The Seven (37 page)

The bat was never captured.

An hour later, two pick-up trucks were parked at a remote scenic overlook atop the bluffs around Lake Erie. Near the picnic area at the overlook, down a well-worn dirt path, in a thick copse of trees, six young men and women lay in the grass devouring an enormous fast-food lunch, talking...and laughing for what felt like the first time in their lives.

The white, letter-sized envelope lay in the middle of the picnic blanket amongst the stacks of cash. They hadn't opened it. Each of them was dying to of course, but they hadn't opened it. Instead they talked about the future and enjoyed resting in the shade.

"When I asked for thirty burgers, I thought the girl's eyes were going to fall out of her head!" Sarah broke into giggles. "And the fries! She was like, 'Uh...did a bus pull up?' I wanted to say, 'No, it's just my boyfriend!'"

"I'm hungry!" said Andy sitting in the middle of a small mountain of cardboard burger wrappers.

"I'm going to have to get a decent job if I'm going to keep you fed," said Sarah.

"I'm going to have to eat more if you get a decent job," said Andy. He smiled and pushed Sarah lightly on the shoulder. She grabbed his arm and held onto it. He picked her off the ground easily and held her aloft. She slid off his arm and fell to the ground next to him. He rested his mammoth hand on her shoulder.

"So, you two are really...like..." Holly didn't know how to phrase it.

"In love?" Sarah suggested.

"Sure, that works," said Holly.

"Ew," Indigo deadpanned.

Sarah looked up at Andy and he looked back at her. "I guess we are," said Sarah.

"As if no one could see it coming," said John. "Jeez, you two were practically married from day one."

"I suppose I'm happy for you," said Indigo. She didn't look happy.

"What's up with that face?" asked Andy.

Indigo's face darkened further. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully for a moment and then turned to John. "What are we going to do now? This is all fine and good, but you know they're not going to just let us go. The Trust will come after us, won't they?"

"No doubt," said Sarah. "They're probably already searching for us. We're the only ones who know their secrets."

"I didn't want to bring this up while we were having fun, but I've thought it through: We have to split up," said John. "Together, we're going to be too conspicuous. I think they'll be expecting us to stick together. We can't do that; we need to blend in more. We have to go places where we can blend in and become part of the background. Use fake names, get cash-only jobs where we can. Don't buy anything big like a car. Stay off the radar. We have enough money to get a decent start, so let's use that to our advantage. We have to figure out where that whole 'phase 2.0' project is going on and shut it down. People like Tucker and the Trust can't be allowed to ruin more kids' lives for their twisted purposes and they can't be allowed to run a coup on the government."

"So, we're going to go all superhero on another base?" asked Sarah. "We barely made it out of the first one. We would have all died if it hadn't been for Holly."

"What?" asked Holly. "What do you mean? I got shot, remember? I was unconscious for most of it."

"You know," said Sarah. "Bringing all those bats like you did was amazing."

Holly stared at Sarah, confused. "What bats? I brought birds and bugs, but when I got shot, I stopped."

"There was a mountain of bats! They were freakin' everywhere. They saved us."

"I didn't bring any bats, though. Other than Bat, of course..." A slow, serene smile spread across Holly's face. "It was Bat. He did it; he brought them. It wasn't me."

"No freakin' way," said Indigo.

"Are you kidding me?" said Andy.

Sarah raised her eyebrows and whistled lowly. "That's truly amazing."

"I'll say," said John. "We owe that little flying rat our lives."

"Hey!" said Holly. "He's not a flying rat!"

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," said John. "I figure if he pulls something like that, he's one of us and deserves to get ribbed the same way I tease Andy about his hourglass figure."

"You're just jealous, Stringbean," said Andy.

"Well, he's not a rat," said Holly indignantly. "He's sensitive."

"Bring him down here," said John. He pulled a plastic dipping cup of honey out of a bag and peeled off the top. "He deserves to eat with us." John set down the honey and in a moment, the little bat darted into their view and landed on the blanket, pulling itself forward and lapping greedily at the honey.

