The Solution

by K. A. Applegate

  74 staring at Marco, and at the man sitting in an easy chair wearing a tuxedo shirt, a tie, black socks, and glossy black shoes. His tux coat and pants were draped over a chair. He had a somewhat familiar face. The leader of a great power.

  He was sitting in his Jockey shorts and calmly pouring a glass from a bottle of clear liquor. Then he glared belligerently at me and Marco.

  Now, I'm not going to say who this man was, or what nation he headed, but he was drunk. Drunk, but no coward. He just sat there in his underwear, glaring at us, defying us.

  «What do we do?» Marco asked me.

  «l guess we go tear up someone else's bungalow I suggested. Suddenly about twelve security guys came bursting into the room, guns drawn. And not just handguns, either. These guys had automatic weapons on us.

  But the man in the chair said something loud and curt in a foreign language. No one fired. The man in the chair made a sort of "after you" sweep with one hand, indicating that maybe Marco and I should leave.

  So we did. We went out through another wall and dragged half the roof down with us, but we left.

  Behind us I heard a loud roar of delighted laughter. Like we'd really made the old guy's day.

  75 I guess if you think about it, hanging out with a bunch of politicians talking about peace must be kind of dull. After a couple days of that, maybe you kind of welcome massive, enraged animals barging through your living room.

  75

  76

  We headed back out into the rain, which was now coming down so hard we might as well have been back in the ocean.

  It was chaos!

  Spotlights were shining down from the top of the hotel, sweeping madly here and there. There was the poplpoplpop! of gunfire. There were men in dark suits racing back and forth, guns drawn. There were guys in tuxedos and women in formal gowns running and tripping and yelling. I heard helicopters chopping the air overhead.

  And through it all galumphed elephants and rhinoceroses, banging into anything we could bang into.

  77 The thunder was rattling windows. The rain was turning everything to mud. And every few seconds, the lightning would flash and I'd see the entire madhouse scene frozen by the strobe light.

  It would have been funny. If people weren't shooting at us.

  I targeted the next undamaged bungalow and called to Marco. «Hey! Knock that door down. I'll come right after you.»

  «What door? I can't see that far.»

  «Veer left,» I instructed. «0kay, go go go! Left!»

  WHAM!

  «That was no door!»

  «l told you left,» I said. «Never mind, I'll finish it.»

  I slammed the hole in the wall that Marco had started. This time it went down easier. Two hits and the wall collapsed inward.

  BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

  Four bullets hit me in the head. I felt them as hammer blows.

  I backed away from a phalanx of disciplined, determined-looking men. There were three of them. Behind them, looking mystified, was the most powerful man on Earth.

  I swear I had to fight down this ridiculous urge to say, "It's an honor to meet you, sir!"

  78 But blood was flowing down my face and I was feeling dizzy. The bullets had done some damage.

  I backed up, dragging bits of plaster and pieces of splintered wood with me. I backed up into a soldier sliding down a rope that seemed to drop out of the sky. I could hear the helicopter directly overhead. More ropes coiled down and more black-uniformed men slid down.

  These guys were armed to the teeth. It was time to leave.

  «Jake!» I yelled into the darkness. «Jake! The reinforcements are coming in!»

  «Time to bail!» Jake yelled to everyone. «Everyone back to the beach!»

  Brahahahahahahahahat!

  Automatic weapons were firing. I felt my left rear leg catch fire. At least that's what it felt like.

  I staggered back and the injured leg almost collapsed. I was hit, and badly.

  «Come on, Marco, let's get out of here!»

  «But I didn't even get to see the President,» he complained.

  «Marco, this really isn't the time.»

  We turned and crashed back through the trellises and shrubbery and out onto the windswept, soggy beach.

  A human staggered in front of me. He was

  79 mud-smeared and ankle-deep in wet sand. And he was furious. Tony, the White House protocol chief. Except that we knew Tony had been acquired by Visser Three as a morph.

  And judging by the screamingly enraged look on "Tony's" face, this was Visser Three.

  For a frozen instant, we locked eyes. He knew what I was. I knew what he was.

  «l guess we can assume the banquet has been canceled, Visser,» I said. «Now, let's see how fast you can run!»

