Itzel's Flight (5 minute read)
Itzel stepped forward and let Quetzal enfold the command couch around her body. The nictitating membrane of the canopy snicked closed as she grasped the controls and shuffled the big bird off of the ledge. For a moment, her sensations were confused, latent human body image merging with the biomechanical ornithopter as it fell towards the jungle canopy. She had done this hundreds of times before though, and even through the conflicting signals she was able to spread her wings and arrest her flight before it became terminal. She felt the hot thermals coming up off the jungle as they buoyed her wings, lofting her upwards. Men had once built a city down there, and the ruins were still to be seen. You couldn’t survive for long without a suit or body modification now though if you wanted to slog through that jungle. “Get back here sister! You won’t beat me this time!” Akna’s voice intruded in to her inner monologue, broadcast from her own ornithopter, several hundred meters u...