TEN
After I called Erek, I morphed into a falcon and took off. Tobias went ahead to gather the others.
Kelly'd said she was at a payphone near the mall. There were a lot inside the shopping building but I knew there were three payphones at walking distance.
So which one?
I circled about, from one payphone to another. It was only ten minutes since she called me and six since I left the house. Kelly'd be long gone, trying to shake the Yeerks off her tail as best as she could.
She was almost inches away from a Yeerk pool the first time she was captured. Last week. But I don't think I wanted her luck to be tested anymore.
Elias wasn't here to stop that from happening.
So it was up to us to make sure Kelly didn't get captured again.
No sign of Kelly.
I expected as much. No good to stay in one spot.
All we could hope was she found a way to hide long enough until everything blew off.
I noticed a flock of different types of birds landing on the roof of the mall.
(You've seen Kelly?) Rachel asked as I joined them.
(No. Nothing yet.)
(Well, she couldn't have gone that far.) Marco uttered. (And if she keeps covered, the Yeerks won't recognise her face.)
(But for how long?) Tobias asked.
(There are three payphones nearby. Kelly called me at one,) I said. (Split into three teams. One searches at each payphone. Spread out as far as you can. If you see her, do whatever you can to get her out to safely but do it-)
(Discreetly. We know,) Marco cut me.
(If we can't find her?) Cassie asked worriedly.
(If nothing after an hour, return back to the barn. She may have gone there for safety. She knows how to avoid the Yeerks,) I explained. Hopefully. (Rachel, Ax, take the one near the shuttle buses. Cassie, Marco, the one near the McDonalds. Tobias, you're with me.)
We split up, no objection on the plan. The faster we find her, the better.
Once we passed over the payphone, our target, we aimed for the sky. Higher altitude, better bird's eye view over the streets. We combed the crowds below us for about five minutes.
(There! I see her,) Tobias cried.
Kelly was less than a hundred feet away from us, pushing forward through the people.
(See anyone following her?)
(No. Nobody seems suspicious.)
(Kelly!) I called to her.
She didn't turn to look up. But I knew she had heard me.
(Kelly, we're here. We'll keep watch but you got to get yourself someplace safe.)
(That's gonna be harder than it sounds, Jake,) Tobias said.
(Yeah. Yeah, I know.)
After all, Kelly's the only one who can't morph.
Not smart to be unable to morph, you may think. But Kelly has her reason why she didn't accept it.
Elias didn't have the morphing power, too.
That was the one thing Kelly chose, so that nothing was changed.
It would have been cool, sure. Someone with both the calling and morphing powers. Then again, Ax did once wonder if two different powers could conflict each other, when the calling relied on the morphing.
But if you found out your future self altered the past and with no morphing powers, you'd have done the same thing Kelly did. And that was to say no in being an Animorph.
We weren't against her on that decision. I did tell her it'd be difficult without it.
But she has her calling power to help.
In the open, she'd be a dead duck still. She needed to find someplace empty and safe, enough time to call a Talith and try to escape.
But in this part of the city, that was hard to find. At this time of the day too.
Kelly turned around a corner, slipping through an alley.
(Kelly, I'm heading down. Keep going until I catch up to you. Tobias will keep watch,) I said and turned to Tobias. (Give me update once I'm down.)
(Got it.)
I landed in another alley. One that I knew would intersect into hers. Quickly demorphed and followed it towards her direction.
Like I was going to go out in the open in my morphing suit. I'm not that stupid.
(She's still fifty feet away from you. I told her to stop but it doesn't look like she's listening.)
Kelly was scared. Being put in another close situation with the Yeerks, I wouldn't blame her.
Just as I thought that, I found it weird.
Sure, it was natural to be scared. But after when she went through before...
Something in my gut told me something was wrong. But I didn't know what.
(Jake, three men are behind you. Twenty feet away.)
I was almost ready to look back. I forced myself not to.
(They just entered the alleyway just now. They're trailing after you.)
I wanted to ask him if they were Controllers. But I was human now. Not a bird.
(Jake, you got to get out. Saw a Dracon Beam and a gun in one of the men's coats.)
They were.
Did they notice me in the alley? I was sure no one was around to see me demorph. Then again, who wouldn't draw suspicious on a kid alone in an alley wearing a tight skin suit?
