Текст книги "Animorphs - 05 - The Predator"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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1 Animorphs Chronicles 2 The Hork-Bajir Chronicles K.A. Applegate *Converted to EBook by Dace K 2 Chapter 1

My name is Marco.

I can't tell you my last name or where I live. Believe me, I wish I could. I would like nothing more than to be able to tell you my name is Marco Jones or Williams or Vasquez or Brown or Anderson or McCain.

Marco McCain. Has kind of a nice sound, doesn't it?

But McCain's not my last name. I'm not even going to swear to you that Marco is my first name. See, I'm hoping to live awhile longer. I'm not going to make it any easier for the Yeerks to find me.

I live in a paranoid world. But just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I don't have enemies.

I have real enemies. Enemies that would freeze your blood if you only knew.

So, see, I'd like to tell you my name, and address, and phone number, too, because if I could do that, it would mean I no longer had any enemies. It would mean my life was normal again.

It would mean I could go back to minding my own business.

I believe in minding my own business.

Which is why what happened on my way home from the 7-Eleven was so dumb.

I was walking down the street with some low-fat milk, a loaf of bread, and a bag of peanut M&M's. Since my mom died, I've gotten stuck with a lot of the shopping and stuff for my dad and me.

This 7-Eleven isn't in the greatest neighborhood, so I was walking kind of fast, minding my own business, trying not to think about the fact that it was after ten at night.

Then I heard it.

"Just don't hurt me, just don't hurt me."

It was a man's voice. An old man, from the sound of it. It was coming from a dark alley.

I hesitated. I stopped. I pressed myself back against the cold brick wall of the building and listened.

"Just gimme the money, old man, don't make me hurt you," a second voice said. A younger voice. A tough voice.

"I gave you all of it!" the old man cried.

Then the punk said something I can't repeat. Basically, he was getting ready to pound the old man. I heard other voices. Three punks total. It didn't look good for the old man.

"This is totally not your problem, Marco," I told myself. "Stay out of it. Don't be an idiot."

3 Three punks. Each of them probably twice as big as I was. I'm not exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not even average height for my age, although I make up for it by being incredibly cute.

And charming. And witty. And modest.

But I was pretty sure the three big gang members in that alley were not going to be very impressed by my cuteness.

Fortunately, I have other abilities.

It had been a while since I had done this particular morph, but as I concentrated, I could feel it coming back. I slipped into the opening of the alley and hid in the shadow of a very smelly Dumpster.

The first thing that happened was the fur. It sprouted quickly from my arms and legs and all down my body. Thick, rough, ragged, black fur. It grew long on my arms and back and head.

It was shorter everywhere else.

My jaw bulged forward. I could hear the bones in my jaw grind as they stretched and the nonhuman DNA changed my body.

Morphing doesn't hurt. It creeps you out some times, but it doesn't hurt. And as morphs go, this one wasn't bad. I mean, I still got to keep all my usual arms and legs and stuff. Not like when I morphed into an osprey. Or a dolphin. I mean, when I was a dolphin, I was breathing through a hole in the back of my neck.

With this morph I had arms, as usual. Only they were a lot bigger. A lot bigger. My legs bent forward. My shoulders grew so massive it was like having a couple of pigs sitting on my back. I also had an enormous round belly and a leathery chest.

My face was a black, bulging, rubbery mask, and my eyes were practically invisible beneath my heavy brow.

I had become a gorilla.

Now, here's the thing about gorillas. They are the sweetest animals around. If you leave them alone they will mostly just sit and eat leaves all day.

And that's all the gorilla mind really wanted to do right then – eat some leaves, maybe a nice piece of fruit.

But I was in that head, too, along with the gorilla's instincts. And I had decided to teach those punks a little lesson. See, now that I was in that gorilla body, I weighed four hundred pounds.

And I was mighty strong.

How strong? Let me put it this way. Compared to a gorilla, a human being is made out of toothpicks. I wasn't just twice as strong as a man, I was maybe four, five, six times stronger.

