When my brain came back online, I was inside a box, transparent, just four feet square, with some kind of panel with red and blue lights built into one wall. Beyond my cage was a big room full of machines and pipes and wires. The others were in boxes too, bigger ones to fit their size. But only four of them – Rachel and Cassie had gotten away. And there was the Controller who'd gassed us.
Through the glare of the spotlights on us, I could see her: tall and blonde and straight off an ad for the Gap. Like Rachel. Except that she had a clownfish dæmon fluttering through fake flowers in a tank by her side. She looked around at all of us and smiled like a shark. "Hello, Andalites. I'm Sub-Visser Fifty-One. Call me Taylor." She didn't introduce her dæmon. Either he didn't matter to the Yeerk, or the Yeerk thought he wouldn't matter to us. "I see you looking around your boxes. Don't bother. There's no way out."
«No! No! You cannot keep me here!» Ax roared and slammed a giant paw into the panel in the side of his box. He convulsed as an electric current went through him.
"Ouchie," Taylor said.
«Ax!» Loren said, not including Taylor in her thought-speech. «Are you all right?»
Ax groaned and sat down heavily on the floor of his box. «We must get out of here. We must. She will break me!»
«No she won't,» I said. «We won't let her.»
"Tell me," Taylor said. "Which one of you is David?"
My brain froze up for a second. Then El reminded me, The Yeerks don' t know we killed David. We still have seven "bandits," and they think David is one of us.
"You see," Taylor went on, "I'm supposed to give Visser Three a demonstration of the severance chamber, and he would be so disappointed if I tried to sever a Guide Tree from a human."
I wasn't watching Taylor, though. I was watching Ax. He was hyperventilating, his furry chest pumping hard. «We have to stop her. Stop her. Stop her.»
«Jake,» I said privately. «Ax is losing it. What are we going to do?»
"We have no idea what the severance chamber will do to a human," Taylor said. "It could even kill you. So you'll be much better off if you tell me who you are, David."
«We will tell you nothing, Yeerk,» Jake said, putting on the cold, hard tones of an Andalite warrior. «Do you think we are so monstrous as to endanger a human child under our protection? But of course a Yeerk would never understand a soldier's honor.»
"What about you, David?" Taylor said. "Do you have a soldier's honor? Or are you just a kid who wants to see his parents again? We could make that happen, you know."
«David knows better than to believe in your empty promises,» Jake sneered.
«Jake? Tobias?» It was Rachel. Her voice was like a thunderbolt, starting up my heart again. «Marco? Ax? Loren? Are you here? Please answer me.»
«Rachel!» Jake and I said. Jake went on, «Rachel. We're in a big room with a bunch of machines and stuff. They have us trapped in these boxes. We can't get out. Where are you? Where's Cassie?»
«She's getting the cavalry,» Rachel said. «I'm here to keep Blondie's mind on other things.»
«Rachel, you've seen the kind of firepower she has,» Jake said. «Don't come charging in here.»
«Cassie and I already had that talk,» Rachel said. «She's good at it. I'm in the air ducts right now. It's, what, 90 degrees out today? I wonder if this machine will work if I shut down the cooling system.»
Elhariel laughed silently in pure relief. This was bad. Just about as bad as it had ever gotten. But Rachel was looking out for us, and that counted for a lot.
«Ax,» Jake said. «Tell her you're David.»
«What?»
«Ax, are you listening to me?» Jake said, slow and calm. «If Taylor thinks you're David, she won't put you in the severance chamber. She wants to use it on an Andalite. Can you do that?»
«Are you sure this is a good idea?» Marco said. «Ax isn't exactly great at passing for human.»
«I… I…» Ax said. Then publicly, he said, «It's me. I'm David.»
"How would you like to see your parents again, David?" Taylor said sweetly. Like an older sister or something.
«Filthy Yeerk!» Ax raged. «You'll never let me see my parents!»
He isn't acting, El realized. He wants his parents. But he can't see them because of the Yeerks and this war. My heart ached.
There was a loud clunk from somewhere deep in the building. Taylor's lip curled. "Excuse me a moment, David. We'll continue this conversation soon." And she left the room, wheeling her tank behind her.
As soon as she left the room, Jake said, «Everyone, demorph! I don't know how long we were knocked out.»
I hadn't even thought of that. It wasn't a problem for me. But if Rachel hadn't been here to draw Taylor away, my friends could have so easily been trapped. While everyone else demorphed, I heard Rachel say, distantly, «Oh – bug spray – better – »
«Get out of there, Rachel!» I urged her. But she didn't respond. Whether it was because they'd gotten her or because she was out of thought-speak range, I couldn't know.
