The Stranger (9 page)

T
he future the way it will be if the Yeerks win,” I said. “Taxxons using the mall for a hive. I guess that means I can forget about any good sales today.”

I wanted to sound tough. Like I wasn't impressed. But that was a lie. Worms larger than a grown man were crawling through holes in the mall. Skeletons lay across desks in the shattered ruins of our school, and clutched the wheels of rusted cars.

The air felt strange. The sky was no longer the sky of Earth. The trees were dying.

As we circled around the mall, we could see that the tube train made a stop there. The glass tube was raised above the ground about twenty feet, like the monorail at Disney World. But there did not seem to be enough supports to hold it up. It was as if it were just hanging there.

Outside the mall, a dropshaft rose up to the tube. A Taxxon entered the shaft and was swept up to a platform that bulged from the side of the tube.

“Let's stay clear of any Taxxons,” Tobias said.

But Marco shook his head. “Why? Don't you see? The Yeerks have won. So any humans are Human-Controllers. The Taxxons would just assume we were Human-Controllers.”

“I guess you're right,” Tobias agreed. “Yeah. So we can go anywhere. Besides, I don't think the Ellimist brought us here to see us get killed.”

I relaxed a little, realizing they were right. But still, there was a deeply disturbing feeling about all of it.

Ax said.

“Are you so sure?” Marco asked. “Maybe in the future the Andalites lose to the Yeerks, too.”

Ax snapped angrily.

He began to slowly melt into human shape.

“Let's hop the train,” I said. “See where it goes.”

“Excuse me?” Marco laughed. “Climb aboard the Yeerk version of Amtrak?”

I shrugged. “You said it, Marco. They'll think we're Controllers. And in any case, the Ellimist didn't bring us here to get us killed.”

“It is sad about the mall,” Ax said, now mostly human. “They had excellent foods for tasting. Tay-sting. Tasting. The Ellimist showed us much of what was excellent in your species and your planet. But he did not mention the sense of taste. Cinnamon buns. Buns. Bunzuh. And chocolate, too.”

“Yeah, we have to save any species that can invent the warm cinnamon bun,” I said. “Come on, let's try this.”

It only took a couple minutes to walk to the dropshaft. As we neared it, a Taxxon slithered up alongside us. He was racing to get ahead, like a rushing commuter. But aside from that, he paid us no mind.

“You think the Yeerks have a rush hour?” Marco muttered under his breath.

“Quiet,” Jake snapped. “We're Controllers now, not normal humans.”

The Taxxon reached the dropshaft ahead of us. He stepped in through the large opening and was immediately swept up onto the platform overhead.

We all hesitated to follow him. So I stepped forward. Seconds later I was on the platform, with the others right behind me.

We were twenty feet up, and I could see in all directions.

I nudged Tobias. A small Yeerk pool had been built on the roof of the mall. Right over the place where the food court had been. It was a shallow, sludgy pool. Half a dozen Taxxons lounged around it, almost as if they were sunbathing.

There were no cages at this Yeerk pool. Taxxons are all voluntary hosts. Another reason not to like them. At least the Hork-Bajir had resisted the Yeerks.

Suddenly, in a rush of wind, a platform came down the glass tube like a bullet.

It stopped in front of us and the Taxxon quickly slithered aboard. We followed.

It was not a closed car like a train. It was just a clear platform, open at the front end and the back. There were maybe twenty standard seats, half occupied by Human-Controllers. Toward the back was an open area where the Taxxon went. At the front were several larger chairs. Much larger, and made of steel with no padding.

Those had to be for Hork-Bajir. Space for about four Hork-Bajir, maybe two or three Taxxons, and seats for twenty or more humans.

So there were far more humans around than either Taxxons or Hork-Bajir, I concluded. We would not look out of place.

The train launched like a bullet down the glass tunnel. But there was no lurch. And no rushing wind. We just blew along at a speed that boggled the mind.

The trip from the suburban mall to downtown usually took half an hour by bus. We made the trip in about a minute and a half.

Jake gave me a look. We were getting off here. We rose and left the train.

“Fast,” Marco said.

“Beats the bus,” I agreed.

It was beyond strange, walking the streets of downtown. Entire skyscrapers were simply gone. Others now had wormholes for the Taxxons. I looked up thirty stories and saw Taxxons crawling up the sides of a building that used to be the headquarters for a bank.

The tallest building in town was the EGS Tower. It was sixty stories tall. It still stood, almost intact. But for some reason the top two floors had been sheared away, then covered with a glass dome.

Pale sunlight sparkled off the dome. It was almost like a beacon.

Humans and Hork-Bajir walked the street, side by side. But not in large numbers. In fact, the entire city seemed far emptier than it should have been.

We turned a corner and froze.

“That's where the City Arena should be,” I said. “It's where we saw the circus.”

“The Arena. That big department store. That building that used to have the tall antennas on top. They're all gone,” Marco said. “Just … gone.”

In their place was a Yeerk pool.

A pool of shocking size. It was a small lake, really. You could have ridden around on it in a motorboat and not looked out of place.

