[Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, James Patterson does. The plot is mine, though. Obviously. I did created these two new characters. As it says all fancy and official in those books, the characters are purely fictional and are in no way related to any person, living or dead. I just always wanted to say that. (I'm now smiling like a fool, just in case you were wondering. But if you weren't, oh well.)]
Chapter One(Max's POV)
It was a beautiful clear night, the kind of night where you could see practically every star in the sky. As if a child had just taken a glitter-glue-stick (like the ones from Crayola) and painted bright dots all over the night sky. Looking at the night sky really made a person think. Hard to think that every single one of those teensy-winsy stars were flaming hot balls of gas millions of light-years away. The Earth was tiny in comparison to the rest of the universe, like the view of a person looking at an ant at the top of the Sears Tower. It was amazing, really. To think that we were just as tiny as ants. It really made you think of things in a whole-grand-scheme-of-things-kinda-way. Or, say, like you weren't mutant freaks running for your life from mad scientists.
Lost? For those new on the whole "Amazing Adventures of Max and Co.", I'll give you a brief summary of our freakish lives. I mean, come on, I don't have all night! Besides, I really don't feel like explaining everything to you newbies.
Okay, my name's Max. I don't really know what my "real" name is, so I chose one myself, so did the rest of my friends for that matter. Maximum Ride is the name I chose for myself oh-so-long-ago. But it's a bit of a mouthful. In certain situations where the time is of the essence (like when someone's telling you to duck because a bomb's gonna go off), Maximum Ride just takes too long. So I go by Max for short. The rest of my friends: there's Angel, the Gasman (his digestive system is wacked up!), Nudge, Iggy, and Fang. We call ourselves "The Flock" for reasons that will soon become clear to you. I'm the leader, 'cause I'm the oldest.
Back to the whole "mutant freaks running for our lives from mad scientists" bit- it's kinda important. The six of us were part of an "experiment" where some mad scientists (think Frankenstein mad) decided to play around with human and avian (bird) DNA. The result? Us. Ninety-eight percent human and two percent bird. Two percent may not seem like much- it's only what, two cents out of a dollar? I don't know for sure, our education has been a bit sketchy. Just thank God for television and google or else we wouldn't know nutin'. But we may not be book smart, but we are definitely street smart.
But back to the whole two percent bird part… We have wings. Yup. Wings. Just like birds. It's kind of cool when I think about it, I mean we can just get up and go whenever we want. It's totally free feeling. Freedom. That was something none of us had when we were little, back at the School. The School was our prison for years. We were nothing more than some experiments to the whitecoats (that's what we called the scientists). We were treated like lab rats; we were kept in freaking bird cages! They did experiments on us, since we were special, I mean besides the wings. Our bodies had to be different than regular human ones in order to fly. So pretty much every part of us is somehow altered somehow; and the whitecoats experimented on all of those differences. I'll spare you the details since I'm being brief and all, but the short story is we escaped. For a few years we lived semi-normally. I didn't even know if it was possible for us six to "live normally". Then Angel was taken, and since then the Flock and I have been on the run. For the most part we've done okay. I mean, there were a few close calls. But in the end we always beat 'em.
Head to Chicago, Max. Yup. That's my muy bueno annoying Voice in my head. What- you don't have one? Come on, it's this season's must have! Voices are flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart this year for the holidays! Admission to a psychiatric center costs extra. But then remembered... I haven't heard from the Voice since the whole Antartica thing. I was wondering what was so important for him to break the whole silent treatment thing.
Very funny, Max. You and the flock must head to Chicago. Chicago, what's so important about Chicago? I asked the voice. We were in Kentucky, so a trip to the Windy City wouldn't take very long.
There is a girl in Chicago. She is important to Itex's latest plans. You must get to her. A bunch of sarcastic remarks flowed through my head, but I ignored them. I was curious. So sue me- who wouldn't be if a Voice in your head told you to find some girl in Chicago that was part of the evil-take-over-the-world crazed cooperation's latest scheme? The group we now knew was Itex had big plans for the world; world domination big. Bit ambitious, don't you think? And the School and Itex were related. I mean come on; the two things the Devil himself probably paid attention to. Of course the School and Itex were related. But, that through the Flock right in there with the School and Itex.
