James Patterson - Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Iggy and the Gasman landed on the sidewalk next to Fang, and they quickly scrambled to their feet. After some of the situations they'd been in, getting thrown onto the sidewalk like trash wasn't that bad, but it meant that Fang's big plan had bombed. He dusted off his pants, opened the deli bag, and passed out squashed sandwiches as they made their way back to the safe house. WWMD? Fang wondered. What would Max do? Besides let a murderous creep into their lives, that is.

"No go, eh?" Keez was honing a switchblade on a spinning metal wheel.

"Nope."

"You shoulda whooshed out those wings, man," he said. "I saw you guys on the news once. You got them wicked wings, right? That woulda done it for sure."

"Uh, I didn't want to resort to cheap tricks," Fang muttered. Plus, he hadn't thought of it. Keez was right. That would have worked like a charm. Shoot.

On to Plan...H?

"The plan is hot dogs?" said the Gasman, enthusiastically wolfing down his second one. "I like this plan!"

Fang did a quick 360, but this section of El Prado had only the usual assortment of dealers, homeless people, and Ghosts. Nothing too threatening.

"The plan is not hot dogs," Fang said, wiping his fingers on his jeans. "We're just killing time till the real plan falls into place." Of course, there was no real plan-yet. But Fang was the leader of this particular flock, and leaders always had to look confident, even when they were blowing smoke. Another lesson he'd learned from Max.

"All right, my man," Keez said to the hot-dog vendor, and shook his hand. Fang gathered that Keez had just been comped about a dozen hot dogs in return for the vendor's safety on this street. Interesting.

Iggy was halfway through his fourth hot dog when he suddenly froze in midchew. Fang watched his face alertly.

"What?" he said.

"Crud," Iggy said, throwing down his hot dog. "Flyboys."

"You guys scatter!" Fang told Keez quickly. "We've got trouble, but they're only after us."

"How do they keep finding us?" the Gasman wailed, then stuffed the rest of his hot dog into his mouth.

"We'll stay!" Keez said, pulling out his cell phone.

"No, man, you don't under-" was as far as Fang got before he heard the buzzing, and then it was too late.

There were about eighty of them, and they swarmed above the roof of a nearby building like a cloud of wasps.

"What the heck is that?" said Keez. Already other Ghosts were pouring out of buildings, running up the street.

"Robots," Fang said tersely, and unfolded his wings. "You guys should split."

He heard a couple of gasps, and one Ghost said, "Holy Mother."

"We're staying," said Keez, and he pulled out his switchblade. He waved his arms at his troops, yelling over the increasing noise. "Fan out!"

"Eighty Flyboys-coming from ten o'clock," Fang told Iggy. Iggy and the Gasman both snapped out their wings, causing more indrawn breaths and muttered exclamations. "On the ground, the Ghosts can help. We'll do what we can from the air."

Iggy nodded his understanding, and then Keez said, "Here!" and pressed a long crowbar into Iggy's hands. Iggy grinned and threw himself skyward.

One of his wings brushed a Ghost on the downswing, and the Ghost ducked, looking astonished.

Fang judged they had about four seconds before impact. "They're metal based," he said quickly. "Covered with skin. Knives won't do squat. Pipes and baseball bats would be better."

"Bats we got," said Keez, handing Fang one. "And we got something else too." Fang saw that three Ghosts had run up with what looked like a bazooka, maybe five feet long. There was no time to ask where they'd gotten that. Fang ran a few steps and leaped into the air, hoping to lead the Flyboys away from the gang that had protected him.

His heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, Fang flew straight at the cloud of Flyboys.

"We will destroy you," the Flyboys droned. "You have no escape."

That was the most imaginative, threatening thing the whitecoats had programmed these 'droids to say? "Talk about lame," Fang muttered. Mechanical heads swiveled, laser-red eyes locked on to him, and a bunch of the robots split away from the main group to face him down.

Fang readied his aluminum baseball bat. A sudden whining, whistling sound made him backpedal hard. Fifty feet away, a ground-to-air missile flew directly into the mass of Flyboys. Its aim was off and it exploded too late, above them. But it still blasted about fifteen metallic heads off, and Fang had a moment to hope that the Gasman had enjoyed the display.

Then everything went into fight speed: super slow and super fast at the same time. Fang raced among the Flyboys and started swinging, feeling the numbing shock of hitting Flyboy metal as hard as he could. Within a minute he discovered that hitting a shoulder at a certain angle would pop an arm out of joint, and hitting a head sideways from one direction and then quickly downward would often snap it clean off.

Well, not clean, actually-it was totally gross, made worse by the sparks and dangling electrical wires he saw as the headless body plummeted downward.

"Oof!" Fang lost his breath when a Flyboy kicked him in the stomach. It was different from fighting Erasers. Erasers were clumsier but more adaptable. Flyboys were stronger and more precise, but their moves were limited.

Fang couldn't see the Gasman. He caught sight of Iggy, wielding the crowbar like a sword, slashing and bashing Flyboys with his long reach. His nose was bloody and one eye was swollen, but he was holding his own. Fang heard gunfire and small explosions on the ground, and he hoped the Gasman had gotten out of there.

Bam! Fang blocked a Flyboy's punch, then swung his bat furiously, landing a blow to the back of its head. The head made a simultaneous clunking and squishing sound, but the Flyboy wasn't seriously damaged.

Fang started to swing again but was blocked by another Flyboy coming in from the side. A hard, jaw-snapping kick right in Fang's kidney made him gasp, and he instantly folded his wings and dropped like a stone for about fifteen feet, long enough to recover. Then he poured on the power and shot straight up, swinging the bat with all his strength, managing to make two Flyboys drop. He damaged another so badly it flew crookedly away, smoke streaming from its neck.

And just like that, it was over. The remaining fifteen or so Flyboys got into formation, then they spun and flew off as one. Fang glided to where Iggy was hovering, listening for any remnant of sound.

"S'over," he told Iggy. "Let's go."

They flew down to El Prado, as police cars from all over the city raced toward the area.

On the ground, the street was littered with broken bits of Flyboys. They found the Gasman with Keez, and though they both looked beat up, they were standing.

"Police coming," Fang said. "We gotta go."

"All right, man," said Keez, holding out a swollen, bloody hand. "Whew! That was some action! This kid here is dangerous!"

The Gasman puffed his chest out.

"Thanks," said Fang. "Thanks for everything." Then the three of them took off. From above, Fang saw the Ghosts scattering into buildings, down alleys, into cars that screeched off. By the time the police got there, all that was left was a scattering of completely unexplainable chunks of metal.

Total squirmed inside my jacket like a gopher in a hole. We were super high, keeping a lookout for planes, making our way across France. We hadn't bothered with the Itex plant in England, since it was just a single head of the hydra. We knew there were about four different Itex plants in Germany, including its world headquarters, and that's where we were headed. But this little dog was about to make me lose my mind.