Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ After Armageddon ❯ Chapter Thirteen: Hard Pressed ( Chapter 13 )

 

After Armageddon

 

 

Chapter Thirteen: Hard Pressed

 

Cal

 

The next morning I was frying eggs for breakfast. Taylor was still asleep and I was pretty sure that Liela and Charlie were too. I did not know for sure because it was too dangerous to look in on them during the day.

I finished my eggs and flipped them onto a plate with the spatula before going to the sit at the small circular kitchen table. The apartment Taylor and I lived in was fairly normal. It had a master bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a small dining room (where I was now), and an even smaller kitchen. The only difference between it and the one below us was the secret room where my brother and Liela were at the moment, and the furniture, which was nicer than the neighbors because most of it had been a present from Taylor's parents.

Also, like any other apartment in the building, it had cameras everywhere.

That was the main reason why it was not smart to go see how Charlie and Liela were doing right now. Now since Taylor's parents were so special and Taylor himself was a genius, we were allowed to turn off the camera in the bathroom when we needed too and some of the other ones, but those others were mainly at night. We had to be careful though so the Director, who I was sure knew what was going on on every camera 24/7, would not get suspicious.

So instead of going to make sure that my brother's injury was clean and Liela was not so depressed that she would not even move, I sat there, eating my eggs.

Maybe this is why I no longer like eggs, but anyway, as I was finishing breakfast, Taylor shuffled through the bedroom door. I had told him last night after he had gotten home about our guests and why there were only two of them. He was shocked at first more than anything. Because of his family and work connections he knows more about the Director's plans then the rest of us and since he had not heard even a rumor that she was thinking about ordering her minions to exterminate any runaways they found, he was a little worried.

But as he mumbled good morning and sat heavily down at the table across from me, I could have never been able to tell that he was worried about anything. Partly because he was not a morning person and occasionally he did not start making sense until noon, but mostly because of his good acting skills.

“Do we have any bread?” He asked with a yawn.

Yep, Taylor and his amazing acting skills frequently astounded me.

“It's by the toaster.” I told him wondering if he was really interested in bread or the stupid toaster.

“I want toast.” He announced mostly to himself as he got up and shambled over to the kitchen counter where both the bread and metallic silver toaster where.

I have nothing personal against toast. It's warm, it's crunchy, and it goes great with cinnamon.

But I'm going to bet that your toast doesn't have scribbly little messages on it that you can't read half the time `cause of the black stuff on top of it.

I guess I should explain. One of the stupidest inventions that the Phoenix developed for communication was…

The toaster.

Okay, so the modern toaster was invented by Charles Strite, but the Phoenix, oh, modified it a little so that it toaster burned little chicken scratches onto the sides of the bread. Ours literally burned them, so we always had to scrape the toast afterward, which only added to the highly annoying part.

I thought it was stupid, if you hadn't been able to tell already, (I mean, my burnt toast is talking to me? How stupid can you get?) but it did have its good points. Such as no one really looked on food for hidden messages plus no one could find it later because you ate and digested it.

I heard a loud groan from Taylor as he pulled a drawer open.

“Did the toaster burn your toast again?” I asked mildly. It was our indiscreet way of asking if we had toast mail.

“Yeah, but this time it absolutely charred it.” He said as he started scraping the black grit off of both sides.

I sighed. If we had mail there was no way we were going to be able to read it. “We need to get a new toaster.” I told him wishing I could go just buy a normal one from the store, but noooo we had to get freakish speaking toaster.

“Don't worry about it,” Taylor said coming back to the table. “I'll fix it. It shouldn't be too hard.”

I busied myself with my coffee cup and didn't say anything. If he said he could fix it, than he could, it just might take longer then either of us would like.

“Are you checking on your bird kids today?” Taylor asked me as he finally deemed his toast close enough to brown to be eatable.

My bird kids? Oh yeah. “I'm not sure. Probably. Aimee's growing faster than anyone else has and I'm a little concerned. Plus Jack's a little antsy with all the feathers he's suddenly sprouting.”

“He's the one they picked for the test yeah?”

I nodded. “Hence all the new feathers.” I explained.

“Might as well bring the Ancestors if you're going, the younger ones will be thrilled to see them.”

Usually the Ancestors were our two parrots, Ella with no Yella (for my aunt) and King of the Wild Things (for my mother) also known as Ella and Wild Thing. They were both Blue Fronted Amazon parrots and the three younger kids at least loved them to flight. That may confuse you at first but think about what birds do when hyper young children get to close.

