quote:

We got the autograph. Amazing what people will put up with if you flatter them. Then we did our best to melt into the crowd. It would have been easier except Marcel was prowling, looking for us.

We yanked off our uniforms. I looked around frantically. Empty chair! Just one, but it would do.

“May we join you?”

It was a table full of old people in suits or dresses, depending. One of them may have been our mayor. I’m not sure.

“There’s only one chair.”

“It’s okay, we’re very good friends.” I sat down and yanked Ax down onto my lap.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our guest of honor, host of Contact Point, and author of several bestselling books - William Roger Tennant!”

The crowd rose to its feet and applauded enthusiastically. The emcee stepped aside and Tennant approached the podium.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling hypnotically and raising his arms as if to embrace the entire audience. “Thank you so much.”

<We’re in position,> Jake said. <We are under the toupee. Biting has begun.>

“Such wonderful people you are,” William Roger Tennant sighed when the applause finally died down. “I am truly honored to receive the Solid Citizen Award. You know, people often ask me how I’ve managed to be so successful in my field,” Tennant began. “I give them a one-word answer.”

<This is so gross,> Cassie complained.

“And that one word is -”

He stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes twitched. His lips twisted into a frown.

“- love,” he gasped finally.

“Tell them it’s working,” I whispered.

<Marco believes it is working,> Ax translated into thought-speak.

<We are,> Tobias replied. <We’re biting.>

“It takes a great deal of love to excel in any field,” William Roger Tennant continued through gritted teeth. His eyes bulged. A large vein popped out on his temple. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. “You have to love what you do, and love the people you do it for.”

<What’s he doing?> Jake asked.

“He’s twitching,” I whispered.

<He is showing discomfort,> Ax answered.

<That’s good,> Cassie said.

<But he seems to be maintaining his composure.>

<Geez,> Tobias groaned.

“Love is the core principle of my philosophy,” Tennant said loudly. He paused and took a deep breath. Scratched the top of his head with his pinky, ever so gently. The tension in his face started to fade. His eyes stopped twitching. His brow relaxed.

“It has been my mission to share my philosophy with the world. And the responses of people like you here in this room have shown me that my message has some merit.”

“They must be stopping,” I said. “Tell them to keep it up!”

The mayor’s wife gave me a long, hard look. I smiled back.

<Do not stop,> Ax said. <He seems to be regaining control.>

<We’re biting as hard as we can,> Rachel replied testily. <I’ve got what feels like a five-footlong spike dug into this guy’s scalp, all right?>

<This is the grossest thing we have ever done,> Cassie complained.

“If you really believe in something,” Tennant continued, showing less and less strain with each word, “you must be willing to sacrifice all, to endure anything, to fight against all adversaries, no matter how large or small. You must be willing to never give in, never surrender, until the battle is won. The battle, ladies and gentlemen, the battle … to love! Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again
for this honor. Good night.”

The room exploded with applause. Flashbulbs popped. The crowd rose to its feet.

Tennant rushed off the dais. Made his way through the adoring crowd, smiling and waving.

“Thank you, William Roger Tennant!”

“We love you, William Roger Tennant!”

Ax looked at me. “This was not a successful mission.”

“No. It really wasn’t. Now get up off my lap.”

Not successful was the understatement of the year. And the others didn’t even realize just how badly it had gone. No one but me knew about the twisted morph.

We headed for the exit. I couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.

<What is it with this guy?> Rachel muttered from her perch on Tennant’s head. <ls he made of Teflon?>

<As crazy as this plan was,> Jake said, <it should have worked. On any normal human, it would have worked. I am seriously out of ideas.>

<There’s got to be a way,> Rachel said. <There must be something irritating enough to make Tennant go off in public.>

Irritating?

No. It wouldn’t work.

Or would it?

Epicurius posted:

quote:

“It’s okay, we’re very good friends.” I sat down and yanked Ax down onto my lap.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

i bet covid isn't even real but a yeerk trick

get a jab, get a slug

Epicurius posted:

So, I could be wrong, but, not counting the time travel megamorphs book, I believe the Hanson brothers are the only real people to show up in this series (excepting Elfangor, obviously).

Pwnstar posted:

Arnold Schwarzenegger heroically rescued a suicidal Controller who ate the bad oatmeal.

quote:

My dad was not home when I got there. I was relieved. I didn’t even care if he was out with old lady Robbinette. I was in a seriously bad mood.

Bad enough the whole fiasco of trying to freak Tennant. Worse that I still didn’t have my morphing under control. Which meant I didn’t have my mind under control.

I watched some TV. I went online, got into a chat about music, and ended up calling everyone morons. I was shaking when I finally hit the “sign-off” button.