  I went for him, but I stumbled. I was in worse shape than I'd realized. He scampered back, realizing I couldn't catch him. He bounced up and down with rage, shouting, "I won't kill you when I catch you, Andalite! I will make you beg for death!"

  No time to sit and exchange pleasant conversation. Besides, we weren't even supposed to talk to Yeerks. We didn't want them realizing we weren't Andalites.

  Down the sand I saw the others, some staggering, some seemingly unhurt. I left Visser Three ranting and raving and took off on three good legs. We ran for the water's edge, bullets whizzing after us, and plowed into the surf.

  I began demorphing instantly, even as I continued to motor out against the waves. Demorphing

  80 would save my life. The bullets should drop harmlessly away, but even if they didn't, all the damage they'd done would be repaired.

  I was giddy. I was going to survive! I was laughing, laughing at the sheer, insane rush of it all. No weariness now, just mad, frantic glee at having escaped alive.

  «How will they ever, ever explain that?» Tobias wondered.

  «l don't know,» I said, «but that's one summit meeting no one will forget.»

  81

  I was demorphing to human as fast as I could. As dangerous as it was, the weather probably saved us at this point. The Coast Guard boat had come in closer, but there was no way it could get right in to shore, not with those waves.

  I demorphed to human and could feel the injuries fading away, the bullet lead dropping harmlessly to the bottom of the sea.

  Once again, I was half-drowned by the time I'd made it safely back to dolphin morph. But I almost didn't care. The after-action depression was starting to set in. The special brand of weariness that comes when all the adrenaline has begun to wear off.

  82 The dolphin mind rescued me. It was as irresistibly happy as always. The DNA of its instincts was reconstituted, fresh with the morphing.

  I kicked my gray tail and felt my rubber skin slide easily, confidently through the water. I dove beneath the huffing, chugging Coast Guard cutter and headed out to sea.

  And that's when it happened. I fired an echolocation burst, a series of fast, ultrahigh frequency sound waves. The sound waves traveled through the water and bounced back from anything they hit. It was like sonar. Underwater radar.

  Then I saw in my mind the outline, the shape. The shape that was imprinted in the deepest DNA archives of the dolphin brain.

  It was long. Maybe twenty feet. It was vast, perhaps ten thousand pounds. From its back a long, almost straight dorsal fin rose. The echolocation did not show color. But I knew that when it got closer I would see a black-and-white pattern.

  «Killer whale!» I yelled.

  It was coming toward us. Its speed was incredible! Something that big shouldn't be able to move so fast.

  It was coming for us, and we were helpless. It was faster, more powerful, far, far more deadly. We were more agile, but I knew one thing for

  83 sure: It was killer whales who ate dolphins, not the other way around.

  «l have it on echolocation,» Cassie agreed tensely.

  «What is this creature?» Ax asked.

  «lt's actually a species of dolphin,» Cassie said.
«A close relative of this species we've morphed.»

  «Yeah, close relative,» I muttered. «Like Chihuahuas and Dobermans are close relatives.»

  «There's just one,» Cassie said. «Strange.»

  «Why? What's strange?» Tobias asked.

  «Just that orcas usually hunt as a pack,» Cassie said.

  «Yeah, well this one is hunting us all by himself^ Tobias said. «Big as he is, he won't need any help!»

  «What do we do?» Marco asked.

  «He's just a killer whale,» Jake said. «We have human intelligence as well. We can't outfight or outrun him. We'll have to outthink him.»

  «Head for the Coast Guard boat!» Tobias suggested. «We'll get beneath it and stay with it. The sound of the screws will keep him away.»

  «Good idea,» Jake said.

  We turned sharply and raced for the boat. It wasn't going to be easy. We needed to get beneath a boat that wasn't all that big while it was rising and falling on the waves. Besides, we were

  84 air breathers. We had to surface to get air, and couldn't hide there forever.

  But it seemed to make sense. And would probably have worked. Except for one terrible fact.

  «Ha-ha-ha, you think the propeller sounds will scare me off?» the killer whale said. «Nice try.»

  85

  Six thought-speak voices said the identical word at the same time.

  «David!»

