The Underground Read online

  36 happening, but was it failing somehow? The pain was pretty severe, like the pressure of a ... well, of a knee being driven into my back.

  «Jake, do you have your knee in -» But just then, thought-speak stopped working as we crossed the line from mostly seagull to mostly human.

  In another few seconds we were packed together like sardines in a can. I literally could not move. We were one big mess of knees and elbows and twisted heads.

  "This is ridiculous," I muttered.

  "Morph to cockroach," Jake managed to whisper.

  I've never been crazy about morphing bugs. But this was one case where I was relieved. For once I wanted to get small.

  I focused my thoughts on the cockroach. And somehow - I have no idea how - that triggered the cockroach DNA in my system to begin reformulating all the cells in my body.

  Of course, a cockroach is minuscule compared to a human being. So I was about to become half as big as my own thumb. According to Ax, all the excess mass gets pushed into Zero-space, where it sort of hangs like a big wad of guts and hair and stuff.

  As I morphed the cockroach, as I became smaller and smaller and smaller, more and more

  37 of me was being deposited in some blank, white nonspace.

  It's not something I like to think about.

  In any case, the morphing itself was so disgusting, it distracted me from any such worries.

  See, although we were shrinking, we were all still pretty large when the cockroach features began to appear. The extra legs, for example.

  Two extra legs sprouted from my chest. They just poked out, like they belonged there. They came out looking like sticks a few inches long. But they just grew and grew and became hairy and articulated. It happened to all of us at almost the same instant.

  SPLOOOT!

  SPLOOOT!

  SPLOOOT!

  Unfortunately, we hadn't shrunk to roach size yet. Morphing is never totally logical. Things happen in weird, unpredictable ways. The three of us were each about the size of cocker spaniels when the legs appeared. Followed by insanely long antennae that shot from our foreheads and waved around madly like sensitive bullwhips.

  My regular legs were changing. My arms were changing. My face was changing, and that's never good. But it's even worse when you're watching this mirror image of yourself. Marco's smirky face was just six inches from mine when

  38 big bug eyes popped out and his lower face split into the creepy, grasping mouthparts of a cockroach.

  I've morphed a bunch of times. It is still a freak show nightmare.

  The box was getting big beneath me. Now there was so much room I could no longer see Jake at all. Marco was a vague, low-slung shape off across a smooth, light brown cardboard plain.

  I tried out my thought-speak. «You guys still there?»

  «Yeah,» Jake replied. «Let's take cover inside this box.»

  I hadn't really looked at the box to notice what was inside. But I could see an open seam that looked as if it was six feet wide. In reality it was probably an inch. But an inch to a roach is way more space than necessary. A roach can squeeze through a space no wider than the thickness of a nickel.

  The final changes were taking place. The hard, fingernail material that made up my outer body replaced the last vestiges of human flesh. The tiny remaining shreds of my liver and heart and lungs all disappeared to be replaced by the utterly primitive organs of the cockroach.

  My dim, blurry, distorted roach vision wasn't great, but I was used to it and could more or less make sense out of things as long as they were

  39 close. And in addition, I had my antennae. They were tingling with information that seemed like some weird mix of touch and smell. I felt the air currents around me. I felt the vibrations as the cook lifted a heavy load and trudged away. I sensed Marco and Jake, two fellow roaches, although their presence didn't matter much to the roach brain.

  But mostly, I smelled food.

  Lots and lots of food. Very close by. Sweet. An overpowering smell-touch. Right beneath me.

  I powered my six legs and went jerking forward.

  ZOOM!

  It's gross being a roach, but being a running roach is amazing. Your face is about a millimeter from the ground. And you feel like you're going two hundred miles an hour. It's as if someone strapped rockets on your back and shot you off across the ground, with your nose practically skinning on the dirt.

  I zoomed over to the big seam in the box. Now I could see Marco and Jake fairly clearly. We were all standing next to the edge. We couldn't see down inside and it looked like a big, rectangular well or something.

  «What do you think is down there?» Marco wondered.

  «l don't know,» I said. «But it's some kind of food, and it smells sweet.»

  40 Suddenly, vibrations. The men were coming back, and I felt a massive, jarring thud as they stuck the edge of the dolly beneath our stack of boxes.

