My voice was a monstrous roar echoing through the dungeon-like sewer. Crayak laughed.

  “Not so fast, Rachel. You are not free. Because you still believe this to be a fantasy, don’t you? A silly simulation that gives you the illusion of deadly power. Like one of those video games you humans enjoy so much. A virtual-reality experience.”

  Something in my palm vibrated like a pager.

  It was the Drode’s head. Laughing.

  The Drode was still alive.

  Grinning up at me with its green-rimmed smile.

  Rachel, do you feel the adrenalien rush of murderous desire? Do you feel the

  urge to reach out and destroy me?

  “There are many masters of illusion in the universe, Rachel. Many manipulators of perception. But only I am a master of reality. A manipulator of the concrete. Well, then, perhaps this is a fantasy, after all. Your fantasy. But I can make it real at any time. For example, perhaps you would like to rip the Drode apart for real?”

  “Hey!” the Drode protested. “Now, let’s not get carried away.”

  You know, Crayak could use you, Rachel. If you ever find yourself desperate,

  Rachel. At an end. In need…

  Suddenly, I was furious.

  … the adrenaline rush of murderous desire…

  I was tired of being toyed with.

  - 56 -

  Was this a fantasy or wasn’t it?

  A nightmare, a dream, a hallucination?

  Crayak was deliberately confusing me!

  I wasn’t free of anything. Of Crayak, of my guilt, of David, of my fears, of anything!

  I was still a prisoner!

  Two hours of horror…reach out and destroy…

  I took dead aim at the glowing red eye.

  Hurled the Drode’s head at it!

  But the eye simply disappeared.

  The Drode reassembled in midair and landed on its feet. Sighed and stretched its arms and legs to their full extent.

  Crayak reappeared on the other side of the room.

  “Rachel!” it chided. “That was a waste of time. A waste of energy. A waste of power. You cannot harm me. You know this. Why make yourself appear foolish to your inferiors?”

  It gestured toward David, cowering in the corner.

  David squeaked.

  “Perhaps you are right,” Crayak mused. “Perhaps I am the one wasting my time and energy.”

  This time, there was a sound effect. Or I imagined there was.

  WHOOSH!

  I was a rat again.

  NOOOOO!

  I was inside the cube.

  Rotted food strewn at my feet.

  And David was with me.

  - 57 -

  I looked at the counter.

  No.

  Who could save me? Who could I ask to save me?

  Not Jake, not the other Animorphs. Not the Ellimist.

  There was nobody I could turn to.

  Nobody.

  If you ever find yourself desperate, Rachel.

  ———

  Chapter Seventeen

  I scratched at the walls.

  It was horrible!

  More horrible than before.

  To be so smal and so weak after experiencing so much strength and power. Unbearable!

  I was ready to do anything—anything!—to get it back. To get back the power. The invincibility!

  A voice. In my head. The Drode.

  Something it’d said to me a long time ago. When we’d first encountered it.

  Remember this: Your cousin’s life is your passport to salvation in the arms of

  Crayak.

  No…

  I pushed away the memory.

  David laughed.

 

 

  - 58 -

  David gloated.

 

  he taunted.

  I turned and jumped him. Dug with my claws.

  Bit with my teeth.

  But David was bigger and more experienced with the morph. His back claws ripped at my belly. His teeth, needle sharp from months in the wild, sliced my face.

  I was losing. Losing the fight.

  Losing to David!

 

  Uncontrollable rage! Unbelievable hatred!

  I was overwhelmed with adrenaline.

  David had me!

  I was pinned, couldn’t move!

  The counter turned over again.

 

  I thrashed with all four legs. Futilely, my tail whipped back and forth, back and forth.

 

  The sound…

  WHOOSH!

  Suddenly, I was myself again.

  Human-Rachel.

  - 59 -

  Outside the cube and crumpled on the floor. Flailing around like a two-year-old having a tantrum.

  “Tsk, tsk.” Crayak. “Is this how a leader should behave?”

  I jumped to my feet.

  SPROOING!

  Steel coils in my knees and ankles.

  Once again, I was Super-Rachel!

  And the hatred I had felt toward David, the killing rage, was still pumping through my body. Throbbing through my brain.

  My eagle eye caught the two punks.

  Somehow they’d escaped the cube. Were climbing the iron staircase welded to the stone wall. Headed for the manhole cover in the ceiling. Apparently, things had turned just a little too weird for them. Certainly Crayak hadn’t taken pity and let them escape their prison.

  Or had it?

  Didn’t matter.

  I reached up and my arm ratcheted twenty feet.

  Curled my fingers around a piece of the iron staircase and pulled. The staircase came away from the stone wall as if it had been made of balsa wood.

  KKKERRAAK!!!

  Tattoo and Grease fell screaming through the air.

