by T Hearts
“Relax,” Nico whispered to her as they proceeded to the diamonds lounge, “they’re on your side, we all are.”
“What have I said about musing?”
“I wasn’t. It was just obvious what you were feeling.” He shrugged his shoulders, the huge wings extending slightly and the feathers rousing.
Jealously, she watched the feathers smoothly slide over one another. The muscles in her back and chest tightened and tensed to the point of pain. They wanted to move like that too, they still reacted as though they could. She only had her tailfeathers left, but in her stress, she had plucked them from being a swallow-tailed sweep of yellow to black, to little more than hen’s rump that she shamefully hid beneath her long shirts and utility belts.
Looking away and trying to ignore Nico, she picked her favourite spot in the lounge– a beaten up leather sofa next to a towering terrarium filled with tiny little synths that resembled lizards, amphibians, and even butterflies– and collapsed into the cushions. A few handlers who were sat nearby surreptitiously moved away. She ignored them and spread herself out across the sofa.
She hoped that if she stretched out that it would be harder to let her leg bounce anxiously as she waited to attend the meeting with the lieutenant. Meetings with senior officers were serious matters, and she worried what it could possibly mean. What if Thorne had rewritten his review of her again, or what if-
No, no- she wasn’t going to think about it right now, she was going to take a deep breath and relax.
With the chance to breathe, every ache and pain that Griffin had been ignoring for the past few days began to pulse and burn beneath her skin, deep within her muscles and her bones. An hour or so in the sauna or the baths would have been highly welcome, but she just didn’t have the time, so instead she just shut her eyes and ignored Nico’s obvious attempts at musing.
The irritating tingling at the back of her head grew. He was being particularly prying and irritating today. It was always a bad sign when he was like this, worse when he was acting as her handler when he wasn’t.
Thinking of nothing but the butterflies in the terrarium, she shut her eyes, shut him out and shut away all of her own worries into a box. There would be no digging for him today.
The tingle intensified to a horrible feeling of pins and needles in her arm as he tried to override her self-control. A horribly nauseating and alien sensation.
“Stop it.” She hissed, opening one eye to a furious slit of yellow and blue.
“I’m trying to help you calm down Griffin. Just let me help.”
“You keep helping, and I’ll start punching.”
“Aim for his balls! He doesn’t need them!” Laughed someone from a near doorway. Eyes snapping fully open, she barrelled off the sofa and tackled the newcomer into a cheerful embrace, slamming him into a wall.
“My ribs!” Cried the pinned Avio dramatically, “My beautiful ribs!”
“Aww, poor fragile Snowflake.”
“No. Seriously Miss Griffin. My goddamn ribs are already cracked. Please let go.”
“Hey Darter.” Greeted Nico, shooing Griffin off and catching his fellow Avio’s forearm in a friendly grip. “How’s life?”
The snow haired man laughed, releasing Nico’s arm quickly, a beautifully melodic sound that made Griffin wistful, as it was meant to do. Nico may have thought himself handsome, but Darter was ex-Risio, and he was beautiful.
Black skin with a silver shimmer to it, black wings with streaks of blue with eyed markings of pure white and violet; he was flawless but had been given to Core years ago as a broken product by a less than savoury owner. He and Griffin had both joined Core together– though he had been trained as a Sapphire– and she was both envious and proud to have watched him recover so effortlessly.
“The kids are being kids, forever fighting over which bunk is theirs or not. But what do you expect from a batch of Canids?” He dipped his head slightly as he acknowledged Griffin. “Denver keeps asking about you Miss Griffin. He wants to know if you’ll spar with him.”
“Darter, please,” Griffin smiled, “It’s just Griffin. You’re a handler and I’m…well in a class of my own according to the Major.”
She gave the brand new badge a little flick where it sat pinned above his call sign. The two blue diamonds with their chevron tops had now been marked with black frames, highlighting him as a Sapphire handler.
