Disclaimer: K. A. Applegate owns the Animorphs.

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The Hunt Begins

Flying away from the Blade Ship I felt a weird conflict of emotions. This task the Visser had given me was undoubtedly dangerous, and disrupted my nice plans for a quiet life, but at the same time I couldn't deny that I was curious. Howard was already running through options in his head, his detective instincts awakened and excited.

I've heard of head hunters, he said agitatedly in his own mind, but a body hunter? Do you think he keeps it for some reason? Or is the body just collateral damage in the process of sending the Visser the heads? Do you think it's a threat?

I don't know, I replied thoughtfully. If it is a threat what is the message? That this person will continue decapitating Yeerk hosts on a regular basis? That the Visser will lose his own head?

That's one hell of a threat to deliver, Howard said. Murdering humans is one thing, (and there was anger in his words at this point, anger swirling around his mind at the targeting of his species), but an Andalite controller? Not such easy prey.

Don't be bitter, I reproached him.

Why not? He snorted. Do you not think it likely that if those people had never been infested they'd still be alive today? You and your kind, you're nothing but a curse. He mentally pulled away from me, curling up angrily in a corner of his mind. Howard Randel had never been a voluntary controller, but we had a strange relationship. When I had first infested him I had taken him to the Yeerk medical lab for a full physical check up, an appointment which had resulted in the discovery of testicular cancer. Yeerk technology had saved Howard's life from a disease he hadn't even known he had, but the price for that life was that he shared it, that I stayed in his head. Every night when I kissed Elina goodnight and curled around her in the bed Howard was torn. If it were not for me he would not have been there to hold her at all, but as it was he could only watch as an onlooker, whilst I controlled his interactions with her. I played a good husband, but it was a bittersweet ending for my host, and whilst he could sometimes almost enjoy discussing cases with me, the resentment smouldered underneath, on a perpetual slow burn.

Elina works as a vet, which means she's usually out during the day. I got back to our house, shouted a loud 'I'm hoooome!' to check no one was about, then booted up my laptop. It was modified, of course, with Yeerk technology to allow advanced communications with other Yeerks. It was also locked with a password which a human would find unbreakable. I am a lot more careful about locking the laptop anytime I am away from it than I used to be. This one time I had left it running unlocked on the kitchen table, answering the door to one of those salesmen with a suitcase of products, and Cayden happened to be sick from school. She had been asleep all day so I hadn't even known she was home, or I would never have left the thing unguarded. Just imagine my horror when I came back into the kitchen to find a nine year sitting there happily scrolling through my messages.

"Cayden run!" Howard yelled, his outburst surprising me it was so instinctive and sudden. She jumped away from the laptop, frightened, scooted across the kitchen and hesitated by the back door. Of course, by then I had regained control of Howard and it was too late. I calmed her tears, told her I was sorry, that I was having a bad day. I took her temperature, which was quite high, gave her some hot chocolate and told her I was taking her to the doctor.

Of course I didn't take her to the doctor. All throughout the drive Howard screamed helplessly in his mind whilst I smiled at his little girl, wrapped in a blanket, cuddled up in the front seat.

Perhaps a human would find my actions monstrous. I was only following standard procedure.

But I am not entirely monstrous. I requested that Oslar 943 be chosen as the Yeerk for my host's daughter. Oslar 943 had recently requested a transfer from a Hork Bajir host to a human and was thus far unassigned. She was a friend of mine, and I argued that we would better be able to simulate the family relationship, knowing each other as we did.

She was also kind, for a Yeerk. I wanted a kind Yeerk for Cayden.

And so I imprisoned Howard's daughter, because I had been careless and foolish. Sometimes remorse plagues me, when his hatred and bitterness rise, when he's not distracted by the complexities of a case. I assuage my conscience as best I can. Every night I go upstairs to say goodnight to Cayden, and Oslar and I let her and Howard talk for five minutes. It may not be much, but its more than most Yeerks give.

Howard hates me, oh without a doubt, and would kill me the second he got a chance. But it is exhausting and unproductive to hate constantly, forever. This is why he speaks to me, even works with me sometimes, as a mechanism to survive, pure and simple. He would have gone mad, squatting in a corner of his head, hating me. Just with my very presence I could drive a man mad.

Shaking my head to clear it of unYeerkish thoughts such as guilt or remorse, I opened my mail, and was gratified to find that I had been sent a series of files, tidily labelled. The four Yeerks who had been targeted were, in order, Idlin 7844, Ennis 241, Emrus 835 and Alden 485. For each of them I was sent a series of photographs, scientific and precise, heads resting on cold steel tables. The heads were in near identical condition, and it was noted that a saw had been used for the act of decapitation for each. I flicked through the photos curiously.

