by JA Huss
He shrugs and takes his seat, shoving food in his mouth before he even settles. "It's good, real eggs and everything. Tier said you only eat fresh food, so lucky us, right?" He shoots me a smile.
"Tier would have no idea, Ashur. He saw me eat a total of three meals."
"He's the resident Junco expert, like it or not, what he says goes. Might as well enjoy the food, Fledge food is like military field rations."
I force myself to eat three bites and push the plate away.
"Ya know, you don't have to make everything so difficult, Junco. You can have it made here, if you want."
"And what would I have to do in order to have it made?"
"Follow the program," he meets my gaze, "and just do what you're told for once."
"For once? You're an asshole." I let out a deep sigh, get up, and go flop down on the bed and bury my face in the pillows. "I'm sorry I came here."
I hear him set his fork down and push back from the table and look up to see what he's doing. His head is in his hands. A gesture that reminds me of Tier when he was thinking out at the cabin, right before he told me that he killed my father.
"Ya know something, Junco, we're probably all sorry you came here. Except one person, maybe. And that's Tier. So for fuck's sake, try and do what you're told for his benefit. The guy's sitting in prison for saving you and" – he lifts his head and stares at me with bloodshot eyes – "and if I had it my way, Junco, I would have killed you myself in order to save him from that."
He stands up and walks to the door. "If you need something, I'll be outside until Layla comes."
Good job, Junco. Making friends already.
Chapter Three
Layla is busy getting the equipment ready as I watch from the table. "Ashur's mad at me." It slips out because I can't stop thinking about what he said.
Layla talks to me under her breath between curse words directed at the control panel. "Well, Junco, Ashur is not the sanest guy in the Cluster. He's always been a little touched, don't take it personal."
"He said he should have killed me to save Tier."
She looks up this time. "What?"
I shrug with my hands. "That's what he said." I watch her face as she processes this, expecting her to say something, but she doesn't. She just looks back at the machine, apparently in agreement with the guy who's a little bit touched.
I change the subject because the thought of both of them wanting me dead to save their friend is a little too unsettling. "So what does this test do anyway?"
She curses for a few more seconds before answering. "We gotta map you again. I took some images while you were under, but it was hard to see everything. This way we'll have a good baseline at what we're looking at."
"What are we looking at?" I ask.
She stops this time and gives me her full attention. "Sorry, Junco – I forgot that you haven't seen it yet." My heart thumps as I wait for the reveal. "I've never seen anything like it before, but–"
"But?"
"You've got a lot of technology inside you. Like everywhere. In fact," she's just warming up, I can tell, "your entire nervous system is controlled by circuits that reside outside of your brain and peripherals. Like in your hands – there's a whole pad of circuits in the palms of your hands. And that SEAR dock?" She stops to shake her head. "I have no idea what that is."
I let out a grunt. "That's awesome."
She ignores me and goes back to the machine. Thirty minutes later I'm naked and standing behind the transparent shield that will allow Layla to see inside me.
She describes the process, how it will feel, and how long it will take but my mind is on Ashur. I feel the need to set this right for some reason. He was the only person Tier allowed in the room with us right before they stuck me in morph and he was the person who shielded me from the battle that happened in my driveway. I don't have to trust him, but I don't have to make him hate me either. And some small part of me secretly wants him to leak out more information about Tier. I wonder if Tier even knows I'm out of morph?
I stand as still as I can as the lights begin to pass over my body. When it's over I get dressed and flop back on the bed to wait for the confirmation that I am a freak. When she resurfaces and calls me over to her I can sense her hesitation.
"See this?" she says, pointing to a large white splotch superimposed at the base of my spine in the full-scale image of my body.
I nod.
"That's your endocrine biog."
"OK, that's not so weird, is it? I mean, Tier said my biog protocols were on that cube."
"Right. No, you're right. The biog isn't weird, hell, I have one too. But…" She stops and looks at me. "Junco, this thing controls your whole body. Your glands don't make the hormones, this thing does."
