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I. Sophie
Now.
“You know who I am,” Cassie says simply. “You know I usually go through official channels. But you also know that I’ll make whatever allies I have to if it’ll get a job done. I think you’re the right allies for this job. I’m trusting you with this because you have excellent reputations, and you’ve been vouched for by sources I trust absolutely.”
Nate licks his lips. He tries to act cool, but Sophie knows he isn’t. This is Cassie, after all. The only Animorph left on Earth. Sophie could scarcely believe it herself when she saw that Cassie had reached out to them, of all people, for help.
“What can we do for you, ma’am?” says Nate, trying to sound professional and not quite making it.
Cassie’s eyes flash. “A Skrit Na ship stole some Hork-Bajir from Yellowstone. They sold the children to Don Tillerson, a rich former Controller with some kind of ‘exotic menagerie’ in Texas. I can’t touch the Skrit Na because they have diplomatic immunity under our current treaties, and I have no proof I can use in a court of law that this man has them, much less that they’re there against their will. If I or any of my friends are caught sneaking into the ranch to rescue them, it’ll be used by our political opponents against us. They’ll say we’re breaking the law to get our way, and the Hork-Bajir wanted to be there. That’s where you come in.”
“You want us to take down this guy and help the Hork-Bajir get back home,” says Nate.
“Taking down the guy is extra,” says Cassie. “Sooner or later he’ll slip up, and I’ll nail him on some charges. The most important part is helping the Hork-Bajir.” She leans across the table, hands folded. “I understand you have three morphers on your team.”
“Yes, ma’am. One of them is an estreen, like you,” says Nate, with unmistakable pride. And well placed, too. Parker is pure grace when she morphs, a liquid temporarily freezing into fixed shapes.
“I suggest you have one of your team morph a red-tailed hawk to communicate with the Hork-Bajir. It’s a sign of trust to them. They’ll listen to what you have to say. Do you need anything else from me?”
“Just send us all the information you have on this guy,” says Nate. “Especially if he has alien tech for security. Our hacker knows his way around Andalite systems, but the more information he has, the better.”
“Done,” says Cassie. “Thank you. And please, be kind to them. They’ve been through a lot.” She leaves a flash drive on the table. Then she walks over to the window, opens it, melts into osprey form with a fluid speed that puts even Parker to shame, and flies away.
“What do you think?” says Sophie. “Eliot as retrieval specialist in red-tailed hawk morph? He must have one of those.”
“Eliot has every morph,” says Nate. “Don’t even ask how. What about you?”
“You know I have a lovely Southern belle morph,” says Sophie. “I met her at the Kentucky derby and acquired her over drinks. But we’ll get all the information from Hardison and see what suits.”
There are some things Hardison’s files won’t capture, of course. But Sophie is well equipped to handle those. She is, after all, the only one on the team to have ever been a Controller herself. She can see it already: former Controller kidnaps Hork-Bajir to get vicarious revenge against his old Hork-Bajir-Controller captors. She’ll have him wrapped around her finger in no time.
After the war.
She had been sedated for days, to keep the Yeerk from being able to concentrate her brain on a morph for long enough to make the change and escape the prison. But now, Akdor 2763 was in her final hour, too weak to even try to break out, and the needle in Sophie’s arm stopped leaking sedative into her blood. She could think again.
<Seven years grifting together, you and I,> said the dying Yeerk. <So many people we’ve been. What are you going to do, once you’re free of me?>
<No more grifting. I know where your hidden stashes are. I can live off of those, make my living as an actress. I’m done with that life.>
<Really? You want to be an honest human, like that insurance investigator who chased you through the years?> Akdor played back the memory of when Nate first found her in person. She’d dreamed of that moment since well before she was infested, and though her body had sparked and yearned at the sight of her favorite predator finally catching up to her, Akdor had given nothing away. She burned with humiliation, now, at the remembered longing, her pleas to Akdor to let her speak to Nate herself, just for a moment.
<Maybe I’ll find him,> she said. She would have smirked if she could, but even now, she still couldn’t move a muscle under her own power. <You can’t stop me. I could be his lover. I can be anything I want, once I’m free of you.>
<Anything you want, hmm? I wonder. Do you even know who you are without me? Aaah!> Akdor cried out in agony, and the memories drained out of her, as if wrung out from a sponge: memories of other hosts, the clumsiness of a Gedd, the insatiable hunger of a Taxxon. Then, the grace and power and yes, cleverness, of a human host, with a face and a smile more dangerous than any Taxxon’s teeth or Hork-Bajir’s blade.
She had never really seen her own body that way before. As a weapon. There was something beautiful about it.
The Yeerk crawled out of her ear, in her dying throes, and shriveled into a pale husk on the white hospital sheet.
She let out a long sigh, pulled the needle out of her arm, and sat up, though it made her head swim. She picked up the corpse of the Yeerk who had enslaved her utterly these past seven years, and crumbled it to dust in her fist.
“You’re right,” she said to the dust. “I don’t know who I am without you. But I think I know who I want to be.” She pressed the button to call the nurse. When the kind-eyed man came in, Dracon beam in hand, she held up her hand, showing him the Yeerk’s remains.
