"Uh! I am so sick of this!"
The flock and I were spread out on the floor of a cave looking at the documents form the institute in New York. I figured since I was done saving the world and all that we might as well concentrate on finding our parents again., but as usual, the search was leading nowhere.
"Argh!" I cried again , getting frustrated. "There's got to be more information. Maybe a paper we missed?" I sent the flock on a rampage through the back packs. Grabbing the closest one --- Iggy's--- I pawed through it. I didn't find any paper, but I did find two bombs.
"Max!" Fang called out suddenly. I ran over, knelt by him and took the pieces of crumpled paper from his hands. As I studied them I gasped. The were sketches, almost like the Vitruvian Man, but more like the Vitruvian Bird Man. It was a sketch of a young boy with wings. The top of the page said Matthew: and 9. I looked closer at the drawing and saw that the boy's wings weren't exactly wings, but somehow connected to his arms. The boy had striking physical features and even in the mere sketch a sad, seriousness shone through the boy's eyes. By now the flock had gathered around me, eager to so what I had found. Still shaky, I wordlessly handed the papers over to Fang. I saw him swallow hard, which is his equal to fainting from shock.
Finally Nudge broke the silence, "Well what is it? Is it about our parents, or is it more codes? I hate those codes! There so confusing! They----" Iggy clapped a hand over her mouth.
I looked at Fang. We had to tell them. "They're about more bird kids." I told them. Three astonished gasps greeted my announcement. Fang passed out the papers and we began to investigate. For the next hour we carefully examined each paper. Originally, we had thought that the flock and the erasers were the only mutants to survive past infancy. Then when we went to Germany to bust up the Itex HQ, we had found thousands of mutants and super humans. But these sketches were older than that. Way older than us even. Could we really be bird kids version 2.0?
By the end of the hour the flock and looked over 5 of the 6 sheets. We had identified five bird kids; Matthew, who was nine when the sketch was drawn, Wendy and Peter who were 4, Ozymandias who was 12, and Icarus 11 and blind. Ok, am I going crazy (very possible) or does anyone else see parallels here?
Connections are good, Max.
Whoa, voice whiplash, thank God it's not the real thing.
Fang was holding the last paper when he said, "Ah, Max? You better come here."
I obliged and looked at the paper. It was a beautiful young girl. At the top it said:
Maximum: age 12
My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped. Maximum. She had my name. She had my name! Or maybe I had her's? I began to choke as my body screamed for oxygen. Fang put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.
Connections are good, Max.
And this time it wasn't whiplash.
WHY? I cried mentally, but of course, the Voice didn't answer.
"What is it, Max?" Angel asked.
Okay, time to put on my game face and pretend as it this was just a coincidence, a sick, freaky coincidence.
Fang showed the rest of the flock the paper. "Max!" Nudge cried, "it's you. Well it's not you , but it's your name! How weird it that? I---" someone put a hand over her mouth.
"Yeah, sweetie," I said weakly. I sat down and closed my eyes, trying not to barf. Suddenly, Nudge was calling my name again,
"Max! Max! C'mere!"
I crouched by Nudge. "What is its Sweetie?
"Listen to this," she said aloud from the bottom of Maximum's paper: "Produced two eggs: Ozymandias(II) and Frances Jane on. . .Hey! Isn't that the year you, Fang, and Iggy were born? And look what else it says: location unknown."
"Wait!" I said. Nudge obediently stopped.
Location unknown? All of the paper, including Maximum's, had said "recovered". Did this mean these bird kids could still be out there? Could we help them?
Max, what do you think?
Oh, I'll tell you what I think, Voice!
"Okay guys, listen up1 how do you feel about a new mission?" Five pairs of eyes stared at me, intrigued. "Think about it; all these kids, well, you saw the date on the papers yourselves; they must be ancient. If their expiration date hasn't already kicked in (the flock winced when I said this), then 'recovered' must mean trapped at the school(more wincing). But the others, Oyz-whatever and Frances Jane have an 'unknown location', which might---just might---mean they're not at the school." I tapped Gazzy one the shoulder to refocus his attention "So," I pressed on, " I think our new mission should be to try to find these kids!" I ended my speech and waited for the other's reactions. Fang caught my eye and gave me the slightest head nod, which meant he was on board.