I shrug, not seeing the big deal. "Anything else?"
"Well, actually yes. See these?" She points to more white blotches on the image, one at each joint of my bones, and more throughout my body.
"Yeah, and?"
"Most of these are in the same place as your lymph nodes, or where the lymph nodes would be."
"Layla, get to the point, OK. I'm not an anatomy expert and I don't feel like digging down to find the memories from school."
"OK, well, you don't process your blood in the same way as most people. It gets shunted through these other things, and then these" – she points to the many white lines running up and down my legs, arms, and trunk area – "take it to the muscles," she points, "the lungs," more pointing, "and then finally back to the heart where it interacts with this" – she screws up her face and raises her eyebrows – "master circuit."
I just stare at her blankly.
"Junco, you're half machine."
I grunt. Of course I am. And why wouldn't I be? My body was altered since I was a toddler, I should have seen this one coming. "You're fucking crazy," I say instead.
She shrugs and snaps the image off the viewer and takes it back into the lab. I follow and watch as she rolls it up and stuffs it into a tube.
"What are you doing?"
She scowls at me. "I have to take this to Lucan right away. Braun will stay with you until I come back."
And before I can protest or demand to know what that will mean to me, she's gone and a guard enters to take her place.
He's tall, like Tier and Ashur, but not as dark and more muscular. Both his wings and his hair are more brown than black and I recognize him as the smiler from yesterday's hallway showdown with Lucan. He looks thrilled to be invited in, so I try not to make an enemy.
"Wanna sit?" I ask pointing to the table.
"I'm Braun," he says as he takes a seat.
"Junco."
"Yeah, I know. Was with you when you were picked up from Earth."
"Oh." I stop, trying to see if I recall him, but I have no memory of anyone but Tier, Layla, and Ashur.
"That was pretty funny the way you talked shit to Lucan yesterday." He laughs. "I bet it's been a long time since anyone's talked to him like that."
"Oh," I say again. "He hates me, doesn't he?"
The avian smiles and his eyes glow a little orange. "Lucan hates everyone. He's an Archer." A shrug. "No sense of humor, those guys. So what have you been doing in here all day?"
I walk over to the screen and pretend to watch the news. "Tests."
"Did you pass?"
I look back at him, trying to decide if he's serious or not. If pushed, I'd peg him as a guy who doesn't get serious unless he's forced, but he looks sincere. "No, I don't think so."
"Wanna tell me about it?"
"No, not especially."
"Wanna play cards then? Pass the time?"
"I don't know your games, so–"
He pulls a deck out of his jacket. "You're a soldier, Junco, all soldiers can play poker."
I laugh. "Oh, well, OK."
Braun is the first normal guy I've met in a long time. We get along and there's no arguing and he doesn't pretend to be better than me or even seem bothered that
I have the SEAR tucked under my shirt. We play using 2x2 gauze as chips and it only takes a few minutes and I'm laughing. He's got a nice sense of humor and when he asks me if I'm hungry he doesn't lecture me when I say no. But he does leave to get some food and when he brings it back to the table I am hungry and it's not bad.
We've been playing for hours and I owe Braun six thousand rills, whatever that is, when Ashur enters. Braun smiles and stands up, counting his cotton wipes to double-check his winnings. "I cheated her out of enough paper products to buy a new house, Ash." And then he laughs. "See you tomorrow, Junco, I'll bring beer for the next game."
Ashur just raises his eyebrows. "Braun, don't–"
"Ah, shut up, man. And get off her back, she's stressed. Make her happy, why don't you?" Then he looks at me. "We'll have fun tomorrow, Juncs." And then he walks to the door, his weapon slapping his thigh with each step as he leaves.
I'm still smiling when I look over at Ashur and force myself to dial it back down.
"You'll want to stay away from that one, Junco."
"Why?"
He shakes his head. "He's trouble."
