Post by Suji on Sept 30, 2009 0:47:46 GMT -5
Helena
Helena looked like death warmed over, an expression one of her aunts had been fond of. Of course, thinking about her family always brought up that tearing, shredding pain deep inside of her chest. For a moment she cupped her head in her hands, which only smudged dirt on her face—not that it made much of a difference. She hadn’t seen a proper cleaning in some time now.
Huddled in an abandoned, half-demolished convenience store, Helena busied herself by digging through the (not so large now) selection of canned foods. Carefully she set aside the cans which weren’t dented or burst open (their contents smelled pretty awful) and packed most of them into the frayed backpack she was carrying.
She popped open one of the cans of mandarin orange sections, which opened with a soft metallic rip. After inspecting the food for a moment, she decided that it was safe enough to eat. After squirting a preciously small amount of that alcohol-based, quickly drying anti-bacterial liquid on her hands, Helena promptly dug in with her fingers. The taste was almost brutally sweet compared to the diet of beef jerky, granola bars, and multivitamins that she’d been subsisting on for the past few months.
Once the can was gone, Helena leaned back against the counter behind her, closing her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t stay there. It wasn’t safe. That thought brought a tired smile to her lips, a smile that was far too old for an 18-year-old girl. Safe? She even let out a low, unpleasant laugh.
“Well, better see if any of the first aid supplies are still intact,” Helena muttered under her breath, pushing herself up. “If I’m lucky the bottled water isn’t gone too.” She didn’t have much hope, but hell, that wasn’t anything new. She only took a couple of steps before something heavy slipped from her backpack and crashed to the floor, skittering for a moment across the tiling. Helena wasn’t a jumpy person by nature, but recent history could do wonders on that account: she spun, ready to dive for cover (she’d also picked up one of the dented cans from the shelf, ready to chuck it—probably to little effect—at any assailant).
Instead she froze, staring at the 9mm hand gun that had fallen to the ground.
Helena caught her breath, her jaw grinding shut. Memories threatened to overwhelm her, rushing upwards towards her conscious mind in a torrent. There was a flash: watching a man howl as a creature wrapped around his brain died. Another flash: the sickening pop as she brought her foot down on a slug-like body. The next image was too horrifying, and she pushed it away roughly.
There was a maddening panic rising in her throat. She wanted to run out of this place screaming, just pick any direction and run. More than that, she wanted to put the barrel of that gun in her mouth and eat a bullet. The urge was overwhelming.
Helena sighed, and with an enormous amount of willpower, pulled herself back from the brink of madness. She walked over, picked up the gun, checked the safety, and put it back in her backpack. For a moment the weight of it was almost too much, and the panic was there again, squeezing out the air in her lungs. Again, she shut it down, blocked it out. She didn’t question why she was able to do that, to shut herself off, if that made her less of a person—all she knew was that it was her only option if she planned on surviving.
Surviving for what, exactly? Was the question that kept coming up, in a sneering voice. What good does any of it do? Helena let out a low, long exhale.
“First aid, and water. Need some more multivitamins too. Maybe they even have discount socks.” She turned, and started back up and down the aisles, throwing frequent, furtive glances up at the round mirrors in the corners of the store, keeping an eye out.
Matthias
Good God, why is it every time I try to find food, I end up running into trouble? The last time Matthias had performed a food run, he had ended up rescuing Kevin from a group of Controllers. Now, the supermarket he had been planning to raid was making noise. He had hardly taken two steps inside before he heard a crash and swiftly slid to the safety of one of the cash registers. Not even the cameras could see him here, even if they were on.
Oh well, at least it gives me a chance to get out of this morph. Matthias didn't like morphing other humans, especially not Controllers; it left him with an uneasy feeling. He was only slightly comforted by the fact that the particular Controller he was impersonating was dead, and therefore unlikely to expose him. Demorphing rapidly, he ran through his short list of available morphs. I suppose it depends on who I think is in here. Well, let's see. It was mostly quiet, except for that one bang. The lights are out; this person doesn't want to be seen. Also, there's probably only one. That sounds to me like a rebel. Cobra would be ineffective; I don't want to kill them. Gyrfalcon or owl would be scary, but I can't trap anyone with it. Looks like panther it is again.
Matthias didn't really mind; he adored all of his morphs. The addition of the panther's strength and enhanced night vision was a welcome one, and soon he was prowling the aisles, virtually invisible, all of his senses sweeping the area to find this intruder. We're going to need a bigger trailer with growth like this.
Helena
Helena looked up for what felt like the hundredth time at the round mirror above her, and then looked back down again, trying to inspect the bandages and anything that looked medicinal in the dim light. Then, instantly, she looked up again: wondering if she’d seen something after all. There was nothing there though—just the dark aisles. It was likely the shadows were just making her jumpy.
That being said, Helena hadn’t survived traveling across a continent by not trusting her instincts, which were now all a-buzz with fear and first few trickling spikes of adrenaline. She held her breath, listening, her movements paused for a moment—she didn’t hear boots or sneakers moving on the floor, let alone the clumsy, awkward movements of a Taxxon or a Hork-Bajir in close confines. She abruptly finished searching through the items though, stowing away a kit that was mostly intact into her backpack. While her hand was in here, she retrieved the hand gun.
Part of her was angry: this place had been picked over less than the last two stores she’d been in (it occurred to her that this was because there might be fewer refugees and therefore fewer scavengers, but she didn’t dwell on that thought), and she could stand to have some more time here, sorting through the stuff. But ultimately, logic won out: and logic said that food and Neosporin were great, clean water was better, but when you got a creeping feeling down your spine, you got going.
Shouldering the backpack, she looked up and down the aisle, which was littered with assorted things—toothbrushes, sticky patches of dried Listerine—and began to walk slowly (and as quietly as possible, carefully trying to avoid wrappers and cardboard that would crunch under foot, but that was easier said than done) towards the exit. She held the gun in both hands, her arms lowered but straight.
Matthias
Matthias liked relying on his instincts, but he was also smarter than a panther would be, and as such was using the mirrors to track his prey as well as his senses. Having seen a flash of movement a moment before, he knew where she was, and he was closing the gap quickly and quietly. Coming across the spilt canned goods section, he sniffed. She was just here. Good. Eyeing the food, he got an idea. Well, it works in the movies.
Hooking one with a claw so that it sat on the pad of his right paw, he whipped it as hard as he could across the room, hearing it satisfactorily crash into the wall well away from where he was. Smiling internally, he picked up his pace, his tail twitching back and forth; the panther was well into the joy of the hunt.
A momentary distraction of the girl's attention was all he needed. He could see her ahead of him now, and caught a flash of the weapon she carried. It would take him less than three seconds to leap across the gap between them and disarm her. Oh, how Matthias adored the feline speed.
Helena
Helena's jaw set hard at the sound of the crash--she didn't jump or yell in surprise, but her lips did pull back over her teeth in a grimace of mixed anxiety and fear. The gun rose a couple more inches, and she backed as far as possible away from the noise, though still trying to strafe towards the exit. She wasn't sure why someone would make that much noise (there was no associated slithering, slobbering Taxxon noises, or the heavy footfalls of a Hork-Bajir).
Maybe it's just a... dog. Or a cat. Or something, she thought, now moving slightly faster, though still only at about a normal walking pace.
Matthias
Had Matthias been able to read Helena's thoughts, he would have been quite amused; for there was indeed a cat sneaking up on her. When she backed away from the noise, she came within striking distance and Matthias wasted no more time. He leaped silently through the air, landing square on Helena's back. His eyes darted immediately to her hands, but the gun had skittered away across the floor. And the girl herself wasn't going anywhere. Lunch. Matthias could feel his panther morph's hunger echoing his own. No, no, she's not lunch...sadly...no, stop that. Get a hold of yourself.
Helena
"Oof!" Helena felt something solidcollide with her back, with enough force to send her sprawling to the ground. The gun was sent across the floor, and inwardly she cursed herself for being clumsy enough to drop it (even if it would be unreasonable to expect herself to hold on to it after a being completely surprised by an attack from behind). Still she squirmed, trying to roll onto her back, wanting to bring her legs to her chest in an attempt to kick the attacker off. She wasn't exactly successful though: whatever had landed on her was pretty damn heavy.
It was during this struggle that she awkwardly grabbed backwards, and was rewarded with a fistful of ...fur? She had expected clothing, maybe hair, but fur? Her head twisted at an uncomfortably strained angle, and she saw black fur, fangs, and eyes that were wholly non-human. It took a second for her brain to register what she was seeing: mostly it was yammering, with a fear that was hard-coded into her system through her evolutionary ancestors, to escape.
It IS a cat! She thought frantically, and then, Thats one HELL of a cat!
But what kind of cats did she know that were that big, and easily outweighed her? Her struggling stopped, and Helena had time to think how cool the tiled floor was against her face, and how the canned food in her backpack was digging into her side. And for the first time in quite a while, she felt hope. The fear was quickly subsiding (in her reasoning brain, even if it was somehow a wild panther, being mauled to death was a more pleasant alternative than being made a Controller or being fed to a Taxxon) and she was getting her breathing down into a gasping pant.
"You're... one of them, right? The resistance." Her voice was muffled--it was hard to breathe, let alone talk with a fully grown panther pressing on your back.
Matthias
I guess we're getting pretty popular. Matthias chuckled to himself as he stepped off her. <<Stay down, don't move.>> Keeping an eye on her, he padded over to her gun. Not bad. Be useful to have one of these around. Turning back to her, he sat down and let his panther do what it wanted to, namely begin to clean itself. I wish I had some backup. I can't pick up this gun and I can't demorph. I don't want to have to knock her out either, that's just dead weight to carry. Making a swift decision, Matthias knocked the gun under a counter with a wave of his paw and made a note to come back for it later.
<<Alright, get up.>> Here we go again. <<Maybe I'm part of the resistance, maybe I'm just a freak panther. All you need to know is that right now you're unarmed, and I could remove your head from your shoulders before you could get to the door, so there's little point in running. So right now, it's in your best interests to do what I tell you to. Walk to the back of the store and out the back door. Stick to the shadows when you get outside. I'll be right behind you.>>
Helena
Helena stayed down, and she didn't move, as she was instructed. When the panther stepped off of her back it felt like air rushed back into her lungs, and she did cough a bit, turning her mouth into her shoulder to quiet the sound.
Freak panther? Helena felt herself smile, barely realizing she was doing it. Despite the dingy, dirty atmosphere, and the fact that this panther-thing really could make good on his claim to decapitate her, she felt better than she had in ages. She didn't say anything, and didn't laugh (part of her wanted badly to laugh, because suddenly things might actually be okay), but continued to smile and she pushed herself off the ground.
She did start walking towards the back door. Making sure to keep her pace steady and not making any sudden movements. She had to resettle the backpack's shoulder straps once (all the cans inside were jumbled and making the weight distribution awkward) but other than that she merely walked. Once she got to the door she opened it as quietly as possible, and left it open about halfway--enough that a panther could easily pass through.
That was maybe your one chance to escape, she thought distantly. Close the door and run... But she doubted she'd really get away. And for that matter, she didn't want to run anymore. Not if there was a chance that she was where she had hoped to end up. She leaned against the building, easily fitting into the long shadows it cast on the ground.
Matthias
Just like Kevin. Nice and easy. <<Keep going.>> Matthias instructed briskly, <<You're heading for that patch of woods about a kilometre west of here. That's where you'll be staying for the next three days until I can decide what to do with you. It's not the nicest place, but no one's going to bother you where we're going. The other advantage, at least from my point of view, is that no one can hear you scream either.>>
Matthias fell silent after that. He felt a bit of guilt for resorting to the scare tactics, but if this girl was a Controller - which he highly doubted - then scare tactics were effective. <<Once you get to the woods, keep walking until you see your...accommodations. You won't see me, but I'll be around, watching you. Drop the backpack at the door and go inside. I'll instruct you further when we're there.>> With that, Matthias dropped communication and vanished into the shadows of the darkening sky.
