The Escape

by Katherin Applegate

  One of the Hork-Bajir leaped at me, arms and legs all flashing with deadly blades. I tried to dodge, but gorillas are not exactly fast.

  I was cut! My left arm was slashed deeply. Blood was flowing out onto my dark, coarse fur.

  “That’s it! Kill it!” Visser One crowed gleefully.

  The Hork-Bajir cut me again, less deeply but more painfully, with a blow that sliced through my rubbery gorilla muzzle. His buddies decided it was safe to come after me now, too.

  They were wrong. I was a gorilla. People might look at a gorilla and think, Well, it’s only twice as heavy as a big man, and not even as tall. So how strong could it be?

  How strong? You could hit a gorilla in the head with a sledgehammer and he’d just grab it and make you eat it. Arnold Schwarzenegger using his entire body could not have bent back my wrist if I didn’t want him to. In the wild, gorillas are gentle, sweet animals. But I wasn’t just a gorilla. I was Marco with the power of a gorilla. And the Marco part of me was not feeling gentle or sweet.

  I grabbed the big Hork-Bajir by his snake neck. Grabbed him with one hand and closed my fingers tight. He slashed at me wildly. He cut my arm again and again. But I held on. And with my other arm I grabbed another Hork-Bajir by the wrist. Then I simply introduced them to each other. The hard way.

  They decided that was enough. They left. And Visser One stood alone.

  Just me and Visser One. Just me and my mother.

  “So, Andalite,” she said calmly. “I see you are enjoying the use of all these wonderful Earth morphs. But you must know you cannot escape from this place. However, if you surrender peacefully, I can let you live.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The Yeerks think we’re all Andalites. That’s what we want them to go on thinking. We’ve always worried that if we started talking to them we might let something slip that would tell them we’re human.

  If they ever find out what we really are, we’re done for.

  But there was a second reason I couldn’t talk to Visser One. See, I knew if I started talking to my mom, I would never be able to stop myself. I’d spill it all out. I’d tell her everything because it’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to her. I’ve thought about it many times. Many, many times. All the things I’d like to tell her. About my life. My friends. What I did in school. How I made some teacher laugh.

  Visser One’s so-familiar eyes flickered. “If you kill me, you’ll die as well, Andalite.”

  And then I heard a rasping, rumbling, almost belching voice. It said, “Ha tu ma el ga su fa to li.” An alien voice speaking an alien language. But I understood it. I felt it in my mind. It was like thought-speak, only this was deeper, more profound. This voice seemed to use my own words in my own brain.

  What it said was, Don’t be fooled, Visser One, this is no Andalite.

  I spun around. And there, standing just behind me, was a Leeran-Controller, its tentacles waving. I could squash the big amphibian without breaking a sweat. But I just froze. I froze and looked back at my mother.

  It is not Andalite, the Leeran said again. It is a human.

  Visser One’s face remained impassive. “No, you idiot,” she sneered. “It’s a gorilla. They are related to humans, but not human. This is an Andalite in morph.”

  I beg your pardon for disagreeing, Visser, but —

  Two things happened then, within seconds of each other.

  I broke out of my trance, whipped around and punched the Leeran right in his froggy mouth.

  And from the nearby dock a huge yellow serpent reared up suddenly.

  “Visser Three, I assume,” my mother said contemptuously.

 

  “I’d have more troops, but for your interference!” Visser One raged. “And if you weren’t incompetent and a traitor to the empire you’d have cleaned these vermin up before now!”

  The massive snake head grinned an evil grin as it towered above us.

  “What the Council will hear is how you’ve allowed a handful of morphing Andalites to go unpunished!”

 

  “Like you’ve already lost Earth, despite the fact I handed it over to you in perfect shape?”

  It was bizarre. You have to understand that there was a huge, roaring battle going on between my friends and the Hork-Bajir. And I was standing there, having just punched out a Leeran. But all the two vissers seemed to care about was trashing each other.

  Politics. I guess it’s the same everywhere.

  And then a third thing happened. A massively loud alarm that went off. An automated voice bellowed from speakers up in the rafters.

  “Brr-REEET! Brr-REEET! Warning. Warning. Containment seals will shut down in three minutes. Extreme hazard. Countdown beginning. Countdown will be in intervals of ten seconds. Thank you and have a nice day!”

  I don’t know which stunned me more. The fact that there was an announcement heralding the fact that a billion gallons of water were going to come rushing in. Or the fact that the computerized voice had wished us a nice day.

  I wanted to laugh. Or at least say something.

  But I just ran.

