36 - The Mutation

  36 - The Mutation

  K.A. Applegate

  A phone call at three A.M. is rarely a good thing.

  When you're an Animorph, the chance of good news ever - day or night - is zero.

  "Jake?"

  Cassie's voice sounded shaky. Frightened.

  "What's up?" I said, my own voice casual. At the same time praying that no one else in my house had picked up the phone. "Those math problems giving you a hard time?" Cassie forced a laugh. "No. Just can't sleep again. You know, same old thing."

  "Try counting sheep. I bet before you get to thirty you'll be asleep."

  "Good idea. Thanks, Jake. See you."

  Cassie hung up the phone.

  I had a half hour to get from the subdivision where I live with my family to the farm Cassie shares with her parents.

  Who knew when I'd be back. Forget about getting any more sleep. I stripped off my pajamas in the dark.

  Opened my window wide.

  Gave one last glance over my shoulder at the closed door of my bedroom. No lights on in the hallway. Good.

  Then I looked out at the star-studded night and concentrated on the image of a bird. Peregrine falcon.

  I began to shrink. From a normal human kid, maybe a bit larger than average, to a one-foothigh human kid.

  I heard my internal organs changing. A squirmy sound, like a rumbling stomach, a sound you feel more than hear.

  It's a big change going from human to bird. Nothing ends up where it starts out. You go from a system designed to eat a bit of this and a bit of that, all well-chewed, to a system designed to swallow whole mice and poop out the bones and fur. My own bones, my big, solid human bones shrank and hollowed out. Finger bones relatively longer, leg bones shorter, breast bone huge. My skin tightened over the new skeleton. Flesh melted, ran together, like hot wax. I had wings instead of arms. Skinny legs and dangerous talons. Gray-and-white feather patterns etched themselves onto my still semisoft skin, then raised into three dimensions.

  Fleshy human nose and mouth blurred, ran together, then extended out to become a hard beak. My eyes became smaller in absolute terms, but much larger in relative terms.

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  36 - The Mutation

  I was ready.

  I hopped onto my desk. From there, onto the windowsill. And then I flew. My name is Jake.

  We're not supposed to like it, this power we have. We being me, my best bud Marco, my cousin Rachel, Cassie and Tobias and Ax. We're not supposed to like it, but mostly I do. This power to morph. To touch an animal and by doing so acquire its DNA. To become that animal at will.

  In the wrong hands this incredible power can be seriously abused. In our own fumbling, uncertain human hands this power is both a privilege and a curse. We learned the truth about morphing the hard way, back in the beginning. Back when the five of us - Ax hadn't joined the team yet - witnessed an Andalite spaceship land in an abandoned construction site. And a dying alien emerge. A pale blue deerlike creature with the torso of a muscular man. Two huge almond-shaped eyes in his face. Two more eyes on stalks that grew out of the top of his head and swiveled to look behind, right and left. No mouth. But what a tail! Long and strong. With a sharp, curved blade on the end. Deadly. Lightning fast.

  A warrior prince named Elfangor.

  With the last of his strength Elfangor told us of the galaxywide invasion of a parasitic species called Yeerks. Gray slugs that insinuate themselves into the brains of sentient creatures.

  That crawl through the ear canal and wrap themselves in and around the brain. Spread and seep into every crevice.

  Read and laugh at every painful memory and embarrassing desire you've ever had. Like striking out in your first Little League game. Like wanting so badly for the prettiest girl in class to smile at you.

  You are the slave of this thing. The real you rages then eventually cowers somewhere in the back of your skull.

  Watching as the Yeerk uses you, controls you, turns you into yet another instrument of Yeerk domination.

  The Yeerks are everywhere.

  Your parents. Your lab partner. The lead singer in your favorite band. Your regular garbage man.

  Any of these people might have a Yeerk in their head. Might be what we call a human-Controller.

  My brother tom is one. His bedroom is two doors down from mine. Marco's mother is a Controller. We don't know where she is.

  Our vice principal, Chapman, is one. How many more? We don't know. More. Always more.

  We are not winning this war. We're delaying the final defeat. No more than that. Maybe not as much as that.

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  36 - The Mutation

  For some reason I'm the leader of this little band of warriors. I'm still not sure how it happened but I've stopped fighting the fact.

  Sometimes I'm secretly proud when AximiliEsgarrouth-lsthill, the Andalite cadet who joined us not long after we encountered his older brother Elfangor, calls me

  "Prince" Jake.

  Mostly embarrassed, but there are times when it feels okay. I'm proud when we're winning. When we're "kicking Yeerk butt" as Rachel would say. I'm also proud when we don't win but have done the best we could. Acted with courage and honor.

  Most of the time I'm also terrified.

  Like when I heard Cassie's trembling voice on the other end of the line. I flew to the barn that houses the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center Cassie's dad operates.

  I landed out back and when I was sure it was safe, began to demorph. Voices. From inside the barn. Low and worried.

  Cassie . . . and Hork-Bajir.

  CHAPTER 2.

  This is a terrible thing he has done." Toby Hamee's voice was grave. I didn't answer. I didn't understand, yet.

