Fang touched the engraved words one more time, then kicked off from the grass and soared into the darkening sky.
26
FANG STARED AT his warped, distorted reflection.
He was standing in Millennium Park, Chicago, in front of the huge stainless-steel sculpture nicknamed “The Bean.” Around his reflection curved the city skyline, clear blue sky and tall majestic buildings. This place was one of the many stops he’d made in the past few days. He was newly motivated, as if the words on the gravestone had injected him with pure determination.
Fang was trying to understand the 99% Plan.
His wing was still messed up, so he’d taken buses and trains—had even hitchhiked—all over the country, from South Florida, thick with gray fog, to the smooth golden plains of Oklahoma. He had seen the vivid colors of the Arizona sunset. He had watched small waves lap the shores of Lake Erie.
Every place he had visited had held rumors and evidence. All over America, people were stirring restlessly in anticipation. You could feel the energy in the air, building to the breaking point. It was like the calm before the storm.
But this was not a storm of revolution, like so many others in history. This was a darker, more violent storm—twisted, raging. It was a storm of desolation.
There had been dozens of demonstrations, some of which turned into senseless riots. Celebrities were updating their Twitter profiles en masse, writing things like “Earth is mine, 1 more for 99.” Slack-jawed Plan members were milling around outside hospital maternity wards wearing sheets scrawled with such slogans as LESS IS MORE. END REPRODUCTION NOW. The brutal stoning of a homeless amputee (“the Plan does not allow for the weak”) was just one example of the escalating violence.
There were large meetings in every city, held in universities and government buildings, in which “rational” lectures were led by smiling, serenely confident “experts,” discussing the benefits of “selection.” All of which, to Fang’s utter disgust, the news outlets covered with a mix of excited panic and restrained approval.
They wouldn’t be so approving, Fang thought, if they really understood the extent of the 99% Plan. Because through eavesdropping—and, okay, a couple of bribes—Fang had confirmed what he’d feared: These people, the remnants of the Doomsday Group and the By-Half Plan, wanted to reduce the earth to only the enhanced.
That is, to exterminate the human race.
Fang shook his head in revulsion, still unable to comprehend it. The same crazies from the past had somehow become even crazier. That was no surprise.
But the American people were actually going along with it.
Fang’s fists clenched as he thought of all of the places he’d seen, the millions of people struggling through their individual lives, their loves….
All that beauty.
All that history.
And all these people, so eager to destroy it.
Book Two
AND SO
IT BEGINS
27
ANGEL HEARD JEB’S breath catch in horror.
“They didn’t,” he said hollowly. “Not you, too. Not your eyes.”
“You’re just upset because you wrecked your perfect little specimen,” Angel spat, shoving away his hands and retreating farther into her dog crate. She still ached all over.
Jeb clutched the door of the cage, shuddering so hard that he rattled the metal grid. “Oh, Angel…”
“Save it.”
“It’s like Ari all over again,” he said brokenly. “So many failures… so many mistakes. You can’t imagine the remorse I feel, Angel….”
It’s your own fault, Angel thought, but she was almost surprised to hear tears in his voice. She couldn’t remember Jeb ever crying, no matter what happened.
“I was such a bad father to him,” continued Jeb dejectedly.
Angel bristled. Ari had been a disaster, that was for sure, but he was dead. Angel was the one who was here; she was the one whose eyes had been ruined. His apology had been meaningless, but this little heart-to-heart about Ari was straight-up insulting.
And he wouldn’t shut up. “After Ari died, I just… I had to try again. I had to give myself another chance at being a father, at caring for a son. That’s why I worked so closely with Dr. Gunther-Hagen.”
Wait, what? Angel sat up straight inside her crate, her attention snapping back to Jeb. She forgot her anger for a moment. “You were creating another Ari?”
“I swore this time I wouldn’t fail. I would be a good father….” Jeb’s voice caught in his throat. “And he would be a good son. I would retire from my work with the School and care for him with all my heart.”
And despite everything, Angel couldn’t help but feel the tiniest twinge of pity. Here Jeb was, a fully grown man, sobbing over his dead son.
“You have to understand, Angel,” Jeb pleaded. “I had only the best in mind. Just one new Ari. Then it would end.”
“But it didn’t end,” Angel whispered, thinking of the flying mutants they’d battled for months.
“Well, of course there were many less-than-perfect attempts,” Jeb conceded. “But Dr. Gunther-Hagen is an incredibly brilliant geneticist. With his help, I made Ari bigger and better than ever before, seamless and strong. Finally, I had my son back.” Jeb wasn’t crying anymore. He sounded almost triumphant.
Triumphant, and something else.
Angel felt the dread building in her stomach.
“The not-Aris were useful, too,” Jeb said. “Not as sons, but as warriors, designed for one mission, and one mission only.”
“Mission?”
When he spoke, Angel could hear the cold serenity in his tone. “To eliminate Fang.”
28
“WHAT?” ANGEL FELT her skull prickle all over and her hands go numb. The air around her felt like it was vibrating, and she rested her head against the plastic wall of the dog crate, breathing deeply.
With darkness consuming her vision, she couldn’t see Jeb’s face, but she could picture it clearly: the laugh lines around his mouth, a bit of stubble on his jawline, and his eyes—intelligent eyes that she had once known so well, that she had trusted, that even Max had trusted. The eyes that seemed well meaning, even when he was screwing everything up.
She must’ve misunderstood him.
“Wait—what?” she said again, shaking her head to clear it. “Eliminate Fang… as in, kill Fang?”
“That’s what the 99% Plan is all about,” Jeb said simply.
He sounded calm. Creepily, eerily calm. The calm that comes with absolute certainty. It was terrifying.
“Isn’t 99% about sparing the mutants?” Angel tried to keep her voice as calm as Jeb’s, though her body was shaking all over. “How can that mean killing Fang?”
“It’s about the good of the planet versus the good of the people, Angel,” he explained in an indulgent tone, as if they were talking about why she needed to share with others or conserve water. “You know I love Fang like another son.” It was true—she had thought he did. Angel instantly regretted pitying him earlier.
“Then how could you do this?” Angel asked, her voice rising. “I’ll forgive you, Jeb,” she said suddenly. She touched her eyelids again, choking back tears. “I’ll forgive you, and everything that happened with Ari won’t matter anymore. You can turn it all around. Just don’t do this.” She was gripping the bars of her cage, pleading with him.
Jeb was silent for so long that Angel held her breath, a twinge of hope swelling in her.