The Warning

  54 lightened my mood a little when Ax went nuts and started sucking up packets of hot sauce.

  The manager kicked us out.

  "You kids stay out of here. Buy your crazy friend a bottle of Tabasco if he needs it!"

  "What is Tabasco? Tuh-bah-sco. Sco. Is it tasty and full of flavor?" Ax wondered as he headed on down the sidewalk, carrying our bags of tacos and burritos.

  "Yeah, you'd probably like it," Rachel said.

  The WAA Building was one of those medium-sized buildings, maybe twenty floors high and not all that modern. We loitered around outside, trying to figure out what to do next. And that's when a bus pulled up and a bunch of old people started climbing out.

  Someone came out of the WAA Building with a big smile and shook the hand of the bus group's leader.

  "You folks are right on time. If you're ready, we can begin the tour immediately."

  We all looked at each other. "They have tours?" Tobias said.

  "Guess so. I guess we might as well tag along."

  We fell into step at the back of the group. None of the old people seemed to mind. Basically, I think kids are kind of invisible to old peo-

  55 pie unless they are their grandkids, or they're being rude.

  We were polite and quiet, and no one said a thing.

  "As you may already know, Web Access America is the largest online service in America, with over nine million subscribers," the guide said.

  "Well, this was easy," Marco whispered to me.

  "We're not anywhere yet," I pointed out.

  "Now we'll start by showing you our 'command center.' This is where we monitor the ebb and flow of traffic across our entire system."

  Marco grinned. "Like taking candy from a baby."

  We traveled up elevators, and down a hallway decorated with portraits of guys who I guess were the owners of WAA. I only recognized one. The guide stopped by the oversized oil painting in the gold frame.

  "And this is our founder, Joe Bob Fenestre. Later we'll show a short, entertaining film about the fascinating life of Mr. Fenestre."

  Marco raised his hands and made a bowing motion, like he was saying prayers to Joe Bob Fenestre. Rachel yanked his shirt.

  "Hey, the idea is not to attract attention, genius."

  56 "I'm sorry," Marco said. He pretended to wipe away a tear. "This is Joe Bob Fenestre. I love Joe Bob. I admire Joe Bob. I want to fee Joe Bob."

  "I didn't know you were all that interested in computers," Cassie said. "I mean, I knew you liked playing around with them, but-"

  Marco waved a hand dismissively. "It's not about computers. Who cares about computers?"

  "Well, isn't that the big thing with Mr. Fenestre?"

  Marco shook his head, like Cassie had said something insane, and walked away.

  Cassie looked at me.

  "Joe Bob Fenestre is the second wealthiest man in the world, Cassie," I said. "I think that's what Marco cares about more than computers. Hey, Marco?"

  "What?"

  "How much is Fenestre worth?"

  "Mr. Fenestre is worth twenty-four point nine billion dollars. That's billion. What a 'b.' As in billion."

  "Is that a lot of dollars?" Ax asked.

  "You could buy all the Tabasco sauce in the world with it, Ax. All the Tabasco in the entire world, and have enough left over to buy your own small country."

  We turned a corner, and there, through the glass, we saw the command center. It looked like

  57 ground control at NASA. Row after row of men and women sitting at computer consoles.

  We dropped back from the tour group so we could talk privately.

  "Okay, there it is," I said. "Now how do we get in?"

  58 C+4-R--PT-E-R

  How do we get in?" Rachel asked. "It's daytime. There are people around. This isn't how we usually do things. It's usually night."

  I glanced around. The tour group was moving off. Pretty soon someone would notice us hanging around. People were coming and going from the command center down below. But it was awfully hard to imagine what kind of animal morph we could use to sneak in there and work a computer keyboard without being noticed.

  I was puzzled. And no one else seemed to have any brilliant suggestions, either. I looked at Marco. He shrugged. I looked at Rachel.

  Rachel said, "We could create a distraction.

  59 Set the place on fire, then when everyone runs . . ."

  "Rachel, these are nice, normal, innocent people, not Controllers, as far as we know," I pointed out. "We can't go around terrifying and endangering normal people."

