“Forget math class,” Dad said, realizing that he was losing me. “You know what a cone looks like, right? Well, the surface of a cone is the two-dimensional analogue to the five-dimensional space we inhabit.”
I sighed and got up to get another slice. Dad grabbed my arm and made me sit down.
“But a cone is three-dimensional,” Nora corrected.
“Exactly. While the surface of the cone is two-dimensional, the surface exists in three dimensions.”
“Hmm.” Nora seemed perplexed.
“Yeah,” I said even louder. “Hmmm.”
“The cone contains a singularity,” Dad insisted.
“A what?”
“The place where all lines intersect. The place where you can head out in any direction, or in all directions at once. Where you can move in any direction without moving anywhere at all.”
“What does this cone have to do with your work?” Nora’s puzzled look revealed that Dad had just surpassed her in geekitude. Which, unfortunately, only made him more determined to explain.
“We live our lives on just one line on the cone, in a mere four dimensions, including time.”
I felt my eyes rolling up into my head.
“We’ve been stuck on the surface of the cone all this time. When we want to go anywhere, we have to travel on the line. But now, imagine someone notices the singularity. A point with no size, no breadth, no extent. The physical representation of nothingness. By itself, it’s nothing. Yet it’s the starting and ending place of everything! A multiplier of real space!”
“Cool,” I said. “Look, I’ve got homework. Lots of math.” I dumped my paper plate in the trash and walked into the living room. Flopped on the couch and picked up the remote. I’m an advocate of the quick, pre-homework channel surf.
“What are you calling your discovery?” I heard Nora ask.
“I don’t really know,” Dad said tentatively. “What can you call something that is nothing at all?”
There wasn’t anything on TV. An old Star Trek. A new Star Trek. My life was plenty sci-fi. How about some Real World?
“What could you call it?” Dad continued. “Zero, I suppose. Zero-space.”
About the Author
The Animorphs series, written by Katherine (K. A.) Applegate with her husband, Michael Grant, has sold millions of copies worldwide, and alerted the world to the presence of the Yeerks. Katherine and Michael are also the authors of the bestselling Remnants and Everworld series. On her own, Katherine is the author of Home of the Brave, Crenshaw, Wishtree, and the Newbery Medal–winning The One and Only Ivan. Michael is the author of the Gone and Front Lines series.
The invasion has begun.
Catch up on Newbery Medal–winner K. A. Applegate’s world-conquering series.
#1: The Invasion
#2: The Visitor
#3: The Encounter
#4: The Message
#5: The Predator
#6: The Capture
#7: The Stranger
#8: The Alien
#9: The Secret
#10: The Android
#11: The Forgotten
#12: The Reaction
#13: The Change
#14: The Unknown
#15: The Escape
#16: The Warning
#17: The Underground
#18: The Decision
#19: The Departure
#20: The Discovery
#21: The Threat
#22: The Solution
#23: The Pretender
#24: The Suspicion
#25: The Extreme
#26: The Attack
#27: The Exposed
#28: The Experiment
#29: The Sickness
#30: The Reunion
#31: The Conspiracy
#32: The Separation
#33: The Illusion
#34: The Prophecy
#35: The Proposal
#36: The Mutation
#37: The Weakness
#38: The Arrival
#39: The Hidden
#40: The Other
#41: The Familiar
#42: The Journey
#43: The Test
#44: The Unexpected
#45: The Revelation
#46: The Deception
#47: The Resistance
#48: The Return
#49: The Diversion
#50: The Ultimate
#51: The Absolute
#52: The Sacrifice
#53: The Answer
#54: The Beginning
Text copyright © 2000 by Katherine Applegate
Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly
Art Direction/Design by Karen Hudson/Ursula Albano
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, ANIMORPHS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-ISBN 978-1-338-21776-6
First edition, August 2000
The Unexpected Page 9