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."

Now it was me. Now it was my body that was failing. I was the one suffocating and jerking.

"Jake! You have to morph out of this. Do it! Concentrated I knew he was right. It was the only way to stay alive. But it was so hard to focus when I was trapped inside a dying body.

I tried to picture myself human. I tried to form a mental image of myself. But that picture was all mixed up with dolphins and birds and tigers.

And the dream . . .

I was in it now, as the delirium swept over me. In the dream . . .

I was the tiger. Moving with perfect silence. Each muscle like liquid steel. Every movement controlled, calculated.

I could smell my prey. I could hear his clumsy human movements in the dark forest. He was slow. He was weak. He could not escape me. I would destroy him. I would bring down my prey.

My prey . . . Tom.

I saw him turn to look at me. I saw fear in his eyes. Fear of me.

I settled back on my haunches, preparing for the final lunge. The killing lunge that would end with my teeth sinking into his neck. My jaws crushing his spine.

He looked at me and held up his hands. "No!"

I leapt, uncoiling unbelievable power. I leapt, a huge, unstoppable hunter. I roared, a thunderous cry of triumph that could be heard for miles.

35 And then I saw the tiger. Saw myself. Saw orange striped fur and ruthless yellow eyes and saber teeth and claws that could rip open a buffalo, hurtling toward me.

Tom had become the tiger. And I was his prey.

I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, I saw, right above me, fierce eyes staring down from just a few inches away. The eyes of a hawk.

"Are you okay?" Tobias asked.