"Where to?" Fang asked.

"Where do your parents work out of?" Max asked.

Fang usually avoided the office because his parents were boring in the office, and they didn't like him going in there. He had his own laptop and Iphone so why bother? As he sat down in the leather chair, he wondered if he could break his father's password...

A few minutes later, the answer was no, indeed not. However, all of the personal questions that the computer asked to confirm if it was him? Fang passed 'em all with flying colors. Maybe he'd finally found his true career as a computer hacker. What did that even pay? "Okay," he muttered, "where...?" He toggled through a few of the most recently opened pages before deciding to open up the hard drive. Max pulled a chair over to him. Fang opened a 10 gigabyte file labeled Avian 56. There were videos of him from his most recent checkup all the way back to his childhood. He opened up the first one that he didn't recognize as being from his physician's lab.

The grainy image was dark, but Fang could see a shiny outline on a few box-like objects. The lights flickered on in the video and illuminated them. Steel cages.

And inside them, a little Fang. Who didn't speak as men in a white lab coat approached him, but hissed instead. And next to him, in an adjacent cage, something screamed at the men as well. Or someone.

"It's-" Fang started.

"It's me!" Max interrupted. She pointed at that adjacent cage. "Those're my wings! Your parents do work for them. And..." she squinted. "That's you."

"It's me," Fang said. He stared at the black-haired, feral child. He'd been adopted when he was four or so, and he looked like he was about that age in the video. But four was not that small, so why didn't he remember this? Why didn't he remember Max?

She rested a hand on his shoulder. "Looks like this was our reunion, then, fellow mutant. Let's stick it to those fishheads."

Fang hunched over the keyboard to pull up some more files. "Wait, who's that?" he pointed to another cage. A lot of the cages in the frame were empty, or filled with still forms. But one of them had a panting blond boy- with yellow wings.

"There's another one?" Max said. She and Fang exchanged a look. "We've got to find him."

"Get in the car," Fang said. "Let's drive."

"Are you sure this will get us in?" Max said. Fang simply hauled left on the wheel and clicked a button on the sun visor of the Lamborghini. The gate swung open.

Fang's mouth quirked up, but inwardly his stomach coiled into knots. If this wasn't all an elaborate hoax- and the way his wings twitched told him it wasn't- then they could both end up Pavlov's dogs. Maybe for forever.

But they couldn't risk leaving the blond boy to fend for himself in here, either. If it had been the reverse, he hoped Max and this other kid would come for him.

He put the car in park and yanked out the keys. It was time to see how far Father's keys would take him.

"Fang," Max said, stepping up behind him. "Hold still." She slipped a pocket knife from her back pocket and flicked the blade open. She cut two jagged hole in his shirt, long and oval-like. "Just in case, be ready to do a U and A."

Fang tilted his head.

"Up and away," she clarified. He swallowed.

It was time to do this.

Fang unlocked the door and peeked in. He brought up his Iphone, which had a picture of the schematics of the building he'd stolen from his father's computer. The wonder of modern technology. The two hallways branching off were empty, so he tentatively closed the door behind them, save for a small crack. If the doors could automatically lock, he didn't want to be shut inside.

The hallway was white and smelled like vinegar. Fluorescent lights burned on them from above. Fang watched Max clench her teeth. On their left was a foot bath and some lab coats. Max threw one on and handed another one out to Fang. "I think I'll pass," he said. "I can always claim I'm looking for my parents; I've been here often enough for 'checkups'." He handed Max some goggles, though.

Max's face was pinched as she put them on over her eyes, and Fang remembered that she hated the white coats. Was scared of them. And now she looked just like them.

Fang sucked in a deep breathe, and scanned his Iphone again. "The in-house experiment area is down this straight pathway and at the end of the hall on the right."

"Let's go." Max started down the hall with a purpose.

As they rounded the corner, they ran straight into two people. Fang's mother, a black-haired woman with an A-line hairstyle, and a bald, middle-aged man in a white coat.

"Nick?" she asked him. Fang stiffened, but forced himself to relax.

"Hi, Mother. I needed a consent form for school suddenly, so I thought I'd drop by and see if I could catch you," Fang said, and hoped it wasn't a bad lie.

"Oh sweetie, you don't need an excuse like that to come see me," she smiled, walking up to Fang with her arms extended out for a hug that he accepted.

As her arms wrapped around Fang, shocks rocked through his body. He had just enough time to cuss before everything faded.

Max shoved the woman back, careful of her taser. Fang cussed as he fell back, and Max caught him, lowering him to the floor when she realized he was unconscious. There was no way she'd be able to carry Fang until the whitecoats were taken care of.

She punched the bald man in the face while Fang's mom screamed for help. Max elbowed him in the throat. She flung him against a wall headfirst and he sank down. Max turned to Fang's mom who was holding the taser in both hands and out in front of her. As if that would help.

Max darted to the side and yanked one of her arms forward, kneeing her in the elbow and breaking the arm. She flung the woman down the hallway and grabbed Fang by the armpits, heaving him back up the hallway she came.

