The Underground

by K. A. Applegate

  I was monstrous, towering huge above Marco, and Cassie in her wolf morph. My back pressed

  147 against the roof. My sides shoved crates and boxes aside.

  «Marco, look out!» I yelled and Marco dropped the Dracon beam trying to get out of the way. Because at that moment, my teeth ground and cracked and suddenly sprouted. Out, out, out from my mouth they grew, forming two long, curved tusks.

  If Marco had stayed where he was, he'd have been impaled.

  «Marco, get the Dracon beam. You dropped it. Your fingers are the only ones that can work it.»

  «Dropped it where? Under you? Great.» He crawled awkwardly beneath my bulging gray stomach and emerged with the Dracon beam in his fist.

  «0kay,» I said. «Right for the oatmeal shed, no stopping. Ready?»

  «Ready,» Cassie said.

  «You know, Jake was right. You just never hear about oatmeal being involved in any of the great battles of history,» Marco observed.

  «Yeah, whatever,» I said tersely. «Come on.»

  I didn't have to do much to go through the back wall of the pantry we were in. I just leaned forward and pushed my head against the wall. My head alone weighed more than half a ton. It was a serious battering ram.

  Crrrrr-UNCH! Crunch! Scree-UNCH!

  148 Down came the wall. Down came half the roof on my back. Out we barreled, an elephant, a wolf, and a lumbering gorilla.

  The shed was thirty feet away. No more. Not even two body lengths for me. One, two, three steps and I was there!

  The two Hork-Bajir yelled and almost ran, but then held their ground. I had to admire that. Go to the zoo some time. Take a good, long look at an African elephant, and imagine that thing charging for you. See how long you'd want to stand there.

  SLASH!

  A lightning-quick swipe with an arm blade, and I had a bright red line in my trunk. It was just a shallow cut, but it hurt.

  "HhhhrrroooooREEEE-Unh!" I screamed.

  I kept my speed, and plowed straight into the Hork-Bajir. Ten thousand pounds of fast-moving elephant.

  The brave Hork-Bajir-Controller was out of the fight.

  No time to stop. I saw Marco and Cassie take down the other Hork-Bajir.

  «Two more Hork-Bajir coming!» Cassie yelled.

  I backed up a few feet and slammed forward. I hit the shed with my head.

  WHAM!

  The four walls of the shed literally blew out-

  149 ward. Like someone had set off a bomb inside it. The walls burst outward from the impact. The roof fell and then slid aside.

  A blue barrel, like a beer keg, rolled away. A piece of debris stopped it. There were five other barrels, all standing there in a group.

  «The oatmeal!» I said.

  «The instant maple and ginger oatmeal!» Marco corrected gleefully.

  «Get them!» a huge, thought-speak voice roared. The voice of Visser Three.

  I turned my head to look. An entire army of Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and human-Controllers was rushing for us. There was no way out. No way at all.

  And there, in the midst of the onrushing army, was Visser Three.

  I wrapped my trunk around one of the barrels of confiscated oatmeal. I lifted it up like a feather. I saw the closest Hork-Bajir hesitate.

  I threw the barrel in a high arc. It landed with a big, soggy splash, right in the middle of the Yeerk pool.

  «lt's not sinking!» Cassie cried.

  «Marco. Point the Dracon beam at the barrel. Now.»

  The big gorilla raised his mighty arm and aimed the Dracon beam at the barrel.

  «Your move, Visser,» I said.

  150 «I3top!» that awful voice roared.

  And every living thing stopped. They barely breathed. Hork-Bajir stood poised as if they'd been frozen. When the Visser said "stop," you stopped. Period.

  He came forward, pushing human and Hork-Bajir and Taxxon aside. He came forward till nothing separated him from us except a shield of three straining, awkwardly frozen Hork-Bajir and a twitch ing Taxxon.

  His Andalite stalk eyes swept from side to side, sizing up the situation. His main eyes looked right at me.

  «There's nothing in that barrel but garbages

  151 «Then you won't mind if my friend fires and blows it up.»

  It was always deadly dangerous talking to Visser Three. In addition to an Andalite's body, he had an Andalite mind under his evil control. He might figure out that I was not an Andalite in morph, but a human.

