My name is Julie. Just Julie. I have the same reasons for not telling any more about myself that the Animorphs do. Although I am not one of them, as much as I would wish sometimes, I still have the same burden of secrecy, and the same dangers to face in everyday. Let me start from the beginning.
First, there are the Yeerks. You know about the Yeerks, of course. Or at least part of what they are. Because I think that all the races, the Yeerks and the Andalites and the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, and even humans, especially humans, have no single side. For every conquerer there is a peacemaker, and for every hero there is some villain to strike them down. For every evil person there is an innocent, and for every crime there is someone who will stand up and say "That's wrong." Even with the Yeerks. The Animorphs have told their stories, but even Jake, who for three days was host to a Yeerk himself, even Cassie, who was a Controller for half an hour to make a deal with another Yeerk so that one human girl could be free, they do not know what it's like completely.
They learned about the Yeerk invasion from a dying Andalite prince who gave them the morphing power. I learned it as I was dragged, scared and confused, down to the Yeerk pool, and my head plunged in for infestation, hit with the terror of being suddenly no longer a pure human being. They don't know what it's like to have to go back and back, over and over to the same horror. They found out that some of their loved ones had fallen victim, but they didn't have to hear the horrible cruel words from those loved one's mouths because the facade was over, as they themselves were helpless, watching as the remainders were captured. But I did. And that's why I'm writing this.
Like I said, no race has just one side. They all may be united into a single cause, at least from an outsider's point of view, but the Yeerks are no more totally evil than the Andalites are all totally good. And like I've also said, I had find out this the hard way.
So what has happened to me? Why I am I telling you all this? Because I was a Controller myself. Because eventually, I was freed by a small group fighting against them, possibly the only beings on Earth who both know about the Yeerks as well as revolting against them. Five kids, a hawk, and an alien, or as I knew them for months, the Andalite renegades. But let me explain, I need to go back to when it first happened, back when I first became a Controller, a slave to the Yeerk in my head.
~~~~~~~~~~
You've probably heard it from all the others, and you'll hear it from me, too. About how the Yeerks take over your mind; somehow getting through the crevices that separate the ear canal from the brain. They wrap around it, folding themselves into it, and they become its total master. They can see in your mind, read all your memories and thoughts and ideas, read them like a book, browse them like a webpage. They control everything in you but your conscious mind, your actual thoughts and perceptions. And that doesn't do you too much good. But there's something almost worse about the Yeerks. It's how they get their Controllers in the first place.
The first ones were voluntary. Of course, they had to be convinced to do that by some other Controllers, people who were captured, infested, and released. But a willing host is always preferable. They would go around, watching people, and picking some to tell about the Yeerks. Some of them were people who liked the idea of controlling the world, even if it meant having an alien inside them, or maybe just wanted to get in on the secret or be on the winning side, and some people were bribed with political power or revenge. But they also largely preyed on troubled people, people with lots of cares and worries, people who wouldn't mind ending their life in one way or another. Like my father.
I never knew about it. He seemed to be happy, or at least content. It's true he never talked about what happened at work, but I always thought that was because he was an engineer who worked on the same thing every day. There was nothing to talk about, I'd always assumed. And he did get tense or angry a lot at me and my brother and sisters, but I thought that was because we were just trying to him. I can't acquit myself of all the guilt of this, but to this day I do not know what part of my father's life was so crushing to him to make him do such a thing.
It was an overcast January day. He had always picked me up from school, everyday unless his work prevented him. Today was no different. Except for one little detail that would change my life forever. He told me that he'd have to take his car to get washed at Nick's because of the recent rain. On the way, we made small talk. I will always remember it.
"How was school today?" he enquired. It may have been just me at the time, or it may be that I've distorted the memory because of what happened later, but it seems now that it seemed a little fake. Put-on. A trailer to something dreadful that would only be half-told. "You look like you're in a bad mood."
"I'm fine," I said, actually feeling horrible and wanting to cry. "As fine as anyone could be when her best and practically only friend suddenly decides she dosn't want to hang out with her anymore, I made a C on three tests in three classes in a row, plus the one guy who I had a hope of him liking me turns out to be only interested in me doing his homework for him!" This may not sound too major, but lately every school day was a continual state of depression, and didn't take too much to tip the scales. Besides, I was very sensitive and emotional. I like to think that I've matured since then in that respect. Maybe I have and maybe I havn't.
"Social problems?" he asked with the very slight rising of the left eyebrow that I had inherited from him. "You know, since you don't like sports, and the school dosn't have any clubs or orginazations you can join, maybe you could get into some non-school-afilliated groups."
"Like what?" I asked. No, please, I begged in my mind. Not sincerely, of course; I was ignorant of any hidden meanings or ulterior motives in his words. You don't know how sick I am of trying to convince you that I don't need to join The Sharing. Do they pay you for premotionals or something? My dad was constantly onto me to not be so reclusive (as he put it), and to get involved about something. It was about a month ago he had found out about the Sharing, and since then he had been bugging me about it, saying I wouldn't have to be complaining about not having any friends all the time. Not giving him a chance to reply, I said "No, I do not want to join The Sharing! I hate things like that! I like being able to spend Friday evenings at home alone."
