Текст книги "Animorphs - 10 - The Android"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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# The Android

My name is Marco. People call me Marco the Magnificent. Mar-velous Marco. The Amazing Marco. And of course, all the girls just call me ... gorgeous. Okay, maybe I've never actually heard anyone call me gorgeous, but I am confident that someone, somewhere, must have called me gorgeous at some point. Or not. But definitely cute. I've heard "cute" with my own ears. And I'll soon be hearing it a lot more because I've made a major change. I've cut my hair. Or at least my stylist, Charise, cut it for me. That's right, Charise. And according to Charise, my cuteness quotient has risen from a nine to a definite ten.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I was telling you that my name is Marco. I can't tell you my last name. I forgot it.

No, not really, I'm kidding. I know my last name.

I'm just not going to tell you. And I'm not going to tell you the complete names of my friends or where I live.

What I will tell you is the truth.

All except for that part about "magnificent" and "marvelous."

Everything else I tell you will be true. I know it will seem incredible. But it will be the absolute truth.

Let's start with the reason why I won't tell you my last name: I have enemies. We all sorta do.

But these guys are very powerful, very dangerous enemies. Not like the guy in your class who keeps calling you "dork-wad." And if they knew who I was, I'd be dead so fast I wouldn't even know I was dead. The Yeerks don't play games.

The Yeerks don't worry about pity or kindness.

They don't care that I'm just a kid. The Yeerks plan to enslave or destroy the entire human race.

They won't hesitate to roll right over little old me.

The Yeerks aren't just my enemies, though.

They are the enemies of every human being. The enemies of Earth itself. And they are everywhere.

They're a parasitic species. Think tapeworms.

That's what they are, when you get right down to it: intelligent tapeworms.

They are slugs, just a few inches long. They enter the human body through the ear canal. Once inside, they flatten themselves out and wrap themselves around your brain. They squeeze into all the folds and wrinkles of your brain and tie into your thoughts.

They take over. They make you into what we call a Controller. A human machine. A body whose own, true mind is shattered and helpless.

That's the special horror of the Yeerks. They don't just take over your mind and eliminate you.

You continue to be aware. You continue to be conscious.

You sit there in your own head watching the Yeerk open your memory, watching the Yeerk fool your friends and family, watching the Yeerk turn the people you love into the same kind of slave you've become.

You try to move your hand, but you can't. You try to make your mouth speak, but you can't. You don't even control what your eyes look at. That's what it's like.

My mother is one of them. A Controller.

For a long time, we thought she had died. I believed she had drowned. But I learned later that she was still alive.

A very powerful Yeerk had taken her body. I don't even know how long she was a Controller before she disappeared. I don't know how many times her good-night kiss was the action of a Yeerk trying to pass as a human.

She is Visser One now. A Visser is a sort of Yeerk warlord or general. Visser One launched the secret invasion of Earth.

Visser Three is now in charge.

Visser One, in my mother's head, took off after faking her death by drowning. She's somewhere now . . .

maybe millions of miles away.

No one knows about my mom but me and my best friend, Jake. I don't want the others to know. I don't want their pity.

The Yeerks are here. Everywhere. Not just my mother, but maybe yours, too. Maybe your teacher, maybe your best friend, maybe everyone around you. When you get together with family and friends, you may be the only one in the room who is not a Controller.

That's why we fight them. We Animorphs.

I made up that word, by the way. Pretty cool, huh? Animorphs. Just popped into my head.

Animal morpher.

See, not every alien in the universe is a Yeerk.

The universe has its heroes, too. It was one dying, doomed Andalite who gave us our power to acquire the DNA of any animal and then to become that animal.

His name was Elfangor. He, and a lot of other Andalites, died trying to save Earth from the Yeerks.

So for him, and for all the people of Earth, we fight, hoping to slow the Yeerks down enough so that the Andalites will have a chance to come again and save us all.

Who is "we"? Well, there's me, Marco the Magnificent.

Then, there's Rachel-who-thinks-she's-Xena.– Warrior Princess.

And there's Tobias, the Bird-boy. And Cassie, the tree-hugger. And Ax, our resident Andalite.

And of course, our fearless leader, my boy, Jake.

My way-too-serious best friend Jake.

Responsible, practically adult Jake.

Jake, who grinds my nerves with his total refusal to just have a good time.

"Look," I said to Jake, "it's not a crime or anything. There is absolutely no law against dogs going to outdoor concerts. They don't have a ticket for dogs."

