Appreciate the review. Both stories can be found here at RAF, but the fanfiction.net versions are more polished and have fewer mistakes (I believe, hehe).
Chapter Two – Sean
Here’s the deal. Aliens exist. They come in peace. Just not the kind of peace you’d be happy with and if you’re lucky, it’s not the kind of peace you’ll be alive to be apart of.
That’s right people. We’re being invaded. But you can forget the great big mother ships that can be easily brought down by a Mac. No, they’re not that obvious. In fact the biggest part of my problem is that these aliens could be anyone, anywhere. Because instead of very human looking creatures with a few bumps on their foreheads, these particular aliens are slugs no bigger than a half dollar. They slip into your ear canal and flatten themselves out, wrapping around your brain and connecting with your software like a floppy disk connects to a standard computer. Only this floppy disk contains an algorithm or a virus or whatever that causes you to lose complete control to the “hacker”.
Alright, no more computer metaphors. In addition to the various human hosts they’ve managed to infest the Yeerks have also conquered the Hork-Bajir, kind of an upright walking lizard with blades on its head arms and legs and Taxxons, giant centipedes with a seemingly endless appetites. Obviously they don’t truck those two out as often or it would be pretty damn obvious that we were being invaded. And since the Yeerks seem to prefer taking their time they’ve been pretty careful about who knows they’re here.
So how do I know about it, you ask?
My dad is an investigative journalist who was getting very close to them. I don’t know what the plan was. Whether it was to infest him and find out what he knew or to kill him out right, but somewhere down the line, he got a call from California where his leads were pointing him to. I came with him.
While he was being dragged into the massive underground Yeerk pool (I think he was dragged. They may full well have used his curiosity to lure him down there.) I was hanging out at the mall. For those of you who aren’t familiar with me by now, the mall is a place I can get bored with pretty quickly. So rather than safely take the bus back to our hotel, I wandered through a construction site.
There I was nearly infested or killed by controllers (the word for someone who is being “controlled” by a Yeerk”) who were clearing up any leftover evidence that an Andalite had crashed there the night before. We’ll get to the Andalites in a moment. For now it’s important to know that it was thanks to a piece of Andalite technology that I gained the ability to turn into any animal or person that I can touch.
For two hours at a time I can soar in currents of wind with the wings of a seagull, or run with the speed and strength of a bull. I can crawl into tight spaces and perform maneuvers with the body of a centipede that the most advanced roller coaster in the world couldn’t try without ending in some major lawsuits.
Like the Yeerks, I have to deal with the instincts of the animal when I become it. Unlike the Yeerks, I don’t make the bull’s family wonder if they’re safe. The seagull doesn’t watch through my eyes as I manipulate its friends, family and patients and either convince or force them to also become seagulls. I don’t imprison the centipede and drug it so it doesn’t scream out while I bathe in a pool, absorbing the nutrients of the Yeerk’s home sun and getting ready for another three days of doing all those things and more.
My dad has one of them in his head. Every three days a slug crawls from his brain while he is either restrained or sedated. That slug is named Kullan 926. He’s not with the Yeerks who are all ready working to take over Earth, or so he claims. The Yeerks that work with him, like his lieutenant Sestran, refer to him as Visser Six.
Here’s where things get really complicated. Bryce and Erek, alien androids called the Chee built by a race that was exterminated millions of years ago, have infiltrated the Yeerks. And according to them, Visser Six was a Yeerk assigned to a planet far away from Earth. So that means Kullan is either a liar or he’s completely insane. Either way he has plans to thwart Visser Three, the Yeerk in charge of the invasion so that he can take over the Yeerk Empire and presumably the world.
Now do you see where I’m just a little bit edgy?
That’s right. My Dad’s life is being put in danger by some diluted slug I never knew existed. And to top it off, I’m the very enemy of this and all Yeerks on the planet. I haven’t even begun thinking about how I’m going to fight the rest of the Yeerks on this planet and right now the biggest problem sleeps in the bedroom down the hall from mine.
He, Kullan, suspects something. It’s why Bryce pretends to be a controller, so that he can “spy” on me and report my actions to Visser Six. What he has told the “Visser” I don’t know, but it obviously works since I’m still able to write this down. But that doesn’t mean my time as a free human being isn’t slowly running out.
Every morning I put a pop tart in the toaster. I don’t want to eat it, but I have to, because he’s sitting at the table reading the paper as he always does. Or he’s in his office doing research, or typing up an article. Every time I hear the floorboards creak, or the sound of movement coming from his direction, or the rustling of the pages, I have to fight the urge to jump.
If I sweat I pretend it’s the heat, if I toss and turn or I don’t sleep I say I had a nightmare or that I’m worried about a test or a report. If I run to the bathroom, well, you get the picture. I just tell him I ate something bad at lunch.