Cookies. I needed some cookies.

I went to the kitchen. I found a half-finished package of Pepperidge Farms. I poured some milk.

“You know what?” I told the milk carton. “I don’t care if William Roger Tennant signs people up for The Sharing. If they’re that dumb, forget ‘em. Why am I going to get myself killed for them?”

The milk carton had no immediate response. Maybe it wanted to think that over.

I went to the living room, lay on the couch, and turned the TV back on.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, man, don’t be someone selling newspapers or whatever,” I muttered as I went to the door and opened it.

“Cassie?”

“Hi. Can I come in?” She didn’t wait for me to answer but just sort of pushed her way past me.

I followed her back to the living room. She turned off the TV and looked expectantly at me.

“What?”

“You could offer me a cookie.”

I handed her the bag.

“You have something to tell me?”

“No.”

“So why are you here?”

“I’m here to listen to you.”

I laughed. “What, are you a shrink now?”

She shrugged. “You said it yourself: We can’t exactly go to see counselors, can we?”

“Look, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. “Jake bought it, Rachel bought it, but I didn’t. Something went wrong. I heard it in your thought-speak. You blew another morph.”

I sat down. I was sure I’d covered. I was sure. But of course this was Cassie. Cassie who knows what people are feeling about five minutes before they do.

“Did you tell Jake?”

“No. And I won’t.”

“Why not? What happened to it being everyone’s concern?”

“Because I want you to know you can trust me. You know, enough to talk to.”

I realized I was bouncing my leg nervously. I stopped it. “Look, it’s nice of you and all, but -”

“I know all the buts: We’re all under pressure, we’re all barely hanging on, and besides, you’re a guy, and the ‘guy code’ is that you never talk about your feelings.”

I snagged the cookies back from her. She took my milk. “Who told you about the ‘guy code’? That’s top secret.”

“Marco, I have both my parents at home with me. They don’t know anything about Yeerks or about us, but I have them, and I know they love me, and they’re there when I get home. Jake’s the same. Rachel’s parents are divorced but -”

“-And look what a pillar of mental health she is,” I said with a laugh.

“Rachel has her mom, and she talks constantly to her dad, and she has her little sisters, and she has me. But Marco, for two years after your mom died, or at least everyone thought she was dead, your dad totally fell apart. You were the man of the house. No one was there to take care of you.”

“I take care of myself.”

Cassie sat beside me. She put her hand on my arm.

“Cassie, does Jake know you’re flirting with me?”

She ignored my weak attempt at a joke. “And then we found out your mom was still alive. Only she wasn’t your mom anymore. Her body had been taken over by a Yeerk. And she was the enemy. Marco, in the space of a few awful months you’ve gone from believing your mother is dead to almost literally having to try and destroy her.”

“And you think maybe that’s stressful?” I deadpanned.

“I think it would have crushed most people,” she said. “That mission against her and Visser Three, you were setting her up to take a fall. You were intimately involved with leading Visser One, your mother, into a trap that -”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

I jerked up off the couch. I had my hands over my ears. Stupid. I took my hands down. They were trembling. “Look, Cassie … ” I started to say with exaggerated calm. But then I forgot what I wanted to say.

I could see her. On that mountaintop. Her sudden realization that it was me who had brought her there. Marco. Me. Her son. Her host’s son. Not some ruthless Andalite warrior but her own son … Visser Three’s troops and ships closing in. The cliff giving way. Falling.

And later, Rachel had come to me and said that her body could not be found. That maybe she was still alive.

And Rachel had understood that she wasn’t doing me any favors because it was so much better to know, to know for sure anything, even to know something terrible as long as the torture of uncertainty was over ….

“What did I do?” I whispered.

“You’re in a war, Marco. You’re here, in your own living room, eating cookies and watching TV and going to school on Monday, but you’re in a war. Bad things have happened to you.”

“Tobias isn’t losing it. Ax isn’t losing it. Look at them, they’re both all alone. My God, Tobias isn’t even human anymore.”

“Marco, you don’t know what they’ve gone through. They’d never tell you.”

“Guy code,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter what they feel anyway, you know? You have to deal with what you feel.”

“I feel like you drank my milk.”

Cassie hung her head. She looked beat. Probably was. I was. I felt bad, like I’d let her down. She’d come over, as tired as she was, to try and help.

“I feel better,” I said.

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Look, Marco, don’t talk to me if you don’t want to. Don’t even talk to Jake even though he is your best friend. If you have to keep everything inside, I guess that’s how you are. But you need to at least be honest with yourself.”

“Okay,” I said noncommittally. “I’ll do that.”

