I told the dying human, "Now you know who I am. What I am."
"Yeah, You were a kid. Like me in some ways, a kid who got in way too deep and couldn't get back out."
"A kid."
"You were trapped. You still are. I've been trapped."
"Yes," I said.
"Was I one of your game pieces? Were all six of us just game pieces?"
I considered that for a moment. Who is to say who is piece and who is player? How often had I wondered whether I myself was just a game piece in a still larger game whose players laughed at my pretensions?
"I did not cause you to be one of the six. You are ... you were ... a happy accident. An unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival."
The human was silent. No begging, no pleading for life. At the end, acceptance came even to this strong, turbulent spirit.
"You said I could ask one more question."
"Yes."
"I can't ask if we win, I can't ask if it will all turn out okay."
"I don't know those answers."
"Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I ... did I make a difference? My life, and my ... my death ... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"
"Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."
"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."
A small strand of space-time went dark and coiled into nothingness.
"Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I ... did I make a difference? My life, and my ... my death ... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"
"Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."
"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."
A small strand of space-time went dark and coiled into nothingness.
This exchange tears me into pieces every single time. Goddamn.
It hits even harder once you know who it is.
"On your right is the door to the Oval Office. The office of the President of the United States, perhaps the most powerful person in the world."
Marco threw me a look. One of those looks that said, "If they only knew."
If they only knew there's someone else right here on Earth possibly far more powerful than any president or king or prime minister.
Jake and Marco think it's better people don't know the truth about that someone else.
Me?
Lately I wonder.
Lately I think it might be better to go public.
Let the world know that Earth has been invaded by an alien species led by someone - something - more evil and more powerful than most humans can probably imagine.
That's what I think.
I'm Rachel.
No last name. You probably already know why. But in case you don't, it's for security. Yours and ours. And it's the same with all of us.
We're the Animorphs. Jake, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, and me.
We're also just kids, at least on the outside. You wouldn't know us if you saw us cruising the mall on a Saturday afternoon or riding a bike down the middle of the street.
Or touring the White House with a bunch of other kids.
Fact: We aren't like other kids.
We were once. But never again.
After a certain point, you just can't go back to where you started. Even if you want to. Which I have to admit - I don't.
To repeat: The Yeerks are here. Parasitic aliens. Their goal is to conquer the human race. And believe me they've been doing it, one human at a time.
But they're getting impatient now. And more aggressive.
Maybe you've seen something about the Yeerks on the internet.
Maybe also about us. Recently, we were involved in a big throw down on an aircraft carrier out in the middle of the ocean.
And there was an episode with some campers that went bad.
The actual events got some press coverage, but the stories were buried on the back pages.
Relegated to Web sites run by sci-fi fans.
The only people who believed the few witnesses with the nerve or dementia to tell the truth about what they saw are pretty much the same folks who believe every nutty story they hear from the media. Most of the American public thinks the Yeerk invasion story is something straight off the front
page of the Enquirer. Baby born with antelope snout. Melted Snickers bar in shape of St. Francis's head cures rabies. Yeah, like that's really happening. Or just another urban myth. Like Batman. And alligators in the subway.
I'm not one of those kooks or cranks. And I'm here to tell you that the Yeerk invasion is not a myth, urban or otherwise. The Yeerk invasion is real.
Yeerks are slugs. They crawl into your ear, fit themselves into your brain, and then take control.
Which is why hosts are known as Controllers.
The problem with human-Controllers? They could be anybody. Your sweet mother, your smelly science teacher, the cute pitcher on the local softball team.
And they could be anywhere. At home, at school, at the park.
In the White House.
I glanced at the window. Saw a red-tailed hawk circle in the sky.
Tobias.
One of us. But a nothlit. A boy who stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for more than two hours and got trapped there.
Along with Cassie, Tobias is my best friend in the world. Also kind of my boyfriend. The kind with feathers.
It's a long story. But because of an inscrutably powerful being known as the Ellimist, Tobias can morph his human self. Even choose to be that human forever, give up the morphing. The fight. Life as a bird of prey.
But he doesn't choose that option.
Because, just like me, Tobias doesn't want to go back to where he started.
TSEEW!
Faint, but oh, yeah.
Dracon fire!
Half a second later, Tobias crumpled in the air. My heart stopped. The wind sucked out of my lungs. Pain. Disbelief. I watched Tobias plummet to the ground.
A scream. Then lots of screams followed by the sound of crashing doors, splintering wood, breaking windows, and thundering footsteps.
"What's going on?" one of the chaperons shouted.
I already knew. Marco and Jake, too. And Cassie.
The Yeerks were attacking the White House.
Men in slim, dark suits, ear wires tucked into their collars, poured into the hallway. Secret Service. Barking orders.
"Please move quickly toward the exits!"
Two guys herded the crowd toward double doors at each end of the hallway. Jake motioned to us and we stepped out of the flow or panicked people. Gathered around him.
"I can't believe this," Marco hissed. "The White House! You know what this means, don't you?
The Yeerks have finally declared war. Open war. No more covert operations."
Yeah. Open war. We'd expected the move, but not in this way. Not an attack on the White House. Oxygen was returning to my body. And along with it, all the hate I felt for the Yeerks. For what they had done to Tobias. For what they had done to all of us.
I was glad the covert war was over. Glad not to have to pretend anymore.
"Tobias is down," I said. "I saw him get hit. The Yeerks want war, they'll get it."
"Everybody slow down," Jake cautioned. But he looked at me when he said it.
Jake never loses a chance to imply that I'm some kind of shoot-first-ask-questions-later loose cannon.
I gulped some air, tried to slow my pulse. Jake is our leader. We do what he says. At least we have so far. But it gets harder and harder for me. Maybe for all of us.
"Split up," Jake ordered. "Battle morphs. Be ready for action. But don't do anything stupid."
No time to get mad about that "stupid" remark. I knew it was meant for me.
More Secret Service men thundered into the hallway. Broke open the doors to the Oval Office. I stepped away from Jake and slipped behind a heavy curtain.
I was going grizzly. My biggest, baddest morph.
Just for a moment - just for the goof - imagine a tall, blonde human girl turning into a grizzly bear, in an animated Disney version. No doubt the process would look graceful. Whimsical. Charming, even.
Let me tell you something. The people at Disney do not know squat about the reality of morphing. Not the people at Nickelodeon or the people at DreamWorks, either.
