AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my MR fanfic that is going to be parallel to MR. Like Curiosity Killed the Cat by LoveLaughDanceWrite. Speaking of my great friend, she can be given the credit for this wonderful chapter since I was having problems with the beginning.

DISCLAIMER: Maximum Ride=James Patterson. Chapter One= LoveLaughDanceWrite. Reyne, James, Simon, Mari, and Sophia= ALL MINE!

HEY! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST FORGOT ME! GOSH...

Sorry Misty! (She's mine too!)

CH.1 REYNE

Let me just tell you: I've never written a single thing in my life.

I've never written a report for school, never kept a journal or diary, never tried to write a book. The only thing that can be counted as "writing"—

It's a grouping of coherent words, usually on paper.

Thank you, Sophia. Well, the only thing that can be counted as "writing" in my life is a grocery list. I think it falls under that definition. You don't have to verify for me, Soph.

So I'm sorry if this doesn't come out all pristine and perfect. I'm not an author.

What am I? Well, it's a long story.

CUT TO THE CHASE. WE'RE EXPERIMENTS.

That, there, is the cheerful spirit of us lab rats, as always brought to us by Misty. Thank you very much.

ALWAYS A PLEASURE.

So that's us: the experiments.

We sit here in a lab, and they think we don't know what they're going to do to us. They think they're so clever. Well, they're not. We're always eight steps ahead of them.

I'll take a break from the war rage to introduce us.

There's me, Reyne. Nothing special there.

Then there's James. He's a little older than me (and he likes to rub it in), taller than me (ditto), and has bigger wings than me. Yeah, that's right.

Yo.

A man of many words, that's him. But you should see him after they lock up the lab for the night. A party animal—stress on animal—like I've never seen before.

Then there's thirteen-year-old Misty, our expert on sarcasm. Probably the hardships in life that develop that in us.

YEAH, WELL, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A SUPREMELY ANNOYING GLITCH IN YOUR DNA?

That's right. There ya go.

Simon is also thirteen, blue eyes, blonde hair, real quiet. We (James and I) have been trying to set them up for years, but it never works.

He just raises an eyebrow. Of course.

Mari's eleven, and that's one kitty you really don't want to cross on a sugar high! And she wants to be a pilot. Yeah right and go figure.

She grins. She and Simon aren't really the talkative ones.

Sophia and Robbie are what we call our resident "little kids", but honestly, they're the most "alive" out of all of us. Sophia's really smart. She could've introduced herself in a novel-sized sentence, and it wouldn't even be a run-on.

But I'm too modest for that.

Sweetie, when you're modest, you don't go announcing to the world that you're modest.

Yeah, I know. Irony, see?

Sure… Note to self: Look up "irony" at the first sign of a dictionary. I could just ask her, but I wouldn't sink that low.

Which, this is me talking, so whatever.

And last, but certainly not least, is Robbie. He's nine and is the only real sibling we have, and not even by human blood. Half of his DNA was taken from the same cat as Mari's, so they both have dark hair, olive skin, and black ears and tail. He doesn't talk much, either.

I think I owe you an explanation. You're probably totally lost by now.

I don't know if you've gathered this, but we live in a lab. Every day, we're experimented on, injected, burned, and otherwise not treated like the fuzzy/feathery angels we are.

YEAH. 'CAUSE THAT WOULD BE A REAL MIRACLE, IF THEY STARTED TREATING US RIGHT.

Sad, but true.

So some of us (me, James, Simon, Sophia) had bird DNA injected into us as babies. We're not the only ones; we've seen others, from different countries and labs. But basically, this DNA gave us some cooky features. Like the wings we've only tried in a wind tunnel. Or the air sacs around our lungs we're told we have. Or the amazing sense of direction that lets us pinpoint exactly where we are.

So, yeah. That's us.

Then, some of us got injected with cat DNA (Mari and Robbie). They've got fuzzy little ears perking out of their untidy hair, tails actually growing from their tailbones, and amazing reflexes, hearing, balance, et cetera.