  He laughed. Not a nice laugh.«There are perhaps a thousand Yeerks in that pool. The ... the product in that barrel might affect half of them before we could get it cleared up. Five hundred Yeerks. »

  He paused to consider. «And against that, I suppose you want your fellow terrorists released and a chance to escape.»

  «Exactly,» I said.

  Marco still held the Dracon beam aimed at the wallowing barrel.

  «Then I'd better give you my answer,» Visser Three said with silky menace.

  Before he could say it, I knew. I'd seen it in his eyes. In his body language.

  He was writing off five hundred of his own people. Condemning them to madness. He didn't care. It would be a setback, but that was all. Beyond that, he didn't care.

  Visser Three cared for nothing.

  Oh, wait. Visser Three did care about one thing.

  152 No time to think. No time to plan. I surged forward suddenly, just as Visser Three was saying, «Destroy them -»

  I surged my five tons forward, trunk outstretched.

  Visser Three leaped back. Right into a Taxxon who was following orders by freezing.

  I plowed through the Hork-Bajir and reached for the Visser. My trunk went around his upper body.

  FWAPP! His Andalite tail slashed!

  Miss!

  I squeezed my trunk, flexed the muscles in my neck and shoulders, and up went the Visser. I yanked him up off the ground.

  FWAPP! He slashed again, and this time I bellowed in pain. The blade had hit the side of my face. It nearly cut right through one eye. The agony was unbearable.

  But I couldn't hesitate.

  I lifted the Visser high in the air. I heaved him, just as he slashed again.

  Through the air he flew.

  PAH-LOOOSH!

  Visser Three hit the Yeerk pool.

  I was reeling in pain. Pain like nothing I'd ever imagined.

  «0h, no, Rachel!» Cassie cried.

  I ignored her. No time for pain. No time. I had

  153 to play this out. Fortunately, I know just a little about Andalite physiology. See, they eat and drink through their hooves. Right now the Visser was absorbing the water of the Yeerk pool.

  I glared with my one remaining eye at the Visser, floundering in the pool.

  «Nowdo you care if we blow up that barrel?» I asked him. «Now do you care?»

  154 It turned out yes, yes, he cared. Visser Three would sacrifice hundreds of his fellow Yeerks to the oatmeal madness. After all, it was war, and sacrifices had to be made sometimes.

  But those sacrifices obviously did not include him.

  I kicked the rest of the barrels into the pool, just so Marco couldn't possibly miss. Then Cassie went off to free the others. The Hork-Bajir, the Taxxons, and the human-Controllers were still busy being very, very still. If any of them had shown initiative, they could have probably taken us out. They might well have been able to get Marco before he could hit one of the barrels.

  But you know what? Terrified underlings never

  155 show initiative. The Yeerks there may have hated us. But they were terrified of Visser Three.

  We freed Jake, Tobias, and Ax. Then we headed, very carefully, for one of the exits. We climbed the stairs backward, with Marco pointing the Dracon beam the whole way up.

  Only because of Tobias did we see what happened next. Hidden behind my massive, pain-wracked bulk, he demorphed. Halfway up that interminable stairway, he resumed hawk shape. And it was his hawk vision that saw.

>   «He's morphing! The Visser. He's halfway morphed!»

  «He's getting out of his Andalite shape, taking on some form that won't absorb the water,» Jake said. «Then the stupid oatmeal won't bother him. He'll come for us!»

  «How far along is he?» Ax demanded.

  «Can't tell,» Tobias cried. «He's going under! He's submerging!»

  I glanced up the stairs. A long way still to go. And I was weak from my injuries. Yet I couldn't demorph and reveal that my true shape was human. Plenty of time for Visser Three to come popping up out of the water in one of his vile, alien morphs and come for us.

  We were weak and exposed on the stairs. I was practically out of the fight. Jake was still a bat. No way to win if he managed to come after us.

  156 «Marco has to shoot,» I said. I looked at Cassie and Tobias to see if either of them would object.

  «He's not leaving us any choice,» Tobias said grimly. He hopped over to sit on Marco's shoulder. «You're aiming high,» he said. «A hair lower. Lower . . . fire!»

