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lumaxmayclair · 8 days ago

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From the mosquito book, when they talk about Andalite traitors, have you done AU of What if the Andalites were evil?

• The Rapture occurs just before dawn on a Tuesday. All over town, all over the continent, all over the world, people as young as five and as old as eighty-three step out into yards and rooftops a little before 4:00 AM Pacific Standard, spread out their arms, and are lifted into the sky by a blinding beam of green-tinted light. Their expressions are calm, rapturous even. Their clothes are ordinary, shoes and coats regardless of weather. The presence that draws them up will later be described as impossible to see, barely more than a ripple against the sky, but emitting a bone-deep hum that awakens many witnesses from their sleep just in time to see their neighbors and roommates and loved ones drawn into its embrace. Somehow they all heard the call, and knew to step outside. They all went calmly, patiently, as if waiting for a train.

• It's less dramatic than depicted in the movies, and also more so. Movies don't show the way people's hair and clothes were drawn upward, a gentle controlled fall straight into the sky. They didn't predict the dozens of geese that will later be found scattered dead on the ground, fallen angels with blood-darkened wings. But anyone who has read their Bible closely knows that that the Lord's ways are mysterious to us mere mortals.

For weeks afterward, pundits and theologians will strive with all their might to determine if exactly 144,000 individuals were taken, or if the angels missed their mark by a few hundred in either direction. The eventual count will be closer to 250,000, leading the pastors to conclude that the Lord is generous, the Lord is kind, and the Lord doubled His promised allotment to account for the number of good people doing good works here on Earth.

At least, that's what the real Christians conclude. The televangelists rush to declare this a false rapture, the souls taken to become Legion among the Antichrist, no further proof needed than the fact that the Rapture concentrated so closely in southern California, that den of inequity.

Ironically, the charlatans are closer to being correct this time.

• Marco was there, leaning out his window sick with fear, awoken by the engine-hum he recognized in his bones. He watched as the beam of light swept across his neighborhood, first one then eight then dozens of bodies lifted clear from their backyards and porches to be dragged into the sky overhead. Chilling in their patience, nothing on those human-looking faces hinting at the anguish hiding within those human minds.

Only one, a little boy with blond hair in a shining nimbus around his face, looked down just once at the planet that was being left behind. Yeerk Peace Movement, Marco wondered, or someone who had grown to love it here? Everyone else stared up, or else straight ahead.

Upward they floated within their beams of light, patient and unpanicked, hair standing on end and clothes streaming. One by one they disappeared into the shape, invisible but so tangible Marco could practically feel its presence on his tongue, that hovered two miles up into Earth's atmosphere.

Marco saw it all, but he's not so sure about believing in God anymore. As for the devil? He's always believed. He used to look that shitbag in the eye every morning over breakfast as it stared out through his mother's face.

• The reporters flock to their town within hours, and the pilgrims come in waves in the days that follow. Jake sits on the top stair, knees hugged close to his chest, and listens to his mom talk to the New York Times in the kitchen below. No, she doesn't know why her older son would have been chosen for this. They're Jewish, they don't even follow any of this Christian Fundamentalist stuff. No, Tom has never shown any predilections for good works or prayer that she's seen. She's pretty sure that the Judgment Day isn't supposed to involve living kids getting dragged off to wherever, but she's no posek. He's been heavily involved in a youth group this last year — does that count? Yes, she's sure he was one of the ones taken, because [a pause, a sniffle] she witnessed the whole thing herself, and she wasn't able to stop it.

• Someone's going to figure out soon that over ninety percent of The Sharing's membership, including every one of its full members, was taken. When they do, the run on that organization is going to swamp even the surge of signups the Catholic Church is currently struggling to contain. For now, however, people look to the priests for answers or else focus on shouting the priests down.

• The FBI closes the Animorphs' high school, effective indefinitely. They need more information on where the vice principal, the History teacher, and almost a hundred other faculty and students would have gotten off to. They sift through notebooks and beakers, grade reports and mementos, blindfolded children feeling their way toward a tailless donkey they'll never find. Some have taken to wearing small crucifix pins on their lapels, or else lambs, or else doves. They speak softly as they move, aware they disturb a sacred place with their powders and flashes.

