Imagine a picture of Santorelli turning into a rhino.
57: The WeaponAUTHOR'S NOTE
Here it is: the first EVER book staring Santorelli. Be warned, I was mostly playing around with this. It's a little loopy. Especially once the time travel starts.
This book isn't for everyone, since I doubt most of you care what happened in 2nd century China.
But I'll warn you that it is important for the rest of the series. The next book won't make much sense unless you read this one first.
I'll also warn you that this one is a little more adult than the others. It's got some pretty heavy stuff. If, for some reason, you're a kid who likes Animorphs but can't stand deep thought or violence (I don't know how you can like the Animorphs but not stand deep thought or violence) you might want to skip Chapter 16.
Enjoy or go to hell.
If I owned the Animorphs, you wouldn't be reading this for free.
And if I owned Streetlight Manifesto, I'd have better things to do than write fan fiction.
Chapter 1
My name is Santorelli. I'm not your typical Animorph, if there is such a thing. I wasn't one of the originals, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Ax, Tobias, and Rachel. I'm a new recruit, a greenhorn. But that isn't even half the story.
To begin with, I'm old enough to be the father of any one of them. Funny thing is, there are times when they seem a lot older than me. Times when they make me feel like a kid playing at war.
Then there's my name. The other Animorphs won't tell you their last names. But I grew up in a military family. I'm not used to hearing my first name. So I go by Santorelli.
Wondering what that business about new recruits is all about? Here's the short version. Three years after the first war with the Yeerks ended, Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, Animorph, was captured by the Yeerks. Long story short, they made him a Controller and now they're back to conquer Earth.
The Yeerks have new allies this time. A powerful being called the One. A race of superpredators called the Kelbrid. All the power and memories of Prince Aximili. And they've got the mind of the Yeerk leader Esplin 9466, the Yeerk who tried to take over Earth the first time.
I used to work at an air force base called Zone 91. The Yeerks wanted to break in and find out what was inside there. They infested me as part of the plan.
For the next two years, I was a Controller. I was a top army sniper, so they sent me to work as a bodyguard for a powerful Yeerk, Visser Six.
When the Yeerks were defeated, I was freed. I wanted to make up for the time I spent protecting Yeerks. I know I didn't have any control over my actions, but I still wanted to do something.
Then the International Invasion Investigation Force was created. It was a global network of agents, both public and secret, who monitored activities around the world to make sure nothing like the Yeerk invasion happened again. I signed up on day one.
I worked for Tri-I, as we call it, for two years. Then the Andalites traded mankind some morphing technology for some cinnamon buns. Jake, the leader of the Animorphs, was offering training courses for government operatives. I had some pull with the higher-ups at Tri-I and managed to get myself in.
Then Prince Aximili got kidnapped. Jake asked for volunteers for a hypothetical mission. Again, I signed up on day one. The next thing I knew, I was on a ship hurtling into a foreign part of the galaxy on a desperate rescue mission.
Then we found out that the whole thing was a trick by the One to get the attention of something called Crayak. I'm still not sure what that's all about except that Crayak is very powerful and seems to be on our side.
We found out that the One was helping the Yeerks to invade again. So we're doing what we can to put a stop to it before it gets too out of hand.
Who are we? First, there's Jake, our leader. There's Marco, a smart guy who's good at planning and Jake's best friend. And there's Cassie, an ecology nut and a pacifist who wants nothing more than to be rid of this war and the Yeerks forever. Those three are all originals.
Tobias is one of the originals, too. He's probably my closest friend among the Animorphs. He's been through more in his life than I can even imagine. He's stared into the eyes of Lucifer and spat in the devil's face. All because of stuff the Yeerks did to him. Too bad for them, Tobias isn't letting that go. He's out for blood and I'm in for helping him.
The last member other than me is another new recruit. Her name's Jeanne. She's a sweet girl, even if she is French. She was recruited from Jake's program, too. Sometimes, I feel like the two of us have something to prove to the rest of them. The other four are living legends. We've got to do our part.
That was why Jeanne and I were up at 0400 hours. One of the biggest problems we faced with this new invasion was that we didn't know where it was happening. We had a plan to find out.
