Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports Read online

  Well, not clean, actually—it was totally gross, made worse by the sparks and dangling electrical wires he saw as the headless body plummeted downward.

  “Oof!” Fang lost his breath when a Flyboy kicked him in the stomach. It was different from fighting Erasers. Erasers were clumsier but more adaptable. Flyboys were stronger and more precise, but their moves were limited.

  Fang couldn’t see the Gasman. He caught sight of Iggy, wielding the crowbar like a sword, slashing and bashing Flyboys with his long reach. His nose was bloody and one eye was swollen, but he was holding his own. Fang heard gunfire and small explosions on the ground, and he hoped the Gasman had gotten out of there.

  Bam! Fang blocked a Flyboy’s punch, then swung his bat furiously, landing a blow to the back of its head. The head made a simultaneous clunking and squishing sound, but the Flyboy wasn’t seriously damaged.

  Fang started to swing again but was blocked by another Flyboy coming in from the side. A hard, jaw-snapping kick right in Fang’s kidney made him gasp, and he instantly folded his wings and dropped like a stone for about fifteen feet, long enough to recover. Then he poured on the power and shot straight up, swinging the bat with all his strength, managing to make two Flyboys drop. He damaged another so badly it flew crookedly away, smoke streaming from its neck.

  And just like that, it was over. The remaining fifteen or so Flyboys got into formation, then they spun and flew off as one. Fang glided to where Iggy was hovering, listening for any remnant of sound.

  “S’over,” he told Iggy. “Let’s go.”

  They flew down to El Prado, as police cars from all over the city raced toward the area.

  On the ground, the street was littered with broken bits of Flyboys. They found the Gasman with Keez, and though they both looked beat up, they were standing.

  “Police coming,” Fang said. “We gotta go.”

  “All right, man,” said Keez, holding out a swollen, bloody hand. “Whew! That was some action! This kid here is dangerous!”

  The Gasman puffed his chest out.

  “Thanks,” said Fang. “Thanks for everything.” Then the three of them took off. From above, Fang saw the Ghosts scattering into buildings, down alleys, into cars that screeched off. By the time the police got there, all that was left was a scattering of completely unexplainable chunks of metal.

  79

  Total squirmed inside my jacket like a gopher in a hole. We were super high, keeping a lookout for planes, making our way across France. We hadn’t bothered with the Itex plant in England, since it was just a single head of the hydra. We knew there were about four different Itex plants in Germany, including its world headquarters, and that’s where we were headed. But this little dog was about to make me lose my mind.

  He squirmed again. I resisted the temptation to unzip my jacket and let him discover the joy and excitement of free-falling. He took a breath and sniffed a little.

  Here it comes, I thought.

  “It’s like you have no soul,” Total said.

  “Total, we’ve been over this,” I said impatiently. “We checked out the Itex plant in Saint Jean-de-Sèvre.” Total grimaced at my pronunciation, making me want to smack him. “We’re on a mission to check out the main headquarters, in Germany. There is no Itex plant in Paris. Thus, going to Paris makes no sense.”

  “No, it’s only the center of world culture,” he said. “The home of some of the best food on the planet. Fashion, art, architecture—ah, Versailles!” He sounded like he was about to cry.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “And yet, no Itex plant,” I said pointedly.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing Paris,” said Nudge. “I saw this guidebook back at the library. They have little canal boats you can take tours on, and fancy gardens, and that Loovra museum, and palaces, and all kinds of stuff.” She looked at me hopefully.

  Total had taught both girls how to use crocodile tears, and now Angel turned grieving eyes on me. I steeled myself, waiting to feel her infiltrate my brain, but she didn’t (that I could tell).

  “Life is so short,” Angel said sadly. “So short and so hard. The idea of seeing the City of Light, just once—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered.

  “It would almost make everything seem worthwhile,” she finished.

  “Yes, because what’s a life of degradation and torture compared with a charming bistro on the Champs-Élysées?” I asked, sarcasm dripping. Total grimaced again.

