Nov 11, 2021 00:12
And here we goooooooo
At least Jake recognises he's lost it, I guess
At least Jake recognises he's lost it, I guess
I am still angry about certain stuff that appears in the late series and I don't really hold Grant and Applegate in high regard as a result. But that's life I guess.
You all still thinking this is a great idea?
I'd be curious about what, if you wanna chuck it in spoiler tags
I lay awake all night.
Tense.
Listening.
Listening to the sounds coming out of the darkness.
Waiting for Tobias, who had settled down two hours ago in the tree outside my window, to suddenly shout, <The Yeerks are coming, Jake!>
It didn't happen.
At 3:30, I slid out of bed, careful not to step on the creaky part of the floor, and tiptoed into the hallway.
My father's door was half-closed.
I peeked in.
He was sleeping, the moonlight shining on his face.
I inched further down the hall.
Tom's door was closed.
I held my breath and pressed my ear to the door.
Nothing.
Palms sweating, I gripped the knob and without wiggling it, sloooooowly cracked open the door.
Tom's bed was empty.
I shivered.
Closed the door and hurried back to my own room.
My brother was gone.
Probably out with the rest of the Controllers, searching frantically for Chapman. Tobias must have seen him go but didn't want to wake me up.
I climbed back into bed and lay there, wide-eyed and listening to the house settling.
Wondering what my brother was doing. How he was feeling.
And imagining how frantically the Yeerks were searching for Chapman.
How scared and desperate Tom's Yeerk must be by now, knowing he was suddenly just priority number two.
"Are you scared, Yeerk?" I whispered into the darkness.
I thought about how I'd feel if my friends left me to the Yeerks to save someone more important. Not a good feeling.
And what about the real Tom inside?
What was he thinking?
I didn't know and I couldn't stand the thought, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Couldn't let it go.
I was the leader.
I should have been able to come up with a better, surer plan.
If I couldn't figure out a way to save my own family, then how could the other Animorphs rely on me, anyway? How could I rely on myself?
My numb, foggy brain begged for sleep but it wasn't happening.
The hours crept by.
<Hey, Jake, are you up? Are you awake? If not, wake up. Your brother just snuck in through the back door,> Tobias said as the sun rose and my bedroom was filled with brilliant, golden sunlight.
I couldn't answer. Wasn't anything to say anyway.
I heard Tom creep past my room. Heard him open, then close his bedroom door.
I swung wearily out of bed and opened my window.
Time to go check on Chapman.
I used my peregrine falcon morph and flew to the empty house where Chapman was being held hostage.
I was tempted to continue holding Chapman and starve his Yeerk to death. Let the Yeerk Empire know that they were vulnerable, too. That we could be cruel enough to kill, when pushed far enough.
The sick, dark anger inside of me wanted to. And had nearly tried, last night in rhino morph.
I landed in a tree near the window.
Ax was still inside.
<Everything going okay, Ax?> I asked from outside the house.
<Yes, Prince Jake,> Ax replied. <I was careful to walk directly over the glass from the broken window, making it crunch very loudly. I believe this Controller will use the glass to sever his bonds once I have left.>
<Good,> I said.
<No, Prince Jake, nothing about this is good,> Ax snapped. <This is not behavior suitable to a warrior. I will not do this again.>
<Understood, Ax,> I said.
<The human daughter of this Controller has walked through the neighborhood crying for her father. I have heard her. As I have heard the terror of this Controller. I will gladly fight this Controller and even, in fair battle, kill him, but I am not a torturer.>
I'd never heard Ax this mad. Never even close.
<It's my fault, Ax. My responsibility. You only did what I asked you to do, as your prince. This is on me.>
<No. My actions are my actions and are my responsibility.> he said, but his anger had softened a little. <I am sorry to have expressed anger.>
<Ax-man, you are entitled,> I said wearily.
He didn't say anything for a while, and I sat, miserable and ashamed, in the tree.
<I must play out the charade,> Ax said wearily.
<Yeah.>
I sat there, fluffing my feathers against the morning chill, watching as the first early commuters headed for their cars, slung their briefcases and laptops in the backseat, and headed off for work.
Normal. A normal day in a normal American suburb.
Except that across the street a girl cried for a father she'd long ago lost without knowing it, and here, a creature part man and part Yeerk was threatened with painful death.
