Version two of "AniVamps;" Untitled
Kylara Encee Miene
The PG-13 rating is for swearing and violence, which I just can't write without. Sowwy.
I apologize in advance for not letting a dead story die a decent death.
This is the second version of a story dubbed "AniVamps" by Blaire. It's tenchically untitled. STILL. I started writing the original version about four or five years ago... god, it's been that long? It has. The original was 125 pages long and entirely without a plot. About two weeks ago, I got it into my head that I was going to write it, and that it was going to actually be good this time. So... here I am, and here this is, and if you've read the original version (I don't know HOW... my friends might have, and anyone who visits AniFuture... augh, I have to call Meridian and tell her to take the original version down...). *reluctantly* Until she does take it down, and if she does (she's kinda banned from the computer), the original version is here: http://anifuture.hypermart.net/fanfiction/Stories/AniVampires.htm shameless plug for sister And if anyone hasn't visited AniFuture, go now! http://anifuture.hypermart.net/ /shameless plug for sister
*smacks Blaire* YOU wouldn't let me stop writing the original until I was done! *huggles* But thanks.
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"ERIKA! COLT! Get the fuck outta here, hurry up, goddamn..." Lance fell into a fit of emphasized swearing at none of them in particular, using some creative newer words that had been created on the streets in the last fifteen years, and some alien tongues. It was Lance's way of relieving frustration and stress, and no one had ever been irritated enough by it to tell him not to.
In response, Erika just gave Colt a hard shove out the window. Unbalanced, Colt pitched out headfirst. Without bothering to see what happened to Colt, Erika jumped out the window himself, Lance following.
From the lower rooftop, Silver and Falcon were keeping watch. They saw Colt getting shoved out the window, then flip, push against the brick wall of the building with his legs, and land about ten feet away from the wall in a crouch. Ten levels above her, Erika and Lance jumped out as well, landing with two more thumps. Vixen and Sand were already there, waiting silently for them. Colt shoved a package into Vixen's hands, then whipped his head around to look for the lookouts.
Silver lifted her blaster over her head and spun it on her fingertips, the hot sun glinting off the metal. All clear.
Then Falcon, who was watching the horizon, lifted his own blaster, and pointed, falling back into a stance to shoot straight. Silver spotted the small, silent, black ship, cursed and slammed her palm against her blaster, ramming it up to top power. An abrupt psychic order raced through the whole group -- RUN.
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Racing down the ruined, abandoned streets, Erika clutched the disk in her hand and looked around frantically. Nothing living in sight other than scurrying rats -- as a predator, she found it easy to spot such things. "_Nothing._ Dammit, where's Colt?!"
Colt and Vixen had just ducked into a doorway on the street that was lacking a door and huddled just inside, Vixen peering out. "See anything?" Colt panted. He looked around the building. It was old, wooden, trashed, ransacked, partially burnt and weatherworn. It was also incredibly typical of all non-Yeerk owned buildings in the city.
Vixen's ears twitched in a weird way that imitated an animal but with human ears, although slightly large, pointed human ears. Her eyes darted up and down the street. "Colt, we need a back way out of this," she said shakily, not entirely because of all the running they had been doing.
"How many of them?" Colt asked, jogging to check for another door or a hole -- or a suitable place to make such a hole.
"An army," Vixen whispered, backing away from the door. "Both directions."
"Give me the shit and let's move," Colt demanded. Vixen moved, cat-silent, to hand him the package, when the door and the wall exploded into flying splinters and flame-colored orange light.
Over the noise of the blast, Colt could hear a high-pitched shriek. He was already invisible to the army of Hork-Bajir and humans approaching, behind a wall. He couldn't see them or hear them or Vixen, but he knew Vixen was dead already.
Frantic for a way out, Colt went straight up. Splinters of wood imbedded themselves into his skin and he made up his mind to ignore it. He whipped his head around, and took off running down the hall and dove out a window. He landed in a cat-like crouch on the littered pavement of the alley below, and dashed down the street, skidded at the corner, peeked around, then backed up again. This was crazy. Blasting any of them would only call attention to himself.
He shimmied up a place between a drainpipe and a cement wall, driving glass and wood fragments deeper into his skin. He bit down on his tongue and swung himself up onto the roof. He didn't know how high up he was -- about seven stories. He surveyed the roof, then cocked his ears, trying to pinpoint where the army was. He picked the least noisy street and jumped back into it.
Taking into account the situation in mid-air, he hit the ground and rolled, then sprang to his feet. "You're surrounded by Yeerks, scatter," he panted to the group of street kids, then started running again.
He ran down street after street of ruined city. Cars were parked, smashed and stolen from, left to rust, and then salvaged for parts and metal. Rats and bugs were the most prevalent life forms, as well as a large orange tomcat that yowled possessively when Colt took a shortcut through his alley, and there was evidence of past and present human habitation everywhere, but he did not see blatantly obvious humans again other than a few bodies laying in the street. The kids that he had seen would probably die quickly, too indiscreet.
The path that Colt took to get back to the den was zigzagged through the most remote areas of the city. He was never within a block of Yeerk-controlled buildings, but was continually going forward then falling back, back and forth, left and right, until he reached what he knew to be a safe area. He walked up to the building, boarded-up windows and dilapidated walls hiding a solid Ramonite wall. Standing exposed on the porch, he pressed a button.
"Who is it?"
"Colt. I don't need entrance, I want to pass this message on -- Vixen's dead. Next vamp to come in will give the full story, maybe. Tell her brother."
"You're speaking up him," the intercom said coldly.
Colt caught his breath. "Andrew, I swear, I could not have done anything about it. We were swarmed and I had to break off from the group with Vixy. God damn, she's my childe, I wouldn't have let her get hurt..."
