I.
CHAPTER TWO - Orientation
When I got back home, Cassie was there. This was a fairly rare occurrence.
We started renting the house together a year ago, since Cassie's work with the Hork-Bajir Foundation needed her close to the city but also close to the Hork-Bajir colony, and I wanted to be close to Blythe University. It was a relatively humble place - three bedrooms, three baths. Cassie's bedroom was right across from mine, and we each had our own attached bathroom. The third room was just a small, quiet space at the end of the upstairs hall - just big enough for a twin bed, dresser, and desk. Sometimes I would lie in there and nap, since my own bedroom sometimes seemed too loud and messy. I would leave my phone in my bedroom, along with my laptop, bills, unanswered letters, the scratches in the furniture, the blood in my laundry, and anything else I didn't want to remind me of my new reality. Occasionally I needed refuge from my own refuge.
But it was the window that I fell in love with, and ultimately helped me make the decision to sign the lease. The window was overly large, an old-fashioned arch shape that opened out like a door and faced the treeline of the woods that edged our secure, gated community. It was so close that a tree branch brushed against the glass.
Tobias used to enter through the window. It had been my favorite part of the house.
Our downstairs was just a nice-sized living room, eat-in kitchen, and a bathroom with a broken toilet that we kept forgetting to have fixed. Off the kitchen was another small room that Cassie turned into her home office. That was where I found her, typing away at an email.
I sauntered in without needing to announce myself. She knew the sound of my car pulling up to the driveway, and my muttered curses as I struggled to jimmy the back door open with the blunted key I was too lazy to replace. We always came in the back door to the kitchen. Our front door faced the main street and even in the gated community, there were too many gawkers out there.
"Hey, what's a 'meet-cute'?" I asked.
Cassie looked over at me, eyebrow quirked. "Why?"
"Just asking."
"It's like, in a romantic comedy. When the couple meets for the first time in a funny, endearing way. You know, Girl tripping on a step and Guy catching her. Guy running to catch a bus and accidentally crashing into Girl. An awkward meeting that becomes something, well, cute."
So Ben was a dork.
"What, did you have a meet-cute or something?" Cassie teased.
"Please. Someone was talking about it in class," I lied. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be heading to Marco's? You guys have that thing tonight. The interview."
"In a minute. How was your day?" she asked cheerily. I set my bag down, pulled another chair to the computer, and collapsed into it.
"School," I said simply.
"What's that?" She was looking down. I saw the blood-stained hem of my shirt sticking out from my sweater and felt a cold sweat. It would be too obvious if I tried to hide it, so I played it off casually.
"Ketchup from the dining hall. It's why I'm wearing this damn sweater even though it's hot as the devil's crotch outside."
Cassie bought it. "Ew. What, was just tucking it in was too uncool?"
"Duh." Now it was safe to pull the sweater lower, so she couldn't get a closer look.
It was then that I noticed she was grinning brightly, practically vibrating with some kind of awesome news. She was dying me to ask her how her day was, I could always tell. Cassie was never the kind of person that just blurted everything on her mind, she liked to be asked. It was a part of her whole thing with putting other people first. If I was half as good a friend as she was, I would just ask about what amazing thing happened to her.
But I opted to be a dick for a moment. "So, in Calculus we learned - "
"Rachel!"
"Okay, okay!" I laughed. "Why do you look so happy? You're smiling so wide you barely have room for your ears."
"Toby Hamee is going to have a baby!" she said, clearly unable to restrain her joy. "They said they're going to name it after me!"
I smiled at that. "That's great! Jesus, congrats to Toby! Although wow, I feel like this somehow makes us all grandparents?"
"You know, I felt the same way at first? But the Hork-Bajir lifespan being as short as it is, I suppose it isn't too strange for them. Toby is six years old, so if she lives to be as old as her mother when she died - about twenty-three - at this stage of her life she's even older than us in human years." She paused. "I took this to a dark place, didn't I?"
Our friend Ket Halpak died of old age last year. Imagine our surprise when we found out "old age" to Hork-Bajir meant "barely even old enough to drink". Jara Hamee was only about twenty when he died in battle. Toby's kalashi was a nine-year-old named, I kid you not, Nerf. Nerf once told us that the oldest Hork-Bajir he'd ever heard of was twenty-seven.
