Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

110

“That is so cool,” Nudge said approvingly as I turned to let her see the back of my new jean jacket. Of course, I would have to cut huge slits in it to let my wings out, but other than that, it was great.

I looked at her and grinned. She looked so not Nudge, I was still startled every time I saw her. Her dark brown supercurly hair had been blow-dried perfectly straight and cut in layers. Then they’d streaked it with blond highlights. The difference was incredible-she’d gone from scruffy adolescent to slightly short fashion model in under an hour. I’d never noticed that she had the potential to be gorgeous when she grew up. If she grew up.

“Check this out!” The Gasman had outfitted himself in camouflage, down to his sneakers.

“Okay by me,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up.

In this barnlike secondhand shop, we were in the process of completing our total physical transformation. Some of Gazzy’s pale blond hair had been bleached white. They’d spiked it with gel and colored just the spiky tips bright blue. The sides were supershort.

“I still wish you’d let me get ‘Bite Me’ shaved into the back of my head,” he complained.

“No,” I said, straightening his collar.

“Iggy got his ear pierced.”

“Nein,” I said.

“But everyone does it!” he said in a perfect imitation of his stylist.

“O-nay.”

He made an exasperated sound and went over by Fang, whose hair had been cut short also, except for one long chunk that flopped over in front of his eyes. It had been highlighted with several mottled tan shades and now it looked exactly like a hawk’s plumage. Quelle coinky-dink. In this store, he’d exchanged his basic black ensemble for a slightly different basic black ensemble.

“I like this,” said Angel, holding up something froufrou. I’d already outfitted her in new cargo pants and a T-shirt, and she’d picked out a fluffy blue fleece jacket.

“Um,” I said, looking at it.

“It’s so pretty, Max,” she coaxed. “Please?”

I wondered if I would be able to tell if she was putting thoughts into my head. Her eyes were wide and innocent looking.

“And Celeste really likes it too,” Angel added.

“The thing is, Angel,” I said, “I’m not sure how practical tutus are-given how much we’re on the run and all.”

She looked at the tutu and frowned. “I guess.”

“We ready?” Iggy asked with a touch of impatience. “Not that I don’t adore shopping.”

“You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket,” the Gasman said.

Iggy’s strawberry-blond hair was spiked like Gazzy’s and tipped with black on the ends.

“Really?” Iggy asked. “Cool!” He’d gotten his ear pierced before I’d noticed: His thin gold wire loop was the only thing I’d had to pay for.

We walked out into the late afternoon. I felt free and happy, even though the Institute was on hold at the moment. I bet not even Jeb would recognize me.

My stylist had picked up my long braid and simply whacked it off. Now my hair floated in feathery layers. No more hair getting in my eyes when I flew. No spitting wisps out of my mouth in the middle of an escape.

Not only that, but they’d streaked it with chunky strands of hot pink and, despite my protest, gone to town with makeup. So now I looked both totally different and about twenty years old. Being five-eight helped.

“There’s a little park up here,” Fang said, pointing.

I nodded. It would be darker than the street, and we’d have enough room to take off. Five minutes later, we were rising above the city, leaving the lights and noise and energy behind. It felt fabulous to stretch my wings out, stroking hard, feeling so much faster and smoother and cooler than I did on the ground.

Just for fun I flew in huge, banking arcs, taking deep breaths, enjoying the feel of my newly weightless hair. The stylist had called it “wind-tossed.”

If only she knew.

111

Up this high, I could clearly see the outline of Manhattan. Right across the East River was Long Island, which was much, much bigger than New York City. We flew above its coast as the sun went down, barely able to see the curly ridges of white-capped waves breaking along the shore.

After an hour and a half, we saw a long stretch of black beach with few lights, which meant few people. Fang nodded at me, and we aimed downward, enjoying the heady rush of losing altitude. Roller coasters had nothing on us.

“Looks good,” Fang said, scoping out the beach after we landed on the soft sand. It was undeveloped, with no attached parking lots. Huge boulders sealed off both ends, so it seemed even safer. Plus, other large boulders formed a natural outcropping that created a bit of shelter maybe thirty yards inland.

“Home, sweet home,” I said drily, taking off my new backpack.

I rummaged in it for food, passed out what we had, and sank down on a large chunk of driftwood. Twenty minutes later, we stacked fists, tapped, and then curled up in the sand beneath the outcropping.

I winced slightly as the Voice drifted into my head. Time to learn, it said.

Then I was pulled into unconsciousness as if getting dragged beneath a wave. Dimly, I heard bits of foreign languages that I didn’t understand, and the Voice said, This is on a need-to-know basis, Max. You need to know.

112

The ocean. Another new and incredible experience. We’d grown up in lab cages until four years ago, when Jeb had stolen us. Then we’d been in hiding, avoiding new experiences at all costs.

Now we were doing something different every day. It was a trip.

“A crab!” the Gasman yelled, pointing at the surf by his feet. Angel ran over to see, holding Celeste so her back paws barely touched the water.

“Cookie?” Iggy asked, holding out a bag.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said. This morning I had toned down my appearance a tad, then Nudge and I had hit the closest town. We’d stocked up on supplies at a mom-and-pop store that sold their own fresh homemade cookies.

My mission, and I chose to accept it, was to find chocolate-chip cookies as good as the ones I’d made with Ella and her mom. So I’d brought back a couple dozen.

I took a bite of cookie and chewed. “Hmm,” I said, trying not to spit crumbs. “Clear vanilla notes, too-sweet chocolate chips, distinct flavor of brown sugar. A decent cookie, not spectacular. Still, a good-hearted cookie, not pretentious.” I turned to Fang. “What say you?”

“It’s fine.”

Some people just don’t have what it takes to appreciate a cookie.

“I give them a seven out of ten,” I pressed on dutifully. “Though warm from the oven, they lack a certain je ne sais quoi. My mission will continue.”

Iggy laughed and rummaged in a bag for an apple.

Nudge ran up, her clothes wet past her knees. “This place is so cool,” she said. “I love the ocean! I want to be a scientist who studies the ocean when I grow up. I would go out to sea, and scuba dive, and find new things, and National Geographic will hire me.”

Sure, Nudge. Probably around the same time I become president.

Nudge ran back to the water, and Iggy got up and ambled after her.

“They’re happy here,” Fang said, looking at them.

I nodded. “What’s not to like? Fresh air, peace and quiet, the ocean. Too bad we can’t stay here.”

Fang was quiet for a moment. “What if we were safe here?” he asked. “Like, we just knew no one would come hassle us. Would you want to stay?”

I was surprised. “We have to find the Institute,” I said. “And if we find out anything, the others will want to track down their parents. And then, do we find Jeb and confront him? And who’s the Director? Why did they do this to us? Why do they keep telling me I’m supposed to save the world?”

Fang held up his hand, and I realized my voice had been rising.

“What if,” Fang said slowly, not looking at me, “what if we just forgot about all that?”

My jaw dropped open. You live with someone your whole life, you think you know them, and then they go and drop a bomb like this. “What are you-” I started to say, but then the Gasman ran up with a live hermit crab, which he plopped in my lap, and then Angel wanted lunch. I didn’t have a chance to grab Fang’s shoulders and yell, “Who are you and what have you done with the real Fang?”

Maybe later.

113

The next morning, Fang came back from town and placed the New York Post at my feet with a little bow. I flipped through the paper. On page six, I saw “Mysterious Bird-Children Nowhere to Be Found.”

“Well, good for us,” I said. “We’ve gone two days without causing a huge commotion in a public place and getting our pictures splashed all over the news.”

“We’re going swimming!” Nudge said, tapping Iggy’s hand twice. He got up and followed her, Angel, and Gazzy down to the water.

The sun was shining, and though the ocean was still pretty cold, it didn’t bother them. I was glad they were having this little vacation, where they could just have fun and eat and swim without stressing out about everything.

I was still stressing, of course.

Next to me, Fang read the paper, absently working his way through a can of peanuts. I watched the younger kids playing in the water. Iggy started a sand castle, built by touch, just out of reach of the waves.

