Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports Read online

  I looked down at Angel.

  “Trap?” I said out of the side of my mouth.

  She nodded. “Trap.”

  84

  “Everyone on guard,” I breathed, and then suddenly we were in an airplane hangar–sized room.

  The ceiling was at least thirty feet high, and the only windows were narrow horizontal slits maybe a foot or two below the ceiling. The stone walls were hung with tremendous TV screens, several on each wall. The rest of the room was filled with gray metal bunks, each covered with a kicky olive drab army blanket suitable for bouncing quarters off.

  You had to give it to them: These guys sure knew how to party!

  The mutants filed off into the rows of metal bunks, and we found ourselves alone at the edge of the room.

  Instinctively we formed a circle, our backs to one another, and cased the joint.

  “This is so nice,” said Total. “I want my room at home to look just like this. If we ever get a home.”

  “Shh,” I said mildly. “Everyone keep an eye out, mark your emergency exits, and let’s see what’s going on.”

  All around us, everyone had moved with purpose to what I assumed were assigned chores: The products of the finest scientific minds in the world were busily sweeping, dusting metal beds, polishing their boots.

  Nudge and I looked at each other at the same time, and Angel read our minds. In the next moment we had each found boots in our sizes beneath various beds. Ari copied us, managing to find some extra-large ones. In seconds we had laced them onto our feet and hidden our filthy, shredded sneakers.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Total. “Now we blend.”

  I made a face at him and then turned my attention to the TV screens. There were three screens on each wall, and if they’d been showing, say, a soccer game, I would have been in pig heaven.

  However, they were broadcasting the earnest face of a fair-haired woman who was speaking in consecutive languages. We tapped our feet through German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese, with our room’s occupants scarily shouting agreement and praise every so often.

  Nudge frowned. “Who does she remind me of? I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

  I thought, then shrugged. “No idea.”

  Finally the whitecoat got to English. “The time of the Re-Evolution is here!” she said forcefully. Various voices in the room cheered.

  “We have begun implementing the By-Half Plan! Even as you watch this, the weak, the unnecessary, the ones who drain our resources, are being eliminated!”

  85

  More cheers, while we five looked at one another in horror and then quickly remembered to cheer along with the others.

  The woman looked out from the screen with the sincere zeal of a serious nut job. “We are creating a new world. A world where there is no hunger, no sickness, no weakness.”

  “Because they killed everyone,” I muttered.

  “The causes of war will be eliminated,” she went on earnestly. “There will be plenty of food for everyone. There will be plenty of room for everyone. People will cease to fight over property, food, wealth, energy resources.”

  Everyone in the room cheered.

  “Yep, no reason to fight,” I whispered. “Unless, of course, you’re persnickety about religion. I bet everyone will be so healthy and happy that it won’t even matter anymore. It’s not like people take it that seriously.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  Every so often someone would walk past us, not giving us a second glance. We cheered with the others and tried to look busy by smoothing beds, lining up shoes, picking lint off blankets.

  “Remember,” said the whitecoat, “we can’t achieve Re-Evolution without you, our chosen ones. The new order must be pure. All races are equal. All genders are equal. But illness, weakness, and other flaws must be eliminated.”

  “All genders?” whispered Nudge. “Aren’t there just the two? Or did I miss something?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe they’ve created others.”

  The thought was fairly repulsive, and we made “eew” faces at each other.

  “So if you know of anyone who should experience the glory of martyrdom so that others may live in paradise, please inform your supervisor immediately,” said the woman. “It will reflect well on you, and you will be praised.”

  I looked at the others, appalled. “Oh, my God,” I said softly. “They want people to turn in anyone who isn’t perfect. Which is, like, everyone! No one is perfect!”

  I couldn’t have said it better myself, Max, said the Voice.

  So what now? I thought.

  You’re where you need to be, doing what you need to do, said the Voice. It was so rare that I got approval from the Voice that I was taken aback. But are you sure you can do this alone?

  I’ve got Nudge and Angel and Total and Ari, I thought.

  You’re missing half your family, said the Voice. Who are also half your army.

  Not my fault, I thought testily. Not my decision.

  Does that mean it isn’t your problem and you don’t have to fix it?

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. On the TV screen, the whitecoat had switched back to German.

  And your point is...? I thought.

  You need the rest of the flock. You need more fighters on your side. Get them back.

  I groaned to myself. Oh, just heck.

  86

  “We would be amazing spies,” Nudge whispered into my ear, “don’t you think so?”

  The five of us were crawling silently through a ventilation duct, in search of a computer. So far we had passed another barracks, a cafeteria, bathrooms—I guess even perfect people have to “go” sometimes—and a couple of offices with workers in them.

  We needed an empty room with a computer. And then, like, a bunch of hot food! And comfy beds! After what felt like miles of crawling on hard metal, we looked down into a room that was dimly lit by a computer screen saver.

  As quietly as possible, we unscrewed the grate, then dropped one at a time down into the room, waiting for the blare of motion detectors. But it remained quiet.

  “Okay, make this fast,” I told Nudge. “There might be silent alarms, hidden infrared cameras, whatever. We probably have about a minute.”

