The Predator Read online

  The sudden light was blinding. I blinked and covered my eyes with my hand. As soon as I could see, I looked around. I was in a very small room, like a windowless office. I was alone.

  Then I looked down at my body. Arms. Legs. Feet. Yes! Human! Completely human.

  «We see light,» Jake said. «l know you can't thought-speak now, so, if it's safe, flick the light.»

  I could see them now. Four tiny ants, huddled against the corner of the wall. It took my breath away.

  Had that been me? I had been one of them? Down there?

  I flicked the light. Seconds later, they began to demorph. I turned away, and focused on rifling the desk.

  "That was gross beyond belief," Cassie said. She was the first to complete her change.

  "Yeah," I agreed.

  85 "I don't want to do that again," she said. I could hear the shiver of fear and disgust in her voice.

  I didn't answer. I was too scared to want to talk about it. If I talked about it, it would become real, you know? Better not to think. Better to shove it out of my mind.

  "This is the place," Rachel said when she had grown eyes and a mouth again. "I recognize it. Chapman's office. I was a cat when I was in here, but this is it."

  "Let's get this done. In and out," Jake said nervously. "Ax? Find that transponder."

  Ax, now fully Andalite again, immediately began removing a panel from the thing I thought was a fax machine.

  I continued looking through Chapman's desk. Nothing much there. No papers. No files.

  Ax looked at me and smiled in that way An- dalites have of smiling with just their eyes. He touched a small cube I thought was a paperweight. The paperweight lit up and projected a picture into the air in front of me.

  "Cool," I said. "A computer, right?"

  «Yes. A computers

  I poked the air, pointing at a symbol that looked like it would be a folder. It opened. The document was written in some totally alien al phabet.

  86 «You can use a computer?»

  "Sure. Why not? This is a few hundred years more advanced than ours but - "

  «Stop!» Ax said suddenly. «Go back to that last documents

  "You can read this stuff?"

  «Yes.» He stared intently. «lt is an announce ment. The Yeerks have an important visitor arriv ing soon. Visser One.»

  "Visser One? That would be like Visser Three's boss?"

  «Yes. Visser One is more powerful than Visser Three. Just as Visser Three is more powerful than Visser Four. There are forty-seven Vissers in the Yeerk empire. Or so we believe.»

  "Great," I said. "Forty-seven. Not all like our friend Visser Three, I hope."

  Ax was back at work getting the transponder out of the faxlike machine. «No,» he answered. «0nly Visser Three has an Andalite body. Only he can morph. Visser One has a human body, I be lieve. Ah. Here, I have it.»

  He held up a tiny, shiny disk. No bigger than a pea.

  "Okay, let's get out of here," Jake said. "Put that thing near the crack. We won't have to carry it as far. Everyone, morph back. Let's bail."

  It was the moment I dreaded. I didn't want to return to that ant body. It made me want to cry,

  87 just thinking of it. But there was no other way. If we tried to sneak out of the basement by going up through the house, we might be caught.

  "Boy, I don't want to do this," I muttered. But at the same time, I focused on that ant shape. And as I watched, my friends began to change.

  Once we had shrunk back to ant size, the transponder seemed enormous. It was far bigger than we were. Standing beside it, feeling it with my legs and antennae, it felt about as big as a two-car garage.

  «Everybody says ants are incredibly strong for their size,» Cassie pointed out. «Let's see if that's true.»

  It seemed impossible, but Cassie, Rachel and Ax managed to lift that monstrous load off the ground.

  I mean, it was like seeing three people walking down the street carrying a city bus. That's how big it was. But it's true what they say about ants. For their size, they are some strong little bugs.

  When we reached the vertical wall, the three of them had to push it ahead and roll it up the wall, like some gigantic steel donut.

  We reached the crack. They shoved the tran sponder in. Jake and I were in the lead.

  It took all five of us to drag that thing over the crags of the concrete canyon. But we made it

  88 through and back to the dirt tunnel. The trans ponder was so big it blocked the tunnel. It was like a spitwad in a straw. But with Ax, Rachel and Cassie behind pushing, and Jake and I clearing boulders - grains of sand - out of the way, we made progress.

