weren't some preconquest relic. They were new. Sure, five hundred feet overhead roared a They were fresh. They were angry.

  Yeerk metropolis. But down here, down at street Unfit and Insurrectionist Hosts?

  level . . . no taxis clanking over manhole covers. A tinge of hope swelled against the wellNo kamikaze bike messengers daring traffic. No anchored caution and fear in my mind. Was there 38

  39

  a rebellion going on here? A resistance group I edged around the kiosk, and sure enough . . . somewhere? If I had allies in this town, I had to Taxxons.

  find them.

  A gang of them. Six or eight. Swaggering up But I needed to find the others first. They had from Forty-Second Street, straight toward me. Banto be here, too, right? Only where? In normal doliers of energy ammo and handheld DraconNYC, Marco could be in any video arcade in Manbeams crisscrossed their massive centipede bodies. hattan, Rachel in any Express from Midtown to Horrific scars striped their bloated chests. SoHo. I looked at the busted-up storefronts and I fought the urge to sprint. I needed to play littered streets. Were there parts of the groundthe part of a Controller, and a Controller wouldn't city that still functioned normally? I wasn't ready run. But I had to get away! I was out of place at to bet on it.

  ground level. As far as I could see, I was the only All at once I realized Cassie would be easiest to human on the street and it didn't take long to find. A park. She'd be in a park and I'd seen one of guess why that might be. No Taxxon encounter those. She'd be feeding the pigeons and . . . had ever ended well. Why expect something

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

  new?

  I hit the ground.

  Where to go?

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

  The McDonald's on the corner was a burnedMachine-gun fire. I rolled behind a kiosk and out shell. The golden arches lay crushed and dim searched for the source.

  on the sidewalk. I'd be a sitting duck.

  TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

  The high-rise lobby was all glass. No cover. Dracon fire return, followed by a piercing huSuddenly. man cry. A shoot-out at the other end of Times

  "TSSEEERRR!"

  Square? The echo of weapon fire died away and A raptor's cry. A swishing of wings. Out of was replaced by a clacking. A clicking. Clawed nowhere! A red-tailed hawk buzzed my head. He feet scratching over concrete. Weird, halflooked ancient. Thin, with feathers missing and whistled words . . .

  skin taut around the eyes. He sailed into the

  "Ssssssnit waaanaaa!" The loud, arrogant raspsteam cloud over a subway grate. ing drew snickering agreement from slobbering I blinked . . .

  mouths.

  Gone. He was gone!

  40

  41

  "Tobias?"

  No answer. A mirage?

  "Ssssreee sreeenaaaa!"

  I jerked back. I'd stepped out from behind the kiosk. The Taxxon gang leader had spotted me. Claw arms skittered. His speed increased to an all-out lumber.

  C H A P T E R 3

  Steam. The subway. Go!

  I ran for the subway entrance and took the steps three at a time. Wham! I burst through the rusted-out gate.

  "Ugh!" A horrible stench. A humid rot. The foul scent of. . . Taxxons.

  I gasped for breath in the hot stink of the cavern.

  "Who are you?"

  "Yahh!" I almost had another heart attack. My head slammed the scissored turnstile in surprise. A guy, a human, only three feet tall but an adult, looked up at me quizzically. He whipped the 42

  43 |

  stack of flyers he was carrying behind his back. I and maimed or disabled adults, lay on thin, soiled thought I saw the letters "EF," but I wasn't sure. mats. Battle-scarred Andalites, some minus tail

  "What'd you do to get sent down here?" The blades and others without stalk eyes, milled restway he said it freaked me out. Like some jury had lessly. The stench was profound. The moans were sentenced me to a horrible fate.

  heartrending.

  I was still struggling for breath.

  It was the eyes that told the story, though. DeThe guy shrugged and continued. "You won't feated, dejected. Living death.

  last long down here. No one does."

  At the sound of our abrupt entrance, most I heard the gate bang open one flight up. The turned and tensed. Weak as they were, they were sound of skittering Taxxon feet. The little guy's ready to run. Not fight. That was clear.

  eyes widened. He turned and ran.

