"A White House? What does all this mean?" Ax asked.
"It means that one of them could be the most powerful man in the most powerful nation on Earth," I said.
"And that would be the ball game," Marco said.
"Then ... all would be lost?"
"Yeah, Ax. All would be lost."
29 Chapter 7
" Let's bail. We've learned all we need to know," I said.
"Back to the crack?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah. We know the way."
I turned and headed back to the crack. It was only a foot or so away. In a few seconds we would all be safe.
I could not believe what I had heard. It was insane! If the Yeerks succeeded, we were toast, pure and simple. As long as it was a secretive war between us and Yeerks who did not want to be discovered, we could maybe stay alive. But if all the power of the state police were turned against us, too? The situation would be out of - Suddenly, a strange vibration in the air above me.
DANGER!
RUN!
WHHHAAAMMMPP!
It was like someone had dropped an entire three-bedroom house an inch in front of me.
The impact was awesome. The wind it caused was like a small but intense hurricane. It whipped my antennae back.
"Someone almost stepped on me!" I yelled to the others. "Look out!"
"Visser! Forgive my interruption. But there are several small insects here!"
A general murmur from the crowd, then one voice saying, "Don't worry, they are only cockroaches. They are everywhere on this planet."
"Fool!" Visser Three exploded. "Do you think Andalites cannot morph creatures so small?
Someone kill this fool for me."
BLAM! BLAM!
I felt the world spinning around me. Someone had been shot! Was it ... Tom? Could it have been?
A new rush of air overhead. I could see some thing monstrously huge falling toward me, speeding down, ready to crush me.
I bolted.
30 WWHHHAAAMMMPP!
Millimeters from my tail.
"Kill those insects!" Visser Three screamed.
"Everyone for himself!" I yelled. "Spread out. Run! Get into cracks! Let the roach brains guide you!"
I took my own advice and relinquished control to the raw instincts and cunning of the tiny cock roach brain.
Say what you will about roaches. They're gross. They're disgusting. But man, when it comes to staying alive, that primitive roach brain knew its business.
WWHHAAAMPPP!
WWHHAAMMMPP!
"Aaaahhh!" Ax yelled.
"Ax! Are you okay?"
"Yes. Yes. Barely."
Huge feet, each the size of a Greyhound bus, stomped the ground. But each time, the roach brain moved me in just the right way at just the right speed. They missed me by so little that I could feel the leather and rubber scrape my sides and tail as they impacted around me.
I made it to the corner of the wall and hugged in there as close as I could get.
"They're on me!" Cassie screamed. "I can't get away! Oh, man! I don't want to die like this!"
"Get to the wall! Get off the floor!"
I was blazing along at top speed as shoes tried to kick into the corner. But all I needed was a tenth of an inch and I could scrape past, uninjured.
SQQQUUUUEEEEEGGGEE.
A running shoe was being dragged along the corner, straight toward me. The soft rubber melded perfectly into the space. It would crush me!
I saw it coming, a black wall. A black locomotive rushing at me.
I jumped!
31 I landed on the shoe as it came near.
Whooosshhh! I was flying through the air on a magic carpet made of canvas. The man kicked. I lost my grip and went flying through the air.
"I'm clear! I'm clear!" Cassie called. "l found another crack!" I felt like I was going supersonic. Like a jet, tumbling out of control through the air.
Wait! I had wings!
Too late.
Fwappp! I hit the wall. It should have killed me. It would have killed me if I had been a human.
But I weighed less than an ounce. The impact was hard, but not enough to hurt me.
I fell to the floor.
A tent of some sort - gray, black ... a newspaper! It was a crumpled piece of newspaper on the floor. I dove beneath it and froze.
I looked up and saw that it was a photograph. I couldn't make sense of the photo, of course, it was just big black dots of ink. I could make out letters, each as big as my head.
"I'm clear," Ax called. "I am with Cassie."
Good. That was two of them safe. "Rachel? Marco?"
"I'm on a guy's sock," Rachel reported. "He doesn't know I'm here. Wait. We're outside! I'm going to drop off! Clear! Clear! I'm outside!"
"Marco?"
"Yeah, Jake."
"Where are you?"
"I am in a place where I really, really hope no one flushes, Jake."
"You're in a toilet?"
"They have a bathroom. It seemed like a natural place for a roach. I'm chilling for a minute, then I'm going to try for the hole in the wall where the pipe goes. How about you?"
"I'm not so good. I'm under a newspaper, but they're still stomping all around. Sooner or later they'll stomp here. I have to make a run for it. I'm going to try for the door. Once I get outside they'll never get me in the dark."
32 "Good luck, man," Marco said.
"Yeah. You, too, my friend."
Then, my antennae picked up a strange new scent. Sweet. Oily.
Dangerous. Somehow, I sensed that . . .
It hit me in a flash!
"Marco! They have bug spray!"
I blew out from under the paper.
"There! There's one!"
Vibrations of a dozen feet running after me. And in the air behind me, a vast fountain that seemed to be explode from thin air.
An upside-down fountain. Like a rainfall that came from a single point and spread out to fill the air.
A droplet landed on me.
Then another.
I felt my legs stumble.
The door. I could sense it, just ahead.
WWHHAAMMPP!
A foot! A near miss. I was slowing down! I could feel my roach instincts becoming scrambled.
I was poisoned. The nerve gas was beginning to work. My legs were tangling up. My antennae were waving frantically, unable to smell anything but the deadly rain of poison.
"That got him!" a voice said.
"Don't crush him," Visser Three yelled. "He may demorph to save himself and we'll have ourselves an Andalite!"
I was starting to twitch. I couldn't breathe.
And then, faster by far than the feet that had chased me, some new shape swooped down.
I tried to run, but I no longer could.
33 Three monstrous cables closed around me, and I was up, up, off the floor.
"Hang in there, Jake," Tobias said. "It's me. Red-tailed Airline welcomes you aboard, and I am hauling my feathered butt outta here!"
34 Chapter 8
"Morph , Jake! Morph now!"
Tobias had set me down on the roof of a Boston Market restaurant. It was the closest safe place he could find.
I was lying helpless on tar paper and gravel. My legs were twitching. My antennae waved in sanely. I was twitching and jerking and losing all control over my roach body.
But the human me understood what was going on.
I was dying.
I had watched roaches die from poisoning. I had stood over them and thought, "Ha, serves you right."