For ThemeMorphs 2014, but also based on some Tumblr posts going around this summer-credit for these plotbunnies goes to demenior and samdoesfunstuff, also encouraged by im-overjoyed-im-undecided. I'm not sure if I did it justice-this turned out to be very vague, not at all within the same temporal continuity, and probably lacking in sense. Still, it was fun to think about.
By the way, if the anonymous reviewer who's recently gone through a bunch of my fic happens to run across this (certainly not expecting you too, but just in case)-I do thank you for reading! My fic on this account goes back years...almost a decade now, and the quality is mixed, I'll agree. I leave some of the old stuff up there as a testament to history. But if you come across something you like, new or old, then I'm glad to have written it.
The first time he did it, it was for Cassie.
It had been a long battle at the Yeerk pool—Marco had almost collapsed in gorilla morph, and Ax had to keep yelling at him to get him to stay alert. He'd just managed to hang in there, but they were all weakened, distractable.
The Taxxon was out for blood. Its mouth hung open at the dizzying arrays of flesh across the pier, all sorts of Earth animals roaring amid the fray of the human hosts. Red, compounded eyes locked in on its target, the morph a mosaic of furry patches.
And Jake saw it all. Saw it, like a fly on the wall (he had been, once or twice, just to see), like a tiger locked in combat, too far to give any aid of his own, like a terrified and lost human child, like everything he had ever been. Saw, but could not move.
Cassie, in wolf morph, dodged the horns of an oncoming Hork-Bajir Controller. Another was approaching, cutting off her field of vision even as Rachel tried to pursue it. Despite the carnage mounting behind them, there was nowhere to flee. The Taxxon stepped forward.
Then it fell back, pierced by a bolt of red light. From high above, a Hork-Bajir waved its Dracon beam, shooting into the chaos below. One of the Visser's newer security detail, no doubt, new to the responsibility and reckless with his weapon. The loss of one soldier under friendly fire was regrettable, of course, but what difference could it make in the grand scheme of things? Particularly if the Hork-Bajir continued to shoot, taking aim at the Andalite bandits but missing from the distance, afraid of moving into the fray.
The Visser's new plan was thwarted, whatever technological leap they'd come up with lay in rubble by the end of the night, and once again, the bandits escaped—the wolf exhausted, but alive, and the tiger guarding its back for no apparent reason.
No one seemed to have noticed the twitchy Hork-Bajir on the steps, and he was gone as soon as he'd come.
The first time she did it, it was for Cassie.
They'd taken a vote before the mission, like they'd have done for anything of that scale. Just because Jake was convinced the compound couldn't decay into anything unstable, just because Ax had double- and triple-checked the atomic weights and concluded there was no risk to human life, wasn't enough for him to unilaterally decide to use it on his own. He had to seek out the approval of the others, of Tobias' exhausted assent and Rachel's knee-jerk support, before the group could agree.
But Cassie had backed out, had refused to participate if they were using the compound. They'd braced themselves for that. They hadn't counted on her not coming back, on holding impromptu meetings in the scoop because it was clear they were no longer welcome in the barn.
Maybe they could have dragged it out a few months longer. Kept up the fight, one warrior short. If it hadn't been for all the other days in between. No longer was hiding their true selves—as lovers and brothers-and-sisters-in-arms—behind the casual walls of friendship and cousins' teasing their greatest challenge. Hiding the discord that had separated them, having to go on with both their everyday and secret lives as if nothing had ever happened—that was impossible.
Truly impossible, because Ax's equipment never worked at all. There was a loss of electricity, and the few molecules he'd managed to salvage were fried before they could synthesize. Ax was mostly concerned about the loss of power to the corner refrigerator he'd installed, and the food that went rotten he had to discard. If the compound failed, so what? There would be more battles to fight, and the Animorphs would go forward, as always, together.
The peregrine falcon tore into a dive, taking a few seconds—time was expendable—to enjoy the thermals, before surging up into another breeze, steadying himself and circling.
‹Hello? Is anybody out there?› Look for a bird whose movements seem unnatural, he told himself, one not yet used to all the nuances of the morph. Whose reactions were still those of another species, a human only temporarily taking to the air. Different than what he remembered, of course, but near enough the same...
‹Nice day for a flight, don't you think?› A shadow from over head, a tremendous wingspan blotting out his own. The falcon paid it no mind, but Jake flitted in panic. That wasn't right. He hadn't seen Tobias yet, that was the entire point, there was no way anyone should have known he was there. No reason for Tobias to have morphed eagle, for anything to be different.
‹Great. Yeah. Can I help you?›
‹I'm looking for someone important.›
No, that was Rachel's voice. It had to be. ‹I haven't seen him. Maybe a little past his uncle's house, you think?›
‹Tobias will—› she broke off. Not be okay, be fine, there were no guarantees. ‹You need to come with me.›
‹What? Why? We have an hour or so left, he'll turn up.›
‹No, he won't.›
‹I don't...you?› That time, the falcon's wings beat in challenge, and Jake took off, borne on their restless energy. He didn't know how he could win against Rachel's giant form, but he'd fight her, if it came to that. ‹This is your fault? But why...›
Rachel's changed, he knew—the way the war took its course, even beyond the stressors he'd...added. Maybe it made her feel good, to be in charge, to know someone relied on her, needed her to ground him in humanity? Maybe she'd have done anything to seem less alien by contrast.
