The Stranger

by K. A. Applegate

  - his I snapped off the TV set. I felt sick inside. Like I had swallowed broken glass. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to stop thinking. I went upstairs and opened my bedroom win dow. Several minutes later, a large bald eagle flew from my window and soared high into the sky.

  We all hooked up later that afternoon at Cassie's barn. Inside her barn there are rows of cages in all shapes and sizes, mostly full. Birds are in one area, with mammals separated from them by a partition wall. I guess it makes the birds nervous to be in the same room with foxes and raccoons. Nervous birds hurt themselves, banging around the cages. When I showed up at the meeting bare foot and in my morphing outfit, everyone immediately knew I hadn't exactly taken the bus to get there. Jake and Marco were lolling on bales of hay. Tobias was perched on a cross beam a few feet over our heads. I felt a stab of pain, seeing him that way again. Ax did not come to these meetings, usually. He would have had to assume his human morph, and he preferred to remain in Andalite form as much as possible. "Hi, Rachel," Marco said, looking amused, but also a little wary. "What have you been up to? Or maybe I should ask, what have you been!" Cassie was busy changing the bandage on the wing of a sad-looking kestrel. "Hey, Rachel," Cassie said. "Give me a hand here, will you? I didn't see you at school today." I went and held the struggling bird as well as I could. Kestrels are small falcons. This kestrel tried to take a bite out of me, but he was too weak to do any damage. "I felt kind of sick this morning," I told Cassie. "So I stayed home." "But you felt better this afternoon, huh?" Jake said. "So much better that you decided to morph? How did you get here, just out of curios ity?" Cassie was done and took the kestrel from me. I turned to look Jake in the eye. "I flew. Is that okay with you?" He glanced at Cassie. Then at Marco. "That bear you morphed yesterday . . . you went to The Gardens and acquired that all on your own, didn't you?" "No," I said, "I met that bear at the mall." "Okay," Jake said. "And today you ditch school and end up morphing . . . whatever you morphed." less-than An eagleeagreater-than Tobias said. less-than like saw a bald eagle riding the thermals this afternoon. I should have guessed. It was up for too long, acting like a buz zard. A real eagle would have perched after a while. greater-than "It's so nice knowing I have privacy," I said sarcastically. less-than That was about nooneagreater-than Tobias said. less-than lf you came here in eagle morph, that would be more than two hours. You must have demorphed, then morphed again. greater-than Jake looked at me sharply. "You spent the whole afternoon in morph?" "Yes, Mother," I said. Jake jumped up and stood right in front of me, his face just inches from mine. "Don't give me your sarcasm, Rachel. You are acting really weird. That's everyone's business, because if you do something stupid, we could all end up paying the price. You go and acquire a grizzly? Without backup? You could have been killed." "So what?" I shot back. "You heard the El- limist. We're doomed. It's going to be Yeerks one, humans zero. We lose. So who cares about anything? Who cares if I skip school to go flying?" Suddenly Jake just sagged. "I don't know, Rachel. I don't have any answers. I'm sick of try ing to have answers. You decide. I don't want to argue with you. I don't know what your problem is, but you know what? You deal with it." I've never seen Jake look so tired. One minute he was being strong, sensible Jake, leader of the Animorphs. And the next minute he looked exhausted. His eyes were red. He was blinking constantly. He looked like he was worn out just from breathing. "My dad wants me to move out of state with him," I said. Everyone just kind of stared at me. They all had blank, tired eyes, not much different from Jake's. "What are you going to do?" Cassie asked. I threw up my hands. "How can I even think about something that unimportant? I mean, like we don't have bigger things to worry about? The fate of planet Earth and the human race?" "Different things bother different people," Cassie said. "I know how you feel about your dad." "He's a jerk for dumping this on me!" I said loudly. "I mean . . . you know ... I mean. . . ." It was weird. All of a sudden I felt like I was choking. Like I was ready to explode. Like my brain was spinning out of control. "It's like . . . what am I supposed to do?!" I yelled. "After what happened last night. . . after all that, I have to decide who I want to hurt