“Congratulations,” he said, and hooked the Dracon beam back onto his belt. “Is there anything you need, ma’am? Water?”
“Something to wipe my hands,” she said. “And a mirror, please.”
He came back a moment later with packets of moist towelettes and a hand mirror. She wiped her hands clean, and tossed the dust-gray wipes away. She touched the back of the mirror. “Can I have a minute?” she asked the nurse.
“Of course.”
Alone now, she held up at the mirror and stared at it until her face came into focus. She pursed her lips, widened her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and her face did exactly what she told it to. After seven powerless years, she once more could wield her greatest weapon, all for herself. She narrowed her eyes, searching all the possibilities in her reflection. When she found one, she said it out loud.
“I’m going to be Sophie Devereaux, from now on.”
II. Nate
Now.
“Who’s the client?” Eliot asks, arms folded on the table in front of him. Hardison is next to him, also looking pretty skeptical, though the effect is ruined by the way he’s scratching behind the ears of a calico cat: Parker, in morph. She’s much better at spending time with them in human form these days, though today she’s fallen back on old habits.
“Our client asked for total confidentiality,” Nate says.
“Since when does confidentiality mean not telling us?” Hardison demands.
“How do we know the client’s legitimate?” Eliot says. “I ain’t retrieving Hork-Bajir from one zoo just to send them off to another.”
Nate exchanges a look with Sophie, who inclines her head. He sighs. “All right. I’ll tell you, but you need to promise to keep your cool, okay?”
“Keep my cool? Since when do I lose my cool?” Hardison says.
Everyone gives him significant looks, including Parker, from under his hand on her head.
Hardison throws his hands up in the air. “Fine. I’ll be cool.”
«Me too. So who’s the client?» Parker asks.
“It’s Cassie,” Nate says.
Eliot stares. Hardison’s phone hits the ground. Even Parker looks awed – or as awed as a cat can ever be.
“Cassie?” says Hardison. “The Cassie?”
“See, this is why I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. You promised you’d keep your cool.”
“That’s before I knew it was Cassie! She’s only the coolest human being who ever walked this earth!”
<Do we get to meet her?> asks Parker. <Can I watch her morph? She’s the best morpher ever.>
Eliot just keeps staring.
Sophie leans toward the table. “Cassie hired us for this job because she cares about the Hork-Bajir, and it’s bad politics if she gets caught rescuing them herself. But if we can get them back home, and prove that they were kidnapped, then Cassie can strengthen the laws protecting them from xenophobes like Don Tellerson.”
“All right,” Hardison mutters. “All right. Rescuing Hork-Bajir for Cassie. We can do this. We won’t let Cassie down.” He starts up the presentation on the screens. “Don Tillerson. Texas oilman. The Yeerks infested him in 1996, mostly as a cash cow to help them fund operations at their home base in California. Infested his wife and brother, too. Like lots of former Controllers he went way xenophobic once he got free of his Yeerk. He donates to all the usual suspects: Earth for Humans, Garden of Eden, United Planet. But this guy takes it one step further.”
Hardison displays bills of sale for kafit birds, djabalas, and chadoos, to name a few. “The man has some kind of obsession with collecting aliens. I couldn’t find any pictures ‘cause he keeps his ‘collection’ private, but I got records of twenty different species bought legally – not that interplanetary law has really caught up with any of this – including a Bievilerd, and those things are damn dangerous. I heard Visser One himself had that as a morph. He buys the shadier ones off of Skrit Na, ‘cause they’re pretty much untouchable by any planetary government.”
“If he hates aliens so much,” Parker says, “then why does he keep them around? Why does he buy them from Skrit Na? They’re aliens too.”
“It’s about control,” Sophie says. “When he was a Controller, he was utterly subject to Yeerk whims. Maybe he met Hork-Bajir or Taxxons, but he was a terrified slave the whole time. He wants to confront the alien on his own terms.”
“And now he has his very own Hork-Bajir. According to our client – according to Cassie – their names are Taf Rakut, Kasi Telpet, and Kip Targash. Two females and a kid.” Pictures of the Hork-Bajir appear on-screen. Taf Rakut is scarred all over, her blades nocked, an obvious war veteran. Kasi Telpet, probably named after Cassie herself, swinging through a stand of trees, flashing a toothy grin. There’s no picture of the child.
“What are you thinking?” Sophie asks Nate. “The Susquehanna Shuffle?”
“This job is a retrieval,” Eliot says. “That means I need to be on the front lines. We need maps of the terrain around the ranch, figure out where to lead the Hork-Bajir once we bust them out.”
“Yeah, about that,” Hardison says. “How do we get them back to Yellowstone from Texas? I can’t just buy them bus tickets and send them on their way.”
“Cassie has a private spaceship,” Nate says. “An old Bug fighter.”
“Those can land on any kind of open ground, as long as it’s not too rocky,” Eliot says.
“Okay,” says Nate, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s go steal us some Hork-Bajir.”
The founding of Leverage.
“Do you remember when we first met?” Nate said. His head floated along in a golden sea. He had a team. A team with Sophie. Leverage International. That definitely called for a drink or three. “It was Florence, wasn’t it?”
Sophie folded her arms on the table between them. Her eyes were big and dark and soft. “No, it wasn’t. We didn’t meet until Madrid. After the war.”
