--------------------------------8 months later--------------------------------

Caleb's POV

I was back at the school after failing miserably at my last task. Kill Sage. But I had gained some pretty valuable information. She'd mated with the blind kid and now they had a child. I almost their child until my stupid expiration date kicked in.

I got a new one every time I had an upgrade. But there was an exception here. The white coats had revived me without and upgrade. Instead, they bread Cassie and me. Not the same way Sage and that kid had done, we had it done surgically. I was now the proud father of a six year old daughter.

The white coats had genetically aged her to be six when they took her from the Petri dish and transferred her into a large test tube. We named her Samantha, Sammy for short. She was a new species, like her father. She was part tiger, part Eraser, and part avian. Her eyes were green and she had a tiger's tail along with the ears like Cassie had. Actually, she had a lot of Cassie's physical attributes. Her eyes were the same color and her hair was a blond shade like Cassie's, though Sammy was already complaining that she wanted to dye it. At six years old. I wonder how she'd behave as a teenager.

She had black wings and the Eraser teeth, like me. Unlike me, her wings had extra bones in the tips, like Sage's wings. You see when I was younger; my extra wing bones broke and settled the wrong way. I had no use for them. The white coats disabled her complete reproductive system (Cassie told them about Sage's offspring because I was dead at the time), so she couldn't do that naturally like Sage had. When they made the first generation of bird kids (Maximum, the emo one, the blind one, the annoying talkative one, the one with a screwed up digestive tract, and the devilish young one) they left that system fully functional, because they hadn't anticipated that traitor Jeb stealing them away. When they made the second generation (Sage and I) they kept those parts fully functional because they were going to breed us.

"Dad, when are we leaving? I'm tired of this place. It sucks here!" whined Sammy.

"Later. They have yet to tell us a new game plan, even though we probably won't follow it."

Sammy rolled her eyes and walked away just as Joanna, who was part fox, walked up to me.

She poked a finger into my chest as she said "You stupid imbecile! We'd have them by now if you didn't have to go and die!"

She shoved me hard against the wall. Did I mention she was a genetically enhanced fox girl? Her strength was beyond belief. Even better than mine, which was hard to believe because you couldn't even tell she had muscles.

"Leave him alone! It's not his fault he died. You think he wanted to die?" Cassie came out of practically nowhere, pushing her nowhere near as hard as Joanna had pushed me, but still pretty hard.

Sammy rolled her eyes as she watched the whole scene while popping her gum. That girl was pissing me off. True, she was a human/avian/feline/lupine hybrid, but Cassie, Joanna, and I were still her superiors. Cassie and I didn't consider ourselves parents. If we left Sammy alone in the wilderness, she could survive. She didn't need anyone to take care of her. I think knowing that gave her the attitude she had.

Nobody would've told her if she hadn't noticed one thing: she was very different than the rest of the experiments. She was a combination of three animals plus a human. I was only two. Any other experiment made was one animal only. The white coats explained to her where she came from and why she was different. They made the mistake of telling her that she was practically queen of the world because of her DNA makeup.

A door swung open to our room. That's right. We were so valued here we had our own room furnished with beds, a couch a mini fridge and even an Xbox 360.

"You're all wanted in conference room 8-B. All that they had mentioned was that it was time for debriefing," said a young looking female white coat monotonously.

It was about time.

Sage's POV

"Happy birthday to Sage, Happy birthday to you!" they all sang. Even little Arseny stood there, looking up at his mommy. He couldn't really talk yet, but he stood there, smiling at me until he fell over. Yes, Arseny was learning to walk. He was about eight months old now. Iggy was over to where Arseny had been standing to pick him up before he started crying.

I looked around the room at all the people here. Gazzy was staring at the cake, practically salivating; Nudge was bouncing up and down in her seat; Angel just sat there looking around the room with her ice blue eyes (not much of an attention span); Max stood next to Dr. Martinez with Jeb right behind her (he seemed a bit sketchy to me); Fang was next to me on my left, almost smiling; and Iggy was on my right side, a hand on my shoulder and the other arm holding Arseny.

I blew the candles out, so glad I got to actually turn fifteen. You see, all of us bird kids have preprogrammed "expiration dates". Well at least, Max and the original flock did. I wasn't so sure about myself, but Arseny definitely didn't have one considering he wasn't made in a lab. I was the youngest of all the oldest, meaning Max, Fang and Iggy had already turned fifteen. Iggy's birthday was actually a couple months ago.

"Can I have some cake now? Please?" asked Gazzy. He made those huge puppy eyes and his lower lip quiver artificially.

"Ask Sage. It's her cake," answered Dr. Martinez.

"Please Sage? Please?"

How could I deny the Gasman? He was the youngest but he ate a lot for his age. This morning he had managed to scarf down six pancakes and two cups of orange juice, along with four pieces of bacon. You should've seen what Fang had. I swear you did not want to mess with these kids when they were hungry. Sometimes, it was truly a frightening sight.

"Sure Gazzy," I said while ruffling his fluffy blond hair.

I cut the humungous cake up into pieces about five inches across. The pink frosting smeared on my fingers. Over in the corner stood Iggy with Arseny. He had crouched down to his height and was talking to him. Arseny clapped his hands twice and he and Iggy walked out of the room.

"No spoiling the surprise!" Fang had snuck up on me from behind.

"What surprise?" I asked, instantly curious.

"Nothing," he said in that sarcastic, overdramatic way of his. I knew he was trying to get to me, trying to tick me off. He sucked some pink frosting off his fingers and walked away.

That boy. We were good friends and all, but he was pretty good at getting to peoples' cores. He just knew that I had to know what was going on, so he decided to tell me that he knew, but also decided to not let me know. Does that make any sense?

Now let's update: Max and Fang were going to drop out of school. They wanted to stop going now, but Dr. Martinez said that she paid a lot to get them in and that they had to finish this year. I was kind of glad, because Arseny loved Max and if she was around then maybe I could go flying. I hadn't been flying in so long. Angel, Gazzy, and Nudge were going to go to a public school next school year. The kids there were mean and snobby, they had complained.

I felt a hand on my back, and it was Iggy's.

"Your two favorite boys got this for you."

Iggy held out a black velvet box and a handmade card done by him and Arseny. The card had a bunch of scribbles of all colors. There were words done in marker that said "Happy Birthday". The inside wasn't scribbled on, and it said "I love you so much and I never wanna lose you. Thank you for being so strong these past twelve months. Love you lots, xoxo, Iggy." The second message said, "I love you mommy!" and scribbles underneath represented Arseny's signature. A Hot Topic gift card was taped to the left side of the card. I opened the velvety feeling box and in it was a necklace with a gold ring encrusted with diamonds. The ring had Iggy's, Arseny's, and my name engraved on it.

"Oh my God Iggy, thank you so much! It's beautiful!" I exclaimed.

I hugged Iggy and picked up Arseny. I could feel the tears starting to build up, but Iggy wiped them away with his thumb. Those stubborn tears kept coming though, and soon enough they were rolling down my cheeks. Within minutes I was the center of a group hug, and even Dr. M. joined in. Jeb stayed in the corner, observing.

hi again! so like always, review! tell me what you think of the newest entry in the Iggy/Sage series!!!!