Fledge (19 page)

"They're around the second corner, all of them. When I say go, we run full out and I'll make the first cut and you finish them off."

"OK."

"And stay the fuck out of the way of my SEAR knife, Isec. Unless you want to die a very hasty death. You stay back!"

He lets out a breath and I whisper, "Go!"

I run, making a lot of noise, and the first head pops out to take a look. I charge at him and he steps back behind the wall and I follow. Another guy grabs me from behind, holding my arms. I lean forward with all my weight and then double back-kick him in the shins as he holds me. He falls backward but his fingers are not ready to let go and make a mad grab, flailing out to grasp whatever is in reach. The pain in my wing almost overtakes me and then the blood is everywhere. I spin around and cut his torso in half, then turn back to find my first target. He's got a little plasma knife raised, thinking he's some kind of ancient warrior out on the steppe, but I slice open his gut from sternum to groin and he falls.

The rest run and I follow. At some point I look back and see Isec is gone, but I keep going, the data screen feeding me intel as I pass over hallways that have no bodies and stop to kill anyone who happens to be hiding in the others. Fucking cowards, if everyone went out and did their killing we'd be done by now. The screaming is back in full force and I'm just about to take off the heads of two tall girls when the buzzer sounds and the lights come on.

The walls drop into the floor and the fight is over.

I search, find Isec, search, find the little girl, search.

"Kush?" I yell it. "Kush!"

"Junco, over here."

I whirl around to find him. He's breathing hard and covered in blood, a sword in his hand dripping with blood.

He's alive.

And he did his killing.

"Exit to the right. Exit to the right. Exit to the right."

The voice keeps insisting, but I wait as Kush rushes towards me. My vision starts to waver and it's only then that I notice the blood is still pouring out of my damaged feathers, flooding the floor around my feet. I start to fall but Kush picks me up and leaps into the mast. I feel my body bounce as he rushes me across the dorm and when I finally force myself to take a look around he's tapping my finger on the cafeteria food machine. He places me on a table and my whole body is sticky and wet from the blood. He rolls me over on my stomach and lifts my wing and stretches it out. I lie still as he massages something into the broken feather shaft and then after a few minutes I hear a long sigh.

Kush leans down into my face. "Junco?"

I grunt, but don't speak. Just don't have the energy.

I taste his blood-covered fingers as he smears a paste across my lips and gums. "Swallow it, Junco."

I do.

I hear him pull up a chair and listen as Isec's small voice asks if I'm OK.

I want to wait and hear the answer, but the blackness takes over.

Chapter Nineteen

I come to with a sharp sting to my face. "Junco!"

"Shit, don't hit me, dammit."

I hear a laugh and when I open my eyes Kush is smiling down at me. "You're so lucky you're already Aves. You lost a lot of blood."

I try to sit up but fall back down. "Help me up, Kush."

He pulls me up so I'm sitting on the table and steadies me as I wobble back and forth for a few seconds. "What the hell happened?"

"Someone snapped two of your primary wing feathers."

I just stare at him and when he doesn't elaborate I shrug. "So?"

"Oh, OK. You don't know. You can pull them straight out and be fine, but break them down near the shaft and you bleed to death, Junco. It was a pretty dirty trick, but this is Fledge after all."

I turn to look behind me, then grab my left wing and pull it out to see the damage. My normally golden flecks are stained dark brown from dried and coagulating blood. Sure enough I have a gap where the two longest feathers near the tip used to be.

"I pulled them out, Junco. Then," he lifts up a food ration that has a small packet attached to the outside, "I used the extra starch from the mapolina packet to stop the bleeding. You just dunk the ends in there and it soaks up the blood and makes it clot."

"Mapolina?"

He holds up the packet. "You know, mapolina. That gross shit they feed us constantly because it's cheap."

I smile weakly. "OK, mapolina." I let my wing drop back down. "How did you know what to do?"

He grins. "Politicos, Junco. We come to the General Fledge on purpose. Train for it for years. They teach us shit, like how to use what's available for healing."

"Thank you, Kush. You saved my life I think."

"Nah, you were already healing yourself. And the color is already back in your cheeks, so you're making blood as we speak. I just sped it up a little, that's all."

"Well, thanks anyway. You're a good friend."

"Come on, let's go take a shower."

I walk out of the cafeteria with him but head over to the lounge area instead. "I'm gonna sit down for a while. I'll take a shower later."

He nods and walks off.

I sit in the lounge area to wait for the crowds to leave the showers because showering with Kush and Isec is not going to happen anymore. The news is on the screen and I fiddle with the controller until the sound comes up.

My giant face is plastered up next to Tier's.

"… due to testimony given several days ago, the former captain of the Aves 039, Raubtier, was cleared of one count of insubordination in the field. The second insubordination, failure to kill a target – referring to Junco Coot, the Sibling currently fighting her way through the General Fledge on Amelia – is still pending. Sources within Justice say they have no current plans to call her back for additional testimony and some have even accused her of manipulating the drugs and beating the detectors.

"In related news, another video feed has been filtered from Earth from the now infamous ex-Mountain Minute reporter Selia Manchen. Manchen went missing back in January after the Aves teams were evacuating when the war broke out. She later went on to join up with the Subjective armies. She's been an outspoken mouthpiece for Subjack ever since. This latest feed comes out of the Tetons where the armies are lying low, waiting for some undisclosed signal."

The images on the screen cut away and there's Selia wearing the same battered uniform as the one I saw her in earlier. She's interviewing soldiers and hunches down to a guy sitting on the ground, knees bent as he laces up his boots. "The system is watching, tell them what you're fighting against."

