Animorphs Dementia

by Veravine

When dimensions collide, you meet the strangest people... (*language warning throughout*)

1. Default Chapter Title

The Animorphs Dementia Cycle - Animorphs with a twist of fate....

We all know Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, and Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. We all know what has happened to them. We all know of the battles they face, the battles they fight with the only weapons they have - themselves.

But have you ever wondered.... what if....? Yes, "what if". The two words that sparked the creation of fiction, and the foundation of all things of fantasy and science-fiction. "What if" is the code of the fan who writes their own version of their favorite stories.

The Dementia Cycle takes "what if" to another level. It gets its name because it looks at Animorphs from another perspective, a different dimension, causing chaos and insanity in its wake. Several slight changes were made in the other universe. Obvious ones. Ones that shouldn't make so much of a difference, but, in fact, do.

The differences can be seen very quickly... if you watch....

I hope you enjoy The Dementia Cycle.

Animorphs Dementia #1 - The Confusion

Long before....

My name is Jack. That's my first name, obviously - or, at least, my nickname. I can't tell you my last name. It would be too dangerous. The Controllers are everywhere. Everywhere. And if they knew my full name, they could find me and my friends, and then... well, let's just say I don't want them to find me. What they do to people who resist them is too horrible to think about.

I won't even tell you where I live. You'll just have to trust me that it is a real place, a real town. It may even be YOUR town.

I'm writing this all down so that more people will learn the truth. Maybe then, somehow, the human race can survive until the Andalites return and rescue us, as they promised they would.

Maybe.

My life used to be pretty normal. Normal, that is, until one Friday night at the mall. I was there with Maria, my best friend. We were checking out the comic books and hanging out at this cool store that sells them and other neat stuff. You know, the usual.

Maria was out of money even though her reserved comics were in, so I lent her what I had. It was barely enough. We're both into comics, but Maria is REALLY into them, if you know what I mean. Normally I wouldn't "lend" Maria money, because I know she can't pay me back, but she's my best friend, and I wanted to be nice.

Also, I was a little distracted, and saying "uh-huh" to anything Maria said to me. I'd had kind of a bad day at school. I'd tried out for the volleyball team and I didn't make the cut.

It was like no big deal, really. Except that Tara - she's my big sister - she was this total legend on the junior high volleyball team. So everyone expected me to make the team easy. Only I didn't.

Like I said, no big thing. But it was on my mind, just the same. Lately, Tara and I hadn't been hanging out as much. Not like we used to. So I figured, you know, if I got on the team...

Well, anyway, neither of us had money (anymore, in my case), so we stepped out of the store onto the crossway, and who should I bump into but Tonya. Tonya was... I mean, I guess she still IS kind of a strange girl. She was new at school, and she wasn't adapting well, I guess. She got picked on a lot.

I actually met Tonya when she had her head in a toilet. I saw these two bullies drag her into the boy's bathroom. They held her down and laughed while they flushed, sending Tonya's straggly blond hair swirling around the bowl. I told the creeps to step off. They told me I didn't belong in the boy's bathroom. At that point, a monitor who had seen me go into the boy's bathroom came in, saw what had happened to Tonya, and the two creeps got suspended for a day. I was just told not to go into boy's bathrooms anymore. Ever since then, Tonya figured I was her friend.

"What's up?" Tonya asked.

I shrugged. "Not much. We're heading home."

"So, like maybe I'll walk home with you guys," Tonya said.

I said sure. Why not?

We were heading for the exit when I spotted Richard and Christopher. Rich is kind of cute, I guess. I mean, okay, he's REALLY cute, although, since he's my cousin, I don't really think about him that way. He has blond hair and blue eyes and that kind of very clean, very wholesome look. He's one of those people who always knows what clothes to wear and how to look like they just stepped off a movie set. He's also very strong because he's really into sports, even though he says he's too slow to ever be really good at anything in particular.

Chris is sort of the opposite. For one thing, he's usually wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, or something else real casual. He's black and wears his hair very short most of the time. He had it longer for a while, but then he went back to short, which I like. Chris is quieter than Rich, more peaceful, like he always understands everything on some different, more mystical level.

I guess you could say I kind of LIKE Chris. Sometimes we sit together on the bus, even though I never know what to say to him.

"You guys going home?" Rich asked. "You shouldn't go through the construction site by yourselves. I mean, being girls and all."

That was a mistake. Rich should never have suggested to Maria that she's weak or helpless. Maria may LOOK like Little Miss Teen Model or whatever, but she thinks she's Storm from the X-Men - sometimes literally.

"Are you going to come and protect us, you big, strong m-a-a-a-n?" she said. "You think we're helpless just because-"

"Please don't start, Maria," I said, rolling my eyes. Rich had a strange look on his face. Rich's kind of a chauvinist sometimes; he didn't see what was wrong with what he'd said. I grinned at him. "Sure, you can walk us home, Rich. Maria can protect you."

"It's better if we go in a group anyway," Chris said. "Then we don't really have to worry about anybody protecting anybody."

Rich and Maria couldn't argue much with that. That's the way Chris is - he always has the right words to stop any argument without making anyone feel bad.

So, there we were. The five of us - Maria, Tonya, Richard, Christopher, and me. Five normal mall rats heading home.

Sometimes I think about that one, last moment when we were still just normal kids. It's like it was a million years ago, like it was some totally different group of kids. You know what I was afraid of right then? I was afraid of admitting to Tara that I hadn't made the team. That was as scary as life got back then.

Five minutes later, life got a lot scarier.

To get home from the mall we could either go the long way around, which is the safe way, or we could cut through this abandoned construction site and hope there weren't any ax murderers hanging around there. My mom and dad have sworn to ground me until I'm twenty if they ever find out I've cut through the construction site.

So anyway, we crossed the road and headed into the abandoned construction site. It was a big area, surrounded on two sides by trees, with the highway separating it from the mall area. There's a broad, open field between the construction site and the nearest houses. It's a very isolated place.

Originally it was supposed to be this new shopping center. Now it was just all these half-finished buildings looking like a ghost town. There were huge piles of rusted steel beams; pyramids of giant concrete pipes; little mountains of dirt; deep pits that had filled up with black, muddy water; and a creaking, rusted construction crane that I had climbed once while Maria stayed below and told me I was being an idiot.

It was a totally deserted place, full of shadows and sounds that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. When Maria and I went there during the day, we always found all these beer cans and liquor bottles. Sometimes we found the ashes of little campfires back in the hidden nooks and crannies of the buildings. So we knew that people came there at night. All that was on my mind as we crept through the site.

It was Tonya who saw it first. She had been walking along, gazing up at the sky. I guess she was looking at the stars or something. That's the way Tonya is sometimes - off in her own world.

Suddenly Tonya stopped. She was pointing. Pointing almost straight up. "Look," she said.

"What?" I didn't want to be distracted because I was pretty sure I'd heard the sound of a chain-saw killer creeping up behind us. Of course, it might also have been Rich dragging his feet, but I didn't think of that then.

"Just look," Tonya said. Her voice was strange. Amazed-sounding, but serious at the same time.

So I looked up. And there it was. A brilliant, blue-white light that scooted across the sky, going fast at first, too fast for it to be an airplane, then slower and slower. "What is it?"

Tonya shook her head. "I don't know."

I looked at Tonya and she looked back at me. We both knew what we THOUGHT it was, but we didn't want to say it. Maria and Rich would have laughed, we figured.

But Chris just blurted it right out. "It's a flying saucer!"

"A flying saucer?" Maria echoed. She DID laugh. That is, until she looked up.

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I felt weird and excited and afraid, all at once.

"It's coming this way," Richard said.

"It's hard to be sure." I could barely whisper, my mouth was so dry.

"No, it's coming this way," Rich said. He has a definite, almost condescending way of talking. Like he's totally sure of everything he says, and anyone who contradicts him has to be an idiot.

Rich was right. Whatever it was, it was coming closer. And it was slowing down. Now I could see pretty clearly what it looked like.

"It's not exactly a flying saucer," I said.

First of all, it wasn't all that big. It was about as long as a school bus. The front end was a pod, shaped almost like an egg. Extending from the back of the pod was a long, narrow shaft. There were two crooked, stubby winglike things, and on the end of each wing was a long tube that glowed bright blue on the back end.

The little spaceship looked almost cute. You know, kind of harmless. Except that it had a sort of tail - a mean-looking tail that curved up and forward, coming to a point that looked as sharp as a needle.

"That tail thing," I said. "It looks like a weapon."

"Definitely," Maria agreed.

The little ship kept coming nearer, going slower all the time.

"It's stopping," Rich said. He had the same strange, not-quite-real tone in his voice that I had. Like we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Like maybe we didn't want to believe.

"I think it sees us," Maria said. "Should we run? Maybe we should run home and get a camera. Do you know how much money we could get for a video of a real UFO?"

"If we run, they might... I don't know, zap us with phasers on full power," I said. I meant it as a joke. Kind of.

"Phasers are only on Star Trek," Maria said, rolling her eyes the way she does when she thinks I'm being a dweeb. Like she was some kind of expert on alien spaceships. Right.

The ship stopped and hovered almost directly over our heads, maybe a hundred feet in the air. I could feel the hair on my head stand on end. When I glanced at Maria it was almost funny. She has this long dark hair and it was sticking straight out in every direction. Of course, mine was probably doing the same thing, even though it's only shoulderlength. Tonya's hair wasn't any longer than Rich's, but both of them still looked weird. Of us all, only Chris looked normal.