We stole a list of suspected voluntary hosts from Tri-I's world headquarters. I memorized the list and transferred it to Marco's computer. Now Jeanne and I were busy Googling them, trying to find out if a bunch of them were moving to the same place.
Know what? It turns out they were. "Another one relocating to that city," Jeanne said to me as she highlighted another name on the list.
I checked out my guy. He was clean. The last guy on the list. I turned to Jeanne. "He's clean. That's the last of them. How many do we have going to the same place?"
"One hundred and twenty seven."
"Out of how many?"
"Four hundred."
I nodded my head. "I'd call that pretty conclusive."
"Really? It's less than half."
"Yeah. But do you really think everyone on that list is actually a voluntary? Not a chance. I'd put the real list at about two hundred. And some of the voluntaries probably didn't agree to go, not now that they really know what's going on. I'd say one twenty seven is a large percentage. More than I'd have guessed, anyway."
"So you think we have the location?" she asked.
I nodded. "Yeah."
"So we should tell the others."
Again, I said, "Yeah. But not now. Don't wake up Marco. You know how he gets." In the morning, we'd give him the biggest news update since he wandered through an abandoned construction site and stumbled across Prince Elfangor. In the morning.
Chapter 2
I took the dropshaft to my room. Marco's the richest guy I know. He's got a mansion with five floors above ground. I don't know how deep the thing goes.
In the hall, I heard a window open. It was unusual for someone to be walking about at night. I dropped into combat stance and pulled out my Shredder. I thumbed the setting to stun. I could switch it to kill in the time it would take an Andalite to twitch his tail. Which is faster than you could hope to see.
A dark figure climbed through the window. Then he turned to the wall and keyed in a code to shut off the alarms. He turned and I could see his face in the moonlight. Tobias.
I straightened up and put my Shredder away. "Why up so late?" I asked.
He looked at me. His eyes looked even darker than usual in the moonlight. "I was visiting my father."
I nodded and turned to leave. Tobias's father had been dead for years, but I didn't think anything of it. I could relate. My father had been murdered by the Yeerks just like Tobias's was and I spoke to mine every day.
What he said next surprised me. "Where are the Yeerks attacking?"
"How do you know I figured it out?"
"Because I know you."
I started to leave but then I turned and took a look at him. Something was bothering him. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"What's right?" he answered. "But I don't mean that in some abstract, philosophical term. I mean, what's the right thing to do?"
"Depends on the situation," I told him.
"Let's say I had the power to save someone's life. That I could save millions of lives. Should I do it?"
"Even if it costs you your own." I could talk to Tobias like this. He wasn't one of those people whose feelings you had to consider. I could tell him what I thought and not worry about offending him.
"The thing is, to do it, I'd have to use power that no mortal should ever have."
"Is this a hypothetical question or do you really have this power?" I asked. In this kind of universe, I never knew what someone was capable of.
He turned to the window. "There is a device, a weapon, called the Time Matrix. It can move someone through time and space. I know where it is. I could get to it tonight.
"I could stop the Yeerks from ever coming here. I could stop the Yeerks from ever coming to power in the first place. Maybe I could even go all the way back to the beginning and stop the One."
I shook my head. "I doubt the One would be vulnerable to something like that. But that's a tall order, Tobias. You could do a lot of good. Or you could screw everything up."
"Yeah. Someone used the Time Matrix once. Visser Four. We chased him through time and stopped him. Thing was, he made some stuff better. In his reality, the holocaust never happened. I killed Hitler."
He sat down and leaned against the wall. "I wouldn't stop the Yeerks from ever coming here. That would be going too far, changing too much. But I could go back and save my father. I could bring Rachel back, too.
"I've thought about it every day since the end of the first war. I could save everyone I cared about. I know there are some powers no one was ever meant to have. But how can I sit by when I could save them?"
I sat next to him. "It seems to me that what's been done has already been done and should stay that way. It isn't our place to change the past any more than it's that of the One or Crayak. God doesn't change the past, what right do we have?"
He looked at me. "God? With all you've seen, you believe in him?"
I shrugged. "Sure. Why wouldn't I?"
