[SECRET] Under the Sleeping Dragon

Arthur thought that Dolavon was the worst town in the world. At 14, he wanted more than anything else to go anywhere else. Of course, he was a bit limited by his bicycle, and the fact that the only other town he could get to was Gaiman, just a few miles down the river.

They felt identical to him. Simple ruddy-faced Welsh folks, desperately clinging to their dying culture, their dying language. It was so sad. Looking around himself made him want to cry.

He was desperate for something more, something greater. He heard it on the radio, the hustle and bustle of the big cities, of Cordoba, of Rosario, and of course, of Buenos Aires.

His parents didn’t understand. They wanted him to get married to a nice farm girl, and give them as many grandchildren as possible. Teach them the language, of course. Raise them in the church. Stay away from those people, the Argentine farm workers flooding into Chubut. They weren’t good and upstanding like we are. They’re just like the English.

But every day, store signs would switch from Welsh to Spanish.

Things were changing, whether the old timers liked it or not.

Arthur loaded his rucksack with Pasties. They could last him for days. He didn’t know how far he would go, only that he was going north. Into the hills. Into the desert. Maybe he could get to Porto Madyrn, then catch a ship north. Or maybe he could ride all the way to Buenos Aires.

It was thousands of miles, but he didn’t know that.

He only knew what his friends had told him, whispers of wondrous life in the big city. Where all the women looked like Evita, where people danced the Tango in the street, and you could buy a joint of meat for a few pesos. There were movie theaters on every corner, shining art deco buildings. Every dream he had ever had was in Buenos Aires, and in his mind the distance between Chubut and the capital was ever-shrinking.

So he set off early in the morning. His bicycle was a machine; he had been working on it, with his cousin, for the last 6 months, making it more than capable of riding in the desert. He had already gone on a few excursions, up and around the hills, racing endlessly around in the dusk hours, before it got so cold that it would freeze his toes off his body.

He only had one bottle of water. It lasted him less than an hour.

He tried to satiate his thirst with the pasties, but they just dried his mouth out. He hoped he would see a river, or even a creek, soon. Patagonia was harsh, but it wasn’t totally dry. The sun beat down, and his precious water was running down his face, into his eyes.

His muscles began to cramp, and he could barely move the pedals on his bike. He began to wobble back and forth, seriously close to collapsing. The sun kept playing tricks on him, reflections making perfect mirages of a river, just over the next hill.

He wondered if he could suck the water from some of the grasses. Maybe he could. Maybe he should stop, rest for a moment. Do not give up, of course, but try to find some water.

He nearly skinned his knee, harshly stopping his Bicycle at the top of a hill. What was that? He wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes.

It was a road. A very rough road, but clearly marked out. Clearly regularly maintained. And on that road was a jeep. Two soldiers with rifles looked out of the back of it. He couldn’t make out their faces.

It was the first time he had ever seen one in the flesh, rather than in the comic books. They looked so normal, so thin. Not cut from marble. Just people.

The jeep stopped. And the two soldiers got out. They had seen him.

Thank God, some part of Arthur was happy, the part that knew that if he kept going, the desert would swallow him up. The part that longed for his mother’s embrace. The part he pretended wasn’t there.

“What are you doing there?” One of the soldiers yelled in perfect Spanish.

“I’m on my way to Buenos Aires!” Arturo said. He tried to erase his Welsh accent whenever he spoke, but it didn’t work.

The two soldiers exchanged a nervous look. “Come with us,” one said. “You aren’t allowed to be here.” He grabbed Arthur roughly.

“My bicycle!” Arthur was able to shout.

“Grab the kid’s bike, Diego” The soldier holding Arthur said. The other soldier, who Arthur asked was named Diego, picked it up, almost as roughly was being held now.

“What are we gonna do with him?” Diego asked. His voice nearly broke. He couldn’t have been much older than 19, but to Arthur, he might as well have been 30.

“Take him back to the base.” The man holding Arthur said. They were moving back to the jeep now.

“To the base? Are you insane?”

“What, you want to drop him off somewhere? Let him die in the heat? How old could he be?”

“He looks like a gringo.”

“He’s Welsh, look at him. It’s a miracle he speaks Spanish.”

Arthur loosely registered this, but didn’t have the energy to respond, as he piled into the back of the jeep. He was shocked up against a barrel. As his eyes traced the barrel, he saw a strange symbol on it: A yellow triangle, with a black circle in the center, surrounded by 3 black, vaguely triangular sections of circle. Below the symbol was a single word:

Radioactivo

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! After having a substantial setback with the Huemul scandal, the Argentine Nuclear program has restarted in earnest. A new location, located deep in the Chubut desert, has been chosen for “Dragon Base,” named after the Welsh flag which has traditionally flown alongside the Argentine one in "Y Wladfa."

The Argentine army has rapidly constructed a research facility and moved any useful equipment from the Huemul laboratory south for further experiments. Scientists not only from across Argentine academia, but also foreign researchers from Indonesia have begun construction on Argentina’s first Nuclear pile.

The secret of the atom will not elude Argentina for much longer. !<