FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Start by showing us where the search has been undertaken." I told Jack the next morning. As we all circled around a table with several maps spread out on its top. Taking up a map marker he pinned it to a spot Northeast of town. Wrapping a string around it he attached it to a pencil and drew a circle around it with a radius of 10km.

"This is where the private teams I had hired searched for them. On horseback and with dogs. They picked up a scent from the car to a point about half a mile to the east. There, it vanished. The local authorities have been no help at all. They examined our car itself, told me they were missing, presumed dead, and moved on to the next disappearance."

"Good for nothing idiots!" Greta exclaimed irately. To be fair to them however, I brought up the point that none of us knew how many missing cases reports they were dealing with.

"Along the scent trail, they did find portions of my wife's clothes. Where it ended, most of her pants, and her bra. My son's jumper was also found, torn to shreds. All the clothes were spattered in blood." He stopped there and started crying. "They, they told me my wife and our son were likely dead. That I should let them go. That hope is a dangerous thing. And I did!" He screamed. "I let them go! Now you tell me that they may be alive after all? How?"

This pissed me off, and I tilted my head to look at Greta underneath my chin wrathfully. "You didn't fucking tell him?"

She snarled right back at me. "How do you think I am supposed to tell my son that his wife and child are alive but no longer human?"

"Like this: Jack, if your wife and child are still alive, they are no longer human. They are children of the egg."

His eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

"See?" Greta demanded of me with smug validation. "He's my son, but that boy has the spine of an earthworm. His wife was the best thing that ever happened to him."

Alex was throwing me irritated looks as well as he left to return to his room for his pack. I ignored them both. What kind of wishy-washy fish was this guy? He should be ecstatic! His family may be alive!

"Greta, can you lay out the personal things from your daughter-in-law and grandson? We need their scent too."

"You just heard him tell you that the dogs were no good!" She exclaimed at Tom, even as she shuffled to open the bag and dump them onto the table. I nudged Jack off to the side with a couple of careful pokes using the side of a claw. He moaned but did not reawaken from where I had left him with his face buried in the ground and his ass raised into the air like he was about to get mounted from behind. Greta cackled unsympathetically at the sight of her son's position.

"We, if you have not noticed, are not dogs. What can you tell us about their personalities?"

"...let's wait until my son wakes up."

"Do you even know your grandchild?"

"He's one, what do you want from me?"

"What about your daughter-in-law?"

"I know that she doesn't like me."

"I wonder why?"

I waited for Alex to return by watching the news that had Dan enraptured. I'm standing here at the corner of Oak and ID-73 where late last night there was a reported clash between a truck driver and a dragon. But what happened next shocked everyone.

_ Witnesses to the event have refused to be interviewed on camera citing the imminent threat to their safety. However, we have gotten a fairly good accounting of what occurred. A group of unidentified dragons had landed yesterday and dismounted human passengers to engage in a discussion with a local home owner. Overcome by fatigue one of the dragons had lain down and blocked the highway where it had fallen asleep. After being awakened by one of its companions it had moved itself from the roadway, that is when it had all gone wrong._

_ A cargo truck driven by Joseph Hester, for unknown reasons, had swerved to run over the tail of the dragon that had previously been blocking the highway. In a fit of rage the creature attacked the truck inflicting considerable damage to the cargo container as you can see behind me._

The camera panned to show four police cruisers and a dozen officers patrolling the perimeter of the recovery scene. Two heavy lift cranes where in the process of hoisting the crushed cargo container off the flatbed trailer to be transferred to a new one. A pair of commercial tow trucks were lined up along the road, as was another tractor-trailer that was unloading an excavator. Alex had called the police last night to inform them of what we had done with the weapons and ammo.

The damaged cargo truck split open and dumped its cargo onto the highway, stunning bystanders when it was revealed to be carrying a load of stolen military weapons and ammunition. Joseph, who has since been taken into custody, attempted to flee but his truck was too heavily damaged to operate. Failing that, he opened his door and began to fire on the same dragon that he had initially attacked. Witnesses fled as several shots were unleashed before the unknown dragon swiftly disarmed the suspect. We have learned that Mr. Hester has since been treated and released into police custody after suffering non-life-threatening injuries. It is unknown at this time what, if any, injury the dragon has sustained, or where the beast or the rest of its flock have gone. Only that they had remained on the scene for a short while afterwards to converse with a local resident that will remain unnamed for his own safety.

We have also learned from eyewitnesses that a substantial number of weapons and quantities of ammo were left behind last night after the extremely brief investigation. Authorities have refused to provide answers as to why a scene with such sensitive material was left unsupervised. However, those same witnesses have also told us that the very creatures that were involved in the confrontation took it upon themselves to destroy and then bury the weapons before removing the remains of the truck from the road in the jumble you see beside us.

Joseph Conrad is expected to be charged with a variety of federal crimes with regards to the stolen weapons. However, under current Idaho state law the attempted murder of the dragon can only be charged as an instance of cruelty to an animal which carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail. There is currently no federal statuette that covers bodily harm to dragons as they are not listed as an endangered or protected species. Back to you at the studio.

_ _ Dan swelled as he inhaled, and then gave a great heaving sigh that knocked over a stack of chairs in front of his muzzle. I am sixty-four years old. Served two tours in Vietnam as a Marine. Retired from a career as a chemist. Fathered and raised two beautiful girls. Now, we are thought and spoken of as animals that it is only a misdemeanor to attempt to kill.

Sucks, huh?

He didn't answer my flippant response. Only looking down at the ground and sighing again as he broadcast his unhappiness by smell. His two daughters crept to his sides squeaking questions and reassurances both. He looked at them one after the other with sadness glistening in his eyes. It wasn't himself he was feeling sorry for, it was his daughters. Something must be done. He spread his wings and drew his daughters tightly against his flanks in a hug. Something will be done. Can you please turn the tv off? I need to think.

Obliging him, Tom turned his head until his right eye was looking down at the remote and darted his tongue out to poke the power button. I chuffed once in amusement at seeing the sheen of spit coating the device. Ten minutes later Alex at last returned and shot another dark look at me after seeing the position Jack was in.

"Why do you automatically think I had something to do with it?"

"You mean you didn't?"

"Well, actually, I did. But..." He flipped me off before straightening the man out on his back and pulling an ampule of ammonia out of his pocket to wave beneath Jack's nose. He woke up, saw my watching eye hovering over Alex's shoulder, and screamed while jumping to his feet and against the wall. I froze, as did everyone else, while Jack held his hand to his chest and panted in hysterical fear for a moment until he could get his overdeveloped sense of panic under control.

"God damn you're a jumpy one. I'm going to call you 'Jack Rabbit' from now on. Are you always this on edge?"

My brother-in-law led Jack Rabbit to a chair that he had brought over by the map table and told him to take it easy while handing him a bottle of water. I smacked my tongue, looking at the water wistfully. There was a tub against a wall to serve refreshments from that was big enough for us to use, but no way to fill it.

"Alright, now my sister-in-law and my brother need to know anything that you might be able to tell us about your wife's personality. If she was frightened, or hurt, where would she go? Tell us about the objects of theirs you brought, what is their special significance?"

Jack reached into the bag again and produced two more items from it that he set on the table. A picture, an elaborate hair brush, and a wooden toy car with teeth marks on it. I glanced at the picture and blinked. I blinked again and looked at the pudgy sweating man before me and then back to the picture. I blinked once more. What?

"That's your wife?" Tom asked, smelling as incredulous as I did. "Where did you meet?"

Jack wiped his face with his hand and flung the sweat to the ground before replying. "Powerlifting competition. I'm stronger than I look."

