"Pawns have the potential to unmask attacks by other pieces in every direction; and because they are worth so little they easily can create bothersome threats, making them marvelous at unveiling discovered attacks."
Aftran
It might be a sign of my twisted sense of humor that one of my drops was at the abandoned construction site where Cassie and her human friends met Elfangor that fateful night.
Seriously, though, it was a good drop-off spot for Peace Movement Yeerks with homeless and/or criminal hosts. It's a place where they blend in. It was strange going there, though, with Cassie's memories of the night Elfangor died vivid in my mind. When I went there, I tried to reconcile the dark, terrifying hellscape of Cassie's memories with the broken husks of buildings I saw laid bare to the morning sunlight.
The drop was a deep crack in one of the crumbling plaster walls. I reached in. There was a tightly rolled scrap of paper. I unrolled it. The message was written in Galard, a habit I encouraged in all my spies who knew the language. Any human who somehow found one of the resistance's notes couldn't then tell all their friends about the strange message they found talking about aliens.
The note read:
Destination of V3's strike force confirmed. 22nd floor of Sutherland Tower, 2490 Morrison St. Date of strike moved up 3 days. Target still unknown. Conjecture: fulfillment of kill order from Council13. - Napol
Moved up three days. That meant today. If Visser Three had an enemy he was trying to eliminate, they might be a potential ally to the Peace Movement or the Animorphs. This was too dangerous a situation for me and Bachu to get involved in, but the Animorphs could go after school. If the target wasn't already dead by then.
The school? Bachu said.
The school, I agreed.
Bachu parked down the street from the school, and walked there under the cover of a hologram. It was easy to slip in through an open window on the first floor. It was one of Tidwell's free periods, fortunately, so I went straight to his office and rapped softly on his desk, right next to where the tank holding Kalysico sat.
The fish dæmon bonked her head against the side of her tank, and Tidwell looked up with a start. "It always scares me when you do that," he hissed.
"I've got intel on that strike force Visser Three's been putting together for the last week," I whispered. "The hit was moved to today. And I know where. Permission to tell the Andalites?"
Tidwell's face hardened in that way I associated with Illim: brow stern, mouth pulled in. "The target could be a Peace Movement ally. Do you trust the Andalites to recognize the value of a sympathetic Yeerk?"
"Not all of them. But enough of them to convince the rest. Probably. Nothing is certain. But none of our people can protect an ally against an entire strike force. Only the Andalites can. They're a risky choice, but they're the only ones strong enough."
"Tell them," said Tidwell, face softer. "I trust Noorlin to do what's right. Tell us as soon as you know how it went."
I rapped the table again in acknowledgment and left. Illim and Tidwell must have imagined that I would go back to the national forest and talk to the Andalites he must have supposed were living there. But all I had to do was consult Bachu's encyclopedic knowledge of the Animorphs' class schedules, walk over to Jake's math classroom, and slip in the door when a student left to use the bathroom. I moved down the aisle between the desks carefully, stepping over the dæmons sitting on the tiled floor.
Merlyse was perched on the front edge of Jake's desk as a gyrfalcon, white feathers barred with black. I crouched down to her level and whispered, "Ask to be excused."
All of Merlyse's feathers puffed out at once. She mantled her wings and stared. She didn't see anything, of course, not even with a raptor's eyes. "Stay calm," I whispered. "Meet me in the boys' bathroom." Finally, Merlyse caught on and tried to act like everything was normal. Jake got permission to go to the bathroom – barbaric, that, needing permission to perform basic bodily functions – and I followed him out silently, unseen.
Bachu created a hologram around us in the bathroom. Merlyse perched on the windowsill and watched the door. Jake looked around and bit his lip. "This feels wrong."
"I don't think a sexless android would be welcome in either of your gendered bathrooms," Bachu said, "so I don't see what difference it makes."
"I guess you're right," Jake said. "What's going on? You're Aftran and Bachu, right?"
"How did you know?" I asked. The Chee's chrome bodies all look the same to human eyes.
