Ch. 6

The ground floor of the Activity Center was nearly empty, stripped of all but a few display cases and souvenir racks. Sun-bleached banners that had once prompted visitors to PLAY, EXPLORE and CREATE, hung from the ceiling all around the room. Forgotten plushies kept company with dusty children’s books emblazoned with cartoon animals on their covers— All sitting on abandoned shelves, waiting for the humans’ return. Elsbeth took this all in, as she stepped further into the room and scanned it for security.

“They’re still watching us.” Trey stepped up beside her, indicating towards the windows with just the briefest nod of her head. Elsbeth stole a glance outside. All the Magpies had turned on their perches to face the building. The scene was eerie as the birds remained silent, their red eyes appearing to glow in the sunlight.

“Okay, then let’s act like normal people doing normal things.” Elsbeth walked over to a shelf and picked up a plush owl as Trey started flipping through a book.

“We need a plan to separate the Mutates from the Heirlooms. While we sightsee try to find things that we can use.”

They continued their walk around the room. Elsbeth idly handled a few toys while scanning every shelf and display for items that could help them. Trey seemed more interested in shopping, as she began to make a pile of toys and books on one of the counters.

“Mom, Come see what I got.”

Elsbeth joined her daughter at the counter, but before she could admonish Trey for playing around, Trey said “Look at this.” She lifted a plush badger into Elsbeth’s view, holding her hand so that her fingers pointed towards the door on the other side of the counter. She made a jabbing motion with her index finger and Elz turned her head just slightly to follow. Cutting through the dust and dirt on the floor, and disappearing under the closed door was a trail that looked as if something had been dragged along the floor. Elsbeth took the badger from Trey and turned it over as though she was inspecting it. She mouthed “seen” to Trey. Even though they were far away, the birds could still see them and Elsbeth still had no idea what the magpies would consider normal or non-aggressive human behavior at this point.

Thinking that whatever was behind the door could wait, Elsbeth motioned for Trey to head to the upper floor. Here they found the café and more abandoned souvenir racks. The café was completely glass-enclosed and looked out on the front of the building. Elz dusted off a chair and table and sat down. She motioned for Trey to join her and then pulled some snacks from the bottom of her rucksack. They studied the birds outside as they played the part of sightseers.

“Only the Heirloom birds are still watching us.”

“Good. So, how do we complete the job?”

Trey thought about it for a moment, then: “We separate the targets from the bystanders?”

“And how do we do that?” Elsbeth had an idea but she wanted to get Trey’s thoughts.

“There’s birdseed on the shelves downstairs. We can trap the heirlooms maybe? Get them in a separate area?”

“Okay. Walk me through the options.”

As the Feeders continued to talk out their strategy, the flocks outside went back to what they could only assume was normal. The chattering began again and the one of the Mutates began a song that the others soon picked up. Seeing that they were no longer under the red-eyed microscope, even though they were still technically in a fishbowl, Trey and Elz slowly gathered up a few items of interest and went back down the stairs.

The door behind the counter was unlocked, and Trey slowly pushed it open as Elsbeth kept her Glock at the ready— low in front of her body in case the birds were looking. The office beyond the door was windowless and empty except for a few boxes strewn around the floor.

Trey and Elsbeth entered the office, their eyes alert, scanning the dusty room. The drag trail continued to the farthest corner of the room where a microwave and coffee machine sat on a shelved cart. A roll of plastic wrap devoid of dust lay on the floor below it, plastic had been pulled off, joining and continuing with the trail they had followed into the room. Trey tapped her mother's arm and pointed to the trail. Elsbeth nodded, raising her Glock as they cautiously approached.

Behind the box, they found a TreatyKeeper, his thorax and abdomen wrapped tightly in the plastic. At first glance, he appeared dead, but as Trey reached down to grasp at the plastic, the TreatyKeeper stirred as it tried to communicate. A blurry scene appeared in their minds— the Keeper running a gauntlet of swooping magpies as it tried to make it into the building to safety. As quickly as it had appeared, the vision vanished. In its weakened state, the Keeper’s telepathy was brief, but Elsbeth was able to get the idea. The Keeper, its exoskeleton damaged, had crawled into the office, expecting to die. She signaled Trey to stop.

“The plastic is all that’s keeping it alive.”

Trey pulled her hand back and the TreatyKeeper stilled. Trey looked at her mother with wide eyes. "What do we do?" she whispered.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Elsbeth just shook her head slowly. “The hive must know that it’s still alive. So we finish the job, then take it from there.” They could only handle one issue at a time, and they couldn’t save the Keeper if they didn't clear the Mutate flock. She tried to communicate that to the Keeper and after sending a quick message via her tablet, she motioned for Trey that it was time to get back to work.

The delivery from The Alchemist included more than just the smoke grenades that Elz had requested and even more than the ones she had been shown. Elsbeth found herself being profoundly grateful for that, and even though she’d not thought that she would need them, she’d brought quite a few of them with her.

