“There are people out there!” I said. “Three people heading into the closet.”
“Controllers,” Rachel said. “I guess it’s dinnertime for Yeerks.”
None of us thought that was very funny.
“How are we going to get in there?” Marco asked.
“Wait a minute,” Rachel said. “Do all the Controllers know each other by sight? I mean, maybe we’re Controllers, right?”
“So we just walk right on in like we belong there?” Marco asked. “Wonderful plan, Rachel. I have a better idea — let’s just kill ourselves now and get it over with.”
“Maybe Rachel’s right,” I said.
“Big maybe,” Marco pointed out. “Big, huge maybe. How about Tom? He would know whether you were a Controller.”
I cracked the door again and looked out. “I think Tom’s already down there,” I said. “Besides, the hallway’s empty now. I guess they all …” I fell silent. “Wait, here comes someone.”
I stared. It wasn’t easy to see faces in the gloom. I could tell there were two people. One was wearing a uniform.
It was the Controller policeman. And he was rudely yanking someone along with him. I could see that it was a girl.
I didn’t really want to see any more. “Tobias,” I said. “I need you to use your hawk’s eyes.”
Tobias fluttered over and stood on my shoulder. He peeked his fierce head out into the hall and then drew back.
Yes, he said. It’s her. I felt like the floor had opened underneath me. Marco grabbed me because I looked like I was about to fall over.
“They have her!” I whispered. “The Controllers. They have Cassie!”
CHAPTER 22
Who has Cassie … how?”
Rachel stammered.
“That policeman. The Controller, the one who came out to Cassie’s farm. The one who was at The Sharing meeting. He has her. He saw her at the meeting trying to get close to the full members.”
Rachel let go a few choice words.
We hadn’t even started and already everything was a disaster.
“Okay,” I said grimly. “We go ahead, like Rachel said. We figure there are too many Controllers for all of them to know each other. I mean, they add new bodies all the time, right? So maybe we’re new Controllers, right?”
“Oh, man,” Marco moaned.
“You have a better idea?” I snapped.
“No,” he said. “I think we go ahead. We take our chances. Let’s rock and roll.”
“Okay, then, everyone act cool.” I looked at Tobias. “Too late for you to morph back now. But try not to let them see you.”
Rachel, Marco, and I stepped out into the dark hallway. My legs were stiff. My knees were rickety. I was walking like Frankenstein’s monster trying to look casual.
We headed for the janitor’s closet. Fortunately, no one else was in the hallway.
We entered the tiny room and stepped inside. I tried to recall the sequence for opening the door. Faucet to the left, then twist the second hook around to the right.
The door swung open.
There was more noise than there had been the other day. Or maybe it was just that my human ears heard it better than my lizard ears had.
There was a deep sloshing, swooshing sound, almost like gentle surf breaking on the shore. But that was the nice sound. The other sounds were horrifying—despairing cries, terrified screams, shouts, shrieking triumphant laughter.
“You sure this is just the Yeerk pool?” Marco said in a nervous, shaky voice. “I see a guy with horns and a pitchfork and I am outta here.”
I stepped into the opening. The stairs were steep and there was no rail, so you felt like you were about to pitch forward with every step.
We descended together. The door closed automatically behind us.
At first I guess I expected there to be maybe a couple dozen steps. But the steps never ended. We just kept walking, and there were always more steps. The walls were dirt, then quickly became rock as we went down, down, down. It felt like those stairs would never end.
“Some superior aliens,” Marco whispered. “You’d think they could have put in an elevator.”
We all giggled a little. Very little.
Suddenly, the rock walls widened out. We had emerged into a huge cavern.
And when I say huge, I mean huge. They could have played the Super Bowl in there and had room left over for a couple of malls. It was like a giant bowl turned upside down, all carved out of solid rock. At the very top of the bowl was the faint outline of a hole. I thought I could see stars through it.
All around the outer edges of the cavern I could see other stairways, like ours. They seemed to come from every direction, appearing out of the rock walls, and leading down to the floor of the cavern.
We clustered closer to the center of the stairway. It was a sheer drop off the side of the stairs.
“This is gigantic,” Marco said. “This isn’t just under the school. This is under half the town. Those stairways must lead up to a dozen secret entrances.” He shook his head. “Jake, they have this entire area set up with secret passageways. Oh, man. This is worse … this is so much worse … so much bigger …”
I felt the same despair. We were fools. This wasn’t some little group of alien bad guys we were dealing with. To build this underground city, these guys had power we couldn’t even imagine.
That’s almost what it was. A city.
There were buildings and sheds all around the rim of the cavern. And we could see yellow Caterpillar earthmovers and cranes at work on the far side of the cavern. They seemed weirdly normal in this incredible place.
And there were creatures everywhere. Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, and other things I couldn’t even begin to guess at.
But mostly, there were humans. A lot of them.
At the very center of the cavern was a pool, like a small lake, maybe a hundred feet across, and perfectly round. Only the water wasn’t exactly water. It moved more like melted lead, and was about the same color. The sloshing sound we could hear was the liquid of the pool being rippled and splashed by hundreds of fast-moving things below the surface.
