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Chapter Text

My name is Marco, and I’m an Animorph.  You probably already knew that. Pretty much everyone on Earth has heard my story: the classic tale of a charming, handsome boy who fought some aliens, saved my family, saved the world, and lived happily ever after. And by living happily ever after, of course, I mean making millions of dollars, starring in a hit TV show, and partying with Hollywood super-babes. After years of being poor and having snooty girls shut me down with comments like “in your dreams, munchkin”, I couldn’t imagine a happier ending than that. 

It was a typical Friday night for me, hosting a baller party in my MTV Cribs-worthy mansion, surrounded by babes who were hanging on my every word. I was dropping jokes so lame that they would make Rachel’s eyes stick permanently to the back of her head. Yet these girls were howling like I was Chris Rock. 

Sounds great, doesn’t it? 

“Oh, Marco, you’re so funny!” one of the babes giggled while strategically placing her manicured hand on my arm. She was a perfectly-tanned, pinstripe-highlighted brunette whose name was…Kelly? Kendra? Whatever. 

If you told me a year ago that it was possible to grow bored of having girls fawn over me, I would have called you insane. Delusional. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs! And don’t get me wrong, I’d still much rather be trapped with a bunch of bimbos than a horde of Hork-Bajir controllers. But let me tell you a secret: the whole babe-magnet thing gets kinda stale after a while. 

Cassie warned me that it would happen – something about the intense sequence of guerilla warfare followed by instant fame wreaking havoc on my delicate teenage dopamine levels. I figured it would take me at least a decade of living the high life before boredom truly set in. Cassie said I’d be lucky to make it a year.

As usual, Cassie was right.

You see, in addition to being very observant, my friend Cassie knows the future. Kind of. 

Dear, sweet Cassie stole the most powerful weapon in the history of the universe: the Time Matrix. She used it to travel back a couple of years and change our final battle against the Yeerks. Cassie said that her time-hopping stopped a chain of events that included Rachel and Tom dying, Ax being captured by some aliens, Jake and I disappearing on a suicidal rescue mission, and MC Hammer Pants coming back into fashion.

…Just kidding! But unfortunately, only about the Hammer Pants.  

When she first told us about her secret future past, I thought that Cassie was just the first Animorph to have a complete mental breakdown. But then our old nemesis, the Drode, turned up and confirmed her story. After that, I believed her whole Miss Cleo I know the future schtick. Not that it helped me much, since she didn't have any advice on the whole boredom situation that didn’t end with me turning into frozen space-debris.

But being the eternal optimist that I am, somehow I soldier on. Which brings me back to my party!

The group conversation had migrated from my terrible jokes to probably-Kelly starting on the dreaded, familiar, “Oh my gawd, you should, like, totally look into Kabbalah. It, like, totally changed my life.”

I didn’t used to mind sitting through these kinds of mind-numbing conversations. After all, it gave me plenty of time to fantasize about what was under her lime-green tube top. But unfortunately, this babe had the same plastic surgeon, spray tan artist, and Pilates instructor as the last dozen girls I’d gone out with; nothing new to fantasize about there. So what else could I do? I smiled and nodded for a few seconds, then politely told everyone that I had to go to the bathroom. Not the classiest move, but better than blatantly blowing Kylie/Kendra/Kali off. I may not remember her name, but I hadn’t forgotten that she was the niece of a major studio executive – not the kind of person you want to rub the wrong way in my line of work.

It was the fifth time I’d had to “go to the bathroom” in the span of a few hours. I wondered if anyone noticed. Maybe it would wind up as a background story in some tabloid: “Marco’s Secret Bladder Struggles – Insider Tells All!” The gossip columnists had been getting more creative lately, because apparently no is still interested in reading about how brave and cute and funny I am. Even though my TV show had been renewed, I wasn't front-page news anymore. My publicist, Summer, thought that the best way to earn back a spot on the cover of Us Weekly was to get myself a high-profile girlfriend.  I didn’t doubt Summer’s strategy, but I’d been hesitant to pull the trigger. How could I settle for just one girl when there were so many of them clamoring for my attention? But the way things had been going lately, maybe it was time to suck it up and follow my publicist’s advice. 

I started looking through the crowd, and it didn’t take long to spot two options from Summer’s ‘girlfriend-material’ shortlist: a bubblegum-blonde pop star and a porcelain-doll-faced actress with a hit WB show. Le sigh …would I rather be annoyed to death by obnoxious giggles or by endless ramblings about the art of filmmaking? 

I grabbed a glass of champagne and started toward the pop star when another girl caught my eye. I didn't recognize her from my guest list, but she was clearly new to town. Even from a distance, you could tell that she hadn't yet gone through the Hollywood Barbie conveyor belt – too many original parts still intact. Her long, dark hair was scandalously natural, falling in loose waves over the erratic tan lines that adorned her shoulders. Even her shape was more healthy high-school-cheerleader than stick-thin supermodel. 

It felt like serendipity. In a room full of Stepford clones, she was a breath of fresh air – the kind of low-key, natural beauty that I would have lost my mind over back in high school. The kind of girl who maybe, just maybe, would have gone out with me back then, if I could charm her right. A girl who would have make weeks of effort feel worth it for a single, genuine smile.  

Man, those were the days. Back when chasing babes was so much more difficult, yet infinitely more satisfying. I felt a twinge of nostalgic excitement just thinking about it. The new girl clearly wasn’t front-page girlfriend material, but still…maybe it wasn’t time for me to settle down just yet. 

My new target was chatting with Dr. Aaron Chesnick. Unlike the rest of my networking-obsessed party guests, Aaron wouldn’t care what kind of industry clout this girl had. He was just a nice guy with a PhD in Animal Behavior who’d lucked into a barely-paid advisor role on the Animorph movie. The girl looked too young to be his date – Aaron wasn’t the type to fraternize with students. She was mine for the taking. 

“Aaron!” I yelled, plowing into their conversation. 

“Marco!” He put out his hand for the douchey bro hug that had somehow become the default greeting in my social circles. “I’ve just been hearing some of the most fascinating stories! You never told me about how you acquired a mountain goat. Sounds like it was quite the challenge!” 

I frowned. Since becoming famous, I’ve shared a ton of amusing animal encounters, but I was pretty positive that I’d never told a soul that story. 

“The goat kicked you straight off a cliff, didn’t he, Marco?” my mystery girl said as she turned towards me. I finally got a better look at her face, and I was as shocked as if I'd met a Taxxon doing a juice cleanse.

It was Jordan Berenson! Rachel’s little sister. Well, shit. So much for my new-arrival breath of fresh air. 

It was no surprise that I hadn’t recognized her. She looked very different from the last time I’d seen her, back in the Hork Bajir Valley. The Jordan I remembered had been going through something of a gangly, pimply, braces-wearing phase. Clearly that phase hadn’t lasted long, because the Jordan standing in front of me could be a Homecoming Queen. 

Not that it really mattered what she looked like. Some things just weren't compatible with my finally-feasible life goal of living past twenty, and hitting on Jordan Berenson was definitely one of them. If Rachel thought I was digging her precious baby sister, she'd go straight to grizzly and get all Commando on me before you could say “The aliens made me do it!”. And that wasn’t even considering Rachel’s equally insane – if less morph-capable – mother, Naomi. 

“Have you ever tried to pet a mountain goat?” I joked, trying not to reveal my disappointment as I pulled my jaw back up from the floor. “Goats are tougher than they look.”

“What about ducks?” Jordan said in a deceptively innocent voice. “Tobias told me that story, too.” 

I opened my mouth for a comeback, but it didn’t come right away. I must have still been in shock...or just out of practice. These days, I was more used to beautiful females falling at my feet than taking shots at my Animorph-related heroics. I had to get it together! No way was some smart-mouth kid going to make me look like a fool at my own party.

“Jordan, what are you doing here? This is a grown-up party. No children allowed.” I mimicked the standard go-away-little-sibling lingo that Tom always threw at Jake and me. 

“Really, no children? Then what are you doing here, Marco?” She crossed her arms and smirked at me. 

“I’m old in gorilla years.”

“Well in human years, I’m pretty sure that neither of us belong at a – what did you call it? A grown-up party. You want to give me a hard time? Maybe I should go around and remind everyone that their host is too young to buy a pack of cigarettes, let alone that glass of champagne you’re holding.”

Ouch. I’d gotten so used to bossing grown-ups around that I sometimes forgot I technically wasn’t one myself. Another point for Jordan. How was this happening? I knew she was a master of back-talking her family, but she’d never spoken like that to me before. Now Jordan was sparring with me like… well, like Rachel.

“At least I’m not still in high school!” I shot back at her.

“That’s only something to be proud of if you’ve graduated, dropout.”

“Yeah, well you’re not even old enough to drive.”

“If we’re going by your standards, I’m old enough to drive a stolen truck through a line of trash cans.” She gave me another smirk. “And you can’t blame Tobias for that story; you told it on the Letterman show.”

“You saw me on Letterman? Isn’t he on after your bedtime?” 

For a second, Jordan looked adorably annoyed, but she recovered quickly. 

“I couldn’t miss you presenting Dave’s Top Ten!” She started reciting in a mildly offensive impression of my voice. “And the number one sign that you might be an Animorph is: you avoid traffic jams by morphing into a cheetah!” 

“Oh yes, I remember that one,” said Aaron, catching me off guard. I’d been so focused on Jordan, I’d almost forgotten he was there. “I’m surprised you chose the cheetah, Marco. While it is technically the fastest land animal, they have notoriously poor endurance. I’d think you of all people would know that!”

I held back the urge to roll my eyes. “It was just a joke.”

“Of course it was a joke!” Jordan said brightly, then added, “Just not a very good one.”

“Hey, lots of people said that Top Ten was great!” 

“I’m sure they did! Lots of people like your agent,” she started ticking off her fingers, “your publicist, your flock of brain-dead groupies…”

Oof. I had to pull out all my best acting chops to pretend that arrow hadn’t hit its mark. 

“How about this for a Top Ten sign you might be an Animorph?” I said, my voice sounding more defensive than I would have liked. ”Given the choice between hanging with a horde of murderous Taxxon controllers or an annoying little sister…you’d pick the Taxxons.”

I thought she’d be offended, but instead, Jordan let out a long, genuine laugh. It rippled through her body, followed by a huge grin – the kind of beautiful, hard-earned smile I’d been dreaming about just a few minutes earlier. I smiled back at her, glad to learn that Jordan could take a joke. I couldn’t remember the last girl who’d made me work so hard to win her over. Probably Rachel. But Jordan’s dark, playful eyes were looking at me in a way that Rachel’s never had. 

Jordan wanted me.

Now I realize that I say that about a lot of ladies – after all, most ladies want me. But there was something in Jordan’s gaze that felt deeper than the run-of-the-mill, fame-seeking opportunism that I was used to. Whatever it was, it made me feel all tingly inside. I was grinning like an idiot, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

“How did you get in here?” I finally broke eye contact, grounding myself by staring down at my shoes. “You’re not on the guest list.” 

“Guilty.” She stepped towards me, with her wrists together as if handcuffed. The tops of her fingers grazed against my lower abdomen, and I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through me. “What are you going to do about it, Marco? Lock me up?” 

I looked back up at her face. Dumb move. It was easier to think straight when I was staring at my feet. She really was classic, girl-next-door beautiful. The kind of girl that you dream about bringing home to your family. The kind of girl that any guy would be crazy not to want.

And she wanted me. 

“Jordan!” 

I jumped at the familiar voice. I turned to see Rachel, who had appeared out of nowhere with a human-morphed Tobias in tow. “Quit ditching me, or I’m not bringing you to any more parties,” she snapped at her sister.

