Chapter 16

Reilly's story part 1:

"Fourteen years before you were born, Blaze," Reilly began, "An experiment was created. She was born like you, part bird part human and she was one of the first successful experiments created. As she grew up, she named herself 'Maximum Ride'. She was quite intelligent and strong. The scientist that looked after her was called Jeb. He pretended to be their friend and got them to do experiments. Their life was similar to yours, with experiments and schooling most of the day."

"About four years before your birth, Max and her 'flock' as she called them, managed to escape from one of our labs called 'The School'. For about two years after her escape we couldn't seem to find any trace of her. We found out from Jeb where they were staying and sent in a group of Erasers to capture one of them. Her name was Angel. We knew Max wouldn't leave behind one of her flock, especially one she thought of as a younger sister, and set a trap. We didn't expect her to attack with some wild birds and they slipped through our grasp. We hunted them for the next year or so, hoping to stop them from revealing themselves to the world. The world wasn't ready for them. Max and the others of her flock were what we classed as a 'First Generation' experiment."

"The 'First Generation' experiments were born from human mothers and fathers, and had their DNA altered before implantation into the mothers. They were supposed to be the beginning. However we found them after almost two years of searching. They had been involved in an accident, the type of one that can be arranged. At first we figured it was a hunting accident, the bodies were left in plain sight, we thought they would be coming back and so removed the bodies. But we found traces that lead us to another conclusion. They had been murdered. How someone had done it, we didn't know. We had the bodies cremated; to bury them in the ground would have seemed too cruel a thing to do to them. Around this time, the scientists that made the Council and the Director, the leader of the council, decided to start another experiment and called it the 'Second Generation' experiment. Experiments created from the DNA of two 'First Generation' experiments. This is where you came in Blaze. You were the first successful 'Second Generation' experiment."

Chapter 17

Reilly's story Part 2:

"You and the others you met yesterday seem to be the most uncooperative 'Second Generation' experiments but were too valuable to be put to sleep," Reilly continued, "So the installations that you grew up in sent you here to be trained as assassins. This installation was designed for your kind. For your training... training for Revenge. We had found out more about who had killed Max and her flock. It had been a well trained, ex-military assassin. We followed up on the assassin to find that he was unanimously hired by people in positions of power. Our guess was world powers. They had somehow found out about Max and the others, about the experiments but wanted to deal with us quietly. We have lost contact with two installations already. 'The School' was the first followed by another installation we called 'The Den', an installation that was creating Erasers experiments."

"We took a guess at why these people were afraid of us and came up with the idea that perhaps they thought we were trying to replace them with a more advanced type of human, humans like you. I don't know why they would think that. We only wanted to improve humanity, expand the length of our lives, and ended up creating another couple of races all together. We only wanted to let the world know about you when it was time and to allow you to be citizens of countries all over the world. When the assassin killed Max, it proved that without a proper government, the world would never accept you. And that's why you are here."

Chapter 18

I sat there, taking it all in. This was too much information even for my intelligent brain to handle. Max, the idol for all bird-human kind, had been killed in cold blood. By possibly the most influential people in the world. After five minutes had passed I finally spoke.

"You want us to kill the people that had Max murdered," I said, "and to allow you to establish a world government system to allow us freedom. Seems a bit far-fetched but being part of the plan does make it believable. But one question, why? Why would you do that for your experiments?"

Reilly didn't respond at first. He hung his head, and then looked up at me. "I can't tell you, I can only show you."

Reilly stood up and turned his back to me. He pulled his science coat off and revealed his back to me. He was wearing a black shirt and black jeans, but that wasn't what caught my attention. What caught my attention were the pure black wings that were on his back. It was hard to judge the wingspan because they were folded up, but I guessed that they were a near impossible twenty foot.

"They are large," Reilly explained, "Because I was not born this way. I was a volunteer scientist who was willing to use an experimental drug that could alter DNA. We did the experiment so that if anyone on the outside world wished to become like us, they could. It will only become available once we have control."

I was actually a bit stunned by the breakthrough. I knew they could repair DNA with a gene therapy, but totally rewriting it…? That was something new.

"Blaze, one thing about you being a 'Second Generation'," Reilly continued, "is that your parents, the ones we got the DNA from, were first generation, meaning they were both bird-human combinations."

"I realized that," I responded, "What are you getting at?"

"Blaze," Reilly sounded like he didn't want to tell me this piece of information, but did anyway, "your father was one of the ones murdered, his name was Fang." My knees went weak, but Reilly continued, "Blaze... your mother was Max herself."

