Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports Read online

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

  He frowned, looking confused. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve always seen you fight. Even though I know you can’t get out of this, it’s like I still want you to know what you’re up against.”

  “Are you setting me up?” I asked bluntly. “Is this a trap? I mean, even more of a trap than it obviously already is?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s just...I know I’m never getting out of here. My time’s over. I guess part of me hopes you still have a chance.”

  It made some sort of sad, pathetic sense.

  “Oh, I’m getting out of here, I promise you.” And maybe, just maybe, I would take him with us.

  50

  Under the general heading “Torturing the Bird Kids, Part Deux,” you might find a whitecoat handing us a cardboard box that night.

  We opened it carefully, expecting it to explode in our faces.

  Inside, we found a slim wrapped package. It was a picture frame, book size but no thicker than a pencil. Of course Gazzy was the first one to press the red button on the side.

  The frame bloomed into life, and there it was: that same picture Fang and I had found, once in a crack house in DC and once in Dr. Martinez’s house. I swallowed hard, thinking about her. Wondering if she was real. Hoping she was okay. Trying to figure out what her deal was.

  The picture was of baby Gasman, with his telltale cowlick, being held by a woman who looked kind of tired and washed out. He was plump and happy, maybe a few months old.

  Then the picture started moving, not like a movie but like the actual picture was just...moving. The image zoomed in and rotated, as if we were walking around the woman and focusing on Gazzy. Then the picture pulled back and swung around. We saw an ugly room, with cracked walls and dirty windows. Was that the squatter’s house we’d visited in Washington? Before it had become a bombed-out haven for thugs?

  The camera focused on a wooden table, then on a slip of paper lying on the table. Again it enlarged and sharpened, enough so that we could read the paper.

  It was a check. The name it was made out to was obliterated. The check was from Itex, for $10,000.

  Gazzy coughed slightly, and I felt him trying to control himself.

  His mother had sold him for $10,000 to the whitecoats at the School.

  51

  I didn’t know why only Gazzy’s life was in the picture frame, or why none of the rest of us got one. Those whitecoats sure liked to keep us guessing!

  We all checked one another for expiration dates, but none of us had them. Yet. But you know, when you’ve faced imminent death as often as we have, it gets a little old, frankly. Our room had no windows, so we had zero reference for time passing. We fought off boredom by coming up with plans to escape, courses of action to take. I led the flock through all kinds of scenarios, how we could use each one to our advantage.

  That’s what leaders do.

  “Now, let’s say they come get us,” I started for the hundredth time.

  “And, like, the halls are full of zebras,” Iggy muttered sarcastically.

  “And suddenly tons of bubbles are everywhere,” said the Gasman.

  “And then everyone starts eating beef jerky,” Nudge suggested.

  “Yeah,” said Iggy, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll grab a zebra; Gaz, you fill all the bubbles with your trademark scent, so people are choking and gagging; and let’s throw beef jerky right into their eyes! Now, that’s a plan!”

  They all collapsed into laughter, and even Fang grinned at me as I gazed sourly at the flock.

  “I just want us to be prepared,” I said.

  “Yeah—prepared to die,” said Iggy.

  “We’re not going to die!” I snapped. “Not now, not anytime soon!”

  “What about our expiration dates?” Gazzy asked. “They could show up any second. And what about stupid Angel, turning on us?”

  There was a lot I wanted to say to him about that, but now wasn’t the time.

  I opened my mouth to spout some reassuring lies, but the door opened.

  We tensed, turning quickly to see a whitecoat coming at us, armed with a clipboard. He checked his notes and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “Okay,” he said briskly. “I need the blind one and the one that can mimic voices.” He looked up expectantly as we stared at him.

  “Are you on drugs?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Me? No,” he said, looking confused. He tapped his pen against his clipboard. “We need to run some last tests.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest as Fang and I instinctively moved between the whitecoat and the rest of the flock.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  The whitecoat looked surprised at my noncompliance—obviously he hadn’t read all of our case notes. “No, come along now,” he said, striving for authoritative and achieving only weenie.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked. “Unless you’re packing a submachine gun, you’re flat out of luck, buddy.”