If you've been following along, you might realize I haven't yet mentioned Misty. Good on ya.

I'M ALWAYS THE FORGOTTEN ONE. ALWAYS.

I haven't forgotten you, Misty, I just haven't mentioned you yet. But yeah, she's kinda right. She was supposed to be a cat hybrid, but instead, they accidentally injected her with DNA from a Labrador Retriever. So now her hair won't grow out past her shoulders, she's kind of a werewolf, but lab form, and there's a funny glitch in her DNA: sometimes, she's just her normal self, human and all, and sometimes she turns into a talking Golden lab, without any control on her part.

So that's us; we live in a lab. And another experiment's about to begin.

There's a noise in the corridor. "Sam," Mari whispers.

Sam LeCreaux, the "good" scientist. He's been trying to get on our good side, thinking we don't know what's coming. But we do. Mari and Robbie have incredibly good hearing, as cats. They keep us up-to-date on what the sickos are planning.

The door opens a crack and Sam peeks through. Mari's and Robbie's eyes flash in the light. Deciding it's "safe", Sam comes in and crouches in front of my and James's crates. "I'm going to break you guys out," he says.

Normally, I would've said something scathing and/or some profanity here, but we have our plan. James takes over.

"Why?"

Sam fumbles his script. I can tell this wasn't a question he was expecting.

"Well, I've kind of taking a liking to you guys. I'm going to take you to a safe house, where they can't find you." Then I'm going to abandon you and see how you cope on your own, I finished in my head.

Sam looks at our mistrustful faces, sighs. "You don't believe me."

"Since when have you scientists ever given us a reason to believe you?" I ask, resisting the urge to spit in his face. I'd done it before. The consequences weren't pretty.

He looks into my eyes and says, "Reyne. Trust me."

Then he started working on my latch.

The plan is to let all hell break loose as soon as he opens the cage. I've—well, Mari's—heard it's been done before. We've been thinking about it for a long time; at least as long as the scientists have been planning it.

Sam lets me out of my cage and doesn't clamp an arm around my wrists or call for the Erasers, which is what they usually do, but I don't expect him to. He lets James out of his crate; he straightens up and comes to stand next to me, protectively. I feel a sudden rush of affection for him.

When each of the kids is let out, they stand behind us. I must say, it feels good to finally stretch out and not be heading for certain pain. To finally be on our way to freedom.

"When we get outside," I mutter to James out of the corner of my mouth. He nods his head fractionally.

Sam leads the way outside, pretending he's looking around, as if this all wasn't part of an experiment. They want to see how well we function in a real-world environment; he'll teach us all we need to know to survive, then leave us alone and monitor how we cope. Meaning that we won't be free. There'll be sensors, cameras, infrared. We'll never be free.

It's cold outside; I'm afraid our gritty Salvation Army clothes aren't cutting it. I see the others shiver, but I can't do anything about it. I wonder what would happen if I just took off now. I even flex my rust-colored wings experimentally, but it's not part of the plan. It's not just for me.

It never is.

YAY, WE'RE LEAVING. GOODY. WE'RE LEAVING CERTAIN DOOM AND GOING TO... CERTAIN DOOM!

Doom: the feeling or premonition of death and/or danger.

Don't worry guys, we'll be fine. We've got a plan.

There's always a plan.

The evil scientist leads us to the car. James and I are constantly looking over our shoulders, trying to figure out how far away we'd have to be to get out of range of the guns.

OF COURSE THEY HAVE GUNS.

While Misty, Mari, and Robbie have exceptional hearing, it's us bird kids that have the eyesight. I can see all the way down the barrel of a gun, pointed at me, half a mile away. Of course. Why would the gun be manned, and pointed at us, if we're escaping?

WE'RE NOT ESCAPING. WE NEVER WILL.

