Keep your head down, wait and think.

Maybe you're being a little chicken, but the thought of getting stabbed with unknown nerve-poisons makes you more cautious than usual. You keep your head down and listen as hard as you can. Now you remember the birds, and realize that you need to be even more careful. They can give your position away even more clearly than a stumble or a mis-spoken word. You're lucky they haven't so far. There's a cage on the table above you right now, and even though it's moving you away from your angelic hunter (or prey) you move away and scoot behind a different, safer table.

"Don't you ever get high?" she purrs. She's moving the other way, you're safe for now. But you have to take her eventually. "This is pretty much the same, but it feels even better! Plus no come down, no hang-over, no after effects. All the girls here come by to try my stuff from time to time." The perfect big sister perhaps you think; beautiful, graceful, and able to fix you up with all the uppers and downers you can handle.

You're about to move again, to try to flank her without disturbing the birds, when something catches your eye. Sticking out off the desk-top above you... one of her books. That looks kind of like a photo album...

Of course! Crawling around on the floor they'd been out of sight but what if you could get your hands on some of those feathers? You can't throw them like she can, but you'll have a little more of a chance.

There's a marker on the floor a few feet away, and you risk stretching your arm out to get it. You can't hear her now, but you're pretty sure she's heading the wrong direction to see you. But you need a little more distraction. Even more carefully you edge out from behind your bench and send the marker spinning over to the other side of the room - in a direction that will draw her gaze away from where you are.

Clang! It rattles into a large bird cage, sending the feathered denizens inside into a frenzy.

"Clumsy!" She laughs, lightly. She must be looking that way - you hope - and you reach your hand up to grab the album off the table above you. You half expect to feel the sting of a feather biting into your knuckles, but your distraction seems to have worked. You got the album, and she doesn't seem to have noticed.

And it's exactly what you hoped for, opening it it gingerly, you find page after page of plastic pockets with long, beautiful feathers tucked in. Only problem is the only markings are in some kind of code. You can take some and go after her, but you have no idea what they'll do to her.

But they're going to slow her down in one way or another.