The Best Job in the World

a

Trust Machines story

by

clancy688

Desperately, Owen beat his wings, trying to evade the onrushing doom. Normally, it would have been an easy task, but unfortunately, he was clutching a bag with important documents in his talons, the extra weight making him about as maneuverable as a Porsche pulling a caravan. But dropping the excess weight wasn't an option, and therefore Own clenched his beak and tried to mobilize all of his remaining strength, flapping even faster than he'd believed being able to. He started climbing to the right, the change of course appearing to him like happening in slow motion. But it even looked as if he might make- 

In the next moment, the white and blue air ambulance was all over him, Owen shrieked startled as its main rotor slashed through the air at what felt like mere inches away from the tip of his left wing. It was only for a split-second, then the thundering, noisy machine rushed past him, but the danger wasn't over yet. It hauled a vortex of disturbed air in its wake, the aerial disturbance hitting him in the face like a brick wall. Owen had just a tenth of a second to realize that the vortex had taken away all his lift, then he was already stalling and tumbling down towards the bottom in an uncontrolled, deadly spiral. 

His body was almost reacting on autopilot now, his wings spreading as wide as possible, the feathers of his tail sprawling out to stop the spin. By more luck than skill he managed to halt the spiral, the wild fall yielding something between a controlled plunge and an uncontrolled dive. But the bottom was coming closer mercilessly, he could already make out individual details littering the street, potholes, beer cans, cigarette ends... there! He had lift again! In the attempt of a last-ditch maneuver, Owen beat his wings, the sinking feeling in his stomach signaling him that his plunge was slowing down, but still not enough to keep him from crashing.

Under massive strain, he forced his body into a recovering roll, the ensuing G-forces violently trying to tear the baggage from his talons. The massive forces ripped only for split seconds at him, split seconds which appeared to last for eternities, then he was climbing again. But the danger wasn't over yet. He'd lost way too much height, was already way below tree- and roof-top level. He'd transferred the energy of his vertical plunge into a horizontal motion, which meant that while he was no longer in the danger of becoming a dirty spot on the pavement, he still could crash head-on into the wall of a building. Frantically, he beat his wings, trying to reach a safe altitude again, at the same time zigzagging through the hazards of an urban environment. The shape of a woman on a balcony blurred by, her surprised yelp fading away behind him. Laundry lines and power poles threatening to behead him. An antenna nearly clipped his belly and then he was above the houses. 

A few more powerful strokes brought him back high into the air again, leveling out at a couple of hundred feet, and Owen allowed himself a few seconds of calming down. Then he turned his head and yelled a furious shriek at the air ambulance flying off in the distance, its noise already only a faint buzzing. Not that this jerk of a pilot was likely to hear his complaint. If the idiot had even noticed him! These were the moments when Owen hated his job. He'd become an air courier because he'd figured that up in the air, there wasn't any danger of being overrun by lorries, cars, trucks... a constant threat when you were working as a bicycle courier in a city. 

Yeah, so getting chopped up by a helicopter is better? He grumbled inwardly. After the appearance of Venn Machines, pilots had suddenly found their airspace being populated not only by natively born birds, but also by Venned humans whose changed shape was capable of flight. 

Of course they'd protested, even demanded that every Venn flyer had to clear his flightplan with Air Traffic Control before soaring into the skies. Which was ridiculous, of course. Animals, like eagles, had never been required to hand in flightplans, so why should Venned humans? In the end, clever lawyers had pointed out that the law wasn't requiring anything of the kind from beings who were flying without utilising any sort of external aid except their own body. And so everybody who wanted to take to the skies as a bird was free in doing so. As long as he wasn't using mechanical help or just happened to be a toy RC plane. Which, interestingly, counted as an artificial aircraft again. 

The result had been foreseeable - total anarchy in the skies. Fortunately, politics had taken notice of the problem and started several approaches at laws which tried to administer the newly arisen situation. Unfortunately, this was hardly the only area which faced profound effects out of the appearances of the Venn Machines, and together with the politicians' usual speed at solving problems, both pilots and Venn Flyers weren't expecting a new law to emerge in the next 20 years. 

Meanwhile, they'd taken the problem into their own hands. By and large, humans were reasonable folk. Venned humans capable of flight tended to stay away from busy airspace like airports. Being sucked through a turbine wasn't an experience anybody was looking forward to. And pilots, especially helicopter pilots, now tried to avoid flight levels below 300 feet. It was self protection after all. A shredded Venned human would come back to life after the duration of his change expired, giving him no further trouble after the unfortunate encounter except a nasty memory. But if the turbine which had done the shredding decided to pop out of existence in sympathy, this was generally considered a Bad Thing for the airplane attached to said turbine.