‹Of course not!› And she backed away. ‹I don't know how...or why, it was never my place to ask. I'm here to make sure that the Controllers never find Tobias in school. In his human school through his humanish assistant principal and a lawyer with some information about his 'real' father. I've tried a couple ways, and our chances are best if I deal with you.›
Jake paused. ‹I don't...Chapman. And a lawyer?›
‹I mean, dubiously human, but that's lawyers for you, right?›
‹And who's Tobias' real father?›
‹He hasn't told you?›
‹I didn't know this was a thing?›
‹Oh, he hasn't...it hasn't come up. Sure, whatever, that explains why you're here. But come on, we've gotta move.›
‹You can't just order me around like this.›
‹Sure I can. Look, if this was such a great idea, wouldn't I have been dealt with? Wouldn't you make sure this wasn't an issue, you or at least there'd be someone else here to scare me off?›
‹I mean...› Jake felt a spurt of relief that the falcon couldn't sigh. ‹Maybe.›
‹Right. And also, no offense, but peregrine falcons are kind of tiny. A Yeerk ship spots that kind of energy signal, they show up, and what are you going to do, one bird up against them?›
‹What are you?›
‹Going to get you out of here before you have any more great ideas.›
‹And leave behind mine?›
‹It won't duplicate, not at this close a distance. Physically, temporally...I'm not sure, there are some limits, but it's permanent. I haven't been able to figure out the exact conditions, somehow don't get a lot of experimenting in.›
‹I could help you.›
The eagle slowed her descent towards a back alley. ‹You would? Really?›
‹Of course.›
‹Maybe—some other time. When you're not coming up with ideas that are going to get us all infested.›
‹I'm trying to protect a friend! Now that I've seen how...it's not that strange.›
‹Just trust me on this one.›
‹Who's his real father, anyway?›
‹Oh. Elfangor, apparently.›
‹Elfangor? How does that even happen?›
‹No idea.› She came to a stop, mid-air, Jake close behind him. ‹Ellimists, I guess. But we should get going.›
They touched down, high above the ground, and the light below them pulsed to fill the alley even more before they vanished.
"Can't you translate?"
"Not without the chip. Absent my Andalite body, well..." Menderash gave a helpless shrug. "I'm not much good."
"You've been very good. We have the computer, hold on," Jake said, tapping at the controls. "Here, try speaking into this."
The strange creature talked into the screen, perching on its two legs. Its shrill voice was not in any language they recognized, not even the Kelbriddialect.
"I am the only survivor of the attack," the computer relayed. "I fled, when I saw the first alien was willing to destroy us. I was searching for my companions when you found me."
"Why didn't they come with you?" Jake asked, and shortly thereafter the computer reproduced what he hoped was a translation, with the same high-pitched inflection.
"They were more afraid of assimilation. I had no particular concerns about that threat, oh, no! I know when it's time to save my own skin. Or someone else's, if we're all sharing together. Do you suppose if I'd joined The One, it'd have smoothed out all my wrinkles? Only I quite like myself this way, you see."
"This is really the best the translation can do?" Jake asked.
"What more can you ask for?" Menderash snapped. "The One was here, it was a threat, the other ship wasn't too happy about it, and their energy source can apparently outrun ours even in Z-Space."
"Did I say something wrong?" the alien chattered. "Oh, no! I do hope it's not too late to change my mind, too late..."
Jake sighed. "You're safe with us. I'll protect you. I don't—" He shot Menderash a look. It was maybe better not to mention the full range of weapons they had at their disposal. "I don't know if I can do anything about the rest of your species, but you can stay with us. Now, do you have any recordings of the ship?"
"I don't look. I don't see anything. No telling where your eyes could go wandering."
"Would anyone else have data?" asked Menderash.
"Ooh, I don't think so. We don't have any smart-alecky androids like your polyglot friend."
"The computer is not—"
"Leave him be."
"Nonsentient cameras! So boring. But they might have some archived footage, either way."
For an entity returning to the spot where it seemed many of his own people had been annihilated, the biped took the trip in good humor, bounding forward and using its tail for balance. The rudimentary cameras, at least, had not been touched, and Menderash was able to salvage some of the data, slowly converting it into a format the computer could access.
"Can you describe the alien?" Jake went on. "Is there anything you remember?"
"It was a biped. Much like yourself, I think! But different."
"It could speak your language?" asked Menderash.
"In a sense. He tried to warn us about The One, but his language was very out-of-date. Hath ye not contemplated what half-life amid that motley vermin awaiteth, and suchlike?"
"Out-of-date?" asked Menderash, at the same time that Jake was saying "He?"
"The computer translation has limits," Menderash pointed out, "this was originally designed for Yeerks, they might not care."
"Ooh, is your species dimorphic? Sexually, I mean? How fascinating!" the alien trilled.
"'My' species?" Menderash sighed. "In a manner of speaking."
"A manner? Very good, very good!"
"Computer," Jake said, "save current image file and zoom."
