The hidden animorphs 42, p.6
The Hidden (Animorphs 42), page 6
Thwok thwok thwok!
But I didn't ask that last question because I Jake picked up the blue box and held it tight knew what they would say.
in his jaws.
And they were right, only . . .
I moved behind a huge clump of bushes,
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where the buffalo couldn't see me. Demorphed With a whimper I bolted into the woods after and remorphed into a wolf.
the others. Bulleted past the lumbering buffalo. I felt my teeth shifting in my gums, sprouting Ignored its plaintive calls.
into long, gleaming fangs. Felt my body stretch Ran and ran and ran until the faint scent of and grow sleek with powerful muscles. Felt the the salty ocean filled my nostrils. Ran until the thick ruff of fur ring my neck and ripple across buffalo's cries had faded to whispers, replaced my body.
by the dull, insistent throbbing of a distant, but Thick pads bulged and hardened on my
approaching helicopter.
hands and feet.
My skull cracked and remolded, expanding into a canine muzzle.
The air stirred as the others raced out of the clearing.
I smelled the buffalo's confusion. Heard the dull clop of its hooves against rock as it hurried after them, snorting and calling, puzzled at being left behind.
And suddenly, I was overcome. Fear. Frustration. Panic. Exhaustion. Why had this happened! To us? To this poor creature?
I didn't know and would never know. And I was tired of not having the answers.
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I started to demorph.
Something was moving in front of me.
"Uhhh!" I backed up.
Gaped at the ground in front of me.
Something was growing. Fast!
Black. Bulging. Three inches. Eight inches. Now it was a foot high.
It was an ant, antennae waving and pincers snapping.
And it was getting bigger.
Two feet high. And counting.
Demorph, I thought frantically, trying to scrabble away from the ant's sharp, snapping pincers. Demorph!
And the ant was still growing, its arms I could hear the others padding swiftly and legs waving, hair sprouting from its bulby through the woods in front of me and the faint head —
crashing of the surf against the shoreline. Hair?
I didn't want to think about the buffalo lost The tips of its top pair of legs swelled and finsomewhere behind me. gers erupted.
SCHWIPP! SCHWIPP!
Thwok thwok thwok!
Its pincers were jerked halfway back into its The helicopter was getting closer.
head, leaving the lethal tips spasming, and in beThe plan had to work. tween them, in some horrible, terrifying morph98
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ing disaster, the ant's face split vertically and lips formed.
Opened wide in a silent scream as gleaming, white teeth erupted from the pink gums. Please, no.
I was gazing at myself.
Somehow, and I don't know how, maybe through my own human survival instinct, I finished demorphing, shooting back up to my full height. Now I was looking the ant-Cassie square in the eye.
It was horrible. Terrible.
It writhed and jerked, body parts melting then hardening from ant to human and back.
Antennae burst from its human ,tskull, were sucked back in, then shot out again.
It looked around, eyes bulging with panic, and opened its mouth in a scream straight out of my worst nightmares.
"AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!" Raw torment. 100
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I staggered back, clapped my hands over my Logically, I knew that. Emotionally, I was ears, tried to shut out the unearthly shrieks. watching myself twist and squirm and double How had this happened? Where had this secover in agony and I couldn't take it. ond abomination come from? How could an ant
"Stop it!" I shouted.
have gained the power to morph!
Bad move.
There was only one way.
It reared up and focused on me.
The blue box. The ant must have touched it. And then its pincers sprouted full-length on Yes, it had, back when we had been resting either side of its human mouth, and it attacked. on the rocks. The ant had been crawling on the I stood, frozen in horror as it flung itself at box and I'd flicked it off. Then it had crawled up me, stumbling awkwardly on two legs.
my leg. It must have acquired me without having Pincers snapping. Grazing my leg.
any idea of what it was doing.
The pain woke me up.
I glanced back at it, watching it scream and
"No!" I screamed, darting sideways. writhe like it was in mortal agony.
The ant moved with me, waving its "arms, Why would it be in pain? Morphing didn't smacking and slapping at me.
hurt. . .
"No! No!" I sobbed. I tried to run, to get away And then the memories I had of being an ant from this hideous mutation of me, from this inresurfaced and I knew why the ant-Cassie was so sanity. But I tripped over a branch and went terrified. For the same reason, except in reverse, down hard on my back.
that I never wanted to morph an ant again. Instantly, the ant sprang. Landed on top of me. They were all part of a collective. Mindless, Reared up, pincers opening and closing. soulless beings without wills or thoughts of their Arms melting back into spindly ant legs, then reown. morphing into human ones. Blocking my frantic When the ant had morphed to human it had punches and kicks. Growing shiny white teeth in become an individual with the freedom to a wide, wet, keening mouth and then shifting choose. With free will. The human brain, with all back into ant mandible.
its diversity and innate curiosity, must be comThe pincers clamped down on my arm. pletely overwhelming it.