  He frowned. “Look, how about they just come along peacefully, and there won’t be any trouble.”

  “Uh...how about, no?”

  “What kind of trouble?” Gazzy asked from behind me. “I mean, anything to break the boredom.”

  The whitecoat tried to look stern. “Look, we’re trying to explore other options to your retirement,” he said. “You might be useful to us in other ways. Only people who are useful will survive the By-Half Plan. Actually, it’s really more like the One-in-a-Thousand Plan. Only people with useful skills will be necessary in the new order, the Re-Evolution. You should want to help us find out if you’re at all useful to us alive.”

  “Because we’re probably not that useful dead,” Nudge said thoughtfully.

  “No,” I agreed. “Well, maybe as doorstops.”

  The whitecoat made an “eew” expression.

  “Or like those things in a parking lot that show where the cars should stop,” suggested Iggy. He closed his eyes and went stiff, to demonstrate what it would look like.

  “Also an option,” I conceded, while the whitecoat looked horrified.

  “No,” he said, scrambling for composure. “But China is interested in using you as weapons.”

  That was interesting. “Well, you tell China to bite us,” I said. “Now, skedaddle on out of here, before we turn you into a doorstop.”

  “Come for testing,” he tried firmly one last time.

  “Come back to reality,” I said, just as firmly.

  He turned angrily and headed for the door. Gazzy looked at me, like, Should we rush him, push past him? I shook my head: Not now.

  “You’ll pay for this,” the whitecoat said, flashing his ID card at the automatic lock.

  “Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that,” I mused.

  52

  See, when you’re an evil, endlessly funded insane scientist, you have both the means and the motive to, say, suddenly gas a whole room of hostage bird kids.

  Causing said bird kids to pass out without even realizing it and then wake up in a metal cage in the middle of a field.

  At night.

  Some of you have probably jumped ahead and are already at the place where you realize this happened to us, and I’m not just rattling on hypothetically, so good on ya!

  “Unhhh,” Gazzy moaned, starting to stir.

  I forced myself to sit up. There were no lights. Even the moon and stars were blocked by thick, low-lying clouds.

  “You are avake, yah?” said a voice in a horribly recognizable accent.

  “Yah,” I muttered, rubbing my head. “And you are still a butthole, yah?”

  “It’s time for you to be eliminated,” ter Borcht said, sounding gleeful. “You don’t cooperate vis de tests, you are useless to us.”

  I helped Nudge sit up, rubbing her back as she cleared her throat.

  “I don’t believe this,” Fang muttered, rolling his shoulders. He looked around at
our cage. It was big enough to hold us, as long as we didn’t want to do anything frivolous, like stand up or move around.

  “Believe it,” said ter Borcht, clapping his hands together. “Tonight ve implement our Re-Evolution Plan! Vhen ve are done, ve vill haf a world of less dan a billion people. Each country vill be under our control! Dere vill be no illnesses, no veakness. De new strong, smart population vill save dis planet und take us into de tventy-second century!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And if you look in the dictionary under ‘delusional megalomaniac,’ you’ll see your picture.”

  “Nussing you say vill bozzer me,” ter Borcht said more calmly. “It is time to eliminate you. You haf failed all de tests. You are not useful.”

  “No, but we’re dang cute,” I said, willing my brain to start churning out ideas. I scanned the sky and the field as best I could through the bars, but I saw nothing. Come on, come on, I thought.

  “Max?” Nudge whispered. She edged closer to me and took my hand. I squeezed hers reassuringly, but I was thinking that maybe our time really was up. The five of us were hunched back-to-back inside the cage, all of us looking out.

