Chapter 8

The three of us made our way into the men's room, making sure that there was no one else in the room.

"You've done a fly morph before, right?" I asked Ferdie, who was demorphing back to his original self.

"Only spent most of a Concorde journey as one," he replied, smiling. "Yes. I've done a fly morph before. And a wasp."

"Good. Well, we'd better get going," I said, heading into one of the stalls and locking the door, just in case someone walked in. "The meeting will be starting soon. I suggest we take off our normal clothes and tuck them against the wall or something. Hopefully no one will see them and get suspicious."

I slipped off my clothes, standing shivering in my tight cycling shorts and tee-shirt for a few moments, as I focused on the image of the fly in my mind. Flies have never been one of my preferred creatures; when I first started morphing, I kind of imagined us morphing tigers and lions all the time. You know, cool animals. And we do, a lot of the time. But we also have to use some of our uglier morphs too. Flies may not be all that good in a fight, but they sure are the ultimate spies. Tiny and virtually unnoticeable. I shuddered, hoping the morph would be a fast one.

"This is so gross," I heard Marco hiss from the stall next to me. "And I mean really gross. I'm sure glad there isn't a mirror in here."

"Well, at least you're not bragging about how cute you are," I said, as my body began to shrink. Tiny, coarse black hairs began to grow all over my body. A pair of wiggly antennae suddenly sprouted out of my forehead.

"You brag about your cuteness?" laughed Ferdie from the end stall. "You vain little boy!"

--Is cuteness frowned upon among humans?-- asked Ax.

"Oh, like you're not vain, Flawless?" retorted Marco, ignoring Ax and putting on a phony English accent. "That's what Sam calls you, right? Well, Lord Flawless, I've seen the way you look at yourself in the mirror. If anyone's vain, it's got to be you, m'lord."

Ferdie started to say something in response, but his words turned to gibberish as I assumed his mouth melted away into the fly's mouthparts. My own face was beginning to resemble some freakish nightmare - my skin was turning black and hard, and my eyes were bulging outwards like two huge balloons. My human eyesight blurred and disappeared for a moment, then returned in the form of an insect's compound sight. It was like watching a thousand tiny TV screens, each pointing in a very slightly direction. My ability to sense movement was amazing. I moved my foot, which was fast becoming the claws of the fly's legs. I saw the movement immediately. I saw it even before it happened. No movement could escape my vision.

At last, a third pair of legs popped out of my chest and two silky wings grew out of my back. I was a fly.

--Are you guys done?-- I asked, buzzing up to the ceiling. I could just make out Marco finishing off his morph in the stall next to me. Ferdie, already fully fly, flew up to join me on the ceiling, casually doing a couple of double somersaults in the air on his way up.

--Being a fly is wicked,-- he exclaimed. --Talk about the mother of aviation! They may be ugly little things to turn in to, but they sure are fun to be!--

--Yeah, well, we don't have all night to spend buzzing around like lunatics,-- I said. --Let's get going - we have to meet Rachel and the others on the way.--

We flew back the way we'd come, keeping close to the ceiling and the wall out of sight. We reached the main room, and I could hear Rachel's thought-speak.

--I hope the others are morphed - Chapman's about to start the meeting,-- I heard her tell Philip and Ax.

--Don't worry, Rachel,-- I called to her. --We're here. Are all the Controllers in the cafeteria?--

--Yeah - Chapman's just gone in now. Tom's already in there. Do you want us to stay out here or follow you in?--

--You can follow us in if you like,-- I said. --I don't think there's much going on out here, and we'll need all the ears we have so we don't miss anything.--

We flew out of the hall, along a short corridor and into the canteen. I could make out the full members - Controllers - sitting around at a large, round table below me. Chapman kept scratching his balding head.

--Ok, try to move around as little as possible,-- I told everyone. --We don't want to attract any attention.--

--Uh oh,-- said Marco suddenly. --Anyone recognize the guy coming in though the back door?--

A tall, dark haired man of around forty walked into the cafeteria. He was wearing a dark suit and tie, and carried a black leather briefcase. He possessed the absolute authority of a military general. It was Visser Three, in his human morph.

"Visser," said Chapman, getting up and extending his hand. If I were human, I'd have been able to make out tiny beads of sweat on his forehead.

Visser Three nodded curtly and sat down at the table without shaking Chapman's hand. He stared at his underlings like the Demon Headmaster for a second, and poured himself a glass of water from the jug on the table.

--That's Visser three?-- asked Ferdie. The four new Animorphs had met the guy only once, down at the Yeerk pool, and hadn't seen his human morph before.

--Yes, Ferdinand, that is him,-- Ax said. --The abomination who killed my brother.--

--The dude leading the Yeerk invasion of Earth,-- added Rachel. --The most evil guy on the planet.--

Visser Three began to speak in a low, oily voice.

"I hear you are making progress with the latest plans?" he said.

"Yes, sir," replied a young male Controller. "Stage one and two are complete, and were more than successful. We are now well into stage three."

"That is good to hear," said the Visser icily. I didn't doubt the what the Controller was saying was true, but even if things weren't going to plan, you didn't tell that to Visser Three. Better to lie than to admit fault and get your head chopped off. Literally.

"We have taken over fifty new hosts in the last forty-eight hours," the Controller continued. "The chemical is leading the humans straight to our department at the hospital, and the antidote to the chemical is working perfectly."

"Excellent. And how many potential hosts could we have in the next week or so?"

"The pipelines the chemical runs through reaches a district of around a thousand human dwellings," the man continued. "Therefore, the water supply, and hence the chemical, should reach approximately five thousand humans. Not all of these humans will show the effects of the chemical, or seek medical help, but we predict that at least twenty percent of the humans will be admitted to hospital. We think around half of these people will be referred to our department."

