East of Eden

[Suji]

Suji pushed around through the underbrush. When she'd been told that the hideout was "hidden in an orange grove," they hadn't been kidding -- the wildlife in this area was going absolutely nuts. It erupted with vegetation, and the smell of citrus made her sensitive nose twitch. She sneezed, and lowered herself down on her belly, crawling under a large group of fallen trees.

Her dog morph was the kind of mutt you'd find languishing inside of an animal shelter back in the days when those existed. It could have been part lab, part terrier, part Shepard... pretty much part anything. At least she wasn't mangy.

She came up from under the tree trunk, dirtier than she was before, and the dog's tongue lolled outside of its mouth for a moment before she pulled it back in. Her tail wagged loosely back and forth. <<Any luck?>> Suji asked, directing her question to the aerial support. <<I think I'm getting close. The ground feels different here.>> She used the excuse to lower her snout and snuffle at the dirt. The explosion of information was incredible.

[Adrian]

Adrian craned his head to look down at the dog. His ears rotated in all directions and his claws clenched the tree branch he was hanging under. He pulled himself up to the branch and briefly had a moment to wonder how impossible that would have been as a human, or at least gymnast level difficult. The claws on the edges of his wings gripped the bark of the orange tree and he crawled along the branch's length as he shot bursts of sound down at the ground.

The echoes that returned to him gave him a clear picture of what was going on beneath him but all that revealed was a lot of plants. There could have been something under the plants maybe. If he was a bit higher maybe he'd notice a square pattern or something else. As it was he didn't see anything.

<<I've got nothing boss,>> Adrian said, looking at the dog. Despite the myth, bats were blind, just color blind, but then again, so were dogs. <<What about you?>> he asked the person that had taken to the air.

[Richard]

Richard was circling over the area, while trying to look inconspicuous at the same time. His magpie was probably not the best one suited for looking over the area, but it was all he had at the moment. His eyes scanned the area of vegetation below him in search of something out of the ordinary. His bird eyes could pick out the various fruits that were in the area, which brought his mind back to the one thing that he wanted right now.

It got a wake up call when first Suji and then, Adrian asked if he saw anything from up in the sky. He scanned the area where he thought he saw a dirty dog crawling around before noticing something weird about the way the vegetation was growing near where Suji was standing. At first he thought he was hallucinating due to how much vegetation there was, but after a few minutes it seemed like there was definitely something there.

<<I might be crazy, but it sort of looks like the plants are growing in a strange manner to your left. Like I said, I might be losing my mind.>> It just seemed a little strange to him, but it really could have been nothing at all.

[Dustin]

Dustin was in his newest morph, the Cooper's hawk. And it was amazing. He never thought eyesight could be so great, but here he was, watching the antennae of an ant twitch as it climbed up a tree twenty feet away. Amazing!

With such great eyesight it probably shouldn't have taken long to find a building among a bunch of trees, but he was staying low. He still wasn't used to being out in the open, and he was paranoid that if a controller saw him, they would shoot him down on sight. It was kind of silly, but know that didn't make him any less paranoid at the moment.

Then Richard said, <<I might be crazy, but it sort of looks like the plants are growing in a strange manner to your left. Like I said, I might be losing my mind.>>

Dustin tried to look at where Richard had described, but there were too many trees in the way. So Dustin forced himself to jump from his perch and graze the treetops before going down into the branches again. <<Yeah, there is definitely a roof of some sort there. I only caught a quick glimpse, but I think we found what we are looking for.>>

In truth, it was just a guess. For all he knew he had caught a glimpse of the roof of an outhouse. But it seemed reasonable to think that any structure out here would be their destination.

[Suji]

Suji laughed to herself about Richard's comment. <<You're not allowed to lose your mind before we even get to our headquarters.>> She sprung forward, over a branch. One paw squished against a moldy, fallen orange.

Dustin said he saw something, and Suji turned to her left, the same place Richard had pointed out. Again, the dirt changed textures, becoming a little less giving. Maybe there was gravel under it somewhere, or even asphalt. She trotted forward, and almost ran straight into the one-story building. She could see a path that had been cleared for an animal about her size -- maybe slightly bigger. Suji sniffed around the area. Not a dog, but close. Probably a wolf, her human mind supplied. Didn't that Zane guy that was in New York so long ago have a wolf morph?

<<Think we have our mark, if you guys want to flap on over here.>> Suji cut through the path, and then before her was the clear outline of the building. The front porch, or what had been a porch long ago, was wrapped in green. Still, the boards held as she stepped up them on all fours.

The bugs are going to be terrible, she thought with a wince, but kept to herself. Suji began demorphing.

[Adrian]

Mmm, bugs aren't that bad Adrian thought, chewing on a moth. He swallowed and crawled over to a squished orange and began chomping on bits of pulp. <<I like this place,>> he announced as he flipped into the air and winged his way through the opening Suji had gone through.