“I’ve been right here the whole time,” said Jordan, dropping her arms. 

Rachel looked furious. I couldn’t help but be reminded of an angry grizzly bear, tearing through Hork-Bajir and human controllers like they were made of tissue paper. 

What was I doing?! Jordan was not just some random, unusually self-assured fifteen-year-old. She was crazy Rachel’s little sister! Thank goodness the arrival of the warrior princess herself had snapped me out of my trance.

“Hello, Xena. Bird-boy. Glad you could make it.” I tried to greet them as casually as possible.

“My apologies, Rachel,” said Aaron, who I’d once again had forgotten was there. “I didn’t mean to detain your sister. You know how I get whenever I meet an eager young mind!” Aaron was a good guy, but he was a huge nerd. Jordan probably asked one polite question and was rewarded with a treatise on the psychological development of goats. 

“No apology necessary, Dr. Chesnick,” said Rachel. “Out of all Marco’s friends that I could leave my sister with, you are by far the least horrifying.” Rachel smirked, turning to look at me. I guess she was waiting for a reaction to her insult. I took a second too long before putting on the anticipated response. 

“What are you saying about my guests?” I said in a tone of hopefully-convincing outrage. “This party has more saints than the Superdome.” 

“Yeah right,” she sneered. “Then why did some drunk ding-dong in a FUBU hat just try to grab my ass?”

I must have looked panicked, because Tobias quickly added, “Chill out Marco, your creepy guest is fine. I noticed him before he got close enough to actually touch her.”

“It is not okay!” Rachel grumbled, “He’s lucky I didn’t break his arm.”

Even in human morph, Tobias was still always watching, always alert. He made an impressive effort at stopping Rachel from exploding at mostly-innocent bystanders. Talk about a job from hell! Then again, it’s not like he had anything better to do. Since the war ended, the only thing going on in Tobias’s life was deciding which rodent to eat next. That, and telling Jordan embarrassing stories about me, apparently. 

It’s funny now to think that I used to be jealous of Tobias being Rachel’s full-time lover-bird. I’d long since come to appreciate that Rachel was a beauty best appreciated from a safe distance of at least six feet. 

“Are you all excited for the Animorphs movie premiere next week?” Aaron chimed in, thankfully changing the subject. 

“It’s going to be the premiere of the century!” I jumped on the bandwagon. “You should see the guest list. All the stars are going to be there: Denzel, De Niro, Destiny’s Child. And that’s just the D’s!”

“What about your best friends, Dumb and Dumber?” Rachel asked in a falsely sweet voice. “Will they be there, too?”

“No, but I did invite your favorite role model, Cher from Clueless .” 

“I’m excited to see the Animorph movie,” Jordan piped up before Rachel could retaliate. “I mean, I’ve heard the story a million times, but it will be cool to watch it play out on the big screen, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, who wouldn’t want to watch one of the worst nights of your life displayed on a fifty-foot screen in front of hundreds of people you don’t know,” Tobias said dryly. 

Rachel's face transformed from annoyed to tender as she grabbed Tobias’s hand. “You know we don’t have to go, if you don’t want to.”

“Hey, you already RSVP’d!” I reminded them. “No take-backs.”

“Why do you care so much, anyway?” Rachel sneered at me. “It’s just a stupid movie.”

“Charlie’s Angels was just a stupid movie,” said Jordan, “but I seem to remember a certain big sister making me and Cassie dress up with her to go see it on opening night.” 

Rachel shut her mouth, looking embarrassed. Jordan winked at me. I’d never had Berenson snark on my side of an argument before! Maybe I really had won her over. I studied Jordan again. She did have pretty eyes. And a pretty smile. And amazing dimples; I was always a sucker for dimples. 

If only Rachel’s dimple-less face wasn’t glaring at me like she wanted to rip out my spleen. 

“We’ll be at the premiere,” said Tobias. “If everyone else in the world is going to see a movie about me, I’d rather not be in the dark about it. Besides, I already told Ax that I was coming.”

“Excellent!” I gave Tobias a look of appreciation before taking the opportunity to make my exit. “Well as much fun as this is, I do need to go attend to the rest of my guests. Enjoy the canapés!” My body did a weird little bow and booked it to the other side of the room.

Once I’d reached a safe distance, I glanced back to see Aaron still chatting with Rachel and Tobias. For an animal psychology nerd, Animorphs were the most interesting people on the planet, so they’d probably be there for a while. Jordan was still listening politely, her back turned to me. 

I couldn’t seem to stop my eyes from straying back to Jordan’s sun-kissed shoulders. I let myself take one last lingering look at the figure that had lured me in. I remembered the touch of her fingertips, and couldn’t help but wonder how far those tan-lines extended under her dress…

Rachel looked up and caught me staring. I quickly averted my gaze and headed out onto the veranda. Crisis averted.

I went back to chatting with guests, feeling the comforting reassurance of their fake laughs and empty compliments. I tried to ignore the curiosity that felt almost magnetic in the way it kept drawing my eyes back to the room I’d just left. I grabbed another glass of champagne, steeling my resolve to stay outside. I’d survived the first sixteen years of my life without getting any of the girls that I wanted. Surely I could survive missing out on just one more.

Chapter Text

“Jake!” I shouted as I spotted the head of my annoyingly-tall friend above the crowd of party-goers. At first I figured he must be a hallucination – Jake wasn’t exactly big on parties. But apparently everyone else could see him too, because they parted like the Red Sea to stop and stare as he walked towards me. 

Jake has that effect on people. I’m only a little jealous. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked as he awkwardly accepted my bro-hug. The last time we’d talked on the phone, Jake was off in…well, actually he wouldn’t tell me where he was, but I didn’t think it was in town. 

“Sorry I didn’t call ahead,” he said apologetically. “I had a last-minute change of plans. Is it cool if I crash with you?” 

“You know you’re always welcome,” I said reassuringly. Offering Jake a secure place to stay when he’s in town is the only way to see him regularly, since otherwise I’m left at the mercy of his nonexistent social schedule. “The Jungle Room is finished, if you want to try it out.”

I’d been remodeling each of my guest bedrooms with its own theme, expertly designed after the natural environment of one of my morphs: the Jungle, the Sky, the Savannah, the Arctic, and the Ocean. There’s an upcoming feature in Architectural Digest. 

“Jungle Room sounds fine.”

“How long will you be around?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Depends.”

I would have given him grief about the vague answer, but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere. While I spent my time earning money, making TV, and chasing women, Jake had basically dropped off the face of the Earth. Or at least dropped off the front of the newspapers. The general public thought he was enjoying a nice, early retirement. Really, he was working as some sort of consultant for the FBI, working to take down an underground ring of Yeerk rebels. He couldn't let anyone find out that there were controllers who hadn’t surrendered, lest word get out to the Andalites. You see, if the Andalites found out that there were still nasty Yeerks parasitizing among us, they might go back to their fallback, scorched-earth policy. And I mean that literally. They might scorch Earth. 

Fortunately Jake had his FBI buddies to help keep things under control, which meant that my only job was to keep my mouth shut. It’s not like I loved the idea that there were still Yeerks hiding out there. But after taking down a whole Empire, somehow a few underground stragglers didn’t seem like that big a deal. It wasn’t like before, when the Yeerks had massive infrastructure and an expansion plan. Without spaceships, they were cut off from any resources, just trying to survive. Sooner or later, Jake would find their leader and destroy their only Kandrona. And this time there wouldn’t be a backup. They would surrender their human hosts, or they would starve.

“Seems like a pretty good party,” Jake said appreciatively.  “Better than the last one I was at.”

“Is it? I was just thinking everything seemed awfully dull.” 

“Well, if you want to liven things up, just throw a Snickers bar in the pool like you did back at Darlene’s party,” Jake joked, watching me closely. 

“Baby Ruth, Jake. It was a Baby Ruth. Thanks for playing.”

The Yeerk’s leader – a morph-capable controller named Jason Angelo who had escaped from the Blade Ship – had used my DNA to trick Jake in the past. Since then, Jake was constantly testing me on obscure details about my life. I hated knowing that Jason’s Yeerk could impersonate me whenever he wanted. But it also meant that at some point he was close enough to acquire me, yet decided not to kill or infest me. So I guess there’s a silver lining for you. Unlike Visser One, Jason’s Yeerk seemed perfectly happy to leave me and my family alone. And I wasn’t like Jake, who felt a compulsive need to keep playing hero. I prefer a life where the guys trying to kill me all drop their weapons as soon as the director yells “cut!”

“I’ll be here for a while,” Jake opened up. “Probably a few weeks – maybe longer.” 

“Did you say weeks?! So you’ll be here for the movie premiere!”

Jake rolled his eyes. “I’m not here for a movie premiere, Marco. I’m here to…well, you can guess why I’m here.”

“...to save the world?” I said snarkily.

He smirked. “Something like that. And to check in on Rachel. She said she was coming tonight – have you seen her?”

“Yeah, I just saw Rachel with Tobias and…her sister” It was silly avoiding Jordan’s name, but I didn’t trust myself to say it normally. “

“You mean Jordan?” Jake, of course, didn’t share my aversion. “I guess she told you that they moved.”

“Uh, no. I just figured she was visiting.” I tried not to sound too intrigued by this new development.

“Aunt Naomi’s new firm has an office around here, so she transferred. They’re staying with Rachel for now.”

“Well that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” I said, not bothering to sugar-coat the situation. “I thought Rachel and her Mom were still on the outs?” 

Jake looked guilty. “I had my mom talk Naomi into it. Rachel’s still being…well, you know how she is. She thinks she can do everything on her own. But she needs her family right now, like it or not.”

“You think so?” 

“Cassie thinks so, and you know I trust her on this kind of thing. Rachel needs to remember that there are people who care about her. That there are things in her life that matter more than…you know. The fight.” 

I nodded in agreement. It was kind of ironic that Jake was the one telling Rachel to move on with her life. It’s not like he had! But Jake always cared more about strategy than actual combat, and he could do enough of that from behind a desk. Rachel, on the other hand, would always be an Amazon warrior in designer jeans. Somehow she actually enjoyed jumping into danger, biting and slashing and bleeding until you’re practically dead, then getting up after two hours of sleep to do it all over again. 

After we defeated the Yeerks, Rachel seemed fine for a while. I guess she got caught up in the excitement of celebrity life, the same way I did. But unlike the rush of battle, the rush of fame kind of loses its thrill after a while. I knew she’d had at least one incident lately, but things must have been worse than I thought if Jake was willing to force Rachel’s family back into the picture. 

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Jordan. It had to suck, moving again after everything she’d been through. I wondered if Jordan had someone she could talk to about it. Someone who could cheer her up, make her laugh…

“Marco? Did I lose you?” Jake looked bemused. 

“Sorry, I thought I saw someone,” I lied hastily. “So Jordan is here, like, permanently?” My voice cracked. Oh man, did I blow it. I could see the sudden alarm on Jake’s face.

“Don’t even think about it, Marco.”

“Think about what? I was just thinking how nice that will be for Rachel. Maybe having family around will make her slightly less insane. Or more insane. You have met her mother, right?” 

“You just saw Jordan,” he said knowingly. 

When did my favorite dumb jock get so perceptive? I tried to play it cool. “So what?”

“So, I know you. She’s grown up a lot since the last time you saw her.”

“Has she? I didn’t notice.” I don’t know why I even bothered lying, because Jake saw right through me.

“Yeah right. There are enough girls here that aren’t related to me, why don’t you go make one of them your next victim.” 

