Chapter 15 – In a Month

Gazzy POV

“So?” I said. “What do we do now?"

“Well lets size things up.” Iggy replied. “We are in the middle of the desert mountain range
and have little to none supplies, we have no money to get supplies and we don’t know what happened
to the flock or where they are.”
“We don’t know where they are going either. Or if they are even alive.” I added, immediately
regretting saying it.
“Yeah, that too.” He sighed.
“I vote we find out where the flock are and where they are headed first.” I said.
“Seconded.” Iggy agreed. “So how do we go about that?” I didn’t reply. That was where we
had a problem. We had no real way of knowing. I looked around the cave, taking in our dismal
situation. We had collected up anything that would have been useful. I had taken a look at some of the
various parts of the robots that had been left behind to see if anything was recoverable, mainly for
bomb making, but came up with nothing. But looking round again I thought of something.
“Iggy?” I pondered. “The one you crashed into when you were getting out? You don’t
suppose it’s still down there do you?”
“I don’t know, maybe, I flew into it quite hard.” You didn’t see it when we flew in?” he
quizzed.
“You fancy a look?” I smiled.
“Well I’ll tag along if you’re going but I don’t think I’d be that good with the whole looking
part.”
***
“Iggy, get over here!” I called to him. We had been looking through the bits and pieces of any
robots that had fallen outside the cave, far down below at the foot of the cliff. It was mainly charred
part that had been destroyed when I flew the grenades.
“Did you find it?” he asked, gliding over.
“Yeah, I think so.” I replied, dusting the robot off. It was pretty much intact, a bit dented and
scraped. “It looks pretty intact. You got your tools on you?”
“Never go anywhere without it.” He said pulling it out of his backpack that had been left back
in the cave. He pulled a screwdriver out of a small rolled up pack, and handed it to me.
“OK help me roll it over.” I said. “OK, one, two, three, roll!” We heaved it onto its back,
revealing it’s crumpled, yet bulky wings. I grabbed the scraggly fur on it back and ripped it off with
ease, revealing a shiny metal surface. I tried to pull off the wings, so they didn’t get in the way; by
they were too firmly in place. I would just have to work around them.
I saw a square groove, most likely a panel of some kind, and used the screwdriver to get
underneath it and pry it open. Inside there was a jumble of wires, motherboards and other technology
I wasn’t familiar with. “OK Iggy, it’s your time to shine.”

***

“OK and you’ve connected the blue and green wire?” Iggy said, wiping sweat from his
forehead.
“No...” I said slowly.
“What do you mean you haven’t? Well what ones have you connected?” he said frantically.
“The red and the green one, like you told me!” I replied.
 “I never said connect the red and the green, I said connect the red and the blue! Now connect
the blue and the green wire before you blow something up!” he said getting frustrated.
“OK, OK, jeez!” I said quickly disconnecting them and connecting the blue and green. “What
do I do about the red one; do I connect it to a different wire or what?”
“No, just leave the red wire, you don’t do anything about the red wire, just don’t touch the red
wire!” he said angrily.
“OK! For Christ’s sake, are we done yet?!” I shouted back.
“Yes we are.” He replied calmly. “All you have to do is poke the end of the yellow wire into
the hole in the side of the monitor and we should be all set.” I did exactly as he instructed, not
wanting to aggravate him again. As I did this I heard the whirr of the machinery inside it coming to
life.
We had taken it apart almost completely, a process which had taken almost 2 hours. Then we
had the even lengthier process of sorting through the pieces and putting them together. Using as few
parts we could, we had formed a rudimentary television screen. We had used part of its memory and
vision systems as well as many other parts from all other its body. Thanks god we both had a decent
knowledge of mechanics.
“OK, connect the battery, and if everything has gone right, we should have an idea of where
they are.” Iggy said hopefully. I picked up the large metal cube, and pushed it into a slot in the back.
The monitor faded into a jumble of pixels and red words. What we were seeing was what the robots
could see. Well, what I could see, Iggy couldn’t see it. “We’re in dude!”
“Excellent!” he replied enthusiastically. “Anything like tracking or destination?”
“Err, give me a minute.” I said, trying to work out how to open folders. I took longer than a
minute, but eventually I found it. “Oh man” I moaned. “This is going to complicate things.”
“What? What is it?” Iggy asked tensely.
“You’re not going to believe this. They’re in England.” I moaned.
“New England? That’s not too bad, a few days flight and-“ but I cut Iggy off.
“No, not New England. England, UK, in Facility B, where Emily is. In Europe, Iggy!” I told
him.
“Oh...” Iggy said. “Great.”