I saw Ax, demorphed, leaning against the side of his box like he needed it to stay upright. «Ax,» I told him. «You have to morph again. She has to think you're David.»
A shudder passed through Ax. Desperate for anything to help him, I tried djafid, Andalite thought-speak emotion-singing. I'd never done it before, but Ax had shown me a few times. I wanted to sing hope, but I didn't have much myself, and I didn't know what I was doing. My thought-speech wavered and broke.
Then Elhariel dredged up the memory of Elfangor's djafid, a million years ago at the construction site, when he sang courage to five frightened children. It was like when I was in Rachel's head as a Yoort and found just the right memory to bring up to make her feel right again. Elfangor was a thought-singer, sending out courage even when he was about to die, and I was his son. I could do it too.
I was still unsteady and – well, whatever you call being off-key in telepathy. But I kept going, shaping that memory of my father into a song of strength for his brother. But Ax's fur rippled from blue to white, and his face pushed out into a bear's snout.
When Loren was fully re-morphed, she gave me a long look with a huge dark bison eye. But she didn't say anything. She didn't need to. I knew how complicated it was for Loren whenever I reminded her of Elfangor.
Taylor came back five minutes later. "I have my troops scouring the building for your two friends. We should have them soon." She looked at Ax. "Don't you think it's about time you demorphed, David? It's been forty minutes since I knocked you out. You don't want to get trapped in morph, do you?"
Ax didn't say anything. That might have been for the best. The more he said, the more chances he had to trip up and give himself away.
"Hmmm," Taylor said. "You know, I really do believe you Andalites might care enough about your precious soldierly honor to make some misguided try at protecting this boy. So, David, if you want me to protect you and take you to your parents, you're going to have to demorph, or tell me your mother's maiden name."
Silence. None of us knew what it was. And the real David would know, of course.
«Guys. It's me. Rachel.» Sick relief crashed through me. «Are you okay?»
«Fine,» Jake said, but he sounded strained. «We could use another distraction.»
«Where are you?»
«We don't know,» Marco snapped.
«Try circling the building and talking to us,» I said. «When the thought-speech gets harder to hear, you'll know you're getting colder.»
«Okay. Keep talking. I can do that.»
"Oops," Taylor said. "Looks like we're back to square one. David, you really should just show me who you are. I don't want to kill you."
«No,» Jake said. «You just want to make him your slave.»
«Can you hear me now?» Rachel said.
«Yeah,» I told her, «but it's getting fainter.»
«Okay… back the other way…»
"Someone is going to tell me who the human is," Taylor said. "Or I'm going to make you tell me."
«You can't make us tell you anything,» Jake said.
"No? I'm more persuasive than you think, Andalite." Taylor took a device out of her pocket. Dread prickled along my spine.
«Rachel?» I said.
«How about – -is way?»
«You're cutting out. Rachel, have you figured out where we are?»
«I think so.»
«Then get over – NO!»
Taylor pressed a button on the device. The red light in Jake's box blazed. He collapsed, rolled onto his back, and roared so loud the wires shook all around the room.
«RACHEL!» I screamed. «Help!»
«I'm coming!»
Jake's convulsions seemed to drag on forever. I couldn't look away, even though Elhariel kept begging me to. If someone spoke, I couldn't hear it over that terrible roar echoing in my ears and my mind. It kept echoing even after Jake went limp, the pain ended.
Taylor smirked. "That was the lowest setting. Anyone want to talk yet?"
Silence. Inside his box, Marco was shaking. «Jake?» he said, as gently as he'd spoken to his mother after she'd been freed. «Jake?» Then there were sudden screams of pain and anger from Hork-Bajir outside.
"Your friends are brave," Taylor said. "But they're stupid. Two of them will never win against twenty Hork-Bajir."
I hated to admit it, but Taylor was right. «Rachel, you can't risk yourself,» I said. «There's too many of them.»
«What did she do to Jake?» Rachel shot back, snarling. «I heard him!»
«Tell me you're all right first.» Ax's face was pressed against the side of his box, watching Jake as if his own life depended on him. He needed my help more than Rachel did. I felt torn in half, too many important thoughts fighting in my mind.
«I didn't do anything stupid,» Rachel said. «I just ran in as a skunk, sprayed a bunch of Hork-Bajir, and ran out.»
«Rachel, I need you to listen, because Ax needs me right now. Don't go on a rampage. You can't. But… Taylor tortured Jake.»
«WHAT?!» Rachel screamed. «I'll kill her! I'll kill her!»
This is exactly what we thought would happen, El said, despairing, but there was nothing else we could do.
"Who's next?" Taylor said. "You're the prince of this little group of bandits, aren't you, tiger? I can tell. You're responsible for these warriors. Maybe if I hurt one of them next, you'll talk."