I put on one I hoped was a hurt face. “Careful there, Jake or I might think you don’t want me as part of the family. Is this still because of what I said to your Grandma at Thanksgiving? She’s the one who wouldn’t stop telling stories about the Mayflower. Why would she do that if she didn’t want people to think she’d actually been a passenger on the Mayflower herself?”

Jake snorted. “Much to Grandma Betty’s displeasure, I would love to have you in the family. If you’re ready to marry Jordan – the whole forsaking all others, til death do us part – I’m all for it.”

“Jake, you’re the only famous guy I know who’s crazy enough to tie yourself down like that at our age. Well, you and Macaulay Culkin. But definitely not me.” 

Since becoming a global hero, I could get almost any girl I wanted. But Jake was tall and officially recognized as the world’s biggest badass – he could get any any girl. All of the girls. At the same time, probably. And he couldn’t care less, because he only had eyes for poop-scoopin’ Cassie, his one true love. 

“Well if you’re not ready to officially join the family, then I guess you better keep your paws to yourself.” Jake said it playfully, but I could feel the seriousness underneath. “I have enough to deal with without you causing drama. And I can still kick your butt if I have to, monkey-boy.” 

“Well in the completely hypothetical scenario that I go anywhere near Jordan, by the time Rachel’s grizzly is done with me, there wouldn’t be anything left of my butt for you to kick.”

Jake’s smile turned grim. “I know you’re kidding, but that’s not what Rachel needs to hear right now. She needs to know that her friends have her back. She needs you, Marco. You were always the one to lift us up when things got too heavy. Just because we’re not a team like old times… it doesn’t mean we can just forget about each other.”

I should have said something sarcastic, but I guess the champagne had me feeling a little sappy. I grabbed his hand and pulled him into another bro-hug that lasted about ten seconds longer than it should have. 

“Okay, enough of that,” I said as I released him. “You go get yourself some caviar, and I’m going to go ask…” I looked around for the first girl I could find. “...that redhead over there if she wants to check out the new wallpaper in my bedroom.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I don’t need luck, Jake. But thanks anyway.”

* * * 

I did try talking to the redhead. It turned out she had a boyfriend. Oh well. On the whole, it hadn’t been one of my best parties. By eleven-thirty, everyone had either gone home or moved on to a better venue. Technically, I guess Jake was still around, but he didn’t even make it past ten before disappearing into his new bedroom. 

It was my own fault the party fizzled out. I wasn’t the best host for the rest of the night, distracted by avoiding Jordan and thinking about everything Jake had said. 

Considering how much our lives had changed after the war, I was still pretty close with the other Animorphs. 

Jake would always be my best friend. 

Cassie was my best friend’s girl. 

Ax was my old roommate, who still considered me his go-to for pop-culture questions and spontaneous trips to Cinnabon. 

And Tobias…okay, if it weren’t for the others, I would probably never see Tobias again, and neither of us would be particularly sad about it. 

But Rachel. Crazy, gorgeous Rachel. What was Rachel to me? I didn’t crave her the way I used to. I’d dallied with enough adventurous, leggy blondes in my first month of Animorph fame to scratch that particular itch! But it was hard not to care about Rachel. Sure, she was a loose cannon, but there were times that she’d been there for me when no one else was. Nowadays, most of the people in my life would be happy to push me off a bridge if they thought it would help their career. Rachel, I could call in the middle of the night and ask her to push someone off a bridge for me, and she would do it without even asking why. You can’t buy loyalty like that. Like… family. Family who care about each other, who look after each other… who don’t try to hook up with each other’s little sisters just because all of the other prospects out there are boring. 

Was that all there was to my interest in Jordan Berenson? Boredom? I was bored by just about everything lately. Before Jordan showed up, it had been months since I’d been actually excited by any girl. I was like one of those crackheads that couldn’t appreciate a good old-fashioned tryst with Mary Jane anymore. 

I heard my phone buzz once, indicating a new text message. It was kind of late, and the message was from a new number. 

Well that was suspicious. The most likely scenario was that some smelly basement-dweller had bought my phone number off of the dark web. But I guessed I could use a distraction. 

I tried to remember all the girls I’d met lately, but they all kind of blurred together. Only one really stood out. I felt a dangerous bubble of hope and decided to go out on a limb.

Well that settled it. Helloooo Jordan. I should have been annoyed. That’s how you’re supposed to feel when your friend’s little sister steals your number and starts sending you cryptic text messages, right? Annoyed. Not excited. Not like some weird little insect has started burrowing in your gut. 

“I’m just being a friend,” I said out loud, as if Jake were there in the room, openly judging me. “I’m not doing anything wrong.” 

It was just some stupid messages. How could Jordan know what I’d been thinking about her? She’d barely moved to a new town. She was probably texting me because she was lonely! I was someone to talk to until she settled in and made some friends her own age. That’s all. No harm in being friendly to my friend’s little sister as she adjusted to her new home.

This was going to be harder than I thought. I couldn’t be too flirty. Did I even know how to have a conversation without being flirty? Maybe it was best to quit while I was ahead.

“Ugggh!” I groaned as I flopped down on my bed. I threw my phone across the room. It slammed pretty hard into a bookshelf, but that was okay – it takes more than solid oak to hurt a Nokia. 

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” I said out loud to myself again. “Rachel can’t be mad at me just for talking. I’m just being a friend.”

Maybe if I repeated it enough times, I’d start to believe it was true.

Chapter Text

That was the first night I dreamed about Jordan. It didn’t exactly make her special – I’d had plenty of similar dreams about Carmen Electra. Except that in my dreams about Carmen, we were never interrupted by Rachel showing up in Hork-Bajir morph to slice off one of my favorite body parts. Not my usual brand of nightmare, but still plenty terrifying. 

It was almost noon when I finally rolled out of bed. I was on my way to the kitchen when I saw Jake in my study, sitting at the executive desk with an open laptop and several piles of boring-looking files. He was wearing a button-up shirt, sipping a mug of coffee, and looking, oh, about thirty-seven years old. 

“You should use a coaster,” I said, sounding dangerously middle-aged myself. “That desk is an antique.”

He gave me an apologetic look. “Is it cool that I’m set up in here? I’ll head to the field office later, but I wanted to review some files first. I figured you wouldn’t be up early.”

“It’s Saturday, Jake. You’re supposed to sleep in on Saturday. That’s what Saturdays are for. And of course you can use the office. Mi casa es su casa.”

“Thanks. Are you hungry? I could go for some lunch, if you’re not busy.”

“Do I look busy?”

“I mean, I didn’t know if you had,” he hesitated, turning an embarrassing shade of red, “you know – company.” 

“Nah, I couldn’t find anyone worth my time,” I said in an attempt at nonchalance.

He raised an eyebrow, “Don’t tell me you’re developing standards.”

“What do you mean?! I’ve always had standards.”

“Yeah right. I haven’t forgotten about you and that mutant fish girl.” 

“Hey, that doesn’t count! I thought we were all about to die. And besides, she was a hot mutant fish girl. I hear she recently signed a modeling contract with Lobster Vuitton.”

I got an actual laugh out of him. It was brief, but I still counted it as a victory. Unlike my “flock of brain-dead groupies” , my war-broken best friend was a tough audience lately.

“So you’re free for lunch?” Jake followed up.

“Yeah. Are you going to let me pick the restaurant, or are we going to In-N-Out?” For a mysterious, super-secret-agent man, Jake was pretty predictable when it came to food. 

“Actually there’s this new place I want to try,” he said eagerly. “I can drive.”

“Yeah, sure.” I tried not to act like it was a big deal, him being all gung-ho about some restaurant, but it was definitely weird. Any sign that Jake cared about anything other than Yeerks was a good thing. We went outside, where for some reason there was a forest-green Pontiac Grand Am sitting in my driveway. Jake pulled out his keys and opened the driver side door.

“Um, Jake? Have you taken any blows to the head lately?” I asked. “You seem to have forgotten that you are the owner of a red Jaguar XKR 100 Convertible.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said as he sat in the driver seat. “The Jag is in my parent’s garage.”

“And why, pray tell, does the Jag sit in the garage while you drive this travesty?” I sat in the passenger seat and looked at the dash. “Oh my god, Jake, it doesn’t even have a CD player!” 

He just shrugged. “I don’t need a CD player. I don’t really listen to music much. And this is a better car for getting around town. Less conspicuous.”

“You bought the most hideous car I’ve ever seen because you want to be less conspicuous? Come on, Jake, you know that this is overcompensating. If the Jag is too much, you could at least get something that’s not totally embarrassing. What about that Jeep you’ve always talked about?”

“Maybe someday,” he said noncommittally.

“You’re not poor, are you?” I blurted out. “You’d tell me if you were poor.”

“I am not poor!” he scowled at me. “I get a…what’s it called? A stipend.” 

“How much of a stipend?”

“I don’t know. Enough, I guess. It’s never been a problem.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

We spent another ten minutes arguing about money, then basketball, then cars again, before reviving a longstanding debate about how many Peeps a person could eat before their stomach would explode. It was one of those rare conversations since the war ended where it actually felt like having my old friend back. If it weren’t for the town-car full of security personnel that was obviously tailing us, we could have been two normal bros hanging out. 

Finally, Jake pulled into an abandoned gas station. 

“Did we miss it?” I asked, waiting for him to turn around, but he put the car in park.

“No, we’re still a couple of miles away. I just wanted to stop so we can morph. I asked the security team to keep their distance, so we can’t go in as ourselves.” Jake’s voice was already changing as he started his morph. His hair was turning blond and growing long. A scraggly goatee covered his now-pointy chin. He didn’t look any shorter, but his bulk definitely thinned. The morph looked weirdly out of place in Jake’s button-up, which he quickly removed, leaving only a tank top.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Like you’re about to pull out a joint and start ranting about the man. Where are we going, Cheech and Chong’s house?”

“Not exactly, but the restaurant is a little… alternative. You have a morph that will work?”

I sighed and started a change of my own. All of us had human morphs, now that we could get Cassie-approved consent from the DNA-owners. Morphing human was the best way to go out in public without being followed by fans or paparazzi. I didn’t have any hippies in my arsenal, but I had a surfer dude who would do the trick. 

It was strange how morphing another human could be so much less gross than morphing a bug, yet in some ways more disturbing. Physically, the changes were minor – I felt some muscles shifting around slightly, my browline growing more prominent, my legs extending an inch or two. But there was something eerie about feeling the presence of another set of human instincts in your brain. All of the input that my own brain would normally be overanalyzing was suddenly hijacked by an urge to go hit some waves. Jake nodded in approval and pulled back out into traffic. 

After getting stuck at what felt like ten more red lights, we pulled into an average-looking shopping center and parked again. “This is it,” Jake said. 

I could only see one restaurant nearby. It was a trendy-looking bistro nestled between a Vitamin Shoppe and a Tanning Salon, a place called…

“Veggie Haven?!” the name spilled out of my mouth in a wave of disgust. 

Jake just shrugged. “They’re supposed to have good falafel.”

“Don’t you get all Zagat Guide on me – I’m the cultured one here! Do you even know what falafel is?”

He looked annoyed. “Of course I know what falafel is! It looks like meatballs and comes in a pita thing. I had it in Europe.”

“Ok, Rick Steves. What do you think your precious falafel is made of, if they sell it in a place called Veggie Haven? It’s probably eighty percent brussels sprout.”

“No, it isn’t! It’s made of this mushy brown stuff that’s…um…not meat.” He blushed. “Who cares what it’s made of? It tastes fine.”

“Jake, I zero-percent believe that we drove for forty minutes in the world’s ugliest sedan because you actually want to eat at this hippie dump. What’s going on? Are you trying to out-vegan Cassie’s other boyfriend?” Jake blushed even deeper, and I regretted bringing it up. He hated it when I mentioned the guy that Cassie had replaced him with in her pre-Time Matrix life – some Boy Scout named Ronnie Chambers who probably had a Veggie Haven punch card. 