You watch somebody morph, you could lose your lunch.
My face stretched and thickened.
My shoulders bulked up.
I closed my eyes to concentrate, speed the process when ... "What's the matter with you? Get out of there!"
I opened my eyes. The curtain had been ripped aside. A Secret Service agent glared at me. I glared back.
"Quit fooling around, kid. We're trying to save your life."
I'd risked my life more times than I could count. Fought every kind of monster the galaxy could muster. And he had the nerve to tell me to stop - fooling around!
Tobias was probably lying dead on the White House lawn.
And this clown wanted me to stop fooling around.
The guy didn't know beans about what was happening on his own watch.
That's when it happened.
Something snapped. Some spring inside me just went BOOINNGGGG!
Maybe when he was lying on the ground in ten pieces he would figure out I hadn't been fooling around.
I wanted blood. I could smell it. I could taste it.
Was it the grizzly in me that wanted to kill?
Or was it the me in me?
I didn't know, and I didn't want to know.
I just wanted to take his face off. I snarled and reached out to slice him from head to toe.
Fortunately for him, I hadn't morphed claws yet. Or teeth. Or much in the way of size. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror across the hall. I didn't look like a grizzly. But I didn't look like Rachel, either.
Bottom line?
I looked like a big girl with a nasty look on her face and a serious hormone imbalance. Long dark hairs sprouted from my chin and cheeks.
"Come on, kid. Quit playing. Get out of here."
The Secret Service guy yanked me from behind the curtain and shoved me toward the exit.
But it was too late.
Two Hork-Bajir-Controllers came crashing into the hallway.
The Secret Service man looked flabbergasted.
He was prepared for assassins or terrorists.
Guys in hoods with ragged eyeholes. Guys with foreign headdresses. Guys in American military camouflage garb.
But not for seven-foot-tall alien invaders with feet like T-rex and huge, razor-sharp blades on their elbows and knees.
Hard to believe the Hork-Bajir are gentle creatures when they don't have a Yeerk slug sitting in their cranial cavity controlling their minds and bodies.
Of course, these two Hork-Bajir were Controllers. They weren't gentle. And they were going to kill us both.
The Secret Service agent fired his gun.
I ducked back behind the curtain. Hoped he could hold them off for the short time I needed to finish the morph.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, willing the pace of the morph to accelerate.
CREEEEEK!
My face cracked open. Mouth stretched wide into a macabre grin. Nose spread. Ears migrated. Grizzly bone, muscle, skin, and fur emerged and layered.
My slim human shoulders hulked up and out. Too huge for my human spine to support. My back began to buckle.
My thick, curved claws were still growing when I stepped back out from behind the curtain.
The Secret Service agent had taken cover behind a desk. His face was white, his hand tight around his pistol.
The only reason he was still alive was that the Hork-Bajir had gotten tangled up in all the little chairs and desks that lined the hallway. Skinny-legged French-gilt jobs or something that now lay splintered on the floor.
"Andalite!" The Hork-Bajir paused. Not sure what to do next.
The Yeerks think the six of us are Andalites, the aliens who invented the morphing technology. But only one of us is Andalite. Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Younger brother of War Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Ax was a cadet in the Andalite Military Academy when he got dropped down in the middle of this war.
The rest of us are humans. Make that four humans and a red-tailed hawk.
Tobias.
The one who was lying dead outside.
I stood up on my back legs and screamed.
Only it didn't come out as a scream. It came out as an earsplitting grizzly roar that was enough to drain the last tiny bit of color from the Secret Service agent's face.
I looked at those two massive Hork-Bajir and didn't see victims of the Yeerk invasion. I saw murderers.
I saw killers.
And I saw blood.
I dropped down on all fours and loped toward them.
Dracon fire singed me but I didn't even feel it.
When I jumped, I brought both of them down with one tackle. Blades scraped me. Tore through my fur, into my flesh.
But I paid no attention. Nothing could hurt worse than the pain in my head - and my heart.
Then, suddenly, something grabbed me, pulled me away.
A gorilla. Full grown. Marco, in his favorite battle morph. I snarled, turned on the hulking primate. But he shoved me off balance.
I watched Jake in tiger morph and Cassie in wolf morph rush in to finish the fight.
One of the Hork-Bajir managed to jump up and escape through the window.
I was furious!
This was my fight and I'd been winning. Why couldn't Jake and Cassie find their own Controllers to kill?
Jake pinned the other Hork-Bajir. He bit his shoulder hard and then released him.
The Hork-Bajir leaped to his feet and followed his buddy out the window, escaping in the direction of the Rose Garden.
I heaved myself to my feet and bellowed.
<What's the matter with you? That's two you let get away!>
<Stop it, Rachel,> Jake ordered calmly. <Cassie, you and Marco get to the Rose Garden. They're trying to get the President to the chopper, but there are Taxxons all over the place. I'm hoping those bleeding Hork-Bajir will distract them for a few seconds.>
Taxxons. Huge, voracious centipedes. They'll eat you - dead or alive.
<I'll go!> I raged as Cassie and Marco ran off. <I'll take care of the Taxxons. Let me go!>
<Uh-uh. You're out of this now. You're hurt bad. And you're so out of control you don't even realize how bad. That's why we pulled you off. Morph out, Rachel. Now.>
Jake turned away, an enormous Siberian tiger in a White House hallway.
Something about the way he just took it for granted that he could tell me what to do, tell me when to fight, when to back off, control me when one of the people I loved most was lying dead on the ground ...
Something about it made me beyond angry.
Nobody told me when I was out of a fight. Nobody.
Not even Jake.
Why did he think he could do it?
Because I let him think he could. That's why.
Maybe it was time to show him he couldn't.
I'd rough him up. Not much. Just enough to let him know that I could take him. Any time. Any place.
I stood quietly on my back legs. He didn't hear a thing. He was listening for sounds outside. Trying to gauge his next move.
I was just about to jump him when Cassie came tearing down the hallway.
<Jake! We need you. Marco's down. They've got the President in the chopper. But they can't take off.>
<I'm going out there,> I announced.
<Rachel! No! You're covered in blood. The Taxxons will be all over you,> Cassie cried.
I wasn't afraid. Let them attack. I would tear them apart and enjoy it.
