The Solution

by K. A. Applegate

  I laughed harshly. "You worry about me? What do you think you're going to do? Jake, you're a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You've learned to do that. And," I added bitterly, "you've learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses. Worry about me? Like when all this is over you'll go back to being a mediocre basketball player and a decent student? You're not even in high school yet and you're the most wanted person in the Yeerk Empire. Visser Three would trade his Blade ship for your head on a stick."

  We both fell silent for a while. From inside there came the drifting sound of laughter. David was back from the bathroom. Demorphed, re-morphed, and good for another two hours. He could keep that up for weeks, maybe years. At night he could demorph and sleep. In the dark he'd look enough like Saddler. At school he could demorph and remorph between periods, in the

  114 stalls of the boys' bathroom. No need to worry about clothing. He'd fit Saddler's.

  The creep. The evil little creep.

  My own emotions brought me back to the moment.

  "I'm not going to lose it, Jake," I said, staring down at the polished linoleum. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do kind of get off on it all. But I still know where the line is. And I won't cross it. I am not some kind of nut. I know what I'm doing."

  Jake nodded. "I know you do. But everyone draws their own line. Cassie's is in one place. Marco's is somewhere else. Yours is in another. Mine . . ." He made a failed attempt at a smile. "For example, see, I used to think my line was drawn at using my friend, my cousin, to do my dirty work. Guess that turned out not to be true. Sorry, Rachel."

  I have no idea why I did what happened next. Because I'm really not that kind of person. But I hugged Jake. And he hugged me back.

  And then he whispered in my ear, "Okay, now let's figure out how we take this creep down."

  "You know it, cousin," I said.

  113

  " I

  jake and I went over every possibility," I said. "Nothing. Nothing at all. He has us cold."

  I looked around at the others. It was a grim-looking little group there in the barn.

  "What do you mean, he has us?" Marco said loudly. "That little creep has us beat? No way. We've been kicking Visser Three's butt all this time and we lose to that jerk? I don't think so."

  "Look, I don't like it, either. But it's reality, okay?"

  Jake held up one finger. "Fact number one: David has the same powers we have. Which means he's as hard to destroy as we are. And the Yeerks have tried very hard to destroy us. How are

  115 we going to succeed when the Yeerks have failed with all their forces and technology?"

  Marco raised his eyebrows in grudging acceptance.

  «Yes, that makes some sense,» Ax agreed.

  Of course, Tobias had nothing to say because Tobias wasn't there. Tobias was away.

  Jake continued. "Fact number two: David can sell us out to Visser Three. I don't think he wants to do that because David's not a complete idiot and he knows that any contact he has with Visser Three is likely to be very dangerous for him."

  "I'm not so sure he's not an idiot," Marco said darkly. "I would just like to point out that I never liked that guy. I said from the start that any kid who kept a pet cobra was trouble."

  "Goodie for you, Marco," I said.

  "Fact three: David has now acquired a morph of Rachel's and my cousin Saddler. What am I going to do? Make my uncle and aunt lose their son again? Better to leave David with them. And best of all, they live out of town, so David would be out of our faces."

  "I have a problem with that," Cassie said. "I have a problem with the idea that these people lose their son and get this completely different person instead. That seems sick to me. It seems wrong."

  116 "It is wrong," I agreed. "But what's the alternative?"

  Cassie shook her head slowly. "There's no good choice here. But you know what? As sad and awful as it is that your cousin died, that's natural and normal and part of life. Having some ghoulish fake version of Saddler still around makes me kind of sick to my stomach."

  "Fact number four: We give David the blue box and he has what he cares about. I don't know what he intends to do with it. Maybe he'll create his own little group of Animorphs." Jake made a face like "could be."

  "Yeah, right," Marco sneered. "Here's fact five: David killed Tobias. And we're going to reward him?"

  I exploded. "Hey! You think we like this? You think I, personally, like this? I hate that creepa-zoid. I would destroy him ... if I could. But facts are facts, unless you're completely crazy."

