Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2009 20:43:40 GMT -5
Out of the Frying Pan...
Andre (Drake):
Andre was in the sanctuary, praying. He wasn't a particularly religious man, but lately he had quite a bit to be thankful for. For one thing, he was alive, for another, he wasn't a controller. And thirdly, he was an animorph.
Kind of.
His new allies tried to give him the ability to morph, but for some reason it did not work on him. He was unable to morph into anything, but he was still a part of the team. He was not the only one who couldn't morph, however. Apparently there was someone who was trapped as a snake. At least Andre had fared better than her.
Andre rose to his feet, ready to go see what he could do to help out around the Temple. Then he noticed how hot his feet felt. Sure, it was warm in Dallas, but that was no reason for his feet to feel like a sweltering jungle. He reached down to untie his shoes and felt a channel of hot air blowing out of a vent.
"That's not good," he said matter of factly. Why was the heat on during this type of weather? Andre walked out into the hallway, looking for someone who had been here longer than him. When he found someone he asked, "Do you know why the heat is on?" He figured nobody had turned it on, but thought he had better at least ask before he tried to fix the furnace.
Suji:
"No," Suji replied. She'd just walked into the hallway from her room. She'd waken from a nap (it was hard to sleep for long periods of time--her nightmares about Crayak kept getting worse instead of better) to find herself lying in a pool of sweat. She'd closed the vent off in her room the best she could, but the damage had been done--the place felt like an oven. And the hallway wasn't much better.
"This is awful," she said, and pulled her hair into a ponytail with a small rubber band. Her morphing suit had long sleeves and full pants, and each was tight. "Any chance your technical knowledge extends to household appliances?"
Andre:
"I'll see what I can do," Andre said in reply. "Any chance you know where the furnace is? I would guess the basement, but I don't know where that is. Down, I suppose. I can find it. Got any tools?"
Andre was kind of rambling, but he got a little nervous around people he didn't know too well. Sure, he knew this girl was one of the three who had saved him, and he had spent the last three days in the faction's company, but Andre was a bit shy around girls so he was still nervous. At any rate, he had managed to ask what he needed.
Suji:
"Tools?" Suji was in the process of rolling up the sleeves of her morphing suit: there had been a lost and found in the church, and she was planning on raiding it for anything that remotely fit. "I think we actually did dig out a toolbox when we were junking the trash in the building. It's just a question of where we put it."
She thought for a moment, fidgeting and tugging on the neckline of her suit. She'd been glad to have it in Chicago's chill, but now she was regretting not having biking shorts, which seemed to be the consensus otherwise. "Here, the Fellowship hall. I think it's on one of the shelves in there." She led the way.
Fin:
Fin saw Andre and Suji disappearing into Fellowship hall and gave a sharp whistle. "Yo, Suji, controller-man wants you to read him his last rights. I offered but apparently I am unworthy. I secretly think it is because I'm impure," he said trotting and catching up to them.
"Hey Andre," Fin said amiably as if he hadn't once suggested leaving the guy out to dry with the controllers. "How is everything today? Besides for hot that is."
Suji:
Suji was scouting for the toolbox. She'd just spotted it on one of the top shelves. "Oh, there it is! See it? It's yellow." There wasn't any way she was going to be able to reach it, but she had no doubt Andre could. "Be careful, no idea if it's latched shut or not."
She heard the whistle and turned to see Fin coming down the hallway. She heard him, but wasn't sure she heard him correctly. "What?"
Fin:
"Your boy, the controller, he's on his way out," at this Fin gave an exaggerated frown to show the proper emotion at the sad event of the yeerks passing. "He asked for you by name." Fin wasn't quite on good enough terms to joke with Suji about fake crushes so he left that part out.
"Wants to tell you something. I think he wants to confess his undying love." Well there went that consideration but he just couldn't resist. "Also, if you hadn't noticed, it is really hot in here. What is going on?"
Suji:
Suji's brow furrowed. "Asked for me?" In truth, she felt her stomach flip. Between Crayak and him (mostly him, her mind whispered) she hadn't been sleeping well. The last time she'd watched a Yeerk starve had been with Karl, David's brother back in Chicago. A lot had happened between then and now.
Like her best friend making herself a traitor for an instant in order to save a Controller, whom she apparently loved.
And Liam himself didn't make it easy either. He was manipulative, sure, but it was that bright sort of intelligence that made her feel sick inside, because it showed that yes, maybe they weren't so different from humans. Certainly not so different from Suji herself, who seemed to fall on the more calculating side of things. Was Suji really killing a person?
Doesn't matter if he is, she thought. If it is. It. Not he.
"...all right then. Andre thinks our furnace is out of whack. I'm going to grab a spare t-shirt or something from the Lost and Found near the Sanctuary and get out of this morphing suit."
- - -
Suji had scored: a solid navy blue tee-shirt that wasn't horrifically over-sized, and a pair of khaki shorts. Feeling a lot better walking around in the breathable clothing, though still pretty unbearably warm, she went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. She drank it down, and then filled it again. Stopping for a moment at the kitchen door, she turned back and went to the fridge, pulling out the jug of water (a Brita filter that had long since been filter-less). She cracked an entire tray of ice cubes into it, and then carefully carried both to the room.
What. Are. You. Doing.
Probably shooting herself in the foot.
Andre:
Andre half chuckled at Fin's comments as he got the toolbox off of the shelf. The toolbox was heavy, but after moving a few other objects around, he managed to get it off the shelf without any problems. Now he just had to find the furnace.
Apparently Suji had already left to find the lost and found, because all he saw was Fin when he turned back around. Andre thought Fin was alright, for the most part, but he had to admit that Fin rubbed him the wrong way on occasion. Hopefully this would not be one of them.
"Do you know where the basement is? I haven't seen it yet since I got here." If Fin didn't know, or didn't cooperate, he would just search around until he found it.
Suji:
Suji moved quickly, irritated, already feeling a line of sweat rolling between her shoulder blades. She rolled up the short sleeves until the shirt looked almost sleeveless. Great. I look like I'm heading to a local park to play... I don' t know, intermural softball or something. But that thought was just a distraction.
Good. They were still in the Fellowship Hall. Suji walked inside to see Andre holding the toolbox. She smiled at him: it wasn't him she was furious with, and if he could fix this generator, even better. "Hey Andre, can you see if there's a box cutter in there?" In the same light tone of voice she added, "And I'd like to have a few words with you, Fin."
Fin:
"Yep," Fin responded to Andre. "So it is a little hard to find but this place is so small that it should be easy enough. Why you going down there? This a furnace problem?" Fin asked feeling the hot air coming out the near vent for the first time. It was the only answer he really needed but it was still nice to ask. He didn't know much about furnaces but he liked to tinker with machines of all sorts so this might be a good opportunity to learn.
"Hey Andre, can you see if there's a box cutter in there?" Fin turned around at the sound of Suji's voice and frowned at her a bit. The guy actually was dying and he'd asked for Suji so why was she out here messing around with them. Fin didn't feel any special bond of kinship with the yeerk but he seemed like a decent enough guy. Deserved last wishes and all. "And I'd like to have a few words with you, Fin."
It was all said in a very conversational tone but it still had the ominous weight of 'we-need-to-talk' behind it. Fin thought about just shrugging it off. We-need-to-talk moments normally led to scoldings of some sort and he wasn't really interested in pretending to be contrite about anything. But in his experience if someone didn't complain when they wanted to they just found a way to complain later. It was like the complaint built up until the final complain session was worse than the original one would have been. Better to tax his ears now than put it off and deal with it later.
