Ch 1.
Elsbeth was jolted from a dream about a Wendigo named Chuck and a flock of bloodthirsty pigeons. Wendigos didn’t exist but pigeons? Those she knew how to deal with.
"Pleeaaasssee." The only thing more unpleasant than a strange dream, was waking to a child’s whining.
"Mommy, what are we gonna do today?"
"I figured we'd just stay inside, Trey."
"Can we go feed the pigeons?"
"Really? Come on!?"
"Plllleeeeeeeeeassse."
There was no way around it, Elz was going to have to drag her comfortably settled ass up off the couch, and take her kid to the park.
"Fine," she grumbled, "Get your things, and dress appropriately. This is New York, its harsh out there, young lady."
Trey ran down the hallway, whooping her happiness, and she prepared herself for the inevitable wardrobe battle. Elsbeth was pretty sure that it would be at least an hour before they'd make it out onto the streets.
She was wrong.
Trey was back within ten minutes, and well dressed for the excursion. Her head was covered by the grey hood of her winter jacket, her neck protected by the new scarf she'd bought her, and her black gloves had already been pulled over her tiny little fingers.
"Fine, here we go." Elz grouched as she grabbed her pack. Moments later, they were pushing open the door onto the city streets.
At the entrance to the park, The guard stopped them. He looked warily at the ten year old child fidgeting beside Elz and swallowed, unsure of what to say.
"Um Miss, you know this park belongs to...”
"Yes, Yes, we know." He was new to this entrance, but Elz was impatient. She wanted to get in and out quickly so she could return to her warm couch and her scavenged Hershey's Kisses. The guard fiddled with the tablet in his hands, turning it over and over but never looking at it.
"You sure youse wanna take her.."
"Elsbeth and Trey Jones, check the tablet. Hurry up." Trey cut to the chase with an angry tone--the delay was getting to her. Yes, Trey was being a bit of a brat. In this case however, Elz was willing to permit her to be a little discourteous.
The guard didn't bother to look at the tablet. He blatantly gawked at them, Trey especially, trying to match the stories to the faces in front of him.
"W-w-w-Which one are you?" He finally asked Elsbeth, knowing that he really wanted to ask, “Which of the city's top two Feeders is a ten year old girl?”
Elz didn't answer. There were more important things to know. "What's the limit?" She asked him as he tried to pick his jaw up from the floor. He checked the tablet then, punched in his question, and waited for the Treaty Data Center to return the day's quota. While he waited, he snuck quick glances at Trey, who was now trying to break her personal record for hopping on one foot.
"Ten each." He finally answered. "Up to thirty total, if youse wansta ‘S and R’."
This caught her attention. ‘S and R’—‘search and rescue’—meant that a Feeder had gone in and not come out. Elz and Trey would be allowed to feed his pigeons under the condition that they brought him out alive with them. This was good. Thirty birds meant she could get more of a paycheck, but more importantly, there were some things that she wanted to get for Trey and ten birds a day would never cover them all. She was suddenly glad they’d come.
"She's Trey." Elsbeth said as they walked by him and through the gates. They moved quickly into the park, Trey skipping along beside her mom as the rhythmic 'clank clank' of her ammo belt kept time with her bouncy pace. Elsbeth strolled, her legs long enough to eat up the distance, even in an unhurried gait. Originally not in the mood for this, She had to concede that the outing was a good idea. After all, humans, especially children, could not live in darkened high-rises for all their lives, they needed fresh air, sunlight and room to play.
Ahead of them, there was a field surrounded by a high hedge and a pathway. There were statues, benches and fountains scattered all over the field, along with the occasional tree. Pigeons roosted on every man-made object within view, and even more hid in the trees out of their sight. A lookout watched them enter and as soon as they cleared the entrance, the alarm went up. A thrum of wings filled the air as the birds rose off their roosts and hovered in the center of the field as if awaiting a signal.
Elz pulled her antique Glock nine millimeter server from its holster and checked the clip out of habit. They kept their servers clean and loaded but never took anything, not even themselves, for granted. Trey un-slung her semi-automatic from her back, did her own check and then seemed to think better of using it. She let the server hang loosely in front of her body and reached into Elz's pack for a handful of playing Jacks. She shifted her stance and nodded at her mother. Elz took the safety off her Glock, and at a nod from her to the guard,the gate swung closed.
