Before Fang took the computer with him, and before they’d almost gotten nailed by robot Erasers, Nudge had been reading camping recipes online. She was tired of Ding-Dongs and hot dogs on a stick.
She’d found out that you could do amazing stuff, like cooking whole meals wrapped in foil in the embers of a fire. She decided to get a frying pan next time she had a chance. It wouldn’t be too hard to carry around one little frying pan, would it? And if they had a frying pan, Iggy could make almost anything. Just thinking about it was making her stomach rumble.
“That smells good,” said Angel, coming over to kneel by the fire. “Is that what that foil was for?”
“Uh-huh,” Nudge said, poking at the foil package with a stick.
The next second, the waning sun blinked out.
They both looked up in surprise, and Gazzy and Iggy stopped playing tic-tac-toe.
Angel drew in her breath so fast it sounded like a whistle. Nudge felt like her own breath had turned to a chunk of concrete in her throat, because she couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t move.
Hundreds of those robot things, the things that Iggy called Flyboys, were covering the sky above their canyon and coming in both ends. Nudge guessed the few that had survived the earlier fight had gone to get reinforcements. There must have been ten times as many this time.
The flock was trapped.
“Dinner’s ready,” said Angel. “And it’s us.”
21
“Up and away?” Iggy asked, and Gazzy answered, “No! They’re above us too! Everywhere!”
Nudge’s ears were filled with a horrible droning sound, like a thousand bees, and as the Flyboys dropped closer, it started to sound like chanting, like, “We are many! You cannot win!”
“We can sure as heck try!” Gazzy yelled. Leaning down, he grabbed a bunch of sticks from the fire and threw them into the air. Several of the Flyboys caught fire. Excellent. They were flammable!
Nudge raced over and grabbed some burning sticks too, but she held one too close and singed her hand. Still, she threw them into the air as hard as she could, watching in amazement as Flyboys burst into flame.
; “Cool!” Gazzy grinned, forgetting to panic for a moment. “It’s like they were dipped in gasoline!”
“They don’t have minds,” Angel said.
Nudge looked at her.
“They don’t have minds,” Angel explained again, upset. “I can’t do anything.”
“Well, I can bite ’em!” Total cried, racing in circles around their feet. “Let me at ’em! Let me get my fangs on ’em!” He made little leaps into the air, snapping his jaws.
“Total!” Angel said. “Be careful! Come back!”
“Let me teach ’em a lesson!” Total yelled.
The flock fought hard—of course. Max had taught them to fight, to never, ever give up. Unless running away made more sense, she’d always added.
Running away would have been so great, Nudge thought, but in this case there was nowhere to run. The canyon was clogged with Flyboys. They seemed to be mostly metal with a thin Eraser covering on the outside. The ones that had burned were all metal now, their skin and fur charred and shriveled against them, smelling god-awful.
Iggy threw every bomb he had (Nudge had no idea where he’d been hiding them, and she bet Max didn’t know about them either), but all the bombs destroyed only fifteen or twenty Flyboys. Not enough, nowhere close to enough.
The flock was caught. Maybe if Max and Fang had been there, it would have taken the robots another minute or two. That’s how bad it was, how hopeless.
Within twenty minutes, the flock had been duct-taped into unmoving bundles, even Total. Then Flyboys grabbed them and took to the air, flying like big toasters or something.
Nudge saw Iggy, Gazzy, Angel, and Total, their mouths taped shut like hers.
Don’t worry. Angel sent the thought out to each of them. Don’t worry. Max and Fang will come back. They’ll find us. They’ll be really mad too.