<Kandrona starvation, Yeerk. That is what awaits you. The slow weakening ... the growing madness ... the terror as you begin to realize that nothing, nothing can save you. Is that what you want? Help me, Yeerk. Help me help you.> Ax could have used private thought-speak, thought-speak only Chapman would hear. But he wanted me to hear.
<Your last chance. I will leave you here, bound, helpless, the thirst and hunger of your human host body adding to your own desperate need.>
If Chapman answered I didn't hear him. I guess he did answer, though, because Ax said, <Your choice, Yeerk.>
Moments later Ax was morphed to osprey and soaring away from the house.
Chapman would escape. We had left the broken glass there deliberately. Chapman believed we were all Andalites. He would think we were too unfamiliar with the human world to know that glass can cut.
<And he will return to his people a hero,> Ax said. <This will become an oft-repeated and much celebrated chapter in Yeerk history. My name will become legend, synonymous with ineptitude. A brutal fool of an Andalite.>
<Ax, I wouldn't have asked you to do it if it wasn't so important.>
Ax looked at me, fierce hawk eyes glittering. <Important to you, Jake, or to the war effort?> I didn't answer him.
I wanted to believe it was important to both, but my weary brain couldn't even form the words to convince myself, much less him.
Ax flew back to his woods, muttering something about cleansing rituals.
I flew home and relieved Tobias.
<Everything looks cool, Big Jake,> Tobias said. <So, what's the plan? How do we follow you guys up to the mountains?>
<We leave at noon. We were supposed to leave earlier, but my dad has some stuff to do this morning. I'll meet you all at Cassie's barn at nine to set the plans.>
<Okay. Later.>
Tobias flew off.
We were leaving for Grandpa G's cabin in two hours. By the time the others realized I wasn't going to meet them at the barn we'd be long gone.
I was done using my friends on this mission. I was tired of Marco's doubts and Ax's honor and even Cassie's wary sympathy.
This was my family. My brother, the killer. My father, the target. And me, the fool in the middle. Just the three of us.
If my brother Tom, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save himself, tried to kill my father, then I would morph.
And the last thing my brother would see was me, his brother, his unknown enemy, rear up and destroy him with all the ruthless, savage power that was mine to command.
I had told myself that I would do whatever had to be done, and I would.
Suddenly, I needed to talk to Cassie. And maybe, when it was all over, I would.
It's also sad/funny that he considers this behaviour "unsuitable" to a warrior when we've seen Andalites do much, much worse things. And Ax himself will do worse things before it's over. Well, he doesn't actually go through with it, but he's not bluffing either.
You are Iniss 226
Ax grew up believing in Andalite Bushido and despite the fact that every Andalite he has met/talked to since he joined the war has been a scumbag to some degree they are all just individual bad apples ok.
Ax grew up believing in Andalite Bushido and despite the fact that every Andalite he has met/talked to since he joined the war has been a scumbag to some degree they are all just individual bad apples ok.
quote:
<And he will return to his people a hero,> Ax said. <This will become an oft-repeated and much celebrated chapter in Yeerk history. My name will become legend, synonymous with ineptitude. A brutal fool of an Andalite.>
It doesn't make a lick of sense that the Yeerks apparently don't have any plans to deal with the problem that some of their host might have to leave coastal California for more than three days, but I don't think that is super important. It's more about the idea behind it, Jake's parents becoming a liability for Tom's Yeerk.
Homer had already been taken to Rachel's, where he'd spend the next four days being petted and pampered and played with.
Too bad he and I couldn't have changed places.
And now my father, Tom, and I had eight hours of boring, highway driving ahead of us.
Tom sat in the front with my father, sulking and giving monosyllabic answers to my father's forcedly cheerful questions.
I answered a few, but my heart wasn't in it either, and after about ten miles, my father just stopped trying.
I sat tensely in the back, watching Tom, searching for any signs of Kandrona withdrawal.
Nothing.
Maybe he'd fed last night, in between searching for Chapman.
It wouldn't matter though, because we still wouldn't be home before the three-day limit.
I tried to imagine life without Tom. Without my older brother. I'd be an only child. Marco was an only child. So were Cassie and Tobias.
But I wasn't and I didn't want to be. Saving Tom was the reason I'd agreed to be an Animorph. I hadn't wanted it, any of it. But then I'd learned the Yeerks had taken Tom and made him one of their own.
