"Where's the rest of the flock?" Iggy asked numbly.
Max glanced sideways at him. "Outside. We thought it would be better if I went in alone."
Iggy raised an eyebrow at her obvious limp, eyes widening as he saw it. Max's feet were bare and one of them, her left one, was clearly leaking blood onto the pristine white tiles, leaving a trail of red footprints. "What happened to your foot?" he demanded, all witty replies flying from his head.
Max smiled. "There was this microchip, you see…" It only took several minutes for Max to fill him in, and Iggy was left with a reeling head.
"So, you're saying you don't…"
Max's composure wavered and broke; before he could gather his thoughts, he felt Max's bony, muscular arms thread tightly around him for one of her giant bear-hugs. "I'm so sorry, Iggy."
Iggy laughed and hugged her back, all thoughts of the accusations, the pain, the fear, dissipating from his mind like morning dew being evaporated by the sun. He suddenly felt happy, light – he felt on top of the world, heck, on top of the stratosphere even, and nothing, absolutely nothing, could bring him back down to earth…
He came hurtling down with a jolt as he remembered.
How could he have forgotten?
"I have to go." He said, pulling away. Already his mind was wandering, questing from the present to delve into the future, filling him with notions of what he must do, what he had to do.
Max caught his arm. Her hardened look was back, eyes darkening and glittering like pebbles. "Yeah, I was meaning to ask. Back there, you said something about how Marian was experimenting on him? Who's him, Iggy? And what's the story with the 31 days thing anyway?"
He avoided her gaze. "You'll see." His footsteps quickened against the bloodied tiles as he picked up the pace, hurrying fast through the corridors.
Max's frustration pricked at him like thorns as she hurried along behind, grunting at her limp. "What? Seriously, Iggy, the flock's been waiting long enough…"
Iggy turned a corner and was faced with a door. A large white door, tightly shut, with a single placard with the numbers 61795 wedged behind a plastic holder in the centre. A harsh fluorescent light was seeping through the crack beneath the door, building up against the opposite side, so that it almost seemed to bulge outwards with the pressure of containing…
"What is it?" Max whispered behind him, and Iggy smiled.
"A friend's room." He said, and opened the door.
The door swung open with a whisper of well-oiled hinges, thudding gently back against the wall, and Max let out a small hiss of surprise.
The room was dark wood paneling and the door was thick steel. Several fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling cast a harsh white light onto the various tables and squat white machines, hunching on the floor like pot-belled monsters. A gentle beeping issued from the various monitors lining the walls, red lights pulsing and flickering like demented fireflies. A long bench stretched along the far end of the room, crowded with an assortment of various surgical equipment - Iggy felt his stomach roil as he caught sight of several scalpels. The wall window above the bench boasted dark grey curtains that were tightly closed.
Iggy began talking as he wended his way through the machines, a small smile flickering across his face as he caught sight of what looked like hundreds of tiny glass shards glinting against the tiled floor. And Marian Jensen said he hadn't developed.
"It all started the last time we went to the School, before the Itex siege. Remember? They told us everything we'd been through was a dream?"
In the reflection on one of the glass tabletops, Iggy saw Max nod mutely.
"I remember. But what has that got to do with…"
"Before you woke up," Iggy interrupted. "I was the only one awake. And Marian Jensen came to me."
His tone betrayed what he felt, and the memories came rushing back in a haze of bright tints and harsh tones, shifting and coalescing. Blurred colours against fogged glass.
"Do you remember the day you left?"
They were standing on a sea of broken tiles, and his whole body was taut.
He answered her.
"No, I don't."
Her smile was feral, rows of gaping teeth and thin lips. "Yes, you do."
Iggy swallowed past them, and continued. "She told me that, using the same process they had used in creating me, they had managed to create another bat kid."
Max's eyes widened.
"Then I fell asleep again." Iggy's face twitched into a grimace as he remembered how easily he had forgotten the news. "Then later, in the Itex siege, I met up with Marian Jensen again. I tried to make Marian free the bat kid, or free him myself, but I couldn't. The bat kid was still in the early stages of creation then, they told me. I couldn't do anything..."
His voice trembled, wavered, cracked, and he bowed his head.
"I want it out!" he screamed at her. His voice reached a keen so loud he couldn't hear it anymore. "Get it out! Stop it now!"
Her smile sank to a glower. "It would have been out already. What do you think we were holding you and the flock captive for?"
His rage slowed, condensing and cooling to blind, nudging confusion. "That was… for me?"
Her demon smile was back again. "Not for you, for him."
"It's a him?" His jaw trembled. "What do you want him for?"
Her smile was white and sizzling red. Her eyes stretched in a face distorted through the glass. "Why, for tests, of course."
"I knew I couldn't leave him then. I tried… I tried to make a deal with Marian. I would give myself up for experimentation, and the bat kid would go free." Iggy trembled, wings sweeping up almost unconsciously to shield himself, to comfort himself, noticing with relief how Max's eyes didn't narrow at the sight of his wings anymore. Desperation drove his voice to a wail. "I knew it was wrong and stupid, but I couldn't leave him! I had to…" his hands combed through the tangle of equipment swamping the benches and tables, searching, searching, the beeping of the machines reaching almost fever pitch until…
He heard it.
Faintly, beneath the machines, a low gurgling.
Max choked. Her eyes widened. "Iggy, I think it's…"
He followed her gaze to the furthermost corner of the room, and he gasped.
There, in a tangle of white blankets behind the bars of a cage…
Iggy hurried forward.
Crouched behind the bars casting a shadow-and-light pattern against the smooth cream oval of his face, crouched the figure of a small, hunched boy. The fluorescent light flung every detail into high relief: his bright blue eyes, the fluffy tufts of platinum blonde hair.
And the wings.
The wiry, membranous, bat wings.
The icy wind blew their fragile tendrils across his face, like tiny fingers drying the tears...
Max's footsteps rang as she walked forward, and Iggy felt her hand on his shoulder, rigid in shock. "Woah, Iggy…"
Even as they watched, the boy's head swivelled around. Hot, bright blue eyes glared at them and the bat kid snapped at them, baring sharp little teeth like needles.
"It's okay." Iggy's voice, trembling and sore and broken, yet hopeful, filled the space, like a newborn tentatively nudging its way into sunlight. "It's okay, we… we're here to help you."
The boy struggled and resisted as Iggy took it by the hand, but something – maybe the look in Iggy's eyes, or the soft crackle of his leathery wings unfolding, made the boy calm and quieten. From then on, he didn't struggle, even as Max unlocked the cage and opened the door with a harsh squeal of rusted hinges, even as they led him slowly and carefully across the sterile white laboratory to the door, blue eyes inquisitive and watchful.
"Hey, Iggy." Max said after a while. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud in the silence.
Iggy glanced at her. "Yeah?"
Max's eyes were thoughtful. "What do you want to call him?"
Iggy looked back over his shoulder at the boy, trailing along behind. The abundance of blonde fluff clinging to his crown lent him a strange, surprised air that gave Iggy the sudden urge to laugh.
"Hmm…" he said thoughtfully as they walked, towards the blue of the outside, towards where the rest of the flock waited in the seething, impatient dawn. "You know, I've always kind of liked the name Dylan."
At last, dear readers. At last we have reached the end of Membrane Of Lies.
I would like to thank all you faithful readers who made all this possible. There is no telling where this story might have ended up had it not been for all of your encouragements and kind words. I thank you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. It has been a fun experience, and I'm sorry that, at last, it has finally ended.
Thank you very much once again.
Inspirationally Redd.