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have. Which means he's as hard to destroy as we are. And the Yeerks have
tried very hard to destroy us. How are
we going to succeed when the Yeerks have failed with all their
forces and technology?"
Marco raised his eyebrows in grudging acceptance.
Ax agreed.
Of course, Tobias had nothing to say because Tobias wasn't there. Tobias
was away.
Jake continued. "Fact number two: David can sell us out to Visser Three.
I don't think he wants to do that because David's not a complete idiot
and he knows that any contact he has with Visser Three is likely to be
very dangerous for him."
"I'm not so sure he's not an idiot," Marco said darkly. "I would just
like to point out that I never liked that guy. I said from the start
that any kid who kept a pet cobra was trouble."
"Goodie for you, Marco," I said.
"Fact three: David has now acquired a morph of Rachel's and my cousin
Saddler. What am I going to do? Make my uncle and aunt lose their son
again? Better to leave David with them. And best of all, they live out
of town, so David would be out of our faces."
"I have a problem with that," Cassie said. "I have a problem with the
idea that these people lose their son and get this completely different
person instead. That seems sick to me. It seems wrong."
"It is wrong," I agreed. "But what's the alternative?"
Cassie shook her head slowly. "There's no good choice here. But you know
what? As sad and awful as it is that your cousin died, that's natural
and normal and part of life. Having some ghoulish fake version of
Saddler still around makes me kind of sick to my stomach."
"Fact number four: We give David the blue box and he has what he cares
about. I don't know what he intends to do with it. Maybe he'll create
his own little group of Animorphs." Jake made a face like "could be."
"Yeah, right," Marco sneered. "Here's fact five: David killed Tobias.
And we're going to reward him?"
I exploded. "Hey! You think we like this? You think I, personally, like
this? I hate that creepa-zoid. I would destroy him ... if I could. But
facts are facts, unless you're completely crazy."
Marco sneered. "I never thought I'd see the day. Fearless Rachel, mighty
Xena: Warrior Princess, humiliated by some kid. You're done for, Rachel.
No one will ever be impressed by you again. You're a joke."
I leaped at him and grabbed him by the throat. "Don't push me, Marco," I
hissed.
He just laughed. "You know, I'm glad about
this, at least," Marco said. "At least David shattered the myth of
mighty Rachel. It's a good thing you did survive, because now you have
to live with the fact that you got beaten by David. I guess maybe you're
not Xena, after all. But David may just be Hercules."
I shoved Marco back and turned away from his mocking laughter.
"Okay, then," Jake said. "Here's what I propose to do. I'm going to tell
David where he can find the box. One of us will go with him. He'll
probably want that, anyway, so he can be sure it's not a trap. He'll
probably ask for Cassie. She had the least trouble with him. Speaking of
which, Cassie, you're the only one who knows where the blue box is
hidden."
"Not to be egotistical or anything, but where I hid it, no one would
ever find it. For one thing, I had Ax disassemble it."
"Say what?" Marco asked. "It breaks down?"
Ax said a little snippily.
asked me to reduce it to smaller components so that she could hide each
piece separately.>
"And so that I could carry the parts in morph," Cassie said. "Rachel and
I -"
"Wait a minute, Rachel knows where it's hidden, too?" Jake asked, frowning.
Cassie looked embarrassed. "I kind of was scared to hide it where I
hid it and not have someone with me. I mean, we had to do rat morphs to
get there. And it took several trips because I could only carry small
components one at a time."
Jake laughed. "I should have known if I told you to hide something
really well, it'd be hidden where no one would ever find it."
"Oh, it's hidden, all right, piece by piece," I affirmed.
Jake sighed. "Okay, then. I'll see David-slash-Saddler this evening.
I'll bring him a rat to acquire."
"That won't be much of a stretch for David," Marco said sardonically.
"He's already at least half rat."
"You're going to bring him a rat at the hospital?" Cassie asked.
"No, he and his family are at my house," Jake said. "Nothing's wrong
with him, so the hospital let him go. He's actually staying in my room.
His so-called parents have the guest room, and I'm on the couch."
"What, you didn't want to share a room with David?" Marco said.
"I don't want to share a planet with him," Jake said. "Although I'll
tell you all one thing. I wish it had worked out with David. Whatever else
you can say about him, he's smart, brave, and ingenious."
We all nodded in solemn agreement.
Yes, yes, he was smart. But was he smart enough? That we would find out.
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