Air Born (Generation Icarus Book 1), page 9
I knew how he felt.
Later, while the three of us sat around the campfire, digesting dinner, Miguel was the one to raise the obvious problems.
“We’ll run out of food tomorrow, and now we don’t have any tents.”
“It won’t take long for people to track us here, either,” I said, reluctantly. “Especially if we keep making as much noise as we did today.”
Miguel stretched out his wings, his feathers shimmering as they caught the flickering firelight. “Definitely time to move on.”
“But where will we go? And how will we get there?” Tyler demanded. “We can’t fly far. Yet.”
“I don’t think I can hide my wings anymore,” Miguel said, glancing over his shoulder. “So no more hitchhiking, I guess.”
“Regular hiking, then?” Tyler suggested, unenthusiastically.
“Um,” I said.
Their large eyes swung around to me.
“Yeah?” Tyler prompted, as I hesitated.
I half sighed, half blew my hair out of my face. “I have a vehicle,” I confessed.
“Wait, you do?” He leaned forward. “What kind?”
“It’s my stepdad’s old pickup,” I said. “He uses … used it for hunting and fishing trips. That sort of thing.”
“Where is it?” Miguel asked, eagerly.
Checking the map on the smartphone, I pointed to the southeast corner. “Back there. There’s a parking lot at that end of the trail. That was where the Angelists congregated before starting their pilgrimage thingy to find you. So, if it’s still there, then we could use it to go … wherever we’re going. We can take turns driving.”
Miguel waved a hand quickly. “I can’t drive. Sorry.”
“I can,” Tyler said. “I mean, I don’t actually have my license yet, but I know how.”
“If a cop pulls us over, driving without a license will be the least of our problems,” I said, smiling weakly.
“But where will we drive to?” Miguel asked.
“Now we’re off the ground, we need wide open spaces to practise flying properly.” Tyler poked the fire, speaking slowly as he thought out loud. “Birds use thermals to help them save energy, right? What about … the desert? That would be where the biggest thermals are.”
“And the fewest people,” I added, turning the idea over in my mind.
“You want us to go and camp out in the desert?” Miguel said, aghast. “Have you ever been to the desert?”
“I’m not saying in the middle of the desert,” Tyler said, sounding increasingly enthusiastic, “but somewhere near the edges where it’s not so intense.”
“We don’t have any other ideas or options, so we could at least visit and check it out,” I suggested. “We can always change our minds and go somewhere else.”
“True, I guess,” Miguel said. “But don’t expect me to be any use. I’ve lived in cities all my life.”
Tyler slouched against his log, stretching out in front of the fire. “I’ve done a few survival courses and camped in the desert before.” Miguel rolled his eyes, and Tyler chucked a twig at him. Miguel batted it away with a grin, and Tyler settled his hands behind his head. “If there’s anything we don’t know, we’ll make it up as we go along. It’s worked all right so far.”
“We can’t move without any plan,” Miguel pointed out. “And don’t forget, there’s the problem of food.”
“And I think we’ll need fuel for the truck, too,” I said.
“What about that little town we came through to get here?” Tyler waved in its general direction. “Miguel, you could go into the supermarket for another supply run, couldn’t you?”
“That place is crawling with Angelists and hunters and nosy people,” I said, shaking my head. “They’ll spot us a mile off, especially you, Tyler.” I shuddered. “They know what we all look like, now."
Tyler tossed a branch on the campfire. The flickering light deepened his frown. “Sometimes I wish…”
After a moment, I guessed. “That this had never happened?”
He sighed, ran his hand through his already-tousled brown hair, and nodded. “I’d still be at home, I’d still have a life. I just wish I knew why.”
Miguel was running some dry leaves through his fingers, making them appear and disappear again. “I think there is a bigger purpose,” he said, quietly. “This can’t be coincidence.”
There was silence for a while, broken only when a burning log collapsed.
“While I was running,” Ty said, eventually, “at first, anyway, it seemed kind of exciting. Like a movie.”