Holly laughed. "He's sending me images of what bats consider thank-you like placing dead bugs at your feet."

Andy touched some of the still-healing bullet holes on his chest and stomach, and then reached his hand to stroke the bat's head gently with his index finger. "Little guy really saved my bacon. You can tell him that he'll always have a place to eat at my table." The bat raised its head and chattered happily at them.

"Back to serious matters," said John. "We have to split up. I'm going to take Kenny. I need to get him healthy. I don't think we can take down a base without his powers."

"What if...Kenny doesn't..." Indigo started.

John cut her off sharply. "Shut up! Don't even think it. Kenny will be all right. Sarah got him to the tank in time. I refuse to believe anything else!"

"Kenny will be okay in the tank for a while," said Holly. "If what Sebbins told me at the remote lab in Barnsdale was correct, the tanks can hold enough oxygen in the suspension for about two days before you need to get them oxygenated again."

"I'll get him someplace soon," said John. "After we're done here, he and I will get a place near here."

"You want me to stay with you?" asked Indigo.

John shook his head. "We need to split up. It's for the best. Easier to stay hidden."

Indigo huffed and blew a stray strand of hair from her eyes. "Fine."

"I think it would be best if we went to different areas," said John. "Really split up. Does anyone know where they'd like to go?"

"I want to go south," said Sarah immediately. "The desert. I hate the cold. Besides, I need someplace devoid of people where I can hide Andy."

"Yeah, I seem to have lost my action-hero physique and Statue of David looks."

"Indigo, how about you?" asked John.

Her eyes shot daggers at him for a moment but said, "A big city. I'd like to be someplace exciting, someplace where you can go out at night. I'm tired of being cooped up in the country. Besides, where better to hide than a big city? A thousand people pass by every day. Who can remember a single individual?"

"Anyplace in particular you thinking about," asked Sarah.

"Someplace with other Asians. Maybe Seattle. Maybe San Francisco."

"What about you, Holly?" asked Andy. "You and Bat going to hit up the big city?"

Holly shook her head. "No. I'm a country girl at heart. I need to be someplace where I can see cornfields and rolling hills. I'm going to try to head out to the west, get a job working with horses on a ranch, maybe. I'd like to work with horses."

"Posey?" asked John. She had barely spoken that afternoon. She sat removed from the rest of them, a few feet back from the picnic blanket, occasionally using her wings to fan herself.

"Dr. Cormair told me to live, to explore. I think I might do that. Maybe head west with Holly for a while, then maybe find someplace else to be. See the world. Maybe I'll find a deserted island in the Pacific to live on, or maybe I'll go scale mountains like Cormair told me to do."

"He loved us? Cormair really said that?" asked Indigo for the fifth time since Posey had told them of her final moments with the doctor.

"That's what he said," said Posey. "He also said that the envelope had something important in it."

"It's just hard to believe, you know? All those years of him being gruff and demanding...and he was a big softy. Just doesn't seem right," said Indigo.

"You know," said Holly, "when you think about it, I think that even though he was cold and distant, I think we all loved him back to a degree. At the very least, we respected him."

"Yeah," said Andy. "When I played Cormair in chess, I tried harder than I did when I played John. Didn't matter, I still got my butt handed to me, but I wanted him to think I was smarter than he thought I was."

"Ditto," said Sarah. "During tests that he oversaw, I tried harder than I normally would."

John leaned forward and picked up the envelope. "This was his most prized possession? Doesn't seem to be a lot in here," he said. He slipped a finger behind the pasted flap and tore an access swath in the paper. He turned the envelope upside down and tapped it gently. A small photograph slipped out and fell to the blanket.

"That's it? What is it?" asked Andy.

John picked it up and examined it. He smiled and passed it to Holly. "It's us."

