Maximum Ride All Over

Chapter 55

Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride, not I.

Chapter 121 She read.

"This way," I said, walking in the darkness of the tunnels. It was as if a detailed map was imprinted on my retinas, so I could see it laid over reality, tracing the path we needed to follow. "Interesting," Iggy said.

"So that's how you knew where to go," Gazzy said.

If this map effect was part of my life forever, I would go nuts, but right now it was dang useful. "Do you still have that, Max?" Ella asked.

"No, thankfully," I said, shaking my head.

One other thing I guess I should mention – I was really, really afraid now, more afraid than I'd ever been before, and I didn't even know why. "Gee, you're wandering down a dark tunnel that might lead you to more psycho scientists and who knows what other horrors. Why would you possibly be afraid?" She said. I stuck my tongue out at her. Maybe I didn't want to know the truth. Also, my head was throbbing, and that had me a little crazy too. Was I approaching my expiration date? Was I going to die? Was I just going to fall over and be gone from the world and my friends? "Why didn't you tell me you were worried about that?" Fang asked quietly enough to where my human family couldn't hear. I shrugged, then looked at him.

"I couldn't find the words," I said even quieter. How do you tell someone you love you think you might be dying? I shivered and scooted even closer to him.

"Did the voice tell you about this, Max?" Nudge poked me and asked.

"Kind of," I answered.

"Great," I heard Iggy mutter, but I ignored him. "I really had you all worried, didn't I?" I asked, putting my head in my hands.

"It's okay, Max," Nudge said. "We didn't really know what to think."

"We always knew you were crazy," Iggy said. "It just started to show a little more."

Angel rolled her eyes. "I knew you were okay, Max," she reassured me. Of course she would, the little mind reader knew almost exactly what was going through my head 24/7.

Every step was bringing us closer to the Institute – I could feel it. We were finally about to have our questions answered, and also possibly fight the worst fight of our lives. But our curiosity was so compelling: Who were we? How had they taken us from our parents? Who had grafted avian DNA into us and why? "Have you actually found those answers?" Ella asked. I shrugged.

"Not exactly," I said slowly, "at least, not all of them, and not for everyone." I noticed the way Nudge's eyes looked anywhere but at Ella or me, and the way Gazzy and Angel sighed, and Iggy's shrug. "As far as I know, the information we were looking for might still be out there, or it might not, but I think we've all decided it doesn't really matter anymore. What matters is who we are now, and what we're going to do with the life we've been given."

"Oh, some of that information's still out there," Jeb piped up. I held up my hand.

"We'll save that conversation for later."

My mind shied away from the parent question. I really didn't know if I could stand to find out. Everyone laughed, everyone but Fang and me. But everything in me burned to know the other whys and wherefores. I wanted names. I wanted to know who was accountable. I wanted to know where they lived.

"Okay, now the tunnel splits," I said, "and we take the one with no tracks."

Angel's hand was in mine, small and trusting. The Gasman was still dopey with sleep, occasionally stumbling. Iggy had one finger in Fang's belt loop. "What about Nudge?" Ella asked.

Nudge grinned, "I was right behind her, beside Gazzy."

We were looking for a rusted grate set in the floor. I my dream, I had seen it at the crossroads of two tunnels, so it had to be here. But I didn't see it. I stopped, and the others stopped behind me.

"It has to be here," I said under by breath, peering into the darkness.

Don't think about what has to be, Max. Think about what is.

I set my jaw. Can't you just tell me stuff straight out? I thought. Why did everything have to be like, "What is the sound of one hand clapping" and all?

But okay. What was here, then? I closed my eyes and just sensed where I was, consciously letting any impression at all come to me. I felt like such a total dweeb. Mom and the flock laughed.

Then I just walked forward, eyes shut, trying to sense where we should go. Instinctively, I felt I should stop. So I stopped. I looked down.

There, at my feet, was the dim outline of a large rusted grate.

Well, aren't you special, I told myself. "It's over here," I called. "So, wait," Ella said. "Is that like your internal GPS or something?"

I smiled, "Kind of."

The grate pulled up easily, its screws disintegrating into rusty powder as Fang, Iggy, and I pulled. It came loose and we set it aside.

