The inside of the dome was air conditioned, thank god. There was a lot to look at, but at the same time, wasn't much. The inside of the dome was enormous, however, most of where you could go was spiral hallways around a giant glass tube that stretched down into the earth. I could see through one side, but not out the other, telling me it was a two way mirror. Morningstar led me down into the depths of the dome. The hallways down here were black steel and smooth grey concrete. They had a fresh, never before walked in smell and everything seem to have just recently gone up. Morningstar led me down to a small locker room where he handed me a set of white clothes.

"Change into these", he said, "when you turn, there are places that sit over where your wings and tail will come in that will rip to accommodate them."

"Okay I guess", I said as Morningstar left the room. I sat down on one of the benches that was set between the two rows of lockers and changed out of what I had on and into the lab clothes. They were rather loose fitting and if it wasn't for the front buttons and the elastic, they wouldn't have fit at all. Once I was changed, I rapped on the door and Morningstar came back in.

"Are you sure you want to do this Josh?", he asked, "once you step inside that room, there is no going back, this isn't something you should just dive into and if you want to walk away, you can."

"No, I'm not sure", I laughed nervously, "but hell, I've never made a good decision in my life, so let's do this."

"Very well", Morningstar said.

We walked down the hallway about 30 feet before we came to a huge vault door. Morningstar pulled it open and walked me inside. It was a giant glass tube with a metal grate for a ceiling and a floor. The floor grate had a giant, slowly spinning fan, while the top was vents.

"The Serum will be pumped into the room", Morningstar said, "it won't take long to take effect, are you ready?"

"Let's do this", I said nervously.

Morningstar smiled at me and then looked up, making a motion with his hand. A red light high up the tube began to flash and I could hear what sounded like electric motors spinning up. Morningstar stepped out and closed the door behind him as a green vapor started to come into the room. My heart started thumping in my chest as I realized the gravity of the choices' I'd made. I was in it to win it now. There was absolutely no going back. Slowly but surely, the vapor settled down to my level. I had my head in it for maybe two seconds before my vision started to get fuzzy. The next thing I knew, my head was spinning and my knees gave out. I fell down and on my back, the last thing I saw was swirling fans and green mist as everything faded out.

When I woke up, I felt like I was sick. I was sprawled out on my back, looking up at the ceiling which had green water dripping from it, liquefied serum by my guess. My head was pounding and I had very little feeling in my body. With what I had, I felt...taller and skinnier. My heart was still thumping in my chest and it hurt to breathe. My ribs felt like they were going to cave in, my legs and arms were jelly and my eyes stung when they met the air. I was sweat soaked and covered in some sticky substance that was all over my face and clothes. I brought my hand to my face to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. When my hand met my face, I felt what I thought was a snout that seemed to be about six inches or so long, My hand, when my vision cleared up, I could see had five, white scaled, seemingly bloody fingers that were tipped with claws that seemed razor sharp. The white and the red fluid traced all the way down my arm and disappeared under my shirt sleeve. Managing to sit up, I saw that my legs had changed too. They still had the same bone structure as far as I could tell, but they were a lot skinnier than they had been. Also, between my legs, was a long, blood covered tail that looked like it was about four or five feet long. Managing to sit up, I noticed that my back felt heavy, when I looked behind me, I found two huge, 20 foot long wings that were the same mix of white scales and body fluid that the rest of me was. When I looked off to the side, I could see my reflection in the glass. Pure, crystal white eyes with a stilted, midnight black pupil, two, one and a half foot long horns that rose almost directly out of my head. Ears that I would relate to a German Shepard or a wolf and a crest that hid the base of my ears and horns.

Even though this was slightly scary, it was also badass as hell. Even with the blood covering me I still looked awesome, I couldn't help but smile at myself.

"I think it worked", I said taking a deep breath.

"Looks like it did", Morningstar's voice came from behind me, "you gave us a scare, we thought you weren't gonna make it. Sure had Carlos worried."

"How did I", I started but quickly stopped myself, "no, I don't wanna know, I'll sleep better at night."

Morningstar laughed, "suit yourself, you been KO on that floor a couple of days, but we didn't wanna move you because we were worried we might kill you."

"With all the blood around I can see why", I weakly laughed, "so what comes next?"

"For starters", Morningstar said, "the doctors want to look at you and make sure everything is working, but before that, your new name."

"Say what?", I asked turning around to face him.

"Your name", Morningstar said, "you have to change it, seeing as how your not the same person who walked in here anymore. New Body, New Life, New Name."

"You stole that shit from SIW", I smiled through a sigh.

Morningstar grinned, "caught that did you? Regardless of where it came from, it applies, once you pick it, you can't change, and you need a first, code name and last."