It was for him that I had endured that first horrifying morph. It was to save him that I had gone down into the Yeerk pool, that unsuspected house of horrors.
I wasn't going to lose Tom to the Yeerks. I had to keep that hope alive.
But I had to keep my father alive, too. The Yeerk in Tom's head was locked in battle with me, though he didn't know it. We were deadly enemies on a field of battle where two innocent people, my brother and my father, stood directly in our line of fire.
After an hour or two, I fell asleep.
Woke up four hours later as we pulled into a rest stop.
We used the bathroom. Wolfed down lukewarm hamburgers and stiff, cardboard fries.
Headed back out on the road.
Finally, when I was numb with nerves and cramped from sitting, my father turned the car down a hidden, gravel road.
"We're almost there," he said tiredly.
I sat up.
So did Tom.
Thick forest lined the road, the tree branches seeming to reach for the car. The air was cooler, cleaner, and smelled of dark, moist dirt.
A mouse scurried out onto the road in front of us. Sat up, unafraid, and watched as we slowly approached.
"Tseeeer!" A hawk swept down out of nowhere and seized it. Carried it off.
"Survival of the fittest," Tom murmured, his mouth curving into a small, secret smile.
I looked at the side of his head. I looked at his ear, wanting to picture the foul, gray slug that was inside his brain.
Do you have a plan, Yeerk? Are the woods full of your allies? Do the Hork-Bajir lie in wait?
Do the Bug fighters hover above us, waiting for the signal?
Or, like me, are you planning on handling this by yourself?
Don't take me on by yourself, Yeerk. You won't win.
Survival of the fittest, Yeerk.
"Finally," my father said, sighing and parking the car. "Everybody out."
My boots crunched noisily on gravel and pine needles. The sound of car doors slamming was both loud and insignificant in the quiet of the woods.
Grandpa G's cabin sat in the middle of a small, grassy clearing surrounded by dark, towering pine trees. There was a well-worn path leading from the front door straight down to the dock at the lake.
Silence. Then, my mother and my grandparents spilled out of the cabin. We were hugged and fussed over, fed and herded back out to the porch to relax.
"It makes me sad to think that Grandpa G isn't here anymore," my mother said quietly, watching as the sun set over the lake. "He really loved this place."
"I remember when he came home from the war," my grandfather mused. "He was a different man. He said he wanted nothing but peace after seeing so much."
"Some people just can't deal with the reality of war, I guess," Tom said offhandedly, earning shocked looks from my parents and grandparents.
"And what would you know about war, Tom?" my grandfather said levelly, like he was trying not to sound as angry as he felt. "I don't recall hearing about your enlistment."
"You're right," Tom said quickly. "That was a stupid thing to say. I guess I was just thinking about Grandpa G spending all his time out here, alone."
Everybody relaxed and went on reminiscing.
But I didn't. I just sat and watched and listened.
I had no plan. No plan but to react when Tom struck. I was waiting, playing defense again.
Your move, Yeerk.
Why couldn't they have the funeral tomorrow?" Tom said later that night, once we were in the attic bedroom. "I mean, Sunday or Monday, what's the difference?"
"Grandpa G wanted it that way," I answered, looking around the small, dark room. "And besides, Mom said they never bury people on Sunday around here. Sunday is for the wake, Monday for the burial."
"Yeah, well, it's stupid," Tom said, watching me crouch in front of an old chest. "What're you doing?"
"Nothing," I said, lifting a stack of old, dusty books off a small, dark gray leather trunk. "Don't you remember this, Tom? This is Grandpa G's old footlocker."
Tom glanced at it. Then he looked past it, around the room, searching for something to do.
I opened the footlocker, filled with sudden urgency. "Remember back, like, I don't know, when I was ten or so? He showed us his canteen and these pictures of his outfit from the Battle of the Bulge?"
"Maybe," Tom muttered.
"They didn't know whether they were gonna freeze or starve or get shot. That's what he said."
Tom rolled his eyes. Indifferent. Perfectly Tom, I thought, almost admiring. The Yeerk was keeping up the illusion. Playing the part to perfection.
"Christmas, when they were all homesick in their foxholes, they sang 'Silent Night.' The enemy sang it, too, in German. Far off they heard it. Both sides lonely for their homes. Both sides wishing the war was over."