But today I took a wild guess and thought that Taylor had turned Charlie and Liela into the Ancestors.

I nodded. “Yeah, Wanderer and Melanie will like it if no one else.” I said as I picked up my plate and put in the sink for later. “What are you going to do today?”

He pointed at the stupid metal message box. “Toaster remember? It'll probably take me most of the day, so.”

“Well if you have extra time you should stop by. Jack, Tim, and Matty would love to bug you.”

“I will keep that in mind when I need a good ego boost.” He said jokingly as he hugged and kissed me before going to get the implements of toaster torture.

Half and hour later, I was dressed, clean, and had packed my four feathered friends into my car. Charlie and Liela were hidden in the carrying crates with the original Ancestors. Don't even ask how I squeezed them into those unnoticed, much less the car. It's a pain in the rear and I don't like reliving unpleasant memories.

My clinic was only a short drive away thank goodness. If I had to spend more then fifteen minutes listening to Wild Thing screech because Charlie was invading his space or whatever it was that he was doing, I was going to knock their stupid crate off into the middle of the road. Ella doesn't like driving so she was quiet and Liela hadn't said a word since I'd asked her if she wanted to come see the kids.

I managed to haul the crates inside all by myself without too much fuss and put them on the chairs in the reception room in relief. “Molly!” I yelled when I did not see my receptionist sitting in her usual chair in the big round room where she was supposed to greet any guests or inspectors that came to see the kids or facilities.

There are two kinds of clinics now; the kind for normal people and the kind for the not so normal people. The normal ones have not really changed from before the Director took over the world. They deal with sick people, plain and simple. The other ones are mainly referred to as Labs because usually that's what they are. They are no where near as disturbing as the ones Charlie's been in most of his life, those are not exactly public knowledge go figure, but they try to do the same thing on a more humane level. For whatever reason, they change the DNA and basically study the outcome. Let's face it, if the Director treated her public experiments as badly as she did her hidden ones, the general public would probably hurt her.

“Hello!” I called again moving towards the back of the building where the kids lived. All seven of them were orphans for various reasons, and I had gotten special permission for them to live here instead of the orphanage. Molly, Steven, Trey, and I looked after them and Trey lived upstairs. The main point of our work was to watch them and make sure they did not get sick. Occasionally one of them was picked for some study that led to some new weird thing, like Jack and his new feathers, but that was not too often thank goodness since we were so small.

“HELLO!” I yelled sending Ella into a honking fit. A door opened and Molly poked her red-blond head out of the far door.

“Hi Cal,” She said happily opening the door all the way and coming forward. “I thought you weren't coming till later.”

I shrugged. “I wasn't doing anything else and Taylor's busy so, here I am. I brought the noise makers too.” I said pointing with my thumb to the two crates.

Molly put her hand to her chest and bent her knees as she looked up at the ceiling in her usual `thank you God' gesture. “Good, Jack's acting like a teenager and he's been bugging Wanderer and Melanie all morning. Aimee's gonna hit him soon and then we'll have a real problem.”

“IT'S. NOT. AMY!!!” Aimee's voice flew through the open door and made us all jump, including Charlie and Liela who bumped their heads on the tops of the crates.

I walked quickly towards the yelling, and stopped suddenly when I remembered Charlie, Liela, Ella, and Wild Thing and how none of them would appreciate being in those plastic boxes any longer then need be. I turned to Molly who was right behind me, ran into her, and pointed at them. “Would you get those?” Then I ran through the door to see what was going on.

I stopped again just inside the door.

“Oy!” I yelled to get the older kids attention as they rolled on the floor trying to throttle each other. The other five jumped and scooted back when they saw me, not wanting to be a part of the punishment.

Jack and Aimee however, did not seem to hear me.

“HEY!” I yelled and stomped over to push them away from each other. They scratched and slapped at each other basically ignoring me until someone came and pulled Jack away with bodily force.

I pinned Aimee's arms to her side and got in front of her so she could not see anyone but me. She struggled like Wild Thing when I tried to put him his cage last Friday after he had escaped, screaming all the while.

“YOU STUPID NO GOOD-“

“Aimee.”

“-UGLY IMPOSSIBLE IDIOTIC-“

“Aimee!”

“JERK!!!”

