James Patterson - Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

I passed him a newspaper cone full of hot fried fish and french fries. Those wacky Brits called fries "chips." And potato chips were "crisps." And cookies were "biscuits." I had no idea what real biscuits were called. Wangdoodles?

"And the vinegar?" Total asked.

I sprinkled vinegar on it for him, then looked at the map again. The Internet caf #233;s we'd found were for people with their own computers. Since Fang had taken our computer, we'd had to go to a library.

Of course, we'd found that Itex was everywhere, with branches in fourteen cities throughout the United Kingdom. But the main office seemed to be about a thirty-minute flight from London, west-southwest.

"I like fish and chips," Ari said. "They're yummy."

"Uh-huh," I said distractedly, tracing a line on the map.

I still couldn't believe I had to go kill the dragon without Fang by my side. He had abandoned me, Nudge, and Angel. Was he so pissed about Ari that he didn't care if we lived or died? Did he think his blog was really going to solve everything? It's not like a bunch of angry kids with pitchforks and torches was going to end Itex's reign of terror.

The word terror suddenly made me think about when Gazzy had told those FBI guys his name was Captain Teror. My eyes were hot and itchy in a flash, and I had trouble swallowing. Gazzy. Iggy. I missed them so much. I'd had dreams about them all night and woke up convinced something bad would happen to them and I wouldn't be able to help.

I was going to kill Fang. That was totally on my list, right after "save the world."

Jerk. Cretin. Oh, God. He was part of me; he was in my blood. My blood was in him, literally. How could he have done this?

I glanced over at where Ari was drawing the last of his french fries through a mound of ketchup, his too-large hand making it look like a toothpick. I'd been watching him carefully, and so far he seemed loyal, sincere, not acting suspiciously. But what if I really had made my worst mistake?

I know what you're thinking: Of course you didn't, Max! It was Fang! He made the mistake!

And yes, we all know that my making a mistake is very, very rare. Exceedingly rare.

Still.

I was going to keep an eye on Ari.

"Max?" Nudge was looking at me. "Earth to Max."

"Huh? What?"

"We're going to fly there, right?" Nudge asked, pointing to Threadgill-on-Thames on the map. "Like, fly fly, not plane fly, right?"

"Right." I glanced out the window. "We'll go as soon as the sun sets. In the meantime, anyone want more tea?"

"Yeah, I'll have some," said Total. Of course.

"Oh, lovely," I breathed, peering through a tall bank of hedges. "Geez, they're not even pretending to gussy this place up, are they?"

"It looks so depressing," said Nudge softly. "I would hate to work there."

"You think?" I said. "I would hate to undergo cruel and unusual scientific experimentation there. It looks like the kind of forbidding, twisted place where evil scientists would do totally unthinkable, gruesome experiments. Like graft other species' DNA into innocent infants."

"For example," said Nudge.

"What are we gonna do here?" Ari asked. The rest of us were so slender and lithe, thanks to our birdlike bones, that Ari seemed especially hulking and clunky in comparison. Now he loomed over us in the dark as we took our first look at the Itex British headquarters.

Fittingly, the building used to be a prison. And boy, had the Brits cornered the market on dank and gloomy. Itex headquarters had an unmistakable eau de prison about it-looming, blocklike rectangular buildings made of dirty brown brick.

If the leader of Itex is reading this right now, I have two words for you: seasonal plantings.

The entire thing was surrounded by an electrified chain-link fence at least twelve feet high, topped with razor wire, in case getting repeatedly shocked with five thousand volts wasn't enough of a deterrent. And okay, if you're totally nuts, maybe it wouldn't be.

Of course, we were just going to fly over it anyway.

I heard Angel swallow in the quiet night and looked down at her. Her face was unusually pale, her eyes wide.

"What's up?" I asked her, going on alert.

She swallowed again and reached for my hand. I squeezed hers and knelt down to her level.

"I can feel thoughts and stuff coming from inside," she said brokenly. "From the whitecoats and also, like, minds without bodies."

Brains on a Stick, I thought.

"They're thinking awful stuff," Angel went on. "They're really bad. Like, evil. They want to do their plan and they don't care what they have to do to make it happen. They don't mind killing people. Or animals."

Or any combination thereof, I thought.

"How about other bird kids?" I asked. "Other recombinant life-forms, Erasers?"

She shook her head, her curls shining in the moonlight. "They're all dead. They killed them all."

So of course we had to get in there! I mean, why would we pass up a chance to break into a place where delusional mass murderers were targeting creatures just like us? What would be the fun of avoiding that situation?

"Do we really have to go in there?" Nudge asked. "'Cause, I mean, if we don't actually have to, then I'd rather not. I'd rather kick back somewhere."

I smiled at her and tried to smooth her unruly brown hair. "You and me both, kid. But I have this whole saving-the-world gig, and I kind of have to do this. You with me?"

She nodded, not looking happy, then put a fierce expression on. "I'm ready. Let's bust this place up!"

"Me too!" said Angel. "Those people are really evil. They shouldn't be allowed to hurt anyone else. We have to fix it so they can't."

"We have to end this now, here!" Ari said.

"That's right!" I said, holding my fist out to tap, like we did at bedtime. "We're gonna rain fire on this place! When we're done, there'll just be a greasy spot!"

Remember the Hydra, Max?

I almost jumped. Would I ever get used to an uninvited Voice inside my head? My guess at this point was no.

Hydra, Hydra, I thought. Sounds like a...sprinkler?

No. The Lernaean Hydra, one of the labors of Heracles. Every time Heracles cut off a head, two grew back in its place.

Oh. That. Yeah, I saw a cartoon about it once. What about it?

Think it through, Max, said the Voice. It'll come to you.

I frowned suspiciously. Is this one of those metaphor things? Would it kill you to just come out and tell me?

Silence.

Of course.

"Max?" Angel asked.

I held up a finger. "One sec. Voice imparting unnecessary knowledge."

Total flopped down in the grass and rested his head on his front paws.

Okay. Hydra, I thought. I remembered the cartoon I had seen, where a big muscular mouse dressed in a lion skin had been trying to lop catlike heads off this giant dragon thing.

But I wasn't getting the connection.

Oh, wait. A head got cut off, and two grew back in its place.

We were planning to destroy this Itex headquarters. Did that mean if we destroyed it, two would grow back in its place? Or, like, two others would become more powerful? Hmm.

The Hydra itself must be killed, Max. The whole thing at once. This is just one head. Find the body and kill it.

I thought. I remembered the map I had glimpsed through an open door back at the School, when Ari had been taking me around. It was a map of the world. Almost every country had had an Itex symbol somewhere on it, and many had had smaller stars as well.

Because I'm smarter than the average recombinant bear, I realized that we needed to check out some of the other Itex branches, in other countries, to find the heart of the beast. Thanks a lot, Voice, I thought a little sarcastically, to no reply. Will you make up your mind about just where the heck we're supposed to be going? God, I was so tired. A world saver's work is never done.