The Pretender Read online

  «With the sun at this angle I'm having a hard time seeing inside the windows,» I complained.

  «Really? Not me,» Rachel said.

  56 «Bald eagles hunt fish,» I pointed out. «Your eyes are evolved to see down through water, even if there are reflections on the water. I eat mice and rabbits.»

  «Rabbits?»

  «You take what you can get. And don't start in with Thumper from Bambi, or Peter Rabbit, or the Easter Bunny. Rabbits are prey, just like mice.»

  «l was just gonna say they sounded tastier than mice. I mean, people eat rabbits. Or at least they used to. In the old cowboy movies didn't they shoot rabbits and cook 'em up with a mess o' beans?»

  «Absolutely. Exactly. Nothing wrong with eating a rabbit.»

  «Unless he's named "Bugs." Hey, I see a woman in that room. Dm . . . third window from the end.»

  «l can't see clearly.»

  «Probably a good thing. She's changing.»

  «Ah. You mean she's changing clothes, right? Not morphing.»

  «She's morphing from a pair of sweatpants and T-shirt into a dress. The dress is, oh, about three, four years out of date.»

  «So maybe she really was in Africa. If that's even her.»

  «0r maybe she doesn't keep up with fashion.

  57 I see a lot of camera equipment. That'd fit with the whole nature photographer thing.»

  «The glare is shifting. Is it safe for me to look?»

  «Are you always this nice about being a Peeping Tom?»

  «l am never a Peeping Tom,» I said sharply. Then I softened my tone. «l cannot use my superpowers for evil.»

  Rachel laughed. «0kay to look now.»

  I banked into a turn, flapped to keep my altitude, then glided as slowly as I could, forty feet out from the window.

  She was maybe twenty-five or thirty. She had dark hair, pulled back into a ponytail. Not tall, not short. Thin. She seemed very tan.

  «Does she look like anyone in your family?» Rachel asked.

  «No. I mean, I don't know. According to DeGroot I have some father I didn't even know about. So who knows if she looks like family?»

  «How do we find out?»

  I didn't answer. The truth is, I hadn't really heard Rachel. I was off in my own mind, watching the strange woman who said she wanted to take care of me.

  Why? Why would someone want to take care of me? She didn't know me. So why? Because of some vague family loyalty thing? Maybe. I guess

  58 some families are like that. You know, they feel connected to anyone who shares a biological connection to them. But my family wasn't that way. Not the ones I'd met, anyway.

  My mother disappeared and my father died when I was little. I barely remembered either of them. I had pictures, of course. Back when I was human. But now when I tried to remember them I couldn't tell whether the memories were real or just something I'd made up.

  Sometimes I wondered if it was all an illusion. That I'd never had a mother and father. That I'd never really been human.

  I was a freak of nature. No, that wasn't right, either. Nature at its most perverse could not create me. I was a freak of technology. Of alien technology.

  I was a bird with the mind of a human boy. Or I was a boy with the body of a bird. Either way, that woman I saw through the glass, the woman now channel-surfing with her remote control and stopping at CNN, that woman did not know me.

  Not the old me or the real me.

  Surprise, Cousin Aria, your adopted son is a red-tailed hawk.

  «l say, ahem, how do we find out?» Rachel asked.

  «What? Oh. I guess we follow her. Watch her.

  59 Observe. If she's a Controller she'll need to go to the Yeerk pool within the next three days.»

  «We can't watch her continuously^ Rachel said.

  «Maybe not,» I admitted. «But maybe we can find out enough. Look! She's getting a phone

  «She looks puzzled. Now she's . . . excited. There she goes!»

  Aria ... if this was Aria . . . hefted a camera bag onto her shoulder. She paused in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting her hair and checking her clothes carefully.

  «Don't worry about your hair,» Rachel sniped, «do something about that dress. »

  I laughed. But at the same time something bothered me about what I'd just seen. Something . . .

  But then the woman was out the door of her room and out of sight.

  «We should swing around to the front door. Watch her come out,» Rachel said.