Further down the alley, the punks had lost patience with the old man.

4 "Let's just kick his butt," one of the geniuses said.

That's when I decided to say hello. To get their attention, I picked up the Dumpster and threw it against the far wall of the alley.

Yes, a full-sized Dumpster.

CRASH! BOOM!

"What was that?"

"Look! What is that thing?"

"Whoa! That's some kind of a ... of a monkey!"

Monkey! I thought. Excuse me? Monkey? I'll show you monkey.

Before they could decide what to do, I charged. Knuckles scraping the dirty ground, small hind legs propelling me forward, I charged.

If the punks had had any sense, they would have run.

They didn't.

"Get it! "one yelled.

I grabbed him around his arm with one massive fist. I lifted him straight off the ground and threw him over my shoulder.

"Aaaaaaahhhhh!"

BOOMPH!

He landed on the ground behind me. The other two rushed at me, one on the left, one on the right. I saw a knife glittering. The knife slashed my arm. It almost hurt.

"Hoo hoo hrrraaawwwrr!" I yelled, in pure gorilla.

With my injured arm, I landed a backhand blow to the knife guy's chest. He flew back. I mean, flew. He hit the wall and dropped.

I just grabbed the third guy by the shirt collar and threw him into the Dumpster.

"Don't kill meeeee!" he cried as he sailed through the air.

I had no intention of killing anyone. I hoisted the knife guy into the Dumpster with his friend.

He wasn't breathing real well, but I figured he'd survive.

Hah, I thought. Who needs Spiderman, when Marco is on the case?

While I was telling myself just how cool I was, I heard the sound.

5 It was a click. Two clicks, actually. The sound of an automatic pistol being cocked.

I spun around.

BLAM!BLAM!

It was the first guy. The one I'd thrown over my shoulder. He was up on his feet, gun pointed.

I was big. I was powerful. But a gun was a whole different story. And loud! Man, are those things loud.

"Hah! Come and get some, monkey man!"

I barreled behind the Dumpster. I leaned my massive shoulders into it and sent it rolling and spinning and sliding at the guy with the gun.

"Ahhhhh!"

BLAMPH!

So much for the guy with the gun.

I checked. He was alive. He wasn't happy, but he was alive. The gun was nowhere to be seen.

Well, Marco, I thought, that went okay. Now, find someplace private, demorph, call 911 to come arrest these guys, and you can still get home in time to watch Letterman.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten one thing.

"G-g-get out of here you . . . you monster!"

The old man. The one I had risked my life to save. He was standing, facing me. He was shaking with fear and red in the face.

Oh, I thought. So that's where the gun went.

The old man was pointing the gun at me.

"Back, you demon! Don't come any closer."

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

I tore out of the alley with bullets whizzing through the air.

Which just goes to show you why you should never get involved in other people's problems.

6 Chapter 2

Yeah , so then I do the gorilla thing, right? I save the old man. I'm the hero. I am Spiderman.

I am Wolverine. I am Batman – "

"Or at least Gorilla Boy," Rachel interrupted.

She did a forward flip as we walked across the springy grass. Rachel's into gymnastics. It's very distracting when someone flips while they're talk ing to you.

It was the day after my big hero act. We were all out in a far meadow of Cassie's farm – me, Jake, Cassie, and Rachel, strolling through little bunches of wildflowers. Tobias was flying overhead, about a hundred feet up, in a sky dotted with bright, white clouds.

"And what happens as I am playing Captain America?" I ask. "The old man unloads the gun at me. I totally lost the milk and my bag of M&M's."

Jake gave me a disgruntled look. "Marco? It was good of you to rescue the old man. But you really shouldn't be turning into a gorilla."

Now, as you're reading this, you're probably thinking, Urn, Marco? Time out. You've left out a few things. Like, how can you turn into a gorilla?

Good question.

It happened on a dark night when we were all heading home from the mall. There were five of us.

Me, you already know.