  She nodded like she understood. I'm pretty sure she actually did.

  Then it popped into my head. "That's the morph: nice, normal people."

  "What?"

  "We acquire DNA from some of the people who work here. We morph them and walk right in." As soon as the words were out of my mouth I thought, Wow, there's something not really right about this.

  Cassie looked pained. "Wow, there's something not really right about that."

  "I think it's brilliant," Marco said. "Possibly immoral, but brilliant."

  "Humans are the animals that are native to this particular environment," Ax pointed out.

  "We like to think of ourselves as more than animals," Rachel pointed out.

  "Why?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. We just do. Or at least as the best animals around."

  "The best?" Ax echoed. "How do you define best?"

  60 "We alone of all the animals have the ability to create TV shows," Marco said. "Why are we yapping about this? What's the big deal? Ax's human morph is made up of bits of DNA from all of us. What's the difference?"

  "We consented," Cassie said. "We gave permission."

  "Who cares, as long as it works?" Rachel said.

  "How are we different from Yeerks, then?" This came from a surprise source: Marco. Was he arguing both sides, or had he changed his mind?

  "We aren't taking over their minds," Rachel said. "We'd simply be using their DNA. No different from any other animal."

  Everyone looked at me. Like I was supposed to quickly decide a big moral issue in a hallway in two minutes. What was I supposed to do? We were in a war. What was the big deal about doing something that made us uncomfortable?

  I shook my head. "The whole reason we're fighting is to keep people free," I said. "If we start violating that and using people's DNA without permission, we may not be as bad as the Yeerks. But we're heading down that same path. We have to find another way."

  Cassie looked at me like she was proud of me, which just made me want to blush.

  61 "So how do we do what we came here to do, oh fearless leader?" Rachel asked.

  "We go with a distraction. But we don't start a fire or endanger anyone. We just give them something to look at that is so fascinating and weird and impossible to ignore that they won't be watching what happens behind them. Ax and Marco are the computer brai ns. They go in. Ax as human, and Marco as himself."

  "So Marco won't be human?" Rachel asked quickly, then laughed at her own joke.

  "That was a good one," Marco complimented her. "Fast, too."

  "Thank you."

  I took a deep breath. "Ax and Marco go inside. The rest of us put on a show that no one will be able to ignore, then we haul butt out of here."

  62

  We ducked into a small janitor's closet to prepare. Ax and Marco quickly headed down the stairs and around to the entrance to the command center.

  «Everyone ready?» I asked.

  «Yes. But I just want to say this is totally undignified,» Rachel complained.

  «Do you have your mop?»

  «Yes, I have my mop,» she sneered.

  «Cassie? You ready?»

  «Yes. But we can't lose these shoes. We don't have any more money.»

  We had tied the laces of our shoes together, and now we looped them over our necks. All but Tobias, of course. I would grab his later.

  63 «Everyone ready?»
I asked. They were. «0kay, let's go!»

  «Just one slight problem, Jake,» Rachel pointed out. «Who's going to open the door of this closet?»

  We had morphed. Rachel was now a monstrously huge grizzly bear standing up on her hind legs. She was between seven and eight feet tall, with claws like the teeth of an iron rake and shaggy, rough, brown fur.

  I had gone into my tiger morph. We'd deliberately chosen big, frightening animals no one was likely to try and mess with. We wanted people to watch us, but not try and grab us.

  Tobias had become himself once more. A red-tailed hawk.

  And Cassie had become the most frightening animal of us all: a skunk.

  But none of us had hands that could open the closet door.

  «Rachel? Why don't you just open it?»

  «CooL» She drew back her upper body, swayed back on her feet, and then thrust forward, slamming one side-of-beef-sized shoulder into the door.

  CRRRUNCH-SLAM!

  «There. Now it's open.»

  We trotted calmly out into the hall and crossed to the glass observation window that

  64 looked down on the command center. We looked down at the WAA employees at their computer consoles.

  «No one's watching us,» Tobias complained. He was sitting on Rachel's head. «They haven't noticed us.»

  «l can take care of that,» I said.

