COPYRIGHT 2000 (Year 2G)
When you're done reading this, there's a sequel (gag) called "The Return."
Chapter 6
I went back to the control center. Of course, no one was there, they were all celebrating. I went in and looked around. I should have no problem operating this stuff. A few simple computers, a few printers, scanners, fax machines, copiers, no problem.
I went over to what looked like the newest computer and bailed out of whatever the program the guy had on before the fight. Get this. It was Men In Black, the CD-ROM game.
I clicked on the Microsoft word icon. I didn't even need a password. Apparently, the Yeerks way overrated Andalites. Andalites probably thought this would be too simple, actually, but humans who are somewhat desperate, they can do pretty much anything. I found two files that looked completely unimportant and clicked on the print button. I've got to give it to the Yeerks, though. They get fast office equipment.
I found a folder and put the papers in there. Then I went back to the computer and inserted the virus.
I was proud of that virus. Erek, the Chee, and Ax had rigged it so that it would start automatically loading, simple when you think about it. Then it would spread into the computer, then it would get into the entire system and spread. I had asked them to get it to attack the mainframe so everything in all Yeerk systems would crash. And then, it would jam all of the signals. And ships in space would be paralyzed, unable to move. Everywhere. It was cruel, probably, when you thought of all of the things that could go wrong. But too bad.
After I got the virus downloaded, I took it out of the slot and broke it. I thoroughly demolished it. On the very last page of the papers, I wrote in small, fine letters, "Ha Ha." Visser Three's ego was bigger than it had the right to be. I was going to burst his bubble, so to speak. Big time. We were going to win, and we were going to win big.
I walked confidently to the Visser's quarters. It wasn't that hard to find. There were signs of it. A few blue hairs here, a tail blade mark there. Maybe a bit of blood every now and then. I smothered the folder with dirt on one side when I reached what I hoped was the right door. I knocked.
The door was opened by another Andalite, older and uglier than Ax.
"Hello, sir. This was outside your door." I handed him the folder. I felt his fingers and chose that moment. When it was done, I said, "And congratulations on the victory, sir. You will be celebrated throughout the Empire." I curtsied.
{Wait. What was that you just did?}
"Oh, the curtsy? Humans in ancient times did that whenever they were faced with royalty. I believe you are deserving of it."
The Visser formed a sort of smile with his eyes. {I like it.}
"I'm glad." I curtsied again and then left. When I went down the hall, I started breathing again. I may be confusing, rude, the queen of making lame and bad jokes, but good Lord, I could be the queen of sucking up when I wanted to be.
I didn't have time to celebrate, though.
I asked one of the Controllers where the Andalites had been taken. She told me. We laughed and dissed them for a few minutes, and all along, I was laughing more at her than she was about the capture, all along the anger in me rising, wondering how she could possibly saying these things. Had the person the Yeerk possessed given up hope? Then again, what reason was there to hope? As far as this lady was concerned, her last hope had just gotten captured.
I went down another hallway, took a few turns and finally found the right place. I looked around, and seeing that it was clear, started to change.
My arms turned blue and hairy, and I grew more fingers. I felt my mouth disappear and my nose shrink. On top of my head, I felt something sprout, and then, I could see in all four directions. {I like it.} I thought to myself, mocking the Visser, adding a stupid drawl to the voice. Yeah, I even had his thought-speak voice. {Cool,} I said in my own. By now, I was fully Andalite. Two hearts, two pairs of legs, two pairs of eyes. {Cool.}
I was Visser Three.
And although the Yeerks had won the battle, they were going to lose the war.
Chapter 7
I bursted in through the door. The guys were chained and weighed down heavily. Even Hardy and Marco, the gorillas.
"Visser Three!" Three men jumped up out of their chairs, holding Dracon beams.
{Go celebrate with the rest of your kind,} I told them. Then I started snarling. {I want to talk alone with these Andalite bandits.}
"Yessir. Right away, sir. And congratulations!" they called as they ran down the hall, away from me.
