by Kevin George
Ms. Van Horn steepled her feathered fingers beneath her chin, slowly turning from one side of the argument to the other. When she held up a hand, silence fell over the room and she turned to Billy, chirping slightly as she tried to look behind him.
“Why isn’t Quentin Bowie with you?” she asked. Though her voice remained calm, the steely edge in her tone sent chills through Billy, making him wonder if he’d made the right decision coming here.
“He told me he had other issues to handle and I should return to you with results of our Aviary testing,” Billy said.
“Testing?” Ms. Van Horn asked.
The resulting excitement led to Board members leaping from their seats, flapping their misshapen wings and knocking over chairs. More than one appeared ready to pounce on him. Ms. Van Horn stood from her chair and glided toward Billy, who suddenly became shrouded within her shadow. His breath caught in his throat and he barely managed a nod.
“Why weren’t we told the new Aviary version was completed? Why did Quentin spend so much time insisting on patience if he planned to rush the test?”
With each question asked, Ms. Van Horn came closer and closer until her bulbous Aviary chest brushed against Billy and sent him recoiling.
“I don’t know,” Billy said. “I only do what I’m told.”
“And the new Blast was tested on—”
One of the Aviaries squawked impatiently. “Who cares? Tell us the results!”
When Ms. Van Horn turned to the Aviary that dared interrupt her, the others did the same, hissing at him who would challenge their leader. But Ms. Van Horn immediately turned back to Billy.
“And?”
“It worked,” Billy said, chirps spreading through the room. “Maybe too well. Within minutes of injection, the prisoner turned into a full-blown Aviary, larger and more powerful than any Aviary I’ve seen yet.”
The Board collectively fluttered their frail wings, whipping themselves into an excited frenzy, several of them inching closer to Billy. When he raised a hand to silence them—the way he’d seen Ms. Van Horn do so often—the Aviaries snapped and hissed at him. Billy needed to yell to be heard.
“I’m sorry to report this but in the process of testing, the woman I injected killed both guards protecting me and Quentin,” Billy said. “They sacrificed themselves to make sure the test subject remained imprisoned.”
He expected their squawks to turn mournful or concerned, but one chuckle led to another, and Billy saw the group for the monsters they truly were.
“That’s it?” one of them called out.
“She was locked in a room when I left her, but she’s probably escaped by now,” Billy said.
“I don’t care how powerful this woman has become, she won’t get past all of the guards,” Ms. Van Horn said. “And now that we know your version of Aviary works, the test subject is no longer of any use. The more important issue now is giving me a dosage of the new Blast.”
“And me,” another Board member called out.
The same sentiment echoed throughout the room. The Aviaries no longer remained in their spots around the table, soon encircling Ms. Van Horn and Billy. The young scientist’s heart pounded. He was no longer certain these people—these creatures, he thought with utter dread—were capable of the clarity of thought necessary to understand his importance. Billy became suddenly nervous to tell them the next part.
“I don’t have another dosage,” he told Ms. Van Horn. Her eyes narrowed. Billy sensed the others pushing closer and closer to them, but he couldn’t take his eyes off their leader. “We only extracted enough marrow from the Descendant to produce three dosages, and we used one on the prisoner,” he continued.
Billy twitched as one Aviary wing brushed against his back, followed immediately by two others. He held his breath, waiting for the inevitable attack that would turn him into a bloody stump of mangled flesh. But Ms. Van Horn finally turned to the others and hissed. Nobody needed to be told to back away.
“Then give me the other two,” she said.
“I. . . I don’t have them,” Billy said, worried his answer might seal his fate. “Quentin took them.”
“For what purpose?” Ms. Van Horn asked, her voice quivering more with each word.
“I don’t. . .,” Billy began before recalling what Quentin called to him as he rushed down the hallway. “He said something about fulfilling his destiny.”
