Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

118

"Cheating disqualifies you!" The Director said, looking mad.

"I didn't cheat! Did you say 'no flying'? Did anyone say 'no flying'? No."

"It was a race on the ground!"

"Again, said who? Just because Wonderlad is stuck to the ground doesn't mean I have to be. I've evolved past being stuck to the ground."

Now the Director looked really mad. The sea of indistinct faces murmured; feet shifted on the ground. I folded my wings in, aware of dozens of eyes watching me.

"You are disqualified," the Director said shortly. "Omega is the winner."

"Whatever," I said, pushing down my disgust. I shot Omega a sideways glance. "Does she tie your shoes for you too?"

His perfect eyebrows drew together, but he didn't speak.

Nudge and Angel took my hands and stood close, and Ari came up behind me, as if to protect my back. I felt very comforted by their being there. I would have felt even better if I had seen Fang standing with me, ready to back me up.

"Next will be a contest of strength," said the Director. "Omega's muscles are approximately four hundred percent stronger and denser than a regular boy's. Bring out the weights!"

I am weirdly, wickedly strong, and not just for a girl, not just for my age. I'm stronger than just about any grown-up, man or woman. We all are. But I didn't have the bulk that Superboy did, and in general I was designed to be smart and fast, and to fly well. Not to be able to compete in a tractor pull.

It really was a tractor pull, in a way. Heavy weights were loaded onto a wooden platform. We were each given a thick chain. The idea was literally to pull the platform across the dirt. We were even until about five hundred pounds, then Superboy started to edge past me. I could barely budge six hundred and fifty pounds-he pulled it three feet.

They piled on more weight-eight hundred pounds. I couldn't believe I was going to lose a strength contest to a boy. There was no way.

I gritted my teeth, cracked my knuckles, and put the chain over my already bruised shoulder. Omega and I looked at each other, side by side. When the Director blew sharply on her whistle, I put my head down, planted my feet in the dirt, and pulled with all my might. Sweat broke out on my forehead. It felt as though the chain were wearing a furrow in my shoulder. Breath hissed through my clenched teeth.

I made the platform tremble a little, moved it maybe a quarter of an inch.

Omega hauled it almost a foot.

When he was pronounced the winner, he looked at me with those weird, expressionless eyes. I didn't think he was a robot, like the Flyboys, but I did wonder if his emotions had been designed out of him. Of course, with a guy, how could I tell? Ha ha!

Anyway.

You might not know this about me, but I hate losing. I'm not a good sport, I'm not gracious in defeat, and I hated Omega for making me lose. I was gonna get him. I didn't know how, I didn't know when, but I knew I would.

"The next contest will be intelligence." The Director looked smug.

I almost groaned. Of course I'm really sharp, really bright. But I'd had almost no schooling. What I knew I'd learned either from television or from Jeb. I knew a lot about how to fight, how to survive. I knew a bit about some places, like Egypt and Mongolia, from National Geographic. But I didn't have much book learning at all. The couple of months I'd spent at that hellhole of a school in Virginia had shown me that compared with most kids my age, I was a village idiot. Just in terms of book learning. Not about stuff that mattered.

"First question," said the Director. The crowd turned to watch me and Omega in our duel of wits. "The castle walls are eighteen feet high, seven feet thick, and one thousand, twenty-seven feet long. One cubic yard of stone and mortar weighs one thousand, one hundred twenty pounds, or exactly half a ton. How many tons of stone and mortar are contained within the walls?"

Omega looked off into the distance, obviously starting to calculate.

"You are kidding me," I said. "Why would I ever need to know that?"

"Like, if you had to make repairs?" Nudge guessed.

"Couldn't I just hire a wall repair company?" I asked.

"It's a simple calculation," said the Director, still smug.

"Yeah? Let's see you do it."

Her cheeks flushed, but she stood tall. "Are you conceding?"

"I'm not conceding anything," I said. "I'm just saying it's completely pointless. How about I just pick a lock instead? Me and Omega. Let's see who can do it faster."

"Two thousand, three hundred ninety-six point three three tons," said Omega.

"Okay, smartyboots, how about if you're flying at eighteen thousand feet at, say, a hundred and forty miles an hour," I said. "You're facing a southwest wind of about seven knots. How long would it take you to fly from Philadelphia to Billings, Montana?"

Omega frowned as he started to work the math.

"Are you saying you know how to make that calculation?" the Director asked.

"I'm saying I'm smart enough to know that I'll get there when I get there!" I almost shouted. "The questions themselves are dumb: They don't have anything to do with being able to survive."

"In the new world they do, Max," said the Director. "Maybe not in your world. But your world is over."