She stopped screaming and squirming altogether and flung herself sobbing onto me.

I rolled my eyes once her face was buried in my shirt. I patted her back and twisted around to see where Jack was. Charlie had him against the counter, one arm around his shoulders to keep him still. I did not think it was too necessary now; the fight had gone out of both of them once they were pulled apart, but it seemed like a good idea to keep them separate for a little while. I nodded at a partly open door nearby and Charlie quietly pulled Jack into the room and shut the door behind him.

I turned back around and saw that Molly was already trying to distract the other kids with the Ancestors and Liela. Four year old Wanderer especially was looking at the older girl like she had pulled her out of a burning building. I used the lack of attention to escape with Aimee into a different room to talk to her.

She escaped from my hold as soon as we were in the room. I closed the door behind me with a soft click as she sat on old dirty sofa that was across from the small TV that helped to kill time on those nasty rainy days when no one was allowed to go outside and play.

I sighed as she pulled her knees up to her chest and continued to sob. I sat down beside her and began to rub her back again. “What's the matter?” I finally asked when her sobs had calmed down somewhat.

“H-he-he's a-an i-i-idiot.” She stuttered starting to really cry again.

“Oh okay calm down.” I said soothingly rocking her from side to side. “Just take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

 

*******

 

I handed the thick brown journal that we had all been writing in over to my little brother.

“Your turn.” I told him before walking out of the room.

I'll just warn all you loyal readers out there right now, hold on to the book covers, it's about to get confusing. After all they're teenagers.

 

*******

 

Charlie

 

As I sat there looking at the sulking thirteen year old sitting across from me, I fervently wished that I was anywhere else in this whole stinking world. Maybe a canyon where I could find a clue as to where psycho guy went, or heck, I'd be happy to be suddenly transported to his stupid School or wherever it was that he tortured people.

“So,” I said not knowing what else to say but pretty sure that Cal would want to hear something when we got out.

Jack looked up at me. I had met him a couple times before. He was a cool kid all around if not a little bit of a parrot. What can I say? He found his heroes and he copied them. I can not help it if it bugged me that he did it to me.

Maybe it was because he actually looked like me to begin with. He was skinny (like most kids with bird DNA), strong (again bird boy issue), and had dark hair. The only real visible difference was his eyes, which were a plant shade of green. I bet his wings would be the same dark color as his hair too.

“You've gotten taller.” I finally noticed. He was scrunched up in a ball against the wall so I had not really seen his height before.

Jack actually met my gaze and snorted out a laugh. “You should see my new feathers.” He said sounding angrier.

“Feathers?” I asked.

“Yeah,” He said standing up and peeling the back of shirt up to show me his back. “Aimee won't shut up about them. Says they look like someone tried to tar and feather me.”

I could see why although I certainly did not say that out loud. Starting at the base of his neck and spreading along his spine where a bunch of blue-black feathers that spread out along his shoulder blades like some feathered cross.

“Where they trying to give you wings?” I asked as he pulled his shirt back down.

He snorted again. “They failed miserably, and now none of them will shut up about it.”

“Is that why you're suddenly trying to hit your girlfriend?” I asked sitting back down.

“She's not my girlfriend!” He snapped looking like he was about to hit me now.

I held up my hands and waited for him to calm down again.

Eventually he sat down with a huff. “I was playing a video game with Matthew and Mel and Wanda wouldn't leave us alone, so I told them to go somewhere else.”

 

*******

 

I walked down the hall to the dining room and put the book at Cal's elbow before going to grab my lunch.

 

*******

 

“Jack was picking on Wanda,” Aimee said distraught. “She only wanted to know what they were doing in their game; he didn't have to push her.” She said.

“He pushed her?” I asked taking note.

Aimee nodded. “She started crying which brought me and Mel into the room. Melanie started yelling at Jack and then when he didn't listen to her she went over and unplugged the Xbox from the TV.”

“I bet that went over well.” I muttered.

 

*******

 

I found Charlie sleeping in his room and I let the book fall onto his chest. He snapped awake with a start and a vague, “What the-“, but I left the room before he could start yelling at me.

 

*******

 

“I only shoved her a tiny bit, but Wanda fell over and smacked her head on the armrest. And then Mel and Aimee come running in like there's a fire and Mel gets all mad because her sister's crying,” he rolled his eyes, “so she starts screaming `What did you do to my sister?' `What did you do to my sister?'” He said in a high pitched voice trying to imitate the six year old girl's voice. “She was being a brat and didn't even ask why Wanda was crying so I ignored her and then she goes and ruins our game by unplugging the consol.”

