The Warning

  I tried to walk away. But that felt wrong. I turned back to face her. "The big deal is I'm supposedly the leader of this little army."

  "So? So you're not supposed to be human?"

  "That's absolutely right. I'm not supposed to be human."

  She laughed uncertainly, like she wasn't sure if I was joking or not. "No one expects you to be Superman, Jake. You think the others won't respect you if you admit you're terrified of something?"

  73 "It's not about respect. It's not even about being scared. It's about letting fear tell you what to do."

  "If it's unreasonable fear you have to get past it," Cassie said. "But there's a reason for this fear. You were nearly killed."

  I shook my head. "No. You're usually right, Cassie, but this time you're wrong. See, if I give in to fear, then that gives everyone permission to give in to fear. And we all have good reasons to be afraid. Pretty soon we'd be totally paralyzed. We wouldn't be able to do anything because one of us might have some good reason to be scared."

  "We don't morph ants anymore because they scared all of us, but mostly Marco," Cassie pointed out. "We don't ever talk about morphing termites because of my problems with them. What's the difference?"

  "The difference is you all decided I was the leader," I said. "That's the difference. A leader may be just as weak or scared or doubtful as anyone else. But he isn't allowed to show it. People say they want leaders to be just like them, but I don't think so. People want leaders to act the way people wish they could act themselves. Marco and Rachel and Tobias and Ax don't want me to give them permission to be scared. They want me to help them to be brave."

  74 Cassie looked at me a long time and I looked away, feeling uncomfortable.

  "We didn't do you any favor when we made you leader, did we?" Cassie asked.

  I forced a grim smile. "There's something else a leader doesn't do," I said. "Complain about being a leader."

  "We did pick the right person, though," she said.

  Once again I started to walk away, but Cassie grabbed my arm. "Look, maybe you're right. But I'll bet even great generals and presidents or whatever have friends they can be honest with. People who would never lose faith in them, no matter what."

  I had the strangest desire to burst out crying right then. I also had a desire to hug Cassie really hard. I didn't do either.

  "Come on," I said. "The others are waiting."

  75 le made it back home okay. No one swatted me and I felt better for getting past the fear. At least that's what I told myself. You never really get past the fear. Fear eats a little hole in you, like rust in the fender of a car. You fill the hole up with putty and sand it smooth and paint it over so no one else can see it. But it's never really as good as new.

  I was exhausted by the time I made it home. My brother was in the kitchen, talking on the phone while he smeared peanut butter on a graham cracker. When he heard me come in he changed his tone of voice.

  In the old days I would have assumed he'd

  76 been talking to a girl. Now I assumed he'd been talking to some other Controller.

  I unloaded a bunch of food from the refrigerator: leftover barbecued chicken and mashed potatoes. I plopped it all on a plate and stuck it in the microwave.

  "I gotta go," Tom said into the phone. He hung up.

  "What's up?" I asked him.

  "Nada," he said, and left the room.

  I took my food up to my room. I started to boot up my computer, but hesitated. Instead I sat down and munched indifferently while staring at the blank screen.

  So. What did it mean that Joe Bob Fenestre was the so-called "Fitey777"? Judging by the chat we'd eavesdropped on, Fitey777 was a legitimate Yeerk-fighter. Not like the YrkHSer person who'd been an obvious Controller.

  But it wasn't that simple. Joe Bob Fenestre had access to all WAA information. So he knew who all the other people in that chat room really were. He even knew who had established the Web page.

  Fenestre had access to all kinds of information. He owned the biggest online service in the country. So maybe that's how he'd discovered the existence of the Yeerk invasion.

  Or maybe the point was that the Yeerks had

  77 seen how important Fenestre was and had made him a Controller. It would make sense.

  Which left us no wiser than we had been going in. Was Fenestre a true enemy of the Yeerks? Or was he a Controller using the Web site as a lure to trap true enemies of the Yeerks?

  We had to kn ow. I should head over to Marco's house and get him to pull up any articles he could find on Joe Bob Fenestre's house. He didn't live too far away. He flew his own private jet to his WAA offices every day.

  I was really tired. I felt like I could have slept for a week. But weekends were our good time. School days were tougher. And tomorrow, Sunday, was the end of the weekend.