  “Exactly!” Angel said excitedly. “That’s what I’m talking about. It all becomes unimportant when you’re standing, like, at Sacré-Coeur!”

  I knew I was beaten. If I didn’t give in, not only would I have to listen to two children, a hulking disaster, and a dog whining at me all the way to Germany, but once we got there, no one would be able to concentrate on the mission. Plus, I was expecting the Voice to pop in at any second with some sage fortune-cookie advice like, See what Paris has to offer. Or, What’s the lesson you could learn from this? Or, Maybe you’ll find a bright, shiny clue to something right there at the Arc de Triomphe!

  I looked down. Far below us, the millions of lights of Paris were obvious—it was the biggest city in the country and sparkled like a diamond. An expensive, time-consuming, no doubt pointless diamond.

  I rubbed my forehead with one hand. “Oh, all right,” I muttered. “Fine. We’ll spend a couple hours in Paris.”

  I tried to block out the whoops of joy. Looking at Ari, I realized he hadn’t weighed in. In general, he kept his thoughts to himself, as if he didn’t deserve to have an opinion. Nudge and Angel still didn’t look at him or interact with him. I also knew that Paris would be one of the last fun things he did in this life.

  “Let’s find someplace to sleep,” I said, as we angled downward through the night.

  80

  Here’s the weird thing: We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of an Eraser or a whitecoat or a Flyboy chasing us since we’d split from Fang and the others. We still had me, Angel, Total, Ari—all of the “if” factors that could possibly be tracked. And yet the last several days had been one grande vacance, as we say here in gay Paree.

  So what was different? Just that Fang, Gazzy, and Iggy weren’t here. It was crazy. I wondered what they were doing, if they were, like, on a beach or partying somewhere or whatever. Completely forgetting about us. Not missing us.

  Part of me was dying to find an Internet café and at least read Fang’s latest blog entry. Maybe I could get some idea of where they were and what they were doing. But the bigger, self-righteous part of me refused to acknowledge my burning curiosity.

  “OMG!” Nudge squealed, putting a filmy, arty scarf around her neck. “This is fabulous!”

  And so suitable for an Eraser to grab and yank, thus breaking your neck, I struggled not to say. Instead I nodded unenthusiastically, hoping she would read between the lines.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” Total said happily. He leaned his front paws on the marble table and pulled his chocolate pastry toward him. “I’m sitting here, I’m eating, and Angel didn’t have to control anyone’s mind. This is civilization.”

  Dogs are allowed in most restaurants in Paris, in case you haven’t picked up on that. We were sitting at a tiny marble-topped table outside a café. People streamed past us, not turning into Erasers or whatever would come after Erasers.

  “It is really neat,” Nudge said, looping her scarf around her neck so it wouldn’t dip into her coffee. “How many of these can I have?” She was on her third pastry.

  I shrugged. “However many you can eat without barfing.” Okay, as a mom I’m unconventional, I admit. Especially since I’m only fourteen and didn’t actually give birth to any of these guys.

  “I wish—,” Angel began, then stopped. She pulled her café au lait over and took a sip.

  I wish everyone was here with us, I heard in my mind, and it wasn’t the Voice. I nodded at Angel. Me too, I thought back.

  “What are we going to
do after this?” Nudge asked. “How about the Loovra?”

  I shook my head. “Too enclosed, too much security, too many people. There isn’t enough Valium in the world to get me in there.”

  “The Eiffel Tower is open, and high,” said Angel.

  I nodded. “It’s a possibility.” I checked my watch. “You guys have four hours, then we have to bug out of here.”

  Nudge snapped me a salute. “Jawohl!”

  Total started choking with laughter, and Ari and Angel both grinned.

  Everyone knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like. But in person, it’s so much bigger—all this lacy steel and iron swooping up and up into the sky. It was so tempting to just fly to the top, but instead we waited in an endless line and took a crowded elevator to the top. And you know how much I like being packed into small spaces with other people!

