Tobias's beak had transformed into a jaw, opening and shutting involuntarily. Pencil-size antennae jutted from his head. Two hairy stumps poked from the sides of his hawk neck. His wings had molted and shifted onto his back. I watched as they hardened into translucent shell. Below them I could see roach wings growing out of the top of his head.
I shuddered and started my own morph. Focused on all that was roach. Garbage, dark corners, bathrooms, opened cereal boxes . . .
38 My skin hardened first, scalp to toes.
My arms fused to my sides, then migrated to my back.
Four legs crept out of my sides and I fell forward. The floor had already been getting closer and closer as I shrank to the size of a quarter.
My vision pixilated. Compound roach eyes, with about two thousand lenses, were in place.
My antennae twitched as the roach's amazing sense of smell surged to life. Roaches can smell everything. Good smells like bacon frying. Bad smells like dog poop.
The roof smelled like tar and electricity and cigarette butts.
My innards lost definition and became one long intestinal tract. My mouth lost its lips. My tongue gravitated back into my throat and became a crop, a kind of second mouth.
And then the roach brain turned on. I was in the open.
Way open.
No shelter! No protection!
Fear! Fear! Fear!
I charged ahead and narrowly missed ramming another cockroach. I turned, scrambled across the tar paving of the roof, skittered across a pile of broken glass, and launched. I did an Evel Knievel into Ax.
39 «Marco, Tobias, I believe you may be in the grip of the cockroach instincts,» Ax said.
«0h, and you're not?» Tobias countered. «l see you: You're six inches up the flagpole!»
«0kay, okay, everyone stop,» I said. «Nobody move. Where are we heading?»
«The door. Which is ... well . . .»
Ten minutes later we found our way back to the door. We crept through the ravaged door and skittered wildly down the steps.
There are two ways a roach can go down a set of stairs. It can climb across each tread and down each riser, or it can simply leap off each step and land on the step below.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of steps to go to get down to the twenty-second floor.
So I suggested a third possibility.
40 8
«The railing is continuous,» I pointed out. «We could race down along the railing.»
«What if we fall off?» Tobias asked.
«We land on the steps, big deal,» I said.
«What if we fall off to the right?»
I was afraid he was going to bring that up. Roach eyes couldn't see that far but I was pretty sure it was a straight drop all the way down. «Then we find out just how far a roach can fall without getting killed.»
«We do have to watch our time in morph,» Tobias said.
The railing was cylindrical painted steel. A bar welded here and there, but basically snaking downward in a long, steep series of tight ovals.
41 Climbing it was hard. Even for a roach. The paint was slick. Fortunately, it had been painted many times and the cracks and runs of many paint jobs gave us footholds.
Still, it was like climbing the Washington Monument. At the top we scrambled over onto the railing itself.
Picture one of those Olympic ski jumps. Only you can't see well enough to see the end. And it's curved, so you can slide off left or right. And if it's right you are going to fall for about three days.
I was in the lead.
«l think we just go for it,» I said. «l mean, all out instead of creeping along.»
«Twenty floors,» Tobias said. «Two turns equal a floor. Forty turns.»
«l will keep track,» Ax offered.
Ax has no faith in our human ability to do simple things like count. With good reason.
«The horses are at the starting gate,» I said. «And . . . they're off!»
I motored my roach legs and rocketed down the railing.
«Aaaaahhhhhh!»
Zooooooom!
Down the railing!
You think a roach looks fast from five feet up as you're trying to stomp it on the kitchen floor? It looks a lot faster down at roach level.
42 My face was a millimeter off the "ground." Like being strapped facedown underneath someone's Porsche.
My legs were splayed too wide, so that with each of my steps, each of my six legs slipped off into the air. The result was a sort of lurching, out-of-control run that had me skinning along on my belly half the time.
«Aaaahhhhh!» Tobias yelled from behind me.
«First turn!» I yelled.