That might have been true. But she certainly did look strong. The equally tall blonde woman with hazel eyes in the picture had a pleated braid of hair draped over her shoulder that ran all the way to her waist. One arm was around Jack's waist while the other was flexed to show off her bicep. Both her and Jack had large smiles on their faces as they looked at the camera. Her shoulders and arms were very well defined to say the least.

"Powerlifting?"

"Yeah. She didn't like being a gymnast anymore. She didn't like keeping her hair so short. Isn't she just beautiful?"

I stared at the picture for another minute before shaking my head to clear it. "...well okay. But, you're going to have to accept the fact that if we do find her. She's going to look like us, and not that. It's also going to be important that first contact with her is done calmly. You spooking like a rabbit is not going to help things when we try to establish a connection for her to recover."

"You really think they're both one of you now?" He muttered, half to himself.

"Yes. But if this works, she will be the same woman that you knew before. Just, you know, her and your kid will both have tails." I lifted mine and wagged it with a careless thought to draw attention to it. "Your one-year old son will also prooooobably be able to outlift you now as well. Can you deal with that?" I was thinking of an instance when not even two-year-old Sora had rammed into and wrestled over our 700kg run-away tractor after her older sister had started it and accidentally put it into gear.

"Worse case scenario." Alex told him. "Is that she is like these two over here." He pointed at First Light and Night Star who looked back and raised their forelegs to point a single talon at Alex in return to mimic him. "Intelligent, communicative, incredibly curious, but only retaining basic personality traits of when they were human."

"So, what do you think she might do if she is alone and afraid?"

"If Arnold was with her? Look for somewhere warm and comfortable for him where they could hide."

Which narrowed it down to fucking everywhere.

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-eight..." He looked glumly down at his hands before correcting. "Twenty-nine, she missed her birthday. I set out cake for her and our son and everything. I even used the funny little candles she likes." He stopped, and I watched his Adam's apple bob in his thick neck before he cried despondently and buried his head in his hands. "I want her back! I want them both back!"

I felt a little of my hostile attitude towards him dissipate. Poor bastard.

"That's what we hope to accomplish. I know this shit is hard but stay with us here. So, she's going to be larger than my daughter, that's good. It'll narrow down where we have to look. Are you aware of any large structures in the area? Big enough for one of us to fit in? You wouldn't happen to have overhead images of the area surrounding your car by any chance, would you?"

His sniffling trailed off and he perked up to place a stack of print outs the thickness of a book on the table. "I got these from The Gaia Project. Out to twenty miles in all directions." He took the print on the top and pointed at several tiny squares. "This is an overview of the area I have pictures of. There are clusters of large buildings, according to the scale at least a few dozen feet to each side, at nine different points within ten miles. Twenty-three different points within twenty miles."

I bobbed my head, pleased.

"Then that is where we begin. Alex, Jack, Greta, please start getting coordinates for each point. The search begins this morning." Tom told them.

"In the meantime, I need to get out of here. I'm thirsty, and hungry. Anyone else?" Everyone with wings except Prometheus cast yearning looks at the ceiling at my question as our flappers shifted and tried to raise restlessly. "Great, it'll be safer this way."

I awkwardly turned around with my legs splayed out like a giant lizard to keep from ramming myself through the roof and shuffled in the direction of the door. However, I was stopped by two things.

The first: Prometheus. "That surveillance aircraft that has been following us. It is back, and looking for us. I know you are curious about the residents of that shopping center. But I suggest you avoid going there. It will be better if they are not forced out of their position of security to join you at your home." Which was helpful, for once. But made me wonder why the fuck he was offering advice now.

"So, the operators of the UAV are hostile to us then?"

"Yes, and no. Great harm will come if that den is discovered. But also, a new and powerful ally. The problem will be one of logistics, and security, at your home, Kim."

"Why are you telling us this?" Tom wanted to know, echoing my own thoughts.

He looked perplexed. "After every time you have accused me of not doing enough, you question when I offer foresight?"

I didn't buy that for a single fucking second, and told him so.

"Would you believe me then if I told you that there was a female within that mall that has laid her eggs? That it is important that she and her children remain unmolested?"

"Yeah, that I would believe. Why don't you just fucking tell us the truth about these things?"

"Because I can already sense in your mind that I have just made you more eager to meet them and to learn of the experience that is going to be soon upon you. It is vital that you do not go there for the time being."

"And when is the time to go?"

"I am sorry, Tomoko has..."

"Because I want you to be happy when you meet Savannah, silly!" Tomoko blared excitedly from the hallway to the hotel. Tom and I shrilled in surprise and whipped around with our wings opening up into the rafters in shock at the sudden reappearance of the sickeningly sweet alien mastermind. Sure enough, there the golden eyed thing stood, coming up to the waist of Tyler next to her. "You are with egg! You will be able to bond with the unhatched eggs to greet them! It is super important that you be stress free and happy!"

The projector overhead flickered to life, and a video montage of puppies, human babies, and children of the egg hatchlings romping together began to play on the screen. Oh my god. Had I died? What the fuck?

"Think babies! Everyone loves babies! No matter what shape they are!"

Cute!

Happy! Play!

Play!

Sarah and Becky squeaked while bouncing on their paws with enthusiasm. Alex grabbed Jack and yanked him to the ground as Sarah's tail almost tore their heads off. Greta slapped her knee and cackled madly. Even Dan looked taken by the adorable images playing out on the screen as his scales rippled with the smell of his endearment. I twisted and bolted out the door. Fuck that madness.

Poking the garage door controller with my tongue, I danced from paw to paw until the damn thing finished rolling overhead. The cheerful trilling of First Light and Night Star drilling through my head as Tomoko joined in. I dove out of the opening to land at the bottom of the docking bay and roll head over tail until I came to dizzy stop on my back with my tail covering my head. Uncoiling, I looked at the cold blue sky overhead and just watched the puffy clouds of vapor from my nostrils rise to drift in the frigid air. Feeling for my children, their eagerness at having heard all the happy excitement that I had just fled from made my head spin once again and I shut my eyes.

A weight appearing on the underside of my neck made my eyes fly open once again to show the head of a somber smelling, no longer laughing, Tomoko and a worried Tom filling my sight.

"I am sorry Kim. After what you saw and heard last night, I thought that would help you. The vast majority of likely outcomes indicated that it would."

"Yeah, well, it didn't."

Tom slunk off the dock to lay next to me, while I continued to stare blankly at the sky. That woman, her babies... That video was supposed to be cheerful, but all I saw were those babies, all of them. Their playful frolicking turning into terror as they tried to run before their bodies flew apart in bloody chunks as thousands of pieces of metal tore their lives away.

"Who was she?"

Tomoko sighed, and her head disappeared from my sight. A moment later, I could feel her small body curl up next to my neck before she responded.

"Is that really what you want to know?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

"Her name was Cyndi Cromwell, from Salt Lake City, Utah. She carried three children within her. She was going to name them after the stars that were visible in the night sky on the day that she gave birth to their eggs."

"Cyndi..." I muttered to myself. Lifting my head to clear Tomoko, I rolled over and pushed myself up. The one next to me disappeared as the first clone of her appeared in the door with Tyler still next to her.

"Kid, I know that we said to come back if you wanted to talk to us. But you really shouldn't. Once we leave, you will be in danger."

The bean pole of a kid swelled as he girded himself to say something. Motherfucker, is he going to...?

"I want to come with you!"

He did...god damnit. I lifted a rear leg and scratched at my side as I mentally sighed in vexation.

