A/N: Okay, just FYI, I have varsity volleyball every day, AP homework, and taking care of my mom just to start. So I really do try to update faster, but it's pretty tough. All global warming facts in the chapter are just that, facts. I just learned about it in biology, but there's always the chance I made a mistake. And I do understand that not everyone believes in global warming. On with the chappie!

Okay. On a shock scale of one to ten, this is easily a twenty five.

"Did I hear that right?" Iggy asked in disbelief. "Global warming? Are you kidding me?"

I cranked the volume on the TV, hoping to hear more, but the fateful segment was over. "Fang!" I yelled. "Get in here!" Screw the whole 'quiet in the hotel' thing. All the people in the entire inn will be quiet if we don't find out more. Quiet and dead.

Fang burst into the room and scanned for danger. When he found none, his eyes landed on me. "What's wrong?" He didn't move from the doorway.

"I know how Itex is going to carry out their By – Half plan," I said, flipping through the news channels and hoping for another segment. I glanced over at him. He was looking at me expectantly.

"Well?" He asked. "How?"

"Global warming," I said. I continued flipping through the channels. There was a dog show (Total would love that, I'm sure), a stupid kiddie show, ABC Family, another news channel, but nothing more on global warming. I stood and turned off the television. Turning to Fang, I continued, "They're using global warming. Go get the laptop and look it up." He was gone and back in under ten seconds. He sat on the couch next to Iggy and powered up the laptop. He was logged onto Google in a few moments.

"Are you going to blog about this?" Iggy asked him.

"Probably. There might be people out there who know a lot about this." Fang hit 'search'. The results page popped up with a ton of science websites. Headlines blared at us from the screen – "Global Warming: Is it a myth?" "Global warming: Should YOU be scared?" "Global warming basics." Fang clicked on the third one and waited for the page to load.

He read it quickly and turned the page to me. "It's too perfect," he murmured. "No one would know what hit them."

Iggy cleared his throat pointedly.

"Sorry, Ig," I apologized. "Alright, here's what it says – 'Global warming is still a matter of intense research around the world. As our home slowly disintegrates, many humans are looking the other way. No one wants to believe that our entire planet could soon be wiped out.'" I whistled under my breath. "Freaky."

"Keep reading," he told me grimly.

"At the top of the danger scale is the fact that more and more species are becoming endangered every day," I continued reading. "For example, the polar bear's habitat is slowly being destroyed, which is linked to the melting glaciers. The earth's temperature has risen two degrees, which may not sound like a problem, but it's enough to cause not just some, but all of the glaciers to melt. The polar bears depend almost entirely on the glaciers and the temperature to survive. With both of those factors changed, they are rapidly approaching extinction."

A growing sense of horror gnawed at the pit of my stomach. I knew that this was only going to get worse. Not only would everyone think that this was just some natural disaster phenomenon, more of everything was dying as we spoke.

"One supposed cause of global warming is the raised level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This also causes acid rain, which in turn also kills aquatic organisms, plants, organisms that eat said plants, and carnivores or omnivores who eat those organisms. The excess carbon dioxide is burning a hole in the ozone layer, which lets more heat warm the earth." Wonder how much of that carbon dioxide was purposefully released by Itex, then.

Iggy's eyes widened. "No wonder it's been so dang hot lately!"

"Yeah, that explains a lot," I replied, concentrating on reading the rest of the page. There were more facts on global warming with a message at the very bottom – "Pull together and stop global warming!"

Yeah. Stop Itex. Like, I'm so sure.

It was time for a flock meeting.

OoOoOoOo

I tackled Angel and Nudge from the bedroom where they had been jumping on the bed and banged on the bathroom door to tell Gazzy to hurry up. I stood in front of the TV and watched my flock assemble before me. I felt like a drill sergeant surveying my troops. Fang stood on my right. I smiled some. He was so literally my right hand man.

"What's wrong?" asked Nudge, realizing that we wouldn't have been called all together for just anything. Smart kid. "Why do you look so serious?"

"I was about to tell you," I told her. "We found something more about Itex."

Gazzy's eyes widened and Angel sent me a thought that asked, What?

"They're using global warming," I said. "Fang, give 'em the details."

He cleared his throat. "We think that they're releasing more carbon dioxide than normal into the atmosphere. That's why it's so hot all the time now. The earth's temperature went up by two degrees."

"Two degrees?" scoffed Total. "That's not exactly a lot." Stupid know it all dog. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"I was getting to that," Fang said coolly. "For the entire earth's temperature to rise two degrees is a lot. Glaciers are melting, so all the arctic animals are dying. Plus, acid rain is causing other animals to die."

"We learned about this in school," Nudge said suddenly and excitedly, the memory lighting up her face in triumph. "You know, when we were with Anne. Our teacher told us all about it in science!"

"What do you remember?" I asked her urgently.

"Well, if the glaciers all melt a bit more, then a lot of the world could be flooded," she said, frowning. "Like, California would be completely gone. And Italy, I think. And all of the islands wouldn't even exist anymore. They'd all be wiped out." She waved her hands dramatically to show just how wiped out they'd be. "And plus, there'll be a ton more hurricanes now. Like Katrina. That was part global warming. Don't you think Katrina's a pretty name, though? Too bad it was used to name a hurricane."

