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76
Basically, if you put a fence around New York City, you’d have the world’s biggest nontraveling circus.
When we woke up at dawn the next morning, there were already joggers, bicyclers, even horseback riders weaving their way along the miles and miles of trails in Central Park. We slipped down out of the trees and casually wandered the paths.
Within an hour, speed skaters were rushing by, street performers were setting up their props, and the paths were almost crowded with dog walkers and moms pushing jogging strollers.
“That lady has six white poodles!” Nudge hissed behind her hand. “Who needs six white poodles?”
“Maybe she sells them,” I suggested, “to kids with big wide eyes.”
“Something smells awesome,” Iggy said, swiveling his head to detect the source. “What is that? It’s over there.” He pointed off to my left.
“There’s a guy selling food,” I said. “It says honey-roasted peanuts.”
“I am so there,” said Iggy. “Can I have some money?”
Iggy, Angel, and I went to buy six small bags of honey-roasted peanuts (they really did smell like heaven), and Fang, Nudge, and the Gasman went to look at a clown selling balloons.
We were walking over to join them when something about the clown caught my eye. She was watching a sleek, dark-haired guy strolling down a path. Their gazes met.
A chill went down my back. Just like that, my enjoyment of the day burst. I was swept into fear, anger, and an intense self-preservation reflex.
“Iggy, heads up,” I whispered. “Get the others.”
Beside me, Angel was wound tight, her hand clenching mine hard. We walked fast toward the others. Fang, doing an automatic sweep of the area, saw my urgent expression. In the next moment he had clamped a hand on Nudge’s and the Gasman’s shoulders and spun them around to walk quickly away.
We met on the path and sped up our pace. One glance behind me showed the dark-haired guy following us. He was joined by a woman who looked just as intent and powerful as he did.
A flow of heroically suppressed swear words ran through my brain. I sca
They were gaining on us.
“Run!” I said. The six of us can run faster than most grown men, but the Erasers had also been genetically enhanced. If we couldn’t find an out, we were done for.
Now there were three of them-they’d been joined by another male-model type. They had broken into an easy trot and were closing the space between us.
Paths merged into other paths, sometimes narrowing, sometimes widening. Again and again, we almost crashed into bikers or skaters going too fast to swerve.
“Four of them,” Fang said. “Pour it on, guys!”
We sped up. They were maybe twenty yards behind us. Hungry grins marred their good-looking faces.
“Six of them!” I said.
“They’re too fast,” Fang informed me u
I bit my lip, keeping a tight grip on Angel’s hand. What to do, what to do. They were closer, and even closer-
“Eight of them!” said Fang.
77
“Left!” Iggy said, and without question we all hung a sudden left. How he knew it was there, I have no idea.
Our path suddenly opened into a wider plaza surrounded by vendors selling all kinds of stuff. Some brick buildings were on the left, and a big crowd of kids was passing through a metal gate.
I caught a glimpse of a sign: Central Park Zoo.
“Merge!” I whispered, and just like that, we melted smoothly into the horde of schoolkids. Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and I ducked down to be shorter, and we all wormed our way into the middle of the group, so we were surrounded by other kids. None of them seemed to think it was weird we were there-there must have been more than two hundred of them being herded through the gate.
I repressed an urge to moo and peeped over a girl’s shoulder. The Erasers had spread out and were searching for us, looking frustrated.
One of the big creeps tried to push past the policeman at the zoo gate, but the cop blocked his way. “School day only,” I heard him say. “No unauthorized adults. Oh, you’re a chaperone? Yeah? Show me your pass.”
With a low snarl, the Eraser backed away and rejoined his companions. I gri
We reached the entry gate: the moment of truth.
We got waved in!
“Pass, pass, pass,” the gate person muttered, motioning us through without looking at us.
Inside the zoo, we scrambled off to one side, then paused for a moment and slapped high fives.
“Yes!” the Gasman said. “School day only! Yes! I love this place!”
The zoo!“ Nudge said, practically quivering with excitement. ”I’ve always wanted to see a zoo! I’ve read about ‘em-I’ve seen them on TV. This is so great! Thanks, Max.“
I hadn’t had anything to do with it, but I smiled and nodded: magnanimous Max.
“Come on, let’s get farther in,” said Iggy, sounding nervous. “Put some distance between us and them. Jeez, was that a lion? Please tell me it’s behind bars.”
“It’s a zoo, Iggy,” Nudge said, taking his arm and leading him. “Everything is behind bars.”
Like we used to be.
78
“Oh, man, look at the polar bear!” The Gasman pressed his face against the glass of the enclosure, watching as the huge white bear swam gracefully in its big pool. The bear had an empty steel beer keg to play with, which it was batting through the water.
I’ll just tell you flat out: We’d never seen any of these animals before, not in real life. We didn’t grow up going on field trips, having Sunday outings with the ‘rents. This was a completely different, foreign world, where kids swarmed freely through a zoo, animals were in habitats and weren’t undergoing genetic grafting, and we were strolling along, not hooked up to EEG monitors and blood pressure cuffs.
It was wild.
Like this bear. Two bears, actually. A big main bear and a smaller backup bear. They had a pretty large habitat, with huge rocks, an enormous swimming pool, toys to play with.
“Man,” said Gazzy wistfully. “I’d love to have a pool.”
Or, hey! How about a house? Safety? Plenty of food?
Those were about as impossible as a swimming pool. I reached out and rubbed Gazzy’s shoulder. “That would be really cool,” I agreed.
All these animals, even though they were stuck in enclosures, probably bored out of their minds, possibly lonely, still had it so much better than we’d had it at the School. I felt edgy and angry, nervous, still coming off my adrenaline high after being chased by the Erasers. Seeing all these animals made me remember too much about when I was little, when I lived in a cage so small I couldn’t stand up.
Which reminded me: We were here to find the Institute, whatever that was. In just a short while, we might know who we were, where we came from, how our whole lives had happened.
I rubbed my hand across my mouth, really starting to feel twitchy and kind of headachy. But Nudge, the Gasman, Angel, and Iggy were having a great time. Nudge was describing everything to Iggy, and they were laughing and ru
“This place gives me the creeps,” Fang said.
“You too? I’m going nuts,” I admitted. “It’s flashback city. And I have-” I started to say “a headache,” but then didn’t want to complain or have Fang tell me to see a doctor again “an overwhelming desire to set all these animals free.”
“Free to do what?” Fang asked drily.
“Just to be out, to escape,” I said.
“Out in the middle of Manhattan?” Fang pointed out.