Helena
Helena's abdomen did tighten reflexively. Scream? If you were Controller, you would. You remember Malcolm. Helena's smile instantly dropped, and she bowed her head. She nodded to show that she understood the instructions. Another wave of unease passed when she realized he'd want her to leave her backpack. It held some supplies, but more importantly, the last few trinkets of her life before all of this. Without her pack and her gun she was going to feel completely vulnerable.
She knew better than to complain.
Eventually she passed the tree-line, and came upon what looked like a tiny shed from the distance. Upon closer inspection she realized it was an outhouse. ...of course they couldn't have destroyed all of these things before the war, she thought, internally groaning. After coming up to it she (hesitantly) let the pack slide to the ground outside.
"I... I have a few pictures in there. I don't really care about the other stuff, whatever you want, if you want any of it, it's yours. But... can you keep the pictures safe? Please?" Helena looked around for a moment, not really expecting to see any one or anything, and then biting her lip, turned the handle of the outhouse door. She looked up for a moment. Last time you'll see the sky for a while. At last she entered, grimacing a bit as she did so.
Matthias
Matthias padded over silently to the outhouse, picking the straps of the backpack up in his teeth and then walking away. <<For the next three days, you'll be staying there. You'll be watched at all times, though it may not be by me. If you exit the outhouse, you'll be killed by whoever happens to be watching you at the time.>> Matthias avoided her query about the pictures; he wouldn't touch them, but there was no reason to be sympathetic now.
<<Enjoy your stay. You'll be updated on how much time is left every few hours.>> With that he was gone. He had to return to base and drop this backpack off and then head back and pick up the gun. After that, he'd return to check on her. If no one was at the hideout now, he'd get the rope he'd left there and return first to secure the outhouse door. It was going to be a long three days for Helena.
Helena
Helena wondered if she would really be killed just for leaving the outhouse: she did not sit there imagining sequences where she made a mad dash into the woods (which would do her absolutely no good), but still, it kept coming to mind. Would that panther, or rather whoever was inside of it, really use its fangs and claws on her, even if she wasn't taking offensive action?
Would you, if you were in their position? That provided an even better question, and she hunkered down, thinking on that for some time. She reasoned that she probably would, if she were really part of a local resistance. It didn't make her feel very good about herself, certainly. On the other hand, it didn't much change her opinion about the situation: she wasn't planning on running, so it didn't matter, did it?
Helena got as comfortable as possible, leaning against on of the walls. This wasn't going to be a wonderful experience, she knew that already, but three days were only three days. She'd spent much more than that on her own, especially in the past couple of months, though maybe not so confined.
At least there's no more running. And that was the truth: she sighed, and closed her eyes for a time. Maybe knowing where she'd been for the next three days was a blessing more than a curse. She smirked. Yeah, well, that was one way of thinking about spending 72 hours in an outhouse.
Matthias
Matthias was back at the outhouse sooner than he'd have liked; there hadn't been anyone at the hideout so he had to return to secure the outhouse before heading back to the department store to pick up the gun. The task didn't take him long, and he didn't say a word to his captive as he worked and then left her. Morphing back to a panther, he sprinted off toward the edge of the forest. He'd have some more fun with her when he returned with the weapon.
Helena
Honestly, Helena didn't think about much. She wasn't exactly a Zen-and-Meditation princess, but she knew how to tell her mind to shut up; or better yet, she knew how to make it shut up. She kept her head blank--she knew that the long hours of introspection (and possibly interrogation) would come later. Best to hold out against the memories and the reality of the situation as long as possible.
She did not fidget or fiddle with anything--she sat calmly, one leg propped up. For a time she rested her chin on her knee, and then leaned back again. She was thankful that as least it wasn't swelteringly hot... that would have made things worse on all accounts. At one point she ran her hands through her hair, and it was then that the first unasked for memory struck:
"Don't call me Mal! GOD, don't call me Mal!" He had yelled after vomiting dry-heaving for a good ten minutes. Helena had jerked back, afraid. "My name isn't Mal, it's Malcom. He--the yeerk--it thought that 'Mal' was more friendly, a better handle, a good nickname. Call me Malcom."
Helena winced, shook her head lightly. Not yet. If she started this early, the next few days were going to be far too bitter. She regained her composure.
Matthias
Matthias judged it to be about three hours from when he first ran into her that he found himself sitting outside the outhouse again, a panther, checking in, <<It's been three hours.>> He said shortly, and without preamble. <<You have sixty-nine more remaining.>> Matthias didn't see the point in keeping her there for a full three days and discounting the time he knew she wasn't at the Yeerk Pool.
Matthias also wasn't one for talking to his prisoners. Unless he was a hundred percent certain they were a Controller - and in this one's case, he was fairly certain she was not - they would probably learn more from his questions than he did from asking them. So instead he sat quietly, watching the outhouse, trying to block out the smell, and enjoying the liquid power that flowed through his veins at the moment.
Panthers were amazing creatures. So strong, so fast, and so secure in their own abilities. Matthias was envious.
Helena
Helena heard the voice broadcasting in her head, the same as before. It’d been three hours, and other than the single episode sometime earlier, she hadn’t had any more painful recalls. She resettled a bit, but otherwise didn’t move very much. Inwardly she was glad to hear the voice, and realized that her resolve was strengthened whenever she heard it, though she certainly didn’t try to strike up a conversation. It just meant that she wasn’t alone. Maybe being watched should have disturbed her (hell, being held prisoner in an outhouse probably wasn’t something that someone normal could easily adapt to either, but who was normal anymore?). All she knew was that if she was being held for three days that was a Good Thing, even for all its inconvenience. It meant that there was hope.
She’d already at least partly adapted to the smell: thank evolution for that trick—as long as the smell didn’t change, her brain had mostly stopped registering it. Small favors, right?
More time passed. Helena considered digging out the watch in pocket of her jeans (there was another a Swiss Army knife and a half-used matchbox in there), but quickly decided not to. She figured it had been a few hours from the last time she’d heard the voice, and if she started checking the watch now, she was afraid it might become a compulsive urge. No, her willpower was stronger than that, at least for now. She continued to wait.
Her mind drifted smoothly, and eventually she found herself close to falling asleep. Helena felt safer than she had in some time: or if not safe, then at least at peace with herself. She’d accomplished the goal that had dominated her life for the past few months—what had been the only thing keeping her going, especially after Malcolm-
And on that, again, her mind stumbled.
- - -
Helena couldn’t walk any more. She’d been walking for weeks now, and hadn’t eaten anything for at least two days. Her strictly rationed water had run out sometime the night before, and the southern sun was beating down on her in all its pitiless, merciless glory. She had a hat, but that didn’t mean anything when you were slowly becoming dehydrated. If she didn’t find water, she was as good as dead—and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant process.
Still, she never regretted her decision to try to find one of the resistance movements, even if it was just a rumor. Maybe she hadn’t been born with a proper sense of self-survival, but Helena knew that she’d rather die on this road, moving towards a resistance (or even just the hope of a resistance) than live running from the enemy forever, let alone being captured. In her exhausted, quickly fading state, all she could bring herself to feel was perhaps the low throb of guilt in her heart: the aftermath of leaving her family without really saying goodbye.
Won’t be long now, she thought. It wasn’t dismal: slightly sad, but nothing too horrible. There was physical pain, but pain was endurable. Not too long afterwards, Helena collapsed. She was on the side of a dusty road. At first she never would have been walking along a highway, as it made her a highly visible target, but after her supplies got dangerously low, she knew that her only hope of making it would be sticking to a road. She didn’t have enough food or water left to spent time wandering through the wilderness.
Now she was breathing in the dust, which in her already parched-dry throat, felt like sand blowing against tissue paper. Her body was weak and dizzy, and thinking it would be for the last time, Helena closed her eyes and felt the sun shining through her lids. She didn’t think anything epic, and there were no inspiring last words—she simply turned inwards, and prepared herself for the event of dying. Unconsciousness followed.
Suddenly, what felt like eons later, Helena coughed. Everything in her body hurt, and she was disoriented: though never particularly religious in life, she briefly wondered if she happened to be in Hell. Then she coughed again, feeling like she was suffocating. Only it was more like…
“Don’t drown, Jesus! Small sips!” The voice was loud, and split through her head like a knife. “Small sips! Small sips, girl!” Helena coughed some more, spurting water, and then gasped. When her eyes opened there were bright purple sunspots over her vision, but she could tell it was darker now. Slowly gaining her bearings, she realized she was in the cab of some kind of vehicle.
Eventually she gained enough motor control to drink properly from the water bottle that was being held to her lips. She swallowed too much at once, and her stomach flipped: she leaned over and vomited on the dashboard. The man next to her cursed violently.
“S-s-sorry,” Helena managed to waver out, wiping her mouth. Truthfully it’d mostly only been the water she’d just swallowed, and some bile.
“Oh, don’t go apologizing. Just here, hold this. You’re one lucky gal.” The man pulled out a rag from a bag near her feet—it was stained with oil. He used it to wipe up the mess, and then tossed it out the window.
Remembering to take small sips, and stopping whenever the nausea struck, Helena leaned back against the passenger side seat. The man started up the engine of his truck.
“Where did you think you were going, anyway? Ain’t nothing for miles, and I damn near ran you over. Sun probably would have killed you, just a few more hours. Jesus.”
Helena shrugged. She was still dizzy, but she’d regained enough of her conscious mind to know better than to divulge more than she had to. Maybe he wasn’t a Controller—he was alone after all, from what she could tell, and he had saved her… but it was just as likely that he was.
“Well I’ll wait till you feel better to really start in on the lecturing. For now, you rest.” She looked over at him for the first time. He was a tall man, that was easy to see even though he was sitting down. His proportions were lanky, with sandy colored hair. Helena figured he was probably around her father’s age, maybe older. They were sitting in the cab of a pickup truck.
Helena did rest: and in both the memory and in the reality where she was sitting in an outhouse in western Canada, she fell asleep.
Helena
“Dios mio, chiquita!” Her mother exclaimed in both amazement and pride. “Helena, you are hell and Jesus with that thing!” Fifteen-year-old Helena looked up at her mother, Carmen Sovann, and beamed with a wide, toothy smile. “Who taught you to shoot like that!”
“You did, mom.” Helena replied, rolling her eyes (though her voice was happy and friendly, proud of herself and glad to please her mother).
“Well, I guess I did.” Her mother smiled back and offered her a wink. “Still, I don’t think I can shoot like that now, let alone when I was your age!” The two were in a shooting range, and Helena had been practicing with a semi-automatic pistol. Her mother took her there every other weekend, and had been doing so for the past four or five years. Though she couldn’t have told you why, Helena loved the excursions. Not only had they provided bonding moments with her mother (one of the only chances she got her mother to herself, without having other siblings fighting for attention), but there was a simplicity to shooting that echoed inside of her. You aimed, and you pulled the trigger, and that was that.
She had taken to it easily, and progressed to an outstanding degree. Her accuracy was eerie: something the other (generally older, and male) patrons at the shooting range were wont to comment on each visit. A few of them suggested that she’d make a fine hunter, but Helena had never liked that idea. She didn’t want to shoot at anything living: it wasn’t the destructive aspect of shooting that she adored, after all. There was a deadly power in it, but that wasn’t what drew her in: it was the control and the precision.
“What do you say we go get some ice cream, huh?” Her mother asked, and Helena happily obliged, though as always, she felt a bit of parting loss when they left the range. She already missed the cool weight of the handgun.
