The Illusion

by K. A. Applegate

  For Michael and Jake

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SNEAK PEEK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  My name is Tobias.

  And I don’t think I could have felt more uncomfortable if I’d just been asked to give an impromptu speech on the French Revolution in front of an all-school assembly.

  Well, okay. I guess that would be pretty bad. But this Friday night was definitely right up there.

  Back when I was a regular kid, school dances made me a little uneasy. I’ve always been a loner and all, and they just weren’t my thing. But now! Now that I spent most of my life as a ­red-tailed hawk — hunting, flying, protecting my meadow — dances made me feel even weirder.

  Bird-boy at the ball.

  Why had I let Rachel talk me into this? I mean, what do you do with your arms? They just dangled there. Stiff. Awkward. And my eyes! I’d fix a stare on someone and forget, until it was too late, that people tend not to do that. A big, burly redhead noticed as the raptor in me burned a hole through his girlfriend.

  “Jerk!”

  Oops. Hard to remember I wasn’t perched in a tree a half mile away.

  I’d been cool enough at the last school dance. That was more of a group thing, I guess. Tonight it was … I don’t know … a date? No, no, no. We were all there. Pretending to be acquaintances.

  I looked ridiculous, I was sure of it. And I was sure that everyone else thought so, too.

  Did Rachel?

  I glanced at her. She seemed impatient. Angry almost, as she surveyed the dimly lit gym in an absent yet determined way. They’d taped some helium balloons to the bleachers and draped strings of multicolored lights from the basketball hoops. We were down at the far end next to the deejay. So close to the speaker my eardrums were numb.

  Rachel was as beautiful as ever. Really. I mean I wouldn’t tell her this, but she made the other girls look pretty plain. Her gold hair gleamed in the strobe light. Her bright eyes caught mine. I knew she wanted me to dance with her. I just couldn’t do it. My human body was sweating. I felt confined. I needed air. I looked away.

  Did I mention that my name is Tobias?

  Just Tobias. Even if it were safe to tell you my last name, I’m not sure I’d know what to say. Whether it would be a human name, an Andalite name, or just “hawk.” I don’t know. Because, see, I’m a little of each.

  “Let’s kick it, boys and girls!”

  My friend Marco, unlike me, was in paradise. He was belting out lyrics like his first name was “Ice” or something.

  He slide-stepped toward us, spun around, and stopped, squealing his sneaker on the gym floor. He froze with one finger pointed at me and one at Rachel.

  She glared at him. “Some kind of chemical imbalance, Marco?”

  “Hah. Hah. And also, a bonus, hah.” He grinned. “This is a natural high. A good music high. A lots-of-girls-in-short-skirts high. A people laughing high. This is fun. Do you two remember fun?”

  Rachel caught my eye again. Again I looked away, up at the clock. Twenty minutes left in morph. Not much time.

  “You need to cut loose, my friends,” Marco continued in a meaningful tone. “It’s all about rhythm. You gotta commune with the rhythm, step inside the beat.”

  “Look, Marco, go work your magic somewhere else,” Rachel snapped.

  “Okay. Which proves what I’ve always known: Neither of you is any fun, and together, even less. I’ll just have to find my own party. Later.”

  I had too much on my mind. So much to take in. Lights. Music. A lot of songs I didn’t even recognize. I’d been gone too long.

  “Listen, Rachel, I have to get going. And,” I added more quietly, “time’s running out.”

  “What do you mean? You have a full, well, at least fifteen minutes left. You saying you’d rather be sitting up in your tree, watching owls eat nocturnal rodents, than be with me?” she asked. Her tone was somewhere between challenging and coy. Dangerous in either direction.

  “Well, no, of course not. I mean, not exactly.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just all these other people. The noise. This body …” I looked around, worried that someone might overhear. But no, not with human ears, not with this much noise.

  “You mean your body. The body you’re in now is your body, Tobias. It’s who you truly are. Normally, naturally.”

