Saturday morning, we flew out to the same narrow beach on Royan Island. Now that we knew for sure that the Yeerks were there, just under the water, we were very careful.
But Jake still had time to pull me aside over by a scraggly, twisted tree and ask me if I was all right.
"Sure. Why wouldn't I be all right?"
"Because if you were all right, you'd be busy telling everyone how insane this is and how we're all gonna die. You're weirding everyone out, being so tense."
I just stared at him. "You're telling me it's more relaxing for everyone if I act like we're all going to die?"
"It's what they expect from you," Jake said.
"Well, I'll try harder to be entertaining," I said sarcastically.
Jake rolled his eyes. Then he took a quick, cautious glance around. The others were all down on the sand, trying not to notice that Jake and I were having some big heart-to-heart.
Great. Rachel probably thought I was scared and Jake had to give me a pep talk. I still stung from that crack of hers about my being scared of sharks.
"Look, Marco, we're going into a possible battle down there," Jake said, jerking his head toward the water. "Maybe it's time you told the others what's going on with you."
"Nothing is going on with me."
"Marco, your mother is down there."
I flinched. I had been trying really hard not to think about that fact. "How is it going to help the others if I tell them maybe I have my own problems going on here?"
Jake looked surprised. "Marco, I wasn't thinking about it helping the others. I thought it might help you."
I shook my head violently. "No. It doesn't help me to have people pitying me. You know? I went through like a year of pity after my mom died. After she supposedly died. I don't like pity. Pity makes you feel small and weak. I'd rather have someone hate me than pity me."
Jake sighed. "No one hates you."
"But they would pity me."
Jake didn't have an answer to that.
"Hey, are we doing this?" Rachel called over to us. "Or are you two going to stand there all day yapping?"
"We are doing this," I said forcefully. "But I'll tell you right now, this whole thing is insane. Insane! Morphing sharks to infiltrate some underwater Yeerk complex? What has happened to our lives?"
As Jake and I walked back to the others I muttered, "Happy now?"
"Okay," Jake said to everyone. "Ready?"
"I've been ready," Rachel grumbled.
"Everyone remember, this is a new morph," Cassie pointed out. "New instincts to deal with. Be prepared."
See, when you first morph an animal, that animal consciousness can run right over your human mind. It can seize control. And you can't always tell which morphs will be bad. Probably the worst ever were ants.
We waded into the water. All except Tobias, who once again rode on Rachel's shoulder. Four humans, a bird, and an Andalite.
"We're a scruffy, weird-looking bunch, aren't we?" I said.
"And short," Rachel said with a sweetly poisoned smile. "Or at least some of us are."
"We'll all have the same-sized dorsal fin in a few minutes, Mighty Xena," I said to her.
Rachel laughed. She pretends to hate it when I call her Xena: Warrior Princess. But I know she's flattered by it.
"Hey, Tobias," I said. "You realize there are no mice underwater, right?"
See, I was doing my job. Playing my part within the group. Teasing. Joking. Exaggerating. That was my role. Like Jake had pointed out: A Marco not making jokes just worries people.
I waded into the surf. It was rougher than it had been the week before. Two and three foot waves were crashing and boiling around me. The sky was darker, grayer.
I tried to put all my problems out of my mind. I tried to wash away the image of my mother. I remembered her two different ways. As the mom I'd always known. And now, as Visser One, the Controller who had arranged to let us escape from captivity in the Yeerk Pool ship, just to embarrass
her nemesis, Visser Three.
I tried to shove both images aside. But as I felt the morph begin, I thought, I'm coming to save you, Mom. And I also thought, I'm coming to destroy you, Visser One.
The morph began differently than it had during my partial morph in the pool. This time it was my skin that changed first.
Dolphins have skin like gray rubber or latex. Sharks have skin like fine-grained sandpaper. Shark skin can leave human skin bloody just by rubbing against it. It's actually made up of millions of denticles. Those are tiny, mutated teeth. Sharks are coated with tiny teeth.
As I watched, my tanned arms turned gray. My legs turned gray. My chest and shoulders, all gray.
My feet were twisting together weirdly, as if they were a pair of straws I was braiding. When a wave rolled into me, I lost balance and went backward into the water.
My hand scraped along the bottom. When I looked at it, I realized I'd cut myself on a shell. A few drops of my own blood dribbled into the saltwater.
But I had other things to worry about. Besides, when I demorphed, the cut would be gone.
When I tried to stand back up, I realized my legs were gone. I had a tail now, made of gracefully swooping triangles.
Everything on a shark is triangles. Two elongated, joined triangles make the tail. Triangles form the dorsal fins. And hard white serrated triangles fill the mouth with the weapons of destruction.
I used my arms to windmill the water and keep my head up. In flashes between waves I saw the others. A hideous Rachel, with a shark mouth and blond hair; an awesome Ax, with Andalite stalk eyes rising from the bulging hammer's head; Tobias, with feathers melting into gray sandpaper. Not
even Cassie could make this morph pretty.
I felt the teeth growing, replacing my own pathetic human teeth. And at the same time, my eyes were moving. They were rotating out to the sides of my head. I lost the ability to focus and kept trying to aim my eyes, to see in three dimensions like I can normally. But my eyes were moving too fast, too
far. All I could see was a blur of water and eerie faces.
The hammerhead didn't grow out of the side of my head. It grew out of the front. Like pillars of flesh were growing beneath my eyeballs, then taking those eyes out to the side.
My arms shriveled and became sharp fins. I was entirely underwater now. Just in time, my lungs collapsed into nothing and slits like open wounds formed where my neck had been.
I had gills. And shark's teeth. And I had shark's eyes.
But I still had not felt the shark's mind. Not until I was completely in the water and began to move. Only then did I feel the shark's mind, its instincts, come bubbling up through my own human awareness.
It was the movement that set it off. See, sharks cannot be still. If a shark stops moving, he dies. A shark is movement. Restless, relentless, eternal movement.
I felt my fear leave me.
I felt my anger leave as well.
My every emotion and feeling simply lifted away. And I was glad. Because now I was clear.
Now I saw the world with perfect simplicity. Perfect understanding.
The world, you see, is nothing but prey. And I was nothing but hunger. There was nothing else.
No mother or father, no fear or joy, no worry.
Hunger. Prey. Hunger. Prey.
I turned away from the shore and swam out to sea. And then, I stopped. The last vestiges of my human mind were swept aside.
The shark sensed blood.
Sharks had been swimming Earth's oceans for hundreds of millions of years already when the ancestors of Homo sapiens were still trying to figure out how to peel a banana.
People will tell you, "Oh, you don't need to be afraid of sharks. They have more reason to fear humans than humans have to fear sharks."
True. Humans kill far more sharks than sharks kill humans. Will that fact make you feel any better if a shark chomps you in two at the waist? Probably not.
Sharks are killing machines. Mostly they kill fish. In some parts of the world they kill seals. They kill dolphins. They kill whales, when they can manage it. And they kill humans. At least some species do: the great white, the tiger shark ... and the hammerhead.
This was the killing machine I had become. Utterly without fear. Utterly without emotion. A mind with no room for anything else but killing. There was nothing playful, like you'd find with a lion.
Nothing in the shark that cared about family or children. No sense of belonging. Just a solitary creature of sharp, cutting triangles. A restless, ever-moving thing, ever questing after blood.
A mind as cold, as sharp, as deadly as a polished-steel knife blade. That was the mind that gathered my confused human consciousness up and swept it along in the endless search for something to kill and eat.
The shark turned toward the scent of blood. My long tail pushed lazily at the water. My hammerhead worked like a diving plane to let me turn this way and that. My vision was surprisingly good. Almost as good as human vision.
I could hear. And I could feel other senses that were unlike anything human. When fish passed close by, I felt a tingling from their electrical current. And at some deep, hard-to-grasp level, I realized I could sense the very magnetic field of planet Earth. I knew north and south without knowing
the words.
But mostly, I could smell. I could smell the water as I sucked it in, relentlessly sampling. And right now, I could smell blood.
I was aware of the others nearby. I knew they were sharks like me. But I didn't care. I was on the trail of blood.
I followed the scent of the blood. No more than a few drops of blood, a thin, wispy trail diluted in billions of gallons of surging seawater, but I smelled it.
I followed the scent through the water. If the scent was stronger in my left nostril, I veered left. If it was stronger on my right, I veered right. It would lead me to prey. It would lead me to food. The blood trail had come from very close by! I could sense it, and a cold excitement seized me.
Blood! A wounded animal! Prey!
But as I turned and turned again, circling back toward more shallow water, I became frustrated.
Where was it? Where was the bleeding creature? Where was my prey?
The others circled nearby. One of them brushed against me, sandpaper on sandpaper. They were seeking it, too. The bleeding prey whose scent filled our heads.
Where was it?
The shark brain was confused, uncertain. And in that moment of confusion and uncertainty, the steel mind of the shark left a slight crack. Enough of a crack. Enough for my human brain to call up the picture of a human hand, bleeding from a small cut.
My hand! My hand. The human named Marco.