"What do you think it is?" Maria asked. She sounded a little shakier, not so laid-back now that the thing was so close. To be honest, I was a little scared, too. A LITTLE scared, as in so terrified I couldn't move. But at the same time, it was all so cool, beyond any coolness ever. I mean, it was a spaceship! Right there over my head.

Tonya was actually grinning, but that's Tonya for you. She's never scared of weird stuff. It's the normal stuff she can't stand. "I think it's going to land," she said, this huge smile on her face. Her eyes were bright and excited, and her blond hair was standing up in clumps.

The ship began to descend. "It's coming right at us!" I cried.

I had to fight an urge to run yammering across the field all the way home, where I could crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head. But I knew that this was an important, amazing thing. I knew I had to stay and see it all.

I guess the others felt the same way, because we all just stood there, as the ship hummed and glowed and slowly settled down in an open space between piles of junk and tumbled walls. I noticed there were black burn marks along the top of the pod section. Some of the skin of the pod had been melted. It touched the ground and instantly the blue lights went off. Everyone's hair fell back down onto our necks.

"It isn't very big, is it?" Rich whispered.

"It's about-" I tried to think- "about three or four times as big as our minivan."

"We should tell someone," Maria said. "I mean, this is kind of major, you know? Spaceships don't just land in the construction site every day. We should call the cops or the army or the president or something. We'd be totally famous. We'd get to be on TV for sure."

"Yeah, you're right," I agreed. "We should call someone." But none of us moved. None of us was just going to walk away from a spaceship.

"I wonder if we should try and talk to it," Rich suggested. He was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at the spaceship like it was an opponent he was measuring up. "I mean, we should communicate. If that's even possible."

Tonya nodded. She stepped forward and held out her hands. I guess she was showing whoever was in the ship that she wasn't carrying any kind of weapon or anything. "It's safe," she said in a loud, clear voice. "We won't hurt you."

"Do you think they speak English?" I wondered.

"Well, everyone speaks English on Star Trek," Chris said with a nervous laugh. If he was trying to make me feel less scared, it didn't help.

Tonya tried again. "Please, come out. We won't hurt you."

I know.

I froze. Okay, I had definitely heard someone say "I know," only... there hadn't been any sound. I mean, I heard it, but I didn't really hear it.

Maybe this WAS all a dream. I looked kind of sideways at Chris. He looked back at me. Our eyes met. He had heard it, too. I looked at Rich. He was turning his head back and forth, like he was looking for where that sound - that wasn't a sound - could have come from. I started to get a sick, twisty feeling in my stomach.

"Did everyone hear that?" Tonya asked us calmly.

We all nodded at once, very slowly.

"Can you come out?" Tonya asked in her loud, talking-to-aliens- voice.

Yes. Do not be frightened.

"We won't be frightened," Tonya said.

"Speak for yourself," I muttered. The others giggled nervously.

A thin arc of light appeared, a doorway, opening slowly in the smooth side of the pod part of the ship. I stood there, totally hypnotized. I just stared, waiting.

The opening grew, like a crescent moon at first, then a full, bright circle.

And then he appeared.

My first reaction was that someone had cloned a person and a deer together. The creature had a head and shoulders and arms that were more or less where they should have been, though the skin was a pale shade of blue. But below that he had fur, a mix of blue and tan, covering a four-legged body that really did look like it belonged to a deer, or maybe a small horse.

He ducked his head out the doorway and I could see that even the fairly normal-looking parts of him weren't all that normal. For a start, he had no mouth, just three vertical slits. And then there were his eyes. Two of them were where they should have been, although they were a glittery greenish-blue color that was kind of shocking. But the real shock was the other eyes. He had what seemed like horns, only on the top of each horn was an eye. The horns could move, twisting to point the eyes front and back or up and down.

I thought the eyes were bad, until I saw the tail. It was like a scorpion's tail, thick and powerful-looking. On the end was a wickedly curved, very sharp-looking horn or stinger. It reminded me of the alien's spaceship. It had seemed kind of cute and harmless at first glance, too. Then you saw that tail of his and you thought, whoa, this guy could do some damage if he wanted.

"Hello," Tonya said. Her voice was gentle, like she was talking to a baby. She was grinning.

I realized I was smiling, too. And at the same moment, I realized that there were tears in my eyes. I can't really describe how it felt, except that it seemed like the alien was someone I'd known forever. Like an old friend I hadn't seen in a long, long time.

Hello, the alien said, in that silent way that you only heard inside your head.

"Hi," we all said back.

To my surprise, the alien staggered. He fell out of the ship to the ground. Tonya tried to grab him and hold him up, but the alien slipped from her grasp and fell back to the dirt.

"He's hurt!" Chris cried. He pointed at a burn that covered half the alien's right side, as if we couldn't see it for ourselves.

Yes. I am dying, the alien said.

"Can we help you? We can call an ambulance or something," Maria said.

"We can bandage that wound," Chris said, collecting himself. "Rich, give me your shirt. We can tear it up and make bandages." Chris' parents are both veterinarians and he's totally into animals. Not that this was an animal. Not exactly, anyway.

No. I will die. The wound is fatal.

"NO!" I cried. "You can't die. You're the first alien ever to come to Earth. You can't die!" I don't know why I was so upset. I just knew that way down deep inside, it hurt me to think of him dying.

I am not the first. There are many, many others.

"Other aliens? Like you?" Rich demanded. Tonya shook her head slightly, closing her eyes and frowning, as if Rich were a complete dork.

The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side. Not like me.

Then he cried out in pain, a silent sound that echoed horribly inside my mind. For a moment, I had actually FELT him dying.

Not like me, he repeated. They are different.

"Different? How?" I said.

I will remember his answer forever.

He said, They have come to destroy you.

It was strange, the way we all just knew he was telling the truth. No one said "no way" or "you're making it up." We all just knew. He was dying, and he was trying to warn us of something terrible.

They are called Yeerks. They are different from us. Different from you, as well.

"Are you telling us they're already here on Earth?" Rich demanded.

Many are here. Hundreds. Maybe more.

"Why hasn't anybody noticed them?" Maria said reasonably. "I think

someone would have mentioned it at school."

You do not understand. Yeerks are different. They have no body, like yours or mine. They live in the bodies of other species. They are...

I guess he couldn't think of a word to explain Yeerks, so he closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. Suddenly a bright picture popped into my head. I saw a gray-green, slimy thing like a snail without its shell, only bigger, the size of a rat, maybe. It wasn't a pretty picture.

"I'm guessing that was a Yeerk," Maria said. "Either that or a very big wad of slimy chewing gum."

They are almost powerless without hosts. They-

Suddenly we felt that blast of pain, straight from the alien. I could also feel his sadness. He knew his time was almost up.

The Yeerks are parasites. They must have a host to live in. In this form they are known as Controllers. They enter the brain and are absorbed into it, taking over the host's thoughts and feelings. They try to get the host to accept them voluntarily. It is easier that way. Otherwise the host may be able to resist, at least a little.

"Are you saying they take over human beings?" Rich asked. "People? These things take over their bodies?"

"Look, this is serious stuff," I said. "You shouldn't be telling us. We're just kids, you know. This is like something the government should know about."

We had hoped to stop them, the alien continued, as if he hadn't heard me. Swarms of their Bug fighters were waiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mother ship and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us - they had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought, but... we lost. They have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me and my ship.

"How can they do that?" Chris wondered.

The alien seemed to smile with his eyes. It was a grim smile, though. Their Dracon beams will leave nothing behind but a few molecules of this ship, and... this body, he said. I sent a message to my home world. We Andalites fight the Yeerks wherever they go throughout the universe. My people will send help, but it may take a year, even more, and by then the Yeerks will have control of this planet. After that, there is no hope. You must tell people. You MUST warn your people!

Another spasm of pain ripped through him, and we all knew he was nearly gone.

"No one is ever going to believe us," Maria said hopelessly. She looked at me and shook her head. "No way."

She was right. If these Yeerks were to wipe out the Andalite's ship, how on Earth would we ever convince people? They'd think we were either nuts or on drugs.

"I don't care if he thinks he's going to die, we have to try and help him," Rich said, taking charge. "We can get him to a hospital. Or maybe Chris' parents..."

There is no time. No time, the Andalite said. Then his eyes brightened. Perhaps...

"What?"

Go into my ship. You will see a small blue box, very plain. Bring it to me. Quickly! I have very little time, and the Yeerks will find me soon.

We all looked at each other. Who was going to be the one to go inside the ship? Somehow we all seemed to agree it would be me. Actually, I didn't agree, but everyone else did.

"Go ahead," Tonya said. "I want to stay with him." She knelt beside the Andalite and placed a comforting hand on the alien's narrow shoulder.

I looked at the doorway into the spacecraft. I glanced at Chris, who moved forward, removed his shirt - he still had an undershirt on -, knelt down, and began trying to staunch the flow of blood from the Andalite's side. He spared me a glance. "Go ahead," he said, sending me a quick smile. "You're not scared."

He was wrong; I was plenty scared. But the way he smiled at me, I wasn't about to weasel out.

