Max

6.

I"M NOT a great sleeper. When you"ve spent your whole life facing imminent pain and death, you tend not to sink too deeply into the arms of Morpheus. So it was nothing new that I lay awake for hours that night, turning this way and that.

I know what you"re thinking: how do the wings fit into the whole sleeping thing? Well, even though our wings fold up pretty neatly and tightly along our spines, we"re generally not back sleepers. We"re mostly side or stomach sleepers. Little bit of insider bird-kid info for ya there.

Right now I was flopped on my stomach, my head hanging off the side of the bed I was sharing with Angel. Nudge won the Flock Member Most Likely to Cause Injuries by Kicking During Sleep award last year, so she got a bed to herself.

My wings were unfolded a bit, and I reached around to pull a twig out of my secondaries. Here"s what I was thinking about: 1) Who this new threat was2) The air show in Mexico City3) My mom and my half-sister, Ella4) How to get Total to quit milking his tail injury, because enough was enough5) Fang6) Fang7) Fang I"ve grown up with Fang, from the very beginning, when our dog crates were stacked next to each other in the lab of experimental horror that we called the School. I know, just another typical romantic story about the boy next door.

Then we"d been rescued by our bad guy, turned good guy, turned bad again, turned I don"t know what lately - and Fang and I had been like brother and sister with the rest of the flock, hidden away in the Colorado mountains.

Then Jeb (see description above) disappeared, and I became flock leader. Maybe because I was the oldest. Or the most ruthless. Or the most organized. I don"t know. But I was the flock leader, and Fang was my right-wing man.

This past year, things had started to change. Fang had been interested in a girl (see Red-Haired Wonder, book two), and I"d hated it. I"d had my first date with a guy (possibly evil, not sure), and Fang had hated it. Then, last month, he"d gotten all cozy with Dr. Brigid Dwyer, the twenty-year-old scientist who"d been part of the research team down in the land of ice and snow and killer leopard seals. And - get this - she"d sort of flirted back with him. And he"s - practically - just a kid!

In the midst of all this, Fang had kissed me. Several times. So now I was freaked and tempted and terrified and worried and longing - and also angry at him for even starting this whole thing to begin with. But it was started and couldn"t be unstarted. (Again, his fault.) And now I was trying to brush my hair, you know, when I thought about it, and looking at myself in mirrors, wondering if I was pretty. Pretty! A year ago, when my hair got in my eyes, I hacked it off with a knife. The only thing important about my clothes was whether they were too stiff with whatever whatever to move fast in battle. And Fang had been my best friend and an excellent fighter. to move fast in battle. And Fang had been my best friend and an excellent fighter.

Now everything was upside down.

"You are are really pretty, Max," said a small voice next to me. really pretty, Max," said a small voice next to me.

I pressed my face into my pillow and squelched some extracolorful words. Way to go, ace - have embarra.s.sing personal thoughts while you"re two feet two feet from a from a mind reader mind reader.

Yes. Along with the wings and the raptor eyesight and the weird bones, the insane scientists who"d created us had given us the potential to suddenly develop other skills. Iggy can feel colors. Nudge can draw metal stuff toward her and hack any computer. Fang can pretty much disappear into whatever background he"s near. Gazzy can imitate any voice, any sound, with 100 percent accuracy. His other skill is unmentionable. I can fly faster than the others, and I have a Voice in my head. I don"t want to talk about that right now.

But it was Angel who"d hit the genetic jackpot. She can breathe under water, communicate with fish, and read people"s minds. We"re talking about a six-year-old. And, you know, six-year-olds are famous famous for having excellent for having excellent judgment judgment and and decision-making skills decision-making skills.

"You have nice hair and really pretty eyes," Angel went on earnestly.

I rolled over a bit. "Yeah. Brown and brown." Have I mentioned how much Fang loves red red hair? I believe I have. hair? I believe I have.

