Kay, Chapter 2's already up. Shorter than Chapter 1, but that's okay. =) We get to see Tobias and Ax in the next chapter. =D

:::Chapter Dos:::

The Titanic was beautiful. It was like visiting a Victorian house. It looked so old, it felt creepy. I was sure ghosts lived on the ship. The hallways' walls looked like they were made of oak. There were also wallpaper of finely drawn vines and leaves. It was kind of too old for my taste, but it looked new.

I found my room and stepped in. There were three berths, or single beds in a shared room, and there was a big couch set on the right hand side. There was a sink and a mirror over it. There was also a small table and one long rectangular window that overlooked the waters. The ship hadn't moved yet, so I could still see other boats skimming across the waters.

There was someone else in the room, too. And you wouldn't believe who it was. I didn't believe it.

"Cassie?"

"Hey, Marco."

Yes! YES! She wasn't a delusional British girl! She was Cassie, the tree-hugger!

"Tree-hugger?"

Cassie laughed. "I'm here."

I hugged her for a long time. "You know, Jake would probably beat me to a bloody pulp if he saw what I was doing to you right now." I let go of her.

"He'd understand if he had sense of what was going on. I was scared, too. I saw Rachel, but I was too scared to talk to her... You know, after she died and all."

I nodded.


"How'd you get on board?" she asked.

I told her what happened.

Cassie blinked. "Rachel? Acting like that?"

"Yeah, I know. Tell me about it."

Cassie sat down on the couch.

"So, how did you get on board?"

"I don't really know. I sort of passed out at the barn, woke up here and saw a pamphlet on the table." She showed me the pamphlet and I read it. It described the Titanic, the rules, the food, the schedules, and other special stuff. "I went outside onto the deck and saw Rachel on the gangway."

"You know, this could be fun."

Cassie snorted. "This ship sinks in 4 days, Marco. What are you talking about?"

I sat down on the other side of the couch and kicked up my feet onto a chair. "No Yeerks. No parents. Just us, the Animorphs."

"You know, only you and me are on this deck."

"I saw Tobias on third-class and Rachel and Max are on first-class. We can't get to them, can we?"

"Max?"

"It's human for Ax."

"Ah."

"Apparently, he's Rachel's step-cousin."

"Weird."

"Ellimist's weird, you know."

"Yeah. I figured he was up to this."

I nodded.

"What about Jake?" she asked.

"Oh, he's on E-deck. He's second-class, too. But he's a delusional freak. It's scary how they have no idea about the Yeerks."

"I don't know why we're here either. I mean, Ellimist wants us here for what?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, Cas, but whatever he wants, it'll happen. Maybe he's bored."

"I don't even have any other clothes to wear."

I picked up my suitcase and threw it onto one of the beds. "Rachel's dad lent me some clothes and money. Maybe I can sneak up to first-class and ask her for some clothes."

Cassie shook her head. "She doesn't know you that well, Marco. You think she will?"

"Hey, she convinced her dad to let me on this stupid ship. I'm sure she can loan me some clothes."

Cassie shrugged. "I just don't know. She doesn't seem like Rachel, so I don't know how she's going to act."

"Me either. For all I know, she might be a Controller."

We didn't laugh at that.

*

The ship launched 5 minutes later, and we nearly collided into a boat, the New York. Cassie and I decided to go check it and we saw Jake on the deck while everyone else was watching the near collision.

"Hey, Jake!" I yelled. I waved to him and he walked over to me.

"Hi, Marco. Seems like this is going to be the most exciting thing that's ever going to happen to this ship." He leaned over the rail and looked out.

I looked at Cassie, who was staring at Jake. She couldn't say anything to him. He didn't know who she was. Besides, this Jake wasn't the real Jake. It was some Jake that the Ellimist designed to fool us. Or, maybe we were supposed to refresh his mind.

Cassie nudged me. I leaned to her. "Should you introduce me to him?"

I looked at her then looked to Jake. "Jake, I'd like you to meet one of my good friends."

Jake turned around and looked around at the crowd of people.

"Who?" he asked.

"Cassie." I looked to Cassie to show Jake who I was talking about.

Jake looked at her then at me. "But she's a Negro. How can she afford to get on the Titanic?"

Cassie's eyes widened and I didn't blame her either.

"Well... uh... Her family's pretty rich. Her dad - a doctor."

"Oh. Is she from France? There's Negroes in France."

"Yes, I'm from France," she said.

I'm suprised she's playing along with this. I would've probably slapped Jake and yelled at him.

"France's nice. I've been there once."

"I'm from... Spain," I said.

Jake nodded.

Someone yelled out, "Hey, look! The New York's so close you can almost touch it if you were on G-Deck!"

People scrambled to the side of the ship, leaning over and trying to see if it was true. I looked over the rail and saw the boat's stern almost hitting the side of the Titanic. You could fit a ruler between the New York's stern from the Titanic's hull. Damn, that was close.

Someone next to me said, "It's an omen." and left. He headed off towards the rooms. I guess he was going to tell his friends what he just saw.

Everyone started to leave when the incident got less exciting. Jake, Cassie, and me was left by ourselves on the deck. Everyone else went back inside since it was cold.

"So, Jake... Um... Know Yeerks?"

"What?" he asked.

"Nevermind."

Cassie glanced at me. I guess she had no idea I was trying to refresh everyone's minds.

"Can we visit Rachel?"

"Not today but there's a way."

