Hi, thanks for tuning in to Chapter 2. Here are a few things you may need to know. First of all, I'm posting only one chapter every Wednesday, rather than my old standard of a ton all at once. It gives me more time to think stuff over, and hopefully will give my readers more incentive to comment on the subtleties.
But wait, there's more. Here are a couple of public respects for the four people who have put "In My Absence" on their Alert list.
Sonya Rivers: I appreciate you very much. Thank you for being there and paying attention to what I want from my fans. You're the best. Just don't let anything slip, capisce? I only told you that stuff to make ya quit whinin'. Keep up the reviews, though.
Wands 'n' Wings: Your constant presence from the beginning of this story has been very uplifting. I don't know why; maybe only because you were the first reviewer. I tend to get attached to those types. And you do, indeed, put great effort into appreciating the finer aspects of the story. Love ya.
Silken-Winged-Angel: I can tell from reading your profile that you're a bona fide, highly intelligent Maximum Ride fan. That review that you posted a while ago was delightfully enthusiastic, and I'd like some more of those! Can you go back to the first part of my series and post a bunch of reviews? Please?
MangaFang: If you're gonna put this thing on your Alert list, the least you can do is post reviews, you jackass. No, not really—but you, my friend, are gonna get singled out a lot more often. I'd better see some reviews before something terrible happens.
Anyway, on to…
Chapter 2
"What do we do now, Fang?" Angel asked.
I ruffled her hair. "You probably know better than I do," I said. Recently, Angel had gained another powerful ability—it was still undefined and we were testing the limitations, but it was clearly a form of clairvoyance. Or as Max called it, "the ability to foretell shit".
Her attitude and way of speaking wouldn't be the tiniest fraction of the reason I missed her desperately… I could go on forever about why I hadn't wanted her to leave, but I couldn't begrudge her. She did it to protect our baby. She loved our baby… and that was just another of the millions of reasons for my heart to ache as her retreating figure became smaller and smaller…
"I don't know," Angel said. "It's like the planet has no future anymore. There have to be six of us or else nothing works out. The future is all jumbled and distorted when some of us are absent. I'll have to find some way around that eventually, seeing as there will never be six of us again."
"Where did Gazzy go?" I demanded. "Gazzy!"
He was walking away, down the road to what had once been the nearest town to the Day and Night School, but at this point was probably another crackled out shell just like the school itself.
"Hey, dude, where are you going?" I asked, catching up to him.
"Anywhere," he said. "I'm just walking and walking and walking until I can't walk anymore… then I'll collapse and die…"
"What are you talking about?"
"Half of the flock is gone," he said. "I feel like half of the world is gone. Half of my will to live."
"Gazzy, Max isn't gone," I said. "She'll come back."
"And Iggy and Nudge?" Gazzy challenged. "They won't come back."
"No, they won't," I said. "But that means we need you now more than ever! We need every flock member we've got."
He scoffed. "Flock?" he sneered. "There's no flock. That's just a dumb thing that you guys came up with. We've got bird DNA, so we're a flock. Genius. There's no flock! We're just a bunch of little kids. Okay? What do you expect an ordinary little kid to do, dealing with deaths and abandonment like that? I can't do it any longer."
I didn't know what to say. So, as is my wont, I said nothing.
"I quit," Gazzy said.
"You quit the flock?" I said.
"I quit everything," he said. "The flock. The world. Life. I quit."
He turned and strolled away. I knew I had to follow him, but I didn't know how. How do you deal with a suicidal eight-year-old?
Max would know. Already, it seemed like her leaving was a deadly mistake.
"Do you quit, Angel?" I asked.
"Of course not," she said. "But don't you think you should catch Gazzy?"
"Right," I muttered. I took a flying leap to intercept him. I still didn't know what the hell I was going to say, but I had to say something. "Gaz, you can't do this," I said. "It wouldn't be fair to Iggy."
"Iggy's dead," he said.