<Oh, my God!> I yelled in thought-speak. <It was me! It's my blood! That's my own blood!>
The others didn't care. They continued to turn in ever tighter circles, looking, searching, marauding for the source of the blood.
<Jake! Jake! Shake it off, man. The shark has you. Jake, come on, man. Get on top of it. Cassie! Rachel. Ax. Tobias. All of you. It's the shark instincts. Fight them. That was my blood.>
It took a few minutes before we were all back to being ourselves. Tobias dealt with it easiest. I guess that's not a surprise. He's a predator normally. Maybe the shark mind and the hawk mind aren't so different.
Ax handled it well, too. Not that Andalites are sharklike. It was mostly that he'd morphed a shark already.
<Yikes,> Cassie said, laughing nervously. <Kind of single-minded, aren't they?>
<No one else bleed,> Rachel said. <I'll be hungry for hours.>
We were a little shaken up. We'd gotten cocky about being able to control animal morphs. But the shark was different. I think at some level, at the most basic survival level, that primitive shark brain was actually superior to our own human brain. It knew what it wanted. And there is a terrible strength in knowing what you want and having no doubts. We swam around the island, back toward the holographically concealed underwater facility.
This time we expected to be able to pass right by the supersharks who had almost taken us out when we'd been in dolphin morph.
We swam right through what looked exactly like seabed, right up to the facility. With dead shark eyes I stared through the portholes. The one that opened onto a busy cubicle area. And the other one.
The one that looked into a more private room.
The guard sharks swam right past and around us, never paying the slightest attention.
<That was easy,> Rachel said. <Let's go ahead and do this.>
<Don't forget: The Leerans are psychic at close range,> Ax warned. <Whatever we do, we have to stay clear of them.>
This was the point where I'd normally make a joke. But just then I saw a woman entering the private office. She was distorted by the convex glass, by the water, and by my own water-oriented shark's eyes.
But I knew her.
And I forgot to find something funny to say.
<Now what?> Tobias wondered. <We got past the guard sharks.>
<Now I guess we go take a look inside,> Jake said. He didn't sound too enthusiastic about the idea.
<Two of the three big hatches are open,> Rachel observed. <Eenie, meenie, minie, moe?>
<Heads or tails?> I suggested.
<One potato, two potato?> Cassie said.
<What do these things mean?> Ax asked.
<These are highly advanced human methods for making choices,> I said. <How about the middle door?>
<Middle door,> Jake agreed.
We swam toward the middle door. From a distance it was big. Up close it was even bigger. It was obviously big enough for the submarine to enter through.
From the outside the tunnel inside looked dark, but once away from the filtered green sunlight from above, we could see that there were lights on inside the tunnel.
We swam around, taking our time and trying to look casual. The open door and short tunnel led to a rectangular pool. A boat dock, obviously. Probably used by the submarine. There were other hammerheads there, too. But still they ignored us.
I rose to the surface, letting my dorsal fin slice its way into the air. I rolled to one side, and raised my left eye above the water. Shark eyes are not made for seeing through atmosphere, but I could still see well enough. I saw a wall of corrugated steel that formed the rectangular boat dock we were in. But other than that I could only look straight up at the rafters overhead.
<We're not going to see much more staying in shark morph,> Rachel said. <We need to get out and look around.>
<As what?> Jake asked. <We'd need something that fit in here. Something these Controllers wouldn't notice. But something with decent senses.>
<Flies,> Cassie suggested. <Everyone except Tobias has a fly morph.>
<Oh, great. I get left out again,> Tobias complained.
<I think the bad guys might notice a red-tailed hawk flying around in their underwater facility,> I said. <Although there are probably rats infesting this place, too, so the Controllers may appreciate your being here to eat their pests.>
<We'd have to morph back to human underwater,> Jake pointed out. <Then morph to fly. All without drowning.>
Scr-EET! Scr-EET! Scr-EET!
<What's that?>
<An alarm! Oh, man. They know we're here!>
Suddenly a rush of hammerheads was coming straight for us. I saw them first as dark shadows in the water. They loomed larger and larger. We turned to face them. But it was impossible. There had to be fifty of them!
On they came, whipping the water with their long tails.
Then ... they swam past. They kept swimming for the far end of the dock. And now we could distinctly hear the sound of a mechanized door opening.
WHRRREEEEEEE!
<Those are definitely not normal sharks,> Cassie said.
<Let's follow them,> Rachel said. <They may lead us where we need to go.>
<Yeah, or they might lead us right into where they make the new Oscar Mayer Shark-meat Lunchables,> I said. <Hammerhead slices, American cheese, crackers, and a cookie.>
We went after the sharks. We followed them to the far end of the dock. A new door had opened. There was actually a line of sharks waiting to get in. The pathway narrowed till soon we were single file.
<I'm starting to think Marco was right,> Tobias said. <This sure feels like some kind of shark slaughterhouse.>
<I don't think so,> Cassie said. <I'll bet this is something more medical. Besides, we'd smell blood if the other sharks were getting hurt.>
<Unless they're getting boiled alive,> I said. <Boiled and canned, and in one process. Then it's Chicken of the Sea shark meat.>
Suddenly I heard Cassie yell, <Ahhh!>
She was right in front of me. And before I could react, I knew why she had yelled. Steel claws reached out from each side and grabbed me just behind my hammer head. The claws held me tightly, but not painfully. I was drawn upward till I was vertical. I was out of the water. My gills gasped in the air. My body writhed in panic.
I saw a line of us. A conveyor belt of hammerhead sharks, all hanging vertically. There were human-Controllers and Hork-Bajir manning equipment boards and looking totally uninterested.
We turned a corner into a second room and up rose a robot arm festooned with tools whose purpose I couldn't even guess. The robot arm arced toward the shark two spaces ahead of Cassie.
From out of nowhere a long, thick needle appeared. It plunged into the back of the shark's head.
<What the ... We have to get outta here!> I cried.
But there was no time. The conveyor belt kept moving. Too fast!
The robot arm moved with machine precision. It plunged the needle into the back of Cassie's head.
<It's okay,> Cassie managed to gasp. <I think it was just an immunization. Maybe.>
But what came next was not okay. The robot arm hesitated. It popped out a sort of metal detector or something and moved it over Cassie's shark head. Then it extruded a drill.
Not like a dental drill. Like a drill you'd use to make holes in wood.
The drill bit spun and it plunged.
<What was that?!> Cassie cried in alarm.
The drill bit withdrew. But a bright steel probe lanced into the hole. In it poked, then withdrew.
A wisp of smoke curled away from the hole as it was cauterized by a green laser beam.
<Cassie! Are you okay?> Jake yelled.
<Uh ... yeah. I guess so.>
And then it was my turn. There was a sharp prick of pain, but sharks don't care about pain.
The drill withdrew. And seconds later, I was dropped into saltwater. In fact, I quickly realized, I was back in the same boat dock I'd been in before. There were other hammerheads all around me. My friends were being dropped practically on top of me.
<What was that about?> Tobias asked.
<They injected us all with something,> Cassie said. <Right into our brains. But ... oh. Oh! Aaaarrggghhh!>
It hit me a few seconds later. How can I describe the pain? You know how I said sharks don't care about pain? Well, this wasn't any pain that any shark had endured. I felt my brain exploding. Like some mad animal was trapped inside my head and trying to claw its way out.
I screamed. <Aaaahhhhh! Oh, oh, oh! Stop it!>
And then, through the water, a sound reverberated. Like a WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOO.
The pain stopped. In its place came a wave of pleasure. It was like the taste of prey in my shark mouth: the ultimate shark pleasure.
<What is happening?> Ax demanded.
<I don't know, but it's kind of nice.>
Then, the weirdest thing ... I felt the shark mind, that simple killing-machine mind, seem to open up. The shark mind looked out through its eyes, and for the first time ever, noticed things that had nothing to do with finding prey.
The shark eyes noticed the pattern of the corrugated steel that formed the dock. The shark sense of smell took note of scents like oil and rust and seaweed that had nothing to do with killing and eating.
<This sounds insane,> I said, <but I think this shark is getting smarter.>
<Like the sharks that attacked us,> Rachel agreed.
<My shark brain just wondered,> Cassie said, sounding amazed. <It wondered whether there would be prey later.>
<That sounds sharklike,> Jake said.
<No!> Cassie yelled excitedly. <Sharks don't "wonder." Sharks can't even form the concept of a future, let alone wonder about it. It's completely impossible!>
<So what does it mean?> Tobias asked.
Cassie answered. <It's the Yeerks. They've altered these brains. That's why the sharks were able to work together the other time. The Yeerks are mutating these shark brains. We just got the first treatment.>
<Why?> Rachel wondered.
Ax said, <There's only one reason to alter the physiology of these brains. To make it possible for the Yeerks to enter them. The natural shark brain is too small, too simplistic for the Yeerks to control. They are mutating the sharks to make them capable of being made into Controllers. They will need to add ear canals as well. So that the Yeerks can enter and leave the brain.>
<A new version of Hork-Bajir,> I said. <That's it! The Yeerks want water-going Hork-Bajir. They need dangerous, tough, deadly shock-troops that can go where Hork-Bajir can't: in the water. What better soldier than a shark-Controller, if you need troops in an underwater environment?>
<Yes,> Tobias agreed grimly. <And what worse nightmare for any peaceful species to face?>
<We have to find out more,> Jake said. <It's time to get out of the water and go look around in this place.>
It was going to be hard and dangerous. We had to return to human form. Then morph again. All in the water. Without being seen, or drowning.
