All right…alright…here comes the excuses…so quickly just let you all in my computer hates me, first the internet stops working then the computer goes haywire. Now I am back on line and can resume destroying your minds from the inside out. Now where was I…oh yes chapter's 3, 4 + 5 as I promised.

Gem

Chapter Three- Helicopter Joy Ride

Max's POV

The air was cold when I woke up. I could here a continuous rhythm like the beating of a drum…or a helicopter. I sat up and pulled the bag from head. The helicopter was small and compact. I glanced about and noticed Angel in a cage next to me.

Nudge was awake and lying with her back against the closed door. There was nobody in the helicopter with us.

Nudge smiled sadly at me and banged her fist against the steel door.

"It's been welded shut Max, same as the windows." She indicated the glass window above my head. I yawned and crawled to my feet. Every part of me hurt including my head.

"The guys around here?" I asked rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Nudge shrugged.

"If they are I haven't seen them." She looked towards a wall of steel that separated the pilot from us. I frowned and stood up. My head touched the roof and I couldn't stand properly.

Nudge moved her legs so I could stand next to the wall without tripping over her. Angel remained unconscious in her cage. I frowned turning to study it. It was an actual cage, not just a dog crate, with steel bars. I was beginning to realize our helicopter was bird-kid proof.

"What now Max?" Nudge asked in a resigned voice.

I breathed in deeply and smiled grimly at the wall. "First we get some answers."

I banged on the wall and shouted too whoever was flying the helicopter to let us out. There was no reply.

"Max their taking us back there aren't they? I thought after…after everything that has happened…why don't they give up? Why can't they just go away?" Nudge was in tears as she finished her endless round of questions. I had a few more I would have liked to add but I knelt down next to Nudge and comforted her.

"I don't know Nudge, I don't. I can't understand why someone would build or try to modify human babies in the first place, let alone constantly try to abduct and kill them." I stopped when I saw I was not doing any good. I sat next her and rested my head against the door.

"Look Nudge we can't understand how these sick twisted whitecoats think. But I can tell you one thing, where a danger to them outside, so they keep trying to bring us back in." I paused and Nudge blinked back her tears. I kept talking because the silence I knew that would follow would drive me to a psychotic breakdown. "Nudge we'll get out and escape like we did last time, and the time before that. However it happens, it will happen because we are way smarter then those dumbots any day. Oh and by the way did you notice the Erasers? I thought they had gotten rid of them and replaced them with the flyboys."

Nudge looked at me sharply and frowned. "What does that mean?" She asked breathing in and out slowly trying to concentrate on what I was saying.

"I don't know." I said truthfully. "But something tells me we'll find out soon enough."

A black speaker in the corner of the helicopter I hadn't noticed before beeped and a deep man's voice came over the intercom.

"This is your pilot speaking, please refrain from moving about the cabin as we are now experiencing some turbulence…" The 'pilot' broke off suddenly and we could here the scuffle for the microphone over the intercom. I snorted and Nudge managed a watery smile.

"Alright you ugly ducklings, listen to me as this is very important. We will take about an hour to get back to The School and then you are expected to meet with some important officials, the little freak will remain dormant until after the proceedings. Try anything and she is a dead duck."

The smooth voice of a super model switched off and Nudge and I shuddered at the words.

"Pity they don't have a two way connection." I commented darkly moving over to Angel. As I knelt over the cage and peered down on her still form, Nudge tried the latch and cursed. The door to the cage had been welded shut as well. We tried for over twenty minutes to pry it open but it was no good. Nudge and I collapsed against the cage exhausted.

"Max the guy's will get us out want they?" Nudge looked at me hopefully and I was suddenly a fourteen year old girl who had been on the run to long and just wanted to go home. Wherever the hell home was.

"'Of course they will, When have they ever let us down?"

As Nudge drifted of into a reflective doze, I sat and sighed. I knew that Fang would be doing everything he could to get us out.

But would that be enough?