  "What is this?" I gasped. "Who are you?" The I followed.

  fumes made me light-headed.

  Down a white-tiled tunnel that narrowed and The little guy interrupted his whispers of renarrowed until my shoulders scraped the sides. assurance to a group of human kids. "Depends Then into a still smaller channel that brought me who you ask," he said. "The Emperor calls us to my knees. I crawled wildly through dampness. fugitives. The EF calls us refugees. I call us caThe Taxxon war cries grew fainter. Then, a new sualties. Casualties of the Fitness Policy. But it sound. Weak moans and muffled cries that filled doesn't really matter, does it? We're all prey." He the almost total darkness.

  smiled. "Your body is strong. You must suffer We emerged into a wide, domed hall with a mental illness?"

  stagnant, toxic puddle at its center. Clustered I could hardly argue. "I must." around this shallow, filthy water — cramped and

  "Ah." His tone turned gentler, more condemiserable — was a sampling of human and alien scending. "Take heart, friend. At least with your life.

  strong body you stand a chance against the A horrific sampling.

  Taxxon Special Force. With our help, you may Clumsy Gedds loped along at a snail's pace. last a month. Perhaps even two."

  Battered Hork-Bajir, missing arms or legs or both, My vision was wigging out. The little guy's huddled around a glowing pit. Human children, face seemed to approach and recede. The stench 44

  45

  was eating away my brain. I moved back toward

  "Ahh!"

  the tunnel and began to scrabble through. THWAP! thaap!

  "No," he cried, alarmed. "You must stay with

  THWAP!

  us. Alone you won't last two hours!" Two Taxxons rolled out of the suction stream. I had to get above ground. I was desperate for Lumbered onto the platform! Mouths full of raair. I was going to pass out. zor-sharp teeth snapped for me. Hundreds of Back down the tunnel. Left turn, left again. clawed feet powered toward me.

  Onto the platform of a subway station. The light Noooo!

  was dim and reddish.

  I grabbed for a bench and pulled myself

  Suddenly . . .

  closer to it, fighting the intense suction. Then Massive suction!

  past it. I grabbed for the trash can bolted to the I was being pulled toward the rails by an infloor, pulled myself past. Column! Bench! Sign!

  tense, all-consuming suction! I had to fight against Trash can!

  it!

  I looked over my shoulder. The Taxxons were I ran for the exit, but I was barely moving forstruggling against the suction, too, but they were ward. Like that horrible nightmare where your bigger and they knew something I didn't. They legs feel like fifty-pound weights. Or you're runhad dropped to the floor and were slinking along. ning through water.

  Racing like salamanders.

  I looked down at the rails ten feet below. They Bench! Column! Column! Pull!

  were covered in a dirt-packed ooze, seething and They would overtake me.

  twisting with Taxxons!

  Gate!

  It was a living stream of Taxxons. Traveling, I flung it open. The exit stairs! I strained. I legs pulled in. Being sucked like lugers along an reached.

  underground highway, red eyes jiggling as they

  "Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

  flew past.

  Something cut into my leg. I twisted. Jammed This was Taxxon Mass Transit.

  a fist into an airbag chest. Slammed the gate on And I was six feet from being sucked in with gaping jaws and a probing tongue.

  them!

  Then I clambered toward daylight. Up, up, 46

  47

  up. Sweating. Gasping. Leg nearly crippled with pain. Head throbbing from running into the turnstile. The street! The pavement!

  Gasping breath after breath of fresh air, I collapsed. Rolled onto my back. And froze.

  C H A P T E R 10

  I wasn't alone.

  G ehhhtuupoorraanjjsoooot!"

  Words like a waterfall of syllables, strung tightly together.

  Totally incomprehensible.

  "Wutryoodooingindtheaghetoo?"

  Okay. This was a dream. That was the only possible explanation. But what felt like very real pain from the Taxxon bite shot up what felt like my very real leg.

  Right then I decided that this was a world I might never be able to figure out. And if I didn't stop trying to, I'd crack up. Effective immediately, my goal would be simpler: Just get out of this place alive, body and soul intact.

