Max Part 21

"I have to go get Angel," I snarled with my endearing bulldog tenacity.

"Max - you can't help her." Brigid sounded close to tears.

"I'm not leaving her," I said, standing threateningly over Brigid, several inches taller. "If it's too late, then I'm bringing back her body. Either way, I'm not leaving without her." I looked at Captain Perry, John, Brigid, and the rest of the flock. "So suck it up and get out of my way."

John looked at me for a long moment, then nodded, and carefully stepped out of the air-lock chamber. He touched Captain Perry's arm, and, frowning, Captain Perry left too.

"Brigid," said John. Tears rolling down her cheeks, she let go of my arm and left the room, followed by a solemn, stiff-jawed flock.

Except Fang.

I glared at him. "Go on. Try to stop me. I dare you." It was like the old days when we used to wrestle, each trying to get the better of the other. I was ready to take him down, my hands curled into fists.

"I was just going to say be careful," Fang told me. He stepped closer and brushed some hair out of my eyes. "And - I've got your back." He motioned with his head toward the torpedo chamber.

Oh, my G.o.d. It hit me like a tsunami then: how perfect he was for me, how no one else would ever, could ever be so perfect for me, how he was everything I could possibly hope for, as a friend, boyfriend - maybe even more. He was it for me. There would be no more looking.

I really, really loved him, with a whole new kind of love I'd never felt before, something that made every other kind of love I'd ever felt just seem washed out and wimpy in comparison. I loved him with every cell in my body, every thought in my head, every feather in my wings, every breath in my lungs. And air sacs.

Too bad I was going out to face almost certain death.

Right there, in front of everyone, I threw my arms around his neck and smashed my mouth against his. He was startled for a second, then his strong arms wrapped around me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

"ZOMG," I heard Nudge whisper, but still Fang and I kissed, slanting our heads this way and that to get closer. I could have stood there and kissed him happily for the next millennium, but Angel - or what was left of her - was still out there in the cold, dark ocean.

Reluctantly, I ended the kiss, took a step back. Fang's obsidian eyes were glittering brightly, and his stoic face had a look of wonder on it.

"Gotta go," I said quietly.

A half smile quirked his mouth. "Yeah. Hurry back."

I nodded, and he stepped out of the air-lock chamber, keeping his eyes fixed on me, memorizing me, as he hit the switch that sealed the chamber. The doors hissed shut with a kind of finality, and I realized my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to start snapping ribs.

I was scared.

I was crazily, deeply, incredibly, joyously, terrifiedly in love.

I was on a death mission.

Before my head simply exploded from too much emotion, I hit the large b.u.t.ton that pressurized the air lock enough for the doors to open to the ocean outside. I really, really hoped that I would prove to be somewhat uncrushable, like Angel did.

The doors cracked open below me, and I saw the first dark glint of frigid water.

Showtime, folks.

72.

THE ARTIFICIAL AIR PRESSURE in the chamber allowed me to drop down into the water. Want to hear something funny? I took a deep breath first. Then I remembered I didn't have to.

Then every thought went right out of my mind as I realized how totally completely beyond beyond cold the water was at this depth. I gurgled out my best underwater shriek, realized I hadn't been crushed yet, and began to swim toward the light. cold the water was at this depth. I gurgled out my best underwater shriek, realized I hadn't been crushed yet, and began to swim toward the light.

I was hoping it was the sub's floodlights and not the lights of the afterlife, like I'd already just died and didn't realize it and now I was swimming toward, well, I guess not heaven, even on a good day, but someplace lighter than the other option at least. Then I realized that if I was already dead, I wouldn't feel like a bird-kid-cicle, so cold that every tiny movement was incredibly painful. So that cheered me up.

At this depth, even though I hadn't been crushed, it was still shockingly hard to swim, to move, to get anywhere. It was like paddling through Jell-O or in slow motion, and there was was a lot of weight pressing in on me on all sides. It didn't feel good, and I wondered how long my body would hold out. a lot of weight pressing in on me on all sides. It didn't feel good, and I wondered how long my body would hold out.

The water was cloudy, full of debris, and I blinked constantly, wis.h.i.+ng I'd remembered to put on a mask before I went charging off on my white seahorse. Then I saw it: one of the creatures. There were several more, grouped around it, but it was the biggest one, easily as big as our sub. It fixed its red eye on me, turning slightly.

