Chapter Eleven:
I slunk into my house at around four o'clock. The crash had been at two, and then we had spent two hours flying home. I seriously needed to do something normal. It was still Saturday, and my dad was watching a TV special about quantum physics. He was completely engrossed. My dad is a scientist, and stuff like that utterly fascinates him. He'd probably get along really well with Ax.
I dropped onto the couch beside him, breaking him from his reverie.
"Hi, Dad."
"Oh, hi, Marco! Where've you been all day?"
"Hanging out with Jake," I said. "The usual, you know."
"Really? You two off overturning buses again?"
I shot him a look. His guess was scarily accurate. Was the man a Controller? Could he possibly -
Sheesh, Marco, get a grip. I remembered the old joke Dad and I had about how I was in a gang. I guess it was funny. I'd come home late, and he'd accuse me of going out on a graffiti run with Jake.
"Yeah," I said, forcing a smile. "You know us. Hooligans to the core."
"Mm-hm." He stared at the TV, his eyes bulging a little. All of a sudden, he jumped up, and started yelling at the screen. "What! What are you talking about? Don't you people read scientific journals? Haven't you ever heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?"
Some guys' dads yell at their favorite team. My dad yells at Quantum Physics specials.
Hey, it's more normal than the rest of my life.
I had trouble sleeping, that night. My dreams were all about cars slamming into stationary objects, and about the stomach-churning sound of that lifeline we call the spine snapping like a used toothpick. About my friends sitting on clouds with harps, and then turning into Hork-Bajir and cutting themselves into pieces. The scary thing is, that that was fairly tame compared to other dreams I've had.
Around one in the morning, the phone rang. Ever since this war began, I've kept the phone right by my bed. We always tend to have emergencies just as I'm dropping off into real sleep.
I grabbed the handset. "Yes, I'd like one large pepperoni pizza," I mumbled.
"Marco, are you awake?"
"Yeah, Jake. Of course I am. What kind of freak would be asleep at one AM?" He didn't say a word. When Jake gets quiet, it's a bad sign. "What's up? Besides us, I mean."
"I was just thinking about Cassie, and I can't sleep. I've got to talk to somebody." He affected the voice of somebody deep in like - which should have been easy for him, considering. Still, he wasn't calling me because of a crush. Something had happened.
"Jake, when I'm in love and awake, I find it helps to knock your head against the wall thirty times or so." That, for all of you who aren't CIA code-breakers, meant I'd be at the barn in thirty minutes.
"But I'm worried that might wake my parents up, and then I'd have to explain the cracks in the wall," he said. "How about I make it fifteen and try to think about basketball instead?" Translated: Be at the basketball court in fifteen minutes.
"Yeah," I said. "That's good, too. Let me know how it works."
"Will do." He hung up.
I stretched, half-eager to leave my ugly dreams. I opened the window, feeling the rush of warm night air against my face, and glanced down at the street below. Empty. Good.
I stripped down to the spandex that I wear pretty much constantly. I focused on the bird DNA inside me. Twelve minutes later, I was at the basketball court, demorphing.
"You made good time," Jake said.
"A call from our fearless leader demands instant action," I said, my voice bouncing off the smooth floor of the court. We were at the indoor basketball court at an old exercise center Jake and I used to play one-on- one in. This wasn't exactly a standard meeting place - something must have really been up with Cassie if we couldn't meet in the barn.
"Okay, so. What's the deal?" I demanded. "I take it you didn't ask me here out of a fit of nostalgia."
He shook his head. "I talked to Ax after we all split up. The fact that there was no Yeerk in Cassie's Hork-Bajir brain says nothing."
"Uh-huh," I said. "Figured that was too good to be true. Go on, tell me why not."
"According to Ax, a morph is formed from DNA only. If she is infested, the Yeerk would be wrapped around her brain in Z-space, not the morph copy's brain."
I crossed my arms in disgust. "So you just let her walk away from there? Great, thanks. We'll be Controllers by morning."
"Give me a little credit, Marco. She's been under constant surveillance since the crash. On the spur of the moment, Rachel decided it was time for the two of them to spend an afternoon at the mall. When they got back to Cassie's house, Tobias suddenly got tired of sleeping in a tree, and he's been in her room all night. So far, she hasn't done anything."
"So, when do we take her up to the shack?" The shack was an old, abandoned building way out in the woods. When Jake had been a Controller, we kept him there for three days - long enough to starve the Yeerk out of his brain.
"We're going to give her tonight to try and contact the Yeerks," he said. "We'll take her up first thing tomorrow morning."
"Why the wait?"
"A couple reasons," he said. "First, if she does try anything, we'll know for sure whether or not she's a Controller. Right now, all we have is suspicion. Second, the longer she's free before we tip our hand, the shorter the time we'll have to hold her."
I nodded. That made sense. But did it make enough sense to risk exposing us? "Are you sure about this, Big Jake?"
Something about the emptiness of the court made the look he gave me just that much more creepy. In his eyes, I saw fear, self-doubt, guilt, anxiety, frustration, anger, hatred, and confusion. What he said was, "Yeah, Marco. I'm sure."
