Applegate, K A - Animorphs 20 - The Discovery Read online

  ANIMORPHS

  THE DISCOVERY

  K.A. APPLEGATE

  AN APPLE

  PAPERBACK

  SCHOLASTIC INC. New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney

  i Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  ISBN 0-590-49637-9

  Copyright © 1998 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. APPLE PAPERBACKS and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. ANIMORPHS is a registered trademark of Scholastic Inc.

  12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 189/90123/0Printed in the U.S.A. 40First Scholastic printing, August 1998

  ii For Grassy Creek Elementary School And for Michael and Jake

  1

  My name is Marco.

  Her name is T'Shondra.

  Isn't that a beautiful name? A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. Which is what I told her as I sidled up casually to her locker.

  "T'Shondra," I said.

  "Marco," she said.

  "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl," I said.

  "What is? Marco?"

  "No, T'Shondra."

  "What?"

  "T'Shondra. I was just saying I thought it would be a beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

  "Oh, really!" she said, giving me serious fish-eye. "It would be, huh? For a beautiful girl. But

  2 not for me, huh? Is that what you're saying? You just came all the way over here, acting all cool, to tell me I should give my name to some beautiful girl because I'm too much of a pig to have the name?"

  At this point I could have explained. But I had this bad feeling that the moment was past. You know? Like nothing I could possibly say was going to make this work.

  "How about if we just say this conversation never happened?" I suggested. "How about if I just turn and walk away?"

  "That would be a good idea."

  Now, where was I? Oh yeah, my name is Marco. And I can't tell you my last name or where I live. Why not? Because I'm hoping to live long enough to figure out females, that's why. I mean, is it just me, or are they way too sensitive?

  The other day I'm talking to this girl named Danielle. And she happens to work out a lot, so she is very strong. But in a good way. In a good way, I emphasize. So I say to her, "Whoa, Danielle, you're looking way buff. Look at those shoulders of yours. You could practically be a boy."

  What does she do? Does she say, "Thanks, Marco, for paying me a compliment"? No. She calls over this guy she likes, this guy named Justin Mullins, and says, "Marco just said I look like a boy!"

  3 Well. The end result was me running down the hall yelling, "I meant it in a nice way! Stop chasing me. It was a compliment!"

  But that's beside the point. I've been chased by worse than Justin Mullins. I've been chased by Hork-Bajir warriors. I've been chased by Taxxons. I've been chased by Visser Three himself.

  Here's the thing you need to understand: Life isn't what you think it is. There are things going on that you don't understand.

  Earth is being invaded. By some not-nice creatures called Yeerks. They are a parasitic species, like tapeworms. Only they get into your head, not your stomach.

  They control you. Utterly. Totally. You're the Muppet and they're the hand. We call people like that Controllers. That's what you are when you're nothing but a human puppet under the control of the Yeerk in your head.

  They are everywhere. They can be anyone. You'll never know for sure. Your dad, your mom, your brothers and sisters, the guy who comes to the house and fixes the furnace, the smarmy anchorman on the news, the politician, the teacher, the cute little kid ... There is no way to know. No way to be sure who is, and who is not.

  And who is resisting this alien invasion? Who is protecting Earth from this slow-motion, secret conquest by brain-controlling parasites?

  4 Well, prepare to be depressed. Because the only ones fighting the Yeerks are me, four of my friends, and a half-horse, half-scorpion, half-humanoid Andalite we call Ax.

  Yes, I know that's too many halves.

  The point is, it's me and a handful of my friends trying to save humanity.

  Now you're worried, right?

  Fortunately, we do have certain powers. We have the ability to become any animal whose DNA we can acquire.

  Seriously.

  It wasn't something we were born with. We're not freaks. We're not some circus act. We're not the X-Men. Our morphing powers come from Andalite technology. Long story made short: A doomed Andalite prince named Elfangor used a small, blue box to transform us in such a way that we can absorb DNA through touch, and then, just by focusing our thoughts, become that animal.

  Obviously, this is technology that is just slightly ahead of human technology. The Andalites are very, very advanced. I hear they even have a Web browser that actually works. Not to mention that whole faster-than-light space-travel thing.

  The sad thing is, the thing even I can't joke about, is what happened right after Elfangor gave us this power. That's when Visser Three, the

  5 leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, arrived with Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers and murdered Elfangor.

  Visser Three morphed. . . . Yes, that's right, he has the morphing power, too. There are millions of Hork-Bajir that have been made into Controllers. And millions of Taxxons. And at least thousands of humans.

  But there is only one Andalite-Controller. Just one Yeerk who has an Andalite host body. Just one who has the Andalite morphing power.

  Visser Three.

  It was Visser Three who morphed into some hideous beast whose DNA he'd acquired on some far-distant world. And, literally, ate Elfangor.

  Then they annihilated all traces of Elfangor's ship.

  All traces.

  Or so I'd thought.

  I was walking away from T'Shondra, shaking my head and muttering to myself about females, when I saw it.

  I didn't even see the kid holding it at first. I just saw the box.

  The blue box.

  The morphing cube.