"Sure Suj, let me just show Andre where the basement is," Fin said in the same oh-aren't-we-haven't-a-nice-little-chat voice. He pointed in the right direction and gave a few instructions before turning back to Suji. " 'Sup?"
Andre:
Andre set the toolbox down on a table and quickly shuffled through its contents. It didn't take him long to find a box cutter and he promptly handed it over to Suji. He wanted to ask what she needed it for, but wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. It was probably not for anything bad, but they were currently starving a yeerk to death, and Andre wasn't entirely sure what that entailed.
He closed the lid on the toolbox as Fin explained the location of the basement. No sooner had Fin finished than Andre headed for the door. Whatever Suji had to say to Fin, Andre didn't want to get caught in the middle of it. "Hopefully I'll have it fixed in a jiffy," he said as he turned the corner.
Doubtful.
Suji:
Suji smiled at Andre again when he handed over the box cutter. "Good luck, with the furnace. But don't get yourself hurt--I don't think anyone's taken the time to see if the First Aid kit is up to date." And why would they? Up until now almost everyone in the Temple had the best healing technology available.
Once he was gone, Suji turned to Fin. She didn't snarl, but there was a hard glint in her eyes, and she squeezed the box cutter tight in her grip. "You told that Controller my name?"
Fin:
Fin looked around and found a chair. He sat down in it and slouched a while. It was really hot in here so he hoped Andre could figure out what the deal was. In the mean time he was thinking of taking on an extra patrol. Normally Fin avoided doing extra work but the patrol would get him out of the church and into the air outside which was, admittedly not much cooler, but a little cooler.
Thinking of flying in the coolness of the upper air Fin's answer sounded a bit distracted but he was perfectly capable of concentrating on many things at once. "Your question implies he did not know it already."
Suji:
They'd put Liam in that out of the way room before he'd gained consciousness, and Suji had noticed that no one else seemed particularly comfortable going inside the room. Except Fin, out of what, curiosity?
Maybe. What's your excuse?
In any case, she doubted anyone else had been chatting up the Controller. The only other person she'd noticed speaking to him at all (present company excluded) was Ray, and Suji doubted Ray had gone in to have a heart to heart. Maybe he'd heard it through the walls at some point, but Suji doubted it. Even if that was the case, though, it was clear that Fin was guilty in using it, given the lack of denial.
"And your answer implies you know exactly what I'm talking about," she retorted, frustration showing more clearly. "So the next time you feel the need to talk about me with a captive, don't."
Aubrey:
Boredom. For the past days, Aubrey had been feeling cooped up, uneasy, full of energy. Drawing on her wall with chalk usually worked to stave off the restlessness, but she had run out of chalk. Without the chalk, she was left to stare uselessly at the scene emerging on her wall--a pastel blue ocean, lit up by a pale salmon-and-orange sun. The beach part of it was only in outlines, but it was obvious that there were little stick-figures sitting underneath umbrellas and surfers heading out. Well, stick-figure surfers with oval clutched to their thin sides. They looked good to Aubrey.
Since losing her chalk, the next thing to do was try out what she'd heard other people doing--practice morphing. Sitting in her room for an hour or so, she shifted between morphs. After awhile she began feeling exhausted and hot. At first she assumed it had something to do with the energy required of morphing, and she was getting tired. Then she realized that one of the vents in her room was blasting heat into her room. It hadn't helped that her door was closed.
Stretching, she swung open the door to her room. The whole place felt hot. Pulling her hair back from the sweaty nape of her neck, Aubrey headed down the hallway towards the Fellowship Hall. She could hear voices coming from the doorway, and by the time she was almost there she ran into Andre. Aubrey gave him a big smile, noticing the yellow toolbox in his hands. "Hey! What's going on? Why's it so hot here?"
Fin:
"Lol Suji," Fin said and then actually started laughing both because of the situation and because 'lol' was a funny sounding word to him, perfectly suited for the place it had taken up among online culture. "I didn't talk to Liam about you. He talk about you to me. I was just being friendly. I think the dude has a bit of a crush, better watch out," Fin said raising his eyebrows suggestively.
But a second later he turned serious. "Suji what is up with you and him? I don't mean to question your legendary objectivity here but why should one controller knowing your name get under your skin so much?"
Suji:
Suji did not look entertained. She continued staring at him. "He doesn't have a crush. He's trying to fuck with my head." And it's working, she thought inwardly.
"It gets under my skin because it wasn't your information to give. It was mine. And if I'm not comfortable with a Yeerk knowing my name, whether or not he'll be dead in a few hours, whether or not he's just one Controller, doesn't matter. Possible questions of security aside, it's basic consideration. You should keep it in mind."
She exhaled shallowly. "Are we clear?"
Fin:
"Clear as a summer day, clear as a cool glass of water, clear as your judgement is not, but whatever," Fin said sitting back. His concern for her safety had pretty much been exhausted with his one inquiry, especially when that inquiry was met with the closest Suji came to an angry scolding. If she wanted to play around with dying boy Fin wasn't going to stop her but he couldn't help saying one last thing. That had always been his problem.
"Don't get me wrong. I hear you, partially anyway. Dude's trying to get under your skin then it helps to know your name. But since when do you let people get to you? I knew he was trying to get to you Suji, didn't know it was working."
Suji:
My judgment?" Suji snickered darkly. "There's nothing about my judgment that's being clouded here. He's a Controller, and the Yeerk in that man's head is going to die. If that isn't crystalline, you tell me what is." She took a step back and started to turn to go when he continued.
She looked up at him, dark eyes intense and her jaw set. "If you'll excuse me," she said, words terse. "I've got to go listen to my name on the lips of a dying Controller, while I try to figure out if he qualifies as a person or not." Suji moved for the exit.
Fin:
Fin laughed and the sound unconsciously mimicked that of the alter ego that haunted his dreams..."Of course he's a person Suji. They all are. We kill them anyway." He would have felt disturbed at the words and the laugh if he had been paying attention but he wasn't, his mind was firmly focused on getting outside and away from the heat now.
He stood up and started heading towards the door, shrinking into his falcon morph as he did so. He was going to get some cool air and pretend to be doing work while he did. "Going on patrol. Don't have too much fun while I'm gone."
Suji:
Suji didn't look back as he said it. Fin saying that held all the weight of Raven's past lecturing: this wasn't the sort of thing that you learned about just because someone told you so. She wasn't a stranger to the fact that many (most?) of the other Animorphs held a similar viewpoint concerning Yeerks: that they had personalities, humanity even.
She passed Aubrey and Andre in the hall. "Hey guys," she smiled. "Aubrey, you should help out Andre with this furnace thing. Make sure he doesn't hurt himself. Not sure he'd really enjoy the hospital food if he managed to break something." Suji half-smiled pleasantly, seamlessly covering up the anguish inside, at least for a passing moment. If she'd stopped longer, if they had more time to look, maybe it would have been different.
For now, though, she had to deal with her single greatest problem at the moment. She needed a door guard and something from her room.
It wasn't long until Suji was in the kitchen. "Hey, Sophie are you in here?"
