The Hidden

by K. A. Applegate

  And when that happened, we were all going to sleep for a week.

  Thwok thwok thwok!

  Jake called.

  Marco couldn’t respond because he had demorphed.

  Tobias said.

  Jake said.

  The blue box soared out of the bushes, up, up, up, arcing high over the center of the road.

  Thwok! Thwok! Thwok!

  The treetops began to sway in the downwash.

  Jake yelled.

  A spotlight split the darkness, only feet from the soaring blue box.

  I held my breath.

  THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!

  The helicopter hovered above the trees, kicking up whirling dirt devils and whipping the bushes into a frenzy.

  The human-Controllers piled out of the cars, heads bent and eyes scrunched against the battering downwash.

  I watched as the cube picked up speed and hurtled toward the ground. And then I bunched up my muscles, took a flying leap, and snatched it in my powerful jaws right before it crashed.

  Tobias said.

  I mumbled, my tongue numb from the impact.

  Jake said.

  And then, everything fell apart.

  The buffalo, nostrils twitching and head held high, stepped onto the road.

  Marco said dryly.

  The buffalo gazed at the knot of human-Controllers gazing at it.

  One of the cops made a quick motion and four or five Hork-Bajir stepped out of the woods and around the patrol cars.

  The buffalo snorted and tossed its head.

  I now knew what that motion meant. I had experienced it firsthand. Aggression. It was going to fight them. Defend the herd it’d been following all night.

  Ax said, his voice firm.

  Rachel said. Grudging admiration tinged her voice.

  Marco said.

  No winning this one. If the buffalo was killed in battle, we’d be safe. And our hands — my hands — wouldn’t be stained with blood containing human DNA.

  But I knew Marco was right. The Controller who caught a live “Andalite bandit” would probably be well rewarded. The Controller who killed it would be, well, probably dead himself.

  We were going to have to destroy the buffalo. If we were closer to home, we might have been able to do it humanely, to euthanize it using my father’s vet supplies. But I wasn’t home. And now I didn’t know when the chance would come, or what morph we would use to destroy such a powerful animal, but my stomach turned at the thought of pitting buffalo against buffalo.

  Ax said quietly.

  Jake said wearily.

  The helicopter was coming straight toward us.

  The fighting stopped.

  I yelled. I shot beneath the skids and head-butted Jake with everything I had. Which was just enough to make him stumble out from beneath the rapidly descending helicopter.

  he grunted.

  Rachel said bitterly.

  I looked at the buffalo. Its flanks were heaving. It stood, head high, and stared at the figure emerging from the helicopter.

  Ax announced coldly, in public thought-speak, as the leader of the Yeerk invasion leaped nimbly from the helicopter.

  Visser Three said almost graciously, glancing at us and chortling to himself. His gaze lingered on the buffalo standing nearby. He stepped up to the buffalo and jabbed a slender finger down into one of its gaping wounds.

  The buffalo snorted and swung its head, its horn narrowly missing Visser Three. The visser moved away slowly, his main eyes half-mast. Almost as if he were drugged.

  Marco muttered.

  Visser Three roared. He’d obviously snapped out of his funk.

  The Hork-Bajir cringed. So did the human-Controllers left standing. So did we.

  I didn’t look around. I stood with my head down, hiding the cube that was still tucked into my mouth.

  Visser Three said, in a suddenly low, silky voice. He turned away from the buffalo and glared at each of us. he said.

  Ax said urgently.

  Marco crowed.

  While the real Visser Three was raging at the Hork-Bajir for not finding the cube, the buffalo was turning blue, growing eye stalks, and thin, almost graceful arms. Turning into an exact replica of the visser’s stolen Andalite body.

  Including a curved and lethal Andalite tail.

  Jake said tensely.

  I asked. I watched as it experimentally flicked its tail, severing the arm of a Hork-Bajir in the process.

  Jake said, as the Hork-Bajir cried out in pain.

  Visser Three turned toward the sound.

  Jake shouted.

  “Grrr GrrrOWWWRR!” I plowed through the terrified human-Controllers.

  TSEEW! TSEEW!

  Visser Three commanded, pointing imperiously at the buffalo in Andalite morph.

  The buffalo pointed back, mimicking.

  The Hork-Bajir-Controllers hesitated, torn between the two.

  Visser Three’s Andalite tail came up.

  The buffa-Andalite’s did, too.

  FWAPP! Visser Three’s tail lopped off one of the buffalo’s Andalite arms.

  The buffalo bellowed in open thought-speak and charged. Slapped and whipped its tail with little skill but with major fury. Drove Visser Three back.

