weeks. We patiently bided our time, still searching for ways to escape without giving away that we could think.

A few more months passed, and several more eggs hatched, bringing our number up to 107.

And then, the glorious day arrived.

"GUYS! The scientist hatched!" someone called across the general mindlink.

Pandemonium.

I added my voice to the cacophony. "Where is he?"

We got a mental image of a cowering purple dragonet, just barely out of his egg, and in that moment I felt bad for him. He was in a new body, in a new environment, and everyone who was like him, hated him. I directly mindlinked him.

"I'm sorry. You're in this because of me."

The dragonet jumped. Obviously no one had been kind enough to directly link him yet, so I gave him the orientation to being a dragonet that Jake had given to me. "Relax, you're not insane. Turn around and look across the room. I am the gold dragonet with white and blue feathers."

He turned around, following my directions, albeit slowly, and looked for me. I waved a wing at him, and his ice blue eyes rested on me. He opened his mouth, but then shut it abruptly as he realized he could no longer speak the way he had been used to. He looked at me imploringly, and I told him how to use the general and the direct mindlinks.

He got a look of concentration on his face, and then I heard a tentative, "Am I doing it right?"

I nodded. "Yes, you are. Now, just to be sure, do you recognize me?"

He nodded in return. "You are the only one with feathers, and you divebombed me on your first day after hatching."

"Correct. I am Crystal, what is your name?"

"I'm Vincent."

"Well, Vincent, you must have tons of questions."

"Yeah, I do. Why did you get me in trouble?"

I hung my head. "I am sorry. At the time, I and everyone else wanted you to get a taste of your own medicine, but I realize now that that reason was stupid, and now we're all stuck here in the same boat."

He tilted his head. "I understand. We didn't know that you -well, I guess I'm included in that, now, aren't I? The rest of the scientists and I did not know that the dragonets are sentient. We thought that once the transformation was complete, you became animals. Fully. I guess now I know that we don't."

My heart went cold for a second, and I had to make sure he knew the number one rule. "You understand that you cannot let your former buddies know that we are sentient, right?"

He nodded and sighed. "Yes, I know. I know what the policy is. If we show any signs of sentience, everyone gets put down."

Then my curiosity got the better of me. "Why exactly are they doing this to us?"

"They want to use us as weapons." My blood turned to ice.

The general mindlink had calmed down by this point, and I switched to it so everyone could hear. "Everyone, I know he was a scientist before he hatched, but he's one of us now, and that means we have an inside scoop of what they're planning for us. Vincent, please say what you said to me again."

"The governments of the world are planning on using us as weapons," he said solemnly, expecting and getting a cacophony again. The secret agent came to his rescue and quieted everyone down.