I walked over to the door of the ship and looked inside. It was surprisingly simple. It looked cozy, almost. Everything was a creamy color with rounded edges and shapes that tended to be oval. That was one of the things that helped me to spot the box so easily. It was dull blue and square with rounded edges, maybe five inches on each side.

I stepped up into the ship. There was no chair, just a sort of open space where I guess the Andalite stood on his four hooves while he worked the few controls. There weren't a lot of buttons or anything. I wondered if the Andalite controlled the ship with his thoughts.

I quickly reached for the box and started to head back outside. The thing seemed kind of heavy for being so small. Then something caught my eye - a small, three-dimensional picture - six Andalites, standing all together, looking like a strange gathering of deer with solemn faces. Two of them looked very small - kids. I realized that this was a picture of the

Andalite's family.

It filled me with sadness to think that here he was, dying, a million miles from his family. Dying because he had tried to protect the people of Earth. I felt anger flare up at the Yeerks, or Controllers, or whatever they were, for causing this.

I picked up the base that showed the picture in my empty hand, and went back to the circle of my friends.

"Here's the box," I told the Andalite.

Thank you.

"I, um.... is this your family?" I held out the picture.

He looked at it sadly, then silently reached up, brushing his fingertips against the base. The picture vanished.

"I'm real sorry," I said. What else could I say? Absently, I put the base in my pocket, not really thinking about what I was doing.

There is something I may be able to do to help you fight the Yeerks.

"What?" Rich demanded.

I know that you are young. I know that you have no power with which to resist the Controllers. But I may be able to give you some small powers that may help.

We all looked at each other. All except Tonya, who never took her gaze off the alien.

If you wish, I can give you powers that no other human being has ever had.

"Powers?" What was THAT supposed to mean?

It is a piece of Andalite technology that the Yeerks do not have, the Andalite explained. A technology that enables us to pass unnoticed in many parts of the universe - the power to morph. We have never shared this power. But your need is great.

"Morph? Morph how?" Rich asked, his eyes narrowed.

To change your bodies, the Andalite said. To become any other species. Any animal.

Maria laughed derisively. "Become animals?" Maria isn't the most accepting person in the world, no matter HOW many comics she reads.

You will only need to touch a creature, to acquire its DNA pattern, and you will be able to BECOME that creature. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are... limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But there is no time to explain it all... no time. You will have to learn for yourselves. But first, do you wish to receive this power?

"He's kidding, right?" Maria asked me.

"No," Tonya said softly. "He's not kidding."

"This is nuts," Maria said. "This whole thing is nuts. Yeerks and spaceships and slugs taking over people's brains and Andalites and the power to change into animals? Give me a break."

"Yeah, it is beyond weird," I agreed.

"We're off the map of weirdness by this point," Rich said. "But unless we're all just dreaming, I think we'd better deal with this."

"He's dying," Tonya reminded us in a flat voice.

"I'LL do it," Chris said. That surprised me. Chris isn't usually so quick to decide - he likes to "sleep on it", you know? But I guess, like Tonya, he FELT the truth of what the Andalite was saying.

"I think we should ALL decide together," I suggested. "One way or the other."

"What's that?" Rich asked. He was looking up toward the stars. Far, far overhead, two pinpoints of bright red light were shooting across the sky.

Yeerks. The Andalite said the word in our minds, and we could feel his hatred.

The twin red lights slowed. They turned in a circle and came back toward us.

There is no more time. You must decide!

"We have to do this," Tonya said. "How else can we fight these Controllers?"

"This is insane!" Maria said. "Insane."

"I'd like more time, but we don't have that choice," Rich said in his most decisive tone. "I'm for it."

"What do you say, Jack?" Chris asked me.

A strange feeling came over me. The others were looking at me expectantly, as if I was the one who had to decide for everyone. Since when did I decide for everybody?

I looked up at the Yeerks' ships. What had the Andalite called them? Bug fighters? They were circling closer, like dogs sniffing for a scent. I looked down at the Andalite and remembered the picture of his family (although I did not remember shoving the base in my pocket). Would they even know what had happened to him?

I looked at each of the people around me - my usually funny, occasionally annoying best friend Maria; Richard, my smart, handsome, confident, and often condescending cousin; Chris, who everyone knew liked animals more than he liked most people.

Finally, I looked at Tonya. It was weird, the feeling I had at that moment, staring at her serious, determined expression. A chill or something.

"We have to," Tonya said to me.

There was something odd about her voice. Something I couldn't argue with.

Slowly I nodded. "We have no choice. Let's do it."

Then each of you, press your hand against one of the sides of the square.

We did. Five hands, each pressed against one side. Then a sixth hand, different from ours, with too many fingers.

Do not be afraid, the Andalite said.

Something like a shock, only pleasurable, seemed to run through me. A tingle that almost made me laugh.

Then the Andalite told us to go, and warned us of a time limit on morphing. I repeated it, making sure I'd remember exactly how long it was - the last thing I wanted to do was get trapped in an animal's body! That time limit was DEFINITELY not something I wanted to forget!

Suddenly some new fear washed through the Andalite's mind. Linked as I was to him, I could feel it as a dread that crawled up my spine. He was staring up at the sky with his main eyes. Something else was up there with the Bug fighters.

Visser Three! He comes!

"What?" I was shaking with this new terror. "What's a Visser? Who's a Visser?"

Go now. Run! Visser Three is here. He is the most deadly of your enemies. Of all Yeerks he alone has the power to morph. The same power you now have. Run!

"No, we'll stay with you," Rich said firmly. "Maybe we can help."

Again it was as if the alien was smiling at us with his eyes. No. You must save yourselves. Save yourselves and save your planet! The Yeerks are here.

We all looked up, craning our necks. Sure enough, the two red lights were sinking toward us. And they had been joined by a third ship, far larger, black as a shadow within a shadow.

"But how are we supposed to fight these... these Controllers?" Rich demanded.

You must find a way. Now RUN!

I jerked from the force of his command. "He's right. Run!" I yelled.

We ran. All but Tonya, who knelt beside the Andalite and took his hand. The Andalite pressed his other hand against Tonya's head. Tonya rocked back, like she'd been shocked. Then she, too, was up and running, stumbling over the loose junk and potholes of the construction site.

A beam of bright red light snapped on. It was a spotlight from one of the Bug fighters. The beam lit up the fallen Andalite and his ship. A spotlight from the second Bug fighter joined the first, and the Andalite shone brilliant as a star.

I hit the dirt hard. I saw my leg lit up within the circle of that spotlight. I yanked it to me and crawled fast, scraping my elbows and knees over the sharp stones.

The five of us crouched behind a low, crumbling wall, afraid to move, afraid to look, but just as afraid to look away.

Slowly the Bug fighters descended. It was easy to see where they'd gotten their nickname. They were slightly larger than the Andalite fighter and shaped like legless cockroaches. There were small windows like eyes on the forward-thrust head of the bug. And on either side of the head were two very long, very sharp, serrated spears.

The Yeerk Bug fighters touched down, one on either side of the Andalite ship.

"Okay, you can wake me up now," Maria said in a rattled whisper. "I've had enough of this dream."

The larger ship began to descend. I don't know what it was about that ship, but as it got closer I started to feel like I couldn't breathe. I tried to suck in a deep lungful of air and couldn't. I tried to swallow and couldn't. I wanted to run, but my legs were jelly. I was shaking from a fear so deep it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It was the same fear that the Andalite had shown when he realized Visser Three was coming.

The ship settled toward the ground. It looked like it was going to land directly on a big rusted earthmover parked there. But as the Visser's ship descended, the earthmover just sizzled and disappeared.

Visser Three's ship was built like some ancient weapon. It reminded me of one of those battle-axes the old-time knights used when they were hacking off the heads of their foes. There was the main part, like the handle of the ax, with a big, triangular point on the front. That part had to be the bridge. At the rear were two huge, scimitar wings. It was eight or ten times

the size of the Bug fighters.

The Blade ship landed. A door opened.

I started to scream. Chris clamped his hand over my mouth.

They leaped from the ship, whirling and thrusting and slicing the air - creatures that looked like walking weapons. They stood on two bent-back legs and had two very long arms. On each arm there were curved horn-blades growing out of the wrist and elbow. There were other blades at their bent-back knees, and two more blades at the end of their tails. They had feet like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But it was the head that got your attention - a neck like a snake, a mouth that was almost a falcon's beak, and, from the forehead, three daggerlike horns raked forward.

Hork-Bajir-Controllers.

I jumped, hearing the Andalite's words in my mind again. They were fainter than before, strained, like someone yelling from far away.

"Did you guys...?" I asked.

Rich nodded. "Yeah."

The Hork-Bajir are a good people, despite their fearsome looks, the Andalite said. But they have been enslaved by the Yeerks. Each of them now carries a Yeerk in his head. They are to be pitied.

"Pity. Right," Rich said grimly. "They're walking killing machines. Look at them!"

But our attention was drawn away by a new form that crept and slithered and shimmied out of the Blade ship.

Taxxon-Controllers, the Andalite said. I knew he was trying to tell us all he could, even to the end. Trying to prepare us for what we were up against.

The Taxxons are to be pitied as well. But the Taxxons... His voice became sad, as if he didn't like what he had to say. They are evil.

"Yeah," Maria said. "I think I would have guessed the 'evil' part."

They were like massive centipedes, twice as long as a grown man. So big around that if you tried to hug one, your arms wouldn't make it even halfway. Not that anyone would ever WANT to.

