Maximum Ride Forever (15 page)

“ARE YOU KIDDING me?”

I stared at the cliffside nests the bird kids had built, at the bits of string and dried leaves. All of them were empty.

“Are they just out foraging? Why didn’t you go, too? Or—they haven’t really left, have they?”

Harry cocked his head at me curiously, his handsome face as innocent and blank as usual.

Oh, this is stellar.

He started picking affectionately at my wings again.

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head, smoothing my feathers back down. “I have to think.”

I watched him scuffing up dirt, relishing a dust bath.

I stopped moving and crossed my arms. “Harry, this has been great, but it’s time for me to move on.”

“Haaarrryy!” he cawed happily, and my face softened. After years spent on the run, I had a soft spot for strays, and the poor guy couldn’t help it if he’d been programmed with the intellectual capabilities of a Tickle Me Elmo.

He stared at me with a dopey, thrilled expression, like I was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

At least someone thinks so.

“Okay, look,” I said, knowing my words sounded like gibberish to him, as his language did to me. “Let’s go find your flock, and then I have to bounce, understand?”

“Maaaax Mummmm,” Harry cooed, and nuzzled against my shoulder.

“Right,” I said, and pointed. “You lead the way.”

We flew west, and again I marveled at Harry’s grace in the air. Every part of him was crafted to be as aerodynamic as possible—from the overdeveloped shoulder muscles that made his wings work almost effortlessly, to the incredible core strength that held his whole body parallel to the ground.

I’d always been the top flier in the flock, but now I was aware of my legs dipping slightly below my upper body, causing drag. And while I was gulping air as I pumped my wings to gain speed, with feathers that cut through the air like blades, Harry barely had to flap.

On land we couldn’t understand a thing the other said, but in the sky, we spoke the same language. Harry slowed imperceptibly to coast beside me while I studied landmarks, and pulled ahead so I could ride his slipstream
through turbulent patches. When I was just starting to notice a twinge of hunger in my stomach, Harry was already diving for prey. For hundreds of miles, we were in perfect synchronization.

Until we reached the Pacific Ocean.

Harry started to turn left, but something made me hang back… I had a weird feeling of retracing Fang’s steps—a sense of urgency.

North
, my gut insisted.

Harry was cruising so fast, I had to shout over the wind. “Wait up!” I tapped his shoulder and pointed the other way, but with a quick shake of his head, Harry pulled harder to the left.

“I know we’re looking for your flock, but I’m looking for someone, too, okay?”

Harry’s brow was wrinkled with anxiety.

“What is it?”

“Pfft!”
Harry’s eyes widened, and the way he flung his fingers open reminded me of one of Gazzy’s IEDs.

“A bomb?” I asked, grabbing his wrist. “A bomb went off, to the north?”

My breath caught in my chest as I thought of the charred remains of Tanzania and the watery grave of New York. The giant I’d fought had said the Remedy would punish the whole world, and the voices on the radio had been carrying out that mission.

They wanted no survivors.

“We have to check it out,” I decided, and as I started to
turn, Harry shook his head in alarm. Of course the other bird kids would’ve avoided the place—birds and animals tended to be the first ones to flee during disasters.

I was already headed up the coast, though, scanning the northern landscape for smoke and steeling myself for whatever we might find.

Call me stubborn, but I always listened to my gut.

EVERYTHING WAS SO still. So quiet.

As we landed, the wind from our wings moved dust that seemed like it had blanketed the ruins for years, and when I coughed, the sound echoed even in the open, leveled space.

I’d say Seattle was a ghost town, except without the town part. There were just piles and piles of rubble as far as we could see. Exactly like the bombed city in Africa.

All desolation starts to look alike, I guess.

Or maybe I’m just jaded.

“Looks pretty bad, huh?” I said.

“Max Mum…” Harry pleaded.

“Yeah, yeah. We won’t stay too long,” I said. To be honest, I was ready to split the moment we landed, too. The
place was giving me a major case of the heebie-jeebies, but since I’d dragged us here, we had to at least check it out.