Jake is my best friend, even though, unfortunately, he is kind of a pain sometimes. He's one of those serious-type guys. You say the word "responsibility" and he snaps to attention. He's the kind of guy who always seems like he's bigger than he actually is. That's because he has that whole "I'm in charge, and you can trust me" thing going on. He has sensible brown hair, and trustworthy brown eyes, and one of those confident chins.

He also has a great sense of humor and is very smart, and I would trust him with my life any day, any time. Not that I would ever tell him that.

Then there's Cassie. I didn't really know her very well back then. But I think she's kind of Jake's girlfriend now. Of course, no one is supposed to know this. Ssshhh! Big secret!

Cassie is the one who is least like me. If I'm comedy, she's poetry. She's a natural peacemaker. She's the one who knows when you're feeling bad and will find something nice to say that makes you feel better. And it's not like she's manipulating. She really cares about things. She's like sincere or something.

Cassie is our animal expert. Her parents are both vets and she spends most of her free time helping her dad run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. It's in the barn at their farm. They save injured woodchucks and deer and eagles and so on. Cassie actually knows how to get an injured, angry wolf to take its pills. (Not an easy thing. Believe me. I was a wolf once.) 7 You go out to her barn and you'll see this lit tle, short, black girl in overalls and boots with her arm halfway down the throat of a wolf that could just bite it right off. And she'll be smiling and acting like it's no big deal. And the wolf will be just standing there, looking like he's trying to earn a gold star for being the best little boy in school.

Then there's Rachel. Very beautiful. Very leggy-blond-supermodel type. Ms. Fashion. Ms.

Properly-Applied-Makeup. Ms. Has-It-All – Looks– and -Brains.

Rachel is Jake's cousin, and a total babe who, unfortunately, is also totally insane. See, somehow, underneath all that perfect hair and perfect teeth, there's this lunatic Amazon warrior-queen, just fighting to get out.

Here's what Rachel'll say whenever we decide to do something so dangerous it makes you want to wet yourself: "I'm in! Let's go! Let's do it!"

I swear that, if she could, Rachel would be wearing a suit of armor and swinging a sword.

And it would be a fashionable suit of armor, and she would look great in it.

Then there is Tobias. That night in the construction site, he was just this kind of dweeby kid I barely knew. He liked Jake because Jake once kept some guys from beating him up.

To be honest with you, I don't even remember what Tobias looked like back then. Now, of course, he looks like a fierce, angry bird of prey.

There's a downside to the morphing power we have. A time limit of two hours. Stay more than two hours in a morph, and you stay forever.

That's why Tobias was flying overhead, with his wide wings catching the warm updrafts.

Tobias is a hawk. A red-tail hawk, to be exact. I guess he always will be.

I tease Tobias sometimes.

What happened to him scares me.

Anyway, on that night we were cutting through this big, abandoned construction site. It was supposed to be a shopping center, but they got it half built and then stopped.

Then, to make a long story short, there was this spaceship. It was carrying an Andalite who was dying of wounds he'd gotten fighting the Yeerks up in Earth orbit. Or thereabouts.

He's the one who told us about the Yeerks. The Yeerks are parasites. They use the bodies of other species. They take them over. They control them. That's what you call a human who's been taken over – a Controller. A human Controller.

Jake's brother, Tom, is one. A Controller.

And Melissa, Rachel's friend, her father is one, too.

The Andalites fight the Yeerks. They had been trying to stop the secret Yeerk invasion of Earth, but basically they got their butts kicked. Before he died, the Andalite promised us that 8 reinforcements would come. Eventually. In the meantime, all he could do for us was give us a weapon.

That weapon was the power to morph. To ac quire the DNA of any animal we could touch, and then to become that animal.

So that was the deal. The five of us, five regular everyday kids, were supposed to fight the Yeerks until the Andalites came along and rescued us.

