One

Fang POV

Max leaned back against her seat, her hands rubbing her eyes as she groaned. The small amount of people in the computer lounge were dissipating, and a lady continued to check in on us. 'We close in 20 minutes.' She had last said. No one outside of SOHF knew how the world was going to go down in fire. No one knew that the life they were rooting for would end their own. Jeb had only told the world about how much better he could make it and they were falling right into his hands.

"5 minutes." The lady stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. I blinked back to reality and closed all our server tabs. I shut down the computer and Max stood with me as I led the way out of the lounge. The lady followed us to the exit and locked us out of the library. The bitter cold was back, and fiercer than ever. The blizzard the man had spoken about really was on its way. We walked in silence down the frozen sidewalk. We had our hoods up to protect our ears, hands stuffed into our pockets. I had my sights set on the large abandoned building several blocks down. From what I was reading on its faded and broken signs, it used to be a hospital. Ironic.

Max and I found a broken window in the cracked walls of the hospital. Graffiti decorated the torn walls and the floor was a mess of broken glass, furniture, drywall, and cement. We carefully moved through the empty hallways, keeping an eye out for any other human life. We moved up three or four flights of stairs, searching for a somewhat sturdy and empty room to take refuge in. The thin plaster panels of the ceiling were falling apart and had partially caved in. The desks of the check in rooms lay vacant and barren. The deeper we explored, the darker it got. We finally found a small room with a moderately clean cement floor. The ceiling was mostly intact and the windows were only partially faded. The windows allowed light to spill into the empty room, but did nothing to warm it. Max walked into the room and collapsed against the far wall with a loud sigh. I sat down across from her on the opposite wall and leaned against it.

"I can't believe this." Max groaned, her knees pulling up to her chest. "I thought he was a monster before."

"We'll stop him." I said, looking back at the door. I had closed it behind us and it at least clicked shut. The yellow paint of the walls was peeling and the cement floor had a fine layer of drywall dust coating it. My pants were dusted white already.

"You can't stop an apocalypse, Fang." She looked out the window at the snow falling ever harder. I could hear the wind starting to howl through the holes in the building. It was chilly in here, but not nearly as bad as outside. Probably a good 55 to 60 degrees in here, vs the -20 out there.

"How will he even spread this virus? When will he start?"

"All excellent questions." Max lay down on her side, leaning her head on her arm. "I only wanted to find Iggy, not get plunged into a rescue mission for the world."

"He wanted us to find out, Max." I sighed and lay down on my back, rubbing my newly formed feathers into the dust. "Well done, Maximum. See you soon."

"I know that. He's toying with us. An experiment within an experiment. He's sick." She closed her eyes. "What time is it?"

"7 pm."

"We should get some sleep while we still can. The library opens tomorrow anyway, we can always go back for more information." She yawned, but opened her eyes again. I looked up at the ceiling and sighed. My mind was buzzing with questions. Some of them I wasn't sure if I ever wanted answered. I knew Jeb had a twisted mind and was soulless, but to eliminate all life on earth, except for the ones you chose. He was literally playing God. Iggy and I had only been mere playing tokens in his master plan. The guinea pigs for his new drug, as usual. I still would occasionally get a horrible burning feeling in my chest as my system still reacted to it. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the images of a burning city. I was exhausted yet amped at the same time.

Max POV

I opened my eyes, waking up sometime in the night. The wind still howled outside and I could barely make out the details of the room in the dark. Fang lay on his side across from me, his head on his arm. He breathed evenly and I could see his side move up and down slowly. It was the most relaxed he usually ever got. I didn't move, just let my mind wander. As soon as the library opened, I'd look up where Jeb's new lab was set up. Where his current headquarters were located. Rack through these secret files on everything he had, and hope to God there was a weak point. I couldn't just go storm the place with Fang, we wouldn't stand a chance. I also couldn't just sit by and allow this to happen.

Mom's voice popped into my head just then. She was talking about how sometimes there was just evil in the world, and there wasn't much you could do to stop it. Sometimes things are so far out of your control that there's no use in worrying over it. But at the same time I had Jeb's voice echoing how I needed to save the world once upon a time. We had already tried saving the world. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. With all the riots and protesting about the new world, what if that was how it was meant to be? With fewer humans, the world could begin recovering from all the damage that had been done. I blinked hazily, sleep calling me back. The world was not my responsibility, no matter who told me otherwise. I was just another playing card.

…

"Max." Fang's voice was soft and calm. I opened my eyes and sat up instantly, squinting against the beam of sunlight coming through the cracked window. "We overslept."

