Chapter 11

Because we had gotten to the Gardens and back so quickly, it was only something like five o'clock when we got back to Marco's house. Jake said he would meet us at Cassie's house at about eight.

We entered Marco's house without a word to each other.

"Hello?" he called. The only response was the yapping of a poodle. She rounded the corner, sniffed us both and then trotted back down the hall, presumably to someone's bedroom. I had forgotten that Nora had a dog, but now after seeing her, I was reminded that it did not belong to Marco and that it actually sort of drove him crazy.

Marco indicated after her. "Remember her name?" he asked.

I was surprised that I could very well remember how it was written, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to pronounce it. "It starts with an E," I said. "Elucid or something like that."

"Hmm..." Marco said, heading to the kitchen. "You're close." But he didn't correct me. "Nobody's home, so please." He indicated with his hand, giving a slight bow. It was an invitation to spill my guts out and devastate him. I was surprised that he was acting so naturally about this. I felt like I was jumping on thin ice and daring it to crack. He took a pizza box out of the freezer and turned on the oven.

"Are you sure you don't want to like, sit down or something?" I asked Marco. If he cracked, I didn't want him to be collapsing or anything. Not that I'd ever seen anyone collapse outside of the movies. Not that I was actually expecting him to fall helplessly to the ground.

"Can't afford to," he said. "It's my night to make dinner." He flashed me a grin that I could tell was forced.

"Okay," I said. "So, absolutely nothing has happened since the whole thing with Taylor?"

Marco scratched his head and lowered his voice a little. "Well, there was a whole fiasco where Cassie ended up in Australia, and the night we found you we had been spying on a Sharing meeting, but other than that, no."

"The Australia thing!" I said, relieved. "Okay, so that's already happened then?"

"Yeah," Marco said. "If it hadn't, I probably wouldn't remember it."

"All right," I said. "I was so worried that I'd forgotten something. Okay. So I know where this picks up, I think..."

"How long do we have?" Marco asked before I could begin. "How long do we have until the end?" His eyebrows seemed to drop from their false place to a more heavy, intense expression.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. The books don't give a strong concept of time."

"And who do we need to worry about?"

"Rachel," I said. "If anything at all changes about the end result, it has to be her."

Marco gritted his teeth for a moment, then took a deep breath and relaxed his face.

It felt easier this way, with Marco asking quick questions, like a pop quiz. There wasn't enough time for me to feel personal attachment to anything. It was like my friend had missed the ending and was asking for a summary.

"Is there anyone else?" he asked.

"No," I said. But after a thought, I added, "But in the final battle you lose all of the Auxiliary Animorphs and a lot of people from the military. Plus a lot of the free hork-bajir."

"Auxiliary Animorphs?" he asked.

"Yeah, once things start getting crazy, they—I mean, you—I mean, you guys—"

"They," Marco said. "It makes it easier."

"Okay, they make the decision to create more Animorphs with the cube. All of them are disabled, because you know you can trust them not to be infested."

"How many?" Marco asked.

"Twenty, I think," I said.

"All are trustworthy?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in a less depressed and more surprised and curious expression.

I thought hard. I didn't remember much about the Auxiliary Animorphs, but I didn't remember any kind of betrayal from any of them. I nodded.

"And you said the military was involved?"

"Yeah. You reach this general guy, and he quarantines his building for three days."

"And Rachel," he said, "what is she doing when she—" he broke off. He couldn't finish the sentence. His teeth gritted again.

I answered quickly, purposely avoiding looking at the expression on Marco's face. "She's on the blade ship, taking out Tom."

"Does she?" he asked.

"Yes. She kills him."

Marco made a weird noise with his nose. "Good, and where are we?"

"On the pool ship. It's on the ground because you took out the main pool with a subway train full of explosives. You capture the pool ship and you see Rachel over the communicator thingy. Tom betrayed Visser One and tried to take off with his blade ship." I realized that I was using the term 'you' again.

"His?" Marco asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Visser Three gets promoted."

"And why didn't we just take the pool ship up and attack the blade ship?" I wondered why he hadn't asked what happened to the other Visser One. Maybe the Rachel thing was too much for him already.

"Erek," I said, remembering his significance. "He disabled the dracon beams. You needed him to get in, I think, but his programming made him stop you guys."

"So the blade ship escaped?" Marco asked, his face seemed to be in a permanent grimace at this point.

"Yeah, but Tom was dead."