Ax covered his face with his paw. I'd never seen him show fear like that before. «Ax, listen to me. Cassie's getting help. We're going to survive this.»
«I'm right here, sweetheart,» Loren said. «Talk to me.»
«Stop this,» Ax said. «Stop her. Stop her.»
I wished I could. Well. I could, couldn't I? I had an Andalite morph. Ax. If I morphed Andalite, she'd use me for her demonstration. Ax would be safe. No one else would have to be tortured.
What about me? El said, panicky. What will happen to me?
I don't know, I said. Can you be brave for me, El? For Ax? Will you do this?
Okay. Okay. For Ax. And I focused on the grace, the rightness, of being an Andalite, and felt the changes begin.
"Finally," Taylor said. "You've made the right choice, Andalite." She beckoned to the Hork-Bajir warrior who had taken a post at the door. "Tell the Visser I'm ready for the demonstration."
«Tobias, no!» Loren cried. «You can't do this!»
«Yes, I can,» I said, trying to sound more calm than I felt. «I'm the only one of us with an Andalite morph. The severance chamber is built to sever Andalites from their Guide Trees. It won't work on me.»
«You don't know that,» Loren said. «She said it herself, it could kill you!»
«All I know is, my chances are better than Ax's. And I can't watch you get tortured. I can't.»
«Tobias,» Ax said. «I thank you for your courage. And I apologize for my cowardice.»
«You don't have to,» I said, and finished the morph. The Andalite optimism filled my head, and for just one moment, I thought everything might just be okay.
«Visser Three in human morph,» Rachel growled. «He's coming.»
That made the optimism fade, fast. I heard something groan overhead. I looked up with my stalk eyes. It looked like the glass covers we put over plants in science class to test whether plants needed carbon dioxide to live. Except it was connected to the ceiling with a thick black cable. It lowered from the ceiling and covered my box completely.
I felt Visser Three's presence, the sinister djafid he always sang, even in morph. "Oh," he said. "The child volunteered to be our test subject. How very noble of him. Should I speak the death ritual for you, Andalite?"
Suddenly, violently, I remembered that the Visser had severed Alloran. That he was speaking through the mouth of a broken host who couldn't even resist him in his thoughts anymore. It was like listening to a zombie or something. I recoiled from him.
"Do I disgust you?" he sneered. "I won't for long. I'll make you and your fellow bandits into tractable slaves, and then I'll do the same to the rest of your arrogant species. I'll make you all into host bodies for the Yeerks, nothing more, as you ought to be."
Visser Three turned to Taylor. "Activate the device."
I tried to sound confident, for Rachel's sake. But even as I flew away from the community center, I still wasn't sure where I should go for help.
Toby's free Hork-Bajir could do it, Quincy said. But Toby had made it clear that she didn't want to risk her people on our missions. Should I go to her and try to convince her to help?
Never mind, Quincy said. How would they get here from the valley in time anyway? Uh… could Illim and the Peace Movement help?
Outright violence against their own? I don't think they'd do it, I said.
Could the Chee help with their holograms? Quincy said.
Just me and Rachel and some holograms? I don't see how we could pull it off, I said. Could Eva and Aftran help?
Maybe, Quincy said, but he sounded excited. Let's go find Bachu.
I flew to her house and perched in a tree in the backyard. «Bachu! Are you there? Come to the backyard if you're home.»
The back door opened. I shivered with relief. Bachu's hologram had her in cozy pajamas with a flower pattern. "Cassie? What's going on?"
«Can you call Eva and Aftran? Like, right now?»
"I can try," Bachu said. "But there's no guarantee they'll answer. They could be in the middle of something right now where they can't blow their cover."
«What if you flag it as urgent or something?»
Bachu's broad, friendly face went serious. "What's going on?"
«All the Animorphs except me and Rachel have been captured,» I said. «We were trying to destroy the severance chamber. The Yeerks might try to test the technology on them. We need to get them out!»
"Oh. Okay," Bachu said. She was so calm, like this was just another obstacle to find our way around. I latched onto that calm like a lifeline. "I'll flag the call as priority, then. Hopefully they can make their excuses if they're doing something right now." She closed her eyes. I waited, shifting from foot to foot on my branch. The minutes dragged on. I started to worry that they wouldn't pick up. Then Bachu said, "Sorry to interrupt. It really is important. Five of the Animorphs were captured while trying to destroy the severance chamber."
A pause. Bachu opened her eyes and looked at me. "How long ago?"
«I don't know. Half an hour? Forty minutes?»
Bachu closed her eyes again. Her mouth twitched. I wondered if I might actually vomit from fear. "All right," Bachu said. "I'll tell Cassie."
«What did they say?»
