Basically, guys, I was not having fun with Byron's little schedule. But you probably already knew that. I don't really want to talk about it. But I will anyway, because you guys need to know what's going on there.

Angel and I were finally allowed to sleep at about midnight the next day after they made us run pretty much all day. The experiments they'd been doing with Fang and I were just a front. This was the real evil scientist crap going on now. The only good thing was they hadn't… well, let's use their euphemism, 'talked' to me yet. I really just wanted to rest, but Angel kept saying my name in my head. You try falling asleep with someone actually talking inside your head. Finally, I said, "What, Angel?"

"I just… I thought you'd want to know what they were thinking."

"Uh, okay," I sighed.

"Well, they're not going to kill us, which is the good news," Angel said.

"Bad news?" I immediately asked.

"Well, they're using the avian part of our DNA to do something and I don't know why."

"Oh, God," I groaned. "You don't think they'll make more of—"

"Us? Maybe. I don't know," Angel said.

"Anything… anything from the flock?" I asked.

She shook her head. "But that's actually good, because it means they aren't within a few miles. It means they got out."

I nodded. "Okay." I had almost been hoping…

"Fang doesn't know we're here, Max," she said softly.

"Yeah, I know," I said, embarrassed. Since when did I want him to save me? He doesn't need a bigger head than he already has.

"And by the way, that's your fault," she said.

"I know," I said. "But they said themselves they would have taken him, too. So I was right." I knew she knew why I told him to leave—there was no way she'd respected my privacy in the circumstances.

"Well, they'll still talking about trying to find them," Angel told me. "It might have been pointless."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore, Ange," I said. "Go to sleep."

"Kay," she said quietly. She could read my mind and know exactly how much I was not interested in thinking about it being pointless.

The next day, Byron took me into a room and basically just asked me questions about the Flock I refused to answer. And then they didn't give me food all day. And then they sent us back to bed and a piece of bread was on my bed. I smirked a little. They know how much they need me, and they know that they aren't fooling me with threats. They can't touch me if there's any chance I won't recover. Angel smiled at me; she knew, too. This was pretty much our routine for about a week and I was really getting tired of starving myself by the time they put me in the room with Byron for day 8.

"Hello, Max," he said. "Would you like to take a tour of our facilities?"

"Not really," I said, shrugging. "Can we just do the awkward staring contest for eight hours again?"

He sighed. "That was rhetorical. Honestly, what did Jeb let you say to him at his facilities?"

I just rolled my eyes as he opened the door for me. "Fine," I finally groaned, getting up and going out into the hallway. It was the first time I'd walked in a while without some weirdo pointing a gun to my back, so I guess improvement. "What are you doing with the avian DNA?" I asked as soon as he closed the door on the guards.

He just smiled. "I forgot. Subject 11 is telepathic. One of our best successes, she is. But I bet you know that, Maximum."

"Angel," I said through gritted teeth. "And how is she your best success in telepathy? First of all, you didn't even do that to her, that was Itex."

He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Max, do you really think there was a research facility on Earth who wasn't owned by Itex during that period?"

I sighed. "Right. The big corporate baddies were pulling the strings. So you take credit for her?"

"No one else is left to call our bluff. Except maybe… well, you don't need to know about that," he said. "And as for what we're doing with your DNA, we're doing the procedures upon request for someone of importance to the cause."

"Who the hell would ask for this?" I asked. Who would be crazy enough…?

He smiled. "Oh, the irony is amusing. You'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure. Not through your little mastermind, either, by the way. We're blocking the signals to her powers involving that project. And now for the tour."

He showed me around the facility, basically through all the floors that we weren't supposed to go on. There weren't any more experiments left that I could see, but a lot of research. "So it wasn't destroyed," I said. "How many other things did you lie about?"

Byron grimaced. "The only information destroyed was your… what do you call them? Flock? Your flock's data."

"Oh, so we're the lucky ones," I said.

"Well, yes, you're the living ones."

"Hate to break it to you, but there's about 60 bird kids on the island," I said with a smug grin.

He sighed. "No there aren't, Max. You saw the snipers. None of the rest of them were brave enough to leave the island. They were dealt with. We don't need them anymore. The human race will do just fine."

"I thought you thought they were all inferior," I said.

"No, that was the Doomsday Group. Crazy cult leaders with ambitions bigger than they could handle. The human race is perfectly worthy."

"Oh, wow, you're a true altruistic," I said, rolling my eyes. "Can I go back to my room now?"

"No. We need to run scans," Byron said.

"Let's get it over with, then," I groaned. He led me to a lab and they put me in this weird tube thing. It was going to take a half hour or more, according to the lab assistant. Joy.

But I guess now I'm glad it took so long. I think they must have forgot about my good hearing… this is what I overheard.

Byron was talking to another doctor by the door. "She's asking questions," he said darkly.

"Just don't answer them," the doctor told him.

"But Subject 11 was successful. She'll know if we even think about it."

"Can we block the signal?"

"No, it's too much of a part of our thought processes at this point. They're causing a lot of trouble, we have to think about them quite often." I don't think he was talking about the flock.

"What would you like to do, David?"

He sighed. "I'm not sure. I don't think she's going to help us. We got what we needed from them. And Subject 11 is communicating with the others, no doubt." I smiled. They overestimated Angel. Helpful. "I think it's pointless to keep them."

"I'll leave the cell unlocked tonight. If they can get out, they can. They wouldn't be able to stop it at this point anyway."

"Fine," Byron sighed, and walked out.

That night, I got back to the room and Angel looked up at me. "They're letting us out," she said.

"I know," I said. "I don't know why. They seem pretty confident, though. That scares me."

So that night, we left. And they let us. And it freaked me out.

Right now, Angel and I are in a hotel in Florida. We've been trying to research Byron's plan, but we really do need Nudge to do that stuff. Neither of us are all that tech-savvy. Angel's been trying to sit outside the college nearby and listen to nerd's thoughts trying to pick something up, but it's not working very well. They use jargon in their minds. Come on. You know what we need? We need that crazy schizophrenic subway kid from New York. But he was one of the Doomsday Group maniacs and I think he died in the desert. Well, we need Nudge at least.

Guys, get in touch, please.

—Max