"Iggy was your best buddy, right?" I pestered him. "He loved you more than anyone else. He was… well, you know, I suppose the 'man of the family' has always been me, but Iggy was your mentor, wasn't he?"
"Yeah," he muttered. "Mentor."
"Iggy taught you everything," I said, feeling like I was on a roll. "Pyrotechnics, cooking, practical jokes. Would he want all of his teachings to just die, all at once? No. He'd want you to surpass him. Go above and beyond him. Right? Don't quit. Let Iggy's legacy go on. Can you do that?"
"Yeah," he said, brightening. "Yeah. Yeah! I can totally do that! Okay. I don't quit."
That's the thing about the flock. We're true warriors. Our instincts always know the perfect way out even if our minds don't. I had navigated my way straight to Gazzy's soul without even knowing that that's what I was looking for.
I turned to Angel, who shot me a thumbs-up. Which, naturally, immediately made me think that I was going the entirely wrong direction.
"Fang, I'm not a complete psychopath," she said. "I do have common sense."
"Right," I said. "Sorry about that. Errant thought, you know."
"It happens," she said, nodding. "So, now there are three of us. What do we do?"
"Jewel," Gazzy said, clearly getting into his scheming mode. "He's a machine. We can hack into him… set up a detonator…"
He immediately stopped talking when a shiny white blade came up behind him and pressed against his throat.
It was Jewel. Human-sized, he was made entirely of red rubies, except for his eyes, which were enormous and expressionless, being nothing but perfectly cut diamonds. A pair of arachnid mandibles sculpted of white marble extended below the eyes. He had two pairs of arms; one, the original set, appeared simply as ruby-studded human arms, but the other pair, a quick modification based on his decision to become spider-like, were multi-jointed and also made of marble, ending with swirling, deadly blades.
"What was that about a detonator?" Jewel said, his mandibles clicking together with every word. His voice was plainly male, but singsong, and his mannerisms were effeminate. He was far from funny, though. All you had to do was consider anything he had done or threatened to do, and immediately he was the most horrifying, evil thing in the history of ever.
"Jewel," a shaky voice said. It was Brigid. "Master Jewel, you promised…"
"Yes, I did," Jewel said. "I won't kill them… unless they move." The blade gently grazed Gazzy's throat, making his point pretty clear. Jewel weaved between us slowly, but we knew that those blades could start chopping at any second.
Jewel bent down to get a good look at Angel. She was making the face she did when intently listening to thoughts… could she read Jewel's thoughts? We knew that his computer could rival most human brains, that he had opinions and personality all his own, but did that really mean that his functions could pass for an actual mind?
When Jewel turned around, Angel gave me a tiny nod, confirming. Well, that would come in handy. I'd always known—weakness. Everything has it.
"Where's Max?" Jewel asked me.
"She didn't tell me," I said. "She didn't tell anybody."
"Fang, tell him the truth," Brigid said. She was begging me.
"No, that was the truth," Jewel said thoughtfully. "Interesting."
My eyes scanned the people surrounding Jewel. Brigid was there, as was Keegan. Everyone else there was dressed in armor that masked their entire bodies, apart from their eyes. Every one of them were looking back and forth carefully.
"Transparent goggles," Jewel explained, noticing my appraisal. "To grant them full visibility. I don't like dramatics, see. Faceless, anonymous henchmen are quite classy, but being classy doesn't mean much if you can pick them off like flies. I think a plan is only as good as its result. I don't particularly worry about scariness. For example, each and every one of these folks is an excellent marksman. They weren't when I first hired them, but they are now—I used encoded imagery to give them all the skills they need to overpower… oh, I don't know, YOU. You find yourself flying away, you will get hit by many, many bullets. In hand-to-hand combat, you will be defeated by their sheer numbers. If somehow you get by them, you'll have to go through me, and obviously you won't survive that. Shall I continue?"
"That's okay," I said.
"Is that a surrender?" Jewel taunted.
"I prefer to think of it as strategic self-preservation," I said.
Chapter 3 will come next week… or will it? It depends on the reviewers.