Opening the lunch box, he ignored the generous slabs of assorted meats that set his stomach rumbling... ham, chicken, beef and lamb. Moving aside all the fruit, he delved beneath the selection of different flavoured sticks of charcoal and pulled out something that was the size of a squash ball, wrapped entirely in silver foil. Carefully he placed it amongst the tools on his workbench and sat back, studying the item, which both terrified and excited him in equal measure. Moments later, he got up from his chair and walked across to the furthest point from the door until he stood in front of a tall, blue, metallic cylinder that rose up from the ground, stopping at about his waist height. The top of the cylinder was flat and about 20 inches in diameter. Troubled by what he was about to do, he shook his head, knowing that he had absolutely no choice. Reaching out with his mind until he found the tiniest of hidden switches deep inside the cylinder, he flicked it to the 'on' position and shuffled back just a little. Instantly a circular hole appeared in the flat surface, the slightest of hums reverberating from inside, the delicate movement of air sending shivers along his wing membranes. Again he stretched out with his mind, and on finding a microscopic keypad hidden far below, entered a particular twenty digit number. A buzz replaced the hum as the movement of air changed slightly. Suddenly, as if by magic, a sparkling ball, the size of a football, shot out from the pitch black hole and just hovered in the air, a few inches above it, slowly rotating. Even though he'd done this a thousand times before, he stood in awe for a few seconds as the laminium ball hovered, seemingly of its own accord, before him.
Briefly he recalled the first time he'd ever seen this process... some ninety or so years ago. Cautiously he moved the ball over to his workbench, before he sat down and double checked that it was the right ball, for the right match... this was very important, or so he'd been told. After confirming that it was, he set to work, counting on no one else being around for some time, because of the stupidly early hour. He'd been turning up for work in the early hours of the morning over the last three weeks or so. The first few times, the King's Guards on duty were a little wary, but he'd spun them a story about having trouble sleeping, the pressure of making sure the balls for all the big matches were perfect and mumbled stuff about 'being a perfectionist', all of which seemed to do the trick. After that, the guards barely gave him a second glance, and tonight, well... he might as well have been invisible, or on duty with them. Figuring he'd be good for four or five hours before anyone else who worked in this room arrived, that was more than enough time to perform the deed he'd been tasked with. Switching on the tiny lamp on his desk, he selected the narrowest, most powerful laser scalpel from the perfectly arranged tools... and got to work. Steam rose as the delicate red laser beam of the scalpel gradually worked its way through the outer layer of the laminium ball in almost complete silence. If anyone had arrived, they would have seen an artisan craftsdragon at work. But they didn't and he was left undisturbed for all the time he needed and beyond. Long before all the other workshop users arrived, he'd planted the device inside the laminium ball in such a way that not even the most detailed inspection of the ball would show that it had been tampered with.
'Tampered... that's funny,' he thought to himself as he munched through a huge slab of beef. 'More like... pampered,' he told himself. That's right... he'd pampered the ball, much in the same way he did on a regular basis. That was part of his job... to pamper all the balls, and check they were perfect for the matches. At least now his wife would be safe, he told himself, as he tore off another hunk of beef. Having done what he'd been asked to do, now it was over. He told himself this, over and over again, all morning and all afternoon. By the end of the day, when his desk was packed up and he was exiting the building with all the other dragon workers, he'd almost totally forgotten about the dreadful deed that he'd done. It was to him... nothing to worry about.
16
A Monopoly On Magic
Over the next week Peter tried to get in touch with Richie, but she had booked some time off work and, so far, he hadn't been able to contact her at home or on her mobile phone. Reluctantly he decided his best plan of action was just to give his friend all the time and space she so clearly desired. So with this in mind, he focused his attention on his day job and the protection of Cropptech.
Used to coming home and chilling out, his evenings had become busier than he could remember; with Richie deliberately avoiding them, Peter and Tank, joined by Flash, had taken to having a get together a couple of times a week... just to try out some human games. And, unsurprisingly, they had found it immense fun. With it being awkward for Flash to bring anyone back to the king's private residence, the evenings had been hosted alternately at Peter and Tank's houses. The first night at Tank's house was supposed to have been an evening of playing darts. Tank had purchased a board and three sets of darts. However, the evening hadn't quite panned out as planned. With the board hung carefully on the far wall of the rugby playing dragon's living room, the three started off from the correct distance away and BAM... the correct score every time. Even trying not to use their dragon abilities, the three were just too good and every throw scored exactly what they needed to get, whether it was 180, or treble 16. It was, for them... just too easy. Whoever started each match won it, just because they were first to throw. So after an hour or so, they all agreed on Flash's idea of moving back a little further than would perhaps be the norm. By the end of the evening, the board had been moved onto a different wall, one visible from the far end of the kitchen, nearly forty feet away from where the three friends were now standing to throw their arrows. This proved much more of a challenge for the three of them, but even from this distance, their accuracy had still been surprisingly good. After that came an evening of cards at Peter's house, the three trying all the card games they could... but still, with each having a very high intellect, it was difficult to separate the winners and the losers. Calculating odds and percentages was basic dragon maths taught in the third year of every nursery ring... so the card games were frighteningly easy for all three of them. Some adjustment was needed again, just like with the darts, and the friends eventually settled on using four decks of cards in the games that they were playing. They all had fun, but agreed that other avenues in the way of human pastimes needed to be explored.
Tank chose chess for their next gaming event to be held at his house. At first it seemed like a wise choice, but once again it went pretty much the same way as on the other occasions. It was almost impossible to separate the dragons intellectually and after four and a half hours, only two games had been played... both ending in stalemate.
Tonight it was Peter's turn to host his friends and he was sure he'd found a classic game that would not only offer them something different, but would also throw a large dollop of luck into the mix, which even dragons can't fully account for. Tonight's game was... Monopoly! After overhearing two of his hockey teammates talking about a particularly ill tempered, drunken game of Monopoly that they'd taken part in, Peter had done a little research about the game, and had no hesitation in going out and buying a set. Although there now appeared to be a huge choice of different versions, eventually he'd decided to go for the classic one, a set that was now laid out in the middle of his living room floor, along with two huge trays... one full of drinks, the other overflowing with food. Right on cue, the tiniest of clicks resounded out from the corner of the room, before the shiny piano began to glide silently across the floor, uncovering a small hole through which the sound of footsteps on metal could just be made out. From out of the darkness a smiling face appeared, albeit covered in a few nasty bruises and the makings of a very serious black eye.