I made my eyes round. "Gosh, I sure won't tell anyone!"
"So you met the Director?" he asked.
My facade crashed down, but I struggled to keep it together. "Yes. And what a picnic she turned out to be. Three billion women with ovaries on this planet, and I had to get the one voted 'most likely to become a delusional psychopath' as my mom."
Jeb knelt down on the filthy stone floor, looking at me. I felt Angel wound tightly with tension next to me and wondered if she was picking up anything from Jeb. He hadn't acknowledged the others, including Ari.
"You can still save the world, Max."
A sudden wave of exhaustion almost sucked me under. I wanted to roll up into a fetal position and stay there for the rest of my life, which I hoped would be mercifully short. I had been working so hard for so long, going at 140 percent. I had pretty much hit rock bottom.
I closed my eyes wearily and leaned against the dank stone wall behind me. "How?" I said. "Through Re-Evolution? The By-Half Plan? No, thanks. I'm getting off the madcap train of mass destruction."
Max, you have to trust me, said the Voice inside my head. You were created to save the world. You still can.
Give it a rest, Voice, I thought. I'm beat.
Max, said the Voice. Max.
Then it occurred to me that the Voice wasn't actually inside my head.
Oh, God.
I opened my eyes.
Jeb was still kneeling in front of me. "You've come a long way, Max," said the Voice, except that it was Jeb's mouth moving, the sound coming from him. "You're almost home. Everything will work out, but you have to do your best. And you have to trust me again."
It was Jeb, speaking with the Voice, the Voice I'd been hearing inside my head for months.
Jeb was the Voice.
91
Fang paused a moment, his fingers over the keyboard in the Internet caf #233;. Next to him, Iggy and the Gasman were sucking down lattes like there was no tomorrow.
Which maybe there wasn't.
"I feel like I could fly, like, to the space station!" the Gasman said enthusiastically.
Fang looked over at him. "No more caffeine for you, buddy." He glanced around to make sure no one had heard the Gasman. But they were off in a corner of this run-down coffee shop, and there weren't that many other people in here anyway.
Iggy drained his cup and wiped the foam mustache off his lip. "I liked it farther south," he complained. "The sunshine, the beach bunnies. Up north here, this place has too much of the damp-mist thing going on."
"It's really pretty, though," the Gasman said. "The mountains and the ocean. And the people look more real." He glanced over at Fang. "Are kids still reading your blog?"
Fang nodded. "Tons."
He scrolled down quickly, scanning the entries, and then he felt someone's eyes on him. Instantly he looked up and tracked his gaze left to right, taking in the whole caf #233;. It was times like this he missed Max the most-because she would have felt it too, and they would have exchanged glances and known what to do in a moment, without speaking.
Now it was just him on this coast, and her and that cretin wherever they were.
Fang saw nothing, so he moved his eyes more slowly this time, right to left. There. That guy. He was headed this way.
Fang shut the laptop and tapped Iggy's hand. The Gasman saw it and looked up, on alert. Eight years old and his fists were clenched, muscles tight, ready to fight.
When the guy was about fifteen feet away, still beelining for them, Fang frowned.
"We know this guy," he murmured. "Who is he?"
Casually the Gasman turned and looked over his shoulder. "Uh..."
"His footsteps," Iggy muttered. Fang couldn't hear his footsteps. Iggy went on, face pinched with concentration. "Those footsteps...We heard them...in a subway tunnel."
Fang's eyes widened, and he sharpened his focus.
Of course.
Now the guy was six feet away, and he stopped. Fang had never seen him in daylight before, only in flickering reflections from oil-can fires in the train tunnels below New York City. He was the homeless computer nerd who carried a Mac everywhere he went, the guy who'd claimed that Max's chip was screwing up his hard drive. When they'd asked him about her chip, he'd gone wiggy and run off. What was this guy doing here?
"You." The guy frowned and pointed at them but pitched his voice so only they could hear him. "What are you doing here?"
"Take a seat," Fang invited him, pushing one out with his foot.
The guy looked around suspiciously. "Where's your girlfriend? The one with the chip inside her."
"Not with us."
He seemed to relax, fractionally, and edged warily into the seat, looking around. Fang smiled to himself. Finally, someone more paranoid than they were. It was refreshing.
"What are you doing here?" Fang asked, gesturing to the coffee shop. "Above ground. On the West Coast."
The guy shrugged. "I get around. I see people here, there, all over. I just like to hang in New York mostly-it's easier to blend."
"Yeah," Fang agreed.
Then the guy's eyes fell on Fang's closed laptop, and Fang saw him shift his alert level from yellow up to orange.
"Nice 'book," he said.
"Thanks." Fang waited.
"Don't usually see one like that around."
"Guess not."
The guy seemed to make a decision, and he leaned forward across the table. "Where'd you get it? Or do I not want to know?"
Fang almost grinned. "You probably don't want to know."
The guy shook his head. "You people get into some serious stuff."
"Yeah," Fang acknowledged with a sigh. He looked up. "Would you know how to get a message through to every kid on the 'net, everywhere in the world?"
92
The guy looked at Fang. "Maybe. Probably. Guess it depends on the message."
"Would you need to know the message?" Fang asked, seeing a big wrinkle looming. This guy was, after all, pretty much a nutcase. Who knew how he'd react to Fang's message?
The guy thought about it, then said, "Yeah."
"There goes that plan," said Iggy, sucking down the last of his latte.
"Can I have a muffin?" the Gasman put in.
Fang pushed some money across the table. The Gasman took it and headed to the counter, keeping an eye out around him the whole way.
"What's your name?" Fang asked.
There was a long pause while the guy considered.
"Man, this guy's more paranoid than we are," Iggy said. "It's kind of refreshing."
The guy looked at Iggy and seemed to notice for the first time that Iggy was blind. He turned back to Fang. "Mike. What's yours?"
"Fang. He's Iggy. The little one's the Gasman. Don't ask why."
"Sit here long enough and you'll find out," Iggy muttered.
Mike's eyes went wide, and he tensed in his chair. Fang and Iggy tensed too, waiting.
"Is that your blog on the Web?" Mike asked in a whisper.
"Yeah."
The Gasman returned and put a plate of muffins on the table. He immediately picked up on the vibe and stilled, looking quickly from boy to boy. Since no one was pulling out weapons, he sat down and took a muffin, pushing the rest toward the others.
"So you're sayin' you have...like, wings?" Mike kept his voice low.
"Not just like 'em," said Iggy, talking with his mouth full. "We got 'em." He realized Fang hadn't answered the question and turned his head. "Oh. Was that a secret?"
"Not anymore," Fang said dryly.
"You're the bird kids everyone's talkin' about."
Fang shrugged. "Can you help me or not?"
"I'll help you if you're them. Convince me."
"I'll need more room," said Fang, looking around.
Mike took them upstairs, above the coffee shop, where he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a door. Fang was on hyperalert and wished Angel were there to scan for any threats.
"In here." Mike ushered them into a large room, obviously used for storage. Boxes of various supplies were stacked along one wall, but the middle of the room was empty. "This enough space?"