When We Have Wings

by Claire Corbett

  Unless her desperate plan worked. Then she and Hugo might have a future together. Janeane would help. Janeane had business contacts all over the country. Janeane could tell Peri where to go. Peri would lose herself in another city, on the other side of the continent. And Peri was already transformed into a different creature from the child who’d run away from the Venice. Nothing to stop her transforming further. Hair colour, eye colour, maybe even skin colour. None of these things could be hard compared to what she’d done already. And Hugo would grow up loved by the one who’d cared for him from birth. She’d never let him feel he was alone in the world. He’d grow up believing Peri was his mother; she’d be a real mother to him. Not like Avis, who never spent more than a few minutes at a time with him. Peri and Hugo would never be found. They would be safe.

  Near the top of the hill there was a bower behind a low bank of rammed earth. Peri laid Hugo down on the soft grass to sleep. As she settled herself, she saw the light in this glade came from pinpricks of blue along the earthen wall. Glow-worms, like the ones in the hills behind Pandanus. The blue lights gleamed at her and Hugo from across an abyss, as if the glow-worms were dust, stars, shining at her from the darkness of space. Worms on a wall, stars in space, what was the difference? Worms and stars were equally beautiful, equally mysterious. Although the worms, being alive, probably had the edge on the stars. Alive. Like her. Except—Peri sat up suddenly—she’d been stupid. How could she be so forgetful? She hadn’t taken her drugs.

  Groping in her waistband, she fished out a pack of Aileronac. With one split dose in her hand, she pulled her wings as far round her as they would go and pressed the tip of the injecting pen against one wing muscle near the shoulder, then the other. Aileronac hissed into her, delivered by pressured carbon dioxide directly under the skin. Every night, every morning. One or two days’ negligence might not matter but she wasn’t about to take risks with her regime. Not now, when she was pushing her flying abilities harder than ever before.

  Peri replaced the pack and sat waiting for the initial whoosh and dizziness to fall away. Aileronac always felt like a flurry of cold air rushing through her muscles and lungs, as if it made her bigger but airier. As if the drug whipped her up, like wind puffing up a cumulus cloud, increasing her volume but not her weight. Now for the Opteryxin. So bitter, always made her feel sick. Peri rinsed her mouth and spat. No Zefiryn tonight. More use first thing in the morning.

  Time for sleep, time to focus her mind, time to review all the day’s flying, as she’d been taught in Flight Gym. Havoc, her instructor at Blue Air Group (they’d called it FlightBAG, of course), had been ex-military. For him Flight was a victory over laziness and inertia, each and every goddamn flight a test of skill, fitness and courage. Every day you don’t fly, you fall. That’s what Havoc used to yell.

  It was Havoc who’d helped awaken her new but frozen flight muscles after surgery. She’d been so afraid she’d never be able to move them herself and had struggled for days just to raise them a fraction; it was as if her brain was sending instructions to waxen wings. Havoc had taught her the exercises to establish the pathways between her brain and her wings, had helped her bring them to life.

  No-one else Peri knew took such a utilitarian approach to emotions. To Havoc, emotions were an unreliable sensor. You paid attention to what they told you, but if what they told you was wrong you learned to ignore them.

  Your evolutionary history has not programmed you to fly, Havoc said. So your thoughts and feelings are not calibrated for it. Understanding this was vital if she were to learn to fly safely, he explained. You had to learn to control your mind as much as you learned to control your body. With Havoc, who refused to listen to her fears, who ignored her exhaustion, who barked at her that she was paying a lot of money for him to make sure she learned something, Peri felt she’d taken her first steps towards growing up.

  Wouldn’t Havoc be proud of her now, seeing how well and how far she’d flown that night? She would never see Havoc again.

  It takes more than wings to fly.

  As Peri stood on the edge of the sea cliff at Angel Falls it was clear to her how true this saying of the instructors was.

  It takes more than wings to fly.