"Oh, I see. He's trouble, yet I'm the prisoner, Tier's on trial for treason, and you wish you could kill me. Well, thanks for clearing all that up." The tension is back and I miss Braun already. I walk over to the bed and flop down. My desire to make things right with Ashur is gone with the return of my sour mood.
He walks into the lab and takes a minute before coming back in the living area and sitting down at the table. His back slouches and his long legs sprawl out in front of him. "I spoke to Tier today."
My heart skips, but I don't answer him.
"He asked about you."
I turn my back to him and let out a big sigh.
"Do you want me to tell him anything if I see him again?"
"No."
"Do you care to explain that, Junco? I mean, the guy is on trial for you, the least you can do is send a message to say hi."
I turn back. "You know something, I'm beginning to wonder how well you actually know him. The Tier I know does not want to hear from me right now, Ashur. And you're lying if you tell me he's sent a message, because I know for a fact he wouldn't do that. So stop with the bullshit, OK?"
He shakes his head and turns his attention to the screen. We don't speak another word to each other. I don't set anything right. And Ashur makes no attempt to make me happy. I lie there for a long time before falling asleep.
I wake in the middle of the night again. My sleep is way out of whack. Ashur is still slumped in his chair, one arm crossed over his chest, his fingers playing with his shirt on the opposite shoulder while watching the screen. He's got a cigar box in his other hand and he taps it gently on the table until he notices me looking at him.
"Cigar?" He extends his hand out and I lean over and take the little gray box, shake out the stogie, and light it up.
"Thank you."
He hands me an ashtray and I prop myself up in bed and set it on my stomach. He's watching a screen about a girl who is being chased by some psycho murderer on an abandoned habitat. Despite myself, I get into the drama. I can see the draw of mindless entertainment, even though I can count on one hand the number of screens I've seen all the way through in my lifetime.
We sit in silence until the credits roll and then he speaks. "I'm sorry for saying that shit, Junco. I don't want to kill you. And we all like you, we don't wish you never came home."
I stare at him until he looks me in the eyes. "You need to butt out of my life when it comes to Tier, Ashur. It's over. He sent me a message" – I hesitate – "and like I said, he never told you to tell me anything, did he?"
He shakes his head. "No. He didn't. But it doesn't make sense, I watched him put you under in the morph, and you two weren't fighting."
"It doesn't matter, does it? It's over."
We sit in silence and watch the screen as another show comes on. "I've seen this one," Ashur says when it starts. "It's not bad."
We watch it and chat some. After a little bit I fall back asleep and when I wake in the morning he's gone.
Layla and Lucan are standing over me, talking in avian. I squint up at them and try to string the words together. "I'm right here, you know."
Both sets of eyebrows go up.
"Yeah, I understand too, so that shit you just talked about me is not going over well." I push up and extract myself from the bed to go take a shower and when I'm finished, I find a closet full of clothes. It has five identical outfits to the one I was just wearing.
And one that makes me smile.
I tug on the camo fatigues and button them up. They are looser than they were when I put them on last and I make a mental note to try and eat more. Then I wrestle the shirt over my back and stretch and rip at the arm holes of the sniper shirt until I can jam my wings and arms through. I realize I look ridiculous, but I don't care. My old field boots are in there too, but there's no way they will fit on my new hulking feet. Besides, I'm feeling Moju's affinity for going barefoot.
When I walk out of the bathroom Lucan and Braun are at the table talking and Layla is in the lab clanking glassware around.
Braun laughs. "Snipers do it from behind? They saved that for you?"
"I knew you'd appreciate my shirt, Braun." His eyes dance as he laughs again and I catch myself wondering how long I'll have to wait until we can play cards.
Lucan interrupts my daydream. "Layla, Braun. Junco and I need some private time, please."
Braun winks at me as he passes. "Beer's in the fridge, Juncs." I absently wonder if I'm old enough to drink on this habitat or if Lucan will frown on that, but he stays seated and points to the chair Braun just vacated.