Nate opened his mouth to say he wasn’t that drunk, he remembered Florence and Paris and… and the other places, but the words after the war sank in, and he closed it again. “You were a Controller,” he said. “That wasn’t you.”
“It was something like me, but not quite. What, didn’t you notice a difference?”
He hadn’t. Not at the time. But now that he thought back, he got it. “You were more… raw, after the war. You showed your edges. Took more risks.”
Sophie nodded. “My Yeerk had one goal only: to advance her rank. She managed to become a Sub-Visser, eventually. Anything that didn’t advance her position, she put aside. No reason to put herself in any danger, if she could help it. No reason to show any emotions that didn’t have to do with the con.”
“I’m sorry, Sophie. I should have known.”
“How could you know? How could anyone know I wasn’t myself when most of the time I pretended to be someone else by choice?” Sophie sipped from her drink – water to his wine. “I’m sorry, too, Nate. It was pure xenophobia and cowardice that kept IYS from approving that Andalite treatment for your son. I’m certain it would have worked. They consider our cancer treatments barbaric by comparison.”
Nate didn’t want to talk about that. He knew it would have worked. He had no idea if it would have. Sometimes, when he was really in his cups, he wondered what it would have been like if IYS had approved it, and it didn’t work after all. He would still be with IYS, maybe even with Maggie. But it would have all been empty without Sam. So Nate strategically changed the subject. “You’ve met an Andalite?”
Sophie laughed. “Nate, I have an Andalite morph.”
“You… how did you do that?” And Nate’s brilliant Sophie, who once had a Yeerk wear her face, and now wore any face she wanted, told him the story.
III. Parker
Now.
<Warning,> says the Gleet BioFilter at the front gate of Don Tillerson’s ranch house. <Unauthorized life form detected: Andalite.>
“Eh, see?” says Nate to Tillerson. “What did I tell you? Those Andalites have a bug up their collective ass about Skrit Na smuggling. Selling the Hork-Bajir to me is, eh, your best chance. I’ll have them off-planet and out of your hair in – ”
“Shut up,” Tillerson hisses.
<Mr. Tillerson, turn off this BioFilter immediately and admit me to your residence,> thunders a haughty Andalite thought-voice. Parker can just see the slim purple form of a female Andalite through the bars of the gate. <I am an authorized representative of the Interstellar Commerce Regulation Commission. If you do not comply, I will return with a detachment from the Andalite military.>
“I don’t care who you are,” Tillerson hollers back. “You’re not coming in here. I’ll be out in a minute.” To Nate and Parker, he says, “Hang on.” He goes into his ranch house and comes back out with a rifle. Parker watches him narrowly and reminds herself that she’s right here if Sophie needs her, and Eliot’s circling above in hawk morph, though she doesn’t look up and draw attention to him.
Tillerson loads the rifle. “You two stay here. I’m gonna go tell this Andalite what’s what.”
“Fine,” Nate says, holding up his hands. “My assistant needs to take notes on your facility, so we can ensure a smooth transfer. She’ll go around to the, ah, habitats. I’ll be right here.”
This is Parker’s cue to go steal the records of Tillerson’s deal with the Skrit Na. First she goes for the break room for the ranch house staff, her favorite place to stash her clothes when she morphs, because people who own houses like this never think to look in their servants’ lockers. She strips down to her morphing outfit and puts away her nice suit. Just before she takes out the comm in her ear, she says, “Hardison? Nate and Tillerson are with Sophie. I’m going in.”
“Go ahead,” says Hardison. She can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m getting in position.”
“How’s the spaceship?” she asks, though she really should be morphing by now.
“Awesome.”
Parker grins. Then she focuses on the capuchin monkey DNA inside her. Once she’s morphed, the side of Tillerman’s house might as well be a ladder.
Two years ago.
“We can reverse your paraplegia,” the nurse said, and the knots in Parker’s chest that made it hard to breathe or think began to loosen. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Parker narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t a child. She understood. People like this nurse always thought Parker didn’t understand just because she didn’t talk or make faces like they did.
“We’ll bring you the Escafil Device, and an animal for you to morph, and when you’re back in your own body it’ll be good as new. What I need you to do is read and sign this release form. I’m here to answer any questions you may have.”
Parker stared at the nurse. Ever since the end of the war with the Yeerks, when the world found out that aliens were real and here on Earth and a bunch of teenagers had stopped some of them from taking it over, Parker had wanted more than anything to get the morphing power for herself. She figured if she could escape, and become an animal anytime she wanted, maybe it would be easier to be a human. And it turned out that all she had to do to get it was fall wrong from a third-story window and break her spine. She’d been stupid, careless, and she’d almost ruined everything. But now she had the chance she’d never thought she’d get.
The first part of the release form was the rules of morphing. Parker already knew those: you need to acquire DNA from the animal first, you can’t morph from one animal straight to another, and if you stay in morph for more than two hours, you’re stuck that way forever. There’s a warning that she could be allergic to the morph, and the animal’s instincts might be overwhelming at first. Then there was a section on ethical guidelines. By signing the form, she agreed that she wouldn’t acquire morphs from sentient beings and wouldn’t use the morphing power for criminal purposes.