"The shadow government they have going here," is all he says.

"Explain. Most people who will see this don't understand what that is."

He stops what he's doing and looks up in the camera, straight into my eyes. "You've been lied to your entire life. It's not real," he says, swiping his hand around in the air. "The governments, the people in charge – they make the rules that you," his finger stabs at the camera, "have to follow. But they don't. I'm tired of it. I came all the way from the Western Utopia to fight here and I don't care what happens to us, they're going down."

Then his attention is back on his boots and Selia moves on.

She repeats this several times, and while each soldier says something a little different, they all have the same underlying theme. Lies. Manipulation. Fed up.

The screen cuts back to Tier's trial and I watch them question him under the drugs. When they ask him why he didn't kill me, he's silent for a long time. I hold my breath, afraid of what he'll say.

"She's one of us."

I let the air out and notice there are a lot of people around me now. I catch the eyes of a tall girl sitting in a chair near the couch and recognize her as one of the ones I almost killed at the end.

She shrugs at me. "No hard feelings, right?"

I nod. "Sure."

"Are you really from Earth?"

Everyone crowds in now and I look around to try and get a sense of the mood. Interested, maybe a little too interested. But no hostility. "Yeah. I was born and raised there."

"Are you really one of the Seven?"

I laugh. "Well, I guess it depends. I am one of seven individuals created in the Rural Republic with Aves genetics. But if you're asking me if I'm part of that myth you all have, the answer is no."

Another kid pipes up, not one I recognize, but he's tall as well. Darker like Arel. His shoulder-length black hair is wet and hints at curls. He reminds me of Tier. "So, they gonna kill him for disobeying, you think?"

I search his face to look for hidden meaning, but can't find any deception. "No. They are not."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Junco, but they seem convinced otherwise."

I let out a breath. "Yeah, but…" I trail off for a second. "I'm not done fighting for him yet. You'll see."

"What is it like on Earth?" It's the little girl from the maze.

I smile at her and she sits down next to me, her hair a mess of wet ringlets and the smell of soap covering up the smell of SEAR death that still lingers in my nose. "When there's no war, it's pretty nice. Where I lived there was grasslands filled with wild animals and blue skies during the day and black skies at night. You don't have to go to an observatory to see the stars, either. You just walk outside and look up."

She grins up at me. The fearful face from the maze is gone.

Another boy appears, about the same age as the dark kid. "Were you a soldier or something? On Earth, Junco?"

I nod. "Or something. Yeah, my father was a commander in the RR. I was an as–" I hesitate as I watch their eyes wait for me to finish. These kids are not soldiers, I remind myself. They are only here to try and save themselves. "I was a specialist in the field. A sniper."

All their mouths make an O shape as I get up. "Well, time for my shower now. See ya."

I pass Isec on my way and he smiles and I have trouble reconciling him as the kid I was strapping bloody night-vision goggles on an hour ago. In the showers I look around for Kush, but he's gone. I stand under the hot water and let it beat the death off me, then scrub my body down until I rub it raw and wrap myself in my towel to face the cubbies.

Junco, Aves 039, is overflowing with shit. I start pulling it all out and open one bag after another. Clothes, shoes, soap, shampoo, a brush, a reader, a com, food, and other little bits of crap that try and convince me they all care.

I want to put the bed clothes on and go to sleep, but I have a feeling I'll be called away for using the SEAR in the fight. So I dress in uniform and even lace up the boots nice and tight. I pocket the com and brush my long hair out until it is smooth. I'm not sure how, but I feel normal. I keep the food and then stuff the rest back in the cubbie before leaving the showers.

When I go back out almost everyone is over in the lounge area or in bed sleeping. I see Kush's head sticking up over the couch where I was earlier and walk that way. He's piled high with kids and I laugh and toss the food on the table nearby. He pushes Isec out of the way to make room and I slip in and rest against him.

Sigh.

And close my eyes.

Isten's voice draws me up from the depths of sleep. "What the fuck are you doing here, Junco? Playing house? Get the fuck up, we've got a meeting. Lucan wants to see the entire 039 immediately."

I sit up and rub my eyes. Isec and the little girl are sprawled out all over me and the rest of the dorm is quiet and still with weary fighters.

"What are you doing with these kids, Junco?" He paces back and forth, his heavy boots clunking on the tiles with each step. He looks a lot bigger and more intimidating than I remember from our poker game. His eyes shine yellow and target Kush. His wings go up slightly behind his shoulders in an offensive position. "And who the fuck is this guy?"

I push the kids off, get up and then walk away before he says something that will make me react. I'm just too tired. He trots to catch up with me and then keeps the pace so I have to trot to keep up with him. We walk outside and there's a flyer waiting.

"What's the meeting about?" I ask as we approach.

He huffs. "What the fuck do you think the meeting is about, Junco? You. They're always about you."

Chapter Twenty

It's bright outside and dark in the flyer, so it takes me a minute to see that everyone is crammed inside. I scoot in next to Rikan and Isten sits next to me. Braun is on the other side of Rikan slumped up against the window, not looking at anyone. Ashur is across from him, and then Mish, Arel, and Ryse.

No one says hi.

Fuck them.

I close my eyes and the rocking motion of the flyer lulls me to sleep. Several times Isten pushes me off his shoulder and Ryse kicks me when I start to snore, but I am too tired to care. I wake up when we stop and I'm sprawled out on the floor, their boots resting on me in various places.