Chapter 4: The escape
Jacob and Alex watched as the Animorphs left the classroom. After a few moments, once Tobias had morphed back into a human, time resumed for all the other students and they found themselves unfrozen.
"I'm sorry, class, but I'm afraid thats going to be all for today" Tobias said. He looked calm, but something about the way he stood as he said it and the slightly too fast way in which he walked out of the classroom betrayed his nervousness, or perhaps his excitement. The other students quickly started murmuring as they picked up their stuff, and Alex leaned towards Jacob.
"Something isn't right. We need to talk to the others" he told Jacob, who nodded silently. They left the room and made their way out of the university, where Jacob called Jaime.
"Sup dude?"
"Hey Jacob! Just chilling at the moment. What you up to?"
"Dude, I'm here with Alex, and you won't believe what happened. Is Cassie around?"
"She is studying, I wouldn't want to bother her. What happened?"
"Well it's kind of long to explain..." Alex started responding, but was interrupted by Jacob.
"Ok so the Ellemist showed up and told the Animorphs to go help him and he would resurect Rachel, so they did, but now we fear something has gone wrong" Jacob explained, explaining nothing.
"...what?" asked Jaime, confused.
"Nevermind him. Look, can you and Cassie be at Barry and Shani's in, I don't know, twenty minutes? And bring your computer." Alex said. "We will exlpain it there".
"Uh, sure, I guess. I'll go tell Cassie, see you soon" Jaime responded before hanging up.
Half an hour later, Alex nervously looked around. Him and Jacob where at the same place they usually met with their friends, but they were late. Alex couldn't stop fidgetting around, his leg shaking non stop. Jacob was, as usual, just chilling. Finally however, a very distressed Jaime appeared, carrying an open laptop, followed by Cassie who seemed to be slightly worried as well.
"Dudes, have you heard of this? Look!" Jaime said, showing his computer. As Alex read what was on scream, his eyes opened wide. It was a live news report. Apparently, Esplin 9466, known to the world as Visser 3, had escaped the secret prison they were being held in. How it had happened was not clear, but authorities were not very hopeful about finding them any time soon. For now, all sources of kandrona rays were being carefully controlled, to make sure they would eventually have to come out clean. But it meant that, for the next three days, there was a yeerk free to roam around.
Alex and Jacob looked at each other. "Fuck" said Alex.
"What's going on?" asked Cassie as she and Jaime sat down. Alex explained what they had seen, with Jacob simply nodding. It was evident how important this meeting was by the fact that Jacob did not touch his napkin at all. And none of the otheres noticed it either. Finally, he finished explaining everything.
"We think Marco was supposed to see something or notice something, but he didn't, which is why we saw it, so we could intervene."
"But what could he have missed? It's evident now, in exchange for returning Rachel, the Crayak got to release Visser 3" Jaime responded. "Seems pretty straightforward" he continued.
"Is it? I mean, say you are the Crayak. Would you accept to let your mortal enemy resurect someone and you only get to release someone from prison?" Cassie said. "That's not how negotiations work. And specially not when you are winning. I think the Crayak would only accept a favorable deal".
"Well, you are the expert in negotiations, my dear. I guess you are right." Jaime responded, which made Cassie roll her eyes.
"So, what do we do now?" Alex asked, nervously tapping the table.
"It's obvious, dude. We contact the animorphs. If we could talk to Tobias, since he arleady knows us, that would be best, but who knows where he is? I say we go find Marco, he's the only one who we can actually reach" Jacob responded.
"Alright then, Jaime, see if you can find out where he lives" Alex said. Cassie was about to protest, probably about breaching their privacy or something like that, but Jaime was faster to respond. "No need to, I already know where he lives" he said casually. The other three looked at him until he felt uncomfortable. "What? Can't a man have hobbies? Let's go, we are on a time sensitive mission here!"
The group left the bar, leaving the nice pair who owned the place laughing at seeing their repeat costumers so worried they had even forgotten to make their order. "Young people these days" they thought, shaking their head.
Two and a half hours, two buses, a train, a walk, and an ice cream later (just the one. Jacob was very insistant, and for once, he had the money), the four found themselves at the doors of a very very large mansion, complete with a very very large pool and very very expensive cars. And also, very very menacing looking guards.
Hesitatingly, Alex, followed by the others, walked up to one of the guards, who got closer to the fence from the inside. "Nothing to see here, move along" the guard said, clearly used to people trying to peak into the house.
Cassie took a step forward. "Sir, we need to speak with Marco. It is very important." she said respectfuly.
"I'm sure you do. Now move along."
"Sir, this is a matter of life and death!" Jaime said, which only got the guard to roll his eyes.