"Why? If this is just because I took you on a five-minute flight last night, then I regret doing it. You do realize just by being seen talking to us that your life is in danger, right? In fact, why don't you take a few steps back so that you can't be seen?"

Tom already had his head searching skyward, which is where my recommendation had come from. He must have spotted something because his search stopped to focus on something I couldn't see and he nudged me.

"We are being watched even now. It. Is. Not. Safe. For. You. Savvy?"

"I don't care! I want to get to know some real live dragons!" He exclaimed mulishly.

I shrugged, the kid wants to play hardball? I was seven thousand kilograms of scaly hardball.

"My answer is final. We're not putting more people than we already have in the meat grinder. Right, Tom?"

Much to my dismay, Tom smelled more thoughtful on the matter than I did.

"Tell us about yourself Tyler."

"Oh! I have a Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education, and I lost my job on zero day when the schools closed. I managed to get this job here in the meantime, which is the only hotel still open because of the Air Base. And...every Halloween I dress up in this dragon costume I made. Want to see?" He pulled his cell phone and started scrolling through his photos.

I narrowed my eyes at Tomoko as she gave me a sheepish grin in return. "What a happy coincidence! Yay?"

"Yes...yay..." I smacked the kid's cell phone out of his hands accompanied by his dismayed groan.

"My phone..."

"Do you have parents? Siblings? A girlfriend? Who do you have that cares about you that would have something to say about you taking off with the living beings that you seem to fantasy over?"

He didn't get a chance to respond at first, as suddenly Tomoko jumped against him to knock him out of the way of the door opening as Night Star and First Light came racing through it. Dan, stopped to growl at him, asking if he was okay, before scraping through the opening and hopping down to pace past me and Tom. Spreading his legs to brace himself, he hefted his wings and flared them open to their enormous width with a groan that made his scales shiver in a wave that started at the tip of his tail. Tyler's face was glowing in an amazement as he watched.

Fuck, there went my last chance of getting rid of him.

Prometheus did not exit however, making me wonder just how biologically correct he really was, but Alex did. Washing my paws of Tyler, and Tom's interview of him, I watched as Alex undid the crutches he had wrapped to Dan's tail to check his injury. Dan, curling his head back to look as his own body was examined, grunted loudly as Alex pushed around the spot of the injury. But did not react beyond that.

Scratching his head, Alex shrugged and turned to the other end of Dan's body. "How does it feel? Try flapping your wings."

"He can't" I translated for him. "His wings are too big to flap on the ground."

"Does it hurt to move your tail then?"

Lifting it from the ground. Dan spun it into as tight a coil as he could manage, and as another test, wrapped it around Alex and lifted him a meter or two off the ground before setting him down again.

"He says it feels good as long as it doesn't actually touch anything."

Straightening out his clothes, Alex didn't look sure, but had to give in. "As long as you feel comfortable, the site of the injury is far past the attachment points of your wings, so I guess the strain won't be acute. If it hurts, don't do it, that is the best advice I can give you."

Dan looked up at the sky with a wistfulness that I could recognize a kilometer away.

Yesterday was the first time I ever flew. Now, I feel wrong being on the ground.He produced a whistle in his throat that drew his daughter's attention to him, and away from the security golf cart that they were pushing back and forth with their heads.

We stay. You help me fly like you? Stay safe?

I help! Help heal Egg Father!

Yes, help Big Egg Father! We safe!

They both sidled up to their father's sides and threw their wings over him warmheartedly, he looked back to make eye contact with me and we both bobbed our heads in unspoken agreement. They would stay here while we searched. My ears flared as an idea struck me and I turned to Alex.

"Before we leave, you should invite the Perkins down from their room. Ask them if they would just talk to Dan and his daughters?"

"Talk?"

Talk?

Dan and Alex asked me at the same time. I bobbed my head with a grin. "The Robertsons need to learn how to speak English again, and the Perkins need to learn not to piss their pants around children of the egg. It's a win win!"

That would be excellent. I want my daughters to be able to speak again. Like humans. Not whatever this is...

We talk! You listen! What more?

What more? Speak like funny two leg things?

Yes, Night Star. Like the funny two leg things. They are called humans, that is what you once were.

Me? No! Me child of egg! Never funny two leg thing!

Not human! Child of egg! First Light echoed her younger sister.

I turned my head away as sadness washed over us all when tears appeared in Dan's eyes to fall to the ground. This was why they should come back with us. They shouldn't exist between worlds like this. The ones that could remember tormented by those that could not. They needed help.

"Have you three ever tried to return to your home?" Tom gently asked Dan, broadcasting calming scents, helping Dan's quivering wings to settle.

No. What good would that do? Even if we did what are we going to do? Shove our heads through the walls?

My husband bobbed his head. "We will stop there on the way to the safe zone. Hopefully we can find something there to help your daughters."

Anything. I will do anything to help them.

Then, so will we. And you!

I rounded on my husband next. "I'm not taking that kid anywhere! If you want to bring him along, then carry him in your own damn hands!"

Satisfied that my position was fully expressed, we left Alex and Jack behind to join everyone else in wandering off to take care of our morning business by digging up most of a dog park. Which I found hilarious for reasons I can't explain. But we were glad of the small spring fed pond in the center of it after we stomped through the ice covering it. Looking back on it, we probably had caused the water to eventually foul by shitting only fifty meters from it, but it was the only place we could find soil within eyesight. That only left the matter of food. Which, after two days of flight, was pretty important. Flying is a huge caloric investment after all. But no food was to be had. At least in the quantities we needed it at. I wondered where those in the mall were getting theirs?

Hurriedly, we retreated back to our shelter while we took turns keeping our attention on the eye in the sky as it orbited overhead in an endless loop. Every pass it made over us heightening my tension further until my stomach clenched and heaved making me grunt loudly. Tom stopped and swung his nose around to snuffle at my stomach.

"What are you doing?"

He recoiled and scratched his snout against his shoulder, nonplussed. "Uh...checking on you?"

I continued walking past him as I felt the force of his gaze remain fixated on my pregnant girth. Reaching the entrance to our lair away from lair, I made my silhouette as small as I could and squeezed back inside to lie on the warm carpet. Tom joined me before I finally replied.

"Do you even know what you were sniffing for?"

"Not really. Just for the past few days I..." He trailed off with a shrug.

"What? What?" I pressed, annoyed at his evasions. No more secrets!

"I...sometimes I think I can sense our children. I think they...react when I'm close. And you...you smell different. You smell...ready. Kim, I don't think we have much time left before you give birth."

Becky and Sarah reentered to look quizzically at the maps laid out on the table at the same time that the sun was blocked when their father lay in front of the opening and extended his head inside. I sat in thought for a minute, turning over the repercussions of what Tom had told me in my head. Alex looked worried, as well he should. Tomoko was beaming at us while nudging Tyler to repeatedly ask him if he knew just how beautiful the promise of new life was. Jack just kept wringing his hands, looking lost in the sauce. Prometheus had fallen asleep again, fucker.

Turning inward, I tried to get a feel for how I felt. A sense of uneasiness filled my conscious mind and I could sense that my children were excited about something. Although what that was, I couldn't identify.

"Then we have to hurry. Alex, are you guys ready?"

"Jack only has five left to confirm the coordinates of. I'm just about to call Stout."

Putting actions to words, he dialed on his cell phone and place it on speaker on the table.

"Alex, SITREP."

"What? You want me to do a sit-up?"

"What's the situation!" Stout yelled into the phone. I snorted laughter along with Tom.

"6 dragons, 2 correction 3 humans." He corrected after glancing at Tyler. God damnit! "1 demi-god. Minor injury to one dragon. Situation is..." He looked at Tom with a question in his eyes.