"I don't want to hear your excuses. Answer the question: Is my sister, Vixen, dead?"
"Yes."
Colt barely had time to get his feet under him and leap before a red flash destroyed the porch. Several things popped into his mind to scream at Andrew, but he took off at a lope toward headquarters.
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"Dammit, Colt!" Lance yelled, prying Erika off of Colt and throwing her into a wall. Erika's head smashed into the wall and her eyes went unfocused before she raised her hand and wiggled her fingers in an "I'm okay" way.
The other vampires, lazing around making casual banter, were now focused on the argument between the two original vampires. When Colt had walked into the main room, Erika had run to kiss him before Lance could get to him to chew him out.
It wasn't a good idea to attract attention from Lance when he was mad.
"Hey," Jakal said, moving up behind Lance. "Break it up."
Falcon moved in from the other side. "What happened, Colt?"
"As senior it's _my_ responsibility to find that out, Falcon."
The five originals all glared at one another, except for Erika who caught Colt's eye. Colt calmed, then faced Lance. "We were surrounded by Yeerk soldiers. I never got a good look at them but it was, according to Vixen, 'an army.' While I was looking for a way out she got blasted. I never saw any of it. End of story."
"I find that terribly hard to believe," Lance growled.
"Just believe it. The package that got passed off to her was destroyed, too."
Lance waved this off in irritation. "That's not the point."
"So it wasn't important? Vixen got killed for nothing?"
"No." Lance flicked his hand open, a sleigh-of-hand movement revealing the disk that Erika had brought in. "Vixen was killed for this." He closed his hand again, an annoyed look passing over him again. "Does her clan know?"
"Yeah. I stopped and told her brother, that's why it took so long."
Lance muttered something in an unrecognizable language. "This wasn't entirely a disaster," he said, sighing. "We have a new project, now. Everyone into the tactical room," he added, looking at the rest of the vampires. "This might get more of us killed -- but it'll be worth it if we pull it off."
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"Gotcha," Visser Five said giddily as the Hork-Bajir spread out to defend her. The deformed human -- vampire, as they called them -- gnashed fangs at her and growled.
"Aw, come on," the Visser said. "Don't wanna die?"
The Hork-Bajir exchanged glances. Visser Five had a dangerous habit of letting captives time to defend themselves. It rarely happened, but they couldn't be sure. "Oh, well," she said happily, "I'm sure that you'll enjoy it once it's over -- "
A wave of crackling orange energy smacked into the Hork-Bajir force with a low boom that distracted the Visser. Erika slammed herself sideways as the area she had previously occupied was sliced with red Dracon light. Then Visser five wasn't there, and as Erika curled into a ball on the ground, a second explosion rocked the street and the buildings. The walls began to crumble around her. The Hork-Bajir were already, for the most part, dead.
Erika!_ a psychic voice yelled demandingly.
"Right here, boss dear," Erika said, crawling out of the rubble. "And the Fifth?"
"Don't worry," Colt said, and slapped a paralyzer onto the back of her neck. "Strip her and check her for bugs, then get rid of her clothes." Erika nodded, grabbing a pile of worn clothing from the floor of the roof and slicing the Yeerk-issue ones Visser Five was wearing with her hands.
Colt was already leaping to the next rooftop, bounding off to help Silver and Falcon with the third target. Target two should be captured and back at headquarters any time now. If the other two missions went this smoothly, then there would be no problem with the entire operation -- but Colt doubted that it would. He and Erika had simply gotten lucky.
The three morph-capables that they were after that were on-planet were just the beginning. Colt landed a few feet from a car that had been converted into command central for the mission. "How's it going?"
Lance eyed a screen, then pressed a red button. "That wasn't just the Big Giant Reset Button," he said, grinning. "We're doin' fine."
Colt grinned and nodded, staying crouched. After a few minutes, a buzzer went off from all around. "Simulation over," the computer chimed.
"Good job," Lance said, grinning at Colt. "We're out of time for training. Today we'll do it for real."
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"It wasn't a _complete_ disaster."
Jakal growled and snapped a switchblade at the far wall, hitting the center of a wooden chair with a solid thump. "Yeah, yeah," she said. She glanced around. "Why the hell are they banging on the Ramonite boxes? They'll never get out."
"I don't know," June said.
"Damn stupid Yeerks, get to Visser and they don't even have enough sense to sit down and conserve energy..."
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"Heuwhadu.....?!"
She slurred her question into unintelligible syllables and then looked around. "...okay, whoever the hell you are, I'm thankful and all, but let me out of this box."
"We will," said a voice from nowhere. "Just be patient." A opening grew out of nothingness and formed a door. "Here you go."
Rachel carefully stepped out onto a cold cement floor. She was dressed in loose, white-gray clothes, clean but faded. Her hair fell free. It had been blond when she was younger but had faded as well, to a light brown or dirty blond depending on the lighting. Her blue eyes pierced the room with their intelligent, suspicious gaze -- then softened as she spotted a man moving through the room towards her.
"Marco!" she shouted. Then she spotted another, younger boy. "Tobias!"
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"...so I'm glad that you're staying to listen to our deal. I'm Lance Kerrson, and if I was Colt, I would have some kind of witty joke at this point."
Marco spoke up. "I'm Lance Kerrson, the evil overlord of this operation... Mwahahahahaha..." Marco trailed off into choking and gagging and coughing.
Lance stared.
Marco cleared his throat. "Sorry."
"...yeah," Colt said, staring at Marco from behind Lance.
