Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens Read online

  The conversation was always the same, different people going through the same motions. It would be about TV shows or YouTube videos from when there was TV and YouTube. Games that they’d played on the Xbox or PlayStation. Causal stuff, like you’d hear in any playground.

  And sometimes, when someone had had a bad day or the monotony was getting hard to handle, they’d talk about their families. Where they were, if they were still free. Everyone had given up hope that any parents were still free – the Catchers took the adults first – but there were older and younger brothers and sisters that no one knew about.

  I could hear a couple of girls talking about it.

  “I mean, my sister was smart,” one of them was saying. “She was in the Guides and everything. I’m sure she’s OK.”

  I wasn’t sure. Guides were tough, but being tough hadn’t helped the army.

  “And we don’t know the chickens attacked everywhere in Scotland. They could just have hit the cities. Maybe if we got far enough away we’d be safe. We should try it some time. Get as much food as we can and just follow the train lines south.”

  No one who went outside the city ever came back. I mean, it might be that they got to safety. Or they could have just been captured. I know which one I thought was more likely.

  The other girl was smarter than her friend.

  “Look,” she said, putting an arm round her friend’s shoulders. “If there was help out there then they’d come and get us. No adult in Aberdeen managed to hide for more than a few days. We’re safe here. It wouldn’t be smart to leave.”

  I was just nodding to myself when the first girl burst into tears.

  “I miss my sister so much. Where is she? Where could she have gone?”

  And that was the worst thing. No matter what we told ourselves, whether we thought our family and friends were captured or whether we hoped they had escaped somewhere, we just didn’t know. We had lots of thoughts, lots of guesses – but in the end they were worth nothing.

  The girl’s sobbing was beginning to get to me, reminding me of my brother and how much I missed him. I closed my notebook and got up, ready to leave. If Noah wanted me, he could find me in my room.

  I’d just reached the door when it slid open and the Boss himself was standing there. He smiled at me then noticed the girl wailing. A frown creased his brow and he gently pulled me through the door.

  “Do you know what’s up with her?” he asked, sliding the door shut on the noise.

  “She misses her family.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “We all miss our families. Think she’ll be OK?”

  I shrugged. “For a while.”

  He nodded. There wasn’t really much else that could be said.

  “What do you think of that group up at the library?”

  I frowned at him. Was I about to be told off?

  “I don’t know. Like we said, I never saw them. They must be reasonably organised, to have survived this long. They knew there was a Catcher in the area before us as well; they’d cleared out. Though I guess they could just have a good view. Do you agree with Sam? You think I shouldn’t have left the supplies?”

  He shook his head. “Look Jesse, whatever Sam said, you made the right call. You do know that, right?”

  I sighed but nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  Then he fixed me with that special look of his that let me know trouble was coming. “I’m glad you got back. I’ve got a special job for you.”

  I grinned at him, though my heart had started fluttering a bit. I ran through everything that it could be in my head, but nothing I could think of was that bad. “Oh?”

  He nodded. “The Ambassador’s back.”

  “Huh,” was all I could think to say, as the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  This was going to be terrible.

  Chapter 3

  When the end had come most people had survived by grouping together, like the Train Station Gang. The chickens had targeted the adults first and foremost and ignored everyone under the age of sixteen. A lot of us didn’t know how to look after ourselves, so it was either club together or get grabbed.

  The Ambassador wasn’t like that. I wasn’t sure what her real name was, but she survived by herself. She travelled around, finding each of the groups and trying to befriend them. I think she gave Noah the idea of trying to make friends with the guys at the library. She probably knew more about Aberdeen as it was now than anyone else.

  She was also a little scary. And she was yet another person who didn’t like me. So whatever involved her probably wasn’t that good for me.

  Noah took me along the train to where she sat, passing back through the dining carriage on the way. It was quiet again, full of kids just talking and reading. None of them looked up as I passed.

  The Ambassador was in a compartment at the end. Like almost everyone else in the world she was taller than me and built quite solidly. Not that she was fat (no one was fat any more), but there was no question that she had muscles. At thirteen, she was a year older than me and a year younger than Noah. Her hair had been long to begin with, and was now bound back in an impressively large ponytail.

  She stood up from the bed and glared at us as we came in. Or maybe it was just at me. I returned the glare with a measured stare.

  “So what’s this about?” I asked.

  She looked at Noah and this time she was definitely glaring.

  “Him?” she said. She clearly wasn’t impressed.

  Noah shrugged. “Is there a problem?”

  “The joke-teller. You’re sending him.”

  I don’t like people talking like I’m not there, so I chose this moment to butt in. “Sending me where?”

  “Noah, you know how important this could be,” the Ambassador said, ignoring me. “I was expecting you to come with me yourself, or at least send someone important. Why him?”

