CHAPTER THREE: MARCO

I regretted my big mouth pretty quickly, but by then it was too late. Jake and the others had already agreed that we needed to act fast, which was why we met back up that night as soon as we could sneak-out and headed straight for the beach. What a way to start the week.

It was dark by the time we got there, with a sliver of moon edging the waves in a sharp silver glow that probably would have made for great atmospheric lighting in a movie just before the calm of the night was broken by a giant shark attack. The breeze blowing off the water tasted like salt and tossed my hair into my eyes. I scowled and pushed it away.

Ordinarily I like the beach. There's always stuff to do, and stuff to see (including hot babes in skimpy swimsuits, which was a plus in my book, although the hairy old dudes also wearing skimpy swimsuits were a big negative). What we were looking for tonight, though, wasn't something I really wanted to find. I was hoping this would all turn out to be a hoax, the sort of crazy alien-chasing nonsense that Tobias's mom was always obsessing over.

I didn't know how to account for the weird semi-dream thing we'd all experienced back at Rachel's house. Some kind of shared hallucination, maybe brought-on by trauma and stress. That wouldn't be a great sign for our collective mental health, but it would be better than actually finding something.

Because if we found something, the odds were good that the Yeerks would too.

"I just want it on record that wandering around on a beach that we know is likely to be infested with Controllers is a bad idea," I said.

Jake glanced at me and even as dark as it was I could see that he looked amused. "Wasn't it you telling us we didn't have any time to lose just a few hours ago?" he said.

I scowled at my traitorous best friend. "That still doesn't make it a good idea," I said.

"Marco's just confused because he's never had a good idea before," Rachel said sweetly. She fluttered her eyelashes at me. "He doesn't know how to cope."

I raised my eyebrows. "I also want that on record," I said, and pointed at her. "Rachel just admitted I had a good idea."

Rachel scowled. "One," she reiterated. "One good idea. Probably by accident."

I smirked. "Don't be a sore loser," I said.

"Who lost?" Rachel snorted. "This is exactly what I wanted us to do."

It was my turn to scowl. I didn't have a clever comeback for that, so I said nothing. We kept walking, heading down from the dunes to the surf. I felt the edge of a wave lap at my bare toes. For a while nobody said anything. I tried to pretend that we were just five normal kids, out for a late night walk on the beach.

Too bad my eyes didn't want to cooperate. They kept darting around, looking for more wreckage from an Andalite ship. I wished I had any sort of idea what we'd do if we actually found some.

"So, Cassie?" Rachel said after a while. "Do you feel anything?"

"Well, I feel a little embarrassed," Cassie admitted. "And a little foolish."

I seized on that right away. "Maybe we could try calling the Psychic Friends," I suggested sarcastically. If I could convince everybody that this was all a bunch of bull, we could all go home. "Hi, is this Psychic Friends?" I continued, pitching my voice up. I realized belatedly that I was trying to mimic Tobias's mom, since she was the number one subject for all jokes about crazy people in our school, but I didn't let the faint flash of guilt I felt stop me. "I've been dreaming about aliens lately-"

"Why Cassie and Tobias?" Rachel wondered aloud, ignoring me. Jerk. "Why'd they get the dreams before the rest of us? And why was Cassie the only one who really heard the voice?"

"Because crazy doesn't fall far from the tree?" I ventured, casting a sidelong look at Tobias.

He rounded on me with a scowl, but before he could summon the guts to actually say something (ha! As if!) Jake shook his head and said, "I don't know. I mean, okay, say you're an Andalite. And you want to call for help. Who do you want to come and rescue you? Other Andalites, obviously."

"Tobias isn't an Andalite, and neither am I," Cassie pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. Score one for the powers of observation, I thought snidely.

"I know," Jake said. "But maybe this communication, whatever it is, is tied into the ability to morph. You know, like morphing ability makes you able to 'hear' it. That way, only Andalites would be able to receive the call for help."