"Okay", I said as I started to think. The first place my mind went was a story I'd written a while ago, "for a first name I want Ace and for a last I want Kyloth."

"And for a code?", he asked.

"Deuce", I said, "one of the characters from my favorite shooter."

"Cool", Morningstar said, "now follow me, the doctors wanna look you over."

"Help me up", I said, "I don't think I can stand on my own."

Morningstar helped me up. I was wobbly at first, but once I got my balance back, I was able to walk on my own. I found as we walked down the hall that my wings tucked themselves tightly against my back and that they were like an extra set of arms, at least as far as movement was concerned. Morningstar walked me to a small clinic where two doctors were waiting for us. One was an older Chinese guy and one seemed as though he were Korean. They were both short, bald guys and seemed like they had been working for the army for a long time.

"Who do we have here General sir?", the Korean man asked.

"Ace Kyloth", Morningstar said, "I want you guys to give a basic once over and make sure the serum didn't screw anything up, I gotta go get the second recruit from the second area, make sure he's done by the time I get back here."

With that, Morningstar left and shut the door behind him.

"Let's begin shall we?", the Chinese man said motioning to a table, "please hop up, this won't take long if you cooperate."

I wasn't sure I liked those words. I had always hated going to the doctors, and when I felt like they were going to far I started resisting. If they were telling me upfront to cooperate then I figured they intended to go pretty far. I sighed and jumped up on the table as the Korean man handed me a piece of metal.

"Put that over your right eye", he said, "I'm gonna read off some letters on a chart, and there gonna get smaller and smaller until you can't see them anymore."

He walked to the back of the room as I put the piece of metal over my eye. He pointed to the letters and I said them. "A, G, K, O, P, I, G, T, U, M, W, Y", after y, they got so small and contrasted I couldn't read them anymore.

"I can't see them anymore", I said.

"That's a good sign then", he said, "switch eyes, were gonna do the same thing again."

He pointed to the same letters again and I rattled them off as fast as I could. The sooner this was over the better. Declaring my vision was perfect, he moved on to listening to my heart beat and breathing, saying that was perfect before moving to testing the joints in my legs and arms as well as my wings. They took weight and height as well. I now stood at exactly 6'5, which was an improvement and weight 436 pounds. I didn't understand how I had put on almost 250 pounds, and was still skinny as a twig, made no sense to me. After that, I thought that was the end of it, Until the Korean doctor told me to undress. I told him to fuck off, then he told me that I couldn't leave here until everything was done or the people who ran the project, minus Morningstar, would have all three of our heads. We played the standoff game for at least 10 minutes before I finally gave up and complied.

Had I know what they were going to do to me, I would have been out that motherfucking window. You think that someone breathing down your neck is invasion of personal space? Trade places with me. The last examination lasted ten minutes and I'd never felt more embarrassed in my life. You thought the dreams at being at school in your underwear were bad. Shiite, try having two 50 some guys....you know...fuck it, you get the picture. Point is that I got invaded. When it was finally over, I was allowed to sit up and get dressed. Instead of the blood stained lab uniform, the doctors brought me a set of multi cam combat fatigues that had a short sleeve jacket, long pants, tan boots, boxer shorts and a tank top as well as a short sleeve shirt. I opted to skip the tank top as I put everything on and the doctors brought a set of what what to be 60 needles over to me.

"Wasn't that last bit enough?", I sighed, still feeling the poking, prodding and pulling, "how many shots you gonna give me?"

"These are shots and they aren't", the Korean man said, "there dyes that let you change your body colors from the white you change with to something a little more personal."

"How many colors are there?", I asked.

"2 million different combinations", He said.

"Wow", I said.

The doctor handed me a thick book that said "Color Codes". Given the size of that thing, I assumed it had to have all 2 million combinations. I sat there looking through the book for about ten minutes before I reached my decisions.

"I want Liquid Tan for my main body", I said, "Liquid silver for my chest, under tail and wing membranes. Smoky grey for my horns and claws and Liquid Glass blue for my eyes."

"Odd colors", the doctor said mixing a few liquids into three syringes, "Hold still Ace, these gotta go in certain areas."

The doctor gave me one of the shots in my arm, one in my neck and the last one? Had to go in underneath my eye. You see that shit in movies, and it's not actually that bad, does it hurt? Hell yes it hurts, but it's not the KO you painful that you'd think. The Korean doctor told me to wait a few hours for it to take effect, that I should shower at about 5PM and that they dyes would take effect by then. He then sent me outside to wait. I was just going outside when Morningstar came back with another recruit in tow. This one was a female, looking like a carbon copy of me, except being slightly skinnier with smaller wings. She looked just as weak as I felt and she too was covered in sweat and blood.

"You didn't tell me what they would do during the last part of that check up", I said looking into my friends eyes.