"We deserved it honestly." I yawned, stretching my arms over my head. Fang nodded and stood, walking over to the window.

"You should see outside." He said and looked back at me. I moved to his side. All the streets and roads were blanketed in fresh white powder, at least a foot of it. The snow plows were busy moving and clearing the roads for traffic. People trodded through the snow on the sidewalks as their children tossed snowballs and played. There was no wind, everything was eerily peaceful. The sky was bright blue without a single cloud and the sun beamed overhead.

"We should get going." I said, turning back towards the door. I was anxious to find Iggy. The library would be opening here any minute and I wanted to get back onto those computers.

We hurried inside the large brick building, the large doors swinging shut behind us. The wall of warm air once again welcomed us and I breathed a sigh of relief. Winter in Chicago was brutal. Since the library had just barely opened, there weren't a whole lot of people inside yet. Only one other man was already in the computer lounge and he sat in the farthest corner from us. Fang stood behind me with his arms crossed over his chest as I sat down in front of the laptop. My fingers flew over the keyboard. I stuck the USB into the thumb drive and reopened all of the tabs we had stumbled upon already. I was searching for the location of Jeb's new lab, as well as where his current one was.

"Here." I said, pointing a finger at the screen half an hour later. Fang looked back from the doorway. I had Google Maps pulled up. Turns out the new facility wasn't too far from where we already were. We could walk there.

"No eating in the computer lounge, please." The woman from last night said in her shrill voice. The several people now in the lounge paused, putting away their muffins, biscuits, and coffee. I was doing fairly well at not looking at any of it or focusing on their heavenly smell. I set my jaw as I felt my stomach growl. I'd been so wrapped up in searching for information, I'd forgotten that we both hadn't eaten in a couple days. I could hear Fang's stomach growling behind me too, though he also ignored it. A group of three girls looked up at us upon hearing it.

"You two should go get some coffee and breakfast." One snickered. I ignored her.

"You can have some of mine, if you want." Another said to Fang, gesturing towards her bagel. He didn't move, ignoring her comment as well. I brushed them out of my mind and focused on the screen in front of me. We didn't have much cash to spend on food anyway right now. We were on a mission, one that had already been prolonged far too long. Iggy needed us.

"Max." Fang suddenly said, putting his hand on top of mind to stop my constant scrolling down the page. He had stopped on another GPS location, one that was another 120 miles north west. Madison.

"That's it. It has to be." I breathed. I wondered and hoped that our wing feathers had regrown. I really didn't want to steal another car and drive through winter conditions again. The trip would take us under two hours to fly. The image online showed a huge white warehouse looking building with several entrances. I could see the faint outline of more buildings behind it but I wasn't sure if there were multiples or not. The location was Jeb's current facility. I was sure that his newest one was decked out with the latest upgrades and security measures. Measures that were now legal. I hit print.

We walked quickly back to the abandoned hospital to regroup and reorganize a plan of action. Fang fanned out all the pages I had printed on the floor of the small room and I paced, racking my brain for possible ideas. I opened one of my wings and inspected my new flight feathers. They were still new, but could probably do the job.

"I don't see a way in." Fang said after a few minutes. "This place is a fortress." I walked over to him and looked over his shoulder. The picture of the GPS location showed that the facility had numerous other buildings behind it now. They were all attached together through passageways. It would take us hours to search through them all.

"We could go at night? Try to sneak inside?" I offered. Fang's jaw clenched as he thought.

"I guess. We should at least look over it today and see how the guards are in place." He said, leaning back against the wall. He sighed and looked out the window at the icy weather. He looked exhausted, with eyes glazed over and unfocused. I sat down across from him against the wall. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a moment. I knew we had less than 20 left on this card. Maybe I could get in touch with mom? Could she perhaps reload the card? I opened my eyes again, seeing that Fang had closed his own.

"We need to call mom." I announced and he slowly opened his eyes to look at me.

Fang POV

"We need to call mom." Max said abruptly and I opened my heavy eyes to look at her. Her face seemed determined.

"We do?" I asked. I wanted to get going, to find Iggy, to stop Jeb, but I was so tired. I don't know if it was the cold weather, the lack of sleep or food, or maybe I was just reacting to the Stam7 drug still circulating my system. Max noticed my hesitation, despite my efforts.

"First we'll get food, I'm sure that will help both of us out." She stood and began gathering all the papers on the floor. I felt my stomach growl loudly again, as if in agreement. The computer lounge had been torture with all of the breakfast foods surrounding us. Bagels, eggs, toast, bacon, muffins…

"Fang." Max said and I blinked hazily. "We'll be alright." She had her hand held out to me. I took it and she helped pull me to my feet.