Текст книги "Animorphs - 16 - The Warning"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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Sprooot! Two big legs sort of burst out of my chest. You know how in the movie Alien the alien baby exploded out of that guy's chest? It was a little like that. Only instead of some fake-looking puppet, these were two long, black, jointed legs, each bristling with daggerlike hairs.

Morphing is never totally logical. It isn't a smooth transition. It's not like each part of you gets gradually more flylike. Things happen suddenly, and in unexpected sequences. I was still about a foot tall when the legs pushed out through my ribs. I still had human eyes and a mostly human body. Aside from the monstrous mouth parts.

"Hey, anyone in there?"

I heard the voice. And I heard the way the door of the stall rattled.

But I couldn't answer. I didn't have a mouth.

"Someone's trying to get in!" Tobias said.

"l know!"

"What do we do?"

"Keep morphing. It's too late to back out now."

"Hey, is anyone in there? I gotta go bad."

My hands had become the appendages of a fly. There were two hooked, talonlike claws and small, hairy pads that oozed a kind of glue. I could hear my internal organs going soft and squishy as entire things like a liver and spleen and kidneys were re-formed to make the infinitely more primitive guts of a fly.

My bones were weakening so that my still-mostly-human legs were getting wobbly, turning to overcooked spaghetti.

At this point I was about the size of a small dog. I had fly legs but no wings. I had human eyes and massive fly mouth parts. Tobias was a similar mess. And that's when the guy who had to go bad reached over the stall door and undid the lock.

The door opened. There wasn't anything I could do.

"Oh. Ohhh. OOHHH! Oh, No! NOOOO! NOOOOOO! AAAAAHHHH!"

The man stood there and stared.

I waved one dagger-haired, clawed leg at him.

"AAAAHHHHH! Help! Help! Help!"

The door slammed shut again.

"Quick! We better be flies before he brings help!"

"Help me! Police! Someone!"

I continued shrinking, and now I noticed my gossamer fly wings coming in, attached to big springlike muscles in my back.

"There are monsters in the toilets!"

"What's going on over there?" Marco demanded from the next stall over.

"We're busted," I said. "Make it quick." My human eyes dimmed, then went dark. Seconds passed in total blindness as my compound fly eyes grew. Then, all at once, I saw a world of shattered images, like a thousand tiny television sets all tuned to a slightly different picture.

"By the way, Tobias, watch out for the fly instincts^ I warned.

In my weird field of vision I saw something black and blurry go zipping by. Another fly. Tobias?

"Tobias, is that you flying?"

Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, RUMBLE, RUMBLE.

Thunderous pounding vibrations distracted me. Many heavy feet were running toward me.

WHAM! The door of the stall opened. I felt the wind whoosh past overhead. It excited the hairs on my back. My antennae quivered madly.

Danger!

I pushed off with my six legs, turned on my fly wings, and blasted up off the dirty linoleum.

"We're airborne over here," Marco reported.

"They were here, I'm telling you. Monsters! Like . . . like weird, mutated things!"

"Sir, just how many drinks did you have on your flight?"

"Tobias," I called. "Are you okay? Tobias!" There was no answer.

I zoomed crazily around, zipping past the Statue-of-Liberty-sized humans. My senses were picking up about a hundred interesting smells: rot, sweat, filth, garbage. All of which were fascinating to my fly brain.

But I still did not see Tobias.

" Tobias! Where are you? The fly brain has you. Fight it!"

"Yo, Tobias," Marco said. "Come on, get a grip. We don't have a lot of time."

"Tobias! It's me, Aximili. Reassert your individual consciousness."

"Say what?" Marco laughed. "Reassert his what?" Then there came a shaky, uncertain thought-speak voice. "Uh, hello? It's me. I mean, it's me, Tobias."

I was inscribing crazed fly circles around the bathroom. I did a quick somersault and landed upside down on the ceiling. My claws gripped tiny irregularities in the paint. And the sticky pads on my feet did the rest.