Ms. Van Horn squawked so loudly and suddenly that Billy tripped trying to back up. He wasn’t the only one. Other Aviaries chirped in fear and backed away, some of them stumbling to the floor. Those that remained upright huddled together in the far corner. Ms. Van Horn flapped her wings wildly and shot from one side of the room to the other, knocking over chairs along the way, smashing into the large wooden table and pushing it askew. Her tantrum lasted nearly a minute. By the time she stopped, Billy’s vision swirled and he realized he’d been holding his breath.
Ms. Van Horn carefully smoothed her clothing, releasing a final chirp before she looked down at Billy.
“Him,” she said.
Billy shook his head. “Not me, I swear I don’t have—”
“Not you, you bloody fool,” Ms. Van Horn said, turning to the rest of the Board. “Him, that’s where he’s going. I knew Quentin could never be trusted.”
Ms. Van Horn’s followers looked upon her with reactions varying from excitement to confusion.
“You will take more marrow from the Descendant, create another round of Aviary Blast and give it directly to me,” Ms. Van Horn told the young scientist.
Billy nodded. “My family is happy to serve your needs, but you should probably know the test subject and her son spoke about finding Emma and rescuing her first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sally peered around James, finally easing her grip on his waist. Despite her general distaste for him, she’d held on tightly during the harrowing journey through the pass near the outskirts of The Mountain. James had driven the snowmobile quickly, yet carefully along the rocky trail, unable to prevent the attached sled from bumping into some rocks along the way but managing to get them all safely to the other side. Sally had spent most of the trip looking back at the Swarm fluttering behind them, making sure nobody got left behind. She doubted James would’ve stopped had anyone gotten lost among the storm, but she was glad everyone had kept pace.
Now, the land in front of them was mostly flat. They cruised across the smooth sheet of snow, making their final approach toward The Mountain looming through the blizzard. She reached around James and pointed, yelling so he could hear over the snowmobile’s whining engine.
“Love told the others about a small alcove leading to The Mountain’s blast door,” she called out. “It should be that way!”
“It’d better be open!” James called back. “I don’t know if we’ll survive a trip back through the pass!”
Sally fought to keep her body relaxed, but she could only stop intensely shivering for a few seconds at a time. During the hours trekking across the Nothingness, she’d convinced herself the snowmobile’s vibration was the cause of her shaking, but she could no longer deny that her body was shutting down from the cold. She refused to think what would happen if they couldn’t find a way inside. . .
Sally glanced back and tapped James on the shoulder, yelling for him to stop. With the engine throttled down and the wind easing, the Swarm’s fearful squawks echoed from farther back, where they’d all stopped floating and now huddled together, pointing up toward the clouds.
“We don’t have time for this!” James snapped.
“Then we’ll make time!” Sally snapped back, though she didn’t exactly disagree with him. The burst of anger momentarily warmed her, but by the time she trudged through the heavy snow and reached the Swarm, she was back to shivering uncontrollably. She was tempted to ask Lump for another winged embrace, but his face was twisted in fear as he stared near the top of The Mountain. Sally didn’t think Lump—or, for that matter, an
yone in the Swarm—even noticed her approach.
“Soar,” Lump said, repeating the one word over and over.
Sally scanned the area of sky he pointed out, searching for any sign of BabyDoll or Quinn, but she spotted nothing. Another member of the Swarm placed a feathered hand on Sally’s shoulder and chirped forlornly.
“Up there. . . through clouds. . . they throw us off Mountain to see if we soar,” the Aviary said. “The rocks below. . .”
Disfigured wings fluttered among the group, as cries of the word ‘rocks’ circled among them. Several Swarmers even began to back away and mutter about leaving when Lump flapped his misshapen wings to cut them off.
“No, no rocks,” he said. “Love. . . catch us. . . Love catch us all.”
“Not all,” said another Swarmer, pointing toward The Mountain, but this time an area nearer to the ground.
Everything around them was covered in white, but giant rocks poked through the snow near the base of a particularly sheer cliff. Sally squinted through the cold and thought she saw a faint splash of color near the rocks, a pinkish hue. Her stomach turned at the thought of what had caused such a color.
