(YrkH8er is a Controller, right?) Tobias asked, almost sounding like it was a rhetorical question. (I mean, that's what he acts like: like a Controller trying to pass himself off as an enemy of the Yeerks.)

"Not necessarily," Shara said, turning to look at where Tobias had landed, ten fee above their heads. "According to Hanlon's Razor, he could just be incredibly mistaken, and too overconfident or insecure to admit it."

"YrkH8er is someone named Edward Cheltingham," Cassie said, tilting her head slightly back and forth as if she wasn't entirely sure what to think. "What was he, thirty years old? But, you know what? I looked in the phone book this morning, and there was no Edward Cheltingham. There were only two people with that name listed, and both of them were female."

"So? He must have an unlisted phone number," Rachel said.

"Maybe so," Cassie allowed. "Or, maybe Edward Cheltingham is as phony a name as YrkH8er. Isn't it possible to get a fake ID and a credit card in some name and then open up a WAA account?"

"Let's not borrow trouble we don't need," Shara said calmly, even as Jake mentally berated himself for not having thought of something like that.

It was entirely possible for someone to do something like that, and the only one out of any of them who'd even bothered to consider the possibility was Cassie. Feeling someone gently bump his right arm, Jake looked over to see Shara giving him a solemn look. Smiling slightly at the other girl's concern, Jake took a breath and let it out slowly.

She was right: it was done, it had happened; what he had to do now was look to the future, and the mission they were all undertaking.

"We have an address for him. We could check that out," Cassie said, then she gave Jake a significant look. "We also have an address for Gump."

"Gump isn't the point, here," Marco said firmly. "Fenestre is the man at the middle of all this. He's the main man. We figure out what's up with him, we figure everything out."

"Maybe," Cassie said, not sounding particularly convinced. "But, he can wait. Gump may be in trouble right now."

"Look, Cassie, it's Sunday now," Marco said, clearly trying to be patient even though he was starting to look a bit annoyed. "If we go after Fenestre, it's probably going to take some time. Which means a weekend, which means today. We can go check out Gump anytime we want. Monday, Tuesday; any day of the week."

"Unless Monday is already too late," Cassie said. "Unless later today that scared little kid talks to his dad, and his dad is a Controller, and that's it for Gump. Then Gump does a disappearing act, or else ends up as the new host to some low-level Yeerk."

When Cassie and Marco both looked to him, both of them clearly expecting him to take a side, Jake had to fight down the urge to either fidget or sigh. Shara subtly nudged him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and then Jake had to suppress a smile. None of the others would have understood it, but he was glad for the support all the same. Still, this was a decision that only he could really make.

"Marco, did you happen to do any research on Fenestre's mansion?" Jake asked, subtly nudging Shara in the same way she'd done for him; letting her know that he acknowledged her support and was grateful for it.

"No," Marco said, with a shake of his head. "I thought you were going to do it."

"I kind of got held up," and this time, Jake did sigh, just a bit. "Big family thing."

"It's supposed to have massive security," Marco said, with a brief, hard look at Jake. "Lost of computerized stuff. But that shouldn't be much of a problem for any of us. I mean, security is designed to keep out humans, right? Not animals."

Nodding, hoping that Marco had his facts straight but still feeling a twinge of uneasiness all the same, Jake committed himself to this task. Marco was right: Fenestre was the centerpoint, the lynchpin of this whole thing. If they found out what was going on with him, then they could find out what was really going on with that website about the Yeerks.

"Cassie," he said, turning to give his fellow Animorph a reassuring look. "First thing after school tomorrow, we'll check up on Gump."

Cassie nodded, but the look on her face was bitter. "I hope that's going to be soon enough."

"Yeah, me too. Okay," he said, rubbing his hands together, winking at Rachel in a cocky sort of way, and putting on the "game face" that he had developed for just these sorts of missions. "Let's do it, then. Let's go see how the superrich live. Bird morphs, everybody. This is going to be a long trip."

As he saw the others turning away from each other, so no one was in anyone else's direct line of sight, Jake noticed for the first time that Slade wasn't bothering with that. Of course it was possible, given what Slade was now, that seeing people morphing in front of him didn't affect Slade the same way as it did a normal person.

Shaking his head briefly as he turned his attention to his own morph, Jake focused on the falcon that he was becoming. The unease that he'd been feeling was still just as strong as it had ever been, but that was probably just because he'd never lead the others on a mission quite this big, before. Even going into the Yeerk Pool those times they'd done it usually involved their battle morphs.

This was going to be different, they weren't going to be going into this man's house looking for a fight; they might find one, considering all the missions that had ended up in battle, but they weren't going in looking for it. That changed the equation, so that was probably why he was feeling a bit unsettled at the moment. Nothing to worry about; just jitters.

(Are you doing all right?) Cassie asked, and when he looked over at her he found that all of the others had finished morphing while he'd been thinking.

(I'm fine,) he said, shuffling aside the uneasiness that he'd found the source of and hence didn't have to worry about. (Just got a little lost in thought. Let's get going.)

There was a short round of affirmatives, during which Jake could still feel Cassie's eyes on him, but he put that out of his mind as well, concentrating on his takeoff so he could join up with the others in the air.

It might not have been one of the longest flights they'd ever taken, with no real way to keep track of time he didn't have a way to measure them against each other – and no real interest in doing so, besides – but it was certainly among one of the most enjoyable. There were massive thermals on their way to Fenestre's mansion, so he and the others were able to thermal-surf on their way there. It was a great experience, and even with him having to block out input from the instincts of the falcon he'd morphed, Jake loved the feel of the air under his wings.

Whatever else happened in this life he had now, Jake knew that he would always love flying.

As they all continued on their way, the eight of them flying at various heights and distances so it wouldn't look like they were all together – since birds like them didn't flock together, and some of them even competed for food and territory – Jake began to see the Fenestre mansion coming into view.

It was huge; more on the order of a junior college or a shopping center than someplace that someone might actually live. There were at least a dozen separate buildings that Jake could pick out from his position: a pair of guest houses that were each larger than his own, a pool house with changing-rooms and a bar that extended out to the pool itself, the pool in the shape of the WAA logo, a boathouse down on the riverfront with a sleek speedboat docked alongside, a stable big enough to house a good-sized herd of horses, what he thought looked like an observatory, a green house practically bursting with healthy-looking lettuce and herbs and entire orange trees, a garage that looked easily big enough to store thirty or forty cars, a security building with armed guards next to a driveway a quarter-mile long, and finally, up on a hill and surrounded by a lawn that could have easily hosted the Superbowl, was Fenestre's mansion.

(This guy definitely knows how to live,) Marco said, after a few moments of silence as they had all taken the scene in. (Someday, that'll be me.)

(Who'll be you?) Rachel asked, in a tone that was just slightly too sweet. (The guy mowing the lawn down there?)