"They're going to try to pull some strings to ax the project immediately," Bachu said. "It's a bad move for the Yeerks anyway, they said, because it would attract far too much attention from the Andalites. If they get the go ahead from the Council of Thirteen, they'll send down troops to destroy the technology right away. That should be enough of a distraction for you and Rachel to get them out."
«Try?» I echoed. «If?»
"I'm sorry, Cassie. They weren't sure. But they were determined. Like they always are."
«Thank you, Bachu,» I said. «I have to go back. Rachel's trying to keep the Yeerks distracted, all by herself. She needs me.»
"Go," Bachu said. "I wish you the best."
I took off, and flew back to the place where my friends were fighting for their very souls.
«Garoff,» I said, flying my fingers across the communications dash. «That's the member of the Council most sympathetic to Edriss. He had better take this Three and his minions have Marco.»
«Visser Three and his minions have the Andalite bandits, but we wouldn't know that, would we, since we don't have any covert intelligence sources that can report that quickly,» Aftran corrected.
«Don't patronize me,» I snapped. The screen pulsed blue. «He's accepted the hail.»
«I didn't mean to patronize you,» Aftran said stiffly. «It was just a reminder.» When Garoff's host's scarred Hork-Bajir face came on screen, Aftran said aloud, my throat buzzing with her words, "Greetings, Councilor."
"I'm a busy Yeerk," Garoff said. "Tell me what you need."
"You know of Visser Three's latest gambit," Aftran said.
"I heard," Garoff said. "Some tool to make Andalites more tractable hosts."
"With respect, Councilor, I'm not sure you understand the implications of the technology," Aftran said. "The severance chamber is designed to sever Andalites from their Guide Trees. Once this connection is severed, they become like the walking dead, nearly mindless. Humans have developed a similar technology to use on one another, and they consider it despicable, its outcome worse than death. Andalites will react in much the same way. If they hear of it, it will draw their notice immediately."
Garoff weighed Aftran's words. "Draw the Andalite fleet to Earth, you mean."
"I think we agree that facing the Andalite fleet before we have enough military strength to meet it would be a disaster for us all," Aftran said. "And anyway, any self-respecting Yeerk should be able to control a host without any technological assistance. Perhaps Visser Three fears he's losing his grip."
"As usual, your hatred of Visser Three makes you overstep your bounds," Garoff growled. Which was exactly why Aftran had said it, I surmised. It wouldn't have been in character to speak of Visser Three without any personal attacks. "The point, Visser One."
"I want permission from the Council to abort development of this technology immediately," Aftran said. "The longer it exists, the greater the risk the Andalites will learn of it. My Blue Bands can be deployed to Earth in a moment to destroy all traces of the research."
"You're right," Garoff said. "I share your concerns about Visser Three's current operations. But not all of my fellow Councilors agree. If I authorize this, some of them will be displeased with me."
I took over our side of the conversation. I leaned forward. "What do you want, Councilor Garoff?"
Garoff bared his teeth in a smile. "For some time, I have sought to come down more harshly on dissension in the Pools on Earth and its orbit. After the incident with the escaped hosts at the Grash Akdap Pool, I am especially concerned. It had to have been accomplished with collusion from Yeerks, and not just the treacherous fools who let their own hosts get away."
"I read the reports," I murmured. "Shocking that this could happen in our stronghold on Earth."
"Your espionage and infiltration skills are unparalleled in the Yeerk Empire," Garoff said. "Deploy your agents in the Pools, both orbitside and planetside. Find out what our people are talking about, and enforce bans on seditious activity. Find the traitors and execute them publicly."
I felt a rush of sick panic from Aftran. These were her people, the Peace Movement, Garoff was talking about. «I'm sorry, Aftran,» I thought. «We can't afford to refuse now. It'll only make him suspicious. We'll figure out what to do after this crisis has passed.»
For a moment, I wondered if she would take over, try to backtrack, leave my son in mortal peril. But she let me say to Garoff, "We have a deal."
I wanted to tell Jake that Tobias was going to be okay, that he hadn't just walked into a goddamn death trap. But we were all in a death trap, and I had no idea how any of us were going to get out of this.
There was an electrical hum, loud enough that my box vibrated a little with it. I watched Tobias, who looked exactly like Ax. He flinched as if he'd been, well, struck by lightning. His blue fur stood on end. He didn't drop dead.
«Well, Visser,» Tobias said, trying to sound high and mighty but not really making it. «It seems your device doesn't work after all.»
I started breathing again. Ax and Loren shuddered with relief. Visser Three turned on Taylor and snarled, "This device is supposed to be fully operational! What have you done?"