She got up, sighed, and headed for the door. Then she stopped. “You know, at the clinic we’re always getting animals who are hurt or injured by humans. By jerks who shoot at them for no reason, or try and burn them, or whatever. And I used to get so mad. I just hated those people. And I’d feel like I was wasting my time because, you know, there’s always some jerk with a twenty-two. I’d rage about it. But my dad told me, ‘Deal with what is.’”

I was confused. “What’s that mean?”

“It means, the animal is hurt. Help the animal.” She came back over to me and took my hand. “Or in your case, Marco, it means that the Yeerks are here, your mother is Visser One, and your dad is lonely. None of that should be. But it is.”

quote:

<Ready, Marco?> Tobias asked.

<Am I ready? Was Sitting Bull ready for General Custer? Was General Schwarzkopf ready for Saddam Hussein? Was General Washington ready for whoever’s butt he kicked?>

<So, you’re saying you’re ready then?>

<Oh, yeah. I’m ready.>

Every muscle in my body was alive, electric, eager to run, to jump, to attack! I had long claws and sharp teeth, specially designed to tear my prey apart. Limb from limb. I had a motor that could run nonstop for hours. Without even a thought of tiring!

<All right, he’s just reaching the gate.>

Not that I needed to be told this. My superkeen ears could hear him just fine, even over the roar of the surf. My nose, thousands of times more sensitive than any human’s, had caught wind of him the moment he walked out his front door.

I heard the familiar sound of the key turning in the lock, the squeal of the hinges as the door swung open. My nose was bombarded with his scent, so strong, so familiar. Only this time there was a new smell added to the usual mix of soap, deodorant, and laundry detergent.

Fear.

A smell even more powerful than Right Guard or Old Spice. It was a smell I loved. A smell I lived for. A smell that attracted me like a shark to blood.

The growl began in the back of my throat, an unconscious, instinctive warning to my prey that said: “I’m coming to get you.”

<Stay back,> Tobias said. <He hasn’t come out yet. He’s looking for you.>

Stifling the powerful urge to attack, I stayed crouched in the bushes just outside the gate.

<Okayyyy,> Tobias said tentatively, <he’s coming - NOW!>

SLAM! The gate shut behind him. William Roger Tennant took off down the beach, jogging at twice his usual speed. Pretty fast.

But nowhere near fast enough. I shot out of the bushes. I was on him in seconds.

I had powerful legs made for running and jumping. I had claws and teeth that could tear a man apart. But these were nothing compared to my most horrifying weapon of all.

My voice.

“Arararararararararararrrrrrrrrrr!” I barked.

He increased his speed. But he knew he was doomed. The smell of his fear, even stronger now, guided me like a heat-seeking missile.

I pounced. Three feet off the ground! I bit into his shirt with my iron jaw and held on, making a swimming motion with my feet so my claws could scratch his bare legs and arms.

“Stupid -!” Tennant screamed. Along with a few other words I can’t repeat.

He was ten times my size. A six-foot-tall human against a foot-and-a-half-long toy poodle. One well-placed kick or punch and he could have crushed my ribs or skull.

But he couldn’t do this. See, there were too many witnesses. Way too many people on the beach who would be horrified to see the great animal lover William Roger Tennant beating a poor, innocent poodle to death.

A couple of dudes playing Frisbee stopped to watch the action. Broke out laughing when they realized what they were seeing. A six-foot-tall man being tormented by a crazed toy poodle.

Tennant stopped dead in his tracks. The sudden stop was enough to cause me to lose my grip and send me flying. I landed on my feet and spun back around to face him.

“I will kill you, Andalite,” Tennant hissed, low enough for no one else to hear.

Dogs don’t have very good vision. It’s a little fuzzier than human sight. And while they can sort of see colors, what they see is not much more colorful than the picture on a black-and-white TV.

But I could read the expression on William Roger Tennant’s face well enough. His mouth was bent in a vicious frown. His eyes were seething with hate. His right cheek twitched uncontrollably.

“Do you hear me, you cursed beast?” he hissed. “I will kill you!”

I pounced again. Got a grip on his shorts that nearly tore them off his hips.

You know the little girl in the Coppertone ad? With the doggie pulling off her swimsuit? Tennant looked just like that little girl as he dashed back toward his mansion, desperately holding up his shorts with one hand.

I let go when we reached the gate. He quickly unlocked it and stepped inside. Not before giving me one last leer before shutting it behind him.