- - -
Helena jerked awake, wondering where she was—it was small, trapped, and the air was stale. Instinctively she reached for her backpack, and the security of her personal belongings. It wasn’t there, and neither was her gun.
It was after a second of panic that she remembered where she was, and why her things weren’t with her. Taking a deep breath, she stood up. Her feet had gone all pins and needles, and after a few (very limited) rounds of pacing, she felt the blood flow back to them. Then, she settled back down, and waited some more.
Matthias
Matthias made another round to the supermarket - he had been going there originally for supplies anyway - before he checked back in on Helena. He had not stopped moving all day and it was starting to get to him, but he knew he couldn't stay put on watch; he was liable to fall asleep in panther morph and that would not have good consequences. Unfortunately, the trailer was empty; the others were all out scavenging or scouting, so the burden of watch-keeping fell to their leader. <<Five hours.>> He commented at the appropriate time, before heading off back to base with his supplies.
Helena
More time passed, and she figured it’d been most of a day, at least. The intervals were announced to her from the same voice every time so far, and she’d so far resisted the temptation to check her watch. Despite her resolve, Helena had underestimated the power that sitting in one spot had. On one hand, she’d never been at a loss for willpower—the girl was practically made of the stuff, tough as nails as her father would had said. She wasn’t going crazy, and she wasn’t getting cabin fever; there was no itch to run, no claustrophobia settling in on her. Ultimately she was an accepting person: not passive necessarily, and certainly not forgiving, but accepting nonetheless. When a situation was given to her, she plodded straight through it; clarity and straight-shooting was her style, and it was how she dealt with everything. Inventiveness wasn’t her strong suit, but hey, everyone had to have flaws, right?
Being still, though, was having its effects. She could generally keep her mind locked down in silence for some time, but she was finding that it was more difficult when she had nothing to busy herself with. With nothing for her hands or do, and no destination to focus on, her mind kept turning back in on itself; turning in on the past.
“Might as well let it,” she muttered to herself under her breath. There was no use trying to run from it, really. Her demons had been chasing her for some time now, and every hour spent cooling her heels here meant they were just that much closer: might as well turn and face the monster that was bearing down on her. Not like you’re gonna get a better opportunity.
Helena closed her eyes, and let herself remember.
- - -
She and Mal had been travelling for almost a week now, and they were making good time—the roads were deserted, and they drove for most of every day. Mal had told her that he was headed towards Vancouver, where he had family to see about ‘rescuing’ as he put it. Though he seemed generally interested in whatever story she might have to tell, Helena didn’t talk about her family. Part of it was lack of trust. She reasoned that even if he wasn’t a Controller (it’d been more than three days, she knew that much, and they’d done nothing but drive and sleep, sometimes with short napping breaks) there was always the chance he might become one, and she wasn’t about to start offering up the fact that her family was mostly free and planning to head to a refugee camp somewhere in the south. Combined with that, Helena found that she just didn’t want to talk about her family: it hurt, and it tasted bitterly of guilt.
Helena asked him if he’d heard about any resistance groups, and Mal had given her a long, strange look. For a moment his eyes seemed to flash—the briefest hesitation, a slight change of facial expression. To what, though? Fear? Warning? It was gone well before she could convince herself it wasn’t her imagination. Mal sighed.
“Helena, Miss, I don’t know who told you that, but I’ve been travelling quite some time, and I’ve never seen anyone a part of any resistance. It’s all just rumors. False hope.” He looked at her sideways from the driver seat, and Helena had turned to look out the window instead. She didn’t believe him: refused to believe him. Believing that meant giving up, and giving up was contrary to everything in her nature. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer him.
Later that day had to stop at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. Not only was their tank running dry, but Mal was quickly coming down with what looked like food poisoning (at least, Helena hoped it was food poisoning, and not something much worse, like botulism). He tried to shake it off, but by mid-afternoon it was clear that they were staying there for a night; he couldn’t stop puking long enough to drive, and though Helena offered, he looked too miserable to be cramped inside the truck.
After he’d stopped bothering to even try to leave the gas station’s bathroom, let alone the store itself, Helena slipped out of the cab of the truck, where she had been ‘guarding’ it as he instructed. She went around to the bed, and pulled back the tarp covering that was laid across it, which had been tied down with some twine. Underneath were things she could reasonably expect to find: he’d told her that he was an engineer at a refugee camp on a border-town in Texas, and sure enough there was a sledgehammer, metal poles, and a few boxes that were easily identifiable as tool kits.
She opened them one by one: tools, tools, tools. Nothing extraordinary. She didn’t know what she expected to find, or if she was even looking for something in specific. He wasn’t exactly the model for suspicious behavior, but then again, Helena was a long cry from the model of a trusting individual. There were no obvious holes in his story. But still, she kept looking.
Then, behind the tool boxes, was a bigger container. It had been hard to spot, as it was in the farthest corner, closest to the cabin. It was rectangular, maybe 3’ by 4’, white, and it reminded her of a (short, maybe only a foot-and-a-half tall) mini-freezer. It wasn’t locked, but there were a couple of bungee cords securing it closed. She unhooked those, and popped the series of three latches that went across the lid. Without so much as looking around, Helena pushed the lid up (it was remarkably heavy—making her wonder how heavy the whole thing was).
She stared. And had no idea what it was.
She stared some more.
It was like a tiny kiddie-pool, or maybe one of those baby-tub things, though it was structured strangely. That, and a low humming noise was coming from it, as if there was some internal generator running inside.
Still no idea.
Helena ran her hands along the sleek metallic exterior, over two loop-like steel constructions on the outer rim. Suddenly, she felt her chest constrict.
They’re cuffs. Constraints. Shackles. She drew her hands away, as if burned. Oh, God.
It was a pool. A yeerk pool. Tiny, but now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t un-see it. She sat for a moment: there was fear, but it wasn’t terror. Mostly she was disgusted. Regaining her calm, Helena tugged on the side of the box. There were no good handholds, and the thing was so damn heavy she barely even upset the sludgy liquid inside, even when she gave it a strong yank. Secure. And if you’re caught by your wrists, that’s even less chance you’ll be able to overturn the damn thing.
“Damn.” She paused. “Damn.”
Quickly, she closed the box, and stretched the bungee cords back over it. She resettled the tarp, and then slid off the bed of the truck, promptly sitting on the dusty ground below. The gas station had an overhang that shaded its terminals, but the lot was nothing but packed earth that Helena imagined got really ugly come a couple rainy days.
She sat, covering her mouth. Fighting to keep the panic down that was rising in her throat. She could just leave—just take the truck and leave. She knew how to drive, and it wouldn’t be hard to get the keys from Mal. Mal. God. It’s a slug, not a person. And she did still have the gun, her gun, one of the few things left from home, stored in her backpack, if things got rough…
In three days the yeerk would starve out here on its own. It was likely that the host would survive. After all, the yeerk wouldn’t let the host’s body die for those three days, right?
The resistance, though. That yeerk was lying. Maybe he knows something.
(That, and as pragmatic as she was, the idea of leaving someone in the middle of nowhere, yeerk-infested or not, seemed just too unethical.)
So what to do?
Helena was not an exceptionally creative person, she had an acute imagination as far as sensory went, sure—she could conjure up a scene in vivid detail, but it was always within a state of the happening, the present: she was not a clever planner. Obstacles had to be worked through, not around, and so on. It took her maybe 20 minutes to come up with a central course of action (it wasn’t foolproof by far, but it was straightforward, and that was good), and then another 15 to commit herself to it. Once she stood though, she knew she’d follow it till the end. The thought gave her a small chill, which she brushed off.
She made her way into the gas station.
Helena
“Mal? Mal, I brought you some more medicine.” Helena called out as she knocked on the door of the employee bathroom.
“Oh? Is it time already?” She heard the sink run for a moment, and then he came to the door.
“Yeah. Time flies when you’re puking your brains out, right?” She smiled wryly, and held out three pills and a bottle of water. Her hands did not shake, and she did not feel scared, or even nervous.
“Three?”
Helena nodded dutifully. “Two for pain and fever, the one’s for upset stomach. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
He smiled warmly at her, and then downed the pills with a large gulp of water. So trusting. Guess you can afford to be, when you’re the one people are supposed to be careful of. That, and he probably thought she was harmless—a runaway, a stray. Helena wondered why he had bothered to save her, or keep her around… probably just for another warm body to throw into one of the pit-like pools she’d heard about.
“Thanks. I’m doing better than I was earlier. I’ve managed to keep from vomiting for about two hours now.” Mal laughed a little under his breath, and then wiped his forehead. Sweat had beaded on his brow, and dark circles were under his eyes. Still, his gaze was bright and alert—better than he had been late last night and early this morning, certainly. “Probably best that I stay in here for a bit longer, just in case, but I think the worst if it has passed.”
Helena simply smiled: her mouth made the movements at least, but underneath it she felt like she was made of cold steel. She left him to himself, though she waited by a nearby counter, pretending to keep an eye out on the truck and read magazines at the same time, in case the Controller checked up on her. In reality, she was listening to any sounds from the bathroom; it would do no good if he starting hurling up all the sleeping pills she’d just given him. They weren’t all the same brand: she figured different brands meant different active ingredients, which might mean packing a bigger punch.
There were no sounds of retching though, and after forty minutes without hearing anything from the bathroom at all, Helena walked up to the door.
“Mal? You all right?” There was no response, and she opened the door slowly. Leaning against the adjacent wall was a dozing man—he’d probably been camped in that spot all day, alternating between that and one of the stalls. She leaned down. “Mal? Let’s go get you back to the truck, okay? You can sleep there.”
He was mostly unconscious, and she worried that she might have overdosed him, but he grumbled and staggered to his feet eventually. She supported most of his weight as she led him to the truck. Getting him on to the bed of it proved to be a challenge, but she kept on coaxing him, trying to convince him that he’d be able to really lay down here, and that it’d be more comfortable (she’d dropped the tool boxes to the side of the vehicle, though the white one in the back remained; it’d been way too heavy to think about bringing it to him). After practically pulling him up onto the truck bed, he laid down, sprawling, and quickly fell back asleep.
Helena looked down on him in his vulnerability: she didn’t pity him, nor get she feel a thrill of excitement at having so much power over someone else.
In fact, she didn’t feel much at all.
- - -
Back in the outhouse, Helena frowned, and dug through a cloth sack that seemed to hold a bit of food, probably to help an occupant get through the three day waiting period. There was also bottled water, some of which she drank. This was where the remembering got rocky—when things started to change. Of course the world had changed with the yeerks… but this was when she started to change. Or at least, it was the beginning of something like that. Some kind of story where at the end she was more than what she’d started out as.
Only there was a nagging feeling in her gut that didn’t quite buy that.
You’re not more. You’re less. You aren’t gaining—you’re losing. That’s all war is and that’s all war does.
She drank some more water, and waited a bit longer. Her mind drifted: she’d let it get back to the past when it would. For now, she was in no hurry.
Matthias
The next two days passed relatively quickly, and before Matthias knew it, he was telling Helena she only had two hours to go. If she was a Controller, the panic would begin in earnest now, as the final hour drew so very near.
Matthias always made sure he was around for the last few hours. Some might think that it was because he enjoyed the suffering of the Yeerk as it died, but this was not the case. Even though Matthias knew he could rely on each and every member of his faction, he knew a starving Yeerk was a desperate one, and he trusted no one but himself to do what was necessary in this crucial time.
Helena
Two hours? Helena had dozed again—her sleeping schedule had been crazy for quite some time now, and being locked in a confined space where she didn’t get much sense of the change in daylight didn’t really help that. Two hours. She stood, and stretched her legs as best she could.
There was still the tricky issue of her past to deal with: if she didn’t face it here and now, before going on to the Next Step, or whatever was going to be on the other side of this outhouse experience, would that come back to bite her in the end? Did she need something, some kind of closure, before she could properly start what was to come?
