The next day, we met at Lee's home after the school day was over. Ironically, despite both of his parents having been confirmed to be Controllers, it was temporarily the only place we could guarantee had no Yeerks to worry about. Lee's mother worked afternoons on alternate weeks, and his father had finally been sent out to the Yeerk ship that was out searching for the Andalite. Neither of them would ever know that the 'Andalite Bandits' were using their home as a meeting place.

As Tobias and I watched from above, a window on the back of the house slid open, and Lee waved for us to come in. I glided down, passed through the window, and landed on the floor. The room appeared to be Lee's personal quarters. The walls had some kind of repetitive flower pattern that was largely obscured by pictures haphazardly pinned to the wall - posters that said things like "METROID", "IRON MAIDEN", and "WOLVERINE" in an assortment of bright colors. A large yellow flag with a pattern of intersecting red lines in the center was positioned above a desk with a computer monitor and several electronic components in various stages of disassembly. There was also one of the large, soft rectangular platforms that Humans slept on (unlike most species I was familiar with, Humans actually slept laying on their backs), an open closet door, and a few articles of clothing that lay scattered on the floor, which he hurriedly kicked into the closet after Tobias landed on the windowsill.

"Sorry," Lee said, "It's been a while since I had visitors in here."

(Last time I came in here was when we tried to run that Andalite disk.)

"Yeah, and it almost fried my computer," Lee said. "Had to install a new power cord and a new disc drive, and it did something weird to the graphics card that I'm still trying to fix. It was a brand-new Riva 128, too."

(Couldn't you just replace it?)

A strange look crossed Lee's face.

"Maybe. But it's a choice between the most expensive graphics card on the market, or being able to get food for you for the next two weeks. Right now, I'm the only one who has any money left to spare for-"

Very abruptly, he stopped talking, and looked away from Tobias.

"おっと!"

He clearly hadn't meant to reveal that information. Tobias shifted sideways along the windowsill.

(I'm sorry. I know you're sacrificing a lot for-)

"It's just a graphics card," Lee said, "If it's a choice between that and keeping you alive, I'd rather spend the money on you. Besides, I saved the old card. And it's not like the new one made 'Myst' any less confusing."

I had continued morphing as they talked, and by now I was in my Human morph once again. Not out of any concern over being seen by the wrong people, but because the house was too cramped for a Hork-Bajir to spend any time in comfortably. Although I was not fully grown yet, and not as large as an adult Hork-Bajir, there was still very little room for me to move without my blades or tail getting caught on something. Lee handed me a spare shirt and blue jeans, then, with Tobias sitting on my shoulder, led us out into the main room. It was arranged in similar fashion to the room in Cassie's house where we had met before: large fabric-covered chairs and a small wooden table, arranged around another of those large black boxes with a screen. Some of the furniture was covered in sheets of cloth that had colorful geometric designs. The walls were covered with pictures of harsh, red, rocky landscapes that were largely devoid of trees. There was also a single large, framed illustration of a massive ocean wave.

"The Great Wave off Kanagawa," Lee said, breaking my concentration.

"What?"

"That's what this painting is called. My great-grandparents brought it with them when they immigrated from Japan."

Jake and Marco were already there, sitting on the couch below the wave portrait. As Tobias flapped up to the back of a wooden chair, I went to sit next to them, so the Great Wave would not be in my line of sight. They looked back and forth between me and Lee.

"I still can't tell you two apart," Jake said.

"No, it's easy. I knew that was Toby from the beginning," Marco said, pointing at me.

"How were you so sure?" Jake asked.

"Because Toby was the one looking around like she'd never seen this room before."

They were interrupted by an electronic buzzing sound. Tobias flew back down the hallway while Lee walked over to the door. He looked through a small window next to the door, then opened it up.

"Come on in," he said. "Tobias? It's just Cassie and Rachel. You can come back."

Tobias returned to his perch on the chair, and Rachel went to sit next to him.

(Hi,) Tobias said, (How was school?)

"Well, art class got very interesting today," Rachel said, "We got an assignment to draw an underwater scene. And the teacher had a weirdly specific set of instructions."

"Don't tell me she wants you to draw a picture of a crashed Andalite ship," Lee said.

"Nah. She said not to draw any pictures of the Titanic, and especially nothing with Leo DiCaprio. She threatened to give an F for the entire semester to the next person who tried it."

"Next person, huh?" Marco said, "Would that mean somebody else already did it?"

"I think so."

"I plead innocent," Marco said, as he realized that everyone else was staring at him. "I may be the class clown, but that's not quite my sense of humor."

"We believe you," Jake said. "Anyway, now that everyone's here, we need to talk about what to do next. We've established that the Andalite is too far out at sea to be able to get there just by morphing. We'd have to demorph at sea a minimum of three times JUST to get there, and that's if nothing goes wrong this time."

(Sounds like a very big 'if',) Tobias commented.

