Book Three 2 страница

I’d fallen to my knees before I’d even felt them buckle, and the nausea finally overcame everything else.

“I’m sorry, Max! ” Dylan cried miserably as I retched again and again into the dirt. “I’m so sorry. ”

I awoke feeling cold again. But this time, the cold felt heavy in my gut, and it didn’t go away.

Angel led us. Harry and Dylan formed the V, and I hung back, riding the slipstream and letting them carry me for thousands of miles. We flew up along the west coast of Canada and over Alaska, and I didn’t look down once. Didn’t want to see the flattened cities and charred forests. Didn’t want to see the landscape as bleak as my mind.

I don’t deal with death well, you might have noticed. I don’t really deal at all – I go on autopilot. The flight to Russia felt like one long hallucination, and I didn’t eat, or talk, or cry.

It seemed like I barely breathed.

I do know that as we flew over Alaska, we were pelted with a blizzard so fierce it almost knocked Harry from the air. The cold made Dylan’s teeth chatter and Angel’s breath come in gasps, but I hardly felt any of it.

My thoughts were as blank as the snow.

Numb.

The Bering Strait was less than a hundred miles across, but the slate‑ colored water looked like an endless dark hole, trying to suck me down.

Once, I stopped flying completely, letting my body hang limp for a second too long. I folded my wings in and started to drop, imagining myself plunging into the freezing water, having it hit me like concrete at that speed. A fast death.

But then I saw angry clouds in the distance and jerked back up. I was sure I’d glimpsed Fang’s stormy eyes, and thought I saw his face just beyond the horizon. The wind whispered to me: Not yet. Not yet.

“Cut it out, Angel, ” I mumbled. “Get out of my head. ”

She didn’t look back, though. It was Fang’s voice, gravelly and insistent, that urged me on, reminding me why I was still here, and what I needed to do.

So I kept moving forward, mile by mile, and the cold feeling inside me started to heat up into rage and harden into resolve: I would get to the Remedy, whatever it took.

And I’d kill him myself.

I’d expected the Remedy’s den of death to be as wrecked as the rest of the world, but when the water became land again, the gray, barren coast of Russia turned to lush, green forests. Mountains were untouched by ash, and rivers still flowed blue. After all the devastation I’d seen, it should’ve given me hope.

But I was in no state to embrace such a positive emotion, so naturally, it just fueled my fury. He didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve it.

Not yet.

We were flying over a forest of tightly packed trees when I noticed Dylan scanning the ground. I broke formation and flew up next to him.

“Where is he? ” I didn’t have to clarify who I meant.

“Underground. A place called Himmel. ” Dylan pronounced the last word with an accent.

“Himmel? ”

“Heaven, ” Dylan explained. “It’s German. ”

My mouth tightened into a hard line and I wondered what the German word for hell was. I was going to show Dr. Gunther‑ Hagen that everything has an opposite.

“Okay, let’s go, ” I said grimly.

“Wait, Max. ” Angel reached for my arm. “We have to join the others at the camp first. ” She smiled faintly. “It’s just another few miles. ”

Reluctantly I nodded, figuring “the others” were the rest of the flock, but when a clearing opened up in the woods, I saw rows and rows of makeshift tents made out of everything imaginable, from plastic tarps to blankets to flowered bedsheets. Between them, thousands of people went about their business. After seeing hardly anyone for so long, it really was a sight to behold.

“Where did they all come from? ” I asked in awe, and Angel shrugged.

“All over. ”

I had seriously underestimated her. And for once, that was a good thing.

“Look. ” She pointed. “There’s the rest of the flock. ”

I hadn’t let myself believe I’d see them again. Not fully. I’d already lost something so huge, having hope seemed like being a sucker asking to get burned.

But the sight of their faces cut through my shield, and I was shaking so hard I could barely steer myself to a landing. I hadn’t lost it all. Nudge, Iggy, Gazzy. Even Total – they were all here, waiting for me.

Alive.

The first poor soul in my path of suffocating love was Nudge, and I tackled her, knocking her to the grass.

“Agh! ” she said as I almost crushed her with the force of my embrace. Strangers stared at the bird girl acting like a lunatic attacker, but I didn’t care as long as I never had to let my little sister go again. Finally, I pulled her to her feet.

