Chapter 10
Red Dawn

That night we decided to order out diner. So when M walked in with about ten bags full of Chinese she wasn't happy.
"This is a secret service building; you can't just order food to the door." She said an overly serious look on her face.
"You didn't need to kill the delivery boy did you?" Iggy said round a mouthful of spring roll. "What was it? 'I could pay you, but I'd have to kill you.'" M marched out of the room as the rest of us rocked with laughter.
"That's a good one for you Ig. You should have a stand up act." Fang shot back.
"Nice to know you think so, as you're a master of wit yourself." Iggy's aim was perfect as the other half of his spring roll hit Fang between the eyes.
"Now boys, play nicely." Max said, loading up Angel's plate with sweet and sour chicken. "Where's Total?"
"In our dorm," Nudge sighed. "He's been trying to jump off the top bunk all day." On cue there was a muffled thud and a curse from the girl's dorm. The door opened and the winged dog trotted in, trying to look as dignified as possible.
"Don't…say….a word." He growled and sat up next to Angel. We didn't pursue the matter but Angel smoothed down some of the feathers on his ruffled wings.
For the next few minutes the only sounds were the soundtrack of 7 bird kids and a dog devouring their meals.
"Right." Max picked up her glass of water and hit it with a spoon. "Announcement! Oi! Listen!" Nudge sucked in the last of her noodles noisily and we sat looking up at Max. "It gives me great pleasure."
"To accept this award from the academy." The Gasman supplied his personal brand of humour and we all chuckled until Max smacked him on he head with her spoon.
"To announce that yet another friend will be joining us on our journeys." There was a round of clapping and I gave a little bow. "Aires has been with us for only a few days but in that time he has been-"
"Get to the point!" Iggy yawned.
"I've rehearsed this for days, and you're going to suffer it. So shut it." Max retorted and cleared her throat again to continue.
"Well we're definitely suffering." Iggy laughed.
"Is it really that bad?" We all nodded. "Ok, basically, welcome to our family."
"Hear hear!" Fang raised his glass of coke and as did the rest of the Flock.
"Thank you." I looked to all of them in turn. "But just one thing. No more big speeches."
"Alright." Max sighed, "I'd been planning that one for days."
"Didn't make it any better." Nudge admitted.
"Ok, you can clean up then." Max thrust her plate at me. "Consider this your induction."
"No justice in the world." I scooped up the polythene plates and threw them in the bin, Angel and The Gasman picking up the empty tin trays. In a few minutes we were all sitting back around the table and Fang had produced a pack of cards.
"You playing?" Angel asked. Her smile didn't conceal the glint in her eyes.
"With a mind reader? I'll pass." I settled down on a beanbag next to the window. It was nearly four in the morning and on the horizon there was a pink glow that was rising to a bloody red.
"You alright?" Max sat next to me. "You look a little…" She tapped the side of her head.
"I'm just thinking about stuff." I said, still looking out on the horizon and the rising sun.
"Your mother?" I looked over at her briefly.
"I haven't seen her since we split up in he woods. She might be dead for all I know." I sighed.
"Well, we've got nothing better to do. We'll help you find her. That little speech wasn't hollow. You're as much a member of this Flock as any of us now, if you need help you'll get it."
Max held my shoulder and for a moment I saw a tiny bit of me in the wiry smile on her face.
"Thanks, I'm not sure where to start though." I shrugged and looked back out over the city as it slowly woke up.
"The cabin in the woods, you might find a clue there." She offered. "That's where we'll go first. If Jeb lets us."
"Not likely, I get the impression my little stunt dented his ego a bit." I muttered. "But who says we need permission?"
"Now you're thinking the right way." Max grinned. I nodded and looked out over the river, the sky now blazing red with the sun just filtering through the skyline. As my eyes raked the sky I spotted a tiny anomaly in the red veil that covered the clouds, like someone had dropped something through the clouds leaving a hole. I traced the line of cloud down between two of the buildings on the opposite side of the river and looked hard at the trail of vapour that plotted the course of a long tube with a bright blue nose cone. Heading right for us.
"Everyone out! NOW!" I grabbed Angel as I passed, the room becoming impossibly long in my mind as the door zipped away from us while the missile raced toward Vauxhall Cross, only glass and air between us and it. The Flock wordlessly dropped everything and went pelting for the door. We slipped round the corner and as we reached the stairs the building rocked.
The wall that had backed onto our flat blew out inches behind us as we entered the stairwell, sending slithers of Breezeblock like daggers into the other wall where they stuck fast, narrowly missing Nudge and nearly tearing her to shreds. The shockwave followed in a compressed wall of air, throwing us against the far wall like dolls. My eardrums popped and I felt my collar bone snap like a brittle piece of spaghetti.
