Chapter 2
475 Words
Chapter Two
‘I’m fine,’ Damien said.
But he didn’t look fine to Aviary. He was sitting at the end of the workshop inside the airbase hangar, splattered in blood, wincing as he pulled himself upright.
Nasira finished wrapping his slashed hand with a bandage from Aviary’s bag, and collected her weapon. She still looked on edge, even though the hangar was finally safe, littered with destroyed quadrupedal drones—Damien called them Good Boys—and Purity soldiers.
But the flying drones they’d come here to stop were gone.
While Nasira moved from body to body, checking their pulses, Damien crouched over a dead soldier, and wiped his bloody fingers on the man’s uniform. He gestured with his uninjured hand to the Good Boy beside him. ‘You did that?’
‘I had to,’ Aviary said.
‘We were meant to stop the Destiny drones,’ he said.
And if I had, I couldn’t have stopped the Good Boys. ‘It was about to kill you.’
Damien stood, unsteadily. ‘I had it under control.’
‘Under control?’ she yelled. ‘You were RIP!’
Nasira looked up from examining a dead soldier. ‘She’s got a point.’
Damien exhaled. ‘I’m just saying, we screwed it up.’
‘No, you’re just saying I screwed it up’.
Aviary’s earpiece crackled.
‘Olesya to Aviary.’
‘I’m here,’ Aviary said. She could barely make out Olesya’s voice—wherever she was in the university, there was an alarm blaring in the background.
‘I found Jay’s phone and watch … in the pocket of a dead doctor,’ Olesya said. ‘There are some dead guards here and a lot of blood. I’m guessing he escaped before I got here.’
‘Do you need security camera feeds?’ Aviary asked.
‘Yes, there’s a camera in the hall just north of me.’
Aviary rushed to the other end of the workshop and scooped up her laptop from the floor. She put it back on the table and opened it, but her quick attempt to log back in proved useless. Just as she’d suspected, stopping the Good Boys had locked her out of the Purity system, including access to the cameras in their HQ. She could get back in again, but that would take hours—time Olesya didn’t have.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t get access right now. We … we didn’t stop the drones.’
‘Understood,’ Olesya said.
She didn’t sound disappointed, but she would be. Aviary couldn’t blame her—they’d needed this. And they’d come so close. But she’d blown it, and now Jay was lost in Purity headquarters for nothing.
Another voice joined the conversation. ‘Sophia to Olesya, we’re inside the perimeter. Hold tight, we’re coming.’
Aviary checked the map on her laptop. It showed Olesya’s position inside the university … almost right on top of Jay. They were so close, but maybe on different levels. Meanwhile, Ark was a bit north of the university, while Sophia and Marina moved up from the south.
‘Aviary to Olesya, I’m going to try to get access to the cameras through your phone.’
But Olesya wasn’t answering.
- Writer