  A tiger's roar can be heard for miles. Literally. Up close and personal, it is a sound you never want to hear unless there are some big, thick steel bars separating you from the tiger.

  It is loud. And it's loud in a way that punches every button in a human being's instincts. I've seen that roar make brave men fall down. It turns their knees to Jell-0.

  I sucked in a deep breath, and I cut loose.

  RRRROOOOOAAAAARRRR!

  «Now they've noticed us,» Tobias said.

  Fifty or sixty sets of eyes had swiveled at once to stare up at us. And what they saw kept them watching. Rachel, huge, terrifying, powerful Rachel, was calmly mopping the floor, swinging the mop back and forth like a professional.

  I was helping. I had the mop bucket in my teeth.

  Tobias fluttered around us in a circle, shrieking madly.

  TSEEEER!TSEEEER!TSEEEER!

  Absolutely no one noticed when Marco and Ax

  65 entered the back of the command center and calmly sat down at a computer console. No need even for a code word to get access. The machine had been left on by the person who'd been operating it. That person was staring up at us, eyes wide, mouth even wider.

  With my acute tiger's hearing I could hear through the glass.

  "Is that a bear?"

  "Yeah."

  "Is it mopping the floor?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Have we gone nuts?"

  "I'm not nuts. It's the bear who's nuts. That's carpeted up there."

  "Why does it have sneakers around its neck?"

  A few people screamed. A few ran. Most just stared as we cavorted around, having a fine time.

  «Marco winked,» Tobias reported. «They must be doing okay.»

  «Two more minutes, then we get out of here before someone down there thinks to call in security^ I said.

  «Too late,» Cassie reported. «Here they come! Two guys with handguns.»

  «0h, man. Okay. We'll try and scare them off first.»

  Two men in gray uniforms came racing around the corner into view. They had guns drawn. They

  66 didn't even notice Cassie, they just stared in horror and confusion at the lunatic scene of a hawk, a bear, and a tiger, all seemingly involved in mopping a carpeted floor.

  I set the bucket down.

  R R R R ROOOOOAAAAAR R R R!

  One of the men dropped his gun, turned around, and ran. "Ya-ah-ah-ah!"

  The other one was shaking, but he held on.

  "Y-y-you animals g-get out of here. You're not a-a-a-authorized to be here!"

  «You have to admire the guy,» Rachel said. «He must know that little popgun wouldn't stop either of us for a minute.»

  «Yeah, well, it would stop me,» Tobias said darkly. «l'm just a birdie.»

  "D-d-don't make me shoot!"

  «0kay, Cassie,» I said. «l hate to do it, but take him out before he decides to shoot.»

  Cassie turned her back to the guard. She raised her black-and-white tail. She turned her cute little face to look back over her shoulder. Then she dropped the tip of her tail.

  If you ever see a skunk go through that sequence, leave. Leave, go far away, don't look back. The guard didn't know that.

  «Fire,» I told Cassie.

  She fired.

  The guard, who had stood up to a grizzly bear

  67 and a tiger, either of which could have turned him into raw hamburger, had had enough. No one, but no one, can be brave when he's been hosed by a skunk.

  "Aaaaarrrggghhh!" He dropped the gun and ran.

  «0kay, now let's bail!» I said.

  «That was kind of fun,» Rachel said.

  We ran, dragging our cheap tennis shoes along. We spotted an elevator. Tobias flew over and punched the button with his beak. People looked out of doorways at us. We roared and they went back inside.

  The elevator door slid open. There was an executive and a bike messenger on it. They decided to get off when we crowded into the elevator.

  Rachel jabbed a claw at the button for the lobby. And by the time we got there, the only people on the elevator were four kids wearing tight clothes and cheap shoes.

  Heavily armed city cops dressed in SWAT team black were marching into the lobby carrying automatic weapons. Marco and Ax were already standing in a corner, acting like fascinated observers.

  "Did you kids see a bear?" one cop asked.

  "Yeah, right." Rachel laughed. "A bear."

  We hooked up with Marco and Ax and went outside. I breathed a sigh of relief. "How'd it go?"

