I looked through the open window. There
was a soft, heated breeze wafting in. The scene outside was one of utter
peace, maybe as close as Earth ever gets to the Pemalites. The sun was
shining brilliantly in a robin’s-egg-blue sky. Some kid far away from the
hospital vicinity was walking his dog. The dog was insisting on stopping
to sniff every rock, tree, and blade of grass it came upon. The kid let
it, smiling.
I arched my head up to watch the TV. I had to wonder about these people. How did the hospital staff expect me to be able to see the TV if it was stuck in the highest corner?
The usual crap was on, and I couldn’t change the channel. It was Jerry Springer this time, not Ricki Lake. I swear, I think there’s a hidden Crappy Talk Show channel. That’s what it seemed my TV was set to all the time. The feral crowd was chanting Jerry’s name.
I pushed a button on the side of my bed and turned the TV off. The silence was almost welcome after Jerry’s mindless, moralistic drivel.
But the silence almost always led my mind back to the same train of thought. The same memory.
The car crash.
It was almost laughable. I could have died so many horrible deaths. Could have suffered countless pain-wracking injuries – but it was a simple, human car crash that had kicked me out of Animorphs. A fearful sight I’d be in battle, tagging doggedly along in my little wheelchair. Sure to strike fear into the very heart(s) of Visser Three.
I couldn’t forget – how could I possibly forget? Every detail of that night was embedded in my mind. The flashing, pouring rain, illuminated by bouts of thunder and lightning. Cassie’s slightly disapproving look as I stepped into the taxi. Even the smell of the dump we had walked out of.
But do you know, every time I started thinking about the crash, I forced myself to stop. I knew that road so well. It would just lead me to self-pity, depression, all that sort of stuff. I was depressed enough, the last thing I needed was self-pity to round it all off.
This day, I guess, was worse than most. I could change my train of thought easily enough when it was a horrible day outside, the kind of day I would be indoors anyway. But today was all sun and shine and gentle breezes. A picture-perfect July day.
I tried again to move my legs. Nothing. My mind would command, Move! And my legs would disobey me. They were like big sticks of wood attached to me. Completely useless and unmoving.
I wanted so badly just to move a toe. The smallest feeling in my toe would have been welcome. An itch in my toe would have been a sign the gods had descended upon me. But the nurses had to move my legs for me. In all my time as an Animorph, this was the one injury I had never thought of. A snap of the spinal cord – and I was paralyzed, waist-down.
I sighed slightly and looked through the window again. The kid with the dog was still out there. Now the dog was slobbering all over the kid, who kept grinning like a plaster dummy. What I would give to have been able to be in his place.
My mind started leading me back towards the car crash. I let it. It was no use arguing with myself anymore. The doctors kept telling me there was a lot of hope for me, but I knew it was a bunch of bullshit. If there was hope for me, the surgeries would have worked. And I was simply not accepting a prosthesis. If I was going to walk, it would be on my own two legs, not with some fake concoction of metal and plastic. As I kept reminding them, if there was so much hope for me, I wouldn’t need a prosthesis. The doctors would look troubled at this, but they would leave me be.
------
"Well, you’re dismissed," Jake said.
"Excuse me, fearless leader? We are ‘dismissed’? Since when do you sound like old lady Chambers? ‘Dismissed’?" I repeated incredulously.
"Get over it," Jake said with a smile. "In other words, we can all go home now."
< I am wet, > Tobias whined. < Not just wet. Soaked. Who invented rain, anyway? >
"Thomas Edison. Didn’t he invent everything else?" I said. "Or so my history teacher would have me believe."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "True, Mr. Perez does tend to be obsessive with Edison."
"Obsessive with Edison," I mused. "Could be a TV show. Sounds kind of cool."
"Um, you guys?" Cassie interrupted. "We should go, now. I mean, we totally destroyed…whatever super-important stuff it is the Yeerks are hoarding in there. They’ll be crawling all over here in a matter of minutes." I felt kind of sheepish. I was usually the one who reminded everyone else of security risks. "Yes, ma’am, sir." I mock-saluted Cassie.