And the Flock and I were probably pretty high on Itex's and the School's enemy list. We've messed up a couple of their plans, bested their "best" experiments, and outsmarted the grownups running the whole operation. So, overall, the Flock and especially me will probably be facing their wrath one day or another. But not like we hadn't faced it before.
I paused in my thinking for a moment. What was their plan for us now? Was it "expire" (just a fancy way of saying "kill") us? Or was it to capture us and to do unthinkable experiments on us? Or was it to capture us and "sell" us as weapons? (Yes, they have tried that before. It didn't work out so well for them, though.)
They are regrouping for the moment. Regrouping? Regrouping is good… it will give us a chance to regroup. Yes, but they are also concentrating on one of their most secret projects. Most secret projects? What we weren't most secret enough for them? I wasn't asking the Voice those questions, I knew it wouldn't answer if I did. Then I remembered how the Voice said something about a girl. A girl, from Chicago. Could there be any relation between the two?
Yes, Max. Very good. Max could practically feel the voice smiling. Okay, so what was so special about this girl? Was she "created" by the School? Was she in the School? I cannot tell you much now, Max. Max groaned. But truthfully, she wasn't surprised. The Voice never gave straightforward answers with all the information she needed to know. I beg to disagree. I cannot tell you more under these circumstances. You must get to the girl, Max. Max was still hesitant. She liked it around here. It was warm. And the Flock definitely deserved a brake. Besides, what would she do with this girl? Drop her off somewhere? Rescue her from the School? Make her part of the Flock? Max shook her head. She just didn't understand why this girl was so important.
I can only tell you this, Max. She is a project twenty eight years in the making. She was created by Itex almost sixteen years ago. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching. When she turns sixteen, she will change, she will become a perfect human. A perfect human? What was that supposed to mean? What, like an Omega II? Like the first worked out so well! Besides, no human could ever be perfect…. that's what makes us human!
I agree, Max. But have already told you too much. You must find the girl. Leave this morning when the rest of the Flock wake up. Max sighed. She knew that they were going to have to find this girl. I had a feeling I was gonna regret it, but she knew she had to. If somehow this girl was part of Itex's plans of world domination or something, Max had to stop it.
A face appeared in my mind. It was a girl, probably in her mid teens. Her hair was a beautiful mixture of blonde, red, and brown. A strawberry blonde might be an appropriate name for the hair color. Her hair went to right below her shoulders. Her hair was thick with waves throughout it. It seemed bouncy- the kind of hair you see in shampoo commercials. Her nose was soft and kind of defined. A radiant smile was on her lips, with her teeth perfectly straight and white. The eyes, though, were the most impressive part of her face. It was difficult to attribute a color to her eyes. I suppose you could say her eyes were a violet color, but still wouldn't exactly fit.
I surveyed the face in her mind. I was positive I never had seen anybody who resembled the person portrayed in her mind. I knew, though, without asking the Voice, that the face I had seen was the girl.
I glanced at her watch. It was around half past three in the morning. I stepped over numerous limbs to get to Fang. It was his turn to finish the watch. I managed to make her way towards Fang without waking anybody else up. I said softly, "Fang? It's your turn to take watch." Within moments Fang was up, fully alert. He nodded, and glanced at his watch.
"Why didn't you wake me up earlier," Fang said just slightly softer than usual. His voice was usually quiet, but it was just a little more quiet since the rest of the Flock was sleeping. Fang's watch was supposed to start an hour ago.
I was already making my way to the dying fire. We had started it last night; by the break of dawn there wouldn't be any flames left. I heard Fang following me. Good, I needed to talk to Fang about what the Voice told me. And I didn't want to exactly go up tell him about it. Things were becoming almost awkward between Fang and me. I sat down on the ground, my knees to my chest. Fang came by and sat right next to me.
"What's up?" Fang asked me. I sighed. Where to start?
"I had a lengthy conversation with the Voice tonight," I said. I figured it was as good as a place to start as any. I paused for a moment. Fang said nothing, although I didn't expect him to. He nodded, though, acknowledging that he had heard me. "It said to go to Chicago. There's a girl there that is apparently part of Itex's latest take-over-the-world plans."
