Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. That's a silly thing in reverse.

Asch looked through the binoculars on the building next door. I was with him. He looked away from the binoculars and toward me. "The last of the day shift's leaving," he said, "All that's there is the night crew now."

"So we're good to go?" I asked.

"We're good to go."

"Let's do it."

We both glided down to the Counter-Breed building and went into the computer room. Everyone was in there waiting.

"Okay," said Asch, "this is it. Everyone have their headsets?"

Everybody except Lily and Iggy nodded their head yes. Sebastian and they would be staying here.

The headsets were small little radios that you just had to stick in your ear. That was what Asch was doing whenever he called out Lily when I saw him. He was calling her using the radio. You had to press a button to talk though. That was their only disadvantage. You'd think with these limitless cards we could buy something with quality.

"All right," said Asch, "Lily, take us down there."

"Wait," I said, "There's something we gotta do first." I called my flock to gather around and put my hand in. Everyone got the idea and started stacking their hands. It felt like forever since we did this.

"What are you doing?" asked Sebastian.

"We call it the hand-stacking thing. We always do it before we do something like this. It's kind of a good luck thing. C'mon, get in on it."

The others came and got their hands in. It felt a little awkward that there were nearly twice as many hands as there usually was. But it felt even worse that there was a set of hands missing.

When we were done and separated, Asch said, "Okay, Lily. Do your stuff."

Lily nodded her head and then held out her hand. In an open space in the room, a rift opened up.

"Whoa!" cried Gazzy, Angel, and Nudge.

Asch walked up to and then held his arm out, "Ladies first," he said.

"Wow, a gentleman," I said, "Fang could learn from you."

Asch laughed a bit, but it seemed like an awkward laugh, like he suddenly felt uncomfortable. I decided not to say anything about it. There was no time for small talk.

I walked through the rift and came out on the outside, a few feet away from a pile of crates. I was followed by Calypso, Nudge, Angel, Conrad, Gazzy, and then Asch. The rift closed behind him.

"That was cool," said Nudge.

Asch turned her around and made the shush sign with his finger. Nudge immediately got the point and nodded her head, making the same sign.

Asch tip-toed past us and peaked around the crates to look at the door we needed to go through. I looked up from another myself to see two guards at the door, talking to each other.

"We're in luck," whispered Asch, "They're a couple of chatterboxes. Gazzy, can you hear them?"

"Yeah, I can hear them. I can get their voices down."

The radio crackled in our ears. "Ca…uys hear…"

Asch put his finger to his ear and said, "Say again Sebastian."

"Can you guys hear me?" asked Sebastian, clear as a bell.

We all nodded our heads and Asch said, "Yeah, we can hear you perfectly."

"All right, everybody listen up, when I'm talking to you, I'll only be talking to you, got it? I can only keep up one transmission connection at a time without being detected. But you can talk to each other."

"Okay, we gotcha," I said.

"All right, let me know when Nudge gets the information."

I looked back over the crates. But then I noticed something that might pose a problem. "Uh-oh," I said, "We got a problem." I got down and faced everyone. "There's a camera right next to the door."

"Oh, that's no problem," said Calypso, "I can make that camera turn the other way. Our only real problem is those guards."

"So how do we get them away?" I asked.

Everyone seemed to be thinking for a minute and then it seemed to dawn on everyone at almost the same time. We slowly turned our heads to face Angel.

"What?" she asked. She must have read our minds because then she said, "Oh, I get it. All right."

She curled her head around the side of the crates while the others and I peaked above the crates. We watched the guards. One of them started to hold their head for a minute and then he said, "Hey, what was that noise?"

"What noise?" the other asked, "I didn't hear anything."

"No, I know I heard something," said the first one, and he walked off to another side of the building, the other one following.

"Way to go Angel," said Calypso.

"No problem," said Angel, with that Angel smile of hers."

"Okay, now its time for me to work my magic."

Calypso looked over the crates and concentrated on the camera. I watched her narrow her eyes. Then I looked over to the camera and I watched it turn all the way to the left.

"Okay, Nudge," said Asch, "go up to the camera and touch it. Then talk to Sebastian and give him the information on it. We'll cover you."

Nudge quickly ran over to the door and then touched the camera. She let go and then put her finger to her ear. I barely heard her talking to Sebastian about what type of security it was linked up to and who made it and things like that.

She ran back over and said, "Sebastian can get in, it'll take him a few minutes."

"All right," said Asch, "When he gives us the O.K, you guys stay here and keep watch as Max and I go in. Conrad, Angel, keep your minds open to anybody who might be coming our or your way. And if you get spotted, get out. Don't call Sebastian to have Lily open a rift, just get out."

The members of my flock looked to me questioningly; as if they weren't sure they wanted to go through with that. But it was the smart thing to do, so I nodded my head to them.

After a few minutes, Sebastian crackled in, "All right, I'm in. I just unlocked the door. Any other door that you need me to unlock I can. I took control of the security cameras too so any guards monitoring them will think they're looking at empty halls."

