Revenge of the Giant Robot Chickens (12 page)

My sister’s always been a bit of a drama queen, but I still couldn’t believe she’d stormed off like that, taking half our team with her. What was she thinking?

After the Brotherhood left, we all traipsed back inside to the campfire and sat down. We had some more berries but the previously sweet taste had turned sour in my mouth. The chatter of before had died. Even Jesse didn’t try and tell any jokes, possibly a first for him. We all just sat around, picking at food, until it was time to go to bed. We posted sentries, two at a time, assigned randomly to stop any spies from reporting in, and got what sleep we could.

The morning was more of the same. It was supposedly just under 24 hours until our attack on the chickens’ headquarters, but you wouldn’t have thought it from all the subdued expressions. Jesse quietly gave us our instructions.

“OK, tomorrow, first thing in the morning, Cody is going to start broadcasting information about the Chickenator to the Allied armies. It’ll be technical spec, what tactics we used to take it down, everything that the chickens don’t want them to know. We hope they’ll react by sending everything they have to take out the signal, leaving their base vulnerable. We have to be there at the exact moment they leave to take advantage,
but if we’re too close for too long we could be found. So we’re going to march to a farmhouse nearby, hide for most of today and set out in the middle of the night. Is that OK with everyone?”

They all nodded and we moved out.

We had to stick to the road, but Jesse was right. There were surprisingly few patrols this far out in the country. We had a nice, wide view of the surrounding countryside so if some chickens did appear we would be able to see them coming. It might not do us much good – the road was bordered by a steep slope on one side and a big drop on the other – but we would at least be forewarned.

We passed by a village called Blackburn, which had been completely trashed by the chickens. I wondered if Stonehaven, the town closest to where I used to live, had been treated the same way. I doubt my home was still standing; it used to be a chicken farm. After Blackburn we slogged towards the next village, a place called Kintore. We skirted around it, off the dual carriageway and over a few fields until we finally arrived at the farmhouse. By the time we got there I was looking forward to a rest. The door was open, and we all trooped in and crashed in the living room.

I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Jesse since the night before, so while everyone else was sinking into chairs and claiming sofas I pulled him into the dining room and closed the door. He looked at me concerned. “Are you alright?” he asked, placing a hand on my arm.

I shook my head. “Of course I’m not alright. My sister is out there somewhere and I don’t know if she’s safe or not. And I drove her away.”

“No you didn’t,” he said to me. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s my fault for not stopping it.”

“I just don’t know what happened. One moment Blake was being Blake, and then she was there and then… What do we do now? We’ve just lost half our group!”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” Jesse said reassuringly. “We’ve got to go on with the plan.”

I laughed a bit. “The plan,” I said. “The plan that you can’t tell me about because there might be a spy in our group.”

“Yeah, that plan.” He gave me a crooked smile, which grew serious. “So who do you think it is?”

“Well, it’s got to be either Blake or Percy, hasn’t it?” I asked. “They’re the only two left that are on the council. Unless it really was Hazel. Or Kyle?”

“Technically Percy isn’t on the council.”

“Yeah, but you know he does everything Cody asks him to do, and he’s always there in meetings at Cody’s side. If Cody’s the traitor then Percy might as well be. I mean, why else send him? He’s too useful to Cody to risk him on a mission like this.”

“I guess,” Jesse mused. “Unless that wasn’t the point.”

I had risen to my feet and started pacing. At Jesse’s words I turned towards him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, look at our group.” Jesse spread his hands. “We’ve got Blake and his best chicken hunters. We’ve
got Kyle, who’s fantastic at organising, rationing and cooking. We had the Brotherhood, who knew everything there was to know about chickens. Maybe Cody didn’t select this group just to try and free the people in the barn. Maybe he put us together so that if everything goes wrong, if the Catchers take Aberdeen, our group will still survive.”

“So you’re saying he didn’t put Percy in our group to keep an eye on us, he did it so Percy would be safe?”

“Makes the most sense to me.”

I thought it over. “Jesse—” I began, but before I could finish there was a scratching at the door. There must be someone on the other side.