"You know, Marco, the point of morphing is not for us to get into concerts," Jake said.

We were walking down one of the streets of our subdivision. We'd shot some hoops down at the outdoor basketball court, and now Jake was dribbling the ball as we walked.

"Nine Inch Nails. Alanis. Offspring," I said.

He stopped and stared at me. "Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your hair, man?"

"You're just noticing? Looks cool, huh?"

Jake just stared. "Offspring?" he asked.

"You're sure Offspring will be there?"

I could see him weakening. He was dribbling slower.

"I hear they are so great live. They kick. They dominate. They crush all opposition under foot.

They rule. They -"

"Marco, after I've criticized Rachel and Cassie for using morphing for personal reasons, I can't just -"

"Who's going to tell them?" I argued. I ran my fingers through my new, shorter hair. It was cool-looking. I wasn't even going to pay attention to the way Jake just stared at it. It looked cool.

"I'd be a hypocrite," Jake said.

I thought for a moment. "You know, Jake . . . I have long suspected that Alanis may be a Controller. And, as a Controller, think of the damage she could do by leading young, impressionable kids like us astray. Oh, I hate to even think of it! We have a duty, Jake. We have a sacred duty to go to that concert and to find out once and for all whether any of these major stars are Controllers."

Jake smiled his slow smile. "That is easily the most pathetic excuse you have ever come up with."

I laughed. "Get serious. I've come up with lots of more pathetic excuses than that."

We were almost at Jake's house, so we stopped.

Jake's brother Tom is one of them – a Controller. We don't talk inside his house.

"You know," Jake said, "the only possible way I could go along with this is if I found out you were going to this thing anyway. Then, see, I'd have to go along – reluctantly – just to watch your back."

Jake may be responsible and all, but he isn't a total forty-year-old.

I grinned. "Jake, I'm going to this concert, whether you like it or not."

"Then I guess I'd better go, just to cover your butt," Jake said. "You'll have to figure out how to cover that hair."

I made a face. "Real funny."

"I thought so," Jake said, grinning at his own wit. "I'm going to morph Homer, I guess.

You're right. Dog is the way to go. No one will even think anything about us being there, since there are always dogs at outdoor stuff. And dog hearing is great.

You need to acquire a dog morph."

"Already have," I said smugly. "An Irish setter. Girls love Irish setters. Heh, heh, heh."

I laughed my "evil" laugh and gave Jake a look, and he laughed, too.

There are these moments in your life that seem totally innocent at first, you know? Like normal everyday life. But then it's like you stepped off a cliff, and before you know it you're falling.

Suddenly you realize your innocent little decision has gone spinning out of control.

I had decided to sneak into a concert. I had not decided to uncover one of the greatest secrets of human history, or become the person who would decide the fate of an entire race.

I just wanted to hear some music.

It should have been no big deal.

here are a couple of big problems with mor– phing. First of all, there's the two-hour time limit. If you stay in morph for more than two hours, you stay forever.

Second, there is the fact that all of the ani mal's basic instincts come along with the body.

Sometimes when you jump into that animal brain it's like grabbing onto a power line.

Finally, there is the total creepiness factor.

I mean, major, Stephen-King-meets-Ann-Rice creepy.

The concert was taking place at this big outdoor arena that's at one end of the city park. We needed a private place to morph, but that turned out not to be so easy. There were people every– where. Thousands of people. Kids in black T-shirts.

Displaced Deadheads with little granny sunglasses and dreadlocks. Parental units carrying babies and trying to look cool in their Dockers.

And hardcore punk rockers with pierced every– things.

Across from the park there was this little street with coffee shops and restaurants and an ecology bookstore.

There were alleys behind the restaurants, and we headed there.

Down one alley we found a little dead-end area stuffed with Dumpsters.

"Wonderful," Jake muttered. "The two of us and the garbage. This is already fun."

"Come on, let's do it," I said. I was impatient.

I could hear a warm-up band racing through a power set.

"You haven't morphed a dog before, have you?" Jake asked me.

"No."

He smiled. "Don't get too happy," he said.

I didn't really pay any attention to him. I looked around and saw some hippie girls walking by. They couldn't see us. I removed my outer clothing and stripped down to my morphing suit.

I stuffed my clothes and shoes into the bag Jake and I had brought along and shoved it behind the Dumpster.

I focused on the dog I had acquired. I saw it in my mind. And as I focused, I felt the changes begin.

I've morphed much weirder things than dogs.

But every morph is strange. Every morph is un predictable. You really never know how it's going to go.

