Animorphs #21: The Threat
I could not stand to look at the thing.
<Marco?> I cried. <MARCO!>
Marco trapped in some hideous, oversized flea body? And Cassie ... What
had happened to Cassie?
Suddenly, over the edge of the table, she appeared. She was fully
demorphed. Her own self, even though I was still only halfway through the
process.
She looked right at Marco. She placed her hands on his sides, ignoring the
sting of his bristles as they poked into her skin.
The flea ... Marco ... tried to jump. But the legs which could fire a flea
through the air were too weak to move the huge thing he had become.
"Come on, Marco," Cassie said calmly, "Clear your mind of all the fear. You
can do this. You will morph. Focus on the picture of yourself. Form the
picture in your mind. Let go of the fear and focus on the picture of your own
body."
We were all demorphing. Rachel's head rose up above the table edge, then
David, Ax. One by one they assumed their own forms. One by one they
registered horror on their faces.
We all stared. Stared at the monstrous flea. And at Cassie.
And then, slowly, slowly, the armor plate began to soften into flesh. Slowly
the mouthparts retreated. The spiked helmet melted into hair.
Slowly, slowly, Marco emerged.
At last he was sitting, his own self again, on the edge of the table. He looked
at Cassie with his own, human eyes, and he did something I didn't think
Marco was capable of. He put his arms around Cassie's shoulders and
sobbed.
"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, Cassie. You saved my life."
The rest of us were left staring at Cassie with expressions you could only
describe as awe.
Rachel moved close to me and whispered in my ear. "Well, that sent a few
chills up my spine."
I nodded. "Oh, yeah."
"That was like some kind of miracle," David said.
Marco slid off the table and wiped away his tears with the heel of his hand.
Ax sent me one of those hard-to-define Andalite smiles, something they do
with their eyes alone. <I don't believe in miracles. I always said Cassie had a
talent for morphing. And yet ... this is something I have not seen before.>
"Okay," Marco said, snapping us all out of our trance. "Anyone bothered to
notice where we are?"
I shook myself back to reality. "Yeah. I noticed before when we flew past
earlier. That's why I didn't come here. Until we had no other choice. Ax!
Stay alert, keep your tail ready. Rachel? We may need some firepower."
'What the ... what is all this stuff?" David wondered, looking around the
room. "And look at this room! It's like, huge!"
<This, unless I am mistaken,> Ax said calmly, <is a small-scale, portable
Yeerk pool.>
We were standing in one corner of the ballroom. It was three times the size
of our school cafeteria. There were rows of long tables, covered in white
table cloths. Overhead were massive crystal chandeliers. A red carpet with
a floral pattern was all around us. All around, except in a circle where we
were standing. At each corner of the room stood a massive, ornamental
marble pillar, maybe ten feet in diameter.
And yet here, in one corner of the room, was a stainless steel tub about half
as big as a backyard hot tub. Right where a pillar should have been.
"No way!" Rachel said, even as she began to morph into a grizzly bear.
"Someone would have noticed, duh. There are security guys everywhere."
At that point her mouth became a muzzle.
"Rachel's right, there's no way to hide all this here," I agreed. "Unless..."
Ax nodded. <Yes, Prince Jake. I believe we are standing inside a hologram.>
-------------------
Animorphs #22: The Solution
Ax came running back, just as I was climbing back onto firm ground. I was
shaking.
<I heard you shouting,> he said.
"David was here," I said. "He tricked us. We have to get down to Jake and
--."
I heard the sound of many voices. The police had gained entry.
I cursed angrily under my breath. "We'll have to hold them off!" I said.
<No,> Ax said. <Jake is unconscious. We cannot move him, he is far too
large. Your police will call for medical help.>
I took a deep breath. He was right. "They'll call Cassie's Mom. She's the
closest exotic animal veterinarian. But what if there are Controllers among
these cops? We need to stay with him."
<Agreed. And we must hope he revives within the next hour and a half,> Ax
added. <Otherwise he will be trapped in morph.>
Flashlights were playing across the floor down the hall. The police turned
away from us, heading toward the J.C. Penny and temporarily out of sight.
'We have to move fast. They'll be back."
