The Threat

by K. A. Applegate

  "One big point," Cassie said. "Act like gulls, okay? The humans won't be looking for trouble from seagulls. But the Yeerks will."

  15 « If we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sun!"» Marco sang.

  «Marco, why are you singing?» Rachel asked.

  «lt's some old movie on the Movie Channel about Air Force pilots. That was their song. "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sun."»

  «Marco? Why are you sf/7/ singing when clearly I want you to shut up?»

  «"0ff we go, into the . . ." Hey! Whoa! Pizza Hut! The guy down there on the blue beach towel. He's got an entire large pizza!»

  «ls he going to eat all that himself?» David asked eagerly. «No way one guy eats a large pizza.»

  16 Many morphs have powerful instincts you have to learn to deal with. Like the soulless, automaton obedience of ants or the raging, insane hunger of a shrew. You deal with it. In the case of seagull morphs, the instincts were not exactly dangerous to us, but they were very hard to shake off.

  Basically, seagulls are scavengers. Which means they have an amazing talent for spotting anything that looks even slightly like available food. We were above the sand, skimming and dodging out along the surf line like typical gulls. Ahead of us, up the beach, was the line of trees and the tan stucco wall that marked the edge of the resort.

  We were not the only gulls around. Not by a long shot. In fact, about seventeen gulls had also spotted the pizza. They were wheeling and hovering and going "Squeeet! Squeeet! Squeeet!" and "Aw! Aw! Aw!"

  The guy with the pizza was looking nervous.

  «Keep flying,» I said, although I, too, had to fight the weird desire to dive on some pepperoni. I mean, seriously, a large pan pizza for one guy? No reason why he couldn't toss a couple slices off to one side so we ...

  But pizza was not the point.

  «Fries!» Rachel cried.

  17 «0kay, now look,» I said, «we are about to try and - »

  «0h! Oh! Fried chicken!» Marco said. «Hey, Tobias. If a seagull eats chicken, is that like cannibalism or something?»

  «That depends. Extra crispy or regular?»

  At last we were nearing the stucco wall. Seagull eyes aren't as penetrating as bird-of-prey eyes, but they are still very good. I spotted a dark-suited man standing in the shadow of the row of tall trees. He wore dark sunglasses. He was talking into a handheld radio. He was staring in our direction, gazing out over the beach with a very serious amount of concentration.

  «Gee, could that guy look any more like Secret Service?» Rachel said with a laugh. «And there's another one just ten feet away, along the

  «0f course they're Secret Service, » David said. «But so are some of the people lying out here on the beach. With something like this, probably half the people on the beach are security^

  «And of course you're the big expert because your dad is a spy,» Marco said with a definite sneer.

  «He's with the National Security Agency, that's right, » David said.

  18 «Yeah? Well now he's with the Yeerk Security Agency,» Marco muttered.

  «Shut up, Marco!» I snapped. «That was over the line.»

  Marco pouted for a moment or two as we oh-so-casually closed the distance between us and the wall. «You're right. I was out of line. Sorry.»

  David didn't say anything. I couldn't blame him. Usually Marco knows how far to take things. Maybe I was wrong to think Marco's attitude toward David was totally normal. Maybe we had a problem there.

  We didn't fly over the wall all together in some kind of formation. We did it one at a time, crossing in various locations. The security guys seemed indifferent. No big surprise. There were gulls all over the place. In fact, looking around, it was impossible to know which of the white birds was one of us and which was just a plain old seagull.

  «This is easy,» David said. «What's the big deal?»

  «As long as we just want to fly around, no big deal,» I agreed. «But we need to get inside some of these buildings. Maybe all these buildings.»

  «The question is, where do we begin? And how?» Ax said.

  The resort had a dozen or more buildings. The main building was a large, multistory, modern hotel shaped like an "L." There was a lower, two-

  19 story portion stuck off to one side. Probably a ballroom or whatever.

  Nestled in the crook of the "L" shape was a pool with a bar and a changing area. And down by the water were cabins, like individual homes separated from the others by hedges and trees.