Tom took over. "Local LE is supportive, hostile elements in area compromising effective governance. Aerial surveillance continues, how copy over?"

"Is that you Kim?"

"I swear to god Stout, are you fucking with us again?"

"Oh, so that's Kim? Funny, the same voice speaking in two different manners. Copy all. I have good news for your party. I finally got some intel on that bird watching you. Something out of the Air Force, a unit I've never heard of. My source wouldn't tell me what they were, or what their mission is, only that you'll be glad to have them on your side if things go really sideways down there."

"Well tell them to step forward then, because they've already begun to."

"Whatever you have let me go first. I can't order you to, but I strongly advise that you return ASAP. Some things have gone missing that I cannot relay to you over an unsecured line."

"Then what we have is even more important. There are birds in the area."

"Copy. Standby." The call went on hold as a muffled conversation started. A few minutes went by before Stout came back on again. "Expect contact with...friendly forces today or tomorrow. When you get back, we're going to set you up with some COMSEC, for now that is all I can tell you. Is there anything else?"

"I want to hear my children's voices!" I demanded vehemently. After that video the night before, fuck that. Where were my babies? Tom pushed his flank against mine and hummed to calm me as I squirmed and kneaded the carpeted floor with scythe like claws.

"Mommy! Daddy! Are you okay?" Luke's voice came from the speaker, overlapping his sister's in that creepy (but adorable, absolutely fucking adorable!) twin thing they did sometimes.

"Mommy and daddy are doing great you two. Are you behaving for your older sister?"

"Uh-huh! She lets us ride around on her back and we tell everyone what to do! No one will tell us no when we are with big sister!"

I'll fucking bet.

"We have been helping Angie teach the others how to paint! She is a good teacher. She helps us feel!" Luke informed us, and Lucy chimed in as well.

"I painted our house! Come home soon mommy! I want to show you."

Help us feel? What did that mean? I glanced at Tomoko, to see that she was bouncing up and down happily. Jesus...does she do cocaine or something every time I look away? Is she genuinely that happy or is it an act?

"You two are doing very well. Do you feel safe at home without us there, honey?" Tom wanted to know. Good question, I'm glad I married him. One of us had to be smart.

"We hear gun shots sometimes! Last night a truck crashed and exploded in the road! We were scared, but Irma came and lay down around us and the other kids! Then we weren't scared anymore because we know she'll never let anything happen to us! But everyone was yelling and running around. There was an ambulance and dragons were flying everywhere! They were scared like us! We told them they would be okay with our sister!"

What the fuck Stout? You don't think this is something we should know about?

"Hey, Lucy. Put Irma on the phone, will you?"

"Okay, mommy!"

See? That's how I know Stout is full of shit. My fucking kids know one of us from the other!

"Mommy and daddy love you both very much. We will talk to you again tomorrow."

The vast snorting breath of a child of the egg drew nearer to the phone before a voice spoke.

"I am here mom and dad. Luke and Lucy have left, cut the shit, how are you really?"

My daughter!

"Fucking terrified! What's this shit I hear about a fucking VBIED going off on the road leading to our fucking house? What the fuck? Were there casualties? Stout! You motherfucker! Not one word about this to the fucking parents of the children whose house you are at? You fucking empty headed, slime guzzling, blue fucking falcon..."

"Mom! Calm down! None of the children were harmed!" Irma cut me off mid rant. I fell silent, my nostrils flaring on the end of my muzzle. Briefly, my body convulsed, and my hind legs collapsed as I yelped in surprise. Laying on the floor, I ground my teeth as a contraction wracked me. Alex appeared in my right eye and pressed one hand against my cheek and gestured for me to follow his breathing rhythm as he tried to calm me. Closing my eyes, I did my breathing exercise, slowly...I relaxed...as did my children. With my eyes closed, I did not realize that Tom and Alex had changed position until I felt the heavy snuffling breaths of my husband, followed by Alex's hands, exploring the area around my pussy.

My heart rate sped again as I savagely snarled through gritted fangs. "What the fucking fucking fuck are you doing?" Reaching forward with a hind paw I made ready to kick them both across the building. Tom's foreleg caught my paw before I could send his brother and his own head flying.

"Kim, please relax. Something has changed. You are beginning to dilate."

Dilate? No! NO! NOT FUCKING YET! NOT HERE! NOT NOW!

"Oh! Kimmy! Isn't this the best? Oh, I would yield everything to be able to bring life into the world! Isn't it special to create life? I think so! There is simply nothing greater in any world! Oh!" Tomoko came into view and stretched her paw out to rest on my snout as I groaned at her nonsense. "Can I?"

"What?" I moaned, miserable. There was nothing great about this. I wasn't safe here! They weren't safe here! Tom's breathing tickled my nether lips as I felt Alex's fucking hands feel around it. I spied Tyler looking at them and my underbelly and snarled at him.

"What the fuck are you looking at? Never seen a woman's twat before? That eyeful you just got is one hundred fucking dollars. Turn away and then pay up you fucking ankle biting deviant! If my fucking vagina is going to be eye fucked then I expect compensation!"

"WHAT IS HAPPENNING?" Irma's voice roared from the cell phone. The resonating vibrations of the speaker rattling the phone off the table it was on.

"Nothing." I replied, nonchalantly. "We are...we are watching some porno! Yes, that's it. We're watching a video that your father and I made with a kid that is too fucking young to know what he is looking at!"

"MOM! TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON!"

Christ, I raised her too much like me for her to be embarrassed or distracted by something like that.

Suddenly, everything went silent, and a humming blue barrier surrounded me that expanded outwards and forced Alex backwards until it had encompassed Tom as well. Tomoko, Tom, and I had effectively been sealed away from the outside world without a damn bit of warning.

"Please relax Kim. I am telling your daughter what is happening as we speak. This is important for Tom as well. Both of you, bring your heads together where I can reach them."

A dull thudding noise reached my ears and I looked beyond the hazy blue barrier we were behind. Alex, Dan, First Light, and Night Star were pounding various appendages on the shield in a vain attempt to break through it. Alex waved them off and snatched up his assault rifle and began to fire at the blue haze. The bullets disappeared as soon as they struck the shield. Another Tomoko appeared and began to speak to them as their efforts to breach the field trailed off until their attention was completely focused on the clone.

"Come, Tom, Kim. Let me show you something that you never thought possible."

Warily, he brought his head alongside mine, and muttered his concern out of the side of his snout as his nearest eye looked into mine. "Are you okay? I don't know what this, but together we will get through it."

Tomoko smirked "You have no idea how true your words are." And before Tom or I could react, touched each of us on the muzzle.

Darkness swallowed my sight until nothing remained of the universe around me. Frantically, I turned in place to seek some kind of landmark, some kind of touchstone to anchor my awareness to. At least, I thought I had moved. But with no sense of spatial awareness I could have been falling for all I knew. A glow appeared, and grew brighter and brighter, until it resolved into five orbs. One large, and four much tinier, blazes of pure light. The tinier four lacked the eddies and turmoil that roiled the larger. I strained to peer closer and could just make out vague images swirling in the chaotic swirls of light. What was this?

A thought, that I had not given life to, entered my mind. I know it was not mine, because it did not feel, it did not taste, it did not smell, it did not sound, as mine did. This thought, as strange as it was, was as familiar to me as my own. It did not speak. It came, and I knew.

Kim? Is that you? I think so. I think it is you. I, I feel...you are like me, but not me. I...