"Visser," Taylor said, not looking much like the prom queen anymore, "the technicians assured me that – "
"The technicians will be executed," Visser Three spat. "Be thankful I don't kill you as well." He gestured angrily at us. "Find out where the rest of the bandits are. Make them demorph. I will send my people from the Pool with loyal Yeerks to infest the lot of them."
That was when Rachel came back on the scene. «Guys, Cassie's back.»
Cassie said, «I went to Bachu and had her call Eva and Aftran. They're going to try to send Blue Bands down to trash this place. We'll get you out of here in the chaos.»
«If Taylor doesn't torture or infest us all first,» I shot back.
«Torture?!» Cassie cried.
«Yeah. She did it to Jake, and now she's going to keep on doing it unless we stop her,» I snapped. «So if you could come up with something to stop her, that would be awesome.»
Radio silence. Maybe Cassie needed time to deal with it. I was used to doing what I had to do even when I couldn't deal with anything. Visser Three was leaving. I had to come up with some way to stall Taylor until Rachel and Cassie got their act together. She was looking pissed.
"How long have you been in morph, Andalites?" Taylor purred. "The clock is ticking. Don't you think it's time to demorph?"
«What's wrong, Yeerk?» Jake said. «Are you worried we will be trapped in morph before your fellow slugs can infest us? How far away is the nearest Yeerk Pool entrance? How long until our bodies become significantly less useful to you?»
Hatred flared in Taylor's eyes, hard and flat as glass. This was a Yeerk not really in control of herself. I ought to know. I lose control of myself, too. Her free hand, not clutching the control for the torture devices we were trapped in, clenched and unclenched in the folds of her pleated skirt. "You fools. You think I can't break you apart? I will."
Okay, scary villain line, definitely time to say something distracting and Marco-ish. I said, «You're pretty.»
«Marco?» said Tobias. «What the hell are you doing?» Like I wasn't already half-convinced I was going to get us all killed.
«Distracting her! You got a better idea?»
Taylor turned to me. A smile crept across her face. "Oh. So finally the truth comes out. You're the human boy. Yes, David. I am pretty." Her free hand crept up to touch her face, dream-like. "There was a time when I… this body… was the prettiest and most popular girl in her school. When I had a party, everyone…"
Cross-talk, Diamanta pointed out. Bleed-through between Yeerk and host. She can't keep herself separate. Like Illim and Tidwell. Or Aftran and Cassie, sometimes.
«Careful, Sub-Visser,» I said. «You're starting to sound like a traitor. Like one of those Yeerks who like their hosts too much.»
"A traitor?" Taylor snarled. "I'm a voluntary! This girl, this human, chose this life, chose to invite me in to take control! And if you understood anything, David, you would do the same!"
«Marco,» Tobias said, deadly calm. «You're making her mad.»
«She's not torturing anyone, so I'm gonna call it a win,» I shot back. He really wasn't helping right now. To Taylor, I said, «What don't I understand?»
Taylor walked up to my cube, pulling the wheeled tank with her clownfish dæmon behind her, and told me. She told me the story of how she used to be the queen of her school, until her house burned down and ruined her arms, her face. How she let a Yeerk into her head with the promise she'd be fixed, that one day she'd be queen again. How she betrayed her parents, sold them as valuable hosts to the Yeerks, all so she could go on being beautiful and proud and savage.
«And how are the Yeerks supposed to help me, exactly?» I sneered. «I never got burned up in a fire. I've never been popular at school. I'm just a kid. How is letting a Yeerk into my head gonna make my life any better?»
Taylor pressed her artificial hand against my box. Through the reinforced glass, I could see she didn't have fingerprints. Her dæmon pressed himself against the glass of his own tank, bright orange in the gunmetal gray of the room. "I could be your ally, David. Your friend."
«I could have a pretty girl as my friend? Is that what you're saying?»
"A powerful girl," she breathed against the glass. For a second my brain fuzzed out, maybe just from pure overload from the creeps, and it looked as if she were the one inside a tank, like her dæmon, instead of me.
The moment passed. Taylor was creepy. But under the Yeerk's control was a teenage girl, and if there was anything I knew, it was how to annoy a teenage girl. «Eh. I think I'd rather have the Andalites as my friends. Did you know they actually have a sense of humor? It just takes a little while to draw it out. Definitely better company than a Yeerk.»
Taylor's face twisted. She jabbed the control for the torture devices again. The red light in Jake's box came on again. «No,» I moaned. She must have seen my reaction when Jake was tortured the first time. She knew it would hurt me, seeing him twist on the floor, groaning pitifully as if he were bleeding out. (I knew what he sounded like when he was bleeding out.) «No, no, Jake…» I needed him. I needed him. I was fucking it all up without him and I needed him back.
Then Jake stopped struggling, and all the power in the building went out.