Suddenly, Misty's body drops to the ground and a Golden Lab stands in her place. Some colorful words stream from the retriever's jaws. "Not now!"

It's bad timing. If Robbie curls up, Simon can easily carry him, and Mari's not that much of a deadweight either. James was supposed to carry Misty, but neither of us knows if he could fly with a Golden Lab in his arms. We'd only ever flown in wind tunnels, and we'd carried weights, but we had no idea how much. Crap.

MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT!

Misty, if you have nothing positive to say, don't say anything at all.

Positive: something good, nice, pleasant; on the bright side.

IF THAT'S ALL I HAD TO SAY, POSITIVE THINGS, I'D BE SHUT UP ALL MY LIFE!

James doesn't comment. I'm generally the disciplinarian in our group.

We're at the car. It's a van. It's now or never. I look around; James shakes his head. We're in no position to be escaping.

I guess it's going to be never.

OF COURSE IT IS.

When I wake up, the world is black and white. They've injected my drugs with brains. No, the other way around; they've injected my brain with drugs, I think frantically, my thoughts becoming twisted in themselves.

Then I realize that it's just the room.

The sheets on the bed are black; the covers are white. The wall is painted with abstract lines in shades of grey. All the furniture is either black and white, except for the floor: it seems to be covered in a patchwork quilt of fuzzy black, white, and purple squares.

I like it instantly. And that's a problem.

I remember where I am and what I'm doing. I'm in another experiment. Though this is the most enjoyable I've had by far.

I have to find the others.

I open the door a crack—though, if I'm right, I'm being monitored and all the stealth in the world won't do me any good—and peer out. There seems to be a hallway lined with doors. I count them. Nine.

Well, I have six kids, I'm seven. Sam makes eight. Who's nine?

I tip-toe across the hall and open the door a crack. Simon's in a dark blue room.

Misty's in a purple one.

Mari's in a pale pink one.

Sam. I close that door quickly.

Some lady I don't know. I try not to slam it shut.

Robbie's in a red room.

Sophia's in a multi-colored one.

Finally I find who I'm looking for; James, sleeping in a dark green one. I creep inside and close the door. Then I sit on his bed and try to wake him—not an easy task. If there's ever a heavy sleeper, it's James, even though you'd think living in a lab would've driven that out of him. But no. I'm the one who has to sleep lightly enough for both of us.

"Wake up!" I hiss in his ear. Predictably, he doesn't budge.

Of course I don't, I'm SLEEPING!

Well, sleep on your own time!

It—

Okay, whatever, back to the story.

I yank his hair, tickle his feet, even go down to the bathroom and bring back water to splash on him. He doesn't even show signs of life. I try slapping him and punching him in the stomach; no go. Finally, just when I'd given up, he rolls over and looks blearily up at me.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, so now you wake up," I mutter. He makes a confused face. Did he really not feel any of that?

"We need to talk," I continue. "Do you even know what happened?"

I see him look around. Suddenly comprehension dawns on him. "We didn't—"

"No, we didn't." I cut him off with a pointed look. "So we need to figure out what to do."

"Make breakfast," he says, "for the kids. Before they wake up. It'll be a nice surprise."

It's my turn to make a bewildered face. But then James hisses, "Wasn't it your idea not to blurt out our plans here?"

Oh. Right.

Okay. "We need to get out of here, as soon as possible," I say, tugging on his wrist. "If we're going to make breakfast, duh."

We are such pros at undercover conversation.

Yep. That's us.

We tiptoe to the kitchen, mostly because we have no other excuses. We're still in our Salvation Army clothes, the same ones we'd been eating in and sleeping in for the past couple of years.

And you thought your parents didn't understand your wardrobe needs.

"Oh, no," I say, trying not to make my voice too obviously fake. "There's no food in the refrigerator!" In fact, the thing's completely stocked, but who's looking?

"We have to go get more food," James says, playing along, even though I can tell from his face that he thinks this is the stupidest fake conversation we've ever had.

