The Diversion
Author: K. A. Applegate
Date: 2009-11-17 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Children's Fiction
Description: EDITORIAL REVIEW: Everything the Animorphs have ever known is about to change... The Yeerks suspect that the socalled "Andalite Bandits" are human after all. And the Animorphs know it's just a matter of time before the Yeerks learn their identities and infest them...and their families. Something major has to be done fast. Because now, the Animorphs can tell you who they are--and that changes everything.
Publisher: Scholastic

My name is Tobias. And I was one hungry
bird.

I was perched in a tree at the edge of my meadow. A meadow grown crisp and brown from too many days without rain. The sun blazed overhead. Wind whispered through the weeds. And among the rippling stalks, one, then two twisted slightly in another direction. I dug my talons into the bark of the branch and waited. Listened.

Mouse feet scrabbled against hard-packed

OCR by Nithelek
dirt. Mouse teeth chewed through the shell of a seed. Chewed. Stopped. Scrabbled.

Stopped.

I waited.

1

Nothing. No sound. No movement. The
would be mine. In a split second my hunger would mouse remained still. Also listening? Waiting?

be —

I tensed. Cocked my head.

No!

And thought, not for the first time, about the Scales. A flash of yellow. Fangs sinking into irony of my hunt. In my old life, my life as a boy, the mouse's flesh.

I was the mouse. The prey. Stalked by predators That's when I heard it. An ominous rattle. bent on flushing my head down the men's room Yeah. Like I needed a warning. I flapped hard toilet. Scurrying to find a hiding place. Rarely and rose, talons empty. I was hungry but I wasn't succeeding.

stupid. I wouldn't fight a six-foot rattlesnake over Another irony: In my old life, my life as prey, a poisoned mouse.

food was not a problem. I was on the free lunch I climbed higher, glided above the meadow, program at school. So I knew exactly where my and watched the snake devour my lunch. A dianext meal was coming from. Overheated ladies in mondback that had lain coiled, waiting, motionhair nets slapped it on a tray and handed it to me. less, in the very spot I'd been watching. In the Movement. Small. A single blade of grass
meadow. My meadow.

tipped toward a bare patch of dirt. Claws I circled and swooped back to my branch.

scritched against earth.

Would a normal hawk have seen it? Maybe.

The mouse was coming out into the open.

Probably.

I opened my wings, pushed off the branch, Your normal red-tailed hawk, equipped with and circled, high above the meadow, then began the standard-issue hawk brain, has a basic train to descend. My shadow grew larger and darker of thought. Hunger. Food. Kill. Eat. Brilliant in over the patch of dirt.

its simplicity. The hawk is not distracted by Weeds twitched, first one, then the next, as ironic musings. The hawk doesn't reminisce the mouse moved closer to open ground.

about toilets and school cafeterias.

Dust billowed out from the undergrowth.

But l'm not a normal hawk, l'm not a normal Then a nose. Brown. Whiskered. I raked my anything, l'm a kid trapped in a bird's body. Like talons forward.

nothing else on this or any other planet. A The mouse scuttled out, completely unprospecies of one. tected now. I dropped. In a split second the mouse I used to be human. Fully human, or at least 2

3
that's what I thought. Until my friends and I met You can't speak, move, eat, even go to the batha dying alien warrior, an Andalite prince named room unless the Yeerk wants you to. You watch as Elfangor.

the Yeerk spreads evil and hatred using your Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Strange how, even hands, your voice. You can't scream. You can't then, before I knew who he was, before I knew run away.

about my own past, I was drawn to him. ConThe Yeerks enslaved entire sentient species nected in a way the other Animorphs hadn't on other planets. The Gedds. The Taxxons. The been.

Hork-Bajir. Now they've come to Earth, to enThat's what we are, my friends and I. Anislave humans. morphs. Animal morphers. We can acquire the And we, the Animorphs, are fighting them

DNA of another animal, then become that anialone. A few things help level the playing field. mal. Elfangor gave us that power. He gave it to us Kandrona, for one. If a Yeerk doesn't feed on as a weapon, the only weapon we have in our batKandrona rays every three days, it dies. tle to save Earth from evil, parasitic aliens. We also get help from the Chee, an android Yeerks. Slimy. Gray. Not much bigger than the race hardwired against violence. They can't fight, field mouse I'd been stalking, but completely but they've infiltrated the Yeerk organization and lacking the mouse's senses. Yeerks are deaf, feed us information when they can.

blind. They have no feet or hands. If you saw a And, of course, morphing. An Andalite techYeerk in its natural state, you'd think it was an nology. Though it seems unbelievable, the Yeerks overgrown slug. And you probably wouldn't be still think we're Andalites.

any more afraid of it than of a slug.

Morphing is a powerful weapon, but it has But you should be.

rules. 1) You can't change directly from one A Yeerk slithers in through your ear canal and morph to another without first returning to your flattens itself out over the surface of your brain. natural body. 2) You have to acquire DNA directly It wriggles into all the crevices and valleys. Taps from an animal. You can't acquire it from another into every brain circuit and nerve ending. Taps morph. 3) You can't stay in morph for more than into your very existence.

two hours at a time, because if you do, you stay You become a Controller, and it's an ironic permanently. You become what the Andalites call name because you have absolutely no control. a nothlit.

4

5

Like me.

I stayed in hawk morph too long, and now l'm not a human in hawk morph.

l'm a hawk.

I was able to regain my morphing ability and through a little fancy time-bending by a powerful being called the Ellimist, I gained another morph. My old self. My human self. For two hours at a time I can morph Tobias the kid. Be human, at least physically. Then I must return to hawk or I'll lose my morphing capability altogether. I'll be out of the fight.

So, while I watched the snake digest my
mouse, I spotted an eagle soaring toward me. A bald eagle, carrying lunch in its talons. Not a Rachel drifted over the meadow, her profile mouse or a rabbit. A paper bag. Even from this stark against the sun. She spiraled down and distance I could see the golden arches.

dropped the McDonald's bag in the grass under Rachel was bringing McDonald's. Rachel, my my tree.

own personal cafeteria-lady-in-a-hair-net.

<You do know there's a rattlesnake in your Don't ever tell her I said that.

meadow, don't you?> She landed and began to demorph.

<Uh, yeah.> I flapped down from my perch.

<We met briefly.>

Rachel's feathers melted together, swirled into tan Rachel skin. Her wings stretched into arms. Legs shifted forward with a sickening crack.

That's one thing I'll never get used to — the sounds. Body parts twisting, tearing, being ab6

7
sorbed and re-formed. It doesn't hurt. It should,

"But at least we can hang out for a while. A little but it doesn't. The Andalites worked some kind while."

of painkiller into the technology.

Uh-huh. I wasn't paying much attention to But they didn't manage to kill the sound. the conversation. My hawk brain focused on the Rachel's body shot up to human size. A huusual. Hunger. Food. Kill. Okay, maybe we could man with bird-of-prey eyes. I've never been sure skip "kill" just this once. Eat. if Rachel's human eyes are more intense because But my human brain remembered something
of the eagle, or if the eagle's eyes are so intense more: The pure pleasure of sinking my teeth into because they're Rachel's. They were clear blue three inches of hamburger and bun. The crunch now instead of amber, but they still held a deadly of lettuce and onion. The grease and cheese and gaze.

special sauce combining as I chewed. And the She fixed that gaze on me now. "Look, before fries. Was there ever a more perfect food than a you get your feathers in a wad, just listen. I know McDonald's french fry? Fresh from the fryer, I don't have to baby you. I know you can take while they're still steaming. Crisp and salty and care of yourself. But I also know your happy little so soft in the middle they —
meadow is about to dry up, and the weather guy

"Tobias?" Rachel was staring at me, frownon Channel 6 isn't predicting rain any time ing. "I asked if you want me to take the pickles soon." She pulled a Big Mac from the bag. "So off."

eat this and don't give me grief, okay?"

<Um, no.> Get a grip, Tobias. You're turning That's one of the things I like best about into Ax. <Just pull off one of the hamburger patRachel. I don't need to admit to her that hawk ties. I'll eat it first, then morph human and eat life can be a little stressful. She just knows. And the rest with you.>
tries to help. But she doesn't feel sorry for me. Or She peeled the Big Mac apart and set one of at least, she doesn't let me see her feel sorry for the patties in the grass. I ripped off a chunk of me. She lets me have my dignity.

meat and wrangled it sideways into my beak. Too bad you can't eat dignity. I watched her

"You know, Tobias," she said, "we have very open the Big Mac box and set it on the grass. weird dates."

"I know you have to eat yours as a hawk." She I devoured the hamburger, then stood compulled out another Big Mac and Iwo large fries. pletely still for a moment, savoring the full feel8

9
ing in my stomach. My hawk belly was happy. My

"Thanks," I said. Or at least, that's what I hawk body would survive another day.

meant to say. What came out was, "Grrrx." I hadn't Time to feed the human. I focused on Tobias used my human voice in a while. I cleared my the kid.

throat, limbered my jaw, and tried again. "Thank

SPRRROOOOOOT!

you."

I shot up to my full human height. The sudWe sat side by side in the grass with our den shift knocked me off balance, and I teetered backs against the tree. I bit into my Big Mac. on twelve-inch talons. Morphing isn't predictable. And sighed. Well, actually I moaned. Out loud. As I lifted my wings for support, my feathers Grease and cheese and special sauce dribbled melted and evaporated, leaving only pale pink down my chin.

nubs on my skin.

Rachel shook her head and handed me a napI looked down. I was a nearly naked bird the kin.

size of a human kid. A giant plucked chicken in Which would've been embarrassing if I hadn't spandex.

been so involved with my lunch. Sometimes I for"Attractive," said Rachel. get normal human things. Like my old locker Hollow bird bones thickened and — snap —
combination or which months have thirty-one realigned. Internal organs shifted and stretched. days or how to work the token machine at the arMy shoulders widened, neck grew long. Arms and cade. Useless information to a hawk, of course. fingers emerged from stubby wings. The scales Still, it scared me a little. Like I'd crossed a line on my legs disappeared and human flesh emerged. and might not ever get back. Or worse, I'd forget Talons split into toes. My beak melted and so many things that given the opportunity, I formed a nose and lips. Round bird eyes slid formight not want to get back. ward and became ovals.

But I hadn't forgotten the Big Mac. Or the I touched my arm. The pink chicken bumps
fries. As long as I had fast food, I had hope. dissolved into smooth beige skin. Pale still, but Rachel brushed an ant off her leg. "You need smooth.

to get a picnic table," she said. "Or at least a I was human.

couple of lawn chairs."

Rachel smiled. "Much better."

"Oh, yeah, Rachel, definitely low profile. A 10

11

hawk with patio furniture. Maybe I could get a barbecue grill, too, and some bamboo torch lights."

"Very funny." She crumpled her empty burger box and stuffed it into the bag. "Shut up and eat so we can get out of here. Cassie's called a meeting, and Jake says we all have to be there."

"Ah." I swallowed a fry. "The X-Men have nothing on us, do they?"

"Got that right."

"Let me get this straight." Marco shredded a piece of hay. "They wanted blood samples. Not cash. Not drugs. Blood."

We were in Cassie's barn. The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Sort of a homeless shelter for wounded animals. Cassie's parents are both veterinarians. Her mom works at The Gardens, a combination zoo/amusement park where we've acquired most of our battle morphs. Her dad runs the clinic here on their farm. Cassie helps him out.

At the moment she was inside a big wire pen, doctoring a doe that had been shot in the thigh. The rest of us were trying not to focus on the hypodermic needle in her hand. 12

13

"The rest of us" could've starred in one of Cassie went on. "The lab tech said they'd those weepy movies on Lifetime. Jake: Rachel's been cold and methodical up to that point, but cousin, Cassie's true love, and the leader of when they couldn't get the hawk sample, they our little band of misfits. Ax the alien: Elfangor's just went nuts. Like they were afraid to leave little brother and, strange as it sounds, my uncle. without it."

Marco: Jake's best friend and Ax's part-time

"Yeah, I bet," said Marco. "I bet they were roommate. Rachel, of course: Cassie's best friend, peeing their pants wondering how to explain the the girl dating out of her species. And me: Toconcept of failure to Visser One." bias. Bird-boy. On lookout duty in the rafters. Visser One. Evil incarnate. The Yeerk in

Cassie stroked the deer's neck. "It's okay, charge of the invasion of Earth, recently progirl." She closed the pen and turned to face us. moted from Visser Three.

"All I know is what my mom said. Two men broke Rachel nodded. "Our battle morphs? The Garinto her veterinary ward last night. It wasn't the dens? Nutso thieves on a mission for hawk usual smash and grab, and no, they weren't after blood? Definitely Yeerks."

drugs, which surprised Mom, too. They wanted

"Uh, yeah," Jake agreed. "But the Chee blood samples, specific blood samples. Tiger. haven't heard anything, not even rumors. And we Elephant. Eagle. Rhino and grizzly. Gorilla and haven't intercepted Yeerk communications about wolf."

a new project. Whatever they're up to, it's at the Rachel stared at her. "Our battle morphs." highest level. We don't want to do anything stu"Right." Cassie nodded. "They showed no inpid. We need to really think this through." terest in the warthogs or baboons. One of Mom's

"Okay, so we'll think it through and then we'll lab techs stumbled in on them. They really do something stupid," said Marco. "First quesroughed him up, especially—" She glanced at tion: Why do the Yeerks need animal blood? Have me. "Especially when he told them The Gardens they invented a new way to morph?"

didn't have a red-tailed hawk."

<lnvented?> Ax's stalk eyes narrowed to slits. Seven pairs of eyes, including Ax's stalk eyes,

<Yeerks do not invent. They steal. Everything gazed up at the rafters. I turned away to preen a they have, they have taken from other species. wing.

Most notably the Andalites. They do not have the 14

15

intelligence — or the integrity — to invent a morphing technique of their own.>

Did I mention Andalites can be a wee bit arrogant?

Cassie looked at Jake.

"I think Ax is right," he said. "They're after something bigger. Tom brought home a flyer yesterday. The Sharing is sponsoring a huge blood drive."

Tom was Jake's older brother.

Tom was a Controller, a high-ranking member of The Sharing. The front organization for the Yeerks.

Cassie took a deep breath. "Here's what I think. There's only one reason the Yeerks would They. As in Visser One.

suddenly be interested in blood. DNA. They're The only Yeerk ever to infest an Andalite. Uncollecting samples of our morph animals, and til now he'd been convinced we Animorphs were they're collecting as many human samples as Andalites, too.

they can." She looked at us. "They're searching Which was somewhat surprising because the for humans with strands of animal DNA in their former Visser One had discovered we were hublood." man. By keeping our secret, she hoped to destroy Silence.

her adversary. The Andalite-Controller, then

"Which means —" Marco sighed.

Visser Three.

"They know we're human," said Rachel. But we destroyed her.

The former Visser One was a human-Controller. And her host was Marco's mom.

Very long story short. We raided the Yeerk pool and rescued Marco's mom. The human. The

Yeerk in her head tried to escape, but was killed. 16

17

And our secret died with it.

"Are you sure? What about when we all came Or so we'd thought.

down with the Andalite flu? The yamphut."

"The Yeerks are probably collecting human

"Oh, man." Rachel shut her eyes. "My mom blood from as many different sources as they did haul me to the doctor. I don't think they took can," said Jake. "Hospitals, doctors' offices, blood, but I had a really high fever. Part of that labs. Now this blood drive. So." He looked at us. time is just blanked out. But that was a while

"Has anybody given blood since we started acago. If they took blood, it's long gone by now." quiring morphs?"

She looked at Cassie. "Isn't it?" Rachel shook her head.

"I don't know," Cassie admitted. "I don't

"I've been afraid to," said Cassie. "Who know how long labs keep blood samples. Or data knows what's floating around in my veins." on blood samples."

"I've been too busy saving the planet."

"So." Rachel, eyes wide. "It could still be in a Marco.

freezer somewhere. With my name on it."

"The planet is grateful." Jake rolled his eyes.

<Don't even think that,> I said. <lt's such a

"But it's not you we need to worry about, Marco. long shot.>

The Yeerks think you and your family are dead, so

"Yeah." Rachel shook her head. "But we even if they had a sample of your blood containcan't take that chance. If the Yeerks find me, ing animal DNA, it wouldn't lead them anywhere. they find us all. They'll slide a Yeerk into my Ax is an Andalite, so that's not a problem. And head and then we're dead or worse, infested, and Tobias . . . "

so are our families." She looked up at me. "And

<Tobias hasn't given blood since he magically everyone we care about."

turned into a bird,> I said.

<And the free Hork-Bajir,> said Ax. <They

"Right." Jake smiled at me — a grim smile have been forced to relocate once, in spite of our edged with guilt — and nodded. "Which narrows assistance. Without our help they easily could be it down to Cassie, Rachel, and me." He turned to captured, their colony destroyed.>

Cassie and Rachel. "Think hard. Any doctor vis"Maybe," said Cassie. "Look, the Yeerks its? Trips to the school nurse?"

don't know we're human. Yet. They only suspect. Cassie shook her head. Rachel shrugged.

If we really were Andalites, we'd want them to 18

19

waste time and manpower analyzing human
blood samples, right? So if we bust in, destroy their project, we only prove we're not Andalites."

"Better than the alternative," Rachel argued.

"We can stop the Yeerks, and yeah, they'll know we're human, but they won't know which humans. Or we can let them continue till they find us. Which they will."

"There's another option," said Jake. "We can get inside, find out what they know. Then decide what to do. The research is probably on a computer somewhere, at whatever company the Yeerks are using as a front. If we can get our hands on it, maybe we can destroy any incriminating data without the Yeerks catching on. They I figured Ax and Marco would find the blood continue their research and come up blank. Ax, bank, Jake would call another meeting, we'd inis that something you can handle?" filtrate the place and destroy any incriminating

<Of course, Prince Jake.> Ax whipped his tail information.

forward. <We need only find the correct facility.> Good guys win and go home.