<Good job,> Tobias said, landing on a tree just above me. He turned his head and looked down at me with one seagull eye. <This plan just might work.>

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Poodles are fine, their owners generally aren't and Marco trolling fools then being literally shaking as he ragequit is dangerously prescient

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Poodles are fine, their owners generally aren't and Marco trolling fools then being literally shaking as he ragequit is dangerously prescient

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Poodles are fine, their owners generally aren't and Marco trolling fools then being literally shaking as he ragequit is dangerously prescient

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Poodles are fine, their owners generally aren't and Marco trolling fools then being literally shaking as he ragequit is dangerously prescient

Fuschia tude posted:

quote:

For the next two days, Tobias and I followed William Roger Tennant like paparazzi on an actress. Hoping to go for an unmolested run on Wednesday, he took his limo out to a park near the river. We followed, and I was there to catch him before he’d jogged his first mile.

Thursday afternoon, Tennant was scheduled to give a speech at the convention center downtown. I was waiting for him just outside the main doors. Before he had a chance to climb the stairs I’d ripped a sleeve off his suit jacket and torn a huge hole in the seat of his pants.

He cancelled the speech.

Thursday night after the show, Tennant met up with some local sponsors for a late dinner. In redtailed hawk and owl morph Tobias and I followed the limo to the restaurant. I morphed again, and the minute his foot hit the pavement, I was peeing on it. His sponsors watched in horror as I pounced on him, grabbed hold of his tie with my teeth, and almost pulled him down face-first onto the sidewalk.

Of course, he couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t kick me. Couldn’t slap me. Not with so many fans and sponsors and non-Controllers watching. All he could do was smile.

My dog senses could tell he wanted to kick and slap me. Could tell by the way his pulse went through the roof when he caught sight of me. By the way his breathing became short, clipped, and tense. The way his teeth ground together like a bowl full of marbles.

Mostly I could tell by his smell. It wasn’t a smell a human could detect. Too subtle. But this aroma, a combination of fear and total hatred, was a magnet to my nostrils. It fed me. It inspired me.

Like a shot of adrenaline, it helped me jump high enough to reach his tie. Bite hard enough to rip even through his leather jeans. Run fast enough to catch him, no matter how much of a head start he got.

And I loved every second of it.

Let’s face it. Everything messed up about my life could be blamed on the Yeerks. My mom. My dad’s misery. Now the complication of his new girlfriend. For months, my friends and I have been living in fear, our lives changed forever by this invasion. Facing ridiculous odds. The threat of death or capture always there, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

We’d experienced things no person should ever have to experience: war and devastation, betrayal and defeat. And all the skin-crawly horrors of morphing.

Win or lose, I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life.

Now, unexpectedly, it was payback time. Not some morally troublesome action that might result in a serious injury or even death, some violence that would eat away at me. This was clean. This was pure. I had a Yeerk in my poodle sights. And he was going to suffer.

Was I taking a sadistic pleasure in it all? Yes. I was.

Friday evening. The big night. I headed home.

“Hey, you’re just in time,” my dad said when I walked into the kitchen. He flicked off the stove and shoveled the pieces of chicken he’d been frying onto our plates. He was jittery. Jumpy.

“Something wrong, Dad?” I asked him.

“No, no,” he muttered nervously, avoiding eye contact. He sat down across the table from me.

“What makes you say that?”

I watched as he lifted his fork and bobbled his knife, nearly managing to impale his own thumb.

“You, uh, thinking about switching to base nine for your math needs?”

He stared at his shaking hands and laughed. “Just call me poker face.” His smiled faded. He put down his fork and knife and rubbed his hands with his napkin. “Uh, Marco, I was hoping we could talk.”

“Together or separately?” I replied.

“Uh, together, I guess,” he said, oblivious to my joke. “You see, well … oh, man, I’ve never been good with words. But, you know I loved your mom very much, Marco.”

I felt my heart stop. Sucked in my next breath like it was coming through a straw.

He paused. He wanted me to say something. He wanted me to make this easier for him. I should have. But I didn’t.

I heard Cassie in my head telling me to deal with what is. No. I didn’t like the “is.” The “is” was about to get worse.

“Losing her was so hard for the both of us. But she’s been gone over two years now. And, and … and she’s not coming back.”

He wiped tears from his cheeks. I hated him right then. How dare he cry? Who was he to cry?

He was betraying her. He was setting her aside, consigning her to the past. He was killing her, that’s what he was doing.

“I - we - can’t spend the rest of our lives grieving for her. And, for the first time since she died,

I’ve actually been happy. Nora and I -” He paused. “I think it’s what your mom would have wanted.

She would have wanted us to move on with our lives. To be happy. Doesn’t that make sense?”

No. No, because she was my mom. She was his wife. So no, Dad, no, cut out the weepy crap, cut out the self-pity, no! She’s my mom!

I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I knew I was wrong, knew I was being unfair, and I didn’t care. But I couldn’t say anything.

“Nora and I have been talking about getting married, Marco. But we won’t do it without you okay.”

