I know, I know. Trusting some talking gorilla you just happen to bump in to is probably not the most intelligent thing to do. So what prompted me to trust my life in the hands of an ape I had just met that could easily smash my head into oblivion? (I once had to do a science report on the gorilla, so I was fully aware of what this guy was capable of.) Although I'm actually not all that sure, there are a few reasons. First of all, you have to do something if you bump into a gorilla like that. And where to bump into! I mean, this was not like if you bumped into this guy on the sidewalk or something, where you would have actual time to just stare and gape. This was the middle of a battle in a dangerous alien compound. (By this time I was positive that they were aliens. I mean, there aren't a lot of options.) I couldn't think things over, I couldn't freeze in disbelief, I couldn't not do something, you know? Furthermore, I would like to think that I am slightly smarter than to run away, blind and screaming, when there were ray guns being fired practically at random and these giant dragons or whatever with blades enough to grind me into a pulp running around. Third reason? Well, this is probably the stupidest reason of all. (Actually, the first two explanations were pretty sensible, don't you think?) It's like… I don't even know. Well… it was sort of like when I was at Chapman's office and totally not interested in what he was saying, but then this little nerve in my brain told me to listen and I got the feeling of being lied to, you know? Only not. I mean, I was paying plenty of attention when I bumped into ape-boy. And it's not like you can really tell the expression of a gorilla as easily as a human's. So it was different. But not. I know this sounds confusing. It was just this feeling… this feeling of certainty, this feeling of, I don't know, non-evil. Like I could trust him. Whereas with the Chap I got the opposite feeling, this notion of uneasiness, badness, something putrid. Like I said, I don't know. Anyway, I tend to trust my instinct, and there wasn't anything else I could have done, and, mixed in with the fact that he knew my name, which I found very odd, I went for it.
Anyway, he took my double and we ran to this little room that was beneath the floor of the compound. The light was off and it was filled to the brim with stuff, so I kept bumping into things in the semi-darkness, which is not at all like me. There we met this tiger, panting and bloody with flesh wounds. I nearly lost it then, but there would be no point in doing some scream-a-thon, and I usually don't do something without a reason. The gorilla and the big cat exchanged a little dialogue. (This time I was able to understand almost everything they "said", except for this one word, "Controller". I mean, I didn't know what it meant in the context.) Then my twin, still in the arms of the monkey-boy, said something very interesting.
"Actually, Marco, I would prefer not to be called 'Star Wars Olsen twin wannabe.'" The gorilla dropped her in shock.
"Marco? Did you just say Marco?" This, of course, came from me.
My mind was racing so fast I would not be surprised if I broke some kind of thinking record. Like, when I told Marco about the Sharing and he flipped in this quiet sort of way and I concluded that he must be involved somehow? Was the gorilla MARCO? How did Marco turn into a gorilla? How did this girl know? WHAT did this girl know? Why did I have to left so much in the dark? Anyway, the girl calmly picked herself off the floor and wiped the dust from her knees.
Then she looked up. "Yahh! We're… we're… identical?"
"Yep, we've concluded that we are identical. But that is not the question right now. The question is: who are you?"
She looked around some, checking her surroundings. She then turned back to our little discussion. "Umm, my name is Rebekah, but I usually go by Rebbie." She said it cautiously, as if she had to think about it.
Then again, who wouldn't? But you know what? I was starting to get annoyed. Before that, I'd been too awed with the predicament to be too irritated with the fact that everybody else seemed to know what was going on except me, the new girl, who was totally clueless. I mean, it's one thing to have this intricate puzzle to solve that you have to do from scratch with no help because this is YOUR game and nobody else knows the answer. It's quite another to have this intricate puzzle to solve that everybody except you knows the answer to so it's not any fun because it's not like solving it would be revolutionary or anything.
" Who are you?" Rebbie, short for Rebekah, asked me.
"My name is Sandra," I said, annoyed.
She shook head. (Neither the tiger nor the gorilla had moved yet.) "No, I mean who ARE you? Why are you here? You're not an Animorph."
<Excuse me?> the tiger asked. <What do you mean by 'Animorph'?> The tiger turned to the ape.
<Don't ask me,> gorilla-boy said defensively. <I didn't even mention the word.>
I began tapping my foot on the floor impatiently. I put my hands on my hips. I looked toward the gorilla to the tiger to this Rebekah person. "Okay, I am obviously the only one here who does not know what's going on. Answers, please. I would like some answers now."
Cat turned to me. <In a second.> He then turned to Rebbie. <You know who we are. You know who Marco is. How do you know this?>
Rebbie smiled. She shook her head and actually laughed. "I cannot believe this," she said, looking at the ceiling, talking to herself. "This is so NOT happening." She turned to the two animal people. She sighed. "You see, in my universe, you, them, all of this, this is not happening. It's fiction." She bit her lip. "Science fiction. As in a book series."
Well, this kind of answer sure surprised the heck out of the tiger and gorilla (Marco?). They stared at her like she had suddenly grown 4-inch claws and talons. Then they looked at each other.
The tiger turned back to Rebbie. <So you're saying that you read… you read about this…about us… in BOOKS?>
Rebbie nodded. I cleared my throat dramatically. "Ahem, ahem. Can somebody please tell me what's going on?"
<Actually,> the ape said suddenly. <WE would like some answers. Like, why are YOU here?> The gorilla lowered his "voice". <I know you joined the Sharing, Sandra.>
Rebbie's eyebrows shot up at that. I rolled my eyes. "Marky, Marky, Marky," I said pitifully. (I still wasn't sure he was Marco, however.)" Do you really think that I am that dumb? Do you really think that I would fall for Chapman's drivel about how the Sharing was an educational experience, blah, blah, and blah? Did you ever put into consideration that the only reason I even thought I should join the Sharing was because something was so obviously up in this pathetic little colony that you people consider an actual city?" I then gave him my patented Dumb Look.
