The Angel Experiment

  Wordlessly, I held out my left fist. Fang put his on top, then Iggy, then Nudge. Gazzy leaned way over from his branch and managed to barely touch us. Angel leaned down and put her fist on Gazzy’s, and then Celeste’s paw on top of her fist. I heard Gazzy sigh. Or something. We all tapped hands, then got comfy on the wide branches. Angel was directly above me, her small foot hanging down to touch my knee. I saw her tuck Celeste firmly against the tree. Kinda sweet.

  The evening air washed over me. My last thought was that I was thankful we were together and safe for at least one more night.

  96

  “It is unlawful to climb trees in Central Park,” boomed a tinny but very loud voice.

  My eyes popped open and instantly met Fang’s dark ones. We looked down.

  A black-and-white was parked below, its lights flashing. Like in New York they didn’t have any more important crimes to work on than a bunch of kids sleeping in a tree.

  “How did they even know we were up here?” the Gasman muttered. “Who looks up into a tree?”

  A uniformed cop was talking to us through a PA system. “It is unlawful to climb trees in Central Park,” she repeated. “Please come down at once.”

  I groaned. Now we had to shimmy clumsily down instead of just jumping and landing like the amazing super-duper mutants we were.

  “Okay, guys,” I said. “Get down; try to look normal. When we’re on the ground, we’ll make a run for it. If we get separated, connect up at, like, Fifty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. Comprende?”

  They nodded. Fang went down first, and Iggy followed him, carefully feeling his way. Man, for big adolescent kids, they were some awesome, squirrelly climbers.

  Angel went next, then Nudge, then Gazzy, and I went last.

  “There are signs posted everywhere clearly stating that climbing trees is forbidden,” one cop began pompously. We started to back away slowly, trying to look as if we weren’t really moving.

  “Are you runaways?” asked the female cop. “We’ll take you somewhere. You can make phone calls, call your folks.”

  Uh, officer, there’s a little problem with that . . .

  Another cruiser pulled up, and two more police people got out. Then a walkie-talkie buzzed, and the first cop pulled it out to answer it.

  “Now!” I whispered, and the six of us scattered, tearing away from them as fast as we could.

  “Celeste!” I heard Angel cry, and I whirled to see her turning back to pick up her little bear. Two cops were racing toward it.

  “No!” I yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her with me. She almost fought me, planting her feet and trying to unbend my fingers from around her wrist. I swung her up into my arms and took off, tossing her to Fang when I reached him.

  With a fast glance back, I saw that the female cop had picked up the bear and was staring after us. Behind her, the others were jumping into their cruisers. Just as I sped around a corner, I saw a tall cop sliding into his car. I blinked hard, twice, and my heart seemed to freeze. It was Jeb. Or was it? I shook my head and ran on, catching up to the others.

  “Celeste!” Angel cried, reaching back over Fang’s shoulder. “Celeste!” She sounded heartbroken, and it killed me to make her leave her toy behind. But if I had to choose between Angel and Celeste, it was going to be Angel every time. Even if she hated me for it.

  “I’ll get you another one!” I promised rashly, my legs pumping as I kept up with Fang.

  “I don’t want another one!” she wailed, putting her arms around Fang’s neck and starting to cry.

  “Have we lost ’em?” the Gasman called back over his shoulder.

  I looked back. Two police cars with lights and sirens were weaving through the heavy traffic toward us.

  “No!” I put my head down and ran faster.

  Sometimes it felt as if we would never be free, be safe. Never, ever, as long as we lived. Which might not be that much longer, anyway.

  97

  We headed south and east, out of the park, hoping to get lost among the ever-present crowds of people jamming the streets.

  Fang put Angel down and she dutifully ran, her small face white and streaked with tears. I felt really, really bad about Celeste. Iggy ran next to me, his hand out to barely brush against me. He was so good at keeping up, following us, that it was easy to forget sometimes that he was blind. We passed Fifty-fourth Street—the police were still behind us.

