A/N: A couple tweaks to canon in this one. Roll with it; canon's a hot mess for consistent universe rules, so I'm cherry-picking what I like and retconning the rest.
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FOUR
The pain from behind my right eye and then down my right ear was intense… but distant. Someone else's pain. It felt like it should hurt more than it did. It was over in less time than it felt like it should take.
I heard the splash and stood up on reflex. The swoop that ran through my stomach at doing that, at moving my own body under my own power instead of being a prisoner in my own mind— it almost made me gasp. I glanced at the Hork-Bajir closest to me and turned to my right, concentrating on walking steadily away from the end. She let me go.
I followed the path I'd seen the voluntary girl walk. Tugged my hoodie forward again so my face was half-hidden. Made my way over to the roped-off section full of brand new TVs and pizza boxes and soda and ultra-comfy high-end couches. Picked up a portable CD player and a pair of headphones from the table.
I walked over to the table full of clocks and pressed the big top button on an unused one. It flashed 45:00 and started counting down.
I tried to keep my movements easy, slow. Natural and bored. Like I did this all the time at the Yeerk pool, and it was totally no big deal.
The couch I sat down on had a big flipbook of CDs next to it on an end table. It was bizarre; all around me I could hear the sloshing of the slow current of the pool, I could see temporarily-free involuntary hosts screaming and raging and sobbing in the cages, hear their desperation, feel their fear. I was supposed to just sit here on this very comfortable couch and act like the Nintendos set up in front of the TVs made this all okay?
I chose A CD at random and started it. Put the headphones on over my hoodie. All the seating was set up so that the clocks were always visible; I watched the countdown while bleeps and bloops I wasn't sure qualified as music played in my ears.
I let my mind wander, lacing my fingers together and rubbing my palm just because I could. I tried to see a way out of this.
… I was an absolute idiot. A fool for thinking I'd ever get freedom back after giving it up.
I didn't know what Aftran was planning. It was probably nothing I wanted. For the first time since I'd heard, I let myself think a little about what Portable Kandrona and Pool System probably meant for me. I shuddered, trying to keep the motion small and unnoticed.
Because as bad as this was, the Yeerk was right: things could get much, much worse. Aftran hadn't told anyone (yet) about any of my friends. I wasn't currently the host to a sadistic up-and-coming Visser who would exploit my morphing ability to shock and awe enemies into submission like the second coming of Visser Three. Aftran was so far keeping our secret, and I didn't know why.
And that scared me.
I took the headphones off when 2 minutes were left. It felt weird to do it myself, to be able to move my own body. I was dreading losing that, and I didn't have a choice. I wasn't getting out of here without a Yeerk. Not this time.
I glanced around as casually as I could at the Yeerk Pool complex as I got up to return the CD player, eyeing a man who had left the voluntary area for the food court a few minutes early. I tried not to show any visible surprise— I hadn't known voluntaries were allowed that much freedom at the Pool. He walked from the food court towards the reinfestation pier, the Hork-Bajir nodding to him when he flashed his fist down.
Okay. I could do this. I could do this. I could— Oh, God.
I concentrated on putting one foot evenly in front of the other— instead of bolting in the opposite direction. I'd just be stunned. And have my identity recorded. And potentially get infested with a Yeerk who would have zero stipulations about spilling who my friends were immediately.
I walked onward as calmly as I could. Inside, my mind jabbered no, no, no no nononononononono…
The Hork-Bajir at the end of the infestation pier glanced at me as I got in line. I put my hand up by my hip and curled it fast into a fist, then dropped it. He turned away, looking bored. The line stepped forward.
The older teen in front of me shook, his shoulders silently heaving. He looked familiar. I fixed my eyes to a point three feet above the middle of the pool and zoned out as hard as I could, trying my best not to dwell on how I knew him as I followed him in the shortening line down the pier.
And then the Hork-Bajir at the end of the pier kicked his legs out from under him when he didn't kneel down to the sludgy pool surface. As he grimaced and slowly turned his head, I realized it was Tom. I stared for a long moment, transfixed, as he touched his ear to the Pool.
Then I moved my eyes back up.
There was nothing I could do for him. The only action I could take to help him, to help myself, was acting like this didn't affect me, like it didn't destroy me to watch my friend's brother be reinfested right in front of me.
I wasn't walking out of here without Aftran. And even if I somehow did, it would mean my friends' lives, their freedom. I wasn't willing to make that exchange.
Tom stood up. I flicked my eyes down before he turned, hoping he didn't recognize me. Praying that coming up to his chest in height would keep me safe, keep him looking past me.
He walked away.
I took a breath and stepped forward to the edge. Pushed back my hoodie. Ignored the Hork-Bajir on either side of me. Knelt down on both knees, then leaned to the side. Pressed my ear to the surface. I felt like I was going to throw up.
Panic hit me as the pain started at the end of my ear seconds later: what if this wasn't Aftran? How did Yeerks even know how to reinfest the right host? What if doing this, right now, going along with this insanely reckless plan, had just doomed all of my friends anyway?
I shut my eyes and tried not to cry. A moment later, they opened again on their own.
My head raised up. My hands pushed up off the pier and I stood. I walked away from the Pool, flicking the hoodie up over my head and stuffing both hands in the front pocket.
I felt my memory rifled through, everything I'd done in my short window of freedom played back for review. I watched my body move without my input, back in a tiny corner of my mind, wrung out. My feet crossed the complex as I headed for the stairs. A different entrance than the one I'd come in.
«We're sensitive to electromagnetic impulses.» Aftran said suddenly. «After infestation— if you're within maybe thirty feet of me, I can find you. It's the electric signal you give off. A unique identifier.»
«Awesome.» I said darkly. «That sounds very convenient for you.»
«Be glad.» She said, a little sharper than before. «That convenience just saved your friends.»
«But not me.» I don't know why I said it. It wasn't like I expected her to go "oh my goodness, Cassie! You're totally right! I'll let you go right now because this is wrong!"
«This situation is—» Aftran started. Stopped. Started again. «—neither of us expected this to be anything but temporary so Karen could speak.»
«No. Don't lie to me, Aftran. You jumped at the chance to infest me instead. You wouldn't have ever gone back to Karen.» I felt tired. Disappointed. Disgusted with Aftran, but even more disgusted with myself.
«You don't know that.» A sharp emotion from her I didn't want to identify. I ignored it.
«Then why haven't you let me go? Isn't that what you screamed at me when Marco rescued you? That you'd let me go if I saved you?»
Aftran pushed open a rough wooden door in front of me. I emerged into an alley behind a convenience store. She turned left a moment later, moving out onto the sidewalk.
«I— I have regret for how this situation came about.» She said after a long moment.
«You mean enslaving me.» I wanted to throw up my hands. I wanted to kick something. I wanted to have any control of my body at all. «You mean how you got your current host.»
«Once Karen was dead I no longer had a choice!» The Yeerk's anger and doubt surprised me. Anger at herself— she dampened it to nothing just as I noticed it, closed herself off away from me. It was a less intense version of what she'd done before, pushing me down.
«You said there were Yeerks who wished they had a choice.» I said, trying to reach her. «Who wished there was another option.»
She didn't reply.