{You know,} I said in my own voice, {I don't think they like Visser Three much.}
All of the assorted animals stared at me.
{What?} I asked defensively. {You aren't the only ones that can morph.}
I demorphed. "It's okay, There aren't any cameras." They demorphed and the chains fell off. Ax morphed a fly and then remorphed. "Ax, go to human," I told him. I gave Hardy a quick hug. "I have to make a quick phone call and then we'll go destroy the Kandrona. Think if I dial nine, I'll get an outside number?"
"So you downloaded the Virus?" Jake asked.
"Of course. They don't even know it. They're too busy celebrating."
"How did you morph Visser Three?" Cassie asked.
"Later, huh? Over a celebration dinner sometime?"
"We thought- I mean, I didn't think so, but- it seemed like-"
I caught on to Hardy's train of thought. "Hardy, I didn't betray anyone. If I had wanted to betray someone, anyone, I would have done it by now." I looked around at all the others. "Does that make enough sense?"
They nodded.
I led the way out and finally found a phone. And I found more than that. We found Erek. When he saw us, it looked like he had seen a ghost. Or ghosts.
"You guys are okay!" he exclaimed in astonishment. He looked at me in my leotard. My clothes had gotten shredded. Then again, so had everyone else's. And Ax was walking around without a shirt.
"I know. I need you to do one more favor. Please."
"More clothes?" he joked.
"No, I need you to call the Kandrona ray place and tell them that we've won, to come down here and celebrate, and if you absolutely have to, tell them that they don't have to guard the Kandrona anymore. And especially tell them that the Andalites have been taken."
He nodded. "Cool. Mind if I ask how you guys pulled it off?"
"Later."
He called and gave me the thumbs-up sign when he was done. "They're on their way down."
I smiled. Great.
Chapter 8
"So what was the phone call about?" Hardy asked.
"It was about making this a whole lot easier. Plus, I figured you guys wouldn't want to fight."
They nodded. We flew to the tower that night. It was the same radio tower that had been used in number seven. What was it called? The EGS Tower.
{The Yeerks must be stupid to put the Kandrona there. We already found it and destroyed it,} Tobias said.
{Yes. It is an insult to our intelligence,} Ax agreed.
{That's the point,} I told them. {You already destroyed it here. You wouldn't expect for them to put it in the same place. It's brilliant, actually. They still think we're Andalites. And Ax, admit it, Andalites underrate the Yeerks a lot.}
{We do not,} Ax said defensively.
{Yes you do. Even Elfangor pointed that out. Along with a few other words of wisdom.}
{Elfangor?} Tobias and Ax both said together.
{Yeah, I'll have to give you the book. Or read it to you, since you can't see it.}
{So all we have to do is bust in there, and push the Kandrona over the side?} Cassie asked. {No fighting?>}
I felt elated. It was going to work. {No fighting,} I answered back.
{What about the Yeerk peace movement?} she asked.
I thought. They hadn't been destroyed. {Erek has weeded them out. They're staying with the free Hork-Bajir. They have a bunch of those portable pools so they can live until everything's over. Then we'll get them on a ship to go to wherever they want.}
{Who will their hosts be?} Jake asked.
{Whoever wants to go. Maybe a few Taxxons, maybe a few Hork-Bajir.}
{There's the tower,} Marco reported. {Should we simply walk in and ride the elevator, to celebrate?}
{Cat? Your call,} Jake told me.
{No, go in carefully. Just in case there are still Controllers around. On the way down, we can shout and scream and celebrate all we want.}
{Deal,} Marco said.
We landed and demorphed. Ax stood aside as his usual self, and the rest of us morphed into the worst animals we could think of. Me? I had the cougar, of course.
Marco, in his gorilla morph, went over to the door. {Hello?} He knocked and broke the glass. {Guess nobody's home.}
He opened the door and Jake, the tiger; Cassie, the wolf; Tobias, the Hork-Bajir; Rachel, the elephant; Hardy, also a gorilla; and as I told you, me, in the cougar morph.