"The Chee don't do any of that invisible ninja stuff on their own," said Jake. "That was all you, Aftran."
"True," I acknowledged. "I'm here with a tip from my spies in the Peace Movement. Visser Three has assembled a strike force against an unknown target. It's happening this afternoon at the big office building on Morrison St. My source suspects it's to fulfill a kill order from the Council of Thirteen. An enemy of the Yeerk Empire, almost certainly among our own ranks. We think the target may be a saboteur or dissenter whose goals align with ours."
"You want us to save the target from Visser Three," Jake said. His expression was guarded, his dæmon's eyes still fixed on the bathroom door, even though no one would see us even if they did come in.
"The enemy of your enemy is your friend," I said. "Or could be, anyway. And one more thing. I want to be there."
"You want to be there?" Even Merlyse spared me a surprised look. "You can't fight."
"So I'll do my invisible ninja stuff and watch."
"You don't trust us to keep the target safe."
"Can you blame me?"
"We might have to let them die even if they are a potential ally."
"I understand that."
"And if that's what we end up doing, there's nothing you can do about it."
"I know. That's not the point. I want to see what you do. And I want to be available as a Peace Movement contact if the target needs proof of our intentions."
"And your Chee is okay with this? Standing by and watching if things get violent?"
"That's between the two of us."
I checked in with Bachu. Are you okay with this?
I've seen battles before. It's not pleasant. But I can see how much you want this.
"All right," said Jake. "But stay invisible and out of the way unless I tell you. We'll go after school."
It was probably the best I would get from him. "Keep me informed. And good luck." I dissolved the hologram and left the school invisibly, hoping I had made the right choice.
Marco
«Everything looks normal,» I said, flying another circuit around the twenty-second floor of Sutherland Tower. My osprey eyes were good at seeing through glass, and it was office drones as far as the eye could see.
«It would be a simple hologram to maintain,» Ax said. «Well within the Yeerks' capabilities.»
«So we have to get inside to see what's going on?» Jake asked him.
Ax hesitated. «Yes. Unless… the Chee may be able to see through such holograms.»
«Let's ask Delia,» said Jake. The rest of the Animorphs were in seagull morph and could land right by the service entrance where Delia was hanging out, invisible. Ospreys don't blend in as well, so I just swooped a little bit lower to stay in thought-speak range.
«We think the target's using a hologram as a disguise,» Cassie explained to Delia. «Would you be able to see through it?»
I wasn't inside Delia's privacy hologram, so I didn't hear her answer. But I heard Jake say, «Okay. So you disguise yourself as a delivery guy or a janitor or something and we ride with you as flies. You look through keyholes on the twenty-second floor until you see which one has the hologram, then we go in.»
Tobias guided us to a nearby alleyway, and Delia threw up a hologram to cover us as we demorphed and morphed to flies, spacing ourselves out to make room for Abineng.
«You know, Jake,» I said to him privately. «I'm starting to wonder why we don't bring Chee on missions more often. They can't fight, but they can do all kinds of useful stuff.» It was a relief not to have to worry about someone wandering into the alley and seeing us mid-morph.
«There's lots of places they can't go.»
«Yeah. But think about what they can do.»
«You're right. I don't think all of them would want to do this kind of thing. But obviously some of them do.»
Delia became a delivery guy with a dolly stacked with boxes, a bullmastiff dæmon at her side. Those Chee sure love their dogs, Dia commented. As far as I could tell with my fly eyes, no one even gave her a second glance as she walked into Sutherland Tower and took the elevator up to the twenty-second floor.
She walked quietly along, stopping sometimes to look through the cracks at doorframes. I never saw anything weird, but finally she said, "This is the one."
«What do you see in there?» asked Jake.
"There's a portable Yeerk pool, and – " Her voice changed, suddenly, coming out fast and hard like bullets. "And there's a woman next to it. Her head is clamped to the side. She has brown skin and black hair. Her dæmon is an emperor penguin."
Mom. My mother was in there. Her Yeerk was in the pool. Right now, this very moment, she was free. «How do we get in?» I said. «We have to hurry! Before Visser One reinfests her!»