I knew what they were. Yeerks. Yeerks in their natural, sluglike state. They were swimming and cavorting in the pool like kids on a hot day.
Near the edge of the pool were cages. In the cages were Hork-Bajir and human beings.
Some of the humans screamed for help. Some cried silently. Some just sat and waited, all hope lost. There were adults there. And kids. Women and men. More than a hundred, packed ten to a cage.
The captive Hork-Bajir were kept in separate, stronger cages. They paced and howled and slashed at the air with their bladed arms.
I almost lost hope. I felt like my heart had stopped. This was a place of unimaginable horror. And we were so few, and so weak.
Below us on the stairs I could see the Controller cop and Cassie. He was dragging her roughly whenever she stumbled. They had reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to morph,” I said. “I’m going to get Cassie away from him.”
Marco put his hand on my shoulder. “Not time yet, dude. Be cool.”
Cassie’s okay, Jake, Tobias said. She isn’t hurt. Just scared.
“He’d better not hurt her,” I said. “Keep an eye on them, Tobias.”
There were two low steel piers built out over the pool. On one, Hork-Bajir-Controllers politely guarded a line of humans and Hork-Bajir and Taxxons.
This was the unloading station.
One by one the people knelt down, bent over, and dipped their heads toward the slimy surface of the pool. The Hork-Bajir helped them.
As we watched, a woman calmly bent over, her head just inches above the lead gray pool. A Hork-Bajir held her elbow gently, to help her keep her balance.
Then we saw the thing dribbling, sliding, squirming, crawling out of her ear.
A Yeerk.
“Oh, no …” Rachel moaned. She sounded like she might be sick.
“Oh, no. No.”
When the Yeerk was all the way out of the poor woman’s head, it dropped into the pool and disappeared beneath the turbulent surface.
Instantly the woman cried out. “You filth, let me go! Let me go! I am a free woman! You can’t keep doing this! I am not a slave! Let me go!”
Two Hork-Bajir grabbed her. They dragged the woman to the nearest cage and threw her in.
“Help!” the woman screamed. “Oh, please, someone help. Help us all!”
CHAPTER 23
Help! Please, someone help us!”
We had been hearing cries like that all the way down those steps. But now we were close enough to give the cries a human face. It cut straight to my soul.
There was a second steel pier. That was the loading station. There the host bodies were dragged from their holding cages to have the Yeerks reenter their heads. It was a pretty basic process. They grabbed the hosts, whether human or Hork-Bajir, and forced their heads down into the pool.
The people sometimes fought and screamed, and sometimes just cried. But they always lost. When their heads were yanked back up out of the pool, we could see the slugs still slithering into their ears.
After a few minutes they would become calm again, as the Yeerks regained control. Then off they went, once more slaves of the Yeerks.
It was a horrible assembly line, from the unloading pier, to the holding cages, to the infestation pier. They moved the poor victims through at a pretty speedy rate.
But there was another area we could only now see. There, humans and Hork-Bajir waited on comfortable chairs, sipping drinks and actually watching TV. Taxxons squirmed around like gigantic, spiny maggots.
I heard the faint sound of a television set. I was sure I could hear laughter from the humans. They were watching the show and having a good laugh.
Those are the voluntary hosts, Tobias said. Collaborators.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
You remember, what the Andalite told us. Many humans and Hork-Bajir are voluntary hosts, Tobias replied. The Yeerks persuade them to let them take over.
“I can’t believe that,” Rachel said. “No person would ever let this happen to them. No one would ever give up control of himself.”
“Some people are scum, Rachel,” Marco said. “Sorry to burst your balloon.”
The Yeerks convince them that taking on a Yeerk will solve all their problems. I think that’s what The Sharing is all about. People believe that by becoming something different, they can leave behind all their pain.
“Like spending all their time as a hawk,” Marco pointed out.
Tobias had nothing to say to that. He spread his wings and flew up and away.
“Tobias! Come back,” I called to him.
“We have to get moving,” Rachel said. “We’ve been standing here staring for too long.” She looked at Marco. “Don’t be a jerk to Tobias, okay? We need everyone.”
Tobias came swooping back toward us. Cassie, he said. She’s on the pier. The infestation pier. They’re going to turn her into a host.
With my normal human eyes I couldn’t see that well in the purple gloom. I could just make out the cop’s uniform and the small shape beside him.
“Do you see Tom?” I asked Tobias.
In answer he flapped his powerful wings and gained altitude. I saw him high over the pool. Then he came back toward us in a power dive.
I see him, he said.
I hesitated before asking. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. “Is he in the cages? Or is he … voluntary?”
He’s in a cage, Tobias said. He’s yelling his brains out at the Hork-Bajir guards.
“Yes!” I knew Tom would never have gone voluntarily. I knew they must have taken him kicking and punching.
Cassie is getting near the end of the pier, Tobias warned. We only have a few minutes before they infest her!
It was time. We were at the bottom of the steps.
We ran over to hide behind a storage shed of some kind. Marco pulled me around the corner, drawing me close so that I could hear him whisper. “Look, before we do this, there’s one thing, Jake. You have to promise me.”
I knew what he was going to say.