  6

  ?Yo!?I said to the boy with the blue box.

  I don't know why I said "Yo!" I am not a "Yo!" kind of person. It was all I could think to say. I was too busy having a heart attack to think of anything else.

  See, that blue box was supposed to have been destroyed.

  That blue box represented more power than half the weapons in the world combined. That little blue box could give anyone morphing power.

  The Yeerks would do anything to get it. And when I say "anything" I mean some things you don't even want to think about.

  So I said "Yo!"

  7 And the kid stopped walking. He looked at me like maybe he should know me but couldn't quite remember me.

  He was a little taller than me. Most people are. He had blond hair and brown eyes and a look on his face like maybe he had an attitude.

  "What?" he asked me.

  "Dm ... I don't know you, do I?" I said.

  "I'm new," he said.

  "Ah," I remarked. Normally words come easily to me. But I was in brain-lock.
I kept scanning around the crowded hallway, looking for Jake. Or Cassie. Someone with some sense. Not Rachel. Rachel's idea of dealing with this kid would probably involve dragging him into the nearest closet, morphing into her grizzly bear morph, and getting that blue box the quick and direct way.

  But I didn't see Jake. Or Cassie. Or even Rachel.

  "So. My name is Marco."

  "I'm David."

  "David! Okay. Good name."

  David gave me a look like maybe I was an idiot. And to be honest with you, I wasn't doing much to change his opinion.

  "Later," he said and started to walk away.

  "Hey, David!" I yelled after him. "What's that blue thing?"

  8 He turned back toward me. "I don't know. I found it. It was in that construction site over across from the mall. In a hole in a wall. Inside the cement block. Like it had been put in there or something."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. It's weird. I mean, it feels like it must be something, you know? Like it's not just a plain old box. It has some writing on it. Like it might be foreign, or something."

  BRRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!

  The gentle sound of the bell made me leap approximately a foot in the air.

  "Hey! Can I have it? I mean, it looks cool and all. I could pay you ..." I began turning my pockets out. Lint balls ... a very old peppermint Life Saver. . .

  "I could pay you a dollar and thirty-two cents," I offered lamely, holding out the bill, the coins, and the Life Saver.

  "Marco, huh?" the kid said.

  "Yeah. I'm Marco. Nice to meet you."

  "Even nicer to say good-bye," he said.

  He walked away. And then, too late, I spotted Jake. I went right up to him, grabbed him by the jacket, and yanked him into the boys' bathroom.

  "Some kid has the blue box!" I hissed.

  "What blue box?" he demanded, shoving me back.

  9 "The blue box." I crouched to look under the stall doors and make sure we were alone. "Elfangor's blue box."

  Jake's face went pale. "Oh -"

  BRRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!

  10

  We were in the barn. Cassie's barn. Also known as the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Cassie's parents are both veterinarians. And she's very into animals, too.

  In fact, while the rest of us were busy panicking, she was calmly shoving pills down the throat of an enormous swan.

  "How did that blue box manage to survive?" Rachel demanded. "The Yeerks Draconed Elfangor's fighter till it was dust. We were there. We watched it happen."

  We all turned to look at Ax. Sometimes Ax doesn't atten d meetings. But we needed him here for this one. He was in his own, fabulously strange Andalite body: blue and tan fur, weak

  11 arms, too many fingers, four hooves, nasty bull-whip tail, no mouth, and two extra eyeballs mounted on stalks that look this way and that.

  Ax is our expert on all alien weirdness. What with being a weird alien himself.

  "What do you think happened, Ax?" Jake asked him.

  «l do not know,» Ax said, using Andalite thought-speak.

  "What do you mean, you don't know?" Rachel said. "Is there something special about those blue boxes, like they can't be destroyed by Dracon beams?"

  «No. It could be destroyed by a Dracon beam. All I can suggest is that maybe it was a simple incident of random chance.»

  "Is that Andaliteese for a freak accident?" I asked.

  «Yes. The Dracon beam striking my brother's fighter would have created explosive pressures. Perhaps this pressure simply hurled the Escafil Device away at high speed.»

  «The what?» Tobias asked.

  Tobias was in his usual place: up in the rafters where he can see out through the hayloft. Tobias is one of us, but not exactly one of us. He's what the Andalites call a nothlit. That's a person who's been trapped in a morph because they stayed in it for more than two hours.

  12 Long story.

  Anyway, Tobias is a red-tailed hawk. And during these little get-togethers he uses his laser-focus hawk eyes and excellent hawk hearing to make sure no one sneaks up on us without our knowing it.

  «It is called an Escafil Device. Actually, it has a number of names. Escafil was the inventor of morphing technology. You know, the science behind it is quite incredible. The device causes a cascading cellular regeneration tied to a Z-space -»

  "We so do not care!" I said. "It can cascade all over its Z-space for all I care. The point is, this thing, this box, this device, this morphing cube, currently belongs to some kid named David who thinks I'm an idiot!"

  Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "Well, if he thinks Marco's an idiot he can't be all bad." She batted her eyelashes at me to show she was kidding.

