Erasers on the horizon…

I quickly got over my initial shock and hauled Jovi to his feet, gesturing to Eve to get up as well. Ace joined me too.

"Erasers! Locke, cover our right flank! Ace, our left! Eve, keep an eye on Jovi!" I bellowed out my orders, curling my hands into fists and spreading my wings wide.

If the Erasers want a fight, we'll give it to them.

They drew closer. My fists clenched a notch tighter. My muscles went taut. I was pumped. I was ready. I would beat those jerks into a furry pulp for coming ANYWHERE near my flock. I would…

Hey…wait a minute.

I looked closer at the approaching Erasers and lowered my fists.

Locke was staring at them, and said softly, his voice alight with awe, "Duke. I don't think those are Erasers."

Ace nodded, "Ditto."

They were right, of course. The "Erasers" weren't Erasers at all.

They were kids, just like us. And I had a pretty good idea who they were.

FLASHBACK

Two months ago, the flock had stopped at an Internet café for some food, caffeine, and to get back in touch with reality. Weeks on the run can put you out of the loop.

Ace was messing around with a computer, and he stumbled upon something remarkable. "Hey, Duke. Check this out."

Clutching my latte, I peered at the screen. The Google search engine was up, and Ace had keyed in 'birdkids'.

I choked on my coffee, which spurted down my shirt. Ignoring this, I exclaimed the first thing that came to me. "Are you out of your mind?!" Heads turned in our direction, and I swore silently. The last thing we needed was attention.

I lowered my voice. "Ace, listen to me. If the School is looking for us, which they very well may be, the first place they'd check is the Internet. All teens use the Web, but I doubt they look up junk like 'birdkids'. The whitecoats know we want to find out more about our origins-they'll be on guard and waiting."Ace completely disregarded this-I doubt he even heard me. "But, Duke, look at this. There are more avian hybrids out there! On the run!"

Now it was my turn to completely disregard logic. My jaw dropped as I scanned the screen excitedly. My brother beckoned the rest of the flock over and we all huddled around the computer.

The only website found was entitled Fang's Blog. Simple enough, I guess. I read onward, impatient for details.

Apparently the dude-Fang-was what he called an "Avian-American" or a birdkid, and he was writing about everything we imagined. To our horror, we discovered that there was more than one School in the world-actually, there were tons. They were all owned by some sort of corporation called Itex. Fang also spoke of his own flock, led by a girl named Maximum Ride.

The latest entry was short and hasty-heck, I could see like ten spelling errors. It told us that Fang and some of his flock were invading a School in Germany, and asked his loyal readers to help. In the next page, he listed fifteen different Schools and their locations.

"Cool." Eve breathed, straining to get a closer look at Fang's words.

I eagerly checked the date of the entry. It was today, posted ten minutes ago…

"Excuse me," a posh, upper-class accent sounded from behind me. I whirled around, ready for an Eraser, but it was a cross-looking middle-aged man. The owner of the java shop, as it turns out.

"Excuse me," he said again."But you seem to be disrupting the flow of my store and disturbing my customers. I must ask you to leave."

Offended, Jovi glanced around. "Come on, no one looks sore. I think you just don't like-"

I interrupted him before he got himself into trouble. "Drop it, buddy." Jovi looked like he might protest, but I silenced with a look. Now was not the time to get arrested for disturbing the piece. Plus, when Jovi got angry, he had a tendency to abuse his power of telekinesis, often just by accident.

"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to bother you." I ushered my flock out the door. Jovi was the last one out the door and I noticed him stick his tongue out at the rich jerk. I suppressed a guffaw, deeming it unprofessional.

Oh, what the heck. I copied Jovi's move. The dude had it coming.

Once we were outside, I started up the command chain. "All right, we go up. There are a few places I think we need to visit."

Locke looked back at me. "What do you mean?"

I gave a grin the devil himself would've been proud of. "You know that list of Schools in the USA?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, I checked it out. There's one seventy miles east from here. Come on guys, we've got a battle to win and scientists to beat up!"

END FLASHBACK

And indeed, as the kids touched down about a hundred meters ahead of us, it was clear. They were just like us.

I scrutinized the mysterious group-there were three females, one of which was dark-skinned and the other two light. One of them looked very young.

Three males. Two of these looked almost the same-strange hairdo, bleached hair. The only differences seemed to lie in age and size-one of them was almost as tall as Locke [which was surprising and the other short.

I barely noticed the last member of their flock. Shrouded in an aura of ambiguity, he was dressed in all black, with a sort of emo look. Something in his stance told me he was Fang, the author of the blog.

There was silence, deep silence-no one moved for many moments. It was like our flocks were mutually sizing each other up, wondering who would move first.

All of the sudden, one of the light-skinned girls stepped forward, holding her hand up for me to shake. She was tall, blondish and very pretty-If I had a mirror, I would've checking my hair. I didn't trust her though. The way she walked, the way she carried herself…I could tell she would be ready for anything at a second's notice. She was the leader, for sure. She probably had no idea of just how alike we were.