There was the assailant on the screen—bipedal, with arms seemingly stronger than an Andalite's or those of the planet's natives. Humanoid.
"The ship appears to be the one sighted elsewhere in the sector," said Menderash. "And the creature?"
"It's not a him," said Jake. "It's a her."
"I will defer to your expertise on these matters."
Jake closed his eyes. "Did Marco or Tobias ever tell you about the first time we met up with an Ellimist?"
"The first time? I think you told me yourself. It led to the destruction of a Kandrona, did it not?"
"It did. But only because the Ellimist showed us—not the future." As if there could have been just one. "A future. Visser Three had been promoted, Rachel was...twenty-something, and a Controller." He opened his eyes to look back at the screen, squinting. "It was the only time we saw her grown up."
Marco was seven when his mom almost got killed in a car crash. While there was no trace of alcohol found in the other driver's system, the settlement was hairy; it seemed like the responsible driver had been first pulled one way, then the next, spiraling back and forth and far out of control. Eva survived, but would not regain the use of her legs.
A few months into her rehabilitation, she was recruited into a wheelchair basketball league. Peter, never much of an athlete himself, was bewildered, but accompanied her to games when he could, and young Marco developed an eye for the game. While not all of the nuances translated over to the junior high competition, he put in long hours helping his mom practice. When he was in eighth grade, despite his stature, he finally made the team.
The jubilation he felt was tempered only by the knowledge that his best friend hadn't made the cut. Marco had Jake over to his house to commiserate, and thanks to Eva and Peter's cooking, they played video games well into the night.
Again. The Andalite Electorate faced a backlash in the wake of the war with the Yeerks; people's children were being sent into battles, and for what? The homeworld was safe, even the outlying moons not in danger. What was the purpose of pursuing battles across the galaxy—some attempt at salvaging a disgraced Prince's reputation? Let the backwards species of the galaxy fight their own wars. Adapt or die. Troops were recalled to the homeworld, and the population edicts remained in place. There would be no further authorizations for second children, no need to deplete the reserves of resources for the sake of some interstellar bloodshed. Noorlin and Forlay would not revisit the wish-flower ritual, waiting in patience for their son to return from the banalities of transport duty. It was a simple job, but someone had to do it.
Again. Professor Powers happened upon the local school district's newsletter, blown in on some breeze, and noticed the names of the nominees to the statewide art fair. She called upon Tobias the next time he came to visit, offered to drive him to the reception. He didn't say much, the long ride up, but amid all his proud excitement on the way back there came a mention or two of the uncle who wouldn't have taken him anywhere himself, who didn't appear to do much of anything for his charge. One inquiry led to the next, and a few months later, he was removed from his uncle and aunt's custody.
A dozen timelines overlapped each other, pushed and pulled apart, restitched and interwoven. Every time, Cassie found herself walking home from the mall and taking a shortcut—sometimes with company. There was the vice-principal's daughter or the policeman's son, friends or strangers. She would second-guess herself countless times, wondering what might have been, and sometimes she even had dreams of voices from beneath the water. But she always passed through.
The Ellimist had something to hide. Something to put away under the ground of a quiet, unobtrusive planet.
But one could not simply rip the earth open and then try to heal it over again. Earthquakes were sudden, devastating, and it was already so much of an imbalance to draw forth power. Change had to be miniscule, on the order of a butterfly's wings.
So. The Ellimist could not place it there itself. Someone else would have to. And that someone...it could not be a living being, an organism with a perishable body who would be tempted to seize power, to try and outwit time. Someone that would obey unquestioningly, given the chance, and not rise up to prevent what needed to be done. A robot, purged of any potential for violence.
And before that could happen, it would need to be programmed, and what's more would need to arrive in the far corner of the galaxy. It would need to be the brainchild of a technologically advanced species, one that could flourish in peace long enough to develop interstellar travel and artificial intelligence. And that would be peaceful enough to pass those same uncompromising instincts onto its creation.
It was nonsensical to speak of a species "more" or "less" evolved than any other; the void of space itself had no name for progress. What was adaptive in one environment could be a detriment in the next, the accidents of mutations outlasting any sense of teleology.
But an unseen game-player, guiding one variation to the next—that could have ideals of its own, long-forgotten ones. The process would need to start in the depths of time, so that time could only unwind forward—it had to, the evolution had to be uninterrupted by reversals of fortune. Only nudges, few and far between. Only memories of alien creatures. Loyal. Playful. Friends.
Step by step, the Pemalites emerged.
The Crayak had a task to complete. Order needed to be restored to the galaxy, where some ancient meddler had sown chaos.
Like needed to be met with like. Where the interference had been small, another wave of happenstance could cancel it out; some plant could be snuffed out or some viruses spread a hint more quickly. It was sentient species that could not be so easily swept aside. When self-awareness was coupled with transient, changing bodies, some similar force needed to be in place to blot them out.
