Chapter 3

Max

When I was finally able to breath again, I got up and carefully peared over the giant crates I had hid behind. As far as I could see, Angel and all of the men had left the cafe.

Slowly, I stood upright and walked over to the cafe, disoriented and dizzy. I clutched onto the sides of the tables until I got to the one where Angel had been before. I looked around for clues or something to see what she had been up to, but there was nothing left of their little rendez-vous. Whoever she was meeting, knew what they were doing.

I pounded my fist on the table in frustration and moved away from that table to the one Nudge, Dylan, and I had shared earlier. Nudge's walet was right where she had said it was, under the second chair. I picked up the pink leather and left as fast as I could. Suddenly, I didn't feel like sticking around anymore.

The flight back to the peak seemed a lot shorter than the flight down. I barely got a chance to enjoy the sunset or the warm winds. The sun may set early in the winter, but in California, it never got any cooler than sixty degrees. The mountains zipped by like bullets as I kicked it up to max speed to make up for lost time. Nudge and Dylan were probably worried sick about me and probably called in the entire flock for a search party. God, I sure hoped not.

I got there in a matter of minutes, softly descending on a flat below them to gather myself before they jumped on me. I climbed up a few steps and saw them sitting exactly where I had left them. This was very strange. I expected them to be running around going crazy instead of calmly sitting and staring out at the horizon. I took a few more louder steps and still, no response.

"Um, guys?..." I asked tenitively, "I'm back."

"Oh," Dylan turned around slightly and nodded in my direction, "Hey."

"Um, hey?"

I was seriously confused now. I was all ready for Dylan to jump up, break his fake cool, and tackle me to the ground in a suffocating hug, not for him to shrug me off.

"You guys okay?"

"Uh-huh," Nudge said, "Did you find my walet?"

"Yeah. Here." I replied as I handed her the walet. She took it and smiled up at me.

"Thanks Max!" she exclaimed. She got up and gave me a huge hug.

"No problem."

"Hmmm...well...I am beat!" Nudge said as she stretched upward, "Let's go home and watch a movie!"

"Alright." Dylan agreed, "Sounds fun."

"Sure." I agreed as well.

We jumped off the cliff and into the evening air once more. It was on the way back that I truely realized how far Nudge had taken me. We were miles and miles away from the house.

We all flew in silence, counting the seconds until, and hour and seventeen minutes later, we returned home. The lights were all off and the window had been shut since we left. I wondered if Gazzy and Iggy were back yet. How would they react to seeing me? That was something I couldn't think about. I honestly didn't want to know if they hated me or not.

We landed on the back deck and Nudge used her metal powers to open the window from the outside. Its doors swung open at us and smacked Dylan right in the face. Nudge and I tried to keep it in but we fell on the floor, rolling in laughter. Dylan looked straight faced and frowned at us when we got up.

"Sorry." we both mouthed.

We tried not to make too much noise so we didn't wake up the boys, if they were even asleep. Still, it was good to be quiet. We didn't need Gazzy to blow us up any time soon either.

We all filed in the window one by one. Dylan was the last and shut the windows super slow so they didn't creak. I turned around, not looking, and accidentally ran into Iggy and his newest contraption. I tumbled over it and fell on my side hard. I looked down and saw that the edge of his metal project had cut my leg, leaving a painful gash behind. I touched it and cringed in pain.

"Oww! God damn it!..." I cursed through my teeth.

"I'm so sorry...Max?" Iggy apologized. He probably would've felt worse if he hadn't been so shocked to 'see' me. "Is that you?"

"Yeah." I winced, "It's me."

"What are you doing out of your room?" he asked concernedly.

"Oh, you know, Nudge decided to 'kidnap' me and take me to Vegas for the day." I said sarcastically.

"Sounds fun..." He said, "Here, let me help."

As he was wrapping my leg up with some spare cloth, Gazzy came running in the kitchen looking like a mad man. His hair was on end and slightly burned around the edges. He had smoke comming off him and some unidentifiable blue goo all over his clothes. Now that I paid more attention, I noticed that Iggy did too.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked as I pointed down the hall where a room was glowing green like it was radioactive.