And if you don't think that's a weird sentence, look again.

"Okay. I really want to surprise them, what with this being our cozy new home and all."

I'm overdoing it, I'd know that without your face telling me that, so cut it out, James.

You're too easy to needle. And it's just too fun.

Shove it.

Or what?

Or I'll shove it for you!

We look around; though I kind of hazily remember what went on last night, I have no recollection of this room. At the far end, I spot a deck. I motion to it with my head; James nods. We stride purposefully across the room, maintaining our fake conversation. Though really, if getting a moment's private conversation takes this much effort, I don't think we'll be doing it so much anymore.

I go out on the deck, shivering, and James slides the door shut behind us. I look down; there's probably only twenty feet of drop to the ground, not even. Suddenly I'm scared.

I was born—made—to fly. And yet I'm scared of it.

You must have realized that that's what I'm doing right now. We're going to have to fly, far, far away from here, so far that, unless we have sensors stuck right on us, we'll be out of reach of the house.

James quirks an eyebrow at me, but suddenly I'm a little kid again. The first time I flew was in a wind tunnel, and that had ended up disastrously. The scientists put me in, cranked up the wind. I was smashed against the nearest wall.

"C'mon. It won't be bad," he says.

"I'm not scared," I say, making a face. He won't see any weakness in me.

He makes a doubtful face but doesn't comment. Then, after a second, "We can do it together."

"Awww, you're scared," I taunt, but I take his outstretched hand nonetheless. Together, we plummet from the deck.

It takes two seconds for my brain to process what's going on, another second for it to issue the necessary command, and even less than that for me to unfurl my rust-colored wings. All thirteen feet of them. They're like a hawk's, reddish on the primary feathers, cream underneath.

I have to let go of James' hand—a little reluctantly—because he unfurls his wings too. They're the color of ash on top, a slightly lighter shade of ash underneath. His wingspan is a foot or so wider than mine.

After that, instinct takes over. I don't need to think about what to do; my wings do it for me. I wheel in the air, so exhilarated in the freedom that I don't even remember what I'm doing out here.

Finally, James points to an empty field down below. My primary feathers make some micro-adjustments and we land.

"What are we going to do?" I ask. Back to the present. "Running away didn't really work."

"We can still try it," James says, but I shake my head.

"Not now. I know it's still an experiment, and I know we're not free, but… think about it. There's food, running water, a bed to sleep in…" When he still looks unconvinced, I pull out my best card. "The kids love it."

"How do you know? We haven't talked to them."

I make a face. "If you were a lab rat, living in a cage all your life, and then suddenly they brought you to a house with freedom—okay, freedom under observation, but still, freedom—would you really want to be on the run right after that? We'll have to leave sooner or later. I'm just saying, let's take advantage of the situation."

"Whatever you want," James says. He's a little frustrated, I can tell, but I'm convinced I'm right.

"At the first sign of needles, drugs, electrodes," I list off a couple devices that were used on us shamelessly all our lives, "we can scram. But not yet. Okay?"

He nods. I think I've got him convinced.

We take off again—which is a little harder, since we don't have the 20-foot leeway of the deck—and fly back to the house, our decision made.

When we come back into the house, everyone's wide awake and their eyes are fixed on us.

"Isn't this great, guys?" I gush, back in fake conversation mode. "Looks like we're here to stay!"

Bewildered expressions, then looks of comprehension, dawn on the others. I shrug. I don't have time to explain my reasoning to them all right now, because guess who's emerging from his bedroom?

That's right. Sam LeCreaux.

"Hey, guys!" he says, all cheerful. "Did you already eat?"

NO, SORRY, BUT MY EDUCATIONAL LIFE IN A LAB KINDA LEFT COOKING OUT.

Why are you always so negative?

SORRY. I CAN STOP.

No, it's funny.

KAY.

"No," we chorus. Dr. LeCreaux gets to work on the stove.