  But once we were at the top, the view was magnificent. Right below us was the Seine River, with its houseboats and tour boats. From up there we could see everything, all the major landmarks, like the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre museum. Paris stretched as far as we could see.

  I had to admit, Paris was really beautiful. The buildings all seemed so old and fancy and really pretty in a non-American kind of way. I wished the guys could see it. I hope you guys can see it some day too, if it’s still standing after the whitecoats try to destroy the world.

  Of course Nudge made us shop. At least street stands weren’t as claustrophobia inducing as enclosed stores. All along the Seine were little stalls selling books and flowers, and I felt as if we were in a movie with subtitles. I waited with saintly patience as Nudge and Angel sorted through T-shirts and hats and books in French that we couldn’t carry, much less read.

  Ari tried on a leather jacket—his old one was shredded and bloodstained. The stall vendor looked at Ari warily, then Angel distracted him and he didn’t seem to notice Ari anymore.

  “It’s you,” I said, watching him shrug it on. “Is it comfortable?”

  He grimaced. “Nothing’s comfortable when you’re built like this.” He gestured to his hulking, overdeveloped muscles, the lumpy wings that didn’t fold in perfectly, neatly, like ours.

  I stepped behind him to smooth out the collar, and that’s when I saw it again: the expiration date on the back of his neck. His time was coming, very, very soon.

  You know what? I was glad I’d shown him Paris.

  81

  You know the other strange thing about Europe? It’s weensy. It was like, oops, I blinked, there goes Belgium! All of Western Europe could fit into America, east of the Mississippi. Flying from England to France took about thirty minutes. Crossing over France took about six hours. It had taken us almost eight hours to cross Texas, back in America.

  Anyway. Here’s my one-note take on Germans: They’re scrubbers. Hoo, boy, we’re talking a tidy little country. France? Not so much.

  “Okay, no one leave their socks lying around,” I instructed, as we drifted to a landing outside a town called Lendeheim. “That would send them right over the edge.”

  Lendeheim seemed to have been designed by the “Germany” team at Epcot. I kept expecting Bambi to pop out from behind a bush. There was so much carved gingerbread on the houses that my stomach growled.

  The one main road through town led uphill to an incredible medieval castle. You guessed it: Itex. Still lording it over the peasants, in their way.

  “This is too cute,” said Total, hopping down from my arms. “I want to start planting window boxes or something.”

  “The hiiillls are aliiive,” Nudge warbled, spreading her arms wide, “with the sound of—”

  “Okay, listen up,” I broke in. “The castle is through these trees. Let’s do a quick recon and then decide what to do next.”

  I set off into the woods, pushing aside the picturesque German underbrush. Frankly, I’d expected a German forest to be a little tidier than this.

  “Wait, don’t tell me,” Total said, trotting after me. “We’re gonna break in, steal some stuff, break some stuff, almost get caught, and then escape in some dangerous, dramatic way.”

  I set my jaw, trying to ignore Nudge’s giggle. “Maybe,” I said tightly. “You got a better plan?”

  He was silent for a few moments. “Well, no.”

  I know you might not believe this, but slogging through a foreign European forest in the dead of night with an ex-Eraser, a talking dog, and two kids who depend on you for their lives—well, not as much fun as you’d think. But maybe that’s just my negativity talking.

  Once again, I was forcibly reminded of what slooow and hard work walking is, compared with flying. But I didn’t want to take a chance of being seen, not this close to the castle. For all I knew, they had watchtowers or radar or searchlights. Possibly all three.

  But we finally made it. Standing at the edge of the woods, looking across the moat at the thick, high castle wall, I felt like this was the most castley castle I’d ever seen. It was all pointy and chock-full o’ turrets, with narrow slits for cute Robin Hood arrows, and other windows with many tiny panes of glass. Of course, the floodlights and razor wire at the top of the wall detracted a bit from its charm, but if you squinted, they faded a little.

  “There’s an iron gate,” whispered Nudge, pointing. “We can see through it.”

