“Max, sit down,” said John Abate quietly.
I looked at him, halfway out of my chair.
“We have a plan,” he went on. “We need your help. And that plan does not involve you charging off on your own.”
“I do not charge off!” I insisted yet again.
“Maximum ‘Charging Off’ Ride,” Total muttered under his breath.
I gritted my teeth and slowly sat back down. “You have one minute to tell me your plan. Make it good.”
30
HERE ARE ALL the flies in my ointment:
1)The phrase “fly in the ointment.” Like, yuck. Who came up with that?
2)We were on a private jet loaned to us by our old pal Nino Pierpont, aka the richest guy in the world. Technically, I was being flown to Hawaii.
3)I was not busting heads, taking names, or shaking anyone down for information.
4)Dr. Stupendous was still with us and still had red hair.
5)Nudge was still gone.
6)My mom was still kidnapped.
7)Fang was still Fang.
Dr. John Abate sat down next to where I was reclined in the schmancy leather chair, unsuccessfully trying to sleep. Not too long ago, I was bunking down on a concrete ledge in an abandoned subway tunnel. Now, here I was on a private jet, in the lap of luxury, covered by a cozy mohair throw… and, basically, I felt like my life sucked pretty much the same as always.
The main difference being that when I was on the concrete ledge, I actually got some sleep. And my whole flock was together. And I didn’t even have a mom. Much less one I cared about. Much less one I cared about and who then got kidnapped, introducing countless new opportunities for pain.
I opened one eye. “Are we planning to dive-bomb the submarine? Is this plane equipped with marine missiles?”
John smiled weakly. “No. It’s taking us to another U.S. Navy base, in Hawaii. The navy has agreed to help us get Valencia back.”
“Has the CSM agreed to back off big companies?” I asked. Which might make Mr. Chu release my mom, as he promised.
John looked troubled. “No. We’ve been in discussions ever since we learned of Valencia’s disappearance. We feel that Valencia would never forgive us if she found out they had made us cave. Especially over her. She’s one of the founding members of the CSM and one of its most ardent supporters. To have it be dissolved over this — I just think she would hate it.”
I thought for a minute. “You’re probably right,” I finally said, reluctantly.
“John?” Gazzy had his face pressed against a window.
“Yes?”
“What would happen if a big bird, like a goose, flew into the jet engine?”
Leave it to Gazzy.
“It would probably be very bad,” said John.
“What would happen if someone hummed a football into the engine, right when the plane was taking off?” Gazzy looked thoughtful.
“Is there a point to this line of questioning?” John asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Just wondering,” Gazzy said, his blue eyes innocent.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss Nudge’s run-on mouth,” said Iggy, completely changing the topic.
“I miss her smile,” said Angel, looking up for a minute from where she was playing cards with Brigid. Brigid, thankfully, was smart enough not to play poker with Angel anymore.
“I miss her brownness,” said Iggy, gazing sightlessly out the window.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said brusquely, trying to ignore the ache in my heart. “She made her choice.”
“I miss her laugh,” said Gazzy. “And, like, her, I don’t know, girliness.”
Yeah, we all know how lacking I am in that department. Compared to Nudge, I’m completely hopeless. And compared to Brigid, I’m — one of those body bags in boxing or something.
Just then Fang came over and sat next to me. John smiled at him and got up to go sit with Brigid and Angel.
Fang reclined his seat. After giving the cabin a casual glance, he slipped his hand under my blanket, finding my hand and holding it. I felt my cheeks reddening and hoped no one would notice.
“This sucks, about your mom,” he said, his voice so low only I could hear it. I nodded, feeling the strength in his hand, the muscles and tendons, the bones, the calluses and scars. “And Nudge,” he went on. I nodded again, mutely remembering that night out in the desert with Fang and then coming home to find disaster and chaos. And the next morning, Nudge leaving the flock. Suddenly my throat felt tight, and my eyelids were heavy. I closed them.
