Epicurius posted:

Chapter 21

The Yeerks really have to stop using Taxxons to fight.

Strategic Tea posted:

I focused on the dropbear DNA inside me and the change began

HIJK posted:

A book about Australia could have been super dope but instead we got this

quote:

FFFFFwwwpppwwppppwwppp. FFFFFwwwpppwwppppwwppp.

The men of the outstation launched a squadron of boomerangs.

Thup. Thup.

Two more Hork-Bajir fell.

“Harr gurfass!” A Hork-Bajir pointed at the cliff.

The others raised their Dracon beams.

<Yami! Get out of here!> I screamed in thought-speak. <You’ll be killed!>

TSEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

The edge of the cliff exploded.

<Yami!>

“No worries!” Yami’s voice rang out over the spring.

FFFFFwwwpppwwppppwwwppp. FFFFFwwwpppwwppppwwppp.

Another Hork-Bajir fell.

TSEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

The Dracon beam blasted a cave into the wall of the cliff.

I kicked toward the shore. Had to show Visser Three I was the Andalite bandit! Had to lead the Yeerks away from Yami and his family!

Other kangaroos swam past me. They had clawed most of the Taxxons to shreds. The remaining two or three aliens were busy devouring their dying brothers. The boomers sloshed ashore and leaped toward the open desert.

I climbed from the water near the cliff.

TSEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

The rock wall exploded above my head. I dodged. A Hork-Bajir bounded toward me.

“RUFF! Grrrrrrrr!”

A dog! Tjala scrambled down the cliff and vaulted for the Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir spun.

<Tjala, no!> I bounded toward them.

The Hork-Bajir aimed his Dracon at Tjala. I leaned back on my tail and kicked. Bone hit blade.

TSEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

The Dracon fired out over empty desert.

I dropped to the sand. My tail lay in two pieces, severed by the Hork-Bajir’s knee blade. Jagged bone pierced through the skin of my thigh.

The Hork-Bajir turned. Watched me twist in agony. Drew up to his full height and leveled his weapon.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

Tjala leaped. The Hork-Bajir fired. Tjala clamped his jaws over the weapon.

TSEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

A sapling behind me exploded. The Hork-Bajir stumbled and fell to the ground. The Dracon beam skidded across the sand.

Tjala turned, teeth bared.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

He lunged! Ripped into the Hork-Bajir. Knew to go for the throat. Clamped his jaws on the alien’s neck.

The Hork-Bajir lashed out. Flung his serpent’s head from side to side. Wrist blades sliced through the air an inch above Tjala’s back.

The Hork-Bajir twisted sideways and pushed up with his arms. Whipped his head. Tjala’s grip broke, and he fell backward into the scrub. The Hork-Bajir climbed to his feet. He wiped his palm across his neck and looked at the blood.

Tjala barked. The Hork-Bajir stood frozen for a moment, looking first at Tjala, then his bloody hand.

The Hork-Bajir turned and ran away.

Tjala bounded over to me. He licked my muzzle and sniffed my bleeding tail.

<Good … boy … Tjala.>

I needed a hiding place. Had to demorph. Soon. I closed my front claw around a clump of grass and pulled myself toward one of the boulders at the base of the cliff.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

A low droning, almost like a mosquito, buzzed in the distance. Tjala barked at the sky. I turned my head. A glint of silver flashed on the horizon. Then another. I watched. Two tourist planes were headed directly toward us.

Visser Three must have seen them, too. His thought-speak boomed over the battlefield. <Human aircraft approaching. Retreat. NOW! Reboard and prepare for cleanup. These human pilots WILL NOT see evidence of this battle.>

The sky shimmered, and the bottom of the Blade ship appeared. The port rippled open. Hork- Bajir leaped and hobbled toward the ship. Drop shafts descended to suck them up into the port.

Two beams shot down from the front of the ship and scanned the desert floor, zapping each remnant of the battle.

All evidence of Yeerk presence sizzled and vanished. Handheld Dracons, fallen Hork-Bajir, the floating carcass of a half-eaten Taxxon. The drop shafts rose back up into the belly of the ship, the sky rippled again, and the Blade ship disappeared. All that remained were the craters they’d blasted into the desert. And dozens of boomerangs scattered through the scrub.

Yami and his uncles cheered. Tjala barked and scrambled up the cliff toward them. The two tourist planes buzzed overhead. Both pilots dipped their wings at the charming natives and flew on.