"Not a problem," said Marco. "We hack into I flew from the hayloft. The meeting was over. the computer system of every blood bank, hospiThe sun was setting, the air beginning to cool. tal, and clinic on the planet. The one we can't Below me, Marco and Ax slipped into the litget into, the one with the extraterrestrial firewall, tle strip of woods that led from the barn to Ax's that'll be the Yeerks."

scoop. I knew they'd soon be logging on to their souped-up Mac, hacking into blood bank computers. They'd find me when they needed me, when it was time to plan the mission. In the meantime, I had other things to worry about. Like how to eat without being eaten.

20

21

Not that I'd ever actually starve. Rachel That's what Elfangor did. He flew free. He would see to that. But what self-respecting hawk came to Earth because he was in love with my lets his girlfriend feed him? Lets her buy vitamin mother, Loren. He morphed a human man and drops for him at Petsmart? Lets her fix a spot in deliberately stayed past the two-hour time limit —
her sock drawer so he has a cozy spot to sleep on became a nothlit— so he could live out his life dark and stormy nights? A hawk shouldn't wake with her.

up smelling like dryer sheets.

He must have believed she was worth it. PerDon't get me wrong, l'm glad she cares. And sonally, I thought he was a little misguided. The l'm glad it's Rachel.

only thing I knew about my mother was what my But she shouldn't have to do all that. I took aunt used to tell me . . . and tell me . . . and tell care of myself as a human. I can take care of myme: "Nutty as a fruitcake and didn't want nothself as a hawk. ing to do with her own kid. So they dumped you As a boy, I'd been passed back and forth beon me." tween a much-married aunt and an alcoholic But Elfangor stayed on Earth for years. Went uncle.

to college, married my mother, created a life. And my parents?

Was happy, I think. / hope.

Official story: My dad died and my mom

Enter the Ellimist.

walked when I was still too young to remember. The same all-powerful being who'd given me The truth: Yeah, my mom walked out, but the back my morphing powers and left me as a hawk. man who died had been my stepfather. I had anThe Ellimist restored my father's Andalite body, other father. My real father.

returned him to the Andalite fleet, and erased all Elfangor.

memory of him from my mother's mind.

I found out through a sleazoid lawyerElfangor fought valiantly in the Andalite war Controller, of all people. Elfangor had grown tired and returned to Earth only once. To save the of war, tired of defending the galaxy.

planet from the Yeerks.

I knew how he felt. I was defending one small And to die.

planet, and some days I longed to soar away to Did he know? As he lay in the dirt of that some remote mountaintop. Forget the fear and abandoned construction site, his life slipping the fighting. Just fly free.

away, did he know he was talking to his son?

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I want to believe he did. To believe I was the row. Not a toy bow and arrow. This was a comreason he trusted me and my friends with his pound bow, with weights and sights and a razorgreatest gift. edged arrow fitted onto the bowstring.

But the truth is, he was desperate. Once he The lunatic aimed.

was gone, the Yeerks would enslave and destroy I flapped toward the sky.

the planet. And he couldn't let that happen. He Thwwwoooooooooook.

probably would've given that morphing ability to The arrow sliced past. Its feathers raked the any kid who wandered by.

edge of my wing. Half an inch to the right, and I The kid just happened to be me.

would've been birdie shish kebab. I swooped I soared over the rooftops and utility lines of over a row of newly planted trees and dropped the new housing development that had recently down into the next yard.

popped up near my meadow.

Th wwwoooooooooook.

Movement. Steady. Winding. In the yard beAnother arrow. Above me. I stayed low, skimlow. I banked. A snake slid from the grass onto a ming along the spindly line of trees.

backyard walkway. Not a rattler this time. An A hawk is built to soar, not flap endlessly like everyday, garden-variety blacksnake. It slithered a duck. Flying that close to the ground was hard across the walk, fully exposed.

work. No thermals.

I circled. The yard was empty, the house dark. But it was my own fault. I knew not to hunt in The sun was just sinking behind the hills. The human territory. In somebody's backyard! It was streets and houses were draped in shadows. No a stupid mistake. A mistake a real hawk wouldn't one would see me.

have made.

I circled again. Hunger. Food. Kill. Eat. I But Tobias the hawk hadn't made the misswooped. The snake was still alive, still warm, take. Tobias the boy had. I'd seen the snake, and when I ripped into its flesh. Yes. It felt good. It my human brain took it as a dare. A snake had felt hawk. I sank my beak into the meat.

stolen my lunch, and now I was stealing it back. Creeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

My human brain was going to get my hawk

I turned my head. The back door of the house body in big trouble one of these days.

inched open. A bare-chested lunatic in camouflage pants darted out, clutching a bow and ar24

25

television set. But Marco was a boy with lots of toys. And he kept a lot of them at the scoop. The rest of Marco's stuff was at his other home, the cabin he shared with his parents in the Hork-Bajir valley. When we'd rescued Marco's mom, we'd also had to rescue his dad. The Chee helped us stage his — and Marco's — "death." The family evacuated to the valley, and Marco stayed there whenever he could.

But when he needed to be closer to us, closer to the war, he stayed here with Ax.

<How's it going down there?>

<Hello, Tobias.> Ax stood in the open part of the scoop, his stalk eyes scanning the sky. <l am Saturday morning.

glad you came. We were preparing to find you.> I flew to the scoop. I took a longer route this

<Already? You found the site?>
time, bypassing the new housing development.

"Complete no-brainer." Marco was hunkered Soared over fields and pastures and circled back down in front of the computer at the back of the to Ax's clearing in the woods.

scoop.

Ax built his scoop soon after he came to

I perched on the CD tower behind him.

Earth. According to him, it was a smaller version He leaned back in his chair. "Hospitals, labs, of a typical Andalite home. He'd had to do some clinics, community blood banks — they all opened remodeling when Marco took up part-time resiright up for us. Kind of scary when you think about dence with him. Now the scoop was bigger, with it. Your complete medical history is just a click a little more enclosed space and a lot more clutter. away, available to any nut-job with Internet access. Ax was an alien of few possessions. Some reBut then we get to this one." He motioned toward search-type books, pictures of his favorite human the computer screen. "Midtown Bio-Services, Inc. foods. Some computer equipment. His beloved Suddenly it's like breaking into the CIA." 26

27

<Actually,> said Ax, <it was far more difficult. lem with Rachel feeding him. He'd live in her We experienced relative ease penetrating the room and wait for her to bring snacks. Preen himCentral Intelligence Agency databases self in her mirror all day while she was at school.

<The CIA?> I looked at Marco. <Wait. You Marco wouldn't make himself live by some
hacked into their computer one day for kicks?> glorified rule of the hunt, or whatever it was I felt

"Hey, the more information we can gather, compelled to live by.

the better prepared we'll be." He shrugged. "Be<So now what?> I said. <Back to Cassie's sides, I gotta have something to do. It gets lonely barn?>
hangin' here. I almost miss school. Okay. Maybe

"Nope." Marco powered the Mac down. "We not. But unless you count the Victoria's Secret head straight for this Bio-Services place. It's only Web page, there are no babes in my life anya couple of miles from here, and Jake doesn't more."

want to waste time. He thinks a daylight mission

<There were no babes in your old life,> I said. on a Saturday morning might catch the Yeerks off

"Oh. Very nice, Tobias. Go for the jugular. guard."

You've got Rachel tending to your every need.

<Off guard ?>

Me, I've got Ax-man." He jerked his thumb

"You know what I mean. As off guard as toward Ax, who was gazing lovingly at a magazine Yeerks ever get. Maybe they won't be expecting ad for the new original M&M's. "I'll trade you us. Maybe we can slip in and out before they noright now, straight across." tice."

<Yeah, Marco. That'd work.> I glanced at his

<Yeah, maybe. And maybe you're crazy.> CD player, satellite dish, and assorted Gameboy cartridges. At the stacks of CDs and the piles of comic books. All of which he'd somehow, mysteriously acquired after having to abandon his old stuff. <You'd make one fine bird of prey.> He lobbed a TV Guide at me.

But you know what? Marco's an opportunist. He would probably adjust to my bizarre version of hawk life better than I had. He'd have no prob29

28

painted with clowns and tigers, lined the blocked-off streets.

I floated above the big rigs. Below me, burly guys wielding leather prods unloaded elephants from the trailers into a huge pen in the Civic Center's plaza. More policemen tried to hold a crowd of onlookers behind a rope barrier. A monster forklift trundled across the plaza and dumped a huge round bale of hay into a low trough at one end of the pen.

"HhhuuuurrHHHHEEEEEAAAAH!" One of the elephants trumpeted. A dozen others lumbered over to the trough. Marco swooped out over the plaza. <Hey!

I caught a nice thermal over the freeway

How come nobody told me the circus was in and soared high in the sky. Marco, in osprey town?>
morph, stayed behind me, lower and to the side.

<Jake was afraid you'd try to join it. You Ax, the northern harrier, swept back and forth know — the whole clown thing?> I circled. above the rooftops.

<Shouldn't the lab be pretty close?> We flew over houses and strip malls, parks

<lf you bank right, Tobias, and proceed apand ball fields, till we reached the heart of the proximately forty-six yards, you should be dicity. Then we swooped between the downtown rectly in front of the research facility.> skyscrapers. Soared and plunged and emerged Ax skimmed over the Civic Center and down a over the domed roof of the Civic Center.

side street. Marco and I followed. Ax was right. It The streets around the center had been barriwasn't long before we sailed past a long, low concaded with orange sawhorses. Police cars were crete building. A small brass plate beside the parked crossways at the corners, lights flashing. door said MIDTOWN BIO-SERVICES, INC. Below Uniformed officers directed traffic away from the it hung a larger sign: NO SOLICITING.

them. Eighteen-wheelers, their trailers brightly

<Gray concrete, no windows, and a complete 30

31
lack of architectural charm,> said Marco. <Gotta Jake nodded, but Rachel had already started be Yeerks.>
to morph.

Cassie, Rachel, and Jake were waiting for us Her nose and upper lip melded together into a in the alley across the street. We landed, and fat, gray nub. Ears sprouted like a pair of gray pot Marco and Ax demorphed.

holders. Soon the pot holders were beach tow"We don't have much to work with," said els, the nub a full-fledged trunk. Legs and arms Jake. "A pair of solid steel doors in front and a thickened. Hands and feet flattened. Tanned loading dock in back."

skin dissolved into leathery gray hide.

"Both armed with Gleet BioFilters," said Jake outlined his plan.

Cassie.

He turned to Rachel. "You know what to do, Which we'd expected. It was starting to beright?" come standard equipment at all entrances and

<Call a little attention to myself, short-circuit exits at Yeerk facilities and all entrances to the the bio-zapper, and lead any and all pursuers Yeerk pool. We'd found that out the hard way. toward the circus, where I can squeeze in among The BioFilters were programmed to destroy any the other elephants and, in the confusion, delife-form whose DNA wasn't entered into the data morph.>
bank.

"And then?"

Another bit of technology the Yeerks lifted

<Then?> She swished her rope-thin tail. from the Andalites.

Jake sighed. "Then mingle into the crowd, do

<Prince Jake?> Ax trained his stalk eyes on not call attention to yourself, and wait patiently the research lab. <lf the control panel is defor the rest of us." stroyed, the BioFilter will deactivate.> He

<Wait patiently. Right.> She saluted him with paused. <Of course, the control panel is located her trunk. <l can do that.>
inside the building, and we are on the outside.> Marco looked at me. "She. Cannot. Do. Jake nodded. "Yeah. So we need to create a That."

diversion. A little chaos, and a whole lot of

<No,> I said. <Probably not.> noise." He looked at Rachel. "Any volunteers?" Rachel stood down beside a Dumpster while Rachel smiled her "let's do it" smile. "Elethe rest of us went fly. Definitely not my favorite phant?"

morph.

32

33

Whooosh!

the relatively short distance to the research lab. The ground shot up as I shrank to the size of Several minutes later, we lit on the wall above gravel. Bones dissolved, reemerged as fly exothe metal doors. Not a moment too soon. skeleton. My wings thinned to tissue. Feathers

"HhhhRRRRRRuuuhhh!"

shriveled into tiny fly hairs.

Rachel thundered from the alley, pushing the Sploooooooot.

Dumpster with her wrecking-ball head. Shoved it Four extra legs sprouted from my chest. A up across the little strip of grass in front of Midpair of antennae shot from the top of my head. town Bio-Services, Inc.

My vision shattered into a thousand pieces.

CRRRRUUUUNCHHH! WHAM!

The morph was complete. And my fly brain

Slammed the Dumpster into the concrete
had exactly one thought. GARBAGE! POOP! I wall! Backed up and squashed the trunk of a buzzed into the Dumpster, into the wonderful BMW parked at the curb.

world of curdled milk and moldy pizza boxes.

<You've made her a very happy pachyderm,> Four other flies darted around me, savoring the I told Jake. <lt's been weeks since her last carstench and the rot. stomping.>

<Uh, do you guys think you can get a grip?>

"HhhRRRuh!" Rachel trumpeted before she Rachel called. My compound eyes pieced towrapped her trunk around a NO PARKING sign gether her huge gray face, peering down into the and ripped it from the sidewalk. Held it high. Dumpster. <Ax, I don't even want to know what Waited.

that is you're standing on.>

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

<l believe it is a ham and cheese sandwich, And the thick steel doors slid open.

putrefied. My fly morph finds it very satisfying.>

<Oh, how gross are you?> Rachel cried. <Can you all please just get out of there before I hurl?> Cassie laughed. <l didn't know rotten mayonnaise could be so . . . so delicious!>

<You people are sick.> Jake. <Rachel's right. We have someplace else to be.>

Rachel's thought-speak helped guide five flies 34

35

A computerized voice droned through the
smoke. "Bio. Filter. Deactivated. Immediate. Shutdown. Immediate. Shutdown."

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The doors began to slide shut.

<Let's go! In! In! In!>

Jake zipped through the doorway. Ax, Marco, and Cassie followed.

I hovered outside. Through broken fly vision, 1
could see Controllers lunging toward Rachel, surrounding her. She reared, head thrashing. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

<NOW, Tobias!>

"HhhhRRRRuuuhhh!" Rachel reared again

"Andalite!"

and swung around. Controllers scattered. Rachel Human-Controllers streamed from the buildcharged down the street. ing.

I spun. The doors were an inch apart. Half an

"Surround it! Don't let it escape!" inch. I darted between them. Solid steel brushed Rachel reared up on her hind legs. Controllers the tips of my wings. Halfway through. I could dove for cover.

see light beyond. Almost there.

<NOW!> Jake ordered.

WHAM!

With her massive trunk, Rachel hurled the NO

The crash of metal vibrated through my body. PARKING sign like a javelin toward the open The rush of air launched me into space.

doors.

<Gee, Tobias, we're glad you could join us,> Pop. Pop.

Marco said as I hurtled past.

Sparks flew.

<Are you okay?> Cassie.

A cloud of smoke puffed out from the open

<Yeah.> I flipped upright. <Fine.> doors. The NO PARKING sign clanked to the Four other flies hovered on the ceiling. I floor.

buzzed up to join them. And to get my bearings. 37

36

We seemed to be in a long hallway. Humans

"What, you just noticed?" He tugged at his and Hork-Bajir bustled along below us, in and bike shorts and tight blue T-shirt.

out of offices, carrying folders, pushing carts. I I leaned over and plucked up a beakful of didn't need the fractured flashes of red or the T-shirt. <Does this remind you of anything?> clink of glass tubes to know what the carts car"Yeah." He pulled his shirt from my mouth. ried. Fly senses screamed the answer. Blood. Hu"It reminds me why I never wanted a pet bird." man blood.

<No,> I said. <The color.>

<We're definitely in the right place,> I said. Ax nodded. <lt is the color of the Blue Band

<Yeah,> Jake agreed, <but we need a more Hork-Bajir.>
useful morph. Better eyes, at least.>

Right. The Blue Bands. Visser One's elite

<Hands would be nice.> Marco.

Hork-Bajir guard. Part Green Beret. Part armored We hummed along the ceiling, looking for a car. Pure terror.

place to demorph. The long hallway led into anWe stared at Marco's shirt. other, and another. We finally spotted a darkened

"Whoa." He backed up against a row of metal door at the end of a corridor and darted under it. shelves. "You're looking at me like l'm lunch." And waited. No sound. No movement. No

<No,> I said. <We're looking at you like blood, either. Only the overwhelming stench of you're a giant armband.>
floor wax and disinfectant. We spread out and deCassie rummaged through the shelves and morphed.

found a utility knife and a roll of duct tape.

<Uck,> Cassie whispered. <l'm standing in a Marco peeled his shirt off and handed it to bucket. And guess what? There's still water in it. Cassie.

At least I hope that's what it is.>

"No looking," he warned. "There's no telling We were crowded into a janitor's closet. Three what the sight of my naked torso might make you kids, an Andalite, and a bird. I perched on the do." Marco turned to me. "I'm lethal at the edge of the sink. Light from the hall shone beach."

through an air vent in the door.

Cassie struggled to control a grin. And quickly

<Hey.> I stared at Marco. <You got a new cut the shirt into wide strips.

morphing outfit.>

Then we went Hork-Bajir. Carefully. Five fully 38

39
grown Hork-Bajir have no business huddling in a janitor's closet.

The rest of us marched behind him, two by two. I focused on Ket Halpak, my Hork-Bajir

Human-Controllers and Hork-Bajir scrambled morph.

aside to let us pass. Nobody stopped us. Nobody And felt my feathers harden to leather.

asked where we were going. Nobody even looked Bones ground and popped.

us in the eye.