"Uh, kind of. But hey, a new baby Hork-Bajir, that's incredible!" I said quickly. "I wish I had something cool named after me."
"You have like, ten high schools, a few federal buildings, a couple space ships, and a McDonald's Extra Value Meal named after you," Cassie reminded me. "And that's not including all the little babies born in the past few years that are probably named after you."
"But I mean, something cool. Like a Hork-Bajir or something," I said. Cassie rolled her eyes. "I should visit them, I haven't seen those guys in a while."
"You should come with me tomorrow!" She said enthusiastically, then faltered. "Although, the media has already gotten their claws in this story. Toby is as popular as the Animorphs these days, what with the Initiative terrorists starting to make headlines and all. She's going to have a small press conference. I told her I'd be there for support."
"A press conference?! Already!?"
"Yeah, you know how the media is." Cassie shrugged. "We spoke with Kono, and she thinks it would be best if we got the baby coverage over with as soon as possible, quick and easy. They're coming and setting up a couple news trucks at the base of the mountain outside their colony. Twenty minutes of questions from the press, a ten minute interview with Louise Headwater, and they're gonna wrap it up. Easy-peasy."
"Because everything we do is easy-peasy," I said dryly.
"Anyway, do you think you can make it?"
"I, uh..." I remembered I had asked Ben to help me at the computer lab at the same time. "I sorta made plans after class..."
She looked at me skeptically. "I know you hate reporters, but I heard it's gonna be catered. Pigs in a blanket. You love those!"
"No, really, I'm not lying," I said. "Sorry. But I can definitely catch up with you and Toby after the press conference is over, though? Back at the colony?"
She noticed my vagueness, of course, and was studying me trying to figure it out. "Oh! Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Tobias is going to be there too, of course. I wasn't thinking..."
"No, not because of him," I said honestly. Mostly. "I, uh, I guess I made a friend today."
Cassie's eyebrows shot up. She knew as well as I did that I didn't make friends easily. "A kid from one of your classes?"
"Actually, the coffee guy."
"Oh, well, I see what drew you to him," Cassie laughed. Since the war I had developed a little bit of a mild six-cups-a-day coffee addiction.
"I wasn't drawn to him," I scowled. "I was lost and happened to bump into him at the library."
"Bump into – is that why you asked about meet-cutes?!"
"Shut up."
"Okay. Well, he asked you to do something? What are you guys gonna do?" Her knees were pulled up to her chin again. Her listening position. She was going all in and wouldn't leave me alone until I spilled my guts. The girl was probably cackling with glee inside that head of hers.
"I asked him to help me set up my school accounts."
Cassie blinked. "You asked him?"
"Not really. He offered. I accepted. You know how I am with computers."
She was scrutinizing me with an unreadable expression.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. Actually, this is a good thing. A great thing. You should be moving on. This guy has to be nice, if he was able to get you to ask him out."
My mouth dropped open. "I didn't ask him out! I technically didn't even ask him anything!"
"You shouldn't feel ashamed - "
"I'm not!"
" - or guilty."
"I'm not!" I protested again, but I saw confirmation in Cassie's eyes. She knew I was lying. She knew I'd been thinking about Tobias pretty much all day. It was rare for me to not be thinking about him, although I would sooner slice out my own tongue with rusty garden shears than admit that to anyone.
"Well, in case you do feel guilty about anything, at all, you should know that you shouldn't. I think this is fantastic."
I unconsciously put my hand over where the hidden blood stain was.
"So what's this guy's name?"
I sighed. "Ben."
"Cute."
"It's just a name."
"Well, its a little name. Cute."
"I mean, it's a nickname, isn't it? t's probably short for Benjamin. Or Benedict. He looks more like a Benjamin, though, he - " My eyes narrowed "If you're trying to get me to tell you what he looks like, you're going to fail."
"I'm not trying anything." She was grinning. The more she grinned suggestively at me like that, the more I started thinking about Tobias. She used to make that same expression whenever I talked about him, back when we were together. I felt the darkness was starting to gnaw at me again. I needed to change the subject before I lost it.
"So who's the email to?"
Cassie frowned, her exciting girltalk effectively derailed. "The president."
"What's up with Georgie these days?" I snagged a couple cookies from the plate by Cassie's mug of tea.