“I’m here.” His voice was so soft, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard it. But I had.
And there, with nine words, Fang had summed up everything I was thinking, everything I was feeling, everything in my past and my future.
He’s your soulmate.
My eyes shot open. Voice? Are you back?
31
“WE THINK IT will take at least seven days, possibly more.” The woman in the tailored khaki uniform looked at us impassively.
“No,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, just as Brigid said, “We don’t have that much time.”
“Then they can’t come,” said the woman in khaki.
Okay, first impressions of Hawaii? We’d arrived at sunset, and it had looked like a movie set, with fake molded plastic islands set into impossibly beautiful blue water. It reminded me of Fang’s desire for us to find a deserted island somewhere and just live, peacefully, by ourselves. No world-saving. No ’bot-fighting. Just us, the sand, and the sea.
Our jet had landed at the naval base at Pearl Harbor, and we were immediately greeted by soft, gentle breezes, unusual floral scents, palm trees with actual coconuts on them, and this pit bull of a woman who was about to make me go seriously ballistic.
John and Brigid looked at me.
“I’m going, no matter what they say,” I said in the steely voice I usually reserved for extreme circumstances, like when Gazzy had left crayons in his pocket during a rare instance of my running laundry through a dryer. We’d looked like flower children for months.
But the khaki woman wasn’t in the armed forces for nothing. She met my eyes, and I had to admit, we were almost evenly matched in the freeze-out glare category. Now if I could just run her down with a tank, my day would perk right up.
“You cannot board a vessel of the United States Navy unless you satisfactorily pass a BSSTC, a basic survival skills training course,” Lieutenant Khaki almost snarled. “This course normally takes three weeks. Under these extraordinary circumstances, we can compact it into one week. In the extremely unlikely event that you last a week, you may then board a United States Naval vessel in an attempt to ascertain Dr. Martinez’s whereabouts, and, if possible, execute a rescue mission, under the supervision, direction, and authority of the United States Navy.”
“You sure do like saying ‘United States Navy,’ ” said Gazzy cheerfully.
Her gray eyes flared as she looked down at him.
“Lieutenant, I’m sure you can appreciate the very dire need we have to begin the search as quickly as possible,” John said firmly. “Admiral Bellows assured us that we would have every resource necessary.”
“And so you shall,” said Lieutenant Khaki, turning to him. “As soon as you pass a BS —”
“Yeah, we got the BS part,” I interrupted. “But look, we have all the survival skills we need — and then some. You guys just don’t have that much to teach us.”
For a moment Lieutenant Khaki looked like she was about to laugh in amazement. Instead, she just snorted and motioned to a khaki-clad underling. “Ensign, please show our visitors — and their dogs — to their quarters.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the young ensign, touching his cap.
As Total huffed indignantly, I whirled to stare at John. He looked upset and also tired and frustrated. I remembered that he cared about my mom too. He waved us closer.
“Guys,” he said, “I’ll
make some phone calls, see what I can do. In the meantime, just do what they say. If they do agree to help us, it could mean the difference between life and death.”
My mom’s life or death.
“We need their resources,” John went on. “And frankly, I don’t know that we have any contacts with enough leverage to make the navy forgo their standard operating procedure. But, like I said, let me make some calls.”
Reason and emotion battled inside my head. Where was my Voice when I actually needed it? I thought it had popped up earlier, but I wasn’t sure if that had really been my Voice returning, or if Angel had been putting thoughts into my head. Or was it my own wishful thinking, blurting out something in the (somewhat relative, in my case) privacy of my mind?
At any rate, no Voice stepped up now to help me make a decision.
I hated this. Hated it. I’d always gotten us out of scrapes on my own. I’d never once had to agree to let some official person help us. But this was different. I knew I couldn’t find my mom by myself or with just the flock. The Pacific Ocean is too big, too deep.
