Chapter 20

We spent the rest of our impromptu meeting going over a few logistics. Ignoring the little training-wheel mission that had been the camera in Chapman's office - God, fuck me, I still had yet to check that footage - our first mission had been a disaster. Between us immediately losing Chapman while we were morphing in my vehicle and everyone but me having been stranded on the roof due to stupid oversight, we wanted to go over the plan in more detail.

"You're sure the explosives are the best way to go?" Marco asked.

"Yeah," Rachel said. "Can't we just pump a gallon of bleach into the system?"

*Sodium hypochlorite would be more than adequately toxic, but the tanks are heavily monitored for optimum conditions. Any substance that impacts the habitability of the Yeerk pool will be rapidly detected. And each tank would have to be individually contaminated. The Kandrona is easily the most vulnerable.*

"Okay," I said. "What exactly is this Kandrona you keep talking about?"

*You understand that your plants are photosynthetic, and in some biomes, this planet has organisms that are chemosynthetic, correct?*

"Yeah," Cassie said. "There are whole ecosystems in the deep sea that derive all their energy from volcanic activity rather than the sun. We didn't even know those species existed till a few decades ago."

Elfangor nodded. *Yeerks are radiosynthetic. They derive all their biological energy from neutron emissions from their unusual sun.*

"I don't understand," I said. "Marco, you're the science buff. Do you know what he means?"

"I'm not sure. You mean Yeerks essentially eat radiation?"

*That is an oversimplification, but not inaccurate. We had assumed for a long time that the Yeerk homeworld was uninhabitable. But the biomass of their planet had apparently evolved to use the energy of neutron emissions. The Kandrona is a device that mimics the radiation of their home sun. Without it, Yeerks could not survive offworld.*

"Okay, so that means they're irradiating the tanks, right?" Rachel asked.

*Correct.*

"So you're not even aiming for the Yeerks with this bomb, are you?" Cassie asked. "You're just aiming for the power station."

*No, the Kandrona device itself must necessarily be contained, as prolonged exposure to humans or other hosts would eventually be fatal. Determining the location of the Kandrona itself would be another mission. But disrupting the feed lines to the tanks would still be disruptive to the Yeerks.*

Great, so on top of the brain-stealing, the alien slugs and their armies of alien monsters, there was a radioactive hazard under San Jose. That was very disconcerting.

"Well how big a bomb are we talking about?" Tobias asked.

Elfangor picked up a small stone from the ground. It was about the size of my key fob. *At this approximate size, with the materials I have at my disposal, I could make between twelve and sixteen explosives. Placed correctly, each device could incapacitate several tanks.*

"You mean we can't take out all the tanks?" Rachel asked.

*No, and even if I prepared the largest explosive possible, I doubt we would achieve the damage I had first assumed. The base is simply larger and more sectional in design than I had anticipated.*

"Okay," I said, "how do we get the explosives into the base? That lizard morph is good at getting in, but it would struggle to carry a bomb even that size."

It was Rachel that had the answer for that one. "Why not just morph Chapman and walk in?"

We all stared at her for a long minute.

"I don't know," Cassie said. "Morphing another person seems like it might be a little...wrong?"

"How do figure?" Tobias asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I guess it's the ultimate form of identity theft, isn't it? It just seems a bit… dubious to me."

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me, Cass," Marco started. But I cut him off.

"Okay, I can respect that, Cassie. But I think without another alternative, this is what we have to work with."

She didn't seem to like that answer, but she nodded.

"We're going to have to steal that security card," Marco noted.

"Yeah, but if he realizes it's gone, isn't he going to call someone?" Tobias pointed out.

"What if we grab it when he gets back from the pool Thursday?" Rachel proposed.