I collapsed behind the boulder.

“Cassie, you must demorph quickly.”

<Aaah!>

I jerked my head around and rammed my nose into something hard. A leg. A canine-shaped leg of ivory and steel. I looked up. A Chee towered over me. A Chee I recognized.

<Lour - Lourdes?>

“Yes.” A shimmer and her human hologram slipped into place. “I smuggled aboard the Blade ship. I’m here to get you home.”

<Home.> I closed my eyes.

“Home.” Lourdes’s voice sounded so soothing. She was taking me home. I would be safe. “Your people have been searching for you night and day. You chose a very good place to hide.”

I opened my eyes. <Hide? You saw … the outstation?>

“The little group of houses back there? Yes.”

<There’s a man … he needs … doctor. Call … flying doctor.>

“Flying doctor. Okay. I’ve got it covered. You just morph back. I’ve extended a hologram around the boulder. No one can see you.”

I nodded and closed my eyes.

quote:

“Consumerism completely baffles you, doesn’t it, Cassie?” Rachel dropped her bag on the table.

We were at The Gardens, the combination wildlife and amusement park where my mom works.

Rachel and I had just come from the bathroom. Jake, Marco, Tobias, and Ax were waiting for us in the main concession area. Tobias and Ax were both in human morph. Ax was eyebrow deep in a box of popcorn.

Rachel slumped into the chair next to Tobias. “Can you imagine my elation, my total euphoria.

When Cassie, OUR Cassie, said she wanted to go shopping?”

Marco nodded. “You were expecting to lay down serious cash at the mall.”

“Exactly! See?” She turned to me. “Even Marco understands.” She shook her head. “But no, Cassie drags me to the zoo - the ZOO - where she ransacks the gift shop and comes up with a postcard. A POSTCARD. Cassie, buying a postcard at the zoo is not shopping. Say it with me now. Postcard. Zoo. Not. Shopping.”

I shrugged, hoping to look casual, and slid into the chair across from Jake.

He dipped a fry in his ketchup. “What kind of postcard?”

I knew he’d ask me that. I smiled, casually, and reached into my bag. “It’s just something I wanted.” I glanced down to make sure I was pulling out the right card. “A reminder.”

I held it up. It was a red kangaroo, a doe, with a joey peeking out of her pouch.

“Hey!” Marco reached across and took the card from me. “It’s Cassie in her other life. Hop-along Cassie-dee.”

“Yeah.” Tobias smiled at me, his strange, unblinking Hawk-boy smile. “The one where she doesn’t need the rest of us. The one where she single-handedly defeats all alien life-forms from here to Sydney.”

“Sydney!” I thumped my head. “Of course. SYD.”

Rachel looked at me. “SYD?”

I nodded. “All the baggage tags said SYD. I couldn’t figure it out. Duh. They were going to Sydney, Australia.”

“Well, yeah,” said Tobias, “they were. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t make it.”

“Yeah, Cassie.” Marco dropped a nacho into his mouth. “Some rich old Australian guy is offering a bundle of cash for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for stealing a sweater and two bottles of prune juice from his suitcase.” He wiped cheese from his chin. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you? I’m thinking we might have a real chance at the reward money.”

“What is he doing?” Rachel frowned at Ax, who was now leaning back in his chair with the empty popcorn box mashed over his face.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Marco grabbed the box. “Ax-man. Cardboard isn’t one of the major food groups, remember?”
Ax sucked the butter of his fingers. “Unfortunately I am not in another morph. Or I would be able to reach the last bit of grease and salt with my tongue.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “I’ll buy you another box. And here, clean your face off.” He threw Ax a wad of napkins. “Do I need to start carrying baby wipes for you?”

I watched Marco and Ax walk toward the concession stand. Took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering” - I wasn’t sure I even wanted to ask this - “does anybody know, I mean, did anybody see-”

“What happened to the Marines?” Jake asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. How did you - ?”

He shrugged. “You’re you, Cassie. Anyway, the official story is a UA. Unauthorized Absence. The Marine Corps says two Marines hijacked an armored truck loaded with sensitive Defense Department research.”

“Translation: Bug fighter wreckage,” said Tobias.

“Right,” Jake agreed. “The Marines, the truck, and the guys who were supposed to be driving the truck all disappeared into the mountains. The Marines dropped the armored-truck guys off in the parking lot of some roadside tourist attraction -”

“World’s biggest ball of gum wrappers.” Rachel.

