A/N: Patterson owns it all. The characters and the plot for the books is all his idea. This however, is all my own.
enjoy
-twlightjunkie1313
Max II Pov:
It was maybe an hour after Max and her flock had busted out of itex. She had left the room in complete disaray. Dust, chairs and broken counter tops lay crumbling on the floor along with chunks of concrete. Natrurally, I had followed the flock out of itex. Now I sat in a tall pine tree some sixty miles from the cursed compound.
This was a mess. I thought about the situation for a moment, trying to find anything positive. I needed something I could use to my advantage-that was what jeb had always taught me.
If you have a weapon, he said, you can always defend yourself.
Right.
So here I was, about seventy five feet off the ground and a safe distance from itex, Max and everything I felt farmiliar with. About five miles away I could see the sparkling lights of a small city, the halogen glow of a gas station. There were houses, stop lights and a few shops. I guessed the city held about seven thousand people. It would be the idea place to get food and a few supplies before I started east. If I started east.
That would mean leaving, for good.
I thought about it for a while as the breeze ruffled my hair. I couldn't go with Max and the flock, they wouldn't trust me. I couldn't blame them for that. Besides, I'd never be able to find them...so it wasn't an option.
I could strike out on my own, live on the run like Max. I could go to the gas station, pick up a few things and be gone in under an hour. It would be harder for me, she had her flock and I was alone. If i did that, if i left itex...well...
It would mean opposing everything I had been taught to believe. It would mean leaving itex and setting myself against Jeb and Ari and all the other scientists. Was I ready to do that?
Yes, I was.
So I took off from the pine tree, speeding toward the town and landing in the dark shadow of an older building. I took off down an ally toward the sound of traffic. I walked fast, not wanting to be seen or caught by anyone. I burst out of the ally onto the sidewalk, taking a sharp right. I glanced around me, my hoodie covering my face from onlookers. Thankfully there was nobody milling about.
I strode into the gas station minutes later, squinting a the bright lights. There was a couple in the station, and the clerk at the counter. But past that nobody else.
"Excuse me?" The clerk said quickly. I turned, expecting the clerk to become an eraser at any moment. He smiled nervously at my expression, looking me up and down.
It was at that second i noticed how I must have looked to him. My dirty pants, muddy shoes and battered sweatshirt made me feel self consious. But only for a second, I shot back a hard stare, saying nothing.
"Can I help you?" He asked, probably out of politeness.
"Do you have backpacks, snacks and camping supplies?" I asked using the false caml voice I had learned from the original Max. The clerk nodded.
"In the back by the waters." He said pointing to huge coolers hidden behind shelves of chips and jerky.
"Thanks."
I Grabbed a backpack, rope, chex-mix, water, jerky, pop-tarts, a windbreaker and a hat. I took them to the front and heaped them on the counter. The clerk raised an eyebrow.
"Do you need all of this?" He asked with a small laugh.
"Yeah." I said quickly.
"Why?" He said slowly. I flicked my eyes away from the security monitors behind him to his face. He was looking at me with ernest, like actually wanted to know why I needed this stuff. I thought for about two point three seconds, searching for the ideal lie.
"I am going camping, needed some last minute supplies." I cut myself off before I could say anymore. Lies should be as simple as possible. My time with Max's flock had taught me that.
The clerk nodded, seming satisfied with my answer, and finished scanning my stuff.
"Thirty four eighty three." He said quickly, looking up at me once again. I pulled out some cash, money I had gotten with the MaxRide credit card. And winced internally, that perchase alone had wiped out a good deal of my funds. Fang had enough sense to ask for the card, to buy some water. And I had let him have it.
So now I had about seventy dollars left. I smiled to the clerk, who nodded politely, and I left the gas station.
Fourty mintues later I was in the air, backpack half full of the things I had gotten from the gas station. The cap tucked safely away inside it.
I had a lot of thinking to do.
I could just lay low like Max had done. Maximum Ride, much as I hated to admit to it, had managed to evade itex for some time. So she must have known what she was doing. But where to lie low? That was a new and disturbing thought. I needed a place to hide, or at least stay for a while. Someplace that nobody would expect me to go.
Colorado.