  The Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers milled in helpless confusion, not daring to attack the wrong visser.

  Jake yelled, charging into a knot of Hork-Bajir and plowing open a huge hole. He ran into the woods with us behind him, trampling anything that got in our way.

  I wished I could call the buffalo after me. It had actually helped us fight and I didn’t want to leave it behind to be killed. Or worse.

  FWAPP! Visser Three’s tail lashed out again.

  One of the buffalo’s eye stalks fell to the ground.

  The buffalo’s tail jerked forward, more of a pain reaction than anything, and the dull side of his tailblade whacked Visser Three on the side of his head.

  He dropped like a stone.

  The Hork-Bajir stood silent, uncertain.

  The buffalo in the Andalite’s body galloped through the Hork-Bajir and into the woods.

  Following us.

  The beach was getting closer but we were wounded and tired.

  I could hear the Hork-Bajir behind us, not right on our tails but gaining fast.

  guys.> Tobias had already demorphed and taken to the sky.

  Jake sighed.

  I shivered. So many things could go wrong.

  Jake continued. He looked straight at me.

  Rachel — of course.

  I said slowly.

  And probably be killed. I felt like the worst of all traitors.

  Jake said. He nodded.

 

  He took the cube in his mouth.

  I hope so, I thought. But I didn’t say it, not even in private thought-speak. Instead, I watched as they took off through the thinning forest.

  The buffa-Andalite shifted.

  I turned back to face it. It was wounded and bloody, its lone eye stalk drooping. Somehow, I had to get him to demorph back into his true buffalo self, where he was at his most lethal.

  Where I could use him most effectively.

  And I had to use my own buffalo morph so we could fight side by side with full power.

  I focused on my human DNA. Demorphed as rapidly as I could, trying not to give the buffalo time to mimic me. I went from tired, wounded wolf to puny, human girl and then bulked right back up again, growing a fresh, thick hide and sharp, curving horns.

  The buffalo began to darken and swell, mimicking my shape, demorphing back into his true form. It eyed me warily for a moment, then the tension eased. It had followed me as a Cape buffalo before and by doing so, had already established our hierarchy.

  A twig snapped.

  We both lifted our heads, noses twitching. Caught the scent of approaching danger. And knew to protect the herd.

  I snorted.

  It snorted.

  We tossed our horns and I lumbered into the tall bushes, the buffalo following.

  We would wait. And then we would ambush the Hork-Bajir. That’s when I noticed the drop-off on the edge of the ravine. Not too far down but definitely far enough down to hurt.

  They started to come at us quietly, cautiously, and within minutes.

  We waited until they were almost equal with us and then …

  I bulldozed out of the bushes, knocking down trees, goring and slashing as I allowed the buffalo’s defense instincts to kick in and send me into a wild, raging fury.

  And still more Hork-Bajir fought their way through the narrow ravine.

  Visser Three thundered at his troops.

  My blood ran cold.

  He was morphing. His stolen Andalite body bulging and melting, turning black and gooey. Oozing forward and tainting everything he touched. Making the nearby Hork-Bajir’s skin sizzle and bubble like it was being dissolved with acid. Short, thick, dripping tentacles shot out of his body, and a huge, wet, red mouth with buzz-saw teeth chomped and smacked, drooling the same smoking, sizzling acid.

  Time to go, I thought, as Visser Three pointed a tentacle at me.

  A stream of acid flew through the air. It splattered the Hork-Bajir in front of me and sent it howling and writhing to the ground.

  The holes in its skin bubbled and stank.

  I wheeled.

  Powered up my short, muscular legs.

  And with a loud, snorting call to the buffalo, barreled to the edge of the drop-off and jumped.

  Terror. Sheer panic.

  Falling was nothing like flying.

  No control at all.

  My buffalo instincts went insane.

  I bellowed, legs scrabbling for something, anything, to hold on to. My heart slammed into my chest and panic froze my blood.

  I crashed down through a thick, brittle layer of scrub bushes, falling …

  The rocks shot up at me, hard and cruel and —

  WHUMPF! CRRUNNCH!

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Pain was everywhere, pounding and tearing at me.

  WHUMPF! CRRAAACCCKKK!

  The ground shook when the buffalo landed beside me.

  I opened my eyes, dazed. And through a hazy mist of agony saw the buffalo raise its head and look at me. It bawled piteously and struggled to rise.

  It couldn’t. It had snapped a couple of legs; the bones jutted out through the torn, ragged skin. Blood pumped and stained the ground.

  It was in agony, but it wasn’t dying. Yet.

  I was bleeding, too, from the branch that had speared into my stomach on the way down.

