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disaster pastor
May 1, 2007


Oh, no. Feel better soon!

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Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010


If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling
1-800-GAMBLER


Ultra Carp
Just amputate the leg, morph, and demorph, I don't know what the problem is? :confused:

Aw man that sucks, wishing you a quick recovery!

Tree Bucket
Apr 1, 2016

R.I.P.idura leucophrys
Gee, I hope OP's having an ok time in hospital. I heard they got a jaccuzi installed there for leg rehab stuff, so they should be fine

Karma Comedian
Feb 2, 2012

I heard it's a yeerk front

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Epicurius posted:

So, are we going to find out what's wrong with Erek? Yes, probably, but not for the next few days because I'm in the hospital with a leg infection. Sorry about that

Yikes, hopefully the first round of whatever antibiotic they give you does the trick.

Synesthesian Fetish
Apr 29, 2008

Ya know, I useta be President... I'll let you kids punch me anywhere but the face for a dollar.
I'm really excited that this thread exists and after finding it a few weeks ago, I'm finally caught up!

Like many on here I read the poo poo out of these in middle school although I dropped off somewhere in the 20s or 30s but definitely read the andalite and HB Chronicles. Pretty sure I made it to megamorphs #4.

Later on in high school I noticed that the series had ended and skimmed the last few books to see how it ended. I'm looking forward to going through all of the books again with the eyes of an adult.

A few thoughts/musings/questions since starting to read this thread a month ago. If you'll indulge me:

1. Epi, what drew you to these books later on as they were, as you put it, "after your time"? I'm definitely glad you did and enjoy your insights as you post. Also, get feeling better soon.

2. This always bothered me as a kid but KAA seems to make it very clear that morphing can take several minutes. I'm not sure if that's literal or she meant it more figuratively like "it's not instantaneous". The reason this bothered me is there are several instances when they only have what appears to be 10 or 20 seconds before someone comes across them mid-morph or like when during megamorphs one when Marco and ax fall 2 miles above the ground out of the ship. That would mean ax and marco would of have 4- 6 minutes to morph from flea/gorilla to andalite/human to birds and Marco barely made it.

For reasons like this I always ignored the "a few minutes" and changed it in my mind to take 20 to 30 seconds. Any thoughts on this?

3. I waited for weeks for the premiere of the tv show and even with my very low expectations and bar for what was considered good then.....oof...I wasn't sad when it was cancelled

4. It's funny what stayed with me these last 16 years and what I forgot. Like many, I vividly remember the ant scene, but upon reread, the scene itself wasn't as bad as I remembered. I believe Avalerion pointed this out as a first time experiencer of this in the thread after others had built it up ahead of time. However, after reading the books after it, I think it was drilled into our heads as kids because of how often they refer to it in later books as being absolutely horrible.

5. I have to agree with others that while I saw Visser as a bad, scary villain as a kid, I see him as a caricature of the worst bosses I have had. There is a sense of dread when he shows up, but it's for other reasons now.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some but this has already gotten longer than I expected. Glad to have finally caught up

Synesthesian Fetish fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Sep 25, 2020

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Epicurius posted:

So, are we going to find out what's wrong with Erek? Yes, probably, but not for the next few days because I'm in the hospital with a leg infection. Sorry about that

drat, now's an even worse time for that than usual. Hope you get better and get out asap!

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Synesthesian Fetish posted:

2. This always bothered me as a kid but KAA seems to make it very clear that morphing can take several minutes. I'm not sure if that's literal or she meant it more figuratively like "it's not instantaneous". The reason this bothered me is there are several instances when they only have what appears to be 10 or 20 seconds before someone comes across them mid-morph or like when during megamorphs one when Marco and ax fall 2 miles above the ground out of the ship. That would mean ax and marco would of have 4- 6 minutes to morph from flea/gorilla to andalite/human to birds and Marco barely made it.

For reasons like this I always ignored the "a few minutes" and changed it in my mind to take 20 to 30 seconds. Any thoughts on this?

Maybe morphing takes longer in the first few books because the protagonists are new to it? And/or you can morph a bit faster if you're really desperate?

FlocksOfMice
Feb 3, 2009
Just caught up. Animorphs was my go-to light reading as a child, I think I reread the books I did have a dozen times each, so my memories of the books are very strongly in the first dozen and change, which I re-read enough that it was like that part of the story lasted waaaay longer. I was an awkward poorly socialized weirdo so Tobias and Axe were my automatic favorites, although in Tobias' case I was like, well, yeah, I'd give up being a human that's fine, school sucks. Reading through these again, with the way the world is right now and what it's done to my life, I'm getting to relieve that feeling of "Yeah I'd take that as an out" again.

Animorphs also made me stop killing bugs basically entirely, which lasted up until present day, initially because a part of me always thought "Whoa, wait, what if this is THEM on a SECRET MISSION?" I was like 8 years old at the time, it was a reasonable fear!