The picture was a black-and-white snap of their first day at the Home. They were gathered on the porch, giving the camera forced smiles while they tried to hide their fears. Andy was in the center, a porky little boy with a broad grin. Sarah was next to him, pretty and thin. Holly and Posey were the bookends on the first row, Holly a shy violet behind messy hair, and Posey, tall and gangling with thick glasses. John, Indigo, and Kenny stood in the second row. Kenny's face was plastered with a dark, serious look, the same look they would all come to know so well over the coming decade. Indigo was a tiny china doll, looking more like a three or four-year-old. John had his arms folded across his chest. When he first arrived at the home, he was skin stretched over sticks. There wasn't even the faintest hint of muscle on his seven-year-old body. And in the back, standing behind them, Dr. Cormair was looking down on them and smiling. A genuine smile.

"Did you ever see him smile?" asked Sarah. "I never did. Not once."

"Look at him," said Holly. "It's like he's happy to have us there."

Indigo said, "There's something strange in that look."

"He looks paternal," said John. "He saw us as children that day. He might have blocked that over the next few years in order to do his research, but that day, at that moment, it looks like he thought we were
his
kids."

"Will wonders never cease?" said Andy.

Posey cleared her throat. "Does anyone...mind...if I keep this picture with me? There are almost no pictures of us growing up that aren't for scientific documentation. I think the only ones we have are the few we'd taken of each other. It's nice...to remember."

"Go ahead, Posey. It's yours," said John. "It's the least we could do after you saved us."

With that, John stood and began cleaning the clearing. "It's time to go," he said. "I have to get Kenny someplace where I can set up the oxygen system for the tank."

"So, this is it, then?" asked Holly. "We go away from each other?"

"For a while," John said. "Until we know where the Trust is hiding their other project. Or until the Trust finds us."

Holly swallowed hard. Her eyes were welling with tears. "I'm going to miss you guys."

Sarah wrapped her arms around Holly. "We'll miss you too, Holly."

Andy held out his arms, "Come on, Spaghetti-head, how 'bout a hug?"

John and Andy embraced briefly and separated. "You've been a better brother than any real brother could have been," said John. "Thanks."

"You too," said Andy. "I'm going to miss seeing your stupid hair every day."

Indigo stood. "This is getting too mushy for me," she said. She picked up her stack of cash and slipped it into her pockets. "I am going to hitch out of here. I can't handle more good-byes."

"Don't hitch," said John. "Get a bus ticket or something."

"I'm a telekinetic," said Indigo. "Anyone tries anything funny and I'll crush their balls with my mind."

Sarah and Holly hugged Indigo, and surprisingly the often stand-offish Indigo hugged them back.

"Be good, Wings," Indigo said to Posey. "Don't pull an Icarus on us."

Indigo turned to Andy. "I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow."

"Be good, Midget," said Andy. He gently tapped the end of her nose with his oversized finger.

Lastly, Indigo looked at John. She wrapped her arms around his chest and John bent his head to hers, touching his cheek to her forehead. Indigo broke from the embrace, turned on her heel, and walked away without glancing back.

"I suppose Andy and I had better go too," said Sarah. "It's going to be a long drive for us."

"Can you give me a lift to the bus station?" asked Holly.

"Certainly."

"I'm going to get a ticket west."

"Anyplace special?" asked John.

"I'm not sure. Maybe Sheridan, Wyoming. Saw a special about it on TV once. I think I'll like it there. There are horses out there. Posey, you going to come with?"

"I'll follow your bus," said Posey.

The trio walked away from the picnic site to the old pick-up. Andy lay in the back of the truck, nearly filling the bed, and Holly and Sarah tied the tarp down over him. Then, Sarah and Holly climbed in the cab. The truck started with a minimum of fuss and they pulled away, heading down the road, back toward Erie.

John and Posey stood together amidst the trees. "You'll be all right?" asked John.

Posey shrugged. "When I first came out of that hyper-womb and I saw what I had become, I panicked. I spent that day flying as far away as I could. I found a lake and landed on the shore. I spent hours staring at my reflection in the water and crying and I guess I sort of snapped. I wanted revenge. I wanted someone to feel as badly as I did. I made up my mind to kill Dr. Cormair."

"You didn't, though."

"No. He gave me options for my life that I hadn't thought about. He told me that I could do things, see the world. Then, he made me promise not to kill myself. But, you know what really got to me? What made me change my mind?"

"What?"