You’re ridiculous. What kind of teenager thinks like this? You’re fine, she tried to reassure herself, but still, it was twisting in her stomach. She realized that for the first time in… well, in long time, even before the yeerks took over, she was nervous. Helena had been scared plenty of times in the past for months (not gripping terror—thankfully she wasn’t one to freeze when panic set in), maybe anxious too, but not downright nervous.
It was because she didn’t know what was coming next. For all of the recent past she’d had a goal; find the resistance, any resistance. And she’d pursued it with determined: sunk her teeth in and held on like a pit bull with a bone, if only through sheer stubbornness. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no more goal—it was just open, blank space, and that was unnerving.
The strong (maybe even safer) thing to do would be to spend the last couple of hours digging through the mud of her memories, taking a good hard look at what had brought her to this point.
She decided to just wait instead.
After all, she’d had to be strong for long enough, right?
Two hours of weakness wouldn’t matter in the scheme of all things.
Matthias
Matthias' updates were coming more frequently now, every fifteen minutes. This did not leave him much time in between communications to lose himself in thought, and for better or worse, that wasn't the type of young man Matthias was. He knew where all of the others were, and Johnny was close enough that if this girl gave him trouble, backup would be soon in arriving. Covering his immediate needs was all Matthias concerned himself with; the rest was nothing more than a distraction, and in these times, distractions were something he could not afford. He needed to make decisions now, life-or-death ones, and then live with the consequences.
Helena
Helena felt her pulse beating more quickly: if she were a Controller, the yeerk wrapped around her brain would be in its death throes now. She had seen what had happened with Malcolm, and she certainly hadn't envied him. The process seemed brutal, horrific.
And even though she happened to have the luxury of being a free human being, her nerves were still pulled taut: it wasn't just a count-down to the death of something that might have taken up residence inside her skull. It was also a count-down to a 'new life' or a 'new chapter' in her life, if she wanted to get all self-help-book about it (which, very quickly, she realized she did not). It was the worst part of the time she'd spent in here, definitely. Helena wasn't prone to stir-craziness, but if the whole last few days had been this bad, she didn't know if she'd have made it.
C'mon she thought with a grimace. C'mon, just be over already.
Matthias
Matthias had untied the rope before he morphed to panther the final time, so Helena could simply just walk out at any time. As he sat, counting the minutes away in his head, he mentally prepared himself for the questions that always followed, and then the adventure of getting someone their first morph that came thereafter.
<<Come on out. You're done.>> Matthias announced. If a panther could smile, he was, as he waited for Helena to open the door. <<Welcome to the resistance. My name is Matthias. I lead the Vancouver faction. I'll answer any questions you have now, though by the sound of it, you've already known a thing or two about us.>>
Helena
Helena held her breath. She was done. She could leave.
But still, the sense of UNRESOLVED BUSINESS lingered over her head, and she hesitated just a moment. The final piece of certainty she had about what she was meant to be working towards was about to be ripped away. Was she ready for that?
Dear God girl, you are way too serious for your own good. Get out of this outhouse. Now.
Helena opened the door and stepped out, blinking a little at the change in light--it wasn't much, as the were still in a shaded forest, but it was something. Then she let out the breath she'd been holding, and inhaled deeply. The quality of air was amazingly better.
One corner of her mouth crooked up into a half-smile as she looked down at the panther that was addressing her. Sure, maybe she should have questioned the telepathy... but in Helena's sometimes-too-straightforward mind, the question of how it was possible was directly linked with why it was necessary. 'How is that panther speaking in my head?' was immediately followed by, 'Well, it's not like it can speak with it's mouth.' And that had settled that.
'Already knew a thing or two about us.' The smile faltered for a second. Yes, she had. Most of it had come from Malcolm... well, no, almost everything had come from him, after she'd starved the yeerk out of his head. She pushed the thought away.
"Answer any questions I have?" She laughed quietly, though good-naturedly. Several immediately rose to mind: strategic questions, assessing questions. How many did they have in their resistance? By 'Vancouver faction' did that imply there were others? Most importantly: how did that being an animal thing work?
"Well," she walked up alongside the panther, ready to follow. The primal part of her brain cringed, but that made no difference. "I think the most critical question I have at this time is... does the resistance have showers? If not, I know which side does have indoor plumbing, and y'know, maybe damning myself and my species to slavery isn't that bad." Helena smiled broadly (a smile that was exceptionally bright compared the smudges of oil and dirt that she hadn't been completely free from the past couple of months) and happily. It was hard not to.
Things might just be okay.
Matthias
<<I wish.>> Matthias replied. <<Our water is pretty much reserved for drinking. Plumbing is a luxury we don't have, unfortunately. On the bright side, when you can turn into animals, you don't really need to shower. All you need to do is become human again and you're fresh as the proverbial daisy.>> Not that I've seen any daisies since the Yeerk attack, but still.
He padded off quietly toward the hideout. When it came into view, he commented again, <<There she is. She may be just a trailer with precious little electricity and no running water, but she's home. We've been thinking of relocating, but I'm not exactly sure where we'd go.>>
Helena
Helena groaned in a 'say-it-aint-so' fashion, but didn't really seem that put out by the news. He mentioned the whole turning-into-animals thing, and she became very quiet, withdrawn. Was he implying that she'd be able to do the same? Helena wasn't even really sure that he was human: shecertainly hadn't heard about anyone turning into animals outside of werewolf movies, at least not until some enlightening chats with Malcolm. Malcolm had tried to explain that they were human, and though she didn't argue, Helena hadn't been so convinced.
They didn't chat much on the way: at least, Helena didn't ask any more questions for the time being--she was still digesting the idea that she might be able to obtain whatever power this Matthias guy had. She wondered if you could only turn into one animal--she'd only seen the panther. At least he'd suggested that you could revert back to human form.
Malcolm hadn't seemed to be too clear on that: he just knew that it was a bunch of kids that could turn into animals before. Helena had gotten the sense that thinking about that knowledge (which undoubtedly mostly came from the memories of the dead yeerk) pained him. She wondered if bits of the dying yeerk had been fused into his brain. It wasn't really the stuff that sweet dreams were made of.
"Trust me, anything looks good at this point. I've been on the move, for uh, a pretty long time." She half-turned back to the panther, and half-smiled again. "By the way, my name's Helena. Helena Sovann, if that matters at all anymore. I guess this would be the part where I move in for a firm handshake with the leader, but given circumstances..." She laughed a little under her breath and looked down at her shoes.
Then, tenatively, she licked her lips, and asked her first real question. "O-..Obviously there's some intermediary step, but can anyone... you know..." She looked down at him. "Do that?"
Matthias
Matthias didn't answer immediately; he began to demorph as they walked. In less than ninety seconds he was human, stretching out his body before turning to her. "Yes, is the short answer. Buried under that trailer is something called an Escafil device. If you touch it, you'll gain the same power I, and all of us Animorphs have. The device was given to me by the leader of the worldwide resistance."
Matthias sighed, and then launched into the lecture he'd gotten quite tired of giving by now, "Morphing works in two parts. First, you have to absorb the DNA of the animal you want to turn into. Second, you have to focus on that animal. In a few minutes, you'll become that animal. I happen to be very fast at it; you'll probably take around three minutes to complete the change. Couple things to remember. First, and most importantly, if you stay in a morph longer than two hours, you will never be able to change back. Second, when in morph, you communicate with thought-speak, like I was doing earlier. However, you can't reply when you're human, and you must be careful to direct your thought-speak at your target. Think of it like an email; you can send it to one person, or to the world."
By this time they had reached the trailer. Matthias opened the door for her. "Go on in, but don't touch anything. I'll be back in a minute with the device, and then you can become a full-fledged Animorph. Oh, and I'll answer any other questions you have." Matthias knew he was rushing through this, but he didn't care. Recruiting got old quickly.
Helena
The demorphing process happened so fast that before Helena really had time to register what was happening and get a good look, it was nearly finished. It was odd to watch, in any case, but she wouldn't have though that turning into an animal (or going from animal to human, for that matter) would be necessarily pretty... even if the animal in question was appealing to look at. She could envision the transition in her mind with vivid clarity: the fur sprouting or receding, ears shifting, fingernails hardening into claws--she quickly moved her mind past the subject before it wandered into the 'what if' mode. Particularly, 'what if' the morph was a bug of some sort.
It seemed strange to regard him as human now, and Helena was almost vaguely surprised when she realized she had to look up if she wanted to meet his eyes. He was perfectly human--even if his clothes seemed a little ridiculous. Helena paused for a moment when she saw his bare feet, but didn't question that just yet: he was explaining morphing to her, at least in part.
Helena listened attentively, especially when it came to the warnings. The speech sounded a bit rehearsed, or at least tired, and she regarded that as a good sign. It meant that he'd given it a number of times before, hopefully. Then he was ushering her into a trailer, and more or less informing her that she was now a recruit. Of course it's what she wanted, to help, but for some reason it hadn't occurred to her that when he said that anyone could become--what was it, an Animorph?--that 'anyone' included her.
That was hard to digest, but she did as she was told, and waited for him to return.
Matthias
Matthias didn't take long to return. He seemed to be burying the cube shallower and shallower each time, and while he knew in the back of his mind this was a bad idea, digging six feet down every time he got a new recruit was exceedingly tiring, especially as he had not had the foresight to acquire a mole.
Opening the trailer door, Escafil Device in hand, Matthias smiled wearily at Helena. "Hard to believe this little thing holds so much power, isn't it? All you have to do is lay your hand on it. The cube does the rest, and then we'll get you outfitted with your first morphs."
Helena
Matthias looked tired. Not only in the 'just completed an act of physical labor' sense, but more than that, something that ran deeper. Helena didn't envy a person that kind of smile. "It's not something I can take back, is it?" She looked up at him for a moment, but took a step forward anyway. Her eyes glittered with excitement and nerves; she extended her hand, placing it lightly on the side of the blue box.
God I hope this isn't come kind of joke, she thought blindly for a moment, but then there was a tingling sensation that ran up her arm. It reminded her of the pins and needles that arrived if your limb fell asleep, only different in that it was pleasant (almost ticklish). And then it was gone. Helena kept her hand on the side panel for a second longer, and then pulled it back.
"I, uh, I think it's done." She couldn't resist the urge to look down at her palm, though she didn't know what she was expecting, and it didn't look like there was anything different.
Matthias
Matthias smiled with a little more sincerity at Helena's reaction, "Yeah, it's done. Welcome to the Animorphs, Helena. Now, behold the second most valuable object we own." Matthias flourished his hand dramatically and pointed to the fridge. The exhaustion's getting to me. I'm acting like an idiot.
Dropping the cheerful show, Matthias crouched beside the locked box. "As you may have noticed, there aren't a lot of animals around. Cassie has provided me with phials of blood for many animals, and that is what we will use. We're going to start you off small, with an animal whose instincts are easy to control." He pulled out several phials and looked at the labels on them before selecting one he wanted. "I happen to be fond of birds. This is canary blood. Give me your hand."
When Helena had done so, Matthias dropped a single drop of blood onto her palm with the deftness of a surgeon. "Now, focus on an image of a canary in your head. It sounds strange, I know. You'll absorb the DNA into yourself, and then, if you keep focusing, you'll begin turning into a canary."
Matthias was about to stop when something he'd forgotten with Melanie occurred to him, "Oh yeah, and we're going to have to give you a morphing outfit. You can't morph anything that isn't skintight. Fortunately, I raided a clothing store last time I was in town." Dropping her hand, he moved over to a closet and pulled out what was essentially a wetsuit with the arms cut off at the elbow and the legs cut off just below the knee. "This ought to do just fine. It might be a little hot, but we don't have a lot of options. If you brought something better with you, you're welcome to use it." He pointed to her bag, which was sitting at her feet.