Tom! It was Tom! I wanted to go towards him to find something familiar in this strange nothingness, but I did not know how. Yearning to touch him, I was surprised when his light drew nearer until it filled my vision completely. The darkness, banished, as Tom's light filled the entirety of my existence. I could hear him gasp, and without knowing how, knew he felt the same.

The life of a soldier slipped through my fingers. The feeling of his hand going limp in my own as I clenched it and yelled at him to stay with me. I remembered the look of terror in his eyes as he felt his own life slipping away. The feeling of failure as I watched his light leave him. I saw as another bled out where he was pinned behind a mud brick wall that crumbled beneath the barrage of deafening gunfire that prevented me from reaching him.

Alex appeared in my vision, looking decades younger. I wrestled hopelessly against him in sibling rivalry, until an irate woman that I had only ever seen pictures of burst through a door to yell at us both.

I remembered the night my mother left my life forever. I remembered the confusion I felt as I clutched the doorframe I hid behind and watched as the phone fell from my father's hand and the world I had known fell apart. How I had toddled to him with my arms raised above my head for comfort. The feeling of his stubble on my cheek, and the tears that fell on my head. How I had cried with him, not even knowing why.

I saw me, wearing the A2CU the first time I had met Tom. The first time we had fucked. I unzipped the uniform of the woman in front of me to feel her breasts as she slammed her hips and lips against my own.

Filling my hand with his hair, I breathed into his ear to prove to me that he was a man.

I clutched a teddy bear against the young boy's pajamas that I wore as my father kissed my mother and they swore their love would be forever.

Twelve months ago. I had packed our children off to see their friends. I had recommended to Tom that we recreate our first meal together as dinner that night.

I had prepared it as Kim had helped me, and I had swept that dinner to the floor with my hand as she grabbed my shirt and ordered me to make her scream my name while straddling me on the dinner table.

I stared at the white device that I had just pissed on with the positive result. I felt my hand run down my stomach to rest on the most important part of who I was. Tom brushed his hand against my cheek to make me look up at him as he smiled reassuringly. I remembered the taste of his lips that morning as the family that we had made with each other grew.

Kim looked at me with love glistening in her eyes even as the pupils elongated into something inhuman.

My body warped and twisted until my spine wagged with emotion as I promised Tom we would never forsake each other. That I would never let her, or our children, face this without me.

Sobbing into her chest, she stroked the back of my head as I relived watching the man I couldn't save die. She promised me that my fight would always be her fight.

I told her that she did the right thing, refusing the orders that had cost her her military career, as all her uncertainty poured out of her before her court martial.

I squared my shoulders and straightened my spine to face the General that demanded I recant my testimony and forget what I saw. I launched myself across the desk to tackle him to the ground and break his jaw. That night, Tom held me and told me how he never could have imagined a stronger woman as I screamed the name of the village that I had refused to allow my company to attack. Only to watch its obliteration seconds later. How I had watched through my gun camera as mothers were turned to ash along with the children they held. How I could smell the roasting flesh from my helicopter cockpit as the orbital energy weapon was unleashed. How every parent's face was mine. How every child's face was Irma's.

I held him, as I felt the thunder of the eggs that she held in our womb.

Our attention fell to the four glittering beacons of light hovering next to us. They floated towards us. We joined. We felt. We knew. They welcomed us, as we welcomed them. Together, we knew our children. Our children... they embraced us, as we held them safe.

".om! ..m! T... to m. he..! T.m K..! Tom! Kim!" Alex's voice came to me brokenly. "W... t.. fuc. ha.. you done to them? Tom! Kim!"

I heard the sound of breaking wood and then a voice using my words "Ow! Motherfucker!" or was it my voice and another's words? Who...who was I? I remember...making Kim pregnant?

"Tom!" there was that voice again. "I felt our children in my womb!"

"Wasn't I the one that was pregnant?" I wondered out loud. "I...there was...something." A piece of lumber crashed into my head, making my eye twitch angrily. What. the. fuck?

"Who the fuck is smacking me with a fucking two by four!" I roared, looking around with eyes that still spun dizzily. I still wasn't sure who I was after whatever the fuck that just was.

I caught sight of Alex throwing the piece of wood he held in his hands behind a table and trying to act innocent. As soon as I knew if I was a human man or a female child of the egg, I was going to rip his fucking arms off!

"I'm sorry Tom and Kim! Joining can be an awfully confusing experience! Especially for you both! A matriarch and her mate! Now you know what it means to be bonded! Now you both know your children! Isn't that awesome? It is important for both parents to know their children! Oh! Aren't you happy? Tom? How does it feel to know what it is like to carry your children? Isn't this exciting? I'm excited for you! Now you don't have to just say how much you love each other! Now you can feel it! Tell them Prometheus!"

Prometheus, enthusiastically for once, affirmed what she had said. "Yes, the bond between a mother, father, and their children is a solemn thing. On the planet that your species hails from, there were elaborate rituals and ceremonies to celebrate the union." He bobbed his head encouragingly as mine and Tom's twisted to look at each other's.

"I felt...I felt..." Tom started, before stopping and rolling over to look at his own belly as he felt it with his tail, looking for what I possessed. "I felt their heartbeats... Kim? I could feel their love for me! I felt them inside me!" He started to cry while rolling back to his paws so that he could creep towards me and lay his head next mine. "It was the most beautiful thing I've ever felt in my life. Kim... to feel those lives grow inside me...to feel their hearts where I can keep them safe and warm as they...they..." My loving husband knew what it felt like to be a mother as I listened to his words failing him. Enraptured, tears leaked steadily from our eyes as the redolence of our emotions suffused the huge room that we were in.

"So that is what having a dick feels like? It felt so weird to have something swinging back and forth like that! No wonder you're always playing with it! Fuck! I'd be terrified of something happening to that! No thank you! I like everything inside where it belongs!"

But he knew me tell well to take the bait, even as everyone else in the room gave me odd looks when I corrupted the pure and heartfelt message Tom was conveying. He had known me well enough to know what I was saying even before our minds had just merged. I didn't want to talk more about what we just experienced in front of strangers, and I was deflecting.

"What the fuck just happened to you two?" Alex persisted in wanting to know. Reasonably enough, even though I didn't want to go into detail. For a lifetime that lasted seconds, there was no Kim, there was no Tom, there was us. I wanted to feel that again, and I knew Tom did as well. But not here, not around others. It was just too intimate. It was...sacred.

Our 'guide' answered for us.

"Bonded pairs share themselves! Normally, they can only feel each other's emotions in vague ways. But Kim is a matriarch and her body is readying itself for the most important thing it will ever do!"

"Riding cowgirl on Tom?" I guessed.

"Kimmy! Making love is a wonderous experience that profoundly deepens the connection between you and your mate. But the most important thing of all though, is the babies! That is what is most important don't you think? All your size, your natural armor, your strength, your empathic abilities! All evolved on a world that was so, so dangerous! So, so scary! I shiver just thinking about it! I helped guide you to open the link that those who were born human will not have yet! You are a matriarch Kim! You are vital to the children of the egg as a species! You, and others like you, can unlock this connection in those that wish to feel it!"

Realization struck me and I gasped in disbelief of what it meant. Shadi...Shadi...

"Oh Kim! You are ever so smart! That is indeed why you saw yourself in such a fragile state. That is why you must appreciate just how strong you were to outlive your mate's death! The broken connection is fatal! If half of a bonded pair dies, soon so will the other! Shadi lives in torment every day. A hole has opened inside of her that cannot be filled by any means! It is a living death!"

"That's...that's..." I stuttered, not knowing what to say.

"That is absolutely fascinating! Who is Shadi?" Tyler exclaimed.

