ANIMORPHS: The Game Chapter 7: Rachel, an animorphs fanfic

CHAPTER 7

Rachel

I KNEW EXACTLY WHERE I WAS. The underground hell known as the Yeerk Pool. The place where the slugs come to feed every three days. I wasn't really there, I was just seeing it. Like there was a monitor in the ceiling and I was watching the Yeerks below me.

A man, in about his mid-twenties, bent over the pool and the slug that controlled his mind slithered out. The two Hork-Baijr stood guard and grabbed him, hauling him over to the voluntary host cage where they kept the people who wanted the Yeerk to take over there mind. It was hard to imagine that people like that existed, but it was true.

Next in line was a girl. A very short girl. I could recognize the outline of her figure but couldn't place a name on her.

Suddenly, I was at the other end of the pit, hunched over as the Yeerk slithered out of my own ear, and I angrily stared at the girl across the pool. It was Allie, and she was laughing. Laughing evilly and smiling right at me as she walked over to the voluntary hosts' cage.

I could hear myself screaming. "You did this to me! You did it!" But I was helpless as the two guards grabbed my wrists and hauled me to my cage. Trapped with my free will boiling inside of me and hurt by the girl who I thought I could trust. I could hear the Crayak's voice in my head.

"I told you so, Rachel."

I sat up in my bed, clutching my pillow, as my alarm rang throughout my bedroom. I quickly turned it off and stood up, trying to shake off the horrible dream. My bed was drowning in my own perspiration as I made it up, hopped in the shower, and got ready for school.

What the Crayak said couldn't be right. The Ellimist wouldn't dare harm his team against the Crayak. This game was too important to him. I tried to convince myself, really I did. But it just wasn't working. Allie was too careful about the words she chose to speak with. She was too cautious. She wasn't being totally honest with us and every bone in my body was screaming that there was some truth to what the Crayak said.

In the back of my mind, the thought had been nagging me about what I would say to the Crayak when he asked me for my decision. I could say yes, find out what I needed to know, and then somehow work get out of my deal with the Crayak. If I could outsmart him.

I walked to school alone, lost in my thoughts until I heard Cassie's voice behind me.

"Rachel! Wait up!" she called. I turned around as she ran up to me. "You're never going to believe what happened last night."

"What happened to your face?!" I demanded. A red scratch was across her right cheek.

She felt the scratch. "It's nothing really. Allie had a hard time controlling her morph."

"You were attacked by a snow leopard?!" I cried.

"I'm okay, really. She has control now. And you're not going to believe what she can do. Rachel, this is so amazing. No wonder the Ellimist put her on our side."

"Look, Cassie. I don't trust her. There's something I have to tell you."

"What is it?" she asked, concerned. "What's wrong, Rach?"

I took a deep breath. Cassie was my best friend and I could tell her everything. Besides, the Crayak didn't mention that I couldn't tell anyone. "Yesterday, when I was walking home from your place, I ran into the Crayak."

"What?" Cassie questioned. "You just ran into him?"

"Well, he approached me. He wants me to be the new member on his team."

"Rachel, you can't actually be considering -"

"Just hear me out, okay?" I held up my hand defensively. "He says that Allie is hiding something from us. Something big. Something that could be the key to the end of the animorphs."

"So? He's lying..."

"I know he's actually telling the truth. I can feel it, Cassie. She's not being completely honest with us."

"But you told him no way, right?"

"He said he'd give me forty-eight hours to decide."

"Rachel, you can't do this. It's insane."

"But we can't risk the entire human race on Allie. She's not being truthful with us. You know it. Last night - well, this morning - I had this dream that she was down in the Yeerk Pool and she was a voluntary host. And then I was down there too and she had betrayed us and we were all Yeerks now."

Cassie sighed. "I can tell that she's hiding something too, Rachel, but having the Crayak tell you what's really going on isn't going to make things any better. Besides, if you say yes, then you're risking the entire human race on trying to outsmart the Crayak. What if you can't get away? What if you can't go back on your word? Whatever Allie is hiding, it's not worth the risk. We need you on our side Rachel. Your too valuable to lose."