  “Containment failure in two minutes and fifty seconds. Have a nice day!”

  Visser Three laughed.

  Visser One was red with rage. But she turned and ran toward the office building.

  Visser Three crowed.

  “Containment failure in two minutes and forty seconds. Have a nice day!”

  I was off and running. A bloodied Jake saw me coming. Rachel was just tossing a crumpled Hork-Bajir aside.

  she said.

  I said curtly.

  Jake asked me privately.

 

  Just then, down from the sky, something huge plummeted toward us. Something huge and poison yellow, aiming right for Ax.

 

  Visser Three’s massive jaws opened wide, ready to snap the Andalite up. But Ax dodged nimbly aside.

  Ax said calmly.

  “Containment failure in two minutes and ten seconds. Have a nice day.”

  Visser Three reared back up and aimed once more for Ax. This time the massive head came down faster. Ax jumped left and tried to whip his tail at the creature’s head. But he tripped. One hoof caught on a piece of debris. He lurched. He stumbled.

  Visser Three cried in glee.

  The jaws closed around Ax!

  But then, with Ax literally in his mouth, Visser Three stopped suddenly.

  He stopped because a very large, very angry grizzly had just grabbed his midsection.

  Rachel growled.

  I was shocked that she was speaking to Visser Three. But I guess she had no choice.

  The visser kept his jaws still. He could have chomped Ax in half. But he didn’t.

  Visser Three said.

  Rachel said and tightened her grip till her claws drew yellow-and-green ooze from the punctures in the snake body.

  the visser said.

  I stepped in close, took careful aim at the snake head, drew back my arm, powered the massive bu
nched muscles in my neck and shoulders, put four hundred pounds of weight into it and punched the visser in the nose.

  I said, as my first met the squishy-soft snake snout. The visser’s snake eyes flew open. His jaw flew open. He sort of hovered for a few seconds. Then his head hit the ground.

  He slithered, mostly unconscious, back into the water. A trail of green ooze marked where he’d been.

  Ax himself was covered with the same disgusting green slime.

  he said, calmly.

  “Containment failure in one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day.”

  I yelled.

  Tobias flapped up off the head of a screaming Hork-Bajir.

  “Containment failure suspended at one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day.”

 

  Cassie said, loping over to us, a wolf who’d been through a bad half hour. She was cut in more places than I could count.

  Rachel raged.

  She lowered her humongous, furry bulk to the ground and went barreling away on all fours back toward the building. Ax ran with her, his deadly tail held high.

  Jake said urgently.

  I nodded my thick gorilla head.

  Jake said neutrally.

 

  I just stood there, frozen, as Rachel and Ax reached the door of the building.

 

  Jake said.

 

 

  That’s my friend Jake. That’s his answer to anything, I guess: Do what’s right. And somehow, he always seems to know just what that is. Or at least he thinks he does. Jake’s a natural hero. Heroes always know what’s right.

  Me? I’m a comedian. All I know is what’s funny. And what isn’t.

  I found them in her office. That’s where she had gone to override the computer. She stood, defiant behind her desk, with a handheld Dracon beam.

  TSEEEWWW!

  She fired! The blazing hot beam of light burned a neat semicircle out of Rachel’s right shoulder.

  “Rrrroooowwwwrrrr!” she bellowed in pain.

  Visser One turned the Dracon beam on Ax.

  FWAPPP!

  Ax’s tail blade was too fast for me to see. But I saw the gash on Visser One’s human arm. And I saw the Dracon beam drop.

  Rachel was on her in a flash. Grizzlies can be very fast when they need to be, or when they are mad. And Rachel was mad.

  Her sheer momentum knocked Visser One sprawling across the room. And when she tried to stand up, Rachel was over her.

  It was no contest. Bear against human. Morphed bear against human-Controller. It was hopeless. Visser One might as well have been a rag doll. With one sweeping blow of her daggered paw, Rachel could knock Visser One’s head from her shoulders.

  I yelled.

  Rachel swiveled her head and stared at me with nearsighted bear eyes.

 

  Ax pointed out calmly.

  I said again.

  It seemed like a very long time during which no one moved. Visser One, my mother, had heard nothing, of course. I’d thought-spoken only to Rachel and Ax.

  Rachel said.

 

  Rachel hesitated. Then, almost angrily, but really with very little force for a bear, she tossed my mother’s body aside.

  I said.

  But Ax was not so easily convinced.

  I said. I pointed to the big round window that looked out onto the sea. There, just beyond the glass bubble, was a monstrous yellow serpent. Visser Three.

  I said.

  Ax said instantly.

