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  "Sure, Junco." She inhales and lifts her chest up a little. I made her feel important too. And I didn't even do it on purpose, I just really want another opinion on what that shit says for some reason.

  "We already read that translation, Junco." Ashur is looking down at me with a weird look on his face.

  "Yeah, but it didn't fit with what I thought it would say. Even though the words I translated came out about right. If Esta's the expert in this stuff, then I'd like to hear what she has to say about it."

  "Junco, how many fucking times do I have to tell you to leave that fucking church alone?"

  Isten is walking towards me, covering significant ground with each stride, angry as all hell. I just stare at him. "What do you mean? You said don't go fucking praying to her so she wouldn't mess up the end. It wasn't her anyway, it was Sera all along."

  He grabs me by the arm. "Come on, we've got to go fit you for rifles and armor."

  In the flyer Isten is distant and looks out the window. I'm not interested in why he's in such a bad mood, so I ignore him and rest my head back to think. I wonder if Ashur is going to take Lili out to dinner? This makes my stomach rumble and I look over at Isten, who has not even turned in my direction once since he picked me up. I sigh and give in. "Why are you angry with me?"

  "Huh?" He looks over, his mouth in a crooked sneer.

  "You're angry with me?" A question this time.

  He shakes his head, but it's not convincing. "I'm not." Then the flyer stops and he pushes me to get out on the passenger side.

  We exit onto a store front platform. The sign reads Aves Supply. Which pretty much says it all, right? We're here for military shit.

  Inside it's more like a private club than a gun shop. A tall thin wingless man, in a suit that reminds me of Lucan, greets us and they talk in Avian. I'm not that good at picking up the words when they're talking so fast, but I get the basic idea.

  A set of double doors open and lead to a waiting room. Isten takes a seat and lights up a cigarette as he stretches his legs and focuses on the screen showing sports. The thin guy takes me by the arm and pulls me to another door, then whisks me through into what looks more like a tailor's dressing room than a military outfitter.

  A team of people come out and begin to measure me. They lift my arms straight up towards the ceiling and tell me not to move. Then another team spreads my legs a little and begins the lower body measurements. When they've finished another man begins on my wings. It tickles like fuck, but I try to stand still.

  None of them are very personable and my mood is going sour fast. When the wingman touches my girls for like the hundredth time I smack him in the jaw. "Don't do it again or you'll be sorry."

  He huffs at me and disappears.

  The tall thin man returns. "Is there a problem?"

  I smile sweetly. "Yes, there is. If you want to feel me up then the least you can do is be personable and polite while you're fucking doing it. If you people want to walk around me like I'm nonexistent and act like you can touch me wherever you–"

  "Junco."

  I turn to Isten. "What?"

  He walks over to the suit guy and asks in Avian if I'm done with armor fitting. I just scowl as they converse like I'm not even here. Then Isten and the tall man walk me back to another part of the shop so they can let me shoot some guns. I smile as I walk up to the practice lane and inspect the line of weapons they have laid out.

  One set is from Earth. "Hey, are these my sniper rifles?"

  Isten pulls himself from the guy and walks over. "Yeah, Rikan and I stole all your shit, remember?"

  I breathe out and answer in a whisper. "You never said you took the guns."

  This makes me so happy I can't even think straight. My rifles are special. I mean, I've used these weapons for years now, the same ones have been fitted and refitted several dozen times since I started sniper training. I know every fraction of them, how they shoot cold bore, how to set the manual scope so it reads right the first time, how to keep the one-shot scope from false set, their little quirks and idiosyncrasies, and exactly what it feels like when I'm out of shots and they need to be fitted again.

  I pick up the short-range MXSP and take her apart, check every single piece, then reassemble and put her back in line. I move onto the RM Tactical Bolt, which only has a manual scope and is only a little more accurate than the MXSP at short distances, but can shoot about twice as far – about 2500-2750 yards – and be dead on. I sight it down the lane, measure some shit with the mil-dots and do the calculations in my head real fast just for practice, then take her apart, check and reassemble.

