The Predator Read online

  «lt wants to find prey,» Ax said wonderingly.

  «l know. Who'd have figured lobsters were predators?» I said.

  «lt's easier to deal with a predator brain than with prey. That prey fear can be overwhelming,» Jake said.

  I saw a lobster close by. «ls that you, Jake? Wiggle your left pincer.»

  The left pincer did not move. I realized this lobster had a rubber band around his pincer. None of us had rubber bands. Rubber bands were not a part of the lobster DNA.

  I saw a lobster to my left, unbanded. And another behind him. That was the three of us. There were half a dozen rubber-banded lobsters floating or just sitting.

  «Speaking of fear,» I said. «Can anyone see out of the tank ?»

  49 «Just shadows,» Jake said. «These are pa thetic eyes.»

  «Yes, even worse than your human eyes,» Ax commented.

  «This is really creepy,» I said. «l've never had an exoskeleton before.»

  «These pincers are most excellent, though,» Ax said.

  I saw him opening and closing them.

  «Ax?» Jake said. «You say you can keep track of time accurately? Start trackings

  «Yes, Prince Jake,» Ax said. «So far, ten of your minutes have passed.»

  «That much?» I was surprised. «Ten min utes? The cops must have come in by now.»

  «l was thinking the same thing,» Jake said.

  «We better wait as long as we can. Close to the full two hours,» I said. «Although I really don't want to spend any more time than I have to in this creepy morph.»

  According to Ax, an hour had passed when it happened.

  I felt a strange disturbance in the water. Something large had splashed in. I sensed something above me.

  Before I could think or react, I felt pressure on my shell.

  I was rising rapidly through the water, being lifted.

  50 «Jake! Something has me!»

  Sudden shock!

  I was out of the water.

  Dryness. Heat. My antennae waved wildly as I tried to understand. My eyes registered nothing but bright light and huge, indistinct shadows.

  Something large closed my right pincer forci bly. I could not open it. Then my left.

  Rubber bands! I couldn't see them in this wa terless environment. I was nearly blind. But I knew what had happened.

  Someone had picked me up and rubber- banded my pincers.

  Then I was tumbling, sliding, rubbing against things I could tell were other lobsters.

  «Jake! Are you in this, too?»

  «Yeah, but don't ask me what it means. I can't see or hear very well.»

  «ls it them? Is it Controllers?»

  Something very cold dropped on me and slithered around my body.

  Ice?

  I felt a sensation of swinging back and forth for a while, like being on a swing.

  «Ax?»

  «Yes, Marco. I am here, too. What is happen- ing?»

  «You got me,» I said. «Maybe the cops

  51 have us. Maybe the Controllers have us. I don't know.»

  «Let's stay in morph as long as we can,» Jake said. «Maybe we'll figure it out. But if the Controllers have us, the last thing we want to do is demorph.»

  The ice seemed to be making me sleepy. Or not exactly sleepy, just slow. Sluggish.

  I guess I kind of zoned out for a while. I didn't know for how long, until I became suddenly alert and heard Ax's drowsy voice in my head saying, «We have only seven minutes left.»

  That jolted me. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trapped as a lobster.

  «0kay, I am out of this morph, I don't care who sees,» I yelled.

  «Agreed,» Jake said. «Time's up. We have to take our chances.»

  «At least it's warmer now,» I said. I tried to look around, but my antennae felt nothing in the air. And my eyes only saw meaningless, blurry gray forms.

  I focused on demorphing. I wondered if I could close my human eyes when Jake started to reappear. I really did not want to watch Jake and Ax demorph. Once had been enough. I would already have nightmares for a month.

  «Here goes,» I said. I began the change.

  52 But just then I again felt the sensation of pressure on my shell. My pincers came free. Someone, or something, had removed the rubber bands.

  And suddenly I felt a warmth billowing up around me.

  Steam.

  «0h, no.»

  53 «MOOOOOO!» I screamed silently.

  I knew where I was! I was in someone's hand, about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water.

  «NOOOOOOOOO!»