Again, I didn't expect Fang to actually say anything. But he surprised me. "So what about this girl?"
"I'm not quite sure; the Voice wouldn't tell me much. It's just that she was created by Itex to become the perfect human. But I don't understand the whole perfect human thing. They've tried it. It didn't work out so well."
Fang flashed one of his rare smiles at me. "It almost worked out well enough…" Fang said. "If it weren't for me and the rest of the guys you girls would have been toast, if you forgot."
"We were handling the situation fine by ourselves! I beat Omega and Nudge and Angel had everything else under control," I said, rolling my eyes. I knew when Fang came and "rescued" us from Itex in Europe I would never live it down. I was right.
"Uh-huh. It sure sounded like you guys had everything under control," Fang teased. I just ignored him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a response. "'Sides, if you hadn't figured out Omega's weakness with his eyes, you would definitely have needed our help."
I winced at the last part. Fang was right. I changed my tone from playful to serious. "You're right, Fang. If I hadn't discovered that Omega couldn't track objects well, then I probably would have lost." It felt weird, me admitting that I could have lost. I was supposed to be Super Max, for goodness sakes! But here I was admitting that I almost lost! I pushed those thoughts out of my head. Because it was true- I pretty much got lucky with Omega. Would I get lucky again, when facing Itex's newest creation? I couldn't afford to gamble on luck, there was just too much at stake…
For a moment, an expression flashed passed Fang's face. But it was so quick I wasn't sure if I had just imagined it or not. "Max, I'm sorry…." Fang said softly. "I didn't mean it, you know that? I probably couldn't have done any better than you did."
I was stunned. Did Fang just say that he couldn't have done any better with Omega than I did? Fang was usually like a rock; showing no emotion at all. To sincerely apologize, I mean, wow. At first I wasn't sure how to respond.
I shook my head. "It fine, Fang. We were just joking." I gave a wry smile, and continued, "But I think that's why we have to find this girl. If Itex makes a bunch more "perfect humans" more powerful than Omega…" I let my voice trail off. What should I say? We would be dead? Captured? Tortured? Experimented on? Worse?
"I know," Fang said.
I nodded. "To Chicago we go then."
"To Chicago."
I chose Chicago because I live near there and I think it's one of the greatest cities in the world. Plus it was closer to their location than LA, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid, or other places I thought of. Plus I can describe Chicago with ease, unlike the other cities. My original plan to send them to some small town, but I didn't know of one, and I couldn't find one. And I couldn't think of a small town name besides the generic names. So I decided to use Chicago, the Windy City, home of the Cubs/Sox and the Bears. Oh, and the whole twenty-eight year thing, I didn't chose the number randomly. Twenty-eight is a perfect number, the first after six. A perfect number is a number whose factors equal its own. So the factors of twenty-eight are one, two, four, seven, and fourteen. Which all equal twenty-eight. So I figured with the whole "perfect" human thing, I should include a perfect number. My apologizes for those of you who aren't math lovers… but I couldn't help but explain myself!
(Another person's POV- can you guess who???)
The bells rang glaringly loud, signaling the end of the school day. I grabbed my books and quickly headed towards the door. It's now officially the weekend, and I did not want to waste a minute of it.
"See ya, Mr. B.!" I exclaimed to my history teacher as I walked out the door. I wasn't one of those teacher's pets- gosh, no! But I did like to have a good bond with the teachers. It never hurt. Besides, if I was worried about it somehow "hurting" my social life, I didn't need to worry. I was one of the most popular girls in the sophomore class.
How? I'm not quite sure. It seems people just seem to genuinely like me. It probably doesn't hurt that I am usually a pretty nice person (but of course my opinion is biased). I try to compliment people when I see something they are wearing that I like, or help when I can. Plus, my interests lay scrambled on a variety of areas. I was pretty well rounded in my activities, I thought. Like, when I was watching TV on a day when I had nothing else really to do (although that rarely happened), I would flip between the stations all the time. I was an avid channel flipper- although there was no say to what I would land on. Perhaps I would stop on the History Channel and watch a little bit of a program about some dead civilization (I actually thought it was interesting), or HBO and watch a cool car-chase move, or Discovery Channel with Mythbusters (they always blew something up! I don't know, but something about that I just loved!), or land on some rerun of America's Next Top Model, or the Science Channel about sciencey-things (I just loved SciQu Sundays! I thought the name was adorable… get it? Science IQ? You probably got it, but it took me a bit to get it so I wanted to make sure.), or Lifetime to watch some sad sob story, or even Cartoon Network to watch (what else) cartoons (I loved Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo). And those were just some of the channels I might watch, but I am not going to bore you with the rest of my television interests.