We faced each other-our eyes locked. Hers, brown, betraying sincerity if nothing else, hiding all emotion she could. Mine, blue, never showing weakness, on guard.

After a brief hesitation, I shook her hand in greeting. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong.

"Are you Patrick Farrell?" She asked

I inwardly winced at the mention of my real name-I'd learned it after some ransacking at the School the night I left. Its not that I disliked it-I just like Duke better.

I nodded and said coolly, "Yes. You're Maximum Ride, aren't you?"

If she was surprised that he knew who she was, she definitely didn't show it.

"Yeah. I'm Max." She proceeded to introduce her flock as "Iggy, the Gasman, Angel, Nudge and Fang."

I thought I was doing a pretty good job, coming off as a neutral, tough-guy leader. I still didn't know what Max was up to, though. What did she want?

Before I could introduce my own team, Jovi beat me to it. "Hi. I'm Jovi. Fang, did you guys really attack the Director of Itex? I read that on your blog a while back."

Crap. So much for neutral and tough. I mentally beat my head against a wall.

The flicker of a smile appeared on Fang's lips. "Yeah, we did. See, Max, didn't I tell you the blog would work out?" She ignored him.

That's it. I'd had enough of this game.

"A'ight, enough beating around the bush. What do you want with us?" I asked bluntly. I wanted to know what was going on here, and I wanted to know now.

Backing off slightly, Max held up her arms in a placating way.

"Chill, Patrick-"

"It's Duke," I cut in, a touch of acid in my tone. "And you still haven't answered my question. What do you want with us? I'm guessing you didn't come for chitchat."

Max was silent for a minute. Around me, I could almost see the tension visibly thickening. My flock gathered around me-hers did the same. A face-off, almost.

She spoke at last, eyes flashing with determination. Despite that, I got the feeling she didn't want to be here any more than I did.

"I heard you helped us out at the School in Iowa. Am I right?"

She seemed certain of herself-I saw no risk in telling her that. Unless it was like, a clone or something. Ridiculous, right?

"Yeah, we did."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I held mine…

"Duke, we need your help. You aided us in the past when you guys were in Iowa, and I want to know if you'll do it again. Please. I don't know the details-all I know are some children are disappearing in a town called Aurenton, Massachusetts. We want you to investigate. You'd be doing this for the good of everyone."

I mulled this over. She had a point-we should do all we can to whatever poor kids are being hurt in the world It sounded dangerous-but danger was never my enemy. I glanced around at my flock-the majority of them seemed eager. I wasn't agreeing yet, though. Nothing is simple in my life. There was more to Max's mission.

I asked a normal question with a foreboding answer. "What's the catch?"

Max blinked. "No catch. Its just some recon we could use your help with."

I stared her down-I was no fool. "Max, this is America. Everything has a catch. Or At least some fine print. Tell me the truth and I might help you."

She caved, although I could tell her ego protested. "Uh…oh fine. We're not the ones who came up with the idea. A friend of ours told us to find you, saying you'd be perfect for the job. His name is Jeb Batchelder-he used to be a whitecoat."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the sound of that awful word and it send shockwaves through my system. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eve give a little gasp, while Jovi yelped slightly. Locke looked merely thoughtful-he seemed to be pondering the idea. And Ace? Predictably, our most reckless flock member was not as scared, all though I thought I saw him shiver.

I backed away from Max and her flock as if they were contaminated. "No deal." I said.

Crestfallen, she looked at us in a maddeningly normal way. "I forgot to mention something."

I was done with her little mind games. "I don't care."

She went on as if I'd said nothing at all. "Jeb's a millionaire. If you do spy for us, he'll use is money to buy you everything you always needed to lead a normal life. Fake identities, clothing, food…and a home where you can live in safety."

I stopped in my tracks, speechless at the idea. The others stood in awe beside me.

"In other words, if you help us out, you'll be just about…normal. As long as you don't show off your wings, that is." Max reiterated.

I looked around. The flock looked just as I felt, in an uncanny way-confusion spiced with a seed of hope.

I sighed. "Give us time to think about it. Meanwhile, you're more than welcome to share our camp." Trust me; I needed time to think about this one.

Iggy nodded; for the first time, I realized he was blind. Don't how I figured it out, though. "Got it. We understand."

The Gasman [I was afraid to learn why he was called that, piped up for the first time. No doubt he'd been holding them in for a while. "That's fine. I feel like some marshmallows!" He sprang away, running for the forest to get wood. Max shook her head and laughed, and I got the feeling I would soon learn why he was named the Gasman.

Fang followed the young boy, and Max busied herself trying to attack the hair that was coming out of Nudge's head, while Angel looked on. I smiled to myself-they were a family, the way we were. They laughed, they cried, they shared memories…

Ace leaned against the rock and whispered a question to me. The flock was all ears.

"What are we going to do?"

Yet another short, simple question, to which there was no easy answer.

End note: Please review. Oh, and we might get rid of the U in Aurenton.

-AAW-