The Escape

by K. A. Applegate

  "Could be implants," I suggested. "You know, electrodes or something."

  71 Everyone just kind of shrugged at that. Who knew? All we knew was that we'd almost been slaughtered by a bunch of very unusual sharks.

  «They were guarding that facility, that's clear,» Tobias said.

  "All the more reason for us to go in," I said.

  Jake kind of raised his eyebrow at me. Rachel nodded agreement. I knew what Jake was thinking. He was thinking I had my own reasons. Reasons only he and I knew about.

  I shook my head slightly, telling him no. No, I was not going to tell the others. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  He shrugged and let it go. But I could see he wasn't happy about it.

  "I agree we have to go back there," Jake said. "These Leerans Erek talked about. We cannot have some psychic Controllers running around."

  "You think that frog-looking thing on the sub was a Leeran?" Cassie asked Ax.

  «Yes. Probably.» He sounded uncomfortable. «l haven't exactly memorized the Encyclopedia of Galactic Life-forms.»

  "Where do you get that encyclopedia?" I asked. "Do they have it at the local library?"

  «The question is, what do we do to get a look inside that complex?» Tobias asked.

  "You aren't going to like the answer," I muttered.

  72 That got a laugh from everyone.

  "We have to think about going hammerhead," Cassie said. "Those guard sharks went after dolphins and Ax's tiger shark. My guess is they go after anything that isn't a hammerhead. And we don't have any hammerheads at The Gardens. However, they do have them at Ocean World. They have a big shark tank. I called over there and found out they do have a big hammerhead. Fourteen feet long."

  "Urn, excuse me," I said, "but has anyone considered the fact that we all have to be in our own bodies when we acquire one of these sharks?"

  I regretted saying it the minute it came out of my mouth. It was like one minute I was all gung ho, and the next minute I was the one wea-seling. And after my performance the day before I couldn't afford to be sounding like a weasel.

  So I said, "But hey, who's worked up by some little old sharks?"

  "You are," Rachel said bluntly.

  I felt like she'd kicked me. I mean, maybe she didn't even mean anything by it. But I found myself totally unable to think of a comeback. My cheeks burned. I turned away and pretended to care deeply about some bugs crawling up the trunk of a tree.

  "We'd have to go at night," Cassie said.

  73 "Tonight, I guess. And, of course, we have school tomorrow."

  "Forget school," I said gruffly. "There's an assembly last period, anyway. We can bail out early and no one will care. Plenty of time to fly out to the island."

  Jake nodded. "Okay. Ocean World tonight. The island tomorrow after school. We'll need some good excuses ready for parents in case we run late. I can't get grounded again."

  And that was it. Until after sundown that night. I'd told my dad I was going to Jake's house to do homework. I said I might be home a little late. My dad had said to call him if I needed a ride.

  We flew to Ocean World and landed in the dark, abandoned park. We demorphed, all of us back to human except Tobias and Ax.

  It's funny, because I felt fine being in the dark, abandoned park in my seagull morph. But as a human I felt totally out of place. I felt like I'd get in trouble.

  Ocean World is a very new facility. Basically, it's several big fish tanks. Big, as in apartment building size. There is a Plexiglas tunnel you walk through on a slow conveyor belt. The tunnel literally goes through the water. The fish are all around you and even above you.

  But we weren't there to be tourists. We

  74 couldn't just look at the hammerheads. We had to touch them.

  "I wish I knew how we were going to do this," Cassie whispered as she led the way to the shark tank. "Sharks are not dolphins. I mean, these sharks are all well-fed, but they aren't exactly pets."

  "Shark-petting. Add that to dolphin rodeo and we have a whole new ESPN show," I said. No one laughed. Jake smirked. But it wasn't a happy kind of smirk.

  Personally, I felt like my insides were morph-ing all on their own. Like my stomach was mor-phing to some burning liquid.

  "I have an idea," Rachel said. "The shark doesn't have to be conscious for us to acquire it, right? So we morph to dolphin. We go into the tank. Six of us against one hammerhead." She shrugged, like we could figure out the rest.

  Cassie was shocked. "Just go beat some poor shark half to death? When it's not attacking us?"