Crayak's warriors would need weapons that attacked complex minds. Open mouths, not to appreciate tastes or engulf enemies, but to savage others with noise. And what minds of their own could these beings wield? Uniformity was the ideal, everything falling into pattern and not too far removed from what he had in mind, but strangely, the more he tried to impose consistency on a species of living individuals, the more they reacted unpredictably, time bending and exploding under his unnatural manipulations. Better to select for a hive-minded species who could share memories, while keeping them under his thumb so he could wipe away anyone at risk of spreading memories of defeat. After all, life that did not fit the pattern would only lead to more randomness across the galaxy. There would be no compunction in eliminating them.
That left the question of how they would see the world—not through his own unsparing eye, but with mindsets of their own. Minds resilient enough to go about slaughter for fun, not thinking anything through.
Which beings adapted to war the most quickly, could treat it as a silent, secret way of life, as if it was all they'd ever known? The answer seemed a faint memory, something dark and forgotten, but the Crayak knew anyway. Children.
Grown in a mechanical factory, the Howlers took form.
It hardly seemed fair, in the midst of everything else they had to do, that the quotidian responsibilities still wore her away. Was it how the galaxies' ancient forces felt, squinting at faraway Earth, that its inhabitants were that insignificant but needed to be checked in on, once every so often?
Tom's birthday, of all things, like the real Tom had anything left to celebrate. Her dad wasn't going to be in town to mark the occasion, and for whatever reason, her mom didn't think it would be the best idea to send Jordan and Sara to buy presents unaccompanied. She'd said she'd go herself, Rachel shouldn't feel obligated...but Jake was going to get a gift of his own, if only to keep up appearances, and if he was going, she didn't want to stay back.
By then the familiar stores in the mall felt like classrooms in the school—places to go and be seen, to look like teenagers, during the grueling second front of the war. It was not enough to fight; they had to hide all that they had been. Pointing out discounts or dismissing the mannequins' stances, critiquing replica jerseys or taking a break in the food court, it had all been her territory, once. And still could be again. But she viewed the hallways from a different perspective, looking down from the upper stories and tracing out where battle lines could be.
Eventually Jake found a couple wall pennants that would, Rachel informed him, look good in Tom's room, and she'd found a video game that, according to Jake, Tom hadn't tried. "Like he has time for it these days," Jake rolled his eyes. "You should come over and play sometime, though."
"Right," Rachel laughed. "When I'm not busy."
"There's time to spare. Somewhere, right?"
"There is if you rush," she said. "In a hurry?"
The shopping bag tucked tight under his arm, Jake paused—he'd been heading for a shortcut, the path that had turned out to be the longest way home. "What's the worst that could happen?" At her tired expression, he added, "Besides, I've got you to watch my back, yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, giving a brief smile, and hustled ahead.
The way through was silent—no axe murderers, no panhandlers, no aliens in sight. Jake walked fast to keep up with her, head down, the bag rustling in his wake. Rachel stepped lightly, bounding forward, and they were out of the site before either spoke.
"That—time with Visser Four. And the Drode?" Jake finally said.
Rachel stopped in her tracks. Yes, of course she remembered, the horrors they'd seen and the choices they'd made. Remembered how Jake had died, and how they'd kept going, because they had to. In some ways, it scared her as much as the atrocities—the bleak realization that they had no leader but the fight would continue, that perhaps they couldn't die in Crayak's twisted future, and that it hadn't hurt any more than it did. Was she that callous, or had time already writhed in on itself to something impossible? "What about it?"
"Ax told me...it was there. This is where Visser Four found the Time Matrix, where Elfangor had come. He must have known about it, somehow."
Rachel shivered. "Not like it did him much good."
"No. But does that mean, if Visser Four never—infested that host, that he'd never really have come here, right?"
"I think so. I mean, I don't think a lot about this kind of thing..."
"Yeah, yeah. So the Time Matrix is still here."
"Huh. Could be, yeah."
"We could dig it out, maybe. With the right morphs. Or maybe the Chee..."
"We have to be careful. Or something crazy could happen. Like with Berryman."
"Well, yeah. I guess. But—only if we really had to. If there was no other way. At least we know where it was."
"Just in case?"
"Just in case."
Of course, the Crayak played his part, waiting for the Yeerks to evolve. A few adjustments, here and there, interspersed throughout the eons. The underground tongues were that much slower, that less able to snag passing Gedds, and the latter could increase their birthrate by a fraction of a percent. A more acidic atmosphere, fewer interfering tides from the little moon called the Madra. One generation at a time, the Yeerks bred and spread out. There were no family ties to hold them together or hold them back, no connection to the generations that shriveled away before them; only orderly numbers, lining them up in ranks.
But the Ellimist was there, too, if just as distant. Tempering the Gedds' nervous systems, dulling their instincts to fight. Altering the chemical composition of the soil, so they wouldn't get territorial over food shortages. And, once, narrowing the gaps in Z-Space so that a passing Skrit Na transport would have a place to land and repair their heat shields. They never interacted with the Yeerks that they took with them, never really considered that the blind slugs might be sentient at all, but one sale led to another on a far-distant planet, and from that unwitting population, the first Yoort opened their minds to a vibrant new world and the chance for peace.
And even then, Crayak's piercing eye watched the Andalites from afar. Watched as they coagulated into cities, then grew fearful of the walls closing in and dispersed. Watched as they made war with the Kelbrid, bound up in their conceits of honor to draw boundary lines deep into space. Saw them check themselves and set limits on their population growth, afraid of overrunning their planet. Saw, and tinkered from time to time, and waited.