"Fuck," Taylor said. I could barely see her, with the lights out over us. "Again?" She actually stamped her foot. "No. No! Your friends aren't coming for you, Andalites. And even if they do, there'll be nothing left of you! NOTHING!" And she mashed the control in her hands like she didn't care which of us got hit.
The red light in my box flared, blindingly bright in the dark. An electric current hummed. I braced myself for the pain. But it didn't come. Instead, my brain went somewhere else.
"Hey, Dad, I'm home," I announced, slinging my backpack off my shoulder. I didn't expect him to answer with more than a grunt, but Diamanta became a spider monkey and went into the living room to check on him.
She came back and said, "He's not there."
I went to his bedroom door and knocked. "Dad? I'm home!" No answer. Dia pointed to the bathroom door. It was slightly ajar. I pushed it inward with my fingertips.
Dad was passed out on the floor, a drool puddle next to his cheek on the tile. Mirazai was out of her tank, draped dry over my dad's side like something that washed up on the beach. The sour smell of vomit rose from the toilet bowl. I almost threw up myself. Dia turned and walked away. Distantly I heard the bedroom door swing open, the beeps of a number being dialed.
He'd done this to himself. There were two empty pill bottles next to the sink. He was so sad about Mom dying he couldn't live with it anymore. I was sad, too. All the time. It was going to happen to me next. The sadness had eaten my dad and now it was going to eat me, too.
«No! Nooooo!»
It took me a second to realize that it wasn't me screaming. It was Loren. We'd all been hit. Yeah, that was the word. Hit. A punch to the heart. I wanted to check on Jake, but he was just a vague shape in the huge dim room.
This is fucked, Dia said. This is completely fucked. What is she going to do next? Turn us inside out? What can't she do?
I realized that if I were in my human body I'd be having a panic attack. But the gorilla brain didn't know or care about the memory of my dad trying to kill himself. The gorilla brain was a weight, keeping me here. Not calm, but here.
«Heads up!» Rachel said. «The Blue Bands are coming!»
«Okay,» Tobias said shakily. «When are you going to bust us out of here?»
«It's probably going to be a fight between Visser Three's people and Visser One's,» Cassie said. «We'll use the confusion to break you out.»
«Into the middle of a Yeerk firefight?» I said. «Jake, are you listening to this insane plan?»
«Yeah,» said Jake. He sounded distracted, far away. «Sure. Fine.»
Fuck. I'd broken him, and Cassie was going to kill me. No, worse, she was going to be sorry for me. «Jake,» I said privately, keeping a weather eye on Taylor as she gloated over us in our defeated little heaps of sad fur. «Buddy. Can you be prince right now, or not? You can say no.»
«I… um…»
«Guys, Jake is, uh, not available right now,» I told the others. «I'm taking the chains of commanding or whatever Ax calls it. Rachel, Cassie, the only way we're getting out of these boxes is if you smash them up. Come in as elephants and charge right at us. I'm guessing they're not built for a full-on elephant stampede.»
Diamanta added, «It's not my job anymore, so someone please tell me that plan is insane and we're all gonna die.»
Tobias said, «That plan is insane and we're all gonna – »
There were suddenly horrifying reptilian screams, like the dinosaurs made when we went on our little Magic School Bus trip to the Cretaceous. The door to Taylor's torture lair shattered as one of Visser One's giant Blue Band Hork-Bajir took one of Taylor's Hork-Bajir down in a flying tackle. The Blue Band got up, not even breathing hard, and turned to Taylor. Behind him, I could hear the sounds of Hork-Bajir on Hork-Bajir battle past the door. More Blue Bands came through, some bleeding from slash marks, some with smoking Dracon wounds. Taylor bared her teeth at them, as if she were a bladed monster herself.
My mom had come through. She sent the Blue Bands to save us. To save me.
The first Blue Band said, "This operation is shut down, on the order of Visser One."
"Not on your life," Taylor hissed. "I will not let you undo what we've built here." And for the second time she fired the white numbing gas from her artificial arm.
It didn't touch me or the other Animorphs in our boxes. But I heard heavy thumps as the Blue Bands fell one by one, invisible in the darkness and the clouds of gas. They called out warnings to their fellows beyond the door. Taylor had held them off, for now, but more were coming. The gas was already thinning out when more Blue Bands came stampeding in.
Taylor fired the gas again, but less came out this time. More of her troops came through the door. Everything became a churning melee of numbing gas, blades, and Dracon fire.
Then there was a sound like thunder coming from beyond the door, and Rachel and Cassie came charging in.
They plowed through the battle like Godzilla through Tokyo. I couldn't believe how fast they were going. There was no way our little torture boxes could stand up to that onslaught. The problem was, I'm not sure my gorilla body could stand up to it either. «Aaaahhhhh!» I screamed, just as one of the elephants hit me like an oncoming train.
