Chapter 10:
CAMERON
It was a hot day on the top of the hospital; standing on a dark roof with no shade wasn't on my to-do list. It took twenty minutes before I started seeing regular people among the streets, oblivious to the purple-eyed aliens who were copying people just a few blocks down the road. I had flown into an empty house and taken a wallet full of notes; about $300 in total. If we were going to survive without our homes and families, we'll need this money.
I stood on the end of the roof, shading me eyes, scanning the clouds for a wedge-tailed eagle. Where were they? I'm sure it doesn't take that long to fly here, they only had a small detour. On numerous occasions I had falsely raised my hopes when I saw a stray bird flying in my direction.
Eventually, Kay arrived, but not by air. I could tell it was him, because why else would there be a kangaroo bounding towards the hospital?
I quickly morphed crow and flew down to meet him. He had put the handbag inside his pouch, creating a protective lining for the three white rats peering out over the top.
(I feel sick.) said the Jason rat.
(What took you guys so long? I've been waiting here for at least thirty minutes!)
Kay spoke up as he lifted the handbag out of his pouch and onto the ground.
(Sorry, we got a little side-tracked, Jason needed to check on his family too,)
(They had purple eyes.) Jason and Kate had started to demorph.
(We were flying back when we started to get shot by those lasers. I had to morph kangaroo and jump over back fences on my way here to avoid the purple-eyes.)
(Over back fences? How high exactly can those jump?)
(We aren't entirely sure what the peak of a kangaroo's jump is, but some larger ones, this morph included, can jump 5-6 meters from a standstill.)
(In feet?)
(Sorry, it's about 19 feet.)
(So, they started to shoot you?)
(Yeah, I guessed it was because an Australian eagle carrying three rats in a handbag was a bit suspicious. Maybe they thought we were left-behind andalites or they think there are still morph capable humans.)
Kay and I both started to demorph. With us two without speech-capable mouths, Kate took the floor with a new plan.
"I was watching from Kay's pouch, there didn't seem to be any purple eyes around this area. I suspect they're growing, taking each suburb at a time. By the end of this day they'll have taken the whole town and will be preparing for the city. I think that it's safe for now to catch a bus to the city. Does anyone have a place to stay when we arrive?"
A half-morphed Kay raised his hand.
"Great, we'll stay at Kay's place. We'll then alert the army so they can prepare for a fight, and then we'll use guerrilla attacks to protect the city and try to take back the captured humans."
I finished demorphing, but Kate had already said everything that needed to be said. All that was left was dealing out the money between us and catching a bus to the city. An hour and a half later, we were walking through the crowded streets, led by Kay.
We stopped in front of a posh, modern hotel, situated in amongst the tallest skyscrapers. It had marble door arches, bellboys and a doorman.
"Umm…. Kay, where are we?"
"Relax, It's a hotel room, one of those rich, fancy ones. My dad manages the hotels, see, that's why we came over here. The thing is, we have a fancy apartment on most hotels near the top, not exactly the penthouse apartment, but close to it. It means we have a place to stay wherever we go. Dad was on a business trip in your town, he was at a meeting for building a new tower in a neighbouring city. He was taken by the purple-eyes, which leaves all the apartments for us."
We arrived at the apartment and lazed around. Well, everyone except Kate and I. Jason and Kay watched television on a leather couch, Mike was sniffling through a box of cereal, and I was on Kay's computer, trying to find a way to contact the army. Kate seemed to be cooking something in the kitchen.
"Kate, what are you doing?"
She reached into her handbag and pulled out a plastic shopping bag, filled with two cubes.
"We put these cubes into the plastic bag when we picked up Mike. We didn't want Mike to gain morphing powers. I think it's safer we hide these somewhere safe, and disguise them so nobody can find them or accidentally touch them."
She grabbed a large Tupperware container box and filled it with water to about a fifth. She walked back to the pantry and came back with a handful of food colouring. Dropping all of the red into the water and half of the blue, she had a thick, dark puddle of water. She then stuck it into the freezer.