  I love it when she does that.

  "We need to get this box," I said.

  "Yep," Jake agreed. "We do."

  "Before he figures out what it is," Cassie said, speaking up for the first time. "And more important, before the Yeerks discover he has it."

  I took a good, long look at Cassie. See, there was this little episode with Cassie. She quit the

  13 Animorphs because I guess she had problems with some of the stuff we have to do.

  She came back, of course. But since then I'd felt a little shaky around her. Cassie has way too many morals and ethics. She's always wondering whether something is right or wrong. Me, I just wonder "will it work? or not."

  I was thinking of something snide to say to Cassie, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. Cassie has saved my life more than once. You cut a person a lot of slack when they've saved your life.

  "Okay, so we need information," Jake said. "We need to know where this kid lives, most of all. Then we go in and get the blue box."

  «And we have to be careful not to let the kid even suspect what's going on,» Tobias said.

  "And obviously we have to be careful not to hurt David," Jake said. "He's an innocent bystander."

  "No problem-o," Rachel said. "He's not a Hork-Bajir, he's not a Taxxon, and he's not Visser Three. Us versus some kid from school? Puh-leeze. It's a walk in the park."

  Normally, I have a superstition about ever saying something is going to be easy. But this time, even I didn't worry.

  Now I have a new superstition: Anytime I'm not worried, I worry.

  14

  We waited in the outdoor seating area of a Burger King down the street. Just four of us. Ax would have been slightly obvious, and there was no way to trust him in human morph anywhere near grease and salt. Tobias was off scouting out David's house.

  It was night, but there was plenty of light: cars driving by, a weird glow from the used car lot across the street, and the big Burger King sign itself.

  It was chilly, so we were dressed warmly. Kind of a problem, since, if we were going to morph, we'd lose our clothes. So we'd worked out a plan. Two of us would stay behind, one boy, one girl.

  15 We'd shed the outer clothes in the rest rooms, then the two who were staying back would hold onto them.

  It is so annoying not being able to morph outer clothing.

  "Short french fry stays here," I said. I broke two french fries in half. I put one short fry and one long in my fist. "All right, Jake. Grab a fry."

  He pulled out a short one.

  "Looks like I'm going and you are pulling bathroom duty," I said cheerfully.

  Cassie and Rachel drew, too. Rachel won. Or lost, depending on your point of view.

  "You and me, Xena," I said.

  Rachel arched one eyebrow at me. "You know, if I'm Xena, what's that make you?"

  "Hercules, obviously."

  "I was thinking more Joxer. Isn't that the annoying weenie who hangs around Xena?"

  "Okay, that does it." I stuck my elbow up on the table, arm upright in the arm-wrestling position. "Let's go. Come on, let's settle this once and for all."

  Jake yawned. "Shouldn't we have a pair of live scorpions to make it interesting?"

  Rachel grinned and stuck her arm up alongside mine. Our hands clasped. I pu
shed. She pushed. And then . . .

  16 "Ow!" A sudden, sharp pain in my knee.

  An instant later my hand slammed down on the table.

  "You kicked me! She kicked me under the table! Jake, your cousin kicked me!"

  Rachel laughed. "Who cares how you win as long as you win?"

  Cassie rolled her eyes. "You don't really believe that, Rachel. No, wait a minute, you probably do."

  "Good grief, the two of you off alone on this mission?" Jake muttered. "Instead of Dumb and Dumber it's Crazy and Crazier."

  Rachel and I looked at each other and both burst out laughing.

  "Crazy and Crazier" Rachel repeated, deliberately laughing crazily.

  "Yeah, but which of us is which?"

  I looked up and saw a kid walking toward us. He was carrying a burger bag.

  I got serious in a hurry. "Erek," I said to Jake.

  Erek King is this kid who used to go to our school. At least, that's what he looks like, acts like, and sounds like. But every part of Erek you see is a holographic projection. The real Erek is inside the hologram. The real Erek is an android.

  Erek is one of the Chee, a very, very old race of androids created by the long-dead Pemalites. The Chee are unable to commit any violent act,

  17 despite being frighteningly powerful. But they hate the Yeerks and love humans. Or, actually, they love dogs, and they love humans because we love dogs, too.

  Another long story.

  Bottom line is that the Chee are allies of ours who are amazingly good at infiltrating the Yeerks.

  "Hey, Erek," Jake said calmly.

  Rachel nodded. Cassie smiled.

  "Hi, guys, what's up?" Erek said, sounding exactly like any normal kid, rather than a robot so old he helped build the pyramids.

  "Not much," I said, cutting off Cassie before she could explain what we were up to. We trust the Chee, but there's no point giving out any more information than is necessary.

  I'm suspicious by nature.

  "What's up with you, Erek?" Jake asked.

  Erek took out a Whopper and unwrapped it. He took a big bite and chewed it. I knew that in reality the food would simply be incinerated inside Erek's android body.

  "No cheese?" I asked him.

  He shook his head and grinned. "I try and keep my fat intake down."

  "Yeah. Right. You want to live to the ripe old age of, what, a billion years?"