  Flight takes all your heart and all your mind and all your body. You have to give it everything you have. Including all your money. That was the part they didn’t have to say because it was obvious; everyone knew it. And Peri’s wings had cost her so much more than all of that. Sometimes she feared the transformation had taken her very soul.

  Peri paced back and forth along the cliff, her wings tightly folded. Every take-off is optional, Havoc had drilled into her, but every landing is mandatory. Each day that week she’d woken early and walked the path along the clifftop to Angel Falls, known for its steady, consistent updrafts. Each morning she told herself I don’t have to fly yet. I’ll study the air currents and watch the parents flying with their little ones. Each morning she returned to Peter’s house, to Hugo, a failure. A coward who still hadn’t taken her first solo flight.

  No wonder it was called Angel Falls. It was the beginners’ launch site, where fledglings dived bravely through the air. Peri heard shrieks of laughter or terror but never once saw a child fall to the cold waves below. The parents, powerful fliers themselves, either caught them or flew beneath, making sure fledgling wings powered their babies back up into the heavy, salty air. How do they know when to catch them, when to let them save themselves? How do they know the right moment for the child to fly alone?

  This was new knowledge, created for the first time this generation. No ancestral wisdom, no folklore to rely on. Mistakes were rare enough that the drop of a child from the sky was still news, fliers everywhere catching their breath in horror. One slip, one hair’s-breadth misjudgement.

  Peri raised and stretched her wings high over her shoulders as she had a thousand times before to prepare for this moment. Her wings were heavy. The injections had helped but she had to fly every day for a long time before she grew fully into the new strength she needed. The drugs made her feel sick most of the time. You can feel sick for months carrying a baby, her Flight specialist had joked, why wouldn’t you feel sick incubating a whole new self?

  Peri’s body felt lighter even with the weight of her wings and even though she was more muscled than she’d ever been. Her bones too were stronger and lighter. The effort of Flight narrowed her waist, broadened her chest and shoulders, chiselled her muscles. These wings cloaked her, like massive drapery folded elegantly down her back or arching out from her shoulder blades, but they were alive. She was always hungry. She had never worn so few clothes. The wings themselves were warm and her new metabolism threw heat off her like a fire.

  Peri staggered, nearly fell. An updraft of air had caught her wings and almost lifted her off her feet. As it was supposed to.

  Peri had trialled her wings many times in Flight Gym. At first, suspended in a harness above an invisible safety net, she swooped through the gym that was broader than a football field. With no risk of falling, she’d experimented with her new wings, feeling the way they opened, angled and curved. Net and harness were taken away and her only security was in knowing every up and down of the air-current program run on the Flight simulation system, its extra-strength updrafts bearing her high above the artificially generated clouds and sky-blue of the gym floor. And there were the instructors, the strongest fliers she’d ever seen, who could come to the rescue in the blink of an eye, the flap of a wing. Still, no-one escaped injury; there were always fliers nursing bruises and broken bones and she’d limped around with a bandaged ankle and taped-up wing feathers more than once.

  It was disheartening to be such a slow learner. The new fliers, the athletic little six- and seven-year-olds, spun through the gym like swallows. As they grew more skilled, and cockier, they even staged mock aerial battles. They had no doubts about the bird abilities enc
oded into their brains: they could navigate by stars or by polarised light and colour gradients in the sky.

  While Peri dreamed of true Flight, part of her wanted to stay in Flight Gym. The best practice time was at night with sham stars glowing above, the floor dropping away so that the gym’s boundaries seemed to disappear. She could dive fast, cushioned by darkness, the tips of her primary feathers outlined in fluorescent safety dust as other fliers wheeled by, their wingtips brushing hers, their wings drawing arcs of electric blue and green against the dark. Moments at a time had felt like real flying.