I clenched my teeth tightly. Fine mess I was in.
I had to keep my cool. If I make a move now, they'd know.
(I can distract them off you, Jake. You make a run for it.)
Unfortunately, before anyone of us could make that plan come into action, another man entered the alley, some feet ahead of me. Causally walking about, examining a large piece of paper in his hands curiously.
Both ways were blocked.
I was trapped.
One problem after the other.
Can't I have a break from them?
I had to trust on Tobias to distract the men behind me.
I was ready to bolt when the man looked to me from his map. Shades at me.
"Oh, excuse me. Sorry but could you help me?" The man waved at me and pointed at his map. "I'm lost. I've been looking for the Holiday Inn for hours now."
I half relaxed. Must be a tourist.
If he was a Controller, he'd be doing the same thing as those guys behind me were. But he wasn't. Just kept poking at the shiny new paper pleadingly.
I neared cautiously as he showed me the map. I took a glimpse.
My eyes widened.
Writing on the map with ink were two sentences. But the first got to me.
They're following you.
Wasn't what I was expected but my brain geared to one possible idea.
I looked back up at the man. Those shades were looking very familiar.
Different face but still the same shades.
The man with the shade. From before.
Tap. Tap.
He didn't react to my reaction. Just tapped at the map.
I looked back down.
Act normal.
I swallowed. Meeting the man with the shades face to face.
('They're following you. Act normal'? Wait. What-)
Tobias had read the message too. Good.
Tap. Tap.
The man tapped again on the map. Pointing to a particular white line.
The next alleyway besides us.
(Those guys are coming close. Ten feet.)
I took in a breath.
This guy was connected to Elias. Somehow.
I didn't have any other choice but to trust him.
"Yeah. I know the place. Let me show you," I said, leading him down the other lane.
He nodded as we both walked away, out of the two Controllers' sight.
(Hurry! They're pulling out their guns.)
Which meant they were going to kill us.
I had to take my chance. Morph now and take the Controllers out.
"3 seconds for a human to remember a face."
I took a while to register. I didn't get why the man said that.
All of a sudden, he turned, pushing me back. Dropped the map. Pulled out a weird-looking gun and pointed up to shoulder level.
It was a quick glimpse. But that gun was familiar.
I never thought I'd see something similar again.
The gun's design was black. With faint, thin neon lines. A splice between a normal semi-automatic and an alien gun.
That was one of Elias' weapons.
A man, one of the Controllers, came around a corner.
Wheeled his head to see the gun barrel pointing at him.
BAM!
You'd think I've gotten used to hearing gun fire. But I've only been used – to an extent – with Dracon Beams, Shredders.
Not the guns Elias used before.
The bullet casing fell, vanishing. So did the Controller but he didn't drift away like the casing.
No bullet hole in his head.
My eyes were still on the fallen Controller but I felt the man with the shades grab my arm and pull me away.
"Move!" he yelled.
As I turned, I saw the other two Controllers come round too at the corners of my eyes.
I didn't need to keep looking to see them draw out their weapons.
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
"Down!" He pushed my head down, shielding me. No stopping. Just kept on running.
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
(Jake!) Tobias hollered.
I was helpless right now. Struck running with some stranger helping me.
Ahead of us was a dumpster truck, slowly packing into an open alley. Where those big blue dumpsters were at.
We slid by the truck but the man with the shades then stopped. He grabbed the railings of one of the dumpsters and with all his might, he shoved it right at the Controllers. Jamming them in a spot with the truck blocking most of the path.
They yelled at the driver to move.
That would slow them down. He then grabbed me and we kept going.
He pushed open the fire exit of some abandoned building with his arm and we bolted in. He quickly grabbed a broken pipe and jammed it at the door handle.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"Come on!" He pulled me again. This time to the upper level and into a room.
I watched the man with the shades. I was about to yell at him that we were in a dead end. Trapped.
But he grabbed a broken chair and hauled it at a window.
CRASH!
He had a plan. One he wasn't telling me. Or he was just making it up as he went on.
Ripping the fabric off the chair's seat, he quickly used it to scrape away the broken glass from the window frame. Outside was a fire escape.
"Get down. Quickly."
