A/N: So basically, this is an alternate universe for one of my earlier stories for Animorphs. If you wish to read what originally happened in this story to get the context then check out my story After the War: The Extremists, specifically chapters 32 to 34. I've been going through writer's block with my main Animorphs stories so I started writing something else, and this is what I came up with. Now, is it strange that I wrote an alternate universe for my own story? Maybe. But I'm putting it out here on the Internet anyway. As always, feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think. Seriously, I want to know what you think. – GR
My name is Jennifer Carson, and I am, for lack of a better word, utterly screwed.
I don't know what it is I did wrong in my 24 years of existence for me to suffer like this, but I do know that I didn't do anything to deserve this much suffering. Well, maybe I did deserve to suffer. I did say some mean and unforgivable things to my parents back when I was a teenager. I was rebelling, doing things that rebelling teens do, things that bring me nothing but shame now that I have the benefit of hindsight. But surely I didn't deserve everything that was coming my way right now! First the plane crash, then getting held up by those two crazy nothlits in the diner, then being right in the middle of that shooting in the community center, then getting roped into spying on the terrorist state that had popped up right in the middle of my city, then getting captured by said terrorist state, and now trying to escape from said terrorist state!
As the bullets flew past me and my companions, I pondered my life choices and wondered which ones led to me ending up in this position. And there was only one answer to that question, and it's right here inside my head. Literally. Okay, so imagine you were just walking across the street when you come across me. I don't know what I'd be doing walking down a street where you live, but just indulge me for this moment. When you see me, all you'll probably see is a brown-haired girl wearing a shirt and either jeans or Daisy Dukes, depending on the weather. The only thing you might notice about me is that I'm a bit shorter than average (well, actually, I'm just a slightly bit taller than the national average, but compared to my friends, I'm shorter than most of them). And, if you look closer, you might notice that my eyes are of different colors. But you would never realize that I've got a passenger inside my head. But I do. It's this alien slug called a Yeerk. Her name is Yemra Six-Four-Zero of the Zek Danet Pool, and she crawls into my head through my ear and then wraps herself around my brain once she's inside. She's my friend, my BFF even, and she's also the reason why I'm in this mess in the first place.
Long story short, some of Yemra's fellow Yeerks roped her (and by extension me) into spying on the Nothlit State. These Yeerks then found out that the Nothlit State was really just another attempt by the Yeerk Empire to invade Earth, and just as we were evacuating ourselves, the nothlits attacked us. I was captured, and when the nothlits realized that Yemra managed to survive without feeding on Kandrona rays for more than three days, they experimented on me. And I would have probably spent the rest of my life as a guinea pig were it not for one of the nothlits, Cherry Greer (formerly Charegh Zero-Zero-Two of the Ban Yaseg Pool), saving me. Cherry was actually also a spy for the Human-Yeerk Alliance (aka the Yeerk Peace Movement) who had managed to work her way deep into the Nothlit State organization, and now that she had received her orders to come in from the cold, Cherry decided that she was going to break me and Yemra out of captivity as well. At the same time, Cherry had managed to convince a former Controller named Amanda Barzaglio to switch sides and escape the Nothlit State with us. And it was at the moment that the nothlits had managed to find us running for the emergency exit of the community center, and now they were firing on us with their guns to stop us from getting away.
"Follow me," Amanda Barzaglio said, a new steely determination coming into her voice. "I know a few side tunnels that will get us to the main emergency exit tunnel and the surface much quicker."
The nothlit spy Charegh Zero-Zero-Two and I followed Amanda down the tunnels even as the alarms blared all around us. We had no choice, really. Neither of us were really in a position to argue with a woman who had just gone postal on someone whom, literally just seconds ago, she was working with. Amanda turned right and took us into a small side tunnel that was barely big enough to stand in and looked like it had been carved out of the earth only recently. We ducked into the tunnel, and as we did so, I could hear the sound of shoes and boots running here and there as the nothlits began searching for us. Tunnels could do that, you know, make the audio version of an optical illusion and make you believe that the sources of the sounds you're hearing are actually much closer to you than they really are.
