Max

  I wanted time to stand still, and not in the creepy, 'someone injected drugs into my brain so time has become meaningless' kind of way but just…every second had weight. My skin was tingling, my brain was racing, and everything seemed extra whatever it was. Extrafun. Extrabeautiful. Extrayummy.

  The hand holding Fang's seemed to have three times as many sense receptors, and I hoped it wasn't some new ability showing up. I was still worried about gills appearing.

  This totally felt like a date.

  And the beautiful part? He'd turned down Dr. Stupendous to be with moi. He'd dissed her and dismissed her, so he could eat kimchi and ice cream with yours featherly.

  "Max?"

  I suddenly became aware that Fang had said my name like three times. Now he stopped and looked at me. "Are you okay? Is the Voice back, giving you instructions?"

  "Uh-huh. It's in the middle of the crossword of the day."

  He smiled, and we kept walking.

  "No, I was just spacing out," I said, licking my ice cream. I had gotten a double scoop of mint chocolate chip and orange sherbet, two great tastes that tasted great together.

  "Well, tomorrow we leap into action," he said. "So, last chance to space out for a while."

  "Yeah. I just hope—"

  "I know. I'm sure she's okay. We'll get there in time. And I promise to let you take her kidnappers apart all by yourself."

  He knew me so well. "Thanks. It's just—it's bad enough to worry about the flock. Is Nudge okay, is everyone here, are we together, are we safe? I can't stand the circle getting bigger. I can only worry about so much before my head explodes, you know?"

  He nodded. "You know I got your back. You're not alone."

  I couldn't speak for a moment, so I swallowed hard and cleaned up a drip making its way down my sugar cone. "Thanks," I said finally. "I know." Suddenly we were at a metal railing, looking out at water. "Oh! Is this the ocean?"

  "It keeps cropping up. What with the islandness and all."

  Fang dropped my hand to put his arm around my shoulders, his warmth searing my skin through my jacket. I really, really hoped that I hadn't suddenly sprouted a catrillion new nerve endings. Yes, it would make moments like this better, but the downside? Pain and torture would be a million times worse. Guess which one I was more likely to come up against?

  I finished my cone, sucking the ice cream out of the hole in the bottom before I realized how tacky and ungirl-like that was. Oops. I wiped my hands on my jeans and looked out at the deep blue water, glistening with moonlight, knowing that somewhere my mom was being held captive beneath it.

  Then I realized that despite everything, I felt… happy? Safe? Complete? I didn't know what to call it. It wasn't something that I was on familiar terms with. I just knew I didn't want this night to end.

  I mean, I did, of course—because when the night ended, we would finally, finally, finally go save my mom.

  But besides that, I didn't want this night to end.

  "Max." Fang put two fingers under my chin—I hoped it wasn't sticky but wasn't sure—and gently turned me to face him. "You're a million miles away again."

  "Sorry." Once more I cursed Jeb for not grafting the gift of gab into my DNA. Jerk.

  "Are you too worried about your mom? Do you want to head back?"

  "No," I said, meeting his gaze. "No. I'm okay. Just—kind of overwhelmed." I gave a little cough. "I don't want to go back. I want to be here with you."

  Something lit in his black eyes. "Yeah?"

  I nodded.

  "So… you're choosing me?"

  Okay, if this is what falling in love feels like, someone please kill me now. (Not literally, overzealous readers.) But it was all too much—too much emotion, too much happiness, too much longing, perhaps too much ice cream…

  I had to grip the metal railing hard with both hands so I wouldn't throw myself over it, to streak away into the night, into darkness and safety. Tough it out, Max, I told myself—or maybe it was the Voice.

  But it didn't matter, because then Fang leaned down and kissed me, and I put my arms around him, right there in front of everyone, and kissed him back with everything I had.

  And then, all heck broke loose.

  Of course.

  Because this is my life, right?

  42

  I MISS HER, but… it's kind of nice not having Nudge around being all goody-goody," Gazzy whispered as they quietly shut the Quonset hut door behind them.

  "How can you say that? I totally miss her." Angel breathed. "Oh—guards ahead at two o'clock. Let's detour."