“And nobody’s seen the Marines or the truck since.” Jake sighed. “So, I guess that one was a tie. NASA doesn’t have the chunk of Bug fighter, but neither do the Yeerks.”

He smiled at me. He’d been sitting with one hand wrapped around his Coke, and now he laid it flat on the table so that his fingertips were touching mine. He looked into my eyes. A little flip of hair fell down over his eyebrow. “Except you’re back now, Cassie. So we won. We definitely won.”

I turned his hand over and squeezed it. He squeezed back.

He glanced sideways at Rachel and Tobias, then leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “I was kind of hoping we could hang out. You know, to talk.”

“Talk?” Rachel rolled her eyes. “Puh-leez. He wants to give you a big, fat, sloppy kiss. You should’ve seen him. He was a total zombie the whole time you were gone.”

I smiled at Jake. “A zombie? Really?”

Jake shot Rachel a dirty look, then stared down at his French fries. “Depends on your definition of a zombie.”

“How’s this for a definition?” Tobias said. “Somebody who can’t eat, can’t sleep, spends every minute of the night and day searching the airport and all other known Yeerk hangouts, and can only utter one intelligible sentence: ‘I have to FIND HER.’ “

Jake rolled his eyes. “Okay, so I was a zombie.”

He looked up at me and smiled. A little ball of guilt wedged itself in my throat. While Jake had been ripping the city apart looking for me, I’d been taking boomerang lessons from somebody else.

What kind of person was i?

I looked past Jake. Marco and Ax were weaving their way through the tables, loaded down with greasy, salty snacks.

Marco set another plate of nachos on the table. He looked at Jake, then me. “Uh, is the moment over now? Because some of us would like to eat.”

Ax picked the kangaroo postcard up from the table so he’d have a place for his popcorn and his onion blossom.

“Cassie, it is good to have you back,” he said. “Erek the Chee projects an excellent hologram but it could never take your place.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Ax. And speaking of Erek, next time he fills in for me he needs to turn his brilliance down a notch. He aced my algebra test, and now my parents think I’m some kind of math genius. My mom wants to enroll me in accelerated calculus next semester. She says I haven’t been living up to my potential.”

“Your mother can’t even imagine how infinite your potential is,” Rachel commented.

Ax studied the postcard in his hand. “You were an animal with two heads?”

“No, Ax, that other head belongs to the baby kangaroo. See? The mother carries him in her pouch. You know, like a pocket.”

“A baby in a pocket.” Ax frowned at the postcard, then handed it to me. “Is it effective?”

“Amazingly effective, Ax.” I slipped the card into my sack, on top of the other card. The card even Rachel hadn’t seen. The card that had taken me forever to find. I’d practically turned the rack upside down and shaken it. But I’d found it. An osprey in full flight.

Later, I addressed it when I was in the bathroom waiting for Rachel: Piti Spring Community, Northern Territory, Australia. I didn’t sign it. Yami would know. I would mail it from the airport. I figured an airport postmark was pretty anonymous. Untrackable. Even for Visser Three.

The message was short: No worries.

Epicurius posted:

Anyway, that's the book, everyone. What did you think?

Epicurius posted:

Next time is a Marco Book, the Revelation

Tree Bucket posted:

I was not psychologically prepared for the boomerang volley

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Australia uniting to beat the Yeerks into submission is p accurate tho

Tree Bucket posted:

I was not psychologically prepared for the boomerang volley

disaster pastor posted:

I hope there are still people here who didn't read the books or didn't last to the end, because we're finally about to justify all the crap we had to read in the last twelve books or so!

Tree Bucket posted:

I was not psychologically prepared for the boomerang volley

Epicurius posted:

(I''m looking at Australian holidays, and you all are really front loaded. After April and May, you've got pretty much nothing till October. Spread your hoilidays out!)

Tunzie posted:

Some of us tried - my state moved the Queen’s birthday, of all things, to try to spread them out more.

Epicurius posted:

(I''m looking at Australian holidays, and you all are really front loaded. After April and May, you've got pretty much nothing till October. Spread your hoilidays out!)

Epicurius posted:

Chapter 21

The Yeerks really have to stop using Taxxons to fight.

Tree Bucket posted:

quote:

My name is Marco.

