"You're smiling," Alexandra observed as they walked toward the prep room.

  "Bahamut's an ass."

  That got her attention. "What?"

  "Clotheslined me with his wing this morning. On purpose." Kai shook his head, grin still there despite himself. "Felt him thinking about it through the Protocol. Fifty-ton weapons platform discovering practical jokes."

  "Dragons don't have a sense of humor."

  "Mine does. And it's terrible." But Kai was still smiling. The dragon had been so pleased with himself—like a cat knocking things off tables just to watch them fall. "Stood there for a solid minute with his wing across my path. Waiting to see if I'd duck under or walk around."

  "What did you do?"

  "Walked into it. Wasn't giving him the satisfaction." Kai rubbed his shoulder. "He thought that was even funnier."

  Alexandra's lips twitched. Almost a smile. Then it faded.

  "Must be nice," she said quietly. "Having that kind of connection."

  Kai heard what she wasn't saying. The longing underneath the analysis.

  "You'll find it," he said. "With Tiamat, or—"

  "I'm not you, Clutch. I can't just... feel my way into these things."

  Her spine stayed straight, gaze forward. But Kai caught the reflection in her eyes—hurt, hidden but there.

  He shifted topics. Pushing her right now wouldn't help.

  "What do you think they're gonna say?" Kai gestured ahead toward the prep room. They'd agreed to warn everyone about the backdoors, the risks. What might happen if Command decided to shut down the program. "When we tell them?"

  "I hope they're strong enough to handle it." Alexandra's voice went clinical. Professional armor going up. "Warning them about backdoors could poison their Synthesis attempts. Paranoia creates neural interference. That's what worries me."

  "So we don't tell them?"

  "I didn't say that." She stopped outside the prep room door. Met his eyes. "I'm saying there's a non-zero chance we're about to sabotage them."

  Kai remembered Bahamut's first test. The dragon pushing at his boundaries. He'd held the line because it felt , not because he'd calculated odds. If he'd been worrying about surveillance tech, about someone watching through the bond?

  He'd have frozen. The paranoia would've killed it.

  But hiding the truth felt wrong too.

  "We tell them," Kai said. Simple. Final. "Their call after that."

  Alexandra studied him for three heartbeats. "And I hope we're not making a mistake."

  She opened the door.

  They found Thorne already in the prep room, his back to them, speaking to Anya in a low, furious tone.

  "...a spectacular breach of protocol, Silas. You're lucky your scores are what they are."

  He turned, noticing Kai and Alexandra. His glare encompassed them all.

  "Get it done. And from now on, you follow the chain of command."

  He stalked out, the door hissing shut behind him. The room felt several degrees colder.

  Anya was sitting in front of a personal terminal. Chase leaned against the wall by the window, arms crossed, watching the Cradle below.

  They both looked up when Kai and Alexandra entered.

  "Clutch." Anya's smile was nervous but genuine. "Poison. Sorry you had to hear that."

  "Don't worry about it." Kai moved into the room, positioning himself where he could see everyone. "We need to talk. Before Synthesis."

  Chase's expression sharpened. "Let me guess. We are in danger."

  "We have found geometric structures in the bonded dragons' minds," Alexandra said. "Unknown origin. We think they are potentially hostile."

  "You think." Chase pushed off the wall. "You don't know."

  "We know they appeared after Synthesis. We know they're networked to something external…"

  "And you want us to what? Back out?" Chase's smile was sharp. "Some of us don't need perfect information before we act, Poison."

  The call sign landed like a slap. Alexandra's jaw tightened.

  "Easy, Viper." Kai stepped between them, one hand up toward Chase, a barrier. His other hand gestured Alexandra back half a step. "We think you should know what you're walking into. Your call after that."

  Anya's hand had frozen on her diagnostic display. "Why hostile?"

  "We know they're networked to something external.” Alexandra said. “We know they use quantum-entangled relay architecture."

  “Someone can spy on us through our own dragons." Kai added.

  The room went quiet except for the faint hum of ventilation systems.

  "I'm still bonding," she said quietly.

  Chase laughed, sharp, humorless. "Of course we are."