  Iggy, Gazzy, and Angel pressed themselves into the shadows as MPs carrying rifles marched by on their rounds. When the MPs were out of earshot, the three bird kids hustled across the training field to the high fence, then nimbly flew over it and headed to the beach, well below any radar.

  When they'd landed on the sand, Gazzy continued. "I miss Nudge too—a lot. But you know she was always the one who'd be like, 'We better ask Max. Maybe we shouldn't do this. Are you sure that's okay?' and stuff." Gazzy had mimicked Nudge's voice so perfectly that the other two, for a split second, expected to see her standing right there next to them.

  "Well, Nudge isn't here," said Iggy, kicking off his shoes. "I wish she was, annoying caution and all. But since she isn't"—he turned and grinned—"we can try the super-duper-oxygen-scoopers!" He held up a couple of contraptions that consisted of pilfered scuba masks, a vacuum cleaner hose, the motor from a blender, and some charcoal briquettes.

  Gazzy held out his hand. "Super-duper-oxygen-scooper, please," he said solemnly. He and Iggy each donned a contraption.

  "You guys should really just try breathing under water," Angel said, her hands on her hips. "It's really important! Just try!"

  "The last time I tried, I hurled for half an hour," Gazzy said, his voice muffled by the tube in his mouth. "Max still won't swim in that stretch of ocean off the East Coast. Nope, for me, it's the latest handy-dandy inventionuoso by that brilliant duo of mutant scientists: Iggy and the Gasman! Who have genius programmed right in!"

  Angel rolled her eyes behind her goggles, which Gazzy could easily see in the bright moonlight. Then she jumped upward, spread her pure-white wings, and flew out over the water. Gazzy and Iggy followed her.

  When they were about a quarter mile from shore, they all folded back their wings, and dove in.

  Even at night, with their raptor eyesight, they could see a whole different world under water, and set off to explore.

  The super-duper-oxygen-scoopers worked as planned, siphoning ocean water through some filters, separating the air out, and shunting it into the boys' mouths. Gazzy took Iggy's hand and touched it to his own, which was making a triumphant thumbs-up. Iggy nodded enthusiastically.

  Look! Sharks!

  Angel's thought floated into Gazzy's brain, and for a second he was jealous that his own flesh-and-blood-and-feather sister could do that and he couldn't. But his head swiveled until he saw Iggy pointing to the left. His heart quickened as he saw the enormous hammerhead shark seeming to glide lazily through the water.

  Iggy took the rebreather out of his mouth. "I can sort of see down here!" His words were bubbly and indistinct, but Gazzy and Angel could make them out. "It's like my echolocation works superwell!" He grinned hugely, then put his rebreather back in. "Oh. Big sharks."

  Again Gazzy turned to see several more hammerheads slowly undulating through the water. He was close enough to see their weirdly dead-looking eyes, and he shivered. Meeting Angel's glance, he signaled to her: make them go away. She nodded, looking disappointed, then fastened her gaze on the huge fish.

  It took several moments, and Gazzy had no idea what she told them, but the sharks gradually drifted away. Breathing a bubbly sigh of relief, Gazzy swam toward the large coral reef. He almost wished he could live under water all the time. It was so peaceful. There were so many amazing things to see—starfish clinging to the reef, a million different kinds of fish, some of them tiny and br
illiantly colored, and some of them—

  "Waugh!" Gazzy shouted into his rebreather. Right next to him, about three times as big as he is, was an enormous silver fish, its body shaped like a gigantic silver dollar rimmed with bright orange red fins.

  The fish looked at him. Gazzy, frozen, looked back. The fish seemed to tilt its head to one side, puzzling over Gazzy, who could hardly breathe.

  Angel swam up, smiling. She reached out her hand and stroked the shiny silver side. The fish seemed to enjoy it and turned to her. Angel tickled under its chin. Gazzy could swear that it grinned. Slowly he stretched out his own hand and patted the fish's side. It was smooth and cool, with tiny ruffled scales. It was like a big fish-dog, practically wagging its tail fin with delight.