Idlin 7844, the member of the Resistance, was the most upsetting to look at, as his host had been a woman, with long red hair fanned out on the table around her. It was noted that the act of severing the head from the neck was completed post-mortem. Some strange marks were to be seen inside the right ear, almost as if something had scrabbled or scraped within the ear canal. The notes suggested that these may have been caused by some process used to remove the Yeerk. It was unknown whether Idlin 7844 left his host voluntarily or not, but she had been killed between 24 and 48 hours after his last feed. He had not been starved out.

Ennis 241 was next, the scientist who had failed in his experiments and was doomed to pay the standard price for disappointing Visser Three. An old man, with a balding dome of a head and short grey hair cut closely around the sides and back of the head. The details were almost identical. A saw was used, although with less skill than on Idlin 7844's host. Post mortem decapitation. Only a day since the last feed. The only difference was that there were no marks in the ears of this head. Perhaps Ennis 241's exit had been smoother.

Emrus 835 was a slightly messier job. A large squareish head, shaved bald, with the beginnings of a tattoo inked on the neck, cut off abruptly at the jagged edge of the wound. Emrus' host had been a professional stunt artist before he left that life and became the slave of an ambitious Sub Visser. It was noted that the host had been exceptionally physically fit – and ironically this was almost certainly why he had been chosen by Emrus 835. These eyes were fully open, the expression far from peaceful. I experienced a small shiver as I stared at the clenched teeth, the rigid expression of ... anger? No, something more primal. Something more desperate. The attached notes were similar – one day after a feed, scraping/ scratching marks in the right ear, and a saw had been used, although this time it had been wielded more uncertainly, with a false start.

"Odd," I murmured aloud, musing to Howard and the empty kitchen in general. "You'd have thought he'd be getting better at it with practice."

Clicking on, I revisited the head of Alden 485's host, laid like some tribal trophy on the metal table. The details were identical. One day from latest feed. Scrapings were to be seen in the right ear, a detail which I had missed when I held it, although that could perhaps be excused by my nervous state at the time. A saw was used on the neck, although again with a good deal less skill than the first incidence.

I closed the files.

"So we're looking for a person whose surgical skills get worse with time. Perhaps they're ill. Or the last three heads were done by someone else." I frowned, considered the other similarities, the identical boxed presentation of the heads. "Unlikely."

I scrolled back through the photos, until I found a full body shot of Emrus 835's host. I stared at it thoughtfully, measuring him in my head. A big man, a heavy man. A fit man. His biceps were noticeable, his chest muscles clearly defined through the wife beater he wore as he posed against a motorbike. It had been a promotional shot, taken before the human was forced to give up his stunt career. "Perhaps our decapitator was injured," I said thoughtfully. "Perhaps Emrus 835 put up a fight and damaged his hands, or his arms. Somehow his ability to hold a saw was affected." I clicked back to the shot of the scientist, zoomed in on the neck wound and sighed. "No, scratch that, he's already got worse by this point."

Howard was still sulking in the corner of his mind, but he was largely doing it for a show. He had followed the progression of grim photographs with interest, and now he was starting to run through the next steps. The human may have hated me, but he couldn't help himself. He loved a good mystery, did Howard, and in this we were co-conspirators.

What connected them? he asked. Why these Yeerks in particular? It seems so random – a member of the Resistance, a scientist, a Sub Visser, an engineer. Frowning I pulled up more files which I had been sent, files assembled by some helpful Yeerk underling for my perusal. The controllers all had different feeding schedules, even different feeding locations. Emrus 835 fed on the Blade Ship, whilst the other three fed at the underground Yeerk pool.

There was nothing to connect them in their jobs either. Idlin 7844's host was a criminal lawyer, and she had continued practicing whilst her Yeerk plotted his Resistance work. The scientist, Ennis 241, had no life outside of his Yeerk duties. No human occupation, no family to distract him from his research. He was the ideal host, a host without the annoyances of a human routine to maintain. Ennis 241 had simply infested a homeless man, and whisked him away from the human world, unnoticed and unmourned. Emrus 835 seemed to have commuted regularly between the Blade Ship and Earth, performing a few stunt jobs, with increasingly less frequency. He had still maintained the facade of a normal human life though. It was noted that his host's wife was also a controller. Alden 485 had not changed his routine at all when infested. He was a voluntary host, and after infestation still worked as an engineer, only on Bug Fighters instead of office air conditioning. He lived alone.

I sat back in the chair and steepled my fingers thoughtfully. It was actually a habit of Howard's, but I had picked it up from him.

"No links between them as Yeerks. No links between them as humans. The hosts were all infested at different times, fed at different times, lived in different parts of the city."

A real mystery then, Howard said, with rather too much relish for my liking.

"Sure, with a person who likes chopping off heads at the other end," I reminded him. "Let's not forget that."

Since staring at the computer screen was getting me no further, I grabbed my coat and headed out with a vague idea of investigating the human lives of these controllers more closely. Idlin 7844 had lived across town, but his twin brother Yeerk worked only a half hour drive away, so I decided to start there.