  The grounds were lush with trimmed grass and precise shrubbery and trees. A nine-hole golf course began at the back side of the main hotel. From the air we could easily see the two presidential helicopters resting on a grass landing area. Uniformed Marine guards stood at attention by the doors of the helicopters.

  «0kay, there is definitely some security on this place,» Marco said. «Guys on the roof, guys in the bushes, guys sitting in cars, guys out on the golf course pretending to play golf. It looks like Men in Black 2 around here. These guys all have the same suit.»

  Then I spotted something that raised my spirits a little. «Look! Canine teams!»

  Below me a German shepherd walked with yet another "Man in Black." The dog was sniffing in bushes. Either looking for a place to pee or searching for bombs.

  «Maybe we could morph German shepherds and get in as part of the canine team,» I said, realizing as I said it that it probably wouldn't work.

  20 A truck was delivering food to the loading dock at the back of the hotel. No less than four guys in dark suits were checking the crates as they came off the truck.

  The Men in Black had earpieces, like people being interviewed on TV. And they seemed to talk to their wrists a lot. There were microphones barely visible just up in their sleeves.

  «Here's an idea. Let's give up,» Marco said. «This would be totally depressing even if we didn't have to worry about some of these guys being Controllers.»

  I was starting to agree. «Every square inch of this entire place is being watched,» I said. «We can't morph or demorph anywhere around it. We need to get inside to learn what we want to learn, but that would mean going insect basically. And the problem with any insect morph is that we'd have to morph the bug way outside the compound, which leaves us traveling a long, long way as spiders or cockroaches or flies. None of which can see well enough to travel those distances without getting lost.»

  «0r eaten,» Rachel added darkly.

  «You guys could morph fleas and get onto someone who we knew was going inside the compound^ Tobias suggested.

  «But fleas are useless for seeing, and they aren't much good at hearing,» Cassie said. «We'd

  21 get in, but once inside we'd get nothing. And how would we ever get back out again?»

  «Are we beat?» Marco asked, incredulous.

  I sighed. «Maybe. Only we can't be. No matter what the risk, we have to get inside and - AAAAHHHH!»

  The pain came out of nowhere. Suddenly, for no reason, I'd felt a wave of agony that seemed to sizzle and fry every cell in my body.

  «Jake, what's happening?» Cassie cried.

  «AAAAAHHHH!» Ax screamed.

  «What's going on?» David asked nervously.

  The pain was gone, but my brain was still burning from the memory. I looked down, around, everywhere. What? What had caused . . . ?

  There below me and ahead, not fifty feet away, stood a security man, like all the others. He had a bald patch on his head, something you notice when you're a bird. He wore dark glasses, like all the others.

  But unlike all the others, he was watching the birds.

  22 «TTAAAAHHHHH!» It was Tobias's turn.

  I stared at the bald man. I saw where he was looking. He was looking at a gull that had suddenly jerked in mid-flight.

  Tobias?

  «lt's that guy!» I said, suddenly certain. «That bald guy! He's doing it!»

  I watched the bald man casually shift his gaze to another
seagull. This seagull, too, spasmed in midair. It recovered and began to haul wing out of there.

  Not one of us. A regular gull.

  «Ax! What is that guy doing? I don't see any weapon.»

  23 Ax sounded as shaken as I was. «He may . . . he may be using a very low-power Dracon beam. Possibly hidden on his body, with the sunglasses used as emitters.»

  «Are you telling me he can shoot whatever he's looking at?» I said.

  «Yes. It will cause intense pain. As you may have noticed.»

  That was as close as Ax ever got to making a joke. And having been on the receiving end of the bald guy's "look," I really didn't find it all that humorous.

  «So he's a Controller chasing away the birds,» Tobias said. «He doesn't kill us because that would be too obvious - dead birds dropping everywhere.»

  «Chasing away possible Andalites in morph,» Marco agreed.

  The Yeerks still think we're a small band of Andalites. They have no clue we're humans with Andalite morphing powers.

  «0h, man!» Cassie moaned. «He's looking at -AAAAAHHHH!»