“Yeah? And what if it’s not okay?” I said. I could hardly hear my own voice.

He sighed. His eyes turned vacant, distant. The way they’d looked for a large part of the past two years. I hadn’t missed that look. I hadn’t missed it at all.

“Marco, we’re a team, you and I. We’ve been through a lot together. If you say no, I’ll accept that.”

Fine. So it was on me. Great. Typical. Yeah, why not? I’ll decide if my dad is happy or not, if my mom is still my mom. I’ll decide if she lives or if she dies so that I, the Great Marco, the great coldblooded Marco can prove how tough I am by leading her into a trap, setting her up …

I felt pain. I was digging my fingernails into the side of my head.

I was going to explode. Some artery in my head was going to blow apart. It was too much. Way too much.

“I’m out of here,” I said.

I got up and ran for the door.

quote:

We met on the roof of the TV studio. It was windy. Not easy to land with that much of a breeze.

We demorphed from our various bird morphs. Tobias stayed as a hawk.

“Okay,” Jake said. “Here’s the plan. Ax and I hit the control booth. Marco gets harassment duty, as usual. We may only have a few seconds, maybe a minute of airtime before we get shut down. We have to catch, on camera, William Roger Tennant losing control. Rachel and Cassie will be in the studio as backup. Tobias is outside, on lookout. And keeping an eye on the crew’s preshow meeting.
Got it?”

Everyone looked at me. Waiting for my usual lame joke about how we were heading toward certain doom. I let them wait.

“Something wrong, Marco?” Rachel said.

“What could possibly be wrong?” I replied finally.

Cassie gave me a long, hard look. She wasn’t going to say anything, but she was making sure I knew that she knew I was messed up.

We morphed flies. Entered the building through a fresh air duct. It led us right into the studio. From there, we went to our separate posts.

The plan was simple. And only slightly more idiotic than the banquet fiasco. The network guy was in the studio to watch a live broadcast of Tennant’s show. And we were in the studio to make Tennant look like the lunatic he was.

That’s where I came in. I was supposed to morph to Euclid and bait Tennant - before the show began. Had to be before the show began: Tennant was just controlled enough not to blow it in public.

We had learned that at the banquet. He was crazy, but he was crazy in private.

I would go after him. Alone on the set. Right where he could finally get his hands on me. When he attacked me - which he would - Ax would have cut into the computers and would send out a live feed across the country.

A great idea. For everybody but the bait: me. Tennant would try and kill me. His chances of accomplishing that goal before Cassie or Rachel could stop him were pretty good.

If Cassie and Rachel weren’t shot first by a Controller on the crew.

If it worked we’d all have a big laugh. If it didn’t …

So far, everything was going according to plan. William Roger Tennant was sitting on the set in his comfy chair. Arms and legs crossed. Eyes closed.

Tobias and Ax had scouted the place earlier in the week. They’d made a crude sketch of the layout. We’d memorized it.

And they’d made notes about Tennant’s usual behavior. Like the fact that every night before the show Tennant chilled for about twenty minutes. Alone with only his Lava lamps for company.

I wondered what the thing was with the stupid Lava lamps. Did they remind him of the Yeerk pool? Or did he just miss the sixties?

The director, the cameramen, and the rest of the crew were at their usual preshow meeting. This time with Mr. UPN.

<You know, it’s really a shame I can’t get to meet that UPN guy,> I said. <I have a great idea for a new Star Trek series. See, it’s way in the future and the Federation has been broken up by the Dominion and only three ships are still ->

<Marco?>

<Yeah, Jake.>

<Don’t talk to the UPN guy. Poodles do not pitch show ideas.>

<Tell me about it later,> Tobias said. <Sounds cool. I always thought the whole Federation thing was just too easy and ->

<Puh-leeze!> Rachel exploded. <Next mission: girls only.>

Tobias was keeping watch on the meeting through the conference room window. Though we knew at least some of the crew and probably the director were Yeerks, we were pretty sure Mr. UPN was not.

The studio itself was low budget. Not much larger than a three-car garage. Pre-air time, the place was eerily dark. The bubbling Lava lamps gave the air a weird reddish glow. Tennant’s chair was in one corner of the set. A pair of TV cameras faced the star’s chair. In another corner a small control room had been built. One wall of the control room was a large window.

Opposite the control room and just out of camera range was another small area, separated from the studio by unplastered Sheetrock walls. Tennant’s dressing room. In it was a desk with a lighted mirror and a barber’s chair. Next to the desk was a fire exit door with an “alarm will sound” bar across it.

Cassie, Rachel, and I landed in the dressing room. I demorphed. Rachel and Cassie buzzed under the desk. They would morph wolf and get me out of there if Tennant went totally ballistic.

