I stopped in my tracks, frozen by shock. The Voice was always coy with information, but as far as I knew, it had never lied to me. (Which meant nothing, I realize.) But—dead?
Dead, the Voice repeated. They’ve been retired. All around the world, every branch of the organization has been terminating their recombinant-DNA experiments. You’re among the only ones left. And they’re coming for you.
10
Ooh, ominous music, right? “They’re coming for you.” Big whoop. They’d been coming for us for four years now. They hadn’t done too well so far.
I strode back to the flock.
“You okay?” Fang asked.
I nodded, then remembered I was mad at him.
I looked away and deliberately sat next to Nudge, against the other canyon wall.
“I just heard from the Voice,” I said.
“What did it say?” Nudge asked, eating a rolled-up piece of bologna.
Angel and Total watched me intently, and Fang stopped typing.
“It said we haven’t been seeing Erasers because they’re all dead,” I said bluntly.
Everyone’s eyes widened to, um, about the size of dinner plates.
“What did it mean, they’re all dead?” Nudge asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. If it’s not pulling my leg, then I would guess it meant...that all the Erasers are taking dirt naps.” I thought about Ari, Jeb’s son, who had been Eraserfied, and felt a tugging pain in my chest. Poor Ari. What a sucky life he’d been born into. And such a short one too.
“Who killed them?” Fang asked, getting to the point, as usual.
“The Voice said...all over the world, every branch of Itex and the Institute and the School—they were all terminating their recombinant-DNA experiments. And that we were almost the only ones left.” It started to sink in, what that meant, and a cold shiver made me put my arms around my knees.
We were all silent for a minute, digesting this.
Then Total said, “Okay, if anyone asks, I can’t talk, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, that’ll fool ’em.”
“What are we gonna do now?” the Gasman asked. He looked very worried and came to sit closer to me. I reached out and fluffed up his mohawk, which had grown out.
“We have a mission,” I began, ready to psych us all up for solving this puzzle. And possibly taking out a few whitecoats while we were at it.
“We need a home,” said Fang, at almost the exact same time.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“We need to find a permanent home,” Fang said seriously. “We can’t last on the run much longer. I say screw the mission. Let them blow up the world. We can find a place to hide out where no one can find us, and we can just...live.”
11
We all stared at Fang. That was the longest statement any of us had ever heard him utter.
“We can’t forget the mission,” I began, just as Angel said, “Yeah! We need a home!”
“A home!” said the Gasman, looking thrilled.
“A real home, better than our last one,” Nudge agreed happily. “With no grown-ups, and no school or school uniforms.”
“A home with a yard and lots of grass,” said Total. “No more of this pebbles-and-dirt crap.”
Why was I the only one who needed to know what was going on, who needed to understand what had happened to us and why? After everything we’d been through in the last few months, now they were ready to just throw it all away? I mean, Angel’s kidnapping, going to New York, the subway tunnels, the beach, staying with Anne Walker, going to that school...
Oh. Well, okay. So they might be a little tired of the fear, pain, and mayhem, but still...
“Iggy?” I said, trying to keep the pleading out of my voice.
“Let’s see,” he said, holding out his hands as if they were a scale. “Hmm. On the one hand, we have constant, desperate, heart-pounding escapes, day after day, never knowing what’s going to happen to us or whether we’ll even be alive the next day...”
I frowned, seeing where he was going with this.
“On the other hand, a home: hidden, safe, sleeping in the same bed every night, relaxing, not having to fight for our lives at a moment’s notice...”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
They watched me, waiting.
What was with Fang? Why was he undermining me like this? I used to feel so connected to him, like he was my absolute best friend in the world, someone who always had my back. Now I looked at him and felt as if I hardly knew him.
Reluctantly I shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever. A home, whatever.”
The ecstatic cheering only made me feel worse.