“Oh, Nudgelet, ” I said with a shaky breath, “I’m so glad you’re okay. ” Nudge’s eyes glistened.

“I missed you, too, Max. ” The bite on her cheek had healed into a gnarly scar, but her brilliant smile made you hardly notice it.

“Don’t I get a hello? ” Iggy asked from behind me.

“C’mere. ” I yanked him into a fierce bear hug, squeezing tightly until he started coughing. Then I held him at arm’s length, looking him over.

“You scared the crap out of me! ” I shouted, jabbing him in the chest.

“Whoa, take it easy! ” Iggy put his hands up defensively.

“I thought you were dead! ” I shoved him. “Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Do you? ”

“It’s not my fault! Dylan spread the rumor! ” Iggy protested, but now he was laughing as he blocked my jabs. “Besides, ” he said, flashing a wry grin, “how much more do you love me now that I’m not dead? ”

I rolled my eyes and mussed his shaggy blond hair in exasperation, but the truth? A lot more. Or at least I was a lot more appreciative of my weird, lovely little flock than I ever had been.

I hugged Gazzy and Total, too, my face muscles constantly quivering between sobs and smiles. It was definitely an emotional reunion, to say the least.

“How did they say I died? ” Gazzy asked eagerly.

“You got blown up. ”

“Cooool. ” His eyes lit with morbid delight, and when I pursed my lips, unamused, he cackled like a maniac. “And also totally bogus you would believe that, Max. Do you have any idea how much I know about combustible materials and the rate of conflagration? ”

“No, I don’t, ” I said, trying not to imagine all the times Gazzy’s experiments had come close to blowing us all up in our sleep. “And for that I’m incredibly grateful. ”

“Well, jokes aside, I’m incredibly grateful to be alive, ” Iggy said. He clapped Dylan on the back and pulled him in for a hug. “Seriously, man, I don’t know how you pulled that off, but thank you. ”

“It wasn’t a big deal. ” Dylan blushed.

“Not a big deal? ” Nudge echoed in disbelief. “I almost died of shock! I could’ve done without waking up to Total slobbering on my face, but you saved all of our lives, Dylan! ”

Dylan smiled, but his eyes flicked to mine and Angel’s and his smile faded.

He didn’t save all our lives. He didn’t save Fang.

“An act of heroism to rival any of the classic demigods, ” Total was gushing. “Achilles... ”

Suddenly my chest hurt and my throat ached. “Okay, ” I said, and coughed. “So what’s the deal with the kids at the camp? Why are we here? ”

“I told you. We’re here to fight a war, ” Angel said. She looked out across the crowded field. “And that’s why we brought an army. ”

I watched Angel’s face, trying to figure out what was different about her. She seemed removed from the group, somehow. Apart.

“Gasman and I just got here a couple of days ago, ” Iggy said. “But Nudge has been chatting everyone up for the last week, pulling together their stories. ”

“We’re pretty sure the Remedy detonated nuclear warheads on every continent, ” Nudge reported. “Maybe close to a hundred. ”

“That’s insane, ” I said in horror.

“No, what’s insane is that there’re over four thousand left, stockpiled here in Russia, ” Gazzy said. “And this wackjob has full access. ”

I thought of the flattened cities I’d seen. The caved‑ in homes, mangled bodies, burned flesh. Then I imagined one man, alone in a room, pushing a button to make that happen.

Then pushing it again. And again.

A hundred times.

“It’s time to end this, ” I said through gritted teeth. “Now. ”

“Supplies are low anyway, ” Iggy agreed.

I glanced at the dense forest around us, at the still‑ green leaves and undeveloped land. There had to be a ton of wild game nearby.

“We know how to hunt, ” I reminded him. “And Harry here is stellar. Harry–”

“Harry! ” He’d been hanging off to the side, but now he crowed his name on cue, and Nudge’s face lit up.

Gotta be the dimples. Every time.

“We can definitely use him, ” Iggy said. “But a lot of these other mutants are city kids, and they have no idea how to feed themselves. ”

“They’re not all mutants, either, ” Gazzy said. “Like the girls we brought from the silo – they’re human, but they’re super hard‑ core. ” He beamed. I raised a suggestive eyebrow, and Gazzy snickered, always the lady‑ killer. “There’s also a lot of lab escapees, like the bug boys over there. ”

I followed his gaze to where a bunch of small, athletic kids were kicking around a ball of newspaper tied with rope in place of a soccer ball. They almost didn’t look like mutants at all, except for the hard brown shell that started on their upper arms and went down their backs. There was a paler kid with them who seemed familiar.