  The one I call Big Boy is next. The RM Elite is my best performance rifle and is accurate out to 5000 yards. I have never personally made a 5000-yard shot, but it does well at 4000, which is my average. I've exploded more heads with Big Boy than any of the others. I feel myself sigh as I lift the gun and look through the one-shot scope down to the targets.

  "What kind of Coriolis Effect you guys got here?" I ask Isten without turning around or taking my eye off the target.

  He steps up. "Too big to really use these accurately at long distances, Juncs. Sorry. We spin a lot faster than Earth."

  "Doesn't matter. We'll be on Earth soon enough, and then I'll be just fine."

  I don't even mess with the 50 caliber, that monster is way too big to fire in here anyway.

  Isten takes it from me. "We had to refit that, Junco, so you'll have to adjust it, make sure the muzzle brake is the way it's supposed to be. Sorry, I don't use one of those on my rifles. But," he stops and looks me up and down, "you probably need it, right?"

  "Only if you want me to hit shit with it, Isten," I say, looking up at him. "I weigh a hundred and twenty with wet wings on a good day and I haven't had a lot of good days lately, so – yeah, I need the muzzle brake."

  I move on to the new weapons. My personal sidearm is just like everyone else's. A semi-pulse mini-plasma. I've never shot one because this is a purely avian weapon that I've only had the pleasure of being aimed at me. Beside it are an array of recharge capsules in several shapes and sizes. The full-size plasma is just like the mini, only bigger and with a longer range, and larger charge capacity.

  Our assault weapon is an Earth projectile, just in case we need more ammo.

  The knives are all a dull charcoal color, both blade and hilt. I smile and pick one up to check the balance, then throw it towards the closest target and stick it pretty near dead center on the first try. I'm somewhat great at knife throwing. Finally I turn around and smile. "OK, so where do we start?"

  We spend the entire day there and I shoot more than two thousand rounds and extinguish more than five dozen plasma capsules. Just as we are finishing up I turn to Isten. "You'll have to have them refit all but the 50 cal, you know that, right? I want them all fresh before we leave."

  He salutes and barks some orders in Avian to the monitors standing nearby. I get dropped off at the Aves building sometime after ten and I'm starved. Isten forgot, of all things, to fucking feed me.

  Chapter Five

  When I enter the Presidential quarters I do a double-take on my way to the stairs and slide on the slick floor as I stop mid-stride. Lucan is sitting in the living room watching sports on the giant screen that extends down from the ceiling.

  "Lucan?" I make a detour into the living room and plop down on the couch. "What're you doing?"

  He smiles all the way up to his eyes. "Waiting up for you to come home."

  My eyes roll back into my head. "I was with Isten, it wasn't a date."

  His smile is still there, big as ever. "I have no idea what you're talking about. So what did you do today?"

  "Ya know what I did, Lucan. You track my every move."

  "I know," he replies evenly, "but I want to hear it from you."

  I lean back on the soft cushions. "I'm hungry. Isten didn't get me food. And I want to take a shower. I have powder burns all over me." I sniff my shirt. "And I smell like a chemical fa
ctory."

  "What do you want to eat?" he asks, looking almost if he's ready to take notes.

  "A cheeseburger and fries."

  His blue eyes glow. I've never seen them glow before. "Done. Go take a shower and meet me in the dining room when you're finished."

  "Dining room? No, I want to eat in my bed clothes on the terrace. You're too formal."

  He nods and waves a dismissive hand at me. "Whatever, I'll bring it to you when you're done. And then we can talk. Think of good questions, Junco."

  I get up and head towards the stairs laughing. "OK, I'll do that."

  I scrub the chemicals off me in the shower then dress in a pair of white shorts and a white tank top and pad out to the terrace to see if Lucan is there.

  He's not, so I fly up on the roof and soak up the view and think about how I got here and what it means. Being the favorite is pretty awesome and I have a good question, but I doubt he'll answer it.