Squeezed hard. Harder.
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It was going to snap my arm and the pain was I was watching myself die. Not as a human or unbearable.
an animal, but as a terrifyingly mindless drone.
"NO!!" I screamed.
A nightmare.
That's when I heard the now-familiar bellow. I threw up in the bushes. Sat up and wiped The ant-Cassie jerked upright, dragging me my mouth.
with it.
The buffalo cried out, in triumph.
"Here! Here!" I cried hoarsely, kicking at the But it wasn't really triumph, because instead ant as the buffalo charged into sight.
of dying the ant-Cassie was shrinking. DemorphThwok thwok thwok!
ing into a vile jumble of ant and human parts. The buffalo lifted its head and scented the Growing tinier and tinier.
air. Tossed its horns.
"No," I croaked.
"EEEEEEEE!" the ant-Cassie screamed, dropI staggered over. Stomped the ground. ping me and wheeling to face it.
Stamped and crushed everything and everyCrying, cradling my torn and bloody arm, I where. dragged myself out of the way.
Slammed my bare feet down again and again The ant-Cassie, antennae waving madly and and again until it had to be dead because such a pincers snapping like the jaws of a steel trap, ran hideous abomination could never, ever be alcrazily at the buffalo. lowed to live.
THUNK!
Thwok thwok thwok!
The buffalo twisted its horns and gored it The helicopter was closing in, drawn, unright through the stomach. doubtedly by all the morphing energy.
"EEEEEAAAHHH!" it screamed, arching backI had to go right now or our plan would be ruward, beating on the buffalo's head with its fists ined.
and finally, with a wet, popping sound, pulling itThe buffalo had relaxed a little and was self free.
eating the sparse grass at the edge of the It staggered backward, clutching its bloody woods.
abdomen, pincers snapping weakly and human I stepped beneath a tree. Focused on the osmouth opening and closing. prey DNA.
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Instantly, I was yanked down toward the Its ears came forward and it made a soft, alground, falling at a dizzying rate of speed and most friendly sound.
then stopping short like a runaway elevator slamThe helicopter buzzed into sight. ming into its next floor.
TSEEEEEW!
A lacy, dappled pattern etched across my skin And then the Dracon beam blew up the bufand rose into feathers. falo.
My face stretched out, pursing my lips into a beak and hardening like quick-drying cement. My eyes crawled to either side of it and my vision sharpened.
My bones ground and hollowed out.
Tail feathers sprouted.
The morph was completed.
mapped my powerful wings and hopped up
onto a rock.
The buffalo looked at me, puzzled and uncertain again. I looked back, not knowing what to say or do.
It gave a questioning snort and stepped closer.
THWOKTHWOKTHWOK!
The buffalo's ears twitched.
And then I knew what to say.
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I would never know.
I escaped the helicopter's swirling air currents and headed out over the ocean in the dull, gray half-light of the approaching dawn, fighting to go higher and higher.
Far below me, I could see five identical dolphins swimming out to sea. And now, not so far below me, swooped a Bug fighter followed by the helicopter.
I was fighting to rise, flapping hard against the dead air. If Operation Anvil was going to work and we were going to destroy the Helmacron sensors aboard the ship aboard the helicopter, I had to be high enough to drop the anvil.
I shot out of the trees with dozens of other
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
frightened, fleeing birds, flapping my powerful The Yeerks were firing Dracon beams at the wings and fighting frantically for altitude against dolphins.
the helicopter's fierce downwash.
The dolphins dove, but I couldn't tell if they'd The helicopter circled the clearing where done it in time to avoid getting hit.
smoking pieces of the buffalo lay.
Higher, Cassie, higher, I told myself, strugThey had killed it and yeah, okay, they'd gling.
saved me from having to come back and do it
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
myself.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
But that still didn't stop the feelings. Not at all. The Bug fighter swooped and dipped, closing That buffalo had trusted me and for reasons it in, almost like it could smell blood.
didn't understand, maybe would never have been
able to understand, I'd let it down.
The dolphins disappeared again.
Or maybe somewhere in its developing, learnThey were deliberately drawing all the fire, ing human mind, it had understood.
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distracting the Bug fighter and the helicopter so I Blood meant sharks and they were the last could put the plan into effect.
thing we needed right now.