An unsaved game, too bad, I thought to myself bitterly but didn't let Jack see. I did not think he would appreciate the resentment.

“I bet I can guess the next part.”

Jack looked over at me sulkily. “Matthew got a little upset.”

I did manage to smile at that. “Only Matthew?”

Jack looked even guiltier. “I guess I got kinda mad too.”

My smile felt grim. “We'll just assume that you and Mel were having a screaming match.

He shrugged. “Basically.”

 

*******

 

I threw the book at Cal as she walked past the door.

 

*******

 

“I tried to stop them.” Aimee said sobbing again. “But then Jack started yelling at me and kept calling me names.”

She broke down again and started weeping.

 

*******

 

I saw Charlie walking down the hall and chucked the thing at him.

Too bad I missed terribly.

Liela's still upset about the bump.

 

*******

 

“And then Aimee jumps in and calls me some kind a chicken and laughs about it.” He said heatedly. “So we started yelling.”

So the screaming match changed contestants.

 

*******

 

I slid the book across the floor and watched as Cal read the sticky not that was on the cover.

`Next time we just flip a coin. This is ridiculous.'

 

*******

 

“He kept calling me Amy even though he knows how much I hate that stupid name.” Aimee said through her teeth.

“And that's when you tackled each other.” I said putting everything together. Aimee nodded.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I had only been here fifteen minutes and already I was getting a headache.

“Okay,” I said. “You stay here and once you're calm you come outside okay?” She nodded and wiped her eyes.

I smiled at her a smoothed her hair down one more time before getting off the bed and going to talk to Jack or, hopefully, Charlie.

Lucky me, Charlie was just outside the door looking like he was about to knock.

“How'd it go?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Your friends have issues.” He told me with a straight face.

“Thanks Charlie, it's nice to know how helpful you can be.”

He shrugged. “Jack's not happy about his feathers especially since Aimee keeps calling him a chicken.”

I hung my head and tried to remember where I had put that bottle of ibuprofen. “Okay, Aimee basically said that Jack pushed Wanda and Mel started yelling and then she started yelling and then they started fighting.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like the basics, he pushed her, she hit her head, the girls ran in, assumed the worst, and everyone started screaming.”

“I can spot a few differences in your basic summery.” I told him wondering what I was going to do.

Charlie had the nerve to smile at me. “That's why I'm glad it's your problem.”

I shot him a glare just as both doors opened nearly simultaneously. I swear Aimee almost went back inside.

“You two have nice timing.” Charlie told them, keeping them out in the open.

I waggled my fingers at them. “Come here please.” I said. “Both of you.” I added when Jack just stood there.

They both shuffled over looking like I was going to paddle them like two year olds. Who knows, I might.

“You,” I said pointing to Jack first, “should not shove the younger kids even if it doesn't hurt them and you need to learn to control your anger and not yell at people. Understand?” He nodded glumly. He shot a sideways glance at Aimee who was smiling just a tiny bit.

I stopped that quickly. “And you,” I said turning to her, “should not make assumptions or make fun of Jack's new feathers. Understand?” Aimee nodded keeping her eyes glued to her shoes.

“Okay, then you can go.” Aimee walked away as quickly as safety allowed, but Jack lingered self consciously.

“Was there something else?” I asked wondering if I should be curious or dreadful.

Jack's face turned red and he stuttered something while pointing at my brother. I looked over at Charlie hoping for some clarification.

He looked as uncomfortable as Jack. “I think I know how to grow out his wings.” He said.

I looked over at Jack, surprise written all over my face and longing written all over his.

The Director was playing with risky, not to mention nasty, stuff when she tried to grow wings out of a half grown bird kid. And usually the subjects ended up either with a handful of feathers on their backs or dead. Jack fortunately was in the first category, but a bunch of the others had not been so lucky.

If I turned Jack's feathers into wings, the Director would probably think that her experiment had worked and she would move onto the next level…

…which also meant that she would turn Jack into her prime lab rat.

Fortunately someone, Melanie it sounded like, started crying because one of the birds had bitten her. I quickly went over to see what Wild Thing had done and sent Timothy to get a Disney Princess band-aid. I needed to think about this a little more before I answered.