My stomach growled, reminding that I hadn't eaten anything in the last twelve hours. I would have to fill them in after I had something to eat.
"Anyone order take out?" Drake shouted from the entrance of the cave.
"About time you got here," I shouted back, "we're all starving here."
"Then imagine how hungry we are," Drake shouted back, "considering we were running for our lives while you took a nice long nap."
"Alright, alright I give up," I called back, "no need to rub it in my face."
Drake and Terra walked into the cave carrying armfuls of food, ranging from fruits and berries to partially eaten burger, most likely scavenged from bins in a nearby town.
Drake and Terra placed the food down on the ground near the fire and sorted it out into even groups of the food they had found. We all took our share of the food and sat down by the fire to eat it. We all finished eating our food a few minutes later, our hunger kept at bay for the time being.
"So," Drake asked, "What are we going to do now? I mean, we can't exactly hide out here for the rest of our lives. There are others that need to be set free."
Everyone was silent as they thought about what Drake had just said.
Blaze, Skye's thoughts entered my head, you should tell them about your dream.
I was just thinking about doing that, I replied, I mean, they need to know about that place anyway. It's connected to us kids from the Academy, somehow I know it.
Terra noticed the look of concentration on my face as well as Skye's and guessed what we were doing.
"What are you guys keeping from us?" Terra asked, interrupting our mental conversation.
Looks like this is the moment of truth, I thought.
"While I was unconscious," I explained, "I had a… an out of body experience."
"What do you mean?" Drake asked.
"While I was unconscious, I sort of became separated from my body." I continued, "My consciousness somehow ended up in another installation run by whitecoats."
"Which one?" Drake asked.
"If I knew I wouldn't be here," I replied.
"Why?" Terra questioned me.
"Because my sister is being held there," I answered truthfully.
"What!" Both Drake and Terra chimed in at once.
"This is too hard to explain," I continued, picking up my journal from the ground nearby,
"Read the last entry in here apart from the last two paragraphs."
"What is it?" Drake asked.
"My journal," I explained
Drake raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't ask any questions, which was smart of him. I wasn't really in the mood to answer heaps of questions.
We all sat in silence as Drake and Terra read my journal entry. Falcon and Skye had already seen it.
"So you learnt all that from your 'out of body' experience?" Drake asked
"Pretty much," I replied
"So what is the plan?" Falcon asked.
"I don't know," I sighed, "we need information, a location, something. But before we get into that, we need to be able to walk about amongst people without standing out. We need to blend in."
"And how do you plan to do that considering we have great big wings sticking out of our backs?"
"That's the easy part."
Chapter 42
"What do you mean Blaze?" Skye asked. I hadn't covered this part of my idea with Skye and Flacon.
"While watching Reilly back at the academy," I explained, "I learnt a neat little trick. Dr Reilly was able to hide his wings quite well from us when we first met him. I watched how he folded his wings against his body. There is a little trick that allows you to fold your wings flat against your back like this."
I spread my wings out and then folded them up against my back pressing them into the small of my back along my spine.. I then got the top of my wings and pressed them against my shoulders, totally blending my wings into my back. The others looked on as my wings disappeared from sight.
"Impressive," Falcon complimented me, "But they would still be visible from the back."
"Not if you are wearing a cloak," I replied, "They will allow you to hide your wings, but are easy to discard if we need to make a quick get-a-way."
"That could possibly work. You seem to have thought this through quite a bit." Drake complimented me.
"Yeah, I try to stay one step ahead. The next thing we must do is assume aliases, different identities to go by when out in civilisation. The first lesson we learnt was to always remain unseen and unheard. Remain out of sight. What better way than to remain in plain sight?" I replied.
"Not such a great idea. What if the Erasers come here and recognize us?" Terra pointed out.
"That is why we must always be ready to leave, never get attached to anything. We'll use our Wrist pilots to create the identities, bank accounts and the history of our aliases. We need full cover to remain unseen." I answered, "Another issue we have is what we call ourselves."
"We already covered this, we are creating aliases, unless…" Skye asked, she could tell I had something up my sleeve.
"The whitecoats call us either subject such-and-such or experiment such-and-such. We keep calling ourselves, The Others. What happens if the world does find out about us? We need a name for our race, our kind." I replied.
"I see what you mean, but do you think it would really come to that?" Skye asked, "I mean will it really come to the world finding out about us?"
