Maximum Ride Read online

  118

  Stumbling badly, my shoulder feeling like it was on fire, I made my way down the beach. Before I moved Fang, I felt his neck to see if it was broken. Then I carefully turned him over. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “Fang, you have to wake up,” I whispered.

  The others ran over. “He looks really bad,” Gazzy said. “He should see a doctor.”

  Nothing seemed broken—maybe his nose—but he was still out cold. I lifted his head into my lap and used my sweatshirt to dab at the bloody stripes on his face.

  “We could carry him, you and me,” said Iggy, his long, pale hands floating over Fang, cataloging bruises, lumps, blood.

  “Where to?” I asked, hearing my bitterness. “It’s not like we can check him into a hospital.”

  “No hospi’l,” Fang mumbled, his eyes still shut.

  Relief flooded through me.

  “Fang!” I said. “How bad?”

  “Pre’y bad,” he said fuzzily, then, groaning, he tried to shift to one side.

  “Don’t move!” I told him, but he turned his head and spit blood out onto the sand. He raised his hand and spit something into it, then opened his eyes blearily.

  “Tooth,” he said in disgust. “Feel like crap,” Fang added, touching the knots on the back of his head.

  I tried to smile. “You look like a kitty cat.” I made whisker motions on my face, indicating where Ari had raked his. He looked at me sourly.

  “Fang,” I said, my voice breaking. “Just live, okay? Live and be okay.”

  With no warning, I leaned down and kissed his mouth, just like that.

  “Ow,” he said, touching his split lip, then he and I stared at each other in shock.

  Mortification heated my face. I glanced up to see Nudge and the Gasman gaping at me. Luckily, Iggy was blind, and Angel was getting Fang water.

  Gazzy looked from me to Fang to Iggy, clearly thinking that he was sunk now that I had obviously severed all ties with reality.

  Slowly, Fang levered himself into a sitting position, his jaw tight, sweat breaking out on his face. “Man,” he said, and coughed. “This feels pretty bad.”

  It was about the most he’d ever admitted to, painwise. He stood clumsily and took the water from Angel. Taking a swig, he rinsed his mouth and spit it out onto the sand.

  “I’m going to kill Ari,” Fang said.

  119

  Fang and the rest of us made it back to Manhattan without dropping out of the sky due to injury, exhaustion, or both.

  “You macho thing, you,” I said when we finally landed in the darkness of Central Park. He looked worn out, clammy, and pale, but he had flown all the way with no complaint.

  “That’s me,” he said, but he gave me a long look, like, I haven’t forgotten what you did, meaning the Kiss.

  I blushed furiously, embarrassed beyond belief. I would never live that down.

  “Are you really okay, Fang?” Nudge asked, the most touching concern in her voice. Nudge doted on Fang.

  He looked like he’d fallen off a cliff, with huge purple bruises distorting his face, the awful scratches Ari had left on his cheeks, the stiff, pained way he moved.

  “I’m cool,” he said. “Flying helped loosen me up some.”

  “Look, let’s find a place to hunker down, catch some Zs, and then take another shot at the Institute,” I said. “We’ve got to figure it out—we can’t stop now. Right, guys?”

  “Yeah, right,” Nudge said. “Let’s do it, get it over with. I want to know about my mom. And other stuff. I want to know the whole story, good or bad.”

  “Me too,” said Gazzy. “I want to find my parents so I can tell’m what total scuzzes they are. Like, ‘Hi, Mom and Dad, you’re such scum!’”

  I decided we’d better stay underground for safety’s sake. In the subway station, we jumped off the platform and walked quickly along the tracks. It looked familiar, and sure enough, a few minutes’ walking brought us to a huge firelit cavern populated by homeless people and misfits. Home, sweet home, especially if you happen to be a sewer rat.

  “Boy, does this look inviting,” Fang said, rubbing his hands together.

  I made a face at him as we climbed up onto the concrete ledge. Inside, I was glad that he had enough energy to be sarcastic.