As the guards' voices and footfalls began to grow louder and closer behind us, a new concerning thought occurred to me, and I asked Amanda, "How can we be sure that you're not just leading us back to the nothlits, Amanda?"
"I just shot one of them nothlits," Amanda replied without so much as a backward glance at me. "Not just a human merc. An honest to goodness nothlit. That means that they are now going to kill me for killing one of them, even if I did lead you two back to them. I killed one of them so that means I'm now dead either way. And that's a path that definitely doesn't lead to a Yeerk back in my head."
((She's right, you know,)) Yemra told me.
((Shut up! Now is not the time!)) I retorted.
The shouting ahead of us got louder. Our little group rounded a corner and came face to face with a pair of Nothlit State guards. I screamed and pressed myself against the tunnel wall, but there was no longer any fear or even hesitation in Amanda's eyes and movement. She lifted her AR-15 rifle to her shoulder and fired at the two guards on full auto. She emptied her clip into the guards' bodies even as both were already on the ground and no longer moving. "Come on! We're nearly there!" Amanda shouted at us.
Ahead of us was a steep flight of stairs going up that, like the tunnel around it, appeared to have been carved out of the soil very recently. "This is an emergency exit that leads to the mall above the Pool," Amanda told us. "At the top of these stairs is a door that opens into one of the mall's regular emergency exits. Once we get out of that emergency exit, the mall's main entrance will be just a short distance away. There won't be any guards up there because the nothlits are trying to hide themselves from the satellites and the drones. But then again, the CIA do see everything after all, so make of that what you will. Don't underestimate the CIA, is what I'm saying."
"What the fuck is she talking about!?" I asked nobody in particular.
((Don't ask me,)) Yemra shrugged.
The emergency staircase was just ahead of us. It looked so near and yet so far at the same time. I also had the strange feeling that no matter how fast I ran, no matter how fast I commanded my legs and feet to move towards the stairs, those stairs were not getting any nearer to me at all. And then the gunshots rang out. I heard automatic fire erupting behind us, and I instinctively ducked and covered my neck with my free hand. I heard Cherry cry out in pain, and I turned around and saw blood seeping from a wound that had been carved through her left hip. Cherry turned around to face our attackers and fired a long burst from the hip, and I saw one guard fall down to the ground.
"It's okay! I'm fine!" Cherry shouted as I moved nearer to help her. "It's just a flesh wound! Don't worry about me!" She turned back towards the stairs and began to limp towards it.
As if on cue, another guard peeked out from beyond the corner and fired a burst of his own. Cherry screamed once again, shrilly this time, as another bullet hit her. "Kandroneg!" she shouted as she pressed herself against the tunnel wall and gritted her teeth through the pain. Amanda appeared by my side and fired a burst of her own to drop this latest guard.
"By the Kandrona, it hurts!" Cherry groaned as she clutched her latest wound. I could see some blood seeping through her shirt somewhere at her waist. "Oh, that's going to leave a scar," she muttered darkly.
"No time to think about that, though!" I said as I grabbed her arm to help get Cherry back on track. "Come on! The exit is just there! We can make it!"
"Let me just catch my breath, please," Cherry said. "That last one almost killed me!"
"I thought you said we had to get out of here quickly," Amanda asked even as she kept her eyes and rifle on the tunnel for signs of our pursuers.
"I know," Cherry nodded as she and I tried to stop the bleeding from her wounds. "The Andalites have dispatched one of their Dome ships to Earth, and right now it's right above us just waiting for the go-ahead to shredder beam us all to where the Kandrona never sets. The military are doing a good job of convincing the president to convince the Andalites to not level this place just yet, but I don't know how long that's going to last. And if you don't want our atoms to get fried by a Dome ship's shredder, I suggest that we all get out of here as quickly as possible!"
"Well, what are you waiting for then!?" I asked Cherry angrily.
