A/N: School is out!!! Yea! You have no idea how relieved I am. Enjoy the update. It's kind of short, sorry! But it's educational! Sorry about the cliffy at the end though.

Disclaimer/Copyright: I don't own Maximum Ride. I do own some aspects of this story. I hope you're smart enough to figure out what those aspects are.

NSRQ#11: "Ownership is, like, you know, an illusion. Maybe we don't even own our own bodies. We could be, like, the daydreams of some greater spirit." –Juliet Butler, from Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Chapter Ten: The Greater Good (Part One)

SC

SC

SC

Date: March 10th, 1994. 8:37 am. Subject: #7 of A.G.E. Project. ID code: AGE0017102. Examination: Field Testing. Tester: L. Pickley. ID code: ERH00465135. Observer: B. Smith. ID code: SUP00149107

Dr. Pickley looked up from his clip board and glanced back at Dr. Smith. Smith saw him looking and nodded—all clear. Pickley swallowed hard. If this test went well, he could get the promotion to Head Eraser Handler. And with twins on the way, he needed the extra money. Maybe he could even get a bigger house; Samantha would be so happy.

"Bring it out," he instructed the intern. The intern bobbed his head obediently, pushing the loaded cart out onto the field. The bumpy ground rattled the dog crate on the cart nosily. Pickley quickly double checked the subject's report. Yes, it had had its wings clipped three weeks ago, so no flying off. Pickley checked all of the gates—locked, and the fence was electrified. No escaping. Good. Everything was going perfectly so far. Even the weather was in prime condition.

The intern was far out on the field now. He looked to Pickley for further directions. Pickley licked his teeth nervously. The A.G.E. Project Subjects were all tricky experiments to deal with. He'd worked with Subject Six once before and ended up with a dislocated knee cap. He'd been hoping to get a different, easier experiment for this test, but AGE0017102 was the one Dr. Smith had chosen.

"Let it out," Pickley called to the intern.

The intern shoved the crate off of the cart. The resulting bang! traveled across the field. Out of the corner of his eye, Pickley could see Dr. Smith smirked. The intern bent over and fiddled with the lock, finally getting it open. He backed away and waited, but nothing came out.

Pickley pursed his lips. The intern was clearly getting frustrated; he picked up the back of the dog crate and tipped it over until the experiment inside finally tumbled out. Male. Two years old. Two feet, eleven inches. Twenty-nine pounds. All things that were carefully noted in the subject's file. But it was stranger seeing it in real life. And then there were the things not noted in the file: Black hair and brown eyes, the common Mediterranean. Dark wings, still with their silly looking fledgling feathers. Birds weren't Pickley's specialty, but he could tell the subject would probably have black feathers in its adult years.

Subject Seven stood slowly, exactly where it'd been dumped onto the ground. Otherwise, it didn't move.

The intern loaded the crate back onto the cart and hurriedly wheeled it away. Once the intern was back behind the safety wall and Dr. Smith gave the affirmative nod, Pickley blew his whistle.

Four Erasers, all young and eager, stepped up at attention. Four seemed a bit unnecessary—the subject was still a toddler—but you could never be too careful, Pickley thought.

Pickley blew the whistle again. The Erasers dashed out onto the field, morphing. Pickley watched them morph appreciatively. The transformation had gotten a lot smoother, and the Erasers looked much more human-like. The R&D guys had done a good job on this batch.

Pickley turned his attention to Subject Seven out on the field. He frowned. Seven still wasn't moving. Usually, the experiments tried to run, no matter how pointless it was. Maybe the subject had some sort of strategy; Pickley had heard the A.G.E. Subjects were pretty intelligent. Maybe the experiment had a plan.

Or not.

The first Eraser reached the experiment, knocking it off the ground. The Eraser leapt on top of Seven, punching into the toddler's ribcage. The other three Erasers came and joined the mobbing, kicking the subject's head and ripping into its legs.

Dr. Smith chuckled. "Just as I thought."

Pickley gaped in horror. If an experiment died on his watch—especially one from the A.G.E. Project—there was no way he'd get the promotion. Pickley raised the whistle to his lips, whistling loudly. The sound blasted through the air, but the Eraser ignored the instruction. He blew again, to no avail. If anything, it only seemed to make the Erasers more ferocious.

Dr. Pickley rushed out onto the field, pulling his modified Taser out from its holster. The Erasers ignored him as he approached—it was grounded into them to never attack employees. Pickley's aim was miserable, but by the time the intern had joined him, all four Erasers were down. The intern helped Pickley shoved the massive wolf bodies off of the small subject.