Five kids versus the Yeerks. The Yeerks, who had already conquered the terrifying Hork-Bajir and made them into Controllers. The Yeerks, with their creepy allies, the Taxxon-Controllers. The Yeerks who had already infiltrated human society, making Controllers out of cops and teachers and soldiers and mayors and TV newspeople. They were everywhere.

They could be anyone.

And all we had was five kids who could turn into birds.

Or gorillas.

"I just don't think we should be morphing out on the street in order to get involved in everyday crimes," Jake lectured me. "Remember what happened at the used car lot with Rachel and Tobias – and you asked them if they were insane!"

I was about to argue when Rachel spoke up again.

"I think Marco did the right thing," she said. "What was he supposed to do? Just walk away?

I don't think so."

"Okay, now I know I was wrong," I said. "Any time Rachel thinks I did the right thing, it has to be wrong. Besides, that was my whole point. I risked my life for that old man, and I don't even get a thank you."

"I don't know if it was a good idea," Cassie said, "but the feeling behind it was good. I think it was heroic."

Well, what could I say to that? It's very hard to disagree with someone who has just called you a hero.

Jake decided to let it go. Unfortunately, the reason he decided to drop it was that he had something bigger to talk about.

He got his serious look.

I groaned. I hate that serious look. It always means trouble.

"Jake? Are you going to tell me why we're all out walking in the fields together? Aside from the fact that it's a nice day and all?"

"We're going to see Ax," Jake explained. "Cassie and I have been talking to him the last couple days. You know, about what he wants to do."

9 "Uh-oh," I muttered. "I just know I'm not going to like this."

"Well . . . probably not. Ax wants to go home," Jake said.

"Home?" Rachel repeated.

"To the Andalite home world," Cassie said.

Ax, whose real name is Aximili-Esgarrouth– Isthil, is an Andalite.

I stopped walking. The others stopped, too. "Urn, excuse me, but isn't the Andalite home world kind of far away?"

"Ax says it's about eighty-two light years," Jake confirmed.

"Light travels about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second," I pointed out.

"Times sixty seconds per minute. Times sixty minutes per hour. Times twenty-four hours per day. Times three hundred and sixty-five days per year. That's one light year. Times eighty-two years."

Rachel laughed. "So you have been staying awake in science class, Marco."

"We tried to figure it out in miles. But none of our calculators go that high," Jake said.

"You know, Jake, I could be wrong, but I don't think any of the major airlines fly to the Andalite home world," I said.

"Uh-huh," he said with a nod. "I know. That's why we'll have to steal a Yeerk spaceship."

"There he is," Cassie said.

I followed the direction of her gaze. Over toward the line of trees at the edge of the field, I saw him.

Ax.

The Andalite.

From a distance you'd think he was a small horse or a deer. He has four hooved feet that flash with amazing speed. His upper body looks like a horse's neck and head, except that when he gets close enough, you see that he has two smaller, human-sized arms sticking out.

His head is kind of a triangle, with two huge, almond-shaped eyes. Those are his main eyes.

There are two extra eyes, each stuck atop a sort of stalk. The stalks stick out of the top of his head and move, pointing the extra eyes in any direction.

But the thing that really makes you stare is the tail.

According to Cassie and Rachel, Ax is cute. I wouldn't know, being a guy. All I know is, when you see that tail, you know right away that Andalites aren't exactly cuddly koala bears or puppies.

10 The Andalite tail resembles a scorpion's tail. It curls up and over, and is armed with a wicked scythe blade. They can strike with those tails faster than your eye can see.

I'd seen the first Andalite do it. In the seconds before the evil creature known as Visser Three murdered the Andalite prince, he had struck with that tail again and again.

That memory came back to me as I watched Ax galloping toward us, tail arched and ready.

"I hope there's no one around," Jake said anxiously. He scanned the area. It was pretty remote. Cassie's house and barn were way out of sight. And there was no reason why anyone would be in this distant field.

I looked up and saw Tobias's reddish tail feathers. I gave him a wave.

"All clear," Tobias called down to us in thought-speak. "There's some people having a picnic, but that's a couple miles from here."

