Warfeathers

I know as your reading this, you don’t want to hear a normal story. That’s because you picked up this book, and thought well what a cute cover, a boy with wings. It seems simple enough, why not read it. Well my story is anything but simple. If I looked back now from the time when I was young… It has a magical air about it that seams unreal. It was different then. Much different, so that I may never live in such a way again, except only in my memories.

I banked hard to the left, but the chopper followed me like the persistent dog it was, its twin machine guns blazing, rock and dust thrown up from bullet impacts trailed me as I spiraled through the canyon. My wings beat hard against my body as I fought the urge to simply out-climb it. I didn’t know how they had finally found my home, but It didn’t matter now, all that I cared about was how fast I could fly. The chopper could probly go about a hundred miles per hour faster than me. I did a barrel roll and snapped my wings against my back. I felt a flare of pain in my shoulder as I brushed up against the canyon wall as I dropped. I turned and pushed off the canyon wall in my freefall and snapped my wings open, wincing as the air suddenly filled my feathers. I rolled out of the way of the chopper’s blades as it thundered past, then the wash of air from it spun me head over heels and I had to pump my wings a few times to right myself, as I did so I saw the helicopter spin around as the pilot looked at me in rage. I smiled and pulled out my flare gun, that had a special kind of flare in it. It was phosphorus one that could burn even underwater. It was perfect. I pointed it at the turbines, where the blades met the powerhouse, and fired.

My aim was right on. The flare hissed out and hit one of the turbines dead on. It wasn’t very easy to miss at my range. The turbine exploded in a fireball of flame as the fuel inside ignited as the phosphorous burned its way through to the lines. The vehicle instantly started losing altitude and I had to smile. The flare gun was a very useful weapon. I had managed to find all kinds of different ammunition for it over the years. But the phosphorous was perhaps the most useful.

There was a large fireball and a huge heat updraft when it hit the canyon floor. I spread my wings and rode this man-made thermal upwards to the lip of the canyon. Waste not want not, I loved when there was a good thermal to ride instead of working my wings. It was even more enjoyable when it was at their expense.

They had been chasing me for years. Government agents, reporters, fans of my fantastic stunt flying, you name it. I had made the mistake of getting chased by the men in black in a mall in Arizona once and earned a place in TV legend when I soared right past a Channel 8 news van. They must have had cameras rolling, because I had quiet my fifteen seconds of fame there.

Who am I? A freak obviously. I call myself that often understating the fact that my bones are hollow, I weigh 90 lbs, and I have a wingspan of thirteen feet. O yeah, the government wants me back too. I forgot about that part. They also want to kill me.

The government wants me back, sounds so simple. Its really not. I estimate that I’ve killed over thirty people who have tired to kill or capture myself. I’m a serial murder of the skies, but every person I’ve killed tried the same to me first. I don’t pretend that I hate having to kill, but Its that or give up living myself. I’m quite the survivor type though. They bred me to be a killing machine, lighting quick reflexes, superhuman strength, and a memory like a computer. That was only the beginning of my powers too. How they did it, I don’t know. I had had wings from birth I suppose. Someone helped me escape. That I remember.

The first things I remember was pain. My life had been hell, of the worst sort. The kind that never ends, they keep trying to find more ways to keep it going. They were inhuman. In the name of science they kept me locked up in a cage about the size of your average dog kennel. The mazes I ran, the creatures they let lose to follow me, I don’t know what they were some cross between wolf, human and something else. I think they were werewolves. After I escaped and learned to speak I also learned to use the information superhighway rather quickly. It helped that I was able to fly away with a laptop. I’m quite the hacker now.

There are three groups of people who chase me. The first is the MIB or men in black as I like to call them. They don’t always dress in black suits but they are definitely government agents. They want to kill me.

The second group of spooks, wants to capture me. They mostly employ other freaks like myself to do it. I’m not the only kind of flying freakshow. There are these half-intelligent crows that travel in flocks, constantly on patrol for me. They like to follow the MIB, they rarely attack but they are like spotters for the other ones that do. If I see a crow, I usually kill it. Especially if it seems to be tailing me.

The third group of chasers are the reporters and fanatics. There is a Cult of angel worshipers out there somewhere, watching the news, or just watching for me. Its not so bad when I run into one of them, they don’t want to kill me, but they want me to live with them and be their messiah. Whatever that means. I don’t see how an orphan hacker with wings who can barely keep himself alive every day could stay in one place long enough to lead a bunch of crackpots to the promise land. That’s what they want me to do. There are a lot of them too. Like storm chasers, they follow me in their little vans, and pickup trucks trying to get a single glimpse of me.