He let me go first. Gun pointed at the door. I climbed onto the fire escape and descended down.
(Jake!) I glanced up to see a speck above me.
BAM!
I stopped halfway. Thinking the man with the shades may have been shot at. But he was alright, swiftly crawling out the window and grabbing the fire escape.
"What are you doing! ? Go!" he barked.
I've not been used to getting orders before. Not by my own friends. I've always been the one to give them.
But with the situation I was in, I was finding myself following a complete stranger's order.
Same as following Elias'.
Didn't need to question why he was helping me. He was taking out the Controllers. Trying to get me somewhere safe.
I jumped down. Waited for him to do the same.
"Keep going!"
I did as he was told.
I took a quick glance. The two Controllers were still after us, now getting out of the window.
It was a misfire. Or one to scare them for a bit.
"In here!" He pointed to the back of a parking lot not too far away. We ran.
After going up the ramp once, we ducked behind a car. The man kept a watchful eye out to see if the Controllers have caught up.
"Tell me who are you? How do you know Elias?" I asked again.
He pulled out something from his right ear. It looked like a hearing aid. Except it looked very much different from one. Like it had been modified and redesigned.
"Hey!" I yelled. He suddenly shoved it in my ear.
Beeps and techno sounds echoed in my head.
("Thought-speech pattern analysis complete.")
A robotic woman's voice resounded. Coming from the ear piece.
The man with the shade took it off me and put it back into his ear.
("Can you hear me?")
I jumped.
The voice in my head. It was like thought-speech. Only sounding like it was said through a phone. Mechanical and not like our usual thought-speech.
Elias communicated to us with a strange transmitter.
It would be her voice I'd hear, thought-speaking to me.
Just like the man with the shades in front of me.
("I take that as a yes.") He turned back, glancing over the car. ("We don't have enough time. Morph into something and get out of here.")
I was shocked.
Morph.
The word only we seven would say to each other. No one else outside our circle.
"You know? You know about us?" I hollered. "How?"
("Elias told us. Now hurry and do whatever you need to. We'll handle them.")
"We? Who's 'we'?"
He wheeled to me. ("Stop wasting time. We can explain everything later. But not right now.")
"No!" I yelled. "You know about Elias. You know about the invasion! Tell me now! Who are you?"
("Leave, human bandit. Now.")
I felt chills down my spine.
That was another voice. Harsher than the first one.
Only, I knew then that voice, I couldn't trust it.
Shouldn't I be called a kid? Not a human? And I was called a bandit too.
Only one race would call us bandits. And it was normally 'Andalite Bandits'.
I eyed at him. Emotions, expressions mostly could be told from the eyes. But with his sunglasses, it was hard to tell. Other than he looked serious.
"You...you're a Controller too?"
He didn't reply.
My savior was a Controller.
A Controller who knew everything...
Why...did a Yeerk know about Elias?
I lunged at him. Gripped him by the collar and slammed him into the metal side.
"You-!" I was already morphing into a tiger. Feeling my teeth sharpen.
The man didn't shake in fear. He remained still, gun down.
"Go ahead. But you'll be giving them reasons to believe the Animorphs are humans," the Controller explained, this time not through his ear piece.
I froze. Stiff. He knew the name of our group. "What?"
"Someone knows your secret. And sent those three to seize you. You're falling into a trap."
"Why should I believe you? You're one of them! You could be the one who told them," I yelled.
"If I was, why did I shoot down one of my own?"
I held back in a vexed manner. That was true. He just shot one down with a weapon Elias used. He could have stopped me any time before to be easy picking for them.
But he was still a Yeerk. Who knew Elias. Who knew about us to the level we could morph and we were the bandits.
If I wasn't in tight circumstances, I'd have beaten the information out of him.
"In here!" I heard a shout from outside.
The two men were coming in.
"This human and I are the only ones who can get you out of this," the man with the shades, the Yeerk in him, stated.
"Why should I trust you?" I grimly asked..
"You don't have to. But you trust Elias?"
The mention of Elias' name, it was vile to hear it from a Yeerk. But I unwound myself down.
Yes, I trusted Elias. She wasn't around to vouch for this one Controller but no matter what, I trusted her.
"That's all you'll have to do."