Helena looked like death warmed over, an expression one of her aunts had been fond of. Of course, thinking about her family always brought up that tearing, shredding pain deep inside of her chest. For a moment she cupped her head in her hands, which only smudged dirt on her face—not that it made much of a difference. She hadn’t seen a proper cleaning in some time now.
Huddled in an abandoned, half-demolished convenience store, Helena busied herself by digging through the (not so large now) selection of canned foods. Carefully she set aside the cans which weren’t dented or burst open (their contents smelled pretty awful) and packed most of them into the frayed backpack she was carrying.
She popped open one of the cans of mandarin orange sections, which opened with a soft metallic rip. After inspecting the food for a moment, she decided that it was safe enough to eat. After squirting a preciously small amount of that alcohol-based, quickly drying anti-bacterial liquid on her hands, Helena promptly dug in with her fingers. The taste was almost brutally sweet compared to the diet of beef jerky, granola bars, and multivitamins that she’d been subsisting on for the past few months.
Once the can was gone, Helena leaned back against the counter behind her, closing her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t stay there. It wasn’t safe. That thought brought a tired smile to her lips, a smile that was far too old for an 18-year-old girl. Safe? She even let out a low, unpleasant laugh.
“Well, better see if any of the first aid supplies are still intact,” Helena muttered under her breath, pushing herself up. “If I’m lucky the bottled water isn’t gone too.” She didn’t have much hope, but hell, that wasn’t anything new. She only took a couple of steps before something heavy slipped from her backpack and crashed to the floor, skittering for a moment across the tiling. Helena wasn’t a jumpy person by nature, but recent history could do wonders on that account: she spun, ready to dive for cover (she’d also picked up one of the dented cans from the shelf, ready to chuck it—probably to little effect—at any assailant).
Instead she froze, staring at the 9mm hand gun that had fallen to the ground.
Helena caught her breath, her jaw grinding shut. Memories threatened to overwhelm her, rushing upwards towards her conscious mind in a torrent. There was a flash: watching a man howl as a creature wrapped around his brain died. Another flash: the sickening pop as she brought her foot down on a slug-like body. The next image was too horrifying, and she pushed it away roughly.
There was a maddening panic rising in her throat. She wanted to run out of this place screaming, just pick any direction and run. More than that, she wanted to put the barrel of that gun in her mouth and eat a bullet. The urge was overwhelming.
Helena sighed, and with an enormous amount of willpower, pulled herself back from the brink of madness. She walked over, picked up the gun, checked the safety, and put it back in her backpack. For a moment the weight of it was almost too much, and the panic was there again, squeezing out the air in her lungs. Again, she shut it down, blocked it out. She didn’t question why she was able to do that, to shut herself off, if that made her less of a person—all she knew was that it was her only option if she planned on surviving.
Surviving for what, exactly? Was the question that kept coming up, in a sneering voice. What good does any of it do? Helena let out a low, long exhale.
“First aid, and water. Need some more multivitamins too. Maybe they even have discount socks.” She turned, and started back up and down the aisles, throwing frequent, furtive glances up at the round mirrors in the corners of the store, keeping an eye out.
Matthias
Good God, why is it every time I try to find food, I end up running into trouble? The last time Matthias had performed a food run, he had ended up rescuing Kevin from a group of Controllers. Now, the supermarket he had been planning to raid was making noise. He had hardly taken two steps inside before he heard a crash and swiftly slid to the safety of one of the cash registers. Not even the cameras could see him here, even if they were on.
Oh well, at least it gives me a chance to get out of this morph. Matthias didn't like morphing other humans, especially not Controllers; it left him with an uneasy feeling. He was only slightly comforted by the fact that the particular Controller he was impersonating was dead, and therefore unlikely to expose him. Demorphing rapidly, he ran through his short list of available morphs. I suppose it depends on who I think is in here. Well, let's see. It was mostly quiet, except for that one bang. The lights are out; this person doesn't want to be seen. Also, there's probably only one. That sounds to me like a rebel. Cobra would be ineffective; I don't want to kill them. Gyrfalcon or owl would be scary, but I can't trap anyone with it. Looks like panther it is again.
Matthias didn't really mind; he adored all of his morphs. The addition of the panther's strength and enhanced night vision was a welcome one, and soon he was prowling the aisles, virtually invisible, all of his senses sweeping the area to find this intruder. We're going to need a bigger trailer with growth like this.
Helena
Helena looked up for what felt like the hundredth time at the round mirror above her, and then looked back down again, trying to inspect the bandages and anything that looked medicinal in the dim light. Then, instantly, she looked up again: wondering if she’d seen something after all. There was nothing there though—just the dark aisles. It was likely the shadows were just making her jumpy.
That being said, Helena hadn’t survived traveling across a continent by not trusting her instincts, which were now all a-buzz with fear and first few trickling spikes of adrenaline. She held her breath, listening, her movements paused for a moment—she didn’t hear boots or sneakers moving on the floor, let alone the clumsy, awkward movements of a Taxxon or a Hork-Bajir in close confines. She abruptly finished searching through the items though, stowing away a kit that was mostly intact into her backpack. While her hand was in here, she retrieved the hand gun.
Part of her was angry: this place had been picked over less than the last two stores she’d been in (it occurred to her that this was because there might be fewer refugees and therefore fewer scavengers, but she didn’t dwell on that thought), and she could stand to have some more time here, sorting through the stuff. But ultimately, logic won out: and logic said that food and Neosporin were great, clean water was better, but when you got a creeping feeling down your spine, you got going.
Shouldering the backpack, she looked up and down the aisle, which was littered with assorted things—toothbrushes, sticky patches of dried Listerine—and began to walk slowly (and as quietly as possible, carefully trying to avoid wrappers and cardboard that would crunch under foot, but that was easier said than done) towards the exit. She held the gun in both hands, her arms lowered but straight.
Matthias
Matthias liked relying on his instincts, but he was also smarter than a panther would be, and as such was using the mirrors to track his prey as well as his senses. Having seen a flash of movement a moment before, he knew where she was, and he was closing the gap quickly and quietly. Coming across the spilt canned goods section, he sniffed. She was just here. Good. Eyeing the food, he got an idea. Well, it works in the movies.
Hooking one with a claw so that it sat on the pad of his right paw, he whipped it as hard as he could across the room, hearing it satisfactorily crash into the wall well away from where he was. Smiling internally, he picked up his pace, his tail twitching back and forth; the panther was well into the joy of the hunt.
A momentary distraction of the girl's attention was all he needed. He could see her ahead of him now, and caught a flash of the weapon she carried. It would take him less than three seconds to leap across the gap between them and disarm her. Oh, how Matthias adored the feline speed.
Helena
Helena's jaw set hard at the sound of the crash--she didn't jump or yell in surprise, but her lips did pull back over her teeth in a grimace of mixed anxiety and fear. The gun rose a couple more inches, and she backed as far as possible away from the noise, though still trying to strafe towards the exit. She wasn't sure why someone would make that much noise (there was no associated slithering, slobbering Taxxon noises, or the heavy footfalls of a Hork-Bajir).
Maybe it's just a... dog. Or a cat. Or something, she thought, now moving slightly faster, though still only at about a normal walking pace.
Matthias
Had Matthias been able to read Helena's thoughts, he would have been quite amused; for there was indeed a cat sneaking up on her. When she backed away from the noise, she came within striking distance and Matthias wasted no more time. He leaped silently through the air, landing square on Helena's back. His eyes darted immediately to her hands, but the gun had skittered away across the floor. And the girl herself wasn't going anywhere. Lunch. Matthias could feel his panther morph's hunger echoing his own. No, no, she's not lunch...sadly...no, stop that. Get a hold of yourself.
Helena
"Oof!" Helena felt something solidcollide with her back, with enough force to send her sprawling to the ground. The gun was sent across the floor, and inwardly she cursed herself for being clumsy enough to drop it (even if it would be unreasonable to expect herself to hold on to it after a being completely surprised by an attack from behind). Still she squirmed, trying to roll onto her back, wanting to bring her legs to her chest in an attempt to kick the attacker off. She wasn't exactly successful though: whatever had landed on her was pretty damn heavy.
It was during this struggle that she awkwardly grabbed backwards, and was rewarded with a fistful of ...fur? She had expected clothing, maybe hair, but fur? Her head twisted at an uncomfortably strained angle, and she saw black fur, fangs, and eyes that were wholly non-human. It took a second for her brain to register what she was seeing: mostly it was yammering, with a fear that was hard-coded into her system through her evolutionary ancestors, to escape.
It IS a cat! She thought frantically, and then, Thats one HELL of a cat!
But what kind of cats did she know that were that big, and easily outweighed her? Her struggling stopped, and Helena had time to think how cool the tiled floor was against her face, and how the canned food in her backpack was digging into her side. And for the first time in quite a while, she felt hope. The fear was quickly subsiding (in her reasoning brain, even if it was somehow a wild panther, being mauled to death was a more pleasant alternative than being made a Controller or being fed to a Taxxon) and she was getting her breathing down into a gasping pant.
"You're... one of them, right? The resistance." Her voice was muffled--it was hard to breathe, let alone talk with a fully grown panther pressing on your back.
Matthias
I guess we're getting pretty popular. Matthias chuckled to himself as he stepped off her. <<Stay down, don't move.>> Keeping an eye on her, he padded over to her gun. Not bad. Be useful to have one of these around. Turning back to her, he sat down and let his panther do what it wanted to, namely begin to clean itself. I wish I had some backup. I can't pick up this gun and I can't demorph. I don't want to have to knock her out either, that's just dead weight to carry. Making a swift decision, Matthias knocked the gun under a counter with a wave of his paw and made a note to come back for it later.
<<Alright, get up.>> Here we go again. <<Maybe I'm part of the resistance, maybe I'm just a freak panther. All you need to know is that right now you're unarmed, and I could remove your head from your shoulders before you could get to the door, so there's little point in running. So right now, it's in your best interests to do what I tell you to. Walk to the back of the store and out the back door. Stick to the shadows when you get outside. I'll be right behind you.>>
Helena
Helena stayed down, and she didn't move, as she was instructed. When the panther stepped off of her back it felt like air rushed back into her lungs, and she did cough a bit, turning her mouth into her shoulder to quiet the sound.
Freak panther? Helena felt herself smile, barely realizing she was doing it. Despite the dingy, dirty atmosphere, and the fact that this panther-thing really could make good on his claim to decapitate her, she felt better than she had in ages. She didn't say anything, and didn't laugh (part of her wanted badly to laugh, because suddenly things might actually be okay), but continued to smile and she pushed herself off the ground.
She did start walking towards the back door. Making sure to keep her pace steady and not making any sudden movements. She had to resettle the backpack's shoulder straps once (all the cans inside were jumbled and making the weight distribution awkward) but other than that she merely walked. Once she got to the door she opened it as quietly as possible, and left it open about halfway--enough that a panther could easily pass through.
That was maybe your one chance to escape, she thought distantly. Close the door and run... But she doubted she'd really get away. And for that matter, she didn't want to run anymore. Not if there was a chance that she was where she had hoped to end up. She leaned against the building, easily fitting into the long shadows it cast on the ground.
Matthias
Just like Kevin. Nice and easy. <<Keep going.>> Matthias instructed briskly, <<You're heading for that patch of woods about a kilometre west of here. That's where you'll be staying for the next three days until I can decide what to do with you. It's not the nicest place, but no one's going to bother you where we're going. The other advantage, at least from my point of view, is that no one can hear you scream either.>>
Matthias fell silent after that. He felt a bit of guilt for resorting to the scare tactics, but if this girl was a Controller - which he highly doubted - then scare tactics were effective. <<Once you get to the woods, keep walking until you see your...accommodations. You won't see me, but I'll be around, watching you. Drop the backpack at the door and go inside. I'll instruct you further when we're there.>> With that, Matthias dropped communication and vanished into the shadows of the darkening sky.
