Chapter 2
The situation outside the store can only be described as complete chaos. We couldn't see much of what was going on at first, with all the fleeing people in the way. We only got a glimpse of the situation when we came to the stairs down to the first floor.
A number of Hork-Bajir-Controllers were already surrounding the poor escapee. There was no way he was going to get out of this alive without a Yeerk in his head. Even with the Dracon beam, there wasn't anything we could do for him. I considered mercy-killing him with it, but there was no way I'd be able to hit him from this distance. Not without risking hitting some innocent bystander, anyway. I saw Cassie was looking at him helplessly.
"There's nothing we can do for him, Cassie."
"I know."
Her voice was breaking up. Cassie's a lot more sensitive than I am; this sort of thing hurts her deeply. It's not that I didn't care about the Hork-Bajir at all or something, but we'd have time to mourn him later.
Meanwhile, the mall exits were already being blocked by human Controllers. No one was getting in or out. I couldn't help but be just a little impressed at how quickly they got the situation under control. They must have been preparing for events like these.
The blocked exits completed the panic among all the free humans. People were literally running head-on into one another, not knowing where to go.
"We're never going to get out of here without being seen," Cassie added.
"So we find a place to morph something big and go out fighting," I said, sounding more self-determined than I felt. I hadn't exactly thought it through yet, but my anger and hatred toward the Yeerks was starting to win over my other emotions.
Like I said before, I don't like showing my fear. I usually just get angry, instead. It's because of times like these that my friends think I'm Xena.
"I've a better idea," Cassie said. "Come on."
She pulled me along into the crowd, heading straight for the main exit. As we passed the group of Hork-Bajir, we saw the escapee lie on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. He was probably still alive though, because they were going through the effort of cuffing him.
"Does your plan involve kicking Yeerk butt? Because that's what I feel like doing right now."
"So do I, but we can't fight here and win."
I just groaned at that. She was right, of course.
"Just play along. We're Controllers now."
Wait, what? We're Controllers now? Was she just giving up? No, that wasn't right. But then what…
There was no more time to think. Cassie was already forcing her way through the crowd to the Controllers at the main entrance, and she was pulling me along.
"Let us through," Cassie yelled at the first Controller she reached.
Oh, great plan, Cassie. Literally everyone around you had the same idea. The Controller ignored her, of course.
"Listen, you idiot, we saw someone push his way through you guys just a minute ago."
She grabbed the Dracon beam from me and held it up in front of the Controller's face. Not threateningly, she was kind of just showing him we had it.
"Or would you like me to pass your incompetence on to Visser Three?"
Okay, no sarcasm now: that was actually smart. Dangerous, sure, but so was my idea. Cassie can lie pretty convincingly when she has to, as long as it doesn't involve hiding her emotions. And the Controllers were all just as scared as we were. Scared of Visser Three.
He let us through.
The situation outside wasn't much less chaotic, but it was a whole lot safer. Some people were running away, probably having heard the screaming or having seen a glimpse of the Hork-Bajir from outside. Other people were casually heading toward the sealed entrance of the mall, wondering what those people were running from. A police car was just arriving at the scene, and I could hear more sirens further away. Maybe they were Controllers, but more likely they were just responding to the store alarm, or maybe people have just been calling 911. Who knows?
We ran for the first empty alley that seemed far enough away for us to safely catch our breath. Along the way, I opened my mouth a couple times to start explaining my plan for dealing with the situation, but no plan came. At least, no plan that was better than going in with elephant and rhino morphs to cause enough extra chaos to let people escape. And that was a suicide mission. There were so many armed Controllers in the mall now, that it was basically an extension of the Yeerk pool.
We kind of just collapsed in that alley, as the adrenaline rush was starting to wear off. We were silent for a while. Cassie was the first to speak.
"I wonder how the Yeerks are going to cover this up. They can't infest everyone, can they?"
She was trembling at the thought.
"I'm sure they'll think of a way," I growled. "We have to do something."
We were both silent for a while again. I guess Cassie had also run out of good ideas.
"I can't believe that Controller just gave you his Dracon beam," she finally said.
I nodded. "We make for convincing Controllers, apparently."
"Do you think they'll be able to track it?"
I hadn't thought of that. We know that the Yeerks can detect the presence of materials that don't belong on Earth. We once found the Yeerks spending a whole lot of effort trying to secure what turned out to be an ancient Andalite toilet that crashed on Earth decades ago. They couldn't work out from orbit what it was, but they weren't taking any chances.