• The team meets at Cassie's barn that afternoon, because it seems like maybe they should. Everyone sits around, heads low, expressions blank. Waiting for Jake to start the meeting, as Jake continues to stare at the wall in silence.

Finally Marco shoves to his feet, smile half-manic. "Technically," he says, "we just won the war! Go team, let's celebrate!"

"Shut," Rachel growls, "the fuck up."

"Planet Earth is saved," Marco babbles, "we're not getting wiped out, it's perfect, it's awesome, all the controllers are gone, it's all going to be just FINE!"

Rachel shoves to her feet. "What did I just tell you?"

Slowly Cassie moves to stand as well. She knows that Marco and Rachel love each other a lot more than they hate each other, that they've never actually come to blows and probably never will... but if ever there was a day it might happen, it'd be this one. Because Cassie knows as well that she hasn't slept a single millisecond since 3:47 AM the day before yesterday, and would bet the others are in the same boat.

"You know WHY it's all going to be fine?" Marco spins away from Rachel, looking to the rest of the team. "Because the andalites came back and saved the day! Just like Elfangor promised they would!"

«Leave him alone!» Tobias snaps, even though Marco hadn't looked directly at Ax. «You know he had nothing to do with this.»

"Okay," Cassie says, because it's clear Jake isn't going to. "Okay, everyone, let's just take a second. We know that there's no point in getting mad at each other. We know we're all mad at the yeerks and the Andalite Navy, and let's focus on figuring out what to do next. Okay?"

She looks around. Rachel and Marco are breathing hard, glaring at each other. Jake remains checked out, Tobias unreadable. Ax has both arms wrapped around his middle, head tucked down. He's human, for once, even though Tobias is not. Cassie knows shame when she sees it, heart aching for him. She can guess, as well, at the direction of Marco's thoughts: a capsized sailboat, a Bug fighter in place of the Pool ship, a single figure with long dark hair floating upward with that same passive expression toward that same pale green glow.

"No, no, Cassie's right." Rachel turns pointedly away from Marco, pacing a circle across the barn's floor. "We need to figure out how to get them back. Ax, you think you can steal us a ship? Shouldn't be too hard, seeing as there are no controllers left on Earth."

«And then what?» Tobias asks. «One Bug fighter, against multiple Pool ships?»

"We can't just give up!" Rachel shouts. "Hello! Jake? Jake, you with us?"

He is not, it would seem. They all wait, but he barely even blinks.

"Ax..." Cassie speaks as gently as she can. "Can you tell us anything about what might have happened? All we know is that the andalites told us they were losing Leeran and looking for a treaty, but that was months ago. And then... this."

"The hork-bajir homeworld," Ax says. So at least he's listening, unlike Jake. "My people fought with everything they had to protect it, and hundreds lost their lives. But when it became clear we would not win —we killed almost all the hork-bajir, rather than let them fall into enemy hands."

They knew the skeleton of this already, but not in this much detail. Not all laid out before them so unavoidably.

«That's not going to happen on Earth, right?» Tobias says sharply.

"No." Ax doesn't look up at him. "I believe, instead, this compromise —" He spits the word, nothing playful in the sound. "—is designed to prevent such a fate for humanity. I suspect the War Council decided to sue for peace here on Earth, and the Yeerk Empire accepted. The terms of that agreement..." He stops talking then.

They can all guess the terms of that agreement. A quarter of a million human bodies, enough for half the yeerks in the Empire to have hosts, in exchange for the other five billion humans being left alone. Everybody wins.

Except Tom Berenson. And the entire Chapman family. And Alloran. And Mr. Tidwell, though Illim 172 probably didn't even want to go. And every other host in the Empire.

"Ax, you spoke to the andalites once before, right?" Cassie says. "Using that radio telescope. And we know now that everyone who's left isn't a controller. So we ask Marco's dad for help, and we call someone. It's worth a shot, right?"