"Uh-huh."
"Don't you remember how he told us all this, Tom?" I pressed, wanting him to admit he remembered. Wanting, ridiculously, the real Tom inside to push hard enough to break through, just for a minute, and be my totally human brother again.
Tom sighed. "Vaguely. I'm not real big on old war stories."
I lifted out the small box that held Grandpa G's Silver Star and his Purple Heart. "He was a brave guy. He believed in honor. All that stuff out of old movies. Honor and courage and all."
"Yeah, well, that was all a million years ago," Tom said. "Honor and courage aren't what matters, not in the real world. What matters is whether you win. After you win then you start talking about honor and courage. When you're in battle you do whatever you have to do. Honor and courage and all that? Those are the words you say after you've destroyed all your enemies and anyone else who gets in the way."
"You're wrong," I said flatly.
He rolled his eyes, bored now. "You're a kid." I saw Tom's eyes narrow. "What's this?" He reached into the footlocker and lifted out a cracked leather scabbard. From the sheath he drew a dagger. The blade glittered dully in the dim lamplight. It was a long blade, maybe eight inches or so.
Suddenly, the attic was close and airless.
"SS," Tom mused, examining it. "It's an old Nazi dagger. Grandpa G must have taken it off a dead soldier as a souvenir. Cool."
"What're you gonna do with it?" I asked.
Tom cocked his head and looked at me.
"I mean, you can't take it," I added hurriedly. "It isn't yours."
"Hey, you get the medals, I get the dagger, right?" he said. "It's perfect. You can sit around thinking about honor and bravery and all, and I get the weapon that gets the job done. Sounds fair to me."
I kept my expression as blank as I could. I, too, was playing a part.
"I'm not taking anything until I talk to Mom and Grandma," I said, carefully putting the medals back in the velvet case and waiting for Tom to do the same with the dagger.
"Well?" I said. "Come on, man, put it back."
"Mom and Grandma," he mocked. "You're still such a kid. You think everything is so simple, don't you? That it's all either right or wrong, black or white. A good guy, a bad guy, and nothing in between."
No, Yeerk, I don't. Not anymore. I used to. But I've been across the line; I've done things I can't let myself think about. I know all about the shades of gray.
I said, "Sometimes even the good guys do bad things. Doesn't mean there's no difference between good and evil."
"Good and evil," he said with a tired smile. "Strong and weak. That's the reality. Winners and losers."
"The knife, Tom," I said.
He laid it back in the footlocker.
He turned out the light. We crawled into our respective bunks. Our separate foxholes.
Humans are the first species the Yeerks are infesting that are close enough in intelligence and motivation to the Yeerks that they're able to feel something like guilt for what they're doing.
It's a contrast to the Yeerk that infests Jake in book 6 who I remember basically just being a prick; makes me think that maybe as the series went on longer than they'd expected, the Applegates decided they wanted to inject a lot more complexity into the situation in a way that they hadn't sketched out when they first started writing it.
I was cold.
Freezing.
Night.
My feet were solid blocks of ice despite the filthy rags I'd wrapped around my torn boots. My fingers were numb, stiffly clutching my M-l rifle.
I had a clip and a half of ammo. One grenade. If the Germans came it would be over fast.I hadn't had a warm meal since ... Had I ever had a warm meal? Had I ever, ever been warm?
Hadn't I always been in this freezing foxhole, this black hole punched in the snow? Hadn't I lived my entire life right here at the edge of the dark forest, shivering, shaking, waiting to hear the scream of incoming shells, waiting to hear the clank-clank-clank of the tanks?
Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas.
I heard a racking cough from the next foxhole. Matthews. He was from Arkansas. Alabama. One of those places. A southern boy. A kid, one of the last replacements to make it to our unit.
"Hey, kid," I said in a hoarse whisper. "Goose or ham?"
"What?" he gasped between coughs.
"Back home, what does your mom cook for Christmas dinner? Goose or ham?"
For a while he didn't answer. Then, "Ham."
"Yeah? We always have a goose. My mother cooks up a goose."
From a second foxhole, to my right, a voice said, "Don't listen to him, kid. Sarge ain't got no mother."
I think the kid laughed. Hard to tell with the coughing. Pneumonia, most likely. He should be evacuated. But no one was being evacuated. The joke was that even getting yourself killed only got you a three-day pass and then it was back to the line.