Andre:
No sooner had Andre left Fin and Suji to their talk than he was stopped by Aubrey. She was another one of the people who helped rescue him. She wasn't quite as... intimidating, as the other girl. "I think the furnace is broken. I'm going to see if I can fix it so I'm trying to get to the basement right now. Fin gave me directions so I should be able to find it. I just had to get these tools first." Andre rose the toolbox up for viewing. At the same time his embarrassment was rising. He had started rambling again. He hoped that wouldn't happen with Aubrey.
Luckily Suji arrived to break up his feeling of awkwardness. Andre let a few deep laughs escape from his gut at Suji's comment as she passed them in the hall. The only bone Andre had ever broken was his pinky toe, when he dropped a patio brick on it when he was helping his dad do some landscaping. And that was when he was only nine.
"I'll try not to hurt myself," he said jovially. "You are welcome to help out, Aubrey. The more the merrier."
Sophie:
Sophie was lounging in one of the cooler, darker areas of the kitchen. Somebody had decided to jack the heat up in the Temple. As much as Sophie liked it being warm--lying in the sun was one of the snake's favorite past-times--this was kind of ridiculous. Worse off, she got the brunt of it being on the floor. There wasn't much she could do about it.
When Suji came in, Sophie was half between dozing and staring at a nearby rat hole. There hadn't been any movement in it today. Looking over near the doorway, she spotted Suji. <<Hey, yeah. I'm near the counters. The floor.>>
Suji:
"I've got a job for you, if you're interested. Nothing intense, just guarding, and in case I need some handy thought-speech relay." Suji spotted Sophie's form, and couldn't help but feel her heart beat a little faster. Even if Suji herself had a cobra morph (and enjoyed it), that didn't stop the natural human reaction to seeing a big snake not very far away. She calmed herself.
"If you wouldn't mind helping out, you can head to the room we're holding that Controller in. Just wait outside. I'll be there soon enough, have to grab something from my room. If you're not interested that's perfectly fine too," Suji added, and then left the kitchen.
Aubrey:
She glanced over to Suji when she passed, offering her a smile. "Hey, right-o. I'll keep an eye on him." She didn't seem to notice Suji's discomfort, as her attention was already back to Andre. She tilted her head, looking to the toolbox again. "Ahh, so that's why it's so unbearable here. Cool, so do you know how to fix it?" Aubrey liked Andre; He was a nice guy. She was happy that they had been able to rescue him.
Giving him a large smile, she nodded. "Sounds good. I don't know how to do anything when it comes to fixing stuff up. Dad never taught me." As much of a tomboy that she had been when she was younger, her mother had insisted that Aubrey didn't need to learn things like that. Of course, her mother was also sort of crazy. "Lead the way. I never realized we had a basement."
Andre:
"Well, I guess this thing has a basement somewhere. Fin gave me directions to it, so... Although it might not go under the entire building." Andre lead the way towards the entrance to the basement.
"So, I'm not entirely sure that I will know how to fix this thin, or even if there is anything wrong. Heating systems aren't usually a major problem in Dallas. I'm not saying I won't try. I'm just saying, don't be surprised if it stays hot for a while." Andre paused his speech for a moment, then added, "But I can probably fix it" He was trying to make small talk, but it kind of ended up being one-sided.
Fin:
<<Fine fine, whatever,>> Fin said coming in to land in the church bell tower. He gave one last reproachful look towards the pied crow doing patrol before beginning the process that would take the falcon's vision away from him. On his way down the steps he could be heard muttering something about, "taking advantage of faction leadership," if anyone was around to hear him that was. Weren't four eyes better than two anyway. And he would bet his vision was better than a crow's but everything had to be according to the stupid schedule posted on the bulletin board.
"What if I don't want to do dishes," he asked no one since he, Suji and Aubrey had pulled household chores this week. It was kind of funny. They were in charge of taking out the trash. Get it? Laugh.
He opened the door to the hallway and found Andre and Aubrey standing there with the tool kit. "You didn't get very far," Fin remarked. "Then again, I didn't get very far either." He looked down the hallway toward the room Ray had entitled New Beginnings. It seemed like an awfully ill fitting title for a room where they locked people up for three days until the slugs starved out of their heads, going through waves of pain as they did so.
He still wanted to be in there. He still wanted to see. But he didn't feel like dealing with Suji. Whether she believed him or not he personally thought her judgement was off, had been from the beginning. And it annoyed him. "Need help with that furnace? The sooner it is fixed the sooner we can all breath around here."
Aubrey:
Fin came walking down the hallway, and Aubrey followed his gaze shortly to the door--the room where they were keeping the controller until the Yeerk starved. "Hey, hey Fin. Come along with. The more minds to figure out the furnace the faster the heat goes away." If Aubrey hadn't been looking towards the doorway, she might not have noticed the snake that had slithered over to it. But she did see it. Suddenly, she felt like they needed to start moving.
Aubrey wiped the palm of her hand against her forehead, following Andre towards the basement--and away from Sophie. "Yikes, I hope not. It's getting warmer outside everyday, and having it hot here too isn't going to be too fun." Raking her fingers through her hair, she pulled some strands that had stuck to her face. She was hoping they could fix this thing.
Andre:
Andre just nodded to Fin in greeting when he returned from who-knows-where, then motioned for him to tag along. So now it looked like both Fin and Aubrey would be there to help him figure out the problem. Now he would have too people looking over his shoulder, but also two people giving him advice. He wasn't sure wether either was good or bad, so he decided to remain indifferent. Besides, he had just said 'the more the merrier.'
When they reached the entrance to the basement, Andre opened the door to reveal the extremely steep steps that went down into the cellar. "It's dark down there," Andre stated, as if they couldn't see that for themselves. He went down the stairs cautiously. He was nervous about cobwebs and rats and other similar critters. As he made it to the bottom and stood on the dirt floor, he asked, "Anyone see a light switch?" He could hear the low hum of the furnace working overtime. Just the sound of it seemed to be making him sweat.
Fin:
Instead of fumbling around for one Fin began to shrink into his cat form. The slivery fur with its pattern of black rosettas spread across his body from his head down. He almost wished that there was light down here, he wanted to see what he looked like. His ears rotated to the top of his head next and took on the shape of the cat's ears and claws began pushing themselves out from his finger tips. A tail shot out from the base of his spine, canines grew in his mouth and his eyes turned a tawny gold and slit-pupiled. It was official, Fin was an anime fantasy boy.
Then he began to shrink and the other parts of the cat began appearing. His muscles didn't so much shrink as all the excess, useless stuff was concentrated into the powerful form of the cat. His knees reversed with a crunch and his legs shrunk to match his arms. He was shrinking in general and growing closer to the floor he couldn't see.
He twitched his nose as his sense of scent kicked in and he began looking around for the light switch. Only then did he realize he had probably chosen the wrong morph. The cat's brain was attuned for movement and it was really hard to try to get it to concentrate on anything that was still. And the light switch certainly wasn't moving around.
Fin heard running feet in the upstairs hallway and turned his head sharply not sure if Aubrey and Andre had heard it too. He knew it! Something had gone wrong! <<Guys, what's going on!>> He shouted as he darted up the stairs in time to see Drake go running by. He turned his head towards the slightly open door of the prisoner's room but he could still hear a low level of conversation going on in there. He had to assume that everything was ok. Well actually he didn't have to assume any such thing but he would assume that the prisoner hadn't somehow escaped.