  «Yes, David,» he said with grim satisfaction. «Five little dolphins and one big orca. Let's see how that works out.»

  «He still thinks Tobias is dead,» I said in private thought-speak. «He hasn't counted us. Tobias, stay behind us and -»

  Ax interrupted. «David doesn't know which of us is Tobias. He's expecting five of us. We are six. The sixth person, the one who conceals his presence, could be any of us.»

  «What are you suggesting?» Jake asked him.

  86 «l am wondering, Prince Jake, whether one of us has a morph that could defeat David.»

  «l do,» Cassie said.

  «0kay, then, Ax is right. Cassie, hang back. Get out of range. Good idea, Ax. But don't call me "prince."»

  «Yes, Prince Jake.»

  «0kay, we need to keep David busy,» Jake said.

  «Let's do it!» I yelled. I didn't care if David was ten times my size. I hated the creep. But the more sensible parts of my brain could not imagine how I was going to fight him and last more than a few seconds. Not as a dolphin, at least. Even a shark would be helpless. The orca was just too big.

  «Hey, I'm Free Willy,» David said with a laugh. «Free Willy's hungry.»

  «Why don't you tell that joke to Visser Three?» I sneered. «Maybe he'll arrange for you to die laughing.»

  «Ah, Rachel. That is you, right? Psycho Rachel?»

  «l'm the psycho? That's good, coming from a certified nutcase like you, David.»

  «l'm nuts? Hey, I'm not the one threatening to kill anyone's parents, you crazy witch.»

  There it was. Blurted out for all the others to hear. «l didn't threaten your parents,» I lied.

  87 «Yeah, you did,» he said, and even I could hear the ring of truth. «Did you know that, big Jake? Did you know that, Cassie, with all your moralizing? Did you know Rachel threatened to kill my parents? How about you, Andalite? Of course we know smart-mouth Marco would approve»

  No one said a thing. No one came to my defense.

  I felt hollow all of a sudden. Like I could feel their silence as a big hole in my insides. Who were they to be judging me? Which of them hadn't done things they were ashamed of?

  Was I ashamed? Was that what I was saying?

  No time for all that now. David had kicked his tail into overdrive and he was coming at us like a train.

  «0kay, here's the plan: Whoever he chases, the others come in and nail him. Aim for his eyes. They might be vulnerable,» Jake instructed.

  I was still waiting for him to say something. Like maybe "It's okay, Rachel, no big deal." But nothing. Nothing! I wanted to scream at him: "Why did you let me go after David if you didn't think I was going to threaten him? You hypocrite!"

  But there wasn't time for that. Because now I could see the black-and-white pattern racing at me out of the gloom. He was lit up by a flash of

  88 lightning. He looked like some weird cross between a cow and a bus.

  But this creature had a very large mouth and a lot of teeth. And he was very, very fast. He was aiming straight for Ax.

  «l'm right here, David,» I said, and gave a kick with my tail. He veered, changing course, and hurtled toward me.

  I kicked hard and rocketed straight at him, like I was aiming for his nose.

  Closer. . . Closer. . . CloserCloserCloser!

  I turned my flippers and went straight up. Up-UpUp, skimming past David's blunt snout!

  WHOOOSH! Out of the water, into rain and lightning. High as I could fly. I hung in midair, looked down as gravity grabbed me again, and right below me I saw the killer whale's open mouth.

  Falling! Falling toward that open mouth!

  «Nooooo !»

  But David was slipping back, too. He hadn't had time to get himself ready. He was slipping back beneath the water, and I was falling toward him. . . .

  SPLASH! I hit water, not teeth, and I kicked madly to get speed. Where was David? I couldn't see him!

  Echolocate, Rachel. Come on, concentrate!

  89 I fired a burst. The echo was instantaneous. He was behind me. I jerked left and the big black-and-white snout went barreling past.

  From nowhere another dolphin appeared. It rammed David's right eye with its beak, then slid down beneath the great monster.

  «Ahhh!» David cried. But he kept his focus on me. I couldn't believe how quickly he turned. How quickly he built up speed to come back after me.

  This was impossible! I was playing tag and I was it.

