Author's Notes: I know what you're thinking; Not another "Chronicles of Bob" fanfic. Well, yeah I can't argue with there because that's basically what it is.
But it's something I've always wanted to explore. What if you had the morphing power, but you didn't have the friends? You didn't have the resources they did, like access to useful and dangerous animals, an Andalite companion with useful knowledge or the Pie-in-the-Sky best friend who can watch over everything and keep you from running headlong into a wall. And worse off, unlike the Animorphs, you don't even have the idea of the Andalites arriving to finish the fight to comfort you as you risk your life.
This story is about such an Animorph. There are elements of the Kiefer Sutherland's 24, including a blurb at the beginning of each chapter that tells you where in the storyline of the Animorphs series each chapter takes place.
I appreciate really indepth comments here in the thread, but if you can keep comments like, "Yes this rocks, good job" in the comment thread, that'd be awesome.
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Chapter One
The last part of this Chapter takes place the day after Elfangor Landed on Earth. Tobias is currently at Jake’s house telling him about acquiring and morphing into Dude, his cat.
My name is Sean. And a week ago, my life just wasn’t that complicated. A week ago the biggest thing on my mind was what I would have for breakfast. Later that day it was whether not breakfast would stay down as I flew for the first time on a jumbo jet. Would it be my last meal entirely?
The last thing on my mind was the idea that I would have to fight an alien invasion on my own.
Maybe you should let me back up to the beginning of the week. Just hear me out, before you call the men in white coats. As I said, it began Thursday evening when my dad announced that he would be taking a trip the next morning and that I would be coming along.
My father is an investigative journalist for a major newspaper. Earlier this year he began a series of articles that began with building materials and construction equipment from companies either being purchased by unknown sources or completely disappearing. The owners claimed to know nothing, or if they did know something, Dad suspected they were lying. Either way he smelled a bigger story and he was going after it.
One week he received a call from a fellow journalist clear across the country. Apparently the same thing was going on his area and he wanted to compare notes. Dad decided to spend the weekend there and see what he could dig up.
Since Mom was no longer in the picture, Dad decided this would be a fun weekend for us to spend together. I was so psyched about a trip away from town that I didn’t quite hear him when he said we would be flying.
That first time, strapped in the seat as the flight attendant gave the preflight instructions, I don’t think my heart has ever pounded so quickly. Then the doors closed and plane taxied down the runway. My heart rate increased and I squeezed Dad’s hand for comfort. He just smiled and whispered words of comfort as the jet picked up speed.
My body was forced back into the seat. I closed my eyes tight as I felt the vibrations of the wheels on the tarmac. Then the floor seemed to push my feet upwards as I felt us rise into the air. It was my first time and I survived it. Had I known what I was about to face later that week, that ride would have felt safer than jumping from a swing.
“It’s going to be great,” Dad told me, once the seatbelt sign clicked off. “They’ve got this place called The Gardens. It’s kind of like the Great Escape, but it’s got a full zoo and everything. Once I get this interview out of the way we can spend the whole weekend just exploring the city.”
“That’s awesome,” I said, clutching my stomach. It wasn’t nausea exactly, just a sinking feeling in my gut as I imagined what would happen if the plane struck turbulence or fell from the sky entirely. I took several deep breaths and leaned, cautiously over my father so I could look out the window. I thought I’d be freaked out, but the sight of houses and streets from so far up kept my attention.
Cars on the road looked like a procession of ants on the way to get a cookie. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was an idiotic laugh. The kind of nervous laugh you would let out after you survived a hurricane or a tornado.
The flight took about twelve hours as the plane flew through time zones, but to me it felt like minutes. Once the fear was gone and I stopped imagining what would happen if the plane fell from the sky, I got caught up in the experience. I said hi to the stewardesses and thanked them for making my first flight fun. I read through the catalogs provided by the airline and made fun of the characters on the in-flight movie.
Most parents would have told their kids to knock it off. But Dad wasn’t like most parents. He didn’t care if I was acting weird, because he knew I was just experiencing the flight for the first time. So long as I wasn’t rude, destructive and no one complained, he let me be who I was.
When we landed I was so giddy that the jet lag didn’t catch up with me until we were at the hotel. Dad was at the desk going over his notes and reading through clips of his previous articles. I sat at the edge of the bed watching TV.
