With a slight electronic crackle, the wall of TV screens came to life. One by one, their screen snow was replaced by a person. There were both men and women, in all kinds of settings. The one thing they had in common was that they all oozed power like radiation. Clearly they were looking at screens of their own — I saw their eyes dart around, linger for just a second on the UD with a hint of distaste, then fasten on us.
I looked at the UD. “What, eBay isn’t good enough for us?”
If anyone had been familiar with the evil smile on Iggy’s face, they would have questioned the decision to put us on camera. But oh well. Live and learn, is what I say.
“Here are the objects available for auction.” The UD’s voice was surprisingly strong and commanding. “They are in decent shape, though one is damaged.”
That would be Angel’s broken arm. I got mad all over again.
“Do they have any . . . liabilities?” A woman with dark hair and eyes, wearing a severe navy suit, spoke first.
“Besides our woeful fashion sense?” I asked before the UD could respond.
Every face on the screens looked surprised. No one was expecting us to talk.
“Our lack of commitment to personal hygiene?”
“You will be silent!” the UD hissed at me. But since Gozen stayed where he was, I didn’t take him seriously.
I raised my eyebrows, looking directly at the faces on the screens. “I guess it depends on whether you consider a complete inability to follow orders a liability.”
“Silence!” the UD said again as the people on the screens began to murmur to their unseen partners. He spoke to them: “As you can see, they are functional, with a limited, though useful, intelligence.”
“Limited intelligence?” I broke in, outraged. “Bite me! You’re kind of the last person to talk about limitations! At least I can . . . swim! And fly! And digest by myself!”
“Yeah, or how about this?” the Gasman said, and then he erupted . . . his new skill. I’d been wondering if he would develop one, and what form it would take. Maybe he’d be able to read minds, like Angel? Fly superfast, like me? Feel colors, like Iggy? It could have been anything.
But of course it wasn’t.
I swear to you, it was literally a green mushroom cloud. I mean, he’d always had a messed-up digestive system. Gazzy in a small room with you meant you’d soon have tears in your eyes. And I guess most boys hone their ability to let rip on command to a fine, subtle art.
This was in a completely different league.
I saw eyes widen onscreen. The UD turned to see the flock moving rapidly away from Gazzy, who looked as if he were being enveloped in, well, a cloud of noxious gas, colored a sulfurous yellow green. He was grinning. “Ah, that’s better. Better out than in!”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Total said hoarsely, and ran under the conference table.
“Whoa!” I said, gagging. “What have you been eating? Kryptonite? Nuclear waste?”
“What is that? Who did that? What does this mean?” Voices from the screens mingled together. The UD was looking at Gazzy with confusion and anger.
I pressed my hand over my mouth and nose and got as far from Gazzy as the room allowed. Close to the screens, I spoke through my hand, trying not to inhale.
“It really just depends on your definition of liability,” I said nasally.
“It’s a new skill!” Gazzy announced, sounding excited.
“Good God,” Nudge muttered, pressing herself against the farthest wall. “Why don’t these windows open?”
“You are the man!” Iggy said, and he and Gazzy slapped high fives. It’s a guy thing.
And that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the auction.
Iggy picked his nose. Fang blended into a dark painting that consisted of paint splatters and drips. Nudge kept up a constant chatter — at one point going on about different colors of nail polish and whether something with glitter was really appropriate for day wear — though you could hardly hear it over the rising wind.
Okay, call me alarmist, but it sounded incredibly bad out there, and a Category 4 hurricane with mandatory evacuation did not seem like a good scene. I’d flown in some pretty intense storms, but if we’d been outside now, we would have been splattered against the building like gnats.
Sure, these windows were superstrong, but all the same, the wind was a tad concerning. I motioned to the others to move toward the inside walls, away from the glass.
“Attention!” The UD’s face was that awful blotchy purple color again. Ugh. “Can we return to the business at hand? There’s a bid on the table of half a billion dollars. Can I hear three-quarters of a billion?”
