CRACK!
Hmm. Just past second base.
Toss up… wind back… CRACK!
Bounced on the short-stop position.
Toss up… wind back… CRACK!
Past second again. Much farther this time. Still too low.
Toss up… wind back… CRACK!
What the…? Where did it… THUNK!
“Ow!” I said, more startled than hurt as the baseball whacked
me squarely on top of my helmet, knocking it a bit askew. How had I even
managed that hit? Must have bounced off the very top of the bat, with the right
amount of spin to make it arc back.
I adjusted my helmet and sighed a bit, watching the ball
roll off. I reached for another from the wire frame basket, only to realize
that was my last one anyway. I sighed again and picked up the basket, walking
first to the ball that had just beaned me on the head, then doing a zig-zagging
loop across the field to fetch the twenty-nine other balls I’d been hitting back
and forth for the past hour. I was really off my game today.
The baseball field, and the bleachers framing it, were
thankfully empty, sparing me the humiliation of witnesses. Barely anybody used
this old park anymore, and most of my teammates lived in the next town over. It
was better to practice with your team, of course, but actual training wasn’t
scheduled this week. This little private practice was to try and put my mind at
ease. Swinging the bat helped me think when I was feeling restless.
I suppose I couldn’t blame myself for feeling off. There’d
been another aurora last night. Those were never a good sign. Like the
thunderhead before a massive storm, the rippling waves of colorful lights
always seemed to be an omen of approaching disaster. I wondered what it would
be this time: giant spiders, goblins, hallucination-inducing mists, crazies on
another raid from the cities?
Well, nothing for it but to just keep on living and brace
for the disaster when it came. Sad to say, but we’d all gotten used to it, even
just three short years later.
I finished collecting all the balls and lugged the now much
heavier basket back to home base. I blinked as I noticed that suddenly, I
wasn’t the only one on the field. A tall man in a suit stood behind the fence
that flanked the home base. I wondered if he’d already been standing there a
while, and I’d just been too zoned out to notice.
“Yo,” I said nonchalantly, not giving away that he’d
startled me a bit. I set the basket down and pulled out a ball, ready to toss
it.
“Hello,” he said. “Rebecca Sulsberg, correct?”
“Only officials and my mom call me that, and only when I’m
in trouble.” I planted the tip of the bat down and leaned on it like a cane,
cocking my head to the side a bit. “Am I in trouble?”
“Only if you want to be.” The man had a sly smile on his
face. He was almost comically tall and wiry, seven feet if he was an inch. His
suit, which clearly had to be custom tailored to his build, was grey with a
black tie, and his sandy blond hair was short in the style of a military crew
cut, but he didn’t wear the sunglasses and earpiece you’d usually associate
with one of the Service.
“You got a job offer, then?” I turned my back to him to toss
another ball in the air, swing my bat, and send the ball soaring clear across
the field with another satisfying CRACK!
It was my best hit all morning. “Sorry,
I have some games coming up. I gotta be ready.” I picked up another ball and CRACK! botched the hit, sending it
skidding across the ground, coming to stop halfway to third base. I grunted, my
brief moment of showy smugness dashed.
“Yes, I suppose with that
swing, I’d say you need the practice.”
I turned back to glare at him.
He chuckled and waved a hand. “My apologies, that was rude
of me.”
“What do you want?”
“My client is looking for a scout. Someone able to make
their way through some dangerous terrain. Or better yet, over it. And someone who won’t be too flamboyant doing it.”
I sighed and tossed another ball up. CRACK! “I’m really not cut out for dangerous work like that. At the
risk of giving away a weakness, birds are fairly fragile. And if I go out into
the countryside, some fuckin’ hillbilly is likely to take a shot at me.”
“I believe eagles are still protected,” he said amiably.
“No thanks.” I tossed another ball up and fwoosh, the ball thunked on the ground
at my feet. In the past hour, that was the first time I’d missed.
“Well, I shouldn’t interrupt your practice then.” He started
to turn away.
I chewed my lip for a moment. “Wait.” I setting the end of
the bat down on the ground and leaned on it again as I turned to him. “How
much?”
“How much do you make in a game?”
“500.”
“We’ll give you 2000,” he said.
Damn it. I hated it when they over priced me so well right
at the gate. I pulled the helmet off my head, shook out of my long black hair,
and put it in a ponytail using a cloth band from my pocket. “Alright. Gimme the
details. If it doesn’t sound like I’ll get killed for certain, then I’ll call
my coach.”
The wiry man smiled broadly. “Excellent.”