"But I can handle the Crayak."

"The Ellimist can't even handle the Crayak! And he's got these omnipotent powers and you're just a girl who can change into animals. It's not worth the risk, Rachel."

"At least help me find out the truth, Cassie. That's the least you can do."

"Why don't we just tell Allie that we know she's hiding something and make her tell us what it is?"

"Because she'll deny the whole thing. She may even lie to us, Cassie. I don't trust her. Let's follow her after school. She's been in town for three days, right? She moved in the day of my gymnastics meet."

"You can't actually be suggesting that she's a Yeerk. We would be dead by now if she was."

"Not necessarily," I answered. "She could be waiting for the right moment."

Cassie sighed. "Fine. I'll do it. But this is ridiculous. I'm telling you, Allie is on our side. She is a very valuable member of our team, just like the Ellimist promised."

"Why? Why is she so valuable, Cassie?"

"Because she can double morph."

"What?"

"She can double morph. Yesterday she morphed right from snow leopard to goshawk."

"You saw her do this?"

"No, but Marco did."

"Marco is practically in love with her. He doesn't count."

"But Ax saw it too. And Ax never lies."

"Maybe she's brainwashed them or something."

"Be realistic, Rachel."

"I am being realistic, Cassie, it's you who's totally lost it. Double morphing is impossible. Andalites can't even do it."

"But she got her power from the Ellimist, not from the morphing cube."

"So did Tobias, remember?"

"Yeah, but he had the morphing power before. The Ellimist just gave the ability back to him." I sighed. Cassie was unusually difficult today. "Rachel," she said, "it's not that I don't agree with you that she's hiding something, but spying just isn't the way to find out what we want to know. I'll still come with you, but it's just wrong."

"This thing is just way too complicated for me, okay? Meet me after school in the east parking lot." I took off running towards the school, not looking back.

I just wasn't myself at school. I still wasn't sure about what I was going to tell the Crayak. I zoned through all my classes and skipped lunch period. I was not in the mood to talk or to run in to Allie. I ran into Jake sixth period and he asked me why I was so distant today and I mumbled something about my dad calling. My parents are divorced and my dad lives in another state. He invited me to come live with him before he moved away but I couldn't leave the animorphs behind. I didn't like to lie, but I'm sure that Cassie would tell him the truth soon enough.

She kept her promise and met me in the parking lot after school.

"Did you see her yet?" Cassie asked, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun. We were sitting on the stairs leading down to the parking lot.

"I saw her come out this way. She probably is looking for Marco so they can walk home together or something." I rolled my eyes.

"Jealous, Rachel?" Cassie asked. She was really not her usual considerate self.

"How would you like it if Jake was stuck as a red-tailed hawk?" I retaliated.

Cassie shook her head and put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Rachel. I don't know what made me say that. I just...I can't explain it. Something very weird is going on here."

"See. What did I tell you? Ever since Allie came..." I let my voice trail off as Marco walked over to us.

"Hey guys, what cha' doing?"

"Oh you, know," Cassie said. "Just hanging out."

"So aren't you going to walk Allie home?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Her brother, Paul, came to pick her up from school. They're going to spend some "quality time" together, as Allie put it. He works at a research center and is never around."

"What about her parents?" Cassie questioned.

"They died in a car accident about a year ago," Marco replied. "She lives with her brother in the apartment across from me. Hey, there she is." He started to wave. I quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him down on the stairs before he could attract any attention.

"What the? What are you guys doing?"

"Okay, Marco, so we haven't been totally honest," Cassie said. "We were actually planning on following Allie after school for a little while."

"But why?"

"Because she's hiding something," I replied, letting go of his arm.

To my surprise, he didn't protest. "I've noticed that too. She's very secretive. Every time I ask her a personal question she freaks out and then it takes her five minutes to come up with an answer."

"So then you actually agree that we need to find out what her secret is, right?"