All the same, the Ellimist was there too, poking in and out of time to keep tabs on their evolution. Listened to them communicate—first by their simple hand-signs, then later, by thought-speech as they opened their minds to each other. As their technological sophistication grew, they mastered electronic transmissions—and, yes, even learned to store information in those marvels called books. The Electorate sprang up, leading in peacetime. And where the Pemalites had been defenseless, the Andalites' military grew strong. One by one, new cadets chose to pledge themselves to their leaders, and to their people. Even without any brothers or sisters of their own, they called each other cousins.
Rachel couldn't remember if the nightmares had been like that since the beginning of the war. There was always the war itself—her friends being torn apart in battle, Cassie, Tobias, sometimes Jake. Her family being taken, infested. Hork-Bajir troops taking over the city, Taxxons coursing through the streets. Sometimes dreams of being out of control, lashing out blindly and destroying whatever crosses her path.
But then there were the ones where things were all too clear. David, not morphing, not fighting, just calmly trying to cut a deal while she was unable to pull away. Flashes of species and planets she didn't really remember seeing before. Or maybe...maybe she had been there, but she'd always come back—so far back it was like she never really left at all.
Then there was the Drode. She didn't have to be dreaming, she supposed—if he wanted to burst in on her unannounced, she didn't get the feeling either Crayak or the Ellimist would stop him. Why they let him run loose on Earth when they can't or won't interfere themselves, she'd never asked. Or maybe it wasn't her home at all, just a place and time of his choosing.
She could always get back, she reminded herself. She'd made sure of that.
"What do you want?" she muttered. Her own, human voice. Other enemies were easier to confront behind a battle morph, but with the Drode, it felt like she needs to hold on to her identity just that much more.
"I just want to talk. You know you've always been my favorite."
"Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot."
"Kill Jake for me. For us."
"You really have it in for him, don't you? What do creeps like you usually try, dropping a piano on his head or something?"
"I can do better. End the war. Keep the planet safe, keep you from unraveling."
She couldn't tell whether it was a reference to timelines or her own tolerance for bloodshed, but she shivered anyway. "Not happening, so get out."
The Drode hesitated. "The war doesn't need you, you know. Either of you."
"Oh? Do you have better tactical plans? Maybe write them down." She was almost tempted to tell him to drop in on one of the others and give them advice, but she was afraid he'd take her at her word.
"The Visser's son or the prince's? His brother? Oh, they come in useful, I suppose. And you should ask your friend Cassie how much she remembers. You and your cousin are a bit more, shall we say, expendable."
Rachel blinked. She'd never taken Cassie along, neither had Jake—there was a time and a place for restraining oneself, but not every time or every place. What could Cassie know of other timelines? "I don't believe you. You can't do it yourself, can you? And neither can your boss, or you wouldn't be harassing me."
The Drode paced. "Believe me, Rachel, we admire you in our fashion, but your noncompliance won't end well for you."
"No. I don't think you know the future, either."
"Admittedly. But I know the past."
"And that has what to do with anything?"
"Just remember, no matter how desperate the stakes are, our offer is always open. You know how to call upon us. Until next time, I suppose."
"You can't just—" she started, but the Drode was already gone, and the room felt—if disturbingly quiet—still like the real world.
"Hear me out," said Jake, gaze intent.
It was hard to see, except by the light of the machine itself, below the platform they'd dug out. He hadn't considered the difficulty of finding a place to hide the thing—without telling the Chee or Ax about it, it was hard to find a safe place to put it out of sight of their families or any other trespassers. Fortunately, the Yeerks had never noticed their energy flareups—or if they had, by the time they got there to examine, Jake or Rachel would have been long gone.
"I'm listening," Rachel said, still keeping her eyes peeled in case they were being watched.
"We go to the future. Could be either of us, or both together. We find out what happens, how the war ends. Morph something if we need to so we don't draw attention. If we like what we see—great, don't need to look into any more details, just come back. If not, we see what went wrong, then we know what to avoid."
"Won't you just go back if you mess up anyway? What's the point of skipping ahead?"
"Who knows how many times through we'd need, to do it right? Much better to only go once."
Rachel paused, thinking it over. "So we go once. We don't like how it turns out, so we do something different. Now we've changed the...the near future, so things will be different. Doesn't mean it'll be any better, just different. We might still have to go back."
"Yeah. All right, we might, but it's still worth a shot, isn't it?"
"I don't know. I feel like using the Time Matrix as much as we do...it changes us."
"Well, that's kind of the point, right? We have to change something."
"Doesn't it affect you? Not being able to keep everything straight, not remembering..."
"I'm dealing with it just fine. If you don't want to come, you don't have to." "No, if you're going, I'll come with you. I don't—"
"You don't what? Don't trust me?" He laughed. "I'll be fine."