How come the Erasers hadn’t found us yet? Sometimes they tracked us so easily, and other times, like now, we seemed to be truly hidden. Did I have a homing signal in my implanted chip or not? If I did, why weren’t the Erasers here by now? It was like they were just toying with us, keeping us on our toes, like a game…

Like a game. Like a freaking game.

Just like Jeb had said back at the School. Just like the Voice kept telling me, that everything was a game, that you learn through playing, that everything, every single thing, was a test.

I felt like a neon sign had just lit up right in front of my face. For the first time, I finally, finally understood that this all might be a huge, twisted, sick, important game.

And I had been cast as a major player.

I sifted coarse sand through my fingers, thinking hard. Okay. If this was a game, were there only two sides? Were there any double agents?

I opened my mouth to blurt my thoughts out to Fang but stopped. He glanced at me, his dark eyes curious, and suddenly I felt a cold dread. I dropped my gaze, feeling my cheeks heat.

What if we weren’t all on the same team?

Part of me felt ashamed for even having that thought, and part of me remembered how many times my adorable paranoia had saved our butts.

I glanced out at the water, where Angel was splashing the Gasman and laughing. She dove beneath the surface, and Gazzy started chasing her.

Had Angel been different since we’d gotten her back from the School? I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. It was all too much. If I couldn’t trust these five people, then my life wasn’t worth living.

“Your head hurt?” Fang asked with quiet alertness.

Sighing, I shook my head no, then looked back at the ocean. I depended on Fang. I needed him. I had to be able to trust him.

Did I?

Gazzy was staring at the surface of the water, turning this way and that, seeming confused. Then he looked up at me, panic on his face.

Angel hadn’t come back up. She was still under water.

I started running.

114

“Angel!” I yelled, plunging into the water. I reached Gazzy and grabbed his shoulder. “Where did she go down?”

“Right here!” he said. “She dove that way! I saw her go under.”

Fang splashed in behind me, and Nudge and Iggy made their way over. The five of us peered into the cold gray blue water, able to see only a few inches down. A wave broke over us.

“This would be an excellent time for one of us to develop X-ray vision,” I muttered, a cold hand closing around my heart. I felt the strong tug of an underwater current pulling at my legs, saw how the wind was rippling the water out to sea.

“Angel!” Nudge yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“Angel!” I shouted, wading through the water, taking big strides, praying I would brush against her.

Fang was sweeping his arms through the water, his face close to the surface. We fanned out, squinting from the sun’s glare, taking turns diving into the surf.

My throat closed, and I felt like I would choke. My voice was a strangled rasp; my eyes stung from the glare and the salt.

We had covered a big circle, maybe thirty yards out, and still there was no sign of her. My Angel. I glanced back at the shore, as if I would see her walking out onto the sand toward Celeste, who waited for her by a piece of driftwood.

Endless minutes ticked by.

I could feel the undertow pulling at my whole body. I couldn’t stop picturing Angel’s body being pulled out to sea, her eyes wide with terror. Had we come so far only to lose her now?

“Do you see anything?” I cried to Fang. He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the water, sweeping his arms back and forth.

Once again, we swept the whole area, taking in every detail of the water, the beach, the open sea. And did it again. And again.

I saw something and blinked, then looked harder. What was-was it-oh, God! Hundreds of yards away, a small, wet cornrowed head popped out of the water. I stared. Angel stood up in waist-high water and waved at us.

My knees almost buckled. I had to catch myself before I did a face-plant in the water.

Angel and I surged toward each other, the others catching up.

“Angel,” I could barely whisper, unbelieving, when I was finally close enough. “Angel, where were you?”

“Guess what?” she said happily. “I can breathe under water!”

115

I grabbed Angel into my arms, hugging her wet, chilly body against me. “Angel,” I murmured, trying not to cry, “I thought you had drowned! What were you doing?”

She wriggled closer, and I steered her to shore. We collapsed on the wet sand, and I saw the Gasman fighting back tears too.

“I was just swimming,” Angel said, “and I accidentally swallowed some water and started to choke. But I didn’t want Gazzy to find me. We were playing hide-and-seek,” she explained. “Under water. So I just stayed under, and then I realized that I could sort of swallow water and stay under and not choke.”

“What do you mean, swallow water?” I asked.

“I just swallow it and then go like this.” Angel blew air out of her nose, and I almost laughed at the face she made.

“It comes out your nose?” Fang asked.

“No,” Angel said. “I don’t know where the water goes. But air comes out my nose.”

I looked at Fang. “She’s extracting oxygen from the water.”

“Can you show us?” Fang asked. Angel got up and trotted to the shore. She plunged in when the water was waist high. I was inches away from her, determined she wasn’t going to get lost again, even for a second.

She knelt down, took a big mouthful of water, and stood up. She seemed to swallow it, then blew air out of her nose. My eyes bulged until I thought they’d just fall out: Rivulets of seawater were seeping out of invisible pores on each side of Angel’s neck.

“Holy moly,” the Gasman breathed.

Nudge explained to Iggy what was happening, and he whistled, impressed.

“And I can do it and stay under and just keep swimming,” Angel said. She wiggled her shoulders, unfolding her wings so they could dry in the bright sunlight.

“I bet I can do it too!” the Gasman said. “ ‘Cause we’re siblings.”

He dropped down into the water and scooped up a big mouthful. Then he swallowed it, trying to blow out air.

He gagged, then choked and started coughing violently. Seawater streamed out his nose, and he gagged again and almost barfed.

“You okay?” I asked when he had finally shuddered to a halt.

He nodded, looking wet, miserable, nauseated.

“Iggy,” I said, “touch Angel’s neck and see if you can feel anything, those pores that water comes through.”

Like a feather, Iggy skimmed his fingertips over her fair skin, all around her neck. “I can’t feel a thing,” he said, which surprised me.

So we all had to try it, just in case. No one except Angel could do it. I’ll spare you the revolting details, but let me just say that’s one stretch of ocean you won’t catch me swimming in for a while.

So Angel could breathe under water. Our abilities kept unfolding, as if certain things had been programmed to come out at different times, like when we reached certain ages. In a way it felt like being kinged in checkers-all of a sudden you had more strength, more power than you had before. How weird.

Not weird, Max, my Voice suddenly chimed in. Divine. And brilliant. You six are works of art. Enjoy it.

Well, I would, I thought bitterly, If I wasn’t so busy running for my life all the time. Jeez. Works of art or freaks? Glass half empty, glass half full. Like I wouldn’t give up my wings in a second to have a regular life with regular parents and regular friends.

A tinkling laugh sounded in my head. Come on, Max, said the Voice. You and I both know that isn’t true. A regular family and a regular life would bore you to tears. “Who asked you?” I said angrily. “Asked me what?” said Nudge, looking up in surprise. “Nothing,” I muttered. And there you have it. Some people get cool abilities like reading minds and breathing under water, and some people get annoying voices locked inside their head. Lucky me.

What do you wish you could do, Max? asked the Voice. If you could do anything?

Hmm. I hadn’t thought about it. I mean, I could already fly. Maybe I would want to be able to read minds, like Angel. But then I would know what everyone thought, like if someone really didn’t like me but acted like they did. But if I could do anything?

Maybe you would want to be able to save the world, the Voice said. Did you ever think of that?

No. I frowned. Leave that to the grown-ups.

But grown-ups are the ones destroying the world, the Voice said. Think about it.

116

“Look who’s come to the seashore.”

The low voice, smooth and full of menace, woke me from sleep that night. My body tightened like a longbow and I tried to jump up, only to be held down by a big booted foot on my throat.

Ari. Always Ari.

In the next second, Fang and Iggy woke, and I snapped out my free hand to wake Nudge.

Adrenaline dumped into my veins, knotting my muscles. Angel woke and seemed to take off straight into the air with no running start. She clutched Celeste tightly, hovering about twenty feet above us. I saw her look around, saw her face take on an expression that had disaster written all over it.

I looked around too.

And gasped despite myself.

We were surrounded by Erasers, more Erasers than I’d ever seen before. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them. They’d been growing these things in quantities I could hardly imagine.