I was relieved to be getting out of the shark morph. I hated sharks, I'd decided. I didn't want to be one anymore. Let alone a sort of super, self-aware, thinking shark.
I was happy when my legs reappeared. When my fins became hands, when my teeth ground and itched away and became the tiny, blunt, pitifully weak human teeth.
But I knew I'd never hold my breath clear into a new morph. I poked my head above the surface and looked around with human eyes for the first time. The others popped up nearby. Tobias looked like a drowned rat. He stood on Rachel's head.
There was a dark ceiling high overhead. And I could hear machinery. But I saw no humans or Hork-Bajir or Taxxons standing around the dock. Maybe they were all busy back in that office room we'd seen through the portholes.
"Looks kind of empty," I whispered to Jake.
"Yeah. We'd better be careful, though. Morph here in the water. It won't be any problem for them fly, I don't think."
He was right. The water didn't bother the fly morph. Something else did.
I focused on the fly DNA within me, and I began to shrink. I had done the fly morph several times before, so I was prepared for the way the spiky legs grew out of my chest. The way all my internal organs melted away, replaced by simpler insect organs. The way my mouth and nose sprouted out to
become a horrible, long proboscis.
I was in the water, breathing air from a bubble, when it began. I realized my head was exploding. And that was not just an expression.
<Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!> I screamed. My head was still maybe two inches wide, almost entirely fly, with only a few shreds of human left. But I stopped the morph instantly.
I stared around me with eyes more fly than human. The watery world was a shattered mirror of images. The fly's compound eyes saw with a thousand tiny, irregular, bewildering TV sets, each tuned to a slightly different channel. And because we were underwater, I saw even less than usual.
But then, by luck, Rachel drifted near. Just within range.
Seeing a morph is always horrifying. I mean, we get used to it, but it never stops being creepy beyond belief. And nothing is creepier than watching a human being turn into a fly. Trust me, that is enough fuel to keep you in nightmares the rest of your life.
But what I had just seen, floating past me in the water, was worse.
<Everyone, stop morphing! Stop now!> I yelled, just as the others all started groaning in agony.
<What is it?> Ax asked. <I am experiencing a terrible pain.>
<I'm not surprised. Demorph! They put something in us.>
<What are you talking about?> Rachel asked.
<I mean when the Yeerks drilled into us, they left something inside! When we shrank to fly size, this thing, this whatever it is, was too big! Our fly bodies were smaller than the thing inside us. We'd have killed ourselves.>
<What did it look like?> Tobias asked.
I surfaced again, human once more. "I couldn't tell. I just saw Rachel's head being all twisted and bulging from trying to shrink with this thing inside it!"
"Some kind of control device," Jake said. "I should have realized! That's why we got drilled when the other sharks didn't. We didn't have the control device in our heads. The Yeerks are using it to control the sharks until all the treatments are done."
<That's what caused that surge of pleasure,> Tobias said. <The Yeerks use that feeling to keep the sharks happy. To summon them and control them. Make them forget the pain of the brain mutation. It's tied to the underwater sounds they broadcast.>
"So what do we do?" I asked.
"We get these things out of our heads!" Rachel yelled. "If we have to stomp every Yeerk in this facility!"
"Oh, good, the subtle approach," I sneered.
"Rachel may be right," Jake said. "We can't have this. Period. We cannot have Yeerk control devices in our heads. We're underwater, with implants in our brains, and psychic Leeran aliens running around. This is seriously not cool."
"There may be hundreds of Controllers here," I pointed out. "We can't just get crazy and get away with it."
"No," Jake agreed. "But we need a distraction. Two teams: one to get to the controls of this place. The other to, as Marco said, get crazy and keep the Yeerks busy. Ax, Marco, and Tobias in the first group. Rachel, Cassie, and me to cause a distraction."
"Finally. We get to do something."
That was Rachel, of course.
<Flies,> Cassie suggested. <Everyone except Tobias has a fly morph.>
<Oh, great. I get left out again,> Tobias complained.
Me, Ax, and Tobias. We couldn't morph anything small with the Yeerk control devices still implanted in our heads. Not bugs, anyway. So how we were supposed to go wandering around the underwater facility without being noticed?
"I think someone might notice a pair of wolves running around," I said. "We need to go airborne. The bird heads are obviously big enough to allow for the control chips. After all, Tobias returned to his normal hawk body okay. Besides, people have a tendency not to look up."
A few minutes later, I was in osprey morph. Ax was a northern harrier. Tobias was Tobias. And we were all wet.
A wet bird is not a happy bird, I can tell you that.
We flapped, unseen, up to the roof of the facility. It was made with open steel beams. You know: like the inside of a Toys "R" Us store. There was a slight curvature to the roof, probably to help carry the load of water pressure.
From up near the ceiling we could perch and look down at the entire facility. There were three identical dock slips like the one we'd been in. One housed the transparent sub. There was no one aboard but a couple of Taxxons doing maintenance work.
We saw two buildings separated from each other by the center dock. The buildings were identical, windowless rectangles painted white. Like warehouses. There were other smaller buildings around as well. The kinds of buildings they use as "temporary" classrooms.
<Big mistake,> Tobias pointed out. <No windows. I guess it never occurred to them they might want to be able to see around inside this place. The only windows look out into the water.>
<They aren't expecting enemies in here. No one is supposed to make it past the sharks,> Ax said.
<Whatever is happening is happening inside those buildings,> Tobias said. <So which one do we go for? Left or right?>
<The one on the right,> I said instantly.
<Why?>
I couldn't tell him that was the building that connected to the big porthole with the grand but empty office behind it. The office I was sure was my mother's. <Because Jake will attack the other one,> I said, <and we can't be wherever he and the others are causing trouble.>
<Fine. Next question: How do we get inside?>
<With incredible timing, that's how,> I said. As we watched, a Taxxon came writhing and shimmying out through the one door. Its sides scraped as it pushed through.
<Next Taxxon to come out, we go in,> I said.
<What if another Taxxon doesn't come out?> Ax wondered.
<Don't you Andalites believe in luck?>
<No.>
<Me neither. How about hope?>
<We believe in hope.>
<Good. Now me, I believe in Jake. See him over behind the left building? The tiger? I think he's just about ready to ->
"Grrrrooooaaaaarrrrr!"
<- do that.>
The roar was the roar of a tiger. A noise that could make adults want to crawl in bed with their teddy bears and pull the blankets over their heads.
The effect on the Taxxon in the doorway was instantaneous. He decided to back up.
<Oh, man! Okay, we go now!> I said. I released my talon grip on the steel cross-beam, swept my wings back to gain speed, aimed for that doorway, opened my wings, adjusted my tail, and blew just over the Taxxon's heaving, squirming back at about fifty miles an hour.
<Yah-HAH! Oh, man, that's still fun!>
A harrier and a red-tailed hawk were milliseconds behind me.
Past the distracted Taxxon without being seen! Through the doorway, way too fast! A long hallway. The end of the long hallway, coming up way, way, WAY too fast!
<Look out!>
<Turn!> Tobias yelled.
<Where?>
<Doorway! Now!> Tobias practically screamed.
I banked my wings and shot through an open side door, scraping my back and my right wing on the doorjamb.
A room. A desk. A chair. Walls! Walls! Walls!
I flared to kill my speed, but not enough.
<Left!> Tobias yelled.
I banked an amazingly sharp left and flew through a second doorway into an almost totally dark room. I was no longer going fifty miles an hour. I was probably only doing about fifteen. But let me tell you: Flying at fifteen miles an hour in a dark room where you can't see the walls is slightly too exciting.
<Tight circle!> Tobias said. <Tighter, spiral down, get ready to land!>
WHUMPF!
WHUMPF!
CRASH! Rattle ... rattle ...
Ax had hit the desk. Tobias had hit the floor. I had hit a metal trash can and gone rolling inside it.
<Everyone okay?> I asked.
<I have damaged my bird body,> Ax said calmly, <but I am alive.>
<Me, too,> I said, testing a painful tail. <I think I broke my tail.>
<Good grief. This is the last time I ever fly through a building with you two amateurs,> Tobias said.
<Okay, let's demorph,> I said. <There's no one around, and Ax and I aren't going to be flying till we remorph.>
With my excellent osprey hearing, I could make out sounds of damage and destruction coming from somewhere outside.
<What do you think Rachel morphed?> Tobias asked. <Elephant or bear?>
<She'd do them both at the same time if she could figure out how,> I muttered.
I demorphed as quickly as I could. We'd done a lot of morphing in a very short period of time. I was getting tired. But still, within a few minutes, it was me as human, Tobias morphed into his human shape, and Ax as his own Andalite self.
"You know, sometimes there's just a very fine line between us and the Three Stooges," I said.
<What are stooges?> Ax asked.