“So do you know this guy you’re meeting?” I asked when The Simpsons was over. Another episode was starting, but it was one I had seen before and I was starting to get too tired to find it funny.
Dad shook his head. When I looked over at him I could see two slices of the pepperoni pizza we’d ordered for dinner. The pizza was made in the hotel kitchen. The oil had dried up and the slices were starting to look flat tasteless.
“We’ve been e-mailing back and forth,” he said, while reading. “He said he saw my work on the website.”
“Your stories are posted online?” I asked.
“Well, no, I submitted these articles through the Associated Press,” Dad turned in his chair so he could look at me as he explained it better. “You see the Associated Press is kind of like a bank of articles. Anyone can have access to them for a price, which is why I made so much money off of that first article back in February.”
I remembered that check. All those zeros didn’t seem real at first, but Dad had earned them. I tried to remember everything about the article.
“You said you thought the people who owned all that stuff were lying,” I said. “Do you think the same thing is happening here?”
Dad smiled. “That’s what I intend to find out. And if this works out, Sean, we are going to be able to move into a much bigger house somewhere in the countryside. This story is going to set us up for a very long time. We’re going to do a lot more things together.”
I didn’t know how to feel about that, so I just smiled. The truth is I was happy for Dad. This story would be a big deal for his career and if he made that extra money, that’d be awesome. But I guess I’ve never been all that impressed by money.
His job at the paper paid more than enough for us to get by. We lived in a nice apartment in a fairly decent neighborhood. I was able to walk to school every day, which I loved. If we got a house in the countryside I would have to take the bus. And the plane ride was a bumper car race compared to having to put up with the shouting, the smell of sweat, and the uneven, stomach turning roads that a school bus promised.
When I thought of the news and the people who did horrible things for money, it made me glad that Dad was there to expose them for who they were. It wasn’t easy knowing the risks he took to get the stories. There was also knowing that one day I could get a visit from a police officer, telling me that Dad crossed one line too many and upset the wrong person. But if these were the kinds of people he was trying to investigate, that was all that mattered to me.
The next morning we had breakfast at a diner. Dad was wearing khaki pants and a gray button down shirt. He never wore a tie to interviews, but he kept his short dark hair underneath his baseball cap. He also wore a jacket from some baseball game from years ago that helped him to blend in with the crowd if he had to make a run for it. He had a tape recorder in his shirt pocket and a note pad in the messenger bag that he kept around his shoulder.
After breakfast, we took a walk around the block. The streets were packed with busses, taxicabs and other commuters filling the air with the smell of exhaust. Sunlight reflected off of the top most windows of the tallest sky scrapers. Some of the shops were just opening up and I looked in windows fascinated by what was inside.
“How many subway entrances did we just pass?” Dad asked after we had walked some distance.
“Three.” I said, recognizing his tone. When we were in any major city he wanted to know that I was paying attention in case we were seperated for any reason.
“Actually, there was a forth one across the street,” he said. “But not bad. What was the name of the diner we were just at?”
“Joanna’s Deli,” I said, smugly. As an afterthought I added, “Our waitress’s name was Frieda and she had curly red hair.”
“All right, smart guy.” Dad ran his hand through my hair. “What buses meet right there?”
There was a shelter at the bus stop ahead of us and I ran up to look at the sign above it. When he caught up to me, I read them off.
“Okay,” Dad pulled his wallet out of his side pocket. “Did you remember your wallet?”
I pulled mine out to show it to him.
“Here’s forty dollars,” he said, handing me the two twenties. He waited until I put the money in the wallet and put the wallet back in my pocket. “Take the bus to the mall and hang out there for a while. Get a bus schedule and try to be back before six. Can you handle that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I did handle Manhattan on my own, remember?”
Dad smiled and nodded.
“Yes you did,” he said. “All right, there’s your bus.”
I looked up and saw the number fifty bus. A marquee of the places along the bus line included The Gardens.
“Is that the amusement park you were telling me about?” I asked.
“That’s the one,” Dad answered. He gave me some extra money for the bus fare. “We can check it out tomorrow. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Thanks Dad,” I said, before climbing into the bus.
Have you ever had a feeling, like you know something big was going to happen? Not always a bad thing, but something that would change your life forever? It’s easy to say you knew that would happen after the fact. Or that you should have seen it coming.
The fact is I always saw it coming. I knew that one day Dad would go too far for a story. Just like every firefighter’s family member must know that one day their loved ones will die trying to save someone else. It’s not a fear. It’s something you expect.