Parker giggled. She was a criminal. Of course she was going to lie and say that she wasn’t going to break the law. The nurse looked at her funny. Parker ignored her. Soon she’d get to turn into animals, and no one would look at her like that ever again. She lifted her arm, tethered to the blinking equipment behind her by a needle and tube, and signed the form. The nurse signed it too, then left the room.
She came back holding a cat carrier and a glowing blue box. It was beautiful. Parker decided, as she put her hand on the box and focused, that she would have to steal one someday.
The nurse took the cat out of the carrier. It was an old sleepy calico cat. “Just pet her,” the nurse said, “and focus on her.”
That was easy. Parker liked cats. She couldn’t wait to become one. They could jump from third story windows and land on their feet every time. And think of all the air vents she could crawl through!
The nurse took the cat away. Parker waited impatiently for her to come back. She was tired of the IV and the wires and the stupid catheter. She was tired of not being able to feel her legs. They felt like they were weighing her down to the bed.
The nurse came back and unhooked her from everything. Already she felt freer, lighter. When Parker got permission to go ahead, she pictured the cat in her head.
She would have whiskers that could sense the air. She would be long and sleek, and claw anyone who got too close. She would only have to be human when she wanted to be.
IV. Hardison
Now.
Hardison will never say this to Nate, but this is probably his best plan ever. Because this plan means that Hardison gets to ride on a spaceship.
It’s an old Bug fighter, decommissioned after the war. The chassis is kind of ugly, but who could expect a bunch of slugs to know design? Anyway, Hardison isn’t about to complain.
The hatch opens, and a Hork-Bajir steps out. A real live Hork-Bajir. Hardison’s never met an alien before. What is he supposed to say? “Hey,” he tries, holding out a hand. “Hardison. I’m the, uh, tech guy.”
The Hork-Bajir grips Hardison with a big old dinosaur hand and says, “Naj Nogosh. I fly ship.”
“Oh, you’re the pilot? Cool! Cool.” Hardison pumps the Hork-Bajir’s hand as hard as he can. Then he goes with the alien into the spaceship. The actual spaceship that he’s standing in right now.
It’s pretty small inside. It’s plain white, with a bridge, viewscreens, and all the life support stuff in back. There’s two seats, both clearly made for Hork-Bajir; even Hardison feels small when he sits in one.
“Friends ready?” says Naj Nogosh. “We go now?”
Hardison listens to the comms. Nate and Tillerson are herding the Hork-Bajir into the trucks, now. The comms still can’t pick up thought-speak, so he doesn’t know what Parker and Eliot are up to. “This ship has fancy cloaking stuff, right?”
“Yes,” says Naj.
“These Hork-Bajir are your buddies, huh?”
“Taf Rakut is kalashi,” says Naj. “My wife.” If he’s upset, Hardison’s not good enough at Hork-Bajir body language to tell.
“I’m sorry, man. We’re gonna help your kalashi, okay? I promise. And that guy who had her locked up is gonna go down.”
“Yeerks hurt Hork-Bajir,” says Naj. “Andalites hurt Hork-Bajir. Now human hurt Hork-Bajir. No change.”
Hardison’s heart sinks. He sees it’s true, when Naj puts it that way. His people are like the galaxy’s punching bags. Just as Nate says: The rich and powerful take what they want. “Yeah. We can’t stop everyone from pushing you around. People like Cassie can change that, not people like us. But we can stop this guy from pushing you around.” He holds out his fist for a bump. “You ready for this, Naj?”
The Hork-Bajir stares at his fist.
“You bump it. Just make a fist, and we bump.”
Nah makes a fist. It’s much bigger than Hardison’s. They bump very carefully.
Hardison smiles. “All right. Let’s go rescue your kalashi.”
Four years ago.
It was the first time two Animorphs were doing an interview at the same time, and Alec Hardison was right there. He even got a backstage pass for the afterparty. Of course he did. He couldn’t remember anything he’d ever wanted to steal so much, except the money to pay his Nana’s medical bills.
Cassie and Marco were doing the talk show circuit to promote their new books, and a law to protect the Hork-Bajir now living in Yellowstone National Park. Marco was better at working the audience than Cassie, but Hardison didn’t care. Cassie was more than cool enough to make up for it. When she had first appeared on TV as one of the teenagers, no older than he was, who saved Earth from the Yeerks, his Nana had said, See, Alec? See that girl? Young black people like you can change the world.
The afterparty was for rich people who Cassie and Marco could try to talk into donating to the Hork-Bajir advocacy fund. Hardison didn’t belong, but he tried to act like he did. In his rental suit, no one would know he was eighteen.
He didn’t get to talk to Cassie, even though he kept hovering around, waiting for an opening. But he did strike up a conversation with Marco while they were both washing their hands in the men’s bathroom.
“Hey, dude,” Hardison said, talking to the mirror instead of Marco. “Hope you don’t mind me saying, but I grew up in the system. So everything you talked about in your book – everything you did to keep your family together – I feel that. All I got left is my Nana, and I’d do anything for her. Just like you did for your mama.”