"Tobias? Where are you? Are you okay?"

"l guess I kind of lost it there for a minute."

"Well, that happens sometimes with a new morph. You know, until you get used to the animal's instincts."

"Yeah," Marco said. "But then you can "reassert your individual consciousness.""

"Tobias, where are you?"

"Well . . . it's smooth. Um, it was different when I first landed here.

It was smooth and white. Wet, though. There's dampness on the surface.

And I think there's a big lake or something below me."

"Are you right side up or what?"

"l'm sideways. I'm sideways on a smooth, damp surface I think was white.

And there's a big lake below me."

We all considered that description for a moment.

"0h, man!" Marco yelled. "Tobias, you're in a toilet!"

"Tobias, get out of there before someone flushes," I said, stifling the urge to laugh.

"L)m . . . remember how I said it was different when I first landed here? It was light. Now it's dark."

We all considered this new information for a moment.

"Uh, guh-ROSS!" Marco said, half-laughing, half-scared.

"Tobias, I think the reason it got dark is that someone sat down."

"Wait. You're saying I'm in a toilet bowl. And someone sat down. But then ... oh, man."

"Caution: falling objects," Marco said.

"What does all this mean?" Ax wondered.

"Tobias, I think for the sake of safety, and also for the sake of avoiding something way too gross to even think about, you need to get out of there."

"How? How? The exit is blocked, to say the least!"

"Try the space between the toilet seat and the porcelain."

"0h."

"Look for the light. There will be some light shining through," I said.

"Go into the light," Marco said.

"Get out of there!"

"The space! I found the space!"

"l am completely confused," Ax confessed.

"0kay, I'm out," Tobias said. "This so totally sucks. I'm starting to wish the Ellimist had never given me back my morphing powers."

"lt's the glamorous life of a superhero," Marco said.

"Speaking of glamour, we need to find the gate and get on that plane," I reminded everyone. "Rachel and Cassie are probably already there."

"l can find the door from the air currents," Tobias said.

"Yeah. Fly against the influx of air. That should get us out into the terminal. Then all we have to do is pick up the scent of that diaper and follow it to the gate."

"Hey, Tobias can lead the way," Marco said brightly. "He sort of has experience at that kind of thing."

"0h, shut up," Tobias grumbled.

"Will you explain what has been going on?" Ax asked.

"When you get older maybe," Marco said.

J. wasn't lying when I'd told Tobias that flying as a fly is cool. I mean, in some ways it's bad because you can't see very well, so you don't get to look around while you're flying.

But nothing flies like a fly. Compared to a fly, any bird is a big, lumbering, clumsy whale. Flies can fly straight up. Straight down. They can turn in less than the blink of an eye. And I'm talking a full, one-hundred-eighty-degree turn in midair, no problem. They can fly on their sides and upside down. They can do loops and figure eights. They can fly figure eights inside a small juice glass.

And unlike birds, flies can land on anything. Anything. Horizontal, vertical, rough, smooth, wet, dry, still or moving, living or not.

They are very amazing insects. Very gross, very amazing insects.

"0kay, this is cool," Tobias said. "0nce you get past the fact that your own body makes you want to throw up."

"Marco feels that way in his human body," Rachel said gleefully.

We had located Cassie and Rachel in the air near the dirty diaper.

"0ooh. Don't hurt me with the chakram of your wit, Xena," Marco said.

"Huh?"

"Chakram," Marco said, like any idiot should know the word. "lt's the metal Frisbee thing Xena throws. What, are you people cultural morons?" Marco loves to tease Rachel by calling her Xena: Warrior Princess. Which isn't a bad comparison, aside from the fact that Rachel doesn't wear a leather skirt.

Marco and Rachel have a strange sort of relationship. I haven't figured out whether they pretend they can't stand each other but secretly like and admire each other, or if they really just can't stand each other.

I'm not good at understanding subtle human behavior. I kind of rely on Cassie for that.

"So what now?" Tobias asked.

"Now we get on the plane," I said. "But look.