I hit the turn going at what felt like two hundred miles an hour. I slid to my right to catch the banked corner.
It was total toboggan. It was the luge with rockets strapped to your butt. It was a ride that a skateboarder would have traded his kidneys for.
Down at insane speed, feet motoring, slipping, belly skinning, antennae whipping back. The "road" was a balance beam that had been replaced by a pipe.
It was insane!
«Turn!»
I whipped into a second turn, and now my momentum had taken over. There was no stopping. There was no slowing down. We were out of control. We were projectiles, barely making contact with the steel, banking into 5g turns that would have dropped our guts out through our toes. If we'd had guts. Or toes.
43 Floor after floor! Bare escape after bare escape. Skittering, scrabbling, fighting, running like someone who's being dragged behind a bus.
«Two more turns and we are there,» Ax yelled.
«What do we do?»
«Jump!»
«Jump? When?»
«NOW!» Ax yelled.
44 9
I went into the final turn. No banking this time. It was time for the sled to go off the path while the announcer said, "Oh! Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a terrible accident; I hope everyone's okay!"
I hit the turn. I did not drop down to take the turn. I kept motoring, straight ahead. Straight ahead and suddenly my little roach feet were motoring on air.
«Aaaaahhhhh!»
I fell.
I fell a long way.
Plop!
I hit the floor.
45 Plop! Plop!
Ax and Tobias landed nearby.
«You okay?»
«Yeah. Ax-man?»
«l am fine.»
«That was cool!» I said.
«Way cool!» Tobias agreed.
«Let's never, ever do that again!» I said.
«Never. Ever.»
«Repetition of that activity would be a very bad idea,» Ax agreed.
We scooted over to, then under a fire door, with the steel scraping our backs, and into the hallway of the twenty-second floor.
The hall was dark except for a weak ray of light from the bottom of a closed door just ahead. We raced along the industrial carpet, hugging the wall.
Then the door to the lighted office opened.
A man stepped out and the hall lights went on.
Panic!
«Nobody move!»
We stood stock-still as the looming figure took another step.
"IRS and their audits," the man muttered.
He turned the lights off and locked the door behind him. Then he went ballistic.
46 "Roach!" he cried. I felt the violent vibration of his massive human foot slam down on the carpet.
«Ax! Tobias!»
«l am right behind you, Marco,» Ax replied.
«l think he got a real roach,» Tobias said. «Just stay put. Freeze!»
The man walked toward the elevator, muttering about how much rent he was paying for his office and there were roaches and they said it was a luxury building, hah!
There was a DING announcing the elevator's arrival. The hall lights went off. The elevator door closed. We were alone on the twenty-second floor.
Except, of course, for my mom.
<
br /> No, not my mom, I told myself. I couldn't start thinking that way.
She was Visser One. That's who we were up against.
We scurried on until we reached what I was pretty sure was the door to the Visser's office. Up along the doorjamb, then across the surface of the door to the base of the window set in the center.
The roach's vision was not so spectacular. Still, I could make out enough of the room to decide it looked like a normal office. A reception desk, a plush chair, a leather couch, phones,
47 computer, printer, a copy machine, a coffee-maker.
Nothing Yeerk about it at all.
«Perhaps we have the wrong location,» Ax said.
«l know I saw her go in here this morning.»
«We've got to go in. I didn't just survive the roller coaster from hell to turn around and give up.» Tobias said as he led the way. We skittered back down the door and tried to squeeze under it. No luck.
«An impenetrable seal,» Ax noted. «Probably around the entire doorframe.»
«No one puts this tight a seal around an average office door.» I sighed. «Looks like the air vent's our best bet.»
I led the way up the wall and through the air vent I'd been sucked into that morning.
«Which way?» Tobias asked.
«I'm guessing to the right.»
We scrambled through scatterings of lint and ash to a vent that opened into what had to be the Visser's lair. Assuming the Visser was preparing to go to war with a small country.