Ax came galloping up. "Prince Jake!" he said, also in thought-speak.

Jake groaned. Ax had gotten it into his head that Jake was our leader, which was partly true.

And I guess for an Andalite, any leader is some kind of prince.

Ax has no mouth. No one had asked him yet how he ate with no mouth.

He communicates by thought-speech. It's the same way we communicate when we're morphed. For us humans it only works when we're morphed. For Andalites, it's the normal way to communicate.

"Hi, Ax," Jake said, as the Andalite came to a skidding stop just a few feet from us. "How are you doing?"

"l am well. And each of you?"

"I'm fine," Cassie said.

Tobias swooped down out of the sky. He braked and landed neatly on the grass.

"I'm fine, too, Ax," I said. "Or at least I was until I heard someone say something really stupid."

Ax looked uncertain. He swiveled one of his stalk eyes forward to get a better look at me.

"What stupid thing was said?"

"Someone said we were going to try and steal a Yeerk spaceship," I said.

He smiled an Andalite smile, which is hard to describe, except that it involves his main eyes.

"You think it will be dangerous?"

11 "Dangerous? No, jumping off a ten-story building is dangerous. Sticking your tongue in an electrical socket is dangerous – not to mention painful. But stealing a Yeerk ship is beyond dangerous."

"The higher the danger, the higher the honor," Ax said. "Is this not true?" I gave Rachel a sidelong look. "I think we've found your future husband."

"It may be honorable to try and get a Yeerk ship, Ax," Jake said, "but honor isn't our most important goal."

The Andalite looked surprised – I think. His main eyes widened, and his stalk eyes stretched up to their maximum height. It looked like surprise to me.

"What else do you fight for, if not honor?"

Jake shrugged. "Look, we're trying to do whatever we can to hurt the Yeerks. But we're also trying to stay alive. We're all there is. I mean, no one else even knows there is a Yeerk invasion. So if something happens to us . . ." He let it hang.

"l did not mean to offend," Ax said. "You are right, of course. You are alone. If you fail, all is lost."

"So the question is whether this is something we can do without getting killed," Jake pointed out.

"Yeah, we're mostly against the idea of getting killed," I added. "So how are we supposed to grab a Yeerk ship? They're up in orbit. We're down here. It's not like we can call them up and ask them to come down."

"Yes, we can do that," Ax said.

"What?"

"We can call them."

"Right."

"I can create a Yeerk distress beacon. They will send a ship to investigate."

"You mean like, 'Hello? Hello? Is this Visser Three? Could you send a ship down to pick me up?'" I said.

I expected everyone to laugh because the idea was so totally ridiculous. No one laughed.

"Um, excuse me?" I said, trying again. "Personally, I have had plenty of Visser Three in my life. I don't need to call him on the phone."

"lt will not involve that . . . that foul beast," Ax said.

12 That was one thing I liked about Ax. He hated Visser Three. He reminded me of the Andalite prince, who was Ax's older brother. When either of them said the word "Yeerk," let alone "Visser Three," you could just feel the air vibrating from their anger.

"lt will be a minor matter," Ax said. "They will hear a distress beacon and send a Bug fighter to investigates "There is always at least one Hork-Bajir and one Taxxon aboard each Bug fighter," I pointed out. "Anytime you start playing with Hork-Bajirs, it's not a minor thing."

"Do you fear them?" Ax demanded. He stared at me with all four eyes.

"You better believe I fear them."

"Fear is unworthy of a warrior."

He seemed a little too determined for me. I don't know much about Andalites, but I had a feeling I understood this one, at least a little. See, he was alive. But every other Andalite who had come to Earth, including Ax's brother, the prince, was dead.

So I took a shot. It wasn't fair, maybe, but he'd made me mad, acting like I was some kind of coward. "How many times have you fought Hork-Bajir? Or any other Controller?" I asked him.

His stalk eyes drooped. He pawed the ground with one hoof. "Never," he said.

