Fear

Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs. Period. So don't sue.

You're going to burn it.

No I'm not.

Yes you are. Look it's burning.

Onions have a tendency to turn brown when you cook them. They're not burning.

I hate onions.

I know.

You're so mean to me.

Arnie laughed as he stirred the onions he was 'sautéing.'

If they really do burn, we don't have to eat them, right?

Arnie laughed again.

"What's funny?" Camtol asked as he came into the room.

"Nothing," Arnie replied. "Just something my host said."

Camtol shook his head, looking at us like Arnie was crazy.

That guy's creepy. He's, like, the exact opposite of my Dad.

Arnie frowned and tipped the chicken into the fry pan.

"Are you cooking again?" Operis stormed into the room and threw herself into a chair. Operis never did anything by halves. She also never did anything pleasantly.

"Yes, I'm cooking. Again."

"I don't know why you bother with such a human pastime."

"And I don't know why you insist on complaining so much. If you don't like my cooking, go stuff you face with junk food."

Maybe she doesn't like onions, either?

Oh shut up.

The phone rang. Camtol was closest to it, so he answered. "It's for you," he said, holding out the phone to us.

Arnie stirred the dinner a bit and took the phone, holding it between ear and shoulder. "Hello?"

"Arnashik 6324?"

"Yes?"

"We need you to come to the main office tonight."

"Does it matter when?"

"No, just as long as you come tonight."

"I'll be there in about an hour."

The other person hung up the phone and Arnie handed the handset back to Camtol.

"What was that all about?" he asked, hanging up the phone on the wall.

"Nothing. They just want me to come to the office. Didn't say why."

Nobody else mentioned the phone call through dinner. Despite her constant whining, Operis ate two servings of Arnie's stir fry and Arnie himself took perverse pleasure in eating what I'm sure was far too many onions.

------------

"Hello? I got a call to come here this evening." Arnie smiled at the young woman sitting behind the desk.

Don't do that! You're a FEMALE! I'm not gay!

Arnie stopped smiling, but I could feel him laughing at me.

"Name please."

"Constance Browning."

The woman looked through the papers on her desk and finally found the paper she was looking for.

"Ah, yes. Arnashik 6324 to see Sub-Visser 34 in her office, room 214. It's on the second floor."

"Thank you." Arnie took the paper she offered him and headed for the elevator.

You really need to stop calling me a guy. I'm having gender issues.

Well, you act like a male.

But you just said I'm a FEMALE.

No, but I am and everything you do is what I do and people will think that...but...oh, now you're just confusing me.

Arnie smiled a bit as we rode the elevator up to the second floor, but he'd stopped laughing. Down the hall and a few doors later, Arnie let himself into a stark, professionally decorated office.

A middle-aged woman looked up from behind the desk. "Arnashik 6324?"

"Yes?"

"Have a seat." She gestured to one of the strait backed chairs sitting before her desk. "We have a job for you."

Arnie waited patiently and the woman puttered about her desk.

"You host is friends with a Jennifer Appler, correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"She's becoming a bit of a problem."

HELL NO!

"You have been trying to recruit her, haven't you?"

"Yes, but she seems rather disinterested."

LEAVE HER ALONE YOU SLIMY, FILTHY PEST

"What is the problem? Perhaps it can be delayed until she breaks."

"I'm afraid not. This child and her family are active in the community. Very popular. They're petitioning to stop one of our legal operations and the movement seems to be gaining momentum. It needs to be stopped. The easiest way to do that, of course, is to cut off the driving force. And you seem to be the closest one to that family."

"I understand."

YOU FUCKER! YOU BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!

Shut up, you idiot! Do you want to get us both killed? You won't help your friend by insulting me.

Arnie continued to talk to Sub-Visser 34 without showing any signs of what was going on inside. Such self-control made me admire him, almost, in my more rational moments. It was something I didn't have much of, being a rather lazy child. But at that moment, I was far from rational. My mind was in a state of panicked confusion that had nothing to do with my body or hormones. A state much like the one I had experienced when I first realized what would happen to my family. I managed to pull myself together just enough to realize that Arnie was right and kept quiet for the rest of the meeting. My mind was still full of a million different thoughts, but I stopped shouting at him.

