Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2009 20:55:59 GMT -5
Suji:
Suji galloped. It was a strange way to think of it, but that was actually what zoologists called it: the loping gate of a crocodile on the move. She was demorphing at the same time, though not full out. Not yet.
TSWEEER! Pain flooded her mind, and somewhere inside of her head there was a scream. She pushed forward. How much of her flank was gone? A few inches? A couple pounds? Her stride was impeded, but not much.
No! It can’t come down to this! I’ve come too far! I’ve survived too fucking much!
But it had. No way to turn back. The pool was huge, but it wasn’t completely oblong. There were smaller inlets, many piers. The way behind her was filled with dracon-wielding Hork Bajir and the scrambling needle-feet of Taxxons. Humans dived out of their path, though some didn’t quite make it.
There’s too much bad shit I’ve done, it can’t end like this! I’ve still got to make amends!
Suji shut down the inner squabbling as best she could. A few more yards-
TSSSWEEEEEEER!
Her back left leg was gone, and her tail, already only barely lifting from the ground, flopped down hard. Off balance she slid across the concrete. Her scales had been becoming human skin, and already her eyes were shifting as her skull became rounder, much less elongated. Figuring she wouldn’t get a better opportunity, Suji concentrated fully on demorphing now. The armored hide gave way to soft flesh, and her teeth shrank to not-so-sharp molars. The leg that began to grow back was human, not reptilian.
Angling her mutating body towards her destination, Suji tumbled into the pool with a splash! Immediately she inhaled a mouthful of the somehow sludgy water: it was impossible not to with her lungs and face restructuring. Thrashing with what tail she had left, Suji pushed towards the surface. She could feel the bodies of Yeerks as they bumped into her, like jellyfish without the sting.
Her head broke the surface and she gasped for air. Wildly she tried to spot the next goal. There. A pier jutted out into the pool maybe fifty feet away. She could make that. They’d stopped firing on her, for now. And why not? There was no point in risking killing someone’s boss, because there was no way she was getting out of this. Jumping in the pool had bought her time, but not even very much.
With strong human limbs, Suji flailed as she swam, losing the last crocodilian vestiges. Halfway between the point where she’d rolled into the water and the distant pier, she had to push herself to keep going. She felt her arms get weaker, and her hair fell into her eyes.
Time for a last stand, Suji thought, eyes set on the end of the dock.
Suji:
She was tired. The back-to-back morphing usually did that, but she was fairly decent with the endurance stuff. It was more than just the morphing. It was everything. Her body screamed and screamed for release, reprieve, forgiveness of some sort, but her mind was burning white hot. Suji spat out another mouthful of the pool water, and kicked herself towards the next pier.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
“THEY SHOULD BE OPEN.” Ray’s voice was impossibly loud over the intercom. If there was some sort of volume control, Ray either hadn’t found it or hadn’t bothered with it. Great, Suji thought, wincing. Every Controller in the Hive would be able to find them. At least he’d figured out the cell door controls.
We should just leave them to rot, Suji thought, none-too-pleasantly. They’d gotten themselves caught, after all, and the price for that was always death or something worse in this war. But here they were, the Animorphs, here to save the day. Wonderful. As soon as she could get these guys out and back to Drake’s group, they could start clearing the way for the escape-
The doors slid open with a faint hiss. At first Suji wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The human Controllers were all slumped forward, some sprawling across the floor. It looked almost like they were sleeping.
Except for the blood.
There was so much blood.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey whispered behind her.
“What the…” Fin asked, and Suji saw him tense out of the corner of her eye.
It coated them, seeped under them, a crimson puddle that stained everything it touched. It ran in still fresh turrets from their throats, where each Yeerk Peace Movement wore an almost identical second grin, a deep gash from ear to ear. Movement in the corner caught her eye, a redheaded woman stared at them, and Suji stared back. Light glinted off of something in the woman’s hand.
Glass. Suji could see streaks of scarlet on it, like a bit of colored church-glass. Perhaps the other two couldn’t see it; she was in the front. “No!” Suji dove forward, the ID Sootman had given her still hanging around her neck. She hit the slick pool of blood, though, and stumbled. Falling to her knees, her hands slipped out from under her as well, and as she crashed to her elbows the blood splashed up to her face. It was still warm.
The woman looked at her with wide, terrified eyes, and then brought the glass across her throat in one long arc. Her trembling hands didn’t press hard enough though: instead of bleeding out quickly, she had plenty of time to gurgle. Suji wasn’t sure if she bled to death or drowned first.
Shaking, it took Suji two tries to stand up, her feet kept sliding. She was covered in blood, her white lab-coat disguise splattered with it. She turned back to Aubrey and Fin. Drake and Aida were not too far off, though the way the rooms were set up, they wouldn’t be able to see this horror unless they walked in through the doorway. Suji shrugged off the lab coat, letting it fall to the ground. Slowly it wicked the stuff up, white to red, like an oversized napkin.
She brushed past Aubrey and Fin to get out. “The ones over here are dead,” Suji called out flatly to Drake and Aida.
“GUYS, GET OUT OF THERE! YOU GOT COMPANY COMING!” Ray’s voice again. Suji looked up and down the hall. No time. No time to process what had just happened. Already she was bringing forward the image of the saltwater crocodile, wanting to change swiftly, yearning for its peace of mind.
Suji:
Almost there. Almost there. She was finished. There was no way she was going to get another morph off, not now. It was too late for that. Suji made it: she was at the end of the pier. Reaching up and kicking at the same time, she grabbed a hold of it. It was made out of some sort of fibrous plastic. Her fingernails scraped for purchase, and she felt one of them completely separate from her finger.