"President Bush is looking for some help in the alien foreign policy department. He's looking to get a feel on the democratic opinion. Also with the Hork-Bajir, Andalites, and Taxxons, he's going to need to address the homeland security problems eventually on the campaign trail. I'm not a fan, but I could at least use this opportunity to get a good feel on American - "
Talking politics with Cassie was even worse than girltalk. I was ready to switch back over.
"Ugh. Never mind. How was lunch with Ronnie? Find some new Hork-Bajir homelands?"
"He asked me out. We're doing dinner and a movie or something Friday after work."
I nearly choked on a cookie, my mouth had gone suddenly dry. Cassie slammed me on the back a couple times.
"He what?!" I demanded. "You're what?!"
Ronnie Chambers worked with the Hork-Bajir, along with Cassie. He'd been assigned by the president's task force several months ago in the spring and I knew they had become close friends. I had met him a few times, so I at least knew he was a good guy. He genuinely seemed to love his job as much as Cassie did. He was older, I think Cassie mentioned he was 24 and she was still only 18 for another couple months, but the reality was that the Animorphs had aged up a long time ago. Ronnie was handsome, funny in a quiet sort of way, and obviously smart. In the near minute that Cassie sat there silently sizing up my reaction, I could not think of a single thing that was wrong with him. Other than he wasn't...
"You're thinking about Jake."
"Did I mention I hate that you always know what I'm thinking," I grumbled.
"It's not that hard, Rachel. You've been clinging to the war for years," she said honestly. "You think of those days as the 'good ole days' like some old war hero playing poker with his army boys. It's why you practically refuse to make any new friends, why you're having such a hard time moving on from Tobias, and why even after three years of barely seeing Jake at all, you still feel like he's my boyfriend."
"Whatever." I took her tea and started to drink it, like an angry child trying to spite her mother.
Cassie scowled. "I'm sorry, but you know I'm right. You always get angry when I'm right."
"You keep trying to make me feel bad about not adjusting!"
"You were going to try to make me feel bad about not being with Jake anymore!"
I put her tea down and started to massage the bridge of my nose. I was starting to get a headache. I needed more caffeine, and Cassie's tea wasn't cutting it.
"Rachel, listen, I'm not going to rush you through your life. Feel your feelings for however long you need. I love you, okay? I'm here for you. But we do need to move on from our war with the Yeerks. Nothing is the same as it was, and it never will be. I'm not going to stop dating everyone other than Jake just because you want to live in some fantasy where the six of us will stay the same forever. Okay?"
I mumbled under my breath.
"What?"
"I said, Ronnie seems cool," I relented. I would give her that. My annoyingly happy, self-righteous best friend could have that, at least.
She smiled and gave me a hug, knowing I was at least attempting at some kind of peace. Her words echoed in my head. I could tell she'd wanted to say that for a while, and she was right. I had liked the way things were during the war. I didn't like that it had changed. But it was what it was, I guess.
Cassie finished up her email and signed out of her account. "I need help picking an outfit. Actually, no, I don't, but you're going to whine about what I'm wearing regardless so I might as well just nip all that in the bud and have you dress me in the first place because I don't want to be late."
I already had a ton of homework, but when Marco's limo showed up at the front of our house and the driver said he was there to pick us both up, Cassie convinced me to come along.
The plan originally was for her to meet up with Marco at his place so they could discuss their tactics during tonight's nationally-televised primetime discussion. As the unofficial spokespeople for the Animorphs, the two of them were going to have a chat with Bob Greenfield, some famous news reporter that I probably should have known more about. It wasn't a formal debate, but the discussion was about the Visser, formerly Visser One and even more formerly our nemesis Visser Three, and his current incarceration.
The monster we still could only think of as Visser Three, was currently being held host-less, completely blind, mute, and helpless, in a weird purple box the Andalites rigged up. The box fed him Kandrona rays to keep him alive and, at the request of people who for some reason didn't want him to suffer during his lifelong isolated imprisonment, it sedated him.
Three years ago, an "unknown individual" tipped off the United States government about a hidden Yeerk installation in the Nevada desert. It seemed its purpose was for bio-engineering, and a few of its products were still there running around in a pen - horses, whose brains had been modified for infestation by Yeerks. There were more dead horses than live ones, but they rescued and rehabilitated three of them. Once a week, Visser Three was allowed to infest a horse and feel some small bit of sensation and freedom in a closely-guarded 50 by 50 foot field. He could hear, see, smell, taste, and to some small extent communicate. For two hours twice a week, he was allowed to be alive.
