PART THREE

From Subway to Sewer to Surface

22

We had stopped moving, if only to open the door, when I heard a sound. Okay, it was several sounds at once, echoing from down the tunnel. There were at least two more sets of wings, and something unfamiliar, moving quickly at a steady pace, like a dog... What was it? Claws? Hooves? And it's incredible that anything was able to keep up with us on foot, considering that we were flying at speeds of around one hundred eighty, to two hundred kilometres an hour.

In other words, damn fast.

I turned around, to look where the sounds were coming from, and quickly found my answer. I was definitely right about the wings, with two human-avian hybrids rapidly setting up for a landing, but the third one surprised me.

What does the term "Human-Equine Hybrid" mean to you?

23

I couldn't resist. We just had to get closer to the centaur. The one thing I never honestly expected to see, and that's saying something for a kid with wings. The oldest of the trio, a boy of about seventeen with cardinal red wings spoke first. "I never expected an Eraser to help get us out of that hell. I saw what you did to those bastards back at the lab. In my opinion, they deserved to die, but seriously, dude, what did you have to pay him to make him turn?"

"Excuse my brother," said the other bird-kid, a girl of about sixteen, with startlingly black wings. "We've been cooped up in there for so long, that he seems to have forgotten his manners. I'm Raine, and this is Jace." I took note of their names. "The centaur we decided to call Pan." I coughed, hiding a chuckle. "I know what you're thinking. Greek mythology, Pan was a faun, yada yada yada, but it just seemed to fit."

The kid, Pan, whispered quietly, "what are manners?" when I realized that he would never, ever have a chance at a proper education. I suddenly felt sorry for the kid. Mind you, I wouldn't mind having his running speed. Seriously, no one else I have ever seen has been able to run like I can fly.

Aaron then spoke up. "He didn't pay me anything. I don't have much time left, and I wanted to do something to redeem myself. After all, what can Itex do at this point? Kill me? I'm going to die anyway, and I've nothing left to lose. As for why he's with me now, and was back in the lab, he's my brother, in every sense of the word. I'm Aaron, and the other winged freak is Terry. The Erasers who we fought back at the lab were the ones who dragged us into this mess." I then proceeded to explain my life, how I was changed right after birth by a version of myself from an alternate time line, and how we had lived together with our family.

I omitted my parents deaths, when the twin Erasers came and kidnapped my brother, but included my alternate self returning to assist me in getting him back. When I was done speaking, at the two month time gap that was when I was comatose, my brother took over.

He told of his training, of his transformation, of the horrible tests he had watched performed on the various recombinants, and most of all, of his plan to escape. He understood that I didn't want them to know that those Erasers had killed our parents, so he stayed silent about that. When he finished, everyone was still, and we all seemed to have an understanding. They were going to stay with us for a while, and we were going to build an army, and fight back.

24

When I entered the Institute, I expected there to be a fight. In fact, I was sort of disappointed when there wasn't. The place was a dump. There was mess everywhere, but at least there were no people around. Pan suddenly began to speak.

"This was a lab once, until late last year, when a group of six avian hybrids came, and released as many of the experiments as possible. A few months later, the released hybrids returned, led by another bird-kid. They left none alive." Wow. Dark. Could these kids really have been out for revenge that badly? And how was Pan able to tell us al this, when he hadn't even been outside of the lab in his life?

But there were still people there.