CHAPTER SIXTEEN

::Marco::

Everytime I walk away from Cassie's barn, it's never a good feeling. It's always with the feeling that we're going to get ourselves into some deep shit, or that we've just pulled ourselves out of deep shit and know that it's not the end of that shitpile. This time, it just sucks even more because I can't even say something more original other than 'shit'.

I'm not trying to be defensive; in fact, I accept that I was being too reckless for my – no, our own good. But luring Visser Three out by alerting him to our presence was the next best thing we could do. There was nothing, nothing to suggest how we could get ourselves out of this shitty mess, so I had thought hard and long – yeah, the whole A to Z thing. It's a strength and failing of mine, I know. I'm tired of knowing that, actually. I thought I was done having to feel miserable about being ruthless because the aim had always been about frying Yeerks and nothing else.

Who am I kidding? Nobody could ever realise how much – back in the old reality – I was blaming myself at night for planning well and ensuring we had a backup team or something to watch Jake's house or to get his parents to the Hork Bajir valley that day, instead of waiting to the next. Nobody could ever realise how much it freaking hurt to see Jake transform into a completely different person within a matter of hours, because I knew that the boy who was my best friend would never, ever return. And now that I saw him like that in this reality? It just freaking hurt even more. I knew Cassie was upset too, along with everyone else being frustrated. But we had to get on with this – we had to continue to find out ways and means to subvert this reality, even if it meant going back to a time when Jake was torn and wrecked.

I walked past the street leading down to my house. And the next.

I wasn't even sure why I suddenly felt like I should visit it. The place where it all began. It was like an invisible force tugging at me.

An invisible force filled with questions: Did Elfangor land there? Did we visit the construction site that night? Did Elfangor meet Loren? How did the Yeerks come?

Actually it was not so much all those things, because I wasn't feeling very logical at the moment. I just wanted to go because I needed to remind myself that it was all still real. Even though this was a different place, reality, or just some warped game some deity is playing, I had to remember that I could still get killed. All of us. And that would mean no going back to wherever we came from. Sure, that wasn't a better reality, but at least we were more than halfway in the fight against the Yeerks. Now just felt like we were back at square one, not to mention that we were all not the same kids anymore.

I think I've just stated a hundred ironic statements.

It wasn't long before I found myself staring at the exact place. The abandoned construction site – well actually, what used to be an abandoned construction site. In its place was a sprawling megamall with neon lights flickering irritatingly all around its edges. The crowd was good, just like the other mall that we always hung out at. I made a mental note to check the other one out soon – we'd all been too caught up with the whole not-being-ourselves and Jake-meeting-Sharing-Yeerks thing to really size up the environment.

Everybody was just walking around on a regular weekend afternoon, not realising that the ground they stood on had heralded the beginning of their nightmare.

I walked into the mall, cringing a little at the loud Westlife music they were blasting. I mean, seriously? Westlife? Did they really think "Flying Without Wings" was going to inspire anyone down here? It sure wasn't inspiring me.

Starbucks. The Gap. Banana Republic. Ahh, Cinnabon. Ax should never know there was one here, especially since he was stuck being a human. Neither should Rachel know that The Gap was dangling a huge sign with 30 percent sales. Tobias would kill me if I let her know that. Although, given that she was probably currently grilling Tobias about the whole birdboy situation, I think he might be slightly relieved if she was distracted.

It's terribly frustrating to find something witty out of a depressed mood. I felt like I needed to head to the pharmacy and demand for Tylenol and Prozac because my head was hurting so badly and I was in a terrible, terrible funk.

McDonalds. I wryly thought that I'd never be able to order a Happy Meal again without having the urge to yell, "With extra happy!".

Radio Shack.

No.

No, it couldn't be.

I backed into somebody who gave me a vicious glare. Muttering my apology, I backed up against the railing and stared hard.

Of course it could be. In this place, everything was just screwed up. So screwed up that I could see the perfect picture of David and his family shopping at a hardware store, all three of them smiling, laughing, intact.

I don't know what got into me. But the next thing I knew, I was pushing past the throngs of people and heading towards that treacherous snitch. I reached out and yanked his jacket, pulling him towards me. David gasped; his father's strong arms were pulling me off him, but I held on tight.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?" David's father roared.

I was shaking with rage as I held on, but David shoved me backwards into the table of equipment. Gasps rose all around, and the next thing I knew, my arms were being locked tight by two people.

"David, do you know this boy?" demanded his father, incredulously.

"No! He's crazy!" David stared at me in complete perplexity. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" I sneered. "Maybe you should ask yourself that, you piece of scum!"

"Hey, watch your words, young man!" David's father grabbed my collar. "You don't go around pushing people like that and calling them names. Get me his ID, someone, I need to call his dad or mom or something."

"I don't have a mom!" I yelled. "And don't touch me!"

"I'm getting security!" cried the Radio Shack dude.

"He must have escaped from an institution!" David's mother shrieked.

"You're insane!" David shouted. "I don't even know you!"

I wasn't calming down, but it wasn't just because I was angry at seeing David. It was because he was human again, with his model family which you know, I had helped to wreck because I somehow let him get away with having the blue box and eventually, selling it off to Visser Three, who launched an army onto his home and took away his parents. It was because his parents were here again, alive and uninfested – or at least, I thought – and he had a whole family while I still didn't get one here. He was happy, damn it, human and happy. This was so bloody wrong on all accounts that I just wished if it wasn't the Ellimist's good work, that he'll somehow stop time now and take us all back to the Hork-Bajir valley where I at least knew that David would no longer exist in our minds and I had the complete family.

"Damn it, where's the security?"

I should have it good. Not him. Not that weasel, liar, jerk, scumbag. Exploiting other people's happiness by morphing their son and thinking he could get away scot-free.

I was being so selfish that it was hurting so badly. Suddenly, I went limp. I didn't even put up a struggle anymore when they dragged me out of the store. They let me go when they realised I wasn't fighting; I just turned and walked away, away from all those stares, away from the profanities David's father was hurling at me, away from David's half-angry, half-perplexed gaze.

If only walking away from this reality could be this easy.

Once I was outside, I hid around the corner and peeked out as David and his family left the mall. David's father was ranting on and on, presumably about the psycho who had just attacked his son. The acrid taste on my tongue lingered as David leaned against his father and was rewarded with an arm around him. People like him did not deserve this. But this was what he would have become if not for me, and it should have been best.

If I were him back then, how different would I have been?

Logic, Marco, logic!

I took a deep breath. David didn't know who I was, and his family was intact. This meant that I had never met him in this reality. But that didn't lead me to anywhere – we were all different here. Our family lives may be the same, but we were different kids. Jake had joined the basketball team in this reality; our paths had now diverged, so it made sense that David didn't know me.

But something was nagging at the back of my head. I couldn't figure out what, and that irked me immensely, adding fuel to the already raging fire within me about David having a good life now.

‹Marco?›

I swivelled around so fast that I nearly banged against the wall. "Ax?" I whispered.

‹Is that...?›

"Yes," I said, bitterly. "Yes."

‹Marco, we have a more pressing problem. We can settle David later.›

My senses were tingling. "What?"

‹Cassie, specifically.›

"What about Cassie?" I was halfway morphing into osprey once I had spotted the circling northern harrier above. But my heart was starting to pound even more than when I had discovered David.

‹Let us hurry. I will tell you on the way.›