2
The mission was a simpler than I had assumed, but no less
dangerous than I’d feared. I was to fly over part of Kansas City
I asked them why they didn’t try using drones. There were
still some of the little flying machines to be found in the old toy and
electronics stores, and even the cheapest models usually had built in cameras.
“The mutants recognize the drones,” said the tall man. “They
shoot them down on sight.”
“I see. And you think they won’t do the same to a bird?”
“Still plenty of pigeons and crows throughout the city. They
won’t notice you in one of those forms. If you don’t land near anyone, they probably
won’t even notice the mini-cam.”
“I suppose so.” I still felt doubtful. The border cities
were mutant and monster-infested hell-holes. Kansas City
wasn’t as bad as Saint Louis
“So, what’s your roll in this, Mr…?”
“Tallgrass.” He offered me a thin hand to shake. I took it,
noting his cool touch.
“Just Tallgrass?”
“Yep.”
I blanched. “There is no way that’s actually your name.”
He shrugged and chuckled. “Everyone says that.”
“Because it’s true?”
“Because truth is stranger than fiction.”
“Uh-huh.”
Before the world went away, Kansas City Missouri
Tallgrass was either an individual of wealth, or his
employer was. The car was a two-door compact, a dark blue VW. Tallgrass was
tall enough that I wasn’t sure if he could even fit in the vehicle, but somehow
the man managed to cram himself into the seat with surprising deftness.
Slipping into the passenger side, I tossed my bat in the back seat. While the fields
had their own donated equipment to practice with, I preferred at least using my
own bat. The grip and weight were comfortably familiar.
“There some reason you couldn’t get one of the Aevir to do
this?” I said. “Doesn’t Blue Jay patrol KC?”
“At the moment, the Aevir are dealing with a crisis in the
Northeast. And this is a matter which may need to be handled with some kid
gloves the Aevir do not tend to have.”
“How delicate a task is looking for some symbols?”
“The symbols in use are related to a gang from before the
world went away. My client’s son was known to be a part of that gang.”
“Ah. So your client wants to know if his son is alive?”
“Alive and, hopefully, not merely a mutant. I surmise this
will be a multi-day survey. For now, we just want to know where the range of
the symbols are located. We can perform a more thorough investigation once this
is narrowed down.” He smiled at me with a glance. “Don’t worry, we won’t ask
you to be part of the on-foot team. We just need you to give us as accurate a
map of where to go first.”
“Sounds doable.” I couldn’t help but worry a bit, but I
didn’t let it show. The rest of the trip continued in silence, until we reached
the edge of the Trench that separated Kansas City from the rest of the state.
3
The city was vacated of civilians for at least five miles
between the city borders and where the Mist Wall started. That was not to say
it was uninhabited, though. In the alleyways and abandoned buildings and
overgrown parking lots and sewers were the mutants, people who’d been transformed
from exposure to the Mist Wall, twisted into misshapen freaks with broken
minds. Whether caught in the mist when the world went away, or attempting to
flee through it in the early days, thousands went in, and came back out
transformed. Many emerged half-feral; even the still intelligent ones seemed to
have been driven irrevocably insane. They quickly amassed into savage gangs,
staking territory, and building up their numbers by kidnapping people, throwing
them into the Mist Wall, and not letting them leave until they had likewise changed.
Now, a massive, scorched trench a thousand feet deep and
another thousand wide separated the city proper from the surrounding suburbs, a
barrier formed by the power of the Aevir. Toppled buildings, rubble, and piled
up cars formed a wall thirty feet high on the outer rim, to add further
protection from any mutants that might somehow climb their way out of the
already ridiculously steep trench. As far as I could tell, this wall did more
to save the citizens of the suburbs from having to witness the horrors on the
other side, than it added any real physical protection.
Mutants, be they human or beast, still sometimes managed to
cross the barrier on occasion. Fortunately, both Kansas City and St. Louis each
had a dedicated team of protectors whose main purpose was to contain such encroaching
threats and even, for lack of a better term, do “pest control” on any surging
mutant populations. Each was led by one of the Aevir, the most powerful
superhumans in all of Missouri
I would have felt rather more comfortable if Blue Jay’s
squad was the one handling this. But if my temporary employer wanted to
specifically not kill a bunch of
mutants during this excursion, the azure Aevir was the last person he’d want
involved in this. I only hoped I wouldn’t get caught up in a sudden crossfire
should one erupt.
We drove all the way up to the edge of a highway, where the
road raised up into a bridge that had been sheered off by the formation of the
Trench, giving us a view above the wall of rubble. Tallgrass provided a pair of
binoculars to allow me a preview of the landscape.