Thursday? Yeah, that's right. He went to the pool on Monday, so Tuesday and Wednesday he'd be home, and back to the pool again Thursday. I realized how much of a pain in the ass it must be for the Yeerk in Chapman's head to have to commute so often. It occurred to me that for most of Chapman's day, the Yeerk had to keep up pretenses. Chapman was a pretty important person in certain circles, what with his job at the school for at least eight hours a day, not to mention the normal banalities of existence. Even Yeerks have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, mow the yard. But then again, I had to assume that the Yeerk probably had little interest in watching TV or shit like that. All the slug's free time would have to be spent on its invasion plan. For all the seventy-two hours the slug had Chapman, between work, sleep, and other engagements, I wondered if the Yeerk got more than twelve or fifteen hours of work out of him.

That's not really high efficiency. Suddenly all those office types in the pool made more sense. I wondered if -

"Jake!" Rachel snapped.

"Yeah, sorry, lost in thought for a moment."

"I said I can probably set up a study night with Melissa for Thursday. I need the math tutoring anyway and I could get the card when Chapman gets home."

"Okay, so what was your question?"

She rolled her eyes. "If you swing by to pick me up, maybe you could shake his hand or something?"

I blinked at her. "What, why? Why do I have to do all the morphing here? I just turned into Elfangor like a second ago. Can't you do it?"

She stared at me with level eyes. "As a girl , I have some serious qualms with morphing a middle-aged man ."

I tried not to laugh. She just didn't want to go through the gender swap. Not that I could blame her. I wouldn't be keen on that either.

"Fine, but two conditions. One, I want Marco and Tobias with me when we swing by to get you. Increase our odds that one of us boys is able to acquire him."

She nodded. "And the second?"

"I want you to try to acquire Mrs. Chapman."

"What, why?"

"Think about it. You said Melissa felt both parents were acting weird. So if her mom is a Controller too, having her as a morph wouldn't hurt."

"Okay, but I'm going to need you for something else, too."

I nodded. "I can take Jordan and Sara. Cassie, do you think you should be in on the study date?"

"I suppose I could, unless you want me to hang out with you and your cousins."

"Probably the Boardwalk if you're okay babysitting for free."

"I don't think I'd mind helping you babysit. Ice cream, funnel cake, some rides. Sounds like fun."

I laughed. "It'll probably be up to Jordan and Sara. Okay, so if I'm Chapman, and assuming I remember the code as well as I think I do, once I have the card, I should be good to get all of you in the facility. Elfangor, do you know enough about Yeerk protocols and whatnot for me to fudge our way in on a night Chapman's not supposed to be there?"

*I think I can turn my communications array to pick up Yeerk transmissions. I should be able to glean enough to make a plausible excuse.*

"Right, but once we actually get into the tank room, we're going to have to demorph to plant the bombs," I said.

"You said there's minimal staff, right?" Marco asked. "We're going to have to take them out."

"There were only two or three people doing the intake," I said, "but there were more working the tank systems."

"We're going to have to fight on our hands, aren't we?" Tobias asked.

We all went silent. I think all of us were hoping Elfangor could plan this in such a way that we didn't come to that.

"Is it weird that we were all fine turning into birds but I'm having serious concerns about maybe having to steal my uncle's gun?" Tobias asked.

"Your uncle has a gun?" Rachel asked.

Tobias just shrugged. "I don't live in a great part of town."

Everyone was quiet for a minute. Tobias was right, we were comfortable morphing birds. Okay, comfortable would be a stretch, but we were willing and able to do it. But guns were still a huge leap and it just felt like a shock that Tobias would bring that up. Or that it would feel so organically relevant. Up to this point, we hadn't needed to hurt anyone. I'd butted heads with Elfangor over human casualties, but now I saw what he meant. We might have to kill everyone in that room to save the other hosts. Ideally, I would rather not have to do that, obviously. But we didn't have any real weapons here. None except...

"What about the zoo?" I asked.

"The zoo?" Rachel said. "You mean to acquire...battle morphs?"

Marco nodded appreciatively. "Better than one gun I guess. Besides, I can't really picture T here with teardrop tattoos."

"We're going to have to bring Jordan and Sara, then," Rachel said.

I nodded. "That's fine. We'll just have to split up. Everyone okay with another trip north tomorrow?"

We seemed to agree on that and a little back and forth later, finally our little meeting came to a close. We somehow managed to get back to Cassie's barn before either of her parents got home, and Tobias, Marco, and Rachel all piled into my SUV.