"Kim..." Alex said, distressed at realizing the cause of what he had seen tormenting future me. Chaos erupted as voices began to talk over each from everywhere, including the cell phone in Alex's hand.

"Tomoko. Why the fuck did you do this now? Why complicate what we're doing? Isn't this what you wanted? Reclaiming the lost ones?" Silence fell in the room from all those that were shouting or chirping questions as I asked the most pressing issue at the time. We could deal with being even more alien like than I had thought later. Like tonight, not while we were burning daylight.

"You and Tom are bonded. You will need the enhanced feedback that you share soon in a life and death struggle to save yourselves and others! Scary!"

"If harm is coming for my children you will tell me right the fuck now Tomoko!"

"You, and they will live Kim! I can say nothing more. I'm sorry." She sagged against the ground and bared her neck to me.

Wait...since when had I stopped referring to her as an it? She is a fucking computer program! This is fucking bullshit! It, said nothing about what might happen to Tom, Alex, or anyone else that I cared about!

"Get up Tomoko. I reject your apology."

Its head flew up to look at me as she gasped in alarm. Prometheus' head raised as he gave a startled hiss with his eyes opened wide while Tomoko hurriedly addressed me. "Kim, no! You don't mean that! Please tell me we can still be friends! I want nothing but the best for you, I promise! Just...you can't be you without trials! In the futures where you encounter no hardship you are unwise! Unfeeling for what the cost is! You are a matriarch, Kim! Please! Rejecting me darkens the bright happy future that already so many have died for! Rejecting a child of the egg's repentance is to reject their existence! It is a part of their nature! A part of your nature!" It begged, begged me to acknowledge its apology.

She wailed loudly as the smell of her distress increased. "Please Kim! Bite if you must! I can take it, I promise! Do not cast me from your heart! Without council all is lost!"

She bowed her head again, and I stared down at the tiny shivering neck with its crest raised and trembling with emotional distress. So now I was even more important? Moving goalposts, that's all the explanation I ever got from them seemed to be. A set of moving goalposts that changed distance, direction, and orientation seemingly at random. Sighing, I brushed my teeth against its frail little neck. I could actually feel my teeth twitch as she sagged with relief as I accepted her apology for once more being evasive about what harm lies ahead. In one eye I could see Prometheus' body deflate as the tension left him as well.

I fucking hated how little they were willing to tell me, yet how fucking seriously they emphasized that my willing participation in their scheme was! If they wanted my fucking cooperation, the surest way to get it was to treat me like a mature thinking individual and explain things to me! Holy fucking shit, was it that hard?

Jack latched onto a bit of information that was key to his immediate happiness. Realizing that he was in the presence of creatures that could 'see' the future (even if they were as shifty as a fucking sand dune about revealing what, and when they knew things) he leapt forward to demand the location of his wife and son as I bowed my neck to bring my head around to lay across the back of Tom's. He seemed largely oblivious of what was going on since our merging. His eyes distant as his throat worked to form words that had no sound while tears continued to rain down the sides of his face to soak the carpet beneath his bottom jaw.

Through the bottom of my chin, I felt the rumblings of unvoiced words travelling along the length of Tom's neck. I could even feel some of his emotions, radiating from him at random intervals like prickly quills from a porcupine. Not know what I was doing really, I tried to project a more uniform emotion which seemed to work to some degree as I felt the jabs of his emotional extremes lessen more and more until his mind was a calm ball of white noise.

Having been pregnant three times now, with a total seven children, I guess some of the jaw dropping awe of nurturing new life in my own body had worn off. I didn't even have to fuck him this time to blow his mind, I just had to share with him how amazing it is to be the fairer, much more amazing, half of the species. I guess the exchange was a little lop-sided. He got to learn what it felt like for the hearts of his children to beat inside himself and touch their minds to reassure them of his love, and I learned what it felt like to stick my wick into warm pudding. What a mind fuck! I'm still processing what I experienced as if I was actually him.

"Dad! Mom! Say something! I don't care about Tomoko's explanation! I want to hear your voices!" Irma's voice squawked from the cell phone in Alex's hand. He looked concernedly at his brother, and then up at me. I told him we were good, but he shook his head and walked away briefly to drag the table over to us. Setting down the cell phone, he finished his planning with the fearful smelling Greta while listening as I talked with my daughter.

"I'm here honey. We're good. Just doing a Vulcan mind meld over here. No biggie. Hey! Do you know what it feels like to have a dick?"

"WHAT!" Irma shrieked back at me. "Uncle Alex! Is that really my mom I'm talking to?"

"Yes, Irma. I don't know what happened to her either..."

"I'll tell you what happened to me! Someone tried to break a fucking wood board over my god damned noodle!"

"...the Tomoko here said it established a bond between her and Tom. It gave us some horse shit about how special and super-duper happy it would make them. All I know is, since they've come out of their stupor, Tom said something about being pregnant and has been crying ever since, and Kim keeps mumbling about having a penis. I don't know what's wrong with them right now."

I twitched my hindquarters back and forth with my tail snaking sensuously around behind me, grinding my crotch against the carpet with my legs splayed wide to allow it contact against the lovely textured surface. Did I have a dick? The memory was there, but the feeling was not. First Light and Night Star were curiously sniffing around my hips, and in an embarrassed rush I collected my legs beneath me again so that I could raise my sex away from the teasing fibers rubbing against it. I pushed them away with my tail, cringing as they chirruped about their own adventures.

Fun smell! Your smell, our smell! Fun with smooth tree! Rub, rub, rub! Then, sky know our voices!

Yes! Egg sister first, then me! Warm, big shiver, white light, then sky know Night Star's voice! Good feel! I like, I like!

Interesting, and kinda hot, but not something I needed to know.

There was a bang that jerked me from my thoughts as Dan slammed his head into wall next to the door in a frantic retreat. Probably something he didn't want to know either I thought, listening to the loud discordant singing he was blaring outside to white out what he was hearing. Hell, I didn't know what Tom would do if he had to listen to Irma talk about that, kill himself probably.

"Come home! Right now!"

"We can't, we haven't finished what we have set out to do." I looked at Tomoko, whose indecipherable eyes glinted back at me. "Will we today? Or what?"

"That depends on everyone here Kimmy! Everyone has a part to play, isn't that exciting? There are so many places that she might be! Like hide and seek! Oh, what a fun game that would be if I wasn't me! As you already know she and her son are still alive and waiting for you! Please remember what Shadi told you! Ouchies await!"

Imaginary pain radiated down my chest and wrapped around my shoulder to my side as the memory of that thick ropy bundle of scar tissue appeared in my mind's eye. Yes, ouchies. Nothing like knowing you're due for a good maiming. If that scar was as thick as it was after hundreds of years, I can't imagine how badly I'm going to get laid open in the next few days. Which made me realize that Alex should maybe, probably, definitely, plus up on some heavy-duty stitching material.

"Wait, what?" Jack wanted to know. I gave him a brief rundown on future me and the waxy pale look of impending brain failure ran across his sweaty face. "You...you mean, you from the future warned you that my wife will attack you? But...but why?"

"That's a damn good question." I looked at Tomoko, but she (it, god damnit!) just looked back at me while she wagged her tail happily and gave off encouraging scents. Relaxing, at least, but not very informative. So, I shrugged "If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with your son."

"Mom, focus! How are the eggs?"

"Still in the garage, banging on the door to be let out." I dryly replied as I touched their eager minds. I don't know what they were so spun up about, they'd still be encased in shells for one to two more years from my understanding of the affair.

Curious!

_ _ What the fuck was that? I looked around. No one seemed to be looking directly at me. Who the fuck was that? Did I hear that? Or feel it? What the fuck!