He brushed Suji's hair or fur (it was somewhere in between) as he flew past her head and angled up to the ceiling on the porch. His claws latched on to a branch that was sticking out over the deck below. The bark was soft and giving under his small claws and his bat wanted to settle in and sleep but once Adrian took his bearings he dropped to the porch on sail like wings and began to demorph.

"Home sweet home," Adrian said as he wiped a piece of orange off of his foot.

[Richard]

Richard listened to Suji's requirement about not losing his mind until headquarters were found. <<So any time after that is fair game then or are there more stepping stones that I must cross before losing my mind is a viable option?>>

He glided down to where the other were in order to find a nice soft spot to demorph. Richard landed on some mossy area and began the process. His eyes looked over the place that was their new home as Adrian had stated it with the impression that there had to be more to this place than what was seen at first glance. "At least we don't have to waste our time hiding it from anyone." Richard hoped that was the case anyway, since it had taken four of them in various morphs to pinpoint the building's exact location.

[Dustin]

Dustin hopped tediously between branches until he finally found a rout to the porch. It would have probably been faster to go over or under the trees, but there was no sense in worrying about that now. He was where he wanted to be.

After landing next to a busted porch swing, Dustin began his own demorphing process. His bones expanded, his feathers melted, and he grew taller by the second. After a few minutes of sideshow gold, Dustin was himself again. He felt a little strange standing in such a remote location wearing nothing but his wetsuit morphing outfit.

"So this is it? What a strange place to run a war." Dustin walked over to the front door. It had a rusty old padlock on it, but it was broken and doing little more than keeping the door from blowing open in the wind. That was assuming wind could even get through all of the trees to blow it open.

Dustin removed the padlock then stepped aside. "I suppose our chief should do the honors. Lets just hope the place hasn't been taken over by a family of rabid raccoons or something."

[Suji]

Suji looked at each of her new faction mates. The four of them didn't seem like much now; trying to scrape orange pulp off their feet, swatting at the occasion bug, and otherwise looking like weirdly dressed outcasts... all about to settle into a house that was in the process of being reclaimed by the grove. But that was their greatest strength -- their enemy would always underestimate them. Maybe not as a whole, as a concerted force, but a faction-sized group was always considered just a nuisance until it was too late.

Maybe things would be different, after Vegas and Dallas. But Suji didn't think they'd be that different. The Empire had tried their best to cover that up, and expressing genuine concern about a handful of human teenagers was still considered to be a grave weakness in their culture. Yeerks were their own worst enemies, really.

Well, maybe that's not entirely true. Suji smiled to herself, and then turned towards the rickety door. She pulled the busted lock off, and the door opened without much encouragement. Walking inside, Suji was stunned by what she saw. It was clean. Not like clean enough to do surgery in or anything, but definitely cleaner than you'd expect. Whoever had prepped the place for them, probably Zane, had done a great job.

Suji compared what she saw to what she remembered from looking at the floorplan. The door opened into a large living room, with a visible kitchen area behind it. From the doorway there were two wings to either side, which she had been told led to bedrooms. Each wing had its own bathroom. A spiral staircase in the far corner, on the opposite wall of the kitchen, led up to a bigger, master bedroom with an office alcove.

"I was told I should split you up with girls in one wing and boys in the other, but I guess that's pretty moot, huh?"

[Adrian]

"Plus whoever came up with that rule obviously had not experienced the pure sexual draw of men such as ourselves," Adrian said, winking faux flirtatiously at Dustin and Richard. Really, he thought it was a stupid idea and hadn't liked it at the Academy either. Yeah, relationships with your co-workers always turned messy but there were two main reasons not to separate men and women, at least to Adrian's mind. The first was that separating them just made you want to break the rules all the more. The second was that it was inevitable anyway. They were all healthy, the morphing technology saw to that, and relationships would happen no matter what rules you put in place and they would probably happen with each other seeing as they had so few people to choose from. Trying to keep the animorphs celibate would be about as effective as teaching abstinence in schools. Better, by far, to stress responsible relationships than none at all. But it wasn't his place and, as Suji had pointed out, it also wouldn't be a problem in the near future...unless they got really drunk and everyone was a bit flexible. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of the world that such things had happened.

"So how do rooms get split up then?" Adrian asked, walking into their new home after Suji and taking a look around. His eyes didn't betray his thoughts but it was better than he'd expected. Certainly better than some of the places he'd lived in, especially after the yeerks took over. "We drawing straws or is this a bunk bed type situation?"

[Richard]

Richard was not sure how he should feel about the whole splitting of the wings thing for males and females. There was always pros and cons to either side of the argument about separating the sexes, which everyone knew so he was not going to reiterate them. His eyes scanned the place that they were going to be staying in for quite some time to see if the person who had been here before them had done a good job cleaning it up.

The young Animorph was growing restless as he was ready to start working, which probably should have sent up a red flag in his brain that he needed to slow down a little bit. Rushing things was only going to lead him into trouble that he couldn't afford at the moment. Richard had been practicing the act of rationalizing his actions in his head in order to make sure that he didn't do anything stupid.

