Golden Wings

One of the children was falling, a wing dangling uselessly in the air.

“Moulting,” Peter thought savagely, the parents must have left it too late. Shouldn’t have entered the child.

There was a scream from the crowd as the small body hit the ground, followed by a gasp and a sigh.

“Them,” muttered the man standing next to him, pointing. “Poor sods!”

There was no time for that though, not whilst his was still up in the air. He trained his binoculars on the evening sky.

“Jeez,” the man was saying, looking up now. “Jeez.”

Peter switched from one child to another, searching the colours splashed across their wings. Eduardo was still up there, still flying strong. He spat on the ground. Nobody should have to go through this.

“Different in my day,” he muttered, but the man was paying no attention now. “Different!” he said again, more loudly.

“Yeah.”

It didn’t do to take your eyes off them, Peter thought. Eduardo was flying steadily upwards, not the first, he’d told him not to be the first, said he had to reserve his strength - but he was there, in the front group. A good position to move from when ….

When it was time for the Judgement.

“Do I have to?” his son had asked whilst they’d been training.

“Yes,” he’d replied grimly, “if you want to live…”

Swing, duck, dive - it was all coordination. He’d tried to show him how, but his body no longer obeyed, and he’d forgotten what it was like, and of course nowadays….

Nowadays they went in for the kill.

He trained his glasses again, watched them as they climbed higher.

“Yours?” he asked.

“Red,” the man replied.

Paul nodded. There were several reds. He debated which one it was, thought about asking, decided against it.

“Two flashes,” the man said, reading his mind. Two flashes - Paul picked the child up, he seemed to be doing alright.

“And yours?”

“Yellow - three.”

He looked across, saw the man nod acknowledgement.

“First time?” asked Paul.

The man grunted, said nothing.

“Second for me,” Paul replied. He went back to peering through the binoculars.

The children were circling now at their final height, cautiously keeping their distance from each other. It was basic tactics; you didn’t want to be too near the slow ones - the ones who didn’t think fast enough, the ones who didn’t react in time, the ones whose muscles simply didn’t respond. If they were going to be singled out you wanted to stay a long way away.

He scanned around, looking for the Judges. They would be waiting, probably discussing tactics. He knew who two of them were, always made a point of being pleasant, he had his contacts. A couple of men from the far side of town, earning a little extra. Childless, too - a prequsite.

That would leave two more, and with only twenty five children they’d be working in pairs. He’d spent a lot of time on their likely stragegy.

“If it’s pairs,” he’d told his son, “they’re going to come in at you like this,” and he’d mimed his two hands approaching. “Then one of them will probably circle, take your attention away, whlst the other one either goes below or dives in from above. You have to be aware of that. And while you’re concentrating on the attacker, his mate will be gauging you, coming in at your weak spot. You get three goes; if you get touched every time -.”

He paused.

“It’s their right to kill you.”

He’d never known any child survive the kill. They would come in, tumble you over, follow you down so that you didn’t right yourself. In his day -.

He focused his glasses, picked out Eduardo again, then scanned round the sky. There - yes, it had to be! Four dots in the distance - and the rest of the crowd had seen them too, for now there was an audible sigh.

“Bastards!” the man said.

Paul glanced sideways, resumed watching again. They were approaching slowly, taking their time. From where they were the children would be clearly discernible. They were going to wait - and assess.

“I know them all.”

Paul was surprised by this. Not only was it unlikely, you just didn’t talk about it. Not with strangers.. He shook his head, carried on looking again.

“Bastards!”

“I heard you the first time,” he said.

It was dangerous. You didn’t want to be around people like that.

Up above, the Judges had begun to circle slowly. Paul watched them with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as they approached.

There was no doubt about it. They were homing in, zoning out the others, cutting through, dividing the pack.

And now he realised, heart-stoppingly, that it was Eduardo they were after.

Quick as a flash the child had gone, twisting and soaring, leaving his pursuers behind.

But this was no ordinary pack.

Normally they went for you in pairs, Paul knew, but today -

Today it was all four of them.

“Unfair!”

The cry escaped from his mouth involuntarily as a shaking began in his boots.

The man glanced over at him sarcastically.

There were three of the Judges now, focussed, driving, but it was the fourth you always had to watch for. Paul scanned around the sky carefully, If he couldn’t pick the fourth up, what chance did the child have?

There!

“Bastard!”

The fourth was coming in from above, out of the sun, invisible.

Even so, Eduardo put up a fight, picking him up at the last moment, dodging and diving and almost getting away with it but then -

A groan went up from the crowd.

Touched!

A feather wafted towards the ground.

In that moment of triumph the Judges gathered together, conversing, flitting in and out of their little group. That had just been too easy - …

Paul knew that it could go either way now. Sometimes they would be happy to make a point, and then move on. Childless they might be, but they had family, brothers and sisters, and none of them wanted to be ostracised, but still, you you never knew - …

Never knew what pressures there might be …

He’d seen it all before, heard about what went on. He shuddered involuntarily and turned away from that part of his mind dwelling on the past. It was up to the Judges now -

They were attacking again, and in that instant Paul knew.

A deep and contorted groan escaped from his lips.

Again and again his child fled and escaped, and again and again they came after him. The harder Eduardo tried, and the more desperate he became, the more determined the Judges grew.

And now he was cornered and there was nowhere to go, and suddenly there were two above and one coming in from either side and he’d had enough, he just collapsed, given up, and it was the second time now, and even as the Judges retreated Paul could see that Eduardo hadn’t the heart to continue …

“Go Eduardo, go!” Paul shouted out in his agony, but the child was far too far away to ever hear - and the Judges, who had retreated, were looking and laughing - yes, even laughing! - and then as if in slow motion they regrouped, spread out, fanned wide, and there was no way a child was going to get away from them now, no way, and Paul felt his blood drain away from his heart and a faintness touch his head and as they moved in Eduard was hardly trying now, they barely bothered to coordinate, a feather drifted away and they were above him, crowding him down, pushing him towards the ground -

“No!”

Beside him the man looked sympathetic - and then he spoke.

“I can help.”

Paul didn’t hear him the first time, but then it went in.

“Help!”

“You want me to help?”

Paul looked across at him in mute horror, his eyes meeting the man’s eyes, his mind almost beyond itself.

The man was speaking calmly.

“The Party …”

“Yes!” A shriek went up from the very well of Paul’s being.

The man snorted derisively, muttered into his wrist, and the four men crowding the child broke apart, one diving underneath -

“Everything?”

“Everything!”