< Come on, Ax, > Tobias said, sounding disconcerted. < To the forest. But first, while we’re in this lovely secluded dump, morph to human. >
Ax looked to Jake, who sighed and nodded. Then Ax began morphing. When he was done, he began stumbling towards the forest, Tobias flapping tiredly just above his head. I saw Rachel’s eyes follow him for a second too long.
"Hey, Rachel, I don’t think your honey-mon is quite in the mood for some cuddle-talk," I said, trying to disguise the glee I always felt when saying something like this.
"Shut up," she snapped, quickly removing her eyes from the rapidly disappearing hawk. "Since when is it a crime to watch a member of the team leave?"
I coughed politely, signifying exactly what I thought of that fool-proof alibi.
"Well, let’s go," Jake said, and we all began to walk with him. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my bike shorts. Damn, it was cold. Then I felt something and drew it out.
"Hey, alright! I’ve got ten bucks in these old bike shorts!" I cried. I quickly figured the taxi fare home. "That’s just about enough to taxi me home."
Rachel arched her brow. "And leave the rest of us suffering in the rain?"
I nodded. "That’s exactly right. Hey, I finally have some money, why not use it ASAP?"
"Okay, go on then," Jake said.
"Yes, O Fearless Leader," I replied, and stepped to the edge of the sidewalk. I could see Cassie frown slightly, but I put it out of my mind and signaled for a taxi.
The blood was beginning to drain out of my arm when a taxi finally meandered along. I stepped in, and to my surprise, the cab – and driver – reeked of gin.
I should have stepped out of the taxi right then. But it was very early morning, one or two o’clock. There wasn’t much chance for another cab. I should have walked home. But I really, really hate being wet. I decided to stay in the taxi.
The driver was singing "What a Girl Wants" by Christina Aguilera very loudly and out of key. He was skidding all over the road. It was hard to see, and the road conditions would have been hard for even a completely sober and experienced cabby.
I saw lights looming up ahead. It was a truck. A very big truck. There was something wrong with this picture. We were heading right into that very big truck.
"Turn, you drunken moron, turn!" I yelled, panicking. "TURN! Can’t you see there’s a truck right in front of us?!?! TURN THE DAMN CAB!"
The cabby wasn’t paying attention. "Whatever MAKES me HAPPY, sets you FREE," he warbled happily.
"There’s a TRUCK!" I bellowed.
Then the cabby noticed something was wrong. Far too late.
The cab flipped through the air, hit head-on by an eighteen-wheeler. I screamed like I never had before, not even in the battle for the Pemalite crystal had I screamed so loud. We hit a tree and bounced off it. Jagged, twisted metal was everywhere. I would have felt like a voodoo doll, if I had been in the mind to be making such comparisons.
The cab landed upside down with one last, huge, final crash and explosion of metal. Fire licked at the cab hungrily. I felt my back snap.
You never want to know that feeling. I’ll tell you right now. It’s terrifying beyond belief. Your back’s what keeps you straight. Without it, you’re a rag doll. I could see blood – my blood, my human, very necessary blood – all around me. You’d think I’d get used to blood, but who can ever get used to their insides seeing day light? I was contorted, trapped inside the car in a triangle-like figure.
After that, I didn’t see anything else. I blacked out. Occasionally, I would revive enough to dimly hear a paramedic. They talked in such low voices, as if I was already dead and they were handling a corpse. But I couldn’t die. They didn’t understand. I had to save the world, so I wasn’t quite allowed to die.
My next completely aware memory was me lying in a hospital bed, and my dad looking like he hadn’t slept for years. Kind of like how he looked when my mom first came up missing. I had to drill him to find out what had happened to me, and he didn’t really give it to me straight. He would say things like, "Oh, well son, there’s a lot of hope" and "We have to keep looking for a brighter future." So I had to find out the hard way.
One day, when I tried to get up. I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. I rung immediately for a nurse, who came scurrying in.
"What’s wrong with me?" I asked. Before she could answer, I added, "And don’t say there’s a lot of hope for me, or anything like that. Tell me exactly what’s wrong with me. For example, why I can’t quite seem to move."
The nurse bowed her head, seeming oh-so-sad, though I’d bet anything she was looking at the sign on my bed that had my name on it. "Marco," she said, "You’re…from the car crash. You’ve been left paralyzed. From waist down."
Now, this was a shock to me. I blinked, and carefully kept my voice at a monotone. "Oh."