I checked out somepoint during the filler arcs. I think in the late 30s? Sometime in 2000? Even in my immature dumb child state I was able to tell the writing quality was dipping and the story was getting kind of meandering and glut with weird things. I don't think I ever really liked the Ellimist and whatever the guy with the C name were up to--the original story as presented gave them a lot of concrete, down-to-earth consequences, stakes, and enemies, and introducing cosmic horror beings into it, for me, escalated it into a realm of "okay, wait, really?"

In the writers' defense they did keep the kids' reactions, afair, to the increasing number of bizarre factions, believable in their feeling of "c'mon seriously we have to deal with this now too?" which is probably why I did last so long. I think moving from elementary school and into highschool meant I lost access to monthly scholastic magazines, so getting them also meant going further out of my way.

Unfortunate time to catch up, hope you recover well, OP.

FlocksOfMice fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Sep 26, 2020

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!
My friend just sent our group chat a picture of her preteen daughter curled up around The Invasion, reporting that she gave it the rare praise of "it's getting interesting now". High hopes for this one.

Get well soon, Epicurius. :(

Rochallor
Apr 23, 2010

ふっっっっっっっっっっっっck

Silver2195 posted:

Maybe morphing takes longer in the first few books because the protagonists are new to it? And/or you can morph a bit faster if you're really desperate?

I know that morphing takes two minutes. I haven't, excepting this thread, touched any of the books since middle school, and I will accept evidence to the contrary, but I 100% believe this to be accurate.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Rochallor posted:

I know that morphing takes two minutes. I haven't, excepting this thread, touched any of the books since middle school, and I will accept evidence to the contrary, but I 100% believe this to be accurate.

There's also a time dilative effect induced unintentionally thanks to the narrative and descriptive process as well. Morphing is the headline attraction of the books, so Applegrate and Grant slow the story down to give you an A to Z look at the process so that you can focus on it and picture it happening. That's just a reality of writing prose in general; description slows the pace down, even when its describing action. It's classic Fiction 101 "show don't tell", but good writers know when to show and when to tell, so the important or first time morphs get that lovingly long descriptive scenes while repeat morphs and more action intense scenes get quicker glosses.


Epicurius posted:

So, are we going to find out what's wrong with Erek? Yes, probably, but not for the next few days because I'm in the hospital with a leg infection. Sorry about that

I hope everything goes well for you and you get out soon. As someone who was once laid up in the hospital while in the midst of a forums project as well, I can relate 100% and I can only guess how eager you are to jut get back at it.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Synesthesian Fetish posted:

I'm really excited that this thread exists and after finding it a few weeks ago, I'm finally caught up!

Like many on here I read the poo poo out of these in middle school although I dropped off somewhere in the 20s or 30s but definitely read the andalite and HB Chronicles. Pretty sure I made it to megamorphs #4.

Later on in high school I noticed that the series had ended and skimmed the last few books to see how it ended. I'm looking forward to going through all of the books again with the eyes of an adult.

A few thoughts/musings/questions since starting to read this thread a month ago. If you'll indulge me:

1. Epi, what drew you to these books later on as they were, as you put it, "after your time"? I'm definitely glad you did and enjoy your insights as you post. Also, get feeling better soon.

It's really a simple story. A year or so ago, the rerelease of The Invasion was on sale on kindle. I vaguely had heard of the series, so I figured I'd read it and see if I liked it

Synesthesian Fetish
Apr 29, 2008

Ya know, I useta be President... I'll let you kids punch me anywhere but the face for a dollar.
Is this thread dead?

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





Visser Three didn't like what it said about him

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Synesthesian Fetish posted:

Is this thread dead?

I can't tell you where I live. I can't tell you my last name. I can't even tell you if epicurius is my real name. I want to tell you, but I can't.

The reason I can't is that I know a secret. Earth is being invaded by aliens. Forget about what you think about aliens. These aren't ET or Chewbacca. They're called the Yeerks, and they're these giant alien slugs. They get into your brain, and then they take you over. You may look like you. You may even act like you, but inside, everything you do and say is controlled by the Yeerk. Anyone you know could be a Yeerk: your parents, your best friend, your next door neighbor, anyone, and you wouldn't know.

I know it seems hopeless. But the Yeerks have enemies of their own. Another alien race called the Andalites has vowed to stop the Yeers, and is fighting a giant war in space against them.

One of the Andalite generals, Prince Elfangor, crashed on earth, and before he was killed by the evil Visser Theee, leader of the Yeerk invasion, found five brave kids, and taught them the power to morph...to change into any animal they touched. Calling themselves the Animorphs, they vowed to use this power to fight the Yeerks however they could.

I managed to get my hands on the chronicles of these brave animorphs, and while I'm in the hospital right now with a leg infection, possibly arranged by the Yeerks, am eager, as soon as I get home (which may take another week or two) to continue sharing the stories of the Animorps, and I plan to keep doing it until the Yeerks stop me.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





"Leg infection"?... or "Brain infestation"? Nice try, Yeerk!

