«I want to fight» I said with my left talon still on the cube «I want to fight against the yeerks with you. » I turned toward Jake and asked what was probably the most difficult question I would ask today. « Now, I know I'm asking you something big, but could I touch one of you? Passing as a human could be helpful, sometime. »
Other than Tobias, who was preening his feathers, no one moved or said anything to me. It was obvious – and understandable – that they needed some time to think before coming up with an answer.
I didn't liked to stand there and wait while I could easily leave and go back home with my family; there was too much "suspense": their answer would make the difference between having allies to talk to and having to fight the invasion alone.
Unfortunately, I didn't have much choice. I had to protect my family from the yeerks and protecting them meant waiting for the answer. On the bright side, I was used to waiting.
« Let's get back to the barn first, before a controller spot us. » Jake said before looking at the cube « You think you can bring that back with you? »
I looked at the cube. Its weight wasn't much of a problem since I carried heavier prey on a (nearly) daily basis; its size, however, was a bigger issue. Even bringing it here from my nest had been a challenge and the flight had only lasted a minute and a half. If I put the required effort, I could probably carry it all the way to the barn but it would certainly be difficult; not to mention that it would slip out of my grip each time we would encounter a wind gust.
«It would be possible. » I answered before looking at the (large) talons of the bald eagle « But it would be far easier if you carried it since you have bigger talons than me. Mind if you take it? »
I pushed the cube toward her as she shook her head in a very human-like way and nervously stepped back when she grabbed it with her talons; bald eagles were twice my size and seeing them from that close made me extremely nervous – nervous enough to takeoff and fly in circle thirty meters above them so that I was close enough to thought-speak with them but high enough to profit from the comforting safety of the sky.
« Is there anything else to do or we can go to the barn now? » I asked, hoping we would get there quickly. Thought it was less than two months since I had become a peregrine, I had already forgot how it was to be a human and I couldn't wait to turn into one.
After Jake gave a negative answer to the first part of the question we took off – with a five minutes interval – and turned toward the barn. Unlike my previous flight with them, the return trip had virtually no silent moment. During the few minutes we spent flying toward the barn, I had been given a nearly complete briefing about what I had to know before joining them. More importantly – for me, at least – Aximili had explained how I could execute what was called a "frolis maneuver" that would allow me to "mix the DNA" of the four humans in order to have a human form that wouldn't be a perfect copy of one of the teenagers.
Once Rachel had hidden the cube, we all landed in the barn and everyone, excluding Tobias and I, demorphed to their natural form. Soon after, Aximili had morphed into a human morph that, oddly, possessed some similitudes with all the other teenagers; as if someone had been tasked to make a "3D painting" of a human body by using the four teenagers as models.
After sitting down, the four humans placed their right hand at a height I could easily reach with my claws and informed me they were ready to be "acquired" – as they said. If I managed to pull the frolis maneuver – as Aximili called it – I would have a human form that would, like him, possess many similarities with the four humans.
Did I really want that? I would become a human, yes, but not the human I used to be. I wouldn't have the same height, the same face, the same hair color, the same skin color and, biologically speaking, the same age. While I used to be an 18 years old adult, I would have the body of a teenager.
Anyway, this wasn't important. Whether I wanted it or not, I had to have a human form, even if the said form would be completely different to the one I had a few months ago.
If it could help my family, I had to do it.
I jumped off the rafters and gently touched down next to them after a smooth glide. In maybe ten or twenty seconds, I would have acquired them and, a few minutes later, I would be a human for the first time since I had begun my new life.
« I just need to touch you and focus on your DNA, right? »
"Yes. There's nothing else to do." Jake confirmed.
I looked at my powerful wings and at the distinctive black and white pattern on my chest. Soon, in a few minutes, long arms ending with human hands would replace the former and a pink human flesh devoid of any pattern would replace the latter.
But I had to do it. I had to protect my family.
I placed my talon on the hands of the four teenagers and "concentrated on their DNA" until I had "acquired them". Now came the hardest part. I had to do the frolis maneuver and become someone I had never been.
