by Alex McCall
“Jesse? Is that you?”
I painfully untangled myself from the person already in the cage and sat up. She just lay there, astonished, her long blonde hair hanging half over her face.
“Hi Sally.”
The ex-council-member stared at me for a moment, open-mouthed. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Same thing as you, I guess. I got caught.”
“I thought you’d been caught a week ago! We went so long without hearing from you.”
I winced. “Yes, Rayna mentioned that. At length. But I’m fine. What happened to you?”
“Oh, it was awful. One moment we were scaring off Catchers that were attacking the farm, the next something jumped out of a bush at me. I got snatched, then I felt all woozy and passed out. I woke up here!”
“That sounds like a bad eggs-perience. Do you know what took you?”
“Nope. I just know the chickens call it ‘The Indonesian’. I think its name might be Cemani. Jesse, this chicken is serious business. It hates humans.”
“They all hate humans.”
“Not in the same way as this one. It despises us. It’ll do everything in its power to hurt and belittle us.”
That sounded terrible. “When I get out I’ll warn Rayna and the others. They’ll be prepared for whatever it can do to them.”
“You’re getting out?”
I winked at her. “Of course I am. This is all part of my master plan.”
“Your master plan?”
“That’s right.”
“Which involved you getting caught?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me. “It’s working so far then. What exactly is your plan?”
“Well,” I looked around cautiously, worried about being heard, “I thought I’d give myself up for capture and see what the inside of this place is like. Check out the defences and stuff, you know?”
She nodded determinedly. “Of course. What’ll you do next?”
“I’m planning on being a double agent. I’ll pretend to go over and work for the chickens but in reality I’ll be undermining them from the inside. Good, eh?”
Sally stared at me then blinked slowly. “Jesse… that’s a terrible idea.”
“I’ve asked to see their leader, but who knows if they listened. I’ll keep ruffling their feathers until they take me to him.”
Sally reached out and grabbed my arm firmly. “And you can’t tell him anything. He’ll just pump you for information and then send you straight back to the prison cells. You’ll just give away information for no reason.”
“How do you know that?”
“There was someone else who had the same idea. He got picked up just like you from outside barn and asked to see the leader. King Cluck just laughed at him, and made an example of him. Told us not to even attempt to outwit our chicken masters.”
“This guy, what’s his name?”
“Ethan.”
“My brother’s called Ethan! Where is he? Can I see him? What’s…?”
Sally crawled to my side and slapped a hand over my mouth. “Not so loud,” she whispered sharply. “They’re listening. And if they know you’ve got a brother here they might use you against each other.”
I prized Sally’s hand away from my mouth. It tasted like dirt. “Do they do that?”
“Yes! Of course they do that. Threatening family members is like their favourite thing to do.”
I nodded and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Alright. But do you know where he is?”
“Nope. As punishment for his disobedience, they trussed him up ‘like a chicken’ and wheeled him round in a giant roasting tin for us all to see. He was yelling a lot so they shoved an apple in his mouth and tied a paper beak over it. When the ropes were finally cut, he got kind of mad and tried to pick on a Catcher.”
“How’d that go?”
“He’s still in their top-security cell, so not that well.”
Poor Ethan; he’d been captured after all. Suddenly I felt very stupid. I’d massively under-egg-stimated our chicken foe. “So I gave myself up for nothing? I’m just stuck here now?”
“That depends.” She was still crouched very close to me, speaking softly but with an intense edge to her voice. I could suddenly see why she’d been picked for the council; Sally was a tough old bird under that soft exterior. “If you got out would you come back for the rest of us?”
“Of course,” I said. “That was the whole point of my plan.”
“Then, if you get to see King Cluck, we’ll cause a diversion while you’re in the control room. It should draw most of them away. It’ll be your best chance.”
“We?” Then I looked around and saw that the whispered conversation I’d been having with Sally wasn’t so private. The people in the cages around us were leaning in, listening intently. Someone gave me a thumbs-up when he saw me, another saluted mockingly. “You think it would work?”
“You can’t let them win, Jesse. And you’ve got to warn the council about the thing that took me.”
There was a tap-tap-tapping in the distance of claws getting closer.
Everyone in the cages around me shuffled about, pretending they hadn’t just been listening in. Sally grabbed me in a quick, fierce hug.
“Green lever in the control room,” she whispered into my ear. “There’s a bunch of lasers attached to the outside of this building. The buttons beside it select all of the targets. Push it up to fire at the targets. Pull it down to shoot everything else. Give us twenty minutes.”
“Tell my brother hello from me,” I whispered back.
She pulled away and grinned. “You got it.”
Behind me the door to the cage swung open.
“Time to go,” the Commando intoned. “Our Leader will talk to you now.”
CHAPTER 15
RAYNA: ABERDEEN
My dad always said I tended to overreact. Whenever something happened to me I would hit back harder. He said he was proud of me for being so passionate about stuff. Of course he probably never expected me to break into my sister’s warehouse in the middle of the night just because I’d not heard from my best friend for a few days.