A gust of wind overloaded the microphone of what she was speaking into as she sighed in vexation. "Come home safe Mom, Dad, and Uncle Alex. I love you all. We, love you all."

Finally, Irma's words snapped Tom out of his fugue, or whatever the fuck was wrong with him, and his head stirred from beneath mine.

"Irma?"

"Dad? Dad! Are you okay?"

"We will be with you soon, my daughter. I promise nothing will happen to me...I mean Kim or our babies. Tell Luke and Lucy to listen to you and be safe. I love you."

"I...I love you too dad, when you get home please tell me why you're acting so weird."

"It cannot be told it must be shown." He replied as the connection ended. Amen to that.

"Alex...you remember it's a very good possibility that I'll be injured finding this worm's wife and son, right?"

"Hey!" The worm protested. I didn't know why, but I didn't like the sweaty nervous little man. I liked him a little more later. But not then.

"Yeah, so wha...oh. Oh...Don't worry, Tom showed me a trick for that."

"Oh yeah?" I asked curiously while looking at Tom. He grimaced and bobbed his head.

"Superglue."

"The fuck did you just say? Fucking superglue? You're going to use fucking glue when I get laid open?"

"Well, we don't know that for certain..." Alex, tried to deflect.

"Fuck that! You saw future me! 500 fucking years old, and she still had a scar as thick as a braided rope running down her chest! You can take chances on whether or not you can play tag with a pissed off mother protecting her child! I, am not! Is super glue going to work?"

"Yes." Tom reaffirmed, looking more miserable by the minute at the thought that I could be gushing blood soon. "Although if you are that injured, we are going to need some help to get you back." He looked at the sisters that were cooing to Tomoko how cute they thought she was.

A growl shook the room as Dan's head thrust inside and loomed to look at us with one eye glowing fiercely. The smell of anger, and denial, was thick in the air. Night Star, and First Light looked startled at their father's overwhelming protectiveness.

My daughters are not to leave without me! Absolutely not!

Well, that was out. I wasn't going to argue with someone who looked like he outweighed me by over a thousand kilograms. Plan P it was.

"Get up, you're coming with us." I told Prometheus, waking him up again. All he does is fucking sleep! "If I get gutted like a fish, you're going to help me back. He opened his mouth and yawned at me before creeping outside and falling asleep again once he had nosed past Dan.

"Kim. Our eggs? How are you? You are very close to giving birth. I felt it."

"I'll be fine!" I snapped at my husband. "The sooner we find them the better alright?" No sooner that I said this, than a glazed look came over his eyes and I could sense the feeling of warm hands wrapping around my mind, searching for something. A moment later the sensation was gone, and Tom's eyes reopened.

"Alright."

My scales rippled from snout to tail tip as my uneasy smell filled the air. "I don't know how I feel about what you just did Tom. Don't do it again until we can have some time alone to get a handle on this."

"I only worry about you and our children Kim. I worry that you're being stubborn at the wrong time. Please tell me if something changes."

I rubbed my snout against his and kissed him briefly. "Of course I will, you big wuss."

It took another thirty minutes of preparation but at fucking last we were ready to head out on our search. Tyler stayed with the Perkins and the Robertsons to get his fill of his dragon fantasy or whatever. Tomoko cloned itself once again and climbed onto my back to wrap itself around Alex and Jack in the rebuilt shelter between my wing arms. And I...I drooled thinking about the food I was going to get that my passengers didn't know about yet.

"Where're we going Alex?"

"First point is North by northeast, about 22 degrees."

"I don't have a fucking compass in my eyeball Alex. I know which way is North, that is it."

"Then go NoraaaaaaahhhhhHHH! FUCK KIM! WARN US NEXT TIME!"

Sorry, Alex, can't hear you. The awesomeness of flying is drowning out your pussy ass screaming. I heard a choking noise in the radio wedged against my ear canal, and then the feeling of something wet and fucking gross being smeared by the wind down my flank. MOTHER FUCKER!

"Whichever one of you just fucking puked on me is going to fucking bathe my whole god damned body tonight! With a fucking toothbrush! Every scale!"

A sudden weight appeared on my head, causing it to sink a bit before I could straighten my neck again. Craning my eyes upward I could see Tomoko laying down on my fin with her tail wrapped around my spike.

"Stinky!" She exclaimed. Well, no shit. I didn't want to smell whatever the fuck was dripping from my chest either.

Stay low! Tom called out next to me. We are in the airport's TCA! Prometheus and I both raised our tail tips and wagged them to indicate our understanding.

Keeping just a few tens of meters above the tree level we still got buffeted pretty good as a 737 passed overhead and we flapped into its wash. Lurching up and down as our wings lost and gained lift, I snarled at the feeling of more fluid running down my scales while they bristled to allow me to sense the air currents as they flowed past me. This time, I could feel the fucking vomit run under my scales on to the skin beneath. Fuck! When we get back, Tom is wearing this blasted shit-eating harness.

Do you smell that? Tom asked me, as he drew even with my head. I was more interested in looking at the ground for a meal than the kerosene smell of jet fuel. What, that jet? Smells like burning gas. Just like every other turbine. Do you smell something else?

I smell another male. His nostrils flared, and he swung his head back and forth in search. A big one, older maybe. Maybe another one too, and a female. She...she might be pregnant.

Yeah, sure, great, whatever. Probably the dragons from the mall. Do you see any deer or anything? I didn't care about others at the moment. I was 12 months pregnant and fucking huuuuuuuuuuuuuungry. Hot saliva blew against my scales, reminding me to reel my tongue in. As we flew onwards, we passed over a fallow field where a pair of tractors sat abandoned with flat tires and I could see a herd of pronghorn browsing the dormant grass poking through the snow cover. With a terse warning of "hang on" to my passengers I folded my wings to enter a dive that ended with two does in my front paws. They bleated in terror as I felt them struggle for a certain death in the long fall to the ground below before I clenched my hands and crushed the life out of them both. One disappeared whole into my mouth as I flung my head upwards briefly to let my 'meal' slide down my throat. I bit the other one in half, and tossed the hindquarters to Tom, who was looking at my kill side eyed with hunger.

An hour later, Alex started kicking my spine when I didn't respond to his calls on the radio. Well, I'm fucking sorry if I get bored sometimes and start daydreaming about my children!

"Kim, bear right ten degrees. 1.5 kilometers to the first point."

"Again, Alex! I don't know what fucking ten degrees is without a fucking compass!" I banked slightly to my right and asked him if this was good. He left me nonplussed when he told me for someone that doesn't have a compass that I had a pretty good idea of what a ten-degree shift was. My ears twitched when Tomoko giggled from where she was still laying splayed out annoyingly on my now numb fin. Between her, the harness, and the fucking campsite on my back I couldn't feel half of the sensitive membrane, and the absence of its feedback was a maddening itch that I couldn't dismiss from my mind.

"Hold this heading. 1.3 klicks."

Calling out to the others how close we were, Tom told us to spread out at least two hundred meters apart. I took center with Tom on my right and Prometheus on my left. Up ahead, I could see a metal barn off to the side of a farm field that lay under a frozen covering of snow. As I circled it, I could see the metal roll up door on one end had been ripped from its tracks and lay discarded off to the side. There were no visible tracks in the unblemished snow, however. It may not have been her, but some child of the egg had been here previously. If the door itself wasn't indicative of that, there was no mistaking the four parallel slash marks on the edges of the door frame. Nor the scattering of antlers and frozen hooves that had been pile haphazardly next to a few trees some distance away. As we flew overhead, a coyote looked up at us with part of a leg in its jaws before vanishing into the bushes next to it.