Everyone be very careful. Use those fly instincts: Something moves toward you, get out of the way."

"l can more or less see the gate," Cassie said. "No, wait, I think it may be the window. That's the problem: The gate doesn't have enough contrast between light and dark for us to see it clearly."

"Get close to a person. Stay with that person till you're in the walkway. We can figure it out from there."

I saw a human head below me. Zoomed down toward it. No! I pulled back.

The guy was bald. He'd probably have felt me land. There! A woman with big hair. Excellent. I landed on hairs like starched anchor cables. I could feel the breeze blowing past as we moved slowly forward.

The quality of the light changed and the sounds I heard seemed to echo.

We were in the access tunnel. Then, a voice saying, "Hello, welcome aboard!"

I was aboard the jet. "Everyone here?" I asked. They were. I breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, that's just an expression. I had no lungs.

I landed on the overhead. It was perforated plastic. Lots of holes in what looked like a circular pattern. I straddled one of the holes and looked down at the people getting into their seats.

"Ax, keep track of the time, okay?"

"Yes, Prince Jake."

"You know I don't want you to call me Prince Jake. I am not a prince."

"Yes, Prince Jake, I know."

"Good, as long as we're clear on that"

We waited. And we waited. And Ax counted off the minutes. Andalites have a natural ability to keep track of time. It had been fifteen minutes since we'd morphed in the men's room.

Finally, I felt the deep, disturbing vibrations from the engines go higher and higher. I realized I was resting on the cover for a speaker when the flight attendant announced everyone should put on seat belts.

The sound nearly blew me off my perch.

I zipped around aimlessly for a minute before coming to rest on the latch of an overhead luggage rack.

"How's everyone doing?" I asked.

"Twenty minutes have elapsed," Ax said.

"And how long is this flight, Marco?"

"An hour and thirty minutes. That leaves us fifteen minutes to get off the plane at the other end and demorph."

"That's a bit tight," Rachel observed.

"Yeah."

There wasn't a lot to do as the plane rumbled down the runway and rose into the air. The flight was basically boring. Until they served the meal.

Oh, man, you have no idea how much my fly body wanted to go down and land on that Salisbury steak and splash around in the gravy.

But that would have been suicidal.

"You know, airline food tastes much better this way," Marco said.

"WHAT?"

"Relax, it's a meal some guy already ate. I'm in the leftovers."

"WHAT?"

"Excuse me, miss, but there seem to be a lot of flies on this plane."

I heard the voice and it was like the announcement that calls you to the principal's office. It scared me.

"Did everyone hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tobias asked. "Everyone's talking. The whole plane is – "

"Someone just complained about the flies. About us."

"I'll see what I can do, sir," a second voice answered.

"They're going to see what they can do!"

"I'd appreciate that. See, I am on the board of directors of this airline, and I just saw a fly land in my Salisbury steak."

"Marco!"

"Yes, sir! I'll take care of it!"

"Ax! How much time till we land?"

"0kay. Everyone toward the back of the plane! Get out of first class!" We took off, six suddenly active flies. We zoomed toward the back. We zoomed crazily along the ceiling. We zoomed through the curtain that separates first class from the normal people. I figured we were safe.

Then ...

Disturbance!

I felt the air roil as a huge object came flying toward me.

I stopped, turned, and shot away to my right just as five fingers the size of redwoods swept past, raising a tornado in their wake.

I landed on the overhead and tried to calm my nerves.

"Man, that was close," I muttered. "Everyone still okay? How much time do we have, Ax?"

I never heard his answer. I felt a hand coming toward me again. I sprang off the ceiling, buzzed my wings, dodged . . . and was hit by the second hand. The one that had been waiting for me.

"Aaaahhhh!" The hand caught me! I was pressed back against a wall of flesh. It was like being swept along by a broom, i buzzed my wings, but then I realized one wing was damaged. I couldn't get away.