And for some reason, I knew what was going to happen that day. At the same time, I didn’t know anything at all.
Post Merged: December 12, 2010, 07:59:45 AM
Chapter Two
During the events of this chapter, Cassie has also experimented with morphing into a horse. Jake, Marco and Tobias are on their way over to her farm.
Spencer’s Gifts, Hot Topic, Banana Republic, The Limited…every mall has the same set of stores, I swear it. Even the fairly original stores look the same. The dollar stores, the little shop full of retro t-shirts and hippy slogans and of course what mall wouldn’t be complete without the arcade?
I was bored as soon as I got there. I checked out some cool dragon figurines at an art shop and there was a Walden Bookstore where I did a little reading. But other than that, there wasn’t anything that really held my interest. In the arcade I blew a few quarters on Mortal Kombat, but I also remembered that Dad would expect me to save enough money for the bus back to the hotel and I didn’t spend much time trying to get to Goro.
As I looked at some movies in Sam Goody I wondered what Dad was doing. Did he meet his contact? And were they both safe trying to uncover this conspiracy. Wondering If Dad’s contact was all right made it less selfish in my mind for worrying about him. Besides, whatever he was doing right now had to be tons more interesting than watching some ditz and her little friends gushing over the Backstreet Boys poster in the music section.
I ordered some beef lo mein and General Tso’s Chicken in the food court. (There’s another one; the family owned Chinese/Japanese restaurant) As I ate, I tried to put Dad and his work out of my mind. This was supposed to be a “fun” weekend after all. How is a kid supposed to have fun when he’s worried about what his parents are doing?
My watch said one thirty. Dad said to hang out at the mall for a while. He didn’t say I had to be there all day, just that I had to be back at the hotel before six. If I was going to be bored somewhere, I’d rather be bored in a place that has a TV and a pool. So with nothing better to do, I went back to bus stop on the east entrance. As I sat on the bench waiting for the bus, I looked out beyond the parking lot and a stretch of trees to what looked like a construction site.
Big deal? I thought.
Big deal but I was so bored. For some reason I’ll never understand, I just wanted to take a closer look, so I left the mall parking lot. I had plenty of time before the next bus showed up and even if I missed it there would be another one in forty minutes.
Even as I got closer to the site, I wondered what it was that was drawing me here. If I was bored before I saw it, seeing that the site was mostly abandoned didn’t make it any less boring. There was some pipeline sticking up from the ground, concrete and half finished buildings here and there and mostly a lot of garbage, broken glass and places where someone had started a camp fire.
I tried to avoid the puddles. Explaining mud on my shoes was going to be even harder than explaining my reason for coming out here if Dad found out.
Dad tries to tell the world of a senator was caught stealing money, I thought. Those people can hire other people to kill him just for that and I have to explain to him why I’m taking stupid risks?
Except that no one was going to care if I got hurt here. Maybe that was just it. Maybe I was just doing something that I couldn’t explain, or wouldn’t even bother trying. Sorry Dad, I went wandering through an old construction site. No real reason.
“Hey!” Someone shouted.
I turned to see a man staring at me. He was a grown up a bit shorter than my father, wearing an orange vest and a hard hat. He was standing near one of the half finished buildings along with three other guys wearing similar outfits.
“What are you doing here?” The guy asked.
“Um, sorry,” I said, stepping back slowly. “I didn’t realize there was anyone here.”
“What difference does that make?”
He started towards me. My heart skipped a few beats from the shock, but I stood my ground at first, thinking he was just going to chew me out for trespassing and send me on my way. Worse-case scenario he would call the police and I would stick with my plan of not trying to talk my way out of it. Dad would probably ream me out and ground me when we got home, but it wouldn’t interrupt his work at all if I got in trouble this one time so far away from home.
“Just let him go,” another man said. “He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know anything.”
I eyed the other man curiously. He was taller than the first one and had darker skin. I could see and was holding something in his hand. The others pulled something similar from beneath their vests.
“Can you take that chance?” The first one asked.
He grabbed me by the shoulder and forced me to move with the group. Since I wasn’t making a move to run, I thought that was a little unnecessary. I began to struggle.
“Let me go!” I yelled.
He dragged me to the building with the rest of the group as the other three surrounded me. It’s only when I got closer that I saw the device in the black man’s hand was some kind of gun.