“Maybe I just want to try something new!” Jake rallied. “Come on, Marco. You’re an Animorph! Don’t tell me Hollywood’s made you so soft that you’re afraid of vegetables now.” Despite my protests and my Ronnie reference, Jake was still in a good mood. A disconcertingly good mood.

“I’m going to regret this,” I grumbled. At least I had chosen the right morph – Surfer dude wasn’t concerned about going into Veggie Haven. He thought it seemed like a good place to chill. I leaned into the morph. “Let's go! Before they run out of falafel and we’re stuck eating turnip tacos.”

I made about fifteen more vegetable-themed puns as we waited in line and ordered our food. Jake didn’t laugh at any of them, but I did at least get a smile out of the heavily-tattooed cashier. I ended up getting a falafel wrap and sweet potato fries. It wasn’t bad. Not as good as In-N-Out, but not bad. 

“You’ve got something in your teeth.” Jake said as I finished picking at my fries. 

“Where?” I sucked on my teeth, then smiled wide. “Did I get it?” 

“No, it’s still there. You should stop and check in the mirror before we leave, otherwise it could get stuck worse when you morph. That happened to me once with some popcorn.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked, then added, “I’d morph to fly and follow the smell of poop, but I’d hate to accidentally end up in the kitchen.” The falafel may not have been bad, but that didn’t mean I was ready to give up on a running gag.

“I saw the sign over there. Come on, I have to pee anyway,” Jake said as he stood up and headed towards a partially-obscured hallway. 

Unthinkingly, I followed him. And as soon as we were in the hallway, hidden from the other Veggie Haven patrons, I felt myself being suddenly yanked into a dark closet.

“Umm…Jake? I don’t think this is the bathroom.”

“I know. I lied about you having something in your teeth. I just needed you to follow me without causing a scene.”

“Cause a scene, me?” My voice was noticeably higher. “I wouldn’t cause a scene, Jake. Unless, of course, you want me to do something very, very stupid.”

“We just need to morph something small, go through that vent right there, and look at some stuff on the other end. There’s space behind me here to hide our shoes.”

Not even my blazed-out surfer dude brain could protect me from panicking at those words.

Have you ever been terrified? Not the fun kind of fear that you get from going to a haunted house or watching I Know What You Did Last Summer. I mean the type of bone-deep fear that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs while simultaneously peeing your pants. The kind of terror that I was far too familiar with. I didn’t know exactly what kind of nightmare was waiting on the other side of that vent, but I was pretty sure it didn’t involve Jennifer Love Hewitt. 

“No! No, Jake, I don’t do this stuff anymore. I’m retired. And not like Michael Jordan retired, actually retired.”

“Look, it’s not even a big deal," he said. "We’ll be in and out – five, ten minutes, tops.”

“If it wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have tricked me into coming here.”

Jake sighed. “Okay, it is a big deal. This vent connects to a store on the other side of the shopping center, and I think Jason might be using it as a distribution hub, like the one we found back in Sacramento.”  

“Remind me again what happened in Sacramento? I seem to remember you being almost crushed to death by an angry rhinoceros.”

“This won’t be like that. I just want to scope the place out.”

“Well then, golly gee, what could possibly go wrong if you just want to scope the place out?” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

Why on earth had I ever complained about being bored? Being bored was wonderful. Being bored was the best. I hadn’t even agreed to go with Jake yet, and already I missed being bored. 

The only light in the closet was from the small gap at the bottom of the door. I couldn’t see the frown on Jake’s face, but I could tell he was shaking his head. “Marco, I need your help. Are you coming or not?”

I didn’t say anything right away. He already knew what my answer would be, the big, stupid jerk. The least I could do was make him sweat it out for a few seconds. Finally I let out a sigh of my own and started to demorph. “You owe me. Big time.”

“I owe you big time. Now let’s go, fly-boy. We need to move fast.”

I was grateful for the darkness that saved me from watching a proboscis shoot out from my face. I couldn’t see the little hairs sprouting from my arms and legs, or the extra pair of legs sprouting from my torso. Unfortunately, the darkness didn’t do anything to block out the gushing noise of my organs sloshing around and disappearing underneath my hardening exoskeleton. At least you can’t feel sick to your stomach when you no longer have a stomach! 

As soon as my morph was complete, I headed up to the vent where another fly was waiting. 

<You know, you still haven’t told me what we’re supposed to be looking for,> I pointed out to him.

<The shop is called GigaFix PC Repair,> Jake explained as I followed him through a maze of ductwork. <We have an identified controller who stopped by twice in just a few weeks, supposedly to get his computer fixed. We’re just taking a look around to see if we can find anything suspicious. I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, and you’re the best figuring this kind of thing out.>

<You can drop the flattery, dude. I’m already here,> I grumbled, praying we didn’t run into any spiderwebs or rats or other awful things that hide in dark, dusty ductwork. 

<This should be the place,> Jake said abruptly after about a minute. He must have been counting vents, because this one looked the same as all the others. <Let’s go.>

We emerged into a well-lit, cluttered workshop. Every surface was covered with cables, tools, and various computer parts. It would have looked messy enough with human eyes, let alone through fly vision. 

<Does anything look unusual to you?> Jake asked after we completed a few laps around the room, flying low over the workbenches.

<Yeah. Everything is broken into hundreds of little pictures, and half of them are purple.>

<You know what I mean. Do you see anything suspicious? I don’t even know what most of this stuff is.>

I stopped to get a closer look at some of the deconstructed machines. I wasn’t a total expert in computer repair, but after living with my dad and Ax, I knew enough. I knew a lot more than Jake, at least. I zoomed over to the shelves and saw the kind of things you’d expect: motherboards, RAM, replacement monitors. Nothing unusual. 

<Looks peachy keen to me. Let’s go home!>

Of course I wouldn’t get off that easy. <What about the storage racks, over in the corner to the left?> Jake asked.

I flew over to the corner. The shelves were full of old computers of every shape and size. <Is it me, or does this guy have way too many old eMachine towers,> I thought out loud. <Someone needs to order a dumpster.>

<What’s wrong with eMachines?>

<Nothing, if you’re an old man who just wants to play Minesweeper and read chain emails. I swear these things max out at like 32 Megabytes of RAM. And that was even before all the new Andalite tech started trickling down! Why would this guy be holding onto so many of them?> 

I landed on the face of one of the towers and used my giant eye-covered head to push against the floppy drive door. It didn’t budge. Then again, I weighed about as much as an m&m, so that didn’t necessarily mean much. I flew over to the PCI slots and tried again to get inside the machine. I made it about a centimeter into the opening when I hit a hard, metallic wall that definitely was not supposed to be there. I checked a couple more of the eMachines and encountered the same resistance.

<Oh fearless leader? I think these are the droids we are looking for.>

<What do you mean?>

<They aren’t computers. It’s just the shell, covering some kind of container inside. And I bet you a metric ton of falafel I can guess what’s inside that container.>

<Portable Kandrona,> he said, sounding smug all of a sudden.

<It’s the right size. I don’t know how we can confirm without morphing, though. This fly is great at scouting poop, but not so good at breaking through steel.>

<It’s okay, this is enough for now. Let’s just head back.>

<Don’t have to tell me twice!> I cheered as I zoomed back towards the vent. Who would have known I could be so overjoyed to be heading back to Veggie Haven.

<See, Marco? That wasn’t so bad, was it?> Jake teased. 

I groaned internally. <Don’t say that! It’s tempting fate. As soon as you say that something wasn’t bad, it means something bad is going to happen.> As if to prove my point, we were just a few feet from the vent when a man entered the room. Fortunately he was walking while talking on the phone, and he didn’t seem to notice two little flies zooming into his air vent.

<Hold up,> Jake said, stopping to rest on one of the vent slats. <I want to listen.>

The voice came in a rush of strange vibrations, but we’d clocked more than enough spy-time in fly morph to be able to interpret it. 

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you,” the repair shop guy said into the phone. “Doc didn’t show up for his package this morning.” 

There was a long pause where he was obviously listening intently, but the phone volume was too low for me to understand anything.

“That could put me in a precarious situation,” he said suddenly, sounding worried. “Doc was just here last week. What do I say if they start asking questions?”

Another pause, then a sigh of acceptance.

“No, I’m not going to…Yes, sir, I understand that our primary objective right now is the Y-K Project…Yes, sir. I’ll make sure the package is available for the new customer.” He ended the call before muttering. “As if I have a choice! You better not screw this up again, traitor scum.”

<So I’m going to take a wild guess that this guy’s a controller,> I said to Jake. <I mean, traitor scum? Sounds like he’s mad about more than an unpaid invoice.>

<Mmmm,> Jake agreed.

We waited a minute to see if the guy would say anything else, but he just sat down at one of the workbenches and started messing with one of the computers.

<Time to go,> Jake said curtly as he took off flying back down the ductwork.

We made it back to the restaurant without incident, and nobody seemed to notice that the bearded hippie guy and the surfer dude had disappeared into the broom closet together for fifteen minutes before slipping out the front door. Or if they had noticed, at least they had the tact not to say anything about it.

“That really wasn’t so bad, was it?” I said once we were back in the safety of Jake’s ugly car. “For once, you were actually right: in and out. Find some Kandrona, do a little eavesdropping, identify a new controller. Badda-bing, badda-boom. No swatting, no being chased by spiders or rats or insecticide. You know, after all the crazy dangerous stuff we did, I forgot how much of Animorphing was just long, uneventful hours of surveillance.”

“Mmmm.” Jake made another noise to pretend he was listening.

“Sounds like there might be some trouble in Yeerk paradise though. What do you think this “Y-K Project” stands for? Yellow Kite? Youthful Kangaroo? Maybe it’s project Yippee-Kiyay – this Yeerk is a huge Die-Hard fan, and it’s a plot to meet Bruce Willis.”

“Mmmhmm,” Jake muttered again without taking his eyes off the road. 

“So when are you going after this computer guy?” I asked.

“What?” Jake asked. I guess he was listening just enough to realize that I’d stopped rambling and asked a real question. 

“When are you going to go after the guy at the shop? You’re going to save him, right?”

“You let me worry about that,” Jake replied solemnly.

I didn’t get it. Jake was the one who wanted to scope the place out, and as far as I could tell, the mission was a rousing success. So why did Jake look like he was on his way to a funeral?

I could have asked him. Maybe he would tell me what had him so caught up in his own head. But despite what I had just helped him with, Jake and I lived in two different worlds. And the more I knew about Jake’s world, the further in danger I was of getting sucked into it. 

I turned on the radio, flipping through endless commercials, oldies music, and talk radio before settling on the latest upbeat boy band garbage to take over the airwaves.

Jake was wrong about one thing: his car really, really needed a CD player.

Chapter Text

Once Jake and I got back to my house, he disappeared into the office to make some phone calls. I had my butler bring me a Diet Coke, and I was back to sweet, predictable boredom. I started slogging through the mountain of emails and text messages that always flooded my inbox after a party: polite networking thank-yous, invites to hang out with people that I didn’t care about, updates from my publicist about my constantly-changing schedule. Nothing particularly interesting. 

I reached the end of my new messages and saw the text I’d gotten from Jordan the night before. Finally, something worth my attention! I decided to text her back. 

I guess she was happy to hear from me, since she responded right away. I wondered if Jordan had spent last night dreaming about me, too… Probably shouldn’t ask that question though. I picked something decidedly less sexy. 

Good. After the whole Veggie Haven episode, I couldn’t help but worry that Jordan might share her sister’s enthusiasm for intermittent bouts of vegetarianism. 

