The Solution

by K. A. Applegate

  "I'll kill you!" I screamed. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

  18

  Ax came running back, just as I was climbing back onto firm ground. I was shaking.

  «l heard you shouting,» he said.

  "David was here," I said. "He tricked us. We have to get down to Jake and -"

  I heard the sound of many voices. The police had gained entry.

  I cursed angrily under my breath. "We'll have to hold them off!" I said.

  «No,» Ax said. «Jake is unconscious. We cannot move him; he is far too large. Your police will call for medical help.»

  I took a deep breath. He was right. "They'll call Cassie's mom. She's the closest exotic animal

  19 veterinarian. But what if there are Controllers among these cops? We need to stay with him."

  «Agreed. And we must hope he revives within the next hour and a half,» Ax added. «0therwise he will be trapped in morph.»

  Flashlights were playing across the floor down the hall. The police turned away from us, heading toward the JCPenney and temporarily out of sight.

  "We have to move fast. They'll be back."

  We raced down the stationary escalator and rushed to Jake's side. Up close I could see one of the torn veins in his neck, still pumping slowly, still bleeding. But he was alive, at least. Alive. Unlike Tobias.

  «What morph?»

  "Flea would be best, but they're almost blind and almost deaf. I want to know what's going on. Morph to fly."

  We were halfway into fly morph when new cops arrived and began to walk carefully, cautiously, down the main concourse toward us. They played their flashlights around, looking for... looking for they didn't know what.

  They were about to get a surprise, that much was for sure.

  I morphed as quickly as I could, shrinking

  20 rapidly. Jake's already huge orange-and-black bulk seemed to balloon upward, rising above me like a sloped, furry wall.

  I felt the gossamer wings extrude from my shoulder blades. I felt the extra legs suddenly sprout from my chest. I felt the painless but still awful melting of my face, the way my nose and mouth ran together, then squirted outward to form the vile, sucking mouthparts of a fly.

  But none of these things meant anything to me. Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.

  I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.

  No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.

  I felt sick inside. It might have been the mor-phing that was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive organs of a housefly.

  Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.

  «Ax? Tell me something. When Jake sent you to get help, why did you come for me and not Marco or Cassie?»

  «Prince Jake was specific. Get Rachel.»

  «Did he say why?»

  Ax hesitated a moment. Then he said, «Jake

  21 told me Tobias was probably dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jake said, "Yes. If David's killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel."»

  I don't know how that made me feel. I'm not a person who obsesses over her feelings. You know what I mean? Some people can't stop "looking inward" constantly, and that's not me.

  But it definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.

  Like I say, I'm not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.

  And yet, as I completed the morph to fly, I knew Jake had picked the right person. See, I cared for Tobias. I don't think I even knew how much I cared till right then.

  But if David had killed him, I would have revenge. I would make Tobias's murderer pay.

  22

  I. was bathed in light.

  A loud, booming, vibrating human voice said, "What the ... that's a tiger! Frank! That's a tiger! In the mall."

  "That sure as shooting is a tiger."

  "What do we do with it?"

  "Call it in to the sergeant. It's hurt. Need to call someone . . . and I'll be racked if I know who. Just keep your weapon on it. It could still be dangerous."

  «Ax! Into Jake's ear,» I said.

  We hit the start button for our crazy fly wings and lifted off. It took a few seconds, using the fly's mondo bizarro shattered TV set eyes, to find

  23 Jake's ear. But then we spotted a vast, triangular cave.

  It was a cave full of long hairs. A cave full of resonating sounds from outside and from the body of the tiger.

  «Ax, how long has Jake been in morph?»

  «l can only approximate. I believe it has been about thirty-two minutes.»

  «About thirty-two minutes? That's your idea of "approximate"?»

  «l am assuming he flew straight to this mall from the spot where I left him, and morphed as soon as he reached this place,» Ax said. «lt may be as much as thirty-five minutes.»