  I went downstairs. My parents had both just come in. They were carrying department store handle bags. They'd been shopping.

  "Hey, Jake," my dad said.

  "Honey, there are some more bags in the car," my mom said.

  I brought in the bags.

  "I'm taking off," I said.

  My mom gave me a look. "Weren't you out all day?"

  I shrugged. "I guess so."

  "Would it kill you to have dinner with your family?"

  "Is it dinner time?"

  78 "It will be as soon as I make that salmon I picked up yesterday," she said. "You loved it last time I made it. I mostly got it for you."

  Guilt. Great. I smiled. "Well, you didn't tell me that's what you were making. Marco can wait. I'm there."

  We try not to use the phone very much. Phone lines are too easy to tap. Plus I never know if Tom might be listening in. So I couldn't call Marco or Rachel. I'd have to do the research myself. If we were going to bust into Joe Bob Fenestre's massive home, we'd need some idea what we were dealing with.

  I started on some homework while my mom cooked. Then my dad yelled up the stairs to say that Showtime was doing a rebroadcast of this fight that had been on pay-per-view. So I took my homework downstairs and worked on it with one eye on the TV.

  Then we had dinner. The four of us. Like the old days.

  My dad got off into some long, involved, really boring story about his work. And my mom asked me and Tom about school. Then my dad realized he'd forgotten some part of his boring story, so he had to tell that part over again. And my mom said she hoped we liked the clothes she'd bought at the mall. And of course Tom and I joked about how she'd probably shopped at Formerly Cool

  79 Fashions "R" Us. It was an old joke we always used whenever my mom bought us clothing.

  It was so normal. Tom and me. Our parents. My mom and dad squeezing each other's hands like they were on their first date.

  I sat there afterward, stuffed with fish and rice and snap peas, and still stuffing my face with something called tiramisu, which is an Italian dessert soaked in some kind of liqueur.

  I wanted to believe it was all real. Because, you know, that was the whole point of fighting. The whole point of taking risks and fighting the Yeerks was to protect boring, average, no-big-deal times like this.

  I flashed back on being smeared across the ceiling of the plane. And I flashed on the time we'd almost been able to save Tom, down in the hell of the Yeerk pool. It made me mad. Mostly what people want is to be left alone. They just want to sit down and have a nice dinner and tell boring stories and tell jokes they've told a dozen times before.

  But I guess there is always someone out there who thinks life, just plain old boring, sweet, everyday life, isn't enough. And that's when the killing starts. In this war it was the Yeerks. But there had been an awful lot of wars when it was just human against human.

  What is the matter with people that they don't

  80 know all that really counts is that people who love each other be able to be together, live in peace, learn, work, tell boring stories and dumb jokes? What do they think they're going to get that is better than that?
/>
  "You're awfully quiet, Jake," my mother said. "Thinking deep thoughts?"

  I smiled. "I was thinking this was cool. We should all have dinner together more often." I looked at Tom. "It was nice. I hope nothing ever happens to us. I hope we'll always be together."

  The Yeerk inside Tom's head searched Tom's memory. The Yeerk opened his memory and read it like a book. He played the strings of Tom's brain like a violinist squeezing perfect notes out of a violin.

  The Yeerk found the answer that Tom would have made. It aimed Tom's eyes and made Tom's face smile sardonically. It opened Tom's mouth and made Tom say the words Tom would have said, if he'd been able.

  "Hey, Mom, no more tiramisu for Jake. The liqueur is making him mushy."

  I laughed the way I should. And I thought to myself, The day will come, Yeerk, when I will tear you out of his head and destroy you for what you've done to my family.

  81

  While I spent the evening with my family, Marco had been busy. He'd used the hack-proof program Ax had written for him to go back to the chat room. He told us about it when we trudged out to the woods at the edge of Cassie's farm. Tobias and Ax could both be themselves out there.

  "Most of the same people were there," Marco explained. "There were some new names, but GoVikes, YrkHSer, Chazz, CKDsweet, YeerKiller, Carlito, MegMom, and Gump8293 were all there. The Gump kid was still talking about his dad. I get the feeling maybe he's getting ready to confront his father."