  Crayak gestured gracefully.

  From nowhere, a net spread about fifteen feet off the floor.

  THUMP! THUMP!

  And broke the punks’ fall. For a moment the net swayed gently. Then it flipped and dumped the two punks out onto the floor.

  They lay there at my massive feet, stunned. Stared up at me with terrified eyes.

  - 60 -

  “Imagine what you could do for the good of Earth with such powers,” Crayak said. The thought was enticing.

  “Puny bullets would have no effect on you. Yeerk Dracon beams would only warm your flesh. You could destroy anyone, anything, that you chose.”

  I tried to make my expression neutral.

  Indifferent.

  But every nerve ending in my body was vibrating with ambition.

  “You would let me stop the Yeerks?”

  Crayak waved a dismissive hand.

  “I would create you, Rachel, and you would do as you please.”

  WHOOSH!

  I was back in the cube.

  A rat.

  With David’s teeth in my neck.

  And the counter in front of my eyes.

  We struggled! Tails, teeth, and claws.

  The contrast was unbearable.

  From absolute dominion to absolute submission.

  Unthinkable! Unendurable!

  I managed to pull my neck from David’s grip. Felt the skin on the back of my neck tear.

  David chased me.

  If Crayak were going to create a supercreature, why had it chosen me and not Jake?

  I couldn’t take this anymore!

  Salvation in the arms of Crayak…

  - 61 -

  David called from behind me.

  And the Drode laughed hysterically.

  ———

  Chapter Eighteen

  WHOOSH!

  I was Super-Rachel.

  Outside the cube.

  Stumbling to my feet.

  “Quit the yo-yo effect. I get it!” I screamed at Crayak. “I can be a rat. Or I can be a god. But only if I do what you want.”

  “What makes you think you know what I want?” Crayak asked. “How dare you presume to understand? Understand only this, Rachel. You and you alone decide what you will do. And you and you alone accept the consequences.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to sound calm.

  In control.

  “But you do want something. Don’t you?”

  Crayak chuckled.

  “That’s better, Rachel. Be cold. Do not let your emotions sway you. Yes. If I create you, if I make you the most powerful force on Earth, I will ask for something in return. Is that unfair?”

  “It depends on what you want.”

  “I want justice,” it said reasonably. “Jake destroyed my Howlers. Now I want you to destroy Jake.”

  “Never,” I said, drawing in my breath.

  “Rachel. Think! I’m offering you a chance to destroy the Yeerks once and for all. To save the life of every human on the planet. Are you willing to sacrifice billions of lives to save just one?”

  - 62 -

  The needs of the many versus the needs of one.

  “You can’t make me murder Jake.”

  “I can’t make you do anything,” Crayak reminded me. “You have free will. What you do with it is up to you. You can use it for good. Or you can use it for evil. Now, listen. Be sure you understand. I’m offering you a chance to save the world,” Crayak said. “I’m offering you the chance to be a force for good—or for evil. What is it going to be?”

  I closed my eyes, confused now.

  Kill Jake and save the human race from being conquered by the Yeerks. Make Jake a sacrifice. His death—the death of one human kid—would bring freedom to millions. Billions.

  And I…

  It was a deal with a devil.

  And its name was Crayak.

  “I’m one of the good guys,” I said.

  Then I tried to figure out exactly what it was that made me a good guy. I had no answer.

  Maybe I’d never had one.

  Crayak chuckled again.

  “Good guys. Bad guys. It seems so simple, and yet it is anything but.”

  I heard a sound. A cry for help!

  Cassie!

  Trapped again in the other cube and pounding on the front wall. Calling out to me. Begging me to do something.

  What?

  What was she begging me to do?

  “Good and bad are so simple for Cassie,” Crayak said.

  - 63 -

  Yes. Yes. Cassie always knew right from wrong.

  “So what is she telling you to do?” it asked.

  I didn’t know.

  Would Cassie sacrifice herself to save the entire planet?

  Yes. Without a second thought.

  Would she sacrifice Jake?

  I didn’t know.

  Would she sacrifice me to nothlit status to save Jake?

  I didn’t know that, either.

  “What is Cassie telling you to do?” Crayak pressed.

  “I don’t know!” I cried. “I don’t know. I’m confused.”

  “But good and bad are so simple,” Crayak teased.

  “Only for the simple-minded,” the Drode mocked. Hopped up and down. Began to sing in a childish voice, “I’m one of the good guys. I’m one of the good guys. I’m one of the good guys!”

  “The good against the bad,” Crayak murmured. “The age-old battle. Let’s settle it once and for all.”

  WHOOSH!

  In the blink of an eye, the dungeon-like sewer expanded to the size of a football field. Bleachers lined three of the walls.