"Exactly," Lee agreed. "So we need an alternate means of transportation."

"And I've got that alternate means," Marco said. "There's a yacht out in the marina we can take."

The room went quiet for a moment.

"Um, what do you mean 'take'?" Rachel asked. "Are you talking about something we can get permission to use, or are we going to have to steal it?"

"Well, I can't exactly ask for permission to use it," Marco said, as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "But we're not stealing anything. It's, um..."

He let out a heavy sigh, slouched forward, looked down at the floor in front of him, and said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "I must be crazy for even thinking about this."

Jake put an arm around Marco's shoulder. "It's all right. We can come up with something else."

"No. This is the only way we can get exactly where we need to be without morphing."

Marco looked up again, with a hollow look in his face.

"It was my mom's boat. Dad couldn't bring himself to get rid of it after she died, so it's just been sitting at the dock for the last two years. As long as there's gas in the tank, I'm pretty sure I can get us close to the Andalite's ship."

The room went quiet for a moment. Cassie broke the silence.

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"What I 'want' doesn't really matter," Marco said. "The only other thing I could think of was to hitch a ride on a cargo ship and HOPE that it'll pass the general area we need to get to. But if we take the yacht, I can control where we go - I can steer us as close as possible. Plus, we can take food and water with us, and it'll be a safe place to rest before we need to morph, so we'll be as fresh and well-rested as possible before we try a rescue."

"Anyone else have a better idea?" Jake said. "Seriously. We're open to suggestions."

"I can't think of anything else," Lee said. "Anyway, I'm the one who said we should get a boat on the way home yesterday."

"I've got nothing," Rachel said.

"Let's put it to a vote, then," Jake decided. "Hands up, everyone in favor."

Five hands rose into the air - all of us except Marco and Tobias.

(Hey, I don't exactly have a hand to raise), he said, (But I guess I'm in favor of it. This time, I might even be able to come along with you guys).

"Well, that settles it," Jake said, "We're doing this. We'll meet up at the Kwik-Trip across from the marina at 7:00 tomorrow morning so we can stock up on water, snacks, and gas."

"And one more thing," Marco said nervously, "After this mission is over... I'm done."

"Done with what?" Cassie asked.

"With all this Animorphs stuff. I can't do this anymore. I just - I - this isn't some video game where you get to try again as long as you've got enough power rings, all right? We don't get any extra lives. No extra chances to start over and try again. It's too big of a risk. I can't keep going. I just can't."

I stood up, and walked over to look Marco in the face.

"Do you really think that deciding not to participate in this war will be enough to save you? It won't, because the Yeerks have already made that decision for you. All your cowardice will accomplish is to make it easier for-"

Suddenly, I was on the ground, aware of a sudden, intense ache and metallic taste in my mouth. I raised up a hand to feel my injured jaw. The others stared at us, too shocked to move. Marco glared at me, standing as if ready to throw another punch.

"I'm not a coward," he said, breathing heavily. "But I'm all my dad has left. If something happens - I mean, what if we all got killed by those sharks yesterday? As far as Dad knows, I would've just disappeared. Losing Mom broke him. He won't be able to cope with losing me, too. I don't know if family means anything to you, but I'm trying to protect what's left of mine."

I pulled my hand away from my jaw. It was now coated in a sticky red liquid. Cassie and Rachel helped me back up onto my feet, while Lee walked into a different room. I stared at Marco.

"Ignoring reality will not protect your father."

"Well, I'm not just going to pretend the Yeerks don't exist," he said, "I'll still keep an eye out for them and I'll tell one of you guys if I see anything weird, but actively hunting them down is not an option. Look, I only agreed to help rescue Jake's brother from the Yeerks, and that mission was a complete disaster. Helping Rachel spy on Chapman was supposed to be low-risk. We weren't supposed to have to rescue her from under Visser Three's nose. But if we pull this one off, there'll be an Andalite soldier to take my place on the team. it's not like I'd just be leaving you guys alone. If anything, you'll be replacing me with somebody much more qualified to fight this war."

I could have kept arguing with him, but I knew that it was an argument that I could not win - all I could do was provoke him further.

"Very well. I cannot force you to do this. I can only hope that you will reconsider later."

"Thanks for being so understanding," he said, as he sat back down. "Uh... sorry I hit you."

Lee returned, and handed me a damp square of fabric.

"Here. You can use this to wipe off the blood."

"Thank you."

Author's Note: True story. My 4th-grade art teacher once gave the class an assignment to draw an underwater scene, and thought it necessary to warn us NOT to draw Jack Dawson floating next to the Titanic, with no further explanation. I can only assume that somebody in another class had already done it.

This is now the longest story I've written as part of "The Extraneous", by word count, by chapter count, and by how many months I've actively been working on it. But I'm close to the end now, and I'm going to try and finish it by October. Only four chapters to go.