  «Yeah. Let's just hope she doesn't drive or catch a cab.»

  «Why?»

  «Ever tried flying fast enough to keep up with a car?»

  60

  «Oh, man! She's going for a cab!» I yelled as the hotel doorman waved for a taxi.

  «Traffic's pretty bad. Maybe we can stay with her,» Rachel said.

  «Not by staying in the air, we can't,» I said grimly.

  «You have a plan?»

  «Rachel, I have a plan even you will think is insane,» I said. «See that cop car? Going the same general direction as the cab? See the lights on top?»

  Rachel laughed. «0kay, that actually is insane. Let's do it!»

  We dove, hurtling down out of the sky. What I had in mind wasn't exactly subtle. It was dangerous

  61 and would make heads turn as we raced through the city streets.

  But it could possibly work.

  The red lights atop the police car were mounted on a raised bar. There was a light at either end, and a couple of feet of open bar between.

  The cab headed east down a major boulevard. So did the police car. They were only doing twenty miles an hour in the traffic, but hawks and eagles can't just fly long distances in a straight line. We need to turn, to ride the thermals upward. Even at twenty miles an hour the cab could lose us.

  Down we swooped, turning height into speed.

  Down, down, me slightly in front.

  «Rachel, line up behind me, but watch the turbulence from my wings!»

  She lined up behind me and we swept down from twenty-something floors up to just above street level, executing a smooth glide path that an airline pilot would have been proud of.

  «Keep up your speed!»

  «We're going faster than them, we'll overshoot^ Rachel cried.

  «Are you telling me how to fly?»

  «No, sir!» Rachel yelled in that giddy way she gets whenever she's an inch away from utter disaster. «Hah HAH!»

  62 The cop car moved horizontally. We came down at an angle. The two lines would meet. . . now!

  «Flare!» I swept my wings forward, killed just a hint of my airspeed, opened my talons, spread them wide, and . . . yes! Snagged the crossbar and held on.

  Rachel grabbed with one talon but missed with the other. She folded her wings and the wind current slammed her back.

  «Keep your profile!» I cried. «0pen your wings. Surf, don't ride.»

  Somehow she made sense of my gibbering. She lunged with her other talon and caught the bar. She muscled her body forward into a flying profile. She spread her massive wings.

  And off we went. A red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle riding the roof of a cop car, wings open, beaks forward, talons straining to take the pressure.

  «Now this doesn't look too strange!» Rachel laughed, still high from the rush of danger.

  Drivers behind and beside us stared, mouths open. Some to the point where they barely avoided crashing into one another. But the police beneath us remained oblivious.

  «Someone is going to yell to the cops that we're up here,» I worried.

  «Nah,» Rachel reassured me. «No one goes

  63 out of their way to attract a cop's attention while they're driving. We'll be saved by people's guilty consciences.»

  One very odd-looking police car continued down the boulevard, shadowing the cab from a distance of three or four car lengths. We rode for two miles that way, till we'd reached the edge of the city, out where the buildings grew smaller, older, and s
habbier. We were passing the airport. A big 747 roared by overhead.

  And then . . ,

  «Ahhhh!»

  Red lights swirled all around us. The car surged forward. Wind resistance doubled and I could barely hold on. Then came the siren.

  Think police sirens are loud? Try having better-than-human hearing and being eight inches from the siren itself. Then add in four jet engines from a slow-moving jumbo jet.

  «Aaaaahhhh! They got a call!»

  The cop car took off. In a second we'd pass the cab. No! A sudden turn, and the cab and police car were separating at a rapid clip.

  Too fast for us to keep our wings open. We were moving at fifty, maybe sixty miles an hour. We closed our wings and hunkered down as close to the bar as we could crouch. I tucked my head low and kept my tail feathers tightly closed.

  Now we were just alongside the airport. An-

  64 other jet, a smaller 737 this time, was readying for takeoff. But before it gathered speed, something much smaller rose from the tarmac.

  A helicopter.