"I'll have to finish it when it's frozen."
She dialled up the freezer to the lowest temperature and closed the door.
"Any luck with the army?"
"Not really. I don't think they'll believe us if we tell them online anyway, they need proof."
"Well, what else can we do?"
Kay spoke up from the couch. "We need morphs, especially Cameron. Come on, dude, a cow?"
"It was a bull." I said through gritted teeth, but I knew he was right. My morphs sucked.
After a short bustrip, Kay and I were flying over the gates of the Gardens. Kay had opted to go for a less 'loud' approach, and he was morphed into another small Australian bird, a pink and grey bird he called a 'galah'.
"This isn't fair, how come Jason and Kate get free entry to the Gardens?"
"Hey, do you see us paying to get in?"
He has a point. I flew over to the others and spoke to them in thoughtspeak. Because Kay was such a foreign animal, he flew straight to the bathrooms to demorph.
(Hey guys, we're going to meet up at the dolphin tank. There's a dolphin show going on, and we can try to be chosen out of the crowd to pat the dolphins.)
I swerved back to the bathrooms and demorphed in a cubicle, meeting Kay on my way out. We walked over to the dolphin tanks just as the show was finishing.
"Ah, crap. What do we do now?" Kay said.
"Just you wait; Kate worked some magic last time we were here. Here she goes, just stand here and look innocent."
I followed Jason's orders and watched Kate as she walked down to the dolphin keepers. After a few words with the keepers, she waved us over.
The lady was still wearing her wetsuit; she had just been riding two dolphins in the show for a big finale of dolphin backflips. Her blonde ponytail was matted together with seawater, and she had a bag of smelly fish on her belt. She was smiling, still excited after her show with the dolphins.
"Hey, I'm so sorry about what happened last week. Your friend explained everything. Usually we have people to check that sort of thing, but I guess we missed it this time. Anyways, you can all take a photo with Chandler, Joey and Phoebe here, they're the friendliest."
I'm slightly puzzled with what Kate told the keeper, but I follow along anyway.
"You first Cameron, it was your photo that was ruined last week anyway."
Ah, I get it now. Kate must've told the lady that we had already taken a photo with the dolphins last week, but the photo we bought was ruined somehow, maybe by a blink or a fly in the way.
I step over to the dolphin tank and the lady hands me a small fish. I don't even need to dangle the fish into the tank before three dolphins surface, eager for fish and human contact.
"Which one is which?"
"Left to right, they are Joey, Chandler, and Phoebe."
I definitely want a guy dolphin morph, I made a pact to choose the morph with balls if I ever get the choice. I quickly decide that Joey looks like the biggest dolphin and I toss the fish towards him. I reach out and put my hand on his leathery skin. It was smooth yet not slimy, so my hand glided over his head without much friction. He felt slightly like wet rubber, like the snorkelling flippers they hand out for school swimming training.
Joey became calm and peaceful to allow me to acquire his DNA. I took a quick pose for Jason to take a photo with his IPhone, and then took my hand away, taking over Jason's place as a cameraman.
We took turns acquiring the DNA, Kate choosing Phoebe and the other two choosing Chandler. Afterwards, we stayed for a few more minutes, just to take more photos and play with the dolphins. My favourite photo was when Kay was acquiring his dolphin and Jason jumped into the photo, putting his arm around Kay's shoulders and causing him to blush.
With a quick thankyou to the keeper, we left through the back of the stands.
"Where to now?" I said.
"Let's make a list of things we need, and we'll split up. Kay and I, Cameron and Jason."
We quickly made a list of necessary morphs. All of us except for Kay needed bird morphs; all of us except for Kate needed heavy-duty morphs. I needed a stronger battle morph, and Kay wanted something with a large bite too. We each wrote a few more animals that we needed and split up.
Jason and I headed towards the aviary.
Tell me what you think! I might be a little slower posting new chapters from now on, my exams are coming up... :/