A note to all of you who read the second part before I edited it: the whole governor mission is scrapped as a story plot. Sorry. I thought of a better mission as I was writing chapter 7 that makes a lot more sense to my story. I just deleted the meeting bits from chapter 4, and it ends with Cassie watching Nathaniel walking away. I recycled all of the informative bits about Evan and stuff into chapter 7, so you might recognize some of it. Again, sorry. This is what I get for brainstorming as I write.
Ooh, but in a fit of preparation, I have already found Raven a battle morph. I'm really excited about it. It is definitely a morph Rachel would approve of, and I don't think I've ever seen it done in a fic before, but it is so cool.
What is it? Like I'm gonna tell you. You have to keep reading! All I will say is that it totally owns. She'll probably acquire it in the next few installments or so, so keep reading and reviewing!
Chapter 6-Raven
I smiled my best smile at the customer. "Have a nice day," I said with all the forced enthusiasm I could muster. I hated working at the Gap. Hated it with a passion, but I knew Tobias and I needed the extra income. Him working at a gas station didn't exactly cover all the bills.
Besides, I had been working long enough to gain myself a title and prestige of a manager, and I had enough of an employee discount so that I could afford Gap clothes, and not the hand-me-downs from Goodwill that had been the uniform of my childhood.
Seeing as it was a Tuesday night, there was no one else in the line. I made my way over to a shirt rack and began folding some shirts an earlier customer had left untidy.
And then he walked in, all faded jeans and a t-shirt. "Nathaniel," I said huffily, "the slightly disheveled look has been out since 2019."
"I'm sorry, fashion mistress," he replied, smiling. "I'll do better next time. Is your shift almost over?"
"In ten minutes." I indicated to my left with my head. "Come on. Pretend you're a customer. That way, we can talk and you can still get yourself some real clothes."
"And what are these?" he asked. "Imaginary clothes?"
"Exactly. You are not wearing any clothes."
"I feel so naked."
"Anyway," I said, steering him over to the pants. "These khakis would look nice on you. Nice blend of fabrics with a nice seam and cut, pre-shrunk and on sale for 30% off! How can you resist that??"
"Do you get commission, or do you really just want me to shop that bad?" Nathaniel asked, slightly amused.
"No commission. Now come on. Just try on the pants. That's all I'm asking."
"Do I have to sign the devil's black book, too?"
We finished out the end of my shift that way. And he never did buy those pants.
Spared from work, we walked out to my car, a clunker I affectionately called "the Beast". It was made in 2008, and I bought for $150 from a guy who was convinced he was ripping me off. But it hasn't broken down on me once since I bought it. I swear that old Suburban just needed a little bit of love. I didn't drive it to school, since school was within running distance and I didn't want to waste gas, but the Gap was too far, so the Beast was my chariot.
"Look," I said as we drove, "just remember that Tobias is fucking crazy. So just dismiss anything he says."
I was taking Nathaniel for dinner at my house. He had a reprieve from Eisenhower's Farm House of Horrors (as I liked to call it, even though Nathaniel thought that it was rude) for the evening, so I decided I'd let him meet Tobias, and see how he felt about being my friend after that. I wasn't getting my hopes up, but I figured it was better if I found out he thought my living situation was too weird to put up with after only 4 days, rather than several months.
We arrived at the apartment, and walked up the stairs, past the homes of my fellow dirt-poor neighbors. I turned my key in the door, and saw Tobias sitting on the couch, flipping randomly though television channels.
"Hello, Tobias," I said, dropping my keys on the end table.
"Hello, Raven," he said. I was surprised he responded, having dismissed him as lost in one of his little visions. "Hello, Thomas." Oook, so maybe he was in a vision.
I looked back at Nathaniel. "Tobias, this is my friend Nathaniel."
He stared at me with his strangely expressionless eyes. "I know. Thomas and I have met before."
"Don't worry," I said under my breath to Nathaniel. "Sometimes he thinks I'm my mother. He doesn't have the best grip on the present."
Something weird flickered across Nathaniel's face then, and I dismissed it.
"It really is nice to see you again, Thomas. I remember when you and Raven were little. Sometimes the only way we could get Raven to stop crying was to have Jake bring you over. More than once when I called I got the busy signal, because they were trying to call us for the exact same reason. Very strange babies, you two were. By the way, tell your father I hope he rots in hell."
Fuck, this was not going well.
"Whatever, Tobias. Look, I'm going to cook up some ramen for dinner. You want some?"
There was no response.
"Does he do this often?" asked Nathaniel.