  High up in the stands, I saw the pusing red mass. Beside it, the Drode. Crayak nodded, and the Drode threw something out onto the field. It was a ball.

  The ball hit the ground, bounced slightly, and rolled toward my feet. I bent to pick it up…

  And reared back when the ball exploded into matter.

  I found myself eye-to-eye with Visser One’s Andalite stalk eyes.

  - 64 -

  He let out a bellow of rage and surprise. Careened backward. I did the same.

  Tried to get over the shock of being suddenly face-to-face, one-on-one, with my most hated enemy.

  Who was now galloping toward me. His lethal tail blade whisked the air, prepared to strike.

  I kept my eye on the tail and ducked.

  I was unprepared for the speed and velocity with which my body responded. I shot across the floor on my stomach at an easty twenty-five miles an hour!

  I hit the wall headfirst. Didn’t feel a thing. The wall crumbled, buried meunder a pile of rubble.

  I could hear Visser One shouting at Crayak.

 

  Crayak replied calmly. Visser One laughed. No mistaking, ever, that demonic sound.

 

  Beneath the pile of bricks and stone, I smiled.

  Looks are deceiving.

  ———

  Chapter Nineteen

  I stood.

  Rocks, stones, and debris fell away like dust.

  I might as well have been covered with packing peanuts.

  Visser One’s main eyes narrowed. He looked up…up…up.

  I couldn’t even begin to guess how large I was.

  - 65 -

  But for the first time since this whole infuriating war began, Visser One looked like a very minor threat.

  The visser studied me with his four eyes. But it was clear—he didn’t suspect that I was one of the Andalite bandits that had been plaguing his efforts to take over the earth.

  The visser wasn’t afraid to tell everyone within ten miles what he was thinking. If he thought I was an Andalite in some bizarre morph, he’d be shouting words like

  “scum” and “fool.”

  But he was silent. It was also clear that he didn’t even recognize me as human. How could he? I was a massively distorted version of myself. Then he laughed. A practiced, evil laugh.

 

  “Who are you calling a hologram?” I sneered. I reached forward, put my massive, machine-like hand on his chest, and shoved.

 

  Visser One went flying. Tail flailing, legs kicking. He bounced off the wall on the far side of the room. Crumpled to the floor, delicate Andalite arms crushed beneath his chest.

  He lay still for a full minute. Then slowly he struggled to right himself. A red spotlight illuminated the floor of the arena. Crayak, hovering above us. Part biology, part technology. All destructive.

  “I am Crayak,” it said to Visser One. “I think you know of me.”

  Visser One choked out his answer.

  “I exist,” Crayak said simply. “And I have a little job for you, Yeerk.”

  Visser One puffed out his chest. The effort seemed to cost him. His Andalite body was that of a seasoned warrior, but no warrior on this planet or any other could come up against me.

  he spat.

  - 66 -

  Crayak’s red eye gleamed dangerously. “I am aware of everything. I am aware that in an instant I could vaporize you and this insignificant rock called Earth that you have fought so hard to conquer.”

  Visser One is no fool. At least, when it comes to saving his own precious hide. He bowed his head slightly.

 

  “Better,” Crayak boomed. “Now…let’s get down to business. Visser One, I desire to test the strength of my new creation. You will fight. To the death. If you win, Visser, Earth belongs to you. If my creature wins, you and your band of slugs will leave this planet. Immediately.”

  I grinned. Metal teeth flashed. A fight to the death!

  Yes!

  Again, Visser One bowed his head.

 

  “You have no choice,” Crayak interrupted. “So you might as well agree.”

  Suddenly, Crayak was in the balcony again with the Drode at its side, looking down at the arena.

  “Let the games begin!” the Drode declared.

  Visser One stared up at me with all four eyes.

  Me, this brutal giant of an opponent.

  As if hoping I might have something to say. Some explanation that would make what was happening in this dank, underground arena seem less insane. Less bizarre.

  My only response was to smile at him. Give him a look at the rows of shark-like metal teeth in my mouth.

  “There,” Crayak said to me. “At last you have it your way. Fight your own fight. It’s all up to you, finally. No one can tell you to retreat or to surrender. There are no rules except your own.”

  No rules except my own!

  I felt the blood rush through my powerful limbs.

  - 67 -

  … the adrenaline rush of murderous desire…

  Felt my head expand. Imagined neurons firing.

  Heard the thunderous beating of my own brave heart.

  … reach out and destroy…

  No rules except my own…

  ———

  Chapter Twenty

  Visser One began to circle. His wicked tail curled over his back, the blade ready to strike.

  I was focused. Careful not to be sloppy, underestimate the enemy. But I was also elated.

  If I won—and there was a very, very good chance I would—Crayak would force the Yeerks out of planet Earth.

  The war would be over.

  No more weird alien attacks.

  No more unexplained disappearances.