Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

107

I almost fell over backward. For a second I thought I was going to faint-I got tunnel vision and my skin felt icy. There was no sound in the empty, echoing dungeon.

A dozen images flashed through my mind: her smiling face, her warm brown eyes, the smell of homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Her and Ella watching me, hands shading their eyes, as I took off. Eating meals together. She was the most real momlike mom I'd ever imagined.

"Dr. Martinez...is my...mother?" I whispered hoarsely.

He nodded seriously. "She was an incredibly important research scientist, specializing in avian genetics. But once you were a viable embryo, she was locked out of the process. Not by me, I might add. She went back to Arizona, brokenhearted. But she donated the egg that became you."

I frowned, my mind racing, looking for loopholes. I had to make absolutely sure, because if I got my hopes up and then was wrong, I didn't think I'd ever recover. "Dr. Martinez is Hispanic," I said. "I don't look anything like her."

"You have her eyes," said Jeb.

Well, I did have brown eyes.

"And I was blond as a little boy, like you are. So was Ari, if you remember."

I glanced at Ari, who was now, you know, wolf colored. He had been blond.

I focused my laser gaze on Jeb and made my voice as hard as an ice pick. "If this is an elaborate test, something else I'm supposed to pass somehow, you will never see the light of day again."

Jeb's mouth quirked on one side. "This, I'm happy to say, is not a test. Out of everything I've ever told you, it is the most true. Valencia Martinez is your mother. And I'm your father."

I looked at him, still furious about everything that had happened since he'd disappeared on us more than two years ago. I wanted to hurt him one-tenth as much as he'd hurt me and the rest of the flock.

"I don't have a father," I said coldly, and was both rewarded by and guilty about the flare of pain I saw in his eyes. I looked away and, still trembling with emotion, turned and went as far as my chain would let me.

When Jeb spoke, he used the Voice, the one I'd gotten so used to hearing inside my head, the one I hadn't heard since he'd told me it was him.

"Max-you're still here to save the world. That's what you were born for, that's the point of everything, all of this. No one else can do it. I believe that with all my heart. This isn't a test, and I'm not snowing you. You have to do this. Nothing in the history of mankind has ever been more important. Nothing. Ever. Ever."