"Maximum Ride", the name remained stuck in my head. She had been one of the avians that had escaped. Her and a few others had escaped from the School with one of the whitecoats, Jeb Batchelder. He'd been in charge of the avian experiments, unfortunetely I had been assigned a different whitecoat, otherwise I might have been out of here already.
She'd been the leader of the avian experiments even then, trying to heal or help the younger ones. Of course, I was in with the other chiropterians(bats). None of them lasted very long. They'd gone through the many species of bats, only to find that the desmodus rotundus was the most effected by the DNA mutations. Desmodus rotundus is the common vampire bat, and was the most related to human species, making me the most probable to not die. At least I had enough human in me to be able to have a normal appetite without being malnourished. I shook my head, years of science and small snippets of the scientist's writing on a clipboard were running through my mind, and I really didn't need to go through it if I was being released somewhere. As soon as I was out, I had to focus on the plan and forget everything that happened here.
A whitecoat came into the room and walked up to the cage. He studied me, looking to see if I had survived the operation.
"Subject is conscious and ready for disposal at the location", he spoke into a device that was on is ear.
"Where exactly am I going?", I asked him futiley. He simply ignored me, walking out of the room, and two Erasers replaced him. They threw me the handcuffs and I went through the procedure of putting them on. They checked them and I climbed out of the cage and walked beside them. No words were passed between us as we went.
They lead me into a room filled with helicopters and an assortment of vehicles. I stared as we passed a few Hummers and one very royale Viper. We stopped in front of a small helicopter. Black, stream-lined, and extremely small and light-weight, the thing was made for speed. Which brought the question of where I was going back.
"They're bringing you to a location a few miles off of the Flock.", the Director's voice came back into my mind, "You're to find them and hopefully integrate into their group."
She was making them sound like an occult. From what I'd seen from them, granted it was years ago, they were just a bunch of feather-brained kids who got out of a bad situation. 'Lucky' feather-brained kids, I corrected myself.
"That was before they started to mutate", the Erasers pushed me into the tiny air-craft as the Director continued to inform me, "The small one has grown the ability of telepathy and even mind-control. The blind-one seems to have a vast knowledge of technology and his senses have expanded after our failed experiment. The older male hasn't changed at all, though he seems to be the strongest, right next to Maximum. She also hasn't changed, and neither has the second-youngest female. The youngest male has been known to mimic noises, and have drastic bowel movements", I had to hold in a giggle at that. Their faces flew through my mind, the youngest one of them, a girl, had been a baby when they left.
"We've done some research and found out that you might mutate too. You-", I cut her off. Mutate? I already had bat body parts, what more could mutate? I laughed weakly, causing the Erasers to look at me.
"As I was saying, you might become blind, and develop echolocation, just like a regular bat." I had to keep in a groan. My vision gone? These whitecoats didn't hold back when it came to destroying a teenage girl's life.
"No need for that much sarcasm, the possibility of this happening is extremely low.", she scolded me sternly. She continued to tell me about the Flock: who was in charge, where their exact location was, and what to look out for. I had half a mind to tell her to shut it, but I remembered my shocking and keep my own mouth shut. Slowly though, her voice faded into the background, almost disappearing completely. I was looking out of a window, watching the scenery go by. We were over a forest, with a large canyon rapidly approaching. I leaned my head against the window, and tried to fall alseep.
Hours went by, and I must have dozed off, because all of a sudden I had a backpack flying at my face. Reflexes made me catch it, and I glared at the Eraser who'd thrown it. He ignored my look and told me that I was going to jump soon.
I looked through the backpack and found some clothes, normal ones compared to my orange jump-suit, a jack-knife, shoes, water, and some dehydrated food. I looked at my reflection in one of the windows and flinched. They had bathrooms at the School, but no mirrors in them, if you were an experiment then why should you worry about what you looked like? I was in need of a hair cut, long curly, dark brown hair hung as a frame around my face. Dark hazel eyes stared sleepily back at me, and a scowling mouth cheered me slightly. At least my expression showed my emotions of the moment.
I strapped on the back pack, and as soon as I was done attaching it to my waist, the head-Eraser told me it was time to jump. I gulped, I'd only flown at the training grounds at the school, and now I was jumping out a helicopter a few thousand miles from the ground. Yikes! I walked slowly to the door and he opened it, causing a gust of hot air to wash over me. We were definetly in the southern region of the United States, and it must have been summer. I looked at the ground below us and saw that we were now over the canyon, a few rivers and plains decorated the interior of the giant hole in the Earth.