  «Should be time enough for Cassie's mom to get here,» I said.

  But Cassie's mom was not the next person to arrive. The paramedics arrived faster. And to my amazement, they went right to work on Jake - once they were sure the tiger was unconscious.

  They put pressure on the terrible wound in Jake's neck and slowed the bleeding. But there wasn't much else they could do.

  Half an hour later, Cassie's mother arrived. So did Cassie's father. And Cassie herself. Maybe she'd guessed that news of a wounded tiger in the mall meant Jake.

  24 «Cassie! It's me, Rachel,» I called in one-to-one thought-speak.

  Of course Cassie couldn't answer. But she could hear.

  "Set up for an IV. He's lost a lot of blood," Cassie's mother said in a clipped, professional tone I'd never heard before.

  «Cassie, this tiger is Jake. He's been in morph for a little over an hour. You need to get him conscious. It was David. David attacked him. And . . . Tobias. Tobias is . . .» I couldn't say it. I couldn't. «Just, look, get Jake conscious, no matter what. I have Ax with me. We need to go look for David. He may go after Marco next.»

  "Wait a minute, I know this tiger," Cassie's mother said. "He's one of ours. He's from The Gardens. No one alerted me there'd been an escape! Okay, now squeeze the bag a couple of times to get the blood flow started. I'm going to close that wound right here and now. He won't make it otherwise."

  «Cassie, if you hear me, just say "okay."»

  "Okay," Cassie said. "Good luck."

  "Good luck?" Cassie's father echoed. "We don't need luck, we have your mom."

  «Ax, you ready?»

  He said he was, and we flew. No one, with the possible exception of Cassie, noticed two flies emerge from the tiger's ear.

  25 As we flew off, I had to fight the fly's urgent desire to land in the puddle of blood and take a taste.

  We rose in our crazy, loopy fly way, and as I skimmed above the heads of the paramedics, vets, and cops, I heard one of the paramedics say, "We figure he fell through that skylight up there. The glass must have cut him."

  "That must be it," Cassie's mother agreed. "Only, you know, if I didn't know better, I'd swear this wound was made by another big cat."

  "Will he live?" Cassie asked.

  I didn't hear the answer. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  I set course for the broken skylight. There were cops on the roof of the mall but we found a place to land, out of sight behind a house-sized air-conditioning unit.

  We demorphed quickly. I could hear two police officers talking in a low whisper just on the other side of the A.C. unit.

  "A tiger, here? With no one knowing it's escaped? It must be one of the Andalite bandits in a morph."

  We knew the police force had been partly infiltrated by the Yeerks. Still, it was a shock hearing them talk about Andalites.

  "You may be right, but there's nothing we can do about it. None of the
other cops here are our people."

  26 "Visser Three won't take that attitude," the first cop said, shivering despite the fact that it was not cold. "He'll think we should have found a way to kill it."

  "Then maybe Visser Three doesn't need to hear about this."

  "Yeah. No need to bother him with every minor thing that goes on. Yeah. We keep our mouths shut."

  Ax and I continued morphing again. He to his harrier morph, me to the great horned owl again.

  We flew away into the night in a straight line for Marco's house. Marco would be asleep, unsuspecting. He was safe behind locked doors and strong walls.

  Only walls and doors meant very little to an Animorph.

  I began to realize just how hard this was going to be. Visser Three had been trying to wipe us out for a long time. He had thousands of human-Controllers, Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, spacecraft, and all of his own bizarre, deadly morphs.

  We had just the six of us. Only ... it was just five now. And maybe four.

  Just us, against a person who could become any animal he could touch. A person who could be any living, breathing thing. A flea in your hair,

  27 a cat in a tree, a bat in the night, and, when you were unprepared, when you were vulnerable, a lion or tiger or bear.

  I was starting to realize why Visser Three hated us so much.

