Alternamorphs: Chapter One

We've got a new guy in school. His name's Parker. He says he's originally from Gotham, and that he was in New York for a time.

But where he's from isn't important. The real question, since he don't exactly act normal, is: Is Parker a Controller? Or something else?

I know. I sound paranoid. But with the life I have now, I don't think I can be blamed. Do you?

Never mind. Anyway, Matt was the one who first noticed that Parker was a little strange. He told us about it at lunch.

"You know that new guy? Parker?"

"Yeah. So? What about him, Matt?" I asked. It was a normal day-well, for us, anyway-and we were all just kind of relaxing. To tell the truth, I was starting to get bored. I was almost hoping that something would happen.

"Well, he was acting kinda strange out in the halls."

That got our attention. Tai had been leaning back in his chair, in the way that left only two legs on the floor. Now he put the chair back on all fours and leaned forward. "What do you mean, 'strange'?"

The rest of us leaned forward as well. "I mean strange. Like he had an extra sense or something."

O-kay. That was a little weird. But…"Extra sense? What kind of extra sense?"

"Well, someone tripped and would have fallen on him, but he caught them like he knew it was gonna happen. And when we passed Chapman, he kind of…I don't know…acted like he was some kind of poisonous snake. Like he knew how dangerous he was. Chapman didn't notice, though, which is probably a good thing."

Tai nodded. "Yeah. I think it might be a good idea to find out what we can about Parker. You know, whether or not he's a Controller, if he really has an extra sense…the usual."

Sam spoke up. "Won't that be invading his privacy, not to mention probably illegal?"

"Yeah, it will be kinda like invading his privacy, Sam," I said, "but it won't be any worse than the invasion of privacy done by the Yeerks every time they make someone a Controller."

Sam nodded. She didn't like it, but she knew that checking up on Parker was a good idea.

It looked like we were going to go ahead and check out Parker, to make sure he was clean.

If he was, then maybe we could trust him. Maybe. It was just as likely that he was a Controller and we were all screwed.