A split second was all it took for a full war zone to erupt within the confines of the warehouse. On the Lieutenant Colonel's order, the human battalion let loose a barrage of rifle fire. In a normal engagement, both sides have some form of cover to hide behind and shoot from, but this was not a normal engagement - the only things to hide behind were other living, breathing bodies. Of course, Orkath got no resistance from me in his attempt at our self-preservation, dropping to the ground as quickly as possible.
The Yeerks didn't make idle threats - once fired on, they didn't return fire immediately, instead emptying as many rounds of gun- and Dracon-fire into the hostages as possible. Their terrified running created a momentary cover for the Yeerk forces, who took the time to regroup over their own dead and slam hard into the humans' lines.
Orkath began concentrating on our cougar morph, but he'd barely started when a thought-speak interrupted us. «Orkath!» Tom's Yeerk cried out, his jaguar leaping into the fray, closing his teeth tightly around a human officer. «Morph to something unobtrusive and get back to the pool. Tell Visser One we need reinforcements.»
Of course, I could feel Orkath's fear. Reporting bad news to Visser One was frequently a death sentence. But staying in the battle wasn't exactly safe either, so he reversed the morphing process and kept my head low, bullets and Dracon beams still whizzing over us.
"Which morph?" Orkath wondered aloud, flipping through memories of the morphs we'd acquired. A visual picture of the Gardens entered my head, a memory from a few days ago. Of the mosquito that had approached us, looking for a quick meal.
Ignoring the screams of pain and rage all around, Orkath focused my brain on that image, and we began to slowly shrink. Schloop! The long, pointed mouth of the mosquito - nature's own syringe - jutted out of my human face. My hair shriveled into my scalp until it had virtually disappeared. My body started to split and segment into the body of an insect.
It was the bear that noticed first. «They're sending a bug out for help! Get it!» And suddenly, the large body of the animal I feared most charged towards me. Knocking human-Controllers to one side and then the other, the bear closed the distance, increasing speed with the intent to stomp me into the ground. Twenty feet! Fifteen! Ten feet! Just as it seemed like we were finished, the shrinking process kicked in with furious speed and I felt the tremors of the bears paw's on either side of my body, running literally over us the way trains sometimes pass over people who're fortunate enough to find a safe spot between the rails. The stench from the skunk's attack on it was horrendous, even to the poor olfactory senses that my mosquito body possessed.
The bear skidded to a halt and turned, and this time I was sure we'd be stomped. I could smell him coming, slow and deliberate. But one of the human-Controllers had finally noticed our plight, and fired a Dracon beam that literally burned off the bear's front paw. Injured and pained, the bear skulked back to demorph. Orkath turned my head to see which way the rebel was going, but then, with a final POP, the compound eyes of the mosquito replaced my human vision, and the morph was complete.
The mosquito had died and gone to heaven. Blood was EVERYWHERE! A feast so big that it would take lifetime upon lifetime to even /think/ about devouring it all! It wasn't a long flight to the first large, oozing puddle, coming from a pink mound with hairs all over it. The mosquito spread it's wings and tried to fly over.
Here's the thing, though - no one will ever hire a mosquito to be a helicopter pilot. Even the mosquito instincts had no idea how to make the frail, shoddy wings move against a backdraft of wind. And there was plenty of backdraft here!
Of course, I reasoned to myself. It's the people running around. They're causing all the wind force. And that's when I realized that no one was controlling the morph - that once again, both Orkath and I had been swept up in the mosquito's primitive mind. And again, since Orkath hadn't awakened yet, control of the morph was now mine. Unfortunately, "control" wasn't something that even the mosquito had all that much of, and I had no idea how to use what limited control I had to de-rail the Yeerks' efforts.
At least the battle was no longer a problem. Most bullets were the size of tanks to my mosquito body, and they seemed to move slow enough that I could avoid being hit directly. The air distortions they were creating was another story, though.
After a few moments, I felt control wrested from me as Orkath also came out of his daze. But for a good ten minutes he was just as useless with the body as I was.