  Infection’s going to set in, I thought dimly. Someone had better cleanse this wound really thoroughly or —

  No. No one was going to cleanse my wounds.

  No one was going to save me.

  The world got smaller, then expanded. I blinked, fighting the wooziness.

  My blood was pumping out of my chest with every beat of my thundering heart. I would probably die before the buffalo did. If it did.

  The buffalo bawled again. Its unbroken legs churned the dirt.

  There was only one way to save us.

  I said to the buffalo.

  Its head jerked and he focused its eyes upon me.

  I began to demorph, slowly at first, then gaining speed.

  My shattered bones ground and reformed.

  “Come on,” I urged, as the buffalo groaned and began to shift shape.

  I crouched beneath the bushes beside it. Sickened by the transformation, yet unwilling to leave him there to die like this, or live on as a crippled bloody mess. Or be captured by the Yeerks.

  A human head. Nose stretching, slimming. Eyes crawling from the sides to the front of the face. Teeth shrinking, ears popping out.

  The buffa-human opened its eyes and looked at me.

  “Come on,” I said, when the morph was complete. I stood up.

  The buffa-human — Chapman — got to his knees. Shakily, he rose onto two feet and swayed. Took a wobbly step toward me. Snorted.

  I snorted back. “Come on.”

  We traveled slowly, keeping close to the drop-off base where the Hork-Bajir couldn’t see us. We were safe for the moment. They weren’t coming down the same way we did.

  Visser Three knew it, too, and his enraged shouts echoed through the canyon.

  The buffa-human stiffened at the sound. Tossed its head.

  “Don’t listen,” I said, motioning it on after me. “Come on, we have to find the others.”

  But even as I said it, I was filled with a sick mixture of hope and dread. What was going to happen to this sad, messed-up creature when we did meet up with the rest of the “herd”?

  We couldn’t let it live and yet everything inside me rebelled at the thought of killing it. I could have let it die back there — Marco and Rachel would probably say I should have and Jake had expected me to — but I just couldn’t. And I was at least partially responsible for its awful situation. To have walked away and left it when I knew a way to help it … Well, I just couldn’t.

  If it had to die, it had to die fast, without excess pain. Not lingering. Not inhumanely.

  “Guuuuhhh,” it said, stumbling along behind me on its tender, human feet. “Goowwww.”

  “You have to walk carefully,” I said, pointing down at the smooth patch of rock I was standing on. “See?” I stepped on another smooth surface, avoiding a tangle of sticker bushes. “Like this.”

  The buffa-human frowned but stepped where I’d stepped. Its face cleared. “Guuhh.”

  “Yes, that’s good,” I said, my heart sinking right down to the bottom of my stomach. What was I doing? I shouldn’t be talking to it — but I always talked to the wounded animals in my father’s Wildlife Rehab, especially when I was changing their bandages or cleaning their cages. Calm
words seemed to soothe them —

  But this was different and I knew it.

  “There she is! Cassie!”

  The shout was faint.

  I looked up and saw Jake waving.

  My spirits shot up and suddenly, buffa-human or no buffa-human, I was glad to be reunited with my friends.

  No matter what happened in the end.

  “How could it have survived that fall?” Marco asked, glancing pointedly at the buffa-human and giving me a hard look.

  “It was pretty bad,” I admitted, avoiding his cool gaze. “It saw me demorph, though, and mimicked me. I guess that saved it.” Sure. I guessed. How about I knew?

  “I just can’t get right with this,” Rachel said. “I mean, it’s bad enough that we have this mutant thing following us around, but did it have to go and acquire someone we know? I know I’ll never be able to look at Chapman again without freaking out. It’s too weird.”

  The buffa-human had hunkered down at the edge of our circle. Its eyes were disturbingly blank, absent of human recognition and intelligence. It was watching us, though, and warily sniffing the air. It was listening, too, gauging the tones of our communication and on the alert for any type of alarm call. A buffalo in human skin.

  It was unnerving.

  “It’s gross,” Marco said, looking away.

  Ax looked at me with his main eyes while the ones on stalks surveyed the area.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, weakly smiling at me as I sat down on the rocks next to him, keeping the blue box between us. “Glad you made it.”

  “Me, too,” I said, smiling back, faintly. “That drop-off was pretty bad.”

  “Guhhhhd,” the buffa-human said, tensing when all heads swiveled in its direction. “Guhhhd?”

  “No, not good, bad,” Marco said, scowling.

  The buffa-human frowned and pressed its lips together. “Baaaaadd?”

  “I’m teaching my assistant principal to talk,” Marco said. “Is this whacked or what?”

  Tobias said.