I had read about it in the flocks files. Over and over there were mentions of their time spent at a secure location in colorado. There was also a mention, in more recent records, of the houses destruction.
I racked my brain for the exsact wording of the document. It came back to me in a flash...
The location in colorado has been partially destroyed. Partially destroyed. The wording made it sound as if part of the building still stood.
Though there has not been confermation reguarding he extent of the damage. It either meant itex didn't care about the place, or they were in no hurry to check it out. The last part sent a chill up my spine.
No files were recovered from the site...
Iggy had mentioned a little about the house, but only in passing. He said that Jeb had an desk in his bedroom, and a computer, and that he never let them mess with any of it. It was likely that jeb had kept files on the flock, observations on their growth and abilities.
And itex had never found them.
It hit me like a wave. Itex hadn't found the files, they thought that the building was a crumbling wreck. They probably had no intention of sending anyone out to guard a ruined house in the middle of nowhere. That made it a perfect hiding place.
I sped up, flying faster than normal. It would be difficult for anything to catch me. But that wasn't the only reason. I flew faster because it felt good to fly, the speed was addicting. My adrenalin raced in my veins, driving me faster. I threw my arms in front of me, fists curled, i let out a scream. The wind snatched it away before it could reach my ears. All the sound was drowned out by the rush of air flying past me.
I was happy, for the first time in my life I truely was happy. Not because I had mastered a new skill, or memorized another file on the flock. I was happy for a diffrent reason.
I was leaving Itex, making my own choices. I didn't have to save the world, the world wasn't my problem right now. I left that to Max- she could deal with it better than anyone.
I was going home. A place that i could feel safe, learn more about the flock and just be.
A/N: As most of you know, or can guess, Max II ends up back at itex. If you want to stop reading right here (and keep the warm fuzzy feeling of this chapter) go ahead. But I'm not done telling her story.
Max II Pov: (one day later)
I would have never found the house if I hadn't known it was here. But now that I had gotten here I doubted I could leave...ever.
The files from itex were half right- the place had suffered some damage. The huge windows that faced into the canyon had been blown out. There was smoke damage, turning some walls black and grey. Soot and ash coated the floor. I took note of these things as I walked through the messy kitchen into the living room dining room. The table stood whole- with eight chairs, all coated in grey ash and some dirt.
I walked into the living room, my eyes traveling straight to the windows. Or more accurately the space where windows had been, beyond the windows I could see more ash, many burned trees and what looked to be the epicenter of a large explosion.
A massive red flag shot up in my mind, the hairs on the back of my nech stood up. In all the reports I read there had been no mention of any explosion here. In fact there had been no explination for any of the damage at all... but I could guess by looking at the crater a mile and a half away. All the damage here had been caused by a bomb. A large bomb.
I continued my examination of the house. Just off the living room was a hallway, lined with many doors. I started with the one closest to me, opening it carefully-not sure what to expect.
It was a bedroom, one wall painted black the others left stark white. It was bare, only a chest of drawers and a bed. The bed was unmaid, black sheets crumpled to one side. It was Fang's room. No other flock member shared his intense love of the color black. I left the room quickly, shutting his door and moving on to the next. I found each bedroom, Angel, Gazzy, Iggy, Nudge. I left each one as soon as i figured out whom they belonged to. It felt wrong to linger in their space, even if it was abandoned.
I saved Max's room for last, knowing that I would want to spend more time inside it. I cracked the door open slowly.
Her room was brilliantly ordinary. She had a dresser and a twin bed- like each of her siblings. On top of her dresser there were stones, rough and red stones. Rock from the canyon i realized. Her dresser had a few pairs of pants left in it, some plain shirts. I slipped the bag off my back. It hit the ground with a thud, and I picked up one of the shirts.
Max's clothing would fit me. We were the same size, exactly. I grabbed a few of the shirts and two pairs of pants, feeling guilty as I slid them into my backpack. I searched all of the drawers, finding a notebook, pens and crayons in the bottom drawer. Hastily I grabbed a black crayon and the notebook. I wrote a quick note to Max...
Max-
I am sorry for taking some of your stuff. I need it, I'm on the run from itex. I wish you the best- and if you read this you already know your house isn't gone. But I need you to know something else...Maximum Ride. I do not hate you-or the flock. I am sorry for what happened at Itex...i wish you the best.
