I really love Nudge, you guys. Her enthusiasm and energy are uplifting, but at the same time it's balanced by her self-loathing and desire to be normal. It's a pity JP didn't explore her character more. I don't want to be as presumptuous as to say that "this is what the author should have done," but... he shoved just about everybody under the rug, Max and Fang included.
Speaking of Max and Fang: the Fax in this chapter is just about all the romance going on in this story. TSIU is about Nudge, and Nudge is an eleven-year-old girl. She's more interested in starfish than romance.
Title taken from a line in "Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford and Sons.
[3774 words, 27 March 2015]
Even though it was unseasonably warm for a February evening, Nudge couldn't stop her teeth from chattering. She was soaked from head to toe, and Fang's borrowed leather jacked wasn't doing much to warm her. The sky, overcast and dark, wasn't helpful either—it made her feel like it was about to rain at any minute, which would mean that she'd be even worse off. And they didn't even have a campfire—their camp was set up less than five miles away from a medium-sized suburb, and Max didn't want to risk it.
Earlier that day they had raided a fairly large factory. According to the Voice in Max's head, it was responsible not only for a ridiculous carbon output, but was also part of a company that had helped fund Itexicon's seedier projects. Like the one where they wanted to wipe out half of the human race and turn the world into a Directatorship. Max and Fang had taken point and headed for the control room to do as much damage as possible, while Angel dealt with the guards. Iggy and Gazzy had split up and rigged bombs around building, placing them so they could wipe out the major points of the foundation with the push of a button. This meant that Nudge had to go in on her own, and use her (to quote Iggy) "leet haxxor skillz" to convince the security system to not alert the police and a backup squad of goons to come down on the place en masse.
She had gotten past the countermeasures, not bothering with the passcode system and instead going directly into the source. This meant that she was able to completely delete the "communications" commands from the system, instead of cancelling them one-by-one. Unfortunately, that meant that the system was aware somebody was changing things without a passcode. While it didn't trigger the wave of re-enforcements that Max had been trying to avoid, it did turn on the fire alarm. And the sprinklers.
On the bright side, Nudge thought, at least she was the only one who had gotten hit. The others didn't need to suffer because she had made a stupid dumb mistake that anybody should have seen. She shivered, leaning closer into Iggy. He had his arm slung over her shoulders and was rubbing circles into her upper arm with his thumb. Even though it wasn't especially warming, the gesture made Nudge feel comfortable. She pulled her wings in closer to her back and bit her lip. It felt like her teeth would shake out of her jaw. To stop herself from thinking about it, she focused her gaze on a spot just above Max's shoulder. The older girl was shifting around as she and Fang talked, neither of them raising their voices above a murmur. Fang's hand was on Max's shoulder and the two of them were just far apart from the group for nobody to be able to tell what they were saying.
Well, maybe Angel would know. But she wouldn't tell. And besides, she and Gazzy had nodded off earlier, curled up in sleeping bags that had started to develop holes after months on the run. They'd have to get new ones, Nudge noted absently. That meant more shoplifting. Her stomach twisted. Shoplifting sucked, because no matter how good they were at it—they were faster than the average human, tough enough to strong-arm their way past burly security guards, and smart enough to hide in places where they wouldn't get caught—it still meant having to see peoples' eyes widen and know that they were thinking something along the lines of Look at that bunch of no-good delinquents. It was enough to make her stumble, most of the time, and if it weren't for Max's reminders that this was necessary, she would never set foot into a store unless she had enough money to buy what she needed. Dumpster-diving was fine, but stealing was—different.
She shivered again, this time not from the cold.
"You okay?" Iggy asked her.
The word came out against her will. "No!" She shrugged off his arm and set her shoulders. "No, I'm not okay! This sucks, and I don't want to do it any more!"
Max started and stared. Nudge kept going.
"I'm sick of being on the run, and I'm cold and dinner was a can of kidney beans because we can't light a fire and there aren't any places around with Dumpsters, and I'm still soaked from the stupid sprinkler system and—" Her throat was burning and she knew she would cry soon, but she couldn't stop. Not now. "—And back in Phoenix, remember, when we were dealing with that jerk and his name was Ben Ratheborn and he was doing the thing with the animals, remember there was a busload of kids? And they were going to learn about shampoo or whatever, and okay yeah they didn't know at the animal testing, but at least- but at least—"
Now Fang was standing, and he was halfway towards her when the end of sentence poured out, like a glass full of water finally tipping over a counter edge and shattering.