"Sarge," he called when the coughing subsided. "Sarge."
"Yeah."
"You write the letter, okay? I know it's the captain's job, but he don't know me. You write the letter."
There was only one letter. The one that would inform Private Matthews's family that he was among the honored dead.
I said something rude and obscene. Couldn't have him thinking that way. You start thinking you'll die, maybe you do.
"Tell my mom I did okay," he said.
"Tell her yourself, I'm not the U.S. Mail," I said. "You tell her when you get home."
"Merry Christmas," a bitter voice on my right said.
For a while no one spoke. We listened for the incoming shells. We listened for the tanks. We waited for the crack of a sniper's rifle and the cry of a man dying.
But then the thin, biting air was filled with the sound of voices, ragged at first and then soaring into a harmony that sweetened the night, bringing me home to my family, filling my empty, aching belly and soothing my torn, battered heart.
"'Silent Night.'"
'"Holy night,'" Private Matthews whispered, smiling.
"I think I hear the Germans singing, too," I said.
"Yeerks don't sing," Matthews said. Suddenly, he was beside me.
He opened his eyes. Bared his teeth.
And rammed the Nazi dagger straight into my heart.
My eyes snapped open.
Darkness.
I sat up, heart pounding.
Glanced sideways.
The other bed was empty.
I was at Grandpa G's cabin.
Sharing the attic bedroom with my brother.
And it was late. Too late for Tom to be up.
My breath froze in my throat. I rolled over and opened the footlocker.
The dagger was gone.
I shot out of bed.
Pulled on sweats and padded out of the bedroom.
Down the stairs.
The night-light cast a thin, golden glow.
Snoring. Murmuring.
Everyone was still sleeping.
I paused in the main room and looked at the pull-out couch.
My mother was in it.
My father was gone.
Oh, no! Was I too late? Had I given Tom the exact and perfect chance he'd been waiting for?
I eased open the front door.
Creeee ...
I went still.
Held my breath.
Nothing.
Squeezed out through the gap and waited in the shadows on the porch.
Listened.
The breeze carried the sound of voices.
There!
My father and Tom were sitting down at the end of the dock, talking and dangling their feet in the water. My father laughed and gave Tom's shoulders a quick, spontaneous hug.
Tom's sweatshirt bunched up in the back.
Revealing, for a moment, the gleaming dagger wedged in his pocket.
My father didn't notice it. He laughed again and removed his arm.
Tom and my father, sharing a private conversation in the middle of the night.
Tom, the betrayer.
My father, the betrayed.
I had no doubt who'd instigated it.
Tom, apologizing for his bad behavior. Wanting to talk to my father, man to man. Lying.
He'd lured my father outside, where no one would hear.
Tom slipped his hand behind him and closed his fingers over the dagger.
Tightened his grip on the handle.
I had to do something.
Fast!
I edged off the porch and took off running, keeping to the deep, dark tree line and morphing as I went.
I didn't care that once I did, Tom would realize I was the enemy.
And that once he knew, I couldn't let him live.
His action, my reaction.
Adrenaline pulsed through my veins.
Drowned out the fluttering panic.
Thick, orange-and-black fur sprouted, rippling over my body. My nose flattened, widened. My senses lit up. Smell! Hearing! Night vision almost as good as an owl's.
I could smell my brother's exultation.
He was excited, anticipating the kill.
Tiger senses. Tiger strength. Tom would be helpless. A boy with a knife against a tiger? Like going up against a tank with a Nerf gun.
I fell forward as my bones ground and remolded into four strong, muscular legs.
Hurry! I shouted silently, stumbling as my feet widened and my toenails curved into deadly claws. But I was still only halfway to the dock when Tom withdrew the glittering dagger.
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Is this just a desperation play here on the part of Tom's Yeerk? Like, I'm honestly not grasping how killing his dad is supposed to get him out of this situation. I don't think him suddenly dying there from a knife in the back is gonna do anything except keep the whole family there through a lengthy murder investigation.
Is this just a desperation play here on the part of Tom's Yeerk? Like, I'm honestly not grasping how killing his dad is supposed to get him out of this situation. I don't think him suddenly dying there from a knife in the back is gonna do anything except keep the whole family there through a lengthy murder investigation.
