First and foremost, this is a piece made from correspondence with another author here, AM83220, who provided the vast majority of the plot and patiently proofread and edited this chapter several times for me. I'm thrilled to give it life with his help and guidance.
Also, I obviously don't own Maximum Ride. James Patterson, tragically, has all canon control.
Onward!
The nighttime watch in the central surveillance room was, oddly enough, the more interesting shift for security to take on. While the monitors boasted minimal movement one evening after another, it also seemed to serve as a sort of break room for the doctors and the base director. They often gathered there to discuss their issues.
Their conversations tended to fall somewhere between tense and outright contradictory. Although the young security guard couldn't exactly call any exchange a fight, it wasn't for a lack of trying on the doctors' parts. The only force keeping each incident on a reasonably civil level was the director's unwavering calm.
He hardly understood what they were discussing. It was only a more interesting distraction from the unchanging view on the security monitors showing the corridors and the edges of the jungle that encircled their facility.
Speaking of which, he cast an unceremonious glance towards the screens out of habit, and inhaled so sharply that he nearly choked on air. He turned quickly in his swivel chair and played with the controls until the desired picture reappeared.
"Director?" he beckoned unsurely.
The conversation ceased. Each face turned to the guard.
"Yes?" came the director's acknowledgment. The guard placed a finger against the paused footage of the fifth outdoor camera.
"I… That is, do we have any humanoid creatures stationed in the jungle?"
The doctors looked at one another. The director blinked serenely.
"No," he said. "This base has only produced mammalian and reptilian recombinants. Not a one has human DNA."
The guard frowned. "What about avian?"
A murmur rose amongst the whitecoats. Their sudden concern made the guard uneasy, and his worry was only increased by the way the director immediately approached the monitor bank and leaned close to see the black and white picture. His lips thinned into a line. Something about the wisp of pale hair, long limbs, and feathered appendages on the screen had touched the director in an unspecified way. Before the increasingly anxious guard could ask, the director turned away from him and to the microphone mounted on the desk.
He pressed the button on the intercom.
"Personnel to the roof."
Max pressed her back to the southern wall of the two-story facility and couldn't help noticing the wild brush that grew against it, as well as the badly chipped and flaking paint.
"Yikes," she whispered. "Guess they forgot they still had some buddies here, huh?"
Gazzy frowned and scratched at an old, cracked panel of paint, which gave way beneath his finger and crumpled into dust atop a scraggly bush.
"I almost feel bad blowing them up," he lamented. "Like, it's just sadder, 'cause they're already…"
"Sad?" Iggy offered. Gazzy grinned and nodded.
"Okay, guys, time to focus," Max said. "Gazzy, remember to scurry like a little rat the second you get in there, 'kay? We need that alarm to get the people out."
"You know," Iggy added, "before the place goes ka-boom."
"Gotcha!" Gazzy said bravely, and, always her willing trooper, went about undoing the screws of a ventilation grate at their knees and hurried in. When she could no longer hear him rattling inside the metal ducts, Max steeled herself and tapped Iggy's hand.
"Ready for this? I'm countin' on you," she said, and moved to turn around the corner when Iggy grabbed her arm. Startled as well as irritated, Max looked back at him. Even in the dim night with only starlight to guide them, she could see worry on his face.
"What gives?" she snapped in a whisper.
"It's just… are you sure you're up for this? I mean, if you're not okay-"
Max balked. They had left the girls in a hotel to eliminate the odds of one of them getting hurt. As Nudge and Angel didn't have experience in explosives and did not provide the muscle power Max did, she'd demanded they stay out of the mission. Only Iggy and Gazzy were absolutely necessary.
She could not bear to lose another flock member. Now it seemed Iggy felt it was his duty to offer her support when there were no other girls present to be her emotional crutch, and no one else her age to be her second in command and confidant.
"Are you serious?" she hissed.
"Look, ever since what Fang and Dylan did-"
Beyond irritated and suddenly ready for bloodshed at the mentioning of those two names, Max wrenched her arm free and took off at a run around the corner before he could so much as protest. After a few seconds she could hear him running behind her, a loyal follow up rather than a chase, until they reached the eastern entrance.
A pair of poorly hinged double doors stood before them. Necessary confrontation turned to a reckless desire for violence, a need to break something. Max sprinted towards the doors without hesitation and kicked them in with a resounding bang just as an alarm went off, accompanied by the periodic flashing of red light.
She stopped and blinked.
"Uh…"
"Personnel to the roof. Evacuation in effect."