«The andalites know already that there are human morphers on Earth,» Tobias points out. «They just don't care.»

"The Andalite Navy knows," Cassie says. "But if we talked to a civilian, someone willing to discuss this with us person-to-person..."

"Maybe," Ax says. "If I asked to speak with my father again. We could at least ask him what to do."

"Marco's right."

Everyone startles when Jake speaks.

"What?" Rachel says.

"Marco's right," Jake repeats. "We won. The Earth is saved. Go home."

With that, he stands up and walks out the door.

• A mass suicide occurs outside Palo Alto, eighteen members of a high-control sect swallowing poison and lying down to die in the hope of joining their loved ones on the other side of the sky. It's funny, if you think about it, Marco thinks: Heaven's Gate had it right all along. No God or angel is coming for us; it's a spaceship that'll take you away into the great beyond. Heaven is maybe putting it too optimistically, and they were about six months too early. But as far as the particulars go, they got closer than the Catholics ever did.

• "I think we have to vote," Cassie says, sitting in Ax's scoop. Tobias is there, Rachel and Marco as well. She looks around at the reduced team. "I think that's the only thing we can do. We have to decide as a team if we let them go, or if we try to pursue."

«I abstain,» Ax says immediately. «This is a human concern—»

«Bullshit,» Tobias says. «This is your concern more than anyone, Ax-Man. This would mean you going against your own people. It'd mean taking even more risks, after you'd already put in your time, after you finally have a chance to not be stuck here.»

"Besides." Cassie looks around at their little gathering. "By that standard, none of us should vote."

"She's right," Marco says. "This affects my mom, so there's no way I can be trusted. Same goes for Rachel's cousin. Cassie's going against her honey-pie if she does this, and Tobias against howevermany aunts and cousins and grandparents. We can all sit around with our thumbs up our asses, or we can decide."

"Hear, hear," Rachel mutters.

"Does anyone want to discuss it more?" Cassie asks. "Or are we okay to decide now, between letting the yeerks go with the hosts they have, or else trying to pursue them before they can conquer some other planet?"

"Let's decide." Rachel grinds her fist into her palm. "And you already know my vote."

"Hands up," Cassie says, "for pursuing the—" She stops. "Okay, then. I guess that's five to nothing, in favor."

• School will reopen next Monday, according to the voicemail that goes out to every parent's phone. When it does, there will be optional prayer services every morning and afternoon for the safe return of the ones who were chosen. For more information on how you can help, please dial the main office at 5-1712.

• Cassie shows up at Marco's later that evening, getting there after Ax and Tobias but before Rachel. Peter seems surprised at first, and then shocked when Ax calmly demorphs in the middle of the living room... and then it's his turn to surprise them.

"You're extruding your extra mass through a singularity, aren't you?" Peter asks, watching as Tobias takes his turn to demorph. "That's how a hundred-twenty-pound human can turn into a, what, five-pound bird? You're storing the extra mass in non-space, anti-space, whatever you call it."

«Zero-space,» Ax says, all four eyes very wide. «We call it zero-space.»

"That's very intuitive." Peter sounds like a fourth-grade teacher talking to his star pupil. Not at all like a man whose world has been rocked on its axis. "Zero-space. The technology seems highly accessible for new users."

The rocked on its axis part will come later. After dinner, after hundreds more canny questions, after they've hammered out a plan to ride to Peter's work in his pocket the following day. After everyone else has left. Because that's when Marco sits his dad down on the couch and says "There's something else you need to know. About Mom."

• There are people praying in Jake's backyard, in the spot where Tom got taken. There are people praying outside the Chapmans' house, hundreds of them. The grim-faced men in FBI windbreakers slide sideways through the prayer groups, take their photos and samples, and depart. By now the government agents know better than to try to move the worshipers. They simply ask their questions, confirm the spelling of Uriel and Zaphkiel, and move on to the next line of inquiry.