  Cassie knelt by the side of a Hork-Bajir. He could no longer speak. He could barely breathe. He was laid out on the stainless steel table Cassie's dad uses to perform operations.

  He was seven feet tall. Too tall to fit easily on the table. His legs hung off. His bladed arms hung off.

  He was clearly Hork-Bajir. Just as clearly he was something else, as well. The barn is a dark place even in the daytime. But now it was gloom inside of gloom. There were rows and shelves of caged, sick, convalescing animals. Mostly quiet. The occasional mutter or growl or chirp.

  "Cassie?"

  She turned to look up at me. Her eyes were dull with agony.

  "He can't get enough air," she said. "His pulse is weak."

  "Make fish! He try to make fish-people!" Jara Hamee cried. I turned to Toby. A seer of her people. More intelligent and articulate than her fellow HorkBajir, including her father, Jara.

  "Who?"

  "Visser Three," Toby said. "Who else?"

  "What happened?"

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  36 - The Mutation

  "This is Hahn Tunad. He was not a free HorkBajir. Not one of our colony. Now Hahn is free of the Yeerks but he is dying for it." Toby paused before going on. "Hahn and forty-nine other Hork-Bajir were the subjects of an experiment. I have come to understand from Hahn that the visser is obsessed with rediscovering the Pemalite ship. He is very angry that his last attempt was foiled by the being called the Drode. And by the so-called Andalite bandits."

  "Okay," I said, watching Cassie wipe a cool cloth over Hahn's bladed forehead. "Go on."

  "The visser attempted to produce an amphibious creature. To aid in this deep-sea mission. He failed. When he realized the fifty test subjects were useless to him, he ordered their Yeerks to abandon the now-useless host bodies. They were to be fed to the Taxxons. We found Hahn ... the others were already dead." Toby nodded toward her distraught father. "They were friends. Long ago." I tried to slow my racing heart. To breathe deeply. To keep from vomiting. I knelt by Cassie.

  She pointed to Hahn's left shoulder. Just below the blade was - a gill. I'd already seen it. I'd seen the webs between the Hork-Bajir talons and fingers, too.

  "Jake, the visser just grafted these gills onto the body," Cassie whispered. "It's as if he and his medical team had no idea of Hork-Bajir physiology. It's all wrong. Totally botched!"

  "Feet! Feet!" Jara, more agitated than I'd ever seen him, pointed to Hahn's feet.

  "Jake, he can't breathe. I don't know what they did inside, to his lungs . . ." I grabbed the oxygen mask from the ground where Cassie had dropped it in defeat. Yanked the oxygen tank closer to the makeshift bed of hay bales.

  "Jake! You can't. . . it's too late!"

  Pushing past Cassie I held the mask to Hahn's mouth. Opened the valve on the tank.

  "Jake, you're not doing him any good. He's in pain. No one can help him." She gently pulled the mask away.

  From behind me I was dimly aware of Toby's voice.

  "Hahn was able to tell us of a powerful new seagoing vessel the visser has built specifically for the purpose of locating the Pemalite ship. It is known as the Sea Blade."

  A horrible gurgling rose from Hahn's throat.

  "Cassie! Something's caught in his throat!"

  "A valve of some sort," she said. "It's malfunctioning. I tried to open it. Tried to keep it from closing further. I couldn't."

  Jara stepped forward and gracefully took one of Hahn's hands. "Hahn not die!" he pleaded. "Hahn come with Toby and Jara and be free!"

  "No, Father. It is time for Hahn to go Beyond. Our friends, Tobias and the others, will help us destroy the evil that is Visser Three. Help us avenge Hahn's death." Page 4

  36 - The Mutation
  With a terrible sob, Jara knelt and gently laid his bladed head on Hahn's body. And then there was one less sound in the barn. One less creature breathing. I moved away. Jara needed privacy. I turned to look up at the window in the rafters. Tobias's favorite passage into and out of the barn.

  The sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn was approaching. A new day. A day Hahn and the other mutated Hork-Bajir would never see.

  "Jake?"

  I looked back to Cassie. Opened my arms. She came to me and we held each other. We held each other until Toby and Jara had wrapped Hahn's body in blankets and taken him into the sunrise.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was after school the next day and we were in Cassie's barn. Where only hours earlier a mutated Hork-Bajir lay dying.

  "We have to go after the Sea Blade, period," Rachel said angrily. "We definitely can't let the Yeerks get hold of the Pemalite ship. Or Pemalite technology."

  "A plan would be nice," Marco said.

  Tobias argued from his usual perch and lookout in the rafters.

  Tobias is a nothlit. Someone who stayed in morph for longer than the two hour limit. Now he's a red-tailed hawk first, all other creatures second. Rachel gives him a hard time about staying hawk and not going back to being a regular human boy twenty-four seven. But the explanation is there if you want to see it. If Tobias gives up his ability to morph by trapping himself in human form, he's out of the fight. And he can't walk away from this war. He can't - or won't abandon us.

  Tobias is Elfangor's son. Long story. Weird story.

  Ax pointed out.

