A/N: Chapter two! Thanks to duudezilla and stargazer101 for reviewing. I appreciate it. Oh, and in the last chapter I said my friend's username was maximum-ride-004. It's 003, not 4. Thought I should point that out. Anyway, on with the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Maximum Ride stuff, but I do own Sammy, Andy, Ride, Tie, Rocket, Canter, Whisk, and Tyler. You need my permission to use them.
"So...did you get freed from the Institute, too?" I asked conversationally as we coasted around high above the city. We were trying to find the dreaded building again and devise a plan. Just storming the place wouldn't work, so we had to have something better if we were going to get the kids free.
Tyler glanced at me for a second, then back at where he was going so that he didn't hit something. Like a cloud. There was nothing else up here to hit! Except a plane or a bird, but we hadn't seen either for a few minutes after the incident with the near-plane-crash. "No," he answered briefly. I just stared at him, hoping for more. "No, I wasn't. I'm from this place in Washington DC." I stared at him more, but this time out of shock. "Let's land and I'll explain."
We landed up on another tall building where we wouldn't be discovered and folded our wings in. We settled down by that stairwell building thing so that the wind up here wouldn't bother us. "Okay, well, I had a family before I got these wings. I had parents and three siblings - two sisters and a brother. My dad convinced me to come with him to the lab when I was five. He gave me bird DNA and I got wings." Tyler paused and I waited patiently for him to continue.
"Dad told me that I could help him. I was five, I didn't know any better. So I agreed, and became like a pet, like those Erasers that he had following him all the time, waiting for orders. I was just a lapdog. By the time I turned eight, four years ago, I had gotten it in my head that my dad was just using me. He didn't love me as his son anymore, since I was just a freak. A freak meant to do what I was told like a good little pet." Tyler growled and punched the roof. His knuckles instantly swelled and I could see he had torn the skin on them.
"Two years ago, Dad trusted me enough to go out of the lab and do a recon mission for some escaped experiments. I was to tag along with five Erasers who had to walk. After the first day, I had noticed that the wolfs didn't even notice me with them, and used that as my escape plan. I had flown away during the night, going around the country after that. Everywhere I went I didn't fit in." He sighed. "But then the Erasers I had been with found me, in Virginia.
"They tried to bring me back to the lab, back to my freak of a dad. I defeated most of them, but one managed to get away at the end. I think that was the lead Eraser that was about to shoot you. Anyway, I followed him for a little while, hoping to get a chance to take him down and help myself get away. And then I found you seven. I followed the Erasers trailing you, and you know the rest." Man, that kid had a more troubled past than me. "What about you at those others that you were with?"
"First off, their names are Ash, Ride, Tie, Canter, Rocket, and Whisk. Second, we were made in the lab here in New York, the Institute we're looking for. A couple years ago six bird kids broke us out and we've been living on our own since. Not much to add." I was never really good at telling stories, unless it was some lie that needed telling. If so, either me or Tie were the kids to tell it.
Tyler simply nodded and stared out over the edge. I looked out across the city, too, feeling as big as an ant in comparisson. I mean, there must have been about a thousand buildings that could tower over me here, or more. I was just one insiginficant girl with bird wings that was trying to fit in in this huge city. It would make anyone feel small.
Also, how were we supposed to figure out which building was the Institute? Any of these shiny, tall, impressive buildings could be the one. The seven of us had only seen the room where we were kept, and the sewers underneath the building. We hadn't seen the outside of it before. It's not like the whitecoats were thinking, "We need to let the experiments see this building in case they run away and want to return to us like good little experiments should." Nah, they were more thinking along the lines of, "We need to keep these experiments locked away, so that they can't escape and no one can see them and destroy us." Yeah, more the second one.
Tyler waved his hand in front of my face and I was brought out of my reverie with a snap. He looked amused and I tried to avoid eye contact. Man...it's just like Ride was doing earlier today. Before I had gotten them all captured. I groaned and put my head in my hands, shaking my head angrily. It took all my self control not to leap off the building with my wings tucked in. If I died, who was left to save the kids? Tyler didn't even know what the inside of the Institute looked like!
"It'll be okay. We'll find them," he said, strangely calm. I was screaming inside my head, mainly at myself, and here he was promising me everything was okay! A kid younger than me by a year was promising me things. Despite myself, I chuckled. "Think we could look up this Institute somewhere? A library?" he asked. Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that!
