Max

  I jumped as Angel tapped on the dome above my head. While I scowled at her, she pointed to me, to my neck, and then out to the water.

  "What is she saying?" asked Dr. Akana.

  "She wants me out there, to see if I've developed gills," I said, and only after I saw the crewman's eyes widen did I realize how nuts that sounded. Well, I already had wings, air sacs in addition to lungs, and was almost five-eight but weighed barely more than a hundred pounds. If this guy was looking for normal, I ain't it.

  "Do things just develop like that on you?" Dr. Akana sounded fascinated. How scientisty of her.

  I nodded. "I mean, not all the time, you know," I said, feeling embarrassed by the crewman, who was obviously trying not to look shocked. "But every so often, something new happens or changes on one or more of us. Like we were programmed to keep evolving."

  "That is so amazing," said Dr. Akana softly. "You are truly special and unique, Max."

  I felt my cheeks grow warm, as the "circus sideshow freak" factor rose by the second.

  A quick movement caught our eyes. I swiveled to see an enormous shark making its way toward us. Its tail was slicing back and forth, its head wagging as if looking for prey.

  "Uh-oh," said the crewman. "You better get that little girl out of there."

  "Yeah." Angel? Big shark alert. I thought hard. I can't actually send my own thoughts, but Angel usually monitors stuff going on around her.

  We watched as she paused in midpirouette to look for the shark. They spotted each other at the same time. The shark took only a second to sum up Angel as being snackworthy and immediately began a fast, efficient approach.

  "Crewman!" said Dr. Akana. "Put the Triton between Angel and the shark!"

  The crewman immediately began to maneuver our small vehicle, even as he said, "Not sure the Triton can withstand an attack from a shark that size, ma'am."

  Angel faced the shark, looking at it intently. She held up one hand as Dr. Akana winced, bracing for the worst. I sat frozen.

  The shark paused. Angel swam up to it. I heard the crewman suck in a breath, heard Dr. Akana praying softly. The shark stayed still, and Angel ran her hand gently along its head. It rubbed against her like a huge, toothy dog. Angel turned to grin at us.

  "Okay, folks. Show's over," I said. "Let's get back to the Minnesota."

  54

  YOU'VE GOT TO quit just thinking about yourself!" I said as Angel stuck out her bottom lip and crossed her arms over her chest.

  And you've got to start paying more attention to her, said the Voice. And to what she's saying.

  "Oh, like I don't already?" I snapped aloud, then saw Angel's look of confusion. I shook my head. "Never mind. But I was worried sick while you were out there!"

  "You're worrying about the wrong things, Max," said Angel. "You should be trying to breathe under water and taking care of yourself. You don't have to worry about me."

  "It's my job to worry about you!" I said, shocked. "It always has been!" Angel had been about two years old when Jeb kidnapped us from the School. He hadn't known what to do with her. Guess who took care of her night and day? And every day since then? Right. Moi.

  Angel looked sad. "We're family, Max. I'm not a job."

  "That's not what I mean, and you know it," I said.

  "Okay, let's break it up," said Fang from behind me, making me jump. I hadn't heard him come in, as usual. "Angel, you're still a little kid, and Max is the leader. Don't forget that."

  Angel looked chastised. "Well, I'm going to go get into some dry clothes. Come on, Total. Let me tell you about everything I saw out there."

  "Could we talk about something else?" said Total, as he trotted after her, jumping over the door's threshold. "Like, modern art? Or my latest issue of Wine Spectator magazine? Fish and me—we don't mix. It really seems more like a feline thing."

  I watched them go, thinking for the millionth time that things had been so much easier when it had been just the six of us, on our own.

  "You handled that really well, Fang," said—you guessed it—Brigid. I tried not to gag as she patted his arm approvingly. Fang shot me a smug look over her shoulder, knowing it would make my blood pressure rise. I thought about the last time he'd made my blood pressure rise (in a completely different way) and felt a warm flush stain my cheeks.

  I looked at Fang. "Can we have a meeting? With the flock?"

  He nodded.

  "That's a good idea," Brigid said. "I'd like to ask you—"

  "This is flock business," I said abruptly.