I shot seven feet in the air.

<We should've gotten armbands a long time Thump. <Ouch.>
ago,> Marco said.

My head banged into the first-aid kit hung on We neared the center of the building. The the wall.

crowd of scurrying lab techs and office workers My beak grew wider, longer. My neck slithered thinned out. We marched down a nearly empty out like a snake's.

hall, turned the corner —

Thooomp! Thoomp! Horns erupted from my

— and stopped.

forehead. Talons spread to tyrannosaurus proporBefore us lay a narrow passageway. At the end tions. My tail shot out to twice my height. was another pair of solid metal doors, guarded by

SHWOOP! SHWOOP! SHWOOP! SHWOOP!

an armed Hork-Bajir.

Blades burst from my wrists, elbows, knees, tail. The guard leveled his Dracon beam at us.

I was a walking switchblade. Death on two

<Um,> Marco said. <Think we found their legs.

computer?>

Crouched in a sink, trying not to fillet my friends.

We wrapped our new blue armbands around
our biceps and stuck them down with slivers of duct tape.

<Ready?> Jake eased the door open. <Just act like you belong.> He stepped into the hall. Marco sauntered after him. <Famous last words. >

Jake led the way back to the main corridor. 40

41

"HA-HA!" I clapped Ax on the shoulder. "HAHA-HA!" Ax frowned. "Ha," he said.

Jake whipped his snake head back toward
the guard. "Surprise inspection. Heh-heh." His laugh turned menacing. He leaned forward till his beak nearly touched the guard's forehead horn. "Visser One."

The guard swallowed. "Visser One?" He reached back and ran his palm over an entry pad on the wall.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The doors slid open.

Jake snatched the Dracon beam from the

J a k e strode toward the guard. He pushed guard's hand. He pointed it toward the open the end of the Dracon beam away and pointed at doorway. " I N . "

the door.

The guard backed into the room. We marched

"OPEN."

after him, across a raised metal floor.

The guard hesitated. His gaze flickered

<Whoa.>
toward Jake's armband. Then he aimed the DraYeah. Marco was right. It looked like Mission con at Jake's chest.

Control. An electronic map filled one wall. Little

"Where is pass?"

green dots were scattered across it, connected Hey, nobody ever accused a Hork-Bajir of belike a web to one large red dot. A tiny orange dot ing eloquent.

flashed beside the red one. A bank of computers

"Pass?" Jake turned toward us. He jerked his faced the map. Rows of numbers scrolled across thumb at the guard. "He wants pass! HA-HAtheir screens. HA-HA!"

<Analyzing data,> Ax said unnecessarily. Cassie and Marco laughed. "HA-HA!" But other than the computers, the guard, and 42

43
us, the room was empty. No human-Controllers. No Hork-Bajir.

over the keyboard. <l do not mean to be disJake motioned toward the door. "Close." paraging toward other species, but Hork-Bajir The guard turned and swiped his hand over hands were not designed t o — > He stopped. the entry pad.

<Prince Jake? We may be too late.>

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Four Hork-Bajir stared at him.

Jake raised the Dracon beam. <Sorry.>

<They found a match?>

He thumped the guard over the head with the Ax studied the monitor. <Yes. But I don't butt of the weapon. The guard slumped to the think the Yeerks are aware of it yet. This file has floor.

not been accessed since the computer analyzed

<Okay, Ax,> he said. <We don't have much the data. And it is only a partial match.> time. It won't take the Yeerks long to notice their

<Partial?> Marco circled the computer bank.

<What does that mean? They either find animal guard is missing.>

DNA or they don't, right?>

Ax raced to a computer. His clawed Hork-BaAx shook his head. <This is very strange. It injir fingers stumbled over the keyboard. <Prince dicates a human who has significant family ties Jake, my Andalite hands would be better suited with one of the Andalite bandits.> He leaned for—>
toward the screen. <But the computer has not

<Demorph. Hurry.>
yet uncovered the identity of this Andalite banAx nodded and began to demorph. Jake stood dit.>
watch over the guard. Cassie, Marco, and I

<Oh man, Jake.> Cassie closed her eyes. <We crossed to the map.

overlooked something. Something huge. Our Cassie traced the green dots with her finger. blood is all over the place. Every time we fight

<These must be blood collection sites. And these creeps, we bleed. Traces of our human this —> She tapped the big red dot. <This must DNA is floating around in all that animal blood. be where we're standing. See? All the green dots All they have to do is scoop it up and wait for a lead here. But what's this?> She pointed to the match.>
orange dot.

Jake nodded. <Or a partial match. Somebody

<Yeerk pool?> Marco guessed.

in our family.> He stared at Ax. <Tom?>

<Ah. Much better.> Ax's Andalite fingers flew

<No, Prince Jake.>

44

45

Marco leaned over Ax's shoulder. <Uhf Tobias?> He looked up at me. <You may want to see this.>

I crossed to the computer. Ax moved aside so I could see the screen. And the name.

Loren.

<But that's my —> I stopped.

My mother. First name. Last name.

Address.

I stared at the screen. She lived only a few blocks from the three-room shack I'd shared with my uncle. An easy walk. One bus stop.

I looked up at the map. At the flashing orange light. My mother. The light represented my mother.

<Uh-oh.> Cassie's voice pulled me out of my

"You can't escape. So, do us all a favor and stupor. <Trouble.>
don't even try."

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

A human-Controller pushed through the line The doors slid open.

of Blue Band Hork-Bajir. Orthopedic shoes A dozen Hork-Bajir marched into the room. squeaked against the metal floor. Reading Real Hork-Bajir. Wearing blue armbands.

glasses swung from a chain around her neck. She looked like somebody's grandmother. Wrinkled pink cheeks. A puff of white hair. A lavender cardigan pulled over her flowered dress.

But instead of offering a plate of homemade cookies she trained a Dracon beam on us. And said, "Surrender now, or die."

<Ax,> Jake said in private thought-speak. 46

47

<Work fast. Erase Tobias's mother from the dataThe Controller narrowed her eyes. "What do base. The Controller won't shoot. She can't risk you mean?"

hitting the computers.>

<Are you sure we are all here?> Jake's

<Yes, Prince Jake.> Ax's stalk eyes swung thought-speak was deeper than usual. More exfrom the Controller to Jake, then back to the Conact, like Ax's. Like an Andalite's. Would it fool troller. His fingers raced over the keyboard. her?

Jake was still holding the unconscious

Did it matter?

guard's weapon. He met the human-Controller's

<lf I destroy the computer.> he said, <you gaze and held it, then aimed the Dracon beam at could kill us. But how many Andalites would still the bank of computers.

be out there? How many escaped "bandits" The Controller chuckled. "My, my. What a would you have to report to Visser One?> well-thought-out plan. Destroy the database, and The Controller's face hardened. Her gaze

I'll have no reason to hold my fire. I'll mow you swept to Marco, Ax, me, then Cassie. Then to down. You and your little friends. Visser One will the map. To the red dot, and the smaller dot bebe delighted. The so-called Andalite bandits will side it.

be dead, and he'll no longer need to divert time She froze.

and resources to this project. Go ahead, dear. Smiled.

Pull the trigger."

She'd seen the flashing orange dot.

<Uh, Jake, can I make a suggestion? DON'T

She knew they'd found a match.

SHOOT.>

She turned to Jake. "Be sensible. Surrender

<Thanks, Marco. I'll take that into considerapeacefully and you won't be hurt. Much. With tion.> Jake tightened his grip on the Dracon your morphing abilities, you'll make excellent beam. <Ax? How's it going?>
host bodies. Much better than this worn-out hu<Not well, Prince Jake. I have encountered man I'm living in. In fact, Visser One will be so an unexpected second level of security. I can pleased, he'll probably promote me, and I'll end break through, but it will take a few moments.> up in one of your heads. Won't that be cozy?"

<Good. Keep working.> Jake studied the Con<l will die before I become a Controller.> Jake troller. Then, in public thought-speak, he asked, pronounced.

<Have you counted us?>

Granny shook her head. "Such a pity. But it's 48

49
your choice." She turned toward the Hork-Bajir. as his body went limp and he collapsed against

"Kill them."

my chest. I wrenched my arm blades from his The Blue Bands had been standing at attenbelly. tion. Not moving, not blinking, barely breathing. Around me the battle raged. A forest of HorkNow they leaped forward in one precise moveBajir kicking, leaping, clawing. ment. Like automatic weapons.

<Jake! Behind you.>

Jake whirled and fired.

<Cassie, watch out!>

Tsssssssssseeeeeeeeeew!

Fwwwap! Fwwap-fwwap!

"AAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH!"

Ax's tail blade struck, and struck again. Two Hork-Bajir fell, their legs severed at the But I was cut off from the fighting. For now. knees. Blue-green Hork-Bajir blood spilled The dead Blue Band lay on top of me, concealing across the metal floor.

me. His blue-green blood oozed over me.

Another Hork-Bajir sprang at Jake. And anI could see the human-Controller. She circled other.

the perimeter, weapon aimed, still not firing. THUMP!

They'd found a DNA match, and she knew it. She Jake slammed against the wall. The Dracon couldn't jeopardize the research. She couldn't beam slid across the floor. Under the computer shoot.

bank. If I could get it —

But I could. I inched toward Jake's fallen SWOOP!

weapon. If I could destroy the database . . . A wrist blade sliced past my chest. I jerked I slid my hand under the computer. It had to away. Stumbled. A Blue Band kicked. Knocked be there. It —
me back.

Yes! My claws brushed something solid,

WHUMP!

metal.

My head bounced against a computer. I slid

<MARCO!>
to the floor. The Blue Band lunged for me. I Cassie screamed. I turned my head.

thrust my arm up.

Marco was pinned between two Blue Bands.

Blades plunged through skin, muscle, bone. His beak had been ripped from his face and lay The Blue Band's eyes glared at me. Dimmed at his feet in a lake of blood.

50

51

One Blue Band held Marco from behind.

Pulled Marco's head up and back, leaving his neck exposed.

And the other Blue Band raised his wrist
blade above Marco's throat.

I shoved the dead Hork-Bajir from my chest. The Blue Band spit at Marco. "You die." Then dropped his wrist blade like a guillotine.

<Marco. Kick. Now!>

I dove. Marco kicked. I hit the Blue Band's feet as Marco thrust his talons into his gut. The Blue Band plunged backward.

He slammed against the computer bank. His head crashed back onto his tail.

And his own tail blades pierced his skull. I leaped to my feet.

The other Blue Band was still holding Marco from behind. He jerked Marco back.

Cassie attacked. Elbow blade across the Blue Band's shoulder.

52

53

He spun. "FILTH." Swung at Cassie. rity code,> he said. <Thirty seconds more at the His other arm was still wrapped around
keyboard and —>

Marco's throat. I lunged for it. Clamped down. I

<Leave it, Ax. Let's go!>
ripped a beakful of skin and muscle from his The unconscious Hork-Bajir guard still lay, forearm.

unmoving, by the door. Jake slid the palm of the

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH." The Blue Band reguard's hand over the door's entry pad. leased his grip.

The door didn't budge.

Marco tumbled forward and I caught him.

He slid the guard's palm over the pad again. The Blue Band leaped for us.

Nothing.

<NO-O-O-O-O-O!>

The human-Controller cackled. She was

Cassie rammed him from the side. Her horns standing beneath the electronic map. "I took the pierced his skin. He toppled over the wall of precaution of deleting the guard's DNA from the computers.

security database before we entered the room." Marco sagged against me. Blood gushed from She aimed the Dracon at Jake. "You're trapped, his gaping pit of face.

dearies."

<Jake,> I called. <Marco's fading fast.> Jake dropped the guard's arm and slid his

<Move toward the doors,> he ordered. <l own palm over the pad. Banged it. Pushed it. think we can get out.>

Doubled his fist and punched it.

I dragged Marco across the floor, sliding and Nothing. Then . . .

stumbling through bodies and blood. Cassie covTwo thick metal prongs erupted through the ered our rear.

doors.

A Hork-Bajir hit the floor.

The prongs rose. The doors crumpled open.

<Cassie?>

"GrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWR!"

<l'm okay!>

Rachel, in grizzly morph, bounded through the Ax, still locked in bladed combat with two opening. Behind her in the passageway sat the Blue Bands.

monster forklift from the circus, motor rumbling. Fwwwap! Fwwwap! Fwwwap-fwwwap!

<Don't think of it as stolen property,> she told

<Prince Jake, I had almost broken the secuJake. <Think of it as a really big key.> 54

55

<Let's bail!> Jake leaped onto the forklift. way. Crunched over crumbled Sheetrock, broken

"No!" The human-Controller clattered toward glass, blood. Rachel was in the lead, Ax and us. Rounded the computer bank and leveled the Cassie at the rear. We didn't bother winding Dracon.

through the hallways. Rachel had plowed a Thwwwap!

straight shot from the front door to the computer Ax's tail struck. Once. Side of his blade to the room.

side of her head. The Controller dropped to the

<Marco,> I cried. <Demorph. Demorph!> floor, unconscious.

<Can't. They'll . . . see me.>

The remaining Blue Bands lunged at Ax.

<Doesn't matter anymore!> Jake yelled.

"GrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWR!"

<DO IT!>

Rachel batted them with her mammoth grizMarco nodded. And closed his eyes. zly paws.

<Marco!>

I lifted Marco. Jake and I hauled him through

<l'm . . . okay. De . . . morphing.> Dark hair the front of the forklift. I leaped up after him, sprouted from his bloody Hork-Bajir head. His turned, and caught a glimpse of the map. The orleathered skin grew soft. Pale. ange light was still blinking.

"Freeze!"

I pulled Marco out of the forklift, into the pasA human-Controller leaped from a doorway sageway. Ax leaped down after us, then Cassie, and aimed a pistol at us.

then Jake. Rachel dropped her thousand-pound Rachel swatted him like a gnat. He thumped grizzly butt into the driver's seat.

against the wall. The pistol skidded under a flat Beeeeep. Beeeeep, Beeeeep. Beeeeep. tened desk.

The forklift backed up. The mangled doors Fwwwap-fwwwap!

slammed shut, locked into place by the lift's Behind me, Cassie and Ax battled a fresh
metal prongs.

group of Hork-Bajir.

Rachel barreled down from the forklift. <Let's In a group we scrambled over two heaps of go, let's go!>
steel — the front doors, punctured and ripped Jake and I each thrust a shoulder under
from the door frame. Marco, fully human,

Marco's arms. We bounded down the passagereached back and grabbed Ax, whose hooves 56

57
skittered on the slick metal. Pulled him. Up.

<Fly,> I said. <Finish morphing in the air. Over. Outside!

They're on you!>

Rachel heaved the Dumpster in front of the The granny-Controller darted down the alley. doors. And we sprinted toward the alley.

She stopped. Smiled.

We morphed as we ran. Cassie, Rachel, and And leveled the Dracon.

Jake demorphed to human. Marco and Ax, al"You're dead." ready in their natural forms, morphed harrier and

TSSSSEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

osprey. I demorphed to hawk.

The alley exploded.

Talons shrank. Feathers grew. Arms sprouted into wings. I flapped. Stumbled. Flapped again. Up. Up. Out of the alley.

I cleared the rooftops and circled back to the lab. Ax and Marco soared beside me.

KUUUUNNNG. KUUUUNNNG.

The Dumpster rocked.

<Hurry, Prince Jake,> said Ax. <The Controllers are escaping.> The Dumpster tipped. Controllers poured
from the building and into the street.

Humans.

Hork-Bajir.

The granny-Controller from the computer
room. Dracon beam clutched in her bony hand, she squeezed through the crowd and vaulted toward the alley.

I spun. <Rachel! Cassie! Jake!>

I could see them below. Half human. Half
bird.

58

59

<Tobias?>

Rachel's voice. I whirled.

An eagle, a falcon, and an osprey rose from the smoke.

<Rachel! Are you okay?>

<Yeah. A little singed, but okay.>

<Cassie and I are okay, too,> Jake called.

<Let's get out of here.>

We climbed toward the sky. Black smoke billowed out below, between us and the Yeerks. Police cars and fire trucks screamed toward the blast site.

In a loose formation we shot over downtown skyscrapers, then split up and took separate

<Rachel?>
routes back to Cassie's barn.

I reeled. Smoke and dust coated my wings. I circled the city. Circled again. I knew where My throat. Burned my eyes. Chunks of brick and I wanted to go. But my wings would not fly me asphalt hailed down on me.

there.

Pigeons flocked in all directions, and behind I was Tobias the Bird-boy, the nothlit who me, Marco and Ax circled the lab. But no Jake, devoured live mice and battled evil aliens. I'd no Cassie.

stolen Yeerk spacecraft, raided Yeerk strongNo Rachel. holds, and nearly gotten myself adopted by a I flapped. High. Higher. One of the buildings Yeerk Visser. I'd been stabbed and burned and had caught fire. A pillar of black smoke poured mangled and tortured, and only moments ago got into the sky.

the crap beat out of me by Hork-Bajir that should Ka-BOOOOOOOOOM!

be working for the WWF.

A second explosion. Ash and debris spewed But I couldn't face my mother. Couldn't even into the air.

face the roof of her house.

<N O-O-O-O-O-O-O !>

You want pathetic? All those years with my 60

61
aunt and uncle, no matter what they said about Marco broke the silence. "I bet they're backher, I knew — knew — my mother loved me. She ing up their hard drive big time now," he said. wanted me. Wanted to take care of me. But for It was a joke. Nobody laughed.

some reason she couldn't.