"Well," Lance said, "these are the other originals. Jakal, Colt, Falcon, and Erika. Then the rest are childe of us, which means that they're former members of other clans that we turned into vampires voluntarily. Our goal is to stay alive, like most other clans and gangs on Terra.
"As former Vissers, I'm not sure how much you know of the situation, but you probably know nothing about us. This is our lair. We stay alive, and we fight the Yeerks. Simple logic here: We get rid of the Yeerks, or they wipe us out. Surprising that they haven't tried to yet. We don't have much power, but we do have about twelve years of experience." Lance grinned. "We're sixteen years old now.. Whatever information you know about the Vampire Viruses, I would speak up now."
"I don't know anything," Tobias said, eyes shifting nervously around the room.
Rachel eyed Lance skeptically, then nodded and threw in her own knowledge. "I've heard of them, but I probably don't have anything useful. You're an experiment where viruses that mutate your genetic structure turn you into super-warriors in the shape of humans who need blood to function -- an idea taken from human mythology and put to good use. You escaped and began guerrilla terrorism against the Yeerks, which has steadily grown in harmfulness. That's it."
Running a finger through his long, lanky blond hair, Lance nodded. "Useless, that's just common knowledge. Marco?"
Marco opened his mouth, then hesitated.
"...Marco?" Rachel asked in mild concern.
"I don't know how much of this is going to be useful..." Marco said. "Do you have a MDC anywhere?"
There was a mind-download cube in Jakal's hand and she tossed it to Marco. He batted it away from his face with both hands and bad reflexes. He stared at it on the table, suddenly subdued. "Rachel... Tobias... you guys remember Joey, right?"
"We remember," Tobias said solemnly.
"This isn't my memory," Marco said, placing one hand against the cube. "It's hers."
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"Yaiie!" I screamed, smashing the nearest table of equipment. I sprang back, my arm bleeding. Chemicals smeared across it, going into the cuts, drawing out more pain to the surface.
The pain had to come out.
I kicked at a cart, wrapped my foot around it, and went down hard. My hands, which I had smashed and pulverized with something like metal tongs held by my feet until I could pull them out of the restraints, cushioned my fall to the floor, and broken bones scraped at each other, further digging into the mash of muscle, blood vessels, and nerves in my hands. I shrieked.
Acid splashed onto one of my legs, soaking through my pants leg and causing a distant burning sensation. I rolled to the side, knocking the cart over and creating more banging and pain. My knee slammed into the ground hard, and my whole leg jerked. I slammed my knee down again, and again.
I smashed the side of my head down into the ground, writhed in pain, and crawled to my feet. I held my arms awkwardly, so the mash of tissue that used to be my hands would stop screaming in pain. Narrowing my eyes, I smacked my hands into the brick wall. The acid was still stinging on my leg.
The pain had to be taken out, brought up, shoved away.
Screaming, I shoved myself away from the wall, then batted furiously at the air. My screaming formed into words. "GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY!"
Hoarse, I choked, then licked my lips. They tasted metallic, like blood, but I wasn't sure where the blood was from or even if it actually was blood. I pulled down my loose sleeves and licked at my arms, too, blood- and chemical-smeared. Maybe it would eat through the lining of my stomach or something like that. Something to bring out the pain.
I tucked my arms to my chest and fell forward, hitting the floor with my head and shoulder. I lay on my bruised knees, rocking back and forth, murmuring under my breath. I think I prayed, I don't know who or what to. Maybe to Pain, to come forth, to leave.
"_Show yourself!_" I screamed.
I've showed you what I can do.
I screamed, and wrapped my long, thin, bony fingers around my arms and rocked back and forth. I was healed and I felt no pain, except for that which was inside my soul. I hadn't purged it. It was still there, chewing at my internal organs like the chemicals that had magically disappeared. It could eat me from the inside out, and maybe that time, I wouldn't be able to scream.
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The room jolted back into reality all at the same time. There was a general screech of dismay. Marco lifted his hand from the black cube on the table. "Permission to continue, sir?" he asked the blond teenager at the table who drew in a hissed breath of remembered pain.
Lance drew his hand violently in front of him. No. Hand still facing Marco, palm out, he turned to the other four teenagers around him.
Baring pointed teeth in something resembling a smile, Colt met his gaze. "She was one of us. Joey, you said her name was, Marco?"
"Joey," Marco confirmed. "But she wasn't a vampire."
"Sure as hell she wasn't," Rachel said, eyes narrowed.
Quietly, Lance dropped his defensive hand. "I can understand that. She was being melded into something else, in the same method we were, but not the same result. Correct?"
Marco nodded.
"The details -- the way the room looked, the restraints, the materials on the cart -- were all remarkably similar to memories we have from quite a while ago in Yeerk facilities. Unsettling. You can continue now."
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I had the unsettling feeling that I couldn't move. There was some more crashing and banging. There had been a lot of that lately. Last thing I remembered was screaming when I had been healed and then... the scientists. The goddamn motherfucking son of bitches scientists had knocked me out. I must still be a little paralyzed. My mouth felt sticky and weird, like my tongue had gone numb. I squinted, opening my eyes slightly.
Bright lights hit me and I moaned, closing my eyes again. Maybe I should try that one again.
Eyes closed, I staggered to my feet, hanging onto something which was hard, metallic, and not particularly stable. I think it might have been one of the carts that I had overturned earlier -- or that someone else had overturned.
You. Yeah, you, you're not dressed like a scientist. Mind telling me what you're here for?
I gasped, snapped straighter, relying heavily on the wall. Swaying, about the fall over, I explained that I was an experiment to . . . a gorilla and a tiger, who stared at me like I was lunch. It wasn't a particularly comforting way to stare.