  TSEEEWWW!

  Far down below us, one of the floating barrels went, POOMPF!

  A gray substance like confetti exploded out and settled in the water.

  «That should keep them busy,» Tobias said. «Let's bail!»

  It was pandemonium down in the Yeerk pool. Hork-Bajir and humans and Taxxons all rushing around, trying to haul their Visser out of the water. Trying to scoop up the madness-inducing oatmeal before it could dissolve completely.

  Then I fell over. I didn't waver or stagger. I just fell over. Five tons of sagging elephant flesh splayed out across a dozen stone steps.

  «Demorph!» Jake yelled at once.

  Cassie rushed over, helpless to do much with her wolf paws. «lt's the loss of blood! She's passing out. Rachel, you have to demorph.»

  «He's up!» Tobias yelled. «He's out of the water. Oh, man! What the ... Ax, what is that thing?»

  157 «l don't know,» Ax admitted. «lt's no creature I've ever seen before. But it looks extremely dangerous.»

  I was demorphing as fast as I could. «You guys get going! I'll catch up!»

  «Yeah, right, Rachel,» Cassie said.

  «lt's like some kind of pterodactyl almost,» Jake said. «like one of those flying dinosaurs. Only it's covered in quills all over its back.»

  Jake was demorphing. I was demorphing. Too slowly.

  «AII we have is a monkey and a wolf!» I yelled. «You guys run! You can pick up Jake and run!»

  «A monkey?» Marco said archly. «You know, I almost could run off and leave you.»

  «You have more than a gorilla and a wolf,» Ax said calmly. «You have an Andalite.»

  I was shrinking all the while. And as I became less elephant and more human, the pain began to diminish. I could feel strength returning. But I was still so tired. Could I morph again?

  «l have to report there are Hork-Bajir coming down the stairs toward us,» Ax said. He was the only one of us who'd been looking in that direction. It helped to have four eyes.

  "Great," Jake snapped, human again. "We're trapped. And here he comes!"

  I turned my now-human head toward the

  158 sound of vast, leathery wings. I saw something that might have been a winged porcupine, only the quills were each five feet long. Its head was elongated forward and back. The beak itself was another five feet.

  It flew slowly, with great effort, but it was coming closer. My heart sank. Had he seen us in our human bodies?

  I turned my head to look back up the stairs. The Hork-Bajir were a hundred feet away, pounding down on us. We were trapped. No time to morph, even. Trapped!

  The stairway entered solid rock and earth just ten feet upward. The Visser's monster wouldn't be able to fly in there. But if we ascended that far, we'd run right into the Hork-Bajir.

  I looked to Cassie, my best friend. I guess I wanted to say something meaningful.

  And that's when it hit me. "Give me the Dra-con beam!"

  "It's not gonna stop that . . . that thing It's armored all over. Nothing will stop that thing."

  I didn't have time to argue. I snatched the Dracon beam from Marco. I turned and plowed up the stairs, right for the Hork-Bajir.

  "Follow me!"

  "But-"

  "Just come on!"

  Up we ran. The distance between us and the

  159 Hork-Bajir closed at a startling rate. The monster was coming on fast.

  "Everyone down! Cover your heads! Mole!" I screamed. "MOLE!" And I raised the Dracon beam straight up. Aimed it at point-blank range right up at the hanging rock and dirt roof.

  I thumbed the power switch and squeezed the trigger.

  And the entire world fell down on me.

  160 i. wasn't crushed by a rock. I was glad for that. I was smashed and banged up pretty good. And oh, was I scared.

  Buried alive!

  It had actually happened. I'd even made it happen. Buried alive under rock and dirt and struggling Hork-Bajir.

  But what can you do when you're buried alive? You can either sit there screaming in blind, idiot panic. Or you can dig your way out. At least, if you're a mole you can.

  I was worried about Cassie and Marco. They'd both still been in morph, so they had an extra phase to pass through before they could become moles again.

  161 But wolves and gorillas aren't easy to kill. We all morphed and dug our lonely tunnels upward.

  It took a long time. I had to stop and hollow out enough space to demorph to human so I didn't end up trapped in mole morph. Talk about wanting to scream.

