On the twenty-seventh floor, they practically leaped out of the elevators into a designer reception area bustling with people. Fang held on to his bag and approached the main desk.

A guy in his early twenties with mod rectangular glasses looked at them as though they were three scruffy homeless children.

“Can I help you?”

“I need to speak to your top reporter,” Fang said coolly. “I have a story with worldwide implications. You print what I tell you, and this magazine will go down in history.”

The reception guy was unimpressed. “Do you have an appointment? With anyone?”

Of course not. That would require a level of forethought that Fang hadn’t mastered yet. He felt the deli bag had been a master touch. “I just need to speak to someone, right now.”

The guy sneered. “I don’t think so.”

“If they find out you didn’t let me talk to someone, you’ll get canned so fast you’ll feel like tuna.”

That was when the guy pressed the button for security.

Fang tapped Iggy’s hand twice. “Let’s go! Now!”

76

Two burly security guards picked up their pace as soon as they saw Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy race toward the stairwell. Fang knew that when someone was chasing you, you never got on the elevator, twenty-seven floors up or no. They could lock you between floors, be waiting for you. You always took the stairs.

Fang yanked the door open, and the three of them flung themselves downward, four steps at a time. They pushed past startled employees and almost collided with someone delivering sandwiches. Behind them, they heard stairwell doors being opened and security guards yelling. On one floor, the door opened right as they passed, and Fang felt someone take a swipe at his jacket. He continued to leap downward, keeping track of Iggy and the Gasman out of the corners of his eyes. Unfortunately, there were no windows in the stairwell that they could escape through.

The stairs felt endless and went back and forth so tightly that Fang started to feel seasick. Keep it together, he told himself. Keep it together. You’ve got a little kid and a blind guy depending on you.

“Okay, about to reach bottom!” Fang alerted Iggy after endless minutes. “Eight more steps, then a hard left!”

“Gotcha,” said Iggy.

Finally they reached bottom. If they could just make it out the front doors...

There were eight security guards waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Fang whirled to head back upstairs, but the door closest to them opened, and four more guards started thundering toward them. The three bird kids bolted into the lobby, trying to break through the line of guards.

Unsuccessfully.

“We’re leaving!” Fang snarled, but a guard had the back of his jacket and his belt loop. He marched Fang to the big glass doors, muscled them open, and tossed Fang down the building’s front steps.

“You don’t weigh nothin’!” he said in surprise.

“Don’t come back!” said another guard.