Chapter 11-Marco
I'm telling you, if we could go back to Earth somehow, we could make big money. I was talking to everyone. That basically consisted of me, Jake, Tobias, Rachel, Ax, and Elfangor. We could say that heaven's a farce, and people would listen to us. After all, we saved the Earth. We'd ruin the major religions of the world!
Shut up, Marco, Rachel said.
Does Marco always talk incoherently about such subjects? Elfangor wondered. Tobias laughed.
Incoherently? Excuse me? What I am saying makes perfect sense, I answered defensively.
Marco, if the three major religions in the world were disproved at the same time, you'd probably create many problems. Jake, of course. Being the responsible one. As well as incurring the wrath of the leaders of all the religions. You'd become terrorist target number one.
Fine, whatever. It was only a fleeting idea of another way to get rich quick. I went back to watching Cassie dig holes in the ground.
Marco, in case you haven't noticed, we're dead, Rachel said. Your ideas to get rich quick are stupid. We can't make money unless we're alive.
Really? I didn't realize that before. Sorry, I replied sarcastically. I wasn't in the greatest mood.
The afterlife wasn't the same as I thought it would be. I thought I'd be going to a place where angels sing and everyone is one big happy family. There would be lots of fun and games, and everyday would be a big party. I'd be friends with God. I would be the biggest celebrity the heavenly guys had ever seen.
I had been wrongfully misled by my Sunday school teachers. That heaven was one nice fairy tale. We could see everything going on in the real world. But there were no bodies. We were like ghosts, except live people couldn't see us, and we couldn't talk to them.
We had seen Cassie go to Jake's parents and my parents. She went to tell them that their superhero children wouldn't be coming back.
My mom seemed to accept the news. She had been Visser One, so she knew a lot more about aliens and weird things. My dad had a look of blankness on is face, but I knew he was trying very hard to hold back tears.
I wanted to go down and say that I'm fine. That I could still watch over them, that I was alive in some sense. If the Sunday school heaven existed, I could have sent down an angel to comfort my parents. In reality, I could only watch them suffer.
Jake's parents were in utter disbelief. They refused to hear a word Cassie said for a long time. Eventually, they grasped the fact that Jake, the Yeerk-Killer, the biggest hero the world had, was not coming back.
We all watched that. It was definitely not something that cheered us up. Jake didn't talk for a little bit. I guess it shook him up badly to see his parents like that.
I felt for Jake's parents. They had lost both children in the war with the Yeerks. Tom was killed by Rachel during the final battle. Jake, well they had lost him even before he had died.
Before the war, Jake was your average high school kid. He liked talking about video games, comics, and girls. We went to the mall and hung out. All normal stuff. When the war started, he aged. Jake became this very responsible person. He was like one of those famous generals from history class-Patton, Eisenhower-he was a leader. He never wanted to be the leader. But he acted like it. Probably because he was more mature than the rest of us.
Jake's parents couldn't detect the change. But for three years, he transformed from a person everyone knew and loved into a person only we were familiar with.
After the war, Jake became a person no one knew about. He was a mystery, a person who shielded himself from the world. His daily routine would be hanging out at his parent's house, and then driving to Rachel's memorial in the evening, as the sun set. He didn't speak with anyone. Any time I saw him, he looked fazed out, like he was there but he was concentrating on something else. Sometimes, he sounded like the Jake of the old days. But there was something in his tired voice that told you he just wasn't in step with life. He was constantly behind.
I knew he blamed himself for Rachel's death. At the trial of Visser One, Cassie and I were able to shake himself out of his depressed mood. We couldn't have him screwing up while he was testifying.
Jake finally bought himself a house and got a job. He became more like the Jake I had been best friends with since we were little babies. But I knew that he thrived in the war, and he would never be the same.
Jake's parents saw their son and thought they saw the Jake they had known. But he had changed completely. He was a lost soul, someone who had been changed forever. Now that he was dead, his parents would never see the true Jake again.
I was never the most emotional of our little group. It's because whenever I made a plan, it was to get from point A to B, no matter what the consequences. I had to add the moral and emotional factors in after that.
Of course I was sad for Jake's parents. But they should realize that their children were gone, and they would never see them again. Life's not fair. What else could I say?
What is Cassie doing? Ax asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I do not see the point of removing dirt from the surface of the ground. We did not hide anything there, did we?
It is near the area where David found the morphing cube, Tobias said, but we got that a long time ago. Cassie has that now, and we never went back to the construction site.
Maybe she's looking for a hidden treasure, I suggested helpfully. You know, one of those maps that-
Marco, speak only if you're going to be helpful, Rachel snapped.
Boy, aren't we sensitive, I muttered.
What is she digging for? Tobias asked.
I know why she is digging.
If we had eyes, we'd all be staring at Elfangor.
A long time ago, I ran away from the war between my people and the Yeerks. I became a nothlit, trapped in human morph. I married Loren, and we had a son. Tobias.
Everyone was silent. We knew all of this already. There was probably something the Ellimist hadn't told us. Not that he ever told us anything that was ever of any use.
But I hid something when I came to Earth. It is the most powerful weapon ever created. You can use it to go back in time, and change the past. Of course, that would change the course of the future.
The Time Matrix, Jake whispered.
The Time Matrix was a deadly weapon. In one of our missions, a Yeerk whose rank was Visser Four had gone into the past and altered time. We managed to catch up to him and kill Visser Four. We also had to eliminate the human host to Visser Four.
Not kill him. We had to use the Time Matrix to make sure his parents never met.
So he was never born.
So he never existed.
It was a ruthless thing to do. But we
had to do. That way, Visser Four would never find the Time Matrix, and time would
remain the same.
At the time, I was a lowly aristh, and I felt I should not have control over such an deadly weapon, Elfangor continued. So I buried it in a patch of woods just before I morphed to human.
That forest…it became the site of a construction, I said.
Hey! Using his excellent deducing skills, Marco actually figured out something! Rachel supplied.
Yeah, I always worked extra-hard on my deduction skills, I replied sardonically.
Correct. And when I crash-landed that night, I picked that site because it was near the Time Matrix. If I hadn't been mortally wounded, I might have been able to save myself. Elfangor droned on, completely ignoring the interruption.
So how does Cassie know it's here? Rachel demanded.
She probably doesn't, Elfangor replied. I wonder how she was able to locate it. Unless…unless the Ellimist showed her. That is a distinct possibility.
The Ellimist?! I asked, surprised. Wouldn't that break the rules of his little game with Crayak?
The Ellimist can find ways to bend the rules of his war with Crayak. I am sure that Crayak would not have allowed the Ellimist to restore me in my Andalite form. Even though there are rules, the Ellimist breaks them often, as does Crayak. They are there just for the sake of it.
Did you bury it deep? Jake questioned.
No, Elfangor responded. I dug a hole big enough, and rolled the Time Matrix into it. She should have found it by now, though. Why hasn't she been able to?
Probably because some sediment has been placed on top since, which would push that layer of soil down, I said.
Nobody said anything.
Hey guys, I still remember some stuff they taught in earth science, I said, annoyed. They thought I was an airhead. Plus, when they started construction, they may have piled tons of dirt on top.
Possibly. That is a plausible explanation, Ax said. I guess we will have to wait and see what she discovers.
We already have plenty of time to watch, I whined. Isn't there anything we could do?
Nope, Rachel said. You guys had it better. I had to wait three years until I could talk to you again. A few days is nothing.
I would have traded my foot for a book to read. But then again, I didn't have a foot. Fine, I'll watch, I said grumpily. What a waste of time.