Cassie winced, knowing that she would never be able to explain their presence at this base without going into detail about things that couldn't be talked about with outsiders. And then there was the matter of the shoes, which couldn't be taken along on a morph, but would have been essential for crossing the broken terrain that lay in all directions between this base and the surrounding areas.
"Hey," the Lieutenant frowned deeply. "Wait a minute. It's a couple of miles back to the road. How'd you get all the way out here without shoes? For that matter, there hasn't been a car down that road all day. How'd you get out here at all?"
Sitting back up, Cassie looked to Rachel. Rachel and Slade both turned to Marco. Marco, with his affinity for fast-talk and for telling wild stories that no one would believe, grinned widely while the rest of the Animorphs, himself included, turned over and settled themselves comfortably in the sand. "It was the Martians, sir. We were dropped here by aliens."
The collective reaction of both the soldiers and the other Animorphs could be effectively summed up in one word: What?!
The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes. "I don't like being toyed with, son. Now, I'm going to ask you again: just how did you get all the way out here with no shoes and no sign of a car or other vehicle?"
Marco rolled his eyes with exaggerated impatience. In the tone of someone who was trying to convince a stubborn four-year-old that the sky was blue instead of green, Marco reiterated. "I already told you, dipstick, we were dropped here by a flying saucer."
Losing the last shreds of his patience, the Lieutenant clenched and unclenched his fists. "All right, all of you! Up! Now!" he snapped.
Their reaction was not what the Lieutenant had been hoping for, but it was pretty much what he had expected. The Hispanic kid who had been the last to speak just sat there, an irritating smirk already making its way back onto his face. The black girl and the blonde girl looked at each other, shrugged, and sat back against the rocks. But it was the tall, green-eyed boy with longish black hair that held the Lieutenant's attention. He was leaning back against the rocks like the others, but he was also glaring with open defiance at the soldiers still surrounding them, as if daring them to do anything. This one's going to be trouble, the Lieutenant thought.
Slade was trying to keep calm, he really was, but the fact that he was surrounded by enemies wasn't helping his efforts in the least. Everything he was screamed at him to stand up, to fight, but another instinct resisted the impulse. His allies were in a more vulnerable position than he was, and Slade knew that he had to protect them. I'll wait, he thought, with an especially hard glare at the obvious leader. But this isn't over, count on it.
"All right you kids, enough stalling," the Lieutenant said, deciding to deal with the green-eyed kid only if he made trouble. "Let's get moving."
"Sir? Permission to speak freely?"
"Speak," the Lieutenant ordered.
"There is really no way that these kids are going to make it over this kind of terrain without any footwear, sir."
The Lieutenant huffed. "All right, carry them to the base if you have to," he snapped.
The other soldiers were quick about rounding up the small group of teenagers. The green-eyed kid looked like he was going to fight them for a minute, but a simple look from the black girl calmed him down. That was strange, the Lieutenant thought. He'd figured that the kid would have to be either knocked out or forcibly subdued. Well, I'm certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, he decided, signaling his troops to move out.
It was a long, quiet march back to the base. Not one of the kids seemed interested in talking, not even the smirking Hispanic kid. They were hiding something, that much was patently obvious, but what? That was the problem, since none of them seemed at all eager to talk about what they had been doing inside an isolated government facility, with no shoes and no apparent way of getting anywhere near the facility itself.
Once the twelve of them were inside the base, the soldiers quickly seated the four teenagers in some of the ubiquitous folding-chairs that they had found in a storage area. The Lieutenant sighed, turning away from the four teens. He would have a lot of explaining to do.
***
They had been sitting in this bright, cramped, airless room for what had seemed like hours, and Slade was getting antsy. Finally, when Slade was sure that he would go stir-crazy from all the waiting, someone chose that moment to walk into the room.
"My name is Captain Lance Torrelli. I am in charge of security at this facility."
There were no windows in the room that the Animorphs had been shut in, but, every so-often the door would open and a well-armed man wearing an Air Force uniform would walk past. But, this was the first time anyone had actually come inside. Cassie and the other Animorphs looked over at Captain Torrelli once he had made this statement. Cassie had been studying a bulletin board that hung on the left wall.
There was a flyer for The Gardens tacked to the board, and below it was a sign-up sheet that had quite a few names on it. That reminds me, Cassie mused. Slade doesn't have a combat morph yet. I'd better take him to The Gardens soon so he can acquire one.
As usual, Marco was the one who started the conversation. "Hi, Captain. How are things in The Most Secret Place on Earth?"
The lieutenant that had initially brought the Animorphs into Area 51 was still present in the room with them. When Captain Torrelli looked to him, he shrugged.