Helena
Helena's abdomen did tighten reflexively. Scream? If you were Controller, you would. You remember Malcolm. Helena's smile instantly dropped, and she bowed her head. She nodded to show that she understood the instructions. Another wave of unease passed when she realized he'd want her to leave her backpack. It held some supplies, but more importantly, the last few trinkets of her life before all of this. Without her pack and her gun she was going to feel completely vulnerable.
She knew better than to complain.
Eventually she passed the tree-line, and came upon what looked like a tiny shed from the distance. Upon closer inspection she realized it was an outhouse. ...of course they couldn't have destroyed all of these things before the war, she thought, internally groaning. After coming up to it she (hesitantly) let the pack slide to the ground outside.
"I... I have a few pictures in there. I don't really care about the other stuff, whatever you want, if you want any of it, it's yours. But... can you keep the pictures safe? Please?" Helena looked around for a moment, not really expecting to see any one or anything, and then biting her lip, turned the handle of the outhouse door. She looked up for a moment. Last time you'll see the sky for a while. At last she entered, grimacing a bit as she did so.
Matthias
Matthias padded over silently to the outhouse, picking the straps of the backpack up in his teeth and then walking away. <<For the next three days, you'll be staying there. You'll be watched at all times, though it may not be by me. If you exit the outhouse, you'll be killed by whoever happens to be watching you at the time.>> Matthias avoided her query about the pictures; he wouldn't touch them, but there was no reason to be sympathetic now.
<<Enjoy your stay. You'll be updated on how much time is left every few hours.>> With that he was gone. He had to return to base and drop this backpack off and then head back and pick up the gun. After that, he'd return to check on her. If no one was at the hideout now, he'd get the rope he'd left there and return first to secure the outhouse door. It was going to be a long three days for Helena.
Helena
Helena wondered if she would really be killed just for leaving the outhouse: she did not sit there imagining sequences where she made a mad dash into the woods (which would do her absolutely no good), but still, it kept coming to mind. Would that panther, or rather whoever was inside of it, really use its fangs and claws on her, even if she wasn't taking offensive action?
Would you, if you were in their position? That provided an even better question, and she hunkered down, thinking on that for some time. She reasoned that she probably would, if she were really part of a local resistance. It didn't make her feel very good about herself, certainly. On the other hand, it didn't much change her opinion about the situation: she wasn't planning on running, so it didn't matter, did it?
Helena got as comfortable as possible, leaning against on of the walls. This wasn't going to be a wonderful experience, she knew that already, but three days were only three days. She'd spent much more than that on her own, especially in the past couple of months, though maybe not so confined.
At least there's no more running. And that was the truth: she sighed, and closed her eyes for a time. Maybe knowing where she'd been for the next three days was a blessing more than a curse. She smirked. Yeah, well, that was one way of thinking about spending 72 hours in an outhouse.
Matthias
Matthias was back at the outhouse sooner than he'd have liked; there hadn't been anyone at the hideout so he had to return to secure the outhouse before heading back to the department store to pick up the gun. The task didn't take him long, and he didn't say a word to his captive as he worked and then left her. Morphing back to a panther, he sprinted off toward the edge of the forest. He'd have some more fun with her when he returned with the weapon.
Helena
Honestly, Helena didn't think about much. She wasn't exactly a Zen-and-Meditation princess, but she knew how to tell her mind to shut up; or better yet, she knew how to make it shut up. She kept her head blank--she knew that the long hours of introspection (and possibly interrogation) would come later. Best to hold out against the memories and the reality of the situation as long as possible.
She did not fidget or fiddle with anything--she sat calmly, one leg propped up. For a time she rested her chin on her knee, and then leaned back again. She was thankful that as least it wasn't swelteringly hot... that would have made things worse on all accounts. At one point she ran her hands through her hair, and it was then that the first unasked for memory struck:
"Don't call me Mal! GOD, don't call me Mal!" He had yelled after vomiting dry-heaving for a good ten minutes. Helena had jerked back, afraid. "My name isn't Mal, it's Malcom. He--the yeerk--it thought that 'Mal' was more friendly, a better handle, a good nickname. Call me Malcom."
Helena winced, shook her head lightly. Not yet. If she started this early, the next few days were going to be far too bitter. She regained her composure.
Matthias
Matthias judged it to be about three hours from when he first ran into her that he found himself sitting outside the outhouse again, a panther, checking in, <<It's been three hours.>> He said shortly, and without preamble. <<You have sixty-nine more remaining.>> Matthias didn't see the point in keeping her there for a full three days and discounting the time he knew she wasn't at the Yeerk Pool.
Matthias also wasn't one for talking to his prisoners. Unless he was a hundred percent certain they were a Controller - and in this one's case, he was fairly certain she was not - they would probably learn more from his questions than he did from asking them. So instead he sat quietly, watching the outhouse, trying to block out the smell, and enjoying the liquid power that flowed through his veins at the moment.
Panthers were amazing creatures. So strong, so fast, and so secure in their own abilities. Matthias was envious.
Helena
Helena heard the voice broadcasting in her head, the same as before. It’d been three hours, and other than the single episode sometime earlier, she hadn’t had any more painful recalls. She resettled a bit, but otherwise didn’t move very much. Inwardly she was glad to hear the voice, and realized that her resolve was strengthened whenever she heard it, though she certainly didn’t try to strike up a conversation. It just meant that she wasn’t alone. Maybe being watched should have disturbed her (hell, being held prisoner in an outhouse probably wasn’t something that someone normal could easily adapt to either, but who was normal anymore?). All she knew was that if she was being held for three days that was a Good Thing, even for all its inconvenience. It meant that there was hope.
She’d already at least partly adapted to the smell: thank evolution for that trick—as long as the smell didn’t change, her brain had mostly stopped registering it. Small favors, right?
More time passed. Helena considered digging out the watch in pocket of her jeans (there was another a Swiss Army knife and a half-used matchbox in there), but quickly decided not to. She figured it had been a few hours from the last time she’d heard the voice, and if she started checking the watch now, she was afraid it might become a compulsive urge. No, her willpower was stronger than that, at least for now. She continued to wait.
Her mind drifted smoothly, and eventually she found herself close to falling asleep. Helena felt safer than she had in some time: or if not safe, then at least at peace with herself. She’d accomplished the goal that had dominated her life for the past few months—what had been the only thing keeping her going, especially after Malcolm-
And on that, again, her mind stumbled.
- - -
Helena couldn’t walk any more. She’d been walking for weeks now, and hadn’t eaten anything for at least two days. Her strictly rationed water had run out sometime the night before, and the southern sun was beating down on her in all its pitiless, merciless glory. She had a hat, but that didn’t mean anything when you were slowly becoming dehydrated. If she didn’t find water, she was as good as dead—and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant process.
Still, she never regretted her decision to try to find one of the resistance movements, even if it was just a rumor. Maybe she hadn’t been born with a proper sense of self-survival, but Helena knew that she’d rather die on this road, moving towards a resistance (or even just the hope of a resistance) than live running from the enemy forever, let alone being captured. In her exhausted, quickly fading state, all she could bring herself to feel was perhaps the low throb of guilt in her heart: the aftermath of leaving her family without really saying goodbye.
Won’t be long now, she thought. It wasn’t dismal: slightly sad, but nothing too horrible. There was physical pain, but pain was endurable. Not too long afterwards, Helena collapsed. She was on the side of a dusty road. At first she never would have been walking along a highway, as it made her a highly visible target, but after her supplies got dangerously low, she knew that her only hope of making it would be sticking to a road. She didn’t have enough food or water left to spent time wandering through the wilderness.
Now she was breathing in the dust, which in her already parched-dry throat, felt like sand blowing against tissue paper. Her body was weak and dizzy, and thinking it would be for the last time, Helena closed her eyes and felt the sun shining through her lids. She didn’t think anything epic, and there were no inspiring last words—she simply turned inwards, and prepared herself for the event of dying. Unconsciousness followed.
Suddenly, what felt like eons later, Helena coughed. Everything in her body hurt, and she was disoriented: though never particularly religious in life, she briefly wondered if she happened to be in Hell. Then she coughed again, feeling like she was suffocating. Only it was more like…
“Don’t drown, Jesus! Small sips!” The voice was loud, and split through her head like a knife. “Small sips! Small sips, girl!” Helena coughed some more, spurting water, and then gasped. When her eyes opened there were bright purple sunspots over her vision, but she could tell it was darker now. Slowly gaining her bearings, she realized she was in the cab of some kind of vehicle.
Eventually she gained enough motor control to drink properly from the water bottle that was being held to her lips. She swallowed too much at once, and her stomach flipped: she leaned over and vomited on the dashboard. The man next to her cursed violently.
“S-s-sorry,” Helena managed to waver out, wiping her mouth. Truthfully it’d mostly only been the water she’d just swallowed, and some bile.
“Oh, don’t go apologizing. Just here, hold this. You’re one lucky gal.” The man pulled out a rag from a bag near her feet—it was stained with oil. He used it to wipe up the mess, and then tossed it out the window.
Remembering to take small sips, and stopping whenever the nausea struck, Helena leaned back against the passenger side seat. The man started up the engine of his truck.
“Where did you think you were going, anyway? Ain’t nothing for miles, and I damn near ran you over. Sun probably would have killed you, just a few more hours. Jesus.”
Helena shrugged. She was still dizzy, but she’d regained enough of her conscious mind to know better than to divulge more than she had to. Maybe he wasn’t a Controller—he was alone after all, from what she could tell, and he had saved her… but it was just as likely that he was.
“Well I’ll wait till you feel better to really start in on the lecturing. For now, you rest.” She looked over at him for the first time. He was a tall man, that was easy to see even though he was sitting down. His proportions were lanky, with sandy colored hair. Helena figured he was probably around her father’s age, maybe older. They were sitting in the cab of a pickup truck.
Helena did rest: and in both the memory and in the reality where she was sitting in an outhouse in western Canada, she fell asleep.
Helena
“Dios mio, chiquita!” Her mother exclaimed in both amazement and pride. “Helena, you are hell and Jesus with that thing!” Fifteen-year-old Helena looked up at her mother, Carmen Sovann, and beamed with a wide, toothy smile. “Who taught you to shoot like that!”
“You did, mom.” Helena replied, rolling her eyes (though her voice was happy and friendly, proud of herself and glad to please her mother).
“Well, I guess I did.” Her mother smiled back and offered her a wink. “Still, I don’t think I can shoot like that now, let alone when I was your age!” The two were in a shooting range, and Helena had been practicing with a semi-automatic pistol. Her mother took her there every other weekend, and had been doing so for the past four or five years. Though she couldn’t have told you why, Helena loved the excursions. Not only had they provided bonding moments with her mother (one of the only chances she got her mother to herself, without having other siblings fighting for attention), but there was a simplicity to shooting that echoed inside of her. You aimed, and you pulled the trigger, and that was that.
She had taken to it easily, and progressed to an outstanding degree. Her accuracy was eerie: something the other (generally older, and male) patrons at the shooting range were wont to comment on each visit. A few of them suggested that she’d make a fine hunter, but Helena had never liked that idea. She didn’t want to shoot at anything living: it wasn’t the destructive aspect of shooting that she adored, after all. There was a deadly power in it, but that wasn’t what drew her in: it was the control and the precision.
“What do you say we go get some ice cream, huh?” Her mother asked, and Helena happily obliged, though as always, she felt a bit of parting loss when they left the range. She already missed the cool weight of the handgun.
- - -
Helena jerked awake, wondering where she was—it was small, trapped, and the air was stale. Instinctively she reached for her backpack, and the security of her personal belongings. It wasn’t there, and neither was her gun.
