Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

44

"Gosh, a guided tour, from you? Now I know I'm dreaming," I quipped. But then a thought occurred to me. "They told me all the Erasers had been retired. And if I wasn't strapped down, I'd make air quotes around retired."

Ari looked sad. "Yeah. I'm the last one. They...killed all the others."

For some reason his quiet, sad confirmation of that terrible fact made my blood run cold. Despite what a walking chigger bite he was, there were still times when I could almost see the little kid he'd once been. They'd altered him when he was already three years old, and his results had been less than stellar, poor guy.

Oh, yeah, poor guy who tried to kill me a bunch of times. My eyes narrowed.

"The flock is supposed to be wiped out too," I said. "Am I the first to go? Is that why you came to get me?"

He shook his head. "I just have permission to take you around. I know you guys are supposed to be retired, but I don't know when."

I got an idea. "Listen, Ari," I said, trying for a cajoling tone. Since snarling or threatening comes much more naturally to me, I wasn't sure how successful I was. "Maybe all of us should bust out of here together. I don't know what Jeb's told you, but you might be on the endangered list too."

I was about to go on, but he interrupted me.

"I know I am," he said, still very quietly. He pushed the wheelchair through the doorway, and we were in a long hall lit by fluorescent lights and tiled with the ever-popular linoleum squares. Suddenly he knelt down and pulled his shirt collar away from his neck.

I recoiled, but he said, "Look-I have an expiration date. We all do."

Totally grossed out but morbidly curious, I leaned forward. On the back of Ari's neck was a tattoolike line of numbers. It was a date. The year was this year, and I thought the month was this month, but I wasn't sure. Funny how time drags when you're being held captive.

I thought, Eew. Then, Poor Ari. Then, This might be another trick, another way for them to yank my chain.

"What do you mean, we all do?" I asked suspiciously.

His eyes, looking like the familiar kid-Ari eyes, met mine. "All of us experiments have built-in expiration dates. When someone's time is pretty close, it shows up on the back of their neck. Mine showed up a couple days ago. So my time is soon."

I looked at him, appalled. "So what happens on that date?"

He shrugged and stood to start wheeling me forward again. "I'll die. They would have exterminated me with the others, but my time is really close anyway. So they cut me a break. Because, you know, I'm Jeb's son."

His voice cracked as he said that, and I stared straight ahead down the hall.

This was a new low, even for mad scientists.