Rachel shook her head. "We really blew it." I invented reasons for her. Maybe she'd been

"Not we," Jake said. "Me." wrongfully imprisoned by some tyrannical foreign Ax looked up from the doe. <Prince Jake, you government. Maybe she'd been shipwrecked on a cannot blame yourself. Even if we had sucdeserted island. Maybe she'd been relocated in ceeded, if we had erased the data, we would not the Witness Protection Program.

have stopped Visser One. He would continue to Maybe I'd been relocated in the Witness Procollect blood samples until he discovered antection Program. other match. It was only a matter of time.> But not once, not one single time, did I imag"Time. Yeah." Jake banged his fist into the ine she lived eight blocks from me. That she side of the pen. Cassie and the doe jumped. passed my house every single day. And kept going.

"And we just ran out. Why didn't I think this I banked and headed for Cassie's. By the time through? No, I had to go for the surprise. In. Out. I flapped into the hayloft, everyone else had arBefore they know we're there. Yeah, that worked. rived and demorphed.

If they didn't have samples of our morph blood Cassie's dad had stacked hay bales high
before, they do now. We left our DNA all over against one wall. Marco was sitting at the top. I their computer room. Man." He rubbed his perched on a rafter above him. He nodded at me, hands over his face. "What was I thinking?" then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and

"You were thinking the longer we waited, the stared at the piece of hay in his hands.

more danger we'd be in." Cassie tore off a piece Rachel sat below him. Ax was helping Cassie of adhesive tape. "The more danger our families change the doe's bandage. Jake paced outside would be in. And you were right."

the pen.

"Our families." Jake leaned back against the And except for the scritch and thump of
pen. "They're a bigger target now than before we wounded animals, the barn was silent.

raided the place. The Yeerks know we're onto I caught Ax's gaze. He gave me his mouthless them. Once they find a match —" He looked up Andalite smile. Warm. And sad.

at me, his face twisted with guilt. "Once they 62

63
find a match, they'll move in. Cut off any chance bait, okay? They know who she is. They're watchour families have to escape." ing her. Waiting for you. She's probably already a Silence.

Controller."

<Then they must escape before the Yeerks

<You don't know that.>
find them.> Ax.

"Yeah. I do know that. I lived that. Getting Rachel nodded. "We get them out. Now." yourself killed won't help her."

"Can we do that to them?" Cassie looked I looked away. He was right, of course. He around the barn. At the animals. Her dad's made perfect sense.

equipment. His small, steady handwriting on the But perfect sense left my world a long time ago. medical charts. "Can we take away their lives?"

"We knew this day would come," Jake was

"They'll keep their lives," said Rachel. saying. "We've done everything we can to protect

"That's the point. They'll live. They'll just live our families. To keep them out of this. Now we've somewhere else."

got a decision to make. Go home. Get some How's this for ironic musing. The Yeerks were sleep. We'll meet back here tomorrow morning looking for humans who were related to human and take a vote."

Animorphs, and where did they get the match?

Meeting adjourned. I lifted my wings.

From a bird with no family. And then, the very

"Tobias. Don't leave." Rachel climbed the moment I find out I do have a family, a mother, stack of hay bales. She stood on the top and she's snatched away.

rested her chin on my rafter. "Stay at my house Worse than snatched away. The Yeerks had
tonight. You shouldn't be alone."

her name. Her address.

<Why not? I've always been alone.> My And I'd given her away to the Yeerks. I stared thought-speak was rougher than I'd intended. out the hayloft door. She couldn't fight them off.

<Look, Rachel, thank you. I appreciate it. I do. Not by herself.

But there's something I have to . . . see ya.>

"Tobias."

She nodded. "I know. I'll leave my window I turned. Marco was looking at me.

open."

He kept his voice low. "Look, I know what A human boy would've kissed her then.

you're doing. Mapping out suicidal rescue misThe hawk-boy flew out of the hayloft toward sions, right? But you can't go near her. She's the city.

64

65

white, and before that some shade of glow-inthe-dark green. Now it was mainly a few stubborn flecks of paint clinging to bare gray wood. The doors were closed, the shades pulled. Hey, at least she had shades. The other windows on the block were either boarded-up or covered with old sheets.

I drifted over the house. No sign of Yeerks. No sign of any life-form except a scrawny mutt tied to a clothesline three houses down.

I perched in an elm across the street.

A TV blared in the house below me. The channel changed. Changed again. Pat Sajak gave the wheel a final spin. It landed on the $5000
i found my old house first. My uncle's dump. space, and some idiot bought a vowel.

He obviously didn't live there anymore. Some"Where you think you're going?" body'd mowed the lawn and painted the garage. A woman's raspy voice, maybe the remoteI circled and headed toward my mother's. I happy homeowner's, rumbled into the evening air. didn't think about it. Didn't give my wings a

"Out."

chance to refuse. I just flew. Five blocks down, A younger voice. Male.

three across. Over abandoned houses, rusted-out

"Oh, yeah?" The woman again. "Who's gonna cars, and packed-dirt yards. My old neighborwatch Tiffany?" hood was scary. My mother's was worse. If I were

"She's your kid. You watch her." human, I'd never set foot there.

"I got plans."

I found her street. And her house. Second

"Me, too."

from the corner, across from a burned-out groReminded me of the enlightened and stimucery store. A tiny shack squeezed into a narrow lating conversations I used to have with my aunt. strip of yard with two feet of weeds between it The door banged open, and a kid about my
and the shacks on either side. It used to be age stormed across the porch below me.

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67

"Get back here." The floor groaned. The door the door. She slid the key into the lock and banged again. "Ricky Lee, you get your butt back turned it, using her fingers as a guide. She never in this house."

looked down.

Ricky Lee didn't even turn around. He kicked She was blind.

an old couch that was lying by the curb and kept My mother was blind.

going. I watched him jog two blocks to a 7-Eleven. If she was my mother. Okay, so she had the I focused on my mother's house.

same hair I had. And she was thin, like me. And The setting sun threw purple shadows across pale. Like me. And her long, straight nose looked the street. A lonely streetlight hummed to life at just like mine.

the corner.

Didn't mean she was my mother. She could

But Loren's house stayed dark. Was she
be anybody. A friend. A new tenant.

home? Did she work on Saturday nights? Did she A Controller.

even live there anymore?

The dog stood still, waiting. She leaned down I caught a breeze and circled above the
and scratched his neck. "You're such a good boy, street. Still no sign of Yeerks. I swooped low over Champ."

her roof.

Her voice was soft. Steady, like her footsteps. Movement inside. Footsteps. Not heavy, like a And a little . . . familiar.

man's. And not hurried. Cautious almost. Steady. Familiar? Get a grip, Tobias. You do not re- Then a clicking. Click-click-click. Click-click member her voice. Even if this is your mother, click. A dog's toenails clicking against the floor. she left you, abandoned you, before you were old I listened. No other footsteps. Just one care enough to remember anything about her. Her ful woman and a decent-sized dog.

voice is not familiar.

A chain jangled, and the front door swung She straightened up. "Forward," she told open. The woman stepped onto the porch with Champ.

the dog. A German shepherd, wearing some kind They stepped off the porch. The woman
of harness with a big, rigid handle. Like a guide gripped the handle of the harness in one hand. dog.

Champ trotted by her side.

Guide dog? I stared at her. She fumbled with They reached the sidewalk. "Left," she said. her keys, then turned and felt along the edge of They turned.

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69

And that's when I saw them. The scars. Deep I buzzed toward the dog smell. Champ was lygashes, running from the top of her skull to the ing on the floor at the end of one of the tables. corner of her mouth. Her right eye twisted downHe eyed me, but didn't move. His owner sat next ward. Her right ear was a mangled stub. Her hair to him. Less than a foot from me. I could smell grew in straggly clumps between the ridges. her shampoo.

She reached the corner and stopped. Champ A phone rang. I heard a click.

halted when she did. She waited. Then: "For"Saint Ann's Crisis Center." Her soft, steady ward."

voice. "This is Loren. How can I help?" They stepped off the curb and crossed the Loren. She said Loren. I heard her say Loren. street. The woman never stumbled or hesitated. My fly wings nearly stalled out. I landed on the The dog never left her side. I followed them for table beside her. Beside Loren.

six dark blocks. Past the 7-Eleven, past boardedMy mother. up houses and vacant lots. They slowed in front

"Take all the time you need," she was saying. of an old brick church. Saint Ann's, according to

"That's what I'm here for."

the wooden sign over the door.

And she was manning phones at a crisis

They turned into a dark passageway beside center.

the church and went down a flight of steps leadShe was poor, alone, maimed, and blind, and ing to the basement. The door at the bottom was she volunteered at a crisis center.

propped open by a cement block. They disap"Are you feeling better now?" she asked. peared inside.

"Good. I'll be here till midnight if you need to I couldn't exactly hurtle in after them. Not in talk some more."

hawk form. I flew to the steeple, morphed fly, and Woooosh!

buzzed down the stairway.

My fly reflexes hurled me forward.

Light and noise hit me as I entered the base Thwack!

ment. Phones rang. Dozens of people sat around A slab of plastic smacked against the table long tables, all talking at once. My fly senses zebehind me. A flyswatter. I shot toward a crack in roed in on the scent of mildew, coffee, sweaty the ceiling.

armpits.

"Dang. Missed." A man's voice. "Flies sure Dog.

are thick tonight."

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71

"Oh, don't be so hard on them." Loren's voice. Warm. Laughing. "They're God's creatures, too, you know." I inched from my hiding place. Who was this woman? She cared about people in crisis. She cared about her dog. She apparently cared about pesky flies in a church basement.

But she didn't care enough about her son to walk eight blocks for a visit.

I buzzed out of the basement and into the night.

"we got the circus in trouble," Rachel said.

"Channel 6 reported a rogue elephant escaped from the Civic Center, ripped up a blood bank, and damaged a gas main that later exploded, wiping out an alley and torching an abandoned warehouse."

Marco shook his head. "Hmmm. And they didn't mention that the blood bank is operated by aliens from another galaxy who are conducting research to help speed up the annihilation of our planet?"

The sun was barely up, but we were already assembled in Cassie's barn. Again. Jake had brought Mr. King, one of the Chee.

72

73

"The Chee need to know our plans." Jake night. That I'd stalked my own mother, and afterlooked at us. "Whatever we decide." ward landed my fly body in Saint Ann's steeple Mr. King nodded. "We'll help in any way we and just sat there. I don't even know for how can. Information, holograms, shelter. Let us long. Long enough that when I finally came out of know what you need."

my stupor, I was afraid that, yeah, I was still a

"We need to make it go away." Cassie was sit nothlit. But a fly this time. ting on the floor in front of the deer pen. "Can

"l'm just so tired of lying to everybody," Jake you please, please just make this all go away?" said wearily. "This morning at breakfast we're all Mr. King, his hologram at least, smiled. "If we sitting around looking at sale ads in the paper. could, we would have. A long, long time ago." My mom and dad wanted to go look at a new

"I know." Cassie leaned back against the pen. lawn mower. Tom even said he'd go along. They

"l'm sorry, l'm just very tired. I spent most of the wanted me to go, like a real family outing. But I night out here, doing what I could for as long as I made up a story about having to help Cassie's could." She waved a hand toward the animals. dad here at the farm."

"Who's going to take care of these guys? If my

"It wasn't exactly a lie." Cassie. dad's not here, they have zero chance of sur"It wasn't exactly the truth, either." Jake vival." She closed her eyes. "My dad. He doesn't shook his head. "My mom doesn't understand have a clue what's coming."

why I never have time for them anymore. At least

"I know." Rachel smiled ruefully. "I spent if we do this, if we get them out, that part will be last night helping Jordan practice her routine for over. Lying. Sneaking around. Hurting their feelthe all-city gymnastics meet. And you know ings." He let out a breath. "But we came here to what? She nailed it. She could win the whole vote, so let's do it. Rachel?"

thing. Except she probably won't even get to

"I'm in."

compete. She was all excited, telling me how

"Cassie?"

their coach got them all matching jackets. And I

"What choice do we have?"

played along, like it was really going to happen.

"Marco?"

Like everything was normal."

"We do it. Definitely."

Normal.

"Ax?"

I didn't tell the others what I'd done last

<l do what you do, Prince Jake.>

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75

"I vote yes. B u t . . . " Jake looked at us. "l'm

"So. We pack our toothbrushes and run." taking Tom." It wasn't a question. "I know it's a

"No, Rachel. We retreat," Jake answered. "A risk, but I think it's a containable risk. My partactical retreat. Save the army. Live to fight anents won't leave him behind. I won't leave him other day. But a toothbrush would be good. And behind. So, as long as everybody understands extra deodorant. We'll be out there a while." that, I vote yes."

<The Yeerks have probably already mobi<l understand, Prince Jake.> lized,> said Mr. King. <l suggest you begin the

"Tom's part of the deal," said Rachel. evacuation soon.>

Cassie and Marco nodded.

"How about now?" Cassie stood and brushed

"Tobias?" Jake looked up at me. "You haven't the hay from her jeans. "My parents are both voted."

home, which almost never happens. Let's do it."

<We get them out,> I said. <AII of them.> All of them. But l'm not sure Jake understood me.

He rubbed his temples. "Okay. Decision made. They'll be safest in the new Hork-Bajir valley. Marco's parents are already there. And the Yeerks think they destroyed it. We'll take my family last. That way if anything goes wrong with Tom, everybody else will already be safe. We'll have to watch them, guard them, for the first three days. To make sure none of them are Controllers. And to make sure . . ."

<To make sure the Yeerk in Tom's head dies,> Ax said, in his usual blunt way.

"Right." Jake nodded. "We'll all be living with the Hork-Bajir, too. We can't stay down here in the city. Too dangerous. The Yeerks would be all over us."

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77

and landed next to her coffee cup. She didn't look up.

Clink-clink. I tapped my beak on the cup. She peered over the top of her paper. "My. Aren't you a friendly hawk."

<Sometimes,> I said. <Although Yeerks and small rodents might disagree.>

She stared at me. "Oooooo-kay." Shook her head and raised the paper back up in front of her eyes. "I did not hear that."

<Not with your ears,> I said. <l'm speaking to your mind.>

Silence. Cassie's mom didn't move for a full minute.

Cassie eased open the barn door. Her mom

Then she carefully lowered the paper, folded was on the porch, drinking coffee and reading it into a neat rectangle, and reached for her cup. the Sunday paper.

"Coffee. I definitely need more coffee, because

"My parents are scientists," Cassie said quil'm still dreaming." She scooted her chair back. etly. "They believe in logic and reason, backed by

"I knew we shouldn't have switched to decaf." hard evidence. We have to show them proof and

"It's not the coffee, Mom."

explain it all rationally, or they'll never buy it." Cassie, Rachel, Marco, and Jake had slipped Mr. King created a hologram of Cassie's
across the yard while Cassie's mom and I were porch, barn, and yard. To anyone outside the chatting. Rachel, Marco, and Jake took positions hologram — driving by, flying overhead, lurking around the yard.

in the bushes — it looked like Cassie's mom was

"What on Earth is going on?"

still sitting alone at the porch table, absorbed in Cassie climbed the steps to the porch. She world news.

opened the kitchen door and poked her head inInside the hologram, I flew across the yard side. "Daddy? Can you come out here?" Then she 78

79
turned to face her mother. "You're not dreaming, Mom. Tobias isn't a normal hawk."

"There's nothing wrong with him, Mom," Her mother looked at me. "You got that Cassie said. Okay, now there was slight panic in right."

her tone. "Put him down."

"He's a human in hawk form," Cassie went on Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Fingers shot from patiently, like she was explaining a very complithe ends of my wings. cated concept to a very young and innocent

"Good heavens." Cassie's mom stared at the child. "He's communicating through thoughthuman hands hanging out beneath the newspaspeak. It's like telepathy." per wrapping. "Cassie, get your father. Tell him

"Telepathy. Uh-huh." Her mother crossed her to meet me in the barn. In the operating room. arms and leaned back in her chair. "What kind of Stay back, all of you. It could be contagious." game are you and your friends playing, Cassie?

"Mom, wait!"

Do you have a hidden microphone somewhere?" Cassie's mother bounded down the porch

She glanced at the row of flowerpots behind her. steps, with me still growing heavier and taller,

"Are you taping this, me acting the fool?" under her arm.

Cassie's voice remained admirably calm.

That's when Ax ambled toward us across the

"We're not taping anything, Mom, and it's not a yard.

game." She looked at me and nodded.

"Ahh!"

I focused on Tobias the boy. My feathers be THUNK!

gan melting to human skin.

I fell to the ground. My beak melted into a hu"Look, Cassie, this is my first day off in a very man nose and mouth. Talons stretched into hulong time, and l'm trying to enjoy — oh!" man feet, and I was a boy. A boy lying on his Cassie's mom had caught sight of my swirling, head in the dirt. I sat up.

brown-and-tan feather-skin.

Ax turned his stalk eyes toward me. <ls she a

"Something's wrong with that bird! Get back, Controller?> he asked privately.

Cassie."

<l can't tell,> I answered. <But I don't think Before I could stumble away, she threw the so.>
sports section over me, wrapped me up, and Cassie's mom slowly, slowly backed up the scooped me under her arm.

steps, her arms held out to her sides, barring Cassie from coming down from the porch.

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81

"Get back, Cassie." She kept her eyes on Ax. Her body between her daughter and the blue

"Amazing." Cassie's mom reached out and creature. "I knew those high voltage power lines ran her hand across the blue fur on Ax's rump. would have an impact on the wildlife. Stay be"Mom!" Cassie snatched her mother's hand hind me. It could be radioactive."

away. "Would you play with Jake's butt?"

"He's not radioactive, Mom." Cassie pushed

"Of course not!"

past her mother and came to stand beside Ax.

"Then quit playing with Ax's!"