And I am to cuisine what Sammy Sosa is to baseball.

When it’s my night to make dinner, I don’t order in. I don’t crack open a can of Chef Boyardee and call that a meal. Please.

I go the extra mile.

I use the oven.

I know. You’re saying to yourself, “But, Marco, man, you’re fighting a war against alien invaders. You and your friends, you guys battle Yeerks twenty-four seven. How do you find the time to cook?!”

It isn’t easy. But with a little help from the freezer aisle and a guy I know called Red Baron, it’s a lot simpler than it could be.

Plus, this particular night, I was trying to make my stepmom feel, well, glad that she’d married my dad. Even if I wasn’t one hundred percent behind the whole thing, she made my dad happy. That’s worth something.

A car pulled into the driveway, a car door closed, heels clipped up the sidewalk. Nora, my stepmother.

I threw three paper plates on the table, spread out some silverware, grabbed cups and a block of napkins. Nora doesn’t go for paper plates, but hey, it wasn’t her night to do the dishes.

The door opened. I heard a sigh, the sound of a heavy bag dropped to the foyer floor.

“Hey,” I called.

“Hey,” Nora called back. “That faculty meeting lasted far longer than it …” The smell of Red Baron’s home cooking met her nostrils, no doubt. “Marco!” she cried, entering the kitchen. “You’re really making dinner!” She glanced at the paper plates and decided not to comment. “You’re the stepson of my dreams.”

The woman was a math teacher. I would never really understand her. And now she was going goopy on me.

I forced a smile. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

Another car pulled into the drive. Whistling, then rapid steps up the walk.

I grabbed a few sodas from the fridge.

The front door opened. Dad was all spring-in-his-step, a big smile plastered across his face. His cheeks were flushed. He looked like he’d just struck oil.

“Hello, family!”

Okay, that was more enthusiasm than I wanted to see. And the word family, when applied to anyone but me, Dad, and my real mom, would always sound very weird. To worsen the nausea, Dad pulled a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

They were not for me.

I think there was a kiss. Maybe some mushy whispers. I don’t know. I looked away. I see enough of the “power of love” between Jake and Cassie, and Rachel and Tobias.

“What’s the occasion?” Nora giggled like a middle-schooler and sat at the table.

“Oh, nothing,” Dad said, beaming at her from the chair opposite. “You’re just the most wonderful woman in the world.”

“I know better than that.” Her adult voice reemerged as she set the flowers aside. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Let’s just say things are getting pretty exciting at work. Taking those stock options could be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

The buzzer rang. I pulled the pizza from the oven and cut it up on a pizza board.

“What’s the big deal, Dad? We gonna be rich?”

I heaped a cheese-dripping slice in front of him.

“Well …” he said slowly, “what my team is working on may just be one of the greatest advances in human history.”

“An HBO descrambler?”

“Marco, I’m serious. Discoveries like the one we just made make me want to see you do well in math.” He looked knowingly at Nora. “Or at least pass an exam.”

“He’s right. Mathematics is the language of nature. It’s the universal language. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.” Nora’s face had taken on a weird glow. I wondered how numbers could make anyone feel like that.

The nightmare of my last algebra test flashed before my eyes.

“Dad. Just tell us what you’re working on.”

“I really shouldn’t,” he said suddenly. “It’s secret. Top secret.”

Nora gave him a look. It worked.

“Okay,” Dad said slowly. “If you promise not to say a word … and I mean to anybody … I guess I can give you the basics.”

He swallowed a bite of pizza, then pushed his plate aside so he could lean forward, elbows on the table.

“We’ve discovered what could be thought of as a whole new dimension, yet not a dimension at all. It’s sort of like … Marco, you’ve studied conic sections, haven’t you?”

When would I learn not to ask Dad to elaborate? Engineers, like math teachers, have a way of waxing prolific about theoretical situations that put my feeble mind to sleep almost instantly. Even faster than my math book.

“Forget math class,” Dad said, realizing that he was losing me. “You know what a cone looks like, right? Well, the surface of a cone is the two-dimensional analogue to the five-dimensional space we inhabit.”

I sighed and got up to get another slice. Dad grabbed my arm and made me sit down.

“But a cone is three-dimensional,” Nora corrected.

“Exactly. While the surface of the cone is two-dimensional, the surface exists in three dimensions.”

“Hmm.” Nora seemed perplexed.