  “Why him what?” I asked. The Ambassador shot me a look but didn’t answer. I felt the need to get a response from her.

  “All right. How long do chickens work?” She still didn’t reply, so I finished the joke for her. “All around the cluck.”

  She stared at me for a moment longer, then looked back at Noah. “You see?” she said.

  Noah scratched the back of his neck and kicked me gently on the leg. “Jesse, stop being an idiot. This is important.”

  “All right. I’ll cluck up.”

  He shook his head and started leaving. “He’s the one you’re getting. Have fun.” Then he slid the door shut behind him and was gone.

  The Ambassador looked at me levelly for a moment, then sighed. She sat back down and gestured that I should as well, so I perched on the bed across from her.

  “So what’s the job?” I asked.

  She shrugged, then said, “I think I might have a way to take down the chickens.”

  I stared at her for a second then swallowed.

  “You’re joking.”

  “I believe joking’s your thing,” she replied.

  “All right, I’ll bite. How?”

  She looked annoyed for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  I smirked. “OK, so you have a way to take down the chickens, but you don’t know what it is?”

  She took a deep breath and seemed to count to ten in her head. “I’ve run across this guy who might know. He’s been living in Aberdeen University and when I last talked to him he said that he was close to discovering something.”

  I thought about it for a second. It might be possible. And if the guy was telling the truth then this could be huge. “Where do I come in?”

  For the first time she looked angry, not just annoyed. “This guy’s a bit of a jerk. Even worse than you. He won’t tell me what it is because he reckons I don’t belong to any group. He wants a representative of one of the bigger groups in the city to guarantee his demands will be met.”

  “His demands?”

  “Yeah. He wants food and clothing. And a few other things I think.”


  I nodded. There were tonnes of clothes and enough food that we didn’t have to worry for a while. Luckily there weren’t that many of us.

  “Well that shouldn’t be too hard. Should I load up some stuff now?”

  “He wants it on a regular basis.”

  That was more of a problem. A one-off gift of food? Not really an issue. Giving it to him weekly, or even monthly, would be much harder. And that wasn’t counting having to carry it across the city to him if he was set on staying at the university. That would be incredibly dangerous.

  “Does Noah know about this?”

  She stood up, towering over me. “Of course he knows. And he agrees with me. If the information turns out to be good then he’s willing to take the risk.”

  “Of course he is.” I got up as well. Having the Ambassador looming over me was unsettling. “So when do we set off?”

  She gestured towards the door. “Right now, of course. Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”

  All that I had left in the world was a backpack that I kept stowed under my bed. I can’t say that anything in it was exactly mine. It was filled with stuff I’d nicked from the various shops around, especially the nearby camping shop. It had been put together in case I ever got chucked out of the gang or they came under attack and I had to run. This seemed pretty close to getting chucked out, so I heaved it up on to my back and joined the Ambassador on the platform.

  She saw me and raised an eyebrow. I could see that she’d got a similar bag on her back.

  “Great minds,” I said to her. She huffed, obviously insulted, and walked away without saying anything.

  “So are we bringing this guy any food or anything?” I asked, hurrying to catch up with her. I couldn’t see any extra supplies on her, though she might have had some in her backpack. She shook her head.

  “No, just seeing you will be enough.”

  “Yeah, right. When are things ever this easy? How will he know that you didn’t just grab some random kid?”

  The slight hesitation before she took her next step told me that she hadn’t thought of that, but she quickly recovered. “That would be a problem no matter who I brought. This guy is smart, though. He’ll see sense.”

  She didn’t say anything else, just led the way over the turnstiles and out to the front of the train station, where there was a huge empty foyer. The place gave me the creeps, especially when I was the only one there. Maybe it was the size, and feeling so alone where there should have been so many people. Maybe it was memories of the day the chickens came. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist. But I didn’t really like being there.

  Instead of taking us out of the front door, the Ambassador led us straight ahead to the bus depot. I followed, frowning.

  “Which way are we going anyway?”

  She didn’t look around. “We’re going to head along the quay then get up on to Union Street where it turns into King Street. Then we just follow it until we get to the university.”

  I stared at her for a moment. I didn’t know the names of all the streets around here but I knew roughly what she meant. “We have to walk past the quay? That’s kind of out in the open, isn’t it? Why don’t we just get on to Union Street right away and follow that?”

  She shook her head, slowing just enough for me to walk alongside her. “Union Street isn’t safe.”

  “Why?” I’d heard that before from Noah. I guess he’d heard it from the Ambassador, but I didn’t know the reason.

  “It just isn’t. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  I was pretty sure that I’d believe anything at this point, but I didn’t press the issue. If she wasn’t going to tell me then she wasn’t going to tell me and nothing I said or did would change her mind.

  By this point we were at the bus depot. The gates to the street were open so we headed towards them.

  “So…” I began but she cut me off.

