trans_9 | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

A russet-furred dog was wondering around, doing what dogs do: sniffing things, bounding up to people and trying to play fetch, barking at anything that moves. Just your average, normal dog stuff. Mostly the dog hung around the city, but he also wondered around the corridors and the rest of the ship.

But actually? The dog wasn't really a dog. It was Marco, morphed into an Irish Setter. And, while Marco did find the idea of wondering around and bothering people in dog-morph highly amusing, that was not the only reason he was in this morph. No, the real reason was because as far as Iniss knew now, Jake had a dog. And it was very, very useful to be able to hang around in dog morph whenever they had to deal with Tom and the Yeerk. If Marco wanted to keep the act going? The dog couldn't just show up whenever Jake met with Tom. It'd have to look like there was a real dog that belonged to Jake hanging around. So, 'Cinnabon' needed to make some appearances.

The fact that Marco could have some fun at the same time was just a bonus.

[[ooc: if you'd like threads to happen in a particular place, just let me know where in the subject? Otherwise, I'll probably assume it's a random corridor or something.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Umm..." He found his forehead wrinkling as he looked down, genuinely puzzled by the question. Hey, he was the younger child, no one was expecting him to be good with children. Or aliens pretending to be children.

"You... don't have parents here, do you?" Jake forced a laugh and looked away, as though suddenly realizing how blunt that'd come out. "Is there anyone to, you know, watch out for you? Or are you living by yourself up there?"

"No," she replied, her voice getting a little quiet. "I was staying with a friend but I haven't seen him for a while..."

Don't look at Marco: he hasn't got any siblings at all. <Iniss, maybe? Unless they've managed to find someone else to be their ally.>

Wasn't that a cheery thought. "Oh... Sorry. What'd he look like? Maybe we can help you look..."

"Um, he's really tall... and he has brown hair," she replied. No reason to be too specific; it could just make them suspicious. "I'm okay on my own, but I wonder if he's okay..."

<Dude, just ask what his name is,> Marco said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Now that would look odd in a dog... <We'll get nowhere if all we've got to go by is 'brown hair' and 'tall'.>

Jake hesitated, but Marco was right. "Maybe I can ask around, see if anyone's heard from him. What's his name?"

Of course he would ask that. "It's Tom. I met him when we podpopped."

Aha. It was Iniss - which answers the question of whether or not Aftran and Iniss knew about each other. <She could be trying to pretend she doesn't know Tom's a Controller,> Marco warned Jake. <And she knows who you are - she's gonna expect a reaction here.>

It was like having a little guide in his ear coaching him every step of the way. A reaction would give him away, but he'd already done as much by giving his name, prepared to let Aftran know as much as Iniss did, in case she'd already been told.

"Tom?" Jake demanded, stopping in his tracks. "Karen, if that's who I think it is, you can't trust him." He turned to face her, even squatted down to meet her in the eye. "Listen to me. If he ever comes back, you stay away form him. He's dangerous, he - he's not what he seems."

It was him. She knew for sure now.

Her eyes went wide in childish shock. "Tom's dangerous? But-- but he was so nice..." Meanwhile, she ignored her own little voice in her head, which was silently begging Jake to see that she was dangerous too, that she wasn't what she seemed. "Why...?"

<You'll have to explain what Yeerks are,> Marco noted. <Actually, this could work in our favor - if she has to act like she actually knows what Tom is, then she'd have to stay away from him or risk loosing her cover. But if she's smart, she'll pretend she doesn't believe you so she doesn't have to do that.

Good thinking. Still, it seemed kind of silly to explain something that they both knew that they both knew. "Do you know about the Yeerks? I heard some of them attacked the ship once, but it was before my time."

She shook her head. "What are they?"

So, he was going to tell her. She'd just have to pretend she hadn't seen his Omnicomm post before -- simple enough, as she'd never replied to it. All she had to worry about was how she would respond to this.

<Well. This should be fun. Let's explain what Yeerks are to a Yeerk!>

"Well, basically, they look like... slugs." Jake held back a smirk. "Gray slugs. Like what you'd see on the driveway after it rains. But the thing is, if they crawl inside your ear, they can wrap around your brain, and take over everything. See all your memories, control your body. It's kind of a sore point with a lot of the people who've been here a while, after the last time. But Tom... he's one of them."

[ooc: last tag for the night o/]

She made herself recoil in disgust the way a child would do. In actuality, she was disgusted -- but at his rather simplistic way of looking at things. It figured that the Andalites had chosen a child such as this to be their pawn.

Aftran regretted that it wasn't herself, but Karen, who made the astute observation: Jake couldn't be the only member of the resistance aboard the ship. At least some of the other members -- Andalite bandits, humans, or whatever they were -- were here. Iniss had said as much to Allen and Dani. So what if Jake wasn't alone?

What if...

"Tom's-- Tom's a slug? I mean, he has one in his brain?" She half-raised a hand to her ear. "But that sounds like something out of a comic book or something!"

Marco snorted internally. <Like something out a comic book? What, has she not noticed all the comic book heroes on board? Come on, even a little girl like Karen has to know who Superman is.>

"Um... yeah." It was a natural reaction for Aftran to show, but Jake still found himself thrown off. Jeez, even Karen was probably embarrassed in there. She'd seen way too much not to have matured beyond her years.

"Well - " Jake shrugged, grinned. "It wouldn't be the first comic book thing around here, huh? Anyway, Tom is - can you stay away from him, at least for now?" It wouldn't keep Iniss and Aftran from communicating, but maybe it'd make things harder if 'Karen' had an overprotective boy-dog duo actively trying to keep her away from the big bad wolf. "...Is there anyone else who can take care of you?"

Okay, maybe it was a little overboard... She had voted Superman for the council, after all.

"Um... no, he was the only one. I don't have anywhere else to go..." She looked skeptical, really. "Are you sure he really has something in his brain? Maybe Stacy didn't bring that part with him."

<You know, even if we can't 'convince' Aftran - hey, we've got all the ammo we need. We know 'know' that a 'poor innocent girl' is being looked after by the Yeerk. All we gotta do is suggest to someone else that they get her away from him. Hell, we could just find someone we can trust to look after her, and have them work on bringing Aftran to our side.>

Well. Assuming they could find someone they trusted. The list of people on Marco's list of 'trustworthy people' outside the Animorphs was, admittedly, pretty much nonexistent.

Solid plan, thought Jake, except he couldn't think of too many people he trusted - either to watch Aftran, or to watch out for her, on a ship still sore over its last Yeerk encounter - at least ones that didn't, you know, live with Andalites. The Animorphs were good at pretending in their own homes, but it might be nice not to have to for once. On the other hand, it would make it easy to keep an eye on her.

Still trying to decide, Jake glanced quickly at Marco before squatting down to Karen's level. "I'm sure," he said seriously. "Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I really think you should have someone to look after you. Can we... I don't know, can we help you find somewhere to stay?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only