artificial legs. He had no right foot to receive and transmit information to his brain. There was no tension in the pedal, nothing pushing against his foot to help make critical flight decisions. He would have questioned his ability to fly if he had that luxury; he did not. He saw a small screw rolling around and vibrating on the floor near the copilot’s seat. He unsecured the leg from his stump and picked up the screw. He dropped the screw into the cup of the leg. He returned the stump to the cup and resecured the leg. It was a painful solution, but a necessary one. The tension and pushback of the pedal would be in direct correlation to the pain he felt in his stump as the sharp screw pushed harder and harder into the remnants of his right leg. Problem solved, he was ready to fly.
Seven placed the headphones on and checked the radio communications. He confirmed that they were functioning properly when he heard the word “Siete” emitting from the speaker. He looked over his shoulder and saw Cabra wearing a headset and settling himself into the copilot’s seat. The boy was smiling, his eyes open wide, taking it all in.
Seven felt himself stop breathing. It wasn’t by choice. He just stopped. He initially didn’t know what could have caused such a reaction, but the answer quickly came to him. The thirteen-year-old boy was seated to his right in a helicopter that was about to take flight. He instantly thought of Al. He pictured the lifeless body of his friend bouncing and shifting about in the copilot’s chair, blood seeping from the hole in his flight helmet. He redirected the boy to the fabric bench in the cargo area. “Alright, we’ll see if a goat can fly, but you gotta ride in the back,” he said as he took a deep, gasping breath.
He powered up the aged and battered Huey and pushed his stump into the screw until the machine lifted from the ground. The girl was as strong in the air as she sounded on the ground. Seven took her north and away from the location of the farmhouse. Anything in the air over the rural area would draw attention. It was a quick test flight but long enough to deem the chopper airworthy and the screw in the prosthetic a valid solution. Goat never stopped smiling throughout the entire flight.