Iggy chimed out, "How do you expect to find them? The could be anywhere in the country, no, sorry, they could be anywhere in the world."
I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue and call him a party pooper. Instead I said "Ig, it appears bird kids have a knack for finding each other. Plus, I think I remember you saying something like this when I told you we had to save the world." Iggy shrugged, his sightless eyes almost seemed trained on me.
"I think it's a good idea, Max," Angel said, or rather yawned.
Shoot, I realized, I've gotta get these kids to bed.
"You know what?" I said, "Why don't we sleep on it and you can tell me in the morning." There was some grumbling in agreement. We did our stack thing and went to sleep.
I sat down for my watch at the mouth of the cave. I was doing less watching and more thinking. Tonight's events played out in my mind over and over again. Would it really be possible to find the other kids?
"Did you actually read this?"
I stifled a gasp. Fang had appeared out of no where. He was sitting beside me, holding Maximum's paper.
"Quit creeping up on me like that!"
Fang ignored me and began to read: "Produced two eggs: Ozymandias (II) and Frances Jane. . ."
I looked at him. What was the point the was trying to make here?
He read again, "Produced two eggs: Ozymandias (II) and Frances Jane."
I looked at him. "You don't mean---" but Fang just shrugged and left.
That night a had a dream. I was in pain like no pain I had experienced in my entire life. I writhed about on the floor in agony. Finally it stopped and a noticed something at my feet. At first I thought it was a ball, but then I saw it got smaller at the top and came to a rounded point. It was an egg
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Chapter 2
In the morning, by the powers of persuasion invested in me, I managed to convince the flock the flock to take on our mission.
"Okay, Nudge," I said finally, "do your thing."
Nudge pick up the papers and closed her eyes and, amazingly, her mouth. She held each paper in her hand for a minute, brushing her fingertips lightly over the page. Then she opened her eyes and the Nudge Channel was back on.
"Okay, well there was a man who handled these. He hated the kids, Max, he wanted to kill them, but I don't think he did. And someone else held these, I think it was that girl, Maximum. The emotions weren't, like, exactly human, you know? Bird kids seem to think differently. Anywhoo, Maximum wasn't exactly looking at the papers, just, like, filing them. But here's the weird thing, I--I think I've felt her emotions before---when we where in Colorado.
I looked at Nudge. "When," I stammered, "when was this?"
"I don't know." she said. "Like, when we were going into town or something."
"why didn't you tell me?"
"I was really young then," Nudge explained, "I figured it was just one of the flock or something."
"Well," I said, turning to the rest of the flock, "at least we know where to start."
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Chapter 3
Luckily, we were pretty near Colorado so the flight only took us an hour or two. Well, it should have taken us that long but we had to stop once for food and stop six times to pee. You would have thought that in the evil scientists' quest to make us perfect, they would have given us stronger bladders, but sadly, no.
We landed in the woods near where the town used to be and began walking from there. About a quarter of a mile later, Iggy stopped and sniffed the air.
"There was a fire around here. It was awhile ago, but it was a pretty big fire." Iggy turned in the general direction of the flock. "How big are the trees here?" he asked.
"They're pretty skinny, Iggy." I said.
He nodded, turned and started walking. Iggy being the expert and all things having to do with fire and explosions, we figured we should follow him.
When we caught up to Iggy, he was standing in front of what looked like the burnt down remains of one really large house or a couple of medium sized houses.
"What is it?" Iggy asked, able to see the disaster before him, but totally able to sense its presence.
"You were right, Iggy, there was a fire. This is the house it burned down." I looked at Nudge. She looked like she might cry.
The flock and I picked our way through the rubble and ash, looking to find out what happened. Nudge bent down to pick something up, but sprang back up. I looked at her, alarmed.
