Hawk Read online

  CHAPTER 87

  “I can’t,” Clete said. “It’s bedtime.” He looked at his watch anxiously.

  I’d found him in one of the meeting rooms when I returned from seeing Pietro. A couple of Tetra’s leaders were with him: Bimi, a small woman who always looked like she could use a trip to the toilet, and Terson, a guy who was built like one of the prison guards from back home. I guess if you can’t fly, climbing in and out of this place must really build up the pecs.

  “Hawk!” Clete looked happy and relieved to see me. “Tell them it’s bedtime.”

  Clete liked order and for things to happen the way they were supposed to. At the Children’s Home, it had been hard to be predictable. When you don’t even know if you’ll eat every night, it’s kind of tough to keep regular meal times. Still, I’d tried my best. Any bump in schedule could make Clete melt down.

  “Yep, it’s bedtime,” I agreed, and saw Tetra’s leaders get tense. “What’s going on?”

  “Clete was showing Terson and me his plans to help tomorrow,” Bimi explained.

  “What plans?” I asked, some of the tenseness leftover from talking to Pietro seeping into my tone.

  Clete stood up, all two meters tall and hundred ten kilos. He swallowed anxiously and looked at his watch, painfully aware that it was now past bedtime.

  “I can disable the Voxvoce,” he said. “And like their guns and all.”

  “We just need to understand how,” Bimi said.

  I looked at Clete, remembering the promises he had made while he folded laundry back at the Children’s Home. “You’ve been working on this for years,” I said. “Do you have it now? Can you disable guns and the Voxvoce, really, truly?”

  “Uh-huh. Really, truly,” he said, nodding his head. “I promise, Hawk.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Good enough for me! Go to bed.”

  Smiling, Clete grabbed his beat-up computer and hurried out of the room.

  “He likes to keep a schedule,” I explained to Bimi and Terson. “If you made him stay here one minute longer, you would’ve seen a meltdown big enough to pollute Tetra’s air as badly as the City of the Dead.”

  They looked unhappy, glancing at each other as the door closed behind Clete. “We really need to understand how he plans to do this,” Terson said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re counting on disabled weapons at tomorrow’s rally,” Bimi said. “If Clete’s plan doesn’t work, people could die.”

  “That’s like, a Tuesday for me,” I said, shrugging.

  The door opened and the whole Flock came in, pushing Terson and Bimi closer together, almost shoulder to shoulder. They frowned, having clearly lost control of the whole meeting.

  “Hey,” Nudge said. “I hope everyone is ready for tomorrow. We’ve invited the Six families, but also everyone in the City of the Dead. We flew over and dropped leaflets a few minutes ago.”

  “It was like tee-peeing a whole city,” Gazzy said cheerfully.

  “You invited everyone in the city?” I said in disbelief. “And the Six?”

  “Yes,” Bimi said. “So you see why we’re anxious that Clete’s plans work.”

  “He said they would,” I said defensively. Inside, I really, really hoped that Clete knew what he was doing. Because if he didn’t… I mean, I had a few things on my conscience already. I didn’t need the bloodbath of an entire city added to it.

  “Okay,” Gazzy said, clapping his hands. “So the plan is to meet at Industry Park in the City of the Dead at ten tomorrow. “Max is gonna speak, and maybe Angel. Iggy, Nudge, and I are going to be on the perimeter.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “I can do overheads, or undergrounds. I know that city like Calypso’s freckles.”

  “We were hoping you would be with Clete,” Bimi said. “To help him or protect him.”

  I nodded, liking the sound of that. If anybody would be able to keep Clete together during the rally, it’d be me. My eyes bounced off of Max’s. She hadn’t spoken to me at all; hadn’t even acknowledged that I was in the room. Why was she watching me? I flipped her off. Gazzy laughed, quickly covering it with a cough.

  Terson cleared his throat. “I hope you understand that very few Tetrans will be at the rally. We’ve escaped the City of the Dead, and most of us never want to go back for any reason. But there are about six of us who will go with you. Your mission is worth it.”

