Well everyone's telling me to continue, so I shall until either my head explodes from exhaustion or the fanfic is complete, lol Here's chapter 15, and I have a quick side note. Everything that I've explained so far may be farfetched or crazy (like me, hahahah) but it will all be explained in detail eventually. There are even some things described in this chapter that you're not meant to fully understand right now. Remember this is all from Max's point of view, so I like to think of it as you're learning WITH her, not AHEAD of her. When she realizes something, hopefully you will too. Anyway, enough rambling from me, R&R and enjoy!

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15

Oh my God. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be true. But it is, Maximum. I could hear his horrible voice in my head and from his figure, now a mere twenty feet away. "Shut up!" I yelled. "Why are you in my head? What do you want?"

Roland ter Bocht smiled and laughed, then walked towards me. With each step he took, the Erasers around him advanced as well, creating a wall of torturers. "Oh dear Maximum. I remember when you were just born." Roland grabbed a small black box from his pocket the same size as the voice box, also with six small switches. He flicked one and a pain like no other surged through my skull, threatening to drive me insane. I looked at my hands as I fell to the floor, watching as the Eraser-like fur and claws sprung forth again.

"Why is this happening?" I screamed. I thought once again that I would die here, and thoughts of the flock surged through me.

"When you were created back at Itex, we only had one of you." Roland continued speaking, now a few inches away from me, without seeming to notice my pain. "We thought one of you would be enough, but apparently we were wrong."

His words sent confusion through me, and I had to ask. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You've met your other self, you know very well what the hell I'm talking about. Anyway, Max, what you don't know is what we put inside of you."

"The chip, I already know. I saw it in an X-ray. What's your point?"

"No, no, no, Max. Not the chip. I already knew you found that when you went to the hospital in Colorado. What you don't know is what else we gave you. We gave you lupine genes along with avian genes, Max!" Great, just as I had feared. Apparently I was part Eraser, part bird, and part human. "This is something we gave only you. This is why you're the nearly perfect human I always longed for!"

"NEARLY perfect?" It wasn't so much that I was jealous of whoever the PERFECT human was, I was just curious as to what he meant.

"You were born just like the rest of your flock. Except of course, you were born at a different facility." Ah. So that's what the sheet meant. I recalled reading about Type 26 being created at Itex. "We transferred you to Section 2 at the School when you were but a year old."

Something still didn't fit. "But…why? Why did you move me to be with the flock?"

Roland laughed again and leaned down close to me. "We already went over this Max," he whispered into my ear. "You're imperfect. You have feelings and emotions. You need friends to keep you going or you'll probably die." Well at least now I knew I was still part human. I wasn't a robot. "That's why we tried to clone you just as I cloned myself. However, it would seem your clone was also imperfect. She had feelings, not necessarily the kind of feelings you have, but she certainly wasn't suited for killing."

I remembered not too long ago, back at Itex headquarters, when Max 2 had almost killed me until I pinned her down. "You're wrong. She could have killed me if she wanted to. I guess now that I think about it, it was you that stood there watching us, not Jeb. You should know what happened."

"Indeed, I saw every bit of the fight. Although your clone may have been suited for killing emotionally, she was still too weak. That's why we terminated her."

Oh God. A strange feeling swept over me. I knew I would never kill Max 2, nor had she been my friend, but she was still my clone. She still had a life like me. And now it was gone. And I felt…well I felt like crying for her. Note to self: Get payback for Max 2.