Shock had finally set in and I had to collapse on the floor. My legs couldn't hold me any more. Max was my mother.

Chapter 19

I had finished talking to Reilly. He had said that I needed to get my head around the information he had given me. I don't think I could. I was feeling numb, my mind was in a state of confusion and I had to tell the others about why they were here. I didn't know how I was going to, when my emotions were a storm bottled up inside of me. I was full of sorrow at the loss of a family I never knew and would never get a chance to. I was also feeling lost and confused. My world had been turned upside down in a matter of two hours. The Erasers guarding me were leading me down the hall towards the briefing room. It was five past nine and I was already running late for the meeting. Reilly had said that it wouldn't matter; they were still waiting on one more arrival. I didn't really care who it was at the moment.

The Erasers stopped in front of a wooden door. Judging by the strength required to open the door, it wasn't only wood, it was probably reinforced with titanium or something strong like that. It would have to be if one of the experiments got angry from the information. An Eraser shoved me into the room and closed the door behind me, making sure it was bolted. They didn't want to deal with all of us when they got the outrageous news. I stood there for a moment, the numbness was wearing off and my emotions were starting to break like a mental tsunami.

"Damn it!" I shouted and punched the door hard enough to splinter the wood and dent the metal, "Damn it!"

Tears were starting to flow down my face as everything caught up with me. I leaned my back against the wall and slid down till I was on the ground, tears leaving glistening trails on my face. I'm not one to get emotional, but even the toughest nut must crack. I heard talking around me, but paid no attention to it. I was drowning in my emotions. Then a voice broke through the waves.

"Are you ok Blaze?" I looked up into Skye's face, her healing powers were radiating out from her and my emotions seemed to be held back at bay for the time being. She seemed to be able to heal both physical and emotional wounds. But mine were too deep for her to heal fully.

"I'm fine," I answered, getting to my feet and wiping the tears from my face. The others looked at me, not quite believing, but left it at that. I was glad they did. Falcon then spoke up.

"We're only waiting on the last arrival," Falcon said "and then the briefing can begin."

Just then the door opened and a person was thrust into the room, landing spread eagled on the floor.

Chapter 20

The figure was a sixteen year old boy with multi-coloured wings that seemed to swap and change. He twisted his body and sprung up into a defensive stance as we approached him. I looked at his face and saw uncertainty on it, he wasn't sure if we were there to help him or hurt him. His body language imitated the same uneasiness that his face showed. I stopped approaching him, the others followed my example.

"Do you need a hand?" I asked, stretching out my hand towards him.

He sprang at me, a knife glinting in his hands. Where the heck did he get a knife? I thought, that doesn't really matter. He was acting like a caged animal. I suppose that would be his animal instincts for survival kicking in, the movement had probably surprised him. I reacted, but too slowly, the knife's edge bit into my arm and slashed a red line across my forearm. I reacted on instinct and grabbed his wrist, twisting it until he dropped the knife. I then grabbed it and threw it into the wall, the blade sinking into wall until the dull thud of metal hitting metal came from the wall. I held on the guy, now struggling to get released from my grip. I held onto him, but loosely so that he would realise I wasn't there to hurt him. After a few minutes he began to calm down. He stopped struggling and I released him from my grip. His dark black hair hung down in his face and it seemed to cover his expression of embarrassment. He looked around at us, realising we were just like him, teenagers with wings who were always afraid for their lives. His eyes had the same quality as his wings. First they were an emerald green, next a sapphire blue, turning to a hazel. Whenever you looked, they were never the same shade of colour. The stinging in my arm brought my thoughts back to the cut on my arm. I looked down and examined it. Blood had trailed down my arm and was dripping onto the floor. I checked the cut, but it was only light.

"Let me look at that," Skye commanded, "I'll fix it up."

"No," I replied, "it should be fine; you need to save your strength. Using powers tends to tire us out."

She ignored my comment and healed it for me anyway. The cut disappeared and I dried the blood from my arm.

"Sorry about that," the new guy apologised, "when my instincts kick in, it's hard to control them. That's to be expected from where I came from."

"Where did you come from?" I asked.

"I don't like to talk about it," The new guys said, "my names Drake by the way."

We all introduced ourselves and to Drake and he seemed to accept us, although he tended to stick to himself after a few minutes of conversation. I also noticed he guarded his body language; it would be hard to find out anything about this guy.

"So," Flacon said, "When is this briefing going to get started."

"I'll start it now." I replied, ignoring the looks of surprise and shock on the groups face.