12
“I’m not giving up the mission,” I said, loud enough for Fang, several yards away, to hear me. We were only about eight thousand feet in the air, but it was really cold, probably below freezing. The wind in my eyes made them water constantly.
“I know.”
“This is stupid,” I said. Looking down, I saw the Pecos River winding like a thin, shiny snake through west Texas.
“Their hopes and dreams aren’t stupid,” Fang said, and I felt a flush warm my cheeks.
“That’s not what I meant,” I grumbled. “It’s just—we were on a path. Now we’re just leaving that path. One day I’m supposed to be saving the world, and the next I’m out looking for real estate. I don’t get it. Plus, thanks to your little plan, we can’t spit without being spotted and recognized. Where was my brain when I agreed to that one?”
Fang opened his mouth, but I interrupted. “Plus, now, thanks to you, we left the younger kids to be watched over by a blind guy and a talking dog. I must be insane! I mean, even more insane than usual. I’m going back.”
I dipped one wing, ready to make a big wheeling turn, but Fang edged into my way, his face set.
“You promised,” he said, making me scowl. “You said you’d give a quick recon, see if we could find a place.”
I kept up the scowl, thankful that not once in my whole life had anyone felt compelled to tell me not to ruin my pretty face like that.
“Let them blow up the world, and global-warm it, and pollute it,” Fang said. “You and me and the others will be holed up somewhere, safe. We’ll come back out when they’re all gone, done playing their games of world domination.”
He had positively become a chatterbox lately.
“That’s a great plan. Of course, by then we won’t be able to go outside because we’ll get fried by the lack of ozone layer,” I said, getting worked up. “We’ll be living in damp caves, eating at the bottom of the food chain because everything with any flavor will be full of mercury or radiation or something!”
I recognized Fang’s face of exaggerated patience, which of course got on my last nerve.
“And there won’t be any TV or cable because all the people will be dead!” I was on a roll now. “So our only entertainment will be Gazzy singing the constipation song! And there won’t be amusement parks and museums and zoos and libraries and cute shoes! We’ll be like cavemen, trying to weave clothes out of plant fibers. We’ll have nothing! Nothing! All because you and the kids want to kick back in a La-Z-Boy during the most important time in history!”
I was practically frothing at the mouth.
Fang looked at me. “So maybe we should sign you up for a weaving class. Get a jump on all those plant fibers.”
I stared at him, saw how he was trying to suppress his laughter at my vision of the apocalypse.
Something inside me snapped. My whole world had gotten turned on its head in the last twenty-four hours. Like, my old world had sucked so bad, and this world, amazingly, sucked worse.
“I hate you!” I screamed at Fang. Tucking my wings in, I aimed downward, diving toward the ground at more than two hundred miles an hour.
“No you dooonnn’t!” Fang’s voice spiraled away into nothingness, far above me.
Inside my
head, almost drowned out by the roar of wind rushing by my ears, I heard the Voice make a tsking sound. You guys are crazy about each other, it said.
13
“Oh, yeah. No bedtime. It’s a good thing,” Gazzy sang, doing a little dance.
“Look, just because Max isn’t here doesn’t mean all the rules have gone out the window,” Iggy said, facing him. “She left me in charge, and I’m gonna make sure to do everything she would—” He couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and cracked up, bending over and clutching his stomach.
Nudge rolled her eyes, and she and Angel shared a smile. She picked up a small handful of pebbles and carefully started distributing them among other little piles.
“Mancala, huh?” Total said, lying down next to them. “Next time we’re in a store, let’s lift some cards. We could play Texas hold ’em. I would kick your butts.” His small, shiny nose twitched as he watched them play.
“That’s a good idea,” said Nudge, as Angel distributed her pile, though she had no idea how Total would hold the cards. Unless he had opposable thumbs hidden under his paw fur. Which, come to think of it, he very well might. Checking behind her, she saw she had enough room to let her wings stretch out a bit, so she extended them, enjoying the feeling. “Ahh.”
