A door slid open with a hiss at the side of the room opposite the glass cylinder. I looked to you and you looked to Tuesday.
"What are you looking at me for? Go on in so I can start running these tests," she said.
And so began a near whole hour of me standing then sitting, then lying in an empty, white room. When Tuesday said she had to run some basic tests on me to get the data for my dragon ID card I thought it would be really interesting with a metal helmet with lots of cords coming out of it, or maybe some stick-on sensors or something.
No. It was nothing like that.
It was just waiting around in a white room. What was even more annoying was that I could still hear the two of you talking outside but couldn't say anything myself. There were so many questions I wanted to ask…
Ring…
Ring…
It was soft, real soft, but I was sure that it was the sound of small bells chiming. I opened my eyes and looked in the direction the ringing was coming from, but of course I saw nothing, just a white wall.
Where was the sound coming from?
There was something both charming and sinister about the sound, both clarifying and terrifying and the longer it went on, the more uneasy I felt.
I stood and went to the door and nudged it with my nose.
"Just give me one more minute…" I heard Tuesday over the speakers. "…Okay, we're done, you can come out now."
The door slid open, and I went out, but just as I did, the bell chimes stopped.
Just to be sure, I ducked my head back into the room again, but the bell didn't sound there either.
How odd.
"Alright?" you asked, coming up beside and also looking into the room.
I gave a purring sound that I hope sounded ambiguous enough to express my feelings.
"That place is a clean room. There's nothing in there," said Tuesday from across the way as she sat at her computer. "If you want to see something interesting, then come see the results."
"Interesting?" you asked.
I snaked behind as you went over to Tuesday and her computer. The jiaoren was already tapping away furiously and there were so many different things moving and popping up on each screen that I honestly couldn't say what she was doing. Was she a super hacker or something?
She waved a hand then pointed at the screen to her left. "I was right," she said. Both you and I leaned in to look.
"About what?" you asked.
"About your dragon being an absolute weirdo!"
I gave a dissatisfied snort. If anyone was a weirdo, it was the half-human half-fish person!
You patted me comfortingly. "What's so weird?"
Tuesday pressed a few keys and the small window she was looking at suddenly jumped onto one of the other screens and enlarged itself to reveal a colourful pie chart. No, not a pie chart. It was one of those stat wheels you sometimes get in jRPGs or dating games with different stats like Strength or Charisma in each corner and colour in the middle to indicate power level.
Except Tuesday's stat wheel was different. It was completely blue.
If I'd been human, I would have asked but seeing as I wasn't, I had to rely on you to ask. Thankfully you didn't let me down.
"What's wrong with your chart?" you asked. "Where are the numbers?"
Tuesday brought her hand down hard on the table in response. "Nothing's wrong with my chart! It's your dragon that's got a problem."
She spun around in her chair with her eyes wide and I started to wonder if she was in fact maybe excited and not furious. Sometimes these sciencey types get some wires crossed in their heads.
"One hundred percent!" she said in a loud whisper, pointing at me. "He's got one hundred percent resonance with all five elements."
"What? You mean…"
"One hundred percent."
My patience was running thin, but I could at least grasp that… I was special? Gosh, even now that sounds really conceited to say.
I nudged you and whistled in the back of my throat. I had half a mind to grab my clothes and duck back into the storage room to transform back.
"Dragon's are special," you said, "even among magical creatures, but even then, they usually only resonate strongly with one, sometimes two elements."
"And those two elements are usually closely related anyway," added Tuesday.
"Exactly."
"I need to do another test," muttered Tuesday, biting a nail. "There has to be something wrong with the sensor crystals… But I just had them changed last week."
"Doing another test or not is up to Misha," you said, "but I think we can believe the results of this test."
Both Tuesday and I turned to look at you. I don't think of myself as especially special, even now, so I was rather inclined to agree with Tuesday and assume there was something wrong with the equipment (at least that's what I think she was getting at).
"Dragons, Asian dragons, are strongly associated with water, that's a given," you said as you put a hand under my jaw. "For fire, well, cooking is all about being able to control and understand fire, and you're good at doing that."
"He's good at cooking?" cut in Tuesday.
"Very good," you replied. "Even Helen says so."
Tuesday gave a whistle. "I need to invite myself over some time," I heard her say in a whisper that I think was supposed to be a thought instead.
"For earth…" you went on, "Ah, you never get lost." You turned to Tuesday. "Right now, where we live is an absolute maze, but he just knows how to get places."
"Your place is a maze?" asked a confused Tuesday.
"And as for metal and wood… Hmm, I'm not so sure about those, but I'm sure you have skills in those areas that we just haven't realised yet."
Silence enveloped the room. The lights around the windows had dimmed and there wasn't a jiaoren to be seen. Was it nighttime on the surface? Had everyone gone home already? Around us I could hear the muffled 'woosh woosh' of air filters and other things hidden away in the walls and even the distant breath of the inland sea.
Then it came again, that sound of a ringing bell.
My head snapped around and my ears immediately trained onto the sound.
There it was again.
"What's wrong?" you asked.
Even if I'd had a mouth that could talk, I wouldn't have known what to say, so instead I padded over to the door of Tuesday's office, slid it open with my teeth, then stuck my head out.
The hallway was empty and even here the lights seemed dimmer than before. Or were my eyes just more sensitive when I was in my dragon form?
"Bran," called Tuesday. "You're the expert on the Western style four elements. Come look at this chart."
"I'm not an expert…" you grumbled. I heard you go back over to Tuesday and her computer and I would have gone too - that reading I'd manage to do on herbalism from your books had mentioned the four elements and I was curious to try to apply that knowledge - but I couldn't tear myself away from the door.
I couldn't describe it, but I knew something was wrong.
"See? They're all maxed out here too," I heard Tuesday say.
"That makes sense," you replied. "When it comes to Air-"
I didn't get to find out what you wanted to say about me and Air because the lights inside the room suddenly went out. The dismayed shout from inside the room told me that Tuesday's computer had also suffered the same fate.
"Did you save your data?" you asked.
Tuesday's strangled garble was a clarifying reply.
I turned and went back into the room, trotting quickly over to you. "I know," you said to me as you pulled your sword out of its case.
"Oh my god… Wait, where are you two going?" Tuesday asked as we passed through the door. "The backup power will come on in a minute. It's fine."
"And if it doesn't?" you asked.
Tuesday got up and came to the door with us. "It will," she said testily. "This is the South Sea Department, not some illegal underwater settlement. There are backups to the backups, just wait and-"
The bell chimed again.
I felt the fur all down my back rise and I stepped a little in front of you, just in case.
"What's that sound?" you asked, then you put a hand to my neck. "Is that what you've been hearing?"
I nodded and continued to stare intently down the hallway.
A minute came and went, as did another, and another, and still the lights remained off.
The backup of the backup wasn't coming online.