It was after a second of panic that she remembered where she was, and why her things weren’t with her. Taking a deep breath, she stood up. Her feet had gone all pins and needles, and after a few (very limited) rounds of pacing, she felt the blood flow back to them. Then, she settled back down, and waited some more.
Matthias
Matthias made another round to the supermarket - he had been going there originally for supplies anyway - before he checked back in on Helena. He had not stopped moving all day and it was starting to get to him, but he knew he couldn't stay put on watch; he was liable to fall asleep in panther morph and that would not have good consequences. Unfortunately, the trailer was empty; the others were all out scavenging or scouting, so the burden of watch-keeping fell to their leader. <<Five hours.>> He commented at the appropriate time, before heading off back to base with his supplies.
Helena
More time passed, and she figured it’d been most of a day, at least. The intervals were announced to her from the same voice every time so far, and she’d so far resisted the temptation to check her watch. Despite her resolve, Helena had underestimated the power that sitting in one spot had. On one hand, she’d never been at a loss for willpower—the girl was practically made of the stuff, tough as nails as her father would had said. She wasn’t going crazy, and she wasn’t getting cabin fever; there was no itch to run, no claustrophobia settling in on her. Ultimately she was an accepting person: not passive necessarily, and certainly not forgiving, but accepting nonetheless. When a situation was given to her, she plodded straight through it; clarity and straight-shooting was her style, and it was how she dealt with everything. Inventiveness wasn’t her strong suit, but hey, everyone had to have flaws, right?
Being still, though, was having its effects. She could generally keep her mind locked down in silence for some time, but she was finding that it was more difficult when she had nothing to busy herself with. With nothing for her hands or do, and no destination to focus on, her mind kept turning back in on itself; turning in on the past.
“Might as well let it,” she muttered to herself under her breath. There was no use trying to run from it, really. Her demons had been chasing her for some time now, and every hour spent cooling her heels here meant they were just that much closer: might as well turn and face the monster that was bearing down on her. Not like you’re gonna get a better opportunity.
Helena closed her eyes, and let herself remember.
- - -
She and Mal had been travelling for almost a week now, and they were making good time—the roads were deserted, and they drove for most of every day. Mal had told her that he was headed towards Vancouver, where he had family to see about ‘rescuing’ as he put it. Though he seemed generally interested in whatever story she might have to tell, Helena didn’t talk about her family. Part of it was lack of trust. She reasoned that even if he wasn’t a Controller (it’d been more than three days, she knew that much, and they’d done nothing but drive and sleep, sometimes with short napping breaks) there was always the chance he might become one, and she wasn’t about to start offering up the fact that her family was mostly free and planning to head to a refugee camp somewhere in the south. Combined with that, Helena found that she just didn’t want to talk about her family: it hurt, and it tasted bitterly of guilt.
Helena asked him if he’d heard about any resistance groups, and Mal had given her a long, strange look. For a moment his eyes seemed to flash—the briefest hesitation, a slight change of facial expression. To what, though? Fear? Warning? It was gone well before she could convince herself it wasn’t her imagination. Mal sighed.
“Helena, Miss, I don’t know who told you that, but I’ve been travelling quite some time, and I’ve never seen anyone a part of any resistance. It’s all just rumors. False hope.” He looked at her sideways from the driver seat, and Helena had turned to look out the window instead. She didn’t believe him: refused to believe him. Believing that meant giving up, and giving up was contrary to everything in her nature. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer him.
Later that day had to stop at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. Not only was their tank running dry, but Mal was quickly coming down with what looked like food poisoning (at least, Helena hoped it was food poisoning, and not something much worse, like botulism). He tried to shake it off, but by mid-afternoon it was clear that they were staying there for a night; he couldn’t stop puking long enough to drive, and though Helena offered, he looked too miserable to be cramped inside the truck.
After he’d stopped bothering to even try to leave the gas station’s bathroom, let alone the store itself, Helena slipped out of the cab of the truck, where she had been ‘guarding’ it as he instructed. She went around to the bed, and pulled back the tarp covering that was laid across it, which had been tied down with some twine. Underneath were things she could reasonably expect to find: he’d told her that he was an engineer at a refugee camp on a border-town in Texas, and sure enough there was a sledgehammer, metal poles, and a few boxes that were easily identifiable as tool kits.
She opened them one by one: tools, tools, tools. Nothing extraordinary. She didn’t know what she expected to find, or if she was even looking for something in specific. He wasn’t exactly the model for suspicious behavior, but then again, Helena was a long cry from the model of a trusting individual. There were no obvious holes in his story. But still, she kept looking.
Then, behind the tool boxes, was a bigger container. It had been hard to spot, as it was in the farthest corner, closest to the cabin. It was rectangular, maybe 3’ by 4’, white, and it reminded her of a (short, maybe only a foot-and-a-half tall) mini-freezer. It wasn’t locked, but there were a couple of bungee cords securing it closed. She unhooked those, and popped the series of three latches that went across the lid. Without so much as looking around, Helena pushed the lid up (it was remarkably heavy—making her wonder how heavy the whole thing was).
She stared. And had no idea what it was.
She stared some more.
It was like a tiny kiddie-pool, or maybe one of those baby-tub things, though it was structured strangely. That, and a low humming noise was coming from it, as if there was some internal generator running inside.
Still no idea.
Helena ran her hands along the sleek metallic exterior, over two loop-like steel constructions on the outer rim. Suddenly, she felt her chest constrict.
They’re cuffs. Constraints. Shackles. She drew her hands away, as if burned. Oh, God.
It was a pool. A yeerk pool. Tiny, but now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t un-see it. She sat for a moment: there was fear, but it wasn’t terror. Mostly she was disgusted. Regaining her calm, Helena tugged on the side of the box. There were no good handholds, and the thing was so damn heavy she barely even upset the sludgy liquid inside, even when she gave it a strong yank. Secure. And if you’re caught by your wrists, that’s even less chance you’ll be able to overturn the damn thing.
“Damn.” She paused. “Damn.”
Quickly, she closed the box, and stretched the bungee cords back over it. She resettled the tarp, and then slid off the bed of the truck, promptly sitting on the dusty ground below. The gas station had an overhang that shaded its terminals, but the lot was nothing but packed earth that Helena imagined got really ugly come a couple rainy days.
She sat, covering her mouth. Fighting to keep the panic down that was rising in her throat. She could just leave—just take the truck and leave. She knew how to drive, and it wouldn’t be hard to get the keys from Mal. Mal. God. It’s a slug, not a person. And she did still have the gun, her gun, one of the few things left from home, stored in her backpack, if things got rough…
In three days the yeerk would starve out here on its own. It was likely that the host would survive. After all, the yeerk wouldn’t let the host’s body die for those three days, right?
The resistance, though. That yeerk was lying. Maybe he knows something.
(That, and as pragmatic as she was, the idea of leaving someone in the middle of nowhere, yeerk-infested or not, seemed just too unethical.)
So what to do?
Helena was not an exceptionally creative person, she had an acute imagination as far as sensory went, sure—she could conjure up a scene in vivid detail, but it was always within a state of the happening, the present: she was not a clever planner. Obstacles had to be worked through, not around, and so on. It took her maybe 20 minutes to come up with a central course of action (it wasn’t foolproof by far, but it was straightforward, and that was good), and then another 15 to commit herself to it. Once she stood though, she knew she’d follow it till the end. The thought gave her a small chill, which she brushed off.
She made her way into the gas station.
Helena
“Mal? Mal, I brought you some more medicine.” Helena called out as she knocked on the door of the employee bathroom.
“Oh? Is it time already?” She heard the sink run for a moment, and then he came to the door.
“Yeah. Time flies when you’re puking your brains out, right?” She smiled wryly, and held out three pills and a bottle of water. Her hands did not shake, and she did not feel scared, or even nervous.
“Three?”
Helena nodded dutifully. “Two for pain and fever, the one’s for upset stomach. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
He smiled warmly at her, and then downed the pills with a large gulp of water. So trusting. Guess you can afford to be, when you’re the one people are supposed to be careful of. That, and he probably thought she was harmless—a runaway, a stray. Helena wondered why he had bothered to save her, or keep her around… probably just for another warm body to throw into one of the pit-like pools she’d heard about.
“Thanks. I’m doing better than I was earlier. I’ve managed to keep from vomiting for about two hours now.” Mal laughed a little under his breath, and then wiped his forehead. Sweat had beaded on his brow, and dark circles were under his eyes. Still, his gaze was bright and alert—better than he had been late last night and early this morning, certainly. “Probably best that I stay in here for a bit longer, just in case, but I think the worst if it has passed.”
Helena simply smiled: her mouth made the movements at least, but underneath it she felt like she was made of cold steel. She left him to himself, though she waited by a nearby counter, pretending to keep an eye out on the truck and read magazines at the same time, in case the Controller checked up on her. In reality, she was listening to any sounds from the bathroom; it would do no good if he starting hurling up all the sleeping pills she’d just given him. They weren’t all the same brand: she figured different brands meant different active ingredients, which might mean packing a bigger punch.
There were no sounds of retching though, and after forty minutes without hearing anything from the bathroom at all, Helena walked up to the door.
“Mal? You all right?” There was no response, and she opened the door slowly. Leaning against the adjacent wall was a dozing man—he’d probably been camped in that spot all day, alternating between that and one of the stalls. She leaned down. “Mal? Let’s go get you back to the truck, okay? You can sleep there.”
He was mostly unconscious, and she worried that she might have overdosed him, but he grumbled and staggered to his feet eventually. She supported most of his weight as she led him to the truck. Getting him on to the bed of it proved to be a challenge, but she kept on coaxing him, trying to convince him that he’d be able to really lay down here, and that it’d be more comfortable (she’d dropped the tool boxes to the side of the vehicle, though the white one in the back remained; it’d been way too heavy to think about bringing it to him). After practically pulling him up onto the truck bed, he laid down, sprawling, and quickly fell back asleep.
Helena looked down on him in his vulnerability: she didn’t pity him, nor get she feel a thrill of excitement at having so much power over someone else.
In fact, she didn’t feel much at all.
- - -
Back in the outhouse, Helena frowned, and dug through a cloth sack that seemed to hold a bit of food, probably to help an occupant get through the three day waiting period. There was also bottled water, some of which she drank. This was where the remembering got rocky—when things started to change. Of course the world had changed with the yeerks… but this was when she started to change. Or at least, it was the beginning of something like that. Some kind of story where at the end she was more than what she’d started out as.
Only there was a nagging feeling in her gut that didn’t quite buy that.
You’re not more. You’re less. You aren’t gaining—you’re losing. That’s all war is and that’s all war does.
She drank some more water, and waited a bit longer. Her mind drifted: she’d let it get back to the past when it would. For now, she was in no hurry.
Matthias
The next two days passed relatively quickly, and before Matthias knew it, he was telling Helena she only had two hours to go. If she was a Controller, the panic would begin in earnest now, as the final hour drew so very near.
Matthias always made sure he was around for the last few hours. Some might think that it was because he enjoyed the suffering of the Yeerk as it died, but this was not the case. Even though Matthias knew he could rely on each and every member of his faction, he knew a starving Yeerk was a desperate one, and he trusted no one but himself to do what was necessary in this crucial time.
Helena
Two hours? Helena had dozed again—her sleeping schedule had been crazy for quite some time now, and being locked in a confined space where she didn’t get much sense of the change in daylight didn’t really help that. Two hours. She stood, and stretched her legs as best she could.
There was still the tricky issue of her past to deal with: if she didn’t face it here and now, before going on to the Next Step, or whatever was going to be on the other side of this outhouse experience, would that come back to bite her in the end? Did she need something, some kind of closure, before she could properly start what was to come?