Ari leaned down and whispered, “You’re so pretty when you’re sleeping-and your mouth is shut. But what a shame to cut your hair.”

“When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” I spat, struggling against his boot.

He laughed, then reached down and stroked my face with one claw. “I like ‘em feisty.”

“Get off her!” Fang launched himself at Ari, taking him by surprise. Ari outweighed Fang by a hundred pounds, easy, but Fang was coldly furious and out for blood. He was scary when he was like that.

Iggy and I leaped up to help and were instantly grabbed by Erasers.

“Nudge and Gazzy-U and A,” I yelled. “Now!”

Obeying without question, the two of them leaped into the air and flapped hard, rising to hover next to Angel. Erasers snapped at their legs, but they’d been quick and were out of reach. I was so proud, especially when Nudge snarled down meanly.

I struggled, but three Erasers held me in a tight, foul embrace. “Fang!” I screamed, but he was beyond hearing, locked in battle with Ari, who raked his claws across Fang’s face, leaving parallel lines of red.

The six of us are superhumanly strong, but even we don’t have the sheer muscle mass of a full-grown Eraser. Fang was badly outmatched but managed to chop Ari’s collarbone.

Ari yelped and bared his teeth, then pulled back and swung hard, catching Fang upside of his head. I saw his head snap sideways and his eyes close, then he dropped like a dead weight onto the sand.

Ari seized Fang’s head and brought it down hard on a rock. And then he did it again.

“Leave him alone! Stop it! Please stop it!” I screamed, a mist of fury swimming before my eyes. I struggled against the Erasers holding me and managed to stomp on one’s instep. He yelped a curse and corkscrewed my arm until tears rolled down my cheeks.

Fang’s eyes opened weakly. Seeing Ari over him, he grabbed sand and threw it into Ari’s face. Fang scrambled to his feet and launched a roundhouse kick at Ari that caught him square in the chest. Ari staggered back, wheezing, then recoiled fast and cracked Fang with an elbow. Blood sprayed from Fang’s mouth, and again he went down.

I was crying by now but couldn’t speak: An Eraser’s rough, hairy paw was clapped over my mouth.

Then Ari bent over Fang’s body, his muzzle open, canines sharp and ready to tear Fang’s throat. “Had enough,” he growled viciously, “of life?”

Oh, God, oh, God, not Fang, not Fang, not Fang-

“Ari!”

My eyes went wide. I knew that voice too well.

Jeb. My adopted father. Now my worst enemy.

117

I stared with the fiercest, most righteous anger and hatred as Jeb Batchelder easily moved through the crowd of Erasers, parting them as if he were Moses and they were the Red Sea. It was still bizarre to see him-I’d been so used to mourning, not despising, him.

Ari paused, his rank and deadly mouth open over Fang’s neck. Fang was unconscious but still breathing.

“Ari!” Jeb said again. “You have your orders.”

Jeb walked toward me, keeping one eye on Ari. After endless seconds, Ari slowly, slowly drew back from Fang, leaving his body crumpled unnaturally on the sand.

Jeb stopped in front of me.

He’d saved my life more than once. He’d saved all our lives. Taught me to read, how to make scrambled eggs, how to hot-wire cars. Once I’d depended on him as if he were the very breath in my lungs: He was my one constant, my one certainty.

“Do you get it now, Max?” he asked softly. “Do you see the incredible beauty of the game? No child, no adult, no one has ever experienced anything like what you’re feeling. Do you see why all this is necessary?”

The Eraser holding me peeled his fingers away from my mouth so I could speak. Instantly, I spit hard, clearing my mouth and throat of tears. I hit Jeb’s shoe.

“No,” I said, keeping my voice steady, though everything in me was shrieking, desperate to run to Fang. “I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. I want to get out of it.”

His heartbreakingly familiar face looked strained, as if he was losing patience with me. Tough. “I told you, you’re going to save the world,” he said. “That’s the purpose of your existence. Do you think an ordinary, untrained fourteen-year-old could do that? No. You’ve got to be the best, the strongest, the smartest. You’ve got to be the ultimate. Maximum.”

I yawned and rolled my eyes, knowing he’d hate that, and Jeb’s jaw tightened in anger. “Do not fail,” he said, a hard note in his voice. “You did okay in New York, but you made serious, rather stupid mistakes. Mistakes cost you. Make better decisions.”

“You’re not my dad anymore, Jeb,” I said, putting as much annoying snideness into my tone as possible. “You’re not responsible for me. I do what I like. I named myself-Maximum Ride.”

“I’ll always be responsible for you,” he snapped. “If you think you’re actually running your own life, then maybe you’re not as bright as I thought you were.”

“Make up your mind,” I snapped back. “Either I’m the greatest or I’m not. Which is it?”

He motioned with his hand, and the Erasers let me and Iggy go. Ari turned and smirked at me, then blew me a kiss.

I spit at him. “Daddy always loved me best!” I hissed, and his face darkened.

He took a fast step toward me, paws coiled into fists, but was pushed along by a rough, hairy wave of the other Erasers. They swept him up and shuffled off around the large boulder at the end of our beach. Jeb was with them.

No, he was one of them.

118

Stumbling badly, my shoulder feeling like it was on fire, I made my way down the beach. Before I moved Fang, I felt his neck to see if it was broken. Then I carefully turned him over. Blood trickled from his mouth.

“Fang, you have to wake up,” I whispered.

The others ran over. “He looks really bad,” Gazzy said. “He should see a doctor.”

Nothing seemed broken-maybe his nose-but he was still out cold. I lifted his head into my lap and used my sweatshirt to dab at the bloody stripes on his face.

“We could carry him, you and me,” said Iggy, his long, pale hands floating over Fang, cataloging bruises, lumps, blood.

“Where to?” I asked, hearing my bitterness. “It’s not like we can check him into a hospital.”

“No hospi’l,” Fang mumbled, his eyes still shut.

Relief flooded through me.

“Fang!” I said. “How bad?”

“Pre’y bad,” he said fuzzily, then, groaning, he tried to shift to one side.

“Don’t move!” I told him, but he turned his head and spit blood out onto the sand. He raised his hand and spit something into it, then opened his eyes blearily.

“Tooth,” he said in disgust. “Feel like crap,” Fang added, touching the knots on the back of his head.

I tried to smile. “You look like a kitty cat.” I made whisker motions on my face, indicating where Ari had raked his. He looked at me sourly.

“Fang,” I said, my voice breaking. “Just live, okay? Live and be okay.”

With no warning, I leaned down and kissed his mouth, just like that.

“Ow,” he said, touching his split lip, then he and I stared at each other in shock.

Mortification heated my face. I glanced up to see Nudge and the Gasman gaping at me. Luckily, Iggy was blind, and Angel was getting Fang water.

Gazzy looked from me to Fang to Iggy, clearly thinking that he was sunk now that I had obviously severed all ties with reality.

Slowly, Fang levered himself into a sitting position, his jaw tight, sweat breaking out on his face. “Man,” he said, and coughed. “This feels pretty bad.”

It was about the most he’d ever admitted to, painwise. He stood clumsily and took the water from Angel. Taking a swig, he rinsed his mouth and spit it out onto the sand.

“I’m going to kill Ari,” Fang said.

119

Fang and the rest of us made it back to Manhattan without dropping out of the sky due to injury, exhaustion, or both.

“You macho thing, you,” I said when we finally landed in the darkness of Central Park. He looked worn out, clammy, and pale, but he had flown all the way with no complaint.

“That’s me,” he said, but he gave me a long look, like, I haven’t forgotten what you did, meaning the Kiss.

I blushed furiously, embarrassed beyond belief. I would never live that down.

“Are you really okay, Fang?” Nudge asked, the most touching concern in her voice. Nudge doted on Fang.

He looked like he’d fallen off a cliff, with huge purple bruises distorting his face, the awful scratches Ari had left on his cheeks, the stiff, pained way he moved.

“I’m cool,” he said. “Flying helped loosen me up some.”

“Look, let’s find a place to hunker down, catch some Zs, and then take another shot at the Institute,” I said. “We’ve got to figure it out-we can’t stop now. Right, guys?”