"I've seen only a fraction of the power of creatures like the Ellimist and Crayak. Enough to say that they can do all the things we've attributed to God."
"That's one way of looking at it. The way I see it, though, I've seen creatures with the same kind of power I'd say was that of God himself. If beings like them are out there, why can't God be, too?"
"Then why does God let them run around doing what they're doing?"
"The same reason you don't use the Time Matrix. No one, man or God, should play with the universe like that. Then again, who's to say He doesn't? He could change everything all the time. We just don't remember what the universe was like before this."
He stood up. "Man, it's too early for this. I'm going to get some sleep. See you in the morning."
Chapter 3
Tobias saw me long before that. I was woken up by him shaking me by the shoulders. I glanced at the clock. I had gone to sleep only half an hour ago.
I rolled out of bed and grabbed my Shredder. Tobias isn't the kind of guy to wake you without a good reason. "What's up?" I whispered.
"The Time Matrix."
I rose. "What about it?"
"I just realized that Ax knows where it is, just like I do. And if he knows "
"Esplin knows too. So what do we do?" I asked.
"It's only a matter of time before Esplin realizes that he could have that power. Only a matter of time before he goes after it. We have to beat him to it and move the Time Matrix."
I was awake in an instant. He took off down the hall to find Marco. I went the other way, to wake up Jeanne.
I practically kicked in her door. No time to worry about being polite. Esplin probably hadn't gone after the Time Matrix yet, but speed was the best policy.
"What is wrong?" she asked, bolting upright and grabbing a Shredder out from under her pillow.
"Tobias just remembered a superweapon the Yeerks could reach out and grab at any moment. We're going after it. Now."
She nodded and came with me. Tobias was dragging a bleary-eyed Marco into the dropshaft. They shot up, out onto the roof. I dashed in after them with Jeanne.
We reached the roof and almost bumped into the two of them. "To the basement," Marco told me. "Lowest level."
I shrugged but did as he said. We were all assembled in the lowest level of Marco's mansion, waiting to see just why we were there.
Marco dashed into the darkness. I turned to Tobias. "Why are we here? We have to get Jake and Cassie and flying would be the best way."
"That's why I went to the roof," he said. "But Marco has a better idea."
Suddenly, floodlights snapped on. Marco was leaning out the side of a ship. A ship I recognized. It was a little transport cruiser from the one we had used to make the journey to Kelbrid space. I guess Marco managed to talk someone into letting him keep it.
We jogged to him. "I thought the ship was lost when Crayak yanked you back to Earth," Tobias said to him as we boarded.
"I found this down here a couple days ago. Thought it might come in handy," Marco answered.
Jeanne shook her head. "This will attract a lot of attention. Flying would be much more covert."
"Yeah, but a bunch of birds can't move the Time Matrix," Marco explained. "The thing is a big sphere, about six feet across. I'm not sure how much it weighs, but I'm not going to touch that thing. That's how you work it."
We went to the controls. And just sort of stared at them. Menderash, a former Andalite, had been our pilot the first time around. None of us really knew what we were doing here.
I turned to Tobias. "You spent some time on the Andalite homeworld. They show you how to fly a ship?"
He shook his head. "Yeah, but Andalite ships aren't anything like this one. Too many buttons, moving parts. Andalites use a simple thought interface with only a few levers. All have emergency controls under the dashboards, but I never learned how to work those. Only old pilots really know how to do it anyway."
Jeanne sat down at the controls. She searched for something. Finally, she pushed a button. The engines roared to life. She pulled a lever and the ship stated to lift off. She grabbed some sort of shaft and twisted it. The ship turned until it was facing a very large shaft kind of like Marco's dropshaft.
"What is that?" Tobias asked.
"That?" Marco answered. "That's how I get these babies in here. From the outside, it looks like a water tower. Just fly this thing straight up. The top will retract and we'll be home free. Assuming you can work the cloaking device, of course."
Jeanne looked at the controls for a moment. Finally, she selected a button. "It is working," she assured us. Then she lifted off. A moment later, we were soaring the night sky.
"Let's go to Jake's first," Marco decided.
