WAS PUSHED into the back of a truck, fenced in by so many armed guards that I couldn’t see anything.

My family had no idea where I was.

My right wing had a big hole in it, and one of its bones was probably broken.

I was completely outnumbered, going who knew where, to meet my mysterious new enemy, “Mr. Chu.”

I decided to take a nap.

“Excuse me, pardon me,” I murmured, sinking to my knees. Many of the guards immediately hunched down next to me, waiting for the daring escape I’d make by, what, slithering out between their legs?

Instead, I pushed and shouldered and kneed these things away and curled up on my left side, keeping my injured wing carefully on top. It hurt like heck, a throbbing, burning pain that reminded me with every beat of my heart that I couldn’t fly.

The guards didn’t know what to make of this. I guessed they hadn’t been programmed to shrug their shoulders or make a “Whatever” face.

They weren’t Erasers. They weren’t Flyboys. They weren’t the increasingly advanced robot soldiers that the diabolical brains-on-a-stick criminal known as the Uber-Director had created.

Heck, I didn’t know what they were. Just—killing machines with delicate heads and ankles. Kind of geeky. Machine geeks. Hey! M-Geeks.

Good. Now they had a name, at least in my head.

I was very tired. And I went to sleep.