  “Inside a store?” Fang asked, pulling up beside me. “Then out through a back exit?”

  I thought. If only we could take off, get airborne—leave the ground and the noise and the crowds and the cops behind, be up in the blue, blue sky, free. . . . My wings itched with the urge to snap open, unfurl to their full size, catch the sun and wind in them.

  “Yeah, maybe so,” I shot back. “Let’s turn east on Fifty-first.”

  We did. Then we pounded down the pavement. Really fast. I almost laughed when I realized it was a one-way street going the wrong way: The cruisers would have to take a detour.

  If only we could find a safe haven before they caught up to us. . . .

  “What’s that?” Nudge called, pointing.

  I skidded to a halt, the way they do in cartoons. In front of us was an enormous gray stone building. It soared up into the sky, all pointy and lacy on top, not like a skyscraper. More as if gray stone crystals had grown toward the sky, stretching up and thinning out as they went. There were three arched doors, with the middle one being the biggest.

  “Is it a museum?” Gazzy asked.

  I scanned for a sign. “No,” I said. “It’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s a church.”

  “A church!” Nudge looked excited. “I’ve never been in one. Can we go?”

  I was about to remind her that we were running for our lives, not playing tourist, but then Fang said quietly, “Sanctuary.”

  And I remembered that in the past, churches used to be safe havens for people—cops weren’t allowed in them. Like hundreds of years ago. That probably wasn’t the case anymore. But it was huge and full of tourists, and it was as good a place to try to get lost as any.

  98

  A steady stream of people was filing through the huge middle double doors. We merged with them and tried to blend in. As we passed through the door, the air was instantly cooler and scented with something that smelled ancient and churchy and just . . . religious, somehow.

  Inside, people split up. One group was gathering for a guided tour, and others were simply milling around, reading plaques, picking up pamphlets.

  It was incredibly quiet, considering it was a building the size of a football field, full of hundreds of people.

  Toward the front, people were sitting or kneeling in pews, their heads bowed.

  “Let’s go,” I said softly. “Up there.”

  The six of us walked silently down the cool marble-tile floor toward the huge white altar at the front of the church. Nudge’s mouth was wide open, her head craned back as she stared at the sunlight filtering through all the stained-glass windows. Above us the ceiling was three stories high and all arched and carved like a palace.

  “This place is awesome,” breathed the Gasman, and I nodded. I felt good in here, safe, even though Erasers or cops could just stroll through the doors like anybody else. But it was enormous inside, and crowded, and yet there was good visibility. Not a bad place at all. A good place.

  “What are those people doing?” Angel whispered.

  “I think they’re praying,” I whispered back.

  “Let’s pray too,” Angel said.

  “Uh—” But she had already headed toward an empty pew. She eased her way to the middle, then reached down and pulled out the little kneeler thing. I saw her examine the other people for the proper form, then she knelt and bowed her head onto her clasped hands.

  I bet she was praying for Celeste.

  We filed into the pew after her, kneeling awkwardly and self-consciously. Iggy brushed his hand along Gazzy, light as a feather,
then mimicked his position.

  “What are we praying for?” he asked softly.

  “Um—anything you want?” I guessed.

  “We’re praying to God, right?” Nudge checked to make sure.

  “I think that’s the general idea,” I said, not really having much of a clue. And yet, an odd sensation came over me, like, if you were ever going to ask for anything, this would be the place to do it. With the high, sweeping ceiling, all the marble and glory and religion and passion surrounding us, it felt like this was a place where six homeless kids just might be heard.

  “Dear God,” said Nudge under her breath, “I want real parents. But I want them to want me too. I want them to love me. I already love them. Please see what you can do. Thanks very much. Love, Nudge.”

  Okay, so I’m not saying we were pros at this or anything.

  “Please get Celeste back to me,” Angel whispered, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “And help me grow up to be like Max. And keep everyone safe. And do something bad to the bad guys. They should not be able to hurt us anymore.”

  Amen, I thought.