"Which still doesn't explain why Tobias and I got the dreams first. Or why I was the one who-"

"Maybe it does," I interrupted before I could stop myself. "Look, Cassie, you're the one with the most talent for morphing, right? And Tobias…" I sighed, but made myself say it like I was being serious, not poking fun: "Tobias's mom believed in Andalites years before the rest of us. He grew up surrounded by paintings of them. Maybe that made him more receptive. Maybe…" I didn't want to say it, but I sighed again and pushed the words out: "Maybe we were all kind of low-key having the dreams, but didn't really pay attention. Maybe Tobias was better than the rest of us at not ignoring stuff just because it seemed crazy." That was a little too much seriousness for me, though, so I grinned and added mockingly, "And Cassie, you know you like animals more than humans, so it's like you're halfway into morph, anyway."

"Ha ha," Cassie said, but she didn't argue with. How could she? I was right.

"I don't know," Tobias muttered. "I've kind of developed a talent for ignoring stuff that I thought was crazy."

"Well you're also the one the Andalite shared all that extra stuff with at the end," I retorted sharply. I don't like self-pity, even in other people, and Tobias's mopey tone put my hackles up. "Maybe it left an impression in your brain. Like an echo."

"That actually makes sense," Rachel said.

"Your shock wounds me," I said.

Rachel's teeth flashed silver in the moonlight as she grinned.

"Rachel's right," Jake said. He sounded like he was thinking hard, harder than the subject deserved in my opinion. "But I wonder, if the message is tied to morphing and thought-speak, does that mean…?"

I felt a chill even without Jake finishing his thought, which he couldn't, because all of a sudden Tobias said, "Are those lights?"

We all glanced where he was pointing, up at a tall dune. There did seem to be more of a glow around it than there was over the rest of the dark beach.

"Who is it?" Cassie whispered. "Controllers?"

"We can't take the risk," Jake snapped. "We need to hide."

I looked at the ocean behind us, and wished we'd thought to acquire some sea-dwelling morphs before coming down here. Instead, we ran into the dunes as well, heading away from the lights. We crouched down in the cold sand, huddling together like a bunch of baby turtles under the swooping beaks of hungry gulls. I squirmed forward until I could peer through some tall sea grass, but all I could see was the silver line of the surf.

"We need to morph," Jake said.

"Into what?" I retorted.

Jake thought about it. "None of our bird morphs are nocturnal, but that wouldn't stop us flying out of here. On the other hand…"

I groaned.

"If they are Controllers, we ought to try and hear what they're up to. And if they aren't…" Jake was crouched close enough to me that I could feel his arm brush mine when he shrugged. "Well, it would be dumb to get chased-away by a couple of teenagers looking for somewhere to sneak a beer."

"Fluffer McKitty?" Rachel said. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally bright in the faint moonlight and I groaned again.

"We can't have five identical cats running around," I pointed-out. "That would look a little suspicious."

"Only if they see us," Rachel retorted. I realized that her eyes weren't glowing just because she was a deranged adrenaline-junkie looking at a chance to get herself killed; she'd already started to morph into her friend Melissa's cat.

"Marco's right," Jake said, "five cats is too risky. Rachel, you and I will go scout-"

"I can morph Tobias's cat," Cassie suggested. "Two cats who look alike and one that doesn't will look less suspicious than two alone that do."

"Fine," Jake said. He pulled his tee-shirt over his head and shoved it at me. "Marco, Tobias, you two stay here with our clothes. And keep your heads down."

"I wasn't planning on doing chorus line kicks," I quipped sourly.

"I could turn into the hawk," Tobias ventured. "Get an aerial look at things…"

"No," Jake said. His voice was short. He was already shrinking, sprouting fur. "Our bird morphs don't see that well at night, there's no point. Stay here with Marco. This won't take long."

"Yes dear," I said, saccharine-sweet. "Shall we have dinner on when you get back?"

Jake gave me a sharp-toothed, feline grin. "Sounds grrrreat," he said, disappearing into the puddle of his jeans as he continued to drop in size towards that of a feisty house cat.

I couldn't tell if he was trying to sound like Tony the Tiger or if the morph had just caught-up to his mouth mid-word. That annoyed me, and I frowned, but before I could comment I heard Rachel in my head saying, Hurry up! They're getting closer - can't you hear them?

