Lily's Part 2

I sat curled in my crate, listening to the other children in my lab room muttering to themselves. Well, they might have been talking to each other. I was just too spaced out to notice. That was when I heard footsteps coming closer to my “home”. I tensed. We had already been fed this morning, which meant it was experimentation time. We never knew who they were going to take, or what would be done with us.
The legs of a person in lab uniform stopped in front of my crate. Damn. The scientist bent down to unlock my crate, and I recognized Dr. Egz. Whatever would happen to me next, Dr. Egz would make it much more amusing. I had no idea what the guy’s problem was, but I did know that he couldn’t speak English to save his life.
“Come vis mee,” he said, grabbing my arm and yanking me out of my crate.
“You know,” I said to him, “I may be genetically modified and all, but I can walk.” I jerked my arm out of his grip.
“Ahh,” he said, leading me to the other side of the lab. “Ve arre in a vrothen mood today, arre ve?”
“I’m in a what mood today?”
“Vrothen. Ya know, bad.”
“Oh, rotten. Yes, I am, because in case you hadn’t already noticed, I’m a mutant freak in a prison of a science lab.”
Dr. Egz was silent.
Hah, I thought. Loser.
We were standing next to a pile of books that looked like something these geeks might have read in college. I looked at Dr. Egz.
“Please tell me I don’t have to read this crap,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You must transport zem to ze ozzer side of ze lob. Pheezically.” He put an emphasis on “physically.”
I had been counting on my telekinesis to help me out, but there went that idea. Of course, I could always act like I’m carrying them while really making them hover just above my hands.
“Can I fly?” I asked abruptly.
“Vy, uf course,” Dr. Egz answered. “You veren’t engeeneered for nossing, ya?”
“Then can you, like, clear me some space here? I don’t want to get in trouble for clipping someone with a wing, no matter how much I would like to do it.”
Dr. Egz began instructing people to clear furniture for me. If he had been smart enough, he would have told me to do it because I could do it faster. But he wasn’t smart enough, so I just stood there and watched.
As soon as there was enough room for me to fly, several of the scientists in the vicinity stopped everything they were doing to watch me. I sighed and “lifted” a pile of books from the ground. It was more than the strongest person here would ever be able to handle. Then I prepped myself to fly across the lab.
Feeling very self-conscious of all the scientists watching me, I unfurled my wings. Thirteen feet in length, they were the same rusty red color of my hair and streaked with dark brown patches. The underneath was white, streaked with that same dark brown. Then I leaped up and began to fly.
Ahh, the feeling of freedom. I sped around and around in circles, picking up pile after pile of books. Within half an hour, I had all of the books across the room. Just for fun, I flew around the lab a few more times. I knew the scientists wouldn’t mind; they loved watching us fly.
I was thoroughly depressed when they put me back into my cage after all that freedom. How much crueler could thee people get? But the flight and the fact that I had tricked them using my telekinesis had given me a new hope. Once I was “safe” in my crate and Dr. Egz had left my lab room, I said to the rest of the bird kids around me, “We can make it out of here, and we will, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
The fact that they didn’t reply didn’t bother me one bit. Like I’d said, I would get me and my “family” out, if it was the last thing I did.