We raced down the stationary escalator and rushed to Jake's side. Up close
I could see one of the torn veins in his neck, still pumping slowly, still
bleeding. But he was alive, at least. Alive. Unlike Tobias.
<What morph?>
"Flea would be best, but they're almost blind and almost deaf. I want to
know what's going on. Morph to fly."
We were halfway into fly morph when new cops arrived and began to walk
carefully, cautiously, down the main concourse toward us. They played their
flashlights around, looking for...looking for they didn't know what.
They were about to get a surprise, that much was for sure.
I morphed as quickly as I could, shrinking rapidly. Jake's already huge orange
and black bulk seemed to balloon upward, rising above me like a sloped,
furry wall.
I felt the gossamer wings extrude from my shoulder blades. I felt the extra
legs suddenly sprout from my chest. I felt the painless but still awful melting
of my face, the way my nose and mouth ran together, then squirted outward
to form the vile, sucking mouthparts of a fly.
But none of these things meant anything to me. Tobias was dead. Jake might
still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to
hunt him down.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.
No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was
going to kill him.
I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was annihilating my
internal organs and replacing them with the primitive organs of a housefly.
Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.
<Ax? Tell me something. When Jake sent you to get help, why did you come
for me and not Marco or Cassie?>
<Prince Jake was specific. Get Rachel.>
<Did he say why?>
Ax hesitated a moment. Then he said, <Jake told me Tobias was probably
dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jake said, "Yes. If David's
killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.>
I don't know how that made me feel. I'm not a person who obsesses over her
feelings. You know what I mean? Some people can't stop 'looking inward'
constantly, and that's not me.
But it definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically.
Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to
do.
Like I say, I'm not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.
And yet, as I completed the morph to fly, I knew Jake had picked the right
person. See, I cared for Tobias. I don't think I even knew how much I cared
till right then.
But if David had killed him, I would have revenge. I would make Tobias'
murderer pay.
--------------------
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
My birthday. When was my birthday? This month?
What month were we in?
I Ieft the office and walked to the convenience store. Ax and Marco
studiously avoided noticing me. Ax's human morph face was smeared with
something I could only hope was chocolate.
I didn't even look at them. No nod, no wink, nothing. If we were being
followed the slightest thing would give us away.
The signal for "danger" was me going to the donut display and looking inside.
The signal for "okay" was me picking up a Mounds bar and putting it back
down.
I toyed with the Mounds bar. The guy at the counter said, "You gonna buy
that?"
Ax and Marco left. I went to the newspaper rack. I checked the date. The
month. Yes, that was my birth month. Today was the twenty-second.
My birthday was...the twenty-fifth! Yes. That was it. Probably.
I waited till Marco and Ax were clear then I went outside. I blinked at the
sun and almost flapped my wings.
My father! My father was not my father? There was some "real" father
somewhere. Also dead or gone?
That was a lot of coincidence. And some long-lost cousin showing up within
days of when this "father's" will was supposed to be read to me?
Way too much coincidence.
I started walking. I was heading to the nearby park to demorph at a spot
we'd chosen in advance.
Halfway there, I heard Jake's thought-speak voice in my head. <I think
you're being followed. A big guy in a suit.>
I didn't wonder too much where Jake was. In the sky somewhere. Up flying
free.
We had planned for this. I glanced across the street and saw a Speedy
Muffler King and an Applebee's. I headed for the Applebee's.
Across traffic. Trotting, like I'd suddenly realized I was hungry.
<Yep. He's following you,> Jake reported.
In the front door of Applebee's. Fast, fast toward the men's room before my
tail could catch sight of me again.
Then a quick cut left, past the bathroom, into the kitchen.
Waiters and waitresses were running around, pushing, laughing, yelling. The
cooks were banging pots. I pushed past the dishwasher, looking for the back
door.
"Hey, if you're looking for the bathroom..." someone called out as I blew
past.
Out the back door. I broke into a run. There was a residential street of small
homes behind the restaurant. Down a connecting alley and I cut right again,
heading once more for the park.
I wasn't too worried. Someone might think he could follow me without being
noticed. But I had eyes in the sky watching over me.
<You lost him,> Jake reported.