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

nine-gear crow posted:

"Leg infection"?... or "Brain infestation"? Nice try, Yeerk!

I...I don't know what you mean. I'm a normal human like you. My hobbies include not being an autotroph, walking on human legs, enjoying vision and hearing, and spending time with other inferior lifeforms who don't have a destiny to conquer the galaxy.

FlocksOfMice
Feb 3, 2009
Amazing! This photographer took a picture of Controller's faces before and after telling them "I'm the Andalite bandit!"

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Epicurius posted:

I...I don't know what you mean. I'm a normal human like you. My hobbies include not being an autotroph, walking on human legs, enjoying vision and hearing, and spending time with other inferior lifeforms who don't have a destiny to conquer the galaxy.
You are walking across the desert when you see an andelite lying on its back. You could help the andelite by turning it right side up, but you don't. Why?

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





Because the Andalite flipped his Mustang trying to do some sick tricks and you shouldn't move a car crash victim

HisMajestyBOB
Oct 21, 2010


College Slice

Epicurius posted:


I managed to get my hands on the chronicles of these brave animorphs, and while I'm in the hospital right now with a leg infection, possibly arranged by the Yeerks, am eager, as soon as I get home (which may take another week or two) to continue sharing the stories of the Animorps, and I plan to keep doing it until the Yeerks stop me.

Sharing, huh? :tinfoil:

Shwoo
Jul 21, 2011

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Visser Three didn't like what it said about him
It narrowly survived an Andalite bandit attack on a Yeerk facility, but then had to be the one to tell Visser Three what happened.

Tree Bucket
Apr 1, 2016

R.I.P.idura leucophrys

SardonicTyrant posted:

You are walking across the desert when you see an andelite lying on its back. You could help the andelite by turning it right side up, but you don't. Why?

Can... can an Andalite lay on its back? Like are they the right shape to do that?

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





With enough force *anything* can lie on its back

pastor of muppets
Aug 21, 2007

We were somewhere around the Living Hive, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

Agaragon
Nov 16, 2018
I think that depends on how much their man-spine can bend forward so that it's in a line with their deer-spine. But with how weird Andalite physiology is already, I'm putting down an answer of "Okay sure???" until further notice.

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Don't buy into the propaganda. Andalites only have one spine.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005


My only issue with this is that, IIRC, Ax mentioned humans having much stronger arms and/or fingers, but in the image the arms are basically around as big/muscular as human arms.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Ytlaya posted:

My only issue with this is that, IIRC, Ax mentioned humans having much stronger arms and/or fingers, but in the image the arms are basically around as big/muscular as human arms.

Yeah, Ax looks like this.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


I mean even if we pretend the cover art doesn't exist, the books do mention him looking like a centaur.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

SirSamVimes posted:

I mean even if we pretend the cover art doesn't exist, the books do mention him looking like a centaur.

Wrong, Andalites have no torso as clearly stated in the original solid description of Ax, later claims/images of a torso are a lie.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
Andalite physiology aside, I'm back home, which means it's time for....

The Android-Chapter 3

quote:

“He didn’t smell,” I said.

“What do you mean, he didn’t smell?” Rachel demanded. “I mean that he didn’t smell. He had picked up some odors off other people, off the ground, off
dogs, whatever, but he had no smell himself. None. Like a black hole of smell. Like nothing there, nobody home.”

It was later that same evening. Jake and I had left the concert shortly after encountering Erek.

We’d called a meeting, and now everyone except Ax was in Cassie’s barn.

Cassie’s barn is actually the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. It’s a sort of hospital for messed-up wild animals. Cassie’s parents are both veterinarians. Her mom works at the Gardens, this big combination zoo and amusement park.

Her dad (with a lot of help from Cassie) takes in every sick or injured wild animal they come across. The barn is lined with wire cages filled with raccoons, foxes, opossums, eagles, rabbits, geese, badgers, crows, squirrels … I mean, you name it. It’s animal central.

“Maybe you just didn’t notice it,” Rachel suggested.

“Rachel, you’ve been in wolf morph,” Jake said. “You know how good your sense of smell is? Well, the dog’s sense of smell is almost that good.”

Rachel shook her head. That’s what she does when she’s frustrated.

She was standing in the middle of the barn floor, looking immaculate, as usual. Rachel is one of those girls from the cover of Seventeen. Beautiful, fashionable, way too tall, far too many bright white teeth, massive quantities of very clean blond hair. But beneath all that fashionable clothing and
perfectly applied makeup there is a sword-swinging Amazon warrior just trying to break out. Rachel’s like one of those terrible elf-maidens in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings - beautiful and dangerous.

Jake is her cousin and Cassie is her best friend. Cassie actually experiences normal human emotions like fear and doubt. I approve of this because I sure experience plenty of fear and doubt myself. I’ve experienced more fear and doubt since I became an Animorph than most people
experience in about ten lifetimes.