"Report!" Max's voice was the first thing I heard once my ears stopped ringing like church bells.
"Alive." The Gasman coughed as acrid smoke began to fill the stairs.
"Here."
"Me too."
"I've got Angel." I winced and sat up and heard a small yip as I sat on something furry and wriggling. "And Total."
"All here." Fang's calm voice came from next to me.
"Who's hurt?"
"Just me. I'll live." I rested a hand on the broken bone and staggered to my feet in the pitch black. "Lights have gone."
"This place is filling with smoke, down the stairs." I found the handrail and we began down the stairs toward cleaner air. About two floors from the bottom we heard shooting. Max tried to open on of the side doors leading off the stairs but it was locked.
"The building locks down in the event of invasion." Nudge said. "I felt them start the program a while ago."
"Great. Any where not locked out?" Max asked the technopath.
"The front door maybe?" I suggested. "Seems like where they've got in."
"Ok, front door option." We began heading further down toward the lobby, the air above us slowly filling with poisonous smoke. On the other side of the lobby door we heard the last of the shooting finish.
"Don't." Angel grabbed my arm as I went to open the door. "He's waiting for you."
"Who Angel?" I let go of the door knob.
"Him." She whispered fearfully. "He's so angry. He's worse than The Director. He's evil. King."
I felt a black pit form at the bottom of my stomach, filling my innards with fire. He hurt me. He hurt Mum. He had been my father for 14 years of my life, not now.
"Wait here." I murmured and took hold of the door knob.
"Air, what are you doing?" I looked at Max over my shoulder, but the hole in my stomach had become something new, an all consuming rage and I could feel it like it was eating at my soul, banishing ethics and worries and honing ever sense to laser perfection. Her words seemed slowed and sluggish and beneath her speech I heard her pulsing heart within her breast. I didn't feel the pain or hurt anymore; I was emotionless apart from this rage that consumed me.
"Don't come out. Don't get in my way." I opened he door, leaving the Flock in the stairwell.
The shooting started immediately but every round blew past me, hitting the wall and missing me by miles as I twisted and swerved. Adrenaline flooded my system in a tsunami, rendering every thing at a snails pace. I ran into the lobby, dived over an upturned plant pot and encountered my first target. There was nothing distinguishing about this man, he was the kind of person you would pass on the street and not remember his face but the L98 A2 rifle in his hands was something I would remember. His mouth opened and the weapon came up in slow motion. My fingers closed on the barrel of the rifle and I snapped it up, breaking the man's nose with the butt and jerking it from his grip. I turned the rifle round at I strode along the wall, bullets following me like angry bees.
My hand cradled the butt plate to my shoulder and I re-cocked the weapon as I ducked for cover. The shooting stopped and the sound of empty magazines being replaced reached my ears.
My turn.
In a fluid movement I identified nine men fiddling with catches on various guns and brought my gun to bare. One of them managed to look up fearfully before I shot him between the eyes. Nine bodies hit the cold granite of the lobby floor. It ad taken a matter of seconds to extinguish those lives and strangely enough the fact my bullets had brought them down didn't bring disgust or horror at murdering another, only a cold satisfaction that soothed the fury in my heart.
"Ruthless." A light and matter of fact voice came from the door. A silhouette formed in the light from outside. I aimed my gun at the form of Derrick King. "I wouldn't try that Aires, vengeance rarely comes without cost." The shadow gestured behind me. Max was on her knees, staring ahead, away from the rifle aimed at her head. The rest of the Flock was standing behind her, Angel was crying.
My gun dropped from between my fingers and hit the cold floor, my rage following it.
"Berserker blood. An interesting ability." King walked along the lobby floor to within a few feet of me. "Cavemen had it when we were all so close to death, the heart rate increases, adrenaline floods the brain and you become capable of anything to stay alive." His head cocked to one side as he examined me. "You were a good son."
"I am not your son." I hissed. "I won't have the Devil for a father."
"If I'm the Devil, and you're a murderer. Sounds like we are well suited for each other." I heard someone move behind me and the click of a safety catch. I heard Max suppress a choked sob.
"Go to Hell you bastard." King's face didn't change.
"A shame. Kill him." The muzzle of the rifle pressed against the base of my neck. The metal was warm to my skin but its intent was icy cold, all I could see was my ex-father's face and rage filled me up again. Nothing mattered anymore, my blood boiled and I lunged for him, intending to snap his neck.

I heard a girl's scream.

A sudden explosion.

And then…

Nothing.