  Rachel held out her hands, being reasonable. "It's a shark, Cassie. A shark. People eat sharks."

  "And vice versa," I added.

  "Beats just jumping in the pool with it," Jake said. "I mean, in human form how would we even catch a shark?" He looked at Ax. "Or in Andalite form."

  75 Cassie started to say something. But instead she just clenched her jaw tightly, the way she does when she disapproves of something.

  "Sharks can all die as far as I'm concerned," I said. I laughed like I'd made a joke. But it wasn't a joke.

  «They are just predators being predators,» Tobias said. «They aren't evil. Just hungry.»

  "So you're on Cassie's side?" I asked him.

  «No. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. That's the predator's law. I know. I am a predator. I say we do what we have to do.»

  Tobias has toughened up a bit since being trapped in hawk morph.

  "Fine," Cassie said tersely. "Let's just get it over with."

  We walked toward the fish tanks. They were three wide ovals. Like swimming pools almost. They were built up to make room for the Plexiglas passageways beneath.

  There was no sound but our footsteps on concrete. And the sound of Ax's hooves. Nothing to see but deep shadows, made all the darker by the occasional pools of dim light. Nothing to feel but fear.

  We were on the pathway to the tanks. Carefully tended bushes lined the walkway. Tobias fluttered along, then dove suddenly.

  «Someone's coming!» he said.

  76 We leaped over the bushes. I landed hard on my elbows and rolled under the camouflage of tiny leaves and stiff branches.

  Ax leaped, too. But the bushes were only about two feet high. And Ax cannot roll.

  A flashlight beam!

  "Freeze! Don't move! What the . . ."

  I heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

  I peered through the bushes and saw a white circle of flashlight beam land squarely on Ax's upper body.

  "What on Earth are you? Hey! Hey, Captain! Hey, over here!"

  «Prince Jake, what should I do?» Ax asked.

  More footsteps. Coming quickly.

  "Captain! Look at this! Jeez, will you look at this?"

  The first guard kept his beam on Ax. But the beam was shaking, wavering. Not surprising. Ax is not what you'd expect to find on a dark night at a tourist destination aquarium.

  The captain aimed a second beam. And I heard a second gun being drawn and cocked.

  "What's that?" the captain asked calmly. "Why, that's an Andalite, son. That is certainly an Andalite."

  77 TT what?"

  "One move, Andalite, and I shoot you. These human weapons may be primitive, but you'd be surprised how effective a lead slug can be."

  "Captain, you gotta tell me what's going on here," the first guard said plaintively.

  Suddenly . . . WHAP! The captain swung his gun and hit the guard in the side of the head. The guard fell unconscious.

  "A tiresome little man," the captain said. "But we'll have one of our people in his brain before he wakes up. Not that it will matter to me. I am off this tiresome detail! For capturing one of the Andalite bandits, I'll be Visser Three's new aide."

  78 «Be careful what you wish for, Yeerk,» Ax sneered. «l've seen the fools who work closely with Visser Three. I've seen their heads go rolling across the ground when the visser gets mad.»

  "What do we do?" I asked Jake in a voiceless whisper. His face wa
s just two inches from mine.

  "Ax needs a distraction."

  It wasn't an order. Or even a suggestion for me to do something. But figured I was better at talking than any of the others. So I stood up on rattling knees.

  "Hi. Is this the way to the souvenir stand?" I said cheerfully.

  And at the same moment, something fell fast from the sky.

  "Tseeeeer!" Tobias screamed. He raked the captain's face with his talons.

  "Aarrgghhh!" the guard yelled as he clutched his torn face.

  I leaped forward and grabbed the gun. Or tried to.

  BOOOM!

  The gun erupted. It seemed to explode in my hand. My hand went numb. I lost my grip.

  BOOOM!

  He picked it up and fired blindly into the dark. Inches from hitting me.

  You know how guns sound on TV? Kind of like

  79 TEWW! TEWW!? Well, in real life, guns don't make cute little popping sounds. They sound like bombs going off.

  Ax was still too far off to use his tail. And the Controller was in a panic now. He was firing wildly.

