THE SALVATION
JAKE
In the days following Marco's visit, I kept dwelling on what he'd told me. They were going to steal a morphing cube and power up somebody else so they could break me out of prison, so that I could lead them to rescue Tobias from the clutches of some mysterious group? It was completely ridiculous. There was no way they could ever pull it off, and even if they could, there was no guarantee I'd be able to save Tobias. And if I couldn't...
Well, it would just be another name to add to the list.
My edginess must've been visible to whoever was supposed to watch me, because a couple days later three heavily armed guards came to escort me from my cell to a small, windowless room. None of them spoke, but I wasn't feeling very talkative anyway. I hadn't spoken in weeks, actually, not since my court-appointed lawyer had come by to tell me my trial date had been pushed back again. The guards escorted me to a chair in the middle of the room and took up positions around the room that let at least one of them have a clear line of fire at me at all times.
After a few minutes, a gruff-looking man wearing the rank insignia of a lieutenant colonel walked into the room, closing the door quickly behind him and never taking his eyes off me. "Jake Berenson," he said after a minute. "Savior of humanity, bane of the Yeerks, and starship thief."
I tried to talk, but couldn't make much noise. I cleared my throat, made a few humming noises, and tried again. "That's me."
"Don't play coy with me, Berenson," the lieutenant colonel spat. "I want to know who you've been in contact with."
"You're the first person I've spoken to in weeks, sir." It was technically true. I hadn't actually spoken to Marco.
The officer didn't look too surprised by my answer. "You haven't been contacted by any of the other so-called Animorphs?" he demanded.
"No, sir."
"What about any other morph-capable beings?"
"Not unless you or my lawyer can morph, sir," I replied. Inwardly, I was disgusted with myself. Why was I lying to him when I could cut off this ridiculous prison break business once and for all right here?
Of course, I knew the answer. If I told him my friends were coming, I had no way to warn them to stay away. The base would be ready for their arrival, and they would probably be slaughtered. I couldn't let that happen. I'd been responsible for enough death already.
The lieutenant colonel sighed heavily. "Look, Berenson," he said, rubbing his forehead, "I want to be here interrogating you about as much as you want to be here being interrogated. Just tell me what I want to know so that you can go back to your cell and I can go back to dealing with people who don't have the ability to kill me without any weapons."
"I've told you the truth, sir," I said. He wasn't exactly wrong, but the backhanded accusation still stung.
"Fine." The officer gave me a pained look. "One last question. Do you know the location of any of the Escafil devices on Earth?"
"The morphing cubes?" I replied. "No, unless they've left the one on the base I was stationed at alone."
"All right." The lieutenant colonel gestured to the guards and left the room. After about a minute, the soldiers escorted me back to my cell.
After three more days of this, I was about ready to scream. Had I been pitying myself for not having any company during my long days alone in prison? Forget it, this was far worse. Always the same questions, always with more intensity than the last time. Something big had gone down, I gathered, and they were sure that I was the cause. The fact that they weren't very far off the mark made it even more stressful to sit through.
I returned to my cell on the fourth day and had just started to eat my now-cold dinner when I heard alarms go off in the distance. My heart jumped into my throat. Was this some sort of drill, or had my friends actually arrived today?
Two of the guards who'd escorted me to that day's interrogation rushed into my cell, guns raised and safeties off. "On the bed," one of them ordered. "Do not get up, do not attempt to morph. We are authorized to use lethal force." He trained his gun on me while his partner stood back-to-back with him, aiming at the doorway.
I shrugged and did as he said, trying to stay nonchalant. If this was Marco and the others, then getting myself killed right off the bat wouldn't be the best idea.
Eventually, the sounds of battle started to filter into my cell. The first thing I heard was automatic gunfire, followed by something that sounded like dracon beams but must have been Andalite-made shredders. Shortly after that I heard a sound that made me have to fight to keep a smile off my face: the angry yell of a fully-grown silverback gorilla.
