Would this really work? I was acquiring her, she me, but I didn't feel any less like myself.
«Erek,» Ax said.
Erek moved swiftly, smoothly. He dropped his hologram and appeared as the slightly canine-looking android we knew as the real Erek.
He placed one hand on me, one on Mean Rachel. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling about this.
"Sorry," Erek said. Then . . .
"AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!"
The pain was indescribable! Both halves of
157 me twitched and jerked and seized. Every nerve ending exploded with energy. I couldn't hear. Couldn't think. My eyes were blinded by a sizzling halo of light.
«Morph!» Ax yelled in my head. «Morph into the other! Do it!»
Insane! I was being electrocuted! No way could I ... and yet ... the strangest . . . strange . . . melting . . . warmth . . . impossible . . .
I fell to my knees. The assault of electrons was over. I could see dirty hay. I could see the feet of the others.
I tried to stand up. Too shaky. Cassie and Jake helped me up.
"Sorry about that," Erek said. "Ax said you needed a massive jolt of energy, and we didn't think you'd tolerate it voluntarily."
I nodded, confused. I looked around. She was gone.
No, not gone.
"Are you okay?" Cassie asked.
Okay? I wanted to cry. I was me again. For whatever that was worth. The coward was in me. The killer, too. Human and animal.
"Rachel, do you want to sit down? Maybe talk?" Cassie asked.
"I ... I don't know. . ." I said.
"I'm here for you," Cassie said.
158 I looked up. Tobias. Half-human, half-predator. Our eyes met. "Thanks, Cassie," I whispered. "But . . . Tobias?"
«Yeah. Let's go, Rachel,» he said. «The two of you and the two of me. Let's go.»
159 Don't miss
The darkness was complete.
Total.
And I heard nothing. No sound save my own irregular breathing.
Sensation started to return and I realized I'd been stuffed into a box half my size. A straight-jacket that pinned my wings against my body. Jammed the vestigial Andalite tail up into my neck.
The hawk in me tensed every muscle. No room! In a panic, it pressed against the walls of the seamless box. Terrified. Confined. I fought to control the bird. But I was losing the struggle. The human me was frightened, too.
Rachel! Oh, Rachel. Could she escape this underground network? Somehow survive?
She would. Sure she would. She had to. She was Rachel, after all. Rachel!
Where was she? All I could think of was a paralyzed fly, helpless and vulnerable on the floor.
160 Someone would step on her. She wouldn't be able to get out of the way, and someone would kill her.
Better than the alternative. Life as a fly. Trapped, like me. But so not like me. I could see, soar . . .
And the plan? Rachel was supposed to have seen where they took me, then lead the others in. First prove the Anti-Morphing Ray didn't work, then, in the rescue, destroy the thing for good measure.
It was crazy! Inconceivable arrogance on our part. We had underestimated our foe. A fatal error.
Fatal.
The hawk brain, the animal part that still, even now, lived apart from me, untouched by human reason, began a low, defeated moan. A death moan.
So hot in the box. Like an oven. Warmer, and warmer still. How much oxygen could there be? Were they trying to suffocate me? Was that it?
Interminable!
The only external input were the wobbles and bobs as the holder of the box hit me against his leg. The ride continued.
No space to morph or demorph.
«l'll be trapped. As a horrific half-morphed creature,» I pronounced slowly. «That will be my
161 fate. I bet Andalites don't even have a word for that tragedy.»
That's it. Keep talking, Tobias. Keep talking. Stay sane. Hold on. Don't think . . .
Zeeewooozeeewooo.
All six walls of the box began to buzz. Vibrate. And then: Poosh!
Like a camera flash, steel walls vaporized. Dazzling light flooded my eyes. Blinded me. Rods and cones shot to hell. I saw nothing but white.
I blinked a few times. Then, no. No, my eyes were adjusting.
I was in another box. But a completely different kind. A cube of glass. Larger, maybe four feet square. Big enough for me to move about. Brightly illuminated, with several spotlights directed at me. I demorphed immediately. Back to hawk.
I blinked again. And as I rose to my feet, I realized I was suspended. The cube hung in the center of a much larger room. I strained to look beyond the glass. Though the glare from the lights to the dimness beyond.
"There's no way out." It was Taylor's voice. Sub-Visser Fifty-one. Cold and casual. "There's no point in looking around."
She sat alone at a long table. Near the door of the large, gloomy, windowless room. To her right
162 and left, armed Hork-Bajir, standing at attention. Above, a network of steel beams and conduits, a daunting maze of wire.
"You may as well demorph and make yourself comfortable while we wait," she continued.
Nice try, I thought. Demorph and make myself comfortable. Yeah, right! Wouldn't she just love an Andalite to infest. That would get her noticed by the Visser. Why don't I plunge my head in that sludgy Yeerk pool while I'm at it?
"No?" she prodded, mocking. "Don't want to demorph? Worried about that whole Yeerk-in-the-head thing? That's okay, my little Andalite birdie. You stay just the way you are. For now."
I looked again at the glass walls of my cube. Smooth and thick. Flawless. Featureless, except for one small, inset panel. In the panel were three circles. Three discs like oversized elevator buttons. They were colored. One red, one blue, one black.
"Ah, I see you've noticed the control device. There's a little experiment to be carried out as soon as Visser Three arrives," she said knowingly. "This device is state of the art, Andalite. The very latest in Yeerk technology."
A little experiment? Control device? The Anti-Morphing Ray. That had to be it, right?
I reached forward with my beak to touch the panel.
163 Scheewack! Kewwwack! Force-field static crackled and hissed. An electric jolt grabbed my beak and sent a shock through my body. From wings to tail and back again. I collapsed, stunned, to the floor.
"Ouchie," Taylor said.
K. A. Applegate, The Separation
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