• The following day, five cockroaches ride in the pocket of Peter's sport coat as he passes through the security checks on his way into work. Five, not six. (Rachel called Jake's house last night, speech in hand about how he can't just do this, not when humanity needs him, his team needs him, they all need him — and then her uncle answered the phone. Voice thick with unshed tears, Steve asked her four times what was wrong, wouldn't take "nothing" for an answer. Rambling, semi-coherent, he'd explained that he wasn't sure where Jake was, and his wife was uncon— sleeping, she was sleeping, the doctors gave her some pills, and he did try to explain that diazepam and alcohol both depress the central nervous system but she... Jake, right, Rachel needs Jake. Could he come instead, and help her with what's wrong? What's wrong? "It's fine," Rachel choked out, and then she slammed down the phone.)

Peter and Ax work for over four hours at the NASA radio telescope, Marco and the others bouncing restlessly around the room. Part of the reason Peter was so unsurprised by Ax — the instruments caught glimpses of the ships that took all those people, and he even has traces of chatter between yeerk fighters within the audio records. So it doesn't take all that long to hone in on a signal that will take them to the andalite homeworld.

When they finally connect, Ax does all the talking. Good thing. Rachel would have smashed the screen with a fist if it was up to her. They get a bureaucrat on the phone, who transfers them to a bureaucrat who transfers them to a bureaucrat who transfers them to a manager. Peter helps some with the government-speak, and Marco with the bullshitting.

Rachel paces the room, and chews her nails. At least she's doing better than Tobias, who never spends this much time inside while not in morph and keeps grooming his wings with vicious abandon, torn-out feathers littering the floor. Then again, she thinks, watching blood bead against her cuticle even as she gnaws the opposite thumb, maybe they're just peas in a miserable pod.

• «Aximili-kala,» the latest voice says, warm and sad where every other speaker has been cold and brusque. «You've grown.»

Tobias jerks his head up, staring at the latest four-eyed face to fill the video screen. He looks like Elfangor, more like Elfangor than Ax ever has. There are the same slight lines around his main eyes, the same fluff to his fur, the same tilt of his nose. Details Tobias was certain he'd forgotten, had only ever seen with weak human eyes. This face on the screen — this is Tobias's grandfather.

«How is Mother?» Ax asks, at almost the same moment Noorlin says «How are you?»

They both laugh, the kind of laugh that comes out when you're on the verge of tears, and Tobias exchanges a glance with Cassie. «We shouldn't be here for this,» he says in private thought-speak.

She gives a small, helpless smile. "I shouldn't," she whispers.

«Aximili, I've already spoken to the Navy about sending a transport for you,» Noorlin says. «We should be able to get you home within a standard twelvenight. Until then, will you be okay?»

«Father,» Ax says, «I'm not coming home yet. I have to chosen to continue to fight the yeerks. This treaty...»

«It's monstrous,» Noorlin says, «unconscionable. We are supposed to be the protectors of the galaxy, not — allies to enslavers! Do you and the humans have a way to dismantle it?»

"This call," Peter says, voice thick with irony, "may be monitored for quality control purposes."

Noorlin clearly doesn't know the reference, but he takes Peter's meaning all the same, from the acknowledging tilt of his stalk eyes. «Aximili, you know your mother and I want you home, more than anything, especially after... your brother. But if you believe in your hearts this is the right thing to do...»

«My duty is to my prince, and to my people,» Ax says solemnly. «For now, both are human.»

Tobias feels a shiver go across his skin, feathers rustling. He's never heard his shorm state it so baldly before. The prince in question, at least for now, seems to be Cassie. Not who anyone would have expected to take over for Jake — Rachel's the stated successor, Marco their team's lieutenant. But if anyone had asked Tobias for a vote, if he'd had a way to vote without hurting Rachel's feelings, he knows how he would have chosen.

Noorlin closes his main eyes, sad and resigned. «You are every bit the warrior Elfangor taught you to be,» he says. «Brave, selfless, and unrelenting. Here is what I know.»