I shot her the Nudge, shut up look. "This makes things even worse," I said, shaking my head. "I mean, California and Italy have a gazillion people, not to mention people who are vacationing for the summer or something. If they're flooded, not even all of America could save them all, let alone six bird kids. And that's not even counting the people that live on the islands." I rubbed my temples. I was starting to get a pounding headache.

"Well, that settles things," said Fang suddenly.

I looked over at him, confused. "What?"

"We've got to find out more about this whole global warming thing and figure out how Itex is causing all of this, don't we? If they're going to reduce the world's population by half, then they've got tons more hidden up their sleeve."

He had a point. "Itex's site?" I asked him.

Fang nodded. "Itex's site."

Nudge looked at us in confusion. "Itex has a website?"

"Kinda," I replied. "It's a locked database. It's got a whole ton of info on it. We just found it yesterday."

"You didn't tell us?" demanded Gazzy. "Why not?"

Um, good question. I looked at Fang, sending him a look that asked, Should we tell them about the information on us? He barely shook his head. He was right – the little ones might get a little too freaked that Itex kept such careful tabs on us. "We hadn't found anything yet," I lied. "We were going to tell you when we found something important." He accepted that, but I felt guilty for lying.

"If it was locked, how did you get in?" asked Nudge.

"Fang guessed the password," I told her, hating where this was going.

"What was it?" She dropped the bomb.

"Me," I replied reluctantly. "It was my full name."

The room was silent for a moment before Total broke the silence with, "Well, you're popular, aren't you?"

Next chance I get, I'm dropping him in a river.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

We waited until the next morning to check Itex's site again. Fang and I took the laptop away from everyone else into a corner of the room. "Can I check something first?" he asked me. "I posted on the blog last night, and I want to check out what people said."

"Yeah, go ahead," I shrugged. What did I care anymore? That thing honestly used to bug me with how much stock he put in it, but considering the fact that it saved our lives in Germany, I figure I'll let him post all he wants.

Fang opened his email account, which was, as usual, crowded with emails. I noticed a familiar name in the inbox. "Hold up, Fang," I said, my eyes narrowing. "Why are you still talking to Lissa?"

"I haven't been," he said calmly, looking straight at me. "She is talking to me, and I'm doing my best not to say basically anything." I looked at him suspiciously and clicked on the email. I could see what he'd been saying.

"Are you jealous?" he asked me. "And reading people's mail is against the law, by the way."

"What?" I asked him dangerously. "I know you didn't just accuse me of being jealous of the Red Haired Wonder."

He looked at me pointedly.

"We've been over this," I told him, and refused to answer the question, even though that smug smirk of his infuriated me. I muttered under my breath about stupid guys and their egos before scanning Lissa's email. Jealous or not, I was reading it anyway. It gushed:

Hi, Nick!

Guess what? I made the volleyball team at school? Tryouts are in the summer, but the season won't start for awhile. I'm SO excited. This is major. I really wish you were here to watch me play, though.

I have a stupid stalker, though. He won't leave me alone. I think he LIKES me. Wouldn't that be so weird? His name is Mark. He broke up with Madalan, did you know that? I was so shocked.

Did you start school wherever you are? Miss you –

Lissa

P.S. Please reply soon!

"Aw!" I teased. "She misses you!"

"Shut up," he muttered, taking the laptop away. She can miss him all she wants, I thought, he's never going back to her.

Fang typed a quick reply:

I'm replying. R U happy now?

Yeah, I started school on Wednesday, but it was only a half day.

Congrats on making volleyball.

I don't think you'll have 2 worry about mark, once you start school I don't think he'll want anything to do w/ u. everyone already knows that mark and madalan broke up. It didn't even last one week into the summer.

I was satisfied with that. I was jealous, he knew that, but I hated, hated saying it out loud. You have no idea how much that hurt my pride.

"So anyway," Fang said, blowing off the email and returning to his inbox, "let's see what people have said so far." He clicked on the first comment email and scanned it. "No luck there," he told me. "They say that they have absolutely no clue what global warming is."

"Check the next one," I suggested. "There's bound to be someone. There will be."

Sure enough, three comments later, we got lucky. "My dad's a scientist!" exclaimed one blog reader. "Not an evil one, but just one that works at the university nearby. He could tell me tons about global warming! I'll get back to you!!!"

I grinned and settled back into my chair in satisfaction. "Perfect."

Fang shut down the email program and typed in Itex's web address into the search bar. "Now that we've found one promising comment, let's see what Itex has to say…" His voice trailed off. I had to keep my heart from sinking when he typed my name in as the password. I couldn't help but be reminded of how abnormal my life was.

Fang typed in our search and the computer whirred. "What do you think we'll find?" I asked, only a little worried.

The page loaded. Restricted information, it said. Please log in with your work ID and password.

"Well, that as good as tells me that we're right," I said to Fang with raised eyebrows. "Itex is behind global warming."

His eyes met mine. "So now what?"

A/N: This is really bugging me. I have the chapter done, but my Internet is down! So, if you're reading this, I obviously got it back. Sorry for the long wait. I really, really am. I wish I could just skip homework and concentrate on just writing for once. But unfortunately, I can't. So, I'm stuck with the available weekends when I don't have a volleyball tournament.