Fang started to read

Chapter 82

Can we take the subway back to the park?" Nudge asked tiredly. "I thought you liked the fact that we could walk everywhere in the big NYC?" Gazzy asked with a smug smile. Nudge humphed but smiled anyway.

It was late. We'd decided to sleep in Central Park again. It was huge, dark, and full of trees.

"It's only eighteen blocks to walk," I said. "Only?" Mom said shocked. "How far did you walk that day?"

"Eighteen blocks," Ella said helpfully. I rolled my eyes.

But Angel was starting to fade too – she wasn't back to a hundred percent by a long shot. "Let's see how much it would cost."

Five steps down the subway entrance, I was already tense. Nudge, Angel, and the Gasman were too tired to hate being in an enclosed space, but Fang, Iggy, and I were twitching. Iggy spazzed out beside Ella. "What?" He said, feeling our gazes rest on him. I chuckled.

The fare was two dollars a person, except kids under forty-four inches, who were free. I looked at Angel. Even though she was only six, she was already over four feet tall. So that was twelve dollars.

"How long did it take you to find the MaxRide Card?" Ella asked.

"It should be coming up soon," I said.

Except the fare booth was empty. So we'd have to use the automatic fare machine. That is, if we were going to be troubled about a small think like hopping over the turnstile when no one was looking.

Once we were inside, ten minutes went by with no train. Ten loooong minutes with me feeling like I was about to start screaming and climbing the walls. "That would have been something," Fang muttered and Iggy laughed.

"You know you were feeling it too," I said.

"That may be, but you have one of the craziest imaginations I've ever gotten to look into."

"Of course it is," Angel said. "You've only ever looked into your own imagination. It's my job to see everyone else's imagination."

If we'd been followed, if Erasers came . . .

I saw Iggy turn his head, listening to something from inside the dark tunnel.

"What?" I asked.

"People," he answered. "In there."

"Workers?"

"I don't think so."

I peered into the blackness. Now that I concentrated, I could hear voices too. And way down the line, I saw what looked like the flickering of a fire – its reflected glow from around a bend in the tunnel.

I made a snap decision. "Oh, crap," Ella said. "Not another one."

"Gee, thanks, Ell."

which always makes the flock feel so safe and comfortable. Iggy scoffed. Angel smiled thought. "I trust you, Max."

"Let's go," I said, and I jumped off the platform and onto the tracks leading into the darkness.

Fang handed the book silently to Nudge.

Chapter 83 she read.

"What does that mean?" "Um, that this is the eighty-third chapter?" Gazzy said, Nudge extended her wing a bit to whap him.

The Gasman asked, pointing at a small metal plaque that said Stay off the third rail!

"It means the third rail has seven hundred volts of direct current running through it," Fang said. "Touch it and you're human popcorn." There was a lot of laughter as we remembered this, not including the laughter from Mom and El.

"Okay," I said. "Good tip. Everyone stay off the third rail."

Then I shot Fang a look that said, Thank you for that lovely image. He almost grinned at me.

Iggy felt the train first. "Everyone off the rails," he said, standing still until I took his arm. We all stepped over to a yucky, disgusting wall and pressed ourselves as flat against it as possible.

Thirty seconds later, a train rushed past so fast that it's slipstream made us sway toward it. I kept my knee shoved against Angel so she wouldn't be pulled off her feet.

"Well, that was fairly nerve-racking," I said as we gingerly peeled ourselves off the wall.

"Who's there?" The voice was querulous, aggressive, and rough, as if its owner had spent the last fifty years smoking cigarettes. Maybe he had.

We walked forward, on the alert, wings starting to unfold a tiny bit in case we needed to go airborne. "Where would you have gone?" Mom asked. "You're in a tunnel."

"Easier to move, faster than walking." I shrugged. Honestly, I was glad we didn't need to do that after all.

"Nobody," I called convincingly as we turned the bend of the tunnel.

"Whoa," the Gasman breathed.

Before us was a city. A small, ragged city in Manhattan's basement. Groups of people clotted a large concrete cavern. The ceiling was three stories above us and dripped with paint stalactites and humid condensation.

Several unwashed faces looked towards us, and someone said, "Not cops. Kids."

