A/N There's a bit of physics-y stuff in this one about how something Jeb gives Ratchet works. I think I explained it in a way that means it can be understood alright, but let me know if I didn't!

I had to admit that being back in a vent, crawling on my hands and knees through the small space, felt really good. It was a bit of a signature move for the flock, and to be pulling it again now was strangely comforting after all of the new stuff that had been thrown at us today. We stayed as silent as we could – it wouldn't really be the most elegant of break-outs if we got caught because some unsuspecting whitecoat suddenly started hearing voices coming from above them – but eventually the quiet seemed to get to Nudge.

'What I don't get,' she whispered from a few places behind me in the line of crawlers, 'is how they didn't think of putting more security around that opening. I mean, the rest of the room was so, like, rock solid and everything, you'd think that they'd be paranoid enough to make sure there wasn't something stupid like a vent for us to escape through.'

'They wanted the pleasure of killing us themselves,' I breathed back. 'They weren't about to let us die from random asphyxiation because the room wasn't properly ventilated. Besides, you heard what The General said: 'scientists are always very proud when it comes to their work', or something like that. I guess they got a bit too proud, thought that their mirror cloaking would stop us from ever finding the opening.'

'They didn't count on Iggy,' I heard the Gasman say faintly from further back down the line.

'No, they didn't,' I agreed, pausing when I looked back at the group behind me and saw Ratchet grimacing. 'What's wrong?'

'That sound's coming in again. I think the vent must be dampening it, but it's gotta open up somewhere and the noise is carrying down the shaft. Not gonna lie, it's starting to get a bit too loud for my liking.'

At the back of the line, Jeb made a small sound, like he was annoyed at himself.

'How did I forget that?' he muttered under his breath. He sat back on his heels as best he could in the limited space, hunching a little to make sure he didn't hit his head on the ceiling of the vent, then went digging around in his pockets with a few incoherent mumbles. Eventually he gave a slight 'ha!' of triumph, pulling out what looked like two… what, tiny mushrooms or something?

'Wha-?' began Kate, but Jeb cut her off.

'Earplugs. They should help.'

Ratchet looked at him like 'seriously?'.

'Um, thanks and all, Doc, but I'm kinda packing a bit more heavy duty than that.' He gestured to his headphones. 'If these aren't working, those things sure as hell won't.'

Jeb shook his head, holding the earplugs out insistently towards Ratchet.

'These ones will,' he whispered. 'You're not the only subject within the School who has enhanced hearing. That is, you may have been the most successful in terms of the distance at which you can hear different sounds, but there are multiple other experiments currently underway which look into frequency ranges specifically; there's a cat hybrid, a dog one, there are at least three children upstairs who've been given the ability to hear frequencies nearing those at the top end of a bat's range.' He shook his head sadly. 'When the new measures against you were put in place, it made normal testing on these subjects close to impossible – they couldn't be communicated with in any way because they were so focussed on dealing with the pain caused by the sound. So these earplugs were quickly developed, and when I heard you were all being brought in I thought it couldn't hurt to have some on me, just in case. They act by sampling the wave of sound they're required to nullify, letting out a corresponding tone of equal frequency at just the right moment to phase the noise out. The two waves interfere with each other, causing complete destruction of both sounds.'

Ratchet looked at Jeb, his eyebrows raised.

'Dude,' he said in a low voice, 'you lost me somewhere around "these earplugs were quickly developed". Are you trying to tell me that if a noise is added to another noise, it makes both noises disappear?'

'If they're the right noises, yes,' nodded Jeb. 'And what these do is match up the noise they let out with the one you're hearing now. Just give them a try.'

Ratchet shrugged, looking thoroughly unconvinced.

'Might as well. Got nothing to lose, I suppose.'

Jeb held the earplugs in his fingers, pressing at the ends to activate them, then handed the small buds over to Ratchet, who winced when the protection of his headphones was lost as he removed them in order to reach his ears. As soon as he'd pushed the earplugs in, though, his face changed.

'Man,' he breathed. 'That's awesome.'

'And they won't stop him from hearing anything else?' I checked.

'Not at all,' said Jeb grinning. 'They only interfere with sounds of the specific frequency that they've set themselves to.'

'Absolute win,' murmured Ratchet, nodding happily as he snapped his headphones back on. 'What?' he demanded when he noticed all of us staring at him quizzically. 'You heard the man: they only get rid of the high-pitched noise, not any of the other things I can hear that you guys can't. I've still got super senses, even with the earplugs.'

Rolling my eyes, I twisted myself around and continued down the vent shaft. After what must've been about ten more minutes of crawling, we reached an opening in the shaft.

'Okay guys,' I breathed, turning back to face the others behind me. 'Four groups. Nudge, you need to get to the control room.' I looked at Jeb. 'Can you go with her?' He nodded, and I hoped that I was making the right choice trusting him with her. 'I'll go to find Ella; she'll need to see someone she knows-'

'I'm coming too,' Iggy interrupted, his voice a little loud.