For a while, Marco didn’t say anything. He just kept on washing his hands. Hardison wondered if he was trying to ignore him. Then he looked up at Hardison, making him suddenly aware of the difference in their heights: Marco was short and olive-brown, with a mane of long black hair. He said, “What’s your name?” Hardison had met enough solicitous adults to know there was a son, at the end, unspoken, even though they were the same age. That’s what Marco wanted to say: What’s your name, son?
Hardison had stolen his backstage pass from a Joseph Tiller. But he said, “Alec Hardison,” because he couldn’t lie to an Animorph.
“Listen, Alec,” said Marco. His hands dripped on the tiled floor. “Kids like us, who grow up taking care of ourselves…” He looked into the empty air for a second, past Hardison, right through him. Then his eyes focused. “Sooner or later, we have to let people take care of us. Don’t forget that.”
The only person who ever took care of Hardison was his Nana. And he was part of a whole new world now, a world of stolen backstage passes and false identities and all the knowledge hidden in the Internet, a world where she couldn’t even touch him. But it had been the same for Marco, hadn’t it? His parents couldn’t protect him, not from his secret war. Only the other Animorphs could do that.
Hardison wasn’t sure he’d be able to find a family in his new world. Not the way Marco had.
V. Eliot
Now.
<How has he been treating you?> Eliot asks the Hork-Bajir, but looking at their habitat, he already knows the answer. There are only five trees to climb on, and the water is green and stagnant.
“Have food,” says the little one.
“Old bark,” says Taf Rakut contemptuously. “Stale.”
“Bored,” says Kasi Telpet. “No forest to climb. Humans stare. Like this.” She presses her hands and face to the force field around the habitat and stares outward, bugging her eyes out. “Say bad things. ‘Monster. Animal.’”
Another red-tailed hawk comes out of the brush around Tillerson’s ranch. <Stashed the documents!> says Parker. <Hardison has the GPS coordinates.>
The Hork-Bajir notice her a minute later. “Tobias friend,” says Taf.
<Hey guys!> says Parker. <My name’s Parker. We’re gonna spring you out of here real soon. But don’t tell Tillerson, okay?>
“No tell,” says the little one solemnly. “Only Tobias friends.”
A truck rolls up to the habitat. <Here they come,> says Eliot. <Taf, Kasi, Kip, you’re going to have to go with Tillerson, the human who put you away. Parker and me and our friend Nate are gonna be sneaky. Nate’s gonna pretend he wants to lock you up too, and we’re gonna pretend we’re just birds. But as soon as Tillerson goes away, we’re gonna let you loose, okay? All I need you to do is help us be sneaky. Go along with Tillerson and stay quiet until we say it’s safe.>
“Yes, friend Eliot,” says Kasi.
“Quiet,” says Taf. “Then free.”
Nate, Tillerson, and his employees herd the Hork-Bajir into the truck with only a few growls for their trouble. Eliot worries that they’re a little too compliant to be realistic. Once they’re inside, and Tillerson is driving the truck away with Nate in the passenger seat, Eliot thought-speaks to the Hork-Bajir trapped inside like cargo: <Don’t worry, guys. We’re still here. We’re flying right above you.>
<They must be… what’s the word? When you’re afraid of tight spaces?> says Parker.
<Claustrophobic,> Eliot says.
<Yeah. They spend all their time swinging between trees. They must hate it in there.>
<I’m gonna fly ahead and see if Sophie and Hardison are in position,> says Eliot. He soars far above the brush, until he sees Sophie in a truck of her own, morphed to look like a tough security guy. Further along, he sees a shimmer in the air: the cloaked Bug fighter. Eliot wishes he could comm Hardison, keep each other updated. The Bug fighter drops lower, and when it’s level with the brush, the cloak comes off. The squat bug shape crunches down into the tangled shrubs.
Eliot circles back around to tell Parker and Nate. But he soon sees that something’s gone very wrong. The truck has stopped. Nate and the Hork-Bajir are standing outside it. Tillerson and his men have them at gunpoint. He can’t see Parker at all.
<Parker?> Eliot calls out.
<Eliot! I’m hiding in the brush. Tillerson knows a spaceship just landed around here. He spent a lot of time around Bug fighters when he was a Controller. He sounded like you, Eliot. ‘That’s a spaceship landing! It’s a very distinctive sound!’>
Eliot huffs. Or the psychic equivalent, anyway. He follows Parker’s example and hides in the brush. He starts to demorph. They need firepower.
Parker goes on. <He thinks the Andalites are coming for him and that Nate must have sold him out. He’s totally freaked out. I keep telling the Hork-Bajir to hold still, but the big ones know how to fight and they’re about to snap.>
Eliot tells Nate in private thought-speech, <Tell Hardison to get that ship over here. Sophie, too. Whoever comes first, we get the Hork-Bajir out of here.>
Nate can’t respond, but Eliot trusts him to follow directions. <Okay, Parker. Here’s the plan. Keep talking down the Hork-Bajir. Don’t demorph. I need you in the sky. When I give the signal, you go after Tillerson while I hit the gunmen holding up the Hork-Bajir.> He makes sure to include Nate in his thought-speech so he knows the plan.
Eliot’s human again. Branches and spiky leaves catch at his morphing suit. He lets out a breath and focuses on the mountain lion DNA swimming through his blood.
