We found the information we were looking for on Wednesday, the week the dance would occur. We had spied on Chen and some of the other Controllers on Monday and Tuesday like we had spied the past week, no changes, but on Wednesday we decided to change the daily procedure a bit. Time was running out.
Wednesday was an early day, like every Wednesday before. Millu told me that on Wednesday her aunt liked to spend the extra time at the local park, when she had no plans. During Spy Mode we had not heard anything out of the ordinary concerning that Wednesday so we thought that Flerexx might be going there. (Also, F.Y.I.- Millu was having a blast reading the Animorph books. I had always told her in the past that she would; she was so stubborn. Now she was talking about them like I do. Creepy. She had read all of them to #13. She was working on the Andalite Chronicles.)
First I went over to my house and wrote a note to Miriam, ,who is the second person to get home on Wednesday, that I would be at Millu's house, studying. Then Millie called her house and left a message that she would be doing the same at my house. We then took our bikes and rode to the park. We spotted Chen on a park bench talking on her cellular phone, reading a newspaper. Or at least looking like she was reading a newspaper. We sat on a bench a few yards from her, trying to look inconspicuous.
"You have the talkie?" I asked her, in the lowest voice possible.
"Yes, I have the talkie. You know, if my aunt wasn't a Controller I would really feel like dirt doing all these things."
"Yeah, but if she wasn't a Controller you wouldn't be doing all these things anyway."
"You better believe I wouldn't be doing all these things." I sighed. You see, I had sort of gotten the idea on Monday that if we had a carrier thing that could spy (in a sense) on Chen when we couldn't it might get us that stupid dance information. So I had sort of bought two brand-new state-of-the-art walkie-talkies. So much for allowance plans. Millu had put one of them in her aunt's purse, and now she took out the other one from her pocket.
"Turn it on," I whispered.
"No duh," she whispered back, and it was all I could do to keep from giggling like crazy. (Millie has a talent for turning grumpy comments into funny ones.) Anyway, the sounds were really muffled at first, so Mill turned up the volume and changed the frequency. (Those talkies were awesome. I bet they could hear through steel. Just not polyester.) Luckily, it worked. Some. This is what we could here:
"Yes, every----- h-s been wor--d out. You reall- ov-r--est-ma-- the-- huma-s. ----- -re as stup-d as Gedds." (We exchanged looks.) "List--, the on-y thing you w-ll have t- w-rr- ab-u- is th-t th- Ho-k-B--ir come o- ti-e. Vi--er Thr-will not except dela--. Howe-r, th-t is my r c-cer-, not you-s. N-, noth-n- ou- of the ord-nar- has happened. Sp-s? Don't worr-. Pr-ab-y no-in-. Sto- you- worr-in-! Th- poo- pa-ts wi-l come on Sa-ur-ay. Sim-le as that. Flerexx 1-8-6 ou-."
Chen then put the cell phone in her pocket and calmly walked away. Millie and I were still staring at the walkie-talkie. "You understand that?" she asked, finally braking her gaze from it.
"I think," I began slowly. " that the dance is a way to bring parts of the new Yeerk pool to this dimension. I think it is sci-fi themed because Hork-Bajir will be there. And I think we are wwwwaaaaaay over our heads."
"Oh, yeah."
"How do I look?" Miri asked, putting her arms in the air for dramatization.
"Very nice," I answered approvingly. Miriam had chosen a very creative get-up: the princess in "Space Balls". (You know, that movie that spins off Star Wars and a bunch of other sci-fi flicks? We have it on video.)
"How do I look?" I asked her back.
"Very Darth Vader."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." We were in the room we shared, putting the finishing touches on our costumes. (Millu would be coming over with my mask.) Suddenly, I decided to see what Miri thought of the weirdness of the dance.
"So," I asked, trying to be nonchalant. "You know why they're doing it sci-fi themed? I heard you high-scoolers thought that costume dances were dorky."
"It's really weird, actually. We didn't think it up, the P.T.O did, which is humoungously strange, 'cause they're always saying we have too many dances." She paused thoughtfully. "Of course, it's not half as odd as your younger sister going to the same dance, with her best friend as a date, for the sole reason that it's sci-fi."