They stared some more. There was lots of silence, and more staring, and the animals trading looks and more banging from other rooms. Then something said, What do you do here? What's your life like?
It sounded almost funny, like the animals particularly cared. "Not much. I stay in this room, and trash it, and they inject me with stuff. They used to let me out and people took me to the zoo -- " with them around, zoos were firmly in my mind " -- and let me watch TV and some stuff." Then they had stopped when I had slashed, stabbed, gutted, and neatly organized the organs of three scientists with a scalpel and various other things I could get my hands on. Since then they mostly kept me tied down or in a straightjacket or something.
The animals eyed me. I eyed back. Then the gorilla walked over to where I was standing, picked me up, and began carrying me out the door.
I struggled automatically for a second, my first reaction to being lifted with my feet off the floor and my balance knocked off. Then I stopped and froze. The gorilla, I assumed, wasn't trying to kill me.
We moved into the hallway, the tiger in front. I probably should have expected the panting wolf that ran up the ruined hallway by now, but I nearly fell over backwards, and would have if the gorilla wasn't hanging onto me still.
The tiger and the wolf circled each other, the wolf nodded intelligently, looked at me, and took off at a lope down the hallway. The hall was covered with overturned carts and supplies and several bodies. "Let me see," I told the gorilla, "let me see."
Why? asked the same voice that had spoken to me earlier.
I responded harshly. "I want to make sure that they're dead."
Once I was set on my feet I scampered over to the nearest body. Studying it for a moment, I then kicked it. "It's Tynar 532," I said, face scowling and me unable to stop it -- or unable to hide the relief that she was no longer around. "She was the one who came in when I was pinned down and told me that it wouldn't hurt. The needles still scare me. She would come in and tell me it wouldn't hurt and she would hum songs that I didn't know and would keep me from thrashing by nearly knocking me out with her fist, but not enough that it didn't hurt with the needle." I knelt down, checking for a pulse on her neck, in her chest, for breathing. "I'd be glad if she was dead." I grabbed a shattered piece of glass from the ground and drew it across her neck. Blood, but this time not mine, sprayed onto my already bloodstained white tunic and puddled around Tynar. "Now I'm glad."
There had been movement up the hall that I had ignored. Now the gorilla moved towards me and grabbed me. She's just a little vengeful. I mean, wouldn't you be? The gorilla was speaking to a bear. Perched on the bear's back was a dangerous-looking bird. So he might have been talking to the bird, I didn't know. Maybe they have been sharing some quality time with whatever god and slash or gods that they worshipped.
"Let me," I said, shoving past the bear and bird without stopping to realize that most of the people dead on the floor were killed from bear claws. The bear let me pass but not without a growl.
I still had the piece of glass in my hand. It was sharp, but not as good as it could be. It took effort to go through and cut major blood vessels of the scientists that were merely injured, not dead. Some tried to run away. Some were bleeding so much that I didn't achieve much, they would have died anyway. The gorilla followed, and I rambled and ranted, naming the dead and the dying, telling what they did here, some of my memories about them. The gorilla didn't speak until I had gone a good distance down the hall, and only when I had obtained a very sharp knife from the floor and was slicing away clothing and skin from someone who had merely been knocked out during the fighting. My hands were already covered with blood, and it ran out over the floor and soaked into the knees of my formerly white clothes. I don't remember where I had learned how to do this, it just seemed like a fun thing to do . . . I removed a swollen, blood-drenched item that made a sucking noise and was still attached to something within the body, and that's when the gorilla spoke up.
What are you doing?
"What it looks like I'm doing," I mumbled, putting the organ down on the person's -- Grenal 729, he once beat me up while I was, as usual, chained down to bed -- chest. It rolled and flopped while I put the knife between my teeth and dug back into his body. Voice muffled because of the knife, I added, "die-sek-in' 'im."
Do you want to come with us? the gorilla asked, glancing anxiously up the hallway.
I dropped the knife into my hand and sliced expertly at something, then removed another squishy organ. "Hell, why not?" I froze. "There's people coming."
They're on the floor above us.
"No, there's a dropshaft in that closet. They're coming here now. Go, that way." I pointed. "Just keep running that way. There's a glass window you can go through or something. Watch out for anyone else." I flipped the knife into a more defensive way to hold it.
The gorilla was horrified. They'll kill you!
"Kill? Yeah right. These people die way too easy."
People burst out of the closet, about fifteen of them, and I attacked.
Here's my version of what happened: They shot at me with some cute laser weapons. In exchange, I went and sliced them up. The lasers had no effect.
Marco later told me this version. I ran at the scientists then, I disappeared. Not the knife and not the clothes, just me, my hands and head and body. The clothes dropped to the floor, and the knife took on a life of it's own. Okay, so I registered that my clothes were suddenly not there. As opposed to the "modest" human society I later met in more detail that I had previously, I wasn't quite as concerned by this as most people would be. I had all my attention on the knife, and how the knife went through skin like it wasn't there. I didn't realize that skin was going through _me_ like I wasn't there. You can't really feel it, if you know what I mean. It's like they didn't actually come into contact with you at all, and if you don't see it, well, it didn't happen. I didn't see my hand, didn't see myself, just saw the knife, ripping through things. So? It was an adrenalin rush. One can expect not to be thinking clearly during adrenalin rush, it's what usually happens. You go a little crazy. They shot at me, ended up shooting through me and hitting others. A shot hit the knife, and I felt that, almost dropped the knife, and switched it to the other hand. My other hand went to feeling decent -- nothingness. I believe Marco, but it brings up a lot of weird questions... it's just easier to believe, don't you think?
I don't believe much, I suppose, but it makes sense. And it's easy to believe Marco.