As one, the birds attacked her. Elz dove to the right, trusting Trey to be okay. Protective or not, while feeding the birds there was no opportunity for doubt. As trained, Trey threw her body to the left as they came, and Elz saw the Jacks go flying into the flock. There were a few explosions and a few shrieks as the mini bombs exploded. The flock was engulfed in a cloud of green smoke.
“Hey, Smartass,” Elz yelled, “What’s all the smoke for?”
“So we can stay out longer.” She heard Trey's joyful giggle move past her on the left side of the flock, and the short staccato bursts of her A.K server followed. Trey had mixed up her Jacks, combining the bomb and shrapnel ones with the stealth models. Elz wanted to tag thirty birds and return home as quickly as possible, but her little girl wanted to stay out and play. Kids! Were they this difficult before the Species Treaties?
Trey was out of her sight. The flock had dispersed most of the smoke with their wings and split into two groups, one actively following the sounds of her giggling while the other remained clustered to the right of the entrance. She had thrown some Daze Jacks as well, causing the birds to forget about her and giving her a chance to strategize. Elsbeth ran around the perimeter of the hedge until he was directly under the smaller group's leaders, marked by white bands on their necks. With ease, She picked off three targets before they even noticed her presence. As the bodies dropped from the dense flock, she could see the Treaty Keepers registering their kills. But then, the remaining birds swarmed towards her and she quickly lobbed a handful of Jacks into their midst, creating a thick cloud of smoke that she ran straight through. More bodies fell to the ground, but suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her trigger finger as a beak stabbed at it. Elz screamed, piercing through the daze of the remaining birds. Chaos ensued as claws and beaks attacked from all directions. Despite wearing Kevlar gloves for protection, she struggled to hold onto her Glock against the onslaught of pain.
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Elsbeth ducked her head, pulling a knife from her thigh sheath. She slashed about herself in an attempt to dislodge the birds attacking her body. As she regained control of her right hand, she quickly fired six shots into the crowd, hearing the thud of bullets hitting bodies. Suddenly, she was alone. The Treaty keepers must have registered ten kills on her part because the flock backed off and flew away. Some of them flew off across the field while others returned to roost on the nearby fence. Elsbeth quickly reloaded and got a fix on Trey's position.
She called out to her daughter, asking if she was okay. Trey responded with a happy voice from the far side of the field, "Yeah, playing hide and seek.”
Elsbeth shook her head but didn't comment.
“Hey, Mommy? Trey called out again, “Hawk at nine o’clock.”
Elsbeth ran towards it and found the large bird lying under a bush near the hedge fence--the missing Feeder. From its position, she could see that both wings were broken and it was barely conscious, its eyes following her movements from behind protective membranes.
As Elsbeth approached, the roosting pigeons rose up once more in attack formation. This time they didn't wait for a signal before diving at Trey. Elsbeth watched in awe as her daughter dipped and twirled, using martial arts moves learned from the old man upstairs to defend herself against the mutated birds. Her knives flashed through the air as she fought for her life.
Elsbeth couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and protectiveness towards her daughter, this incredible fighter, who she still thought of as her "baby".
**In an effort to maximize on the resources available, the Earth Balance Treaties established a value for each life on the planet. The Earth's TLV (Total Life Volume) could not exceed a specified amount, so each species wanted to eliminate members of the others so that they could gain permission to reproduce. The numbers changed daily as beings were born or died. Three Sentient Lions had to die before Elz was allowed to deliver her daughter. Humans were worth a lot more then, but they had been unable to maintain the balance and had fallen behind in numbers.
Today, a human was worth ten mutated pigeons, and apparently so was an Evolved Hawk. Either they killed them or they would be killed, and if they wanted to leave this park with the life of the Ev-Hawk, they were going to have to kill his share of birds.
"Trey. Enough! Frag them, and let's go home," Elz said.
Trey bent backwards to dodge a dive-bombing bird and her hood fell off, exposing its chain mail and Kevlar lining. A crow swiped its claws towards her head and in that instant, Elz feared losing her. She widened her stance and pulling the server from her side, opened fire on the attacking flock. Bullets tore through the flock and bodies dropped as the birds abandoned all attempts to get close to her. The Treaty Keepers screeched and then it was over. The air around them cleared as the birds returned to their roosts.
"Hey Mommy, did you know that a flock of crows is called a Murder? Sucks to be a pigeon, huh?" said her child.
Damn facetious child.
