by T Hearts
The dark Raptor that had remained by the fence barked impatiently at IO, who barked back, and for a moment, the thought that the Raptors just might have been listening in and understanding every word they had been saying crossed Peyton’s mind. The idea that it could understand her was somehow more frightening than the thought of them tearing into a wild animal to eat.
IO bounced up onto the topmost beam of the fence and began to beat her wings loudly, whistling and chuntering like a raptor. The flock of Raptors rose to their feet, pawing the ground and shaking their feathers off. Alert and ready.
IO lept into the air and flew low around the fence perimeter, low enough that her tail feathers brushed across Peyton’s hair, the Raptors following her and speeding up as they ran before finally the big female took a huge leap over the fence by Peyton, spreading her broad wings. The others took after, and like a wave of feathers, they poured over the fence and off into the semi-darkness.
It was a sight to behold; ten-or-so Raptors bounding across the expanse of the desert beneath the bright stars, with an Avio playfully dancing about the sky in front of them, leading them to their evening meal.
Their calls echoed in the dark, and smiling and laughing IO echoed back, the moonrise bringing a bright glow to the blues of her wings.
A remarkable sight indeed, especially through the lens and within the crosshairs of a rifle aimed at them in the far-off distance.
Chapter 4
The wind whipped around her, cold and biting upon her exposed fingers and face. Laying down in a crocodile pose whilst cradling a sniper rifle upon a pigeon infested rooftop in the middle of a rainy night was not how she wanted to end this job. It wasn’t even a job that she would have willingly taken, but the cards were dealt and she just had to take it.
“I thought balls and dinners in penthouse apartments were the stuff of movies.”
She rolled her eyes, hearing the arrogant drawl of her partner, and current babysitter, groan and grumble through her earpiece.
“You’re welcome to go down there and join in if you want.”
“But I don’t have an invitation! Imagine the scandal!” The Frigatebird said with a dramatic gasp; she could easily picture his over exaggerated expression and use of his wing to increase the effect. “Gate-crashing through a window? In the rain? At this time of night? Without a suit? How barbaric!”
“I’m sure they won’t care about a suit when you’ve got a twenty-foot wingspan.”
“Twenty-five.”
“It’ll be twelve and a half if you don’t shut up.”
Focusing, she did her best to gently nudge the heavy gun ever so slightly up and to the left as the wind picked up. Every part of her ached, trying not to shiver with the rain and cold that had already soaked through into her clothes.
The Frigatebird’s impatience was not helping either.
“Why are you taking your time?” He asked with a lilting drawl, the wind on his end creating interference in the radio. “Do you need a hand, Griffin? Because I’ve got two big strong hands right here and I’m incredibly good with them I’ll have you know.”
“Stay exactly where you are Nico.”
“You sound like you don’t want me there with you.”
“I don’t.”
“But you’re so far away! You’re breaking my heart here darling.”
“I’ve a high-calibre rifle in my hands. I’ll do more than just break your heart if you don’t shut up.” The sniper, Griffin, said with a soft breath, her frustrated frown growing deeper with every slight change of wind speed. It was not her weapon of choice, but she could make it work. She would make it work.
Rain trickled down her face and neck, a drop threatening to drip into her eyes. The nictitating membrane, a third translucent eyelid, flicked up instinctively across her eye, protecting it from the water but also temporarily casting a pale haze over the world until it flicked back again. She blinked and scrunched her face hard to reset her focus.
She searched the crowd to find man through her scope once again. A few seconds of scanning and she found the target once more. Wide face red with laughter and alcohol, and grey hair slicked back with so much wax it looked as though he wore a metal cap. He badgered a waiter for more with a silent yell, earning the side-eyed glances of other guests around him. A pretty red head beside him gave the man a withering look, clearly desperate to get away from his vice like grip on her arm that was leaving growing red marks on her fair skin.
Little over two kilometre a way, there would be no way that any of the guests or numerous amounts of security would have the chance to spot her as she made her escape.
Heartbeat in her feathered ears, she focused her breathing, letting it slow down and ignoring the black-winged Avio who she felt dropping in behind her.
“You’re going to get back ache like that.” He laughed, crouching beside her, and trying to see along her eyeline. The feathers of a huge wing brushed across her back on accident and she felt every muscle and tendon strain and tighten immediately with a sharp reflexive pain.
“Not. Now.” Griffin snarled through gritted teeth, trying not to react to it so that she didn’t lose her sight on the man. “I’m concentrating.”
Nico followed her line of sight to the building, squinting a little as the people within were only just outside his visible range. If he had some degree of low-light vision, he would have been even more insufferable on this mission and would have been chiding her for her aim.
“Do you need me to do it for you?” Nico asked, drawing his wings in an arc to provide an umbrella above her for the moment. “If it’s too difficult, I can always-”
-BANG-
The shot echoed throughout the silence of the skyscrapers.
A quick peek through the scope and she could see the hole in the glass and the panicking faces of people around the man, some silently screaming. It was hard not to be proud of such a shot, though she did feel a little bad for everyone who was there to witness it.