“Over there!” another Swarmer called out.
This time, several feathered fingers pointed through the blizzard in the opposite direction of The Mountain. Sally spotted the outlines of a few small objects only partially covered in white. What the objects were, Sally couldn’t tell, nor did she have more than a few seconds to figure it out before one of the Swarmers fluttered in that direction and the others followed. Surprised by the Swarm’s sudden collective bravery, Sally rushed back to the snowmobile. When she ordered James to follow them, he sighed—or was that a shiver?—but didn’t argue before throttling the engine and turning toward the Swarm.
They neared the objects within minutes, though the Swarm suddenly stopped short. Sally was so focused on the larger objects—and what they resembled as she saw them more closely—that she didn’t notice the smaller, lightly snow-dusted bumps littering the ground.
“Vehicles,” Sally called into James’ ear as he slowed down. “Like ours, or should I say like mine. Like Chad’s.”
It was the first time she’d said his name in months, and it brought an unexpected pang of guilt at the thought of Chad still stuck in the middle of the Nothingness, alone in the ISU, maybe still alive, maybe not. The two vehicles were coated in a thin layer of snow and hadn’t been parked there long. From what she could tell, the vehicles’ general design was nothing like the one in which she’d escaped the City Below, but the glass tubing snaking their exterior proved a similar energy source had been used to power them.
At least what remains of the glass tubing, Sally thought, seeing that most of the tubing had been shattered, tiny glints littering the ground around both vehicles, not to mention blackened scorch marks where lava had splashed into the snow and hardened into rock. As Sally pondered what could’ve destroyed the vehicles, Lump screeched and the Swarm recoiled.
“Dead,” Lump muttered.
The word sent nervous chirping through the group. Though James implored her to stay on board the snowmobile—implored her to let him drive them away—Sally shook her head and climbed off, passing through the Swarm until she saw nearly a dozen dead bodies splayed atop the snow, pools of blood frozen to wounds across their bodies. Sally spun in a circle, searching the storm for whoever could’ve done this, but she only saw frightened Swarmers and James slowly dismounting the snowmobile.
“What could’ve happened?” she called out to him.
“Someone didn’t want them here,” James called back.
As Sally stepped closer to the corpses, more than one Swarmer chirped in fear. Several feathered hands took hold of her, trying to keep her back. She took each of those hands and squeezed them gently, reassuringly, before approaching the bodies. A closer look gave her no new answers. Sally didn’t see the need to wipe away the snow to discover more.
“Does anyone know if they’re from The Mountain?”
The Swarm turned around and stared at the massive landform stretching high into the clouds. From their angle, Sally could see not only the sheer cliff face from which the Swarmers had been tossed, but also the shadow of an alcove that appeared to be manmade. Love had told the Swarm stories about a massive metallic door leading into The Mountain’s hangar, and that had been the ultimate destination for them when making the decision to come here. Sally felt relieved to see where it was, but the other manmade structures—a pair of covered battlements above both sides of the alcove—made her as nervous as the destroyed vehicles and bloodied lumps in the snow.
“They not from Mountain,” Lump said.
“Mountain did this to them,” another Swarmer said.
“Then who were they?” Sally asked. A gust of wind blew snow off the face of a nearby body. The victim’s eyes were open but remained filled with snow, though his or her face was streaked with what appeared to be dirt. Sally didn’t recognize who it was but only had one thought for where the person could’ve come from. “The City Below?”
“I never knew of anyone from the city having such vehicles or traveling this far,” James said through chattering teeth. When Sally looked at him with a raised eyebrow, James couldn’t suppress a snort, causing a burst of steam to plume between his lips. “Present company excluded.”
“Maybe they will know,” a Swarmer said.
The Swarmer’s words sent a chill through Sally worse than any frozen wind. Nervous chirps were joined by frightened squawks, and Sally spun toward The Mountain, searching the ground and sky for any sign of where ‘they’ were coming from. But she spotted nobody and glanced toward the Swarm to see them all staring in the opposite direction. Sally peered into the Nothingness, at first seeing only falling snow, but then spotting a faint orange glow within the storm. . . and then a second orange glow. . . and then several more.
