Chapter 5
There was Iggy, standing in front of me in all his glory.
The woman removed her helmet as well—the pale, green-eyed woman was as much of a disguise as the one Iggy had been wearing. It was Nudge.
"Oh my God…" I muttered. "Iggy and Nudge… it's not possible. It can't be Iggy and Nudge."
"Oh, it can be, and it is, Iggy and Nudge," Iggy countered.
"Or as the tabloids call us, 'Niggy'," Nudge said cheerfully.
I felt a couple of muscles in my face twitch insanely. "You guys!" I sobbed, pulling them both into a hug. "I don't believe this," I whimpered. "You're alive… you're okay… it's unbelievable… oh, you guys have no way of knowing how thrilled I am right now. It's incredible…"
"And there it is," Iggy said. He slapped Nudge a high-five. "We have done it."
"Done what?" I asked.
"You cried," Nudge said. "And we're witnesses!"
The two of them pranced around in a circle, chanting "We got Fang to cry-y, we got Fang to cry-y…"
I slammed their skulls together, then pulled them into another loving embrace. "How?" I asked. "I saw you guys. Every bone in your bodies were broken… and that was before you were dropped. There's no way you could have survived a fall like that, in the state you were in."
"We never hit the ground," Iggy said. "The ICBG saved us… you know, what's left of the ICBG. Danny and Ray and Ram took good care of us. They speed-healed our broken bones and gave us these disguises. Come on, let's get our helmets back on. We can sneak you guys out of here. Is Max in the compound, too?"
"No," I said. "Just me and the little kids. Let's go."
"Oh, my goodness," Angel said. "I can see so much more clearly now that five of us are together… I won't see with perfect clarity until Max comes back. But things are… better. Not perfect, but better."
"Lead us out, Iggy," I said.
"Fang, where's Max?" Nudge demanded.
"Shush," Iggy said quickly. "We're clearing out. No more talking until we reach the exit."
"Gotcha," I said.
The five of us marched off, navigating through the halls, looking much less conspicuous in a larger number.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
After we left Jewel's compound, we all whipped out our wings. Iggy and Nudge led us north.
"This is killing me, you guys," Nudge said. "What happened to Max?"
"She left," I said. "She asked Keegan to keep her and the baby hidden until there's no more risk."
"She abandoned you?" Iggy said quietly. "Really? No! That can't be. You're… you're wrong. Max doesn't abandon people! You're wrong!"
Nudge quickly held Iggy's hand. "Hey, calm down, beautiful. Max does everything for a reason."
"She didn't abandon anybody," I said hurriedly. "She… she trusts me, you know. She knew I could take care of things. She just didn't want Jewel to get the baby."
Iggy considered that. "That's an awful thing for her to do."
"Hey, if the baby is safe, I'm all for this plan, okay?" I said. I paused. "Did Nudge just call you 'beautiful'?"
"Shut up. I happen to know I am beautiful."
"So, where are we, and where are we going?" I asked, starting to smile.
"We're in Libya," Iggy said. "And we're going to Italy, where the ICBG have set up a new secret base."
"There's just the three of them," Nudge said. "Just Danny and the twins. They're a lot of fun! And you gotta see the things they can whip up. They're truly geniuses, like nobody else in the world. And they're really not evil at all! They could really do some terrific stuff in the world if only someone would let them!"
"Really?" I said.
"We should have supported them from the very beginning," Nudge said.
"Yeah," Iggy said. "These disguises they gave us? Holographic. It wraps perfectly around our faces; we can change our facial features and coloration to look like anything we want, then go back to normal at the touch of a button. You're gonna have a ball with this, Fang."
"Sounds like it," I agreed.
"They even told me that they could fix my eyes," he said. "I told them that was a really nice opportunity, and I thanked them, but I decided not to have it done."
"Really? But I thought you always wanted to get your sight back."
"Yeah, but I figured, you know, when has it ever really been a problem?" he said cheerfully. "I mean, I've never felt helpless, and things are really just more exciting without sight. Fighting, flying, sex. Everything, really…"
"Sex?" I interrupted.
"Yeah, did we not mention that?" Iggy said.
"I feel like we must have," Nudge said with mock-thoughtfulness.
"Well, just in case, let's mention it again."
"Let's."
"Right," Iggy said. "Yeah, me and Nudge? We've had sex. What do you think of that?"
"I think she's eleven and that's slightly repulsive, Iggy, that's what I think of that."
"We don't know that I'm eleven," Nudge countered, "and when you're in love and you're in a cage and you think the thirty-minute timer on the wall signifies your own death, there are things you want to get done. It's like that episode of House, when the little girl with cancer wants Chase to kiss her, and he feels sorry for her so he does it, and then…"
"Say what?" I demanded.
"You remember that episode? She didn't want to die without ever having—"
"No, I mean… what was that about a cage and a timer?" I clarified.
"Yeah, while the ICBG was giving us the treatment, we had no way of knowing what they were doing to us. We thought they were getting ready to execute us," Iggy said. "We thought we'd never get a chance to do it again, you know? Then after it turned out that they had the same anti-Jewel agenda as us… well, then, even though we knew that we would live… we wanted to have sex again."
The two of them laughed, nearly hampering their flight. I had always thought that them being together was bizarre, but now, hearing them laughing in perfect harmony, I realized that both of them had found the end of their road, in a good place.
"So, you know, it's been a big week," Nudge said. "Lots of preparations to be made… of course, with the Big Guy off doing his own thing, it'll be pretty hard to figure out how to defeat Jewel. No one's seen the Big Guy for a while."
"A big week?" I said. "We were sedated that long?"
"Don't know," Iggy said. "I just know it's been eight days since we were tossed overboard."
"That was the same day that Jewel captured us," Gazzy said. "So we were sedated for a week."
"Yeah, guess so," Iggy said. "Heard that Max killed Mr. Chu with punch-daggers! That's pretty intense. Doesn't sound like her… but, hey, she thought she was avenging us. That was nice of her, at least."
"Eight days," I muttered. "I bet Airy looks completely different by now…"
Iggy came up above me and patted my shoulder. "Hey, man, we all know Max," he said. "She can't keep it up for long. Even if things aren't safe, she'll come back with the baby soon enough. So, what's Max's big plan, anyway?"
"I don't think she really has a plan," I said. "I think all that she had figured was that she needed to hide."