They had dozens of legs that supported the lower two-thirds of their bodies. The top third was held upright, and there the rows of legs became smaller, with little lobster-claw hands.

Around the top of their disgusting, tubular bodies were four eyes, each like a wiggling globule of red Jell-O. And at the very end, pointing straight up in the air, was a round mouth, ringed by hundreds of tiny teeth.

Hork-Bajir and Taxxons poured from the Blade ship, spreading out around the area like well-trained Marines. They were holding small, pistol-sized things that were definitely weapons. They formed a ring around the Andalite and his ship.

Suddenly, one of the Hork-Bajir came straight toward us. He took one big, bounding step and he was practically on top of us.

I hugged the dirt like it was my last hope. I wished I could dig a hole. I saw a flash of Maria's face. Her eyes were huge. Her lips were drawn back in what could have been a grin, except that I knew it was an expression of pure terror.

The Hork-Bajir pointed his gun, or whatever it was, around at the darkness. His snake head swerved left and right, trying to penetrate the gloom.

Silence! the Andalite warned us. Hork-Bajir do not see well in darkness, but their hearing is very good.

The Hork-Bajir moved closer still. He was six feet away now, with just the low wall between us. He had to have heard my heart pounding. Maybe he didn't know what the sound was. Maybe he didn't recognize the sounds of five terrified kids whose knees were quivering and teeth were chattering. Kids who were breathing in short, sudden gasps.

I was sure I was going to die, right then. I could see in my mind the way those vicious wrist- and elbow-blades were going to slice my head from my body.

If you've never been really afraid, let me tell you - it does things to you. It takes over your mind and your body. You want to scream. You want to run. You want to wet your pants. You want to throw yourself down on the ground and cry and beg PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!

And if you think you're brave, well, wait till you're cowering a few feet away from a monster who can turn you into coleslaw in about three seconds flat.

But then the Andalite's voice was in my head again. Courage, my friends.

And this... this warm... this... I don't have any words to explain it. It was just this warmth that spread all through me. It was like when you're a little kid and you've had a terrible nightmare and you've woken up screaming. You know how you used to feel better when your mom or dad would turn on the light and come in and sit beside you in bed?

That's what it was like.

I mean, I was still terrified. The Hork-Bajir was still there, so real and so deadly. I could hear him breathing. I could smell him. But at the same time, I could feel the panic coming under control. I could feel the strength flowing from the doomed Andalite. He was letting us borrow some of his courage, even though he must have been afraid himself.

The Hork-Bajir moved away. Something new was coming from the Blade ship.

Shaking and chattering, I rose high enough to look over the low wall. Every Hork-Bajir and Taxxon was turned toward the ship now.

"They're all standing at attention," I whispered.

"How can you tell?" Maria hissed. "Who knows when a jelly-eyed centipede or a walking Salad Shooter from Hell is standing at attention?"

Then HE appeared.

Visser Three, the Andalite said.

Visser Three was an Andalite.

Or at least he was an Andalite-Controller.

"What the..." Rich said. "Isn't that an Andalite?"

Only twice has a Yeerk been able to take an Andalite body, the Andalite said. I killed one of them. There is only one Andalite-Controller. That one is Visser Three.

Visser Three walked confidently toward the wounded Andalite. The Visser seemed so much like the Andalite it was hard to tell them apart at first. He had the same mouthless face; the same extra stalk-eyes that turned here and there, checking out everything in all directions; the same powerful yet sleek four-legged body; and the same wicked tail.

But if the Visser LOOKED like any normal Andalite, he FELT different. It was like he was wearing a mask, only you just knew that under the fake sweetness of the mask there was something twisted and foul.

Well, well, Visser Three said.

I almost had a heart attack when I realized I was hearing the Visser's thoughts.

"Can he hear our thoughts?" Chris whispered.

"If he can we're so dead I don't even want to think about it," Rich told him.

What have we here? A meddling Andalite? Visser Three looked more closely at the Andalite's ship. Ah, but no ordinary Andalite warrior. Prince Arbron-Pomar-Seraith, if I am not mistaken. An honor to meet you. You're a legend. How many of our fighters have you shredded? Seven, or was it eight by the time the battle ended?

The Andalite didn't answer. But I had the feeling maybe it had been more than eight.

The very last Andalite in this sector of space. Yes, I'm afraid your Dome ship has been completely destroyed. Completely. I watched it burn as it fell into the atmosphere of this little world.

There will be others, the Andalite prince said.

The Visser took a step closer to the Andalite. Yes, and when they come it will be too late. This world will be mine. My own contribution to the Yeerk Empire. Our greatest conquest. And then I'll be Visser One.

What do you want with these Humans? the Andalite asked. You have your Taxxons, allied and otherwise. You have your Hork-Bajir slaves. And other slaves, from other worlds. Why these people?

Because there are so many, and they are so weak, Visser Three sneered. Billions of bodies! And they have no idea what's happening. With this many hosts we can spread throughout the universe, unstoppable! Billions of us. We'll have to build a thousand new Yeerk pools just to raise Yeerks for half this number of bodies. Face it, Andalite, you have fought well and bravely. But you have lost.

Visser Three stepped right up to the Andalite. I could feel the Andalite's fear, but rather than cower, he fought the pain of his wounds and climbed to his feet. He knew he was going to die. He wanted to die on his feet, looking his enemy in the face.

But Visser Three was not done taunting his foe. I promise you this, Prince Arbron - I will find your inside informer on this world and make him my personal servant. Then, when we have this planet, with its rich harvest of bodies, we will move against the Andalite home world. I will personally hunt down your family. And I will personally oversee the placement of the rest of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. I hope that they will resist, so I can hear their minds scream.

The Andalite struck!

His tail whipped up and over, so fast you couldn't really see it. The Visser twisted his head aside. The Andalite's tail blade missed the Visser's head by a bare half-inch. But it sliced into his shoulder. Blood - or something like blood - sprayed from the wound.

"Yes!" I hissed.

Aaaaarrrrgh! I could hear the Visser's howl of pain in my head.

At the same time, a blinding beam of blue light shot from the tail of the Andalite ship. It sliced into the nearest Bug fighter. Hork-Bajir and Taxxons scattered.

Even crouching behind the wall, I could feel a wave of blistering heat. The Bug fighter sizzled and disappeared.

Fire! Visser Three yelled. Burn his ship!

The night exploded in blinding light. Red beams lanced from the Blade ship and the remaining Bug fighter. The Andalite ship glowed, and, with a strange slowness, disintegrated.

Then, in the flash and glow of Dracon beams I saw... or thought I saw... humans. A small group of them, maybe three or four, back in the shadows behind the Visser.

"There are people over there," I told Maria.

"What? Are they prisoners?"

Take the Andalite, Visser Three ordered his soldiers. Hold him for me.

Three big Hork-Bajir grabbed the Andalite and held him down. Their wrist blades were at his throat, but they knew better than to kill him.

That was to be Visser Three's personal privilege.

Then we saw why a Yeerk as powerful as Visser Three would inhabit the only captured Andalite body. As we watched, Visser Three began to morph. He morphed into something huge, monstrous... something I shall forever see in my nightmares, along with all the other horrible things I have seen since.

Over and over, Chris kept whispering, "This isn't real. This isn't real..."

When the Visser reached to pick up the Andalite by the neck, Tonya started crying. "No, no, no," I heard her whispering. "No, no, no, no."

"Don't look," Rich said to her. He put his arm around Tonya's shoulders and held her close. Then he reached over and took Maria's hand, not even flinching when she started squeezing it mercilessly. I guess you never really know someone till you see them scared. And even scared to death, with tears running down his face, Rich had strength to spare.

Visser Three, ignoring the repeated, pointless strikes from the Andalite's tail, proceeded to lift him up and hold him over his gaping wide mouth.

I don't know what came over me right then. I had been so afraid. So terrified. But it was like something just snapped in my head. I couldn't just hide and watch. I couldn't.

"You filthy-" I jumped to my feet. I snatched up a piece of rusted iron pipe from the ground and started to climb over that wall.

I guess I just went crazy or something. It had to be craziness, because

there was no way that I, alone, armed with a piece of pipe, was going to accomplish anything.

No!

The Andalite's silent cry made me hesitate. I felt Maria's hands grabbing at my shirt, pulling me back. Tonya and Rich held me down while Maria put her hand over my mouth as I tried to scream, or curse, or... I don't know what I was trying to do.

"Shut up, you idiot!" Maria hissed. "You're just going to get us all killed!"

"Let her go." Chris grabbed my arm as they released me, then gripped the other. "Jack, don't." He let go of one of my arms to caress my cheek. "He doesn't want you to die for him. Don't you see? He's dying for us."

I swallowed, then nodded. I turned around, to peer over the wall again, back in control, but I gripped Chris' hand as tightly as he gripped mine. The Andalite prince was helpless in the grasp of Visser Three. I saw him held high in the air. I saw Visser Three open his monstrous, gaping jaws. I saw as the Andalite fell into that open mouth, as the mouth closed, and started ripping the Andalite to shreds.

At the very end, the Andalite Prince Abron-Pomar-Seraith cried out. His cry of despair was in our heads. His cry will always be in our heads.

Along with everything else since that first time... since I first grew up.