Jesse put a finger to his lips. “There’s one good thing that we know,” he told me.

I knew what he was thinking. What if the spy was on the other side of the door, listening in to our conversation?

“What is it?” I asked.

He tiptoed over to the door, all the while still talking. “Well, we didn’t see any patrols today. None whatsoever. And you know what that means?”

“The spy can’t have reported in yet.”

“Yup.” He took a tight hold of the door handle. “Otherwise they would have come for us. Now, if the spy was in Aberdeen there’s a pretty good chance they would have reported in by now. Which means the spy might be someone in our group who just hasn’t had a chance yet.”

He pulled the door open in a sudden quick heave
and someone tumbled in. Someone who must have been leaning against it, able to hear every word.

“Hello, Blake,” Jesse said calmly. “Did you hear everything OK? Any questions?”

Blake scrambled to his feet, his face red. “I just wanted to know what’s going on,” he said. “I want to know the plan once we get to the chickens’ headquarters. Is there any reason why I can’t know that?”

“Yes, lots of reasons,” Jesse replied. “For one, we wouldn’t want you reporting back to the chickens. If you were the spy.”

Blake’s face turned a darker shade of red and he took a step towards Jesse. Fearing a repeat of last night I put a hand on his arm and held him back. Forcefully.

“Come on, Blake,” I muttered. “You’ve been caught and you have to admit it looks suspicious. Just ignore Jesse and get over it.”

I thought for a moment he wasn’t going to listen to my advice, but then he took a deep breath and exhaled. Turning to me, he nodded.

“You’re right, Ambassador,” he said respectfully. “I’m sorry.”

Then he turned away and walked off to get some sleep, leaving me more than a little confused.

We turned in early, and all got what sleep we could, which wasn’t much. I spent most of the night wondering who the spy could be. It had to be someone among us. Could it really be Blake? He always seemed to be around when I needed him. I had come to trust him and I somehow couldn’t see him betraying us.

When Jesse woke me up I was stiff and grumpy. “What?” I moaned at him, still mostly asleep.

“Come on, it’s time to go,” he said then handed me something brown and hot. I took a big gulp and found it was tea, milky and sweet. “Kyle made it.”

I didn’t really like tea. Mum had never let me have any at home, saying it stunted your growth, so I had never developed a taste for it. But as I drank deeply I could feel energy flowing back into my limbs. It woke me up. I didn’t enjoy it, but at least it woke me up.

Everyone else was similarly roused and eventually we got on our way. Most of us were half asleep and tousle-headed. All except Percy, who looked geared up for action as usual, and Jesse, who was beginning to look nervous. I really hoped his plan worked, whatever it was. If it didn’t then we’d probably all be gobbled up.

It was a good hour before we got near to the barn. Jesse took us through the woods, walking confidently ahead. I’m pretty sure we got lost at least once and passed the same pine tree about four times but eventually we got there.

Finally our target was in our sights. Jesse wasn’t kidding. It was just an enormous barn. It felt kind of odd, seeing it over there, beyond the wide, golden fields of corn. Beside the barn was a small farmyard cluttered with equipment of various sorts, and the buildings sat in a large field. Surrounding the field was a high-wire fence. Take out the prison-style fence and it could be a farm scene from a toddler’s picture book. It did not look like the place where huge metal monsters held our  parents and friends captive.

“OK, here’s the plan.” Jesse gathered us all together at the edge of the wood where we were hiding. “We’ll split into two teams. Percy will lead one and go round to the other side of the compound. The Ambassador, Blake and I will lead the other and attack from the front. Percy’s team will cut through the fence then spread out and hide in the cornfield. My team will wait by the front gates. That way we’ll hit the chickens in a pincer move. Once the diversion starts, most of the chickens should take off and head towards Aberdeen. There should only be a few left after that. I’ve got some of those egg grenades that the chickens gave the Brotherhood. I’ll use them to blow the doors off the barn so we can get everyone out – and there should be enough to take out any remaining Catchers and Commandos too. Percy, you’ve got your gloves.”

There was a pause. “Well, aren’t you going to give us some grenades?” Blake asked.