“We should take him to the pool,” a third man said. “We’ll know for certain then.”
“Know what?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to check this place out and I didn’t know it was still open for business.”
They ignored me as the guy holding me pushed me towards a utility van. I realized these guys might be connected to Dad’s story. Reporter’s kids are high on the list of priority targets for kidnappers, and if these men were involved in the kind of activity he was trying to expose, they probably had information about me.
So much for not interfering with Dad’s work, I thought.
Thinking quickly, I looked down and saw that he wasn’t wearing steel toed boots like a construction worker but black loafers. Acting on pure instinct I slammed the heel of my shoe into his foot.
He screamed in pain and lost his grip.
I bolted for the road. They shouted after me and I was suddenly grateful for the self defense classes I was forced to endure for three years after class.
I jumped over a ditch as a beam of red light struck the pavement near where I landed. The dirt and rock exploded and I threw my arms up to shield my face. Another beam barely missed me and struck a pipe. A cloud of vapor rose from the ground where the beam hit.
Lasers! Actual freaking laser guns! This was unreal! I took off, knowing that Dad was going to run into these people. I had to warn him and get him out of here before they hurt him. I turned to avoid the laser beams, getting further from the road as I ran.
“Get back here and we’ll let you live, boy!” Yeah, that was a real motivator. Three beams sliced the air above me, striking a wall and sending brick everywhere. I jumped back to avoid getting struck and lost my balance.
As I hit the ground, my hand touched something flat. A strange tingling sensation passed through my arm, which was almost as strong as the pain that ripped through my spine. I moaned and tried to cry out for help.
“Where did he go?”
The men surrounded me now. The leader’s foot was just an inch from my head and there was nothing covering me. Still, three of the four men looked around, sweeping their lasers and searching. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but if they were suffering from a sudden case of blindness then I wasn’t going to help them.
“Did we hit him?” The shorter one with the shaved head asked. He had lost his helmet somewhere in the run and was sweating.
“I had my beam set to stun,” The leader said. “Even if we hit him at that setting it would have left a body. Check that pile, he must be hiding.”
The two men walked past me, barely missing my arm by a few inches. I didn’t know if it would make a difference if I moved or not, but I stayed put just in case. I tried to control my breathing and turned my head to see what it is I had touched.
My hand was on some blue box. It was covered in dirt and I couldn’t quite make out what it was, but the tingling sensation stopped as instantly as it had started. Only the pain in my back remained.
The two others sorted through the rubble while the leader stood to the side, keeping his laser pointed at them in case I “jumped out” at them.
That’s when I saw the dark skinned man looking down at me. His expression was serious and my heart pounded as I lay there in silence, hoping the other three wouldn’t notice me as well. He didn’t seem to be interested in telling the others that I was here, but then he was the one who suggested they let me go.
“My name is John,” he said kneeling beside me. His eyes were on the other three.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
John helped me up, slowly, feeling along my back with his hand.
“You didn’t break anything,” he said, helping me to my feet. “Just take it for granted that they can’t see or hear you right now.”
I stared at him, not believing what I was hearing. “Take that for granted? How about the lasers, should I just take those for granted too?”
“They’re called dracon beams. And I think you should take it for granted you are alive.”
I couldn’t tell if he was threatening me or not. But then, what was the point of threatening me? He had me by the…well, he had me cold.
“Larry!” John shouted.
I jumped as they swung around. Larry looked right at me and my heart stopped as I waited for him to blast me, but he just looked past me to John. John pointed and I followed his gaze past the damaged wall to …myself running in the opposite direction.
“There he is!” The others shouted.
While Larry, Curly and Moe continued to chase my doppelganger, John spun me around and looked me in the eye.
“What is your name?”
“Why should I tell you that?” I asked, trying to project a defiance I didn’t feel. My body shook so badly that I wasn’t sure I could walk and I desperately hoped that the wetness I was feeling was from sweat. “Shouldn’t you guys have a file on me somewhere in your “Kidnap this Kid for Black Mail” cabinet?”
John chuckled mirthlessly.
“You’re a funny kid,” he said. “But I think you’re smart enough to know I could have killed you right now myself, or handed you over to Visser Three. Yeerks are opportunistic like that.”
I stared blankly. Was any of that supposed to make sense-other than the compelling argument about the killing me?
