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

with. Why would he be a dove?”
    “Because he could be planning to stage a coup.”
    If he was expecting laughter he was disappointed. All he got from me was stony silence. One thing I didn’t miss about Jesse were his terrible jokes.
    “You know,” he continued, “it means a military takeover. And it’s pronounced the same as the sound a dove makes. Actually, it’s spelt oddly and before I knew how topronounce it I was going to make a joke about—”
    “You know, I’m really regretting getting you that dictionary. I thought your jokes would get better, not worse.”
    “It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever had,” Jesse said, then his voice turned serious: “Really, though, watch out for Cody. This might be a way for him to gain control over Aberdeen.”
    “You seriously think Cody would work with the chickens to gain more power?”
    “He didn’t want to fight them to begin with, remember? He said it would draw unwelcome attention and that he’d get more done staying out of their way. It’s not hard to imagine him working with them to get what he wants.”
    “But he was targeted today,” I argued.
    “Yeah, right before the much more successful attack on Sally. The one that actually worked.”
    Jesse was right, though I didn’t like it. If Cody was the traitor, then we were in big trouble.
    “So basically we can’t trust anyone that’s not you, me, Glen or Noah?”
    “You can trust Hazel. She’s your sister; she wouldn’t betray you.”
    I wanted to believe him. But I just kept picturing her wearing the feathery Brotherhood uniform, arguing with me about fighting the chickens. I still couldn’t trust my own sister.
    I punched the wall, hard enough for Jesse to hear the thump. If he had, he didn’t comment. “So what can wedo now?” I asked.
    There was a crackling of static through the radio. Maybe Jesse was eating something. I could picture him sitting there, bar of chocolate in hand, staring at the far-off barn and thinking.
    “What you need is some way of narrowing down the suspects. Tell each of them something secret and see who reacts. But that could take ages and you couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t pass the information on to other people.”
    I felt something tingle at the back of my brain. “Not if we did it with a specific mission. Something the chickens would want to stop. We could tell different people different information about the mission and see which information gets passed on to the chickens – that would tell us who blabbed.”
    There was a pause, then Jesse replied, excited, “Yeah, that would work. But what mission?”
    I grinned into the darkness. “I know just the thing.”

CHAPTER 9
JESSE: OPERATION HENHOUSE HUSTLE
    It really sucked being so far away from Rayna and not being able to chat easily. That was something I’d never really appreciated before the chicken apocalypse. Before if I wanted to talk to someone I could just message them on Facebook or text them. They could live hundreds of miles away and it wouldn’t really matter.
    Now I could only call Rayna on the radio and I didn’t want to do that too often in case it was intercepted, which is why I’d asked her not to contact me. Also, she was always busy with something and I was probably annoying her. During the last few days I’d been sleeping during the day and sneaking about at night. Which meant that when I actually wanted to talk to Rayna she was usually asleep. And it was rarely a good idea to talk while sneaking around. The only reason I got away with it now was the distance between me and the chickens’ barn.
    As the light from the coming dawn started brightening the horizon I put down my binoculars and stretched my shoulders. On the dew-soaked grass beside me lay my notebook, slightly damp. I picked it up and settled it in my backpack, preparing to start the hour-long hike back to the farmhouse I’d been camping in. It was a bit annoying having to walk so far every night, but sleeping in a