<<Sophie-kaa,>> he sent to his faction mate, <<what is going on in there? Anything to be worried about?>> Fin was trotting back down the stairs as he asked and so he noticed the string hanging above the basement landing that he hadn't seen the first time.
<<Found the light switch,>> he said to Andre and Aubrey, sitting under the string and looking up at it.
Andre:
Andre was silent when he noticed the sound of squishing and rearranging organs. One of them must have been morphing. At that moment Andre was glad that it was so dark because watching someone turn into something else was disgusting, to say the least. Maybe you got used to it after a while, but he had only been around morphing people for a couple days.
"Where is it?" Andre asked when Fin claimed to have found the light. He peered around and saw the outline of a cat on the basement landing. "Over there?" Andre moved closer, looking for a switch on the wall, but then bumped the hanging string with his head. "Ah, an old fashioned one," he said as he pulled the string and the room lit up.
The basement was not too spacious. It had a low ceiling and a dirt floor, and apparently no windows. There were a bunch of props or something leaned against one wall. By the looks of it, they were probably used around Christmas time. Then he finally located the humming furnace. It was pretty old-fashioned but obviously in working condition. Now they just needed to figure out what to do with it. "Any suggestions?"
Aubrey:
Aubrey tilted her head sideways, getting a look at the open basement door. It did look pretty dark. Aubrey watched Andre start heading down, but didn't budge. She wasn't afraid of the dark, no. But the basement looked like one of those places that spawned serial murderers. Running her fingers through her hair, she finally began trekking down after them, one hand pressed against the side of the wall to guide her.
Half-way down, she started hearing the humming of the furnace. Once she reached the bottom, she realized someone must be morphing. At least, she hoped that was what that sound was. "Uh, uhm. Light-switch..." The place was pitch-black, and waving her hands around blindly didn't seem to help all that much. Fin seemed to have found it, and after a few seconds Aubrey was blinking rapidly against the sudden brightness in the room. Gazing around slowly, her eyes locked on the furnace.
"Oh wow. That things really chugging away." The heat down here had mingled with the musty air of the basement, making each in take of breath slightly unpleasant. Wiping the back of her hand against her forehead, she shook her head at Andre. "I have no clue. Do you think you could burn yourself on that thing by touching it?"
Sophie:
They were still waiting on Drake to come back with the first-aid. So Fin's thought-speak filling Sophie's head had surprised her. The reaction came as a slight lifting of her head, before realizing who and what it had been. Slowly, Sophie settled her head back against her scaled body, eyes still fixed on the controller.
<<Nothing to worry about. The controller broke a glass. Hurt himself. Drake's getting some first aid for him.>>
Fin:
<<Thanks Sophie-kaa. Would you mind telling me if anything...untoward happens?>> He was not about to confide his fears about Suji's judgement to Sophie. It would only undermine her authority and that was the last thing they needed since Suji had put herself in charge of this controller. But he felt he had to keep an eye out in case anything bad happened. In case Suji let some sort of feelings get in the way of doing her job, of keeping them safe. Are you kidding? Are we talking about the same person? But everyone was human, everyone made mistakes. Fin wasn't about to let one of Suji's be the death of him.
Fin trotted over to the furnace. He didn't want to demorph right now and lose the thoughtspeak so he decided to check it out in this form. Except the cat was very small and furnaces were not meant to be looked at from kitty height. <<Not sure what to do either Andre. I always thought I was good with machines but that mostly means computers, not furnaces.>>
Andre:
"I sure hope not, but probably," Andre said in response to Aubrey's question. He didn't want to burn himself, but he was pretty sure that if he touched the wrong part of this contraption, he would do just that. He would just have to be careful.
"And I don't know a whole lot about computers, or furnaces. I mostly know cars. Even then I am not an expert at the really fine detail stuff, but I know my way around an engine. Between the two.. er, three of us, we should be able to conquer this thing. At least I hope so, seeing as how I've been sweating buckets ever since I noticed that the heat kicked on."
Andre went about examining the furnace. Getting a feel for how it operated. He hadn't pulled out any tools yet, seeing as how he didn't yet know which ones he needed.
Aubrey:
Scratching the side of her neck, Aubrey stared at the furnace for a long moment. A bead of sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. "I have absolutely no clue about furnaces." It didn't seem like they'd get all too far with their lack of knowledge, but it was better than nothing. Aubrey watched Andre feeling along the furnace.
"Maybe there's some sort of switch or control panel or something. Do you see anything yet, Andre?" As she spoke she moved forward, circling the other way around the furnace. Maybe there was some sort of switch that would turn the thing off. It seemed too easy, but she could hope.
Andre:
Andre turned a couple knobs experimentally to see if he could figure out what they did. Slowly but surely he was piecing together how the furnace worked. He was learning which pipes did what, and were they led too. He was about to comment on this when Aubrey decided to leave. He wasn't exactly sure why she was going, but he had no reason to stop her. "See ya around," he said as she headed up the stairs.
"I think I'm starting to figure it out. How 'bout you?" he asked Fin. It looked like it was up to the two of them to get it fixed. Andre reached into the toolbox and pulled out a large wrench.
Drake:
Drake was trying to get a stained glass window open in the sanctuary for quite a while before he gave up and settled for covering up the openings to the vents instead. It would not stop the heat, but at least it would slow the heat down. Just as he covered up his third vent, he heard Sophie's thought speech message. Drake thought it was a bit strange that Suji wanted people to stay out of the holding room and down in the basement, but Drake trusted Suji's judgement and decided to just go with it. He walked out of the sanctuary just in time to see Aubrey going into the room he was supposed to keep people out of.
Drake shrugged and decided Suji would have to deal with her and headed towards the basement, nodding hello to Sophie as he passed. When he got to the bottom of the basement steps he saw a cat and Andre holding a wrench. "Getting it fixed?" Drake asked hopefully. He wasn't sure how much longer he could withstand this greenhouse of a building. Although he was sure it would not be long.
Fin:
Fin's ears twitched. He was only half paying attention to the machine they were supposed to be fixing. Instead he was too busy listening to screams of agony coming from upstairs. He was pretty sure Andre couldn't hear them but Fin's enhanced hearing heard them all too quickly.
So Liam was on his way out uh? And where was Fin? Stuck in a basement. He wanted to go upstairs. He wanted to see. He wanted to be there. And a small voice asked why? He'd been telling himself it was just gruesome fascination. He'd never seen a yeerk die. Did they beg for forgiveness the way humans sometimes did? Did they pray? He just wanted answers to those questions.
But that wasn't exactly it was it. He didn't want to know if yeerks prayed or begged for forgiveness. He wanted to know if Liam did. These were Liam's final moments and Fin wanted to see how he handled them. Wanted to know so that he'd have a bit of an example to follow when his own final moments came. What did being brave mean? And why the hell was he looking to a yeerk to find out?
But...of everyone Fin had met Liam seemed the one most like him. Or at least he seemed like someone Fin could be, or wanted to be...if he tried. Was that a good thing? Probably not.
<<Still no clue,>> Fin answered Andre, his eyes focused on the boiler and his mind a million miles away. He turned to watch Drake come down the stairs. <<Nope,>> Fin answered him. <<But we may, and by we I mean Andre, figuring out how it might be put together and that is the first step right?>>
Fin stretched and then got up and started trotting up the stairs. <<If you don't mind I'm going to go find some water. This little kitty gets dehydrated easily and this fur is not helping.>>
Andre (Drake):
Andre was in the sanctuary, praying. He wasn't a particularly religious man, but lately he had quite a bit to be thankful for. For one thing, he was alive, for another, he wasn't a controller. And thirdly, he was an animorph.