"It is a possibility. I would prefer to remain in the shadows, but if worst comes to worst, we need a name for our race." I continued.
"Got any suggestions?" Drake asked.
"How about the Avianis race?" Skye
"Too scientific," Flacon said, "how about the Bird-men?"
"Reminds me of a comic strip hero," Terra said, "How about Angels?"
"That won't work," I interrupted, "Angels are seen as religious icons to many different religions across the word, and it could cause problems claiming we are something we're not"
"That makes perfect sense but what are we going to call ourselves?" Drake asked.
"How about the Angelan race?" I suggested.
"But it is too close to Angel. Wouldn't that cause problems as well?"
"What I was thinking about when I created that name was the mixture of Angel and human. The one 'race' between god and humans are angels. And since we are not entirely human and resemble angels. It would make sense to combine the two together. The whitecoats call us the next step in evolution for humans."
"Quite an impressive explanation," Drake said, "but how do you know all this stuff?"
"Let's just say, having a sister that can manipulate technology with her mind, can come in handy for you pick up a few skills." I answered.
"Like what?" Drake interrogated me.
"We'll," I drawled, "I'm experienced in hacking. I was able to gain access to the academy's mainframe. That is why I know so much."
"You never told us that! Ah well I suppose now or never right?" Falcon exclaimed.
"Yep. We better get started with these personalized Id's." I said finishing the conversation.
Chapter 43
I awoke to sound of eagles screeching outside of the cave as they searched for prey in the forest below. It was early morning and we had spent most of the night setting up our personal files for the aliases we would be going by. We would be completing the final touches this morning. The others had given me a list of the names they would be using and they were giving me the written files to place in the world database. The world database had been established back in 2015. It was a system that had every single person sorted in the database excluding those that 'live off the grid'. Living off the grid was what we were doing, keeping hidden from the world. All we needed to do was to insert our files into the database with our background history and we could be legal citizens. The list of names was written on a scrap of paper I had torn out of the back of my journal. It read:
Blaze Nathaniel Corway
Drake Daniel Andrews
Falcon Tobias Kane
Skye Danielle Robinson
Terra Amber Robinson
Flame Serena Corway
I had placed Flame's name on the list in case we got her out of the installation and needed to go undercover. I went out and sat on the edge of 'the shelf' as we had gotten to calling it, and hooked up my WP onto the net. The World Database could be accessed via the World Registration Agency website. The WRA website had security that was more intense than the FBI or the CIA because it had information on every living human on earth except for those that decided to live 'off the grid'. People who's location, occupation and criminal record were unknown.. I loaded up the WRA website and started working my magic. Within minutes I was into the mainframe. The rest of the flock were just waking up from their deep slumber and stumbled out to give me their finished files to upload onto the net.
We worked throughout the morning uploading our alternate lives onto the WRA website and then sorting out our bank accounts. Our funds came from small withdrawals out of other businesses that could afford to lose the money. We each had a couple of thousand dollars in our accounts for us to take care of. I could always access the financial web to create transfer more funds into our account. But that would make life too easy. After I had finished setting up the intricate network of connections to each and every person, we created our ID cards and banking cards to use in the world. Even though we had not been in the real world, we knew how to drive a vehicle. None of us liked being in the cramped confines of a car, but if it kept us hidden we would do it. It had been an exhausting morning but finally we had finished. The others walked back into the cave and left me on the ledge. I stood up and enjoyed the view when the others came rushing out shouting and screaming in disbelief.
"Alright everyone, quieten down," I shouted over the group, "What is the problem."
"They read the rest of the journal entry," Flacon explained, "the last two paragraphs."
"You have feelings for Skye?" Drake asked in total disbelief, "you are actually capable of feeling emotion? I think I might die of a heart attack."
"Drake catch up with the times," Skye said as she walked over to me and cuddled into me, "We are already together."
"Last night," Falcon explained, "I walked in on them kissing." He said the last word while making a funny face that had us laughing with stitches in our sides. All except Terra, she was quiet and hung at the back of the group. She seemed to be put out by the news. I pointed it out to Skye and she said she would have a talk to Terra, leaving me with the others while they made jokes about me and Skye. I didn't pay attention, Terra looked like she had lost a best friend, and I think she was worried about losing her sister… to me.