When they were all laying dead, I collapsed. That is to say, I reappeared, then fell over, then scampered to pull on my clothes which were wet and a shade of vivid red. My skin was smeared red everywhere. It was congealing between my fingers and under my fingernails and in my ears and on my toes and . . . well, everywhere. I was drenched. My clothes were drenched. My hair was dyed red. There was sticky blood in my eyelashes, making it hard to blink. At some point I had smeared the blood on my face all over trying to get it off. I scrubbed at it with my loose sleeve, which was also blood-smeared. I gestured to the gorilla, and we ran.
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"Lovely," Rachel said, wrinkling her nose. "Love at first sight, was it, Marco?"
"I need to demorph," Tobias muttered, pushing his chair away from the table and beginning to shrink automatically.
Lance narrowed his eyes. "What does that have to do with us?"
"The gorilla was me," Marco pointed out. "I'm making two points. First is that it was a different team of scientists that worked on Joey than who worked on you, because we killed almost all the ones with Jose. Second is that she had a grudge against these people. That she would do anything to get back at them, at did."
Colt spoke up. "Let me get this straight, though -- Joey could turn more or less invisible and immaterial?"
"She was part of the Ghost project, which preceded the Vampire project, yeah," Marco said. "They couldn't be infested but they were to be brainwashed long before they actually _realized_ that they could turn invisible and heal themselves and various other things which aren't too complicated. The Ghost project was terminated before you were born, so it's not particularly important to this."
"Then what is?" Lance asked.
"That Joey's an expert on this kind of thing. She spied on the Yeerks, tapped into their computers, followed them around, invisibly. Joey managed to stuff into her brain with everything that she needed to know to sabotage the Yeerks, which she promptly did with a vengeance. Meanwhile she lived with Ax and Tobias, sometimes at my house, sometimes spent the night at Rachel's. She got along with us and she helped us if we asked and she didn't have something else to do, and when she needed brute force rather than spying, she would ask for us."
A sigh. "But Joey isn't here. Do you have all the memories of all these missions, all the knowledge that she learned? Could you do what she did?"
Marco looked at Rachel and Tobias. "That's it exactly. So are we getting a deal here?"
Lance frowned. "I didn't say what we wanted you to do."
"That's okay. You want me to change you somehow. Change you into humans? If you get me the supplies, I can do it. My only condition is that you get me extra supplies and let me work on a side project without too many questions."
The smile of a vampire is unnerving, but Marco kept his expression bland. Maybe he had forgotten how to use expression while he was a Controller. Then he twitched one eyebrow in a sort of half-amused way, and Lance chuckled. "Marco, I want you to figure out how to get us the morphing power."
Marco kept a straight face. "You find a blue box."
"That's impossible to do," Lance said.
"So... you need me," Marco said slowly.
Lance nodded.
______________
Tobias paced. Rachel stretched, and Marco sat very still. "What are our options?" Tobias asked, jerking back and forth across the floor of the room the vampires had given to Marco. Rachel and Tobias had come over there.
Rather than a human morph, Tobias was resting comfortably in his more customary Hork-Bajir morph. He had a large, powerful Hork-Bajir morph that the Yeerk Visser in his mind had used frequently. The Hork-Bajir felt more natural to him than his human body.
Marco and Rachel were both human, although Rachel was twisted into a pretzel-like situation. Rachel looked perfectly comfortable there. It looked to Marco like something Joey had taught her, but . . .
Joey herself was perched right next to Marco, which Marco knew only because she had told him. After they calmly communicated for a few seconds, Marco spoke up.
"We have a few options here . . . Lance says that we're free to leave anytime. Out first option is to walk out of this room, out of this building, and onto the streets, where we hold a good chance of being killed or recaptured.
"Second option is that I do what Lance wants -- give them the morphing power. They seem okay. They seem to fight the Yeerks. But this always could be some sort of Yeerk operation to trick us, obviously. And there's a slight possibility I couldn't do it. Do you think they would get violent? or what?"
Rachel shrugged one shoulder, pulling her foot back in front of her head and pressing it towards her body. "Hard to tell, I guess. Marco . . . we're free. Has that connected in your brain yet?"
"It connected a long time ago, Rach. Tobias, are you okay?"
Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?
Marco shrugged slightly. "Nuttin. What do you think we should do?"
"I guess trust them, as nothing better seems to be available."
Tobias resumed pacing, Rachel resumed stretching. Marco watched them both, eyes drifting loosely. He frowned at them, blinking slowly. He felt too relaxed for such a tense decision.
*Marco, we can handle this.*
*I know, Jose. Don't worry. We'll do it, and -- *
*No. Don't say it. You're going to try and bring me back, aren't you? Don't lie to me, you don't know how. That's sweet, but I'm not sure it's possible at this point. Remember, I don't even exist.*
*I can try.*
*You can.*
"What do we do, Rach? Tobias? Or are you going to handle this whole thing over to me?"
Rachel's eyes met Marco's and in an instant conveyed a look of a scared little girl, then arrogance and fearlessness. "Make the call, if you can, Marco."
"Tobias?" Marco said.
He nodded the Hork-Bajir head. Make the call.
"We're staying."
______________
"How's it coming along?"
Marco flipped through pages of notes and didn't bother looking up at Colt. "It's okay. The helpers you let me borrow are doing okay. This is what we need..." He handed Colt a list, still without looking up. "Otherwise I think the lab is complete." He scribbled something into the margin of the pad of paper. "Quick work, too."
"I'm sorry it took the week, Marco. But with the Yeerks on guard and swarming the city looking for you and the others, it wasn't possible to finish earlier."