  But here on the cliff edge she faced real Flight, here the lift was not programmed, here the airs were unpredictable. Here she was clumsy, a novice eagle, and shared the air with its true masters, the gulls, the swallows. How would they react to her intrusion? Would they try to drive her off? Not long ago a pair of eagles had attacked a young flier over the desert. The eagles grappled with the flier, one of them clawing at her, entangling itself in her hair and feathers, and high above the desert floor they’d tumbled, plummeting, head over tailfeathers, as fighting eagles do. On the news the flier wept, saying she thought she was going to die.

  Today Peri would die. Her brain told her this over and over. Ignore it. Havoc says ignore it. Brain’s doing what it’s supposed to but it’s wrong.

  How many fliers died on their first flights? As many people as used to die in their first two years of driving a car, Havoc joked. Peri was seventeen. There’d been others like her at Flight Gym, some even in their twenties, who’d got their wings after they were grown. Unlike children, who could slot Flight in as one more developmental task, teenagers and young adults had to make flying their obsession. You can live, bellowed Havoc during one especially frustrating lesson, or you can fly. If that’s a choice for you then you’re not a flier.

  Peri’s specialist said: Two thousand hours. Two thousand hours in the air to become a bird.

  Peri stepped up to the edge of the cliff. She must let go. She must be prepared to die.

  A gust of air rushed over the cliff. She staggered a step, unfurled her wings and ran forward. As she leapt off the cliff, she knew she’d done it at the wrong moment. Dropping as if she’d been shot, she beat her wings hard, harder, harder than she ever had in Flight Gym.

  There—is—no—future—in—this.

  Her chest and back muscles hurt so much she could barely breathe.

  Flying was too hard. If she ever made it to the ground in one piece she’d have to get her wings cut off. She could not live the rest of her life with the burden of these wings and not use them. It’d be worse than being crippled; she’d given up her old life for this new one, this new life that only made sense when she took to the air.

  The downbeats slowed her plunge.

  Where was the ridgelift, rising air compressed against the side of the cliff—and warmed by the thermal collector of the rock face—which should be rushing upwards and taking her with it?

  Where, where was it?

  The wind fell away from Peri like a scream.

  Breathe.

  Breathe in the rhythm of Flight.

  Strength began to flow back into her flight muscles, the pain sub- siding with the warmth of her effort.

  Breathe in, wing upstroke, breathe out, wing downbeat, breathe in, wings up and angled so the wing surface is smaller, breathe out, wings down.

  Down is the power stroke.

  Down and down and down.

  Down with a big wing and recover with a small wing. Down with a big wing and recover with a small wing. The mantra of Flight Gym.

  It’s like rowing through the air, said Havoc. You’ve got to angle the upstroke like a rower ‘feathers’ his blade. Down with a big wing and recover with a small wing.

  At last. There was the ridgelift, catch it, board it, like a wave rising under you from the sea, don’t miss it, don’t let it rush past and drop you, don’t let it blow you back over the top of the ridge into the danger zone of lurking rotors and low lift.

  Peri was in the proper rhythm. And now the ridgelift was rising faster and pulling her with it and it was even better than her dreams of flying as a child; instead of flapping her arms, all that effort, now she was beating her wings and they were bearing her up. Higher and higher she was rising and the lift was rising, speeding and delirious as an express train and she was past the height of the cliff edge and rising fast, there was no ceiling, no limit to joy, the sphere of crystal endless on every side, no boundary, oh yes, this was new, and she was so high now she could soar, angling her wings just so, the study of eagle and albatross paying off, their manoeuvres starting to become second nature—although she still had to think about it, that’s why it was so dangerous, it wasn’t knitted into her muscles yet, but she felt it all begin to mesh together seamlessly, like dance steps, don’t think about it too hard, let it flow, but precisely, the angle of the wing, the curve of her body.

  Oh my god, exulted Peri. I am flying!

  I—am—flying!

  Peri was concentrating too hard to be distracted by the dazzling glitter sheeting below, light falling, sluicing over her wings like rain, air so blue she could taste it, pure as snow. It was beautiful but she wasn’t looking at it. Instead she was in it in a way she had never been in the world before.