  Brigid looked taken aback. "But we're all a team."

  "Yes," I said. "And I really, really appreciate everyone's help in finding my mom. But some things are still just for the flock. It's always been that way, and it'll always be that way. 'Cause when it comes right down to it, there's us six, and no one else is like we are."

  Disappointed, Brigid nodded. Fang and I headed down to our little bunk room. We opened the door and found a typical scene: Angel and Total were curled up on a bunk (the sailors called them "racks"), looking at Total's issue of Wine Spectator. Nudge had deconstructed her small khaki uniform and was holding a needle and thread as she turned it into something that didn't offend her fashion sensibilities.

  As soon as I walked in, Gazzy stuffed something behind a pillow, and Iggy put on his oh-so-obvious "innocent" face, which immediately set off all alarms.

  "Max!" said Nudge happily. "Look! I took off the collar and changed the neckline. Once I move the buttons, it'll be so much cuter."

  I wanted to say, "It'll still be khaki," but didn't want to rain on her fashion parade. My eyes were riveted on telltale wires sticking out from beneath Gazzy's pillow.

  "Gazzy, I swear to God, if you've stolen a nuclear device, I will—"

  "It's not nuclear!" he insisted.

  I sat down on the lowest narrow rack and pushed my hair out of my face, trying to figure out what to say. I am excellent at giving orders and barking out commands. I am not so good with the touchy-feely, "let's connect" kind of stuff. But a leader has to press on sometimes, even with things she doesn't like. It's all part of the leaderly gig.

  "Guys," I began gently. So far, so good. "I feel like we've gotten off track."

  "What do you mean, Max?" Nudge's eyes were wide.

  "We've been hanging with the navy for days now, and we're not any closer to rescuing my mom. It made sense to hook up with them, at first, but now I wonder if they have any real plans. I'm thinking—well, I'm thinking that I want to give them another twelve hours. And if we haven't made real progress, if we're not any closer to rescuing my mom, then I think we should ditch 'em and head out on our own."

  Six pairs of eyes looked at me. Did they still trust me? Did they want to follow what the grown-ups said? Was I going to be in this all by myself?

  My throat felt tight as I waited.

  Then Fang put out his right fist. Nudge put hers on top, quickly. Then Gazzy, Angel, Iggy, and finally, Total put his paw at the top.

  "One for all and all for one," said Fang, as my heart filled up. "That was in some movie."

  I put my fist on top of Total's paw, my smile so wide my cheeks ached.

  "Thanks, guys," I said. "Now, let's see if we can get this show on the road."

  And of course it was at that very moment that we felt a huge crunch and were jolted so hard we fell off our racks, and the lights went out.

  55

  QUICK RECAP: claustrophobic, paranoid bird kid, trapped on jam-packed navy tin can of death, submerged under hundreds of feet of water, and now, huge crashing sound and no lights.

  Okay, have you got that picture? Now ramp up the adrenaline about 400 percent. Mix in a little terror. Stir.

  "That didn't sound good," I said, trying to be the calm, confident leader I am, even though every cell in my body was shrieking that I was about to die a horrible, watery death.

  Emergency lights flickered on and glowed a dim amber. A Klaxon alarm sounded, just like in all the old submarin
e movies. That's the one you hear right before the sub goes belly-up.

  Because metal and water conduct sound well, we could hear pounding and knocking against the hull of the sub. I opened the door and saw sailors rushing past, each knowing what their job was, where they had to be.

  "I wish we were in France." Total whimpered softly.

  Out in the corridor, the alarm was louder.

  The most horrible thing about this whole experience was that I didn't know what to do. I always know what to do. I am chock-full of knowingness. Every awful thing we've come up against until now, I've been able to deal with. A mixture of ruthless cunning, wicked fighting skills, and sheer stoic toughness had gotten us this far. But none of that seemed to be worth much in this situation.

  To save face, I started barking orders anyway. "Let's go up front, by the main hatch," I commanded, oozing confidence. "If we have to abandon ship, that's where we'll escape from."

  We waited for a break in the line of running sailors, then threw ourselves into the passageway and started rushing forward. It seemed to take forever, with us hurrying and jumping over all the raised thresholds. Around us, sailors were sealing off compartments with their little turny-wheel things.