  And maybe it was because I was so desperate to scream, or maybe it was just the luck of the morph, but my human mouth was one of the first things to emerge.

  Small, open lips appeared in place of my lob ster mouth.

  I didn't have normal lungs or vocal cords yet, so I couldn't make a sound.

  But I guess I didn't have to.

  I guess suddenly having lips appear on a lob ster was enough to make the woman drop me.

  54 I fell. My front pincers caught the edge of the pan. Sheer dumb luck. I hung onto the edge of the pan as my tail curled up, inches above the boiling water in the pot.

  I grew rapidly, becoming a baby-sized crea ture half-covered with hard cuticle, half flesh. Human eyes grew in place of the useless stalk eyes. The antennae sucked back into my forehead. I heard a grinding sound as my spine reap peared inside me.

  With a desperate surge of energy, I tumbled over the side of the pan and landed flat on my shell back, atop the stove. I was looking up into a stove hood.

  I rolled away from the heat and fell.

  But the fall wasn't far, because I was now the size of a toddler, more human than lobster. I was one nasty-looking kid, though, with eight legs growing from my stomach and chest.

  My human hearing returned with shocking ef fect.

  "Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

  Someone was screaming uncontrollably.

  My legs were back! I stood up. I looked around and saw a woman. Sort of pretty, except for the fact that her eyes were wide with terror and she was screaming.

  "Ahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!"

  55 I glanced over and saw the plastic bag filled with ice. That's how she had carried us from the supermarket. Now we were in her kitchen. Jake was already mostly human, standing with one foot still in the grocery bag. The eight legs sucked into his chest. His human eyes appeared.

  Ax was a truly disgusting combination of An- dalite and lobster. But as I watched, he elimi nated the last traces of crustacean.

  Unfortunately, this did not make the woman feel any better.

  "Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!"

  "It's okay, ma'am," I said. "We're not going to hurt you."

  "Calm down, ma'am," Jake said. "Please calm down."

  Her eyes darted wildly from me to Jake to Ax. She kept screaming.

  "Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

  "Look, it's okay," I said. "We're going to leave. No one is going to hurt you."

  "You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . lobsters!" she managed to say.

  "Yeah, it is slightly weird, I'll admit," I said. "But it's okay. It's just a dream."

  "A ... a ... a dream?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Just a dream," Jake said reas suringly.

  56 I looked at Ax. "Can you morph to human yet? We need to get out of here."

  "I can morph again," he assured me. And he started right away.

  "We're going to leave now," Jake said. "You can wake up later, okay? But I wouldn't tell any one about this dream."

  The woman shook her head violently.

  "See, it could get you in trouble with . . . with certain people. Besides, folks would just think you're crazy."

  She nodded with extreme conviction.

  Ax was almost human. We were all dressed in our slightly ridiculous morphing outfits, but they would have to do.

  We headed for the
door. Then I caught sight of three more lobsters, still in the bag of ice. I guess it was supposed to be a dinner for six.

  "Ma'am?" I asked. "Do us a favor, would you, please? Take those other guys down to the beach and let them go. Okay?"

  57 J

  ake and I were playing video games at the mall. I was kicking his butt. He was distracted because he was eating.

  He was eating a big red bug with huge pin cers.

  I told him not to eat it. It would upset his stomach. But he just ignored me.

  Then, suddenly, his stomach exploded. It just exploded outward, guts flying everywhere. Eight huge spider legs appeared, like something in him was try ing to crawl out.

  I tried to get away, but the steam was rising. I was burning up!

  I tried to run, but my legs were gone, replaced by a tail that jerked and kicked.

  58 I screamed.

  And screamed.

  "Marco, Marco, wake up!"

  My eyes opened very suddenly. Darkness. Someone holding onto me. I was confused.

  "Mom?" I asked.

  Silence. Then, "No."

  My brain snapped back into reality. I was in my room. In my own bed. My dad was sitting on the side of the bed. He looked concerned and sad.

  "It's just me," he said. He let go of my shoul ders.

  I felt sweaty all over. Cold sweat.

  "I guess you had a nightmare," my father said.

  "Yeah," I said shakily. "Sorry I woke you up."

