Chapter 15 – In a Month

Gazzy POV

"So?" I said. "What do we do now?"

"Well lets size things up." Iggy replied. "We are in the middle of the desert mountain range and have little to none supplies, we have no money to get supplies and we don't know what happened to the flock or where they are."

"We don't know where they are going either. Or if they are even alive." I added, immediately regretting saying it.

"Yeah, that too." He sighed.

"I vote we find out where the flock are and where they are headed first." I said.

"Seconded." Iggy agreed. "So how do we go about that?" I didn't reply. That was where we had a problem. We had no real way of knowing. I looked around the cave, taking in our dismal situation. We had collected up anything that would have been useful. I had taken a look at some of the various parts of the robots that had been left behind to see if anything was recoverable, mainly for bomb making, but came up with nothing. But looking round again I thought of something.

"Iggy?" I pondered. "The one you crashed into when you were getting out? You don't suppose it's still down there do you?"

"I don't know, maybe, I flew into it quite hard." You didn't see it when we flew in?" he quizzed.

"You fancy a look?" I smiled.

"Well I'll tag along if you're going but I don't think I'd be that good with the whole looking part."

"Iggy, get over here!" I called to him. We had been looking through the bits and pieces of any robots that had fallen outside the cave, far down below at the foot of the cliff. It was mainly charred part that had been destroyed when I flew the grenades.

"Did you find it?" he asked, gliding over.

"Yeah, I think so." I replied, dusting the robot off. It was pretty much intact, a bit dented and scraped. "It looks pretty intact. You got your tools on you?"

"Never go anywhere without it." He said pulling it out of his backpack that had been left back in the cave. He pulled a screwdriver out of a small rolled up pack, and handed it to me.

"OK help me roll it over." I said. "OK, one, two, three, roll!" We heaved it onto its back, revealing it's crumpled, yet bulky wings. I grabbed the scraggly fur on it back and ripped it off with ease, revealing a shiny metal surface. I tried to pull off the wings, so they didn't get in the way; by they were too firmly in place. I would just have to work around them.

I saw a square groove, most likely a panel of some kind, and used the screwdriver to get underneath it and pry it open. Inside there was a jumble of wires, motherboards and other technology I wasn't familiar with. "OK Iggy, it's your time to shine."

"OK and you've connected the blue and green wire?" Iggy said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"No..." I said slowly.

"What do you mean you haven't? Well what ones have you connected?" he said frantically.

"The red and the green one, like you told me!" I replied.

"I never said connect the red and the green, I said connect the red and the blue! Now connect the blue and the green wire before you blow something up!" he said getting frustrated.

"OK, OK, jeez!" I said quickly disconnecting them and connecting the blue and green. "What do I do about the red one; do I connect it to a different wire or what?"

"No, just leave the red wire, you don't do anything about the red wire, just don't touch the red wire!" he said angrily.

"OK! For Christ's sake, are we done yet?!" I shouted back.

"Yes we are." He replied calmly. "All you have to do is poke the end of the yellow wire into the hole in the side of the monitor and we should be all set." I did exactly as he instructed, not wanting to aggravate him again. As I did this I heard the whirr of the machinery inside it coming to life.

We had taken it apart almost completely, a process which had taken almost 2 hours. Then we had the even lengthier process of sorting through the pieces and putting them together. Using as few parts we could, we had formed a rudimentary television screen. We had used part of its memory and vision systems as well as many other parts from all other its body. Thanks god we both had a decent knowledge of mechanics.

"OK, connect the battery, and if everything has gone right, we should have an idea of where they are." Iggy said hopefully. I picked up the large metal cube, and pushed it into a slot in the back. The monitor faded into a jumble of pixels and red words. What we were seeing was what the robots could see. Well, what I could see, Iggy couldn't see it. "We're in dude!"

"Excellent!" he replied enthusiastically. "Anything like tracking or destination?"

"Err, give me a minute." I said, trying to work out how to open folders. I took longer than a minute, but eventually I found it. "Oh man" I moaned. "This is going to complicate things."

