Free, for now

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Chapter 2

In which Max does battle with a door

I spent the rest of that morning avoiding Fang and cleaning. Not very interesting pastimes, I know but there's not much I can do about that; the house has to stay clean somehow and I refuse to trust Iggy with a vacuum cleaner.

Fang seemed to trying to avoid me as well, so I didn't actually see him that much and avoiding from him was actually quite easy. I wasn't actually sure if he was staying clear because of this morning or because he didn't want to have to help with the cleaning. I'm pretty sure that seeing me semi-naked this morning had something to do with it, though.

I cringed at the memory and continued sweeping the hallway. I tried to sweep, or get someone else to sweep the house around once a week but everyone usually stayed out of this part of the house and it obviously hadn't gone through any form of cleaning in a long time. Actually, I can't remember ever cleaning this part of the house.

I was considering whether it was actually worth cleaning up here when no one ever came here anyway, when I noticed the door.

Like I said, usually this part of the house is ignored. It's sort of an attic, I guess, and everything else, like the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, were on the main level, below. I think that I had come up here once, twice at the most and I had never really looked around that much.

Why had I come up here this morning? Well, I was kind of hoping that if I stayed up here, I wouldn't have to see Fang at all today. Gutless? Yes. But also quite convenient.

I reached out my hand and tried to turn the knob, only to find the door was locked. I narrowed my eyes at the plain wood of the door; no one keeps Maximum Ride out of a room in her own house.

The door, however, seemed to be planning to do just that, as it remained firmly shut when I kicked it. I kicked it again and then again, hoping that the third time really would be lucky.

Sadly, it wasn't and the door stayed closed and securely locked.

Why the hell is this door so hard to open? Why was it even locked in the first place? The only person I could think of that could have locked it was Jeb, but why would he want to hide anything from us?

I took a few steps back and then threw myself at the door.

My breath was knocked out of me as I hit the solid, and I mean solid, wood of the door. Instead of the door dramatically falling inwards as I had hoped it would, I sort of bounced off the wood and onto the floor, landing on my already bruised side.

As I lay gasping on the extremely dusty floor, I glared at the door angrily. That was the last straw; this door was going to be opened no matter what.

I was just climbing to my feet, still glaring, when I heard soft, even footsteps coming up the narrow stairs.

"Max, are you up here?" Of course it had to be Fang, didn't it?

"Yeah, I'm just sweeping the hallway." I called back, wincing as I straightened completely. I just had to fall on the same side that I had fallen on this morning.

"Then why is it so noisy?" He asked, appearing at the top of the stairs. He looked me up and down, obviously over what had happened this morning. "And why are you covered in dust?"

"I, uh, tripped on the broom." I improvised quickly, trying to subtly brush some of the dust off without him noticing.

Fang nodded slowly, disbelief clear in his eyes.

"Well, I'm done up here." I announced, picking up the broom and walking past him to the stairs.

Fang wisely didn't point out that the hallway was still incredibly dusty apart from the large, Max-shaped section of floor where I had been lying not long ago.

"Do you know where Iggy is?" I asked as he followed me downstairs.

"Lounge room." Was all he said before walking away to do whatever he had been doing before.

Not surprisingly, Iggy was where Fang had said he would be; sitting on the lounge watching, or listening to in his case, the TV.

I smiled at Gazzy and Angel, who were also in the room, before walking over to him.

"Hey, Ig, can you give me a hand with something?"

He turned his sightless blue eyes in my direction, "I guess."

I waited for him to stand and then led him out of the room.

"I need you to open a door for me."

"Oh, is that all? Wait, it's not Fang's is it?" He sounded somewhat panicked at that thought.

"No, why would I want to go into Fang's room?" Iggy relaxed somewhat. "Unless there's something in there you and him don't want me to see?" My tone sounded suspicious even to me.

He shook his head, "No, nothing you want to see in there."

"How would you know; you're blind."

"Do you want me to open this door for you or what?" He asked, trying to sound offended but really just trying to change the topic.

"Just go get what you need to open the damn thing." I told him, getting impatient.

Iggy walked down the hall towards his room, muttering something about teenage girls and how they were rude and demanding.

I clenched my fists and resisted the urge to throw something. I would only have to clean up the mess, I told myself, taking deep breaths.

Iggy returned a short time later, holding a few pieces of wire.

"Where did you even get those?" I asked, suspecting that he had stolen them from some old women or something.

"Found them." He replied, shrugging.

"Mmmm." I looked at him disbelievingly. "Anyway, follow me." I walked up the staircase and then stood waiting for Iggy in front of the door. I swear, if doors had mouths, this one would be smirking.

"Where's the door?" Iggy asked, stretching his hands out and running them along the wall.

"Just here." I guided his hands to the knob and watched as he tried to twist it. He then knelt down and poked one of the pieces of wire into the keyhole.

"Why exactly do you want me to open this door anyway?" He asked, twisting the wire.

"Just curious. Don't you want to know why there's a mysterious, locked door up here in the attic?"

Iggy shrugged again, pulling the wire out of the keyhole and exchanging it for a slightly finer piece. "Not really, it's probably just a storage room or something. Maybe Jeb's office."