  "We can't let that happen," Cassie said.

  "Gump is a nine-year-old kid," I reminded

  82 everyone. "He lives close enough. Meg, Chazz, and CKDsweet are all from out of town. Some of them way out of town. That leaves us with GoVikes-"

  "-an idiot," Rachel pointed out.

  "-YrkHSer, Gump, Chazz and, of course, Fitey777," I finished.

  «YrkH8er is a Controller, right?» Tobias asked. «l mean, that's what he acts like. Like a Controller trying to pass himself off as an enemy of Yeerks.»

  Tobias was in a branch maybe ten feet over our heads. His talons sank deep into loose bark.

  Cassie tilted her head back and forth like she wasn't too sure. "YrkHSer is someone named Edward Cheltingham. What was he? Thirty years old? But you know what? I looked in the phone book this morning and there was no Edward Cheltingham. Only two 'Cheltinghams' listed and they were both female."

  "So? He has an unlisted phone number," Rachel said.

  "Maybe so. Or maybe Edward Cheltingham is as phony a name as YrkHSer," Cassie said. "Isn't it possible to get a fake ID and a credit card in some name and then open a WAA account?"

  Obviously, that had not occurred to anyone except Cassie.

  83 "Oh," Rachel said. "Great. A new level of difficulty. So this guy could be anyone."

  "We have an address for him," Cassie said. "We could check it out." She looked at me. "We also have an address for Gump."

  "Gump isn't the point," Marco said. "Fen-estre is the person at the middle of all this. He's the main man. Figure out what's happening with him, and you figure it all out."

  "Maybe," Cassie conceded. "But he can wait. Gump may be in trouble right now."

  "Look, Cassie," Marco said, "it's Sunday. If we go after Fenestre, it's probably going to take some time. Which means a weekend, which means today. We can check out Gump any day after school. Monday. Tuesday."

  "Unless Monday is too late. Unless later today that scared little kid talks to his dad and his dad is a Controller, and that's it for Gump. Gump does a disappearing act. Or else ends up as the new home for some low-level Yeerk."

  The two of them looked to me. I was supposed to decide which was our top priority. Rescue a nine-year-old, or maybe bust open the whole thing with a raid on Fenestre's mansion.

  I looked down at the ground. "Marco, did you happen to do any research on Fenestre's house?"

  "No. I thought you were doing it."

  84 "I got kind of tied up. Big family thing."

  "It's supposed to have massive security," Marco said. "Lots of computer stuff. But it shouldn't be any problem for us. I mean, security is designed to keep out humans, right? Not animals."

  I nodded. I hoped he was right. I felt a twinge of worry, but Marco was right: Fenestre was at the center. "Cassie, first thing after school tomorrow, we'll checkout Gump."

  She nodded. But she looked bitter. "I hope that's soon enough."

  "Yep. Me, too. Okay." I rubbed my hands together, shot Rachel a cocky wink, and put on my best "game face." "Let's do it, then. Let's go see how the superrich live."

  I sensed I was making a mistake. But I didn't know what it was. And a leader has to lead, not sit around consulting his horoscope or taking his own pulse.

  So I made the decision.

  85 Toil think you've seen big houses? You haven't seen anything till you've seen the home of Joe Bob Fenestre, WAA founder and megabil-lionaire.

  From the air it looked like a junior college or something. Like a shopping center. There were a dozen separate buildings. Two guest houses, each twice the size of my home. A pool house with changing rooms and a bar that extended to the edge of the pool, which was itself in the shape of the WAA logo. A boathouse down on the riverfront with a sleek cigarette boat docked alongside. A stable big enough to house a dozen horses. What looked like an observatory. A greenhouse bursting with bright green lettuce and

  86 herbs and entire orange trees. A garage, easily big enough to store thirty or forty cars. A security building with armed guards next to a quarter-mile-long driveway. And finally, on a hill surrounded by a lawn you could have held the Superbowl on, was the house itself.

  «This guy knows how to live,» Marco said with satisfaction. «Someday that'll be me.»

  «Who'll be you? The guy mowing the lawn down there?» Rachel said.

  «What do you think he's got in that garage?» Tobias wondered. «Ferraris? Porsches? Jaguars? Vipers?»