Jesse shook his head. “No. I can’t trust you with
them. I really don’t want a traitor with a grenade. Any more questions?”

No one replied, but they didn’t look happy. Percy took his team of five and disappeared round the back of the compound. Jesse took us even deeper into the woods and ordered our five to keep watch. I drew him aside.

“Jesse, this plan sucks,” I told him.

He looked at me innocently. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. We’re
hoping
the spy hasn’t already told the chickens what we’re doing. We’re
hoping
their defences will be weak enough for us to break in there. Even if there are three Catchers left that’ll be enough to finish us. And what about all their Commandos? The plan is totally useless.”

He sighed. “Look, I can’t risk anything more complex. This is the best we can do.”

“But this is insane! We can’t hope to succeed like this!”

“This is the best we’ve got, Rayna. It might work. This could be our only chance to get our families back. Do you understand? I need this.  Just trust me—”

He stopped abruptly. He’d got so impassioned, he was almost yelling.  He lowered his voice. “Come on. We don’t want to miss our opportunity.”

The conversation was clearly over. We walked back over to join our team.

Almost an hour passed before anything started to happen. One long hour to think over what Jesse had said.

I had a terrible feeling about this. It wouldn’t take much for everything to go wrong. Jesse had been right yesterday. Kyle, Percy, Blake and his hunters. We had a lot of good people with us. Enough to keep our group going. But we could just as easily be grabbed by the chickens. I was tempted to call off the mission—

Then all at once there was movement. Catchers came pouring out of the barn, running and flapping their wings. In minutes they were in the air. Their droning made the ground shake and the trees quake.

“I guess Cody’s got his broadcast underway,” Jesse shouted to me above the roar.

It took about a quarter of an hour for all the chickens to pass overhead. I was surprised to see so many of them. I hoped Cody’s defences would stay strong.

Finally they stopped coming. Jesse waited for a moment then raised his head.

“Come on,” he hissed. “Let’s do it.”

With one of our team left behind on lookout duty, the rest of us scuttled towards the gate. Once there, Blake pulled a set of wire cutters out of his bag and started chopping through the gate. After a tense few moments we were done and through. A road wound up through the cornfield but we couldn’t follow it for fear of being seen. So we hunched down and stalked through the plants alongside it. Inch by inch we edged towards the barn.

“This is what I’m talking about,” Blake hissed excitedly. “Finally showing the chickens who rules the roost.”

And that’s when everything started to go wrong.

A Catcher rounded the corner of the barn. We instantly flattened ourselves against the ground, waiting with bated breath until it moved on.

But then a figure appeared in the distance, yelling and waving. “They’re over here! And over there! They’re trying to free the grown-ups.”

It was Percy. The traitor.

I shot upright and sprinted towards him, hoping somehow to reach him before the chicken noticed. My sprint ended in a lunge for Percy, but he sidestepped out of the way. My outstretched fingers brushed the leg of his trousers, but I landed on the ground with a hard thump and he slipped away, still running towards the Catcher, still yelling. Jesse leapt up and raced after him, hoping to get to him before the Catcher heard.

He was too late.

I saw, as if in awful slow motion, it turn its head and regard the two of them. It let out a loud squawk and more Catchers thudded out of the barn. Jesse saw them and turned around, trying frantically to back-pedal. I heard Blake shouting at his hunters to attack the Catchers. I ignored them.

“Jesse!” I screamed, reaching out a hand to him.

He turned to look at me, and another Catcher came screeching out of the sky. It landed hard, taking a few bouncing steps to reach his side. I recognised it as the same one that had taken Eric. Its head came up, it looked around briefly and then it struck.

Its beak plunged down, the sharp tips sinking into
the dark earth and digging furrows as it closed with a snap. I tried running towards it but the Catcher’s eyes flashed, and I stumbled to the side to avoid the laser blast. Then its head was rising, leaving behind the small hole we all recognised. Up and up its head went, further and further out of my reach. Then with a single fluid motion it swallowed with an abrupt gulp.

I stared at it, bewildered for a moment. All that was left were beak marks in the ground.

Jesse had been caught.