Iggy POV

We were in the air, flying high to avoid detection. I knew we were above the clouds, as All of
a sudden I had gotten very wet, and very cold. I had shouted at Gazzy for not letting me know. We had
been flying for a couple of days. Stopping only when we had needed to. We knew we had to somehow
get to Europe, but had no idea how. Gazzy had suggested flying there, flying via some islands as
resting stops. But when we had landed to research it, we found that the gaps in between flying would
have been too long, and there was the risk of us getting lost, or stranded in the middle of the ocean.
We had considered going by boat, but decided that would take too long. Gazzy had suggested
flying north, and going through Alaska and Russia, but again, that would take too long. It left us with
one real option. Plane.
Now as someone who had spent the 1st 10 year of their life locked up in a small enclosed dog
cage, I, like the rest of the flock, had become extremely weary of small places with no way of getting
out, especially when there was lots of strangers there too, any of whom could be an enemy. But what
with the Erasers supposedly being all dead, and the new Robots, dubbed Flyboys by Gazzy, being
pretty noticeably as large metal wolves with glowing red eyes. Well, noticeable to those who could
see them.
Nevertheless, it was our only feasible option, so that was what we were going to do. We were
flying east, towards Texas. I was hoping we were heading towards Dallas or Houston, where we
would somehow smuggle ourselves onto a plane headed for England and find a way from there to
break the flock out. No doubt they were there already, being subjected to all kinds of experiments. I
struck that thought from my mind as soon as t got there.
“Iggy.” I heard Gazzy say next to me. “We’ve hit the Sea. I think I can see Houston down the
coast. It’s getting dark soon I think. Maybe in an hour.
“Ok, we go into town, get some supplies, and then head for the airport. Which way?” I asked
him.
“About 60 degrees on the left.” He replied, and we both banked into the direction of Houston,
Gazzy brushing his wing against mine so I didn’t go in the wrong direction.

***

We entered the large doors of the airport. Gazzy told me it was called George Bush
Intercontinental Airport. “They could have picked a better name.” I said to him from the side of my
mouth. We had stashed our packs in some bushes half a mile or so from the airport. We wouldn’t be in
here long. All we needed to do was find out what time, and which gate a plane would be leaving from
to England. From there, we would fly to it, and find away into the cargo hold, and stow ourselves
away. It was risky, but it was our only option.
I could hear so many things, talking, footsteps, Overhead announcements, the clicking of the
departures boards, even planes taking off and landing. My head was pounding; I hadn’t heard so many
things at one time in my life. “You okay, dude?” Gazzy asked me on my left.
“Yeah, just a lot of noises. They’re giving me a headache.” I replied, rubbing my head.
“It’s OK, I can see the departures board, we’ll get out of here in a-“ Gazzy broke off.
“What? What is it?” I asked confused.
“Ari.” He said bluntly, and then pulled me away, through a crowd of people. We pushed our
way through them, and then out some doors, and before I knew it, I felt wind against my face. We
were outside.
“What the hell is he doing here?!” he moaned.
“I dunno, maybe his flight got delayed. There’s no way for us to know. Did he see us?” I
asked.
“No I don’t think so. But I can’t be sure.” He mused.
“Well there isn’t anyone chasing us so I would presume he didn’t. Did you see the time and
gate?” I pushed him.
“Err, yeah! Gate 23. It leaves at 11:15 PM.” He remembered.
“Ace! That gives us a good 2 hours to get onto that plane. Shall we leave now, or wait an hour
and see how close we can cut it?” I joked. I could practically hear Gazzy sneering.

***

“OK, where is the plane?” I asked Gazzy.

