Nudge was scrolling through pages fast. I kept an eye on my watch, ready to hurry everyone on to part two of tonight's little charade.
"I wonder," Nudge said, suddenly stopping her typing and sitting very still. "I wonder if Jeb has been here. I feel something." Cripes, I thought. This is getting creepy.
"Why would Jeb have been here?" I snapped. "He has nothing to do with Itex."
"Max, I can feel his vibe. He was here. Maybe there is something on him, on us, in the Itex files." Her fingers started flying.
"What are you doing?" I whispered. "No ad-libbing-stick to the program."
Irritated, I quickly checked out the others. Gasman and Iggy were beneath a counter, and Gasman was looking up at something. Fang was standing guard by the door.
Angel and her unwanted flea-magnet were sitting very still, close to Fang. Angel's eyes were closed, I noticed with irritation. Nice time to take a nap. Just then her eyes popped open and she looked straight at me. I gave her a reassuring smile and turned back to Nudge.
"Oh, gosh," Nudge whispered as the screen suddenly filled again. "Look, look!"
Frowning, I watched as pages of documents tiled before us. On the top was a photograph of a baby. It was wearing a white hospital bracelet that said, "I'm a Girl! My name is Monique." The Monique part was handwritten.
"That's me, me as a baby," Nudge said excitedly.
I had no idea why she thought this, but whatever. She started scrolling through the pages and hit a huge patch of, like, blueprints or mechanical drawings, schematics, design plans. I looked closer and frowned. These were plans of how to recombine the baby's DNA, graft avian DNA into her stem cells.
"Max, Max, look at this," Nudge whispered, pointing. There, at the bottom of a long medical form, was the signature of Jeb Batchelder. "Oh, my gosh. Max-can you believe this? Fang?"
Fang came over silently and read over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed. I didn't understand-how could Jeb Batchelder be here in Itex's files? We were supposed to be finding out stuff about how evil Itex was-not about the scientists at the School.
Nudge clicked on a link, and a small media-player window popped up. It was labeled "Parents, two days post."
A fuzzy video clip of a black couple started playing. The woman was crying, and the man had a pained, frozen expression on his face, as if he'd just seen a horrible accident. The woman was saying, "My baby! Who would take my baby? Her name was Monique! If anyone knows where my baby is, please, please bring her back. She's my world!" The woman broke down sobbing and couldn't go on.
This wasn't the stuff we were supposed to be seeing. We were supposed to be looking at file after file about how Itex was polluting the planet, destroying natural resources, using child labor, and so on. Despite myself, I was intrigued by what Nudge was finding.
"That doesn't make sense," I said, after the video played. "We saw the medical consent form a few screens back."
Nudge sniffled and clicked back to the form. At the bottom were signatures of Monique's parents, authorizing someone named Roland ter Borcht to "treat" their baby.
But, now that we looked at them, the parent signatures looked exactly like Jeb Batchelder's.
I didn't know what to think. None of this agreed with what they had told me. What was real? Crying silently, Nudge continued to scroll through the file. Another photograph of the woman filled the screen. She looked older and incredibly sad. Stamped across the photo in red ink was the word "Terminated."
Suddenly Iggy pulled his head out from under the counter. He was holding some wires in one hand. "Someone's coming," he said.
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Freedom is still freedom, even if you're soaked, practically nuts, and having trouble getting your muscles to cooperate.
First stop: the Twilight Inn. I checked it out carefully, but it seemed clear. The Echo was still in the parking lot. No one was in the room, however, though all of our stuff was still there. Was the flock out looking for me?
I wolfed down some food, then packed all of our stuff as fast as I could. I grabbed everything and took off, running twenty feet in the parking lot and leaping into the air, wings wide and gathering wind.
I kept up a constant surveillance, watching for flying Erasers, but saw nothing. The backpacks weighed me down too much-I needed to ditch them and have my hands free.
I hid our stuff at the top of a pine tree. Next stop: back to where I'd just busted out from. The more I felt like myself, the more myself felt like a murderous, enraged maniac. I tore through the night sky, rage rolling off me like steam. My whole life, the whitecoats had done countless heinous, inhuman, unforgivable things to me, to all of us. They had kidnapped Angel. But now they'd really crossed the line.
They had put me in a freaking tank!
I was amazed I was still coherent at all, could fly at all. I stayed out of sight, under the tree canopy, zipping through and among and between the pine trees.
When I shot out of the woods, I did a fast, fast circle around the whole compound, seven huge buildings. I backtracked my path, looking for a telltale broken window. And I found it. I'd just needed the confirmation that I'd really been held here, that this company was behind it. That Jeb was associated with Itex.
Now to find the flock.
Racing back to the woods, I screamed to a halt at the dark edge of the trees. I dropped lightly to the ground, shaking out my wings. I felt okay. Like I'd had the flu but was better now. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides. I was eager for Erasers to show up. I was ready to rip something apart.
I pulled in my wings and sneaked through the shadows toward the main building.
I kept low to the ground, my eyes on the lighted windows of the building. Something hanging brushed my head, and I swiped at it absently. My hand touched something smooth and cool-and alive.
Stifling a gasp, I yanked my hand back, only to feel the something drop down on me with a thud. A snake!
I almost shrieked, but let out a horrified squeak instead.
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Then there were snakes everywhere. Six- and seven-foot black snakes weredropping down on me, climbing my legs, winding around me, flicking me with their tongues. I was flinging them off me, doing a freaked-out dance, whirling, trying to shake them off. But they just kept coming.
I was about to completely lose it. If there was one thing I hated worse than small dark spaces, it was lousy snakes! "Oh God, oh God, oh God," I panted, ripping snakes off me. I felt hysteria rising and knew I was gonna blow.
Hunching down, I gathered my muscles and sprang straight up into the air. I whooshed my wings out as hard as I could, shaking and shuddering as I felt snakes slithering all over them. Oh God, help, help, help! In the air I shifted gears and went into hypersonic mode. The snakes began to peel away from me, dropping off and falling into the darkness below. I was trembling so hard I could barely fly, and I finally kicked off the last of them.
Snakes! Horrible snakes! Where had they come from? I hated, hated, hated snakes.
You're afraid of them, said my Voice, as cool and unruffled as always.
No freaking duh! I screamed inside my head.
Fear is your weakness. You must conquer all your weaknesses.
I was so horrified and furious that I thought I was gonna barf. Had that been another test? Had it all been in my imagination? My stomach was roiling, and adrenaline sang in my blood. My head was going to explode.
The flock. Have to get the flock.
Good, Max. Keep your eyes on the prize.
"Screw you, Voice." I put my shoulders back, set my jaw, and did a 180, back to Itex.
Excellent, Max. Sometimes you amaze me.
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