<Okay,> Jake called out to us in thought-speak. <We have the control room to ourselves. Ax has morphed to human. He’s setting up for the broadcast. Everybody check in.>

<I’ve got the meeting,> Tobias said from outside. <The crew and the network people are drinking coffee and yapping. I’ll let you know when they’re coming.>

Everything’s fine here,> Rachel reported. <Just waiting. Wish I could morph grizzly or elephant or something with more firepower than a wolf. But I guess there’s no room.>

I finished demorphing, then took a few breaths to get my strength back. I focused on Euclid.

Euclid. The most annoying dog the world had ever seen. I hated that dog. And now my dad wanted him to move in with us?

I mean, forget the misery of my mom’s disappearance. Forget the fact that every day during fifth period I would have to do algebra for my stepmother. Having to live with that mangy mongrel would drive any kid insane.

I felt the changes begin.

My hands. Transforming themselves into paws. Little white paws with long, dull claws. Long claws that clacked and scratched against the kitchen floor when the obnoxious mutt raced around the dinner table, yapping at the top of his lungs until someone finally dropped him some scraps.

My legs grew shorter, skinnier. My thick, human leg muscles began to shrink, tightening into taut, sinewy springs. Muscles powerful enough to propel the cursed beast three feet - four feet - in the air.

High enough to jump on my lap and fatally ruin my concentration during key points of video games. I felt fur growing along my back. Thick, curly white fur that made my nose itch. That stuck to my favorite black jeans.

The transformation was nearly complete. I was a five-foot-long poodle. With a human boy’s head.

Not for long.

My head began to grow. Larger. Wider. My nose stretched out in front of me. My eyes grew dim, as if I’d just put on a pair of sunglasses. My ears shrank and slid up the side of my head.

My mouth, too big to be a poodle’s mouth. Uh-oh. Long white muzzle, blunt, not delicate like the poodle’s.

Uh-oh. Definite uh-oh.

<Marco, your morph is going weird!> Cassie yelled.

What was happening? What was I?

I held up one paw to look at it. Moved and slammed against a wall. I was hot, I knew that much. My fur was a mix of kinky and straight. The straight fur was more clear, more transparent than truly white. Polar bear? I was half-poodle, half-polar bear?

I was a poo-bear?

<Aaahhhh!>

And then, the instincts kicked in. The polar bear’s cold-blooded predatory intensity joined to the Daffy-Duck-on-espresso lunacy of the poodle.

I could smell prey. I saw a pair of wolves, eyes glittering. Not prey. Predators. Nope, I wasn’t going after them. I wanted something more like a seal. Yeah. Or else a mouse.

Then, I heard the sounds. Movement. Something living. Just on the other side of the wall. I rose on my hind legs. Then, I dropped down again and charged. <Marco,> Rachel cried. <What are you doing?>

WHAM! Eight hundred pounds of hyperactive poodle smashed through the Sheetrock wall. Prey!

Possibly a seal!

Tennant jerked around.

“Aaahhhh!”

I crossed the fifteen feet between us in seconds. Tennant dove out of the way just before my hubcap-size front paws smashed his chair into pieces.

<Jake, Marco’s lost it!> Cassie warned.

<What do you mean he’s -> Jake demanded from the control room.

<She means he blew another morph, and now he’s a poodle the size of a Volkswagen,> Rachel said.

My prey dashed. Ran for the door. Big mistake. Running just made me excited. Running was like an advertisement: Yes, I am the prey, please come and eat me.

Four massive steps and I was on him. I shoved him with my huge paws. He flew through the air and hit the wall.

The seal was cornered. Down.

Time for lunch.

freebooter posted:

Lol is his dad seriously getting married to a woman he's been dating for like a fortnight?

freebooter posted:

Lol is his dad seriously getting married to a woman he's been dating for like a fortnight?

Mazerunner posted:

depressed, lonely guy latches onto the first woman who shows him affection

e; but also, the animorphs repeatedly targeting Tennent over several days should be a big sign for the Yeerks to lay a trap, right?

Capfalcon posted:

If Visser One was running the show, the Yeerks would have a 100% infiltration rate for the local animal control department after one month of "Andalite Bandit" activity.

quote:

NOOOO!” Tennant wailed, cowering like a trapped rat. I felt no pity for him. I didn’t know about pity. I was the poo-bear.

<Marco, get a grip!> Cassie screamed. <You’re going to kill him.>

<Why not?> I said. <He’s a Yeerk. He’s a seal-Yeerk.>

Everything was black-and-white in this morph. Simple. Kill the prey. Kill the enemy. Nothing else mattered.