The grenades were carefully packed into foam cases specifically designed to fit into the pockets on her new "JCUs". Each case held six of the golf-ball-sized grenades, placed in an egg carton-like cavity for protection.

“Well, I’m glad I grabbed these.” Opening up her rucksack, Elz pulled out five of the cases and set them on the floor next to her. She opened them up one by one until she seemed to find what she was looking for. The grenades she was most interested in that moment sat in a case stamped with a perfume bottle icon, and a shimmery brown liquid swirled inside them.

Elsbeth removed a few more grenades of varying colors, “We have Pheromone, Irritant, and smoke grenades. Here’s what I think we should do.” Trey listened intently as Elsbeth laid out a two-part plan.

Half an hour later, Trey was adding another balloon to a small pile when Elz poked her head into the office.

“You almost ready?” Elsbeth eyed the pile of discarded seed packets on the floor.

“Yup! Just did my last one.” Trey picked up the heavy balloons and followed Elz out to the main floor of the Center. Grabbing a couple of the shimmery gel grenades as she passed, she went upstairs and placed all the items to the side of the door leading out to the picnic area.

Leaving their preparations behind and after placing the Treaty Keeper into a locker for safety, the Feeders finally exited the Activity Center. They headed back down the stairs at the front of the building, then took a left turn out of the parking area and headed deeper into the Wildlife Sanctuary. Trey skipped along, keeping up a steady stream of conversation about the different toys she’d found and how cool they were. She was full of questions about heirloom animals and Elsbeth responded cheerfully, prompting her a few times with returned questions about what she’d read. It was, on the surface, everything one could expect from a family taking a nature hike, but their focus remained on the birds that watched them silently from the trees.

In a little more than a minute, they were at their next destination.

“Ooh Mommy, look! Can I play?” Trey pointed to the playground on the left side of the road ahead. Elsbeth nodded reluctantly and they stepped off the road into the overgrown area. As they entered Elsbeth did a quick scan of her surroundings. The well-worn sand and gravel paths had kept the area accessible even as the weeds had claimed the grassy areas.

This had been a playground where “boo-boos” were earned like battle scars, and parents had wielded kisses like nurses doing triage on the battlefield. Unlike familiar New York playgrounds with their flattened and leveled grounds covered in recycled or poured rubber, this playground had been as wild and as natural as the marshlands nearby and was even more so after a few years of disuse. Set into the side and at the bottom of, a slope with the Center’s picnic area above, there were no clean lines or plastic perfection. The equipment all appeared to be constructed from natural wood, placed in the spot most conducive or welcoming to their use and, surprisingly, not a single piece appeared to have rotted in all this time. Near the entrance, a giant spider made from logs peeked out of the weeds that had overtaken it. The rubber pads on the ground around it kept the path from being overgrown, but had not deterred the plants that grew under it from taking over.

Further back a well-worn dirt hill boasted a long silver slide, the kind that Elz had only heard tales of. She walked towards it in awe, running a hand along its metal ramp as she climbed the short hill to the ladder.

“You’ll definitely lose some skin on this,” she said to Trey, her fingers nimbly slipping three small items under the logs that supported the center of the slide.

Trey moved to the left of the slide, out of sight of the main road. “There’s another slide here. In the shade.”

Elsbeth called back, “Okay, but don’t go too far.” Over the next few minutes, under the guise of playing, Trey and Elz quietly cleared the paths around the playground structures, and stashed grenades.

Eventually, concerned about how long the flock would tolerate their presence, Elsbeth was ready to move on. Acting like a “normal human out for a stroll” only worked as long as the observers were familiar with “normal” human behavior or cared whether or not humans were behaving normally. She just didn't have any clue as to when the Magpies’ ambivalence to their presence would end. The last thing she wanted was to end up in a massive shootout with limited ammo, so any time they were allowed as they tried to set up this hunt was appreciated, but she wasn’t going to press her luck.

Multiple buildings were sat on the Wildlife Centre’s property. Just a few steps away from the playground was a cottage that had been used as guest lodgings, and sitting at a right angle to it, on a lower level was a larger older building. Elz and Trey headed for that building now, cutting their way through grass and weeds as tall as Trey was to get there.

“This is a lot of work, mommy.” Trey grumbled, “It makes me miss Central Park.”

“Yeah, I am abso-smurfly going to have a talk with the Creaux. All that information they had, and we still didn't get a full picture of the situation.”

After they finished prepping the “Bunkhouse”, as identified by the sign above the door, the Feeders returned to the activity center. The Mag-Mutates still watched them but they didn’t seem interested in doing much more than that. Elz wasn't sure if it was because they didn't view the two interloping humans as threats or if they were waiting for a specific moment to attack. Either way, she was glad that they were calm because, with the sheer amount of birds in the flock, there was no way they would’ve won if they had immediately walked into a war zone.

Once they were back in the Activity Center, they looked around to make sure everything was where they left it and then checked on the Keeper.

“Do you wanna rest before we start this?” Elsbeth asked Trey.

“No, let’s get it over with.” Trey switched her pack from her back to her chest and tightened the straps again.

“Alright. Lock and Load!”