I blushed. I was glad I'd be wearing a mask at the dance, because I really didn't want to be noticed as a silly little middle-schooler. Furthermore, Miriam was right. I really had a thin cover; I knew Chen would notice me if she saw me, and she would be suspicious, and she would keep an eye on me, which would really destroy our plans. Ding-dong, our bell rang suddenly. I went downstairs and opened the door.
"Hello, your emperorness. Here is your sacred mask." I was greeted by a Storm Trooper.
"Stop sucking up, mere trooper." I said, putting it on.
"Be nice," Mill warned, dropping the Trooper mood. "It was my cousin who got us the material, and it was my cousin who slashed the price so we could afford them." (I guess the saying is true, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Millu knows practically everybody in our city some way or another, and was able to manage the costume situation.)
"Come on, you two," Mr. Chen called from their car."
"In a second," she called back. She then lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, "Do you have the Dracon beam?" I nodded and pointed to my belt, where it sat, practically invisible with the surroundings of the costume. (We thought of this third use of the costumes when we just got them.) Right then, a black sports car pulled up, right behind the Chens'.
My sister came out, all set. Miri and I said goodbye to our parental units, then to each other. I went inside the car, nervous and anxious and scared out of my wits. Neither Millie nor her dad knew this. Like I said, it was good that I was wearing a mask.
Millu and I walked into the high school. She was shivering. I was shivering. It was, like, 70 degrees inside and we were wearing about three layers of cushioning fabric and hard plastic. We had no idea what was going to happen, and we were scared about that fact. So we continued to shiver. We got inside the gymnasium, where the dance was being held.
We walked behind the punch and tried to clarify what we were going to do, for about the hundredth time. We had made a plan: find Chen. Follow Chen. Use the password list that we had put together from our encounters to go where she's going to oversee the pool preparations and try to stop the sick little operation any way we found how. Some plan, huh?
I felt like an Animorph. Without the mondo cool powers. So we weaved our way through party goers, until we saw her, looking smug in a Star Trek outfit, talking to some other Controller teacher. We also happened to see behind her, in the shadows, the outlines of two 7-foot-tall monsters with a bazillion blades and the feet of a T-Rex. Hork-Bajir. I nearly fainted when I saw them, and I bet Millu did, too. I mean, you just don't know how mean those things look until you've seen one in person.
Marco was right when he called them, "walking Salad Shooters from Hell," in book 1. It was the perfect description. Suddenly, the teacher, Chen, and the Hork-Bajir walked away. We looked at each other.
"Time to play follow-the- leader," Millie said in a whisper.
We walked behind them, always in the shadows, until they got to a corner of the wall. Chen looked around (we ducked behind a chair) and then pressed some invisible buttons on the wall. (This was all done in shadow, of course, so nobody saw or noticed, with the music and the dancing and stuff.) The wall opened up, and they walked in.
We walked up to the wall and Mill took out the list of passwords. It took 8 tries, but finally one password worked and we stepped inside. We found ourselves in a huge, dark room. There were maybe nine other Human-Controllers there, and four other Hork-Bajir-Controllers. They were busy, opening large blue boxes and typing stuff on these teeny tiny little computers and ordering each other around and stuff like that. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling were black, and covered with wiring. There were also very large holes in the walls, probably Yeerk Pool entrances.
The thing that drew my attention, though, was the Star Gate-like portal in the middle of the room. No one noticed us. I felt sort of like an Enterprise officer, looking onto a room of a Borg ship; nobody would notice me until I did something.
"What do we do?" Millie asked, in a whisper so soft I could scarcely hear her three inches away.
"I guess we create a diversion of some sort," I whispered back.
I took a deep breath, which was sounded creepily like Darth Vader. I looked around, looking for some place to hide. I mean, we were just slightly obvious, if anyone happened to look our way, you know? I found the hiding place, behind an unusually large box by one of the tunnels. I guess Mill saw it, too, 'cause we both tippie-toed our way behind the box. So there we were, behind a blue box in a room connected to a future Yeerk Pool that would contain the aliens that would enslave a dimension separate of their own. It was too weird for words.