«Hologram paint,» Ax explained. «0ne can paint a window, project a hologram onto the back of this paint, and thereby disguise a room. The Visser has projected the picture of a normal office onto the back of the paint. Very clever.»
48 «So anyone who passes by, like a security guard, won't know what's going down in here,» Tobias added.
«It's got to be on the exterior windows, too,» I surmised. «To fool window washers.»
«0r red-tailed hawks. Let's do this quick and get out of here.»
In almost total darkness we crawled out through the grate and along the ceiling until we reached a wall. Then down the wall and onto the gray industrial carpeting.
«I'll demorph first,» Ax said. «In case there is need for defense.»
In a few minutes, we were in our normal forms. With our keen Andalite, hawk, and human senses.
It was then I wished I was still a roach. A roach would not have seen so clearly what I saw now.
In the corner of the room was a small, portable Yeerk pool. Like a stainless-steel Jacuzzi. The steel-bound briefcase I'd seen that morning was nearby.
On the lip of the portable Yeerk pool was a large clamp. A sort of collar.
My mother's neck was in that collar. It held her tight. It held her head sideways, so that one side of her face, one ear, was pressed into the water.
49 The rest of her body stood awkwardly, helplessly, bent over.
«The Yeerk is feeding,» Ax said coldly.
A Yeerk must return to the Yeerk pool every three days to absorb Kandrona rays. Otherwise it starves.
The complex box was a portable Kandrona.
My mother was, for this time, for just these few moments, my mother. The Yeerk slug that was Visser One was out of her head, in the liquid, feeding.
Right now she was my mom.
Five steps and I would be beside her.
I moved.
50 10
«Marco!» Tobias snapped.
A second step. A third!
«Ax!»
Suddenly there was an Andalite tail blade at my throat.
I stopped.
«No, Marco,» Ax said calmly. «Visser One will be back in your mother's head the second she senses any danger. And you could not open those locks with force. They are no doubt controlled by a brain-wave interface. So that the Yeerk can maintain control, even outside your mother's body.»
I grabbed his tail and tried to shove it away.
51 But an Andalite tail is nothing but one long, coiled muscle. It moved about three inches.
«Marco, stop it!» Tobias said. «Back off and think about it! Right now she's turned away, so she can't see you. You step into her line of sight, she'll know.»
I stopped trying to push Ax's tail away.
«We're here to investigate, Marco,» Tobias said gently. «Not the time, my friend. No matter how much you want it to be, this isn't the time.»
«What if you fail, Marco?» Ax asked. «lf you reveal yourself but are unable to stop the Yeerk from reentering her. What then, Marco?»
My mother was locked into a vise, three feet away from me. Maybe Ax was wrong. Maybe I could release the clamp. Maybe . . .
I stepped back.
I felt like dirt. She was right there! Free, if only for a moment. I could tell her I was okay! I could tell her. . .
Nothing. I could tell her nothing. Ax was probably right. I would not have been able to free her. Visser One would reinfest. Security would be breached. Our secret revealed. And then?
And then we would have to destroy the innocent as well as the guilty.
It made sense. It was the cold, calculated, smart thing to do.
52 I wiped my hand over my face. It came away wet.
"What's that? In the corner," I whispered, distracting myself.
«Surveillance and communications equipments
It was a console about the size of an upright piano. On top sat a satellite dish, pointed toward the outside window. In the middle of the console was a large screen. And on that screen were images that seemed to have been shot from above.
Images that were disturbingly familiar. Images of free Hork-Bajir.
«Visser One knows about the Hork-Bajir colony,» Tobias said grimly. «That's what she's up to.»
«Handheld Dracon weapons over there, surveillance devices, a portable Yeerk pool,» Ax observed, looking around the room with his stalk eyes. «Everything the Visser needs for guerrilla action.»
«That briefcase, by the side of the Yeerk pool,» Tobias said. «Is that what she was carrying this morning, Marco?»
