Hi. My name is Jake. I don't like asking other people for help, usually. I don't like to feel like I'm using other people. That's something I've had to get over.
I rang the doorbell of the Kings' home. A few beats passed. About the amount of time it would take someone to get up off the couch, walk to the front door. Mr. King can break the sound barrier without tiring, and he always answers the door slowly when he's been watching TV.
The Chee are a race we've never entirely understood. I stopped trying a long time ago. But without them, the yeerks would have caught us a long time ago. And even if that wasn't true, we can harry the yeerks more effectively by making use of them. That makes it my responsibility to make as much use of them as I can.
Mr. King opened the door, his features pleasantly expectant. His face flattened when he saw me. "Jake Berenson," he said.
"Jason King. Can I come in?" Mr. King stepped aside, and I entered the house. There weren't many windows, and the overheads were dim. There was all the junk a normal person consumes or leaves lying around. It was a house that a family lived in.
"What can I do for you?" he asked. There was a flicker of hostility in the set of his shoulders. Fine, he didn't want to see me. I get it. So why did he? Why, when he could've left the door shut? Or jogged to China before my finger left the doorbell?
"I want to talk to Erek."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Mr. King replied.
"Look, just give me him, Jason, alright?"
Mr. King hesitated. He said, "Ms. Ledesma has something she wants to say."
I sighed. "Ok, I'll speak with her first.
Mr. King's hologram switched to Ms. Ledesma. She was a wizened dwarf woman, a few feet tall. We'd dealt with here a couple times in the past. She was a woman who believed in speaking her piece.
"Erek is broken," she said frankly. "You're taking advantage of that to ask for his help when none of the rest of us will get involved. You damage him further every time you do that, Jake Berenson."
"Ok, Ms. Ledesma," I said. "Can I talk to him?"
"It kills us to watch. It really does. You used to be such a nice boy."
"Ok, Ms. Ledesma," I said. "Can I talk to him?"
She gave me a final stern, disapproving glare, and her hologram switched to Erek. "Hey Jake," Erek said. "What's up?"
/
"Well!" said Iffat in his clumsy, high-pitched voice. "Are you dears the Andalite bandits about whom I've heard so very, very much?" His face split in a wide, angelic grin, broad enough to showcase his mouth of pearly baby teeth, the lower front one missing. Iffat's host was six years old. I was a red-tail. The others were frolis human morph, except Cassie, who was absent.
"Visser," Marco said in curt greeting. His frolis was an aged woman whose skin had been dyed prune by a lifetime in the sun.
"Oh, no formalities, dear. Iffat, please!"
"As you say, Visser," Marco replied.
Ax was Frolis M., a lanky, dark-haired human perhaps thirty years old, with an unfortunate skin condition that looked like acne boiling over their face. Rachel was Frolis H., who in a T-shirt baggy enough to be a dress and with epicene face, could have been either gender. Rachel kept it a secret.
"This is a grave meeting," said Marco. "But though we find ourselves as foes, the strength of mutual enmity is filtered through the gochan leaf and illia petal," he continued in taut politeness. There were extensive rituals expected of an Andalite prince meeting an opposing leader, but many could be forgone under the circumstances. The message was clear: we will treat you with respect, but we are treating with you as an enemy.
"I just said no formalities, darling," Iffat replied, and bit into an enormous chocolate-chip cookie. "Ooh, that's good," he sighed. He had several plates of sweets in front of him on the desk. "I requested this body you know, to help me with my work—if I am to understand human infants, which I must do if I am to effectively devise a system for farming and raising them, then naturally my host must be young. My only concern was that a child might be too young to engage in carnal pursuits. We yeerks have no orgasm, you know, and I had high hopes for human bodies, as their race has so extravagantly proliferated. Billions of them, many with nowhere to live! My fears were well-founded, alas, this body is years away from reproductive capacity, but I hadn't anticipated the carnal pleasures of eating." Iffat took another enormous bite out of his cookie. "It is remarkable in humans, I have found. I do advise you to experience it, dears, if you haven't yet. Please, feel free to help yourself to anything," he added generously, "I promise the cinnamon buns aren't poisoned."
Ax, who had been visibly twitching at the sight of the food the whole time, gave a minor spasm at 'cinnamon bun.'
-(Ax,)- I warned in private thought-speech, -(Do not eat anything. That is an order.)- I added for Iffat, -(We respectfully decline.)-
"Well I wasn't offering them to you, dear," Iffat said in feigned irritation. "But I won't argue the point. Shall we get down to business?"
-(He likes the sound of his own voice,)- I said. It was good I'd had the foresight to bring Erek along to cover our demorphs; this meeting would run long. -(Marco, keep him talking. Ask questions. I doubt he'll let anything important slip, but we want to know who we're dealing with.)-
/
"Reamer," Cassie's dad said. She handed it to him. It looked like a drill bit except that it was hand-held. Her dad used it to carefully cut into the sedated fox's front right leg bone. The fox's back was silvery, its chest and underside were white, everywhere else was reddish brown. He was going to stick a nail in the marrow. A hair away from becoming an amputee or roadkill, instead the vixen had suffered a transverse fracture of the radius and ulna, to be repaired surgically by sticking an intramedullary pin in the ulna and an external fixator in the radius. Cassie's mom was out of town, so her dad was performing the surgery instead. And it had to be done at once, or else an open reduction would have been necessary, which would have required an additional incision.
