Chapter 30
When you're dying, things get weird.
For instance, I thought it was all over when I heard the multitude of boots storming toward me. Yelling voices went with them. I didn't even open my eyes – I didn't want to see the end when it came. I didn't want to watch as someone put the bullet in my brain that would make the slow process of dying happen fast. I knew I was hallucinating when the boots and voices never even slowed down as they ran right past me.
'Wow, I really am dying. Or dead,' I thought as they passed me up. Even though my brain wasn't working correctly, I could work out that much logic. Controllers wouldn't run past me without blowing me away. Human responders also wouldn't pass me up – I mean, you wouldn't just leave a Hork-bajir lying in a hallway if you'd never seen one before. Depending on the person, they'd either kill me, take me in for research…something. But they just ran right past.
When they were gone, I started floating. 'Oh. This must be that out-of-body experience everybody talks about,' I thought randomly as I floated along. A short time later, I started hearing voices.
Jake was one. (Demorph! Tobias, Marco, demorph! Now!) That fit in with the whole dying experience – Jake wasn't really there. Jake was at Allendale Mutual Bank, fighting the Yeerks.
"Do as he says!" snapped Erek's voice. Ah, yeah, that was a little more realistic. Erek was probably still around. My brain was really getting creative, trying to get me to morph away from my fatal injuries.
I just wanted the voices in my head to leave me alone. I'd done my job, and now I wanted to rest. (Oh, shut up,) I managed to get out.
"He's coming out of it. He's going. Go, Marco!" Erek urged. "That's it, keep it up!"
That confused me. Why would my brain throw me a death hallucination about Marco? Marco was dead, too.
(Is Marco going to be okay?) Jake asked. He sounded terribly desperate.
"I think so. If you can get Tobias out of that morph, do it now, Jake," Erek said, and he sounded just as desperate.
(Tobias, if you can hear me, you have to demorph. You have to!) Jake's thought-speech tone was urgent, and it made me consider the possibility that maybe it wasn't a hallucination. Even so, I was too tired to morph. Way too tired.
(Erek is hiding us inside of his hologram. We're about twenty feet away from the diamond exchange. The whole place is swarming – cops, national guard, everybody. We have to get out of here! It's only a matter of time before somebody walks into us by accident!)
"Ugh…oh…hey, Jake. That sucked." That was Marco's voice. His actual voice.
'Good, at least Marco made it,' I thought, feeling satisfied.
"Tobias, you have to demorph. You have to go see Rachel," Marco said.
Rachel? Was something wrong with Rachel?
"She needs you, Tobias. She needs your help. Rachel's in trouble!" Marco said urgently.
Rachel was in trouble? That changed everything. I could rest later. For now…
I focused as hard as I could. I saw an image of me and Rachel hanging out in her bedroom. I was a hawk, she was a person. I focused on the image of the hawk. It was hard, so hard, but I felt the grass sliding underneath me even though I was still motionless.
(He's shrinking! That's it, man, keep going! Keep going!) Jake insisted.
Keep going? Okay. I could do that.
As I shrank, my thought process started to return to normal. I realized what had happened. Erek must have hid us until it was safe, and then carried us away from the building as far as he dared to go with two mortally wounded Animorphs. For some reason, Jake was here. Now, they were waiting for me to demorph so we could get the heck out of there.
I opened my eyes – my blessedly perfect hawk eyes. I saw Erek sitting beside me and a little peregrine falcon perched on his knee. Marco was on my other side, looking at me with a mix of relief, fascination, and disgust. I spread my wings – yes, wings – and adjusted my tail feathers. Everything seemed to work. (Am I back?) I wondered. (Am I okay?)
Everybody nodded, even Jake's falcon morph. "That was a weird morph, though," Marco said. "Even more barf-tastic than usual."
Suddenly, the last thing Marco had said hit me again. (Rachel! Where is she?) I demanded.
Marco looked down at the dirt. (She's fine, Tobias,) Jake said. (They all are. Marco just said that to get you to demorph.)
I was too worn out to even be mad about being tricked. He'd lied to me for my own good, to save my life. Morphing is physically tiring, but that's not what I mean when I say I was worn out. My mind was frayed. This one had just been too damn close.
"We really do need to vacate the premises," Erek said. Marco nodded, and even though he had to have been as cashed in as me, he somehow began to morph into his osprey.
Jake had been right – the DeBolt Diamond Exchange was seriously crawling with soldiers. Real ones, human ones. I guess they were distracted by the destruction inside, because nobody noticed when three birds of prey appeared out of seemingly thin air and flew west.