Cassie has never met a dress she liked. She does not subscribe to Teen or YM. She’s much more likely to buy a magazine like Smelly Animals of America. You know, the kind of magazine that would have articles like “How to Give Suppositories to Raccoons,” or “Let’s Examine Owl Vomit!”
If you want to picture Cassie, think of a short, cute girl with very short black hair, wearing overalls and big muddy boots and looking totally capable of giving a tetanus shot to an angry bear.

Cassie is our animal expert, and our resident ecology nut. I’d say she likes animals better than she likes people, except that she really likes Jake. As in likes.

Actually, she and Jake like each other, although neither of them will admit it, of course. The only time they’ll act that way is when we’re about twelve seconds away from doing something insanely dangerous. Then they’ll kind of give each other these pathetic sad looks. It’s so lame.

The last original member of our group was perched in the high rafters overhead. Tobias had his talons sunk deep into the wood to give himself a firm hold. And with his hooked beak he was preening the feathers of his right wing.

Tobias is a red-tailed hawk. That’s what he’s been since he stayed too long in morph. He lives as a hawk now, mostly. I mean, he hunts and eats like a hawk. Not that he has much choice. I don’t think the school is really interested in a Hawk-boy as a student.

Tobias lives in the woods, along with Ax. Ax is an Andalite, the brother of Elfangor, and the only free Andalite within a billion miles of Earth.
Ax doesn’t come to the meetings, usually. He has a human morph, but he doesn’t like to overuse it. Besides, he basically figures Jake is his “prince,” and he’ll do whatever his prince tells him has to be done.

So, that’s our little group. Rachel, standing in the middle of the room, looking like someone was shining a spotlight on her. Jake, pacing back and forth and looking far too intense. Cassie, cradling a duck in her arms while she changed its bandage. Tobias, preening his feathers and looking around
with that eternal hawk glare. And me, lolling back on a bale of hay.

“Shh,” Jake said suddenly. “I thought I heard something.”

<It’s just a squirrel up on the roof,> Tobias assured him in thought-speak.

“You sure?” Jake asked.

Tobias stopped preening and stared down at Jake. His hawk stare grew even more intense. <Am I sure? I do know what a squirrel sounds like.>

Jake nodded and looked a little embarrassed. Hawks not only have amazingly good eyes, their hearing is better than human, too. And Tobias knows the sounds that prey make. He has to. Asking Tobias if he recognizes squirrel sounds would be like asking Einstein if he knows how to add two
plus two.

I tried to bring us all back to the topic. “So, what does it mean if a kid doesn’t smell like a human?”

“There are plenty of times when you don’t smell human,” Rachel said with a smirk. “But then, maybe that’s because you have a small monkey living on top of your head.”

Cassie made a snorking sound as she tried not to laugh.

“Next time you decide to get a haircut, talk to me first,” Rachel said.

Haircut barb.

quote:

I ignored them both. We had important business, and I was not going to lower myself to trading insults with Rachel. Besides, I couldn’t think of any.

“He doesn’t smell, and he’s handing out flyers for The Sharing,” I said.

“He must be connected to the Yeerks,” Rachel said with a shrug.

“But how?” Cassie asked. She was pushing the duck back into his cage. “I mean, Yeerks infest various species - humans, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons. But that doesn’t change the fact that a human with a Yeerk in his head should still smell like a human. You know?”

“Chapman is a Controller. He still smells human,” I pointed out. “And by the way, I can’t believe I’m even talking about how the vice principal smells.”

Jake shrugged. “I guess we need to find out what’s going on with Erek.”

“But how do we find him?” I asked. “Infiltrate a meeting of The Sharing?”

<I could do surveillance of his school,> Tobias said.

“Or maybe we could go back to where the concert was and look for clues,” Rachel said. Then she winced. “Wow, that sounded so Nancy Drew.”

“Maybe Ax can try and tap into the Internet and get past all the security buffers and locate him,” I suggested.

Cassie held up her hand like she was asking a question at school. “Those are all fine plans, but how about if we just look him up in the phone book?”
We all just stared at her.

“Or we could just look him up in the phone book,” Jake said sheepishly.

See, back in the old days, there were these things called phone books, which listed the addresses and phone numbers of people. I know, weird, right?

quote:

Cassie headed for the house to get a phone book.

“You know, she is just not getting the whole superhero thing,” I said to Jake. “Does Wolverine look things up in the phone book? Does Spiderman? I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, well, Wolverine has a big advantage over us,” Rachel said dryly. “He’s not real.”

Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s what that hair of yours reminds me of: a wolverine. I knew it was something.”

“Oh, yeah?” I shot back. “Well, how about your … your …”

“My what?” Rachel asked coolly, with the absolute confidence of a girl who never looked less than perfect.

