My Dragon System

Caleb Turner had been the weakest student at Ridgemont Academy for three hundred and sixty-four days, and tomorrow would make it a full year.

He knew the number because his system told him every morning. Nobody else in school got a daily reminder of their own failure, but Caleb's interface had always been generous that way. At six a.m. a pale gray window blinked into the air above his bed, flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb.

[Name: Caleb Turner. Age: 16. System: Basic Student. Rank: F. Level: 1.

Strength: 4. Speed: 3. Endurance: 4. Intellect: 6. Skills: None. Days since

Awakening: 364.]

"Thanks," he muttered to the ceiling. "Really needed that."

The window did not answer. It never did. A Basic Student System was about as talkative as a vending machine and about as useful. 

It tracked his grades, his attendance, and the number of times he had been late to homeroom, which was a lot.

In America, everybody Awakened at sixteen. One morning a glowing interface simply appeared in front of your eyes, and from that day on you were something more than ordinary. 

Some kids got Flame Systems and could burn through steel. Some got Shield Systems or Shadow Systems or Gravity Systems. 

Even the kids with the weakest Awakenings got something cool, like a Lockpick System or a Cooking System that made their sandwiches taste like heaven.

Caleb got paperwork.

He dragged himself out of bed, pulled on the same gray hoodie he had worn all week, and found his mother's note on the kitchen counter. Double shift at the hospital. 

Leftover pasta in the fridge. Love you, bud. Linda Turner worked nights as a nurse and days as a part-time bookkeeper, and she had been doing it ever since Caleb's father vanished five years ago. She never complained. That was the part that hurt the most.

Caleb touched the pendant hanging under his shirt before he left. It was a dark, scaled piece of metal about the size of a quarter, the only thing his father Daniel had left behind. 

The police called it an abandonment case. Caleb's mother called it a mystery she was too tired to solve. Caleb called it nothing at all, because calling it something made it real.

Ridgemont Academy sat on a hill above Denver like a castle somebody had built with a government grant. Its glass towers glittered in the morning sun, and its front lawns were crowded with students showing off. A girl near the fountain was floating a foot off the ground. A boy by the flagpole was juggling three balls of blue lightning. Caleb kept his head down and tried to disappear.

"Hey, Turner! Dropped something!"

A notebook hit the pavement in front of him, smoking at the edges. Caleb looked up and saw Brandon Cole grinning at him from the steps.

Brandon was a senior, six feet two inches of golden hair and expensive sneakers. His system was called Flame Lord, rank A, and he was the captain of Sterling House's Games team. A small flame danced across his knuckles as if it were a pet.

"Oh, wait," Brandon said. "That's yours. My bad."

His friends laughed. Tyler Brooks, a thick-necked junior with an Iron Fist System, laughed the loudest.

Caleb picked up the notebook. The cover was scorched black. He said nothing, because he had learned long ago that saying something only made things worse.

"Leave him alone, Cole."

Marcus Reed jogged up beside Caleb and shoved his glasses up his nose. Marcus was Caleb's best friend, a skinny kid with a rank C Analyst System that let him read other people's stats if they were weaker than he was. 

Brandon was not weaker than he was, which meant Marcus saw nothing but a wall of static whenever he looked at him. That never stopped Marcus from talking tough.

"Or what?" Brandon asked pleasantly. "You'll analyze me to death?" "I'll file a report," Marcus said.

"Please do. I love paperwork."

The first bell rang, and the crowd drifted apart. Brandon winked at Caleb as he walked away. "See you at the Games, Turner. Try not to get trampled."

Marcus waited until they were gone before he exhaled. 

"One day he's going to trip on his own ego and fall into a volcano."

"I'll bring marshmallows," Caleb said.

The morning announcement crackled through the speakers during homeroom. Principal Margaret Pierce's voice was crisp and warm, and it carried the weight of a woman who had run Ridgemont for twenty years.

"Good morning, students. As you know, the annual Crown Games begin this Monday. For those of you who are new, the four Houses of Ridgemont, Ashford, Sterling, Blackwood, and Hawthorne, will compete across five events over five days. The winning House will receive the Ridgemont Crown. Each member of the champion House will also receive a full scholarship to the National Systems University."

A murmur rolled across the room. Caleb sat very still.

A full scholarship. His mother had been saving for his college fund since the day he was born, and every time his father's disappearance or a medical bill ate into it, she said not to worry. Caleb worried anyway. He knew how little was left in that account.

"Ashford hasn't won in six years," Marcus whispered beside him. "Sterling's won four of the last six. Blackwood the other two."

"I know."

"Everybody on Ashford's team is going to have to carry real weight this year." 

"I know, Marcus."

"I'm just saying you could make the alternate list."

"The alternate list is for people who hold water bottles." 

"Water is important," Marcus said weakly.

After school, the Ashford House students gathered in the gym. Coach Dale Whitaker stood at the front of the room with his arms crossed. He was a big man in his fifties, bald as a cue ball, with a limp from some old injury nobody was allowed to ask about. His system, the rumors said, had once been rank S.

Ashford's captain, Sophie Grant, stood beside him. She was a senior with a rank B Shield System and the calm of someone who had been disappointed many times and refused to let it show.

"Here's the roster," Coach Whitaker said, holding up a clipboard. "Ten primary competitors. Five alternates. Alternates are on standby in case anyone gets hurt. Names will be posted tonight."

He read the primaries first. Sophie Grant. Danny Okafor. Rachel Kim. Jason Bell. Six more names, all kids Caleb recognized as solid and respectable. Then Coach Whitaker moved on to the alternates.

"Marcus Reed. Peter Lang. Amy Walsh. Ben Torres." He paused, and his eyes landed on Caleb for a heartbeat longer than necessary. "Caleb Turner."

There was a quiet pause. Someone in the back snickered.

Caleb nodded as if he had expected it, because he had. He walked out of the gym with his hands in his pockets and his chest as hollow as an empty bucket.

That night he sat on his bed with the pendant in his palm and stared at the gray window floating in the air above him.

[Days since Awakening: 365. Happy anniversary.]

"Even you're mocking me now," Caleb whispered.

He thought of his father, who had once told him that being strong had nothing to do with what the world gave you. It was about what you did when the world gave you nothing. Caleb had been nine at the time and had not understood it. At sixteen he understood it perfectly, and he hated it.

"I can't do this, Dad," he said into the dark. "I can't. I'm not like them." The pendant grew warm.

Caleb frowned. The metal had never been warm before. It pulsed once against his skin like a heartbeat, then again, faster. A thin crack split across the dark scales with a sound like a snapped twig.

Light poured out. It was gold, then red, then a burning white that filled his room until he had to shut his eyes. A roar rolled through his skull, ancient and vast, a sound too big for any throat on earth.

When he opened his eyes again, the gray system window floating over his bed was shattering. Pieces of it fell like glass and vanished before they hit the sheets. In their place, a new window unfolded, blazing red and gold, its edges curling like wings.

[Basic Student System: Deleted.]

[Unknown Origin Detected. Bloodline Key Accepted.] [Dragon Sovereign System: Installation Beginning.]

Caleb's heart stopped.