"Yeah. And there's another one on the desk by the window," I whispered.
«Emergency Kandrona Particle Generators,» Ax surmised. «0ne use each. It appears the Visser
53 only has six days to finish whatever it is she's started.»
"Rot in hell!"
It was said softly, but ferociously. We froze.
My mother's voice! But who was she talking to? To us? Did she know we were there? Had she heard us?
No. No, of course: She was talking to the Yeerk. It must have begun to reinfest her.
BBWWBBWWBBWW!
The room started to tremble. I jumped, startled out of my trance.
«What?» Tobias demanded.
"Out of here!" I hissed.
We darted through a second door. Into a small, private bathroom.
BAM!
Even in the bathroom I felt the shock of the blow. Someone or something slamming the office door with the force of a battering ram.
BAM!BAM!
"The Yeerks," I said. "They're here to kill her!"
«Then they will be doing our job for us,» Ax answered coldly.
"Not while I stand around and watch," I said.
«The person in the next room is not your mother. It is Visser One. She will kill you the first chance she gets.»
54 I ignored him. Gorilla. It was my favorite power morph and I was ready to bust some heads. If I couldn't save my mother from her Yeerk, at least I could save her from whoever was trying to kill Visser One.
«You are being extremely foolish,» Ax said.
"Bull. You're letting your hatred of Yeerks get in the way. If Visser Three is trying to kill Visser One there may be an opening for us."
«An opportunity?» Tobias said thoughtfully.
«Maybe,» Ax allowed. «But Prince Jake said we were not to -»
"Blame me," I muttered.
«We will,» Tobias said with a laugh.
/>
FWAM!
The outer door crashed in.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The familiar sounds of Dracon beams firing!
I opened the bathroom door. In the office, total chaos.
The Visser had freed my mother's body from the pool and she was crouched behind the surveillance console. She was firing a Dracon beam.
A Hork-Bajir was staggering back, a burning hole in its chest. But more were pushing through the doorway.
«Partytime,» I said, now fully gorilla.
I opened the bathroom door and barreled out.
55 Visser One shot a surprised glance at me. She hesitated. Should she shoot?
Two huge Hork-Bajir rushed her. She turned her attention back to them. Too late!
A bladed arm swung. It was meant to remove my mother's arm. It missed and knocked the weapon from her hand.
She was helpless. The Hork-Bajir leaned close.
WHUMPF!
My fist flattened the snout of the Hork-Bajir. He staggered back. Visser One dived for her Dracon beam. Ax leaped from the bathroom.
"Andalite!" one of the Hork-Bajir yelled in shock.
FWAPP!
Ax's tail blade did to the Hork-Bajir what he'd intended doing to my mom.
But the Hork-Bajir were still coming. There were four in the room. More outside.
"Tseeeeer!"
Tobias flapped, talons out. A flurry of russet feathers and the Hork-Bajir fell back, clutching his eyes.
We fought our way through the stunned aliens, smashing and slashing. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Visser One level her Dracon beam. At me!
56 Too far away for me to reach her. «Ax!» I yelled.
FWAPP!
The bullwhip-fast tail slammed the portable Kandrona and knocked it into her head.
«Rather stupid, Visser, since we are attempting to save your life,» he said to her.
"I don't take help from Andalites!" she screamed in rage. But her weapon was out of reach. Hork-Bajir blocked any hope of retrieving it.
The Visser turned and ran into the bathroom.
I jumped to my feet, just in time, for an injured Hork-Bajir flailing blindly was about to cut a deep gash in my side. I grabbed it by one of its bladed arms and flung it into a wall. I sunk my fist into a second Hork-Bajir. And Tobias did his own damage. But it was Ax who was winning this fight. His tail was whipping left, right, too fast for the eye to follow.
The Hork-Bajir fell back before him. Fell back fighting at first, then in panic. They fought to get back out through the door.