“What kind of movie?” I asked, lightly.
His mouth twisted into the ghost of a smirk. “At first, I was imagining a spy or action flick. But then I started thinking about superhero movies.”
I shifted into a cross-legged position, my wings relaxing behind me in a gentle droop, stretching across the leaf litter. “If you’re going to be a superhero, you’ll need a secret identity, or a code name.”
“Bird Boy?” Miguel suggested, and this time Tyler threw a handful of leaves at him. Miguel chuckled, brushing them away.
“I’d be so much more awesome than Bird Boy,” Tyler said, snorting.
“All right then,” Miguel said. “Bird Man?”
“Birdman and Robin,” I added, starting to laugh. “Weren’t you talking about being Robin Hood, before?”
Tyler groaned. “No thanks. External underwear and leggings aren’t really my style.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m getting the feeling you’ve already picked out your name.”
He avoided my gaze. “Well, I had a few ideas…”
“You can’t bring it up and then not tell us,” I said, after his silence trickled on too long.
“Nah, now I know you’ll just laugh at me.” Tyler slid down until he was lying flat on his partly-unfolded wings, which formed N shapes on either side of his shoulders. He crossed his legs and arms and shut his eyes.
“Hey,” I said, poking his leg with a stick. “No sleeping until after confession.”
Tyler calmly brushed the stick away and resumed his sleeping-cowboy position.
Miguel grinned at me, shrugging helplessly. But my curiosity, having been awakened, would not back down.
“What about you, Miguel? What name would you take?”
He huffed out a breath. “I have no idea.”
“Not necessarily a superhero name…” My imagination was tumbling along at full speed now. “Just something to reflect the fact you’ve changed. We’ve changed. Seems weird for such a major thing to happen, and then we just keep waddling along, pretending to be the same people.”
“I don’t waddle,” Tyler objected, without opening his eyes.
“No,” I agreed. “You fly.”
He couldn’t control the smug look. “And it’s fan-freaking-tastic.” Finally, he levered himself upright and met my gaze across the fire.
I nodded, my wings flexing with my gesturing arms. “It’s brilliant! I think we should celebrate it, somehow. Looking ahead to the future, instead of mourning for the past. We need to mark the occasion.”
“Uh, how, exactly?” Miguel said, but Tyler was looking more animated by the second.
“I like the new names idea,” I said, trying not to let awkwardness creep into my voice. “In recognition of our new identities.” When I saw the black-winged boy looking doubtful, I quickly added, “Not necessarily to replace your actual name, I mean, but as like a … a … spiritual title?” I sent a pleading glance to Tyler. Help me out, here!
“Like your favourite bird,” he blurted. It might have been the glow from the fire, but I thought he might have blushed slightly. He began twisting a twig between his fingers. “Mine would be the hawk … that’s what the alternate identity I was making up earlier was called. The Hawk.”
“You look like a hawk,” I offered shyly, and the colour in his face deepened.
“What about you, Victoria?” he asked, obviously trying to shift the attention away from himself.
I screwed up my nose when I heard my name. “Ugh, don’t call me that. Only my stepsister calls me that, or other people if I’m in trouble.”
“Exactly, you don’t like your name. So why don’t you take a new one?”
“Do you have a favourite bird?” Miguel asked.
Scratching around on the ground, I let my mind drift to see what floated to the surface. “I did a school project on the kestrel once, years ago,” I said, eventually. “We were using birds as a focus topic, and I liked the sound of it best.”
“Kestrel,” Tyler said, slowly, and a shiver ran through my skin, my hair and feathers rising slightly. “Kestrel. Hawk.” His gaze flicked to Miguel. “What about you?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever felt a particular attachment to birds before now,” Miguel said, neutrally, “so I don’t have a favourite. I’d have to think about it.”
Watching his large black feathers resettling behind him, I ran through a mental list of large birds with dark plumage. “What about condors?” I suggested after a while. “They’re amazing birds.”