"Um, does anybody know where we are?" Rebbie interjected.
<For your information, we are in a very large, high-state-of-alert, Yeerk facility,> the tiger answered.
"Excuse me, but what is a Yeerk?" I asked.
Rebbie looked at me. "Don't you know?"
<Listen,> said Marco. (Can you believe that I had accepted that so quickly?) <We could talk about this forever, you know, but we sort of need to get moving here. We have no idea where the others are and we really need to find out, and we need to do this quickly.>
Rebbie nodded. "Gotcha. I'll do anything to help."
I shrugged. "Ditto, I guess. But I do expect some answers when our lives aren't so much in danger, you know. This is getting really frustrating. Come on, we need to get out of here."
<That's good,> Marco said. We made our way to the stairs. <Okay, boss, what's the plan?>
He had meant the tiger, but Rebbie answered first. "Most probably we want to find Tobias, who's the only one who'd be able to penetrate that smoke." I raised an eyebrow.
"Tobias? As in that guy… uh, remind me to be much more cautious of your friends, Marco. Who's Mr. Tiger? Jake?"
I heard Rebbie stifle a giggle. "You know, for somebody who's so lacking a clue of what's going on, you sure make good accusations."
My other eyebrow shot up. "You mean… oh, man. This is all really freaky."
<Get used to it,> Jake answered. Then, <Okay, um...I don't really think that splitting up would be a good idea this time, so I guess we go all together. Most probably the others have all found hiding spots by now in, like, I don't know, one of those shacks or something. We need to find where they are, but also keep in mind that Yeerks are doing the same thing. And although thought-speech would be convenient for this, we would be just slightly obvious like this, so we're going to need to demorph.>
"Cool," Rebbie said. "I've always wanted to see a morphing."
"What?" I asked frantically. "What? What?"
"This might get a little weird," Rebbie warned me.
Then the tiger and the gorilla morphed. Quickly I came to realize how much of an understatement Rebbie's was. Remind me never to watch that again. It is gross beyond belief. Melding, melting, mutating, morphing, it is absolutely horrifying. Made worse by the fact I didn't have a clue what was going on. They needed to morph and didn't have any time to warn me, so they just did it. Not to mention the fact that they were morphing into my cousin and my cousin's best friend. Yuck. I stifled a scream as I watched. But I felt better when it was over and I could see what they were wearing.
"Hee hee hee," I giggled. "What is that?"
"It's called a morphing outfit," Marco grumbled. "Don't think I would ever wear this by choice. It's either this or being naked."
I shuddered at the thought. Anyway, we walked out of the little room. I felt sickly conspicuous out there, out in the open. Like the entire universe could see me. I almost wished that the smoke, which had most likely been filtered out, was still there. But it wasn't. We were walking, totally defenseless, around a stupidly large compound. I thought for sure that somebody would notice Marco and Jake's slightly odd attire, but nobody did. I guess neither these aliens nor humans were much into fashion. As far as I could tell, everybody was majorly tense. I had no idea of what we were doing, walking about like that. If we were looking for somebody but so was everybody else, why were our chances so much better? We stopped behind one of those shacks for a second to look at our options. It was only a few feet from to the wall, so we weren't so easily seen. We huddled down and tried to make as little noise as possible. Suddenly Jake and Marco, however, jerked in surprise.
"Tobias!" Jake hissed in surprise. There was a pause.
"That's a long story," Marco said, seeming to be talking to the air. I wondered if he had gone insane… "but don't worry. They're with us."
"I don't hear anything," I said stupidly.
"Thought-speech can be made to be heard by everybody or just particular people," Rebbie-the-know-it-all answered. She pointed up and I followed her gaze. I saw near the ceiling what looked like some kind of hawk flying around. Now I heard the voice in my head.
<Um, okay. I won't ask. Anyway, we have bigger troubles. I've been listening to the Controllers. I'm hearing that a couple of Andalites were found in the ventilation system. They're sending in Taxxons now.>
"Taxxons?" I asked. As if on cue, one of those huge caterpillar things went rushing by. "Oh," I said, feeling like a world-class dunce. I mean, duh.
<Wait!> Tobias cried suddenly. <I see Cassie!>
"Where?" Jake cried. (I, in the mean time, was praying that nobody would find us, having this little chat. Insanity at its finest, we were.)
<She ran into the vent, after the Taxxons. I can't see her now.>
"She's going to get herself killed!" Marco hissed.
<Guys, there has to be like 40 Taxxons in that vent. Ax and Rachel are the only ones not accounted for, which means that they're in there, unless there are those escaped Andalites.>
"Escaped Andalites?" Jake asked.
Marco snapped his fingers. "Darn. I knew I was forgetting to tell you something."
"Keep it down," I hissed.
<So how are gonna save them? The Taxxons look pretty adapted to the tunnels. I don't know if a wolf and two Andalites will be able to beat that many Taxxons.> I took a deep breath. Suddenly, I heard something loud.
<Uh-oh,> Tobias whispered.
I was too afraid to look at what it was, so instead asked, "What is it?"
<Bug fighter. Of whom I don't think you want to know.>
"Just what we need," Marco moaned.
I decided that Tobias was wrong about not wanting to know and peeked around the shack. There, squat in the middle of the fortress, was a small spaceship. I saw why they called it a Bug fighter. It really looked like an insect. Three of those Hork-Bajir things came out. Then came out the guy I had guessed was in a position of power when I first met him. The Centaur person.
"Visser Three," Rebbie whispered in a frightened wisp of a voice that was so scared I started to get scared myself.