Maximumride
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Sweeping, swooping, soaring, air-current thrill rides —
there’s nothing better. For miles around, we were the only
things in the infinite, wide-open, clear blue sky. You want an
adrenaline rush? Try tucking your wings in, dive-bombing
for about a mile straight down, then
grab an air current like a pit bull, and hang on for the ride
of your life. God,
Okay, we were mutant freaks, we were on the lam, but
man, flying — well, there’s a reason people always dream
about it.
“Oh, my gosh!” the Gasman said excitedly. He pointed.
“A UFO!”
I silently counted to ten. There was nothing where the
Gasman had pointed. As usual. “That was funny the first
fifty times, Gazzy,” I said. “It’s getting old.”
He cackled, several wingspans away from me. There’s
nothing like an eight-year-old’s sense of humor.
“Max? How long till we get to DC?” asked Nudge, pulling
up closer to me. She looked tired — we’d had one long,
ugly day. Well,
long, ugly days. If I ever actually had a good, easy day, I’d
probably freak out.
“Another hour? Hour and a half?” I guessed.
Nudge didn’t say anything. I cast a quick glance at the
rest of my flock. Fang, Iggy, and I were holding steady, but
we had mucho de stamina. I mean, the younger set also had
stamina, especially compared to dinky little nonmutant humans.
But even they gave out eventually.
Here’s the deal — for anybody new on this trip. There
are six of us: Angel, who’s six; Gasman, age eight; Iggy, who’s
fourteen, and blind; Nudge, eleven; Fang and me (Max),
we’re fourteen too. We escaped from the lab where we were
raised, were given wings and other assorted powers. They
want us back — badly. But we’re not going back. Ever.
I shifted Total to my other arm, glad he didn’t weigh
more than twenty pounds. He roused slightly, then draped
himself across my arm and went back to sleep, the wind
whistling through his black fur. Did I want a dog? No. Did
I need a dog? Also no. We were six kids running for our
lives, not knowing where our next meal was coming from.
Could we afford to feed a dog? Wait for it —
whoosh! Wings out,nothing is better, more fun, more exciting.another long, ugly day in a whole series ofno.“You okay?” Fang cruised up alongside me. His wings
were dark and almost silent, like Fang himself.
“In what way?” I asked. I mean, there was the headache
issue, the chip issue, the
my healing bullet wound. . . . “Can you be more specific?”
“Killing Ari.”
Voice-in-my-head-constantly issue,JAMES PATTERSON
4
My breath froze in my throat. Only Fang could cut right
to the heart of the matter like that. Only Fang knew me
that well, and went that far.
When we’d been escaping from the Institute, in New
York, Erasers and whitecoats had shown up, of course.
God forbid
don’t know already, are wolflike creatures who have been
chasing us constantly since we escaped from the lab, or
School as we call it. One of the Erasers had been Ari. We’d
fought, as we’d fought before, and then suddenly, with no
warning, I was sitting on his chest, staring at his lifeless
eyes, his broken neck bent at an awkward angle.
That was twenty-four hours ago.
“It was you or him,” Fang said calmly. “I’m glad you
picked you.”
I let out a deep breath. Erasers simpled everything up:
They had no qualms about killing, so you had to lose your
squeamishness about it too. But Ari had been different. I’d
recognized him, remembered him as a little kid back at the
School. I knew him.
Plus, there was that last, awful bellow from Ari’s father,
Jeb, echoing after me again and again as I flew through the
tunnels:
“You killed your own brother!”
we should make a clean getaway. Erasers, if you