I approached my locker, grabbed my Coach messenger bag and tossed all the books I would need this weekend in it. I grabbed my jacket; it was getting chilly out now. I closed my locker door to find a guy waiting patiently, leaning against the rest of the lockers.
"Surprise, Zanna!" said the guy with an adorable smile on his face. He was talking to me, if you're wondering. My name's Zanna. Odd name, huh? It's not really my full name, that's Susanna. But I think Susanna is so boring. So old-school. So for years I have been known as Zanna to everyone. I like it much better, don't you?
"Zane!" I said, since Zane is the name of the cute guy who happens to be my boyfriend. His hair was blondish-brown in color, with parts naturally falling over his beautiful green eyes. I have always wanted green eyes, but instead my eyes are a purplish color. But better to look into somebody's green eyes that to have those green eyes myself, I suppose. Zane is pretty tall, maybe around six one or so; which is good, since I'm pretty tall myself. "What are you doing here? I thought you had football practice after school today!" Yes, Zane is football player. That of course, would make me a cheerleader. But we're not the jerky kind of football/cheerleader like you see in movies, although some of our "friends" are. I put quotations, which I really love to use (they're so fun!) around friends because if it wasn't for the whole football/cheerleading thing Zane and I would have been friends with most of them.
"Cancelled," Zane said simply. Depending on his mood, Zane could either be really talkative or barely say anything at all. I nodded, waiting for Zane to go on and explain. "Coach Simmons had a family emergency or something." He shrugged. "But it's cancelled for today, anyways."
"A family emergency" I said, more to myself than to Zane. "Maybe I should make like cookies or something for him. What do you think?" I asked Zane looking up into his eyes. We were heading towards the school exit.
"I think…" Zane began, smiling at me. "I think that my girlfriend's the sweetest person on earth to think of baking cookies for a miserable football coach who never truly outgrew being a high school jock and is stuck in his glory years."
"You don't think Coach Simmons is that bad, do you?" I asked Zane. Yes, he and the rest of the team would complain about their coach often enough, but Zanna thought that they didn't really hate him.
Zane smiled again. "Nah, Coach isn't really that bad. Just tough, you know?" I nodded, and Zane added, "But I think Coach Simmons would love a batch of your cookies. Anyone would."
"Good, I'll make some for him later on," I said. I must say that I make an awesome batch of chocolate chip cookies. Everybody loves them. I noticed the hint hint in Zane's last few sentences. "I'll make some extra for you too, okay?"
"That would be great," Zane said, while opening the door for me. He was such a gentleman! I liked that a lot. As soon as I got outside I put on my jacket. It was a little cooler outside than it had been inside. But the air smelt wonderfully fresh. I took in a deep breath of Autumn air.
"I love Autumn, don't you?" I said to Zane. "The leaves falling of the trees, the end of summer, the beginning of winter. It's a season of change. It makes you feel like you change, too. If you wanted to." A serene smile was on my face. I would have liked to stay for just a little bit longer, here. Zane, me, and Mr. Autumn.
I looked a Zane. I couldn't quite decipher his expression, but I could tell something was wrong. "What's the matter?" I asked Zane.
Zane seemed to snap back into reality. He shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." I could still tell something was wrong, though.
"Come on, you could tell me," I said soothingly, wrapping my arm around his neck. Zane didn't say anything. "I won't tease, you. I promise," I added. Zane and I would tease each other a lot, just like little kids in grade school. It was fun, though, and all good natured.
Zane sighed, and said softly, "It's just what you said about the trees. About change."
Oh. "I was kind of talking to myself, Zane. I definitely wasn't talking to you. You don't need to change anything about you," I told him.