As the noises grew closer, I started to hear individual soldiers shouting to each other. "Reg, duck, he's behind you! Shit, he's got Reg!" "Oh my god, that goddamn gorilla has a friggin' machine gun."
‹Oh man,› I heard Marco exult in thought-speech. ‹I haven't had this much fun in forever!›
There were a couple shredder blasts, and I saw two soldiers collapse in front of my cell. The guard covering the door leaned out and tried to take aim, but was forced to jerk back by more shredder fire.
"Everybody look out!" I heard someone yell. "That's not a real Hork-Bajir!"
"Here come the reinforcements!"
Sure enough, I could hear dozens of booted feet marching down the corridor, and my heart sank. There was no way Marco and Cassie would be able to hold out against this many troops.
But then I heard a sound that made me stop breathing, and that had made deadly Hork-Bajir-controllers tremble in fear.
It was the trumpeting of an angry African bull elephant.
‹Here comes the cavalry!› the elephant crowed, and I could have sworn that I was hearing the thought-speech of Rachel. Obviously the morph was playing tricks with my head, but it was almost uncanny how similar this person sounded.
The thuds of the newly arrived troops being swept aside by the elephant's trunk were the most beautiful music I'd heard in a long time. It was only another minute or so before Marco punched his way through the garrison in front of my cell door and burst in.
He stopped abruptly, faced by one of my guards. "This is on full automatic," the guard explained, nodding at his rifle. "There's no way you'll be able to punch me before I shoot you."
Marco put his hands up in the air in a gesture that would have been comical if the situation weren't so deadly serious. He backed through the door, and then suddenly threw himself to the side as a Hork-Bajir – Cassie – skidded into the space he'd vacated, but crouching. As the guard swung his gun down, she fired her shredder and he dropped like a rock.
The other guard faced her, but pressed his rifle to my head. "One more step," he warned. "One step closer, and Berenson dies."
‹Hold on a second,› Cassie said. ‹Calm down. Maybe we can discuss this.›
"What's to discuss?" the guard said. "It's time for you and your friends to leave the base.
While Cassie kept him distracted, I closed my eyes and focused on some long-dormant DNA in my body. Orange and black fur rippled across my body and my muscles bulked up far beyond what any human could normally achieve.
‹Listen to me,› I heard Cassie saying as I continued the morph. ‹We can still resolve this without killing anybody. This shredder is on stun. Everybody we've hurt will be fine after today, I promise. Please, just step away from Jake.›
The morph finished, and I reached up with a paw and swatted the gun away from my head. As the guard spun towards me I let loose a roar I'd been holding in for a very long time. He was paralyzed in his tracks as over one hundred decibels of pure terror slammed into him. Cassie took the opportunity to quickly dispatch him with her shredder.
‹Time to get out of here!› I announced.
‹Oh Jake,› Marco said as he joined Cassie and me, ‹you're so alluring when you take command.›
We fled the base through the elephant-shaped holes in most of the walls leading to the outside. ‹Do you have a bird morph?› I asked the elephant.
‹Yeah,› she – or he, but I was fairly certain it was a woman – said. ‹I see what you're getting at. You head off, I'll meet up with you guys soon.› We veered away from the elephant to find a more inconspicuous spot to demorph and regroup.
We sat in silence for about twenty minutes waiting for her to catch up. After making sure we'd lost any pursuit and demorphing, we'd remorphed into wolves and sped further into the forest, hoping to confuse our pursuers. Given that we hadn't been found yet, we were probably safe for the time being.
It was night by the time she flew in as a great horned owl, fluttering to the ground and demorphing in the middle of the loose triangle we had made. When she finished demorphing, I smiled a little sadly. It was a bit unrealistic to have thought that it had been Rachel, but it would be good to have Melissa on our side.
"Melissa," I said, putting more warmth into my smile. "It's been a while. How are you?"
Instead of answering, Melissa walked over and sat down next to me, looking directly into my eyes. "Jake," she said, sounding as serious as if somebody had died, "there's something really, really important you need to know, right now."