"How?"

"Climb over the gates or sneak through but there's too many authorities on the ship."

"Oh."

Cassie was unusually quiet.

"Well... We gotta get going," I said and took Cassie's arm. We walked back to our room.

Cassie cracked. "I couldn't talk to him. I just couldn't. It wasn't Jake." She looked at me and she was nearly crying. I didn't really know why, but I knew it was because of Jake and maybe Rachel. "That was scary, Marco. That was unright, too."

I gave her a hug. "That was just Jake being an ass... It wasn't him, you know that."

She pulled away. "I wonder what Rachel must be like." She sat down.

"Cassie, we still need to see Ax and Tobias."

She didn't reply.

"We do have 4 days until this ship sinks. We can survive this thing. We know what's going to happen. We need to round up the gang before it's too late. They might die. And who knows, maybe this test shows how good we are to try and keep to survive. Maybe if one of us dies on this ship, then they die. Maybe we can't go back to the future."

"That'll be hell for me," said Cassie. "I'll be sold to a slave."

"No, you won't. You'll be in the North. Besides, I'll make Jake fall in love with you and he'll try his damn best to not let you go. Anyway, the real Jake would do that and I'm sure Ellimist put the real Jake in him somewhere."

Cassie nodded, but I think she didn't listen to me. She was still crying, but not as much as before.


"Cassie, what's the matter?"

"I'm tired of all this. I want to just forget it all. You know, throw it all away."


She's cracked bad. Cassie didn't sound like Cassie. "Cassie, get yourself together. If we can fucking beat the Yeerks, we can fucking survive the fucking Titanic."

She looked at me and squinted. "How? Tell me how. We don't have Jake to lead anymore. So you tell me how in the fucking hell are we going to get out of this? Just tell me and I'll do it."

"We morph. We refresh everyone's memories."

"Marco, that's not going to work."

"Why not?"

"It's going to blow their brains up. It's too extreme."

"Then, Cassie, you tell me how we're going to bring our friends back."

She leaned back, thinking. "I don't know how Jake can do this," she mumbled. She shook her head. "We do that later... First, we have to round everyone up. We have to find Ax and Tobias. At least then, when the Titanic sinks, we can all escape."

I remembered something. "... Cassie, when the Titanic sunk, didn't women have to go first?"

She looked at me worriedly. "You're right. You guys might not survive."

That made a knot in my heart. "Thanks, Cas."

"Well, if that's happening, I'm dying with you guys. I'm not going to live my life without any of you."

I nodded. She was right. If one of us goes, we're all going. "Same here..."

Cassie looked down at herself. "I got to get new clothing... I must look like a fool on this ship."


I snorted. "At least you're not wearing baggy jeans a jersey shirt."

She looked at me and laughed. "Well, you're not covered in bird crap."

"You're definitely right about that. I'll go try and get on first-class this afternoon. You can come if you want."

"... Wait." Cassie was laughing.

"What?"

She was laughing hard. "We can morph, Marco."

... I'm such an idiot. I forgot that we could morph into any animal. "You're so smart, Cassie. I guess I don't need to climb over any gates."

*

So, the plan was for me to stuff clothing under a gate, morph rat, flea, anything to get through the gate, and demorph, get my clothes, run over to where Rachel's eating, ask her for Max, talk to Max, say good-bye, walk back to the gate, stuff clothes on the other side of the gate, morph, go across gate, demorph, put clothes back on, and tell Cassie what happened. Then, Cassie's going to third-class but it's going to be really hard to find Tobias.

We had an hour until the plan was going to start. 6 PM was when the first-class started to eat their dinner. We figured Rachel was going to be in the dining rooms so we were going to meet her there. The pamphlet said the Gym was only for the first-class. Maybe I should've gotten a first-class ticket instead.

Cassie and I spent the extra hour exploring the Titanic. If we were going to live on this ship for 4 days, we might as well look around. Besides, this was a once in the lifetime kind of thing.

Titanic also stopped at Cherbourg, France at 6:30 PM. We were outside then and Jake saw us. Cassie started to wave at the crowds, pretending to be waving at her friends so Jake wouldn't doubt Cassie's nationality.

We saw a few more faces enter the ship and we saw a few more leave. I saw the cute girl disembark first class. I waved down to her and even hollered at her. An old man who was walking by glared at my rudeness.

The girl waved back at me, though. I saw her mom pulling her arm down and leaning over to talk to her.

Jake left at 6:45 PM. Dinner ended at 7:30 so we had less than an hour to meet Rachel.

Cassie and I decided to walk around a bit. We were walking down the deck. She had my clothes stuffed in her jacket and I thought that she looked like she was carrying a bomb around.

"You know what would be great?" she asked.

"What?" I asked.

"If they knew how to morph and if their memory was refreshed, we can have everyone gather in a room. Then, maybe, we can devise a plan. We could be together, Marco. And we'd have everyone again. Even Rachel."

I looked at her. That was more extreme than having to morph in front of them. "That would be nice, but not everyone would be the same. They're not delusional. They're like different personalities in our friends' bodies."

She nodded at that. "But, you never know."

And in just the right timing, we approached the gate. She handed me the clothes.

"Is anyone around?" I asked.


"No. Everyone's on the other side of the ship looking at France."

"Good." I shoved the clothes through the gate. "What morph, Cas?"

She looked around. "Spider."

"Ooo. I can be Spider-Man." I grinned.

She smiled back.