I'm Marco. Just Marco. Maybe 'Marco, the funny one'. Kind of like Emily was just 'Emily, the pretty one', because I didn't know her last name. But I did know that I was buying her some ice cream in the food court, and that was enough for me. I felt kind of bad leaving Ax to shop at Radio Shack alone. Oh well.
"Thanks, Marco," Emily giggled as the cashier handed her a chocolate cone.
"No problem," I replied, as we walked between some tables occupied by normal people having normal weekends. Wait, was it the weekend? Obviously, I needed some "normal" in my life.
"Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?" I asked, hoping I didn't seem too eager. Believe it or not, I don't have a lot of dating experience, particularly since entering this stupid war.
She answered, "I came to the mall to get…," but whatever it was she came to the mall to get, I tuned her out.
I was too busy looking at the food court's Cinnabon shop. A man I recognized was walking up to the cashier, and the sight of this man made the blood in my veins go colder than the ice cream I had bought for Emily. See, we Animorphs aren't the only ones with morphing power. Visser One, formerly Visser Three, has the same powers we do.
"Marco?"
It was him. Here! And I was all alone to deal with it
"Marco?!"
I turned to look at whoever was calling my name. Oh, right, Emily. Everything had seemed to lose importance. What was Visser One doing at the mall?
"Look, um, Emily…" I began. I didn't want to seem like I was blowing her off. I had just met this girl, and I didn't want to make her feel bad. How do people normally deal with situations like this?
I had an idea.
"Marco, you seem very distracted suddenly," Emily said. She paused, then added: "And a little...different looking in this light."
I had decided to slightly, and I mean very slightly, morph a bit of gorilla. Just enough to be a little too hairy, a little too strange-looking for a girl like Emily to hang out with. It seemed to be working.
"Anyway," Emily hurriedly continued. "I'm going to go meet, um, some friends on the other side of the mall. See you later!" And with that, she hurried off.
Knowing I definitely would not be seeing Emily again, I reluctantly turned my attention back to Visser One. I edged a little closer, and overheard him order a cinnamon bun.
The cashier then promoted a new flavor. I almost laughed when I heard the offer: maple ginger. Visser One vehemently shook his head. I could understand that—the Yeerks had a bad experience with maple ginger oatmeal a while back, thanks to us. When the cashier asked for his payment, the visser gave the cashier a very serious look.
"What if I said, 'I'd like a happy meal, with extra happy'?" he inquired.
The cashier had a blank look on his face, before replying, "I'd have to tell you that this is a Cinnabon, and not a McDonald's?"
Visser One angrily handed some money to the cashier and turned away from the food stand with a gleeful look as he eyed his prize cinnamon bun in his hands. I kept up my slight gorilla morph to make it harder to recognize me as the kid who was supposed to be Dracon-fried in his family's home a few weeks ago, a command given by the same evil being in front of me.
The visser took a quick look around, and then licked the cinnamon bun.
Suddenly, another man, one that I did not recognize, ran over. He was pretty tall, and had red hair. He looked a little bit like Conan O'Brien. Anyway, this guy looked overly excited, as if he were about to burst at any moment.
"Visser!" he cried in a hushed voice. "Visser, I've got to tell you something! You're going to love this!"
Instantly, Visser One's face went from snack-induced happiness, to fury at the man interrupting him. He quickly turned to face the red-headed man, who was clearly a Controller, and grabbed him fiercely by the front of his shirt.
"Keep your voice down, NOW!" the visser hissed. "What do you think you're doing, calling me that in public with all of these humans around? Have you completely lost your poor excuse of a mind?"
Red Hair looked taken aback. He stammered, "Sir, this is Zenguh Two-Zero-Zero-One, of the Sulp Niar pool, and I have, in my possession—"
"I don't care what you have, you bumbling fool," the visser snarled in a low voice. "I'll instead tell you what I have. I have about ten minutes to enjoy one of the few things I actually like on this planet, and I have an idiot Yeerk about ten seconds away from being sentenced to death by Kandrona starvation for interrupting me!"
With that, Visser One turned away from Zenguh, and noisily began eating his cinnamon bun. People in the food court hadn't been paying attention to the conversation before, but they certainly noticed the two of them now. Zenguh backed up, a look of hurt on his face that then turned to indignation, and walked away from the food court.
I had to decide which Controller to keep an eye on, and quickly. With all the attention that was on Visser One, I knew he wouldn't be able to carry out any Yeerk business, so I quickly followed Zenguh out of the food court and up the escalator. He was headed straight for The Buckle, so I tagged along, fully demorphed. I figured this new guy wouldn't know who I was, anyway.
Pretending to look at shirts I would never buy, I kept a distant eye on the changing room he had entered. After ten minutes, I began to suspect he was no longer in there. We had experienced secret entrances to Yeerk pools before, and this could be a new one we had yet to track.
Rather than peek over the top of the changing room door, I went into the next changing stall, morphed fly, and kamikaze flew into Zenguh changing room. Even with my fly eyes, I could see that the Controller wasn't in there. I demorphed and began to look for anything that would signify a pool entrance, when a pile of clothes caught my eye on the floor. I mean, it was a clothing store, but I was pretty sure these were the clothes the Controller was wearing.
What was going on here? I thought as I demorphed.
After a light bit of rummaging (for the sake of being a hero, of course), I found only one thing in his pocket: a quickly scribbled note, written out on a paper napkin. I'd take a look at it later. For now, I just wanted to get back to the others. Unless Zenguh had gone into the pool naked, something else had happened to him...her? What do I call a female Yeerk in a male body? I could probably ask Cassie about that, she's more tuned into that sort of thing.
I headed out of the Buckle and heard some commotion. A quick glance down at the food court told me all I needed: somehow Visser One's gross eating habits had escalated to a full-on fight, a food fight, in the middle of the mall. This was ridiculous! I still had to get back to Ax!
