Short, bad ending. Thinking of revising it. I don't own, complete. No flames please. Had to be edited, so here's the editiing.
5
Forgetting again? Or is it more?
Well, it was interesting waking up the next morning. First off, I was still in my odd morph. Second, Rachel was not there; she had left my tent open. Bitch… just like her too, you feed her, give her a place to sleep… O-well, whatever. I could screw her over and it'd be set right in my books. Anyway. I woke up, and stretched my wings. Wait, wings? Looking with my giant head over my shoulder, I found my bat wings resting there, behind me. 'Shit.'
How long had I been that way? Was I stuck like this now? It wouldn't be too bad… but… still. Concentrating, I managed to shrink, then return to human… clothes in-tacked. Well, maybe there were exceptions to every rule…? Reminding myself that there was still a couple more days of school, I ran off to the bus, getting there just in time to catch my 96, and head off to town.
When I got to my locker, I found something that was interesting. Jake and Rachel. They were waiting by my locker. They hadn't seen me, and they were deep in conversation. I decided to not disturb them, and eves-drop at the same time. There just happened to be a convenient janitor's closet next to me, where I morphed my nice little spy morph. The one that is kinda like a deadly sheep. Flying over by them, and landing on the door to my locker, I listened into their "talk."
"Did you do what I told you?" Jake muttered.
"Yes, but it was interesting the way I had to. It was this weird giant thing! I expected a little smaller, but, it didn't turn out that way. I know their abilities, I just didn't think that they were that capable." Rachel was way too close for comfort. Maybe I will kiss her after school, just to see what she'll do. It'll be fun!
"And you…"
"Yeah, I did. Pride and all that aside. Hated it. How much longer?"
"Not much. The Chee said that they are trying to find a way to detain it, but until then, we gotta keep an eye on it. The collar's almost done. Should be later today. Anything slip?"
"Nothing. It's like it's forgotten what it is. Was. Could be. How does that work again?"
"I'm not sure, I just know that with the attack, the way it acted, we can't let it alone. One of us must be with it at all times."
"How about Tobias? It's not like he has school."
"True, but if he needs back-up, we are in school. Not only that, but how's he get into the school, as it has to be here too!?"
There was a pause, and then Rachel started up again.
"Did you notice what we had to say! Absorb! It's acquire! For something so smart, it sure is as dumb as an ass! And it can't spell too well either. Think it could be part of it's memory? To have everything wrong?" Jake didn't answer.
I was more than confused, I was lost! What the hell where the Chee? What were they supposed to acquire? How did – no time, the bell rang, and they ran. I demorphed in the closet, and ran to my class. I didn't need my books anyway.
Go-ruden Kiba
My mind was on what I had heard all day, and I couldn't even watch the movie in history I was so distracted. But who could blame me? The Animorphs were the only ones that trusted me, and here they were keeping secrets. I was beginning to wish that I had never joined. Rachel came up to me at the end of sixth and smiled at me.
"Thanks for the food last night, and the bed."
"Yeah, sure." I turned back to my locker and began to clean it out. It was filthy, and school would be ending in a day or two, depending if I wanted to come the last day or not.
"Um, so. Are you coming to Cassie's today?"
"Is there a meeting?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Then of course I will be there."
"Oh, of course. So –"
"Did you come here to talk, 'cause if so, I'm not in the mood." I was not happy with being kept in the dark.
"I just have a question for you… do you like dogs?"
"I have no idea. Why?"
"Just asking."
"I have never seen the need to become friends with one, other than that, I don't see any problem with them. Is that the next animal that you guys are gonna have me turn into to?"
"No, I'm just curious."
"…" I starred at her.
"Um…"
"… Right. If you're 'just curious', then I'm Bob Hope."
She stuck out her hand. "Hello Mr. Hope, I'm Just Curious."
"Ha… ha…. So funny, I forgot to laugh." I turned, and walked away. Which ended the conversation.
So, we headed off to Cassie's barn. I wasn't in the best of moods with her still, but I guess that was alright for the moment, because we were flying. Not much tops flying, except maybe swimming without having to breathe air, but that's only the tip of an ice-burg. After all, flying gets you where you want to go in almost no time flat. Well, that depends on the bird, but raptors are the best. Two eagles, to be precise. One gold, and one bald…. I'll let you guess who is what. Each was about half a mile away from each other. Not too bad, a little conspicuous, but still rather ordinary in the woods. Once we were at Cassie's it was no problem.
