"I Tell You, Dragons Are Real!"

“I tell you, dragons are real!” The broadcast ended with an ad for Hauen Labs, the group who successfully managed to create the mythical creature known as the dragon. At least, it was small, scaly, and could fly. It also had the personality of a ferret. I know, because I created it.
My name was Takerai Hauen, and my business was Hauen Labs. A genetics laboratory, we made national news every time we made a successful creature. Our “Pegasus” horses sold for over fifteen million dollars. At last count, twenty-three of them had found homes around the world. In case you failed math class, that’s 345 million dollars – on the horses alone.
That figure doesn’t even bring the other animals into account. The gryphon, the sphinx, the medusa’s hair, the hydra; all were available for sale from Hauen Labs. However, one of the most elusive supposedly mythical creatures to create was the dragon. It started out as one of our first projects and it retained a core group of engineers and geneticists as other projects grew and were finished around it. We created many prototypes, but innumerable factors conspired against us. For example, there was the size. We had never created anything larger than the sphinx, which had maxed out what room we had in our facilities at the time. Of course, we were pursuing the dragon of British mythology, which could swallow medieval knights and their armor whole; mainly because that’s what customers wanted. Success came when we decided to take a look at the Chinese idea of the dragon, which, while still scaly and able to breathe fire, the average size was only 60 centimeters (≈2 feet) from snout to tip of the tail. We took heart, and pursued a smaller version. From that change, we produced the first commercially viable dragon. I could not have told you in words how pleased I was.

Then it all changed.

Let me fill you in a little: those annoying “animal rights” groups and the equally annoying “anti-tampering genetics” people had always picketed us. We ignored them, they bought things the local restaurants, everybody was happy.
I was always the first one in the labs in the morning, mainly so I could get some extra work in without peons pestering me with questions. It started a day like any other – my morning was the same, until I arrived at work. The first thing that greeted me was police tape. After that were the newscasters wanting a word. The last thing was the worst; the gutted shell of my laboratories. The barn, the labs, the offices, it was all burned to the ground. I could smell the odor of charred flesh in the air. My work, all gone. Well, not quite, but still most of it. All of the files were remotely backed up onto a pair of gigantic hard drives – one at my home and one at my lawyer’s office. But files weren’t what mattered; the animals did. Without those animals, I was nothing.
The media pounced on the story, using it as the starter to tell the public what they’d really thought of my business and customers. I was a “carnival barker”, a “freak show owner”, someone who tampered in God’s domain and should be punished. I am thoroughly ashamed by what they called my customers; I consider it so shameful I will not even repeat it here. Needless to say, I got several phone calls that day telling me they wanted to return their purchase. I had no choice but to accept them, because the purchasing contract was never designed for this kind of emergency. In animals alone, that fire cost me over four billion dollars. The facility cost me another billion and a half, the genetics equipment another $750 million at least. That kind of money did not grow on trees.
However, in the midst of the buybacks and the media storm, I got a call from the fire chief at my building. He told me to come over immediately and would not continue the search through the building until I came. Of course, I jumped in my car and was there in less than fifteen minutes. What they found was amazing. In the midst of the barn wreckage, they had heard a cry. That cry belonged to my dragon, who had survived the fiery blast and the collapse of the barn. It was trapped inside its cage, and when it was let free it flew ‘round in circles around our heads. When it came to rest on my shoulder, a glimmer of hope began to shine. With the dragon and the animals from the buybacks, I could start anew. I could find people, governments even, to back me while rebuilding my experiments and animals.
I was halfway home when I got a call from my trusted secretary: she said that the government wanted to arrest me for fraud and other charges. They were waiting for me at my house. I thanked her profusely, terminated the connection, and threw my phone out the window, watching an eighteen-wheeler turn it into plastic shrapnel, knowing that there was no way they could track me now.

I fled for my life for over a week before making it over the border into Mexico. That was over eight years ago. My friends call me Kashe; my wife calls me Kashedrai. My daughters call me Papa. To none of them am I Takerai, owner of the infamous Hauen Laboratories. The dragon now lives under my roof and fulfills its duties as a glorified watchdog with pride. Meanwhile, I own a small grocery store in the tiny town of Gualtachnitualan, an hour outside of Mexico City. In the front, people come in, they make small talk, they buy what they need, they leave. In the back, I set up a small lab with a computer attached to all the external memory that I can afford that has all of the files from the original lab downloaded onto it. It is here that I resumed my experiments with sub-standard equipment. I have had only minor breakthroughs recently, but I hope that will change.
Someday I plan to tell my wife who I am, my history. But for now, I am Kashedrai Hildom, grocery store owner, loving husband, doting father. I would like to keep it that way.