"You mean alternating spouting complete crap and then blanking out to bizarre-o land? Yeah, that's pretty much all he does," I said. "You're just lucky that he didn't do the whole hawk wig-out thing. But anyway, he'll be completely gone for a while. He won't comprehend a thing we say until he wakes up."
"So it's just you and me, huh?" he asked, smiling slightly.
"Yeah, well, I trust your homosexual ass not to put the moves on me, so it's OK."
He nearly choked on his tongue. I love fucking with him. "Excuse me?"
"You are so gay. I can tell."
"How?"
"You're vegan and I can totally tell you're into yoga and freeing Tibet and all that shit. Plus, you just are. I just know."
"You really shouldn't stereotype," he said.
"But I'm right."
He sighed. "Yeah, you are."
"Do your foster 'rents know?" I asked.
"No. Not that they're the type to care if they did, but I've never had anyone suspect I'm gay before. I thought I was definitely not a stereotype."
I squinted at him. "No, I guess you don't really look like one. Your lack of fashion sense is totally embarrassing. But you just can't hide stuff like that from me. I know things, 'cause I'm your best friend."
He paused for a second. "Yeah, I guess you are. We've only known each other for a couple of days, but it feels right to think of you as my best friend."
"Fucking creepy," I said.
"Yeah," he agreed. "By the way, I've never done yoga in my life."
"But you want to free Tibet, don't you?"
He looked almost sheepish. "Maybe a little," he admitted.
Chapter 7-Jake
The phone rang late in the evening, after dinner. I picked it up, and held it to my ear. "Hello?" I asked
"Jake, it's Erek King."
I was surprised. We hadn't heard from Erek in years. The Yeerks now knew of the Chee's existence, so it made it harder for them to pump us information. "Erek. How are you?" It was strange, small talking with a creature older than human civilization.
"I'm well. We managed to find a piece of information that you might find very interesting."
"Oh?" I asked into the phone.
"Councilor 12 has scheduled a visit to Earth," he stated.
"Rachel's Yeerk?" I asked, my voice shaking.
"The very same. But not in your part of the country. Not even in your country, actually. He will be overseeing the installment of a new Yeerk pool in Toronto. I would suspect you would be interested in making an appearance."
"I think we just might. What do you know?"
"All we can find out is that it's in exactly three months time."
"We thank you for even that," I said.
"And we would like to remind you to be careful. The guards that guard a Councilor are extremely elite. The Blue Bands look like amateurs in comparison. They are the best the empire has to offer. And even if you get though the guards, there is still the consideration that the Councilor is also morph-capable."
"We'll remember," I said, and then paused. "And…how is Thomas?" I asked slowly.
"Very well," replied Erek. That he said it so calmly irritated me.
"Why has it taken so long?" I asked. "You were supposed to only keep him for a few years, but it's been 12."
"We Chee feel like you have taken advantage of our technology to cause violence many times. We thought it was only fair if we used your situation to sow the seeds of peace."
"What does that mean?"
"You will find out soon enough. In fact, you might be pleased to know he will be returning to you soon. I will give you more information later, but for now, it might be wise for you and Cassie to mention you are thinking of adoption."
"I'll remember that. Thanks, Erek."
"Any time."
I called up Marco, and Ax, and then went in search of Cassie. "We need a meeting. Erek just called me with some very important information," I said. "I've already contacted the others."
Marco, Evan, and Ax arrived soon later. Marco lived just a few streets away, in a little house he shared with Evan, his son who was a little younger than Katie. Marco had been married briefly, to a woman neither Cassie nor I had approved of much. After Evan had been born, we discovered she was a controller. Did she ever figure out what Marco really was? No one knows. She was killed by friendly fire from a Hork-Bajir when Evan was only two months old.
Marco is not very inclined to trusting people anymore, beyond the five of us. His paranoia has increased considerably.
We've all lost the people we once were, fighting this war for almost 30 years.
"So what's the info?" asked Evan, sitting next to Katie. They pretended not to have a thing for each other, and all of the adults pretended not to notice
"Councilor 12 is making an appearance to Earth." Everyone was silent. Everyone knew who Councilor 12 was.
"We have to be there," stated Marco. "I mean, we can't let this opportunity pass."
"I agree," I said. "The only problem is, the appearance is in Toronto."
It was a large stumbling block. We lived nowhere near Toronto.
"We can't fly there on a plane," said Marco. "The Yeerks will check every plane going from this part of the country to Toronto looking for a group matching our description. We'd be hauled off by airport security and draconed before we could say 'I swear I don't have a bomb!'"
"We could fly there on a plane only part of the way," said Evan. He had inherited much of Marco's ability to strategize and see from A to B, if not much of his brilliance for jokes. "And in two, maybe three groups headed to different destinations, and then fly as birds the rest of the way. Would save us the problem of being tracked down by passport, too. But that's not the problem. The problem is security."