Tobias fished Jake out of his jeans and he went bounding-off into the dunes after the girls.

"This sucks," I muttered. Tobias nodded his agreement, which didn't actually make me feel any better.

We gathered the others' discarded clothes and hunkered down in the sand to wait.

After a few minutes, Cassie took pity on us and sent a thought-speak update back to us: Yeah, they're from the Sharing. Chapman is with them.

So's Tom, said Rachel.

Jake didn't say anything. I winced.

They sound worried. Tom and Chapman, Cassie explained. I don't know if they're all Controllers, but the ones in charge definitely are. They're kind of trailing behind the others. They sound very worried about that fragment of Andalite ship that old man found.

"Score one for your mom's new boyfriend," I muttered to Tobias.

"Shut-up," he mumbled.

I smirked, but the others were still talking so I didn't say anything else.

They're really worried about…

Cassie's thought-speak voice trailed away. It was Jake who finally took-up the thread, saying, Visser Three has been having visions too. Just like us. It's gotta be because of the morphing.

It's made him cranky, said Rachel. She sounded like she was relishing each word. Chapman says he shoved a Hork-Bajir right out the airlock because he broke the Visser's concentration.

That's horrible, that - what are they doing now?

I don't...they found something, but I can't tell-oh no.

"Jake, buddy, what is it?" I whispered, even though I knew there was no way he could hear me.

Our footprints! It was Cassie who answered, her voice a wail. Five fresh sets of footprints that suddenly turn off into the dunes!

Tobias, Marco, get out of there! Rachel thought-yelled.

Tobias jerked up to run immediately but I pulled him back down. "No," I hissed, "we gotta do something about these tracks!" I started scraping at the sand with my hands. "If they follow them up here and see three sets turn into cat-paws-"

"They'll know we're human," Tobias whispered. I didn't think it was just the moonlight making him look pale. He grabbed the bundle of clothes and used the leg of someone's jeans like a broom, brushing at the sand. It was too wet and clumpy to be easily smoothed away, and meantime I could see the bounce of a dozen flashlight beams coming our way.

Get out of there! Jake shouted. What are you waiting for?

"Just saving everybody's hides," I muttered, and gave up. "Come on, that's as good as it's getting, we gotta go." I grabbed Tobias's wrist and yanked him to his feet.

He came, still clutching the pile of clothes, and scraped his foot across the mess of sand as I pulled him away. Hopefully it would be enough to hide our tracks.

We were too slow: suddenly there was light in my eyes, bright and blinding.

I yelped; Tobias yanked me down and we slithered down the side of a dune. Then we jumped up and ran.

"Get them!" someone yelled. Chapman, I think. He's our assistant principal at school. I knew his voice from hearing him yell at me way, way too often in the hallways.

Jerky, wild beams of light danced all around us. Tobias and I ducked and ran as fast as we could. But running across the sand was like running through quicksand, only without the side benefit of a convenient goopy pit that might be able to hide us.

I had no idea where the others were. They shouted what I'm sure they thought was helpful advice, but Tobias and I were already running as fast as we could and comments like No, not that way! and Your other left, Marco, you idiot! were not as helpful as the cat-shaped-Animorphs shouting them seemed to think they were.

Double around! Jake yelled. If they follow you deeper into the dunes, you can double around, get to the water…

"What good...will that...do?" I gasped in a whisper, less because I was afraid of the Controllers hearing me than because I didn't have enough breath to speak any louder.

"No footprints...under water," Tobias panted. "We can morph…"

"Into what?" I yelped, wheezing. I don't think gorillas were known for being great swimmers, and while osprey hunted fish, I also didn't think it would be a lot of fun to turn into a bird underwater and then try to fly away, even a bird that liked diving for a meal.

I tried not to think about the fact that I, Marco the human boy, could not really swim either. I tried not to think about the fact that my mom had drowned, and now I was running towards water that was almost too dark to see. I told myself that this was totally different than what happened to her, and I was going to figure out a good morph to use, and everything was going to be fine.

I wish I was as good at lying to myself as I am at lying to other people.

"There! There! I see them!"