We shuffled through the colorless haze, gaping around us like archaeologists digging up a lost city. We walked under archways that stood alone where buildings had fallen, and passed skeletons of cars that still smelled of gas. I saw a hard hat lying in the dirt and reached for it, but it crumbled on contact.

“There’s no one,” I whispered. No survivors, no bodies. Just ash.

Turns out, almost everything burns, and history is quick to turn to dust. Except for that smooth glint of metal over there…

What is that?

I cocked my head to stare at the large, disklike object. For a second, I thought that, on top of everything else, the world was being invaded by aliens.

Then I understood.

So
that
was what had happened to the famous Space Needle. The long white base was nowhere in sight, but somehow the UFO-shaped top had ended up over a mile from the coast. It was half submerged in a pile of debris, like it had skidded onto a dull gray planet.

“Come on!” I said, dragging a less-than-enthusiastic Harry behind me.

The windows that circled the perimeter had been blown out, and we had to climb over the twisted metal dividers to get in. The initial blast must’ve blown the aerodynamic
disc inland before the mushroom cloud incinerated everything else, though. Because inside, apart from the white chairs that were overturned and piled everywhere, the objects in the restaurant were surprisingly intact.

There were even a couple of cracked dishes sitting on a table. And a small, black, rectangular object, just lying there, like it had been forgotten…

I snatched up the phone.
No. It couldn’t be.… Impossible.

But true.

It was
on
, and
working
, and four full bars shone in the corner—the thing actually had
service
!

“Do you know what this is?” I laughed, shaking it at Harry.

“Harry!” he squawked, responding to my excitement.

“Communication!”

I held it in my hand, my heart thudding, and then realized that none of the flock had phones. An intact phone with full service, found in a city completely destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and I had no one to call. I did not smirk at the irony.

But if I could get on the Internet…

I tapped the smartphone’s screen and a browser opened. I typed in the address of Fang’s blog.

Maybe he has logged in.

Maybe he’s tried to get a message to me.

Maybe there’s something he wants me to know.

Harry peered over my shoulder as I scrolled through the comments. I didn’t find a single post from FangMod,
but a thread with the subject “DEAD FLOCK” made me stop cold. I clicked to expand, but the stupid thing took forever to load.

“Come on. Come onnn,” I muttered, jabbing my finger at the screen.

Flockfan23:
Rumors here that some of the flock have been murdered. My cuz said Angel told her and was crying. Any1 else have info?

I pictured Angel’s tear-streaked face, her blonde eyebrows knitted in grief. I held my breath.

There were half a dozen responses. PAtunnelratt, the commenter we’d been communicating with before, was the first to answer.

PAtunnelratt:
The story around here is Gasman got blown up and one of the H-men grabbed Iggy in the woods. Heard they were looking for my silo, so I’d feel mad guilty if it’s true.

I shook my head.
Lies.
They had to be.

Yeah, the boys had said they were headed to find some green in the US, but Gazzy was a genius with explosives, and Iggy couldn’t be caught. I scrolled down for the next comment.

ImMargaretA:
Nudge was drowned in an underground cave on some Pacific island. The dog, too. Skewered with a speargun.

My mouth went dry and I reread the lines several times, chewing the inside of my cheek. How did she know about the island? How would anyone know where Nudge and Total were? Or that they were alone?

That I’d left them.

Other commenters had already challenged Margaret A.’s sources, but she was defiant.

ImMargaretA:
I’m on the inside. Got it from the Remedy himself. They’re taking out the bird kids one by one. Army meeting Fang in Alaska. You’ll see.

My hand was so sweaty the phone almost slipped out.

Alaska.

Was that what had pulled me so urgently west? What had made me turn north? It couldn’t be true, could it?

TeeniBikeeni:
No way, not my Fang. He’d never let himself be captured. Please nooo.

Flockfan23:
What about Max? Has anybody heard anything about Max?