  BOOOM!BOOOM!BOOOM!

  "Run!" Jake yelled.

  So we ran. But the gunfire had attracted other guards. Controllers or just normal human guards, it almost didn't matter. They all had guns.

  We hauled, racing through the darkness, feeling betrayed by the noise our own feet made on the concrete walkways.

  "This way!" Cassie whispered.

  She led us to a door. She yanked on it but it was locked. And we were trapped. There was no turning back.

  "Ax," Jake said.

  «Yes, Prince Jake.» Ax whipped his tail, faster than the human eye could see.

  CHWANG! A neat slice appeared in the steel door, right at the lock mechanism. Cassie tried it again. It opened, and we piled inside. Into a Plexiglas tunnel surrounded by water.

  "I always wanted to come see this place," I said. "And look - no crowds."

  It was eerie and dark. But not totally dark.

  80 There were red exit lights glowing. And moonlight came filtering down through the water in the tanks.

  In some ways, that made it a hundred times worse. Without any light, we'd just have been in a dark hallway. But with the light, we could see exactly where we were.

  We were in a plastic tunnel beneath millions of gallons of water. Literally, there had to be millions of gallons. Fifty or a hundred swimming pools' worth of water.

  And as we trotted down the tunnel, I could see ghostly pale gray shapes gliding by us on both sides and over our heads. Staring fish eyes appeared out of the gloom. Fish mouths gaped silently at us. And long, sleek, cutting shapes seemed to shadow our movements.

  «Now, this is an interesting human concept,» Ax said approvingly. «This hologram makes it almost appear that we are under the water.»

  "Ax? It's not a hologram," Rachel said.

  «Then ... we are underwater? Protected only by badly made human plastic?»

  "Yeah."

  «Why do you humans do things like this?»

  "Freeze, Andalite!"

  It was a new guard. A Controller, too, obviously. He was standing twenty yards up the tunnel. He was in a firing stance, gun leveled at us.

  81 We turned to run back the way we'd come. But the captain came panting around the corner in hot pursuit.

  "Trapped!" Cassie said.

  "You got 'im, Captain?" the guard called out nervously.

  "Yeah!"

  "There are some kids with him!"

  "Forget the kids. We get kids breaking in here all the time. They're irrelevant. It's the Andalite we want."

  «lf I go with them peacefully, they may let you all go,» Ax said.

  "Forget it," Rachel snapped. "We'll get out of this."

  Brave words. But the guards had us trapped. And two very large guns were aimed straight at Ax.

  "Jake," I whispered. "This is bad. We need something drastic."

  "I'm open to suggestions," he muttered.

  "Okay. I suggest you take a deep breath."

  "Oh, no. Oh, man."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Everyone take a deep breath. Ax-man? Just how badly made is human plastic?"

  It took Ax just a second to figure out what I was talking about.

  In a flash, he swung his tail. He swung it in a

  82 big arc. The blade sank into the Plexiglas. And it kept on cutting. It cut a three-foot gash in the plastic, and that was all it took. The water pressure did the rest.

  Crrrr-ACCCKK!

  FWOOOOOOSSHH!

  The water poured in like Niagara Falls.

  83 "TWOOOOOSH!

  A wave hit me and knocked my legs out from under me. The water picked me up and rocketed me down that Plexiglas tunnel. I went one way, everyone else was blown the other direction.

  I saw the captain just ahead of me. I hit him with my feet, doing about fifty miles an hour. He went down and the water rushed over him.

  "Jake! Rachel!" I yelled. But no one answered.

  Then I couldn't yell anything anymore. The water swept over me, filling the tunnel completely. I fought my way to the top of the tunnel

  84 and tried to suck up a big, squirmy, silver air bubble I saw. I got a mouthful of saltwater instead.

  Morph, you idiot! I told myself. I needed to go dolphin. No! Not dolphin. Dolphin needed to be able to reach the surface to breathe. I needed a fish. Long ago we had morphed trout. Could I still retrieve that morph?

  All this time I was still shooting along, carried by the rushing water. And then I realized I wasn't alone. There were fish with me. Big fish, little fish. All swimming around me.

  Air! I needed air!

