Read "The Enigma" first
Trust me
The pain had been unimaginable, yet she was somehow able to withstand it. They would never get the information from her, but at what cost? Every day a little piece of her died
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The smoke filled the room. It burned Marco's throat and nose, causing him to fall to the floor. Their escape had turned into chaos after the Allies bomb went off. The floor spun beneath Marco's knees as Rachel rammed into the wall. The ceiling began to break away and started to cascade all throughout the disheveled room. Rachel broke through the wall and the other Animorphs followed her. Tobias practically went right through the wall with her. Cassie paused for a moment, almost as if to see the carnage that allowed their freedom, but Jake sent her on. The Animorphs fearless leader called out through the dust for Marco, but there was no answer.
Marco hacked and wheezed from all of the smoke that was entering his lungs, trying to get enough air to yell for his best friend. Unfortunately fate was against him, the same way it had been for the past years. Just as Marco was ready to shout for Jake, the ceiling crumbled from up above and buried Marco alive.
Marco woke up the same way he has for the past year. Sweat glistened on his skin, while his heart beat reached new speeds. After the building had caved in the Yeerks found him. They quickly put Marco in a holding cell, and just as quickly forgot about him. There was no interrogation, no torture, no infestation, only endless days of silence. Marco had not seen the Animorphs, his friends, since the had hopefully escaped over a year ago. Ax had died on the first Andalite mission against the Yeerks in outer orbit. And Jenny, the Animorph who had joined shortly before the Yeerks went into full out invasion mode, Marco had lost her after Ax died.
Marco walked up to his force field, as he did every morning, and looked out. But what he saw was anything but normal. There were two men standing at the main desk and they were wearing high ranking uniforms. One man pointed to Marco's cell. It was obvious to Marco that they were talking about him, but about what he didn't know. The two men continued with their conversation but Marco wasn't fooled. He shifted his weight to his back legs just in case. Marco had learned how to read body language from the long time he had been there.
Suddenly the force field around his cell dropped. The familiar crackle ceased, and was followed by a brief blue flash as Marco raced out of his cell. He never saw the troops behind the two sub-vissers.
"Stop him," one of the sub-vissers grumbled as he wiped sleep out of his eyes.
One Hork-Bajir tried to know Marco unconscious with his arm, but Marco was to quick for him. He spun around and while the Hork-Bajir was leaned forward from his blow, Marco kicked him in the gut. Marco's shoeless foot cracked and bleed from the forceful blow, but he kept going. From behind him a Hork-Bajir clutched a familiar "pain stick." He shoved it into Marco's back. It felt like someone had set every single one of Marco's nerves on fire. He saw the face of the sub-visser and on it was boredom. Then total darkness.
Marco woke up laying face down on the hard, cool, cement floor. The stench of urine and dried blood filled his nostrils. Marco wanted to look around, but this new cell he was in was so damp and dark there was no way to see past his nose. Marco heard a light shuffling sound, so he stayed extremely still. The scurrying noises were made from what sounded like a biped. The creature inched closer and closer to Marco, but was careful to stay out of his reach. A hand reached out of the dark shadows and grabbed Marco's bloody foot. The rough texture that scraped his foot told Marco that this creature was forced to do hard labor. Not that Marco's hand were in better shape. The creature fondled Marco's foot almost as if it was trying to figure out what his foot was. Then the creature pulled Marco's foot closer and out it to its nose. The creature seemed intrigued by the smell of Marco's dried blood.
Marco couldn't hold it back anymore. He broke out laughing from the creature tickling his foot. The creature dropped his foot and it smashed onto the floor. The creature made a small grunt and ran back to its corner. Marco did not hear from it for the rest of the night. He spent the night laying on the ground. His muscles ached and he didn't have enough energy to move. When the morning came someone must have switched on the lights. Marco opened up his eyes to the harsh yellow light that Yeerks seem to enjoy. Strangely enough, he didn't remember having his usual dream. He still got up the same way he did every morning.
