The Solution

by K. A. Applegate

  David released me. My wings flapped again. I was hurt, but David couldn't know how badly. And he didn't want to fight two at once. He turned and flew away.

  «Tobias?» I cried. «But you're supposed to be dead.»

  «l am? Who, me?»

  38

  Tobias was alive.

  It turned out that David had killed a red-tailed hawk. And Jake had seen that dead hawk. Only it was a different red-tail.

  Tobias had simply lost David early in the evening and had been searching for him ever since.

  Jake survived. Cassie found a way to jab a big syringe of adrenaline into him. Enough to wake him up just as her mom was scrubbing up for surgery back at The Gardens.

  He demorphed to human and calmly walked out of the zoo. He had to wait two hours for a city bus, but fortunately, Cassie found him a pair of shoes to wear.

  39 Cassie's mother was seriously freaked. Not only had a near-dead tiger simply disappeared. He seemed to have reappeared back in his environment. And there were no signs of any injuries.

  Cassie explained that she did a lot of shrugging and kept saying, "I can't believe it, either, Mom. I was only out of the room for a second."

  Of course, that tiger was the one whose DNA Jake had originally acquired. Same tiger, but not the same tiger.

  Ax was fine. He'd only been stunned. He demorphed, terrified some person driving by, remorphed, and came looking for me.

  As for Marco . . .well, Marco awakened to find David standing over him with the baseball bat. He'd been tied up and locked in his closet.

  It took him the rest of the night to get loose.

  It had been a bizarre night. But the most bizarre thing was that when it was all over, we had to go to school.

  That's right, school. On zero hours of sleep.

  I was so tired my skin was vibrating. I couldn't believe I hadn't been busted by my mom. I got home that morning just about three seconds before my alarm clock went off. And five minutes later she was banging on my door, telling me to get up and help her get my youngest sister, Sarah, ready for school.

  The first few periods I just sat and stared at

  40 the blackboard like someone in a coma. By lunchtime I was reviving a little, but it was mostly hunger keeping me awake.

  I sat with Cassie. She'd probably gotten three, maybe four hours of sleep. And I hated her for it. Jake grabbed his tray and sat down with us. Normally, we don't all eat together because we don't want people thinking of us as a clique of some kind. That would be bad for security.

  But this time we just didn't care. We were a very tired little group of superheroes. I mean, if Visser Three could have seen us right then, he'd have stopped worrying. We didn't look like we could kick butt on a four-year-old, let alone on the entire Yeerk Empire.

  "Hi," Jake said and slumped into his seat.

  "Uh," I grunted.

  "How are you doing, Jake?" Cassie asked.

  "Uh," he said encouragingly.

  "Well, this is going to be a perky little group," Cassie said, laughing. "Obviously, we need a Starbucks here in the cafeteria. You two could use some coffee."

  "Stop. Talking," I said. I snarled a little. I would have snarled more, but I was too tired.

  Of course, Cassie wasn't in the least bit intimidated. "You're so grumpy when you lose a Iittle sleep."

  41 We saw Marco heading toward us. He had no tray. But he was smiling. Well, sure, why not? He'd slept half the night and spent the rest of the night in a nice dark closet.

  "Hi, guys, how's it going?" Marco said. He swung his leg over the back of the chair and sat down. Tired as I was, that set alarm bells ringing in my head. Marco doesn't swing his leg over chairs. And Marco doesn't act that perky, even when he's had a full night of sleep.

  I guess Jake had the same reaction. I glanced at him, and all of a sudden his eyes weren't glazed and unfocused anymore.

  "David, I presume," Jake said harshly.

  Marco smiled. And then I saw Marco - another Marco, just starting through the food line.

  Cassie was bewildered. She looked from Jake to me. I nodded my head significantly toward the real Marco.

  "I'll stop him," Cassie said, jumping up from her seat.

  The last thing anyone wanted was two Marcos at one table. There was a joke in there somewhere, but I was too busy to think about it.

  "What do you want?" Jake demanded.