Kind of.
His new allies tried to give him the ability to morph, but for some reason it did not work on him. He was unable to morph into anything, but he was still a part of the team. He was not the only one who couldn't morph, however. Apparently there was someone who was trapped as a snake. At least Andre had fared better than her.
Andre rose to his feet, ready to go see what he could do to help out around the Temple. Then he noticed how hot his feet felt. Sure, it was warm in Dallas, but that was no reason for his feet to feel like a sweltering jungle. He reached down to untie his shoes and felt a channel of hot air blowing out of a vent.
"That's not good," he said matter of factly. Why was the heat on during this type of weather? Andre walked out into the hallway, looking for someone who had been here longer than him. When he found someone he asked, "Do you know why the heat is on?" He figured nobody had turned it on, but thought he had better at least ask before he tried to fix the furnace.
Suji:
"No," Suji replied. She'd just walked into the hallway from her room. She'd waken from a nap (it was hard to sleep for long periods of time--her nightmares about Crayak kept getting worse instead of better) to find herself lying in a pool of sweat. She'd closed the vent off in her room the best she could, but the damage had been done--the place felt like an oven. And the hallway wasn't much better.
"This is awful," she said, and pulled her hair into a ponytail with a small rubber band. Her morphing suit had long sleeves and full pants, and each was tight. "Any chance your technical knowledge extends to household appliances?"
Andre:
"I'll see what I can do," Andre said in reply. "Any chance you know where the furnace is? I would guess the basement, but I don't know where that is. Down, I suppose. I can find it. Got any tools?"
Andre was kind of rambling, but he got a little nervous around people he didn't know too well. Sure, he knew this girl was one of the three who had saved him, and he had spent the last three days in the faction's company, but Andre was a bit shy around girls so he was still nervous. At any rate, he had managed to ask what he needed.
Suji:
"Tools?" Suji was in the process of rolling up the sleeves of her morphing suit: there had been a lost and found in the church, and she was planning on raiding it for anything that remotely fit. "I think we actually did dig out a toolbox when we were junking the trash in the building. It's just a question of where we put it."
She thought for a moment, fidgeting and tugging on the neckline of her suit. She'd been glad to have it in Chicago's chill, but now she was regretting not having biking shorts, which seemed to be the consensus otherwise. "Here, the Fellowship hall. I think it's on one of the shelves in there." She led the way.
Fin:
Fin saw Andre and Suji disappearing into Fellowship hall and gave a sharp whistle. "Yo, Suji, controller-man wants you to read him his last rights. I offered but apparently I am unworthy. I secretly think it is because I'm impure," he said trotting and catching up to them.
"Hey Andre," Fin said amiably as if he hadn't once suggested leaving the guy out to dry with the controllers. "How is everything today? Besides for hot that is."
Suji:
Suji was scouting for the toolbox. She'd just spotted it on one of the top shelves. "Oh, there it is! See it? It's yellow." There wasn't any way she was going to be able to reach it, but she had no doubt Andre could. "Be careful, no idea if it's latched shut or not."
She heard the whistle and turned to see Fin coming down the hallway. She heard him, but wasn't sure she heard him correctly. "What?"
Fin:
"Your boy, the controller, he's on his way out," at this Fin gave an exaggerated frown to show the proper emotion at the sad event of the yeerks passing. "He asked for you by name." Fin wasn't quite on good enough terms to joke with Suji about fake crushes so he left that part out.
"Wants to tell you something. I think he wants to confess his undying love." Well there went that consideration but he just couldn't resist. "Also, if you hadn't noticed, it is really hot in here. What is going on?"
Suji:
Suji's brow furrowed. "Asked for me?" In truth, she felt her stomach flip. Between Crayak and him (mostly him, her mind whispered) she hadn't been sleeping well. The last time she'd watched a Yeerk starve had been with Karl, David's brother back in Chicago. A lot had happened between then and now.
Like her best friend making herself a traitor for an instant in order to save a Controller, whom she apparently loved.
And Liam himself didn't make it easy either. He was manipulative, sure, but it was that bright sort of intelligence that made her feel sick inside, because it showed that yes, maybe they weren't so different from humans. Certainly not so different from Suji herself, who seemed to fall on the more calculating side of things. Was Suji really killing a person?
Doesn't matter if he is, she thought. If it is. It. Not he.
"...all right then. Andre thinks our furnace is out of whack. I'm going to grab a spare t-shirt or something from the Lost and Found near the Sanctuary and get out of this morphing suit."
- - -
Suji had scored: a solid navy blue tee-shirt that wasn't horrifically over-sized, and a pair of khaki shorts. Feeling a lot better walking around in the breathable clothing, though still pretty unbearably warm, she went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. She drank it down, and then filled it again. Stopping for a moment at the kitchen door, she turned back and went to the fridge, pulling out the jug of water (a Brita filter that had long since been filter-less). She cracked an entire tray of ice cubes into it, and then carefully carried both to the room.
What. Are. You. Doing.
Probably shooting herself in the foot.
Andre:
Andre half chuckled at Fin's comments as he got the toolbox off of the shelf. The toolbox was heavy, but after moving a few other objects around, he managed to get it off the shelf without any problems. Now he just had to find the furnace.
Apparently Suji had already left to find the lost and found, because all he saw was Fin when he turned back around. Andre thought Fin was alright, for the most part, but he had to admit that Fin rubbed him the wrong way on occasion. Hopefully this would not be one of them.
"Do you know where the basement is? I haven't seen it yet since I got here." If Fin didn't know, or didn't cooperate, he would just search around until he found it.
Suji:
Suji moved quickly, irritated, already feeling a line of sweat rolling between her shoulder blades. She rolled up the short sleeves until the shirt looked almost sleeveless. Great. I look like I'm heading to a local park to play... I don' t know, intermural softball or something. But that thought was just a distraction.
Good. They were still in the Fellowship Hall. Suji walked inside to see Andre holding the toolbox. She smiled at him: it wasn't him she was furious with, and if he could fix this generator, even better. "Hey Andre, can you see if there's a box cutter in there?" In the same light tone of voice she added, "And I'd like to have a few words with you, Fin."
Fin:
"Yep," Fin responded to Andre. "So it is a little hard to find but this place is so small that it should be easy enough. Why you going down there? This a furnace problem?" Fin asked feeling the hot air coming out the near vent for the first time. It was the only answer he really needed but it was still nice to ask. He didn't know much about furnaces but he liked to tinker with machines of all sorts so this might be a good opportunity to learn.
"Hey Andre, can you see if there's a box cutter in there?" Fin turned around at the sound of Suji's voice and frowned at her a bit. The guy actually was dying and he'd asked for Suji so why was she out here messing around with them. Fin didn't feel any special bond of kinship with the yeerk but he seemed like a decent enough guy. Deserved last wishes and all. "And I'd like to have a few words with you, Fin."
It was all said in a very conversational tone but it still had the ominous weight of 'we-need-to-talk' behind it. Fin thought about just shrugging it off. We-need-to-talk moments normally led to scoldings of some sort and he wasn't really interested in pretending to be contrite about anything. But in his experience if someone didn't complain when they wanted to they just found a way to complain later. It was like the complaint built up until the final complain session was worse than the original one would have been. Better to tax his ears now than put it off and deal with it later.