A couple of the city’s towers still stood, though the damage
could be seen even from here. Most of the larger buildings, however, had
collapsed, gutted from the inside, or knock flat from explosions. Despite not
being the most sprawling of metropolises, there was enough infrastructure
damage in the city’s center to form a proper nest of overlapping rubble,
enabling a network of happenstantial tunnels for the mutants to hide in.
Radiating from this central area were several square miles
of post-apocalyptic suburban sprawl, smaller businesses and houses smashed
flat, burned down, or half-collapsed. The streets where a mess of wrecked cars,
fallen trees, light posts, rubble from the buildings, and shattered asphalt.
The only reason for a lack of bodies, human, mutant, monster or otherwise, was
that whatever was still alive in there ate whatever it could get its hands on.
There’s a reason this place was walled off. Frankly, I was
surprised that the supposedly ruthless Blue Jay hadn’t already just glassed the
entire thing. Maybe the other Aevir were too much of bleeding hearts to let him.
Knowing there were still survivors, that some of the mutants maybe were still
sane, I guess I wouldn’t be so quick to just wipe it out either.
Tallgrass had provided me with a short stack of papers,
detailing the symbol I was to look for. It resembled a bio-hazard/poison
symbol, except with a triangle in the center, and the three branches being
angled to look more like claws, instead of the original C-shape. The symbol was
always seen spray-painted in orange or yellow.
“I don’t suppose you have a picture of my client’s kid?”
“Well, I don’t think he’d be quite a kid anymore. And my
client would prefer to remain as anonymous as possible.”
“I can respect that, but if I can find this person, perhaps
I can contact them. Perhaps coordinate a line of contact for when you send in
your rescue party.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
I handed the papers back to him. “Alright.”
“I must stress, your job is to find the symbols and narrow
down their range. That is all.”
“Understood.” I didn’t tend to be nosy about my client’s
personal situations, but it was obvious there was something else at stake here.
I wasn’t comfortable being part of something nefarious, but I couldn’t imagine
what even a criminal could gain from the death zones of the cities. The mutants
had nothing but their own savage subsistence living. Besides, the money was
pretty good for a mere scouting mission.
Once I had the symbol committed to memory, I considered what
form to take. I didn’t want to be any sort of obvious form not normally seen in
the city. Looking at the little camera Tallgrass produced, a matchbook sized
device with a cloth strap, I ultimately chose a raven. A little bigger than the
usual crows in the area, but nothing that should blatantly stand out.
I let my body shift, and felt that strange rustling feeling
deep in my insides, like feathers swiping over every bone and muscle. It wasn’t
as ticklish as it sounded. I felt my body shrink, my limbs bending and
twisting, hair and clothes vanishing as feathers sprouted from my flesh. With a
flash of light and a whirl of feathers, I had changed from a human into a bird.
My perspective sped up; time seemed to slow just a bit
around me. Color sharpened in my vision, expanding into the ultraviolet, even
as the contrasts of light and shadow dulled a bit. My throat clicked as I tried
to use the avian vocal chords to bring out a few human syllables. Thankfully,
corvids were good at that sort of thing. “Retty… to… go…” I squawked.
I let Tallgrass strap the camera on me, positioning it
around my neck so that the lens was firmly tucked against my chest. I felt only
a small amount of weight settle in, but for a bird, every ounce counted. I
hopped off the ground, flapped my wings, and tried a few loops around him. The
camera threw me off only a little bit, and I quickly adjusted.
Tallgrass held up an old smartphone. “The camera is already
running, sending the footage to this. Just focus on staying alive and covering
as much area as you can. As you fly around, I’ll be recording over all the
footage to go back over later.”
“Oak-ay,” I chirped, then hopped off the edge of the bridge.
I spread my wings, catching the wind, and flew across the trench, starting
towards the city’s ruined center. Blue Jay had so thoroughly thinned out the
mutant population that any gang attempting to form would need to stay deeply
hidden. The collapsed towers were the best bet for cover.
The view from the bridge had been one thing, far enough to
see that things were bad, but detached enough to feel safe from it. As I flew
directly over the ruined landscape, I felt a dark pit in my stomach, seeing it
all up close. Hundreds of thousands had lived here. The survivors couldn’t
number more than a few thousand, and they had to share that territory with
equally mutated and deranged wildlife.
To say the conditions were horrid was a severe
understatement. The only silver lining to becoming a mutant, perhaps, was if
you had been cursed with a body that was at least incredibly strong or had
natural weapons that put you on par with the monsters that prowled the streets
and nested in the ruined buildings. Or if you were lucky enough, like me, to
become a superhuman instead, and actually end up with a power that let you
fight back against the swarms and hordes. Or better still, let you escape them.