«Aha!» he finally announced to me, though talking mostly to himself. «The bullets are all being fired into the battle, so I bet I can just ride the air currents away from it!» It seemed like a ridiculous idea to me, but, to my surprise, it seemed to be working. At least it /looked/ like the strange blobs we were seeing with our eyes were getting less frequent, and the blood smell was starting to be further away.
«See?» Orkath assured me. «This is easy to control, once one gets the hang of it. Now… towards the pool.»
I snickered. «And how are you going to find the pool from here?» I asked. «You can barely get out of the warehouse.»
«Don't worry, I'll find it,» Orkath replied testily. For over an hour, he wandered towards a smell that he thought might be the Yeerk pool. Wobbling from one direction to another with such inconsistency that I couldn't make anything out of the kaleidoscope vision that we had.
At first it was good to just wander like that. The adrenaline had left my system when we'd morphed, but mentally I still needed to calm down, to stop thinking about the terrible ordeal we'd just endured. Finally, though, it was getting to the point that I actually /wanted/ to help him, just to kill the monotony. «Y'know, the battle's probably over already. Why don't you just demorph and see where we are? We're obviously away from the battle.»
I could tell Orkath was annoyed, but he relented. We grew quickly, wings retracting, and quickly, we had my human body back again. But the body was /tired/. Exhaustion kicked in so hard that Orkath fell on my butt as soon as he'd finished. I could hear myself breathing heavily.
"Andalites… said… too many… morphs… tiring," Orkath announced aloud, in my voice. When he realized that he wasn't talking to anyone and that it took too much energy to speak, he reverted to sending thoughts into my head. «I guess I believe them now.»
I looked at our surroundings. Not that I could move my eyes, but I could focus on what the Yeerk was looking at, and I recognized it pretty quickly.
«A fire escape,» I announced. «We're on a fire escape.»
Sure enough, when Orkath stood up and looked down, we could see that we were on the second floor of a fire escape on the outside of a building. Probably the same building that the battle had just occurred in. Rising to my feet, he lowered the ladder so that he could climb down into the alley below.
A middle school kid in his underwear in a dark alley is a very strange and unusual thing, but Orkath just couldn't summon up the energy to morph again. Glancing around the corner, he took note of a bank clock.
«Four A.M,» I said. «It'll be dawn soon.»
Glancing around the area, the Yeerk took note of a blue Toyota Corolla whose lights were on. Strutting over to it and peeking inside, he took note of a young lady, in her twenties, and I could feel the relief emanating from him. He knocked on the passenger door.
"Huh? What're you doin', kid?" the woman complained, staring incredulously at us as he opened the door and sat inside.
"I need a ride to Parker Middle," Orkath told her. "And drop the pretense, nobody's watching. It's an emergency."
The woman sighed. "Everything's an emergency today," she complained. "I've almost got one! She said she'd let me take her to an underground club if I let her pick up a chemical of some kind first. She'll be in the pool tonight."
Orkath rolled my eyes. "You /do/ know that their governor made a speech against us tonight, right? And that a National Guard battalion just opened fire on loyal Yeerk troops?"
From the surprise on the Controller woman's eyes, she obviously didn't know. She immediately pulled out of the driveway, unconcerned about the junkie who was relying on her for a ride. Just as well, really - she'd been inadvertently spared from infestation. In a way, I felt happy that I was partly responsible.
"It was horrible," Orkath raved. "Not a single acknowledgement of us as a species. Not a single ounce of praise." I could feel the Yeerk's anger, hir outrage.
«/That's/ why you're hurt?» I asked incredulously. «Because we didn't give you kudos for wrecking our lives?»
«You don't understand,» Orkath retorted hotly. «There are certain courtesies that any being should automatically know how to give to another! Even under flag of war.»
I was shocked! My potential boyfriend had been made a host, all that progress with my Yeerk had been undone… all over a basic cultural misunderstanding! «Geez, Orkath, we /do/ feel those things, we just don't announce them… it's a game face.»
«Game face?» Orkath asked.
«Yeah,» I urged. «You know, like when we play baseball and coach says to always give that pitcher 'the stare', make him think he's got nothing? /We/ know he's a good pitcher, but we're playing against him, so we psyche him out. We praise him in private, but we never tell him until after the game is over.»
