Fledge by J.A. Huss

so there is no floor or ceiling. I twist my body and the ceiling becomes my floor.
    Ashur glides up next to me, then tilts his wings to stop his forward momentum. He smiles. "Not so hard, is it?"
    I laugh. "Speak for yourself. I'm about to hurl."
    "Yeah, takes a little getting used to. Whenever you change direction, in Z-space, I mean," he clarifies, "just pick some random point to be your horizon. As long as you have a horizon, you'll be fine."
    "I don't think I'll get the hang of this in one day, Ashur," I say, a little frown creeping out of my lips.
    "No, you won't, but you've got time. The second fight is pretty much like the first one, just a different patterned structure. So don't sweat it."
    I nod. "OK, well, since we're here I might as well learn how to move and turn."
    It gets a lot more fun as I figure out how to move my wings. At first the muscles feel tight and unresponsive, but we stop on the largest mushroom and Ashur shows me how to stretch and move them so that they loosen up. I end the afternoon doing flips, my body careening across the length of the game field and bumping into Ashur as he fails to escape my mad thrashing legs. If I had wings on my feet, free-G would be so much easier.
    We swim through the air back to the perimeter gravity field and I start to fall when my feet touch down but Ashur steadies me and smiles.
    "You did real well, Juncs. Tomorrow we'll do real training and fly outside, in the regular atmosphere. That way you'll be ready for the second fight."
    I nod as we walk back towards the elevator. "So, what did you and Kush talk about?"
    He palms the biometric pad and the door slides open. He waves me in and then follows. "I just said thanks, that's all." The door closes and our descent begins with a quick jolt to my stomach. "He's a Political – wants to be Aves. They do this every time, but," he stops to look at me, "don't get attached to him, Junco, they never make it."
    "Shit, Ashur, you're a real downer."
    "Sorry, just the truth."
    The door slides open on two and he squeezes me goodbye. "See ya tomorrow."
    I wave and go back to the dorm. Dinner is over and almost everyone is either sleeping or sitting quietly on their bunks. The coughing girl and Isec are playing cards in our corner of the room. I smile at Isec as I walk up. "So, did you learn anything useful today, brat?"
    His face is pretty serious, so I pause and listen. "Junco, she said the stuff she taught me today, the Aves kids have to learn by the time they are five, or she has to kill them."
    Oh shit, Esta. What the fuck?
    "She's crazy, Isec, she's full of shit. Just trying to scare you."
    "Why would she want to scare me now, Junco? It's not like I can back out."
    My cheeks puff up and then I release the air out in one long exhale as I shake my head at him. "She's having problems, Isec, that's why she's here. She's not happy with her job, so don't take what she says too serious. I'll speak to her tomorrow, and if she says this shit again, we'll get rid of her and you can train with Ashur and me."
    This satisfies him and they go back to playing. "I'm gonna go take a shower," I say, but they are busy and don't even respond.
    The showers are empty so I strip down and languish in the hot water. My hair is a lot longer than it was before the morph and I secretly wish for a good haircut so it didn't take so long to wash.
    When I'm done I walk over towards the counter to see if I can get some clothes, but no one is there and the wall has been replaced with a line of cubbies that have biometric panels on them. They are all empty except the one that says Junco, Aves 039-9.
    I pass my thumb over the panel and the transparent door slides up to allow access to another care package. I take it over to the row of benches and sit down, being careful to hike up my towel. This time I fish all the way down to the bottom and find the note first.
     
    Junco,
    You have not used the ionspray. Do you think I would put things in the package if I don't