Scott doesn't look much better. He's sitting on the steps outside the school when they arrive.

Liam almost walks right past him, something he'd never do if everything was fine, let alone when Scott is so obviously in distress now he's paying attention. 

"Hey," he says quietly. "How'd you sleep?"

Meaning, 'How late did you stay up thinking about what happened yesterday?'

"Not bad," which is certainly a lie.

"Can we all meet somewhere? I haven't talked to the others yet, but I think we have to do something before long."

Liam looks sheepish.

"There might be a problem with that, if you were planning to meet outside of school hours," Rowan says.

"Our dad grounded Liam after we came home late yesterday. He's only allowed to leave the house for school."

"What about clubs? Sports? We can figure something out."

"I'm allowed to stay for baseball practice on Wednesdays."

Liam doesn't look thrilled at the prospect.

"Nothing else. If we're late again, he's threatened to send a taxi to fetch us right after school finishes."

"We can use our lunch to talk, if I can just get everyone together. I haven't seen any of the others yet."

"I can help spread the word to the ones you don't usually talk to," Liam offers.

"We should probably try not to behave too obviously different, given the whole...thing." Any of their classmates could have an alien slug in their head and none of this is at all okay--

There's a time and place to freak out about that; for Liam it was last night, alone in his room with the door locked.

"Between the three of us, we're probably in classes with most of the group," he continues. "Who do we need...Allison, Stiles, Callie, and David. Not too difficult."

Nod.

"Did you- why did you stay until the end?"

Liam has to think about it, so Rowan answers first. 

"I...wanted to see what would happen?" she begins hesitantly, not sure if the question was even directed at her or just her brother.

"Knowledge is power, and if we're going to...do something about this, then we need to know as much as possible. If we'd run sooner, there are things we wouldn't have found out."

Liam nods.

"That, and...it felt like the sort of thing that ought to be witnessed. I'd have felt wrong just leaving him to die alone." 

He glares a little, as if daring either of them to comment. 

Scott nods thoughtfully.

"I see Callie first period, I can talk to her then. And I can talk to Stiles in second period. Can you guys get to everyone else by lunch?"

"I can talk to David in first period?" Rowan volunteers. 

"I think I'm the only one who has a morning class with him. I have second period with Allison as well, if that's helpful?"

"I can talk to Allison in English," Liam adds. 

"Stiles too, although I don't think he likes me that much." 

He seems to be in better spirits now they have a plan and something to do. 

"He probably likes you more than he likes me. But I can do it, if you want. I think that should work."

"Sounds like a plan," Liam agrees.

And now they should probably get to class. 

"See you in Chem. Rowan, we'll see you at lunch." 

Scott goes to math. It's a strange feeling, knowing he's surrounded by aliens. He looks at his classmates and wonders.

Before he has a chance to notice she's entered the room, Callie is at his desk.

"We need to talk."

"We're all meeting at lunch. Tell your friends."

"Listen, Haldane. I did not spend years-"

"If you're going to blame me for this, I'm leaving right now."

"How cute. Puppy bites back."

He stands up, grabs his backpack, and walks out.

The teacher sputters awkwardly but directs the attention back to the material as best as possible.

Meanwhile, Liam walks into English and looks around for Allison. 

There she is, sitting in the back, by the window.

She seems distracted.

Yeah, he's not surprised.

"Hey," he says quietly once he gets within conversational range. 

"Mind if I join you?"

"Sure."

She waits for him to sit.

"How are you guys?"

"We've...been better," he admits, moderating his volume so only Allison can hear.

"I didn't sleep well last night, and I don't think Rowan did either. You?" 

"No, I didn't."

She rubs the top of her head.

"I know what it feels like to be one of them. I don't know why he thought that was useful. He said- I should wait until everyone is together for all of it."

Liam nods. He wants to hug her but they don't know each other that well yet - 

"We're all meeting up at lunch," he says instead of voicing that thought.

"Fair warning, Rowan is planning to bombard you with questions." 

Nod.

"I might have some of the answers. I think I have information about how morphing works, but I think I'm missing some stuff about our history."

Liam gives her a reassuring smile.

"That's fine. We'll figure it out together. No-one is expecting you to have all the answers, when this time yesterday you knew as little about it as the rest of us."

"I might be expecting me to have all the answers."

She leans back in her chair, closing her eyes.

"I hope we can do this."

"So do I."

With that, he turns his attention - or tries - to the lesson.

It's going to be a long few hours until lunch.

It is.

Eventually, they pass, more or less without a crisis.

David, Callie, Stiles, and Matt are at their usual table.

Allison is the first to approach, Danny at her side.

"Hey. Do you guys mind if I sit here?"

"Go ahead. Danny."

"Actually, I was hoping you'd come with me. I wanted to show you something in the art room."

He looks at his friends briefly.

"Sure. See you guys later."

And they leave.

Liam and Rowan arrive in time to overhear the exchange.

Well, that was suspiciously convenient. Allison's doing, perhaps? 

"Alright if we join you?" Liam asks for the benefit of those listening.

"Sure. Danny and Matt are cute together, aren't they?"

"That just leaves the puppy. Are we waiting, or can we skip the small talk?"

Liam frowns.

"Where is Scott? Wasn't someone in his class just now?" 

Rowan nods. That's right, she just had Spanish.

"He's probably with that girlfriend of his. Let's cut to the chase."

"I don't want to talk about this more than once. One of you can go looking if you're in that much of a rush."

"There's nothing to talk about, we're not doing this."

"Speak for yourself," Liam snaps, only just remembering to keep his voice down. 

"You might be selfish enough to let the world be invaded by aliens, just because they haven't gotten to you yet," he continues, "but I'm not."

