by T Hearts
Shooing some lingering elites out with a glower, she gave the Onyx in charge of the killing house a stern look.
“Give me five minutes in there. Handgun. As many targets as you want.” She instructed. The Onyx looked her up and down with a scoff and set up the house structure wordlessly.
Taking a deep breath as she stood at the door. The bell sounded and she flew into the maze-house, Fenix blazing before her, taking down every target in her path.
As she ran, ducked, and shot, her mind whirled with the information she had been given about her assignment.
This wasn’t a high importance mission. Even a newly ranked Emerald or even a tracker team could perform reconnaissance. From what they had told her, the ranch already had been mapped out by satellite. This was just a test for them to see both what she would do and what they should do with her, and from the sound of it, they had already made up their minds.
They didn’t want to reinstate her, they were just looking for a way to get rid of her without straight up killing her. Many had hated the fact that she had been demoted. It put a stain upon the sparkling record of what a Diamond should be. Maybe they thought that with all that freedom and space that she might run away and then they could put out a bounty for her and have her removed that way. The Major never liked to waste time with trials or investigations; it was against ARCDA law, but no one ever questioned her. It was entirely possible that this was the Major’s game. Even after all she had done, they still didn’t trust her or value her.
And if she got through it, played fair and by the rules–
The buzzer sounded as she reached the end of the house, breathless and sweating. Blinking she looked back over her shoulder. She’d been so tangled up in her own thoughts that she barely registered what she had been doing, and checked her Fenix for how many rounds were left in the magazine against how many targets there had been. One out of twenty bullets left, one target missed.
Sighing heavily, she thanked the Onyx unhappily and marched off towards the barracks to get ready to leave.
No sooner had she walked through the doors to the training grounds than she ran into Nico. There was no way she could walk past him this time as he had stretched his wings out to block the entire corridor. As soon as she looked up at him, he smiled and snapped his wings back in.
“So, you’re off on a solo mission!” Nico gleaned immediately form her racing mind, half-skipping along beside her to keep up as she sidestepped him and kept on walking. “And you’re unhappy.”
She marched faster. Oncoming Elites leapt out of her way as if she were a charging Xiezhi Lin with horns pointed forward at all in her path.
“What’s the matter? They’re going to reinstate you, aren’t they?”
“And then they’ll transfer me to another project after this mission. If I’m not killed under the Major’s orders first.”
He came to a sudden stop. Looking back at him, she saw Nico’s wings were tensely drawn up tight against his body.
“Nico? Do you know something?” She tried not to sound annoyed but couldn’t help herself. Usually she was very good, very patient and calm, even when angry, but she’d reached her limit and a snarl snuck on through into her words. “Have they spoken to you about it?”
“I…”
Of course he knew. He couldn’t help himself but to try and mollycoddle her and meddle with every mission of hers whenever he could. But if this transfer was something that he already knew about then it must have meant-
The painful feeling of powerlessness slithered into her chest, tightening a grip on her throat.
“Nico.” She half choked out. “Are they sending me back to Mistral? Tell me.”
His face turned pale and strained.
“I…I don’t think that’s something that we should discuss right now.” He said flatly, trying to keep a cap on whatever it was he was feeling. Snatching his wingtips high off the ground he gave her an uncharacteristically formal salute.
“Good luck on your mission.” He stated quickly before rapidly striding off in the opposite direction before she could corner him for questioning.
Fury burned the powerlessness away. How dare he. How dare they all.
‘Screw him.’ She snarled to herself, turning on her heels and heading back towards the killing house.
Chapter 7
Griffin considered reporting IO in. In fact, she had spent a good few days wrestling with the notion.
She was a stray Avio, as far as she knew, and clearly out on her own which would have given Griffin a lot of respect if she brought her in. However, with the attention that would bring, she didn’t want to turn her final assignment into an irrelevant wild goose chase and let some high flying Ruby or Sapphire leap onto her actual assignment and take all of the credit. That had already happened far too many times and there was no way they were transferring her to another project if she allowed any interference from others.
She hated it.
She was a Diamond!
She hadn’t spent years of arduous work to get side-lined into oblivion and transferred into some dead-end resources role, or worse; returned to Risio. This time she was going to be on target, and the Avio was not part of that target.
Sighing with reluctance, she put her phone back on charge into its solar holder, and went back to her investigation, idly plucking feathers from her suntanned shoulder as she watched.
After nearly two weeks out in the sun, her usually olive skin had tanned and her older winter feathers had moulted as she had begun to acclimatise to the heat of the day and the freezing nights. All the while she had been growing familiar with the routine of the ranch, she had been meticulously recording everything of note on her phone. It was less exciting and active than she had anticipated and had spent a lot of the time between records making flower crowns for herself and the rocks around her from the bluebonnets and marigolds, and polishing every inch of her Fénix up to a mirror shine.
The Raptor release of a few days ago had been accidental and she had filmed every moment. That had been recorded along with them being rounded up by the park rangers, she just didn’t specify that there was an Avio among them.
