Or me, actually. My chip.
"Oh, Total," Angel cried, her tears soaking his head. "I was so scared!"
"You were scared!" Total said, burrowing deeper into her arms. "I thought I was gonna plotz!"
"Okay, I better take him," said Fang, holding out his hands. Total crept cautiously into his arms and tucked himself neatly into the crook of Fang's elbow.
"I need wings," said Total, still sniffling. "I need my own wings. Then things like that wouldn't happen."
Yeah, that was all I needed. A flying talking mutant dog.
99
At last, at last. Ari strode through the doors of a Best-Mart, feeling huge and powerful. Dad was going to let him have Max. She would be all his. Dad could have the others. Ari would have a chance to make Max like him. He remembered when they had fought in the sewer tunnel, in New York. That had been really bad. Max had acted as if she hated him. But now they would be friends. Soon. Very soon.
The Best-Mart was crowded-Atlanta was a big city. Ari and a couple of Eraser troops had hunkered down at a cheap hotel on the highway, waiting for dark. In the meantime, Ari had decided to celebrate.
Now he looked around the store. It was huge. Too bright, too noisy. Hot and full of people, all around. He wished he could drop a bomb on this whole place, watch it light up like a bonfire. He could do it-but he would probably just get in trouble. Again. And get the "don't call attention to yourself" lecture. Again. Ari felt like, Hellooo, I have wings! I turn into a wolf! Blending is out of the question!
But anyway, this place was full of cool stuff. Ari deserved to have something really cool. This was the clothes department. Bor-ing.
Housewares. Bor-ing.
The automotive section, which seemed as if it should be interesting but was actually bor-ing because all it had was, like, oil and windshield cleaner.
Oh, so gross, the underwear department. There was a lady right there, holding a bra! Out in the open! Oh, my God-was she crazy? Ari turned away and kept walking, fast.
Finally-here, at the back of the store. Electronics. Ari's heart sped up as his eyes darted past the rows of TVs, all tuned to the same station. Maybe thirty of them. It was so awesome. Ari could sit here all day, watching them. But that wasn't all. There were boom boxes, cool phones, Walkmans, MP3 players. It would be great to be able to listen to cool music all the time.
Then he saw it. The huge Game Boy display. There were eight Game Boys, all different colors, cabled to a shelf. Next to them was a TV, and it was playing videos of all the different Game Boys, like, having adventures. The blue one was surfing, and the red one tried to break out through the TV, and the silver one got a tattoo. It was the coolest thing Ari had ever seen. He stood there, mesmerized, for a long time.
"Uh, sir?"
Ari turned and saw a salesman wearing a red vest.
"Can I help you, sir? These babies are really hot. Can't keep 'em on the shelves. Would you care to see one?"
"Yeah."
The salesman blinked at the sound of Ari's gravelly, morph-roughed voice. But he regained his composure and managed a smile. "Certainly." He pulled a set of jingling keys from his pocket. "Now, what color would you like, sir? They all have their merits."
"The red one." The one that had tried to break out of the TV.
"I like this one too." The salesman unclipped the red Game Boy from its cable and handed it to Ari. "You'll see it has all the advanced features, including-hey, wait a minute, sir."
Ari was already walking down the aisle toward the exit.
"Sir-wait! You can't take that out of this department! If you want one, I have to ring it up for you!"
His voice sounded like a gnat buzzing around Ari's head. Ari opened the Game Boy and pressed the on button. The screen flickered to bright, colorful life. He smiled.
The salesman caught up with him and grabbed his arm. Ari shrugged him off easily. He thumbed through the menu and chose a game. Another man, larger, stood in front of him, arms crossed.
"You're not going no-," he began, but Ari snapped out his fist and punched him without even looking. The man's breath left him in a whoosh and he doubled over.
Ari walked right through the exit doors. Alarms sounded. A tinny voice said, "You have triggered our security system..." That was all Ari heard because he was out in the parking lot. His thumbs started working the controls. This was a good day. A favorite song popped into his head, and he started rapping under his breath about "a kid who refused to respect adults."
Ari had his Game Boy. It was incredibly awesome. And he'd gotten it for himself. He didn't need anyone to give him stuff.
He became vaguely aware of a ruckus behind him. Turning, he saw an unarmed rent-a-cop holding a billy club, and four store employees, vests almost as red as their faces. Ari sighed. They always had to make things difficult. Well, he could simple things up real fast.
Whirling, he went for a full-out morph. As always, it was kind of uncomfortable, like getting pulled in all directions till his joints popped. His jaw elongated, his eyes yellowed, long, sharp canines pushed down through his gums. He raised his hairy, claw-tipped paws high, one of them incongruously holding a red Game Boy.
"Arrgh!" He'd practiced this in the mirror, the raised claws, snarling muzzle, angry expression, the roar. It all came together in a terrifying, grotesque picture, and now it had the intended effect: Everyone stopped dead. They gasped in fright.
Ari grinned, knowing how horrible he looked when he gave a morphy grin. He looked like a nightmare, like anyone's worst nightmare.
"Arrgh!" he roared again, raising his claws higher.
That did it. The employees scattered, and the rent-a-cop put a hand over his chest and turned pale.
Ari laughed and loped out of the parking lot, waiting until he was out of sight to unfurl his heavy, awkward wings and take off.
He loved his Game Boy.
100
That night we crashed in General Coffee State Park, not far from Douglas, Georgia. Fang and I scouted around for a few minutes and found a scooped-out indentation in the face of some limestone rock.
"Not as good as a cave, but decent," Fang said.
I looked at it and nodded. "This will keep us out of the wind, and it probably won't rain. Looks pretty clear." I turned to get the others, but Fang put his hand on my arm.
"You okay?" he asked. "What happened back there at Anne's?"
Just like that, it all came rushing back-my day. Being trapped in a school full of-enemies, teachers, Pruitt. Thinking Sam was an Eraser. Leaving Anne's house, knowing she was responsible for a lot of our situation.
Suddenly I was exhausted. "It was pretty much business as usual." Which was the sad truth.
"What's in Florida?" Fang asked. "Why does Angel want to go there?"
"I don't know. Maybe just Disney World?" I looked at him. "You think it's something else?"
He frowned, then shook his head. I noticed his hair was getting long again, growing out from his funky New York haircut. That seemed like a lifetime ago. "I don't know what to think," he said, "I'm tired of having to think about it, you know?"
"I totally know," I said, rubbing my temples. "Finding our parents, figuring out the whole whitecoat thing. Me saving the world, and so on. I'm tired of all of it."
Fang looked away for a moment. "I'm ready to forget all that stuff. Look what happened with Iggy. I don't even want to know at this point. I just want to quit running. I also miss having somewhere to make entries in the ol' blog. I really do."
"Let's think about it, think about how we can do it. From Florida, we'd be in a good place to head out over the ocean, find some deserted island somewhere. We could do some research." The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a great idea. We would be safe. We could rest. We could relax on a beach and eat coconuts, and Angel could talk fish into committing suicide for our dinner. It would be heaven.