Tobias shook his head. "Going to Jake's and then Cassie's will waste a lot of time. How about you go and get Jake while we fly to Cassie? We can meet up back here as soon as the two of you can get here."
Marco thought about it. "This ship can get you there and back in a couple of minutes. That's probably how long it would take me to get to Jake. Alright, go for it. See you in five, guys."
Chapter 4
We landed the ship in Cassie's yard. Since he knew her better than either of us did, Tobias got out to get Cassie. I stayed with Jeanne in the ship.
I took a seat. "So," I began in a conversational tone, "how do you know how to fly this thing?"
She shrugged. "Most of the controls are redundant, Yeerk inefficiencies. It isn't that hard."
"But not so easy that just anyone could grab a seat and take the ship," I told her. "You learned to fly somewhere. Why not tell me?"
"Why should I?"
"Because if you do, I'll tell you a neat little secret."
"You must go first."
"Okay. I'm married."
She raised an eyebrow. "And why have you not mentioned this? Why do we not know about your wife? Where is she?"
"She was another host, another of Visser Six's bodyguards. A lot of times, it was just the two of us. Things just sort of happened. One day, we just decided we were married. There were no priests out in Yeerk space. None that we met, at least."
"What happened to her?"
"Visser Six was very displeased when our Yeerks told him what we had decided. She got a slow death. I got to watch her die."
"Why was she killed and not you?" Jeanne asked. I could tell she didn't completely buy my story.
"I was more useful than she was. He had to punish someone, so he made the choice that would cost him less," I told her.
She was silent for a while. Finally, she answered, "I was an assassin."
"For the French?"
"For the Council of Thirteen."
I whistled. The Council of Thirteen was the head of the old Yeerk Empire. They were led by an Emperor and twelve other guys. No one knew who the Emperor was, so it would be really hard for someone to assassinate him.
"So the Council trained you to kill their enemies."
"No. The former Visser One trained me to kill the Council of Thirteen," she told me. "I was supposed to begin taking out her opposition. But then the Council began to grow suspicious of her actions. She had my memory wiped for her own protection. Then, she released me onto Earth."
"So how do you remember any of this?"
"Things have been coming back to me since I re-learned about the Yeerk invasion. Mostly, I recall bits about my family. I've a few relatives, a couple aunts and uncles, but no one closer. Ever since this war started, I've started to remember some of my training."
I nodded. "Who else knows?"
"Jake. You. A few people in the French and American governments. Cassie."
"You told Cassie?"
Jeanne nodded. "She has this way of speaking to you that makes you want to tell her everything. Like she won't be ashamed of anything I tell her. Like she couldn't care less if I was an assassin or a ballerina."
"I knew there had to be a reason Jake picked you. Must have been a rough life, working for Visser One. I never heard anything but scary stuff about her."
"I don't remember much of it."
"That's probably for the best. Do you remember much about her?"
Jeanne shrugged. "I recall her more than I do most others. She was a smart Yeerk, and cold and ruthless. She thought she respected her enemies, but there were many times when she didn't."
"That was a mistake," I noted. "Visser Three was the one who brought her down."
"She hated him more than anyone in the galaxy. She often thought about having me kill him just for the fun of watching him die."
"I think a lot of people have underestimated Esplin," I said to her. "Jake told me once that he was a fool. But he still rose to be one of the highest-ranking Yeerks. And he killed a lot of better men."
I heard a noise behind me. Tobias and Cassie entered the ship. She looked around. "This is one of the weirdest wake up calls I've ever had," she commented. Then she sat down, perfectly content to let us handle things.
"Let's roll out," Tobias said. "The longer we wait, the sooner Esplin realizes he could go after the Time Matrix."
"The Time Matrix." Cassie shuddered. "That didn't go too well last time."
Tobias almost smiled. "Don't worry. This time, we have the power. If anyone screws up history this time, it'll be us."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
Chapter 5
"The Time Matrix," Jake moaned. We were in the ship, flying to the place the others said the Time Matrix was located. "The last time we messed with that thing, I died."
"Technically," Marco reminded him, "that never happened."
"That whole episode will haunt me forever," Cassie said, shivering. "All the death we saw. It seems like human history is nothing but death and murder."