  “Are you going to talk the entire way there? ‘Cause that’s going to get old really fast.”

  “You might find that you grow to like my conversation.”

  “I really doubt it. You never talk about anything sensible.”

  “You don’t know me, so how do you know that?”

  I wasn’t really offended, but it was nice to talk about something, even if it was me.

  She sniffed, cautiously making her way through the gates and out on to the road beyond. It was a dual carriageway, cluttered with cars jumbled together. Beyond the mess I could see a white metal fence. I’d been out here a few times and knew that it protected a clear strip of land and then the ships that still lay in the harbour. There was something pretty creepy about it. It was yet another place where I didn’t like to go, though at least I wasn’t alone. To my knowledge no one had tried getting on the ships.

  We began moving carefully through the cars. We’d almost got to the traffic lights before she answered.

  “I’ve heard enough about you to know. All you ever do is make jokes.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, fair point. But there’s a reason behind it.”

  “Oh, what? To annoy everyone?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why?”

  I shook my head. “Oh, it doesn’t work like that. You have to tell me stuff before I’ll tell you anything.”

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  Her voice came out a bit loud and we both froze. I was pretty sure that we were safe this close to base. If there was anything around then they’d have been spotted by our lookouts a while ago. Noah had put them all around the station and Union Square. They could probably see us right now. But there was nothing that would get us caught faster than being careless.

  After about five minutes we unfroze and started walking again, staying close to the buildings. If a chicken did come for us we might be able to get inside and hide.

  “Because you know more about me than I know about you,” I hissed to her. “You know who I am and probably where I come from. I don’t know where you came from or why you don’t hang around with groups like everyone else. I don’t even know your name.”

  She didn’t answer me, just kept on walking, not saying anything. I trudged along behind her. I felt a bit ashamed about my outburst, but why should I trust her when she obviously didn’t trust me?

  After a few minutes we came to a wide street with no cover whatsoever. I took a deep breath and dashed up it, only stopping when it had safely narrowed again. I turned back, expecting to see the Ambassador following me but she was just standing there, looking at me like I was an idiot.

  “Come on,” I called back to her.

  “We’re not going that way.” She pointed along the road that we had been following, which led further along the quay. “We’re going this way. We can’t go on to Union Street.”

  I was beginning to really want to know what was on Union Street. Whatever it was really seemed to have her spooked. I tried to smile reassuringly at her.

  “We’ll only be on Union Street for a short while. Trust me in this.”

  Maybe something I said earlier had stuck because she took a deep breath then dashed over to where I was standing. The street wasn’t that narrow. A giant chicken would have been able to fit in here. But it was still less dangerous than the quay had been.

  “If we get caught I’ll never forgive you,” The Ambassador hissed at me. I rolled my eyes.

  “Yes, your Ambassadorness.”

  The street wasn’t that long but it seemed to take ages to walk up it. It was only when we were getting to the end that I realised that the Ambassador was dawdling. She really didn’t want to go there.

  From a purely tactical sense I agreed with her. Union Street was the main street in Aberdeen and that meant that it was wide. A whole army of giant chickens could march up it and we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop them. If we were spotted, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

  But King Street was almost as big. I didn’t know my way around the city as well as she did but if
the Ambassador had problems with Union Street because of its size then she could probably have found a better way. There was definitely something wrong here. If something could freak out the Ambassador that badly then it couldn’t be anything good.

  Finally we reached Union Street. I took a quick look around before darting back to the Ambassador.

  “I can’t see anything,” I told her. It suddenly occurred to me that the chicken I’d seen earlier could be around here, but I decided that she didn’t need to know that right now. She was getting panicky enough as it was. “We should make it.”

  She nodded, trying to hide her emotions behind a mask of confidence. I could respect that. “Then let’s go.”

  We ran for the corner where Union Street turned into King Street. Whenever there was a chicken around I liked to move slowly. I didn’t know much about chickens, but from what I remembered from a documentary they could only see movement. Or was that dinosaurs? Anyway, moving slowly and carefully seemed like a good idea. But when there weren’t any around it was even better to move fast and get into cover, instead of being left out in the open.

  I glanced down Union Street, just to see if I could see anything that could make the Ambassador that scared. I thought I caught a glimpse of something white in the distance but we were in cover before I could get a good look.

  The Ambassador was gasping as if she’d just run a marathon, instead of the short distance. I decided that the white thing in the distance was yet another thing that she didn’t need to know about. Instead I pulled a bottle of water out of my backpack and offered it to her. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She took a quick gulp from the bottle before straightening up and nodding. “Yes. Thanks, Jesse.”

  I think it might have been the first time she used my name.

  “No problem, Ambassador.”

  She had started walking forward again but stopped, uncertain. Then she said. “You don’t need to call me that. They just called me that because I move between the groups. My name is Rayna.”

  I smiled. Progress.