Sky Wings

“Flipper snapper!” Bilg exclaimed, slapping their own face.

“That’s no flipper snapper,” Durda huffed, wiggling her smallest finger towards him. “That’s a whirly dirly.”

Bilg eyed them, mouth pinched suspiciously. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“I would never.”

Bilg whipped their thick strands of maroon hair back and forth derisively. “Sure. And what is it, if not a flipper snapper?”

“An orcani juridadin.”

Bilg paused, then waved their arms above their head. “Those are the same squirking thing!”

Durda shrugged. “One of them just sounds much stupider.”

“Yes,” Bilg agreed, “the one that no one can pronounce or remember.” They paused. “Except you, I guess.”

“It’s irrelevant.” Durda wiggled their little finger at Bilg as they were so fond of doing. “Just grab it. We still have one more stop today after this.”

Bilg reticently obeyed, maneuvering the device so the pulse beam pointed at the flipper snapper. It was a fascinating creature, with four stubby legs poking out from beneath a domed shelter that seemed made of rock or something. A tiny head with beady eyes and a thin line for a mouth gave the beast a wide, thoughtful look, like some of the shriveled up and aged Alcadi from Bilg’s home.

It took but a few moments after Bilg activated the beam for the task to be accomplished. Durda dutifully clicked and tapped at their transport’s control panel, and soon they were zipping away to their next destination.

*

Andi screamed, pulling at her hair as she was so fond of doing when distressed. Mitch cackled, watching the squawking hunk of feathers as it scrambled into the sky, beating its wings in an awkward motion. One of the wings was apparently still not healed. However, the prospect of possible freedom overcame the brainless creature’s self-preservation instincts.

“You jerk!” Andi cried, eyes already starting to water.

“Cry baby!” Mitch said, laughing. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’ll tell my dad!”

He snorted derisively. “Oh, the little snitch wants to live up to the reputation she’s gained,” he mocked.

She hesitated just briefly. She was technically older than him by a few months, but she was small for her age. Besides, the quiet way she spoke, as well as her wispy dirty blond hair, made her seem much younger.

“Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll go find him, then.”

“Not if I find it first!” Mitch cackled again and took off in the direction the bird had flown. He heard Andi’s little footsteps crunching lightly behind him. Soon, her labored breathing followed. Slowly, both sounds faded as he pulled ahead.

The dumb feather-brain couldn’t fly very fast, not with that wing. It ducked and swooped in a drooping, leaning pattern. Mitch grinned, getting directly beneath it. He just needed to wait until it either dropped low enough for him to grab or dropped dead out of the sky.

A gust of wind blew the creature to the left. Mitch turned, getting beneath it again.

Suddenly, the thing just…stopped. Mitch stumbled to a stop as well, staring at it. It was as though it had been frozen, and now it just hung in the air. The wings didn’t move, and it didn’t even give a squawk.

Mitch stared, jaw dropped open. He’d never seen anything like it. What could possibly be keeping the bird in the air? And why wasn’t it moving?

Slowly, the air around the bird grew dark. Mitch jumped back, frightened by the sudden patch of shadowy air. He wanted to run, but was too stunned. Instead, he watched as the bird was slowly sucked into the black air. Soon, he couldn’t see it anymore. Then, the air dissipated like fog.

“What on earth-” he muttered.

He heard loud footsteps and heavy panting behind him. He didn’t turn to look at Andi, still staring at the empty air where an entire animal had been floating a moment before.

“Where is Jacks?” Andi demanded. “What did you do with him?”

Mitch, for once, found he had no words.

*

The One of Skies felt the sensation of moving air, cooling the heat of the glowing flame in the sky. Beautiful green and brown and blue, the scents of life and freedom. And sounds-old sounds, sounds of the earth and sky. Not of the unfeathered ones, with homes made from sliced corpses. The One of Skies did not understand why they had to kill. The Ones of Age still lived as they provided homes for the Ones of the Skies.

Home. He was home. Soon, perhaps. Now? The air was home, the smell was home, but there was more waiting. Deeper. Deeper into the Ones of Age. Yes, he had to follow the flowing drink of life to the Greatest One of Age. That was right.

Air, sky, movement, breath, sight all ended. Sounds disappeared. Only darkness remained. Not the darkness of sleep; the darkness of cold, hard bars, covered with something heavy and oppressive. Something that kept out the sky.