Marco and I had wanted to just throw the Yeerk into a fire. Cassie and Tobias thought he should be imprisoned, but were horrified by the purple box the Andalites had given us to keep him in. They claimed it was basically like prolonging death, and that it was too cruel. Jake at the time was struggling through his own demons so he had no public opinion. Thus, Earth was divided, some standing behind Marco and I and some Cassie and Tobias's camp.
Eventually, I gave Ax a quick call and had him set me up a secret, encrypted phone line. I gave the tip and it worked. Earth found their own solution to the Visser problem, and I didn't have to mention a single Andalite toilet to anyone.
To this day we've kept that particular embarrassment of a mission to ourselves.
The Andalites also found a way to modify their own animals they considered non-sentient and incarcerated their criminal-of-war Yeerks in the same manner. Everybody won. Cassie had wanted to come forward with the story of the Iskoort, but I managed to squash that idea. We all agreed that missions involving the Ellimist were not to be mentioned. That was a whole new can of worms, and our planet was only just coming to grasp the concept of regular aliens.
Anyway, humans and Andalites already knew it was possible to modify non-sentient species for Yeerks to infest. It was only a matter of time before someone thought, "Hey, what if we engineer an entire species specifically for being symbiotes with Yeerks!?" The seed had been planted, which is what the Ellimist had wanted all along.
But now, after years of letting Earth hold the Visser, it seemed the Andalites wanted to try him themselves in their own justice system. Cassie and Marco were going to advocate for the humans, and how we should keep the Visser here, since we were the ones he committed crimes against. One Andalite, some analyst or whatever, was going to be there to argue for his own race, along with a like-minded human named Beth Jerabek, some senator from New York. According to them and the Andalites, Visser Three's crimes started long before he came to Earth, and he should be tried for those as well.
On one level I figured their guilt stems from way back, when Andalites discovered the Yeerks and basically let them loose in the universe. They probably felt some sort of responsibility for this whole thing. On the other hand, they were probably still just really pissed about the Visser having the balls to infest a high and mighty Andalite.
Either way, I didn't care about this fight. Unless this was solved with shooting the Visser into the sun, I was done with it.
"I'm really sorry for making you and Marco do all this alone," I said, actually only slightly sorry about it.
"It's fine, Rachel. You officially have your own stuff going on. Marco and I, this is our job."
Cassie was nose deep in some of her notes, scribbling and erasing here and there. We were alone in the back of the limo, so we had lots of room to stretch out. Cassie was huddled in a corner surrounded by papers, looking stressed but amazing in the navy blue blazer and pencil skirt I'd thrown on her.
The limo ride was almost an hour to were Marco lived, which was a mansion on a hill surrounded by a random assortment of celebrities. We never actually drove there ourselves, we only ever flew as birds or he sent us a limo, because that was just Marco these days. Cassie was using the time to prepare, and I'd brought along my homework, since Marco refused to leave me alone in my house.
"Come on, I'm not going to make you come to the studio. You can watch us on one of the new LED HDTV's I had installed. They're like 7 feet across!" He had said on the phone, when the driver dutifully called him from the limo. I had glared with all my might, but Marco made him give the phone to me. "You can even study your nerdy-ass college stuff if you want. Just come out for once, it's been a while!"
That boy did not understand the meaning of humble. His mansion was massive, about twice the size of the mansion he'd bought for his reunited parents, and he was the only one really living in it. A 9-bedroom 10-bath mega-mansion, with an elevator, 10-car garage, pool, basketball court, movie theater and actual guesthouse with smaller garage and jacuzzi. Marco's property was its own gated community within a larger gated community. Plus he had more places in New York, Italy, and God knew where else. Excess? What was that?
After the war all of us, even Tobias for a miniscule portion, featured in a documentary about the Animorphs. It was the number one movie in America for all the months it was in theaters, and the DVD was the number one selling movie of all time. We all could retire comfortable as teenagers on that and its royalties alone, but Marco would not rest until he ruled Hollywood. He hosted lots of celebrity events and even the Emmy's red carpet once. For the upcoming season he was the host of American Idol, as well.
He wasn't the only one keeping busy. Cassie wrote a book, which had been at least top 3 on the NY Times BestSeller list for 2 years, plus she had her government job. Jake had his own job as morphing teacher at the military base in Hawaii, and of course Ax had also gone the military route as Prince.