“You’re not an Andalite,” he said, again, as if that was supposed to make sense to me. “But you’re life is about to get complicated either way.”
“My life was all ready complicated,” I said, gesturing to three stooges chasing my apparition. “This tipped the scale from complicated right into a padded cell with no windows and no shoe laces. I mean, come on John. How much of this do you think I’ll be able to tell them before they ask measure my neck for a straight jacket?”
“You need rest.” John said. He looked out to the road then at me again. “The bus is coming. You’re right, the Yeerks know about you but they don’t know what the advantage you just tripped and fell on. So go to your hotel, get cleaned up and get some rest. When your father comes back, tell him nothing of what happened here.”
I looked down at my clothes, which were filthy. The pants were torn and my watch, the one my grandfather gave me for my birthday last year, was broken.
“How am I supposed to explain all of this?”
“You tripped and fell,” John said, matter-of-factly. “And I hope you’re a convincing liar. You’re ability to live may depend on it.”
Post Merged: December 16, 2010, 01:57:52 PM
Chapter Three
At this time, Marco has figured out that Tom is a controller.
John got me to the bus stop. What his friends thought of him suddenly disappearing I didn’t know. But since my grasp on reality had taken a severe beating over the last twenty minutes I didn’t question it.
The bus driver and a few passengers expressed concern over my appearance and my obvious trance-like state. I tried to assure everyone that I was fine and that I hadn’t been robbed, or mugged. I just want to get home and please no, I would not like it if the police were called.
I didn’t know what had happened but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anyone that I was chased by four guys with “dracon beams” and hidden from sight by a guy who waved his hand and told them I wasn’t the droid they were looking for.
Right now the biggest thing on my mind was getting to the hotel and getting cleaned up before Dad got there. The Chinese food was kicking in at the most inappropriate time and I didn’t think soiling my pants would improve my situation either.
Words and images kept floating around in my head. Yeerk, Andalite, Dracon Beam? And what one guy said about a pool. And if they didn’t know who I was then how did John know? I mean, my dad wasn’t actually famous and though he had regular readers who frequently e-mailed him, he wasn’t exactly Stephen King. The theory about these guys kidnapping me was only based on the idea that they had inside information about me, but if they were connected to Dad’s story then it was a pretty big coincidence.
Then there’s what John said. John himself was a mystery, but what he said stuck with me the most. Lying to my dad would keep me alive? The last time I had ever lied to him was when I was five. And even then, all I got was a talk about lying and I had to miss an episode of Tiny Toons. Around that time I realized that lying to an investigative journalist was pretty pointless.
I hope you’re a good liar. Your life may depend on it. John’s words echoed in my head. Every time the bus stopped and the doors opened I had to fight the urge to jump. Each time I expected those men to board the bus and drag me off it, kicking and screaming, with no one else attempting to stop them. At the very least I was surprised not to see the van following me.
At the hotel I dodged the same barrage of concerned stares and offers of assistance. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great when total strangers will see a kid looking half injured and actually try to help him. Unlike the handful of times I’ve had my butt kicked by bullies while adults just passed by and said nothing, at least here these people were genuinely concerned about my safety. But I had to politely brush them off, because for all I knew, they were in on the plan.
Whoever these “Yeerks” were, John didn’t make them seem like Latter Day Saints.
I’m sounding like a paranoid schizophrenic now, I thought on the elevator. The trembling came back and I began to feel nauseas. Like my stomach wasn’t in enough knots right now.
Thankfully my key worked on the first try, because I barely made it into the bathroom. After I showered and changed into some clean clothes, I tossed the torn pants and shirt into the cleaning lady’s cart at the end of the hall. Then I spent the next half hour trying to scrub the dirt and the mud from my shoes.
Dad came in wearing the same jacket and coat. He didn’t look like he had been hurt, or like he had even been in any kind of danger. I sat down on the bed, clutching my stomach. The nausea I felt and the sweat collecting on my face certainly wasn’t fake.
“Hey, bud. Did you have a good time at the mall?” Off my look, he frowned. “Did you have a good time at the mall?”
I couldn’t bring myself to lie like John suggested. So I decided to go with as much of the truth as I was able.
“No,” I said. “I’ve been sick since I left there.”
Dad came over and put his hand on my forehead and pulling it back.
“Ouch,” he said, shaking his hand. “What did you eat?”