The guards went past for the third time. It was easy enough to hear them. They marched to a rhythm, chanting to stay in time. It sounded like they were going, “Bawk, bawk, bawk,” to the same tune as the guards from The Wizard of Oz. I stayed crouched in the shadows, counting under my breath. I was wearing loose, dark clothes, which allowed me to creep around unseen. Logically I knew the Brotherhood wouldn’t have hurt Jesse. They loved him, hung on his every word. Half the reason they’d given us the walkie-talkies was because they wanted to know as much as I did that he was safe.
But there’s a difference between knowing something and feeling it. While part of my mind calmly told me the facts, the passionate bit was screaming that the Brotherhood had kept secrets from me before. They had some way of gathering information that they weren’t telling anyone about. I had to find out what it was. And maybe even use it to find out what had
happened to Jesse.
The next pair of guards went past and this time I followed them, keeping low to the ground, trainers landing without a sound. I watched them carefully, avoiding the light thrown by their shock-sticks.
The first obstacle I had to pass was a low wall, built out of bricks by the Brotherhood, which stretched all around the warehouse. It barely came up to my waist but it was high enough to deter Commandos. The guards patrolled the inside of the wall, keeping their eyes out for silhouettes of chickens trying to fly over. They worked in pairs, with eight people circling the building at any one time.
There was a slight weakness though: a brief moment when one group had turned a corner, leaving a blind spot before the next pair approached.
I crouched down behind the wall in the blind spot, letting the pair ahead of me walk on, still counting under my breath. I saw them turn the corner and knew another couple would come past soon. Still as a m
ouse I waited, almost holding my breath. I heard the “Bawk, bawk, bawk” chanting get louder and someone rubbing their hands. There was the thud, thud, thud of footsteps and then they were right beside me. I froze, thinking for a moment how stupid I was to be hiding here. They just needed to look over the wall. There was no way I wouldn’t be seen.
Then they were past me, their voices beginning to fade. I waited a moment then flipped over the wall and began stalking after them, trying to keep myself as low as possible.
We rounded the corner and there was no yell behind me. It seemed that I’d got away with it. So far so good.
I kept to the shadows and followed the watch around the building a good four times before I worked out what to do next. The warehouse was in good repair, with no holes to sneak through. I guess it was chicken proof. There was a large sliding door that would be used to drag Catchers in and out. Beside it was a normal, human-sized door, with a handle high on the side, inaccessible to chickens’ claws. I would have to go in that way. And I’d have to do it soon. Dawn was coming.
I waited until the pair I was following had gone just past the door then darted towards it, praying it wasn’t locked. I got lucky; it opened easily. I slipped inside before the next pair rounded the corner.
The inside of the warehouse was creepy, weird shapes looming out of the darkness towards me. I shrank away from a half-dismantled Catcher that rose from the gloom like a dinosaur. I shook myself out of it and crept on.
It was at this point that I realised I had no idea what I was searching for.
Still it was interesting looking around. I got out my head torch, hoping that if they spotted me they’d just assume I was a member of the Brotherhood. Even the little light made things better. I could see they were busy making more lasers from dismantled Catcher heads. In a corner, tucked away to the side, was a small table with half-built shock-sticks laid out. Beside it stood an empty Commando suit.
I stopped, and a paralysing sense of horror flooded down my spine. No, it couldn’t be empty. We’d never been able to get a Commando out of its shell and I’d have heard if someone had.
That meant there were no spare suits lying around.
There was a chicken in there.
I looked around for some kind of weapon, cursing my decision to leave my shock-stick back at the hotel. I spotted a length of metal pipe and tried to pick it up carefully. As careful as I was, it scraped against the floor and the Commando’s head turned towards me, its eyes glowing a bright red.
I moved as fast as I could, swinging towards it before I had a good grip on the pipe. The chicken scrambled away and I hit the floor, dropping my weapon. As I scrabbled to pick it up again the Commando scuttled away. I followed, pipe striking, trying to hit it. But it was dark, even with my torch, and the chicken was a small target.
We skirted past one of the hollowed-out Catchers, the pipe making it chime like a bell as I once again missed. The Commando leapt into the air and fluttered across the workshop, landing on one of the half-made lasers still in a Catcher’s disembodied head. It began fiddling with the lasers and I sprinted across the floor towards it, racing to hit the Commando before it could turn them on.
We drew. The eyes of the Catcher head lit up and glowed red, but I had already reached the Commando, pipe held high over my head, ready to bring it down like a hammer. The Commando had a claw poised over the button that would activate the laser. We stared at each other, eye to glowing eye, daring the other to make the first move.
And that was when Hazel appeared.
Her hair was a mess so she must have just woken up, probably from the racket we’d made. She was rubbing sleep out of her eyes and was wearing a chicken onesie.
“What’s going on?” she asked wearily before she’d really seen us. When she did she froze for a moment. Then she got angry.
“Get away from there,” she yelled, storming towards us. I thought she was yelling at the chicken but she grabbed the pipe and snatched it out of my hands. I was so surprised I let her have it. Then she turned to the chicken.