I saw the wall coming toward me. It was a thousand tiny images of doom in my compound

eyes. And there was nothing I could do. It was one of those nightmares where you see something terrible about to happen, but you can't move or even cry out.

WHAAAM!

It hit. I felt the massive hand press violently down on me.

I had been swatted.

J. was in the crack of the hand's lifeline. And because of that tiny indentation, I had not died.

But I was shattered.

My left wing was gone, ripped away. My right wing barely moved. I was blind in my right eye.

Four of my legs were broken. But by far the worst was that my body, my green-black body, had burst open.

But there was no pain. No pain. Just terror.

"Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!"

"Jake! What happened?" Cassie cried.

"Jake, what's the matter?"

"l ... I got hit."

"Are you okay?" Tobias asked.

"No. I'm busted up pretty bad. I can't fly. I

can't move. I'm like, stuck. Stuck to the ceilings

"0h, my God," Cassie gasped.

"He'll be okay if he demorphs," Marco said.

"How is he going to demorph?" Tobias demanded. "He's squished on the ceiling. He de-morphs, it'll be right in front of a whole planeload of people."

"The captain has turned on the seat belt sign. We are beginning our descent."

"Guys ... I feel like maybe I'm getting weak," I said. "Woozy. My guts are all over the place. I think I may be dying."

"Demorph!" Cassie yelled.

"He can't!" Marco said. "He'll be seen. There are probably Controllers on this plane!"

"l don't care. It's Jake. I'm not going to let him die!" My mind started wandering at that point. Like I couldn't quite focus. I heard them arguing in my head. Voices . . . voices . . .

"Jake! Are you still with us?" someone demanded. I think maybe it was Tobias.

"Yeah. Uh-huh."

"He is dying," Cassie snapped. "Wait! I have an idea." Good old Cassie, I thought. Good old Cassie. She was so pretty. She didn 't think she was, but she was. Yeah. I remember back when I first met her. . . And Rachel was there. School? No, it was . . . it was . . .

Suddenly, monsters all around me. I saw them loom over me, hover in the air, then land. They had huge, bulging eyes that kind of sparkled from all the tiny facets. They had hideous faces with these long, vile tubes coming out, like tongues that could suck. Their wings were gossamer.

They grabbed me with their clawed feet.

"0h, poor Jake," a voice cried desperately.

"Do we ... do we scoop up the guts or what?"

"Just hurry!"

"Jake! Hang in there, man. Hang in there, man. Don't go away on us."

"Jake, hold on. Hold on, we'll save you."

And then a horrible jolt.

"Ahhh! Oh, man. The leg I was holding just came off!"

"l can't hold on! Too much turbulence from everyone's wings beating at once!"

"Don't you let him go! Don't let him go!"

I floated through the air. I was kind of serene now. Kind of peaceful.

Although when I realized half my body was gone, I felt concern. But it was a faraway concern. Like I was worried about something I was watching on TV. Not something that was happening to me.

"0kay, okay. It's the bathroom. Jake! De-morph!"

"Come on, Jake, back to human now."

What were they all yelling about? Yelling and yelling and bugging me.

"Jake, this is Cassie. Listen to me. You have to demorph. You have to do it now."

Cassie. Oh, yeah. Her. I liked her.

"Jake, do it! Do it now! Right now! Become human." Human?

Sure. Why not?

"There he goes!"

I began to change. And as I began to change, I became stronger. I felt life flow back into me. A human being began to form, dictated by the patterns of my DNA. Submicroscopic codes, making a human being the way words made a book.

The world swirled around me. Hazy images became clearer. I was in a tiny room. A very tiny room. An airplane bathroom.

I caught my reflection in the mirror as a shattered fly face melted and surged and warped to become a human face.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked anxiously.

I worked my jaw. "Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

There were flies in the bathroom with me. And you know what's weird? My first impulse was to swat them.

Fortunately, no one seemed to notice that I hadn't been on the plane before I emerged from the bathroom. We were landing, so I guess the flight attendants were distracted.