"Will it be enough, to know that we win? Or—" She broke off. Of course if he were to see that they'd lost someone along the way, that Cassie or Marco or Ax or Tobias had fallen in battle, he'd be more than justified in making sure to prevent that when he got back. No one would expect anything less of him. What was she going to tell him, that he could play cavalier with her life? Was it just because they were used to going back and fixing time, or because she was afraid of what she'd turn into after the war, without an outlet for the violence welling up in her week after week?
"That's never been enough," he said. "Win, but do it the right way, yeah? Not at the cost of ourselves."
"But you'd go back anyway, so what's the difference?"
"What's the difference if I go now, just to see?" he said, but even as he was speaking, knelt down on the platform, arm outstretched.
Impulsively, Rachel reached out, and both touched the Time Matrix at the same moment.
It was one thing to feel it oneself, and see the world splinter out in a wave of history. There was the construction site, there were bits and pieces of rubble that had fallen into place through the years, and there simultaneously was the forest that had once stood there, the shadows of the trees flashing into view in a thousand bewildering colors. It was another to feel someone else's mind, fighting your own for control. Rachel could see Jake's past spill away behind him—saw all their childhood competitions, saw him look up to Tom. There was his memory of walking through the construction site, of being infested in the hospital, of kissing Cassie on the Iskoort homeworld. And there were his memories of the timelines that had never been—the tiger morph crawling through deep jungle, a storm on the river centuries in the past, and Cassie, falling.
His eyes burned in fear, and she in turn must have been just as much a specter, her past exposed and her present laid bare in slices, long hair shining as she tried to direct the Time Matrix. Anywhere but the future, she willed it, somewhere he wasn't going—
Then he was gone, him and the Time Matrix with him. The only reason she was convinced that he hadn't just managed to seize control and depart without her was the daylight filling the construction site; it looked just as decrepit as when she had left it, but it was no longer night. So she'd gone somewhere, or somewhen.
"Jake?" she called. No response, not even from anyone else. The silence was enough to let her feel safe morphing eagle, and from there, taking off into what she thought was the morning.
From above, the city came into view. There were their homes, spread about where they should have been; there, on the other side of the construction site, was the mall. And beyond the mall, there was...nothing. A blank wall rose up into a further blankness beyond her, as colorless and unyielding as the Time Matrix itself.
She turned around, racing back through the sky, knowing there would be no wind to set a path. ‹Hello?› she called. ‹Is anyone here?›
All of a sudden, she noticed some disturbance in the air—not quite a wind, but something swirling, like a storm in the strange place beyond weather and perhaps beyond history. ‹Jake?› she repeated. ‹Where are you?›
Drawn closer, she felt her talons harden, the claws spreading out as if growing somehow, and the feathers grew denser on her wings. The vortex was churning, a wave of noise and images flashing by as she dove closer, but after so many glimpses back in time they hardly seemed to register on the eagle's vision as she plunged through.
There was the Time Matrix, sitting in the void. Rachel demorphed, and looked down at her human body—it was still her, of course, or at least her DNA. But her nails had grown long, peeling out of her morphing suit, and her hair fell below her, dragging on the ground.
She could take it and leave, escape whatever sort of trap she'd gotten herself into and hope for the present day. No, maybe the day before, persuade Jake not to start. That would be good enough. If she had to leave without Jake.
Instead, she morphed eagle again, the bird's body still distorted somehow. ‹Can you hear me?› she repeated—willing to face the vortex again, but deciding she'd just as soon not chance it.
Where was Ax, to tell her how long she had in morph? Time felt wrong, even if she clearly hadn't been trapped no matter how "long" she'd spent as an eagle. Where were Marco or Cassie or Tobias—could she fight on her own, without her friends to guide her? She didn't want to wait for the answer.
Then, after however long, an interrupted voice. Deeper than she'd expected, somehow. ‹—anybody—I don't mean any—please come out—›
‹Jake? It's me, Rachel! Head for the vortex?›
‹What?›
‹The, the storm, it's in the middle of...of this, I think.›
‹I don't—›
‹Aren't you in bird morph? Just fly to the middle, push through. Ignore all the...the junk in the way.›
‹Hold on! Please. I won't—wait—stay in—›
He broke off, and she tensed. She could feel the eagle's brain, ready to fly in clean air, to escape whatever impossible maze it had been tangled up in, but she held it back. It was not Earth, no matter how much it looked so. But they'd escaped from more crueler illusions, and subtler.
‹I'm coming,› Jake said, ‹finally, I'm in bird morph, yeah. The tornado thing?›
‹That's it.›
‹Okay. Hang tight.›
She fluttered around the vortex once, twice, then flew down and demorphed. Once again, while she was confident there was no risk of being trapped, her human body felt much too old for reality.
There was a temptation just to reach out and touch the Time Matrix—not even to take it anywhere, just to see, to let her memories take shape within the vortex, to pass the time. She held back, perking her hears to catch any hint of thought-speech on the nonexistent breeze, and waiting...
Then Jake emerged, the peregrine falcon bursting through the vortex. He froze up at the sight of her, then demorphed himself. He, too, looked older than he should have been, claw-like nails stretching out into space, an unkempt beard topping it off.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I thought you—"
"You thought I took you here?"
"Of course not! I mean, this isn't even a place."
"Did you..."