“I hear they’re planning on naming rank after you. A new one for ‘problem children’ who refuse to follow orders, talk back to senior officers and tell them to get fucked.”
“A new rank? For me? I’m flattered.” Griffin snorted with laughter and dragged him and Nico back over to the sofas.
“Have you seen the gang recently? I heard they were here.” She asked in reference to his former teammates, sitting between the two Avios and letting her fingers brush their feathers. Their wings curled and overlapped one another, a subtle sign of their ease with one another.
“I saw Quick a few days ago, she got her teaching qualification and is starting work with the Topazes out in Gibson. Quiver and Razor are both in Asia.”
“And Brightly?”
“Still an ass. But an ass who in the Antarctic now.”
“Maybe all the snow there will chill him out.” Griffin snickered then sighed deeply, and sadly. “I’d love to go see them all again, even Brightly.”
Darter nodded, wistfully sad at the lonely life of a Diamond. He missed his team dearly, despite their arguing, though she couldn’t say the same for her own former team. Swift, Fulmar, and Rainier had remained as Amethysts and sailed aboard the Serenity, and Haulier, if she ever saw him again, would require immediate medical assistance.
Closing her eyes, she leant her head back and listened to the two talk. All of their conversations were more or less the same and she knew each boy’s stories and argument off by heart to the point it became a comforting white noise. Tales and anecdotes from their past missions and training. Debates about where they were being sent, how crowded the hub bunker was and how the smaller bunkers were so under stocked. Arguments over if the Rioteers were the greater threat or if Hasekura was and what should happen to any defectors or feral Synths that left ARCDA. Same song, same tune. She was more than familiar with it.
The talking stopped. Griffin noted the silence and with a subtle peek from beneath her eyelashes, she watched the hard stares between them both along with the twitching and rustling of their feathers. They were musing to one another again.
“You’re both being Sapphire dumbasses again and forgetting your manners.” She elbowed Nico hard in the ribs. “Use your words.”
He winced and pulled his wings up and away from them both, wriggling back so there was more room between them all.
“We’re not talking about you babe.” Nico rolled his eyes. “It’s about the tactical village. They were showing off new guns and Darter was giving me pictures.”
“Ugh. Boring. I’m glad you left me out of that nonsense.”
“No no, we left you out of it so let us fill you in on all the brand new automatics they have-”
Griffin silenced him with a finger to his lips before he could
“Unless they’re releasing a new set of mods for the Fénix, I don’t care.” She patted her personal handgun that was neatly hidden at her side. A sleek and beautiful semiautomatic pistol, that she had spent a year working towards owning and modifying to suit her style of shooting. Nico’s dark eyes went wide.
“Griffin! You are meant to turn that in! All weapons means all weapons, even your own.”
“They never asked for it back.”
“You should know better! Go give that in right now!”
“No. This is mine.”
“Griffin.”
Darter laughed, though it was edged with nervousness as he saw the feathers bristle on both sides. “Uh, Neeks. You do know this is Miss Griffin, right? Following orders is not her forte.” He joked, nudging Griffin in the side and tugged on her short ponytail. “H
ence the blue.”
She swatted his hand away and smoothed down her feathers, though she could still feel the ones down her spine prickling with anger.
“They never said blue isn’t natural colour for Avios.”
“It makes you look like a blueberry. You used to be so cute.”
“If I let myself be cute like you Snowflake, Nico would never get anything done.” She laughed retaliating with a tug on Darter’s hair as they exchanged jabs at one another.
Nico scowled at her disapprovingly, creasing the scars across his face. She inwardly winced and tensed, regretting having brought up the gun, knowing what Nico was like. Even now, she could see an argument formulating in him.
As much as she wanted to snap at him and chide him again for infantilising her, out of one of the attaching hallways marched her handler. Serious and stone-faced as always.
“Griffin. Lieutenant Mykonos will see you now.” Said Thorne flatly. He gave her a quick and scathing glower, snorted then turned with a gesture for her to follow him to the meeting room.