“If I have to die, okay. But don’t let them take me. Don’t let them put one of those things in my head.”
“It’ll be okay—”
“You!” a voice yelled. A human voice. “You two. Who are you?”
I spun around. A man. Just one man. But beside him, flanking him, was a big Hork-Bajir, looking suspicious. And on the other side, a Taxxon.
Somehow the man hadn’t seen Rachel. She was just around the corner of the building. But he had seen Marco and me talking. I guess it hadn’t looked quite right to him.
“Us?” Marco asked. “Who are we? Hey, who are you?”
“Take them,” the man ordered.
The Hork-Bajir advanced on us. The Taxxon slithered forward on its dozens of sharp, spiny legs, red jelly eyes quivering, mouth opening and closing in anticipation.
I knew I had to morph. But I was frozen with fear. Then I saw Rachel. She had gotten around behind the Controllers. And she was getting very, very large.
CHAPTER 24
Rachel was getting larger very fast. Huge leathery ears sprouted suddenly from the side of her head. Her nose stretched and stretched till it was longer than her body had been to start with. Her arms and legs were big as tree trunks. And from her mouth grew two enormous, curved teeth.
My cousin Rachel now stood almost thirteen feet high and weighed about fourteen thousand pounds.
The weird thing was, I was happy about all this.
Ha HA! I heard Rachel’s triumphant laugh. I did it.>
The Hork-Bajir and the Taxxon came closer.
Rachel began twitching her little ropy tail. Her front legs pawed the dirt floor of the cavern. She raised her massive head and stuck out her three-foot-long tusks.
The Taxxon was the first to notice her with his all-around red-jelly eyes, but I guess he didn’t know how to react.
Rachel charged. One minute she was standing there, and the next minute she was barreling forward like an out-of-control eighteen-wheeler.
The Hork-Bajir was fast. He spun around and slashed at her trunk with his elbow blade.
Too little. Too late.
Rachel was moving, and no little flesh wound was going to stop her.
Puny little nothing! Rachel cried, outraged. You attack ME?!
The Hork-Bajir went down, crushed under her monstrous feet. He bellowed, but Rachel’s trumpeting was louder.
The Taxxon tried to run. It turns out Taxxons can move when they want to.
It also turns out elephants are faster than you think. They can be very fast.
Rachel’s foot caught the Taxxon’s back end. The needle legs collapsed, cracking like broken twigs. Yellow goo oozed from the popped flesh of the big worm.
She just kept rolling over him, leaving behind a big, extremely disgusting pile of goo. The foul smell of the squashed Taxxon nearly knocked me out.
The human was still just standing there. He said, “An elephant?” Like he couldn’t even think about it being real.
Rachel wrapped her trunk around his middle.
Yeah, we heard Rachel say. An elephant.
The man screamed. I guess he figured out it was real.
Rachel threw him through the air. I never saw where he landed.
“Quick!” I yelled at Marco. “Morph!”
“Nice work, Rachel,” Marco said. “Remind me not to ever make you mad.”
I focused on the tiger. I knew his DNA pattern was in me. I thought of him, lying there in his habitat at The Gardens wishing he were back in the jungle, hunting and taking down his prey. I guessed maybe he wouldn’t mind the use I was making of his DNA. This wasn’t quite a jungle, but it would have to do.
More Hork-Bajir coming! Rachel said.
Rachel turned to face them, tusks ready.
I felt the morph begin. The hair grew from my face. The tail squirted out behind me. My arms bulged and rippled. They were massive! My shirt ripped. I fell forward onto my hands, now my front legs.
The power!
It was electric. It was like a slow-motion explosion. I could feel the power of the tiger growing inside me.
I watched claws, long, wickedly curved, tearing, ripping, shredding claws, grow from my puny human hands. I could feel the teeth sprouting in my mouth.
My eyes looked through the darkness like it was broad daylight.
But most of all, the power! The sheer, incredible power.
I was afraid of NOTHING!
Hork-Bajir were running at me, their arm blades slashing at the air.
I opened my mouth and I roared. The Hork-Bajir stopped dead in their tracks.
That’s right, my little Hork-Bajir friends, the human part of my brain thought. Time to meet the tiger.
The muscles in my back legs coiled up. I bared my teeth and gave them another roar loud enough to make the ground quiver.
I leaped through the air, claws outstretched.
CHAPTER 25
I sailed through the air and struck the closest Hork-Bajir in the chest.
Down he went with me on top of him. He rolled over and tried to get up. He was fast. I was faster.
He struck at me with his razored arm. I ducked under the blow. My left paw swung, so fast even I couldn’t see it. It left four oozing tracks across the Hork-Bajir’s shoulder.
Another Hork-Bajir! Wrist blades, elbow blades, and talons whizzed. They were like a pair of lawn mowers on full throttle.
And still I was faster. I can’t even remember what happened next. All I have is this image of the tiger—of me—with claws slashing and jaws snapping. I was a whirlwind of orange fur and black stripes.
The Hork-Bajir fell back. I roared. They turned and ran.
On one side I saw Rachel. She lifted a Hork-Bajir up on her tusks and tossed him back over her shoulder like he was a doll.