The Final Warning

Part Three. MOON OVER MIAMI – OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

60

HOLDING US OFF the ground inside a tightly woven metal net was about as effective as locking us in dog crates. Not infallible, but pretty dang close. Sure, we could move the net by shifting our weight around, but we were too far away from anything to hit.

After a while we stopped shivering and got sleepy again- welcome back, hypothermia! Just as I was groggily debating the merits of freezing to death before anyone could do something awful to us versus actually living, the thing carrying us began to roll up a snow-covered ramp. My eyes were burning, and my lashes were frozen with chunks of ice, but I blinked and squinted. We were going into… a building? A large, round, white building?

Inside I saw that it was a really big jet, designed to move troops or cars or something. So we were going somewhere.

“Max?” That voice…

The net released us, hard, onto the floor. Angel gasped slightly, but fortunately she was so out of it by now that the new pain barely registered.

In an instant I staggered to my feet, willing myself back to full consciousness. The ramp closed, and my eyes couldn’t see well in the dim light. I’d lost my sunglasses in the skirmish and was now practically snow-blind.

“Max!”

My heart sank, and I peered into the half-light. “Gazzy?”

61

HALF AN HOUR LATER, we were thawed, reunited with the rest of the flock, able to see, and becoming very, veryp.o.’d about being captivesagain. Yeah, pretty much business as usual for us.

“Where are we going?”Iggy asked. “Any clues?”

“No,” I said. This rear area of the plane, intended for cargo, had not been graced with windows, sinceboxes usually don’t give a crap about where they’re going. We were lucky it was slightly heated.

“Who was the big thug?” Nudge wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on them. They’d been grabbed one by one, back at the station. Some of the scientists had tried to fight and had a bunch of serious injuries to show for it. I felt sorry for them, but if you lie down with dogs… (No, Total, don’t get offended. The flock were the “dogs” in that metaphor. See, they hung out with- You know what? To heck with it.)

“Don’t know,” I said. Adrenaline had been keeping me alert when we first got here, but now it was gone, leaving me wallowing in the wallow of the deeply bummed. “He’s a bigFrankenberry jerk, though.”

“Those things are so weird,” saidGazzy.

“You’re not kidding,” I agreed.

All the short soldiers that had captured us, plus a bunch more, were here in the cargo area with us. When the ramp had locked into place, the big guy had given a command. The soldiers had lined up against the wall, three rows deep, and then just stood there. I couldn’t tell if they were powered down or what.

ThenGazzy had tried to touch one and got a nasty electric shock that knocked him backward about a foot and a half.

Several of the soldiers around that one had seemed to power up then, shifting their positions and aiming their sensors at us. A couple of them had inched forward, and we all froze.

“Back away very slowly,Gazzy,” I said quietly. “To the wall, and sit down, very, very slowly.”

Still rubbing his shocked hand,Gazzy began to back up, then he jumped when a laser beam shot out and burned a hole right through the toe of his boot.

“Yow!” he said, hopping on the other foot.

“Did it get you?” I asked anxiously, keeping my eyes on the soldiers.

“No- just burned a hole through my boot. Missed my toes.”

“Okay, everyone, let’s just stay still,” I ordered. “No sudden moves. These things are clearly hair-trigger, and I don’t want any holes burned through more important stuff, like our heads.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were all ready to be diagnosed with ADD, and the sitting-still thing was not working for us. Gradually we found out that we could move, as long as we didn’t do anything suddenly and didn’t go near the soldiers.

“Fine, they can have me if they want, but why dragAkila into this?” Total said for the nineteenth time. “She didn’t do anything!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying for the nineteenth time not to choke him to death. “On the other hand, if they’d left her, she might be dead by now.”

“Hmph!” Total said.Akila, I was glad to see, was looking relatively undamaged- though haughty, as if all this being captured was okay for ordinary mutants, but not for a purebred Malamute whose mother had once won the Iditarod dog sled race.

But I was relieved she seemed all right. I might feel murderous toward any number of enemies, but I always had a soft spot in my heart for animals. Especially non-genetically engineered ones.

I inched over to sit next to Fang, and had to look around, startled, for a couple moments before I saw him, almost invisible against the dark wall. I wondered if he was missing Dr. Amazing, then felt bad for still being jealous of her. Nudge had told me how hardBrigid and the others had fought against theGoBots.

I was glad Angel was finally sleeping, her head in Fang’s lap. We’d made her a lame sling out of a scarf, but I hoped someone would set her arm soon. Someone like my mom.

The metal door at the front of the cargo area opened, and the big thug came back in. His footsteps made him sound like he weighed about three hundred pounds, and now I could gauge his height at almost seven feet.

I allowed myself a quick fantasy of making him swallow one ofGazzy’s bombs, then forced myself to full-alert mode, looking for a way out of this mess. As soon as we’d been locked in, we’d tried unsuccessfully to open the back ramp- everything would have been sucked out of the plane if we’d opened it, which was fine for us, since we could fly. Theminibots would all have gone crunch on the ground, of course, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

“Who are you?” Nudge asked bravely.

“I amGozen,” the big thing said.

Nudge’s brow wrinkled. “Like Japanese dumplings?”

62

“THAT WOULD BEGYOZA, ” Fang murmured at Nudge.

“Where do you come from,Gozen?” I said, feeling fresh rage wash over me at what he’d done to Angel. “Whose henchman are you?”

Gozenturned his big head to look down at me- looked down with his nonhuman eyes that glowed blue. “I amGozen. I am the leader. You will be quiet.”

“Good luck with that,” I heardIggy mutter.

“We will be landing in fourteen hours, thirty-nine minutes,” saidGozen.

Okay, what was fifteen hours away from Antarctica? Well, actually, most of the world. Not Canada or northern Europe, not the Arctic. But we could be headed most other places. Good thing I had narrowed that down.

“Where are we going?” I tried.

“That is not your concern.”

“Au contraire, YourTrollness,” I said, standing up. “We’re very concerned. We haveappointments. Places to go, people to see. Now tell us where the hell we’re going!”

Faster than my eyes (with raptor vision) could track, one thick leg shot out and whipped my feet out from under me. I caught myself on my hands just in time for him to kick my side hard enough to make my breath fly out of my lungs and give me that so-attractive fish-gasping expression.

The flock, except for Angel, was on their feet in a second, but I made a “Don’t attack” gesture- just in time, because the soldiers had once again shifted forward. With iron control, I slowly sucked in my breath, hoping they wouldn’t startlasering everything in sight. I took inventory: legs okay; ribs really, really bruised, maybe cracked. It hurt a surprising amount, which made me realize that it had been a while since I’d had broken bones. Clearly I needed to review my street-fighting skills.