  68 "We had no difficulties, Prince Jake," Ax said.

  "Yeah, No problem," Marco said. But he looked concerned. Maybe a little sick.

  "So, what's the matter?"

  He shrugged. "No biggie. Once we got into the system it was a breeze. We had plenty of time. So I figured why not check out one or two extra screen names."

  "Not exactly the reason we were there," Tobias said.

  "This girl whose screen name is PrtyGirl802. She like sends me these very flirty kind of E-mails and IM messages. You know. Like she likes me and all."

  "So you found out who she is?" Cassie asked. "That's not very nice."

  "Yeah, no kidding it wasn't nice. I found out my online girlfriend PrtyGirl802 is actually a seventy-three-year-old retired postal worker."

  69 We had to memorize the list of names we'd gotten. There was no way to carry them. For the most part the names meant nothing to us. They were just names. And I'll only use the first names.

  Except for the one name that really stuck out.

  Joe Bob Fenestre. "Fitey777" was, in reality, the billionaire owner of Web Access America.

  "No way," Marco said. "That guy hangs out in chat rooms? If I were him, I'd spend my day rolling around in big stacks of hundred-dollar bills, paying Michael Jordan to come over and teach me how to improve my three-point shot -"

  "You have no three-point shot, Marco," I pointed out.

  70 "- and having the female cast members of Baywatch apply suntan oil to my muscular body."

  "So you'd have bought some muscles, too, huh?" Rachel said. "Didn't know you could do that."

  "When you count your money in billions you can buy anything," Marco said. "Including happiness. Assuming that your idea of happiness involves a private jet, supermodels, and your own Papa John's pizza restaurant down in the basement."

  "Be sure and leave your brain to science when you die, Marco," Rachel said. "After all, they're the ones with the microscopes it'd take to find it."

  I laughed. Marco cocked an eyebrow at me, like I'd betrayed him.

  I shrugged. "Sorry, but that ro
und goes to Rachel."

  We had taken the bus back to the airport. We were feeling pleased that we'd accomplished our mission. But I was worried about getting home. I did not want to go back aboard that plane in fly morph. But I didn't know how else to do it.

  I was scared. Just that simple: I was scared.

  But I was also scared of letting the others know I was scared. Weird, huh? Scared and scared of people thinking you're scared?

  I was trembling by the time we got inside the

  71 airport. I don't know if anyone noticed. I couldn't see myself trembling, I could only feel it. It was like when you have a fever and you get chills that make your stomach muscles shake violently and make you want to curl up in a ball and pile covers five feet high all over your body.

  The others kept chattering away. And I kept adding a word here or a smile there. You know, so no one would think anything was wrong. But I was sweating. I used my sleeve to wipe my forehead and the sleeve came away as wet as if I'd dipped it into a sink.

  "You know, maybe we should try some other morph on the way home," Cassie said nonchalantly.

  Ah. So at least one person had noticed. Cassie. She was trying to give me a way out. Without embarrassing me.

  "Why?" Ax asked.

  "I don't know," Cassie said, with just a hint of tension in the way she kept her mouth tight. "It might be fun to do it a different way."

  "We already went over it before," Rachel said reasonably. "We decided fly morph would work best, right? I mean, just because Jake had some trouble doesn't mean the idea is bad."

  Deadlock. Cassie couldn't say anything more without it being obvious that she was trying to protect me. And I couldn't have that.

  72 "Fly morph is fine," I said as coolly as I could. "Still the best way to do this."

  I think Cassie was a little disgusted with me. "Hey, Jake," she said, fake-bright, "come buy me a pretzel. I'm hungry. You guys go on ahead."

  Cassie grabbed my arm and hauled me aside. The others went on.

  "That was subtle," I said. "I don't have any more money."

  Cassie looked at me and shook her head. "What is the matter with you? You don't have to do this. You don't have to prove how tough you are."

  "It's not a problem, Cassie. Thanks, but let it go, okay?"

  "Jake, you may have the others fooled, but not me. You're scared. And you have good reason to be scared. So what's the big deal?"