Other than the red-tailed hawk that lived in the forest eating mice, I was the only one that hadn't gotten a "real" job.
I stared at my Calculus homework at the back of Marco's limo, suddenly feeling very small.
When we arrived at the edge of his domain, we confirmed our identities with Marco's security stations, plural, and our driver drove us up the obscenely large cul de sac, which wrapped around a massive marble fountain, and parked in front a large set of marble steps.
We thanked the driver and tipped him. Then we climbed all the way up the stairs and rang the doorbell. The theme song to Jurassic Park played back at us and Marco's butler answered the door.
"Hi, Mr. McPherson," Cassie greeted politely.
"Mr...I thought your named was Wetherbee?" I looked at the middle-aged British man.
"My name is McPherson, Mr. Lanza just prefers to call me Wetherbee," he said stiffly. "Please make yourselves comfortable in the drawing room while I fetch him."
He extended a white-gloved hand in the direction of Marco's living room. His first living room, anyway.
"Thanks, uh, sir." I wasn't sure which name to call him now.
"There is no need call me that, Miss Berenson," he led us to the room and politely waited for the both of us to be seated before turning on his heel to find Marco. The "drawing room" was essentially a living room bigger than the entire first floor of our house.
"So. Anyone else think Marco's gone crazy?" I said, poking at a set of hanging silver balls, one of those things that demonstrated the transfer of energy or whatever. It was sitting on an end table with a bobblehead of Kobe Bryant.
"We've known that since we met him," Cassie said. "I just wish he'd call Mr. McPherson by his real name."
I tossed my books down on the chrome coffee table and reclined on the no doubt ridiculously expensive sectional. I'd been here many times before, so I knew exactly were the button was to activate the power recliner. My portion of the couch began to flatten out and my legs were lifted up.
"Hey Cassie, hand me the control? Or can you activate the back massager?"
She made a face, but complied. The leather warmed slightly and then started to knead the knots from my back.
"Marco wasn't kidding about this TV," Cassie observed. "It's huge. Nearly as big as the wall he uses with the 3D projector in his actual living room."
I groaned in response. This couch was extremely stupid, but it felt so good.
"Presenting Mr. Lanza and Miss Sirota," Wetherbee announced. He nodded once and walked off, hopefully to go write his letter of resignation. I moaned again in greeting. The damn couch was hitting just the right spot between my shoulders.
Cassie turned to see Marco, admittedly well dressed and looking pretty good, and his girlfriend Svetlana Sirota, a six foot tall blond Russian model, walk into the room. We hated her. Or, well, I kind of did. Cassie insisted that she supported Marco in his decisions, but I saw that twitch in her false smile.
"Hey ladies! Lookin' good," Marco greeted. "Care for some drinks?"
"We're not legal yet," Cassie said distastefully. The bimbo on Marco's arm giggled.
"I meant like, soda or water or whatever," Marco said, detaching himself from Svetlana and ducking behind his extensive home wet bar. "Rachel? Anything? Coffee? A martini? A quickie in the library stacks of Blythe University?"
"Coffee sounds really good – wait, what?!"
Svetlana cracked up so hard she had to sit down. Next to me. I refrained from pushing her off the couch.
Marco grinned. "I take it you didn't go on Yahoo! News at all today."
"No."
He emerged from behind the bar with a teeny high-tech laptop. He flipped it open and presented it to me. I saw my face at the top of the page and read the headline. My jaw dropped.
"ANIMORPH HAS ROMANTIC TRYST WITH LOCAL COLLEGE BOY!?" I raged.
"So they say."
"That's a lie!" I fumed, slamming Marco's computer shut.
"Hey, that's expensive!"
"Those assholes! We just talked! For like, five minutes total, maybe!"
Cassie's hand was holding my shoulder, pulling me down. I hadn't even realized I was trying to get up. "Rachel, relax. Remember what we said about the tabloids? Just forget it."
She took the laptop from me and opened it. "Besides, this isn't so bad. They've written worse about you. No pictures, of course...they just say...ew! In the bathroom!?"
"Wait til you get to the part with them going at it in the computer lab."
"Ugh." I tucked my head between my knees. "Marco, forget the coffee."
"Atta girl. Marco Special, coming right up."