You know, half a billion dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to.
“One more thing,” I said to the screens, raising my voice to be heard. “We all have expiration dates. If you buy us, you should know that it’s a limited-time offer. We’re probably single-use mutants, pretty much.”
“A single use might be all that’s required of you,” the Uber-Director said silkily, then went back to the bidding.
And that was when the superstrong, hurricane-rated, Gozen-bounced-against fancy windows all imploded.
67
IN CASE YOU DON’T KNOW, safety glass can still shatter. They call it safety glass because it tends to shatter into somewhat-less-sharp cubes, rather than saberlike shards. Little bit of info for ya there. See? I’m fun and educational!
In the next second, we were all slammed against the back wall, as the wind blasted in through the broken windows, seeming as if it wanted to snatch us out into the storm.
“Gozen!” the UD screamed. I wondered if he had volume buttons for “scream” or could just raise his voice. Anyway, Gozen heard him and lumbered awkwardly over to the wheelchair, putting himself between the window and the UD.
“Flock!” I bellowed. “Get down! Under the table!”
Immediately Fang, Angel, Nudge, Iggy, Total, and Gazzy rolled under the table. I grabbed Akila’s collar and dragged her under with me. Around us, chairs were whipping around, smashing against the walls, getting sucked out the windows.
“Can we fly out?” Gazzy asked, almost shouting.
Fang and I both shook our heads. “The wind is too strong. We should get out into the hallway,” Fang said, and I nodded.
Angel was watching something out in the room. The remote control for one of the big-screen TVs must have whizzed around and smacked up against something that caused it to flip channels.
“What is it, Ange?” I said.
“There’s a hurricane report on TV,” she said. “It says it’s almost a Category five, and they think it was caused by global warming.”
There was that global warming again!
“There have always been hurricanes,” I pointed out.
“Not at this time of year. Plus, there are many, many more of them now, and they tend to be stronger and more destructive,” Fang told me.
I looked at him. “Okay, maybe global warming is bad,” I admitted.
He made a no-freaking-duh face, and then said, “Category fives have winds more than a hundred fifty-five miles an hour. In other words, enough to rip most things apart. Including us. There’s no way we can fly in it.”
“Okay, hallway it is,” I said. “We’ll get out there and see if there’s any place we can wait out the storm. Fang, you’re in charge of Akila.”
“We are not leaving her!” Total stated.
“I know,” I said. “Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel, stick as close to me as possible. Everyone ready?”
Five pairs of determined bird kid eyes met mine.
“Okay. Let’s do this thing.”
68
OUR PLAN WAS TO ROLL out from under the table and crawl fast to the double doors, avoiding Gozen and the UD if at all possible. While I had been bantering with the buyers, Fang and Iggy had been very productive: They’d shredded a couple of our Antarctica coats and knotted them into several long lengths
of rope. Now Fang tied one to Akila’s collar, and Iggy tied one around Total’s middle.
“It’s not a leash!” I snapped as he protested. “It’s so we don’t lose you!”
The electricity was off in the conference room now. The wall of TVs had been shattered. Lots of stuff had been sucked out the windows, and other things were hurtling around.
“Gozen!” the Uber-Director shouted. “Don’t let them escape!”
Gozen began to move toward us, his bulk and weight helping to keep him steady. The UD’s wheelchair was being knocked about, and if I were him, I would have been freaking out, waiting to break apart into messy building blocks.
“Kids! Go!” I yelled, and we began to crawl fast toward the doors. I had no idea how we’d get them open.
As it turned out, Mother Nature helped us. Sort of. Sort of a half-helped / half-killed situation. When we were about seven feet from the doors, they blew open, their frames shattering around the massive locks. In an instant, we were airborne, without using our wings.
The wind coming through the windows and whipping out through the doors created a huge updraft that almost flattened us against the ceiling. Gozen hunkered down over the UD even as a large potted plant clocked him in the head, opening the skin to reveal tissue and wires. Yes. Gross.