The fact that accepting this bitter reality practically made my psyche split in two is indicative of my trademark inability to work or play well with others. I missed the good old days, when I was just supposed to save the world. That was so much easier to stomach than having to save my mom.
After a minute, I nodded tensely. “They have to take us as soon as we pass the course,” I snapped at John. “Even if it’s less than a week.”
He nodded. My jaw tight, chest aching, I turned to follow the ensign, who was waiting for us.
“Is there a mess hall?” Gazzy asked him. “Can we see your weapons? Can I drive a tank? Do you have a lot of explosives?”
The ensign looked besieged. “Yes, mess hall. No to the weapons. Major no to the tank. The explosives are nothing you’ll get close to. Okay, kid?”
Gazzy looked disappointed.
Welcome to the khaki wonderland.
32
GIVEN OUR BACKGROUND, you need to know that having our lives take huge, bizarre nightmarish turns for the worse is kind of a regular thing. And yet when the alarm went off at five a.m. the next morning, I felt like we were exploring a whole new level of bad.
We had spent the night in an overturned metal half-pipe. John said it was called a Quonset hut. It was like a long, low hotel room with a hobbity roof. At one end were eight narrow cots. Total had instantly claimed one for himself and Akila. I looked away. Nudge wouldn’t need hers now.
We had just barely rolled out of our cots when we heard a bang on the metal door. “Ensign Chad Workman reporting for duty!” someone yelled.
I opened the door. “What,” I said coldly.
The young crew-cut guy looked startled. He double-checked the number on our door. “Uh, Ensign Workman reporting for duty. I’m supposed to lead some temporary recruits to mess, kit, and then the BSSTC grounds.”
I looked back into the dark hut. “Time for the BS, guys!” I glanced at Ensign Workman. “I think we’ve got the ‘mess’ thing under our belts. The BS is gonna be up to you.”
Ensign Workman was taken aback. “Um, are you hungry? The mess hall is open.”
The rest of the flock staggered toward the door and stood in a ruffled, sleepy group behind me. Brigid and John, with their quaint notion of not sleeping in their clothes, were taking longer to get ready.
“We’ll bring you some food, Total,” I said as he trotted out the door.
“Yeah. This ain’t exactly France,” Total muttered, heading off to find a good potty spot. He had loved how many French restaurants allowed dogs.
Ensign Workman stared at him, then looked back at me, chuckling nervously. “And after breakfast, we’ll get you set up in some uniforms.”
Iggy fingered the khaki cloth of his uniform pants. “This is not a good color for me. I’m really more of a ‘winter.’ ”
Frankly, it wasn’t a good color on any of us. And it was downright odd on Fang, who normally wore only dark clothes. I was glad, though, that Nudge wasn’t here asking if her uniform came in cute pink camo or had a matching headband.
Ensign Workman gasped audibly when I pulled out a pocketknife and started slashing long slits in the backs of our new shirts.
“You’re defacing property of the United States Navy!” he said, shocked.
“Gotta let the wings out, man,” said Iggy.
Gazzy took no pity on Ensign Workman and proceeded to snap his wings out, right there. Ten feet of authority-defying feathers and bones, attached to a grinning mutant bird kid.
Ensign Workman turned white, which, as you can imagine, only made his uniform look even worse.
The BS grounds were separated from the rest of the base by a seven-foot chain-link fence. A tall, chisel-faced man stood at the entrance, holding a clipboard and wearing a frown. Ensign Workman silently turned us over to him, then slunk away, no doubt hoping never to see us again. It’s weird how many people feel that way about us.
“The classroom is aft of those trees!” the guy barked. “March!”
I know this will surprise you, but we’re not good marchers. We’re not even good at staying in line. And if you’ve skimmed any of my previous adventures, you’ve already figured out how well we respond to orders.
Of any kind.
33
I WAS ALREADY SEETHING as we trooped through the doors into a small, linoleum-tiled classroom. A classroom. People trying to stick me in classrooms was becoming as predictable and annoying as people trying to kill me, but with less-fun results.