Once I reached the outer edges of the city’s center, I
started flying in a wide circle around the rubble. I stayed fairly high,
alighting only on the tallest of the still-standing buildings for brief breaks,
as I slowly spiraled inward.
Even though I had a good view of the entire area, circling
around like this took longer than one might assume. I kept a cautious eye on
the ground at all times, but always glanced around me in case anything else airborne
decided I looked like a tasty snack. So far, the only immediate flying dangers
I saw was an ordinary hawk that was pre-occupied with something on the ground,
and a pair of enormous mutated wasps that just circled lazily around a distant
building I made a note to avoid.
An hour passed before I decided to take a longer break.
Alighting on the edge of a roof of one of the still-standing towers, I rested
my wings for a while. So far, so good, I thought. I was tempted to shift forms
to take a break. To my knowledge, there wasn’t any real danger to staying in
bird from indefinitely, but it was a bit of a mental hang-up that I didn’t stay
shifted for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, I’d end up dropping the
camera if I shifted, and wouldn’t be able to re-strap it on when I shifted
back. A shame that, for whatever reason, my power let my clothes change with me
while I was human, but nothing else, and nothing I wore or held in bird form
changed at all.
Ten minutes was enough of a break, I decided, and spread my
wings to hop off again. As I did so, however, a quick movement from below
caught my attention. Birds were, thankfully, better at detecting motion than
humans, and could perceive many more “frames per second” of activity. As such,
I had enough time to notice and jerk back away from a rock that would have
caught me square between the eyes were I still in human form.
The rock, a chunk of broken concrete, zoomed by me like a
jagged cannonball. Though only half my size, the chunk of debris had to be at
least twice my body mass. If it had hit me, I would have been dead almost
instantly.
I squawked and stumbled backwards onto the roof, frantically
flapping my wings to get back on my feet. I managed to roll over and launch
myself in the air, flying low to the roof until I reach the opposite side
before risking open air again. From behind I heard a shout, and risked a glance
back. Some mass of humanoid flesh with an extended, horse-like snout, lined
with an excess of human teeth, was crawling up over the spot I had just been
perched. Several tentacles writhed around its form, bearing more chunks of concrete.
It winged them at me while making a disturbing groaning cry.
Fuck! I hated
mutants; just the glimpse of that thing was going to give me nightmares
tonight. The thing probably saw me as a meal, not realizing I wasn’t just an
ordinary bird. But then again, even if I’d been human, I wouldn’t put it past a
mutant to try and eat me. I managed to dodge the thrown projectiles easily
enough, and climbed higher into the sky.
I took another glance back, but the thing was far behind me
now. I turned back, just in time to see something else bear down on me. One of
the giant mutant wasps, easily three times my size, was barreling towards me,
its enormous barbed stinger thrusting forward. I managed to duck under, just in
time, and felt the stinger slice through a couple of my back feathers. The wasp
cart-wheeled in the air, it’s fat, clumsy body turning to keep chasing me. I
could see two other wasps a hundred feet away. In my haste to escape the
tentacle mutant, and I had ended up going near the building where the wasps
made their nest.
Fuck me, why did I take this mission? Why were my powers so
lame? Bird forms had their uses, but most of them were considerably more
fragile than my human form. None of my actually tough forms could even fly.
I glanced around, and noticed a crumbling office building
below me, with plenty of busted out windows. I ducked down, dropping quickly
towards one of the openings. The wasp, despite its poor turning radius, was
coming at me like an insectoid missile. I managed to zip into the windowsill
and arc up into the ceiling of the top floor, squeezing myself into the
“rafters” that still held rotting ceiling tiles. The mutant wasp banged off the
bottom edge of the sill and dropped back. It stumbled in the air, wings buzzing
oddly, its fat body bobbing drunkenly, losing altitude. As I turned to watch it
fall, I saw an enormous red claw on the end of a gnarled tendril, whip out from
one of the windows below, and snatch the wasp out of the air. It had snapped
out with an audible whip-crack, crushed the wasp about its middle, and yanked
it back with the speed of a snake.
Fucking Christ, I
thought. This place was a damn meat-grinder.
Okay, this wasn’t going to work. I at least needed a form
that had a better chance of escaping and, if need be, fighting back. I had to
get airborne again and book it back to Tallgrass. I glanced around; the shadows
of the mostly collapsed ceiling were filled with rusty metal pipes, splayed
wires, and boxy vents. I could see the movement of small bugs, thankfully not mutated. I didn’t think crawling
through the area to find another exit would be wise. I’d have to risk coming
out the way I came, and praying that crab-claw or some other thing didn’t
manage to snag me.
I waited a moment, then took off, shooting out the hole.
Thankfully, the claw-thing didn’t try to grab me. Unthankfully, another wasp
thing saw me again, and came gunning for me.
