Chapman Iniss takes Rachel to the construction site.  Because…reasons.  Well, okay, because that’s their standard meetup/pickup point according to V3 in the last chapter.  So I guess it’s more “that’s the point they picked because…reasons?”

It’s in a highly populated area and surrounded on all sides by people, with a mall right across the street.  They went there because that’s where Elfangor crashed, but there’s no reason for the Yeerks to keep going there when they could have the choice of a nice empty field somewhere.

Rachel is all pleased that Jake is gone and therefore he and the others will survive, because apparently she wasn’t paying attention when V3 said he was going to torture information out of her.

Then I heard the sound of something large, moving swiftly in the air. I pressed my head against the door and looked up. Three craft were descending toward the construction site.

I don’t care how invisible your ships are.  If they can be heard, then that’s even more suspicious and more reason not to land next to a mall.

I swear, there’s so many books that are written on play-logic, where they think they have to keep reusing cast members or sets because there’s a limited number of those and adding more costs money.

Also, these ships aren’t invisible anymore, but they’re still “descending.”  How tall are the un-built buildings at the site?  Oh, yeah, not built yet.  Even if the shells were up already, this is a shopping center.  We’re talking one story, maybe two.  So unless these ships are “descending” that last food, they’re also visible to all the people who just heard them.

V3’s ship still exudes fear hormones, because he just liked scaring everyone.  Which, if that were a real thing, would actually be pretty cool.  But instead it’s just an accident thing made by overblown attempts to say “the ship looked scary.”

Fear is like a worm inside you. It eats you. It chews your guts. It bores holes in your heart. It makes you feel hollow. Empty. Alone.

Fear.

That’s really cool until we get to the final line.  That last “Fear” appears to be a continuation of “Empty.  Alone.”  So…Fear bores a hole in your heart and makes you feel…fear?

(By the way, even though I keep picking these out, I love that the most I can find to complain about is awkward word-choice turning silly, not thoughtless word-choice turning rape-y, or something like that.  On the bad book scale, this is amusing, not rage inducing.)

Apparently V3 throws off “fear me” vibes from his person, as well.  Rachel admits that he doesn’t look any different from a real Andalite, there’s just a “something” coming off him that makes him sinister.  Is this just a power that Yeerks have when they get strong/old/evil enough?  Or do all Controllers throw off such strong indicators?

It was like I could feel the terrible force of his will battering me. In an instant I knew: I would never survive his questioning.

Really, all he’s done so far is get close to her and say one non-sinister line.  Is he psychic, too?  Is this an Andalite power or a Yeerk power?  Mind control?  Super hormones?  Anything?

It’s fine to have her be afraid of torture, or of the situation, or of potentially dying and never seeing her family again, or of being infested.  But to fear “the force of his will”? 

So Rachel can’t handle it and just lets the cat instincts take over so that we can move on with the plot.

I was afraid that if I said anything he would instantly know I was not an Andalite. And if he realized I was human … the others would never be safe. I had to stay in this body.

You know, except for a second ago where you said you’d tell him anything once the interrogation began.

At least staying in morph wouldn’t be suspicious.  I suspect a real Andalite would rather be a nothlit than give the enemy one more morph-capable body.

V3 is pissed off about the lack of Melissa and gets all ragey.  Host-Chapman asks to talk to him directly.

You know I never wanted to join you. My wife did. But I said no. But … but then my wife …

You know, I had a knee-jerk reaction of “oh hell no” to this, but…the book hasn’t treated women so badly.  It’s mostly in context when “the woman is the weaker half that gets in trouble and does stupid shit” turns misogynistic.  So we’re not really there just from one line…but I’m still side-eyeing it, because the book might be fair with its own characters, but it’s still set in a world where this happens far too often.  (What’s even to be gained from doing this, anyway?)

“I forgive her. She was weak.

I mean, even in a microcosm, it’s pretty uncomfortable.

Chapman reveals that he agreed specifically to protect Melissa and says he’ll never stop being defiant if they take her and

TIME FOR CHAPMAN FEELZ AGAIN.

(With a side helping of ‘quit blaming and then patronizing your wife’)

“Yes, Visser. And the woman as well. She is not as strong as this one, but she was able to gain control of one hand. Perhaps she has deeper strengths than we knew.”

Just…ugh, moving on.

V3 is mollified, so Chapman bolts before he changes his mind.

Suddenly, Jake pipes up and reveals that he never left.  Damnit, Jake, why not?  What good are you as a flea?  Are you going to itch V3 to death?

In fact, what has he accomplished by being there?  He didn’t get emergency information out to the rest of the crew; they followed Chapman there when they saw him leave.  And also when they knew Rachel was in trouble by virtue of telepathically shouting at them.  So he’s not helped at all, he’s just distracted her a lot.

I hope that was worth breaking her trust.  Twice.

The other kids start an earthmover and send it at the ships.  Apparently it takes two minutes to start up the blade ship and get it off the ground.  How…both convenient and illogical.

While everyone is busy shooting at a very slowly moving earth mover (seriously, just walk over and turn it off), Rachel and Jake demorph and then remorph.  They get spotted.  So that’s now twice that V3 has looked at a half-morphed bandit and couldn’t realize that there was pink skin there and not a hint of blue fur.

And then Jake calls V3 a jerk.  Ah, PG rating.  We can have pedophiles and torture porn, but keep the language clean.  (At least the authors agree with me on that one.)

Tiger-Jake fights people while the other two start more earthmovers and Rachel hides so she can fully demorph without being caught.  Before she can do so, V3 morphs into a rock monster and finds her.

He was twenty feet tall. As tall as a telephone pole. He stood on three massive legs, each as big around as a redwood tree.

And then everyone across the street at the mall said “holy shit” and started taking pictures.  Because…really, come on.  That’s twice as tall as any of the half- and un-built buildings around him.

One of the earthmovers crashes into one of the ships and makes it explode and SERIOUSLY, THERE IS A FUCKING MALL RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET, WHY DID YOU PICK THIS PLACE?  Whatever, somehow that distracts V3 from playing with his food and also no one hears the giant explosion.

Tobias swoops in to pick her up, even though she weighs twice as much as his carry limit.  She demorphs and gets the news that everyone else got away safe, too, then just collapses on the ground and…stays there?  Come on, there’s a rock monster right there that doesn’t care about making noise and also now has no way to leave.  He’s coming after you.

Apparently he doesn’t come after her, because we skip to gymnastics practice. Rachel leaves her an anonymous note saying that her dad loves her, then feels good about it.  Then everyone sits around feeling good about the fact that they accomplished jack-all in this book. 

Seriously.  Jack-all.