"A stooge is a guy stupid enough to run around inside a Yeerk stronghold wearing a pair of bike shorts and accompanied by a Deer-man from outer space and a mouse-eating Bird-boy. That's a stooge."
I led the way from the darkened room. Ax came behind, tail at the ready. Tobias walked awkwardly at the rear. He's still getting used to being able to be human again.
"I can't believe I lived most of my life with these lame human eyes," he grumbled. "You people are blind."
"Shhh."
I crept out into a brightly lit hallway. I took a second to try and figure out which direction to go.
At the end of the hallway was a door, different from the others. On it was a gold symbol of some kind. Like the presidential seal.
"That way. Ax? If anyone pops out of any of these doors ..." I let it hang. Ax knew what to do. He twirled the bladed end of his tail, limbering it up, I guess.
We scurried down the hallway. I reached for the door handle. I opened it.
"Come in," a voice said.
I froze there. My head poking through the open door. My friends were hidden behind me.
"I said come in," a sinister voice said. "Never make me give an order twice. You won't live to hear me give it a third time."
So I stepped through the doorway, closing it quickly behind me, blocking Ax and Tobias from view.
And I walked on wooden, rickety legs to the big desk in the center of the room. I walked over and stood there. Facing her. Facing my mother.
She looked the same.
But she also looked different.
Same dark eyes, same mouth, same movie-star hair. But there was a different soul looking out through those eyes. They were hard eyes. Mean eyes. Ruthless, pitiless eyes.
Like the eyes of a shark. No more gentle or sweet than the cold, eerie eyes of a hammerhead shark.
I was glad. You see, I had wondered whether she had been a Controller for long before she faked her own death. I had wondered whether it was a Yeerk kissing me good night, and teasing me about my vanity, and laughing at my dumb jokes.
But now I felt like I knew. It couldn't have been, see, because she did look different. I could see the evil inside her. I would have seen it back then. Right?
Part of my brain said, Don't be a fool, Marco. She's among her fellow Yeerks now. Of course she's no longer putting on an act. She doesn't have to hide what she is anymore.
My mother looked at me with the eyes of a Yeerk Visser. "I was expecting four new technicians. Where are the other three?"
I just stared.
"Where are the other three who were supposed to come with you from the Pool ship?"
I jerked my head to break the spell. "The other three? The other three technicians? Oh. Um ... they, uh, they had a problem. I think Visser Three killed them for doing something wrong."
It was possibly the stupidest lie I have ever told. And yet it worked.
My mother raised one eyebrow contemptuously. "If that clown Visser Three thinks he can damage me in the eyes of the Council of Thirteen by sabotaging this project, he's a bigger fool than I thought."
I gulped. From outside there came a huge roar and a beastly bellow. Jake and Rachel and Cassie. Still creating a distraction. I could only imagine how desperate their situation was.
"We're having a bit of a problem with the Andalite bandits Visser Three has still failed to exterminate," Visser One said calmly.
All I could do was nod.
"I see," she said. "Obviously your host mind is giving you some trouble. I'm sure you are aware that your host body is the biological son of my own host body."
Not a shred of emotion. Not a shred of guilt. It was sitting there, using my mother's body, knowing ... knowing, like no one else could possibly know, the agony my mother must be feeling at seeing me.
I nodded. "Yes, Visser."
"You must learn to control your host more completely. My own host is in here creating an awful racket," she said, tapping her head. "But I do not let her weeping and wailing disturb me."
"No, Visser," I said in a whisper. "I will try harder to control my host."
I wanted to destroy that Yeerk. I wanted to reach inside that familiar head and rip that filthy Yeerk out of there and stomp it into the floor.
I was surprised Visser One couldn't see my hate. I felt it vibrating the very air around me.
But I couldn't do anything. All I could do was stand there. Stand there with my arms at my sides and listen to the foul Yeerk Visser, highest of all the Vissers, sneer at the fact that my mother's mind and heart were crying from seeing her son made a slave of the Yeerks.
WHAM!
It was the sound of something large being slammed against the outside wall of the building. I pictured a Hork-Bajir thrown by a rampaging elephant.
Visser One barely blinked. "Well. I guess I'd better see to this little problem outside," she said wearily. "I have to wrap up this shark project and have a thousand shark-Controllers ready for use on Leera within two months. I don't need to be pestered by Visser Three's leftover Andalite problems. That incompetent fool will be arriving soon. I only wish these tiresome Andalite bandits would remove that particular annoyance from my life."
She stood up. She straightened her hair exactly the way my mom always did. I looked into her eyes, wishing I could see some sign there of my mother. Wishing I could tell her, "Don't worry, Mom, I'm not a Controller. I'm fighting, Mom. I'm fighting them and some day I'll save you."
But that would have been fatal. And I'm not someone who does emotional, stupid things.
Sometimes I wish I were.
"Get to the lab," Visser One said. "Go to work."
She walked past me, like she'd already forgotten I existed. I held my breath as she stepped out into the hallway. But Ax and Tobias were gone.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Maybe because Ax would have hurt her. I don't know.
Then, through the massive round porthole, I saw something large and sinuous. Like a snake. But a snake that was fifty feet long and thicker than a Taxxon.
It was the yellow of poison. With a mouth that looked able to swallow a small boat.
It was coming straight for the facility. And on either side of it, like an honor guard, were a dozen Hork-Bajir in bizarre red diving suits, propelled by small water jets attached to each ankle.
I had a feeling I knew this particular snake's name.
I admit, I love Visser One. In a lot of ways, Visser One is a better villain than Visser Three, because it manages to combine utter ruthlessness and coldness with this sense of overwork and this frustration that there's yet MORE bullshit to straighten out.
Me, Ax, and Tobias.
I admit, I love Visser One. In a lot of ways, Visser One is a better villain than Visser Three, because it manages to combine utter ruthlessness and coldness with this sense of overwork and this frustration that there's yet MORE bullshit to straighten out.
As an adult, it's the office politics!
I mean, Christ, that's the most vicious line in this book.
I followed her out in the hall, but she walked away. Swaggering. Like the Yeerk Visser she was. I watched her for longer than I should have. Then I ducked into a side door. The room was dark.
I expected to find Ax and Tobias there. I did. I found Ax very suddenly, in fact.
THWAPP!
A tail blade was pressed against my throat.
"Hey, it's me. Please don't remove my head. I use it sometimes."
<Marco!>
"We were just trying to figure out whether we should try and rescue you or go join the fight outside," Tobias said in his now-unfamiliar human voice.
<We accessed the central computer for this facility. But before we could discover anything, you came in.>
Ax led me over to a glowing, three-dimensional computer display. It was weird, the way most of the place was like any standard, boring human office. Like an insurance agent's or a school secretary's office. But I guess the Yeerks didn't want to be stuck messing with human-level computers.
"Roooaaaarrrr!"
Jake's tiger roar sounded a little frazzled.
"We need to get out there and help them," Tobias said.
"No," I snapped. "They can't be helped by us rushing out there. Visser Three is coming with more Hork-Bajir. He's morphed this giant snake from planet Whatever."
They stared at me like I must be hallucinating or something.
"Look, it's him, okay? I saw it through the porthole. A huge yellow sea snake with Hork-Bajir alongside. Who do you figure that would be?"
<He cannot have had time to hear about a battle down here,> Ax pointed out. <It's too quick to be a rescue mission.>
"I don't think it is a rescue mission. I think it's a coincidence. I think he happened to be on his way here."
"Just our bad luck," Tobias said.
"Maybe not," I pointed out. "Visser One and Three are rivals. Visser One let us escape to mess with Visser Three. This may work for us. But first things first. Ax? Start questioning that computer."
I couldn't believe I was standing there so calmly while Jake, Rachel, and Cassie were probably fighting for their lives. But I guess I'd had a good look at the ruthlessness of the Yeerks. I'd seen it in Visser One's cold eyes. I'd heard it in the pitiless voice that didn't care one tiny bit that I was the son of the body it now controlled.
I guess there are times when the only way to survive is to be as ruthless as the enemy. To destroy before you can be destroyed.
<As we guessed,> Ax said, staring with his main eyes at the computer readout. <The Yeerks are invading Leera. It isn't going well for them. Most of the Leerans are resisting. Since the Leerans are psychic, it's impossible for the Yeerks to deceive them. So the Yeerks have decided to forget about
stealth and go to a straight invasion by force.>
"But it's a watery world, so they can't rely on Hork-Bajir," I said. "It's true. The hammerheads are being reengineered to allow for Yeerks to make them Controllers. The shark-Controllers will be the troops in the war for Leera."
"Great. Now can we get out there and help Rachel and the others?" Tobias demanded. He hadn't waited for an answer. He was already demorphing. Red-tailed feathers were sprouting from his hands.
"Ax, can you find a way to remove these things in our heads?" I asked.
Ax communicated mentally with the computer. <There is a liquidation program but it's heavily encrypted. The only other way the implants can be liquidated is in the event this facility is completely destroyed.>
"What?" Tobias said. "You can't eliminate these things without blowing up the whole place?"