"I have something to tell you guys," he says.

THIS IS GOING TO BE GOOD.

We all turn to him, trying to look attentive. He continues, "My daughter, Gianna, is living here with us too. She's twenty-three and she's real nice." We all look at him expectantly. That's it? "Uh, that's all. Just wanted to give you a heads-up."

So that was probably who the unknown lady was, when I was looking for James this morning.

Okay. Whatever.

In no time at all, Dr. LeCreaux has breakfast ready on the table; the tastes and fumes are enough to convince me that I was right in my decision to stay. The kids seem to understand me now too—they keep shooting grateful looks in my direction. Well, hey—if we'd run for it, this time today we'd be feasting on something super-appetizing, like desert rat!

YUM.

Yeah, I know, right?

Then suddenly, in the middle of our eating like pigs, the girl—Gianna LeCreaux—comes in.

We all fall silent, staring at her, and she returns it. She's got brown, almost auburn hair, brown eyes, and she's dressed in pajamas.

AND HERE I THOUGHT ONLY RICH PEOPLE DRESS IN PAJAMAS.

No, actually, only people who don't grow up in labs get to wear pajamas.

See what you're doing, Misty? You're getting innocent little Sophie in on your… well…

Sarcasm would be the word, I think.

Okay, sure. Sarcasm.

FOLLOWING IN MY FOOTSTEPS! I'M SO PROUD!

"So!" Gianna says, breaking the silence. "You're the adopted family Dad told me about!"

"Yeah, family of adopted mutants," Misty mutters.

"Oh, honey," Gianna croons. "Just because you're adopted doesn't mean you're a mutant. That's not a very nice thing to say about yourself!"

Um, it's kind of true. Have you seen the wings? Or the tails and ears and girl who turns into a lab randomly? I think, and just when I'm about to say so, it dawns on me.

He hasn't told her! Sam hasn't told her that we're mutants! That we're experiments!

Ooooh, I can totally see having some fun with this! I catch James' eye with a mischievous smile. He merely raises an eyebrow, but I can tell he understands.

"Gianna, what does your dad do for a living?" I ask innocently, experimentally. I see Doc looking stricken. We'll see how far this web of lies and deception goes; it'll be my little experiment!

"He's a doctor!" she says proudly. Then she turns to Sophie and says, "Oh, aren't you darling!"

Yeah, the darling who knows, like, every word in the dictionary and likes quoting it for fun, but okay.

She doesn't know. I can't believe she doesn't know!

We're all standing around Gianna in a semi-circle, rattling off stuff we need and want. Doc told her that we "need to adjust" so we're "not to go out of the house for a while", meaning she's taking care of our shopping.

Shopping! You go into a store and take what you want! That concept never fails to amaze me.

Anyways, so we're all standing around her when Misty's DNA decides to have one of its stupid little problems. She disappears, and in her place stands a Golden Retriever.

Gianna notices right away. "Who's this little puppy?"

"That's Misty, our dog," I explain before anyone else can, and give Misty-the-Dog a glare. If she dares to talk right now…

"Where's Misty the girl?"

OH, SO YOU NOTICED, DID YOU?

"She went to pick a few things up. Uh, from her room. She just told you, remember?"

Gianna buys it. "I'll get some dog stuff, too, then," she says. We all smile and nod, smile and nod, until she leaves.

Misty comes back into human form. "It wore off, and I could've changed back, but I stayed as a dog so she wouldn't suspect," she explains.

"Good," I say. "Now we have another lie to keep track of. We're not mutants, we're Sam's adopted family—" I resist the urge to spit "—and we've got a dog named Misty."

"Right," Simon says with a determined face, and everyone else nods along.

"Okay," I say, sighing. "Meeting adjourned."

A/N: So, anyone interested in finding out what happens? If you are(and even if you aren't) there is a beautiful blue button right down there. Feel free to tell me your opinions.

Thanks, THE MUSHROOM! =)