A Yeerk was convincing me to trust her over him. A Yeerk carrying the same technology Elias used against his kind.
I let go. Demorphed back.
He peered over the car. Went back to thought-speaking. ("Dammit, they're here.") He squatted down. ("Get under the car. Go!")
This had to be a trap. He was a Controller. The enemy.
He looked at me, irritated.
But somehow...he was also Elias' friend.
"GO!"
He jumped up.
BAM! BAM!
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
I quickly crawled under the other car. The man with the shades then darted away to the next rows of cars. Distracting the Controllers.
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
He slid behind for shelter, missing the beams by a hair.
I didn't understand why he didn't keep shooting. Unless he was trying to conserve his bullets.
Elias' guns weren't infinite. She had to restock them too.
"We got you cornered, human!" one of the Controllers yelled.
I was hiding while the guy was going to get caught. His kind. Sacrificed everything just for me, his enemy.
Why?
I shook my head. Now wasn't a time to ask questions. The only one to answer was going to be gunned down in a matter of seconds.
As much as I disliked the idea of helping Yeerks, I had to help him.
Too low to morph into something big under a car like a tiger. Too short a time period to get up from under and morph.
So I morphed into a falcon right underneath.
Small and could still fly even in close spaces like a parking lot if I planned it right.
I scrambled out and spread my wings out. There wasn't any wind inside the lot so it was constant flapping.
I searched about. The two Controllers were too occupied to see a peregrine falcon inside the lot. Still combing between the cars for him and me.
I couldn't find the man with the shades. The Controller helping me.
(Jake!)
(Tobias! In the parking lot,) I yelled. (The two Controllers are here too.)
(What about the guy?)
Not too far, I found him. Hiding behind the trunk of a black van.
One Controller was just feet away from him.
(Run! He's coming from your left!) I yelled at the man.
(Jake! What's going on?)
The guy moved away. Too slow!
So I swooped down, talons spread out and clawed into the Controller's face.
"Ahhhhh! Andalite Bandit!" the Controller screamed.
I didn't see it coming. His arm waving at me to stop a bird from attacking. All I could feel was a pain at my side in an instant.
I heard a crack. My wing.
I fell to the floor with a thud.
And then I was staring at his Dracon Beam.
The Controller grinned at me. "Got you, Bandit."
"Wheet-whoot!"
The Controller turned to the direction of the whistle.
BAM!
His head flopped back. Body collapsed onto the concrete floor.
And near it was the struggling, squirming small gray form.
A Yeerk.
("I told you to get!") the first voice yelled at me. I found myself being picked up and dumped into a bag. A satchel bag the man with the shades carried.
"STOP!"
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
I felt the whole world shake. The man with the shades was running. Away from the last Controller after us.
(Jake! Where are you?) Tobias shouted.
My wing was useless now. So I guess I was the middleman now. (Still with the guy with the shades. In his bag. My wing's busted. Keep an eye on him and the Controller behind us.)
(O-Ok! I see you. The Controller isn't far away.)
("Take a right at the next street! Right!")
The first voice.
("I know where I am going.") The second voice. The Yeerk.
("That Controller will catch up if we take that way! I say take a right.")
("We need all of us to be in the industrial area and this is the quickest way I know.")
It was like two different people were cooperating to find a route. Working together. A little badly.
("You know what you think you know. You're questioning an AI's direction!")
("No. I am more capable of knowing well of where to go. I don't need CoNDI to help us.")
CoNDI?
That was the name of Elias' AI in her armor suit.
How did they get a hold of that?
("Not this district. Even I've never been here before! You don't know either!")
I wasn't sure if I should be worried to hear a Controller and a Yeerk to have indirection or not.
(Jake! The Controller went off a different path,) Tobias hollered. (He's heading towards you from the left alley, two streets ahead.)
I relayed the message. (The Controller isn't behind us. He's trying to cut you out ahead. From the left.)
("See? Told you.") The first voice.
("We need to. He's the last know who knows.")
The last?
("Glynn. Orekor. You're coming towards the industrial area. Twenty kilometres away. The Controller will meet you at the intersect in less than three minutes.")
There was a third voice. A girl's one. How many Yeerks did this guy had in his head?
But the way she said it, sounded like she was watching from...above?