"He's just a very long way from home." Cassie's mother continued to stare at Ax. Then at me. The sports page was still wrapped around my leg.

She narrowed her eyes. "You were a hawk. I can't believe l'm saying this, but a few minutes ago you were a hawk."

I nodded.

She looked at Ax. "And he . . . ?"

"Is an Andalite," Cassie said softly. "His name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. We call him Ax. He's our friend."

Ax stepped forward and bowed.

<lt is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Cassie's Mother.>

"Uh, yes. You, too." Her eyes shifted back to her daughter. "An Andalite? He's talking in my head, too." Then she looked back to Ax. Inched toward him. Circled him. "And he's supposed to look like this?"

Cassie nodded. Ax frowned.

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83

And her parents watched, stunned.

<l'm okay.> Cassie dropped to all fours. <l'm still me. But for a while l'm also a wolf.> As she finished the morph, she told them
about the Yeerks. About Visser One and Elfangor. About Marco's parents. And Tom. She explained morphing technology and our battle to save Earth. And then she morphed back.

Her mother scooped her into her lap. "Baby. Oh, my baby." She stroked Cassie's hair and kissed her face, over and over.

Her father wrapped his arms around them
both. "Why didn't you tell us, Cassie? We

"Hey." The kitchen door slid open, Cassie's could've helped."

father stumbled out onto the porch, clutching a

"I wanted to keep you safe. For as long as coffee mug in both hands. "I want to know whose possible." Cassie shook her head. "But I can't brilliant idea it was to schedule sunrise at — whoa." anymore. The Yeerks are closing in. We have to He stared at Ax. Rubbed his eyes and stared leave. You. Me. All of us. Now."

again. Frowned and peered down into his mug.

"Now?" Her mother held Cassie's face be"It's not the coffee, Walter." tween her hands. "Baby, I can't just leave my

"Sit down," Cassie said. "Both of you." She job, my house, and go running off to who knows led her mother up onto the porch and planted where. I have responsibilities."

both her parents in chairs.

"No, Mom. You don't. You only have your life And then she did an amazing impression of a and your family. And if you stay here, you'll lose wolf.

them both." Cassie turned to her father. "Daddy, Her skin sprouted thick gray fur. Ears shifted you believe me, don't you?"

upward and elongated. Her small Cassie nose

"I believe you, Cassie, but your mother's shot out into a wolf's sensitive snout.

right. We can't just leave. Too many people, too many animals depend on us."

84

85

"No," Cassie repeated firmly. "Not anymore. frame/paperweight things. The morphing cube, You don't understand."

its blue surface hidden by photos.

"Perhaps I can help." Mr. King seemed sudThen we helped Cassie's dad load the smaller denly to appear. He'd dropped his human holo-. animal cages into the truck.

gram and stood before us in his true

Cassie fed the doe, then stood by the pen, metal-and-ivory, vaguely canine android form. stroking the deer's neck. "I don't know what to

"Good Lord." Cassie's mom put her hand to do. She's too big to take with us, and I can't her head. "What else is stashed in our barn?" come back here to take care of her." Mr. King maintained the large hologram of

"Don't worry." Mr. King lifted an opossum Cassie's yard and barn. But inside it he projected cage and headed toward the truck. Cassie relucanother hologram, one only those of us on the tantly followed. "I was Louis Pasteur's lab assisporch could see. A 3-D movie of one of our old tant in a former incarnation. I was actually the battles. Images flashed. Cassie, in wolf morph, one who suggested heat as a way to kill bacteria. mangled and bleeding. A human-Controller, a I'll look in on the doe, feed her, change her bancop, firing on her. Cassie jerking. Falling. Lying in dages. And when she's able, I'll lead her to safety." a bloody, lifeless heap.

"Thank you." Cassie squeezed his android The images stopped.

hand and slid into the cab of the truck with her For a moment there was silence.

parents.

Then Cassie's dad spoke. "We need to leave," Marco morphed gorilla and leaped into the he said. "Now."

back. He hunkered down between the opossum His wife nodded.

cage and a pile of lawn chairs. <Think of me as a We waited while the family prepared to leave. furry guardian angel,> he said and Cassie's mom Cassie's dad dragged their camping equipment gave him a look.

from the garage. Her mom packed some suitMr. King extended his hologram to cover the cases. Cassie threw her things in her backpack. road in front of Cassie's house. We watched the Before she slid the backpack in the family's truck rumble away.

truck, she pulled something out so we could Rachel sighed. "My house next. And it won't see. It looked like one of those square picturebe pretty." 86

87

We crept toward the kitchen. Rachel's sisters were lying on the living room floor in their pajamas. Too busy eating Pop-Tarts and watching TV
to notice their sister, their cousin, an alien, and a red-tailed hawk slip past.

Amazing, a kid's capacity to ignore the
bizarre.

Ax guarded the living room door. I perched on a coatrack where I had a good view of Rachel's mom pacing the kitchen. Rachel and Jake tiptoed upstairs. They returned a few minutes later carrying three suitcases and a Barbie overnight bag. Rachel morphed grizzly. Jake crossed through the kitchen and positioned himself in front of the

< L o g i c and reason won't work here,> Rachel sliding glass doors.

coached. <My mom's a lawyer. There's no argu"We've rescheduled this deposition twice," ing with her. She'll win, whether she's right or Rachel's mom spat into the phone. "We're not not. We just have to do what we came for.> doing it again."

We'd flown to Rachel's house in our various She looked up, saw Jake, and frowned.

bird-of-prey morphs. Lourdes, another Chee, was Where's Rachel? she mouthed.

waiting for us on the porch. Rachel, Jake, and Ax Jake pointed toward the hall. Rachel's mom demorphed, and Rachel led us inside.

nodded, turned and paced the other way.

We crowded into the front hall. CatDog

"Look, Harold, my client has been . . . it blasted from a TV in the living room. A woman's doesn't matter. No. NO! We're going ahead with voice drifted through the kitchen doorway. it tomorrow as planned."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "My mom. On a busiShe slammed the phone shut and rubbed her ness call. Exactly where she was when I left this temples.

morning. By now her cell phone is probably Rachel lumbered into the kitchen. I flew in vacuum-sealed to her ear."

behind her and landed on top of the refrigerator. 88

89

<You probably should've let them reschedule, This is what mothers did. This is how they Mom. Tomorrow isn't going to be good for you.> acted. They put themselves in danger to save Her mother whirled. Backed up until she hit their kids.

the wall. "Wha —? Rachel, where are you? Jake,

<Oh, right, Mom.> Rachel held her mother run! Go around front and get Sara and Jordan. back with one paw. <You're really gonna do some Girls! Get out of the house!"

damage with the bay leaves?>

"Sara and Jordan are fine, Aunt Naomi," Jake

"Rachel? I hear you!" Her mother collapsed said, in his talking-to-psycho-relatives voice. against the bear. Pressed her ear against

"And so are you. Ax?" He raised his voice, but Rachel's grizzly belly. "Are you in there? My God, kept it calm. "Can you make sure Rachel's sisthis creature ate you alive." ters don't go anywhere?"

<Oh, brother.> Rachel rolled her squinty bear Little girl giggles erupted from the living eyes. <Mom, listen to me. l'm not in the bear. I room.

am the bear. Get a grip. You have to drive.> She

<l have already made sure, Prince Jake. They heaved her mother over her shoulder. <Jordan, think I am a "pokey man." I have told them I am grab Mom's purse.>
an Andalite and am actually quite swift, but they Jordan nodded and snatched a huge leather insist they need to train me.>
bag from the kitchen counter.

Ax clopped into the kitchen with Sara on his Like I said before, it's amazing, a kid's capacback. Jordan paced along behind. ity to accept the bizarre.

"My babies! Leave them alone!" Rachel's Rachel bounded across the kitchen and
mom reached behind her and ripped a spice rack ripped open the door to the garage. Ax herded from the wall. And lunged at Rachel.

Jordan and Sara out after her. Jake gathered Yes, lunged at a grizzly bear. With a spice their suitcases and followed. I brought up the rack.

rear.

I was amazed. Cassie's mom had done the

Rachel dumped her mom onto the driver's
same thing. Thrown her own body between her seat. Her sisters scrambled into the back. child and what she believed was a mutant, ra<Just relax, everyone.> Rachel, still in grizzly dioactive deer.

morph, squeezed into the front passenger seat. 90

91

There was some damage. <l'll explain as we go. We all need a vacation, and I have a feeling this is going to be a long one.>

"How long?" Jordan frowned. "We have to call Daddy. How will he find us?"

Rachel didn't answer for a moment. Then, in gentle thought-speak — gentle for Rachel — she said, <Don't worry about Daddy. I'll tell him. He'll find us. I promise.>

She punched the remote, and the garage door rumbled open.

<l've got this one covered,> she told Jake.

<You need Ax and Tobias with you.> She turned to her mother. <Let's do it.>

Her mom started the car, threw it in reverse, and screeched out of the garage. I think she was

<We take Tom first,> Jake said. <No explavery ticked. At the end of the drive the car spun. nation. No discussion. Just grab him. Give him Then it lurched forward, and they sped away. zero time to react. It shouldn't be hard. He can't Lourdes's hologram masked their exit.

fight all three of us. Once we have Tom, my parWe watched to make sure no one followed ents will come willingly. They won't let us kidnap them. Then Jake and Ax morphed wings, and we Tom without them.>
flew to the next house.

Of course they wouldn't. They'd risk anything Jake's.

to save him.

And Tom's.

That's what parents did.

We circled above Jake's house. A hawk, a harrier, and a falcon, looking for signs of alien activity. Jake was focused, the way he always is. Serious. Determined. All the normal Jake stuff, maybe edged up a notch or two.

But he also seemed, I don't know, fearless. 92

93

Defiant. His turns were a little sharper, his dives a little steeper. Almost like a fighter pilot. Almost slipped inside. I took to the sky. Still no sign of like Rachel.

Yeerks. And no sign of Jake's parents.

I watched him sweep over his neighborhood, The garage door slid open. Jake stood inside, spin, and plummet toward his house. Yeah, we surrounded by a pile of bulging suitcases and were taking his parents. Forcing them to leave other items he thought his family would need. everything they knew, everything they loved. His mom's laptop. His dad's golf clubs. Tom's But we were also taking Tom, and it was the basketball.

moment Jake had been waiting for since this war He scooted it all out into the bushes and began. The moment when he would liberate his closed the garage door. The ball rolled down the brother from the Yeerks. The moment Jake would driveway. Jake ran after it.

finally set the real Tom free.

<Prince Jake.> Ax's stalk eyes scanned the We landed behind a row of shrubs.

street. <The longer they are gone, the more worErek was waiting for us. "Nobody's home," he ried I become.>
told us. "I came here right after you called, and

<l'm with Ax.> I floated above the house. the house was empty. I haven't seen a soul

<We're leaving a trail. Cassie's farm. Rachel's since."

house. It won't take the Yeerks long to find out Jake nodded. <They went shopping. I thought the families are gone. And even less time to figthey'd be home by now. -But that's okay. When ure out your family's next.>
they get here, they'll already be in the car. All

"They'll be home." Jake dribbled back up the three of them. They'll pull into the driveway. drive, toward the basketball hoop mounted above Erek, you cloak the place in a hologram. Ax, Tothe garage door. "It'll take my dad a while to debias, and I jump in, pin Tom down, and force my cide on a lawn mower."

dad to drive away. This is good. Makes our job

<Lawn mower,> I repeated.

simple.>

"Yeah."

Simple. Right.

<With Tom.>

Jake and Ax demorphed. Ax stayed hidden in

"Yeah."

the bushes. Jake unlocked the front door and

<Okay, think about this a minute. Tom is a fairly high-ranking Controller. By now he knows 94

95
about the blood bank break-in. About a partial human DNA match. But he's spending the morn<l see them. Three blocks away, headed for ing shopping for a lawn mower. Does that strike your house.>
you as odd?>

The thumping stopped. "All of them? Is Tom

"No." Jake faked left, broke right, charged still with them? My mom. My dad. Are they okay?" the basket. "Lawn mowers are on sale. They went

<They're all inside. And they're all okay. to look at them. Perfectly normal." He shot. "A B u t — >
family looking at lawn mowers."

"But what?" Jake yelled.

Swish! Through the net.

I banked. Two SUVs were keeping pace with Jake loped toward the garage and grabbed the their car on parallel streets.

rebound. "Nothing odd about it."

<lt's a trap, Jake. The Yeerks are onto us. We I climbed higher. Scanned the grid of streets. have to get out of here. Abort the missions Below me I heard the steady th-thump of the

"I can't leave, Tobias! They're my family." basketball bouncing against the garage door.

<Prince Jake, remember. Tactical retreat.

"Do you see them?" Erek asked.

Save the army. Live to fight another day.>

<No,> I said. <Nothing.>

"No! There won't be another day. If we don't Th-thump. Th-thump.

get them out now, we may not get another

<Prince Jake?> Ax again. <Tom is infested chance."

with a ruthless, power-hungry Yeerk. And your Jake dropped the basketball. Orange-andparents —> black stripes erupted from his skin. Tiger fur.

"I know, Ax." Jake slammed the basketball His parents' car sped up. So did the SUVs. against the garage door. "I know. My parents I dove. Rocketed toward the car. I had no idea aren't safe with him. He tried to infest my dad what I was doing. A lone hawk against a Lexus. with a Yeerk. He tried to . . . he tried to . . ." Maybe I could get Jake's dad's attention. Turn him around. Get him to stop. Something.

Kill him. Tom the Controller had tried to kill I flew low and hard. Swooped past the pashis own father. senger door.

Th-thump. Th-thump.

The window rolled down. I caught a glimpse Movement. A flash of silver in the distance. I of Jake's mom. Her face, hard and twisted. Her circled.

hand, clenched. A glint of metal.

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97

I spun.

Tssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

Dracon fire blasted past. The neighbor's birdbath exploded. I reeled. Choked on the stench of burned feathers. I flapped. The tips of my wings were singed.

Jake's mom leaned from the car. She turned. Aimed.

I swept toward the sky. I could see Tom
through the rear window. He reached over the backseat. Slapped the Dracon beam from his mother's hand. It bounced across the pavement. Tssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

A black scar ripped across the front of Jake's house.

< Prince Jake! We must retreat.> Ax had alIt seemed like an omen. ready begun to morph. Feathers sprouted from his blue fur.

One of the SUVs barreled out of a side street. The Lexus swerved. Jumped the curve. Leveled a row of mailboxes, then veered back onto the street. Past Jake's house. Past the drive. Jake's dad jerked the steering wheel. The car spun. Gravel sprayed over the neighbor's yard.

<Get out of there, Jake!>

Ax flapped up from the bushes. <Now, Prince Jake!>

"There's nothing more you can do here," Erek added.

Jake nodded. The black-and-orange stripes 98

99
had already disappeared. The feather pattern of a peregrine falcon began to etch itself across his

"Filthy humans!" Jake's mother screamed. skin.

The two SUVs screeched into the driveway. The car's engine revved. The Lexus lurched Controllers raced across the lawn.

forward.

"Fire at will. They will not escape!"

"Jake, wait!" Erek cried. "I'll project a holoI spun. Powered my wings. Circled the house. gram to hide the morph."

Bushes exploded around me. Twigs pelted my

"No. I want them to see this."

wings.

In full view of his family, Jake morphed a I rounded the corner into the backyard. Jake peregrine falcon. His body shrank. Arms became and Ax were waiting. We shot around the house wings. Feet became talons.

behind Jake's. Crossed the next street, darted

<This is for them.> His thought-speak was a between the next row of houses, then the next. whisper. <For my real family. To give them hope Controllers chased us, but airborne raptors are and, finally, the truth. And for their Yeerk capfaster than humans on foot. The shouts and tors. To give them warning.>
blasts faded away.

The car slammed into the driveway. Jake's We shot out of the residential neighborhood mom leaped from the front seat and bolted and swooped over the mall. The sun radiating off across the yard. Toward the Dracon beam that cement and asphalt created a beautiful thermal. had bounced into the grass.

I spread my wings. They were numb from endless

<Jake, NOW!> I turned. Plummeted toward flapping. Ax spread his, too. Warm air billowed the weapon.

under us. We jetted toward the clouds.

Jake lifted his wings and rose above the driveway. But Jake flapped on. Low and straight ahead. His mom dove for the weapon. Rolled. Aimed. He swept over the mall and out over the interI hurtled toward her. Raked her arms with my state. Buzzed an eighteen-wheeler. Rocketed talons.

through a web of power lines. Shot beneath an Tssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

underpass. Flapped and soared. In and out of Jake's bedroom window shattered. Jake
traffic.

swooped over the roof. Ax followed.

<This was not your fault, Prince Jake,> Ax called from above. <You could not have known 100

101
what Tom was planning. You could not have He weighed the costs, made a decision, forged stopped him.>
ahead.

Jake's thought-speak was bitter.

And I'd always wondered how he did it. How

<Yeah, Ax. I could have.>
he kept it straight in his mind. Yeerks. Visser One. Jake spun sideways and shot between two

Aliens conquering humans, conquering the
signposts.

planet. Fighting the enemy without becoming like Then spread his wings and rose. <What's them. How did he sort through all that? The emowrong with me? Why didn't I get them out last tions, the ethical dilemmas, the moral crises?

night? When I need to wait, plan, gather more inHow did he wrap his brain around it all so he formation, what do I do? Charge in. Go for the could make logical decisions? Smart decisions. surprise. Screw things up permanently. But when The kind that saved the lives of his team. The I need to charge in, to save the people I love kind that set the enemy back a small step or two. most, I wait. I say, "Go home. Get some rest. But now I knew. Jake didn't understand any Sleep on it." Great plan. I get sleep. My parents of it any better than the rest of us did. If he deget Yeerks.> feated the Yeerks, freed humanity, rescued Earth, He swept out ahead of us. Climbed high above that was good. But that was a bonus. His main a strip mall. We stayed with him.

goal was much simpler. To save his family. That

<We will return, Prince Jake. When the time goal was what had given him strength. That goal is right, we will get them out.>
was what had kept him sane. Allowed him to reJake dove. Hurtled toward Earth at two huntain a center of calm focus amid the awful chaos. dred miles an hour. Toward the parking lot below. Family.