<Rachel! No!>
I bounded through the broken window toward the sound of chopper blades. Toward pandemonium.
Oh... this one.
I think you might have the wrong name for this one, book 48 is 'The Return'. Book 53 is 'The Answer'
Oh... this one.
Not the people at Nickelodeon or the people at DreamWorks, either.
Yeah... wild to follow the best book in the series with uh.. this one.
Also:
lol
The President was the prize in a serious game of tug-of-war.
Secret Service agents inside the helicopter were trying to pull him in.
A Hork-Bajir-Controller was trying to pull him out.
At least ten Taxxons writhed and hissed and hungered for blood.
Several Hork-Bajir hung onto various parts of the chopper, attempting to prevent it from lifting off.
One Hork-Bajir did a chin-up. The chopper blade took his head off.
Horrible.
The head rolled across the lawn, and five of the Taxxons followed in a frenzy, dizzy with the excitement of fresh meat.
The other five Taxxons closed in around the chopper. Tore at the Hork-Bajir body. Their weight caused the chopper to dip. The Hork-Bajir with a grip on the President's leg stumbled.
I plowed in like a tackle!
Broke up the line of Taxxons.
Slapped away the Hork-Bajir body.
Yanked two more Hork-Bajir from their grip on the chopper blades. Now the chopper would take off.
I heard the blades whir. The wind whiffled my fur as the chopper carrying the President rose over my head.
Now the aliens focused their attention on me.
I stood strong. Bleeding and roaring. Slicing and biting at the air as they came at me. One after another they fell.
I was blind with killing rage.
Blindly efficient. A machine.
And then, suddenly, all was quiet.
The only sound was my own panting. The plop-plop of blood dripping from my muzzle.
I ruled! Was surrounded by dead Hork-Bajir. Watched a retreating band of Taxxons.
The roar of a tiger alone is enough to frighten most people to death.
But I'm not most people.
<I told you you were out!> Jake growled.
<Nobody tells me I'm out!>
We circled each other.
<This is a team, Rachel. A team. Do you know what that means?>
Jake bared the tiger's deadly fangs.
Big deal!
A grizzly can take a powerful amount of biting. Jake could sink those tiger teeth three or four inches deep and still not penetrate the shaggy bear coat.
<This used to be a team, Rachel. But you've turned it into a pack. Okay. Have it your way. You want to lead the pack, you're going to have to fight me for control.>
<I'll fight you,> I answered, rage making my voice thick. <I'm happy to fight you. Thrilled.>
I dropped my front paws to the ground and ran.
He didn't expect it, didn't really think I'd do it. I caught him off guard, rammed him in the ribs.
He let out a snarling cry of surprise and flew several feet across the yard.
But tigers are cats. By the time he hit the ground, his feet were underneath him and he was gathering his body for a spring.
I tried to move, but he was too fast!
He landed on me, and I fell sideways. I was sure I could knock him off, but he held on.
I flailed, twisted. But I couldn't dislodge the tiger.
<You can't take me, Rachel,> Jake said, voice oddly calm. <You're bigger, but you're not thinking clearly.>
<I'll show you who's not thinking!> I cried.
But I could feel the life seeping out of me.
<You're bleeding to death, Rachel. It's over. Now demorph.>
<NO!>
<If you don't demorph you'll die,> he said. <Face it, Rachel. You've lost. You lost this fight before it started.>
It was his calmness that sent me further into a blinding, screaming, homicidal rage.
He was so arrogant! So sure of his own superiority!
I thrashed! I screamed! I roared!
But he was right.
I was losing.
<Morph, Rachel!> Cassie. <Morph, now!>
But I didn't. And I wouldn't.
Because at that point, I knew I'd rather die than lose.
<Come on, Rachel!> Marco's voice broke. <Morph. Don't be stupid.>
A drop of blood from a torn ear trickled down my cheek. My neck. It tickled and caused me to jerk my eyes open and sit up with a scream that probably woke up everybody in the house.
Sweat, not blood, was trickling down my face.
I wasn't on the lawn of the White House.
Not in Washington, D.C., our nation's capitol.
No. I was in my bed. At home.
And I'd been having a nightmare.
Again.
"Where's Cassie?"
Marco sat at the keyboard of Ax's souped-up computer.
"I don't know. Did you look in the barn?"
"Yeah. Not there."
Cassie's barn is where we usually meet. Home of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic.
Ax looked at me. <You seem unusually eager to speak to Cassie. Is there something you feel can only be discussed with her? Or can we help?>
Ax is Andalite. Not human. Technologically brilliant, but emotionally thick as a brick. Or at least that's the assumption we go on. Don't ask me why. Because it's usually Ax, who, in his own strange way, seems to understand what's going on beneath the surface.
I threw myself down into the beanbag chair Marco had dragged to Ax's scoop when he realized he was going to be spending a lot more time there from now on.
Reality check: Marco is officially dead. He lives with his parents - also officially dead - and the free Hork-Bajir. Sometimes with Ax. He doesn't go to school anymore. He wouldn't be on a class trip.
I should have known the dream was a dream.
"There's really nothing in particular I want to talk about," I lied.
Ax looked at me and held his gaze for longer than necessary. He knew I was lying. Then he turned to peer at the computer screen over Marco's shoulder.
Okay, so I did want to talk to Cassie about something in particular.
Alone.
Cassie's the only one of us who might really be called "sensitive." Marco, like Ax, is perceptive. But that's not the same thing as being sensitive.
Besides, Marco has a way of making everything I say or do seem reckless. No way was I going to confide in him.
But I did need to talk. I was getting a little worried about these nightmares. The same thing over and over.
Me and Jake. One-on-one. A final showdown.
Jake is our leader. I respect him. I don't always agree with his decisions, but he's in charge and I'm not. And that's the way I want it.
Especially after my one disastrous attempt at playing general. When I stupidly let Cassie get captured by the Yeerks.
So why the dreams?
"Wow!" Marco sat up and stared intently at the screen. "Look at this. On the Net. An 'I was there' first-person account of an alien attack on a nuclear sub. And here's another one. Some guy who doesn't want to be identified. He says he's a human-Controller whose Yeerk has joined the resistance."
<It would seem that the human race is about to learn the truth,> Ax said thoughtfully. <If the Yeerks no longer feel their presence is a secret, this could be the moment they decide to declare open war.>
"Woo-hoo!" I pumped my fist.