Biting down a cry of pain, Suji began to pull herself up. It took the last of her waning strength, but slowly, surely, she heaved herself onto the dock.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
“Everyone, battle morphs. Hurry!” The rough scales of the crocodile blossomed over her skin like knotted scars, racing and racing until she was covered from head to foot. Her tail came next, fat and heavy, and she fell forward again, though at least this time the steel flooring was dry and cool. By the time she hit the ground her arms and legs had already shortened considerably, while she felt her body undergoing the familiar, yet still peculiar, sensation of stretching as she grew to over twenty feet in length.
She was done and waiting, and Suji leaned back on the crocodiles mind. This wasn’t the ambush the reptile preferred, but it knew no such thing as fear. If these aliens wanted to come to the crocodile’s territory, the crocodile was certain that they weren’t going to be leaving again.
The first wave came, and fell, in a mash Taxxon goop. Suji heard the Peace Movement Controllers coming out behind them. Apparently they believed the “Animorph” thing a bit more when suddenly the hallway had been filled with all sorts of deadly animals.
<<Figures. They don't trust us until we face death for them.>> Fin said, and Suji thought she could hear a tremor in his voice, below the sarcasm. No time to think about that.
<<Ok, new plan. Drake and Aubrey have the fastest morphs that can do some real damage in small hallways. You two should take the lead, clear a path, and we'll follow right behind you. Aida, Fin, you two watch the back. I'll stay directly in front of the group.>> The calculations had been quick and moderately sure. Ray wasn’t here to give them direction. In fact… where was Ray? Wasn’t he supposed to be meeting them by now?
<<All right,>> Aubrey agreed, and Suji saw her rush off with Drake. They would be pretty good at bulldozing anything living out of the way, but they were also going to be taking most of the heat from the dracon fire, unless the group got flanked. Which is entirely possible, she said to herself. After all, Controller-guards would be a hell of a lot more familiar with this place than they were. The idea of using Drake and Aubrey as battering rams, knowing that a well placed shot could kill them, made Suji feel sick. But she couldn’t take it back now.
<<Stay behind the crocodile,>> she said, directing her thoughtspeech at the YPM Controllers. <<You panic and run ahead of me, and I stop worrying about protecting you.>> There was no compassion in Suji’s voice. She didn’t care whether or not these Controllers lived or died. She only cared that they, the Animorphs, got out safely. That’s not true, she thought distantly. The image of the redhead cutting her own throat came back, but Suji pushed it away. It would have to be true for now.
<<Ray, Lizzie, where are you guys?>> Drake’s voice. He’d realized it too: Ray and Lizzie were overdue. Now Suji really began to worry. She could explain it off as micromanaging before, but if someone else noticed, it meant that it could really be a problem.
Thankfully, Lizzie responded. <<We're trapped in the surveillance room. I'm trying to find a vent or something we can escape into. Ray is doing something with the computers. Trying to slow them down, I think. I don't know if the door will keep them out much longer...>>
That didn’t sound good. Suji tried to think. Who could she send to get them? She was the first line of defense if someone managed to get past Aubrey and Drake. Maybe- A bison hurtled past the group, and Suji only swung her large tail out of the way just in time. <<Dra->> She began to question him, but he cut her off.
<<I can not stop. I have to help Ray and Lizzie.>>
That sick feeling again. But yes. Maybe he could help them. But not alone. The bison was strong, but what it had in strength it lacked in precision. <<Take Aida as backup.>>
<<Me?>> Aida asked.
<<Yes,>> Suji responded privately. <<Stay close to him.>> Aida might have hesitated for a moment, but sure enough she bounded after Drake’s bison as it turned the next corner.
When Suji had slowed to let Drake past, several Peace Movement Controllers had lost their patience and darted forward. Up ahead Suji saw exactly what she’d hoped not to see: Hork Bajir pouring out of some side route. Flanked. Fuck. The Controllers that had run ahead were instantly cut down: either literally diced into pieces, or falling to the ground with holes burned out of them.
<<RAY!>> A unanimous cry rose, almost deafening, and Suji couldn’t ask. The horror in their voices was enough to tell her everything she needed to know.
<<Aaah!>> Suji screamed, both in fury and in the sinking, desolate fear that they’d just lost someone—one of their own—and charged. She only felt the dracon shots as brief flashes of warmth on her thick hide, though she was sure they did more damage than that.
With her massive jaws she broke off one Hork Bajir’s leg with the ease of a child ripping off a Barbie doll leg. A sweep of her tail felled two more of the aliens, and she launched herself at them, goring them. The first one she bit hard enough to sever its head from its long neck, though its horns pieced the roof of her jaw. The other she wasn’t so precise with: she fell on its stomach, eating and tearing away at its guts. The creature screamed and the crocodile relished the noise—the death was slower and probably infinitely more painful than his comrades.
<<Hey! Stay back HERE you idiots!>> Fin was yelling at the other YPM Controllers, who had completely lost their sense of restraint at the site of the Hork Bajir. They rushed forward, jumping over the bodies of the fallen aliens. One man tripped and fell, and Suji saw as an upturning blade opened him up like a can opener through soft tin. What came out of him looked a lot like canned food too: glistening, wet, packaged. Canned food didn’t shriek and beg for help, though.
Another Hork Bajir leapt into the hallway, and Suji heard a hiss behind her. Something black flew through the air and the Hork Bajir stumbled back, trying to wipe furiously at his eyes with his taloned hands. He fell, managing to send off an array of dracon shots, each going wide of any mark. At least, they looked wide.