Alright. No time to be fancy. I transformed in mid-air,
snatched at the camera as it came free of its strap, then transformed into a
golden eagle before I could drop more than a few inches in the air. A much
larger, tougher, and deadlier bird form, I was able to flap out of the way of
the diving wasp, and rake my talons along its side. I felt my claws scrape
against thick chitin, doing little damage with such a glancing blow, but I did
manage to snag one of the wings. My talon cut through the thin material like
paper, and the wasp was suddenly tumbling madly downward, its one remaining wing
beating frantically. It spiraled into the edge of the crumbling building with a
hard crack, and dropped like a rock, twitching as it went. Something from the
shadows snatched it out of the air before it could hit the ground.
I didn’t pause to get a better look. Instead, I wheeled
around, looking for the camera. I’d managed to grab it, but of course, as my
hand turned into a wing, I lost my grip. My intent was the snatch it with my
beak as it fell, but the glancing impact against the wasp had caused me to
miss. I spotted it spinning down towards a relatively open spot in the street. I
dove for the small thing, beak open, ducking dangerously low. Just before it
could smash into the rubble, I managed to close my beak around it, and
immediately flared my wings to slow my descent.
Too little, too late. I managed to avoid cracking into the
ground. I didn’t manage to avoid the big, meaty fist that punched me from the
side.
I shrieked, dropping the camera and losing it the debris, as
I felt my right wing buckle and multiple ribs crack under the blow. I smashed
hard into a slab of brick wall and started rolling down it.
Don’t black out… Don’t
black out…
I changed again. The one true advantage of my power,
compensating for the physical frailty of most of my bird forms, was that I
instantly recovered between shifts. I was still rolling, however, disoriented,
and slid forcefully into jagged edges of broken concrete. I let out a yelp,
flailing to try and orient myself. Gritting my teeth, I managed to half-roll,
half-flip onto my feet as a figure stepped from the shadows.
I recoiled at the sight of him. Or her. I couldn’t really be
sure. Thick, stumpy legs held up a sickeningly thin waist and torso, which in
turn held up a thick, almost block-shaped head, the lower jaw jutting outward
to sprout shovel-shaped tusks of teeth. Beady red eyes peered out from between
the longest tusks. Its right arm was a withered thing with three spindly
fingers that looked like it had no bones inside, while its left arm was a massive,
swollen series of lumps ending in a permanent fist, the fingers fused together
into a horny-knuckled mitten. That’s what the mutant had hit me with.
It blinked as it saw me in my human form. It looked around,
lifting its withered arm to flop the boneless fingers onto its head in a
mockery of a thinking gesture. Its fist-mitten opened and closed in a limited
way, as if the joints were restricted.
Mutants, especially ones as twisted as this, always gave me
a mixture of revulsion, pity, and personal dread. Who had this person been,
before they had become this? How could they even stand to live like this? What
would their family and friends think if they could see them now? Would this
creature even recognize their kin, or were they so far gone, they didn’t even
know who they were anymore?
The thing that kept me up at night was that I could have
very easily been one of them. What exactly had prevented me from turning into
something like this, instead of becoming one of the rare superhumans? Nobody
could say. I tried not to think of how close a call it was.
The thing growled at me, looking at me hungrily and angrily.
Maybe it thought I somehow stolen its meal. Maybe it was thinking I looked good
enough to be its next meal. The creature’s fist-mitten closed, and with
surprising ease, despite how thin its torso was, the creature reared back its massive
arm to strike.
I needed something big and fast. I wasn’t sure talons would
be enough. I shifted into an ostrich form, dodging aside right as its arm shot
out. The tumorous fist smashed against the broken concrete I’d been standing
on, crumbling some of it underneath. It blinked surprise as it looked up at me,
seeing a fully sized ostrich glaring down at him.
People think ostriches are just silly, ineffectual creatures,
with the whole myth about hiding their heads in the sand. People forget just
how big the birds actually got, not to mention how strong they were. Strong
enough for some people to ride. Strong enough to pull carts and plows. And
strong enough to break a person’s bones with a single kick.
Before the mutant could whip its arm back for another try, I
lashed out with a swift strike to the head. It felt like kicking a stone, but
the sturdy body of this bird form withstood the impact. The mutant’s neck, however,
was not as up to the task. It bent horribly to the side, and I heard something
crack wetly. The thing started spasming, it’s tusked jaw opening to let out a
breathy wheeze. Its heavy arm went limp. It flopped on the ground as its legs
kicked in a rhythmic fashion. Its withered arm and torso still writhed as it
gnashed its teeth.