Elz and Trey bagged up the bodies, thirty exactly, and then called the Guard in to get them. She hoisted the hawk onto her back and trying desperately not to jostle its wings, carried it out. After their second trip with the bags, she heard the guard slam the gates behind them, in an effort to keep the enemy away from their side of the fence. Elz couldn't help but take a jab at him. "Idiot," she said. "They can fly, Duh!" He looked at her as though she were the crazy one; as if she should know that the closed gate automatically made them safe from the flesh eating pigeons.
Elsbeth shrugged. Some people believed that the treaties protected them from the animals, but Feeders knew better, (and Guards should too). When the birds felt like it, they could fly over the walls and conduct their own feeding hunts on human turf. It was allowed. Even though the mutated species didn't have the same rights of representation of the Evolved and Sentient ones, they still got the benefits of the Species Treaties as any other creatures did. Equal opportunity survival was what the Earth Balance Treaties were all about. What was good for the goose, was good for the gander.
Elz waited for the Crows’ representative to come collect their Pigeons and credit her account. She gave the Ev-Hawk credit for five. She didn't have to, since he was walking away with his life, but Elz wasn’t that mercenary. With both wings broken, he could starve before he went out to hunt again, and who knew if he had a family to support like she did.
She stayed at the park with the Hawk until the Medic Transport collected him, then she took her daughter home.
**
Three weeks later, there was a tapping on their bedroom window. Elz drew the curtain to conceal Trey, who was asleep on a cot on the far side of the room, then deactivated the shades to see who or what was out there. They were twenty floors up, but she did hunt birds for a living so a little caution was never too much. Recognizing their visitor, she retracted the protective shield to allow the Evolved Hawk into the room.
He flew in and hovered over her bed for a moment, dropping the large crate he held within his talons onto the mattress. He then landed near the window and turned to her. Excluding his wings, the Ev-Hawk's body was about the size of a human. Small for an Ev-Hawk, this guy still took up most of the available space in the room.
"Thank you, Qwern," he said, "for saving my life and completing my task."
“No problem.” She answered, but she felt the need to elaborate. “It wasn’t selfless. I did it for my child.”
He dipped his head in a very birdlike way that reminded her that aside from his speech and size, he was still an animal.
“I understand. Had you not been so generous, my chicks would have gone hungry as well. So I thank you, and I bring you some things you requested. My mate has enjoyed taking over my duties while I was hurt, and has expressed a willingness to fly south again, should you ever need us to. I am Sqwaaarrrrgh, seek me through the Channels. We can deal without the intermediaries.”
She was not clear on the name, but she knew she could find him if need be. He flew off without waiting for further response, but she was used to that. The evolved and sentient creatures still had an instinctive distrust for humanity, as humanity still had an innate fear of them. The Feeder classes of each sentient species however, understood that they must cooperate to survive. So the Ev-Hawks went hunting for the smaller or non-evolved species; the Sentient Lionesses hunted for all the animals on the African plains, thinning retro or mutated herds when necessary, and protecting them at the same time. Most humans thought they fended for themselves, but all Feeders were mercenaries. Few people in her building thought about where she got their amenities or considered that the city was nearly empty and devoid of factories. They didn’t concern themselves with the fact that each day her child strapped on a weapon for their comfort. They just paid her to provide for them, and damn the rest. So she hired herself out to carnivore species who couldn't hunt. She killed Mutapigeons to feed the crows, and they in turn negotiated black market items for her with the Sewer Rats and the Ev-Hawks. Although she would now be able to make her own deals with the hawks, she never ever wanted to have to ask an eight foot rat for a favor. NEVER!!
This Hawk must’ve been the same Scavenger that the Crows regularly negotiated with for her amenities. She looked into the crate he’d dropped on the bed. In it, in addition to toiletries and canned goods, was her chocolate from the Pennsylvania territories. This was her guilty pleasure, the only treat she allowed herself from her earnings. At that moment though, she was more excited to see the items that she had requested from the Orlando territories. There was a toy, a small silver machine, and a stack of thin plastic cases. Her daughter walked up behind her as she picked up the first case on the stack and tore away the thin film that sealed it. She handed the case to her daughter and turned to connect the machine to the power grid.
“Beauty and the Beast.” Her daughter read out loud as she removed the disc from the case. “What’s this, mommy?”
She looked at her little girl, Trey Leona, named for the sacrifice of lives made to balance her existence, and knew that as long as she had breath, her daughter would enjoy being a child. She picked up the toy, a soft fabric mouse wearing a polka dotted dress, and threw her body across the bed.
“It’s a DVD honey, and it’s way more fun than an A.K. 47 Server.”
**
It wasn't until hours later that Elz realized, the Hawk had called her "Qwern".