Part 1: The Plan…Goes Wrong

Martinez House—Headquarters

"Not now, Mom, we're trying to develop a plot against Max and Fang, bending high-tech computer programs and satellite phone signals to our will!" The Gasman called to Dr. Martinez, in her own voice, in answer to her question about being hungry.

Iggy rolled his eyes—they weren't worth much else—and motioned Gazzy to be quiet. They could trust Mom to keep their secret, but Iggy didn't want any chances taken. Nudge was, for the moment, quiet, as Iggy explained his rough outline.

"Ok, Max is in Italy and Fang's in Canada. Even if they're busy rallying their groups for the next Itex attack, they'll still miss each other. That's what'll lead to them calling—"

"That's where I come in, then," Nudge broke in, half telling, half asking. At Iggy's nod, she continued somewhat tentatively, "and keep track of their calls. If any calls go through I intercept them and reroute them to this phone, where Gazzy answers, of course, because it would be kind of silly if any of us answered, since we don't have mimicking powers. How do we stop Mom from answering it, though? What if she picks it up in a different room? Won't Max get suspicious? Or if Gazzy's voice goes—"

"Don't be so negative, Nudge, my voice is fine," Gaz broke in, surprisingly in his normal voice. With his powers of imitation, he was going to get them all in trouble someday, Iggy knew. Then again, it could be pretty useful, like now.

"But what will he say?" Nudge asked.

That was a good question. Too bad he hadn't thought of it before. Iggy turned to Angel, who was sitting on the couch watching TV with Total. Maybe she'd have some ideas.

"I'm not going to be a part of this plot!" Angel said fiercely. She never would give a reason, she just refused.

"Well, I'll work on the scripts of what you should say, ok?" Gazzy was agreeable. It meant he didn't have to do anything at the moment, so of course he was. Iggy rolled his eyes to himself and ordered Nudge away to hack into wherever she needed to so they could access and intercept the calls.

"Aye aye, sir," she said, running off to the laptop, which Fang had left behind for them, her footsteps pounding loudly down the hall.

So Iggy went to work, calling on Gazzy to help him out. He was rewiring the phones. If they could set it up so any intercepted calls came through on just one line, then the main wires wouldn't need to be tampered with, and Mom would be free to answer the phone; the interceptor programs wouldn't interfere or block out calls.

"One more block…midichlorian…half a tie here…" Iggy mumbled to himself, wrapping up the last set of wires and pushing them back into the wall. "That should do it!"

Now the two lovebirds could call each other to their heart's content. They would, no doubt, call sometime, even if they had left on rather…unpleasant terms. Ok, so it was a full-on fight. Iggy suspected that had something to do with Angel's uncooperative nature. That's why the sooner these two realized they loved each other the better. For Angel's sake—and all of the flock's, really.

They all knew Max liked Fang. They all knew Fang liked Max. But Max and Fang denied it—to everyone outside of their own minds, of course—wholeheartedly.

That's why when they'd decided to go separate ways to rally the troops it had been a mixed blessing. They were out of the house; no more quarrels upsetting Angel and waking them all up. No more jealous tension so thick you could cut it up and sell it as wall-building material. Max and Fang would have time to cool down.

But they'd be away from each other, and nothing would be solved. Iggy intended to fix that.

He found his way easily through the house and into the room where Nudge and Gazzy were already settled in.

"Now," he said in his best dramatic voice, all of them trying not to laugh, "we wait."

Mission Subject 1—Alpha Wings

Define irony: Girl with wings rides plane to avoid getting tired. Yeah, that's my life. I kept telling myself it was for the best, leaving the flock like this for awhile. They'd be without either me or…Fang, for longer than ever before, but I trusted Mom and, to some extent, Jeb. And Iggy. They were my flock; they could take care of themselves.

But I still brooded over it, huddled in my windbreaker in my seat, trying to overcome my claustrophobia. I glanced at my phone. Maybe I should call, just to see—no, I promised.

But I could still call someone else I missed. I hadn't promised not to do that. Too bad I was still furious at him. Really, who wouldn't be? The other day, while we were sitting around a wide table at the local park, Iggy ogling girls—or, at least, ogling them through

Fang—and the littler kids playing tag (on the ground), Fang decided to be a jerk. Iggy made a comment on a girl Fang had just described and Fang agreed! Can you believe it? He agreed!

Bra sizes. Can we say sexist pig?

But…he was just a teenage boy, after all. And he had said, in the heat of the argument, that it wasn't as if he actually cared about the girl…I couldn't believe it! I was actually starting to forgive him!

Then to top it off, he was supposed to be here in this suffocating torpedo with me. A phone call in the middle of the night from some girl in Canada changed everything. He said that they had footage of a possible active ITEX stronghold.

Yeah, sure. And the snow-bunny had nothing to do with it.

There was probably something wrong with me…but I was starting to miss him.

I glanced down at my phone, sitting in my lap. Why was it sitting in my lap? It's not like I was going to call Fang or anything.

I picked it up and flipped it open. Of course I wasn't going to call him, I was just looking at the time.

And then it rang. Fang's number.

Mission Subject 2—Iron Tooth

Fang sent another kid off to look for his bags at the baggage claim. Would've done it himself, but they offered. Besides, he had something he had to do.

It had been on his mind the whole way here. He and Max had promised never to split up again. This didn't really count—they were on business, rallying troops for the next Itex attack. But they hadn't left each other on bad terms since that day; he was concerned that if he didn't fix things now, it might turn into something that did count as a promise broken.