There in the barn was an… unexpected greeting. There was another person in the barn with us. But he didn't stay a person for long. With a word from Tobias in the rafters, the boy's skin just disappeared, leaving a metal dog thing standing there. I looked at him, and he circled around me.
"Flawless, absolutely flawless! It changes from one to another, and doesn't even know what it's doing! And it flew! Some how it was programmed to fight, and to fly! I must find out how it does this!"
"Um, who are you, and what is so… 'Flawless'? And would you mind if you stopped circling, I don't like it very much."
"Max, this is Erick King. He's a Chee." Marco spoke up from the haystack in the corner.
"And that is…?"
"A race of androids, built on another world, and brought here to protect dogs… but you already knew that, didn't you Max?" I looked at Jake.
"How would I know that? This is the first I've ever heard of it. So, how does he work? And how was he able to look like us?"
"Come Max, you know how it works… you're one of them."
Go-ruden Kiba
I could have strangled Rachel. I'm one of them?! How could I be an android?
"So I'm some sort of, robot, now?"
"No, not robot, we have independent thought. We are androids. And yes. You see, six months ago, one of us disappeared. We have… or had, no idea of what happened to it. It was on assignment in a high school to keep watch on the Animorphs, so that we know how to contact them. It would have a class with each of them, and each class would have at least one of them in it. We designed it that way. Then, one day after school, we couldn't find it on our tracking anymore. We thought that maybe it was protecting someone, and had been destroyed. We thought nothing of it. That Chee was given the name Max, and was given black hair, and green eyes, just like yours."
"So now you're saying that just because I resemble this… this 'Chee'… and have the same common name, I might be this Chee?"
"No, I'm saying that you are this Chee because you left school for three days. The same three days that we lost this Chee. Then, you came back to it the day that we saw her on the map again. Only, this time, she didn't come check in with us, and each time we went to look at her, we found you. The exact hologram that she had. Only, we weren't sure that it was a hologram."
"Hologram? So that's how you looked human! Rock on, so you just turn it on and off?! Cool!"
"Um, Yes." He lost his train of thought. Oops, my bad!. "We followed you, and found that you had no intention of coming back. We asked Jake and the others to spy on you: and in spider form, they learned that you are Chee. Now we think that we have found a way to get you back."
"Wait, you seriously believe this guy!? Jake, tell me that his wires are crossed! And how does being a spider tell you if someone's a Chee or not?"
"I wish I could Max, but I've seen it myself. Spiders see on another frequency than we do, and can see through the holograms. Came in handy when we found the Chee." His eyes were serious.
"Max, why do you think that we would have trusted you so quickly with this stuff? It could get us killed, or worse, if it fell into the wrong hands. We had to make sure that we kept an eye on you. We had to know where you were at all times. And we had to make you trust us, so we made it look like you were far above us in the knowledge of how to fight the Yeerks. We let you join us, no questions asked." Rachel can be butt ass annoying when she wants to be, you know that?!
"So how do you explain that I can morph?"
"Without thinking about it, because you've been re-programmed (somehow) to do it on your own. Your hologram changes whenever something 'happens' to you, and you don't even realize that it's just your hologram that's doing it! You absorb data from the animal so that your hologram can replicate it exactly. You don't acquire the animal, even though the others do."
"I can fly!"
"You have some sort of machinery that allows you to fly when you 'morph' into an animal with the ability to fly."
"I can shrink!" I was trying to think of anything that could save my ass. There was no way that I could be what they say I am. But, they were making sense.
"You think that you are shrinking, but you are projecting yourself as the small animal, and as the area surrounding you so that it looks like you're shrinking."
"But, I can smell."
"We are equipped with scent sensors, so yes, we can smell."
"How could I have gotten away, if I am some landfill of rust?"
"That's what we hope to find out."
There was silence. There was no way, but, what else could I be? I sat down, hard. There was just no way.