"You know I wouldn't," she snapped. Jake looked up at her, hesitant, and she almost added something about how she barely knew how the Time Matrix worked, how could she have taken them wherever they'd gone. But something held her back, stopped her from selling herself short.
"You were right," he finally said. "It's changed us. This."
"What was your first clue? My nails?"
"Are we going back or what?"
"You think we can?"
"Don't give me that. Come on."
She touched the orb again, being sure to wait as the images blurred into view all around them—the timelines streaming out to join with the flickering shadows that made up the vortex itself. A moment later, Jake touched it as well.
"And don't fight me this time," she added, "you know you can't win."
The light vanished, the vortex winked out, and then they were back on the platform—the Time Matrix tucked away under the construction site, like it had always been. While they were still human, their bodies were still distorted, aged in the warping of time.
"Now what?" Rachel asked. Unlike Jake, her voice struck her as much the same; in the nighttime they'd returned to, she could almost have passed for herself, shrouded by distance. Almost.
"Morph?" he half-whispered, half-rasped. "And see if we can morph back? To..."
"Ourselves. Yeah," she said, concentrating on the eagle's DNA. Then she held up; what if the vortex had affected that morph in the same way? Instead, she drew on her memories of Fluffer McKitty, when missions had been direct and distances measured in blocks. She shrunk down, letting her tail shoot out behind her. Her fur was short enough to be unremarkable, and the cat's brain wanted to bounce up on some of the rubble—instead of the timelines marking where detritus had slid down over the years, it just saw an obstacle course full of challenges to play with.
‹Good kitty,› teased Jake. He'd become the tiger, and Rachel wondered whether he'd taken the same shape in the other, empty time they'd just seen. Had that been him at the edge of thought-speech distance, walking around, seeing no one but ready to fight nonetheless?
‹So far, so good. Back?›
‹I guess.›
‹Okay. I...I feel like we need to concentrate, more than usual. On our own bodies, the right...age?›
‹Couldn't hurt.›
Steeling herself, she began to morph back. What did it mean, to be a teenager at that place and time? It wasn't just the details of her body she needed to remember—the cut of her hair, the height of her muscles—but more and more, she felt herself defined by her past, the battles fought and friends protected as marks on a timeline that blinked into view every time she touched the Time Matrix. Left to demorph on her own, she wasn't sure what she'd turn back into—someone older, someone with more or different memories? Focusing, almost wishing she could reach for the Time Matrix to see the timelines again to ground her and another part afraid to ever use it again, she finished morphing back, only to find that her human feet—while their nails had returned to acceptable size—were not pleased at standing amid the rubble the cat had enjoyed. Hurriedly, she walked back to the platform, Jake approaching as well.
"Maybe we should stop," she said. "Coming here, I mean. Keep fighting like we always have, just—be careful."
"Stop now? Maybe we're just getting used to it."
"Used to?"
"We can do more, I think. If we control the way we morph, like this...I think there's more we can do with the Time Matrix. Places like wherever we just went, if we could figure out how it was, how to take advantage of it..."
"Without growing talons?"
"Yeah."
"Together," she said, "or not at all."
"I guess that's a no to seeing how the future pans out?"
She sighed. "Maybe later."
"And if it's already too late?"
"It can't be," she said. It couldn't be too late to change the war—there were more battles still to fight. That much, she knew.
Menderash had proven himself to be a dutiful ally, if a quiet one. Once a deferential Andalite, then a loyal human, driven as much out of friendship for his long-lost Prince as a deeper sense of survivor's guilt, that might not fade no matter how far he journeyed into the future, losing himself in maximum-burn timejumps. It was that emptiness Jake needed to count on—exploit, even, if it came to that. There would be Kelbrid to fight and kill, to get where they were going. Perhaps there would even be Kelbrid to work with, who would sell out their fellows for the right price. Species could be no barrier—anyone who would fight alongside him would suit, for the time being. Against enemies as scheming and intractable as they faced, who wove their way in and out of time and space with no concern, he had to be strong.
Yet in spite of how useful it was to have diverse species on his side, something about the pleading Jake was faced with gave him pause. "Oh please you can't go," the long-tailed alien whined, translated by the computer in what really didn't do justice to its grating accent. "I'll be all alone, you see!"
"We're going into danger," Jake explained. "I don't know if we can get your people back."
He could, probably. There would be a cost, of course—jump that far back in time to intercept any other ships coming to the planet, and the other ships would exact a toll of their own, whether or not they had their own incarnation of the Time Matrix with them. All the same, better not to inspire false hope.
"I like danger! And I don't expect the impossible. They'll turn up, or they won't, it's the same in the end."
"You like danger. But you run and hide?"
"Just me against a highfalutin spaceship like that, oh, yes I do, I'm not silly! But a fight on my own terms, well, then I'll be at your service! Vengeance! I know how to do vengeance. And I bet you're smart enough not to go picking fights you can't win."
Jake rolled his eyes. "I don't need your praise."
"Of course you don't. But I can be nice anyway, don't you know? Besides, what are you going to do, leave me here?"