It was three times as wide as a football field is long. Maybe four times as wide. And all around it were cages, just like the underground Yeerk pool we knew too well.

But there was a difference here. The humans and Hork-Bajir in these cages no longer called for help. They cried, they sobbed, or more often they just stared blankly into space. But they did not call for help.

They knew there was no help coming. They knew that hope was dead.

We just stared, the six of us. Just stared emptily.

A Human-Controller brushed past us, jostling me as she went.

“Excuse
me
,” I said in a sarcastic voice. A mistake. I knew it was a mistake as soon as the two little words were out of my mouth.

The woman stopped. She came back toward us.

“What did you say?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” I said.

But she kept staring at me through narrowed eyes. “What is your name?”

I knew that answering “Rachel” was not going to work. She wanted my Yeerk name. I tensed up, ready for a fight.

“Her name is not your concern,” Tobias said.

The woman sneered. “Oh? And why is that? You are spies, that's what you are. Spies!”

“Her name is not your concern,” Tobias repeated. “
His
name is your concern.” He jerked his thumb at Ax. “Because his name … is Visser Three.”

V
isser Three?” the woman repeated skeptically.

It took me a few seconds to track. What was Tobias talking about? Why was he saying Ax was Visser Three?

Fortunately, Ax caught on more quickly. He immediately began to demorph and return to Andalite form. And as soon as the Andalite stalk eyes appeared, the woman began to tremble.

“But … but … you said Visser
Three
. Only Visser
One
has an Andalite host body!”

Great. Visser Three had been promoted.

“Yeah,” I said to the woman. “But he was Visser Three back in the old days. Back when we were all friends. Comrades in arms.”

“I … we … no one told us you were visiting Earth, Visser,” the woman babbled.

She was clearly terrified. Obviously Visser Three's reputation had not softened any over the years.

Ax had regained his full Andalite form. And the various Controllers on the street were staring in a mixture of fascination and fear.

“If I had known …” the woman moaned. “I would never …”

Ax waved his hand dismissively.

“Yes, my Visser! Yes!” The woman took off. Fast.

Which left us standing around in the street, gaping at the Yeerk pool. And a lot of Controllers gaping at us.

“This isn't good,” Marco said. “Word is going to travel very fast that Visser Three is here. And someone is going to realize the truth.”

“So what
now
?” Jake wondered. “How long does the Ellimist want to leave us here?”

“Until we are convinced he's right,” Tobias said.

“There must be something more he wants us to see,” Cassie said.

I glanced at Cassie. She looked puzzled. I guess I expected her to look like, “See, I told you so, here's the future.” But she seemed troubled. Like she couldn't make sense of something that was bothering her.

“What?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Just a feeling. There's something deeper going on here. Something we don't get.”

The Yeerk pool was a busy little place. Controllers coming and going. The host bodies were shoved into cages, and dragged back out when it was time. There was a steady procession along the six different piers, draining out and taking in Yeerks.

Over it all loomed the EGS Tower, topped off by the glass dome.

“Why put a Yeerk pool here?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, there's all kinds of open areas. Why go to the trouble of removing the buildings that were here? It's not like this is exactly a scenic location.”

“I wonder what year it is?” Marco said. “Is this next year? Ten years from now? Twenty?”

I heard a low roar coming from the sky. A Yeerk Bug fighter swooped down low, took a turn around the EGS Tower, and settled toward the near side of the Yeerk pool.

I don't know why, but I felt drawn to that Bug fighter. Maybe it was some strange psychic urging. Maybe it was the Ellimist, making me go closer to see what he wanted to show me.

Wherever the urge came from, I found myself walking toward the Bug fighter.

“Hey!” Jake said. “What are you doing?”

“You guys stay back,” I said.

“It's okay,” Marco said, jerking his thumb at Ax. “We're with Visser Three here. Excuse me, I mean Visser One. And congrats on the big promotion, by the way.”

Ax stepped out quickly in front of me, swaggering and acting the role of the great and terrible Visser.

As we drew closer to the pool, there was a crowd of Controllers, humans, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and a few odd species I had never seen. The crowd parted very quickly. No one wanted to accidentally annoy Visser One in any way.

We swaggered up to the Bug fighter like the bosses of all the world. Then the door of the Bug fighter opened.

I stopped. Ax stopped as well. The others crowded behind us.

My skin was tingling. My hair felt like it was standing on end. I knew something was about to happen. Something awesome and horrible.

And then, they stepped from the Bug fighter. A human and an Andalite. I knew the Andalite. We had met before. I could feel the dark dread that emanated from him.

Visser Three. The
real
Visser Three.

Seeing Ax along with Visser Three, the crowd of Controllers immediately knew the difference. Visser Three has an Andalite body, but there is no mistaking him for anything other than a creature of pure evil.

Visser Three said to the person with him.

I stared at the human. She was a pretty young woman, maybe twenty or twenty-two years old. She had blond hair, cut short. She wore no makeup. Her clothes were plain.

I had stopped breathing. My heart had stopped beating. I tried to swallow but couldn't.

“Hello, Rachel,” the woman said to me.

“Hello, Rachel,” I replied.