Thanks guys. Here's the next chapter, and to answer atlastme, yes there will be a real conversation between David and the others about what happened to him before. I won't promise when, but it will happen.

Chapter Ten

The next day, thankfully, was a weekend. It was a tired bunch of kids who dragged themselves into Cassie's barn early in the morning after a restless night of wondering if we were going to be dragged from our beds by armed hork bajir any second. I'm not sure about the others, but I know every single creak and sound had me sitting bolt upright in bed. It was nerve racking and terrifying, worrying about what David was doing out there. Melissa hadn't even arrived yet.

Jake and Rachel hadn't been able to find him, even with the help of the Chee. It was like the guy had simply disappeared. There was no sign of him at all.

While Cassie sat on one of the barrels and ate an orange, with Rachel and Jake leaning tiredly on the wall on either side of her, I explained what we had seen. "Well, the good news is that if we pull this off, we will never have to worry about getting stuck in that Rainbow Six level again, because we'll be infiltration gods."

(What is this rainbow, and why are there six of them?) Ax wondered. (Is this a naturally occurring human phenomenon?) He stood in one of the horse stalls, so that it would be easier to hide if we were interrupted. We were all paranoid this morning.

"It's a game." I explained. "You know, a video game."

(Ah. Yes, I understand now.) Ax's stalk eye swiveled to the ceiling where Tobias perched. (Tobias has explained the concept. It is the large black machine that human children put the shiny metal into and compete to see who may twist the knobs and push the buttons most quickly while shouting words that they are not supposed to say until the adult proprietor tells them to quiet themselves. Then the children laugh, and it is apparent that the one who has attracted the attention has won the game.)

"Yeah, something like that." I said with a shrug, then yawned. "Except most of these games are played at home."

Now Ax looked confused again. (But if there is no adult proprietor, how does a person know if they have won?)

"That's what parents are for." I shrugged again and stepped over to one of the cages where a fox lay on its side, breathing shallowly. "What's up with this guy?"

I looked over my shoulder at Cassie, who winced and pushed a wedge of orange into her mouth, chewing slowly before answering.. "Dad found him by the side of the road. We don't know what's wrong with him yet. He's supposed to check him out today, so we need to hurry and get out of here."

Jake paused in mid yawn and then nodded while pushing off the wall. "All right, so what exactly did you see for security, guys? Wait, first, where's Melissa?" He began to pace while he listened, with an intently thoughtful look.

"She's got a special gymnastics class this morning." Rachel answered with a grim smile. "I'm supposed to be there, but I'm blowing it off. She can't, because it's at the school and her dad's working in his office. He gave her a ride." She shuddered.

Jake looked to the silent Cassie for a moment before asking. "How's she taking it?" Rachel had gone home with Melissa the night before when we met up for a couple minutes.

"Not very well." Rachel answered with a long sigh. "She wanted to know how she was supposed to sleep at home and know those things were in her parents heads. She wanted to know how you stop yourself from trying to rip the slug right out of Tom's head."

Rubbing his hand over his eyes, Jake shook his head. "It's not easy. I just hope she can keep it together." He looked to Cassie, who gave him an encouraging smile, and then he stepped over and picked up the shovel from the day before. While he absently washed the thing with the hose in the corner, Jake asked. "All right, we'll fill her in. What'd you guys find?"

(The better question is what didn't we find.) Tobias responded from his spot in the rafters. (We've got Secret Service, the protection services from every other world leader, the local cops, the national guard, hotel security, and that's just the mundane security measures. We didn't get too close, but Ax says it looks like the yeerks have added bio-filters at each entrance.)

"How can they do that?" Rachel wondered while flinching at the memory of the device that protected the yeerk pool entrances by attacking anything with DNA not programmed into it. "I mean, they could program it for all the resort staff and anything, but if someone new walks in they get disintegrated. How could the Yeerks explain that, or risk it?"

Ax answered her. (It is more likely that the Gleet Bio-Filter is programmed to allow all human dna, but no small animals such as bugs or any of our other infiltration creatures. They are disguised as metal detectors, but we observed a mouse killed while attempting to enter the building through them.)

"You mean Tobias observed." I corrected with a glance upwards. "He was hungry."

(And now I've eaten.) Tobias responded coolly. "Can you guess what comes after eating? You know, while you're standing directly below me? By the way, I think Melissa's on her way. That or there's a really lost merlin searching for work as a farmhand. I don't thinks she's completely sure of which place is Cassie's.) It made sense, the girl had only been here a couple times before this had happened, back when she was a closer friend of Rachel's, and the day before she had understandably been distracted.