"Someone was here Alex, and Jack. Jack, when was the last snowfall you had here in Boise?"

"A day and half ago. Four inches."

"I'll look first!" I called to Tom. He started to protest, but I was already on the ground and surrounded by a flurry of snow as I folded my wings.

"Both of you. Off! And whichever of you fucking puked on me, find something to clean me off with. This is bullshit! I might be around 40 meters long but that doesn't make me a fucking aircraft! I can feel your sticky weakness on my skin and scales. Do something about it!" I looked back at the shelter as it opened to reveal Alex and Jack. Jack had vomit splattered down the front of his jacket, but I didn't care. He could take his clothes off and wash them, I had vomit on my own fucking body! And I sure as fuck wasn't about to lick that off!

Tom, knowing better than to argue with me, used my temporary distraction to assume the risk that I was, once more, blithely willing to put myself and my children in. Landing between me and the barn as I knelt to unload, he approached it to check it out. I could see that at first he wanted to approach the opening obliquely, likely remembering his combat training. Then he remembered that sneaking up on another child of the egg was likely not a good idea and put himself squarely in view to announce his presence.

My name is Tom. There are two other children of the egg with me, as well as two humans. We mean you no harm, we are looking for a mother and her child. Are they here?

He stopped, and I listened, while Prometheus continued to orbit above us on the lookout for anything unexpected on Tom's orders. No response. But something was here... I could feel a nervousness.

"Tom..." I warned. He bobbed his head.

"I know, I feel it too."

"She's very scared. Scared of what she is. Scared of what you are. Send Alex." Tomoko whispered in my ear.

I looked at her with one suspicious eye. But that was all it would say.

"Tom, Alex. Tomoko is telling me that whoever is in there is a scared female. Scared of what she has become, scared of us, she says for you to go in first Alex. It is up to you."

"Will she attack?" Alex wanted to know. Even if we all knew that he would do what he had to regardless.

"Maybe, maybe not. Isn't that what makes this so exciting?"

I wasn't impressed. "If you're not going to tell us everything, why tell us anything?"

"It was not any more information than what you can already sense." Tomoko said cheerily.

"You fucking suck. Get off, I want you to go in there with Alex."

"But...violence does not work against me, Kim!"

"I know. But you have taken the form of a baby. And children of the egg do not harm babies. I want you in front of my brother-in-law."

Tomoko smirked at me, as if I had just validated my intelligence once again. These fucking aliens are the worst.

Tom backed up to where I stood, his tail sweeping the ground behind him with agitated strokes. He twisted his head to look anxiously at his brother.

"Alex, if anything was to happen to you..."

"It won't." He said confidently. "Besides, it will be worth the risk if we can keep others safe. No more Me Twos. No more Cyndi Cromwells. Whoever that is in there won't be safe when this farmer finds what happened to his storage barn."

"I'll be right here, Alex. Just say the word." Tom lowered his head, and trapped Alex with a paw to hug him against his snout to tell him to be safe. I could feel his reluctance to let his brother walk into danger. Tomoko took her place at Alex's side and they approached the darkened void though the open door.

"My name is Alex. What is your name? I am here with my brother and my sister-in-law. Can you please tell me your name? Is it okay if I come inside?"

There was still no answer. But the nervousness grew alarmingly as fear began to spike through the emotion.

"Alex." Tom said. "Stand to one side. She's growing even more afraid. Don't get in her away of an escape."

Looking at Alex's back, something finally occurred to me when I saw the nylon strap running over his shoulder.

"Alex, you dumbass, ditch the rifle. That won't do you any good against a child of the egg anyway."

"Oh shit. Right." He exclaimed, as I rolled my eyes, dropping the AR15 in the snow next to him. He needed to be beat in the head with it later. That's not how you treat something that could save your fucking life!

Some of the panicky energy coming from the barn abated, and I crouched to the ground just as Tom did when we could feel whoever it was come nearer. I hissed a warning at Alex, and he froze. Immediately afterwards, the tip of a snout appeared as the young (ish) female came out far enough for her head to appear. She licked her nose as her narrowed orange eyes flashed to each of us and upwards at Prometheus several times before she spoke.

"Doooooooyuknowwwwhaaaahappnedtooooomeeeee?"

"Yes." Alex replied. Tom and I fidgeted at her distress, wanting to comfort her. Seeing our movements, she jumped backwards out of view. It wasn't until we had crept back another fifty meters or so and then curled around each other on the ground did she reemerge. Even from that distance our raised heads and ears were still more than enough to hear the conversation.

"WhataaaaamIiiiiii?"

"Have you been out here by yourself this whole time? Have you seen others like them?" He pointed back at us. "Like...you?"

The unnamed female screamed painfully before jerking as she did something unseen. Pressing Alex, she repeated her question. "WhataaamIii?"

"You're, you're a child of the egg now. That is what the aliens who have done this to you call what you have become. You're a dragon."

"Not want!" She wailed and jerked again. I could hear something wet plopping to the ground. As the wind shifted, I could smell blood. Tom and I shared an uneasy look.

"Alex." Tom called to his brother. The female retreated into her darkened harbor as she was left with Tomoko. The alien did not engage with her, and instead sat down on its haunches to cock her head inquisitively at the dark interior that the younger female retreated into.

"We think she's cutting herself." Tom explained.

"Then we absolutely cannot leave here without her. As a doctor, I say no fucking way!" Alex declared, while trying to brush the snow off the cold steel of the rifle he had callously dropped.

Absolutely god damned fucking right, I thought. This girl needed help. Immediately. Searching for the others could wait.

"She can probably hear us right now." I told him, even if we were almost 60 meters away. "Sooooooooooo, get her!" I yelled, reacting to the sound of her scales moving against themselves as I spun and jumped to tackle her midair as she shot out of the opening to try to launch away from us.

Tom joined me in the struggle to hold the whip thin and furiously writhing teenager as she screeched to let her go. Bile rose in my throat and I gagged with horror at the sight of her. Open wounds, some decimeters deep, were carved into her body everywhere she could reach with her own talons. Bare spots where her scales had been scraped away revealed bloody open sores and lesions beneath. Her tail tip and some portion of her tail had been gnawed off, leaving behind a sickening stump of crusted blood that oozed even as I watched it flail in her struggle. Blood flew as Tomoko pushed Alex away as he tried to rush forward to help us and to fulfill his duty as a doctor. Blood flew and spattered all over our own scales as her deafening cries continued unabated. It was a struggle to hold her and not to cause her any further injury. We could have attacked her, and beaten her into submission, but that was an option that would only be a last resort. Only when Prometheus finally became convinced that we couldn't safely subdue her on our own and landed on her to pin her beneath his far greater bulk were we able to relax. A moment too soon, as it turned out when things went sideways once more.

"Leeeetmeeeee goooo! Iiiii neeeed toooo punish self! Iiiiiii monster!" Her frantic struggle ceased to allow her to reach her head down and begin to bite at her own paw. Before Tom could pin her neck to the ground, she had broken through the scales on her palm and had drawn fresh blood that dribbled on the snow, soiling it with the dark liquid.

Sitting on her convulsing hindquarters and tail. I looked at Tom. A thought passed between us and he looked down at the teenager. Bringing both his forearms together he grasped her neck and felt with the fingers beneath his claws until he could sense the thundering pulse of her great heart. Pushing inwards on the twin points, he shut off blood flow until her eyes dimmed and then closed as she collapsed.

Releasing her, Tom and I yelled at the same time for our brother. "ALEX!"

...