<Yes. It's so there would be no evidence left behind if something goes wrong. But in any case, we don't have a way to annihilate this facility.>
"Ax. How do they keep the water out of this place? How do they keep it from flooding? If it were just air pressure our ears would be seriously imploding."
<Force fields, I assume. Modulated to hold the water back while allowing animal life-forms to enter and leave.>
"Can you reach the controls?"
<Done.>
"Can you turn off the force fields? Without letting the Yeerks know?"
Ax laughed derisively. <I'm an Andalite. No simple, derivative, unimaginative Yeerk computer presents any difficulties to me, you know, unless it's specially shielded.>
<What are you doing?> Tobias demanded, once more back in hawk morph. <You let the water in and we'll all be killed.>
"Destroy the facility and it may trigger the liquidation of these head implants," I said. "Ax, can you build in a five-minute delay?"
<Five minutes?> He communicated with the computer by thought-speak. <Done. In five minutes, millions of your gallons of water will come rushing into this place.>
<We'd better all have gills before then,> Tobias said.
"Yeah. And those who can't grow gills ... I guess they'll wish they could."
We ran from the room. I morphed as I ran. I morphed into a gorilla. We were going into a fight. And although the gorilla isn't a mean or aggressive animal, it is amazingly powerful.
By the time we reached the door to the outside, I was done. Tobias was already flying, and Ax was Ax.
I threw open the door to the outside. Actually, I forgot I was in gorilla morph and opened the door so hard it ripped clear off its hinges.
What I saw was a scene of destruction. There were injured Hork-Bajir lying crumpled around the facility. There was a reeking, squashed Taxxon being munched on ravenously by a fellow Taxxon.
Rachel in grizzly morph, Jake in tiger morph, and Cassie as a wolf had done some serious damage.
But now they were cornered, almost surrounded by wary but determined Hork-Bajir.
Visser One, my mother, was striding toward them, seemingly unconcerned. As she went, she was kicking the wounded Hork-Bajir, demanding they get up and fight. Half a dozen had already rallied to her.
<Five minutes,> I said tersely. <Less. Then, we have to be in the water.>
<With gills,> Tobias reminded me.
<Okay, let's go save Jake,> I said. <That guy. He's always needing me to come along and rescue his butt.>
I broke into a loping run. Tobias flapped away. And Ax ran, tail at the ready.
<At least I can introduce Visser One to my tail!> Ax said gleefully.
<No!> I yelled. <I mean, you guys go help the others. I'll clean up Visser One and her group.>
Ax and Tobias went ahead. I hit the group of Hork-Bajir that was following my mother. They didn't see me coming.
WHAM! I slammed a Hork-Bajir down to the concrete and he stayed down.
SWISH! A Hork-Bajir spun around and swung his arm, wrist blade turning toward me. But he'd already been wounded. He was slow. I was slow, too. But I didn't miss. I drove my canned-ham sized gorilla fist, with more power than ten Evander Holyfields, into the Hork-Bajir's chest. The other Hork-Bajir stayed back.
My mother turned around. "Kill it, you cowards! Kill it!"
One of the Hork-Bajir leaped at me, arms and legs all flashing with deadly blades. I tried to dodge, but gorillas are not exactly fast.
<Aaaahhhh!> I was cut! My left arm was slashed deeply. Blood was flowing out onto my dark, coarse fur.
"That's it! Kill it!" Visser One crowed gleefully.
The Hork-Bajir cut me again, less deeply but more painfully, with a blow that sliced through my rubbery gorilla muzzle. His buddies decided it was safe to come after me now, too.
They were wrong. I was a gorilla. People might look at a gorilla and think, Well, it's only twice as heavy as a big man, and not even as tall. So how strong could it be?
How strong? You could hit a gorilla in the head with a sledgehammer and he'd just grab it and make you eat it. Arnold Schwarzenegger using his entire body could not have bent back my wrist if I didn't want him to. In the wild, gorillas are gentle, sweet animals. But I wasn't just a gorilla. I was Marco with the power of a gorilla. And the Marco part of me was not feeling gentle or sweet.
I grabbed the big Hork-Bajir by his snake neck. Grabbed him with one hand and closed my fingers tight. He slashed at me wildly. He cut my arm again and again. But I held on. And with my other arm I grabbed another Hork-Bajir by the wrist. Then I simply introduced them to each other. The hard way.
They decided that was enough. They left. And Visser One stood alone.
Just me and Visser One. Just me and my mother.
"So, Andalite," she said calmly. "I see you are enjoying the use of all these wonderful Earth morphs. But you must know you cannot escape from this place. However, if you surrender peacefully, I can let you live."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. The Yeerks think we're all Andalites. That's what we want them to go on thinking. We've always worried that if we started talking to them we might let something slip that would tell them we're human.
If they ever find out what we really are, we're done for.
But there was a second reason I couldn't talk to Visser One. See, I knew if I started talking to my mom, I would never be able to stop myself. I'd spill it all out. I'd tell her everything because it's been so long since I've been able to talk to her. I've thought about it many times. Many, many times. All the things I'd like to tell her. About my life. My friends. What I did in school. How I made some teacher laugh.
Visser One's so-familiar eyes flickered. "If you kill me, you'll die as well, Andalite."
And then I heard a rasping, rumbling, almost belching voice. It said, "Ha tu ma el ga su fa to il'." An alien voice speaking an alien language. But I understood it. I felt it in my mind. It was like thought-speak, only this was deeper, more profound. This voice seemed to use my own words in my
own brain.
What it said was, Don't be fooled. Visser One, this is no Andalite.
I spun around. And there, standing just behind me, was a Leeran-Controller, its tentacles waving.
I could squash the big amphibian without breaking a sweat. But I just froze. I froze and looked back at my mother.
It is not Andalite, the Leeran said again. It is a human.
Visser One's face remained impassive. "No, you idiot," she sneered. "It's a gorilla. They are related to humans, but not human. This is an Andalite in morph."
I beg your pardon for disagreeing. Visser. But -
Two things happened then, within seconds of each other.
I broke out of my trance, whipped around and punched the Leeran right in his froggy mouth. And from the nearby dock a huge yellow serpent reared up suddenly.
"Visser Three, I assume," my mother said contemptuously.
<Well, I see you've made a mess of things, Visser One. Our old friends the Andalite bandits seem to be annihilating most of your troops.>
"I'd have more troops, but for your interference!" Visser One raged. "And if you weren't incompetent and a traitor to the empire you'd have cleaned these vermin up before now!"
The massive snake head grinned an evil grin as it towered above us. <No doubt the Council of Thirteen will certainly enjoy hearing your excuses for failure.>
"What the Council will hear is how you've allowed a handful of morphing Andalites to go unpunished!"
<You'll lose Leera for us yet, you half-human fool!>
"Like you've already lost Earth, despite the fact I handed it over to you in perfect shape?"
It was bizarre. You have to understand that there was a huge, roaring battle going on between my friends and the Hork-Bajir. And I was standing there, having just punched out a Leeran. But all the two Vissers seemed to care about was trashing each other.
Politics. I guess it's the same everywhere.
And then a third thing happened. A massively loud alarm that went off. An automated voice bellowed from speakers up in the rafters.
"Brr-REEET! Brr-REEET! Warning. Warning. Containment seals will shut down in three minutes. Extreme hazard. Countdown beginning. Countdown will be in intervals of ten seconds. Thank you and have a nice day!"
I don't know which stunned me more. The fact that there was an announcement heralding the fact that a billion gallons of water were going to come rushing in. Or the fact that the computerized voice had wished us a nice day.
I wanted to laugh. Or at least say something.
But I just ran.
Yeerk computer warnings are extremely polite.
Look, after the third time Visser Three slashes the alarm speaker to pieces halfway through an announcement because it tried to tell him what do to, you make some changes.
Props to Marco for shutting up the telepathic alien by punching it in the mouth.
I mean... it's well and good, but security-wise... you're actually gonna have to murder that alien.
Otherwise, he might tell the Visser something the Visser doesn't want to hear, which helps guarantee a long lifespan?
"Containment failure in two minutes and fifty seconds. Have a nice day!"
<Hah hah hah hah,> Visser Three laughed. <Water rushing in, and you're stuck in that weak human body, Visser One. Is that my promotion I see coming?>
Visser One was red with rage. But she turned and ran toward the office building.
<Yes, you'd better hurry and turn off your computer!> Visser Three crowed. <If you are able! These Andalites are devils with computers, you know. Hah hah hah!>
"Containment failure in two minutes and forty seconds. Have a nice day!"
I was off and running. A bloodied Jake saw me coming. Rachel was just tossing a crumpled Hork-Bajir aside.
<Nice of you to drop by, Marco,> she said. <Did you at least get rid of Visser One for us?>
<No,> I said curtly.
<You okay?> Jake asked me privately.
<No. I'm not. But what we have to focus on is getting out of here.>
Just then, down from the sky, something huge plummeted toward us. Something huge and poison yellow, aiming right for Ax.
<Ax, look out!>
Visser Three's massive jaws opened wide, ready to snap the Andalite up. But Ax dodged nimbly aside. <I am not human, Marco. It's not so easy to sneak up on me,> Ax said calmly.