  It happened suddenly.

  There was no warning.

  One second the tunnel ahead of me was empty. The next second it was full.

  Full of a charging, racing army of ants.

  Enemies, my ant brain said.

  Now the killing would begin.

  89 « They're behind us!» It was Rachel, yelling.

  «Breaking through the side of the tunnel!» Cassie screamed.

  «They're everywhere!»

  «Help! Help!»

  «Arrrrgggghhhh!»

  The speed of the attack was incredible. The force of the attack was impossible to explain. There were hundreds of them. Ahead. Behind. Flooding up from side tunnels. Bursting from the walls.

  «My leg! They bit off my leg!»

  «0h, oh, oh! My neck. Oh, help me!»

  There were three of them on me. They were

  90 pulling me, trying to force me down so they could tear me apart.

  Tear me apart!

  A fourth scampered over my head, brushing my antennae. He locked his mandibles on my narrow waist. He was trying to bite me in half.

  There was no defense. We could not win. We would all be dead in a few seconds.

  They were machines. Absolutely without fear. Unstoppable.

  «Morph!» I yelled. «lt's the only way! Morph!»

  One of my legs came loose, torn away. Ripped out by the roots.

  «Aaarrrgghhh!»

  «No! No! Help me!»

  I could feel my waist being sawed through by grinding sharp mandibles.

  A searing liquid was fired at me. Poison. They were stinging me. Stinging me again and again, and ripping me apart.

  Human. I wanted to be human again. Please, just let me live long enough to become human again!

  «Morph!» Jake's voice. Then, «Aaaaahhhhh! No! N0!»

  My waist would snap. The mandibles would not release me.

  Then, suddenly, the pressure around my waist

  91 was gone. Instead, I felt the sandy soil pressing against me.

  I was growing!

  I couldn't breathe. Sand blocked the air. Pressure. Then, the ground around me opened up. I swear it was like climbing up out of a grave. The air! Fresh, clean night air!

  I exploded up out of the sand.

  Jake was on top of me, pushing against me as he grew. And the others, who had been only inches away in the tunnel, also pressed together in a rapidly growing heap of misshapen bodies. I tried to squirm away, but it was awkward. I was only half human.

  But at last I lay there on the ground, staring up through human eyes at the stars.

  «Are you guys okay?» It was Tobias.

  "Cassie?" Jake asked.

  "I'm okay," Cassie said.

  "Me, too, Jake, thanks for asking," Rachel said.

  We were all alive. All in one piece. Four hu mans and an Andalite.

  I looked down and saw the disturbed sand, where we had pushed our way up and out. Thou sands of ants, almost too small to see, were rac ing wildly around.

  There, too, in the dirt, was the transponder. I picked it up.

  92 Rachel was stomping the ground back down, trying to flatten it out so it wouldn't look strange.

  "Jake?" I said. "Let's not do this again any time soon."

  He nodded shakily.

  "One day I'm a lobster. Then
I'm an ant. I fig ure the next step down the evolutionary ladder is a virus or something. And I just want to say right now, I'm not doing it. I am not going to become phlegm, even to save the world."

  It wasn't much of a joke, but there was a kind of lame little laugh from everyone. And Rachel stopped stomping the ants - I mean, the ground.

  That night, when I went home, I took a shower. I found the head of an ant. It was still locked onto the skin of my waist.

  Lots of people think only humans fight wars. That only humans are murderous. Let me tell you something - compared to ants, human beings are full of nothing but peace, love, and under standing.

  A month or so after the experience with the ants, I picked up a book about ants. The author said, "If ants had nuclear weapons they would probably end the world in a week."

  He's wrong. It wouldn't take them that long.

  93 JL was cool. I was fine. I slept okay. There were dreams, but I just put them out of my mind.

  When I got up the next morning, I ignored the fact that my dad's eyes were red, like he'd been crying. He was getting worse, not better, as we got closer to Sunday. To the second year anniver sary of my mom's death.

  But I had to put that out of my mind, too. I had to put a lot of things out of my mind. It was getting to be a habit.