There was a long pause. The nurse began to say, "But there’s a lot of – "
I stopped her. "Please don’t say it."
She nodded, this time looking genuinely sad. But what can looks tell? Not a lot. I learned that from experience. You can’t tell from looks that someone’s a Controller. People smile when they want to throttle you. So I wasn’t sure what the nurse was really thinking.
"Thank you," I said woodenly. I turned my face away from her. The look of pity on her face was too much.
Hey, if I had been in her position, I would have pitied too. It’s hard not to pity a boy of fifteen, "with his whole life ahead of him", that’s been paralyzed. It’s pretty tough. I should know, I tried hard enough not to fall into that trap.
------
I was awakened from my half-reverie from the sound of someone walking in. It was Jake.
"Hi, Marco," he said cheerfully.
Not that I wasn’t glad to see him, but I wasn’t really in a great mood. "Hi."
"Well, how’s it going?" he asked, with as much fake enthusiasm as the people on the Home Shopping Network.
I raised a brow. "Never been better. You have no idea how much fun it is to watch Jerry resolve controversial domestic problems. Oh the happiness of it all." I lowered my voice. "Drop the act, Jake, you came here to see me about something. I’m not Cassie but I can tell that much."
Jake looked sheepish. "Sorry. But listen. Erek told us about a new development. You remember when we were out late that night, right before the car crash?"
"How could I forget?" I replied dryly.
"We wrecked what they had in there." His voice was a whisper. "But the Yeerks were smart. They had back-up copies. The Chee found out what it was. It’s instant Yeerk, a biological development for them. They push a button and – whammo! New Yeerk. Kind of like test-tube babies."
"Where are the back-ups?" I asked.
Jake’s eyes darted around. He was being so inconspicuous, really. "In this hospital."
"What?!" I hissed. "What do you mean, here? What are they planning to do with them?" Of course, I didn’t really need Jake to answer that.
"A Chee got access to the records. The Yeerks are going to try out the insta-Yeerk. They have a list of the infestees. Marco - you’re on the top of the list."
I swear my heart stopped for at least a minute. "No way," I finally managed. "I can’t be. I’d be useless as a host. For God’s sake, I’m useless as an Animorph. I’m useless as a human. I can’t move my legs, what more useless host can they pick?!"
"That’s exactly the point," Jake pointed out. "The insta-Yeerk is an all-new procedure. They’re not sure whether the insta-Yeerk will be viable, or what effects it might have on a host body. So they’re picking the weakest to test the insta-Yeerks on. That way, if the hosts die or their brains explode or something, it can be passed off as a result of the host’s injuries."
"When’s the infestation planned?"
"Today. In an hour."
"No. Way." I paled. "I am not going to be a Yeerk host. I’ll die before I let that happen. I’ll take the blade to myself. I can still use my arms, I’ll do it!"
"No!" Jake cried out. "Listen, Marco, we’re going to try to get you out of here before then. The other Animorphs are around. If you’ll look out the window, you’ll see ‘em. The four seagulls bunched around that tree, and that hawk over there? That’s them. We’re going to – "
"You can’t possibly do that," I realized. Before Jake could protest, I went on. "You don’t think they’ll notice something fishy’s going on? An hour before my – infestation, and all of a sudden the Andalite bandits come in and trash the place? This has to be super-important to them, they have to have everything completely on schedule. They’ll notice for sure – and then they might figure it out."
"Marco, can’t you forget about that for once?!" I could tell from the shocked expression on Jake’s face right after he said that that the remark had slipped out, uncalled for. "You’re an Animorph, you’re my best friend. You’re like my – "
"Don’t say ‘brother’," I interrupted. "We all know what your brother is."
"This bites," Jake said bitterly. "This seriously bites. I can’t go through with it. Marco, I’m not just leaving you here, waiting!"
"I have a plan, Jake," I started. I took a deep breath. "You can’t pretend to believe that I would let myself be taken. Besides, the thought of attacking a hospital doesn’t even appeal to me, and you know how much I care about that morality stuff."
"Zilch, really," Jake affirmed.
