The Familiar Read online

  And suddenly, I stood before a giant wall, rising leagues above my head and running for miles in both directions. I had my hand crammed against a small hole, from which water slowly seeped and bubbled. On the other side I heard the raging sea. Pummeling. Pounding. Weakening, with each lashing, every fiber of the wall.

  And I wondered: Just how long would it hold?

  DE-DEET! DE-DEET!

  The alarm was like a jackhammer to the head. I groaned.

  DE-DEET!

  Enough, already! I felt for the clock radio. The snooze button. Just five more minutes.

  My hand patted the air. No bedside table? I lifted my lids. Where was my …

  My heart stopped.

  I was staring into a triangular screen. A flat computer panel mounted flush in a peeling, white plaster wall across from the bed. Eerie copper letters pulsed at the top of the glowing gray screen. 5:58:16 A.M. Below the time flashed the words “TO DO” and a single entry: “Report to work.”

  This was not my bedroom. Not even close.

  DE-DEET! DE-DEET!

  My body stiffened to defense mode and I bolted out of bed.

  The alarm stopped.

  My mind, forced into consciousness by the shock, hurled me orders. Get out! it warned. Get out, get out, get out!

  I raced to a tall black panel in the wall. A door. Had to be.

  Get out!

  I tried, but there was no handle. No release lever. Nothing.

  I struck it.

  “You are not prepared to leave for work!” said a shrill computer voice.

  I pounded even harder. Hammered the panel with a clenched fist. A fist that …

  I stopped suddenly as I studied my fist.

  It was big.

  I mean it was rough and callused and had veins that pumped across the hairy, muscular forearm like I belonged to Gold’s Gym and actually used my membership.

  It was the hand and arm of a grown man.

  My heart started up again, pumping now at record speed.

  I probed the polished steel door frame for my reflection, for the face I knew.

  And yes, there! I saw my eyes, dark as midnight. My strong, broad face. My …

  I swallowed hard.

  My short-cropped hair? My six-foot frame?

  My day-old beard?!

  I brought a hand to my face. My fingers scraped across my chin. Stubble like sixty-grit sandpaper. I needed a shave.

  My breath got choppy. My head felt about ready to explode.

  The Jake staring back at me was an adult! Not crazy old. But out of college a few years. At least ten years older than the kid I’d been the night before.

  What was going on? Where were the others? How did I get to this place?

  My heart was beating entirely too hard.

  I was gonna have a heart attack if I didn’t calm down. I stumbled back to bed and sat down on the narrow strip no wider than a torso. A pad on a metal plate.

  “Okay,” I said out loud. “Okay.” Use your brain. Cover the possible explanations.

  An Ellimist trick? Yeah, it had to be. But why hadn’t he spoken?

  A Yeerk experiment, maybe? Could I have been captured?

  It’s hard to think straight when you wake up like Tom Hanks in that movie Big. At least he woke up in his own room, in his own clothes. Sort of. I was wearing this weird, faded orange jumpsuit, the color of a sun-bleached Orioles cap.

  I fingered the suit, and then it hit me.

  Of course!

  I knew what was going on here. It had finally happened.

  I knew it was only a matter of time, what with the pressures of leadership, the violent battle, the endless fights against a strengthening enemy.

  I’d finally been driven to a complete psychotic breakdown.

  I’d gone crazy.

  And this was my padded cell.

  It really was a cell. Maybe twelve by twelve. But it didn’t look very institutional. What it looked like was the remodeling job from hell. A bizarre fusion of decaying early-century architecture and modern metallic installations.

  Two walls of bubbling plaster rose twelve feet to a carved crown molding. An old porcelain sink basin stuck out in one corner. Hardwood flooring ran underfoot and spilled over into filthy yellow linoleum about halfway across.

  Applied over all this old stuff was a second phase of construction. Brightly colored metallic retrofits sprouted from two gray, synthetic walls. I stood up and walked toward a purple, kidney-shaped pedestal. The top slid off to reveal a golden cone. It was decorated — I guess — with a border of luminescent tubing.