"Seriously, your uncle has a gun?" Rachel asked again.

"Yeah, Rachel," he said, sounding tired. "My uncle isn't a nice person."

I saw her face in the rearview mirror. Rachel is a very tough person. She played a full game of lacrosse on a broken toe, which is both badass and ludicrously stupid. To the tune of her coach benched her for a game when she'd found out about it after. But Rachel was the kind of person that lived life to the bone, as our grandfather would say. I don't think I'd ever seen her make that kind of face before, though. I suddenly very much wanted to shove Tobias's uncle out of his third-storey apartment window, and Rachel's reaction told me I wasn't alone there.

I dropped my friends off at their various places. I got home, said hi to my parents. My dad asked how Cassie was, told me to get on my homework. Tom was working on some kind of project in his room. He'd been getting into computer programming the last few years, and apparently he was trying out some coding or whatever. I didn't really have the head for that kind of stuff, though Marco and Tom occasionally shared their tech notes.

I just sat in my room, sunk into my chair, and spaced the fuck out.

When I'd hit Braden, I hadn't been really trying to hurt him, if that makes any sense. I totally meant to hit him. But I wanted him to leave Tobias alone. I didn't want to hit him for the sake of hurting him. I didn't spend my free time wishing I could hit people. It occurred to me that Tobias probably did. He had a different relationship with violence than I did.

This was easily the weirdest part about my life after meeting Elfangor. There was Andalite time and there was human time. We'd spend hours talking about these little alien assault missions, talking to the stranded Andalite soldier like it was no big thing, only to break up, go home, do homework, and deal with our separate family shit.

I heard my mom call us down for dinner and quickly glanced at the clock on the nightstand. I'd sat in that haze for more than half an hour. I'd still have homework to do after dinner, and I didn't really want to do anything. I wasn't even really that hungry. But I got up and headed downstairs anyway.

"You okay, Jake?" my mom asked. The downside of having a therapist for a mother is that she's really good at noticing changes in my mood, and that wasn't going to be good in the long run. But this time, it worked in my favor.

"I don't know, I think I'm just stressed. Finals are coming up, and if I'm being honest, I think the reality of Tom graduation is finally dawning on me."

Tom looked up from his plate and laughed. "You need some big brother time before I head off to campus, huh?"

I smiled. "That's not a bad idea. But more like it just clicked to me that I only have two years left before I'm going to college too and I just… I don't know."

Mom laughed. "Yeah, life sneaks up at you. First job, first girlfriend, last two years of high school. God, your father and I will have the house to ourselves for the first time in twenty years."

My dad looked up suddenly. "Say what now?"

"I said when Jake goes to college, we'll have the house to ourselves."

"Cool, I'll text the swingers' club."

"Stephen!" mom yelled indignantly.

"At any rate," I said, trying to segue out of this thread, "I think I'm going to take Rachel and the brats out for some cousin time."

The Lexington Zoological Gardens, or simply The Gardens as most of us in the area called it, was a very new zoo. California has some pretty awesome zoos. San Diego is far and away the most impressive, and I'd been there once to see the pandas.

There was the zoo in San Francisco and the Oakland Zoo wasn't bad, but San Jose didn't have it's own real zoo till a few years ago. The only zoo in San Jose had been Happy Hollow Park, and it wasn't really the same thing. It was only a very small zoo, and they didn't have elephants or lions or other large animals. They did have a number of unusual animals, like the Madagascan fossa, the red panda, a giant anteater, not to mention the reptiles and birds, but it wasn't the kind of zoo that expected thousands of visitors per day. For a city the size of San Jose, it really made it feel smaller than it was.

So it was that the Lexington Zoological Gardens came to be.

The Lexington Reservoir was an artificial lake that formed due to the two-hundred foot dam built on Los Gatos Creek, and the area surrounding the lake was all part of the Lexington Reservoir County Park. Add in a few motivated millionaires from Silicon Valley, some state funds, and some help from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, and you end up with the Gardens.

