Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

33

Eighty years ago, loggers had used a makeshift cabin nearby as a base during logging season. Abandoned for the last thirty years, it was practically in ruins. Which made it an especially good clubhouse for the flock.

"So Phase One is complete," said Iggy sitting on the broken plastic lawn chair. He sniffed the air. "We haven't been here in ages."

"Uh-uh," said the Gasman, glancing around. "In case your wondering, it's still a dump."

"It's always been a dump," Iggy said. "That's why we like it."

"Man I never got over it -- that tarp full of oil so totally wiped the Hummer out," the Gasman said. "It was kind of -- scary. To really do it."

Iggy opened the backpack and took out Big Boy, running his sensitive fingers over the clock duck taped to the explosive package.

"We have to eliminate the Erasers," he muttered. "So they can't ever hurt us again."

"So they can't ever take Angel again," the Gasman said, his eyes narrowing. "I say we bomb the chopper."

Iggy nodded and stood up. "Yeah. Listen, let's get out of here, get back home, make more plans."

In the next instant, the faintest vibration of the floorboards made Iggy freeze. The Gasman quickly looked at him, saw Iggy's sightless eyes flick to and fro.

"Did you hear?" the Gasman whispered, and Iggy nodded, holding up his hand. "Maybe a raccoon --"

"Not in the daytime," Iggy barely mouthed back.

A slight scratching on the door made the Gasman's blood turn to ice in his veins. Surely it was just an animal, a squirrel or somethi --

"Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in." The whispered voice, serene and angelic, seemed to float through the cracks in the door like poisonous smoke. It was an Eraser's voice, a voice that could ask you to jump off a cliff and you'd do it.

Heart pounding, the Gasman quickly scanned the room. The door. Two window, one in the main room and a tiny one in the bathroom. He doubted he could fit through the one in the bathroom, much less Iggy.

The Eraser scratched at the door again, and the hairs on the back of the Gasman's neck stood up. Okay, the window in here, then. He began to edge his way over to it, knows that Iggy would be able to follow the almost imperceptible sound.

Crash! The door burst open, splintered wood flying through the air like darts.

"Eight o'clock!" the Gasman whispered, telling Iggy where the window was and his brain registered hulking Eraser filling the doorway. His muscles tensed for the leap through the window -- but it's light was suddenly blocked by a huge, grinning head.

"Hey piggy, piggy, piggy," a second Eraser taunted through the dirt clouded glass.

Years of Max-enforced training kicked in as adrenaline sped through the Gasman's body. Door blocked. Window blocked. They were surrounded, with no clean escape available. It was going to be a fight, he realized, already preparing himself.

More than likely a fight to the death.