Dragon's Keeper (Book 1 in the Dragon Hunters Trilogy)

Chapter 2: Getting Settled

Getting Settled

I stood in front of the seated soldiers as the General placed his elbows on the podium and leaned forward, “You have quite a history Hans Sanders.  We dug up enough medical records to fill a dragon cell.” 

He hit a button on the podium and a screen slid down behind him, lighting up with my picture and dozens of record files.  My photo was from my driver’s license, and as per usual my blond hair was a mess and I had my trademark smirk twisting the left side of my mouth.  My green eyes held a hidden laughter and my thin chin strap I called a beard was just barely visible.

The General glanced back at me after looking over his shoulder at the data, “Do you have a death wish or just like to feel how your body breaks?  From what we can see you’ve broken almost half of your bones at one point or other, some of them look to have been broken several times over the years.”  He narrowed in on me with his eyes, “You are a very brave or very stupid young man, and I think that is exactly what this organization needs.  I have spoken with the other commanders and we all agree that your lack of fear around the dragons could be of use to us.  So, you are being assigned a new identity and will be tasked as the organization’s first dragon keeper.  Your duties so far only include feeding the dragons and cleaning out their cells, but I’m sure we’ll find more for you to do as we go.” 

He waved a hand to include the people seated below him, “These people are now your only family and your only responsibility.  You will follow any order given to you so long as it does not interfere with a previous order and you will follow all of our regulations to the letter.  From this point on you will be known as Agent DK1 and will reside within the confines of the base.  Any moves to leave without authorization will warrant immediate termination.”  His gaze took on that hard light again, “Am I understood Agent DK1?”

I nodded, throwing a salute as best as I could.  The guards had been kind enough to re-cuff me in front to easy my slight discomfort.  “Crystal Sir.”

He nodded and lifted his gavel, “Then this meeting shall conclude and you will be escorted to your new lodgings.  Meeting adjourned.”  He smacked the gavel and everyone stood in a mass before exiting out several doors along the sides of the seating.

I was tapped on the shoulder and I looked behind me to see a woman with short black hair and ice blue eyes.  She looked slightly Asian in appearance, but I guessed the blood had been thinned by a few generations.  She didn’t have much of an expression, but from what I could see in her eyes her back story was not something I was going to hear any time soon.  She jerked her head and spoke in a clipped voice as she undid the cuffs, “This way.  I’ll give you the basic tour while the techs get your room set up.”

I nodded as we walked back out the way I had come in, and we walked down several hallways before we entered what I assumed to be the central hub of the base.  The room had to be half a mile wide and perfectly circular around the edge.  There was a central spire that ran up the middle and four walkways that ran out from it to connect with the level we were standing on.  Below the spire and walkways, the room sank like a giant bowl until it bottomed out about a hundred feet below us.  A circular block rose up about thirty feet in the center of the pit, directly under the platform the spire ended at.  People were walking around with purpose in their steps, but from what I could see there wasn’t much going on at the bottom of the pit.