Later, Ax will show them most of what his father explained using a hand-drawn star map that includes their own sun as an afterthought in one corner. The yeerks left Earth and froghopped through a series of systems they've conquered or allied with — the Nahara Collective, Sleegab Five, Mak space, Anati — fleeing clear out of the Milky Way into Kelbrid space. From there the trail was lost. But they have a trajectory, at least. It's a start.

All of this is delivered in snippets, deliberately buried between Ax and his dad talking about how Ax has been and what people are up to back home. Off-camera, Marco sits furiously typing notes on a NASA console.

«One more thing,» Ax says, when Noorlin warns their time is drawing short. «I should have done this sooner. Father, there's someone else you should meet.»

Tobias shrinks, heart racing. He's not ready, he wasn't warned — he's a nothlit, he isn't even andalite, this is going to come as such a shock — but everyone else has already drawn away to leave him in full view of the camera.

«Yes,» Noorlin says, voice even warmer now, even sadder. «Tobias, isn't it? I've been hoping for this, ever since Elfangor told me about you, many many years ago.»

• Services at 9:00 AM, 11:30 AM, 2:00 PM, and 4:30 PM reads the sign outside the church on Rachel's route home. Cars wrap around the block in an idling, honking line; the parking lot has been full since 7:00 this morning. PROVERBS 1:33 is graffitied on the storefront next door, letters dripping in neon green. She isn't sure how she feels, looking at it all. Scared, and mad, and fighting hard against feeling resigned.

• They meet again in Cassie's barn. She left a voicemail on Jake's machine beforehand, simply announcing — shocked at her own boldness — that they have intel on where the yeerks went and they're trying to decide what to do with it, if he'd like to come over this afternoon. But she isn't surprised when he doesn't arrive.

"This is far away, isn't it?" Marco asks, staring down at the map. "Like, really really far away."

«It took the yeerks a few Earth days to close that distance, using z-space,» Ax explains. «It could take us equally little time, were we to find a fast enough craft. It could also take years. In a Bug fighter, years would be more likely. Perhaps decades. Z-space is unpredictable that way.»

Marco blows out a breath, arms wrapped around himself. "And even if do we catch them. Even if they don't see us coming and keep on running forever. What then?"

"We'll have time to come up with a plan on the way there," Rachel says. "For now, let's go."

"No," Cassie says. "We're not leaving for that long — long enough that our parents might have died of old age by the time we even find the yeerks — without a clear idea of how it will help."

"But they're getting further away every damn minute," Rachel growls, pounding her knuckles against the edge of the map.

«Still, there are questions we should answer first,» Tobias says. «For example. Do we bring any of Toby's people? Do we leave someone here to keep an eye on Earth? Can Marco's dad get us a way to phone home while we're gone?»

«Do we seek more allies among my people?» Ax adds.

"So let's talk." Cassie realized at some point that she's running this meeting. She doesn't like the feeling, but hopefully Jake will be okay enough to rejoin them soon. Once they tell him they have a plan to get Tom back, he'll rejoin them. He'll be okay. "About all of those questions. It doesn't have to be a perfect plan right now, to Rachel's point, but it has to be good enough that we know how to go forward—"

"Cassie?" That's her mom, standing in the doorway. "Wh..." At the sight of Ax, she stops talking.

"Mom, you remember how the guys on CNN are pretty sure aliens took all those people?" Cassie asks, half-surprised at her own smoothness. "Ax is an alien. But he's not out to kidnap anyone, he's on our side. In fact, he's trying to help get everyone back. Okay?"

Michelle stares at Ax for another few seconds. Then she shakes herself off, and holds out the phone. "Your Spanish teacher says he needs to speak with you," she says.

"Mr. Tidwell?" Cassie blurts, almost as flabbergasted as her mom. "He's here?"

"He said it's urgent," Michelle says, holding out the phone. "He sounded a little..." She shakes her head, then simply hands the receiver over.

