Chapter 3
It was a few days later that Jamerson found himself being carried back towards his camp by Hera, the massive Adolescent Harpy Eagle easily carrying the healing man in her talons.
He spotted the tell tale sight of smoke on the horizon which came from the camp, feeling an odd sense of apprehension in returning to a camp that had likely already written him off as dead.
He honestly didn't blame them, were it not for Hera finding him, something that in itself would be instantly slated as impossible, he would be something's meal, be it a nest of Bullet ants, or whatever Predator that had scared him out of the camp in a panic to begin with.
He'd be carted off to an insane asylum if he started rambling and raving about just Hera, the giant metal Harpy Eagle who'd snatched him off them ground in the dead of night, whisking him to the aid of the, albeit mostly reluctant, Harpies.
Strange women from a parallel future who'd wound up stuck on his Earth as giant robotic birds.
Anything from the last few days would either get him tossed in a padded cell, or written off as suffering from hallucinogens from some plant or animal he'd come in contact with.
He'd decided to heed Ira's advice, keep his trap shut about the seven mechanical beings hiding out in a giant cave system, and just tell the rest of camp that he'd climbed a tree until he felt comfortable enough to come down and make the journey back.
Being believed aside, there was no way he was going to be sticking around, Wren had stated quite frankly that his broken leg, regardless of it being set and splinted, meant he was going to be shipped back to the US.
Didn't mean he wasn't going to give his 'self acquired' intel that he'd 'gathered' whilst stuck up in that non existent tree.
Ira, claiming that she was bored out of her mind three days ago, had taken off, and returned a good three hours later, stating that she'd located the objective, a large illegal drug farm and preparation area, due North West of his camp by fifteen miles.
They apparently had quite the bonfire going so he was going to use that to explain how he'd seen it from up a tree in the middle of nowhere.
In the time he'd spent there, he'd also learnt another thing, what was causing that scrapping racket whenever Arien carried him anywhere, or just walked about.
Aria had actually given him the whole story, Wren not interrupting once during, for whatever reason he had decided not to pry for.
Around a month after they'd arrived, during the outfitting off their makeshift home, Arien's foot, they called it a pede for some reason, had fallen victim to a very nasty landing, when they were still getting used to the fact that they could fly.
They had flown a good distance and located a small logging station, in their attempt to be left unspotted, they'd chosen to land, dropping out of the sky and into the rainforest below.
In their attempt to go unseen, they had fallen victim to horrifically powerful trap, a pitfall of metal rebar spikes meant to kill anything which fell within.
Due to their size however, it had only been their right leg that had fallen victim, the spikes driving through them in a multitude of different points.
The landing had also resulted in her other leg being sprained after landing on solid ground and been twisted out of place by the rest of their body continuing down into the deep trap, add to that the fact their head got smashed against a boulder, knocking them unconscious before the pain registered.
Hera, having gone unharmed, had detached from her position on Arien's front, and taken to the air to bring Ira and Kia to the place of the incident.
They'd only recently managed to get walking again, flying was still out of the question, leaving Arien stuck down in their little cave maintaining it whilst Ira and Kia worked to bring back everything from food, building materials, to anything they could pilfer from nearby human camps they could find use for. The spikes had obviously damaged something vital, as the right legs talons simply dragged along the ground, causing the screeching sound, and it apparently took a lot of effort to put enough weight upon it just to take the next step without falling over.
A cry from Hera snapped Jamerson from his thoughts as the metal Eagle finally began her decent, gliding seamlessly between the thick foliage and down to the forest floor, setting him down before, with a few final quick flaps, she landed beside him.
Wide sea green eyes then turned to him, she's was about his height as they began to walk the final distance, her head bobbing just over his own as he used her for support, she'd be with him until the path, then she'd be gone.
Hera was, if he was being honest, the most welcoming to him of the group, an adolescent of her former kind, she was clearly curious about him, being hand reared left her a bit apart from Keeley and Nibber, who kept back along with their trainers.
That being said, the number of times he'd had to pass on her 'gifts' to Arien, was quite high.
He honestly wasn't a fan of mauled monkey.
Hera let off a little trilling gurgle, bumping her closed beak into his shoulder, being careful of the lethal blades the beak was made of.
He patted her side, but she just turned and gestured to what was already before them, the path.
Without even realising it, his free hand went down, burying into the pocket of the baggy trousers he'd had to wear solidly for over a week, he ignored the grimy feeling, instead wrapping his hand around the small device Aria had given him.
'A storage device, I had it on me when we came, I don't have any use for it… and given the date being December 11th, consider it a Christmas Present'.
It was a flash drive, small, but with one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes worth of data, unheard of to him, the most present devices had were eight.