He took out his phone and looked at it. They'd been a necessity when he and Max had needed to keep international communication—and when Dr. Martinez decided she wanted to play concerned mom to a bird girl who'd fought for her life during all of it and successfully gotten out of more dangerous situations than most people could imagine. He couldn't really blame her; he got as concerned about Max when no one knew it. What he didn't understand—and probably never would—was the concern over him.

The dim light on the black phone shone up at him, displaying Max's number. All he had to do was push the button.

He did a quick 360—no one around. He was just reaching for the button when the other kids came around the corner, back with his bags. Great. Not that he wasn't just a bit relieved.

From their stance, they weren't going to let him touch one of them. Rolling his eyes, he strode over to meet them. Maybe he could convince them to let him at least carry one of his two backpacks—the one with his notebook in it.

"Fang, how was your flight?" Jack asked as he hustled by with Fang's book-bag in hand.

"Remind me never to fly again," Fang said darkly. It hadn't gone well.

Jack grimaced. "Well, I'm glad you're here, we've found some surveillance footage that I thought you should see."

Fang was being dragged through the airport and he wearily followed Jack's brisk steps.

"Jack, I have to check in with the others. So..." He looked at Jack. It was obvious that he viewed being able to assist the flock in any way to be the highest honor of his entire life. "Can you get me a cup of coffee?" he finished, far gentler then the "buzz off for a few" that was weighing on his tongue.

"Yeah, sure thing," Jack said and ran over to a ridiculously long line at the airport's Starbucks.

Fang heaved a sigh. Time to check in with Her Crankiness, and no backing out this time. He pulled out his phone and pushed the auto dial button. The phone made several clicks before it started ringing, probably due to signal transfer from the towers.

"Max," she snapped waspishly into the line. It was her traditional introduction. Far better then her original one which was "State your name and purpose." He'd convinced her it made her sound like a pompous, over-inflated automaton.

"Hey, it's Fang," he replied.

For a moment there was silence. "Oh, hey. How was your flight?"

Fang was shocked for a moment. What happened to the screaming and insults? He'd been prepared for a hang-up but it sounded almost as if Max wanted to actually talk to him.

"Uh, it sucked."

He heard her give a sort of snort. "Yeah, tell me about it. I got manhandled by some jackass in security. 'You need to take of your coat, those lumps on your back look suspicious.' Can you believe it? Well, yeah, I guess you could."

Fang was floored. Not only did she want to talk to him, she sounded…chatty.

"So, how is everything over there? I mean, is the footage legit or what?" she asked casually.

"I don't know yet, they're waiting 'til we get to their BOA before I can see it. For security reasons," he replied, feeling a weight fall off of his chest. These fights with Max were really stressful. He made a mental note about not mentioning bra sizes in front of her any longer.

"I miss you." Well that was unexpected. "I'm sorry about the arguments," she continued.

A slight grin passed over his face. He thought of a few comments he could make but decided against it. "Me too. I'd say I wish you were here but I don't even wish I was here," he said dryly.

Max laughed lightly into the phone. That laugh was so rare nowadays. "Trust me, I don't want either of us here, either. This place sucks."

Out of the corner of his eye, Fang could see that Jack had managed to get through the line and was heading for him with the cup of coffee in his hand. "Well, I got to get off the phone. I'll call you after I see the footage."

"Alright, Fang. Bye," she said, a slight emphasis on his name that Fang decided he liked. He looked at the phone in awe. Who drugged Max? She seemed so normal. Sure, he thought Max was the best thing since mustard, but lately she'd been Maxilla the Hun.

"Ready?" Jack asked expectantly.

"Yeah, let's get this show on the road," Fang said and headed for the closest exit.

Martinez House—Headquarters

Gazzy hung up the phone and stopped sounding like Max.

"That was great! Fang didn't even suspect it wasn't Max," he said proudly.

"Yeah, except I bet he got suspicious if he heard Iggy laughing in the background. That wasn't very smart, Iggy, you're the one who told us we had to be quiet and then you started laughing. It might have blown the whole mission open!" Nudge said, looking at Iggy mock-sternly.

What was that word Iggy'd used on him so long ago, Gazzy wondered. Maxlet? That was definitely what Nudge was when Max was gone, except she used a lot more words in doing it.

She glared at Iggy, and for a moment everything was silent. It didn't last for long, though, and soon they were all rolling on the floor, laughing at each other, and at how well the mission was going.

A couple minutes later, Mom called Iggy into the kitchen to help with dinner.

"Ok, call Ma—I mean Alpha Wings now," Ig told Gaz as he left the room. That had been the cause of the snickering; Nudge came up with the names and whispered them to Iggy, right in the middle of the phone call. He rolled his eyes at the memory.

Iggy didn't need to worry; after all, what could go wrong?

As he picked up the phone, signaling Nudge to start the call, Gazzy thought about that…what could go wrong? He held back a sudden evil cackle. This was going to be fun.

Mission Subject 1—Alpha Wings

I stared at the phone for about 0.01 seconds, just enough to register Fang's number, before answering it.

"Max," I said, casually, of course.

"…Max…um…Ri…?" That wasn't Fang. The signal was weak, so the voice was scratchy, but that was not Fang.

"Yeah?" I asked, slightly irritated. What, Fang was so mad at me that he couldn't stand to call me himself?

"Urgen…ews…from C…ada Base," the voice said. It sounded like some kid, about my age, 14 or 15.

Urgent news, huh? Well, it better be good, I thought. Then I froze. They wouldn't be reporting urgent news to me with Fang there unless…it was about Fang.

"Report," I managed, my throat suddenly dry.

"…bout Fang…tell you…he's…" The voice was breaking up too badly. I couldn't hear them.

He's what? my mind was screaming, my heart racing. Tell me!

"What? He's what?" I managed, just barely, to keep my voice down.

"..'s dead…"