  Flit, flit, flit. Sheets of soft paper shot at me from a slit in the wall and floated to the floor.

  Flit, flit, flit. More paper.

  Whoooosh!

  A violent suction nearly pulled my pant leg down the cone. The luminous tubing dimmed. The kidney lid slid shut.

  “Evacuation complete!” said the jarring computer voice. I almost smiled. Whoever or whatever held me prisoner here was powerful, but they had a toilet that was out of order.

  I moved to a tray colored brilliant fuchsia. It sat beside an electric blue cylinder. Ghastly stalks retracted the tubes into the wall as I walked closer.

  Whoop. Bam.

  I stared.

  Whoop. Bam.

  They reappeared, steaming with crisp bacon and scrambled eggs. Orange juice swirled in a blue beaker.

  I certainly wasn’t hungry.

  I moved on to a long, narrow panel, solid but translucent. Faint natural light shone through it. My pulse quickened. A window? Maybe I could escape that way.

  Shleep!

  The wall absorbed the panel and revealed an opening three inches wide. A sliver of window. Heavy, cool air tunneled in and caressed my face. I pressed my eyes closed, then opened them, and there …

  Structures, hundreds of them, rose beneath me, soared above me. Glass, steel, concrete, masonry. All jutting toward a simmering, red-cast sky.

  An urban jungle.

  But just like my cell, the city looked as though it had suffered modifications at the hands of a deranged contractor. Chaotic clumps of black machinery clung, like unwelcome growths, to the skyscrapers’ sides. Sickly deformations of a century’s architectural monuments.

  A few buildings were completely covered over by this industrial appliqué, like a ship’s hull overrun with barnacles. A tree trunk strung with parasitic …

  The word left me with a very uneasy feeling.

  Parasitic …

  Two fighters zoomed into my narrow field of vision. Their red lights blazed a streak across the cityscape.

  Oh. Crap.

  Yeerk fighters.

  They headed for a distant pack of skyscrapers, an ominous elevation that studded the horizon like giant chipped and broken teeth in the mouth of some mythical hockey goalie. Two of the buildings looked familiar. Shimmering rectangles. Twin towers.

  The World Trade Center!

  New York. This must be … except for …

  Yeerk fighters out in the open? That meant … that meant they’d launched an open attack. Visser Three. They’d gained enough forces to forget stealth and secrets, and wage a totally in-your-face war!

  DE-DEET! DE-DEET!

  The alarm sounded again.

  “Facility air quality jeopardized!” The computer voice was more authoritative now. The window cover began to shut, closing off my sliver of city.

  Oh, no you don’t! I reached up and grabbed the panel. Forced it back.

  One of those fighters wasn’t Yeerk.

  Only one was a Bug fighter. Only one was a legless cockroach with two serrated spears.

  The other held its shredder raked high over the fuselage, pointing forward. Like an Andalite tail poised for combat.

  It was an Andalite craft. But grossly modified. Engines that should have glowed a cool blue instead burned a fiery red.

  I fought the window cover. I had to see!

  The two fighters rocketed through the sky.
They buzzed through the sticky, filmy cloud that swelled above the city like fallout from a colossal explosion.

  “Continued idleness prohibited!” The sharp computer voice broke through the monotonous, mind-filling hum from outside.

  The fighters banked in tandem, slowed and hovered. Touched down on a platform connecting the World Trade towers.

  I let the window cover slam shut.

  There was no war being waged after all.

  The war, it seemed, was over.

  Tssssst.

  The cell door opened and ejected me with a burst of air into the dim hallway of an old apartment house. I heard the hiss of other panel doors opening and closing at the same time. Tall, fit humans dressed in brightly colored jumpsuits swarmed into the corridor.

  I wanted to yell. I wanted to grab the nearest person and shake him and scream, “What is this crazy place?”

  But instinct told me to keep my mouth shut. Find the answers yourself, it said. Observe. Don’t trust these strangers. Use them.