  Marco sneered. "I never thought I'd see the day. Fearless Rachel, mighty Xena: Warrior Princess, humiliated by some kid. You're done for, Rachel. No one will ever be impressed by you again. You're a joke."

  I leaped at him and grabbed him by the throat. "Don't push me, Marco," I hissed.

  He just laughed. "You know, I'm glad about

  117 this, at least," Marco said. "At least David shattered the myth of mighty Rachel. It's a good thing you did survive, because now you have to live with the fact that you got beaten by David. I guess maybe you're not Xena, after all. But David may just be Hercules."

  I shoved Marco back and turned away from his mocking laughter.

  "Okay, then," Jake said. "Here's what I propose to do. I'm going to tell David where he can find the box. One of us will go with him. He'll probably want that, anyway, so he can be sure it's not a trap. He'll probably ask for Cassie. She had the least trouble with him. Speaking of which, Cassie, you're the only one who knows where the blue box is hidden."

  "Not to be egotistical or anything, but where I hid it, no one would ever find it. For one thing, I had Ax disassemble it."

  "Say what?" Marco asked. "It breaks down?"

  «0f course,» Ax said a little snippily. «lt has component parts. Cassie asked me to reduce it to smaller components so that she could hide each piece separately.»

  "And so that I could carry the parts in morph," Cassie said. "Rachel and I -"

  "Wait a minute, Rachel knows where it's hidden, too?" Jake asked, frowning.

  118 Cassie looked embarrassed. "I kind of was scared to hide it where I hid it and not have someone with me. I mean, we had to do rat morphs to get there. And it took several trips because I could only carry small components one at a time."

  Jake laughed. "I should have known if I told you to hide something really well, it'd be hidden where no one would ever find it."

  "Oh, it's hidden, all right, piece by piece," I affirmed.

  Jake sighed. "Okay, then. I'll see David-slash-Saddler this evening. I'll bring him a rat to acquire."

  "That won't be much of a stretch for David," Marco said sardonically. "He's already at least half rat."

  "You're going to bring him a rat at the hospital?" Cassie asked.

  "No, he and his family are at my house," Jake said. "Nothing's wrong with him, so the hospital let him go. He's actually staying in my room. His so-called parents have the guest room, and I'm on the couch."

  "What, you didn't want to share a room with David?" Marco said.

  "I don't want to share a planet with him," Jake said. "Although I'll tell you all one thing. I wish it had worked out with David. Whatever else

  119 you can say about him, he's smart, brave, and ingenious."

  We all nodded in solemn agreement.

  Yes, yes, he was smart. But was he smart enough? That we would find out.

  120 We left the job of contacting David up to Jake.

  My job, along with Cassie, Ax, Marco, and Tobias, was to prepare. Preparation involved a lot of work. Hard, physical work.

  "You're sure David was in the barn?" I asked Tobias for about the tenth time.

  «l can't swear he was in the barn,» Tobias said. «AII I can swear is that a golden eagle left Jake's house. It flew here. It landed behind that old toolshed of Cassie's. David emerged from the golden eagle. Then he morphed to rattlesnake and was last seen sidewinding tow
ard the barn.»

  "Rattlesnake," Marco said. "Interesting choice."

  121 "Good choice," Cassie said. "They fit in. They don't look out of place in this environment. They are poisonous, have very good senses, move faster than a lot of snakes. If, say, some red-tailed hawk decided to try and eat him, he could use his fangs."

  Tobias laughed. «He's not worried about red-tails. I'm dead, remember? When he was in eagle morph, he saw me. He just assumed I was an innocent hawk flying around.»

  We went back to work. Tobias flew cover, staying up high enough to spot anyone who might be approaching. But we had chosen a pretty deserted area to make our preparations. There wasn't much chance of anyone surprising us.

  And we knew David wasn't around. Jake had called me to confirm that he was impersonating Saddler and being fawned over and pampered at Jake's house.

  Already, it seemed, David was adapting nicely to the role. His "family" would be taking him home.

  "At least the weather is better," Marco said. "I'd hate to be dealing with rain right now."

  "Yeah, it's a beautiful day," I agreed.

