Maximum Ride Forever (24 page)

I THOUGHT OF what Angel had said before the battle.
The Remedy thinks he’s won. But he can’t see the future.
I can.

We will see him fall.

There was nowhere for him to fall, though. We were already at the bottom of the earth.

“We have to get him out of here,” I told Dylan as quietly as I could. “I’ll fly him as high as I can, and you start getting people underground.”

“Max, no, let me do it. He wouldn’t blow me up.”

But I was the one who was supposed to save the world. Angel had said that all along. Everything I’d survived so far had been building to this moment. It was the last chance I was going to get.

“He’s mine,” I said, and my tone left no room for argument. “Let’s go, Hansy.”

Dr. G-H gave a philosophical shrug and got up, as if he was indulging my silly whim. Pushing him toward the door, I grabbed the collar of his white coat, balling the fabric in my fist. As I started to drag him up the eleventy million steps of the medieval staircase, Gunther-Hagen kept that supercilious grin plastered to his face.

“I guess there’s a way out after all,” he said smugly.

He didn’t set off the bomb while we climbed, nor when we went out Margaret’s door and through the dark passageways. Out on the bloodstained battlefield, the Remedy stood still when I hooked my arms around him and took off, my wings carrying us high over where Gazzy and Iggy were leading the other kids in rounding up the prisoners.

“I’ve so missed the great outdoors,” the doctor said. He closed his eyes, seeming to blissfully savor the wind on his face, despite the air, which was becoming more and more ash laden.

Now that I had him in my hands, I didn’t want him to enjoy a single second of his life. He was brilliant and could have helped humanity so much. But he’d thought the only solution was to wipe people off the earth.

“No,” I said, shaking him. “You don’t get to close your eyes, Häagen-Dazs. Look at all those people down there.” I pointed to the kids below, the ones who were helping the wounded, the ones who were carrying their dead comrades off the field. “You killed their families, their friends.
You destroyed their homes, but they’re survivors. They’re free, because you failed.
Look!
”

Gunther-Hagen craned his neck to look at me. “You want me to stay and watch their expressions as the reactor detonates, is that it? I agree, it would be most entertaining to watch.”

I ground my teeth together and shot upward, flying high into the atmosphere and east over the ocean, until I was sure the kids would be safe.

“Now I’m the one who’ll be making threats.” I hooked one arm beneath his neck and gave a little yank. He coughed, his hands reaching for my arm. “So you’d better start talking.”

“Ask me anything you’d like, Maximum,” Gunther-Hagen said, evidently enjoying this. “I know once you hear my reasoning…”

“Don’t count on it. Now, how did you plan it?” I demanded. “And who helped you?”

If any of those scumbags were still alive, we’d deal with them as well.

Dr. Gunther-Hagen pressed his lips together into an ironic smile. “The fates aligned, you might say. I barely had to plan at all… Dr. Martinez did most of the work for me.”

I blinked hard at that. “I was with my mom the day of the explosion,” I snapped. “She was trying to protect everyone she could.”

“Oh, her work with me started much earlier than that. You’ll remember her involvement in Angel’s modification, I’m sure.”

My gaze faltered.

“Jeb knew about Angel’s gift, but it was Dr. Martinez who founded the Psychic Initiative,” Dr. G-H continued. “She said Angel was just a child—a powerful child who didn’t know how to manage her power. That capable, responsible adults needed to take over, so we could learn about the risks of the future.” His voice had a dark edge to it. Though I was the one gripping his throat, it felt like he was moving toward checkmate. “All I had to do was fund it.”

“My mom was just trying to save the planet!” I said defensively.

“Oh, I assure you, Maximum, so am I. We just had different ideas about how to go about it. Dr. Martinez wanted to alert the world powers about the asteroid and blow it out of the sky with nuclear missiles. But I persuaded her that we should handle things more privately.” The corners of his eyes wrinkled with amusement. “So as to prevent panic.”

“So instead you unleashed a deadly plague to kill ninety-nine percent of the world, let the asteroid destroy even more people, then nuked all the cities for good measure,” I said.

I remembered the pictures we’d scrolled through on the computer. The images of people sobbing, people praying, people running even when they had nowhere to go.

I didn’t know how he could live with himself. But then, he wouldn’t have to much longer.

THE ICY WIND whipped through my tangled hair and tugged at my aching arms, and I almost dropped the psychopath to his death right then. But I wasn’t done yet.

Find. Truth.

Dr. Gunther-Hagen was shaking his head. “The virus wasn’t my work, I’m afraid. The Apocalypticas left us that little gift, and they leaked it all on their own.”

So my mom was right about that.

“I don’t think they imagined such initial success. A hundred dead in a couple of days, millions within a week, and by the end of the month, a quarter of the world.” The doctor spoke breathlessly, his eyes lighting up. “It was extraordinarily impressive.”