"Layla has some interesting developments from the tests yesterday. Do you know what it means?"
I shake my head, but keep silent.
"You're not human."
He waits for my reaction, but I hold it in.
"You're not avian."
Nothing.
"You're not machine."
I laugh now. "OK. So what am I?"
"All three, apparently. It's highly unusual."
I squint, but do not avert my eyes. "Will you kill me now?"
It's his turn to stay silent. We stare, willing the other to speak. I have nothing to say so I am patient until he gives in. "That will be entirely up to you, Junco."
"How's that work, then?"
"We have a strict, structured society here. A lot of people must share space in the hundreds of habitats we have scattered throughout the Band, but habitats are not easily made and resources are precious. Do you understand this?"
"Yeah, of course."
"When we create the clutches of children we do so with the entire population in mind. We try to make them into their genetic ideals but not all of them will be able to reach their full potential. Which is why after they go through the morph they must go through Fledge. Do you know what Fledge is, Junco?"
I shake my head.
"It's a test of sorts. To see which individuals can fulfill the potential bestowed upon them. Everyone you've met so far has succeeded in Fledge. Proved themselves worthy."
Tier's words on the rock on Earth come back to me, She's worthy. That's what I thought. She's worthy – it's just that no one recognizes it yet.
"And there is a very simple test to determine if you're worthy or not." He stops and waits for me this time.
"Which is?"
"In this case it is a series of fights. That's what Fledge is. A series of fights to the death."
"So you want me to kill people in order to prove myself."
He nods. "Your clutchmate, Esta, went through Fledge a few years ago. So she earned her place. And if you want to stay here, you must do the same."
I shrug. "OK."
"You may not use the weapon."
"Lucan," I snarl his name, "seriously, if you think the most dangerous thing about me is that stupid weapon, you are grossly mistaken."
"And that is?" I ask, looking at him sideways.
He hesitates and I notice the slightest crack of a smile beneath his facade. "You must testify against Tier."
"No problem." I catch his shock like a firefly in a jar and tuck down my satisfaction.
He physically moves backward. "And you will tell the truth."
"I always tell the truth, Lucan."
He regains his composure. "Very well. I will set it up."
"You do that," I say to his back as he exits the room.
You do that, Lucan. And I'll do the same.
Chapter Four
Braun enters before the door can close behind Lucan and his smile brings me back from the edge. "Junco," he says, "I get that you love the shirt, but you can't wear it like that."
I frown at him as he removes his knife and lifts the fabric up from my back. "What are you doing?"
He leans down into my face. "Making you look presentable, babe. Just give me a minute." His hands get busy cutting the shirt around my wings.
"Don't call me babe." I look over my shoulder at him and he shrugs.
"Sorry, Junco. Forgot." Then he flashes a smile and continues to cut. "I invited the 039 over for poker. And the box is stocked, so should be a good time tonight."
"Why?"
He's finished cutting now and he takes a second to straighten out my shirt before leaning into my face again. "Welcome home party, Junco." His hands take my arm and force it into the shirt. Then he manipulates the cloth so that his cut stretches over the uppermost portion of my wing. When his fingers make contact with the sensitive feathers my back arches involuntarily and I squeal. "Shit, what was that?" I ask, my breath heavy.
"Sorry, Junco. I know, it's weird, right? Don't take it the wrong way, I'm just trying to get them out through the cuts in the fabric."
"What way might I take it?"
He stops and leans around to see my face. "It's kind of erotic, isn't it? The whole wing-touching thing."
I raise my eyebrows at him. "Yeah, kinda."
He wrestles with the other wing, forcing me to stifle the sounds that want to escape my lips. When he's finally done I breathe out a sigh of relief and look up into his eyes. They glow a little more with each passing second and are a warm orange, like a beckoning fire. "This isn't my home, Braun." I pick up the conversation as quickly as possible to avoid the weirdness that wants to creep in.