"Sure Suj, let me just show Andre where the basement is," Fin said in the same oh-aren't-we-haven't-a-nice-little-chat voice. He pointed in the right direction and gave a few instructions before turning back to Suji. " 'Sup?"
Andre:
Andre set the toolbox down on a table and quickly shuffled through its contents. It didn't take him long to find a box cutter and he promptly handed it over to Suji. He wanted to ask what she needed it for, but wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. It was probably not for anything bad, but they were currently starving a yeerk to death, and Andre wasn't entirely sure what that entailed.
He closed the lid on the toolbox as Fin explained the location of the basement. No sooner had Fin finished than Andre headed for the door. Whatever Suji had to say to Fin, Andre didn't want to get caught in the middle of it. "Hopefully I'll have it fixed in a jiffy," he said as he turned the corner.
Doubtful.
Suji:
Suji smiled at Andre again when he handed over the box cutter. "Good luck, with the furnace. But don't get yourself hurt--I don't think anyone's taken the time to see if the First Aid kit is up to date." And why would they? Up until now almost everyone in the Temple had the best healing technology available.
Once he was gone, Suji turned to Fin. She didn't snarl, but there was a hard glint in her eyes, and she squeezed the box cutter tight in her grip. "You told that Controller my name?"
Fin:
Fin looked around and found a chair. He sat down in it and slouched a while. It was really hot in here so he hoped Andre could figure out what the deal was. In the mean time he was thinking of taking on an extra patrol. Normally Fin avoided doing extra work but the patrol would get him out of the church and into the air outside which was, admittedly not much cooler, but a little cooler.
Thinking of flying in the coolness of the upper air Fin's answer sounded a bit distracted but he was perfectly capable of concentrating on many things at once. "Your question implies he did not know it already."
Suji:
They'd put Liam in that out of the way room before he'd gained consciousness, and Suji had noticed that no one else seemed particularly comfortable going inside the room. Except Fin, out of what, curiosity?
Maybe. What's your excuse?
In any case, she doubted anyone else had been chatting up the Controller. The only other person she'd noticed speaking to him at all (present company excluded) was Ray, and Suji doubted Ray had gone in to have a heart to heart. Maybe he'd heard it through the walls at some point, but Suji doubted it. Even if that was the case, though, it was clear that Fin was guilty in using it, given the lack of denial.
"And your answer implies you know exactly what I'm talking about," she retorted, frustration showing more clearly. "So the next time you feel the need to talk about me with a captive, don't."
Aubrey:
Boredom. For the past days, Aubrey had been feeling cooped up, uneasy, full of energy. Drawing on her wall with chalk usually worked to stave off the restlessness, but she had run out of chalk. Without the chalk, she was left to stare uselessly at the scene emerging on her wall--a pastel blue ocean, lit up by a pale salmon-and-orange sun. The beach part of it was only in outlines, but it was obvious that there were little stick-figures sitting underneath umbrellas and surfers heading out. Well, stick-figure surfers with oval clutched to their thin sides. They looked good to Aubrey.
Since losing her chalk, the next thing to do was try out what she'd heard other people doing--practice morphing. Sitting in her room for an hour or so, she shifted between morphs. After awhile she began feeling exhausted and hot. At first she assumed it had something to do with the energy required of morphing, and she was getting tired. Then she realized that one of the vents in her room was blasting heat into her room. It hadn't helped that her door was closed.
Stretching, she swung open the door to her room. The whole place felt hot. Pulling her hair back from the sweaty nape of her neck, Aubrey headed down the hallway towards the Fellowship Hall. She could hear voices coming from the doorway, and by the time she was almost there she ran into Andre. Aubrey gave him a big smile, noticing the yellow toolbox in his hands. "Hey! What's going on? Why's it so hot here?"
Fin:
"Lol Suji," Fin said and then actually started laughing both because of the situation and because 'lol' was a funny sounding word to him, perfectly suited for the place it had taken up among online culture. "I didn't talk to Liam about you. He talk about you to me. I was just being friendly. I think the dude has a bit of a crush, better watch out," Fin said raising his eyebrows suggestively.
But a second later he turned serious. "Suji what is up with you and him? I don't mean to question your legendary objectivity here but why should one controller knowing your name get under your skin so much?"
Suji:
Suji did not look entertained. She continued staring at him. "He doesn't have a crush. He's trying to fuck with my head." And it's working, she thought inwardly.
"It gets under my skin because it wasn't your information to give. It was mine. And if I'm not comfortable with a Yeerk knowing my name, whether or not he'll be dead in a few hours, whether or not he's just one Controller, doesn't matter. Possible questions of security aside, it's basic consideration. You should keep it in mind."
She exhaled shallowly. "Are we clear?"
Fin:
"Clear as a summer day, clear as a cool glass of water, clear as your judgement is not, but whatever," Fin said sitting back. His concern for her safety had pretty much been exhausted with his one inquiry, especially when that inquiry was met with the closest Suji came to an angry scolding. If she wanted to play around with dying boy Fin wasn't going to stop her but he couldn't help saying one last thing. That had always been his problem.
"Don't get me wrong. I hear you, partially anyway. Dude's trying to get under your skin then it helps to know your name. But since when do you let people get to you? I knew he was trying to get to you Suji, didn't know it was working."
Suji:
My judgment?" Suji snickered darkly. "There's nothing about my judgment that's being clouded here. He's a Controller, and the Yeerk in that man's head is going to die. If that isn't crystalline, you tell me what is." She took a step back and started to turn to go when he continued.
She looked up at him, dark eyes intense and her jaw set. "If you'll excuse me," she said, words terse. "I've got to go listen to my name on the lips of a dying Controller, while I try to figure out if he qualifies as a person or not." Suji moved for the exit.
Fin:
Fin laughed and the sound unconsciously mimicked that of the alter ego that haunted his dreams..."Of course he's a person Suji. They all are. We kill them anyway." He would have felt disturbed at the words and the laugh if he had been paying attention but he wasn't, his mind was firmly focused on getting outside and away from the heat now.
He stood up and started heading towards the door, shrinking into his falcon morph as he did so. He was going to get some cool air and pretend to be doing work while he did. "Going on patrol. Don't have too much fun while I'm gone."
Suji:
Suji didn't look back as he said it. Fin saying that held all the weight of Raven's past lecturing: this wasn't the sort of thing that you learned about just because someone told you so. She wasn't a stranger to the fact that many (most?) of the other Animorphs held a similar viewpoint concerning Yeerks: that they had personalities, humanity even.
She passed Aubrey and Andre in the hall. "Hey guys," she smiled. "Aubrey, you should help out Andre with this furnace thing. Make sure he doesn't hurt himself. Not sure he'd really enjoy the hospital food if he managed to break something." Suji half-smiled pleasantly, seamlessly covering up the anguish inside, at least for a passing moment. If she'd stopped longer, if they had more time to look, maybe it would have been different.
For now, though, she had to deal with her single greatest problem at the moment. She needed a door guard and something from her room.
It wasn't long until Suji was in the kitchen. "Hey, Sophie are you in here?"