It said something about the future of technology.
He turned to Hera again, only to find her gone, the sound of beating wings barely caught before she disappeared from audible range.
That was it then… turning back, he continued on towards the camp, letting off shouts to try and get the attention of his fellow agents or the locals helping their group.
They came almost immediately, taking in his state before rushing him back to camp, his senior officer already getting his 4×4 ready to get Jamerson out of the jungle.
He was able to get them to stop long enough to tell them about their targets location, before he was promptly whisked away.
Hera watched on as Jamerson was placed within the back of the truck, watched until it raced out of sight, and, from her little hiding spot she'd found a few nights prior on a scouting trip, watched as the camp returned to it's previous activity.
She stayed there for a few more minutes until all of the humans returned to their tents to continue working, and now, preparing to the launch their assault on their target, or at least, try and locate it from the description that Jamerson had given.
Taking back off into the air, she shot between the thick trunks and hanging vines, rounded wings barely making a sound as she spun through the air, playing a little before she returned to Aria and Wren.
When Hera returned, she settled down upon one of the branches of a fallen tree the Harpies had managed to bring down and prop up for herself and her compadres.
Nibbler and Keeley were already waiting for her.
~Ah, the triumphant filth carrier has returned.~ Keeley trilled, shooting the far larger Harpy Eagle a scathing look.
Hera puffed up in indignation. ~Silence yourself Keeley, it was a vital task that only I had the lifting capacity to complete.~ Hera shot back with a snap of her beak and slight rising of her wings in challenge.
Nibbler, who'd been living up to his name gnawing on a thigh bone of some indiscriminate creature, looked up and regarded the squabbling females. ~Both of you shut it, Keeley, stop trying to rile up Hera, Hera, get that bone out of your cloaca, you're really starting to sound like Wren.~ He huffed.
Hera snorted but settled back down. ~I can't help it, I for one, liked Jamerson, he was friendly enough to be tolerable.~
~He stank.~ Nibbler shot back, remembering how foul the human had started to smell by the time that Hera swept him away.
~Alright, I'll give you that, but that was only because Aria didn't want to take him out to the waterfall, logs have fallen down that into the cave.~ Hera admitted, her point proven by the sound of something heavy crashing down into the plunge pool at the bottom of the waterfall which flowed in from the entrance.
~You forget that Kia hates his kind with a vengeance.~ Nibbler then added.
Keeley piped up then, had her face the capacity, she would of been smirking. ~My, my, you didn't even insult her then!~
~Prolonged contact has forced me to adapt more, before this mess, I barely saw her every few days because of her work, now, I rarely get time away from her.~
Hera nudged him slightly with her wing. ~You are the only thing she really has left of her old life.~
Keeley slumped slightly. ~We all are… it's weird… now that we're so much smarter… we can understand them a lot more… a lot of things suddenly make sense…~
Their conversation was suddenly cut off by familiar music blasting out from Arien's area.
Hera chuckled over the sudden deafening din, to any other it would of sounded like an extremely loud screech. ~Guess someone had a eureka moment!~
~WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE?!~Keeley shouted back, getting even louder.
~STOP SHOUTING BOTH OF YOU! YOU'RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!~ Nibbler then screeched, trying to be heard over the now even louder music.
It had gotten so loud they didn't even hear as Ira and Kia ran towards Arien's area, even the ground shaking impacts that their movements caused, dulled by the sheer pounding music's own soundwaves.
Ira reached Arien first, the largest of the group had the biggest grin on their face as their shoulder was yanked to turn them towards the other two, the speakers hidden away under their back struts platting still pounding out 'Born this way' by Lady Gaga, one of the songs on their playlists which had somehow transferred into her helm when they wound up in this reality.
The song cut off, and the smug smirk remained. "Guess what I got into?" It was practically a whisper, inaudible to the other two Harpies whose audios were still pounding in response to the deafening dubstep remix which had just been blasting through the cave.
"WHAT?!"
"THA HELL YAH SAY?!
Aria started giggling, lifting their wings up to hide the massive grin now on their faceplates.
"YAH DID THA ON PURPOSE!" Ira was fuming, rubbing at her helm attachments with her wing joints, trying to rub away some of the ringing sensation.
"Eh, had to get your attention somehow." Aria chirped, rolling their shoulderplates.
Kia apparently heard Aria well enough. "Well then, what did you find that it was so important you had to try and deafen us?"
Aria smirked, handing over to Wren who began projecting an image on their visor, causing the previously black glass to light up, revealing familiar documents. "A certain Air Force One flew within range long enough for me to snatch these, I had only a few seconds, so I don't have the whole document though." Wren announced, bringing up her right wing to rub at her chin.