He pulled up seconds before his beak hit paveThe houses below us thinned out. Shopping ment, skimmed along the asphalt, and climbed areas rippled into foothills.

again.

<l need to hunt,> I said. <Catch up with you Jake, our fearless leader. On a crazed
later.>
kamikaze mission.

I peeled off and soared toward my meadow. I'd never seen him like this. Even in our lowJake and Ax disappeared over a ridge. est moments, he'd always been steady. Resolute. I banked and flew back into the city.

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103

in front of Loren's house. She reached the corner, turned around, and pushed it back.

An old van sat across the street, in the vacant lot between Ricky Lee's house and the boardedup grocery store. It was wrapped in vines and cobwebs, and nearly swallowed by weeds, as if it had been abandoned in that spot years ago. But it hadn't been there yesterday.

On the next corner, a teenager lounged at a bus stop. He tried to look casual, jamming to his CD player. His shoulders bobbed. His sizethirteen Reeboks thumped against the concrete. But his eyes were fixed on Loren's house. A bus pulled up. Pulled away. The kid didn't budge. I floated above the roof. Her windows were I drifted over the street. My shadow floated open a crack. The window shades banged in the across the sidewalk below me. The bag lady breeze.

stared at it. Glanced up. Watched me for just a Noises drifted out. Her footsteps. Her voice. moment too long. Her gaze flicked to the aban"Hungry, boy? There you go, my big sweetheart." doned van. She mumbled something into her Paper rustled, like a bag opening. Then a shopping cart.

muffled clatter. Dog food tumbling into a dish. My hawk ears picked up bits of it: " . . . above Toenails skittered across the floor.

the house . . . can't tell . . . don't want to draw Champ was eating lunch. Which meant he
attention . . . wait. . . see if i t . . ." and Loren probably weren't going anywhere I soared down the street, away from Loren's soon.

house. I swooped and glided, in complete view of Not a problem. I could wait.

the bag lady and the van and the kid at the bus But I wouldn't be waiting alone. The Yeerks stop. Just like a normal hawk on a sunny afterhad sent a welcoming committee. noon. I swept over a billboard three blocks away A bag lady pushed her cart along the sidewalk and dropped down behind it, out of sight. 104

105

I waited. Nothing. I skimmed along the sideAnother bus rumbled up. Rumbled off. Fiwalk, circled the neighborhood, and approached nally Loren's door swung open. She and Champ Ricky Lee's house from behind.

stepped out onto the porch.

I perched on a fence post by the alley. Still The bag lady leaped to her feet. The kid at nothing.

the bus froze in mid-jam. I wrenched my talons I soared across the backyard, careful to stay from the tar and swooped across Ricky Lee's out of sight of the van, and flapped up onto the backyard toward the alley. I stayed low. Circled roof.

the block.

I stayed just below the roof line on the backyard side, hidden between the chimney and a TV

Loren and Champ set out in the direction of antenna. Ricky Lee was home, watching a Brady the church. The bag lady and her cart rattled Bunch marathon on Nickelodeon. I dug my along behind, at a distance. I followed, flitting talons into the tar shingles and waited.

between backyards, below rooflines.

They crossed the street.

I could see Loren's house. And the bag lady,

<The dog, man. The dog's your ticket.> who'd pushed her cart to the corner again. She Marco's thought-speak. I banked. An osprey gazed at the sky, in the direction I'd flown, and a northern harrier jetted up behind me. frowned, and pushed her cart back the other way. Marco and Ax.

At the bus stop, the teenage kid was still jamming under his headphones. And still watching

<What are you guys doing here?>

Loren's house.

<Protecting an endangered species,> Marco replied. <You.>

For hours. The shingles softened in the afternoon sun. My talons sank deeper. The bag lady

<Prince Jake sent us. He thought you might sat down on the curb. The kid with the CD player need help. I remembered the address.>
sat through twelve buses.

We floated another block. Past the bus stop. Loren and Champ stopped at the corner, turned, And still, Loren stayed inside.

and crossed the street toward us. Toward the 7What was she doing in there? How did a blind Eleven. They navigated the parking lot and diswoman occupy her time, all day long, all by herappeared inside. self?

Ax, Marco, and I landed in the Dumpster

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behind the store. Ax and I went human, Marco demorphed, and we crept around the building. The bag lady had stopped across the street. She leaned on her shopping cart and watched the store.

"Casual," said Marco. "Just act casual. We're three neighborhood punks hanging at the 7Eleven." He strutted toward the door. Ax and I followed. The place was nearly empty. An old woman
flipped through a National Enquirer at the front. Two little boys fingered the candy bars next to her. Loren was on the other side of the store, in the meager grocery section, making her way down one of the aisles. A lone cashier manned the counter.

Ax sidled up to him. "Do not worry," he said.

"We are irresponsible teenage hoodlums, possibly gang members, but you are not in any danger." The guy gave Ax a blank stare.

"His gang's from out of town," I explained. Marco grabbed Ax's shirt and pulled him toward the back of the store. "Smooth, Ax-man. That'll look real convincing on the surveillance tapes." We jostled past Loren and Champ.

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109

"Man, take your dog outside," Marco drawled. "He stinks."

a package of bologna. She turned and starled Loren didn't say a word. Just kept her steady back up another aisle. We followed.

pace. She felt along the top shelf till her fingers

"She does not seem to be afraid of us," Ax touched a box of Raisin Bran. She picked it up, whispered.

shook it, and placed it in the shopping basket on

"She's probably been through worse," I said her arm.

tightly.

I watched her. My mother. She did her grocery

"Ah." Ax nodded. "She does not understand shopping at a convenience store. But I guess she how menacing we are." He tapped her on the didn't have much choice. The neighborhood wasn't shoulder. "You do not know me," he said, "but I exactly brimming with bright, shiny Safeways. am a juvenile delinquent. I do not trust authority

"Hey, you big mutt," Marco called to Champ. figures, I probably will not graduate from high

"Want a drink?" He picked up a supersize cup school, and statistics say my present rowdiness and filled it. Coke sprayed onto the floor. and vandalism will likely lead to more serious Champ ignored him. So did Loren. She
crimes. I am a dangerous fellow, and I am causcrossed to the coolers along the back wall, pulled ing mayhem in this store."

out a quart of milk, and placed it in her basket. I He reached behind her and pulled three jars could see the date stamped on the lid. The milk of baby food from the top shelf. Shoved them behad expired three days ago. hind a box of macaroni. Shuffled the Cheez Whiz

"Isn't that sweet?" I jerked the basket from in front of the Marshmallow Fluff. Tossed a bag her hand. "She's buying us a little snack." I slid of lady's shavers onto a bag of hamburger buns. the milk out of the basket and replaced it with a

"There. I have now shamelessly destroyed the fresh quart from the cooler. "Man. Nothing but symmetry of this shelf, undoing hours of labor by cereal and dog biscuits." I shoved the basket underpaid store employees. If you could see me, back in her hand. "Keep it, lady." you would be frightened."

She didn't say anything. Didn't hesitate. Just

"If she could see you, she'd have you comran her fingers along the cooler doors — countmitted," Marco muttered. He grabbed the handle ing them, I think — opened one, and pulled out of Champ's halter and jerked it from Loren's hand.

"Listen, lady, we're gonna borrow your dog." 110

111

He pulled on the harness. Champ planted his paws. Marco tugged. Champ tugged back.

ened to form a wet, black nose. Forty-two teeth

"Oh, brother." Marco placed his hand on erupted from my jaws.

Champ's head.

Schooooooomp! My tail shot out. Long, thin, Immediately Champ relaxed. His alert brown and naked. The feathers on my head darkened, eyes dimmed. His shoulders sagged. The dog dissolved, and spiked into dog hair. It covered my had fallen into the acquiring trance. Marco kept body in a wave, down my back, across my wings, his hand on Champ's head and pulled on the harto the tip of my curved tail. ness. Champ meekly stepped toward him.

I wagged it. I was a dog on both ends — a

"Don't go anywhere," Marco told Loren. "And hawk-sized dog — but still a bird in the middle. don't call the cops or Fido here gets it." A bird covered in coarse black fur.

He led Champ through a door marked

"Eeeeewwww." Marco. "Nightmare on Sesame PERSONStreet."

NEL ONLY. Ax and I followed. It was a storage room. A door at the back led to the alley.

"Yip!" I sounded like a Chihuahua.

"'Don't call the cops or Fido here gets it'?" I My body bulged out and up. The concrete
looked at Marco. "Maybe you shouldn't watch so floor receded below me. Internal organs gurgled much Nick at Nite?"

and crunched, shifted and re-formed. My legs

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Marco scratched shot up. Wings shot out. Thickened. Realigned. Champ's neck. "We've got the dog, and your Hollow bones solidified. I thumped down onto mom's not calling 9 1 1 . Demorph already. He's four big, steady paws. I was a German shepherd. not going to stay this calm forever." With shepherd senses. The eyes were okay. I demorphed and flapped onto Champ's back. Not as sharp as my hawk eyes. And I couldn't see He was starting to come out of the trance. He much color.

whined and tried to pull away from Marco. I But the ears! I could hear coins jingling out at sank my talons into his fur. His head drooped the cash register. A faint breeze whistling across again.

the roof.

I absorbed his DNA, swooped to the floor, and And I could smell . . . everything. Mice, yes. focused on Champ.

Dust. The Dumpster out back. Curdled milk not quite masked by bleach water. You think a broom My beak stretched into a snout. The tip softhandle doesn't have a scent? It does. A little 112

113

woodsy, a little musty, topped with a delicious bouquet of hand perspiration from every employee who'd ever swept the store. And Marco's bare feet! Spicy and pungent. And was that — sniff, sniff — had Marco
stepped in — sniff — yes! Horse poop! Not recently. Probably several hours ago, at Cassie's barn. But definitely horse.

I was Champ. I had responsibilities. I was steadfast. Noble. I stood at attention while Marco strapped Champ's harness onto my back. He found a bungee cord and looped it around the real Champ's neck. Champ raised his head and blinked. He was coming out of the stupor.

"How are we going to keep him quiet?" Marco If you're ever blind, you do not want me as hissed. "He's a smart dog. He'll be on a mission your guide dog. Trust me on this.

to get back to his master. We can't keep acquirI clicked down the grocery aisle toward my ing him over and over."

mother.

Ax slid a box from behind his back. "I am She must've heard me. "Hey, Champ. I knew truly a juvenile delinquent. I shoplifted these you wouldn't be gone long." She grasped the from your mother's basket, Tobias. I apologize." handle of my harness. "Forward." Dog biscuits!

Forward. Okay. This I could do. She was

Champ's tail wagged. He sniffed the box,
speaking English. I understood English. This then sat politely at Ax's feet, waiting for a treat. wouldn't be too hard. I trotted down the aisle. I started to salivate myself. <Ax-man, you're Nearly pulled Loren over on her face.

brilliant>

She grabbed a shelf to steady herself.

Ax gave Champ a biscuit. Marco held the door Okay, not quite right. I wasn't somebody's open, and I trotted back out into the store. pet, strolling through the park on a leash. I was a Back out to my mother.

guide dog. Champ. I had to stay at her side. 114

115

She held the handle firmly. "Forward." Okay. Not so fast this time. I stayed by her

"Those guys really shook you up, didn't they, side. Right by her side. Almost tripped her. She boy?" She hugged my neck. "It's okay now. lost her balance and stomped down on my paw. They're gone."

Hard.

I barely breathed. My mother was reassuring

"ArrRRRF!" I squealed.

me, loving me.

"Oh, Champ! I'm sorry, boy. I didn't mean to Yeah, I know. She wasn't really loving me. smash your poor foot."

She was loving her guide dog.

She leaned over and reached for me. Took my But I was the one standing there. I pushed all head between her hands.

thoughts of the real Champ to the back of my And I nearly passed out.

mind and just let her pet me. Let her soft voice For the first time in my memory, my mother float through me.

was touching me, and it was just as I'd always

"Feeling better, boy? Let's go home." She imagined it would be.

stood up and grasped the harness handle. "ForOkay, so I never imagined I'd be covered in ward."

fur, puffing dog breath in her face. And the 7And I stepped forward. Didn't trip her. Didn't Eleven wasn't part of the deal, either. In my fanrun out ahead. I stayed at her side. Led her to the tasy, it was always nighttime, and she was cash register. Led her home.

tucking me into my race car bed. Yeah, I always The bag lady tailed us, of course. We passed wanted one of those red plastic race car beds. the kid at the bus stop. And the broken-down Seriously uncool, I know. Shoot me.

van. But nobody seemed to notice anything new. But I always imagined her holding my face in We climbed Loren's front steps and entered her hands, just like she was doing now. And then, the house.

in my imagination, she'd pull me close and kiss Loren's house. I'm not sure what I expected. my nose.

But what I got was . . . nothing. No pictures on Which is exactly what she did. Loren pulled the wall. No mementos or souvenirs. No rugs. my face to hers and planted a soft kiss on the tip We were in the living room. It could've been of my rough, black nose. My dog body trembled. any of the places I'd lived with my aunt or uncle. A soft whine bubbled up from my throat.

Faded, peeling wallpaper. Stained ceiling. Warped hardwood floor.

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117

The difference was that this room was clean. knew better than to let myself get sucked in by No newspapers and beer cans strewn over the fantasies of a warm, fuzzy family life. A mother floor. No laundry baskets spilling underwear onto who doesn't want you is one thing. A mother the couch. No dirty dishes stacked on the tables. who's infested with an evil, parasitic alien is a Everything was neat. In its place. One square whole different kind of problem.

brown couch. One lumpy, worn easy chair. One tidy wooden desk. All placed on one side of the But I found nothing. No portable Kandrona. room, leaving a wide, straight path from the front No leftover scent of Hork-Bajir. Nothing to link door to the kitchen.

her to the Yeerks.

Loren hung her purse on a hook by the door. She puttered around the house. Put away the She unstrapped the harness and hung it up, too. groceries. Fixed dinner. I used the bathtub to deI was glad. I'd been wondering how I was going to morph and remorph. Grasped the shower curtain wriggle back into that thing every two hours when in my teeth and wrapped it around me while I I had to demorph and remorph.

changed from dog to bird to dog again. Just in She carried the grocery bag into the kitchen. I case anyone was watching.

clicked along behind her, sniffing and snooping. When Loren finally went to bed, I demorphed Looking for something out of place. Something again, but instead of remorphing Champ, I that proved she was a Controller. Yeah. I seriously morphed myself. My human self.

wanted evidence that my mother was controlled I needed hands.

by a Yeerk.

I searched Loren's house thoroughly and meBecause here's the thing. I'd been through thodically, starting at the front door, ending at this before. I'd been told I had a cousin, a cousin the back. Closets. Kitchen cabinets. Medicine who wanted to adopt me. Raise me. Maybe
chest. Refrigerator. Purse.

even . . . love me.

I told myself I was still looking for signs of Hah. The loving cousin turned out to be

Yeerks. And I was. But the truth is, I wanted Visser Three, the guy who recently became Visser more than that. I wanted an explanation. An One. The whole thing was a trap.

explantion of her life. An explanation of why I So no matter how nice my mother seemed, no wasn't in it.

matter how good she was at petting her dog, I And at the bottom of a desk drawer, tucked under a row of hanging folders, I found it. A fat 118

119
brown envelope. I pulled it out. Blew the dust memory of me. Didn't she? A sliver of memory off. Opened it. It was full of medical reports, docstored in a healthy brain cell? Somewhere?

tor bills, invoices from a lawyer.

She had to. I'd talk to her. Yeah. First thing And a letter. Yellowed at the edges. The paper in the morning. Jake wouldn't like it, but Jake cracked where it had been unfolded and refolded wasn't here. And this was my mother. Maybe my several hundred times. It was from an insurance voice or just my presence would bring something company, addressed to my mother.

back. One tiny memory.

Okay, so I'd been watching too many soaps Enclosed please find final payment
with Ax. I'd seen too many cases of TV amnesia for injuries suffered in an automocured by a visit from a long-lost love. But if it bile accident on June 12.

happened on TV, why couldn't it happen for me?

We acknowledge that you have suffered brain damage and loss of vision; however, these conditions are permanent and irreversible. Further medical attention is not authorized. Your claims of total amnesia cannot be
proven, and reconstructive surgery is
not covered under your group policy.

The enclosed sum terminates our liability in this incident. I stared at the letter. Amnesia. My mother had amnesia. What did that mean? That she didn't remember anything that happened before the accident? She didn't remember. . . me?

But she must. I was her son. Somewhere inside her damaged brain, she had to have some 120

121

"It's Tobias." My voice cracked. Oh, yeah, I was really ready for this. "Your son." She reached for a kitchen chair. Sank into it.

"Tobias." Pain washed over her face. "I wondered if you'd ever find me." I stared at her. "You remember me. You know who — "

"No." She shook her head. "Not the way you think. I know I have a son. I know his name is Tobias. But that's all I know. They brought a little boy to me after the accident. A baby really. They told me he was mine. I didn't remember him. I wanted to. I tried to. But I didn't. I don't remember anything of my life before the accident." The window shade in the kitchen glowed

I swallowed. "Even now? I mean, it's been a pink in the morning sun. I morphed my human long time. Didn't any of it ever came back?" self again. Made a pot of coffee. Poured myself a She frowned. Sat silently for a long moment. cup. Like I needed caffeine. I took a seat at the

"There were images. Vague. Half-formed. A towkitchen table. And waited. headed boy."

