Fang went first, the others falling into line behind him, me bringing up the rear. I was almost out the door when my gaze fell on the bowl of freaking birdseed, and I cracked up all over again.
65
CONSIDERING I’M NOT the world’s youngest executive, I sure have been in a lot of corporate conference rooms. They’re all pretty much the same: big plate glass windows; huge table, usually rectangular or oblong; large potted plants; thick carpet; rolley chairs.
This one had a wall of flat TV screens, and something that I’d never seen before: a transparent person, with his organs and stuff in clear Plexiglas boxes, and his head attached to one by an almost-bare spinal cord. He was sitting — or stacked, more accurately — in a customized wheelchair.
He saw all of us staring at him, and wheeled silently over the carpet toward us.
“I am the Uber-Director,” he said, his voice a lot like Gozen’s: with human but slightly odd inflections, and also a barely detectable mechanical quality. Looking closer, I saw that his guts and stuff were surrounded by and connected to machine parts — hoses, pumps, electronic things. And yes, it was totally as gross as it sounds. If I hadn’t already seen a million incredibly gross things in my life, I would have barfed right there.
His voice had enough expression to convince me that he had a colossal ego jam-packed into his Habitrail body. Great. I thought this day had been a little lacking in megalomaniacs.
None of us said anything — no leaping forward with outstretched hands and big smiles. I guess we just weren’t raised right.
“I’ve been concerned with you for quite some time,” he went on.
“That makes . . . almost one of us,” I said.
Unlike Gozen, the UD could smile. Or frown. “I find you very . . . interesting. From a scientific viewpoint, of course.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, staring at him in fascination. “I have a bit of scientific curiosity myself. Listen, how do they keep your boxes clean? Like, with an aquarium vacuum, or what?”
The Uber-Director had been gifted with the blush response to anger, and now his waxy cheeks mottled with a yucky purple color that would put me off plum pudding for the rest of my life.
He glared at Gozen. Gozen took several quick steps toward me
, raising his oversize arm. I leaped onto the table, wings out, ready to fly around like a bat out of hell just to freak them out. Outside, strong winds pummeled the windows, and heavy rain all but obliterated from view the tall buildings around us. The thunder and lightning were constant. Yep, looked like a hurricane, all right.
Gozen froze.
I looked down at the Uber-Director. He was staring at me with a mixture of outrage . . . and hunger.
“Uh, you okay, UD?” I asked. “Is it okay if I call you UD?” I looked at Gozen. “Is he okay? Does he need a feed bag hooked up or something?”
Gozen lunged for me, but I jumped backward. His powerful fist, the size of a ham, crashed down on the table, bouncing me slightly. The table splintered, and I skittered to the other end. I knew my flock was on alert, and I took a second to glance at BoxBoy. His head was leaning to one side, as if he was tired, and I got the impression that if he had hands, he would have been rubbing his brow.
“Enough, Gozen,” he said softly, and just like that, Gozen straightened and backed up until he stood stiffly against one wall. If only I could get Gazzy and Iggy to obey orders like that.
“Get off the table,” the UD said to me. “The auction is about to begin. Once the monitors are on, you will all be silent.”
I heard Gazzy stifle a laugh.
The UD’s eyes met mine. “Do you have anything to say before the monitors are activated?”
“Yes.” I kept a straight face. “A hamster called. He wants his home back.”
66
I HAD TO hand it to whoever was running things: They’d learned to take regular humans out of the equation. We’d always beaten them, confused them, gotten through them somehow. Which was why we were left with BoxBoy, the Incredible Humorless Hulk, and a bunch of Transformer-bots.
With a slight electronic crackle, the wall of TV screens came to life. One by one, their screen snow was replaced by a person. There were both men and women, in all kinds of settings. The one thing they had in common was that they all oozed power like radiation. Clearly they were looking at screens of their own — I saw their eyes dart around, linger for just a second on the UD with a hint of distaste, then fasten on us.
I looked at the UD. “What, eBay isn’t good enough for us?”
If anyone had been familiar with the evil smile on Iggy’s face, they would have questioned the decision to put us on camera. But oh well. Live and learn, is what I say.
“Here are the objects available for auction.” The UD’s voice was surprisingly strong and commanding. “They are in decent shape, though one is damaged.”