  “Toppling totalitarian governments is always worth it,” Max said.

  “It’s what we do,” Angel said. “But…” She gave everyone a hard stare. “In order to topple governments, you need to get a good night’s sleep.”

  I awoke too early on the day of the rally because I’d dreamed I had an anvil on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I opened my eyes to find that I really did have a weight on my chest. The dim blue nightlight outlined a pair of pointy, fuzzy ears.

  Io leaned down and whispered, “I can’t sleep.”

  I patted the space next to me and she hopped off, turned in a circle three times, then curled up and closed her eyes. One paw reached out and rested on my arm. Soon gentle snores filled the air. Ridley, on her perch in the alcove, blinked once at me. I made a face back, then tried to sleep. I knew the rally was going to be hard.

  I just didn’t know how hard. Or how high the price would be.

  CHAPTER 88

  I’d never seen so many people from the City of the Dead in one place, ever. Industry Park was a huge rectangle of dirt, with some depressed bushes and a couple of broken benches—not the kind of place you wanted to hang out. Opes didn’t even crash here unless they didn’t have a choice. But it was the biggest open area in the city, and since everyone was coming, that was what we needed.

  There were many, many Opes, no doubt hoping for food or begging opportunities. There were tons of regular people, too—clean people wearing nice clothes, talking on phones, looking insecure about having wandered into the wrong side of town. On the sidelines, raggedy street performers juggled, spit fire, walked on stilts, hoping to pick up a few spare coins for their talents. I was pretty sure no one here had any idea what was coming. It wasn’t going to be a picnic, and sure as hell was no circus.

  So far I hadn’t seen anyone from any of the Six, and I hoped they wouldn’t come. Nothing was improved by adding the Six. The Flock thought they could win against them somehow, but that sounded like a Rainbow fantasy.

  Now the crowd started murmuring, looking at the large stage that had been set up with towers of speakers on each side. Where had all this stuff come from? I saw some words stenciled in white on a speaker and squinted, using my hawk-vision to see.

  It said: “Property of the Pater Family. Use only with permission.”

  Had Pietro helped them? Was that what he had wanted to tell me at Tetra? I prayed the Flock hadn’t gotten those speakers from Giacomo, because if so, they were full of dynamite or something.

  As for me, I was with Clete toward the back of the crowd, on top of an enormous statue of McCallum. I’d flown here before dawn, and Fang had brought Clete. I felt better knowing that Clete was secure up here. He hated crowds, and this one was turning into a doozy.

  “There’s so many people,” Clete said, sounding nervous. He shifted anxiously on McCallum’s wide stone shoulders. Below us, even more people streamed in through the park gates.

  “When are you supposed to do it?” I asked.

  “When Angel gives me a signal,” Clete said. “She said to be sure to wait for her signal.”

  “Okay. And… you’re positive it’ll work?”

  “Yeah, I’m positive.” Clete opened his computer and looked at the cracked screen. “I have two different programs. Well, three, but two we’ll use today.” His fingers clicked on the keys.

  On the buildings around Industry Park, huge vidscreens were showing their usual fare: stories about people being loyal, cartoons about animals following the rules, and harangues by McCallum.

  Attention shifted from the scre
ens to the stage when Angel appeared, motioning for people to quiet down. She tapped the microphone to make sure it was on.

  “Many of you may have heard about the revolutionary Maximum Ride,” she began loudly, and a chill went down my back right between my wings. That was my mom. The revolutionary Maximum Ride. Someone I’d idolized and looked up to… until I found out she was my mom. Then I treated her like crap. Huh. Weird.

  “But you may not have seen her,” Angel continued. “She’s been in one of the deadliest high-security prisons that any government has. She has defied death, not just once, but many times. And she defied death to be here with you today.”

  People started clapping. Clete followed along, and I elbowed him to be quiet, not wanting to give away our position.

  Max strode onto the stage, her usual poncho hiding her wings. Her long brown hair hung down her back, and her eyes were overly large in her too-thin face. Somehow she still got everyone’s attention: the crowd got quiet. Max stepped up to the mic and held the stand tightly.