“Yeah, right,” Nudge said. “Let’s do it, get it over with. I want to know about my mom. And other stuff. I want to know the whole story, good or bad.”

“Me too,” said Gazzy. “I want to find my parents so I can tell’m what total scuzzes they are. Like, ‘Hi, Mom and Dad, you’re such scum! ”

I decided we’d better stay underground for safety’s sake. In the subway station, we jumped off the platform and walked quickly along the tracks. It looked familiar, and sure enough, a few minutes’ walking brought us to a huge firelit cavern populated by homeless people and misfits. Home, sweet home, especially if you happen to be a sewer rat.

“Boy, does this look inviting,” Fang said, rubbing his hands together.

I made a face at him as we climbed up onto the concrete ledge. Inside, I was glad that he had enough energy to be sarcastic.

Suddenly exhausted and emotionally wiped, I held out my left fist to make our bedtime stack. We did our thing, then Angel snuggled next to me. I checked to make sure the others, especially Fang, were okay, then I lay down, letting despair cover me like a blanket.

I was in the middle of another sleep-driven brain explosion when I felt myself surface to consciousness without opening my eyes. Not analyzing the impulse, I shot out my hand and grabbed someone’s wrist.

Moving fast, still on instinct, I sat up and twisted the intruder’s arm behind his back, my senses roaring to life.

“Cool it, sucker!” the arm’s owner whispered furiously. I yanked upward, threatening to pop his arm out of its socket. I definitely could’ve done it.

Fang creaked upright next to me, his eyes alert, but his body moving stiffly.

“You’re screwing with my Mac again,” said the hacker, and I loosened my hold on him. “Jeez, what happened to you?” Directed at Fang.

“Cut myself shaving,” Fang said.

The hacker frowned and rubbed his shoulder where I’d strained it. “Why’d you come back here?” he asked angrily. “You’re totally wrecking my hard drive.”

“Let me see,” I said, and he grumpily opened his laptop.

The screen was covered with the inside of my head: images, words, photos, maps, mathematical equations.

The hacker scowled, seeming more perplexed than mad, though. “It’s weird,” he said. “You guys don’t have a computer with you?”

“No,” Fang said. “Not even a cell phone.”

“What about a Palm Pilot?” the hacker asked.

“Nope,” I said. “We’re kinda more low-tech than that.” Like, having Kleenex would be a huge step up for us.

“A memory chip?” he persisted.

I froze. Almost against my will, I slid my gaze over to Fang.

“What kind of memory chip?” I asked, striving for casual.

“Anything,” the hacker said. “Anything that would have data on it that would interfere with my hard drive.”

“If we did have a chip,” I said carefully, “could you access it?”

“If I knew what it was,” he said. “Maybe. What do you have?”

“It’s small and square,” I said, not looking at him.

“Like this?” The hacker held his fingers about three inches apart.

“Smaller.”

His fingers were a half-inch apart. “You have a memory chip this small?”

I nodded.

“Let me see. Where is it?”

I took a deep breath. “In me. It’s implanted in me. I saw it on an X-ray.”

He stared at me with horror in his eyes. He turned off his laptop and closed the lid. “You have a memory chip that small implanted in you,” he verified.

I nodded, guessing this was somewhat worse than having cooties.

He took several steps back. “A chip like that is bad news,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “It might be NSA. I won’t mess with it. Look, you stay away from me! Next thing, they’ll be after me.” He backed away into the darkness, his hands up as if to ward off evil. “I hate them! Hate them!” Then he was gone, back into the bowels of the tunnels.

“See ya,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.”

Fang looked at me irritably. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

I so wished he weren’t all banged up-so I could whack him.

120

We tried to get some sleep-God knows we needed it. I kind of dozed off. Then I wasn’t asleep, I knew that much. But I wasn’t awake, exactly.

I’d been, like, sucked into another dimension, where I could feel my body, sort of, knew where I was, and yet was powerless to move or speak. I was in a movie, starring me, watching it all happen around me. I was going down a dark tunnel, or the tunnel was slipping by me, and I was staying still. Trains were rushing past me on both sides, so it was a subway tunnel.

I was thinking, Okay, subway tunnel. Yeah, so?

Then I saw a train station: Thirty-third Street. The Institute’s building was on Thirty-first Street. In the darkness of the waking-dream subway tunnel, I saw a filthy rusted-over grate. I saw myself pulling the grate up. Fetid brown water gurgled below. Bleah-it was the sewer system, beneath the city.

Hello.

Beneath a rainbow…

Bingo, Max, said my Voice.

My eyes popped wide open. Fang was watching me with concern. “Now what?”

“I know what we have to do,” I said. “Wake everyone up.”

121

“This way,” I said, walking in the darkness of the tunnels. It was as if a detailed map was imprinted on my retinas, so I could see it laid over reality, tracing the path we needed to follow. If this map effect was part of my life forever, I would go nuts, but right now it was dang useful.

One other thing I guess I should mention-I was really, really afraid now, more afraid than I’d ever been before, and I didn’t even know why. Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth. Also, my head was throbbing, and that had me a little crazy too. Was I approaching my expiration date? Was I going to die? Was I just going to fall over and be gone from the world and my friends?

“Did the Voice tell you about this, Max?” Nudge poked at me and asked.

“Kind of,” I answered.

“Great,” I heard Iggy mutter, but I ignored him. Every step was bringing us closer to the Institute-I could feel it. We were finally about to have our questions answered, and also possibly fight the worst fight of our lives. But our curiosity was so compelling: Who were we? How had they taken us from our parents? Who had grafted avian DNA into us and why? My mind shied away from the parent question. I really didn’t know if I could stand to find out. But everything in me burned to know the other whys and wherefores. I wanted names. I wanted to know who was accountable. I wanted to know where they lived. “Okay, now the tunnel splits,” I said, “and we take the one with no tracks.”

Angel’s hand was in mine, small and trusting. The Gasman was still dopey with sleep, occasionally stumbling. Iggy had one finger in Fang’s belt loop.

We were looking for a rusted grate set in the floor. In my dream, I had seen it at the crossroads of two tunnels, so it had to be here. But I didn’t see it. I stopped, and the others stopped behind me.

“It has to be here,” I said under my breath, peering into the darkness.

Don’t think about what has to be, Max. Think about what is.

I set my jaw. Can’t you just tell me stuff straight out? I thought. Why did everything have to be like, “What is the sound of one hand clapping” and all?

But okay. What was here, then? I closed my eyes and just sensed where I was, consciously letting any impression at all come to me. I felt like such a total dweeb.

Then I just walked forward, eyes shut, trying to sense where we should go. Instinctively, I felt I should stop. So I stopped. I looked down.

There, at my feet, was the dim outline of a large rusted grate.

Well, aren’t you special, I told myself. “It’s over here,” I called.

The grate pulled up easily, its screws disintegrating into rusty powder as Fang, Iggy, and I pulled. It came loose, and we set it aside.

Below it was a manhole with rusted U-shaped handholds set into one side. I lowered myself over the edge and started climbing down into the sewer system of New York City.

What a destiny.

Finally, I had to ask the Voice a question. HAD TO ASK. Am I going to die? Is that what this is all about?

There was a pause, a long one, really agonizing, the worst.

Then the Voice decided to answer. Yes, Max, you are going to die. Just like everybody else.

Thank you, Confucious.

122

This may surprise you, but the sewer system of a burg with eight million people is even less delightful than you might imagine. We climbed down the manhole one by one and ended up standing on a grimy tiled ledge maybe two feet wide. Above us, the tunnel curved around, some fourteen feet across, and below our ledge was a swiftly moving current of filthy wastewater.

“Bleah,” said Nudge. “This is so gross. When we get out of here, I want someone to spray me with, like, disinfectant.”

Angel stuffed Celeste up under her shirt.

“Max?” said the Gasman. “Are those, um, rats?”

Lovely. “Yes, those do appear to be either rats or mice on steroids,” I said briskly, trying not to shriek and climb the walls like a girly-girl.

“Jeez,” said Iggy with disgust. “You’d think they’d want to live in a park or something.”