<<AUGH!>> Fin’s scream filled her head, and Suji turned back. Half of him was missing. The terror that had jumped into her mind only receded slightly when she realized that it was the bottom half gone.
Suji:
Suji panted. She was soaked, exhausted, and her mind was burning itself out, teetering on the last reserves of her sanity. Her entire understanding of the invasion, what it meant to be alive, what it meant to have a soul, all of that was tossed aside. Everything she knew was filed into one point: exacting, metallic, deadly sharp. And she planned to drive that bit of razor shrapnel into the heart of the world she knew.
She had served her stint being rational, reasonable. Let someone else carry that mantle for a while. She hated herself for it, perhaps hated herself more because it meant someone like Drake had to take it up. Drake, someone so good, someone who had never let the war get to him. Gritting her teeth so hard that pain flared in his molars, Suji pushed herself to her feet.
The Hork Bajir were reaching the other end of the pier now. They had their dracon beams raised, but they didn't fire: she'd run out of room to escape. They were undoubtedly salivating inside their cushiony seats, cradled in the skulls of those aliens: what a day it had been, after all. Not just one Animorph captured, but now a chance at another.
They approached her the way wildlife rescue might approach some endangered animal that had unfortunately wandered into a civilized area. And maybe it was like that.
Suji grinned back at them, a maniac smile that showed so many teeth that it was almost a snarl. "What are you waiting for?" She said under her breath, though it couldn't be certain who exactly she was talking to.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
<<Fin! I’m coming!>> Suji pushed her heavy body towards Fin’s crumpled form, catching sight of one of the rooms down an adjacent hallway as she did. There was a lot of crashing noises, as well as horrified shrieks coming from that way. She was too low to the ground to see into the tank-like windows, but there were security mirrors set along the top corners of the hallway, and within them she saw an injured cape buffalo barreling though what seemed like an experiment facility.
Several Controllers—or at least Suji assumed they were Controllers—were rushing out of the room. All of them wore white: some wore lab coats, others had one the androgynous hospital gowns given to surgery patients. At first she though the latter group must have just been people wounded by the fight: blood was smeared on their faces. But that wouldn’t explain why the scientists weren’t all harmed… and blood looked too thick, oozy, dried in places. It was coming out of their eyes. And their noses, and ears. Some of the fleeing individuals were dressed in full hazmat suits.
<<Aubrey! Get out of there, it's this way,>> Suji called. <<Fin's been hurt.>> Carefully, Suji picked up Fin’s snake-body in her jaws. As bizarre as it might have seemed, the crocodile wasn’t bad at it. Crocodiles actually made pretty good mothers, and were known to carry their eggs and even live young in their mouths. Not that Fin was exactly a baby crocodile, but it would have to be close enough for now.
<<Shit. What-->> Aubrey began, but there wasn’t time for explanations.
<<We need to go. Fin, start demorphing.>> He stirred in her mouth, though not much at first. Suji narrowed her thoughtspeech to just him. <<You need to start demorphing, Fin, or you die here as a fucking snake. Now DO IT.>> His body began to shift faster, though it still seemed too slow. Suji released him from her jaws so that he wouldn’t cut himself on her teeth as his body changed shape.
<<Aubrey, start running towards the door. Fin, you need to start running as well once you can. Keep demorphing.>> When it looked like Fin has just started to sprout legs, Suji began to move after Aubrey. The crocodile’s ability to turn its head wasn’t exactly ideal, but she kept an eye on each hallway they passed, in case. She didn’t want any Hork Bajir slipping past her and taking advantage of Fin’s vulnerable state.
The alarms had changed. The image of the hazmat suits and the sick people running out came to mind, and Suji pushed it down. Why should the alarms change? Wouldn’t they just need one for “Intruders!” or “Animorphs!”? What could possibly be more threatening than the Yeerk government’s only real opposition, stampeding around the halls? Suji didn’t think she wanted to know.
Ahead of her, Aubrey had stopped, turning back. <<Suji! Fin's still back there! I don't think he's going to make it!>>
<<Aubrey, keep running! You can't stop!>> Suji yelled. She didn’t see Aida, or Drake, let alone… let alone Ray or Lizzie. She didn’t know whether to hope they were behind Drake’s group, or ahead of them. If they were behind them, that might mean that Drake had gotten out safely. If they were ahead of them, that might mean that they would get out safely…
<<Suji->> Aubrey began to argue with her, and Suji was about to cut her off when she hear a the strange sounds of gears and electronics whirring in the walls. There also seemed to be the noise of air being forcing out of pipes, or some kind of hydraulics at work. Suji couldn’t recognize it. <<Strewth! The door's closing! What do we do? Fin's not going to make it!>>
<<…Um, guys?>> Fin’s voice. Suji turned her head so that she could see how far behind he was.
Fuck.
The door was sliding shut ahead of her. Damn it! Damn her fucking gigantic morph! If this was in the water, she could have turned on a dime, gone back, scooped him up, and maybe, maybe made it back to the door in time. But they weren’t in water. They were in a hallway. She was a twenty foot long monster lizard moving at full speed, and there was no chance she had of pivoting, running back there, and making it back through the door. Aubrey wouldn’t be able to either: she was too far ahead, and her morph suffered some of the same drawbacks as Suji’s: pure power over a lack of dexterity.
<<Leave him.>> Suji hadn’t meant to say anything, hadn’t made a decision, but those words definitely came from her. Suddenly she felt cramped in her head, that familiar watched feeling. No! NO! NOT NOW! If some higher-powers wanted to fuck with her, they had chosen the wrong time-
And what if it’s not higher power? She thought in one single, crystalline moment. What if it’s you, just you, the part that made the decision as soon as you saw the door closing? The calculation wasn’t complex, Suji. Don’t pretend you didn’t know what was necessary as soon as you saw how far back he is.