  Then two things happened: First, several sudden, searing strings brushed against Gazzy's face and arms, causing him to shriek and almost lose the rebreather. And then Iggy shouted: "Sharks! Sharks! And they're bloody!"

  The pain on his face and arms was so intense, Gazzy felt like he might pass out. But through the bloody water, he could blearily see the hammerheads thrashing, eating something big and white.

  At that moment several of the enormous predators turned and spotted Iggy, Angel, and Gazzy. They no longer looked calm and placid. They looked sharp, powerful, fast, and hungry. With jaws agape to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth, they whipped their long tails back and forth, speeding toward the three bird kids.

  43

  OKAY, I CONFESS: When I heard the deep, rumbling noises and picked up on the bright flashes, even through my closed eyelids, all I thought was, Oh, my God. Fang is rocking my world! Just like those teen magazines say: "Does he put stars in your eyes? Does your heart skip a beat? Does the earth move whenever he's around?"

  I was thinking, Yes, yes, yes! All of those things!

  Then I realized it was partly Fang and partly a bunch of M-Geeks with automatic weapons. The area around me was being strafed with bullets. Because this is me we're talking about, not some cute teenager with shiny hair, a perfect smile, and no wings.

  "Duck!" Fang yelled, pushing me to the ground and rolling with me under a cement bench. All around us, bullets sent chips of concrete ricocheting through the air. One shard hit my cheek, and I winced at the sting.

  "I knew this was too good to be true," I muttered, and Fang squeezed my side. "You think they know we're here to rescue my mom? Are we getting too close?" Peering out from under our bench, we saw that there weren't that many of the dumb-bots—maybe about twenty. They gave new meaning to the phrase "heavily armed."

  As the gang of M-Geeks slowly moved in, closing in a semicircle, all around us people were screaming and running away. Soon we would be surrounded, with just a shot-up bench between us and a bunch of trigger-happy robots grafted with Uzis.

  Max the Leader stepped up. "Okay, behind us there's a metal railing, then the cliff, and the ocean," I said to Fang quickly. "Ease backward, beneath the railing, then drop down the cliff face. Wings out, we zoom up, and circle around in back of them."

  "Excellent plan," Fang whispered. "Then what?"

  "No idea. Start backing."

  Fang shot out from beneath the bench, scurrying over the cliff in less than a second. I was right behind him. I felt myself push off from the edge and snapped out my wings, then I was free-falling, praying I wouldn't hit the sharp rocks below before I got some altitude.

  The tip of my sneaker brushed one jagged boulder, and then my wings carried me upward, fast and hard. We swooped out low over the ocean, then circled back around the tip of the jetty. I was thinking as fast and hard as I was flying.

  "We've got to get them over that cliff," Fang said as we began to come up behind them. They were still closing in on the bench, shooting round after round. The nearby trash can had been peppered with bullets, a sign hung down broken, and the cement bench looked like Swiss cheese. Most important, the metal railing had been shot to pieces and would easily give way.

  "Yeah." I frowned. "Aren't they using heat sensors? They don't know we're not there!"

  "Maybe they're just programmed to go forward and shoot," Fang said. "Or maybe someone's controlling them remotely, and they can't tell their target is gone."

  It was weird. Something felt off. There was a missing piece to this puzzle, and I couldn't figure out what it was. But in the meantime, those 'bots were going overboard.

  We came up from behind them, starting way high and then dive-bombing at more than two hundred miles an hour. I loved doing this—it's like being in a video game where you have to recalculate your trajectory ten times a second so you don't hit a building.

  A few seconds before we hit them, we swung down in big arcs, our feet out in front of us.

  Wham! I slammed into one so hard my teeth rattled. The impact lifted the 'bot almost two feet off the ground, sending it headfirst into the 'bot in front of it. Then it was just a matter of the domino effect.

  We backed up as fast as we could and did it again. Before they could focus on us, the first line had already toppled through the shredded railing and dropped thirty feet down onto enormous, sharp-edged rocks. Ka-boom!

  Only one of them managed to swivel in time to aim at us, but I went in low and kicked out its ankles, sliding on the asphalt and ripping huge holes in my best jeans. It tipped backward and then went over, still spewing bullets.