  28

  The sun was just thinking about coming up as we approached Marco's house. It was already bright as day to me, of course. But I could tell the difference just the same. The black sky was becoming gray in the east.

  I felt like I was boiling inside. Like pressure just kept building up in me. Like I was going to explode.

  Too much swirling through my brain. Tobias, dead. Maybe Jake as well. David, a traitor with all the powers of an Animorph.

  And at the same time, we had the biggest mission of our lives. The heads of state were still meeting. Controllers, including Visser Three himself,

  29 were still conspiring to enslave the most powerful of all humans.

  It was too much. Way too much. I couldn't think about all that.

  One thing at a time, Rachel, I silently told myself. Priorities: David was number one. Everything else was number two.

  David had to be stopped. Before he could stop us.

  But still, somewhere in the back of my mind, it bothered me that Jake had sent Ax to get me. Me, specifically. Once he knew that extreme measures might be taken, he said, "Get Rachel."

  What did that mean? Was that how Jake thought of me? As some crazed, violent nut who would do anything?

  No, of course not. He just knew I was good in a fight. That's all. It didn't mean anything.

  Besides, wasn't it true? another part of my mind argued. Wasn't it true? Wasn't I just the person to call if you needed to kill an Animorph?

  Marco's house. Marco's window. Open.

  Open? Did Marco leave his window open? Yes, if he'd already flown out of it. Maybe that was it. Maybe Marco wasn't home, had already left. Maybe he'd sensed we needed him.

  But as I wheeled to traverse the back of the

  30 house, bringing myself closer to the window, I saw Marco inside, in bed.

  «This smells bad,» I said to Ax.

  «You have a strong sense of smell in that morph?»

  «l meant it, you know, figuratively. Visser Three laid one trap for us. David laid another. I'm done walking into traps.»

  « Agreed. »

  «Marco!» I called in thought-speak. «Marco! Wake up! Wake up, now!»

  I wanted to see him wake up and look around. I wanted to make sure he was alone in the room. He was asleep facedown. He rolled halfway over and gave the blankets a kick.

  «Wake up!» I yelled.

  Suddenly he sat up and looked around. He scratched his face. Then he looked around again.

  «Marco, it's me, Rachel. I'm outside. Are you alone in your room?»

  He didn't smile or leer. He just nodded. Yes, he was alone.

  «0kay, let's go,» I said.

  Ax was ahead of me. He swooped down toward the window. Marco stood watching, smiling almost. His hands were behind his back.

  Swoooosh! Ax swooped through the window and -

  31 Marco pulled his hands out from behind his back. The Louisville Slugger swung in a short, sharp arc.

  WHAM!

  The bat hit Ax square in the face. I saw a piece of shattered beak go flying, twirling away like shrapnel from an explosion.

  Ax fell to the grass outside. Marco laughed quietly. I saw his sides shake.

  But of course, it was not Marco at all.

  David. David had morphed Marco.

  Ax lay on the grass, unmoving. Marco/David held up one finger. Then another. Then another. One, two, three.

  He was counting how many of us he'd killed.

  One, two, three: Tobias, Jake, Ax.

  But... it should have been four! What about Marco?

  Of course! Marco was still alive because Marco had been human. David had said it himself: He would never take a human life. He would only kill animals. A hawk, a tiger, a harrier. Not a human.

  As I watched, I saw Marco/David begin to blur. The nose and eyes became subtly different. Now he was just David. But he was still morphing when he stepped back out of sight.

  I had to think. David was wiping us out, one

  32 by one. What was his next move? What was his next morph? Jake would know. Jake was the leader, not me.

  I had to get to Ax. No! That's what David wanted.

  No, I had to get to Marco. The real Marco, who was probably unconscious inside the house.

  No, wait, that wasn't right, either.

  And then the golden eagle came flapping out of the window. Another of David's morphs.

  It was one-on-one. Him and me. Golden eagle against owl. He was faster. Stronger. But it was still mostly dark and the air was cool, with none of the warm lift it would have later in the day after the sun came up and baked the ground.