"Max! She's been here!" Nudge cried. " Maximum's been here!" Nudge picked up something else. "So have the other kids. I think they were kind of a flock." Nudge bent down again, this time she picked up a picture frame. Nudge smiled sadly at the picture. The picture was of a man and a woman, a couple probably. There was the edge of what was probably a lake in the picture as well "Something wonderful happened here," Nudge sighed, "Then something really sad happened." Suddenly Nudge looked at me. "Max, it think we should go to where ever this picture was taken. I don't know why, but I really feel we should."
"That's great, sweetie," I said, "but we really don't know anything about this photo or where it was taken. I'm sorry."
Nudge shrugged dejectedly the tossed the picture on the ground. Upon impact, the frame broke and the glass shattered. "Oh no!" Nudge cried. Fang knelt down and picked up the photo. He brought it over to me with his eyebrows raised giving me an I-think-you-should-see-this looked. he handed me the photo so that the backside was facing up. The top of it read "Directions to Lake House" and was followed by, well, directions to the lake house.
"How convenient." Fang said.
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Chapter 4
How convenient was right. What wasn't convenient was the fact that the first direction said take I97 to exit 6. The directions went by road, which meant we would have tons and tons of fun figuring out what it looked like on a map.
I'm going to spare you the time in between, but if you must know, there was a lot of yelling arguing, swearing and Iggy telling us the we were doing a worse job at reading the map than he was.
An hour later, we were flying over some major highway I'd never heard trying to read the writing on the tiny read signs below. I was peering at a sign when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at Fang, who motioned behind us.
"Flyboys."
I looked behind us and saw a swarm of twenty or so , I assuming headed after us, because I mean, who else would they be after?
"Crap." I muttered. "Yo! Flyboys at six o'clock!"
The Flock turned around and prepared for battle.
Max, you have to destroy all the flyboys.
Wow, Voice. Thanks for the tip, never would have figured that one out on my own.
No, Max, I mean you have to destroy all of them. They can't figure out where you're going.
Why? I wondered, but the Voice was silent.
As the swarm was quickly approaching, I yelled out, "Ok, make sure we get all the flyboys; we don't want any following us!"
As soon as those words had left my lips, the flyboys descended on us. I made a swift roundhouse kick to the nearest one and sent him sprawling sideways. I was about to punch him where his robot neck met his skull*, when I realized I was still holding the picture. I tried to shove it in my pocket, but a flyboy grabbed my arm. I thrust my elbow back into his chest and he let go, but not before another could grab my wrist. He started squeezing I gasped in pain, if he kept squeezing he would break my wrist! I squirmed and kicked but he didn't let go. I started to loose feeling in my hand and my fingers loosened their grip. "No!' I screamed but it was too late. The Flyboy grabbed to picture and took off. I screamed in fury and flew after him, pouncing on him and wrapping my good arm around his neck. Suddenly, I heard a scream above me. My head whipped up and I looked around. The flock had taken out most of the flyboys, but nobody seems in trouble. While I was distracted, the flyboy jerked backwards and threw me off, sending me somersaulting through the air. The flyboys were escaping.
"Iggy!" I cried.
"Way ahead of you, Max." he said, pulling out a bomb and throwing it at the receding flyboys. The bomb exploded and bits flaming flyboy flew everywhere. I looked at the falling debris and couldn't see the picture anywhere. "Flock; report!" I called. One by one they each called "here" and flew down to me.
"What are we going to do now?" Angel asked.
"Well," I said, "they tried to get the picture, but it probably blew up with them. But there's a plan. There's always a plan."
Max? You need to fly north east from here.
Uh, ok.
I'm very disappointed in you, Max.
Huh?
You should have had a back up plan. An extra copy of the directions. I should not have to do everything for you. This is a very important mission.
When did you become so interested?
. . .
I sighed. "Okay, if we head north east, we'll still be going the right way. Let's go." I began to fly in the direction my internal compas told me was right.