“Yeah,” I said even louder. “Hmmm.”

“The cone contains a singularity,” Dad insisted.

“A what?”

“The place where all lines intersect. The place where you can head out in any direction, or in all directions at once. Where you can move in any direction without moving anywhere at all.”

“What does this cone have to do with your work?” Nora’s puzzled look revealed that Dad had just surpassed her in geekitude. Which, unfortunately, only made him more determined to explain.

“We live our lives on just one line on the cone, in a mere four dimensions, including time.”

I felt my eyes rolling up into my head.

“We’ve been stuck on the surface of the cone all this time. When we want to go anywhere, we have to travel on the line. But now, imagine someone notices the singularity. A point with no size, no breadth, no extent. The physical representation of nothingness. By itself, it’s nothing. Yet it’s the starting and ending place of everything! A multiplier of real space!”

“Cool,” I said. “Look, I’ve got homework. Lots of math.” I dumped my paper plate in the trash and walked into the living room. Flopped on the couch and picked up the remote. I’m an advocate of the quick, pre-homework channel surf.

“What are you calling your discovery?” I heard Nora ask.

“I don’t really know,” Dad said tentatively. “What can you call something that is nothing at all?”

There wasn’t anything on TV. An old Star Trek. A new Star Trek. My life was plenty sci-fi. How about some Real World?

“What could you call it?” Dad continued. “Zero, I suppose. Zero-space.”

quote:

I almost swallowed a lung.

I sprang up, looked over the couch, stared into the kitchen.

ZERO-SPACE?!

Nora glanced at me with alarm. “Marco, you okay?”

I shut my gaping mouth. Forced myself to blink.

Normal. Be normal. Act normal.

“Fine … uh, yeah, um, fine.”

I sat back down. My hands were shaking. My head was a rush of adrenaline. How had I missed it! He’d been describing Zero-space. For the past five minutes! How?

How!

I grabbed the cordless and dialed Jake.

“Hello?” he answered.

“We have … ” I said in a whisper, coughing between words to muffle the sound, “a situation.”

There was a pause. I heard a voice in the background, then Jake faking a laugh at one of Tom’s wisecracks. Tom, his brother, a Controller. I waited.

Finally, Jake mumbled, “Twenty minutes?”

“Fine,” I said, and hung up.

Dad was still talking to Nora. “We’re working on a way to communicate through the singularity. Normal matter is dimensional and in theory couldn’t, pass through.”

News flash, Dad: My matter passes through the singularity several times a week. Every time I morph, my excess mass gets sucked into nothingness. A bubble in time.

Dad continued with unchecked enthusiasm. “But we’ve determined that certain elementary particles could pass through …”

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

I had to know.

If Dad was a Yeerk … well, it was simple. I would not lose two parents to the enemy. I would not.

“So, Dad,” I called, striding back into the kitchen. “You can, like, talk to people through this thing?”

“Precisely,” he said.

“How’s that any better than a radio?”

I watched his face, his eyes, closer than I ever have. If he was a Controller, I would see it. The Yeerk residue. The arrogance, the conceit. I would see it. You couldn’t fight an enemy this long and be helpless to sense its presence, to tell if there’s a Yeerk slug wrapped around your own father’s brain. Could you?

“Marco,” he said. “Communication through this singularity, through this Zero-space, would be instantaneous. Unlike light, for example, the communication would actually travel zero distance.”

Dad’s eyes were bursting with excitement and wonderment. No evil, no mystery.

“Just think!” he said. “We could talk to the farthest star in an instant, send information faster than the speed of light. No travel distance at all!”

He smiled, certain he’d floored me and Nora both.

“That’s fascinating, honey.” Her interest, earnest at first, now seemed mostly just polite. She took her bouquet to the sink and began to put the purple buds in water. I sat down in her chair.

“Dad,” I said. “When you say you could send communications through this Zero-space thing, what do you mean? I mean, who would you contact? I know there are some fossilized life-forms on Mars, but I don’t think they’re big on answering the phone.”

Dad rocked back in his chair. “Marco, you’re a prisoner of your education. They teach you about the solar system. They give you a glimpse of the Milky Way. But do they ever suggest how much is really out there? How many very real chances there are that somewhere beyond our ability to scope, in a place so distant our bodies couldn’t hope to live long enough to journey here, life thrive?’”