It was a good point, he supposed. One more reminder of a lost planet could hardly hurt him, and an ally who wanted to fight—he'd known more violent people. The alien was expendable, in the worst case. Perhaps someone who'd put up with the more bizarre side effects of time travel, in the best. "Will you be able to live on the spaceship? Can you breathe the air, do you have enough to eat?"
"Yes indeed! I'm plenty adaptive and all that. Those Andalites are right about the human food, I should say; delicious! Even if they're a wee bit stuffy for my tastes. The Andalites, I mean. Not the human food. Well, the space-dried stuffing was adequate, but I prefer to eat safely-dead herbivores given the chance. Ah well, can't complain in this climate, don't you think?"
"Welcome aboard, then," said Jake, trying to sound excited.
"It's an honor! Who'd ever think it, little old me fighting alongside Big Jake here?"
Something sounded familiar, but blurred under the weight of his many changes, many trips in and out of time. Was it the way Ax had sucked up to him, so long ago?
"Jake the Yeerk Killer! Hero of Earth, and properly respected on many other planets besides! This will be so much fun!"
Maybe it was for the best if his family name had been forgotten, those he'd shared with it distant memories at best. "And what do I call you?"
The computer's attempts at translation came, as always, a few moments behind the high-pitched whine. "Wildcard."
In the end, it's just a battle at the Yeerk pool like all the others that have come before. And still might, since. She can't see the future, after all. Maybe nobody can.
But it started much the same as the others; they got word of a new plan, snuck in to sabotage it, succeeded, held back the Yeerks' advances one more day...and then had to fight their way out of a pool surrounded by enemies. The same as usual, until it isn't.
Ax slashed open some of the cages in the middle of the chaos, and hosts started escaping; as a few Taxxon troops charged after them, Cassie drew back to fend them off, pummelling wave after wave of advances. Tobias, in Hork-Bajir morph, shouted nonsensical directions, hoping to lead the Controllers into fighting each other, but they soon grew wise and gave chase. Marco seized a Dracon beam from a downed human-Controller and took aim at Visser Three's head, or put better, one of the heads of one of his enormous morphs. Desperate, but not impossible in and of itself.
Except for whatever reason, there are too many to overcome. Jake's been separated from the others, and the order to retreat comes as just one more of the overlapping thought-speech cries—there's no room for strategies or farewells. Across the cavern, Rachel can see the others slowly making their way out, shielding a handful of freed hosts even as Visser Three terrorizes them with another attacking spurt. Still in bear morph, she slashes at an oncoming Hork-Bajir, buffeting it aside.
Jake is the tiger, wounded in a couple places, but still snarling as he makes for the nearest Taxxon. They're dedicated soldiers, not distracted by their dead and dying counterparts, but still fixated on his blood.
Can't let him be infested, she tells herself; if the Yeerks capture one of them with their morphing powers, the others would soon follow. That's the way it always has been. Can she go back, with the Time Matrix? The other Animorphs don't really know how they'd been using it. And if they take Jake first...she just has to fight her way out of the pool, alone, without getting captured herself, which doesn't seem particularly possible either.
Jake staggers, again, reeling from a blow to the side. There's no one coming to their rescue—no Chee to create a diversion, no free Hork-Bajir to fight alongside them, and seemingly, no Ellimists to pull any strings. Given enough time, one battle among many will, convincingly, go the Yeerks' way. They've lost.
And for once, the bleakness in Jake's voice seems to make it clear he doesn't think it'll be possible to turn back the clock on this battle. Even if he's resigning himself to captivity, at least he thinks she can make it out alive. ‹Rachel,› he says, ‹go.›
No chance.
It had nothing to do with time travel, she feels, or the morphing technology or any other military secrets. It's just her and her cousin, and there's no way she's leaving him to the Yeerks. For all they've shared, the same love of excitement and the thrill of the fight, she'll stay just a little longer.
Plunging back into the fray, she remembers the Drode's offer. Of course, there's no way she'll take anything the Crayak gives her. She knows it as well as Jake does—and if the Crayak and the Ellimist are spectators in the underground battle, they know it too. If not...
If not, maybe the Drode has known all along, somehow, what the stakes of the war on Earth really ae. It's not enough for a handful of humans or Andalites or hawks to fend off the Yeerks against staggering odds; they've proven that, time and again. But as long as Rachel and Jake have been present to bind their friends together, there have been other forces beholding them, warped and changed by their meddlings with time—the calloused eye, the dreaming jester—and their secret war, back and forth, forward and back, threatens to rip the galaxy apart. There's no way for them to fight each other as equals. The only way to end their fight is long before it begins, or well after.
Jake's eyes meet hers in silent acknowledgment, too amazed for spoken gratitude. Rachel holds the gaze for a moment, then, howling her battle-cry to the planet above, steps forward and snaps his neck.
The Taxxons barely flinch before they came for her, but—so much the better—they're too frenzied to leave anyone alive. She can almost see, as if made visible by a hidden light, untold impossible timelines collapsing into the true world, a world where her friends still live, to carry on a war with futures unknown. There will be many species battling for control of the cosmos, of course, but those will be the simple battles she has lived and died for, of beings who rise and fall in the course of history, one after the next. From all the other deep-seeded machinations—and perhaps one day too from the throes of infestation—the galaxy will be free.