That was months ago. Months. Since then, Tonya got stuck in morph as a bird of prey; she still visits her dad, who knew what was going on, but mostly she lives out in the woods. Turns out, he's the informer Visser Three talked about. Tonya knew about this all along - that's why she was so serious about getting involved. Soon after, we rescued an Andalite from the bottom of the ocean - an Andalite who's Tonya's uncle, yet no older than she is. Rich's sanity has been whittled away, and Chris almost quit. Maria has given up her comic books entirely to devote herself to reality way too much; now she jumps at shadows, and suspects everyone. Everyone. I barely recognize her now; she's no longer the easy-going person who was my friend since we were in diapers.

But then, neither am I.

I never will be again.

Turns out, though, I'm not alone....

CHAPTER 1

Jake

I won't bore you with what you've heard fifty thousand times. My first name is Jake, I have brown hair and eyes, I am kind of tall, I look really serious, and I cannot tell you anything more about myself, like where I live and how old I am. You know about the Yeerks and Andalites and Animorphs already, I'm sure, so I really don't have to explain. Again.

I won't get into it, because I REALLY don't have the time right now.

It's the day before Finals Week.

I sat at my desk. I sat with my elbows on the desk, my attention focused on my history textbook. The radio was off. The door was closed. My dog, Homer, was on the other side of the door. There were absolutely, positively, NO physical distractions.

I looked dead serious about studying.

Needless to say, I wasn't. I was half asleep. I stared blankly at the textbook, whose words had blurred together a long time ago; I hadn't read a single sentence, much less turned a page, in at least twenty minutes. I was bored out of my mind, and enjoying every endless second of it.

I was doing something normal. I wasn't leading my friends and myself into the jaws of death; I wasn't fighting for my life; I wasn't worried that I was acting suspiciously. I sighed happily; it felt good to get down to

my dull, normal life, every once in a while.

Distantly, through the walls and my anti-studying stupor, I heard the lock turn in the front door, and the door squeak quietly as it opened, then shut again. I wasn't too surprised: Tom was out at a Sharing meeting, and Mom and Dad had gone out to dinner with another pair of parents to do what parents do when they can get a night off from parenting, and neither Tom nor my parents had known when they were coming back. Right then, I was supposed to be minding the house, and studying.

Supposed to be studying, anyway.

I heard footsteps coming down the hallway; they sounded odd. I sat up straighter, listening. They didn't make a THUMP sound, or a CLUNK sound, like they were wearing shoes. It was more of a barefoot, BUNK sound. It was too light to be Dad, or Tom. Mom, then. But why was she barefoot? And where was Dad?

I heard my door open behind me. I started to turn in my chair-

"WHAT THE HELL?!!"

I jumped out of my chair, staring at the girl standing in my doorway.

She was about my height, and looked oddly familiar, although I knew with absolute certainty that I had never seen her before in my life. She had brown hair like mine, only longer and wavier; it hung loosely down to her shoulder blades. Her brown eyes were angry, startled, and confused, all at once. She wore a dark green leotard, and nothing else.

She was barefoot.

Something about that, and her familiarity, made me feel ill.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What's going on here?"

"What do you mean?" I replied, just as confused as she was. I could've sworn the front door was locked. I could've also sworn that I heard someone unlock it. But, if so... how had she gotten a key to the house? "What's going on where? Who are YOU?"

She put her hands on her hips. "This is MY room," she said in a very no-nonsense voice. She believed in what she said, that much was obvious; but what she was saying... I forced myself not to laugh. "I've lived in this room since I was four." My urge to laugh died quickly. "What have you DONE to it?!"

"DONE to it?" I echoed. "I didn't DO anything! I don't know who you are, but I'VE had this room since I was four. You've got the wrong house."

"My name is Jacqueline ______," she said, glaring at me. "And this is my room."

I stared at her. Her glare eased back into confusion at my stare. Finally, I managed to gasp out, "What did you say your name was?"

"Jacqueline," she replied. "What's that got to do with it?"

"No," I said. "Your other name."

She repeated it.

I continued to stare. Stare at a face that was much too familiar to deny. The skin color was right. The hair color was right. Even the eyes were right. Her nose was right, too. Her face was narrower, in a feminine way, like Rachel's is narrower than mine. She stood right in front of me: I stood slightly taller, but that was because I was wearing my sneakers and she, as I said, was barefoot. If I kicked off my shoes and socks, I was positive we'd be the same exact height.

"My name is Jake," I said. I told her my last name.

It was the exact same one as hers.

She snorted, giving me a look that suggested I thought she was a fool. "That's nice," she said, as if I were a little kid. "Now, if you would, quit pulling my chain before I call the cops. What have you done to my room?"

My hand went up to my nose. I pushed against the side of my nose, up where the bone is, with a couple fingers; I do that sometimes when I get stressed. And stress was definitely something I was feeling right then, because the feeling I had about this girl claiming my room as her own - about her in GENERAL - was getting stronger and stronger, and I really, REALLY, didn't want it to. "Have you ever met an Andalite?" I asked quickly, before I could change my mind.

Her expression quickly shifted into neutral. "A what?" she asked, perfectly straight-faced.

Too straight-faced. Like she was hiding something.

"You're an Animorph," I said. Man, did I hope I was right.

She gave me an odd look, no longer as off-guard as she had been. "You're talking crazy talk," she said, looking at me as if I was growing a second head. "I'm calling the police."

"Look around the rest of the house," I suggested. "Go to Tom's room."

"Who?"

"Tom. My brother."

She shook her head. "You're crazy."

"Just go across the hall. It's the door on your left."

"I'll have you know that's my sister's room," she said with a smirk.

"Your sister?"

"Tara."

"Tara...Tom," I said, staring her straight in the eye. "Jacqueline... Jake."

She looked at me, and suddenly her eyes widened.

She bolted out the door.

I heard the door to Tom's room open.

I heard Jacqueline scream.

She came back in a hurry, closing the door behind her and leaning on it.

"Okay," she said breathlessly. "It's your house." She looked up at me, her expression serious. "And yes, I'm an Animorph."

"Who came up with that name?"

She sighed. "I don't know who told you it, but Maria did. It just popped into her head one day."

Maria?

Marco?

I chuckled. She looked at me like I was crazy. "Here, Marco did."

"Marco." She smiled, just a little, with only one side of her face. "I see the humor." Then the half-smile disappeared. "It's not enough though. What's going on here?"

I shook my head. "I don't know," I said honestly.

"If this were a Sario Rip, we should've canceled each other out, right?"

"I don't know. Ax-"

"-wasn't paying attention in school that day," she said exactly at the same time I did. The half-smile returned. "Yes, that's familiar, too," she said.

I frowned a little. "Ax... what's his name?"

"Aristh Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill - Axel for short - brother of Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, father of Ton- of one of the Animorphs," she finished, her tone rueful.

I sighed, and rubbed the bridge of my nose again. "Listen. This is too weird."

"You're telling me?" She gave me another disbelieving look, like the one I give Marco when he says something irrelevant but somewhat humorous. "At least your room looks like your room."

I shook my head. "We're going to be here all day if we keep testing each other."

"My thoughts exactly. We should get everyone together, try to figure this out. Or, at least, talk to Axel or- well, 'Ax', anyway."

"You call him Axel?"

She shrugged a little. "How is that stranger than you calling him 'Ax'?"

I smiled grimly. "Good point."

CHAPTER 2

Jake

I'm sorry, but I cannot help here. I-
"We know, Ax, we know," I said.

"You weren't paying attention," Jacqueline said. She now wore a pair of my jeans and one of my button-down shirts, unbuttoned, over her leotard, and a pair of my socks and my best pair of spare sneakers on her feet. They all fit her perfectly. She reached up toward her face, then put her hand down again. Yet another thing in common: she'd gone to rub the bridge of her nose, just as I do. She'd realized it and stopped herself. She leaned against the door of the stall behind her. "Great."

Marco shook his head. "I can't believe this." He looked extremely uncomfortable. And no wonder - Jacqueline looked unnaturally like me. At the same time, she was kind of pretty. Not as pretty as Rachel, maybe, pretty in a more simple, understated way. "Now we got Jake's long lost twin, who's an Animorph too? I don't get this."

Jacqueline shook her head. "I'm not related to Jake. We talked on the way here. Our last names are the same - that could have been coincidence. But beyond that, there's no doubt. Our parents have the same names; we both met Andalites in deserted construction sites; we both fight different Visser Three's. Our best friends' names both begin with m-a-r, and they have the same last name too." Marco suddenly looked even more uncomfortable. "We both have barely-acquaintances-turned-friends who we saved from serious swirlies who became trapped as birds whose fathers were Andalites at some point in their lives, and share the Andalite name 'Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul'. We both know an Aristh Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthill, although the one I knew is darker than you," she said, gesturing in Ax's direction, "and a little bigger."

"So, who are the Animorphs, according to you?" Rachel asked. She crossed her arms.

"Rachel, was it?" Jacqueline sighed. "Well, there's me. Then there's Rich - Richard, my cousin. At least, he WAS one of us. We- we lost him."

"What?" Rachel demanded, standing taller. I hadn't told Jacqueline that Rachel and I were related. Score another point for Jacqueline's authenticity factor.