“Impressive?”
My mouth gaped. “Is that what you call murdering billions of people?”

I loosened my grip on his neck, and the doctor slipped down a few inches. His face blanched a light shade of green, but when he answered me, his tone was still measured.

“Let me remind you, child, I did the honorable thing: I developed a vaccine.”

“You can buy a lot with a vaccine when the population is in the grips of a global pandemic.” I narrowed my eyes. “Like… a bunch of nuclear bombs, for example.”

“Actually, those were a gift. My staff had the technology to accurately target the asteroid, after all. With your mother’s political connections, the Russians were easily persuaded to hand over the stockpile if it finally meant some good PR for them.”

He betrayed her—along with the rest of the world.

“Why develop the vaccine, then?” I pressed. “What was it worth?”

“I do love an eager pupil.” The doctor smirked. “It bought me a name.”

“A name?” I repeated.

“When the virus was released and so much of the population was infected, you can imagine how much media attention the discovery of a vaccine received.”

Yeah, I could. I pictured his face covering the newspapers, his smile flashing out of televisions.
They probably
called him a freaking hero.
The thought made me so furious I couldn’t speak. I glared at him, daring him to continue.

“After the asteroid hit, suddenly everyone wanted another quick remedy. They looked to me again, of course. Who else could they trust more?”

“So you’re saying you were able to push the world into a dictatorial state through
branding
?” I said in disbelief.

“A remedy gave them permission to look away,” he explained. “It assured them that someone was capable of eliminating their problems. And I have.”

“How can you call yourself a doctor?” I asked in disgust. “Didn’t you, like, take some kind of oath saying, ‘I will not unleash death and destruction on my patients and all of modern society’?”

“The earth is my primary patient,” the doctor reasoned calmly. “And the ecosystem will recover much better with fewer people to compromise it.”

“Right, because radioactive debris is
super
healthy for the planet!” I sneered. “Wait, you didn’t really think this little confession was gonna save you, did you?” I loosened my grip a bit more.

He flinched, instinctively grasping at air, and I smiled faintly as I pulled him back. Gunther-Hagen’s eyes hardened, and his fingers locked around my wrists. “You still don’t understand. I don’t need to be saved.
Humans
aren’t supposed to be saved. My work will live on. My legacy—”

I cut him off. “Your legacy is dead. Jeb is dead. He’ll never make another Horseman.”

“Dylan is my legacy,” the doctor countered. “A truly evolved specimen, despite some remaining glitches. He and the female mate I created for him will help repopulate the earth with a genetically ideal species.
You
were never worthy of him.”

The thing was… that last part was completely true.

My expression must have faltered, because the doctor smiled. “You’re really very ordinary, you know, Maximum Ride,” he said sympathetically. “Weak. And soon, you and your kind will die out, just like your boyfriend did.”

He tapped the screen on his wrist. I couldn’t see the image, but I could hear that it was the video Dylan had shown me. Even above the howling wind, I heard Fang’s screams.

Too. Far.

“Nothing’s dying out, you disgusting supremacist,” I snapped. My arms quivered with rage as I held him in front of me. I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks as I said the words:

“I’m
pregnant
.”

THE CONFESSION HUNG in the air between us, and I instantly wished I could snatch it back. I hadn’t told anyone—until that moment, I hadn’t fully admitted it to myself. But I couldn’t hide from it now. Saying it aloud made it real.

More than that—from the doctor’s expression, I knew it had
power
.

“It can’t be,” the doctor whispered, his face twisting in horror. “Fang is dead.”

I remembered when the doctor had kidnapped Fang. He’d told Dylan that Fang had to die because his invincible DNA posed too high a risk. I’d wondered why they didn’t kill him that day, and realized the doctor was too power-hungry to destroy the key to immortality.

Wordlessly, I switched my grip to one hand and unzipped my hoodie with the other. The wind whipped open the fabric, and Gunther-Hagen’s gaze traveled down to where the T-shirt underneath pulled taut against my stomach, revealing the smallest hint of a curve.

“It’s over,” he murmured.

“Oh, it’s just beginning,” I said.

And that’s when he pressed the screen on his arm again. “Reactor,
engage
,” he commanded.

I inhaled sharply, wincing as I waited for the explosion in the distance, praying that Dylan had managed to save as many kids as he could.

But there was no explosion, no far-off mushroom cloud that spelled death and destruction.

There was no beeping, either, or suggestion of a countdown, and I saw from Dr. G-H’s fury that it hadn’t worked. There was something wrong with the signal.

I didn’t know what had happened any more than Gunther-Hagen did, but I thought of Nudge’s hacking abilities, and Angel’s mind-reading, and Gazzy’s bomb knowledge, and I knew my flock had probably just saved my life for the thousandth time.

