12 – Closer to Progress
"Iggy, I'm fine!" Gazzy complained loudly, "I don't need another day here."
Iggy just shook his head firmly. "You got pretty banged up. We're staying put one more night until I'm sure you're a hundred percent better."
One bullet had nicked Gazzy's shoulder and another one had grazed side of his head, disorienting him and leaving a couple of nasty, bloody gashes behind. He had managed to slow his descent enough to avoid becoming a splat mark on the forest floor, but he'd still hit a few tree branches on the way down. The wounds were superficial and the slight bruising he'd received had mostly cleared up, but Gazzy's head had gotten pretty rattled, and Iggy wasn't taking any chances.
However, now that his vision wasn't spinning and it didn't hurt so much to move, Gazzy was up and itching to go. "Iggy, I'm okay now!" He insisted, "I want to keep moving!"
"You might've gotten a concussion or something," Iggy reminded him, "so just take it easy."
"But I'm not hurt anymore!" Gazzy insisted. "Besides, what about Ella? You're the one who keeps saying we have to hurry up and find her."
"You're every bit as important as Ella, and I want to make sure you're all better first." He took a seat on the ground next to Gazzy. "So you're going to sit here and rest until I say so. Understand?" Iggy shook his head and sighed tiredly. "I'm sorry, Gaz," he apologized, "this whole thing was my fault. I shouldn't have taken such a stupid risk." The weeks of endless flying and emotional exhaustion were catching up to him, and right about then he was ready to curl up into a ball and sleep for a month.
Gazzy placed his hand comfortingly on Iggy's shoulder. "No, Iggy, you were right. Ella needs us, and that was the only way we could get the info we needed. It's just... I guess I felt kinda jealous, you know? Because now Ella's the one you hang out with all the time." He sighed dejectedly.
"I'm sorry, Gasman. I don't mean to make you feel left out." Iggy frowned apologetically.
Gazzy shrugged. "It's not your fault," he explained, "It's just that you and Ella have been spending so much time together, especially after Max and Fang disappeared, and you seemed... it was like you didn't need us anymore."
"Gazzy, Ella could never replace you, or anyone in the Flock," he told Gazzy, putting his arm around him reassuringly, "I'd never let anyone come between me and my family."
"I know that now," Gazzy answered quietly. Then he asked, "You really like her, don't you?"
"Ella?" Iggy gaped slightly, suddenly feeling put on the spot. "We're just friends, Gazzy, you know that." But even as the words came out of his mouth he knew how unconvincing he sounded.
"Max and Fang were 'just friends'," Gazzy prodded.
"Max and Fang are Max and Fang," Iggy stated flatly, "Just because it happened to them it doesn't mean Ella and I are going to get together."
"So you don't like her."
"Only as a friend." Then Iggy hesitated slightly. "Well... I mean, I never even thought about... Ella's just Ella. Isn't she?"
Gazzy sniggered at Iggy's contorting facial expressions. "You sound really confused. It's obvious Ella has a gigantic crush on you, so if you like her back, why not just say so?"
"Because she's like my sister's sister, practically related to me," Iggy attempted to rationalize, "And there's a big difference between having a crush on someone and actually wanting to go out with them."
"Ah-hah! So you do have a crush on her!"
Iggy stammered, "No! I-It's not like that! I mean, she wouldn't actually want to—" then he cut himself off, trying to salvage whatever dignity he had left. "Look, it would never work out between us. I'm a blind freak with wings, and she's just so... normal. She's smart and pretty and kind, and she has everything in the world going for her. I'd only be messing things up if I asked her out. She doesn't... she doesn't know what she'd be getting into."
"Doesn't she?" Gazzy told him, "Iggy, I hear you guys talking; you tell her all sorts of freaky stuff that you've been up against, and she's okay with it—even the stuff that us Flockers won't talk about. You haven't scared her away yet. Besides, after getting kidnapped by a bunch of evil clone soldiers, I bet her life is pretty freaky too. She'll know what you're going through."
Iggy felt the corners of his mouth curled up slightly. "Yeah, I guess so." He told his young friend, "You're a smart kid, Gasman. Thanks."
"I still think it's weird, but I guess if Ella makes you happy, then I'm happy too." He made a tiny noise of disgust. "Just don't start making out all over the place like Max and Fang. It's gross."
"Yeah, well, I don't think that will be a problem any time soon," Iggy made a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace, "Ella's still missing at the moment, you may have noticed."
"Well then let's get going and find her!" Gazzy exclaimed, jumping up from the ground.
"Gazzer—"
"Iggy, I'm fine, I promise! We can hide out in the bush all day after we find your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Not yet, she isn't."
Iggy mentally rolled his eyes, and finally conceded, "Fine, let's take a look at that log and figure out where they've dragged Ella off to."
"Great!" Gazzy pulled out the slightly crumpled, slightly blood-crusted computer print-out and said, "I was looking over these earlier, and it says that they kidnapped a girl from the Martinez' home address and took her to some facility on the West Coast..."
Honestly, I'm impressed how outwardly relaxed I stayed when the guard escorted me to my cleaning assignment, as I tried not to give away the fact that I had a couple of food packets stuffed down my sweatpants. I'd spent most of the morning practicing how to walk without looking stiff or nervous, and by the time it was time to go I was all set.
"Did you bring the food?" was the first thing Vera asked when I entered the room.
"Right here," I replied, pulling the packets out and sticking them through the bars. Vera frowned slightly, having just seen exactly how I had smuggled them to her, but she didn't complain once the wrapper was off and she was wolfing down the tasteless tree bark they called food.
"Much better," she said, once every last crumb had been eaten. "Here, take the wrappers. We wouldn't want our lab coat buddies to find these lying around in here."
I took the wrappers from her, then said, "Now, about that information...?"
"Alright," Vera agreed, nodding approvingly, "you held up your end of the deal, so I'll hold up mine. Listen carefully, because you'll need to know this stuff: for starters, this building sits on a small, unpopulated isle called Springer Island. It was an abandoned factory before these guys took it and converted it into a lab, which is why most of the walls around here are either new and cheap or old and iron. This building wasn't built for security, and there aren't any alarms or cameras anywhere because they think all of you are too stupid to escape.
"They're short on men, what with that whole continental takeover going on outside, so there's only six of those clone guards on patrol. Their job is just to babysit you and make sure you're not hurting yourselves or attacking doctors or whatever, but they're all super-strong. Plus, there's like twenty doctors and lab techs here, and even though they're not superhuman they could still handle you guys no problem.
"There's no phone or internet connections because of the blackouts, but they still have radio in case of emergencies. On top of that, they have safety check-ins two times a day—they contact mainland at exactly 8:00 am and 8:00 pm, and if a check-in gets missed they'll assume the worst and send a whole troop of Collectors here to investigate."
"So we either do the check-ins ourselves or get off the island before the twelve hours is up," I noted.
"This place was designed to hold sick teenagers, not escape artists," Vera told me, "but you have to play it carefully. One false move, and they'll have backup forces in here faster than you can say 'oops'. Your greatest strength is their under-estimation of you; not even those super-paranoid genetically modified goons view you as a threat. You're just weak, ordinary, brain-dead teenagers to them, so don't give them a reason to think you're anything more than that."
"Got it," I replied, repeating the facts in over in my head. "That's enough for me to start on. I'll be back tomorrow."
"Yeah, okay," Vera said, "But be sure to bring the food! Oh, and keep looking for gaps in their security. Spotting a wandering eye can be the difference between a cage and freedom."
"Gotcha." Then I slipped out of the room to get back to my cleaning—and to my scheming.