  "I wasn't asleep," he said.

  I glanced at my clock. The red numbers showed 3:18 a.m. I didn't have to ask why my dad was awake. He often sat awake late into the night. Sometimes watching TV. Sometimes just staring into space.

  He'd been that way since my mom died.

  My dad looks very different from me. For one thing, he's pretty tall. He's paler than me, too, and has light brown eyes. My mom was Hispanic, very dark hair and eyes. Everyone says I look like her. I know it's true, because sometimes when

  59 he's thinking about her, my dad will just glaze over and stare at me like I'm not even there. Like I'm a picture of someone else.

  "I'm okay now," I said. "You should try to get some sleep."

  He nodded. "Yeah. I'll do that. Look, Marco, you weren't dreaming about her, were you?"

  "No, Dad. Why?"

  "Because the first thing you said when you woke up was 'Mom.'"

  "I guess I was confused."

  "Do you ever? Dream about her, I mean?"

  "Sometimes," I admitted. "But they aren't nightmares."

  He almost smiled. "No. I guess they wouldn't be, would they?" He picked up the little framed picture of my mom that I keep on my nightstand. Then he got that twisted look of sick grief I had seen on his face every day for the last two years.

  Part of me is mad when I see him that way. Part of me just wants to say, "Dad, get it together. Let her go. She's dead. She doesn't want us spending the rest of our lives mourning."

  But I never do say that.

  After a few minutes, he got up. He made some last remark about how I shouldn't be wor ried about bogeymen, and left. I knew he would sit out in the living room alone, and eventually fall asleep in his chair.

  60 I lay there in the dark and tried to get the dream out of my head. But it's hard to forget a nightmare that's true.

  «There. It is finished.» Ax held up a small mess of electronic components for all of us to see. It looked sort of like an exploded remote control, but smaller.

  It was the next day. We were out in the woods, grouped together beneath a huge old oak tree. It was like a strange sort of picnic. Jake and Cassie had each brought hand tools for Ax to use - screwdrivers, a solder gun, a battery-powered drill, a hammer, wrenches, pliers and, of course we had the electronic parts we had stashed in the trash before the lobster incident.

  Rachel had brought sandwiches. I'd brought a six-pack of Pepsi.

  It was a nice day, sunny and warm. I needed a nice day. I needed sunlight. I'd had a bad night, with too little sleep.

  "So, Ax," I said. "What is it?"

  «lt is a distress beacon that can broadcast on Yeerk frequencies,» he said with satisfaction. «l know this is a Yeerk frequency. We have used it to trick them before. To send false instructions.»

  "All it needs is a Z-Space transponder," Jake said wearily, rolling his eyes at me.

  I think Jake may have been a bit ragged out

  61 by the lobster incident, too. He seemed snappish and kind of unfocused. Not at all Jake-like.

  "And since we can't get a Z-Space transponder, it's basically useless, right?" Rachel asked.

  «Yes. Totally useless without the transpon ders

  Rachel threw up her hands. "Then what exactly are we doing?"

  Jake just shrugged. Cassie sidled up next to him and gave him a small little sideways hug. No one was supposed to notice. But right away Jake's harsh look mellowed a little.

  That wasn't doing anything for my bad mood, though. "Well, I'm guessing that in about two centuries or so, humans will discover zero space and make transponders. Whatever they are. But in the meantime, I'm going to have a sandwich."

  Tobias came drifting down through the branches and leaves of the tree, almost silent. He landed on a low branch of the oak. «No one anywhere near here,» he reported. «Looks safe. At least as far as you guys are concerned. But there's a golden eagle about a quarter-mile south. I think I'll stay out of sight for a while and hope he goes away.»

  Not for the first time, I realized how tough To bias's life is. He shares all the same dangers we do, but he also has all the dangers that come from being a red-tail hawk. Golden eagles some-

  62 times prey on hawks. They are bigger and faster than he is.

  «So. What's up?» Tobias asked.

  "We have a completely useless distress bea con," Rachel said. "We need a transponder that probably won't be invented on this planet for a century or two."