  Bump! Something hit me. It brushed by me, spinning me around in the water. A body? One of the others? I spun around in the water. And, seeing me move, the shark came back toward me.

  I yelped in fear and gave up bubbles of precious air from my lungs. I shot my arms out and kicked my legs hard and backpedaled through the water.

  Morph a fish? The shark could eat either one of us!

  I began swimming. I had to get back to the break in the tunnel. The hole Ax had made. If I could get through that, I could reach the surface.

  85 Air! Air! My lungs were on fire! I could feel my throat spazzing as my lungs fought to fill themselves.

  I swam down that tunnel with the shark following lazily behind.

  Is it possible to sweat underwater? I felt like it was. My guts were jelly. My limbs were weak with fear, cramping up from lack of oxygen.

  No time to morph. Only time to flee.

  There! Was that the hole? Yes! It was a hole. A hole in the tunnel. No, wait. This hole was too round. Too perfectly round.

  No time to worry. I kicked hard and started up through the vertical hole. Suddenly my head broke the surface. Air! I sucked it down and spewed it out and sucked it down again, making gasping, sobbing sounds.

  Where was I? I was in a sort of vertical tunnel. It was no more than three feet wide. It extended above me for another five or six feet. And at the top there was a metal grill.

  "The air-conditioning," I gasped. My voice rang flat and hollow. I was in an air-conditioning vent. This was how they ventilated the tunnel. But I couldn't reach the grill overhead. And I was still treading water.

  The shark! I stuck my face back in the water and opened my eyes to look.

  86 I swear I nearly levitated. The shark was rising toward me like some kind of submarine-launched missile. I didn't think, I just reacted. I slammed my feet against one side of the shaft, my hands against the other, and I pressure-walked my way up and out of the water.

  My butt was still in the water when I saw that hideous face poke up to take a look at me. That hideous, hammerhead face, with its dead eyes at the end of each side.

  That got me up another foot. But the plastic was slippery. And I was too weak to keep it up for long.

  "Go kill something else, you monster!" I yelled at the shark.

  The head disappeared b
eneath the water. But I knew in my heart it was still there. Still waiting.

  "Ahhh! Ahhh!" My left hand slipped and almost lost it. There was no way this could last. I'd fall. Sooner, not later.

  Only one thing to do. I had to acquire that shark.

  Animals go limp when you acquire them, I told myself. Except when they don't. Like Tobias's dolphin.

  This was insane! I couldn't hold on. And if I dropped, my only hope was in actually grabbing hold of a hammerhead shark.

  87 The shark poked his snout above the water again. It was now or never.

  "If it turns out you eat me," I told the shark, "make it quick."

  I released my pressure. And I dropped. Directly onto the shark.

  It turns out, as tough as sharks are, they still aren't used to having screaming, flailing, panic-stricken human beings dropped on them from the sky.

  Pah-LOOOSH!

  I hit the shark and knocked him downward through the water. The two of us sank together, back into the main tunnel.

  Before the shark could recover its wits, I shot out my hand and I grabbed him by the dorsal fin, and I thought, Please, please, I'm begging you, be like a normal animal and go limp!

  I focused my mind. And to my infinite, profound, world-embracing relief, the hammerhead became peaceful and sluggish.

  I wrapped my arms around the big monster, happy I'd worn long sleeves, and we floated up through the gash Ax had made. Up toward air and the stars and freedom.

  He was still in an acquisition trance by the time my head broke the surface. We were in one of the tanks. The walls around were higher than

  88 they should have been, since the water had drained out to flood the tunnels. But up around the lip of the tank I saw anxious faces staring down.

  "Hey. What are you guys up to?" I asked.

  "Marco! You're alive!" Cassie said.

  "Yeah. And I brought someone for each of you to meet. Dive on in. It's hammerhead time."

  89

  he next day there was a huge headline in the newspaper. A terrible accident at the Ocean World Aquarium. Two guards were missing. Also several fish.

  The one guard who did remain told a bizarre tale of a half-deer, half-human creature. The aquarium spokesman sort of implied that the guards must have gotten drunk and shot up the place, causing the tunnel to shatter.