The orange glows shined more brightly by the moment. Soon, Sally was certain the glows were in fact more vehicles like the ones the Swarm had just found.
“We should get out of here before we get caught up in whatever trouble they’re bringing,” James announced loudly.
His warning was met with frightened words and chirps of agreement from the Swarm, but Sally held up a hand to stop them. Despite frigid temperatures slowing her ability to think clearly, an overwhelming feeling of relief flowed through her, one she trusted despite not totally understanding it.
“We can trust them,” she told the Swarm. “The people inside those vehicles are our allies.”
“How can you know that?” James asked.
“Faith.”
Sally barely heard as James told her she was crazy and told the group they needed to leave. Sally continued to stare at the glowing. A sense of warmth radiated out of the Swarm that soon stood by her side, Lump’s wing resting on her shoulder, blocking out the worst of the wind. She didn’t hear the whine of a snowmobile and assumed James had stayed; she didn’t look back to see if that was a decision he’d made on his own or if the Swarm had ‘convinced’ him otherwise.
When the first glowing vehicle arrived, it stopped short of the two destroyed vehicles. Sally waved to the vehicles but received no response from the outlines of passengers within. The Swarm’s nervous chirping grew louder until the door of a vehicle opened and a single passenger emerged, crossing her arms over her chest. She was bundled tightly in warm clothing but pulled her hood back as she glanced from the vehicles to the Swarm.
Sally opened her mouth to offer a greeting, but her words became stuck in her throat the moment she saw the woman’s face. Sally had expected a stranger but instead saw a woman she’d seen before. For that matter, Sally was surprised she recognized the woman, since the last and only time she’d seen her was in One’s Colliseo soon after Artie leapt out of their vehicle to convince Emma Weller to go with them. Chad hadn’t hesitated to climb into the vehicle upon being rescued, though Artie stayed behind when Emma Weller couldn’t separate from a
middle-aged couple.
One of them being this woman, Sally thought with unexpected clarity.
Martha Weller glared at Sally and the Swarm, staying back as she nodded toward the bodies strewn about the snow.
“What did you do to our people?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Quentin Bowie raced down the hallway. He thought he heard the echo of cawing in the distance, but the path behind him had been clear every time he looked back. The faster he tried to hurry, the harder he gasped for air; for that matter, he hadn’t been able to take a deep breath since joining the Board and being forced to take an injection of Aviary Blast. His version of Blast had been mixed with Love’s blood, making Quentin stronger than many of the Board members (albeit far short of Love’s size, strength and flying ability). Still, if this was how weak he felt after a few minutes of panicked running, he shuddered to think how weak Ms. Van Horn and the other Board members truly were, a fact he hoped by The Mountain’s human inhabitants didn’t exploit any time soon . . .
Adrenaline only propelled him for so long, and he couldn’t ignore the painful pulling sensation in his shoulders where his disfigured wings longed to burst free. With another glance back showing no sign of the Blast prisoner having escaped—or at least escaped and coming in his direction—Quentin stopped and leaned against a wall, his chest bulging as he heaved in and out. He couldn’t help but look down at the pair of syringes grasped tightly in his hooked fingers. His heart fluttered with excitement at the thought of popping off a syringe cap and plunging the needle—with the Descendant-modified Aviary—into his arm.
I’d instantly become the strongest Aviary in The Mountain, strong enough to destroy Ms. Van Horn and the entire Board, all of them at the same time, he knew. His pulse raced at the thought of how strong the prisoner had become after being injected. At the least, the Board members who’d looked down at him for so long would be jealous of his new power, though such a short-term improvement might not have the long-term effect he desperately craved. And that’s why I’m smarter than all of them. They have their famous family names and their leadership lineage; I’m no more than an upstart guard in their eyes, unworthy of trust or true power.