Ira was practically pressing their visors together a moment later, the colour draining from the black glass to allow her primarily blue optics to take in what she was seeing.
All she needed to see were the words 'Captain Archibald Witwicky', and the smallest Harpy was jumping up and down with elated screeches, practically lunging at Kia to try and trap the Bateleur within her wings. "BAYVERSE~! BAYVERSE~! BAYVERSE~!" She sing-songed, as her excitement continued to come flooding out.
Kia however, remained firm, and somehow upright despite the fact that Ira was trying to use her as a stripper pole or something along those lines. "Now what? We know which reality we're in, what course of action do you think is the best to take?" Kia enquired, managing to fold her wings in the closest thing to crossed arms their limbs could form, whilst Ira was still using her to spin around akin to a lamppost.
Wren paused then, letting off a low humm.
Ira however, needed no such moment of thought. "Ain' it obvious! We get tha cube and leave no S7 lackey standin'!" She trilled, somehow having placed herself precariously on Kia's left shoulderplate, the only point of contact being the line of armour plating which ran down all of their fronts, her wings and tail feathers twitching to maintain her position.
She got an irritated look for her troubles from Arien. "We're not killing anyone. Instead. We're going to do this right, we don't want to make a PR mess for the Autobots to face the moment they land." Aria announced, deactivating their visor so it returned to its pitch black state.
Kia seemed a bit put off by the statement, but nodded regardless. "Then we need to prepare, we need to get to the USA and establish an area of operation, cause flyin'' from here to wherever we're gonna be ain' gonna work amigos." She continued.
Arien huffed, turning their gaze down at their mangled pede. "I agree, that many landings have a high risk of doing more damage… I can hold the fort here until you locate a safe place to stay, preferably one with an energon source like this one, then we can move out of here."
Ira sighed, sliding off Kia. "Pity, I like this place… maybe we keep it as ah hideout, tha humans would certainly have a hard time finding us here if we stick aroun' long enough for everything tah go tah shit." She followed up, glancing around at the energon rich cave.
Noises of agreement left the other three Harpies, Kia being the one to speak next. "Well then, look's like we've got a lot to prepare."
Wren spoke then. "But, we wait until Jamerson's used the drive and I have full access, from there, Ira, you can hotwire some satellites to project signals here, that way we'll have a stable link to make the most of. Right?" She enquired to the smallest of their group.
Ira snorted and stretched her wings up, the tips having to curl back to avoid hitting the ceiling. "Hon', I could do tha' with mah toes! Blindfolded!." She remarked. Then her chassis puffed up and she struck a pose. "Yah are speaking to the Queen of Tech, if I can' do somethin', no one ever will."
Arien smirked. "Don't you mean Talons?" Wren corrected.
"Pfft, wha'ever, yah know wha ah mean. I'll get us in, no sweat."
Kia watched on as the two fell into their usual habit of joyful bickering.
It ended when Aria had risen from her seat to try and whack Ira more effectively with their wing, the sudden shift was too much for her pede and it collapsed again, leaving them to crash against the wall that she had been sitting against with a pained groan.
The previous humour died instantly as Ira rushed to help prop Arien back up, muttering a curse and apology for what had happened.
Kia was too focused on glaring at the mangled limb.
Unbeknownst to Arien and Ira, Kia had found the ones who'd left that trap.
It had taken a long time to wash away the smell of copper from the blades tucked away at the ends of her wings.
Now, however, her thoughts were not on the headless corpses she'd buried, or the heads she'd tossed to the Piranha's. "What should be a top priority, is getting a professional look at that thing." Kia remarked.
It didn't need to be said that there was only one potential professional that would work in this case, but in the meantime, they'd have to find someone who could help.
Two months later, Washington, Pentagon
"Mr Jamerson, good to see you recovered." Jamerson spun in his just sat in chair, finding his boss, and father, standing there. "That Drug bust went off without a hitch, we're proud of you. Surviving like that, truly a testament to your survivors training."
Jamerson floundered for a moment, before remembering this wasn't his father when they were at work, his father had already said all of this by his hospital bed over six weeks prior.
This was for the ears of his co-workers.
"Thank you sir. But really, it was by chance that I saw their operation from where I was hiding." A flash of his memories from that time came back and he gave a slightly nervous laugh. "I'm just glad I didn't pick the tree of a nesting Harpy Eagle, they'd have had me for breakfast." He remarked, shuddering slightly at the memory of Hera's talons alone, the Harpies would of easily of killed him with their own if they wanted to.
Yet they hadn't, Arien had done what they could with their limited resources and dexterity to patch him up and get him back to the camp when they deemed him fit enough.