"—But at least they didn't get shot at!" Now she was crying, and they were all staring at her. Even Gazzy and Angel were little blurry white-and-yellow blobs in her vision. "I hate people looking at me like I'm a freak! I hate only knowing things that Max gets from the Voice! I want to go to school, and be normal, and learn about things from a teacher and not from a fourth-hand textbook!"
"Nudge," Iggy said, and then Max spoke over him, her voice harsh but low.
"Nudge," she said, "I understand, really I do. But we're saving the world here. And we have to stick together, alright? We're a family. We're a Flock. You're one of the smartest ones, come on—"
"People can hear us," Fang stated, his head cocked in the direction of the suburb. "Keep it down."
Max elbowed him in the ribs and kept going. "Listen to me, Nudge. You're not a freak. You're special, improved. You're a member of this family, and you're doing the right thing, isn't that—"
"Shut up!" Nudge shrieked. Max's eyes went wide. "I don't want to do the right thing! I want to be normal!" She shucked off Fang's jacket and grabbed at her wings, crushing downy feathers under palms slick with cold sweat. She tugged at them as hard as she could, but that didn't do anything. She barely even felt it—the bases of her wings, the bit where they went into her back, didn't have much in the way of nerve endings.
She crumpled in on herself, her breath hitching as she sobbed. None of them said anything for a long moment, and eventually she collected herself.
When she sat back up, Fang's eyes flashed. "Keep it down," he said again.
"It's okay," she muttered. The hysterical anger had gone, and in its place was a hollow chilly feeling. It was like somebody had taken an ice-cream scooper to her soul and only left a little bit clinging to the edges. "I want to be normal," she repeated. "I want to go to school. I can't do this any more."
Max let out a whistling breath, and Nudge knew that the older girl was about to start in on one of her leaderly talks. Something twisted in Nudge's stomach when she realized that she couldn't handle any motivation right now, couldn't deal with being told that she wasn't a freak. She was wrong and twisted and awful, and if Max tried to reassure her otherwise—it was like she was being pulled in half, with what she knew to be true grabbing one side and what Max told her holding onto the other.
"Don't," Angel said suddenly. Nudge glanced over at her. The six-year-old had kicked herself out of her sleeping bag and was standing in between Nudge and Max and Fang, staring Max down. "Max, she's tired. Telling her that won't fix anything."
"What's the matter?" Iggy asked, but Nudge just shook her head and clamped her hands over her ears. She didn't want this, didn't want them looking at her—
And then Max's hand was on her shoulder, gripping tightly. "Listen to me, you stupid hysterical eleven-year-old!"
Max shook her hard enough for her to bite her tongue and taste blood.
Nudge took a deep shuddering breath and met her older sister's eyes. "Please don't," she said, blood dribbling down her lip. "I just—" It took her a moment to stop herself from crying. "I just want to be human."
"Well, tough," Max said, and Nudge flinched. Max kept going. "You're not human, okay? You're better. You're special. Every bit of you, down to your blood cells and your—"
"You're not helping!" Nudge shouted. She swallowed tears and kept going. "I don't want to be special. I don't want to be better or even good. I just want to be Nudge, without two dumb extra feathery appendages and with a mom and dad and—and I want—"
"To be normal," the Gasman said. His face twisted into an expression of disgust, but he didn't sound bitter. "But the normal kids, the normal grownups, they're always after us. You want that?"
Nudge sniffled and shook her head. "The ones who are after us are the bad guys. I don't want to be a bad guy or a good guy or anything. I want to go to school and learn about coral reefs and the Emancipation Proclamation and how to parse sentences and the difference between the kidneys and the liver and I want to go back home and do my homework and—"
And it wouldn't ever happen. She was a freak, and normal people hated her. Nobody would want her, not even—
Fang pushed a crumpled-up piece of paper into her hand, and she blinked.
"Wha-"
And then she looked at it.
It was a pamphlet, with an orange-and-blue color scheme. Cyan letters on the front panel proclaimed it to be from the Lerner School for Gifted Children. Nudge flipped it open.
The Lerner School for Gifted Children was founded shortly after the disbanding of Itexicon Corp. TLCfGC aims to provide all individuals dealing with genetic manipulation a place to live and learn safely, without fear of experimentation and/or invasive procedures. It is free of charge for all students under the age of 21, and offers employment opportunities for graduates.
Students of TLC are given a state-of-the-art education and, should they demonstrate excellence above and beyond the norm, opportunities to intern under leading professionals in a plethora of academic fields. The goal of TLC is for every student to graduate with at least a G. E. D. and at most a Ph. D, and for them to leave healthy and ready to work as productive adults.