Just pinching the car keys and nicking off in the middle of the night would be the sensible play, but then we wouldn't get these dramatic scenes
Please, they'll just pin this on Chapman too
CCCRRRRAAAACCCKKKK!
The sharp sound split the night.
My father and Tom looked up in shock as the wooden dock tilted and collapsed with a screech. They scrabbled to hold on, but the planks were an accordion being squeezed. The entire dock was being folded back on itself by some massive force.
Tom and my father both slipped into the water.
"Hey!" my father shouted, going under.
He bobbed back up, gasped, thrashed, and went down again.
I stopped dead in the shadows, surprised, amazed, waiting to see what was happening.
My dad could swim like a fish. Why was he surfacing and going back under?
"Glug," he croaked, surfacing several yards away from the ruined dock and almost immediately disappearing again.
It was almost as if something was pulling him down and towing him away from Tom... .
Tom was frantic, splashing and swinging around in the water, not trying to save my father, just trying to keep him in sight. Why? So he could watch him die? So he could catch up with him and use the dagger?
Silent anger roared in my ears.
My fur rippled and stood on end.
My still-human mouth tightened into a snarl.
I moved forward again.
"Gak," my father burbled, surfacing another ten yards away from the dock.
Tom swung around in the water, searching for him.
Suddenly, a fin broke the lake's surface behind Tom.
Shark? I thought blankly. Shark in a mountain lake?
No, not a shark.
A dolphin!
Before I could move, the fin sliced through the water and something slammed straight into Tom's back.
"Oof!" Tom arched, eyes wide with surprise, and shot forward, plowing facedown in the rippling lake.
He didn't move after that.
The fin - no, there were more than one - the fins slipped soundlessly below the surface.
"Tom! Tom, are you all right?!" my father yelled, clambering up onto shore. He'd been dragged some twenty yards down the lake and was staggering back through the thick, vine-covered underbrush.
Tom was floating facedown, motionless in the water.
My father would never get there in time to save him.
I could. The tiger can swim. I could save him.
But I didn't move. Frozen. Brain locked around the simple fact that if Tom died he would, at last, be free. That if the Yeerk died I would have had my revenge. That we would be safer, stronger, freer with the Controller named Tom dead and gone.
Didn't know what to do.
<Jake! Demorph!> a voice ordered. <You're in the open. Demorph!>
I obeyed, glad for once to take orders rather than give them. Relieved to have the decision made for me.
The others had followed me to the cabin.
They'd backed me up even though I'd said not to. They'd taken the decision out of my hands.
I stepped forward. My feet had remolded to human.
I stood up. My fur had disappeared.
Tom would drown unless I saved him.
Saving him might still mean my father's death.
Help me! I wanted to scream. Tell me what to do!
The lake water rippled. Surged.
And suddenly Tom's limp, unconscious body was skimming across the water like a surfboard, being pushed rapidly toward shore.
I ran to the water's edge. My reflection in the moonlit ripples was human.
Panting, I dragged Tom's body up onto the land.
Flipped him over.
Water streamed from his still face.
His right leg flopped and twisted at a crazy, sickening, unnatural angle.
"Help," I croaked, leaping to my feet. "Help!"
Tom groaned. Coughed.
He gagged and barfed up buckets of smelly lake water.
"Don't move," I babbled, trying to hold him still as he thrashed. Something was wrong with his leg. There was a hinge where there shouldn't be one. "I think your leg is broken."
"Jake!" my father shouted, staggering up. His clothes were sagging, sopping, and ripped, and he was covered with dark, slimy mud. "Is Tom all right?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "Someone better call an ambulance. Dad, hurry!"
My father ran to the cabin.
I looked down at Tom. Inside his head was a killer. He'd almost killed my father.
But what I saw, the eyes I looked into, those belonged to my big brother.
I settled into the mud next to him.
His face was white and tight with shock, his eyes filled with dark agony. His teeth were chattering and tears leaked down into his hair.
"Get out of here, midget," he gasped, writhing. "Get out of here and leave me alone!"
"No," I said, moving closer. "I ... don't think so."
And I didn't until I heard a deep, pulsing THWOK THWOK THWOK and a medevac helicopter dropped out of the starry sky and swept Tom away.
"Okay, honey. You, too."
My father hung up the phone and sighed. He ran a hand through his rumpled hair, then turned to face the sea of anxious faces.