I nodded. "Councilor 12 is very heavily guarded. We're going to need a lot of luck, and a lot of planning, people. Luckily, we have three months. Exactly three months from today, actually. So, I want everyone to think on it, tonight and tomorrow. Let's have a meeting here tomorrow, same time. Is that good for everyone?" Everyone looked around. It seemed fine.
"See you tomorrow, then."
Everyone stood up to leave, including Katie. "Can I hang out with Evan tonight, Dad?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Not tonight, sweetie. It's a school night, and besides, we need to have a talk," I told her.
"Ooooh, Katie's in trouble," said Marco slyly, as he and Evan left the house. "Good night!"
Soon the house was empty, save the three of us. "What is it, Jake?" asked Cassie.
"I think it's time we tell Katie about her brother," I said. Cassie looked at me, questionably, but she let me go on. "Katie, Thomas isn't dead."
"What?" she asked, confused.
Cassie picked up on the story. "When your brother was 5, we made a horrible discovery: he could morph. Apparently, differences in human genetics allow for the possibility that the child of two morph-capable people, such as your father and I, might be born morph capable. We were afraid. It was so soon after Rachel's capture, and we feared discovery around every corner."
"We knew the Yeerks knew who we were, they just hadn't found us yet," I continued. "And we knew that Thomas was only a child, and no matter how much we told him to be careful, he would eventually reveal us." I saw tears in Cassie's eyes, and wasn't surprised to find some in my own. "So we told Erek our problem. He said the Chee could take him in, hide him until he was able to keep his secret, and then he would be returned to us."
"We sacrificed one to save the whole," Cassie said, openly crying now, and Katie too. The Chee staged his death, and then took him with them. It was supposed to be only for a few years, but it's been 12 now, and he's still not back."
"The reason we're telling you this," I explained, "is because when I talked to Erek tonight, he said Thomas is ready to come home to us."
Chapter 8- Evan
A few weeks after her parents dropped the brother bomb on Kat, I trimmed my wings and glided over the woods that dotted the region around Kat's house. So, I said, conversationally, is it weird to think that your brother isn't dead?
Way weird, Kat replied, several hundred yards to the left and some distance above me. We were flying apart, because Ospreys and Cooper's hawks don't exactly chill together. But, then again, maybe it's kind of cool. I mean, when Thomas comes back, that'll be one more kid, and maybe Dad would let us do more, you know?
Maybe so, I replied. The folks didn't let us do a whole lot. Planning, voting on decisions, sure. But actual fighting? We got to do very little of that. Even when we did see an actual battle, we usually just flew surveillance and stuff. If we could find Loren, then it'd be even better.
I knew Kat well enough to know that were we human, she would nod thoughtfully. Yeah, but we don't even know if Tobias lives around here. He could be anywhere. But, it would be nice, to have a younger group that's independent from the adults. I mean, our parents had already been fighting for three years when they were our age.
It's funny, I said, how even adults who fought an alien empire as teenagers will turn around and discount teens as nothing.
Let's just hope Thomas is cool, she said.
True that, I agreed.
We flew over her house, and swooped into the barn to demorph. We landed in an empty horse stall, and began. Kat and I are definitely the worst morphers of the group, as we only have 3 years to our parents 27. Kat is not much of an improvement over me, even though her mom is totally awesome, the best of all of the adults.
As I watched, tail feathers disappeared, and she grew taller, as her legs expanded. She was almost human-sized now, but featherless. Eew, I teased. I am never eating- I paused as my beak gave way to a mouth "-never eating chicken again."
As we got close to finishing the demorph, I noticed that the distance between us, while suitable when we were birds, was pretty small when we were humans. In fact, we were pressed up against each other pretty closely.
I blushed, and tried to move away from her, but my demorph wasn't yet complete, and I stumbled on legs didn't move right, pitching head first into the hay.
"You okay?" she asked.
I finished the demorph, and spit hay out of my mouth. "Nothing wounded by my dignity." I rolled over onto my back. She offered me a hand, and then froze. I looked at her questionably, and she put her finger to her lips. I listened. The barn door opened.
"I can't believe I am at a fucking teacher's house on a fucking Saturday!" a girl's voice said.
There was a guy's laugh. "Raven, just give me a second. I just have to pick up the backpack I accidentally left here when I was working last night, and then we'll go." It was Nathaniel, the guy who helped Kat's mom out in the barn.