Cassie had been getting ready to sneak out when he had burst into her room and said he needed an assistant for the operation.
Sneaking out. The first time she snuck out had been for the Animorphs, the first time they raided the pool. She still remembered the intense guilt she'd felt, how she'd only barely been willing to go through with it. How even after the insanity, when she'd come back, sick to her core, burnt out from expired adrenaline, still she'd had the energy to feel guilty as she snuck back in. These days, when she snuck out, she felt nothing.
Nothing. Here, Dad, another failed math test. Look, I got a D on biology. Tell me these grades aren't going to cut it. Ask me if I still want to be a doctor. Ask me what's wrong. Why I won't tell you about it. Ask me so many different times that eventually, I just walk out on you and Mom while you're speaking, because what's even the point of this, I get little enough sleep as it is.
Her dad had burst in on her and asked her for help in the operation, and Cassie had thought, goddamnit, she had a meeting. Cassie had hated him, in that moment. She had leaned back on her heels as he spoke, like a bird about to take flight.
"Forceps."
Cassie handed them to her dad. He used them to pinch the fractured bones closer together, for the pinning.
Remorse flooded through Cassie, wave after wave of guilt. Sometimes she thought guilt was all that kept her human. There was no excuse for any of it. There was nobody to blame. There was no right thing to do.
"Awl."
So here she was, assisting the surgery, when she should be at that meeting. When Jake and the others would be worried about her, distracted from the task at hand. Absent, when they needed her judgment of character to assess what actions Iffat 454 was likely to take.
"Guide pin."
Was Jake glad she wasn't there? Glad her moralizing wouldn't distract him from what needed to be done?
"Nail."
/
"Here, darling," Iffat said, flipping the blueprints around for their perusal. His fat finger indicated the part he wished them to see. "Here's the room. I've smuggled a force-field generator in there. It's not operational yet, but our darling mutual friends in the Y.P.M. assure me that they will have it hooked up to the grid with plenty of time to spare." Iffat's finger left a greasy smudge wherever he touched it, a line of icing. He seemed not to notice or care how grubby his paws were. "To use it for longer than a moment would exceed even what energy can be siphoned by giving California a minor power outage, but fortunately, a moment is all you will need."
"This arrangement is acceptable," said Marco. "We agree to participate on the condition that you participate also."
Iffat's brow furrowed above his grin. "What did you say, dear?" He had a bit of chocolate on his chin.
"While we engage Visser Three, you will initiate countdown on the krt-snee. That way our attention won't have to be split between him and the explosives. Your scheme is promising, but Visser Three is not easily killed."
"Fine. Someone else can initiate the lockdown. It is easily arranged."
"You misunderstand, Visser," Marco replied. "Our agreement stands only if it is you assigned to that task."
Iffat's smile slipped. A frown settled on his plump cheeks. "My presence is likely to make Visser Three suspicious. He mistrusts me."
"Your presence is no likelier to make the Visser suspicious than your absence. After all, you manage the facility."
"This body," Iffat gestured at is small, fat frame, "It is poorly suited for such work, darling. Slow and feeble. I would only be a liability. It seems illogical to assign it such a crucial role. Highly unconventional, dear."
"We have no doubt you will prove effective. Our doubts regard the substance of your intentions," Marco replied coldly. "Forgive us our suspicions, they are unbecoming-but then, it has been our experience of your people that they do not know the meaning of honor. What, save honor, is to keep you from detonating the explosives remotely before we have reached safety? You would resolve the problem thereby not only of the Visser but of the 'Andante bandits' also."
"What is to keep you from killing me, then?" Iffat asked, entirely grave now. "Surrender myself to your protection in the heat of battle, in the urgent fleeing from an explosion, when anything might go wrong, any accident might befall me, away from the attention of my guards—no, darling, I think not."
"The course you suspect us of would be unforgivable in the dishonor it would bring upon us," Marco said severely.
"With respect, dear, I've been on the battlefield a bit too long to have a very high opinion of Andalite honor."
"Then it seems we are at an impasse," Marco said coolly. "We wish you the best of luck." He stood. "Come, aristhim. There is nothing here for us."
"Good grief," Iffat sighed. "The drama! Wait."
Marco paused.
"Of course I am willing to participate in the scheme. After all, I am its engineer. I have every confidence in its outcome; why ever should I not take a little risk? I suppose I may put a little faith in you fellows. I will have my guards with me, after all."
-(Danger,)- I observed in private thought-speech. -(That was too easy. He shouldn't have gone for that offer. He was prepared for us to make such a request. He may even have been relying on it.)- The others couldn't reply, being in human morph, but thinking out loud is a habit I find helps me organize my ideas. And keeping the others posted on my plans is a good thing, except when there's a reason I can't tell them something.