They turned away, uninterested, except for one woman who seemed to be wearing about five layers of clothing. "You got food?" she barked.

Silently, Nudge pulled a napkin-wrapped knish out of her pocket and handed it over. The woman sniffed it, looked at it, then turned her back to us and started eating.

Here and there the cavern was dotted with fifty-gallon oil drums in which people had made fires. It was a warm night, but the fires provided the only light and helped get rid of the dank chill that was creeping up my legs.

It was a whole new world, made up of homeless people, people who didn't fit in anywhere, runaways . . . We saw a handful of kids who looked around our age. "That's so terrible," Ella said. Mom had covered her mouth with her hand.

I realized that my head was aching. It had been growing worse all evening, and now I just wanted to sleep.

"Over there," said the knish woman, pointing. We looked and saw a narrow concrete ledge built into a wall. It was hundreds of feet long, and people were sleeping on it, sitting on it, marking off there territory with old blankets or cardboard boxes. The woman had pointed out a thirty-foot-long section that seemed unoccupied. "You've slept in tree's, on the ground, in crates, and on a concrete ledge?" Ella asked.

"Oh, don't forget the boat, and the hotel's we've gotten to stay at. And we have slept in beds." Nudge said.

"Don't forget the yoga mats, and the submarine," Angel said.

"Oh, and we've slept on the sand," added Gazzy.

"Some of us have slept in a plane," I felt the urge to say.

I looked at Fang, and he shrugged. It wasn't as nice as the park, but it was warm, dry, and seemed somewhat safe. We scrambled up the ledge, with me boosting Angel. Keeping our backs to everyone, we stacked our fists and tapped twice. Almost instantly, Nudge lay down, pillowing her head on her hands.

Fang and I sat with our backs against the wall. I dropped my head into my hands and started rubbing my temples.

"You okay?" Fang asked.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I'll be better tomorrow."

"Go to sleep," said Fang. "I'll take the first watch."

I gave him a grateful smile, and soon I was out, out, out – with no idea how we would ever know it was morning.

Nudge handed the book to the Gasman.

Chapter 84 he read.

The brain explosion came again while I was sleeping. Mom cringed again. "How long did this go on?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It stopped after New York." I held up a hand to Gaz before he could start again. "Look," I said, looking at Fang and Mom. "I know some things I thought throughout this little escapade are not. . .pleasant. But please, remember that I don't think that way now, okay? It's in the past, water under the bridge. So please if you feel the need to say something about it, don't."

Fang eyed me warily - I felt his eyes turn to my scar on my wrist, but shrugged. Mom however, she furrowed her brow and looked at me with concern. I couldn't stand it so I stared at my shoes. Gazzy started reading.

One moment I was lost in a dream in which I was strolling lazily through a field of yellow flowers, like a dopey shampoo commercial, and the next I had jack-knifed into a sitting position, holding my head and feeling like this was it: Death had finally come for me, and it wasn't taking no for an answer. "So don't answer it," Ella said.

My breaths were tight hisses. Jagged shards of pain ripped through my skull, and I heard myself whimper. Please let it be fast, I begged God. Please just end it, end it, end it now. Please, please, please. "Oh," Ella said, "I get it now, and Max, I'm so glad it didn't end then."

I nodded, smiling at her. "I didn't know what an awesome family I had yet."

"Max?" Fang's low voice, right by my ear, seeped through the waves of agony. I couldnt' respond. My face was awash with tears. If I had been standing on a cliff, nothing could have kept me from throwing myself off. With my wings tucked in. "Please," I whispered, not looking at Fang. All he did in response was wrap an arm around me and I leaned into his grasp gratefully.

Inside my brain, images flashed incomprehensibly, making me sick, assaulting my senses with pictures, words, sounds. A voice speaking gibberish. Maybe it was mine. "Yup." Iggy and Fang said, trying to lighten the mood. "All I managed to get was 'ar-mae-ne-blepa-han-fil.' But it was you."

As if from a great distance, I felt Fang's hand on my shoulder, but it was like watching a movie – it seemed totally unrelated to what I was going through. MY teeth were clenched so hard my jaw ached, and then I tasted blood – I had bitten into my lip.

