Maximum Ride at H.I.V.E. ch9

Bad Jokes and Evasive Pasts,

-.-.-.-

In bed

Raven had loved his idea, once she got over the fact that Seth had destroyed one of her katana for it.

Seth put in the earphones and DJ Splash once again played in his ears. New Life.One of his favourites. Max and Laura slept below him, deciding to put their differences, and Otto's preferences, aside for as long as they were forced to be near each other.

Otto was having a really bad weekend. Dekker had thought Max had actually meant there were electronic devices illegal to H.I.V.E. hiding somewhere in his pants. Needless to say, he was very embarrassed at having to be searched.

Seth closed his eyes and thought back, back to when his life was seemingly normal…

New Life…

-.-.-.-

Next morning

Max's stuff had finally been returned to her, appearing at the foot of her bed. She'd been pretty happy about it.

"So what have you got in there?" Seth asked, flipping through the books on his desk. Higher Villainy for Dummies was an interesting one. Seth had seen the For Dummies series before but he hadn't known that it included higher villainy.

"If nothings been taken…" Max searched through the bag, pulling everything out and dumping on her bed, "there should be the Secretary of Defence's laptop, Queens' pillow, night-vision goggles, the keys to a tank," she rattled off the list, taking them out of her bag as she said it.

"I know this is interesting stuff but we're going to be late for breakfast and we still need to stop by the library for your supplies," Laura interrupted, trying to get her hair reasonable. She looked like an insane person when her hair was like this. Max's looked fine or beautifully messy, as usual. It fell about her face as she trolled through her stuff. Seth's hair was short and just stayed spiked up. He could have bed hair, but you wouldn't be able to tell anyway, since he was a calm sleeper. It was one of those don't-roll-on-the-headphones instincts.

Seth chuckled at a sudden thought. "Early bird gets the-"

"Don't." Max stopped him abruptly. Using the "early bird" saying around her was not a good way to start the morning.

"Hot bacon?" he asked, unsure about why it was offensive. Max sighed and shook her head.

"Remember the wings?" Max whispered fiercely. "And don't even start about two birds with one stone," she warned, angry. Laura knew it wasn't such a good idea to make a genetically enhanced person angry. Otto had sort of missed that.

"Wasn't planning to. I just thought the early bird preferred bacon to worms- I mean spaghetti," he quickly amended. Seth picked up one of the many cell phones that littered the bed. "Agent Walker?" he said, reading the first text it had received since the day Max stole it. "From Head Office: we're trying to track Agent Smith's cell. It's not going well. Please make sure," Seth started laughing as he read the end of the text, "that your own doesn't go missing!"

"Really?" Laura peeked at the screen. "Well, it's a bit late," she said, returning to her impossible task.

"Can I keep this?" Seth asked Max, "It says Agent Walker," he smiled. His new identity was Seth Walker.

"Sure," Max said absentmindedly.

"Thanks. Looks like HIVEMind's disabled anything that could be used to track it though," Seth remarked. "Texts to Geneticist Batchelder…" Seth froze up. That couldn't be possible.

"Batchelder?" Max's head shot up, and she snatched the phone. "That bastard," she growled. "He was with the government… and the CIA approved?"

"What's got you guys riled up?" Laura asked, seeing how pale Seth's face had gone and the murderous rage that sat in Max's eyes.

Then the alarm went off.

"Whatever it is, we'll have to sort it out after classes," Laura said, pulling Max up and grabbing Seth. She shoved them both out the door and shut it behind them hurriedly. "We're going to be late for Stealth and Evasion at this rate!"

-.-.-.-

Stealth and Evasion

"What took you guys so long?" Shelby asked, seeing Laura's hair in a mess. They had been really late.

"Long story that still hasn't finished," Laura explained, rolling her eyes and shoving the other two into their seats.

Seth was distracted, thinking about what he had seen on the phone. Geneticist Batchelder. It couldn't be. It was impossible.

Max was thinking about the same thing. It had to be impossible. Nobody could have approved the School. It was inhumane, unreasonable; it went against everything people could consider decent.

"Well, now that everyone is here, we can start the lesson. I'd be surprised if everyone managed to get all their stationary…" Ms Leon drawled. Seth looked around and didn't see any teacher. The cat

"The teacher's a cat?" he whispered to Shelby, who was sitting next to him. Shelby hid her grin and smiled. Ms Leon had excellent hearing.

"Yes, the teacher is a cat," Ms Leon said from right in front of Seth, startling him. He hadn't heard her moving. "Is there a problem with that?" she said sarcastically.

"No, no, not at all," Seth said, studying the collar around Ms Leon's neck. "Just wondering how. You're not a Mrs McGonagall impersonator, are you?"

"No. Ask Professor Pike about it later," she suggested. "Now, we'll need to find out just

how good the new students are at this before an appropriate learning plan can be sorted out," Ms Leon said, returning back to the front desk. "I already know how dreadful you are, Master Walker, but we still have four other students to test."