Quickly leaping to her feet, Griffin dusted herself down and did her best to make herself look presentable. Casting a look back to the boys, she caught a cautioning look from Nico.
‘Best behaviour.’ He warned her.
She nodded a farewell to her boys and strode into the briefing office.
Chapter 6
Mykonos had been Griffin’s lieutenant for a long time, he had even been her handler when she was still an Amethyst, and she was used to the way things worked under his command. Unlike other lieutenants who were very formally dressed, Mykonos continued to wear his old uniform embroidered with his call sign and handlers badge with pride. Today however, he was sat behind a desk, had brushed the sable fur across his body to a shine and wore his neatest uniform.
Like many older Canids, he had what was known as an Anubis head, where his face protruded into more of a muzzle with the slitted nostrils and whiskers of a dog, and ears that were higher upon his head than in more modern variants. His appearance deeply bothered most of the human staff members, but for every Synth, he was fairly ordinary.
But the suit…
Griffin’s stomach tightened a little as she stood to attention with Thorne beside her.
“Remember.” Thorne stated in what Griffin assumed to be a sarcastic tone, giving an unenthusiastic nod to the Canid lieutenant. “Be professional, Griffin.”
Thorne seemed no different to usual. A jumped up bootlicking little pencil-pusher of an Onyx, Darter had once called him, who was always dressed smartly, but to see Mykonos so formal meant that there was someone important here, and before Griffin could speculate, the Major strode in through the side door that lead to the officer’s quarters.
In her mind’s eye, Griffin’s wings flicked and beat hummingbird fast, alarmed at seeing the Major.
‘How is what I did worse than what they have done?’ Griffin had screamed at her the last time she had been brought before Major, before promptly swearing at her and the commander to get fucked. There was little chance that they had forgotten about that.
Shoulders rolling back, she tensed her muscles to stop the tremors and remain statue-still. Best behaviour it would have to be.
As the most senior officer who controlled the southeast, usually the briefings and mission assignments didn’t involve the Major as she was far too busy or preoccupied with managing relations with other bunkers and corresponding with the commanders.
Griffin’s mind raced. Was this due to her about to be reinstated as a full Diamond again? Had she done enough to earn it? She hoped so. Unless the report given to Thorne was going to be brought up and her behaviour and attitude discussed again, along with a likely demotion to being made a porter around ARCDA cleaning up trash. She was sure that the Major would do anything to get rid of her.
Watching the Major closely Griffin could see the look of disdain in her eyes as she looked herself up and down. The Major’s brow knotted as her focus lingered in the still fresh scar across her face, the feathers, and the purple diamonds upon her jacket that only the limited number of Amethysts wore. She was both amused and infuriated. Of course. The Major worked with Sapphires and Diamonds, not Amethysts and ‘embarrassments to the Elites and ARCDA’ as she had once chided her.
This wouldn’t be fun.
Griffin had barely finished her salute before Thone began to speak.
“We are honoured to see you Major.” He drawled. “If I had known we would be far more presentable and would have prepared a better function room for you ma’am.”
‘The bootlicking begins early I see,’ Griffin thought loudly to herself. There were no musers among them, and with the door closed no musers could listen in through the walls meaning that she could comfortably and loudly vocalise her disapproval and aggravation. It helped her to keep her placid façade when in meetings.
Mykonos muttered something under his breath with his large triangular ears flicking back quickly. Even the Major gave a little eyeroll over the monotone directness that was Thorne.
“Very well then,” She said with a false smile, waving her hand and bringing up the mission brief onto the screen at the back of the room, “on to business. Griffin, your new assignment will be a reconnaissance based mission. You will be looking for Hasekura agents who have been intercepting and stealing products from Atlas and Core and are likely selling stock to new clientele in Texas.”
“What have they been targeting?” Griffin asked, directing the question to the Canid, who looked more than happy to talk before her handler began again.
