Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

46

The next day they let us loose.

"Is it time for us to die?" Nudge asked. She sidled closer to me, and I put my arm around her.

"I don't know, sweetie," I told her. "But if it is, I'm taking a bunch of 'em with me."

"Me too," said Gazzy bravely. I gathered the Gasman to my other side.

Fang leaned against a wall, his eyes on me. We hadn't had any time to talk privately since we'd gotten here, but I caught his gaze and tried to send him a look that had everything I was thinking in it. He was a big boy. He could handle the swear words.

The room's door swung open, with its peculiar air rush. A tall, sandy-haired man strode in as if he were the king of the world. He was followed by Anne Walker and another whitecoat I hadn't seen before.

"Dese are dey?" he asked, sounding like Ahnold in The Terminator.

Already he had me angry. "We be them," I said snarkily, and his pale, watery blue eyes focused on me like lasers.

"Dis vould be de vun called Max?" he asked his assistant, as if I couldn't hear.

"I not only would be Max, I am Max," I said, interrupting the assistant's answer. "In fact, I've always been Max and always will be."

His eyes narrowed. Mine narrowed back at him.

"Yes, I can see vhy dey've been slated for extermination," he said casually, as his assistant made notes on a clipboard.

"And I can see why you were voted 'least popular' in your class," I said. "So I guess we're even."

He ignored me, but I saw a tiny muscle in his jaw twitch.

Next, his eyes lit on Nudge. "Dis vun can't control her mouth or, obviously, her brain," he said. "Something vent wrong vis her thought processes, clearly."

I felt Nudge stiffen at my side. "Bite me," she said.

That's my girl.

"Und dis vun," he went on, pointing at Gazzy. "His digestive system has disastrous flaws." He shook his head. "Perhaps an enzyme imbalance."

Anne Walker listened expressionlessly.

"Dis vun-vell, you can see it for yourself," the man said, with a casual flick of his hand at Iggy. "Multiple defects. A complete failure."

"Yes, Dr. ter Borcht," murmured his assistant, writing furiously.

Fang and I instantly looked at each other. Ter Borcht had been mentioned in the files we'd stolen from the Institute.

Iggy, sensing ter Borcht was talking about him, scowled. "Takes one to know one," he said.

"De tall, dark vun-dere's nothing special about him at all," ter Borcht said dismissively of Fang, who hadn't moved since the doctor had come in.

"Well, he's a snappy dresser," I offered. One side of Fang's mouth quirked.

"Und you," ter Borcht said, turning back to me. "You haf a malfunctioning chip, you get debilitating headaches, and your leadership skills are sadly much less than ve had hoped for."

"And yet I could still kick your doughy Eurotrash butt from here to next Tuesday. So that's something."

His eyelids flickered, and it seemed to me that he was controlling himself with difficulty.

Well, I get under people's skins. It's a gift I have, what can I say?