  But on the second round I emerged into the bat cave.

  It took another hour for all of us to get there. We'd meet up in the absolute darkness, one by one, then in a small, edgy, worried group.

  Tobias was the last to arrive.

  "You scared us to death! Where have you been?" I yelled at him.

  «l was worried about you, too, Rachel,» he said, with a smile in his silent voice.

  Finally we morphed into our bat shapes. Exhausted beyond all belief. I could have just lain down there in the eternal darkness and slept for a week.

  And then, just as we were echolocating around, looking for the exit, the strangest thing happened. The entire cave came alive.

  In a slow-motion rush all the bats began to drop their grip on the rock roof. They dropped, opened their wings, fired their echolocation sounds, and took off.

  «Must be sundown,» Cassie said.

  «Yeah, but sundown of which day?» I muttered.

  162 We exploded from the cave. Maybe a hundred thousand bats. Maybe a million. Who can count that many bats?

  We headed for home, too exhausted even to make dumb jokes or laugh or be happy we had survived.

  But as tired as I was, there was one thing I wanted to do.

  Maybe I have a soft spot for lunatics. After all, if I ever told anyone what my life was like, I'd be in a rubber room so fast I'd get whiplash.

  When I was done, I flew home and demorphed in my room.

  I went downstairs as calmly as if I'd never left.

  "Where EXACTLY have you been all day, young lady?" my mother demanded.

  But just then the phone rang. My mom took the call. She listened and kept saying, "What?" She said "what?" about nine times, each time louder than the time before.

  Then she sat down and stared at Sarah and Jordan and me.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "It's my client. Poor Mr. Edelman." She shook her head like she was trying to clear something away. "He escaped from the institution."

  "The nuthouse?" Jordan asked.

  "He's gone. Ran away. But what's bizarre is how it happened. They're claiming a grizzly bear

  163 calmly walked in, knocked the doors down, and told the man ... in some kind of psychic way ... I mean, you have to envision a talking grizzly bear ... a psychic talking bear. . . told the man . . ." She checked the notes she'd written down. "Told him to leave, get out, but not to do anything dumb lik
e trying to hurt himself because . . . the bear. . . had had a really lousy day and didn't want to have to save him again."

  Jordan and Sarah stared at my mother like she was crazy.

  "Hey, I'm not the one who claims to have seen all this," my mother said defensively.

  I shrugged. "Bunch of nuts," I said dismis-sively. "I mean, come on. A grizzly bear. Right."

  It wasn't much. I couldn't really help Mr. Edelman. No one could. But some of the time his own, human mind was in charge. And during those times, in between the mad ravings of the Yeerk, I wanted him to be free.

  The doorbell rang.

  "It's MAR-co," Jordan sang. She thinks he's cute.

  "Tell him to go away," I yelled back. "I'm tired."

  Jordan reappeared a few moments later. She was carrying a huge stack of small boxes. "Your friend MAR-co says his dad is making him get rid of all this stuff."

  164 She dumped the boxes of maple and ginger oatmeal all over the kitchen table.

  That was the end of the first and only great battle ever to involve oatmeal.

  And, by the way, if you ever see some poor, mad, deranged gentleman wandering the streets and raving away about things that live in his head . . . well, if you can handle it, give the man your spare change.

  165 Don't miss

  X am very good at passing for human, if I say so myself. I have learned the customs and habits perfectly so that I seem entirely normal.

  That's how I am able to pass in even the most human of places. For example, the mall. . . .

  The mall also houses the most wonderful eating places. . . .

  Taste is very, very powerful.

  I was wearing artificial skin and artificial hooves like a human. I approached the counter of my very favorite eating place.

  "Hello," I said, making mouth sounds with my human mouth. "I will work for money. Muh-nee. Mnee. . . ."

  "Do you want to order something?" the human said to me.

  "I require money so that I may exchange it for the delicious cinnamon buns." I explained. "Bun-zuh."

  166 "I'll get the manager."

  "Bun-zuh," I said. I find the "z" sound especially enjoyable. It tickles the mouth parts. . . .

  The manager came and I explained my request to her.