Time stood on its head, still frozen, still removed from her.
Go back for Fin, lose two Animorphs. Maybe three, if it inspired Aubrey play at heroics as well.
Or keep going, and better their odds.
THE CHOICE IS CLEAR, ANIMORPH.
The voice boomed and her world shook. The world shook. Suji wanted to scream: she might have, if she didn’t feel so mentally frozen in time and space. It was a terrible sound, a terrible feeling, like someone drilling at her teeth, digging around in the marrow of her bones with a scalpel. Only it was painless, and that made it somehow worse. There was no pain where there should have been, just the knowledge that God, this should hurt, this should hurt so much.
And the worst part? The worst part wasn’t any of that. Not the knowledge that she’d been targeted, that this might amount to nothing but the machinations of some higher order, a grooming experience for some later plans.
The worst part was that the voice was right.
It was at that moment that Suji’s conscience blinked out, snuffed like an already sputtering candle met with a gust of wind. Some switch was thrown, and Suji tuned out of the morality of it all, and tuned into the clear, bright path of Logic and Reason and Probability.
<<Listen Aubrey, we need to get out. The door is—>> PAIN! Loss! The crocodile’s mind overpowered hers, thrashing to the side. Her tail! It was gone! A well placed dracon shot had reduced more than a forth of her body length! The crocodile hissed and snapped, jaws opening wide is a display of hostility and bewilderment. <<—GO AUBREY! NOW!>> If Aubrey could have questioned Suji’s certainty before—Suji had no idea if she did or not—it would be impossible to misinterpret it now.
Suji had picked up her pace again, and again Aubrey’s voice filtered into her head. But the tone of defeat was unmistakable. <<We can't.. he'll...>>
<<Do it.>> Suji ordered her as she scuffled past Aubrey, already losing quarts and quarts of blood. The trail behind her was one long streak of red, at least half an inch deep as more and more of her lifeblood spurted out. Aubrey would follow. Suji was sure of it.
Fin wouldn’t need to be told twice anyway, Suji thought darkly, bitterly, and knew that if there was any moment she damned herself in all of this, that was it.
<<Suji,>> Aubrey sounded like she was going to say more, but she didn’t, and Suji didn’t bother answering her. The rest of the escape was in silence.
Suji:
“What are you waiting for?”
They closed in on her, and she watched, wide-eyed, breathless, feeling terror and exaltation all the way in the roots of her teeth.
Not like this, not like THIS!
The pier shivered lightly as one of the Hork Bajir took the lead. He said something in harsh, broken English that might have amounted to telling her to stand still. Suji felt her body trying its damnedest to do just the opposite: it wanted to bolt, wanted to free itself, wanted to get away. Every fiber in her being was screaming that it wanted to survive. But she knew better.
The reptilian alien was only a few yards away now, closing in slowly, both wary and excited at once. She didn’t move. The dracon gun was still trained on her, and the arm holding it was raised stiffly. His other hand was held out, ready to grab for her.
No! NO! NO!
Another few steps, and now she could smell the creature, smell it even over the strange, saline odor of the pool. Its breath came out hot and ragged.
No! I’ll do good! Anything! Not like this! Anything!
Suji wasn’t a coward, though. God, if she should be labeled anything, let it not be a coward. Not after this. She held firm, pulling herself away from the fear, hoping it wouldn’t contaminate her will, needing to be on top of this. Needing to be in control.
You’re a murderer! Fucking suicide-case! Psychotic!
Now the taloned hand came towards her. The Controller must have decided that this was a surrender, that it he would grab her as easily as shoot her. She wasn’t going to surrender a thing.
I’m going to die! I’m-going-to-die-I’m-going-to-die-please-please-no-
Inches, inches-
Don’t do this! There’s always a CHOICE!
-And I’ve made mine.
There. Close enough.
Just as the alien’s claws were near enough to close on her, Suji lunged forward. She grabbed the creature’s wrist with both hands, feeling the blade there bite into her fingers. She gripped hard enough that one of her pinkies was severed in half. The pain was intense, and the bit of flesh and bone bounced against the planks before rolling into the pool. That was fine. She wouldn’t need it.
The Controller flailed, trying to raise his dracon gun again. He thought she was trying to attack him, and brought up his wrist blade defensively, instinctively.
For a moment, she remembered the Hive. Remembered the dead YPM Controllers. The woman that went last. That must have been the hardest part of all. Waiting your turn for a shard of sharp glass, as all your comrades killed themselves one by one. The lucky ones went first.
She brought her throat down on the upturned blade with all the weight of her gravity. There was a shriek of despair somewhere inside of her, but she was already drawing away from this life. Her mind disengaged as her blood ran out by the quart, spurting in a brilliant, six-foot arch before splattering against the pier, running between the planks, and then into the pool.
With the last bit of heat running out of her, Suji pushed away from the muscled form of the Hork Bajir. She tumbled towards the pool, the fall feeling like an eternity. She was spiraling down, and down, and up at the same time, and the only thing in the world it felt like was flying-
So what about you, Suji?
A distant voice asked her, and she wasn’t sure whose it was. Hers? Liam's? Aubrey's? Drake's? Luce's? Riley's? Raven's? Sophie's? Maybe her mother’s voice, over the phone, just after telling her that she needed to come home now—that things were happening, but it was best to be with your family.
Are you one of the lucky ones?
Blackness.
She didn’t even feel the water rush up around her.