"Containment failure in two minutes and ten seconds. Have a nice day."
Visser Three reared back up and aimed once more for Ax. This time the massive head came down faster. Ax jumped left and tried to whip his tail at the creature's head. But he tripped. One hoof caught on a piece of debris. He lurched. He stumbled.
<Got you!> Visser Three cried in glee.
The jaws closed around Ax!
But then, with Ax literally in his mouth, Visser Three stopped suddenly.
He stopped because a very large, very angry grizzly had just grabbed his midsection.
<Let him go,> Rachel growled. <Let him go or I'll rip you in two.>
I was shocked that she was speaking to Visser Three. But I guess she had no choice.
The Visser kept his jaws still. He could have chomped Ax in half. But he didn't.
<It's a standoff, Andalite,> Visser Three said. <You have me, and I have your fellow terrorist here. But the water will be pouring in soon, and you'll drown in that body.>
<Let him go!> Rachel said and tightened her grip till her claws drew yellow-and-green ooze from the punctures in the snake body.
<I guess we have a negotiation here,> the Visser said.
I stepped in close, took careful aim at the snake head, drew back my arm, powered the massive bunched muscles in my neck and shoulders, put four hundred pounds of weight into it and punched the Visser in the nose.
<Negotiate this,> I said, as my fist met the squishy-soft snake snout. The Visser's snake eyes flew open. His jaw flew open. He sort of hovered for a few seconds. Then his head hit the ground. He slithered, mostly unconscious, back into the water. A trail of green ooze marked where he'd
been.
Ax himself was covered with the same disgusting green slime.
<Thank you,> he said, calmly.
"Containment failure in one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day,"
<We have to get out of here!> I yelled.
Tobias flapped up off the head of a screaming Hork-Bajir. <Time to bail, boys and girls!>
"Containment failure suspended at one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day."
<What?>
<It's Visser One!> Cassie said, loping over to us, a wolf who'd been through a bad half hour.
She was cut in more places than I could count.
<You should have finished her off when you had the chance, Marco!> Rachel raged. <Now I'll take care of it.>
She lowered her humongous, furry bulk to the ground and went barreling away on all fours back toward the building. Ax ran with her, his deadly tail held high.
<Marco, you know what they're going to do,> Jake said urgently.
I nodded my thick gorilla head. <Yeah, Jake. I know.>
<It's your call,> Jake said neutrally.
<Yeah.>
I just stood there, frozen, as Rachel and Ax reached the door of the building.
<Jake. You and Cassie and Tobias morph, okay? I have to go and ... I don't know.>
<Go,> Jake said. <We'll have gills within a minute. Marco?>
<Yeah?>
<Do what's right. Forget about what anybody thinks. Do what's right.>
That's my friend Jake. That's his answer to anything, I guess: Do what's right. And somehow, he always seems to know just what that is. Or at least he thinks he does. Jake's a natural hero. Heroes always know what's right.
Me? I'm a comedian. All I know is what's funny. And what isn't.
I found them in her office. That's where she had gone to override the computer. She stood, defiant behind her desk, with a handheld Dracon beam.
TSEEEWWW!
She fired! The blazing hot beam of light burned a neat semicircle out of Rachel's right shoulder.
"Rrrroooowwwwrrrr!" she bellowed in pain.
Visser One turned the Dracon beam on Ax.
FWAPPP!
Ax's tail blade was too fast for me to see. But I saw the gash on Visser One's human arm. And I saw the Dracon beam drop.
Rachel was on her in a flash. Grizzlies can be very fast when they need to be, or when they are mad. And Rachel was mad.
Her sheer momentum knocked Visser One sprawling across the room. And when she tried to stand up, Rachel was over her.
It was no contest. Bear against human. Morphed bear against human-Controller. It was hopeless.
Visser One might as well have been a rag doll. With one sweeping blow of her daggered paw, Rachel could knock Visser One's head from her shoulders.
<NO!> I yelled.
Rachel swiveled her head and stared at me with nearsighted bear eyes. <Shut up, Marco!>
<I said no! Don't do it!>
<She's a Yeerk Visser,> Ax pointed out calmly.
<No,> I said again. <She's my mother.>
It seemed like a very long time during which no one moved. Visser One, my mother, had heard nothing, of course. I'd thought-spoken only to Rachel and Ax.
<Your mother's dead,> Rachel said.
<No. I thought she was. This is her. Or was her. And maybe will be again someday if ... if she lives.>
Rachel hesitated. Then, almost angrily, but really with very little force for a bear, she tossed my mother's body aside.
<Thanks,> I said.
But Ax was not so easily convinced. <Marco, she remains a danger to us.>
<Maybe not,> I said. <Look.> I pointed to the big round window that looked out onto the sea.
There, just beyond the glass bubble, was a monstrous yellow serpent. Visser Three.
<He saw us spare her life,> I said. <How do you think Visser Three would interpret that?>
<He'll think she's a traitor,> Ax said instantly. <It's what he wants to believe. And when he sees that we've let her live, it will be all the evidence he needs.>
<I'm sorry, Marco,> Rachel said. The violent frenzy of battle was drained from her now. <I didn't know.>
<Shut up, Xena,> I said harshly.
<Hey, I'm trying to be nice.>
<I know. So shut up.>
Ax had gone back to the computer. <She's locked me out. It could take me ten minutes to bypass.>
The movement was just a blur out of the corner of my eye. I had no time to yell. I just saw Visser One - my mother - grab the Dracon beam she had dropped. She rolled with it, brought it up, and aimed it squarely at Rachel.
Too far away to grab her!
Instinct took over. Not gorilla instinct, but human instinct. The lightning-quick, intelligent, and ruthless decision-making that had allowed Homo sapiens to rule over all the other animals.
I snatched up a chair. It was heavy. Steel and leather.
And I flung it with all the power in my gorilla arms. I meant to throw it at my mother. I missed. Or maybe I meant to miss. Maybe I'll never know for sure.
But the chair flew fast and hard.
It hit the bubble window.
CRUNCH!
The glass wasn't shattered, only cracked. But the pressure of the water beyond was too great. It
began to seep and then to spray through.
My mother flinched.
TSEEEEWWW! The Dracon beam missed.
Rachel reacted swiftly, slapping Visser One with the back of her paw. A nasty blow, but not a fatal one.
<That window is going to break!> Ax yelled.
<We have to get out of here!> Rachel yelled. <Now, now, now!>
<I have to save her!> I cried.
<Run, you idiot, or no one will be saved!> Rachel cried.
CRRR-UMPH! The window exploded inward!
FWOOOOOOSH!
It was like standing with your face two inches from a fire hose. The power of the water was insane! It was like getting hit by a log.
I was instantly knocked off my feet, swirling and swirling in the insane, foaming avalanche of water. The room was a tornado. Water whipped everything around in a spiral. And then something long and brilliant yellow came shooting into the room.
Visser Three! The sudden suction had overwhelmed him and drawn him in, like lint being sucked by a vacuum cleaner.
The office door popped out like a cork. Rachel, Ax, me, and Visser Three's huge sea serpent morph went flying down the hall. It was like we'd been shot out of a cannon.
Down the hallway as the walls collapsed outward.
FWOOOSH!
Out through the annihilated wall of the building. The water spread out a little then and I could see where I was. I looked for her and saw her floating facedown a hundred yards away.
I tried to swim to her. But the current was too powerful.
<Morph!> Rachel yelled.
But I had already begun. I was halfway to human again. I saw Rachel, mostly still a bear, go spinning by.
I caught a glimpse of something with pebbly green-and-yellow skin moving easily through the raging tidal wave. Its tentacles seemed perfectly designed for resisting the current.
The Leeran!
He was heading for my mother.
To save her? To destroy her? To capture her so that Visser Three could enjoy watching her suffer?
I don't know. Because I was swept into the dock and sank down into the deep water.
I gasped desperately for air, my human lungs on fire!
And I searched for the shark inside me.
Jake's a natural hero. Heroes always know what's right.
Me? I'm a comedian. All I know is what's funny. And what isn't.
The sharks were waiting for us. The super-hammerheads. They were there, circling the facility. I don't know how, but somehow they'd been put on alert. Or maybe the destruction of the facility just had them agitated.
<Here they come!> Cassie warned.
If you have ever wondered what fear looks like, I can draw you a picture: It's a dozen hammerhead sharks looking at you and grinning their evil, down turned hammerhead grins.
On they came. And I didn't care. I didn't care. I wanted battle. I wanted pain. And I wanted to inflict pain. I wasn't the calm, emotionless shark. I was a boy who'd watched his mother die. Again.
I didn't wait for the sharks to reach me. I kicked my elegant hammerhead tail and I went for the nearest, biggest shark I could see.
We closed, like two colliding cars. Face-to-face. Hammer-to-hammer.
I twisted my hammer head and planed sideways, then twisted instantly back. My foe had tried to react. But he was only a smart shark, while I was a human. I knew how he would react, and I was ready. Too late, he saw my mouth open. Too late, he saw the rows of serrated triangles. I bit. I closed
my jaws down with enough power to sever a leg.