And then the light returned. The One of the Sky let out a tentative squawk. This was not sky. This was not open air. No green, no blue, no brown. Just black and white. No old smells, all new smells, heavy smells. And strange sounds, coming from strange things. Unfeathered ones, but new ones.

With the new scents and sights, without the color and life of the earth, the One of the Sky ducked its head and pulled into itself, squawking plaintively.

*

Andi continued to scream at Mitch, grabbing at his clothing and clawing at the skin on his arms. He ignored her, walking deeper into the trees, eyes darting about intently. There had to be a logical explanation for this. He was eleven years old now, and knew that science governed the world. Birds didn’t just disappear into patches of black air. It had been an optical illusion of some sort. Was there such thing as dark fog? Or perhaps it had been smoke?

“You stupid jerk face! You fat, ugly, stupid lump of crap!”

Mitch almost laughed at her insults. Poor, sheltered little Andi. She never had been taught how to cuss properly. That was another thing that made her seem younger than her age. Her size, the way she spoke, and her pathetic cooing over the dumbest, most useless of creatures, all gave her the appearance of a first grader, instead of someone who was about to enter Junior High School.

Mitch usually shot back his own insults and taunts, but right now he had another focus. He wouldn’t let some sniveling girl distract him. He could hear something up ahead, something strange. It sounded like the squawking of that dumb bird, only louder. Had the creature found some more of its kind? He was pretty sure that Andi’s bird was supposed to be from a very rare species. ‘Endangered’, his teacher had called it. He wasn’t surprised. If all those birds were as stupid as Andi’s, then he was surprised they had lasted this long.

Andi suddenly gasped, her torrent of words and barrage of puny punches cutting off. Mitch glanced at her, only to see that she was staring upwards, her mouth gaping open wide enough that he could’ve shoved Gargantu, his pet tarantula, in there. He followed her gaze. In the trees above them, he saw more than a dozen blue and scarlet feathered birds.

“Oh, wow,” Andi breathed. “So many.”

Mitch snorted. “Whoop-dee-do,” he mocked, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly.

“The Macaw is an endangered species!” Andi snapped, folding her arms and jutting out her hip sassily. “We may have just discovered a whole group of them!”

In response, Mitch picked up a rock. Andi shrieked, causing a good number of the birds to squawk and flutter to trees further away.

“Survival of the fittest,” Mitch said, smirking at her. “If those birds deserved to survive, they wouldn’t be going extinct.”

“That’s not true!” Andi exclaimed, voice rising in pitch. “You’re just a selfish jerk! You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

“That’s how I’m going to survive,” he said, putting the palm of his head against her forehead and casually shoving, causing her to stumble back. “And you are going to end up getting eaten. Possibly by Gargantu.”

At that moment, the air grew strangely…thick. Andi’s form became blurry, then nothing more than an outline, and then she disappeared.

*

“Hodu Andi Ai!” Bilg cursed.

“What?” Durda demanded, stepping up next to the control panel.

“The stupid device is overheating.” Bilg continued to adjust to power flow, trying to relieve some pressure.

“So transport less at a time,” Durda said.

Bilg shook their head. “Too late. It’s already been initiated. At this point, either they will all make it through, or they will get stuck halfway as the device shuts down.”

“Pleasant,” Durda said, clicking their teeth together several times.

“But it shouldn’t have any trouble,” Bilg continued, perturbed. “The little buggers aren’t dense or massive enough to exceed the size limit, and the test subject already confirmed that the device is still functioning properly after warping.”

“What are you saying?” Durda asked.

Bilg stuck their tongue between their teeth in a troubled expression. “Well, the readings I’m getting don’t make any sense. The mass level inside the tunnel is double what it should be based on my initial scan.”

Durda placed their hands over their abdomen, a common posture when they were trying to appear calm. “Could the device be showing inaccurate readings?”

“If that were the problem, then the transportation would already have taken place. This isn’t a simple scanner error.” Bilg bit down on their tongue slightly, agitated.

At that moment, air in the containment chamber grew thick and dark. Bilg held their breath, waiting. Tense moments passed as the heavy darkness slowly dissipated, leaving behind vague shadows, outlines, and then full figures. A group of approximately twenty Sky Wings appeared as if formed from darkness itself. That was a relief. A lot of resources had been expended for this task.