"Well?" I asked.
"Your mom says they medevaced Tom all the way back to the hospital back home," my father said, plopping down in a chair. "It seems he has a complex break and our hospital's the only one in the area equipped to deal with it."
"No kidding," I said, not at all surprised.
Of course: back home. Back where there were plenty of Controllers around to make absolutely certain Tom would have access to the Yeerk pool's lifesaving Kandrona rays.
"He's in some pain and he'll be laid up for a while, but at least he's gonna be okay," my father said thickly. He reached over and hugged me. "Thank God you got there in time to save him, Jake."
"I didn't save him," I said. "He drifted into shore. I just grabbed him and hauled him out of the water."
"And saved him," my father insisted, releasing me. "I was really scared tonight, Jake. I don't ever want to lose either one of you."
"Me, either," I said.
And we had come so close. A dagger half-drawn. A tiger running.
"Well, I need a cup of coffee," my father said.
"I'll make it," my grandmother said.
"Make one for me, too, please," my grandfather called after her.
"First thing tomorrow morning, I'm gonna call whoever built that dock and read them the riot act," my father said. "And then I want to talk to somebody about the undertow or the current or whatever it was that dragged me down that lake. It's dangerous!"
"Yeah. Um, look, I'll be right back, okay?" I said. "Need some fresh air." I slipped out of the door and into the fading darkness.
I stood for a moment listening, but it was no use.
Human hearing is so limited.
I spread my hands like, Well?
<Over here, Jake,> Tobias called from a thick stand of pine trees.
I walked over and met them in the shadows.
Without my asking, they told me how they'd done it. How Tobias had kept endless watch and sounded the alarm when Tom and my father exited the cabin. How Cassie had quickly morphed to whale and struggled through a shallow, nerve-wracking twenty feet of water to ram the dock, praying she wouldn't be beached before she got there.
How Rachel and Ax had morphed into dolphins, rammed Tom, broken his leg, and dragged my father to safety.
I wanted to say a lot.
Like how they'd saved my family.
My sanity.
"Thanks," I said.
"Hey, don't mention it," Rachel said fliply. "We needed a vacation, anyway."
<We have spent time exploring that decrepit, architectural structure riddled with rodents and assorted wildlife,> Ax said, turning an eye stalk toward the abandoned hunting lodge across the lake. <We discovered several extremely large spiders.>
"And rats. Don't leave out the rats," Cassie said with a laugh.
<Personally, I had fun,> Tobias offered.
"That's because you got to eat like a pig," Rachel said.
They were trying too hard.
"Where's Marco?" I said.
Cassie shrugged. "He didn't know if you'd want to see him right away. Thought you might need some time to calm down or whatever."
"Come on out, Marco."
He stepped into view from behind a tree. He looked a little leery. Which, given the way I'd treated him was not surprising.
"Hey, Big Jake."
"Marco. This had to be your plan."
"Pretty much."
"Yeah. Well. Good plan."
"Thanks. Couldn't have done it without the Chee," Marco said, shrugging like it was nothing. "They're the ones who piloted the medevac helicopter and insisted on taking Tom back home. Without them, all we would have had was a kid with a busted leg out in the middle of the woods."
"Tom's back home. Alive. My dad's alive. Crisis past. I should have thought of it myself. Tom, injured, had the perfect excuse for not coming on this trip. I should have seen that."
Marco shrugged. "Yeah, well ..."
"I was too close to it," I said. "You were right. I was too close to see things clearly."
Marco didn't argue. He didn't gloat, either. I guess we each have our strengths and weaknesses. Marco's strength is the ability to see the way to the goal, even when it means disregarding consequences and feelings and basic right and wrong.
He'd seen this solution when I missed it.
I took Marco's arm and drew him away from the others. To where they wouldn't hear.
"You're my best friend, Marco. If you ever again tell me I'm losing it, getting too involved, can't lead -"
"You'll kick my butt?" he interrupted with a grin.
"No. I'll listen. I'll listen. Then I'll kick your butt."
He laughed. I laughed. What can I say? Marco and I have been friends forever.
We started to rejoin the others. I stopped him. "Marco?"
"What?"
"This whole plan worked because Tom came outside and made himself vulnerable. What would have happened if he hadn't?"
Marco didn't look at me.