I expected the first thing to be fur. It wasn't.

The first thing that happened was the tail. I felt it just sort of spurt out of the base of my spine.

I turned to look back over my shoulder. "Oh, guh-ross!"

The tail was sticking out. But it had no fur yet. It was just this kind of grayish, chicken– skinned whip.

I looked back at Jake. His face was bulging out like something was trying to climb out of his mouth. At the same time my own muzzle started to grow. There was a weird grinding sound from inside my head as the bones of my jaw stretched outward.

I felt an itching in my mouth as my teeth grew bigger and rearranged themselves.

I saw my fingers shrink up inside my hands.

At the same time, the little stubs of fingers grew these gray-black nails. My palms became thick and calloused.

I felt the bones in my legs and arms stretch– ing, changing directions, and I began to grow slightly smaller. Suddenly, I couldn't stand up anymore. I fell forward onto my calloused pads.

Only then did the fur begin to grow. It was a good thing, too. I was one ugly animal without fur.

The reddish fur sprouted quickly, like the world's fastest grass. It just seemed to explode out of my skin, long and silky.

"Cool." I said to Jake in thought-speak. "Check out this fur. Every girl in that concert is going to want to pet me."

He said something back to me, but right then the dog senses kicked in.

I've morphed a wolf, so I was prepared. I knew the hearing would be amazing. I knew the sense of smell would be incredible.

But what I didn't expect was the dog's mind.

It was not like the wolf. The wolf was a cool, in telligent, ruthless killer.

The dog was just a big goof.

You remember that old song, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"? That could be the theme song for dogs.

Dogs just want to have fun.

That's what fooled me. The Irish setter's brain didn't feel like some strange animal. It felt like it was just tapping into a part of my own mind. It was a perfect fit with the goof ball part of my own brain.

I looked over at Jake through my slightly dim dog vision. He had become his dog, Homer. I lolled out my tongue and panted. Jake/homer panted right back at me.

"RUFF!" I barked, for no reason. I did a little dance. Sort of like I was going to run away, but then I stopped suddenly and crouched down on my front legs and grinned like an idiot at Jake.

I was inviting him to play.

I tore off down the alley at a run.

"Marco, wait up!"

"Catch me! Hah-hah! Like you even could!"

I scrabbled away at top speed, my nails click ing on the concrete, my floppy ears flying, my tail held high and wagging.

I raced down the alleyway, totally ignoring the rich, wondrous smells of rotting garbage.

I turned toward the park and raced across the street. Jake fell back, caught up in a small knot of people.

SCRRREEEEECCCCHHH! A car slammed on its brakes and missed me by a couple of feet. A couple of feet! I mean, if the driver had been one millisecond slower to hit the brakes, I'd have been roadkill. But my complete dog-brain reaction to that near-death expe rience was, "Cool! I smell something!"

I'm totally serious. The fact that I smelled some other dog's pee on a curb was about ten thousand times more interesting to my dog brain than the squealing car was.

The driver got out and started yelling. I gave him a happy dog grin and trotted on my way.

"Marco! Would you wait up?"

Suddenly I was surrounded by people. But they were totally different from the people I'd seen before when I was still human.

For one thing, I wasn't really looking at these people. I was smelling them. What they looked like was so totally not important. But the smells! I smelled sweat, I smelled shampoo, I smelled bad breath, I smelled what they had been eating, I smelled what they had stepped in, I smelled laundry detergent, I smelled everyone they had touched or shaken hands with.

And I could smell all their animals. The humans might as well have been wearing big neon signs that said i own a dog, or i have cats. I could not only smell who owned dogs, I could smell whether the dogs were male or female, young or old, fixed or not. Just by sniffing the people walking past, I knew if their dogs ate canned or dry food.

I mean, when you hook up to that dog nose it's like you've been walking around with cotton balls up your nostrils all your life and suddenly you take them out and wow! Wow! You're into a whole new experience of life.

I'd been a wolf in the forest. Now it was like I was a wolf in civilization. The information from my nose was so complex. So full, so rich, so en joyable.

"Hey, boy!" someone said. A girl! I was sure she was a girl. But was she a cute girl? I tried to make my dog eyes focus, but it was like sight was just irrelevant. I could see pretty well, but my dog brain was way too busy smelling and hearing.

I did notice the scent of patchouli oil, though.

The girl reached out a hand and stroked my head.

Instantly a warm wave of pleasure washed over me. Then she scratched behind my ear.