I nodded. "I thought so. So let me tell you something, Ax. It's scary. It's so scary that some times you wish you could just go ahead and die because it's easier than dealing with the terror."

Well, I thought as I looked around at my friends, that pretty well killed everyone's happy mood.

It was Tobias who broke the silence. "If you get a Yeerk ship, can you get back to the Andalite home world?"

Ax seemed abashed, but he answered, "Yes. I hope so."

"And if you make it, can you do anything to hurry your people up? To get them back here quicker?"

"I am young. Like you. But I am the brother of Prince Elfangor. My people will listen to me.

I ... I know that they will come, either way. But yes, perhaps if I can return and tell them how desperate your situation is . . ."

Jake took a deep breath. "Okay. Time for a vote."

I groaned. I already knew what it would be.

13 Chapter 3

Okay , ready?" I asked.

"Yes. I am prepared to begin the morph," Ax said.

It was Saturday. A couple of days after we had all agreed to go ahead with the plan to capture a Yeerk ship. We were in Cassie's barn, surrounded by cages full of injured animals and birds. Cassie's father and mother were both away for the day.

Jake checked his watch. "Ten after ten," he reported.

"Ax starts morphing at ten-twelve and is done by ten-fifteen. The bus will be at the stop at ten twenty-five," I said. "It will arrive at the mall at eleven. By that point Ax will have been in morph for forty-five minutes. That leaves an hour and fifteen minutes on the two-hour morph time."

"Is it enough time?" Cassie wondered. She was biting her lip nervously.

I shrugged. "Thirty minutes to reach Radio Shack, find what Ax needs to make his transmitter, buy it and get back to catch the eleven-thirty bus home. That gets back here at five after twelve. Ten minutes to spare."

Jake was looking pretty stony-faced, which is how he looks when he's not sure if something will work.

"It's the best we can do," I said.

"I know. Everyone ready?" Jake asked.

"I should go with you guys," Rachel said for like the tenth time that morning. "I should be there."

"No. We can't all go. If something goes wrong, we don't want everyone caught at once," I said. "And something is sure to go wrong."

"Why do you say that?!" Ax demanded sharply.

Jake smiled. "Marco doesn't believe in optimism."

Tobias flew almost silently into the barn through the open hayloft. "It's still all clear. And the bus is right on schedule, over on Margolis Avenue."

"Okay, Ax. Time to morph," Jake said.

"And, um, don't forget the morphing outfit, okay?" I reminded him. The concept of clothing kind of puzzled the Andalite. We'd gotten him skintight bike shorts and a T-shirt that he could use for morphing, but he still didn't know why.

It's one of the most annoying things about morphing – dealing with clothing. We'd learned how to morph clothing, but only things that were real tight-fitting. Any time you tried to morph a jacket or sweater they just ended up shredded. And shoes? Forget about shoes.

14 "Clothing, yes," he said. "l have integrated it into my human morph."

"Time," Jake said, pointing at his watch.

Ax began to change.

I'd only seen him do it once before – soon after we rescued him from the sunken Andalite dome ship.

I've seen a lot of morphing. I've done a lot of it, too. It's always creepy watching a human being become some strange animal. But watching Ax morph was different. He wasn't becoming an animal. He was becoming a human being.

The stalk eyes shrank and disappeared in his head. The deadly scorpion tail shriveled and withered and slithered up inside him like someone sucking up a piece of spaghetti.

His front hooves disappeared completely.

"Whoa, look out," Jake said. He caught the Andalite as he fell forward, with no front legs to support him.

"Thank you. I must practice standing with only two legs." A gash opened in his face and grew lips and teeth. A nose grew where there had just been small vertical slits. His eyes became smaller, more human.

But the weirdest thing about Ax morphing was not just that he looked like a human. It was that he looked like a particular human.

Actually, four particular humans. See, he had absorbed DNA from Jake and Cassie and Rachel and me. Somehow, by some process we did not understand, he was able to combine all four genetic patterns to come up with one person.