I ripped a chunk out of that shark and yelled, <Yes! Yes! Come and get some more!>
<Marco! Stop it!> Jake shouted.
I twisted till I was upside down, kicked, turned my head, and grabbed the tail of my opponent. I sawed my teeth and removed the upper lobe of the shark's tail.
<Marco! I said stop it!>
Suddenly a shark body slammed into me. It knocked me sideways. My opponent swam away, definitely not interested in fighting anymore.
I turned toward this new shark.
<It's me, Marco,> Jake said. <It's me. They're leaving. They've broken off. They've lost the signal from the facility and they are escaping.>
I just stared at him. At the shark he was.
<It's over, Marco. Let's get out of here.>
The blood lust faded. I looked around and saw the last of the engineered sharks heading away.
Huge bubbles were erupting from the underwater facility. Explosions rocked the sea, like echoing hammer blows through the water. The hologram that disguised the facility shimmered and disappeared as we swam away from the absolute horror.
We saw Visser Three, a distant yellow ribbon, snaking away.
I felt a tingling, watery feeling in my head. The control chip was being liquidated. Ax had said it would happen when the facility's computer decided the end had come.
The Yeerks are good at destroying evidence. The chips in all the sharks were liquidating. No fisherman would ever catch a shark with alien technology in its head.
<They're done for,> Cassie said.
<Hopefully, at least Visser One didn't escape,> Tobias said. <I'd like to think she is down there, trying to figure out how to hold her breath right about now.>
It was just the kind of thing I would have said.
Jake and Ax were silent. I knew Jake would tell Cassie now. If he didn't, Rachel would. They would all know. Jake and Rachel and Ax already knew.
They knew that my heart was ripping apart. They knew that I was crying. Or crying as well as any shark could.
I had lost my mother once. Now I'd lost her again. Unless ...
I pictured the Leeran swimming toward her. Had she made it? No. It wasn't possible.
We swam away. We swam toward shore, where we would be human once again and go back to our lives. Back to home and homework. Back to saying good night to a picture of my mother.
But nothing would ever be the same now. How could it be? They would all know.
I felt the energy drain out of me. I was exhausted. Exhausted and defeated. I waited for someone to say something nice. Something sweet and comforting. Something that they would never have said to the old Marco.
<Hey. I just heard something,> Rachel said. <Mechanical. Like ... hey! It's the same sound the sub made. That transparent sub. I heard its engines.>
<I don't hear anything,> Tobias argued.
<It's coming from over in this direction,> Rachel said. <Over closer to me.>
I didn't hear anything, either. Maybe Rachel was just making it up. Maybe she was trying to give me some tiny hope to cling to. It didn't sound like something Rachel would do. But there are hidden depths to Rachel. There are times she'll surprise you.
<Thanks, Xena,> I said.
You know, if she'd said, <You're welcome,> I'd have known it was a lie. That she hadn't heard a sub. That she was just trying to be nice.
<Thanks for what? For hearing that sub? For paying more attention than you, Marco?> Rachel sneered in her usual Rachel sneer. <You know, possibly the reason I notice more than you do, Marco, is that I don't use half my brain making dumb jokes and the other half of my brain laughing at them.>
It was a pretty good shot. It made me laugh a little. I don't mind when the jokes are at my own expense. As long as they're funny.
Was it true? Had my mother made it to the sub and escaped? I don't know, and I guess I wasn't totally sure what I wanted the truth to be.
If she was gone ... really, really gone, then I could be a normal person again. I could be sad and then put it behind me. I could be free.
If she was still alive, still trapped, then I was still trapped, too. I still had to try and save her. I would still be a prisoner of hope.
<I'll ask you this just once more, and then never again, because I know how you are about people feeling sorry for you,> Jake said privately so no one else could hear. <Are you okay, Marco?>
Like I always say, you have to decide whether you think life is tragedy or comedy. I long ago decided to look for the joke in life.
And now I had to decide whether, in my own mind, she was dead or still alive. Suddenly I had this flash. This picture in my head. Me and her. Me and my mom. My real mom, free, no longer a Controller. It would be far in the future. Years from now, maybe. Me and her and my dad would sit down together and talk about how it had been. About all the stuff that had happened. All the secrets and despair. All the fear. All the anger and hopelessness. We'd remember it all.
And then, slowly but surely, we'd talk less about how horrible it had all been. We'd start talking about the strange stuff. The weird stuff. The stuff that we could laugh at, now that it was all over.
See, it was my mom who taught me that the world was funny.
And if she was alive, we'd maybe still get that day in the future to sit down and laugh together.
<I'm fine, Jake,> I said. <And I'll be better. When she's free again.>
For some reason the ocean world shark heist chapters are the only ones I can remember from this book. The random controller guard must have really stood out to me.
Next book is "The Warning". It's a Jake book. It's....a book that I don't think could be written today.
typed "Bball24."
Then I typed in my code word, which is a series of letters and numbers.
I moved the mouse and placed the arrow on "Sign On." I clicked the mouse. And I waited while the modem dialed.
My name is Jake.
Just Jake. I can't tell you my last name.
My name online is Bball24. At least, that's close to being my real online name. I have to be careful, even about that. See, nothing is safe from the Yeerks. I could give you my actual screen name and they could find me.
That would be the end of Jake and Bball24. All my friends. And, just maybe, the entire human race.
You want to know what my screen name means? Well, I used to be really into basketball. I tried out for our team but didn't make the cut. But my best game ever I scored twenty-four points. So that's what Bball24 is about : basketball, twenty-four points.
Kind of dumb now, I guess. Basketball isn't all that important to me anymore. And not just because I didn't make the team. It's just that I'm playing a much more intense game now.
I'm an Animorph. It's a made-up word. You won't find it in any dictionary. My best friend Marco came up with it. It's short for "Animal Morpher."
It's what we are, thanks to an alien who died trying to save the people of Earth. He gave us the power to morph. To become any animal whose DNA we could absorb through touch. We use this power to fight the Yeerk invasion of Earth.
That's another word you won't find in the dictionary: Yeerk. But the word has a terribly real meaning. The Yeerks are a species of parasitic slug. Yeerks live in the brains of other species. They live inside Taxxons, inside Hork-Bajir, inside Gedds, and I guess inside a few Leerans. And, unfortunately for all the free races of the universe, they live inside the brain of one Andalite.
They live in the brains of humans, too. Human-Controllers. That's a human who isn't exactly human anymore. A human-Controller is a slave to the Yeerk in its head.
How many humans have the Yeerks infested? We don't know. Too many. My brother Tom is one of them. Marco's mother is one. Our assistant principal at school is one. We've seen human-Controller cops, human-Controller teachers, and even a TV star who wanted to become a human- Controller - weird as that may seem.
They are everywhere. They can be anyone.
And that's why we fight. That's why we undergo the nightmarish transformations into animal form again and again. Because our only weapons are the animals we become.
I connected at 38,400 bps. I wish I had a faster modem, but at least this one is better than my old 14,400.
Some offers popped up on the screen. Would I like to apply for a Web Access America Visa card? No. Would I like to buy a new antivirus program? No.
"You've got mail," the computer said with a sort of mechanical excitement. Like it cared that I had E-mail.
I clicked on the mail icon. Three E-mails. One was a chain letter. I dumped it. One was from some guy who must have thought I cared about politics. It was some stupid conspiracy theory. I dumped it, too.
The third was from "Cassie98." I opened it and read it.
"Jake, oooh baby, you are the man for me. I love your big manly shoulders. I love your piercing brown eyes. (They are brown, right?) But most of all, I love the macho, manly way you boss us all around, snapping out orders left and right. I think of you as the new Clint Eastwood. I must have you all to myself. Signed, Cassie. XXX."
I sighed. Marco, of course. Cassie seldom goes online, and never sends E-mail, and would certainly never send me such a stupid E-mail. Kind of a shame, actually. But this was definitely the work of Marco, using one of his many fake screen names.
I clicked on the "Create Mail" command. I thought for a moment, then typed.
"Cassie, you know I like you, too. But I have vowed not to get involved with any girl until my best friend, Marco, gets at least one girl to like him. And since we know that's never going to happen, I guess we'll never get together. Signed, Jake."
I sent the E-mail, feeling pretty pleased with myself. Marco would get a laugh out of it. Marco always looks for the humor in any situation and he doesn't mind if the joke is on him. As long as it's funny.I was going to sign off because, as usual, I couldn't really think of much to do online. But then I had this weird urge. I don't know why. I clicked on the Internet icon and brought up the Web browser.
In the search space I typed the word "Yeerk."
I clicked on "Search Now."
It took a few seconds to get the answer back. I expected to get nothing. There was no reason for there to be a Web site using the keyword "Yeerk." Like I said, it's not a word in any dictionary.
But then, to my utter amazement, up popped the list of hits.
There was exactly one.
I clicked on the blue hypertext link.
And suddenly I realized we Animorphs were not as alone as we'd thought.
"There's a Yeerk home page?" Marco asked incredulously. "What do they have there? JPEGs of Yeerk slugs? Links to other alien invaders' Web sites? Ads for Yahoo's alien parasites selection?"
