Max (Maximum Ride 5)

The intern looked at me oddly, but we followed him down the hall. Fang brushed up against me, and it reminded me that we hadn't had any time together, just the two of us, in days. Not that I wanted any. I just noticed is all.

The conference room held the usual cast of characters: John, Brigid, Dr. Akana, some navy types, some other scientisty-looking people who couldn't keep their eyes off us. I was used to crazed scientists in white lab coats coming at us with needles and electrodes and wrist restraints. I wasn't used to scientists who found us fascinating but still kept a respectful distance and treated us like we had actual rights and dignity and stuff. I mean, what was up with that?

"I've been developing a theory," said Brigid, walking to the front of the room. I sat down and tried not to glower at her, but I braced myself

: maybe Brigid wanted to do a special mission, just her and Fang. The cow eyes she kept flashing at him made me want to drop-kick her to the middle of next week.

Brigid addressed us earnestly. "Since mankind first began venturing out to sea, there have been tales of sea monsters. Reading these old stories nowadays, we recognize that some of what they saw were regular whales or whale sharks or giant squid."

"What about the Loch Ness Monster?" Gazzy asked. He loved stuff like this.

"That's a myth," someone said.

"It's never been proved or disproved," Dr. Akana said. "Some people think Nessie is the last surviving plesiosaur. Some people think it's a mythical creature come to life, like a phoenix. And some people think it's always been a hoax."

"What we're dealing with now is not a hoax or a leftover dinosaur," said Brigid. "It's a real, living creature, and according to our telepath, it's full of rage and a desire to kill."

We all looked around for a minute until we realized that the "telepath" was Angel. Well, "telepath" sounds better than "creepy little mind-reading kid," so I was cool with it.

"But what do you think it is, Dr. Dwyer?" asked one of the other researchers.

"I think it's either a created life-form or a life-form that's been affected, mutated, or enhanced," she said, "by radiation."

"Created life-form?" One of the researchers frowned.

"Like us," I said. "Right? Ninety-eight percent human, two percent avian." Might as well name the elephant—or bird kid—in the room.

"Well, yes," Brigid said awkwardly, not looking at me. "Only not as successful. But I'm more inclined to think that it was an ordinary life-form that was irradiated and has mutated."

"Radiation?" Nudge asked. "Like, they microwaved it?"

"Not exactly," said Brigid. "There are many sources of radiation, both naturally occurring and man-made. I'm thinking of some of the mutations observed after Hiroshima and Chernobyl."

"I've heard those names before," I said, wondering if it had been on a TV show.

"Hiroshima is a town in Japan," John said. "The U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on it near the end of World War II. The bomb killed a hundred thousand people outright, but tens of thousands more later from radiation sickness. Plus, as time went on, it became clear that lingering effects of radiation caused some human genes to mutate. This mostly showed up as birth defects, miscarriages, and cancerous tumors."

"Fun," I muttered.

"Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union," John went on. "The site of the worst nuclear-reactor accident in human history. The area around it is still contaminated with radiation, and it's unclear whether people will be able to live anywhere near it ever again. Huge amounts of radiation were released into the atmosphere and caused genetic problems and contaminated food and milk as far away as Sweden and England. The thing is, radiation can cause unpredictable and often fatal genetic mutations in living creatures."

"You're saying you think there's radiation in the ocean, and it caused these creatures to mutate into these attacking monsters?" a researcher asked.

Brigid nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Now we just have to find out where the radiation is."

60

I LIKE BOATS better than subs," I said.

I looked up at the sky above us, and back at the foamy white wake we were leaving behind us. I breathed in deeply, the fresh, salty air still seeming like heaven after being on the sub. We were on the marine research station's biggest boat, a forty-five-foot tri-hull that sliced neatly through the water.

"We're setting up the radiation-detecting equipment right now," said Brigid. "Fang, come see this—it's really interesting."

I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Fang shot me a sideways glance, then followed Brigid below deck to the equipment room.

Half an hour later we were far out into the ocean and could barely see land, even with our raptor vision. The boat's engines stopped, but the water here was too deep for us to anchor. I couldn't help it—I ran down the deck of the boat, then leaped off the end, into the air.

Snapping out my wings, I rose on the ocean's thermal wind, climbing in lazy spirals toward the sun. In moments I was joined by Angel, Iggy, Gazzy, Nudge, and Total. Everyone but Fang. I tried not to think about him, his dark head bent toward Dr. Amazing's as they murmured about ocean maps. For now I just wanted to enjoy flying.