Tobias shook his head. "Only the parts worth altering. I mean, why would Visser Four have wanted to mess with the Renaissance?"
"He wanted to kill Shakespeare," Marco reminded him.
Tobias nodded. "Yeah, but that was personal. That was to shut his host up. Plus, I don't think Shakespeare counts as the Renaissance."
"Agincourt," Jake muttered. "That was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was inhuman, seeing those knights cut each other down."
"You're wrong," Tobias disagreed. "That was the most human thing I've ever seen."
"Which is kind of disturbing," Marco stated.
"It was terrible to see those men die," Cassie murmured. "To watch them get run through with swords and arrows? It was horrible."
"Better than any of the other wars we visited," Tobias said to her. "So much better to be able to look into the eye of the one who takes your life than to be killed in the dark before you can react."
Marco smiled at him. "That's a grim way of looking at it."
"I'd say crossing the Delaware River with George Washington was the worst," Jake said to them.
"That's only because you got killed there," Marco pointed out.
"I'd still say it's a good reason to hate the place."
"D Day gets my vote," Cassie said. "Most of them were our age. If we had been born a generation earlier, any one of them could have been one of you."
"Not me; I'd have been in Canada the moment the war started." Marco, of course.
"We're coming up on the site," Jeanne alerted us.
The place we were going to used to be a construction site. There were a bunch of half-finished buildings and stuff. But that was years ago. Now, it was the most famous monument in the galaxy.
It was here that the Animorphs first learned of the Yeerk invasion. It was where they were given the power to morph and told to fight the Yeerks. It was also where Prince Elfangor, the Andalite who told them about everything, was killed by Visser Three, now known as Esplin. Elfangor was Tobias's father.
I noticed immediately that something was wrong. "The lights are out," I said. The other nodded. There were always floodlights lighting up a giant statue in the center of the monument. The statue showed five kids holding onto a cube that an Andalite held in one hand. Now, the statue was dark.
Most people wouldn't have been more than curious about that. We were in full-blown paranoia mode. I gripped my Shredder. "Yeerks?" I asked.
Jake shook his head. "We can't tell form up here. Jeanne, set us down as near as you can get and as close as you can get. If the Yeerks are here, we want to surprise them, but we also need to get down there as quickly as possible.
She put the ship down in a patch of shadow near the dark statue. Right next to a Yeerk Bug fighter. Jake looked at the thing. "Not good," he said.
We hustled along the paved paths that led to the statue. We passed several men in security guard uniforms lying on the ground. No time to stop to check for vitals. Or even to harvest a weapon. My Shredder would have to do.
We slowed when we reached the statue. There was a door in the base. It led to a patch of bare earth under the statue. The spot where Elfangor had died. The door was usually locked and sealed by several systems. Right now, it was thrown wide open.
We dashed inside. I guess the Time Matrix was hidden beneath the statue. Jake signaled for us to slow as we neared the end o the short hallway behind the door. It came to an abrupt corner. It should have been too dark to see but something was giving off light.
It was just like Marco had described it. A sphere about six feet in diameter. It was white and shimmering. That was where the light came from.
It silhouetted an Andalite. He stood before it with his tail raised and his arms outstretched. I looked at Jake. "Take the shot?" I barely whispered. He glanced at Tobias. Then he nodded.
I raised my Shredder. I was one of the best snipers Earth has ever seen. I can fire a Shredder in either hand with near perfect accuracy. I wouldn't miss. But just to be safe, I aimed at the center of his torso rather than his head. No reason to get overambitious.
My thumb turned the dial to the highest kill setting. I would get only one shot and I wouldn't blow it. I felt bad that I had to kill Prince Aximili, but I knew he'd rather be dead than a Controller. I fired.
I don't know if he heard the blast or if he saw it with one of his stalk eyes, but Esplin knew it was coming. A Shredder fires in the blink of an eye. Faster. No time to dodge, no time to run. But there was time for him to bring his Andalite tail between his body and the beam. The tailblade flashed and disappeared.
I opened fire again. But by this time, he was able to get out of the way. Shapes surged out of the darkness. Only then did I realize Esplin wasn't alone.