  - my mom or my dad? And you guys? And

  - his "Come on, Rachel," Marco said kindly. "Take it easy. Come on, you're Xena

  -

  "NO! No, I'm not some stupid TV character. I'm not some comic book, Marco. I'm scared, okay?! Just like all the rest of you. I'm scared of what almost happened to me last night. I'm scared just knowing that place exists down there. I'm scared about what happens to me. I just wanted to run away but I didn't think I could, so I was brave because that's the way I'm supposed to be. But now everyone's going, "Oh, just come live with me and we'll go to ball games," and "Hey, forget moving to another state, we have a whole other planet for you." And the more exits I see, the more scared I get, all right?" For a long time no one said anything. Marco sighed heavily. "I've been thinking. I'm changing my vote. If the Ellimist asks again, I'm going to vote yes." "What?" Jake demanded. "Why?" Marco shrugged. "Rachel's losing it. If she loses it, how long are the rest of us going

  to last?" "Shut up, Marco, I'm not in the mood for your jokes," I said. "Me neither," Marco said flatly. "You know how much sleep I got last night? About an hour. Nightmares. I was a zombie in school today. I feel like . . . like my skin has all been rubbed with sandpaper. I'm jumpy. I'm scared. I'm stressed." "It's gonna happen," Jake said. "This was always insane, right from the start," Marco said. "A handful of kids fighting an alien invasion? Look what's happening. Tobias

  is trapped in a morph. Rachel is starting to use morphing to get away from her problems. The other night I woke up in bed, and I didn't know what I was. I didn't know if I had hands or fins

  or claws or talons. Maybe you and Cassie are

  im mune, Jake. But I doubt it." "We can't give up," Jake argued stubbornly. "All we ever do is lose," Marco said. "We

  an noy the Yeerks. Maybe we blow up a ship, or have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do is barely escape with our lives. We're like some baseball team that never wins a game. And now, according to the Ellimist, we know it's going to be a whole losing season. We aren't going to the play-offs." "I don't care," Jake said. "I'm not giving up." "Jake," Cassie said. "See this?" She held

  up her left arm and pointed to a scar above her wrist. "I got this from a raccoon. The raccoon had been caught in a trap. Its leg was broken. I was trying to free it so I could save it. It bit me." "We're not raccoons," Jake said. "Aren't we? Compared to the Ellimist?" Cassie said. "Isn't it just possible he's right? That what he's trying to do is save at least a part of the human race? That he's just trying to get us out of the trap and fix our broken bones?" "Cassie's right," Marco said. "If the Ellimist wanted to hurt us, he could just destroy us. You know it as well as I do. Fine. I'm going to let him get my leg out of the trap. But I have some conditions first. There are some people going with me. But if the Ellimist can save those people along with me, then I have to say yes." Marco looked at me. Then Jake and Cassie and Tobias all looked at me. The vote was now two against two. I was the deciding vote. It would mean no more battles. It would mean that somewhere, wherever the Ellimist took us, there would be no job in another state, for my dad. There would be no more painful decisions for me to make, I opened my mouth. I started to speak. I PROMISED I WOULD ASK YOU AGAIN. "Uh-oh," Marco said. I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND. X WILL SHOW YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO UNDER STAND. In an insta nt, we were gone from the barn. The five of us and Ax stood side by side in the middle of an empty field of scruffy, unkempt grass. There was a long, low, tumbledown build ing a hundred yards away. The Ellimist was nowhere to be seen. We were the only people around: five humans and one An-dalite. Five real humans. "Tobias!" I said. "Yeah," he said, looking down at his hands. "This routine again." Jake looked angry. Cassie marveled. Marco tried to smirk nonchalantly, but wasn't succeed ing. No one looked tired anymore. Ax skittered nervously on his dainty hooves and stretched his tail, as if pr
eparing to use it. "The Ellimist again," I said. "Did you guys hear

  - his "Yeah, we heard," Jake said. "So we get another chance to change our minds." "Where are we?" Cassie wondered. "I mean, something about this looks familiar. But I can't quite place it." I had the same feeling. Like this empty, dusty, blasted landscape was familiar. It was Tobias who saw it first. "The school," he said. "What?" I said. "No way." But he was right. I looked again and realized that I knew each of those tumbled-down, destroyed buildings. "Okay, I don't like this," Marco said. "I don't even halfway like this. I mean, normally I'm all for seeing the school blown up, but I really don't like this." "When did this happen?" I wondered aloud. "I skip one day and the place burns down?" "I don't think so," Cassie said in a strange, distracted voice. "I don't think this is something that's happened, past tense. I think we're talking future tense."

  A "Or just tense," Marco muttered. I looked over at Cassie, wondering what she was talking about. She was staring intently up at the sky overhead. Then off toward the horizon. "The sky," she said. "Have you ever seen it that color before?" "It does seem slightly yellowish," Jake said. "And the air. Doesn't it smell funny? And look, over there. The trees over behind the gym. They're dying." "The Ellimist said he would show us some thing," I muttered. "So what's he showing us? Ax? You understand any of this?" less-than There is a time distortion. I sense it. But I don't know what it means. greater-than "It's the future," Cassie said. A chill crawled up my spine. I wanted to think Cassie was losing it. But I sensed the truth of what she said. "Okaaaaay," Marco said. "So, what are we supposed to do now? Stand around here until the Ellimist comes back for us?" Jake shrugged. "I guess we look around. The mall's just a quarter mile or so. It should be open." So we walked. Across the scruffy field. Be neath a sky that seemed to add yellow to blue and make patches and wisps of green, unlike any sky I had ever seen. We passed the school and