Two Erasers blocked the door. Max swore. She released Fang and sprinted towards the Erasers. Maybe taking the two head-on by herself would be easy. And maybe the moon was made of cream cheese.

The one on the right first. Max came in, ducking under his reach and slamming him in the throat. He grunted in pain, catching her right arm. Instead of trying to free herself, Max used her one free hand to gouge at the monster's eyeball. It was gross and squishy, kind of like a raw egg, and she winced as she ripped it out- or tried to. It was still connected to him by the nerve, like a strong piece of spaghetti. Ew, what a mental thought.

He screamed but held onto her arm as the other Eraser slammed her to the wall by her arm and pinned her by her throat. Choking, Max kicked him in the face. He held strong. She pushed to extend her wings, but even they were pinned to the wall.

'Suck,' Max thought, but with an F instead of an S. She blinked and was out.

-

Fang awoke strapped to a white table. He could see where Max got it from now. He was getting downright sick of the color white. He was alone; a good sign. Testing the binds, he found that they were airtight. Clearly, these people were experienced at kidnapping. Or was it still kidnapping when they had parental consent? Fang's stomach chilled.

Whatever. If he wasn't truly alone, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of watching him squirm. He forced himself to relax, lie flat on the table, and whistle the Pokemon theme song.

The door clicked open and in walked his mother. His fake mother. No real mother would allow a small child to be experimented on and caged up like an animal. But there was also the fact that she had clothed him, fed him, raised him more-or-less for who knew how many years. Listened to his stories. The wave of emotions rioted through him, and he wished they had just sent a white coat jerk for Fang to fight.

She closed the door and locked it behind her, and walked up to the table Fang was strapped to. "Nick, sweetie, are you okay?"

Fang released a tense breath. "Just give up the charade already. I'm an elaborate experiment to you. Nothing more."

She walked up to him and squeezed his arm, concern clouding her eyes. "I know you're confused, but you need to know, Nick- you got mixed up in quite a bit of trouble. That girl you were with, that Mariah girl, she's on drugs. She's a delusional criminal. I don't know how she convinced you that she has wings but that was a lie. She started a chemical fire in the forest, and that's when child services placed her with them." Fang's mom leaned towards him. "Are you calm? We wanted to make sure you were safe in case there were drugs in your system," she gestured to the restraints.

Fang opened his mouth to call her on the lie but his breath caught. He knew Max wasn't lying to him, but she had been with child services, and her name was Mariah on file. He also knew that his own 'mother' had tased him. Did she really think he would forget about that? "I'm not dangerous," Fang said instead. "Can I see her? Ma-Mariah?"

Her shoulders dropped. "Oh Nick, I'm so glad you're doing better. You can see that girl in a few weeks, two months on the outside. She's not even in the building anymore. She went to rehab."

What could they do to Max in two months? Fang didn't know, and he didn't want to find out. I'm coming back, Max. Hold on. He allowed himself to be led back to the car after a fake checkup. He had to stare hard at his tennis shoes to keep from looking back at the building. If he screwed this up, he'd wake up strapped to a table again.

His mother- fake mother- handed him some files when he got into the car. "I thought you might want to see these," she said. It was the fire department records on the forest fire from last week, and the child services record for Mariah Riddle- Max's alter ego.

"Thanks," he said, thoroughly intrigued, and he didn't have to fake it. Reading about the fire, Fang had to suppress a chuckle. 'I've never taken chemistry before, but I have taken chemicals.'

He was eager to read all about Maximum Ride, the ultimate adventurer on the run from mad scientists.

-

Max woke up in a cage. Another freaking cage. She snarled, still groggy, and slammed a fist against the door. "Damn those Erasers!"

"Um, hi."

Max turned to her left. A small blond girl was in a smaller crate next to Max. She smiled at Max, lifting her eyebrows hopefully.

"Hi," Max deadpanned, although she was a little surprised that the girl was coherent and sane. Most of them 'experiments' didn't stay that way when they were stuffed in a cage and injected every day.

"I'm Angel, it's nice to meet you. I have wings, too. I know you've escaped from the white coats before." Angel shifted to show her wings. They were beautiful and white, like a dove's or a swan's.

"How do you figure that?" Max asked.

"I can read minds."

"Really," she deadpanned. Not so sane after all.

"Really."

"Try me." Max thought about the first day of psychology, when she met Fang.

"You're thinking about Mr. Fong shaking your hand, and meeting Fang in psychology class," Angel observed correctly.

Max leaned forward. "Holy shiz, you can read minds." They could plan an escape. A decent one, as opposed to a Max one.

Angel pressed her face to the bars of her cage and mouthed the next words to Max: Don't worry. Fang is safe and he will come back to rescue us.

Not if we escape first, Max thought hard.

Fang owed them French Fries if they did.

Before she could make any plans, the door swung open and some white coats entered, a not-bald-but-old white coat taking the lead. "A new experiment! Splendid, just splendid. Let's get started; we only have a short amount of time after all."

A shiver went down her spine, but she coiled her hands into fists. She wasn't going to let them turn her into a dissection. And if they tried?

Maximum Ride was gonna wreck maximum chaos.