I pulled up outside a nice downtown office, wedging the car into the only space left in a small car park. Walking to reception I smiled at the receptionist and asked to see Mrs Lottie Lundt. Asked if I had an appointment, I told her to say it was a distant cousin calling. Another Yeerk code word – a way for us to recognise each other was to introduce ourselves as distant cousins. I was buzzed through and rode up in a swish lift with plush carpet. Disembarking on the fifth floor, I was met in the little foyer by a blonde woman, over thin, dressed in a dark suit. Lottie Lundt was only an accountant, an uninteresting host for a Yeerk, but her husband was rumoured to be considering running as state senator in a few years. He was a person we wanted to keep an eye on. Lottie held out her hand and shook mine, then led me into her office, shutting the door behind her.

"You should have called ahead, and I'd have met you away from the office," she said irritably, as she sat behind the desk. I took the chair opposite her, trying not to feel inferior for being on the wrong side of the desk. As Yeerks we were equal. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Delmar 372," I said. "I have been ordered by Visser Three to investigate the death of your twin. That would be Idlin 7844-"

"Primary," she finished for me. "I am the Lesser sibling. But we had a good relationship. We often went out to lunch together, with our hosts, as two business women." She fidgeted slightly. "Of course, that was before I discovered that he was a traitor."

"Did you not know he was a member of the Resistance then?" I asked curiously. Her face closed down a little.

"Of course I didn't. If I had known I would have reported it, as any loyal Yeerk should."

Sensing that she was nervous about her own standing, I leaned forward and said, gently, "I have not been sent to test your loyalty Idlin 7844 Lesser. I do not care if you knew about your twin's political sentiments or not. I am more interested in what you knew about his connections."

"Oh." She looked marginally less uncomfortable. "Well, I genuinely don't know about his Resistance friends. He kept that part of his life hidden from me, right until the end when he went missing. A Sub Visser came to me, you see, to ask if I knew where he was." Idlin 7844 Lesser looked unhappy, reached out for a tissue on the desk, and dabbed at an eye. "They thought he'd fled, you see, to avoid capture. No one knew what was happening at that point."

"Of course not," I agreed. "Idlin, do you think you could write me a list of your twin's friends?" She frowned, sniffing a little.

"All of them? The humans as well?"

"Yes, why not?" I nudged a pad of paper over her desktop towards her. "Any that you can remember."

She took about ten minutes to scribble a list, covering a page and a half, and then handed it back.

"Those are the only ones I know about." I scanned it quickly, hopefully, but none of the other victims were on it. Ah well, it had been a slim chance. Thanking her, I stood up to go, and then turned at the door.

"Just one more thing, if you don't mind." She shrugged.

"Sure, what?"

"The Sub Visser who was asking about your brother. Which one was it?"

"Oh." She frowned for a second. "I think Sub Visser 27."

"That'd be Emrus 835 then?" I said, struggling to keep the excitement out of my voice. Idlin gave a vague shake of her head.

"I guess. I really don't know."

"Thank you for your time," I said, hugging this new nugget of information to me carefully, as if afraid that if I actually stopped to think about it it might somehow escape. I carefully didn't think about it in the lift, or the lobby, waiting until I was sat back in my car, and then exhaled slowly.

It could just be a coincidence, Howard cautioned.

"Mighty big coincidence," I murmured, firing up the engine. "Shall we go and visit Emrus' wife?"

I was about to pull out when my phone buzzed, so I left the engine running and answered it.

"Oslar, how are you doing?"

"Hi Dad, I'm in lunch break."

"Everything ok?"

"Just calling to see how the big meeting at work went." I laughed.

"It went surprisingly ok. The boss wasn't mad at me, in fact he gave me a little job, an investigation."

"That's great Dad." There was genuine relief in her voice, leaving me feel warm. I sometimes wondered if things had worked out differently, if Oslar had not infested the daughter of my host, whether we might not have been interested in each other. Perhaps in a decade or two, when we were transferred to new hosts. Who knew what might happen?

"Yeah, well I'm very busy with that, following leads," I said a little gruffly.

"That's cool," Oslar replied, raising her voice over someone shouting in the background. "I was thinking of going into town today, seeing some friends. Thought I'd put off going for a swim until tomorrow. Are you cool with that?"

"Of course," I replied. "I can pick you up tomorrow. Just don't be home late tonight, or Elina will freak out." It was hard for Oslar to meet other Yeerks, and to go to the Yeerk Pool to feed. Elina would not have understood if I suggested a nine year old staying out late in the evening. Usually I would pick Oslar up from the pool in the car and we'd invent some story about her staying with a friend.

"You're the best Dad, bye."

"Oh, one thing Oslar."

"Yeah?" she sounded distracted, already halfway through hanging up.

"Um, be careful," I said lamely. She laughed, a strong, overly confident laugh for a nine year old.

"Relax Dad, I can take care of myself."

"It's this new case," I said. "I think it's getting to me. Just watch your back ok?"

"Sure." She sounded coolly amused, a strange thing to hear from your young daughter. "Love you, bye."