"Point taken." I stepped to the side anyway and looked at Jake. "So we can't get in through our normal ways. Even the windows are covered."

Jake nodded and then glanced up. "Go guide Melissa this way." After Tobias had flapped up through the opening in the ceiling, he looked over to Ax while tapping the shovel against the dirt absently. "Do you have any idea of how we can beat the bio-filters and get inside?"

Ax hesitated before answering. (I am not certain, Prince Jake. If we do not morph into a human capable of passing through the machines, I don't believe it would be possible. But we may be able to find an entrance that the yeerks have not covered.)

Jake dug the shovel into the ground a bit and leaned on it. "What do you mean? And stop calling me Prince."

(Yes, Prince Jake.) I could have sworn there was a flicker of humor in Ax's eyes then. (I mean it is a very large facility. It is inconceivable that the yeerks could cover every possible entrance with the devices. We may also be able to make our own entrance in a remote part of the hotel.)

Tobias and Melissa entered the barn then, and the smaller bird flew to the floor and began to demorph. Melissa emerged in the gymnastics leotard that she was using as her morphing suit. She looked exhilarated after her first solo flight. "That is so awesome." She sobered a little then and breathed, still smiling in a way I hadn't seen her do since even before we met Elfangor and this all started, back before she realized that her parents didn't seem to love her. Something had changed in her in the last day. She had a purpose now, a way of helping, and it had reinvigorated the girl. She was still very quiet, but she seemed more alive than before. "What's going on?"

"We're just discussing how to enter the resort with all the security." Rachel responded while stepping over to hug the girl. "Are you okay? How was gymnastics?"

"It was uhhh... hard." Melissa responded quietly, glancing at the ground in hesitation. "How do you do it?" She looked up to Jake. "How do you sleep with that... that thing... in your brother? How do you sit at the same table as him? I couldn't... sit there... last night. I told them I wasn't hungry. I... don't think they noticed."

"Because I have to." Jake held the shovel tightly in one hand while he looked to the girl. "Because if Tom had the slightest hint that I knew what he was, we'd all be caught. I'm sorry, Melissa, but if you want to help your parents, you have to keep it together around them and not let on. It's just something you have to do."

"She is." Rachel retorted, sticking up for her friend. "She's handling it. It just takes some time to get used to." She looked like she immediately regretted the phrasing.

"I won't ever get used to it." Melissa spoke in close to a whisper. "But I'll handle it." When she looked up, there was the exact same determination that had been on every one of our faces during this war. "Because I have to. Because they're my parents, and I'm going to help them." Even as quiet as her voice was, there was a determination that I recognized, because I felt the same way about my mother when I thought of freeing her.

Jake looked satisfied as he nodded. "Okay. Now we need to find our entrance. Which probably means a new morph." I expected him to ask Cassie if she had any ideas, but he looked to Ax instead. "They'll probably strike when all the leaders are together, which means at the banquet on monday night. We need to scout that room out today, which means getting in there as soon as possible."

"What about David?" Rachel demanded. "Did you just forget about him? We have to find him before he does something stupid."

"No we don't." Jake responded quietly. When we all looked at him, he took a breath. "Because he already did something stupid." With no further warning, Jake pivoted and brought the shovel around in a homerun swing for the fences. The metal head of the shovel slammed with incredible force into the side of Cassie's face with a crash. She was spun and knocked to the ground with a cry as Jake flipped the shovel around in his hands and pushed the blade of the shovel against her throat. "Isn't that right, David?"

The rest of us stared in stunned incomprehension for a moment, until Cassie started to laugh a little. Her face was bloody and bruised from the shovel, and she was a stiff with the edge of the shovel against her throat. Still, she chuckled. "How'd you figure it out, Prince Jake?" She said it mockingly and I realized that Jake was right. That wasn't Cassie, it was David.

"You made three mistakes." Jake gritted his teeth and kept the shovel where it was. "First you called the fox a him and said your dad picked it up. Cassie's been caring for that fox for three days, it's a female and her mother brought if from the Gardens where it was sneaking in. Second, you didn't talk or ask about Melissa's feelings about all this. Cassie would have." He paused then before finishing. "And the last mistake you made was assuming I didn't know my own friends. Now..." He pressed the shovel down tighter. "Where is Cassie?"

"Oh..." David answered cagily. "She's around. She's busy." Cassie's eyes bulged a little as the shovel was pressed tighter to her throat. "What are you going to do, mighty Jake? Are you going to order psycho Rachel to kill me? Is that what you're going to do?"