“Your tallness,” I said lamely. “You’re … tall. Way tall.”

Somehow this brilliant comeback did not cause Rachel to break down in tears.

Cassie came back carrying the white pages, already open to the “K’s.” “There are twenty-seven ‘Kings’ listed. But you said he transferred to Truman, so there are maybe six ‘Kings’ that are in that part of town.”

“We work our way down the list,” I said. “Although he still could have an unlisted phone.”

“I can’t hang out tonight,” Jake said. “I have got to write that English paper.”

“Here’s a clue on the English paper. Don’t say ‘I have got to,’” I teased.

“I could go tomorrow, maybe,” Rachel said. “But not tonight. My dad is in town just for tonight. He’s taking me and my sisters to Planet Hollywood.”

Cassie looked at me. “I’m free,” she said.

<I’m good till it gets dark,> Tobias volunteered. Hawks aren’t much use at night.

“Fine. Me and Cassie and Tobias till it gets dark,” I said. “Shouldn’t be too hard. Our mission: to find the boy who doesn’t smell.”

“Maybe he just showers a lot,” Rachel said. “Did you think about that?”

A 14 year old boy who showers a lot? Impossible!

Chapter 4

quote:

I saw Jake the following day in the school cafeteria.

I was wolfing down the Goo of the Day, drinking milk, and trying to write my English paper at warp speed. See, I kind of had some homework due, too. But I’d spent yesterday evening cruising around in owl morph looking for Erek’s house.

“English paper?” Jake asked as he sat down across from me.

“Yeah.”

He laughed. “You’re good for me, Marco. Compared to you, I’m so responsible. You have a topic?”

I looked up at him and thumped my finger down on the paper. “I’ve already written three pages. What do you mean, do I have a topic?”

But Jake knows me. “So,” he said. “Do you have a topic?”

“A topic will … emerge. I’m going to just write until I discover a topic. The topic will rise from these pages. It will reveal itself to me. I just have to keep writing.”

He nodded and made a face at the Goo of the Day on his tray. “This food is blue. Food should not be blue. Hey, here’s a topic for you - the use of total bull in the writing of English papers.”

I grinned. “I am the master of bull. Three pages so far and I haven’t actually said a single thing.”

“Did you guys happen to find our friend?”

I shot a glance left and then right. No one was seated near enough to overhear us. Besides, the cafeteria was so noisy from yelling and laughing and clashing dishes and scraping chairs that no one could hear much of anything.

“Yeah. We found out where he lives. Saw him through a window. Too bad, though. One of the other King residences we checked out had this girl living there who was amazing.”

“You weren’t window-peeping, I hope.”

I gave Jake my best shocked-and-outraged look. “How could you even say that? What kind of person do you think I am?”

Jake nodded. “Cassie wouldn’t let you, huh?”

“I am trying to write a paper here,” I said.

“On the topic of … ?”

“On the topic of how to write a thousand words and say nothing. Zero. Nada. Squat.”

Jake lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “We need to check Erek out. Definitely something wrong there.”

I put down my pencil. “You mean get inside his house?”

Jake shrugged. “Not yet. Get Tobias to watch him when he’s outside. But Tobias will need some help.”

I shrugged and went back to my paper. “I’ll help. I’ll have plenty of time. I’m dropping out of school this afternoon. Right after the teacher gets done laughing at this paper.”

“Topic - the use of rhetoric to obscure a lack of content,” Jake said.

I froze. I looked up. “That’s brilliant! It means the same as ‘the use of total bull’ … but it sounds so much better!”

“Eat your Goo. I gotta go.”

He left and I saw him head over to the spot where Cassie was sitting.

It’s one of our rules. We can never start looking like a “group.” In school or in public places, we keep our distance. We only reveal the relationships that already existed before we became Animorphs.

I happened to see Chapman coming in through the door of the cafeteria. He grabbed some kid who was running and told him to slow down. Then he gazed around the room, looking for troublemakers, like any normal vice principal would.

But Chapman isn’t normal. Chapman is a Controller. The Yeerk in his head is high-ranking enough to speak directly with Visser Three.

For about a second, Chapman’s eyes locked on mine.

It was nothing. But it sent a shiver up my spine.

Chapman runs The Sharing. The flyers that Erek had been handing out at the concert had been about The Sharing.

Erek had never been some major friend of mine. He was just this kid I’d say hi to in the hallway.

Except that he had been there for my mother’s funeral.

A funeral without a body.

Some other kids from school had come, so I didn’t think anything much about it. Still, it was a nice thing for him to do.

And now he was working for The Sharing.

The Sharing is a front organization for Controllers. On the surface, it’s a sort of club. Kids join it and go on camp-outs and field trips and stuff. Adults join it and supposedly do business deals together and take weekends at ski resorts.

And probably most members of The Sharing never even know what’s really going on. But the Controllers who run The Sharing are always on the lookout for some person with problems.

