Without thinking, I launched myself at the other Max, right over a countertop, headfirst.
The other Max was braced, but I had insane jealousy and rage on my side. I managed to slam into her, knocking her against a wall. Instantly she regained her balance and squared off against me.
"You don't want to do this," she said in a low voice. "You don't want a piece of me."
"Wrong!" I said snidely.
"Uh, Max?" said Gasman. "There's something you should-"
"Shut up!" I snapped at him, and threw myself at Maximum Ride again. The scientists and Jeb eased out of the way as we got deadlocks on each other and rolled across the counters. She managed to pull a fist back and punch me in the head, making me cry out.
I kneed her in the stomach and heard a satisfying oof!
We were evenly matched-too evenly matched. We attacked in a flurry, with fists flying and roundhouse kicks and bruising connections. But then we retreated, circling each other warily.
"There can be only one Max," Jeb said softly.
"Yeah, the real one," I heard Ari say.
The scientist with a deep voice folded his arms across his chest. "Let's see if what you say about her is true, Batchelder."
I yelled and lunged for Max again, knocking her down. She held me by my hair and head-butted me so hard I saw stars, but I didn't let go. I whaled into her side with my fist, once, twice, three times. The third time, I swore I heard a rib crack. It felt sooo good.
"Which one survives is up to you," Jeb said. "May the strongest Max win."
138
"Shut up, jerk!" Maximum Ride barked at him, just as I was about to say the exact same thing. She and I jumped up, looked at each other. It was like looking in a mirror. So weird.
But she had to go. There was one Max too many. With another roar I sprang forward, snapping out a side kick that sent her to the ground again. I dropped down onto her, sitting on her stomach, and punched her right in the nose. She winced, her head whipped to the side, and then blood spurted out her nose.
"You think you're so great," I hissed. She struggled underneath me, but I clamped her arms at her sides with my knees and reached for her throat.
This was going to end only one way: with me on top. I was built to survive. This was my destiny-to be able to outdo anything weaker that came before me. That was all I cared about. Max was weak because she cared about everything else-her stupid flock, their stupid parents, the way Jeb had betrayed her, everything other than what she should care about.
I chuckled aloud, thinking how pathetic she was. I was ready to squash her.
But suddenly she arched her back, snarling, throwing me off hard. On her feet again, she kicked my chin, cracking my head back with so much force I almost blacked out. Then she was straddling me, like I had done to her a moment ago. She grabbed my throat with both hands and started squeezing. With blood running from her nose, she looked murderous, unstoppable. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but she still had a choke hold on me. I grabbed her arms, trying to pull them away, but couldn't budge her.
"Max?" I heard Gasman say again. We both ignored him. "Kind of important..."
Oh, my God, I thought, struggling, vaguely surprised. She's going to win. It had never, ever occurred to me that she could. In every scenario I'd ever run through, every training exercise, I had always won. But amazingly, I was getting tunnel vision, and my world was going dark. I tried to buck her off with all my strength, but she was stronger than I was.
"There can be only one Max," I dimly heard Jeb say. It came from a distance, floating over my head.
This... is... it, I thought hazily. This... is... the... end.
Suddenly the pressure around my neck released.
With a huge, sucking rush, air poured into my lungs. Light filled my eyes, and I was gasping, wheezing, gulping in air.
The old Max got off me. I coughed, my hand to my throat. I was struggling just to sit up.
"I'm stronger," she yelled to the scientists. "Stronger than you. Because I'm not going to kill this girl for you. I won't sink to your pathetic level."
139
"Max," said Jeb, sounding surprised. "There can't be two Maxes."
I looked down at the fake Max, who was sucking in air like a fish on the ground. I'd seen her pupils go to pinpoints, knew just how close I'd come to finishing her. But this rat was leaping out of the maze right now.
"Then you shouldn't have made two of us," I said coldly. "Now it's your problem."
"You don't understand," one of the scientists said. "Only one of you can fulfill your mission, your destiny."
He sounded idiotic and pompous. Keeping my eyes on the fake Max, I circled back to where the flock was gathered, getting ready for fight or flight.
"You know," I told the whitecoat, "it sounds like you guys didn't really think this all the way through. You plugged us into an equation and predicted outcomes. Well, I got news for you, nimrod." I looked up at the group of scientists, at Jeb, at Ari. I was still totally hyped up on adrenaline, my nose was still bleeding, and I felt like kicking more butt. "In this equation of yours, we're variables. We're going to vary." I was practically spitting my words at them. "What you sick jerks don't seem to get is that I'm an actual person." I pointed to the other Max, who was on her hands and knees, trying to get up. "She's real too. She's a person. All of us are! And I'm done jumping through your hoops. You can tell yourselves that you're doing all this to save the world, but really you're just a bunch of psycho puppet-masters who probably didn't date enough in high school."
I stalked around, really worked up. Sweat ran down my forehead and stung my cheek where it was split.
Out of nowhere, an alarm sounded. Next we heard shouting and thundering footsteps.
Jeb and the other whitecoats looked at one another. I couldn't piece everything together right now. Were they part of Itex or not?
"Max?" said the Gasman again.
"We've got to get out of here," I said urgently, looking for a possible escape route. Then I remembered: We were underground. Oh, jeez. Now things were going to get sticky.
Jeb and the other whitecoats edged closer to the Erasers. The fake Max looked lost, uncertain whose side to be on. I almost felt sorry for her.
"Max, really-"
"What?" I snapped, wheeling to look at Gazzy. "We're up the creek, if you haven't noticed! What's so important?"