«Marco. We cannot,» said Ax. «The neck clamp will be connected to a brain-wave interface inside the pool.»
«We have to do something!» I seethed.
«We do not have to do anything,» said Ax coldly. «Visser Three is sending a strike force after her. If we simply wait, he will remove her for us.»
If we weren't both flies right now, I seriously might have tried to hit him.
«If the Council of Thirteen wants her dead,» said Jake, «she must have a good reason for being here. We need to find out what it is. We're going in. Delia?»
"I see another door, maybe to an in-suite bathroom," Delia said. "You can demorph in there."
«Is that an air vent? I feel a breeze coming from above,» said Tobias.
"Yes," said Delia.
«Wait out here,» Jake told her. «If I tell you to run, run.»
We crawled through the grate into the air vent and flew to the other end. Before we came out on the other side, Jake told me, «Marco, listen to me. You can't show yourself to her. I know it's hard. But you can't. Once Visser One reinfests her, she'll know everything your mom saw.»
«I get it,» I said. «I know.»
We came out on the other side.
She was fragmented, shattered, pieces of her pained face and clenched fists scattered everywhere in my fly vision. Mercurio nuzzled her cheek with the side of his face, the tiny soft feathers there. Touching her just the way she needed him, for the few moments he was allowed. For a blinding second, all Diamanta could think about was flying over and landing on his beak.
«Ax, start demorphing now,» Jake said. «We'll be in the bathroom.»
Follow Jake, I told Dia. We have to follow Jake. Get out of here. It felt like I was flying through thick sludge every second I flew away from her. But we made it.
«Rachel, hold off,» Merlyse told her. «There's no room for Abineng in here.»
We started demorphing. Outside, Ax said, «There's a surveillance device in here. She's recording images of free Hork-Bajir. Visser One must have found the colony.»
«So that's what she's up to,» Tobias said darkly. «And if Visser Three's people come here to kill her, they'll know about it too.»
As I became more and more human, the panic the fly morph had kept away came trickling in. I tried to dam it up. Hork-Bajir, Diamanta was saying. Visser One. Visser Three. A power struggle. There's a connection – a way out –
The last of my exoskeleton melted away, Dia appeared in a scaly coil in my lap, and the terror came in, an unstoppable flood of icy fear.
Everything was too close together. I had to escape, but my body wouldn't move. My hands clutched at Dia, squeezing her so hard it hurt. My heart pounded so hard I wondered if my ribs might break open. All I could hear was that thump thump thump and maybe in the background someone was talking but I wasn't listening. I curled around Dia and covered my face so I wouldn't have to watch the walls close in around me.
Somewhere far away, on the surface of me, there was a hand on my shoulder. Slowly, I came back up. "Marco." It was Jake. "Marco, what happened? Are you okay?"
Oh God, said Dia. Oh no. We just had a panic attack in front of everyone.
Maybe I can tell him it's a seizure, I thought.
God, no, that's even worse. Just tell him about the meds. Tell him it won't happen again, Dia urged me.
"I'm fine," I whispered. All around me, the other Animorphs were heading toward battle morph. I should, too. I pictured the gorilla in my mind. Black fur sprouted on my arms.
"Wait," Jake said, squeezing my shoulder. "That was not fine. Marco, tell me."
I looked around. Everyone was going to hear this. My fault. If I'd just told Jake earlier, I could have done it in private. Now I had to do this the hard way. "Luis says it's post-traumatic stress. Because of David. Usually it happens at home or school. Luis gives me meds that stop it. I have it under control."
Jake pulled on my shoulder, so I twisted around to face him. "Marco. You could have told me."
I looked away. "I know."
That was when the room started to shake. No time for this conversation. I focused back on the morph. My face bulged outward. Diamanta vanished.
BAM! «They're breaking down the door,» Ax said from outside. «Hopefully the Chee has retreated to safety. We must go.»
«No,» I said. «We can't just go. Jake, this is an opportunity. Don't you see? Both Visser Three and Visser One want the Hork-Bajir. We can use that.»