  "If there's a backdoor," Anya continued, not looking at him, "I'd rather have it in my dragon, where I can monitor it from inside the bond, than leave it in a dragon bonded to someone less... observant." She met Kai's eyes. "If there is a threat, I want to be there, to contain it."

  She'd made the same calculation he would have. Take the risk to limit the danger.

  "Anya," Alexandra asked. "Is there anything you know about the backdoors?"

  "I have been in the project from the start," Anya said. "There was never a mention of these… devices." Her hand trembled slightly on the edge of the console. "But..."

  "Yes?" Anya leaned forward.

  "After the three candidates died, Admiral Pohl authorized safety packages. A defense contractor…” Anya searched for data in her console. “Here. Hardin-Zim. They installed them. The information was… is classified. I don’t know what’s in them."

  Chase made a dismissive gesture.

  "Viper?" Kai asked. "You know something?"

  “Look.” He looked at Kai. “I don’t buy your conspiracy thing…”

  “But.” Alexandra replied.

  Chase looked at her, eyes narrowed for a second. “But… There is a rumor in the sector. Admiral Pohl hates the MAGI, and anything that smells artificial. One person even swears she doesn’t use Humanware.”

  "That's not…" Anya started.

  A general notification interrupted her.

  > SYNTHESIS PROCEDURE: ANYA/APOPHIS UNIT

  > FINAL COUNTDOWN: 09:59

  “I have to go, guys.” She closed her console and started gathering her things. “Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need luck, Anya.” Chase smiled with his classic confidence. “Just grab the dragon by the horns and keep a steady hand.”

  "I would never do that." Anya frowned, kind but serious, as she left.

  The door closed behind her.

  Chase watched her go. "She's got guts. Walking into that Cradle without being a pilot..."

  "Thorne said it wasn’t a requirement," Alexandra said quietly.

  "Yeah." Chase pushed off the wall. "Guess we'll see."

  He left too for his own Synthesis prep.

  Kai and Alexandra stood alone in the prep room.

  "She's going to succeed," Alexandra said.

  "How do you know?"

  "Because she's not trying to control it. She's offering herself. Completely open. No defenses." Alexandra's fingers moved across her datapad automatically, pulling up Anya's psychological profile, bonding strategy projections. "It's optimal for a dragon like Apophis. Openness. Vulnerability. Trust."

  "Can you do that?"

  Alexandra's hands stilled on the display.

  For a moment, Kai thought she'd answer. Then she closed the datapad.

  "I should get to observation. Document Anya's Synthesis."

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  "That's not what I asked."

  "You won’t always get answers with me." She moved toward the door. Paused. "Are you watching Chase's attempt?"

  "Someone should."

  "In case he needs help?"

  "In case he needs a friend."

  Alexandra's expression was unreadable. "Your loyalty's going to get you killed, Clutch. You know that?"

  "Probably."

  She smiled. "See you in observation."

  The observation deck overlooked the Cradle chambers, medical bays converted into bonding stations, each one housing a pod large enough for a human body, surrounded by neural interface equipment and monitoring systems that hummed with constant activity.

  Kai stood at the window. Below, Anya had entered Cradle 3 forty minutes ago. Medical techs moved around her with practiced efficiency, but the real action was internal. Invisible.

  The screen in the Cradle monitored her interactions with Apophis. Her mind showed multiple nervous attempts, constant, almost monotonous.

  Beside him, Alexandra watched monitors. "Neural integration climbing. Forty-seven percent... fifty-three... sixty-one..."

  Then the numbers stopped. Sixty-four percent. Blinking. Not moving.

  "She's stuck," Alexandra said. "Apophis is waiting for something."

  Kai was focused on the screen showing Anya’s mind. The graphic showed angular shapes, a rough spiky blob spiking constantly. But then, one spike softened. Then another. A soft hum came from Anya’s vitals.

  Kai remembered. Anya was singing.

  Then, the Dragon started singing back.

  Kai heard it through the monitors, a low, resonant frequency rising from the Cradle chamber. One of the graphics showed it clearly: Apophis's consciousness softening. The mathematical precision blurring. Alien curiosity becoming engagement.

  Kai laughed.

  "What?" Alexandra looked up from her monitors. "What's happening?"

  "They're bonding over pop music."

