Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

98

"Gosh," I said. "It's like looking in a mirror."

"Yeah," she said. "Except I've had a bath recently."

"Touch #233;. So, me, how's tricks?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Selling Girl Scout cookies," I said. "Want some? The Samoas are terrific."

Max II started walking next to us, and we kept pace with the crowd, moving in a big oval around the barren yard. I stayed on guard, in case she suddenly attacked me.

"Baa," Nudge bleated. "Baaa."

I laughed, and Max II looked at me. "How can you laugh?" She gestured angrily at the walls, the guard towers, the armed Flyboys that stood around like remote-controlled puppets.

"Well, she baaed like a sheep," I said. "It was pretty funny." I patted Nudge's head. "Especially with her lamby hair. Maybe I should call her Lamby from now on."

Nudge grinned, and Max II got angrier. "Don't you realize what's going on? Where we are?"

"Uh, a honking big castle of evil in Germany?" I offered. "I've narrowed it down that far."

Max II glanced around, as if making sure we weren't overheard. Since we were shoulder to shoulder with a couple hundred other people, it was kind of a wasted gesture.

"This is the last stopping place," she said under her breath, not looking at me. "Look around. We're all rejects. They were trying to build an army out of us, but then they got the Flyboys to work. Now we're obsolete. And every day, a bunch of us disappear."

I studied her. "I'm sorry-did I miss something? Last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me. Are we friends now? Did I miss the memo? Now you're clueing me in on the sitch?"

"If you're against them, then we're on the same side," Max II said firmly.

She could have totally been lying, of course. In fact, it was safest to assume that she was. But her words were all too likely to be the truth.

"How long have you been here?" I asked her.

She looked away. "Since Florida. They...were really mad that I let you beat me."

"You didn't let me do squat," I said.

Sighing, she gave a brief nod. "I was supposed to win. I was supposed to finish you off. They never counted on you winning. And then you didn't kill me. It was awful."

"You're welcome," I said, feeling fresh anger ignite. "I'll try not to humiliate you by letting you live next time."

Max II looked at me sadly, and it really was creepy; so much like looking in a mirror that I felt my face try to assume the same expression, so we'd match.

"There won't be a next time," she said. "I'm telling you, this is the last stop. They brought us here to kill us."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," I said.

"You don't understand," Max II said, agitated. "We're all slated to die. Every day, more of us disappear. When I first came here, this yard was so full, we had to take shifts. There were thousands of us. Now this is all that's left."

"Hmm," I said.

"With this many of us, I guess we have until...maybe tomorrow," she said, looking around, mentally calculating.

Okay, this was not sounding good. I thought we'd have a couple days to regroup, find a way out of this. If Max II wasn't lying, then I needed to step up our time frame in a big way. If Max II was lying, I still had no reason to want to hang around.

We continued to shuffle in big circles, and now both Nudge and Total were baaing occasionally. I was deep in thought, trying to come up with one of my typically brilliant plans, when a mutant bumped into me for a split second, then moved away.

It left something in my hand.

A piece of paper.

Very, very surreptitiously, I unfolded it and glanced down. It was a note, and it said: Fang on his way with flock. Says it better not be a joke.

Inside me, a hard knot of tension that I hadn't even known I had seemed to unravel. Oh, God. Fang was coming. I would have been more suspicious, but the "it had better not be a joke" thing could only have come from him.

Fang was on the way. With Iggy and Gazzy. We would all be together again.

"Max? What's wrong?" Nudge looked at me with concern. "You're crying."

I touched my cheek to find that I was crying, tears streaking down my face. I wiped them away on my sleeve and snuffled. I was too happy to speak for a moment.

"Fang's coming to help us," I said under my breath, looking straight ahead. "He's on his way."