His big blue eyes, so like Angel's, looked at me earnestly. "Duck."
140
Within a millisecond, I had dropped to the floor. I rolled under a counter and covered my head with my hands. When some eight-year-olds said "duck," you might be facing a stream from a water pistol. When Gazzy said "duck," you prepared for all hell to break loose, and really freaking fast, man.
BOOM!!!
My eardrums practically ruptured from the force of the blast. Instantly my mouth was covered with dust, carpet fibers, and something wet I didn't want to identify. I got knocked about four feet, still curled in a ball, and then something collapsed on me, knocking my breath out. Aftershocks and a much smaller boom made me curl tighter, but as soon as the explosions seemed to be over I straightened my back, grunting with the effort of pushing away debris.
"Report!" I yelled, inhaling dust and coughing hysterically. Big chunks of desk or ceiling fell off me. If I didn't have some broken bones, it would be a miracle. I felt like I'd been hit by a tractor trailer, maybe a couple of them.
Clumsily, still coughing, I scrambled to my feet. "Report!" I yelled again frantically.
141
The room was full of billowing dust and fibers wafting everywhere. Red emergency lights were on, casting the whole scene in a horrible, bloody glare.
No one had answered me yet. I yelled even louder: "Report!"
I began to pick my way through the rubble. A sweeping glance told me that several whitecoats had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time-they were lying crumpled and unconscious on the floor. I couldn't see Ari anywhere
, but I did see a couple pairs of feet sticking out from beneath piles of debris. No feet I recognized.
Across the room Jeb was slowly getting up-gray with dust, blood running down his chin.
"Here!" said Angel, and I felt the first spark of relief.
"Here," croaked Nudge, and started coughing. I saw her crawl out from beneath a shattered desk.
"Here." Total's voice came from behind an overturned chair. I kicked it out of the way and saw that Total had turned completely gray, except for his eyes. "And I'm not happy about it, let me tell you," he added grumpily.
"Here," came Fang's quiet, calm voice, as he picked himself out of a Fang-shaped hole in the opposite wall. Ooh, I bet that hurt.
"That was so awesome!" Gazzy yelled, leaping to his feet. Bits of broken countertop and wall fell off him.
"I give it a solid ten," said Iggy, rolling out from under what used to be a desk. "Just for sonic blast alone."
It had been eerily quiet for a minute after the blast, but now voices started up in the hallway outside. Again we began hearing shouted orders, the clanking of weapons, running feet. Though the feet sounded less steady. I heard groaning from beneath rubble.
A quick survey showed me my flock was whole and ready to move. It also showed...
... a huge hole in the basement wall, big enough to drive a truck through, leading right outside into the night.
"Oh, excellent," Nudge said.
I grinned, feeling close to tears. Once again, the flock had come through. Our lives were one gnarly sitch after another. Again and again they tried to defeat us, and again and again we showed them what we were made of. I was so proud, and so mad, and now that I thought about it, really sore all over.
"You got that right," I said, already hurrying toward the hole. When I was next to Gazzy, I held up my hand. "Way to be," I said, slapping him a high five.
"Max?" Angel said. She looked like she'd been dipped in gray flour.
"Yeah, sweetie?"
"Are we leaving now?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. "We're gonna-"
"Blow this joint!" the flock yelled with me.
"Total!" I clapped and held out my arms. The small dog ran and leaped into them. He stuck out his tongue to lick me happily, saw my face, and thought better of it.
Then the six-seven-of us raced for the hole and did an up-and-away that looked like poetry.
EPILOGUE
142
Needless to say, there was a tearful reunion, stories exchanged, hurts examined and gotten mad about all over again.
We grabbed our stuff and flew south until sunrise. Then we dropped down into the Everglades and found a patch of dryish land to sleep on. We felt exhausted and wrung out and yet deeply happy to be together again. To have won again.
Iggy, the younger kids, and Total crashed immediately. They curled up together like puppies, filthy and ragged, and I was so happy to have them all in one piece that tears leaked out of my eyes and ran down my bruised cheeks.
Fang sat next to me, and we split one of our last warm Cokes.
"Breakfast of champions," he said, raising the can in the air.
"Did you see what happened to the other Max?" I asked him.
"No, actually I didn't," he said. "But maybe she escaped."
I drank the warm soda, feeling it run down my parched throat. Never would be too soon to see the other Max again. But I couldn't make myself destroy her. Killing the fake Max would be like killing the Eraser Max who looked back at me from the mirror sometimes. Besides-it would just be wrong.
I was exhausted, beyond exhausted, but the last time I'd gone to sleep, I'd woken up with my mouth duct-taped shut and then gotten put in an isolation tank. So I didn't want to close my eyes anytime soon.
The tank. I shuddered just thinking about it.
"Was it bad?" Fang asked quietly, not looking at me.
"Yep," I said, not looking at him, and took another swig of Coke.
The sun was higher, the air heavy and warm and growing warmer. It was December. We'd been on the run for what felt like forever. I didn't know how much longer I could do it. I was ragged out, and between the tank and the Voice, I felt like I was losing my mind. I still wasn't sure how the Erasers were tracking us. I remembered Angel campaigning to be leader and didn't know what to think.
"Did you know that wasn't me, the other Max?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Right away."
"How?" I persisted. "We look identical. She even had identical scars and scratches. She was wearing my clothes. How could you tell us apart?"
He turned to me and grinned, making my world brighter. "She offered to cook breakfast."
A second later we were laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes all over again. Fang and I leaned against each other and laughed and laughed, unable to speak, for the longest time. www.maximumride.com
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Two Schools Out - Forever Page 23