  “Thank you for coming!” she shouted, and the crowd whistled and clapped. Even some of the Opes stood still and looked toward the stage—her voice was that commanding.

  “Sorry if this speech is kind of rough,” Max said, trying to be heard over the vidscreens, which were still spewing their dreck. “I haven’t given a speech in ten years.”

  More clapping. Max seemed to be thinking of what to say, as if she were shuffling invisible pages. Then she looked up and said, “Why are you all here today? This City of the Dead has been marching along for decades, just as it is. So why are you here to listen to a revolutionary?”

  Below us, I saw people in the crowd turn to look at one another. Just then the vidscreens changed from McCallum ranting to a typical cartoon meant to suck little kids into the McCallum way.

  Max looked over at a screen and watched it for several long seconds as the crowd moved restlessly. People outside of the park were listening now, craning their necks to see Max on the stage. The streets were filling with rally goers, blocking traffic. Horns were honking angrily. What was Max doing? Trying to start a riot?

  Some weird sense prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. I looked at Angel, who seemed calm. She hadn’t given Clete any kind of signal. He sat next to me, tight as a piano string. I patted his knee reassuringly, but I didn’t know if I was doing it to calm Clete, or myself. Something was off. Something was about to happen.

  CHAPTER 89

  “Look,” Max finally said, pointing to a vidscreen, where a McCallum newscast showed sniffer dogs at work. “You see those sweet dogs sniffing out a traitor?” The crowd nodded and murmured yes. “Those dogs… those dogs are sniffing clean air. Clean, clear air. Look at that blue sky. That’s awesome, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand this,” Clete whispered.

  I shook my head. “I don’t, either.”

  “And they’re walking on green grass!” Max continued. “Clear blue skies, healthy green grass! Those dogs have a better life than you do! Where’s your blue sky, and puffy white clouds? Do you even remember them? When’s the last time you walked barefoot over fresh green grass?”

  Thousands of heads swiveled to look at the vidscreen closest to them. It was true that the dogs looked like they were living in paradise. They sure weren’t living in the City of the Dead. The crowd’s murmurs grew louder.

  “How long has it been since you saw blue sky?” Max shouted. “How long has it been since this city was clean and up-to-date? Since your water was safe to drink?”

  Heads with every color and texture of hair tilted up to look at the ever-present depressing gray-blue bank of clouds, heavy with smokestack fumes. Clete and I carefully moved behind McCallum’s head, out of sight.

  “What I don’t get,” Max said, taking the mic off its stand and walking across the stage. “What I don’t get is—why is this okay with you? Who among you is upset that the city you live in, that you’re raising your kids in, is ugly and poor and dirty?”

  Hands raised hesitantly, people glancing around to see if anyone was watching them, if punishment would be immediately doled out.

  “There’s no money!” someone yelled.

  “Okay, there’s no money,” Max agreed, walking to the other side of the stage. “What else?”

  “There’s no jobs!” someone else shouted.

  “Right,” said Max, nodding. “What else?”

  “There’s no one to talk to! At the city offices, they’re all empty, or filled with people who don’t care and aren’t going to help you!” That was a third person. Up on stage, I was still watching Angel, my eyes flicking between her and Max. No signal so far.

  “Right,” said Max. “The city officials don’t care. What else?”

  Everyone started yelling then. I heard “There’s not enough food!” and “The police are corrupt!” and “There’s too much organized crime!”

  Max was quiet, listening. “Okay,” she said during a lull. “You guys have a lot of real complaints. Now I’m going to ask you again: Why is this okay with you?”

  The crowd was stunned into silence.

  “Because apparently it is,” Max went on mildly, walking around the stage. “If it wasn’t okay, you would have done something about it. Right?”

  “You don’t understand!” someone shouted, and a few voices agreed.

  “I do understand,” Max said with solemn authority. The crowd went quiet again. “But I’m here not to be your fairy godmother and wave my wand and make everything okay. I’m here to teach you how to make it okay.”