  Rachel said. The violent frenzy of battle was drained from her now.

  I said harshly.

 

 

  Ax had gone back to the computer.

  The movement was just a blur out of the corner of my eye. I had no time to yell. I just saw Visser One — my mother — grab the Dracon beam she had dropped. She rolled with it, brought it up, and aimed it squarely at Rachel.

  Too far away to grab her!

  Instinct took over. Not gorilla instinct, but human instinct. The lightning-quick, intelligent, and ruthless decision-making that had allowed Homo sapiens to rule over all the other animals.

  I snatched up a chair. It was heavy. Steel and leather.

  And I flung it with all the power in my gorilla arms. I meant to throw it at my mother. I missed. Or maybe I meant to miss. Maybe I’ll never know for sure.

  But the chair flew fast and hard.

  It hit the bubble window.

  CRUNCH!

  The glass wasn’t shattered, only cracked. But the pressure of the water beyond was too great. It began to seep and then to spray through.

  My mother flinched.

  TSEEEEWWW! The Dracon beam missed.

  Rachel reacted swiftly, slapping Visser One with the back of her paw. A nasty blow, but not a fatal one.

  Ax yelled.

  Rachel yelled.

  I cried.

  Rachel cried.

  CRRR-UMPH! The window exploded inward!

  FWOOOOOOSH!

  It was like standing with your face two inches from a fire hose. The power of the water was insane! It was like getting hit by a log.

  I was instantly knocked off my feet, swirling and swirling in the insane, foaming avalanche of water.

  The room was a tornado. Water whipped everything around in a spiral. And then something long and brilliant yellow came shooting into the room.

  Visser Three! The sudden suction had overwhelmed him and drawn him in, like lint being sucked by a vacuum cleaner.

  The office door popped out like a cork. Rachel, Ax, me, and Visser Three’s huge sea serpent morph went flying down the hall. It was like we’d been shot out of a cannon.

  Down the hallway as the walls collapsed outward.

  FWOOOSH!

  Out through the annihilated wall of the building. The water spread out a little then and I could see where I was. I looked for her and saw her floating facedown a hundred yards away.

  I tried to swim to her. But the current was too powerful.

  Rachel yelled.

  But I had already begun. I was halfway to human again. I saw Rachel, mostly still a bear, go spinning by.

  I caught a glimpse of something with pebbly green-and-yellow skin moving easily through the raging tidal wave. Its tentacles seemed perfectly designed for resisting the current.

  The Leeran!

  He was heading for my mother.

  To save her? To destroy her? To capture her so that Visser Three could enjoy watching her suffer?

  I don’t know. Because I was swept into the dock and sank down into the deep water.

  I gasped desperately for air, my human lungs on fire!

  And I searched for the shark inside me.

  The sharks were
waiting for us. The super-hammerheads. They were there, circling the facility. I don’t know how, but somehow they’d been put on alert. Or maybe the destruction of the facility just had them agitated.

  Cassie warned.

  If you have ever wondered what fear looks like, I can draw you a picture: It’s a dozen hammerhead sharks looking at you and grinning their evil, downturned hammerhead grins.

  On they came. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I wanted battle. I wanted pain. And I wanted to inflict pain. I wasn’t the calm, emotionless shark. I was a boy who’d watched his mother die. Again.

  I didn’t wait for the sharks to reach me. I kicked my elegant hammerhead tail and I went for the nearest, biggest shark I could see.

  We closed, like two colliding cars. Face-to-face. Hammer-to-hammer.

  I twisted my hammer head and planed sideways, then twisted instantly back. My foe had tried to react. But he was only a smart shark, while I was a human. I knew how he would react, and I was ready.

  Too late, he saw my mouth open. Too late, he saw the rows of serrated triangles. I bit. I closed my jaws down with enough power to sever a leg.

  I ripped a chunk out of that shark and yelled,

  Jake shouted.

  I twisted till I was upside down, kicked, turned my head, and grabbed the tail of my opponent. I sawed my teeth and removed the upper lobe of the shark’s tail.

 

  Suddenly a shark body slammed into me. It knocked me sideways. My opponent swam away, definitely not interested in fighting anymore.

  I turned toward this new shark.

  Jake said.

  I just stared at him. At the shark he was.

 

  The blood lust faded. I looked around and saw the last of the engineered sharks heading away.

  Huge bubbles were erupting from the underwater facility. Explosions rocked the sea, like echoing hammer blows through the water. The hologram that disguised the facility shimmered and disappeared as we swam away from the absolute horror.

  We saw Visser Three, a distant yellow ribbon, snaking away.