Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Friends and Flight

"We're flying... in that?!"

I sighed. Zoltan was going to be impossible on this trip.

"I think it's... cute!" Xyli offered.

"It can fly, and it holds cargo," I said, confidently slapping the bird, "That's all I'm worried about."

"You're going to get us killed," Zoltan sighed.

"Probably." I gave him a winning smile and he scowled back at me.

"Heyoo, Kora! Here are the suits!" Pan rushed out, his arms barren with three suits, one blue, one black, and one purple.

"That was fast!" Zoltan exclaimed, surprised, but Pan shrugged modestly.

"I'm good at what I do."

"Why the different colors?" I asked, taking the purple suit in my hands to examine his handiwork.

"With the masks on it'll be hard to tell who's who. I thought the colors would be helpful."

"I love them!" Xyli grinned, picking the blue one for herself.

I watched Zoltan reluctantly take the gold one and examine it for potential leaks. It was a simple hazmat suit but strongly made and not bulky.

"Are you sure they're safe?" Xyli asked, and Pan nodded.

"Positive."

"You'd better hope so," Zoltan growled, and Pan gulped at the icy look in his eyes.

"We'll put them on when we get a little closer to the plant," I suggested, as Xyli started putting hers over her clothes.

"We still have a long flight ahead of us."

As my friends climbed into the Ostrich's cockpit, I stopped for a moment to thank Pan, but he held his hand up to stop me.

"I know, I'm amazing, you don't deserve me, now go!"

I laughed at my pompous little friend and gave him a small bow. He returned the gesture and we stared at each other for a moment.

"Don't die... okay?"

"Same to you."

"And if you scratch my Ostrich, I'll never speak to you again!"

With that, he turned and walked briskly back to his laboratory, and I watched him go. Pan was practically a little brother to me. We both had dangerous jobs, and we'd both had to grow up way too fast, but we'd always counted on each other.

"Kora!"

I jumped into the chopper.

@ @ @

I had never really learned to fly a helicopter. At least, not a real helicopter. I'd played advanced simulators, though, so I knew most of the buttons. Enough, I hoped, to get us to the Plant.

This was why I didn't answer when Zoltan put on his pair of headphones and asked me if I knew what I was doing. To distract him, I asked Xyli about her unusual name, knowing how much she loved to tell the story.

Blushing a bright cherry red, she bounced a little in her chair as she began.

"My full name is Xylophone. My parents have adopted abandoned babies for years. They named them all the letters of the alphabet, starting with my eldest sister, Alexandria. After her was my brother Bruxe, then Celestia, Demaras, and Emerysn. After them, Farryn, Galileo, Helena, Indigo, Jamal, Karmi, Lux, Maverick, Nebula, Olive, Pilip, Quill, Rowen, Scarlet, Tsunami, Universe, Veronica, and finally my older brother Wolf. After all those, they found me in a crashed car after one of the bombings, and they couldn't come up with an 'X' name, so they named me Xylophone. I hated it, of course, until mum suggested we shorten it to Xyli! And I liked that. So that's my name!"

"Yeah, and then they found me in a ruined building, and I'm Zoltan. Which is better than Xylophone," Zoltan teased, and Xyli stuck her tongue out at him.

I laughed at the pair, asking, "Didn't they just adopt another kid? What're they naming him?"

"They decided to start with numbers, so he's Oney," Zoltan put in, which name Xyli laugh again.

"And that's no better than Xylophone! It'll be good to have some younger siblings for a change! Besides Zoltan."

"Hey, technically I'm older than you, they adopted me when I was three and you when you were only a few months old!"

The argument continued with laughter growing louder through the headphones in the tiny cockpit of the chopper. It felt good to laugh.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Xyli suddenly stopped laughing, bouncing up and down in her seat, pointing out the window.

My eyes were focused on a dial on my dashboard to get a good look at the massive wreckage of the Plant on the horizon, but by Xyli's, "Woah..." and Zoltan's low whistle I gathered that it must be impressive. I moved my eyes from the instrument panel to look for a decent place to land. Luckily there was an empty field only a few miles from the Plant.

Carefully and smoothly, I set the chopper down there.