Lost Change

Chapter 10

...my headache was gone.

The pounding that had been a constant companion for as far back as I had been able to remember was now simply gone. It was like a switch had been flipped - before the dance, there had been pain. Now the pain was no more.

I directed my thoughts towards the encyclopedia, trying to understand what had happened, but all I got was vague images of eggs and impressions of low temperatures. That wasn't much of an answer. Unless...

Was it?

In that lab, when I was in the egg, I hadn't gotten all the warmth that my body must have needed. Maybe my headache had been a result of that. Something that hadn't quite developed as much as it had been supposed to, something that wasn't quite done growing when I woke up and began taxing the new nerves. The Morning Song must have given my brain the last little push I had needed, like all the times I had flipped the last remaining switch to start electricity properly flowing through a building I had finished wiring.

I blinked.

My eyes widened.

I remembered.

I remembered everything - or at least, as close to everything as I thought there could be. There were parts I had to focus on and think about, but it all came to me now if I did. I remembered being the oldest of three children, with parents in the military... in the... Air Force. I saw how my family had moved from city to city, and had sent me to different schools. And how they had pushed me into various after-school activities when one parent was deployed overseas and the other had to work, then pushed me into helping take care of my younger sisters once I had grown older.

Memories came to mind of being fascinated by the storms that would happen in one of the smaller cities we had lived in, somewhere in a desert formed behind some tall mountains. Nights where I would stay up late at night to watch majestic banks of clouds roll over the dark sky, not releasing a single drop of water into the parched land below them... then lighting up the quiet night with bursts of lightning that arced brilliantly from cloud to cloud. I recalled the feeling of hairs standing on end from the distant energy, still tangible even from so far above me, and the distant booming sounds of thunder rolling down to me, then echoing off the far-away mountains.

The same interest in the idea of lightning welled back up in me as I sat in the overgrown yard. I no longer had hair that could stand on end or skin that could form into goosebumps, but I could still feel a faint desire to look up at the sky and see dark clouds above me, with powerful arcs of pure energy zipping between them. It had been a fascination for me, an obsession, one that I had developed into a passion for working with electricity. Knowledge came flooding back from all the books I had read to learn about that power, and from all the tinkering I had done with spare parts I scrounged from school, or that my parents brought home from work.

I remembered high school. I heard echoes of conversations with my parents from long ago, of my gradual decision to join the Air Force as a technician. I once again felt the anticipation, the excitement at knowing I would soon learn how to power the world around me...

And I remembered the shock I had felt one day when I came home to find my mother crying. Knowing deep down what it had meant. I recalled the feeling of hugging her as she told me that my father would not be coming home. Felt the sinking realization all over again that the time I had said goodbye to him, a few months before that day, was the last memory that I or my sisters would ever have of him.

I once again experienced the mixture of disappointment and relief on my mother's face when I decided not to join the military. I felt the mixture of pride and loss at the memory of saying goodbye to a close friend I had made in the last few years of high school when he went away to become a doctor. I felt the sense of accomplishment and the sense of frustration from the time I had worked for a car mechanic while I paid my way through college. I felt the elation of graduating near the top of my class, and the excitement at joining a contract company for electrical work of larger businesses.

I felt the warm happiness all over again at the memory of the close friend from high school reuniting with me one day, and the curiosity as he suggested a job for me. Remembered easily passing the unusually high security clearance with all my records in order from living on military bases as a child. Recalled moving into a nice house with the salary, and of years happily helping a grumpy older man maintain the power in an unusually secretive facility.

Memories came back to me of chatting with my childhood friend when our breaks lined up. The times I had mentioned how the building reminded me of a military base, or a government facility, and saying how odd it was that a civilian would be hired for such a thing. Other memories came with those, of my friend's repeated emphasis that it was important I never tell anyone that there was even the possibility of a government link to the building, and of how his normally happy demeanor became uncharacteristically grave and serious any time I brought it up.

I remembered the day I was escorted by guards to repair some damage in the most secure floor of the facility, a floor I had never been allowed to go to before. That memory was fresher, clearer. I recalled helping the older man rewire a bundle of heavy duty power cords in a room that had quite clearly been hurriedly emptied. And of how I had thought how unusual it was that the cords had been so cleanly severed, despite being so thick, but in a way no knife I was familiar with could ever have managed.

I lifted the tiny hand of my dragonet body and stared at the razor sharp claws I saw there, and thought of how easily it seemed they could slice through even heavy power cables.

And... I remembered hearing strange noises from the room next door. Animal noises that belonged to no creature I had ever heard of. Something like a bird, but too different to really be a bird. I once again felt that same overwhelming curiosity. I remembered the guard taking a break... remembered the senior electrician being distracted with wrapping electrical tape around the new wires we had run through the wall...

I remembered opening the door and finding my friend Alex, in the middle of drawing blood from a creature that I knew did not exist.

I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming, but the rest of the memory continued to play out in my head. The guard had grabbed me from behind. The older man had argued with Alex and the guard, and had tried to defend me. Had insisted that I not be harmed, or else. Then there had been a long time spent in a dark room, and questions that made no sense.

Some stranger had told me to go home and wait while they decided what to do, and I had said goodbye to the grumpy senior electrician. I had seen that sad look in his eyes, like he was worried he wouldn't ever see me again. I had walked to my car in a daze, wondering what I had just seen...

My memories showed me how my car had stalled only a few streets away. Of how I had walked to a repair shop to try and get the parts to fix it.

Of how I had been grabbed by people I had been too confused and lost in my thoughts to notice, and of how I had been stuffed in a moving truck while I was too surprised to react.

I let my head droop as I finally understood what had been done to me. And by who.

And I remembered my name.

Nate.