James Patterson - Two Schools Out - Forever

"Max, please," he whispered. "Please just play along. They want to terminate you. They think you're a lost cause."

This was news.

"Who?"

"Itex. They're keeping you here while they try out their latest, greatest invention. They wanted you to lead with your head, not your heart, Max. I tried to teach you that, but maybe I failed. They're trying to take all of the heart out of you by keeping you here. But you care about things, and about people, Max. Like me. Please, don't make everything that's happened up till now meaningless. Don't give them cause to take you out, start over with someone else. Show them they're wrong about you. Show them you've got what it takes."

"I'll show them I've got what it takes to rip your spleen out through your nose," I said weakly.

"Batchelder!" I suddenly heard a deep voice from behind me. "You're not authorized to be in here."

Then my light was blocked again, the blanket was pulled off, and big hands picked me up and dropped me back into the horrible tank.

I led the five mutant freaks through the shadows toward Itex.

"In here." I held aside some bushes and motioned them through. It was dark, finally. I'd thought spending days watching a bunch of Erasers play Texas hold 'em was boring, but that didn't compare to today.

I didn't know how the original Max stood it. I'd lost count of how many times today I'd wanted to scream at them to shut up and get away from me. That Nudge never quit yapping, and Angel and Gasman had gotten into disputes like whether the sky was blue and what day this was. I hadn't found any chinks in Fang's armor, but it was just a matter of time. Angel frankly creeped me out-she was a loose cannon. Maybe she was kind of unstable. I would have to tell them that when I got back. Gasman seemed like a gullible idiot, and Iggy was dead weight, as far as I could tell. Except that he could cook, for some reason. Plus, they all talked to the dog like it was a person, asking it if it wanted this or that. I mean, it was a freaking dog.

But finally it was time. We'd gone on the tour of Itex today, and I'd made a big deal about noticing its weak points. Now we were "breaking in." I was trying to be careful, look like I was on guard.

I have to say, I was doing great. They didn't suspect a thing. All my training, the lessons, the practice-it was paying off. It was gratifying, how obvious it was that I was the new and improved version. In fact, it was weird how willing these freaks were to follow me around, do what I said. I'd told 'em we were going to break into Itex, and they were all on board. Even the dumb dog. When we were leaving the hotel, I'd tried to shut it inside the room, but Nudge had held the door open for it to trot out.

"The dog's coming on a raid?" I'd asked, my eyebrows raised.

"Of course he's coming," Nudge had said, looking surprised. "He always comes."

O-kaaay, I'd thought. I'm starting to put my finger on why you guys are slated for termination.

But whatever. They followed orders, anyway. I led them up a grassy hill, looking around-like someone was going to catch us, right? There was a huge HVAC box next to the main building, and we quickly unscrewed the cover. I jammed a stick in the enormous fan, and then we all hurried through. I yanked the stick out, the fan started spinning again, and we were in.

"That was a good idea," said Fang. Which was about five more words than he'd said all day.

I shrugged. I knew Max was totally full of herself, but that didn't mean I had to be. We started moving through the air vent system.

I was trying to remember to seem nervous, to look around, to act like I was considering which way to go. Sometimes I stopped everyone and put my finger to my lips, as if someone were coming. It was hysterical.

We got to the main branch of the HVAC system, and I pretended to hesitate before I led them all into the vent that went to the basement. Just a few more minutes, another couple hundred yards, and my job would be over.

And so would they.

Being back in the isolation tank after seeing Jeb was a huge relief-for about two milliseconds. Then I started thinking about what he had said. I remembered that I had a flock depending on me. I remembered that I was Invincible Max and that the whitecoats making me run through their maze were a bunch of losers.

Which left the question: how to get out of here?

I still couldn't sit up, couldn't feel anything. I was spacing out and hallucinating again-it was way hard to concentrate, to remember what I was doing instead of floating off into la-la land.

Think, Max.

Then I remembered I had a Voice in my head. Voice, you got any ideas?

What is it they want from you? the Voice said, shocking me. It had never, ever responded to a direct question before. At least that I could remember, right then.

Uh... what did they want from me? Just for me to be here. To be able to do things to me, make me jump through their hoops, be their lab rat.

What would happen if you took that away from them?

I thought. They would be very upset?

I smiled. But how could I take that away from them? I'd pretty much established that I couldn't break out of this sardine can.

Think about it.

Now that I really thought about it, realizing how limited my options truly were kind of freaked me out. Here was a situation where all my speed, my physical strength, my cunning-none of it would do me any good.

It was mind-blowing.

If I hadn't been so totally spaced, I would have panicked.

As it was, I felt oddly removed from the problem. Freaked, but removed at the same time. I was losing myself. Losing my mind.

Losing myself... losing me. They would be upset if they lost me. Because I wouldn't be around to jump through their hoops. But since I couldn't physically move, getting lost seemed pretty unworkable.

Except.

There was another way for them to lose me: if I died.

Which would sort of defeat my own purpose, as well as theirs. But-could I just make them think I was dead?

I bet there were monitors of some sort in here. When you put a rat in a maze, you hung around to observe the results. They'd probably been recording my crazed ranting and sobbing all along.

Now. How to be dead?

I lay back in the buoyant liquid. It supported me totally-I didn't have to try to keep my head up or anything. My breathing slowed, in and out, one, two, three, four. I relaxed every single muscle. Then I just... went inside myself. It was like I was a machine and I was slowly flicking switches off. I just willed all my systems to slow down more and more.

In the yawning silence, my heart beat slower, then slower. My eyes closed. Everything was still and silent. Maybe I would lie in this watery tomb forever.

There was no time, no thought, no motion.

I hoped I wasn't actually dead.

That would make finding our parents and saving the world really hard.

I see no need to go into a lot of boring detail, but we found our way to the Itex computer room. So far, the plan was working beautifully.

I shooed everyone away to the darkest corner of the room, and they actually listened to me. Then I turned one computer on, and it booted up silently. I had been told Nudge was good with computers, so I motioned her over.

"See what you can find out about Itex," I whispered. "Be quick-I don't know how much time we have."

We had exactly six minutes, forty-seven seconds, according to my watch.

"Okay," Nudge whispered back. She slid onto the stool and instantly went to the "List Programs" menu. From there she got to a C prompt, and then she typed in a bunch of gibberish.

I sighed to myself, waiting for her to get stuck, and then I'd have to take over. They'd taught me everything I needed to make sure I could get us where we had to go.