I squeezed my head out of the gap of the bag's fold. Sure enough, we had really gone far from our first location, the mall. Somewhere near Downtown. Lots of small warehouses around us.
Then we stopped. The sound of a metal fence clanking.
("No good, Sybil. There's a fence in the way,") the first voice uttered.
(Behind you!) Tobias warned at the same time the girl's voice yelled, ("The Controller! He's behind you!")
"Got you!"
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
The world suddenly jerked around me.
I was flung aside, bag and everything.
BAM!
A miss.
"Oopf!" the man with the shades groaned, falling onto his side. The third Controller had jumped at him during that misfire and knocked him down. The future gun dropping from his grasp.
The Dracon Beam swung up at him.
"Tseeeeeer!" The swoosh of wings and extending of talons raked at the Controller.
"Arrrgh!" he screamed, shielding himself from Tobias.
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
Zzzzzzzzzaaaaaappppp!
Beams fired aimlessly above. Tobias easily evaded them and backed away, circling up to aerial attack him again.
He lashed out, this time whacking the Dracon Beam from the Controller's fingers.
The Controller recoiled back up. He ignored Tobias completely. Ready to take down the person who killed his two fellow friends. Still on the ground, slowly recovering.
But one look at the man with the shades stopped him.
Well, without the shades. They were knocked off.
And his disguise went away like a ripple in a second. His face distorted into what seemed to be his real face. With brown curly hair. His clothes changed to another set, a different taste of fashion, in an instant.
"You..." The Controller recognized him. His face was completely twisted with anger. Rage. "DEVOURER! ! !"
(Run!) I yelled, struggling to untangle the bag's strap around my wing.
The brown-haired man grabbed for the gun instead.
Took aim at the bloodthirsty, charging Controller.
BAM!
The Controller dropped.
And there was nothing.
Silent. Still. Two bodies on the ground, opposite to each other.
Another gray slug was on the filthy ground. It eventually dissipated away like thin air.
The Yeerk was dead. All three of them.
The man with the shades, the Controller, sunk back his head and breathed heavily. The tense moment you'd normally see in crime drama shows was over.
("Sybil. Kill the interference feed. We got them,") the first voice, Glynn, I guess, spoke.
("Affirmative. I'll inform Ar't you got the boy, Jake, safe.")
I jumped, flopping out of the bag. Someone knew my name. My name. Even this Ar't Chee who gave me the message.
Just how many people did Elias have as allies?
("Where is she?") the Yeerk asked distastefully.
("At the meeting place. Just arrived two minutes again.")
"Gaaah," the man groaned, standing up. "We shouldn't keep her waiting then."
("I'll keep an eye for any Yeerks she may have contacted to the meeting.")
("Thanks, Sybil.")
He holstered the strange gun in his coat, kneeled down to the fallen Controller, or in this case ex-Controller, and seized the Dracon Beam and the other gun. The other gun, he removed the magazine and a lone bullet in its chamber. He did something else to the Dracon Beam, maybe also disabling it useless.
He threw the unwanted Dracon Beam into a trash bin. Planted the gun at his back, with the belt holding it. You know, the kind undercover cops do with extra guns.
The brown-haired man approached me and picked up his shades and satchel bag, slipping the magazine and bullet into a side pocket. The shades were also packed away.
("It's not finished yet. We need you to come with us a little longer.") He had a stern look that if I was to question his reason, I'd be getting another vague answer. ("Stay in morph. Tell your friend to keep his eyes on this human.")
(What do you want from us?) I demanded.
("Witnesses.")
(What?) Us, witnesses? For what?
Again, no reply. He picked me up gently and carefully packed me into his bag. Fold over my head so I could see.
I would have decided to peck at him and try to escape, thinking the Yeerk was nothing but a double-crosser. But there was nothing behind his actions to change my mind about him.
And what did he mean by witnesses?
He then walked off from the place. From the Controller lying in the backstreet.
(Jake, what's going on?)
I peeked out. Tobias had flown back up into the sky.
(Tobias, follow the guy. He's leading us to something.)
(And that is?)
(Don't know. If he does something funny, do whatever you can for me to get away.)
(Wait, why the suspicion? This person just took down three Controllers.)
