“Max, please,” Jeb said.
“We’re asking you to do this for your own good,” said Dr. Über-Goober.
“The stuff you’re asking me to do for my own good would stun a yak,” I said pointedly. “No.”
“My plane is right outside.” Jeb tried again. “Or you can fly yourself. I just want you to see the possibilities.”
“Nope.” I took another bite of PB&J. Even my mom’s peanut-butter sandwiches tasted better than any other peanut-butter sandwiches. I highly recommend having a mom.
“It isn’t far—a twenty-minute flight.” Jeb tried to sound stern.
“Tough,” I said through a mouthful of sandwich.
“Max, this really isn’t optional,” Dr. Hans said firmly. “The Rocco Laurie School for the Gifted houses many of the children you will be leading when the time comes. They need to be able to recognize you and vice versa.”
I gestured at him with my sandwich. “Don’t even talk to me.” Then I turned to our resident blond cherub. “Angel, what do you think of all of this?” I admit it. I was waiting for Angel to step up and volunteer to be Queen of the World. It was what she’d been wanting. She wanted to run the flock. She wanted to take over my job. She wanted to have power. “Are you interested in meeting this little gaggle of Gen 77 kids?”
But Angel remained uncharacteristically quiet. Calculating her next move maybe.
“You can’t just pretend this isn’t happening, that you aren’t destined for this,” Jeb said. I detected a note of frustration in his voice. Good. “The Gen 77 kids need you, whether you acknowledge them or not. Don’t you think it makes sense for you to see them? To know them?”
Angel stood up. Here we go, I thought. “Max doesn’t want to go, Jeb,” she said. “So we’re not going.”
Did she—did she say we’re not going? I glanced at her, and she gave me a sweet smile, just like the old days.
“Yeah,” said Dylan, coming to stand behind me. “Max leads the flock. If she doesn’t want to go, then we don’t go.”
It would have been churlish to remind Dylan just then that he wasn’t part of my flock.
Jeb and Dr. G-H looked like they wanted to tear their hair out.
“Well, you know, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Gen 77 kids.” I looked up as my mom stepped forward. Come again? “Just see them.” She smiled at me apologetically. “I know how you feel, Max,” she went on, noticing the shock twisting my face, “and I don’t blame you. But as a scientist, I have an insatiable curiosity. And I think we need to see some of this new generation, whether you lead them or not. We need to know what’s going on out there. It’s for our own good.”
I sighed, beaten. Oh, like I’m gonna tell my mom no?
11
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT flying that helps clear the cobwebs from my mind, puts everything into perspective, and makes me feel strong and powerful. And often I can leave annoying people behind on the ground. Always satisfying.
This day, I had left the annoying people in Jeb’s airplane, trapped inside a little tin can, while I flew free, chilly air filling my lungs, about two hundred feet away from them. The plane was small, a fancy corporate jet, and everyone—the flock, my mom, Dr. Gub-Hub, the blond DNA donor, and of course Jeb—had opted to travel the easy way.
One odd thing about flying today: the cobwebs weren’t clearing out of my head. Instead, my mind was clouded with misgivings as we flew low over the Arizona mountains. I had not promised to lead the Gen 77 kids. This was a look-see only. I mean, who am I? Joan of Flock? I had my hands full with my own family, my own romantic disasters complications. I couldn’t help wondering if this had all been a setup—if Jeb and the Hanster had cooked up this plan to get us interested, to get us on their side. I can’t help it—it’s just my suspicious nature. That, and the fact that they’re both lying, manipulative weasels.
Oh, I see something, Angel thought at me. (She’s the only one of us who can project thoughts into other minds at will.) At two o’clock.
I looked, and when I squinted, I could see buildings with camouflage netting, in shades of tan and green and brown, over them. Which made them almost impossible to detect from the air. Unless you had super birdkid raptor vision.
Yeah, got it, I thought. Well, let’s go down and see what we can find out. But way deep inside, I was thinking that maybe I would just hang back, be on my guard, not get sucked into a trap.