“About 40 degrees down, at 11 o’clock.” He replied. We were hovering in the air, over the
main terminal, so no-one would be able to easily see us.
“How long have we got?”
“About 45 minutes, I can still see the workers loading stuff underneath.”
“OK, we go down, and wait till they aren’t looking, then move in.” With that we swooped
down, my feathers brushing his, so I didn’t get lost. We landed and hid behind what felt like suitcases.
We waited about five minutes, Gazzy told me there was 3 guys, loading suitcases and luggage onto
the plane, two on the ground, one in the plane. I could hear them chatting, throwing the luggage
recklessly around. I heard something drop and smash, and one of them cursing. “The one in the pane,
dropped something, he’s getting out.” Gazzy whispered. “Now’s our chance, let’s go. Stay behind
me.” I nodded to him, then we took off, and glided as quickly and quietly into the plane.
I had no idea if the workers had seen us, but it didn’t sound like it. Once inside, I put my
finger in Gazzy’s belt, and let him lead the way to a quiet place in the plane. We had gone in about 25
feet, when he stopped abruptly. “We need to get out. Now, go back now.” Gazzy said urgently.
But as he did, I heard one of the workers say “No, there’s no time, we’ll put the rest on the
next flight. Close her up!” and then I heard the Cargo Door close.
“Well that’s not an option, what’s wrong?!” I said, worried.
“The Robots, the Flyboys.” He whispered. “There are loads of them.”
“What?!” I listened as intensely as I could, I could hear a low hum, all around me. Different
to the noise they made in the cave. They hadn’t attacked us yet either, plus the fact they were in the
cargo bay of a plane led me to one conclusion. “They’re on standby.”
“What, how’d you come to that conclusion?” Gazzy asked.
“They aren’t as loud as in the cave. They haven’t attacked us; they must be being transported
to England. No point leaving them online for the whole trip.” I suggested. “Let’s just go to the other
end of the hold, there’s nothing we can do now but wait it out.”

Gazzy POV

It was a long flight. About 5 or 6 hours, made to seem 10 times longer with the flyboys at the
other end of the cargo hold. I could see them, around 50 of them, on some kind of hangers or hooks,
swaying with the movement of the plane, which was heightened down here, with no comfy chairs or
anything to support us. It must be a lot worse for Iggy, with the loud rumble of the engines combined
with the movement.
We landed about 10 minutes ago, and had come to a stop. We could hear the sound of the
passengers leaving the plane above, and were waiting for the Cargo door to open so we could get out
as quickly as possible. Iggy heard voices outside the door, and we waited by it ready to fly. Then we
heard a familiar voice. “Open the door; I need to check they aren’t damaged!” Ari ordered.
“Ok! Ok! Calm down! Just don’t let my supervisor find out, I can get in a lot of trouble.” A
voice with a similar accent to Will’s replied. The cargo door creaked open. We pushed ourselves back
into the shadows as Ari walked in, his large bulky body blocking out a lot of the light which seeped in
through the door. He looked around for the Flyboys, and saw them at the opposite end of the hold. He
walked up to them and began to examine them, looking for any damage on them.
I tapped the back of Iggy’s hand, to signal we should sneak out. He put his finger through my
belt, and I started to creep towards the door, when Iggy tripped and knocked over some suitcases. Ari
turned around and his eyes went wide, and stated to charge towards us. “Crap! Run!” I shouted to
Iggy, who did so instantly, following my footsteps towards the door. We ran out, to see 3 stunned
workers looking at us in awe. “Up and away!” I shouted and we both unfurled our wings and flew
straight up, narrowly avoiding Ari lunging at us. We flew east, towards the rising sun.
I looked back down at Ari, but he didn’t risk flying after us in public. Besides he wouldn’t be
able to catch us. He was too slow. “Right we need to find out where we need to go and-“
“DROP!” Iggy shouted cutting me off. I did instantly, knowing that when Iggy shouted that
urgently it was important. A second after I stopped flapping my wings and dropped 25 feet a Jumbo
Jet flew right over us the wind it generated almost blowing us to the ground below.
“JESUS CHRIST!” I shouted in surprise and shock.
 “Gazzy! I’m the one who’s supposed to be blind!” Iggy shouted at me once we had gotten
back on track and out of the flight path. “How the hell did you not see a massive freaking plane
coming right at us? We could’ve been killed!”
“Sorry! I wasn’t expecting it!” I retorted. “Let’s just find somewhere to hole up and figure out
what to do next.”