  The helicopter lifted off and headed at right angles to us. It was going the same direction as the cab.

  «l have another really bad idea,» I said.

  «No.»

  «I'm doing it!» I yelled.

  «How do I do it?» Rachel screamed.

  «Time it! Release. Just a little tail for lift, barely open your wings, use your head to turn!»

  «When?»

  «NOW!»

  I released my grip. I opened my tail feathers and cocked them ever so slightly upward. So little wing that my wings might as well have been tail fins of a rocket.

  And a good thing, too, because I was a rocket.

  I blew through the air like a feather missile, catching just enough lift, turning with only a slight movement of my head . . .

  I shot up beneath the helicopter, swerved to match its direction, rolled over on my back, opened my talons, and . . .

  «0oowwww!» I took the jolt as my talons closed around the strut of the landing skid.

  65 Rachel was just behind me. She turned and opened her talons, but she hadn't prepared for the severe downdraft of wind from the helicopter's rotors.

  A miss!

  Rachel's talons missed their mark, and she wasn't going to get another shot.

  «I'll see you later!» I yelled to her.

  «Not much later,» she laughed. «Take a look. The cab pulled in down there.»

  I had pulled off a completely impossible move. For absolutely no reason.

  «It was still way cool,» Rachel said. But she laughed some more as I released my hard-won grip on the helicopter and floated in embarrassment toward the dirt field where the cab was now disgorging Aria.

  66

  It took a moment for me to realize what I was looking at. It was a shabby-looking building from the air. But the truth is, most buildings look pretty bad from the air. You just see roofs and air conditioners.

  The building itself was one story, but with a false facade that would have made it look much bigger to a person approaching from ground level. It was fronted by a dirt parking lot with a few cars. In the back was a dirty green lagoon - shallow water ^ordered by a rickety-looking wooden railing.

  There were two alligators sunning themselves on the mud banks of this tiny lagoon.

  The lot to the left of the building was a liquor

  67 store. To the right of the main building, seemingly attached to it, was a miniature golf course. The theme was apparently "pirates." A plaster pirate ship served as a centerpiece.

  «It's one of those crappy roadside zoo things,» Rachel reported, having swept low enough to see the garish signs clearly. «It's called "Frank's Safari Land and Putt-Putt Golf."»

  «Catchy name,» I said.

  «It's just a good thing Cassie isn't here. She hates these places. I mean, she hates these places. She'd have us go in there and free all the animals.»

  «Maybe that's why Aria is here,» I suggested. «She's a nature photographer, after all. She must hate places like this, too.»

  «Maybe,» Rachel said skeptically.

  I banked a turn and went low to check out a sort of marquee that advertised to passing cars. It was one of those signs where they use big plastic letters.

  The sign said all new! deadly midget freak! the living razor!

  «0h, man. We have trouble,» I said.

  «Will it involve trying to snag onto a helicopter in midair?» Rachel asked with a laugh. «And by the way, it may have been unnecessary, but it was SO cool!»

  «"The Living Razor,"» I said, quoting the sign. «"Deadly Midget Freak."»

  68 «What's a living razor?» Rachel wondered.

  «Don't know for sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I think we need to get inside that building.»

  «Well, we could demorph to human and walk right in. If we had money for a ticket.»

  Demorph to human? Not me. I had to morph to human. I let it go.

  «It's two bucks each,» I said.

  «l have got to learn how to morph a credit card.»

  «We could always sneak in as cockroaches,» I said. «l doubt a couple of roaches would even be noticed in that place. Let alone a couple of houseflies.»

  «0h man, I hate doing insects. You know-»

  «Uh-oh. I feel a Rachel idea coming on.»

  «0h please, after your idea of riding a cop car then rocketing off to grab a helicopter? You're going to diss my idea?»

  «0oookay. Fair enough.»

  «l was just noticing there's only one old man watching the front door. And I have to tell you, I don't think all his hair is exactly real.»

  «What?»

  «Head for the Putt-Putt pirate ship. We can demorph in there. I'll be right along.»

