Chapter 12
Every mutant on board was gathered around a table. Ella, still sporting an electric trident, was passing papers around to anyone.
"Ladies and gentlemutants, your mission," she said cheerfully. "Should you choose to accept it… and, what's with all the tension around here? Is everybody okay?"
Tooey was still slouching, her eyes burning. But her anger wasn't directed at Sean, but Angel.
"Something bothering you, friend?" Angel said.
"You said Sean and I were meant to be," she snapped back. "Why would you say that?"
"I said no such thing. I said you were into each other. It could have gone either way, I had no idea that he'd be so awful. I'm sorry, maybe I should have been looking."
That was about the most wonderful apology anyone had ever gotten out of Angel, but Tooey was beyond reason. She wasn't having it.
"So, 'oo's the stiff?" Falon asked, indicating the flash-frozen Lissa. "Old girlfriend, Fang?"
"Sort of," Fang admitted. "We had a few run-ins back at prep school that kind of scarred Max for life. Basically, any red-headed woman with the slightest connection to the flock turns Max into a raging, jealous Cro-Magnon woman."
"Cro min yon," Nudge corrected.
"What?" Fang said blankly.
"Cro-Magnon is pronounced 'cro min yon'. It's French."
"Oh, Little Miss 'Let's-go-to-the-Loovra' is a linguist now," Fang teased.
Nudge laughed. "I did say that, didn't I?"
"Red 'air?" Falon said quietly, eyeing her own fresh-curled auburn. "Oh… izzat why Max 'ates me?"
"She doesn't hate you…" Gazzy said.
"And if I do, it's because you're a molester," I shot at her.
"Yeah, it's gotta be your hair," Fang told her. "It's the only explanation."
"Whatever. Ella, what's the mission?" I looked over the paper.
"Coordinates for a supposed Survivor encampment," Ella explained.
"Encampment? You mean besides the tower?"
"Yeah," she said. "We figure when it comes to collecting supplies, they have to hop off the teleporter for a day or two."
"All right, so it's a raid," I said. "Where's the place?"
"You're gonna love this—Yukon. All you gotta do is hop the border and you're right there."
"Sweet," I said.
"So, who's going?" Fang asked. "All of us?"
"No," I muttered. "Not a good idea…"
But could I leave anyone outside my field of vision for even a second? What if "they" got ahold of someone while we were away? But the risks of the entire double-flock going on a mission together were a lot greater.
"Okay, we split up," I said. "Fang with me, Airy with me. Tooey, you're coming. Get off your feet, bud. Immy, you're with me also. Gaz?"
He nodded. "Yeah, Max?"
"I'll have you stay at base. You really care about Falon?"
"Like my own life, Max."
"Good. Guard her with that, dude," I said. "Angel, you're staying to keep an eye on Jax and Sean. And Niggy on the raid with us."
Angel took her duties to heart. Sean and Jax were instantly locked under her gaze. And her mind powers, I suppose.
"Oh. And, uh, call Keegan and have her unfreeze Lissa, 'cause what's happening to her right now was a bit cruel of me. Maybe."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
The encampment was not what we expected. We'd imagined a miniature army, ready to drain whatever fuel they needed for their Survivory deeds.
But that wasn't it. There was exactly one tent. Outside was Janssen in her outdoor gear, that being a hugely armored robot suit. Evidently, outside her pretty little tower, she required the best defenses.
She was flanked by a pair of hideous beasts that seemingly had nothing in common but the pitch-black feathers that covered them head to toe.
The eight of us who had gone on the raid all swept down onto the tent.
"Damn," Janssen rasped, her voice tinny through her big helmet. "You're here too?"
I heard a sourceless clicking. That settled, then, the question of who else was here. "Kellie!" Janssen yelled. "Out of the tent, princess. It's time to deliver the final blow to your sister."
Kellie emerged from the tent. My heart gripped with terror… but at the same time it danced, joyous at the sight of the deadly foe I loved…
"Mommy… Mom… Marian?" Kellie said quietly.