«You have a way to set them up?» Jake said.
«Yes.»
«Marco, you just – »
«I have post-traumatic stress, not permanent brain damage! I have a plan. Do you trust me?»
Tiger stripes appeared on Jake's face. "Okay. Yeah. I trust you. Let's stop Visser Three's guys."
"This is insane," Rachel hissed. "Marco, you can't save her."
«I know,» I said. Outside, I could hear a Hork-Bajir cry out. I opened the door and let out Cassie and Tobias, already morphed. It was time to stop the Controllers here to kill my mom.
The battle was over fast. Visser Three's troops were expecting one woman with a Dracon beam, not the whole team of Andalite bandits. Soon we had all the Hork-Bajir down. When it was over, Ax had my mother up against a wall, his tail blade at her throat.
I took a moment to just breathe.
«Marco?» said Jake. «What's the play?»
«We find out what she wants,» I said. «But I can already guess. She wants to discredit Visser Three. She'll say it's his fault all these Hork-Bajir got loose. She wants solid proof so she can show that Council that he's the one they should get rid of, not her.»
«Fine. But you don't do the talking, Marco.» Jake directed his thought-speak to Visser One. «What are you doing on Earth, Visser?»
She laughed, her throat bobbing dangerously against Ax's tail blade. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
It took a little while to get her to the point, but it was just like I'd guessed: she wanted us to sell out the Hork-Bajir so she could discredit Visser Three. Well, let her think we'd do that.
«Tell her she has a deal,» I said.
«Marco,» Jake said to me privately. «This is your mom. If this goes south, she's going to end up dead. Can you live with that?»
«If my plan goes right, she'll end up dead. Jake, you know my mom. You know she would give her life to win this. If this goes right, we nail two Vissers and protect the free Hork-Bajir. If my mom has to die, I say Visser Three goes with her.»
I said all of that, but it wasn't really what I was thinking. They were words that would convince Jake to listen. We didn't have to kill her now. We could kill her at a different place, a different time, exactly where and when I chose. My panic attacks hadn't ruined me. I could see the big picture. I had it under control.
And she'll be alive a little longer, Dia thought. We don't have to kill her just yet.
«Ax?» said Jake. «Do it.»
"Contact me when you're ready," Visser One said.
«How?» said Ax.
Visser One smiled then, and it was my mother's smile: sharp and knowing. But at the same time, it wasn't, because Mercurio sat stock still, when he was always such a goofball. "I have email."
It was a Hotmail address. My mom always said their interface was clunky.
Then she and Mercurio studied us all, carefully, her brown eyes and his beady black sweeping over each of us. "One of you does almost all the talking. The rest of you all stay in morph. Visser Three is a fool. He has overlooked something strange about your group of rebels. He is missing something. But don't worry. When I am returned to power, I will figure it out."
Tobias, perched by the window, said, «I see helicopters coming. We have to clear out.»
We left Visser One behind in the bloody wreck of the office. Out in the hallway, Cassie said, «Aftran? Are you there?»
"Yes. The building's been evacuated. Go on up to the roof. I'll cover you."
We walked all the way up to the roof, demorphing as we went. When we finally got up there, panting, the sound of choppers over our heads, Tobias (who had ridden on Ax up the stairs) said, «Well, we just agreed to betray Toby, Jara, Ket, and all the free Hork-Bajir to Visser One. Will someone please explain to me the plan?»
"Are you insane, Marco?" Rachel exploded. "That's your mom you're setting up!"
"No. I'm setting up Visser One."
"And you're okay with this, Jake?" Rachel rounded on him, but Abineng kept watching me as if I might go off at any second. "He had a freak-out in the bathroom when he saw his mom. He can't handle this. He has to sit this one out."
"I've been handling this for months," I said, while Dia reared up on my shoulder as a cobra, hood spread and hissing at Abineng. "None of you even noticed."
"What happens if you have one of those again?" Jake asked me, calmly. Merlyse was a jackal, sitting on her haunches and swishing her tail slowly back and forth.