There was only one thing to do.
“Go with the flow!” I shouted, remembering a long-ago lesson from the Voice. “Go with nature! Fang! Get Akila!” I grabbed Total and clutched him hard against my chest. I saw Fang grab Akila and knew she would be a struggle to hold.
Then, making sure that everyone was with me, I put my wings out just a bit, and whoosh! The wind grabbed me, and I shot down the hall like a jet.
“Ouch! Ouch! God —” I couldn’t aim, so I was scraping against exit signs and light fixtures. I checked behind me to make sure everyone had gotten out, and they had, with no sign of Gozen or the UD.
“Go with the flow!” I yelled again. Then I saw where the hallway led: directly to a balcony with floor-to-ceiling windows. Of hurricane-proof glass. That we’d probably smash against like mosquitoes against a windshield.
“Wait! I take it back! Don’t go with the flow!” I shrieked, trying desperately to backpedal.
But of course it was too late by then.
69
I HOPED THE UBER-DIRECTOR hadn’t paid his building contractor yet, because those so-called hurricane-proof windows were, in fact, not at all hurricane proof. Unless maybe for a baby hurricane. A widdle one. With no big winds. I thought he should have got his money back.
Instead of smashing against the balcony windows, we sailed through them, because they’d blown out by the time we reached them. Wastebaskets, plants, chairs, and even some desks flew out around us. Then it was like we’d been put into God’s washing machine, on the spin cycle. I held on to Total as tight as I could, and we were sucked away into winds stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. My breath was actually pulled from my lungs. Within seconds, Total and I were soaked. In addition to the rain, hailstones as hard as diamonds pelted me, feeling like needles being driven into my skin. I pulled my wings in almost all the way, leaving them out a tiny bit in the hopes that this would allow me to steer. If I’d put them out fully, they would have been torn off.
When I looked back, I counted five bird kids behind me, all struggling. Fang and Iggy were both holding on to Akila. Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel had tied themselves together, ropes looped around their waists, which was smart, but I bet it really hurt.
“This sucks!” Total yelled in my ear.
I didn’t think that needed a response. It was the understatement of the century. But come to think of it, I couldn’t believe we were still alive. We weren’t supposed to be able to survive this. No one could. Were we getting stronger? I started to wonder, then realized there was still time to be shredded to pieces.
Feeling almost half delirious from lack of breath, certain that my skin was being peeled slowly from my face and hands, I started expecting to see Dorothy’s house swirling by at any moment — and then suddenly it was much calmer, and I was being sucked downward, fast.
My ears rang with silence. My mouth dropped open in surprise. I looked up and saw . . . white clouds and blue sky. It wasn’t raining or hailing on me. I was still moving in a gigantic circle, but it was more like the fluff ’n’ dry cycle, not too bad.
“We’re falling,” Total told me.
Ah, yes, so we were. Cautiously I put my wings out more fully, feeling wind catch in them, expanding my feathers. I surged upward and saw my flock pop out of the wall of clouds one by one.
“We’re in the eye of the storm!” I shouted, and motioned downward. I didn’t know how big this eye was — maybe several miles across? But I wanted to take advantage of it. Controlling my descent, I headed earthward, landing on a broken section of highway overpass. At each end, the high-way dipped down into floodwaters — who knew how deep?
Shading my eyes, I looked up to see Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel, beat up and exhausted, land clumsily. Angel fell to her knees, trying to protect her broken arm.
I rushed over to them, untied their rope, and checked them all over.
Iggy landed, then Fang.
“Where’s —?” I began, then saw Fang’s face. I glanced at Iggy; he had the same tragic expression. Akila had been too heavy for them. They hadn’t been able to hold on to her.
My heart squeezed painfully. What would we tell Total? Right now he was flopped on his side, panting, but any second he would realize the love of his life was missing. . . . Oh, God.
“Gozen.”