Below it was a manhole with rusted U-shaped handholds set into one side. I lowered myself over the edge and started climbing down into the sewer system of New York City. "Gross," Ella said.

What a destiny.

Finally, I had to ask the Voice a question. HAD TO ASK. Am I going to die? Is that what this is all about?"You just had to ask," Ella said.

There was a pause, a long one, really agonizing, the worst.

Then the Voice decided to answer. Yes, Max, you are going to die. Just like everybody else.

Thank you, Confucious.

My family – and Jeb – laughed. I shook my head as Total flew the book from Nudge to Gazzy.

Chapter 122 he read, then, exercising his mimicry abilities, he transitioned into my voice.

This may surprise you, but the sewer system of a burg with eight million people is even less delightful than you might imagine. Nudge's face was wrinkled in disgust from the memories and Mom and Ella were both looking grossed out. We climbed down the manhole one by one and ended up standing on a grimy tiled ledge maybe two feet wide. Above us, the tunnel curved around, some fourteen feet across, "Isn't that about the length your wingspan used to be?" Mom asked, trying to figure out if we'd be able to fly out of there.

"Yeah," I said with a shrug, remembering my fight and flight in the sewage tunnels. Gazzy kept reading. and below our ledge was a swiftly moving current of filthy wastewater.

"Bleah," said Nudge. "This is so gross. When we get out of here, I want someone to spray me with, like, disinfectant." "Sooo disgusting," Nudge said again with a shiver.

Angel stuffed Celeste up under her shirt.

"Max?" said the Gasman. "Are those, um, rats?"

Lovely. "Yes, those do appear to be either rats or mice on steroids," I said briskly, trying not to shriek and climb the walls like a girly-girl. Everyone laughed.

"Jeez," said Iggy with disgust. "You'd think they'd want to live in a park or something."

Ahead of us was a four-way intersection of tunnels, like a big cross. I hesitated, then turned left. Several minutes later, I stopped, completely and utterly without a clue.

Hello, Voice? I thought. A little help here, please. "Yeah, even I know it won't answer you so easily," Ella said.

I had no hope that the Voice would respond, but if it did, it would probably say something like, If a tree falls in a forest, does it still –

I looked down, then sucked in my breath so fast I almost chocked. I was standing on a translucent platform suspended high over the sewer system."Wait, what?" A few people said at once. I wanted to scream, feeling off-balance and scared. Below me I could see another Max, looking like a deer caught in headlights, and the rest of the flock staring at me. Fang reached out and took the other Max's arm, and I felt it, but no one was with me. "Whoa," Ella said and Nudge's eyes were wide. "What happened?" she asked. I shook my head. I still don't understand how it happened.

Fang put an arm back around me for comfort. It was tough hearing this again, and this wasn't even one of the rough battles or trapped parts of our lives. But for me, I felt like my mind was being undone. It was nice to have his support right now.

When are you going to trust me, Max? said the Voice. When are you going to trust yourself?

"Maybe when I don't feel completely bonkers," I snarled.

I swallowed hard and tried to get a grip. Tentatively, I glanced down again at the translucent surface. As I watched, faint lines of light tracked the path behind where we'd already been. Then the lines continued through the tunnels, like a neon This Way sign.

Quickly, I glanced up but saw only the yucky yellow-tiled arch covered with mold – no glass ceiling. Fang was still holding my arm, looking at me intently.

I gave him an embarrassed smile. "You must be so sick of looking at me with concern."

"It is getting stale," he said. "What happened? This time, I mean."

"I don't even want to explain," I said, wiping clammy sweat off my forehead. "You'd have me committed to a madhouse." "Maybe I should have," Fang muttered and I smacked him. He chuckled.

I stepped carefully around him and led the others forward. Some sections of the tunnel were lit dimly from open grates high above us, other parts were dark and dismal. But I was never lost, never uncertain, and after what felt like miles, I stopped again because it felt like it was time to. 'Cause, like, the feng shui was right, you know? Ugh. "You really must have either thought that she always knew what to do all the time or thought she was insane by now," Ella said. The younger kids smiled. I'd had their trust from the beginning. Iggy snorted, and Fang laughed once.