"I said thanks." Colt didn't respond, and Marco glanced up at him. "Problem?"
"No, sir."
Marco groaned, then snatched the paper back from Colt and started scribbling again. "Okay. _That_ should be everything... hell, who am I kidding, I'll need more supplies in a day or two."
"That's fine."
Then Marco glanced up at Colt. "Exactly how much trouble will this put you through if it _doesn't_ work, if all this served no purpose?"
Listlessly, Colt shrugged. "We're assuming that it will work. So it's worth it -- this will let us tear apart the Yeerks."
"And if it doesn't?"
Someone interrupted the conversation, but Joey answered the question aimed at Colt. *They're screwed.*
______________
Rachel lifted her eyes up to Marco's hesitantly. The dark, bruise-colored circles under her eyes stood out vividly on her face as she hovered over the meal they were eating. "Hey," Marco said lightly.
Rachel didn't respond. She chewed slowly, pushed some food around, pushed the chair away from the table, and stood up abruptly before turning to vomit on the floor.
Wincing, Marco felt sick just from the sound and the smell. He moved over to Rachel. "You okay?"
She wiped her mouth on her sleeve in a childish manner and ignored him. Hands shaking visibly, she reached out and grabbed a cup of water and brought it to her lips, staring at Marco.
"Have you been sleeping?" he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.
For a second, Rachel looked like Joey. The light brown that Rachel's hair had faded to matched the visual picture of Joey's that Marco still had in his mind. The faces weren't the same, but the quivering hands and the empty look in the eyes now -- those were the same. So was the liquid movement of throwing the glass and the way the hands drew up, wrists limp. Marco dodged, and the cup smashed across the floor, glass spinning away.
Rachel tried to mumble something. "Tobias!" Marco yelled, grabbing onto Rachel's forearms. This time she didn't stop him. She mumbled and whimpered and started crying.
______________
"Can't leave right now," Jakal said, drawing a modified blaster automatically but without any intention to shoot it. All the same, it put Tobias's Hork-Bajir teeth on edge. "There's some Yeerks scouting outside."
Tobias made an inarticulate annoyed noise in his throat and sulked off, running into Erika and Colt. Colt eyed Tobias and peeled away from Erika's neck, grinning sheepishly. "Lance has a policy against PDA in the den," he said meekly.
Blushing under a blue-white paleness, Erika pressed her hand to her neck. Tobias was surprised to see blood leaking from under her fingers, then remembered that they were vampires and . . . Well, it didn't exactly make sense, but it couldn't be too unusual. "No problem," he said in a Hork-Bajir growl.
Erika licked her fingers and then replaced them on her neck. "I'll see you later?" she asked.
"Yeah," Tobias said, and walked off.
______________
The first blast smacked Tobias off his feet and tumbling into Rachel. He slammed into her and they both went down hard. Erika, who had been an inch from Rachel, went from standing to squatting on her hands and feet when she felt the building shake and grabbed onto Rachel. Someone screamed, the lights went out All three of them smacked into the floor, but Erika hit lightly and was back on her feet.
From Marco's lab, the first blast sounded like a cannon had gone off overhead -- but all that happened was the walls shivered and the lights went out. One of the vampires, jumping several feet in the air, gasped, "I'll go check the generator," and disappeared, footsteps slapping against the floor. They were drowned out by the second blast.
Rachel and Tobias were back on their feet by then and Erika was across the room, peering out the window. The humans were knocked off their feet, and Erika nearly pitched out the window. She recovered and dove for Rachel and Tobias. "You have to get out of here!" Erika screamed. "Do you have a morph?"
Tobias nodded weakly. He was already dissolving into a hawk as fast as possible. Cockroach, Rachel. I'll fly you out if I can.
"Can I help?" Erika asked.
Rachel's face burst into clicking, jointed bug features with blond hair that got tangled in her bug mouth and then she began to shrink, bug legs popping out of her ribs while the existing limbs dwindled. No. We can handle it, she said calmly.
There were only seconds between when Rachel said "No" and when Erika was flying out the window. She twisted in the air, went disoriented for a moment, the landed on the sidewalk across the street. She fell backwards into the wall, crouched, and watched the window anxiously, when the third carefully calculated Dracon blast sliced the building again, and it began to go down.
Erika stared, stunned.
By the third blast, the people in the lab were panicking. Marco had shoved work aside, and Joey was screaming shrilly, frantic. Her voice faded and returned as she dashed around as fast as she could. *Joey!*
*This way -- the trapdoor, dammit, did you forget? The building's going down! It's strong enough down there but hurry, come on!*
______________
"The dust," Lance said distinctly, spitting onto the rubble-strewn ground and waving the aforesaid dust away from his face, "has not yet cleared. Please have the decency to stop screaming and questioning my authority until this happens."
In the dead silence that followed, Falcon remarked brightly, "But your authority is so fun to question."
There was a short pause during which Lance spun around, grabbed Falcon's shirt and shoulder and sent him flying. He slammed into the ground and sent up another slight puff of dust and disturbing the currents of the choking dust that was already in the air.
Lance smiled at the dead silence, telling himself in his head that he was so close to cracking it was humorous. "Does anyone else have a comment before the dust goes away?"
The group slowly flitted away, other than Jakal, who was discretely helping Falcon to his feet, and Colt, who looked carefully at Lance. "Lansy... you okay?"
Lance smiled again. "Yes. I am fine."
______________
Colt finished counting the cards and scooped them all up, straightened the deck, and began shuffling. "You know how to play cards?" he asked Marco.
"Yeah. Where'd you get those?" Marco frowned, knowing that things like cards were no longer manufactured.
"Huh? Don't know, we just always have a million decks of cards around." Colt began dealing the cards when Lance burst in.