“It was lo mein. But I think it might have been the bus ride too.” I didn’t explain much more, knowing that Dad would think I was suffering from motion sickness. Cars, planes and boats were all right, but busses always had that effect on me when I was younger.
“Why don’t you try to rest,” Dad said, taking his jacket and cap off. “I’ll get you some ginger ale.”
I nodded and got ready for bed. As I lay there, drifting off to sleep I began to consider the possibility that I just dreamed the whole thing. I was so bored that I needed something big to happen and I needed it to connect to what Dad was doing. That explained why John suddenly knew everything and was able to make those guys go away, didn’t it? Didn’t it?
The following day, Jake and Cassie track down a lizard in the barn of the Clinic.
“Are you feeling better?” Dad asked, the next morning.
“Much better,” I said. We were in hotel’s dining room eating muffins and drinking juice from the continental breakfast. That morning I decided that what happened last night wasn’t real.
I thought about all the questions Dad would ask that I couldn’t answer. Aside from the fact that what I would have told him was basically the plot out of a science fiction novel, he would spot some glaring plot holes. Like what were these guys doing at the construction site to begin with. They didn’t have any equipment out except for the van and the guns and it was just the four of them as far as I could tell.
Who was John and what was this “power” he had to send an apparition of me leading the others away?
And what would Dad think of a strange adult telling some kid to lie to his father? That would send red flags up to any parent, much less any kid who had been well schooled in the lessons of stranger danger. As is, the only reason I didn’t think of it then was because John-or in my imagination at least-had saved my life.
“So, do you feel up to a trip to the Gardens?” Dad asked, breaking my line of thought.
“I think so,” I answered. “Did you get everything you needed from the interview?”
A strange grin broke Dad’s face. It was a look I had never seen before and I didn’t like what it made me feel.
“Oh yes,” he said. “I got exactly what I needed.”
There was something about that tone. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. All that happened to me yesterday was a bad case of food poisoning combined. Dad just got a major lead on a huge story and he was entitled to gloat like anyone.
Still, that feeling came back. When I got up and wiped the crumbs from the table, I watched as Dad threw our paper plates in the trash. Something nagged at me. I tried to push it out of my mind as we took the bus to The Gardens.
“Are you doing all right?”
I had been zoning out, watching the buildings and the cars go by. I looked up at Dad quizzically.
“How’s your stomach?” he asked.
“It’s all right,” I said, remembering what I’d told him last night. “I think it was the food that made me sick the most.”
“Maybe I should give the health board a call,” Dad suggested. “Or I could write a really nasty review of their restaurant.”
Off his tone, I knew Dad was joking. But I also knew his talent for getting people to slip up by getting them to laugh and throwing them off their guard. Even though I swore I’d forget about it, John’s words rang clear in my head again. I snorted and smiled but I didn’t say anything else.
The Gardens was big, loud and full of people. It was a Sunday afternoon and the church crowd was out, which probably didn’t mean as much in a city this big. But from experience in my small New England town, things generally got busier once the worshippers got out of church.
Dad and I spent some time in the amusement park area. After last night we both agreed to save the really intense rides like the roller coaster and the pirate ship for another time. That left the bumper cars, which were fun. But after a while in a park like this, if you’re not going on those intense rides that most kids come here for there’s hardly any point in being here.
We decided on hot dogs for lunch and sat under a pavilion near the pirate ship ride. Then I looked at Dad and I felt a twinge of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?” He asked, confused.
“For not doing any of the big stuff,” I answered with a shrug. “Those bigger rides, I mean.”
Dad shrugged.
“You don’t have to apologize for that. This is your day. Besides, I know stuff like that isn’t your thing. I figured you’d be more interested in the zoo part, anyhow.”
I smiled, weakly.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Still, I guess it’s embarrassing though. Flying gets me nervous and the whole bus thing...I just know I can be disappointing sometimes.”
“Hey,” Dad pointed to fingers to his eyes. “You are not a disappointment to me. Ever. So other kids love roller coasters or riding the bus. You still get to school on time every day and you can handle yourself in a major city by yourself. There are people twice your age that can’t leave their parents houses so don’t be ashamed because you get a little nervous about flying.”
The speech made me feel better. But it also made me feel stupid for being so paranoid earlier. I was about to suggest we check out the zoo.
“Mark!”