  Right after dawn I'd sent Ax and Tobias to the secret community the free Hork-Bajir had established. Their information was sketchy. Hork-Bajir, with the exception of Toby, are not the brightest species around. It's a little like asking a fouryear-old to describe a movie.

  But we'd also tapped into the Chee network. The Chee are a whole different story. Androids are very good at description. The Chee didn't know much, but what they knew was different. They had seen different pieces of the puzzle.

  "What do we know? That's the question," Marco said. I nodded at Ax. "Ax-man? Give us a rundown."

  Ax said. I smiled. "So include the guesses and the extrapolation." Page 5

  36 - The Mutation

  Ax said.

  "It would have to," Marco interjected. "Too many subs out there in the deep, blue sea. There are still sensors all over the ocean floor from the Cold War."

  Ax agreed.

  "Echolocation?" Cassie suggested.

  "Echolocation is a lot like what they call 'active sonar,'" Marco said. "You bounce sound waves off an object and listen to the echoes. But subs don't use active sonar, usually, because if you're 'pinging' someone with active sonar, they can hear you. Subs usually stick with passive listening."

  "Marco, are you just pulling all this out of the air? How do you know all this?" Rachel demanded.

  "torn Clancy."

  I nodded. "torn Clancy. The Hunt for Red October."

  "You should read something besides Glamour, Rachel."

  "So would echolocation work, or not?" Cassie demanded. We all looked at Ax. Cassie chewed her lip. "I'm thinking giant squid, if we're going real deep. Or dolphins or whales," Cassie said.

 

  Tobias said,

  "The Yeerks will just keep looking," I said. "The Chee can't get into a game of hide-andseek. Sooner or later they'd lose. And if the Pemalite ship is moving it's easier to detect."

  "We have to sink the Sea Blade," Cassie said quietly. "We have to sink it, destroy it. Make them regret ever thinking about invading the ocean." I shot her a look. It wasn't like Cassie to be bloodthirsty. She met my gaze, unflinching. "What they did to the Hork-Bajir was evil," she said.

  "Over the line. Way over the line. We need to teach them a lesson." I nodded. I understood her feelings. But this mission couldn't be about feelings. Marco said what I was thinking. "Hey, we don't teach lessons. And we don't do revenge. Besides, everything the Yeerks do is over the line. We stop them. That's what we do."

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  36 - The Mutation

  Cassie looked unconvinced. Rachel was smirking in cocky agreement with Cassie. Rachel liked the idea of delivering a harsh lesson. I expected that from Rachel. But from Cassie it worried me.

  There were problems here for me, as the leader of this bunch of tired, stressed-out misfits. Tobias hated going into the water. Marco wasn't convinced it was necessary. Cassie was taking it all personally.

  Rachel and Ax were their usual selves. I sighed. Fairly typical: At any given point, on any given mission, maybe half the team was going to be difficult in one way or another. Including me, of course. Maybe especially me.

  "Echolocation," Cassie mused. "We've all got dolphin morphs."

  Tobias reminded us.

  "And we all do giant squid," Rachel said.

  "Not sure we want to deal with those guys again," Marco mumbled. "Creepy."

  "Whales are good. We need a morph we can control. Something intelligent. That can dive deep and do some serious damage to the Sea Blade," I said. "But let's face it. The chances of another sperm whale beaching itself just for the rest of us to acquire are pretty slim."

  "Of course!" Cassie snapped her fingers. "There's an orca - a killer whale - at The Gardens' SeaTown. They're calling him Swoosh."

  "Swoosh?" Marco repeated incredulously. "Who names these animals?" Cassie looked embarrassed. "Nike. They sponsored the exhibit. So they got to name the whale."

  "Okay," I said. "We need to get going. A) I contact the Chee and alert them to be ready to take our places. B) we carry out round-the-clock surveillance on the vicinity of the Yeerk pool. Try and spot any sign of this Sea Blade launching. C) we acquire the killer whale."

  "Easy," Marco mocked. "ABC. Just don't mention, D) we chase a super sub into the ocean, and E) try to destroy it before, F) they reach an alien spacecraft in the middle of, G) a bunch of unexploded bombs and shells that may get set off when the Yeerks try to, H) fry us with their Dracon beams." Rachel laughed and gave Marco a playful shove. "You're always so negative. Look on the bright side: Maybe the unexploded shells will, I) blow up the Yeerks, not us." Cassie wasn't joining in the graveyard humor. "Fifty Hork-Bajir subjected to horrible medical experiments," she said. "That'swhat this is about."

  CHAPTER 4

 

  I asked. It didn't matter. We were just making conversation. Killing the boring two hours of our shift. I was at about fifty feet. Marco was another twenty-five feet or so higher, and two or three blocks to the east. We were two birds of prey, a falcon and an osprey, riding the thermals, floating on the cushions of warm air.

 
  36 - The Mutation

  math. Couldn't have been some subject I can fake my way through. No. Has to be math. The answer is either the square root of pi or it isn't, dude, there's no bull factor. I can't say, "Well, I felt what the writer really meant was . . .">

 

 

  I said.

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