See, the Yeerks don’t just spread by forcing themselves on people. A lot of people become Controllers by choice. I guess they want to feel like they’re part of something bigger. Or maybe it’s the secrecy they think is cool. I don’t know.

All I know is that the Yeerks would rather have a voluntary host. They’d rather have you surrender your mind than have to take it by force.

They work you up slowly through the levels of The Sharing, till they decide you’re ready. Then they make promises and tell you lies, and the next thing you know, you’re a slave inside your own mind, all the more easily controlled because you let it happen.

I shoved the tray away from me and picked up my pencil again. I stared down at the paper. But I was seeing a funeral service. Singing. Flowers. Some priest talking about how great my mother had been. He hadn’t even known my mother.

I remember turning around in my pew to look at the church. A lot of people had come. A lot of sad faces. A lot of tears. Most people just looking solemn because that’s the way you had to look at a funeral.

Erek had been three rows back. He was wearing a suit that was probably scratchy and uncomfortable. But he didn’t look solemn. He looked angry. And he was shaking his head slowly, barely, from side to side, as if he was unconsciously disagreeing with everything the priest said.

At the time I figured he was mad because he had to dress up. I understood that.

And now Erek had reappeared. The boy who didn’t smell human. The boy who worked for The Sharing.

“Well, Erek,” I muttered under my breath, “we’ll have to see about you. We will definitely have to see.”

It's a mystery! (Please ignore the title of this book)

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





You know who Marco reminds me of? Mat Cauthon.

disaster pastor
May 1, 2007


Welcome back, glad you're feeling better!

Epicurius posted:

It's a mystery! (Please ignore the title of this book)

To be fair, the names of the books can be so non-indicative that this wasn't necessarily a clue.

HisMajestyBOB
Oct 21, 2010


College Slice

quote:

This food is blue. Food should not be blue.

This is one of those lines that have stuck with me since I read and reread this book ages ago. I still think of it anytime I see blue food.

Synesthesian Fetish
Apr 29, 2008

Ya know, I useta be President... I'll let you kids punch me anywhere but the face for a dollar.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

You know who Marco reminds me of? Mat Cauthon.

I can see that

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


I love the writing style of Marco's perspective.

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Epicurius posted:

Andalite physiology aside, I'm back home, which means it's time for....

Fantastic news, I'm glad to hear it!

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Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
I'm sorry. I'm back, but my schedule is still kind of off. So, here's a late two chapters.

Book 10-The Android, Chapter 5

quote:

There may be something in this world cooler than flying on your own wings, but I can’t imagine what it is.

Rollerblading? Hah! Surfing? Big deal. Skydiving? Closer, but not halfway to actual flying. Nothing is as cool as flying.

It was after school that same day. I’d finished the English paper exactly nine seconds before the teacher came around to collect it. Then I’d gone to history and been assigned another paper. That’s the nature of school: It never really ends.

But finally the bell rang and blessed freedom! I was outta there and looking for a private place to morph. I wanted to check up on Erek. Remembering the funeral and all had made it seem even more important, although I wasn’t sure I knew why.

I climbed up onto the roof of the gym. Of course, no one is supposed to go up there, but hey, it was for a good reason. I morphed into an osprey. It’s a bird, a kind of hawk that usually lives right near the water.

I spread my broad wings and I flew away from school.
Tell me you haven’t sat there in some boring class, while some teacher went on and on (and on and on) about how “x” equaled “y” but only if you multiplied it by pi, and wished you could just fly right out the window. Zoom! Good-bye!

Well, I can’t fly right out of class because if I morphed in class there would be a lot of screaming and hysteria. But I can come close to doing it.

Kids were still piling onto the buses as I caught a nice little headwind and used it to go airborne.

I zoomed high above all the kids heading for their buses, and all the teachers heading for their cars.

People were just ovals of black, brown, blond, and red hair to me. That’s mostly what a person looks like from a hundred feet up. A hair oval.

I have never felt as totally alive as when I’m in a hawk morph. Tobias doesn’t have it all that bad, in some ways. There are so many worse animals to be.

True. Could be trapped as an ant.

quote:

I felt a thermal, a pillar of warm air, billow up beneath my wings and I went for it. Zoom! Like riding an elevator to the top floor! Up and up. The warm air currents swept me higher and higher.

<Yah-HAH!>

Now the hair ovals were just dots, and the buses were bright yellow toys pulling slowly away from the school.

But even from five hundred feet up in the air, as high as a fifty-story building, I could still see faces behind the school bus windows. With the osprey’s eyes, it’s like wearing binoculars.

I floated up there, wings spread wide, my tail fanned out to catch every bit of lift, my talons tucked back against the underside of my body. Air rushed over the leading edge of my wings, making a slight fluttering sound. Wind flowed over my streamlined head, and I kept my hooked beak pointed
forward to maintain every ounce of momentum.

