My name is Tobias. Just Tobias. Unfortunately, I can't tell you my last name. Or what city I live in. Lots of basic biographical details are completely off the table. I can't afford to let the Yeerks find out about me. I guess I should explain...
Last Friday night had seemed disappointingly normal. I'd survived another day at school but wasn't too keen on spending the rest of the day at home, so I hung out at the mall for a while instead. I ran into my friends there: Jake, the coolest guy I know, who'd stopped a few bullies at school from stuffing my head down a toilet. Marco, who loved to tell terrible jokes. Rachel, the smartest and prettiest girl I'd ever met. Cassie, the kind-hearted animal lover. And Lee, a computer geek who'd just moved from another state.
The six of us walked through the old construction site just in time to see a real live UFO come in for a landing. And that's how we met Elfangor, the dying Andalite warrior. It was he who told us about the secret invasion by the Yeerks - horrible little slugs that crawl into peoples' brains and take over their bodies. They'd already enslaved many alien species, and Earth was up next. Elfangor's people had tried to stop them, and failed. Only he had survived long enough to land his damaged fighter in front of us. But before the Yeerks came back to finish him off, he gave us a gift. Elfangor broke Andalite law to share their secret technology with us. He gave us the power to morph, to turn into any animal we could touch.
Right now it's up to us to hold the line and try to do something to slow down the Yeerk invasion. But so far, we really only know two useful things. We've managed to find out that a community group called "The Sharing" is a front for the Yeerks to recruit new hosts. And we know that the Yeerks need to leave their hosts every six days to feed in something called a Yeerk Pool. They're vulnerable, if we can just find out where the Pool is.
We were also finding out that morphing had a few applications outside of thwarting a secret invasion of alien brain parasites. For example, you might be familiar with the TV commercials for a particular car dealership. Dealin' Dan Hawke? The guy who uses a red-tailed hawk called Price Cut Polly as his mascot? My uncle called him Stealin' Dan after getting a bad deal when he traded in his last car.
I'd seen the guy's smarmy TV commercials dozens of times just in the last month. It was to the point where I was even hearing his catchphrase in my sleep. Dealin' Dan Hawke, a dealer FOR the people! And it bothered me. Because I knew how he treated Price Cut Polly. The thought of that poor hawk being locked up such a tiny cage all day had infuriated me. Seeing the world through the eyes of a hawk had just made me even more angry about it. But at least now, I had the capacity to do something.
They were just about to start filming the next commercial out on the lot. I circled above, riding high on the thermals - hot air rising up from the pavement. I was up where Dealin Dan's film crew wouldn't notice me, but with my superior hawk's vision, I could see everything on the ground just fine. I could read Dan's fake Rolex just as easily as if it had been strapped to my own wrist (not that I had wrists just then. Or even arms. But you know what I mean). More importantly, I could see the numbers on the cage's combination lock. All I had to do was hover around until somebody opened the cage.
I swooped down low, zipping over the back end of the parking lot. There was a raccoon there, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck and watching the film crew.
(I got the combo,) I said in thought-speech, (You ready?)
The raccoon nodded its head. Not a real raccoon, of course, but Lee in morph.
(I'm listening.)
(All right, the combo is One Two Three Four.)
(You're kidding, right?)
(Nope. That's totally real.)
(Dios mio!) The raccoon buried its face in its hands. (That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!)
(Well, I guess Dealin' Dan hires idiots, then. Let's hope that makes things easier for us.)
I wheeled left and glided towards the trees at the edge of the lot. A large brown-and-white horse was standing there, staring in the general direction of the dealership office. Amazing, what can be hidden in plain sight when nobody's paying close attention.
(Hey, Rachel, you ready to go?)
The horse tossed its head.
(More than ready. I'm getting bored over here.)
A column of warm air was rising from the parking lot, and I let it carry me back up to a good altitude. Not so high as to be out of thought-speech range from Lee and Rachel, but high enough to get one last good look at the area before the mayhem began.
(All right. Cry 'Havoc'! and let slip the dogs of war.)
(HAVOC!) Rachel shouted in thought-speech, and she charged out into the sea of cars.
A few yards away from the film crew, Rachel came to a stop, snorted and whinnied as loud as she could, reared up, and brought two massive hooves crashing down on the windshield of a $50,000 Camaro. A moment later, she kicked out with her back legs, and absolutely wrecked the driver's side door of a $60,000 Nissan. The noisy and very expensive spree of destruction immediately drew the attention of Dealin' Dan and his henchmen. Not that they were really sure what to do, of course. And, just as we'd hoped, Polly's cage was left completely unattended. I tell you, if you ever need a distraction, it's hard to do better than a bucking bronco kicking and stomping a bunch of overpriced sedans.
(Lee, the coast is clear! GO!)
The little raccoon scampered down from the back of the truck and raced over to the cart with Polly's cage. Lee climbed up, and, with dexterous little raccoon hands, began rapidly spinning the dials on the combination lock. The lock dropped to the ground, the cage door swung open, Polly saw her chance at freedom and seized it. She muscled up to the door, and - VROOM!
(Ay, mierda!)
Lee had fallen to the ground, with a thin red gash across his back. Polly had barreled her way right through the open door, striking out at the hapless raccoon as she made her escape.
Dealin' Dan's people were having trouble dealing with the rampaging horse.
"Shoo, shoo! Get out of here!"
"Somebody call animal control!"
"Cripes, it tried to bite my hand off!"
"Call in the National Guard!"
They hadn't noticed that Polly had made her escape and was currently winging it due north as fast as possible.
(Rachel, mission accomplished! Time to get out of here!)
She backed away from the shocked and disoriented film crew, stopped just long enough to deliver a well-aimed kick that sent the wing mirror flying off of a red Mustang, and retreated towards the trees.
Lee was making his escape, too, dodging and weaving underneath the sea of parked cars. By the time Dealin' Dan realized that his mascot was missing, we were well clear - but not so far away that my superior hawk hearing (not quite as good as the vision, but still a lot keener than the ears of my human body) couldn't make out the string of interesting swear words he let loose while trying to figure out how to explain it all to the insurance company.