  He's sitting next to me trying to hand me food before I can even process he's there. "Thanks," I say as I take the bag. "I didn't know you had hamburger places here. That's good to know. I'll be eating these regularly."

  "Why are you on the roof?"

  I take a huge bite of my cheeseburger, then spit it out and pick off the pickles and try again. "I can see everything from here, Lucan," I say with my mouth full. "It's better than the terrace." I chew and swallow before continuing. "Look," I stand up and he joins me, "it's like you're looking down on a map or something." I grin up at him and take another bite of burger.

  "You mean, like a bird?"

  "Yeah." I laugh. "It's a novelty for me. I'm still human in here." I tap my head with a French fry. "It never occurred to me that I should fly above the city to take a look. Besides, isn't flying prohibited on Amelia, except for Aves business?"

  "But that never stopped Tier. And I don't suppose that will stop you either, Junco." He hands me a cup and I take it and gulp down some orange juice.

  "Remember on that first day when I said you misjudged me?"

  I take a seat again and he follows.

  "Well, you really have. I was never a troublemaker growing up, Lucan." I look up at him, wanting him to believe me very badly. "I am a rule-follower, really."

  His eyes squint in disagreement as he turns his head slightly.

  "Anyway, I do have questions. Are you ready?"

  "Go ahead, Junco."

  "OK, this one's more of a statement, than a question. Tier has that demon in him, doesn't he?" I catch a microscopic grimace as I take a bite of food and I'm instantly sorry I asked.

  "Why do you think that?"

  I finish chewing and swallow this time. "Well, back on Earth, after the battle at my house, he was – his face was" – I squint my eyes as I recall the memory – "he looked distorted when he looked at me. Then he turned his back and walked away so I couldn't see him and the next time he turned around he was normal."

  "He has the potential. He has been prepped since birth to be an Archer. But he won't take the position, so it will never affect you, Junco."

  "Oh," I say, trying to clarify, "I don't care if he is. It doesn't change how I feel about him, if that's what you're worried about. I was just curious."

  "And the other question?"

  "Is there a God?"

  He searches my eyes to see if I'm serious. "Is there a God, in what respect?"

  I shrug. "Like, is there a God? It's not a convoluted question. Is it?"

  "You'll have to be more specific, Junco."

  "Never mind, I didn't really think you'd answer me. I don't want to know anyway."

  "You don't?"

  I shake my head. "No, I know the answer and if I'm wrong that's OK too."

  "Do you think there's a God, Junco?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Your God, then?"

  "Yup."

  "Where do you get that faith from? Really, I have to ask because you don't seem to want to follow the rules of your religion very much, yet you're convinced?"

  "Well, here's how I see it. I have a few grace years, right? I mean, none of this shit is my fault, it was just the hand I was dealt. And I'm barely adult–" I shake my head. "Nah, I'm really not even close to being adult enough to take responsibility for what they made me."

  I look up to see if he's listening and he is, so I straighten up and continue. "I figure I have a few years to sort it all out and make good. Change my ways and all that bullshit. And so that's my plan." I look up and grin. "I get some extra time to get it straight, but once I get it down, then God will expect results. I'll deliver then, once I understand what it is I'm here for."

  "Don't you think you're here to save the Avian race? Go back to Earth and get the Siblings and bring them home?"

  "No. That's your purpose for me. God's purpose is something else. I haven't figured it out yet. But I will."

  "That's very interesting. I did not expect you to be so – pious."

  "Yeah, well, that shit goes deep when they start you young, right? And the whole demon thing, it's – just a scare tactic." I look up at him, waiting for a confirmation, but he stays silent. "I mean, parents use that shit to keep you in line. Say your prayers or you'll go to Hell and all that."

  He draws in a breath before answering. "Did your father threaten you with Hell, Junco? When you were bad?"

  "No. He just backhanded me across the mouth."

  He looks over at me, taken aback a little.

  I laugh. "Are you serious, Lucan? How could you not know he hit me?"