• Cassie steps into her house, hearing her mom start up with the invasive questions ("Is that blue pigmentation genetic, or a reaction to the nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere?") in the barn but unable to worry about it right now.

"Cassie," says Mr. Tidwell, or possibly Illim. "Are you there?"

"Yes," Cassie says. "How are you still on Earth?"

"We stayed inside," Illim or Mr. Tidwell says. "When the call came, we just ill-gascapt fit sip el coranch sip-spactcha rocatch."

Cassie blinks. "Sorry, what was that last part?"

A sigh. "Sorry. I said, we discussed it and we arspact isip-sup-sip we chose to stay on Earth, but they took all the kandrona and the what is that? It's probably nothing but nothing never means nothing and what's that one? Wow, that one's iripst gacaspt coranch coranch gacaspt really close!"

And this time Cassie understands. Not the words, but the choice that they must have made. "The yeerks didn't leave you any kandrona," she says. "So you've been surviving off oatmeal."

"Sip-sup-sip-sip yeah. Yes. We have."

"Can I come over?" Cassie asks. "And bring my friends with me?"

"Please do," Mr. Illimwell says. "And tell it to go away, go away, it keeps watching me and I don't like it, its eyes, it has those spactcha fit el spactcha eyes...."

Cassie is pretty sure the question Are you hallucinating, when asked aloud, has never actually helped anyone in the entirety of human history. "We'll be there in half an hour," she says instead.

• The crowds are everywhere, as they fly over town. Most gather outside houses of worship, of course, but more clog the roads and sit amidst empty fields. Peace on Earth, in many ways: they braid flowers into each other's hair, they hold hands and sing hymns, they hug strangers without hesitation. Old differences seem to have disappeared, homeless grandfathers sitting side-by-side with Stanford legacy students and small-town sheriffs. For now, at least, all is light and love.

• Ax doesn't know about trusting this controller person, this Mr. Tidwell who is actually Illim 172, even before they arrive and meet the man and discover what kind of state he's in. Half of his remarks are in alien languages. Half are addressed to an unseen figure whom he refers to as the corner man (an entity at least eight feet tall, judging from the direction of his gaze). These halves are not overlapping, meaning that barely a quarter of what he says can be taken at face value.

But then he says the first hopeful thing Ax has heard in days: "I can get you a Blade ship." Illim jerks his head, half-smiling. "And I can coratch aspect isip I can teach you how to use it."

Ax leans forward onto his hooves. «There are Blade ships left on Earth?» This changes everything — that's the fastest craft in the Yeerk Empire fleet, well capable of catching up to a lumbering Pool ship. Space must have been limited, for one to be left behind, but this is good news indeed.

"Yes. They're in the — stop that! Stop looking, I see you and I don't like it! — the Pool entrance under the Baskin Robbins."

«Cassie,» Tobias says. «I think we're starting to get something of a plan, here.»

"Infiltrate?" she asks, looking around. "Pretend we're controllers who got left behind, desperate to catch up. See if we can get on board the Pool ship. Yes?"

"Get on board," Rachel says. "Find out where their pool is. Then..." She makes a motion like flushing a toilet, and a long whoooosh noise with her mouth.

Cassie glances at Mr. Tidwell, wincing. "No," she says. "Not unless we have no choice. But it's the start of a plan, anyway."

"We could also get into their computers," Marco points out. "Plenty to sabotage that way." He glances at Ax, eyebrows raised.

Ax recognizes that expression by now, and recognizes the specific question he is being asked. He responds in human, a slight nod of the head. Yes, they could turn off life support fairly easily. And they could do it for the yeerks alone, without affecting the hosts.

"Okay," Cassie says. "Mr. Tidwell, thank you for your help. Guys, let's meet tomorrow morning at the Baskin Robbins, and be ready to go?"

"Tomorrow?" Rachel says. "Why not tonight? Or right now? They already have a head start, and it's getting worse all the time."

"Take a day." Cassie puts her hand on her best friend's arm, soft under the callouses. "Say your goodbyes. Be sure that when you go, you're ready to go."