Seven was unconscious, broken ribs poking through his skin, the rest of its limbs and wings equally mauled. Pickley grappled with its wrist, trying to find a pulse. The intern was calling med team out onto the field, while carefully noting the damage in the subject's file.

Pickley found a faint pulse and relaxed; he wiped his bloody hands on his white coat. Seven would live. It'd probably be in the med ward for a few days, and Pickley would get a reprimand for the damage. There was no way he'd get the promotion now, but at least he wouldn't be fired.

"The Director won't be pleased with this."

Pickley glanced back to see that Dr. Smith had joined them. Smith kicked the body lightly. "Seven is one of his favorite projects. You know how paternal Batchelder gets."

Pickley nodded in agreement; the Director had a reputation for being somewhat… soft. Swallowing hard, he asked Smith, "Why didn't it do anything?"

Smith shrugged. "It just isn't a fighter, that's all. The psych guys think there might be something wrong with its function. Looks like they're right."

The med team arrived and lifted the experiment onto a stretcher. Pickley rose and grabbed Seven's file, cursing his rotten luck. He would've had the promotion for sure, if only he'd gotten a better subject…

SC

SC

SC

"Max. Wake up."

I groaned and rolled over, being tugged out of my slumber by Fang's insistent shoulder-shaking. Fang chuckled, and I opened one eye to look at him, half expecting to see toddler Fang, with his pale face ripped apart by Eraser claws. But he was still sixteen, and the only wound on his face was the nearly-healed gash from yesterday.

"Your watch, Max," Fang said. "Unless you'd rather I take it…" I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

Glaring, I sat up, forcing myself not to yawn. "I'm up, I'm up." It was still way dark out, somewhere around three in the morning. A traitorous yawn crept its way up my throat as I stretched and rubbed my eyes.

Fang sighed and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him. "I'm serious about that offer," he murmured against my neck.

"No. You never let me take watch anymore," I retorted. He kept waking me up late for my watch, or not waking me up at all. And while I appreciated the extra snooze time, I still felt really guilty about it.

"You need to sleep," Fang replied. He pressed his lips to my forehead, then kissed down my jawline to my chin. I forced myself to concentrate; Fang was such a cheater.

"You need to sleep too," I defended. I squirmed in his arms, turning around to look at him. Fang pulled away from me, giving me a long, level look. I stared right back at him. "Sleep," I ordered firmly, crossing my arms.

Fang rolled his eyes in submission. I smiled triumphantly, leaning in to kiss him lightly. "G'night."

"Good night," he mumbled back, releasing me from his embrace and stretching out on the cave floor next to me. I kept an eye on him for a few minutes, making sure he actually fell asleep, then brought my focus to the task at hand: watch.

I didn't really mind watch. Back when the Flock was still whole, it used to be the only time of quiet that I ever got. Now that it was just Fang and me, I got plenty of quiet. But I still liked the "me" time that watch provided.

"You know, you should really pay attention to your surroundings."

I moaned to myself. Then again, it was impossible to have "me" time with a Voice in my head. Yeah? Why don't I go to bed and you wake me up if anything comes our way? Why can't you do that?

"I could do that. But that'd be too easy."

You suck, you know that? I grumbled. Deven just laughed.

I drew my knees underneath my chin, letting my shoulder blades and wings relax. So, what was with the dream?

Deven scoffed. "That wasn't a dream. That was March 10th, 1994 as Leroy Pickley remembers it. Fiddled with a bit for the purpose of transcription and translation, but still essentially a memory. "

Once again: where do you get this stuff?

"Straight from the source. Now pay attention."

I huffed. Straight from the source? What was that supposed to mean? But nonetheless, I reverted back to doing watch the proper way: actually watching.

The night was still. I listened carefully, straining my audio range to reach its furthest. Nothing. I gently picked up Fang arm and twisted it around so I could see the time. Just barely three-thirty. Still a while to go. I dropped Fang's arm, shifting to brush his bangs out of his face. His fingers twitched in his sleep.

Sighing, I gazed out of the cave again. Why did I feel so antsy? Maybe I was just out of practice. It had been a while since I'd done a full watch.

Or maybe something was wrong.

Time dripped by seamlessly. There wasn't a sound: no raccoons rustling through the underbrush, no owls swooping down on prey, nothing. Even the trees seemed to be especially calm tonight.

I scanned the surrounding rocks and boulders suspiciously. They'd make a good place for someone to hide. Getting to my feet as lightly as possible, I crept out of the cave and investigated the rocks. No one.