Ahead of us was a four-way intersection of tunnels, like a big cross. I hesitated, then turned left. Several minutes later, I stopped, completely and utterly without a clue.

Hello, Voice? I thought. A little help here, please.

I had no hope that the Voice would respond, but if it did, it would probably say something like, If a tree falls in a forest, does it still-

I looked down, then sucked in my breath so fast I almost choked. / was standing on a translucent platform suspended high over the sewer system. I wanted to scream, feeling off-balance and scared. Below me I could see another Max, looking like a deer caught in headlights, and the rest of the flock staring at me. Fang reached out and took the other Max’s arm, and I felt it, but no one was with me.

When are you going to trust me, Max? said the Voice. When are you going to trust yourself?

“Maybe when I don’t feel completely bonkers,” I snarled.

I swallowed hard and tried to get a grip. Tentatively, I glanced down again at the translucent surface. As I watched, faint lines of light tracked the path behind us, where we’d already been. Then the lines continued through the tunnels, like a neon This Way sign.

Quickly, I glanced up but saw only the yucky yellow-tiled arch covered with mold-no glass ceiling. Fang was still holding my arm, looking at me intently.

I gave him an embarrassed smile. “You must be so sick of looking at me with concern.”

“It is getting stale,” he said. “What happened? This time, I mean.”

“I don’t even want to explain,” I said, wiping clammy sweat off my forehead. “You’d have me committed to a madhouse.”

I stepped carefully around him and led the others forward. Some sections of the tunnel were lit dimly from open grates high above us, other parts were dark and dismal. But I was never lost, never uncertain, and after what felt like miles, I stopped again because it felt like it was time to. ‘Cause, like, the feng shui was right, you know? Ugh.

As we stood staring around ourselves in the darkness, avoiding our chittering little rat friends, I saw why we were there.

Set into one cruddy, disgusting sewer wall was an almost completely hidden gray metal door.

“We’re here, gang. We made it.”

123

Don’t get too excited. The door was locked, of course.

“Okay, guys,” I said softly. “Can any of us open locks with our minds? Speak up now.”

No one could.

“Iggy, then.” I moved out of the way and pulled him gently to the door. His sensitive fingers reached out and skimmed the door, feeling its almost indistinguishable edges, hovering around the keyhole. Like someone was going to come down here with a key.

“Okay,” Iggy muttered. He pulled his little lock-picking kit out of his pocket, as I knew he would. Even though I had confiscated it for forever only two months ago, after he picked the lock on my closet at home.

Home. Don’t even think about it. You no longer have a home. You’re home-less.

Carefully, Iggy selected a tool, changed his mind, took out another one. Angel shifted from foot to foot, looking nervously at the rats, who were growing creepily curious about us.

“They’re going to bite us,” she whispered, clutching my hand, patting Celeste through her grimy shirt. “I can read their minds too.”

“No, sweetie,” I said softly. “They’re just afraid of us. They’ve never seen such huge, ugly… creatures before, and they want to check us out.”

I was rewarded with a tiny smile. “We’re ugly to them. Right.”

It took Iggy three minutes, which was a personal record for him, breaking the old four-and-a-half-minute record required by the three locks on my closet.

Iggy, Fang, and I gripped the edge of the door with our fingernails and pulled-there was no doorknob. Slowly, slowly, the immensely heavy door creaked open.

Revealing a long, dark, endless staircase ahead of us. Going down. Of course.

“Yeah, this is what we needed,” Fang muttered. “A staircase going down to the Dark Place.”

Iggy blew out his breath, less than thrilled. “You first, Max.”

I put my foot on the first step.

You’re on your own now, Max, said my Voice. See you later.

124

My headache was back, worse than before. “Let’s keep it moving,” I called over my shoulder.

Unlike the sewer, there wasn’t even far-off light on the stairs, so it was pitch black. Fortunately, we could all see pretty well in the dark. Especially Iggy.

The steps seemed endless, and there was no handrail. I guess whoever built this wasn’t too concerned with safety.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Fang asked softly.

“We’re approaching our destination,” I said, descending into the darkness. “We’re homing in on the answers we’ve dreamed about getting our whole lives.”

“We’re doing what your Voice has told us to do,” he said.

I was wary. “Yeah? The Voice has been okay so far, right?”

There was a bottom at last. “Here we are,” I said, my heart pounding.

“There’s a wall in front of you,” said Iggy.

I reached out in the blackness, and a few feet away, my outstretched fingers touched a wall, then a door, then a doorknob. “Door,” I said. “Might need you, Iggy.”

I turned the knob, just to see, and lo and behold-the door began to open.

We were all silent. The door swung all the way open without a sound, and a gentle wash of fresh, cool air wafted over us. After the fetid, dank stench of the sewers, it was amazing.

Feeling like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole, I stepped forward, my filthy shoes sinking into thick carpet. Yes, carpet.

Dim lights showed me another door, and, almost shrieking with tension, I opened it.

This all suddenly seemed horribly easy, suspiciously easy, scarily easy.

We went through this second door, then stopped and stared.

We were in a lab, a lab just like the one back at the School, thousands of miles away in California.

“We’re in the Institute,” I said.

“Uhm, is that a good thing?” asked Gazzy.

125

“Holy [insert a swear word of your choice here],” Fang said, stunned.

“No kidding,” I said. There were banks of computers taller than me. And tables with first-class lab equipment. Dry-erase boards covered with diagrams-many of which I’d seen during my brain attacks. Things were in “sleep” mode, quietly humming but not working-it wasn’t yet dawn.

We wove our way among the tables, trying to take it all in while quaking in our boots. I knew there were Erasers in this building-I could feel them.

Then I saw one computer still on, its screen bright, data being processed as we watched. This could be it-our chance to find out about our past, our parents, the whole amazing enchilada.

“Okay, guys,” I said quietly. “Fan out, stay on guard, watch my back. I mean it! I’m going to try to hack in.”

I climbed on the lab stool in front of the counter and grabbed the computer mouse.

Password?

I cracked my knuckles, making Fang wince. Well, it could only be about a hundred million different things, I thought. How hard could it be?

I started typing.

I won’t bore you with the whole list of what was rejected. I was thankful that the system didn’t lock me out after three bad tries. But “School.”

“Batchelder,” “Mother.”

“Eraser.”

“Flock,” and a whole lot of others didn’t cut it.

“This is pointless,” I said, my nerves frayed.

“What’s wrong, Max?” Nudge asked softly, coming to stand close to me.

“Who am I kidding?” I said. “There’s no way for me to crack the password. We’ve come all this way for nothing. I’m such a loser! I can’t stand it!”

Nudge leaned closer and touched the monitor with a finger, angling it so she could see better. She read the screen, her lips moving silently. I wanted to push her away, but I didn’t want to be pointlessly mean.

Nudge closed her eyes.

“Nudge?” I asked.

Her hand fanned out on the monitor, as if pressing closer for warmth.

“Hello?” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Um, try big x, little /, little n, big p, the number seven, big o, big h, little j, and the number four,” she said in a whisper.

I stared at her. Across the room, Fang was watching us, and my eyes met his.

Quickly, before I forgot, I typed in what she’d said, seeing the letters show up as small dots in the password box.

I hit Enter, and the computer whirred to life, a list of icons popping up on the left-hand side of the screen.

We were in.

126

I stared at Nudge, and she opened her eyes slowly. A bright smile crossed her face. “Did it work?”

“Yeah, it worked,” I said, stunned. “Where’d you get it?”

“The computer,” she said, looking pleased. “Like, when I touched it.” She reached out and touched it again. “I can see the person who works here. It’s a woman, with frizzy red hair. She drinks way too much coffee. She typed in the password, and I can feel it.”

“Wow,” I said. “Touch something else.” Nudge went to the next chair and put her hand on it. She closed her eyes and, a few moments later, smiled. “A guy sits here. A baldie. He bites his nails. He went home early yesterday.” Opening her eyes, she looked at me happily. “I have a new skill!” she said. “I can do something new! This is so cool!”

“Good for you, Nudge,” I said. “You saved our butts here.”

Trying to focus despite this latest mind-blowing development, I skimmed icons and right-clicked my way into Explore. I searched for “avian.”

