Chapter Fifteen
"Ouch!"
"Shh..." Max growled lightly, her voice echoing in the air vent. Nudge looked at her and opened her mouth to speak but something silenced her.
"Do you have the blood samples?" A whitecoat asked from below.
"Yes, of course!" Another whitecoat, smaller than the other.
"Nowlet's compare the two, best to know now than never" the whitecoat that had spoken before told the other. The two whitecoats moved out of the room below to a lab area instead of office, the taller one steering the smaller one in the right direction.
Now Max was able to turn around to look at Nudge, Angel, Fang, and Gazzy with an angry and serious look on her face and a finger to her lips. She then continued to crawl through the air vent, with the rest of the flock following her.
Eventually they came to a fork in the vent.
"Okay, flock" Max said turning, to face the flock, her voice barely a whisper to prevent echoes.
"Nudge, Fang and Gazzy will go this way" she gestured to the left.
"Angel, Total, and I will go to the right. If ya find anything meet in the control room, find something to cover your wings, lab coats will do" The flock and Total nodded their heads and went their separate ways.
Once Nudge, Fang, and Gazzy were out of sight, Max turned to Angel.
"You know what to do." and Angel nodded. They made their way through the vent, focusing on the task at hand as they crawled along. Many rooms past below them, most of them with white walls and flooring, one with many empty crates, one with guns and other weapons, and about five cells that held nothing but chains and bones. But then Angel made a small grunt and Max and Total stopped from their crawling to look at Angel who had her eyes closed as she probed the minds of the people below and around. Her eyes flew open a few seconds later.
"Iggy's in the cell after this one" she said in a hoarse whisper "but... someone else is there" her voice was small and quick, and before Max could object, she darted through the vents as if she had rodent DNA in her besides avian.
"Wait up" Max whispered after her, and got her wish almost immediately.
Angel came to an abrupt halt, causing Max to nearlyrun into the six year-old girl with wings.
"Here" she whispered to Max and gestured through the vent. Max and Total peered through, to see Iggy, chained against the wall, with dirt and mud covering his skin and matting his hair. He was laying on the ground, and for a brief moment Max thought he was dead but then she saw the steady rise and fall of his chest. Dead, no, asleep, yes, but definitely not a peace-filled sleep. He twitched, clenched his teeth, and made his hands into fists as he dreamed.
Max was flooded with excitement for finding her lost flock member once again. She was about to burst through the vent when Angel stopped her by pointing towards the door where the other stood. Max looked where Angel pointed, and instantly recognized the person as an Eraser. Dark hair, pale skin, dark clothing but no shoes. His hair hung in his face and his golden eyes flickered dangerously as he gazed at Iggy with hatred.
"Can you get anything from him?" Max asked Angel, who shook her head and scowled in reply.
"No, nothing, it's like when I was reading Fail's mind, she was able to block me half-way through"
Max lifted a brow at this and opened her mouth to speak but was broken off. The Eraser turned around, opened and slammed the door shut with such force that the door shook on it's hinges.
Iggy didn't even twitch from the sound that beat through the cell and into the vents causing Angel, Max, and Total (with effort from his paws)to cover their ears from the echo. Once the sound died off, and Angel didn't get any other thoughts from people heading this way, Max punched open the vent and glided to the cell floor. Once again, Iggy didn't even twitch from the noise, no matter how slight it was, she had made, even after she disarmed the camera in the corner, whilst still in flight, which was great effort for her since she couldn't be seen by the camera's haunting lens.
Now that she could see him clearly, Max saw that he had his arms wrapped around a flat panel, with a light flickering from it. Angel came down with Total, both looking somewhat confused at the panel Iggy had in his arms, but both seeming to also be excited about finding their flock member.
"Iggy...?" Max whispered faintly, but still her voice echoed in the cell, sounding as if it weren't hers but someone else.
Once Iggy heard Max he jolted awake and upright, his eyes wide. But both Angel and Max gaped at the gray, red and white eye that looked at them as with the pale one.
"Who are you?" Iggy asked, standing up and narrowing his eyes at them. Angel and Max had their wings tucked in tight, but neither thought to show him their wings since both were shocked by the fact that he was looking them over, actually looking at them.
"Ig..." Angel began stepping forward "What happened to you?" She asked, her voice soft and sounding more like her own.
Iggy cocked his head at the familiar voice and the unfamiliar girl, then he saw Total, and a glimpse of Angel's wings. His eyes went wide and his jaw hung open.
"Angel?" He asked before looking at Max "Max?"
Max nodded "Now what's with that eye?" She asked, a shiver sent up her spine as she saw that odd eye looking at her.
"An experiment, I can see through this eye now, but can we just go?" He asked eagerly "Jeb's here and I-" he broke off and looked at the panel that was now at his side.
