Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

128

Nudge and I each grabbed the Director under an arm and took to the air.

She was no lightweight, but together we took her high, way over the castle. She was screaming in terror, looking down, kicking her feet, losing both of her sensible shoes.

"Put me down this instant!" she shouted.

I looked at her. "Or what? You'll send me to my dungeon?"

She stared at me with contempt.

"Oh, did you see?" I said. "I defeated Superboy. But who knows? Maybe someday you can turn him into a real boy."

"Omega was far superior to you," the Director spat.

"And yet here I am, dragging your stupid butt across the sky, and there he is, doing a face-plant in the dirt," I pointed out. "If by 'superior,' you mean totally inadequate in every way, then, yes, Omega is far superior."

"What do you want?" the Director snapped. "Where are you taking me?"

"Mostly just up," I said. "I do want some answers, though,"

"I'll tell you nothing!"

I looked at her seriously, her stiff blond hair streaming out in back of her. "In that case, I'm going to drop you from way, way up here, and watch you go two dimensional. We call it 'flock splatter art.'"

A look of genuine fear entered her cold eyes, which cheered me a little.

"What do you want to know?" she asked cautiously, trying not to look down.

"Who's my real mom? And no, designing me doesn't make you a mom." I knew what Jeb had told me; I wanted confirmation.

"I. Don't. Know."

"Oops!" I let go of her, and she shrieked as she and Nudge started plummeting.

"I'll tell you!" she screamed, looking up at me.

I swooped down and grabbed her again. "Now, you were saying...?"

White-faced, she swallowed and took some deep breaths. "A researcher. She studied birds. She offered to donate an egg. It isn't important who she was."

My heart leaped. "Her name?"

"I don't remember. Wait!" she said, as my fingers loosened. "Something Hispanic. Hernandez? Martinez? Something like that."

I could hardly breathe, and it wasn't because we were at five thousand feet. Dr. Martinez really was my mother. I hugged the knowledge to me like a life jacket.

"You're not the only successful hybrid, you know," the Director said.

"Well, there's darling Omega," I admitted. "And Spot, the cat girl."

"And me," the Director said.

I whistled. "Don't tell me, let me guess. You're half...vulture? Hyena? Some kind of marine bottom-feeder?"

"Galapagos tortoise," she said. "I'm one hundred and seven years old."

"Huh. And you don't look a day over a hundred and five," I said.

She glared at me.

I looked down and saw that the castle was surrounded by German polizei cars. Today was over. Today had been saved. Maybe even the world?

"Bye," I told her, and let go.

Nudge couldn't hold her, and the Director spun downward, screaming in terror and surprise.

That isn't you, Max, said the Voice.

The Voice! I hadn't heard it in a while.

Why's that, Jeb? I asked inside my head. Because you didn't design me that way?

No, said the Voice. Because that's not who you are as a person. No one designed it. It's all you. You're just not a killer. You've shown that again and again. And it makes me prouder than anything else about you.

I sighed. Yes, it's true, I am pretty wonderful, I thought to the Voice. But deep down, where I hoped the Voice couldn't hear me, I did feel a little proud, a little heart-warmed.

Talk about manipulation.

"Okay, let's go get her," I told Nudge, and we swooped down and caught the Director with a good two hundred feet to spare.