Marco walked over to the force field and looked out. This time was different though. The forcefield's humming picked up speed. Sparks shot out of it, into Marco's arm, and threw him onto the wall. Marco fell to the floor, the wind knocked out of him. He crumpled into a ball and started rocking while holding his arm. The creature scurried over to Marco without a whisper. In the harsh light Marco could clearly see that the creature was a woman. Her clothes torn and tattered hung in embarrassing positions, but she didn't seem to care. Her jaw was set and square, almost as if she had never smiled in her life. Her gnarled hair collected in brown clumps just below her shoulders. It was clear by the loose skin that she was malnourished, but there was strength in her. Hidden strength. The oddest thing about this woman was her eyes. They carried behind them the look of a wild animal.
She moved cautiously. Her arms acting as legs. She was careful to keep her weight situated on two "legs" at all times. She walked closer to Marco. The woman took Marco's arm, carefully cradling it, and inspected it. She settled onto her haunches. Then she ripped a piece of cloth off of her already bare legs and rapped it around Marco's electrical burn. This poor, wild, tattered human being was touching Marco's injuries, but he trusted her. She seemed so familiar and trust able to Marco.
The woman tied the scrap of cloth around Marco's arm like a pro. The bandage was just tight enough, and the knot would not come undone. It was quite clear from the visible scars on her body that she has done this numerous times before. She looked up into Marco's face. Her eyes were filled with a look of compassion. Pure compassion, nothing else was hidden deep within her face. For a brief moment she looked so human. Her dark green eyes locked onto his, and then Marco realized who she was
.
"Jenny," Marco cried out of surprise. There was no happened behind it. He would have much more wished her to be dead that to be this crippled, broken, twisted animal. How could the Yeerks do this to her?
At the sound of her name, the creature scurried back to her corner. But her eyes never came off of Marco. Marco was lost in his thoughts and memories. Everyone knew that from the first time the Animorphs had met Jenny, Marco had feelings fro her. Well, everyone except Jenny and Ax. She had always been this enigma to him. Even though Marco and she shared the same hobbies and views in life fate had been against them. After Jenny had joined the Animorphs, the Yeerks had gone after her. She was quickly moved to the forest to live with her best friend Tobias, and Aximili. Jenny had been captivates with Ax, and she clung to him. They became close, but there was no dating involved in their relationship. No kissing, or holding hands, but whenever they were in a deadly situation both of them would stop it nothing to save each other. After the Andalites came, their relationship cooled. Aximili sort of left the Animorphs so he could fight with his "cousins." The Andalites built up their fleet, taught their warriors, and launched a huge attack against the Yeerks. With Ax in the front ship.
The Animorphs were forced to stay on Earth. They had all bees assembled in Jake's living room when the news came. Right there on C.N.N. the Animorphs watched as the Andalite fleet was torn apart. Yeerk dracon beams sizzled through Andalite hulls and ripped them in half. Then by some cruel twist of fate, the battle camera swung around to show the Visser's blade ship gaining on the Andalites lead dome ship. The blade ship shot off the domeships shredders. Sparks and flames rolled out of the back of the ship. The dome ship was helpless, and the Visser knew it. He brought his ship in at a leisurely pace, savoring this kill. The dracon beams hummed and shot through space. Time slowed down. The Andalite dome ship ripped right in half. Slowly, the ship decompressed causing the alive Andalite to suffocate and freeze in the cold space. Jenny watched all of this without a word. Andalite bodies flew through space. Charbroiled bodies that were killed from the shots. Finally in one cruel happenstance a still alive Andalite flew past the camera. His eyes cried out, pleaded for someone to save him. Anyone. With one last kick, he did. The Andalite had not been Ax, but it was quite clear that he was gone. The Andalites left Earth after that battle, and they never came back. But now that the world knew about the Yeerks, a resistance was formed. They called themselves "The Allies." Jenny ran off to look for Ax, she never really believed that he was gone. The feeling of love wouldn't let her give up. Apparently she was captured shortly after venturing out.
