Unnaturals #2 Read online

  Aggression Appraisal test.

  Kozmo knew those words. When Vince wanted to thin out the Clan to make more space—and sometimes, even when he was just bored—he’d set up an Aggression Appraisal between two mutants who had been given a new trial of serum. The test never lasted long.

  Soon he was dragging Runt from his cage and shoving the dog into the pen with Kozmo.

  Runt seemed playful, giddy. “We get to be together now, isn’t that great?” the dog panted, licking the side of Kozmo’s face.

  She jerked away from him, the fur along her spine rising, on high alert.

  The dog’s brown eyes glistened. “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t have any idea.

  “I thought you said I could give him to Leesa,” Antonio said. He knit his eyebrows in confusion.

  “Come on.” Vince smacked his shoulder. “This will be way more fun. Our own private match.”

  “I don’t want to watch this,” Antonio said, and fled from the room.

  “Watch what? What happens?” Runt asked. “Do you know what happens?”

  Kozmo knew what was expected to happen. In any other mutant, the kill drive would’ve activated. If she didn’t attack Runt soon, the humans would know she was different.

  Then, wouldn’t she end up like the others?

  Or wouldn’t they make Runt hurt her instead?

  And give him the shot of serum, anyway?

  Kozmo didn’t want to attack the dog she had spent the night curled up next to. He seemed funny and sweet, and he’d given her a name. But maybe all animals could be like that up close. Maybe it was a mistake to get close at all, when it always ended the same way—like the snake. Like Mai. Maybe a quick finish would be better.

  Kozmo spread her wings. She felt the sharpened points of her teeth.

  Runt sensed the change in her. He narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth, trying to look big, but his body betrayed him—his tail was between his legs and his ears lay flat to his head. He stumbled toward the snarling Kill Clan at the fence.

  “You’re just like them,” he whimpered.

  “I’m not,” she protested, but Runt’s howls drowned her out.

  “CASTOR! Brother, help!”

  The lab door banged open, but it wasn’t Runt’s eagle-dog brother that came to his rescue. It was one of the Yellow Six, the man with the reflective discs over his eyes—the one who looked like a fly.

  “What’s going on?” the fly man asked. He had to shout over the racket. “Is that K-group?” he gasped. “What’s it doing in the pen?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Vince muttered.

  But the mutants were making an even bigger commotion than Runt was, and the man turned toward the fence and spotted Kozmo. “And hey, why is this mutant in quarantine? Is that . . .” His mouth went slack, and he pressed the glass discs up on his face, squinting hard at her.

  “Is that a fox-bat?” a woman gasped from behind her own papery yellow mask as she entered the lab. “I thought we lost them all.”

  They started murmuring in hushed, excited tones about K-group and gene splicing and immunity, all while staring at Kozmo intensely, scrutinizing every part of her.

  Kozmo shrank back from their gaze, even though there was nowhere to go in the pen. She had spent so much of her life in the shadows hiding from humans, and with each look, Kozmo felt a greater sense of loss.

  “Does Bruce know?” they asked Vince in unison.

  “Not yet. I initiated an Aggression Appraisal,” Vince began, “to make sure—”

  “Don’t you realize how valuable K-group is, you half-wit? If one survived, this would move our research forward by years! Get it out of that pen!”

  The fly man, who had never spoken to Vince, opened the gate and jerked Kozmo out of the pen by the chain around her foot while Runt looked on with wide eyes.

  “We need to call Bruce,” the woman said.

  “Why don’t we wait until there’s something to tell?” the man suggested quickly. “I’m sure Bruce—and the mayor—would be more excited if there was some concrete research done first.”

  The next thing Kozmo knew, she was clamped into a harness, her limbs splayed open. The bright light they shone in her eyes blinded her, and all she could hear was the click click of the yellow-clad scientists’ pens as they scribbled notes. The day she’d dreaded all of her life had finally arrived.

  “We have to test whether the cells are compatible,” the woman said.

  Kozmo saw her reaching for a sharp metal object on the tray, and she started to screech in panic.

  Then the alarm sounded. The Yellow Six looked around in confusion as emergency lights flashed red and a bell droned endlessly.

