They met up with Cassie, Ax, and the others just outside the building, in a blind spot that Tobias reported no one was approaching from any side. All of them, with the obvious exception of Tobias himself, landed and demorphed before morphing into their usual collection of bird morphs. Then, with the two-hour time limit no longer hanging over all of their heads, the eight of them set off toward the barn.
Rachel, in particular, was eager to get back to the barn so that she could explain just what the new weapon they had against the Yeerks; a weapon that they wouldn't be able to fight against, something that could destroy them all before they could become an even worse threat than they already were. A weapon that would, finally, take some of the pressure off of her and the others so that they could rest a bit. And, she thought with a slight mental sigh, so that they could begin figuring out what to do when the Radam finally started to make their move.
After a bit more flying, she didn't bother to ask anyone if they'd managed to spot a clock on the way since it wasn't really that important and she wasn't really interested in any case, they reached Cassie's barn. Folding her wings as the others all dove into the hayloft window, Rachel followed them down. Swooping in just after Ax and Slade had done likewise, Rachel flared her wings to kill her speed and circled the rest of the way down to the floor.
Demorphing as soon as her talons touched the ground, Rachel made her way over to the hay-bale that she usually sat on and settled down on it.
"All right," she said, drawing the attention of the others who had just finished their own demorphs; or not even bothered, in Tobias' case. "This is what I've found out." And then she began to lay out, bit by bit, everything that she and Edelman had talked about while she had been sitting in the nuthouse bathroom with him.
Well, almost everything; she left out the part where he had talked about suicide, and the part where he had expressed a desire to leave. She'd probably discuss that last part with Shara after all of this was out of the way; but for now it wasn't important. Nor was it really anyone else's business, either.
"Well, we've just found our ultimate weapon," Marco summed-up for everyone. "Maple and ginger oatmeal."
"Instant maple and ginger oatmeal," she corrected.
"Right, instant," Marco amended quickly, smirking the way he always seemed to be doing.
Most of the others, that was to say Cassie, Ax, and Tobias, all stared at her and Marco in plain disbelief. No one quite seemed to know how to react to this new information.
"Oatmeal," Cassie repeated, incredulous.
"Oatmeal," Jake confirmed, with a short, sharp nod. "But only the instant maple and ginger kind. Mr. Edelman said that they didn't know why, but they think it might have something to do with the chemicals in the host's bloodstream while they're digesting this stuff."
(Maybe it's the maple,) Tobias suggested.
"Maybe it's the ginger," she suggested in turn, settling back on the hay-bale. "Or maybe it's the "instant". Whatever the heck that is. Who really cares? Suddenly, after all this time, we have a weapon to use on human-Controllers. A human-Controller who eats this stuff gets their Yeerk hooked, and then that Yeerk goes nuts. What we have to do is find a way to get a lot of this stuff into a lot of Controllers."
She said this last with a sidelong glance at Cassie, knowing that if anyone was going to object to this latest of plans, it was going to be her. Cassie, however, merely continued checking the bandage on an injured badger through the bars of its cage. To her, and probably a lot of other peoples', surprise, it was Tobias who spoke up.
(You know, something about this just doesn't seem right,) the hawk said. (Not at all.)