Marco shook his head in disgust. "Could you at least try to act like you're not thrilled at the prospect?"
Sometimes it's really hard not to like Marco.
This wasn't one of those times.
"Look," I said, "covert war stinks. It's a nasty, underground kind of thing that screws up your head. Look at what it's done to us. Look at the moral compromises we've had to make. You guys act like I'm some kind of psycho. But all I want is a fair fight. And you can't have a fair fight with an enemy that won't declare war!"
I was semi-breathless when I finished with righteous indignation.
But also with a kind of shame.
Ax and Marco were giving me that big-eyed look. The kind of look that clearly said they didn't believe what I was saying and were pretty sure I didn't believe it, either.
"I mean it," I insisted.
Lame.
I looked up at the branch overhead where Tobias was perched. His eyes fixed me with an intense stare.
Now remember, Tobias is a hawk. So he's always intense and staring.
But this time there was something in his stare that looked embarrassed. For me.
It was Marco who broke the silence. "I don't think any of us should fool ourselves. If this war is exposed, we're out of it."
Ax blinked. <What do you mean?>
Tobias rustled his feathers and tightened his talons on the branch. <Because if the Armed Forces get involved, we'll be pushed aside like some kind of freak show. You know, kids who can do their own stupid pet tricks.>
"And that's fine with me." Marco smiled, folded his hands behind his head. "I'm ready to be pushed aside. I am ready to try normal again. Go back to school, graduate, get a good job, get married, have kids. I'm just living for the day when we can hand this over to the people who know what they're doing and who actually like doing it."
"I'd say we've done pretty good for people who don't know what they're doing," I snapped.
Silence. Three sets of eyes stared at me. Okay, four - because Ax has two sets of eyes. I felt my face turn hot and red. I knew what the nightmares were about. Why had I been trying to fool myself and pretend that I didn't? I wasn't fooling anybody else.
My deep, dark secret was like an elephant in the living room.
A big purple one. With polka dots.
Nobody talked about it.
But everybody knew it was there.
The secret was that whatever we'd been doing, I did like it. And the good guys aren't supposed to like it.
First, I don't know if Rachel is right here....that the good guys aren't supposed to like fighting.
I thought you stopped reading at the Aussieland book?
As a kid, yeah, but then I went back and re-read the whole series, including the final arc this time, when I was about 19 or 20.
I actually remember very little of what occurs in this book except the premise, which is dumb and should've been done prior to the final arc if they really wanted to do it; that and the White House "just a dream" fakeout was annoying.
I believe this is the final Rachel book in the series. She has a couple chapters in some later books, but this is the last one that's totally hers.
It is indeed her last book as main narrator, and wow, what a lousy one to go out on.
I wheeled in a circle. Examined the ground for signs of Yeerk activity. I'd gotten over feeling embarrassed and now I was peeved. Which is a polite way to say I was ticked off.
<You okay?> Tobias asked, flying near but not close enough to arouse suspicion if we were being observed from the ground. A bald eagle and a red tailed hawk are not usually flying buddies.
<No,> I said in my surliest tone.
<Want to talk about it?>
There was a long pause.
<Can you talk about it?>
<I'm not trying to be mean,> I said quickly. <All I really meant was that I don't want to lay something on you that you can't handle.>
Tobias turned below me.
<Gee. Thanks for knowing me so well. Look, Rachel. I can handle it. What's going on?>
<What's going on is that I'm sick of everybody acting like I'm some kind of warmonger, when all I am is ready and willing to do my duty. Marco whines and slacks every chance he gets. So how come I get that bug-eyed look from everybody and Marco doesn't?>
<That's not really fair,> Tobias said quietly. <Marco carries his weight and you know it.>
<Okay. So he's not a slacker. But he is a complainer. I'm sick to death of all that "Why me? Why us?" stuff all the time. How come everybody lets him get away with it?>
Tobias came up besides me, riding easy on a thermal.
<I think it's because Marco is just saying what everybody else is thinking but would never actually say.>
<Right. So how come everybody doesn't tell him to can the complaints and get on with the job? How come I'm the bad guy?>
<The others may not say the things Marco says, but basically, everybody feels the same way he does. They really don't want to be a part of this. On the other hand, nobody really understands where you're coming from and ... Never mind.>
He broke off and glided downward and away.
<And what?> I pressed, following.
Tobias didn't answer.
<You said you could handle it,> I reminded him.
<Okay. Okay. I don't think anyone really understands where you're coming from, Rachel. You're too into it and for a while we were all right with that. But now, it's starting to freak everybody out.>
Tobias poured on the speed and shot past me.
<Would it gross you out if I had a little dinner?> he said suddenly.
He didn't wait for an answer, but went screeching downward, talons raked forward. I watched him close in on the rat. I felt even more isolated than usual.
Was he right?
Did the others think I was some kind of blood-thirsty sadist they were only willing to put up with because they needed me?
Were they really starting to dislike me as much as I was beginning to think they did?
I watched Tobias scoop the rat and head off for a distant tree.
I felt a shiver of revulsion.
Then anger.
Where did Tobias get the nerve?
Where does a kid that's a hawk that eats rats get off talking about me creeping people out? And as far as my being into it? My liking it? Did they really think Jake didn't?
Maybe Jake didn't like the bloodshed. But the larger battle?
Of course Jake liked it. Who wouldn't?
The thrill of command. The adrenaline. The victory!
I flew away, leaving Tobias to his dinner. In the distance, the red winking light of a radio tower seemed to beckon. Marco might be speaking for Cassie, Ax, and Tobias. But not for Jake. Jake wasn't a whining coward at heart, like Marco. Jake wasn't overemotional like Cassie. He wasn't withdrawn and passive like Tobias, or a blindly faithful follower like Ax.
Jake was like me. Strong, brave, and aggressive.
WAIT.
That's it.
Jake was threatened by me.
So threatened that he was turning the others against me.
Trying to demoralize me.
Trying to be sure I didn't take over.
I stabilized my flight path and corrected my course by lining myself up with the red light on top of the tower.
A few moments later, I saw the roof of my house below and veered away from my path.
Tried to veer away ...
I couldn't.
Couldn't change directions. Couldn't change course.
I was flying right toward the radio tower. Toward the red light.
Turn, Rachel, turn!