She had been watching at the time as they attempted to let the flock of critters outside for exercise but had very clearly underestimated the fact that Drake Raptors could leap twenty feet into the air if given a running start. Which they did and then with the broad wings, simply glided away and took off into the canyons.
After this error, the workers had brought in more heavy equipment to build extensions to the fences as well as what looked like a large net that they spanned across the top of several pens. They were wildly underestimating the intelligence of the critters.
“Jackasses.” She snorted to herself.
If that was meant to be what stopped them from jumping out, then it had better be electrified.
Hasekura was clearly trying their best to take care of them, but they had little clue as to what they were doing and were struggling to house the bigger and more active critters appropriately.
Big armoured Ossa and a herd of Tarchia were allowed to graze out in the open fields, ambling about like living tanks that occasionally whacked each other with clubbed tails or rammed their horned heads into one another to assert their dominance, often breaking through the fencing. Two sandy-dapple coloured Gattan that lazed in the sun and appeared to be very drugged as they kept on stumbling around the same rock over and over, chasing their own scents. In the evenings they let out a Xiezhi Lin – a slender critter, merle coloured, larger than a horse and four times longer. It clawed and headbutted every inch of fencing it could to find a weak spot to escape from with earth-shaking howls, and each time was sent back inside the barn for the racket it made.
Griffin longed to see it running across the desert as the Raptors had done. It was clearly stressed at the confinement, as was an emaciated looking Thryn that paced sad circles around the outdoor enclosure until it was time to go back inside to the barn.
The maintenance was regular, and for the past few days she had seen a near constant work effort underway. Constant repairs, structural increases, reinforcement of fences and walls, as well as more workers arriving in the small cargo jets and helicopters that hopped on and off the runway as if it were a bus stop. There were less land vehicles than she had expected, with the ranch having quite a few horses that were their preferred transport amongst the rugged terrain.
By the end of her first week, she had given an estimation of there being approximately one-hundred-and-fifty workers on site to about forty or so horses, but of them all it was the thirteen mercenaries that worried her.
They were constantly active and vigilant, forcing Griffin to change vantage points every twelve hours or so, but it was a Preternatural with camouflageable skin that concerned her most. Tall, broad shouldered, and equipped with a heavy sidearm, he appeared to be in charge, pointing and directing the others to where they needed to be, and with every incident he was one of the first on scene.
He had also come the closest to finding her, catching Griffin off guard with an extensive patrol of the perimeter, but had been startled by treading on a rattlesnake, which had sent him bolting away before it could lash out at him. It had nearly killed her trying not to laugh and made a note that if she were to ever encounter him face to face, to make sure that she had a rattlesnake at hand to send him on his way.
It must have been nice to be able to have such freedom. She quietly wished that the metal armband– a GPS tracker that ARCDA placed on all Synths who ventured outside – was less heat conductive, and itchy, but she knew that if she took it off that the Major would have a bounty on her within the hour.
Sighing loudly to herself she stretched out her back, twisting and listening to the little crackles and pops when the slightest movement caught her eye. Keeping her movements small and slow, she waited until she saw the movement again, and what it came from; A thick indigo-black snake was winding its way through the undergrowth.
Griffin froze in place, mid-stretch, watching as flicked its tongue out as its head brushed against her boot. It paused a moment, scenting the air around her before turning away and slithering on its way. Slowly, she removed her phone from the solar charger and snapped a picture of both the snake and herself in her flower crown and necklace beside it before it vanished. Technically, not part of the reporting system or correct use of the phone, but she thought that Mykonos would appreciate it none the less.
Smiling to herself, she adjusted her current flower crown and looked back up to the construction work going on.
Her jaw dropped.
A critter was charging out into the yard.
These idiots- they had no idea of the mistake they were making!
Scrambling, she grabbed her stuff, shoving it into her pack bag and grabbed her gun.
-x-
James continued to be lacklustre and dazed, despite the large coffee with four espresso shots that was intended to perk him up.
Still in shock and recovering from fainting due to ‘dehydration’ as Teddy had told him, he was convinced that the giant winged girl was a mirage that he had experienced. A very vivid and brightly coloured mirage.
He groaned loudly from the passenger seat as he pressed his forehead against the window, trying to get the cold glass to soothe his head. He blinked slowly at the shrubs going by, and then at the- giant lizard launching itself off the top of a rock stack, with two sets of wings opening out as it soared across the scrubland.
James groaned even louder and slumped back in his chair.
“Now what?” His brother asked.
“I’m seeing things again.”
“Like what?”
“A dragon being chased by cowboys.”
Teddy laughed and glanced across to James’ window. His jaw dropped and he slammed on the breaks, pulling them in to the side of the road.
James looked at him frustrated, then back out the window with a shriek as the creature swooped low over the car.
“I’m not- that’s- THAT THING IS REAL?” He shrieked, then shrieked again as he spilt his coffee all over his pants. With a rumble of thunder, an entire heard of horses each ridden by an armed man charged the car, parting around it and chasing the creature into the hills where no vehicle could hope to go.
