“I could just see it. I don’t know how you guys missed — ooh, there’s another one coming! Right over there!” Dylan pointed left with conviction. Everyone was quiet.
Iggy broke the silence. “I can see the International Space Station too,” he said.
Seconds later, they all drew in their breaths as another flash exploded in the sky. “Must be a meteor shower,” Jeb speculated.
Dylan nodded. “Yep — yeah, I see one — no, two, three more coming! Look!”
Jeb slid the door open and took a step out onto the deck, fascinated.
“One,” he counted as they appeared several moments later. “Two, three.”
Gazzy gave a low whistle.
“Dylan,” Angel asked very quietly. “Can you see the future?”
Dylan paused. “I … I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess I just see really well.” He squinted. “And I hate to say this, Iggy, but … I actually can see the International Space Station.”
“Cool, man,” Iggy said. “Hey, by the way, can you spare one of your superhero eyeballs for me, Dyl?”
Dylan laughed. “All yours, Iggy.”
“If you can see so well, Dylan,” Angel asked curiously, “why didn’t you see those Erasers coming?”
For that, Dylan had no answer.
53
“THERE IS NO WAY those people aren’t genetically modified,” I said, taking another handful of popcorn. In the other city that never sleeps, we weren’t sleeping. In fact, we were at one of the Cirque du Soleils, watching some little Chinese girls fold themselves into knots while spinning plates on their feet and balancing balls on their heads.
“It’s completely unnatural,” Fang agreed.
“So they’re mutants, they’re weird, and here they are, holding down jobs. There is hope after all.” I ate more popcorn, unable to tear my eyes aw
ay from people doing stuff that I just couldn’t believe they could do.
We’d just come from the MGM resort, where it had happened to be Cub Day — they’d had two super-cute lion cubs playing in a huge glassed-in area.
“Now, why couldn’t they have put just a smidge of lion DNA into our mix?” I’d asked. “That would be so cool.”
Fang had groaned. “That’s all we need. Another two percent of something else in our genes. Excellent.”
“Still, just a touch of lion — we’d be even stronger, faster,” I had said wistfully. “And more graceful.”
“You’re already strong, fast, and … somewhat graceful, sometimes,” Fang had said. “You want fuzzy ears?”
I had dropped the subject. But now, looking at act after act of inhumanly flexible and powerful humans, I almost wanted just a little touch of something else.
“I’m thinking those kids have extra vertebrae,” I whispered to Fang.
“Be happy with your ninety-eight-two-percent split,” he whispered back. “Next thing you know, you’ll be grafted with, like, DNA from an elephant seal. Or a bear. ‘Where’s Max? Oh, she’s hibernating,’ “ Fang said. I had just taken a sip of soda, and now my graceful self snorted it through my nose.
Max.
“What?” Oh. Voice. ’Ssup?
Get out of there now.
Without hesitation I got to my feet. Fang looked at me in surprise, saw the expression on my face, and immediately got up too. I did a fast scan and saw guards at each entrance, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention to us.