But I couldn't do anything but continue to fly straight ahead.
Closer. Closer!
Something was wrong. Very wrong. It was like being in the grip of a tractor beam.
It was pulling me toward the tower. Toward the red light.
I was going to crash right into it.
I was going to crash.
And I was going to burn.
"Rachel! Get up. Breakfast in five minutes."
I jerked awake.
Again.
My heart was pounding. My nightgown was wet with sweat.
I heard Mom thumping on my sisters' doors, waking them for school before running downstairs.
It was early. Not even light yet.
I threw back the covers and rolled out of bed. Tried to shake off the creepy postnightmare feeling.
The old nightmare within a nightmare.
Was it over now? Really over? Was I finally awake?
I walked to the window. Felt the cold floor under my feet. Pinched my arms. It hurt.
I looked out. In the distance, I saw the faint red blinking light on top of the radio tower several miles away.
The source of the image in my dreams.
I changed into jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. Ran downstairs.
Bacon and eggs sizzled on top of the stove. The door that led from the kitchen down to the basement was open. I could hear Mom down there doing laundry, opening the lid to the washer and then closing it with a bang.
Mom's a morning person. Full of furious, noisy energy when everybody else is dragging around trying to keep their eyes open.
I turned down the fire under the eggs, opened the fridge, and poured myself some juice. While I sipped, I pulled my nightmares apart, taking inventory. What was real? What wasn't real?
Yeerk references were starting to pop up on the Internet. That much was real.
But we all agreed that it didn't mean a whole lot at this point. On the plausibility meter, an alien invasion ranks lower than an Elvis sighting to most people.
But what if people did start to believe it?
What if this thing started to get some real play?
It probably would mean an escalation of the conflict.
If that happened, there was no way Earth could win. Not unless the Andalites came riding to the rescue. And we weren't really relying on that.
Or unless the Animorphs were willing to dramatically increase the numbers on our side. To give more people morphing ability.
That was dangerous. We'd tried it once.
The result was not pleasant.
The result was David.
David, who had been a kid just like us. David, who had turned traitor and tried to sell us out to the Yeerks.
David, who was no longer David because we had deliberately trapped him in rat morph and left him on a barren rock island with nothing but wind, rain, and other rats for company.
Suddenly, the sweet juice turned sour in my mouth. My appetite disappeared.
That usually happens when I think about David.
I can't help it. Every time the memory surfaces, I feel afraid and guilty.
What we'd done to David hadn't been fair. Though at the time it seemed the only solution. Short of murder.
Still.
The idea was Cassie's. She determined that forcing David to become a nothlit was kinder in the end that killing him.
Sometimes I wonder: Kinder for who? For David or for us?
Anyway, I'm the one who morphed a rat and went down into the dirt with David. The one who bit off her own tail to catch him in our makeshift trap.
It was a dirty job. Somebody had had to do it and, as usual, I'd been the one. I'd been the only one with the stomach to stay with David for the full two hours it took for him to lose everything. To cease to be human. To become a rat. Permanently.
Actually, Ax did stay with me, to keep track of time. Maybe also to give me support.
And when it was over he told me he never wanted to talk about what we'd done. Ever.
I knew it was stupid to feel guilty. David had been a threat. Not just to us, but to the entire fight. He wasn't a threat now. Maybe he wasn't even still alive. How long does the average rat live, anyway?
SNAP!!!
I jumped and juice splashed out of the glass.
"Mom?" I yelled, reaching for paper towels to wipe up the mess. "What's going on?"
"A rat!" she shouted. "I put out some traps last night and I just caught one. Rachel, honey, can you come down here and do something with it? You know those things make me sick."
I felt like I'd been slapped.
My mother knew nothing about my real life. About the Animorphs or the Yeerk invasion.
She wasn't trying to insult me.
But at that moment she was just one more person who thought that when there was dirty work to be done, Rachel was the one to do it.
Still, I ran downstairs.
The rat lay on the cement floor, its neck broken in the trap. I grabbed a cardboard box from a pile of trash, lifted the rat with a broom handle, and dropped it inside.
"Just take it out to the garbage, please," Mom said, shivering a little. Then she turned back to the pile of laundry she was folding.
I carried the rat upstairs, out the back door of the kitchen, and around to the front of the house.
The garbage cans were already out on the curb, waiting for the morning pickup.
It was light now. But I could still see the faint red flicker of the radio tower in the distance. In another few seconds, I wouldn't be able to see it at all. It would disappear into the light of day.
I looked up and saw Tobias circling overhead, dipping his wings in greeting.
My heart lifted a little. Some of the creepy depression receded.
But as he wheeled more and more slowly, seeming almost to be drawing a bead on me, I had a horrible thought.
Maybe Tobias wasn't circling overhead to say hello.
Maybe he had his eye on the garbage. He'd been having a hard time hunting lately - we'd had almost no rain for a month - and I'd been bringing him food from time to time.
At first, it had hurt his pride. But eventually, he'd accepted the food.
My stomach lurched. I threw the rat and the box into the garbage can and shut the lid with a bang. I hurried into the house and let the door slam behind me.
There was a time when Tobias had hidden his feeding habits from me. A time when he had been ashamed of killing and eating. Unbearable humiliated at having, in hard times, to scavenge garbage and roadkill.
But Tobias had shed his inhibitions. Had learned to follow his animal instincts. And to do what he had to do.
Maybe Tobias wasn't the only one who'd faced up to himself. Was that what my dreams were about?
Shedding my inhibitions. Following my instincts. Doing what I had to do.
Becoming the leader.
So, does Rachel have a point here? Not about usurping Jake....we've seen Rachel as leader and it didn't go well, but more generally about how the Animorphs look down on her for her aggression, but when something needs to be done that they're too squeamish to do, they get her?
I don't know that I believe it to be bloodlust per se, it always felt more like a wild adrenaline junkie. It's not a massive distinction, but I had the impression she was addicted to the high of it, not strictly the killing itself.
School was the same old, same old.
Teachers chatted with one another in the halls.
Girls giggled.
Guys punched one another in the arm.
Stupid stuff, but familiar.
Not to me.
Not anymore.
I felt like I was watching everyone from behind a Plexiglass window.
I just wasn't there. I couldn't relate, not to the teachers, the boys, the girls. I couldn't even pretend to relate.
