Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Point of Viewing Ari POV “Is that them?” I asked the whitecoat quietly, after hearing something behind me. He nodded silently in response. “Don’t look at them; keep your eyes on me. Pretend like we are having a normal conversation. Who is there and what are they doing?” “It’s the boy, Fang.” The other whitecoat said. “He’s signalling to someone round the corner.” “That’ll be Max and Will.” I told them both. “It looks like he’s telling them to find a way around.” The first told me. “Good.” I smiled. “Exactly as we predicted he would do. Now we wait for him to get our attention.” As I said that, I heard abang behind me. I turned around, putting a surprised look on my face. “Now where’d you come from?” I asked. I couldn’t help the smile which came to my face. He stood there, not saying anything, obviously stalling. “Oh what’s the matter?” I asked him sarcastically. “Cat got your tongue?” I closed my eyes, and began to morph. I could feel all the individual hairs, sprouting all over me, my mouth elongating into a wolfen snout, claws growing where my fingertips where. It hurt like hell, but I dulled the pain. I roared as the morph caused a combination of pain and ecstasy. I both hated and loved morphing; knowing how I was made this way, but knowing the power it gave me. Once I had fully morphed I lunged at Fang, but he was too quick, and stepped out of the way casually, making me land on my face. Then he literally jumped on me as hard as he could, making my spine hurt like crazy. I threw myself up, making Fang fall back onto the floor. I shouted to the scientists, “Go! Alert the Director now!” They ran down the corridor, one of them stumbling on the way. Before I knew it, Fang was pummelling me. Punching my gut, my head, kicking me in the chest, dislocating my shoulder, all in a matter of seconds. Then I turned the tables on him. I kicked him back against the wall, punched his face, and raked my claws across his stomach, only narrowly gutting him, but only scratching him. Then he pushed me back, and head butted me in the face, then hitting my temple. Perfect. I dropped. I pretended to be knocked unconscious, and slowed my breathing, lay slumped on the floor. He stood over me for a few seconds, and then ran off, but not in the direction max and Will had gone. He was still trying to give them time to get out. Everything was going to plan. Once he was out of earshot, I got up and walked down the corridor, and through a door. Inside were the 2 Scientists I was with earlier, sitting in front of a large selection of television monitors. I sat down in a chair between them and looked at the dozens of monitors. In one I could see a dark image of Angel, Gazzy and Nudge in their respective cages, chatting to each other, no doubt about some means of escape. In another I could see Max and Will, Will breaking through one of the outer walls like he had practised. In a small screen on the bottom I could make out the gravelly image of Iggy, hunched up asleep in the corner of the cottage. Most of the other images were just corridors or certain rooms being recorded, in order to cover all the variables. Then I found the screen I was looking for. I could see Fang running down a corridor and out of the shot before he reappeared into another screen. I picked up a walkie sitting on top of the desk underneath the monitors and spoke into it. “He’s wavering; get some men to funnel him to the cages. Make sure he knows where they are. Over.” Almost as soon as I had said it, I saw on the monitor some of my men cut him off, forcing him down the corridor. I heard on the walkie a voice, and saw it speaking on the screen at the same time. “Don’t let him get to the cages! Cut him off! Don’t let him get to his flock!” I grinned with satisfaction. It was all falling into place. I saw the look on Fangs face on the screen as he ran past a camera. Although miniscule, I could tell he had registered the information. My men continued to lead

him in the right direction, and before long, he stopped as he ran past the door. He read the words cages on the large metal door. He tried the handle, but found it locked. He started to throw himself against the door. I looked at the camera showing the cages. All 3 of them were staring at the door, anticipating a fight. Then Fang crashed through the door. They all looked surprised, but glee filled their faces. He pulled the locks off the cages and they all embraced each other. Then they talked for a about a minute, well Fang couldn’t but he tried his best, and then they ran out the room. “Ari? Are you there?” I heard come from the walkie. “Yes, Dad, what is it?” I asked Jeb, holding the walkie up to my mouth. “We decided to have a small experiment; it should help speed things up.” Jeb replied sinisterly. “Make sure you relay this to men.” Nudge POV “Why did it take you a month to do all that?” Angel asked Gazzy. “Because we had to-“ he began to say before he was cut off by a large bang at the door. We all looked at the door, silently. Another bang and another. What was it? Whitecoat or Eraser? Friend or Foe? Then the door burst open, and Fang stumbled in. My face light up. “Fang!” We screamed gleefully. He walked up to each of our cages, and ripped off the locks, not saying anything. All 3 of us rushed up to hug him. He smiled a rare smile and hugged us back. We broke off and I asked Fang “Where is Max? How’d you break out? How are we going to break out? What are we...” but I broke off after seeing the look on Fangs face. He opened his mouth, and spoke, except no sound came out. “Fang are you OK?” Gazzy asked him. He tried to answer, and then looked at Angel and he looked at her forcefully. She looked at him back frowning, and then looked surprised. “Fang, what is going on?!” I said agitated. But instead, it was Angel who replied. “He was in a simulation, like Gazzy was once. He says he has temporarily lost the use of his voice. He says Max and Will broke him out, but they ran across Ari. He fought and stalled him so Will could lead Max out. He just stumbled across us.” “Wow, OK, we’ll deal with that later; we should just get out now.” I said. Fang ran out the room, and we followed. We ran down many corridors for a long time, meeting lots of Whitecoats on the way, but there was always another corridor to run down to escape, and none of them ever came close to catching us. Eventually we found some signs indicating an exit and headed in its direction. As we pasted an adjoining corridor I glanced down it and stopped, seeing some Whitecoats. But they weren’t heading towards us. They were escorting a small, scared looking little girl. My mouth gaped a little in surprise. “Fang!” I called ahead. I saw him stop and turn around. “It’s Emily!” I shouted down to him, hardly believing it myself. He gave a look of surprise and then he hesitated before running up to me and looking down the corridor at the Whitecoats, who had noticed us, but seemed unsure of what to do. Fang looked at me, and I looked at him forcefully. He nodded at then we both charged down the corridor, Angel and the Gasman behind us. We each tackled a whitecoat, knocking them out, and jumped up, and punched the other two, square in the jaw, the whole thing happening in quick succession and simple unison, like we had practised so many times. Gazzy and Angel hadn’t even arrived before we were done with them. Emily looked extremely scared. She started crying. “Hey, Emily it’s OK.” Angel said to her. “Do you remember me?” Emily nodded. Fang gave me a look that said “We don’t have time for this” and picked her up and indicated to us to follow. We were close to the exit now; I could see it, about 50ft away. I expected Whitecoats