  I saw Jake in the hallway at school. I pre tended not to notice him.

  I saw Rachel, too. She had a dark look in her eyes. Like she hadn't slept. Like something was really wrong.

  94 Even Cassie seemed grim. It had gotten to all of us. It's not so easy to just forget terror. It's not easy to just ignore the memory of your leg being ripped off.

  Of being dismembered. Torn apart.

  One of these days, I thought, one of us is go ing to go crazy. Totally, lock-me-up-in-a-rubber- room nutso. It was too much. This wasn't how life was supposed to be.

  One of us would snap. One of us would lose it. It could happen, even to strong people.

  I knew. It had happened to my father. I used to think nothing could ever destroy him. But my mom's death had.

  He used to be an engineer. A scientist, really. He's incredibly smart. We had a nice house. We had a nice car. I used to live practically next door to Jake.

  I know all that stuff isn't important. I know having things isn't what life is about. But it was still hard when my dad just stopped going to work. Jerry, his boss, tried to be nice. He gave him a couple of weeks to deal with losing Mom.

  But a couple of weeks was not enough.

  My dad's a janitor now. Part-time. He gets jobs with a temporary service. He unpacks boxes at department stores. That kind of thing. But I don't care what kind of job he has. That doesn't matter.

  95 What matters is that when I lost my mom, I lost my dad, too.

  See, people can snap. People can lose it. I know.

  I cruised through the morning classes. No big deal.

  At lunch I ended up at a table with Rachel. She didn't seem to notice me. She was just hunched over her meal, eating mechanically.

  A girl named Jessica came walking past with her tray. She bumped into Rachel, which made Rachel drop her fork. It splattered down in the food on her tray.

  I don't know if Jessica did it deliberately or not. She's the kind of girl who thinks she's tough.

  "Watch it!" Rachel snapped.

  "What?" Jessica demanded, acting outraged. "Are you yelling at me? Don't give me any of your mouth, I might have to slap it for you." Then she shoved against Rachel's back.

  In a flash Rachel was up, out of her seat. She spun around. She grabbed Jessica by the collar of her sweatshirt and pushed the girl back against the next table.

  Jessica probably outweighs Rachel by fifty pounds. But it didn't matter. Rachel had her on her back, on the table, scattering dishes and food everywhere. Rachel leaned over Jessica and in a voice of cold steel, said, "Don't. Touch. Me."

  96 I saw Jake across the room. Too far away to in tervene. Cassie was with him. It was up to me.

  I jumped up and raced to Rachel. I took a deep breath and shoved both my arms between them.

  "Backoff, Marco," Rachel said.

  "Get her off me! She's crazy!" Jessica cried.

  I pushed against Rachel, trying to force her off Jessica. Suddenly, Jessica started lashing out. I assume she was trying to hit Rachel.

  She missed.

  "Ow!" I grabbed my left eye. "What are you hitting me for?"

  And that's when the first teacher showed up.

  Five minutes later, Jessica, Rachel and I were sitting in the assistant principal's office.

  Chapman's office.

  Jessica was acting outraged in a very loud voice. Rachel was staring stonily ahead. I was wondering whether my eye would just keep swell ing up.

  Chapman glared at us. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Fighting in the lunch room? And you, Rachel, of all people!"

  "What, like you think she's better than me?" Jessica demanded.

  Chapman ignored her. He focused on Rachel. "Is something the matter? Mr. Halloram says you

  97 started the fight. Are you okay, Rachel? Is there some kind of stress in your life?"

  For a split second, I was afraid. The look in Rachel's eyes was dangerous. I had this terrible flash of her saying, "Yeah, Mr. Chapman, I am a little stressed. I nearly got killed turning into an ant to sneak into your basement to fight you and the rest of your evil Yeerk friends."

  I knew Rachel was too cool for anything like that. But then, I would have said she was too cool to start a fight in the lunchroom.

  "It's my fault, Mr. Chapman," I said.

  "Your fault?" His eyes narrowed.

