Part Eight: The Cause for Correlation
“Sir? Sir, the Hatchling Centre in Leet requests more staff...”
“Kamenburg are low on money...”
“...There’s a man what needs to speak with you...”
“...Money, sir, and they...”
“Just a moment of your time, sir...”
“...A word...”
“A moment...”
Bob was this close to banging his head on the desk. He wondered if it ever ended. People came and went with more problems, more requests and he hadn’t heard any good news. He still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, and he still had to get into Manfred’s office. Lou and She were probably wondering where he’d gotten to, and the more time he spent in the Department of Departments building, the more likely he was to be caught.
But wait... he was Billy Lou (even though he wasn’t), the Head of the Department now. He had every right to barge into Manfred’s office and demand to know why he sold Robert Karson out. Every right! Only...
“Mr Lou, sir, the Head of the Department of the Repossession of HeatStones and their FireDragons, Mr Connelly, needs to speak with you.” His secretary was a small rat of a woman with wispy hair and watery eyes. She made him uneasy, even though it should have been the other way around.
“I’ll be a moment. I have something I must do first,” Bob told her. He left the office, with the small woman’s curious eyes on him.
The halls were empty and the walls bare of any ornaments, as though the employees had no business making the place look homely. Bob decided he’d fix that. No, no he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be here any longer than he needed to be, and that was only as long as it took him to find Manfred and drill the guy.
Manfred’s office door was closed. Bob knocked, but there was no answer, so he opened the door and went in. Manfred was nowhere in sight. Closing the door behind him, Bob poked around, trying to see if he could find anything.
There was a sheet of paper, normal paper (as opposed to DragonsPaper), on the desk. Bob picked it up. There was a list of twenty-seven names, followed by a date (today’s date) and a time (two hours from now). Below all that was an address. It wasn’t too far from here.
Curiosity, as always, got the better of Bob. He made to leave, but the boxes in the corner, unmoved from his first visit, caught his eye. He walked over to them, and pulled the lid off one of them. Inside, no less than seven HeatStones were stacked. Bob’s eyes widened. One of these had to be She’s. If Manfred was keeping HeatStones here, what would be at the address where he surely must be? Bob didn’t know, but he would find out.
The trip took an hour, plus another half an hour it took him to find someone to cover for him, and escape the building. He was at an old apartment building, built from OldWood. It was privately owned, and when Bob entered he saw that all of the walls had been demolished and removed, replaced by cage after cage. In those cages were... dragon hatchlings!
Eyes wide, Bob walked down the rows. The hatchlings were a sorry bunch. All FireDragons and WaterDragons, they were sickly and inactive, not even raising their heads when he passed. They’d been removed of their Stones, bred in captivity and were uncared for. AirDragons and EarthDragons didn’t have DragonStones, didn’t need them. They were the lucky ones.
Some of the cages contained eggs, swirly deep blue-green for the WaterDragons, or orange, streaked with yellow and red hues for the FireDragons.
Bob approached one of the cages, where a WaterDragon was struggling out of its egg. It raised a bleary eye to him and croaked, sickly and weakly. Then it fell still. Bob put a hand to his mouth. The whole room stank of dung, sickness and death. Some of these hatchlings wouldn’t even make it through the night.
Taking a shaky breath, Bob wandered further. The sights didn’t improve any, and he came across a motionless body. It was a FireDragon hatchling, larger and older than She, but it was skinny, so skinny, probably weighing less than She. Bob could see ribs poking through the scales, and the head seemed too big, and the body too small. Bob wasn’t even sure if the hatchling was alive. He wasn’t sure if half of them were alive, and the situation worsened the further he went. A cage with seven WaterDragons huddled, none of them able to move for lack of space, and energy, covered in dung and crusty, festering sore.
“Hey! Hey!” He rattled the cage. A single eye twitched from the top of the heap, desperately trying to open, but too weak. Then the body was motionless again, the pile barely more than an assortment of bones. “Come on, move. Get up!”
Something creaked, and Bob spun around to the sight of a metal bar, coming closer and closer...
He ducked, just in time, as the bar clanged noisily against the cage, echoing through the cavernous room. Lurching forward, Bob head-butted his attacker in the stomach, and the man fell down with an, “oomph!” Bob wrestled the bar out of his hands as another man rushed him. He could hear the wails of some of the hatchlings, startled by the sudden sound.
With a mighty swing, Bob caught him in the chest with a crack, and the man fell, screaming. “He’s over here! Get him!”
Bob took off, letting the bar clang to the ground as he weaved through the cages, trying to remember the way out. There were footsteps and shouting all around him, and he had to backtrack a few times because a smuggler had blocked his way. A square of light, and there was the exit.
With a burst of speed, Bob was out of the building... and smack into the waiting fist of Manfred. He fell back with a shout of pain.
“Bob, friend!” Manfred drawled. “Jus’ where d’ya fink you’re goin’? I got business wiv you what needs doin’.”
“You sold me out,” Bob groaned. “Why?”
“Well, they was onto me, and I thought, ‘Rober’ Karson. ‘E’s got no family. Won’ ‘urt anyone if ‘e gets thrown in jail. I said I bin watchin’ you. So’s I set you up, to get them off me trail. I take you in, I’m an ‘ero. They’ll stay off me back.”
“What about me? My life! You’ve ruined it!”
“You ain’t got no life, now shaddup!” Manfred leant down and punched Bob again, in the temple. White flashed before him, and his world went black.
Bob could barely open his eyes. The world spun as he sat up, but fell back down. His head ached, a splitting pain in his forehead. There was angry shouting and gunshots, and a man was shaking Bob. “Did you call us, sir? What’s your name?”
Bob saw no point in lying. “Yes. I’m... Robert. Robert Karson.”
“Karson? The one we’ve been looking for? Well, congratulations, Robert. You’ve just bought down the largest dragon trade ring in the twenty-seven districts.”
“I did?”
“You did. You’re a hero now Robert,” the man told him.
“A hero?” Bob was having difficulty comprehending what was going on. There were suits and smugglers everywhere, and DragonHandlers mingled in with them, rescuing the hatchlings. How long had he been unconscious for? His head throbbed.
“That’s right. That phone call you made may have just saved the lives of all of these hatchlings,” the man told him. He frowned, scratching his chin. “I’m still gunna have to arrest you though. You’ve caused quite a fuss these past few days.”
Bob shrugged. “Yes, well...”
The man helped Bob to his feet, slapping him in handcuffs. “Well then. Robert Karson, you’re under arrest,” he chirped, guiding Bob out of the building.
And so it was, Robert Karson infiltrated the largest dragon trade ring ever.