  His face is not calm, but his voice is. "How often did he hit you?"

  "Not a lot, to be honest. Because like I said, I was a good kid. I followed all my orders until just before sniper school. Which almost coincides with when you guys showed up. So, there you go." I look up at him. "You guys think I'm something that I'm not. I mean, I get it, I've done some crazy shit in the past couple years, but before that. I was obedient." I breathe out and whisper, "Sniper school changed me. No, really it was that last trip out to the Stag that did it."

  "What did they do to you out at that camp, do you remember?"

  "Well, most of the time it was nutrition stuff. And training, of course. Shooting, knives, some archery."

  "I don't understand. They taught you about nutrition at that secret camp?"

  "Yeah, I had very specific requirements all growing up. I had to eat special food and make sure it was in the proper proportions all the time. When I got older they taught me how to eat normal stuff, but in the right mixture. I wasn't healthy as a kid, I tried to tell Tier that when he found that tracker in me. I know he said it was like a spy tracker, so it was, I believe him. But it had an alarm on it that buzzed if my metabolism was off. I heard it. I had to deal with it. It was a health tracker, too."

  "You really do have dietary issues? Why didn't you tell us?"

  "It's not really a dietary issue, Lucan. It's a metabolism thing. I'm not normal, remember? I had heart issues too, so I had to learn this controlled breathing stuff so that the amount of adrenaline in my body wouldn't be detected."

  "They were measuring adrenaline? You mean so that you could complete your missions without triggering the adrenaline alarms at checkpoints?"

  "Fuck. I never even thought of that. I always thought I was sick. They said I'd die if I didn't control it."

  Lucan stays silent but his brows are furrowed in anger at my revelation.

  "Anyway, if things got out of control the alarm went off. So they taught me that breathing shit. To calm myself and control my fight-or-flight instinct."

  "How did they fix it, Junco? Do you know?"

  I shake my head. "No. They did stuff." I look up at him. "But I don't remember what they did. All I know is that I can eat anything now. And even if my heart rate jacks up, the alarm doesn't go off. Even before Tier took it out, I mean. It's been this way since that summer before sniper school. They did something to me that summer."

  "What else did you do at that camp?"

 
; "Training, like I said. Shooting, knives–"

  "And archery stuff, yes, I heard."

  "I never saw any mutants, Lucan. I didn't."

  He nods at me, but his eyes look nervous. "Continue, Junco."

  "Then when I was almost seventeen, that summer in The Stag we had stalk-and-strikes every day. It was like pre-training for sniper school, I guess. And the last day was a test with live fire." I look up again to check his expression, this time he's wincing. It's not hard to see where this is going. "And they shot me." I pull my shirt down and show him the nasty scar just to the left of my neck. "It went straight through the trapezius."

  Lucan touches it gently with his fingers and he shakes his head. "Continue."

  "As you might imagine, I was pissed off. And I did not flinch when it hit me. Not one fucking fraction. They walked past me, shit, were almost right on top of me once, but they didn't catch me because I was dug down a little bit and my grassland ghillie suits are phenomenal, I made that one with heat shielding and everything. It was so fucking good that there was a rabbit sitting on top of me when they took that shot. Which was why they took it in the first place, right? It moved, they shot, it ran. They wrote it off. Lucky me.

  "I waited out there for more than a day, they were getting frantic looking for me, calling for me. But I never moved. Then, when they went inside and the area was clear, I got up and climbed a tree and shot the guy responsible the second he left the mess."

  I crack a satisfied smile at the memory, then push it down before I look up again. "That shit changed me. They wanted to kill me that day, Lucan. They wanted me to fail. And I've thought about it a lot since Tier and Moju and I destroyed Dale's tunnel lab. They wanted to get rid of me and pull out the next clone. I know it. I did something and they changed their mind about me. They wanted a do-over."

  He's not agreeing with me, I can tell, and I'm annoyed. "That shot might have just been at the rabbit, Junco."