  Here it came, the glide, sliding down a long easy curve in the sky. The air was three-dimensional, she was sculpting it into shapes, peeling off long curves, slicing spirals. Now she beat her wings again, soaring upwards. If she flew high enough she would have time to look around her. She set her wings to curve her into a rising gyre. There was a layer of rinsed white cloud just above her. Tufted, spread across the sky like a fleece flung onto a table. Fly below it or above it but don’t stay in it—without the horizon line, you can’t keep your wings level.

  Mist filled her mouth, her nose, her eyes as she rose through cold cottonwool. You walkin’ in the white room now, Havoc would have reprimanded her. You don’t want to be walkin’ in the white room. Never know what’s in there with you. As soon as she was clear of the cloud she checked her wings against the horizon. Dipping and rising, she followed the contours of cloud screening her from the sea below. She drove forward, pushing herself. How fast could she fly? A question that could never be answered in Flight Gym.

  Her muscles trembled with nerves, with effort, with exhilaration, as she tried to make sense of her sector of sky, its oceanic depth, its fast-motion changeability, how different cloud, blue bowl of sea, cliff looked from above, from different angles, different heights, but she couldn’t fix it in her mind, it ran like water, all senses, streaming around her.

  She had never seen the sky in all her life before.

  How high could she fly? What was the limit? She was already so high the earth was no longer real. Only her in the sky. Every spiral pure joy.

  This was Flight.

  The true thing she’d struggled so hard for. It was for this she’d risked and endured so much.

  It had to be worth it.

  Her flight went on and on, she flew with the utter effortlessness of a dream, her wings never tiring, but into her flight there came the sound of a voice. Just a whisper, cutting through the air sharper than any shout. There were no other fliers up there with her on her first flight. The sound threw her off-balance, she lost her concentration and spiralled down into darkness, she hadn’t been flying nearly long enough for it to get dark but she was falling now, she was going to hit the ground . . .

  Peri woke, gasping with fright. It was dark, as dark as her dream. Still deep night. How long had she slept? Hugo snored faintly next to her. Before Hugo I never knew a baby would snore.

  She listened, her chest tight. The voice whispered, paused, moved away down the western slope of the hill. He’d passed her and Hugo but he’d be back soon, when he found no-one on the other side of the hill.
No answering voice. Who was he talking to? Someone far away. Peter? Peter, questioning whoever he’d sent to hunt her; he’d be at home, up late, of course he couldn’t sleep. Already, I’ve stayed here too long. Her heart thudded so loudly in her ears she was frightened it would give her away.

  He’ll kill me right here, dump my body in the sea, grab Hugo.

  Take a deep breath. Only one place to go. One place Peter doesn’t know about. Janeane. No-one in the City knows about Janeane.

  Behind Peri rose the highest point of The Platform, the lookout at its eastern edge facing in the opposite direction to where the voice had been heading. She bundled Hugo into his sling, praying he wouldn’t cry. He didn’t fully wake as she fastened her waistband and crept to the lookout, each noise making her jump.

  Silence. A rustle, wind through feathers. Was he coming back? All she could do not to run.

  The rest of the night, flight without pause. No resting. He must not follow me. Can I do it? I have to. Feathers rustled unbearably loud in the still air. Is he really looking for me?

  No railing on the lookout, the turf just ended, hillside dropping away sheer. Haven’t heard anything; is it possible he doesn’t yet know I’m here? Hope hammered her until her chest hurt. One chance. Don’t wait. Move. Launched into the air, the churr of her feathers as thunderous as a hundred doves taking off. Up, up, up.

  Peri soared a thousand metres above The Platform before daring to come about, heading north and west, the moon sinking in her eyes. She wished she could get above cloud but there was only cirrus, sketchy and remote, wisps glinting in moonlight; cirrus was high altitude—those ice threads didn’t even start till you were over six klicks. At least they promised good weather.