At first the Animorphs kept themselves separated from The Allies. The Allies moved like a terrorist group, blowing up whatever they wanted. But then the Animorphs were captured, their identity known. Visser Three had been captured and killed by the Andalites some years earlier. The new Visser in charge of Earth did not care about the Animorphs nor did he hate them. So they were left to rot in jail.
"Much like today," Marco thought brining himself back to modern day. He looked up as a bowel of something terrible smelling and a jug of water was placed into their cell. Jenny stared at the food with greedy eyes, but she didn't move an inch. Marco truthfully wasn't hungry and he thought she should have it all anyway. Then he realized something as Jen's eyes switched from the food to Marco. "She's testing me," he thought. "She's stating boundaries, wondering what I'm gonna take. If I don't stake my claim. I may never eat."
Marco inched over to the tray and gingerly picked up a bowel. He had no idea what to do with the water, so he left it and went back to his part of the cell. Marco fidgeted with his collar. It had always been in the way, but now it seemed to bother him even more. The Yeerks had reinvented the Anti-Morphing Ray into a collar that fits over the victims neck. Marco hadn't completed a morph in nearly five years.
After the Animorphs had been in prison for a while they started to find themselves closer to The Allies. Until that fateful day when they decided to join them. Now the Animorphs were needed out of prison. The leader of the resistance in that prison was named Marianne Nariz. Marianne did not seem to really like the Animorphs, but her superiors from outside ordered her to brake them out. Meetings were called regularly without any of the Animorphs knowledge.
Marianne was a strong woman with an unknown past. She had a leaders voice and ideas; but, unlike Jake, she trusted no one. The resistance ran an underground new ring. This means that some people, like Marianne, would allow themselves to be captured in order to get information. That was how the Allies learned about the Kandrona shortage, and the loss of Yeerks. This was why very few prisoners were infested. Instead, most were held until more Yeerks could be reproduced. The Allies had been using this information to their advantage. They bombed whatever building "might" hold a kandrona. And according to information there was a kandrona in the prison where the Animorphs were being held.
Marianne got the news from a new captive that a bomb was going to go off and that was the time to get the Animorphs out. Marianne quickly jumped to work. She rounded up all of the resistance members and prepared them for the raid. The Animorphs were never told.
The next day excitement and fear filled the air. Most of the prisoners picked up on the feeling, including Cassie. Only Cassie could figure out what was about to happen. She ran to tell Jake, but as she was taking off, the wall exploded. As luck would have it all of the Animorphs were on the other side of the prison, away from the blast. Cell forcefields disrupted and shot waves of electricity into any conductor. One small spark found its way into Rachel's collar, and destroyed it. Resistance members flew out of the prison through the hole. At the same time controllers flooded in from outside. Dracon beams sizzled through the air, and Allie weapons, consisting of everything from knives to shredders, appeared out of thin air. Tobias ran over to Rachel, but as he picked her up she started to gain weight.
Tobias put two and two together and yelled over the commotion, "Jake, Rachel can morph."
"Quick, everyone get behind her!," he yelled back. Rachel continued to grow in size. Gray flesh replaced her own. The Animorphs ducked behind her growing tonnage. A battle erupted in the small prison. Energy crackled and sizzled through the air. Knives and bullets flew around the room. Then Rachel was done. She charged straight for the open hole, but all of the smoke and haze caused her to veer off. Rachel hit the wall hard, causing the ground to rattle. All of the mad dracon fire caused the prison to start on fire. Smoke billowed up in the room, depleting oxygen and masking the exit. Rachel rammed into the wall once more and this time got through. Marco's last memory of his friends was of Jake turning around looking for him.