I trotted on toward the park. They had a covered but open kind of restroom
thing. You know, with a roof, only the walls didn't go all the way up?
I found an empty stall and waited.
<Tobias, you're clear,> Cassie said.
I demorphed. Back to hawk. I flew up and out of the stall, up away from
humans and back into the blue sky.
Only then did it hit me full force: Someone wanted me. Family. Wanted to
take care of me.
Unless, of course, what they really wanted was to learn my secrets.
And then kill me.
----------
Animorphs #24: The Suspicion
They were gigantic. They were brown Godzillas. They were... cockroaches.
Their antennae were hundred-foot-long bullwhips. Their legs were jointed
telephone poles. They were vast, overpowering, terrifying machines made of
five-inch-thick armor.
They towered over us, two humongous, clanking cockroaches. I mean, you
think you know how gross cockroaches are. But you know nothing till you've
seen a cockroach literally the size of a Wal-Mart. Next time you go to a
Wal-Mart or K-Mart or Target or a big grocery store, stand out in front and
look at it and think "cockroach."
They were very, very big.
And they didn't smell very good, either.
<Hi, it's us,> Jake said.
<You just scared the pee out of us!> Tobias answered. <Can you see us
down here?>
<No, our eyes aren't very good, as you know. But Ax can see you. He led us
to you.>
<Ax?> Tobias asked.
"Ax?" Marco and I said, looking at each other.
Then slowly, very slowly, we turned.
Ax.
A wolf spider.
"AAAAHHHH!"
"AAAAHHHH!"
It didn't matter that we knew it was Ax. My brain wasn't working. My legs
turned to jelly. I sat down very hard, very fast.
You cannot begin to conceive of how terrifying that sight was.
Twice as tall as the roaches. With eight legs, each the size of the Saint
Louis arch. Gnashing, wickedly sharp mouth parts that looked like the gates
of hell. A swollen, stinking, bloated, hairy body.
But none of that was what made Marco and Tobias and me shake with
uncontrollable fear.
It was the eyes.
Eight of them. Some were glittering, multifaceted compound eyes. Others
were blank, dead, black simple eyes. The smallest ones looked bigger than
we were.
And that face, that evil, staring face...
I could feel that image being laser-printed directly onto my brain. I would
never forget it. If I lived a hundred years, I would be seeing that face.
<Hello,> Ax said. <Did I make an error when I said I was Canadese?>
"Ax, I hope you have control over that morph," I said.
I tried to look away and figure out how the Helmacrons were reacting, but
there was just no looking away from those eight big eyeballs.
However, the Helmacrons were reacting.
<Do you think to terrify us with your pitiful morphs? We are Helmacron
warriors!>
They were yelling this as they hustled away at top speed.
<Ax, make sure they keep running,> Jake said calmly.
Ax turned, a movement that made me yelp in fear. But at least those eyes
were aimed somewhere else.
"Yuh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uk," Marco shuddered. "Man, I did not need to see that.
That's worth about thirty nights of waking up screaming in a cold sweat."
Ax took off after the Helmacrons, jerky but swift, and as evil-looking a
creation as I ever hope to see.
His lower half was obscured by the lumpy dirt around us when...
TSEEEEEW! TSEEEEEW!
<Aaaahhhhh!> Ax cried.
I forgot my fear and ran up the slope to see over the lip of the depression.
There, hovering just a quarter inch above the dirt, was one of the
Helmacron ships.
Ax twisted in apparent agony, his mile-high legs flailing madly in pure reflex.
He turned toward us and then I saw the smoking, sizzling, burned-meat-
smelling eye that had been incinerated by the Helmacron ship.
TSEEEEW! TSEEEEW!
They fired again, point-blank range, and all four of the legs on the left side
of Ax's spider body were cut in two. He fell from the sky like some slow-
motion asteroid. The severed legs toppled slowly over, like impossibly tall
trees.
<Demorph!> Jake shouted. <Ax! Demorph!>
We had made a deadly mistake. It was all a question of size. The Helmacrons
were laughable when we were big. But down here, at this scale, they were as
dangerous as Yeerks...