And yet, some small part of my mind said, <Seal-Yeerk? Poo-bear? Huh?> Tennant curled into a little ball in the corner. He yelled, “Help me! Help me!”

But the crew didn’t seem terribly interested in helping him. Mostly they were running.

<You’re lost in the morph, Marco,> Cassie said calmly. <Get a handle on it. You had another mixed-morph. Now get control. Get control.>

<Everybody, stay where you are,> Jake said.

<Don’t worry,> Rachel said. <I am not going anywhere near that thing. If I was in grizzly morph, sure, but …>

<I am ready for the broadcast, Prince Jake,> Ax said calmly, as though nothing unusual were happening.

<Come on, Marco,> Cassie encouraged. <It’s going to be okay. Remember the mission?>

The mission?

I poked Tennant’s huddled body with my paw. Watched him shrink and shudder.

<What’s going on, Marco?> Cassie said soothingly. <Talk to me. We’re your friends. Talk to us, talk to me and ->

<Talk my butt,> Jake snapped. <Marco. Cope. Now. That’s an order.>

It was like a bucket of ice water dumped on my head.

It was like waking up from an intense dream. Fast. Painful. Slowly my mind grasped control.

<Jake, he’s going through some bad stuff in his life,> Cassie said. <He’s stressed. His dad is ->

<Cassie, you know I love you and admire you, but be quiet,> Jake said. <You listen to me, Marco. We have zero time for your self-pity. I don’t care what your problems are. You deal with this, right now.>

I started to shrink.

My body deflated like a balloon with a pin-hole.

My head, shrinking. Becoming a normal poodle head.

<That’s not exactly enlightened behavior, Jake,> Cassie shot back, obviously angry. <if he’s having stress ->

<Cassie, he’s not you, he’s not Rachel, he’s not even me. He’s Marco,> Jake said. <What he needs is to pull his head out of his rear end and remember what he always says.>

What I always say? What was he talking about?

Jake said, <Life is either tragedy or comedy. Usually it’s your choice. You can whine or you can laugh.>

I laughed. Laughed in recognition. Oh, yeah. I do say that.

I was completely poodle.

“What the -?” Tennant said, scrambling to his feet.

<Good job, Marco,> Cassie said.

Or was it?

I sprinted away from Tennant.

“Andalite,” Tennant hissed. He no longer carried the fear scent. He smelled of pure hatred. “You’ve made a terrible mistake. You should have killed me when you had the chance. I will not show you such mercy.”

<Ready, Ax,> Jake said.

Tennant reached down and grasped an electrical cord that was lying on the floor. He yanked one end of it out of the wall, the other from the stage light it was attached to.

CRAAACK!

Tennant’s makeshift whip could slice me in half.

<Oh, man,> I whimpered.

<Get back on stage, Marco,> Jake said. <We’re ready to roll.>

<Just let them get the picture, Marco,> Rachel said. <Then we’ll get you out of there.>

I cowered behind the remains of Tennant’s chair.

CRAAACK!

He missed me by inches.

“This is going to be so therapeutic,” Tennant cackled.

<Stay right where you are, Marco,> Jake said. <Draw him into camera range.>

<The meeting is over,> Tobias called. <They’re leaving the office!>

CRAAACK!

The cord slapped across my back! Like being hit with a smoldering-hot stick!

“Yipe!” I cried pathetically.

<The crew and the network people are coming down the hallway,> Tobias said. <They’ll be there in ten seconds.>

<Hang on, Marco,> Cassie said.

<Do I have a choice?>

<Ready, Ax?>

<Yes, Prince Jake.>

William Roger Tennant dropped the whip, reached down, and grabbed me by the neck. Lifted me in the air. Turned around to face the cameras. Wrapped his hand around my throat and held me up in front of his face.

He began to squeeze. I whined and struggled.

“Come now, Andalite,” Tennant said, his eyes raving. “You aren’t going to die on me that easily, are you?”

<And … we are live!> Ax announced. <Heeeeeere’s Marco!>

Suddenly the entire stage was bathed in blinding light.

Choking! My head felt like it was going to explode. My blurry vision grew more hazy. My body was going limp.

I was too weak to struggle.

“Die, Andalite! Die!” Tennant screamed, oblivious to the lights and the hum of the cameras.

“What the hell is going on here?” someone shouted. “My God, Tennant! What are you doing?”

“Get away from me!” he yelled. “I will kill you all!”

“What are these dogs doing here?”

“Andalites,” a crew member hissed.

“Die, you filthy mutt, die!” Tennant screamed.

“What do you mean, we’re on the air? Cut the feed, for crying out loud! Cut the feed!”

“I’ll squeeze your guts out through your ears!”