I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the pretense that I was just another kid. Just another kid with nothing more important to worry about than zits and pop quizzes.
I felt like I was going to explode.
But I have some self-control. In spite of what Jake and the others think. I wouldn't say or do anything that might blow my cover. I had no way of knowing who was a Controller and who wasn't. and there were more and more human-Controllers every day.
Chapman, our assistant principal, had been a Controller from the beginning. I watched him come striding down the hall with a bunch of guys from the soccer team. Were they Controllers, too? Members of The Sharing?
They walked past me without a glance. By the time they turned the corner, I was in a fever of impatience.
If those guys were Controllers, we needed to be flushing them out, fighting them. Maybe even rescuing them somehow. Not playing wait and see.
Every hour, every day, we were missing opportunities to resist. To fight. To attack.
The Yeerk presence was spreading and we were still playing a game of defense.
Was that the right strategy?
I wasn't convinced that it was. And I'd told Jake that. More than once.
I looked over my shoulder. Every face I saw suddenly had Yeerk written all over it.
Jake came out of a classroom, cutting the corner close.
"Hi," I said, preparing to stop and talk.
He gave me a curt nod and walked on.
We play it cool at school. Avoid hanging out together much. Giving the wrong people the opportunity to speculate.
But I couldn't help wondering.
Had Jake's nod been just a little colder than usual?
Was there something less than friendly in the way he had walked right past me?
Was he still mad at me because I'd disobeyed him at the White Ho ... Hold it!
I shook my head.
The whole White House thing had been a dream. I hadn't disobeyed Jake's orders. I hadn't tried to kill him.
I hurried on to class and took a seat behind Cassie. I felt unsettled, uneasy.
She turned. "Hey!"
Her smile was genuine and I smiled back.
Or at least I tried to. But the sense of something being wrong was even heavier, more oppressive than it had been that morning.
Was this still a nightmare?
The bell rang. Kids threw themselves into seats, and the teacher strode to the front of the room, brisk and impatient to get started.
"Open your books to page two sixty-three," she said. Vaguely, I was aware of her launching into a lecture about Edgar Allan Poe. About the short story we had read last week. "The Tell-Tale Heart."
I looked down at my book. Flipped through the pages. Tried to locate the passage the teacher was referencing.
I heard the click-clack of chalk on the board. Looked up to see what she was writing.
But I was blinded by the red glare that covered the entire front of the classroom.
Nobody else seemed to notice. All around me kids were looking at the board, busily copying the notes written there.
I looked behind me to locate the light source.
Nothing.
I looked to the front again.
The red glow was gone. I could clearly see the teacher and the words she had written on the board. My head began to swim. What was going on?
I was close enough to the wall to lean my head against it. The plaster felt cool and smooth against my cheek.
But inside the wall, I heard scratching and scrabbling. The sound of little claws. Rats.
My hands began to shake. I balled them into fists to stop the trembling.
Maybe it wasn't so bad to be a rat if there were no people around to make you feel like a rat. Maybe it wasn't so bad if you lived in a place where everybody was a rat.
Behind the smooth plaster, scrabbling and squeaking. Then - I knew my mind was playing tricks on me. Or was it?
Someone was calling out to me from inside the wall.
Someone was crying, "Help me! No! No! Don't do this to me!"
It was David.
David was calling to me!
No!
"Rachel? Are you feeling ill?"
The teacher's kind voice penetrated the screeching alarm in my head.
Every face, including Cassie's turned to stare at me. I realized I was leaning my head against the wall, my hand over my face like someone in pain or distress.
I sat up straight, swallowed hard.
"No," I managed to answer. "No, I'm fine."
"Why don't you excuse yourself for a few minutes," she urged. "Get some water and then come back when you feel better."
Probably afraid I was going to hurl and didn't want me to do it in her classroom.
Can't say I blamed her.
I picked up my books.
Cassie's lips moved slightly. Formed silent words of concern. What's wrong?
I shook my head. Nothing is wrong. Please stay put.
I got to the door of the classroom. Heard the teacher launch back into her lecture about "The Tell-Tale Heart."
A story about how guilt drives a murderer insane. Maybe more insane than he already is. It's the beating of the victim's heart that does it. The beating of the victim's dead heart, buried under the floorboards. Haunting the murderer. Thumping in his ears and his alone. The sound pursues him. Until he breaks. Until he confesses to his crime.
I did go to the water fountain. My mouth was dry.
I leaned over to sip. Reminded myself of all the reasons why I didn't need to feel guilty about David.
I - we - had had no choice. Even Jake had agreed that there was no choice.
"Why do you care what Jake thinks?" a voice behind me said. "A leader learns to live without approval."
I choked on the water. Stood up and whirled around.
Who'd said that?
Who?
There was nobody behind me.
I looked up and down the hall.
No one in either direction.
Was I dreaming?
No.
I was just losing my mind. Or what was left of it.
I pulled a piece of paper out of my notebook and scribbled a note to Cassie. Asked her to meet me in the barn after school. I found her locker, shoved the note through the vents, and headed for the exit.
School was just not a good place for me to be just then.
I killed most of the rest of the day in the mall. A couple of hours of shopping and I felt almost normal again.
By the time I headed for the barn, I was feeling kind of silly. What was I? A little kid? Why was I letting a few bad dreams rock my world?
I was about twenty yards from the barn when I heard the scream.
Half a second later, Cassie came running out of the barn. About two hundred rats streamed behind her.
Rats!
This was a dream.
It had to be a dream!
Cassie was fast, but the rats were faster. They climbed up her legs, scampered over her shoulders, down her arms. Biting. Scratching. Chittering madly.
Cassie's face began to melt. She stumbled to her knees. She was going into a morph.
Momentarily helpless! The rats became more frenzied. It was horrible. I didn't know what to do! What morph did I have that could take on two hundred rats and kill them all before they chewed Cassie to a pulp?
Whatever, just morph, Rachel! Go grizzly!
That's when the second rat pack came running out from the underbrush. They attacked me!
Before I could even begin the morph, they streamed up the legs of my jeans, across my chest, down the collar of my jacket.
There was nothing I could do to stop them!
Or was there?
"Go to the pond!" I screamed to Cassie. "Run run run run!"
I took off.
Rats are small, but try running with fifty of them hanging on to you by their teeth like fishing weights.
