Jade Armor

I don't know when it really began. I only found out why at the end. But, I do remember when I became aware of it.

They say you aren't really paranoid if they actually are out to get you. Which sounds entirely paranoid, of course.

In my business, you have to be.

Oh, no, I'm no "spook" working for a government agency. I don't work "undercover". Just underground.

Like a handful of high level physicists and technology experts, I worked for the government from time to time on various projects.

Becuase of this, I was used to being followed by smartly dressed young men in dark sunglasses in cars with darkly tinted windows.

They never did seem to grasp the concept that this made them easy to identify. Which was also the whole point. You never knew which old lady on the corner or old man reading a newspaper on a park bench was the real operative watching you.

They told me this made it easier for their agents to identify foreign agents by watching the pattern of behavior of the people around me. Oh, didn't you follow that? They weren't there to keep tabs on me. Well, yes, but not as jailors. They were there to make sure I didn’t fall into the hands of some rival superpower.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was not so "valuable" that I warranted such monitoring at all times. Only when I was asked to work on a project like the Free Electron Laser with Warm Fusion Reactor power source. That device packs a several terawatt beam into something that can be mounted on almost any weapons platform the armed forces can field and can punch holes in anything the other superpowers can put into use.

But, since I wasn't working on anything valuable or militarily useful, why were there smartly dressed people with little white coiled wire earpieces and dark glasses following me?

I made a surreptitious phone call to a special number and said "Ground Hog Day". The voice on the other end said "It will be Spring, shortly." Which meant I had no shadow from the government. Someone else was following me. I replied, "I feel a chill in the air." That should alert them to what I was seeing.

I finished my coffee and bagel, got up and left the diner.

One thing the real "spooks" had taught me was not to react to my shadows. So I headed to work at the lab where the most interesting puzzle was identifying a piece of plastic like material I had been given.

The material was jade green and even looked a bit like jade. Thin and unbelievably hard. It was a composite that would be *very* useful. It was difficult to analyze, but not too extreme and looked simple to make.

When I arrived at the lab to examine the piece of plastic, it was gone and in its place was a manila envelope with "MEMO" written across the front. The sheet said "The sample material has been returned to its original owner and you will need to complete examinations on site."

Oh, great, more field trips. At least this was a university and not a public museum.

I packed up some of the gear I’d need to complete my tests and left for the address on the memo. This happened a lot. The life of a scientist involved with shady, sometimes secret, most often trivial scientific investigation for the government can be nothing but drudgery, at times.

I sometimes wish it were all like the movies. Secret Agent and all that silliness. Fortunately, it’s usually long boring hours punctuated by the occasional "Eureka!" moments.

When I arrived at my destination I noticed my new shadows had followed me. This was not a good sign. I hurried into the building and went to the suite listed on the memo. The key provided opened the door and I hurried inside. And my shadows, I also noticed, were following me.

This was getting bad. I had to make another call. When I flipped open my cell phone, I noticed it now said "No Service.". Very bad. Maybe the phone on the table? No luck there, either.

They were jamming cell phones and following me into the building. It was a kidnap setup, just as I had been warned about. I was told that if I could not avoid such a trap I was to either hide, or surrender.

Well, being the stubborn sort, I decided to hide. But, where? I looked around the room.

Closets, not a good idea. Too easy. Large coffin like crate. Also not a good idea. Then I noticed the armor.

Armor of a distinct and unusual style. It had jade green panels and gold colored metal armatures. All with a distinctly draconian appearance. What made me forget, for just a second, about the shadows were the jade green panels. They were what I had been given a sample of to examine!

I looked at the black mannequin I could just make out inside the armor and remembered the room next to this one was labeled "Theatrical Supplies." I had an idea.

I went into the next room and a little searching turned up black theatrical makeup. Perfect! I hurried back to the armor.

I removed the armor from the mannequin and stuffed it into my clothes and placed it into the large coffin like crate careful to make sure a piece of my coat was caught in the lid.

I then put the makeup on and doffed the armor. I could hold very still due to some theatrical training I had had in my college days and hoped.

Minutes later, my shadows showed up. Four of them, guns drawn. I kept my eyes slitted and watched them look into the room. One of them saw the jacket corner on the crate lid and motioned to the others. They came into the room and approached the crate.

Two of them grabbed the crate handles while a third dogged the latches. My alter ego was thoroughly trapped. Hah!. So far, so good.

I almost lost it when the female shadow turned and looked in my direction and I saw my reflection in her silvered sun glasses. Or, rather, my lack of a reflection. I looked across the room at a mirror that was mounted there.. and saw a similar lack of reflection where I knew I was.

The armor was somehow bending light around me. Impossible, but, there it was.

I was almost home free when the two shadows carrying the crate dropped it trying to get it through the door and the mannequin popped out.

I was so rattled I forgot to try and not be seen. They looked at each other for a moment and then one that had been looking in my direction pointed and shouted "There he is!"

I turned and started running for the exit when one pulled his gun and shot at me. Three shots hit the armor and instead of bouncing off sort of fell off as if all the momentum had been absorbed.

The exit was locked, but it was too late to stop running so I poured on the coals hopping to break the door down. If this armor could absorb impact the way it did with the bullet, I might make it.

I slammed into the door and the whole of the door and its frame came down in a heap. I leaped over the frame and kept running. I was a block away when the realization I had leaped 20 feet through the air and was running faster than the cars on the street parallel to the alley I was running down dawned on me.