“I want wings,” Total said, not for the first time. “If I could fly, no one would have to carry me. If they could graft wings onto those big lunking Erasers, they could definitely patch a pair onto me.”
“It would hurt, Total,” said Angel, studying the mancala game.
“Do you think the Erasers are really gone?” Nudge asked them. In the background, she heard Iggy saying, “No, see, you need the spark to ignite it. You need the flint to make the spark, see?”
Gazzy murmured, “Yeah, but what about the bleach?” and then their voices faded again.
Nudge sighed. This was the kind of thing she wished Max or Fang were here to handle.
“Hey, guys?” Iggy called. Nudge looked up.
“How about a little test flight?” he said. “A little wheeling-around like the hawks showed us. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” said Angel. She smiled at Nudge. “You were about to win anyway.”
Nudge grinned back. “I know.” Standing up, she dusted off her jeans and pulled her wings in to walk to the end of the tiny canyon.
One by one, the bird kids leaped off the ledge, falling downward for a few moments before hauling out their wings, strong, light, and catching the wind in their feathers. Nudge loved this feeling, the sensation of power and freedom, the knowledge that she could rise up from the ground like an angel. Any time she wanted to.
She smiled over at Angel, who turned to smile back at her. Then Angel’s eyes went wide, and her face took on a look of horror. Nudge whirled as a large shadow blotted the light from the flock.
A wide, thick swarm of Erasers was flying right toward them. They were back!
14
“Seriously, we have to talk,” said Fang.
I sighed, looking up at the sky. “It’s just like dolphins chirping,” I said regretfully, talking out loud to myself. “I hear sounds, but none of them make sense.”
I put my hands on my hips and surveyed the scene below us. “No water source. Let’s go.”
Without waiting for him, I launched myself off the low cliff, moving my wings powerfully, heading toward the sun. We’d stopped twice already, and neither place had all the stuff we needed: close-by food source, water, safety.
This was completely pointless, as opposed to my original plan, which was completely pointed.
Without turning my head, I glanced out of the corners of my eyes to see Fang’s sleek wings behind me. He was acting weird. I didn’t think Fang had been replaced by a clone the way I had at one point. Yes, folks, in my life, that’s actually a legitimate concern. Take a moment and count your blessings.
Maybe he really does just want to talk, said the Voice.
Oh, yeah, ’cause Fang is all about the wordy sharing of feelings, I thought back. Something’s up, something he’s not telling me.
And I would get it out of him at the next place we stopped. This was one mystery I could solve, even if I had to beat it out of him.
15
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Gazzy yelled. “The Erasers’ all being dead!”
“I didn’t feel them coming,” Angel said, confused.
Nudge’s heart was pounding, the blood rushing in her ears. These Erasers moved more in sync with one another than the others they had encountered, but still awkwardly, choppily. Nudge shot a last look at Angel, then soared upward just as the Erasers hit them.
Focus. That’s what Max always said. Focus.
Concentrating, Nudge dropped down on an Eraser, smashing her sneakered feet against its head. Then, whirling, she cracked the hard edge of her hand against its windpipe. The Eraser made a weird noise and started to lose altitude.
“Nudge! Watch it!” Gazzy screamed.
Wham! An iron-hard punch to the ribs knocked Nudge’s breath away, and she sucked in air soundlessly, trying not to panic. Instinctively she remembered to keep moving her wings, staying aloft long enough to regain her breath.
But there was no time—the Eraser came at her again, fist cocked back to punch. At the last second, Nudge dropped suddenly, so that its big, hairy arm swished through empty air.
“Take that, sucker!” she wheezed.
Surging upward, Nudge kicked it, aiming for its stomach but actually hitting somewhat lower. The Eraser doubled over without a sound, and Nudge clasped her hands together and brought them down on the back of its neck as hard as she could.
“Ow!” Angel’s cry of pain made Nudge whirl, and she saw the smallest member of the flock being held by one arm as she ineffectually tried to kick her captor.