"This," Cherry replied as she reloaded her empty MP5 SMG and gave it the good old HK slap. "Amanda, you go ahead and take point," she ordered. "Carson, you go next. I'll bring up the rear and keep my fellow nothlits off our backs. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
As if to drive home Cherry's point, more nothlits and human mercenaries appeared from around the corner of the tunnel leading to the exit stairs, and Cherry pushed me towards Amanda and the exit. "Let's go! Let's get out of here!" she said. "I'll hold them off while you open the doors!"
"Don't fall behind!" Amanda shouted because Cherry had already opened up on the pursuing nothlits. This time it was Amanda's turn to drag me away from Cherry. My legs were already moving of their own accord; apparently Yemra had taken control of my legs and it appeared that she agreed with both Cherry and Amanda about our current situation. I was still able to move the rest of my body though, and I turned around and saw Cherry firing at the corner of the tunnel and keeping the nothlits suppressed until she ran out of ammunition. She loaded a fresh magazine into her MP5 and chambered a round, and then she continued firing.
Amanda and I found ourselves at the Pool's emergency exit. It looked just like your average emergency exit, and it worked exactly like your average emergency exit. Amanda just pressed the bar in the middle of the door and it swung open, revealing a flight of drab and unpainted set of concrete stairs beyond. Amanda pushed me inside the stairwell, and then she turned around and called out, "Come on, Cherry! Let's go!"
"I'm coming!" Cherry shouted, and she loosed off one more burst at our pursuers before she turned around to follow us out. Amanda fired her AR-15 to cover Cherry while the nothlit made a run for it, and then Cherry pushed her way past Amanda and into the emergency stairwell. Amanda fired off a few more shots before she closed the door. I barely had a chance to catch my own breath from all the action when I felt someone grab the back of my shirt and physically haul me and my 120-pound frame (I'm trying really hard to trim a few pounds away, okay?) up the stairs. "No time to rest, Jennifer!" Amanda shouted beside me. "I have no intention of becoming the human Halayk, making her last stand at the Lapug Elt Pool against the Vanarxim!"
((By the light of the Kandrona,)) Yemra exclaimed. ((How does she know about that particular legend?))
Apparently Cherry was equally curious about this because she asked Amanda the very same question. "Mallek told me about it," Amanda replied, referring to her late Yeerk.
((They must have been really, really close then,)) Yemra noted. ((Just like us.))
((Yeah, and I'd probably lose my marbles just like Amanda did if I ever lost you, Yems,)) I said.
((That may be true, but now is not the time for this!)) Yemra scolded me.
We went up a few more stairs and then Amanda pushed open another door, and just like that, the three of us were in the community center mall. I could still remember the last time that I had been here, most especially that moment when the nothlit gunman Gedis Eight-Nine-Seven had shot up the place in an attempt to assassinate Tarash Five-One-Four, the secret and actual founder of the Yeerk Peace Movement. Gedis had shot and killed other people to make everyone else think that he was just another mad mass shooter and hide the fact that Tarash was his only actual target. My spine shivered as I recalled that I wouldn't have gone to the Pool that day were it not for Yemra, and therefore I probably wouldn't have been there to save Tarash and Emily's lives, and Gedis would have succeeded with his objective.
"There! The entrance is just over there!" Amanda shouted, and she, Cherry, and I ran for the glass doors that was the main entrance into the Human-Yeerk Alliance Community Center and the Yeerk Pool below. We ran through the gaps left behind in the doors by the shattered glass and out to the street beyond. The nothlits finally caught up to us and they opened fire with their human guns and their Dracon beams but strangely enough, just as Amanda had said, none of them appeared too keen to follow us out of the safety and shelter of the community center. And then I looked up at the sky, and I finally saw the reason why.
"Oh, my God!" I shouted as I saw the thing floating right above the community center. "Holy crap! That… is… huge! That… is… large!" I could barely form any coherent sentences as I watched the massive Andalite Dome ship hovering menacingly over the city and directly above the community center. Sunlight peeked through the thin cloud cover and glinted off of the big glass dome at the top (yeah, I know it most probably isn't actual glass but it looks like glass so there) that had given these Andalite capital starships their English name. "By the Kandrona, Charegh, you weren't kidding when you said that we didn't have a lot of time left!" Yemra said through my mouth. My Yeerk and I were both so completely shocked by what we were seeing that Yemra just had to take control of me to give herself the ability to react physically to the Dome ship over us.