  "That's not, neural integration doesn't work like…" Alexandra pulled up more displays, matching frequencies. "Are they... singing?"

  "Apophis likes Ariadne." Kai grinned. "Specifically 'Maze.' Anya's got him hooked."

  "That's..."

  "New. Yeah." Kai was watching the Synthesis screen now, the call and response. Anya's voice and Apophis's harmonic. Not synchronizing. Complementing. Like two instruments finding harmony.

  The melody was sticky. Kai shook his head. "Gonna be stuck in my head all day. Hate you, Anya."

  > DESIGNATION: ANYA | APOPHIS UNIT

  > NEW STATUS: SYNTHESIS ACHIEVED

  "She did it." Kai's voice came out rough. He could still feel her in the network, solid now, permanent. A new node in the constellation.

  Beside him, Alexandra stared at her monitors with something unreadable in her expression.

  "She just felt her way through," Alexandra said quietly.

  Something raw in her voice.

  "Poison…"

  "I need to document this properly." She stood, already pulling up more analysis screens. "If I can isolate the harmonic frequencies, model the integration patterns—"

  "You saw what she did."

  Alexandra stopped.

  "She didn't do anything special," Kai said. "She just... was. Herself. No performance. No strategy."

  "I know." Barely audible.

  "Can you do that? Let go? Just be?"

  For a long moment, she didn't answer. Then: "I don't know how to stop analyzing, Clutch. My brain doesn't work like hers. I can't just... feel my way through. But I think I can…"

  "Solve it?"

  "Yes." Defensive. "Is that so wrong? Using the tools I have?"

  Before Kai could answer, his Humanware pinged:

  > SYNTHESIS PROCEDURE: VIPER/TIAMAT UNIT

  > FINAL COUNTDOWN: 09:59

  Chase was going in.

  "I should go," Alexandra said. "Document this in the lab."

  Kai watched her leave. That familiar tension in her shoulders. That scent of sadness following her.

  Chase stood beside the Cradle, running final equipment checks with the focused intensity he brought to every pre-flight routine.

  Kai approached quietly. "Viper."

  Chase glanced up. "Clutch. Come to cheer for me?"

  "Come to be here."

  Chase's expression softened a bit. "Heard Anya succeeded, fast and clean. She set a high bar."

  "It's not a competition."

  "Everything's a competition." Chase sealed his prep suit, checked the neural interface ports at the base of his skull.

  "Viper." Kai chose his words carefully. "Bahamut didn't bond with me because I was the best. He bonded with me because I stopped trying to prove anything."

  "Yeah, well." Chase climbed into the Cradle, settled into the harness. "You're you. I'm me. Different approaches."

  The medical team moved in, attaching monitoring nodes, calibrating systems. Chase submitted to their efficiency with practiced patience. He kept clenching and releasing his hands.

  "Good luck," Kai said.

  "Don't need luck." Chase's smile was genuine this time. "Got skill."

  The Cradle closed around him.

  Kai moved to the observation position, close enough to intervene if needed, far enough to give the process space. Through the reinforced glass, he watched the medical readouts initialize.

  His Humanware connected to the monitoring feed:

  > NEURAL BRIDGE INITIATING

  > ESTABLISHING CONNECTION TO TIAMAT UNIT

  > STANDBY...

  The neural interface activated.

  Kai watched the monitors register the changes. Chase's presence bloomed in his awareness, sharp, focused, competitive. And then, like a tidal wave rolling in, Tiamat's consciousness joined the network.

  The dragon's mind was different. Tiamat was precise. A consciousness built of perfect angles and calculated force. “Contact in 3… 2… 1…” One of the operators announced.

  Tiamat testing Chase.

  The Dragon released a set of organized touch points. Chase made contact.

  The monitors showed neural integration climbing: 15%... 23%... 34%...

  Then it stopped at 36%. The number blinked, without changing.

  Kai scanned the screens of the Cradle, looking for clues. Chase was answering all Tiamat's touch points. But one graphic glowed red, not green. One Tiamat’s probe had resistance. Then another.

  Kai wanted to scream.

  Tiamat's consciousness, which had been testing, probing, seeking, went still.

  Not thoughtful stillness. Final stillness.