Probably they noticed that I had no shoes and was dressed in a very odd fashion choice of bike pants and T-shirt. But, like I said, it was the end of the flight. They probably just wanted to land and go home.

We made it off the plane with about five minutes to spare. One shaken-up boy and five very impatient flies.

They morphed in the bathrooms. I sat on a black plastic chair and held my head in my hands and tried to stop my fingers from shaking.

After a while I noticed Cassie sitting down in the chair beside me.

She didn't say anything. She just put her arm around me and hugged me as well as she could while sitting.

I closed my eyes and let her hug me. And after a while I felt my hands shake a little less. My insides were still queasy, like I might need to throw up. But I stopped shaking.

"That was bad," Cassie said.

"Oh, yeah. That was bad. But I'm okay. No big deal."

Cassie nodded and let me go. "Yeah, right. Jake, it's okay to be scared."

"No, no, I'm fine," I said. I stood up, but my knees almost gave way. I reached back for the armrest of the chair. And then I pushed myself up more slowly.

Rachel had gone to the Western Union office. We needed clothing and it turns out you can send money by wire and pick it up by supplying a code word. Rachel went to pick up the money and get us something approaching shoes at an airport shop. Now you know where our allowances go.

The others were just coming out of the men's room. It had taken them longer, since Tobias and Ax both had an extra morph to do to get human.

"You okay, man?" Marco asked me.

I put on a sheepish grin. "Better than I was,"

I said. "I like having my guts inside me, as opposed to having them smeared all over."

"Yeah, guts should not see daylight," Tobias agreed.

"Okay, that was exciting, but now we're here," I pointed out briskly.

"We have a job to do. Let's get on with it. Marco? What's the plan?"

"We catch a bus from here to downtown. That's where the WAA Building is.

We bust in, enter the computers, get the information we want, get back here, and catch a plane home."

"That's supposed to be the safe, easy part, taking the plane," Rachel said. "Let's hope the WAA offices aren't as dangerous as the stupid plane."

"Hey, we'll take a different airline home," Marco said. "We'll get one that likes and appreciates flies."

I tried to laugh, but I don't know if it sounded right. I hadn't thought yet about getting home.

I was sure of one thing, though. I didn't want to go as a fly.

We took the bus downtown. We got out, asked directions from a nun who, oddly enough, knew which was the Web Access America office. It was a few blocks away.

We stopped on the way at a Taco Bell. It was cheap enough for us to afford. And it kind of

lightened my mood a little when Ax went nuts and started sucking up packets of hot sauce.

The manager kicked us out.

"You kids stay out of here. Buy your crazy friend a bottle of Tabasco if he needs it!"

"What is Tabasco? Tuh-bah-sco. Sco. Is it tasty and full of flavor?" Ax wondered as he headed on down the sidewalk, carrying our bags of tacos and burritos.

"Yeah, you'd probably like it," Rachel said.

The WAA Building was one of those medium-sized buildings, maybe twenty floors high and not all that modern. We loitered around outside, trying to figure out what to do next. And that's when a bus pulled up and a bunch of old people started climbing out.

Someone came out of the WAA Building with a big smile and shook the hand of the bus group's leader.

"You folks are right on time. If you're ready, we can begin the tour immediately."

We all looked at each other. "They have tours?" Tobias said.

"Guess so. I guess we might as well tag along."

We fell into step at the back of the group. None of the old people seemed to mind. Basically, I think kids are kind of invisible to old people unless they are their grandkids, or they're being rude.

We were polite and quiet, and no one said a thing.

"As you may already know, Web Access America is the largest online service in America, with over nine million subscribers," the guide said.

"Well, this was easy," Marco whispered to me.

"We're not anywhere yet," I pointed out.

"Now we'll start by showing you our 'command center.' This is where we monitor the ebb and flow of traffic across our entire system."

Marco grinned. "Like taking candy from a baby."

We traveled up elevators, and down a hallway decorated with portraits of guys who I guess were the owners of WAA. I only recognized one. The guide stopped by the oversized oil painting in the gold frame.