His eyes were focused on the kitchen with the thought of getting something to eat now that they had found the place. It was his number one priority to keep himself full at all times as he never knew when a meal might be his last, and that was a meal that Richard wanted to savor to the bitter end. It was a weird thing to think about, but to be an Animorph meant that one had to be weird. Normal people were those who got to live happy lives, which probably meant that they were extinct.

"Anyone else feel like eating? I think it is close to dinnertime somewhere in the world." He began drifting toward the fridge in order to quell the feeling that was building up in his stomach. Richard just hoped that he didn't turn into a glutton as food was probably scarce nowadays.

[Dustin]

"Wow, the place looks nice, surprisingly. Judging from the outside, he would have guessed that the floor would be all rotted away, the windows broken, and mushrooms growing on the walls. Fortunately the place was in pretty good condition. And clean too. This was definitely better than the broken down basement he used to hide out in.

"You can go get something to eat, Richard, but while you are, I'm going to go claim the best room before anyone else can." Suji said boys and girls were meant to be split into separate wings, so he headed toward one of the hallways instead of taking the stairs. The floorboards creaked under his feet as he went all the way to the end of the hall.

He opened up the last door and peaked inside. "Oh, cool," he yelled back down the hall. "A futon."

[Suji]

Suji rolled her eyes at Adrian's comment about their "sexual draw." Riiight. Three teenage-ish boys in skin tight clothes who can turn into bugs. And it might have been playful banter, but she refrained: for all she knew one of them might take it personally. That, and it was probably going to be bad enough for them anyway, with no girls around. No need to add insult to injury.

"Beds are first come first serve, I suppose. I'll let you guys work that out." For one, Suji figured that they could sort themselves into passable living spaces, and for two, she wasn't interested in managing them down to that level. As far as she was concerned, they were adults, and what was more, they were trained Animorphs. Maybe they were still wet behind the ears, but they weren't refugees off the street. Not anymore, at least.

Dustin took the initiative, and Suji smiled as he left down on hall. "As for food, why don't we group up again in like thirty minutes and see about dinner? Give you guys time to claim your spots." Suji smirked at the two of them. Half an hour was probably more than adequate. It wasn't a huge place, though it was definitely bigger than it'd seemed from the outside, with all the vegetation. The basement had been large as well, from what she'd seen in the floorplan. But that could be saved for another time.

[Adrian]

Adrian whole heartedly agreed with the food option. He wasn't necessarily hungry but eat when you can, sleep when you can, had been beaten into him in the past few years until it was second nature. Plus he wanted to see what state their food stores were in. He headed toward the kitchen, not in a particular rush. He let Dustin go off towards the rooms, assuming Richard would follow at some point.

Adrian certainly appreciated a soft bed when he had one but he often hadn't and he didn't mind sleeping in less than optimal conditions. He didn't know Richard or Dustin that well and if the comforts of home were important to them he wanted to make sure they got the rooms they wanted since he didn't care what he got.

He stepped into the area designated as the kitchen and the tile of the kitchen, or probably, linoleum, was cool under his feet. Not completely cold since the climate was so warm, but definitely below room and body temp. He walked over to the fridge and opened it only to see that it was not only empty, but the lights were off. He put a hand inside and felt the lack of cool air. Either they had given them a broken fridge, which didn't seem likely, or there was no power. He assumed there was a way to turn the power on since the fridge was not the only appliance in the kitchen. "Power's off," he said over his shoulder to Suji. "We should probably work on that before it gets dark," he said as he closed the fridge and headed toward the cabinets.

He opened them one by one and was greeted with canned and bagged foods. The cabinets weren't full but there was enough here to last them at least a week or two until they figured themselves out. "Lima beans," he said with fake excitement as he pulled the can out. "My favorite. I think I found our dinner and it's high in iron."

[Richard]

Richard decided to just wait for everyone else to eat before he did. He didn't want to be called a porker or something because of the fact that he liked to eat on an abnormal schedule, which meant that if there was food then he was eating it. The sight of food just made him hungry for some strange reason, but it was not like ravenous hunger where one would eat anything that looked like food. Dustin's comment caught his attention, which brought his competitive nature out as he dashed off to get a good room.

"They are all probably the same anyway, so there won't be a best one." He opened the door to the first room and looked inside to find that the room also contained a futon just like Dustin's. Since he didn't like the bunk bed idea, this was okay with him until he could find a hammock to put up in his room. He didn't like the idea of falling out of bed during an emergency, but Richard figured that a hammock would move with his body to make him swing back and forth.

Richard came out of the first room with a content look on his face. "I claim the first room as my own," he bellowed throughout their new headquarters so that everyone could hear him. It was probably not necessary, but he just felt like being loud at the moment as it was probably going to be his last time to do that.

Then, the hunger returned to him, so he went into the kitchen to see what Adrian had found. "Lima Beans? Now all we need is some brown sugar, onions, some salt and pepper." It was some old recipe that his grandma used to make in order to get him to eat Lima beans as a kid, which had actually worked. Richard wasn't sure if he could reproduce it, but he would give it a shot if they had the necessary ingredients.