A beam of light swept over me. I could see my shadow, long and twisted, projected on the sand. I dodged left, out of the light. Just in time.

BAM! BAM!

Gunfire! Some maniac was shooting at me!

I didn't have time to get too outraged, because I'd made a mistake when I was trying to get out of the light: I'd dodged right in front of Tobias, and he'd plowed into me.

We went down in a tangle of legs, arms, sand, loose clothes, and salty water. We'd found the surf again.

And the Controllers were still shooting at us.

They hadn't managed to highlight us with their flashlights again, so all the shots went wide, but it was still insane. Not that this was the first time I'd had evil alien slugs shooting guns at me, but familiarity wasn't enough to make this anything but crazy. I wondered if I'd ever get used to it.

I had a terrible sinking feeling that I would.

I pushed that away, and pushed away Tobias's flailing arms, and pushed myself up to my knees. Someone's wet t-shirt was tangled around my wrist like a jellyfish. I yanked it off and spat out a mouthful of salty water.

Morph! Jake shouted at me. Get deeper in the water and morph before they see you!

I'll distract them! Rachel yelled, because of course she did.

Rachel, no! Jake shouted, but I didn't have time to listen to the Berenson cousins argue right now. I concentrated on - the gorilla? The osprey? Melissa's cat? None of them seemed like a great choice for escaping into the ocean, but I didn't have any other options.

Tobias was already changing, even as the two of us scrambled forward into the boiling surf. I glanced over and saw fluffy ears sprout from his untidy nest of blonde hair and grimaced, deciding I might as well follow his lead since I didn't have any better ideas. Cats might not like water, but a gorilla was too big to be stealthy and water just seemed like a bad place for a bird to be, even a bird who liked to eat fish.

I was too far into my morph of Fluffer McKitty, the cat with the stupidest name in the country, before I realized that Tobias wasn't morphing the same thing. While I'd already shrunken to the size of a small toddler - if toddlers commonly boasted tails and retractable claws - he hadn't changed size much at all, just shape: he was far enough along in his morph that I could tell he was definitely becoming feline, but it was a much larger cat than Fluffer with lighter, solid-colored fur.

It took me a minute but then I remembered: Tobias had acquired a cougar for our trip down to the Yeerk Pool, even though he'd ended up using his red-tailed hawk morph instead.

A cougar was a way better choice than a house cat for swimming through a nighttime ocean with a side dish of bullets. Crap.

I managed to thrash my way out of my clothes before I could get pulled underwater by the weight of my jeans, but found that I'd lost touch with the sand beneath me in the process. Could house cats swim? I guess I was about to find out.

I heard somebody scream, then start swearing a lot. I had a feeling that was Rachel - not that she was the one screaming, of course, but that she'd been the one to cause the screaming. A few gunshots followed, but they didn't seem to be directed towards Tobias and I this time.

I focused on morphing faster anyway.

Water swamped over my head and I yowled as I bobbed back up into the air, the sound that of an angry cat rather than a frightened boy.

Suddenly there were strong jaws around my little sodden cat body, and I was lifted up out of the waves in - oh no.

Someone's mouth.

Tobias? I thought hopefully.

Don't squirm, he said. He sounded distracted. I don't want to bite too hard and hurt you, or too loose and drop you…

Yeah, thanks, I said weakly.

My front paws were crammed in against my body, squeezed by Tobias's powerful jaws. My hindquarters dangled free and teeth dug into the soft flesh of my belly hard enough to bruise, but not to break the skin. I had one of my rear paws hooked up along the edge of Tobias's mouth, holding me in place. The claws I was using to hang on with probably hurt where they dug into his skin, but he didn't complain.

I wondered if house cats were considered prey by cougars, or if my tiny body seemed enough like a cougar-kitten that Tobias's new feline instincts would want to protect me. I really, really hoped it was the latter but I didn't ask in case it was the former.

Some things you just don't want to know, you know?

Cats have great night-vision, but with my eyes squeezed closed against the pounding surf, I couldn't see much anyway. I could tell we were heading deeper into the water because suddenly the cougar started paddling instead of walking, and the waves lurched up around me again. Tobias kept his head out of it for the most part, which meant he kept me out of the worst of it too, but it still wasn't a pleasant way to travel.