"And this is our founder, Joe Bob Fenestre. Later we'll show a short, entertaining film about the fascinating life of Mr. Fenestre."

Marco raised his hands and made a bowing motion, like he was saying prayers to Joe Bob Fenestre. Rachel yanked his shirt.

"Hey, the idea is not to attract attention, genius."

"I'm sorry," Marco said. He pretended to wipe away a tear. "This is Joe Bob Fenestre. I love Joe Bob. I admire Joe Bob. I want to fee Joe Bob."

"I didn't know you were all that interested in computers," Cassie said.

"I mean, I knew you liked playing around with them, but-"

Marco waved a hand dismissively. "It's not about computers. Who cares about computers?"

"Well, isn't that the big thing with Mr. Fenestre?"

Marco shook his head, like Cassie had said something insane, and walked away.

Cassie looked at me.

"Joe Bob Fenestre is the second wealthiest man in the world, Cassie," I said. "I think that's what Marco cares about more than computers. Hey, Marco?"

"What?"

"How much is Fenestre worth?"

"Mr. Fenestre is worth twenty-four point nine billion dollars. That's billion. What a 'b.' As in billion."

"Is that a lot of dollars?" Ax asked.

"You could buy all the Tabasco sauce in the world with it, Ax. All the Tabasco in the entire world, and have enough left over to buy your own small country."

We turned a corner, and there, through the glass, we saw the command center. It looked like

ground control at NASA. Row after row of men and women sitting at computer consoles.

We dropped back from the tour group so we could talk privately.

"Okay, there it is," I said. "Now how do we get in?"

How do we get in?" Rachel asked. "It's daytime. There are people around.

This isn't how we usually do things. It's usually night."

I glanced around. The tour group was moving off. Pretty soon someone would notice us hanging around. People were coming and going from the command center down below. But it was awfully hard to imagine what kind of animal morph we could use to sneak in there and work a computer keyboard without being noticed.

I was puzzled. And no one else seemed to have any brilliant suggestions, either. I looked at Marco. He shrugged. I looked at Rachel.

Rachel said, "We could create a distraction.

Set the place on fire, then when everyone runs . . ."

"Rachel, these are nice, normal, innocent people, not Controllers, as far as we know," I pointed out. "We can't go around terrifying and endangering normal people."

She nodded like she understood. I'm pretty sure she actually did.

Then it popped into my head. "That's the morph: nice, normal people."

"What?"

"We acquire DNA from some of the people who work here. We morph them and walk right in." As soon as the words were out of my mouth I thought, Wow, there's something not really right about this.

Cassie looked pained. "Wow, there's something not really right about that."

"I think it's brilliant," Marco said. "Possibly immoral, but brilliant."

"Humans are the animals that are native to this particular environment,"

Ax pointed out.

"We like to think of ourselves as more than animals," Rachel pointed out.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. We just do. Or at least as the best animals around."

"The best?" Ax echoed. "How do you define best?"

"We alone of all the animals have the ability to create TV shows,"

Marco said. "Why are we yapping about this? What's the big deal? Ax's human morph is made up of bits of DNA from all of us. What's the difference?"

"We consented," Cassie said. "We gave permission."

"Who cares, as long as it works?" Rachel said.

"How are we different from Yeerks, then?" This came from a surprise source: Marco. Was he arguing both sides, or had he changed his mind?

"We aren't taking over their minds," Rachel said. "We'd simply be using their DNA. No different from any other animal."

Everyone looked at me. Like I was supposed to quickly decide a big moral issue in a hallway in two minutes. What was I supposed to do? We were in a war. What was the big deal about doing something that made us uncomfortable?

I shook my head. "The whole reason we're fighting is to keep people free," I said. "If we start violating that and using people's DNA without permission, we may not be as bad as the Yeerks. But we're heading down that same path. We have to find another way."

Cassie looked at me like she was proud of me, which just made me want to blush.

"So how do we do what we came here to do, oh fearless leader?" Rachel asked.