Then I remembered that Angel could read minds and that I couldn’t actually keep some thoughts deeper inside my head than others.
Crap.
I sped up, leaving the plane behind, and concentrated on the ground, scanning the area a good distance out. I saw no vehicles, no—
I don’t know what made me look up at that moment, but I did, and suddenly, not fifty feet in front of my face, was a huge, clear—jellyfish? I was going almost three hundred miles an hour, and I plowed right into that sucker.
12
IT WAS LIKE hitting a squishy balloon. Going as fast as I was, I sank deep into it, as if I’d hit a bouncy castle face-first and vertically. My head was pressed against a thick, smooth film, and for several horrible moments I had the feeling of being smothered, my wings bent painfully back. Then, boing! I bounced out of it, arms and legs flailing wildly, my stalled wings causing me to drop quickly before I could catch myself.
What the heck?!
It had literally bounced me back about sixty feet, and from this distance I could see that it was a huge, clear, weird thing. It was practically invisible, and I realized with shock that there were hundreds of these balloon-type things, each one as big as a city bus. They were all tethered to the ground below by hairlike, glistening metal wires.
Cautiously I got a little closer, and then zzzip! The tip of one of my wings brushed a wire, which sliced the ends off some of my primary feathers. It didn’t hit skin or bone, but it went through my feathers like they were tissue paper.
It seems the glistening was caused by diamond dust. These wires were designed to slice things—
I whirled, waving my arms at the jet, which was approaching fast, hoping Angel would tune in to my thoughts
Angel! Get Jeb to swerve! This place is booby-trapped!
Angel looked out the window at me, then rushed to the cockpit, yelling.
But it was too late—the plane flew right into the sea of wires.
Almost immediately, one of the engines sucked a balloon-type thing into its intake, and boom! There was a huge explosion and a fireball twenty feet across. The force threw me back, heat searing my face and wings. I backpedaled quickly as several other balloons exploded, tossing the jet to and fro.
Then the wires did to the battered, burned plane what they had done to my feathers. They sheared off the jet’s metal wings, like a hot knife through butter.
Can a plane fly without wings? Not so much.
13
FEAR GRIPPED MY HEART as the plane lurched forward, a silent, wingless coffin, the engines dropping earthward as the jet began to nosedive.
Angel pressed her scared face to a window, then was flung to the rear of the plane with the others as the fuselage started to spiral, falling faster, now practically vertical. Almost everyone I loved was trapped inside that metal tube of death.
I let myself drop close to the plane and landed on it with a thunk. I grabbed the door handle, bracing my feet against the side of the plane, but of course I couldn’t open the door from outside. In the cockpit, it looked like Jeb and Dr. Hans were shouting orders.
They had only seconds. I saw Dylan grabbing one seat after another, going hand over hand to reach the door below him.
Angel! Listen to me! I yelled inside my head. If the door opens, everything inside will be sucked out fast. Get the flock out first!
Inside the plane, Dylan lost his handhold and fell, then I saw a flash of Nudge hanging upside down, her eyes wide with terror.
Tell the others to let themselves be pulled out and away from the plane. Then Iggy and Nu
dge should try to grab Jeb. Dylan and Gazzy should grab Dr. Hans. You and I will grab my mom. We can do this! I was thankful that Ella was at school.
I heard someone pounding on the door from the inside, and suddenly it popped open and was ripped off by the force. Instantly, blankets, cups, seat cushions, books, anything that wasn’t tied down, whooshed out, a streaming mass of objects moving at deadly speed. A seat cushion whapped me in the forehead, snapping my head back, but I hunkered down and stayed close by.
We were maybe three thousand very short feet up, and my heart was in my throat as I saw Nudge, then Angel, then Gazzy and Iggy jump out of the plane. Dylan, making good use of his genetically enhanced strength, braced his body in the doorway to help keep the others from being sucked out violently by the riptide of air.
“Go south!” I shouted. “Three o’clock!”