  «Why do humans consider some days to be better than others?» Ax wondered. «And what, exactly defines a "beautiful" day?»

  "Sunshine, no clouds or at least not too many

  122 clouds," I offered. "Warm but not hot. Low humidity, because humidity does bad things to hair."

  «But rain is necessary, is it not? So why do you consider it to be less than beautiful?»

  We were chatting away like that as we worked. Chatting almost compulsively. No one wanted time to think. No one wanted to have time to reflect on what we were doing and what it would mean.

  But of course the reality of it all crept into our conversation here and there, in bits and pieces.

  Cassie said, "I feel so sorry for Saddler's parents."

  "Yeah," I agreed.

  "I don't know how they are going to -"

  "Also," Marco interrupted pointedly, "sunny days are better because on sunny days girls wear shorts and, like, little short dresses or whatever. What do they call them? Those dresses that have, like, straps on top and are usually yellow or whatever?"

  "Sundresses?" I suggested.

  "See? There you go: sundresses. As in sun. You don't hear about raindresses. You have rain-coats. No one ever says, 'Whoa, you look excellent in that raincoat.'"

  «These are types of artificial skin, I assume,» Ax said.

  123 Even Ax was trying to keep the pointless blather going. Even he didn't want to think too much about what was happening. What would happen.

  Tobias swooped low. «l think it's time I went and checked with Jake,» he said. «Ax-man? You need to get human if I'm not here to watch over you guys.»

  «Yes, I will do that.»

  Ax began to morph, changing from blue An-dalite to olive-skinned human. Early on, Ax had acquired DNA from Jake, Cassie, Marco, and me in a process that allowed him to meld the DNA strands into one. The morph he was now adopting was a strange, and strangely beautiful, human male. I could look at him and literally see parts of myself in his face. Parts of the other fully human Animorphs, too.

  One big advantage: With Ax in human morph, we wouldn't have to worry about obsessing over dark possibilities. Ax in human morph kept you busy.

  See, Andalites don't have mouths. They don't make words and they don't have a sense of taste. Those two things have a tendency to overtake Ax's usual reserve and intelligence.

  "These are good hands for working," Ax said. "Wurrr King. I am wurrr king. With hands-zuh. They are strong. Strong hands-zuh."

  124 Marco sighed. "Here we go again-uh with the Ax-man doing his Rain Man impersonation."

  I laughed. "Just be glad there's no chocolate around."

  "Or nachos," Cassie added.

  "Or cinnamon buns," Marco said.

  Ax's handsome human head snapped around. "Cinnamon buns-zuh?"

  "No, no, Ax. I'm pretty sure there aren't any cinnamon buns-zuh ... I mean cinnamon buns . . . around here."

  At last it was time to add the final piece to our creation. Ax and Marco screwed it into place. Marco tested the moveable part.

  "That should work," he said, looking up at me.

  "It better work," I said. "Because as awful as this is, the only alternative is worse. It has to work. It has to work or we ... all of us," I added with emphasis, "we will have to become killers."

  125 I avid had chosen the ground for our meeting. A public place. Somewhere none of us could morph. It was inside a crowded Taco Bell.

  Outside, night was falling. The neon signs were on. Most drivers had their lights on. The weather had turned bad again. Nothing like the storm the other night, but dark clouds that brought the night earlier than normal.

  Inside it was all blazing lights and plastic seats and kids scarfing soft tacos.

  The terms were that each of us had to be visible. But even now we weren't going to appear to be some kind of clique or whatever. Marco was with Cassie. Ax, in human morph, was with me.

  126 Jake loitered around the counter, looking like he couldn't quite decide what to order.

  The bright, public nature of the place was supposed to reassure us, too, I guess. We were supposed to be relaxed, not thinking it could be a trap.

  But I'll tell you something. If Visser Three thought for certain that he could catch the "An-dalite Bandits," as he thought of us, he wouldn't let the public get in his way. He wouldn't need to send in the Hork-Bajir. He could machine-gun the place using human-Controllers.

  That would have made the news, but no one would have thought it was all that strange. I guess that says something about the condition of the human race, with or without aliens.