"It doesn't happen when I'm in morph. I'm not going to demorph if the coast isn't clear. I'll be fine."
"Does Luis think so?"
"Yeah. You can ask him. He says it's a manageable condition."
"Okay," said Jake. "Tell us the plan."
I felt Diamanta loosen her coils around my arm and settle down. "We lure Visser One out to some place that seems plausible for the Hork-Bajir colony. I was thinking one of those empty forested islands off the coast. We let Visser Three's people tail Visser One and figure out where she's going. They both go to the island and race to get to the "colony" first. We have a Chee there, ready to throw up a hologram of the Hork-Bajir colony, making it look destroyed when they bomb it out or whatever. Visser One's people and Visser Three's have a shootout at the OK Corral. We take out whoever's left standing. The Hork-Bajir end up much safer, and the Yeerks end up leaderless."
Rachel, Tobias, and Ax all looked kind of far away. I knew what they were thinking. They were imagining themselves in my place, asking themselves if they could do it. I avoided looking at Cassie and Loren. I kept my eyes on Jake. Yeah, I'd screwed up when I decided not to tell him about the panic attacks. But I looked into Jake's steady gaze, and the way Merlyse's ears drooped, just a little, and I knew he still trusted me. He knew I'd seen my way through to the answer. And he knew I wouldn't change my mind, now that I'd seen it.
"Okay," he said.
"So we do it?"
"Yeah. You call the plays, Marco."
"She's your mother!" Cassie burst out, and Quincy took off from her shoulder, flying around in tilting spirals. "We're all just going to let him do this to his mother? He already has PTSD. We can't let him do this to himself!"
Merlyse became a screech owl and caught up with Quincy midair, talking to him quietly. Dia watched them. Meanwhile, I turned to Delia. "Can you do this? Make a hologram of the whole colony and make the Yeerks think they've destroyed it?"
"If I understand your plan correctly," Delia said, "this is going to be part of a battle, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "But making the hologram won't hurt anyone. It'll save the Hork-Bajir."
"Still," said Delia. She was quiet a moment. Then she said, "It won't be easy for me. Using a hologram as part of a battle. Even if it doesn't hurt anyone directly. It'll… come up against the bounds of my programming."
Dia whispered in my ear, "She means it'll hurt."
"But Aftran says the destruction of these Vissers may save her people," Delia finished. "So I'll do it."
«Do you need me for your plan right now?» Tobias said. «I need to fly to the valley and tell Toby her people are in danger.»
"Go ahead," I said. "If a few of her people are up for it, we could use them as part of the plan."
«I'll let her know.» Tobias flew off.
Quincy had landed back on Cassie's shoulder, and Merlyse on Jake's. I turned to Cassie. "Do you know an animal that's really steady on its feet? Rock-climbing, that kind of thing?"
I waited. Was Cassie going to go along with this or not? The pity in her eyes when she looked at me was scalding. "Mountain goat," she said slowly. "They have them at the Gardens."
"We need those morphs," I said. "Let's get wings and go."
After we left the Gardens with everything except my dignity intact, Loren said to me privately, «Can I speak with you alone, Marco?»
Loren hadn't said a single thing all day, at least not that I'd heard. And we'd never spoken one-on-one before. Thinking about it made me itch inside.
She's the only adult you can talk to about this, Dia said. Maybe you should hear her out.
She's going to try to talk me out of this, Dia.
We both know she won't, said Dia, so let her. Better now than tomorrow.
«Fine,» I said. «Right now?»
«Come to my house. We'll demorph, and I'll make you some tea or something.»
«You don't have to – »
«I want to. Come on.»
Everyone else broke off to go home, and I followed Loren to hers. I'd been there before, when she had been a strange blind lady who somehow knew an Andalite, who we all took turns spying on. But I'd never actually gone inside. It felt like stepping onto the set of a familiar TV show. Loren put on a plain white bathrobe over her morphing suit and offered me something to drink. It seemed like she wasn't going to leave me alone until I picked something, so I asked for cocoa. She made some in the microwave and served it to me on the kitchen table. Dia lay coiled in my lap as a rattlesnake, gray with a brown diamond pattern, and reared up so she could look over the table at Loren, sitting with Jaxom in her own lap. I drank the cocoa and waited for her to say something. When she finally did, it was straight to the point.