  I looked morbidly through the blast holes to see if we could recognize anything. "YAAAAHHH!" Marco yelled. He reeled back from one of the dark holes. I ran to look inside. It was a classroom. There was a skeleton lying crumpled across the teacher's desk. "Oh, my God," Cassie whispered. "The body was just left here." "That's Paloma's classroom," I said. "History class." It took a few seconds for the significance of that to sink in. The body had been left there to rot. It must have taken years for it to be reduced to nothing but bones. "Cassie's right. We're in the future," Marco said. "But that's impossible." less-than lmpossible for humanseagreater-than Ax said. less-than But not impossible for Ellimists. greater-than "Oh, I get it," I said angrily. "It's a little les son. The Ellimist is showing us what happens in the future. How cute. How clever. But how do we know this is really the future, and not just some little show he's putting on?" "Let's try the mall," Jake said. "Although I don't have a good feeling about this." We left the school behind us. I tried not to think about who that skeleton might have been. Some teacher? Some student? Some person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? "Maybe we can check the bookstore at the mall," Marco said. "Find a World Almanac for whatever year this is. See who won all the Super Bowls. Then when we go back to our own time, we can bet on the games. Make a fortune." I forced a laugh that came out like a grunt. We needed to keep our spirits up. Marco was try ing. We reached the highway. Eight lanes of con crete, dead silent. Not a car. Not a truck. Empty. On the far side of the highway was a rusted wreck of a car. Bony white hands clutched the steering wheel. We stayed away from it. I saw something that gleamed brightly, off to the east. It seemed to run in a straight line from the far horizon to a point much closer. I squinted to see what it was. "Too bad we don't have your hawk eyes now," I whispered to Tobias. "It's a tube, I think. Like a long, long glass tube. There! Something is moving down it." less-than lt is a conveyance of some kindeagreater-than Ax said. He had turned all four of his eyes toward it. less-than lt seems to be a glass tube that goes on for many miles. Inside it are fast-moving platforms, like your trains. Only faster. They are going perhaps three hundred or more of your miles per hour. greater-than "They're everyone's miles," Marco said. "You're on Earth, Ax. We all have the same miles." less-than What about nations that use kilometers8greater-than Ax asked smugly. less-than See? I am learnings "Some kind of very high-speed train system," Jake said. "That's why no one is on the highway." "The question is, who built the system?" I pointed out. A few minutes later, we reached the mall. But it had changed. It had changed quite a bit. "Oh, man," Marco said. "Look at that! Oh, man." The mall was still standing. Even the sign that said "Sears" could still be seen. But holes, perfectly round and about six feet across, had been drilled into the sides of the four big depart ment stores. There were six or eight holes in the Penney's. The same with Sears. And from the holes emerged Taxxons. They crawled in and out of the holes. They slithered down to the ground and up to the roof. Some were carrying boxes from a squat, bulky spacecraft that sat in the parking lot. They were unloading it like a truck, carrying silvery pack ages in through several of the holes. "It's a hive," Cassie said. "It's like a beehive. Or an ant colony. They've taken it over. The mall is a Taxxon hive."

  "T I he future the way it will be if the Yeerks win," I said. "Taxxons using the mall for a hive. I guess that means I can forget about any good sales today." I wanted to sound tough. Like I wasn't im pressed. But that was a lie. Worms larger than a grown man were crawling through holes in the mall. Skeletons lay across desks in the shattered ruins of our school, and clutched the wheels

