The Vigilante & The Dragon - Book 1 of the Guardians Saga [COMPLETED]

Enter the Dragon...Brothers Ch. 2.2

NBR CHAPTER

Hello NBR Reviewers! Welcome and thanks for reading! The story so far...

Alex is a super-powered human with brain damage so she doesn't remember her past. She rescued Gabe, an alien  draconic humanoid and was forced to take him to her apartment. His brothers, Cale and Rile, don't know what happened to him and tracked him to the alley where he had been ambushed [and subsequently rescued by Alex]. They found Gabe's sword and a radiation badge and headed back to their temporary home on Earth.

***

Cale and Rile met with Dr. Dewey on the first floor of the narrow building behind his larger antebellum home in the Garden District of New Orleans. In the heyday of the South, the narrow building housed horses and a carriage on the first floor and servants on the second floor. Now savvy homeowners turned them into income producing apartments behind their own homes. Dr. Dewey, owner of the carriage house and the brothers' landlord, turned the badge over. He was the only human that the brothers trusted.

"This is a radiation badge, worn by workers in labs and hospitals to measure their exposure to radiation," he said.

"What's radiation?" Cale asked.

"Who cares? Where's this one from?" Rile asked.

"They're standard issue. I can't make out the name, but this looks like the Tulane University symbol." Dr. Dewey pointed at the dirty, cracked face of the badge.

"We want to watch this." Rile shoved the security camera and laptop to Dr. Dewey. "It's from the alley where we found Gabe's sword."

Dr. Dewey, tolerant of Rile's brusqueness, opened the laptop and figured out how to play the video. They saw a strange female attack Gabe with a strange, flaring, energy.

"I didn't know Tulane had super-powered humans." Rile broke the silence.

"They don't," Dr. Dewey said.

"We'll search from the alley to the Tulane University labs. Dr. Dewey, can you help us enter Tulane?" Cale asked.

"I have my electronic ID to my neurobiology lab, but there are a dozen other labs, not to mention the main animal care facility, and the medical school labs. I don't have clearance for those. I'm sure none of them have anything to do with super-powered humans," Dr. Dewey said. "I can take you, but what about the security cameras at the doors? My doctoral candidate is out of town and it's Sunday, but there is always some student or another about. How can you keep from being seen?"

"We'll push our disguising ability to the limits," Cale said. "We have the caps of baseball that you gave us to wear."

"Hurry up." Rile strode out. "We've wasted too much time. We'll start from the alley and track to the Tulane University labs."

*****

Alex adjusted the dirt brown and burnt orange afghan warming both her and Gabe. "It looked like a mugging. You were outnumbered two to one," she explained.

"You could have been killed. You risked your life for a stranger?" Gabe asked.

"They couldn't hurt me with those tranquilizer guns. Even being shot with a real gun doesn't hurt that much unless it hits bone," Alex said with unconcern. "Who were they?"

"I don't know, but I suspect they were from a laboratory." Gabe traced the bruise on her cheek. "Did they do that to you?"

Alex was surprised she wanted to lean into the gentle touch, but wariness won out and instead she said, "I was overconfident. You might be right about the lab."