  Then a clumpy blob was coming toward us, growing larger. It took only a second for me to see that it was a group of people walking across the field. Probably here to get good seats for the fun. Some of them were wearing white coats, of course, but not all of them. My eyes picked out Jeb and Anne Walker.

  “How can we break out of here?” Gazzy whispered so only the flock could hear.

  “There’s a plan,” I murmured back. “There’s always a plan.” Well, it sounded good.

  “Children,” said Jeb when he was close enough. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s have it be different. Let us out of the cage!”

  He pressed his lips together, giving his head a tiny shake.

  Next it was Anne’s turn. Inside the cage, we were practically vibrating with tension.

  “Do you know what’s really sad?” she asked.

  “That pin-striped pantsuit?” I guessed. “Those sensible shoes?”

  “We gave you every chance,” Anne said.

  “No, see, giving us every chance would be opening this cruel and inhuman cage and letting us out,” I said, ready to explode. “That would be every chance. This way, you’ve only given us some chances. You see the difference?”

  “Enough!” ter Borcht barked. “Dis is pointless. Ve’re just vaiting for de executioners. Say your good-byes.”

  “Good-bye,” said a sweet little-girl voice.

  And then a shiny metal bar swung through the air and smacked ter Borcht’s head with a sickening, melonlike splat.

  53

  Well. It certainly got exciting as heck after that.

  “Angel!” Nudge screamed, echoed closely by Gazzy. Fang and I threw ourselves against the cage bars, shaking them hard, searching for weak points.

  Angel nimbly bobbed and weaved, her white wings beating as fast as my heart. She dive-bombed the group of scientists, who scattered, screaming for Flyboys to come to the rescue.

  “I can’t break it!” Fang said, slamming his fists against the cage.

  “But I can!” The gravelly voice from behind made us spin in time to see Ari do a full morph into a good ol’ old-fashioned Eraser. I’d forgotten how wolfish he could get, and his face, with its full snout packed with yellow, dripping teeth, was horrible up this close.

  “Get back!” I shouted, pushing the flock away from him. Two ragged-clawed paws gripped the metal bars, and Ari lunged at us, fangs snapping.

  I gasped as his teeth crunched down on the bars—and then, with grisly twisting-metal sounds, he started to chew through.

  Outside, Angel hovered like a demonic hummingbird, swinging her bar, keeping everyone and everything away from us.

  “She’s going to let Ari eat us!” Nudge cried. She braced herself against the cage and clenched her hands into fists. “But it won’t be easy for him!”

  Time-out. Okay, now, tell the truth: When’s the last time you had to decide to make it hard for someone to eat you? That’s just the zany, roller-coaster life of a lab rat on the run.

  It was time to spill. “Angel’s not a traitor,” I said. “She and I agreed that she would do this so she’d be on the inside and could get us out if anything happened. She’s been my spy.”

  Time halted as four dumbstruck bird kids turned to gape at me.

  “We came up with this plan in case the worst happened,” I said fast. “Which it did, of course. Angel’s not a traitor—never was.”

  Smash! Time sped up again as Ari managed to gnaw through one of the bars. It was stomach churning to see—the ripped metal cut his mouth up something awful, and blood mingled with foul Eraser spit was flying everywhere.

  Crack! Ooh—Angel had whacked another whitecoat. Like ter Borcht, this one dropped like a stone. In fact, ter Borcht hadn’t gotten up—he was rolling on the ground, moaning.

  Riiip! Ari broke through another bar of the cage, and his unnaturally strong arms began to wrest the surrounding bars apart. His face was a repulsive bloody-meat picture as he snarled and grunted with the effort.

  “I’ll take him out,” Fang whispered tensely in my ear. “Then you grab the others and get out of here.”

  I quickly tapped everyone’s hands twice. They caught my eye and nodded, and we all braced for Fang’s move.

  With a final, wrenching, earsplitting screech, Ari forced the bars apart, making an Eraser-sized hole in the cage wall.

  “Ready.” Fang’s voice was deadly quiet in the screaming chaos around us.