  The door to the lab burst open.

  “Bruce!” the fly man sputtered. “We were just coming to tell you . . .”

  But Bruce didn’t even notice Kozmo in the harness.

  “There’s been some sort of mishap in the Unnaturals stadium,” he shouted. “The animals are escaping. Grab your whistles. Grab the tranquilizers. My stepson is in that ring!”

  “With the Invincible?” Vince asked. “With Leesa? Where’s Antonio?”

  Bruce’s shoes squeaked along the linoleum floor as he ran, and all of the humans bolted out of the room after him. Kozmo felt her breath filling her lungs again at last.

  7

  INSIDE THE GOLDEN DOME OF THE UNNATURALS STADIUM, something unbelievable was happening: the fighting had stopped. The crowd watched as a group of monsters—mutant gladiators they’d seen fight viciously in the past, and who they’d expected to see fight to the death tonight—ran together across the stadium, side by side.

  There was the Fearless, a saber-toothed grizzly; the Swift, a rabbit-panther; the Enforcer, an elephant-octopus; the Mighty, a zebra-bull; and the Underdog, an eagle-dog. They had all broken free from their handlers and escaped their electric collars. Weirdest of all, they seemed to be working together.

  Marcus stood watching them from across the stadium, and he was having a hard time catching his breath. In trying to free the animals, he and his friend, Leesa, had almost been killed by the vicious scorpion-tiger. The eagle-dog, who Marcus had been visiting for weeks with his brother, had swooped in at the last second, grabbing them in its talons and soaring around the Dome with the kids in tow. He, Marcus Lund, now knew what it was like to fly.

  “They’re going to do it,” Leesa said, squeezing his hand. “They’re really going to get away.”

  But despite feeling buzzy from the flight (and maybe a little bit from the way Leesa was holding his hand right now), Marcus was starting to worry.

  By saving the kids from the wrath of the Invincible, the Underdog had also passed up a clear shot at escape. Now the scorpion-tiger stood firmly between Team Scratch and the exit.

  It was five against one, but numbers didn’t matter when the Invincible was involved—Marcus knew that better than anyone.

  As a former Moniac, Marcus had warped into more matches than he could count, and in last season’s Mega Monster Mash-up, he had seen the Invincible massacre his entire team in under five minutes. Now, as Team Scratch approached and the scorpion tail arced over the white tiger head, it looked like the Invincible was hoping to break that record.

  The crowd inhaled audibly, waiting for the deadly strike, and Marcus felt sick. If the eagle-dog saving his and Leesa’s lives meant that these majestic animals would die, Marcus could never forgive himself.

  It looked like the end.

  And it was. Just not for Team Scratch. The eagle-dog darted forward and the Invincible roared. But instead of striking his opponent, the dog and his team struck a nearby stadium light post. There was a deafening CRACK and the crowd gasped as the post gave way, tipping slooowly at first, and then fast, and faster, until it landed with a horrible thud.

  All that was left of the scorpion-tiger was the tip of his tail, pinned beneath the pole.

  Fans had been promised an end of the season Monster Mash-up
like they’d never seen before. They had come hoping to be shocked and awed. Marcus bet they’d never imagined something like this.

  With very large mutant animals now on the loose, the people in the stands started to panic. They streamed down from the bleachers, elbowing one another and tripping over their own feet in their hurry to reach the exits. There was no way all of Team Scratch was going to get past them through the doors.

  There was now a gaping hole in the ground where the post had been ripped out of its foundation, though. You could see right down into the tunnels of the underground neighborhood of the Drain, and the animals stood around it, looking down.

  “Go!” Marcus and Leesa shouted together. They knew it was Team Scratch’s only shot.

  The majestic eagle-dog ran over to Marcus to lick his hand in farewell, and then he turned to join the other animals as, one by one, they jumped into the hole.

  8

  CASTOR ran. HE RAN WITH HIS NECK STRAINING FORWARD, his wings streaming behind. He ran with his tongue out, gulping air. He ran until water leaked from his eyes and slobber whipped against his jowls. He ran like his lungs could hold the universe, like his legs could leap to the moon. He ran like he could never be caught. Or like he was just about to be. He didn’t dare look back to find out.

