I saw swept-back, slate-gray wings and a tight tail. It was diving away from me so fast it made me look like I was standing still.

"What the ...

What was thatl backslash"

I yelled.

"Heh, heh, hen. Welcome to my world." To bias said. "That's a peregrine falcon. You know, like Jake's morph. They usually prefer to knock off a tasty pigeon or the occasional duck. It must have been the way you were flying. He probably thought you were a big old clumsy duck."

"Jeez. What did I ever do to make him mad?"

"Shake it off." Tobias advised. "He missed, right? I know that bird. He's not as good as he thinks he is. He's taken a shot at me before. He must be hungry."

Suddenly flying didn't seem nearly as fun.

"Yeah. I'll shake it off. That should be easy, since I'll be shaking for at least another hour."

"lt's not all just about riding thermals." To bias said dryly. "Come on, you want to see our boy Erek?"

I moved closer to Tobias. Much closer. This was his world up here in the air. He knew what he was doing. "By the way, thanks." I said.

"Always remember to look up." Tobias advised. "The danger is usually above you. But on a lighter note . . . that's Erek right there. He walks home from his school. See him? Coming to the corner?"

I spotted the oval of hair below me. "Yeah, I see him."

"I watched him this morning on his way in.

I watched him play soccer during gym -"

"They play soccer? They play soccer during gym? Man, we never get to play soccer."

"Now he's heading home. I'm going to let you take over because I am hungry. And I am also bored with looking at the top of his head."

"Did he do anything weird or different?"

"He scored a goal in soccer. Does that count?"

"Hey. Look." I had noticed three guys closing in behind Erek. Something in the way they moved caught my attention. From high up, it looked almost as if they were hunting Erek.

"Hmmm. That's not good."

Tobias said.

We both spilled air from our wings and dived, wanting a closer look. I could see the face of one of the guys behind Erek. It was an expression I had seen before: the idiot, giggling sneer of a bully.

Suddenly, the guys raced forward. Erek spotted them and started to run.

It was a street on the edge of a development. There was a lot of traffic to Erek's left and a stone wall to his right. The stone wall ended about fifty yards away, where it opened for the entrance to the subdivision.

"lf this guy is a Controller, these punks are making a serious mistake."

I said. "They may get him today, but they might regret it later."

"Maybe I'll just give that one jerk a little talon haircut." Tobias said.

Tobias hates bullies. Back when he was human, he was the kid most likely to be pounded on. Jake met Tobias when Tobias's head was just about to be flushed in the toilet. Naturally, Jake helped him.

"Tobias, I don't think com" I started to say, but it was too late.

Tobias was in a stoop and aiming for the biggest guy's head.

It all happened in a flash.

Erek ran. He tripped. He sprawled forward, out into the street. He slammed into the broad side of a passing bus.

WHAM! I could hear the impact from up in the air.

And then . . .

And then ... for just a second, Erek wasn't there anymore. Something else was where he had been.

Something that seemed to be made of patches of steel and milk-white plastic.

Then, in the next split second, Erek was back. A normal boy, lying winded on the sidewalk.

The bullies ran off. The bus driver never even noticed and drove on.

Tobias opened his wings and nearly stopped in midair.

"Did you see t?" Tobias asked.

"Yeah. I sure did."

"What was t?"

"I don't know." I said.

"But 1 know what it wasn't.

It wasn't human."

"We need to talk to Ax." I said to Tobias.

"Definitely. That was not human. That was seriously not human."

"So you did see it, right? I'm not crazy?"

"Yes, you're crazy. But I did see it." Tobias said. "Very weird."

Below us, Erek climbed up off the sidewalk, dusted himself off like nothing had happened, and resumed walking toward home.

"Hang a right." Tobias said. "We'll get some good updrafts off the road. Whatever your friend Erek is, I don't think he's from around here."

We flew hard and fast toward home. Tobias split off to round up Ax. I demorphed and headed home to check in with my dad and let him know I still existed. Then I called Jake.

I got Tom instead.

"Hey, Tom. Is Jake around there?"

"I don't know. JAKE!" he yelled. "He said he's coming."

"Cool."

"Haven't seen you around here much," Tom said.

"Keeping busy?"

I felt a little chill. It's weird, talking to Controllers when you know that's what they are. It was Tom's voice, and it acted like Tom, but it wasn't Tom. Tom was cowering helplessly in a corner of his own mind.

I was talking to a Yeerk.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said.

"Uh-huh. We're going up to the lake, do some waterskiing."

"You and Jake?"

"Yeah, right. No, me and The Sharing. You know Jake's too much of a social misfit to join,"

Tom said with a totally human, big-brother laugh of derision. "It's just that we have too many girls going and not enough guys."

A lie, of course. A lie that was supposed to entice me. Why was Tom suddenly trying to get me interested in The Sharing again? He quickly gave me the answer.

"S. I heard your dad was back at work. That's cool."

"Yeah, I guess so," I said. My father had gone through a bad time after my mom "died." Now he was back at work. He's an engineer, but he's heavily involved in computers, too. He had been working with the new observatory on ways to design software that would aim the telescopes bet ter.

He was also working on some projects he couldn't even talk about. Projects I figured must involve the military.

"You could bring your dad," Tom said as ca sually as he could. "I mean, not like anyone wants their fathers along, usually, right? But I mean, maybe he's ready to get back out there in the world and all. The Sharing is a good place to make business connections, you know?"

"Yeah, I'll ask him," I said.

"Do that, okay? Your dad could probably use some down time to relax, take it easy, meet some people."

S. They were after my father now. I felt something burning inside me, like I'd taken a gulp of lava. I wanted to reach right through the phone and take a baseball bat to the evil creature in Tom's head.

"Here's Jake," Tom said. There was a scuffling sound as he handed the phone off. Then Jake's voice.

"Hey, Marco. What's up?"

I went off. "What's up?! What's up? Those scumbags are after my father, that's what's up! How do you live with that? How do you look at that piece of crap every day? He's all like, "Bring your dad to The Sharing, do a father-son bonding thing, and oh, by the way, would you mind if we stuck a - ?"

"Shut up," Jake hissed.

I shut up. But my hand was squeezing the receiver so hard I could have snapped it. Jake let me calm down for a minute. He made "uh-huh"

noises in the phone, like he was listening to me talking. He made a couple of laughing sounds. I guess Tom wasn't far away from the phone.