The birds are working, said the Voice. said the Voice.

Huh? I was so startled that I quit swimming for a second. I was so startled that I quit swimming for a second.

The birds are working, the Voice repeated. the Voice repeated.

I began swimming again. Voice, could we do this later? I'm kind of in the middle of something here. Voice, could we do this later? I'm kind of in the middle of something here.

I was now about twenty feet away from the sea creature, and as before, I saw its skin was a ma.s.s of oozing sores, red-rimmed and raw. It wasn't symmetrical with a fin on each side - it looked like it had been put together by a two-year-old using a sea-monster Playmobil set. And he'd put it together wrong.

The birds are working, the Voice repeated. They're working to help us. They're working to help us.

Just then the creature s.h.i.+fted, releasing... Angel.

I surged forward as fast as I could, which was about the pace of a sea slug. Angel's eyes were closed, and she floated there without moving. My heart constricted, and I paddled harder.

Then she blinked, smiled up at the sea monster, and turned to see me. Her face lit up, and she held out her arms, kicking off from the thing and rus.h.i.+ng in slow motion toward me. I grabbed her and held her in a fierce hug, so relieved that she was still alive and that I could kick her b.u.t.t later.

"Max!" she said, her small arms looped around my neck. It was bubbly and indistinct but understandable. "I've been explaining everything to Gor, here." She gestured at the biggest creature.

"Wha?" I managed.

"It isn't their fault," bubbled Angel. "They're genetic freaks, just like us. And they're smart. They've been attacking fis.h.i.+ng boats because the long nets have been damaging their eggs and babies."

My mouth had dropped open, and now I quickly shut it as some tiny transparent shrimp tried to swim in.

"All the radiation created them, but it's also making them sick," Angel explained as minuscule bubbles wafted away from her neck. "They're really mad at the Chu Corporation. I told them we are too. So now we're on the same team! Plus -" Angel paused, her blue eyes gleaming in the floodlights. "Plus, they know where Dr. Martinez is."

73.

"GOR SAYS IT'S NOT much farther," said Angel. She was wrapped in a towel, hair still wet, sipping a mug of hot tea. I was next to her, doing all the same things, except I wasn't communicating telepathically with a radiation-created, man-killing monster. I guess I do have limitations.

We were moving slowly through the darkness, our lights turned off as we tried to sneak up on Mr. Chu's under-water lair in a six-hundred-ton sub.

Angel's eyes unfocused, and she said, "It should be up here, on the left. Go really slow."

The captain gave the command, then handed out night-vision goggles, which Gazzy had been begging for for years. If the captain was smart, he'd count them all before we got off the sub.

"There it is," said Angel. "Gor and the others are going to wait here."

In the distance, we saw something that looked like it was out of a James Bond movie: an enormous clear-topped dome, three thousand feet below the sea. It looked like someone had covered over a football stadium and dropped it into the ocean. It was designed to blend in with its surroundings, and without the night goggles, we could have swum within fifty feet of it and not necessarily seen it.

As we got closer I could tell that the whole dome wasn't clear - it was metal on top, with a wide band of windows around the middle. Three different air-lock entries would admit submarines, which meant Mr. Chu had access to extradeep-diving subs. Maybe he had connections with some military organization? Maybe he was so stinking rich that he had bought his own private fleet of submarines?

"I can barely hear Gor," Angel said in frustration. She stood up and dropped her towel. "I have to go out again."

I had forty-thousand tons of reasons why I didn't want her to go back out, but we were actually relying on the recon abilities of the sea monsters (who called themselves the Krelp, by the way).

Instead I accepted the inevitable, including the even more gross inevitability that I should go out with her.

"Yeah, okay," I said, reluctantly unwrapping my towel. "I'll go with you."

"Oh, thanks, Max!" Angel took my hand and skipped alongside me as we headed for the air-lock chamber. It was like old times, except we were at the bottom of the ocean, talking to sea monsters, and about to rescue my kidnapped mother. Other than that, it was all old hat.

No one protested or tried to stop us this time. Fang looked at me, hope in his eyes, and I smirked at him. I save the huge emotional kissy-face for imminent death scenes. This probably didn't qualify.

I hoped. I really, really hoped.

74.

