I bring you chapter 10! Okay peoples. Reviews = updating. Whether it is intentional on my part or not, if you review, you will get updates. If you don't review, you might eventually get updates. Maybe. Do we understand the concept? I'm feeling review starved here!
(Fang POV)
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Relief flooded through me with such force that it nearly knocked me off my feet. No expiration date. Thank god. But that means we still don't know what was wrong. "So, back to guessing then?" I asked.
"Not exactly. Hearing about the whole expiration date gave Kelsey an idea. She thinks she knows what might be happening."
"What is it? What does it have to do with the expiration date?" I questioned Iggy.
"Woah, hold up. I don't know yet. She wanted to wait for you. Apparently, she thinks that you will be able to tell if it's likely." Iggy explained, sounding slightly resentful. "Apparently, it's a sight thing."
"Oh. Why didn't she tell you anyway?"
"That's what I said, but noooo. Come on, she told me to bring you in when you…" Iggy hesitated, not wanting to push me, "came back."
Iggy turned around and headed towards the living room. When we got there, I saw Kelsey, sitting on the couch, head in her hands, and looking thoroughly worn out. The sight gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, it was nice that someone was worried about us other than us for a change. On the other hand, I felt kind of guilty for imposing. Just by helping us, she was in danger, and she had helped us a lot. Not to mention the fact that we hadn't been particularly grateful. More like suspicious and hostile. Not that we didn't have good reason to be. Trust wasn't a luxury that we had in our lives.
After a moment, I cleared my throat, and she jumped about a foot. "Ah! Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'm tired, not very observant. Sorry." She smiled weakly. I raised my eyebrow. "Right okay. After you left, Iggy explained the whole expiration date situation. As far as I know, it is completely impossible to program in a specific date for any organism to die. Even if it had been genetically altered from the time it was a fetus, the idea is completely absurd."
"Well, absurd as it may be, it's true. Unless you're implying that we're all very stupid, all lying, or all insane." I shot back coldly. Just because she wasn't aware that it could be done didn't mean that it couldn't be done. The whitecoats had done many things that people would say is impossible.
"No, no. I'm not trying to imply any of that. I have no doubt that a date does indeed appear on the necks of the people experimented on by this school of yours, and that they die on that date. What I'm saying is that it can't be genetic. Whatever it is that kills them, it isn't an internal factor. Not in the conventional sense of the term anyway. Most likely, there is some mechanism that can be triggered by an external signal."
"Um… what?" She'd lost me.
Kelsey sighed. "What I mean is that what probably happens on these expiration dates, are that some sort of toxin is released into the bloodstream from a mechanical container. Which means that it would be possible for that container to break, leaking the poison into the bloodstream, and possibly killing that person before there expiration date showed up. But it would be much slower. Instead of a bunch of poison being released at once, it would be a little bit at a time."
Like what was happening to Max. And the school would probably know that her… poison container had been broken. It all made sense, but I didn't see how it helped us. "And you think that this is what is happening to Max? What can we do then?"
"If I'm right, then whatever it is that's making her sick could be surgically removed. The rest of them too. You could avoid you're expiration dates, and save Max."
Woah. That was almost too great to consider. Saving Max and getting rid of our expiration dates all at the same time. The expiration date issue had always weighed me down. I know it had bothered Max too. How long would we get to live as decreed by the school? Another year? Two? Or just a few months? The knowledge that we could just… have them removed, was giving me a strange high. Seeing the goofy grin on Iggy's face, I know that he felt the same way.
"Really?! That's excellent! Why aren't we doing it right now? Max first, then Fang, then me, then all of the others. We should start right away!" Iggy said with feeling.
Iggy was blind, so he couldn't see the look on Kelsey's face. It was sad, but not despair. More like concern, caution, and reluctance.
"That's not all is it? It's more complicated, isn't it?" I asked, rapidly coming down from the high I'd just been riding.
"No. I don't have any idea where to look. I can't just go hacking through you guys until I come across something that shouldn't be there. I would have to know where it was first, and then, I would have to have at least some basic knowledge of your anatomy, and because there has never been any human-avian hybrids other than you in history, that is going to be hard."
"So… that's it then. We know the problem but can't do anything about it?" I asked quietly. The story of our lives. There wasn't anything you can do.
"Not exactly. It wouldn't actually be hard to locate it, as long as there aren't any decoys or other pieces of technology stuck into you, which, from what you've told me is quite possible. What I would have to do is a full body scan. Locate the container using that, and then MRI that specific area so that I would have a better idea of what I'm dealing with."
That was better than nothing, but from her tone of voice, I knew that a getting a full body scan and MRI would be potentially problematic. "Let me guess. You'd don't have a full body scanner or an MRI machine here."
"Nope. And that means that we need to go to the hospital, and being that the hospital would probably take issue with a non-doctor waltzing in and using their equipment on a bunch of bird kids." Kelsey sighed.
"And that means," I said taking up where she left off, "that us bird kids, and you, are going to have to break into a hospital."
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AU: That wasn't too much of a cliffie. Anyway, review! Please. I have decided that I am open to suggestions. Not plot lines or anything, although if you really have a good idea, I'd like to hear it, but I basically have this story planned out. Just filler stuff, little things that you would like to see happen in this story.