"He looked sort of like you," Jacqueline said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "He took too many risks. Kept insisting on going off on his own. Wouldn't go with the plan whenever we were lucky enough to have one. I don't know how many times he had us vote on something only HE didn't agree with. He simply didn't fit in the program. We tried, honest we did. But Rich wouldn't try. He had to do it HIS way. He stole the Escafil device from us, and that was the last we saw of him. If it weren't for Diane, we'd be a person shorter."

"Diane?" Cassie echoed. She looked confused.

Jacqueline rested her elbows on the top of the stall door and leaned back, putting her weight on it, then crossed her ankles in front of her. "Diane found Arbron's morphing cube in the construction site. She brought it to school. Maria saw her with it. Diane advertised it on the Internet; Visser Three tried to kill her. We managed to escape. We made Diane one of us; she lives with Axel, now. But then, Rich took the Escafil Device, and disappeared. We haven't seen him since." She shuddered, then clenched her fist. "Because of him, we killed a Yeerk who could have been an ally. Things have been pretty difficult since Rich went off and turned our world upside down."

David, Tobias murmured to the rest of us, as if we couldn't figure it out. David - 'Diane' - worked out.

And Rachel is a traitor? Ax sounded upset about that. Rachel was quite visibly upset about that.

Jacqueline sighed again. "Then there's Tonya. Or 'Toniya', I suppose. There's an 'i' in her name nobody really pays attention to. She knew what was going on all along. Her dad was an Andalite who chose to become a human nothlit. An Andalite named Elfangor."

Jacqueline looked up to the rafters. There, in his red-tailed hawk body, Tobias stared back. "I'm sorry to hear about Elfangor in this timeline, Tobias," she said. "In mine, it was a friend of his - an Andalite named Arbron - who was in his place."

I guess so, Tobias answered. He started to preen his left wing. He often uses preening as a way to pretend something doesn't matter to him.

Jacqueline let it slide, just like the rest of us do. "There's Diane - she's a bit immature sometimes, but she's gotten better with time. It was hard getting her to adjust. She kept trying to go home again. Man, did she give us grief sometimes...." Jacqueline smiled a little. "But I'd put my life in her hands any day, now. We just had to be patient. Be lenient but firm. It took awhile, but she's gotten the hang of it.

"Of course, there's Maria and Chris. My god-sends. If it weren't for them I'd have had to give up a long, LONG time ago. They've changed a lot since the beginning of this... but I suppose we all have." She closed her eyes; I knew she had to be thinking about "Rich". It's what I would have thought about. About what I might have done to keep him with us. To make everything work out. To keep everyone together.

The pressures of leadership.

Rachel shook her head. I knew she had now realized what I had, in my room. "There are just too many parallels for this to be a coincidence," she said. In a roundabout way, she was admitting that I was right - Jacqueline knew too much.

"From now on, Rachel and Ax are to stay clear of each other," Marco quipped. "At least, until Rachel's vocabulary returns to normal."

"I agree with Rachel," Jacqueline said, nodding even as she ignored Marco. "Somehow, Jake and I are the same person... although there are some... obvious... differences." She smiled a little at her own joke, but the smile didn't last long - it faded quickly, leaving no trace.

"Where are you going to stay, Jacqueline?" Cassie asked. "It's not like you can sleep in Jake's room."

Jacqueline and I turned equally red at that idea. "Actually, I prefer just 'Jack', thanks. 'Jackie' is fine, too, but I like being called 'Jack'." She looked over her shoulder, toward the hayloft. "Where am I going to stay, should I not suddenly blip out of this existence to nullify the paradox I'm making? If it doesn't bother you, I guess I could stay in your hayloft, Cassie. If Diane can live in it for two straight weeks - at least, in Chris' hayloft, anyway - then I shouldn't have too much of a problem." We - everyone but Jacquel- JACK, I mean - traded glances at that. Jack didn't miss it. "What?" Then she looked around, her expression disturbed. She pointed at me. "Me...." Then her finger moved to Rachel. "Rich. Maria." She pointed at Marco, then Ax. "Axel." Next she pointed at Cassie, then up toward Tobias. "Chris and Toniya." She frowned.

'Diane's' counterpart didn't work out, Tobias informed her.

Jack's frown deepened. "I won't ask, then," she said. She sighed, then boosted herself onto the stall door she was leaning on. "So," she said, trying to sound cheerful, "what've I missed?"

CHAPTER 3

Jack

The six of them - Jake (who, as time went on, was making me more and more open to getting my hair cut short, if it looked as nice on me as it did on him, but otherwise left me indescribably more and more uncomfortable), Rachel (who wouldn't stop glaring at me), Cassie (who seemed nice enough), Marco (who seemed extremely uncomfortable; whether it was me or the idea of Maria I couldn't tell), Tobias (who seemed awfully cold, not like Toniya at all), and Ax (who didn't seem any more different than he looked) - filled me in on what had happened to them so far. It was eerie listening to it - probably something like if an ancient Roman listened to someone from today re-tell one of their myths. I sometimes interrupted to tell my side of the story, but generally I just let them talk. I was waiting calmly for a state of panic to take over me, but it had yet to show itself. Of course, I've had a bullet go through my head and don't remember it, though I'm still alive; I've eaten dinosaur (although I ate carnotaurus, not tyrannosaurus); I can turn into things ranging in size from a flea to a sperm whale; I've helped to beat Crayak's greatest creation; I've had a Yeerk in my head and outlived him while my friends outwitted him.... Maybe the shock wouldn't come, but, if it did, I wanted to be prepared.

Gradually the stories ended, and the others trickled away. Soon it was just Axel - Ax -, Cassie, and me. "Ax?"

He looked at me, surprised. Yes?

I was used to his surprise. In fact, I have a great deal of experience in surprising Andalites. I smiled slightly at a memory of the planet Leera, and of the look on the Andalite general's face when Axel told him that I, a human female, was his prince. "Do you think this could be some form of Sario Rip? I know you didn't pay much attention, but... just go with your gut."

He gave me an odd look. My gut?

I forced myself not to sigh. It was no one's fault if my counterpart hadn't used that colloquium before. "Go with your feelings. Tell me what you think, not what you know."

He took a moment to think about it. I see no reason why the concept of a Sario Rip cannot be applied to this problem, he said finally. But... under Sario's theory of multi-dimensional first-stage relativity, duplicates should not be able to meet themselves. It causes paradox. It is like trying to divide a real number by zero.

I frowned; I knew as well as anybody in my grade that trying that equation on a calculator just made the calculator say "Error". I'd forgotten why that was true, but I understood the concept. "Ax, with Sario Rips - what you know of them - is there always time displacement?"

Yes. Sario Rips deal with space-time. One cannot be related to without affecting the other.

"'Space-time'..." I murmured. Cassie was simply watching us, not interrupting. I felt like the answer was just out of my reach.

Two people - the SAME person, but of opposite sexes, somehow - in one place at one time....

"What does Sario's theories state about parallel dimensions?"

There are no such thing.

I looked up at him, startled by that statement. "What?"

He looked at me in a mostly neutral, but slightly condescending, way. Andalites do not believe in 'parallel dimensions'.

"Why?" Cassie asked.

"I've... I've always believed that fate was like a tree," I said slowly. I put my hands together, palms pressed against each other, as if I was praying. "I've always believed that everything began in the same place, the same timeline. Then, somewhere along the line, something happened that needed a choice - something could happen, or it couldn't happen. Instead, though, BOTH did. When BOTH happened, it split the timeline in half." I pulled my hands apart. "That caused a chain reaction. Happen or not happen." I separated my fingers, as if I was doing a pair of Vulcan "live long and prosper" signs. "Do or don't." I separated all my fingers, spreading them out. "Sure, somewhere the lines would intersect. I mean, 3 + 2 + 5 still equals 1 + 9 and 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 and 5 + 4 + 1. That's four different ways of getting ten. Different combinations of different amounts of numbers, but the same result."

"So..." Cassie pressed her hand to her chin in a thoughtful look that suddenly made me feel homesick. It was something Chris did so often... I MISSED him, and I hadn't been here a single day yet! "So in spite of major differences, the outcome is the same."

It is... a complicated belief, Ax said.

"From an Andalite, that's a compliment," I said, smiling a little.

It is also quite logical, Ax continued, trying to hide his surprise. However, only to a point. What would be the one event that caused the branching?

"I'm not old enough to know that," I replied. Cassie giggled.

Ax looked at me oddly. Ah, a joke, he said in a deadpan voice.

Obviously, Axel had a better sense of humor than Ax.

"Anyway, dealing with my theory... do you think it's possible that... I don't know... parallel lines could somehow crash together? That somehow 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 would suddenly equal 1 + 2 + 4 + 5?"

It does not seem plausible.

"Ugh, I'm getting a headache." Without Jake there to make it uncomfortable, I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sighed.

"So, all the humans you know are switched, but Elfangor and Ax are the same?" Cassie said, casually shifting the conversation. "How could that be?"

"In Star Trek, parallel universes are usually different by something small that has a vast effect," I said, glad for the change. "Something small, obvious - and overlooked."

When Visser Four sought to change the present by changing human history with the Time Matrix, this sort of change did not occur, Ax said. Perhaps someone else has the Time Matrix and made a different sort of change?

"With what, primordial soup?" I shook my head. "No way the Big Guys would allow anything else to get their hands on that - and I trust that they don't trust each other enough with it, so it's pretty much not in commission anymore."

Cassie smiled. "'Big Guys'?"