  «l_et's do it!» I yelled. I powered straight out into the darkness and fell through the perfumed air.

  «l hate when she says that,» Marco groaned. «Anytime Rachel says "let's do it" in that insane, suicidal, rock-and-roll way of hers, disaster can't be far away.»

  41 I fell!

  Down and down and down. Probably at least three inches.

  I hit bottom, only bottom wasn't flat. It was curved and pitched. I grabbed with the tiny claws at the ends of my legs, but I slipped farther before I could latch on.

  Jake and Marco dropped not far away.

  I looked around as well as I could in the gloom. I was standing on something almost cylindrical, except that it was also curved. And pressed in right beside this curved cylinder was another, each maybe ten times my own body length. And wait! Others, all around. In addition

  42 to being cylindrical and curved, now I could see that they tapered down to a blunt tip.

  Some of these curved things were gathered together at one end, like a bunch of...

  «Bananas,» Marco said. «We're in a crate of bananas.»

  «0h. That must be what we were smelling. The sweet smell,» Jake said. «Good. This should be easy. They're moving us now. In a few seconds we'll be inside.»

  «Gross. Roaches on bananas,» I said, making conversation while we waited. «Maybe that's why Cassie always washes her bananas before she peels them.»

  «No,» Jake said. «lt's because of pesticides. You know, poisons.»

  «Poison?» Marco said nervously. «l don't feel sick. At least, I don't think I feel sick.»

  «lt would just be trace amounts,» Jake said. «But I suppose they spray poison on the bananas down in wherever. Ecuador or wherever.»

  «Ecuador? That just popped into your head? Ecuador?» Marco demanded. «Besides, Cassie's probably wrong. What's going to eat through banana skin? This skin is like foot-thick leather.»

  «l think it's for the spiders,» I said. «Haven't you ever heard how sometimes there are tarantulas crawling around bananas? Happens all the

  43 time. They come up in the holds of ships and -»

  «Excuse me? Tarantulas?» Marco squeaked.

  «0h, come on. What are the odds that there's a tarantula in this particular crate of bananas?»

  Unfortunately, right at that moment I got the answer. The crate was out of the truck and a bright beam of sunlight shone down through the opening in the box. A brilliant shaft illuminated the bananas. It was a bizarre landscape. Curves everywhere. Like someone with a protractor had drawn an endless jumble of arcs.

  It was about eight inches away. Sitting comfortably atop a bunch of bananas. It was, no exaggeration, as big as an elephant to me.

  «Um, guys? Don't anyone make any sudden movements, okay?»

  «0h, puh-leeze,» Marco said. «How lame do you think we are, Rachel? Now you're going to pretend there's a tarantula in here? So I'm supposed to go screaming around like a nitwit while you laugh yourself sick?»

  «Marco. Jake. Just look behind you.»

  I guess they looked.


  «Aaaaahhhh!»

  «Aaaaahhhh!»

  They ran. The spider moved.

  Roaches are fast. Tarantulas are faster.

  44 I would have never believed something that big could move that fast. But I guess it had been a long, hungry boat ride up from Ecuador for the tarantula.

  «Rachel! Where are you?» Jake yelled.

  Eight hairy legs were a blur. All I could focus on was a huge, ripping beak like a hawk's, and eight eerie eyes all in a cluster in that huge hairy face.

  It was after me!

  I motored. I leaped as well as my roach legs could leap. In some tiny corner of my tiny roach brain I heard the cockroach instincts screaming, Fly! Fly!

  I fluttered open the hard shell that covered my gossamer roach wings and I flew. I flew nowhere! Maybe two inches! Roaches can't fly worth a -

  It was on me! Looming over me! The sunlight streamed down and then a shadow. Not the shadow of the spider, something bigger, farther away.

  I was looking up at nostril! A pair of huge, hairy, human nostrils. And beyond them, weirdly bright human eyes.

  I tried to run, but the spider reared up, flailing its front legs like a frightened horse. It jammed one of those legs down so fast I didn't

  45 see it move. A claw grabbed my left middle leg. I fought and twisted, but there was no escape.

  Huge fangs were descending on me.