Morningstar snapped his fingers, "I meant to say something about that, must have slipped my mind."

"How did THAT shit slip your mind?", I asked.

He shrugged, "wait out here a minute", he said to the female, "I'll be right back."

"What slipped his mind?", she asked looking at me, "is it something I should know?"

"Uhhh", I said, "yeah. The worst physical I've ever gone through in my life. I felt violated."

She sighed, "not to add another ingredient to my rich, chunky stew of personal problems."

I sighed back, "sorry."

"It's okay", she answered, "not like anything else is going right."

"Bad week?", I asked.

"You don't know the half of it", she said, "my parents just divorced, my bitchy Corvette was acting up the whole way here...and...you know, never mind I don't feel like telling you. I don't even know your name."

"Ace", I answered.

She paused for a minute.

"Nina", she said.

I smiled, recalling my friend Tristan's book, "I like it, I think it suits you."

She smiled, though she didn't answer. Morningstar soon came out for Nina and sent her inside. He told me to stay put, that Carlos was gonna show me to the barracks. I waited outside that door playing with my tail just for something to do for a whole hour. About the halfway point, Nina came out, her legs were shaking and she seemed to be having trouble walking.

"Need help?", I asked standing.

I reached out. The second I did she took a tumble, falling right into me.

"Stupid legs", she said as I knelt down.

"I had the same reaction", I said, "I take your still feeling it?"

She only nodded, "that was...violating."

"Tell me about it", I said as she sat back against the wall.

"Don't take this the wrong way but why are you even still here?", she said.

"I'm waiting for a friend of mine to come and get us", I said, "he's a Marine that goes by Carlos, he's gonna show us the barracks"

"I'm not sharing a room with you", she said coldly.

"Ouch", I sighed leaning back, "no need to be so cold."

She shook her head. I went back to playing Tic-Tac-Toe with my hand drawing the X and my tail drawing the O's. Nina curled up into a ball and seemed as though she was crying, but when I asked her what was wrong she told me to leave her the hell alone, so I did. It was thirty minutes after I realized Nina and I probably weren't going to get along too well when Carlos came and got us. He was just wearing multi cam and sunglasses, trying to beat the heat I guess.

"Looking sharp Ace", he smiled, "whose your lady friend?"

"I'm not his lady friend", Nina said harshly, "I'm not even his friend."

"Sharp", Carlos said, "anyway, Morningstar said there are five rooms in the barrack building, and two to a room, you and Nina are sharing Ace."

"Bullshit we are", Nina said, "I'm not going to sleep with him."

"Your sharing a room", Carlos growled, seeming as though he were a rabid dog, "not a bed, you have your own beds!"

Nina wilted under his gaze like a rose in hot sand. Carlos struck me right there as the kind of guy who worked too hard for what he had and didn't like eating shit people tried to give him. I didn't blame him. He led Nina and I from the dome to a large, wooden plank building that looked like it could tell a million years of stories of sheltering survivors from the nuclear apocalypse and tell a tale of a city built from scratch in which it had a long service as a capital building. Once we were inside...I wish I could convey through words the smell of the place. It smelled as though it had seen a thousand years of traffic from people of all walks of life trying to make there way in a devastated world. There was a brand new, thick black carpet on the floor, a window unit blowing cold, 60 degree air into the room. Against the wall next to what looked like a desk was an old shelf that had the duffle from my Honda on it and a duffel bag that I assumed belonged to Nina and my Toshiba PC, which had been to a lot of places with me. There were two beds on single, twin frames with a green comforter, a fleece throw and a white sheet set. The two pillows on each bed were big and fluffy and set up so they would never fall off the bed. There was a foot locker underneath the foot of each bed and a night stand on the right with a dresser on the left. Now, if the building didn't feel as solid as a mountain, I might have complained about the lack of paint on the walls, but in a way, no paint on the walls gave it a sort of character, I liked it, it was cool.

"And we'll be living here?", Nina asked, "this place is a dump."

"It was here when we built the base", Carlos said, "it was solid as a rock, so we added plumbing, wiring, AC and carpet and turned it into the barracks."

"Carlos this place is badass", I said as I sat down on the bed, "I feel like it's a story book house. It smells like people have been living here for thousands of years."

"That's your nose talking brother", he laughed, "it smells like ass in here. You guys get settled in, there should be more guys coming in soon...and guys?"

"Yeah?", I asked.

"You two are the oldest in the Project", Carlos said seriously, "the only other people who agreed to come to the Project are still in the single digit ages."

"Holy crap", Nina sighed, "you can't be serious?"

Carlos nodded, "I'm always serious. Now, they won't be small, they'll be the same sizes that you guys are, but still, you guys, at the ages you are should help the third oldest, whose like ten, look after the little ones."

I just nodded, so did Nina.