Shaking and struggling to ignore his brothers howling, Teddy picked up the phone.
“Big Bend Ranger’s office, Peyton speaking, how can I help?”
He swallowed, voice strangled with shock. “Y-yes. I’d like to report seeing a dragon.”
“A dragon?” Peyton sighed heavily. “As in a fire breathing dragon?”
“I think you need to call out your ranger, IO.”
“Oh.” Her tone changed. “You’re being serious then.”
“Deadly. We’re on Panther junction road, just past Croton spring campsite.”
“IO. Are you receiving?” She had moved away from the phone to speak into the radio. It crackled back.
“Receiving.”
“Meet up with Asher around Croton. He’s going to need help.”
Chapter 8
A roughed-up trail was carved out of the brush and dirt from where the creature had come down, leading IO straight to it.
Asher had already arrived in the flatbed and was very reluctant to leave the safety of the cab until IO had gently descended upon the dying dragon.
The dragon was not in fact a dragon at all. Instead it was a Febris. A large alligator-sized synth with two pairs of membraned wings that were halfway between the wing of a pterosaur and the fin of a shark.
Its eye twitched slightly, a flat yellow that watched her, warning her off with a deep growl in its throat that wheezily got cut short. The fine scales of mottled yellow-green to black and speckled with white, were pock-marked by buckshot and the burns of electrified weapons. The velvety membrane of its wings and soft underbelly had been sliced and split from the rocks and trees as it had crashed landed, and now its blood weeped out across the dusty ground.
“Poor thing.” IO murmured sadly, keeping her distance. As much as she wanted to stroke its scaly head and comfort it, she knew that its mouthful of teeth could easily snap her hand clean off. It let out a pained grunt, shakily trying to raise itself up onto its legs before collapsing heavily once more. IO bit her lip to keep it from quivering.
“Is it safe?” Asher called from the cab of the flatbed, slowly climbing out with a watchful stare. “It’s not going to chew me up and spit me out is it?”
“Not like this it’s not. Poor baby.”
“Baby?”
“It’s only small.” IO wanted to look away. It hurt to see it suffering, to have suffered gunshot wounds across its body, to have crashed out of the sky, and who knew what else had happened to it, but most of all it hurt to know that it deserved none of it.
It was a cleaner, a scavenger that ate the dead and sick, no different to the vultures. It didn’t stalk prey or hunt for the pleasure of it, even the Raptors didn’t do that – it was made to just soar between canyons and sniffed out corpses or infectious pathogens.
That’s what it was made for, not to be hunted like some damn trophy.
“Should I…what should I do? This is out of my jurisdiction for sure.” Asher said weakly. IO looked to him.
He was paler than usual, almost faint.
Gore, injured animals, skeletons, and out-of-the-ordinary things always turned his stomach. Even just mentioning ghost stories or legends would set him off twitching anxiously. Seeing the Febris was really pushing him. Its striped undersides sides gave a little shudder, its breathing and growling quietening.
“I…don’t know.” She didn’t even want to suggest getting the gun from the back of the flatbed and giving it a merciful death. She knew neither of them would be able to pull the trigger.
With a final sigh of breath, the Febris closed its eye and lay still. Anger bubbled up, fierce and with a growing fury that sent tremors across the fea
thers of her cobalt-coloured mantle. She looked away, pulling her wings up over head so that she couldn’t see it anymore.
“Peyton should be here soon.” She said with a choked voice. “She was in Panther. She can help.”
“Help…with a dragon.”
“It’s not a dragon.” She said sharply, tears burning her eyes. It felt demeaning to call it something that didn’t exist.
Asher apologetically looked down.
Giving herself a moment to calm down, she resettled her feathers, took a deep breath and turned back to the creature. She had to do her job properly, even if it upset her.
Crouching carefully beside it, IO checked it over for any signs of trackers or halters that may have been used upon it, not that she could find anything. Lifting its head, she marvelled at how light it really was despite its bulky size, running her fingers over the notches down its spine. It was so unlike the Raptors, not a feather on its body, simply fine scales that had soft threads of hairs along each ridge. Lightly pulling at the dewlap beneath its chin, she sighed sadly as it expanded out into a huge scaled flag of bright orange and blue.
Nervously, Asher stepped closer to it, warily watching for any signs that there might still be life in the creature.
‘Eight limbs. How could a creature this big and with this many limbs exist,’ he thought to himself.
“What do we do?” He asked, watching as she pulled open its jaws to examine its teeth. He winced at the smell of rotten flesh that came from its mouth. “Do we burn it? I think that’s what Peyton would suggest.”
“It might be for the best. I don’t want any of the crows or vultures pecking at it. You never know what it might do to-”
A thundering clatter stopped her. Her head whipped round towards the source of the sound as it drew closer.
Men on horses.
Her feathers bristled. Horses were easier to navigate through rough terrain and take off-road, and many of the trophy hunters she had faced in the past favoured them for reasons of machismo as much as they did practicality.