Cassie was starting to get angry. "Now listen here-" but she was cut short by Jacob placing his hand on her shoulder and reeling her in, before stepping forward himself. "Look dude, what's your name?"
The guard eyed him wearily. "Jack" he responded after a moment.
"Ok, Jack, listen. I understand you are just doing your job, and I bet you get hundreds of young people begging to see Marco, right?" he asked. The guard nodded. "And I'm sure you have heard of every excuse on the planet. But the thing is, this is, actually, a matter of life and death. So, could you just pass along a message to Marco, and see if then he will let us speak with him? Worst case scenario, he says no, and we waste five minutes. But imagine if this is actually important. Can you risk it?"
The guard sighed. "Fine. What do you want me to tell him?"
Jacob smiled. "Just tell him that a bunch of kids showed up saying they know what happened earlier today when everything froze".
"Are you trying to blackmail him?" the guard responded, suspicious.
"If we did, would the four of us come together?" Alex responded.
"Fine. But you may have to wait for a while before he answers back. He's having a party. He is not going to like being interrupted". the guard made a signal to another guard, who stood in his place while the four friends waited to see if they would be allowed in.
Only a few minutes later, the guard, Jack, came back, and opened the gate, letting them come in. "I don't know what you want to talk about with him, but he is not happy at all."
The four were guided to a large room with a huge sofa and a large TV, as well as several other chairs and tables. A large abstract painting adorned the wall opposite to the TV. And right next to it there was a vintage looking poster of Kill Bill, with Uma Thurman in her legendary yellow suit. They sat on the sofa, before Marco, wearing the same bathrobe he had been wearing when they saw him back at the university, came in. He was clearly not amused at having been bothered. At least he wasn't drinking, Alex had half expected him to be drunk. "Alright, you guys got my attention, just tell me where you want me to sign the autograph and we can get on with this" he said, sitting down on a beanbag.
They looked at each other. "Sir-" Alex started, but Marco interrupted him. "nah, don't call me sir, I'm Marco, good 'old Marco. You know, "My name is Marco", yada yada yada".
Alex tried again. "Marco, Jacob" -he pointed at Jacob, who waved his hand- "and I were there when the Ellimist stopped the time earlier today. Nobody else seemed to notice anything, but him and I were only paralized. We fear there is a reason for it".
If Marco was bored and unhappy before, now he was clearly angry, and serious. This wasn't the happy go lucky person who gave interviews and went on comedy shows, Alex realized. This was the Marco who had won a war at age 13. The Marco who had chosen saving the human race over his mother. He leaned forward and listened carefully as Alex, with some help from Jacob, explained everything they knew, starting with how they had discovered Tobias' secret. Marco nodded from time to time, looking at the floor, but not saying anything. At least, not until Rachel made her appearence.
"Wait, Rachel is back?" he asked. After Alex confirmed that that was the case, Marco chuckled slightly. "Not even Death itself can defeat our mighty Xena warrior princess. Ok, what happened next?". So Alex continued explaining everything. "He told the rest to meet at his house in three hours, and then they left." Alex finished explaining.
"So that means the meeting would have been about half an hour ago. That explains the calls I got from Jake, I probably shouldn't have ignored those." he mused to himself. "And how did you end up here?" he asked. Jaime was the one to answer, explaining the conversation they had had at the bar.
"Your friend Cassie is right. There seems to be something off about all of this. Crayak must have gotten something else in exchange. Besides, I already knew about Visser Three's escape, and it didn't magically happen, someone, or something, broke him out of there. And they used plenty of brute force. But why are you involved? What are you playing at, Ellimist?" he asked no one in particular, looking at the sky. He shook his head. "Well, thank you for letting me know, but I am done with the war and the fighting. It's not my job anymore. Cat's out of the bag now, so what I'm going to do is make sure the authorities know about this, and then head back to my party" he said, standing up and heading towards the door.
"What about us?" Jaime asked.
"You are going back home. Trust me, you don't want to take a part in this, and neither do I. It's for the best, the Ellimist can not be trusted. I don't know why he chose the four of you, but you have done your part. Just-just leave, OK?" Marco responded.
"Dude, that's so uncool. We can help. We want to help. And we are all adults here. Tobias trusted us, why don't you?" Jacob said. Alex was very surprised, he had never seen his friend be so confrontative. Gone was his usual relaxed self, instead here he was, facing off against the single most famous person in the world.
"Tobias has never been very good with people".Marco sighed. "Just go home." he said before turning around. Suddenly, Marco's phone rung. He looked at the screen before picking it up. "Hey Cassie, I was just about to call you" he said, before stopping on his tracks, frozen.
The phone fell to the floor, cracking the screen, forgotten.