  With surprise, I saw that Fang’s eyes were shut. But his lips weren’t moving, and I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe he was just resting.

  “I want to be able to see stuff,” Iggy said. “Like I used to, when I was little. And I want to be able to totally kick Jeb’s butt. Thank you.”

  “God, I want to be big and strong,” the Gasman whispered, and I felt my throat close up, looking at his flyaway pale hair, his eyes shut in concentration. He was only eight, but who knew when his expiration date was? “So I can help Max, and other people too.”

  I swallowed hard, blinking fast to keep any tears at bay. I breathed in heavily and breathed out, then did a surreptitious 360. The whole cathedral was calm, peaceful, Eraser-free.

  Had that been Jeb I saw, back with the cops? Were the cops really cops or were they goons from the School—or from the Institute? What a bummer that Angel had dropped Celeste. Jeez, the kid finally gets to have one thing she cares about, and then fate rips it from her hands.

  “Please help Angel about Celeste,” I found myself muttering, and realized I had closed my eyes. I had no idea who I was talking to—I’d never really thought about if I believed in God. Would God have let the whitecoats at the School do what they had done to us? How did it work, exactly?

  But I was on a roll now, so I went with it. “And help me be a better leader, a better person,” I said, moving my lips with no sound. “Make me braver, stronger, smarter. Help me take care of the flock. Help me find some answers. Uh, thanks.” I cleared my throat.

  I don’t know how long we were there—till my kneecaps started to go numb.

  It was like a beautiful peace stole over us, the way a soft breeze would smooth our feathers.

  We liked this house. We didn’t want to leave.

  99

  I gave serious thought to staying in that cathedral, hiding, sleeping there. There were choir lofts way up high, and the place was huge. Maybe we could do it. I turned to Fang.

  “Should we—” I winced as a sharp pain burst in my head. The pain wasn’t as bad as before, but I shut my eyes and couldn’t speak for a minute.

  The images came, sliding across my brain like a movie. There were architectural drawings, blueprints, what looked like subway lines. Double helixes of DNA twisted and spiraled across my screen, then were overlaid with faded, unreadable newspaper clippings, staccato chunks of sound, colored postcards of New York. One image of a building stayed for a few seconds, a tall, greenish building. I saw its address: Thirty-first Street. Then a stream of numbers floated past me. Man, oh, man, oh, man—what did it mean?

  I took a couple deep breaths, feeling the pain ease away. My eyes opened in the dim light of the cathedral. Five very concerned faces were watching me.

  “Can you walk?” Fang asked tersely. I nodded.

  We went out through the tall doors behind a group of Japanese tourists. It was too bright outside, and I shaded my eyes, feeling headachy and kind of sick.

  As soon as we were away from the crowd, I stopped. “I saw Thirty-first Street, in my head,” I said. “And a bunch of numbers.”

  “Which means . . .” Iggy prompted.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe the Institute is on Thirty-first Street?”

  “That would be nice,” said Fang. “East or west?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you see anything else?” he asked patiently.

  “Well, a bunch of numbers,” I said again. “And a tall, kind of greenish building.”

  “We should just walk all the way down Thirty-first Street,” said Nudge. “The whole way, looking for that building. Right? I mean, if that’s the building you saw, maybe it was for a good reason. Or did you see a whole lot of buildings, or a whole city, or what?”

  “Just that building,” I said.

  Nudge’s brown eyes widened. Angel looked solemn. We all felt the same: twitchy with nervous anticipation and also overwhelmed with dread. On the one hand, the Institute might very well hold the key to everything—the answer to every question we’d ever had about ourselves, our past, our parents. We might even find out about the mysterious director the whitecoats had mentioned. On the other hand, it felt like we were voluntarily going up to the School and ringing the doorbell. Like we were delivering ourselves to evil. And those two feelings were pulling us all in half.

  You never know until you know, my Voice chimed in.

  100

  “So do we have money? I hope?” the Gasman asked as we passed a street vendor selling Polish sausage.

