After finishing my meal and properly strapping on the disintegrator, I hurriedly took to the skies. While I didn't want to attack until I was back in peak condition, with the mayor dead it was possible they might evacuate or torch the place, or that there would otherwise be some sort of activity I wouldn't want to miss.

I found the water tower and barn easily enough from my sky-high vantage point, but there were no signs of activity. There were no signs of life, even. No cars in the area, no guards standing guard. There was nothing at all to suggest this was some kind of clandestine government facility. Which was, presumably, the point. Not even humans were stupid enough to erect 'secret facility here' signs. Of course, this was all assuming I could trust my breakfast; he might have invented the whole story. This could be his uncle's farm or something.

It wasn't until the afternoon that all my claws were present and accounted for, by which time I was getting hungry again. The demands of this body were high, but to be fair, so was its performance, and hopefully I was about to get an all I can eat buffet. The only question was whether I should go in via the front door or the back.

I decided on neither, hovering slightly over the roof and aiming my disintegrator straight down. With a roar, the barn developed a third entrance. This weapon didn't seem as effective on inanimate objects as it did on flesh, but it was plenty for dusting its way through a thin bit of tin sheeting.

Dropping in, the insides were empty; it was just a regular, open barn. The barn doors were visible in one wall, as unguarded on this side as they were from the outside. A couple of horses looked at me curiously, but I couldn't see a single human anywhere. Maybe there was a basement?

"So, you came here after all," echoed a voice. It seemed to come from several places. Above a rafter, below a pile of hay, the horses' trough. Speakers? Dammit, was this a trap? Time to leave then; I flapped my wings and... couldn't move. It wasn't that my wings stopped working, or that I was paralysed. I simply wasn't allowed to fly away. I was commanded to stay.

"Oh, don't be like that. Stick around for a while. Let's have a nice little chat."

This was disturbing. It wasn't at all like how Lily felt while she was trapped, but the effect was the same. It wasn't that I couldn't move at all, but I couldn't seem to disobey the voice, however much I wanted to. No, it wasn't the voice; I was stuck even before it told me to stay. Don't tell me I was chipped after all, and someone had just activated it?! Could I slice it out, like the mantises did? Maybe, if I knew exactly where it was. But I don't. Theirs seemed to be embedded in their brain stem. Not the sort of thing I want to cut into without knowing what I was doing...

"Aww, look at the little panicking harpy. You were feeling so superior to us puny humans, but now your own body is betraying you, and you don't even know why."

Some hay shifted, and a large trapdoor slowly swung open. Up it walked a man in a very business-like suit, his face and outfit very similar to the man I'd killed outside of their A site. I struggled to aim the disintegrator at him, but my traitorous body refused to point it anywhere near him.

"I'm not very happy with you, you know. It was bad enough that you killed my brother, but even worse, you then went and killed our boss. Do you know how much this place costs to run? Even if we found a new sponsor tomorrow, there would be no way we could keep the lights on until they paid up, let alone feed everyone. We had to euthanise our whole collection. But don't worry. I'm sure that you'll make up for it."

His words triggered a burst of hopelessness in me, despite that probably not being his intent. Why was I even here? What was the point? No-one here had personally done anything to me or my friends, so I wasn't out for revenge. The police commissioner was supposed to have been my next target. Yet once I'd heard about this place, I ended up coming over without thinking. What for?

It was Lily's fault. The bit of me that came from her didn't want to leave other children to suffer the same fate. She was here to conduct a rescue. Even Leona could justify it by saying she was here to collect minions. But I'd just found out that the children here were already dead. I was here too late, so what was the point now?

Well, I could make a new reason easily enough. This guy thought he could control me. That was enough for him to instantly make the top of my shit list... From the brother thing, it sounded like he was the one on the other end of the phone back when I first escaped, too. The one delivering the control chips.

"Oh? Given up already? No, those aren't the eyes of someone who intends to surrender. Don't tell me... You actually care about those animals? Aww, you came here to mount a rescue?"

And now he'd risen above the top, blasting off into the stratosphere. This guy was going to suffer. I swung the disintegrator around, fighting against every muscle in my body, straining to point it in the right direction.

"Drop it," he said, and I very nearly did. Even though I managed to barely hang on, it disrupted my attempts to point the weapon at him, leaving me back where I started. "You can still resist? Impressive, but useless in the end. Come here, my pet."

For a brief moment I expected my feet to betray me too, to carry me over to him, but nothing came. Instead, I saw horns rise from the trapdoor, followed by pointed feline ears, pale blue hair, a human face. A fur covered torso and feather covered wings. Long claws and scaled legs. A little taller than me, sharper claws and brighter plumage, but the biggest difference was in the horns; longer and whiter, with five smaller horns spaced evenly around her head, giving the appearance of a crown. A harpy queen.

I looked into her eyes, and found myself completely unable to look away, enamoured by the beauty within. "Drop it," the man repeated, and this time I did.