  David/Marco smirked. "What? No small talk? No chitchat?"

  I couldn't morph, not there in front of a whole

  42 cafeteria full of yelling, laughing, talking kids. But I could reach for my fork. And I could wonder what the tines would do if they were driven hard enough into - I held on to the fork.

  "I asked what you want," Jake said calmly.

  "I want the blue box. I found it. It's mine. I want it."

  Jake actually smiled. "Now, what do you think the odds are of me agreeing to that?"

  Marco/David flushed angrily. "You have no choice, big man. You can't fight me. I have the same powers you have. And I'm smarter than you are, so I'll win."

  "There are six ... I mean, five... of us," Jake said.

  I shot Jake a look. He ignored me. I got the message: No need to tell David that Tobias had survived. The less he knew, the better.

  "I want the box," David said stubbornly.

  "What for?" I said. "So you can give it as a birthday present to Visser Three?"

  Cassie came back and sat down next to David. She managed to move her chair closer to his without being obvious about it. It was deliberate, of course. She wanted him to have to deal with her as a human being, not as an enemy.

  David blinked. He leaned away from Cassie. Cassie just gave him her big "understanding" look.

  "David, I know you've been through a lot,"

  43 Cassie said in a very quiet voice. David had to lean closer to hear. "I know your life has gone terribly wrong. I know you're lonely. I know you're afraid. And I know that deep down inside you feel very sorry for what happened last night. But you must know that you cannot bargain with Visser Three. He won't give you what you want."

  David shot her a sharp, surprised look. So did I.

  "What bargain?" I asked.

  Cassie took a forkful of her food and chewed it carefully. "Shall I tell them, David, or would you like to?" Getting no answer from him, she sighed and said, "David wants the box so he can ransom his parents. Isn't that right, David? You want Visser Three to release your parents so you can have a home again."

  For a brief moment there was something vulnerable on the face David had copied from Marco. But then his eyes hardened.

  "That's okay, I don't need the box. I have something else Visser Three wants. See, I know that the Animorphs aren't Andalite bandits. I know their names. Their addresses. I give him you," he said, looking at Jake. "And you," he added, looking at me. "And then, you know what? He can do to you like he did to my parents. And he can get his blue box from you."

  David pushed his chair back noisily. He stood up and walked away.

  44

  David walked away. The real Marco headed toward us, looking about like I felt.

  I got up.

  "Rachel, what are you doing?" Cassie asked. She put out a hand to grab my arm.

  But Jake said, "Let her go."

  I followed David's back as he wove through the kids just coming in. In the empty hallway outside, David began to change subtly. He was demorphing. By the time he reached the door to the quad, he was himself again. He must have been close to the two-hour limit to risk it.

  I caught up with him as he started to trot across the grass. I grabbed his shoulder and

  45 spun him around. I was keyed up, throbbing with barely contained rage.

  "You looking for a fight right here?" he asked.

  "Why not?" I snapped.

  He laughed, a little uncertainly. "You would never morph here in the open."

  "I don't need a morph to handle you."

  "You know, mayb
e you forget this sometimes, but you are a girl, Rachel."

  "And you're a worm," I shot back. "Want to see who wins that fight?"

  "Pretty upset over that Bird-boy, aren't you? What, did you like him or something?" He grinned. "That's it, isn't it? Aww, how sweet. Too bad. But you know, birds have a short life span."

  "So do worms."

  "What are you doing? Trying to scare me?"

  "Nah. I wouldn't want to scare you. I just want to tell you something. You rat us out to Visser Three, we'll know. We have sources inside the Yeerk organization."

  He made a snorting noise. "Yeah, right."

  "How do you think we knew the Yeerks were moving against the President and the others? How do you think we learned that one of those heads of state was a Controller?"

  David looked a little less cocky. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he realized I

  46 was telling the truth. We hadn't told David about Erek and the other Chee.

  "So see, you sell us out to Visser Three, we will know," I said.

  He shrugged. "Big deal. Nothing you can do about it."

