"The best?" Ax echoed. "How do you define best?"

"We alone of all the animals have the ability to create TV shows,"

Marco said. "Why are we yapping about this? What's the big deal? Ax's human morph is made up of bits of DNA from all of us. What's the difference?"

"We consented," Cassie said. "We gave permission."

"Who cares, as long as it works?" Rachel said.

"How are we different from Yeerks, then?" This came from a surprise source: Marco. Was he arguing both sides, or had he changed his mind?

"We aren't taking over their minds," Rachel said. "We'd simply be using their DNA. No different from any other animal."

Everyone looked at me. Like I was supposed to quickly decide a big moral issue in a hallway in two minutes. What was I supposed to do? We were in a war. What was the big deal about doing something that made us uncomfortable?

I shook my head. "The whole reason we're fighting is to keep people free," I said. "If we start violating that and using people's DNA without permission, we may not be as bad as the Yeerks. But we're heading down that same path. We have to find another way."

Cassie looked at me like she was proud of me, which just made me want to blush.

"So how do we do what we came here to do, oh fearless leader?" Rachel asked.

"We go with a distraction. But we don't start a fire or endanger anyone.

We just give them something to look at that is so fascinating and weird and impossible to ignore that they won't be watching what happens behind them. Ax and Marco are the computer brains. They go in. Ax as human, and Marco as himself."

"So Marco won't be human?" Rachel asked quickly, then laughed at her own joke.

"That was a good one," Marco complimented her. "Fast, too."

"Thank you."

I took a deep breath. "Ax and Marco go inside. The rest of us put on a show that no one will be able to ignore, then we haul butt out of here."

We ducked into a small janitor's closet to prepare. Ax and Marco quickly headed down the stairs and around to the entrance to the command center.

"Everyone ready?" I asked.

"Yes. But I just want to say this is totally undignified," Rachel complained.

"Do you have your mop?"

"Yes, I have my mop," she sneered.

"Cassie? You ready?"

"Yes. But we can't lose these shoes. We don't have any more money." We had tied the laces of our shoes together, and now we looped them over our necks. All but Tobias, of course. I would grab his later.

"Everyone ready?" I asked. They were. "0kay, let's go!"

"Just one slight problem, Jake," Rachel pointed out. "Who's going to open the door of this closet?"

We had morphed. Rachel was now a monstrously huge grizzly bear standing up on her hind legs. She was between seven and eight feet tall, with claws like the teeth of an iron rake and shaggy, rough, brown fur.

I had gone into my tiger morph. We'd deliberately chosen big, frightening animals no one was likely to try and mess with. We wanted people to watch us, but not try and grab us.

Tobias had become himself once more. A red-tailed hawk.

And Cassie had become the most frightening animal of us all: a skunk.

But none of us had hands that could open the closet door.

"Rachel? Why don't you just open it?"

"CooL" She drew back her upper body, swayed back on her feet, and then thrust forward, slamming one side-of-beef-sized shoulder into the door.

CRRRUNCH-SLAM!

"There. Now it's open."

We trotted calmly out into the hall and crossed to the glass observation window that

looked down on the command center. We looked down at the WAA employees at their computer consoles.

"No one's watching us," Tobias complained. He was sitting on Rachel's head. "They haven't noticed us."

"l can take care of that," I said.

A tiger's roar can be heard for miles. Literally. Up close and personal, it is a sound you never want to hear unless there are some big, thick steel bars separating you from the tiger.

It is loud. And it's loud in a way that punches every button in a human being's instincts. I've seen that roar make brave men fall down. It turns their knees to Jell-0.

I sucked in a deep breath, and I cut loose.

RRRROOOOOAAAAARRRR!

"Now they've noticed us," Tobias said.

Fifty or sixty sets of eyes had swiveled at once to stare up at us. And what they saw kept them watching. Rachel, huge, terrifying, powerful Rachel, was calmly mopping the floor, swinging the mop back and forth like a professional.

I was helping. I had the mop bucket in my teeth.

Tobias fluttered around us in a circle, shrieking madly.

TSEEEER!TSEEEER!TSEEEER!

Absolutely no one noticed when Marco and Ax

entered the back of the command center and calmly sat down at a computer console. No need even for a code word to get access. The machine had been left on by the person who'd been operating it. That person was staring up at us, eyes wide, mouth even wider.

With my acute tiger's hearing I could hear through the glass.

"Is that a bear?"

"Yeah."

"Is it mopping the floor?"

"Uh-huh."

"Have we gone nuts?"

"I'm not nuts. It's the bear who's nuts. That's carpeted up there."

"Why does it have sneakers around its neck?"

A few people screamed. A few ran. Most just stared as we cavorted around, having a fine time.

"Marco winked," Tobias reported. "They must be doing okay."