  We all tensed, ready to spring out as soon as Fang took Ari down—but instead of coming in after us, Ari backed away quickly.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “Get out of there! We’ll hold these guys back!”

  Wha?

  “He’s on our side!” Angel yelled from above. “He’s with me! He’s getting you out! Ari! Release the secret weapon!”

  Ari fumbled with his jacket, and a small coal-colored shadow popped out of it and began to race around, growling and snapping.

  Was it—could it be?

  “Move it or lose it!” Total shouted. “Let’s go, go, go!”

  54

  Fang shot through the hole in the cage, grabbed Total, and was up in the air before three seconds had passed. Amazingly, Ari stood off to the side and let him go.

  I shoved Nudge through next, and she took a running leap, faltered for a moment, then stroked hard and rose into the air.

  Still Ari stood back.

  Watching him closely, I pushed Iggy out. “Four steps, up at ten o’clock,” I hissed. He nodded, then followed my instructions.

  “Come on, Gasman, you’re last,” I said, and practically threw him out of the cage, wincing as the torn metal scratched him. A minor concern at this point.

  Ari watched him go.

  Angel was keeping the humans at bay, and it was my turn. Ari and I had a troubled history—okay, we usually wanted to kill each other, and one time I did kill him—but I couldn’t worry about it right now. I leaped from the cage, took a step on the ground, then snapped my wings out and was up in the air within one breath.

  Oh, God, it felt so good to be up, flying, away from a world that held only pain and death for us.

  “I’m so glad to see you guys,” said Total, sounding a little choked up. “I thought you were dead! I didn’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Glad to see you again too,” I said, surprising myself by actually meaning it.

  Below us, Angel dropped the metal bar and zipped upward, streaming like a comet, her small face serene and beautiful. I blew her kisses through the air, my faithful partner in deception, and she beamed at me.

  It was at that point that the executioners arrived and started shooting at us. I saw Jeb grab one of their arms, trying to mess up his aim, but the guy just clubbed him down with his gun, then kept firing.

  We wer
e already out of range. They would need a missile launcher to hit us now.

  “Nyah, nyah, nyah,” I said quietly, looking down at them. I sucked in sweet lungfuls of night air, counted my flock, and took a moment to focus my direction, feeling where we were, which way was north, where we should go.

  Then I saw Ari, still on the ground. The men with guns were running toward him.

  “Ari!” I suddenly screamed without thinking. “Get out of there! Come up! Come with us!”

  “What?!” Fang exclaimed. “Are you nuts? What the heck are you thinking?”

  Ari probably couldn’t hear exactly what I said, but when he saw me waving my arms, he must have understood. He ran clumsily, a seven-year-old freak in a huge linebacker body, and forced himself into the air. A bullet grazed one of his unwieldy patched-on wings, but he kept flying awkwardly, rising upward slowly but steadily.

  “Max, you are way out of line,” Fang said furiously. He tossed Total through the air at Gazzy, who gave a startled cry and grabbed the little dog. “There’s no way he’s coming with us!”

  “He saved our lives,” I pointed out. “They’re going to kill him.”

  “Good!” Fang said, a savage expression on his face. “He’s tried to kill us a hundred times!”

  I’d actually never seen Fang like this.

  “Max, Ari’s really mean,” Nudge said. “He’s tried to hurt you, and he’s tracked us—I don’t want him with us.”

  “Me neither,” said the Gasman. “He’s one of them.”

  “I think he’s changed,” I said, as Ari flew toward us.

  “He helped get you guys out,” Angel reminded us. “And he found Total for me.”

  Fang gave me an enraged, disgusted look and flew off before Ari got to us. Looking doubtful, Nudge and Gazzy went with him. Iggy heard their direction and followed.

  Leaving me, Angel, and Ari behind.

  55

  “Thanks, Max,” Ari said when he was within earshot. “You won’t regret this, I promise. I’m going to keep you safe.”