This was almost too good. This was sublime. This was probably the best thing I'd ever felt in my life.

I think I could have just stood there and let her scratch behind my ear forever. But then she was joined by a guy a guy who owned a cat, incidentally – and she started in on my ribs. I lay down and rolled on my side. The scratching of my ribs felt like tickling. I was so happy. I was beyond happy.

See, dog happy isn't like human happy.

Human happiness always has this little voice in the back of your mind going, "Don't be too happy.

Keep your guard up. Something bad could still happen."

But dog happy is just pure, distilled essence of happiness. I just lolled my wet tongue out and slapped my tail against the grass, and then it started.

My leg started going all on its own.

"Hah, I love it when dogs do that," the guy said. "That's so funny!"

His girlfriend scratched away on my ribs and my back leg just motored away, out of control, and I was in heaven. That's when Jake found me.

"That's nice,Marco." Jake said. "Very dignified. What's next? You going to lick yourself?"

"Oh, it's another dog," the girl said. "He's even cuter!" She leaned forward to pet Jake.

That brought me to my senses. No way was Jake a cuter dog than me.

"0kay, okay, that's enough playing around." I said. "Come on, Jake. Let's get closer to the stage."

We took off, tails wagging, leaving the nice hippie couple behind.

"See? I told you, Marco. Don't get too happy. A happy dog is almost too happy."

"Why not?" I asked, a little wistfully. "Why not just get happy?"

Then something stunning happened. There had been no music for a few minutes, and all at once, Offspring climbed onstage and unloaded.

They ripped into a song and I cowered a little.

The impact on my dog ears was shocking. But it wasn't just that it was so loud. It was that I could hear everything. Everything.

"Hey! I can understand the lyrics now." I said.

"Cool." Jake answered.

We trotted closer, into a thickening crowd of humans. The smells were just overwhelming.

And not always in a good way.

Suddenly, I saw him. He was passing out flyers.

He was walking through the crowd and pass ing out handbills.

A breeze caught one of the sheets and it fluttered to the ground in front of me. I forced my dog eyes to look at it. I couldn't read the fine print, but I could see the two big words at the top.

The Sharing.

The Sharing. The front organization for Con trollers.

"Jake." I said. "That guy. He's handing out flyers for The Sharing."

"Yeah. You know what? Does he look familiar, or is it just my imagination?"

He had brown hair, just a little over his ears. He was maybe five feet tall, but he managed to look taller. A slightly shorter version of Jake, strong and confident-looking. "Yes, he's familiar.

His name's Erek King. He transferred out of our school like a year ago."

Erek was coming closer, smiling and handing out flyers to anyone who would take one.

He knelt down and smiled at me. He reached out to pet me, but I pulled back. Erek shrugged and walked on his way, handing out flyers.

"Jake, did you notice t?"

"0h, yeah." he said.

"Definitely." "0h, man." I said. "There is something very, very wrong with Erek."

He didn't smell," I said.

"What do you mean, he didn't smell?"

Rachel demanded.

"I mean that he didn't smell.

He had picked up some odors off other people, off the ground, off dogs, whatever, but he had no smell himself. None. Like a black hole of smell. Like nothing there, nobody home."

It was later that same evening. Jake and I had left the concert shortly after encountering Erek. We'd called a meeting, and now everyone except Ax was in Cassie's barn.

Cassie's barn is actually the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. It's a sort of hospital for messed-up wild animals.

Cassie's parents are both veterinarians. Her mom works at the Gardens, this big combination zoo and amusement park.

Her dad (with a lot of help from Cassie) takes in every sick or injured wild animal they come across. The barn is lined with wire cages filled with raccoons, foxes, opossums, eagles, rabbits, geese, badgers, crows, squirrels ... I mean, you name it. It's animal central.

"Maybe you just didn't notice it," Rachel suggested.

"Rachel, you've been in wolf morph," Jake said. "You know how good your sense of smell is? Well, the dog's sense of smell is almost that good."

Rachel shook her head. That's what she does when she's frustrated.

She was standing in the middle of the barn floor, looking immaculate, as usual. Rachel is one of those girls from the cover of Seventeen.

Beautiful, fashionable, way too tall, far too many bright white teeth, massive quantities of very clean blond hair. But beneath all that fashionable clothing and perfectly applied makeup there is a sword-swinging Amazon warrior just trying to break out.

Rachel's like one of those terrible elf-maidens in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings – beautiful and dangerous.

Jake is her cousin and Cassie is her best friend. Cassie actually experiences normal human emotions like fear and doubt. I approve of this because I sure experience plenty of fear and doubt myself.

