CYBABERDS

“Sika; aloft!”

The falcon surged upward, propelled by the sudden thrust of my arm, and climbed rapidly on her own strength for the first time since the surgery; I watched her rise, my optics keeping track of her trajectory and speed. At the rate she was going she would lose strength long before she got back to me.

“Sika! Return!”

The bird turned to look at me, but did not change course; she continued to climb, wings beating faster and faster. Stubborn thing. But... she did have to learn. Her new wings were only a few grams heavier than her original ones, but still, for a hollow-boned creature out of shape and soaring with brand-new prosthesis she had to discover on her own that things would not be the same. Not at first, anyway.

So I followed her. She couldn't get too far, at least; based on the projections she probably didn't have more than five more minutes of flight before she wouldn't be able to keep herself airborne and would have to come down to land, assuming she didn't ignore all of her body's warnings and...

Oh, hell. The thought only just occurred to me, that something might have been wrong. The wings could be beating on their own, stuck in an endless loop, or their feedback systems could be sending confusing signals, like she didn't realize her body was wearing out. “Bijay?” I said, breaking into a jog. “Are you getting anything weird from Sika's metrics?”

“No, nothing out of the ordinary; she's a little tired, but the wings are performing well.” Bijay responded from the lab.

“What about their feedback reports? Everything look good?”

“Give me a moment... yes, everything's fine. Is something wrong?”

“I don't know, yet,” I replied. “She's not responding to commands and she's continuing to climb. I'm going after her.”

“Lauren,” Bijay said, chiding me. “She's been grounded for two months, sedated several times in the past week alone, and suddenly given total freedom. Did you honestly expect her to come back to you when called?”

I slowed, watching Sika gently descend to a tree near the edge of the wood, and land heavily in the branches. I zoomed in on her, watching her chest rise and fall rapidly; she was very tired, but otherwise looked fine. “Fair point, Beej. She's landed.”

“I'm pulling the telemetry data from her wings, I'll take a look at it and run it by Arjun. We can look it over when you two get back.”

“If I can get her to come down.”

“Offer her a squirrel, she loves squirrels.”

I sat in the grass and watched the sun fall on the horizon while Sika, long talons stamped down on a red squirrel I had tagged, side-eyed me and took delicate nibbles.

“You're right to want to roam,” I said, watching her eat. “But you should've realized you weren't up to the task.”

Sika swallowed her bite, cocked her head to the side, and squaked at me.

“I'm not blaming you for trying, mind,” I replied. “But you really should have known better.”

Sika took another bite, and together we sat, girl and her bird, as the sun set.


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The above was based on a writing prompt provided by @artofmatk.

Pigfucker...