At the beginning of Chapter 9, “Life Is Dangerous,” in Freak the Mighty, Max believes they are going on another quest or adventure - like normal. However, this journey, according to Max, was a lot longer than others. He says, “I’ll bet we’ve gone ten miles at least, because my legs think it’s a hundred, and even as light as Freak is, he’s starting to feel heavy” (50). In other words, Max has been walking for a VERY long time with Kevin on his shoulders.

Eventually, they end up at their final destination, or “Fortress,” as Kevin refers to it (50). The final destination is a new building that has been added onto the hospital for medical research. After making Max swear that he won’t tell anyone, Kevin finally reveals why they are there. He tells Max, “Inside the research building is a secret laboratory called The Experimental Bionics Unit. The unit’s mission is to develop a new form of bionic robot for human modification” (51).

At first, Max doesn’t quite understand what Kevin is talking about, nor does he really believe him. Kevin expresses his complete honesty by explaining that he has already begun the preliminary tests. He says, “They’re fitting me for a bionic transplant, I’m going to be the first” (52).

While Max still doesn’t quite understand the idea of bionics, he does begin to understand why they walked so far to get here. It turns out that this wasn’t really a quest. The medical research building was something that Freak wanted Max to see. In order for Max to understand his situation, Freak had to be vulnerable and expose his experiences. Freak is expressing the obstacles he has already overcome as well as what lies ahead for him, which is the ultimate show of trust in a friendship.