  I tried not to let the two forms in front of me, 48

  49

  roughly human in outline except for a third leg mean, I was staring right at a beating heart. A and a seriously long neck, freak me too much. perfect target.

  But it was hard.

  Amber Eye stepped forward and yanked me to See, each of them had only one eye, a big, inmy feet. He repeated his question. All of a sudternally lit thing that fixed on me like a follow den, the rhythm in the speech, the slightly differspot. At the center of the eye was an iris, roughly ent note that filled each word . . . The pattern. It like ours except for the faint amber and gray all made sense. It clicked.

  glow.

  "Get-up-Orange-Suit!" he said. "What-areBut you know how our pupils are in the middle you-doing-in-the-ghetto? Work-truancy-is-a-crime!

  of our irises? Not the case here. I was looking at Why-aren't-you-at-your-work-site?" A nearly invisipupils that orbited the iris like slow, optical satelble finger flicked something pinned to my chest. lites. These eyes studied me with all the suspiThen he looked up, way up, at the Chrysler Buildcion of secret service agents at a presidential ing with its Mylar sheath whipping with the wind. appearance. They seemed to stare right through There was a badge on my jumpsuit that

  me.

  hadn't been there before. At least, I hadn't noThough it's more accurate to say I stared ticed it. There was a hologram of me, and my through them.

  Yeerk name written out. There were numbers corBecause I was looking at blue lungs that filled responding to housing, work site, and work secand deflated with speech. And two bright green tor. Under the words "job title" was the term hearts pumping pale yellow blood through crystal

  "Planetary Engineer."

  clear veins. Miles of intestines coiled tightly near I gaped like an idiot. These guys were some a swath of faintly reddish muscle.

  street-level security force? I worked in the Chrysler Their skin was as clear as glass or water. Building?

  Clearer, since there was next to no distortion as I

  "Maybe this is the place for this mute," Silver stared at the organs beneath.

  Eye sneered. "Looks like he's had a breakdown. Specimens a biology teacher would die for. Can you tell us where you live, Orange Suit?" He Although on whatever planet they were from, surgrowled patronizingly while fingering a pair of vival of the fittest was obviously not an issue. I red-tinted handcuffs. "Or can't you remember?" 50

  51

  They could see where I lived. But I guess they I made a break for it.

  just wanted me to say. I looked at my badge and

  "Hey!"

  tried to read the numbers upside down. " I , Silver Eye grabbed for me. I wrestled free uh . . ."

  from him and shot around the corner, limping RrrrrrrrrBoomBoom . . . RrrrrrrrrBoooooom . . . from my Taxxon bite, moving toward a billowing The earth shook and a deafening boom thundust cloud. But the Orff followed me. His tripod dered through the street. Amber Eye spun around, legs moved like quicksilver. Then he was on me. then spun back and grabbed me. Dragged me with We struggled as the chaos grew around us. him as he moved with startling speed toward the I heard the distant sirens of approaching hover sound of the explosion. Silver Eye followed. ships. The whistled lisps of Taxxon as they burst

  "Floor eighty-eight," I said, faking an answer. onto the street, spilling from three-hundred-foot

  "I live in the, uh, the Empire Towers." I thought earthen hives built up between buildings along the that sounded pretty good.

  block, surging like beastly commandos.

  "Don't be sarcastic, Orange Suit." He reached What was this? What was happening?

  forward and slid the cuffs over my wrists. "You Could I morph? I tried to focus. Tried to think I don't know that floors eighty-seven to t h i n k . . .

  ninety-two are a docking port? You're coming with And then everything flashed a blinding yelus." low-white, like I was a bug inside some flash"Under whose authority?" bulb. All was noiseless, but only for a second. I struggled, but the cuffs were some living, orThen —

  ganic material. The more I resisted, the tighter BOOM.

  they squeezed.

  BOOM.

  The creatures laughed heartily, a sound like a

  BOOM!

  trilling trumpet. "We're the Orff, fool. Security The pavement heaved and thumped as deafagents to the High Council. We're our own auening pressure waves threw everyone in the thority."

  street to the ground. All down the block, entire R rrrrrrr Boooooooooom m m m m!

  building fronts were instantly reduced to lethal Another massive boom and cloud of dust.

  waterfalls of shattering glass and stone. The Orff turned away from me.

