James Patterson - Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Roaring with fury, Ari righted himself and lunged at his attacker...only to sink to his knees slowly, a puzzled look on his face.

"Cover me!" I shouted at Nudge, Angel, and Total, and sprang to Ari's side.

I grabbed him under one arm and tried to help him stand. I couldn't get him up.

"Max?" he said, sounding confused.

"You hurt? You get shot? Where?" I demanded.

He looked down at his shirt and jacket. There were no spreading rosettes of blood. He shook his head. "I just..."

He glanced up at me, and there he was-seven-year-old Ari, the little kid who used to follow me around. I saw him there clearly in those eyes.

"I just...Oh, Max," Ari said, and then he slumped against me, eyes still open, weight so heavy on me that I fell to my knees next to him. I stared at his face, shook his shoulder.

"Ari!" I said. "Ari! Come on, snap out of it! Please, Ari?"

All around us, the battle thrashed on, but Ari was silent.

"Ari?" Horrified, I pressed two fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse.

Ari's time had come. He had expired.

Right here, right now, in my arms.

Oh, God. I felt as if my breath, my spirit, had been knocked out of me. For several seconds I just stared numbly at Ari's ruined face, his unseeing eyes. My throat was gripped tight with emotion, and I brushed my fingers over his eyelids, closing them.

This poor, poor kid. I hoped wherever he was, he was no longer in pain, no longer ugly, no longer unloved and unwanted. Hot tears sprang to my eyes, and I wanted to sob.

Swallowing hard a bunch of times, I looked up and saw that everyone around me was still engaged in a life-or-death battle. They had no time to help me, no time to acknowledge Ari's death. A whistling noise next to my ear made me realize that I was still under attack myself-a Flyboy had just swung its weapon at me, trying to crush my skull.

Feeling helpless and furious, I gently lay Ari down in the dirt. "I'll come get you," I promised in a whisper. Then, enraged, I leaped up, grabbing the first Flyboy in my way. I twisted its neck as hard as I could. The Flyboy fell, and I moved on, smashing another in the back, dropping it like a sack of rotten groceries. Roaring with fury, I ripped the weapon from a downed Flyboy and swung it around my head, cracking it against three more robots, knocking them off balance, slowing them down so that Jeb and Nudge could take them out from behind.

Ari was dead, and for what? Why had this happened to him? Why had his life been seven years of pain and confusion and loneliness?

"Ari!" Jeb had finally seen his son. He rushed to Ari's side and knelt next to him. Looking stunned, he gathered Ari's hulking form and held him to his chest. "I'm so sorry." I saw his mouth shape the words, though I couldn't hear them. "I'm so sorry." He bent over Ari's form, mindless of his vulnerable position.

Then he looked up and caught my eye. His eyes were shiny with tears, which shocked me. He pitched his voice so I could hear him. "Omega can't track things fast with his eyes."

I waited for more, but that was it. I turned and whaled back into the fight, trying to accomplish the universal goal of every warrior everywhere: Get the other guy. Do not let him get you.

So big whoop: Omega couldn't track things well. Thanks, Jeb! Any other tidbits of wisdom for me? Like "Omega has an off switch"?

Who knew where the heck Omega was, anyway? For all I knew he was up on the stage, getting a manicure.

Swinging my weapon like a baseball bat, I felt the satisfying but bone-jolting thwack! as it slammed into a Flyboy's shoulder. It turned, and I swung at the base of its spine. Crack! Another Flyboy shortened to the height of a coffee table.

"She says we must fight."

The quiet words spoken near my nonbloody ear made me wheel to face...Omega. He looked spick-and-span, as if he'd managed to sit this one out.

"You don't have to do everything she tells you," I said, still lunging and fending off Flyboys. The gun flew out of my hand.

Omega spoke to the Flyboys around us: "Stop. She is mine."

Which made me even madder, if possible. "I'm...not...anyone's!"

The fact that the Flyboys listened to him and moved on to other targets made me see red, and it wasn't just the blood running into my eyes. Though of course that didn't help.

"We must fight," said Omega.

I was so tired of all the puppet masters pulling our strings.

"You can decide not to," I told him firmly.

He frowned. "I don't know how...to not."

"Oh, for crying out loud," I muttered, then swung back and walloped him in the side of his head as hard as I could.

Ow ow ow! Something in my hand went crunch, as if I'd broken a small bone. Oh, my God, it hurt! I sucked in my breath and tried not to scream. Like a boy!

Omega staggered but caught himself and immediately spun into a snap kick at my knee. I dodged it and wheeled into a spinning side kick, which connected solidly with the top of Omega's leg. Tucking my hurt hand against my body, I focused on kicks, aiming high at his head, bobbing and weaving to avoid his blows. He managed to block almost everything I threw at him, his silvery eyes following my movements calmly and precisely.

He can't track things fast.

What did that mean?

As an experiment, I took my hurt hand and waved it quickly in front of his face, as if I were about to hit him from a bunch of different directions. Sure enough, his eyes couldn't follow it, and he paused, as if to concentrate on it.

So I punched him with my other fist, a really hard blow right at his nose.

Apparently his perfect schnoz was not 400 percent stronger than the average nose, because it broke. Omega blinked and stepped back, looking startled, then blood started gushing from his nose. He touched it, alarmed.

"Head wounds always bleed a lot," I told him.

Then I whipped my hand all around him, up and down, side to side, and again he tried hard to track it, as if he couldn't help himself.

I jumped and landed a scissors kick against his neck, and he went down on his knees, coughing. Once more with the hand waving. It was like hypnotizing a cat. Then I clasped my hands together, wincing from the pain in my broken one, and gave Omega a powerful two-handed punch that sent him facedown into the dirt. Of course, hitting him with my injured hand hurt so much I almost shrieked and passed out right next to him.

But I held tough. Just barely. But enough.

I looked down at Omega, the superboy, the pinnacle of Itex's achievement. I'd bested him because he couldn't track things well with his eyes. I'd won because Jeb had told me about it. I looked up at the Director. She was staring at me with the pure, cold hatred of someone who's been defeated by something she thought was inferior.

Well, that's the breaks.

Omega was out cold but not dead. We were supposed to fight to the finish. If he'd gotten me on the ground, he would have killed me, poor sap. He didn't know any better.

But I did. I could have given him a quick sideways kick at the base of his neck, which would have snapped his spine. Instead I walked away, heading back to where my half brother's body lay.

Who's the better man now, you idiot? I thought at the Director.

The electric net topping the castle walls could keep stuff in but not out, interestingly. I was pushing through the crowd, tossing off a quick punch or kick here and there, trying to get to Ari, when suddenly a large rock flew over the castle wall. It hit a mutant on the head, and she sat down abruptly.

I looked up. An actual arrow, flaming like in the movies, was flying overhead. It streaked right through the net and buried itself in the back of a Flyboy, who promptly caught fire. What else?