There'd already been several incidents where commercial airliners had lost an engine, but where all blood traces on the damaged parts had disappeared miraculously after a few hours to days later. All of these airplanes had managed to land safely, though it had been a really close call in one case, but quite understandably, nobody wanted to take chances anymore. 

But there was always some dumbass who decided that common sense didn't appeal to him. That or he hadn't gotten the memo. Below him, Owen saw a large red cross on the roof of a hospital floating by, apparently the landing platform of the helicopter which had nearly blotted him out of the sky. Oh, great... he thought miffed. So he'll probably come back later. Now I have to be on the lookout for that yahoo. As if flying wouldn't be straining enough even without crackpot pilots buzzing around.

He filed that thought away for later use. For now, he first had to do his job. His sharp eyes were already spotting his destination, a squat, three-floored office building in the outskirts of the town. Two flight minutes later, Owen was circling the building, searching for an opening to land. Second story, conference-room on the south side, fly through the open window. That had been his directions, and since this was a regular customer, he knew the precise location for the window which should be open. Only that today, it wasn't. 

Frigging great. Own thought scathingly. Looks like nothing's going as it should today. I absolutely hate these days. But bitching and moaning wouldn't magically provide him with a landing zone, therefore he started circling in front of the conference room and then uttered several loud shrieks. Hey there, wake up! he fumed silently. I don't want to get a rebuke from my boss for delivering too late just because you idiots were deep asleep!

Behind the windows, he could see the shadowy shapes of two men entering the room, one pointing at him and the other apparently arguing with the first. Damn, I don't have TIME for this shit! Owen thought vividly and screeched even louder, giving a loud voice to his displeasure at how things were going. Finally, one of the two seemed to have enough and, despite the other's protests, opened a pair of windows, creating a ten-feet wide aperture in the glass front, big enough for him to fly through if he retracted his wings for a moment.

Took you long enough. Owen flew one last round to enter an optimal glide path, then aborted the cycle and started a dive towards the window. He adjusted his feathers and wings by exactly considered millimeters, shedding velocity on final approach. The opening came closer and then, for a fraction of the second, he retracted his wings, passing the edges of the window without touching anything. One last powerful stroke inside the room bled away what was left of his speed, and he came to a momentary standstill in the air exactly where he'd intended to - a good ten feet away from the window and less than a feet above ground. With a thud, he let the documents bag drop on the carpet first, then his feet with their impressive talons followed, securing a stable stand on the floor.

With a satisfied shriek at his perfect landing, Owen folded his wings. This was always a more than hairy maneuver, with not a single inch of leeway, but it beat landing in the parking lot hands down. It was always a pain in the ass finding someone who'd open him the door to his client's offices. Not to mention crazed office ladies whose preferred reaction to discovering a 40-pound eagle in the parking lot seemed to be to drive over it. 

The first thing he did after landing was checking the condition of his bag. It seemed to be undamaged, small wonder considering that it was thickly cushioned and covered in sturdy leather. You had to go to great lengths to make sure that a bag survived being carried around by large eagles with talons which were normally intended to shred rabbits and other unfortunate wildlife. Next he groomed a few feathers which had been brought into disarray by his previous encounter with the air ambulance. His employer emphasized that their couriers, regardless if human or Venned into eagles, always had to look presentable. Finally, he focused his attention on his reception committee. The first man he knew, Tom, he was the one who was usually receiving him at this company. The other, though, was new... and was blubbering a shocked torrent of words. 

"...can't believe that animal has headed straight for the conference room! Just look at the size of this thing! We need to get it out now, I better call animal-control right aw-" 

"No animal!" Owen shrieked, giving the newcomer an offended stare and prompting the man's jaw to hit the bottom. Somehow, the creator of his eagle form had made it possible for him to speak, but it wasn't easy, needed a great deal of concentration and still sounded horrible with being only borderline understandable. A beak wasn't made for speaking after all, and trying to replace it had led to all kinds of aerodynamic problems. So the couriers tried to speak as little as possible, and what they spoke, they uttered in precise, minimalist statements. "Venned!" He added, flapping his wings violently, the motion making the man stepping back a few feet with fear in his eyes. 

The other man, Tom, laughed, though. "I already told you that he's not a normal eagle! Have you ever seen an eagle as big as him? Hell, he's even bigger than Haast's Eagle on New Zealand, the biggest eagle ever, and that bird has been extinct for generations! Jerome, meet Owen, one of our couriers. His company is Venning them into really large eagles so that they can fly quick and carry lots of documents. Owen, Jerome, Jerome, Owen." 