'Shh!' I hissed, holding a finger up and then remembering that it didn't make a difference because he couldn't even see it. 'Alright, Iggy. And Gazzy, you come with us, too. So Iggy, Gazzy, and I will go to find Ella and get her out. Nudge and Jeb are heading to the control room. Star, Holden, can you two get up to the testing area? Set the other experiments loose – we don't want to leave them stuck here if it comes down to a firefight. That's your main goal, and if you can find Fang whilst you're there, then-' I stalled slightly and took a breath. 'Well, that would be good. Then the rest of you – Dylan, Kate, Ratchet – you guys need to find The General and apprehend her somehow.'

Everyone nodded, looking determined. I thought through my choices for the different groups. They all seemed to make sense: Iggy and I would be comforting for Ella to see after what had happened to her, and I wanted to keep Gazzy with me as the youngest member of the group left; Jeb knew where he was going and what needed to be found on the mainframe, and I hoped that he'd keep Nudge safe as she worked her magic; sending Star along with Holden to free the experiments meant that the job would get done quickly – the whole floor was a big space to cover – and, with any luck, the fact that they were both members of Fang's gang would give them some kind of drive to find him; Dylan, Ratchet, and Kate were a strong group, and whilst they all wanted to see The General brought down, none of them had strong enough attachments to her to let their emotions get the better of them (the way that, say, I might if I was standing face-to-face with her).

I nodded to myself.

'Right, Jeb. Tell us where we need to go.'

'Nudge and Jeb are heading to the control room…'

Nudge panted slightly as she moved swiftly down the corridor. Not that it was hard work or anything, but everything inside her felt like a jumbled mess of nerves, twisting around and making her buzz with adrenaline – she needed the extra oxygen going around her system right now. Jeb walked beside her, his stride long against her smaller, quicker steps. Star and Holden followed behind them; both groups needed to get to higher floors in order to get their tasks done, so Jeb had told the other two to come with them and then split off at the second floor, leaving him and Nudge to carry on up to the next.

They reached a flight of stairs, climbing quickly.

'Through that door,' Jeb said to Star and Holden. 'There shouldn't be too much security hanging around – they don't expect the subjects up here to make too much trouble – but make sure anyone who spots you is properly incapacitated. The longer we can hold of the alarm going up, the better.'

Holden gave a sharp nod.

'Gottit. And meeting back at the exit in twenty minutes, tops.'

'Good luck!' whispered Nudge as the two of them turned and snuck a look through the window in the door. Then they slipped through it and out of sight, leaving her alone with Jeb. As they started climbing again, she couldn't help feeling a bit panicky; Jeb had always seemed so changeable when it came to whether or not they could trust him, and even though she knew that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by listening to what he said now, she still felt uneasy with no one else around.

'Don't run,' Jeb warned as they walked through the door from the stairway. 'No one up here will think twice if they see me walking along with a subject, we're too far from the high-security areas for anyone to think too much of it. But if we go racing down the corridor then it'll look suspicious. Walk quickly, and look scared, like I'm taking you somewhere.'

He gripped her arm and set his face to a bored expression, and Nudge played along with the image, pulling half-heartedly against him and stumbling along as he ushered her speedily down the corridor.

Her mind was racing. Well, her mind was always racing, really. She didn't know why, didn't know where it had come from, but for as long as she could remember she'd felt like there were way too many thoughts in her head. Angel always used to say that it sort of hurt to read Nudge's mind because it flicked so quickly from one thing to another; "a butterfly mind", she'd always called it. Nudge had liked that – butterflies were pretty and it kind of fit – but sometimes it seemed like all her thoughts were pressing against the inside of her head too hard, like they were bursting to escape.

That was when she had to let it all out, when the "Nudge Channel" had to turn on. She knew it annoyed the others and she tried to stop, but there were times when she just couldn't help it. Everything she thought about just seemed so interesting that she often forgot no one else really wanted to hear it. She liked being in her head when it was a normal day, playing around in the kitchen or chatting with the flock, but at times like these it got really difficult to deal with. Most of her thoughts weren't even useful at the moment. If they'd all been super-clever, helpful thoughts then that would've been fine; instead, what she got was about ten percent good stuff, with the rest all just random trains jumping off each other and squiggling their way to absolutely nowhere helpful.

There were moments when she wondered if she was like this because of something the whitecoats had done when she was really little, but for the most part she'd just come to accept it as something that made her Nudge. And she had been getting better at controlling her mouth recently; maybe she was just growing up, but it was starting to feel just a tiny bit easier to push away all the thoughts she didn't need and clear her mind a bit. Or, it when she was she was trying to be serious, at any rate. Any other time was fair game.

She tensed as a whitecoat appeared at the other end of the hallway, walking towards them. Jeb squeezed her arm slightly, telling her not to panic, and lifted his head to face the other scientist.

A/N That's not really so much of a cliffie as I've done in the past, is it? Ah, well, doesn't really matter 'cause the next chapter's coming up right now!