When was I going to see the proverbial tunnel of white light I'd heard about? With people waiting for me at the end, smiling and holding out their hands? Don't kids with wings go to heaven?

Then an angry voice filtered through the pain: "Who's screwing with my Mac?" "Ahh," Iggy said. "I remember him. The guy who's freakier than we are."

"Oh, yeah," Gazzy said, "remember running into him on the west coast?"

"Wait, you guys ran into him again?" Nudge asked.

Fang shrugged, "the guy gets around."

With that Angel took the book from her brother and started to read.

Chapter 85

Just as before, the pain slowly ebbed, and I almost cried with frustration: If it was ending, I wasn't dead. If wasn't dead, I could go through this again.

Images flashed across the backs of my eyes, but they were unfocused and undecipherable. If I had been alone, I would have started bawling. Instead I had to desperately try to keep it together, try not to wake the younger ones (if I hadn't already), "Nope," Angel, Gazzy, and Nudge said together, popping the 'p' on 'nope.' I smiled at them.

Try not to give our position away.

"Who are you?" The angry voice came again. "What are you doing? You've crashed my whole system, worthless dipstick!" "This guys a total jerk," Ella said. Fang shrugged.

"He's not so bad once you get to know him," he said.

"And you have?" I asked half-heartedly.

His reply? A shrug.

Ordinarily, I would have been on my feet by now, pushing Angel and the others in back of me, an angry snarl on my face.

However, tonight I was crumpled in a humiliated, whimpering ball, holding my head, eyes squeezed shut, trying not to sob like a complete weenie.

"It's okay to cry, Max," Mom said. "Sometimes you need to."

I took in a breath, "I know."

"What are you talking about?" Fang asked, an edge of steel in his voice.

"My system crashed. I've tracked the interference, and it's comin' from you. So I'm tellin' you to knock it off – or else!" "This is kind of funny," Ella said, and Mom looked at her like she'd gone a little crazy. "I mean, this stranger is threatening Fang. Think about it, mom."
I drew in a deep, shuddering breath, totally mortified that a stranger was seeing me like this.

"And what's wrong with her? She trippin'?"

"She's fine," Fang snapped. "We don't know anything about your computer. If you're not brain-dead, you'll get out of here." No one sounds colder or meaner than Fang when he wants to.

The other guy said flatly, "I'm not going nowhere till you quit messing with my Mac. Why don't you get your girlfriend to a hospital?"

Girlfriend? There were snickers coming from all corners of the room. I rolled my eyes. It didn't matter now.

Oh, God, I was going to catch it later about that. It was enough to make me lever up on one arm, then pull myself to a sitting position.

"Who the hell are you?" I snarled, the effect totally ruined by the weak, weepy sound of my voice. Blinking rapidly, finding even the dim tunnel light painful, I struggled to focus on the intruder.

I got a hazy impression of someone about my age; a ragged-looking kid wearing old army fatigues. He had a dingy PowerBook attached to straps around his shoulders like a xylophone or something. "Who walks around with a xylophone strapped to their shoulders?" Nudge asked curiously.

"None of your beeswax!" he shot back. "Just quit screwing up my motherboard."

I was still clammy and nauseated, still had a shocking headache and felt trembly, but I thought I could string a complete sentence together. "What are you talking about?"

"This!" The kid turned his Mac toward us, and when I saw the screen I actually gasped.

It was a mishmash of flashing images, drawings, maps, streams of code, silent film clips of people talking. It was exactly the stuff that had flooded my brain during my attack.

"Well that's trippy." Ella said as mom took the book from Angel.

"I wonder if the chip caused it." Mom said. "Do you still have these brain attacks?"

"No," I muttered, "the Voice isn't/wasn't tapped into the chip. Unfortunately, it's still there."

"Wait," Ella said, "What voice?"

"Oh, well, I'm sure you'll find out in the next chapter."

Mom put the book down, "Why don't we call it a night?"

I held out my fist and my guys tapped it. Then I dragged Fang out the door for a night flight before bed.

AN:

Surprise! It's a day early! ^_^

Here's the latest chapter. I hope you enjoyed it!

Expect more sometime this week. (:

~Jezi Raewin