"Well?" He gestured with his hand, "wanna take a look inside?"

Mia gave me an uneasy glance and I nodded my assent. We followed the hunchback to the face of the dragon, and he worked a hidden lever behind the jaw. The smell of new leather yawned out of the mouth as the jaw opened. Cool air rushed out of the machine and steps lit up inside.

The hunchback stepped up the first step and twisted his torso to look back at me. I followed climbing up the steps. Tootsie zipped in ahead of us both. "Wow." Her voice echoed ahead of us. "It's so big."

We continued into the throat of the machine. There was a long hall leading off into the dark ahead of us, but the hunchback turned and began ascending the spiral staircase to the side of the hall. Tootsie continued down the hall. "There are so many rooms," She called back to us as she darted from side to side in the hall.

The man pulled another switch at the top of the stairs and the jaw began closing behind us. I climbed the stairs as he waited. When I reached the balcony with him, he showed me the hidden lever for the door behind the trim and flicked it with three fingers. The door swung open to reveal a cockpit.

"Hey wait for me." Tootsie had just bothered to look behind her and raced back to catch up to Mia entering with her.

The room was filled with switches and levers made of polished steel. Screens lit up on panels and data appeared on the screens scrolling down. A captain's chair was bolted to the floor looking out each eye of the dragon skull. There were thick black glass windshields fixed in the eye sockets.

The hunchback held out a hand for me to sit in the captain's chair. He smiled with his jagged teeth. "Beth is up and running. I just need to add onto her for your men." He hobbled over to the other captain's chair and offered it to Mia. "Want to take her for a spin?"

I sat down in the chair and looked up at the dozens of switches and levers. A black globe sat where the steering wheel should be mounted in the dash. "I don't know how to operate this machine." I said.

"Just start flipping switches or something," Tootsie flew from one switch to the next inspecting them.

"Put your feet into the pedals and strap them in." The hunchback said as he walked over to a side chair in the back and started flipping switches. The computers began to hum and whir around us.

I looked down and saw tow pads the size of the soles of my feet right behind my knees. I lifted my feet into them and pulled straps over my feet like a pair of sandals. The pedals were attached to long arms with multiple joints. I pressed down on the pedals to scoot back in my seat and the room shook around us.

Two massive steel claws came into view outside the windshield. I moved my feet around and the claws moved as my legs did. If I curled my toes the claws clamped shut.

"See you already know how to use it." The hunchback winked at me. "It's like it was made for you." He went back to inspecting his screens then pressed a couple buttons. The machine lurched up fifteen feet higher in the air. "Might want to buckle your harness now."

"Yes." Tootsie laughed maniacally. "This guy is a genius. This thing is beautiful."

I looked over to Mia as she pulled seat belts over her shoulders and around her waist buckling them together in front of her stomach. I searched for mine and did the same.

"You want to lift the blanket, or do you want me to get it out of the way?" The engineer asked from behind me. "No worries, I got it."

I couldn't see what he pushed but a torrent of flame billowed out of the mouth of the dragon burning through the blanket and melting the metal wall. We could now see out into the alley behind the hanger. Drops of melted steel dripped around the new opening.

"How do I move this thing?" I asked.

"Roll the black ball in front of you and Beth will go where you tell her to go." The engineer answered.

I reached up and rolled the ball on the dash. Then I was crushed against the seatbelts and Tootsie smacked into the windshield. We were racing backward. I heard crashing metal and grabbed the sphere to stop the spinning. We slid sideways and skidded to a stop as I regained the steering.

The pressure let up as we were no longer running backward. I looked out the windshield to see we were no longer in the hangar. We had ripped through the front wall and we're now looking down the street.

One of the guards stood in front of us with his assault rifle. His mouth was hanging open so wide his toothpick tumbled out. He dropped the rifle and ran off into the darkness.

"Roll backward to go forward and forward to go back. It is sensitive to the speed you roll it at." The engineer coughed and climbed out of the floorboard by my chair rubbing his head. "I should buckle up."

He limped back to his chair and flopped down in it. He buckled then took a breath and shook his head. He swiveled his chair around and snapped his finger, "cat girl."

"Mia," she and I both corrected him.

"My apologies. Too eager to get going. Mia, your foot pedals control the tilt of the head, and your sphere controls her neck."

Mia tentatively rolled the ball with two fingers. We lifted another twenty feet into the air. She worked her foot pedals and we tipped to one side then the other. "I got this." Mia smirked at me.

"Well then." The hunchback rubbed his hands together and turned his seat back to his control panel. "Want to go get your men?"