“Is that... ”

“Holden from Fang’s gang? ” Iggy said. “Yeah, that’s the Starfish. They actually have contests over who has the weirder epidermis. ” He chuckled. “Kate and Ratchet are here, too, somewhere. ”

“Kate? ” I jerked my head around to stare at Angel. “The traitor? ”

“I found her and Ratchet in San Francisco, in an abandoned mall, ” Angel explained. “They were emaciated, living off whatever hadn’t rotted in the food court. Almost everyone else within a thousand miles had died of the H8E virus, but since they were immune, they’d set up a clinic and were transfusing their own blood to save other kids. ”

Well, what little martyrs.

“But she still betrayed Fang, ” I repeated, emphasizing each word with my open palm. “She and Star sold him out to Jeb. ”

It had meant the death of my clone, Maya, and the dissolution of Fang’s gang.

“Trust me, Kate regrets that, ” Angel said. “That’s why she’s here – to fix what she did. And we’re going to need her strength against the Remedy’s forces. ”

Dylan nodded in agreement, and I remembered what he’d told me about the Horsemen, how they were almost superhuman. Kate might have lightning reflexes and be able to punch with the force of a wrecking ball, but she could never “fix” what she’d done.

“Speaking of Fang’s gang, ” Total said curiously, twitching his furry ears. “Where is our dark, brooding brother? ”

“Yeah, I thought Fang was coming with you guys, ” Iggy said. “Dylan told us–”

“Fang is dead, ” Angel answered bluntly.

The words were still like knives, slicing up my heart.

“Yeah, right. ” Gazzy started to laugh but then saw the looks on our faces, and his expression morphed into horror. “What do you mean, he’s dead? ”

“He was killed by Horsemen, ” Dylan said, clenching his fist. “I tried to stop it, but there were just too many of them. ”

The words tore through the flock like a hurricane. It hurt to see them realize that nothing would ever be the same.

Nudge’s face crumpled and she buried her face in Dylan’s shoulder as her body shook with sobs. Total flopped on the ground, wailing. Tears ran down Gazzy’s cheeks and he sat abruptly, ripping at blades of grass. Angel rubbed his back, trying to comfort her big brother.

Iggy walked off to the side and blindly stared into the woods, his body incredibly still, his face a mask I couldn’t read. Just like after Ella.

Only I stood alone, my eyes dry. I wouldn’t revisit that grief – not yet. At that point I felt only pure, distilled anger, a seemingly bottomless well of fury.

At Angel, for saying it would happen. At Dylan, for making it true. At myself, for letting him go.

And at Fang, most of all, for leaving. For dying.

How could I ever, ever forgive him for that?

So when Total suggested we say some words for Fang, when Gazzy said we would fight the battle in his name, and when Nudge wanted to hold a candlelit vigil, I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from screaming.

I didn’t want to tell stories or share memories. I didn’t know if I could even say his name.

With the taste of blood in my mouth, I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned away.

“Max? ” Nudge called after me, a quaver in her voice.

“I’m sorry, I can’t, ” I said as I walked away from my family. I trudged deeper into the camp, ducking under clotheslines and trying to lose myself in the sea of strangers.

“I just can’t. ”

The next day, the camp buzzed with nervous energy as everyone prepared for battle.

Iggy and Gazzy had rigged up a catapult out of fallen trees, and Holden was shouting directions about angle placement and velocity. All around me, kids were trying to psych each other up, banging their weapons together like they’d seen in movies, even though no one knew what we were up against.

Most of us didn’t, anyway.

Angel was the one who’d gathered us here, and of course she was nowhere in sight. And Dylan was the one person who’d actually seen the underground layout, and so far, he’d told us nothing.

We were here. It was time. What were we waiting for?

Restless, I wandered through the muddy rows of the camp, veering right to avoid a damp‑ eyed prayer circle Nudge was leading, complete with candles. I ground my teeth.

“Not into that praying crap, either, huh? ”

Startled, I turned to see Ratchet lying on a tarp, doing sit‑ ups.