He shrugged. “Sounds okay, but I’m in no hurry.” He smiled at me. “If you want to take on a new name though, I promise I’ll try to use it instead of Tori.”
“I think Kestrel is the perfect name for you,” Tyler said cheerfully, but with an odd note in his voice. If it wasn’t for the confidence oozing from every pore, I’d have thought he was feeling shy. “Assuming you still like it.”
Biting my lip, I sounded it out in my head. Hi, I’m Kestrel. Every part of me hummed with excitement as I tried on the name. “You think it works?”
“Definitely,” Tyler said, nodding. Miguel agreed.
I hesitated just a moment longer. “Okay. Hi, guys. I’m Kestrel. Nice to meet you.” As my mouth formed the words, they felt familiar. Right.
Both boys laughed, Miguel clapping his hands a couple of times. “It definitely suits you,” he said.
“Cool,” I said, my heart feeling lighter and warmer in my chest. “I was worried you’d think I was weird.”
Tyler shrugged all four of his shoulders, his brown wings rising and falling as they flexed slightly in emphasis. “When we all have wings growing out of our backs? What’s weirder than that?”
“Good point.” I laughed, my shyness easing. “What about you then, Tyler? Do you want to be Hawk as an everyday thing, or just on special occasions?” I teased.
He hesitated, scraping at the embers of the fire with a discarded bit of tent pole. “I think you’re right, about what you said before. We’re new people now. And it was completely out of our control. I want to take back control. Changing my name is … important. Symbolic. You know?”
“Yeah,” I said encouragingly, as he hesitated again.
“So … yes.” Tyler awkwardly put the pole down. “I think I do want to change my name.”
“Hawk?”
He finally looked up. I don’t know if it was the flickering of the fire or the darkness around him, but he looked vulnerable and uncertain for the first time since I’d met him. His bronze eyes seemed golden in the firelight. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s perfect.”
Tyler grinned. “Hi, Kestrel. I’m Hawk.”
11
HAWK
That night, after we’d built a rough shelter of hacked branches and leaves, I lay awake for a long time. Miguel and Tori — no, Kestrel — gradually fell asleep, their breathing softening and slowing. Gazing up past the edge of the lean-to, I waited for the moments when the gentle breeze brushed the forest canopy aside and allowed me to catch a glimpse of the stars.
I am Hawk.
I turned the name over and over, trying it out in my head in a hundred different contexts. Serious, silly, happy, excited, angry, sad. No matter how I said it to myself, it seemed to fit right, like a favorite sweater and jeans. I imagined my parents and sister calling me Hawk, and that was exciting enough to block out the pain that always came with thinking about my family.
But hearing Kestrel say it out loud had been more than exciting. It had felt … momentous. Meaningful.
Meant to be?
Smiling, I shifted onto my side, burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag, and closed my eyes. Exhaustion and delirium would not help me fly any faster or higher.
As I drifted into sleep, my last thought was how I’d caught Miguel looking at Kestrel as she flew above us for the very first time, with the sunlight filtering through and around her golden feathers.
“I’m already starving again,” I moaned, only half-joking, and whacked a branch out of my way.
Miguel chuckled. “I told you not to eat everything you had left for breakfast.”
“What’s the point in saving lunch if you die of hunger before you make it that far?”
“We’ve been hiking for less than an hour, Ty — Hawk.” Miguel, in the lead, didn’t turn around as he zig-zagged down the hill. “We haven’t even made it to Angel’s Meadow yet, and then we still have to find the trail that Kestrel took to get there.”
“I know, I know.”
As I swigged from my already half-empty water bottle, Kestrel appeared in my peripheral vision. When something touched my fingers, I was astonished by the thought that she was putting her hand in mine. Then she squeezed my fingers closed around an object, and I realized it was a chocolate bar.