(Tobias, he's a Controller too.)
I could have sworn he jerked a bit in the air.
(What? But then...why? What's going on?)
(I don't know either. All I know is this is a Controller who shot his own comrades and with Elias' weapon.)
Tobias didn't say anything straight away. (Can we trust him? I know he just helped us but can we?)
(Do we have any reason not to?)
He fell silent. I didn't need an answer anyway.
("How long do you and your friend have?") the first voice asked. Glynn. ("Morphing, I mean.")
He and the Yeerk must have guessed I had company too.
I wasn't sure how deep they knew. If they knew how many of us could morph.
(Just me. I only just morphed.)
("So a guess, fifteen? Alright.")
("If all goes well, the meeting should take less than twenty minutes.") The second voice.
(You're taking us to a Yeerk meeting?) I hissed.
("If only that was it,") the Yeerk complained. ("But it's not.")
I was about to say he was lying. He was a Yeerk and if meeting meant anything, it was a Sharing meeting.
But what purpose did he have to bring me along? Have me as a spy? Couldn't be. Not with the Gleet BioFilters. Those could detect and immediately vaporize me in an instant.
I kept quiet. If he were to pull something off, then Tobias and I would bolt. Get the others and warn them about this one Controller.
Yeah, Marco's gonna have a field day with this one.
I soon realized we were leaving the industrial park area. Going back towards familiar sights of the city. I saw a quick glimpse of the mall and wondered if the others had went back there, hopefully to see Tobias following the guy with me in his bag and trail after us.
No sign of them. Probably still searching for Kelly.
Soon we broke away from the buildings and the noisy atmosphere of cars and people, now faint to the hearing. Trees surrounded us and I almost thought we were back at the woods. But the ground was paved and families were out strolling on a cool, happy day.
Out in the open of a nearby park. Not inside a small building where the Yeerks would likely hold their meetings for world domination in.
The man, Glynn, stopped in front of the fountain.
(No way,) I heard Tobias gasp above me. (How-?)
(What?) I asked.
I didn't get an answer from him. But I got it sure enough.
"You took your sweet time, Orekor."
I froze. I felt my heart stop a beat.
"I'm sorry. Had some trouble earlier," Glynn's Yeerk apologized. "I see you have a new body. Is that why you wanted to meet?"
"It's a lot better. Youthful and powerful...with so many secrets. The annoying part is her constant screaming."
"And what happened to the other host?"
"Do you really need to know? Humans are disposable, after all. You can pick anyone off the street."
No.
No, no, no, no, no!
"But this one is truly worth it. It was lucky to have stumbled on her on the same street as I was." A laugh. An abnormal soft laugh. "Did you know? This human was the one we've been looking for last week. The one with a connection with the Black Massacre. Even better, I know who the Black Massacre really is. And the Andalite Bandits."
It can't be. No! That's not true!
"And all thanks to a human named Jake for letting this happen." The voice laughed. "Paying too much attention over his family that he forgot about his friend."
My mind was screaming it wasn't true. But my gut was telling me to accept it.
When did this happen? How? How did this Yeerk get a whole of her?
It had to be a lie, right?
The only way I'd know the truth was to look out of the bag. And half of me was telling me not to.
I peered out.
No...
What have I done?
Standing before Glynn or the Yeerk in his head...with an unnatural grin on her face...
Was Kelly.
As a Controller.
"And I can't wait to thank him personally," the Yeerk said through Kelly's mouth.
Vickie: ...Sooo how many of you didn't expect a fate Kelly would revisit?
In all, I did say with Jake trying to do everything he can to prevent the vision from happening would endanger Kelly. Sometimes it's just not that easy without considering other factors.
And how will the Animorphs' cooperation with this Yeerk and human go? Especially since they know Elias as well. Not the 'Black Massacre'. It will go rocky and what motive the Yeerk has? You'll find out but I guarantee, it's something you never expected.
And I'm sure you have questions. How did this one Yeerk get a hand on Kelly? What's her plans? Well, all that will be answered in later chapters. Think of it as a bit of criminal investigation. Just a bit.
Hope you enjoy this chapter! R'n'R! And don't worry, I'm not that cruel to make this situation into an impossible one for the Animorphs, Ax and Kelly. Cya then!