  «Cassie!»

  «0h. Oh, that hurt. Oh man, I'm not kidding here. That was like a full-body dental visit without Novocain.»

  «Cassie. Bail. Fly away. That's what a gull

  24 would do. But not everyone at once!» I added quickly. «We can't move like we know what's happening.»

  «We have to stay here and let that guy zap us?» David demanded. «We should either run or go kick his butt for him!»

  I had felt the pain. I knew how awful it was. But I couldn't let everyone turn tail and run. Not all at once. We had to be normal gulls. Still, I knew how the others felt. I felt it, too, floating helpless and exposed in midair, waiting for the bald man to hit me again.

  «He's looking at me!» David yelled. «What am I supposed to do?»

  «Nothing,» I grated. «Take it. Then you can

  «AAAAAHHHHH!»

  I felt like the creep of the universe making David take the hit. But we couldn't give ourselves away. That would confirm to the Yeerks that we were attempting to enter the facility.

  I saw David spasm. I knew the pain he had just endured. The part of my brain that wasn't busy feeling guilty wondered how he'd react.

  «0kay, that was a major ouchie!» David said. «How can I get out of here?»

  «Yeah, fly,» I said. «And by the way, David? Good job.»

  25 «Thanks,» he said, sounding sincere. Then in a sarcastic tone he added, «Thanks a lot»

  I watched him fly away. Ax and Tobias and Rachel had all managed to casually, naturally circle away out of the bald man's line of sight. But I was still there.

  The bald man looked at me.

  I would have gritted my teeth if I'd had teeth. The pain hit me as bad as the first time, and I cried out just the same.

  Then I flew away, following the others and feeling that maybe the free world really was doomed this time around. Because as far as I could see, we were beat before we even got started.

  26 -

  le left. We went home. At least, Marco, Rachel, Cassie, and I went home. Ax's home is a few billion miles away. Tobias's home is his favorite tree overlooking the meadow that is his territory.

  As for David, he didn't have a home. No home, no family. None that he could contact, anyway. He couldn't even be seen in his own body. The Yeerks knew him and they were looking for him.

  So he went home with Cassie, back to the barn that is the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. She had made a place for him in the hayloft.

  Obviously, that wasn't going to last. Another problem for me to try to figure out. Along with

  27 saving the leaders of the free world. David would just have to tough it out.

  How quickly would the Yeerks move? The President was already at the resort. The other world leaders were arriving over the next few hours. Would the Yeerks wait till they were all assembled? Or would they try to pick them off one by one?

  I felt this huge hurry poking at me. Every minute lost was a possible disaster. But our first attempt had been a total loss. And we weren't ready for another run.

  I got home to find my parents both sitting in the living room, kind of staring into space. My first thought was, Uh-oh, I did something wrong.

  But as soon as they saw me they both got up and hugged me. So right away I knew this was something truly bad.

  "Thank goodness you're home," my mother said.

  "We were worried," my dad said.

  "Why? I was just out with Marco."

  "Something has happened," my dad said solemnly. "Maybe you should sit down."

  "Is it Tom?" I demanded.

  "Is what Tom?" Tom asked. He came in right behind me, giving me the creepy feeling that he'd been following me.

  28 "Tom, you need to hear this, too," my mother said. "Both of you sit down."

  "Who died?" Tom said, joking. Or to be more accurate, the Yeerk in his head made the dumb joke because it was just the kind of dumb joke Tom would make.

  My mom and dad gave Tom this hollow-eyed look.

  My mother said, "It's your cousin, Saddler. He was riding his bike and was hit by a car. He's alive, but the injuries are very severe. He's in intensive care."

  I'm ashamed to admit that my first reaction was not "poor Saddler." Instead, I wondered what impact this would have on my plans. Partly that's because Saddler was not a cousin I was close to. He's two years older, and to be honest, kind of a jerk. When we were little and our parents made us play together, he was the kind of kid who'd break something and then blame me.

  It was pretty awful to think he was so badly hurt. But at the same time, I was trying to figure out how this affected me. Saddler and his family lived in a small town about a hundred miles away.

