Chapter 2

"We can't stay in Santa Barbara." Jake said.

We were in my favourite room. It was the one with the bar and the huge widescreen. I was incredibly proud of the room, because it appealed to my most basal instincts. Well, most of them. Playing video games had always been a big part of my life, and having a personal bar for all my celebrity friends was a great talking point. I looked over at the stool where Brad Pitt – yes, Brad Pitt – once sat.

Now it was hosting Menderash, an Andalite-turned-Human-nothlit. Not quite as impressive.

But it was the only room that was really me. I ate and slept in there, if I wasn't off filming some commercial. Everything else in the house almost seemed superfluous; a show for guests to ooh and aah at.

I didn't need any of it, but when Jake finally reached the conclusion that he had spoken, I suddenly felt very attached to it. Especially the room we were all gathered in. I was half-distracted, playing Ridge Racer.

It was my home. My escape.

"The mansion is a big place," Jeanne suggested. She was sat beside me as I held my PS3 controller firmly in both hands. "We can't just hide in here?"

"It's a big place, yeah," I agreed half-heartedly. "But it's also a very well-known place."

Jake nodded. He was in the middle of us all, sat on the arm of the sofa next to Jeanne. "A lot of people walk past here. People who can see the windows. Not from up close, but close enough to see birds flying in and out."

"It's true," Menderash added. "Somebody was spotted. We don't know who, but somebody spoke to Jives about seeing a bird of prey flying in through a third floor window."

Jives knew about us all now. He was by the door in his full uniform. I told him not to bother with the usual butler stuff, but he insisted. He had been spoken to by a passer-by that morning, and that's why we were having the discussion.

We already had a big suspicion that we would be leaving, but the sighting had forced us to act sooner than we anticipated.

"We can't take the risk anymore," Jake urged. "We need to stay unseen, and I don't think staying here will help. We could have people watching this place twenty-four-seven."

I kept my eyes forward, watching my shiny red car swerve into an early lead.

"Think we need to be somewhere isolated?" Santorelli suggested from behind the bar.

Menderash replied, "That would be the logical thing to do. Somewhere we're not going to be watched or disturbed."

"But close enough to get what we need." Jeanne added.

"Depends on what we need." I mumbled, my eyes still forward and glued to the colors on the screen.

"I think it's pretty obvious what we need." Jake replied.

"Access to food. Water. Electricity." Santorelli listed.

"So that leaves the desert out." I concluded.

"And Alaska." Santorelli mentioned.

Jake looked pensive, hand rubbing through his thick brown beard. "Food, water and electricity is fine. For a holiday. For sitting around doing nothing. We need proximity to the bigger things we require."

"Bigger things like a vessel." Menderash said.

"A spaceport." Jake then elucidated.

"So that's the plan, huh?" I said as my car drifted too far through a corner. "Hijack another ship to do exactly the same thing we did last time?"

Jake raised his hands, addressing the room. "Are there any other suggestions right now?"

The room fell silent. As much as it seemed stupid to do exactly the same thing again, there really was little else we could do.

Jake nodded to our blank answers. "Ax is out there. We can be pretty sure of that. I'm not going to sit here and do nothing while he is." Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little plastic envelope, lifting it into the air so we all got a good look at the tuft of blue fur within. Ax's hair.

Menderash, despite his earlier silence on alternate suggestions, still believed that there had to be something else. He was bolted upright in his seat, almost like an excited school child waiting to answer a teacher's question. I was waiting for him to raise a hand. "Prince Jake, I still believe that relaying the information we've found to Prince Caysath may bring up other options."

I rolled my eyes, an instinctual reaction. "All Caysath will do is tell us not to do the thing we want to do. What else can he do? Fly us up there in his private Dome Ship?"

I noticed Jake narrowing his eyes at me. Perhaps I came across as more aggressive than I wanted to portray.

Menderash didn't back down. He had never been anything other than insistent. "I still think it's worth a try, Prince Jake. There may be the slight chance that he can find us a way."

Jake was frustrated, pursing his lips and frowning to the floor. "That's something we need to think about later. Right now, we need to move. Talking to Caysath will be pointless if we end up arrested because we've been found."

"So," Santorelli started. "Somewhere isolated but close to civilisation. And a spaceport."

"That's very self-contradictory." Menderash mused.

"Something in-between." Jeanne compromised.

I was barely holding onto my lead. The blue car that had been hot on my tail for some time was trying to undertake me through the bend that would lead us into the last lap. I was trying desperately to keep ahead.

((I know a place.))

Everybody's heads snapped up to the Red-Tailed Hawk that stood like a statue above the window. He had been so quiet that we'd almost forgotten Tobias was there. That always seemed to happen these days…

"Where?" Jake pressed.

We couldn't sense any emotion coming from his cold, hard hawk stare, but his pause indicated to everybody that he carried some uncertainty. ((I know a place in Wyoming. It's an abandoned old house near Yellowstone. Nobody goes there, but it's near a main road.))

We looked to each other for validation. Then Jeanne spoke up. "There is an Andalite space station in Idaho. It's not far."

Jake and I exchanged glances again. We were both thinking the same thing. I could tell.

"You sure about the place, Tobias?" Jake asked for clarity.

((I've been in there, flown over it a few times. I've never seen anybody go near the place. It hasn't been lived in for years.))

"That would mean no electricity…" I murmured, feeling my lead slipping through my fingers coming into the final corners of the race. The blue car was threatening to zoom past at any moment.

"Don't we have enough Earth money for portable electricity units?" Menderash queried.

"You mean batteries?" Santorelli simplified.

"Yes, batteries." Menderash agreed.

I sighed. "We have enough money to buy every battery on this planet, and still have enough left to buy all the TV remotes that those batteries will mysteriously disappear from."

Menderash nodded. "So electricity won't be a problem."

"No," I huffed. "It won't."

Jake got up from his seated position and raised his hands to open a public vote. "We all in?"

The blue car zipped ahead on the final corner, causing my car to skid from the track and crash fatally into the side barriers.