I rode that thermal as high as it would carry me. I’d learned that from Tobias. See, the thermal will give you altitude for almost no effort, and you can turn that altitude into distance. It’s like soaring to the top of a mountain, then skiing down the slopes in whatever direction you want to go.

Thermals!

quote:

Still, it did eventually require some hard wing-flapping to get to Erek’s neighborhood.

I spotted Tobias from far off, when he would have been invisible to any human eye. He was riding the wind, just like me. Maybe with a little more style, since he’d had so much more experience.

When I got close to enough to try thought-speak, I called to him.

<Tobias? Can you hear me?>

<I can hear you and see you, Marco. I’ve been watching you for twenty minutes.>

<No way. I just spotted you.>

<You have to know what to look for, Marco. By the way … when I count to three, you need to bank a very sharp, very fast left turn.>

<Turn? Why?>

<Just do it! One. Two. THREE!>

I raised one wing, lowered the other, skewed my tail, and cut a sudden, sharp left.

FWOOOOM!

<Aaaahhhhh!>

A missile blew past me, doing what seemed like a thousand miles an hour! Only it wasn’t coming from the ground upward, it had fallen from the sky down! And this missile had gray feathers.

The wind from its passing nearly knocked me off balance. It was half a mile away, down and south, by the time I could even try to think about focusing.

I saw swept-back, slate-gray wings and a tight tail. It was diving away from me so fast it made me look like I was standing still.

<What the … What was that?> I yelled.

<Heh, heh, heh. Welcome to my world,> Tobias said. <That’s a peregrine falcon. You know, like Jake’s morph. They usually prefer to knock off a tasty pigeon or the occasional duck. It must have been the way you were flying. He probably thought you were a big old clumsy duck.>

<Jeez. What did I ever do to make him mad?>

<Shake it off,> Tobias advised. <He missed, right? I know that bird. He’s not as good as he thinks he is. He’s taken a shot at me before. He must be hungry.>

Suddenly flying didn’t seem nearly as fun. <Yeah. I’ll shake it off. That should be easy, since I’ll be shaking for at least another hour.>

<It’s not all just about riding thermals,> Tobias said dryly. <Come on, you want to see our boy Erek?>

I moved closer to Tobias. Much closer. This was his world up here in the air. He knew what he was doing. <By the way, thanks,> I said.

<Always remember to look up,> Tobias advised. <The danger is usually above you. But on a lighter note … that’s Erek right there. He walks home from his school. See him? Coming to the corner?>

I spotted the oval of hair below me. <Yeah, I see him.>

<I watched him this morning on his way in. I watched him play soccer during gym ->

<They play soccer? They play soccer during gym? Man, we never get to play soccer.>

<Now he’s heading home. I’m going to let you take over because I am hungry. And I am also bored with looking at the top of his head.>

<Did he do anything weird or different?>

<He scored a goal in soccer. Does that count?>

<Hey. Look.> I had noticed three guys closing in behind Erek. Something in the way they moved caught my attention. From high up, it looked almost as if they were hunting Erek.

<Hmmm. That’s not good,> Tobias said.

We both spilled air from our wings and dived, wanting a closer look. I could see the face of one of the guys behind Erek. It was an expression I had seen before: the idiot, giggling sneer of a bully.

Suddenly, the guys raced forward. Erek spotted them and started to run.

It was a street on the edge of a development. There was a lot of traffic to Erek’s left and a stone wall to his right. The stone wall ended about fifty yards away, where it opened for the entrance to the subdivision.

<If this guy is a Controller, these punks are making a serious mistake,> I said. <They may get him today, but they might regret it later.>

<Maybe I’ll just give that one jerk a little talon haircut,> Tobias said.

Tobias hates bullies. Back when he was human, he was the kid most likely to be pounded on.

Jake met Tobias when Tobias’s head was just about to be flushed in the toilet. Naturally, Jake helped him.

<Tobias, I don’t think -> I started to say, but it was too late. Tobias was in a stoop and aiming for the biggest guy’s head.

It all happened in a flash.

Erek ran. He tripped. He sprawled forward, out into the street. He slammed into the broad side of a passing bus.

WHAM! I could hear the impact from up in the air.

And then …

And then … for just a second, Erek wasn’t there anymore. Something else was where he had been.

Something that seemed to be made of patches of steel and milk-white plastic.

Then, in the next split second, Erek was back. A normal boy, lying winded on the sidewalk.

The bullies ran off. The bus driver never even noticed and drove on.

Tobias opened his wings and nearly stopped in midair.

<Did you see that?> Tobias asked.

<Yeah. I sure did.>

<What was that?>

Perfectly normal....hit by a bus. Turned into a weird steel/plastic thing.

Chapter 6

quote:

<We need to talk to Ax,> I said to Tobias.

<Definitely. That was not human. That was seriously not human.>

<So you did see it, right? I’m not crazy?>

<Yes, you’re crazy. But I did see it,> Tobias said. <Very weird.>

Below us, Erek climbed up off the sidewalk, dusted himself off like nothing had happened, and resumed walking toward home.

