Maximum Ride: Cause Saving Just One World is Too Easy

by Jspang

Chapter 2 *Rewritten*

Total poked his head out of my backpack. "Are those overgrown pigeons gone yet?" he whispered nervously.

I chuckled to myself as I removed him from my pack and zipped him up in my windbreaker mid-flight; not an easy feat, by the way. "The hawks broke off about an hour ago, Total."

"Well excuse me for looking just like their normal prey! I think it's safer to err on the side of caution! I don't want to end up as some bird's dinner!"

"Soooo... Max," Nudge piped up from the far end of our loose "V" formation in a way that she thought was subtle. "While we're on the topic of food..." The other flock members' chorused agreements headed off any objections I had been about to voice, so I nodded to Fang and he started passing out fruit bars and beef jerky. I would have preferred to keep the food on me, but carrying a dog that can put away twice his weight ruined that plan.

"This is all we're eating until we stop somewhere, so make it last," I warned, trying to ignore the groans of disappointment. Jeez, apparently a couple months without constantly having to fight for your life make you pretty soft. "Suck it up," I offered sympathetically. Paragon of compassion, that's me.

The next two hours or so passed largely without incident, until I caught sight of Gazzy and Iggy whispering to each other and snickering. My finely-tuned stupid-kid-ometer being what it is, I immediately knew something was up. "What are you two planning?" I growled, already knowing what their answer would be.

"Nothing!" they shouted in unison far too quickly and loudly to be anywhere close to convincing. I knew I wasn't going to get anything from them, so I turned and we continued on our merry way.

That is, until I heard the whistling noise that told me some kind of projectile was approaching very quickly. Luckily, I had been expecting something like this, and dropped down a few feet in time to watch a frickin' water balloon sail to the ground below. Whipping around, I beheld the two pranksters flying above the rest of the flock, cackling like maniacs as they winged (get it?) weapons of mass hydration in every direction.

I caught a balloon directly to the face as I stared and sputtered as I tried to reorient myself. I cleared the water out of my eyes just in time to catch Fang grab Gazzy and remove his backpack in one fluid motion. He used the backpack to block the two balloons that the eight-year-old tossed at him, and then dug through it for the remaining ones to pelt Iggy into submission, all the while wearing an incredibly wide grin that we hardly ever see.

It was only then that Nudge and Angel finally stopped screeching, though I suspected that Angel was just playing along. I never cease to be amazed by Iggy's ability to hide innumerable amounts of bombs, and now water balloons on his person. Even though I hate his habit, and it worries me greatly, I can't deny that it's gotten us out of quite a few potentially lethal situations.

Once we all wound down from our impromptu baths, I realized that we were slowing down. It wasn't really surprising; we had been flying for the better part of five hours with no breaks. Using this knowledge alone, not at all influenced by the golden arches of goodness below us, I made the executive decision for a stop. None of us had thought to bring money, however, so we were forced to resort to dumpster diving. Just like old times, I guess.

We descended on the fast-food joint like a bunch of hungry mutants on a fast-food joint, heading straight for the back and, more importantly, the dumpsters. We landed and began quietly sifting through the garbage. You'd be surprised by the amount of perfectly good food people throw away. I settled for a burger that couldn't be sold but was still plenty edible, half a package of fries, and a salad that had barely been touched. None of it tasted particularly good, but it sure beat the crap out of charbroiled rat.

"I found veggie burgers!" Nudge whispered loudly, if that was possible, while thrusting the sandwiches into the air. Poor thing. She had been traumatized by the sight of hawks tearing defenseless animals apart and can no longer bring herself to eat meat. It doesn't really bother me. It just means one less person to compete with at the dinner table. Or dumpster. Whatever.

The sound of a door opening around the corner jarred us out of our meal. We silently launched ourselves into the air and made it onto the roof in time to avoid an acne-ridden teenager carrying a trash bag and singing some angsty punk rock song to himself. After he tossed the bag in one of the dumpsters and went back inside, we headed off to find somewhere to spend the rest of the night.

Leaving the pinpricks of light that were the town behind, we decided to bunker down in a small forest for a few hours. As one, the flock banked and began a lazy spiral down into the trees below.

While everyone was settling into a tree of their choice, I turned to Iggy. "Yo, Ig. You've got first watch. Wake me in two hours."

Now, you may be wondering, "Why would Max make the blind guy take the first watch, or any watch, for that matter?" Well, my dear reader, do you know what it's like to hear a fly cough from fifty yards away? Cause Iggy sure does.

We were all asleep in less than a minute.

----------

Around mid-afternoon the next day, we were hovering over a large staging area surrounded by a group of about thirty flyboys and half as many whitecoats. At the front of the stage sat a small, unobtrusive podium equipped with a microphone and flanked by two speakers. However, the real eye-catcher was bolted in the center of the stage. It was what I could only describe as a stargate. It was a huge circle of some very reflective metal with black rings every foot or so around its length. The whole thing was about ten feet tall and just as wide. I take a moment to appreciate the fact that, if not for their tendency to brutally murder anyone with a cough, then cancer, STD's, and all other diseases would be cured in an instant. But no, they choose the murder route. Yippee.