Sharp little claws penetrated the skin of my arms and back. Sharp little teeth sank into my cheek.
"Stop it!" I screamed. "Get off me!"
The pond was only a few yards away. I didn't stop to kick off my shoes, rip off my jacket. I just plowed into the water.
The rats could hang on, but not for long. Not if I went under and held my breath. A rat's lungs are a lot smaller than mine. The rats would have to let go or drown.
I sank beneath the surface.
Some gave up almost immediately. Others dug their teeth in deeper, desperate. I thrashed, flung wet rats off into the dark of the pond.
Were they swimming to safety? Were they drowning?
I didn't care. Just wanted to make them to go away!
By the time my lungs started to feel hot, the last rat had let go.
I was free. Except for the heavy, inert weights inside my shirt and jacket. Drowned rats. Lungs burning. Time to surface.
I pushed upward. Hoping Cassie would be there, waiting.
No!
Something closed around my ankle. Yanked me down. My lungs were bursting. I needed air! But whatever was holding on to my ankle was determined to drown me along with the rats.
I thrashed and flailed and writhed ...
And then everything went black.
Unconscious. But at the same time, aware.
Floating. Drifting.
There. But not there.
Me. But not me.
A dream.
Another level of an ongoing nightmare.
A nightmare structured like an intricate, labyrinthine game.
And then I opened my eyes. Peered not through the water, but through a gloom.
My eyes began adjusting to the dim light.
Not a game board or a maze. A stage set. Like something right out of Phantom of the Opera. Very Gothic. Very Poe.
I was in a dungeon. A huge, cavernous dungeon with stone walls slick with damp and slime. Candles flickered in elaborate wall sconces.
Spectacular cobwebs, some as large as bedsheets, hung like shredding drapes from the light fixtures and the walls.
Mice scurried in and out of the shadows. The place stank of rotten garbage and sewage.
Wildly, I expected to see coffins. Vampires just waiting for the sun to set so they could suck my blood, make me one of their own. Midnight killers ...
Easy, Rachel. Concentrate. Use your senses, not your imagination.
Listen! A persistent sound, a trickling. And a dripping.
An answer to one of my questions. Not a crypt. I was somewhere in the sewer system. But how had I gotten here?
I'd stand up. Take a look around. Figure out ...
Couldn't stand. Was in some kind of box. A cube situated on an elevated platform. Maybe a table.
And I was bunched up, squatting with chin on knees, hands at my feet. Not enough room to stand up straight. To fully extend my arms or legs.
I pushed the hair out of my face. It was wet!
My jacket. Still full of bloated dead rats? Awkwardly, I patted my side.
No.
Okay, this at least was good.
I touched the wall of the cube.
What was it? Glass? Plastic? A force field, too?
Couldn't fully lift my head. Rolled my eyes toward the top of the cube. Only a few inches away. It was secured with an enormous, old-fashioned padlock.
Could I break it? Could I break the walls?
No. not with my own arms and legs. I'd have to morph something big. Like grizzly. Something that would let me bust out of this prison ...
Unless the cube wasn't breakable by physical means. Unless I'd kill myself trying to break it.
Okay. Airholes.
I could morph bug, crawl out through one of the holes and ...
Never mind.
My fingers trailed the floor of the box. It was covered with a fine powder. Awkwardly, I held my fingers to my nose and sniffed.
Insecticide.
Whoever, or whatever, had brought me here, had thought of everything.
Yeerks? Something told me no.
Not Yeerks.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be a rat if there were no people around to make you feel like a rat. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if you lived in a place where everybody was a rat.
Footsteps.
I jumped, startled.
Clanging footsteps above me.
I rolled my eyes back toward the top of the cube.
A vaulted ceiling soared maybe thirty feet overhead.
At the top was a small manhole cover.
And leading from the cover was a rusted iron staircase that snaked down the far wall like a fire escape.
Once for the sewer workers.
Now for whatever lunatic had constructed this macabre den.
The two guys clanging down the staircase definitely did not work for the utility company.
They reached the bottom. Brushed the hanging cobwebs aside like they were parting a curtain. And approached my cube.
Two guys. Late teens.
Neither looked bright enough to be the mastermind behind this nightmare scenario. Definitely not the brains of the operation, Rachel.
One was tall and skinny. He wore dirty, torn jeans and a black T-shirt. There was a tattoo of a rat on his right cheek.
The other one was short and fat. He also wore dirty, torn jeans. But his T-shirt screamed The Grateful Dead in psychedelic swirls and acid-hot colors. Over that he wore a light blue windbreaker.
His hair was pulled into a thin, greasy ponytail.
There is just no accounting for taste.
These guys were nothing. I could take punks like these.
These guys looked like they survived on a diet of Twinkies and 7UP.
They were mine.
I'd say nothing.
I'd wait for them to tell me what was going on.
What they wanted.
Who they were working for.
What they'd done with Cassie.
And then I'd make them sorry they'd ever messed with me.
Tattoo looked at Grease. "Here it is, man. Just like he said."
Grease looked around, nodded. "Yeah, dude. This is the place. So I guess now's the time. Now is definitely the time ... I guess."
Neither of the punks looked at me. Not in the face, anyway.
This was so not their deal.
Then, whose? Whose!
Stay calm, Rachel. Stay calm.
Assess before you act.
Don't do anything stupid.
Grease reached into his jacket pocket. I saw now that it was bulging. Slowly, carefully he produced ...
A rat.
Of course. Of course.
Dreams of rats, rats in the walls, rats in the basement, rats in my shirt ...
If you weren't such a harsh person, Rachel ...
Gently, Grease put the rat down on the table or platform. Placed it right in front of me, just on the other side of the clear wall of the cube.
We were inches apart, me and the rat.
It was large.
A rat that gazed up at me with a strange intelligence in its little beady eyes.
A rat that looked at me as if it knew something important about me.
As if it recognized me.
I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!
One of its own.
iIf you weren't such a harsh person ...
Of course. Of course.
<Hello, Rachel,> said the rat. <Did you miss me?>
I wasn't surprised.
I wasn't scared, either.
This was a dream. Just another dream.
I'd wakened from the others. I'd wake from this one, too.
"David," I said, feeling more curious than anything else.
I was smarter than any of you ...
<Surprised?>
"No," I answered truthfully.
I shifted, tried to find some way to be comfortable inside the cube. My right foot was falling asleep. My lower back was beginning to ache.