I'd gotten everyone together. Not in any of our usual places, like Cassie's barn or the edge of the woods. I needed access to a computer. And Marco's was better than mine, so we all went over to his house. Marco's dad works with computers, so Marco has all the latest, coolest stuff. At least by human
standards. Ax was with us, in his disturbingly attractive human morph. Ax's real name is Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthill. He's an Andalite, which means that his own body is a mix of deer, human, and scorpion, with blue fur and a pair of extra eyes mounted on stalks.
"Why is it working so slowly? Lee. Slooooow-lee?" Ax asked.
I forgot to mention that in his own body Ax has no mouth. When he's in a human morph with a human mouth he finds it very entertaining to play with sounds. The rest of us find it very annoying, but hey, we each have our faults.
"Look, Space-boy, this is the fastest modem around, okay?" Marco said defensively. "Fifty-six thousand bits per second."
"Fifty-six thousand? Not millions, at least? Mill-yuns. Millie-yuns." He laughed. "I like that word. It makes nice sounds in my human mouth."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yeah. It's a swell sound. Sometimes I just lie in bed for six or seven hours doing nothing but saying 'million.'"
Ax was totally unfazed. "That is a sarcasm sound, right?"
"Sarcasm. Asm. Casm. Yeah, that was sarcasm, Ax," Rachel said. But she laughed in a nonsarcastic way and shook her head, causing her volumes of blond hair to shake silkily.
Rachel is my cousin, so I don't think of her as beautiful; but every other person does. She's not just beautiful; she's one of those people who always seems to have a special spotlight on them wherever they go.
But Rachel isn't about looks. I know this sounds corny, like something from a sword-and-sorcery game, but Rachel is a warrior. I don't know what she'd have become in her life if this war with the Yeerks hadn't happened. But once it did happen, it was like Rachel had found her place in the
universe, you know? Like it was all some inevitable part of her destiny.
Personally, I don't feel that way. I'd be happy to go back to being a normal guy. But I don't know about Rachel. There's something fierce inside her.
"So, let's see this famous Web page," Tobias said. "I have to get home. There's some guy trying to move in on my meadow. I have to be there to keep up my claim."
"Another red-tail?" Cassie asked him.
Tobias jerked his head toward her. It was a very birdlike movement. "Yes. And he's tough."
The Tobias I was looking at was the same Tobias I'd first met with his head in a toilet and two bullies holding him upside down. But that was an illusion. Tobias had broken rule number one of morphing: Never stay more than two hours in a morph or you stay permanently.
Tobias is now a red-tailed hawk. He lives as a hawk, hunts as a hawk, and eats as a hawk. But he was able to recover his power to morph. He is still a hawk. But he can morph into his old human body for two hours at a time.
If he stays longer, he's back to being human. But he'd lose his morphing powers forever. And he wants to stay in the fight.
Tobias has been changed more than any of us by all this. Not just physically. He's lost more.
Given up more.
"Okay, here it is," I said as the Web page filled the monitor screen.
Cassie leaned over me to see better. She pressed her hand on my shoulder to support herself.
"This page is devoted to letting the world know about the Yeerk threat! This is not a joke. This is not the usual Internet nonsense. This is serious. This is deadly serious."
I looked over my shoulder at Cassie. "See? Yeerks. A Web page about Yeerks. Do you believe this?"
She shook her head. "No. It's bizarre."
The page had four icons. "Facts about Yeerks," "Suspected Human-Yeerks," "Types of Yeerks,"
and "Chat About Yeerks."
"Have you already checked all these out?" Tobias asked.
Before I could answer, Marco grabbed my shoulder. "You disabled your cookies, right?"
"His cookies?" Cassie asked. "Disabled cookies? Excuse me?"
Marco rolled his eyes. "You really need to think about joining up with this century, Cassie. A cookie is a Web browser tag that can give a Web site some information about you. Not you, you. But your screen name."
"I disabled it," I said, with a wink for Cassie.
"Disabled cookies," she said with a derisive snort. "Computer nerds have this ridiculous need to make up stupid terms for everything. All they want to do is make normal people feel ..."
She went on about it for a while. Cassie believes in real things like people and animals. She's not exactly a big fan of technology.
"So. What did you look at, Jake?" Marco asked me, giving Cassie a disdainful, pitying look, which she ignored.
"Well, I looked at Types of Yeerks.' There's a drawing of something that looks kind of like a Hork-Bajir. But there are two other drawings that don't look like anything we've seen."
I clicked to that page. Up came the drawing of the Hork-Bajir.
"Not bad," Rachel said.
"Obviously, whoever drew that had a pretty good idea what a Hork-Bajir looked like," Marco said.
The other drawings appeared jerkily on the screen. One looked like a standard, Close Encounters of the Third Kind type of alien. The other two looked like a Cardassian from Deep Space Nine and a Narn from Babylon Five.
"Someone's been watching too much TV," Marco said with a derisive laugh. "Ax, have you ever seen any real aliens that look like those?"
"Like that one, yes." He pointed at the fetal-looking Close Encounters alien. "It is similar to the mature phase of a species called Skrit Na. The Skrit, the immature phase, is like a giant cockroach. This could be a Na. Only Na usually walk on all fours like sensible creatures. Rea-tures. Cuh-reeechers. My brother, Elfangor, once had some big adventure involving Skrit Na. But he never told me much about it. The other species are all unknown to me."
"So. What does this tell us?" I asked.
"The accurate Hork-Bajir picture could be a coincidence," Marco said, "or maybe it's a mix of real information and bogus information. Or maybe someone out there knows more about Yeerks and the various species they've conquered than Ax knows."
Cassie nodded her agreement. "A mix of truth and lies, or else a coincidence."
"A 'mix of truth and lies' is like the definition of the Internet," Rachel said. "Equal parts reality and delusion."
"It's the same thing in the 'Facts about Yeerks' and the section about human-Controllers. Not that they use the term 'Controllers,'" I said. "Some of it may be true. But most of it is bull. I mean, it's like supposedly every politician in the country is a Controller. If that were true, the Yeerks would have already won."
I clicked on the list anyway and the others all crowded in close to look over my shoulder.
"The President," Cassie read. "Yeah, right. And the Vice President. Speaker of the House. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Good grief."
"Hey, wait," Marco said. "John Tesh is listed. That I can believe. Snoop Dogg? I don't think so. The Spice Girls? They suck, but I don't know if they're Controllers."
"This is ridiculous," Rachel said. "This is a waste of time. Some typical Internet wacko picked the word 'Yeerk' out of thin air and decided to make a Web page. It doesn't mean anything."
"That was my reaction, too," I said. "Then I saw this name." I used the mouse to point.
"Chapman!" Rachel said. "Huh."
Chapman is our assistant principal. He's also a high-ranking Yeerk and a major supervisor of The Sharing. The Sharing is a front organization. They pretend to be a sort of coed Boy Scouts or whatever, but they are a Yeerk organization.
Which made me wonder. "So if whoever put this page together really knows anything about Yeerks, why isn't there anything about The Sharing?"
Cassie nodded. "Good question. Maybe they don't know about The Sharing."
"Or maybe this whole thing is nothing but a Yeerk trap," Tobias said.
"Exactly," Rachel agreed. "Then they wouldn't want anyone knowing what The Sharing really is, would they?"
"So why mention Chapman?"
"It's a pretty common name," Marco pointed out. "Could be random. Could be coincidence."
I pushed back from the computer and looked at my friends. "If this thing is real, then maybe we have allies out there who could help us."
"But if it's just a Yeerk trap then we could be the mice, and this stupid Web page could be the cheese," Rachel said.
We all just kind of looked at each other for a while, shrugging.
Then Cassie said, "What about the chat room?"
"There's supposedly a scheduled chat starting right about now," I said. "But I wasn't sure if it was safe for one of us to go there. A chat room goes beyond just disabling cookies. How secure are screen names?"
Marco grinned. "A lot more secure after I get done. See, I have the access codes for the system at my dad's work. So I can hack in through -"
"Excuse me, Prince Jake," Ax interrupted, "but if you would like I can encode Marco's software in a way that will make it impossible for anyone to trace you. Why is it called software?"
I glanced at Marco. He's proud of his skills. But the truth is, Ax is about three centuries ahead of us in computers.
Marco threw up his hands. "Fine. Go for it."
"There is only so much I can do with this very primitive system," Ax said. "Two-dimensional screen, an actual keyboard instead of a decent psychic link, rigid codes ... I'm not an archaeologist. I don't know much about ancient types of computers."
Just the same, he sat down and in three minutes had typed in a code that made Marco's system hack-proof.
"Okay. So. Do we chat about Yeerks?" Cassie asked.
"Yep. We chat about Yeerks."
Marco rolled his eyes. "You really need to think about joining up with this century, Cassie. A cookie is a Web browser tag that can give a Web site some information about you. Not you, you. But your screen name."
I wonder if there ever was a goon who regged Bball24 as their user name and if they did, what became of them?
I'm pretty sure they can't tell you. Because they have a secret. A deadly secret. About yeerks. Yeerks.
See,