However, Bilg couldn’t release their held breath. In fact, they instinctively tried to suck in sharply, brain muddled with shock and bewilderment.

The Sky Wings were accompanied by two large bipedals, with light skin and short, stubby limbs. Their noses protruded starkly from the center of their faces, and their eyes were a strange mixture of colors, rather than the uniform grey-blue of an Alkiliki.

“What on Alkilikan is that?” Durda hissed, eyes darting between the two creatures.

Bilg considered. They were from Earth. That meant that these two were…

“Humans,” they said. “Intelligent, but generally harmless. No supremacy in speed, strength, or agility, and no special gifts.”

“I know about humans,” Durda said irritably. “I’m just wondering how they ended up here.”

Bilg tapped a cheek, indicating uncertainty. “Perhaps some sort of anomaly? Or, well, it could have just been an accident. Happenstance.” They pulled up a screen, studying the readings from the time the device had been activated until the cargo had arrived. They clicked their teeth together. Yup. Mere milliseconds after activation, two larger sources of life appeared on the screen. That was what had thrown the calculations off and caused the reading to go wild. They were fortunate that no damage had been done to the creatures or the device itself.

The two humans were looking around, turning in jerky motions, their strange eyes darting about. One was much smaller than the other, with long strands of thin, wispy looking fur hanging off the top of its head. The other was almost the size of Durda, although, as with most humans, its abdomen was longer and its legs shorter. The humans wouldn’t be able to see out of the chamber, so they would be unaware of Bilg and Durda’s presence.

“What do we do with them?” Durda asked.

Bilg dipped their head to one side and then the other, musing. “Well, they haven’t really seen anything yet. We could just send them back. They appear to be younglings, so it is unlikely anyone will listen to what they say anyway.”

“And if someone does listen?” Durda pressed.

That was the problem. Magista Ornyx did not like loose ends, or even the possibility of them. They would be angry enough to hear of this infraction if Bilg didn’t properly take care of the humans.

“I’m not going to kill younglings,” Bilg said quietly.

Durda nodded. “On that we can agree. But we can’t just let them go either. Someone will see the unusual readings at some point, and then we will be in trouble for hiding information. If we tell Magista Ornyx, our punishment will only be slightly lessened.”

Bilg sighed. “I can think of only one solution.”

*

Dr. Randal Nordstrom studied the report with a furrowed brow. It wasn’t looking good. The ozone layer had depleted another .001%. A seemingly miniscule number, except that it was happening more and more frequently.

Those bloody aliens, he thought, slapping the stack of papers down onto his desk. Can’t they just stay on their own god-forsaken planet?

Of course, he was hardly innocent. He had been working with the Alkiliki since joining the United Terrestrial Exchange ten years earlier. The UTE was a very old organization. No one was certain when it had begun. Essentially, in exchange for certain plants and animals, the alien race known as the Alkiliki paid the UTE in gold, silver, and technology. Unfortunately, they had to work under the radar, so to speak. UTE spread news stories and lies about poaching and other terrible disasters to create the illusion that certain species were going extinct, and the Alkiliki used a special device that somehow sucked the creatures straight off the planet without the aliens ever needing to enter Earth’s atmosphere. What Randal wouldn’t give to get that piece of technology…Unfortunately, it was one thing the Alkiliki had refused to divulge.

The technology, though miraculous, had also proven to be very dangerous. Somehow, with every use, it depleted the ozone layer around the Earth at rapid speeds. And with the Alkiliki becoming more active in the past half a century, the trend was getting more noticeable. Randal should probably have tried to stop it. But the exchange was just so lucrative. His wife and children never wanted for anything. He could take a vacation to anywhere in the world without worrying about the effect on his bank account.

Of course, none of that would matter if the world was destroyed. But surely that was still a far distant problem. Nothing he needed to worry about.

The reasoning didn’t lessen the guilt churning in his gut.

His watch started to buzz a quick, distinctive rhythm. He perked up immediately, then quickly scanned his watch over the keypad on his top drawer. It clicked, then slid open. Inside, a flat rectangle, similar to a cellphone, was buzzing with the same rhythm as his watch.