• Tobias flies out to the hork-bajir valley. He tells Toby their plans, and together they hammer out contingencies for what will happen if more andalites come to Earth while the Animorphs are gone. Jara and Ket ask him to stay the night and so he does. Long into the dark and clear to the following dawn, they talk of war, of ancient stories, of the future, of Mother Sky. There isn't time to say all they wish to say to each other, because all the time in the world would not suffice, but there's time enough within those precious hours.

• Cassie has Ax over for dinner, and this time doesn't bother pretending that he's Jake. They don't tell her parents everything, remaining vague about their plans. But they tell the truth that they'll be away for a little while, and that they wish someone else could save all those missing humans but that there is no one else. Michelle asks Ax about his family, and for once Ax doesn't hesitate to answer. Ax asks Walter about his bouyon bef, and promises to take a proper lesson in slow-cooking once he returns. And then Ax leaves Cassie alone, to say all the things she cannot while he is there.

• "No, you hold it blade down," Rachel tells Jordan, repositioning her grip on the combat knife. "Three sources of danger: the other guy's weapon, your weapon ending up in the other guy's hands, and your weapon ending up in you. Got it?"

Jordan nods, sliding back into the stance Rachel showed her. "Not slicing vegetables," she repeats, gripping the handle in her fist. "I'm not slicing vegetables, I'm trying to get it into somebody's soft parts with as much force as possible, and I'm trying to get it back when I'm done."

"Good," Rachel says. "Good. Not only do you keep your weapon that way, but they'll bleed out a lot faster if you do. Now put that thing down, and break my hold without it. I'm coming at you from behind this time."

• Marco calls Erek, the moment he's home, and for once he's glad to get Mr. King on the phone instead. He explains the importance of someone looking after his dad — someone has to make sure Peter is eating, and sleeping, and going to work — and emphasizes that it would be an act of violence to let him go neglected. Then he puts his dad on the phone, and forces them to close the loop. He extracts promises from Peter around food, around blood pressure medication, around antidepressants, and above all: Peter must be here when Eva and Marco get back, or else neither of them will ever forgive him. It might be a little while, Marco can't say for sure how long, but Peter cannot do this to them by not taking care of himself in the interim. And the Kings are going to be coming by twice a week, every week, for as long as it takes, to make sure Peter is keeping that promise.

Marco makes one more phone call, when all that is done. This one happens in the privacy of his room, phone dragged underneath the bed with him so that he can whisper into the receiver without being overheard.

• The following morning, Rachel walks into the Baskin Robbins dragging two rollaway suitcases, a backpack and two duffel bags slung across her torso. Marco packed second-heaviest, an oversized kit bag and a suitcase, although Cassie's enormous first aid kit almost puts them both to shame. Ax has an awkward armload of frankensteined computer equipment, and Tobias has only his beautiful self. Mr. Tidwell shambles in a little late, still in conversation with the one with the eyes, but he opens the hidden door behind the counter without error. Together they walk down the echoing, abandoned hallway toward the Yeerk Pool, the wheels of Rachel's bags eerily loud against the stone. At last the Blade ship's silhouette looms up through the darkness — as does the figure standing next to its landing gear.

"Hi," Jake says, when they reach him. "If you'll still have me..."

Cassie yanks him into a hug, clinging shamelessly. "Of course," she says. "Are you sure about this?"

"I am." He rubs at her upper back, by way of apology. "If you're sure about taking the helm."

Stepping back, Cassie tilts her head toward the ceiling, blowing out a breath. "Only for now, okay?" she says at last. "Just for this mission, then I'm done."

"Yeah," Jake whispers, smiling weakly. "That's what I said."

Together they turn, and walk on board.

• As they rise up toward the outer atmosphere, they pass over football-field sized flaming letters picked out of the landscape, countless tiny figures working together to feed the bonfire and keep it contained. TAKE US WITH YOU flickers six feet high and nearly a hundred feet across, an entire congregation carrying more sticks toward the flames.

#animorphs #queue are valid

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