{Let's do it,} Rachel said enthusiastically.
{Normally, I hate it when she points that out,} Marco muttered. He shot a sidelong glance at me. {But I don't think it'll hurt this time.}
I started to feel edgy. As if Marco had just jinxed us.
It was empty. No security guards. No Hork-Bajir. No Controllers of any kind. {Okay, who wants to ride the elevator first?} Jake asked. Everyone looked at me.
{Firepower first.}
{Okay, that counts me in,} Rachel said, somewhat happily.
{As always,} Marco said.
{I'll go,} Tobias started to climb on Rachel's back. {Ax, you come to. We'll see if we can all fit.}
We found the storage elevator and they went up. After they left, I said, {And next is everyone else.}
When the elevator came again, we all piled in. {Imagine,} Cassie said. {After this, it will all be over. No more battles. No more fighting.}
{Yeah. Over for you guys, but I want my mom back,} Marco said grumpily.
{Erek has a lock on her ship,} I told him.
{He what?}
{Surprise. That's what it was supposed to be. He's hacked into the computer and has them locked on a course here. She'll be here within a week. Thankfully, he got to her before the virus got to her computer. She can't even control her own ship. Which means she can't get away. Surprise.}
Marco didn't say anything. Instead, he just kind of looked at me in disbelief.
{I can't wait to have Tom back,} Jake said.
{Let's have a celebration dinner,} Hardy offered.
{Sounds good.}
{Wait, wait, wait. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. We still have to destroy the Kandrona and then we can celebrate.} I tensed. I didn't know what was behind those doors, but I wasn't going to take chances. The elevator doors opened.
I saw three Hork-Bajir. No, four. Tobias was fighting another Hork-Bajir and didn't have a cut on him. Ax had done serious damage to his. And Rachel, even though she was cut quite a bit, was holding her Hork-Bajir up with her trunk, squeezing it. I looked around and saw a thick metal door. Just in case of an attack, I guess. To keep Andalites in.
{Hardy, open that door.} He did. Inside were thick metal walls. Plain metal. {Hope they aren't claustrophobic.}
Jake had caught on by now. {Everybody, get the Hork-Bajir in here.}
When we were done, Rachel demorphed and remorphed. {Let's do it,} she said again.
We started pushing the Kandrona. {Watch out below!} Hardy shouted.
We watched as the Kandrona fell. Marco laughed. {One small shove for man, one giant push for mankind.}
We rode down the elevator, pleased as punch, laughing and joking, Marco telling everyone about his mom. And I was pleased. I mean, they were so happy. And that kind of made me happy. Cheesy, I know. But it's true.
We had won. We had finally won the war, and saved the world.
None of us could stop thinking and saying that. We had won. We won. Finally, we won.
Chapter 9
I was up early the next morning, dressed in jeans and a tank top. I made myself breakfast and sat alone at the breakfast room table. I was waiting.
Finally, it came. A soft tap on the sliding glass door. I opened it and stepped out. Erek was there, smiling at me like a little boy who had just been given a remote control car for Christmas. "It worked," he told me. He laughed.
"So when will she be back?"
"Day after tomorrow. The Visser is ticked."
"Really?" I asked innocently. "What about?"
"He found that little message you left for him. The 'Ha Ha' on the last page? He didn't go through those files until this morning, when the Kandrona was found all over the sidewalk, and the Hork-Bajir were found. And about an hour ago, they discovered that, not only was their signal jammed, but that all of their files were missing. Except the two you gave the Visser."
I smiled. "It was fun. Oh, and did he mention the curtsy?"
Erek nodded and smiled. "Good job."
"Thanks. The guys did a lot too."
"When should we get Marco to meet his mom? I mean, we had someone on board who sabotaged the Kandrona on the ship quite a while ago. His mom is almost herself. We'll get her out of the pool as soon as she lands and take her to our house."