  of rusted cars. The air felt strange. The sky was no longer the sky of Earth. The trees were dying. As we circled around the mall, we could see that the tube train made a stop there. The glass tube was raised above the ground about twenty feet, like the monorail at Disneyworld. But there did not seem to be enough supports to hold it up. It was as if it were just hanging there. Outside the mall, a dropshaft rose up to the tube. A Taxxon entered the shaft and swept up to a platform that bulged from the side of the tube. "Let's stay clear of any Taxxons," Tobias said. But Marco shook his head. "Why? Don't you see? The Yeerks have won. So any humans are human-Controllers. The Taxxons would just assume we were human-Controllers." "I guess you're right," Tobias agreed. "Yeah. So we can go anywhere. Besides, I don't think the Ellimist brought us here to see us get killed." I relaxed a little, realizing they were right. But still, there was a deeply disturbing feeling about all of it. less-than like will morph into human formeagreater-than Ax said. less-than The Yeerks may be accustomed to human-Controllers. But they will not have seen any Andalite-Controllers except for Visser Three. greater-than "Are you so sure?" Marco asked. "Maybe in the future the Andalites lose to the Yeerks, too." less-than Nevereagreater-than Ax snapped angrily. He began to slowly melt into human shape. "Let's hop the train," I said. "See where it goes." "Excuse me?" Marco laughed. "Climb aboard the Yeerk version of Amtrak?" I shrugged. "You said it, Marco. They'll think we're Controllers. And in any case, the Ellimist didn't bring us here to get us killed." "It is sad about the mall," Ax said, now mostly human. "They had excellent foods for tasting. Tay-sting. Tasting. The Ellimist showed us much of what was excellent in your species and your planet. But he did not mention the sense of taste. Cinnamon buns. Buns. Bunzuh. And chocolate, too." "Yeah, we have to save any species that can invent the warm cinnamon bun," I said. "Come on, let's try this." It only took a couple minutes to walk to the dropshaft. As we neared it, a Taxxon slithered up alongside us. He was racing to get ahead, like a rushing commuter. But aside from that, he paid us no mind. "You think the Yeerks have a rush hour?" Marco muttered under his breath. "Quiet," Jake snapped. "We're Controllers now, not normal humans." The Taxxon reached the dropshaft ahead of us. He stepped in through the large opening and was immediately swept up onto the platform overhead. We all hesitated to follow him. So I stepped forward. Seconds later I was on the platform, with the others right behind me. We were twenty feet up, and I could see in all directions. I nudged Tobias. A small Yeerk pool had been built on the roof of the mall. Right over
the place where the food court had been. It was a shallow, sludgy pool. Half a dozen Taxxons lounged around it, almost as if they were sunbathing. There were no cages at this Yeerk pool. Taxxons are all voluntary hosts. Ano ther reason not to like them. At least the Hork-Bajir had re sisted the Yeerks. Suddenly, in a rush of wind, a platform came down the glass tube like a bullet. It stopped in front of us and the Taxxon quickly slithered aboard. We followed. It was not a closed car like a train. It was just a clear platform, open at the front end and the back. There were maybe twenty standard seats, half occupied by human-Controllers. Toward the back was an open area where the Taxxon went. At the front were several larger chairs. Much larger, and made of steel with no padding. Those had to be for Hork-Bajir. Space for about four Hork-Bajir, maybe two or three Taxxons, and seats for twenty or more humans. So there were far more humans around than either Taxxons or Hork-Bajir, I concluded.

  We would not look out of place. The train launched like a bullet down the glass tunnel. But there was no lurch. And no rushing wind. We just blew along at a speed that boggled the mind. The trip from the suburban mall to downtown usually took half an hour by bus. We made the trip in about a minute and a half. Jake gave me a look. We were getting off here. We rose and left the train. "Fast," Marcosd. "Beats the bus," I agreed. It was beyond strange, walking the streets of downtown. Entire skyscrapers were simply gone. Others now had wormholes for the Taxxons. I looked up thirty stories and saw Taxxons crawling up the sides of a building that used to be the headquarters for a bank. The tallest building in town was the EGS Tower. It was sixty stories tall. It still stood, almost intact. But for some reason the top two floors had been sheared away, then covered with a glass dome. Pale sunlight sparkled off the dome. It was al most like a beacon. Humans and Hork-Bajir walked the street, side by side. But not in large numbers. In fact, the entire city seemed far emptier than it should have been. We turned a corner and froze. "That's where the City Arena should be," I said. "It's where we saw the circus." "The Arena. That big department store. That building that used to have the tall antennae on top. They're all gone," Marco said. "J. . . gone." In their place was a Yeerk pool. A pool of shocking size. It was a small lake, really. You could have ridden around on it in a motorboat and not looked out of place. It was three times as wide as a football field is long. Maybe four times as wide. And all around it were cages, just like the underground Yeerk pool we knew too well. But there was a difference here. The humans and Hork-Bajir in these cages no longer called for help. They cried, they sobbed, or more often they just stared blankly into space. But they did not call for help. They knew there was no help coming. They knew that hope was dead. We just stared, the six of us. Just stared emp tily. A human-Controller brushed past us, jostling me as she went. "Excuse me," I said in a sarcastic voice. A mistake. I knew it was a mistake as soon as the two little words were out of my mouth. The woman stopped. She came back toward us. "What did you say?" she demanded. "Nothing," I said. But she kept staring at me through narrowed eyes. "What is your name?" I knew that answering "Rachel" was not going to work. She wanted my Yeerk name. I tensed up, ready for a fight. "Her name is not your concern," Tobias said. The woman sneered. "Oh? And why is that? You are spies, that's what you are. Spies!" "Her name is not your concern," Tobias re peated. "His name is your concern." He jerked his thumb at Ax. "Because his name ...