Not that it matters, my inner cynic piped up. It’s not like you and Jordan are going on any lunch dates together. He had a point. Really, the more un-crushworthy traits I learned about Jordan, the better. Maybe some little quirk about her would be sufficiently repulsive to squash my nighttime fantasies.

Unfortunately, with every question she answered, the dangerous fluttering in my stomach only got worse. Jordan had perfect answers to everything: she rooted for the right sports teams, hated the right celebrities, and watched all the right TV shows. We even had the same favorite Teletubby! 

I spent at least fifteen minutes trying and failing to come up with a response when I heard a voice.

“Hey, Marco, can we talk?” 

It was Jake! I jerked upright and quickly stashed my phone in my pocket. Not that Jake would look at my phone, but still. Even if I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong , I didn’t love the idea of him finding out I was chatting up Jordan after he told me to back off. 

“What’s up?” I asked casually.

Jake sat down next to me, wearing his go-to serious face. “You know Dr. Aaron Chesnick? He was at the party last night.” 

“Do I know my friend Aaron who I invited to my party?” I tried to layer enough sarcasm that Jake might miss the panic in my voice. It seemed too much of a coincidence that Jake would mention the one person who had seen me drooling over Jordan. Could Aaron have said something?

Jake let out a depressed sigh. “Of course. Sorry, I’m no good at this kind of thing. What I’m trying to say is that your friend Aaron is…well, he’s dead .”

My head snapped towards him. That was definitely not the announcement I’d been expecting. “What do you mean, dead? I just saw him last night! Why do you think he’s dead?”

Jake looked down. “The cops just got into his apartment about an hour ago, on a welfare check. They found his body. Said it looked like an overdose, sometime late last night.”

“An overdose?” I was still skeptical. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Aaron?”

Jake looked at me meaningfully. “Yes. Dr. Aaron Chesnick. He wasn’t exactly the person you thought he was.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

Jake hesitated, looking guilty. “Are you sure you really want to know? I know today I dragged you into things, and it wasn’t fair of me to do that. So now I’m giving you a choice. If I tell you what’s going on with Aaron, there’s no going back. If you’re in, you’re in .”

He sounded so genuine that I almost believed him. Maybe he really did want to give me the chance to walk away. Or maybe this was another game. With Jake, it’s impossible to tell anymore when you’re a friend and when you’re just another chess piece. Either way, I had two options: I could ignore him and move on with my life, or I could throw caution to the wind and let Jake drag my sorry butt back into nightmare-land.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Pretty bad,” he admitted. 

“Too bad for you and the feds to handle without me?”

“Yes,” he said unironically. “Agent Chalmers and his team are great at certain things, but they have all these rules…and they can’t even morph! We keep hitting dead ends. Sometimes I feel like if I just had the old team back…maybe we could figure it out.”

See, I was right about tempting fate. Because fate knew that no matter how scared I was, I would never leave Jake hanging. 

“Alright, Morpheus, gimme the red pill!“ I flinched in anticipation. “I hear that dying of natural causes is massively overrated anyway.” 

Jake looked the slightest bit relieved. “Dr. Chesnick was the controller we tracked to the computer shop.”

“Wrong!” I said confidently. “Aaron’s not a controller! He didn’t even move here until after the war was over. And even if the Yeerks had somehow infested him in backwoods Wisconsin, Aaron was in Africa this summer for like two months on some field trip studying elephants. I saw the pictures! He’d need a whole truckload of Kandrona for something like that.” 

I knew all of the excuses why Aaron couldn’t be a controller, because no one made it into my inner social circle without them. It cost me a fortune in Private Eye fees, but the price was more than worth it to be sure that I wasn’t surrounded by mind-stealing slugs.

“None of that matters anymore,” said Jake. “He was only infested a couple of weeks ago.”

Jake was right: this was bad bad.

“You said you were tracking old controllers that went into hiding. No one ever said anything about the Yeerks infesting new hosts.”

“They aren’t. At least not very often – they don’t have the resources for breeding more Yeerks, or feeding more controllers. But the closer we get to Jason’s Kandrona distribution network, the trickier he gets. If he thinks I’m onto one of his controller’s identities, he’ll have the Yeerk dispose of their host and infest a new one.”

“ Dispose of ?” I didn’t want to believe it. “Is that supposed to be a nice, friendly way of saying that Aaron was murdered?”

Jake wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry about your friend. Jason has gotten very serious about loose ends. There’s nothing I could have done to stop it.” 

“Really? Because it sounds like you found out Aaron was a controller, and instead of rescuing him, you tailed him, hoping he would give you a lead on the Kandrona supply.” I felt an anger bubbling up inside me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I couldn't block out the image of Aaron’s friendly, eager face as he listened to my stories. He always loved it when I told stories. Not in a sycophantic way, either. Over the last year, he’d been one bright spot of honesty in a sea of flattering lies. 

A bright spot that Jake had stood aside and let the Yeerks stomp into nothing. 

“It’s not like that,” Jake said fiercely. “The way that Dr. Chesnick died…” There was an uncomfortable silence as Jake figured out how to put the horrible truth into words. “It happens the same way to every controller that we identify. It doesn’t matter what we do! Even if we take them into custody, try and starve the Yeerk out…they fall asleep, and they don’t wake up. Just like Aaron did last night in his own home. Jason’s Yeerk is smarter about security than Visser Three ever was. If you’re infested, there’s no coming back.”

“No, that’s…” I stopped. That’s what ? Too awful to be true? Too evil, even for Yeerks? 

I thought about back when my mom was a controller. I’d never stopped dreaming that we could capture her somehow, starve out her Yeerk, get her back. It was horrible to think about that hope disappearing. If instead of crying Free or Dead, all you could hope for was just Dead .   

“So the guy we saw in the computer shop…you can’t save him, can you?”

Jake shook his head. “No. Best we can do is try to make sure that he doesn’t die in vain. You heard what he said – Doc didn’t show up for his package. As in Doctor Chesnick. Aaron. So if there’s a new customer, Aaron’s Yeerk must have found a new host. I have my team doing their best to run surveillance on the shop from a distance until we can figure out who it is.”

“Why, so you can watch the new controller drop dead, too?” I said with so much bitterness that it shocked me a little. “I don’t get it Jake, this feels like check-mate. What’s the point in trying to save these hosts if they’re already doomed? Maybe you should just drop it. Go on vacation. Let Jason’s Yeerk and his buddies die of old age with the rest of us.” 

It was harsh, but it was true. Was that the reason Jake wanted to bring me in all of a sudden? Because he knew that out of all the Animorphs, only I would validate the cold, bleak reality of the situation. 

“I promised Ax that I would get the Yeerk situation on Earth under control,” Jake said unconvincingly. 

“So leave them alone! As long as they don’t go public, who cares? If they aren’t spreading, Ax won’t know the difference. We’re talking about what, a hundred controllers? Two hundred? If what you say is true, these people are already doomed.”

“They’re not doomed! Once we have the Kandrona, the Yeerks will surrender. The hosts will be free.”

“Or, more likely, you track down the Kandrona, Jason’s Yeerk busts out his Magic Yeerk Kool-Aid, and the hosts all die anyway.”

“I have to try. I can’t just do nothing!”

“Right, because then you wouldn’t be Mighty Jake the Yeerk-Killer anymore, would you?”

For a second I thought he might hit me, but instead he let out a dry laugh. “At least you finally figured out what the Y-K Project stands for.” 

“I knew you knew what it meant,” I grumbled. “What do you mean, though? The Y-K Project stands for…the Yeerk Killer project?”

“Jake the Yeerk-Killer,” he said with a surprising, almost Rachel-like swagger. “That’s their top priority: they want me dead. I mean, of course they’ve always wanted me dead, but lately they’ve been getting, I dunno…more organized about it,” he said with a shrug. “You heard what the controller said  – I’m Jason’s top priority. In a way, it’s a good thing. This is personal for him, and he’s not thinking clearly. He’s started making mistakes, infesting people he shouldn’t. People that he thinks might get him close to me. Close to you.”

I felt my chest tighten. “My parents…”

Jake shook his head emphatically. “I’m not letting him get anyone from our families. Not this time. Your parents are the easiest to keep safe, actually. They live too far from Jason’s infrastructure – he wouldn’t be able to keep them fed. The rest of us have to rely on 24/7 surveillance to prevent any chance of infestation.”

“And who exactly are you including in the rest of us ?”

“My family. My core team from the FBI. Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias. And their families, of course.” He paused. “Plus some other people, for logistical reasons. No one you need to worry about.” 

“Seriously? Who else were you planning on telling? Your barber? Your dog-walker? Baby Spice? You didn’t think that maybe I would like to know that the Yeerks are trying to infest people around me in order to murder you? I mean, you stay at my house! What about my security team?”

He looked guilty again. “They were included under logistical reasons .”

“Seriously?!” I yelled at him, followed by a few choice swear words. How could Jake go so far to protect everyone, just to leave me out like some ignorant idiot? 

“Look, Marco, you’re the one who said you didn’t want to be involved! So I didn’t involve you. Your house already has the best private security on the planet, and you’re under 24/7 surveillance anyway, unless you fly off. You and your parents are safe. Everything else was need-to-know, and you said you didn’t need to know.”

“Right,” I said bitterly. Of course I hadn’t wanted to know. Because knowing meant being part of Jake’s team. And being on Jake’s team means that every day is a new adventure, and every adventure might be your last.

“Anyway, I said what I needed to say,” Jake mumbled. “I’m heading to the office now. There’s lots to coordinate. I’ll probably be back late.”

He was almost out the door when I called after him. “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

I wanted to yell at him, to make him suffer for dumping this all on me just to blow me off again. But looking at him, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, all of my anger just kind of bled out. 

“You didn’t really think you could beat these guys without me, did you?” I said with a razor-thin veneer of cockiness. “We all know I’m the brains behind this operation. I’m the secret to your success, the Milli to your Vanilli. And you thought you’d be able to wrap these slugs up without me? Inconceivable.”

He gave me a small grin. “You’re right, Marco. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Chapter Text

As soon as Jake left, I could stop pretending that I wasn’t totally freaking out. 

How dumb was I to think that I was ever getting out of this whole alien mess? That the main event was over, I was home free, and Jake had the clean-up under control. Jake was just a stupid kid! I’d spent the last year so deep in spreading pro-Animorph propaganda that I’d somehow forgotten the truth. 

The Yeerks were still among us, hiding, ready to strike. Maybe they couldn’t take over the world, but they could steal the bodies of my friends and family, trap them in living hell, and then discard them like an old pair of socks. As bothered as I was that Dr. Chesnick had been a controller, it bothered me even more how easily they killed him, like he was nothing. I was a fool to think that the straggler Yeerks were just trying to lie low and survive. You’d think by now I would have learned not to underestimate my enemy.

I was supposed to attend a couple of events that evening, but I was too wound up. I texted my assistant that I wasn’t feeling well and told her to make some excuses for me. I didn’t want to go to a party. I didn’t even want to go outside, where every fly in the air and ant on the ground could be Jason – that controller who maybe wasn’t oh so willing to leave me alone, after all. I wanted to be nice and safe in my giant house, surrounded by guaranteed-yeerk-free armed bodyguards and black-market Gleet Bio-Filters. 

I sent Weatherby home early. I hated being alone, but I didn’t really want to be around anyone. Was my butler being monitored against infestation, too? He must be, if Jake was willing to stay in the house with him. I should have just asked my head of security, but I didn’t really want to talk to him either. 