This was how a lot of us had imagined first contact, or more accurately an alien invasion, would be like. We humans had always thought that alien invasions would mean starships hovering above our cities, ready to rain down hellfire upon the hapless Earthlings. This was the alien invasion that we had come to know and fear, or at least just one type of it. This was how alien invasions were supposed to be like. They weren't supposed to be secret and clandestine affairs like the plan that Edriss Five-Six-Two, the former Visser One, had planned out to help the Yeerks conquer humanity, even if it was only because she wanted to keep her human children away from the Empire's clutches for as long as possible. Imagine looking out your window one day and just suddenly seeing a Dome ship hovering right above your city. That would surely strike fear and terror in your heart, wouldn't it?
"Okay, we're now out of the Yeerk Pool," Amanda said, bringing me back to reality as our trio ducked for cover behind a parked and abandoned car. "But we're still within the blast radius of the Dome ship's shredder. We can't stay here forever, Cherry, Jen. We have to go somewhere else. Cherry, what do we do now?"
"Taraka," Cherry muttered. "All right, listen to me very carefully. The National Guard has set up a perimeter at Pike Street. Jen, I've been told that you live in this city so you should know it well, like the back of your hand. Tarash and Yibey and the other Yeerks should be with the National Guard. Maybe they're not exactly at Pike Street waiting for us, but they should be at the command post at the very least. If we can get there without getting shot then we can turn ourselves over to the National Guard, and then the National Guard can turn us over to Visser Five and the other Peace Movement Yeerks."
"Should we do that?" Amanda asked Cherry. "I mean, you could probably do that. You two can surrender to the National Guard and they'll probably turn you over to the Peace Movement no problem, but what about me? I don't look anything like you, Cherry, and I don't look anything like Jennifer. They're going to know that I shouldn't be with you two. What's stopping them from shooting me at the spot?"
"I'll vouch for you," I replied. "I'll tell the National Guard that you helped Cherry in helping me escape. Actually, I'll do you one better. I'll vouch for you to the National Guard and then I'll vouch for you personally to Tarash Five-One-Four herself. She's the leader of the Peace Movement, remember? I'll vouch for you to her and I'll tell her everything that you had to go through after the war, and then hopefully she can set you up with a new and decent Yeerk when all this is finally over. Sure, your new Yeerk won't be Mallek, but I'm sure that you can talk it out and work it out with them. It's the very least we can do for you, and it's the very least that you deserve after all that you went through. And Cherry will vouch for you as well. Right, Cherry?"
"Yes!" Cherry nodded. "Of course!"
"Really?" Amanda asked, disbelief all but evident in her face and voice. "You'll really do that for me?" she asked again once everything that Cherry and I had just said finally sank in. "Even after how I had first treated you when you had been captured?"
"Yeah, I will," I said, nodding my head. "That's a promise. And Carsons always keep their promises."
"Okay. Okay," Amanda said, nodding her head as well. A small grin finally began to form on her lips. I had never before seen Amanda smiling like this, and if I had to be honest, it really suited her to smile. It was as if she had finally found the light that would allow her to dispel the personal darkness that she had built up around herself in the many years that she had spent angry and loathing at the rest of the world. I could actually see the excitement coming back in her eyes at the thought of finally being reinfested by a Yeerk and no longer having her mind just to herself. Her pain and grief would finally be coming to an end.
"Amanda, get your head down!" Cherry suddenly shouted, and she pushed Amanda down to the ground just as I heard something that sounded like the crack of a whip, and then I saw the car window above Amanda's head shatter. In fact, I could swear I could actually see the bullet itself as it flew through the window and into the engine block of the car next to us. If it hadn't been for Cherry pushing her down, the bullet would have gone through Amanda's head and killed her.
"Holy shit!" I cried out. "Holy Mother of God!" Those were the only things that I could have said in that situation.