  We’d been through this before. I didn’t know how to answer. And I didn’t know why she was pushing it.

  Ever since I overstayed the two-hour time limit in morph I’ve considered hawk to be my true form. Hawk is the body I have to keep if I want to help the other Animorphs and Ax combat the Yeerk invasion. Why was Rachel ignoring reality? She knew as well as anyone that I’d be out of the fight if I stayed more than two hours in human form.

  All of which must sound strange. Possibly insane. So let me back up.

  Here’s the situation: The human race is under attack by a cruel and scheming enemy. As you’re reading this, the parasitic alien species called Yeerks continues to enslave human minds. Armed with a capability you can’t even imagine till you’ve seen it in action, the Yeerks wrest from us the one thing we hold most dear: free will.

  Once one of these slimy, gray, sluglike parasites squirms into your ear canal, and melds and shapes itself to all the crevices of your brain, it controls you. That’s right. It dictates your every thought. Your every move! The Yeerks have created an army by infesting and controlling alien races.

  Gedds. Taxxons. Hork-Bajir.

  Humans.

  By secretly infiltrating our society, the Yeerks have become a nearly undefeatable enemy.

  Who’s fighting them? What’s the human race’s best and only hope in this war? A young Andalite cadet, along with five kids who call themselves the Animorphs because they alone, of all humans, possess a unique Andalite technology: the power to morph. To become any animal they can touch.

  Ax, Jake, Cassie, Marco, Rachel. And me.

  Together, we fight. But it can be a lonely war.

  Because, see, morphing has some limitations. And one involves a time limit. Stay in morph longer than two hours and you’re stuck in morph forever.

  That’s what happened to me. I was trapped as a redtailed hawk. A nothlit, as the Andalites call someone stuck in morph.

  After many months, the powerful alien called the Ellimist gave me back my ability to morph. Even made it possible for me to morph into my former human body. I could choose to trap myself in my human form now, but I would lose my morph­­ing power for good. Do you see? I would be useless. Unable to honor my responsibility to Earth, powerless to resist Yeerk evil.

  “Just dance with me, Tobias. Please.” A slow song started. I was surprised. I actually knew this one. Goo Goo Dolls. Couples filled up the dance floor. Cassie and Jake were on the other side of the gym, swaying gently, arms around each other.

  Rachel reached out and took my hand.

  It’s funny. We’ve bee
n on so many missions together. Battled Hork-Bajir-Controllers side by side. Saved each other’s lives time and again. And still, after all that, it’s something as simple as dancing that makes my heart pound.

  Out onto the dance floor. I slid my arms around her waist. Felt her hands on my neck.

  I let myself relax. Something I can rarely do as a hawk and an Animorph. I gave myself over to the moment. Let the music’s rhythm lull me into a waking dream.

  We danced, turning slowly. As we turned, my eyes wandered to the darkened scoreboard up in the corner. Banners listing the school’s team victories. The bleachers, where a balloon had just broken free and sailed toward the ceiling.

  And then I saw … the clock.

  The time!

  I jerked away to get a better look. Human eyes are worthless for long distances.

  Could the clock be right?

  “Oh, God. Rachel. Eight minutes,” I whispered wildly. “I have to get out of here.”

  “No, wait a minute. Stay.”

  “Stay? Rachel, have you lost it? I have to find a place to demorph. Now!”

  I tried to stay calm, but ended up half-walking, half-running toward the door, brushing past a teacher I used to have for English, back when I was still in school. Mr. Feyroyan. He did a double take, but I was gone before he had the chance to remember me.

  Down the locker-lined hallway I ran. Past my old science classrooms. Rachel was running right behind me. Had she seen the clock before I had? Had she known time was short and chosen not to tell me, hoping I’d forget? Hoping I’d be ­“accidentally” trapped in human morph? No. Of course not. She wouldn’t want that. And yet … I wasn’t completely sure.