"What? What is it?" Iggy asked tensely.

"You're not going to believe this. They're in England." I moaned.

"New England? That's not too bad, a few days flight and-" but I cut Iggy off.

"No, not New England. England, UK, in Facility B, where Emily is. In Europe, Iggy!" I told him.

"Oh..." Iggy said. "Great."

Iggy POV

We were in the air, flying high to avoid detection. I knew we were above the clouds, as All of a sudden I had gotten very wet, and very cold. I had shouted at Gazzy for not letting me know. We had been flying for a couple of days. Stopping only when we had needed to. We knew we had to somehow get to Europe, but had no idea how. Gazzy had suggested flying there, flying via some islands as resting stops. But when we had landed to research it, we found that the gaps in between flying would have been too long, and there was the risk of us getting lost, or stranded in the middle of the ocean.

We had considered going by boat, but decided that would take too long. Gazzy had suggested flying north, and going through Alaska and Russia, but again, that would take too long. It left us with one real option. Plane.

Now as someone who had spent the 1st 10 year of their life locked up in a small enclosed dog cage, I, like the rest of the flock, had become extremely weary of small places with no way of getting out, especially when there was lots of strangers there too, any of whom could be an enemy. But what with the Erasers supposedly being all dead, and the new Robots, dubbed Flyboys by Gazzy, being pretty noticeably as large metal wolves with glowing red eyes. Well, noticeable to those who could see them.

Nevertheless, it was our only feasible option, so that was what we were going to do. We were flying east, towards Texas. I was hoping we were heading towards Dallas or Houston, where we would somehow smuggle ourselves onto a plane headed for England and find a way from there to break the flock out. No doubt they were there already, being subjected to all kinds of experiments. I struck that thought from my mind as soon as t got there.

"Iggy." I heard Gazzy say next to me. "We've hit the Sea. I think I can see Houston down the coast. It's getting dark soon I think. Maybe in an hour.

"Ok, we go into town, get some supplies, and then head for the airport. Which way?" I asked him.

"About 60 degrees on the left." He replied, and we both banked into the direction of Houston, Gazzy brushing his wing against mine so I didn't go in the wrong direction.

We entered the large doors of the airport. Gazzy told me it was called George Bush Intercontinental Airport. "They could have picked a better name." I said to him from the side of my mouth. We had stashed our packs in some bushes half a mile or so from the airport. We wouldn't be in here long. All we needed to do was find out what time, and which gate a plane would be leaving from to England. From there, we would fly to it, and find away into the cargo hold, and stow ourselves away. It was risky, but it was our only option.

I could hear so many things, talking, footsteps, Overhead announcements, the clicking of the departures boards, even planes taking off and landing. My head was pounding; I hadn't heard so many things at one time in my life. "You okay, dude?" Gazzy asked me on my left.

"Yeah, just a lot of noises. They're giving me a headache." I replied, rubbing my head.

"It's OK, I can see the departures board, we'll get out of here in a-" Gazzy broke off.

"What? What is it?" I asked confused.

"Ari." He said bluntly, and then pulled me away, through a crowd of people. We pushed our way through them, and then out some doors, and before I knew it, I felt wind against my face. We were outside.

"What the hell is he doing here?!" he moaned.

"I dunno, maybe his flight got delayed. There's no way for us to know. Did he see us?" I asked.

"No I don't think so. But I can't be sure." He mused.

"Well there isn't anyone chasing us so I would presume he didn't. Did you see the time and gate?" I pushed him.

"Err, yeah! Gate 23. It leaves at 11:15 PM." He remembered.

"Ace! That gives us a good 2 hours to get onto that plane. Shall we leave now, or wait an hour and see how close we can cut it?" I joked. I could practically hear Gazzy sneering.

"OK, where is the plane?" I asked Gazzy.

"About 40 degrees down, at 11 o'clock." He replied. We were hovering in the air, over the main terminal, so no-one would be able to easily see us.