  Suddenly exhausted and emotionally wiped, I held out my left fist to make our bedtime stack. We did our thing, then Angel snuggled next to me. I checked to make sure the others, especially Fang, were okay, then I lay down, letting despair cover me like a blanket.

  I was in the middle of another sleep-driven brain explosion when I felt myself surface to consciousness without opening my eyes. Not analyzing the impulse, I shot out my hand and grabbed someone’s wrist.

  Moving fast, still on instinct, I sat up and twisted the intruder’s arm behind his back, my senses roaring to life.

  “Cool it, sucker!” the arm’s owner whispered furiously. I yanked upward, threatening to pop his arm out of its socket. I definitely could’ve done it.

  Fang creaked upright next to me, his eyes alert, but his body moving stiffly.

  “You’re screwing with my Mac again,” said the hacker, and I loosened my hold on him. “Jeez, what happened to you?” Directed at Fang.

  “Cut myself shaving,” Fang said.

  The hacker frowned and rubbed his shoulder where I’d strained it. “Why’d you come back here?” he asked angrily. “You’re totally wrecking my hard drive.”

  “Let me see,” I said, and he grumpily opened his laptop.

  The screen was covered with the inside of my head: images, words, photos, maps, mathematical equations.

  The hacker scowled, seeming more perplexed than mad, though. “It’s weird,” he said. “You guys don’t have a computer with you?”

  “No,” Fang said. “Not even a cell phone.”

  “What about a Palm Pilot?” the hacker asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “We’re kinda more low-tech than that.” Like, having Kleenex would be a huge step up for us.

  “A memory chip?” he persisted.

  I froze. Almost against my will, I slid my gaze over to Fang.

  “What kind of memory chip?” I asked, striving for casual.

  “Anything,” the hacker said. “Anything that would have data on it that would interfere with my hard drive.”

  “If we did have a chip,” I said carefully, “could you access it?”

  “If I knew what it was,” he said. “Maybe. What do you have?”

  “It’s small and square,” I said, not looking at him.

  “Like this?” The hacker held his fingers about three inches apart.

  “Smaller.”

  His fingers were a half-inch apart. “You have a memory chip this small?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me see. Where is it?”

  I took a deep breath. “In me. It’s implanted in me. I saw it on an X-ray.”

  He stared at me with horror in his eyes. He turned off his laptop and closed the lid. “You have a memory chip that small implanted in you,” he verified.

  I nodded, guessing this was somewhat worse than having cooties.

  He took several steps back. “A chip like that is bad news,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “It might be NSA. I won’t mess with it. Look, you stay away from me! Next thing, they’ll be after me.” He backed away into the darkness, his hands up as if to ward off evil. “I hate them! Hate them!” Then he was gone, back into the bowels of the tunnels.

  “See ya,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.”

  Fang looked at me irritably. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

  I so wished he weren’t all banged up—so I could whack him.

  120

  We tried to get some sleep—God knows we needed it. I kind of dozed off. Then I wasn’t asleep, I knew that much. But I wasn’t awake, exactly.

  I’d been, like, sucked into another dimension, where I could feel my body, sort of, knew where I was, and
yet was powerless to move or speak. I was in a movie, starring me, watching it all happen around me. I was going down a dark tunnel, or the tunnel was slipping by me, and I was staying still. Trains were rushing past me on both sides, so it was a subway tunnel.

  I was thinking, Okay, subway tunnel. Yeah, so?

  Then I saw a train station: Thirty-third Street. The Institute’s building was on Thirty-first Street. In the darkness of the waking-dream subway tunnel, I saw a filthy rusted-over grate. I saw myself pulling the grate up. Fetid brown water gurgled below. Bleah—it was the sewer system, beneath the city.

  Hello.

  Beneath a rainbow . . .

  Bingo, Max, said my Voice.

  My eyes popped wide open. Fang was watching me with concern. “Now what?”

  “I know what we have to do,” I said. “Wake everyone up.”

