James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

Harry cocked his head at me curiously, his handsome face as innocent and blank as usual.

Oh, this is stellar.

He started picking affectionately at my wings again.

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head, smoothing my feathers back down. “I have to think.”

I watched him scuffing up dirt, relishing a dust bath.

I stopped moving and crossed my arms. “Harry, this has been great, but it’s time for me to move on.”

“Haaarrryy!” he cawed happily, and my face softened. After years spent on the run, I had a soft spot for strays, and the poor guy couldn’t help it if he’d been programmed with the intellectual capabilities of a Tickle Me Elmo.

He stared at me with a dopey, thrilled expression, like I was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

At least someone thinks so.

“Okay, look,” I said, knowing my words sounded like gibberish to him, as his language did to me. “Let’s go find your flock, and then I have to bounce, understand?”

“Maaaax Mummmm,” Harry cooed, and nuzzled against my shoulder.

“Right,” I said, and pointed. “You lead the way.”

We flew west, and again I marveled at Harry’s grace in the air. Every part of him was crafted to be as aerodynamic as possible — from the overdeveloped shoulder muscles that made his wings work almost effortlessly, to the incredible core strength that held his whole body parallel to the ground.

I’d always been the top flier in the flock, but now I was aware of my legs dipping slightly below my upper body, causing drag. And while I was gulping air as I pumped my wings to gain speed, with feathers that cut through the air like blades, Harry barely had to flap.

On land we couldn’t understand a thing the other said, but in the sky, we spoke the same language. Harry slowed imperceptibly to coast beside me while I studied landmarks, and pulled ahead so I could ride his slipstream through turbulent patches. When I was just starting to notice a twinge of hunger in my stomach, Harry was already diving for prey. For hundreds of miles, we were in perfect synchronization.

Until we reached the Pacific Ocean.

Harry started to turn left, but something made me hang back... I had a weird feeling of retracing Fang’s steps — a sense of urgency.

North , my gut insisted.

Harry was cruising so fast, I had to shout over the wind. “Wait up!” I tapped his shoulder and pointed the other way, but with a quick shake of his head, Harry pulled harder to the left.

“I know we’re looking for your flock, but I’m looking for someone, too, okay?”

Harry’s brow was wrinkled with anxiety.

“What is it?”

“Pfft!” Harry’s eyes widened, and the way he flung his fingers open reminded me of one of Gazzy’s IEDs.

“A bomb?” I asked, grabbing his wrist. “A bomb went off, to the north?”

My breath caught in my chest as I thought of the charred remains of Tanzania and the watery grave of New York. The giant I’d fought had said the Remedy would punish the whole world, and the voices on the radio had been carrying out that mission.

They wanted no survivors.

“We have to check it out,” I decided, and as I started to turn, Harry shook his head in alarm. Of course the other bird kids would’ve avoided the place — birds and animals tended to be the first ones to flee during disasters.

I was already headed up the coast, though, scanning the northern landscape for smoke and steeling myself for whatever we might find.

Call me stubborn, but I always listened to my gut.

Everything was so still. So quiet.

As we landed, the wind from our wings moved dust that seemed like it had blanketed the ruins for years, and when I coughed, the sound echoed even in the open, leveled space.

I’d say Seattle was a ghost town, except without the town part. There were just piles and piles of rubble as far as we could see. Exactly like the bombed city in Africa.

All desolation starts to look alike, I guess.

Or maybe I’m just jaded.

“Looks pretty bad, huh?” I said.

“Max Mum...” Harry pleaded.

“Yeah, yeah. We won’t stay too long,” I said. To be honest, I was ready to split the moment we landed, too. The place was giving me a major case of the heebie-jeebies, but since I’d dragged us here, we had to at least check it out.

We shuffled through the colorless haze, gaping around us like archaeologists digging up a lost city. We walked under archways that stood alone where buildings had fallen, and passed skeletons of cars that still smelled of gas. I saw a hard hat lying in the dirt and reached for it, but it crumbled on contact.

“There’s no one,” I whispered. No survivors, no bodies. Just ash.

Turns out, almost everything burns, and history is quick to turn to dust. Except for that smooth glint of metal over there...

What is that?

I cocked my head to stare at the large, disklike object. For a second, I thought that, on top of everything else, the world was being invaded by aliens.

Then I understood.

So that was what had happened to the famous Space Needle. The long white base was nowhere in sight, but somehow the UFO-shaped top had ended up over a mile from the coast. It was half submerged in a pile of debris, like it had skidded onto a dull gray planet.

“Come on!” I said, dragging a less-than-enthusiastic Harry behind me.

The windows that circled the perimeter had been blown out, and we had to climb over the twisted metal dividers to get in. The initial blast must’ve blown the aerodynamic disc inland before the mushroom cloud incinerated everything else, though. Because inside, apart from the white chairs that were overturned and piled everywhere, the objects in the restaurant were surprisingly intact.

There were even a couple of cracked dishes sitting on a table. And a small, black, rectangular object, just lying there, like it had been forgotten...

I snatched up the phone. No. It couldn’t be... Impossible.

But true.

It was on , and working , and four full bars shone in the corner — the thing actually had service !

“Do you know what this is?” I laughed, shaking it at Harry.

“Harry!” he squawked, responding to my excitement.

“Communication!”

I held it in my hand, my heart thudding, and then realized that none of the flock had phones. An intact phone with full service, found in a city completely destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and I had no one to call. I did not smirk at the irony.

But if I could get on the Internet...

I tapped the smartphone’s screen and a browser opened. I typed in the address of Fang’s blog.

Maybe he has logged in.

Maybe he’s tried to get a message to me.

Maybe there’s something he wants me to know.

Harry peered over my shoulder as I scrolled through the comments. I didn’t find a single post from FangMod, but a thread with the subject “DEAD FLOCK” made me stop cold. I clicked to expand, but the stupid thing took forever to load.

“Come on. Come onnn,” I muttered, jabbing my finger at the screen.

Flockfan23: Rumors here that some of the flock have been murdered. My cuz said Angel told her and was crying. Any1 else have info?

I pictured Angel’s tear-streaked face, her blonde eyebrows knitted in grief. I held my breath.

There were half a dozen responses. PAtunnelratt, the commenter we’d been communicating with before, was the first to answer.

PAtunnelratt: The story around here is Gasman got blown up and one of the H-men grabbed Iggy in the woods. Heard they were looking for my silo, so I’d feel mad guilty if it’s true.