Okay. Thank God. My flock was out safely and could land under their own power. But my mom… I saw her approach the doorway, looking terrified. Dylan yelled something, and she nodded, her face white.
“Help!” Nudge shouted. I spun around to see her caught in the whirling slipstream of the plane—Iggy too! The powerful blast of air had shot them toward the diamond-dust razor wire. There were deep gashes in their wings. Blood spiraled away from them in fine arcs.
“Get out of there!” I yelled, as if that hadn’t already occurred to them. Nudge and Iggy were now totally out of control, cartwheeling through the air. The pain in their sliced wings made them want to close them, and the air billowing through their feathers was making their injuries worse. But pulling in their wings meant certain death—they would only drop that much faster.
“Nudge! Iggy!” I screamed as they fell away from me. “Hang on! We’ll help you!” Then—
“Max!” my mom shouted and jumped out of the plane. Angel and I shot over to her and grabbed her, synchronizing our wings so they didn’t hit each other.
The wind and slipstream tried to pull the three of us away from each other. I concentrated on Angel, seeing the strain on her face. Her wings were powerful; she was using all her strength. My brave little soldier.
Below me, Nudge and Iggy were still struggling, their tattered wings barely keeping them aloft. I made an executive decision.
“Angel, go help Iggy and Nudge,” I directed.
Angel looked at me, and I knew that we were both thinking the same thing: Could I hold my mom up by myself? Would Angel even be able to help Iggy and Nudge?
And where were Gazzy, Dylan, Jeb, and Dr. Hans? I couldn’t let go of my mom, but everything in me was telling me to save the rest of the flock.
This didn’t even qualify as a choice.
14
“SO… YOU IN?” Fang said, meeting the guy’s gaze.
Ratchet’s face, now hidden behind aviator sunglasses, gave nothing away. In the shadows, his skin seemed to absorb what little light there was. He slouched in the booth, his hoodie pulled up over massive, noise-canceling headphones. Fang had chosen the darkest corner in the diner on purpose, but this guy seemed to think they were still at risk.
Finally, Ratchet nodded. “I’m in, like I told you. But we need to get out of here—fast. My gang won’t be happy that I’ve disappeared. I was, like, their most valuable player, you know? ‘The Man’ when something was up.”
Fang’s expression remained neutral. “You were kidnapped,” he pointed out. “If anyone saw anything, they’ll think it was against your will.”
Ratchet shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s really loud in here. Think we can go talk somewhere a little quieter?”
Fang glanced at the two other people in the diner—the waitress, who looked to be about sixty, was humming to herself, and a man wearing a trucker hat was sipping coffee alone. Fang raised his eyebrows.
“Wish we could—coffee’s terrible—but I’m waiting on another contact. How’d you get messed up in that street business anyway?”
Ratchet let out a breath and shrugged. “My mom. She kicked me out. Thought I was spying on her ’cause I could hear what she was saying anywhere in the house, even when she was whispering. Got to thinking I was a demon or something, reading her thoughts and stuff.”
Fang nodded, thinking of Angel.
“Spent a couple of weeks on the street, and let me tell you, it’s not as fun as you’d think. I was like a starved rat by the time these brothers picked me up, offering protection. They didn’t care if I was a freak, ’cause they needed a lookout.”
“How long ago was that?”
Ratchet shrugged. “Four, five months, but when you’re in—” Suddenly, he looked up. “Who’s she?” Ratchet asked, peering over Fang’s shoulder. Fang turned around and looked through the grubby diner window. He saw no one.
“Who?”
Rachet sighed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The blond chick. She’s got your name scribbled on a Post-it.”
Fang turned around again and squinted. He could just barely make out a figure approaching from two or three blocks away.
He had to admit—he was impressed.
15
FIGHTING PANIC, STAYING ALOFT, Gazzy looked all around him. To his horror, he saw Jeb standing in the doorway of the spiraling, smoking plane.