The vampires there, Jakal, Erika, Colt, Marco's assistant Travis, and another one that Marco didn't know, all snapped to attention. Marco was only a few seconds behind them and looked up at Lance. They were all hanging out in a nest belonging to a clan that they had been associated for with a long time, and Lance was accompanied by the clan leader, Selene or something similar. Selene was a pretty, dark-skinned woman about ten years older than Lance but still slightly shorter. Most people were shorter than Lance.
"What's wrong?" Colt said immediately, sliding all the cards back into his palm, getting ready to go.
Surprised, Lance blinked. "Nothing's wrong. Rachel and Tobias just wanted to know where you were." Following behind the leaders were Rachel and Tobias, which everyone else hadn't noticed before. Everyone began breathing a little bit more.
Colt eyed Selene and then winked at Lance, who gave him a dirty look that Selene and the rest of the people declined to notice. Rachel shoved through the vampires -- the small room was crowded with them -- and Tobias followed. "I want to kill the Yeerks," she said, on the verge of hysteria. "Can we leave, Marco? I want to go kill some slugs."
Blinking in a stupid, dumbfounded way, Marco managed to remember the way that Rachel and Tobias had agreed a week ago to hand the decision of staying with the vampires over to him. Hanging back in human form, Tobias whispered a private thought-speak message to Marco. She won't listen to me. Somehow she trusts you instead of me.
Marco's blank expression said "why?" twenty different ways.
I don't know why. She thinks I'm insane, and she thinks she is, too.
"Rachel, you have to stay here," Marco said.
"I want to kill the Yeerks," she repeated, tears leaking out of her eyes. "I want to kill all of them and rip out their intestines." Vivid pictures flashed into Marco's mind, pictures of Joey, lining up dead Controllers in twilight and cutting them open while he stood watching her back with a stolen dracon beam and Jake screamed at them both to retreat. Rachel had been Joey's best friend, she had watched everything that Joey had done. She had seen things that Joey did, crazy things, cruel things.
Rachel babbled, talking about how she wanted to kill and torture the Yeerks.
In the back of his mind, Marco could hear Joey sobbing. *We used to plan these things, sitting up at night in her room. It was -- it wasn't . . . I didn't mean for this to happen. Rachel was strong.*
*Rachel was strong,* Marco corrected softly. "Rachel . . . calm down, please."
"Calm down? I'm calm! I'm caaaaaaaaalm!" she shrieked. "Blood is calm, have you noticed that? Blood runs calm."
Judging from Marco's heartbeart, blood was not particularly calm. "Rach -- "
"They all think I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. Tobias, I'm not crazy; Marco, tell him that. I'm not -- "
"Rachel, you're crazy!" Marco yelled.
Dead silence.
That was a mistake, Marco's mind yelled at him. It might have been Joey too, he wasn't sure. He shouldn't have called Rachel crazy.
Rachel just whimpered like a whipped puppy. "I'm sorry," she said sadly.
______________
*So knock on the door, Joey.*
*I'm scared.* Joey chewed nervously on Marco's fingernails. She had inhabited his body a few times before, but it made her edgy. *I'm knocking, I'm knocking.*
She raised her hand and tapped lightly on the door. "Rachel?" she called. Her voice sounded strange, not like Marco's, but not like her mental voice either.
There was a pause and then the door opened a crack. "What do you need, Marco?" Rachel asked dully.
The eyes flashed, eyes the belongs uniquely to Joey. "I'm not Marco," she said in that strange, some-Marco, some-Joey voice. "Don't you remember me, Rayshal?" The pronunciation of Rachel's name was softly, precisely wrong, with the vowels changed and a lisp. It was Joey's version of a nickname that no one could pronounce correctly enough for her.
"Oh my God, I am crazy," Rachel said.
Joey giggled, ducking Marco's head in a very Joey-like gesture. "Nope. 's me, Rayhsal."
The girls, both giggling, sat down on Rachel's bed in the room. "Jose, how are you here? What's going on?"
Joey flopped down on bed and giggled. "I can't believe I'm male . . ." She shuddered theatrically. Her movements were female, elbows kept closer to the sides than Marco usually would and then swift movement to push a lock of bangs out of Marco's face. "I've been around a long time," she said seriously. "I didn't actually leave, you know. The technical explanation would bore you to tears, but I sort of dissolved out of physical existence. You know about my psychic tie to Marco."
Rachel nodded. She was the only one other than Joey and Marco who knew about it, although Jake and Cassie had been suspicious. Joey had always been able to communicate with Marco, visible or not, although she could only use her telepathic communication -- which was like thought-speak but not -- with other people only while invisible. She and Rachel had never thought of a logical reason why.
"Well, I couldn't talk to people after I faded out other than him. It was easier to pretend that I wasn't there, so I did for a while. Then showed up and talked to him some. We decided that he wouldn't tell anyone I was still around, because -- well, I knew it would upset you and I'm not very helpful to the group when I can't touch anything, and besides, if Marco died, then I would be cut off from you and you'd have to handle me dying but not dying again. It would be pointless and messy, so I made sure he didn't tell."
"And when he was captured?"
"I survived," Joey said with a bitter grin. "I locked off parts of Marco's mind with our combined willpower and we sat just out of the motherfucking Yeerk's sight. The thing wouldn't say that it couldn't control the host, that would be showing weakness. But that's why he became Visser Twelve, the lowest of all the rest of you Animorphs. At vital times, he just couldn't manage to control us. It wasn't the usual host rebellion. We weren't trying to take control, we just tried to make him look bad. Made him stutter when he was trying to make orders, like he didn't know what to do, that kind of thing."