"We go with a distraction. But we don't start a fire or endanger anyone.

We just give them something to look at that is so fascinating and weird and impossible to ignore that they won't be watching what happens behind them. Ax and Marco are the computer brains. They go in. Ax as human, and Marco as himself."

"So Marco won't be human?" Rachel asked quickly, then laughed at her own joke.

"That was a good one," Marco complimented her. "Fast, too."

"Thank you."

I took a deep breath. "Ax and Marco go inside. The rest of us put on a show that no one will be able to ignore, then we haul butt out of here."

We ducked into a small janitor's closet to prepare. Ax and Marco quickly headed down the stairs and around to the entrance to the command center.

"Everyone ready?" I asked.

"Yes. But I just want to say this is totally undignified," Rachel complained.

"Do you have your mop?"

"Yes, I have my mop," she sneered.

"Cassie? You ready?"

"Yes. But we can't lose these shoes. We don't have any more money." We had tied the laces of our shoes together, and now we looped them over our necks. All but Tobias, of course. I would grab his later.

"Everyone ready?" I asked. They were. "0kay, let's go!"

"Just one slight problem, Jake," Rachel pointed out. "Who's going to open the door of this closet?"

We had morphed. Rachel was now a monstrously huge grizzly bear standing up on her hind legs. She was between seven and eight feet tall, with claws like the teeth of an iron rake and shaggy, rough, brown fur.

I had gone into my tiger morph. We'd deliberately chosen big, frightening animals no one was likely to try and mess with. We wanted people to watch us, but not try and grab us.

Tobias had become himself once more. A red-tailed hawk.

And Cassie had become the most frightening animal of us all: a skunk.

But none of us had hands that could open the closet door.

"Rachel? Why don't you just open it?"

"CooL" She drew back her upper body, swayed back on her feet, and then thrust forward, slamming one side-of-beef-sized shoulder into the door.

CRRRUNCH-SLAM!

"There. Now it's open."

We trotted calmly out into the hall and crossed to the glass observation window that

looked down on the command center. We looked down at the WAA employees at their computer consoles.

"No one's watching us," Tobias complained. He was sitting on Rachel's head. "They haven't noticed us."

"l can take care of that," I said.

A tiger's roar can be heard for miles. Literally. Up close and personal, it is a sound you never want to hear unless there are some big, thick steel bars separating you from the tiger.

It is loud. And it's loud in a way that punches every button in a human being's instincts. I've seen that roar make brave men fall down. It turns their knees to Jell-0.

I sucked in a deep breath, and I cut loose.

RRRROOOOOAAAAARRRR!

"Now they've noticed us," Tobias said.

Fifty or sixty sets of eyes had swiveled at once to stare up at us. And what they saw kept them watching. Rachel, huge, terrifying, powerful Rachel, was calmly mopping the floor, swinging the mop back and forth like a professional.

I was helping. I had the mop bucket in my teeth.

Tobias fluttered around us in a circle, shrieking madly.

TSEEEER!TSEEEER!TSEEEER!

Absolutely no one noticed when Marco and Ax

entered the back of the command center and calmly sat down at a computer console. No need even for a code word to get access. The machine had been left on by the person who'd been operating it. That person was staring up at us, eyes wide, mouth even wider.

With my acute tiger's hearing I could hear through the glass.

"Is that a bear?"

"Yeah."

"Is it mopping the floor?"

"Uh-huh."

"Have we gone nuts?"

"I'm not nuts. It's the bear who's nuts. That's carpeted up there."

"Why does it have sneakers around its neck?"

A few people screamed. A few ran. Most just stared as we cavorted around, having a fine time.

"Marco winked," Tobias reported. "They must be doing okay."

"Two more minutes, then we get out of here before someone down there thinks to call in security^ I said.

"Too late," Cassie reported. "Here they come! Two guys with handguns."

"0h, man. Okay. We'll try and scare them off first." Two men in gray uniforms came racing around the corner into view. They had guns drawn. They