<Hang a right,> Tobias said. <We’ll get some good updrafts off the road. Whatever your friend Erek is, I don’t think he’s from around here.>

We flew hard and fast toward home. Tobias split off to round up Ax. I demorphed and headed home to check in with my dad and let him know I still existed. Then I called Jake.

I got Tom instead.

“Hey, Tom. Is Jake around there?”

“I don’t know. JAKE!” he yelled. “He said he’s coming.”

“Cool.”

“Haven’t seen you around here much,” Tom said. “Keeping busy?”

I felt a little chill. It’s weird, talking to Controllers when you know that’s what they are. It was Tom’s voice, and it acted like Tom, but it wasn’t Tom. Tom was cowering helplessly in a corner of his own mind.

I was talking to a Yeerk.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

“Uh-huh. We’re going up to the lake, do some waterskiing.”

“You and Jake?”

“Yeah, right. No, me and The Sharing. You know Jake’s too much of a social misfit to join,” Tom said with a totally human, big-brother laugh of derision. “It’s just that we have too many girls going and not enough guys.”

A lie, of course. A lie that was supposed to entice me. Why was Tom suddenly trying to get me interested in The Sharing again? He quickly gave me the answer.

“I heard your dad was back at work. That’s cool.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. My father had gone through a bad time after my mom “died.” Now he was back at work. He’s an engineer, but he’s heavily involved in computers, too. He had been working with the new observatory on ways to design software that would aim the telescopes better.

He was also working on some projects he couldn’t even talk about. Projects I figured must involve the military.

“You could bring your dad,” Tom said as casually as he could. “I mean, not like anyone wants their fathers along, usually, right? But I mean, maybe he’s ready to get back out there in the world and all. The Sharing is a good place to make business connections, you know?”

“Yeah, I’ll ask him,” I said.

“Do that, okay? Your dad could probably use some down time to relax, take it easy, meet some people.”

They were after my father now. I felt something burning inside me, like I’d taken a gulp of lava. I wanted to reach right through the phone and take a baseball bat to the evil creature in Tom’s head.

“Here’s Jake,” Tom said. There was a scuffling sound as he handed the phone off. Then Jake’s voice.

“Hey, Marco. What’s up?”

I went off. “What’s up?! What’s up? Those scumbags are after my father, that’s what’s up! How do you live with that? How do you look at that piece of crap every day? He’s all like, “Bring your dad to The Sharing, do a father-son bonding thing, and oh, by the way, would you mind if we stuck a - “
“Shut up,” Jake hissed.

I shut up. But my hand was squeezing the receiver so hard I could have snapped it. Jake let me calm down for a minute. He made “uh-huh” noises in the phone, like he was listening to me talking. He made a couple of laughing sounds. I guess Tom wasn’t far away from the phone.

I knew Jake was right. We don’t talk secrets over the phone. There’s no way of knowing who might be listening in.

“Okay, I’m cool,” I said. I wasn’t cool, but I was under control again.

“That sounds good to me,” Jake said, still pretending to have a conversation.

“We have to get together,” I said. “It’s a nice day out.”

That was the signal that we should meet in the woods.

“Okay. Later,” Jake said casually.

He hung up.

I took a couple of deep breaths. Then I took a couple more.

The Yeerks had taken my mother. They weren’t getting my father. Before that happened I’d tell him everything. Before I’d let that happen I’d take Tom down, no matter what Jake said. I’d take Tom, I’d take Chapman, I’d take every Controller I knew of before I’d let them have my father. I had power. Deadly animals lived inside me. Their DNA swam with my own. I could feel the rage flowing through me, the blind, violent rage that became little films in my head - little head-movies of revenge and destruction. I pictured the things I would do to Tom … to Chapman … someday even to Visser Three. I would do terrible things to them. Terrible, violent things.

It was a sick feeling. It was sick, and I knew it, and yet I ran those images over and over in my head.

Rage is addictive, you know. I guess it’s sorta like a drug. Anger and hatred get you high. They get you high, but like any addiction, they hollow you out and tear you down and eat you alive. I guess I knew all that. But all I could think of was that they were not getting my father.

So I ran the scenes of violence over and over in my head. I rode that rush of fury till at last it burned itself out and left me feeling empty and beaten.

Anger can do that. I don't know if you've ever felt this sense of overwhelming rage. I have...not often. I think the only time was on 9/11. I lived in Northern Virginia at the time, and at this one moment, I just felt this sense of rage and pure and utter hatred. I don't think I ever felt it before or after. I'm not proud of it, but for a few minutes there, I just wanted the entire country of Afghanistan wiped out. I know it's not right. I know it's not rational (and knew it at the time), but at the moment, that's what I felt, and then it passed, and I was just completely and utterly exhausted.

Weirdest thing. I've never felt that way since, and I hope I never do again.

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