"That's my family," I said with a slight smile.

As we stood staring around ourselves in the darkness, avoiding our chittering little rat friends, I saw why we were there.

Set into one cruddy, disgusting sewer wall was an almost completely hidden gray metal door. "Why would there be a door in a sewer wall?" Ella asked.

"Because the psycho scientists can't do things the normal way," Iggy answered.

"We're here, gang. We made it."

Gazzy gave the book to Total so he could fly it to Angel.

"Wow," she said. "We're getting really close to the end, Max."

Chapter 123

Don't get too excited. The door was locked, of course. "Nothing is ever going to be easy for you, is it, Max?" Ella asked, her head in her hands. She could probably sense the tension again.

I laughed. "Easy? What's 'easy'? I've never known that word."

"Okay, guys," I said softly. "Can any of us open locks with our minds? Speak up now."

No one could. "I wonder if I could now," Nudge said. I thought about it. She did have the nifty ability to attract metal to her. "Can I try it, Max?"

"Hmmm," I said, trying to find the right way to say this. "We'll test it, but not yet."

"Iggy, then." I moved out of the way and pulled him gently to the door. His sensitive fingers reached out and skimmed the door, feeling its almost indistinguishable edges, hovering around the keyhole. Like someone was going to come down here with a key. "It's so hard to picture people coming down the sewers with a key for their job. Was there another entrance?"

Jeb nodded. "It was much more secure though, they never would've made it anywhere near the computers if they'd gone in the typical entrance."

"Okay," Iggy muttered. He pulled his little lockpicking kit out of his pocket, as I knew he would. Even though I had confiscated it for forever only two months ago, after he picked the lock on my closet at home. "I needed it," he said simply. "You should be glad I found it."

I was glad. We wouldn't have gotten far without it. But that's beside the point. I needed a better way to hide his confiscated articles. It sounded like a rhetorical question: How do you hide something from a blind kid?

Home. Don't even think about it. You no longer have a home. You're home-less. "Ugh," Nudge said. "When do you let up on that fact?"

These poor kids, I thought. I looked at Fang and in an instant it was decided.

"Don't worry, Nudge. It doesn't matter. Wherever we are is home, right?" Angel answered for me. Besides, nobody could answer her hopeful question with a "no, it's not."

Carefully, Iggy selected a tool, changed his mind, took out another. Angel shifted from foot to foot, looking nervously at the rats, who were growing creepily curious about us. "Nobody got bit, right?" Mom asked, suddenly worried about more diseases and infections.

"They're going to bite us," she whispered, clutching my hand, patting Celeste through her grimy shirt. "I can read their minds too."

"No, sweetie," I said softly. "They're just afraid of us. They've never seen such huge, ugly . . . creatures before, and they want to check us out."

I was rewarded with a tiny smile. "We're ugly to them. Right."

It took Iggy three minutes, which was a personal record for him, breaking the old four-and-a-half-minute record required by the three locks on my closet. Everyone laughed. Iggy grinned.

"I can do better than that," he said.

Iggy, Fang, and I gripped the edge of the door with our fingernails and pulled – there was no doorknob. Slowly, slowly, the immensely heavy door creaked open.

Revealing a long, dark, endless staircase ahead of us. Going down. Of course.

"Yeah, this is what we needed," Fang muttered. "A staircase going down to the Dark Place." "You know it," I said in response.

Iggy blew out his breath, less than thrilled. "You first, Max."

I put my foot on the first step.

You're on your own now, Max, said my Voice. See you later.

"Here, Total," Angel said rubbing his head as she gave him the book.

Ella received it and started to read.

Chapter 124 she said.

AN: What? No response at all to my challenge? I'm disappointed. D: That's no fun at all. Guess nobody gets a special mention or anything at all. I thought about not updating till I got at least one, but then, I figured, that'd be mean and cruel to both you and me. I love writing and posting as much as you love reading.

So, now that this one's up. The challenge is still open, so please, someone, anyone, just give it a try. 0:-) I have a special surprise in store for the people that accept the challenge or even are interested in it at all, so don't let it pass you by!

Leave a review in the comments and let me know what you're excited about for this weekend or in this story.

Until next time,

~Jezabel Raewin