Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for sticking around. I know it's been a while since I've edited. I've been busy with lots of homework and tests and such. The school year is coming to an end, however - and as soon as it is done and gone, I am going to get right back to writing.

Thank You to those of you who have reviewed! I really appreciate it and it encourages me to keep writing. Please continue to do so!

Until then, I'm gonna let you have a little piece of the next chapter to keep you going. ;)

Much Love,

Violinner24

Chapter 3

On Angels Wings...Or Planes'

MAX

Max sighs as she looks across the small space to Gem. She's staring straight ahead, seemingly emotionless, though Max knows better. She felt her nerves in how hard she'd clutched to her on their way to the airport; halfway between terrified and unsure. It's obvious that she's scared to leave her baby. But it's not like she could send her back now; the chopper was almost to the top of Utah.

They'll need to stop in Salt Lake City to switch from a chopper to a plane just to get over the Rockies. At one point there might have been a quality of fuel that could get a small aircraft over mountains like that, but they struggled to get through the Olympic Mountains in Washington - and that was with a nearly full tank of fuel. Now there was barely any left.

Max feels slightly bad for the pilot; fuel prices have been through the roof lately - not just because TC has been having to steal whatever fuel they need(although, that's what most of those companies and vendors are blaming it on). "Those Freaks comin' in and takin' our product - we don't really have much choice but to raise the prices just so we can survive." It would be a good argument - she always feels bad having to send out teams to steal when there are hard working people out there who need the money - but they only steal when they absolutely have to. And that's not as often as one would think.

Thanks to Eyes Only, there is some sympathy aimed towards transgenics and some have even agreed to help them out - under the radar. Pretty much everyone is afraid of losing a job and being kicked out of house and home if the greater population were to learn that they dealt with Freaks. On a surface level, Max understands their hesitancy - they all have people who need feeding, and TC was very lucky to even make it on to any of their lists. Not everyone can deal with the becoming a social pariah that dealing with transgenics does to their allies

Max turns to the window again, forcing herself to think of the mission at hand.

—48 Hours Earlier—

"Hey Max!"

Max turned around to see Logan running towards her. She had been on her way to the mess hall - something about a scuffle between an X-4 and an X-6 over… well, she didn't know. Probably something stupid. Everyone was restless due to the supply runs being cut off for the last week. They'd started them up again that night, but literally any time cooped up can set a transgenic on edge - let alone five hundred of them.

Max stepped a little to the side so as to avoid touching him.

"You got a sec?" he said breathlessly and Max noted the mechanized pressure release of the exoskeleton that he still has to wear if he wants to go excessively long distances…or he needs to run.

Max looked towards the mess hall and then back to Logan. "Yeah, I guess - why?"

He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it, finally turning and saying: "Follow me." and then ran off with the help of the exoskeleton's enhanced speed and agility.

Max looked once again to the Mess. Huffing her exasperation, she blurred after Logan.

Once at Logan's "Workspace" (though Alec secretly nicknamed it the "Eyes Only Lair"), he brought out several documents with familiar-looking symbols etched into pieces of rock, or pages of ancient writing - some was likely Latin, other pieces ranged from Egyptian, Cuneiform, or Hebrew. Max even thought she saw some Chinese in there somewhere.

Whatever it was, it was all a jumble as far as Max was concerned. Until Logan brought up the pictures of the mysterious tattoos appearing across her skin. Or, the original ones at least. She hadn't shown him any more past those ones; she hadn't seen the point. Just the idea of what they had said set her on edge. Titles like "savior" and "last hope of humanity" didn't help either.

"Really, Logan - these again?"

"Yes, these again!" he looked back at her from his computer. "From what these symbols are saying you could be-"

"-the last chance this planet has for survival." She finished with him. "I remember. Just like the past fifty times we've talked about it, I remember."

Logan grabbed a file; one of the hundred or so that sat around them. "And that's exactly why-"

Max grabbed the papers out of his hand. "There has been no actual proof, Logan! We've spent so long on this wild goose chase that we forgot that there is an enemy still out there. The Familiars are getting stronger everyday - politically, physically; we have no idea how many of them there are even out there-"

"I have proof."

Max stopped and stared at him, wondering if she'd heard him right.

"Or, I have the beginnings of it, at least." he gestured to the file before she could react to that sentence.

She looked from him to the file, opening it as casually as she possibly could, and putting up a wall so Logan wouldn't be able to tell how much this scared her.

Within the file were several documents - some were news reports, pictures from police reports and traffic cam footage.

Max's eye caught on a newspaper clipping. There was a story about a family who had been attacked in their home…by a ghost.

Max almost stopped reading right then and there - probably just a bunch of drunks and their hallucinations - but the nagging familiarity of a picture sitting just beneath the clipping prevented her from doing so.

It was one of the first symbols to appear on the underside of her wrist. She placed the newspaper clipping to the side, unconsciously rubbing the area where the first symbols had appeared. "Where was this taken?" Max turned to Logan.

"Same house that newspaper article came from."

Max briefly glanced at the paper before flipping through the other papers in the file, revealing photos and drawings of other familiar symbols. "These can't all be at one house."

Logan shook his head. "No. Several of them are from that house, but most are scattered around the country. I've found a few outside the US, too. But most are focused around Kansas."

"Kansas?"

"Yeah. Specifically the town where that article came from."

Max picked it up, committing the picture of the woman telling the story to memory.

The whirring of the exoskeleton signals Logan's proximity. "What are you thinking?"

Max let out a huff, knowing what she needs to do, but also knowing that as soon as she jumped in - the never ending battle - and their semi-peacful break - would continue. She looked over at Logan - a firmness filling her eyes. "I think I need to pay this Missouri Moseley a visit."

For your entertainment - a sneak peak…

Gem

The small plane brings Gem back to the present as they hit turbulence. She's been struggling to think things not 498. No matter how hard she tried, he just kept popping into her head. Libby deserves a father. And even though she doesn't know if he's even father material, he's still Libby's birth father and deserves to be given the chance.

Right?

The plane lurches in one direction and Max whacks her head into the side of the plane - dazing her a little bit. "Hey!" Gem yells to the cockpit. "Even it out, will ya?!"

Gem gets no answer. She's about to repeat herself when the small aircraft banks to the left so fast Gem would have received whiplash if she were an Ordinary.

But she is no Ordinary.

She struggles to lift her head to look inside the cockpit, which is now open thanks to whoever this pilot is. Gem looks at the pilot. "Are you crazy?!" she screams.

Had she not been Transgenic, she would have thought she was hallucinating. Had she not been trained to focus and pick up on every little detail, she might have missed it.

But she is transgenic, and she was raised a soldier.

It's unmistakable, even if it was there for only a second.

The pilot's eyes are completely and utterly...black.