“School,” “genetics”…

Then, oh, my God… document files filled the screen.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, searching out names, dates, anything I could think of to make a connection.

Origins. That looked promising, and I clicked on it. My eyes raced down the lines of text-and my throat closed. I almost went into shock on the spot.

I saw our names, names of hospitals, names of towns-even what looked like names of parents. Then I saw pictures of adults that seemed to go with the names. Were these our parents? They had to be. Oh, God, oh, God. This was it! This was exactly what we needed!

I hit Print, and pages started spewing out of the printer.

“What are you doing?” Fang asked, coming over.

“I think maybe I found something,” I said breathlessly. I knew we shouldn’t stop to look over the amazing pages here. “I’m going to print it, and then we should get the heck out of here. Start getting the others together.”

I grabbed pages as they came out, folding them up and cramming them into all my pockets. I didn’t even know how many there were, but finally the printer stopped. I was bursting to tell the others everything, but I didn’t. I bit the inside of my cheek until it hurt. See why I’m the leader?

“Come on!” I said urgently. “Let’s split! Let’s go!”

“Uh, just a second, Max,” said the Gasman, sounding really, really weird.

127

The Gasman was standing by a fabric-covered wall, and with typical curiosity, he had pulled the fabric aside. Slowly, we walked over to him, six sets of eyes opened wide as saucers.

When I was two feet away, my heart slammed to a halt inside my chest. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Angel did scream, until Fang cupped a hand over her mouth.

Behind the curtain was a glass wall. Okay, no biggie.

But behind the glass was another lab room, with lab stations, computers, and… cages.

Cages with sleeping forms in them. Child-size forms.

Dozens of them.

Mutants.

Just like us.

128

I couldn’t speak. My gaze raked the glass wall, and I saw a small pad at eye level. I went over and pressed it in that cute don’t-think-it-through way I have.

The glass wall opened, and we tiptoed through, our nerves as taut as rubber bands.

Sure enough, there were mutant kids sleeping in cages and in large dog crates. It brought my awful, gut-twisting childhood whooshing back to me, and I felt on the verge of having a panic attack. I’d forgotten about my headache for maybe a minute, but now it was back, throbbing as if my brain was getting ready to blow.

Angel was looking sadly into one cage, and I went to her. Out of hundreds of genetic experiments, only we and the Erasers had been at all viable-as far as I knew. The two little creatures asleep on their cage floor were clearly horrible failures and probably couldn’t last much longer. What with some of their vital organs on the outside of their bodies and all. Kidneys, bowels, a heart. Oh, the poor babies.

“This is pathetic,” Fang whispered, and I turned to see him looking at a large cat, like a serval or a margay. I’d never seen a real animal in one of the labs before. Just as I was wondering what its deal was, it woke up, blinked sleepily, then turned over and dozed off again.

I swallowed really, really hard. It had human eyes. And when I examined its paws more closely, I saw humanlike fingers beneath the retractable claws. Jiminy Christmas.

Glancing over, I saw Angel reading the card tacked to another small cage. Its doglike occupant was running in its sleep. “Hi, doggie,” Angel whispered. “Hi, little doggie. You look like Toto. From The Wizard of OzT

I went over to Nudge, who was standing stiffly beside a cage. I looked in.

This one had wings.

I caught Fang’s gaze, and he came over. When he saw the bird kid, he sighed and shook his head. I actually saw sadness and tenderness in his eyes. It made me want to hug Fang. But I didn’t, of course.

“You know, we can’t save them all,” he told me softly.

“I’m supposed to save the whole world, remember?” I whispered back. “Well, I’m gonna start with these guys.”

There you go, Max, said the Voice. That’s the difference between you and Fang.

Don’t you dare say anything bad about Fang, I thought. He’s usually right. He’s probably right about this now.

Is it important to be right or is it important to do what’s right? That’s one of the hardest lessons to learn.

Okay, whatever. I’m really busy right now. “Start popping latches,” I whispered to Iggy, who whispered to the Gasman, and so on.

I opened a cage and gently shook the creature inside awake. “Get ready to run,” I whispered. “We’re getting you out of here.” The poor baby looked back at me uncomprehendingly.

Several creatures were awake and pressing against their cage bars, making weird noises I’d never heard before. We moved as fast as we could, opening doors. Finally, most of the prisoners were free, standing around, looking at the entrance to the lab with confusion or fear.

One cage held a large child who was gripping the bars. Fine features said this was probably a female. She had wings-I could see them tucked tight against her sides. She was older than the other winged child we’d seen.

I quickly unlatched the door to her cage. I jumped back when I heard a voice.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“Kids don’t belong in cages,” I said to her. Then I called out in a loud voice, “Okay, everybody. Let’s blow this joint.”

129

“This way!” Nudge said, attempting to herd the mutants out of the lab. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I hear voices,” Iggy said. “Be very afraid.”

“Let’s move it!” I ordered. My heart was pounding- what was I doing? Was I going to take care of all these kids? I could barely manage the ones I had.

I would think about that tomorrow.

“Nudge! Fang! Angel!” I called. “Out, out, out!”

They zipped past me, urging the others, and then we ran through the first door and across the deep carpeting to the second door. “Up the stairs!”

I didn’t have Iggy’s hearing, but I felt, sensed, that our little liberation party was about to be discovered. And that would be bad.

Plan ahead, Max. Think it out. Think on your feet.

Yes, Voice. Okay, we had steps, then sewer-I practically pushed the others up the dark stairs, one, two, three… One of the mutant kids freaked out and curled up in a ball, whimpering. I snatched it in one arm and kept climbing, two steps at a time. In my mind, I pictured the route we had to take.

Up ahead, Fang shoved open the last door, the one into the tunnel, and we all poured out after him, moving from cool, fresh air to a hot, fetid dampness that made my nose wrinkle.

“Where are we?” asked the bird girl we’d freed. She looked about ten years old and was one of the few who would speak.

“Sewer system, under a big city,” I said shortly. “On our way out to fresh air and sunlight.”

“But not just yet,” Ari hissed from behind. “First we need to chat, Maximum. You and I. For old times’ sake.”

130

I went still and saw the bird girl’s eyes widen in fear too. Did she know Ari? Slowly, I handed her the small whimpering mutant in my arms, then turned.

“Back again? What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought Dad was keeping you on a short leash.”

His hands curled into clawed fists.

I needed time. Behind me, I made “run!” motions with one hand. “So what happened, Ari?” I said, keeping his attention on me. “Who took care of you when Jeb left with us?”

His eyes narrowed, and I saw his canines growing visibly longer. “The whitecoats. Don’t worry about it; I was in good hands. The best. Somebody was looking out for me.”

I frowned, wondering-“Ari, did Jeb give them permission to Eraserfy you or did someone just do it while he was gone?”

Ari’s heavily muscled body quivered with rage. “What do you care? You’re so perfect, the one successful recombinant. And I’m nobody, remember? I’m the boy who was left behind.”

Despite everything, despite the fact that I could cheerfully have kicked his teeth in for what he had done to Fang, I did feel a pang of pity for Ari. It was true-once we were out of the School, I’d never given him a second thought. I didn’t think about why Jeb had left him or what had happened to him.

“Someone did terrible things to you because Jeb wasn’t there to protect you,” I said quietly.

“Shut up!” he growled. “You don’t know anything! You’re dumb as a brick!”

“Maybe not. Someone wanted to see if Erasers would last longer if they didn’t start from infancy,” I went on. Ari was trembling now, his hands clenching and unclenching convulsively. “You were three years old, and they grafted DNA into you and they got a superEraser. Right?”

Suddenly, Ari lunged and swung out with one clubbed paw. Even with my speed-record reflexes, he managed to cuff my cheek hard enough to spin me against the gross tunnel wall. Something like pus stuck to my face.

I sucked in a breath, accepting that I was about to get the stuffing beat out of me. Ol‘ Jeb, though clearly an agent of the devil, had taught us the useful art of street fighting. Never fight fair-that’s not how you win. Use every dirty trick you can. Expect pain. Expect to get hurt. If you’re surprised by the pain, you just lost.

