All six of us were at the front gate of The Gardens at a quarter to ten on Saturday morning. Lee paid admission for us, as promised, and Cassie guided us through the zoo half of the park. The plan was that we'd take some time to see what kind of animals were at the park, pick a few that looked like they might be useful battle morphs, and then Cassie would let us in to the staff-only areas so we could actually get close enough to acquire them.
"Before we go anywhere else," Cassie said, "There's an elephant feeding station that opens up in about fifteen minutes. We should probably take advantage of that."
To be honest, I wasn't too fond of the idea of morphing an elephant. Big, heavy, near-sighted, and slow... it sounded even worse than demorphing to human after an afternoon's flying. Plus, we were planning to sneak into the Yeerks' underground base. Turning into an elephant down there might be a pretty claustrophobic experience - if there was even enough room to turn into one in the first place. Still, there must be some circumstances in which morphing into a ten-foot-tall, six-ton behemoth might be useful. As terrifying as those Hork-Bajir and Taxxons had seemed last week, I imagined that even they would think twice about fighting with an elephant.
And that's how I found myself on a wooden platform overlooking a facsimile of an African savannah, holding out a branch of sugarcane for an elephant. As soon as its trunk brushed against my wrist, I focused on acquiring the DNA. As the trunk went limp, I felt a brief surge of liquified electricity move up my arm. It only lasted a few seconds - but now, the elephant was a part of me, if I ever found the desire to call on it.
Next door to the elephants were all the big cat enclosures. Lions, tigers, and panthers appealed to me a lot more than the elephants did. And not just as a battle morph - I'd actually had quite a bit of fun morphing an ordinary house cat. Oh, the hawk was still my favorite, but morphing one of Dude's bigger cousins sounded pretty cool. And as it turns out, I wasn't the only one who thought so.
"Hey, Cassie?" Rachel said, "I think I've already decided." She pointed into one of the habitats. "What do you guys think about 'Rachel the Lion-Hearted' as a superhero name?"
One of the lions yawned, revealing a mouth full of very large and pointy-looking teeth.
"Well, Marco the Chicken-Hearted thinks you're a complete lunatic," Marco commented, "But it's not like any of you guys have been listening to me anyway, so why not climb into a pit full of man-eating-"
"You know, in general, big cats don't actually consider humans as food," Cassie said.
"Still seems like a pretty big risk."
"Fine," Jake said, "Nobody's going to make you get close to the lions. I'm sure we'll find something less intimidating. Like maybe a little cuddly koala?"
"Koala? Oh, no. I'm not..." Marco's arms flailed around theatrically as he overcome his sense of indignation long enough to speak coherently. "You know what, forget the lions. Forget the koalas. I've got a better idea..."
Cassie led us to a door marked "Staff Only", tapped a few numbers on the keypad, and let us in. Inside was a wide hallway that stretched out a hundred feet in both directions before branching off.
"These corridors lead to every habitat in the park," she explained, "All the vets and maintenance people can move around quickly without having to push through the crowds. And listen, if anyone stops us, the story is we're here to see my mom. And if her schedule hasn't changed, she won't be in until 3:00 today."
We made our way through the corridors, and after a couple of turns, I was completely lost. All the doors looked the same. But Cassie knew where we were going, and she finally stopped in front of Door #17. On the other side was another short hallway with a gate at the end. On the other side, I could see a rock wall and a couple of shrubs and boulders that cast a dark shadow on the ground.
"This is Big Jim's cage," Cassie explained, "He just arrived from a different zoo, so he's in his own private environment for now. He's very gentle."
"Where is he?" Lee said, "I don't see any- Whoa!"
I hadn't seen Big Jim at first, either. But suddenly, the dark shadow in the cage stood up. Cassie took off her backpack, pulled out an apple, and held it up to a slot in the cage door. Big Jim shuffled over to us.
"Hello, Mr. Big Jim," Marco said, with a nervous smile, "I loved your work in 'King Kong'. Hey, Cassie, you sure this is safe?"
"Don't worry, Marco. Just concentrate on acquiring the DNA."