A sudden movement caused Marco to look up from his bowel of shloosing brown glup. To his surprise and horror, he watched as Jenny dumped her bowel of soup onto the ground. Moving with her arms bent low to the ground and her back hunched over, Jenny placed her empty bowel back on the tray. She turned back to her corner, completely ignoring Marco's existence.
Then, abruptly, her head cocked to the left. She snorted through the air, searching for the powerful, familiar odor until she saw Marco. Or, more correctly, Marco's bowel of food. A terrible ear piercing shriek, like that of a wounded animal, escaped from her throat. Marco, quickly getting what she wanted, threw the bowel of slop completely over his head. It landed with a plop behind him, the contents spilling all over the dirt floor. Jenny shuffled over behind Marco and picked up the bowel. She then laid it on the tray and returned to her hole in the wall.
She looked up at Marco, searching for a threatening glance, then she started to move her resting rock. It was a huge boulder that had to have weighed at least eighty pounds, but she moved it with no problem. And their, growing behind the rock, were two dozen tiny mushrooms. She snatched one out of the ground and ate it with one gulp. Jenny went to move the rock back, when Marco's stomach growled. She stared at him through squinted, examining eyes. Her hand slipped behind the rock, but then she pulled it back out quickly. Using her back she pushed the rock back into place. Marco watched all of this through clenched teeth. He wanted to scream at her to give him something but he fought it down to a low mumble. What he didn't expect was an answer. The answer did not come from Jenny though. Instead it came from deep within the darkness.
"There's no point in even talking to her. She's nothin' but a wild animal now."
Marco got up out of his squatting position and looked out. But his weak human eyes could not pierce the darkness, "Who are you?" he called out to the faceless voice.
"in this hole I believe the correct question would be 'What are you?' I am a prisoner who was captured and sent to this prison that causes even a Yeerk to lower his voice when mentioned. Actually I am a POW, and I was here when she arrived."
Marco looked over his shoulder at Jen. She was sitting on her feet, rocking slightly. It was clear that she was sleeping, prepared for an attack.
"How . . . what was she like?" Marco asked, trying to keep the tremble out of his harsh voice. He had not spoken for this long in years. His voice was already starting to crack from the use.
"She was the strongest person in this prison. She always used to talk about how her friends would stop the Yeerks on the outside and save her," this information cut through Marco like a knife. The Animorphs gave up looking for her about two months after she left. "Then the torture started. Believe it or not, but this place was once illuminated and she used to shine in here. She was beautiful and amazing. The way that she spoke . . . But as the Yeerks continued to torture her, she started to retreat back into her mind. I would hear her cry out in the night 'No! I won't let them have it.' She sacrificed her own mind to protect whatever she knows from reaching the Yeerks."
Marco turned back to Jenny. He was sure that the information that she guarded so carefully was the truth about the Animorphs. The Animorphs had given up that information years ago, but still she suffered.
"So," the ex-soldier called out, "how do you know her?"
"We were friends on the outside. A long time ago," he said fighting down tears that threatened to well up in his eyes.
The prisoner fell silent, and Marco did not press him for anymore information. He didn't want to know anymore, he couldn't take anymore, but there was something missing. Something very important. Unfortunately, his tired, confused mind couldn't grasp it. Marco wished that the other Animorphs were here to help him. They could help to explain Jenny's predicament and why she turned. Then he realized that the best Animorph for the job would've been Jenny. She had always been able to figure out exactly what a person was going to do, or what had happened, by their body movement. Her natural abilities rivaled Cassie's by comparison. With her help, the Animorphs were able to bring down some high ranking Yeerks, like Chapman.
It was horrible. Marco missed Jenny so much, but her empty shell was in his same cell, sitting right next to him. Could the lass of Ax have sent her into this drop. No, Marco though, the soldier said that she was hopeful. The more Marco thought about it that more he started to realize that something screwy was going on. He was just going to have to fill in the blanks.
To Be Continued