"Yeah, I love you too, man," I said. "That’s besides the point. But listen. If somehow you guys could bust up the cameras – lock me in here for a moment – keep them at bay – maybe I could morph. To a bird or something. Being paralyzed isn’t in my DNA, so as a bird, I should be fine. If you opened the window, I could morph quickly as possible into my bird morph and fly out. And then," I said, growing excited, "I could morph into human – and I’d be okay again!"
"I don’t think so," Jake said softly. "I talked to Ax the other day about you. He told me that not even the Andalites have found a way to shirk being paralyzed. He said it was all over their scientific journals at the time he left, that a soldier had his spinal cord snapped in half, and when he morphed into something else and tried to morph back, his cord was even more messed up. He said that the scientists had been working on it feverishly, but that they hadn’t found out why or how."
"That has an easy solution, Jake," I pointed out. "I can just stay as a bird."
Jake’s eyes widened, and I could just hear the gears of his little brain clicking, readying for a debate. "Marco…" he managed, then he couldn’t think of anything.
"I don’t want to stay human." I looked at my legs. They still wouldn’t move, stubborn blocks of wood. "Not like this. Sure, I’ll be giving up a lovely figure, but what kind of girl will give ‘the eye’ to some boy in a wheelchair? I just don’t see it happening, man."
He nodded, and quickly turned away, making believing that his nose was stuffed. He didn’t know I had seen his eyes fill with tears. "Marco…are you sure you want to do this?" he asked me, his back to me.
"Yeah. We have a half-hour. Open the window. Tell the others the plan – quickly!" I said forcefully.
Jake ran out. I waited for a tense fifteen minutes. Then a bear barged into my room and swatted at every single mechanical thing in there. I could hear cries of amazement outside, and the "tseew!" of the Dracon Beams.
"Hi, Rachel," I said. "Long time no see."
< This is a tough decision for you. It has to be, > Rachel said while totally wrecking the TV. I watched its descent. < I talked to Tobias. He said maybe you guys could share territory. >
I laughed as she swatted at the security cameras. "Don’t make me laugh. The Ellimist doesn’t like me. He won’t give me back my morphing power. I can’t fight stuck as an osprey."
< If you’re going to morph, do it now, > she said. < I’ve wrecked every damn thing I can see. >
"I was glad to watch the demise of the TV," I replied as feathers began sprouting from my arms. "I hated that fuseeeeeooooor." My rapidly morphing beak had cut off the bad word I wasn’t supposed to say.
Then I was ready. Rachel smashed the window open. < Go quickly, through the window! > she urged. Then, in a different voice I didn’t think she thought I could hear, she added, < You were a pain, Marco, but we’ll all miss you. A lot. >
I wanted to reply, but couldn’t. I was outside, flying. Whole. Sharp osprey eyes saw rent-a-cops streaming in. I yelled in private thought-speech, < Get out, the cops are here! > I hoped they heard me.
Because it would be the last they heard of me. I would fly to someplace far, far away, where my spine would stay whole but it would be the spine of a bird of prey, not of the human Marco. Where my identity would be erased. I thought of my dad. This would kill him.
That night, I perched outside a tree near my dad’s window. He was crying. Jerry Springer was on the tube. That man just plagues me, I thought.
My dad switched the TV off, crying so hard he was almost choking on his tears. I knew the news had arrived to him. I knew that what I was going to do was risky, sentimental, stupid. But I couldn’t leave my dad like this. Besides, I was going away from this place.
< Hey, Dad, > I said.
"My mind’s playing tricks on me," he muttered through his tears. "Grief does that. I swear I just heard Marco."
< Dad, you are hearing Marco. You know, Marco, your son, that kid that occupied space in your house? Me? >
"Marco, are you dead?" he whispered.
< No, Dad, I’m not dead. I’m alive and well, better than I was before. I’m sorry I have to leave…and that I can’t explain it to you. But Dad, you have to trust that I’m alive. You’ll never hear from me again. But don’t cry, Dad, be a manly man like you told me and try not to cry. >
"Alright, Marco," he said, his voice hoarse. "I love you, son, wherever you are."
< I know, > I replied.
And I flew. To God knows where, some forsaken location far away from the Animorphs, away from the war. Still useless. But at least I could fly.
Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Like Tobias said sometimes, it’s the flying that makes it all better. Maybe I’d grow to like it.
Maybe.