He sounded so innocent. A Yeerk wouldn’t let a host go on like that. It just wouldn’t.

“What language would you use for the communication?” I probed. “If there’s life out there, don’t tell me they speak English.”

“We could try music,” Dad answered easily. “Or math, the universal language.” His eyes met Nora’s in a look of tender affection.

So pure. So un-Yeerk.

But I needed proof. Proof that he was still just Dad and no one else. Hunches weren’t good enough.

“I should get back to the office,” he said suddenly, standing up. I stood up next to him. “Higherups say that if by the end of the week our team perfects this small device that could, theoretically, send and receive communications through Zero-space, we get to present our findings at next month’s conference. You two know what that means… .”

Dad grabbed me and Nora around our waists and tried to lift us into the air. Maybe he was a Controller. He’d never done that before.

“It means an all-expenses-paid, bring-your-family-along vacation at an amazing mountain resort. HBO for the boy. Pool time for the wife. Raiding the mini-bar for everyone! We can stay through the weekend. Skip town for five whole days!”

“Five days?” I said.

“If you’d rather go to school …”

“No,” I said quickly. “It’s not that. I just thought … ” I watched Dad’s eyes. “You know, the plants. Five days. That’s a long time without Miracle-Gro.”

It was a test. Dumb but necessary. If there was a Yeerk in Dad’s brain, it wouldn’t allow a trip of more than three days. The Kandrona ray feeding cycle is three days. Yeerks aren’t flexible on that one.

Dad looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m going to pull you out of school. No conic sections. No biology. My boy, the plants will survive five days.” He squeezed Nora’s hand. “I’ve gotta go.”

He stopped at the front door. Turned back to us.

“You know what?” he said. “This Zero-space discovery? It’s big. Really big. I don’t think our lives will ever be the same.”

Epicurius posted:

My name is Marco.

And I am to cuisine what Sammy Sosa is to baseball.

nine-gear crow posted:

A roided up fraud who’s never getting into the Hall of Fame?

Is there a sports figure yet who the kids have name dropped that HASN’T destroyed their reputation through bad decisions in the intervening two decades since these books came out?

Epicurius posted:

I think one of them mentions Jordan, who, inability to play baseball aside, doesn't have any major scandals that I know of.

Epicurius posted:

I think one of them mentions Jordan, who, inability to play baseball aside, doesn't have any major scandals that I know of.

quote:

<Impossible!> Ax exclaimed a second time. <There is no way human science can have made such a leap. This is the Yeerks at work.>

“Why would Yeerks use humans to develop a capacity they already have? That’s just weird.”

Rachel looked up from her math book. My ruthless fellow warrior. Rachel isn’t content with the whole beauty thing. No, she has to have brains, too. She actually planned to pass the test we had the next day.

We were at Cassie’s barn, aka the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The place was packed. Vermin of every size and description sprawled out in cages, some scratching, some cawing. Some silent, yet watching.

Ax wasn’t in morph. I felt we were vulnerable here, just after dinnertime.

“Are you sure we’re safe, Cassie?” I said. She looked up from her math book. I tell you, it was a conspiracy.

“You kidding?” Cassie said. “A PBS documentary on lemurs? A Dome ship could land on the lawn and my parents wouldn’t even notice.” Cassie’s parents are vets, the only people I know who like animals - and animal documentaries - more than Cassie does. “Plus,” she continued, nodding toward the red-tailed hawk perched in the hayloft, “we’ve got Tobias.”

<This Z-Space thing has to be a trap,> Tobias said, <A very elaborate trap>

“Too elaborate,” I shot back. “Do you really think the Yeerks would go to the trouble of planting the seed of Z-space technology in some piddling human engineering firm? Then wait for humans to pick upon it? And wait even longer for news of the development to leak out and reach us? That’s slow and uncertain. Not Yeerk.”

“It could be simpler than we think,” Jake said calmly, lowering himself onto a bale of hay. This war had aged my best friend in ways you couldn’t really see. But you could definitely tell that in his mind he was no longer just a kid. None of us were. “Maybe there’s no Z-space device at all. The Yeerks could have put out a rumor, knowing it would draw the Andalite bandits like bees to honey.”

“A rumor?” Cassie said doubtfully.