Max payed no attention to his actions but quickly searched for something to get him out of the chains, but froze when she heard footsteps from the hall. She looked at Angel who had her eyes closed, before looking at Max and retreating to a corner of the cell where no one could see from the doorway. Max followed, as with Total.
A whitecoat came bursting through the door with a clipboard at his side and his eyes wide with curiosity.
"So it worked, the lens!" He said when he saw Iggy's eye "I didn't believe it, now that I see it" he frantically scribbled something down on the clipboard before looking at the puzzled Iggy. The whitecoat was about to say more when he spotted Max and Angel out of the corner of his eye.
"What are you two do-" he broke off when Angel stepped forward and put out her hand.
"Keys please" The whitecoat looked confused, absolutely dumbfounded as he fumbled with his key ring, selected a certain key, and handed it to the young girl before him.
Once the key touched Angel's skin the whitecoat dropped to the ground with a grinning Angel, who had probably influenced him to do so since she was getting stronger with her strange, and somewhat freaky, powers.
"Come on" Max said eagerly, not wanting Angel to release her influencing power on the whitecoat to make him do things only a child would do. She snatched the key from Angel quickly, and rapidly unlocked the chains on Iggy. Once the last clamp was opened and had fallen to the ground Max launched herself in the air and into the vent, followed closely by Angel who hugged Total to her chest.
Iggy, however, hesitated, before spreading his wings and eventually flew up into the vent, still looking extremely uneasy. Max lead the way, with Angel behind her, directing her in the direction of the control room by a guards' mind. When they had finally peered into the control room, Max noticed Iggy had his eyes closed tight.
"Why don't you open your eyes?" she asked once they were in the control room as she was putting up the vent.
"I'm used to being fully blind so I'll stay that way for awhile" he growled sourly.
"Okay..." Max said, lifting a brow at him as she jumped off the table and looked up to the vent to see her handiwork. They had locked the door, had made sure no one was heading for the control room by the cameras, and were now waiting for the others.
They all jumped from their relaxation poses when something crashed through the vent. Nudge dropped from the vent with a file hugged to her side as she landed on the ground. Gazzy was next, holding another file just as thick as the one Nudge held. Then Fang dropped through, holding nothing but a stone and emotionless face and a small and solemn scowl. The three of them were looking in Angel and Max's direction, unaware of Iggy who was behind them in a corner looking at them quickly.
"You find him?" Gazzy asked, looking around the room except behind him.
Iggy looked at the kid from behind with a raised brow.
"Gazzy?" He asked, smirking when Gazzy turned around and gaped at him.
"Ig... what happened to your eye?"
"I'll explain later, can we please just go now?" He asked, stepping from the shadows and looking at Max.
Max crossed her arms over her chest "I think we all need to know what exactly happened here" she said coolly.
"Here, in this place?" Iggy asked
"Yes" Max nodded "details"
Iggy snapped at this. He grabbed the panel he had been holding the whole time, and slammed it on the desk in front of Max.
"I'll explain while we fly! Can we just get out of here and-" he broke off from his shouts and turned away from all the eyes that were on him.
"Just find her before its too late" he said darkly, crossing his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders.
Max looked down at the panel, to its flickering screen, and gaped at it. Angel saw it, then Fang as he peered over the table. Nudge and Gazzy both went wide-eyed when they saw the green letters in the corner.
Then, when Nudge spoke up, Iggy was immediately at the table looking at Nudge in a somewhat pleading way.
"I recognize those mountains" she said, pointing to the snow-topped mountains in the window in the background.
"Where" Iggy asked eagerly "where do you recognize them?"
"Hold on" Max stepped forward "There are a lot of mountains like those in the states, how do you know those are ones you've seen before."
"Because I remember flying over a pine forest when we were heading for Arizona" she said "I saw a brochure about Arizona while we were in Tipisco and it mentioned the San Fransisco Peaks in... what was it called? Flag-something" she said."I just know that those are the San Fransisco Peaks and the forest is Flag-whatever, and it's in Arizona"
"There are no pine trees in Arizona"
"How do you know?" Nudge protested "It's not like we know a whole lot about the states we've been in since we've been running for our lives the whole time!"
"Arizona is a desert state, it doesn'tgrow pine treesthere and-"
"Can we just give it a try, Max?" Iggy asked, looking at her.
Max shivered when Iggy's gray eye landed on her, then she saw the pleading in his eyes. She sighed, it was sort of like Iggy's version of Bambi eyes, nowhere near as cute but loads more effective with a mechanical looking eyes in a pleading state.
"Fine" Iggy grinned at this, his eyes dancing.
"We'll go there, but-" she said, looking at the faces of the flock "If we don't find anything I don't want complaints or any mention of what could possiblyhappen. Am I clear" She looked at Iggy who was grinning widely.
"Crystal"