"How long have we got?"

"About 45 minutes, I can still see the workers loading stuff underneath."

"OK, we go down, and wait till they aren't looking, then move in." With that we swooped down, my feathers brushing his, so I didn't get lost. We landed and hid behind what felt like suitcases. We waited about five minutes, Gazzy told me there was 3 guys, loading suitcases and luggage onto the plane, two on the ground, one in the plane. I could hear them chatting, throwing the luggage recklessly around. I heard something drop and smash, and one of them cursing. "The one in the pane, dropped something, he's getting out." Gazzy whispered. "Now's our chance, let's go. Stay behind me." I nodded to him, then we took off, and glided as quickly and quietly into the plane.

I had no idea if the workers had seen us, but it didn't sound like it. Once inside, I put my finger in Gazzy's belt, and let him lead the way to a quiet place in the plane. We had gone in about 25 feet, when he stopped abruptly. "We need to get out. Now, go back now." Gazzy said urgently.

But as he did, I heard one of the workers say "No, there's no time, we'll put the rest on the next flight. Close her up!" and then I heard the Cargo Door close.

"Well that's not an option, what's wrong?!" I said, worried.

"The Robots, the Flyboys." He whispered. "There are loads of them."

"What?!" I listened as intensely as I could, I could hear a low hum, all around me. Different to the noise they made in the cave. They hadn't attacked us yet either, plus the fact they were in the cargo bay of a plane led me to one conclusion. "They're on standby."

"What, how'd you come to that conclusion?" Gazzy asked.

"They aren't as loud as in the cave. They haven't attacked us; they must be being transported to England. No point leaving them online for the whole trip." I suggested. "Let's just go to the other end of the hold, there's nothing we can do now but wait it out."

Gazzy POV

It was a long flight. About 5 or 6 hours, made to seem 10 times longer with the flyboys at the other end of the cargo hold. I could see them, around 50 of them, on some kind of hangers or hooks, swaying with the movement of the plane, which was heightened down here, with no comfy chairs or anything to support us. It must be a lot worse for Iggy, with the loud rumble of the engines combined with the movement.

We landed about 10 minutes ago, and had come to a stop. We could hear the sound of the passengers leaving the plane above, and were waiting for the Cargo door to open so we could get out as quickly as possible. Iggy heard voices outside the door, and we waited by it ready to fly. Then we heard a familiar voice. "Open the door; I need to check they aren't damaged!" Ari ordered.

"Ok! Ok! Calm down! Just don't let my supervisor find out, I can get in a lot of trouble." A voice with a similar accent to Will's replied. The cargo door creaked open. We pushed ourselves back into the shadows as Ari walked in, his large bulky body blocking out a lot of the light which seeped in through the door. He looked around for the Flyboys, and saw them at the opposite end of the hold. He walked up to them and began to examine them, looking for any damage on them.

I tapped the back of Iggy's hand, to signal we should sneak out. He put his finger through my belt, and I started to creep towards the door, when Iggy tripped and knocked over some suitcases. Ari turned around and his eyes went wide, and stated to charge towards us. "Crap! Run!" I shouted to Iggy, who did so instantly, following my footsteps towards the door. We ran out, to see 3 stunned workers looking at us in awe. "Up and away!" I shouted and we both unfurled our wings and flew straight up, narrowly avoiding Ari lunging at us. We flew east, towards the rising sun.

I looked back down at Ari, but he didn't risk flying after us in public. Besides he wouldn't be able to catch us. He was too slow. "Right we need to find out where we need to go and-"

"DROP!" Iggy shouted cutting me off. I did instantly, knowing that when Iggy shouted that urgently it was important. A second after I stopped flapping my wings and dropped 25 feet a Jumbo Jet flew right over us the wind it generated almost blowing us to the ground below.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I shouted in surprise and shock.

"Gazzy! I'm the one who's supposed to be blind!" Iggy shouted at me once we had gotten back on track and out of the flight path. "How the hell did you not see a massive freaking plane coming right at us? We could've been killed!"