I flew at the back of the barn and landed in an unoccupied horse stall where I could transform into a human without being seen by the others. I took a last look at my beloved wings and lay down on my back. It was time to become a human for the first time since I had woken up as a bird nearly fifty days ago.
I had to do it.
For Spirit, Beatrice, Colin and Antoine.
I closed my eyes and did what Aximili had instructed me. I pictured the four humans and imagined them merging together to form the human body I expected to have – apparently it allowed me to have some control over the result of the frolis maneuver. As I maintained my focus on the "draft" I had in mind, I heard weird noises coming from my body and felt the ground slip under my body as I grew up in size.
I was becoming human.
I was losing my wings, my feathers and virtually everything that made me a bird.
Then, after a few interminable minutes, it was finished. What I had thought as an impossible dream during the first weeks of my falcon life had come true.
I had a human body.
The first thing that hit me was the smell. As I took my first breath, I was suddenly flooded with overpowering odors coming from everywhere. The animals. The various products used to heal the animals. The food they served to the unfortunate injured.
I could smell everything. A few minutes ago, my sense of smell was virtually inexistent and now… I had passed from an odor-less world to a world filled with various odors overwhelmingly strong. I couldn't believe that dogs – or any other animals – could have a better sense of smell. I couldn't even imagine that a better nose could even exist in the first place.
Then, as a poor hawk decided to screech (if you're curious, she was warning me not to approach her), it was the turn for the sense of hearing to hit me. This time, it wasn't because it was incredibly sensitive but because it was… pathetic. There was no other ways to put it; sounds that I would normally hear without trouble was now barely audible, at best. Patterns, rhythms, pitches and tones I could normally differentiate without thinking about it was now one big mess of noises – it was so messy that I wouldn't even able to tell one screech from another if two raptors talked at the same time. That I had managed to live most of my life with such a pathetic hearing without troubles was incomprehensible. Compared to my normal hearing, I was practically deaf right now.
Aware that opening my eyes would prevent me from getting used to this new human body – as the eyesight would be so radically different to what I was used to that I wouldn't be able to focus on anything – I fought the urge to look at my surrounding.
I moved my feet a little, followed by my legs, my arms and my fingers. Not that it was particularly difficult for me, but I wanted to be sure I completely remembered which muscle did what. Once it was done, maybe ten seconds later, it was the time to open my eyes and see the world with humans eyes. I tried to remember how it was; just to prepare myself a little.
All I could recall was having only one fovea instead of two, lacking that third eyelid allowing me to fly without blinking constantly and being able to move my eyes. The rest wasn't memory but theory. I knew my eyesight wouldn't be as great as my normal one, but I couldn't tell by how much. I would have to see it by myself. I took a deep breath – realizing how inefficient my lungs were in my human form – and opened my eyes.
I was shocked.
My eyesight was a lot worse than I had imagined. I could only see something clearly if it was in front of me. I was unable to see quick movements like I used to and I couldn't see as much colors as before. It was like when I had woken up as a falcon: the differences with my previous body were too radical and sudden to be properly described. This time, however, there was something more: I was losing something my life depended on; without my keen eyesight and my wings, I was virtually a dead bird – fortunately, I could regain both of these in just a few minutes.
Once I had finally managed to calm down a little, I moved my eyes in some unnatural fashion to look at my new human body and… saying it was weird wouldn't be exact.
I can't really think of a way to fully describe how it felt. It was… I don't know. Like if I was discovering for the second time something I had never experienced. Like if I could remember myself having such a vision before and yet being unable to correctly recall memories associated with it. Even now, when I had a human vision, I was unable to remember my life trough human's eyes. Every time I tried, the small details – such as the color of a passing car – would become "mixed" with my falcon perspective. In this example, the car's color would look like how I would see it now – with my wider visible light spectrum and my keener eyesight – instead of how I used to see it as a human.
It took me a good minute to become used to this vision and another minute to get used to moving my eyes in their orbits – After a month and a half as a falcon, doing this seemed weird and unnatural to me.
Now, for the last "sprint". I had to look at my new human body. I took a deep breath – as if I had any other choices with whatever inefficient lungs humans had – and braced myself for the shock I was about to endure. Quickly, without letting myself hesitate too much, I moved my eyes toward the rest of my human body.