I hated him.

I hated with a passion stronger than anything I'd ever felt before, with or without my body.

It was my one constant thought.

I hated him.

------------

Look, I'm sorry.

I seethed.

It's not like I have much of a choice.

I flipped him off.

You know, it could be worse.

I somehow managed to glare menacingly at him. It's amazing what one can do with nothing more than a mind if one is mad enough.

Arnie was taking the long way home from the Sharing office, walking slowly.

Why are you so much angrier about this than about what happened to your parents?

This is different. You could have said no.

No, I couldn't have.

He didn't sound very convinced, and I knew exactly why.

Bull shit, Arnie. I haven't spent all this time drowning in my own self-pity, as I'm sure you know. The whole operation isn't like that maniac Visser Three you love to bitch about behind his back. You could have turned down this whole thing and left her well enough alone. You couldn't have done it before, but this time... this time...

I couldn't think of what to say. I was furious. Not the kind of furious I was used to. Not the kind where my stomach turned and all the blood rushed to my face and my heart beat so fast I thought it might explode. It was a whole new kind of furious. A cold kind. One that made me think that nothing I could say would ever come close to saying what I wanted to. One that had nothing to do with adrenaline or hormones but which muddled my thoughts anyway.

Why?

Arnie was silent for a few moments.

Because. It's what I do.

You don't have to.

Anrie suddenly seemed angry. Arnie was rarely anything more than annoyed, and he had never been angry at me. What, so I should just live the rest of my life as a blind slug in a pit of mush?

If you had any decency in you, then yes, you would!

Well then I don't have any. Arnie sounded tense. Like he was holding back a rage and everything he said came out in a tight, barley controlled 'voice.' I was born a parasite, I'll live a parasite, and I'll die a parasite. It's not much, but it's better than being deaf, blind, dumb, and helpless. You have no idea what that's like.

Oh, don't I?

No you don't. You can still see and hear and feel. You've never had to spend a day in your life not being able to interact with others. Not even knowing what's out there. Feeling like there's something more but never able to reach it. It's worse than any kind of prison. Even the kind you're in.

His words stopped me short. It was like getting hit in the gut. All my fire and passion simply vanished. Despite that, I pressed on. A bit more tired sounding than before, but still I continued.

Is it? Have you ever had to watch as everything you've ever held dear gets torn away from you? Have you ever lost your very identity?

''Tis better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.'

Don't spout quotes at me.

We turned the corner to my street and Arnie picked up the pace a bit.

This is all about that promotion thing you were talking about, isn't it?

He didn't answer.

Just leave Jenni alone. You're here. You're free. I'm mildly tolerable. What else do you need?

Again, he kept silent.

Is the chance to move up really worth destroying more lives?

Would you rather we just murder her family?

Yes.

Arnie marched up the steps, into the house, and strait to bed. Neither of us said a single word the rest of the night.

------------

I didn't talk to Arnie for the rest of the week. Sounds rather foolish, considering we shared the same head and he could read my thoughts. But still, I kept as silent as I could and Arnie let me stew, intruding on my solitude only occasionally. He still hadn't mastered the art of being me.

Jenni's capture was handled neatly. Arnie used the only thing that stood a chance of dragging Jenni away from her full schedule; my love life. Arnie told her I wanted to start dating Brian, but was a bit nervous about the whole thing. And Brian had this really nice friend he was trying to set up with someone and well....

After Arnie made his sales pitch Jenni laughed, slapped us on the back, and told him it was about time and she'd love to help pull off the double date scheme. She even erased stuff in her planner and made time for it the very next night.

Friends don't get much better than that.

I sat in a corner of my mind and ignored everything.

The next evening, Jenni, Brian, Matthew, and I all went out in my car. We never reached the restaurant. Didn't have reservations anyway. The two boys dragged Jenni into the back entrance of the Sharing office and Arnie and I brought up the rear. The main pool was to far away to drag a struggling host. There was a small room right off the back entrance for just that purpose. Jenni screamed and kicked and struggled, just like every other host out there.