I wasn’t sure just how its anatomy worked, if a neck break
could somehow leave part of the body still functioning while the rest went
limp. My first instinct was the run. But seeing the pitiful creature suffering,
I couldn’t leave it at that. I came over, cautiously, and when I was sure it
wasn’t going to be able to lash out at me if I got too close, I went over and
swiftly brought my foot down to crush its neck fully.
The head kept wheezing and gnashing for a full minute, even
as the rest of its body went slack. Its eyes spun wildly. I turned away,
darting my head back and forth to spot any new attackers. Already, I could hear
something skittering in the shadows.
Knowing there was no way I could locate the camera before I
got swarmed by more creatures, I rapidly shifted back to human and back to the
golden eagle form, and launched myself into the air.
I got about ten feet before someone threw a net over me,
grounding me and bundling me up in a couple of seconds, before slinging me over
their shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and dashing into a nook in the rubble.
4
I’d tried transforming while bound, and that didn’t tend to
go very well. I’d dislocated limbs a few times trying to escape ropes or boxes
my bird form had been trapped in, so being fully tangled in a net meant I had
to at least wait until they loosened their grip, and I had enough slack to work
with.
Convenient as my power was, this was one of those times
being able shift straight from bird to bird would be great. Shift to humming
bird, slip the net, back to ostrich and boot this guy in the back, that would
have been really cool. But no, I always had to shift back to human first…
A few minutes went by, during which my captor scampered
through the labyrinthine debris fields, staying as much under the rubble as he
could. At one point, he jerked to a stop, grunted, and I heard a threatening chittering
sound. I started to wriggle in my net, almost risking a transformation just to
avoid being helpless while some monster devoured my captor and then came after
me.
Instead, there was a sizzling, a greenish-yellow flash that
briefly lit up the debris around us, and a sudden smell of burnt sulpher,
followed by painfully high shriek and the sound of sticks smacking the ground
repeatedly. Then, my captor moved on, and I was able to see what had happened.
Something like a dog-sized spider lay twitching and smoking on the ground,
scratching feebly at the dirt, while it’s disturbingly human eyes glared at us.
After several more minutes, we entered a dark place, part of
a section of not-yet-collapsed building. Then, there were another few sizzling
sounds, and the room was slowly lit up by several old fashioned glass oil lamps
being ignited. My captor set me down, and with an unceremonious ruffling of the
net, rolled me out onto the floor.
In a double-flash, I was human, then shifted into a
cassowary. The big, dark blue bird was not as large or strong as an ostrich,
but its feet held long, wicked claws that could gut a person with one slash. I
was on my feet, ready to strike, as I took in the view of my captor.
A young man with sandy blond hair and softly glowing green
eyes looked back at me. His hands sizzled with a bit of smoke, the fingernails
glowing dully just like his eyes. He was dressed in rags, filthy, and had the
patchy beard of an older teen. He held up his hands, the nails still sizzling
with his power, but instead of blasting me, he just smiled calmly. “I’m not
looking for a fight.”
I couldn’t talk in this form. Instead I cocked my head to
the side inquisitively, inviting him to continue.
“Never seen or heard of you before. You just get your
powers?”
I made a snappy shake of my head.
“Ah. So you’re from beyond the trench.”
I figured my bird forms weren’t going to be much better
against his blast power than my human form anyway. I shifted back to human.
“I was sent to scout the layout of the land.” Not untrue.
He smirked. “A junior Aevir?”
“Nah. Freelancer.”
“Scouting for what?”
I debated for a moment on how much to say. I would have
assumed a sane superhuman wouldn’t want to stick around in a hell-hole like
this. But then again, I’d heard some mutant gangs recruited supers. Or were led
by them.
Without the camera, and with so many creatures out to snatch
a bird out of the air, there was no real way to make progress on my assignment.
I glanced around. The room looked like the break room to a store, folded up
tables leaning against the wall, remnants of posters on the floor, a busted
television in the corner, a stack of plastic chairs in another corner. The
floor was dirty, with dried mud and dirt tracked in from who knows how many
people or creatures making this a temporary abode. There was only the one door,
but there was a dark hole in the ceiling where some moldy tiles had crumbled
away.
“A gang sign,” I said. I took a moment to scratch the symbol
into the dirt. The young man’s eyes widened a bit as he saw it take shape. “You
know it?”
He looked me in the eye, then slowly nodded. “I know these
guys.”
“You a part of
it?”
He hesitated before saying, “Not by choice.” I looked him
right in the eyes, until he looked to the side and shrugged. “Alright. Maybe
kind of by choice. In the out-of-better-options kind of way.”