SADLY, THE TEMPERATURE of the ocean water had not mysteriously risen by, say, fifty degrees while we were back on the sub. It was still horribly, teeth-chatteringly cold, and I went ahead and indulged myself in a searing tirade about cold water as we slowly swam toward the huge dome.

A hundred yards in back of us, the sub was still dark, blending in with the black water. I knew they were watching us with night-vision goggles, so I tried to look more heroic and less weeniefied about the cold.

The dome was lit and divided into rooms. Whatever gla.s.s-type stuff they had used was a couple of feet thick, and the interior was dim and distorted. Cautiously, Angel and I began to swim around the whole dome, seeing a room full of computers and equipment, another room full of sleeping dumb-bots, some rooms that looked like an apartment.

Finally, when we had swum almost the whole way around, I grabbed Angel's arm and pointed. There were several small, grayish compartments, set off from the others. In one of them, a slight figure lay curled on its side on the floor. It had long, dark, curly hair. It was my mom It was my mom. Was she still alive?

Angel's eyes were big as we hovered there.

The gla.s.s is way too thick to break, I thought, and Angel nodded. I thought, and Angel nodded.

If we use a torpedo, it would probably kill my mom. Angel nodded again.

Maybe I could borrow some kind of big drill from the sub? Maybe we could storm in through an air lock? Angel frowned, unsure.

Then I noticed something weird. Okay, I mean, something weirder weirder. There were no fish anywhere close to the dome. No nothing. This deep, it isn't exactly teeming with the circle of sea life anyway, but there were still plenty of freakish, scary things swimming around, not necessarily related to the oozing radiation. But none would come close to the dome, and no barnacles, sea stars, or tube worms attached themselves to it either.

Almost as soon as I realized that, the mystery was solved for us: an eel-like thing swam close and pa.s.sed us. Then, zap! zap! Some sort of invisible force field suddenly electrified it, killing it instantly. It sparked, twitched, then sank silently down into the depths to the ocean bottom. Some sort of invisible force field suddenly electrified it, killing it instantly. It sparked, twitched, then sank silently down into the depths to the ocean bottom.

Angel and I backed up several yards.

So much for attacking through the sub's air locks, I thought. My mom was right there! But I couldn't get to her. She was lying there so limp, unmoving - surely she was still alive. They couldn't have killed her yet, could they? I thought. My mom was right there! But I couldn't get to her. She was lying there so limp, unmoving - surely she was still alive. They couldn't have killed her yet, could they?

Angel looked perplexed, then turned her head and peered out into the darkness. Way off, using raptor vision, I could just barely make out the looming dark pickle shapes of the Krelp. Angel stared at them, c.o.c.king her head, as if she were listening. After a minute, she nodded.

The Krelp say they want to help, she thought at me.

But how? I asked. I asked.

I don't know, she answered.

I felt a swell of icy water push against me, and then the largest Krelp, the one Angel called Gor, surged past us, almost tumbling us head over heels. It neared the dome, got zapped over and over again, but steamrollered right through the force field.

Follow it! Angel commanded. Angel commanded. It's shorted out the electric net! It's shorted out the electric net!

We rushed after it, trying to trace its exact path. I braced myself for a horrible electrocution, but nothing happened. I swam as fast as I could to the window leading into my mom's cell. I rapped on it hard, but she didn't move.

Gor pressed itself against the gla.s.s, and I could only imagine what it looked like from the inside. Someone inside the dome noticed it and started screaming. I saw people starting to race around, saw someone outside the room that housed all the sleeping 'bots. Still, my mom lay motionless.

My stomach got a cold, clenched feeling. Maybe, after all this, we were too late.

People were still staring up at the enormous creature pressed against the gla.s.s, and now I noticed a thick slime seeping out from under its body. This thing was the size of a 747. I mean, the word eew eew doesn't even come close. doesn't even come close.

"Watch," Angel said out loud.

Where the slime was touching the gla.s.s, wisps of smoke were twisting away into the water.

"Oh, my G.o.d," I said. "It's melting the gla.s.s with its... uh, body snot."

"Gazzy will be so jealous," Angel bubbled. "He'd give anything to be able to do that."

"Please do not tell him about it."

The gla.s.s continued to melt, and then something clicked in my brain, and I realized what would happen once the gla.s.s failed: water would seep in, then it would flood in, then it would crush the dome, and everything inside with its unimaginable weight.

If my mom wasn't dead now, she would be, really soon.

75.