I chuckled. "Well, call it superstitious, but where I'm from, we have this feeling that mentioning their names alerts them somehow. We avoid dealing with them as much as they - hopefully - avoid using us. You know, I've always wondered." They looked at me. "Why was Visser Four an idiot and jump around in time like he did? He should have started at the latest change and gone backward. That way, he wouldn't have run into the problem of discovering what he was going to change had already been avoided." I shrugged. "I guess it's better the way he did it, though. Even though I was dead through most of it."

"Don't tell Jake," Cassie said, grinning, "but I think you have more common sense."

"Don't be fooled. I'm just as foolish as he is, if not more so."

Cassie shook her head seriously. "That is simply not possible."

Is he really that bad? I asked her privately, grinning.

Cassie jumped. She turned her head slightly so she could stare straight at me. "Did you just ask me something?" she demanded.

My laugh was forced. She looked so startled I was uneasy. "I rhetorically asked, in a way that Ax would not be offended by me demeaning his prince, if Jake was as bad as you make him out to be."

Ax looked confused. I did not hear you.

"I just said that."

"You can use thought-speak out of morph?" Cassie asked.

What sort of question was that? "Can't you?"

Cassie shook her head. Humans are not capable of that, Ax said.

"Of course not!" I frowned. "We weren't able to, either, until we got the morphing powers."

Ax shook his head. The Escafil Device would not give thought- speak capabilities to a non-thought-speaking race that was not in morph.

"It does for me and my group. I've known that since the morning after we met Arbron. Tonni came to my room and morphed Dude - her cat. It seriously freaked me out." I chuckled. "As a test, I asked if she could hear me - well, I didn't ask out loud - I asked within my head. And she told me she could. We're able to use thought-speak even without being morphed. You're not?"

"No." Cassie shook her head again. "Never have."

Another difference, Ax pointed out.

"There's bound to be tons," I said. "Little things that add up." I

frowned. "I'm already hating this," I muttered.

CHAPTER 4

Jake

Marco was the first one to break the silence as we headed home.

"Man, this is creeping me out."

I was already wound tight. That simple statement made me snap. "Creeping YOU out?!"

Marco cringed defensively. "Hey, watch the jugulars! Sheesh! Relax, Jake."

"Relax." I shook my head. "I have a female clone sleeping in Cassie's barn, and you want me to relax. If it was Maria, what would you be doing?"

"This isn't me," Marco said seriously. "Jake, you can't panic now. You're our rock. Our leader. Our main man. You're in control. You're cool."

"I have a clone who's pretty."

"That is also cool."

"I have a clone who you'd probably ask out if she weren't me in some alternate dimension."

He shook his head. "Man, you have a clone you'd ask out if you didn't have Cassie, but that's beside the point!"

"Great way to make it 'beside the point'," I muttered, kicking a stone on the sidewalk.

"She really ought to cut her hair," Rachel said. "It'd look so much better in something like you have, Jake."

"Thank you, Rachel," I muttered even more darkly. The next stone I kicked shot across the street.

"Okay, from now on, Xena keeps her beauty tips to herself," Marco said, shooting Rachel a pointed glance. "Sorry, Jake. It's just so weird, that's all."

"And I should act like it isn't weird. It's okay for you, but not for me, the one with the cute clone."

"You're way too focused on that," Marco said, smirking at me.

"It's something you notice," I replied bluntly. Rachel snorted, giving me a skeptical look. "It's kind of unnerving to know that I'd make a good-looking girl. And I notice that neither of you will even consider what you'd do if you were faced with your counterparts."

"We're allowed to panic," Marco replied. "I panic all the time. Rachel's allowed to be Rachel, which covers a wide range of reactions." Rachel shot him A Look. "But you, Jake - you're not allowed to let this get to you."

"Great."

I looked at them. Marco and Rachel.

How would Maria and Rich look?

I tried to imagine Marco as a girl. I got a mental picture of his mom, but three inches shorter. Rachel, as a boy? That was harder. Some odd mixture of a preppie and a jock. Something like a guy that might appear on Saved from the Bell as one of the lead girl characters' boyfriends.

Me? I knew now. A tall, sturdy girl, with a generally cool expression, expressive, dark eyes, and long, brown hair with a soft wave. A bit like Winnie from The Wonder Years, but sturdier with darker eyes and hair, and more mature in a way that was felt more than seen - at least, physically. The weight of leadership isn't one that shows much physically, except in the eyes. Jack had that look.

Her eyes frightened me.

The rest of her, in subtle ways in some places, obvious in others I don't need to name, was different enough not to bug me too much. But her eyes... they were eyes I saw each time I looked at anything reflective. Looking into her eyes was the same as looking into my own.

The idea that someone could be so much like me....

.... after all I'd gone through ... the decisions, the losses, the pains both without and within ....

.... it was a bit much.

To use an understatement.

I shook my head. "It's just bugging me."

"Understandable. But-"

"-but I can't let it," I finished for Marco. "Yeah. We have bigger things to worry about."

"Saving the world," Rachel said, nodding.

"No." They looked at me, surprised. I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. "Am I the only one with a Final tomorrow?"

"I don't have one," Marco said.

Rachel grinned. "Me neither."

I groaned.

CHAPTER 5

Jack

"Just you survived," Chris said. He used the same tone as he might have if he'd said, "We're doomed."

The Andalite seemed to frown. Just me, he said. No prince. No warriors.

I would have groaned if it wouldn't have been extremely rude. Just what we needed - another clueless kid.

"We're young, too," Chris said. "Too young to fight, according to the laws of our people."

The Andalite looked extremely surprised. But still you fight!

"We feel like we don't have a choice," Chris explained. Then he shook his head slightly. "Look, we don't even know your name." He motioned toward me; I nodded in greeting even as he started motioning down the line. "This is Jacqueline, Richard, Maria. I'm Christopher - Chris, for short. There's one more. Her name is Toniya."

I am Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

We all just kind of stared.

"Axel," Maria said. "Pleased to meet you."

The Andalite smiled a little, then looked at each of us. Who is your prince?

Slowly, Chris and Maria looked at me. Rich did too, but his scowl wasn't anything like the other two's serious expressions.

"Oh, give me a break," I laughed weakly. "I am not anyone's prince."

The Andalite looked at me. He seemed confused. You... your prince is female?

Maria's face clouded over. "Now you listen-"

"Maria, can it," I cut her off. The last thing we needed was a fight. "To each their own, remember? It doesn't hurt anyone but the bigot to be a bigot."

The Andalite's confused expression quickly changed to surprise, then to embarrassment. Then, finally, he smiled again. To each their own, he echoed. He stepped forward, then bowed his head and lowered his tail. I blushed; I had the overwhelming feeling he was bowing to me, like someone waiting to be knighted. I will fight for you, Prince Jacqueline, until I can return to my cousins.

I chuckled weakly. "Fine," I said. "The first thing you can do is not call me 'prince'. You can call me Jack instead...."-

I woke up staring at a ceiling that wasn't my ceiling, with a pain shooting all through me that I didn't usually attribute to sleeping in my own bed.

I sat straight up.

Big mistake.

"Big ouchie," I moaned, putting my hand to my back. I used my other hand to massage my neck. I looked around.

I was laying on scattered hay - what had probably started as a pile was now strewn all over the wooden floor I was laying on. There was no pillow in sight. My legs were cocooned in a blanket I didn't recognize.

On my right was a lot of wooden floor, most of it covered in hay.

On my left was a sheer drop to a concrete floor.

"Ahh!"

I twisted, then scooted backwards, away from the drop. Quickly I untangled my legs. I was in my morphing outfit - a green leotard that was a gift from Maria, but nothing else. I leaned over the edge carefully.

So that's where my pillow went.

There it was, a deadly drop below me, in a pathway between several animal cages, right between a penned deer and two wild turkeys.

Chris' barn?

What was I doing in here?

Then it hit me.

Cassie. Rachel. Marco. Tobias. Ax.

Jake.

Jake.

Jake.

I groaned, covering my face in my hands. "No, no, no," I moaned. "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

It was true.

All true.

True.

There, in a barn that was familiar and yet foreign, in the early light of dawn, when and where no one would see me, I burst into tears.

I'm a girl. According to general stereotypes, I'm allowed to do that.

But I'm also Jack, the leader of a group of Animorphs I might never see again. My friends - my family. The only people I could trust. People that counted on me to be strong, stable, unshakable. A mountain.

Inhuman.

As Jack, I'm not allowed to cry.

Not when anyone can see.

It seems like yesterday, although months have passed.

He glared at me, angry, afraid. "I can't take this!" he snarled at me. "Every time I get a plan, you nix it! The others follow you so blindly, they won't listen to me! What is it with you, Jack? Why are you so damned against me?"

"I'm not against you," I said, keeping my voice calm, almost toneless. "You're my cousin, Rich. We have to-"

"Oh, don't get into that!" he snapped at me. He swiped the air in front of me, as if he was going to hit me. I forced myself not to flinch. "You're always saying what we have to, and can't, do! Whatever happened to 'whatever it takes', huh, Jack? Whatever happened to my ruthless, determined cousin? What's happened to you, Jack?"

"To me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "What about you? You thought I was ruthless? How about you, Mr. Grizzly? Mr. Kill-or-be- killed? Mr. Ends-justify-the-means?"

"You used to be like that," he spat.