The glass all around me shattered as the box went soaring into the air. I curled up and covered my head with my arms, trying to shield myself from the flying glass. A hundred sparks of pain flared all over my body as the glass opened my skin, then the ground hit my back like a hammer blow. Stars exploded behind my eyelids. Screams, Dracon pulses, and breaking glass pounded at my ears and my aching head.
«No, Rachel!» Tobias cried. «Don't go back there! That's the wrong way!»
«After what she did to you?» Rachel raged. «I'm not leaving here until Taylor's dead.»
«Go, go, go!» Cassie shouted at the rest of us. I wanted to go. I really did. I just couldn't remember how my legs worked. Cassie came up to me. «Marco? Come on, Marco, we gotta go.»
«Don't be her,» Tobias begged, somewhere I couldn't see. «Be Rachel.»
Cassie's trunk wrapped tight around my middle and hoisted me up. The pressure on my battered body almost made me black out with the pain. I started to demorph; it was too dark in here for the Yeerks to see anyway.
TSEEEWWW! Another pulse of Dracon fire, too close, and Cassie screamed in pain. «Tobias, Ax, morph faster! We've gotta get out of here!»
Cassie ran. Every step jostled me in her grip and made me moan in agony. I demorphed faster, and my bones knitted back together. When she appeared, Diamanta wrapped around my neck three times like the world's heaviest scarf. Human again, my mind blurred with exhaustion, but I couldn't make Cassie carry me forever. I started the morph to osprey. When Cassie crashed outside through an already half-broken wall, I was a half-formed feathery lump in the curl of her trunk. I went weak with relief when I saw the others: Tobias overhead in hawk morph, Ax a blue blur running toward the forest, Rachel crashing along behind Cassie, and Loren and Jake still in their battle morphs, bleeding from glass cuts but moving fast. I didn't look back to see if anyone was following us. There was nothing we could do about it anyway.
Fully morphed to osprey, I flew behind Cassie into the woods, ducking bursts of Dracon fire the whole way. When we were really under tree cover, Loren and Jake collapsed, breathing hard. «Demorph,» I told them, perching on a branch overhead. «Come on, come on, you're bleeding, demorph.»
Cassie, Rachel, Loren, and Jake all shrank down into their own bodies. We made it, Dia said. We're safe. Maybe we're not so bad at being prince after all, huh?
Maybe, I thought. It still sucks, though. Jake can have it back as soon as he's… I looked down at him, his long black claws retracting into pale half-moons. Whatever he needs to be, to be the leader again.
As much as we all wanted to get the hell out of there, we couldn't do it as a gaggle of seven raptors. Rachel and Tobias left together, then Loren and Ax. Jake was still in some kind of fog. Cassie talked him through his morph to peregrine, and I wondered if they needed or wanted me there at all. Cassie and Jake had some kind of thing going on, even if I didn't know exactly what it was. I should definitely leave. Any minute now.
But we don't know if Jake's gonna be okay yet, Dia said. We can't leave until we know for sure, right? Isn't that the leaderly thing to do?
When Jake was fully peregrine, I got ready to tell them I was going home. But Cassie said, «Hey, Jake, it's gonna be okay. Me and Marco are gonna take you home. We'll stay with you as long as you need us.»
«Uh huh,» Jake said, still so vague when he was always right there and five steps ahead of anyone else. «Sounds good.» There was no way I could back out after that, so I flew honor guard with Cassie to a park at the end of Jake's street we usually demorph in when we're headed to his place. All three of us were swaying on our feet by then. Too many morphs, too much fear. He half-leaned on Merlyse, in reindeer shape, the rest of the way home.
When we got close, Quincy flew ahead a little to check in through the windows. "Steve's asleep," he said when he got back. "Jean's still up reading downstairs."
"It's late, but not late enough she'll get mad," I decided. Though maybe the rules were different, now that she thought Tom was dead. We went in through the back door, which the Berensons never locked. "Hey, Jean," I called to her, so it wouldn't look like we had something to hide.
"So that's where Jake's been," Jean said. When we crossed the living room to the stairs, she was up, her book closed on the coffee table. "Oh. And Cassie too. Are you all right, honey?"
Yeah. We weren't getting away from that one. No mom would be able to miss that Jake looked like hell. But he had pretty good reasons.
"We were helping Cassie at the barn," I said. Distracting Jake, I mouthed at Jean, my face turned away so he couldn't see. Jean mouthed back, thank you. "We're pretty beat. It's hard work out there. I think I got more exercise than I did in the last three years combined."