A big, hairy gorilla hand reached out to grab the apple. Marco and Rachel quickly grabbed hold of the gorilla hand. Big Jim's eyes glazed over.
Down the main corridor, we suddenly heard the faint whir of an electric motor. Cassie pushed us back out of the gorilla enclosure and shut the door.
"Just act natural," she said, more to herself than the rest of us, "As long as it isn't security, we'll be okay. Probably."
An electric golf cart pulled up next to us, driven by an older man in a white labcoat.
"Hey, you're Doc Michelle's kid, aren't you?"
"Um... yeah, that's me," Cassie said, "Just came in to say hi to Mom."
"Oh, she won't be here for a few hours," the man said, "Check back in around 3:00. Well, you have a nice day," and drove away.
As soon as the golf cart was around the corner, I let out the breath I'd been holding.
"That was a close one," Jake said.
"Yeah," Cassie agreed, "We're lucky it was just one of the vets. So, where to next?"
"I still want to see that lion," Rachel answered.
"All right. This way."
We didn't get far. As we turned a corner, we came face to face with a man in a red shirt and baseball cap. One of the security guards, no doubt about it.
"Hey! What are you kids doing back here?"
"Let's split up," Jake said, "He can't catch all of us!"
Rachel and Cassie took off down the right-hand tunnel, while the rest of us went left. We quickly came to another branch in the hall and split up again - Jake and Marco went one way, Lee and I went the other. And a minute later, we were completely lost.
We could see two more security guards ahead, but they had their backs turned and didn't see us. Lee crept up to the nearest door, opened it, and waved for me to follow him in. There was another security gate like the one at the gorilla exhibit. Unlocked. On the other side, there was an open grassy area with a couple of trees and a low hill. Surrounding everything was a rock wall about 30 feet high, with a fence on top of the wall.
"What do you think is in here?" Lee whispered.
"I don't know," I answered, "But it looks like something the zookeepers really don't want to get out."
"Oh. Something dangerous, then."
"Yeah. Like maybe a grizzly bear, or a tiger, or-"
"Or a leopard," Lee said, pointing at a spot underneath a rocky overhang on the small hill.
"Where? I don't see it."
"He's asleep, right over there. Did you see his tail twitch?"
The big cat's tail moved again. This time, I saw it.
"Oh. Oh, wow, he's big."
"Si. Muy grande. I think I just found my battle morph."
Lee crouched down low and started creeping forward, trying to stay out of sight of anybody watching from above. I followed a few paces behind. It took three minutes for us to get up to the leopard. Lee reached out to touch it, but then pulled back and stopped moving.
"Don't freeze up," I whispered, "You can do this!"
Suddenly, he found the willpower to move again, and put his hand directly between the leopard's ears. As it fell into the acquisition trance, I reached out to touch its outstretched paw. Before the trance wore off, we both ran back to the safety of the security gate.
"What happened up there?" I whispered.
"Oh, I suddenly realized that Marco had a point, and at any moment that thing could've just knocked my head off, and I got scared and-"
"'Fear is the mind-killer'," I said. "You did well, young human. I'm glad you lived."
Lee glared at me.
"I think you've watched 'Dune' too many times," he grumbled. "Come on, let's get out of these tunnels. I've got my battle morph, and I don't want to keep trying to dodge security."
It only took us about five minutes to find a door that led back out of the staff-only area. Finding the other Animorphs again took quite a bit longer. After spending half an hour wandering around the Rocky Mountains habitats, we finally spotted Rachel and Cassie.
"You guys got away from the security guard, then?" Cassie said.
"Yeah, I guess he decided to follow Jake and Marco," Lee answered. "Tobias and I managed to acquire a leopard. What about you?"
"Oh, I got the lion," Rachel said, giggling gleefully, "And Cassie managed to get a jaguar."
"The car, or the cat?"
Marco and Jake crawled out from behind some decorative shrubs.
"What on earth are you boys doing in there?" Cassie asked.
"Hiding?" Marco answered, "We really made those security guys mad. So, anyway... everyone got a big cat morph? What, are we the Thunder Cats or something?"