  Then, "Oh! Oh! Aaaarrrggghh! A spider!"

  Everything went nuts. The bananas went flying. We were falling, me and the tarantula, which still refused to let me go. Monstrous bananas, each as big as a piece of concrete sewer pipe, fell toward us. But the spider and I were falling, too.

  WHAM!

  Bananas all over me. Brilliant sunlight everywhere!

  In panic, the cook had knocked the pile of boxes off his dolly. The banana crate had smashed down onto the floor just inside the loading dock.

  "What are you doing with my bananas?" the truck driver yelled. Then, "Oh, jeez! Kill it!"

  I'd been battered and beaten by falling bananas, but that spider still had me. And now, in addition to the sheer, screaming panic I felt, the roach brain was adding the terror of sudden, bright light.

  /?£//?/the roach brain yammered.

  Run! my brain agreed.

  "Stomp it!" someone yelled in a voice that vibrated down through my body.

  46 A huge, slow-moving shadow came down and down and down.

  SQUISH! A banana exploded under the impact of the giant shoe. It gushed banana goo, sweet and sticky, all over us.

  And still that tarantula held me. Eight huge, expressionless black eyes glared down. The gnashing, hungry beak strained for the chance to rip me open.

  «ls that one of you?» Tobias cried from far away.

  Thanks be to a million years of evolution that has given the hawk its magnificent eyes. Oh, yes, oh, yes, love those eyes.

  «lt's me!» I yelled.

  I didn't see Tobias come falling from the sky. All I saw was a blur of big, craggy talons snatch the spider up, up and away.

  I kept my grip on a banana. My leg was ripped away by the spider, which flatly refused to let go. It hurt in a sort of vague, distant kind of way. But roaches are pretty tough.

  «Let's move!» Jake said. «Head toward the shade. That should be the inside of the building.»

  We moved out. I moved a little more slowly, and with a tendency to drift toward the side with the missing leg.

  And from high above I heard Tobias say, «Hmmm. Not bad. Not bad at all.»

  47 «See, this is what happens whenever Rachel starts in with her "let's do it" attitude,» Marco complained as we scurried across a filthy floor. «We end up being eaten by spiders or something.»

  «Hey, I don't see where you suffered, Marco,» I said. «l'm the one who can only count to five on her legs.»

  «Stick close to the base of the wall,» Jake said. «l don't want to get stomped. I got swatted in fly morph, and that's enough for me. I am not getting stomped on, too.»

  We were a little shaky, obviously.

  «You think Tobias actually ate that spider?» Marco asked.

  48 «With banana relish,» I said.

  We laughed a nervous kind of laugh and continued zooming along the rubber baseboard in the facility's kitchen. Then, an opening in the wall and we were in. I was grateful to be out of the harsh light. And away from so many shoes.

  «l've spotted the guy.» It was Cassie's thought-speak voice.

  I was puzzled. «What are you doing?»

  «Ax and I morphed to harrier and osprey. We've been looking in the windows, trying to spot Mr. Edelman. I have him. Second floor. Above the kitchen, then maybe twenty feet along the building. He's in a room with three other patients. They're wearing hospital gowns and slippers. They're watching TV.»

  «lt's the show called Gilligan's lsland,» Ax added helpfully.

  «Now, how does Ax know about Gilligan's Island^ Marco wondered. No one answered him.

  «0kay, straight up,» Jake said.

  The inside of the wall was a natural home to cockroaches. In fact, I noted several scattered areas of roach poop.

  It's the kind of thing a roach brain notices.

  The inside of the wall was otherwise a pretty clean place. I was standing on a wide expanse of wood. The grain was like ripples under my roach

  49 feet. A nail head protruded in front of me and looked about as tall as a tall woman. To my left and right were the backsides of Sheetrock - featureless, blank, gray.

  We tried our feet out on the Sheetrock. They tended to slip. So we scuttled down to an upright beam and climbed the wood instead.

  Eight feet straight up, and it was weirdly like flying. I felt the "ground" recede way, way below me. Dozens of times my own height. I knew I wouldn't be hurt if I fell. But still, hanging sideways, crawling straight up against gravity, seemed dangerous.