  With that, Rachel swooped down from the sky on a glide path toward the old man, who was sit-

  69 ting on a stool just outside the door to Frank's Safari Land.

  Talons open, she raked the man's head.

  "Hey!" he yelled. "That's my hair!"

  The big bald eagle flew slow and low, carrying what looked like a dead muskrat, but was in fact the man's toupee. The man took off after her. I headed for the big plaster pirate ship. A few moments later Rachel joined me, laughing as she demorphed.

  «0kay, what did you do with the poor man's toupee?»

  «Well, let's just say one of those alligators has a whole new look.»

  We demorphed inside the dusty, cobwebbed interior of the fake ship and had to squeeze out through a tiny access door. No one stopped us. No one noticed then, or when we walked brazenly through the front door of Frank's Safari Land.

  70

  Inside it was about what I'd expected. A very sad place. Miserable, unhappy animals in cages a tenth the size they should have been. Dim lighting that was swallowed up by the black-draped walls.

  A mangy fox paced restlessly. A pair of lynx slept, crammed into a cage that would have been small for a house cat. There was an aged barn owl, an adolescent deer, a pair of sheep. There was a Shetland pony in a circular pen, saddle on its back, saddle sores plainly visible. A sign said pony rides $2.50.

  A small female black bear was in a cage so low she could not rear up to her full height.

  71 Rachel leaned close to whisper in my ear. "I was going to say we shouldn't tell Cassie about this place, but you know what? Let's do tell her. She'll get Jake to go along with stomping this horrible place out of existence. What is the matter with people? I mean, I'm not exactly Ms. Tree-hugging-don't-eat-meat-let-animals-vote, but come on, this sucks. They want to treat a bear like that, I'll come back here and introduce these dirtbags to a real bear. See if 'Frank' can stick my grizzly in a little cage. I'll cage hi ml"

  I smiled with my human lips. The thing is, I knew Rachel wasn't exaggerating. If Jake didn't stop her, the "Frank" of Frank's Safari was going to be getting a visit from a big, shaggy, very annoyed, seven-foot-tall grizzly bear.

  Then we went aroun
d a dark corner into a small side room. There stood Aria and a man. I backed away quickly. But not so quickly that I failed to see the occupant of that small room.

  There, in a raised cage with two spotlights intersecting on him, was a young Hork-Bajir.

  He was only three feet tall, practically a newborn by Hork-Bajir standards. His blades were very sharp, like human baby teeth are, but small and not as rigid or dangerous as an adult's blades.

  His tail was stubby, barely formed. The forehead blades were just bumps.

  72 His clawed hands were wrapped around the bars of his cage. He was gazing with pathetic hope at Aria.

  "Whoa," Rachel whispered.

  "Yeah."

  We glided back out of sight, not that either Aria or the man with her had noticed us.

  "Look, lady, I'm not trying to bust your chops here. But if you want to take pictures, that's extra."

  "But, Mr. Hallowell -"

  "Call me Frank."

  "Okay, Frank. I'm a professional nature photographer. I would be happy to give you some copies of the pictures in payment."

  The man sneered. "I need a picture of the freak, I'll take a Polaroid. Uh-uh. This little monster is going to make me some cash. I've already contacted a newspaper. They're sending a guy out. He decides this is a good freak, he'll pay thousands."

  Aria hesitated. "And he would . . . disseminate . . . these photographs widely? Publish them?"

  The man looked at her like she was weird. "Now, what else would he do with them?"

  Aria nodded slowly. "Yes. Of course." She looked again at the young Hork-Bajir and repeated thoughtfully, "Yes, of course."

  73 "So let me just ask you, lady, since you're a big nature photographer and all: What is that thing?"

  "You don't know?"

  Frank shook his head. "This guy comes driving up with this thing lashed in the back of his pickup truck. Says he saw it out wandering around the side of the highway. Asked me what I'd pay for it. I gave him fifty bucks."

  "You made a good deal," Aria said. "I'm sure he's worth more than that."

  "So what is it, that's what I'd like to know."