<It has to be,> Ax declared. <There is simply no way that humans are on the verge of Zero-space communications*

<If human engineers are part of the Yeerk plan,> Tobias reasoned, <that means Marco’s dad …>

“No.” I stood up and began to pace. “The Yeerks don’t have my father. They don’t. Sure, it looks bad. But he’s not a Controller. I tested him. I told you.”

“Maybe he fooled you with that five-day trip stuff,” Rachel said. “If he knew you were testing him, he would have played along. Outsmarted you at your own game.”

“No!” I said firmly, stopping in my tracks. “Look, maybe he’s a dupe. Maybe he’s an innocent member of the Yeerkish team at the office. But he’s not one of them. At least, not yet.”

But it suddenly struck me as absurd. He had to be next on the list. Where was he right that minute? At the office, like he’d told us? Or at the Yeerk pool? And why … why had they let him stay free this long? Did the Yeerks need a buffer, a genuinely ignorant human to keep their cover strong?

Or had they just been waiting for the right opportunity to seize and infest him? Like tonight.

<You must admit,> Ax said solemnly, <it is unlikely the Yeerks would set a trap, yet leave our member of their team uncontrolled. It would be an enormous security breach.>

I felt Jake’s eyes on me, then his hand on my shoulder.

“How do we handle this, Marco? Your dad, your call.”

Jake is a diplomatic leader. He makes it a policy to ask for input. But what I really wanted right then was dictatorship. I wanted him to order us to save my father.

“I don’t know,” I said instead. “What about a stakeout at Dad’s office? He’s there now.”

Jake glanced at Cassie. “Okay,” he said. “A stakeout, starting now. Ax and Tobias, stick with Marco’s dad until he leaves the office and gets home.”

THAT’S when I realized why Jake had looked at Cassie Jake had asked her if she thought I could be trusted. He said it all in one quick glance.

And she’d said no.

They thought I was too close to this. Poor Marco was about to lose a second parent to the enemy. Of course he’d snap.

“Marco,” Jake continued, “you keep watch on the homefront. I’ll check with Erek to see what he knows. We’ll compare notes in the morning.”

Ax morphed to northern harrier and flapped up toward Tobias.

“I want to go with them,” I said. “It’s more likely the Yeerks will try to infest Dad away from home.”

“They’ll take care of it,” Jake said. “They don’t have a stepmother waiting for them to come home. Nothing’s gonna happen without you.”

Did he mean it? Something in his tone made me wonder.

“You can’t be sure of that, Jake. What if something does happen? I want to be there.”

“You will be. Just go home for now. Everything’s gonna be cool.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

I walked out of the barn and started down the road. I didn’t morph to bird. I wanted to walk as a kid. I wanted to pretend for just a minute that a kid was all I was.

But my mind knew better.

Jake, my oldest friend, didn’t trust me to do the right thing when family was involved.

I would show him he was wrong.

quote:

Brrrrrrring!

I jolted from sleep like a SAC pilot at the alarm Ready to run to my plane … start up, take off, fight!

Wait No, it was the phone. And I was Marco, Hie kid who’d fallen asleep over his math book. There was drool on the page. Gross.

Brrrrrrring!

I reached for the phone on my desk. I lifted it up and was about to say …

“Hello?” Dad said in a groggy voice. We’d picked up at the same time. Dad hadn’t noticed.

“It’s Jack, from work.”

“Jack. Hey. What can I do for you?”

The call was for Dad, who was home, alive, and in bed. I could hang up. Should hang up. I looked at my watch. Eleven P.M. Why was someone from work calling so late?

“It’s Russ,” said the flat male voice. “There’s been a car accident. Russ is dead.”

“Oh, God!”

“Russ’s wife is … she’s hysterical, she’s … you know what it’s like. You lost a spouse. We thought you’d be best at comforting her. Can you swing by her place?”

“Sure,” Dad said.

I hung up the phone. Heard Dad head downstairs, still on the line, getting the widow’s address.

I’d met Russ at a company picnic a few years ago. I’d met his wife, too. My mind flashed to the night Mom disappeared, to the terror that wound around my heart when I realized she was never coming home.

“Hmph,” I said aloud. “Sad.”

I looked back at my math. Problem 8. I squinted at it. Totally incomprehensible no matter how you looked at it. Problem 9 …

It hit me. A flash, a surge of insight. Puzzle pieces dropping into place. Not problem 9, but the phone call.

A guy from work had been killed, a guy working on the Z-space project. A call late at night. A voice on the phone saying, “We thought you’d be best at comforting her.”