“I can’t believe I’m sitting at a freaking desk when my mom is tied up on a submarine somewhere!” I exploded. “This is total crap!”
“Sit down!” snapped our instructor.
With great difficulty, I forced myself to sit on a plastic chair attached to a metal desk. I was calculating how much force I’d need to hurl one of these desks through a window when several other students, male and female, dressed in khaki, looking young and impressionable, filed in silently and immediately took their seats. They tried hard to ignore us, already well on their way to the whole stiff-upper-lip thing, but I felt them sneaking glances.
The man was writing on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. “LTC Palmer.”
He dropped some files on the desk and turned to regard the class with loathing.
Angel raised her hand. “Excuse me. What does LTC stand for?” She blinked innocently. You know and I know that Angel is two parts adorable blond cherub, two parts unholy demon, and two parts of something completely indefinable but even scarier. Most people only see the cute little girl. The lucky ones.
“Loving Tender Care?” Gazzy suggested.
If our instructor had had lasers for eyes (like Flyboys did, for example, or the latest dumb-bots we’d battled, the M-Geeks), he would have sliced Gazzy in half.
“Lieutenant colonel,” he sputtered. “You’re here to learn how to survive, kid. Why, I don’t know. But it’s my job to teach you. First lesson: you speak only when spoken to. You got that?”
Okay, I admit it: I giggled. It’s just so dang cute when grown-ups get all bossy. Instantly, the lieutenant colonel’s eyes were locked on mine. I swallowed my chuckle and looked at my feet. He turned back to Gazzy.
“You got that?”
“Uh-huh,” said Gazzy.
“You say, ‘Yes, sir!’ ”
“Okay.” Gazzy was starting to get bewildered.
“Say it.”
“Oh. Okay. Yes, sir.” Gazzy looked pleased with himself.
I had a question. “Why does the name Pearl Harbor sound so familiar?”
The lieutenant colonel’s eyes narrowed. “Pearl Harbor is the most famous U.S. military base in the world,” he said crisply. “It’s the only place on U.S. soil that has been attacked in a war, since the Revolutionary War.”
None of this was ringing a bell, but you already know I’m totally uneducated.
Gazzy leaned over to
whisper, “It was a movie with Ben Affleck.”
Ah. Now I remembered.
The lieutenant colonel turned back to the whiteboard. He wrote, The Basics: Personal Defense. Weapons Use. Outdoor Survival. Covert Operations.
Let’s cast our minds back, shall we? The flock is, well, somewhat talented in the area of self-defense. Most weapons we were already pretty familiar with — though, granted, I’d probably need some coaching in launching air missiles. Outdoor survival? You mean, what we’d been doing for the past two years? The desert rats, the cactus smoothies, the hobo packs made of whatever we could steal from Dumpsters? I think we’re good there. And of course, covert operations. That was going to be fun. I could hardly wait till they saw Fang disappear right before their eyes.
I figured we could knock this course off by about four o’clock this afternoon, if we took a short lunch. Then we could get on an official U.S. Navy vessel and go spring my mom at long last!
Then I was going to take Mr. Chu apart, one piece at a time, and feed him to the weirdly enthusiastic seabirds that seemed to hang out here.
34
I LEANED OVER the instructor, looking anxiously at his face. “You okay? Sorry. Didn’t mean to slam you against the wall that hard. Nose not broken? Good.”
The guy in the white karate gi, his black belt marked with eight level lines, was still trying to catch his breath. He’d already tried jackknifing to his feet, only to slide slowly sideways as his brain realized that his lungs didn’t have any oxygen in them.
We stood around waiting, along with the rest of the class, which now stared at us as if we were freaks. Oh, wait — that was because we are.
So far in this class, there had been ten minutes of watching the instructor chop, flip, throw, kick, and punch just about everyone in the room. He’d ignored us until I’d stepped right in front of him, ready to take my turn in line.
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