Smash!
Hitting the cold ocean was in fact a whole lot like hitting concrete, Fang decided, but he was so streamlined that he shot straight down like an arrow, spearing the water. It felt as if God had punched his face, but he was still alive and conscious.
He heard the impact of the Gasman and Iggy hitting the water but could barely see anything when he opened his eyes.
As the boys started to make their way up to the surface, their ears popping, they saw and felt hundreds and hundreds of Flyboys smashing into the water.
It turned out they could not swim.
It also turned out that water was not a good environment for their systems to function properly in. The electrical charges of the Flyboys shorting out actually made Fang's skin tingle, and he motioned to the Gasman to get away, now! The Gasman grabbed Iggy, and they swam hard after Fang.
They bobbed to the surface about eighty feet away from where a showstopping lights-and-sparks display was taking place. The Flyboys couldn't help themselves, even as they saw dozens of their colleagues exploding and shorting out in the water.
Some of them tried to backpedal, but their wings weren't designed that way-and the Flyboys behind them just hit them and dragged them all down anyway.
"Awesome!" shouted the Gasman, punching his fist in the air. "Oh, Iggy, man, if you could only see this!"
"I hear it," said Iggy happily. "I feel it. There's nothing like the smell of the shorted closed-circuit system of an electric Frankenstein."
"So, guys," said Fang, treading water. "Good plan?"
"Excellent plan, dude," said the Gasman, and Iggy held up his hand for a high five.
Fang slapped it, then they swam toward shore.
127
With a gigantic splintering, grinding noise, the enormous castle gates burst inward. What was left of the mutants hurried out of the way.
A giant yellow Humvee careened in through the gates, its front end considerably smashed.
The driver's door popped open, and a teenage girl leaned out. "I just got my license!" she said excitedly in a heavy German accent.
Then hundreds of kids started pouring through the broken gates, only to stop and stare at the courtyard, littered with bodies and busted Flyboys.
Onstage, the Director was white-faced. Her order had effectively finished off the last of this batch of Flyboys. Maybe she had more stashed inside. At any rate, she turned and started hurrying toward the metal door that led back into the castle.
I tumbled Total into Angel's arms and grabbed Nudge's hand. "Come on!"
The two of us took off into the air-the Flyboys had shorted out the electric grid as well as themselves.
"Help me get her!" I told Nudge.
Just as the Director reached the metal door and was grabbing hold of the lever, Nudge and I dropped down on either side of her.
"Not so fast, Mom," I snarled.
128
Nudge and I each grabbed the Director under an arm and took to the air.
She was no lightweight, but together we took her high, way over the castle. She was screaming in terror, looking down, kicking her feet, losing both of her sensible shoes.
"Put me down this instant!" she shouted.
I looked at her. "Or what? You'll send me to my dungeon?"
She stared at me with contempt.
"Oh, did you see?" I said. "I defeated Superboy. But who knows? Maybe someday you can turn him into a real boy."
"Omega was far superior to you," the Director spat.
"And yet here I am, dragging your stupid butt across the sky, and there he is, doing a face-plant in the dirt," I pointed out. "If by 'superior,' you mean totally inadequate in every way, then, yes, Omega is far superior."
"What do you want?" the Director snapped. "Where are you taking me?"
"Mostly just up," I said. "I do want some answers, though,"
"I'll tell you nothing!"
I looked at her seriously, her stiff blond hair streaming out in back of her. "In that case, I'm going to drop you from way, way up here, and watch you go two dimensional. We call it 'flock splatter art.'"
A look of genuine fear entered her cold eyes, which cheered me a little.
"What do you want to know?" she asked cautiously, trying not to look down.
"Who's my real mom? And no, designing me doesn't make you a mom." I knew what Jeb had told me; I wanted confirmation.
"I. Don't. Know."
"Oops!" I let go of her, and she shrieked as she and Nudge started plummeting.
"I'll tell you!" she screamed, looking up at me.
I swooped down and grabbed her again. "Now, you were saying...?"
White-faced, she swallowed and took some deep breaths. "A researcher. She studied birds. She offered to donate an egg. It isn't important who she was."
My heart leaped. "Her name?"
"I don't remember. Wait!" she said, as my fingers loosened. "Something Hispanic. Hernandez? Martinez? Something like that."
I could hardly breathe, and it wasn't because we were at five thousand feet. Dr. Martinez really was my mother. I hugged the knowledge to me like a life jacket.
"You're not the only successful hybrid, you know," the Director said.
"Well, there's darling Omega," I admitted. "And Spot, the cat girl."
"And me," the Director said.
I whistled. "Don't tell me, let me guess. You're half...vulture? Hyena? Some kind of marine bottom-feeder?"
"Galapagos tortoise," she said. "I'm one hundred and seven years old."
"Huh. And you don't look a day over a hundred and five," I said.
She glared at me.
I looked down and saw that the castle was surrounded by German polizei cars. Today was over. Today had been saved. Maybe even the world?
"Bye," I told her, and let go.
Nudge couldn't hold her, and the Director spun downward, screaming in terror and surprise.
That isn't you, Max, said the Voice.
The Voice! I hadn't heard it in a while.
Why's that, Jeb? I asked inside my head. Because you didn't design me that way?
No, said the Voice. Because that's not who you are as a person. No one designed it. It's all you. You're just not a killer. You've shown that again and again. And it makes me prouder than anything else about you.
I sighed. Yes, it's true, I am pretty wonderful, I thought to the Voice. But deep down, where I hoped the Voice couldn't hear me, I did feel a little proud, a little heart-warmed.
Talk about manipulation.
"Okay, let's go get her," I told Nudge, and we swooped down and caught the Director with a good two hundred feet to spare.
129
After it was all over but the shouting, my only desire was to streak toward home. But of course I was outvoted, three to one. Even when I claimed that each of their votes counted for only half a vote, they still outvoted me.
Within hours we were at their chosen destination,
"Let me see the screen," Angel asked, leaning closer.
Yes, we were at a cyber caf #233; in France. Why France? The food! The cute shoes! The fact that Total could go into restaurants and grocery stores!
"Now I can't see," Total complained. He leaned forward on his paws on the table.
"Coffee!" said Nudge happily, slurping from her mug. "Looove it!"
"Please tell me that's decaf," I said.
The screen dinged, and there was Fang's face. And Gazzy. And Iggy, all crowding around their computer back in the States.
Fang! It felt like years since I'd seen him, talked to him. In the past three days, every memory I'd ever had of him had played through my brain. In the dungeon, it was thinking about him that had kept me going. Then getting that note from the mutant in Lendeheim, saying he was coming-it had been one of the best moments of my life.
"Where the heck were you?" I demanded. "I thought you were on your way!"
"Little Flyboy complication," he said, his voice sounding funny through the computer. "Did you know they can't swim? They sink like rocks. They don't like water at all."