We both stood up in the stall, and peered over. The girl, Raven, was incredibly hot. She had a pretty face, medium-length blonde hair, and a model's body, but she still looked tough. Like she could beat me up on the slightest whim. And despite her good looks, I got the impression that we would not get along very well.
She looked over at us, and scowled in distaste. "What are you two doing in there?" She noticed the hay in my hair, and smirked. "Oh." I felt my blush spreading. You see, I really liked Kat. A lot. As my best friend, but also, more.
"Hi, Katie, " said Nathaniel. He was a pretty decent guy. "Hi, um…" he paused. "Evan?"
"Hi," Kat said back. "So, uh, does Mom have you down to work today?"
"Nope. I just forgot my backpack last night. Tell Cassie I'll be in tomorrow morning," he said, and smiled.
"And tell Mr. E. I said to stick the essay he assigned up his ass," said Raven. I got the impression that Raven wasn't the world's most subtle person.
They left the barn, and we were left in silence. "So, " I said. "Want to go play Tank Commando 6?"
Kat grinned wide. "And totally defeat your sorry butt like last time?"
"Whatever. I totally rule at Tank Commando!"
"Yeah, right. You're so going down!" See why I like the girl?
Chapter 9-Nathaniel
"Nathaniel, can you go get a big cage from the loft?" Cassie asked the day after we had run into Evan and Katie in the barn.
"Of course," I answered.
She smiled gratefully. "Thanks a lot. I'm really getting spoiled, having a strong guy like you around to do my dirty work."
"It's my pleasure," I replied, and climbed up into the loft. Cassie-my mother, even though she didn't know it-and I were not getting along fabulously, just as I had hoped.
I climbed back down, struggling. It wasn't too heavy for me, but maneuvering down the ladder with a cage so large wasn't easy. "Thanks," she said. "Animal Control is bringing an injured wolf over later, and that's where he's going."
I set it down. "Do you want to help me bandage this baldie?" she asked.
"Sure," I replied. Even though I was using the clinic as a way to get to know her better, I was sincerely interested in animal care, and she was teaching me a lot.
"Hold the wing out, straight, like this," she demonstrated on the healthy wing. I stretched out the broken wing, and to my relief, the eagle stayed calm.
She looked at me strangely. "The animals just take to you," she said as she did the bandaging. She then let go of the eagle, but I held on for a second, acquiring. I didn't have a good raptor morph, and here was my chance.
"They do the same for you," I replied, dropping the wing.
"Yes, but…" she paused for a moment. "It's really strange. You remind me so much of me."
Was she figuring out who I was? I cleared my throat. "Thanks for the compliment."
She shook her head, but only smiled. "Well, that's all the work I have for you now. The wolf will be coming in a bit, but I don't think you're really experienced enough yet to work with it when it first comes in. But if you come tomorrow after school, I'll show you some things, OK?"
"Sure thing, Cassie. Thanks a lot."
"No, it's me who should be grateful," she said. "You help me get a lot done. See you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I agreed, and walked out of the barn. I walked down the road a little ways before ducking into the woods around the farm. I began to morph the bald eagle.
The Chee say I have a talent for morphing. I've never seen anyone else morph before, so I wouldn't really know. I do know, however, that I have the ability to surpass the two-hour time limit, which is unusual. Whatever my limit is, I haven't found it yet, but I try to generally stick to two, just to be safe.
I considered my morphing talent only a small compensation for not being raised by my parents. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate everything the Chee have done for me, and at times, when I was younger, I actually would wish I, too, was one of them, peaceable and immortal. They were a very good race of people, who had treated me with nothing but kindness. But androids can't really substitute for the real, human, thing, sometimes.
I flapped my wings, and flew toward home, a seemingly normal suburban house. I flew into the backyard, and tapped on the patio door.
A man came to the back door, and opened it for me. "New morph, Nathaniel?" he asked.
Yes, I replied. I acquired it at the barn today.
I fluttered to the kitchen, and began to demorph fluidly. He switched off his hologram, and stood before me. Erek, the Chee most reactionary and sympathetic to my parent's cause, was my main guardian.
"You have one week to go," he said. "Are you excited?"
"Excited and nervous, mostly," I replied.
"Well, you'll have Socrates to keep you company," he said. Socrates was my dog. A Golden Retriever, in fact, whose name was, admittedly, inspired when I heard that my dad once had a dog named Homer. Unlike all of the other dogs in the Chee complex, he answered solely to me, and Erek had given me permission to take him with me.
"One week," I repeated. "And then I go home."
See you next installment! Remember to read and review! The more reviews, the more I'm motivated to write!! And also, if there's something you don't like about the way the story is going, the characters, any thing like that, please tell me so I can improve on it in future chapters.