  Instead, the eagle-dog kept his focus on his friends up ahead. Samken lead the charge. The heavy thunder of his elephant feet echoed around them, and the eight tentacles of his trunk crashed against the sides of the narrow walls.

  Jazlyn was next, checking her superior panther speed to keep pace with the group.

  Castor hung back with Enza. The saber-toothed grizzly was still limping from the injuries she had sustained in the ring, and she leaned heavily against him as they ran.

  Castor’s heart felt ready to burst as he looked at these three odd animals. They had had their differences, and it had taken him time to trust them, but now, they were as much his family as his pack had ever been.

  Castor did not know how long he had spent imprisoned at NuFormz research facility. Days blurred into numbers. He had battled in five Unnaturals matches as the Underdog. He’d fought on a team of four mutant monsters. He’d been comforted by three kindhearted humans, and had been trained by two sadists armed with whips and whistles. He had watched one mentor die a hero, and one victor die a coward. He had eaten countless meals of gritty slop.

  He’d been a loner, then a fighter, then a leader.

  He’d been a friend.

  But Castor could barely remember the dog he had been before—a cocky mutt whose whole world was an alley in Lion’s Head, who knew how to placate the alpha and hunt raccoons and not much else.

  He’d been on such a hunt the day he was taken. Castor and his little brother had strayed away from their territory, gotten into a fight with an enemy pack, and wound up cornered on a dock, staring down men in orange suits and bug masks.

  How much time had passed since that day, when the men had thrown Castor in the back of their Crusher Slusher machine? How many months since they’d given him the shot that broke his bones and froze his blood, that made him sprout wings between his shoulders and grow talons between his toes?

  It does not matter, he told himself. The days fell away from him the moment he leapt to his freedom.

  Freedom.

  Castor could practically taste the word. He could feel it in the rhythm of his four paws padding along the ground, could hear it pulsing in his chest with each breath. He could even smell it in the musty tunnel.

  He felt a pang knowing that Moss, a veteran of the Unnaturals who’d spent far more time in captivity than Castor had, couldn’t experience this. The zebra-bull had insisted on staying behind with the children, but Castor vowed to come back for his old teammate. He promised himself that once they found a safe path to the Greenplains, he would come back here, even though the thought terrified him, and lead the rest of the animals to freedom.

  For now, as the days of captivity fell away from him, Castor let the fear fall, too. There was the fear that had tingled in his spine with the first sharp trill of the whistle. The fear that had lived in his gut since the moment he’d stepped into the arena and seen the bloodlust of the crowd. And most of all, the fear that had threatened to crush him whenever he’d dared to dream of escape. Castor shook all of it off like dust from his fur. He left it lying at his feet, along with the electric collar in the arena. This was where his new life began.

  9

  MARCUS AND LEESA HUGGED EACH OTHER—FREEING THE animals had been their dream—but they didn’t have much time to bask in their excitement, since things were getting pretty dangerous in the Dome.

  Around them, handlers were cracking whips, a live wire on the fallen light post danced along the ground and threw sparks, and people were stampeding. Marcus heard the thunder of steps behind him and gasped, sure he was about to be trampled.

  Instead, Marcus felt himself yanked off his feet as the Mighty, the old zebra-bull, bit the collar of Marcus’s shirt and tossed him onto his striped back. The bull must have stayed behind when the rest of his team escaped. He doubled back and picked up Leesa as well.

  The zebra-bull bucked and pivoted to get through crowd, and as a sheltered sky kid, Marcus had little experience riding bareback. He leaned forward and grabbed the bull’s coarse mane for dear life, while behind him, Leesa held tight to his waist.

  They were headed toward the hole the other animals had jumped into, but there were handlers all around, about to follow Team Scratch into the tunnels of the Drain.

  “Look out!” Marcus screamed, but instead of turning, the Mighty quickened his stride.

  The bull head-butted Horace, the red-faced manager, and then turned to deliver a hind kick to rat-faced Slim, right in the gut. Marcus felt Leesa squeeze his waist, and there was a little fluttery thrill in his chest. After seeing the handlers whip and yell at the animals in the training pen, seeing them fall already felt like victory.