The Eraser gave me the signal to jump and I leapt out of the helicopter.
The feeling of my stomach up in my throat immediatly happened, and it thrilled me. I was free, it took a few seconds to sink in, but I finally felt free. The helicopter was a few miles above me, the distance growing by the minute. The only remainder, besides the box in my neck, of the School was almost out of my sight. And I was still falling.
The fact was brought to my attention and I held out for a few more hundred feet, until I was about 500 feet off the ground, before I let my wings slide out of my back. They snapped open and I shot forward. Doing a few loop-de-loops and twists in the air, I looked back and saw nothing. Now the helicopter was nowhere to be seen. I whooped loudly. The feeling of the hot air over and under my wings was making happiness radiate off me. I felt like a canary out of the cage.
The only problem was my hair, it kept flying into my face, tangling in my mouth and eyes. I pushed it behind my ears, I was going to have to cut it when I grounded again.
"907! Get your mind out of the clouds!", the directors voice was back in my head, "You're going too much to the west, the Flock is about five miles north of here.", I grudgingly obeyed and turned my left wing in slightly and went north. She was stealing my moment of happiness from me, and it was pissing me off. I felt a small shock go through me, and surprisingly I stayed in the air, stiffly, but still air-born. My limbs were ridged, and my wings were barely able to move, but I stayed in the air. I rode it out until the director spoke again.
"Remember our deal, it's either this, or I can get the helicopter to come back and shoot you out of the sky, which is your choice?", I stayed silent, ignoring her, yet obeying her words at the same time. I felt her smugness through the box, and I swallowed my come-backs. This was going to be a long mission.
I kept flying until we were about a half-mile away. In fact, I could see them flying with a bunch of hawks. No wait! It looked like they were landing in one of the caves. More like crashing into them, they looked exhausted.
"We had one of them in custody, in fact all of them in our hands, but they broke out around twenty-four hours ago, which is why the descision was made for you to become a part of their flock." To think that the School couldn't handle a few birds was funny.
"We thought we had them, but they proved to be to witty for us, but now we have a new way of infiltrating them." I hated it, but she praised me like a good-child. It made my insides turn, but once again I stayed quiet. I was beginnig to feel like a mime.
I got closer to the Flock and the directors voice disappeared altogther. She'd told me that the small female could read minds, meaning she would instantly tell that the director was telling me orders if the director had the communicator box on. I studied them, now they were all laying down, after having what looked like a family-meltdown. The light-brown haired girl must have been Max. She was dressed in a purple wind-breaker, with a pair of dirty jeans, and right now she had the small, blonde girl in her lap. A dark-skinned girl, with chocolate colored hair was lying close by, her age looked to be in the middle of the other two girls. A blonde boy, about the age of the blonde girl, was lying on the other side of Max, not exactly snuggling, but still very close. The other two boys were sprawlng out on the other sides of the cave. The dark haired one was still awake and tending the fire that they had built, while the strawberry blonde haired boy was talking to him. I strained my ears, but I couldn't hear a thing they were saying. So much for developing echolocation! I watched them for another few hours, the sun had started to set when I had landed in my spot, and it was now night, with a bright moon over head. I could still see everything, it was almost like the sun had just put a shade on. The temperature fell along with the sun, and soon I was curling into myself to preserve warmth.
After watching them go to sleep, I decided to take a shut-eye myself, after going through an entire make-over.
I pulled on the clothes the Erasers had given me, a tight-fitting black hoodie, some dark jeans, and the brown hiking shoes. I threw my orange jump-suit in to the river, where it proceded to sink to the sandy bottom. I could somewhat make out my appearence in the water. I pulled out the jack-knife I'd put in my pocket and started to cut my hair away. I cut it short on all the sides and the back, and left long bangs in the front. I didn't know what a normal girl's hair-cut would be, but it was good-enough for now.
I was walking back to my spot, when the dark-haired boy decided to look my way. I dunked, and watched as his eyes passed over me, and landed on the fire in front of him. I breathed a held-in breath, I wanted to introduce myself on my own terms, not be found by them.
The spot where I landed was in a wooded part of the cliff, and where they had landed was void of any vegetation, though it had a few caves. I could watch them, and they couldn't even see me.
I walked back to my spot and l layed down on the ground. It was surprisingly warm to the chilly air above it. I watched as the dark-haired boy fell asleep, and only then did I let myself give in to my tired mind and fall asleep. I had a dreamless sleep until I was awoken by a loud shout.