***

About 3 weeks had passed since we arrived in England. We found Facility B through the
monitor, but it had taken some time to find it exactly, the map wasn’t extremely accurate. We had
landed at a place called Gatwick Airport, and had followed the Freeways to Birmingham. We had
passed over London, and I was desperate to go and sight see, but Iggy put his foot down. He didn’t
want to get sidetracked. I conceded that he was right, but it didn’t stop me grumbling about it.
Whilst trying to find the Facility, we had chatted about how Ari was there. We came to the
conclusion that he was at the battle in the cave, and was travelling with the Flyboys back to England,
possibly with the flock. That meant the flock were probably on the same flight as us. We would have
been angry about it, but decided they probably weren’t, and even if they were, it was too late to fret
about it.
We had found an abandoned cottage, surrounded by steep sided hills. A good place hide, and
easy to escape from. It was roughly 5 miles from the Facility, which we had scouted and found to be
relatively unfortified. An 8 ft high electric fence running around its perimeter was all that kept it
separated from the world. Well that would be hard to fly over... However there did seem to be regular
guards, mostly humans, but every now and again, a flyboy.
It was situated on the edge of a hill, one of the highest for miles, and looked like it was build
into the hill, with sections underneath it. It may be hard to break into, but not impossible.

***

Tonight is the night. We had scouted the area as thoroughly as we could placed supplies as
various points in a 25 kilometre distance from the facility so we would be prepared if we were driven
into different directions. We had gone into Birmingham, and “borrowed” some money from various
passers by to get parts for bombs. It was fundamentally wrong but fundamentally essential, as Iggy
had so delicately put it. However, we knew nothing of what we would do inside the Facility. Once we
had gotten inside it would be guesswork.
“OK, it’s dark enough now Iggy, shall we go?” I asked nervously.
“Yep. No time like the present.” He said, picking up his pack which we had filled with as
many bombs as we could.
We stepped out the door. It was a clear night; the stars were out in full force, even more
visible than normal being out in the middle of the countryside. We took off and took a steady flight
towards the Facility. However, once there, I was startled to see searchlights out, alarms flashing in the
windows.
“Iggy, something is going on, there’s some kind of commotion down there.” I said.
“What do you mean? What’s happening?” he asked, but as he said that, I saw a figure crash
through one of the walls of the East Wing of the facility. The figure had fallen as they crashed
through, but quickly got up and I saw them unfurl their large 14 foot wings. They ran forward 10 feet
and take off, flying over the fence.
“Oh my god it’s Will!” I breathed in awe, as he started to fly away, Flyboys seeping through
the hole left in the wall, chasing after him. “WILL!” I shouted down to him. “UP HERE WILL!” I
saw his head turn to look up at us, and he began to fly towards us with increased urgency, waving his
arms at us. The Flyboys had heard us too, and were flying towards us. They had some kind of guns,
and were firing up at us. As Will and the Flyboys got nearer I could see Wills face, ragged and tired,
and the Flyboys, their red eyes glowing bright in the night. They continued firing, and I felt something
hit my arm. I looked down, and saw a dart sticking out of it.
“Iggy get out of here now, I’m hit and I’m just gonna slow you down.” I said to him urgently.
“But Gazzy-!” he began,
“IGGY GO!” I shouted, and he somehow managed to jump back whilst hovering in the air.
He had tears in his pale eyes, and nodded sagely and flew off as fast as he could.
I looked down at will, still 100 ft down, and saw many darts sticking out of his back, his eyes
drooping, his height dropping. My eyes started to droop too, and I began to fall, I could feel the dart
taking effect. As I fell I saw Will being caught by the Flyboys, and being punched repeatedly till they
knocked him out.
I felt one of the catch me, and my eyes began to close. I could make out the faint figure of
Iggy in the sky, flying away. “Go.” I breathed as I felt myself slipping away, until finally I fell
unconscious.