"Nothing..." Iggy looked down at the floor as he finished wrapping up my leg. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to my feet. It hurt a little to stand at first, but I would get used to it.

"Thanks."

Iggy shrugged his shoulders and went back to his metal contraption, checking to see if my fall had caused any damage.

"What is that thing?"

"Isn't it great Max?" Gazzy asked with exitment. My presence didn't really seem to phase him that much which I took as a good thing. I looked back over at the metal thing one more time before answering.

"It sure is Gazzy." I replied, "but, what is it?"

"It's only the greatest invention ever!" He beamed, "I give you Frankenbot!"

"Franken-what-now?" Nudge asked. She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, staring the boys down.

"Watch Max!" he grabbed my arm and moved me to the table where he had placed his control panel. He pressed a few buttons and the hunk of metal began to move.

"It's alive!" Gazzy screamed like a mad scientist. I looked down at him, honestly a little bit afraid of what was going to come out of that thing.

The metal shifted and shook and grew apart until it was a ten-foot-tall metal monster with glowing red eyes and exposed circutry.

"He's not finished yet, still have to work out a few bugs in the programming but, I must say he is my finest piece of work yet!"

"Our work." Iggy corrected.

"Yeah, sorry." He said as he waved Iggy off. Gazzy messed around with the knobs, getting it to move around and pick things up.

"I'm still teaching him the basic movements but once he has those down in his hard drive, I can teach him the real stuff." Gazzy continued.

"Teach what real stuff?" Nudge demanded.

"Fighting! Duh! I created this thing to kick scientist butt!," Gazzy explained with emphasis, "Once the School sees this bad boy, they'll go running home to their mommies!"

"Uh-huh...right..." I shook my head slowly, "Good luck Gasman."

"I'll show you guys!" he shouted loudly. He pushed a button and the Frankenbot collapsed. "Come on Iggy! We have work to do!"

Iggy rolled his eyes and pushed the Frankenbot out of the kitchen and back into the glowing room. When the door finally shut, Dylan bursted out laughing. He laughed so hard that tears were coming out of his eyes. All Nudge and I did was sit back and stare at him while glancing back and forth at each other wondering when he was going to stop laughing like a mad man. After several minutes, he still hadn't stopped and I was getting bored and slightly disturbed.

"Hey, I'm gonna go put some Neosporin on this." I said. "God knows I don't need somethig else wrong with me."

"Huh? Oh,...yeah..." Nudge sighed, still watching Dylan roll. "Cancel that movie. I'm gonna go to bed."

She slouched past me and grabbed her walet off the table.

"Night." I said down the hall after her.

She waved her hand in response and then shut the door. A moment later her lights went out leaving me alone with the crazy guy on the floor. I waited for a few more minutess but he still hadn't stopped. He was seriously freaking me out now. Maybe Gazzy secretly put something in his system. He did that to Fang once and never did it again after that. I don't know what Fang did, but it worked.

I sighed and turned down the hall, fumbling to find the bathroom doorknob. I opened the door and immediately ran into a cabinet, hitting my face dead center and leaving a big red splotch on my forehead.

"Just great..." I thought, "Now, where's the Neosporin?"

Dylan

As soon as Max shut the bathroom door, I shot up off the ground and brushed myself off. Someone really needed to do some dusting around here. My throat was hoarse from all the laughing but I couldn't think of any other way to get them to leave.

I walked over to the refrigerator and took out a large bottle of cold water and chugged the whole thing in one gulp. That felt much better.

I scrunched up the bottle in one hand and turned to throw it away, meeting a pair of menacing ice blue eyes on the other side. She made me jump so high that my head hit the cabinets. I rubbed my head on the way down, feeling a large bump growing under my skin.

"Jesus Christ! Why do you scare me like that?" I yelled at her.

"Keep your voice down!" she whispered and then batted her thick eyelashes innocently. "I needed to get your attention somehow."

"Well, a nice shoulder tap or poke would suffice!" I hissed. "If I get brain damage from this, I swear..."