Another quick look showed no Dylan, no Dr. Hans. Max had Dr. Martinez, and Angel was helping Nudge and Iggy as best she could. That left only Gazzy…
He tucked back his wings, angled his body, and shot down. Gazzy reached Jeb just as he leaped desperately into the air. Moving fast, Gazzy wedged his hands beneath Jeb’s flailing arms. Jeb twisted around and clutched Gazzy’s forearms, but he hung like dead weight.
“Spread your arms and legs out wide!” Gazzy yelled to Jeb. “It’ll help slow you down!”
“I’m too heavy!” Jeb cried into Gazzy’s ear. “You can’t support my weight by yourself!”
“Uhh,” Gazzy said nervously, but it was the truth.
“Gazzy! Listen to me! You all need to know”—he felt Jeb loosen his hold—“the human race will have to die to save the planet!”
Gazzy grimaced and his heart pounded with panic as he watched the ground rushing up at them horribly fast.
“Just like I have to die—to save you!”
And before Gazzy could say anything, Jeb had let go. Reflexively, Gazzy reached out to grab Jeb, even as he dropped ten, twenty, thirty feet away from him in seconds.
“I’m sorry, Jeb!” Gazzy yelled. “I’m sorry!” All he saw was Jeb’s face, white and scared, as it got smaller and smaller below him.
Then Gazzy realized that was the last time he would see Jeb alive, ever again.
And it was his fault.
16
STAR LOOKED DISGUSTED by the sushi. And by everything else. Her cold blue eyes were dancing between Fang and Ratchet, and Fang wondered if she was about to bolt, to blow this whole thing off. She’d almost wrecked the joint when she learned they didn’t serve burgers and shakes.
Ratchet eyed Star’s school uniform, her designer bag, and her immaculately painted nails, and scowled. “We don’t have very much in common, Twinkle,” he huffed. “But sushi’s a barfathon, I’ll give you that.”
“How can you not like sushi?” Fang said, spearing another California roll and trying to be sociable to ease the tension. “Wasabi. It’s like a party in my mouth.”
Star regarded the two of them coolly, her light blond hair swinging softly around her shoulders. “You guys don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t like it. It just isn’t enough. I need more. Bigger. Better.”
“Ooh, daddy’s little girl is used to bigger,” Ratchet said in a high, mocking voice. Then returning to a coarse rumble, he said, “I guess size matters to you, huh?”
Star’s glare was so icy that Fang almost felt a chill in the air. If it was possible for a Catholic schoolgirl to look lethal, at that moment Star certainly did.
She turned to Fang and said, “I can’t work with him.”
Then she picked up her chops
ticks and began shoveling pieces of sushi into her mouth like a bulldozer. Fang gaped, letting some sushi fall from his chopsticks. This girl was rail thin, and she was putting away more than he and Max could eat—combined. And that was really saying something.
“Will there be anyone else?” Star said, slapping down her chopsticks. She’d managed to eat half the menu in thirty seconds without getting a single drop of sauce on her crisp white blouse.
“Yes,” Fang said. “At the hotel. And you also mentioned you had a friend?”
Star nodded. “Kate. She goes to my school. She won’t be here for a while yet. She’s strong, but I’m fast.”
“Guess so,” Fang said. “You got here way sooner than I expected. Weren’t you coming down here from almost twenty miles north?”
Star shrugged. “I ran.”
“In those shoes?” Ratchet snorted. “That’s likely.”
Fang had to wonder. After all, a twenty-mile run would’ve had to result in at least a minor sweat, if not a few stray hairs. But Star looked yearbook-photo ready.
“Show us, Star,” Fang said with a faint smile of curiosity.
And that was how they ended up “drag racing” until the wee morning hours. Except that it was Fang’s wings against Star’s feet against Ratchet in a hot-wired Camaro. Star got so bored with winning after a dozen races that she started to give the guys a head start. The more they lost, the more they wanted to win, until Ratchet couldn’t stand the embarrassment anymore.
“I give up,” he yelled, climbing out of the car and slamming the door extra hard.
“Me too,” Fang said, out of breath as he landed, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
“So did I pass my audition?” Star asked, with no bead of sweat on her brow to wipe.