to come swarming at us like they always did. But this time, just for once, they didn’t. None came out of all the doors, none blocked us off. We just, escaped. We ran out the doors, and took off, into the wind and the rain, Fang still holding Emily, and just escaped. Just like that. “Go north north-west! Me and Iggy found an abandoned cottage!” Gazzy shouted to us over the wind. “We can go there!” Iggy POV “Iggy get out of here now, I’m hit and I’m just gonna slow you down.” Gazzy said to me hurriedly. He was hit? Hit with what? What the hell was going on? “But Gazzy-!” I tried to say but he interrupted me. “IGGY GO!” he shouted, taking me by surprise. I shouldn’t leave him, he was my best friend, I’d be lost without him, but I knew he was right. Reluctantly I nodded and flew off as quickly as I could. I felt terrible. I had left Gazzy behind. I thought about turning back, but Rule One was “Never Get Caught.” We had broken that rule too many times already. I shouldn’t break it again. I flew back to where I knew the Cottage was. Unfortunately I had misjudged where the door was, and flew straight into it, headfirst. OW! I got up and kicked open the door in anger, and slammed it behind me. I walked over to the dilapidated sofa, but once again, I misjudged where it was and tripped over. I was pissed off now. I got up and picked up the sofa, trying to tip it over to vent my frustration. However, I had forgotten how close it was to the wall, and it fell back on top of me. I screamed in anger. I pushed the sofa out of the way; everything was too much for me. “It’s not FAIR!” I screamed out, trying to find the rotting cupboard across the room. “Everyone knows what is happening except me! Everyone gets to see what is happening except me! It’s! Not! Bloody! FAIR!” I shouted, finding the cupboard and tossing it over, tears streaming freely down my face. How the hell am I going to survive on my own? What was I going to do? I now had no-one. No Flock, No family, no friends. No home. No food. No anything. No something. No nothing. And I had no working eyes “What’s the point in these things, if all they are good for is crying?!” I moaned, everything coming out finally. “What’s the point in always running if we are always going to be caught?! What’s the point in always trusting people, if they’re always going to screw us over?” I fell to my knees and felt something hard and heavy next to me. I picked it up and leant back getting ready to hurl it at where I knew the window was, saying “What’s the point of me, if I can’t even...?” But instead I dropped it and slumped into the corner of the room, exhausted. “Oh, what’s the point?” I sighed, curling up into a ball, feeling a cold draft coming into the cottage. *** I must have fallen asleep, as I woke up to the sound of something outside. The wind was strong; it almost completely covered the sounds of the footsteps and whispers. But instead of getting up, ready for a fight, I just stayed in the corner. What was the point in fighting, if I couldn’t see who it was? From what I could make out there were 4 or 5 of them. A small army for a weak opponent. I heard the door creak open, and the wind blew in. I heard them come in, and then one of them spoke. “Iggy?” I leapt up and ran across the room to hug Gazzy. “I was only gone one day dude.” He laughed.

I moved back and said “Yeah well, it’s hard for me to tell time sometimes you know...” I said, embarrassed. “Who else is here? I can’t tell with the wind.” “Fang, Nudge, Angel and Emily.” He replied. I smiled and hugged them all. Even Emily, I was glad she was still alive. I still felt responsible for losing her in the first place. “And Max and Will?” I asked them. They paused before Nudge sorrowfully replied “Fang held them off to let them escape. Before he found us. We don’t know what happened to them.” “So,” I began. “What do we do know?”