"I'm sorry Max –" Cassie started, putting a hand on my shoulder. I slapped her to the side.
"No, you're not! I thought something was screwy with you people! You trusted me so easily, I knew that I can't really be one of your numbers! But I'm not a freak either! I'm not some robodog that was trained to stand on its hind legs! My name is Maxine Samura, and there is no way that I'm a fucking dog! If you don't like it, you can go to hell! Besides, if I was 'reprogrammed', who reprogrammed me and how!?"
"That's what we'd like to find out." "Erick" said again. "We know that it's the Yeerks, because the Visser wouldn't have let you touch him, let alone have acted like being acquired if he didn't recognize you. Which means he knows that we know that you're one of the 'Andalite bandits'. But how… I have to inspect you to find out." With that, he held up bracelets and a collar. I guess that's what Jake was talking about earlier. I stood up and backed away.
"No, don't you dare touch me! What are you going to do with that? Stay away from me or I'll hurt you I swear!" Jake and Cassie each took a bracelet, while Rachel took the necklace of doom.(1) I dropped my shoulders, and got into defensive. What more could I do?
Cassie was the first to get next to me. She grabbed my arm, and slapped the bracelet on my wrist. At the same time, I shot out my hand and clawed at her. She backed up with a yelp, and clutched her bleeding arm. Then she began to morph wolf, allowing the wounds to heal; then morphed back. I looked down at my hand, and found metal to be where my fingers should have been. They looked like steel bones and claws of a dog. They had blood on them. The rest of my arm flitted in and out of visibility, allowing the metal to show through. Only my hand and wrist stayed without hologram. I couldn't move my left arm, the one that now had the bangle on it.
The world seemed to pause.
Go-ruden Kiba
They stared at me with a triumph that I hadn't known to exist before. Well, now they knew. I thought that I had been careful enough, I guess not. I had purposely forgotten what they had just explained to me. That was, until they showed me what I was… again.
"I guess you know the truth now." I dropped to my knees, and looked up at them. I dropped the hologram that I had spent hours and days perfecting. So much for that idea. "Yes, I am Chee. You were right Erick, I did avoid it."
I paused, not sure how to tell them everything that had happened. It had happened so fast, and was now starting to attack me in waves. How to tell them? How to let them believe me, so that they can let me forget again?
"Yes, I do kill. What more can I say? I'm sorry? I'm sorry that I put all of you in danger, that I left my people to save the rest of the human race, that nothing around me is real? All the food that you ate from me isn't food, but a solid projection that I made. My campsite is a clearing, but everything else is a hologram beyond myself. The money, the flying… as for that, there are after-burner rockets on my back and chest. That's how I was able to fly silently. My story? Programmed into me by the Yeerks, here, here's the panel that they did it with too. It crosses everything. A Yeerk's way of over-ride.
"I guess that I've been around these humans too long, I let so many secrets out lately. I had rewritten everything, became a teenager that was so froth with angst and sexual confusion that there was no way anyone would bother me, want to know me. I'd be undesirable, even frightening. Something that could easily take advantage of both sexes at any time, just to intimidate. Sorry Rachel, I didn't mean what I said, I hope that you don't mind my crudeness.
"I know that I should have come to you for help, instead of going off on my own. But I couldn't. Not after what they did to me. how to tell you, how to make you understand what they can do. yes, you've seen how the Yeerks work. But do you actually see?
"They held me there, the Yeerks, and killed humans and Hork-Bajir in front of me, telling me that if I didn't tell them where to find the Andalites and Chee, they'd kill more. Actually, they didn't know that there were more Chee, they thought that I was the only one. They still think so, because I didn't tell them. I didn't tell them.
"I wanted to tell them, just to stop them. But then I thought that if I spilled, more than the few in front of me would die. If I divulged my secrets, millions would lose their lives. So what if my silence killed a dozen or more? The lives of few saved those of many… right?"
I stopped, and had tears come to my eyes. Oh, right, they aren't real, are they? They're projections. Even though I remember everything, I still forget what I am sometimes.
"Yes Rachel, I know that all of you were acting. None of you would act that way normally. All of you have fought more that I have. You have so much experience that I, or anyone else, could never have. But you were acting, and so was I."