“Critters mostly.” He said, ushering her closer with a clawed hand to show her the operations map in more detail. “Mainly the Ossa breeds, Rabbuck, and a few Tarchia since it’s a huge ranch-land that they can sell meats from, however initial findings suggest otherwise as there was also a lot of Raptors, some Febris, several Gattan, and for some insane reason, they specifically targeted and stole a Quetzal that was being bred in Panama.”
“A Quetzal.” Griffin’s stomach lurched at the idea of the giraffe sized critter with a wingspan of a fighter jet just flying around the desert. “Is that confirmed?” She asked calmly, even though she was internally howling ‘How do you even steal a damn Quetzal?’
“It was confirmed stolen a week ago. It was only because it has a GPS tracker that we could find this location at all. From what we can tell, they appear to have control over an old air strip and ranch in the middle of nowhere. Which is how they managed to get the Quetzal from panama to Texas so quickly.”
The middle of nowhere was correct. There was nothing but desert mountains and the dried-up veins of evaporated rivers and tributaries. There was almost nothing to the landscape but a near grey-orange colour, all save for the areas within the ranch boundaries where the grass was unusually green. It was so vibrant that Griffin was sure that if they zoomed out that it would be visible from space it was so defined.
“There are a number of buildings, all new, and a clear Hasekura presence though we aren’t sure what for. There is no underground works, and no indication of any labs.”
Griffin studied the list of critters, the carnivores being the ones that worried her.
Drake Raptors, Gattan, Febris, Thryn, Xiezhi Lin, a damn Quetzal; all entirely capable of being trained and were all designed for and-or were capable of tearing apart other synths. Especially the more fragile Sapiential-Synths like herself, Nico, and all the other Elites. She was only glad that they hadn’t managed to get hold of the newest Synth slayer, the Katari-Amaru.
That would have been Hell.
“Sir.” She said firmly, looking to the Major with concern. “If this is an operation based on importing dangerous goods then surely, you’d need more than just one Amethyst dealing with this. It requires a team.”
Amethysts always worked in threes. ‘The triangle is the strongest shape’ they had always been taught. The Major smiled. It was a snide smile that immediately set Griffin’s tail flaring.
“You won’t need a team. We don’t want you to deal with it, all we want you to perform reconnaissance and report back to us what you have found. That is what your role is after all is it not?”
So Thorne had told them about the report.
‘Shit.’
“After you have gathered sufficient evidence, then it will be down the clarity and extensiveness of your information to help conduct a sting operation to capture the ranch. This is a prime location and the Commander would rather it be kept in one piece with all the products in condition. After this you can be reinstated and will be transferred to another project if it all turns out well.”
The ghost of her wings tensed and trembled angrily in her mind’s eye. Insulted at the job and the reward.
‘Transferred? What is that supposed to mean? Have I not done enough for you?’ She wanted to snap at them but instead with a calm voice said, “I shall keep you informed.”
“You shall keep Mykonos informed directly.” The Major smiled, ignoring the sudden jaw drop from Thorne. “He will be your handler in this.”
Mykonos dipped his wolfish head agreeably, and as glad as she was that she was no longer dealing with Thorne, she didn’t like any of this.
Lieutenants didn’t act as handlers unless it was a special circumstance, and when in operation, Amethysts always worked in threes, they never worked alone. The way Mykonos’s whiskers were twitching and from his narrowed blue eyes, he was apprehensive too. This was against what he knew was right. Unless this was also an attack against Mykonos too for standing by her. That was something she couldn’t abide thinking.
“Yes sir. I understand, sir.” Griffin nodded affirmatively. ‘I don’t understand. What are you thinking Major?’
“You have eighteen hours to prepare. Dismissed.”
With a firm salute, she turned and left them.
Nico was waiting for her outside. Darter having likely left to attend to his own briefing. She didn’t stop to talk, marching towards the training grounds, she made a beeline for the killing house.
She needed to think. And to think clearly, she needed to move and burn off the anger.