  I rolled over, belly up, reversed course and slid beneath him, crossing sideways, literally rubbing belly to belly. Then I came up his right side, halfway down his body, back behind the tall, graceful dorsal fin.

  Now I was out of his sight. As long as I stayed right there with him, move for move, he wouldn't see me, let alone reach me.

  But David wasn't content to play tag with me. He targeted the next dolphin he saw and I couldn't match his speed.

  As his tail blew past, I clamped my jaw down on it.

  Big mistake.

  He whipped me up and down, up and down as he kicked. Teeth ripped out of my jaw. Dazed, I

  91 had to let go. Then he turned and came for me again. I tried to swim, but the whiplash motion had disoriented me.

  All I saw was a huge, gaping jaw coming right for me. And I knew I could not escape.

  The orca filled my entire range of vision. So big! So impossibly fast.

  And then . . .

  Well, then I saw what orcas must want to be when they grow up.

  Not the twenty feet of the killer whale, more like forty or fifty feet. Not the four or five tons of the killer whale, more like fifty or sixty tons.

  Almost extinct, almost wiped out at one point. But there were still humpback whales in the sea. And one of them was Cassie.

  «Hi, David, it's me, Moby Cassie,» Cassie said. «Why don't you leave my friend Rachel alone?»

  If David had known much about whales, he'd have known that the humpback was almost powerless against him. It had no teeth. Just baleen.

  But I guess there's something about seeing a creature the size of a house coming after you that makes you want to leave the area.

  David left. But not before calling back to me, «Later, Rachel. There'll be another time.»

  90

  Chapter 18

  I flat-out was not going to school the next day. I just didn't care. I went home and fell into my bed with my clothes on and was out cold.

  Way too early in the morning I heard voices downstairs. Somber, muted voices. No laughter. I didn't care. I went back to sleep.

  Then Jordan
came up and kicked my bed till I rolled over, face plastered with hair, eyes glued shut. "It'd better be good or you are going to wish you'd never been born!" I said.

  "It's Saddler," Jordan said.

  It took me several seconds to make sense of that. "Huh?"

  "He's not doing very well, I guess. They think he's going to die."

  92 Saddler. My cousin. Jake's cousin. Right. Yeah, now I remembered. He'd been hurt. He'd been moved to the children's hospital near us.

  "Oh. That's too bad," I managed to mumble.

  "That's all you can say? That's too bad'?"

  Obviously I wasn't going back to sleep. I sat up. I tried to wake my brain up enough to think of the right things to say, but my head might as well have been stuffed with cotton balls.

  "He's probably going to die," Jordan said again.

  I began to realize what Jordan wanted. She felt bad. She felt scared. She wanted me to reassure her.

  I made a "come here" motion with my hand and fought down a yawn. "Sit here," I said, patting the sheet beside me. "Look, it's a bad thing. It's about as bad a thing as there is. I mean, he's just a kid. His parents are going to be so messed up after this. I know how you feel."

  "It's just so bogus," Jordan said. "I mean, he was just riding his bike and then, like, all of a sudden his whole life is maybe over."

  I nodded. "Yeah. Life isn't fair."

  Jordan rolled her eyes at me. She knows a dumb cliche when she hears one.

  "Sorry," I said. "Look, bad stuff happens. Doesn't mean it's going to happen to you. Doesn't

  93 mean it's going to happen to me or Sarah or Mom or Dad."

  "Yeah, but that's what's so weird and all. I mean, I feel like scum because I felt kind of glad it wasn't me. You know? It was like 'Whew! Close one!' But that's not right. I should just be sad. And I am. Only it's not just sadness. It's also, like, 'Glad it wasn't me!' And then I was all, like, 'I would never ride my bike like that.' You know, the guy who ran into him is saying Saddler just shot out into the street without looking. So I'm thinking Saddler got run over because he was stupid and careless. But that's not right, either."

  "It's not right, but I think it's probably normal," I said. "I mean, you don't want to think it could happen to you. So you have to come up with excuses. Ways it could never happen to you. You end up blaming the person who got hurt. Because then you don't have to think about what if it was you it happened to. You even start getting mad at the person it happened to. Like 'How dare he drag me down into all this pit of darkness? How dare he get hurt and make me feel bad?'"