  “Wait up a second. Hey,” she called, angrily.

  I slowed and finally stopped in front of a bulletin board display. On birds of prey, of all things.

  Tacked to the cork was the image of a bald eagle, wings spread wide, soaring in a deep blue sky. And a northern harrier on a fence post, silhouetted against the clouds. “Tobias, I want to explain …” She broke off as her eyes followed mine to the picture of the red-tailed hawk and the caption beneath it. “Longevity in the wild,” it read. “Almost never reaches the figures attained by captive birds guarded against disease and predation. A generous estimate: eighteen years.”

  Rachel stared at the wall. I looked at the floor. In an instant, the bulletin board display had thrown our friendship into the harsh light of reality. Rachel was a girl who could, on occasion, become a bird of prey. I was a hawk who could, on occasion, become human.

  Several big steps past being Montagues and Capulets like Romeo and Juliet. Remaining hawk meant meals of still-living mice.

  Rachel was in my face, now. Intense, words spilling out. “Look, the fight is important to us all, Tobias. So important to you that you’ve given up everything human to be a warrior. What am I even saying? You risk your life every day. I understand all that. I do. We’re the same, you and me. Warriors.”

  She paused to consider her next words. She was embarrassed by what she was about to say. Fighting to get past her embarrassment. “But you’ve got to realize that there’s more. I’m not just a warrior,” she said, her blue eyes glittering so close to mine. “I’m a girl. I’m trying not to let myself be dragged off the cliff, away from all normalcy, into this insane life we live. I don’t like what it does to me, Tobias, and I need to be a girl again. I need a little bit of normalcy, okay? Not a lot, but some.”

  She pushed back, away from me. I’d never seen Rachel so emotional. Unless, of course, the emotion was an act. Unless she was stalling me just to eat up the minutes, to trap me, to —

  “All the things we’re supposed to live while we’re in school, Tobias, you know, dances like this, nights out at the movies, walks on the beach. That stuff is passing us by. I want those things. We deserve them. And if you were human …”

  I cut her off, repeating her words out loud. “Yeah. If I were human. If.”

  So she’d finally said what I’d known she felt all along. It made sense. She was right. She did need normalcy. Rachel had gone pretty far out on the edge in this war.

  But it still hurt. Hurt worse because I didn’t have an answer.

  “I need to go,” I said flatly. I turned and walked hurriedly toward the T-shaped intersection, where the long hallway off the gym met an even larger corridor running from the front of the school to the rear. The hall was quiet, but populated. Kids leaning against the lockers. Talking. Hanging out.

  My walk turned into a run. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, but I had to move! I rounded the corner. Almost free. The back exit was just at the end of this hallway.

  “What the … !” I stopped suddenly. My escape was blocked by one of those collapsible metal gates that pull between walls.

  “Stay cool,” I mumbled to myself. With forced composure I sauntered back away from the gate as if I were just loitering, and headed the other way. The front entrance was my only choice.

  Two or three steps out into the hall, I sensed someone else was there. I froze.

  In front of orange-painted lockers, not fifteen feet away, stood Vice Principal Chapman. Controller. Nemesis.

  He didn’t see me because he wasn’t alone. He was focused on the kid he’d cornered against the wall.

  The kid? Erek King. Erek the Chee.

  Rachel! I looked back at her. She was still in the hallway. I don’t know how much alarm registered on my face. I’m pretty out of touch with facial expressions. But she obviously read the surprise in my eyes. She tiptoed to the corner and peered around.

  “Oh, I know you, Erek,” Chapman said with his Vice Principal Disciplinarian voice. “I know your face, all right. I’ve seen you at meetings of The Sharing. I’m just saying I saw you throw away a cigarette just now.”

  “No way, Mr. Chapman,” Erek said, sounding exactly like the kid he was supposed to be.

  “We don’t need young men such as yourself smoking, especially not with the added attention. The media.”