"All right, cool," said Asch, "You ready Max?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," I said.

We both headed over to the door and Asch opened it. I went in first. We were in a hallway that was completely white; white ceiling, white walls, and white tile floors. Why was every Itex building white on the inside?

We came across a large glass window that looked into another room. There were several people in it. Asch and I quickly ducked down so they wouldn't see us. We waddled past them until we got away from the glass.

We got back up and came to a door with a security lock on it. Next to the door was a sign that said LOADING BAY. "Sebastian," said Asch.

"Yeah, I see you," said Sebastian, "Hold on a second."

There were some beeps from the lock and then I heard the snap of the lock coming undone. Asch looked over to me and smiled, "He's quite the genius," he said.

Asch opened the door and we walked in. There was a large room that was an ugly brown color. The room was as tall as the building. Inside there were two forklifts and a couple of crates scattered about. There were two large sliding doors on the other side that were closed. Those must have been where the trucks and forklifts went in and out.

"One of the crates has been left open," Asch pointed out. "Let's check it out."

We walked over to the crate and looked into it. Inside there were large, black, leather bags. They looked frighteningly like body bags. And there was a bad smell coming from them. Asch reached in and found that it was heavy. We both pulled it out and it looked even more like a body bag. I was seriously hoping we were going to find rotted fish in the bag.

Asch grabbed the zipper and opened it up. And lo and behold, it was a dead body. But not just any body, it was a body of an avian-human recombinant. It was a girl and she only looked about six or seven. She was obviously a failure or she wouldn't be here.

The sight almost made me want to be sick. How anyone could possibly do this was beyond me. It was just evil and cruel.

"So, I was right," said Asch, "This is a reject house. Dammit." He was angry but he kept it in pretty well. We couldn't afford to have a fit of rage and have a bunch of guards come in and see what was going on.

We zipped the body back up and put her back in the crate. It sickened me to have to do that but we couldn't leave any evidence that we had been there. Asch was sickened too, I could tell, he was just better than me at not showing it. It almost reminded me of Fang.

"Is there a point to looking in the rest of the crates?" I asked.

"If you don't want to," said Asch, "then why don't you head upstairs and try to look for what else they might have, like information on how they're restarting Re-evolution. I'll keep going through here and see what else they might have been transporting. Maybe I'll find something we could use."

It was harder than I thought to be the one taking the orders rather than the one giving them. I was used to leading my flock but Asch was used to leading his, and I would never admit it to anyone in a million years, but he seemed better at it. He had his in a permanent home and mine kept jumping from place to place. His was well-organized and mine was always scattered and making it up as we went along. I needed to take the leadership class that Asch took and pass with flying colors.

"I think I'll take the second choice," I said.

Asch then spoke into his headset, "Sebastian, we're gonna separate for awhile. Max is gonna go upstairs and I'm staying here in the loading bay."

"All right," said Sebastian.

"Keep an eye on her," said Asch.

"No problem."

I went to the door and opened it, making sure there was nobody coming. The coast was clear and I started walking down the hall, carefully.

Fortunately, I didn't run into anybody and I found a staircase. I walked up it and came to the top. There was another long, white hallway.

It was empty too. There were no whitecoats or security guards. None that were visible anyway.

I walked down it and found a room that was labeled RECORDS ROOM 1. There was a security lock on it just like at the loading bay.

I called to Sebastian but he was two steps ahead of me. I already heard the beeping of the lock and then the click of it being undone.

I walked into the room. There were a bunch of puke green file cabinets in the room. They weren't labeled in any way so I just started searching in one at random.

There wasn't anything in there that I recognized. There a bunch of files on employees and stuff that I didn't understand. I went through some more cabinets, but it was more of the same.

I was about to walk out the door when I heard voices. I stayed by the doors and stood completely still. If they came in here I was busted. But then again, I could tear through them like tissue. Unless it was Erasers, then I would tear through them like a wool blanket. Somewhat harder, but can still be done.

The voices faded away. I didn't hear anything. I opened the door and continued down the hall. I kept walking down the hall until I found another room marked RECORDS ROOM 2. Sebastian must have been keeping a close eye on me because the door unlocked and I went in.

There were more puke green cabinets. But this time they bore fruit. Inside the first cabinet, I found information on Re-evolution and where they've been operating from. There were a bunch of places where this scheme was being carried out. I just grabbed what looked really important.

There was also information on the rejects that were being brought in and out of the building, but I didn't want to look at that. I would have been sick to know how many they mercilessly slaughtered.

I couldn't believe that a place like this would have this kind of information. I wondered if Asch had found anything good yet.

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Asch continued to search through the crates, only to find more body bags. All the crates had bodies in them.

The only ones he didn't check were a couple in the corner of the room. He walked up to them but then he noticed that these had some sort of label on them. The label was white with a drawing of something that looked like a black bottle.