A woman taking her place in front of the podium in front of the stargate snapped me out of my thoughts. She cleared her throat once into the mic and the small crowd instantly fell silent. I figured she was higher-up in Itex, or something. I don't know. She had a microphone. that makes her important, right?

"Ladies and gentlemen," she began, "I am sure that by now word has reached you about the unfortunate incident in Germany, involving some unruly, failed experiments and the premature cancellation of the By-Half Plan." Three guesses as to who she was talking about. The first two don't count. I allowed myself a self-satisfied smirk as she continued. "If you are here today, then you have come to the same conclusion that my colleagues and I have: our future lies not in this world, but the next."

It took Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge a lot of effort not to burst out laughing at that. Fang and I shared a meaningful glance, and his grimmer-than-usual expression told me that he and I had come to the same conclusion. this "Project: New beginnings" wouldn't exist without heavy research behind it.

I looked back down as the executive began speaking again. "I and a small group of Itex's elite researchers have moved beyond the boundaries of genetics to create this machine, the AG-01." Stargate sounds so much cooler. "When activated, this device will punch through the fabric of space and time, which we have determined is quite thin in this area." I guess that explains why school passes so slowly here. Wait, no it freakin' doesn't. Trying to understand these guys' logic makes my head hurt. "When it does this, the AG-01 will open a doorway into a new world, where we can be free from disease, free from corruption, and free from the meddling mutants known as the flock! There, we will be able to sire a new, perfect human race!"

I wonder if this is anything like how Hitler's rallies went.

"Oh come on!" Nudge cried as loudly as she dared. "What are they basing this off of, a bad fanfiction?! Who knows what could be on the other side of that thing, if anything at all?! What will they do if the other world is uninhabitable?! Are they desperate or just stupid?!"

I tried to give her a hug in mid-air, but it didn't work out so well. "Once again, supposed genius logic is picked apart in seconds by an eleven-year-old!" I said as I righted myself. I didn't mention the fact that I pretty much believed the machine would work perfectly, despite Nudge's point. I just had a feeling.

We both hushed up once we realized Lady Adolf had started speaking again. "Today, we will depart from this world. This contingent of robotic eraser units will be outfitted with enough provisions to last us approximately one month. By then, we will have conquered the indigenous species and will be accepting regular tributes." Well. This just escalated beyond people wishing to escape. I realized that I couldn't let them follow through with this. It just wouldn't be right. It did make my Hitler analogy painfully accurate, though. While I was lost in my thoughts, the flyboys (robotic eraser units sounds lame) were reaching underneath the stage for enormous, military-style backpacks and putting them on.

I was snapped out of my brooding once again by the woman's last announcement. "Now, the moment you have all been waiting for. Power up the AG-01!"

At this, two whitecoats took up positions on either side of the stargate (no, I'm not going to stop calling it that) and began pressing buttons on control panels that I couldn't see. A loud hum filled the air, and the inside part of the ring split in two. As the two whitecoats continued their work, the space between the two halves began to glow a brilliant blue, and the humming increased in volume. Suddenly, beams of light, the same shade as the glow from the gap, lanced across the circle from all angles, coalescing into a rippling field of blue light. At this point, the hum hurt our ears, even at this height.

"The portal will remain open for one month just in case!" The woman had to scream into the mic to be heard over the noise. "The eraser units will enter first! Please form a straight line so we can march into our glorious new beginning!"

I can't let them do this, I thought to myself.

You're damn right, you can't, Max, the Voice chimed in.

It was then that I made one of my famous snap decisions. They're famous because they end up being genius or monumentally stupid. I had a bad feeling that this one was going to fall into the second category.

"Guys!" I screamed. "Come on! We gotta follow them!"

I tucked my wings in tightly and dove, not bothering to check if the others were doing the same. The wind tore at my clothes and hair and the g-forces played hell with my face, but I stayed on course. Blinking the tears from my eyes, I caught sight of the last whitecoat stepping through the bright blue plane of light. The distance between me and the portal shrank rapidly.

I shot through it at what must have been close to two hundred miles per hour. I immediately felt as if every cell in my body was being stretched past its limit, and then flattened like tiny pancakes. My last coherent thought before I lost consciousness was how guilty I felt for leading everyone to their deaths.

Comments

[Heat Signature]

YEY, you make sound like James Patterson wrote this himself.

[mint20]

Oh boy *takes off sunglasses*
Shit just got serious...

[TheArcticWolf]

"Oh come on!" Nudge cried as loudly as she dared. "What are they basing this off of, a bad fanfiction?!

Dude, did you just call yourself out?