“No, I think I’m good.” Griffin said with a sweet smile, quickly scrambling onto her knees and beginning to pack the gun away. “Since you’re here, you can clean up. Make sure this goes to the cache. And don’t forget to pick up the rope.” She ordered, thrusting the bag into Nico’s arms. He watched her with a wry smile as she attached a grappling clip to a railing and swung her legs over the edge of the building, quickly abseiling down.
The moment her feet hit the floor she freed herself of the rope, she set off at a sprint out of the vicinity.
-x-
Sticking to the shadows she kept up her sprinting pace for a solid twenty minutes until she reached the suburbs, with a casual five-minute walk to cool down with, giving herself time to recover in case she needed to run again. She doubted it, she was faster than a human on foot and was certain that no one was tailing her.
Arriving at the holdout, a small camping lodge on the edge of a woodland trail that she was renting for the week as a base to run her operation, she found the lights to already be on within. Nico had arrived ahead of her. She was unsurprised, the Avio could fly faster than she could run without so much as breaking a sweat.
“Hey babe,” He sang, looking up from his laptop with a smile to greet her as she swung in through the door, “how was work?”
His huge wings were sprawled out across the floor either side of him, inky black and narrow. Auburn hair, black eyes, and a deep set of scars across his face from where a canid had raked him with their claws, he thought himself more attractive than he really was, but that was just part of his charm. Though his cossetting and prying nature was highly infuriating.
She smiled back, flicking her hair out of her face.
“Can’t complain. Though the lunch was awful.”
“But you made your own lunch.”
“I know, that’s why it was awful.” She said with a dramatic sigh, kicking off her damp boots and shrugging off the abseiling harness and coat. Nico scowled at her untidiness and the moment she h
ad turned her back, leapt up to clean the mess up.
“I know you like me, but do you really have to follow me everywhere?” She asked, pulling her hair loose and running her fingers through the mess of indigo dye. Her fingers came back a deep inky blue as the colour ran. Grumbling to herself, she marched off to the bathroom.
“Technically I do since you're still on parole until further notice.” Nico laughed, drawing his long wings as close to his body as he could manage so that she could pass by. Managing a twenty-five foot wingspan was hard enough at the best of times, but trying to negotiate his way through buildings built for humans was a trial.
“You can be less by-the-book about it.”
“Because that worked out so well last time, am I right?”
She leant out of the bathroom with a bitter scowl and a pair of middle fingers. The blue dye dribbled down her damp face, following the lines of a still healing scar that tore through the left side that stretched from her hairline, through her eyebrow, down to her jaw. As he scoffed at her, she defiantly shrugged off her shirt to throw onto the floor for him to pick up in.
Nico rolled his eyes at her childishness and went to retrieve the damp clothes. Out the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of cream yellow and midnight indigo-black feathers down the length of her back, and the thick pale scars that were carved into her shoulder blades as she stepped into the shower. The tail of yellow feathers that had been clipped short, were all crinkled and askew from the clothes she had been wearing to hide it.
He looked away in shame. It hurt to see it, but he knew it hurt her more, even though he blamed himself for what had happened.
Slamming the damp clothes into the washer and skulking into the kitchen with extreme awkwardness of the limited space of the doorframes, he grabbed a pair of onions to slice up, so that he might at least have an excuse to cry and eat away the regret.
Eventually Griffin resurfaced, clean, warm, and refreshed from the shower and redressed in dry clothes with her nose in the air, sniffing for what he had cooked.
Unable to sit on the narrow sofa, Nico lay sprawled out on the carpet, spooning chorizo bean stew into his mouth as he scrolled through his phone. Stomach growling Griffin attempted to swoop down and nab a chunk of chorizo out of the bowl.
A big wing blocked her.
“Paws off.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“You’re also an adult who can make her own food.”
“An adult who you’re intent on babysitting. You could at least make me food.” She huffed loudly, flopped onto the sofa, lazily picking up the phone to do her daily check-in, another part of her parole agreements with Core.
“Hey, I'm just following orders to keep you in my sights at all times. It said nothing about providing you with room service.”
“It wasn’t a literal order, jackass.”
“Well you should have heard Mykonos’ tone. He was pretty serious about it.” He arched his back with a click, flaring his wings out trying to extend them as best he could, but was stopped by the limits of the room.
The velvet black feathers brushed over her shoulders as he awkwardly adjusted them and his tailfeathers within the limited space, cursing under his breath as the long feathers knocked and bumped various objects around him.
The place really was not built for Avios of his size.
Sighing, she pulled his wing she over her, closing her eyes as she felt the soft feathers on her skin. Breathing deeply, she felt their warmth, running her fingers over the soft plumes at the base of each quill, pretending that they were hers.
“Griff. Griffin. No sleepy times yet babe, you gotta call in.”
She pretended to snore and shut her eyes tighter.
“Come on.” He took her phone and pressed it against her nose. “Get it over with.”
