Nikola's Summer Games: Woodstack Takes Orbit

“It’s so easy. Come on, you can do it!” Malachi crowed.

 

Nikola looked down at the small tan and silver feathered bird. Malachi had insisted he and his handler attend the games currently being held on the outskirts of the town. Not one to pass up an opportunity to observe and study things, Nikola eventually had persuaded Agent Gray to take a moment out of their schedule to make a trip to the game grounds. Though, now he wondered if he should have listened to her about Malachi being up to something. He had simply planned on watching the games, not participating. Without his permission he had been registered as a competitor.

 

“This seems rather unfair,” Nikola said. He eyed the stack of wood at the edge of the rolling green grassed mesa.

 

“Why would it be unfair?” Malachi questioned.

 

“Because the Synth is at least three times as big as the other competitors,” Agent Gray said. She and Zeb sat on a full length felled tree that had been left at the starting line along with several other logs to act as a barrier of sorts and a bench for onlookers.

 

And there were many onlookers. Of all kinds. He didn’t need to send out a scan to know there were at least five different sentient species and dozens of non-sentients, seeing as these games seemed to mostly involve a rider and mount performing a feat of some sort. He wasn’t sure where exactly along that spectrum he fell. Many of the riders and even some of their beasts had given him a variety of looks, and some still were. Experience told him they weren’t friendly looks. 

 

“But technically he qualifies,” Malachi said. “He’s a living, breathing creature with a handler.”

 

Zeb leaned over to whisper to Agent Gray, but Nikola’s keen hearing picked it up, anyway. “Malachi’s the master of finding loopholes to get what he wants.”

 

“And what is it that Malachi wants?” Nikola asked, eyes flicking from the human and Attaraxian to Malachi.

 

Malachi’s neck feathers ruffled. “I want you to have some fun. Not everything has to be an experiment or a card game.”

 

Stressors picked up in vocal pattern.

 

“And?” Nikola prompted.

 

Agent Gray slapped her knees and pushed herself to her feet with a groan. “And an upstanding citizen such as Malachi wouldn’t have put a bet down on this particular set of games, right?”

 

Zeb narrowed his eyes at Malachi. “He better not have.”

 

Somehow Malachi’s feathers ruffled even further, reducing him to an indignant puffball. “My da taught me better than that!”

 

“Well, that’s good, because Nikola only gets to compete if his score isn’t officially on the leaderboard,” Zeb said and leaned back with a smug grin.

 

Malachi’s head snapped towards him. “What?!”

 

“Son, you may have a mind for loopholes, but you completely missed the part where I had to promise that Nikola was competing just for show, no points,” Zeb said.

 

It wasn’t lost on Nikola that the riders and mounts nearest them were pleased with the revelation. He was pleased, as well, because he felt he had an unfair advantage being a hybrid of living flesh and technology, and as far as his sensors could tell, everyone else was one hundred percent flesh and blood.

 

All of Malachi’s feathers flattened down and his green eyes slanted in annoyance. “Okay, fine. But it was for goodies from Schlocka, not money.”

 

Zeb sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

“Also, I just want to see how far he can pitch those logs,” Malachi added.

 

“Since it’s not gonna count against us, I’m kinda curious, too,” the competitor in the lane next to them said.

 

“Must I do it at all?” Nikola asked. He shuffled his feet on the ground, talons sinking into the damp grass from his weight. “I see no point in it.”

 

“It’s fine, Synth. Think of it as an experiment to put your coordination and strength to the test,” Agent Gray said.

 

He looked at the tiny human and then around the open field. Several competitors stared at them, like they were waiting for something to happen. It sent his feathers on end and the antennae on his neck stiffened.

 

A small hand patted his leg. He looked down again.

 

“Very well,” he said.

 

Once Agent Gray was clear of him and was heading down the track to the log stack, he heaved himself into the air. Taking off from a standstill was never easy for him, but he could do it. The carefully crafted mechanics in his wings meshed with his natural musculature so seamlessly that feats such as a creature as massive as him getting airborne without so much as a breeze to assist was as simple as blinking.

 

He found himself admiring the location of the games as he climbed higher into the sky. The setting sun bathed the greenery in a warm orange hue as a velvety indigo crept up from the opposite horizon. Shadows had started to stretch across the edges of the game grounds from the still standing trees. The treeline had been groomed and thus allowed mown grass to blanket the several acre mesa top, providing a perfect play area both far enough from the town that the noise didn’t disturb others, but close enough for convenient travel.

 

Having found an appropriate altitude, he hovered and waited. Soon enough, a neon glow signaled from the woodstack.

 

“I still don’t see the point,” he murmured as he tucked his wings and dove.

 

Maintain current trajectory.

 

The ground came screaming up towards him. He was dead center in his lane. Deftly, he adjusted his wings, inching them out slowly until the wind billowed under them enough to keep him from crashing but not enough to slow him much.

 

Target approaching.

 

The details on the woodstack sharpened within milliseconds, and in his peripheral Agent Gray put a considerable amount of distance between herself and the woodstack. He didn’t blame her. He was well aware that at his current speed, she wouldn’t be much more than - as she would probably put it - a bug on his windshield.

 

At the last second he extended his talons and snatched the woodstack off the ground. For something called Meteor Wood, it wasn’t nearly as heavy as he had anticipated.

 

Adjusting calculations.

 

With that, he spread his wings out like parachutes and whipped the woodstack forward. He hung in the air for a moment, tracking systems locking onto each piece of wood and mapping most likely trajectories. The one with the longest range actually vanished from his normal vision and he had to switch to the enhanced system in his left eye to see where it landed.

 

Satisfied that he had performed the task efficiently, he returned to the edge of the mesa and alighted next to Agent Gray.

 

She gave a low whistle. “Okay. I’ll admit. I thought it was kind of dumb at first, but that was incredible.”

 

Nikola tilted his head to the side. “Really?”

 

“Considering you nearly shot those things into orbit, yes, really,” Agent Gray said. She turned around to head back up the hill.

 

Nikola pivoted to follow her, warmth seeping through his chest with her compliment. She didn’t always seem that impressed with his abilities, and he never could tell when something he did was extraordinary. He stopped as a great racket reached his audio sensors.

 

Most of the competitors were clapping and whistling, and Malachi was half-running, half-gliding down the hill towards them.

 

“That was so cool! We’ve got to enter you into other competitions!”

 

Nikola glanced behind him at where the logs had disappeared out of normal sight. His talons twitched. He wondered what else he could throw off the cliff.

 

“Yes,” he said and turned back to look at Malachi. “It was cool.”