<Tillerson isn’t pointing his gun at Nate anymore,> Parker reports. <Nate told him he’d help get the Hork-Bajir out before the Andalites show up. Sophie better get here soon. Wait! No!>
Eliot waits until he’s morphed enough to thought-speak, then says, <What’s going on?>
<One of Tillerson’s goons pistol-whipped Kasi. She and Taf lost it. They’re about to – >
BANG. BANG. Eliot urges his body to change faster. Claws grow from his half-formed paws. <Protect Nate!> Eliot calls to Parker. <I’ll take care of the rest.>
Finally, the change is complete. The mountain lion’s brain balks at the sound of gunfire, but Eliot fights back its fear with the ruthlessness of long practice. He leaps toward the fight, using the split second of his first landing to assess. Two adult Hork-Bajir with a child cowering behind them, back against the truck. Both seeping green-blue blood from gunshot wounds. One guard clutching the bleeding stump of his arm, his gun in his severed hand on the ground, out of the fight. One grappling with the younger adult. One backing away from the older adult as she advances. Two more preparing to fire. One more – BANG. Just fired. No one sees Eliot, dun-colored in the tall grass. He leaps.
Guard, knocked flat. His gun skitters away in the dust. A bite to his arm, and he stays down. BANG. Gunshot to his shoulder. Eliot barely slows. He beats the guard’s arm with a swat of his paw, and the gun drops. Another blow to his head, and he’s down.
TSEEER! Parker’s raptor cry rings out through the brush. Tillerson must be trying to hurt Nate. Never mind that, Parker will take care of him. BANG. Another gunshot to the right hindquarter. His whole right side is weak now. But he remembers his training. As long as you’re whole enough to remember your human body, you’re whole enough to morph the damage away. Eliot can still picture his own face. He ignores the pain and leaps. Teeth in the gunman’s forearm. He screams and drops his weapon.
Now everything is still. There’s the three guards Eliot took down, and the three the Hork-Bajir did for. One of them has a slit throat. Eliot can’t blame Kasi and Taf. Those guards might have killed the kid.
<Parker!> Eliot shouts.
<Tillerson’s bleeding, but he hasn’t dropped his gun. And he called for backup.>
<Where the hell is Hardison?>
TSEEER! Parker goes in for another dive. BANG. <I’m fine!> Parker says. <I think I’m just… not going to try that again.>
<I’m going in,> Eliot says, circling slowly around the truck.
<Are you stupid? You need to demorph! You’re bleeding everywhere! Oh, crap, look, it’s the spaceship!>
<Get the Hork-Bajir over there! I’ll catch up.> There’s no time to demorph. Nate’s still at gunpoint and they all need to clear out. Eliot skulks as best he can. He can see and hear Tillerson, waving his gun at Nate, ranting and swearing. Eliot coils his legs to spring. It hurts. He pounces.
Tillerson’s knocked to the ground. <Nate, run!> Eliot snarls. There’s some wrestling in the dirt. Tillerson manages to get a panic shot in before he goes still. Blackness races across Eliot’s eyes. He stares at nothing for a while.
<Eliot!> Parker cries. <Eliot, demorph!>
Demorph? What does that mean?
<Hardison, get out of that spaceship and help me! We need to talk Eliot out of morph. Okay, Eliot. Think about what it’s like to have hands. Can you do that?>
“What it’s like to have hands? Huh?” Hardison’s voice. Close by.
<That’s what I think about when I demorph. Nothing else I morph has thumbs.>
Thumbs. Eliot remembers what those are. Hands. Fists.
“Hey, look, his paws are kind of changing! Okay, Eliot, think about your hair. Can’t forget the hair, right? You love that hair. I bet you lovingly shampoo it every day.”
Eliot does want his hair back. He likes it.
<Ooh, okay, he’s shrinking. Now think about your arms and legs and how your weight balances. You know all about that, right? Because of fighting? I always think about that. How my arms and legs can move.>
“And your eyes are blue, don’t forget that – ”
<And that scowly face you make – >
And just like that, Eliot is in his own body again. Whole. He shouldn’t have let himself get so close to the brink. But Parker and Hardison talked him back, somehow. He gets up from the dust. “Are the Hork-Bajir safe?”
Hardison jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re in the spaceship. And the police should be coming for Tillerson any minute. I planted the papers in his truck.” He looks up at Parker, still circling above them as a hawk, then back at Eliot. He smiles. “Now let’s follow the birdie back to the mothership, okay?”
Three years ago.
After Eliot served his second tour, he’d sworn he’d never work for the U.S. government again. Of course, he’d gone on to do way worse for Moreau than he ever did for Uncle Sam. But he’d ended up back here, under a false name, in military training, like he was eighteen all over again. All because the one way he still didn’t know how to fight was with the morphing power, and he needed to learn from the best. He needed to learn from Jake Berenson.
He knew Jake was only nineteen. But he looked older. His hair was cropped severe and short, like Eliot’s had been until he left Moreau. His jaw was hard, his eyes dark and barricaded like doors. Eliot never forgot the time Jake taught the first lesson about pain. How it didn’t matter, when you could morph. He stabbed a knife into his own hand, enough to cause permanent nerve damage, and only gritted his teeth, his body rippling as he morphed the injury away.
