Revenge of the Giant Robot Chickens by Alex McCall Read Free Book Online

“What was that?” he asked.
    I could only shrug. I didn’t know.

CHAPTER 8
    “So you have no idea what that thing was? It’s an egg-nigma?”
    I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. My walkie-talkie was sitting on my bedside table, Jesse’s voice floating through it. He’d finally got round to calling me and I’d just finished filling him in on the attacks that day.
    “Nope,” I said. “I think Hazel might have an idea but she’s not told me yet – because Blake was there.”
    “Shame they didn’t eat him as well.” Jesse didn’t really know Blake. He’d been banned from council meetings since he make some joke about Cody trying to ‘rule the roost’. But he knew how I felt about Blake.
    “We need him,” I reminded Jesse quietly, though privately I agreed. “The longer we have him the more effective we’ll be.”
    “Unless he’s the spy.”
    Now there was something I didn’t want to think about. We knew it had to be someone on the council, but Blake was too useful. I hoped it wasn’t him.
    “Who do you think it is?” I asked.
    “Well, I…” Jesse’s voice cut off for a couple of minutes. Then it was back, though fuzzy with static. “Sorry, a chicken just flew over. Didn’t want to risk it landing or anything.”
    My heart rate settled back to normal. “Where are you, anyway?”
    “Just scouting out the chickens’ base.”
    “What?” I sat bolt upright in bed. “Why are you talking to me while doing that?”
    “Relax.” Jesse’s voice sounded almost sleepy. “I’m miles away, looking at it through binoculars. I’ll see anything coming before it gets to me, and I’ll hide. Besides, it’s best to do this at night. I’m harder to see.”
    “What does it look like?”
    “A huge barn – almost the size of an aircraft hangar – all big and red. They must have built it from scratch.”
    I lay back down. “Well, where is it? How easy is it to get to?”
    His voice went quiet, though his tone stayed the same. “Not that easy. They’ve built it right by Kemnay.”
    “Your hometown? That’s lucky.”
    “Not that lucky.” Jesse sounded a bit bitter. “They’re out in the country, miles from anywhere that isn’t a farm, and it looks like they’ve levelled a fair amount of the village so there’s no chance of hiding there. It’s improved the place but it’s still annoying. They’ve got a big fence round the barn that’s probably electric. Half of the site is bordered by the River Don. I mean it isn’t a big river but it’ll be tricky to cross without our weapons getting soaked. So it’ll be hard to attack and even harder to sneak anyone out.”
    “Sounds a pain.”
    “I don’t know,” Jesse said musingly. “With the right plan it should be doable…” He tailed off.
    “Jesse,” I told him sternly, “do not try and take that place on by yourself. Just find out what you can and get back here.”
    “Sure, sure.”
    “I mean it.”
    “Alright, alright. I’m not stupid.”
    I wasn’t convinced. Great. More reason to worry.
    “So, anyway. Traitors?” I diverted our conversation back to where we’d begun.
    “Yeah, sorry.” There was a pause for a moment, as if he was looking at notes. “Well, it has to be someone in the council. No one else should know all the information they’re using to get to us. They’re hitting too many supply runs, finding too many hidden bases. So that’s you, Blake, Noah, Cody, Glen, Hazel, Deborah, Jeremy and Percy, I guess. It’s not Sally, we know that much. We know it’s not you. Glen isn’t at any council meetings. I really doubt it’d be Noah.”
    “That still leaves us with six people. You don’t really think it would be Cody, do you?”
    “You never know,” Jesse replied. “Cody could be a dove.”
    I stared silently at the ceiling above me. I knew Jesse was trying to make some sort of dumb joke but I couldn’t figure out where he was going with it.
    “OK,” I said, eventually giving in, “get it over