END.
Suji galloped. It was a strange way to think of it, but that was actually what zoologists called it: the loping gate of a crocodile on the move. She was demorphing at the same time, though not full out. Not yet.
TSWEEER! Pain flooded her mind, and somewhere inside of her head there was a scream. She pushed forward. How much of her flank was gone? A few inches? A couple pounds? Her stride was impeded, but not much.
No! It can’t come down to this! I’ve come too far! I’ve survived too fucking much!
But it had. No way to turn back. The pool was huge, but it wasn’t completely oblong. There were smaller inlets, many piers. The way behind her was filled with dracon-wielding Hork Bajir and the scrambling needle-feet of Taxxons. Humans dived out of their path, though some didn’t quite make it.
There’s too much bad shit I’ve done, it can’t end like this! I’ve still got to make amends!
Suji shut down the inner squabbling as best she could. A few more yards-
TSSSWEEEEEEER!
Her back left leg was gone, and her tail, already only barely lifting from the ground, flopped down hard. Off balance she slid across the concrete. Her scales had been becoming human skin, and already her eyes were shifting as her skull became rounder, much less elongated. Figuring she wouldn’t get a better opportunity, Suji concentrated fully on demorphing now. The armored hide gave way to soft flesh, and her teeth shrank to not-so-sharp molars. The leg that began to grow back was human, not reptilian.
Angling her mutating body towards her destination, Suji tumbled into the pool with a splash! Immediately she inhaled a mouthful of the somehow sludgy water: it was impossible not to with her lungs and face restructuring. Thrashing with what tail she had left, Suji pushed towards the surface. She could feel the bodies of Yeerks as they bumped into her, like jellyfish without the sting.
Her head broke the surface and she gasped for air. Wildly she tried to spot the next goal. There. A pier jutted out into the pool maybe fifty feet away. She could make that. They’d stopped firing on her, for now. And why not? There was no point in risking killing someone’s boss, because there was no way she was getting out of this. Jumping in the pool had bought her time, but not even very much.
With strong human limbs, Suji flailed as she swam, losing the last crocodilian vestiges. Halfway between the point where she’d rolled into the water and the distant pier, she had to push herself to keep going. She felt her arms get weaker, and her hair fell into her eyes.
Time for a last stand, Suji thought, eyes set on the end of the dock.
Suji:
She was tired. The back-to-back morphing usually did that, but she was fairly decent with the endurance stuff. It was more than just the morphing. It was everything. Her body screamed and screamed for release, reprieve, forgiveness of some sort, but her mind was burning white hot. Suji spat out another mouthful of the pool water, and kicked herself towards the next pier.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
“THEY SHOULD BE OPEN.” Ray’s voice was impossibly loud over the intercom. If there was some sort of volume control, Ray either hadn’t found it or hadn’t bothered with it. Great, Suji thought, wincing. Every Controller in the Hive would be able to find them. At least he’d figured out the cell door controls.
We should just leave them to rot, Suji thought, none-too-pleasantly. They’d gotten themselves caught, after all, and the price for that was always death or something worse in this war. But here they were, the Animorphs, here to save the day. Wonderful. As soon as she could get these guys out and back to Drake’s group, they could start clearing the way for the escape-
The doors slid open with a faint hiss. At first Suji wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The human Controllers were all slumped forward, some sprawling across the floor. It looked almost like they were sleeping.
Except for the blood.
There was so much blood.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey whispered behind her.
“What the…” Fin asked, and Suji saw him tense out of the corner of her eye.
It coated them, seeped under them, a crimson puddle that stained everything it touched. It ran in still fresh turrets from their throats, where each Yeerk Peace Movement wore an almost identical second grin, a deep gash from ear to ear. Movement in the corner caught her eye, a redheaded woman stared at them, and Suji stared back. Light glinted off of something in the woman’s hand.
Glass. Suji could see streaks of scarlet on it, like a bit of colored church-glass. Perhaps the other two couldn’t see it; she was in the front. “No!” Suji dove forward, the ID Sootman had given her still hanging around her neck. She hit the slick pool of blood, though, and stumbled. Falling to her knees, her hands slipped out from under her as well, and as she crashed to her elbows the blood splashed up to her face. It was still warm.
The woman looked at her with wide, terrified eyes, and then brought the glass across her throat in one long arc. Her trembling hands didn’t press hard enough though: instead of bleeding out quickly, she had plenty of time to gurgle. Suji wasn’t sure if she bled to death or drowned first.
Shaking, it took Suji two tries to stand up, her feet kept sliding. She was covered in blood, her white lab-coat disguise splattered with it. She turned back to Aubrey and Fin. Drake and Aida were not too far off, though the way the rooms were set up, they wouldn’t be able to see this horror unless they walked in through the doorway. Suji shrugged off the lab coat, letting it fall to the ground. Slowly it wicked the stuff up, white to red, like an oversized napkin.
She brushed past Aubrey and Fin to get out. “The ones over here are dead,” Suji called out flatly to Drake and Aida.
“GUYS, GET OUT OF THERE! YOU GOT COMPANY COMING!” Ray’s voice again. Suji looked up and down the hall. No time. No time to process what had just happened. Already she was bringing forward the image of the saltwater crocodile, wanting to change swiftly, yearning for its peace of mind.
Suji:
Almost there. Almost there. She was finished. There was no way she was going to get another morph off, not now. It was too late for that. Suji made it: she was at the end of the pier. Reaching up and kicking at the same time, she grabbed a hold of it. It was made out of some sort of fibrous plastic. Her fingernails scraped for purchase, and she felt one of them completely separate from her finger.