"Great. Call me when she lands, and then I'll trick the guys into going. An excuse for why she's been gone so long?"
"Amnesia. She hit her head on a rock when her boat crashed. She wandered all over the place, then she saw Marco at the mall and remembered."
"Brilliant." Not to mention a classic.
"Thanks, if I do say so myself. Hey, Marco doesn't by any chance know about his mom, does he?"
"No, of course not."
"Cat? Who are you talking to?"
I looked at where Erek had been. Nothing was there, but I smiled at it. "Nobody Mom. Just thinking."
"Okay. We're going to dinner tonight with some people from my new office. I talked to someone who works on the floor above me. She has three kids, named Rachel, Jordan, and Sara. Rachel is about your age, although a bit older. She's going to the same high school you're going to. She and her sisters are coming to dinner to, along with some other kids. Want to bring Hardy and Laurel?"
"Sure, I guess they can tag along." I shrugged casually and glared at the spot where the air was beginning to shimmer ever so slightly. I had a feeling Erek had known. A last surprise for him to give.
Ironic. That's what it was. Ironic. Alanis Morissette, this is ironic. My mom was trying to get me to be friends with some kid named Rachel and Rachel's friends. Ironic. I wasn't supposed to really know them, but now I had an excuse. I almost laughed. The irony!
Or, as Rachel once said, "Well hello opportunity."
Chapter 10
Dinner was great. Get this. The people I was supposed to be friends with? Rachel, Cassie, Jake, and Marco. Tobias and Ax came about halfway through dinner and joined us. Hardy sat at our table, while Laurel sat with Jordan and Sara. Then, some of the Chee came by. Erek, too. He couldn't stop laughing. He sounded kind of like a hyena.
But that night, I had a dream. It was about this ship landing. In cold, dark woods. And Hork-Bajir and Taxxons came out. They had brought more Yeerks. And in the dream, I realized something. You can never completely win a war. The Yeerks wanted Earth, and they wouldn't stop the wanting. Even after the Nazis lost, Nazi beliefs still hung around for a long time. They might still exist, I don't know.
I saw another war. I saw battles, slaves, Yeerks, blood. But I also saw the good that came out of the war. Rachel and Tobias grew up together. Jake and Cassie did. Marco, he finally learned to accept being single and started a computer industry, got rich, and then a few girls learned to like him. Hardy and Laurel both got married when they got older- not to each other, of course. And Rachel and Tobias had two kids. A boy and a girl. Jake and Cassie had three. Hardy had two. Ax? He went to his home planet eventually. But he always came back for long visits.
All around the world, people started talking about things called Yeerks, and pretty much forced the government to take care of some things to make people feel safer, even though they weren't.
The Chee went through time in peace.
Me? I saw a ship land one night, far in the future. When the guys were all grown up. But I was as old as I was now. I got their kids the morphing power and taught them how to use it, and we all started fighting again.
Then I saw David, the rat. The Ellimist, after years, turned him back into a human. That's who I ended up with, believe it or not. He had changed, we knew. He had learned his lesson. Well, the dream, which turned out to come true a long time later, is another story.
A completely different story.
I woke up the next morning and called the Ellimist. He came, happy, yet still serious. I asked him to give Loren her memory back. That was the one thing left to take care of. I didn't ask anything else, because I knew not to ask too much.
A week later, Loren had come back home and started her life over. The Ellimist had told her about us, knowing that was what I had been hoping for. Loren found Tobias and fixed her house so he and Ax could come and stay and watch TV whenever they wanted.
Marco got his mom back, and since then, rarely let her out of his sight.
Tom? Jake showed him the morph to tiger. Now they do a lot more stuff together.
Kind of cheesy ending, I know. But it's a happy one. That's what's important. Everything ended up okay.
Until that ship lands.
The End
Check out the sequel (Uh, please.) It's called "The Return." OH! And don't forget to review- PLEASE!