My mother was an early riser. Thank God. l'm My hand rose, almost involuntarily, and
not sure how long I could have sat there before I touched my blond hair.

either peed my pants or spontaneously comShe nodded. Like she'd read my mind. "It busted. I heard her bed squeak. Heard her bare could have been you. I don't know. It's all so disfeet pad toward the kitchen. tant. The other images were terrifying. Aliens." She stopped inside the door and pulled her Aliens? I sat very still.

robe around her. "Who is it?" She didn't sound

"Sounds crazy," she said. "I know. But that's afraid. Just puzzled. I guess she figured a burglar the only way I could describe them. Which, of or a chainsaw murderer wouldn't stop to brew a course, sent my doctors scrambling for more pot of java.

tests and convinced my sister, or whoever she 122

123
was, that I was completely nuts. But that's what I took a little more convincing. "But you never had in my head. Aliens. Straight from a nighteven, I mean, you didn't —" mare."

"Visit? I know. I was in the hospital for a long Yeah. I'd lived that nightmare.

time. When I got out, I didn't know where you

"Look." She pushed herself from the chair were. They sent you to stay with my sister, but I and felt for the counter. "I think I know why didn't know her address. I didn't even know her you're here. You think I abandoned you. And I last name. The hospital didn't have it on file. guess in a way I did." She pulled a cup from the Maybe I could've tried harder. I just thought —
cabinet and filled it with coffee. "But I couldn't hoped — you were happy. With people who cared raise a little boy alone. I was blind. Permanently. about you. Who at least knew who you were. You Facing years of physical therapy. You needed didn't need a crazy, blind woman in your life." someone who could take care of you. Someone Yes, I did. Yes. I did.

who at least remembered you."

I still did.

"I needed a mother." My voice echoed

"That stuff doesn't matter anymore," I said. through the kitchen. I wanted to catch it and pull

"What matters is that you're in danger. I can't exit back into my throat. But it was too late. It was plain it now, and you wouldn't believe me anyalready out there. Hanging. way, but I've got to get you out of here." Loren stirred her coffee. Her spoon clanked

"Out of here?" She held up her hands. against the cup. She sat back down at the table.

"Whoa. Slow down. What are you talking about?"

"When I lost my memory," she said, "I didn't

"You're not safe here," I said. "I've got to get just forget the people I'd known and the things you out. Soon. I'll figure out how. But right now I'd done. I lost things that were much more bawe have to go for a walk in the park so you can sic. Like brushing my teeth. Somebody had to get your real dog back."

teach me how to brush my teeth. But first they

"My real dog?" She frowned. "Champ?" had to explain what a tooth was. I had no idea

"Yeah. Don't worry. He's safe. The, um, rewhat these little hard things in my mouth were placement dog will take you to him. Then you called." She let out a breath. "There's no way I have to come back to the house and stay. Don't could have raised you."

leave. Don't even go outside. Promise me this. I nodded. Made sense. In my head. My heart My friends and I will be watching. We'll have to 124

125
cut your phone line, just to be safe. I won't let She nodded. Slowly. "It's so vague. No form. anything happen to you, but we have to make Nothing recognizable. I've never told anybody sure you're not a Controller."

about it. It's just a . . . a feeling, almost. A

"A what?" She was either an incredible acflash." tress, or she had no idea what I was talking

"A flash of blue?" I said.

about. "Look, I don't know what you think you're She nodded again. She rose from the table doing, but —"

and set her cup in the sink. "Two days from now?

"Just stay inside," I said. "For two days. Then In the park?"

take another walk in the park."

"Yeah."

"Okay, now you're the one who's talking crazy. She pushed her hair behind her ear. Chewed You say you're my son, and maybe you are. I have the edge of her lip. "I'll be there." no way of knowing. But l'm not going anywhere. This is where I live. This is my life. And you will not cut my phone line."

She was right. It did sound nuts.

I took a deep breath. "Those strange alien images in your head. Huge, right? Leathery. With blades. Like razors, erupting from their skin." She frowned. "Who told you this?"

"Nobody. Nobody had to. I've seen them. I don't know what the doctors said after the accident, but those images weren't caused by your head injuries or by medication. And you aren't crazy. They're real memories of real aliens." She sat still. Said nothing.

"You described them as nightmares," I said.

"But were there any other images? One that wasn't a nightmare? One that seemed kind? Honorable, maybe?" 126

127

tossed it into the grass. "You don't know that, Tobias."

<Yeah,> I said. <l do.>

Why? Because she loved her dog? Because
her hands were warm and gentle when she petted him? Petted me?

<l was there for hours,> I said. <Overnight. She never slipped. Never acted like anything but a regular, noninfested sightless person on a limited budget.>

"Doesn't mean anything."

<And I searched her house. No portable Kandrona.>

"She could be storing it someplace else. That

<I can get her out.>
church maybe. Or the van across the street." Jake looked up at me. Didn't say anything. Yet.

<Maybe.> I considered that. <But I don't We were in the Hork-Bajir valley. I'd flown think —> It was hard to admit out loud. <l don't there after we'd switched guide dogs. Loren and think the Yeerks want her. Not as a Controller. Champ were back home. Under surveillance by She's blind. To them she's worthless.> I gazed an osprey perched on Ricky Lee's roof and a out across the valley. <Besides, she's been under northern harrier roosting on the garage behind surveillance for over twenty-four hours. Ax and Loren's house.

Marco are watching her now. If she doesn't leave Jake was sitting in the grass high on the side her house for another two days, we'll know for of the valley, his back propped against a tree. I sure.>
perched on a branch above him.

Jake nodded. "And so will the Yeerks. Even if

<lt won't be easy,> I said. <The Yeerks are she's not a Controller, they'll figure it out. They'll watching her. But she's not a Controller.> be waiting for you. You have to walk away, Tobias. Jake stripped the head off a dandelion and Forget her."

128

129

<Like you've forgotten your parents? And had been Visser One's host body for years. She'd Tom?>
seen everything the former Visser One had seen. He froze.

She knew the Yeerk organization, the Yeerk fleet,

<You haven't forgotten your family, Jake, no and the Yeerks' future plans. And Toby was determatter what you say. And I can't forget mine, l'm mined to pick every shred of that information getting her out.>
from her brain.

"How? You said it yourself. She's blind. How Another group followed Cassie and her family can you get a blind person out while the Yeerks around like a litter of puppies. Large, razor-edged are watching?"

puppies. The Hork-Bajir were crazy in love with

<By taking a huge risk. One you probably Cassie's parents.

won't like.> I dug my talons into the branch. <By Rachel's mom they weren't so smitten with. asking you to trust me.>

Still, she had her own group of big, bladed folks. He looked up. Met my gaze. Comprehension

They'd decided her legal expertise was the crossed his face. He knew what I was planning. answer to their self-governing dilemma. They

"Take Rachel," he said. "You'll need her needed a constitution, and they wanted her to talons."

draft it. They'd set up an office on the picnic I soared out over the valley. Over the free table in the center of camp.

Hork-Bajir who were scurrying around like carRachel sat in a lawn chair off to the side. I penter ants, helping Marco's dad build cabins for swooped down and perched on the arm.

Cassie's and Rachel's families.

"My mom." Rachel waved a hand toward the It was weird. Another irony. The sudden evacpicnic table. "Thomas Jefferson in heels." uation of our families had devastated the Ani<How are they doing?> morphs. Put us on edge.

She shrugged. "There's an awful lot of discusBut it had energized the Hork-Bajir. One sion about bark and when you can strip it, and group was using a meadow at the end of the valhow much, and where. We're a long way from 'We, ley for combat training. They looked like switchthe People.'" blades kick boxing.

She leaned her head back against the chair. Toby, the young Hork-Bajir seer, had orga"Please say you've come to rescue me from this nized another group to debrief Marco's mom. Eva place, Tobias. I've done nothing here but baby-sit 130

131

my sisters and listen to my mother grouse about unsanitary bathroom conditions. Tell me you need my help. Tell me you're planning some senseless, suicidal mission. Tell me you can't pull it off without me."

<AII of the above,> I said. <For two days. I need your eyes, and I need your talons.>

"Thank you. THANK you." She closed her eyes. "You've saved my sanity."

"Oh, for pete's sake." Rachel's mother tossed down her pen.

An argument had broken out between two
groups of Hork-Bajir, the deciduous faction and the coniferous faction. They shouted and shook their clawed fists at each other.

We huddled in the semidarkness. In the

Rachel's mom rubbed her temples.

pedestrian tunnel that ran under the street, con<l almost feel sorry for her,> I said. necting one side of the park to the other. I was

"Don't." Rachel laughed. "She loves this in guide dog morph. Rachel and Marco were kind of stuff. You're looking at one happy, driven human.

woman. When the bickering stops, that's when Ax was a northern harrier, perched on Ricky she's miserable."

Lee's roof three blocks away, waiting for Loren

<Ah. Must be genetic.>
and Champ to take a walk.

We'd watched her house for two days. She
hadn't come out. No one had gone in.

And now we were waiting for her in the park. The same park I used to come to when I lived with my uncle. The same tunnel. Clammy cement. Broken bottles. A sliver of sunlight piercing the 132

133
gloom at each end. The perfect place to hide Marco strapped the harness. Rachel slid the when I needed to escape my life.

handle into Loren's hand.

Or needed to help my mother escape hers.

<Twenty-three seconds. The street person has And yeah, I was getting really tired of all the reached the tunnel. She has stopped at the top irony.

of the steps.>

<She has entered the park.> Ax's thoughtMarco pulled a handful of dog biscuits from his speak rang through my head. <The female street pocket. Rachel placed her hand on Champ's head. person is following.>

The real Champ. He fell into an acquiring trance. My ears pricked up. Footsteps. Two sets. A

"Go," Rachel hissed.

human in sneakers and a quadruped with sharp Loren grasped the handle. "Forward." toenails. Across the sidewalk. Down the steps. I stepped forward and led her to the other end The sliver of sunlight disappeared. Two figures of the tunnel.

entered the tunnel. Loren and Champ.

<Twenty-nine seconds.>

Loren knew the drill. She'd been here two We emerged into the sunlight.

days earlier, when we returned Champ to her. I glanced across the street. The bag lady had She made her way to the center of the tunnel and started down the steps. She saw us and froze. held out the harness handle.

She glared at us, scrambled back up the steps, Rachel grabbed it. She and Marco worked like and grabbed her shopping cart.

a pit crew at a NASCAR race. Rachel slipped a Loren and I finished our stroll in the park, collar and leash around Champ's neck. Marco then headed home. The bag lady followed at a unfastened his harness.

distance. A northern harrier floated through the

<Tobias's mother has been inside the tunnel sky above us.

for twelve seconds,> said Ax. <The female street Loren's street hadn't changed much over the person is approaching.>
last two days. The teenager's bus still hadn't Marco set the harness on my back. Rachel
come. The van was apparently still abandoned. slipped something small and heavy into Loren's But while we were at the park it had mysteriously bag.

moved from the vacant lot across the street to

<Eighteen seconds.>
the curb directly in front of Loren's house. 134

135

I led Loren inside, just like a good guide

"Ah!" Loren snatched her hand back. dog. As soon as the door clicked shut and she'd

<lt's okay, Mo — Moth —> I stumbled over unstrapped my harness, I bolted toward the the word. <lt's okay, Loren. It feels weird, but it's kitchen. No Yeerks. The bedroom. The bathroom. okay.>

Nothing suspicious.

She nodded. Placed her hand on my head

I returned to the living room.

again.

<The clock's ticking,> I said. <We gotta get

<They're onto us!> Marco this time. <Cars out of here.>
screaming in from all directions.>

"Tobias? Your voice sounds, well, it doesn't I pushed his thought-speak out of my head. sound. It's just sort of there. In my head. And it Focused. My body shrank.

seems like . . . like you're the dog." She sighed. Crrrrrunch! My snout slammed back into my

"I am crazy."

skull. Hardened into a sharp, curved beak.

<No, you're not. l'm communicating in

Loren's face twisted in horror. I could feel her thought-speak. Yes, I am the dog. And it's trembling. But she didn't remove her hand. nowhere near as crazy as it's going to get. Put your hand on my face — on the dog's face —
and leave it there. Trust me.>

Trust me. I'd been saying that a lot lately. I wasn't even sure I trusted myself.

<The Yeerks are on the move.> Rachel's thought-speak thundered from the roof. <Ticktock, Tobias. Ticktock.> Loren stretched one hand out and rested it on my face, palm on my snout, fingers splayed across my forehead.

I focused on red-tailed hawk.

The fur under Loren's fingers liquefied. Dissolved into a black pool and congealed. A feather pattern swept across my body, like a tattoo. 137

136

"Ooh!" she started. "It shocked me."

<lt does that,> I said. <But it won't hurt you. Leave your hand there.>

<Tobias, you are in danger.> Ax's thoughtspeak was tense. <You must evacuate.> Sirens wailed. A few blocks away. Speeding closer.

<Now take your hand off,> I told Loren, <and place it on my head. On the bird's head, l'm standing on the couch.>

She nodded. She looked confused. But she
did it.

<Chopper!> said Marco. <Headed our way. Tobias, buddy, you're so out of time.>

< This is not a test, Tobias. GET OUT!>

<Okay.> I kept my thought-speak even. I concentrated and finished the morph.

<Keep your hand pressed against my feathers

<Okay.> I flapped up onto the couch. <We've and concentrate. Think about the hawk. Focus got to make this fast. There's a heavy box in your on how the hawk feels under your hand.> purse. Get it out.>

She frowned. "Is this some kind of weird She nodded, reached into her bag, and pulled touch therapy?"

out a small blue cube.

<No, it's not therapy. Believe me.> The morphing cube. It was one of the reasons Loren pressed her hand against my feathers. I needed Rachel. It was too big and too heavy for Her forehead wrinkled in concentration.

a red-tailed hawk. Rachel had carried it from the THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! Helicopter

Hork-Bajir valley in her eagle talons.

blades.

<Set it down,> I said, <and place your hand

<Just think about the hawk,> I told Loren. on it.>

<TOBIAS.> Ax was beyond stressed.

Loren set the cube on the couch and pressed

<Okay, next step,> I said. <Take your hand her hand flat against the top.

from my head, but keep concentrating on the 138

139
hawk. Focus. Tightly. Let the hawk surge through they will kill us. Or worse. What are you more you.>
afraid of? The hawk? Or them?>

Let the hawk surge through you? No wonder Loren took a deep breath. The ridged scars on she was skeptical. I sounded like some Psychic her face smoothed out. Flattened. Her skull Network freak fortune-teller.

crunched and molded itself into a streamlined But it worked.

hawk head. The feather pattern solidified and Loren's skin darkened to the hawk's dusky burst from her skin.

brown. An outline of feathers etched itself across

<Oh, God,> she said. <This is beyond horher body. ror.>

She clutched her arm. Raked her fingers over

<Concentrater> I said.

the feather pattern. "What's happening to me?" Suddenly, her body shrank to the floor. Legs

<lt's the hawk, Mo — Loren.> Man. What was narrowed. The skin covering them hardened into it with that word? <lt's the hawk. You absorbed scales. Toes shot out into long talons.

my DNA, and now you are becoming a red-tailed The morph was complete. She was a hawk. A hawk.>
red-tailed hawk.

"I'm WHAT?"

Exactly like me.

Cars screeched to a stop. Doors slammed. I

<Tobias?> Her thought-speak was a whisper. heard footsteps. Shouts.

<lt can't be true.> She blinked her fierce eyes. THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! The

<l can see. I can see. Tobias, I can see!> helicopter was above the house now.

Ka-BOOM.

But inside, I was calm. Determined, yes. ReThe entire front wall of the house splintered alistic. But not panicked. I was like . . . Jake. and crashed to the floor of the living room. Yeah, Jake. Because now I had the one goal Jake had always had. To save my family.

<Do you hear what's going on outside?> I said.

Loren nodded.

<Those are not nice people. If they catch us, 140

141

<What do we do?> Loren said worriedly.

<Fly.>

<l don't know how.>

<You don't, but the hawk does. FLY!> She spread her wings. Flapped. Rose from
the hardwood floor. Up. Above the couch.

<l — l'm flying. I can't believe it. l'm really flying!>

<Yeah. Great, isn't it? Now let's get out of here. Stay on my tail. And stay low.>

We flapped toward the kitchen. Skimmed along baseboards. Around the corner. Shot over the tile floor and out the gaping hole Rachel had thoughtfully created for us in the back wall.

< E x c u s e me. Coming through. Sorry for the Tseeeeeeew!

emergency remodeling.>

A Dracon beam blasted overhead. Chunks of Rachel! She barreled through the opening

Sheetrock pelted our wings.

in the front of Loren's house. Thundered across

<My God!> Loren cried. <They're shooting at the rubble, grabbed the morphing cube in her us!>
elephant trunk, and charged out through the

<Uh, yeah. They do that sometimes.> kitchen, widening doors along the way.

I powered my wings. Loren stayed on my tail.

THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!

Controllers charged around the corner of the The downdraft from the helicopter blasted house. Into the backyard.

through the house. The street was jammed with

"There they are! Two hawks."

police cars and SUVs. Human-Controllers streamed

"GET THEM!"

across the yard, Dracon beams pulled. They obviTseeeeeeew! Tseeeeeeew!

ously weren't worried about causing a scene. In A clothesline pole exploded.

this neighborhood, nobody bothered to report We shot through the alley. Around a garage. anything.