  "Yes, sir. Urn, they were fighting over me. See, they both want me. They're both madly in love with me, and I can certainly understand why. Can't you?"

  "Are you crazy, you little toad?!" Jessica shrieked.

  But when I glanced over at Rachel I saw just the slightest little tugging at the corner of her mouth. The beginnings of a smile.

  Chapman yelled at us for a few minutes and told us all to make appointments with the school counselor. Then he let us go.

  In the hallway outside his office, Rachel walked with me.

  "I wish I could do that," she said.

  98 "What?"

  "Always think things are funny. It's why you're so ... you know, cool and in control."

  "Me? Cool and in control?" The idea surprised me. Rachel thought I was in control?

  "Yesterday . . . last night ... it got to me," she said. She shrugged. Then she smiled her supermodel smile at me. "You grind my nerves sometimes, Marco, always joking the way you do. But keep it up, okay? We need a sense of hu mor."

  "Humor? You thought I was kidding? You mean, you and Jessica aren't both insanely in love with me?"

  "Dream on, Marco," she said.

  99 x finished building his distress beacon. He had it ready the next day, now that he had the Z-Space transponder.

  Now we just had to figure out where to lay our trap. It couldn't be any place that would ever be connected with us. Not Cassie's farm, or the nearby woods. Not even anywhere in town, if we could help it.

  A couple days after the ant episode, we hooked up again in the fields of Cassie's farm, up against the trees of the forest. This was one area we definitely had to keep safe. It was the only place we had to keep Ax if this mission to help him escape failed.

  100 It was Tobias who came up with the answer.

  «There's a gravel quarry. It's further inland. There's never anyone there. And it is just about an hour's flying time away.»

  "If we're flying somewhere we'll have to get Ax a bird morph of some type," Jake said. He looked at Cassie.

  "We have a few choices in the barn," she said. She bit her lip, thinking. "We have a north ern harrier that was poisoned. About your size, Tobias."

  "Ax? Do you mind picking up a bird morph?" Jake asked.

  «l have admired Tobias's shape. It is truly wonderful in every way. The sharp t
alons. The beak. Much better than the human body. Not that I mean to offend. It is just that humans have no natural weapons. I miss my tail when I am in human morph.»

  "No offense taken," I said. "But you're wrong about humans having no natural weapons. You marinate human feet in a pair of old tennis shoes for a few hours on a hot day and you'll see a deadly weapon. The dreaded stink-foot."

  "Okay. That's settled," Jake said. "Now, let's get down to details. If we're going to call down a Bug fighter we need to have a plan ready. Satur day should be the day, I think."

  101 "As long as it doesn't involve ants," I said. I meant it as a joke. But no one laughed.

  "No ants," Jake agreed quietly.

  I shook my head in amusement. "You know, we're talking about taking on Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. I used to think they were the scariest things in the world. But it's the little ant that scares me worst now."

  When the meeting broke up I hung around till Jake was done saying good-bye to Cassie.

  Jake and I walked home together. For a while we talked about the normal kinds of things we used to talk about before. Before our lives changed.

  We talked about basketball and disagreed over which was the best NBA team. We talked about music. Neither of us had bought a new CD recently. We even talked about whether Spiderman could kick Batman's butt or vice versa.

  You know, stupid, normal, everyday stuff.

  I was stalling because I didn't want to have to tell him what I had decided.

  But Jake's been my friend forever. He knows me.

  "Marco? What's the problem?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, you haven't said a single mean-

  102 yet-funny thing the whole way. That's not you."

  I laughed. Then, I just blurted it out. "This is my last time," I said.

  "What do you mean?"

  He knew exactly what I meant, of course. "I'm in for this time, but that's it. No more after that. And I'm serious. No one is going to 'guilt' me into it. I've done enough."

  He thought about that for a while as we walked. "You're right. You have done enough. You've done a million times more than 'enough.'"

  "It's just been too many close calls."

  "Yeah."

  "One of these days we aren't going to pull it off, you know? Ten more seconds and those ants would have had us. And before that it was a pot of boiling water. And before that I was practically killed by sharks. I mean, come on. Enough is enough."