Biting down a cry of pain, Suji began to pull herself up. It took the last of her waning strength, but slowly, surely, she heaved herself onto the dock.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
“Everyone, battle morphs. Hurry!” The rough scales of the crocodile blossomed over her skin like knotted scars, racing and racing until she was covered from head to foot. Her tail came next, fat and heavy, and she fell forward again, though at least this time the steel flooring was dry and cool. By the time she hit the ground her arms and legs had already shortened considerably, while she felt her body undergoing the familiar, yet still peculiar, sensation of stretching as she grew to over twenty feet in length.
She was done and waiting, and Suji leaned back on the crocodiles mind. This wasn’t the ambush the reptile preferred, but it knew no such thing as fear. If these aliens wanted to come to the crocodile’s territory, the crocodile was certain that they weren’t going to be leaving again.
The first wave came, and fell, in a mash Taxxon goop. Suji heard the Peace Movement Controllers coming out behind them. Apparently they believed the “Animorph” thing a bit more when suddenly the hallway had been filled with all sorts of deadly animals.
<<Figures. They don't trust us until we face death for them.>> Fin said, and Suji thought she could hear a tremor in his voice, below the sarcasm. No time to think about that.
<<Ok, new plan. Drake and Aubrey have the fastest morphs that can do some real damage in small hallways. You two should take the lead, clear a path, and we'll follow right behind you. Aida, Fin, you two watch the back. I'll stay directly in front of the group.>> The calculations had been quick and moderately sure. Ray wasn’t here to give them direction. In fact… where was Ray? Wasn’t he supposed to be meeting them by now?
<<All right,>> Aubrey agreed, and Suji saw her rush off with Drake. They would be pretty good at bulldozing anything living out of the way, but they were also going to be taking most of the heat from the dracon fire, unless the group got flanked. Which is entirely possible, she said to herself. After all, Controller-guards would be a hell of a lot more familiar with this place than they were. The idea of using Drake and Aubrey as battering rams, knowing that a well placed shot could kill them, made Suji feel sick. But she couldn’t take it back now.
<<Stay behind the crocodile,>> she said, directing her thoughtspeech at the YPM Controllers. <<You panic and run ahead of me, and I stop worrying about protecting you.>> There was no compassion in Suji’s voice. She didn’t care whether or not these Controllers lived or died. She only cared that they, the Animorphs, got out safely. That’s not true, she thought distantly. The image of the redhead cutting her own throat came back, but Suji pushed it away. It would have to be true for now.
<<Ray, Lizzie, where are you guys?>> Drake’s voice. He’d realized it too: Ray and Lizzie were overdue. Now Suji really began to worry. She could explain it off as micromanaging before, but if someone else noticed, it meant that it could really be a problem.
Thankfully, Lizzie responded. <<We're trapped in the surveillance room. I'm trying to find a vent or something we can escape into. Ray is doing something with the computers. Trying to slow them down, I think. I don't know if the door will keep them out much longer...>>
That didn’t sound good. Suji tried to think. Who could she send to get them? She was the first line of defense if someone managed to get past Aubrey and Drake. Maybe- A bison hurtled past the group, and Suji only swung her large tail out of the way just in time. <<Dra->> She began to question him, but he cut her off.
<<I can not stop. I have to help Ray and Lizzie.>>
That sick feeling again. But yes. Maybe he could help them. But not alone. The bison was strong, but what it had in strength it lacked in precision. <<Take Aida as backup.>>
<<Me?>> Aida asked.
<<Yes,>> Suji responded privately. <<Stay close to him.>> Aida might have hesitated for a moment, but sure enough she bounded after Drake’s bison as it turned the next corner.
When Suji had slowed to let Drake past, several Peace Movement Controllers had lost their patience and darted forward. Up ahead Suji saw exactly what she’d hoped not to see: Hork Bajir pouring out of some side route. Flanked. Fuck. The Controllers that had run ahead were instantly cut down: either literally diced into pieces, or falling to the ground with holes burned out of them.
<<RAY!>> A unanimous cry rose, almost deafening, and Suji couldn’t ask. The horror in their voices was enough to tell her everything she needed to know.
<<Aaah!>> Suji screamed, both in fury and in the sinking, desolate fear that they’d just lost someone—one of their own—and charged. She only felt the dracon shots as brief flashes of warmth on her thick hide, though she was sure they did more damage than that.
With her massive jaws she broke off one Hork Bajir’s leg with the ease of a child ripping off a Barbie doll leg. A sweep of her tail felled two more of the aliens, and she launched herself at them, goring them. The first one she bit hard enough to sever its head from its long neck, though its horns pieced the roof of her jaw. The other she wasn’t so precise with: she fell on its stomach, eating and tearing away at its guts. The creature screamed and the crocodile relished the noise—the death was slower and probably infinitely more painful than his comrades.
<<Hey! Stay back HERE you idiots!>> Fin was yelling at the other YPM Controllers, who had completely lost their sense of restraint at the site of the Hork Bajir. They rushed forward, jumping over the bodies of the fallen aliens. One man tripped and fell, and Suji saw as an upturning blade opened him up like a can opener through soft tin. What came out of him looked a lot like canned food too: glistening, wet, packaged. Canned food didn’t shriek and beg for help, though.
Another Hork Bajir leapt into the hallway, and Suji heard a hiss behind her. Something black flew through the air and the Hork Bajir stumbled back, trying to wipe furiously at his eyes with his taloned hands. He fell, managing to send off an array of dracon shots, each going wide of any mark. At least, they looked wide.