Chapter 44
"We will need food and equipment to survive on the run, as well as getting rid of these weapons." I said after a moments of joking around, brining everyone back to the current situation.
"Why would we need to get rid of the weapons?" Falcon asked, "What's wrong with keeping them?"
"They are not easy to hide and people ask questions when you carry big guns around." I replied, "And I need to gain access to a more powerful mainframe."
"What for?" Drake asked.
"So I can figure out where Flame is being held," I replied
"So what are we going to do?" Falcon asked.
"We'll split into two groups," I explained, "The first group will use the money in their accounts to buy food and jackets, cloaks, the second group, which I will lead, will dump our weapons and maybe get some new ones. I will then search for a larger mainframe to access."
"So what group is the question now, isn't it," Drake said
"I'll be going with Blaze," Skye answered, appearing back after talking to Terra.
"And I will as well," Terra said
"No way," Drake replied, "what happens if they manage to catch you? What happens when the Erasers find you? Three of us will be taken, not two. Terra will come with us."
"I see your point Drake," I replied, "but really the answer is up to Terra."
"I will be going with Blaze," Terra said. The decision had been made.
A few minutes later we were all ready to fly to town and get the stuff we needed. I had packed all our weapons into my back pack and had got a map of the nearby town and the location of all the shops. I had planned any needed escape routes that wouldn't expose what we were to the human race, but if worse came to worse; we could fly out of there.
"Ready everyone?" I asked.
A chorus of yes's answered my question. We were all ready to go do what we needed to do. I ran out of the cave and jumped off the shelf, spreading my wings as I did so, so that I could catch the wind as I fell off the cliff. My wings picked up the breeze and lifted me up into the air. The feeling of flying is extraordinary, I pity the humans stuck on earth below. The thrill of having the air rush through your hair and feathers feels so cleansing. I took a deep breath of fresh, crisp air and began to fly off in the direction I needed to go, Skye and Terra following me. Drake and Falcon went in the direction they needed to go. I flew on for about five, maybe ten minutes before I reached the outskirts of my section of the town. As I saw the buildings come into I began to descend into an alleyway between two of the buildings. As I hit the ground running from my momentum, I grabbed my cloak from out of my backpack and put it on to hide my wings which were folded into my back. We had practiced that until everyone was an expert at it. I made sure Skye and Terra had their wings hidden and walked around the corner of the building… and into the crowd of people walking along the footpath. No-one noticed us; we were just three normal teenagers to them.
Yeah right.
Chapter 45
We walked quickly down the footpath, wanting to get in and out without a fuss and remain unseen. After a five minute walk we reached the street that had the guns shop on it and walked up to the shop. In the window there were a range of weapons that I thought would be far too bulky to come in handy any day, not that we were buying any. I walked into the shop, Skye and Terra staying outside to keep an eye out for any trouble while I did the drop off. I looked around at the shelves of guns all over the place. They had rifles and handguns, boxes of bullets and even some old-fashioned western revolvers.
I went to the back of the shop and placed the guns down there. We didn't need to sell them for money; it might raise a few questions. I walked out of the shop. No-one had noticed me enter or leave, and they sure didn't notice I left with my backpack less full than when I entered; it was when I walked out onto the street that I had problems. Two police cars had pulled up in front of the shop. The cops were hiding behind the doors as if afraid someone would shoot them. I realized they were pointing their guns at Skye, Terra and I.
Oh boy… we're in trouble now, I thought.
"Drop the weapons and put your hands up in the air," A cop shouted, "We will shoot if you don't comply."
"I don't have any guns," I shouted back, placing my hands in the air. This was difficult because to do so, my wings had to unfurl a small amount. Barely noticeable, but if they decided to search us for weapons, we would be very unlucky.
The cops rushed forwards and arrested us, thankfully not bothering to do a search. We were lucky. They read us our rights, although I wonder if Angelan had any rights in human society. They cuffed us and placed us in the back of a police cruiser. The cops got in the front and drove us downtown to the police station. We were in big trouble. I had to find out why.
"Why are we being arrested?" I asked the cop in the front.
"Like you don't know," The cop replied, "we have composite sketched of you guys from witnesses that say they saw you the night Senator Johnson was killed. How do you explain that?"
Senator Johnson killed? I pondered this and came up with a conclusion; they were trying to get us back any way possible…
