Chapter Eleven
Melissa ran off to class. I think she was a little weirded out by the acquiring trance. I don't blame her. The whole thing kinda freaked me out, too.
I was pretty sure what I had done was wrong. The Animorphs have an unspoken agreement that we never acquire sentient beings without permission. That's mostly Cassie's doing, though. Me? I don't moralize about morphing other humans; I do what it takes to get the job done.
No, I was more concerned about how dangerous a situation I was in. After all, Chapman, Rachel and Jake all told me I could never go out with Melissa, and they had made a number of threats about what they'd do if I didn't break it off with her immediately. And instead of dumping Melissa, I had done pretty much the exact opposite.
Even though that's totally unfair that I get to be the only single member of the Animorphs. Think about it. Cassie has Jake, Rachel has Tobias the Bird Boy, and Ax has cinnamon buns. True love in all three cases.
But Marco—who, in my estimation, is pretty much the best Animorph ever—doesn't . No way that's fair.
That was enough whining, though. We had a mission: infiltrate the Sharing and spy on their activities meeting. Unfortunately, Jake's plan was really dumb.
"We know the meeting is somewhere in the Sharing's building, but we don't know where," Jake said. "That means we have to follow somebody who we know is going to be there."
"Right," Cassie said.
"I figure Chapman is our guy," Jake said. "So we'll morph bugs and hitch a ride in Chapman's briefcase. That way, he'll take us into the meeting."
"Are you serious?" I asked Jake. "Hitch a ride in Chapman's briefcase? That's insane!"
((Will there be enough time?)) Ax asked. ((The meeting is set for one and a half of your hours.))
"Ax, why do you always say your hours?" I asked. "You Andalites built the morphing technology to work for exactly two Earth hours, but you still act like Earth time is a completely foreign concept to you."
Ax ignored me.
"It's going to be cutting it close," Jake admitted. "But it's the best plan I could think of. Odds are, the Yeerks will be on the lookout for insects in the room. They won't be on the lookout for insects in their own business supplies."
"It sounds good to me," Rachel said. "Let's do it!"
"Sorry, you're not my type," I told her.
"Marco!" Jake, Cassie, Rachel and Tobias all shouted at me. Four Animorphs for the price of one. That's how you know a joke is good.
"Don't kill me!" I said. "I was just kidding!"
I mean, of course it was a joke. Rachel is totally my type. Besides for her psychotic tendencies, that is.
"Hmph," Rachel said. "I say we leave Marco to the Yeerks."
"Look, it's a good plan," I said. "But did you think that Chapman could easily trap us all just by shutting his briefcase? That would be the most embarrassing superhero failure ever."
"That's why two of us will go as surveillance," Jake said.
Surveillance is a pretty cool idea. In the movies, it means somebody gets to hang back, away from the action, and watch everything on TV screens. Not a bad gig, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, in this case, "surveillance" meant that Jake and I got stuck in fly morph. Jake was on the side of Chapman's briefcase, and I was on Chapman's back. If something went wrong—which it always does, by the way—we'd be able to warn the others to escape from Chapman's briefcase in time.
((What happens if there's one of those BioFilter things?)) I asked Jake. ((They're probably going to have extra security at this meeting because of Visser Three.))
((We hope everyone can get out of the briefcase in time,)) Jake said.
Fortunately for us, Chapman had one of those dorky briefcases that look like giant purses. People always leave the top of those briefcases half-open so it's easy to grab papers and whatever. That made it relatively easy for us to get in and out of the briefcase without being seen.
Just think: if he had one of those briefcases that people always keep locked, we would have been screwed.
((So we're flies, catching a ride in our vice-principal's briefcase, in order to spy on a top-secret meeting to make sure that alien invaders don't start a dating service,)) I said. ((Is it me, or have our lives gotten weird?))
((Just keep an eye out for anything dangerous,)) Jake warned.
Amazingly, nothing dangerous happened. Chapman went inside the Sharing, then headed straight to one of the meeting rooms. He sat down in a chair and dropped the briefcase onto the ground beside him.
((I think this is it,)) I told Jake.
((Me, too,)) Jake said. ((Everyone, this is it. One at a time, leave the briefcase.))
The meeting hadn't started yet, so nobody noticed a few flies slip out of Chapman's briefcase. It helped that the briefcase was at ground level, where nobody was watching it. We gathered underneath the table, where people would be least likely to look.
((I can't believe this is working so well,)) I said. ((No Bio Filter? No Hork Bajr? We're never this lucky. I love this mission.))
A few minutes of absolutely nothing happening later, I changed my mind. ((This is so boring,)) I said. ((When are they going to start this meeting?))
((I believe they're waiting for someone,)) Ax said.
Ax was right, as usual. About a few minutes later, the doors to the meeting room slammed open.
"All right, I'm here!" a loud, sneering voice said. "What do you have for me this month?"
It was Visser Three.