"You had to keep me from blowing it at all costs," I pressed. "You had to preserve the security of the group and keep me alive. Those were your top priorities."
He nodded.
"So, what if you hadn't been in time? What if Tom had managed to kill my father?"
"It was pretty clear, after I thought about it, that if Tom killed your father you'd lose it," Marco said coolly. "Like a chess game: Tom takes your father, you take Tom. You'd have gone after Tom, exposing yourself and us. Game over. So we couldn't let that happen. Your dad had to survive for you to survive. The one expendable piece was Tom. But if anything was going to happen to Tom it would have to look natural, not like an Animorph had been involved, and not like you had been involved. It would have to be done very carefully. So, if it came down to that -"
"No," I said softly. I shook my head. I didn't want to know.
For a while neither of us said anything. I just let it sink in.
You know what Marco and I used to talk about? Whether Batman could beat Spiderman. Whether Sega was better than Nintendo. Whether some girl would rather go out with him or me.
And now ...
"What are we, anymore, Marco? What has happened to us?"
He didn't answer. I didn't expect him to. We both knew what had happened.
"I better get back inside," I said.
"Yeah. And we need to head home. We hitched a ride on a cattle car getting here. We're hoping for something less fragrant for the return trip."
I went back toward the cabin.
My mom was back the next day. It was Sunday, the day for Grandpa G's wake and then we had his funeral on Monday.
The local VFW chapter came and brought a bugler, who played a slow, mournful taps.
The other old soldiers took the folded American flag off the casket and gave it to my grandmother, Grandpa G's daughter.
She and the worn, grizzled men looked at each other for a long, quiet moment as if sharing a memory, a lifetime of experiences only they could understand.
I understood it, though.
Maybe not their war, but ours. Because now we're the ones out on the battle lines. The ones who fight and bleed, succeed and fail, win and lose.
We're the ones with the nightmares and the old souls.
I know what Grandpa G meant now.
He only talked about the war twice, at least to me. Once, when he opened his footlocker. And the other, that day, long ago, when we'd sat on the dock.
When my war ends, if I survive, I probably won't talk about it much, either.
As far as experiences go, once will be enough.
We each laid a rose on the casket as we left.
It wasn't a big funeral, but everyone there cried. Anyway, I did.
When we got back to the cabin we called the hospital and talked to Tom. He was doing fine.
Everything was back the way it had been. My brother still lived. So did the enemy inside him. It had all been a pointless battle. No one had wanted it, no one had profited. Everyone had suffered: Chapman, Ax, Tom, Marco, and some guy who just wanted his parking space back. And me.
But we'd all survived, and in war any time you wake up to see the sunrise it's a victory.
My folks and I drove home together on Tuesday.
I sat in the front seat with my dad while my mom dozed in the back.
Dad let me choose the radio station and told me for only about the ten millionth time how much better the music was "in his day." We had burgers for lunch and my mom told us both for only about the ten millionth time that we ate too much saturated fat. We pulled off to witness the "World's Largest Ball of Twine!" You know, except for all the other "World's Largest" twine balls.
Small, simple things, but good ones.
We talked about Grandpa G and then about other stuff.
Normal stuff.
The ride always seems shorter on the way home.
Tom had dropped the Nazi dagger in the water when he'd been knocked off the pier. I guess it had sank to the bottom of the lake.
I could have retrieved it, probably. I didn't.
But I had Grandpa G's medals in my pocket. My grandmother had given them to me. She said Grandpa G wanted me to have them.
I always knew he'd been a hero in the war. That he had medals and all. And I'd wondered why he didn't put them up in a display case, show them off for all the world to see.
But I was a little wiser, now.
Medals aren't so simple for the people who earn them. Every time Grandpa G had looked at those medals he'd thought about the things that had happened, the things he'd seen others do, the things he'd done himself.
I know he was proud of being brave, proud of doing his best for his country. But I also know why the medals were in a pouch, in a footlocker, in an attic, kept far out of sight.
Someday maybe there'll be medals for those who fought the war against the Yeerks.
I'll need to buy a footlocker.
"And then I want to talk to somebody about the undertow or the current or whatever it was that dragged me down that lake. It's dangerous!"
I demand to speak to this lake's manager!
What the hell. Why did I stop reading these
Because this is like the last legitimately good book for a long-ass while yet to come.