I nodded once. “Make you a deal: I’m looking for evidence
that a certain person is alive. I wasn’t told who this person was, but just to look for evidence that they were
still around. You give me some information, I can help you escape, if you’d like.”
He smiled charmingly. “I think I would like! Who is it your looking for?”
“I wasn’t told a name, or given a description. But I am led
to believe he is the son of an important man.”
His smile became a smirk. “Ah. So. Pop finally decided to
show he cared.”
I had no way of confirming if this was the boy they were
after. I also had no idea just why they wanted him. I would have assumed a
rescue, but Tallgrass had very deliberately not clarified.
“Name?”
“Douglas . You?”
“Rebecca.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand. His nails were
still softly glowing. He noticed me looking at them instead of taking the
offered shake. He chuckled and withdrew. “Sorry. I can withdraw the energy
fully, but I find it safest to keep it just under the surface. You almost can’t
go ten steps without something trying to eat you. Probably don’t want to touch
me anyway, you might get tetanus.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. “Just a joke. It’s filthy around here.”
“Yeah.” The friendly demeanor wasn’t fooling me. The only
reason I even partly trusted him at this point was the fact that he wasn’t just
outright frying me with his power. “So what was with the net?”
“Sorry. I was hunting, actually, then spotted you dodging
those wasps. You did your little transforming bit, fought those monsters. By
the time I was able to get to you, you were about to take off. I had no time to
think on it, I just threw the net, and then I had to get us out of there.
Slightest whiff of blood, those monsters are on you like sharks.”
I shook my head. “How do you even have a gang out here under these conditions?”
“It isn’t easy, but Blue Jay’s really whittled down the
crazies. We stay hidden as best we can, especially when we see him flying
about. We’re a small outfit, but we’re the only
one in the city that has any sort of success. There use to be a few other
tribes; the ones Blue Jay didn’t kill either got eaten, or they killed each
other over turf.” He shook his head with a small chuckle. “Prime real estate
out here, you know.”
“I see. I don’t suppose you could tell me where this gang is
located?”
He laughed. “What, so Pops can send his little hit squad in
after me? No thank you.”
I frowned and cocked my head to the side. “Hit squad?”
He spread his arms wide with a grin. “You think I couldn’t
have left any time I wanted? That, even if I couldn’t make it over the trench,
I couldn’t have flagged down Blue Jay during his patrols?”
“I’m sure you could have. So why haven’t you?”
“Exactly!” He thrust up a finger as if he’d revealed some
master stroke of a genius plan. But he didn’t actually elaborate from there.
There was a long, awkward pause before I said, “Uh-huh.”
“So. I’m guessing you don’t want to stay here.”
“Would be nice to get back home. I have a game I can still
make it to.”
He nodded sagely. “Well, perhaps we can arrange a deal. Pops
wants some information. I would rather he not actually find me.” He reached
into a pocket, then pulled out a little black device and tossed it to me. The
camera.
“I’ll spread the word amongst my people. We’ll tag some
other areas with the sign. You fly around and get the footage you need. We let
you fly home.”
I looked at the camera. I had no idea what was going on
here, but I had a job to do, and I was not in the habit of misleading my clients.
On the other hand, I was not in the habit of getting myself killed.
“Alright.” I would play their little game, but inform
Tallgrass of the ruse. Knowing I was compromised, I could say the job was a
bust, but even this bit of known misinformation might prove useful. The camera
seemed intact, at least. “You’re going to have to strap this on for me.”
He nodded. “Sure. Just don’t try flying off home right
away.” He held up his hand and the nails glowed brightly, wisps of smoke coming
off them. He grinned wide. “I’m a pretty good shot. And my gang’s horded all
the rifles.”
Great. “How long is this going to take, then? I’m supposed
to head back in a couple hours.”
He shrugged. “Shouldn’t take more than one.”
“And if I get jumped again?”
“Like I said. I’m a
good shot. So’s the rest of my gang. We got you covered. Something gets near
you, we’ll snipe it out of the sky.” He winked. “Just like we’ll snipe you if
you run before its time. I’ll send up a signal when its time.” He pointed to
the far wall, and three little bolts of yellow-green energy spat from the end
of this finger, flashing hotly against the wall. Just slow enough I could spot
the individual bolts, but too fast for me to have dodged if he pointed them at
me.
“I’ll fire off a triple burst three times into the sky. Then
you know you’re done.”
I nodded, keeping a cool expression, though on the inside, I
felt a pit in my stomach. I was going to be running through a battlefield with
sniper support, with those very snipers aiming at my back the whole time. This
was definitely in the top three of worst positions I’d been forced into on a
job.
I am never going into the cities ever again.
“Alright!” He pulled a toy walkie-talkie out of his pocket.