Cassie continued to scroll down the news article, her eyes getting wider. "Oh. My. Well. If there's anything good about this, it's that creativity in America is certainly still thriving."
"Ughhh."
She eyed me over the top of the computer. "You know, even if you did fool around a little bit with someone, that's not like a bad thing."
"Ughhhhh."
Marco handed me some random thing in a glass and I gulped it down, letting it burn my throat. Svetlana tutted at my appalling behavior. I glared at her and she decided not to make any more clicky dolphin noises. Marco took a seat on the sofa across from us, and Svetlana got up to sit on his lap, despite the large expanse of room on the cushions next to him. Cassie and I shared a discreet look.
"So, this thing with Bob Greenfield," Marco started, taking a sip of his own drink and letting his concubine have the rest.
Cassie nodded and pushed her notes across the table to him. Marco was just reaching out to grab them when his cell phone started to ring in his pocket, under Svetlana. She giggled.
"Eet eez on vibrateeng," she said huskily. She reached down to slowly grab the phone from his pocket. I almost vomited in my empty glass and Cassie averted her eyes upward. Marco at least had the decency to look embarrassed at the woman's behavior as he took the phone from her. Svetlana snarled hungrily into his ear. He answered the phone.
"Hey. Oh, yeah, Cassie and I are going over the notes now. Uh-huh. Yeah, we'll be ready for pick-up by 7 or so. It's a short ride to the station. Yeah, okay, cool. Bye."
He hung up.
"Was that Kono?" Cassie asked. Kono was Marco's long-suffering personal assistant. Her, I actually liked.
"Yeah, she's gonna have Jim bring the limo back around in an hour or two." To Svetlana, he said, "Sweetie, I gotta work tonight. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow for the photoshoot?"
Svetlana pouted, but slinked off his lap and got her purse.
"I vill miss you every minute until then!"
She stuck her tongue down so deep down Marco's throat that I was getting nauseous and then giggled and pranced her way out the front door, where one of Marco's valet staff had already driven up in her Porsche. We looked at Marco. He blushed.
"She has really good taste in music."
Marco was all business once his girlfriend left. He opened a powerpoint of his own notes and compared them to Cassie's handwritten ones. They discussed strategies to get more of the American people on their side and how to stick it to the Andalites without sounding too forceful. Rumor was, the government was planning to allow them a base here on Earth. We didn't want to step on any toes.
I put a few suggestions out there, but my heart really wasn't in it and I purposefully faded into the background, trying to refocus on American Lit.
Half an hour later, Sakurako Kono stopped by. I was genuinely pleased to see her. She was young, actually still just a senior political science major at Blythe University with me. Marco met her at some rally a year ago and they hit it off. They hit it off so well, actually that I was sure they would eventually start dating. We were surprised to learn that he instead hired her as his personal assistant and unofficial PR rep for her undergrad internship. She was excellent at her job, had wonderful public speaking skills, and would do great things in Washington some day.
It was tough to get a job in the big leagues, though. She passed up an internship with some Congressman she hated to get her foot in the door someplace else. Lucky for her, she met the most famous man in the US. You could say a lot of things about Marco, but he was a networking dream. Kono was fantastic at organizing all of Marco's entertainment businesses, she was even better at managing the press, but where she really excelled was this. Politics.
"Hey, guys!" Kono greeted brightly. She hugged Cassie and I. "Rachel! I didn't know you were coming! I thought you would be busy with school stuff. I remember what freshman year was like."
I pointed forlornly at my small stack of books.
"Oh. Don't worry, it'll go by quick. It did for me, anyway." Kono shook her head. "I can't believe I'm graduating in May. But hey, if that's American Lit with Professor Olu then I can definitely help you with that."
"Thanks."
"You haven't decided on a major yet, have you?" she sat down next to me and started looking over my syllabus. Kono was a tiny little spitfire. Shorter even than Cassie, she didn't look remotely formidable, but the girl did not stop moving. Ever. And nothing wore her out. When she walked, you had to jog to keep up. When she talked, you had to listen carefully because she had a lot to say and only a little time allotted in her busy life to say it. When she set her mind on something, it was going to get done. Hard.
Unfortunately, she didn't have time to wait, either. Her near complete lack of attention span sort of counteracted her inhuman productivity.
"Oooh. This test? He reuses the same questions every year, just mixes the order around. I can help you with that." She winked and I expressed my undying gratitude. Behind me I could feel Cassie's burning disapproval and Marco's glowing pride.