  “Maybe,” I said, pulling out the bank card. “What do you think?” I asked Fang. “Should we try this?”

  “Well, we need money, for sure,” he said. “But it might be a trap, a way for them to track where we are and what we’re doing.”

  “Yeah.” I frowned.

  It’s okay, Max. You can use it, said my Voice. Once you get the password.

  Thank you, Voice, I thought sourly. Any hopes of you just telling me the freaking password? Of course not. God forbid anything should come easily to us.

  We had to have money. We could try begging, but we’d probably get the cops called on us ASAP. Runaways and all that. Getting jobs was out of the question also. Stealing? It was a last resort. We weren’t to that point yet.

  This bank card would work at any number of different banks. Taking a deep breath, I swerved over to an ATM. I swiped the card and punched in “maxride.”

  No dice.

  Next I tried our ages: 14, 11, 8, 6.

  Wrong.

  I tried typing in “password.”

  Wrong. The machine shut down and told me to call customer service.

  We kept walking. In a way, it was like we were deliberately slowing ourselves down, to give us time to buck up for the Institute. Or at least, that’s what my inner Dr. Laura thought.

  “What about, like, the first initial of all of our names?” the Gasman suggested.

  “Maybe it’s something like ‘givememoney,’” Nudge said.

  I smiled at her. “It has to be shorter than that.”

  Beside me, Angel was walking with her head down, her little feet dragging.

  If I had money, I could get her another Celeste.

  In the next block, at a different ATM, I tried the first initials of all our names: “MFINGA.” Nope.

  I tried “School” and “Maximum.”

  It told me to call customer service.

  Farther on, I keyed in “Fang,” “Iggy,” and “Gasman.”

  In the next block, I tried “Nudge” and “Angel,” then on a lark I tried today’s date.

  They really wanted me to call customer service.

  I know what you’re thinking: Did I try our birthdays or our Social Security numbers?

  No. None of us knew our actual birth dates, though we had each picked a day we liked and called it our birthday. And the nut jobs at th
e School had mysteriously neglected to register any of us with the Social Security Administration. So none of us could retire any time soon.

  I stopped in front of the next ATM but shook my head in frustration. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted, and it was maybe the second time those words had ever left my lips.

  Angel looked up tiredly, her blue eyes sad. “Why don’t you try ‘mother’?” she asked, and started tracing a crack on the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker.

  “Why do you think that?” I asked, surprised.

  She shrugged, her arm moving to hold Celeste tighter and then falling emptily to her side.

  Fang and I exchanged glances, then I slowly swiped the bank card and punched in the numbers that would spell out “mother.”

  WHAT KIND OF TRANSACTION DO YOU WANT TO MAKE? the screen asked.

  Speechless, I withdrew two hundred dollars and zipped it into my inside pocket.

  “How did you know that?” Fang asked Angel. His tone was neutral, but tension showed in his walk.

  Angel shrugged again, her small shoulders drooping. Even her curls looked limp and sad. “It just came to me,” she said.

  “In a voice?” I asked, wondering if my Voice was hopping around.

  She shook her head no. “The word was just in my head. I don’t know why.”

  Once again, Fang and I looked at each other but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what was on his mind, but I was thinking again about how Angel had been at the School for a few days before we rescued her. Who knows what happened there? What kind of foul, disgusting experiments? Maybe they’d planted a chip in her too.

  Or worse.

  101

  A few more blocks, and we turned left, walking toward the East River. Inside me, the tension mounted. My breath was coming in short huffs. Every step was bringing us closer to what could be the Institute: the place where the secrets of our lives might be revealed, all our questions answered.

  And here’s the thing: I wasn’t even sure I wanted my questions answered. What if my mom had given me away on purpose, like Gasman and Angel’s? What if my parents were horrible people? Or what if they were wonderful, fabulous people who didn’t want a freak mutant daughter with thirteen-foot wings? I mean, not knowing almost seemed easier.