Eliot was the first in the class to get the hang of it. In a training exercise, he hurled himself at Jake’s guest instructor, Fal Tagut, letting the Hork-Bajir dice him up with his blades so he could get the chance to grab the fake Escafil device from the sling over his chest. He ran, then, the blue box gripped in his mouth, bleeding everywhere, until he dumped the box at Jake’s feet and demorphed from mountain lion to human.
“I didn’t hurt Fal too bad, did I?” Eliot gasped. The blade-cuts were gone, but he still felt the phantom of his own pain and helplessness.
“Hork-Bajir are tough,” Jake said. He was in a polo shirt and khakis, his face neutral, his eyes sharp. Eliot felt naked in his tight morphing suit, sweating and flushed from injuries he didn’t have. “Good job, Kruger. Can we talk after the exercise?”
Jake’s face gave nothing away. Eliot said, “Yes, sir.”
Freshly showered, in his civilian clothes, Eliot met Jake outside the barracks. They wandered into the desert a little in silence. As the sun sank, the air cooled so fast he could feel it on his skin. Finally, Jake said, “Who are you?”
Eliot had thought his false identity was bulletproof. Apparently not. There were plenty of things he could do next. But he wanted Jake to know the truth. “I’m an ex-Marine.”
Jake folded his arms. “And?”
“And a mercenary,” Eliot admitted. It wasn’t exactly uncommon for ex-military guys.
“What are you here for, then? You want to be a better mercenary?”
“Sir, with respect, if you’re going to kick me out or lock me up, just do it. Don’t drag it out.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m going to call you a monster? A criminal? You know the worst thing I ever did. Everyone does. I killed seventeen thousand defenseless Yeerks when the war was already all but won. What have you got?”
Eliot stared out at the desert, the twisted Joshua trees and fuzzy cholla. “I killed three children right in front of their parents. Under orders, like that matters. Like the number matters. Your conscience doesn’t know the difference between seventeen thousand and three. All it knows is the way that third kid screamed, knowing he was next. Whatever it is that keeps you up at night, it isn’t that number, is it?”
Jake shook his head, just a fraction. He had nothing to hide. Eliot knew as well as anyone what Jake had nightmares about. He saw Tom and Rachel’s funerals on television, the way Jake covered his face during the Mourner’s Kaddish. Finally, Jake said, “What made you give it up?”
“Who says I gave it up?” Eliot said, raising his eyebrows.
Jake just raised his eyebrows back and stared.
Eliot looked away, back out at the desert. “A few days after I killed that family, the news came out. Secret alien invasion, shapeshifting child soldiers, Andalites, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, all of it. There was a whole universe out there. Humans were just one among many. And I thought, what the hell am I doing? All this time, there’ve been slugs taking over people’s brains, and spaceships in orbit, and goddamn space centaurs, and what the hell am I doing?”
“So what are you going to do now?” Jake asked.
Eliot shrugged. “No idea. Still trying to figure it out.”
“You’re good at this, Kruger. Or whoever you are. Be careful what you get good at, though. I got to be an experienced general by the time I was sixteen.” Jake spread his hands, encompassing the whole training camp. “Now I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Too late for me,” Eliot said. “All I can do is hope someone aims me at the right targets.”
Jake’s face showed the most emotion it ever had, then. He pressed his lips together, and his eyes went deep and sad. “You’re not a weapon. No one is.” He shook his head. “I have to discharge you from the program. But I won’t tell the Feds you faked your identity. I’ll say it was a personality defect or something.”
Eliot’s heart pounded. “Why?”
“I’m giving you a chance to be something new. You need it. Everyone does.”
VI. Cassie
Now.
When she hears the whoosh of engines and displaced air, Cassie steps out of the Office for Hork-Bajir Affairs. The Bug fighter is there, only a little behind schedule. The hatch opens, and Kasi Telpet steps out, holding little Kip. She has white bandages stained dark on her thigh and the side of her head. Cassie resolves to call the medical team. Kai looks around at the tall canopy of the Yellowstone forest and grins toothily. Kip, thankfully unharmed, waves his little hands at Cassie. “Friend Cassie!” he squeaks.
“Welcome home, Kip,” Cassie says. Kip leaps down from Kasi’s arms and runs forward to hug Cassie’s leg. She pets his still-soft blades and smiles at Kasi, her namesake.
Naj and Taf come out next, the tips of their tails curled together. Taf is bandaged on chest and shin; Naj is very careful of her wounds. Then there’s Nate and Sophie, who Cassie already met. They’re smiling at the Hork-Bajir, who seem to loosen and uncurl into life now that they’re back in the forest, and they walk with their arms close but very carefully not touching.
Next come Parker, Eliot, and Hardison, the three who she hasn’t met yet. Her friend Tidwell told her all about the team after they helped him prove that his former employer discriminated against him for being a voluntary Controller. They all seem physically well, but the broad long-haired guy, Eliot, looks stiff and a little too pale, and Parker and Hardison hover at his shoulders like they’re worried he might collapse. Cassie recognizes the signs from long experience: Eliot was just gravely wounded in morph, maybe almost died, and even though his body is whole, the people who love him naturally want to stay close.