"So, that would make around five hundred new hosts in the next week. That is pleasing to hear."

"Thank you, sir," said the man. "If this plan can be carried out successfully, we plan to make the consultant of another department in another hospital one of us. We are also thinking about taking control of another plant and adding the chemical to another pipe system."

The Controllers moved onto discussing an entrance to the Yeerk pool - one we already knew about and so was of little interest for us. We left the Controllers to their meeting and flew out into the corridor and into the men's room, where the six of us began to demorph. Rachel made some comment about certain unpleasent male aromas.

--Whoa,-- said Ferdie as we checked out the room to make sure there was no one about. --Five hundred new hosts?--

--They're adding something to our water system?-- exclaimed Rachel a moment later. --They can't do that!--

--I'm afraid that is not quite true, Rachel. The Yeerks can indeed do that if they so wish.-- Ax. Of course.

---The Yeerks can do anything, Rachel,-- I said heavily, watching as my spidery legs became thicker and muscular.

--That's what that epidemic was about at the hospital,-- Philip said. --The Yeerks are adding some kind of mild poison to our water supply. People are getting ill from it, and are admitted to hospital.--

--The Yeerks take over the pharmacology lab or something,-- I continued. --Patients are referred there. They go in and are given a drug as a remedy or something, and are given the bonus treatment of a Yeerk in their heads.--

--What are we going to do about it?-- Ferdie asked. His thought-speak was faint. I guessed he was about to cross the line back to normal speech.

I paused whilst my mouthparts became fully human. "I think we should raise that question with the others," I said, stepping into my clothes and out of the stall. Marco was already fully demorphed. Ferdie was doing some kind of partial morph again, adjusting his features ever so slightly so as not be recognizable as one of the fugitives. Rachel, Ax and Philip were in the process of morphing back to flies, since they didn't have any clothes with them. And Ax couldn't exactly go walking around a Sharing meeting in his Andalite form.

"We'd better go meet Tom. We'll arrange a meeting back at Cassie's barn for sometime tomorrow," I said. "It's a Saturday, so no school. We'll see if everyone's free in the afternoon. Rachel and Marco, I'll give you guys a call. Philip, I'll fly over to the Hork-Bajir valley in the morning and chat you and the others."

--Yeah, we'd better be off too,-- said Rachel. --My mom is going to screw if I get back too late. Talk to you all tomorrow then,-- she said, finishing her morph and taking to the air.

"Could you let Sam and Maggie know what's going on?" I asked. "I'll send Ax down to the valley tomorrow, but if you could just let them know we're done here."

--Sure,-- she said. Ax and Philip followed her and they left the school. I assumed they would demorph on the school roof or something, and go the rest of the way as raptors.

The three of us remaining left the bathroom and made our way back into the main hall. The Controllers were just leaving the cafeteria, their meeting having ended. I saw Tom over the other side of the room, talking to one of them. He made his excuses and came over to us when he saw me.

"Hey dude. Have fun while I was away?" he asked, putting on the older-brother act and slapping my back.

"Yeah, we just chilled, really," I said.

"Did you get to chat to any of the full members?"

"Sort of," I said vaguely. "Talked to some guy about the beach party. I think he was a full member."

"Good stuff," he said, smiling. "You can really learn a lot from some of the seniors. Come to think of it, Mr. Visser is making his way around, talking to some of the new guys, like you. Why don't you go up and talk to him? I'm sure he'll love that."

Marco caught my eye behind Tom's back. I raised my eyebrow ever so slightly in response.

"Uh, we really ought to be going," I said. "Gotta try and do some homework before bed. Do you mind if we give Marco and Fred a lift home? You can just drop Fred off at ours. He lives pretty close by."

"Yeah, whatever," Tom replied, obviously disappointed that we weren't bothered about meeting his beloved war-lord.

We hopped into the car and Tom took Marco back to his dad's apartment on the other side of town. Marco had a pretty screwed up life for a couple of years. His mom died and his dad sort of went into a depression. They moved out of their old house and into some shabby flat downtown, and it wasn't until a few months ago that his dad finally got back on track and they were able to move to a nicer place. Around that time, we also found out that Marco's mom was actually the host to Visser One, one of the highest ranking Controllers in the Yeerk military. That gave Marco, who'd before been reluctant to get involved with the whole Animorphs thing, a real reason to fight the Yeerks.

Tom pulled up into the drive and we let Ferdie out. He would have to leave his clothes at Cassie's so he could morph and fly back to the valley. I still had no idea how we were meant to get all their stuff down there.

"So what did you think of it?" my brother asked, as we entered the house.

"Yeah," I said, noncommittally. "It was certainly…educational."

"Cool. So you think you'll come again next week?"

I sighed. There was obviously no way I could show my face at the place again. "Look, Tom, thanks for bailing me out of baby sitting and all, and I had a really great time tonight, but I just don't think The Sharing is my kind of thing."

A brief look of triumph flashed across Tom's face for a second, but was immediately replaced by one of defeat. I knew what had happened. The real Tom - my brother, not the Yeerk in his head - had managed to regain control for a split second before his Yeerk took over again. I shivered. It made me sick to think of my brother as a slave in the back of his mind to an alien parasite.

"Sure," he said, heading up to his room. "Whatever. But you're missing out, Jake. I mean it. There's so much more for you out there."

I nodded soberly and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, texting Cassie the plans for tomorrow, then headed up to my room for an early night. I could tell I was going to have a long day tomorrow.