It felt like my bloodstream was going to clog with the colossal amount of adrenaline that was pumping through my body. I then did a very stupid thing.
"Only one way to mess it up," I whispered grimly.
I took out the Dracon beam. I couldn't see Millu's face, but I knew that it contained an expression of pure horror. It was suicidal, what I was doing, for both Millu and me. So it was selfish, too. Not really, though. There was nothing else we could do. We were outnumbered and we were trapped. There was no way we could slip out unnoticed. It was the only way, the only chance we'd get.
I pointed the Dracon beam at the closest human. (I would have fired at a Hork-Bajir, but the modified Dracon beams weren't as effective on people from the other dimension.) I fired.
TTTTSSSSSSEEEEEEEWWWWWWSSSSSSSS! The Controller went down. Heads turned, and very quickly, our cover had been completely blown. TTTSSSEEEWWWWSSSSS! went enemy gunfire, and I fell down in a goalie-dive position.
TTSSSEEEEEWWWWSSSS! went my gunfire, knocking two other Controllers down, and making another dodge. A Hork-Bajir came up to me. I kept shooting at him, but it was like shooting blanks. It hurt him, but did not kill him. He was going to stomp me! Suddenly….
TSSSSEEEWWW! TTTTTTSSSSSEEEEWWWWWW! The Hork-Bajir went down. Millu! She had somehow snagged a real Dracon beam and had gotten behind him. It didn't solve our problems, though.
We would be dead meat in a matter of seconds. What I did next I would later regret. I abandoned Millu Chen this way, and saved my own skin. I ran towards the portal. I closed my eyes. Then, feet first, I jumped. Into the portal.
Hi, it's me again. I guess everybody else has some big story about how they got into the fortress. I mean, the Animorphs had to turn into fish, swim into a mountain by an underground stream, and follow the trail of a couple of guards. Rebbie had to snoop like crazy (not unlike I did), dress up as Darth Vader, go to a dance, fight Controllers, and jump into an inter-dimensional portal, and Jeka had to go through a space rift, spy on Controllers, and…. well, you'll read about that in the next chapter.
The story about how I got into the mountain fortress is much more low-key. Just as interesting, just not as dramatic. Here's how I did it.
Two days after the day of the Office Incident, I decided to do a little research. I went to the local library, and was able to locate a microfiche. I then went to the newspaper section and got almost all the articles from about two years ago to the present. It took forever, but was it fascinating! I mean, one or two odd, under-reported, unsolved incidents would have been okay, I guess, but this city had them by the truckloads! Little, inexplicable articles, trying to look innocent and unimportant to the reader, were painfully obvious. Like, for instance, this article about these sightings at some construction site. According to the article, some people said they saw what appeared to be a U.F.O, but turned out to be some kids firing off fireworks. What struck me as odd was that there was not one follow-up story on the incident. It's like the police force forgot it existed Another example:
hospital closes. That was it. No explanation, no nothing. Weird little things; things that had nothing in common, strange events that were so obviously polished and gift wrapped for the public so as to not be thought-about. I was not your average citizen, though, and I knew I was in the middle of conspiracy-city.
I joined The Sharing. I case you're wondering why, it was because they were so utterly involved with my Conspiracy Theory. They were always involved; but never too much. Suspicious, if you ask me. So I agreed to join, with no intention of staying on for long.
You should have SEEN Marco when I told him this. He totally freaked. In a quiet way. He just sort of went pale and asked me WHY I was joining. This made me realize the truth: Marco was involved, a lot more than he would ever admit. This was horrible because it made me terribly suspicious, much more than I wanted to be, especially of Marco, who I knew in my heart was not evil. He still was intertwined, though, so, to not endanger my cover and plans, I didn't tell him what I really thought. Instead, I played dumb about it. Good thing I took acting class, or it'd be so much harder to pretend like that.
During my first Sharing meeting, I spied on the full members. I don't waste any time at all, do I? I'm sure that lowly associate members, on occasion, spy on the full members. The difference with me is that when I spy, I don't get caught. Ever. So there I was in Harriet mode, in the perfect hiding spot, with no chance of being discovered. We were on the beach (just in case you were wondering) and the full members were just sort of standing there, like they were waiting for someone. They were all looking at this cave behind them.