  Nudge nodded and sat down in front of the computer. She put her hands on the keyboard and closed her eyes. Seconds ticked by, with me getting more and more nervous and twitchy.

  Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked at the computer keyboard, and started to type.

  In seconds she had cleared the computer screen and pulled up an e-mail program.

  “I have no idea how she does that,” I whispered, and Total nodded.

  “Okay,” said Nudge. “I’m connected.”

  “Great job,” I said, my heart hammering, and not only because I was expecting to be caught any second. “Tell Fang to come to Lendeheim right away, with everybody. Tell him things are really, really bad.”

  Nudge typed quickly.

  “Tell him that the really evil stuff has started and that we have days, maybe hours, to throw a wrench in it.”

  “Wrench starts with w,” said Total, reading over her shoulder.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I hissed. “Just tell Fang to get his butt here, now!”

  Nudge nodded and typed, then hit the Send button. And our message was off, hopefully to make its way to Fang’s e-mail account.

  True, he got a katrillion messages a day, but I hoped his eye would be caught by the all-cap THIS IS FROM MAX. READ IT NOW!!!! in the subject line.

  “Well,” I said, “that’s all we can do. We just have to hope it gets through.”

  The computer screen blinked, and then the whitecoat we’d seen on TV earlier popped up, looking straight at us.

  “Very good, Max,” she said, sending chills down my spine. “You got further than I thought you would. I should have given you more credit.”

  Behind my back I made motions with my hands that meant, Up and out of here, now
!

  “No, there’s no point in that,” said the woman. “Look up.”

  So of course I looked up. The ceiling was absolutely covered with hovering, silent Flyboys, clinging like hairy bugs, their red eyes glowing.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  “How eloquent,” said the woman. And then, “Attack them!”

  87

  It wasn’t pretty. We did manage to take out six or so Flyboys, but after all the metal springs and fur had settled, we were captured, our hands cuffed, our legs shackled.

  My nose was bleeding, and a cut on the inside of my mouth stung. Ari had fared badly, and his recently healed face showed newly split skin and two black eyes. Both Angel and Nudge had nasty bruises, but nothing seemed to be broken. Total of course had done his best, biting the Flyboys, but he hadn’t done much damage.

  The Flyboys carried/dragged us through a series of tunnels, and I tried to memorize the route. We went up and down stairs, through a round tower, and finally came to a pivoting stone slab that became a secret door. Through this door was an office, like a business office. It looked totally out of place, with fluorescent lighting and a modern wooden desk, instead of, say, a medieval torture device.

  The Flyboys dropped us roughly on the stone floor, which was padded here and there by Oriental carpets. None of us made a sound as our knees slammed against the stone, our shackled hands unable to break our fall. In a second we all scrambled up, standing with our backs to one another, searching for exits, counting guards, seeking out anything we could use for weapons. We’re just funny that way.

  My eye was caught by something on the big desk. A little plaque that said DIRECTOR.

  Ooh, the Director! At last! The head honcho, big cheese, big kahuna! The one pulling all of our strings! The one in charge of everything and everyone! The completely insane psychopath who was trying to eliminate most of the world’s population! Finally we would meet. And I would take him apart using only my teeth if necessary.

  I elbowed the others and nodded my head at the desk.

  “You know what to do,” I breathed to Angel. Time for a little mind puppet.

  The heavy stone wall pivoted again, and the fair-haired woman from the TV came in, followed by several other whitecoats. The whitecoats had the inevitable stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, etc. This was going to be amusing. A “totally horrible” kind of amusing.

  “Hello, Max,” said the woman. She was about my height, with a slender build. Glancing at the others, she said, “Angel, Nudge, Ari. And the dog.”

  I knew that killed Total, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve been waiting to meet you for a long time,” said the woman. “It’s very important that we speak, face-to-face. Don’t you think so?”

  “Well, what’s important is that you believe that,” I said, and her eyes flickered.

  “My name is Marian Janssen,” she said calmly. “I’m the Director of Itex, and its research and development companies.”

  I kept my face very still. This was the Director? The Director was a woman? Oddly, it was disappointing that the person behind all of this destruction was a woman. This kind of schizo-steamroller behavior seemed more natural for a man, at least to me.

  “Not only that,” she continued, keeping her eyes on my face, “but I am your mother, Max.”

  PART 4

  I DIDN’T

  JUST HEAR

  WHAT I

  THOUGHT

  I HEARD,

  DID I?

  88

  Frankly, it takes a lot to surprise me. I’m pretty unsurprisable. But I admit, that was pretty much the last thing I expected to hear. “Hoo, delusional much?” I said, proud that my voice was rock solid. Almost.

  The Director walked to her big desk and set down several CD-ROMs.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but look closely at me, Max. I’m an older version of you.”

  I stared at her blond hair, her dark brown eyes. I remembered that Nudge had said she reminded her of someone.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Let’s see your wings.”

  She gave me a smile. “I don’t have any avian DNA. But you—you were the most brilliant success we ever had.”