Max II-
Then I dropped the notebook back into the drawer, along with the crayon. Max would find them if she came back. I left her room, pulling my backpack onto one sholder.
I moved toward the kitchen, backtracking. In my rush I had missed the rooms beside the kitchen. There were three doors. One was a half bathroom, only a toilet and a sink. The other was a pantry. It had some canned food, a few gallons of water, old bags of chips, some bread and pack of batteries. These people were seriously disorganized.
I moved to the last door, expecting the master bedroom- where jeb had his office. I stepped into the room, looking down to notice it was carpeted. The carpet held a thick coat of dust an ash.
"Hello Max."
My eyes went wide, i glanced up to see Jeb. He sat on the edge of his perfectly made bed, looking at me.
"Jeb." I said quickly, trying to compose myself. I began scanning the room, looking for exits. My sholders tightened, my hands curled into fists uncontiously.
"Max, calm down." He said, not standing up. His voice was soft. "I'm not here to hurt you."
I scanned Jeb's face, it looked absorbed. His eyes were drifting sround the room. I relaxed slightly, glancing around at the space for the first time. Jeb's room must have been amazing- before the windows blew out and the debris settled. The bed was huge above it sat a dark wooden headboard. The sheets were neatly made. The bedside tables each held a lamp, and nothing else.
I noticed that the room seemed empty, like nobody had ever lived here at all.
"Why are you here?" I asked suddenly, turning to Jeb. He tore his eyes from the desk in the corner.
"Hmm." He laughed weakly. "That is not the issue at hand Max." I stood silent for a moment. He got off the bed and walked to the hole where the windows had been.
"Better question, why are you here?" He asked with a detached but polite tone.
"I needed a place to hide." He frowned breifly.
"That's not true and you know it Max."
"Yes it is...I needed someplace to hide and figured that here was..." I searched for the words but Jeb cut me off. His tone was impatient.
"Max, if you were in fact looking for a place to hide you should not have selected a location that Itex has on file. Now i assume something else brought you here?" He turned from the window to face me.
"Do you have the files?" I asked as I began to move toward the desk, and the window. The window was my escape route, if that became nessecary.
"I beleive the flock hid them after I left."
"Where." I said, my voice was cold and urgent. I wanted information of the flock, especially if it was valuble enought to mention in Itex's reports.
"The closet. Maximum must have put it there." Jeb went to the wall by his bed. Since the wall was partially scorched it desguised the pocket door perfectly.
I watched Jeb pull a box from the bottom of the closet. He set it on the bed and removed the lid. I pulled out the first file. It was a manila folder, with a small handwritten lable in the corner.
"Those are observations on Angel, irrelivant at this point. She gained all her abilities after I left." He explained easily, I set the file down at the foot of the bed.
"There must be dozens of files here." I commented.
"Yes," Jeb began sorting files, placing them at either the head or foot of the bed. "My observations of the flock, mixed with ones taken from Itex."
"You stole files from Itex?"
"No."
"But you just said..."
"They are copies I made to take with me." Jeb clarified impatently. "The originals are still at Itex."
"Oh." I muttered looking down at the box. I could see Max's name written on the corner of a file. I grabbed it quickly, as well as the two behind it, Iggy's and Fang's. I turned and walked to the kitchen.
"You cannot leave with those." Jeb's voice sounded cold and suddenly anxious.
I froze. His tone turned my blood into ice. It was as if the threat had multiple meanings. The back of my neck prickled. My instincts screamed 'trap.'
Jeb was behind me in half a second. He put his hand on my sholder, rooting me in place.
"Let go." I said, fighting to keep panic from my voice. I spun to face Jeb, ready to fight.
"Why did you come? Or was it just the files that sparked your intrest?" His tone was lighter than normal, but prying none the less.
"This was a safe place. For a very long time the flock lived here, Max lived here. I thought it would be..." I stumbled on the words.
What had I been thinking? This was not my home, and Max considered Jeb an betrayer. Erasers had found this place, Itex had known where it was...
"This was never a safe place for anyone but myself." Jeb stated coldly.
"But Max, Iggy, Fang...Angel..."
"Were here under observation. As are you."
A/N: ...
-twilightjunkie1313