My eyes were blurring and all I saw was smoke pouring out of an underground hole, the spearguns the fish kids had used, an army of giants waiting in the snow…

“
No
,” I said aloud, blinking my eyes clear again. I knew none of it was right. It had to be Doomsday kids infiltrating the blog—that was the only explanation. Or other killers who wanted to scare us, to make us think we didn’t have a chance.

Still, I couldn’t stop staring at the words at the bottom of the small screen.

ImMargaretA:
Maximum Ride is next.

HARRY’S WINGS SHOT out, making me jump.

I let out my breath with a nervous laugh and looked up from those stupid words.

“Okay, okay. I know you’re ready to get out of this place.” I wanted to toss the phone and the lies I’d read with it, but I knew it might come in handy. Maybe I could throw it at the next person who attacked me. “I guess we’ve seen enough. Come on, Harry. Let’s g—”

Then I saw Harry’s eyes staring behind me and realized he hadn’t been nudging me to leave. The snap of his wings had been a flight instinct—Harry was
scared
. I turned quickly and glimpsed a flash of white through the windows. Something flitting between concrete pillars.

Something that was trying to ambush me.

No, Maximum Ride isn’t going to be next. Not today. Not ever.

“Hey!” I yelled. I stumbled over the chairs and took off after it—whatever it was.

I kicked through pieces of brick and sharp metal and skidded around collapsed buildings as I chased the hint of movement, something small and quick and just beyond my reach. When I lost the trail I took to the sky, searching, searching, and then—

There!

A tiny figure ducked into a hole, and I dropped down nearby. It was the opening to a cellar, but the house above was completely gone, ripped right off the foundation. As I peered down into the darkness, Harry landed softly behind me.

“This is a good idea, right?” I asked him, and though he cocked his head doubtfully, I crept down the stairs, gripping my now-rusty knife tightly.

Part of the room was blocked by beams that had fallen through the ceiling, but the rest of the cellar was clear. At first I thought I’d made a mistake and nothing was there, but then, behind a washing machine, I found her.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. Over the years, I’ve seen more awful things than anyone should ever have to see. Horrible mutated experiments gone wrong, people injured, killed, tortured, animals mutated by toxic waste… and this poor kid was definitely on the list. The girl was probably around six years old. Even in the low light, I saw that
her skin was pink and raw, the flesh bubbled. There were patterns in some places—spots where clothing seams or textures had burned right into her flesh.

How did she survive this?

I blinked hard as I thought of all the people who had been far enough away to avoid being incinerated into ashes, but not far enough to escape unscathed. The burns, the pain…
oh, my God
.

“Hey there,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid.”

The girl stared up at me silently, and her strange gaze was unnerving. Her pupils were golden, like a small flashlight permanently shone on them. I wondered if she could see me, or if she was blind, like Iggy.

I just wanted to give this poor kid a hug. I stepped closer, and Harry made a chirpy sound in his throat—some kind of warning.

Glancing at him, I saw that his arms were crossed and his feathers were puffed up, making his wings appear about twice their usual size. Living with his flock high in remote mountain cliffs, Harry probably hadn’t had much contact with non-mutants, let alone burned, freaked-out little kids.

“It’s okay, Harry,” I reassured him. “Look, she’s just a little girl.”

But when he came closer, the girl ducked her head down, curling into herself. Between the curtains of her dark hair, there were bald patches visible on her scalp and darker burns on the back of her neck.

This is what nuclear war looks like
, I thought angrily. I wanted to make someone pay for this girl’s unspeakable pain and loss. I wanted to pummel whoever had done this.

The Remedy.

“My phone…” the girl whispered.

That’s why she’s been spying on us—we stole her phone.

“You can have your phone,” I told her, and crouched down to her level. “Are you all by yourself? Where’s your mom? Your family?”

The girl was gripping something tightly in her hand. Maybe a memento, or a clue about who she was.

“Whatcha got there?” I asked.

She mumbled something into her fist.

“What’s that?” I asked, leaning close to hear her meek voice.

“One Light,” she said more loudly, and as she thrust her hands toward my face, a pale green gas spilled from her palm.

In my last flash of consciousness, I realized I’d been trapped.

And there was no way out.