Andre:
No sooner had Andre left Fin and Suji to their talk than he was stopped by Aubrey. She was another one of the people who helped rescue him. She wasn't quite as... intimidating, as the other girl. "I think the furnace is broken. I'm going to see if I can fix it so I'm trying to get to the basement right now. Fin gave me directions so I should be able to find it. I just had to get these tools first." Andre rose the toolbox up for viewing. At the same time his embarrassment was rising. He had started rambling again. He hoped that wouldn't happen with Aubrey.
Luckily Suji arrived to break up his feeling of awkwardness. Andre let a few deep laughs escape from his gut at Suji's comment as she passed them in the hall. The only bone Andre had ever broken was his pinky toe, when he dropped a patio brick on it when he was helping his dad do some landscaping. And that was when he was only nine.
"I'll try not to hurt myself," he said jovially. "You are welcome to help out, Aubrey. The more the merrier."
Sophie:
Sophie was lounging in one of the cooler, darker areas of the kitchen. Somebody had decided to jack the heat up in the Temple. As much as Sophie liked it being warm--lying in the sun was one of the snake's favorite past-times--this was kind of ridiculous. Worse off, she got the brunt of it being on the floor. There wasn't much she could do about it.
When Suji came in, Sophie was half between dozing and staring at a nearby rat hole. There hadn't been any movement in it today. Looking over near the doorway, she spotted Suji. <<Hey, yeah. I'm near the counters. The floor.>>
Suji:
"I've got a job for you, if you're interested. Nothing intense, just guarding, and in case I need some handy thought-speech relay." Suji spotted Sophie's form, and couldn't help but feel her heart beat a little faster. Even if Suji herself had a cobra morph (and enjoyed it), that didn't stop the natural human reaction to seeing a big snake not very far away. She calmed herself.
"If you wouldn't mind helping out, you can head to the room we're holding that Controller in. Just wait outside. I'll be there soon enough, have to grab something from my room. If you're not interested that's perfectly fine too," Suji added, and then left the kitchen.
Aubrey:
She glanced over to Suji when she passed, offering her a smile. "Hey, right-o. I'll keep an eye on him." She didn't seem to notice Suji's discomfort, as her attention was already back to Andre. She tilted her head, looking to the toolbox again. "Ahh, so that's why it's so unbearable here. Cool, so do you know how to fix it?" Aubrey liked Andre; He was a nice guy. She was happy that they had been able to rescue him.
Giving him a large smile, she nodded. "Sounds good. I don't know how to do anything when it comes to fixing stuff up. Dad never taught me." As much of a tomboy that she had been when she was younger, her mother had insisted that Aubrey didn't need to learn things like that. Of course, her mother was also sort of crazy. "Lead the way. I never realized we had a basement."
Andre:
"Well, I guess this thing has a basement somewhere. Fin gave me directions to it, so... Although it might not go under the entire building." Andre lead the way towards the entrance to the basement.
"So, I'm not entirely sure that I will know how to fix this thin, or even if there is anything wrong. Heating systems aren't usually a major problem in Dallas. I'm not saying I won't try. I'm just saying, don't be surprised if it stays hot for a while." Andre paused his speech for a moment, then added, "But I can probably fix it" He was trying to make small talk, but it kind of ended up being one-sided.
Fin:
<<Fine fine, whatever,>> Fin said coming in to land in the church bell tower. He gave one last reproachful look towards the pied crow doing patrol before beginning the process that would take the falcon's vision away from him. On his way down the steps he could be heard muttering something about, "taking advantage of faction leadership," if anyone was around to hear him that was. Weren't four eyes better than two anyway. And he would bet his vision was better than a crow's but everything had to be according to the stupid schedule posted on the bulletin board.
"What if I don't want to do dishes," he asked no one since he, Suji and Aubrey had pulled household chores this week. It was kind of funny. They were in charge of taking out the trash. Get it? Laugh.
He opened the door to the hallway and found Andre and Aubrey standing there with the tool kit. "You didn't get very far," Fin remarked. "Then again, I didn't get very far either." He looked down the hallway toward the room Ray had entitled New Beginnings. It seemed like an awfully ill fitting title for a room where they locked people up for three days until the slugs starved out of their heads, going through waves of pain as they did so.
He still wanted to be in there. He still wanted to see. But he didn't feel like dealing with Suji. Whether she believed him or not he personally thought her judgement was off, had been from the beginning. And it annoyed him. "Need help with that furnace? The sooner it is fixed the sooner we can all breath around here."
Aubrey:
Fin came walking down the hallway, and Aubrey followed his gaze shortly to the door--the room where they were keeping the controller until the Yeerk starved. "Hey, hey Fin. Come along with. The more minds to figure out the furnace the faster the heat goes away." If Aubrey hadn't been looking towards the doorway, she might not have noticed the snake that had slithered over to it. But she did see it. Suddenly, she felt like they needed to start moving.
Aubrey wiped the palm of her hand against her forehead, following Andre towards the basement--and away from Sophie. "Yikes, I hope not. It's getting warmer outside everyday, and having it hot here too isn't going to be too fun." Raking her fingers through her hair, she pulled some strands that had stuck to her face. She was hoping they could fix this thing.
Andre:
Andre just nodded to Fin in greeting when he returned from who-knows-where, then motioned for him to tag along. So now it looked like both Fin and Aubrey would be there to help him figure out the problem. Now he would have too people looking over his shoulder, but also two people giving him advice. He wasn't sure wether either was good or bad, so he decided to remain indifferent. Besides, he had just said 'the more the merrier.'
When they reached the entrance to the basement, Andre opened the door to reveal the extremely steep steps that went down into the cellar. "It's dark down there," Andre stated, as if they couldn't see that for themselves. He went down the stairs cautiously. He was nervous about cobwebs and rats and other similar critters. As he made it to the bottom and stood on the dirt floor, he asked, "Anyone see a light switch?" He could hear the low hum of the furnace working overtime. Just the sound of it seemed to be making him sweat.
Fin:
Instead of fumbling around for one Fin began to shrink into his cat form. The slivery fur with its pattern of black rosettas spread across his body from his head down. He almost wished that there was light down here, he wanted to see what he looked like. His ears rotated to the top of his head next and took on the shape of the cat's ears and claws began pushing themselves out from his finger tips. A tail shot out from the base of his spine, canines grew in his mouth and his eyes turned a tawny gold and slit-pupiled. It was official, Fin was an anime fantasy boy.
Then he began to shrink and the other parts of the cat began appearing. His muscles didn't so much shrink as all the excess, useless stuff was concentrated into the powerful form of the cat. His knees reversed with a crunch and his legs shrunk to match his arms. He was shrinking in general and growing closer to the floor he couldn't see.
He twitched his nose as his sense of scent kicked in and he began looking around for the light switch. Only then did he realize he had probably chosen the wrong morph. The cat's brain was attuned for movement and it was really hard to try to get it to concentrate on anything that was still. And the light switch certainly wasn't moving around.
Fin heard running feet in the upstairs hallway and turned his head sharply not sure if Aubrey and Andre had heard it too. He knew it! Something had gone wrong! <<Guys, what's going on!>> He shouted as he darted up the stairs in time to see Drake go running by. He turned his head towards the slightly open door of the prisoner's room but he could still hear a low level of conversation going on in there. He had to assume that everything was ok. Well actually he didn't have to assume any such thing but he would assume that the prisoner hadn't somehow escaped.