I nodded noncommittally, forgetting he couldn't see and wondering why anyone would want an office up here. "I still just want to know."

"Maybe you should get a hobby." Iggy suggested, smiling as the door gave an almost inaudible click.

I reached out and turned the knob, stepping back as the door swung inwards.

"So what's in there?" Iggy asked.

"Just a desk and some filing cabinets." I replied, looking around the small room.

It was pretty bare and plain; the walls were white and the floor was unpolished wood. The only light came from a small and extremely dirty window above the wooden desk, which had nothing on it except for a few of those plastic trays that office people put forms and documents in.

"Anything remotely interesting?"

"No, not really."

"Well, I'm going then." With that, Iggy left.

I walked into the room, which really did look like a study, the floorboards creaking under my slight weight as I made my way over to the desk.

There were some sheets of paper in the trays and I decided to look at them later. The drawers beneath the desk were full of sheets of clean, white paper covered in black typing. The filing cabinets were open and inside each drawer was a stack of folders, neatly filed and labelled. One of the drawers, however, seemed to have nothing in it but maps. I pulled them out and sat on the floor, spreading the maps out around me.

The first one I looked at showed a detailed floor plan of a building and the surrounding area. At first I thought it was the plan for the house but I realised my mistake when I read the title; Itex Research Facility-California.

It was a map of the School. I stood up and tentatively pulled open one of the draws of the filing cabinet. I quickly skimmed through the labels on the folders and grew more and more agitated as I did so.

Written on each folder was a number, ranging from six through to eleven. After that number was a year, they steadily got older; the years going all the way back to the year of my birth.

I pulled out one folder and looked through it. Inside were neatly typed documents that said things like; 'subject shows above average endurance and the ability to endure sudden temperature changes', 'subject shows faster muscle development than the average human of the respective age' and 'wingspan now measures in excess of seven metres'.

I couldn't read anymore, I felt sick, to tell the truth. These were records, records of our growth and development from the time that we had spent at the school. Why were they in the house? Why had Jeb brought them here?

I pulled open every draw, my actions becoming more violent as I uncovered more of the folders. Walking over to the desk, I searched through the document trays; the sheets of papers in them detailed the 'projects' currently undertaken at the School and the success of each one.

I pulled the sheets from the drawers and sat on the floor, searching through them. I was disgusted by what I read.

My search came to a stop, however, when I turned the page and came face to face with the Director. She looked just like she did in dreams; all confidence and cold indifference to those around her.

'She must be stopped.'

I flinched as pain lanced through my head and let go of the paper, the simple statement repeating as the document drifted slowly downwards, coming to rest on top of the maps strewn across the floor.

It was just like my dreams, except this time I couldn't wake up.

I closed my eyes. Images of the Director flashed across the backs of my eyelids and then were replaced by images of bombs falling and areas of nothing but blackened trees and bare soil.

I clutched at my head desperately and tried to keep quiet as the pain steadily increased. I didn't want anyone to find me like this, didn't want them to discover the records and other horrible documents.

'The By-Half Plan must not go ahead.' The voice warned and then vanished.

Slowly the pain ebbed away but I stayed where I was; curled up on the floor, not wanting to move unless the voice, and the horrible pain, came back.

Eventually I sat up and hesitantly reached for the page I had been reading before the voice from my dreams had decided to make an appearance.

I read the caption underneath the Director's photograph, my opinion of her decreasing as I did so. According to this document, my 'mother' was a pioneer in the recombinant life form creation program and also the supervisor of the By-Half Plan.

Angel was the only one who knew that I was related to the Director. I had told her that I didn't want the others to know and, although she didn't like keeping secrets from the rest of our family, she had done as I asked and not told anyone. After reading all this, I was positive that they would never know, they couldn't.

But what was the By-Half Plan and why was I being told that it couldn't go ahead? I scanned the rest of the document, my eyes coming to rest on a section labelled 'The purpose and creation of the By-Half Plan'.

All emotion leaked out of me as I read and a deep sense of fear of fear grew in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't stop reading, though, and continued to learn of what the Whitecoats had planned.

I was still reading when Fang came looking for me.

"Max, Iggy says lunch is ready." He looked at me more closely, concern flashing across his face. "Are you okay?"

I just stared at him, my eyes wide. "They're planning to halve the world's population, Fang. They're going to kill millions."

Author's Note: First of all, I would like to dedicate this chapter to Sarra Elizabeth, who reviews every chapter and also encourages me to keep writing.

I'm sorry that I didn't update last week but I really didn't have time; I had two assignments to finish and a science test to study for. Anyway, I am updating now, so it's all good, hopefully.

confusion, whoever you may be, now that you mention it, I'm pretty sure that the flock can see in the dark but I don't think that they can see as well as they do during the day, so visibility would still be reduced at night. Thank you for pointing this out though, I have been thinking a lot about that issue.

Thank you, to everyone else who reviewed, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Please review and tell me if you can find any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, or if I've gotten anything wrong from the book or something like that. Or you can just tell me what you think of the story in general, I don't really mind.
Thank you for reading,
Perinne