I was pretty sure that being carried in the jaws of a big predator wouldn't have been pleasant even without the waves slapping against us, but they certainly didn't help.

We're okay.

Jake's voice in my head made me jump. Tobias growled and adjusted his grip. I felt a tooth dig into my shoulders, but didn't dare try and get more comfortable. Any injuries I got from his jaws would go away when I demorphed, but if Tobias dropped me now I'd probably drown. I wasn't in a great position and it was hard to resist the urge to move, but all I had to do to keep myself still was imagine what would happen if I fell.

The others had talked about being nearly overwhelmed with confidence when they'd morphed cats, but all I felt was fear. Fear and way, way too much water.

We got away into the dunes, Jake continued. They only saw Rachel, they think she was just some stray.

The one I attacked is grumbling about needing rabies shots now, Rachel crowed. Ha. Serves him right.

Are you two all right? Cassie asked us.

We're in the water, Tobias replied. I think they lost us.

"Where'd they go?" someone shouted, confirming Tobias's guess. I started to relax, but of course that didn't last long.

"The tracks lead right to the water." That was Tom's voice. I knew it well, from all the time I'd spent at Jake's house. Its sound ran up my damp kitty spine like nails on a blackboard.

"I don't see them." That was Chapman's voice, which in one way was worse than Tom's - because an assistant principal is never a good thing, even when they don't go around talking about decapitating part of the student body - and in one way better, because I was way less upset about the fact that my assistant principal had a slug in his head than I was by the fact that the Yeerks had gotten their slimy suckers on Jake's big brother.

"They can't swim far," Chapman continued coldly. "The current is too strong. Fan out up and down the beach."

Okay, just keep going, Jake told us. I wasn't sure if he could hear Tom and Chapman from wherever he was, and I didn't want to ask. Tom's kind of a sensitive subject with Jake, for obvious reasons. Keep the shore on your left and then demorph when you think you've gotten far enough away. We'll meet you guys in the parking lot where we left our shoes.

See you there, Tobias said. He sounded brave and cheerful, and I could totally tell he was faking.

I didn't call him out on it, though. Even I can be nice sometimes, and being carried away from danger in somebody else's mouth seemed like it should be one of those times.

I could still hear the Controllers, thanks to the sharp senses of the cat I'd morphed. They sounded like they'd given up on finding us, which was a relief. I still wasn't going to tell Tobias to head for shore anytime soon though, just in case.

"Do you think these are the Andalite guerillas?" Tom asked.

"No." Chapman sounded annoyed. "The tracks are human. Just two kids out here necking, probably. I doubt they saw anything. That fool should not have been shooting."

Necking? I thought, so outraged I yowled again. Fortunately I was pretty sure the pounding of the surf was too loud for the Controllers' dull human ears to hear my little cat cry. Maybe I should have been more upset by the fact that they'd been shooting at us, but I had higher priorities right now.

Then my priorities shifted when a new voice said, "Sir, we found a pair of jeans in the surf. Look like they could be for a kid."

"Any identification in them?"

"No. Nothing."

"Coincidence," Chapman said. "Probably."

A chill gripped me and made my wet hackles rise. The Controllers were getting hard to hear, even for my acute cat ears, as Tobias paddled away from the beach, and I almost told him to slow down so we could listen. If they figured out we weren't actually Andalites…

"If they're human, why don't we see them out there?" Tom asked. "Five sets of human prints go into the dunes, only two seem to come out. Now two sets of human tracks to the surf, no humans in the water. Is it possible...is Visser Three wrong? What if they're not Andalites at all?"

Oh no, Tobias whispered. Marco, what do we do?

One cougar with a half-drowned house cat sidekick wasn't going to be able to do much against an armed group. Even if we tried, what could we do? Kill them all before they could share our secret? Kill Tom?

Chapman laughed and I could feel my little kitty heart stutter in my soaking kitty chest.

Then he said, "Visser Three wrong? Maybe. But I'm not the fool who's going to try and tell him."

Nothing, I said, going limp with relief. Swim. Just keep swimming.