"No, your hair has little sun streaks in it," Angel informed me. "And your eyes are like - you know those chocolates we had in France? With the gooey stuff in the middle, with the alcohol in "em except we didn"t know, and Gazzy ate a million and then barfed all night? Those chocolates?"

As much as I had tried to suppress all memory of that incident, it rushed back to me in vivid Technicolor. "The color of my eyes is like barfed-up chocolate?" Despair settled over me. There was no hope.

"No, the chocolates before they were barfed," Angel clarified.

So there you have it, the extent of my charms: brown hair and eyes like unbarfed chocolate. I"m a lucky girl.

"Max," said Angel. "You know Fang is the best guy ever. And he loves you. "Cause you"re the best girl ever."

With anyone else, I could ask them how they know that and then discredit them. Not Angel. She knew because she"d seen it, in his mind.

"We all love each other, Ange," I said impatiently, hating this whole conversation.

"No, not like this," she went on relentlessly. "Fang loves you."

Here"s a little secret you might not have picked up on about me: I can"t stand gushy emotion. Hate crying. Hate feeling sad. Am not even too crazy about feeling happy. So all this - the vulnerability, the longing, the terror - I desperately wanted it to all go away forever. I wanted to cut it out of me like they"d cut out that chip. (See book three; I can"t keep explaining everything. If I"m gonna take the trouble to write this stuff down, the least you can do is read it.) But right now, I needed Angel to shut up.

"Okay, maybe I"ll give him a break," I said, rolling over and closing my eyes.

"Maybe you should give him more than that," Angel pressed.

My eyes flared open as I didn"t dare to think what she might mean.

"He could totally be your boyfriend," she went on with annoying persistence. "You guys could get married. I could be like a junior bridesmaid. Total could be your flower dog."

"I"m only a kid!" I shrieked. "I can"t get married!"

"You could in New Hampshire."

My mouth dropped open. How does she know this stuff? "Forget it! No one"s getting married!" I hissed. "Not in New Hampshire or anywhere else! Not in a box, not with a fox! Now go to sleep, before I kill you! before I kill you!"

Oh yeah, like I got any sleep after that that.

7.

YOU"VE NEVER SEEN just how mega a megalopolis can be until you"ve seen Mexico City. I guess there might be bigger burgs in like China or something, but boy howdy, Mexico City seems endless.

Anyway, the Bane of My Existence and I had agreed to one more air show, and of course it was the one in Mexico City, where Dr. Wonderful would be meeting us.

So we were over a ginormous open-air stadium, the Estadio Azteca, which held about 114,000 people. Every seat was filled. We"d changed the ch.o.r.eography and order of stunts since the last show, so if anyone had made a plan to take us out, they"d have to rethink it. Around us, mile upon mile of densely packed buildings stretched as far as we could see, and we can see pretty dang far.

"I need a scuba tank," Nudge said, flying over to me. She was holding her nose with one hand. "And a face mask." She gave a couple of coughs and shook her head, her eyes watering.

"I a.s.sume you"re referring to the wee pollution problem?" I said, raising my voice to be heard over the wind and the mult.i.tudes cheering below. The people in the stadium were looking up to see us silhouetted against a thick gray sky. But it was not a cloudy day. The thing is, with nineteen million-plus people and four million-plus cars and a bunch of businesses making stuff, Mexico City is incredibly, horribly, nauseatingly polluted.

Which was why the CSM wanted us to be there - to bring international attention to it. When Dr. Wonderful was prepping us for the air show, she"d told us that there had been half a million pollution-related hospital cases just in the past year.

Now we were wondering if we were going to raise that number to half a million and seven.

"I"m getting a headache," Gazzy said, circling closer to me. We split apart in a six-pointed star, with Total in the middle, and the crowd below went crazy. Like a huge, rolling wave of sound, the chants came to us.

"We have the power! The future is now! Kids rule!"

I raised an eyebrow at Fang. "Kids rule?"