The end result was definitely strange and disturbing.

I looked at him and saw some of myself, and Jake, and Rachel and Cassie, too, although Ax was male. That was the most bizarre part. Looking at him and thinking, Hey, he looks familiar. Really familiar. In fact, hey, that's my hair!

"Ax, you could be either a really pretty guy, or a kind of unattractive girl," I said.

"I am an Andalite," he said. "Andalite. Lite. Ite."

"Okay, put on those additional clothes," Jake said. "Let's get going. Tobias?" He looked up to the rafters.

"On my way. I'll check on the bus," Tobias said, and flew away.

"More clothing? Clo. Clo-theeeeng. Clo– theeng?" Ax said.

15 "Ax? Don't do that," I said.

"What? Wha wha wha. Tuh."

"That. Where you play with the sounds. Just say what you need to say, and stop."

Like I said, the Andalites have no mouths and no spoken speech. Ax seemed to think mouths were some kind of toy.

"Yes," Ax agreed. "Yah. Ess."

"And one other thing? The shoes go on your feet. Not in your pockets."

"Yes. I remember. Mem. Ber." He pulled his sneakers out of his pockets and looked at them helplessly. Rachel and Cassie each took a foot and got him laced up.

"People are going to think he's weird," Rachel said, sounding exasperated.

"Fortunately, it's the mall on a Saturday morning," I pointed out. "It'll be full of weird people.

"

"Not this weird," Rachel said. "This could be trouble."

"Isn't it a little late for you to admit that I was right and this idea is insane?" I asked her. "Be sides, no need to worry. I'll be there."

"Great. Then it's sure to be a disaster."

We caught the bus without any problem. Ax made strange mouth noises the entire trip, but the bus was mostly empty.

We got to the mall right on time.

"So far, so good," Jake said as we headed into the mall.

I rolled my eyes. "Jake? Do me a favor. Don't ever say 'so far, so good.' The only time anyone ever says 'so far, so good' is right before every thing blows up in his face."

"So far. So far. Farrrrr. Faaaar," Ax said, try ing out the sounds. "So. Sssso far so so so good.

"

"Oh, man," I said.

16 Chapter 4

The mall was a zoo. Wall-to-wall people. Old people moving real slow. Married people with squalling babies in big huge strollers. High school kids trying to look cool. Mall police trying to look tough. Good-looking girls carrying bags from The Limited.

Your basic Saturday at the mall.

"Okay, where is Radio Shack?"Jake wondered.

"I don't know," I said.

"Is it up on the second level? You know, down by Sears?"

"Is that it? Or is that Circuit City?"

"Let me check the map over there. Ax? Come on with . . ." Jake stopped suddenly. "Marco?

Where is Ax?"

I spun around. "He was right here!"

Bodies everywhere! All I saw were bodies. Men, women, boys, girls, babies. But no aliens.

At least not that I could see. We had lost Ax!

It had taken a total of about two minutes for us to mess up.

Then, suddenly, I saw a strangely familiar face.

"There he is! On the escalator!"

"How did he get all the way over there?" Jake demanded.

We took off after him, but it was so crowded we could barely move. Jake started pushing his way through. I grabbed him by the arm.

"Don't run, man. The mall cops will think you're ripping something off. Besides, we can't attract attention. Controllers shop, too."

Jake slowed instantly. "You're right. This many people, some of them are sure to be Controllers."

We threaded our way, moving as quickly as we could without being too obvious. I just kept saying "excuse me, excuse me," and tried not to bump into anyone who looked like he'd get mad and pound me.

It seemed to take forever to reach the escalator. By then we had totally lost sight of Ax.

"As long as he doesn't demorph we're okay," Jake said. "I mean, what's the worst he could do?"

"Jake, I don't want to think about the worst he could do," I said.

17 "There!"

"Where?"

"Over at Starbucks. The coffee place."

I'm not as tall as Jake so I couldn't see him as easily. But as we got near Starbucks, I spotted him. He was standing patiently in line.