  At one level it was funny. The idea that Erek, an android beneath the holographic exterior, would smoke. And the idea that Chapman, a powerful Controller, would care. Both of them were playing roles layered with deception.

  What did Chapman mean, “especially now”?

  Not my problem. Erek could take care of himself. He wasn’t my concern. I had my own mess. I’d been out of school for a while, but there was the chance that Chapman would recognize me, too, start asking questions, get suspicious. I couldn’t let him get a good look at me. But I had to pass him to get outside.

  Slowly, very slowly, I retraced my steps till I stood next to Rachel, our backs pressed up against the lockers.

  “Look, Rachel, I need your help,” I whispered.

  And that’s when I heard someone call my name.

  “Tobias!”

  Mr. Feyroyan waved a large, friendly hand as he strode toward us from the gym. His black curls bounced excitedly. His mouth opened to a broad smile. He had remembered me.

  The clock was ticking down and I wasn’t even sure Rachel was on my side.

  In minutes I’d be trapped. Trapped as a person who was no longer me.

  Rachel grabbed my arm. “Over the gate,” she ordered. “There’s no other way. I’ll hold off Feyroyan. Meet you outside.” For a second our eyes met. She flashed a hint of a smile.

  I dashed around the corner. Dove at the metal gate. It clattered and crashed as I struggled to gain a foothold.

  “Hey! Hey, get down from there! What do you think you’re doing?” Chapman yelled. I was out of practice with this body. I was clumsy. But I was climbing.

  And headed for the tiny space between the top of the gate and the ceiling. Hardly an opening at all, but it would have to be big enough. I gripped one square-edged metal link after the next.

  “No, you’re wrong.” Feyroyan’s voice bounced off the ceiling. “That’s Tobias, I’m sure it is.”

  I brushed the top just as Chapman an
d Feyroyan reached the bottom. Chapman grabbed hold and the gate swayed.

  “Son, listen to me. Get down from there!”

  I hoisted myself up and through the gap. My chest scraped. I blew the air out of my lungs and pressed through the opening. My shirt caught a gate iron and held me. I thrashed. A shot of adrenaline hit me like a fist. The shirt ripped. I was free.

  I scrambled down the opposite side and jumped to the floor, turning to run even before I landed.

  I raced down the dim, empty hallway, footfalls pounding so fast the sound was nearly continuous. I wasn’t running from Chapman. I wasn’t running from Feyroyan, or the dance, or Rachel, or the raptor display. I was running for my life.

  I dove at the panic bar, burst outside, and bounded across the field. Feet pummeled the earth. My chest heaved. The chill of night air enveloped me — night air that felt like home.

  “Demorph!” I screamed inside my head. “Demorph now!” I focused. I willed it with all that was in me. I closed my eyes.

  Nothing.

  Still nothing.

  Only my human body, my burning lungs, the throbbing pain from the scratch across my chest.

  Nooo!

  Wumpp. “Ahhh!”

  Thud. “Ouch.”

  I tripped and slammed to the ground.

  In the darkness not much was visible. A human arm against the dirt. Human fingers. And then!

  All I could see was a lattice of feathers spreading across the skin of my hand. Finally!

  My legs were shrinking, pulling and sucking up into my body. I felt my toes minimize, slowly fuse, then grow out again into eight ripping, deadly talons.

  I looked toward the night sky, so relieved.

  So happy.

  And when, all at once, the brilliance and precision of hawk vision replaced fuzzy human sight, the number of stars multiplied. Hawk vision isn’t worth much at night, it’s true. Except for stargazing. All the dim little luminous points you can just barely make out as a human blaze into focus with hawk eyes.

  “Tobias?”

  I scrambled up, flapped my wings clumsily to steady myself.

  Mr. Feyroyan’s voice was more tentative now, uncertain. He stood alone in the middle of the playing field, searching for me in the shadows. He was one of the few friends I’d had when I was in school. He was a teacher, but he was young, and a dreamer. I’d always thought he was like an older me.