I've experienced more fear and doubt since I became an Animorph than most people experience in about ten lifetimes.

Cassie has never met a dress she liked.

She does not subscribe to Teen or YM.

She's much more likely to buy a magazine like Smelly Animals of America.

You know, the kind of magazine that would have articles like "How to Give Suppositories to Raccoons,"

or "Let's Examine Owl Vomit!"

If you want to picture Cassie, think of a short, cute girl with very short black hair, wearing overalls and big muddy boots and looking totally capable of giving a tetanus shot to an angry bear.

Cassie is our animal expert, and our resident ecology nut. I'd say she likes animals better than she likes people, except that she really likes Jake. As in likes.

Actually, she and Jake like each other, although neither of them will admit it, of course. The only time they'll act that way is when we're about twelve seconds away from doing something insanely dangerous. Then they'll kind of give each other these pathetic sad looks.

It's so lame.

The last original member of our group was perched in the high rafters overhead. Tobias had his talons sunk deep into the wood to give himself a firm hold. And with his hooked beak he was preening the feathers of his right wing.

Tobias is a red-tailed hawk. That's what he's been since he stayed too long in morph.

He lives as a hawk now, mostly. I mean, he hunts and eats like a hawk. Not that he has much choice. I don't think the school is really interested in a Hawk-boy as a student.

Tobias lives in the woods, along with Ax.

Ax is an Andalite, the brother of Elfangor, and the only free Andalite within a billion miles of Earth.

Ax doesn't come to the meetings, usually. He has a human morph, but he doesn't like to overuse it. Besides, he basically figures Jake is his "prince," and he'll do whatever his prince tells him has to be done.

So, that's our little group. Rachel, standing in the middle of the room, looking like someone was shining a spotlight on her. Jake, pacing back and forth and looking far too intense. Cassie, cradling a duck in her arms while she changed its bandage.

Tobias, preening his feathers and looking around with that eternal hawk glare. And me, lolling back on a bale of hay.

"Shh," Jake said suddenly. "I thought I heard something."

"lt's just a squirrel up on the roof." Tobias assured him in thought-speak.

"You sure?" Jake asked.

Tobias stopped preening and stared down at Jake. His hawk stare grew even more intense.

"Am I sure? I do know what a squirrel sounds like."

Jake nodded and looked a little embarrassed.

Hawks not only have amazingly good eyes, their hearing is better than human, too. And Tobias knows the sounds that prey make. He has to. Asking Tobias if he recognizes squirrel sounds would be like asking Einstein if he knows how to add two plus two.

I tried to bring us all back to the topic. "So, what does it mean if a kid doesn't smell like a human?"

"There are plenty of times when you don't smell human," Rachel said with a smirk. "But then, maybe that's because you have a small monkey living on top of your head."

Cassie made a snorking sound as she tried not to laugh.

"Next time you decide to get a haircut, talk to me first," Rachel said.

I ignored them both. We had important business, and I was not going to lower myself to trading insults with Rachel. Besides, I couldn't think of any.

"He doesn't smell, and he's handing out flyers for The Sharing," I said.

"He must be connected to the Yeerks," Rachel said with a shrug.

"But how?" Cassie asked. She was pushing the duck back into his cage. "I mean, Yeerks infest various species – humans, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons. But that doesn't change the fact that a human with a Yeerk in his head should still smell like a human. You know?"

"Chapman is a Controller. He still smells human," I pointed out. "And by the way, I can't believe I'm even talking about how the vice principal smells."

Jake shrugged. "I guess we need to find out what's going on with Erek."

"But how do we find him?" I asked.

"Infiltrate a meeting of The Sharing?"

"I could do surveillance of his school." Tobias said.

"Or maybe we could go back to where the concert was and look for clues," Rachel said. Then she winced.

"Wow, that sounded so Nancy Drew."

"Maybe Ax can try and tap into the Internet and get past all the security buffers and locate him," I suggested.

Cassie held up her hand like she was asking a question at school. "Those are all fine plans, but how about if we just look him up in the phone book?"

We all just stared at her.

"Or we could just look him up in the phone book," Jake said sheepishly.

Cassie headed for the house to get a phone book.

"You know, she is just not getting the whole superhero thing," I said to Jake. "Does Wolverine look things up in the phone book? Does Spider-man? I don't think so."

"Yeah, well, Wolverine has a big advantage over us," Rachel said dryly.

"He's not real."