You’re ridiculous. What kind of teenager thinks like this? You’re fine, she tried to reassure herself, but still, it was twisting in her stomach. She realized that for the first time in… well, in long time, even before the yeerks took over, she was nervous. Helena had been scared plenty of times in the past for months (not gripping terror—thankfully she wasn’t one to freeze when panic set in), maybe anxious too, but not downright nervous.
It was because she didn’t know what was coming next. For all of the recent past she’d had a goal; find the resistance, any resistance. And she’d pursued it with determined: sunk her teeth in and held on like a pit bull with a bone, if only through sheer stubbornness. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no more goal—it was just open, blank space, and that was unnerving.
The strong (maybe even safer) thing to do would be to spend the last couple of hours digging through the mud of her memories, taking a good hard look at what had brought her to this point.
She decided to just wait instead.
After all, she’d had to be strong for long enough, right?
Two hours of weakness wouldn’t matter in the scheme of all things.
Matthias
Matthias' updates were coming more frequently now, every fifteen minutes. This did not leave him much time in between communications to lose himself in thought, and for better or worse, that wasn't the type of young man Matthias was. He knew where all of the others were, and Johnny was close enough that if this girl gave him trouble, backup would be soon in arriving. Covering his immediate needs was all Matthias concerned himself with; the rest was nothing more than a distraction, and in these times, distractions were something he could not afford. He needed to make decisions now, life-or-death ones, and then live with the consequences.
Helena
Helena felt her pulse beating more quickly: if she were a Controller, the yeerk wrapped around her brain would be in its death throes now. She had seen what had happened with Malcolm, and she certainly hadn't envied him. The process seemed brutal, horrific.
And even though she happened to have the luxury of being a free human being, her nerves were still pulled taut: it wasn't just a count-down to the death of something that might have taken up residence inside her skull. It was also a count-down to a 'new life' or a 'new chapter' in her life, if she wanted to get all self-help-book about it (which, very quickly, she realized she did not). It was the worst part of the time she'd spent in here, definitely. Helena wasn't prone to stir-craziness, but if the whole last few days had been this bad, she didn't know if she'd have made it.
C'mon she thought with a grimace. C'mon, just be over already.
Matthias
Matthias had untied the rope before he morphed to panther the final time, so Helena could simply just walk out at any time. As he sat, counting the minutes away in his head, he mentally prepared himself for the questions that always followed, and then the adventure of getting someone their first morph that came thereafter.
<<Come on out. You're done.>> Matthias announced. If a panther could smile, he was, as he waited for Helena to open the door. <<Welcome to the resistance. My name is Matthias. I lead the Vancouver faction. I'll answer any questions you have now, though by the sound of it, you've already known a thing or two about us.>>
Helena
Helena held her breath. She was done. She could leave.
But still, the sense of UNRESOLVED BUSINESS lingered over her head, and she hesitated just a moment. The final piece of certainty she had about what she was meant to be working towards was about to be ripped away. Was she ready for that?
Dear God girl, you are way too serious for your own good. Get out of this outhouse. Now.
Helena opened the door and stepped out, blinking a little at the change in light--it wasn't much, as the were still in a shaded forest, but it was something. Then she let out the breath she'd been holding, and inhaled deeply. The quality of air was amazingly better.
One corner of her mouth crooked up into a half-smile as she looked down at the panther that was addressing her. Sure, maybe she should have questioned the telepathy... but in Helena's sometimes-too-straightforward mind, the question of how it was possible was directly linked with why it was necessary. 'How is that panther speaking in my head?' was immediately followed by, 'Well, it's not like it can speak with it's mouth.' And that had settled that.
'Already knew a thing or two about us.' The smile faltered for a second. Yes, she had. Most of it had come from Malcolm... well, no, almost everything had come from him, after she'd starved the yeerk out of his head. She pushed the thought away.
"Answer any questions I have?" She laughed quietly, though good-naturedly. Several immediately rose to mind: strategic questions, assessing questions. How many did they have in their resistance? By 'Vancouver faction' did that imply there were others? Most importantly: how did that being an animal thing work?
"Well," she walked up alongside the panther, ready to follow. The primal part of her brain cringed, but that made no difference. "I think the most critical question I have at this time is... does the resistance have showers? If not, I know which side does have indoor plumbing, and y'know, maybe damning myself and my species to slavery isn't that bad." Helena smiled broadly (a smile that was exceptionally bright compared the smudges of oil and dirt that she hadn't been completely free from the past couple of months) and happily. It was hard not to.
Things might just be okay.
Matthias
<<I wish.>> Matthias replied. <<Our water is pretty much reserved for drinking. Plumbing is a luxury we don't have, unfortunately. On the bright side, when you can turn into animals, you don't really need to shower. All you need to do is become human again and you're fresh as the proverbial daisy.>> Not that I've seen any daisies since the Yeerk attack, but still.
He padded off quietly toward the hideout. When it came into view, he commented again, <<There she is. She may be just a trailer with precious little electricity and no running water, but she's home. We've been thinking of relocating, but I'm not exactly sure where we'd go.>>
Helena
Helena groaned in a 'say-it-aint-so' fashion, but didn't really seem that put out by the news. He mentioned the whole turning-into-animals thing, and she became very quiet, withdrawn. Was he implying that she'd be able to do the same? Helena wasn't even really sure that he was human: shecertainly hadn't heard about anyone turning into animals outside of werewolf movies, at least not until some enlightening chats with Malcolm. Malcolm had tried to explain that they were human, and though she didn't argue, Helena hadn't been so convinced.
They didn't chat much on the way: at least, Helena didn't ask any more questions for the time being--she was still digesting the idea that she might be able to obtain whatever power this Matthias guy had. She wondered if you could only turn into one animal--she'd only seen the panther. At least he'd suggested that you could revert back to human form.
Malcolm hadn't seemed to be too clear on that: he just knew that it was a bunch of kids that could turn into animals before. Helena had gotten the sense that thinking about that knowledge (which undoubtedly mostly came from the memories of the dead yeerk) pained him. She wondered if bits of the dying yeerk had been fused into his brain. It wasn't really the stuff that sweet dreams were made of.
"Trust me, anything looks good at this point. I've been on the move, for uh, a pretty long time." She half-turned back to the panther, and half-smiled again. "By the way, my name's Helena. Helena Sovann, if that matters at all anymore. I guess this would be the part where I move in for a firm handshake with the leader, but given circumstances..." She laughed a little under her breath and looked down at her shoes.
Then, tenatively, she licked her lips, and asked her first real question. "O-..Obviously there's some intermediary step, but can anyone... you know..." She looked down at him. "Do that?"
Matthias
Matthias didn't answer immediately; he began to demorph as they walked. In less than ninety seconds he was human, stretching out his body before turning to her. "Yes, is the short answer. Buried under that trailer is something called an Escafil device. If you touch it, you'll gain the same power I, and all of us Animorphs have. The device was given to me by the leader of the worldwide resistance."
Matthias sighed, and then launched into the lecture he'd gotten quite tired of giving by now, "Morphing works in two parts. First, you have to absorb the DNA of the animal you want to turn into. Second, you have to focus on that animal. In a few minutes, you'll become that animal. I happen to be very fast at it; you'll probably take around three minutes to complete the change. Couple things to remember. First, and most importantly, if you stay in a morph longer than two hours, you will never be able to change back. Second, when in morph, you communicate with thought-speak, like I was doing earlier. However, you can't reply when you're human, and you must be careful to direct your thought-speak at your target. Think of it like an email; you can send it to one person, or to the world."
By this time they had reached the trailer. Matthias opened the door for her. "Go on in, but don't touch anything. I'll be back in a minute with the device, and then you can become a full-fledged Animorph. Oh, and I'll answer any other questions you have." Matthias knew he was rushing through this, but he didn't care. Recruiting got old quickly.
Helena
The demorphing process happened so fast that before Helena really had time to register what was happening and get a good look, it was nearly finished. It was odd to watch, in any case, but she wouldn't have though that turning into an animal (or going from animal to human, for that matter) would be necessarily pretty... even if the animal in question was appealing to look at. She could envision the transition in her mind with vivid clarity: the fur sprouting or receding, ears shifting, fingernails hardening into claws--she quickly moved her mind past the subject before it wandered into the 'what if' mode. Particularly, 'what if' the morph was a bug of some sort.
It seemed strange to regard him as human now, and Helena was almost vaguely surprised when she realized she had to look up if she wanted to meet his eyes. He was perfectly human--even if his clothes seemed a little ridiculous. Helena paused for a moment when she saw his bare feet, but didn't question that just yet: he was explaining morphing to her, at least in part.
Helena listened attentively, especially when it came to the warnings. The speech sounded a bit rehearsed, or at least tired, and she regarded that as a good sign. It meant that he'd given it a number of times before, hopefully. Then he was ushering her into a trailer, and more or less informing her that she was now a recruit. Of course it's what she wanted, to help, but for some reason it hadn't occurred to her that when he said that anyone could become--what was it, an Animorph?--that 'anyone' included her.
That was hard to digest, but she did as she was told, and waited for him to return.
Matthias
Matthias didn't take long to return. He seemed to be burying the cube shallower and shallower each time, and while he knew in the back of his mind this was a bad idea, digging six feet down every time he got a new recruit was exceedingly tiring, especially as he had not had the foresight to acquire a mole.
Opening the trailer door, Escafil Device in hand, Matthias smiled wearily at Helena. "Hard to believe this little thing holds so much power, isn't it? All you have to do is lay your hand on it. The cube does the rest, and then we'll get you outfitted with your first morphs."
Helena
Matthias looked tired. Not only in the 'just completed an act of physical labor' sense, but more than that, something that ran deeper. Helena didn't envy a person that kind of smile. "It's not something I can take back, is it?" She looked up at him for a moment, but took a step forward anyway. Her eyes glittered with excitement and nerves; she extended her hand, placing it lightly on the side of the blue box.
God I hope this isn't come kind of joke, she thought blindly for a moment, but then there was a tingling sensation that ran up her arm. It reminded her of the pins and needles that arrived if your limb fell asleep, only different in that it was pleasant (almost ticklish). And then it was gone. Helena kept her hand on the side panel for a second longer, and then pulled it back.
"I, uh, I think it's done." She couldn't resist the urge to look down at her palm, though she didn't know what she was expecting, and it didn't look like there was anything different.
Matthias
Matthias smiled with a little more sincerity at Helena's reaction, "Yeah, it's done. Welcome to the Animorphs, Helena. Now, behold the second most valuable object we own." Matthias flourished his hand dramatically and pointed to the fridge. The exhaustion's getting to me. I'm acting like an idiot.
Dropping the cheerful show, Matthias crouched beside the locked box. "As you may have noticed, there aren't a lot of animals around. Cassie has provided me with phials of blood for many animals, and that is what we will use. We're going to start you off small, with an animal whose instincts are easy to control." He pulled out several phials and looked at the labels on them before selecting one he wanted. "I happen to be fond of birds. This is canary blood. Give me your hand."
When Helena had done so, Matthias dropped a single drop of blood onto her palm with the deftness of a surgeon. "Now, focus on an image of a canary in your head. It sounds strange, I know. You'll absorb the DNA into yourself, and then, if you keep focusing, you'll begin turning into a canary."
Matthias was about to stop when something he'd forgotten with Melanie occurred to him, "Oh yeah, and we're going to have to give you a morphing outfit. You can't morph anything that isn't skintight. Fortunately, I raided a clothing store last time I was in town." Dropping her hand, he moved over to a closet and pulled out what was essentially a wetsuit with the arms cut off at the elbow and the legs cut off just below the knee. "This ought to do just fine. It might be a little hot, but we don't have a lot of options. If you brought something better with you, you're welcome to use it." He pointed to her bag, which was sitting at her feet.