And so they got tested. The Brazilian girl was an expert, Max was amazingly good, but she had a slight advantage. There was another boy that seemed to do just as well as Max, a tall dark kid with too-long black hair that reminded her a little bit of Wing. The last student to be tested was a student who looked like she'd rather be anywhere but there. She tripped almost every alarm and sentry on the course, despite doing her best to mimic Max and the boy.

"Can I have another try?" she asked Ms Leon, who thought she might be as bad as Seth. Ms Leon had actually revised her decision on Seth and decided he needed a go on the course too.

"After Seth," she agreed.

Seth looked at the course he was faced with. It was plain out "infiltrate the bank vault" for an extra-credit card. From observing the girl, he'd seen pressure plates, laser tripwires, security cameras, and a whole assortment of fake dangerous devices. The security cameras were so the class could watch his progress, and not actually part of the exercise.

"I'm screwed." He predicted.

He walked tentatively up to the security pad. He could see some of the numbers were slightly smudged, and from the directions of the smudges, he could guess the order they were pressed. Seth smiled. This might be easier than he thought.

9-2-5-7-4-3, he typed in. There was a beep and the lights turned on and the lasers turned off. Security system deactivated. Seth grinned and strolled in like he owned the place. The only problem now was the live sentries, which he nodded to as he walked past. They didn't notice anything threatening about the kid, or that he was going to steal whatever was hiding in the vault.

Their briefing had told them the boss hires new runners all the time. Fetchers for gold bars, that sort of thing.

Now, getting into the actual vault was a bit harder. The pad was a holographic digitalised one, meaning no smudged numbers. He tried the security code, and it came up negative. He put his thumb over the hologram emitter for a moment, hoping it would do something. It glitched and opened up the door.

-.-.-.-

"You have a stupid amount of luck, you know that?" Shelby groaned; facedesking.

"I might have done well but we still have no idea how stealthy I am," Seth replied, watching as the other girl tried to copy what he'd done. She did well too, but she'd also been terrible at actual stealth instead of trickery and deceiving, like Seth.

"Well, this concludes to two things," Ms Leon said after seeing the other girl finish with the card, "you two suck at stealth, but are good actors," she purred. "Maxine, Nicholas, and Sasha can actually follow instructions-"

"We had instructions?" Seth asked, confused.

"Yes. This was a test of Stealth and Evasion, meaning you were supposed to be stealthy and evade the guards if necessary." Ms Leon explained tiredly. "Since you did the opposite of that, I'll just have to mark you from what I saw in the weekend,"

The rest of the class was spent reviewing tactics and strategies for breaking into a bank.

Shelby's working was all about stealthily getting in and out with the loot and leaving behind a Wraith note.

Seth just bombed the place and went in with an argon laser cutter to open up the place like a tin can.

Laura hacked the system to show that she already had an account that contained almost all the money the bank had.

Otto did the same thing, but using his powers and a series of ATMs.

Wing's paper said Shelby would share with him, which Shelby admitted she probably would. Seth asked what they'd be naming their child and got whapped in the back of the head with Shelby's workbook.

Max was going to drive through with a tank and take whatever would fit in the back.

Nicholas would cut the power and shift in quietly without anybody noticing and take a backpack full of hundreds away with him.

Sasha would organise her gang to keep everyone at gunpoint while she grabbed the cash. She got slightly less marks because that's what always happens in the movies.

Nigel would ask his dad if he could borrow an assault Shroud and blast his way in.

Franz was going to make a withdrawal from the accounts of everyone he knew, and probably quite a few he didn't. But, being a super genius with financial things, he was going to do it untraceably.

The last girl was going to hire an expert, like Shelby, and give her, Wing, and their child, a little island in a pacific just for them.

"Guys," Shelby said, hands on hips, "I am NOT pregnant!"

"Just wait," the other girl giggled. Seth shoved Wing towards Shelby and started humming the wedding tune.

"What's your name again?" Max asked the other girl. "Oh, sorry," she quickly apologised, realising how blunt and rude she must have sounded.

"It's fine. I'm Jessica, although a lot of people call me Nudge for some reason," she said, and then went on about how cute a couple Shelby and Wing made for the next half an hour.
When it was finally over, Max smiled and said, "I think it's because they need to keep nudging you so they can hear the teacher,"

Nudge smiled and blushed, her coffee coloured skin turning reddish. "So, call me a caffeine addict," she grinned.

"Max," Ms Leon said for the eighth time, "what should you do if a guard discovers you in a military base?"

Max gave an evil smile. She'd already done this example for real. "You kiss him and then uppercut to the chin while he's still thinking about what the hell you're up to," she snickered.

Ms Leon frowned. "Are you sure about that?" she asked, confused.

Max shrugged. "It works,"

-.-.-.-

Villainous studies

"We build a giant super laser on the fully manned space station because it's not about minimalism," Nero explained, twirling the laser pointer's dot around the animation of the space station floating high above the earth. "It's all about style, finesse, and making it look good. Or bad, depending on how you think about it,"

"Be badass or bland," Seth supplied, liking the idea of a giant super laser waiting for him in orbit.