Then she snapped her fingers. "That's what that hair of yours reminds me of: a wolverine. I knew it was something."

"Oh, yeah?" I shot back. "Well, how about your . . . your ..."

"My what?" Rachel asked coolly, with the absolute confidence of a girl who never looked less than perfect.

"Your tallness," I said lamely. "You're . .

. tall. Way tall."

Somehow this brilliant comeback did not cause Rachel to break down in tears.

Cassie came back carrying the white pages, already open to the "Knowledge's." "There are twenty-seven 'Kings" listed. But you said he transferred to Truman, so there are maybe six "Kings" that are in that part of town."

"We work our way down the list," I said.

"Although he still could have an unlisted phone."

"I can't hang out tonight," Jake said. "I have got to write that English paper."

"Here's a clue on the English paper. Don't say "I have got to,"" I teased.

"I could go tomorrow, maybe," Rachel said. "But not tonight. My dad is in town just for tonight. He's taking me and my sisters to Planet Hollywood."

Cassie looked at me. "I'm free," she said.

"l'm good till it gets dark." Tobias volunteered. Hawks aren't much use at night.

"Fine. Me and Cassie and Tobias till it gets dark," I said. "Shouldn't be too hard. Our mission: to find the boy who doesn't smell."

"Maybe he just showers a lot," Rachel said.

"Did you think about that?"

1 saw Jake the following day in the school cafeteria.

I was wolfing down the Goo of the Day, drinking milk, and trying to write my English paper at warp speed. See, I kind of had some homework due, too. But I'd spent yesterday evening cruising around in owl morph looking for Erek's house.

"English paper?" Jake asked as he sat down across from me.

"Yeah."

He laughed. "You're good for me, Marco.

Compared to you, I'm so responsible. You have a topic?"

I looked up at him and thumped my finger down on the paper. "I've already written three pages. What do you mean, do I have a topic?"

But Jake knows me. "So," he said.

"Do you have a topic?"

"A topic will . . . emerge. I'm going to just write until I discover a topic. The topic will rise from these pages. It will reveal itself to me. I just have to keep writing."

He nodded and made a face at the Goo of the Day on his tray. "This food is blue. Food should not be blue. Hey, here's a topic for you – the use of total bull in the writing of English papers."

I grinned. "I am the master of bull. Three pages so far and I haven't actually said a single thing."

"S. Did you guys happen to find our friend?"

I shot a glance left and then right. No one was seated near enough to overhear us. Besides, the cafeteria was so noisy from yelling and laughing and clashing dishes and scraping chairs that no one could hear much of anything.

"Yeah. We found out where he lives. Saw him through a window. Too bad, though. One of the other King residences we checked out had this girl living there who was amazing."

"You weren't window-peeping, I hope."

I gave Jake my best shocked-and-outraged look. "How could you even say that? What kind of person do you think I am?"

Jake nodded. "Cassie wouldn't let you, huh?"

"I am trying to write a paper here," I said.

"On the topic of ...

?"

"On the topic of how to write a thousand words and say nothing. Zero.

Nada.

Squat."

Jake lowered his voice to just above a whisper.

"We need to check Erek out. Definitely something wrong there."

I put down my pencil. "You mean get inside his house?"

Jake shrugged. "Not yet. Get Tobias to watch him when he's outside. But Tobias will need some help."

I shrugged and went back to my paper. "I'll help. I'll have plenty of time. I'm dropping out of school this afternoon. Right after the teacher gets done laughing at this paper."

"Topic – the use of rhetoric to obscure a lack of content," Jake said.

I froze. I looked up. "That's brilliant! It means the same as "the use of total bull"

...

but it sounds so much better!"

"Eat your Goo. I gotta go."

He left and I saw him head over to the spot where Cassie was sitting.

It's one of our rules. We can never start look ing like a "group." In school or in public places, we keep our distance. We only reveal the relationships that already existed before we became Animorphs.

I happened to see Chapman coming in through the door of the cafeteria. He grabbed some kid who was running and told him to slow down. Then he gazed around the room, looking for troublemakers, like any normal vice principal would.

But Chapman isn't normal. Chapman is a Controller. The Yeerk in his head is high-ranking enough to speak directly with Visser Three.

For about a second, Chapman's eyes locked on mine.

It was nothing. But it sent a shiver up my spine.

Chapman runs The Sharing. The flyers that Erek had been handing out at the concert had been about The Sharing.

Erek had never been some major friend of mine. He was just this kid I'd say hi to in the hallway.