Rachel giggled, like a kid at a sleepover. They used to sit in Rachel's room like this a talk for a long time. Tell stories. Tell dreams. Tell plans for vengeance.
"That's why he could transfer my memories, and why he could do the experiments that I could. I've been right here the whole time. He's here, but I won't let him say hi, it'll spoil the mood. Just you and me again."
"Just us."
"Rayshal . . ." Joey looked suddenly agonized, pleading. "What's wrong?"
She sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes I get mad. Sometimes I . . . I had thought you were gone . . . sometimes, I thought that I should be you."
"Be _me_!"
"Someone needed to hate the Yeerks with their entire mind, and kill them any chance that they got. Like you, Jose."
"Like me . . ." Joey blinked, not understanding. It didn't seem to come together in her mind. "Raysh, why the hell would you want to be me?" Slowly she added, "I've changed some, I guess you would expect that. I was stupid, the way I fought, but it was just how I was."
A thought came into Rachel's mind. "Joey, do you think you're forgiven for it?"
"Now I know you can read my mind," Joey said, laughing softly. "No, I don't. But this is about you. Tell mama Josephine what's going through your mind."
"I want to kill them."
"For capturing you. For dominating you, torturing you, violating you. For killing and enslaving your friends, your family, your planet. For revenge, and for loyalty to the Animorphs. Yes, I can understand that."
"You understand too much."
Joey's lips turned into a small smile, slightly crazy as her smiles always had been. "I suppose I do. I see too much."
"Joey, did you ever leave Marco? Go see the rest of us?"
The smile widened. "Yeah. Marco kept tabs on you guys. Cassie, Jake and Ax are fine, if that's what you wanted to know."
"It wasn't, but it's good to know." Rachel shifted herself to laying on her stomach propped up on her elbows, laying on top of a pillow. "I was wondering what you watched me doing."
"Oh . . . When you went into battles, stuff like that, or just to see you. It was hard, wasn't it?"
Rachel nodded. "That's why I want to kill the Yeerks."
"Hun, they deserve it. You know that's my opinion, inside and out, and that if the person being controlled doesn't want death more than being enslaved, then they're a traitor to their race -- whatever race they are. I was reckless. You were, too. After I showed up, so was Marco, taking risks for me, because he knew I would listen to him if he said to back down, and he felt that I deserved free will within reason. Our missions slowly got more dangerous, more daring, telling the Yeerks that we were suicidal teenage human brats that weren't going to leave them alone as long as we were alive. I know, I'm preaching, but it's my religion. It's yours, too."
Rachel nodded more. "I don't believe in God any more."
"Did you ever in the first place?"
She couldn't answer the question. "I think I did . . . I know I thought I did . . . I was a irrational kid, you know what I mean?"
"So was I. I was fourteen, a year younger than you guys, when you let me out. Eighteen years later, I'm thirty-two. Can you believe that? I haven't had a body for seventeen years. I don't know if I'm fifteen or thirty-two or somewhere in the middle. As least I've had my own mind for those seventeen years. You've been a Controller about the same amount of time. Do you think that you grew older, or if you were just frozen in time?"
"I'm not sure," Rachel said.
Joey shrugged. "I'm here, now. Marco and I are going to give the vampires the morphing power." She smirked lightly. "I know where the blue box is. I ran and hid it as soon as Cassie was captured. The Yeerks never recovered it. It would have been less risky to use the viruses, but the Yeerks will never let us finish it. They dug Marco out of the rubble but the lab is gone.
"And do you want to know where it is?" Joey asked, grinning.
"Where?"
"In the ruins of the past. Half buried under the lab you found me in. Half at the construction site. Do you want to go get it alone, in our old reckless way?"
"I'm not saying let's do it," Rachel said, mostly to herself. "I'm _not_ saying let's do it. We're not going alone, but can I just say it and get it out of my system?"
Giggles. "Sure."
"We need to find Tobias, and Lance, and start getting that box. Let's do it!"
______________
*I still don't see why you didn't tell me about this earlier,* Marco told Joey, sniffling around where she was pointing out and beginning to dig with his little rat paws.
Marco -- can you say "ominous foreshadowing?" Rachel asked.
I know, I know. I'm a rat at the construction site. Stop making me want to scream and run for mommy.
Joey giggled. She always giggled when people made jokes when they were in danger, it made her feel better. It made it easier to stuff worries for Marco's safety in the back of her mind. *Don't worry. It's right over here. And nothing else is other than some bugs. Don't worry.* Joey sounded nervous, though.
Joey says it's clear, Marco said to Rachel.
Lance was confirming this, squatting next to Rachel in the bushes, so Marco scampered over, grabbed the pieces in his mouth, and ran back. There was no noise until Marco, while he was running back, hit something that made a soft squeak.
*Joey?*
*Shit.*
Marco scrabbled away hastily. *What was that?*
*Some kid sleeping there. Blended right in. Sorry, Marky.*
*It's okay.* Marco ran into Rachel's outstretched hands. She plucked the pieces from his mouth and handed them to Lance. Once he had them in his hand, he bolted and was out of sight.
Marco was morphing out of the rat figure rapidly. Tobias?
Here.
See anything in our way?
Nope.
Marco and Rachel began morphing bird to move to the next site.
______________
*You okay?* Marco asked.
*Yeah. Seeing the place -- even just the ruins -- freaked me a little, you know?*
*I know.*
*All that's left is assembling the morphing cube and giving them the power.*
*What do you think they'll do with it, Marky?*
*Fight the Yeerks. Like we did.*
*Will it work?*
*Did it work for us?*
*At least there's a chance. At least there's that.*
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\