"Sorry! I wasn't expecting it!" I retorted. "Let's just find somewhere to hole up and figure out what to do next."

About 3 weeks had passed since we arrived in England. We found Facility B through the monitor, but it had taken some time to find it exactly, the map wasn't extremely accurate. We had landed at a place called Gatwick Airport, and had followed the Freeways to Birmingham. We had passed over London, and I was desperate to go and sight see, but Iggy put his foot down. He didn't want to get sidetracked. I conceded that he was right, but it didn't stop me grumbling about it.

Whilst trying to find the Facility, we had chatted about how Ari was there. We came to the conclusion that he was at the battle in the cave, and was travelling with the Flyboys back to England, possibly with the flock. That meant the flock were probably on the same flight as us. We would have been angry about it, but decided they probably weren't, and even if they were, it was too late to fret about it.

We had found an abandoned cottage, surrounded by steep sided hills. A good place hide, and easy to escape from. It was roughly 5 miles from the Facility, which we had scouted and found to be relatively unfortified. An 8 ft high electric fence running around its perimeter was all that kept it separated from the world. Well that would be hard to fly over... However there did seem to be regular guards, mostly humans, but every now and again, a flyboy.

It was situated on the edge of a hill, one of the highest for miles, and looked like it was build into the hill, with sections underneath it. It may be hard to break into, but not impossible.

Tonight is the night. We had scouted the area as thoroughly as we could placed supplies as various points in a 25 kilometre distance from the facility so we would be prepared if we were driven into different directions. We had gone into Birmingham, and "borrowed" some money from various passers by to get parts for bombs. It was fundamentally wrong but fundamentally essential, as Iggy had so delicately put it. However, we knew nothing of what we would do inside the Facility. Once we had gotten inside it would be guesswork.

"OK, it's dark enough now Iggy, shall we go?" I asked nervously.

"Yep. No time like the present." He said, picking up his pack which we had filled with as many bombs as we could.

We stepped out the door. It was a clear night; the stars were out in full force, even more visible than normal being out in the middle of the countryside. We took off and took a steady flight towards the Facility. However, once there, I was startled to see searchlights out, alarms flashing in the windows.

"Iggy, something is going on, there's some kind of commotion down there." I said.

"What do you mean? What's happening?" he asked, but as he said that, I saw a figure crash through one of the walls of the East Wing of the facility. The figure had fallen as they crashed through, but quickly got up and I saw them unfurl their large 14 foot wings. They ran forward 10 feet and take off, flying over the fence.

"Oh my god it's Will!" I breathed in awe, as he started to fly away, Flyboys seeping through the hole left in the wall, chasing after him. "WILL!" I shouted down to him. "UP HERE WILL!" I saw his head turn to look up at us, and he began to fly towards us with increased urgency, waving his arms at us. The Flyboys had heard us too, and were flying towards us. They had some kind of guns, and were firing up at us. As Will and the Flyboys got nearer I could see Wills face, ragged and tired, and the Flyboys, their red eyes glowing bright in the night. They continued firing, and I felt something hit my arm. I looked down, and saw a dart sticking out of it.

"Iggy get out of here now, I'm hit and I'm just gonna slow you down." I said to him urgently.

"But Gazzy-!" he began,

"IGGY GO!" I shouted, and he somehow managed to jump back whilst hovering in the air. He had tears in his pale eyes, and nodded sagely and flew off as fast as he could.

I looked down at will, still 100 ft down, and saw many darts sticking out of his back, his eyes drooping, his height dropping. My eyes started to droop too, and I began to fall, I could feel the dart taking effect. As I fell I saw Will being caught by the Flyboys, and being punched repeatedly till they knocked him out.

I felt one of the catch me, and my eyes began to close. I could make out the faint figure of Iggy in the sky, flying away. "Go." I breathed as I felt myself slipping away, until finally I fell unconscious.