"Exactly," Nero agreed, bringing up a picture of Max, covered in stolen jewellery and waving to the crowds of police and reporters below her on the streets surrounding Buckingham Palace. It was a freeze frame, right before the sniper had taken a shot. "Maxine Ride and Shelby Trinity know this," he said, pulling up a newspaper image of a note left on a museum podium, signed by The Wraith. "However I can say that Maxine can go a little bit too far at times," Nero sighed, loading the footage of the recent tank stealing.

"I shall note that explaining to people that tanks smell like old socks is a bad idea," Max nodded, writing something in her class journal. Nero shook his head, knowing he was going to be hard-pressed to get the right idea across to them.

"Anyhow, I have reviewed your strategies for robbing the bank, and I must say I am disappointed in a few of your points. But some are understandable, as we must tread the fine line of getting what we want and making it look good, but we don't want the world's governments and other agencies pausing whatever else they are doing and focusing on getting rid of us."

"Like me?" Seth asked, flicking through his Be Careful of What you Steal guide, which labelled the pyramids in Egypt a stupid goal.

Nero thought for a moment. "I don't think so, as you're relatively new to the criminal world and in a different way, but you did attract a lot of attention," he admitted. "Now, Diabolus Darkdoom was a prime example of hitting the line and staying there. Everything he did was pulled off perfectly," Nero went on about Nigel's father for ages, pointing out all the highlights and the few lowlights of his career.

Max held up a hand.

"Yes, Maxine?" Nero gestured for her to ask her question.

"Please, call me Max. But, umm, is stealing tanks like that still allowed?" she chewed on the end of her pencil.

"I think that might be a one-time escapade, Max," Nero said, bringing up the fine-line-of-disaster on the big screen again. "If you do it too many times, they're likely to just set up an airstrike on you while you're on the road with the tank. Once you get enough friends and contacts in your circle of evil, you can get your own tanks manufactured anyway. Most will be designed better than anything the U.S. Military could offer you, especially if the engineers were H.I.V.E. graduates,"

"What about nuking?" Seth asked, twiddling his pencil around in his hand.

"Out of the question. Nuking people is a bad idea," Nero shook his head. "If you do that, the world will be thrown into chaos and wars will start, etc," he pulled up a picture of a fist smashing down on a wireframe earth. "G.L.O.V.E. is the Global League of Villainous Enterprises, and is designed to keep villains in check; make sure that they don't do anything that serious. After all, there's no point in striving to take over the world if there's nothing left to take over."

"So we get to be evil, but we have to follow all the rules," Seth wrote something in his book, and returned to leaning back lazily and playing around with the pencil.

"G.L.O.V.E. is for stopping one villain from achieving total power. If it does get to something like that, like with Overlord, we become the good guys and try to take him out so we still have the world to terrorise. Being the tech savvy person you are, I assume you are familiar with the "Grey-Goo" incident?" Nero asked.

Seth nodded. "Self-replicating nanobots eating everything and everyone, turning the world into a big glob of grey goo. Or there's the brain explosion theory,"

Nero folded his arms and rubbed his forehead. "The nanobot one. Overlord tried to unleash that upon the world, and that's one of the few times G.L.O.V.E. has authorised a nuclear strike."

"Did it work?" Seth asked, rather alarmed that the Grey-Goo Incident had almost been a reality. "Because if there was even one nanobot left, the world could still be in danger,"

"The EMP thrown out by the nuke would have been enough to corrupt their programming. But all were destroyed anyway." Nero assured him.

"That's a relief," Seth sighed, taking note in his journal. "Only nuke if there happens to be an unstoppable force to take over the world standing in your way…" he read. Satisfied, he looked back up to Nero.

"Next, we shall discuss the benefits of not being a law abiding citizen…"

-.-.-.-

Lunch hall

Seth, Laura, and Max were starving, since they'd missed breakfast. Nicholas and Jessica, who kept trying to remind them to call her Nudge, also had one hell of an appetite.

"What's next?" Max asked, digging into a club sandwich. Tomato, lettuce, ham, cheese, mayo, saladstuffs, it was a big sandwich.

"Grappling for Beginners with Colonel Francisco and then we end the day with Professor Pike in science and technology," Shelby reported, chowing down on some sushi.

"Sharks in the pool," Seth snickered, having a large bowl of fried rice. Wing and Nudge were enjoying their own fried rice too.

"There's sharks?!" Nudge cried, alarmed. Rice went flying as she spluttered out more words. "Are we gonna fall in and get eaten?!"

"There aren't any sharks," Otto said. He was having fish and chips, and kept making bad jokes about them, like the Lock Ness Monster eating fish and ships. His black eyes were stating to show less, which was a relief.

Laura was getting whiplash from her spaghetti a lot. "There are eels though," she said, "I don't know how they got there, but I don't think the Colonel put them there,"

"Slimy buggers," Seth cringed. "Smoked eel tastes pretty good, though,"