It was a very unique zoo. For one thing, it had some parts set up like a county fair. It's not like it had a roller coaster, though I've heard that might be in the works. It had something of a carnival thoroughfare on one end, with bumper cars, a Ferris wheel, a version of a teacup ride, the petting zoo with goats and llamas, face painting booth, and so on, before you got to the actual zoo part. The zoo was segmented into regions. The North America area had wolves, bison, pronghorn, foxes, grizzlies, and polar bears, and a wetland exhibit. The South America area held the jaguars, monkey house, anaconda and reptile exhibits, and a giant anteater. The Asia area had the tigers, a snow leopard, tapirs, another monkey house, and the saltwater crocodile.

Then, of course, was the African area. This was the largest area of the zoo, and it held the lions, the hyenas, elephants, giraffes, zebra, rhinos, ostriches, and hippos. And there was an indoor-outdoor facility for the gorillas and other primates.

We'd gone from not having a zoo in the immediate area to having one of the largest zoos in the country in just a few years.

And Jordan and Sara loved it.

"Is the meerkat exhibit open yet?" Jordan asked. My cousins were very obviously siblings, and both shared the same blonde hair and blue eyes. Jordan and Sara were both a darker blonde than Rachel, closer to Tobias's hair color, taking more after my Uncle Dan than my Aunt Nicole. Jordan was thirteen, and was about to finish start seventh grade, and Sara was about to wrap up fifth. Next year, Sara would join Jordan at the middle school and she couldn't have been more excited about it.

"I'm not sure, Jordie," I said, using my nickname for her. "I didn't think to check. We'll find out in a few minutes."

One of the odd glitches to the Gardens' rapid implementation was that parts of it were still under construction. The zoo had considerable land available for expansion, either for new rides or new animal enclosures, and apparently meerkats were being added to the African area. There had been rumors since the zoo opened that eventually they were going to add kangaroos and koalas to a future Australia section. I had no idea if that was true or not, but of all things I really hoped they added a platypus exhibit.

I just think they're cool, okay.

There were seven of us in my SUV when I parked. The five of us plus Jordan and Sara. The plan was honestly not that good. We couldn't very well acquire any of the animals while the zoo was open to the public, and the zoo didn't close till six. We were actually here to animal shop. We were going to look at everything we could, figure out what would be the best options, and then go home like everything was fine. Then later tonight, morph ravens, fly back, and acquire all the animals we could.

It was not our favorite option, but even if we had pushed back the plan and skipped Thursday in favor of Sunday, there was no way we were going to be able to acquire exotic animals without breaking in after hours.

School had been a pain as always, and all of us had actually piled into my SUV to do homework as we waited in front of the middle school to pick up Jordan and then to the elementary school to get Sara. Rachel had thought it would be extra super fun for everyone to surprise her sisters with the zoo trip. She mitigated their excitement by making them do homework in the backseat, all three sisters together in the third row, during the half-hour drive up Highway 17.

But anyway, there we were. Cassie had a family membership for the zoo, so it was free for us to get in. The rides don't count for the membership, though, and I had to promise Jordan and Sara we'd come back another time for the thoroughfare. It took cotton candy to sell them on it, though.

The Andalite mission ended up taking a backseat, honestly.

We ended up just being a bunch of unsupervised teenagers at the zoo, and apparently the made up excuse I'd given to my mom last night had been a bit more prophetic than I'd anticipated. Or more likely I'm a really shitty liar and subconsciously knew I needed to unwind.

We hit the North American section first for no particular reason. We made our way past the Great Plains exhibit - an open space enclosure that housed the bison, elk, and pronghorn. This was one of the largest enclosures in the zoo, rivaled only by the African Savannah enclosure that housed the zebras, ostriches, rhinos, and wildebeest.

Jordan and Sara were just blown away by the fact that Cassie and I were dating, and they asked us non-stop questions about whether we were getting married after high school, if Cassie and I were "doing it" already, and how many kids we were going to have.

"This is why I can't have a boyfriend," Rachel said.