The reporters are a little more practical. They think I’m the best thing that has happened to the media since 9/11. It disgusts me to even think about them. I once tried to get an interview with one of them to plead for the government to stop chasing me and they tried to dub over all my replies to make it look like I was a conspiracy nut. I’m still not sure those guys weren’t working for the MIB. They passed me over for what I was, a freak. They left out a few important pieces of logic. Freaks just don’t happen naturally. Not in my case. I was made. I had to come from somewhere. They often downplay that part.

I’m not a nut, or if I’m not completely sane its quite possible that is what has been keeping me alive over the years. I’ve grown paranoid of everything. If you’ve been shot at, tranqed and attacked by half-mad crows you might too. I’m not alone in this world though. Like I said I’m a hacker, and I’ve uncovered many things over the years.

There are more like myself. I’m not sure how many. But its my life goal to find them.

The thing about the Midwest, is that there are really good thermals everywhere. Not just along the roads, but almost everywhere there is an updraft that I can ride. I can soar for a long time just riding them and scouting the land for my next waypoint. It was Ted’s Gas and Grill. Ted had been helping me out these past few months. He was a conspiracy nut, which meant me and him struck off well from the first time we talked together. His wife Nance, was an excellent cook to boot. That is important because I eat enough to put some sumo wrestlers to shame. My flying requires a lot of food.

I was about an hour out when I felt it. It felt like someone was drawing a metal knife across my brain. A missile. Someone had fired a missile at me. It was still a little distance off but I had no illusions about how fast it would reach me. A missile could outfly me like a biplane gets out flown by a jet plane. The damm things go almost the speed of sound. The good thing is that my flare gun and intelligence was usually easily able to defeat them. I dived.

The only way to destroy a missile that was this heat sensitive was to confuse it. My metabolism puts off a lot of heat. So they mostly use heat-seekers on me. Hence the almighty flare gun.

The wind rushed forward against my face in a vast roar. I pumped my wings behind me desperately trying to lose altitude. There it was, in my mind like a hornet heading straight for me. I wouldn’t be able to se it yet even if I would have looked behind me. I loaded a set of flares and snapped the barrel of the flare gun closed. It could hold three shots at a time.

It was getting closer! I could see the ground, southern Utah spread out below me in all its glory getting closer by the second, off in the distance I saw the missile. Its contrail sticking out high above me. It must be one of those cruise ones I thought grimly. The cruise missiles are always the hardest to outfly.

The ground was horribly close now, less than a thousand feet. I inched open my wings and let my speed fall away slightly so I could get some air control. I rolled over in midair and looked behind me as I fell. There it was. I aimed and fired all three flares in rapid succession then rolled back into my dive as I took more flares from my bandolier and reloaded. The missile as I expected, wasn’t fooled. America was absolutely the lowest bidder, but that didn’t mean they skimped on something like their cruise missiles. These tended to be rather smart things. Last time they used one on me I flew it into a barn. It worked rather well, even If I felt kinda sorry for the poor farmer who owned it later.

I was only a few feet from the ground pumping my wings furiously now the missile not far behind me. I hit the ground with a thud and rolled then I took a large flare the size of a can of raid from my fanny pack and lit it by pulling a string. Then I took a thermal blanket from the fanny pack and pulled it over myself as I ran as fast as I could away from the flare. There was a loud crack-boom! Behind me and the shockwave swept me up and slammed me into the ground hard. The air concussion left my ears ringing. God I hated missiles!

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Author's Note: I must apologize for earlier, I posted another story here by mistake. I had the wrong tab open and posted a Science Fiction story in here. Thankfully you can edit the title of the topic on this board and I quickly replaced the post with one of the Fan Fictions I've been working on. You guy don't have to critique it if you don't want to It was my fault for the screwup, but its an interesting story and I have several chapters if you are interested.

The story died when the Maximum Ride forums got renovated and the topic was lost so I don't know if I will continue it but I'll definitely give it consideration if people here are interested. I've allways wanted an excuse to go back to this thing, I had a blast writing it would probably be able to crank out chapters rather quickly because the muse is still there for it. The chapters are quite long and I'll probably have to chop each in half if I do it. I think the second chapter I might have to divide even farther.

Anyways it all depends if anyone is actually interested in reading about it. I hope you are, its a good story.