Iggy came up beside her. "That doesn't sound like a fire alarm."
"Guess they saw us coming?"
There came a sudden wail, then: the screech of another alarm on top of the repeating demand that sounded over the intercom.
That sounded more like the alarm they'd sent Gazzy in to set off.
"So," Iggy asked, "now what?"
Several whitecoats appeared in the corridor beyond the doors, running frantically to gather important belongings and papers. They didn't seem to notice the open doors and the two mutants standing just outside.
"We continue with the plan!"
Nodding, Iggy sprinted forward and spread his wings. He flew into the building at a low coast, and startled screams and protests erupted in the wake of his chaotic entrance. He whooped and laughed and sent carts and supplies clattering, then disappeared around a corner to wrangle out whatever whitecoats hid within the depths of those halls. Confident that his tactics would drive the few human stragglers out of their offices and away from the danger zone, Max sprinted into the building and shouldered roughly passed the few men and women hurrying about.
"Get a move on!" she shouted above the ruckus. "Move it or lose it, people! This place is going down!"
The couple of whitecoats still present fled in a hectic rush for an elevator at the end of the large corridor. Once she was satisfied that they'd gone, Max made her way toward the center of the facility. The pack she carried felt heavier as she ran deeper inward; the weight of an inferno was greater than the sum of its mechanics. It was the most power Iggy and Gazzy had put together in a single bomb yet, but would do its job best in the central labs where she hoped the chemical stores would provide that extra little umph.
When a Flyboy turned a corner to intercept her and fired off a shot, and the hot lead zipped by and into the top of her backpack with a burst of shredded nylon, Max felt her heart jolt painfully in her chest with dreadful expectancy.
When nothing burst against her back, Max ducked another shot and dove forward, the launch low to the ground, and slammed into the robot's stomach. It stumbled backward gracelessly before righting itself. Feeling fear and panic shoot through her, Max shrugged off her pack and cradled it closely to her chest, turned her back to the Flyboy, and sprinted on.
There was no reasoning with a robot. Still worse, a quick glance over her shoulder revealed that it had been joined by a friend. The flashing red bulbs mounted on the walls gave the entire chase a feeling more perilous than she wished. Looking forward again, Max grunted in surprise and turned just enough to slam into an oncoming Flyboy with her shoulder rather than the sack held tight in her arms. It hardly budged at the contact, and instead grabbed her shoulders tightly and shoved her back into the grasp of the other two that had finally caught up.
"Lay off!" Max snarled. With the pack hugged tightly to her middle, she high-kicked the first Flyboy in the jaw. Its head cracked backwards and it staggered, but remained upright with its skull tilted back and its shining eyes affixed to the ceiling.
An arm knocked into the side of her head with enough force to strike stars in her vision. Max stumbled to the side and smacked into the wall feeling as though her head had been split open. She tried to blink away the floating specks of silver brought on by the harsh blow while kicking out blindly. Something cracked against her boot. A mechanical knee, she hoped.
The hand of a remaining Flyboy grasped the sleeve of her jacket and wrenched her away from the wall. Screaming a string of obscenities, more concerned for the contents of her bag than the threat to her very breakable limbs, Max kicked and squirmed and bit as viciously as she could while her arms remained wrapped tightly around her burden.
The cracking of broken metal hinges rang in her ears.
The Flyboy whose head remained turned upward tumbled to the ground, its spinal flaw taken advantage of by a new attacker.
As it crumpled the smaller form behind it became visible. Silvery blue eyes met her stunned stare, light brown hair flashing crimson beneath the emergency lights.
Her stomach dropped. Here was a face she'd never expected to see again, each feature bringing to memory the cold German air, loss, pain, rage-
Omega.
The supremacy of genetic enhancement, the supposed peak of tampering, stood before her. He was a reminder of a terrible day so many months ago, and what her gut screamed was a suitable target for her pent-up temper and the grudge that remained against the long-gone Fang and Dylan.
"Director," the remaining Flyboys greeted neutrally. Disbelief stirred into anger. Director? Max thought incredulously. Her muscles tensed.
"You-!" Max growled. That he'd felled the robot failed to matter. He was there in enemy territory for reasons unknown, but she was happy to assume that his presence marked him as evil.
She threw herself back against the Flyboy that held her. The other one remaining joined into the struggle, pushed back instantly by Max's lashing kicks, and fell back against a pair of hands made of genuine flesh. Omega's next actions were hidden from Max as her captor swung her around and slammed her down. To her horror, she landed hard atop the pack and the device within struck her ribs. A faint beep sounded from inside.