Dad and I looked over at a tall, dark haired man approaching the table. He was about Dad’s height but he wore light clothes that showed that he wasn’t very athletic. Probably drove everywhere and didn’t exercise much, but then I wasn’t winning any fitness awards either so I couldn’t judge.
“Benjamin,” Dad said, getting up to meet the guy.
There was a kid with him about my height, with lighter hair. While Dad shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with this guy, the kid smiled at me as if he knew me. It felt a little awkward, but I didn’t want to be rude so I returned the smile. Dad turned to me.
“Sean, this is Benjamin. He works for the Herald.”
“Good to meet you Sean,” Benjamin said. When he shook my hand, I could feel a stronger grip than I would peg a guy like him for having. Somehow I got the impression that if he wanted to, Mark could crush my hand without thinking twice about it. He turned to the kid beside him. “Sean, this my nephew, Erek.”
“Hello,” Erek’s grip was just as firm. Although he was slightly less lanky than I was, he wasn’t much older and a grip like that was a little surprising. “It’s nice to meet you Sean.”
“Same here,” I said.
We didn’t say much else. The adults continued to talk as if we weren’t there. I went back to the bench and finished my soda before cleaning our area up so a family could take our spot. It wasn’t until I turned away from the garbage can that I realized Erek was still looking at me.
“Erek,” Benjamin said. “Why don’t you and Sean go down to the zoo area? Mark and I have some stuff to talk about.”
Dad gave me a reassuring smile. I frowned. I was used to Dad having to take off at short notice whenever he got a news lead. But something about this felt…well, weird. And after last night…
“Go on,” he said. “Erek, it was good meeting you. Take care of my boy, will you?”
“I’ll guard him with my life, sir,” Erek said, in a tone that was either very sincere or very sarcastic, but Dad seemed to buy it. When he turned to me, I wasn’t sure what to think. “What kind of animals do you like?”
I looked from Dad, to Benjamin to Erek. The adults had wandered off. That was so unlike Dad not to make sure I knew where I was going before leaving. He didn’t quiz me once on where the entrance was, or the security station.
What was going on? I wondered.
“It’s okay,” Erek said, as if he were reading my thoughts. “Trust me, we need to talk.”
The way Erek said it made me feel like I didn’t have a choice one way or the other. But he also wasn’t grabbing my arm or trying to drag me anywhere.
“All right,” I said.
“Can we stop at the bathroom, first?” Erek asked.
He needed my permission? I just shrugged and said sure.
I didn’t really have to go right then, but Erek insisted I come in with him.
“There’s something I have to show you.” He added.
Wow, things had gone zero to creepy in a matter of seconds. I stood there, staring at him, wondering if I should storm off. He must have sensed what was wrong and to his credit, he had the decency to be embarrassed.
“That didn’t come out right.”
“You think?” I responded. “Look, what’s going on here? Your dad just comes out of-“
“That’s not my dad.” Erek said. “Benjamin is playing the part of my uncle. It’s a long story but…do you remember what happened to you last night at the construction site?”
I whipped my head around, trying to see if Dad was nearby. Then I glared at Erek.
“I don’t want him to find out about that,” I said in a low voice.
“And we don’t either,” Erek insisted. He glanced back at the bathroom and looked at me with a shrug. “I didn’t have to go that badly after all. What animals did you say you liked again?”
We left the amusement park area of The Gardens and entered a walkway that lead into an artificial jungle. Railings separated us from a glass wall, containing exhibits of baboons, gorillas and elephants. We stopped at a tree kangaroo exhibit.
“I thought it was a dream,” I said, finally. “I wanted it to be.”
Erek leaned against the railing, watching the tree kangaroo climb. A second one was on the ground munching on something.
“Do you remember touching something?” He asked. “You might have felt something, like an electrical shock.”
I looked at him.
“How did you know about that?” I asked, keeping my voice to a whisper. “And for the record, this not an impressed tone of voice. I’m as wierded out now as when you asked to” – I put up two hands to make air quotes- “show me something.”
Erek sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Even we make mistakes sometimes. But I didn’t know of a more subtle way to approach you and you’ve all ready had a bit of a shock yesterday.”
As much as it annoyed me, at least Erek was apologizing. I decided to start from the beginning.
“Okay, so, what was going on at the construction site.”
Erek was quiet, thoughtful for a while. It was good to see that he had learned from his mistake and was trying to find a better way of explaining things.
