The Lost Hero

―Clean hands, dirty equipment,‖ he muttered, something his mother used to say. By the time he was
through, his hands were black with grease and his clothes looked like he‘d just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but
the mechanisms looked a lot better. He slipped in the disk, connected the last wire, and sparks flew. The
dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow.
―Better?‖ Leo asked.
The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.
―I guess that‘s a yes. Hold on, I‘ll free you.‖
Another thirty minutes to find the release clamps for the net and untangle the dragon, but finally it stood
and shook the last bit of netting off its back. It roared triumphantly and shot fire at the sky.
―Seriously,‖ Leo said. ―Could you not show off?‖
Creak? the dragon asked.
―You need a name,‖ Leo decided. ―I‘m calling you Festus.‖
The dragon whirred its teeth and grinned. At least Leo hoped it was a grin.
―Cool,‖ Leo said. ―But we still have a problem, because you don‘t have wings.‖
Festus tilted his head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He
wanted Leo to climb on.
―Where we going?‖ Leo asked.
But he was too excited to wait for an answer. He climbed onto the dragon‘s back, and Festus bounded off
into the woods.
* * *
Leo lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible the woods could be so deep and wild, but
the dragon traveled until the trees were like skyscrapers and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the
stars. Even the fire in Leo‘s hand couldn‘t have lit the way, but the dragon‘s glowing red eyes acted like
headlights.
Finally they crossed a stream and came to a dead end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall—a solid, sheer
mass the dragon couldn‘t possibly climb.
Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing.
―What is it?‖ Leo slid to the ground. He walked up to the cliff—nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept
pointing.
―It‘s not going to move out of your way,‖ Leo told him.
The loose wire in the dragon‘s neck sparked, but otherwise he stayed still. Leo put his hand on the cliff.
Suddenly his fingers smoldered. Lines of fire spread from his fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across
the limestone. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times
as tall as Leo. He backed up and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock.
―Perfectly balanced,‖ he muttered. ―That‘s some first-rate engineering.‖
The dragon unfroze and marched inside, as if he were coming home.
Leo stepped through, and the door began to close. He had a moment of panic, remembering that night in
the machine shop long ago, when he‘d been locked in. What if he got stuck in here? But then lights flickered
on—a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches. When Leo saw the cavern, he forgot
about leaving.
―Festus,‖ he muttered. ―What is this place?‖
The dragon stomped to the center of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large
circular platform.
The cave was the size of an airplane hangar, with endless worktables and storage cages, rows of garagesized
doors along either wall, and staircases that led up to a network of catwalks high above. Equipment was
everywhere—hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked
suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Bulletin boards were covered with tattered, faded blueprints. And
weapons, armor, shields—war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished.
Hanging from chains far above the dragon‘s platform was an old tattered banner almost too faded to read.
The letters were Greek, but Leo somehow knew what they said: bunker 9.
Did that mean nine as in the Hephaestus cabin, or nine as in there were eight others? Leo looked at
Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to him that the dragon looked so content because
it was home. It had probably been built on that pad.
―Do the other kids know … ?‖ Leo‘s question died as he asked it. Clearly, this place had been abandoned
for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The floor revealed no footprints except for his, and the
huge paw prints of the dragon. He was the first one in this bunker since … since a long time ago. Bunker 9 had
been abandoned with a lot of projects half finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why?
Leo looked at a map on the wall—a battle map of camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as
onionskin. A date at the bottom read, 1864.