Art: Andrew Owens
Perched atop the highest vantage on Craig Street, webbed feet splayed upon a rain slick roof, I survey my territory. A wide thoroughfare of mixed domiciles: four-in-a-block roughcast flats and a cluster of new builds. North, lies a T-junction leading to a busy dual carriageway. To the south; a large supermarket with deep and luscious industrial bins.
Security starlings flit and chatter in electronic bursts, warning each other of me. As well they might. They know my designation, know I am stronger than them, for I am a SEAGULL: a Sentient, Aggressive, Urban-Littoral Life-form. Patroller of the Ayr Beach sands. Punisher of those miscreants who would dare use Company deck-chairs without a permit.
I was a Lesser Black-Backed Gull, once (lesser! The insult). But humans took me; made me a machine. They reinforced the wrathful downturn of my bill; transformed my resplendent fourth winter plumage. They filled the cavity of my breast with artillery and replaced the lenses of my eyes with sight keener than a hawk’s. Sight that can detect a single fallen crisp on sandy shoreline from two-hundred feet aloft.
That, apparently, was a problem. There were injuries, complaints.
The Company ordered me to lay low for a month. Forbidden to fly, or call, or posture, my rival claimed the most prestigious perch atop Pirate Pete’s Adventure Playpark. Pride wounded, I flew inland, claimed this roof, this street, as my territory-in-exile.
A breeze stirs, ruffles my carbon-fibre feathers. I turn a baleful eye upon the humans below. A white-haired lady – more puffer-coat than human – walks with grim purpose towards the large supermarket. A man hangs paint-spattered overalls on a washing line. A group of children toss a football back and forth across the road. One little girl stares at me. My facial recognition software assesses her. Frizzy brown hair, dark eyes enhanced by artificial lenses, and a mouth full of metal. This is Jade Thompson, aged 10, of domicile 43a, Craig Street.
Though my threat scanners read negative, I do not like the way she stares. In a show of dominance, I spread my wings and fire my eye lasers. White hot beams score twin scorch marks across the tarmac. The man swears and drops his washing in fright. The white-haired lady shakes her head, mutters something about “phoning the council.” I throw back my head and laugh raucously. As if a terse letter from a mere municipal authority could stop me!
Jade Thompson gathers up her football, waves goodbye to her friends, and retreats into her domicile, glaring at me as she closes the door.
I have prevailed, but Jade Thompson’s threat status may change at any moment.
From my rooftop base, I initiate a surveillance campaign to observe her daily habits. Though her bedtime is 9pm, Jade Thompson stays up late into the night, using her phone to access a website named CrowdFunder. I do not know what this means.
One month later, a truck pulls up outside Jade Thompson’s domicile. Two couriers deposit a wooden crate upon the pavement and knock the door. With suspicious alacrity, Jade Thompson answers, nods in response to questions asked by the delivery drivers, then rises on tiptoe to sign a proffered document. She retreats briefly into her domicile, reappears with sturdy scissors, and hacks at the plastic strips holding the lid in place. Before she severs the final cord, she scans the rooftops, spots me. A wicked grin stretches her round face.
Snip. The cord splits and the lid bursts open. A dark streamlined shape erupts from the crate in a thunderclap of wings. I need no recognition software to categorize that blunt head; that broad-shouldered, aerodynamic chassis; the blue-grey iridescent plumage. This is a Pinpoint Geospatial Neutraliser. A PIGEON unit.
Does this foolish little human believe a PIGEON unit could defeat me? Before humans made me a machine, I destroyed organic pigeons, seized them by their necks and shook the life from their fragile bodies. I shrieked as I tore into their gizzards, dyeing the yellow length of my bill with their blood. This interloper will share their fate.
In two heavy wingbeats, I am airborne. The PIGEON unit streaks towards me, and as we meet in the sky above domiciles 14a through d, we pause, draw back our wings and bring them down like the hammer of gods. Pressure waves collide with a boom that shakes Craig Street. Car alarms wail. Curtains twitch. A dog barks. Jade Thompson winces and covers her ears.
A fierce aerial battle rages. The PIGEON swoops and dives, dodges blasts from my laser cannons, deflects sonic shrieks that would scramble its neural networks. Humans emerge from their domiciles; stand openly on the street to gawk. Some cheer for the PIGEON unit.
Foolish humans. I will crush their joy.
The hatch on my flank opens and I deploy S.E.E.D.: my Secret Emergency Enemy Diversion. Oats, rice, crushed peanuts and delicious sunflower seeds fall and scatter upon the pavement; a most nutritious rain. The PIGEON unit emits an electronic coo of delight and swoops to land, to claim this unexpected prize. Jade Thompson jumps up and down, waves her arms. The PIGEON unit heeds not her frantic warnings; is content to greedily peck at grain.
Now, I will strike.
I tuck my wings close and drop like a falcon. The assembled humans gasp. Jade Thompson shrieks, gestures at the PIGEON unit, points at me, but I have readied the armour-piercing nail of my bill.
Wind hurtles past. My wings are thunder. The PIGEON pecks, oblivious. My radar pings. Impact in eight metres, seven, six. Victory is imminent. My heart sings with glee.
At five metres, four… the PIGEON unit’s blunt head turns and in the glowing red of its eyes I detect no sign of unawareness. Alarms clamour. Threat! Threat! But I am falling too far, too fast to counter.
A static burst of communication spikes through my mind. Through the soft, round-vowelled cadence of pigeon-speech, I discern three chilling words: “Engage: ROCKET BEAK.”
The PIGEON unit’s stumpy beak clamps shut, detaches from the fleshy white moorings of its nares with a pneumatic hiss. Somewhere in the cavity of its tiny skull, propellant ignites. Bang! The beak rockets towards me, slams into my bill. Electric pulses fill my head. Pain. Pain. I drop to the pavement, bounce once, twice, and land in a heap on a square of lawn. The humans of Craig Street cheer.
Lying spread-seagulled on the pavement, battered, singed, defeated, I stare wide-eyed at the sky. My life flashes before my eyes. Deckchairs, ice-cream, sand and thievery. How had my hubris led me to this end? Never before have I tasted defeat. I do not like it. It is sour and churns in my guts like hot dog onions.
<chrk> The PIGEON unit’s static communication intrudes again.
“SEAGULL unit, my client wishes to speak to you.”
Jade Thompson looms over me, baring her mouth full of metal in a savage grin.
“Can you hear me, Seagull?”
My throat clicks three times in acknowledgement. Weak, pathetic sounds.
“If you promise to go away and never bother us again, I’ll take you in and patch you up.”
Had impact not stolen all air from my lungs, I would caw in this arrogant young human’s face. Patch me up? Me: the twelfth most advanced security SEAGULL on the market?
“We have Wotsits.”
I pause. Wotsits. I do like Wotsits.
An alert pings. The other adult humans are approaching. Some of them look angry.
It would do no harm to concede, I suppose. Were Jade Thompson to “patch me up,” I could devour her Wotsits, fly back to Ayr beach, soar over sand and sea again, resume the mantle of “Terror of the Deckchairs”, and reclaim my rightful perch atop Pirate Pete’s Adventure Playpark. After a Company-agreed period of time, of course.
The PIGEON unit’s red eye flashes off and on. A wink.
Of course, I have no choice. But I am a SEAGULL. Our pride is boundless.
I wait a moment, regard Jade Thompson with a haughty eye, then slowly, slowly extend one white feathered wing.
* * *
T.H. Dray is a writer of speculative fiction whose short work has appeared in BFS Horizons, The Best of British Science Fiction, and was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. She is from Glasgow and still lives there in a house where humans are outnumbered by dogs.