  "Yeah, you're probably right," I said. "Even if we were warned, we wouldn't last long." I leaned close, close enough to whisper in his ear. "But some of us would last a while, you little creep. Long enough to make sure that your parents . . . well, use your imagination."

  He stepped back, drew back his fist, and swung on me. I dodged the blow. I grabbed his head with one arm and jammed the fork against his ear.

  I fought a nauseating urge to twist the fork, to make him scream in pain.

  "You want a war between you and us, that's one thing. We'll play that out," I said. "But you try and sell us out to Visser Three, and your little family will never get put back together again. Never!"

  This time I was the one to turn and walk away.

  I was shaking. The muscles in my neck were twitching. Suddenly I had a raging headache. My ears were ringing.

  I was exhausted, yes. But it was more than

  47 that. I was high on adrenaline. High on the rush of power and violence.

  What had I just done? In all the time we'd been fighting the Yeerks, I'd never made a threat like that. What was the matter with me?

  I felt... not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I'd just told David. Or Tobia s. Or even Marco.

  And as for Jake, I found myself filled with a terrifying surge of pure, utter hatred for him. I couldn't begin to explain it. But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.

  I should have gone back to the cafeteria. I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn't he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.

  And I couldn't face him. I couldn't face what he knew about me.

  48

  Jake's parents came back that evening. They'd been out of town helping with a cousin of Jake's and mine. The cousin's name was Saddler. He was an obnoxious kid, but he'd been badly hurt in an accident. Now he was being moved to the children's hospital near us.

  His relatives were staying with Jake and his family. But we were expected to help out, too, even though my mom hasn't really gotten along with Saddler's family since my parents' divorce.

  I was informed of all this when I got home from school. I said "fine" and staggered up to my bed, hit the pillow facedown, and didn't move.

  49 But as tired as I was, sleep wouldn't come. It was a helpless feeling. Being so exhausted and so unable to sleep.

  My brain kept buzzing away, like I'd consumed six pots of coffee or something.

  I kept wondering: Had I always been like this? Back before the Animorphs, back before that encounter with a dying alien who changed our lives, who had I been?

  I tried to remember, but it wasn't like I was thinking about myself. It was like I was remembering some girl I used to know. Like she was an acquaintance I'd forgotten about until someone reminded me. It was like, "Oh, yeah, Rachel. I remember her."

  I'd been very into gymnastics, I knew that. Shopping. I guess I'd never exactly been a happy-go-lucky party girl. But I tried to imagine myself back then, and tried to imagine grinding the tines of a fork into someone's ear while I threatened his family.

  I almost laughed. It was crazy. I mean, I'm not someone raised in an abusive family or anything. Yeah, my folks got divorced, but probably a third of the kids in school have divorced parents, and another third wish their parents would divorce.

  I'd never had to wonder if my parents loved

  50 me. I knew they did. They told me. And they showed me.

  I wasn't on drugs or anything. But somehow, someway, I had gone from being this occasionally sharp-tongued girl, to being . . . well, as Marco would say, Xena: Warrior Princess.

  What made me feel stupid was that I hadn't realized I was changing. But everyone else obviously did. Jake did. When he knew it was coming down to kill-or-be-killed with David, he'd sent Ax to get me. Not Marco. Not Cassie. "Get Rachel."

  And in the cafeteria he had let me go, knowing what I would do. Afterward, I'd seen Cassie in sixth period. She didn't ask me what had happened. She didn't ask me what I'd said to David. She'd known.

  I could have said, "Look at all the battles I've been through." It would have been a good excuse. Except that Cassie'd gone through the same battles. And Marco. And Tobias.

  Would Tobias have done what I did? That was the killer question, see. Because Tobias lived life as a predator now. He'd have every excuse in the world. But I wondered if even he would have gone as far as I'd gone.

  And, I wondered something else. What if David ignored my threat? Would I ... could I ...

  "Rachel! Phone! What are you, deaf?"