------------------
Animorphs #25 The Extreme
We met after school in Cassie's barn -- a.k.a. the Wildlife Rehabilitation
Clinic -- to discuss the situation. Cassie's parents are veterinarians. While
her dad runs the clinic, her mom runs the vet staff at The Gardens, an
amusement park and zoo. Cassie helps out at the clinic, giving suppositories
to cranky skunks and stuff. And let's face it: A wildlife clinic definitely
comes in handy when we need to acquire a new morph.
The get-together was like opening night of the local freak show. Four kids
who regularly become furballs. Erek, the ancient Android. Tobias, the red-
tailed hawk, keeping a lookout from the rafters. Ax, the Andalite, in his
human morph.
Ax's human morph is a combination of DNA from me, Jake, Rachel, and
Cassie. Together we make one disturbingly beautiful person.
Ax is the only Andalite on Earth. In fact, he's Prince Elfangor's younger
brother. Ax was in his human morph because, well, let me put it this way:
Cassie's mom and dad are about the coolest parents you'll ever find, but if
they were to walk in and find their daughter shooting the breeze with a
blue-furred, half-humanoid, half-deerlike creature with a mean scorpion tail,
no mouth and four eyes, including a pair that sat on swiveling stalks atop its
head...they would definitely freak.
"Do you know any more details?" Rachel asked Erek.
Rachel is your basic psycho-babe. And I mean that in a nice way. She's a
tall, willowy, supermodelesque blonde. You might think she was a mall-rat
airhead - until you called her an airhead. Then, after she removed your left
kidney, you'd realize your mistake.
Rachel's a great person to have on your side in a fight. The only problem I
have with her is that she's always looking for a fight.
"Details? I'm afraid not," Erek replied. "We've infiltrated much of the Yeerk
force, but we don't have access to everything."
"Nothing at all about the location of the facility?" Jake asked.
"No. Just that Visser Three will be visiting it very soon. We do know this:
We've discovered the location of the Visser's new feeding pasture. It's close
enough for you to fly there in bird morph. A Bug fighter is going to pick him
up there tomorrow afternoon to go off and inspect this site."
Jake got his "Jake look." The sort of weary, worried expression he gets
when he's faced with some decision that may result in all of us ending up
dead.
Jake, who is Rachel's cousin, is our sort-of leader. Not because he asked to
be. It's probably because he'd never ask to be. You know - he's one of those
tiresomely dutiful, level-headed guys. If you met Jake, you'd understand why
we turn to him. Call it charisma. Something about Jake commands respect.
Not from me, of course. He's been my best friend forever. I was with him
when he was nine and ate an entire pie on a bet and ended up blowing
blueberries for an hour.
Jake looked around at all of us. Not exactly asking for a vote, but obviously
wanting to hear from us.
<So, no problem, right?> Tobias said. <We fly out to Visser's Three feeding
place and when the Bug fighter arrives, we hitch a ride.>
"That appears to be our only option. Op. Shun. Shunn," Ax confirmed.
Andalites don't have mouths. They communicate in thought-speak. So
whenever Ax does his human morph, he's fascinated by the sounds he
makes.
By the way, he's the only one who's fascinated.
I held up my hand like I wanted to ask a question in class. "I'm not allowed
to hitchhike. Especially not with evil alien parasites. My dad is very definite
about that."
Jake managed a brief laugh. Rachel gave me her "what are you, a moron?"
look.
"It doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, either," Cassie said. "But if
it's true the Yeerks are building a system that will turn any body of water
into a Yeerk pool, we have to do everything we can to stop them."
I groaned. I can usually count on Cassie to be rational.
"Okay," I said. "I'll be there, but I promise to complain the entire time."
"Do we need to take a formal vote?" Jake asked.
"No way am I going to miss out on this," Rachel said.
Big surprise there.
"No, no, no votes," I said. "Jake decides. Then if it goes bad we can all
blame him."
<I'm there,> Tobias said. <But aren't we overlooking a key detail?>
"What's that?" said Jake.
<I mean, it's not a problem for me. But you guys can't just disappear for a
few days. This place could be in, I don't know, Nepal for all we know.>
"Nepal?" I echoed.
"That is a bit of a problem," Jake said.
"Perhaps I can provide a solution," Erek replied.