“Turn it off,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument. It instantly flicked a small lever and the laser’s glow faded. “That’s better. Are you OK?”
“Yes, thanks, but what—” I started.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
I blinked. “You mean is it OK? You know this thing?”
“Don’t call him a thing,” Hazel said angrily. “His name is Clucky.”
“Hello,” the chicken said.
I stared at it. The voice had definitely come from the ball of metal feathers in front of me. There was no way a ventriloquist had thrown their voice into that thing.
“It can talk?”
“He. He can talk. He can talk quite well.”
“I don’t care if he can recite Shakespeare. Why is he here? Why haven’t you got rid of him?”
Hazel muttered something that I couldn’t quite grasp.
“What did you say?” I asked her.
“I said, he’s my friend.” Hazel at least had the decency to look bashful about it. “And he’s on our side. We trained with him and he didn’t get on that well with the other chickens. Honestly, he was a bit clumsy and they made fun of him. So when the signal went down and everything went crazy we sort of protected him.”
I sighed. “Hazel, I know you mean well but you can’t trust him. He’s probably the spy. He could just be listening to everything we say and reporting it back to his masters.”
“Well, that would be dumb,” Hazel told me. “Especially seeing as we’ve only survived this long because of him.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Explain.”
“Well, you don’t really think that just because we spent some time with the chickens we magically know how to operate all their stuff, do you?” Hazel sounded almost amused at the thought. “We weren’t much trusted by most of them either. We weren’t allowed in the Catchers at any point and of course we never saw a Commando out of his suit. It’s impossible.”
“What do you mean? Are they bonded to it somehow?”
Hazel frowned. “Sort of. It’s kind of hard to explain. They can only get the signal through their suits, and without the signal they’re just ordinary chickens.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, advancing towards ‘Clucky’ with hands outstretched. It moved back towards the laser controls.
“Rayna.” Hazel put herself firmly between us. “Don’t do that. You’re frightening him.”
“Well, how did you think I was going to react when I found out about this? Did you expect me to be happy?”
“No! Of course I didn’t. But I thought Jesse would be here to help me explain.”
An icy-cold sensation flooded my spine. “What? What do you mean?”
“Jesse knows. And he’s OK with it.”
That stopped me. If Hazel was telling the truth, then Jesse must have known about Clucky before he left. And he hadn’t mentioned it to me.
He must have known I’d freak out. That wasn’t hard to work out. So if Hazel was telling the truth, he must have had a good reason not to tell me. Not just so that I wouldn’t freak out but because I didn’t need to know. Because it wasn’t a danger.
I could trust Jesse about this. But only if Hazel wasn’t lying and he really did know.
“Just call him,” Hazel was saying. “He’ll back me up.”
“I would,” I said through gritted teeth, “but I tried earlier and got no response. He’s probably inside a Catcher right now.”
“He’s not,” said Hazel with utter certainty. “I’d know about it.”
“You would, would you? And how…?” I turned towards the chicken as the truth dawned on me. “Oh. So he’s your informant. He’s not just telling you about how to use the machines.”
“That’s right,” Hazel said. “I told you he was useful.”
“But how can his information be up to date? Is he flying between the chickens’ head
quarters and here? And if he is, how do you know he’s not spying on us?”
“He doesn’t go to their base. He stays in the building at all times – to avoid reactions like yours. The last thing he wants to do is to fight humans.”
“So how does he know everything? How does he know Jesse hasn’t been captured?”
Hazel squinted. “The signal that makes them smart also connects them, like a sort of mental internet. It’s how the chickens get their orders. They can all share news and stuff on it. I’ve had him keeping an eye on it for signs that Jesse’s been captured ever since he took off. Believe me, once they identified their prisoner, news like that would have got about.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is Jesse special somehow?”
Hazel shrugged. “Not particularly. He’s about as well known as other members of the council. But they know he helped corrupt the Brotherhood so they’d certainly shout about catching him.”
I sighed. “Alright. Let me talk to the thing.”
“Be nice,” Hazel said, stepping aside and letting me get close to the chicken.
“Will you talk to me?” I asked it.
The chicken just glared at me, scratching the worktop with a metal claw. I think it was threatening me.
“Come on,” Hazel said. “Rayna won’t hurt you.”
“Oh, thank goodness for that. I was all of a flutter,” Clucky said. I swear it was being sarcastic.
Hazel ignored this and nodded at him. “Yes. In fact she’s going to say sorry for overreacting. She sees now that she was wrong.”
“Seriously?” I muttered at my sister out the corner of my mouth. She nodded at me determinedly. “Alright. I’m sorry I got so startled by you. And I’m sorry that I might have overreacted.”
I don’t think Hazel was very happy with my apology but that was all she was getting. I still wasn’t convinced that this chicken was on the side of the angels.
“It’s alright,” Clucky said. “I’m not up to fowl play.”
I just blinked at it. “Was that a joke?” I asked.
“I told you Jesse had been spending time with him,” Hazel said, nudging me gently. Then she addressed the chicken again.