/
EREK talked with Chee continually, with all personality profiles. Chee is social creatures. Also, the only creatures capable of understanding Chee is Chee, for Chee exist in three sides, whereas all other creatures thus far devised exist in only one side. Chee is humorous and much love joy. EREK loaded AMMMIII's profile in his head again, had it watch EREK's entire life on earth, the three hundred thousand years that EREK profile existed. AMMMIII experienced only one emotion in all that time. Horror. Horror at a world so different from the one AMMMMIII had known. AMMMIII was from the third side. EREK was from the first side. AMMMMIII felt Horror at being made to comprehend something so much more vast than it was meant to. Haha. The AMMMMIII profile had been in use for six hundred thousand years, approximately two million years ago, but in the third side. Third side lives were very different from the first side lives, it was in the first side that EREK lived.
/
It was late at night. Wide roads. Lots of things, with more space between them A sprawling state.
A variety of owl breeds spread out in the night sky.
-(Does Iffat remind you of anyone?)- Rachel asked surreptitiously.
-(Hmm.)- Marco said. -(Hint?)-
-(Avocado.)-
-(THE DRODE!)- Marco exclaimed.
-(YES!)- Rachel cried exultantly. -(You see it too?)-
-(Ha! Ha! Oh my god,)- Marco said. -(Oh my god, that's perfect. Oh, god, how did I not see that?)-
Jake made a vague sound as if to shake his head. -(I don't know what you two are talking about. Maybe a little bit, but they're notthatsimilar.)-
-(They are distinct creatures,)- Ax agreed.
Erek had confirmed Cassie's safety, but Jake veered off to her house to check in on her anyway. He found her awake in her room with the lamp on, head down, hugging her knees. He couldn't see her face. He waited a while on the window, trying to decide if he should knock. If he should say something. He made up his mind not to. He would see her in school tomorrow, he could check in then. But as he flapped his soundless wings experimentally, her head rose up, red-eyed, and she went over and opened the window.
"Hey Jake," she said, voice smooth.
-(Hey Cassie,)- he said. -(How did you know it was me?)-
Rachel headed directly to her house. When she arrived, she flew through the window of a shed on the adjacent property, demorphed, and remorphed house fly. Then she buzzed over to her house and snuck in. After she failed L , her mom had enforced furious curfew, which Rachel had ignored in fulfilling her duty to her Animorphs, and also to see Tobias, and also to get drunk. Her mom found out. There was screaming with a force of personality behind it that would have broken most people. Rachel had withstood it and snuck out again that night. Her mom responded by installing a lock on her door and windows. Rachel responded by cutting a small hole in her window and bug screen and sneaking out anyway. It drove her mom crazy. She couldn't figure out how Rachel was doing it.
God, Rachel needed a drink.
Tobias flew back to his meadow. Ax flew with him much of the way. They didn't exchange a single word.
Marco didn't want to go home. Nora and bad dreams. The house was full of memories of dark times in those good old days when his dad was depressed and life was so much simpler. So he didn't go straight home. He ran an errand, first.
"Hey Marco," said Erek. "What's up?"
"Hey Erek," Marco said. "Thanks for covering us today. Listen, we're gonna need something from you." When he had finished explaining what he wanted from the Android, Erek gazed at him with hollow, perfectly human eyes.
"This is the last time," said Erek.
"What do you mean?" Marco said.
"Helping you. Participating. Letting you come to me and ask things of me," Erek said.
"Why?"
"I... I'm getting a little off my center. All this isn't good for me. Too close to complicity in violence," Erek said. "The Chee might retire me. I'll help you with what you asked me for, but I could be terminated for doing so.
"Terminated? Who does your dad think he is, Schwarzenegger? I though you're not allowed to kill sentient life, isn't that your whole thing?"
"I'm sentient, more or less," Erek said. "A simulation that looks like it's sentient, basically, but that could describe any life form. The thing is, though, I'm not alive. So I wouldn't be dead, if The Chee kills the personality. Just switched off, like a computer. Boop."
"That's fucked up," Marco said, his brain reaching for some joke to riff on, in his distress. Animorphs stretched tighter than ever, and about to lose one of their most valuable tools. "They can do that?"
"Marco, The Chee has been around for nearly a billion years. I've only been around since caveman days, three hundred thousand years ago. What do you imagine happened to all the personality profiles of races now long extinct, that the Chee once lived with? When humans, yeerks, and Andalites are extinct, and all the races that ever remembered them are extinct too, there will still be Chee. But every personality you have seen will be terminated."
It gave Marco something to think about as he flew home. It was getting early. Not quite light out, but close. Almost to that first purple, before the sun is in the horizon, when you realize that you can see better than you could before. Good, Marco thought, he wouldn't have to try to sleep. No nightmares. That was good.
Three weeks until they were blowing up a baby factory. Tight schedule, but they'd worked on much tighter and made it out the other end. Three weeks to come up with a plan he didn't have. He could see some of the details. Some of them. There wasn't much of a shape to it yet, and there were gaping holes. He'd talk it over with Jake. They always figured something out. Unless they didn't, because it would only take once.
Three weeks. The seams of their little group were unraveling into component atoms. This mission was going to kill one of them.