She was one of the only people I met after the war that I could actually call a friend, but I was soon forgotten as she handed the syllabus back to me, complimented me on growing my hair out, and joined Marco and Cassie's huddle. I re-opened my collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, feeling a bit like I had just been tossed by a whirlwind.
Cassie tapped me on the shoulder an hour later and I sat up, unsticking my face from the pages of the book I'd fallen asleep on.
"Rach? The limo's here. We're heading out, you sure you don't want to come?"
"And end up on Yahoo! News again? No thanks," I grumbled.
Kono frowned. "I read that. Sorry."
Marco grabbed a remote and turned on his stupidly big TV. The screen made the entire room light up.
"We're on channel 7 in two hours! Until then, I have movies in that cabinet over there, and you're free to do whatever you want." He handed me the remote and pointed at one of the touchscreen buttons. "That one is the hot tub. It comes up from the floor right there."
I couldn't even scowl at him, I was so amazed.
"We'll be back by like, 11 at the latest," Cassie said. She looked at Kono and she nodded in confirmation. "Probably earlier than that. You should be fine though, since your first class doesn't start until 10-something in the morning."
"Kono's gonna help me field the press after the show ends," Marco said. "We already have an escape car ready for Cassie. It'll bring her back here to get you and then get you guys home."
Cassie waved and was out the door with Kono, giggling about something. Marco hung back to grab his coat.
"Hey, Rachel," he said, almost whispering. "I, uh, I didn't just ask you to come so you could nap on my couch."
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to give you this," Marco went over to his closet and handed me a laptop. "A college present."
I quirked an eyebrow. "Thanks, but you know I already have a computer. And that I barely know how to use it."
"Not like this one. I had some Andalite assistance fiddling with it. Untraceable, undetectable. Able to draw wifi from a mile away, and cracks all network security passwords for access."
"What do you think people do in college?!"
He grinned. "No idea."
"You wanted me to come here just to give me a computer?" I asked skeptically, taking it anyway. It looked pretty fancy. I could give my other one to Jordan, who would be starting her junior year of high school next month
"Not just that," Marco tapped the lid. "There's a file on the desktop. I want you to open it."
"A file you could have just emailed me if you wanted," I said, flipping over the top. Matte screen, anti-glare. Light-up keyboard. Large trackpad. Fancy.
Marco sighed and shut the laptop so I would pay attention. "I kind of just wanted to see you. It's been a while."
I studied him closely. Before the war, we were barely acquaintances in school. Just that kid that hung out with my cousin Jake. During the war, we could loosely be considered friends. We saved each others lives on practically a daily basis. We laughed. We clashed. We fought. We made up. We needed each other. But other than the Animorphs, we had no connection. I would have thought that after the war, we would have just gone back to being acquaintances. Polite nods in public, the occasional Christmas card, stuff like that. It was strange, that Marco and I kept up a relationship when we no longer had to. Why try to be close to me now, when the only times the two of us really tried to reach out emotionally were...
I scowled. The only time we were really that kind was when I went to visit him after we tried to assassinate his mother, Visser One. I also remembered during our Royan Island mission, I lied and pretended to hear his mother escape on an invisible ship. He knew I was lying to make him feel better, and thanked me for it. We were really only ever this awkwardly nice to each other when one of us was to be pitied.
Did Marco pity me?
"We saw each other at the Fourth of July banquet thing, remember?" I said finally.
"Yeah, well, that was like a month ago and I don't hear from you much anymore. Other than what I hear from everyone else. Cassie, Kono, and even Toby. I know Jake and Tobias haven't been keeping in touch with you either, so I can't get anything from them."
I narrowed my eyes. Marco did pity me. For my life, or lack thereof? Did he know about my secret out-of control morph incidents? Of course not. He just felt sorry for me, the fact that the media picked on me and that I didn't fit quite as well into this world as him and Cassie. He pitied me like he pitied Jake and Tobias.
"I'm fine. You have my number if you really need to be in my business," I grumbled, trying hard not to be angry. "Don't call me though. Text me. I can only deal with hearing your voice every so often, and you're already in every radio commercial."
Marco laughed. "I'll text you, then."
He started to walk out the door, but I grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait. Um, thanks."
He shrugged, without turning around. "No problem, Rach."