"Don't give up on your mother, Marco. Please."
"This isn't about giving up on her. This is about buying as much with her life as we can afford."
"There has to be another way. She doesn't have to die. Jake fights this war because he thinks he can save his brother. Don't you think you can save her? Don't you think we'll do everything we can to help?"
"Tom's Yeerk is a footsoldier," I said. "My mother is host to one of the most powerful Yeerks in the Empire. Are you saying we should catch her? Try to starve the Visser out? We'd probably have a dozen Bug fighters' worth of her troops after us. At least. She was awfully calm for someone claiming to work alone."
"There has to be a way." Loren leaned forward. "Talk to Jake. Come up with a different plan. Don't do this. Marco, you need your mother. I know you do. Just like Tobias needs me."
Dia bared her fangs. "You have no idea what I need."
"Yes, I do," said Jaxom. "You need something to fight for. What will you have left, once you do this?"
Loren looked at me, her arms wrapped around her dæmon. "What are you trying to do?"
"You don't see things the way I do, Loren," I said. Dia slithered up onto the table, looking down at Jaxom. "You haven't been fighting this war as long as I have. I see patterns. More and more, as this war goes on. It's like chess pieces. Us, the Vissers, Aftran's Peace Movement, the Andalites, the Council of Thirteen, the Chee, the Ellimist, Crayak, all of it. I see Visser One's chess piece on the board, and I look at all the moves. There's no way to win where she doesn't die, and my mom with her. This plan? This is the way she dies that helps our side the most."
"So you're sacrificing her. Your mother. Like a pawn."
I coiled Dia's tail around my wrist. "Tell me. If it was you who was captured, and Tobias had to face off against you to win this war. What would you tell him, if you could? That your death would ruin him? That he would never move on? That he was sacrificing you like a pawn?" Dia put her face very close to Jaxom's. "Or would you tell him that you forgive him, because he was doing it to make sure no one else would ever have to be a slave like you?"
Jaxom flinched away from Dia. Loren said, "No one should ever have to make that kind of decision about their own parent. This can't be on you, Marco."
"Seven of us," I said. "That's all we've got. Jake and I are the only people who can think like this. There are pieces sacrificed in every game of chess, and the two of us can see which ones we have to trade away. Tobias will never have to make this call, because he can't."
"You're not alone," Loren said. "You have Jake."
"Yeah. I know I do. And he sees how the plan can work, better than anybody. And after this is over? He'll be there to pick up the pieces. I'm counting on him."
"Marco," Loren said. Her eyes were wet, and she was holding tight to Jaxom. "Please call off this plan. Please."
I reeled Dia in. We both studied her and Jaxom, as if we were spies on her windowsill again, watching them through the glass. "You're afraid of me. Aren't you." I curled Dia around my other wrist. I knew what I must look like, my blank face, Dia's pale unblinking eyes. "Yes, Loren. You're right. If I can do this to my mom, I can do it to anyone. If I had a plan to win this war where you or Tobias or Ax had to die, I could do it. It's a war, Loren. That's the whole point. We hurt the innocent to stop the evil. It's the only way."
Loren's tears overflowed her eyes. For a moment, I felt satisfied. Triumphant, even. It was what she deserved for trying to talk me out of this. Then I just felt cold inside. Empty. I lifted Dia to my face. "Why did we come here again?"
Dia twisted around to face Loren. "Are you coming tomorrow? You can back out. We can do this without you."
Loren did nothing to stop or wipe away the tears crawling down her face. "Jake ordered me to go," she whispered.
"I'm sorry," I said. If it were up to me, I would have let her sit this out.
"Not as sorry as I am," she said.
"Thanks for the cocoa," I said. I morphed to owl and sailed out the window, flying home to my dad, who had no idea what I was planning to do.