  «How about Chapman?» Tobias said.

  "What about Chapman?" I asked. Chapman is the assistant principal at our school. He's also one of the most important Controllers.

  I used to hate Chapman. I mean, once I knew that he was a Controller and all. But then we learned that he surrendered his freedom to the Yeerks as part of a deal to keep his daughter, Melissa, safe.

  It's hard to hate someone for protecting their kid. Even if he or she ended up being a deadly enemy. That's one of the terrible things about fighting the Yeerks. The real enemy is just the evil slug in a person's brain. The host is often to tally innocent.

  «We know that Chapman communicates with Visser Three,» Tobias said. «He talks to Visser Three on the Yeerk mother ship, or on the Blade ship. Wherever Visser Three is. Doesn't that mean that Chapman's secret radio thing must have one of these Z-Space transponders?»

  «Yes!» Ax said instantly. «lf this Controller

  63 speaks to any Yeerk ship, he would have to have a Z-Space transponder. The Yeerk ships are all cloaked. Cloaking technology requires a Z-Space deflection.»

  Jake caught my eye. "That's pretty much what I figured."

  I smiled, despite the fact that I had a bad feeling about the way this conversation was go ing.

  "How big is a Z-Space thingie?" Cassie asked.

  Ax held two of his fingers close together, indicating something the size of a pea. «There would be several redundant units in any transmitter. We could take one without it being noticed. At least not right away.»

  Rachel stood. "We are not going into Chapman's house again," she said firmly. "The last time we did, we almost got Melissa made into a Controller. We cannot morph her cat again. Chap man is on guard now. It won't be easy this time." She realized what she'd said and added, "Not that it was exactly easy the first time."

  "A historic first," I observed. "Rachel saying 'no' to a mission."

  "Rachel's right," Jake said. "We do nothing that will endanger Melissa again. So the cat is out. Also any other plan that means major risk that Chapman will d
iscover us."

  For a while no one said anything.

  65 Finally Ax spoke silently in our heads. «l can not ask anyone to take risks for me. You rescued me from the bottom of the ocean. You sheltered me. And my foolishness almost got Prince Jake and Marco killed yesterday.»

  What he said surprised me a little. I guess I'd expected him to argue that we should try and help him.

  "What if ..." Cassie began.

  We all looked at her. "Yes?" Jake asked.

  "What if there was a way to get into Chapman's basement room - the secret room where he keeps the transmitter - without even going through the house? With almost no chance of getting caught?"

  I felt my heart sink. "As long as it doesn't in volve anything with an exoskeleton."

  I'd meant it as a joke. But Cassie just looked at me solemnly.

  "What?" I demanded. "A lobster again? How is a lobster - "

  "No," she said. "Think smaller. Much smaller. Much, much smaller."

  64

  " Ants . That was Cassie's brilliant idea. Ants.

  See, ants could get into Chapman's basement. And ants could carry away the small trans ponder.

  Ants.

  This was what my life had come to. We ended up spending a couple of hours debating whether we should be red ants or black ants. I finally left in disgust. I didn't want to be an ant, red, black, or any other color.

  I saw Jake the next day in school. I had just come out of history class, where I had blown a pop quiz.

  I wasn't in the best mood.

  I was opening my locker and muttering about

  66 the Mexican-American War, and how was anyone supposed to remember the difference between that war and the Texas war of independence.

  "Hi," Jake said. "The answer is black. Turns out most of the ants near Chapman's house are black. Tobias checked it out."

  I looked over Jake's shoulder to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "Jake, I don't want to be a bug. I've been a gorilla, an osprey, a dolphin, a seagull, a trout, of all things, a lob ster . . . and I'm probably forgetting a few. Gorilla was fun. Dolphin was fun. Osprey was fun. Ant? Not fun. Basically, bugs are a bad idea."

  Jake shrugged. "I was a flea. That was no big thing." He grinned like he'd made the world's funniest joke. "Seriously, it was like nothing. I couldn't see anything. I could barely hear anything, just vibrations. All I knew was I liked warm bodies and whenever I got hungry I just poked a hole in some warm skin."