I could feel Orkath searching my memories, absorbing my beliefs. I could tell that my words were having effect. Still, the Yeerk stubbornly shook my head. "Too late now," he said.
"For what?" the driver lady asked, staring curiously between him and the road.
"Nothing," he replied quickly. "Just… thinking about something."
The car pulled up in front of the school and we got out, rushing quickly to the boys' locker room to get supplemental clothing. Martin and Cody were already in there when I arrived.
"You guys made it out!" Orkath announced, relief clear in his voice.
"Yeah," Martin nodded somberly, "but Nako Three-One-Eight didn't make it."
Nako Three-One-Eight. Rob's Yeerk. Which meant that Rob didn't make it, either. He was younger than I was, a sixth-grader. I'd never known him as a non-Controller, but if the Yeerk in his head was playing the role appropriately, he was an outgoing kid and, for his size, a pretty decent center fielder. He had a strong passion for model airplanes. I'd wondered whether he'd considered the chance to morph, to fly, as a small consolation for the horrors he'd endured while under the Yeerks' control. I'd never gotten the chance to ask him.
Now I never would.
I wondered about his parents. They'd never even known that they'd lost Rob, all that time ago when he was taken. And they'd never know the joy of getting him back. Worse, their son's death was an omen for their own freedom, as well. If he'd died in morph, then there was no body, and no way of satisfying grieving parents with any kind of rational explanation. No, the only way they wouldn't react would be if they were made into Controllers. And only after they were slaves would the Yeerks tell them what became of their son. Maybe.
«They'll be told,» Orkath told me somberly. «I'll see to it.» I wondered if the gesture was a sign that he'd started to understand what I'd said.
Cody pointed towards the outer doors. "Tom wants a quick meeting in the afternoon to go over what happened. And where we stand now."
My head nodded. "I'll be there," the Yeerk assured them. "I really have to check in with my host's parents, though. If I don't show up, my cover might be blown."
Cody sighed, nodding grimly. "I'm sure there'll be enough Yeerks with that predicament soon enough."
On the walk home, I wanted to try to reach Orkath some more, but I wasn't sure whether I should push the point. Of course, Orkath was aware of all those thoughts, and the fact that he didn't try to engage me in conversation just suggested all the more that I should keep quiet about it, let him find out in his own due time.
When we walked in the front door, I felt my heart skip a beat.
There, sitting around the living room, were my mother, my brother, and two men, one of whom I recognized as a private detective. They all seemed like they'd been waiting for me.
With a surge of hope and joy, I sensed my Yeerk's nervousness. His trepidition. "What's going on?" my mouth asked.
"Chris, sit down," was all my mom instructed.
I could tell Orkath was thinking about bolting. He searched my brain to see if I had any tactical insight, which, unfortunately, I did. He obediently took a seat, because he agreed with what I'd been thinking - that his morphing power was the hidden advantage. If they did try to forcibly take him, he could just allow it and then morph his way out of danger.
Both Orkath and I tried to brace ourselves, but when we heard the words come out of the man's mouth, Orkath had to ask for them to be repeated. Because they were miles away from anything we were expecting to hear.
"Chris, you're the boy who used to be in Cub Scout Pack 472, right? The last one to see a Craig Tozier?" The man took note of the recognition in my face. Yes, Orkath was quite familiar with my memories of Craig. "Well, we think we've found him, over in Glen County, and we'd like you to come with us an identify him."
The Yeerk did his best to make me seem happy. "You… you did? That's great! How is he, is he okay?"
My mom looked down at the ground, and my brother wrapped his arm affectionately around my shoulder. "Son, whatever happened to him after he escaped from the bear, it left the right side of his body smashed, punctured a lung and shattered one of his pelvic bones. He's confined to a wheelchair, and he's suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that makes his mind wander a lot."
Now the Yeerk tried to make me look sad. That was infinitely easier. "But.. he's alive?"
The man nodded. "Yeah, he's alive. Doing well, too. He's made a lot of friends at the rehab center. In fact, that's how we found him. About a month ago we got a call from a very concerned, sympathetic kid about your age who stays with him in the center."
The flicker of a smile crossed the man's face. "They seemed like pretty good friends. The kid's name is James."