The Predator (5 page)

J
ake and I were playing video games at the mall. I was kicking his butt. He was distracted because he was eating.

He was eating a big red bug with huge pincers.

I told him not to eat it. It would upset his stomach. But he just ignored me.

Then, suddenly, his stomach exploded. It just exploded outward, guts flying everywhere. Eight huge spider legs appeared, like something in him was trying to crawl out.

I tried to get away, but the steam was rising. I was burning up!

I tried to run, but my legs were gone, replaced by a tail that jerked and kicked. I screamed. And screamed. “Marco, Marco, wake up!” My eyes opened very suddenly. Darkness. Someone holding on to me. I was confused. “Mom?” I asked. Silence. Then, “No.”

My brain snapped back into reality. I was in my room. In my own bed. My dad was sitting on the side of the bed. He looked concerned and sad.

“It’s just me,” he said. He let go of my shoulders.

I felt sweaty all over. Cold sweat.

“I guess you had a nightmare,” my father said.

“Yeah,” I said shakily. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” he said.

I glanced at my clock. The red numbers showed 3:18
A.M
. I didn’t have to ask why my dad was awake. He often sat awake late into the night. Sometimes watching TV. Sometimes just staring into space.

He’d been that way since my mom died.

My dad looks very different from me. For one thing, he’s pretty tall. He’s paler than me, too, and has light brown eyes. My mom was Hispanic, very dark hair and eyes. Everyone says I look like her. I know it’s true, because sometimes when he’s
thinking about her, my dad will just glaze over and stare at me like I’m not even there. Like I’m a picture of someone else.

“I’m okay now,” I said. “You should try to get some sleep.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll do that. Look, Marco, you weren’t dreaming about
her,
were you?”

“No, Dad. Why?”

“Because the first thing you said when you woke up was ‘Mom.’”

“I guess I was confused.”

“Do you ever? Dream about her, I mean?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But they aren’t nightmares.”

He almost smiled. “No. I guess they wouldn’t be, would they?” He picked up the little framed picture of my mom that I keep on my nightstand. Then he got that twisted look of sick grief I had seen on his face every day for the last two years.

Part of me is mad when I see him that way. Part of me just wants to say, “Dad, get it together. Let her go. She’s dead. She doesn’t want us spending the rest of our lives mourning.”

But I never do say that.

After a few minutes, he got up. He made some last remark about how I shouldn’t be worried about bogeymen, and left. I knew he would sit out in
the living room alone, and eventually fall asleep in his chair.

I lay there in the dark and tried to get the dream out of my head. But it’s hard to forget a nightmare that’s true.

Ax held up a small mess of electronic components for all of us to see. It looked sort of like an exploded remote control, but smaller.

It was the next day. We were out in the woods, grouped together beneath a huge, old oak tree. It was like a strange sort of picnic. Jake and Cassie had each brought hand tools for Ax to use — screwdrivers, a solder gun, a battery-powered drill, a hammer, wrenches, pliers, and of course we had the electronic parts we had stashed in the trash before the lobster incident.

Rachel had brought sandwiches. I’d brought a six-pack of Pepsi.

It was a nice day, sunny and warm. I needed a nice day. I needed sunlight. I’d had a bad night, with too little sleep.

“So, Ax,” I said. “What is it?”

he said with satisfaction.

“All it needs is a Z-Space transponder,” Jake said wearily, rolling his eyes at me.

I think Jake may have been a bit freaked out by the lobster incident, too. He seemed snappish and kind of unfocused. Not at all Jake-like.

“And since we can’t get a Z-Space transponder, it’s basically useless, right?” Rachel asked.

Rachel threw up her hands. “Then what exactly are we doing?”

Jake just shrugged. Cassie sidled up next to him and gave him a small sideways hug. No one was supposed to notice. But right away Jake’s harsh look mellowed a little.

That wasn’t doing anything for
my
bad mood, though. “Well, I’m guessing that in about two centuries or so, humans will discover zero space and make transponders. Whatever
they
are. But in the meantime, I’m going to have a sandwich.”

Tobias came drifting down through the branches and leaves of the tree, almost silent. He landed on a low branch of the oak. he reported.

Not for the first time, I realized how tough Tobias’s
life is. He shares all the same dangers we do, but he also has all the dangers that come from being a red-tailed hawk. Golden eagles sometimes prey on hawks. They are bigger and faster than he is.

Tobias asked.

“We have a completely useless distress beacon,” Rachel said. “We need a transponder that probably won’t be invented on this planet for a century or two.”

Tobias said.

“What about Chapman?” I asked. Chapman is the assistant principal at our school. He’s also one of the most important Controllers.

I used to hate Chapman. I mean, once I knew that he was a Controller and all. But then we learned that he surrendered his freedom to the Yeerks as part of a deal to keep his daughter, Melissa, safe.

It’s hard to hate someone for protecting their kid. Even if he or she ended up being a deadly enemy. That’s one of the terrible things about fighting the Yeerks. The real enemy is just the evil slug in a person’s brain. The host is often totally innocent.

Tobias said. Chapman’s secret radio thing must have one of these Z-Space transponders?>

Ax said instantly.

Jake caught my eye. “That’s pretty much what I figured.”

I smiled, despite the fact that I had a bad feeling about the way this conversation was going.

“How big is a Z-Space thingie?” Cassie asked.

Ax held two of his fingers close together, indicating something the size of a pea.

Rachel stood. “We are not going into Chapman’s house again,” she said firmly. “The last time we did, we almost got Melissa made into a Controller. We cannot morph her cat again. Chapman is on guard now. It won’t be easy this time.” She realized what she’d said and added, “Not that it was exactly easy the first time.”

“A historic first,” I observed. “Rachel saying no to a mission.”

“Rachel’s right,” Jake said. “We do
nothing
that will endanger Melissa again. So the cat is out. Also
any other plan that means major risk that Chapman will discover us.”

For a while no one said anything.

Finally Ax spoke silently in our heads.

What he said surprised me a little. I guess I’d expected him to argue that we should try and help him.

“What if …” Cassie began.

We all looked at her. “Yes?” Jake asked.

“What if there was a way to get into Chapman’s basement room—the secret room where he keeps the transmitter—without even going through the house? With almost no chance of getting caught?”

I felt my heart sink. “As long as it doesn’t involve anything with an exoskeleton.”

I’d meant it as a joke. But Cassie just looked at me solemnly.

“What?” I demanded. “A lobster again? How is a lobster—“

“No,” she said. “Think smaller. Much smaller. Much, much smaller.”