Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

99

We all exercised in the Yard of Despair for another half hour. My mind was spinning-knowing Fang was on his way had given me a jolt of adrenaline. I wondered when he had left. I wondered if I would be able to bear it if Fang's message was all another "test," if it wasn't real.

On the other hand, sometimes a happy delusion is better than grim reality.

In the meantime, I took baby steps behind the mutant in front of me, holding Angel's hand, feeling Total's little side brushing against my leg from time to time.

And I started watching and listening more intently. I'd thought the mutants were silent, but now I began to pick up on things they were saying so softly that the words almost got lost in the dry shuffling noise of their boots against the grit.

I tapped Nudge's hand and nodded my head at the crowd. Angel looked up at me, feeling my intention, and started paying attention also.

Like a prison, the mutants were murmuring, as softly as the wind. Unfair. Lied to us. So many of us gone. Don't want to disappear. Don't want to be retired. What to do? There are so many of them. Too many of them. This is a prison. A prison of death. Unfair. I did nothing wrong. Except exist.

I moved slowly through the crowd, listening to the murmurs, the messages. Angel was picking up on their thoughts. I saw her blue eyes become troubled with her new knowledge.

By the time a strident electronic buzzer told us to go back inside, I had formed a semiclear picture of the group's emotions. They didn't want this to happen to them-what had happened to their fellow inmates. They wished they could change things. Some of them were really angry and wanted to fight, but they didn't know how. I guessed their fighting instincts had been engineered out of them. Mostly, they were confused and disorganized.

Which is where a-ahem-leader would come in.

My plans were starting to percolate as I marched with the others back into the fantasy world of mad scientists, and that plus the knowledge that Fang was on his way made me almost cheerful.

Until three Flyboys stepped in front of me, Angel, Nudge, Ari, and Total, pointing guns at us.

I groaned. "What now?"

"You come with us," they intoned, as if one.

"Why?" I asked belligerently.

"Becuss I vant to talk to you," said our old pal ter Borcht, stepping out from behind them. "Vun last time."