My pool of patience, never deep on the best of days, became yet shallower. “My point is,” I went on tightly, “that clearly, someone is still after us, still wants us dead. Yes, our air shows for the CSM are big hits; there are people who are sort of accepting us as being… different, but we’re still in danger. We’ll always be in danger.”

“I’m tired of being in danger!” Nudge cried. “I hate this! I just want to —”

She stopped, because there was no point in going on. Trying not to cry, she flopped down on the hotel bed. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back, between her wings.

“We all hate this,” I said quietly. “But until someone can prove to me beyond a doubt that we’re safe, I have to make decisions that will keep us more or less in one piece. I know it sucks.”

“Speaking of things sucking,” said Fang, “I say we ditch the air shows completely.”

“I like the air shows,” said Gazzy. He was lying on the floor, half beneath our coffee table. My mom had gotten him some little Transformer cars, and he was rolling them around, making engine noises. Yes, he could best most grown men in hand-to-hand combat and make an explosive device out of virtually anything, but he was still eight years old. Or so.

I always seemed to forget that.

“I like the air shows too,” said Nudge, her tangly hair fanned out around her head. “They make me feel like a famous movie star.”

“They’re not safe,” Fang said flatly.

I was torn. The sniper who had shot at me had turned out to be a new form of cyborg/human — or at least that’s what we’d figured after we found part of one arm. Instead of a hand, he’d had an automatic pistol connected directly to his muscles and nerves. It hadn’t actually been the building that exploded when we were close — it had been the sniper himself. He’d blown himself up rather than let us catch him or really see him.

That’s dedication for ya.

That thing hadn’t grafted that gun to his arm by himself. Someone had made him. That someone was still out there and possibly had made more things like him.

On the other hand… the CSM was really counting on us to continue the air shows. These shows were taking place in some of the most polluted cities in the world: Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Beijing. So far they’d been big successes, and the CSM had been able to hand out tons of cards and leaflets educating people about pollution and greenhouse gases.