"Yes, child?" Janssen cooed. At the sound of her voice, the clicks slowed.
"The man… that you spoke with," Kellie said. "You… you thought he was a friend. But now you think he's… going to do something wrong to us."
Janssen paused. "Correct," she said.
"But you do wrong things too," Kellie said. "Bad against bad, who do I support?"
"You support me, of course, Kellie."
"No," she said. "I support… the one who's not wrong. Sister?"
I smiled. "Yes, Kellie?"
Kellie staggered forward. Staggered, because the clicks were growing louder and faster, and apparently she could barely see straight anymore. "I… don't know who I am," she choked out. "I don't know how to do good things. Can you teach me, Max?"
There was a single, sharp CRACK that echoed around the treetops and caused Kellie to lose her footing completely. And just like that, the clicks were over.
"Unholy Assassin," Kellie said. "That's… a bad name. I want to stay with you, Max."
There was a whirring sound as Janssen stomped forward in her robot suit. Kellie, curled up on the ground, turned to her.
"Mommy," she whispered. "Max can teach you too."
"Well, I've no interest in learning from her," Janssen said, staring coldly at me. "Lao Hu?"
A sleepy head peered out of the tent. "Yes, Miss Janssen?" Lao Hu said.
I jumped in shock. That was unmistakably her, but her hair, previously only flecked with gray, was pure silver. And so were her eyes. Her eyeballs had been replaced by spheres of silver tucked behind her eyelids… at least that's what it looked like. More likely, she'd received some sort of mutation.
That's going around lately, you know.
"Lao Hu, scoot on back to the tower," Janssen said. "Find the whitecoats in the bottom level and tell them that Kellie #4 has failed miserably. Production on Kellie #5 is to begin immediately."
Kellie stared up at her. "So that's who I am?" she said. "I'm the fourth?"
Janssen stared at her in disgust. "Months of grooming down the drain," she sneered.
"But you love me," Kellie whimpered.
"I love my Kellie. I thought that was you, but no. Perhaps your successor will be worthy."
Lao Hu was boarding some kind of moped, one without any wheels at all. "Wow," she said to Janssen. "You really don't have any soul at all, do you?"
"Did I ask your opinion?" Janssen said dangerously.
"No," Lao Hu said. "But I'm giving it. My opinion is that someone should punch you really fucking hard."
The device hummed, and began to hover. Lao Hu had herself a little hover-scooter! It zipped off into the distance.
Janssen rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm so damn tired. Lang, Shey, we're following her. Goodbye… failed, worthless Kellie."
Fang snapped to attention. "Lang and Shey? Where?" He had a beef with the siblings after their meaningless torture of him…
The two feathery mutants were climbing aboard Janssen's armored form. The winged, faceless one giggled shrilly, and the voice was unmistakable.
Fang went pale. "No…"
"That's right, Fangalicious," said the toothy one. "Like what we did with your DNA?"
Janssen's armor rocketed into the sky, taking the mutants with her.
"Damn you to hell," Fang rasped.
Kellie rolled onto her back and looked up at me. "Max," she sobbed.
"She didn't love you," I said.
Kellie's lip quivered. "Is anything real?"
She was crying. Her tears were acidic, evidenced when the pine needles under her head began to sizzle.
I held out a hand to her. "The way I love you is real. We're sisters."
She took my hand and I helped her up. As she stood up, I realized that she was changing. The migrating blue-black flecks on her skin had vanished, and her eyes had gone from red to an odd sort of hazel.
She spread feathered wings, green lined with brown. Now, apart from her musculature, she was not at all unlike a bird-kid.
"Wow," I said. "So, can you stay that way?"
"Yeah," she said. "As long as I never, ever stop thinking about it…"
I laughed. "Oh, Kellie. Just be you."
"I'm a freak, the way I look normally," she muttered.
"We're all freaks," I said. "That's why I've been waiting for you to come to me."