Loren fought the wind. Fought the exhaustion in 143

142
her wings from flapping, endlessing flapping. We shot across four lanes of traffic. Into the Fought to stay airborne.

parking lot of a deserted strip mall on the other

<l can't fly this low!>
side.

<Yes, you can. Tip your tail down slightly. Cup We pumped our wings. Jetted around light
your wings. Let the bird mind take over. Let the poles, parking meters, and the burned-out neon hawk fly.>
mall sign: HILLCREST CENTER, A SHOPPER'S PARADISE.

<Hawk. Fly.> Fatigue drained her thoughtTseeeeeew!

speak. But she kept pumping. Kept flying. Dracon beam fire. The asphalt disintegrated We shot between two houses. Across a street. below us.

Dove behind a line of trees and over a wooden

<The overhang!> I shouted.

fence. Skimmed along near the ground.

The mall was U-shaped, the walkway in front

"Where'd they go?"

of it covered by a warped metal awning. We dove

"Don't know. I lost them."

under it.

"Spread out! They couldn't have gotten far."

<Stay up,> I said. <Where they can't see us.> Feet shuffled through grass and gravel. The We skimmed the storefronts, dodging wires fence groaned. Someone was climbing over. and metal bracing. Turned the corner of the U. We sailed through the weeds, close to the Tseeeeew!

fence. It ended at a brick wall. A shed. There was A plate glass window exploded below us.

an opening at the edge. A board that had rotted We reached the end of the building. The end and fallen off. I darted through. Loren followed. of our cover. Daylight. We shot around the corner. We were in an alley. Two patchy strips of Around the building. Into the service alley begravel, lined with weeds and rusting appliances. hind it.

Skinny trees formed a spindly canopy over our

<NO!> Loren screamed.

heads.

I wheeled. Loren raked her talons forward. We soared past sheds. Garages. Empty lots. Raised her wings. Spun around. She was learnBehind us an SUV crashed into the alley. ing fast.

"There! Both of them. GO! GO! GO!" The other end of the alley was barricaded by Ahead, open daylight. A street. Cars.

squad cars. Controller squad cars.

144

145

We rocketed back the way we had come.

More Controllers poured in from that end, Dracon beams aimed.

I spun. On one side, a concrete wall. On the other, the back of the shopping center. At both ends, Controllers.

<Sky!> I shouted. <lt's the only way.> I powered my wings. Climbed. Loren beside me.

Up. Up!

And the chopper bore down on us.

The chopper's downdraft pounded us. Loren skidded against the building. I pitched. Rolled. Righted myself.

The pilot leaned from the helicopter. It was the granny-Controller. She raised her Dracon beam.

Tseeeeeeeeeeeew!

The shot seered past my wings. Blasted a
crater in the alley. Chunks of asphalt, like shrapnel, pummeled my feathers. I reeled. Loren spun. Granny-Controller aimed again.

<Down!> I shouted.

I dove into the narrow space between a

Dumpster and the cinder block wall of the shopping center. Loren plunged in after me. 146

147

<What now?>

Onto the loading dock. Against the heavy steel

<Don't know.> My heart pounded in my ears. door. No way through. No way out. Controllers My wings were numb. <Can't stay here. Let me sprinted toward us. Leaped for the dock.

think.>

<LOOK OUT!> Loren screamed.

Tseeeeeeeeeeeew!

A Controller lunged.

The Dumpster exploded. Hurled us against

Tseeeeeew!

the wall.

I dove. Raked my talons across his bald head. Shouts. Pounding footsteps. A siren. I

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" He hurtled backward, couldn't tell where the noises were coming from. off the loading dock.

Wind from the chopper blades whipped through

<MARCO! WHERE ARE YOU?>
the alley. Peppered us with gravel.

Sccuuurrrrrrruuuunch-BAM!

Suddenly: <Tobias! This way!>

The steel door behind me ripped. Twisted.

<Marco?>

Rumbled open.

<Back the way you came,> he said. <Behind

<IN!>
the old toy store. Loading dock. NOW!> Loren darted through the door. Didn't quesI lifted my wings. They were heavy with grit. tion the gorilla standing under it. Or the furry Slowly I rose from the rubble, Loren beside me. blue alien standing beside him with the Barney Two battered hawks scudded along the pavement backpack strapped to his shoulders.

toward the abandoned toy store.

Fwap! Fwap!

"There they are!"

Ax whipped his tail forward. Two Controllers

"After them!"

fell from the loading dock, unconscious.

Controllers swarmed toward us from both

Marco rolled a plastic bin onto the dock. ends of the alley.

Dumped it over the edge. Hot Wheels cars skitTseeeew!

tered across the pavement.

The pavement erupted behind us.

Controllers raced over them. Skidded.

"Hold your fire! IDIOTS! You'll shoot each Teetered. Smack! Hit the ground. Like an old other."

Three Stooges movie.

We swooped past a set of metal steps. Up.

<GO!>

148

149

Marco leaped back into the building. Ax and I

"LOOK OUT!" Controllers scrambled back followed.

onto the dock.

Marco slammed the door down.

<LET'S GO!>

We were in a warehouse. Rows of steel

We darted through Rachel's hole and into the shelves towered to the ceiling. Loren was abandoned store beyond. Ax and Marco raced perched on top of the nearest one, waiting. down one of the aisles. Loren and I flew above, I jetted past her. <Let's get out of here!> dodging light fixtures and cobwebs. Rachel We swooped over shelves. Around beams. Ax brought up the rear. Half the shelves were still and Marco bounded along below, the backpack lined with dust-coated toys. Rachel swung her bouncing against Ax's shoulders. It looked altrunk over them, slinging Legos, golf tees, and most empty, except for something square, and Ping-Pong balls onto the floor behind her. heavy at the bottom. The morphing cube.

<Uh-oh,> I said. <Trouble.>

<lt's about time.> Rachel, still in elephant Sunlight streamed through the front windows. morph, was waiting at the front of the warehouse. Outside, four Controllers sprinted toward the store. An elephant-sized hole had been ripped through CRRRRAAAAAASH.

the wall behind her.

Heaved a parking meter into the window.

<Sorry I couldn't help you back there,> she Scrambled through the broken glass and charged said. <l couldn't squeeze through all those shelves. toward us.

Seems I've gained a little weight.>

Marco leaped onto a scooter. Grabbed the

Tssseeeeewww!

handle with two huge fingers, held his other fist Ka-BOOOOOM.

out, and plowed into the Controllers.

The loading dock door exploded behind us.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Controllers poured into the warehouse.

Gorilla fist against human face. All four ConRachel lowered her big gray head and pushed trollers dropped to the floor. And they were obviagainst the nearest shelf. ously going to be there for a while.

It tipped. Smashed against the next shelf.

<You know,> Marco said, <l knew there was a And the next. The entire row of shelves toppled reason I always wanted a scooter.>
like dominoes.

THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!

150

151

The chopper roared overhead.

<They are trying to force us into the parking Tseeeeeew! Tseeeeeew!

lot,> Ax said.

Dracon beams blasted through the ware<Yeah.> Thump. Marco's forearm connected house. Controllers stormed us from behind. with a Controller's gut. <Where the little old chopper pilot can mow us down.>

Rachel spun around. Took out three Controllers with her massive head.

<So let's give them what they want,> I said.

<Tobias?> Loren wheeled. Flapped above a

<Out the front. Into the parking lot.> light fixture. Spun. Flapped back. <TOBIAS!>

<ARE YOU INSANE?> Marco, of course.

<Down!> I said. <Stay DOWN! Don't try to

<Yeah,> I said. <Aren't you?> fight these guys.>

She circled. Darted toward an empty bottom shelf.

<Stay there,> I said. <Don't move until I tell you.>

I banked. Two guys lunged at Marco. He
slammed one with his fist, the other with his elbow. Another Controller leveled a Dracon beam at his back. I dove.

Tseeeeer!

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

Nailed his trigger finger with my beak. The weapon skidded across the floor.

A floor littered with unconscious Controllers. Ax struck with his tail blade. I raked with my talons. Rachel and Marco beat their attackers back with sheer size and brute strength. Controller after Controller fell. But more kept coming. Pouring in from the warehouse. 152

153

posted around the perimeter. They glanced at me, but seemed more worried about the chopper. It spun around. The Controllers dove for cover. The pilot — our old friend, the grannyController — stayed well above the light poles. I saw her lean forward. Glare at me. My hawk eyes could see her grip the control stick in one bony hand. Raise her Dracon beam in the other. Could see her nose hairs twitch as she flared her nostrils in a triumphant sneer. I swept around the U shape of the mall.

Granny glanced at her instrument panel.

Glanced at me.

I spun. Doubled back. I needed her attention.

< I ' v e got more flight time than any chopper Needed her to focus more on me, less on where pilot alive,> I said. <Let's see how low she'll go.> the helicopter was flying. Needed her to drop I left Loren in her hiding place. Left Marco, Ax, closer to the ground.

and Rachel behind to fend off the ground troops. She wheeled. Leaned from the door, weapon I shot through the shattered window. Under at the ready. The Controllers hit the pavement. the awning. Into open daylight. Nothing but sky She aimed. Squeezed the trigger.

and pavement.

Up! I tilted my wings and shot toward the And helicopter.

clouds.

A helicopter that would hunt us down no matTseeeeeew!

ter where we ran. Out the front. Out the back. It The Dracon beam singed my tail.

didn't matter. The chopper'd be all over us. We Vaporized the front wall of an old diner. Pumcouldn't escape it. meled one of the Controllers with flying debris. We could only destroy it.

The other Controllers bolted for the street. BeI pumped my wings. Swooped above the yond psycho-Granny's line of fire.

metal awning. A handful of Controllers had been I banked. Dove. Skimmed the asphalt. Shot 154

155
under the chopper. The downdraft whipped at my air. Skimmed across the big bubble window in feathers.

front of the Granny-pilot.

The helicopter pitched forward. Perilously And aimed my thought-speak at her. <What, close to the top of a light pole. A Dracon beam you need a bigger target? You can't hit a little flashed in the sunlight.

bird?>

I banked again.

Her face twisted into a maniacal grin. She Tseeeeeew!

shouted something, the words swallowed by the A speed bump exploded below me.

drone of the blades. Waved the Dracon beam The helicopter hovered. Its blades sliced the over her head.

air. Its landing skids swept the top of the light I spiraled. Shot toward the towering HILLCREST
pole again. Granny ignored the instrument panel. sign.

Kept her eyes on me.

The helicopter rolled. Turned. Jetted after me. One more pass. One more pass and I'd have I wheeled back, in a tight spin. Granny stayed her. I'd get her lower, get her tangled in light with me. Kept the nose of the chopper on me. poles and wires. The chopper'd be history, and I banked. I was in the middle of an open parkwe'd be out of there. ing lot. Nowhere to hide.

I heard Rachel's trumpeting over the roar of

<TOBIAS!>
the chopper. I whirled. The ground battle had Sudden movement. Behind me. Another redspilled from the store, out onto the sidewalk. tailed hawk! Loren. She hurtled toward me. Rachel wrapped her trunk around a Controller Granny aimed.

and tossed him up onto the awning.

Loren dove. Hit my wing. Knocked me away. Granny laughed. Whipped the helicopter

Tseeeeeeeeeew!

around. Swooped toward the toy store.

<NO!>

<RACHEL! WATCH OUT!>

The Dracon beam tore across Loren's back. I shot toward the chopper.

She plummeted to the ground in a shower of

<TOBIAS, NO! YOU'LL BE KILLED!> Loren's blood and feathers.

thought-speak. From somewhere. I couldn't see I swooped toward her. She lay still. Motionher. less. Blood poured from the stump of her wing. I fought the downdraft. Fought to stay in the

<No,> I whispered. <Please, no.> 156

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Her chest quivered. A breath? A heartbeat?

The sign tilted. The tail tore loose from the

<Demorph!> I ordered. <Focus on your hufuselage and swung crazily by one bracket. man self and demorph.>

<Look out!> Marco.

<Can't.> Her thought-speak was weak. DisScrunnnnch!

tant.

The bracket ripped free.

<You have to.>

Ka-BAMMMM. THUNG-UNG-UNG-UNG.

<l'll . . . be blind.>

The tail section dropped. The chopper spi<You'll be alive.> raled out of control. Down. Down. Like a missile, The helicopter swept toward us.

spinning toward Earth.

<Listen to me.> I kept my voice even. <We Spinning toward us. Toward me. And my
don't have time for Biology 1 0 1 . Morphing is mother.

based on DNA. It fixes shattered wings. It should The ground quaked. Rachel thundered across fix your damaged eyes, t o o
the parking lot. <TOBIAS! FLY!>

<Can't. . . take . . . the risk.>

The scales on Loren's legs melted into human

<lt's not a risk. You can morph back. You can flesh. Her talons dissolved into toes.

always morph back. Please. Mom. Demorph!> She blinked. Took a deep breath. "I can see. I She closed her eyes. And then her feathers can still see!"

faded from brown to pale flesh. Beak softened. The chopper's black underbelly plummeted

Skull stretched into a human head.

toward us.

THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!

<Great, but can you run?>

<TOBIAS!> Rachel screamed.

<No time to find out.> Rachel wrapped her Loren's body grew. Expanded. Her wings
trunk around Loren, snatched her from the pavesnapped, sloshed, and shot out into two human ment, and charged toward the other end of the arms.

parking lot.

The chopper swung wide. Maneuvered for a

I powered my wings and soared after her.

clear shot. The tail section spun around. And the helicopter slammed into the lot. Into

<She's gonna crash!>
the pool of hawk blood where my mother had lain. The tail of the helicopter slammed into the And exploded into flames.

HILLCREST sign.

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had locked him inside an old car that was up on blocks behind somebody's house. He was one happy pup when we let him out. He about
wagged himself in half. About licked Loren's face off. He was definitely glad to see her.

And she was glad to see him. Glad? Make that elated, euphoric, ecstatic. She fell to her knees, held his face in her hands, and just looked at him. Looked at him and looked at him and
looked at him. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur.

And yeah, I admit it. I was jealous. Jealous of a dog. How's that for pathetic?

"Champ! Here you go, boy. Catch." Loren Now we were back in the valley. Champ
tossed the Frisbee. It sailed out over a meadow at bounded through camp, the Frisbee clenched in the edge of camp.

his teeth. He jostled through a group of HorkChamp raced after it, leaped, and caught it in Bajir who'd formed a circle. Rachel's mom stood his teeth.

on a bench in the center.

We were in the Hork-Bajir valley. Home. We'd

"No," she was telling them. "No, no, no. Elebeen here since the battle at the strip mall. menopee is not one letter. L. M. N. O. P. Get it?" Getting away was pretty easy once the chopShe shook her head and rubbed her temples. per exploded. The Controllers deserted when A couple of days ago she'd gotten the kinks they saw it going down. Psycho-granny bailed worked out of the Hork-Bajir constitution. She'd just before impact. I saw her crawling on her read it to them. They'd voted unanimously to acbelly across the parking lot. It was a satisfying cept it. She set it on the table, ready to be sight.

signed.

We retrieved Champ on the way back. Rachel And they'd just stood there, confused. Toby, 160

161
the seer, was the only Hork-Bajir in the valley fix injuries," she said, "because all the informawho could read or write. The rest of them didn't tion needed to re-create the cell is stored within even know how to hold a pen.

your DNA. But memories? How are those stored?

So they voted to have Rachel's mom teach

As electrical impulses? As part of your soul?

them.

When they're gone, maybe they're j u s t . . .

"Excuse me?" Her voice had thundered gone."

through the valley. "Do I look like a teacher?" Yeah. Maybe they were. Maybe the little towThey voted again, and decided that, yes, she headed kid would never be anything more than did indeed look like a teacher.

an unrecognizable image from a life my mother Now she was teaching them the ABC song.

would never remember.

Jake and I sat at the picnic table and

But she'd thrown her body between me and a watched. I was in human morph. For no reason Dracon beam. Like Cassie's mom when she saw other than somehow it f e l t . . . right. I'd never Ax. Like Rachel's mom with the spice rack. really been comfortable in my human body, even Whether she remembered me or not, loved me or back when I was a regular non-nothlit kid. But not, my mother almost died trying to save me. now, with Loren here, I wanted to at least try it That had to count for something. Didn't it?

out. For two hours at a time, anyway.

"Have you told her about Elfangor?" Jake Loren. My mother. I watched her race after asked.

Champ. Pull the Frisbee from his mouth and

"No." I shrugged. "I will. I just haven't figsend it sailing across the valley again. ured out how. I mean, how do you tell somebody Her scars were gone. Her long blond hair fell that she used to be married to an alien? That she shiny and straight down both sides of her head. loved him and he loved her, and that because of And she could see. Morphing had restored her their love, they had . . . me? And then, after getvision. ting her all worked up over a husband she can't I'd thought — hoped — that it would also reremember, say, 'Oh! And did I mention he's store her memory. But it didn't. She still didn't dead?"'

know me. Didn't remember anything from before Jake nodded. He stared out over the camp, at the accident.

the cabin he shared with Marco and his family. Cassie had tried to explain it. "Morphing can It was weird. We'd almost traded places. To162

163

bias the orphan suddenly had a mother. Jake, the poster boy for the all-American nuclear family, was alone. Living in somebody else's house, the way I'd always had to live with one ragtag relative or another. Not knowing where his real family was.

"They're still alive," I said. "We can still save them."

"Can we?" He picked at the splintered edge of the picnic table. "What do you think's going to happen to Tom now that Visser One knows he's been living with an Andalite bandit all this time?

How much do you think his life is worth?"

"A lot. That's just it, Jake. Visser One needs him. Needs your parents. Now more than ever. He needs them so he can find us. He needs them to draw us out. As long as we keep fighting, Visser One will keep them alive."

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