"Good", Carlos said, "you'll have two days to adjust and get settled in. Then training will start."

"What will that consist of?", I asked.

"Besides flight school and Breath Weapons", Carlos said, "nothing that the standard army doesn't have."

"Flight school I can guess", I said, "but breath weapons?"

"You know how myths say that dragons breathe fire?", Carlos asked.

"Yeah?", I said, "I wrote the book on that shit."

Carlos laughed, "I know, I've read it. You guys don't have that."

I looked at him, "sooo...what do we have?"

"Instead of a friebladder", Carlos said, "the serum changed your appendix into an organ that has no official name, but I call it the Glass Jar. It naturally produces boiling liquid nitrogen, the coldest stuff known to man."

I couldn't help but smile, "LN huh? SIW moment right here."

"Lots of us thought that we had a leak that was telling you guys that stuff", Carlos laughed, "turned out not to be the case, but still. Anyway, showers are about fifty yards to the right if you face the back wall, armory is the same distance ahead, Morningstar is always in the dome if you need him and I'll be at the garage. I've got super top secret shit to attend to, so I'll see you guys later."

"Let me guess", Nina said, "it rhymes with call of duty?"

"Sister", Carlos said, "I'm living call of duty and it sucks. No, it rhymes with Forza Motorsports 6."

"Fucker", I said, "I wanted that game."

Carlos snickered and left the barracks. Nina slumped down against the wall as I pulled the bag of my stuff down from the wall and pulled the charger for my PC out of it. I plugged it into the wall and then set my computer under the bed to charge as I pulled out the rest of the clothes in the dresser while the rest of the stuff I had in the bag went into the foot locker. Once that was done, I rolled into the bed and put my feet up on the edge of the frame.

"I'm already in love with this place", I said through a smile, "sure, training is probably going to kick my ass, but you know what? I don't care. This shit mixes my three favorite things, guns, dragons and going fast."

Nina looked up at me from her spot up against the wall, "Once they start making us kill people your opinion will reverse."

I sat up and looked at her, "are you afraid of going into combat?"

"Are you?", she asked.

"Terrified", I said, "not sure I'll be able to take it, but no matter what you think, you don't really know how you'll react till happens. My grandfather used to tell me that when I talked about joining the army, he would always say, "how do you react when a grenade rolls into your MG nest and turns your best friend to paste?"

Nina sighed, "I wouldn't let it go off, I'd pick it up and throw it back."

"This isn't Call Of Duty Nina", I said, "pick up a grenade and all your gonna do is blow your arm off. When someone asks you that question, the correct answer is "Couldn't tell you, it's never happened."

She just looked at me and shook her head.

"Deny it all you want", I said, "but that's the truth. I have no idea how I'd react to killing someone or losing a friend, because neither have ever happened. It's not like a video game where you can shoot them and not feel bad about it because their just binary code, like it or not, those are humans on the other ends of our barrels, they still have families and friends, regardless of how bad they are."

'Your gonna defend them?", she asked.

"No", I said, "I'm not gonna defend the terrorist that goes to a school and shoots up 50 little kids, those mother fuckers deserve to die, but, there is still a mother somewhere whose going to be devastated by that."

"She should have raised him better then", Nina said.

I sighed, Nina obviously didn't want to hear it from me, so I pulled out my computer and started playing Minecraft. I played for about an hour or so before I started to get very, very hot. I paused my game and looked at the thermostat on the AC, it was still at 60 degrees, so I wondered if the dyes might be taking effect. When I looked down at my arms, a few of the white scales had started to peel off, showing the new, liquid glass black ones underneath them.

"Cool", I said closing my PC, "looks like it's time to hit the showers."

I walked from the barracks to a huge metal warehouse that rose about 50 or so feet in the air. When I stepped inside, it was a locker room with lockers on one side, towels on the other and a bench in the middle. I figured since my fatigues were still wearable, I put them in the lockers, grabbed a towel and walked from that room into the main one.

This project had obviously been intended to be much, much bigger. The warehouse was about 100 yards long and groups of ten showers with walkways in the middle. I guessed that there were about five hundred or so stalls total, but there might have been more. I wanted to get back to my game, so I took the one closest to me and started scrubbing off the dead white scales. It was kind of weird to scrub myself, have the color white come and the color tan take it's place. Normally, tan equals dirty and white equals clean. Not so much here. When I finally had all of the white off, I looked over my new colors. They had a certain swilling, smoky texture to them that almost made them seem as if they were moving around.

"That's cool", I said as I turned off the water. I could hear another faucet running in the way back, so I assumed Nina had opted to stay far away from me, which I could see why. I left the showers, dried off, got dressed and went back to the barracks, tomorrow, I figured I'd get to know the lay out of the base. But for now, Minecraft was calling my name.