  Concerned silence. I watched Angel intently, but Max was grabbing my attention, I had to admit. My eyes kept pivoting back to her, riveted. She was magnetic. She was my mom.

  “Each of you has the power to change things in this city,” Max said, coming back to the middle of the stage and putting the mic into its stand. “But just a little bit, right? Because each one of you is only one person. But take all of you—”

  Suddenly there was a reverb on Max’s words. All the vidscreens changed to show Max’s face, then pulled out to encompass her with her arms outstretched on the stage. The huge vidscreen Max looked this way and that, searching for the camera. I looked, too, and didn’t see anything.

  Frowning, half watching the vidscreen, Max went on. “All of you together—look at how many of you want change! All of you together are as big as an army! And you have the power! The power to take ba—”

  Just then a screaming sound made me clap my hands over my ears. Something hot whizzed past us, maybe three meters away? In the next second the upper part of the stage’s ceiling exploded and burst into flame!

  “We’re under attack!” Max spoke from where she crouched on the stage. She gave a cough from the smoke and said again: “We’re under attack!”

  CHAPTER 90

  A harsh cry from above rang out, recognizable even in all the chaos. Above me, Ridley tilted her wings back and forth: danger coming. Then a clanking, rolling roar filled my ears even as the huge statue shook.

  I leaned past Clete to look down the street, nearly losing my balance when I saw what Ridley was trying to warn me about. There was a tank rolling down Fourth Street. An actual tank, marked with the lotus flower symbol of the Chung army! Chung soldiers marched alongside it, roughly pushing people out of the way.

  “Hawk?” Clete said, sounding worried.

  “It’s okay,” I said softly and patted his hand, but I could tell that it was not okay at all. Sure, this was an anti-government, anti-McCallum, anti-Six rally, but a peaceful rally. At least… it was until someone blew up the stage. But, the armies of the Six never get involved—they let the police force handle everything. Yet here they were, in uniforms and helmets and guns, like a private army. An army of Chung fighters.

  Because I was so high up, I could see far across the park. Diaz tanks and soldiers, marked with their gold crosses, were entering the park from all sides. The marching soldiers shoved people out of the way
, and the long guns on top of the tanks circled threateningly.

  “What’s happening, Hawk?” Clete sounded scared, so I’d have to make this lie good.

  “Um, the army is here to go to the rally,” I said as I made sweeps of the park, rating the likelihood of danger. About an eight on a one-to-ten scale: it was all going to shit. How could I get Clete out of here? Fang had been able to carry him, but I couldn’t, and I’m the strongest fifteen-year-old ever. But we were way high up. Maybe we could just stay here, ride out the clash? Mostly I had to keep Clete calm through it all, which… he was already rocking back and forth, as much a danger to himself as the gathering armies below. If he slipped off this statue…

  Suddenly I heard a horribly familiar sound: machine-gun fire. It was unmistakable, even after only hearing it once in my life, on a bad, bad night. Now I saw it in daylight: the flaring sparks from the barrel of the guns; bright red splotches exploding on people’s backs, sides, faces, heads; how those people crumpled; how other people screamed and ran, some trying to carry the injured, others trampling them in their rush to save their own necks.

  The line of soldiers at the edge of the park was just firing into the crowd. Not even aiming. On the huge vidscreens, Max’s face looked outraged, even amid the smoke and falling embers.

  “Gaz!” she shouted.

  Angel dodged the blazing bits of canvas as it fell. She came to crouch next to Max, raised her left hand, and made a chopping motion with it.

  Next to me, Clete nodded. He hit four keys.

  The shooting stopped abruptly, sparks no longer flying, no more red splotches spattering across the crowd.

  Clete wiggled a bit, smiling.

  All around the square, soldiers were looking at their guns, some shaking them, unloading and reloading them. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get them to function.

  “That was you?” I asked Clete.

  “Yep,” he said. “The government put a chip in all of their weapons, so if someone grabbed a gun away from a soldier, they couldn’t shoot it. I deactivated their chips!” He was almost chuckling.