“He’s crazy!”

A mass of bodies surrounded me. Hands reached for Tennant. Subdued him. Pried his fingers from my throat. I dropped to the floor.

<Cassie! Rachel! That’s enough, get Marco outta there!>

<We are already on it, fearless leader,> Rachel said.

“Grrrrrrrr …”

Rachel and Cassie growled. Snarled. Slunk toward the mass of men and women.

“Holy -” someone shouted. “Those aren’t dogs. They’re wolves, man! They’re wolves!”

“What is going on here? What kind of production is this?” a man thundered.

The UPN guy?

“This is madness. You want to put this lunatic on the air? Try Fox, I’m not interested.”

“It’s not … it’s … you don’t …” Tennant stuttered. “It’s all just a misunderstanding!”

I was gasping, forgotten on the floor. I wondered if this would be a bad time to mention my idea for a new Star Trek.

<Boys and girls,> Jake said, <I believe our work here is done.>

quote:

“I am very pleased with the atmospheric conditions we are experiencing today. The lack of clouds have allowed the sun to show through, thus making electrical lighting unnecessary. Uh-NESSa-sarry. Uh-NESS-ussery. Also, the lack of precipitation has kept my artificial skin from becoming uncomfortably damp, which -”

“Ax?” I interrupted.

“Yes, Marco?”

“Stop that. Please.”

“Come on, Marco,” Tobias said. “He’s just practicing his small talk. We spent hours on it last night.”

“Thank you again, Marco,” Ax said, “for inviting me to this primitive yet interesting ceremony.”

“My pleasure, Ax-man. Do not go near the buffet table.”

“How do you define ‘near’?”

“Ax, I’m telling you: No food.”

“It really was a lovely wedding,” Cassie said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I can’t believe Rachel cried.”

“Hey,” Rachel shot back. “Lots of people cry at weddings.”

“Yeah, I just didn’t know you had actual tear ducts, Rachel.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Marco,” she replied. Her tone seemed almost nice.

Rachel? Nice? To me?

“It’s the tux, isn’t it?” I said. “That’s why you’re being nice to me. The tux gives me a whole new look. Very Sean Connery. Very Pierce Brosnan.”

“Don’t,” Tobias warned.

“I have no choice,” I said. “I have to say it: Bond. James Bond.”

It was two weeks after our battle with William Roger Tennant. They had been two very busy weeks. And for once, the busyness had nothing to do with Yeerks or alien battles of any kind.

Thanks to Ax, William Roger Tennant’s freak-out was cut into a local TV broadcast. Naturally, the news networks ran with the video. CNN ran it roughly four thousand times.

No one had seen Tennant since.

After the William Roger Tennant incident, I spent a couple of days thinking about what my dad had said. About moving on with our lives. Making a new start. About our being a team.

I’d also thought about what Cassie had said, about having to deal with what “is,” things as they are, and not how I wished they were.

And I remembered Jake’s immortal words of comfort. “I don’t care what your problems are. You deal with this, right now.”

But mostly, I remembered what I’ve always believed. What my mom taught me. That while some things are just plain awful, most things in life can be seen either as tragic or comic. And it’s your choice. Is life a big, long, tiresome slog from sadness to regret to guilt to resentment to self-pity? Or is life weird, outrageous, bizarre, ironic, and just stupid?

Gotta go with stupid.

It’s not the easy way out. Self-pity is the easiest thing in the world. Finding the humor, the irony, the slight justification for a skewed, skeptical optimism, that’s tough.

Anyway.

The past was over and done with. My mom, Visser One … I had to set that aside and think about my dad. And me.
Time to get on with my life.

Good-bye, dream. Hello, Euclid.

So, before the wedding I had a long talk with my dad. I told him the marriage was okay with me.

I was best man. You can fill in your own joke. Rachel filled in several.

The day after the wedding we started moving Nora in. She understood I wasn’t going to call her

“Mom.” I have one mother. That’s all I’ll ever have. Whether she’s alive, or not.

A few days later, it was all done. Nora was with us now. The dog, too. I didn’t mind Nora. I could see where maybe we’d get along okay.

I still hated that dog.

I was coming home from school when I heard the phone ring. It rings more often now with Nora around because she gets calls from parents asking why their kids are flunking math.

I decided not to answer. Let the machine get it.

And then, I heard her voice.

“Marco, if you’re there, pick up.”

My mother.

To be continued in … Visser

quote:

<And … we are live!> Ax announced. <Heeeeeere’s Marco!>

Malpais Legate posted:

Y'all talk big game about Visser being good so I'm excited to finally read it.

Malpais Legate posted:

Y'all talk big game about Visser being good so I'm excited to finally read it.