The only person I really wanted to talk to was my mom. I pulled out my phone, but I couldn’t bring myself to call her. My mom is the strongest person I know, but she’d already been through too much for me to worry her with all of this. After years of slavery and torture, she finally had her old life back. A better life, really. She’d gone from being a regular ‘ole housewife to one of the world’s leading specialists in spaceflight and alien technology. She was a keystone, along with my dad, in taking mankind to zero-space! I was proud of her, even if I didn’t get to see her much because of it. At least for once, I had a reason to be happy that my parents were way the hell out in Cape Canaveral. 

I was still trying to figure out what to do when my phone buzzed in my hand. It was another text from Jordan. Based on what Jake had said, Jason wouldn’t be able to have her infested, at least. Jordan was safe. 

…If it really was Jordan texting me! 

Aaron was a controller, and he’d seen me talking to Jordan at the party. He knew about our little duck joke. What if the person texting me hadn’t been Jordan at all? What if it really was some guy in a basement – some controller, laughing his ass off at how easy I’d been to lure into his little trap.

Before I could stop myself, my fingers were already pressing the call button. 

“Hello?” It was definitely Jordan’s voice. I felt my stomach unclench a little. Then I tried to figure out what to say in order to not sound like a paranoid lunatic. Oh hi, Jordan. I just called because I thought I was being catfished by a Yeerk. 

“Um…hi. It’s Marco.”   

“Yeah, I know. I’m the one who got your number, remember?”

“I do remember. How did you manage that, anyway?”

“Got it from Rachel’s phone. All I had to do was figure out her secret contact name for you. It wasn’t too hard to decipher.”

“What was it? Mr. Handsome, maybe, or The Cute Funny One.”

“Close! It’s actually Annoying Short One.”

“Rude!” I said, mentally taking back every nice thing I ever thought about Rachel. “What kind of a nickname is that? I am practically average-sized. It’s not my fault that Rachel’s eight-and-a-half feet tall!”

“Hey don’t blame the messenger,” said Jordan. 

“Why would you think Annoying Short One was me anyway? Rachel knows people shorter and more annoying than me.”

“Like who?” she teased.

“Plenty of people! The guy who plays Mini-me in Austin Powers. Or your little demon cousin – what’s his name?”

“Forrest,” Jordan said with contempt.“ Annoying Short One is too nice a name for him. Last family reunion, he took a pair of scissors to Rachel’s favorite sweater. Scissors! And the year before that…well, I’m sure Jake has told you plenty of stories.”

“Oh yes, I was there when Jake found the toaster strudel jammed in his Sega system.”

Jordan laughed again. “That sure sounds like the little demon’s work.”

For as awkward as I had felt when Jordan first picked up the phone, it was impressive how easily she’d managed to distract me. I laughed with her, remembering the look of stunned disbelief on Jake’s face as he extracted a sticky mess of icing from his beloved game cartridge slot. 

“So what are you up to?” Jordan asked casually. 

“Oh, you know, just chillin’ at home.” That’s right. I was sitting on my couch, by myself, because I was too afraid to see anyone, or talk to anyone, or leave my house. Very cool, Marco, very cool. “I was hanging with Jake, but he just left to go take care of something,” I added, hopefully making myself sound slightly less lame. 

“Did he?” Jordan sounded intrigued. “I hope that means Jake’s found his big mystery you-know-what. I am so over the whole surveillance deal. I feel like I’m on Big Brother, except without the prize money.”

Of course Jordan took it for granted that I knew all about the Yeerk situation. I wondered if that’s why she was suddenly acting so comfortable around me. This time, she was in on the secret clique. 

“Well if he finds anything, you’ll probably find out before I do,” I said.

“Yeah right!” She said skeptically. At least no one else realized I’d been an out-of-the-loop chump. “Anyway, I just hope Jake sorts everything out soon. Rachel’s driving me crazy with this security! The other day she said I was being suspicious by taking too long in the shower. Too long in the shower! Like what, does she think an alien is going to swim through the pipes and jump out of the faucet?”

“Probably. Tell her to get a full-home reverse-osmosis filter. That’s what I have – nothing can swim past it. I tested myself in eel morph.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re worse than she is!” I could practically hear Jordan shaking her head in mock disapproval. “I thought you were supposed to be the fun Animorph.”

“I am the fun Animorph. I have a pool!”

She let out a short laugh. “Whatever. I’ll pass the water filter tip on to Rachel. Maybe she’ll let me shower in peace! You don’t happen to have any suggestions to get rid of the Men in Black that she has stalking me?”

“Depends on which kind of Men in Black we’re talking about,” I said lightly. “Tommy Lee Jones or Will Smith?”

“Mine are definitely of the Tommy Lee Jones variety,” she groaned. “If they were cool like Will Smith, I’d have someone to talk to at my new school other than the stupid idiots who won’t shut up asking stupid questions about my stupid sister.”

“Just bring Rachel in for show-and-tell sometime,” I suggested. “You only have to let her hit one of them – the rest will get the message.”

“You know, that’s not the worst idea,” she said thoughtfully. “Back before she was famous, when the teachers started raving about Rachel, I would just pretend that I was Jake’s sister. I didn't want them getting their hopes up that I was Packard Outstanding Student material.” She sighed dramatically. “Obviously that lie doesn’t work anymore. You’re lucky you’re an only child.”

“Yeah, the teachers had to actually get to know me before it became clear that I wasn’t a Packard Outstanding anything. Although Chapman did call me unbelievable on more than one occasion. I like to think it was in a good way.”

Jordan was surprisingly easy to talk to. I wasn’t really expecting a conversation, but once we broached the topic of middle school teachers, it just kind flowed from there. We moved on to things like TV shows we both watched and whether colors had a taste. She wasn’t star-struck or trying to impress me, like most people I met. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have a normal conversation with a normal teenager. Well…an almost normal teenager. Because unlike every other high-schooler in the world, Jordan was so used to being around aliens, Animorphs, and paparazzi that my own insane life didn’t phase her in the slightest. 

“You know, I never did get your side of the duck-acquiring story,” she teased me.

“What’s there to tell? I caught a duck, morphed it, and flew to the capital to single-handedly save the governor. End of story.”

“Don’t skip when the duck bit you on the nose! That’s my favorite part. You have to hear Tobias tell it – he does a great impression.”

“Of me, or of the duck?”

“Both, actually!”

“Stupid birds,” I mumbled. “Doesn’t Tobias have anything better to do than tell you stories about me?” 

“Probably. But I love Tobias’s stories! He’s almost as good a storyteller as Jara Hamee. Although I’m not sure I really believe half of what he says. I mean, you guys never talk in public about stuff like time travel, or magically appearing on other planets.”

“Yeah, well there are certain truths that you just can’t share with the world without having any proof. Not unless you want to win a one-way trip to the loony bin,” I explained. “Now if I could still use my Big Daddy T-Rex morph, that would be a different story. I’d be starring in my own Jurassic Park movie!”

“Well if you’re all lying, at least it’s a well-coordinated effort.” She let out that sweet, genuine laugh of hers that made me feel all tingly. “And if you’re not lying…well I guess you’re right that people might not believe that their favorite TV star single-handedly killed all the dinosaurs.”

“Hey, the mass dino-cide was all Tobias!” I said. “And Ax, I guess. But mostly Tobias.”

"Dino-cide? That is definitely not a word.”

“It should be. The only kind of dinosaur you ever want to meet is a dead one.”

“Rachel says they’re not so tough.”

“Ha! They are definitely that tough. Imagine Rachel’s grizzly bear, and then multiply that by about a thousand. That’s a T-Rex. If Mighty Xena’s not afraid of those monsters, it’s only because she’s missing the part of the brain where fear happens.”

“Rachel is afraid of some things.” Jordan paused. “Marco, can I ask you a question?”

“If I say no, wouldn’t you just ask anyway?”

“Probably.” She paused again. “Do you know who Crayak is?”

She said it nonchalantly, but just hearing that name made my stomach drop. 

“Why would you ask me that?” I said cautiously.

“Oh…just I used to hear Rachel talk about it, in her sleep,” said Jordan, sounding like she already regretted bringing it up. “Not, like, lately. Back before I knew about the whole Animorph thing. I used to hear her say all sorts of weird stuff in her sleep. I don’t remember most of it, but I remember when she talked about Crayak. She sounded scared. Like, really scared.”

“Have you asked Rachel about it?”

“Yes, but she won’t tell me anything. She said she doesn’t remember.”

“Well if she doesn’t remember, it was probably just some dumb nightmare,” I lied. It was bad enough that Crayak was hell-bent on destroying Jake, the lowly human who had neutralized his two favorite evil pet species. The last thing Jordan needed was to attract the attention of that intergalactic creep by asking around about him. “Knowing Rachel, this guy in her nightmare was probably a stylist forcing her to wear a neon fanny pack.”

Jordan gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah, probably,” she said unconvincingly. “Sorry to bug you about it. It’s just hard to have so many things that I can’t really talk about with anyone else. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I do. You don’t have to apologize.”

“Marco, I…” she hesitated, as if struggling to get out the words. “I had a lot of fun talking to you. I’m really glad you called.”

“I had fun talking to you, too,” I said. There was an awkward silence. “I should probably go though,” I added. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah, I should go too,” she agreed, sounding relieved. “You’re lucky you called off-peak hours. Mom’s been a total Nazi since I ran over on my minutes last month. Maybe we can talk again soon, though?”

I briefly considered making a joke about Tobias killing Nazis too, but decided against it. Instead I just said, “I’ll call you.” And unlike most of the times when I said that phrase, I actually meant it. 

“Goodnight, Marco. Have good dreams!”

Despite the nightmare of a day I’d had, I suspected that maybe I would have some good dreams after all. 

Chapter Text

I didn’t see much of Jake over the next few days. He was obsessed with watching the Computer Store for leads. He’d come home late and disappear before the sun was up. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to show for the long hours of effort, other than a growing list of controllers that we still couldn't save. After three days, Jake and his team weren't any closer to finding the Kandrona source. 

Waiting was torture. I should have been busy. After all, it was getting dangerously close to my movie premiere. I had appearances to make and fans to hype up! But I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to do anything. Maybe it was dumb to spend so much time sulking, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. What was worse? Hiding, or snapping on live TV and telling the whole world that Yeerks were on the loose?

At least that’s what I told myself. Anything to justify staying home and ignoring my publicist’s increasingly-frantic voicemail messages. It wasn’t anything personal against Summer. I was avoiding everyone’s messages.

Well…almost everyone.

But I couldn’t just stop talking to Jordan! She was the perfect distraction – deep where it mattered and shallow in all the best ways. And more importantly, I didn’t have to worry about letting anything slip about Yeerks that she didn’t already know. Sometimes Jordan and I talked about the shittiness of the current situation, but most of our back-and-forth was happy, wonderful nonsense. 

Talking with Jordan was carefree in a way I’d never experienced with another girl. After all, the Yeerks had ruined most of my prime teenage dating years. No matter how much I liked someone, there was always this undercurrent of worry: did she really like me? Or was she being controlled by a mind-stealing alien with its own evil plans? And then I was famous. Once you’re famous, most girls that flirt with you have evil plans of their own. 

But Jordan was a Berenson. She didn’t need me for behind-the-scenes stories about the Animorph days. Neither was she trying to break into show business, recruit for Scientology, or win investors for her glow-in-the-dark yoga startup. She just liked having someone to talk to.

And also, she wanted me. Obviously.

I hadn’t forgotten what Jake had said about keeping my paws off of Jordan, but technically he never said I couldn’t talk to her. I was keeping things perfectly platonic. Or at least not explicitly non-platonic. As long as I never made an actual move, Jake and Rachel couldn’t be that mad. Right?

