98
"Gosh," I said. "It's like looking in a mirror."
"Yeah," she said. "Except I've had a bath recently."
"Touch #233;. So, me, how's tricks?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Selling Girl Scout cookies," I said. "Want some? The Samoas are terrific."
Max II started walking next to us, and we kept pace with the crowd, moving in a big oval around the barren yard. I stayed on guard, in case she suddenly attacked me.
"Baa," Nudge bleated. "Baaa."
I laughed, and Max II looked at me. "How can you laugh?" She gestured angrily at the walls, the guard towers, the armed Flyboys that stood around like remote-controlled puppets.
"Well, she baaed like a sheep," I said. "It was pretty funny." I patted Nudge's head. "Especially with her lamby hair. Maybe I should call her Lamby from now on."
Nudge grinned, and Max II got angrier. "Don't you realize what's going on? Where we are?"
"Uh, a honking big castle of evil in Germany?" I offered. "I've narrowed it down that far."
Max II glanced around, as if making sure we weren't overheard. Since we were shoulder to shoulder with a couple hundred other people, it was kind of a wasted gesture.
"This is the last stopping place," she said under her breath, not looking at me. "Look around. We're all rejects. They were trying to build an army out of us, but then they got the Flyboys to work. Now we're obsolete. And every day, a bunch of us disappear."
I studied her. "I'm sorry-did I miss something? Last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me. Are we friends now? Did I miss the memo? Now you're clueing me in on the sitch?"
"If you're against them, then we're on the same side," Max II said firmly.
She could have totally been lying, of course. In fact, it was safest to assume that she was. But her words were all too likely to be the truth.
"How long have you been here?" I asked her.
She looked away. "Since Florida. They...were really mad that I let you beat me."
"You didn't let me do squat," I said.
Sighing, she gave a brief nod. "I was supposed to win. I was supposed to finish you off. They never counted on you winning. And then you didn't kill me. It was awful."
"You're welcome," I said, feeling fresh anger ignite. "I'll try not to humiliate you by letting you live next time."
Max II looked at me sadly, and it really was creepy; so much like looking in a mirror that I felt my face try to assume the same expression, so we'd match.
"There won't be a next time," she said. "I'm telling you, this is the last stop. They brought us here to kill us."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," I said.
"You don't understand," Max II said, agitated. "We're all slated to die. Every day, more of us disappear. When I first came here, this yard was so full, we had to take shifts. There were thousands of us. Now this is all that's left."
"Hmm," I said.
"With this many of us, I guess we have until...maybe tomorrow," she said, looking around, mentally calculating.
Okay, this was not sounding good. I thought we'd have a couple days to regroup, find a way out of this. If Max II wasn't lying, then I needed to step up our time frame in a big way. If Max II was lying, I still had no reason to want to hang around.
We continued to shuffle in big circles, and now both Nudge and Total were baaing occasionally. I was deep in thought, trying to come up with one of my typically brilliant plans, when a mutant bumped into me for a split second, then moved away.
It left something in my hand.
A piece of paper.
Very, very surreptitiously, I unfolded it and glanced down. It was a note, and it said: Fang on his way with flock. Says it better not be a joke.
Inside me, a hard knot of tension that I hadn't even known I had seemed to unravel. Oh, God. Fang was coming. I would have been more suspicious, but the "it had better not be a joke" thing could only have come from him.
Fang was on the way. With Iggy and Gazzy. We would all be together again.
"Max? What's wrong?" Nudge looked at me with concern. "You're crying."
I touched my cheek to find that I was crying, tears streaking down my face. I wiped them away on my sleeve and snuffled. I was too happy to speak for a moment.
"Fang's coming to help us," I said under my breath, looking straight ahead. "He's on his way."
99
We all exercised in the Yard of Despair for another half hour. My mind was spinning-knowing Fang was on his way had given me a jolt of adrenaline. I wondered when he had left. I wondered if I would be able to bear it if Fang's message was all another "test," if it wasn't real.
On the other hand, sometimes a happy delusion is better than grim reality.
In the meantime, I took baby steps behind the mutant in front of me, holding Angel's hand, feeling Total's little side brushing against my leg from time to time.
And I started watching and listening more intently. I'd thought the mutants were silent, but now I began to pick up on things they were saying so softly that the words almost got lost in the dry shuffling noise of their boots against the grit.
I tapped Nudge's hand and nodded my head at the crowd. Angel looked up at me, feeling my intention, and started paying attention also.
Like a prison, the mutants were murmuring, as softly as the wind. Unfair. Lied to us. So many of us gone. Don't want to disappear. Don't want to be retired. What to do? There are so many of them. Too many of them. This is a prison. A prison of death. Unfair. I did nothing wrong. Except exist.
I moved slowly through the crowd, listening to the murmurs, the messages. Angel was picking up on their thoughts. I saw her blue eyes become troubled with her new knowledge.
By the time a strident electronic buzzer told us to go back inside, I had formed a semiclear picture of the group's emotions. They didn't want this to happen to them-what had happened to their fellow inmates. They wished they could change things. Some of them were really angry and wanted to fight, but they didn't know how. I guessed their fighting instincts had been engineered out of them. Mostly, they were confused and disorganized.
Which is where a-ahem-leader would come in.
My plans were starting to percolate as I marched with the others back into the fantasy world of mad scientists, and that plus the knowledge that Fang was on his way made me almost cheerful.
Until three Flyboys stepped in front of me, Angel, Nudge, Ari, and Total, pointing guns at us.
I groaned. "What now?"
"You come with us," they intoned, as if one.
"Why?" I asked belligerently.
"Becuss I vant to talk to you," said our old pal ter Borcht, stepping out from behind them. "Vun last time."
100
We were prodded through long, winding stone corridors in the bowels of the castle, occasionally tripping on the uneven stone floor. I felt as though I'd been chilly for days and rubbed Angel's and Nudge's arms to help them keep warm in the dank chill.
"I hate this guy," Ari muttered, keeping his head down.
"There's a club," I told him. "The Haters of ter Borcht Club. Have you gotten your badge yet?"
Finally we were pushed into a-come on, you can guess-yes: a white, sterile-looking lablike room filled with tables holding schmancy, no doubt expensive science equipment that I longed to start whacking with a baseball bat.
Once we were in, the doors slammed shut behind us, and several Flyboys stood in front of them, guns ready.
"The meeting of the Haters of ter Borcht Club will now come to order," I murmured. Nudge swallowed a snort, and Angel projected a grin into my head. Can you do anything with him? I sent her in a directed thought.
No, came her regretful reply. I get stuff from him-awful, scary, disgusting stuff, but I can't seem to send anything in.
Which messed up Plan A.