I slunk into my house at around four o'clock. The crash had been at two, and then we had spent two hours flying home. I seriously needed to do something normal. It was still Saturday, and my dad was watching a TV special about quantum physics. He was completely engrossed. My dad is a scientist, and stuff like that utterly fascinates him. He'd probably get along really well with Ax.
I dropped onto the couch beside him, breaking him from his reverie.
"Hi, Dad."
"Oh, hi, Marco! Where've you been all day?"
"Hanging out with Jake," I said. "The usual, you know."
"Really? You two off overturning buses again?"
I shot him a look. His guess was scarily accurate. Was the man a Controller? Could he possibly -
Sheesh, Marco, get a grip. I remembered the old joke Dad and I had about how I was in a gang. I guess it was funny. I'd come home late, and he'd accuse me of going out on a graffiti run with Jake.
"Yeah," I said, forcing a smile. "You know us. Hooligans to the core."
"Mm-hm." He stared at the TV, his eyes bulging a little. All of a sudden, he jumped up, and started yelling at the screen. "What! What are you talking about? Don't you people read scientific journals? Haven't you ever heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?"
Some guys' dads yell at their favorite team. My dad yells at Quantum Physics specials.
Hey, it's more normal than the rest of my life.
I had trouble sleeping, that night. My dreams were all about cars slamming into stationary objects, and about the stomach-churning sound of that lifeline we call the spine snapping like a used toothpick. About my friends sitting on clouds with harps, and then turning into Hork-Bajir and cutting themselves into pieces. The scary thing is, that that was fairly tame compared to other dreams I've had.
Around one in the morning, the phone rang. Ever since this war began, I've kept the phone right by my bed. We always tend to have emergencies just as I'm dropping off into real sleep.
I grabbed the handset. "Yes, I'd like one large pepperoni pizza," I mumbled.
"Marco, are you awake?"
"Yeah, Jake. Of course I am. What kind of freak would be asleep at one AM?" He didn't say a word. When Jake gets quiet, it's a bad sign. "What's up? Besides us, I mean."
"I was just thinking about Cassie, and I can't sleep. I've got to talk to somebody." He affected the voice of somebody deep in like - which should have been easy for him, considering. Still, he wasn't calling me because of a crush. Something had happened.
"Jake, when I'm in love and awake, I find it helps to knock your head against the wall thirty times or so." That, for all of you who aren't CIA code-breakers, meant I'd be at the barn in thirty minutes.
"But I'm worried that might wake my parents up, and then I'd have to explain the cracks in the wall," he said. "How about I make it fifteen and try to think about basketball instead?" Translated: Be at the basketball court in fifteen minutes.
"Yeah," I said. "That's good, too. Let me know how it works."
"Will do." He hung up.
I stretched, half-eager to leave my ugly dreams. I opened the window, feeling the rush of warm night air against my face, and glanced down at the street below. Empty. Good.
I stripped down to the spandex that I wear pretty much constantly. I focused on the bird DNA inside me. Twelve minutes later, I was at the basketball court, demorphing.
"You made good time," Jake said.
"A call from our fearless leader demands instant action," I said, my voice bouncing off the smooth floor of the court. We were at the indoor basketball court at an old exercise center Jake and I used to play one-on- one in. This wasn't exactly a standard meeting place - something must have really been up with Cassie if we couldn't meet in the barn.
"Okay, so. What's the deal?" I demanded. "I take it you didn't ask me here out of a fit of nostalgia."
He shook his head. "I talked to Ax after we all split up. The fact that there was no Yeerk in Cassie's Hork-Bajir brain says nothing."
"Uh-huh," I said. "Figured that was too good to be true. Go on, tell me why not."
"According to Ax, a morph is formed from DNA only. If she is infested, the Yeerk would be wrapped around her brain in Z-space, not the morph copy's brain."
I crossed my arms in disgust. "So you just let her walk away from there? Great, thanks. We'll be Controllers by morning."
"Give me a little credit, Marco. She's been under constant surveillance since the crash. On the spur of the moment, Rachel decided it was time for the two of them to spend an afternoon at the mall. When they got back to Cassie's house, Tobias suddenly got tired of sleeping in a tree, and he's been in her room all night. So far, she hasn't done anything."
"So, when do we take her up to the shack?" The shack was an old, abandoned building way out in the woods. When Jake had been a Controller, we kept him there for three days - long enough to starve the Yeerk out of his brain.
"We're going to give her tonight to try and contact the Yeerks," he said. "We'll take her up first thing tomorrow morning."
"Why the wait?"
"A couple reasons," he said. "First, if she does try anything, we'll know for sure whether or not she's a Controller. Right now, all we have is suspicion. Second, the longer she's free before we tip our hand, the shorter the time we'll have to hold her."
I nodded. That made sense. But did it make enough sense to risk exposing us? "Are you sure about this, Big Jake?"
Something about the emptiness of the court made the look he gave me just that much more creepy. In his eyes, I saw fear, self-doubt, guilt, anxiety, frustration, anger, hatred, and confusion. What he said was, "Yeah, Marco. I'm sure."