Much to my surprise, I actually did beat Jake at "Streetfighter". Eventually. I even managed to do it twice in a row, too. But I was content to let him and Marco play while the rest of us watched and cheered them on and refined our plans for spying on the Controllers.
"So," Lee said, "We should probably go and take a look at the Esplin building tonight. We've all got bird morphs, so I figure we walk over to the construction site, hide our street clothes and backpacks, morph, and then fly from there."
"Sounds good to me," Rachel said, "I haven't used my hawk morph since that first day and I've been itching for a chance to try it out again."
"You haven't?" Lee inquired, "I've done my raven morph just about every night."
"Well, I can't exactly do it at home, not with my mom and sisters around," Rachel said, "Plus I fell behind on homework with everything going on this weekend and I've had to do some extra studying this week to catch up. Hey, Tobias, have you morphed since the weekend?"
(Apart from yesterday, obviously,) she added in Thought-Speech so Jake wouldn't hear.
How many times had I done it, now? I counted it up quickly in my head. There were the two missions back to the construction site on Saturday, then spying on the Sharing meeting on Sunday, our raid on Dealin' Dan yesterday, plus a couple of times between missions...
"I've used my hawk morph eight times now," I admitted. Marco peeled his face away from the arcade machine, with a look somewhere between admiration and horror. "Dude, you haven't even had this power for a week yet. How have you morphed that many times already?"
"Well, there's no limit to how many times a day we can do it," I replied, "Just for how long before you need to demorph. Haven't you-"
"I haven't morphed at all since our first trip back to the construction site," Marco cut in, as he turned back to look at the arcade screen, "And I'm just fine with that. Besides, all I can do so far is turn into a bird, and that's not exactly my first choice of recreation."
"Suit yourself," I said, "You have no idea what you're missing."
"There's a part of me that feels like I should be reminding you two to be more responsible with your superpowers and not treat it like a toy," Jake said, just briefly looking away from the game, "But on the other hand, actually saying that out loud would make me sound too much like my dad, and I think I'd probably die - Oh, high score! - yeah, I'd die a little bit on the inside if I started doing that," he said as he tapped his initials into the high score slot. "And I'd definitely be doing the same thing if I wasn't really worried that Tom might find out. What about you, Cassie?"
"Well, so far my parents haven't noticed one extra horse running around the pasture," she answered, "And I mean running. I feel like a bolt of lightning, zipping from one end of the field to the other."
"Well, I've got to be home by 6:00," Rachel said, "So if we want to check out the Esplin building tonight, we should go right now. Jake? We'll check in with you guys later."
"Good luck," Jake replied.
Halfway through the food court, Lee suddenly stopped and ducked behind a decorative pillar, and pointed at something.
"Hey, do you see that guy over there? With the brown hat and the goatee?"
The man Lee had pointed out was seated at a table on the far side of the court, and seemed to be winding up an antique pocket watch.
"I recognize him," I said, "He was one of the Controllers at the sharing meeting!"
"Yeah. And I feel like I've seen him somewhere else before, but I can't think where," Lee added.
"I see him," Rachel said, "Yeah, I think I've seen him somewhere, too. But we don't have all night to figure it out. Let's keep going."
We hurried out through the front doors of the mall, across the parking lot, and back over to the edge of the abandoned construction site. Right back to where our lives had been turned completely upside down. Back to where Elfangor had died. Yeah, it felt really uncomfortable going back in there again. But it had the advantage of being close to the mall, and pretty much deserted. Usually.
"Look out!"
I didn't see the bicycle until it had screeched to a halt after plowing between Rachel and Lee.
"Sorry, I thought this place was deserted."
There was a red-haired boy perched on top of the bike. I'd seen him at school before, but had never talked to him and didn't know his name. Lee recognized him, though.
"Nicolas, what do you think you're doing?" he asked, after a flurry of angry shouting in Spanish that I think was mostly swear words.
"Well, don't tell my mom, but I built my own little racecourse for my mountain bike out here. At least, it was a racecourse before somebody came through over the weekend and flattened half of it, so now I've got to try and put it back together."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Rachel asked, "I heard there was some kind of HAZMAT team working here over the weekend. What if there's something toxic-"
"They haven't been here in a few days," Nicolas interrupted, "So it's safe. There's just normal hazards like loose gravel, exposed rebar, and rusty metal. Oh, and flying saucers. You heard about that, right?"
I nodded my head. "Yeah. I heard someone set off fireworks out here and it freaked out a lot of people who didn't know any better."
That was the lie the Controllers had published in the local newspapers. No way was I going to risk admitting to this random kid that I'd actually been an eyewitness to an Andalite crash-landing on Earth. And, of course, Marco had actually set off a few firecrackers as a distraction when we'd come back to the construction site to retrieve the Blue Box and the Herok Disk.
"Eh, fireworks, flying saucer... either way, I would've seen something really cool that night if I'd been able to come out here, but Mom wanted me to stay home and get the house ready for my baby sister's birthday party next morning, and-"
"All right, all right, I get it," Lee protested, "Just don't run me over again."
Nicolas rode his bike away.
"He lives down the street from me," Lee commented, "That's not the first time he's almost hit me with that stupid bike."
"Maybe we should find a different place to morph?" Rachel suggested. "I don't want to risk that guy stumbling back onto us while we're in the middle of turning into birds."
"Well, you're the only one who's lived here for more than a few weeks," Lee replied, "If you have somewhere in mind, I'm all for it. But we don't have a lot of time to search around."
Rachel's brow scrunched up in concentration.
"I can't really think of anywhere else we can get to in a hurry. Either we risk doing it here, or try again another night."
Cautiously, I leaned around the corner of a half-finished building. I didn't see or hear anybody else - though, of course, I didn't quite trust my weaker human senses. If I had my hawk senses, I'd feel a lot better about declaring all clear.
"Let's risk it," I said, "That building over there looks nice and shadowy."
Author's Note: Nicolas is basically the PoV character from the first Alternamorphs choose-your-own-adventure book (officially known as You, apparently). A while back, I started playing around with the idea of a sixth Animorph being there from the beginning without relying on the plot from Alternamorphs. Both Lee and Nicolas emerged from that line of thought, and I decided to begin writing "The Extraneous".