I turned slowly back toward Ari. “Out in the real world, you should be in second grade,” I said, tasting salty blood inside my mouth. “If Jeb had protected you.”

“Out in the real world, you would have been killed for the disgusting mutant freak you are.”

Now the gloves were off. “And you’re a… what?” I asked in mock polite confusion. “Face it, Ari. You’re not just a big, hairy seven-year-old. You’re much more of an obvious mutant freak than I am. And your own father let it happen.”

“Shut up!” Ari yelled furiously.

I couldn’t help it-I felt bad for him for a second.

But only for a second.

“You see, Ari,” I said conversationally, then launched myself at him with a roundhouse kick that would have caved in the chest of an ordinary man. Ari merely staggered.

Staggered back a half-step. Not even a full one.

He cuffed me again, and I saw circles and stars. He punched me in the stomach. My God, he was as strong as a team of oxen. That would be strong, right?

“You’re dead meat,” Ari growled. “I mean that literally.”

Then he surged toward me, claws out-and he slipped.

His boot slid on the slimy tunnel ledge and he fell heavily to his back. So hard I could hear the wind knocked out of him, a mighty gush of air.

“Get them out of here! ” I shouted at Fang, barely turning my head, then instantly dropped my full weight onto Ari’s chest.

I could hear my heart and feel adrenaline snaking through me, turning me into Supergirl. I remembered that Ari had hurt Fang bad out at the beach-and he’d enjoyed it.

Ari struggled to get up, wheezing like a large animal with pneumonia, trying to push me off. I grabbed his head with both hands, my face twisted with fury.

But he got away from me. He was so fast, faster than I was.

Ari punched me again, and I thought I heard a rib crack. He was taking me apart bit by bit. Why did he hate me so? Why did all of the Erasers hate us?

“Yes, Maximum, I am enjoying this. I want it to last a long, long time.”

I was his pummeling bag now, and there was nothing I could do about it. You can’t imagine the hurt and pain, or his strength, or the fury aimed at me.

The only thing saving me from destruction was the slippery footing in the tunnel, the grime under his feet.

Just then Ari lost his balance again, and I saw the smallest opening. A chance, at least.

I kicked him once more, this time in the throat. Solid, a good one.

Ari gagged and started to go down. I threw myself at him, grabbing his head, and we fell as one in slow motion. He was huge, heavy, and we dropped like lead. Wham! Butt, back, head… I held on tight-as Ari’s neck slammed against the hard side of the tunnel. I heard a horrible, stomach-turning crack that vibrated up my arms. Ari and I stared at each other in shock.

“You really hurt me,” he gasped rawly, terrible surprise in his voice. “I wouldn’t hurt you. Not like this.” Then his head flopped down, and Ari went totally limp. His eyes rolled up and the whites showed.

“Max?” Iggy was trying to sound calm. “What was that?”

“I-I…” I gulped, sitting on Ari’s barrel chest, still holding his head, “I think I broke his neck.”

I gulped again, feeling like I might be sick. “I think he’s dead.”

131

We heard angry voices and heavy, pounding footsteps on the stairs above us.

No time to think, to try and make sense out of what had just happened.

I jumped off Ari’s lifeless body and grabbed Angel’s hand. Angel grabbed Iggy, and we started running with Nudge and the Gasman right behind us. I was aching everywhere, but I ran. I ran like the dickens, whatever that is. I saw no sign of Fang and the other mutants- they’d already gone.

“Fly!” I shouted, dropping Angel’s hand, and she instantly leaped out over the sewer water, snapping her wings open and pushing down hard. Her sneakers dipped into the water, but then she rose again and flew off down the tunnel, her white wings a beacon in the darkness. The Gasman went next, looking freaked out and pale, and Iggy took off after him.

I heard a booming voice.

“He was my son! ”

Jeb’s anguished cry echoed horribly after me, bouncing off the stone walls, coming at me from all angles. I felt short of breath. Had I really killed Ari? Made him die? It all seemed surreal-the sewer, the files, the mutants, Ari… Was I dreaming?

No. I was painfully awake, painfully myself, painfully right here, right now.

I turned and looked back at Jeb, the man who’d been my hero once upon a time.

“Why are you doing this?” I shouted at the top of my voice. “Why this game? This test? Look at what you’ve done.”

Jeb stared at me, and I remembered clearly when he was like my father, the only one I trusted. Who had he really been back then? Who was he now?

Suddenly, he changed gears completely. He wasn’t yelling anymore. “Max, you want answers to the secrets of life, and that’s not how it works. Not for anybody, not even you. I’m your friend. Never forget that.”

“I already have!” I yelled, then turned away, leaving Jeb behind.

“Take a right!” I shouted at Angel, and she did, swerving gracefully into a larger tunnel.

Just as I swerved after her, almost crashing into a wall because I banked too late, I heard one last, haunting cry. Jeb had changed his tone again-he was screaming at me, and I pictured his red face, red as a stop sign.

“You killed your own brother!”

132

Jeb’s horrifying words echoed in my head again and again, the meaning and consequences seeming worse each time. You killed your own brother. Could that be true? How? Or was this just more theater? Part of my test?

Somehow, we made it up to the street, where Fang was waiting. I felt faint, like I’d been hit by a truck, but I forced myself to keep moving. I remembered what was stuffed in my pockets. Names, addresses, pictures-of our parents?

“Where are the other kids? The mutants?” I asked Fang. So much was going on now. It was hard to keep it all straight, but it had to be done, so I did it.

“The girl with wings took them.” He shrugged. “She didn’t want to stay with us. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sound like anyone you know?”

I waved him off-I didn’t want to talk about it now, didn’t want to talk about anything.

I could still see Ari’s eyes rolling back, could hear his neck snapping.

“Just walk. Keep walking,” I said, and started to limp forward. “Walk the walk.”

It was almost two minutes later that I realized Angel was carrying something besides Celeste.

“Angel?” I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “What’s that?”

Something small and black and furry squirmed under her arm.

“It’s my dog,” said Angel, and her chin went stiff, like it always did when she was about to get stubborn.

“Your what?” Fang said, peering at the object in question.

We all gathered around Angel, but then I remembered how conspicuous we were. “Let’s move,” I muttered. “But this discussion isn’t over, Angel.”

In Battery Park, down at the tip of Manhattan, a small, abandoned band shell was almost completely hidden by overgrown rhododendrons and yew bushes. We huddled under its shelter as the rain washed dust off the city. I was wiped. I felt like I had absolutely nothing left.

“Okay,” I said, sitting up straighter, trying to put energy into my voice. “Angel, explain the dog.”

“He’s my dog,” she said firmly, not looking at me. “From the Institute.”

Fang sent me a look that said, If you let her keep this dog, I will kill you.

“Angel, we cannot have a dog with us,” I said sternly.

The dog wiggled out of her arms to sit at her side. It looked pretty normal as far as I could tell. Its bright, black doggy eyes shone at me, and it was grinning in a friendly way. Its short, stumpy tail was wagging. Its nose sniffed the air happily, excited by all the new scents in the world.

Angel gathered the dog to her. The Gasman edged closer to look at it.

“And besides, you have Celeste,” I pointed out.

“I love Celeste,” Angel said loyally. “But I couldn’t leave Total behind.”

“Total?” Iggy asked.

“That’s what his card said,” Angel explained.

“Totally a mutant dog who will probably turn on us and kill us in our sleep,” Fang said.

The dog cocked his head to one side, his grin fading a moment. Then his tail wagged again, insult forgotten.

Fang looked at me: I got to be the bad cop and lay down the law.

“Angel,” I began cajolingly. “We can’t always feed ourselves. We’re on the run. It’s dangerous out here. It’s all we can do to deal with us.”

Angel set her jaw and looked at her sneakers. “He’s the most wonderful dog in the whole wide world,” she said. “So there.”

I looked at Fang helplessly.

“Angel,” he said severely. She looked up at him with wide blue eyes, her face grubby, clothes filthy, cornrows all fuzzy.

“The first time you don’t take care of him, boom, he’s out,” Fang said. “Understood?”

