IN MY ABSENCE
Sequel to "Max: The ICBG"
By Supa Supa Bad Truly Mad Moves
Disclaimer: Maximum Ride belongs to James Patterson, who I am not, and yadda, yadda, yadda. On the other hand, there are a BUNCHA characters in here who were born of my own brain. So that's awesome, at least.
Chapter 1
"Fang," I said. "Do you see a way that you can finish all of this?"
"I do," he said. Momentarily, he seemed taken aback by his own choice of words—I could guess why. Poor sap had no idea what was coming. "I absolutely do. I know how we can pull through this."
Well, he was a sap, but he was my sap. My intelligent, perceptive, super-gorgeous sap.
"Good," I said. "Give me the baby."
Nervous at my suddenly harsh tone, he passed me our four-day-old daughter, Airy. Her eyes, Fang's eyes, were closed in a deep sleep at the present moment, her black wings with brown speckles hanging limply. I looked at her for a minute—never got tired of her—then looked up at the sky and yelled, "Keegan!"
In a single second, I was facing my allegedly-omnipotent best friend. Keegan's imagination could have been deadly in the wrong hands, but as it turned out it was completely useless. Keegan's powers had no limitations, but the notion that it was "not her place" to interfere in the affairs of the human race kept her from making any major changes in the world… like preventing the broken bodies of Iggy and Nudge from falling miles and miles to the ground.
"Yes?" Keegan said softly.
I took a deep breath. "Keegan, buddy, I'll never forgive you for letting Nudge and Iggy die. But right now I need to put that behind us. Can you make sure… can you use your imagination to make absolutely sure that no one will ever find me or Airy? Would that be within your 'place'?"
My sneer clearly struck home. Keegan winced while she considered my request. She finally brightened. "Yes," she said. "I can do that."
"Good," I said. "Do it." I spread my wings. "You can go now, Keegan."
Keegan vanished.
I held the baby tightly, and turned to Fang, standing some distance away with Angel and Gazzy. "Fang?" I said.
"Yeah?" he replied.
I was almost tempted to just take off right then, but I couldn't let my cowardice prevent him from knowing what was up.
"Good luck, babe," I said. We had adopted that pet name pretty quickly after discussing the notion of sex—which had since then become a daily thing, eventually resulting in my bizarre, two-and-a-half-week-long pregnancy, which in turn had resulted in our tiny but remarkably developed baby. The label of "babe", meanwhile, had stuck—it fit pretty well for a couple of kids who were insanely in love but had been taught to suppress their feelings.
"What with?" Fang asked.
"Taking care of the little kids, and anything else that needs taking care of," I said. Comprehension began to dawn on his face. "The world isn't safe for our baby. I have to protect her."
As I rose into the air, the carnage made my point all the clearer. The Day and Night School was nothing but a smoking crater, filled with hundreds and hundreds of corpses, arranged so that from the air it spelled out a message for me: GIVE UP, BITCHES! I WILL KILL YOU ALL! KINDEST REGARDS, JEWEL. It had all been done by Jewel, our latest hyper-intelligent, adorably snide, pure evil, insanely deadly foe. Did I mention that said foe was a machine? Robots taking over the world has become a realistic concern now. Even if it's just one.
Fang looked up at me, almost pleading. Almost. He doesn't plead, God love him. "You can do these things in my absence," I whispered. "I love you so, so much, Fang. Goodbye."
I clutched the baby tightly to my chest and rocketed off, quickly getting into my top-speed, the one that nothing could match, even if I wasn't being shielded by the most powerful being on Earth. I wondered if Keegan's boyfriend, Niles, was among the bodies. Probably not. Even if he had died, Keegan would have resurrected him—when it came to Niles, Keegan's personal code was null and void. She had told him about what kind of creature she was; she had decreed that the two of them would be in love forevermore.
Iggy and Nudge had deserved to be in love forevermore. After a bit of a fiasco in which both have them had fallen into a bit of a slump—she being unable to sort out her feelings for her first boyfriend, he feeling as if he was completely alone—the two of them had fallen deeply in bummed-out love, in a much quicker, easier manner than Fang and I had. For a few weeks, they couldn't keep their hands off one another—then Mr. Chu had had them killed. Their spines and all six of their limbs broken, and dropped from a great height. And Keegan hadn't done anything about it.
I'd avenged them. Mr. Chu was now a hunk of flesh in a pool of blood, but before that he insisted that his death would have no effect on the world's future—that he was only the tip of the spear. But I couldn't help feeling that Keegan, who had been standing right there, could have done more.
I flew off. I won't tell you where I was going, not even if I was going into the sunrise or the sunset or anything in between. This isn't my story anymore. In my absence, the Protector is Fang.
You are correct in this action, Max, the Voice said. Your daughter is as pivotal as you, and defending her will aid the planet in the long run. No mistakes will arise from this.
Good to know. I didn't bother to answer, though I suppose that since the entity of the Voice was inside my head, me thinking "good to know" was an answer.
Anyway, like I said—this isn't about me. This is about Fang. Fang, unlike me, was there for it. And when I say "it"… I mean it.
So, recap: Fang was there for it.