"Good idea. Let's go." We went through the little roof building and down to the ground floor. People looked at us like we were crazy, or like they were thinking, "How'd those kids get up there," since it was an office building. At least, I think it was, since everyone was dressed nicely in suits and stuff. Bleh.
For about two hours we wandered New York, trying to find a library. Who would have thought it would have taken that long to find one stinking building? Anyway, enough of my angry rants. We still found the building and, of course, went in. "Do you have computers we could use here?" Tyler asked the person at the main counter. I was looking at everyone suspiciously, expecting them to turn into furry wolf freaks, but no one was growing fur or muzzles, so I relaxed a little bit. Emphasis on little.
"Yes - they're upstairs. You have to sign in, but they're free," the man said politely. "Is it for a school project?"
"Yeah," I answered, and the man smiled and pointed us to the stairs. Once we were out of range, I asked, "School project? What do kids do at school that needs projects?" Tyler laughed.
"It's just research for certain classes," he said. Oh...that made sense. And made me feel incredibly stupid at the same time! Oh, well, I'd worry about my ignorance later. Right now, I was worried about the Institute. Upstairs it was pretty much just a computer room. There was a sign-in sheet that a woman pushed towards me, also smiling. Creepy. I signed "Sam Jacobs". Okay, so I made up my last name - sue me. Tyler also signed in, no doubt with his real name, then we were on the computers for our search.
"So...what's this institute's whole name? There are hundreds on institutes in New York," Tyler asked me from the monitor to my left. The kid to my right was playing some alien-shooting game and didn't seem to notice that we were there.
"The Institute for Higher Living," I replied quickly. Tyler raised an eyebrow and typed that in his search. I had already added it and was going through a lot of junk, until I reached a link that said the Institute's name, all in bold. "Tyler - half way down the third search page," I instructed. I heard him clicking and didn't bother to look over at him. Hesitantly, we clicked it at the same time.
The page came up and showed a map of how to get there. It didn't give any information about the Institute, nothing like that, but it did give a map. It also gave a "you are here" star to help anyone who was new to the wonderful world of technology. Congrats to you if you figured out that means me! I printed out the page, and Tyler seemed about to do the same thing. He stopped beforehand, though, since we didn't need two maps.
"That was way too easy," he commented when we left the library, the map firmly in my hand. And by "left the library" I mean "flew off from the roof against the librarians' protests of going up there." Either way, we were moving away from the library and towards the Institute. Anyway, I agreed with Tyler. It's odd, to find a map showing the way to a top-secret genetics lab that was breaking at least one law by experimenting on children.
"Could it be a trap?" I questioned nervously. I could just imagine the whitecoats leading us to some weird building where we would get captured and brought to the Institute with the kids. Tyler seemed to be mulling it over as well and hadn't heard my question. He took the map from my hands without so much as a "please" and looked it over. He bit his lip, thinking hard, apparently. He looked down at the ground then at the printed paper again.
"We'll find out in a minute if it is or not," he answered. Okay, so he hadn't been totally oblivious to my question, but still, he had been off in la-la land. He pointed to the ground, where the map said the Institute should be. I was expecting to see a yellow star painted on the roof, since that's what it had on the map, but it looked like any other building. Okay, it was shorter, only about three stories high, and didn't look all that menacing. Other than the male models standing on the roof with shotguns and sniper rifles.
"That's a bit of a problem," I pointed out, motioning to the gun-weilding Erasers. Tyler laughed.
"Not if you know how to be inconspicuous. Okay...so, fly a block away, land in an alley, and we'll walk. Easy peasy." Right...they were expecting us - or at least me - to come from the air, not the ground. I nodded and took off, probably only looking like a large bird of prey from my vantage point, and then dived down a block away. Tyler landed next to me and we closed our wings. A young boy that looked like an orphan, like us, was in the alley staring at us.
I stepped towards him, since I didn't trust Tyler with little kids. "Promise you won't tell anyone, okay?" I said kindly, handing the little boy a fifty. He looked at the money in surprise, and offered it back to me. "No, you need it more than I do." I closed his small hand around it and I saw tears forming in the kid's eyes. He ran off, looking much happier than five seconds ago.