But was it going to work?
above where the dolphins were last seen. His answer was too faint to hear.
In order for me to drop this anvil, I had to be
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
directly above the helicopter. If it moved, the The dolphins surfaced and dove again.
whole plan would be wrecked.
I followed it until I was once again directly A helicopter could outrun an osprey, no conoverhead. test.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
But I couldn't think about that. If I did, I'd
<. . . losing a lot of blood . . .> think even harder and see all the other things
<. . . Cassie . . .>
that could go wrong. And then I'd think about The thought-speak was faint, fragmented, what would happen once everything did go wrong and broken.
and I'd be lost.
I'd just have to risk it. Risk it all on this one, The dolphins resurfaced farther out.
insane plan modeled after an old cartoon I didn't The helicopter moved again, hovering over even like.
them while the Bug fighter blasted away with the And I'd have to do it fast because still distant Dracon beams.
but speeding closer and closing the gap, came
and straining for altitude.
So there, way up in the vast, cloudless sky Stay where you are!>
over the enormous ocean, above a Bug fighter
intake, I demorphed.
My heart skipped a beat.
Without a net.
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size. My beak shriveled and disappeared. Arms and legs shot out.
Frantically, I focused on the humpback whale DNA coursing through my bloodstream.
Yes, that was our plan. That was it.
I'd morph to a gigantic whale — the anvil —
and drop out of the sky down onto the helicopter, crushing it and sending it crashing down into the sea. It was sort of like an idea we'd used once before— and it had worked then. I was hoping it would work again.
And hopefully, I wouldn't get sliced to ribbons in the process.
Or trap the other Animorphs beneath the wreckTh he demorph should have been smooth. age.
I should have been able to hold on to my But I was falling too fast, I could feel it. Not wings until the last possible minute. But I was even my expanding mass could slow me down. completely burnt out.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The demorph went weird and instead of beI was bloating, bulging up and out. I was as coming an osprey-sized Cassie with wings, I lost big as a minivan but it wasn't big enough. the wings first and began plummeting down The skin on the top of my head crawled and through the air, streaming and rolling head over opened into a blowhole.
heels, desperately trying to finish the demorph. My bones crunched, ground, and-knitted into I was rushing down, the wind sharp and hard, a small but stretching whale skeleton. My arms making me gasp for air.
flattened into flippers.
Concentrate!
The roar of the chopper was numbing my brain. The feathers faded and skin spread across my I could feel the air trembling each time the body. I grew in one overwhelming surge to human slicing blades revolved.
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I wasn't going to make it!
I couldn't believe it.
I wasn't big enough and I wasn't going to be One of the gulls had been sucked into the heby the time I hit the helicopter. licopter's powerful, jet engine intake like a hairI was going to be sliced up like deli lunchball into a vacuum hose. meat and flung far and wide across the ocean to KA-BOOOOM!
feed the sharks.
The helicopter exploded in a raging ball of That's when a movement caught my eye.
fire.
At first I couldn't tell what it was.
The impact hit me like a warp-speed eighteenThen I realized it was just one of a few of the wheeler. Sledgehammered the air from my lungs. gulls frightened by the helicopter's downwash. Stunned me into shocked, deafened numbness. And then the helicopter pilot below me
Then came the scorching heat from the exploglanced up. His eyes bulged and with one swift sion, and the agony.
jerk, he yanked the helicopter out from under I was flung away from the burning wreckage, me.
down toward the ocean.
I was going to miss him! Even at my balloonAnd the last thing I thought in the millisecing rate I was still going to miss him!
ond before it all went black was, After all this, all The mission had failed!
it took was one poor seagull. . .
I'd failed.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The Bug fighter swooped in below the helicopter, blasting the wounded, surfacing dolphins again and again.
It was all over now.
Within seconds the others would be dead. If the Bug fighter didn't get them, then I'd end up crushing them to death. The Yeerks would have the morphing cube and the human race would be finished.
SCHWOCK!
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who were gently supporting me with their snouts and nudging me along toward the shore.
My brain kicked in and it all came back, the buffalo, the ant-Cassie, and the humongous, teeth-rattling explosion. Panicking, I started to thrash and sank like a stone.
"How?" I managed to croak, still hacking up bitter salt water and trying to get control of my normal, human brain long enough to calm the billowing fear. I mean, let's face it, the deean was
thousands of better swimmers than me. Not to
"No," I mumbled, shaking my head and immention being home to sharks. mediately breathing in a noseful of salt water. So, of course, I mentioned this fact.