Then HE appeared. He looked sort of like a centaur from Greek mythology. Only in Greek mythology the human part looks entirely human, and the horse part looks entirely horse. This was not the case. (I should point out now that he was blue, because that was the first thing I noticed about him.) The horse part was not exactly identical to a normal horse. Besides having blue fur, it had this tail. Not a ponytail tail, a monkey-like tail, but long and dangerous, because at the tip of this tail had a blade, a blade that slit your throat or cut down a tree. The human part was even less like a human, because (1) he had seven fingers on each hand, (2) he had no mouth, (3) he only had vertical slits for a nose, (4) he had two extra eyes, mounted atop his head like horns, and (5) at the human part he had tan and (still) blue fur. I guess it would freak a lot of people out, seeing this guy walk out of a cave, but I kept my cool. I wasn't nearly as scared as excited.
Okay, badness seemed to emanate from him, but so what? Was he an alien? How did he communicate with no mouth? What if-
<What is the news with the pool preparations?>
This loud voice suddenly boomed in my head. It was all I could do to not cry out in shock. When I regained reason, it was obvious: telepathy. He used telepathy to talk. Chapman started to talk to the Centaur Guy. A lot of the stuff I couldn't understand. Andalites? The Oktyel? Modified Dracon beams? What in the world were they yapping about? One of the few things I could tell was that Chapman and his fellow Sharing members were scared of the guy. He was in a position of power, a high position, an important position, and they were inferior and weak compared to him. Another thing I could understand was that there was some big project in a mountain beyond the forest. Chapman would be going there on that Saturday to oversee something about "pool fragments", whatever they were supposed to be.
Somewhere during the brutal (and brutally frustrating) conversation they mentioned the password to get into one particular part of the mountain. It was too long too be memorized instantly, so I yanked out a pen and jotted it on my hand. Then, just as suddenly as he had arrived, the being not from this world left, returning to the cave that led to who-knows-where.
On Saturday I was totally prepared. On my belt I had a mini-flashlight and a canteen. I had memorized that password. I was pumped. I was prepared. I was ready. I found Chapman in the forest. I followed him to the passage. I punched in the numbers. Then I went inside.
For two weeks I spied on the Controllers that continuously weaved through the forest. I wouldn't have spied for nearly so long, except that the second time I spied I learned that in approximately two weeks the Yeerks would be preparing major work on the Yeerk pool in the other dimension. That would be the time to strike. For no matter how much damage I could and would inflict upon the Controllers, chances were that I would lose, and I would die. So I would lose at the best time. It was sensible thinking.
So, at two hours at a time, I would morph my djabala and, invisible in the canopy, listen in on the conversations of passing Yeerks. Eventually, though, the time came for me to try to save my comrades, who had been captured, according to talk.
The main problem was that not all the entrances were simply Gleet Biofiltered. Some were without the Filters but heavily encrypted. Others were both Gleet BioFiltered and encrypted. I would have to pick the correct entrance so as not to get caught.
I had to morph human. It was the only way to get in. The Gleet BioFilters, you see, would simply determine my DNA, not whether or not that the DNA is morphed. I then needed to determine the correct entrance. Easier said than done.
I would have been just slightly noticeable if I looked at the options as a kafit bird. Thus, I would need a bird morph native to the forest environment. To my luck, I found an injured bird at the forest floor. It would have been dangerous if it had been well and as big as myself.
The talons resembled the feet of a Hork-Bajir. I shuddered. No doubt I would be meeting many of them very soon. I quickly aquired the animal and morphed it. I looked out onto the base of the mountains where the entrances would be.
After some time, I finally discovered a convenient passage that was void of a password. I settled on the forest floor a few yards from the mountain and demorphed. I then picked up the human clothes I stole, which, along with the morphing cube and the shredders, I had hidden at that very spot. I morphed the human and put on the clothes. Also, for safety, I took a shredder with me. I then calmly walked, and stumbled, to the entrance. I walked inside. I was through.