But as I turned to return to cave, the back of my neck tingled.

I whipped back around. Something flashed out of sight, disappearing into the trees. The branches shivered violently, then stilled.

I gulped; whatever that something was, it was fast.

I ran back to the cave, shaking Fang awake. "Fang! C'mon, we've got to go!"

He was up in a moment, analyzing my face. Apparently, he found trouble. He snapped in escape mode. "Erasers?" Fang asked, throwing all of our things into his bag.

I shook my head, kicking dirt over the fire to put it out. "Not Erasers. Something else, I don't know. We need to leave." I waved smoke out of my face, snatching my backpack of the ground. I cast a haphazard cast over the campsite, making sure we hadn't left anything vital. Clear.

Fang was already out of the cave, looking up in the treetops. I ran out to meet him, already unfolding my wings from my body a bit.

But Fang held out a hand. "Wait," he hissed, still staring into the canopy.

I halted immediately. Fang slowly lowered his hand and snared mine in it, giving it a gentle squeeze. He looked at me, then back up at the branches.

"Come out!" he called. "I can see you!"

There was no answer.

"We know you're there. There's no point in hiding."

High above our heads, there was a faint rustle. Then suddenly, something small fell from the treetops and landed lithely in front of us.

A girl hardly older than nine crouched on the ground. I noted the ears, higher on the head than usual, though not quite at the top, and roughly triangular. Weird. My stomach lurched as I recognized the same "uniform" that we wore at the School: baggy gray t-shirt made even baggy by her sickly thin frame and old sweatpants that were too short.

But as she stood up, I saw the strangest thing of all: her eyes weren't… normal. There was something wrong with them, though I couldn't quite place it.

"Cat eyes," Fang breathed beside me, reading my mind.

The girl's high ears twitched and she smiled sheepishly. "Yeah." She looked at us, then at the dirt. "Uh… hi." She then burst into a coughing fit, skinny shoulders trembling. When she pulled her hands away, I saw blood. She wiped them nonchalantly on her pants. It was then that I noticed several such blood stains.

"What do you want?" I asked finally. The cat-girl's smile fell at the hostility in my voice; I immediately felt guilty. She was only nine at the most and clearly hurt—I mean, c'mon, no one coughs up blood otherwise.

"Uh…" She continued staring at the ground. "Well… I saw the—wings—" She glanced up at them, then back down again. "And I was kind of curious, 'cause I thought maybe you were like me. And I smelled food."

"You're hungry?"

The cat-girl nodded, relieved. Fang glanced at me; I sent him the okay signal. Not taking his eyes off the girl, he took off his backpack and pulled out a bag of Doritos. He tossed them to the girl. She sat down and carefully open the bag and started slowly eating the chips, appearing to savor each one. Now and then, she would cough.

When she finally finished the Doritos, she looked up at us, appearing to finally notice our tense expressions. "Thanks." She bit her lip. "Sorry if I… uh… scared you, or something. I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

I ignored Deven's observation. "It's… fine, no biggie. But…um, what's your name?"

The little cat-girl stared at me blankly. "What's a name?"

Oh geez. She must've just escaped from… wherever she escaped from. "What other people call you," I explained.

"Oh." She coughed, then screwed up her face. "The doctors call me FGE00738019."

Fang glanced at me pointedly. It was the same type of code they used for the experiments at the School.

"Okay," I agreed. "That is a name. But do you have one that isn't all filled with numbers?" The girl shook her head, blinking at me with large, iris-filled eyes. "Why don't you give yourself a name then."

She thought for a moment. "Is Leigh a name?"

Well, if Fang is a name, then Leigh certainly is. "Sure."

The nine-year-old beamed. "Okay that's my name. Leigh."

I smiled a bit, but inside I was getting tenser by the moment. Fang seemed to notice; he placed one hand on the small of my back and rubbed me slightly.

"Alright, so, Leigh," I began. "Where did you come from? The School?" The cat-girl shook her head and coughed, hacking up more blood.

"The Institute? Itex?" Fang asked, finally speaking.

Leigh shook her head again, coughing fit subsiding. "No." Her voice was kind of scratchy, like she had a sore throat or something. She wiped her blood covered hands on her pants again. "I was made at the School; everything starts at the School. I was shipped to the Institute for a while, but I wasn't there long. I don't know what Itex is. I just came from the Administration."

The what?!

SC

SC

SC

A/N: Told you there was a cliffy. Some more answers and a lot mre questions to come, next chapter! Until then, review!