“Fang, you have to wake up,” I whispered.
The others ran over. “He looks really bad,” Gazzy said. “He should see a doctor.”
Nothing seemed broken-maybe his nose-but he was still out cold. I lifted his head into my lap and used my sweatshirt to dab at the bloody stripes on his face.
“We could carry him, you and me,” said Iggy, his long, pale hands floating over Fang, cataloging bruises, lumps, blood.
“Where to?” I asked, hearing my bitterness. “It’s not like we can check him into a hospital.”
“No hospi’l,” Fang mumbled, his eyes still shut.
Relief flooded through me.
“Fang!” I said. “How bad?”
“Pre’y bad,” he said fuzzily, then, groaning, he tried to shift to one side.
“Don’t move!” I told him, but he turned his head and spit blood out onto the sand. He raised his hand and spit something into it, then opened his eyes blearily.
“Tooth,” he said in disgust. “Feel like crap,” Fang added, touching the knots on the back of his head.
I tried to smile. “You look like a kitty cat.” I made whisker motions on my face, indicating where Ari had raked his. He looked at me sourly.
“Fang,” I said, my voice breaking. “Just live, okay? Live and be okay.”
With no warning, I leaned down and kissed his mouth, just like that.
“Ow,” he said, touching his split lip, then he and I stared at each other in shock.
Mortification heated my face. I glanced up to see Nudge and the Gasman gaping at me. Luckily, Iggy was blind, and Angel was getting Fang water.
Gazzy looked from me to Fang to Iggy, clearly thinking that he was sunk now that I had obviously severed all ties with reality.
Slowly, Fang levered himself into a sitting position, his jaw tight, sweat breaking out on his face. “Man,” he said, and coughed. “This feels pretty bad.”
It was about the most he’d ever admitted to, painwise. He stood clumsily and took the water from Angel. Taking a swig, he rinsed his mouth and spit it out onto the sand.
“I’m going to kill Ari,” Fang said.
119
Fang and the rest of us made it back to Manhattan without dropping out of the sky due to injury, exhaustion, or both.
“You macho thing, you,” I said when we finally landed in the darkness of Central Park. He looked worn out, clammy, and pale, but he had flown all the way with no complaint.
“That’s me,” he said, but he gave me a long look, like, I haven’t forgotten what you did, meaning the Kiss.
I blushed furiously, embarrassed beyond belief. I would never live that down.
“Are you really okay, Fang?” Nudge asked, the most touching concern in her voice. Nudge doted on Fang.
He looked like he’d fallen off a cliff, with huge purple bruises distorting his face, the awful scratches Ari had left on his cheeks, the stiff, pained way he moved.
“I’m cool,” he said. “Flying helped loosen me up some.”
“Look, let’s find a place to hunker down, catch some Zs, and then take another shot at the Institute,” I said. “We’ve got to figure it out-we can’t stop now. Right, guys?”
“Yeah, right,” Nudge said. “Let’s do it, get it over with. I want to know about my mom. And other stuff. I want to know the whole story, good or bad.”
“Me too,” said Gazzy. “I want to find my parents so I can tell’m what total scuzzes they are. Like, ‘Hi, Mom and Dad, you’re such scum! ”
I decided we’d better stay underground for safety’s sake. In the subway station, we jumped off the platform and walked quickly along the tracks. It looked familiar, and sure enough, a few minutes’ walking brought us to a huge firelit cavern populated by homeless people and misfits. Home, sweet home, especially if you happen to be a sewer rat.
“Boy, does this look inviting,” Fang said, rubbing his hands together.
I made a face at him as we climbed up onto the concrete ledge. Inside, I was glad that he had enough energy to be sarcastic.
Suddenly exhausted and emotionally wiped, I held out my left fist to make our bedtime stack. We did our thing, then Angel snuggled next to me. I checked to make sure the others, especially Fang, were okay, then I lay down, letting despair cover me like a blanket.
I was in the middle of another sleep-driven brain explosion when I felt myself surface to consciousness without opening my eyes. Not analyzing the impulse, I shot out my hand and grabbed someone’s wrist.
Moving fast, still on instinct, I sat up and twisted the intruder’s arm behind his back, my senses roaring to life.
“Cool it, sucker!” the arm’s owner whispered furiously. I yanked upward, threatening to pop his arm out of its socket. I definitely could’ve done it.
Fang creaked upright next to me, his eyes alert, but his body moving stiffly.
“You’re screwing with my Mac again,” said the hacker, and I loosened my hold on him. “Jeez, what happened to you?” Directed at Fang.
“Cut myself shaving,” Fang said.
The hacker frowned and rubbed his shoulder where I’d strained it. “Why’d you come back here?” he asked angrily. “You’re totally wrecking my hard drive.”
“Let me see,” I said, and he grumpily opened his laptop.
The screen was covered with the inside of my head: images, words, photos, maps, mathematical equations.
The hacker scowled, seeming more perplexed than mad, though. “It’s weird,” he said. “You guys don’t have a computer with you?”
“No,” Fang said. “Not even a cell phone.”
“What about a Palm Pilot?” the hacker asked.
“Nope,” I said. “We’re kinda more low-tech than that.” Like, having Kleenex would be a huge step up for us.
“A memory chip?” he persisted.
I froze. Almost against my will, I slid my gaze over to Fang.
“What kind of memory chip?” I asked, striving for casual.
“Anything,” the hacker said. “Anything that would have data on it that would interfere with my hard drive.”
“If we did have a chip,” I said carefully, “could you access it?”
“If I knew what it was,” he said. “Maybe. What do you have?”
“It’s small and square,” I said, not looking at him.
“Like this?” The hacker held his fingers about three inches apart.
“Smaller.”
His fingers were a half-inch apart. “You have a memory chip this small?”
I nodded.
“Let me see. Where is it?”
I took a deep breath. “In me. It’s implanted in me. I saw it on an X-ray.”
He stared at me with horror in his eyes. He turned off his laptop and closed the lid. “You have a memory chip that small implanted in you,” he verified.
I nodded, guessing this was somewhat worse than having cooties.
He took several steps back. “A chip like that is bad news,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “It might be NSA. I won’t mess with it. Look, you stay away from me! Next thing, they’ll be after me.” He backed away into the darkness, his hands up as if to ward off evil. “I hate them! Hate them!” Then he was gone, back into the bowels of the tunnels.
“See ya,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.”
Fang looked at me irritably. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
I so wished he weren’t all banged up-so I could whack him.
120
We tried to get some sleep-God knows we needed it. I kind of dozed off. Then I wasn’t asleep, I knew that much. But I wasn’t awake, exactly.
I’d been, like, sucked into another dimension, where I could feel my body, sort of, knew where I was, and yet was powerless to move or speak. I was in a movie, starring me, watching it all happen around me. I was going down a dark tunnel, or the tunnel was slipping by me, and I was staying still. Trains were rushing past me on both sides, so it was a subway tunnel.