  “Yep.” Sticking to the shadows, we half crouched, half crawled toward the castle, checking carefully for trip wires or hidden traps. When we were within thirty feet of the gate, the sound of marching feet made us freeze, bellies to the ground.

  My raptor vision showed me the next generation of Erasers goose-stepping in the courtyard. I saw just as clearly lines of people marching after them, fierce expressions on their faces. But there was something odd about them—something not entirely human. And then I saw my old clone double, Max II, who had tried to replace me, who Jeb had tried to make me kill. She was back.

  82

  Standing next to me, Ari had gone rigid, his eyes locked on the Max clone. I remembered that they had been an anti–real Max team and felt my stomach tighten. My vigilance about Ari cranked up a couple notches.

  While I pondered this revolting development, Nudge elbowed me in the ribs.

  “Oh, my God!” she whispered. “Do you see that?”

  “Yep,” I said, watching Max II grimly. “We meet again.”

  “What do you mean? We’ve never seen her before,” said Nudge.

  I turned and looked at Nudge. “Hello? You don’t remember that topsy-turvy day when ‘I’ tried to cook and offered to fix your hair?”

  Nudge frowned. “Yeah. That was Max Two. That’s not what I’m talking about! Look, four rows behind her!”

  I looked. Then I saw what Nudge meant.

  There was a Nudge II—marching along with an un-Nudge-like solemnity. Other than that, she looked exactly like her.

  “Holy moly,” I breathed, hardly able to believe it.

  “Uh-oh,” said Angel quietly, then pointed. I swallowed a groan and dropped my head into my hands for a second. Excellent. Just what the world needed: another Angel. Because God knows, one six-year-old mind-controlling flying child just isn’t enough.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Nudge. “There’s another me!”

  “And another me,” said Angel.

  Was everyone here a clone? Maybe not, but they were all mutants of some kind, I was willing to bet.

  “What, I’m not important enough to have a double?” Total sounded completely offended. “‘No, let’s not clone the dog. He’s just a dog, after all.’”

  I rubbed his head behind his ears, but he huffed and flopped over on the grass.

  “I don’t have a double either,” said Ari. So Jeb hadn’t cloned his son. How sentimental of him.

  “Are they going to try to replace us, like they did with you?” Nudge asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “But we’ll catch on immediately when the new Nudge is silent and mopey, and the new Angel acts like an actual six-year-old.”
>
  They smiled, and I congratulated myself on my ability to keep their spirits up even in the face of this new atrocity.

  “Actually,” I went on, “let’s come up with a code word or phrase to use with one another when we need to make absolutely sure we’re the right ones. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Nudge.

  “Ooh, I’ve got one,” said Angel, and we put our heads together as she whispered it.

  “Perfect!” said Nudge, breaking into a smile.

  I laughed silently and slapped her a very quiet high five.

  Ari grinned and nodded.

  Even Total’s furry black face seemed to smile.

  So what was the secret word?

  Yeah, like I’m gonna tell you.

  83

  What with all the stomping and the fiercely staring straight ahead, none of the Flyboys or clones or other mutants seemed to hear us when we flew over the wall as silently as we could. We caught up with the troops and started marching right behind them, a last line of followers eager to herald the beginning of the Re-Evolution.

  I’m so sure.

  Anyway, gutsy little devil-may-care freaks that we are, we trooped right into the building with them, our feet moving in lockstep, arms swinging tightly at our sides. We would see how long it took someone to notice. My guess is that it wouldn’t be long. Call it a hunch.

  We filed between tall metal double doors, which swung shut behind us with an ominous clang. Inside, we were surprised by how the Marching Gang o’ Mutants immediately split up. The Flyboys veered off down one dimly lit stone hallway, and the others split up into several streams heading in different directions.

  It was like a stone rabbit warren, with many hallways winding away from the main doors. Amber emergency lights barely lit the way.

  Moving silently, we followed a group through another set of double doors, the surrealness of it giving me ill-advised giggles that I quickly swallowed.

  Still no one seemed to notice us. We were heading deeper and deeper into one of Itex’s most important strongholds without anyone getting in our way.