“We’re gonna win or we’re gonna lose. Personally, I think we’re gonna lose. But either way, praying to some yahoo isn’t going to change anything. ”

“Where’s Kate? ” I asked.

“Over with the baby general. ” Ratchet nodded past me without breaking rhythm.

About a hundred yards away, near the edge of the woods, Angel was talking to Kate and Dylan.

“If they wanna whisper secrets, ” Ratchet said, taking a breath, “maybe they shouldn’t be so loud about it. ”

I could barely see their expressions from here, let alone hear their voices, but with his extraordinary senses, not much got past Ratchet.

“What secrets? ”

Ratchet did several more sit‑ ups, his trademark aviator glasses reflecting back at me with each one. Finally, he stopped and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

“Maybe you should go find out for yourself. ”

When I approached, Angel seemed completely different than I’d ever seen her. Her voice was still the same, soft and young, but her tone was one of unmistakable authority. Sitting on a stump with her legs tucked under her, she looked like a child empress, consulting with her trusted advisors.

Which apparently didn’t include me.

As I approached, they stopped talking abruptly. Dylan coughed and shifted uneasily, and Kate flashed me a wide fake smile.

“Getting chummy in the cool kids’ club? ” I asked.

“Hmm? ” Angel said distractedly. “What is it, Max? ”

“Sorry to break up this little party, but is someone going to explain what the heck is going on? Shouldn’t we be casing the entrances? Or at least organizing the giant mass of people you convinced to meet here? ”

“Dylan and Kate have been working out a strategy of attack, ” Angel said, standing. “And I was about to make an address on the field that should answer some of your questions. ”

“All I need, ” I said coldly, “is a face to smash my fist against. ”

All eyes were on Angel now. Yet, hovering a hundred feet above the field, facing her makeshift army, she felt about as powerful as a sparrow.

Her wings ached from constant traveling. Like all bird kids, she was naturally skinny, but her weight had dropped dangerously from the stress. And after so many sleepless nights, she was almost delirious. Everything had been building to this, though – this was the most important moment in her life. Angel gathered her strength.

“Thank you for coming, ” she began.

But her small, quivery voice was swallowed up by wind, and the kids below frowned uncertainly, fidgeted, whispered to one another. They stared up at the pale little girl who had led them here, her white wings keeping her aloft. They waited.

Angel took a deep breath to steady herself and smelled the ash drifting in on the wind. It was now or never.

We have kids here from all over the world, she continued. This time, her lips moved, but she didn’t shout. She wanted them to hear every word, really hear her, so she spoke inside their minds.

Some of you came because you were starving. Some because you were homeless. Some because you wanted to fight...

Angel glanced at the silo girls standing near Gazzy, ammunition draped across their chests.

... And others came because you were afraid.

She nodded at Lucas and Matthew Morrissey.

But I know all of you want to understand what happened. You want to know the truth.

She saw Max’s face twitch, her eyes narrow. Angel nodded.

Let me show you.

Angel stilled her body until her feathers were barely moving. She relaxed her breathing and closed her eyes. She let the connection open up.

Her brain flooded with thoughts from thousands of other minds – worries, doubts, judgments, memories – all blurring together until the din was like a swarm of locusts buzzing inside her skull, furious and deafening.

Then she took her own vision, her own terrible knowledge, and she pushed it into that space. She made them see.

Angel showed them the round, perfect globe as only astronauts had seen it, blue and naked and seeming to glow.

She showed them the enormous asteroid and its fiery tail, roaring through the darkness, pulled like a magnet. Closer, closer.

The smaller pieces breaking off as it entered the earth’s atmosphere, scattering throughout the Pacific.

The many shooting stars that got brighter and brighter until it felt like your eyelids were peeled back, unable to shut out their light.

The moment the biggest chunk hit on the western coast of Morocco, there was too much to see at once, too much to know. The images flashed faster and faster, like a flipbook of drawings:

The main meteor, almost a mile wide, smashing against the earth, creating a new, gigantic crater where Morocco had once been.

The ring of fire that circled the massive crater, burning for months.

The jolt after the impact that rippled though the water within moments, churning into tsunamis.