Besides, I knew it wouldn’t last. As soon as Jordan’s mom got her next phone bill, she would probably be grounded for the rest of her life. We would have to stop chatting – through no fault of my own – and everything would go back to normal. And in the meantime, I had someone to talk to during my self-imposed isolation. 

It’s not like I spent all my time talking to Jordan. During the day she had school, so she could only text between classes. And I had a dozen unbeaten video games on my DVD shelf. It was good, really, that I was finally taking a break from my busy schedule in order to play them. My poor PS2 was practically dusty with neglect! Or it would have been, if my maids didn’t dust it regularly. Either way, the only kind of controller I wanted to risk in my life right now was the kind that comes with joysticks. 

“Die, die, die!” I shouted at my flat-screen as I struggled against a final boss who’d killed me half a dozen times already. My latest attempt was going well enough, when I caught a whiff of something flowery and familiar. I immediately turned to look behind the couch, and sure enough, there was Jordan. She was looking very leggy in a patchwork denim miniskirt and platform sandals that added a few inches to our height difference. I heard my game’s final “K.O.” echo from the surround sound. 

“Hey,” she said as if there was absolutely nothing strange about her showing up in my living room. “I’d say I’m sorry for distracting you, but I’m pretty sure you were about to die anyway.”

“How did you get here?” I asked. 

“It’s one of the few benefits of the Men in Black – they also chauffeur. I wanted to get out of the house, and I figured I’d make their jobs easier for once. It’s much safer here than at the mall.” She smiled innocently as she joined me on the couch. 

Damn those dimples. This was going to be a lot harder than keeping things platonic over the phone. 

“Weatherby’s supposed to ask me before letting anyone in,” I said.

“He seemed to think you could use the company. Apparently things have been pretty quiet around here.” I could hear a hint of pity in her voice. 

“I’m just keeping things low-key while Jake’s staying here. You never know who’s leaking to the media!” It sounded like a reasonable enough excuse. The last thing I wanted was her pity. “I’m hardly a hermit in need of intervention. Now if Wetherby catches me talking to a smiling volleyball, then he can call in the cavalry.”

“No one said you were a hermit,” she said, looking less sure of herself. “Do you want me to leave?”

Leave?! Of course not. I’m a lonely, paranoid wreck. Now come closer so I can smell your hair.  

Fortunately, I just shrugged and said, “No, it’s fine.”

She grabbed a controller. “Wanna switch to 2-player? If you’re going to lose anyway, it may as well be to me instead of the computer.” 

Next thing I knew, we were both furiously mashing buttons as our virtual counterparts pummeled each other. I was glad for the distraction as I tried to ignore the million thoughts running through my head. Why was she really here? To be my friend, or something more? Did Rachel know where she was?  

Jordan was playing pretty well. Not as well as me, of course, but somehow she always seemed to find the opportune moment to toss her hair, hitting me with another wave of her scent that sent my fingers fumbling over the buttons.

“What’s wrong, Beavis?” She teased as she won another round. Jordan wasn’t the first girl to call me Beavis, but she was definitely the first to do so with a near-perfect impression from Beavis and Butt-Head. “Didn’t you… uh …try to… uh … score ?”

“Shut up, Butt-Head ,” I said with a voice that I had also perfected over years of watching too much MTV. “You keep distracting me.” 

“Not even! Trust me, if I wanted to distract you, you’d know it,” she said mischievously, her dark eyes fixed on mine as she leaned towards me.  

I knew I should move. I’m pretty sure my brain even sent the signal to turn away, but my body wouldn’t listen. She kept moving towards me then stopped, as if daring me to be the one to close the gap between us. I was still frozen, looking back and forth between her big eyes and her shiny pink lip gloss. God, she was so pretty. 

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, she turned away, looking back towards the kitchen. I could vaguely register some shuffling noises from that direction.  

“Is that Jake?” she asked. Finally my body got the delayed signal and shifted away from her. 

“No, it’s probably just Wetherby,” I said. Thank goodness! I have a talent for talking my way out of a lot of things, but somehow I didn’t think that Rachel was going to fall for, “Jordan and I weren’t kissing! We just happened to trip and fall into each other’s faces!”

“Oh.” She paused. “Will Jake be back soon, you think?”

“Doubt it. Last night he did say he was coming home early today. But according to Jake-time, that could be anything between two minutes from now and next month.”

She still looked concerned. “But he could be back any minute?”

A new, horrifying thought occurred to me. “Did you just come here to see Jake?” 

Jordan had never actually said why she had come over. Was I misreading this entire situation, and hanging out with me just a way for Jordan to kill time until Jake got back? Maybe Rachel was right about my head getting too big.

“No! I wanted to see you," Jordan reassured me. "It’s just, I don’t think Jake likes the idea of you and me hanging out. And if he’s coming back soon…” she trailed off. “But that’s stupid, right? I mean, why can’t you and I be…friends?”

There was an unwelcome swooping sensation in my stomach as she hesitated over the word friends . 

“Yeah, it’s totally stupid,” I reassured her. “I mean we already are… friends. Aren’t we?”

“I think so.” She smiled gratefully, then decided to change the subject. “You know, friend, I never did get a tour of the house. Maybe you could give me one now. Do you really have a cheetah-print guest room?”

Was she just trying to lure me to a bedroom? She wouldn’t be the first girl to try that tactic.

“Oh yeah, the Savannah room," I said coolly. "That’s a popular one. Although you do have to watch out for the hyenas.”

“Well then it's a good thing I have an Animorph with me,” she laughed as she jumped up from the couch. “Let’s go!”

I followed a few steps behind her. I tried to read her expression as I started on my well-rehearsed speech about the designer’s inspiration from my morphs. Jordan was acting more polite than seductive. She stopped to appreciate the art on the walls and the imported knicknacks on the side tables. 

Maybe she really did just want a house tour. I wasn’t sure whether I felt more relieved or disappointed. We stopped in each guest room, joking along the way. Or was it flirting? I wasn’t sure anymore. Finally, she opened the final door at the end of the hall. 

“This must be your bedroom!”

“How could you tell?”

“The framed Spider-Man posters kind of give it away. That and the fact that it’s bigger than all the other bedrooms put together! Where is your closet? I bet it’s even bigger than Rachel’s.” Jordan sped around the California King mattress without a second glance and headed into the closet. By the time I caught up to her, she was already donning one of my gaudiest Von Dutch hats.

“Why do you own a million pairs of sneakers?” she asked. 

“In case I morph a Taxxon and suddenly have a million pairs of feet.” 

“Hmm… what about all the hats? I’ve never heard of a morph that has a thousand heads.”

“No, the hats are just for fashion,” I said, grabbing a tie-dye bucket hat for myself. “How do I look?”

She didn’t get a chance to respond, because straightaway I heard the opening notes of the Mission Impossible theme song blasting from my pocket. I had the phone to my ear so fast that I almost knocked off my hat. 

“Hello?” 

“Marco, I found something.” There was an excitement in Jake’s voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time as he gave me directions to an industrial park in a sketchy part of town. “Can you leave right now?”

“I'll be there." I hung up. 

Jordan looked intrigued by the short conversation. “Was that Jake?”

“Yeah it was. Sorry, I have to go.”

“Where are you going?" she asked. "Will you be back soon?”

Great question. Would I be back soon?

Would I be back at all?

“No, you should head home,” I said. “In apology for my rudeness, please feel free to take a hat. Or a dozen hats, really. You’re right, I have way too many of those things.”

“Okay,” she said, still looking disappointed. I was about to leave when she grabbed my hand, and in a move so fast that I might have imagined it, she kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck, Marco. Be safe.”

Before my brain could process what had just happened, I made my way to the balcony, sparing one last glimpse at Jordan through osprey eyes as I took off into the horizon.

Chapter Text

“Geez, Marco, could you fly any slower?” Rachel whined as I landed in the cigarette-littered alley where Jake wanted to meet. “You realize that I had to leave Saks in the middle of a killer sale? I could’ve tried on ten more dresses and still beaten you here with time to spare.” 

<Oh no, not a sale!> I replied in mock horror. <I got here as fast as I could. Besides, it’s not like your giant eagle butt could have flown here faster from my house.>

“My eagle could beat you in a race any day, any time!”

<You think a Baldie can out-fly an osprey? It’d be like racing a Ferrari against a semi-truck.> I looked up to the red-tailed hawk that was keeping watch from the warehouse roof. <Tobias, you’re the flight expert, here! Why don’t you explain to your reality-challenged girlfriend how physics works.>

<The coast is still clear, Jake, if you want to get started>, Tobias said as if he hadn’t heard me.

“Thanks, Tobias,” said Jake. “Marco, go ahead and demorph. You and Rachel can race each other later. Not that it really matters which of you wins,” he added with the barest hint of a smile “my peregrine could smoke you all.” 

“Whatever,” said Rachel, rolling her eyes. “Are you going to tell us what we’re all doing here?”

Jake nodded. “As you know, I’ve been tracking the computer shop, and I think we’ve figured out how their system works. Controllers bring in their fake computers – the ones that Marco identified – and pretend to get them fixed. But if you look closely, you can tell that the machine that the controller leaves with isn’t the one that they brought in. The store is just a front to swap out one fake computer for a new one.”

“So why are we here if the controllers are there ?” Rachel asked impatiently. 

“Earlier today, a truck dropped off a load of computers, then picked up all of the returned ones and brought them back to this warehouse. Whatever the Yeerks are hiding inside of those dummy computers, it’s happening in this building. All we need to do is get inside and figure out what they’re up to.”

“Oh, is that it?” I said sarcastically. “And to think I was worried that you’d brought us here to do something impulsive, illegal, and dangerous!”

“Come on Marco, don’t be a wimp,” said Rachel. “Between the four of us, you know we can handle whatever’s in there. It’s not like we have to worry about fighting Hork-Bajir, or Visser One’s space monsters.”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t need to be careful,” said Jake cautiously. “If I’m right, this is where the Yeerks are sending their empty Portable Kandrona containers. And there’s enough space in this warehouse to hide something…well, something big . If I’m right…” Jake trailed off. 

Tobias flew down to land on Rachel’s shoulder, fixing a fierce golden eye on Jake. <You think there’s a Yeerk Pool in there?> 

Jake shrugged unconvincingly. “All I know for sure is that we're not going to figure out what, or who , is hiding in that building from out here.”

“Well that’s just great,” I moaned. “You know, Jake, when I told you we should go to more pool parties, I meant the fun kind, with babes in bikinis. I didn’t mean a Yeerk Pool party with your archnemesis.”

“A party with Jason sounds good to me!” Rachel cracked her knuckles. “I owe that Yeerk some payback.”

“We’re not here to pick a fight,” Jake said seriously. “But if Jason is in there…well, that may be an opportunity that we can’t pass up.” 

Rachel grinned. 

A few minutes later, I was a fly, fighting the urge to dive into a smelly dumpster as we flew towards the warehouse loading dock.

<We’re heading for the third dock from the left,> Jake directed us. <That door is broken, so they don't latch it properly.>

To a human, there was barely a crack between the door and the floor. To a fly, the opening was as tall as a house. <How convenient,> I said to the others. <There may as well be a giant “Welcome, Animorphs” sign! Either this place isn’t run by Yeerks after all, or it’s a trap.>

<It’s not a trap,> said Jake. <I’ve had my guys watching this place, and there’s no way the workers are all controllers. There are too many of them, and they’re way too sloppy. There’s got to be a part of the building with an extra layer of security, like the old Yeerk Pool entrances.> 

<I don’t like the sound of extra security,> I said. <If I see Chris Jericho with a fly swatter, I am so outta here.> 

<I was thinking more like Gleet Bio-Filters and Dracon Beams,> said Jake. <I’m sure we’ll know it when we see it. Let’s check out the doors along the far wall.> 

He kicked into maximum fly speed - a brisk 4 to 5 miles per hour. I zoomed to keep up, and it felt like being strapped to a rocket. We twisted and turned through room after room of unremarkable offices, giving a wide berth to any humans who happened to pass by. Finally after about fifteen minutes of boring office space, Tobias shouted at the rest of us. 