Nudge rushed over but was beaten there by Iggy, following the sound of Angel’s voice. Together they pummeled the Eraser, and Iggy chopped down on the arm holding Angel. With a strange roar, the Eraser turned and pulled back its arm, and then made an odd strangled sound.
Looking down, Nudge saw Total chomping on the Eraser’s ankle, shaking his head even as he dangled there, high above the ground—with no wings.
“Get him,” she whispered to Angel, who nodded and quickly dropped ten feet. The Eraser shook its leg, but Total closed his eyes and clamped down harder, growling fiercely. Judging from the other muffled sounds, he was also swearing a blue streak.
“Yo!” yelled the Gasman, catching everyone’s attention. “Fire in the hole!”
16
Nudge’s side was killing her, and she still felt low on oxygen. But experience had taught that when Gazzy or Iggy said something like that, you ducked and covered as fast as you could. So she folded in her wings, immediately dropping like a stone.
A good thirty feet down, she unfurled her wings and shot to one side, just as Gazzy pushed an Eraser away from him with a muttered “Oof!” Angel had grabbed Total, Iggy had grabbed Angel, and they were hauling upward like pocket rockets.
There were five Erasers left—Nudge guessed they’d disposed of about half of them. Her ribs felt broken, she wished Max and Fang were here, and she didn’t know wh—
BOOM!
“Gross!” Nudge shrieked, as bits of Eraser hit her. “Gross, gross, gross! Oh, God, Gazzy! Gross!”
Nudge worked her wings, moving up toward Iggy. She passed one main chunk of an Eraser dropping past her, and saw two others that had been wounded—one’s wing was broken almost off, and the other appeared to be missing a leg.
But it was weird, the way—
“You have terminated me,” one of them said in a strange, flat voice. “But I am one of many.”
“Robots!” Iggy breathed, taking Total from Angel.
“One of many, one of many, one of many,” the robot Eraser was saying. Now Nudge saw the red light in its eyes, saw how they were fading and winking out.
“Good!” spat the Gasman, kicking it hard. “Beca
use we like to blow stuff up, blow stuff up, blow stuff up!”
Then all the remaining Erasers seemed to fold in on themselves, as if programmed, and dropped out of sight. A long, long time later, the flock saw the small poofs of dust and dirt showing that they’d finally hit the canyon floor.
“Well, that was different,” Iggy said.
“And so gross!” Nudge said, still brushing Eraser shards off herself.
17
“What are you thinking about?” Fang’s quiet voice barely carried to me over the crackling of the fire.
I’m thinking about how much easier it was when everyone just did what I told them, I thought sourly. “Wondering if the kids are okay,” I said.
“That place was way secluded and easy to defend. And if the Erasers are all dead...” Fang pulled a stick out of the fire and blew on a crisp piece of roasted rabbit.
Yes, rabbit. We’d caught it, and now we were going to eat it. I won’t go into all the steps in between. The thing is, when you have to survive, you have to survive. I hope you never need to find that out for yourself.
He handed the stick to me, and I started gnawing, grinning at how surprisingly few etiquette rules seemed to apply here. Then I started laughing.
Fang looked at me.
“Thanksgiving at Anne’s,” I said. “Sit up straight, napkin in lap, wait for everyone to be served, say grace, take small amounts, use the salad fork, no burping.”
I waved a hand around the dusty cave, where we squatted by a fire, tearing off strips of Thumper with our teeth.
Fang gave a half smile and nodded. “At least it isn’t desert rat.”
Okay, you sissies in the back, the ones going “Eew!” Let’s see you go without anything to eat for three days, especially if you’re a biological anomaly who needs three thousand calories a day minimum, and then someone presents you with a hot, smoky, charred piece of rat au jus. You’d scarf it down so fast you’d burn your tongue. There would be no quibbling about ketchup either.