  I raised my head toward what appeared to be 52

  53

  the source of the explosion. A tremendous skyscraper, towering hundreds of feet, a fireball at its base, teetered hesitatingly, like a circus performer on a tightrope. My mouth opened in disbelief as the building's graceful, tentative sway gave way to decisive instability. As the lowest ten or twenty stories disintegrated in a cloud of dust. C H A P T E R 11

  Then the entire structure sailed toward Earth. Faster. . . faster. . . toppling in a single rigid section. Falling . . . falling . . . then —

  A thunderous concussion as the building ruptured and broke in two, missing the Chrysler Building by what seemed like a hair.

  Concussion after concussion battered the ManSirens blared. A splitting pain numbed my hattan bedrock. I should have taken the chance to head.

  disappear.

  I opened my eyes to piles of rubble. Spewing But it was all I could do to crawl to a doorway geysers from burst watermains. Fires crackling, and lie there, as a choking cloud of white dust ripping through entire buildings. Hundreds of paengulfed me and a spattering of small debris trol ships on the scene. Taxxons savagely herding rained down from the sky.

  the injured into transports, satisfying their raging Then heavier particles, chunks of steel and hunger by disposing of the dead right there and concrete, were pummeling the street. And then then.

  everything went black.

  The Orff were gone. The cuffs, somehow, vanished. Apparently, when you're in Yeerk Land and you hear sirens and they're coming to get you, you don't wait around. You move.

  I sprinted from the doorway.

  "Ahhrgh!"

  54

  55

  And slammed smack into a purple suit. Bedown a narrow alley mounded with discarded remfore I could regain balance, I was looking down nants of human society. A broken piano. Couch the barrel of a handheld Dracon.

  carcasses. Some rusting motorcycles. All of it covYeerk Land definitely had it in for me. ered over now in a fresh mountain of concrete, reI looked past the barrel, past the arm. Into bar, and fragments of still-steaming sheet metal. the eyes of a dark female figure covered headI called to her. "Hey, wait." She paused and to-foot in dust. Blood dripped from even featurned back. tures. As our eyes met, her expression changed. I rushed eagerly forward and her face turned It flashed from ruthless hatred to a mysterious strange again like she was searching her mind, mix of confusion, disbelief, tenderness, and searching . . .

  anger.

  TSEEEW!

  My chest heaved involuntarily because this

  "Hey! What t h e . . ."

  woman . . .

  She'd fired at me, igniting the air over my head. This woman . . . my memory . . .

  Then she disappeared through a large metal door

  "Ah!"

  opening off the alley, a side entrance to a tall brick Without warning she shoved me out of the

  building.

  way.

  Was that a warning shot? Or just bad aim?

  TSEEEW!

  A gang of Taxxons flowed down the alley and Whumph.

  followed her inside. I picked up a piece of metal Taxxon guts spilled onto the pavement as the and swung it like a thug, trying to show I was bloated worm, teeth bared, skidded to a halt just ready to fight. They snarled, but amazingly, they shy of my legs. Three seconds more and my butt ran right by.

  would have been nothing more than a pleasant One thing was clear. They were after the

  Taxxon aftertaste.

  woman.

  The woman darted ahead. I sprinted after her. I flung open the thick metal door and ran into She'd saved my life.

  the mottled darkness. Light filtered through a parBut it was for more than that that I followed. tially blown off roof and illuminated velvety curWith the agility of a triathlete, she scampered tains, a stage, an orchestra pit — a vast space 56

  57

  lined with rows of seats and tiers of balconies. I I threw open the latch that fixed a rope to its moved down the carpeted aisle, hoisted myself stack of anchors.

  onto the stage littered with broken flats. Whooooosh!

  TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

  An ethereal cloth backdrop came billowing Dracon fire lit the air. A 500-pound mass of down, deftly covering the predators and the prey Taxxon meat fell from the grid, whistling past a below.