James Patterson - Maximum Ride - The Angel Experiment

“Just that building,” I said.

Nudge’s brown eyes widened. Angel looked solemn. We all felt the same: twitchy with nervous anticipation and also overwhelmed with dread. On the one hand, the Institute might very well hold the key to everything-the answer to every question we’d ever had about ourselves, our past, our parents. We might even find out about the mysterious director the whitecoats had mentioned.

On the other hand, it felt like we were voluntarily going up to the School and ringing the doorbell. Like we were delivering ourselves to evil. And those two feelings were pulling us all in half. You never know until you know, my Voice chimed in.

“So do we have money? I hope?” the Gasman asked as we passed a street vendor selling Polish sausage.

“Maybe,” I said, pulling out the bank card. What do you think?“ I asked Fang. ”Should we try this?“

“Well, we need money, for sure,” he said. “But it might be a trap, a way for them to track where we are and what we’re doing.”

“Yeah.” I frowned.

It’s okay, Max. You can use it, said my Voice. Once you get the password.

Thank you, Voice, I thought sourly. Any hopes of you just telling me the freaking password? Of course not. God forbid anything should come easily to us.

We had to have money. We could try begging, but we’d probably get the cops called on us ASAP. Runaways and all that. Getting jobs was out of the question also. Stealing? It was a last resort. We weren’t to that point yet.

This bank card would work at any number of different banks. Taking a deep breath, I swerved over to an ATM. I swiped the card and punched in “maxride.”

No dice.

Next I tried our ages: 14, 11, 8, 6.

Wrong.

I tried typing in “password.”

Wrong. The machine shut down and told me to call customer service.

We kept walking. In a way, it was like we were deliberately slowing ourselves down, to give us time to buck up for the Institute. Or at least, that’s what my inner Dr. Laura thought.

“What about, like, the first initial of all of our names?” the Gasman suggested.

“Maybe it’s something like ‘givememoney,’ ” Nudge said.

I smiled at her. “It has to be shorter than that.”

Beside me, Angel was walking with her head down, her little feet dragging.

If I had money, I could get her another Celeste.

In the next block, at a different ATM, I tried the first initials of all our names: “MFINGA.” Nope.

I tried “School” and “Maximum.”

It told me to call customer service.

Farther on, I keyed in “Fang.”

“Iggy,” and “Gasman.”

In the next block, I tried “Nudge” and “Angel,” then on a lark I tried today’s date.

They really wanted me to call customer service.

I know what you’re thinking: Did I try our birthdays or our Social Security numbers?

No. None of us knew our actual birth dates, though we had each picked a day we liked and called it our birthday. And the nut jobs at the School had mysteriously neglected to register any of us with the Social Security Administration. So none of us could retire any time soon.

I stopped in front of the next ATM but shook my head in frustration. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted, and it was maybe the second time those words had ever left my lips.

Angel looked up tiredly, her blue eyes sad. “Why don’t you try ‘mother’?” she asked, and started tracing a crack on the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker.

“Why do you think that?” I asked, surprised.

She shrugged, her arm moving to hold Celeste tighter and then falling emptily to her side.

Fang and I exchanged glances, then I slowly swiped the bank card and punched in the numbers that would spell out “mother.”

What kind of transaction do you want to make? the screen asked.

Speechless, I withdrew two hundred dollars and zipped it into my inside pocket.

“How did you know that?” Fang asked Angel. His tone was neutral, but tension showed in his walk.

Angel shrugged again, her small shoulders drooping. Even her curls looked limp and sad. “It just came to me,” she said.

“In a voice?” I asked, wondering if my Voice was hopping around.

She shook her head no. “The word was just in my head. I don’t know why.”

Once again, Fang and I looked at each other but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what was on his mind, but I was thinking again about how Angel had been at the School for a few days before we rescued her. Who knows what happened there? What kind of foul, disgusting experiments? Maybe they’d planted a chip in her too.

Or worse.

Afew more blocks, and we turned left, walking toward the East River. Inside me, the tension mounted. My breath was coming in short huffs. Every step was bringing us closer to what could be the Institute: the place where the secrets of our lives might be revealed, all our questions answered.

And here’s the thing: I wasn’t even sure I wanted my questions answered. What if my mom had given me away on purpose, like Gasman and Angel’s? What if my parents were horrible people? Or what if they were wonderful, fabulous people who didn’t want a freak mutant daughter with thirteen-foot wings? I mean, not knowing almost seemed easier.

But we walked along, examining each building. Again and again the others looked at me, only to see me shake my head no. We walked down several looong blocks, and with each step, I was getting more and more uptight, and so was everyone else.

“I wonder what the Institute is like,” Nudge said nervously. “I guess it’s like the School. Will we have to break in? How do they hide the Erasers from all the normal people? What kind of files on us do you think they have? Like actual parent names, you think?”

“For God’s sake, Nudge, my ears are bleeding!” Iggy said with his usual tact.

Her sweet face shut down, and I put my arm around her shoulders briefly. “I know you’re worried,” I said softly. “I am too.”

She smiled at me, and then I saw it: 433 East Thirty-first Street.

It was the building from the drawing in my brain.

And if you don’t think that’s a weird sentence, maybe you should reread it.

The building rose tall, maybe forty-five stories, and had a greenish facade, kind of old-fashioned looking.

“Is this it?” Iggy asked.

“Yep,” I said. “Are we ready?”

“Aye, Captain!” Iggy said firmly, and saluted.

I so wished he could see me roll my eyes at him.

We marched up the steps and pushed through revolving doors. Inside, the lobby was all polished wood, brass, and big tropical plants. The floor was smooth granite tiles.

“Here,” said Fang softly, pointing to a large display board behind glass. It listed all the offices and companies in the building, and their floors and room numbers.

There was no Institute for Higher Living. There was no institute of any kind.

Because that would have been too easy, right?

I rubbed my forehead, holding back bitter words of disappointment. Inside, I felt like crying and yelling and stomping around, and then getting into a hot shower and crying some more.

Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to think. I looked around. No other office lists anywhere.

At the reception desk, a woman sat behind a laptop computer. A security guard had another desk across the lobby.

“Excuse me,” I said politely. “Are there any other companies in this building that aren’t on the board?”

“No.” The receptionist looked us over, then went back to typing something incredibly urgent-like her resume for another job. We turned away just as the receptionist made a sound of surprise. Glancing back, I saw that her computer screen had cleared. The pit of my stomach started to hurt.