I groaned. "As much as I hate to do it, maybe we should just hide it here for now. Then we'll ask Ax if it's safe to keep it and come back for it later."
Cassie hid the Dracon beam underneath a nearby dumpster.
"We should also find a place to put our clothes," she said. "We need a meeting, like right now. Maybe someone else has a good idea."
I knew what she meant. Morph into birds, then round up the others. I was already starting to undress down to my morphing suit by the time she'd finished her sentence. We always wear something skintight underneath our clothes nowadays, like my black leotard. Just in case.
"Where do we meet? Do we go straight back to the mall?"
"Guess there's no harm in that if we're birds… Should probably do seagulls though, so we don't draw too much attention to ourselves."
The Yeerks know we're out here and that we can morph. Despite that, most Yeerks aren't that vigilant at looking out for oddly behaving animals, but Visser Three always is. And with something like this going on, he's sure to show up sooner or later.
Fortunately though, the Yeerks think we're Andalites. If they ever work out that we're mostly just a couple of human teenagers who call themselves the Animorphs, this'll all be over quickly. That's why it's important that they can't find our shoes and clothes along with the Dracon beam, should they be able to track it.
I found a dirty discarded shopping bag in a corner of the alley. "Better than nothing," I grumbled to myself, and put my shoes, clothes, and handbag inside. Then I picked up Cassie's shoes and clothes, which she'd just thrown on the ground. She was already morphing. Then I grumpily shoved the bag behind some garbage on the other side of the alley, and started to morph as well.
Cassie has a talent for morphing. She has some control over the order in which her body parts change. Maybe it's because she spends so much time with animals.
Cassie's parents are both vets. Her mom works as a caretaker at The Gardens, a mix of a theme park and a zoo. Cassie and her dad together run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic from their barn. They take in local injured wildlife and try to nurse the animals back to health. As you might expect, The Gardens and Cassie's clinic are where we'd acquired most of our morphs.
Cassie had started with her wings. She always does that when she morphs a bird. It makes her look almost like an angel. She'd do the rest of the bird's features one by one, and leave the shrinking for last.
Not me.
The first thing that happened to me was a beak shooting out of my lips. The second thing was my eyes moving to the sides of my head. Cassie looked away. As usual, it was not a pretty sight, even when you're used to seeing it. It doesn't hurt though. Which is good, because if it would, it'd hurt like hell.
I saw the flesh on my legs and feet shrivel away to make place for talons with my left eye, while seeing the sky above the alley with my right. I guess my head was cocked sideways. Maybe the left side of my neck was shrinking faster than the right side?
Seeing in two different directions at the same time hurt my brain. Until the seagull's brain joins mine, I won't be able to make much sense of it. The picture was already crispy clear, though. Birds have much better eyesight than humans do.
And then I saw the ground come toward me. I would have jerked if I wouldn't have done this so often already. Shrinking feels like falling, yet never quite hitting the ground. Like those nightmares where you're running toward something but never quite reach it completely. But you get used to it.
I was almost done morphing when the seagull's mind kicked in. You always get the instincts of the animal you morph into as part of the morph. That's usually a good thing, for instance because humans aren't that great at flying. Sometimes you even get some memories from the animal somehow.
But those instincts can be overwhelming. Especially the first time you morph an animal. One time, I jumped into an alligator pit at The Gardens to save a boy who fell in accidentally. I'd acquired the first alligator I could find and morphed into it immediately, just barely hidden from the crowd, hugging the walls of the enclosure. My plan was to stave off the other alligators, of course, until the trainers would arrive. But in the end, the only reason I didn't chomp up that little boy myself right there and then was because fighting for dominance with the other alligators was higher up my list of priorities.
With most new morphs, it only takes a couple minutes for our human mind to take back control. It depends very much on the animal though. We never quite got over the seagull's instincts. But they're not exactly dangerous, so I guess it's more that we're usually just not really trying to contain them.
I shot up into the air as soon as I finished morphing. Out of the alley. I could find much better food elsewhere.
Cassie must have had the same idea. She was already circling overhead by the time I was done.
≺There's a guy eating fries only a block away!≻ she thought-spoke to me.
Fries? No way I was going to let her have them all to herself!
No, snap out of it. There are lives at stake here.
≺I'll go get Jake and Marco, you get Tobias and Ax. Okay?≻
≺No way, you just want the fries to yourself.≻