  All of a sudden Angel stopped dead, causing the rest of us to pile into her.

  "Angel, go!" I yelled.

  "No, wait!" she said, holding up her hand.

  "We can't wait! We need to get up front! Move it!"

  "Wait," she insisted. "It's the dumb-bots."

  "Whaat?"

  "It's those M-Geeks, the dumb-bots," Angel said. "They're trying to get into the sub."

  Lovely, just lovely. I'll fight anything on the surface or in the air, but under water? I was literally out of my element, so much more than anyone else is who says they're out of their element, like at a party. I pictured the M-Geeks drilling through the sub walls, pictured it filling up with water, with us trapped inside…

  "Okay," I said firmly. "We need to stop them. I'll get the Triton."

  "Does it have weapons?" Iggy asked.

  "No. But it has big claw arms," I said. "Maybe I can whack them or knock them off or something."

  "Here, take this," Gazzy said, pushing a small metal first-aid box into my hands. "It's waterproof, so put it in the claw. And here's a remote. Don't sit on it or anything. Push the button to watch a DVD, then use the Triton's claw to toss it at the M-Geeks. Do it fast."

  "Okay. You guys go forward," I said. "I'll catch up soon."

  "I'm going with you," said Fang.

  I looked at him. "I need you to take care of the others," I said very quietly. After a conflicted moment, he nodded.

  "I'll go with you," said Gazzy. "I know how to work the IED."

  I hated to let him, but he was right. "Okay."

  "I'm going too," said Angel.

  "No, Angel, please," I said, trying not to beg. "Please stay with Fang."

  "I want to go too." There was that face again.

  "Angel, come with me," Fang said, taking her hand. "Iggy, Nudge, let's move it." He headed quickly down the hall, all but dragging Angel with him.

  I watched them go down the dark narrow corridor, hoping it wasn't the last time I'd ever see them. I turned to Gazzy and handed him the metal box. "Let's go. We've got a Triton to steal and dumb-bots to kill."

  56

  I'VE HOT-WIRED quite a few cars and driven all kinds of weird vehicles, like a school bus and a tank. Here are a couple of tips: school buses do not corner well, and tanks smell like old gym socks. I'd never stolen a Triton, but I had watched the crewman steer it around, and I thought I could do it. No one even tried to stop Gazzy and me as we raced back down the corridor and entered the pressure chamber.

  The Triton was sitting there waiting for us.

  "So cool!" Gazzy said. "Did you jack a key?"

  I grinned. "No key. Just a push button."

  Gazzy took his metal box and put it on the floor right next to one of the Triton's arms, then we scrambled up to the dome and opened the hatch. We dropped down into the seats, and I started flicking switches, hoping I was doing it in the right order. I'd only seen it done once. Gazzy sealed the hatch, and all the panels lit up inside. He looked thrilled, but I wasn't any happier about this than I was the first time.

  Then it hit me, amid all the flashing lights and alarms and the banging sounds that were getting louder: a realization that made my blood run cold and my hand freeze into a claw on the single joystick that operated the sub.

  I was locked in a very small airtight container… with the Gasman.

  I'm not huge with religion, but right then I started praying to every deity I'd ever heard of. Please do not let Gazzy have one of his episodes in here. Please.

  The Voice suddenly chimed in: Get a move on, Max.

  Right, right. Inside the sub, I grabbed the remote that would open the chamber doors, dropping us out into the ocean.

  "Gaz, you have the arm operators right there," I said, pointing. Dr. Akana had used them to gather small samples of water. "Pick up your metal box."

  Gazzy caught on to the simple hand controls and quickly swept up the box with the claw. Then I hit my remote. Suddenly the doors beneath us opened, and the Triton slid clumsily into the ocean as I tried to keep us level.

  It was way dark, and I peered out through the Plexiglas bubble, not wanting to turn on the headlights. Stealth was the answer here, and we would be as stealthy as a bright yellow, three-ton, bubble-trailing baby sub could be.

  "I can't tell where the noise is coming from," said Gazzy. "We'll have to check the whole sub."