"No," I replied coldly. "I was never like that. I want to stay human, Rich. I don't know about you, but when it comes to that I won't be human anymore."

"Damn you," he spat. He pulled back his fist. I stared him in the eye, daring him to do it. Praying to God he didn't. Rich is a boxer, among all the other stuff he does; he knew where to put that fist so I would never get up again, and wouldn't have a chance to morph and save myself. "Just... just damn you. Damn you all to Hell. That's where you belong."

He shoved me, hard. I stumbled back, almost sighing in relief that I didn't have a broken nose, or worse.

But I couldn't do that.

Not after all this time.

I wasn't going to take this, not after all we'd been through.

Damn it, I was the leader. No matter how much I denied it, I was going to keep it.

"I'll see you there," I replied tonelessly.

His lip curled upward into a sneer, and then he turned and walked away.

I let him go.

I never saw him - or the Escafil Device - again.

Ever.

Now I was gone, too.

Gone to some weird alternate reality, where everyone but Axel was switched - where a boy was a girl and a girl was a boy. Where Axel had absolutely no sense of humor, but was otherwise only changed very slightly. Where Elfangor was dead.

What would the others be doing now? What would they do today, this week? This month, this year?

What would they do?

Maria wouldn't believe it at first. She'd believe I'd been captured. She vote for an all-out assault of the Yeerk pool, thinking we'd have nothing to lose, that it'd be better to go out fighting before they got taken, and go into a detailed plan of how they could do just that, and score the maximum damage.

Chris wouldn't agree. He'd realistically state that, if I had been taken, the Yeerks would already have captured the rest of them, and at the same time he'd be cursing himself for sounding so detached, when he was as worried, if not seven times as worried, as Maria.

Diane would counter that statement by insisting that I had to be somewhere, and they couldn't just sit around waiting for me to show up. Something was wrong. Diane had developed a knack for knowing when something is wrong.

Tonni would listen quietly. She'd agree with Chris, that I was probably not captured, but also agree with Diane that they should take action to find me. If I wasn't captured, it was best to keep it that way.

Al would also listen quietly. More than likely, he wouldn't say much. He'd just watch, maybe suggest some places to look. He wouldn't directly offer help unless someone asked. That's how he is. He's retired from fighting, now. He just wants to survive, like the rest of us.

At least, he claims to be retired. We all know that's a crock of bull, but we don't mention that fact. If any one of us is in direct danger, he's there. But, for something like this - when someone turns up missing without a trace - he leaves it to us. He trusts we know what to do.

We all love Al. Tonya loves him because he's her dad. The rest of us, meaning no disrespect to our own dads (or step-dads, as the case may be), wish he was ours.

Axel? He'd be upset. He'd blame himself for my disappearance. Al would reassure him, but that wouldn't change much. The two of them might be brothers, but they didn't meet until we retrieved Axel from the bottom of the ocean and introduced them to each other. Axel's extremely protective of me. In the perfect scenario, an aristh has to be willing to sacrifice him- or her-self for his/her prince. Though it's not perfect in any way, it is touching to know that Axel would gladly do that, not just for me, but for any one of us.

"Are you okay?"

I looked up to see Cassie looking down at me. She'd climbed up the hayloft ladder. She smiled slightly. "Glad I came in here early," she said. "I wanted to make sure you were out of sight before my dad came in here." She handed me the pillow.

"Thanks," I murmured. I squeezed it as tightly as I could, then wiped my face free of tears. "I just... sunk into depression, I guess. The whole I'll-never-see-any-of-them thing." I wiped at my eyes, catching the tears that hadn't fallen yet. "But I'm okay."

"Liar."

"You keep that to yourself."

"I will... if you tell me what Chris is like."

"Chris?" I looked at her, surprised. She smiled wickedly. "Oh!" I grimaced, turning beet red. "I couldn't. No!"

"You're a couple, aren't you?"

I giggled. "Why is it that I was the last to realize that, and that

everyone who couldn't possibly have witnessed anything know it so quickly?" Cassie laughed. "I mean, even the Visser knows." She looked surprised. "Well, he knows there's a pair of Andalites out there that care a bit overmuch for each other," I amended.

"Wow."

"What about you and Jake?"

It was Cassie's turn to blush. "Well... we're, uh..."

"Not admitting a thing, even though everyone knows it." Her grimace told me I was right. "I know that's how it'd probably be if..."

She looked at me again. "If...?"

"Well, first there was the incident with the Iskoort. That really pushed us closer together." She nodded. "I just... you know?" She nodded again. "Just seeing him, after falling like that... I was so relieved to see him. But then he comes running toward me, and I just wanted to hug him, that's all. Really. I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't dead, that he was really real... and then... he just swept me up, and..." I smiled slightly at the memory, then blushed again. "... and it'll never be forgotten by millions of Howlers," I finished lamely. Then I smiled. "Or me."

"You said 'first'."

I smiled sheepishly. "The other major one was the whole Time Matrix thing. One moment I'm cowering with a ton of stinking, freezing men, praying that no one will realize I'm a girl under my blanket, staring at Martin Washington-"

"Martin Washington?"

I refrained from staring at her as if she were insane. Of course she wouldn't know the Martin Washington. "There's bound to be a difference there," I pointed out. Cassie rolled her eyes a little bit. I looked away, remembering. "One moment I'm staring at the father of our country. He was a lot shorter than I always pictured him. Maria was giggling over how she'd stolen his boots. Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. I saw two men fly off the boat, and another simply slump over, a bullet hole in the head. Then- boom! I'm in Chris' barn. That guy wasn't the only one with a bullet hole through the head, it seems." I shuddered. "Then we're in Chris' barn, and everyone's staring at me, and before I could even open my mouth to ask what their problem was - boom! He was kissing me again." I lowered my head and grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, we're close." Cassie sighed. "Listen, Cass." She looked at me. "With people like me and Jake, we've got too much on our minds to worry about ourselves. If you ever want to get anywhere with single-minded stone walls like us, you have to start it. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Otherwise, we're just going to be in our own little world of being terrified of killing someone we love but refuse to find the time to tell them how we feel, no matter how much we both know it, because we know it can't change the fact that we're going to be risking their lives."

She lowered her head. "I'm not like that."

"Neither was Chris. He only kissed me in moments of insane emotions. But then... there comes a point where you can't just let it slide, Cass. Where you have to grab on and not let go no matter what. And that point has really passed. Our lives are too endangered to just pretend you're only friends when everyone, especially you, know that isn't the case."

"What about Rich and Tonya?"

I looked at her, my brows pulled downward. "What about them?"

"You mean... they weren't...?"

"Weren't what?" Then my eyes widened. "Oh... it's... like that here?" She nodded. I shook my head. "No way. Rich didn't even know she existed until this all started, and even then didn't remember her name for awhile. For a little while it looked like something might develop, but... I don't know how stubborn Rachel is, but..."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "I do."

"... he wouldn't even think it. He had a soft spot for her, yeah, and when he... defected... he went out of his way to make sure she wasn't involved. Didn't quite work, but... no way. There isn't a snowball's chance in July of anything between those two. Tonni was raised by an Andalite, remember. Andalites do not take kindly to traitors."

She frowned. "That's sad. I mean, what I see sometimes between Rachel and Tobias ... it's special. To think it might never happen... or have happened...."

"I wouldn't know - but I'll take your word for it." Then I frowned. "Wait."

She looked at me. "What?"

"It never would happen!"

"What never would?"

"Tonni and Rich. Because of Tonya. She's not Tobias. Not like I'm Jake."

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

I closed my eyes, collecting my thoughts. "I've listened to you guys. I've thought about things. Jake and I have the same parents, but my mom is his dad and vice versa. Maria lost her dad a few years ago, and after awhile of withdrawal her mom started seeing other men and got remarried. Her father turned out to be Visser One - something that she didn't know until a year after her mother got re-married. Your parents have the same jobs as Chris' - but his dad works at the Gardens, and his mom runs the Clinic."

"So?"

"So. Everything is switched. Everyone's parents still married, but mothers are fathers and fathers mothers. Except...."

Cassie's eyes widened. "Except Elfangor!"

"Except Elfangor," I echoed, nodding. "So Tonni's mother isn't the same as Tobias' dad because, in both our existences, they have the same dad. Andalites aren't affected by the sex-switch. So Tobias' mother's counterpart didn't marry Elfangor, because her counterpart would have been a guy."

"So who married Elfangor?"

I thought about it. "Tonni said her mother's name was... oh, what was it? There was this thing a long time ago, when they first met... Elfangor, her mom, and Carter. Lorien Carter - our vice-principal."

"Lorien Carter is your vice-principal?" Cassie echoed. "Ours is Hedrick Chapman."

"Chapman!" I cried, not really hearing her. "Harriet Chapman!"

We turned and looked at each other.

"Oh God," Cassie breathed. "Melissa...?"

"Who?"

"Is Carter married?" I nodded. "Does he have a dau- I mean, a son?"

I nodded. "Michael. He and Rich were buds for awhile."

Cassie sighed. "So Melissa's counterpart does exist... in spite of the fact that her dad's counterpart... I'm confused!"

I shook my head. "Considering I have no idea what you're talking about, so am I."

Cassie sighed. "I just hope this doesn't get worse."

I grinned, and knocked on the hayloft's floor. She looked at me. "Knock on wood," I said, and my grin widened.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad - once we figured it out.

to be continued....