  «Not minivans and Volvo station wagons,» Marco said. «That's for sure. Maybe a few Rolls-Royces. »

  We were floating about a quarter mile above the Fenestre compound. Tobias was Tobias. Ax was in his northern harrier morph, Rachel was a bald eagle, Cassie and Marco were both ospreys. And I was in one of my favorite morphs: peregrine falcon. One of the fastest things alive. And with eyes that could see a flea on a dog from a hundred feet away.

  I'd had a slightly bad feeling going into this mission. But I was feeling pretty good now. I usually feel pretty good when I'm flying.

  When you are floating on a pillar of warm, up-welling air with your wings spread wide and no

  87 sound but the breeze in your feathers, you pretty much have to feel good. It is as free a feeling as you could ever imagine.

  But at the same time I was noticing details with my laser-focus falcon's eyes: three separate fences. One around the perimeter of the entire compound, woods, gardens, pool, tennis courts, and all. Then a second fence about twenty yards inside the first fence. And finally, a third fence just around the house and its lawn.

  «This guy is a little paranoid, isn't he?» Rachel said. «You guys see the little observation posts on the corners of the house? There are guys in there. Guys with guns.»

  «And don't forget the Rottweilers,» Cassie pointed out. «Two teams of two dogs each patrolling between the outer fence and the second fence. Each team with an armed man.»

  «Colonel Hogan would never get out of this place,» I said. I was pleased when Marco and Tobias laughed. «l guess now we know who watches Hogan's Heroes reruns on Nick.»

  Cassie, with her osprey eyes that were designed to spot fish down below the water, said, «There's some sort of underwater fence, too. I can't see it all, but there's a definite line beneath the water.»

  «ls this human in great danger?» Ax wondered.

  88 «Nah, that's just the way rich people are,» Marco said.

  «0kay, so how do we get into this place?» I asked. «Anyone have any brilliant ideas?»

  «Fly right in through an open
window,» Tobias suggested. «There's one on the back side of the house.»

  «Then what?» Cassie asked. «We need to be able to move around inside the house. Find Mr. Fenestre's office maybe. And be able to overhear what's going on.»

  «We could do flies again,» Marco suggested.

  «We could do ants, too,» Cassie said, taking an uncharacteristic shot at Marco, who had sworn never to morph an ant again.

  It was time for me to decide. «0kay, first of all, we go in like Tobias said. Only Tobias stays outside and uses his eyes and ears to report what he sees through the windows. Inside half of us morph to fly, the others to cockroach. We spread out and keep in touch by thought-speak. Anyone finds Fenestre, he calls the others. Okay?»

  «Let's do it!» Rachel said as she spilled air from her wings and plummeted toward the open window.

  Down she went, huge wings swept back, talons up, her blazing white eagle's head up to keep her eyes focused on the window.

  Cassie was about twenty feet behind her, then

  89 me, then Marco and Ax. Tobias caught an updraft and soared higher, up to a level where he could see everything happening on the estate.

  Down Rachel went. Down I went, fast as a bullet.

  Rachel flared at the last minute to kill some of her speed, brought her talons forward, and sailed through the open -

  TSAPPPPP!

  «Break off! Cassie, break off!»

  Cassie was already reacting. She opened her wings, yanked a hard right, and skimmed within inches of the rough stucco wall of the mansion.

  «Rachel!» I yelled. «Rachel!»

  She had gone through the window. She was inside. But she wasn't answering. And with my falcon's eyes I could just make out a dim shape lying sprawled on the floor of the room inside.

  Rachel was unconscious.

  At least, I hoped she was only unconscious.

  90

  Rachel! Trapped!

  «Sheer off! Everyone back! Get altitude!»

  BRRRRRRINNNNNNNGGGG!

  ScreeeeEEEE! ScreeeeEEEE! ScreeeeEEEE!

  Alarms were ringing. A siren shrieked. I heard men's voices shouting.

  I saw Cassie shoot high up, passing the top of the wall to keep her momentum. But Marco and Ax were struggling with dead air. So was I. I flapped hard, but the air down that close to the ground was still and cool. I flapped harder and rose, but slowly. Too slowly.