Kia and Ira he wasn't so sure about, Kia had been volatile, angry even at the fact he was CIA, Ira… there was just something about how she cackled at anything she deemed funny, how she vocally toyed with concepts of surviving a Nuclear winter now that their bodies technically couldn't suffer from radiation the same way a human could… that gave him a strong reason to feel on edge around her.
Even Wren on her own was difficult to get accustomed to, Aria tried to be as accommodating as possible, but with her reassurances always being cut up with snark, cold remarks, the effect was somewhat lessened when Wren found herself in a particularly bad mood over something.
Normally relating to their injury giving way again, it had happened a few times, but the narrow confines always meant they had something to catch themselves on.
"Jamerson. Jamerson!" The shout of his name jolted him back out of the present, his attention drawn back to his father.
"Yes sir?"
"A new memory stick? Surely your old one still has some space on it."
The remark was so out of left field he had to run it back through his head again before he even realised he'd pulled the memory stick that Aria had given him out of his pocket and began thumbing the device, it had a push switch on the side, sliding out the tip and then back in.
"Err, yeah, my old one ended up stacked up with hospital documents."
"Has it been screened yet?"
Protocol, all devices had to be screened for bugs.
"N-no… I'll go do that, sorry, I've been stuck in the hospital so long…"
His father's hand coming down on his shoulder stopped his ramblings, further silenced by the pair of crutches his father then passed to him.
"Go get it screened, then, get to work, and remember, your mother's cooking us all a big ol' bird for a celebratory 'first day back at work after traumatic injury' meal." With that, the man excused himself, and walked away back to his own group of equally ranked officials.
Two hours later
Jamerson sighed, dropping his crutches back to the ground as his weight was fully taken by his chair, grumbling he drew the memory drive, it was completely clean, yet it had taken the tech heads well over an hour to stop freaking out about the storage capacity, he'd forgotten it could hold sixteen times the normal amount currently on the market.
It had raised some serious questions, which he'd simply answered with the fact that it had been a gift from someone who had helped him out a few months prior, they'd bought it, thankfully, the rest of the questions had hardly been directed at him, but they didn't let him leave either, nor offer a chair, too enamoured with trying to persuade him to just let them crack it open, and try and pry from him whom he'd gotten it from.
A 'friend', one who didn't want to be hassled.
Finally it had ended, and he'd returned to his desk, drive ready to go and his monitor already logged in.
For the foreseeable future his busted leg was gonna be keeping him on desk duty until he could return to tip-top shape.
He expected it after the doctors had told him not to get his hopes up about returning to the field for a long time, his leg had multiple fractures, some bone fragments had even separated and had to be surgically put back in place in the hope of the bone mending itself.
Deciding to stop thinking about his impediment, he drew the little device, and plugged it in.
Hidden away within the inner workings of the device, a small circuit board connected to the main motherboard, and like a venomous snake bringing it's fangs down on prey, delivered it's hidden package.
It took mere moments for the virus to spread, jumping from one computer to the next like a wildfire.
The effects went completely unnoticed, despite its ferocity, there was nothing advanced enough to detect it.
Only four beings noticed as the virus copied everything, transmitting it all directly to them in a heavy stream of information.
Hidden deep in the Amazon, Arien couldn't have stopped the gleeful grin that overcame their features even if they wished to stop it.
"Oh girls…~ We're in.~" Aria practically purred, already sifting through all the information pouring through the digital stream being transmitted directly to them.
Ira pushed herself up with a snigger. "It's abou' fraggin' time."
Kia merely let a smug smirk form on her features. "Guess that piece of trash was worth something after all. Sorry for doubting you Aria, Wren."
Ira huffed and spun on Kia. "Wha' am I? Chopped T-cog?! Ah made tha' damn device!"
A wing coming to rest on her shoulder stopped her from potentially ranting further.
Aria beamed at the smallest Harpy, visor draining of colour to reveal the optics beyond, ones which radiated a sense of gratitude that only Aria expressed freely. "Thank you, sister." The the visor went dark again and the smile went to a smirk. "Now, let's get this show on the road!"
"Amen tah tha'!" Ira chirped, chassis puffing up in pride.
Kia huffed, folding her wings. "Since when were you Christian?"
"Hey! Don' judge! I can say whatever tha hell ah wan'!"
Concept sketches for Arien and by default Kia and Ira can now be found on my deviantart account, also, as I stated above, I was accepted into the Uni I wanted, issue is, it's a good three hours from home so I'll be living there in halls, I have a new laptop to work with, but I will likely have even less time then I do now because of my courses, Creative Computing, and Publishing.
So, until next I have time to complete a chapter (chapters up to 7 are already complete) see you all!
Moon
