Air Born | Generation Icarus #1

Hawk - Backstories

Despite Tui and Falcon's natural good humour, and the sense of purpose we'd developed during the rendezvous, tension filled the air as soon as we left the shelter of the trees and returned to the open road. But the two-car convoy continued southwest with no further interruptions.

The sedan and the pickup wound along the long highway, putting as much distance as possible between us and the guys in black. The weather was depressing, grey skies with low-lying cloud, but for some reason that felt safer than driving in bright daylight.

"So," I said eventually. "How did it happen for you guys?"

There was a pause.

"I had a back injury earlier in the year, so I thought it was just something to do with that, Falcon said at last. "I didn't want to say anything to my parents because Mom ... she'd been so busy at work, hardly ever home. Dad's been sick for a long time, and our health insurance was already causing problems. Then one day my back was itching like crazy, and yeah ... it was like a horror movie."

Nobody said anything for a few moments, and then Falcon continued. "I kept it a secret until you turned up on the news. So I came looking for you, hoping you'd have a better idea of what the hell was happening to us."

"You weren't the only one," I said. "Sorry to disappoint."

Fal smiled. "It's still better than being stuck at home freaking out. I thought if I got out of the way, it'd be one less thing for Mom and Dad to worry about. I'd been planning to move out for a while, I was just waiting for my eighteenth."

"You're seventeen too?"

"Yeah."

I waited for a second, but that seemed to be that. "How about you, Tui?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "It just kinda happened, same as you guys. There was a lot of drama going on at home. Mum had been on night shift for a few months, and her lazy pākehā boyfriend cheated on her. She kicked him out, and then my little sister, Ria, had a meltdown when her daddy buggered off. I had major exams going on at the same time. Then when I started getting sick, I tried to ignore it. By the third day, when I realised how serious it was, I went to the emergency room."

I stared at her. "You went to the hospital? What did they say?"

Tui's brown fingers twisted the hem of her hoodie. "I made it as far as the ER door. Then I don't know what happened, I just ... freaked." She sighed. "I'd never been scared of hospitals before, didn't have an issue with needles, I was sweet as with medical stuff. But suddenly it was like a switch flicked in my brain. The thought of anyone finding out about ... whatever it was ... scared the crap out of me."

I took a sharp breath as I remembered the same fear had made me conceal my 'sickness' from my own parents.

As the suspicion grew in my mind, Falcon said it out loud. "Do you think it's part of whatever's happened to us? The instinct to hide? To keep it secret?"

"I don't bloody know. I guess it's possible." Tui's feathers rustled under her sweater. "The only reason I was able to hide it at all was because Mum was on night shift. Then when the wings broke out, I just ... went into shock, I think. Kept hiding. Spent several days on the internet trying to figure out what the hell had just happened."

"Then I showed up online," I said, sourly. I tried slouching down in my seat, but my wing bones were so long now, it was really uncomfortable. Stubbornly, I stayed like that, glaring out the front windscreen at the infinite scroll of road.

Tui sighed. "If the first instinct was to hide, then the second was to migrate, I guess." She tried to keep her voice light, but the pain was a thick layer under her drawling accent. "As soon as I knew you existed, I just had to find you. In less than twelve hours I was on a plane. Used the money I'd saved to go to nursing school. If I'd waited an extra day, the urge might have faded, but by the time I realised what a crazy idea it was, I was halfway across the Pacific."

"I don't think it would have faded," Falcon said, his voice low. "It took a couple days before we met, and once we did, there was no question of splitting up again. Same with Marcus and Raven. Soon as we ran into them, we just stuck together. No one asked, it just happened."

"So, what do you know about them?"

"Not much," Falcon said, changing gears. "Tui and I only ran into them early this morning on our way to the Angelist rally."

"How did you figure out they were like us?"

"Obviously we were on red alert, going right into the middle of birdkid-hunter territory."

Tui waved a hand. "You can't help notice every hunch or slouch and wonder what that person is hiding now, right? And the eyes are a dead giveaway."

Falcon nodded. "We don't know anything more than you, man. They don't say anything unless you ask them straight out. We know he's from South Africa because I asked about his accent, and he also told us that Raven's Chinese. Only other thing he's said is that they're both seventeen, but there's no way she's that old."

"Raven hasn't spoken once," Tui added. "They're a little antisocial. Sometimes it feels like they're watching you, waiting to see what you do before they make a move. But they haven't done anything too strange. Not yet, anyways."

"It's so weird we've all just kind of turned up at the same time," I said. "It was just me, then there was Miguel, then Kestrel, and now there are seven of us."

I didn't want to voice the fear that maybe this whole thing had been remotely triggered somehow. The weird instincts were disturbing enough, without adding in an unseen, unknown, genetic puppet master.