<<AUGH!>> Fin’s scream filled her head, and Suji turned back. Half of him was missing. The terror that had jumped into her mind only receded slightly when she realized that it was the bottom half gone.
Suji:
Suji panted. She was soaked, exhausted, and her mind was burning itself out, teetering on the last reserves of her sanity. Her entire understanding of the invasion, what it meant to be alive, what it meant to have a soul, all of that was tossed aside. Everything she knew was filed into one point: exacting, metallic, deadly sharp. And she planned to drive that bit of razor shrapnel into the heart of the world she knew.
She had served her stint being rational, reasonable. Let someone else carry that mantle for a while. She hated herself for it, perhaps hated herself more because it meant someone like Drake had to take it up. Drake, someone so good, someone who had never let the war get to him. Gritting her teeth so hard that pain flared in his molars, Suji pushed herself to her feet.
The Hork Bajir were reaching the other end of the pier now. They had their dracon beams raised, but they didn't fire: she'd run out of room to escape. They were undoubtedly salivating inside their cushiony seats, cradled in the skulls of those aliens: what a day it had been, after all. Not just one Animorph captured, but now a chance at another.
They approached her the way wildlife rescue might approach some endangered animal that had unfortunately wandered into a civilized area. And maybe it was like that.
Suji grinned back at them, a maniac smile that showed so many teeth that it was almost a snarl. "What are you waiting for?" She said under her breath, though it couldn't be certain who exactly she was talking to.
----------------------------
FLASHBACK:
<<Fin! I’m coming!>> Suji pushed her heavy body towards Fin’s crumpled form, catching sight of one of the rooms down an adjacent hallway as she did. There was a lot of crashing noises, as well as horrified shrieks coming from that way. She was too low to the ground to see into the tank-like windows, but there were security mirrors set along the top corners of the hallway, and within them she saw an injured cape buffalo barreling though what seemed like an experiment facility.
Several Controllers—or at least Suji assumed they were Controllers—were rushing out of the room. All of them wore white: some wore lab coats, others had one the androgynous hospital gowns given to surgery patients. At first she though the latter group must have just been people wounded by the fight: blood was smeared on their faces. But that wouldn’t explain why the scientists weren’t all harmed… and blood looked too thick, oozy, dried in places. It was coming out of their eyes. And their noses, and ears. Some of the fleeing individuals were dressed in full hazmat suits.
<<Aubrey! Get out of there, it's this way,>> Suji called. <<Fin's been hurt.>> Carefully, Suji picked up Fin’s snake-body in her jaws. As bizarre as it might have seemed, the crocodile wasn’t bad at it. Crocodiles actually made pretty good mothers, and were known to carry their eggs and even live young in their mouths. Not that Fin was exactly a baby crocodile, but it would have to be close enough for now.
<<Shit. What-->> Aubrey began, but there wasn’t time for explanations.
<<We need to go. Fin, start demorphing.>> He stirred in her mouth, though not much at first. Suji narrowed her thoughtspeech to just him. <<You need to start demorphing, Fin, or you die here as a fucking snake. Now DO IT.>> His body began to shift faster, though it still seemed too slow. Suji released him from her jaws so that he wouldn’t cut himself on her teeth as his body changed shape.
<<Aubrey, start running towards the door. Fin, you need to start running as well once you can. Keep demorphing.>> When it looked like Fin has just started to sprout legs, Suji began to move after Aubrey. The crocodile’s ability to turn its head wasn’t exactly ideal, but she kept an eye on each hallway they passed, in case. She didn’t want any Hork Bajir slipping past her and taking advantage of Fin’s vulnerable state.
The alarms had changed. The image of the hazmat suits and the sick people running out came to mind, and Suji pushed it down. Why should the alarms change? Wouldn’t they just need one for “Intruders!” or “Animorphs!”? What could possibly be more threatening than the Yeerk government’s only real opposition, stampeding around the halls? Suji didn’t think she wanted to know.
Ahead of her, Aubrey had stopped, turning back. <<Suji! Fin's still back there! I don't think he's going to make it!>>
<<Aubrey, keep running! You can't stop!>> Suji yelled. She didn’t see Aida, or Drake, let alone… let alone Ray or Lizzie. She didn’t know whether to hope they were behind Drake’s group, or ahead of them. If they were behind them, that might mean that Drake had gotten out safely. If they were ahead of them, that might mean that they would get out safely…
<<Suji->> Aubrey began to argue with her, and Suji was about to cut her off when she hear a the strange sounds of gears and electronics whirring in the walls. There also seemed to be the noise of air being forcing out of pipes, or some kind of hydraulics at work. Suji couldn’t recognize it. <<Strewth! The door's closing! What do we do? Fin's not going to make it!>>
<<…Um, guys?>> Fin’s voice. Suji turned her head so that she could see how far behind he was.
Fuck.
The door was sliding shut ahead of her. Damn it! Damn her fucking gigantic morph! If this was in the water, she could have turned on a dime, gone back, scooped him up, and maybe, maybe made it back to the door in time. But they weren’t in water. They were in a hallway. She was a twenty foot long monster lizard moving at full speed, and there was no chance she had of pivoting, running back there, and making it back through the door. Aubrey wouldn’t be able to either: she was too far ahead, and her morph suffered some of the same drawbacks as Suji’s: pure power over a lack of dexterity.
<<Leave him.>> Suji hadn’t meant to say anything, hadn’t made a decision, but those words definitely came from her. Suddenly she felt cramped in her head, that familiar watched feeling. No! NO! NOT NOW! If some higher-powers wanted to fuck with her, they had chosen the wrong time-
And what if it’s not higher power? She thought in one single, crystalline moment. What if it’s you, just you, the part that made the decision as soon as you saw the door closing? The calculation wasn’t complex, Suji. Don’t pretend you didn’t know what was necessary as soon as you saw how far back he is.