  I sat there, watching Ax eat. I had started out hungry. But watching Ax tear through tacos, bur-ritos, nachos, refried beans, packets of hot sauce and the bag they all came in ... well, that kind of took care of my appetite.

  "Spicy, right? This flavor. . . ver ver. . . this flavor is called 'spicy'?"

  "Yeah. Spicy. Hot, too."

  "Yes, it is hot."

  "No, I mean the flavor is hot. So is the temperature . . . skip it."

  "Skip?"

  "Forget it. Let it go. Drop it."

  127 No sooner were those last words out of my mouth than I regretted them. Ax promptly dropped the container of refried beans he'd been holding. It landed wrong side down on the table.

  I didn't even have the energy to roll my eyes. I just went back to staring at the doors, slowly shifting my gaze from one to the next.

  Then there he was. Saddler. David.

  He swaggered in like he owned the world and everything in it. I so wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. But that wasn't in the script. My role was to seem chastised, beaten down. Defeated and humiliated. That's what we figured he'd want. That's what would make him happy.

  David smirked at Jake. Then he brushed past him and came over to sit down across from me. "You can leave," he told Ax. "This is a humans-only section."

  Ax turned his head awkwardly to look at Jake. Jake nodded. Ax got up and left. Jake took his place, sliding in next to David.

  "So," David said, "we meet again, Rachel."

  "Excuse me. I'm not involved in this," I said. I started to get up to leave.

  David reached across and grabbed my arm. "What's the matter, Rachel? You don't like me?"

  "Rachel's not involved, David. It's Cassie who hid the box. She'll show you where it is."

  128 "I don't think so," David said. "I think Rachel is the guide I want."

  "She doesn't know the way."

  David laughed. He laughed exactly like Saddler. "That's a lie. Rachel knows."

  "No, I don't," I said weakly.

  "Don't be an idiot, Rachel!" Jake fumed. "David knows. He must have been in the barn." Jake looked like he was suddenly furious at the beans Ax had left behind. He swiped at them with his hand. A couple of globules of the brown goo landed on my arm.

  Jake did not ap
ologize. He just glared at me balefully.

  David leaned forward, suddenly all business. "Okay, here's the deal. Rachel takes me to the box. And all of you will follow, staying back at least a thousand feet."

  "You want us to follow you?" Jake asked incredulously.

  "Of course. How else will I know where you are?"

  Jake made a show of looking confused.

  "Rachel will lead me to the blue box. You will each be there, right where I can see you, out of morph. Then Rachel and I go in, get the box, and we all say a tearful farewell. You go on fighting Yeerks, I go get rich."

  Jake nodded.

  129 But I said, "I can't go in there with him. I don't trust him! He could -"

  "Rachel," Jake said, dripping disgust, "you know, I always thought there was a coward hiding deep down inside all that tough talk of yours. Just do it. You want to remain an Animorph? You'll follow orders."

  I nodded, meek and afraid.

  David searched my face through Saddler's eyes. Was he suspicious? Had I overplayed my part?

  Then he reached across and smeared the re-fried beans down the sleeve of my shirt. And laughed.

  So I did something I don't do much. I started to cry.

  130 I avid and I flew. He was in golden eagle morph, and I was in seagull morph. He kept me out in front. He followed close behind. If he had decided to attack me, I would have been helpless. I was like some little Cessna flying with a 747 behind me.

  I led the way to the construction site. The construction site where everything had begun so long ago. Where Elfangor had given us our powers.

  It was also the place where David had found the blue box.

  «Aaah, yes,» he said. «0f course. The last place I would have looked for it. You put it back where it started out.»

  131 I said nothing. I just flew. Jake, Cassie, Ax, and Marco followed at a distance.

  I led the way down to one of the several unfinished buildings. It was just four cinder-block walls with a few doorless doorways. I think it was originally going to be a convenience store before the whole thing got canceled. Or maybe a fast-food place. Who knows? It didn't matter.

  We landed in the center of the open, desolate enclosure. There were beer bottles and Coke cans strewn around. There was construction debris, weathered from long exposure to the elements.