"Okay," I said, clapping my hands together and trying to sound cheerful and optimistic. "Flies it is. Everyone go home. We meet behind the motel in..." I checked my watch, "in approximately three hours. Around seven forty-five or so. We do a quick morph, we're in and out of that Safeway in ten minutes and back home again."

"Oh, man," Marco groaned. "I hate it when you try to sound peppy, Jake. It always means you're worried. Next you'll flash that big "no-sweat" grin. I know you."

"Three hours to fly time," I said, forcing up a big, confident grin.

"We're dead meat," Marco said. Hi, Dad, what's up?" I asked when I got home. My father was in his La-Z-Boy, remote control in hand.

"What do you mean, "what's up"?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "The fight's on tonight. Forty dollars on Pay-Per- View. Corn chips, bean dip, loud grunting male noises, beer - for me - soda for you and Tom."

I practically slapped my forehead. The fight! I'd totally forgotten. It was a big thing. Not be cause I'm a boxing fanatic. I'm not. But it was a big thing for my dad to actually spend forty dollars on Pay-Per-View. He was doing it as a male-bonding, father-son thing. Me and him and Tom, and probably one or two of my dad's friends from work.

"That's tonight?" I asked. "What time?"

"Starts at seven o'clock. Do your homework, eat something containing vegetables to make your mom happy, and then grab some couch." I did a quick mental calculation. The fight started in a little over an hour. The last championship fight had lasted only three rounds. That would leave me maybe thirty minutes to morph and fly to the motel. Should I come up with some excuse for bailing out? No. No, there was no way my dad would buy it.

"Excellent," I said to my dad. "I'll be here. Don't eat all the bean dip. You know what happens when you eat bean dip."

My mother came into the living room. "Am I even allowed in here?" she asked mockingly.

"When does this room become the temple of male aggression?"

"Not till seven," my dad said. "Until then we will allow females. Especially if the females remembered to pick up chips on their way home from work."

"Chips? Wouldn't you rather enjoy some nice carrot sticks and hummus dip?"

My dad and I just stared at her. "Kidding," she said. "Just kidding. I have chips. Are Pete and Dominick coming over?"

"Yeah, but you don't have to feed them," my dad joked. "Those guys are lucky I don't charge them admission."

I raced through my homework and hoped the fight would be the usual two-or-three-round easy knockout. The one good thing about rushing was that it didn't leave me too much time to think. Thinking meant worry, and worry gets in the way of getting things done. It was a tense family gathering at seven o'clock. Tom seemed as anxious as I was to get away. I could guess why. You see, Tom is one of them. He's a human- Controller.

He had to keep up appearances of normalcy, same as me. But I guess he was trying to get away to go to the grocery store site, too. Same me, again. Tom and I fought in the same war.

On different sides. It was strange thinking of Tom, still alive deep down inside his own head. Trapped. Powerless. But able to see and hear and think. Did he enjoy watching the fight through eyes he no longer controlled? Was there anything, any thing at all, he could enjoy? It didn't help, having thoughts like that. When I started thinking that way the rage would just build up inside me till I felt like I'd go nuclear. I told myself, for probably the millionth time, that I was doing all I could to help Tom. All I could. All I could.

Fortunately, my dad and his work friends made plenty of noise, so no one noticed Tom checking his watch. Or the fact that I kept glancing toward the kitchen, where I could see the wall clock. By round six, I knew I was in trouble. In round seven neither fighter even looked tired. I decided if it went past round eight I'd have to make some excuse, no matter how lame.

In round eight, a lucky uppercut connected. "Oh, that had to hurt!" my dad said. "Five bucks says he goes down!" my dad's friend Dominick said quickly. He was right. The challenger staggered, wandered around on rubber legs for a few seconds, then toppled over. Boom! The fight was over. It was now seven forty-five. I was already late. I snatched the videotape out of the VCR.

"Dad, can I take this over to Marco's and play it for him?"

"It's almost eight. It's dark out," my father objected.

"Yeah," Tom said. "You might get lost and never come back. And that would be such a pity. I'd have to use your room for my weights and stuff."

It was exactly the kind of dumb big-brother joke Tom would have made. But of course it was just something pulled up from Tom's brain by the Yeerk in his head.

For just a second it occurred to me to ask him: "Hey, Tom, what's the big secret with the grocery store? Just tell me, and I can stay home tonight."

I smiled at the thought. Then . . .

FLASH!

Green. Green. Everything was green. It was the greenest place on Earth: trees, moss, vines, ferns. Green everywhere.

Marco was there. And the others. They were all there.

Marco was talking. "... in a jungle fighting brain-stealing aliens and ten thousand annoying species of bugs, and our resident space cadet is a hot-looking monkey. Somebody wake me up when we get back to reality."

FLASH!

I was back. Back listening to Tom tease me like he was actually Tom. Back to hearing my dad say, "Walk, don't ride your bike. Not at night. Especially not when it's about to rain."

The vision was so powerful. So real. Not like a dream at all.

But like I was actually there in a jungle, listening to Marco complain. I felt my heart pounding. I felt sweat forming on my forehead. What in the heck was going on? What was happening to me?

I noticed Tom back out of the room, sliding away like he was going to the kitchen. That brought me back to reality.

I grabbed the videotape and took off, still reeling from the insane feeling of being yanked back and forth from one reality to another. I could hear my dad and his friends rehashing the fight round by round as I went up to my room and opened my window as wide as it would go.

It took me twenty-five minutes to morph and fly to the empty motel.

"I know, I know, I'm late." I apologized as I came in for a landing. I misjudged the distance to the ground, hit it too hard, and rolled over, a tangle of wings and talons.

"Nice landing." Tobias said with a laugh.

"Are you okay?" Cassie asked me. She rushed over and picked me up. Then she set me back down because I was starting to demorph. And I was getting heavier pretty quickly.

"I'm fine," I said, as soon as I could speak. "Embarrassed, but fine."

It was a shabby little hiding place. The back windows of the motel were covered in plywood. The plywood was covered with graffiti. There were overgrown weeds and broken bottles and, for some reason, an old washing machine.

"We get to visit all the best places, don't we?" I said dryly.

Ax was hugging the darkness against the wall. He feels a little obvious out of the woods. With good reason. Anyone who saw him would run away, screaming like a little kid. Unless, of course, they were a Controller. A Controller would know exactly what he was.

"Well?" Rachel asked, looking at me. She was waiting for me to say, "Let's go." But for some reason, I felt a strange reluctance. I felt...