The excuses are running short. And now, with what Bryce had to tell me, I wasn’t feeling any better. We were walking down a quiet back road that went past a field. It was longer than my usual route home, but I was in no rush to go back there.
“Visser One is coming.”
I stared blankly. It’s not that I didn’t understand the statement. If Visser Three was in charge of the invasion of Earth and Visser Six was below him…Visser One was the boss right? So why wasn’t I happy with figuring that out?
“Okay,” I said. That nausea was making an appearance again.
Bryce gave me a sympathetic look, but he went on.
“Kullan is looking forward to it.”
I stopped and leaned forward. You know that minute or two when your stomach gets a little too noisy and you’re not sure what’s going to happen? Yeah, I was feeling that. That feeling and I were on first name basis.
“Let’s get you some tea,” Bryce suggested. “I wouldn’t push you, but you need to hear this.”
I was in no position to argue with him. But I also wasn’t going into a restaurant feeling the way I did. So I let him lead me to a coffee shop and I sat on a bench outside while he went in to order. Tea isn’t my beverage of choice, but I’ll admit, the stuff he ordered did sooth my stomach. It was also sweet, which gave me a small boost.
“This is good,” I said, thanking him. “What is it?”
“Chai.” Bryce sipped his own tea. He didn’t need to eat, but his body good either destroy or repurpose food and liquids. “Not as good as the stuff I used to make for the Emperor of China in 1299, but it does the trick.”
We found a spot beneath the shade at the deer park, near the Veteran’s home. The weather was still warm but the Tastee Freeze across the highway was closed for the season. The park was mostly empty except for a mother and her children were feeding the deer through the fence and maybe an elderly person walking the grounds, but no one was close enough to bother us. We were just two polite kids who had just gotten out of school and were spending a relaxing afternoon in the park.
“How strong do you think the bucks are?” I asked, idly.
“Not strong enough for what you have in mind,” Bryce said. “And the ones in the pen are so used to being fed and cared for that I don’t think you’d be able to run very far with one. You’d be better off trying to aquire a wild deer.”
“True.”
When it was clear that I wouldn’t be returning the tea anytime soon, Bryce went on, quietly so we wouldn’t be overheard.
“Most of what I have is from Erek,” he explained. “Visser One is the one who discovered Earth and began it’s invasion. She left it to Visser Three after she received the official promotion and now this is a routine visit.”
“Okay,” I said, following closely. “Now why is Kullan interested in this? Is it an assassination thing? Kill to Vissers high ranking Vissers in one blow?”
Bryce shook his head.
“I don’t know the whole story. Kullan doesn’t tell me everything and Sestran is even more tight lipped. Any Yeerks he manages to recruit from Visser Three are quickly put into the pools to breed and the ones who reinfest the hosts report whatever information the previous Yeerk buried in their minds. Those Yeerks are starved out pretty quickly so that only Kullan and Sestran know about it.”
“Kullan tells them things.” I remembered the hospital when I had morphed into a Hork-Bajir. They controllers were surprised when I, using the thought speak that I could use when I was in morph, ordered them out of the line of fire. A few of them knew that Andalites could morph but their understanding was mostly ignorant. “He’s like some cult leader who raises kids in some compound and only tells them how the world works from his perspective.”
“Most of them are, like children.” Bryce agreed. “Except for the ones he specifically singles out, like the former Sub-Visser Five.”
I shuttered. What was it like for my dad, I wondered? Seeing and feeling his hand kill innocent people but knowing that he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. What was it like for all of those people, human, Taxxon and Hork-Bajir?
Bryce went on. “Kullan is planning to steal a bug fighter. He trusts me enough to report to him without deceiving him, but I don’t know what his intentions are with Visser One or how he’s going to get the bug fighter. As is, if he knew I was able to tap into his discussion with Sestran he would have me killed.”
I took a long sip of tea before I spoke again. It was getting to the point where the very name Kullan was causing me to get sick. As I drank, a thought came to me.
“Erek doesn’t know much either, I take it.” I said.
Bryce caught the tone of my voice. It was subtle but he knows me well enough to know when I’m about to do something stupid. Strangely enough he didn’t try to protest.
“Obviously Visser Three doesn’t care what his subordinates on Earth do, as long as they don’t royally screw up. But Erek isn’t high up enough to know anything without the same risks.”
“But Sestran knows everything Kullan does. Is Sestran going with Kullan?”
“No. Sestran is planning a lock in at a small church in New Hampshire. By morning he hopes to have more new hosts.”
I got up and walked over to the fence. Bryce followed closely so he wouldn’t have to yell.
“What’s the plan?” He asked. “I’ll help you anyway I can.”
It’s strange. As I explained the rough draft of what I had in mind and listened to Bryce’s input, the nausea started to go away. Now it all hinged on when Kullan was planning to make his move.