  I nodded, jerkily moving us forward.

  "Maybe I should drive," Gazzy offered.

  "Shut up," I said, concentrating. We started sinking fast, and I frantically worked the lever to make us rise up and stabilize. I hated this. I hated it with a whole new kind of hate that I should probably have reserved for Mr. Chu.

  Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my hand started cramping up from clutching the joystick too tightly. But I got us out from under the Minnesota, and we started trailing along its side toward the back.

  Gazzy practiced maneuvering the arms, and he accidentally whacked a big grouper in the side of its head. It darted off, while he muttered, "Sorry, sorry!"

  "Do you see anything?" I asked.

  "You mean, besides the sub the size of a football stadium? And a bunch of fish? Nope."

  I was getting better at driving, and we putt-putted along-side the sub. What was going on in there? Had the others made it to the front? Were they getting ready to evacuate?

  Tap, tap! I almost screamed when something knocked on the Plexiglas above our heads. If the dumb-bots got a hold of the Triton…

  Angel's smiling face looked down at us. My eyes almost popped out of my head. She had done this again, after I'd lectured her the first time! I started yelling at her, but she ignored me, instead urgently pointing toward the aft of the Minnesota.

  I pushed the joystick forward and in another couple seconds, saw what she was warning me about: eight M-Geeks, clinging to the side of the big sub. One was wielding an underwater welding torch, and it was attempting to cut through the sub's hull.

  "Angel! Get behind us! Hide!" I yelled as loud as I could, which of course caused her to immediately let go of us and swim directly toward the M-Geeks.

  I flicked on the headlights and again shoved the joystick forward, trying to increase our speed. I was forming a vague plan of having one of the Triton's arms grab Angel somehow, but in another two seconds Angel had gotten close enough to the M-Geeks to actually tap on one's head.

  Immediately, all of them stopped working and swiveled to look at her. In the next instant, they had quickly grouped around her, and I saw they had little motors keeping them stable in the water.

  "Do you see her?" I asked Gazzy tensely.

  "Uh-uh." His voice sounded choked. "They're surrounding her. And I can't use my bomb."

  I moved forward cautiously. The eight
M-Geeks were a cluster of metal, tools, and weapons, shining brightly in my headlights. And there was no sign of Angel anywhere.

  57

  I'M GONNA RAM them," I said.

  "No—you might crush her!"

  "Okay, I'm gonna start batting them out of the way then," I said, edging the Triton closer.

  "Max, be careful!"

  "What else can I do?" I exclaimed. "I don't exactly want to open our hatch and see if I've developed gills yet! We've got to get Angel out of there!"

  Every muscle in my body was as taut as a wire as I moved closer to the throng of M-Geeks. Somewhere in that mess of violent metal was my baby, my Angel. She might think she could rule the world and do anything, but I knew that despite all her powers, she was still a flesh-and-blood, six-(possibly seven)-year-old girl. Who I needed to save. Again.

  "Okay, you work the arms," I whispered. "Try to push one aside."

  Gazzy's face was white as he nodded, his hands clenched on the controls.

  "On my mark," I said. "One, two, thr—"

  Suddenly the dumb-bots moved apart, revealing Angel. She seemed to be talking to them earnestly, motioning with her hands, trailing tiny bubbles out of her mouth.

  I stared at her, then at Gazzy, whose jaw had dropped in surprise.

  Then, as we watched, the dumb-bots seemed to huddle in for a consultation. A minute later, they started to disperse, heading off into the dark water one by one, their little fanlike rotors leaving small white trails behind them. Angel waved good-bye to them, then turned and wiggled her eyebrows at me and Gazzy.

  I gave her the universal WTH expression, and she grinned and dog-paddled closer to the Triton. Clinging to the side, she went through an elaborate "told you so" pantomime.

  With Angel still holding on, I turned the Triton around and headed back to the Minnesota, feeling overwhelming relief, tension, and extreme irritation all at the same time.

  I was giving Angel a look of "Wait till we get back on board, missy," which she was cheerfully ignoring, when her face suddenly went blank. Then her eyes widened in fear, and she pressed herself flat against the Plexiglas dome, her small knuckles white.