  The dragon had made a decision.

  "No," Kai breathed.

  The medical alarms shrieked.

  On the monitors, Chase's neural activity spiked into catastrophic territory. His body convulsed in the Cradle, back arching against restraints, hands clawing at nothing.

  The 36% shifted to 24%, then 15%, then 0%. Rejection.

  Tiamat was withdrawing. Completely. Absolutely. The dragon's consciousness pulling away from Chase's with the finality of a door slamming shut. All that neural connection energy, all that bond potential, reflecting back into Chase with nowhere to go.

  Kai staggered. The cold numbers displayed on the wall were almost violent.

  Chase screamed.

  "Emergency disconnect!" The lead medical tech's voice was sharp with alarm. "Initiating now!"

  The Cradle's safety systems activated. Neural interface forcibly severed. Restraints released.

  Chase fell out of the harness, hit the deck hard, and Kai was moving before conscious thought, through the door, across the chamber floor, sliding to his knees beside…

  Blood on Chase's lips. Bitten tongue.

  His eyes were open but unfocused, pupils blown wide, chest heaving with ragged breaths.

  "Viper!" Kai's hands hovered, unsure where to touch that wouldn't cause more pain. "Chase, can you hear me?"

  No response. Just that terrible, vacant stare.

  Kai's jaw clenched. Chase wasn't perfect, but he was pack. Watching him get dismissed like he was nothing…

  That burned.

  "Step back!" One of the medics pushed at Kai's shoulder. "We've got him. We need to get him to medical."

  Kai stood. Stepped back. Watched them swarm Chase with stretchers and emergency equipment.

  Then the facility-wide alarms started. Red lights flashing everywhere.

  > CONTAINMENT BREACH

  > DRAGON UNIT TIAMAT HAS BREACHED THE PERIMETER

  The screens shifted, no longer showing Chase's vitals. Cameras showing Tiamat. Free. Moving through the facility.

  Kai was already running.

  “There is a Dragon inside!” Someone screamed.

  People panicked and ran away. He ran towards the breach.

  Through corridors already strobing with emergency lights, past marines scrambling to defensive positions, following the growing sense of Tiamat's presence through the network.

  He expected carnage.

  He found the dragon walking calmly through the facility's main corridors. Four tons of scaled metal and predatory intelligence. Wings folded but still large enough to scrape walls, trash lights, crush furniture. Each footstep cracked deck plating.

  One man was paralyzed, standing next to the wall. Tiamat walked as if it wasn’t there. The dragon wasn't attacking anyone.

  Tiamat grunted. The sound crawled the corridors.

  "All personnel, shelter in place," Thorne's voice echoed through facility speakers. "Dragon containment breach. Repeat, shelter in place. Security teams to…"

  Tiamat kept walking in the center of the passage, wrecking walls with the strength of its wings, footsteps too heavy for the floor. Marines had weapons raised but looked uncertain. The dragon wasn't threatening anyone. Just walking. Head tilted slightly. Listening to something only it could hear.

  "Stand down," Kai ordered.

  Through his Humanware, Thorne's voice: "Clutch, report."

  "Tiamat's not aggressive," Kai said. "Sir, trust me on this. Let it play out."

  "I’m watching the screens. What is it doing?"

  Kai took the time to observe Tiamat's presence carefully. The dragon's movements were still alien, precise, but he could feel intention. It paused.

  "Not sure. But it's not hostile."

  Tiamat's head turned. The dragon stared down the corridor toward the Research Section, where the labs were located. And started walking down.

  "Oh." Kai's gut tingled with recognition.

  The dragon started walking. Each step deliberate, calculated, unstoppable. Like watching big storm swells roll into Neo Jakarta harbor, patient, powerful, inevitable.

  You didn't fight them. You positioned yourself right and rode the momentum.

  Kai followed. "Everyone hold position. Do not engage."

  The path was familiar. The hunch solidified.

  Lab 1. Where Alexandra had been holed up, trying to solve her way to a bond.

  The dragon was going to force the issue.

  The dragon stopped outside Lab 1.