I held up rny hand again. "Is it okay if I say 'uh-oh,' again?"
--------------
Animorphs #26: The Attack
"Who invented this place, Dr. Suess?" Marco demanded.
We were miles in the air. Miles from the ground, which we could see just
over the edge of the platform. The platform with no railing, no warning. The
platform that just stopped suddenly.
Below us was a twisting, leaning, propped-up-on-gigantic-support-beams
structure of other platforms. Floors, I guess, all stuck here and there,
sticking far out and not so far.
Above us was more of the same, till you'd swear the monstrous construction
would reach the moon, assuming the Iskoort had a moon.
All of this was built of brilliantly colored blocks or bricks or segments.
Imagine that someone starts with all the Leg-os in the world. Add in all the
Duplos and cheap bargain Duplos and let some humongous kid assemble them
all into a tower a hundred miles tall.
Assume that no sensible adult ever becomes involved, except to come along
occasionally and wedge in what looks like crutches the size of skyscrapers.
The floors could have been five feet apart, five hundred feet apart, or five
miles apart. It was like no one figured it out till they built it.
I jumped back from the edge, feeling my stomach lurch and my heart stop. I
had to push the Iskoort away to get safe, but I wasn't worried about
politeness. I was trying not to take a fall that would last a couple of hours.
"Back up!" I yelled.
But now a whole gaggle of Iskoort were rushing us, honking with the
diaphragm in their bellies and yammering thought-speak, pushing us, shoving
us by sheer mad exuberance toward the edge.
"Rachel!" Cassie cried.
I spun left just in time to see Rachel windmilling, her heels back over the
edge of the platform.
"No!" I yelled, as she lost the fight and toppled backward.
I caught a blur of movement. When the blur stopped it was Erek, his hand
holding Rachel by the arm as if she weighed no more than a candy bar.
Erek pulled her back up onto the platform.
"Did I mention I've always wanted you along on this mission, Erek?" Rachel
said shakily. "Get back, you stupid jerks!"
This last was directed at the press of a dozen Iskoort, all yammering
incessantly.
<I will buy your memories!>
<Come visit my execution parlor!>
<Give me your clothing and I will give you credit!>
<Here! Eat this larva! Let it gestate and we'll split the proceeds between
your heirs!>
<You stink horribly! I will cleanse you!>
And to Ax: <Become my partner and we will sell your fur as a gachak
poison!>
"What is this, Planet of the Salesmen?" Marco demanded. "Back off! All of
you, back off!"
"Man, I thought there were a lot of salespeople at Nordtrom's, but this is
nuts. I'll take care of this. I know how to get rid of pushy salespeople."
Rachel stepped out front, hands on her hips. "We're just here to use the
bathroom. Can you tell me where the ladies' room is?"
The Iskoort stared, goggle-eyed. Several of them wandered away. The others
continued staring at us, waiting to see if we'd loosen up and do some
business.
I looked at Cassie and we both sighed at the same time.
"Now what?" she wondered. "What do we do? Stand around till someone
tries to kill us?"
I looked around, trying to get a grip on this bizarre place. There was no
making sense of the structure itself. Our floor was a roomy one. At least a
hundred feet separated our floor from the floor above. Back from the edge
the small buildings began. They looked like clusters of igloos: blue and gold
and white and green and red. Some were jumbled into piles several layers
tall. Others were free-standing.
The Iskoort themselves came and went, in and out of the colored igloos, up
and down the twisted, arched stairways connecting floors. They all looked
busy. All in a hurry.
They were not the most frightening-looking race we'd ever encountered, but
they were definitely not even slightly human.
They had heads like vultures, thrust forward on long necks. The necks
protruded from shoulders that were a sort of oval platform, flat across.
From the shoulders dropped two arms, one on each side, each arm jointed
three times, ending in a hand made up of one very long, tentacle-like finger,
and two smaller, hooked, sharp-clawed fingers.
They walked in a way that made it seem they were crawling on their knees.
Backwards. Not that they went backwards. They went forwards. They had
two thick legs, maybe two and a half feet long. Then came what looked like
knees, followed by calves that extended forward, lying flat against the
ground. Those ended in feet, each with a single long prehensile toe and two
smaller claws jutting from the sides of thick pads.