If you or someone you know is dealing with a condition caused by pre- or post-natal genetic manipulation, or has dealt with developing extra-human mutations, call our toll-free number (1-800-LERNERS) to schedule an appointment. Alternatively, visit our office on 1612 K Street, Washington, DC.
"Oh my God," Nudge whispered.
A school. An honest-to-God school for freaks—she had almost forgotten about it, really. She could go to school, and maybe even graduate. She could have friends.
"How long have you been carrying that around?" Max hissed. "DC was how long ago… three months? Really, Fang—" She cut herself off and continued in a more diplomatic tone. "Nudge," she said, "I really don't like the look of this. We don't know if we can trust these people."
"Right," Iggy drawled. "Which is why you said that you hoped that maybe they'd find some of the kids from Germany." His mouth pulled into a line. "Nudge, if you go we'll miss you." He was making a point of not turning his face to her, which made her think that he was about to cry.
Angel threw her skinny arms around Nudge, who rocked back onto the ground, banging her tailbone on a branch. She barely noticed, because she was too preoccupied with hugging three people at once—her little sister, Iggy, and Max.
And then even Fang put a hand on her shoulder, and Gazzy half-wiggled, half-crawled over to hug her too, and she was crying for what felt like the tenth time that evening. Her heart was in her throat and she loved them so much and she never wanted to let go, even though they all smelled like a combination of dried sweat and plaster and smoke.
"You can not get your wings cut off," Max said. "You can get your ears pierced. Or your nose, or one lip, or… nowhere else. You can dye your hair whatever stupid color you want, put a million fuchsia strips in it, cut it pixie-style, whatever—you can't get a tattoo, and if you cut your wings off I will find you and I will kick your butt into last year back when there was still an Itex and so help me God, I will find a mad scientist and get them to sew your wings back on, do you understand me?"
"Yes," Nudge blubbered, and buried her face into Max's shoulder. "Yes, I get it."
Angel sat back on her haunches. "That's great. We need to leave now."
Nobody wanted to argue with Angel when she had that tone of voice. They shoved blankets into knapsacks, kicked leaves over the ground where their bodies had left imprints, and scrambled up the trees until they could leap into the sky without worrying about knocking into branches.
It took them about a minute.
Once they were all in the air and about a quarter-mile away from the ex-camp, Max cleared her throat.
"Okay," she said, and her voice only cracked a little. "We go south."
And they did. They flew for most of the night, only stopping when Angel and Gazzy began to hang low in the sky. When they finally did stop to sleep, the sun was beginning to break over the horizon, pale light turning the clouds from iron to wool. Nudge could barely manage to close her eyes. Her stomach was churning and her mind was racing—this was it. This was her chance to be normal, or as close as she could get to it. This was her chance to have a life, and not eat out of Dumpsters and get shot at every other week.
She was the first awake in the afternoon, when they took off again, and managed to keep pace with Max and Fang. Both of them seemed antsy, throwing glances over their shoulders every five minutes, like they expected a squad of Flyboys to show up at any minute. Occasionally Max would angle herself so she was flying barely a foot above Fang, their wings moving in perfect synchronization. If they said anything, then it was too low for Nudge to hear.
After a few hours, she ignored the anxious butterflies in her stomach and dropped back to talk to Iggy. He was flying in a 'V'-shape with Angel and Gazzy flanking him, and he raised an eyebrow at her when she angled herself above him. Like Max and Fang, they flew in synch. Unlike Max and Fang, they weren't close enough to hold hands—whatever was up with that, anyway.
They spent half an hour talking about clouds, with Iggy nodding along and occasionally putting in something. By the time Nudge flew back up to join Max and Fang, there was a lump in her throat and her eyes were hot with unshed tears. It wasn't fair. She wanted to be normal, and learn things, no matter what—but Iggy was her best friend, and Gazzy and Angel were her little brother and sister. Leaving them meant that she was a traitor and the worst Flock member ever, worse even than when Fang had left with Iggy and Gazzy because of Ari. But if she didn't leave them… she'd always feel like a freak.
The flight to D.C. took the better part of two days, and every second of it felt like an eternity—a private eternity composed mostly of the words TRAITOR and FREAK sharing headspace. Nudge found herself on the verge of tears when they touched down on the outskirts of the city, her throat closing up and stopping her from even saying Thank you. It was stupid. She was stupid. This was her family, and she was just leaving them—but she wanted to be human. She had to be normal. She couldn't live the way they did, because she was weak and stupid.
The walk to 1612 K was silent. Everybody had their windbreakers on and the hoods up, so they weren't recognized. Nobody tried to stop them, either—the streets were full of stranger groups.