  51 I jerked upright. It was dark outside my window. "What?" I asked for no particular reason.

  Jordan, my younger sister, stuck her head into the room. "It's Jake. He's on the phone."

  I sat up. My head was buzzing. I rolled over and grabbed the phone. "Yeah?" I said, pushing my hair more or less into place.

  "It's time," Jake said. "That little extra-credit project we've been working on. It's time for us to give it another shot."

  "Oh. Yeah. I'll be right over. Soon as I, you know."

  Man, I was stupid from lack of sleep. We still had a mission. We'd failed yesterday evening and had almost been trapped by Visser Three.

  Yesterday? Had it really only been yesterday? It seemed impossible, with all that had gone on.

  I splashed cold water on my face and ran a comb through my hair. Then I went downstairs to face my mom and try to think up a good excuse why I had to go over to Cassie's house.

  "Rachel!" my mother said as she spotted me coming down the stairs. "Good. I need you to watch Sarah. I'm going over to the hospital to be with Saddler's mom and dad."

  I was about halfway ready to say, "Fine. That sure beats trying yet again to bust into some heavily guarded compound and getting our brains beat in."

  52 But that wouldn't do. "You want me to babysit for Sarah and Jordan?"

  "No one baby-sits me!" Jordan said hotly.

  "Oh, yeah?" I mocked. "You are either the baby-sitter or the baby-sittee. And you are a baby-sittee."

  "Mom! No way! I can take care of Sarah!" Jordan protested.

  "Come on, little babies," I added for good measure.

  Well, you can guess where it went from there. Ten minutes later I was out the door. And ten minutes after that I was demorphing inside Cassie's barn.

  Everyone else was already there. Ax, Tobias, Jake, Cassie, and Marco. At least, I assumed it was Marco and not David in morph.

  "Marco," I said, once I had demorphed. "You know you're a toad?"

  "Kiss me and I'll become a prince," he said without hesitation. "I'll be The Prince Formerly Known As Toad. You know you want me. You can't help it. After all, you're a female and I'm ... well, I'm me."

  "Yeah, that's the real Marco," I said dryly.

  Cassie laughed. "Believ
e me, we all did the same kind of thing. I asked him to tell me what it was like when we morphed trout. Just to test his memory."

  53 "And I answered that it wasn't bad except that the cracker-crumb coating chafed a little and I was allergic to tartar sauce. Now can you all stop playing that game? I'm afraid I'll miss a punch line and Rachel will morph to grizzly and eat me before I have a chance to say anything."

  "Okay, down to business," Jake said. He sent Ax a significant look and jerked his head toward me.

  «Prince Jake would like me to tell you that we are operating under the assumption that David may be here in the barn,» Ax said in private thought-speak. «He is concerned that David may be here in insect morph, listening to our plans. So our plans will be different than we are discussing here.»

  I gave a very slight nod. Of course. I'd forgotten. David was one of us, at least in terms of his powers. But Jake hadn't forgotten.

  Jake outlined a plan that was basically the same as our previous attempt to infiltrate the banquet at the resort. There were differences, just so it would sound convincing. And we all raised various objections, just to sound even more convincing.

  But it wasn't till we were morphed and flying away that Jake told me what he really had in mind.

  54 «0h, Rachel's gonna love this,» Marco said with a laugh.

  He was right. The plan was outrageous, insane, out of control, and violent.

  And heaven help me, I liked it.

  55

  It was a Marriott resort by the ocean. It had been taken over for a summit meeting by the President of the United States, the prime minister of Great Britain, the premier of France, the president of Russia, and the prime minister of Japan.

  Was there security? Oh, yeah. There was security. There were more guys in dark suits and sunglasses with microphones in their ears than had ever come together in one place before. It was like an international Secret Service convention.

  That was bad enough. But what was worse was the fact that some of those security guys were Controllers. Some of the U.S. Secret Service,

  56 for sure. Probably some of the French, British, Russian, and Japanese, too.

  And we knew Visser Three was there, doing everything within his twisted, evil imagination to make Controllers of all these powerful men.