"Now, maybe you kids don't realize it, but you're in a lot of trouble now," Captain Torrelli said.
"Yes, sir. We realize we've made a mistake," Cassie said in her best 'I know we were wrong and I'm very, very sorry' voice. "It was a complete mistake. We didn't even know there was anything out this far in the Dry Lands. But if you let us go, I promise that we'll never come back here again."
Cassie smiled innocently, nudging Rachel so she would do the same. Slade took his cue from the rest of them, calming himself down and giving this newcomer his best smile. Cassie was hoping that Marco would go along with the act, too. But Marco, with his agile mind, already knew that trying to get out of this situation would require something other than innocent looks and some sweet-sounding words.
"So. Where do you guys keep the aliens?" Marco asked.
It took a supreme effort of will for Cassie not to wince. So much for Marco getting a clue.
"Look kid, this is an Air Force installation. I'm not authorized to talk about what we do here," Captain Torrelli said, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Marco. "But I can tell you this much: There are no aliens here!"
"Yeah right, sir," Marco said, rolling his eyes. Annoy him, get under his skin, Marco strategized. Maybe I can make him think we're just a bunch of nuts who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"What is your name, son?" Captain Torrelli demanded.
Marco thought fast, something he was well-known for doing. "Mulder. My name is Fox Mulder."
"Sir? Please, just ignore Mar- I mean, Fox," Cassie pleaded.
"He's an idiot," Rachel put in.
"No, he just likes to annoy people," Cassie said. "We're really sorry about what we did. If you'll just give us a warning, we'll get out of your way."
"A very stern warning, even," Rachel agreed.
"Normally, we would do just that. We, unfortunately, get our share of nutjobs and crackpots out here," Captain Torrelli informed them, looking hard at Marco as he said the word 'crackpots'. "But here's the problem we have: none of you kids are wearing shoes. And, I had my Lieutenant's men check the surrounding area just in case. There was nothing but dry grass, thorns, and rocks. It is not physically possible for anyone to cross that kind of rough terrain barefoot."
"So, we're basically in huge trouble just for not wearing shoes?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Look, sir, what's with all the secrecy?" Marco asked. "If you have an alien here, why not just tell everyone?"
Captain Torrelli glared hard at Marco, and Marco knew that his strategy was starting to pay off. "I want the four of you to write down your names and your home phone-numbers on this sheet of paper. We'll see if your parents can properly appreciate your sense of humor."
Captain Torrelli handed Marco a blank sheet of white paper. Marco quickly wrote the alias "Fox Mulder" on it, followed by a phone number that wasn't his, Cassie watched over his shoulder as he did this. Rachel identified herself as Dana Scully, and gave another number that Cassie knew wasn't anywhere near her real one. Next to sign a name was Slade. Cassie supposed that he was going to use the name he had given her, after all, who could make anything of that name? But no, Slade gave the name Vincent Valentine and another number as his own.
Then the paper was passed to Cassie, and for the life of her, she couldn't think of an alias as the others had seemed to do so readily. Of course, the fact that Captain Torrelli was practically breathing down her neck didn't help Cassie's concentration in the least.
"Don't you know your own name?" Captain Torrelli demanded.
"Yes, of course I do," Cassie said, with just the faintest hint of apprehension in her voice. "It's… um… Cindy… that's right. Cindy Crawford."
Marco and Rachel both somehow managed to discreetly give Cassie a 'what are you, crazy?!' look behind the Captain's back. Cassie ignored them, instead writing the alias she had chosen for herself and another sequence of numbers. Captain Torrelli and his lieutenant left after that, presumably to call the Animorphs' parents. Not that they were going to get much use out of the numbers they had been given.
"Cindy Crawford?!" Marco demanded. "Are you out of your mind?! Every guy in the country knows who she is!"
"Me?" Cassie shot back. "What about you?"
Marco sighed, shaking his head. "Let's just forget about it." Marco turned to Slade. "By the way, nice going with your name vampire boy."
Slade shrugged. "Thanks, I guess."
"We should really get out of here while those soldiers are busy," Rachel said. "I don't think they're going to be too happy once they finish calling those numbers we gave them. The one I wrote down was for Pizza Hut delivery."
"I gave them the number for the Sports Scoreboard recording," Marco said, smirking.
A fuzzy memory drifted into Slade's mind, and he chuckled. "All they're going to get from the number I gave them is an ice-cream cake."
After she had gotten over a slight giggling fit, Cassie settled down enough to tell her friends what number she had given. "I just gave them one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight."
"Eight?" Marco asked, disbelieving. "You gave them eight numbers?"
"I did," Cassie confirmed. "Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Marco shook his head. "Just remind me never to take up espionage as a career if I'm partnered with you."