This armor had to be some sort of nanotechnology the likes of which only the writers of the Iron Man comic could have dreamt up.

I decided to put it to use.

I concentrated on not being seen and ran back to where the shadows had been. They were getting back into their SUVs and were leaving. Two were following in my footsteps in the direction I had run when I escaped them and a third was heading toward the city.

I decided to follow the third. That might lead me to the people trying to kidnap me. I hoped. What I would do when I confronted them, I did not know.

It was quite exhilarating to be running at 60 miles per hour and not even feel the effort. I puzzled over what power source this armor used, but got nowhere. No matter, I could still use it.

When the SUV stopped, it was in the Chinatown district of the city. I didn’t know any Chinese, but decided to follow them anyway. As I walked along behind them I wished I knew enough mandarin so I could tell what they were talking about.

That was when another ability the armor gave me kicked in. At first it was a word here and there, but, then it was whole sentences I was understanding. And the signs as well. I was able to read them, too.

That was when I began to wonder if this armor was even from this planet. This was way too far beyond known technology, nano or otherwise.

The shadows went into a very well appointed house in the wealthiest part of the Chinatown district and into the office of a striking woman of Chinese ancestry. She had that classic beauty that many an artist had put brush to canvas about over the centuries.

The leader of this particular pack of shadows said to her "I am sorry, Mistress Lee, but the scientist has put on some sort of armor and has done things you see only in those awful kung Fu movies. He has escaped us for the moment, but Griegson and James are following."

Instead of being angry at her henchman, "Mistress Lee" clapped her hands and laughed, saying "Oh! Marvelous. Just as I had planned!"

I started to sweat a bit at that as she dismissed her henchman. She had planned on my wearing the armor?

She opened her desk and removed a red crystal mounted on an ornate metal base and a book of obvious antiquity but also as well preserved as the armor. The red crystal started to glow with a red light.

She smiled, looked up and said "You may stop hiding yourself, Mr. Adler. I am aware you are here."

I dropped out of stealth and she clapped her hands and laughed again saying "Marvelous. Simply marvelous!"

"Would you mind explaining all this? The attempted kidnapping. The elaborate ruse to get me to wear this armor. What, am I a test subject?" I asked.

"Oh, my, yes. Indeed you are. Before we found this," she pointed at the crystal, "we had tried a few test subjects and they were killed instantly and horribly. This crystal found you for us and you are the first to wear the armor and live."

I flipped open the book and flipped through the pages. She looked on and said, "Yes. That is the manual for the armor and details how it may be used, but the language is obscure and much older than mandarin or common. We have not been able to translate it fully yet."

"And you think I’m going to leave this with someone with unknown and possibly hostile intent?" I asked.

"Oh, we will have no need to fear you will take the armor.", she said "That black makeup you put on was laced with a contact poison that will be taking your life any moment. We have other subjects in our employ that we can use it with. Now, please remove the armor and I will give you the antidote. Refuse and I will wait for you to die."

I smiled and thought a symbol and said a word I had read from the manual, which was perfectly clear to me and said "Alright." I removed the armor and placed the pieces on the table.

She said "Good. Here is the antidote." and handed me a vial of yellow liquid to drink.

I stepped back and she said "What did you say earlier?"

I smiled and pointed at the armor and said "Neither of us will have the armor, it seems."

The armor was busy crumbling into sparkly dust. She turned to me, her face furious and yelled "I will have you killed for this!"

Before she could yell for her henchmen, I felt a pain unlike any I had ever felt before and let out a groan and collapsed to the floor.

She stopped and looked surprised for a second, then said "Ah, I see I will not need to have you killed after all. It is too late and the poison is taking your life."

I looked up at her and before I could say anything the pain became a sea of white and everything grew blurry. I was vaguely aware she was screaming and my limbs were swelling and my back and neck were pure agony. The room seemed to be getting smaller, too.

When I could see again, I was looking down at her from closer to the ceiling than when I was walking upright. When I tried to stand up, my head hit the ceiling and I felt a strange pain in my back, but not my back. Almost as if my arms had hit something. Which was weird since my hands were right there on the floor. Green scaled and clawed.

Green scaled and clawed ?!?

I craned my head around and was dizzied for a second as my point of view swung further around that it would have before. I caught sight of her cowering by her desk and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind her.

I was a dragon. A living breathing dragon! Green scales, golden eyes and claws and wings!

I felt an incredible sense of wellbeing and sensed many new things. This form was somehow right. I understood it and how it worked as if I had been born to it.

"Well, Mistress Lee, it seems the self destruct command was a bit more than a simple self destruct command. It seems the dragon that had made that armor intended to return to his true form one day. But, let me guess, you killed the previous owner, didn’t you?" I asked.

"Yes.." she squeaked from around her hands.

"Ha, ha, ha.." I chuckled. "He was no threat to you. Not the least interested in worldly politics. So, you killed him to steal his armor into which he had poured his shape and powers so he could explore what it was to be human. How do I know this? The armor let me understand his journal."

"Now," I continued, "I have his shape and powers and," I leaned closer to her face "I am well aware of your brand of politics and am inclined to meddle. I’d advise you to play nice from now on."

I stood and called upon my new abilities and faded into a cloud of smoke and said to the terrified woman "I will be watching." as I left.

My old life was over. I could not go back. Ahead were days of learning what it was to be a dragon and a new quest to find the others of my new race. My life had changed utterly, but adventure was still a big part of it.

The difference was, now I looked forward to each new days adventures.

~end