We?

“Oh, God!”

I jumped up, flung open the bedroom door. The electric garage door banged lightly closed. Dad’s car pulling out!

No.

He was driving into a trap and I hadn’t listened long enough to get the address.

I sailed down the stairs three at a time. Checked the notepad by the cordless. Nothing. The notepad on Dad’s desk. Nothing again.

Where was Russ’s house?

Where would “they” be waiting?

His computer screen was still up - no screen-saver. At the bottom was a minimized “window,” the words Yahoo! Maps written inside. I grabbed the mouse and clicked.

Bingo - 1366 Fairmont and a road map in case I planned to drive. I didn’t. I was going to fly. But I had to call in backup first.

I dialed Jake, punching numbers frantically as I walked toward the back door.

“Hello?” It wasn’t Jake. The voice was gruff and hoarse. It was Tom.

I hung up instantly. The phone rang in my hand and before I could think, I answered.

“Who is this? You just called and hung up on me. Who is this!” Tom had finally discovered *69. I was shaken up, embarrassed. I pictured the Yeerk on the other end of the line. “It’s Marco,” I muttered. “I wanted to talk to Jake. Sorry.”

Tom grunted into the phone and hung up.

So much for Jake. Who else was there? Ax, Tobias. They were back in the woods. Cassie’s parents would be in the way. Rachel.
I dialed. She picked up.

“Do you want to hang out?” I said. Always speak in code. Always be careful.

“Where?”

“Thirteen sixty-six Fairmont.”

“When?”

“Five minutes ago.”

“What we talked about earlier?”

“Uh-huh.”

I set the phone down and headed for the door. I was glad Rachel was the one. If you think a situation could get ugly, you want Rachel on your side.

“Marco?” Nora, standing half-asleep on the stairs. “Where’s your father?”

“Dad? He just ran to the store. Probably had a craving for Chunky Monkey. He’ll be back soon.”

Nora considered for a moment, seemed to buy it, and went back to bed.

I headed out the door. I morphed to osprey in the backyard. It was dangerous, but it was dark. I started flapping hard before my wings had fully formed.

Up and up and up. The streetlights reduced the night city to a simple grid. The Yahoo! map. I swooped down, lower and lower, until I spotted Dad’s car.

Already there!

I dove like a stunt plane. Demorphed in the bushes.

Lights were on in the house’s lower level. Dense, red curtains shielded the windows. Shadows played on the fabric. Strange silhouettes, sudden movements. A struggle.

Where was Rachel?! I edged toward the house, crawl-walking to keep my head below the hedge. I stopped at a side window. Pressed my face to a place where the curtain didn’t quite meet the window’s edge.

“Ahhh!” A distorted voice from somewhere in the room.

Two Hork-Bajir stood rigid guard. Beyond them, two human-Controllers wrestling my father Into a chair … tying him down … securing him next to a portable Yeerk pool!

One of the men was Russ. The “dead” guy was alive.

I stood up. Forget about caution and stealth and security. Forget about everything except Dad, instinct said.

Still, I stood, immobile. Watched as one of the men pushed my father’s head down to the edge of the tank. Dad struggled, a desperate paroxysm of terror. The man slapped him across the face.

Dad kicked the pool. Fluid spilled over the edge, onto the carpet.

I watched, fascinated. Was this real? Was this now?

Then anger and hate reared up like demons inside of me.

“This can’t happen,” I said quietly. “Not Dad. Not again …”

Instinct ordered me to end the nightmare, lunge through the glass, destroy the Controllers, free my father. But you’re an Animorph, my rational mind argued. A soldier. You have to let it happen. You can’t save him now. Even temporary freedom would mean the end. The Yeerks won’t stop till they find him. Find you. Your friends. You have to let it happen. It’s the smart thing to do. The only thing to do.I watched. Dad’s head was forced into the sludge. One eye sunk beneath the surface. The other fixed in horror on the slug that was swimming closer. Closer. Closer …

quote:

“Russ’s wife is … she’s hysterical, she’s … you know what it’s like. You lost a spouse. We thought you’d be best at comforting her. Can you swing by her place?”

quote:

I watched, fascinated. Was this real? Was this now?

freebooter posted:

LMAO. "Hey remember when your wife carked it? Can you swing by and handle Russ' wife, she's being a real Debbie downer, you're good at that stuff."