  121

  “This way,” I said, walking in the darkness of the tunnels. It was as if a detailed map was imprinted on my retinas, so I could see it laid over reality, tracing the path we needed to follow. If this map effect was part of my life forever, I would go nuts, but right now it was dang useful.

  One other thing I guess I should mention—I was really, really afraid now, more afraid than I’d ever been before, and I didn’t even know why. Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth. Also, my head was throbbing, and that had me a little crazy too. Was I approaching my expiration date? Was I going to die? Was I just going to fall over and be gone from the world and my friends?

  “Did the Voice tell you about this, Max?” Nudge poked at me and asked.

  “Kind of,” I answered.

  “Great,” I heard Iggy mutter, but I ignored him. Every step was bringing us closer to the Institute—I could feel it. We were finally about to have our questions answered, and also possibly fight the worst fight of our lives. But our curiosity was so compelling: Who were we? How had they taken us from our parents? Who had grafted avian DNA into us and why? My mind shied away from the parent question. I really didn’t know if I could stand to find out. But everything in me burned to know the other whys and wherefores. I wanted names. I wanted to know who was accountable. I wanted to know where they lived.

  “Okay, now the tunnel splits,” I said, “and we take the one with no tracks.”

  Angel’s hand was in mine, small and trusting. The Gasman was still dopey with sleep, occasionally stumbling. Iggy had one finger in Fang’s belt loop.

  We were looking for a rusted grate set in the floor. In my dream, I had seen it at the crossroads of two tunnels, so it had to be here. But I didn’t see it. I stopped, and the others stopped behind me.

  “It has to be here,” I said under my breath, peering into the darkness.

  Don’t think about what has to be, Max. Think about what is.

  I set my jaw. Can’t you just tell me stuff straight out? I thought. Why did everything have to be like, “What is the sound of one hand clapping” and all?

  But okay. What was here, then? I closed my eyes and just sensed where I was, consciously letting any impression at all come to me. I felt like such a total dweeb.

  Then I just walked forward, eyes shut, trying to sense where we should go. Instinctively, I felt I should stop. So I stopped. I looked down.

  There, at my feet, was the dim outline of a large rusted grate.

  Well, aren’t you special, I told myself. “It’s over here,” I called.

  The grate pulled up easily, its screws disintegrating into rusty powder as Fang, Iggy, and I pulled. It came loose, and we set it aside.

  Below it was a manhole with rusted U-shaped handholds set into one side. I lowered myself over the edge and started climbing down into the sewer system of New York City.

  What a destiny.

  Finally, I had to ask the Voice a question. HAD TO ASK. Am I going to die? Is that what this is all about?

  There was a pause, a long one, really agonizing, the worst.

  Then the Voice decided to answer. Yes, Max, you are going to die. Just like everybody else.

  Thank you, Confucious.

  122

  This may surprise you, but the sewer system of a burg with eight million people is even less delightful than you might imagine. We climbed down the manhole one by one and ended up standing on a grimy tiled ledge maybe two feet wide. Above us, the tunnel curved around, some fourteen feet across, and below our ledge was a swiftly moving current of filthy wastewater.

  “Bleah,” said Nudge. “This is so gross. When we get out of here, I want someone to spray me with, like, disinfectant.”

  Angel stuffed Celeste up under her shirt.

  “Max?” said the Gasman. “Are those, um, rats?”

  Lovely. “Yes, those do appear to be either rats or mice on steroids,” I said briskly, trying not to shriek and climb the walls like a girly-girl.

  “Jeez,” said Iggy with disgust. “You’d think they’d want to live in a park or something.”

  Ahead of us was a four-way intersection of tunnels, like a big cross. I hesitated, then turned left. Several minutes later, I stopped, completely and utterly without a clue.

  Hello, Voice? I thought. A little help here, please.

  I had no hope that the Voice would respond, but if it did, it would probably say something like, If a tree falls in a forest, does it still—

  I looked down, then sucked in my breath so fast I almost choked. I was standing on a translucent platform suspended high over the sewer system. I wanted to scream, feeling off-balance and scared. Below me I could see another Max, looking like a deer caught in headlights, and the rest of the flock staring at me. Fang reached out and took the other Max’s arm, and I felt it, but no one was with me.