  But instead of following his teammates into the hole, the Mighty let out a defiant whinny, and shot a striped leg out behind him. The kick sent a food cart sailing almost a hundred feet, where it crashed into the post and toppled over, sealing off the hole where the animals had escaped.

  No one would be following Team Scratch—at least not for a while.

  “Marcus, stop!”

  It was his stepdad, Bruce, looking furious, and Marcus figured he was in so much trouble at this point that there was no turning back.

  He squeezed the Mighty’s ribs with his thighs and the zebra-bull took off at full speed, plowing through the dense crowd toward the exit. Finally, they burst through the doors and outside the Dome, and Marcus felt the wind whipping through his hair.

  At the first taste of freedom, the Mighty reared up, neighing with pleasure, and Marcus and Leesa both cheered.

  Their victory was short-lived, though. The Unnaturals stadium was located on an island in the middle of the river, and the water surrounding it was toxic. While most of the people piled into their aircars and zipped above the water on cables toward their Skyrise apartments, Marcus and Leesa and the huge mutant animal didn’t have that option.

  To the east, they could see the tall glass towers of Lion’s Head sparkling in the sun. Most of the security forces were sure to be concentrated on the entrance to the city, so Marcus steered the bull toward the west side of the island, where Leesa had shown him a small bridge that lead to the Greenplains.

  The ground of the island was rocky, and the ride rough. The whites of the bull’s eyes were wild with strain as his nostrils flared. The midday sun beat down, and a sheen of sweat formed on the Mighty’s flanks.

  Marcus felt his own fair skin already starting to burn under the deadly sun and pulled his shirt up over his face, while behind him, he heard Leesa coughing as she began to choke on the smog. The kids knew they couldn’t survive long in this environment, but they couldn’t turn back now.

  When they finally reached the bridge, a truck sat parked
at the entrance, its back doors open.

  “Antonio!” Leesa cried with relief, as her friend stepped out of the passenger-side door. “I knew you would come through!”

  But while Leesa thought her friend was here to help them, Marcus didn’t trust him for a minute.

  Neither did the Mighty. The zebra-bull started to pace on the shoreline, turning circles in the sand and flaring his nostrils in frustration.

  Then the driver-side door opened on the truck, and as Antonio’s shady brother Vince stepped out, Marcus knew his hunch had been right.

  “Leesa, listen,” Antonio said quickly, holding up his hands.

  There was no time for conversation, though. As Vince raised a tranquilizer gun up to his shoulder, the Mighty reared up on his hind legs, and the dart hit the animal square in the chest.

  “No!” Leesa screamed.

  The zebra-bull crashed back down to four legs, already stumbling, and Marcus could hear the sound of choppers overhead. Craning his neck, he saw a fleet of trucks barreling toward them from the NuFormz facility.

  It’s over, Marcus thought, stroking the Mighty’s striped neck. The bull knelt down shakily, his breathing shallow.

  Marcus heard a car door close and the crunch of boots on gravel, and suddenly, he and Leesa were surrounded by people in masks and riot gear. Gloved hands pulled them off the Mighty’s back, and Vince dragged the animal toward the truck, as that traitor, Antonio, stood there just staring.

  “We still did it,” Marcus spat defiantly as they slapped the cuffs on his wrists. “The other Unnaturals are free. This is just the beginning!”

  10

  LEESA’S HANDS WERE WRENCHED BEHIND HER BACK, AND the zip ties were digging into her wrists. She and Marcus were flanked by two uniformed men wearing dark glasses and stern expressions. But as they floated up from the island toward the Sky Towers in the mayor’s own private auto-hele, Marcus grinned at her—a wild-eyed winner’s smile—and Leesa felt her heart lifting, too.

  Leesa had lived underground in the Drain neighborhood for most of her life. She was used to low light, narrow walls, and musty smells. She had been to street level here and there, of course. She had seen the dirty street with the entrance to her mom’s factory, where the smog was choking and the other factories crowded so close it was almost as dark as the Drain. She had seen the brown water of the polluted river and the gritty gravel that made up its bank. But she had never seen Lion’s Head like this.