“Hey, Crass? Inform the others. We’re pulling another spook.”
I listened to him rattle off commands. If he wasn’t the
leader of the gang, he was at least second or third in command. I wondered just
how many people he actually had at his beck and call. I guess it didn’t matter.
The way this all sounded, I wouldn’t even see anyone else.
“Alright,” he said when he was done. “We’re ready. You can
take off now, then start circling. Gotta make this look natural. But you’ll
find the first tag in the northeast. Corner of the Cluster. That’s the big mess
of towers.”
I nodded. This time I shifted back into my golden eagle
form. I was already compromised, there was no reason to not use one of my
stronger bodies. Douglas strapped the camera
onto my neck, and I barely felt the difference this time. “Remember. One hour.”
I squawked at him. Then he picked me up, ran me out the
door, and as soon as we reached open air, he tossed me upwards. I wasted no
time, powering my wings to get a good altitude.
5
I felt tense the whole remaining hour, but true to his word,
Douglas and his gang had my back. Gunshots and energy flashes sounded around me
whenever something airborn came my way. There was one time another rock whizzed
near me, followed by the sound another gunshot, followed by a pink, meaty body
falling out of a window.
With the bird’s slightly sped up perceptions, and the
tension of the moment, the hour long flight felt three times longer. But as I
circled around the city, I spotted a particularly conspicuous, obviously fresh
tagging of the gang’s “new” territory. I wounded around, spotting more signs.
It was too obvious. I hadn’t even seen what looked like a real one of their
symbols yet, but even I could tell from a glance that no gang would “advertise”
themselves this blatantly, not with the likes of Blue Jay doing routine sweeps
over the land.
I’m sure they thought they were being very clever, though. I
wasn’t sure of Douglas’s intelligence or sanity, but if the rest of his group
really were mutants, well, even the most sane of those poor, twisted freaks
seemed have a few screws loose.
Finally, I saw the three-shot bursts a quarter mile to the
east. That was the signal. I immediately turned and shot for the trench. I made
something of a zigzag pattern, just in case one of the riflemen decided I would
be better as a meal after all. But it was a wasted effort, no shots followed.
Within fifteen minutes, I was landing back on the bridge.
Tallgrass was sitting on a little fold-out table behind the car, casually
watching the phone with one hand, while holding a book with the other. When I
landed, he took a few moments to finish his page, then clapped the book shut,
tapped something on the phone, and smoothly rolled from the chair into a
standing position. He didn’t seem at all surprised the see I was a different
bird as he leaned down to remove the camera.
Once he backed away, I flashed back into human form. “Job’s
done. I think I found your client’s—”
The exceedingly tall man waved me off with a pleasant smile.
“Yes, yes, I’m aware. The camera also had a microphone.”
I blinked. “Oh.”
“Well, I was hoping for something a bit more concrete, but I
suppose this is as much as you can do. Still, it’s enough to know that he’s
alive, and his general hunting ground.”
“Was this Douglas person
the one your client is looking for?”
Tallgrass chuckled. “That would be telling.”
“Fair enough. I apologize for not being able to fulfill the
request.”
“It is disappointing, but with this new data, we are closer
to achieving our goal here. It is enough to compensate you half the original offer.”
A thousand bucks wasn’t bad for an afternoon trip through
Hell. I’d take it. “Sounds agreeable.”
“I thought so.”
The drive back was silent. I tried not to think about what
I’d seen back in the city, but I knew I’d have nightmares about it tonight. The
same nightmare of trying to shift into a bird, and instead turning into some
feathered, misshapen harpy, flapping gnarled wings and screaming uselessly into
the sky, and unable to change back. Every time I woke up from that nightmare, I
felt the echo of that body in my flesh. I know for a fact that that’s what was supposed to happen to me when I ran into
the Mist Wall that changed our world forever.
Instead, I lucked out. Instead of becoming that thing in my nightmares, I instead gained
the power to turn into birds. I don’t know what’s different about me that I was
blessed rather than cursed. None of us superhumans do. Instead, we learn not to
look the gift horse in the mouth. For months after I got my powers, I feared my
transformation was going to “correct” itself, and I really would get stuck in
that horrid form. But it never happened, and at this point, I know it won’t.
But the up close reminder of what could
have been, well, that brought the old anxieties back.
Tallgrass dropped me off at the field he’d met me, handing
me the money, and driving off with a polite “good day.” I retrieved my bat, and
fetched the basket of balls from the storage locker. There were a few people
walking around the park now, but otherwise, I had the place to myself. A little
more practice wouldn’t hurt, if only to soothe my nerves.
Toss up… wind back… CRACK!
END
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