Time stood on its head, still frozen, still removed from her.
Go back for Fin, lose two Animorphs. Maybe three, if it inspired Aubrey play at heroics as well.
Or keep going, and better their odds.
THE CHOICE IS CLEAR, ANIMORPH.
The voice boomed and her world shook. The world shook. Suji wanted to scream: she might have, if she didn’t feel so mentally frozen in time and space. It was a terrible sound, a terrible feeling, like someone drilling at her teeth, digging around in the marrow of her bones with a scalpel. Only it was painless, and that made it somehow worse. There was no pain where there should have been, just the knowledge that God, this should hurt, this should hurt so much.
And the worst part? The worst part wasn’t any of that. Not the knowledge that she’d been targeted, that this might amount to nothing but the machinations of some higher order, a grooming experience for some later plans.
The worst part was that the voice was right.
It was at that moment that Suji’s conscience blinked out, snuffed like an already sputtering candle met with a gust of wind. Some switch was thrown, and Suji tuned out of the morality of it all, and tuned into the clear, bright path of Logic and Reason and Probability.
<<Listen Aubrey, we need to get out. The door is—>> PAIN! Loss! The crocodile’s mind overpowered hers, thrashing to the side. Her tail! It was gone! A well placed dracon shot had reduced more than a forth of her body length! The crocodile hissed and snapped, jaws opening wide is a display of hostility and bewilderment. <<—GO AUBREY! NOW!>> If Aubrey could have questioned Suji’s certainty before—Suji had no idea if she did or not—it would be impossible to misinterpret it now.
Suji had picked up her pace again, and again Aubrey’s voice filtered into her head. But the tone of defeat was unmistakable. <<We can't.. he'll...>>
<<Do it.>> Suji ordered her as she scuffled past Aubrey, already losing quarts and quarts of blood. The trail behind her was one long streak of red, at least half an inch deep as more and more of her lifeblood spurted out. Aubrey would follow. Suji was sure of it.
Fin wouldn’t need to be told twice anyway, Suji thought darkly, bitterly, and knew that if there was any moment she damned herself in all of this, that was it.
<<Suji,>> Aubrey sounded like she was going to say more, but she didn’t, and Suji didn’t bother answering her. The rest of the escape was in silence.
Suji:
“What are you waiting for?”
They closed in on her, and she watched, wide-eyed, breathless, feeling terror and exaltation all the way in the roots of her teeth.
Not like this, not like THIS!
The pier shivered lightly as one of the Hork Bajir took the lead. He said something in harsh, broken English that might have amounted to telling her to stand still. Suji felt her body trying its damnedest to do just the opposite: it wanted to bolt, wanted to free itself, wanted to get away. Every fiber in her being was screaming that it wanted to survive. But she knew better.
The reptilian alien was only a few yards away now, closing in slowly, both wary and excited at once. She didn’t move. The dracon gun was still trained on her, and the arm holding it was raised stiffly. His other hand was held out, ready to grab for her.
No! NO! NO!
Another few steps, and now she could smell the creature, smell it even over the strange, saline odor of the pool. Its breath came out hot and ragged.
No! I’ll do good! Anything! Not like this! Anything!
Suji wasn’t a coward, though. God, if she should be labeled anything, let it not be a coward. Not after this. She held firm, pulling herself away from the fear, hoping it wouldn’t contaminate her will, needing to be on top of this. Needing to be in control.
You’re a murderer! Fucking suicide-case! Psychotic!
Now the taloned hand came towards her. The Controller must have decided that this was a surrender, that it he would grab her as easily as shoot her. She wasn’t going to surrender a thing.
I’m going to die! I’m-going-to-die-I’m-going-to-die-please-please-no-
Inches, inches-
Don’t do this! There’s always a CHOICE!
-And I’ve made mine.
There. Close enough.
Just as the alien’s claws were near enough to close on her, Suji lunged forward. She grabbed the creature’s wrist with both hands, feeling the blade there bite into her fingers. She gripped hard enough that one of her pinkies was severed in half. The pain was intense, and the bit of flesh and bone bounced against the planks before rolling into the pool. That was fine. She wouldn’t need it.
The Controller flailed, trying to raise his dracon gun again. He thought she was trying to attack him, and brought up his wrist blade defensively, instinctively.
For a moment, she remembered the Hive. Remembered the dead YPM Controllers. The woman that went last. That must have been the hardest part of all. Waiting your turn for a shard of sharp glass, as all your comrades killed themselves one by one. The lucky ones went first.
She brought her throat down on the upturned blade with all the weight of her gravity. There was a shriek of despair somewhere inside of her, but she was already drawing away from this life. Her mind disengaged as her blood ran out by the quart, spurting in a brilliant, six-foot arch before splattering against the pier, running between the planks, and then into the pool.
With the last bit of heat running out of her, Suji pushed away from the muscled form of the Hork Bajir. She tumbled towards the pool, the fall feeling like an eternity. She was spiraling down, and down, and up at the same time, and the only thing in the world it felt like was flying-
So what about you, Suji?
A distant voice asked her, and she wasn’t sure whose it was. Hers? Liam's? Aubrey's? Drake's? Luce's? Riley's? Raven's? Sophie's? Maybe her mother’s voice, over the phone, just after telling her that she needed to come home now—that things were happening, but it was best to be with your family.
Are you one of the lucky ones?
Blackness.
She didn’t even feel the water rush up around her.
END.