  "Your mom and I are going to drive down right away to help Ellen and George with the other kids. They think they'll probably move Saddler to Children's Hospital here in town in a day or two, if... I mean . . ."

  29 My mom cut in. "This means you two will be on your own today and tomorrow."

  Tom and I exchanged a look. Both of us were calculating what this meant. We each had a hidden agenda. Tom didn't know mine. If Tom ever found out what I did when I wasn't at home or at school, that would be the end of my freedom. Probably the end of my life.

  "Then, after Saddler is moved here, his parents and the kids will probably stay with us for at least a few days."

  That pretty well froze the blood in my veins. Saddler has three siblings: Justin, Brooke, and Forrest. Forrest is two years old and is, basically, the devil. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.

  "Why can't they stay with Rachel's family?" Tom asked. "They're cousins, too."

  "Well, since Rachel's mom and dad got divorced, Ellen and George haven't felt like they were all that close to Rachel's mom."

  "Lucky Rachel," Tom muttered.

  This all left me feeling even more disturbed than before. I felt guilty for not feeling sorry for Saddler right away. I felt guilty for caring that his family would be staying with us. I even felt guilty for thinking it was a relief that my mom and dad would be gone for the next day or so.

  All that, piled on top of the fact that I felt guilty because while I was sitting around feeling

  30 guilty the leaders of the free world were possibly being infested with Yeerks.

  I felt like my head was going to burst. I felt like I needed to sleep for about fourteen hours.

  But I wasn't going to sleep. Not that night. Or the next. In fact, it was going to be a long time before I slept again.

  31 My parents drove off, but I didn't exactly declare a national holiday and throw a party. No time.

  Instead I spent the evening doing the research I should have done earlier. I sat at my computer, plugged in to the Web, and read everything I could find about the conference, the leaders who would be there, the Marriott resort itself, the security services of each nation, everything.

  Then I saw it: an article about the new
prime minister of France. The one whose wife always, always, always traveled with her two Chihuahuas. Now, that could be useful.

  "Ah-hah!"

  32 "Ah-hah, what?"

  I spun in my chair. It was Tom, sticking his head into my room. On my computer monitor was the article about the French chief.

  Don't act guilty! I silently ordered myself. But I clicked the window closed anyway.

  "Are you gonna tie up that line all night?" Tom demanded. "Someone might want to make a phone call. It's ten o'clock, anyway. Your bed-tiiiiime," he said, drawing out the last word.

  "Shut up," I said. "Just because Mom and Dad aren't here, that doesn't make you -"

  "Oh, yes it does. I am the All-Powerful Tom," he said.

  Once again, I had this weird urge to say, "You know what, Tom? I know all about you. I know what you are. So how about if we just cut to the chase?"

  What I really said was, "I'm done, anyway." I moved the mouse to "Sign off" and clicked once.

  "Don't forget to brush your teeth," Tom said mockingly.

  He closed the door. Had he seen what was on my screen? Probably not. Even if he had, so what? So I was interested in the French government.

  Yeah. That made sense. What with my lifelong interest in European heads of state.

  I sighed. Then . . .

  33 Deedly-deeedly-deedly.

  The phone rang. I hesitated. It was late for anyone to call. Probably Mom or Dad checking in.

  I picked it up.

  "Did you get that?" Tom yelled from down the hall.

  "Yeah!" I yelled back. Then, in a normal voice, "Hello?"

  "Hi, Jake, it's Cassie."

  I felt a little tingle on the back of my neck. Cassie sounded cheerful. But that was because we never trusted the phones to be safe.

  "Hi, Cassie, what's up?"

  "Hey, you know what? I heard Letterman got canceled. Is that true? No more Dave?"

  Now it was more than a tingle. Of course Letterman wasn't canceled. Cassie had just been looking for a way to say "Dave." As in David.

  David was missing.

  "Did you check TV Guide?"

  "No. I looked everywhere else, though. Everywhere."

  "Well, don't worry about it. He'll be there at the usual place, the usual time."