The Alkiliki were calling.

He answered quickly. “Hello?”

The voice that came back was slurred with a thick accent that blended words together in a mash of consonants and overemphasized vowels. He was accustomed to it now, although in the beginning he hadn’t been able to decipher words at all.

“Doctor, this is mission 601.2. We have the cargo.”

He let out a slow breath, not sure if he felt relieved or ashamed. He supposed a little of both.

The voice continued. “We also have…a problem.”

He felt his breath catch. “Who saw you? The Russians? The Koreans?” Bloody soviets had been on to them for months now, he was certain. Could it be the US, though? Probably not. Their politicians had their heads rammed so firmly up their backsides, it would take a nuclear strike to dislodge them.

“Not that kind of problem. We accidently took some…extra cargo. Two young humans.”

Randal felt his mouth working silently. How to respond to that? “You kidnapped some kids?” he finally said, shock making his words come out louder than he’d intended.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Well, give them back!” Randal exclaimed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Why was he even having this conversation?

“It is not so simple.”

“Why not?” Randal sighed.

“Because they are a liability.”

Randal felt an immediate chill. “If you harm them, you will be breaking our agreement,” he said, voice low.

“We have no intention of harm,” the voice said quickly, the panicked tone making the words even harder to catch. “But we need to drop them off with you to take care of. Do you still have that serum we gave you two cycles back?”

“Yes,” Randal said, sighing.

“Excellent. We will send you the coordinates at which we found them so that they can be properly returned once you are finished.”

“This will cost you extra,” Randal said.

“Understood, Doctor. Your guests will be arriving on the platform in a few moments. Payment will be forthcoming.”

*

The children looked to be about nine and twelve. Both had ashen faces and wide eyes that stared at Randal like he was a dragon.

The boy broke the silence first, letting out stream of curses so vile that Randal’s wife would’ve washed his mouth out with soap. The little girl just sunk down to the floor and began to weep.

“It’s alright,” Randal said, holding his hands up in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. “We’ll get you home soon.”

“Where’s Jacks?” the little girl sobbed. Randal paused. Jacks? Had there been another child with these two? What had happened to him?

“Please,” she begged, looking up at him with tear-stained cheeks. “I saw a lot of other Macaws, but I couldn’t see Jacks. Do you know where he went? The other ones…they disappeared too…I don’t-I don’t know…” she broke down, body shaking as she cried.

The macaw, Randal realized. That had been the alien’s target today.

“Who is Jacks?” he asked softly, kneeling down beside the girl.

“Her idiot bird,” the boy said derisively. “Flew off into the woods.”

“Because you stole him and then frightened him away!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet, tiny fists clenched angrily at her sides. “You knew he was injured!”

“It’s alright,” Randal said quickly, hoping to diffuse the situation before it could escalate. “We’ll get this sorted out. For now, drink this. You two look thirsty.” He handed them each a bottle of water. The bottles looked like the kind you would find at any gas station or grocery store. The children both drank tentatively. Their eyelids began to droop. The boy yawned. The girl sat back down. Then the boy did. Soon, they were both on their backs, breathing slow and regular, fast asleep. When they awoke, they would have no memory of the past five hours. Randal had rigged the water with the special memory serum as well as a mild sedative to put them to sleep while they were transported back home.

He looked down at the little girl. She reminded him of his own daughter. He sighed, taking out his special communicator, the one that only contacted the Alkiliki.

“Hello,” he said tiredly. “This is Dr. Nordstrom again. I have a special request for that extra payment.”

*

Andi looked up towards a blue sky, befuddled. Why was she laying on the grass in the woods near her home? Had she fallen asleep? She vaguely remembered coming out here with Jacks…

Jacks! She looked around frantically, and then calmed. Jacks was in his cage, pecking contentedly at the seeds in his bowl. His wounded wing was healing quite well, all things considered. She smiled, yawned, and stretched. Then she took Jack’s cage and began to walk back home. The sun was near to setting, so she must’ve slept for quite some time. Her parents would be worried.

*

Mitch woke up beside a fallen log. He frowned, sitting up. He ran a hand through his messy hair, looked around, and then stood. He had come into the woods to play a prank on Andi. How had he managed to fall asleep?

Finally, he just shrugged and started back towards home. There was always tomorrow.