  I let the orange and green and yellow suits sweep me up in their mass exodus down the hall. The wind grew stronger. The ghostly whir and hum I’d heard through the cell window churned louder and louder, until at last it vibrated every particle of air like a thousand-piece orchestra of different-sized fans.

  The building wall at the end of the hall had been knocked out. Everyone was stepping through the rough opening. And I followed — curious and terrified — out onto the crowded, open-air docking bay.

  “Step up!” An impersonal computer voice cut through the whoosh of engines and flooded my ears. I realized I was blocking traffic.

  I tripped forward toward a line of SUV-sized craft that hovered in the air at floor level, doors open, inhaling small groups of colored jumpsuits. And every few seconds …

  Woooooosh!

  One took off from the apartment building and fell away in a controlled tumble, careening toward the streets three hundred feet below.

  I stumbled past the blinking red lights that ran from nose to tail on every craft and bathed the docking bay and passengers in a sinister, pulsing glow. Stepped into what looked like a stripped-down Bug fighter. No weaponry or combat stations. Just a pod with seats and windows. A floating, high-tech subway car.

  The instant I fell onto a seat, a belt shot across my chest. Another drew tight over my legs. Before I could panic …

  Shoo-shoo-shoo.

  The unmanned hovercraft drew power. A deep computer voice boomed, “Midtown express.” Doors clicked shut and …

  Sheeeeeeooo!

  Into an aerial roll! Hanging upside down! My stomach went goofy. Gray high-rises shot past. Other hovercraft streaked past the windows.

  “Hey.” A human voice cut through the hum.

  We banked right. Flipped a sudden 180 degrees. And leveled off, upright, soaring parallel to the street grid below.

  “Hey, Essak-Twenty-Four-Twelve-Seven-Five!” The male voice was friendly. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I flinched, but turned.

  A guy in a green suit, strapped to the seat to my left, stared at me with icy blue eyes. Green Suit was talking to me!

  My heart hammered. My head began to pound.

  “When’s the launch?” he said.

  I stared blankly back at him, unable to speak as we traced a slalom course between buildings.

  The launch? What launch?

  Air brakes rose to a frenzied roar. The hovercraft grazed a landing dock. The computer voice boomed, “Middle management!” Everyone suited in green rose and filed out.

  Green Suit flashed a mischievous smile. “Mr. Hotshot Scientist forget to have his coffee?”

  He disappeared into the crowd. The doors clicked closed.

  That green suit … that green suit had called me by what I knew had to be a Yeerk name.

  We shot high. Skimmed the tops of tall towers. The Chrysler Building filled the windows. Streamlined and whimsical, just like in the photo my mom had in her office. All rounded edges and gleaming stainless steel and …

  Wait a minute. I looked closer and saw it was covered in some kind of sack. A silver sheath, draped like a giant deflated gift balloon. Busy workers moved about on platforms jutting from the skin at all levels.

  My mind was swimming …

  Even the Chrysler Building. Transformed.

  Swimming …

  That green suit had called me by a Yeerk name …

  I wasn’t Yeerk. How could I be? What was going on?

  When a Yeerk slug slithers through your ear canal, when it melds and flattens into every crevice of your brain, you know it’s happening. Trust me, you know. Because you can’t eat or talk or call up memories unless the Yeerk lets you. You’re a helpless observer of an endless nightmare. A prisoner in your own head.

  I was no prisoner. My eyes moved freely. My legs, when they weren’t strapped to a hovercraft seat, walked where I told them to walk. Why wouldn’t whoever was responsible for this just talk to me?

  Until today, I’d been the leader …

  No! I still was the leader of a small but powerful resistance to the Yeerk invasion. A group of six kids, five humans and an Andalite. We call ourselves Animorphs because of our secret weapon, the power to morph into any animal we touch. We fight the Yeerk invaders, led by Visser Three. Those slimy parasitic aliens who’ve come to Earth to enslave our bodies because without host bodies, Yeerks aren’t much more than the wriggling, helpless worms you avoid on the sidewalk after it rains.

  There was no Yeerk in my brain. I was no human-Controller.

