Trying to focus despite this latest mind-blowing development, I skimmed icons and right-clicked my way into Explore. I searched for “avian,” “School,” “genetics” . . .
Then, oh, my God . . . document files filled the screen.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, searching out names, dates, anything I could think of to make a connection.
Origins. That looked promising, and I clicked on it. My eyes raced down the lines of text—and my throat closed. I almost went into shock on the spot.
I saw our names, names of hospitals, names of towns—even what looked like names of parents. Then I saw pictures of adults that seemed to go with the names. Were these our parents? They had to be. Oh, God, oh, God. This was it! This was exactly what we needed!
I hit Print, and pages started spewing out of the printer.
“What are you doing?” Fang asked, coming over.
“I think maybe I found something,” I said breathlessly. I knew we shouldn’t stop to look over the amazing pages here. “I’m going to print it, and then we should get the heck out of here. Start getting the others together.”
I grabbed pages as they came out, folding them up and cramming them into all my pockets. I didn’t even know how many there were, but finally the printer stopped. I was bursting to tell the others everything, but I didn’t. I bit the inside of my cheek until it hurt. See why I’m the leader?
“Come on!” I said urgently. “Let’s split! Let’s go!”
“Uh, just a second, Max,” said the Gasman, sounding really, really weird.
127
The Gasman was standing by a fabric-covered wall, and with typical curiosity, he had pulled the fabric aside. Slowly, we walked over to him, six sets of eyes opened wide as saucers.
When I was two feet away, my heart slammed to a halt inside my chest. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Angel did scream, until Fang cupped a hand over her mouth.
Behind the curtain was a glass wall. Okay, no biggie.
But behind the glass was another lab room, with lab stations, computers, and . . . cages.
Cages with sleeping forms in them. Child-size forms.
Dozens of them.
Mutants.
Just like us.
128
I couldn’t speak. My gaze raked the glass wall, and I saw a small pad at eye level. I went over and pressed it in that cute don’t-think-it-through way I have.
The glass wall opened, and we tiptoed through, our nerves as taut as rubber bands.
Sure enough, there were mutant kids sleeping in cages and in large dog crates. It brought my awful, gut-twisting childhood whooshing back to me, and I felt on the verge of having a panic attack. I’d forgotten about my headache for maybe a minute, but now it was back, throbbing as if my brain was getting ready to blow.
Angel was looking sadly into one cage, and I went to her. Out of hundreds of genetic experiments, only we and the Erasers had been at all viable—as far as I knew. The two little creatures asleep on their cage floor were clearly horrible failures and probably couldn’t last much longer. What with some of their vital organs on the outside of their bodies and all. Kidneys, bowels, a heart. Oh, the poor babies.
“This is pathetic,” Fang whispered, and I turned to see him looking at a large cat, like a serval or a margay. I’d never seen a real animal in one of the labs before. Just as I was wondering what its deal was, it woke up,
blinked sleepily, then turned over and dozed off again.
I swallowed really, really hard. It had human eyes. And when I examined its paws more closely, I saw humanlike fingers beneath the retractable claws. Jiminy Christmas.
Glancing over, I saw Angel reading the card tacked to another small cage. Its doglike occupant was running in its sleep. “Hi, doggie,” Angel whispered. “Hi, little doggie. You look like Toto. From The Wizard of Oz?”
I went over to Nudge, who was standing stiffly beside a cage. I looked in.