  Cautiously, Fang and I peeked over the edge. Things were still sparking, there were a few lights still on, but there was no way for a heavy machine to survive that fall. With the bazillion dollars it must have cost to develop that technology, you would think that they would make them a little more impact tolerant.

  We knew better than to hang around. Already, police cars and fire trucks were screeching to a halt, sirens blaring, lights going berserk. Fang and I raced silently along the edge of the boardwalk, then jumped over the edge, around the corner from where the 'bots had smashed.

  Once again we whipped out our wings and soared out to sea, flying low and fast over the water. The balmy night air felt amazing on my face and in my hair.

  So let's take stock of the evening, shall we?

  Pros: Excellent Hawaiian food, ice cream, making out with Fang (aiieee!!!), and victory against murderous, bird-kid-hating, killing machines.

  Cons: Well, the murderous, bird-kid-hating, killing machines, for one. For another, I looked down and realized that not only had I destroyed my best pair of jeans, but, in fact, they didn't even go with my shirt in the first place. Typical.

  Third, there was something dark speeding right toward us. Going as fast as we were. A missile? A rocket? Our night wasn't over yet.

  44

  THE GASMAN spit out his regulator and screamed, "Angel!" His face and arms were on fire, and he felt like he was going to barf. Under water. How would that even work?

  Suddenly, the sharks were right there, mouths wide open, full of blood and chunks of something, and stretching, reaching, snapping at—

  Just water, because Angel was holding up her hand in the universal "Stop shark attack" gesture. She was frowning sternly at the sharks, one hand on her hip.

  "Oh no you don't!" she gurgled loudly, right at the three huge man-eaters.

  They stopped, and if they'd been on dry land, they would have skidded. As it was, they came to an abrupt, surprised stop, inches away from the three bird kids. Angel shook her finger at them, in the universal gesture for "Bad! Bad shark!"

  Gaz, Ig—you guys back away really slowly.

  Gazzy did hear that part of Angel's message, so he touched Iggy's hand and, gently, they let themselves drift backward. Gazzy put the regulator back in his mouth, feeling like his lungs were about to burst from lack of air.

  Looking sheepish, the hammerheads slowly turned and glided back to their group. Once there, they joined in the feeding frenzy again.

  Gosh, they were big, Angel thought to Gazzy and Iggy.

  Gazzy nodded, trying not to cry from the pain in his face and arms.

  We
need to get you out of here, Angel went on sympathetically. You got stung by something. Can you do a burst out of the water to get airborne?

  Gazzy had felt a lot of pain in his life, but this was different—a horrible, searing sensation, as if someone were holding a lit match to his face and arms. Under water. He nodded bravely to Angel, hoping he wouldn't shriek when the warm air made the burning feel worse.

  Okay, then, Angel commanded Gazzy and Iggy. Hunch down, gather your strength, then burst up through the water as hard as you can. As soon as you're in the air, snap your wings out. Okay?

  On any other day, Gazzy would have said, "Who died and made you Max?" But, all things considered, he could barely think straight. He was thankful that Angel was taking charge. He managed to nod again, then concentrated on balling up his muscles.

  One! Two! Three!

  Gazzy's face mask was filling with tears, but he hunched down and surged toward the surface. When he broke through the water, he stretched out his wings, pushing down and pulling up as hard as he could.

  He rose in the air slowly at first, then powerfully and fast, relief beginning to wash over him.

  Only to collide hard with something huge, right above him.

  Oof! Gazzy let out a strangled cry—it felt like his face and arms were splitting open—then he felt himself falling.

  And this time, he didn't think he'd manage to save himself.

  45

  RAPTOR VISION allows us to see tiny things from great heights and to see incredibly well in the dark and in much more detail than regular people. But, for the life of me, I couldn't tell what that thing was, shooting toward us.

  "If it's heat-seeking, we should go under water," Fang said tensely. "It'll still get us, but maybe some poor whale or dolphin will confuse it."

  Great. A lovely choice. I squinted, wishing the rolling bank of thick gray clouds hadn't totally covered the moon. But—wait…

  "Fang—that thing has wings. Is it like an albatross? What's the biggest seabird there is?"