Their mid-section was bare of clothing and looked weirdly like an accordion
--an accordion made of veined, pink flesh. It moved, wheezing out a sort of
running commentary on their thought-speak.
It was the sound of a whine. A grating, annoying whine that rose or fell,
depending, evidently, on how excited or mad or agitated they were.
"'The Nanny,"' Cassie observed.
"The what?"
"That sound. It sounds like Fran Drescher, the woman who plays the lead in
'The Nanny.' No offense to her."
<I don't think Fran's probably around here to overhear you being rude,>
Tobias pointed out.
Iskoort faces were, like I said, not attractive. They were roughly triangular
with the point toward the top, which left no room for a pair of eyes to fit. So
their eyes, pink as a rabbit's, were stuck on short stalks. They had mouths,
but didn't use them to communicate. They sat shut, opening only every few
minutes to suck in air and reveal a fat, blue tongue and tiny, blue-tinged
teeth.
Rachel said, "You know how you meet some people and right away, before
they even say anything, before you have any idea what they're like, you
don't like them? I mean, on sight you can't stand them? And it's not that
they're ugly or anything, it's just something about them that sets you off?"
"No," Cassie said. "At least, I didn't know. Now I do."
A new assault team of Iskoort was quick-crawling toward us, heads thrust
forward, eyes goggling.
<Forgive us, strangers!> the leader of this crowd said. <We did not expect
off-worlders today. Welcome to the City of Beauty! Do you require a guide?
Do you wish to sell your memories, or perhaps any unneccessary body
parts?>
His diaphragm whined as he thought-spoke, a low, grating sound that rose
and fell like a bagpipe blown by a man with too little wind.
I sighed. I was on the verge of suggesting Rachel morph to grizzly bear and
get rid of them, but Cassie said, "You know, if they're serious about a
guide..."
"Yeah, you're right," I said, but I wasn't enthusiastic. "Um, well, we could
use a guide. You know, to show us around. Show us where to stay."
<And what will you pay?> the Iskoort demanded, to the sound of eager
whining.
'Well . . . we don't exactly have any money," I said.
<I will give you an excellent guide. My own grub! In exchange for her hair.>
He pointed one of his wormy tentacle fingers at Rachel. Or, more precisely,
at her hair.
---------------
Animorphs #27: The Exposed
Mr. King, Erek's "father," was sitting on the couch. He had a TV remote in
one hand and a pretzel rod in the other.
He looked like any other father on any other lazy day.
Except that his human hologram was gone, so he was sitting there like some
weird android parody of normalcy. And, of course, he was no more Erek's
father than I was. He was just another nearly eternal android playing a role.
"So it's not just Erek," I said.
"No," Mr. King said, without moving. "All the Chee have been immobilized.
Holographic emitters down. Motor centers down. Logic centers, speech
synthesizers, and Chee-net all functioning normally."
<Chee-net?> Marco asked.
"Inter-Chee communication," Erek said, "We've had our own Internet since
the days when your ancestors were still drawing pictograms on pyramid
walls."
<Yeah? Cool. AOL. Androids On-Line.>
"But why is this happening?" Jake said. "How?"
"We don't know," Mr. King said.
Marco placed Erek on the sofa and started to demorph. Within minutes, the
gorilla had shrunk and its coarse, black hair had been sucked back into
Marco's human skin.
"You must have some idea what could do this. I thought you guys were
indestructible," Jake said. He sounded a little annoyed. Which was okay. I
was annoyed, too. We were used to the Chee being so in control, so capable.
Plus, it just had not been a good morning so far.
"The ship," Erek said.
"The ship?"
"The Pemalite ship."
"The Pemalite ship?" Marco echoed. "What Pemalite ship?"
"The one we hid in a deep, ocean canyon thousands of years ago when we
arrived on Earth," Erek explained. "It should have been safe from intruders.
"The atmospheric pressure down there will crush a human to the size of a
guinea pig."
"Uh, how deep is that," I said.
"Fifteen thousand feet," Mr. King said.
Marco whistled, "Almost three miles down."
We all looked at him, surprised.
"Hey," he said, "I told you before, I don't sleep through all my classes."