Zane glanced at me, saying, "I know you weren't talking about me." Then Zane redirected his gaze to something in the distance. I didn't know what, for I my attention was still on Zane. "Maybe I want me to change." Zane said that so softly, I almost didn't hear him. Almost. But how could I respond to that?
After a awkward minute or two, Zane seemed to snap out of whatever was making him so gloomy. He smiled at me, "Come on, I'll walk you home." Zane didn't mention anything from before, so I didn't either. Zane held out his hand, I smiled, and took his hand, and we started walking towards my house.
Suddenly, Zane stopped. "I forgot something at school, Zanna," he said. His voice was a little off, I didn't pay much attention to that. What Zane said was more important… He never forgot things. Especially about school. He was like genius smart, or at least smart enough to probably have graduated early last year.
"What?" I asked Zane, since I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I'm sorry," Zane said, kissing me on the cheek.
"I could come back with you," I said, and then I quickly added, "it wouldn't be a big deal. Honestly."
"Nah," Zane said, already walking back towards the school. He looked back at me while he said, "I'll just call you later. We still need to talk." Zane quickened his pace, and soon he had turned the corner, and was out of sight. I realized I was just standing there. I started heading home, thinking.
What was with Zane? Why would he leave so suddenly? And why would he lie about why he had to leave? I was sure he was lying, I knew Zane well by now. And what in the world does he need to talk about? He has been mentioning it for awhile, especially lately.
I was still in deep thought when I noticed a boy and a girl around our age, and a little girl around eight or so. They were heading towards me. I didn't recognize any of them. I quickly looked around me; there was no one else on this block today. That in itself was unusual. I considered turning around, and finding Zane. But that would be silly. What would these three kids want with me? It was probably purely coincidental that I would be on a street with two teenagers and a little kid on the same side of the sidewalk head towards me. Yes, it's a coincidence, I thought rationally. Besides, if (and I mentally stressed the whole "if" thing), something were to happen, I was trained fairly well in defense (and offensive too, but that was for fun).
Before I knew it, I stopped. I was only a foot or two away from those other kids. I began to go around them, but then the older girl (who had awesome blond highlights, I should add) said something, and I stopped in my tracks.
"Hey, it's Zanna right?" she asked me. How did she know my name? Better yet, how did she know me and where I was? The whole coincidental thing was starting to sound less and less reasonable. Great. I wasn't in the mood for trouble, or to talk, or to do whatever they wanted. I wanted to get home, work on home work, maybe make some of my cookies for Coach Simmons, and then call Zane. Especially call Zane.
"So what's up, and who are you?" I asked the older girl. She seemed to be the kind of person who took charge. Maybe she was the leader of this little scheme, whatever it was. Tension was growing inside me, though.
I'm Max," the older girl said, "That's Angel, and that's Fang." She pointed to the little girl and then to the guy, who hadn't said a word or moved at all since they have met.
"Okay….Max….." I began. "What's going on?" I decided to be blunt and just put it out there. No need to waste time on pleasantries. Besides, I had quite a few questions. So I decided to go general and see where it got me. I was on guard, though. My cell was in my pocket, so I could reach it easily if it turned out I was in trouble.
"We better find a place to sit down," Max said. "We have a lot of stuff to tell you."
Okay... I hope you like it. This is my first FanFic. I am not quite sure what to think about it. But I am already working on the next chapter. I gotta go now though, I am using my sisters laptop since I'm being too lazy to go get mine, and know she's whining because I am on it. And my other my sister is on the Sims 2 making a crazy cat lady family. It was my idea. The last name is really Old Crazy Cat Lady Family. And the old lady had like face paint like a cat's and for formal dress a weird Victorian style dress... She's not only a old crazy cat lady, she's the queen of crazy cat ladies! It was my twisted idea. When my mom heard, she said I must have been dropped on my head as a baby and I was stop-eating-the-glue kind of special. What a wonderful relationship we have to speak what's on or mind. Anyways, reviews are greatly appreciated.... (I might ask my sister to let you adopt one of her crazy cats if you do... Come on, who doesn't want to be a crazy cat lady or a crazy cat guy?)