Angel’s face lit up, and she threw herself into Fang’s arms while I gaped at him. He hugged Angel back, then caught my expression. He shrugged and let Angel go.

“She made Bambi eyes at me,” he whispered. “You know I can’t resist it when she does Bambi eyes.”

“Total!” Angel cried. “You can stay!”

She hugged the small wiggling black body, then drew back to beam at him. Total gave a happy yip, then made an excited leap.

And our jaws dropped. We all stared in disbelief. Total almost hit the top of the band shell, about sixteen feet above us.

“Oh,” said Angel, and Total landed, almost bottomed out, then jumped up again and licked her face.

“Yeah, oh,” I said.

133

That night we made a small camp fire and sat near the water in a part of New York called Staten Island. We were licking our wounds. Especially me. I hurt all over. But I was also unbelievably excited about what I’d found at the Institute.

“Okay, we’re all safe, all together.” I took a deep breath and slowly released it. “We found the Institute and maybe we got exactly what we went there for. Guys, I found names, addresses, even pictures of people who might be our parents.”

I could see surprise, shock, incredible excitement on all of their faces, but also hints of fear and trepidation. Can you imagine what it’s like to meet your parents when you’re somewhere between six and fourteen? I sure couldn’t.

“What are you waiting on?” asked Iggy. “The envelope, please. Open it, already. Then somebody tell me what it says.”

I felt a trembling sense of elation as I started pulling out the pages I’d taken from the Institute. Here were the answers to the mysteries of our lives, right? The others gathered around me, leaning over my shoulders, helping me smooth the printed pages flat without smearing the ink.

“Max, what did Jeb mean-you killed your brother?” Nudge asked out of the blue. The question was so typical of her-off in her own world again. “He didn’t mean that Ari was your brother, did he? You guys weren’t-I mean, triple yuk-”

I held up my hand, trying not to shriek from bottled-up emotion. “I don’t know, Nudge,” I said, forcing myself to sound calm. “I can’t think about it right now. Let’s read these pages. When someone gets to something interesting, yell.” I handed out the wrinkled stacks.

“Who’s your daddy?” crowed the Gasman. “Who’s your mommy?”

134

Angel started reading slowly, sounding out words. ‘This doesn’t make sense to me,“ she said after about ten seconds.

Then the Gasman sat up. “Here I am!” he shouted. “Here I am!”

“Let me see, Gazzy.”

The Gasman handed me his stack and I pored over it. Sure enough, I found his name: “F28246eff (the Gasman).” My heart nearly stopped.

“Here’s an address!” I said, tracing my finger down a page. “It’s in Virginia!”

“I’ve got an address too, and some names,” said Fang. “And my name. And, oh man, there are pictures.”

“Let us see, let us see!”

Everybody gathered around Fang, and even though he’s usually Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected, he was shaking. We all were. I myself was trembling like the temp had dipped about fifty degrees.

Nudge was pointing at a photocopy in Fang’s hand. It showed a man and woman who seemed to be in their thirties. “He looks just like you, Fang. And so does she. They’ve got to be your mom and dad! No doubt.”

Her voice choked up, and suddenly we were all crying, except Fang, of course, who just muttered, “Maybe, maybe not.”

Then everybody was looking through the pages, searching for their parents. Nobody made a sound. Until-

“Here they are! My mom and dad!” Gazzy shouted. “One sixty-seven Cortlandt Lane in Alexandria, Virginia! Angel, look! This is them. It’s totally amazing. It’s a miracle. They look like me! And you too, Angel!”

Angel stared at the picture silently for a moment, and then her face crumpled and she was sobbing. I instantly reached out and held her small body close, stroking her hair. Angel’s usually no softie, and when I felt her shake with sobs, my chest ached with her pain. Talk about your Kodak moment. Or Fuji. Whatever.

“There’s lots of numbers and nonsense printed all over these pages too,” Fang said, bringing me back to the here and now.

I saw the same thing. “Why scramble just some of the information? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Who cares?” Gazzy yelled happily. “I found my mom and dad! YAA-HOO! I take back being mad at them!”

Fang, Gazzy, and Angel had hit the jackpot, but so far, Iggy and I hadn’t. And Nudge still wasn’t sure if her ‘rents were out west or not.

“Iggy! Iggy! Your mom! Oh, aww-. Says your dad is deceased,” the Gasman reported. “Sorry about your dad. But your mom looks neat.” He started to describe her out loud.

So then there was just one outsider, only one of us without a mom and dad in the files from the Institute. You guessed it: moi. I still belonged to nobody, nowhere.

I’d like to say that I’m such a good person, such a team player, that I didn’t feel totally left out, heartachey, just about ripped apart and destroyed-but I really am trying to get the lying under control. I did feel all those terrible things, and a whole lot more.

But I put on a brave face, and smiled, and oohed and aahed and reread files, being happy for my guys-who, face it, hadn’t had much happiness yet in their hard, short, weird lives.

But my mind-like-a-steel-trap couldn’t let something go. “So why scramble this other information?” I finally asked again. Just to say something else, to put myself somewhere besides the throne of pain.

“Maybe it’s information the whitecoats never wanted anyone to find out,” Fang said in the hollow Twilight Zone-y voice he used sometimes when things got unusually weird-as opposed to regular weird.

“Like-funding,” I said, thinking. “Or hospitals who gave them babies. Other messed-up scientists who help them. Like the keys to the whole Evil Empire.”

“Holy Joe,” said Iggy, sitting up excitedly. “If we had that stuff, we could blow them wide open! We could send it to a newspaper. That fat guy could make a movie-like Bowling for Columbine or something.”

My heart did flip-flops just thinking about it.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” said Nudge. “I just want to find my mom and dad once and for all. Wait, wait! This is me!” Holding her breath, she examined the information surrounding N88034gnh (Monique). “Know what?” Nudge quickly glanced from page to page. “All these addresses are in Virginia and Maryland and Washington, DC. That’s all kind of close together, isn’t it? Plus, DC is where the government is, right?”

“This is the coolest thing ever,” said Iggy, a far-off look coming over his face. “First we meet our parents. Joyful reunion, hugs, kisses. Then we go destroy the School, the Institute, all those sons of b- I mean, all those jerks who messed us up. That would be so great. Like, we could wipe out the Erasers, all of ‘em, at once. Way cool!”

“So what are we going to do?” the Gasman asked, suddenly very serious. “For real?”

“I want to do whatever Max does,” said Angel. “And so do Celeste and Total.”

Total wriggled, hearing his name, and licked Angel’s hand. Whatever had been done to him at the Institute, he didn’t seem to be holding any grudges. Now he licked Celeste.

That poor bear needed a bath in a big way. We all did. I looked at the troops. We were safe, for now. We were together. A wave of thankfulness came over me.

“We go to DC,” I said finally. “And take baths. And start tracking your parents down. We have all their addresses, right?”

“Woo-hoo!” the Gasman shouted, slapping Iggy high five, taking him by surprise.

I smiled at them. I loved them all so much and I wanted them to be happy. I could do this for them. But inside, I felt as if black holes were eating through my chest. I had killed someone today. Maybe my own brother. Now we were going to start finding out about our pasts, maybe the meaning of our lives, and I didn’t know if that’s what I wanted. And only partly because I had no idea who my mother and father were.

But none of that mattered, right? These guys were my family. I owed it to them to try to help their dreams come true.

Even if it killed me.

Very late that night, or maybe it was early in the morning, I tried to talk to the Voice. Maybe, just maybe, it would deign to answer me.

I have two questions for you, okay? Just two questions. No, make that three questions. Okay. Where are my mom and dad? How come I’m the only one with no files at all? Why am I having these terrible headaches? And who are you? Are you an enemy that’s inside me? Or are you my friend?

The Voice came right back to me: That’s more than three questions, Max. And sometimes whether someone is your friend or enemy is all in how you look at it. But if you must know, I consider myself your friend, a good friend who loves you very much. No one loves you more than I do, Maximum. Now listen. I ask the questions, not you. You’re just here, and the Voice actually chuckled,/or the ride. For the incredible, indescribable Maximum Ride.