  He was faster and stronger, but the night belonged to me.

  I turned and raced away. He followed. Ax lay still on the damp grass. But he was breathing. And to my infinite relief, he was no longer entirely a harrier.

  «Follow me, David,» I said. «We'll see who wins this aerial dogfight.»

  «Brave words,» he sneered. «But you're mine. Just like that Bird-boy of yours was mine.»

  And that's when the pressure inside me evaporated. I was cold again. Cold as a frozen lake. I knew what to do. And I wanted to do it.

  33 I shouldn't resent Jake for thinking of me, I realized. It's what made him a good leader: He knew us all. He knew me.

  «For you, Tobias,» I whispered. And I led David toward his doom.

  34

  I. flew at top speed. But David was faster. His huge wings plowed through the air.

  But see, I had an eagle morph, too. I know what eagles can do and what they cannot do. I know it like no human being can possibly know it.

  I knew exactly how quickly David could turn, how well he could accelerate or slow down. I knew so precisely what David could see that I might as well have been looking through his eyes.

  I wanted him to see me. But he couldn't reach me, not yet. Not until the time and place I had chosen.

  35 Silently I swooped low across rooftops, swerved around trees, swooshed down the shadowed setbacks between homes. I skimmed fences and dropped behind them, out of sight, to suddenly change direction and gain a few feet of breathing room. I shot through gaps in the trees, gaps too narrow for David's vast wings.

  But always he kept up. He never gained too much, and I never allowed him to lose me.

  «You're very good, Rachel,» he said. «You know, I wish I didn't have to do this.»

  «Yeah, but you just can't help yourself,» I sneered.

  «You all left me no choice! You forced me. What was I supposed to do? Let Jake order me around, let him get me killed? Spend the rest of my life hiding?»

  «What do you want, pity?�
�

  «l lost my family. Everything! Thanks to all of you.»

  «What are you, nuts? We're not your problem. Or at least we weren't until you turned against us.»

  I was nearing the most dangerous part of the chase. As long as there were trees and buildings, I could take advantage of my smaller size and superior night vision. But now we were emerging over an open field, leaving the houses behind us.

  36 Just a hundred yards or so to go.

  David poured on the speed. Those huge wings propelled him after me.

  I dodged. But he anticipated my move. He cut the angle and came within two feet of me!

  But I could see my target in the night. I could see the high power lines.

  Could David see them?

  Up, up I went, my wings screaming from the effort.

  But now David was all over me. Within five feet of the wires, I felt those wings shadow me.

  «Aaaahhh!» Sharp pain, as steel-strong talons sank into the muscles of my back.

  «Noooooo!» I screamed in frustration. I stopped moving forward. My wings beat uselessly. I wasn't going to reach the wires. I wasn't going to watch David fry on ten thousand volts.

  Talons squeezed harder. . . harder... I lost control of the muscles in the back half of my body. One of the talons was sinking through my flesh, trying to reach my heart.

  David began to use his wicked, curved beak on me, tearing at the back of my head.

  I was losing. The realization terrified me. Not because it meant I would die. But because it meant David would win.

  Tobias . . . Jake . . .

  David was going to win. My mind began shutting

  37 down. / should demorph, I told myself. But no, I was too high up. And it was so hard to concentrate. So hard to focus.

  David was actually carrying me higher, lifting me up. That way, if I did demorph, I'd fall to my death.

  «Sorry, Rachel,» David said. «But after all, birds die all the time, don't they?»

  And that's when it happened.

  I saw it drop from out of nowhere. Out of the sky. Out of the clouds it dropped.

  Wings back, talons raked forward.

  It hit David in the back of his head! Eagle feathers flew. David screamed in pain.

  And Tobias - yes, Tobias - said in private thought-speak, «Rachel, David is really getting to be a pain in the butt»