"So you bribe a kid," Tyler said, shaking his head. I whacked him upside the head and he shut up. We walked towards the Institute. Across the street from it, I threw out my arm to stop Tyler. He looked around me and I heard him growl deep in his throat. There were Erasers outside of the building, too, guarding the door. This was going to be harder than I thought.
"Tyler - plan?" I asked hopefully. Yeah, I know I was supposed to be the leader, but right now I was feeling like a little ten-year-old again, being tested on in that building, down under the ground. Wait...under the ground! That's it! "Never mind." I had interrupted his thought, and he closed his mouth again, looking annoyed. "Sewer." I pointed at a sewer grate in our little alleyway, and Tyler wrinkled his nose at it. "Oh, come on! Max and the flock came in through the sewer to save us - we could do the same thing!"
"I guess... But wouldn't storming the place and knocking those guys out be more sensible?" he asked, almost pleading. I snorted.
"Only if you want to be filled with lead," I retorted, moving the sewer grate from the floor. It squeaked and a few people glanced in our direction, but then kept walking as if they saw kids go into the sewers everyday. Then again, this was New York, so who knew? I went first, dropping down into the yuck below. I heard the squeaking of rats. Tyler dropped down next to me, closing the grate at the same time. He glanced at the rats and smirked, crouching. I was trying not to shriek.
Oddly enough, Tyler made a few squeaking noises, and the rats actually answered him. After a moment of almost silent squeaking, he stood, the rats still right there, but moving to be behind him. "They're going to help find the entrance - they know these sewers. It's their home," he explained, motioning to where the sewer went. It went to the left of where we were headed, so maybe help was good. Even if it came from rats.
Tyler and his rat friends led the way, all of them occasionally squeaking from time to time. Tyler led me around many bends and turns until we came to an almost hidden door. The rats squealed ecstatically and Tyler squeaked a response, before they scurried away. Now that, too, was a weird sight that went to the top five for the day. Tyler tried the knob, but it was locked.
"Move," I said with my usual kindness, pushing him out of the way. Tyler seemed ready to protest, but thought better of it and closed his mouth. Wow, boys could learn. I grabbed the doorknob and pulled it straight from the door, throwing it into the greenish water below. I opened the door, and I creaked. I froze for a second, but when no one was alerted to our presence, I started to decend a staircase that was right inside the door, Stupid following right behind.
The stairs seemed to last forever, and we were in the complete darkness. At the end of the stairs I stumbled and ran smack-dab into a wall. This was not my day. I felt around until my hand found the doorknob. I turned it, not wanting to kill this door unless I had to, and found that it opened. We found ourselves in a large computer room - with twenty Erasers training guns on us. There were five slobbering mean dogs that Tyler had a brief talking to in dog language. They lay down on the ground, panting and looking much calmer.
"You two - don't move or else you die," one snarled. I smirked, in the face of death.
"No duh - you wouldn't club us down with your guns or anything, since you have them." Tyler turned a laugh into a cough with ease. I felt smart...untill I actually was clubbed in the head with the butt of a gun. My world went black.
I woke up not all that much longer, I think. Only there was something different...I was in a hosptital room. Lying on a metal, operation bed. I wasn't strapped to it, and felt woozy. I sat up, holding my head as my sight went all fuzzy for a second from light-headedness. I saw Tyler stirring on another bed. There was a one-way window thing on one wall, no doubt where whitecoats were watching us. I slid off of the metal bed and went straight for the door. It was locked, and not even I could get it open - there wasn't a doorknob or any leverage for me to grab.
"Crap," Tyler muttered. That summed it up quiet nicely. "Any way out?" I shook my head.
"There's the window, but no doubt there are stupid snooping whitecoats behind it!" I emphasized the last five words, hoping that they could hear me quiet clearly on the other end. "And then there's the door, which is locked." Tyler sighed and swung his legs over the bed. And that's when I noticed two things - one, the monitors on one wall showing the rooms where my friends were being held, probably to torture me. And two, the gas vents in the walls. "Shit." That also summed it up, and was a massive understatement at the same time. You can't get much better than that!
A/N: Chapter two will come tomorrow. I feel proud of myself - two long, three thousand word chapters in one day. I'm on a roll. Also, don't forget about my request for Max and Kat in the last paragraph, and the fact that Kat's username is maximum-ride-003, not 004. Anyway, hope you liked it!
- Zach