Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of its characters. I do, however, own original ideas and names (including the Agency and Lyndotia) used in this fanfic.

A/N: So I wrote this while I should've been writing a paper… but whatever, like I ever do those until the night before they're due. XD Lucky for you guys I have wireless access at school! … Unluckily, it's snowing badly and I must go home before that becomes impossible. But still, it's the point of the thing.

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Chapter Ten – The Truth, But Not the Whole Truth

"Gee, thanks for talking to everyone but me," Iggy muttered sarcastically as Max and Angel made for the kitchen. He guessed what Max really wanted, though, so he didn't press the matter.

He was just about to follow them when Lyndotia said quietly, "I would be glad not to be told what to do. You take it for granted."

"Maybe so," Iggy agreed slowly, somewhat taken aback that she had spoken to him without anyone trying to get her to talk. "But you don't have to listen to anyone even if they tell you something, either."

"I do if I want to be free," Lyndotia disagreed, sighing softly and closing her eyes. "Not that I ever will be. None of you trust me, and I can't blame you. I'll probably never trust any of you, either. It doesn't help chances of survival much to trust everyone you meet."

"No one's saying you should trust everyone," Iggy corrected, walking over to the couch she was sitting on and leaning against it. "I can't even see if you're about to hit me or something, but I don't think you are. That's all there is to it. Even if we're genetic freaks, we still have human intuition. Do you think we're going to hurt you?"

Lyndotia was silent for a moment before saying slowly, "I think you would if you thought you had to. Or if I can't prove I'm not lying."

"I don't think you're lying. I don't think you're telling us everything, but I don't think you're lying."

Lyndotia smiled faintly, looking up at him and seeming almost intrigued. "You're right," she confessed, her voice unchanging. "I haven't told you everything and odds are I never will. And you can probably say the same thing about your own friends."

Iggy looked taken aback by her words, but he couldn't deny the truth in them. "You're right, too. There are some things I wouldn't tell anyone, not even if my life depended on it. I think I see what you mean – so to speak."

A crease appeared between Lyndotia's eyebrows. "Why do you do that?"

Iggy blinked. "Do what?"

"Make jokes about being blind. I don't understand it. How can you find amusement in what happened to you?"

"I don't," Iggy admitted, shrugging as if to lighten his words. "There's nothing funny about a bunch of psychos with scalpels dicing you up until they can't even fix you. But… what can you do about it? If I didn't make jokes, people would feel sorry for me."

Lyndotia seemed to consider that for a moment. Finally she said in a much softer voice, "That… makes much more sense to me now. Thank you. I shouldn't have asked."

"You can ask whatever you want to," Iggy countered with a smile. "I mean, come on. You had to sit through Nudge the motor mouth and Max the interrogator. Not that I was much butter, but it's hard not to ask questions. We're all curious – we've never met anyone else like us who stuck around long enough to talk to."

"I've… never met another recombinant outside the Agency. It wasn't surprising to me, since they have a perfect 'safety record,' as they call it. We're given five years to grow into our wings, skills, and temperaments. Then we're either inducted into a Program and trained or declared useless and eliminated."

"Five?" Iggy repeated, sounding dumbfounded. "They decide when you're five if they're going to kill you or not!?"

"Mm. I suppose the School didn't go about things quite the same way, then."

"No. It didn't matter if they thought we were unique or useful or not. Everyone gets experimented on or taken apart at some point. They wanted to know what we were capable of, so they did everything they could think of. How long you lived depended on how well you could take it… and whether you still wanted to live enough to care."

Lyndotia shook her head as if to ward off some memory and then returned her gaze to him, though she knew he couldn't see it. She might as well have been examining her wing as she spoke; that would have been more beneficial and he wouldn't have known the difference. "I still… find it hard to believe. They used to tell us that we only existed as a precaution against the School. That the School started it all by creating hybrids, and they were only keeping up with the competition. We all thought they were just lies – excuses for being soulless sadists. We never dreamed there could really be anywhere else where whitecoats were doing this to people in the name of science."

"We?" Iggy asked slowly. "How many others like you are there from the Agency?"

"I was a Scarlet," Lyndotia said quietly, her expression turning pained. "Just being recognized as not being a failed experiment wasn't enough. You had to be trained properly, and you had to survive it. The Scarlets are the best – the ones who excelled against all odds. There were five of us."

"Five," Iggy repeated, and then he phrased a question slowly, sounding almost afraid to know the answer. "Did the Agency… not make many like you, then?"

There was a much longer pause this time, and for a moment Iggy thought she might not answer. Then, in a voice barely more than a whisper, she replied, "There were five times that number in my original group. That was cut down to thirteen at the five-year mark. By the time a year had passed, there were four of us left. One killed himself a few months later; the other two became Elitists, the second rank. There are fifty of them; I do not know how many still growing or in training."

Iggy didn't know what to say, and Lyndotia was beyond the point of caring. Chablis, Riordan, Naeva, and Zax – there were only four Scarlets at the Agency right now and the Elitists would have noticed this. They would be clamoring for Lyndotia's spot, and if she didn't return, one of them would have it. Of course, that would be after the remaining Scarlets were sent to destroy her and complete her mission. She couldn't allow herself to question her orders now.

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I bet the title tricked you into thinking it was about Angel and Max, didn't it? Heheh… Sorry, I'm just evil that way. :P