<I think I found something! This door has an air-tight seal around it and a pretty advanced-looking keypad lock.>

<No bio-filter?> asked Jake.

<No. Not that it’s easy to tell with these awful eyes, but a bio-filter would have a different control panel.>

We perched on the frame above the door. <Well it could be nothing, but we haven’t found anything else more promising,> said Jake. <Marco and Rachel, you stay here. If the door opens, I want both of you inside to check it out. In the meantime, Tobias and I will keep searching.>

There was an extended pause that I could only assume meant a private conversation between Jake and Rachel. Whatever the argument, Jake must have won, because Rachel was silent as he and Tobias took off. 

<So,> I said after a minute of unbearable silence, <a priest, a blonde, and a lobster walk into a bar…> 

<Were you always this annoying on missions?> Rachel interrupted. <You can’t possibly have been. Surely someone would have fed you to a Taxxon.>

<Rachel! That is harassment. I’m submitting a complaint to the UGAMH.> 

<The UGAMH?>

<The United Guild of Animal-Morphing Heroes. I figure it’s about time we started a labor union. I, for one, could use some paid vacation.>

<I could use a paid vacation away from you .>

<Nah, you’d miss me too much.>

She laughed. <Guess there’s only one way to find out! Why don’t you disappear for a couple of years. We’ll see how I manage.>

<Heads up,> I said, suddenly serious. There was a guy heading in our direction. He looked exactly like what you’d expect for a warehouse grunt: grungy jeans, Slipknot t-shirt, off-brand MP3 player. Nothing suspicious. Of course, human controllers rarely look suspicious. He was pushing a large and clearly heavy cart, which was piled high with a familiar shape.

<I think that’s them,> I said. <They look like the same kind of computers I saw back at the shop.>

<Let’s go,> said Rachel as soon as the worker was distracted with the security panel. I followed her under the cart, landing upside-down between the wheels. 

< How sure are we that the door panel isn’t for a Gleet Bio-Filter?> I asked nervously.

<If Tobias says it isn’t a bio-filter, then it isn’t a bio-filter,> she said, as if that settled the matter.

As much as I’d like to trust Tobias, I couldn’t help but wait for the bright flash of impending death as the cart rolled forward.

<Hey, Rachel>

<What?>

<If we’re about to die, I just want to make sure that my final words are: I told you so .>

We rolled into the room and the door closed behind us. The cart came to a stop, and the worker started to unload cargo. 

Ok, maybe we weren’t going to die, after all. 

<If you’re done being a weenie, I’m going to check this place out,> said Rachel as she flew out from under the cart. I followed her. 

It was a decent-sized room, maybe a little smaller than my bedroom. Except instead of a California King, it was furnished with stacks of stainless-steel portable Kandrona tanks! 

<Bingo!> said Rachel. <Jake, Tobias, get your butts back here,> she reported, hoping the others were still in range. <It’s no Yeerk pool, but there’s a ton of portable Kandrona – and only one controller guarding the place! I could take him out, easy.> 

<Don’t do anything!> said Jake, sounding a little faint but still clear. <Just watch. We’re heading back there now.>

Aside from the haphazard piles of portable Kandrona, there wasn’t much else to see: just a solitary, tool-covered workbench next to a tank the size of a minivan, labeled “DANGER - PROPANE GAS. FLAMMABLE.” 

<Yeerks aren’t much for interior design, are they,> I commented to Rachel as I perched next to her on the ceiling. <I'm going in for a better view.>

I jumped down, landing on top of the giant propane tank. The controller would definitely be able to see me if he looked, but the tank was tall enough that I should at least be out of easy swatting distance. I watched him lift one of the dummy computers onto the workbench, laying it down next to a handheld Dracon gun. Fortunately, he left the Dracon gun on the table, instead grabbing something that looked like a high-tech magic wand. 

Despite the guy’s minimum-wage appearance, he worked with the precision of a craftsman, moving the wand methodically over the computer. Finally, he laid the tool down and used both hands to carefully remove the computer’s outer shell. Sure enough, once the shell was removed, you could see the same kind of stainless-steel container that was stacked all around us. 

<I was right!> I shouted triumphantly. <The eMachines definitely have portable Kandrona inside. Ten points to Sherlock Marco.>

For about two seconds, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. 

Then I started screaming. 

<AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!> 

Spider! A giant, hairy, disgusting spider with mouthparts bigger than my head. 

Man, was I out of practice being in actual danger. I’d been so focused on the stupid controller, I wasn’t letting my fly brain do its most important job – not becoming food! Within nanoseconds of me noticing the spider’s existence, the hairy monster already had me in a death grip. I struggled, but the situation was hopeless. The spider just held me tighter, using its fangs to inject me with some kind of venom.

<Marco, what’s going on? I can’t see you!> I heard Rachel’s voice, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I could feel my guts burning inside of my body, like I was filled with acid. Eight hungry, unfeeling eyes were watching me die. 

I had to demorph. Now!

<Human Human Human!> I screamed in desperation as the transformation began. <I am human!> I started growing bigger, and within seconds I was too heavy for the spider to keep its hold. I rolled towards the back of the tank, resulting in a long, long fall down to the floor. Fortunately I was still small enough that the impact didn’t kill me. I kept growing into a half-human, half-insect freak, and the burning sensation in my guts disappeared as the magic of morphing technology dulled my ability to feel pain. 

<Marco’s demorphing!> As the pain faded, I could finally register Rachel’s voice as she narrated to the others. <The controller hasn’t seen him yet, he’s hidden behind this giant tank thing.>

Taking Rachel’s update as encouragement, I finished demorphing and took a deep breath. I was alive! And reasonably well-hidden – the controller was still at the workbench, with music blasting from his headphones. I should be able to morph again without attracting any attention to myself. 

I wasn’t eager to turn myself back into spider food. There had to be another morph I could use to get out of there. Maybe a bat? 

Before I could decide, I heard a whisper behind me.

“Marco!” 

I turned around in panic. Sure enough, there was Rachel with a terrifying glint of excitement in her bright blue eyes.

“What are you doing?” I hissed back. 

“What do you think? I couldn’t let you fight him alone. Why did you demorph?”

“I didn’t have a choice! A spider tried to eat me. Now we need to get small before this controller sees us.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” she said. By some stroke of terrible luck, the worker was carrying the portable kandrona around to the far end of the propane tank! I retreated back into the shadows as I heard the thud of him dropping the computer-sized tank on the floor. There was nowhere to hide! As soon as he looked up, he would see both of us. I watched him grab a hose that was connected to the propane tank, fixing it to a nozzle directly on the portable Kandrona. 

The controller was using the giant tank to refill the portable Kandrona! I took a second to feel like a moron. After all, it would have been astonishingly stupid of the Yeerks to openly label their most secret treasure. Obviously the bus-sized tank was not filled with run-of-the-mill fossil fuel.

Even though I’d figured out what the controller was doing, it didn’t help us much. He finished his task, stood up, and I watched his eyes widen in surprise at suddenly recognizing two very famous, spandex-clad teenagers. 

“You don’t happen to know where the restroom is, do you?” I asked. Not the most brilliant attempt at a diversion, since the guy obviously couldn't hear me through his headphones.  Without a second glance, the controller turned around and started scrambling for the Dracon beam on the workbench. 

Rachel shoved me out of the way. There wasn’t time to morph, so in true Rachel fashion, she sprung forward and punched the guy in the face. Hard! I guess all that time she’d been spending at the gym had paid off. The Dracon gun slipped out of his hand, clattering to the floor. I dove to grab the gun as she hit him again. 

“You want some more?” she taunted as he shrunk away from her. He wasn’t the biggest guy, and Rachel had already proven she was more than a match for him unarmed. Lucky for us, Yeerks aren’t eager to jump into fights when the odds aren’t in their favor. 

“Don’t kill me!” he cried, putting his hands up in surrender.  

“Alright, slug, here’s how this is going to go,” she spat at him. “You want to live? Tell us where Jason is.”

He looked up at the ceiling, biting his lip in concentration, then let out a deep breath. “I’ll talk! I will, just….just give me a second!”

He moved back towards the workbench. I thought maybe he was reaching for the space wand again, but he grabbed something much smaller… a box cutter! 

Okay, maybe the Yeerk had some fight in him after all. An exacto blade isn’t nearly as intimidating as a Dracon gun, but I’ve been stabbed enough times to know that it’s still not something you want in your enemy’s hand.  

“Drop it, or I’ll shoot!” I yelled.

“I’m not trying to hurt you!” he said quickly, “I just need it to…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, because Rachel tackled him to the ground. I took my finger off the trigger – no way was I getting a clean shot with him and Rachel rolling around like two chicks in a mud pit. I tucked the gun into my waistband and watched. 

The controller struggled, but it didn’t take long for Rachel to pin him down. She looked so pleased with herself that she didn’t seem to notice the blood stain spreading rapidly across her leotard.

“Rachel!” I reacted reflexively, reaching in to yank her away from the enemy. “You’re bleeding!”

“Leave me alone, I’m fine!” she yelled at me, although for once she didn’t resist as I pulled her to her feet. She looked down in confusion at her bloody torso, then back at the controller. “I'm not hurt, but I didn’t cut him either. I swear I didn’t!”

I pulled my gun back out, aiming it at the controller. But he wasn't paying any attention to me, or Rachel. He was focused on the source of the blood – a deep cut on his left arm. I watched in disgust as he inserted two of his fingers into the open wound. After a few seconds of digging, I saw a glint of silver as he pulled out a small, bloody object. It was shaped almost like a pen, except shorter and stubbier. Like an extra long, metallic Mike & Ike. 

“It’s too late,” he moaned, looking defeated.

Rachel knelt back down next to him. “What is it?” she asked, eyeing the object. 

“This?” The controller sounded strangely resigned after the panic we’d heard in his voice just a minute earlier. He used his thumb to wipe the blood off of the mystery pellet. “The developers called it Project Calyphos. The prototypes were never stable enough for standard issue, but Ellis Two-Eight-Nine said it was safe enough. I never really believed him, but it’s not like I had a choice. Not unless I wanted to starve.” 

“Ellis Two-Eight-Nine? You mean Jason! Where is he? Tell us!”

The controller smiled sardonically. “You know, Yeerks used to be able to trust each other. It’s you humans who made us into liars. You really are an awful species.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “And yet nothing in the universe can match human existence. Nothing in the world of a Gedd, or even a Hork-Bajir, even comes close. Human emotions, human music. The sheer uncontrollable force of it all. Even though I knew how this would probably end, I couldn’t bring myself to give it up.” 

He dropped the silver pellet and reached for his headphones, which had pulled loose from the MP3 player. Using his one good arm, he clumsily plugged the cord back in and placed the headphones over his ears. He pressed a button, and I could hear the muffled intro of a melancholy tune.

“Metallica - Fade to Black,” he said, closing his eyes and nodding in satisfaction. “Mexico City ‘93. Their greatest performance, by far. Some posers will try to tell you that Seattle ‘89 was better, but…” he stopped abruptly, letting out a gasp of pain. “But the guitar just doesn’t get better than that ‘93 show.” 

Rachel and I could only watch, transfixed, as his head nodded gently to the music. His breathing grew slower and more ragged. 

Then stopped.