While his flock distracted the RECOs, Brightbill darted around behind them and desperately searched for buttons. He had once shut down his own mother with a click, and now he would do the same thing to the intruders. But he found no buttons on these robots, only smooth surfaces. Clearly, the RECOs were not designed to be shut down so easily.
Giant hands swung through the air, and the geese were swatted away. Loudwing was plucked by her foot and flung to the ground. She crawled into the weeds as the others scrambled up and over the trees.
A quick scan by the robots revealed that Roz was gone. The three RECOs turned and marched back to the airship. The door hummed open and the robots disappeared inside. And when they stepped back into the meadow, each was holding a silver rifle in his hands.
The hunt for Roz was on.
Without speaking, the RECOs marched away from one another, fanning out in their standard search pattern. RECO 1 marched straight toward the southern tip of the island. RECO 2 marched straight up the mountainside. And RECO 3 marched straight into the forest.