"Our Chee-net connects through the ship's onboard computer," Mr. King
said. "That would be the only way to disable our systems."
<So, what? Somebody found the ship and activated the controls?>Tobias
mused, perched on top of the TV and preening his right-wing feathers. <That
still doesn't tell us who or why.>
"Or what they hope to get out of it," I added.
"Or how to reverse it," Jake said. "Is it even reversible?"
"Yes, that part would be simple. But reaching the computer would be a very
dangerous undertaking," Mr. King said.
"Being a paralyzed android isn't exactly safe," I pointed out. "Especially
since someone obviously knows you're here and vulnerable."
"What about other Chee?" Cassie asked.
"All the same," Erek said. "All have lost holograms and lost the capacity to
move. Most are safe, out of sight. But two are presently at high risk. The
first works as a janitor in a nuclear research facility. When his hologram
failed, he locked himself in the safe the facility uses to store radioactive
material."
"At least that sounds secure," Jake suggested.
"Only until the shift changes," Mr. King said. "At ten o'clock each night, all
areas of the facility are inspected before the night crew takes over.
Whoever opens that safe is going to expose a highly advanced . . . and
nonhuman . . . technology."
"If the Yeerks get hold of our technology..." Erek began.
"Don't even think it," Marco muttered.
"Are we supposed to get into the nuclear plant?" I asked.
"No," Mr. King said. "It's maximum security. You wouldn't be able to get the
Chee out undetected."
"What about the other Chee you said was in a bad situation?" Jake asked
calmly. Jake always sounds calmest when he's most worried.
"She's in more immediate danger," Mr. King said. "Her human name is
Lourdes."
"She's been living the low-life," Erek said. "She's a homeless street
person."
"A what? Why?" Cassie demanded.
"We need access to all levels of society to track Yeerk activity," Erek said.
"And don't feel too bad. You have to remember that we Chee live many
lives. In her previous human guise, Lourdes was a movie actress. Very
successful."
"She's been sleeping in an abandoned building. Abandoned except that half
the building is being used to store stolen goods. It's sort of run by a fence
named Strake," Mr. King continued. "We suspect he's a Controller."
"A Controller who fences stolen goods?" I asked, half-laughing.
"Yes," Erek said. "It puts him in touch with a broad range of the criminal
element."
"Wow," I said, "Not all glamour being an android, is it?"
"Tell me about it," Erek said. "I'm passing as a junior high school kid."
"Point taken. Where is this Lourdes person now?" I asked.
"She made it to a closet under the front stairs," Mr. King said. "There's a
complication: We have information that the police are going to raid the
place. The raid will occur in about twenty minutes and we're certain there's
at least one human-controller assigned to the SWAT team."
"Twenty minutes!" I nearly shrieked.
"Time is short," Mr. King said apologetically. "But you understand that we
cannot ask you to help rescue this Chee. There is a high likelihood of your
being hurt."
"There's a high likelihood of us getting hurt every minute of the day," Marco
said, exasperated.
"Where?" Jake demanded.
Erek gave us the address.
"Landmarks," I said impatiently. "We'll be flying in."
"Tobias, get Ax and follow us," Jake rapped. "Now!"
I snatched open the door and Tobias bolted.
"The abandoned house backs the railroad tracks. It's brick, surrounded by
condemned buildings and close to a junkyard," Mr. King said. "Be careful.
It's a bad neighborhood."
"Yeah, we're real worried about being mugged," I said with a laugh.
"So let me get this straight," Marco said. "We have to rescue a paralyzed
Chee from a stolen goods warehouse before the Controllers get her. Then we
have to dive down to the bottom of the ocean, find the Pemalite ship,
somehow get inside it and turn off the signal before ten o'clock tonight so
the Yeerks don't get the Chee in the safe at the nuclear waste facility. Is
that pretty much it? Or do we have to discover the Fountain of Youth and
come up with a low-fat cookie that tastes as good as Mrs. Fields's, too?"
"Ticktock," I said with a grin. "Ticktock."
"You are mentally ill," Marco said.
"There's one more thing," Erek said. "The Pemalite ship's signal will have
been picked up by orbiting Yeerk spacecraft. They may already be down
there waiting for you."