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he pushes himself up from the table. 

"I'm going to find Scott." 

Luckily, he doesn't have to.

Scott runs into the cafeteria, making his way to their table.

"Sorry. I was- sorry I'm late."

He sits.

"Hi."

Liam sits back down as well. 

"Right. Who wants to start - other than Stiles, who's already made his point?"

"Are we taking turns? I'm in. I don't think we should have the whole conversation in public, but I'm not sure my parents are safe. Anyone have a neutral location?"

"It would be nice if we had something more useful. At least we can do some intelligence gathering if we pick the right options."

"I'll share everything whenever and wherever you guys want. My house isn't safe."

"We can meet at my house, if you guys don't want to do this here, but I don't want to put this off..."

Rowan frowns, twisting her fingers together in front of her.

"Liam and I are grounded. So we'll have to meet at school. We're not allowed to go anywhere else." 

"Anyone can hear us at school. I don't think we should talk about anything sensitive."

"We can't just wait for them to be un-grounded."

She leans forward.

"Rowan, you had questions? I think we should start there."

"They'll just think we're talking about a game, or a British TV show or something," Liam scoffs.

"You'd be amazed what people can ignore."

"Yeah," Rowan says fondly. "And by this time tomorrow Liam will have made up a bunch of fictional details for it so we can all play along." 

She leans toward Allison.

"So, for starters - any idea why you?"

"It's kind of unbelievable. He didn't spend much time explaining it, but my grandfather was one of them."

"One of what."

" - huh." 

Rowan frowns. "An Andalite, or a Yeerk?"

"An Andalite. He died a few years ago. Before my parents were infested."

"How much did he tell you? It couldn't have been more than a minute."

"It was like he sent a really long letter, and I've been reading it ever since."

"Wait." Liam is frowning. "Your parents. Are you - "

Clearly she's not okay. " - are you safe?" 

"They've been distant, and I've been adjusting. I think I can act normal."

"We need to find out if anyone we know is one of them. If they aren't, we stand a chance of mobilizing a resistance."

"You're kidding, right? We can't tell anyone about this."

"If we can verify that they're not Yeerks, we could use allies who are actually adults, or in power."

"Do we have a lot of those lying around? Trustworthy adults are pretty rare."

"We can verify whether someone is infested or not, it just takes three days. Yeerks need some kind of- technology- called the Kandrona to survive."

Rowan raises an eyebrow.

"And how exactly do you plan to keep an adult under constant supervision for three days?" 

"Kidnap them? If we can figure out if our parents are safe, then we'll know how much freedom we have."

"We know yours aren't. And even if ours are safe now, that could change pretty much anytime. No adults. No one who's not at this table."

"I agree - " Liam starts to say, then stops and frowns. 

He hesitates, clearly wrestling with whether to actually say what's on his mind.

"...how sure are we that no-one at this table is compromised?" 

"Lydia and I are sure we're both safe, but that's not evidence. Want to convince all our parents to let us go on a weekend camping trip?"

"Are there any animals with x-ray vision? That would let us see them."

"Most animals can see x-rays, but that's not anything like the superpower."

"I guess even if you have x-ray machines at the vet clinic, they won't be set up for humans," Rowan muses. She's mostly thinking out loud at this point, rather than proposing actual solutions.

"And you'd have to explain why you wanted to use it, I suppose." 

"We don't actually have them, anyway. It's a small office, we're not really set up for that. My mom is a nurse at the hospital, which does have them, but..."

"But that still has the problem that we have no legitimate reason to access them," Liam agrees.

"It doesn't sound like x-raying people is the solution, unless there's a type of alien with x-ray vision we can borrow." 

"Not any I know about."

"What do you know about them? How many kinds are there? Smart ones, not animals. How many like us?"

"He might not have known about all of them, and he didn't send me everything he knows. I know about seven, but I don't know a lot about them."

"That's still more than the rest of us know," Rowan points out. 

She's already reaching for a notebook and pen. 

So she tells them.

There are Andalites, who they've seen. Female Andalites are purple, not blue, and usually smaller. They graze using their hooves to absorb nutrients, and they hate enclosed spaces.

There are Garatrons, similar to Andalites but without the stalk eyes or the tail blade, known for their speed (it's more like a superpower than anything Allison can think of on Earth).

There are Gedds, primates with webbed toes, who are slow, weak, and nearly blind. They're native to the same planet as the Yeerks.

There are Hork-Bajir, tall dinosaurs with sharp blades at various joints on the body, which are herbivorous but nearly all infested.

There are Leerans, psychic aquatic frogs who see any invasion attempts coming.

There are Taxxons, giant centipede-like people who accepted voluntary Yeerk infestation to help sate their insatiable hunger. They're cannibalistic when not supplied with enough meat.

There are Skirt Na, who look like giant bugs, until they metamorphose into greys. They're known for abducting and experimenting on non-spacefaring species.

"Are the actual literal greys who abduct people using flying saucers?"

"Yup."

"We've seen Taxxons and Hork-Bajir, right?" Liam thinks back to the aliens they saw the previous day.

"Let's worry about those first since we know they're on Earth with the Yeerks. Do you know anything that might help us deal with them?" 

"Taxxons are really hungry. If one of them is hurt, they start eating each other. The Yeerks try to avoid using Taxxon-Controllers on Earth, but any room with one in it is a valuable target."

"Ew," is Rowan's response to the cannibalism, but she writes it down anyway.

"So we could take out a whole group just by injuring one?" 

"Only if they don't have Yeerks in them at the time. Right?" 

"Yeerks can only do so much to prevent it. That's why they're don't like using Taxxon Controllers."

"So it'll be an effective strategy, exactly once."