"And we got Visser Three?" he asked.

"Yeah. You trapped him in a suitcase."

Marco laughed shallowly. I was glad to hear that sound, no matter how temporary or how shallow it was. I wanted him to stop being so upset.

"What else happened that needs to be changed?" he asked after a moment.

"Jake and Cassie didn't stay together," I said abruptly. That was the one thing that had always bothered me about the ending. Jake and Cassie had been in love, and they hadn't stayed together. It had felt wrong to me.

Marco looked confused. "Why not?" His expression had softened now into genuine curiosity and normal, teenage concern for his best friend's happiness. He was relieved not to have to hear about more deaths.

"Because Cassie let Tom have the morphing cube."

SMASH!

Marco had been holding a glass of water. Now there was glass and water all over the floor. "WHAT?" he roared.

I cringed away from him. This felt wrong. Marco wasn't supposed to react this way. It was out of character. He was the easygoing, funny one. Not spastic. It was such a contrast from his expression a moment ago. This was anger. This was a Rachel reaction.

"She let Tom what?" he asked again, shrilly.

I didn't trust myself to speak right away. He stared at me a few moments, and I avoided eye contact, knowing that it would be an intense, gaze-locking stare. My voice was hoarse when I found the words. "Well, Tom stole it, and when Jake went after him, she wouldn't let Jake kill Tom, so... he got away."

Marco was shaking. He turned away from me and slammed his fist on the counter.

"Marco?" I asked. This felt so wrong, so terrifying. I had never seen this kind of real anger. Sure, I'd seen my friends storm around and swear over petty things. I'd heard my parents yell at me for one reason or another, but those were of-the-moment things. They were unimportant things that they would get over quickly. Marco's frustration here was real. It was helplessness in the face of true danger. It was like everyone I had ever seen upset before had wanted to get mad, to rage. Marco couldn't stop his harsh breath, his tensed muscles. He had been robbed of the ability to promise himself that everything would be okay. And I had been the one to rob him.

"If Jake had just killed Tom—" he started. I could see where he was going with that.

"But..." I said. "But if Tom had died..." It was so hard to think this way. This was why time travel was a bad idea. Had I travelled through time? Probably not. Or maybe I did. Maybe...

I pushed that aside and concentrated on Tom's importance. Marco was quiet except for his audible shaky breaths, and it gave me time to work out the problem aloud.

"The yeerks started morphing," I said. Marco's body shuddered a little. "But most of them were happy about it. They didn't need a host anymore. The taxxons... the taxxons agreed to work for you guys if you would help them become nothlits. They didn't like being hungry all the time. And Tom was how you guys got into the pool ship. He double-crossed you guys and Visser One, but if he hadn't, you couldn't have won!" I had figured out the puzzle. Every piece was essential. "Jake wouldn't have been able to live with himself after if he killed Tom, right?" I looked back at Marco.

Marco had turned to me, he was staring, wide-eyed and bewildered. "Yeah," he said. "I guess you're right." He began cleaning up the glass, but he was still shaking a little, and I could see the glass bounce out of his hands occasionally. I made no move to help him. This was his house and besides, I could not be trusted to touch the stuff without hurting myself.

I stood back and when Marco stood, he smiled at me a little. I smiled and finally noticed the tears running down my cheeks. How had I failed to notice them before? I had always been completely aware when I was going to cry before.

"Why didn't I go instead of Rachel?" Marco asked, taking me by surprise. "I mean, by way of a series, it makes sense not to kill me, but what was standing in my way?" It made me a little sick how he had accepted his reality and was looking from an author's perspective.

"Jake didn't tell anyone," I said. Suddenly I found that I had to think very hard about it. "Rachel was the only one who knew about her mission."

"I'll go," Marco said. "I can do it instead. Rachel and Tobias—they need each other. Cassie and Jake need each other..."

My head conjured up an image of Marco on the blade ship, hiding under the counter, waiting for Jake's order. At Jake's order, he would be a gorilla. Would a gorilla stand a better chance against lions and polar bears than a grizzly? Probably not. I imagined Marco, looking much more vulnerable in contrast to the polar bear than he did to me. I saw the polar bear's paw swing and hit his head. He collapsed, and his fragile human head crashed into the hard floor.

"No!" I yelled, destroying the quiet atmosphere of the nearly empty house. Now the tears were coming noticeably faster. "You can't!" I grabbed his arm. "Nobody has to go! We can figure something out! I can think of something else, okay?" I shook his one arm for emphasis, but was a very awkward gesture.