It was time to wake up.
<Scared?> the rat named David asked.
I was smarter ...
"No," I answered, truthful again.
You can't judge me!
And then the rat chuckled.
<Oh, well, it's still early. And no, Rachel, this isn't a dream. You're not going to wake up. Not this time.>
<Would you by any chance want to know how I got here?> David asked abruptly. He scurried along the outside wall of the cube. Nose quivering. Malevolent, beady rat eyes shining.
Satisfying himself that I was really, truly trapped.
<Would you be any chance what to know what it was like after you abandoned me on that rock island? What it was like all those months alone? Barely surviving? Trying not to go crazy?>
Suddenly, and certainly, I knew this was not a dream.
Suddenly, I felt dread - heavy, leaden, and cold - draining down my limbs.
It has to work or we ... all of us ... we will have to become killers.
I didn't want to know David's story. Didn't want to hear anything he had to say.
I could imagine it all well enough. I had imagined it. Over and over. Even when I didn't want to. Even when I had tried not to.
And when I did imagine David's situation, when the grim images of isolation invaded my brain, I invariably broke out in a cold sweat.
David sat up on his hind legs, his little pink nose twitching in the air. Searching for food?
<You didn't have the guts to kill me, Rachel. So you left me on a rock and hoped that nature would do your dirty work for you.>
David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was.
I felt a hot flush cover my neck and face. He was right. We had. David had zeroed in on the discomfiting truth.
<It was horrible, Rachel,> he went on.
His voice was controlled, but barely. In it I heard incipient mania. Madness.
<It was horrible being a rat with human intelligence. Do you know what that means? It means that every time I was forced to eat a piece of putrefying flesh, my human brain was revolted. Every single day, the rat's need to survive made me do things my human brain found humiliating. Degrading. Gross.>
"I feel that way every time I eat in the school cafeteria," I said. Determined not to let him see he was getting to me.
<Leave the one-liners to Marco,> David snapped. <He's good at being funny. Sometimes. But you're good at dirty work.>
I recoiled.
Maybe David was perceptive. Maybe he just had a good memory.
]<Yes, I'm smart,> he said.
As if he'd read my mind!
<That's what got me into trouble with you Animorphs in the first place. But it's also what saved my life on that island. And it's what's going to bring me back and put me on top.>
"What are you talking about?"
Even to my own ears my voice was thin. Uneasy.
<I'm talking about beating the Animorphs, the Yeerks, and the entire human race,> David said, gleeful now. <Life, like being the smartest rat on an island of rock and rodents, is what you make it, Rachel. You Animorphs thought you were condemning me to a fat worse than death. But I turned the
experience into an opportunity. An opportunity to develop my intelligence to an almost supernatural level.>
Suddenly, David the rat scampered in a circle. Then another, tighter. Faster. Then another. Like a rodent whirling dervish. Or like he was trying to throw off some bad feeling. Or a bad itch.
After about ten revolutions, he came to a rest. Once again facing me.
Briefly I thought of making a snide remark about his getting himself some Prozac or Lithium or whatever. But I kept my mouth shut.
David spoke. His voice breathless from the manic exertion.
<At first, the monotony, the loneliness, was unbelievable. Enduring day after endless day on that rock, exposed to the elements, alone except for thousands of other rats, marooned, somehow, like me. But I survived, Rachel. Oh, yes. And eventually I befriended a few of my more intelligent brothers and sisters. I promised to lead them off the island if they would bring me food and obey me. Long story short, they did. How could they not? They were compelled to obey. They knew a natural-born leader when they saw one. And now my forces are here.>
"Forces?" I laughed. He really was insane! "What forces?"
David laughed back, mimicking me.
<The forces of David. You see, I escaped the island with a few select lieutenants.>
"I thought rats couldn't swim."
They get stuck in your shirt, weigh you down.
Terrify you.
<Some can. Some can't,> David said. <But it never came to that because not long ago a group of naturalists came out to the island to count the bird population. They came, of course, in a boat. You hadn't foreseen that possibility, had you?>
I hadn't.
<I was smarter than any of you.>
It hadn't occurred to any of us that anybody would find a reason to visit that godforsaken pile of rock.
<There was some miserable little species of bird on the island. Stupid birds, but their eggs were delicious. Anyway, while the naturalists were clopping around counting nests, I boarded the boat with my lieutenants and hid. A few hours later, we were back on dry land.>
David paused. If he was waiting for applause, he'd have a very long wait.
<I sent my lieutenants out to recruit,> he went on, voice growing more excited with each syllable. <They did an excellent job. I now have a force over two hundred strong. But I'm not finished yet. Oh, no. do you have any idea how many rats there are in the world, Rachel? Billions. Maybe trillions. And I will lead them all.>
Okay.
"So now what?"
<You saw what my forces can do, back at the barn. With armies of rats, and a few more of these two,> David said, gesturing toward the punks with his twitching nose, <no one can stop me.>
I looked at the two witless thugs. David's willing hands and feet. Maybe I could stir up a little dissension.
"You guys realize you're working for a rat, don't you?" I said.
Tattoo shrugged. "He pays good."
"He pays good?" I snorted. "What are you talking about? He's a rat. You're working for cheese?"
David laughed wildly. <A rat can go many places a human cannot, Rachel. You should know that. Into banks. Into businesses. Places where money is kept. Lots of money. I steal it. A few bills at a time. It's hard work but it's paid off. Over the last few months, I've accumulated two hundred and twelve thousand dollars.>
I saw Tattoo and Grease exchange a glance. Tattoo swallowed hard. So did Grease. Just thinking about money was making them salivate.
<The money is safe in a place no human could possibly find,> David said. To his two buddies as well as me. <And there's more where that came from.>
"So what am I doing here?" I asked. "If you're poised to rule the world, what do you want with me?"
David laughed.
<Can't you guess? I want justice. I want poetic justice. I'm going to do to you what you did to me. Trap you. Take away your freedom of choice.>
NOOOOO!
David stopped his nervous twitching and pacing. Came to sit perfectly still, tiny black eyes on mine.
<I'm going to make you become a rat. Permanently.>
Jesus how insufferable can this dude get
Does he really believe he's gonna take over the world with rats? Somehow he's actually going to make a working military of a billion rats? While an active invasion is happening, no less?