1612 K itself wasn't as impressive or frightening as Nudge had hoped. It was a squat, greyish building, with a plaque that read Property of the Lerner Foundation over a steel-gray door. On either side, there were stores—a RadioShack to the left, a KFC to the right. The smell of fried chicken was making Nudge's stomach rumble. Judging from the longing looks that Max and Gazzy were throwing toward the oversized Colonel Sanders poster, she wasn't the only one.
Max swallowed and pressed the "Call" button on the intercom next to the door.
"We have a mutant here for the school thing," she said. "Do we have to show papers or are you just going to let us—"
The intercom buzzed, and the lock clicked.
The six of them headed in, with Max at the lead. Nudge was at her right side, Gazzy and Angel flanked Iggy, and Fang brought up the rear. It was a formation that they had practiced countless times after a "meeting" with a couple of businessmen had gone south and they had ended up duct-taped to chairs. Like this, they could get out ASAP.
But it didn't look like they would need to. There was only one woman in the building, sitting behind a computer and typing away with a crease of concentration in-between her eyebrows. The rest of the interior was sparsely furnished, with what looked like a miniature doctor's office in the back left corner and a set of OBAMA 08 posters decorating the walls. Lighting was provided by a set of dim fluorescent tubes, and the air smelled of Lysol and strip-mall knockoff perfume.
"Hey," Max said, before Nudge could open her mouth.
The woman typing looked up from her monitor and sighed. "I see that you've decided to rescind your previous bravado and accept assistance," she said, and brushed a strand of gray-streaked hair back behind her ear.
Max blinked. "What a what?"
"No, um, it's me who's accepting the—" Nudge started, but the woman cut her off.
"What I mean is your unacceptable behavior toward the interdisciplinary conference dedicated to help you." She pursed her lips and kept typing. "And your ham-handed address at Congress, and your complete disrespect toward the United States military. I've seen you on television, young lady, and I don't have the time or the patience to deal with your particular brand of humorous disrespect." She hit a key and the printer on her desk groaned to life and began churning out paper. "And I don't suppose you took advantage of the opportunity to register yourselves?"
Max crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, lady, you guys didn't exactly come across as the most trustworthysort when you were trying to trick us into getting observed," her fingers formed air quotes around the word, "And when registering ourselves means that some of your people are going to come after us, it means that we're not exactly raring at the bit to fill out a bunch of pointless papers."
The two glared at each other, a fifty-something Indian woman levelly meeting the gaze of the fifteen-year-old savior of the world.
Fang slipped between Nudge and Iggy to put his hand on Max's shoulder. Her mouth twisted, but she nodded once.
"We can outrun the police," Angel said sharply, her ice-blue gaze fixed on the woman. "So calling them isn't going to do anything."
She flinched.
The printer finished spitting out paper and turned itself off with a groan.
"Look," Iggy said, his voice unusually bitter, "We don't want a fight. But we're not going to trust you off the bat. Give us one good reason—"
"Guys, calm down," Nudge said. Her voice broke, and her hands had started to shake. She turned to face the older woman. "I'm really sorry that we were jerks before, but we don't have a lot of experience with trusting people. I mean like until about a year ago, we were still worried that Itex was going to stick us back in cages. I just want to go to school, okay? I don't want us to fight. We fight too much."
She forced herself to stop and shoved her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker.
The woman glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "I'm guessing that you would be the one who wants to enter the Lerner Program."
Nudge didn't trust herself to speak, so she just nodded.
"I am Annamaria Patel. I'll be escorting you to the school." At that last word, Max, Fang, and Iggy tensed, and Max moved a half-step over, so she was more directly in front of Nudge. Annamaria watched this and then clarified, "The Lerner School. It's in the countryside. Non-students aren't allowed to attend—for security reasons. Is that acceptable?"
Max frowned, but nodded assent. She hugged Nudge tightly and headed for the door. The others headed behind her, Iggy pausing to lay a hand on Nudge's shoulder.
And just like that, they left. The door shut behind them, and Nudge was alone.
She folded her arms across her chest, like Max had done a moment before. "How does this work?"
Annamaria was typing again. "I've sent an email to the relevant people. A car will come to collect you, and I'll accompany you to the Lerner School."
Nudge sat on one of the metal folding chairs by the right wall, chewed her lip, and stared at the posters on the wall. The clacking of the keyboard went on.
Further notes:
TSIU is partially me trying to convince myself that I'm not a one-trick pony, and has very little in common with anything I'm writing.
Chapters are most likely going to be on the long side. I had expected this to hit 5000 words, but I guess not. There will be about 10 chapters.
Promtrash is on indefinite hiatus. My apologies.