"Pleased!" Owen rasped, eyeing the man critically. Somehow, despite meeting him for the first time and not knowing anything about him, he had taken an instant dislike to him. 

"Venned? He's been a human? And he's become... that?" The last word, together with the outstretched finger, sounded like an insult, and Owen cocked his head, unsure of what he should made of this. Luckily, Tom came to his rescue. 

"Come on." He said, rolling his eyes. "I know that you're against using Venn Machines, but having a flying courier is really an advantage for us! They are a lot faster than earth-bound cour-" 

"Advantage?" Jerome asked with wide-open eyes. "That's... that's unnatural!" he spat out, glowering at Owen's feathery shape as if he was the Anti-Christ. "God has made us after His likeness! A gift handed down by Him! It's blasphemy changing ones shape! BLASPHEMY!" The finger looked like an accusing missile now, pointed directly at his head and Owen ruffled his feathers in indignation.

Great. Just great... he cursed. It fits the day that I'm now being confronted with one of these Anti-Venn psychos. Murphy's Law in full effect... 

But before Owen could fire back a fiery remark, Tom stepped in, furrowing his brows. "Okay, Jerome." he said sternly. "I'll pretend that I haven't heard that. I think Jerry wanted to talk to you, why don't you go to his office?"

"But this blasphemer-!"

"I said GO to Jerry's office!" Tom interrupted the other man harshly, glowering at him. Jerome swallowed, then gave Owen a last, hateful stare and exited the room in a rushed hurry.

"I'm sorry." Tom sighed after Jerome had left the room. "He's new and he's doing good work. It's just... he's a bit... inflexible."  

"Not your fault." Owen rasped. 

The man smiled. "Thanks. I hope you had a good flight then?" 

"Horrible. Traffic." 

"There's traffic in the air? That's a good one!" Tom chuckled, apparently taking Owen's exclamation for a joke, and his eagle's beak which didn't allow sophisticated mimics didn't make it any easier for the human to spot the erroneous nature of his assessment. Owen wasn't correcting him, though. He really had no inclination of rehashing his close call at becoming a dirty splotch among littered beer cans and cigarette stumps for the reminder of the day. One of his ex-colleague had gotten tangled in phone lines during one of his first flights as an eagle, and then crashed down head first on an busy highway. Apparently, having your crushed corpse being pressed into the asphalt by one car after the other again and again for several hours wasn't a nice experience (who'd have guessed!) and said colleague had resigned as soon as he'd turned back into human shape. 

Instead he turned, used his beak to open the bag and then looked for the documents. This flight, he only had a manifold for Tom's company, but when he had to service several clients on the same flight, they were usually color coded. He grabbed the map with his beak and put it on the floor in front of the human. Then he rummaged around in the bag and produced a ball pen, lying it next to the map. With his beak, he tipped onto the receipt tacked at the top of the map where a signature was needed.

"Sign please!" he rasped and Tom chuckled, bending down and taking the stuff from the floor. 

"I know the drill." he said, checked the documents and signed. Then he gave the receipt back to Owen who took it with his beak and tucked it away in the bag. There was one thing left, though. 

"Hungry!" he screeched and Tom furrowed his brows in consternation. But then a smile appeared on his face. 

"Ah, right." the man exclaimed, and put his hand to his head in embarrassment. "I totally forgot to ask you if you want something to eat. My bad! Okay, the meat's stored in the fridge of our coffee kitchen. Why don't you come with me? You can leave the bag here if you want." 

Owen shrugged with his wings, grabbed the bag with his beak, stored it on a table and then hopped forward. Flying cost a lot of energy, so his employer had made sure to deliver eagle-compatible food to regular customers. This way, flying couriers could tank new energy without needing to return to the headquarter. Now he followed Tom out of the door, awkwardly hopping and waddling behind him. His eagle's body was designed to fly or to rest on a tree. It most certainly wasn't designed for walking in a tight hallway which didn't offer nowhere enough space for him to stretch out his magnificent wings. 

On occasion, colleagues of Tom passed them. Some of them already knew him from previous visits and greeted him, Owen nodding back and replying with a soft screech. Others didn't and stared, with Tom having to explain who, or rather what he was first. The whole ordeal was making him uncomfortable each time anew, people looking at him as if he was some kind of exotic pet. There'd been this one time at another company when he'd visited during family day. He still had nightmares of the kids chasing him down the hallway, with him frantically looking for a way out to escape the stampede of petting madness. 

Eventually they reached the kitchen and Owen made himself wait patiently while Tom readied a small bowl and then retrieved a larger one from the fridge. Inside, there was lots of sliced meat and Tom started putting some of it into the small bow. "Just tell me when you think it's enough." he told him cheerfully and Owen nodded. 