My head whipped up and I looked where Fang was pointing. High, high above us, Gozen and, amazingly, the Uber-Director were flailing wildly by, close to the edge of the eye. Suddenly my fury overwhelmed me — at Akila’s death, at Angel’s broken arm, at their trying to sell us, and at every other bad thing that anyone had ever done to us, which, believe me, was a pretty long list. In seconds I was streaking upward as fast as I could.
70
GOZEN WAS WRAPPED around the Uber-Director, which was the only reason the UD hadn’t come apart by now. But even as I shot toward them, I could see that Gozen’s weight was working against him; they were both being dragged roughly around the eye wall of the storm.
I saw the UD shout, “Don’t let go!” though I couldn’t hear him. But Gozen’s enormous fingers were slipping, and his body and face bore signs of violent contact with a lot of debris.
Gozen’s eyes met mine as I got close, blue lasers into brown. “Help me,” he rumbled.
“I don’t think so,” I said, kicking at his arm. That was all it took — me kicking his arm in retaliation for his breaking Angel’s — and his hold on the UD collapsed and Gozen spun away, falling heavily downward, his face assuming the only expression he was capable of: horror.
I held on to the UD’s wheelchair. Fluid was leaking from his boxes; his human eyes in his human face were terrified.
“I control more than you could ever realize,” he gasped. “I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. I can protect you for the rest of your life. Just save me now.”
If he’d been a real person, I would have hesitated. I’m not a killer. I mean, not on purpose, anyway. But he was a machine, someone’s consciousness hooked up to a bio-mechanical body.
Plus, he was a complete and total jerk.
“You need to not be in this world,” I told him, and let go.
I didn’t watch, but I’m sure the boxes snapped grotesquely apart in the next instants, and that he whirled around in the storm in pieces for a while. I never saw any part of him again.
I negotiated my way out of the eye wall, glad to be free of the rain and hail again, and flew downward until I saw the flock a mile or so away. We needed to escape this hurricane before the next eye wall hit us. As I came to a landing, I could see them huddled around Total, who had collapsed, sobbing, on the ground. Angel had tears in her eyes as she stroked him with her good arm. Hi
s small black wings, still unusable but getting bigger every day, were fluttering pathetically.
I stood nearby, breathing hard, barely able to take in the fact that Gozen and the Uber-Director were no more. Poor Akila. Poor Total. I shook my head, feeling terrible for him.
Angel looked up. “Akila,” she said, frowning.
I nodded. “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
“No — Akila,” said Angel, pointing at the sky.
“Huh?” was all I had time to say before an eighty-pound Malamute plummeted out of the sky, smashing right into me and knocking me onto my not-nearly-padded-enough butt.
“Oh, God,” I wheezed, Akila’s body lying heavily on top of me. For the second or third time that day — it was hard to keep track — I had to slowly suck in breath, looking like a largemouth bass. “Akila!”
The others rushed over, and Fang pried open Akila’s eyelids and put his head on her side to listen for a heartbeat.
“She’s alive,” he said, just as the mud-spattered dog blinked weakly.
“Uh, can you get her off me?” I said, my voice muffled. I felt as though I’d been hit with a warm, sopping-wet, furry sack of cement.
“Akila!” Total cried, now that the shock was wearing off. “Akila! I thought we had lost you forever!” Eagerly he licked her face. I was thinking bleah, but Akila seemed to like it, turning her head so Total could get her other side.
And there we were. Together again.
71
WE MANAGED TO STAY inside the eye of the hurricane, moving with it until the storm had weakened enough for us to fly out. As we flew over the devastation, I realized at last the full implications of what global warming could mean for our world.
“You were right,” I said quietly to Fang as we flew. “Global warming is something we have to help stop.”
“What was that?” Fang said loudly, cupping one hand around his ear. “What did you say? Could you repeat that?”
I looked at him sourly. “So what now, hot stuff? I have to tell you, I’m not loving the idea of going back to Antarctica. That place was like living inside a big fridge.”