I was about to feed them to the grizzly bears. I was already doing the math, judging the distance I'd need to clear from the barrier versus Jordan's estimated weight… It'd be tough, but I was pretty sure I could throw her over the edge. But Cassie saved them.

"Girls, we've only been dating a few days, and this is actually one of our first times out together. Think you can reign in the questions and behave?"

It worked.

"Your ability to manipulate small children never ceases to amaze me, Cass," Marco said.

"It works on bigger kids, too," she said with a knowing smile.

"Hey!"

"I'm so glad you and my foster son are bonding," I said. She winked at me.

We ended up marking down two animals from the North American area. Rachel took a shine to the grizzly bear, and Cassie ended up being rather enamored of the wolves.

"We have a wolf back home," she said. "When Dad brought her in, we didn't think she'd make it. But wolves are tenacious. They're fighters, through and through."

"I didn't think you were a huge fan of fighting." I watched Jordan and Sara chase after Marco and Tobias while Rachel recorded them on her phone.

She gave me a sad smile. "I'm not. I don't like violence. But I believe somethings are worth fighting for. And I believe in this."

"I'm… I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"I thought I dragged you into this. I recall saving an alien in a field over the weekend."

"True, true. I wasn't trying to discount that. I meant about the mission. When he fell out of the ship, I wanted to help him because he was dying. I didn't put any more thought to it than that. But this…"

"This is deliberate. I know."

"Do you think the others would have touched the cube if I hadn't done it first?"

"I can't speak for everyone. Hell, I can't even speak for myself when it comes to hypotheticals. I mean, who knows, right? But you going first, that helped me be less afraid."

I bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

The South America section didn't really offer much. The jaguar was hiding, as per usual, the anteater would be useless in combat, and the anaconda could be deadly in the right circumstances but the giant constrictor wasn't built for speed. Neither was the caiman. But Jordan and Sara absolutely loved the Amazon river otters.

I looked at Rachel and my cousins as she made funny faces with them, as they followed her lead. Her sisters loved her. There was a fun silliness to Rachel she just never let out, for some reason. I smiled despite myself.

Yeah, alien mission or not we needed this. I knew deep down on a level I was afraid to say out loud that I was probably going to die tomorrow. At sixteen, I'd never thought of my own mortality before. I wear my seatbelt, stuff like that, but being young, you're always in an oblivious bubble of how things really are or how things really work.

I remember as a kid listening to Fall Out Boy's Sugar We're Going Down . I'd been maybe eight years old or so, I don't remember. What I do remember was my dad liking the song when it came on the radio. My dad don't have a huge intersection of shared interests, and he and I liking the same song was something that just stuck with me. He seemed amused that I liked it. At the time, I just found the music pleasant, and my dad knew I didn't have the real capacity to explain why I liked it. So I asked him why he liked it. He told me the reasons he liked it wouldn't make sense to me then, and the moment was lost.

But then awhile ago, maybe two or three weeks before we had met Elfangor, I was watching a YouTube video that happened to be set to that song. And I remembered that moment from years ago, so I found my dad and asked him again.

He said the song was deliciously bittersweet in a way that most poetry only wishes it could be. The song, on face value, was about a boy that liked a girl who ultimately ends up with some other guy. But that wasn't what the song was really about at all. The song is a celebration of all the moments where life just doesn't work out the way you expect it to. Down, down, in an earlier round… At some point, everyone takes a metaphorical right hook to the jaw that we never see coming. And the part that my dad loved about that song was that the band treated that realization like it was the best part of life.

And when I looked at Marco and Tobias, hanging out, being buds, showing off for Rachel and her sisters, my three cousins tasting a good day in all it could be, and Cassie's awkwardly amused smile as I squeezed her hand, I understood what my dad heard when he listened to that song.

I knew we were probably having our last real day. I knew this might be the last time Jordan and Sara saw their sister.

Down, down, in an earlier round…

But just because life is going to punch you in the face doesn't mean you give up. And the smiles I saw on my friends' and cousins' faces were definitely worth a hit to the face.

I was still scared.

But I was going down swinging.