"But why Max? Why didn't you just tell us who you were?" I think that's the first time that I liked Jake. He was taking the role of leader seriously, and it wasn't getting on my nerves. I had just spilled everything. Everything. I never trusted humans, even without the Yeerks. And now, I had told them everything. Why did I just tell them, all in one go? Because I needed to tell someone. It needed to be known. Because then, I could stop pretending.
"Because, Jake, I had asked… or rather demanded… that the Yeerks make me forget everything that had happened before they caught me. I didn't want to remember how I had failed my fellow Chee, or how those lives that were-no-longer, are forever on my hands. I wanted it all gone from my memory banks. So as they were re-programming me, trying to use me as a spy, I was given the ability to kill, and I used it to threaten their entire Yeerk pool and pool ship. As you can guess, they obeyed my commands. So I was made to think that I was human, and my computer did what it needed to without my having to do anything."
"How did they do this to you?" Erick was always one with questions. And now I was the one with answers.
"They added wires and mashed Yeerk to my circuits, as well as my brain. So then they could control me through the panel."
"How did you get through it? How can you remember all of this?" I had to laugh at that.
"You were always the visionary one of us. The freezer bracelet that you put one me fixed it. It gave them back to me, dug them out. You're lucky that I did what I did. The Yeerks think that I'm the only one. And if I disappear, they'll think that you figured out what I am, and had me destroyed, just like you thought that I was gone. Sorry, but to get rid of me is your best bet."
Erick looked at me, and nodded. He knew that had to be done. It wasn't killing me, so he could do it. Too bad, at least if I was killed, I wouldn't have even the slightest chance of having it all come back, even by accident. But he knew what had to be done. He came up, put the necklace on me, pressed a button, and the world went black.
Go-ruden Kiba
Max fell to the floor, we all watched as Erick picked her up, and walked to the haystack with her.
"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.
"Marco, that's not our concern. She's one of theirs, our input has nothing to do with it." Jake's eyes told me different. They told me that he didn't want anything to happen to her either.
"Erick, come one, she saved a lot of lives by doing what she did, you can't destroy her!" I wasn't going to let anything happen to her. Yes, she had put us in danger, and I'm the first one that would point that out. But she was muscle, and we needed it. That's not the only reason that I didn't want her gone.
"I'm not going to hurt her." I paused at that.
"You're not?"
"No, I'm going to give her what she wants. I'm the only other Chee that knows what it's like to kill, or see others die. I'm also the only Chee that knows what she's become. If I say that it was nothing, a small piece of her that some controller was carrying around, then she doesn't exist. She doesn't have to live forever with a memory that can destroy her from the inside out. It doesn't bother me at the moment because my circuits are elsewhere. But this one's… that will be too much. It is already too much.
"So I'm erasing them, and all memories of where we came from. I'm programming her to disappear from our radar and all human life. She will live in the hologram of the 'morph' that she showed Rachel last night. She will become the dragon of your lore. And she will not have to come into contact with humans again. She will become a creature of myth, and none will see her again."
"Why can't she just become one of us?"
"The Yeerks might be tracking her. In doing so, she might lead them to you, or us. Also, she is a liability. Confused, and in two worlds, there can be no compromise for her. This is the best way to be sure that none will be hurt."
"None but her." We all looked at Cassie. We all agreed, even Erick.
"I know, but I have no choice. Yes, she will be hurt, but she will not realize that she is hurt, nor remember it. Long after humanity is gone or evolved away, she will be forgotten in some mountain cave. It's better this way."
"No, it's not, but we have no choice." The lump in my throat was new. Marco the great was attached to some robot. Sad, really. How strange, Ax and Tobias have said nothing. At least, not publicly.
In minutes, it was done. The bracelets were removed, we watched as her eye-lights blinked on, and the hologram of the dragon-thing came to life around her. There was no life or recognition in the green projected eyes. We didn't expect anything less. She spread her "wings", and took off. That's the last any of us saw of her.
Pity. She was good. I watched as she climbed higher, higher, and turned towards the mountains. She'd live there, just like Erick said. I knew that we'd wish she could still help, those last few days were wonderful. But, we can't all have our way.
That's life, and that's the way it will always be.