After Tom had put half a dozen of the slices into the bow, Owen shrieked a stop and waited for Tom putting the bowl in front of him. Then he hungrily started gobbling down the meat as a whole. Interested, Tom watched. "I can't believe that you're eating that stuff raw!" he exclaimed amused. 

"Tastes like chicken!" Owen responded, his beak opening a millimeter to indicate a grin, and both the human and the eagle laughed. At first he'd been grossed out at having to eat raw meat. But apparently, eagles' stomachs didn't tolerate cooked or otherwise prepared meat. And when you were an eagle, it just felt naturally to sling down the stuff raw and unchewed. 

"Thanks!" he exclaimed after he'd finished the snack. Well, at least there was food... he thought while the last bit of chicken strip traveled down his gullet. Given today's luck, I'd have expected the fridge to be burning or something... 

"No problem." Tom grinned. "In fact, we may have a follow-up order for you. So we want you strong and healthy." 

Owen cocked his head. Follow-up order? Well, why not. But he'd been supposed to return to the headquarter as soon as he'd delivered the documents and strengthened himself. 

"Need bag." he rasped therefore. "Need phone. To ask." Every courier had to be contactable, including the eagle couriers. So his employer had given him a mobile phone which was currently resting in his bag. As they'd first tried out the concept of flying couriers, every eagle had been supplied with a normal mobile phone. None of these had survived the first day. An eagle's beak was not the optimal tool to tap on a fragile, electronic gadget. So they had been given special, protected phones. These were insanely expensive and didn't offer the same range of functions a normal mobile phone had, but they were sturdy. In fact, you could drop them from a couple of hundred feet and all which would shatter upon impact was the concrete below them. 

"Oh, don't bother." Tom said. "Shortly before you arrived, I phoned your company. That's why I came late, by the way. They told me that it's okay, they currently don't have other orders for you." 

If so... Owen shrugged. "Sure. Where to?" 

Now Tom grinned. "Oh, you know the place. Our lawyer's office, on the other side of the town. But it will take some time, we need to finish the draft first." 

Owen cocked his head. "Time?" 

"At least 40 minutes." Tom answered. "Your company said that you should wait. But an eagle in the kitchen will probably frighten our secretaries, not to mention what happens when Jerome sees you here. He'll probably start to exorcise you!" The man laughed shortly, then looked at Owen again with a smile. "So until the thing's ready, do you want to fly around a bit? I think that's more interesting to you than waiting somewhere inside." 

Eagerly, Owen nodded, feathered head bobbing up and down. Of course he wanted! In fact, being inside a building always gave him claustrophobia when he was Venned into an eagle. "Glad to!" 

"That's what I thought." The human grinned and then opened the kitchen's window. As soon as he made way for the eagle behind him, Owen catapulted himself on the window sill with a short flap and then stepped outside, his talons probing for stability, then bending themselves around the railing and giving him a secure stand. He breathed the deep fresh air through his beak, glad to be outside again. 

"Just be back in 40 minutes, all right? I'll leave the windows of the conference room open!" he heard Tom saying behind him and nodded. Then he stretched out his wings and jumped. As soon as his feet lost contact to the railing, he beat his wings powerfully, the motion letting him soar into the sky. Within seconds, the window he'd jumped out of was only a tiny speckle behind. He did a short lap of honor, wiggling his wings in a short salute to Tom who was watching from the window with a wide grin and waved back as he noticed the motion. Then Owen veered off towards the edge of the town, gaining altitude with a few more powerful wing strokes until he caught a thermal, the warm air carrying him further into the sky. 

For a few minutes, he simply relished in the feeling of gliding through the air, of being carried through the sky by the warm current. Then he started diving, doing sommersaults and immelmanns, corkscrews and rolls, whatever he put his mind up to. Without the annoying bag, he was as agile as a fighter plane and there was nothing better in the world than to soar through the skies and put his body to what no other body in the entire world could do better - flying. 

With a jubilant screech, he went into a thundering nosedive, pulling out of it in the last possible moment, his talons brushing the grass below just so gently, then shooting up into the air again like a rocket. Well, I guess... Owen thought as he already started to bank for the next maneuver, Despite all the unpleasantness which comes with it, the helicopters, the intolerant, the inconsiderate- He had to stop his train of thought for a short moment because a looping on tree-top height took every bit of concentration. But then he was level again and continued the sentiment. 

-despite all that, it's still the best job in the world!

And with a victorious cry, the eagle, sovereign of the sky, shot heavenwards again, enjoying its unlimited freedom to indulge itself in another masterful combination of flying art and beauty.