“Do you believe in life on other planets?” He asked.
“I guess so,” I answered. “I’m not much of a fan of science fiction or anything, but I like to think there is other life out there. The universe is just too big for there to be one planet with life on it, you know.”
Erek nodded. “Well what you have to know is that you’re right. There is life out there. Some of it is as old
as the universe itself and others like humans have just barely begun. Unfortunately, some of that life wants to destroy other life.”
“What, like in Independence Day?”
“That was a good movie,” Erek said, with a laugh. “I like Will Smith. But no, it’s unfortunately not so direct. The real invaders are all around you, hiding in plain sight.”
“Hiding how?”
“They’re called Yeerks. In their natural form they’re just helpless slugs that swim around in a pool, absorbing Kandrona rays. They have to do this every three days or they’ll die.”
“We’re being invaded by slugs?” I said, in disbelief, though I remembered John saying something about Yeerks. “Well let me get the salt out and we’ll have this invasion taken care of in a pinch.”
Erek chuckled patiently, but he kept going.
“Again, it’s not quite that simple. In their natural forms the Yeerks are helpless, but they don’t remain helpless for long. They infest a host by entering through the ear canal and wrapping themselves around the brain, taking complete control of the body. They read the host’s thoughts, move around for him, everything. And they’ve been doing this for nearly half a century.”
“Okay…” I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to add anything. What Erek was telling me made the events of yesterday seem explainable in comparison.
“They’re passive invaders. Once they find a planet they like, with a species that they can use, they try to take it as quickly and as quietly as possible to avoid attention from their enemies.”
“And who would they be?” I asked, almost flippantly.
“The Andalites.”
There was another buzzword again.
“And who are the Andalites?” I asked, in the same tone.
“The enemies of the Yeerks,” Erek said. From his tone it was clear that he knew I thought he was nuts. And to tell you the truth, I was happier believing he was nuts than the alternatives.
The less than pleasant alternative was that this guy John was some weird pervert, who had gotten me high on hallucinatory drugs and made up some story to see how I’d react. Erek was in on it and all of this was tied to the story my Dad had going, which was also connected to construction. The even less pleasant alternative was that Erek was telling the truth.
“Your dad is one of them.”
I turned to face him. “What was that?”
Erek faced me and said, “Your dad was infested yesterday. All of that construction equipment and materials that were going missing were being appropriated by the Yeerks to build their underground pools. When your dad was getting too close to the truth, they contacted him and infested him when he arrived in town.”
He didn’t even try to duck as I swung. I’ve never hit another person before. Even when they made me angry, I didn’t even try to swing because for the most part, I knew I’d have my butt handed to me on a silver platter. But this time, I didn’t care.
You want to play mind games with me, fine, I’ll deal with it. But you leave my Dad- OUCH!
Like I said, I never hit a person before. But I tripped once and drove my fist into a brick wall to catch my balance. My hand throbbed for weeks after that and I’ve never forgotten what it felt like. When my fist connected with Erek’s face, the memory came rushing to the surface, along with some choice words I never would have used around Dad.
“What was that?” I shouted, burying my hand in my arm to try to ease the throbbing.
Erek didn’t say anything. Instead, his skin, his clothes, his whole body began to flicker like a bad screen projection. For a brief second his entire body disappeared and in the place of the boy I met just a few minutes ago, stood a robotic…dog I guess.
It stood upright on hind legs similar to a dog’s. Its arms ended in a strange paw-like hand, sort of like a cross between Chewbacca and C-3PO. The skin-if that’s what robots have-looked smooth and shiny, but it seemed to have a rough texture in parts. It’s –his?- head ended in a muzzle and had pointed ears like a German shepherd.
“What are you?” I asked, trying to bite back more vicious cussing.
“I’m a Chee,” The robot dog said in Erek’s voice. Erek’s image appeared once more. “We can create holographic projections, which is how Chee-Orous, or John as you know him, was able to confuse the Controllers.”
I wanted to run. I wanted to scream out and most of all, I wanted this throbbing in my hand to go away. Erek gave me a sympathetic look.
“If you’ll come with me,” he said. “I know of away to make the swelling go away. I’m sorry for baiting you like that, but I figured if I made you angry you would be more open to my explanation.”
“Fair enough,” I said, sarcastically. But I followed him as he suggested because with the pain in my hand I was fairly certain I wasn’t dreaming.