I was almost disappointed. She acted just like every other host. Made it easier to deal with the sight of my own hands holding my best friend's head over the surface of the Yeerk pool.

------------

I should have fought.

My first conscious thought to Arnie came the day after Jenni led her trusting parents to their imprisonment at the Sharing headquarters.

What?

Should I have fought? Tried to warn her? I sounded hollow and distracted, even to myself. I'd been in a bit of a funk for a few days, ever since the meeting.

What are you saying? You know as well as I do that it wouldn't have done any good. He paused, felt confused. Are you okay? Because I can defiantly skip your beloved English class and go to the nurse's office.

If I'd been in my body, his comment would have made me smile. A sad smile, but a smile none the less.

You'd better not. I'll really kill you if you mess up my English grade.

Arnie grinned. And she's back.

"Is there something funny, Miss Browning?"

Arnie looked up at Mrs. Waters with a completely innocent smile. "Yes, but I'm afraid I can't tell you. Not really fit for a public, you know."

Mrs. Waters sent us to the principal. The principal sent us right back.

That was a very un-me thing to do, I told Arnie on the way back to the class room.

Well, as you love to remind me, I'm not really you am I?

------------

Samantha and I went to feed together the next day. Arnie was sure to make sure he and Operis went to feed together most of the time. I didn't ask him why. I was almost afraid of the answer.

Amanda came to see me as we waited in the cages. I sat in the far back corner watching Samantha play a silly clapping game with another small child. It's a game I taught her that game a few weeks before I'd been made into a Controller. She played it with a grim look on her face. More like she was training than playing.

"Look at them," I said as Amanda sat next to me. "They're not doing that to play. They're training. Developing reflexes."

"Isn't that what playing as a child is all about?"

"Yeah, but your not supposed to know that when your doing it. Little children aren't supposed to think 'the most important thing to my survival is my ability to react so I should work on that as much as I can.'"

We watched the two children silently for a while and the reality of their game seemed grimmer the more we watched it.

"How are you holding up?" Amanda finally asked me.

I shrugged, still watching the two children. "I don't know. I just...I don't know what to do. I really never thought he'd do it, ya know?"

"Do what?"

"Sell out on Jenni like that. I really thought he might give up the chance to move up and save a bit of his humanity."

"These guys aren't human, Connie."

"Aren't they? I mean, physically, yes, your right. But I haven't met a Yeerk yet that doesn't act like some human I know. We're basically all the same. Just trying to get by." I trailed off as I watched to children. I was only marginally aware of Amanda sitting next to me. "I mean, what's humanity anyways? There's plenty of decent Yeerks out there, just they were raised thinking right and good was different from our right and good. Right?"

Amanda grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me to get my attention. "Get a hold of yourself. Listen to yourself. You're trying to rationalize for your captive. You can't let yourself start to pity them. I know. I've done it too. Being a Yeerk sucks. But that doesn't mean we just roll over and let them do whatever just because they lost the evolutionary lotto."

I didn't look at Amanda. What she was telling me was telling true, I knew it already. Just...something in me didn't really want to believe it.

When I failed my math class last year and made jokes about it all through lunch, Jenni told me I was in denial. We didn't know what denial was back then. Denial isn't simply not wanting to believe something, it's not being able to believe it. I sat and stared and Amanda talked and the kids played and nothing got through. Nothing. Like my mind was trapped in quicksand and couldn't move, despite some vague desire to do...something. I just couldn't.

Samantha broke off her game and came over to me, taking my hand.

"Are you okay?" she asked. She didn't sound anything like my little sister. She sounded older. Impossibly older.

I looked at her something slid into place in my mind. This is my little sister. I'm her older sister. I have to be there for her. I have to be strong for her. I have to hold myself together and be someone she can look up to. Not someone full of hate or hopelessness.

So I pushed Arnie and Jenni and everything else aside. It didn't matter that I didn't understand it. I didn't have to. Just had to know it. Work around it. Be strong.

"Yeah." I hugged Samantha close to be and kissed the top of her head. "I'm fine."