  When are you going to trust me, Max? said the Voice. When are you going to trust yourself?

  “Maybe when I don’t feel completely bonkers,” I snarled.

  I swallowed hard and tried to get a grip. Tentatively, I glanced down again at the translucent surface. As I watched, faint lines of light tracked the path behind us, where we’d already been. Then the lines continued through the tunnels, like a neon This Way sign.

  Quickly, I glanced up but saw only the yucky yellow-tiled arch covered with mold—no glass ceiling. Fang was still holding my arm, looking at me intently.

  I gave him an embarrassed smile. “You must be so sick of looking at me with concern.”

  “It is getting stale,” he said. “What happened? This time, I mean.”

  “I don’t even want to explain,” I said, wiping clammy sweat off my forehead. “You’d have me committed to a madhouse.”

  I stepped carefully around him and led the others forward. Some sections of the tunnel were lit dimly from open grates high above us, other parts were dark and dismal. But I was never lost, never uncertain, and after what felt like miles, I stopped again because it felt like it was time to. ’Cause, like, the feng shui was right, you know? Ugh.

  As we stood staring around ourselves in the darkness, avoiding our chittering little rat friends, I saw why we were there.

  Set into one cruddy, disgusting sewer wall was an almost completely hidden gray metal door.

  “We’re here, gang. We made it.”

  123

  Don’t get too excited. The door was locked, of course.

  “Okay, guys,” I said softly. “Can any of us open locks with our minds? Speak up now.”

  No one could.

  “Iggy, then.” I moved out of the way and pulled him gently to the door. His sensitive fingers reached out and skimmed the door, feeling its almost indistinguishable edges, hovering around the keyhole. Like someone was going to come down here with a key.

  “Okay,” Iggy muttered. He pulled his little lock-picking kit out of his pocket, as I knew he would. Even though I had confiscated it for forever only two months ago, after he picked the lock on my closet at home.

  Home. Don’t even think about it. You no longer have a home. You’re home-less.

  Carefully, Iggy selected a too
l, changed his mind, took out another one. Angel shifted from foot to foot, looking nervously at the rats, who were growing creepily curious about us.

  “They’re going to bite us,” she whispered, clutching my hand, patting Celeste through her grimy shirt. “I can read their minds too.”

  “No, sweetie,” I said softly. “They’re just afraid of us. They’ve never seen such huge, ugly . . . creatures before, and they want to check us out.”

  I was rewarded with a tiny smile. “We’re ugly to them. Right.”

  It took Iggy three minutes, which was a personal record for him, breaking the old four-and-a-half-minute record required by the three locks on my closet.

  Iggy, Fang, and I gripped the edge of the door with our fingernails and pulled—there was no doorknob. Slowly, slowly, the immensely heavy door creaked open.

  Revealing a long, dark, endless staircase ahead of us. Going down. Of course.

  “Yeah, this is what we needed,” Fang muttered. “A staircase going down to the Dark Place.”

  Iggy blew out his breath, less than thrilled. “You first, Max.”

  I put my foot on the first step.

  You’re on your own now, Max, said my Voice. See you later.

  124

  My headache was back, worse than before. “Let’s keep it moving,” I called over my shoulder.

  Unlike the sewer, there wasn’t even far-off light on the stairs, so it was pitch black. Fortunately, we could all see pretty well in the dark. Especially Iggy.

  The steps seemed endless, and there was no handrail. I guess whoever built this wasn’t too concerned with safety.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Fang asked softly.

  “We’re approaching our destination,” I said, descending into the darkness. “We’re homing in on the answers we’ve dreamed about getting our whole lives.”

  “We’re doing what your Voice has told us to do,” he said.

  I was wary. “Yeah? The Voice has been okay so far, right?”

  There was a bottom at last. “Here we are,” I said, my heart pounding.