"Then Cassie's a good influence," Jean said. "You always did like video games better than playing outside." Her salamander dæmon added, "Congratulations again on settling, Diamanta. The form suits you."
"Thank you," Dia said.
"'Night, Mom," Jake mumbled. I realized Merlyse had been staring at Jean with huge snowy owl eyes.
"Night, honey," Jean said. "Don't keep him up, you two. I can see he's had a hard day. If I still hear you up there after eleven I'm sending you home."
At the top of the stairs, there were four doors. One led to the master bedroom, one to the bathroom, one to Jake's room, and one to Tom's. The door to Tom's was closed. They'd cleared it out already. Jake managed to save some things to bring to Tom in the Hork-Bajir valley. Only his bedding and posters were left, a reminder of who used to live there. Just like some of my mom's stuff had still lingered around the house, before Dad and I had to move.
Jake collapsed on his bed as soon as we closed the door, Merlyse curled against his chest in lynx form. But he didn't close his eyes, just stared up at the ceiling with his arms folded over Merl.
Dia's scales slid over my shoulder as she shifted to look at Quincy. I stared down at Jake and waited for Cassie to do something Cassie-ish that would fix this. Dia hissed in my ear, "She's going to cry. Do something, quick, before she cries."
I had no good ideas, but anything would be better than Cassie crying. I asked Jake, "What do you do to get to sleep?" All of us had to have something. It was never easy to fall asleep anymore. When I go to bed, Dia wraps around my chest, and I think of a song, and she squeezes me in time to the beat as it plays over and over in my head until I finally fall asleep.
Jake took so long to answer I wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep with his eyes open. Finally he said, "Read a book. A history book."
I looked at the night table and saw a book about naval battles in the Napoleonic war or something. Quincy nipped the back of Cassie's hand with his fangs. She swallowed hard and pulled herself together. She pulled up the chair from Jake's desk and sat down. "Okay," she said. "I have some history for you. The barn's been in my mom's family for generations. Let me tell you about it. See, her ancestors were here before California was a state. They were a mestizo family from Mexico who built a ranch up here."
I stood there awkwardly, listening even though I always found history kind of boring. I wondered again if I should leave. But Cassie gestured for me to sit at the foot of Jake's bed. I sat down, feeling weird about it even though I'd had sleepovers in this room a million times before. No sleepovers where Jake was just staring at the ceiling with Merlyse lying on him like a lump, though.
Except he wasn't staring at the ceiling anymore. He was asleep, eyes closed, breathing steady. Dia slithered off me and wrapped around a back leg of Cassie's chair. Cassie held her hand with Quincy on it to the side of the chair. I slipped into four-eye and heard Quincy whisper to Dia, "What about you?"
"What about me?" Dia whispered back.
Quincy said softly, "I heard you screaming too."
Dia flicked her tongue. I wasn't sure there was any real way to answer that. But she said, "Those boxes. They were tuned into our brains or something. It showed me my worst memory."
She didn't ask me what I saw. I was glad. Only Jake knew my dad tried to kill himself after my mom's death, and I only told him because I had to stay with him while my dad was in the hospital. There are some things not even Cassie can get me to talk about. Quincy whispered, "What do you think Jake saw?"
"Steve and Tom falling into the lake, maybe," Dia whispered back. "Or maybe seeing Tom in his cage at the Yeerk pool, that first time."
Quincy didn't ask her how she knew. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't give me that crap," Dia whispered. "You got Mom to send those Blue Bands. That was exactly what we needed. What I needed."
"Still," Quincy said. "You don't have to go home alone."
We turned off the lights and went downstairs. Jean put down her book again, when she saw us. "How is he?" she said softly.
For a second, I thought she was worrying about the same things I was. Whether he'd have nightmares about being tortured. If he'd still be Jake after this. But she wasn't, of course. She thought he was broken up over Tom. Just like she was.
"It's hard on him," Cassie said. "But we try to keep his mind on other things. And we're there for him, whenever he needs us. You know that, right?"
"Of course," Jean said. "Jake couldn't ask for better friends."
I felt a little sick. Yeah, we were there for Jake. Duh. But we also went with Jake into hell, all the time. We were his friends. We were also his soldiers.
We said goodnight and walked to my house. We didn't say anything. Maybe both of us were still at Jake's bedside, in our heads. I know I was. But Cassie was right, as she was way more often than I'd ever admit. It was better not to have to go home alone.
"He'll be back," Cassie said, on my front step. "He's Jake. He'll come back from this."
"What if he thinks he deserves this?" I blurted out. "Because of – because of what he did to Chapman."
Cassie bit her lip. "He probably does. But if he didn't feel guilty like that – that's what would make me really worry."
I nodded. Then I went to my bed, and whatever nightmares were waiting for me.