Choking on my mouthful of water, I tried to say thanks, but she put her finger to her lips and winked. Then she cheerfully skipped ahead in line and began following in Miguel’s footsteps instead of mine, starting a conversation about how far it was to the clearing, and which way to the trail.
Soon, we began hiking much more carefully and quietly, keeping our eyes and ears wide for hunters, or even other innocent hikers. When we did reach the clearing, we walked around it, rather than cut through the exposed empty space. However, it wasn’t until we came to a low gully which Miguel’s map suggested was the halfway point between the clearing and the trail, that I heard anything other than wind, leaves, bugs, and birds.
Voices.
“Guys,” I hissed. Miguel and Kestrel instantly lifted their heads from the map, straining their sensitive hearing, their black and gold wings shifting uncomfortably. The anonymous voices were still distant, but definitely coming closer.
“That way,” Kestrel suggested, pointing up the rock wall. With her heavy pack strapped to her chest, she began to climb, flapping her wings as quietly as she could to boost her ascent.
Miguel and I scrambled up after her, imitating her technique. Within moments, we were retreating from the lip of the gully, trying to step on the softest parts of the forest floor.
As the group of hikers emerged from the forest below and entered the gully, I dropped to the ground. Urgently, I motioned for Kestrel and Miguel to do the same. Silently, we waited for them to pass.
“Are you sure those idiot Angelists can even read a map?” a man said, his voice sounding tired and grumpy.
“Any idiot can follow a GPS,” a woman said. “Even hippy dippy cultists.”
“Not far now, anyway,” another man said cheerfully.
The first man muttered. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t chopper in.”
“And scare off every living thing in the area, especially the ones we want?” the woman snapped. “We’re close now. Final weapons check.”
My skin seemed to shrink, my hair and feathers instantly rising and prickling my flesh. Glancing at my friends, I saw the anger on Miguel’s face, and the fear on Kestrel’s.
Slowly, I pointed to my eyes and then to the gully. They nodded.
Easing out of my backpack straps, I belly-crawled toward the edge.
Through the sparse branches of a small bush, I spied on the three hunters. They were dressed in full camo gear, with compact but heavy-duty supply packs and long, weirdly-shaped air rifles.
I’d never had any issue with guns before, but these weapons, which were intended for me, made me want to puke.
A crackle, then a tiny, disembodied voice spoke. I couldn’t make out the words.
The woman lifted a hand to her ear and touched a communications device. “Roger that. Team four, checking in.” A pause. “Affirmative.” She made a few hand gestures at the two men.
The high-tech hunters immediately dropped their casual attitude and fell into a clearly professional formation. I didn’t dare move as they crept beyond the gully, their odd weapons held high.
Holy crap.
As soon as they were out of sight, I eased backward, re-joining Kestrel and Miguel. Their eyes were as wide as mine, having heard everything.
“If we don’t get out of this forest in the next few hours, we’re screwed,” I whispered.
Urgently, Kestrel pushed my backpack toward me, climbed to her feet, and beckoned us to follow her.
As stealthily as we could, Miguel and I followed Kestrel through the forest as she headed not-quite-directly for the trail. Using the GPS on her satphone, as well as her experience hiking in with the Angelists, we soon converged with and began to parallel the main hiking track, keeping it just within our earshot.
After several drawn-out hours and three emergency dives for cover, Kestrel held up her hand, pausing behind a particularly thick clump of bushes.
I moved up on her right and Miguel huddled in on her left.
“The carpark is just through there,” she whispered. “But I can see movement.”
“How do we know the pickup is still there?” Miguel asked.
Kestrel leaned past me, and I blew her hair out of my face. She didn’t seem to notice as she straightened up. “Oh, it’s there.”
“How do you know?”
She pointed. “The unnatural mustard color.”
“Not exactly subtle,” I murmured, grinning.
“At least I have a car,” she retorted. “I didn’t pick it for its style.”
“Why did you, then?”
“It was the least expensive, oldest vehicle in the garage. No GPS tracker, not worth much, but full of useful equipment.”