<<Sophie-kaa,>> he sent to his faction mate, <<what is going on in there? Anything to be worried about?>> Fin was trotting back down the stairs as he asked and so he noticed the string hanging above the basement landing that he hadn't seen the first time.
<<Found the light switch,>> he said to Andre and Aubrey, sitting under the string and looking up at it.
Andre:
Andre was silent when he noticed the sound of squishing and rearranging organs. One of them must have been morphing. At that moment Andre was glad that it was so dark because watching someone turn into something else was disgusting, to say the least. Maybe you got used to it after a while, but he had only been around morphing people for a couple days.
"Where is it?" Andre asked when Fin claimed to have found the light. He peered around and saw the outline of a cat on the basement landing. "Over there?" Andre moved closer, looking for a switch on the wall, but then bumped the hanging string with his head. "Ah, an old fashioned one," he said as he pulled the string and the room lit up.
The basement was not too spacious. It had a low ceiling and a dirt floor, and apparently no windows. There were a bunch of props or something leaned against one wall. By the looks of it, they were probably used around Christmas time. Then he finally located the humming furnace. It was pretty old-fashioned but obviously in working condition. Now they just needed to figure out what to do with it. "Any suggestions?"
Aubrey:
Aubrey tilted her head sideways, getting a look at the open basement door. It did look pretty dark. Aubrey watched Andre start heading down, but didn't budge. She wasn't afraid of the dark, no. But the basement looked like one of those places that spawned serial murderers. Running her fingers through her hair, she finally began trekking down after them, one hand pressed against the side of the wall to guide her.
Half-way down, she started hearing the humming of the furnace. Once she reached the bottom, she realized someone must be morphing. At least, she hoped that was what that sound was. "Uh, uhm. Light-switch..." The place was pitch-black, and waving her hands around blindly didn't seem to help all that much. Fin seemed to have found it, and after a few seconds Aubrey was blinking rapidly against the sudden brightness in the room. Gazing around slowly, her eyes locked on the furnace.
"Oh wow. That things really chugging away." The heat down here had mingled with the musty air of the basement, making each in take of breath slightly unpleasant. Wiping the back of her hand against her forehead, she shook her head at Andre. "I have no clue. Do you think you could burn yourself on that thing by touching it?"
Sophie:
They were still waiting on Drake to come back with the first-aid. So Fin's thought-speak filling Sophie's head had surprised her. The reaction came as a slight lifting of her head, before realizing who and what it had been. Slowly, Sophie settled her head back against her scaled body, eyes still fixed on the controller.
<<Nothing to worry about. The controller broke a glass. Hurt himself. Drake's getting some first aid for him.>>
Fin:
<<Thanks Sophie-kaa. Would you mind telling me if anything...untoward happens?>> He was not about to confide his fears about Suji's judgement to Sophie. It would only undermine her authority and that was the last thing they needed since Suji had put herself in charge of this controller. But he felt he had to keep an eye out in case anything bad happened. In case Suji let some sort of feelings get in the way of doing her job, of keeping them safe. Are you kidding? Are we talking about the same person? But everyone was human, everyone made mistakes. Fin wasn't about to let one of Suji's be the death of him.
Fin trotted over to the furnace. He didn't want to demorph right now and lose the thoughtspeak so he decided to check it out in this form. Except the cat was very small and furnaces were not meant to be looked at from kitty height. <<Not sure what to do either Andre. I always thought I was good with machines but that mostly means computers, not furnaces.>>
Andre:
"I sure hope not, but probably," Andre said in response to Aubrey's question. He didn't want to burn himself, but he was pretty sure that if he touched the wrong part of this contraption, he would do just that. He would just have to be careful.
"And I don't know a whole lot about computers, or furnaces. I mostly know cars. Even then I am not an expert at the really fine detail stuff, but I know my way around an engine. Between the two.. er, three of us, we should be able to conquer this thing. At least I hope so, seeing as how I've been sweating buckets ever since I noticed that the heat kicked on."
Andre went about examining the furnace. Getting a feel for how it operated. He hadn't pulled out any tools yet, seeing as how he didn't yet know which ones he needed.
Aubrey:
Scratching the side of her neck, Aubrey stared at the furnace for a long moment. A bead of sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. "I have absolutely no clue about furnaces." It didn't seem like they'd get all too far with their lack of knowledge, but it was better than nothing. Aubrey watched Andre feeling along the furnace.
"Maybe there's some sort of switch or control panel or something. Do you see anything yet, Andre?" As she spoke she moved forward, circling the other way around the furnace. Maybe there was some sort of switch that would turn the thing off. It seemed too easy, but she could hope.
Andre:
Andre turned a couple knobs experimentally to see if he could figure out what they did. Slowly but surely he was piecing together how the furnace worked. He was learning which pipes did what, and were they led too. He was about to comment on this when Aubrey decided to leave. He wasn't exactly sure why she was going, but he had no reason to stop her. "See ya around," he said as she headed up the stairs.
"I think I'm starting to figure it out. How 'bout you?" he asked Fin. It looked like it was up to the two of them to get it fixed. Andre reached into the toolbox and pulled out a large wrench.
Drake:
Drake was trying to get a stained glass window open in the sanctuary for quite a while before he gave up and settled for covering up the openings to the vents instead. It would not stop the heat, but at least it would slow the heat down. Just as he covered up his third vent, he heard Sophie's thought speech message. Drake thought it was a bit strange that Suji wanted people to stay out of the holding room and down in the basement, but Drake trusted Suji's judgement and decided to just go with it. He walked out of the sanctuary just in time to see Aubrey going into the room he was supposed to keep people out of.
Drake shrugged and decided Suji would have to deal with her and headed towards the basement, nodding hello to Sophie as he passed. When he got to the bottom of the basement steps he saw a cat and Andre holding a wrench. "Getting it fixed?" Drake asked hopefully. He wasn't sure how much longer he could withstand this greenhouse of a building. Although he was sure it would not be long.
Fin:
Fin's ears twitched. He was only half paying attention to the machine they were supposed to be fixing. Instead he was too busy listening to screams of agony coming from upstairs. He was pretty sure Andre couldn't hear them but Fin's enhanced hearing heard them all too quickly.
So Liam was on his way out uh? And where was Fin? Stuck in a basement. He wanted to go upstairs. He wanted to see. He wanted to be there. And a small voice asked why? He'd been telling himself it was just gruesome fascination. He'd never seen a yeerk die. Did they beg for forgiveness the way humans sometimes did? Did they pray? He just wanted answers to those questions.
But that wasn't exactly it was it. He didn't want to know if yeerks prayed or begged for forgiveness. He wanted to know if Liam did. These were Liam's final moments and Fin wanted to see how he handled them. Wanted to know so that he'd have a bit of an example to follow when his own final moments came. What did being brave mean? And why the hell was he looking to a yeerk to find out?
But...of everyone Fin had met Liam seemed the one most like him. Or at least he seemed like someone Fin could be, or wanted to be...if he tried. Was that a good thing? Probably not.
<<Still no clue,>> Fin answered Andre, his eyes focused on the boiler and his mind a million miles away. He turned to watch Drake come down the stairs. <<Nope,>> Fin answered him. <<But we may, and by we I mean Andre, figuring out how it might be put together and that is the first step right?>>
Fin stretched and then got up and started trotting up the stairs. <<If you don't mind I'm going to go find some water. This little kitty gets dehydrated easily and this fur is not helping.>>