“Taf,” says Cassie, waving to the old veteran. “Good to see you. You must be so glad to have your kalashi back.”
“Hold up,” says Hardison. “I thought Taf was Naj’s kalashi.”
Naj laughs and says, “Naj is kalashi of Taf. Taf is kalashi of Naj.”
“Ohhh,” says Hardison. “You’re lesbian Hork-Bajir. Sorry, girl, I thought you were a dude!”
Naj shrugs. “We forgive human friend.”
Kasi bends over, picks up a handful of dirt, and sniffs it. “Home.”
“Home,” Taf and Naj agree.
“Thank you so much for bringing them home,” says Cassie. “No one belongs in a cage. But the Hork-Bajir especially… they fought so hard for their freedom. I could never let them be captives again.”
“Free or dead,” says Taf.
“Try to go with free, okay?” says Hardison. “I can’t believe you’re still standing with all those bullet holes in you. You need to sit down or something.”
“Taf had worse,” says Naj.
“I don’t care,” says Cassie. “I’m calling medical. Stay right here. No climbing.” She calls the medical team on her satellite phone, rigged to have reception even in Yellowstone. The Hork-Bajir reluctantly settle at the base of a tree, contenting themselves with rubbing their hands and faces against its bark.
Hardison steps away from Eliot – though his hand lingers on his shoulder for a moment as he goes – to pass Cassie a document holder from his backpack.
“What’s this?” Cassie says. She opens it. Inside is the bill of sale for the Hork-Bajir, and more bills for the construction of the Hork-Bajir’s habitat. She looks up at Hardison, gaping.”You didn’t have to do this.”
“We had to make sure our homegirls don’t get smuggled off again,” says Hardison, smiling.
Cassie turns to Nate and Sophie, “What are your usual rates? I’ll pay you double, right now. With this?” She shakes the document holder. “I can nail Tillerson. And it’ll be a big enough scandal to really put teeth in the laws protecting the Hork-Bajir.”
Nate waves a hand. “That won’t be necessary.”
Parker produces a beautiful gold statuette – from where, Cassie isn’t quite sure – and beams. “This is from Baghdad. Disappeared from their antiquities museum during the Gulf War. It definitely shouldn’t be in a Texas ranch house. We’ll take better care of it.”
Cassie stares up at the canopy. “I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see that.”
“Listen, Cassie, if you don’t mind me asking,” says Nate, in the unmistakable tones of a man about to ask her a very rude question. Cassie sighs and meets his eyes. “Shouldn’t the other Animorphs be here helping you pass those laws?”
Cassie’s spine stiffens. Her least favorite question, asked in a million other forms by every journalist she ever meets. But they’re not journalists. They just helped her, and she may want their services again. In fact, now that she thinks of it – though it’s a slim hope – she may want them again very soon.
“I really shouldn’t tell you this without top secret clearance, but I get the feeling Hardison doesn’t even know what that means – ” The whole team chuckled at that one. “And I do trust you. So.” Cassie lets out a long breath, eyes closed. “The other Animorphs are being held by the Kelbrid. Not as prisoners, of course. As ‘honored guests,’ according to their transmissions. But they’re stronger even than the Andalites. Usually no one risks crossing into their space. But my friends… had to.”
“Not you, though,” says Sophie.
“My place is here on Earth,” Cassie says. “They know that. But now they’ve been captured by people with a military strength we can’t touch. And we have no idea what they want. Or even much of what they’re like.” She meets Nate’s eyes. “The only way to get them out that might work is a stealth mission. People to go in and get them out before the Kelbrid even know what’s going on.”
“Oh, no, Nate,” says Sophie. “I see that look in your eye. We don’t even know anything about these Kelbrid. We can’t con people if we don’t know what they want.”
“None of us have ever been to space,” Eliot says, arms akimbo.
“Does anyone even know what kind of tech they’ve got?” Hardison demands.
“I think it would be fun,” Parker says. “I’ve always wanted to steal something from a spaceship.”
“Come on,” says Nate. There’s a wild kind of light in his eyes, and he’s rubbing his hands together. “Don’t you guys have any sense of civic duty? Doesn’t our planet need Jake, Marco, Tobias, and Ax?”
The others, except for Parker, groan and shake their heads. But Hardison keeps turning his face away to hide his smiles, and Eliot turns to Cassie and says, “Do you want us to do this because Earth needs them?”
Cassie blinks. She feels her face heat, suddenly. How does Eliot know? “Yes. But they’re also my friends. More than that, really, after what we did together.”
Parker gives Eliot and Hardison shy, sideways looks. Nate watches Cassie keenly. Eliot just says, “I owe Jake. He’s a good man.”
“You knew Jake?” Sophie, Parker, and Hardison say in unison.
Eliot shrugs and looks away from them.
“He is,” Cassie says. “I hope you told him so. He doesn’t believe it, himself.”
“This is crazy,” Hardison says. “I hope you know that. We’re all probably going to die in space where no one will ever find us.”
“I’ll have new locks to learn how to break,” says Parker. “And we’ll get to go to space.”
Sophie looks at Cassie. “They’re your family. I’ll help.”
Nate flashes a smile of his own at Cassie, then turns to his team. “Come on, team. Let’s go steal us some Animorphs.”