Griff groaned, hearing the holding tone of the receiver as Nico rang them up for her– an annoyingly exuberant mariachi song that would play on repeat until one of the call points at Core would patch her in. Though she glared at him, he admired her eyes; sunflower yellow with a starburst of blue around the pupil.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Do.” She took the phone and rolled off the sofa onto the floor. Smiling, Nico cuddled up against her, pulling a wing over her back. She scowled at him, but before she could chide him for his behaviour the call connected with a chime.
“Dispatch receiving, go ahead.”
“This is Diamond- sorry, Amethyst, call sign: Griffin, reporting in.”
The dispatcher chuckled on the other end of the phone at her mistake, knowing who she was. There wasn’t many who didn't know about her. She had become a cautionary tale in her own right.
“Okay, transferring you forward to your handler.”
“Thank you.”
An uncomfortable tingle on the back of her head got her attention.
“Nico.” She said with a warning tone, shooting him a glare from over her shoulder. “No musing. Not while I'm on the phone.”
“You're no fun at the moment. You’re taking this all so seriously.”
“Some of us are on probation.”
“That’s your problem.” The Avio pouted mockingly, gently tracing a soft black feather of his over the deep scars across her back. She froze, her own tiny dark feathers prickling along her spine, but she said nothing.
“Thorne here.” The heavy monotone of her handler cut through the mariachi music. Neither sound was pleasing to hear but she preferred his droning over the trumpets anyway.
“The mission was successful sir. Target was eliminated and I remained out of sight while carrying it out. The assassination may trigger some media panic but nothing no one will remember for more than five minutes.”
“Excellent.” He said with the most minimal amount of enthusiasm possible. Not that Griffin expected anything less. Thorne had been insulted at being made her handler and had been stringent in his demands and expectations that she perform well so that she didn’t tarnish his reputation.
“After your last two performances – and depending on whether or not you did successfully hide yourself and avoided a diplomatic incident for us to clean up– you should be one successful mission away from returning to Diamond status.”
“Nico should have sent you the notes earlier, he stayed with me the entire time and can vouch that I didn’t do anything unprofessional.” Said Griffin, staring the Avio dead in the eye in threat.
‘Of course, I did’ He mused loudly to her, the tingling across the back of her head making her dizzy. ‘No embellishing. I wrote the truth as always.’
“Hm.” Thorne grunted. The sound of windows being opened on his screen faintly rang with chimes in the background of the call, as Nico held up his phone with what he had written and mouthed along as Thorne read aloud. “A headshot performed at over two kilometres in adverse weather conditions along with a crowded floor and a narrow window of opportunity. That alone would merit you extra referral points for regaining your rank.” Thorne applauded drawly.
“Thank you, sir.”
“And yet according to the report, you are discontent.”
‘I am going to pluck you like a turkey, Nico.’ She sent viciously to the now tense and flinching Avio. ‘Why the fuck would you include that in your report!’
‘I told you, I wrote the truth as always.’
“Yes, this is correct.” Griffin stated calmly though she was eyeing Nico angrily. “If I’m going to be utilised as an Amethyst, I need investigatory reconnaissance work, not assassination work. I’m not a Sapphire, and I do not need a babysitter on every mission.”
“Are you asking for another job?”
“Yes. Give me another job.”
There was a pause, and a sound of grinding teeth.
“There is…one job available.”
“Good. I’ll take it.” Any job that frustrated Thorne was worth taking. “What is it?”
“It doesn’t work like that for
you Griffin. If you want another job, you’re going to have to come back in and talk to the Major about it first.”
Shit.
Chapter 5
The Ozark bunker was quiet, even for a middling size bunker. It was nothing like hub bunker, Monongahela in the east, which was three times the size and as overcrowded as an international airport.
A few Synths milled about the wide main foyer. They quietly busied themselves, checking the missions boards for jobs, queuing for the vending machines, some simply standing and catching up with their friends. Griffin preferred the sleepier atmosphere here, even if it meant that it was much harder to escape people’s notice. The majority present were handlers for both Sapphire and Ruby Elites, some she knew as former Onyx soldiers – Transhumans who were once military personnel in human armies across the world - but there were Diamonds amongst them too; noticeable from the black and white tactical armour they wore.
Checking into the dispatch office, she gave a nod to two other returning Diamonds who were both returning their equipment and helmets. Both who gave her sad smiles but greeted her kindly nether the less before quickly walking away.
A knot of anger grew in her gut.
They pitied her. A demoted Diamond, the first and only one. She hated the ones who gave her sorrowful looks more than the ones who looked at her with disgust and suspicion. At least they were watching her walk in of her own volition this time around, rather than being dragged in.
Nico carrying her over his shoulder, insisting to everyone that her screaming and fighting was because of being given Nitro – Mykonos snarling at everyone to stand back – the Major and Commander of the Diamonds berating and roaring at her-
‘Back in your box. Not today.’ She scolded herself.
Rolling her shoulders back and adjusting her old Amethyst jacket, she held her head high. If she was going to be a pariah she would at least be dignified.