Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride.

'Up and away guys,' I called.

We were in the air: flying, sweeping, soaring, and coasting on air currents. It's a totally different league to walking. It's amazing!

'Max, where are we going?' Nudge asked.

Fang and I had concocted a plan early this morning before I'd 'gently' woken all the others up, 'cause I'm just nice like that.

'We're going back to New York,' I declared.

There were varying degrees of enthusiasm: Gazzy and Nudge cheered, while Iggy just grumbled.

Total turned round in my arms: 'Ooh, I've never explored New York before. It would be so nice to return to my place of birth, or creation or whatever. I only ever saw the inside of that miserable building.' We'd found Total at The School there, where, if we had known he could talk, probably would have left him there too.

'You don't mean that, do you Max?' Angel looked at me with big blue eyes. Damn, I hated bambi eyes.

'No, Ange,' I said.

She smiled. Phew.

'There's too much noise,' Iggy complained. 'Why do we have to go back?'

I felt a pang of guilt: hearing was an essential part of how he got around and being surrounded by masses of crowds, car horns blaring this way and that and the loud grumbling from the multitude of vehicle engines, must have been a total nightmare for him. It wasn't a picnic for me either: too many people, and anyone could be working for Itex. Don't you just love paranoia? But what else could I do? We needed more information and Fang and I believed we would find it there. According to Google (don't you just love that search engine?), the 'Higher Institute of Learning' (aka The School), had closed down. We weren't expecting to find much, but there may be some old records and…Ok, perhaps we were being a little too optimistic, but a girl had to try, right?

I said: 'I know and I'm really sorry Iggy, but I believe it's our best chance in finding more information on The School.

'What?'

Oh yeah, I'd been meaning to get around to the whole 'saving the world' thing. I just hadn't had the heart to break it to them that we weren't ready to get a home yet.

'What about settling down?' Gazzy asked. I choked down a lump in my throat as I took in his worried eyes. He'd had his heart set down on a home for all of us, they all had.

'And we will, Gazzy,' Fang reassured gently.

'But for now,' I continued, 'we've got to take down The School: every single branch, because if we don't, I think they're just going to keep unleashing God knows what else on us.'

We'd already had half-wolf-like creatures, robots, indestructible Omega (until he met me of course), and clones. I was torn between what was worse: fighting me (and I hit hard), or fighting Omega. I'd fortunately uncovered his weakness, but next time, perhaps the wacko scientists would correct this flaw and create something so powerful and faultless that I'd finally be beaten.

Ugh, how emo did that sound? Right, I'm through with pessimism, bring on Miss Optimistic.

'How are we going to that?' Nudge asked, 'there could be hundreds…thousands, and oh my god, it could take us years!'

I didn't want to admit, but she could be right. We knew squat right now.

'No,' Fang interjected. 'We take out the main School. You take out the heart of the corporation and it will all collapse. We have to find out who sanctioned the development of all these branches. If we take down him or her and their little scientist friends, it's over.' Wow. How many words was that?

Nobody spoke, whether to let that all sink in, or because he'd just spoken so much. He had made it sound so easy, but I knew it was going to be one hell of a fight. Nothing in my life has ever been that straight forward, so why should this be?

I caught Fang's eye, silently thanking him with a little smile. His lip twitched: his special half-smile and I blushed. How mushy was I getting? He was just my friend – my best friend/my right-wing man, so why was I blushing? I filed blushing under the file of 'How not to act around Fang', and coasted an air current, vaguely listening to another rendition of Gazzy's constipation song.

New York was bigger than I remembered. Shoppers and office workers streamed across the pavement, some filing into shops and offices, while others exited out of shops and offices. Restaurants and cafes squeezed between imposing buildings: large structures that seemed to want to outbid each other in a competition of metal and glass.

'Wow,' Total murmured.

'There's a vender over there,' Gazzy pointed out, 'can I have some money to get a hotdog?'

We were all a little shaky from flying: it really takes it out of you. We needed to refuel.

I rummaged in my pocket. 'Fang will go with you while we wait here,' I said.

'Thanks,' he said, running over to the vendor, barely avoiding an elderly lady with a poodle.

Fang raised an eyebrow, his equivalent of 'oh boy', and followed after him.

'We never really did much while we were here last time,' Nudge began, 'so I was wondering if we could like look around and get some new clothes. Or can we go into one of those fancy restaurants like last time? That was so funny. The looks on that snotty manages face when you told him off, and when you poured that bowl on him and he was like 'what are you doing?' and when…' Iggy had clapped a hand round Nudge's mouth. I gave him a wistful smile, then remembered he couldn't see it.

'Eew, Nudge,' he complained, 'that's disgusting. Don't lick, you're not Total.'

'Hey! I'd never do that, it's completely unhygienic. How on Earth do I know where your hand has been?'

I stifled a laugh at his indignant retort.

Angel patted his head, 'He didn't mean it, Total.'

'Hm.'

The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end: my spidey sense was tingling. I tapped Iggy twice on the hand: stay alert.

I looked up, instantly making contact with Fang across the street. He felt it too. I was pleased that our time apart hadn't damaged the connection I particularly coveted at times like these. He placed his hand on Gazzy's shoulder, steering him over to us with our hotdogs.

'Plan?' Fang asked.

I looked the area over, hoping for some stroke of genius.

'There's a guy behind us,' Fang said, pointing me in the opposite direction, pretending to be admiring one of the buildings. 'He's on the bench, and keeps glancing up at us from behind his newspaper.'

I didn't look back: I trusted Fang.

'Let's try and ditch him,' I decided.

Angel grabbed my hand and we allowed ourselves to be swallowed up by the crowd.

When we descended down the flight of steps to the subway, I'd begun to like the new optimistic Max. That is until I spotted him at the end of the entrance. How the (insert choice of word) did he know where we were going to go?

I could see his face from behind his cap. He was tall and well-built beneath a snug fitting trench coat. Oh boy.