  I was still reeling from shock, so I went on “smart retort” autopilot. “Then why do you and ter Borcht keep trying to kill us?”

  “You’re an older generation, Max,” she explained. “You have no proven life span. There’s no room for mistakes in the new world.”

  I was floored. “Here’s a tip: Your protective maternal instinct sucks.”

  “I’m your mother, Max, but I’m also a scientist. Believe me, watching you grow up from afar, devising this entire game, this series of tests—there were times that I didn’t think I could go through it.”

  “Funny, I felt the same way. For completely different reasons. But you had a choice,” I pointed out, becoming more and more incredulous.

  “I’m making the ultimate sacrifice to create a new world. I gave my only child to the cause.”

  “That’s not the ultimate sacrifice!” I said, outraged. “Giving yourself would be the ultimate! Giving me up is like the second-to-ultimate! See the difference?”

  She smiled somewhat sadly. “You’re so smart, Max. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Which makes one of us,” I said. “I mean, God! It’s parents’ career day at school. I stand up and say, ‘My mother is an evil scientist who’s planning a holocaust that will eliminate half the people on Earth.’ How could I ever live that down?!”

  She turned away and sat at her desk. “I blame Jeb for letting you be such a smart aleck.”

  I stared at her. “I blame you for altering my DNA! I mean, I have wings, lady! What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that the world’s population is destroying itself,” she said in a steely tone I recognized. (I have one just like it.) “I was thinking that someone had to stand up and take drastic action before this entire planet is incapable of supporting human life. Yes, you’re my daughter, but you’re still just part of the big picture, part of the equation. I was thinking I’d do anything to make sure the human race survives. Even if it seems awful in the short term. In future history books, I’ll be heralded as the savior of humanity.”

  Perfect. I finally, after fourteen years, meet my mother, and she’s a raving lunatic. This day just could not get better.

  I swallowed. “You give good megalomania,” I said.

  The Director motioned to the Flyboys hovering around the edges of the room. “Take them to the place that I prepared,” she said. “You know what to do once you get there.”

  89

  “I don’t want to make you feel even worse, Max,” said Total. “But I can’t stand your mother.”

  I looked at him. In the English/mad-scientist dictionary, you can translate “place I prepared” as “dank, ominous dungeon.” Literally a freaking dungeon! Cinderella’s castle had come complete with a real dungeon. And the “you know what to do” part translated to “chain them all to the walls like medieval prisoners.”

  “Well,” I said, “at least with my parents, I don’t have to look hard for something to rebel against.”

  Anyway, we seemed to be the only occupants in the dungeon, though it stretched on, out of sight. Loudspeakers were hung on the walls, and they were playing the Director’s brainwashing messages, which in itself was enough to drive anyone starkers.

  Like, if the whole “chained to a wall in a dungeon” thing wasn’t enough to send you around the bend.

  All of us were flying creatures, except for Total, and sort of halfway Ari. So chaining us to the wall, underground, was one of the worst things you could do.

  My mother had done this to us.

  I shook my head, unutterably depressed. “I mean, why couldn’t she have been a nice hooker, or a crack addict, like Fang’s mom?”

  “Speaking of Fang,” said Nudge, “maybe he’s on his way here right now.”

  A gleam of hope flared
and was just as quickly extinguished. “Yeah, if our message got through. If he’s gotten over Ari, which I doubt. If they can somehow get to Europe, like, right away.”

  “Max?” said Angel. “You’re kind of making things worse.”

  I was. I was being a jerk. Later, when I was alone, I would lie down and sob my guts out from the raw, acid disappointment about my mother. Right now I had to stop taking it out on everyone.

  “You’re right,” I said, my throat feeling tight. “I’m sorry. Actually, I do think that our e-mail got through, because Nudge is brilliant at that stuff. And he’s Fang. They’re on their way. I know it.”

  Silence.

  “You lie really well, Max,” Nudge said approvingly.

  I laughed. “I’ve had a lot of practice. But seriously, I do bet they’re on their way.”

  “How could they cross the ocean?” Ari asked, not meanly, just wondering.

  “Maybe they got tickets on a plane, like us,” said Angel.

  “Or maybe they stowed away on a plane,” suggested Nudge.

  “Or maybe they, like, flew up into the sky, waited for a jet to pass by, then dropped down onto it and held on,” I said dramatically, and we all laughed. I imitated Fang hanging on to a jet, mouth open from the wind drag.

  Their chuckles seemed to make the walls recede a bit and the darkness not quite so dark.

  The loudspeakers were most annoying when they were in English because we couldn’t help listening. The Director—or Crazy Old Mom, as I liked to think of her—was again spouting something about the future of flawlessness.

  “She is a seriously negative woman,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Max,” said Nudge. “I know she wasn’t what you were hoping for.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled wryly. “‘Delusional mass murderer’ wasn’t really on my list.”

  Again I wanted to wail with disappointment, but I swallowed it down. I had finally found my mother, and she was my worst nightmare. This was really just too bitter to bear. On top of that, Nudge was trying to comfort me. It was my job to comfort her. Usually the only person who comforted me was Fang. Who had deserted me.