Max- Lifespans

  I suddenly had a thought, one of those awful thoughts that you hate right away and yet you can’t ever unthink it. I felt my heart start to pound as I stood up.

  “Fang? Let me see the back of your neck.”

  Those of us who graduated from (or, I should say, escaped from) the School have expiration dates, like milk. We first noticed them on some Erasers, after they had … expired. Dates, like little tattoos, showed up on the backs of their necks. They seem to become visible about a week, maybe less, before the built-in expiration gene kicks in. Do we have long, full lives ahead of us, or are we living on borrowed time? No clue. It makes retirement planning, like, impossible.

- Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel, chapter 68