Rachel, looking furious, almost pushed Jake aside as she glared at the form on the ground that looked like her best friend. "Where is she, David!? Where's Cassie? What the hell did you do with her?"

Before David could respond, Tobias said tersely. Cassie's dad's coming out here. I don't think you want him to see... this.

Growling, Jake raised the shovel just slightly. "Morph. I want you to be something small. A bug of some sort. Do it, David. We'll talk about this later. You're going to tell us where Cassie is. Ax, join Tobias, you guys head out, we'll join you in the field." Ax began to morph even as Jake finished. Before he could flap up, Jake leaned over and whispered something to Rachel, who moved to Ax and passed the message along.

Raising an eyebrow almost challengingly, David slowly looked to Rachel before starting to obey. Cassie's form shrank and changed. Suddenly we realized he wasn't becoming himself. He was going straight into cockroach form. With a startled look, Jake glanced to Ax for answers before asking for himself. "How... how are you doing that?" He demanded from the boy. "You can't morph straight from one morph to another."

There was silence as David shrank from Cassie's body straight into the small bug, then as the tiny creature waved its feelers around, he responded, sounding amused. (You can't. I can. A little gift from a friend to even the score. It is six... I mean seven to one.) He paused as though considering something. (Actually, what do you know? I do mean six.)

Rachel furiously raised her foot to stomp down on the bug, but Jake caught her knee. He nodded for Ax and Tobias to take off, and they did. "Where is she, David?" He sounded more angry than I had seen him before. His lips were tight and his hand shook a little as he stopped Rachel from squashing the cockroach.

The door opened before David responded, and Jake put the shovel aside, then stooped, picking the bug up in his hand and holding it tightly. We all looked to where Cassie's dad stood in the entrance. The man smiled while he stepped inside and headed for the fox cage. "Hey, guys. Where's Cassie? I need her help with this girl."

"Uhh." Rachel winced and looked to Jake, who shook his head blankly and just held his hand in a tighter fist.

I sighed and spoke up, since lying to adults seems to be my specialty. "We were just looking for her. We're supposed to meet for..." No way he'd believe homework study. "... she's supposed to help us get into the Gardens so we can try that new roller coaster."

"Oh that one's great. You've gotta try it out." Cassie's dad grinned before sobering with a cough, like he realized he was supposed to be the adult. "But you know Cassie isn't supposed to take advantage of her mother's work to get her friends inside. You'll have to pay like everyone else." He paused before offering. "Maybe she realized that and is going to meet you inside. If you see her, tell her that I need her help."

"Sure, yeah." Jake nodded and started for the door with the rest of us following him out.

Melissa hesitated, like she was distracted by something, and then moved. As we passed outside, she spoke quietly. "He's... talking to me. He says you don't accept new people, that... he's... just defending himself."

Rachel growled. "We don't accept psychos that kidnap our friends." She glared at Jake's fist. "Where's Cassie, David? Where is she?"

The response was a moment in coming. (What makes you think I'll tell you?)

"You won't have to." Jake's knuckles were white from resisting the urge to squish the bug in his hand. "We'll take care of that. Ax and Tobias are already working on that. We'll find our entrance, then meet them and take care of this."

Feeling left out, I shook my head. "What do you mean, Jake? What are they doing? I thought you sent them to the field."

Jake responded calmly. "I just wanted David to think that so he'd think he still had an advantage. Ax and Tobias are going to Erek's house to get something."

"Erek has some kind of mind reading device?" I felt like I was being slow, missing something obvious.

"You might say that." Jake looked at his fist and smiled grimly. "He's supposed to be a controller, so he has access to the yeerk pool. If he can get down there, I'm pretty sure there's a yeerk down there that would like to know if something happened to Cassie, and would be glad to sort through David's head to find the answer." I realized he was talking about Aftran, the yeerk that Cassie had sort of made friends with, who claimed not to want to dominate humans. Aftran had kept our secret after pulling them from Cassie's mind, and had released the young girl who had been her host.

(No!) David cried out from inside Jake's hand. (You can't make me a controller. You wouldn't! You'd ruin everything! You can't do that! You can't cross that line! You can't!)

Shaking his head, Jake closed his eyes before holding his hand up to stare at the creature in his palm. His voice was hard. "You attacked Cassie, David. You crossed the line first. You made us your enemies. Now you can deal with it." He looked to the rest of us. "Let's go. We'll carry him with us. And we'll get answers... one way or another."