Angel showed them the blinding flash that North Africans saw just before their bones vaporized in the heat. The mile‑ high tidal wave of water arcing over New York and most of the East Coast of the United States, Venezuela, and Spain just before it sucked everything back to sea. She showed them forests from Eastern Europe to the western US that burst into flame all at once as hot ash pelted down. And the shudder of shock waves racing underfoot around the globe, toppling cities, causing a domino effect of volcanoes to erupt with devastating results.

Angel showed them everything she could, and when she was done, she opened her eyes with a gasp, severing the connection.

Angel saw Nudge right below her, tears spilling down her cheeks. Many others were weeping, too. Just as Angel had.

Angel didn’t show them what had happened days and weeks after – the death and famine, the raids. They already knew all about that. There was just one more thing they didn’t know.

The Remedy did this, she told them. This, and much more. He dropped bombs, unleashed a virus. He tried to wipe all traces of humans off the earth.

The field of people was silent. They looked up at her with damp, desperate eyes, asking her what to do.

We have to fight, she answered.

Angel winced as a bolt of pain shot through her temples and a vision flashed behind her eyes – a split‑ second glimpse of this same field, littered with the wounded and the dead. She knew she was leading many of these kids to their deaths, but she had no choice.

The world doesn’t have very many people left, but it has us. You’ve survived. But is just surviving enough?

“No! ” a few eager kids shouted, but others still looked uncertain.

The Remedy drops bombs and builds superhuman androids to do his dirty work, but he’s never gone to battle, Angel said, her words gaining force. The Remedy stole our planet, murdered our families, and destroyed our homes, but he’s never seen our faces. Are you going to let him walk away?

“NO! ” the crowd roared in unison.

Angel fluttered down until she was just a few feet off the ground. She wanted to see the dirt on their faces. She wanted to be able to meet their eyes. All she had was these kids, and all they had was her, and whatever they’d grabbed from the rubble. Her fighters were armed with barbecue forks, baseball bats, broken crutches, lengths of rusted rebar, pitchforks, tree limbs, junior archery sets... their bravery humbled her.

“The Remedy thinks he has won, ” she said aloud, her voice strident and clear. “But he can’t see the future. I can. And I swear, if you follow me, we will see him fall. ”

Right there, Kate fell to her knees in the dirt, her dark hair hanging as she bowed her head. Beside her, Ratchet knelt as well. One by one the others followed, until over a thousand kids were kneeling before Angel, ready to serve.

All I’d wanted was to fight the Remedy. But as the troops were finally moving out, I was pushing backward against the tide of bodies, searching for blonde hair and white feathers.

I needed to talk to her first.

“Angel! ” I yelled, elbowing my way through. “Ange! ” I grabbed her hand and turned her around to face me. “What was that? ” I demanded. I could still see the imprint of the explosion behind my eyelids, a sudden camera flash. I felt the heat, as real as if it were flaying my own skin. “Tell me what that was. ”

In the middle of all this chaos, with people bumping past us and shouting directions, Angel had the stillness of a monk.

“You know what it was, Max. The day the sky caught fire – it was Armageddon. ”

“But that doesn’t tell me anything! ” I said, more frustrated than ever. Everyone was acting like Angel had given all the answers, but all I had were more questions. “How do you know it was the Remedy? And what about the bombs, and the Horsemen? ” I was shaking her now. “How do you know what you saw is even real? ”

“Because I know! ” Angel shouted, wrenching free of my grasp. “Because I saw it, just like I saw Fang’s death – before it happened! ” She looked up at me with watery blue eyes, and in that moment, I finally saw Angel for what she really was.

Not just a psychic or a mind reader. A prophet.

She was also a seven‑ year‑ old who’d been carrying around the most terrible secret in the world, all by herself. I noticed the ragged cuts around her fingernails where she’d torn the skin away, the dark circles around her eyes, and realized how much I had failed her.

“Oh, honey, ” I said. When I put my hands lightly on the outsides of her arms, she tensed. “Why didn’t you tell me? ”

“Because, ” she said, her small bow lips quivering, “you never wanted to listen. ”

“Of course I–” An image of Fang’s face flashed in my mind, and I winced.

Fair enough.

“I’m listening now, ” I said gently.

We walked to the edge of the clearing, away from the rest of the kids, and Angel sat back down on the stump and pulled her knees up to her chest.

