The Institute For Higher Living
The Institute for Higher Living, or the Institute, is an underground laboratory where the Flock finds files about their past and parents; they also free a bunch of mutants there, leading to "the second Flock," headed by a girl with wings. The Institute is associated with the School and Itexicon, and is located in the sewers of New York.
Trivia
- The "second Flock" is never heard from after The Angel Experiment, the book in which the Flock infiltrated the Institute.
- The Flock looks a little bit at the files that they stole regarding information about their pasts. This information is mentioned a little in the second book, and then not heard of again afterwards.
- Max does not receive any files.
- Fang learns that his mother was a teenager, and doesn't know who his dad is; his mother also thinks that he is dead.
- Iggy finds his parents, who had believed him to be dead after he was stolen from a hospital, and goes to live with them…only to discover that they are attention-lovers who attempt to make money off of him. After this, he returns to the Flock.
- Nudge's parents are believed to be in Tipisco, Arizona, but they think that she is dead.
- Angel had learned beforehand from the thoughts of some whitecoats that she and Gazzy's parents had sold them to the School for money.
- It is interesting to note that all the files have photographs in them, and the flock can see what their parents looked like. A picture of Gazzy and his mom kept popping up in Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports.
- In ANGEL, Max mentions that Maya was "liberated from her cage in New York," which leads to the theory that she was the girl leading the "second Flock."
- In the hardcover edition of the first book, a blog about Fang and Nudge scouting Washington D.C. before the rest of the Flock goes reveals that there is a similar institute called The Institute of Higher Aeronautics. This is the place that they find Erasers, showing where the flying ones in the second book originated from.