I was speechless. Looking at my naked body – apparently, turning into a human didn't gave the clothes – created the same feeling of "not being myself" I had felt when I had woken up on my apartment's roof 48 days ago.
My precious feathers that kept me warm during the cold nights were gone. My glorious wings that allowed me to fly and dive on my preys were no longer there and, as a replacement, I had arms and fingers. My knees that used to bend backward so I could land and/or catch preys more easily were now bending forward. My feet couldn't be bent like my claws once could. My sharp talons I used to kill and eat were something of the past – now replaced by some little soft toes.
I was no longer a bird.
I could no longer fly for I had no wings, I could no longer stay warm since my feathers were gone, I could no longer land somewhere without falling because my knees now bent forward, I could no longer kill my preys because my talons were no more and, even if I managed to kill one, I wouldn't be able to eat it as my solid beak was now a soft mouth that wouldn't even harm a small passerine.
"I'm naked." I said in a voice that had never been mine – nor as a falcon, nor as a human. Oddly, it felt stranger to talk like this, with a human voice, than using thought-speech. With thought-speech, you were more or less thinking of what you wanted to say. But talking with a voice I couldn't even recognize when I was used to screech to communicate? That was disturbing.
"It's normal." Jake said, "You can only morph skin-tight clothes and, even then, it take some practice."
"You know, I don't think I can be a full member of your group. It's not that I don't want to help you. It's just that… I lack the time to fully commit myself." I said as I looked at where my powerful wings should have been. "So, just see me as some auxiliary force or something like that." I looked at where my talons should have been and at my knees that bent in the wrong direction. It all felt… wrong. Even when I was still a human, several weeks ago, I had a different body.
This… was just too much. I couldn't take it anymore. Being grounded inside the place where I had been kept prisoner for a long time and being unable to fly was more than I could handle for now.
I closed my eyes and focused on my real –falcon – body. Slowly, I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller as I turned back into myself. After roughly two minutes of hearing strange noises, the metamorphosis was complete and I had turned back into a bird of prey. I didn't waste time and, using the wings I finally had back, flew in the rafters next to Tobias. It felt so good to be able to fly again.
«So, as I said, I don't have enough time to fully commit myself. » I was tempted to lie and say it was because preys were too scarce or that I had to protect my numerous caches against the crows – both would be true to a certain extent – but I knew it was a bad idea. They knew how I looked like and they could turn into birds: it would only take them a few days – at best – to find out I was living with Spirit and casually took care of two adorable falcons. Telling the truth was a better option if I didn't want to fight alone.
« You see, when I woke up to discover I had become a falcon, I had no idea of what had happened. All I knew was that I had no choice but to adopt a falcon lifestyle if I didn't want to die and... I won't bore you with details but, long story short, I ended up taking care of Spirit's eyases while you were healing him; at the time, I desperately needed something that would make me feel "human". A few days later, when their father came back, he didn't attacked me nor did he chased me away. Since it felt like it was the only link to whatever humanity I had left and that I needed something to do with my life, I decided to stay and take care of the eyases with Spirit. » Liar. You stupidly fled like a coward and only came back after Antoine was murdered. «So, yeah. Between hunting enough prey to feed the young falcons, chasing off the occasion crow out of our territory and other numerous other aspect of my falcon life, I don't have a lot of free time. »
Should I mention how I planned to kill Jacque? Maybe. If I died, they would know the reason of my sudden disappearance and wouldn't waste time and resources to try to find it out. Sure, they might try to prevent me from attacking but, let's face it, it's not like they could capture me easily. After all, I virtually spent all my time out of reach of anything that couldn't fly; the only way for them to stop me would be to wait until I flew out of my territory and try to surprise me even if I could easily spot preys kilometers away from me.
Moreover, I didn't want to die alone. I didn't want my death to be just a hypothesis to explain why I couldn't be found anywhere. I wanted to die knowing that somebody would know I had died and why I was dead. And, maybe, if I died, they might accept to help Spirit take care of Beatrice and Colin. Of course, I couldn't expect them to live with him 24/7 like I did but, perhaps, they could agree to make sure my family didn't ran out of food or to heal them whenever they were injured. In any case, it was worth a shot.