He shrugged. "I can"t control what they quote from the blog," he said. "What am I gonna say? "More power to grown-ups?" I don"t think so."

"How many readers do you have now?" Fang had started a blog months ago, using our super-duper-contraband computer. He had his own fan clubs and everything. Girls sent him ridiculous e-mails about how wonderful he was, what a hero, etc. It was enough to turn your stomach.

"About six hundred thousand log in pretty much every day," Fang said, automatically scanning the airs.p.a.ce around us. He and I suddenly soared upward, facing each other, about two feet apart. The crowd below gasped, and I knew it looked impressive as all get-out.

Then Iggy zoomed up to join us, and he, Fang, and I made a triangle, our wings moving in perfect order so that we didn"t whap each other on the upstroke. Total hovered way above us, like a star on top of a Christmas tree.

A hundred yards below us, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel were a triple stack of bird kids, centered one over the other, moving their wings in unison: everyone up, everyone down. At Gazzy"s signal, they all turned and started rocketing earthward, still precisely stacked.

Fang, Iggy, Total, and I counted to ten, then angled downward also: it was time for us to land on the field. Supposedly they were going to give us some kind of award.

"You"re national heroes," Dr. Amazing had said earlier, pushing her, yes, red red hair out of her eyes while Fang watched her with interest. "Not only here, but in other countries too. You guys are so young, but you"ve accomplished so much and exposed so much evil. Plus, you helped publicize the melting of the planet"s ice, and spoke to Congress. You"re amazing." hair out of her eyes while Fang watched her with interest. "Not only here, but in other countries too. You guys are so young, but you"ve accomplished so much and exposed so much evil. Plus, you helped publicize the melting of the planet"s ice, and spoke to Congress. You"re amazing."

Who was she beaming at? Yes. Fang.

Who, exactly, had gotten up the nerve to speak to Congress? That would be moi. moi.

But, judging from Brigid Dwyer"s unprofessional adoration, Fang alone had just saved the entire known world with one wing tied behind his back.

It had been all I could do not to trip Brigid on her way out. Which was stupid, because why did I care? Never mind. Forget I asked.

The field below - big enough for the World Cup, the Olympics, and anything else where 114,000 people suddenly needed to be at the same place at the same time - beckoned us. There was a line of uniformed security guards hired by the CSM ringing the perimeter to protect us.

I saw Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel land flawlessly and wave at the crowd as a hundred thousand cameras flashed. Unfortunately, since a camera flash bears a striking resemblance to the flash a gun makes when it"s fired, by the time I reached the ground, I was so twitchy and pumped full of adrenaline that I felt like I might hurl.

We joined the rest of the flock on the green turf and then all automatically circled, facing outward, as if we were six (and a half) cute little covered wagons warding off Indians who were inexplicably ticked off that we"d taken all their land and given them colds and killed most of them.

The crowd was roaring too loudly for us to hear guns. Heck, we wouldn"t have been able to hear a chopper. It was, pretty much, the most nightmarish situation I could possibly imagine, without literally involving a dog crate.

And you know what"s coming, right?

Yeah. The actual nightmare part.

8.

The setting: An impossibly big open stadium in impressive but noxious Mexico City. An impossibly big open stadium in impressive but noxious Mexico City. The cast of characters: The cast of characters: The flock, Total, Dr. Amazing, and some very nice Mexican officials who wanted to give us an award. Plus a TV crew. The flock, Total, Dr. Amazing, and some very nice Mexican officials who wanted to give us an award. Plus a TV crew. The plot: The plot: Just wait. It"s coming. Just wait. It"s coming.

"I hate this. Get me outta here," I said to Fang, keeping a smile stuck to my face. We were waving to the crowd, so many camera flashes going off that I was sure I"d be blind in a minute.

"This is not a good setup," Fang agreed, looking around constantly.

Total, Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge were working the crowd like old hands, bowing and soaking up the applause. Gazzy was spreading his wings and doing little six-foot hops into the air, and each time the crowd roared even louder.

