The Final Warning (Maximum Ride 4)

“There!” I said, pointing. The shadow was growing darker, then, sure enough, the seal surfaced again, Sue-Ann still gripped in its jaws. She was limp, her eyes closed, but instantly Fang and I swooped down, dropping toward the water like hail.

Fang kicked the seal’s eel-like head as h

ard as he could with his heavy boot, and I brought both feet down on its sleek, arched back. It recoiled in surprise, opening its jaws for a split second, rearing to look at us. It gave a huge, awful roar, looking like a sea monster, but Fang and I had already grabbed Sue-Ann’s jacket and one arm, and we were stroking our wings downward with great effort, trying to get aloft. The seal roared again and snapped, narrowly missing my feet, and I pulled them up.

Then we were out of danger’s range and flying over land. We held Sue-Ann tightly, bypassing the astonished rescue team and heading straight to the infirmary building. We skidded to a clumsy landing, sliding on the ice, Sue-Ann’s wet jacket already frosting over with ice crystals. I didn’t even know if she was still alive, or if we had just rescued a body. Her pants were torn and blood soaked.

Two men rushed out of the infirmary with a stretcher and placed it on the ice next to Sue-Ann. One placed his fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse, while the other prepared to lift her carefully onto the stretcher. Then he frowned. “What — what’s that?”

By this time, some of the others had circled around us. One of the infirmary guys gently touched Sue-Ann’s leg where it had been shredded by the seal. He moved her torn pants aside, and then Paul sucked in his breath. My eyes narrowed. Beneath the torn and bloody flesh, we saw a collection of wires and fiber-optic cables embedded deep within Sue-Ann’s leg.

“What the heck is that?” Paul demanded. “Does anyone know about this?”

The other infirmary guy looked up. “I got no pulse here, chief. She’s gone.”

Then the other scientists ran up, out of breath.

“Is she alive?”

“I can’t believe what you did!”

“That was amazing! Thank you so much!”

Their faces fell as they saw our expressions, and we stepped back so they could see Sue-Ann. I saw confusion and shock on each face. Unless they were dang good actors, none of them had known that Sue-Ann had been modified. That instead of being one of us, she’d probably been one of Them.

Paul looked up at us, dismay in his eyes. He nodded over at the other members of his team. “Brian. Get Sue-Ann’s computer. Search her quarters.”

“Oh, no,” said Melanie, tears forming in her eyes.

“You all,” Paul said, gesturing to us, “get inside, out of sight. You others — search the rest of the Wendy K., the guest quarters here, the mess hall, anywhere there might be hidden cameras. We’ve had a traitor among us.”

44

AS EXPECTED, the antifreeze additive to their joint lubrication proved effective. Gozen gave the signal for the rest of the troops to offload, telling his internal counting program to register whether they were all here.

One by one, the soldiers stepped evenly down the metal ramp that led from the plane’s belly to the hard-packed snow. Their feet adjusted to the new surface instantly, springs and weights compensating for the slipperiness and slight give of the icy land cover.

All the troops were accounted for.

First, a small shelter. The plane’s crew had thrown their supplies out onto the ice, and now the ramp closed, and the plane’s engines whined.

“Find the shelter,” Gozen ordered three of the soldiers. “Erect it.”

They responded instantly, locating the large crate strapped with plastic rope. Untying the rope, they pulled the self-inflating, insulating TempHut from the crate. With a couple of cord pulls, the TempHut unfolded and sprang almost comically into a fully inflated shelter, like a jack-in-the-box.

Without a sound, the soldiers found the three-foot screws that would tether the shelter to the ice, to keep the structure from blowing away in the intermittent gale-force winds. It had no heat, no windows, no beds. Which was fine. Since the soldiers weren’t human, weren’t even alive, that was no problem.

The first pair of recon scouts were ready to report.

“Yes?” Gozen’s voice wasn’t nearly as mechanical as those of Generation K — it had some inflection and a more normal tone.

“There’s a problem,” a scout reported. “One of our contacts has been damaged. She has sent no signal for the past five hours. Surveillance tapes show that she was attacked. She is presumed dead.”

Gozen considered. In all likelihood, the plan could continue. First, a report to the Uber-Director, detailing what he could find out about their contact. Then he would sit back and wait for the right opportunity. It shouldn’t take long.

His job was to eliminate the dangerous mutants. The Uber-Director hadn’t specified how. Or how long he could take doing it. Or how much pleasure he could get from it.

All those things were up to him.