« And that's especially true these days because I still have to take care of the owl I fought last time. »
Cassie was the first to react. According to her, even if taking care of the birds was something I could be very proud of, I had to remember I was still a human – even if I had the body and the lifestyle of a falcon – and that I shouldn't risk my own life to protect the birds from an owl that probably didn't even posed a threat in the first place. Sure, she knew great horned owls were predators and that they sometime attacked falcons but, and I quote, "that [didn't meant] they attacked every falcons in sight" and, always according to her, "the owl [was] too far from [my] territory to really pose a threat."
Honestly, that sickened me. How could she not understand when she helped her parents take care of injured animals on a regular basis? It's not like I was talking about some very specific and extremely obscure aspect of my life! It was just common sense that attacking a falcon's eyas would get you attacked! What was so complicated in the fact that, if you killed a chick, you would get tracked and probably killed by the parents? What was she thinking? That just because you weren't killed the same night you would murder the innocent 5 days old bird, it meant you could get away with it? Granted, I hadn't explicitly told them that Jacque had murdered Antoine, but that was obvious! What, did they really think I was stupid enough to go after a great horned owl without provocation?
« Listen. If it weren't for that bastard I would be taking care of three birds, not two. So, yes, that stupid coward is definitively a threat and, no, he's definitively not too far to be dangerous. » Cassie excluded, none of them seemed to understand that I really cared about the young falcons; even then, she obviously had no idea that I saw them as family. « And, for that reason, I have to get rid of him before he strike again. The juveniles are going to fly by themselves soon so the matter has to be resolved now before it's too late. If that owl is enough of a coward to attack a bird that can't even move, he will have no problems with attacking a bird that is still learning how to fly. »
"I'm really sorry about your loss, Hayabusa, but you are still human even if you have the body of a falcon." She gave an uncomfortable look to Tobias. " I know you care deeply about the birds, but you can't win against a great horned owl."
« No. You're wrong. That's what you don't seem to understand. I'm not a human anymore. Sure, I used to be a human and I still possess my memories, but the fact is that I'm a peregrine falcon, now. And, let's face it, even if I still considered myself to be partly human and wanted to become a human again, there would be no ways for me to be one on the long term. My human form is not the one I used to have several weeks ago. That basically mean I don't have anything that could prove my identity: no ID, no documents, no names, no country of origin, no parents, no friends, no previous occupations or scholarship, no pictures and no acquaintances to talk in my favor. Legally speaking, my human form does not really exist. » I "walked" toward the window's frame. I was hungry and tired and all I wanted was to go back home and finally eat the bird I had caught. « Anyway, I have to go, now. I still have to eat my last kill and Spirit could use a little help to catch a few birds before the end of the day. See you later. »
On that, I flew out of the barn and headed back home.
On my way back, I reorganized my plans to take in account the recent events. Now that I could turn into a human, I was able to go in places I couldn't go before – such as a library – and do things I was unable to do because of my physiology – such as reading a book. First thing first, I had to set myself a hard deadline to be sure I wouldn't push back the fight over and over again until it was too late. Let's say… seven days. In seven days or less, I would have fought Jacque no matter if I had to fight in the middle of a hurricane or in perfect weather.
Second, I had to go to a library and read as much books about aerial combat and great horned owl as I could; the more I knew about these subjects, the readier I would be for the fight.
Of course, I wasn't a fool. I knew Cassie was right. I knew I would likely die – or, at least, be heavily injured – during the fight. I knew I could, at best, to kill him and have the battle end with a draw.
But I didn't really cared. Being killed – let it be by a hungry predator or during a fight with a competitor – was a risk I dealt with every day in my life and I had accepted it long ago; it was just part of my life and nothing could done against it.
Anyway, fighting Jacque to death was not an option: it was mandatory. Spirit, Beatrice and Colin were my family and I owed them my life. I had to protect them from Jacque. It was my duty toward them.
I had already failed Antoine; there was no way I would fail my family for a second time.