  We reached the top of the beam and I was grateful to haul myself up and over into a space between the upright and a cross beam. We were just beneath the floor. But now things were complicated. The space between the second floor and the ceiling beneath it was mostly blocked by a wall of wood. But eventually we found a way in, walking sideways and scraping between rough-sawed wood-ends.

  My antennae waved wildly, trying to comprehend the long, square tunnel before me. It was almost pitch-dark. Only a tiny hint of light filtered down from the floor above. And after the run-in with the spider, I was very jumpy. Who knew what might be in that vast, dark space?

  «That light must be from some kind of

  50 crack,» Jake said. «l guess we go toward that. Unless anyone else has any ideas?»

  «l have an idea,» Marco said. «We get out of here, go back to the mall, and see how many Cinnabons Ax can eat before he explodes.»

  «0h, come on, you babies,» I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. «l_et's go.» I scuttled forward. I was walking on Sheetrock that formed the ceiling below. The wooden walls on either side of me were insanely tall - ten, twenty times my height.

  But we soon reached the light. I felt better. My roach brain felt worse. Across our path lay a huge tube. It seemed to be metal and looked as big as a felled redwood. From the large tube, two smaller tubes went straight up toward a brighter light.

  «Plumbing,» Jake remarked.

  Sudden movement in the darkness!

  «Aaahhh!» I yelled, but even as I was yelling, I realized what it was.

  «A brother roach,» Marco said. «0r sister.»

  «Come on, let's get this over with,» I said. I scampered straight up the nearest vertical pipe. And within seconds I was poking my bullwhip antennae out into the light beneath a sink.

  «lt's a bathroom,» I reported. «Come on.»

  We piled out through the hole, and down onto cold, white ceramic tile.

  51 «Are we in the right place?» Marco wondered.

  «l don't know. I forgot to bring my map of the inside of the walls of the nuthouse,» I said. «We need to have
Cassie or one of the guys confirm where we are. There's a window up there.»

  I took off, scurrying across the tile, up the wall and onto the wire mesh of the window. I could see light, of course, but could not see through the glass.

  «Hey, Cassie, Ax, Tobias. Do you see a roach sitting on a window?»

  Ax answered. «Yes. I see you. You are in a small room just alongside the room where the human named Edelman is.»

  «Thanks.» I rejoined the others. «So. Now what?»

  «Now we talk to Mr. Edelman,» Jake said. «We need to get him to come in here. We'll have some privacy in here.»

  «And then what, he talks to a cockroach?»

  «No. One of us needs to demorph and talk to him,» Jake said.

  «Wait a minute,» Marco objected. «lsn't he going to think it's a little weird, some kid appearing magically in his bathroom?»

  «lt's a facility for people with mental illnesses, Marco,» Jake pointed out. «Who's going to believe him?»

  «l'll do the talking,» I said. «Mr. Edelman is

  52 my responsibility. I rescued him. And I'm starting to think I'm sorry I did. You guys stay out of the way. I'd hate to accidentally step on you.»

  I began to demorph.

  The squares of ceramic tile grew rapidly smaller. I shot up and up, like Jack's magic bean sprout or something.

  I was about two feet tall, with skin like burnt sugar, monstrously long antennae sprouting from my forehead, human eyes, semihuman legs that bristled with dagger-sharp hairs, blond hair, and a wide, throbbing yellowish-brown abdomen, when the bathroom door opened.

  A man shuffled in, wearing slippers. He headed for the toilet. He hesitated. Slowly, very slowly, he turned.

  My human mouth was just appearing. My lips grew from melted roach mouthparts.

  "Hi. Could you get George Edelman for me?"

  The man nodded. "Sure." He started to go. Then he turned back. "Are you real?"

  "Nah. Just a figment of your imagination."

  "Ah. I'll get George."

  53 JL was human by the time Mr. Edelman poked his head cautiously into the room.

  "Hi," I said cheerfully. I stuck out my hand. "I'm ... I'm helping your lawyer with your court case."

  He was startled. Who wouldn't be? He swept his eyes around the room as though maybe, just maybe, there was something weird about meeting me in a bathroom. He didn't notice the two cockroaches huddled together under the sink.