To the kind Guest: Thank you for drawing my attention back to Icarus, the poor story I'd put off to the side as I worked on Haikyuu and Rooster Teeth stories (and with what little time I had). Yes I will be a doll and finish it, I'm sorry I left it for so long. (of course it won't be finished with this chapter, but soon).

1) This is a filler, and it's pretty short, I'm sorry, please forgive me. (and barely edited-school in the morning)

2) Ok, so this is where my memory begins to fail. I read the Maximum Ride series in bursts when I was in elementary and middle school (third through sixth grade I think) so that was at the least three to four years ago. That being said, I'm going to be ending this story soon (I never intended for it to get this long but it did) so I will probably sway away from the MR storyline I'd been mostly following till now.

3) I will take this time to remind you that these places are all fictional except for Wyoming which is an actual state, thank you and have a fun time reading.

Keramin really wishes it wasn't winter because there were so many roadblocks that she didn't even know where she was anymore. Sure she knew she was somewhere in Wyoming, but that was it.

Steven has been periodically rechecking their location as they made their way through the traffic.

"An abandoned town right?" Keramin asks still not seeing anything that would indicate 'abandoned'. Holed up sure, since snow had made most people hesitant to leave their homes, but not abandoned.

"Yeah, I think it's another thirty miles or so, I don't know how much time that'll take especially with the traffic," Steven replies as he taps around on the computer.

Keramin mutters on agreement as she tries to figure out what the best route would be to take. Her mind isn't completely focused on driving however, and more on the situation back home.

Before leaving she'd asked Nedine to keep an eye out in case Karkat ended up showing up, and Nedine had said she'd do her best but there was almost a larger case than Karkat and Gamzee being missing.

The L.A.B. fire.

According to Nedine, the building had been more extensive than they first thought. Instead of expanding up, it had gone down, into what they believed to be more than twenty levels. And yet still that wasn't the worrying thing.

The fire had been intense, destroying the first ten or so levels, and damaging all those below it. The first ten levels left them nothing to investigate, but those below had been more than terrifying. Cages upon cages, then the signs of experiments, the medical supplies that had been left behind. And yet there was one thing they'd yet to find.

The documentation.

Any scientist makes documentation to go along with their experiments, and otherwise. Yet all of that is gone. Not gone like it'd been burned away either, but instead like it had been taken away before it'd been burned.

Keramin's grip tightens on the wheel. Something wasn't right with L.A.B., she'd thought that ever since the land had been bought, and she thinks it now.

"Keramin, next exit," Steven's voice draws her out of her thoughts, and brushes her thoughts away for now and focus on not getting even more lost.

"We found Sollux."

Phyren glances up quickly from the paperwork he was filling out to see Halae standing in the doorway with a grim look on her face.

"What? When," He demands, standing quickly from his station, following Halae as she begins to lead him to the main lab.

"Few hours ago, the chip reactivated about an hour before that, but Karkat was reported to be with him and his chip hasn't started working again," Halae reports, easily moving between people to get to the computer she'd been using.

Phyren reads the data frowning, "As I thought, the signal gets disrupted and once they're out of range it wears out, that means they must be staying nearby to where they were found."

"I was thinking the same thing," Halae says, clicking through a few programs and pulling up another diagram, "And this is what I came up with." Phyren nods at the map, guesstimating that the distances were as accurate as they could be with what little information they had on the subject.

"What happened when they found him?" Phyren asks next, leaning back and looking around the room. Not many were attending to the computer stations, probably working in the lower levels instead.

"They assume he was helping Karkat fly, although they're unsure, but when they tried to capture both of them they were able to run away, that's all the information we received. Another group stayed back in an attempt to trace them but they will most likely be back by morning."

Phyren nods, eyes narrowed, "Jade will most likely try to move to another location soon, especially if Sollux gets back to her and tells her that they were found."

"All the more reason we need to catch up with them before that happens," Halae says calmly.

Phyren gives her a sideways glance, "Do you think they're all alright?"

She sighs, "I would like to think they are, but to be honest I don't believe so."

"Mhm," Phyren makes a noise of reluctant agreement, "But if Karkat was with Sollux, perhaps Jade was able to keep them alive."

Halae shrugs, "It's always possible, although inexperienced with our work I'm sure she adapted a bit."

"It's possible, oh have you read the most recent police reports about the old building?" Phyren inquires, having looked over them not too long ago.

"I did actually, they've really caught onto us, it seems the fire didn't destroy everything," Halae replies grimly.

"Think they'll try to follow us?"

"No way," Halae snorts, "They aren't that stupid."

Phyren turns back to the computer screen, staring at the presumed place that Jade was keeping Sollux, and Karkat, and all of their dear experiments. He feels that familiar annoyance at the damned scientist's decision to gnaw at the back of his mind. Pushing away from the desk he says a quick goodbye to Halae.

And as he walks back to his station, he begins to make a plan.