"Oh calm down and stop being such a wuss. We have real problems to worry about." Angel snapped back.

"Like?..."

"Like the fact that Max saw part of the transaction this afternoon!"

"Oh shit..." I cursed.

"Yeah! She saw the exchange and who knows what else?"

"Did she stop you? Did she get the codes?" I said, paniced.

"No, she didn't intervene. I was able to successfully relay the codes to our employers and the files are all ours and I must say, those files are...interesting."

I nodded. "Now, what's our assignment this time?"

"I don't know. I haven't read the debriefing porfolio all the way through yet."

"Well, let's see it then."

Angel grabbed her backpack from under the table and pulled out a cream colored folder. It was plain and in mint condition just like every other one we recieved. I reached to grab the folder but Angel snatched up my hands and put her free hand to her lips. I slowly moved my hands back and she slid the folder down and placed it on the adjacent chair. She got up and moved aross the room and into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of milk. She glanced towards the hallway and I swiftly joined her in the kitchen, making myself a bowl of cereal.

A few moments later Max came out of the hall and into the kitchen and, then things got interesting.

Max

The first thing I saw as I entered the kitchen was Dyaln pouring himself a bowl of Apple Jacks. This would be normal if one, he actually ate Apple Jacks and two, if he actually used silverware or china when he ate. Seeing as though he did none of those things, I was a little suspicious. As I turned around, my suspicious feelings were confirmed when I saw Angel sitting at the table drinking milk. She hated milk. Things were definately off.

I stood there for a few moments staring at Angel before I moved towards the cupboards. I took down a bowl and pourned myself some Apple Jacks as well so I wouldn't look out of place. I sat down at the table directly across from Angel, watching her to make sure she wouldn't do anything.

"Max, are you okay?" Dylan asked softly.

"Huh?" I said, startled by the question. "Oh, yeah, I'm good."

"Are you sure? You look a little pale." he asked again.

"Yeah. It's probably just this cut. Stupid Gazzy and his metal monster..." I grumbled to myself.

"What happened to your leg Max?" Angel asked uber-sweetly, flashing me a blinding white smile. I studied her carefully before responding.

"You weren't here when it happened Angel? I thought you would've heard with all the noise."

Angel looked a little phased but not much. She readjusted her innocent face in a matter of seconds.

"No, I was out shopping." she smiled widely again.

"Yeah, the city sure is a cool place isn't it?" I said with an edge to my voice. "Good place for meeting new people too. Make any new friends Angel?"

I watched Angel's face drop drastically this time but she still picked it back up.

"I don't know what your talking about Max. I never said I went to the city." she said sweetly.

"Oh, well, I just assumed...anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here, you're safe, and you had fun." I stared her down. "Did you have fun Angel?"

"Yes." she said hesitantly.

"Well, that's good."

I grabbed my cereal bown and put it in the sink. I headed out towards the hallway but before I left, I decided it was best to end on a good, non-suspicious note.

"Goodnight." I said sweetly, "Don't let the bed-bugs bite..."

I walked swiftly down the hallway and entered my room, my real room that I had missed so much. It even smelled the same as I had left it months ago! I flopped back down on my bed, staring at my glow-in-the-dark stars, and gave some serious thought to what I had just gotten myself into and how I really should've just stayed out of it.

This was not going to end well.

Screw my life.

Dylan

We both let out a sigh of relief when the door finally shut. Angel started rubbing her jaw, contorting her face into various shapes and expressions.

"I swear if I ever have to smile or sweet-talk to anyone again, I am going to kill someone." Angel fumed. She looked down at the glass and knocked it off the table in rage. "I hate milk!"

"Calm down. It's over now." I told her.

She looked at me wild-eyed for a minute and then calmly sat back down. She pulled out the files and the folder once more and laid them across the table so that we could see all of them. We sat in silence for a moment just staring at the table.

"Max knows too much." I said.

"I know" Angel replied plainly.

"She's a liability."

"I know."

"Angel, if she tells anyone what she's seen, we'll be dead in the water! Everyone will be after us!"

"I know." she turned to me, her face now both serious and evil. "So what are we going to do about it?"