  Not Essak-Twenty-Four-whatever.

  No! It’s …

  “Jake! My name is Jake!”

  The words slipped out before I could stop them. Pierced the relative silence of the cabin.

  “What’s the matter with you?” said a yellow-suit with an accent. Eight pairs of eyes fixed on me. Eight faces I might have taken to be your average, ethnically diverse, cross section of New York commuters.

  Emphasis on “might have.”

  Because there was one crucial giveaway.

  They’d reacted to me.

  See, I’d been to New York before. A class trip. I may not have noticed much of the cultural stuff I was supposed to have noticed, but I noticed one thing. You can shout Hamlet’s soliloquy or scream Limp Bizkit lyrics, you can blare “The Star-Spangled Banner” or stomp an American flag, and no one — I mean no one — will give you the time of day. They’ll look you over, but then they’ll walk right on.

  All I’d said was, “My name is Jake.” And these guys were on me like I’d driven a Kawasaki into their living rooms.

  I forced a smile. These weren’t New Yorkers. These were human-Controllers. These were Yeerks.

  Watch your step, Jake.

  I cleared my throat. “My host,” I said. “Sometimes I still … have trouble. You know, controlling him.”

  The craft stopped again. “Medicine,” the computer voice declared.

  “They have pills for that now,” Yellow Suit answered. “You should visit the clinic.”

  He rose and shuffled out. Seven other yellow suits filed out after him. The doors closed. We twisted away from the landing dock. Just me and one other orange suit.

  A short ride.

  “Research and development. End of the line.” The orange suit questioned me when I didn’t rise.

  “Going to the clinic,” I said smoothly. “Not well.” I pointed at my head. She gave me a look of understanding. The doors closed behind her.

  I was alone.

  “My name is JAKE!” I yelled. And then I yelled it again.

  And for a second, I thought I would lose it. Really lose it. Start screaming stuff like, “I don’t wear jumpsuits, I wear jeans! I’m not twenty-five, I’m a kid! I’m not a Controller, I’m free.”

  But I didn’t. Chances were that someone, somewhere, was watching. At least that’s what my gut told me. I’ve learned to trust my gut.

  Down, down, down. The craft fell like a parac
hute, bobbing slightly with the buffets of wind, descending slowly toward street level.

  I looked out over a small park. A fraction the size of Central Park. Trampling the crusty, late-winter grass was a mass of bodies. Blue and tan fur. Hooves. Stalk eyes. The bodies were assembled in orderly, disciplined rows. Maybe fifty across and a hundred lengthwise.

  A fog horn blared and they stopped and turned, changing directions.

  Captive Andalites. And they were feeding.

  My spine felt like a live lightning rod. A world with Andalite-Controllers is no world at all.

  In the world I know there is only one Andalite-Controller. And he’s a sad mistake. Any conscious Andalite warrior would use his tail blade on himself before he’d let himself be captured.

  The craft buzzed just feet above the street, passing rows of blacked-out windows on run-down facades. The ship entered a large, open space. A sort of parking lot. A paved triangle filled with other hovercraft. The engines were cut. The craft docked.

  I didn’t know what world this was. I didn’t know what time this was. A world before or after or parallel to mine? A bizarre reality that had somehow imposed itself on the one I was used to accepting?

  My own personal nightmare?

  I didn’t know. But I knew the Yeerks were strong in this place. They owned this city. They owned the people in it.

  But they didn’t own me.

  As long as I was free and in control of my mind, there was a chance — no — the certainty that I could find out what was going on.

  And then maybe, just maybe, somehow — even in this strange place — I could find the others and together we could …

  The doors opened and I dropped to the concrete. My heart was back to its regular rhythm. My mind calmed and focused on a single thought.

  “Jake,” I breathed quietly, “you didn’t plan this one, but now it’s time to deal.”

  Ever imagine a scenario where world leaders lose their minds, fire up those intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuke the whole planet? Ever think what it would be like to step out of the shelter, after the worst of the residue cleared, into some kind of postapocalyptic wasteland?