He opened up one of them and looked inside. This crate didn't have any bodies inside it. Instead there were bottles. Asch picked up one of them and looked at it. The bottle had a small label on it. On it there was some small writing but in big letters was written BOOST.

Asch was elated. They were dumping Boost. Maybe they were dumping an antidote, if there was such a thing. Immediately, he started searching the other crates saying to himself, "Antidote, antidote, antidote." He couldn't find any such thing.

He cursed himself for not being able to find it. Maybe he could give it to Sebastian and he could analyze it and come up with an antidote. He would keep it between them though. He didn't want to break his promise to Fang and let Max find out.

Asch left the loading bay. There was nothing left for him here.

Max was on the second floor so he would sneak to the third floor. He found a set of stairs and managed to get there without being seen.

The third floor hallway was just like the first floor. He was walking through it when he spotted something that really surprised him. Through a window in a door, he saw Jeb Batchelder, in the flesh. Jeb was turned at his side, talking to a bunch of people in the room.

Asch quickly got away from the door. What was Jeb doing here? If he saw Max in the building, then San Francisco would be crawling with Erasers looking for her.

"Hey, Sebastian," Asch said into the headset.

"What's up?" Sebastian said.

"We've got a serious problem. Guess who I just saw in the building?"

"Genghis Kahn?" said Iggy in the background.

"No, the nerdy version of him. Jeb Batchelder! I just saw him with my own two eyes."

"What?!" cried Sebastian.

"Jeb Batchelder is HERE."

"Get the hell out of there."

"Hey, you!" yelled a voice from Asch's right.

Asch looked over to see a security guard looking right at him. He'd been spotted.

"Shit, I've been seen," said Asch, "Tell Max and the others to get out. I'm on my own." He ripped off his headset and broke it in his hand so no one would know who he was talking to. He took off sprinting.

The guard ran after him, calling for backup.

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I was still in the records room gathering information when Sebastian came in on the headset. "Max, get out of the building."

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Asch got spotted and Jeb Batchelder is in the building right now."

"What?!" I couldn't believe it. How did Jeb always manage to find me? I swear, I was a magnet for whitecoats.

"We don't know the details Max. Just get out of there before anybody sees you. I'll warn the others."

"What about Asch? I can't leave him."

"Don't worry about him. He can take care of himself. What's important is that you get out. Now go."

I took the papers that I had and tucked them into my shirt. I ran out of the room and down the hall where I came from. Quickly, I ran down the stairs, nearly tripping several times.

As I came to the bottom, an alarm sounded and a robotic voice came over a loud speaker, "Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert. Intruders detected within the facility."

And one of them was making a B-line for the exit. I ran down the hall towards the door, blowing past security guards who were coming out to capture the intruders. I blasted open the door and took off into the night.

I could see the others flying away. Sebastian must have gotten them the message. But there was one person who wasn't with them: Asch.

He was still in the building. I couldn't believe I left him there. I so wanted to go back in there for him, but I couldn't. Let him be okay I thought. Let him be okay.

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Asch ran down the hall until he was cut off by a bunch of guards with big guns.

He turned around to see that there were more guards behind with guns pointed right at him.

"Freeze, get your hands in the air," said one of the guards. Asch put his hands in the air, with the bottle of Boost still in his right hand.

"What's in your hand?" yelled the guard, "Drop it."

"I can't do that," said Asch.

"You better drop it or we will open fire."

Just then Jeb came up from behind the security guards. "Is this the intruder?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir," said another one of the guards.

Asch looked over to Jeb. Their eyes met. Jeb's eyes narrowed and the he spoke, "Have we met before? You look familiar to me."

"We haven't met personally, but believe me, I know a lot about you."

"Is that so?"

"Oh, yeah. I know what you're up to, and I can tell you this; you were stopped before and you can be stopped again."

"Who are you?"

"Your new worst nightmare." Asch then concentrated on all of the security guards' guns. Suddenly all of the guards dropped their guns and rubbed their hands.

"What's wrong?" asked Jeb, "What are you doing?"

"The guns, sir," said a guard, "They became really hot."

"Hot?"

Jeb looked up only to find a knee coming right for his face. POW!! Jeb caught it right between the eyes and he went down to the floor.

As Asch landed on his feet, he turned around to look back at Jeb and yelled, "That was for Max!"

Asch ran down the hallway and found a window he leaped through with the guards chasing behind him. The glass shattered and Asch began falling, but he opened his wings and instantly took off, going just under 200 mph.

The guards looked out the window and found nothing but shattered remains of glass.

"Where is he?" demanded Jeb, being helped by a couple of guards.

"He's gone," said one of the guards, "he's just gone. He disappeared."

Jeb was incredibly frustrated. He knew he had seen that boy before. But he couldn't think of where. Thinking about it made his head hurt more.

He'd figure it out later. Right now, he needed to have the guards take him to the first-aid station so he could do something about the egg bump on his head that was turning purple.

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