Marco saw the desperate look in my eyes and nodded. "Okay, Alex. We can figure something else out." There was a patronizing tone in his voice, but it satisfied me anyway. "We should wash up before Nora and Dad get home, okay?" It was like he was speaking to a child.

"Okay," I said. I was too shaken to do anything. I'm not an artist. I don't have the coordination to put anything on paper, but the images in my head are always incredibly vivid. If I could put the image in my head on paper right at that moment, it might have looked like a photograph.

Marco led me to the bathroom, where we rinsed off our faces and washed our hands. I was too dazed to notice how close I was to his body in the cramped space.

DING!

Both of us jumped at the sound. It was the oven timer, telling us that dinner was done. Marco rushed down the hall. He pulled the pizza out of the oven and set the table with paper plates. I followed more slowly. The noise had woken me from my daze, and the image in my mind was fading as long as I didn't look at Marco. I was glad that I didn't know his face well enough to keep in the place where the paw would make contact for long.

The door opened.

There was a sigh and the sound of a bag dropping on the ground.

"Hey," Marco called.

"Hey," a voice called from the entryway. "That faculty meeting lasted far longer than it... Marco! You're making dinner?"

I stepped into a position where I could see Nora clearly. She was surprisingly beautiful. She smiled at me. Something about the way she had spoken had given me a serious case of déjà vu.

"You are the stepson of my dreams!" she said, coming into the kitchen. "Hello," she addressed me, "I'm Nora, Marco's stepmother." She walked over to where I was and shook my hand.

Marco rounded the corner. "This is Alex. Is it all right if she stays for dinner?"

"I don't see why not," she said.

The door opened again. "Hello family!" Marco's dad said. Again, there was a strange feeling that I'd heard it before. But maybe that was the way he always greeted his family. When he saw Nora, he pulled a bouquet of flowers out from behind his back.

"What's the occasion?" she asked.

"Just that you're the most beautiful woman in the world!" he crowed, pulling Nora into a hug. I noticed Marco turn away.

"And who might you be?" Marco's dad asked me. "Maybe you're the lucky girlfriend of my son?" he said, raising an eyebrow with a chuckle.

"Dad, Alex, Alex, Dad," Marco said. He neither confirmed nor dismissed the girlfriend comment. I wondered if there was a reason for that.

Nora was watching Marco's dad closely, and he caved. "Things are getting pretty exciting at work."

Marco's dad and Nora walked over and sat at the table. Marco put a slice of pizza in front of each of them and then got two more slices for us.

"What's up dad, we gonna be rich?" Suddenly I knew why this scene was so familiar. The paper plates, the pizza, Marco's turn to cook. His dad's overjoyed mood. This was it.

"Marco," I said quickly, thinking of something I could possibly say to get him alone for a moment. "Um, can I see your bedroom?" Okay, it was lame, but it was something.

Marco gave me a weird look. I gave him a significant look back. He shrugged. "Sure," he said. I followed him down the hallway. The second we were in his room I shut the door. I heard laughter from the kitchen, but right now I didn't really care what they thought we were doing in here. To tell the truth, I was a little flattered.

"This is it," I hissed.

"What?" Marco asked in a whisper. "What is it?" he looked around warily. "Should I start morphing?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "If I'm right, your dad just invented a zero-space radio."

"What?" Marco hissed. "That's ridiculous! There's no way!"

"Way," I said. "And we could have sat in there for another ten minutes and you wouldn't have picked it up until he used the word zero."

"Is he free?" Marco asked, all-business.

"Yes," I said, "but late tonight someone's going to call from work and tell your dad that his friend needs moral support. Then he's going to be ambushed and they're going to try to infest him."

Marco put his hands to his head, an obvious sign of stress. "Oh god," he said, obviously not wanting to deal with this right now. Or possibly ever.

"It's okay," I assured him. "It's okay."

"How is this okay?" Marco hissed.

"You save him," I pressed. This was too soon. I wasn't prepared. I didn't know what things to change. I didn't want to mess with things too much. "Look," I said. "We have a good four or five hours. Let's just go, eat dinner and... and then we'll call the meeting early. Don't worry, I think I know what to do."

Marco was silent for a long time. He stared at me candidly and I had to look away from his eyes before my ridiculous urge to kiss him took over again. This was why I hated eye contact. It felt too intimate. Finally he nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll trust you."