“The visions started after they altered my eyes at the school. ”

My chest tightened, remembering that awful time after Paris. We’d all believed Angel was dead for weeks before finding her in one of Jeb’s corrupt labs.

“At first I thought I was blind, like Iggy. But then I realized I could actually see more – stuff that hadn’t happened yet. I kept seeing these flashes, and it was so scary, Max, ” she said, resting her chin on her knees to look up at me. “I could never see the whole picture, and I didn’t know if it would be this year or in five years or a hundred years. ”

“Did anyone else know about all this? The meteor and bombs and apocalypse? ” I asked, still trying to figure out where the Remedy fit into all this.

“The scientists did, and the world leaders, ” Angel said. “I didn’t find that out until the day it hit, when I heard Dr. Martinez’s thoughts. ”

“But my mom was worried about the H8E virus, ” I said. I remembered her telling Fang and me about the plague the Apocalypticas had developed, how we should all be safe from it, on the island. “She didn’t mention the meteor. ”

“That’s because the Russians had planned to blast it apart with nuclear weapons. ‘They were going to nuke it’ –that’s what Dr. Martinez kept thinking the day the sky caught fire. ‘I thought Russia was going to nuke it. ’ ”

“But somehow Dr. G‑ H got control of the nukes first? ”

Angel nodded.

“He just... let it... hit us, ” she said, looking up at me in bewilderment, and I’m sure my face was a mirror of shocked, sickened horror. Angel started to weep, and I hugged her close to me. “I swear I didn’t know about the Remedy, Max. ” She cried harder, her tears soaking my neck. “I just knew we had to get to Russia. ”

“I know, sweetie, ” I whispered, smoothing her hair. “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen. ”

“I’m sorry, too, ” she hiccupped. “And I wasn’t trying to hurt Fang by showing him his fall. I just didn’t know what else to do. ”

I couldn’t think of Fang without feeling the cold grip of nausea in my gut, and I stiffened. Angel felt the shift and pulled away from me, wiping her face.

“We should go. I said I would lead those kids. ”

My little prophet.

“You really were great up there earlier, Angel. A true leader. ”

“I know, ” Angel said matter‑ of‑ factly, and I laughed. “What? ” She smiled. “I told you I know stuff. You taught me a lot, though, Max. ”

“Oh yeah? ” I cocked an eyebrow. “Like what? ”

“Like how you never stop fighting for the right ending. Even after the apocalypse. ”

That’s my girl. I snapped open my wings, and Angel did the same.

“Let’s show Dr. God what hell feels like. ”

Once again, Angel hovered above her army. The icy wind cut through her thin clothes and whipped against her cheeks, but Angel faced it unblinkingly. This time, she was officially their leader, the general leading them to war.

And, for some of them, to death.

We will win, though, Angel told herself, though her visions had never shown her the final outcome. We have to.

As they shivered in haphazard lines awaiting Angel’s command, she studied the layout of the battlefield below. Years of living with Max on the run had taught her to look for vulnerabilities, and she saw that geography was in their favor, at least. The main entrance to the underground city known as Himmel was in a clearing, so they had unobstructed access, and though Dylan had warned her about vents in the surrounding ground, the surrounding woods provided a natural barrier against escape. From her vantage point in the sky, Angel saw beyond the trees as well – to endless miles of flat Siberian wilderness.

The Remedy might have an advanced security system, but he was still underground. There was nowhere for him to run.

“Prepare the catapult! ” she yelled down to Gazzy and Iggy. She watched as they started to load the homemade smoke bombs.

Himmel’s entrance didn’t look like much from above. From the ground it appeared like the mouth of a cave, but the outcropping was hidden by the wiry grasses that covered the rest of the countryside. From up here, apart from a small mound in the earth, you’d barely know it was there.

“FIRE! ” Angel commanded.

Gazzy launched the grenades one after the other, but apart from the sound of the egg‑ like objects singing toward Himmel’s narrow mouth, the field was silent. The air felt full of static, it was so pregnant with anticipation.

Then, as the bombs started to release their gases, Angel heard a barrage of new thoughts, all at once.

Not the thoughts of her own army, but of the army below – the one she hadn’t been sure was there.

They were there, all right, and Angel realized with alarm that there were more than she’d ever anticipated. There were many thousands of fighters in the Remedy’s army. More than they could ever take on.