"Well, I don't know if spying on her is the best way to go about it, but I guess it's the only choice I have."

"See Cassie, Marco is even second-guessing her. That definitely gives us a reason to follow her."

Cassie sighed. "I guess you're right. But how are we going to keep up with them when they're in the car?"

"We'll just have to run really fast." I stood up and began to casually jog, following Allie's green jeep. I suddenly realized that Allie's brother was the man in my dream, the one who was in front of Allie in line. The realization just made me more and more determined to find out what she was hiding.

We only had to follow them a few blocks away form the school as they pulled into a McDonald's fast food joint. We walked inside and sat at a table in the corner so that she wouldn't recognize us.

"There's no way she's a Yeerk," Marco said. "No way."

This McDonald's happened to be the doorway to the Yeerk Pool. You walked up to the counter, asked for a Happy Meal with "extra happy," and went into the back room that led down to the pool.

"I don't believe it," Marco said. "There's no way."

"Just shut up and watch," I snapped as Allie and her brother walked inside.

The two of them went to the counter. Paul was the first to order. He spoke in a soft but firm voice. "We'd like two Happy Meals with extra happy."

I thought Marco was going to pass out as a look of horror crossed his face. "There's got to be a mistake," he mumbled. "I won't believe it until I see it. She must be going down there to fight the Yeerks by herself or something. She's on our side, I know it. We've got to get down there." He stood up.

Cassie grabbed him by the wrist. "We can't go down there!" she cried. "Are you crazy? We'll be killed. And if we make it out of there alive, Jake will kill us himself!"

"I agree with Marco," I said. "We need to find out what's going on here. I have to see if she's a voluntary host."

"She's not a host at all!" Marco hissed. "She can't be!"

"I can't let you guys do this. It's too dangerous."

"We need to find out what she's hiding from us," I declared. "You said it yourself Cassie, we can't risk the human race on her. Now is our chance to find out." I stood up and walked over to the counter. My voice nearly cracked as I said to the worker: "I'd like a Happy Meal with extra happy."

Marco and Cassie did the same. We went into the back room together and went through the whole cleansing process where they search for other organisms besides humans, just in case an Andalite bandit might try to break into the pool. The door to the pool opened and the screams of the innocent echoed throughout the stairwell.

I shuttered as my dream the night before came back to me. The three of us trudged down the stairs, resisting the urge to run screaming for our lives. Once we were in sight of the pool, we stopped on the stairwell, looking over the edge below.

"They're in one of the lines," Marco whispered, his voice shaking. "That's Paul, he's next. Allie's right behind him."

"My dream is coming true," I cried, horrified. "This is exactly how it happened."

"Maybe we should get out of here," Cassie said.

"No. I have to see if she's a voluntary host."

"What dream? What are you talking about?"

"You don't want to know," I replied.

Paul bent over as the slug crawled out of his ear and plopped into the slug-filled pool. He stood up, unaffected, and the Hork-Baijr led him to the same cage as in my dream.

"He's a Yeerk," I said. "Her brother is a Yeerk."

"So is Tom," Marco cried. Tom is Jake's brother. "That doesn't mean anything."

Allie was next. She stepped up to the platform, her head leaning over the edge of the pool.

"Come on Allie," Marco whispered. "You can't be a Yeerk. There's no way."

His face grew pale as the green-colored slug crawled out of her ear. She was limp and fell backward, the Hork-Baijr catching her and hauling her into the voluntary host cage.

"No!" Marco cried. "No!"

"I knew it!" I declared.

Cassie shook her head. "We've got to get him out of here, Rachel, people are going to realize that his screaming isn't coming from one of those cages."

I nodded and took Marco gently by the arm. It must be hard for him. First his mother died and now the girl he likes is controlled by a Yeerk.

He seemed to snap out of his screaming stage and into a surreal trance. He was extremely quiet. Too quiet for Marco. We walked out of the McDonald's and back to Cassie's barn in silence. There was only one thing left to do.

Call Jake.