Finally, one of the a.s.sembled officials tapped on a microphone located at the center of the stadium. Brigid Dwyer stood next to them, ready to give a speech about the CSM and what it was trying to accomplish worldwide.

The official said something in Spanish, and the crowd cheered and clapped, chanting quotes from Fang"s blog. Then Brigid took the microphone and waited for relative quiet.

"Buenos dias, senors y senoras," Brigid said, and people cheered. "Hoy nosotros -" -"

Right then, a piercing scream soared above the crowd"s murmur and stopped Brigid cold. Gazzy saw them first: ninja-type thingies leaping over the upper ledge of the stadium and rappelling down to the field.

"Heads up!" Fang shouted. We had a second to exchange glances, thinking the same thing: We hadn"t seen them on the roof, just minutes before. Where had they come from?

"Up and away!" I yelled to the flock, then saw the problem: Brigid couldn"t fly out with us. We couldn"t leave her to the ninjas" mercy, or lack thereof. We couldn"t abandon her and the rest of the people who had hosted us.

The officials, Brigid, and the TV crew gazed openmouthed as at least sixty slim, dark figures. .h.i.t the ground and headed for us. I sized up the situation in an instant: a hundred thousand people who might be injured or killed in crossfire; innocent people right here on the field who would only get in our way; the seven of us up against about sixty of whatever this new threat was.

It was like old times.

"Belay that!" I shouted. "Battle up!"

As a maternal figure, I always try to keep the flock safe, of course. But I admit, it did my heart proud to see the instant blood-l.u.s.t pop into Gazzy"s blue eyes and to see little Angel automatically tense up and get into fighting stance, ready to rip someone"s head off. They were just so - so dang adorable, adorable, sometimes. sometimes.

We were a tiny bit out of practice. I hadn"t taken anyone apart in several weeks. But once you"ve learned the nasty, street-fighting, no-holds-barred art of Max Kwon Do, you never really forget it.

"Get "em!" I shouted as the dark figures raced toward us. Liquid-fire adrenaline surged into my veins, making me jittery and lightning fast.

As soon as one was within striking range, I jumped up and out, both feet forward. They connected heavily, slamming the New Threat in its middle. It doubled over but snapped upright quickly, its dark hood slipping back to reveal a weird, humanish face. Humanish except for the glowing green laserlike eyes.

I landed, spun on one heel, and snapkicked backward as hard as I could. I caught it in the shoulder and heard a crunching, breaking sound.

With its good arm, it swung at my head, much faster than a human could and with more force. I leaped backward just in time, feeling the barest brush of its knuckles against my cheek.

A second one rushed up, followed by a third. One grabbed me from behind, tearing my jacket - my new jacket that my mom had given me. Brand-new, not from Goodwill or a Dumpster. He"d torn torn it. it.

Now I was mad. A split-second glance revealed that the flock was doing what it did best: deconstructing things. No one needed help, so I balled my fists, put my head down, and went after my attackers.

These skirmishes always seem to last much longer than they actually do. I felt like I was punching and kicking and swinging and whaling for two hours, but it was probably about six minutes or so. During that time, I figured out that these New Threat thingies had a couple vulnerable spots: If you brought both hands down in a chopping motion right on top of their heads, their heads actually split open into several metallic strips, like a sectioned orange. Okay, a really gross orange, but you get the idea.

Another vulnerable spot: their trim little ankles. One good strong kick, and they snapped like balsa wood.

In less than ten minutes, thanks to us and the hired security force, the gra.s.sy lawn looked like a combination of an army field hospital and an automobile chop shop. Brigid and the officials were white-faced, huddled together by the podium. A quick inventory of the flock revealed the usual bruises, b.l.o.o.d.y noses, and black eyes, but nothing serious.

Fang came up to me, his face grim, his knuckles raw and bleeding.

I knew what he was going to say. "Okay. No more air shows," I said.

9.