“What’s the matter, Hans? Is your final plan not working? I guess it doesn’t matter if you die now, after all.” My tone was biting, but my brain was flooded with such a surge of relief I felt like I was about to pass out.

I guess that’s why I was so unprepared for what happened next.

The old man lunged forward, gouging at my stomach with a silver pen. “That child is the virus that will plague the whole world!” Gunther-Hagen shrieked. “And I am the Remedy!”

“You’ve killed enough people already,” I snarled at him. “You
don’t
get to kill Fang’s child.”

Then, with all my strength, I flung him away from me, into the empty sky.

For a fraction of a second, he hung in the air, his white coat billowing around him, his eyes snapped open in surprise, his mouth frozen in a perfect O.

Then he fell.

I fluttered my wings, watching as the Remedy, the supreme terrorist of the world, plunged to the ground. I thought of Fang, how he must have grabbed at the air in the same panicked way.

Just before the body hit, I crossed my arms over my stomach and turned away.

EVERYTHING SEEMS STARKER in the daylight, doesn’t it? It’s easier to see all that you’ve lost, and all that you’ve gambled, and how hard it’s going to be to get back to where you started.

We never did have a victory celebration. After all the bombs and burned homes, no one was very excited about fireworks. And with blood still staining the field around us, no one could really imagine partying.

Not here, anyway. Not now.

Instead, for the past week, crews had worked on burying the dead and cleaning up the tent city. Others questioned captives and explored Himmel’s labyrinth of tunnels.

I had started hauling food up from the vast storage
supplies of Himmel. I needed to do something with my hands—organize supplies and make plans for shelter, or plant some of the seedlings we’d found in the giant greenhouse. I needed to focus on the future.

But everything is so stark in the daylight.

I felt the faintest, mostly healed scratches on my stomach chafing against my shirt. Now that I’d said a certain two words aloud, the future was feeling like a pretty scary place.

I patted my belly button, feeling the swell that was growing a tiny bit bigger every day. I pressed my knuckles against the small curve, kneading in, but it always rebounded.

I really hoped this wasn’t going to be a great big egg to lay. How could I possibly sit still on it for nine months?

“What are you doing?” Angel asked from behind me.

I dropped my hand from my stomach and tried to clear my thoughts.

“Sorting supplies for distribution.” I tossed one of the frozen meals to her. “Dr. G-H sure loved him some TV dinners.”

“You have to put them back.” Angel was already messing with the piles I’d made. “Right now. The plants, too.” She nodded at the bean plants sprouting in the plastic containers. “They won’t survive out here in the cold, and we have to eat what we can in the forest before it’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’? The woods are full of wild game. We’ll have lots of time to build shelters and get set up out here before winter.”

“Try nuclear winter.” Angel squinted at the hazy sky. “Do you see how thick the dust is getting? The asteroid and all the bombs sent tons of stuff into the air, and that cloud is coming our way. It’ll totally block out the sun.”

She looked at the thousands of makeshift tents strewn around us. “Tomorrow we’ll get organized, try to contact any other survivors. We’ll probably have to go underground in less than a month.”

“You want to live in the Remedy’s city?” My body recoiled instinctively at the thought of those claustrophobic tunnels, and I shook my head. “I can deal with the cold.”

“Not cold like this,” the little prophet insisted. She pinched the top of a bright green bean sprout. “They’ll grow fine in artificial light.”

Could
I
, though? I thought of the small life taking shape inside me, never seeing the sun, and I started to shake.

Just focus on stacking supplies
, I thought, gripping the packaged food so tightly I was crushing the boxes.

You don’t have to hide it from me
, Angel’s voice said in my mind.
I already know.

My eyes flew to hers.

Angel smiled. “Why do you think I made Dylan and Kate stay glued to your side during the battle?” she said with a smirk.

I was confused about so many things—including whether I wanted to strangle Angel or hug her.

“I’m not ready to be a mom,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

I’d fought super-mutants and defeated dictators, but this was so far out of the realm of things I could handle, I was asking a seven-year-old for parenting advice.

“Yeah, you do.” Angel smiled, bumping my shoulder. “You mothered us, didn’t you?”

I remembered the flock’s food fights at breakfast. My utter hatred of school. The way Nudge had to remind me to brush
my
teeth.

Not really.

Angel giggled and snuggled against me. I smoothed her pale curls away from her forehead like I had since our days in dog crates.

“I never got to tell Fang,” I said after a minute, my voice flat with defeat.

That was partly why I had been tracking him so desperately. I’d needed his help to find the Remedy, but I’d also had something urgent to tell him.

“Excuse me, ladies.”

I looked up to see Dylan standing in front of us—I’d been so wrapped up in talking to Angel that I hadn’t even noticed him coming.

“Hey,” I said, my face burning. I pictured the day that Dylan found out about the baby and just wanted to curl up.

“Max, can you come with me?” he asked. “I need to show you something.”