"Oh, crap," she breathed.
A hand touched down on her shoulder, and Max whirled and struck instinctively. Omega stepped deftly back from her strike and blocked another punch.
"Stop," he demanded calmly, "I am not here to attack you."
"Sorry," she scoffed, "I've already met my taking bullshit quota for the month!"
Positioned for an offensive launch, Max lunged forward to strike his throat. He swung to the side to evade, but did not take the opportunity of her pass to ground her. Rather, she heard another crunch of metal and turned to see that he had spun to take down an approaching Flyboy that had regained its composure.
Confusion led to a hot and consuming desire for misdirected aggression. The betrayal and hurt she'd carried the last month burst outward and fixed itself on his passive face. She roared in fury and attacked him once again, and again he easily blocked her efforts.
"Enough," he said. "We share the same endeavors. Besides, you cannot defeat me."
"You're weirdly proud for someone whose butt I've already kicked!"
Her hand swung upward and swiped passed his eyes as her other came around to strike his cheekbone, the same way she'd taken advantage of his tracking problem in Germany long ago.
He caught the punch in his palm, closed his hand around her fist, and yanked her forward.
Pulled close to the object of her violent outbreak and practically vibrating with the desire to destroy something, Max found herself pinned by his narrowed stare and the subdued yet present power that emanated from his lowered voice. The looming threat of an explosion hardly registered.
"You can't exploit a flaw which no longer exists," he said. At the disbelieving quiver of her open mouth, Omega released her hand and straightened. "We shouldn't fight. We are on the same side."
A high-pitched keening came from the pack she'd left on the ground. Max sucked in a breath and threw herself to her knees to hastily unzip her bag. A line of red numbers met her inspection.
And they were dwindling.
The bomb's countdown had been activated. Pinned between her and the ground, the timer was triggered, and now the numbers 00:0:55 glared up at her as a bright and bloody red curse within the dark interior of its nylon sack. The loud beep had been a warning: the last minute was counting down. And with her mind still consumed by frenzied wrath, Max could barely contemplate remembering the sequence to shut it down. She rather thought the last few seconds remaining would be better spent running away.
"Maximum-"
"Zip it, Theta!" she spat. "I'd suggest hustling your butt and getting out of here if you don't feel like going up in smoke."
The fractional widening of his eyes and ambiguous glance he shot at the pack attested to his understanding of the situation. She turned and ran, and by the clapping of his soles on the tile flooring she knew he'd taken her threat seriously. There was a rustle, a click, and then static, and Max looked back to see that he'd taken a hand-held communicator from his pocket and lifted it within inches of his mouth.
"Chinooks lift off," he said clearly. "Clear area immediately."
Outside the starlight-swept clearing was under the sweeping draft created by the helicopters fleeing from the rooftop. A pair of Boeing CH-47 Chinooks had taken off, most certainly laden with human cargo. Max felt a brief stab of relief in her chest. A single human casualty was out of the question. Gazzy and Iggy had done their jobs in chasing the personnel from the building to get them beyond the explosion.
A scan of the night sky revealed the two stopped and waiting for her, braced for the oncoming pack of Flyboys that had been dispatched from the rooftop shortly after the Chinooks.
"Go!" she screamed. "Go, I'm right behind you!"
They dipped and rose, and she was heartened and relieved to watch them continue onwards away from the area, confident they could outrun the Flyboys making their way towards them.
Max sprinted across the clearing and hurriedly took to the air just as the first explosion shook the area. She cast a glance downward to see Omega fleeing into the jungle below her with a burst of heat and smoke chasing closely after him. He jumped and leapt impressively over the fence without pause and disappeared into the jungle growth.
Her wings pumped powerfully, cutting through the chilled evening winds, and she looked back towards a secondary explosion in time to watch a chunk of concrete rubble tossed into the air, but not in time to evade it.
It struck the top of her left wing with terrible force. The bone snapped and bent in a grisly manner. She choked back a shrill scream of agony that echoed through to her shoulder, through to every extension, and felt an overwhelming wave of nausea roll through her as the jungle raced upward to meet her plummeting form.
The canopy of green split with her graceless passage. Before Max could process the stinging of twigs and smacking of leaves against bare skin, her injured wing collided with a thick branch, the resulting pain so intense that for a blissful moment she lost consciousness.
What will become of our heroes! A grimy, short-lived stay in the jungle, no doubt.
Oh, Max. What a glamorous life you lead.