  Through the reinforced windows, Kai could see Alexandra surrounded by holoscreens, walking, recording her thoughts. She wasn’t working on the backdoors. There were multiple bonding approaches around a Tiamat hologram, organized by probability matrices, color-coded by risk assessment, annotated with success predictors.

  She'd been analyzing while Anya succeeded and Chase failed. Trying to solve the problem.

  The dragon pushed the door with its head. Metal groaned. The door opened.

  Alexandra turned. Saw Tiamat.

  For one frozen moment, they stared at each other.

  Tiamat stood motionless except for a low hum resonating from deep in its chest.

  Behind Kai, one of the marines whispered, "Sir, it's going to attack her." Kai hushed him.

  Kai watched Alexandra's face. Saw her trying to solve this. Even now. Even with four tons of dragon staring at her. Her hand moved toward her datapad, reaching for calculations, frameworks, solutions.

  Tiamat's head shook. Growing frustration.

  Kai looked at Alexandra. Her struggle to find a way to solve the puzzle, even with a new piece in front of her.

  She couldn't just... be.

  Kai noticed Tiamat's head shaking with growing frustration. One thought crossed Kai’s mind: The dragon saw what it wanted, a brilliant tactical mind, precise and mathematical, but couldn't connect because that mind wouldn't stop working long enough to just exist.

  They were perfect for each other.

  And perfectly unable to bond.

  Kai made a choice.

  Same instinct as dropping into a big wave, you committed before you knew if you'd make it.

  He sent her a message through the Humanware connection.

  Inside the lab, Alexandra's head snapped toward the observation window where Kai stood.

  Their eyes met through two layers of reinforced glass and thirty meters of space.

  And then something broke.

  Her knees hit the floor. The datapad fell from her hand, clattered across lab floor.

  Her voice broke the silence, muffled but clear: "I’m sorry…”

  “You are here, and I… can’t. I don’t know how. I don’t...”

  Tears crossed her face.

  “I just…”

  “Be with me. Please.”

  Four tons of metallic muscle moved forward choosing its path with terrible deliberation. Slowly but unstoppable. Walking with the same quiet, relentless purpose it had shown in the corridor.

  The metal shrieked. The walls cracked. The roof buckled. Screens crushed under folded wings.

  Alexandra didn't move. Stayed on her knees, looking up at the dragon with something raw and unguarded in her expression.

  "Be with me." she whispered. "Come."

  For three heartbeats, nothing moved. The only sound was the drip of coolant from a severed line and the low, resonant hum emanating from Tiamat's core. The dragon's great head, larger than Alexandra's torso, hovered inches from her raised palm, eyes fixed on this small, brilliant, broken human.

  Alexandra raised her palm higher.

  With infinite care, Tiamat pressed forward.

  Contact was soft.

  Her fingers touched the cool, scaled plate. Her eyes fluttered shut.

  > DESIGNATION: POISON | TIAMAT UNIT

  > NEW STATUS: RESONANCE BOND

  The bond had snapped into place like a circuit completing.

  Kai smiled and signaled to the marines. "Give them space. Let's move."

  He turned to head for Medical Bay. To check on Chase. To figure out what the hell just happened with the pulse synchronization.

  His Humanware pinged:

  > GHOST | TANIWHA UNIT STATUS: CONSCIOUS

  Sanyog was awake.

  "Clutch."

  Sanyog was sitting up in his recovery bed in the Medical Bay, eyes open for the first time since Synthesis. But his eyes weren't quite right, they had a distance to them, like he was seeing multiple places simultaneously.

  Kai had come as soon as he was notified that Sanyog had awakened from the coma.

  "Ghost. How are you holding it?" He looked at the drawings on the wall. The nurse had found Sanyog sketching the strange drawings. Kai knew what it was.

  “Can’t take my mind out of it. It’s there, in Taniwha’s mind. On my own.” Sanyog's voice had a harmonic echo, like two minds sharing one throat. His eyes weren't quite focused on Kai, but on something in the middle distance. "You've seen them. The geometries in the dark."

  “The big ugly pulse.” Kai proposed.

  “Yes. Yes!” For a second, Sanyog lost his eternal calm.

  "I don’t know what it is." Sanyog said. "But Taniwha fears it. Like leashes."

  "I have the hunch we're about to find out." Kai said.