But the truth was, even though I wanted friends just as much as anyone, I hated big groups, hated going up and talking to anyone I didn't know, and I would have to know a person for a long time before I didn't hate to open up enough for anyone to really meet me and find out who I was. Thus my present social status. But if I wasn't happy with this, at least I was satisfied, and I resented my father acting as if there were anything wrong with me. "Besides, 'The Sharing' sounds creepy, dosn't it? Like a cult or something illegal."
My dad laughed even as he looked at me like I was crazy. "What are you talking about?" That should have tipped me off that something was at least disturbing him. He always agreed with me when I said "weird" stuff like that, to avoid argument, if he didn't actually agree with me anyway. It was my mom who would say something totally off-track, and then we'd get in an argument about it. But nevertheless, he continued, "I think The Sharing would be a great opportunity to make friends, and I hear there are lots of good-looking boys there." Wink.
This made me perk up and pay attention. My father hated the very idea that I was interested in guys and wanted very much to go out with one of them. Until now I would have thought it inconceivable for him to telling me to go to a place where "good-looking boys" hung out unless he escorted me, preferably armed with some automatic weapon and me wearing a neon sign declaring "Daddy's Girl."
"Dad, like I said, I really don't care about guys or anything." Now that was a stupid lie to crown them all, right up there with "I enjoy going to school" and "I agree with everything you say, mom and dad." But again my father ignored it. Finally we were there.
He told me to get in the car as it ran through, and he got in with me. People usually didn't do that, but I was in a bad mood that day, so I barely even wondered why. Then, going through the dark tunnel where the car is washed, and my dad opened the car and told me to get out. He wouldn't answer my questions then, and when the door in the cement floor opened, leading to a flight of stairs, he grabbed my arm, and held it tightly clenched as I walked apprehensively down the stairs, mind whirling as my fertile imagination conceived hundreds of movie-spawned ideas as to what this was all about. When I had taken enough steps to hear or see what kind of place I was descending into, the door had closed solid above me.
When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I was certain that my father had found the door into Hell. Before us extended a vast cavity underground, in the bowls of the earth, so immense that the Caterpillars working on the edges of it could have been laboring there for years. In the center what looked like a huge pond, the kind people who don't know better call lakes. Except it was more like molten lead, and it slurged as if thousands of bodies swarmed beneath it. There were screams, cries, curses, please for help and hideous, triumphant laughter, with several unearthly sounds. They did not scare me any less when I found out what they were.
I had stood on the stairway, refusing to descend into anyplace like this, but he grabbed me with both hands and called out a strange name mixed with numbers. Whatever thing he called for came to escort me down to the pool, came walking toward me. What I saw was a seven-foot tall monster, with blade-like horns on its heads and blades on all its main joins: elbow, wrist, foot, tail. Like a reptilian blender, he walked toward me and pointed a wrist blade near my neck. That was my first experience with Hork-Bajir. It was also my first experience with blades being held at me. And it was not the last, on either count.
"Gishiet, come!" it had snapped in a rasping voice. It talked like a foreigner trying to speak English, putting in words of his own tongue when he came to a knowlege gap. "Harek Visser is dienton you! Shran te angry!" I did not comprehend this until about an hour or so later, but it and what followed was the source of nightmares for several weeks to come. My father (or maybe someone else, because this man, who took the alien's appearance so casually, who had dragged me to this torment pit, could not be my father) replied, "Keep her in line, but don't harm her. This is a specially requested host, and I don't want her getting away or hurting herself." Even without the words not making any sense to me at the time, something about them gave me a chill of dread. A combination of my dad's impersonal reference to me, the sudden change in his tone and manner, and the word "host," all carried their own images of dread that formed in my mind. But nothing in my active imagination could prepare me for what happened next.
I walked, half-dragged by my father, the other half forced by fear, down, past the seething pool, past the cages where the tormented people lay, some screaming, some trying to get out, some crouched in despair. Some cages contained the creatures like the one that was leading the way, and they, strangely, had the same attitudes as the people. I started to wonder, maybe they weren't monsters or genetic experiments (I had ruled out "people in costume" a while ago) but some strange form of intelligent creature, like humans. Maybe they were aliens. The thought brought me back to the fact that my father had referred to me as a "host."
"Dad," I asked, softly, trying to be casual, hoping against hope this was all a joke, a huge entertainment facility, even though my intuition was screaming otherwise. "What's going on?" Then my father --no, the creature that looked like my father-- looked at me. And that look, that scorn and contempt, and what? a look like a smile. Not of happiness or fun, but a sardonic, mocking smile.
"You'll see," he said, with a strange voice that chilled my spine. "You'll find out all about it soon enough." I was getting ready to do something, like slap this man in the face or something, then run and hope that the blade creature was slow and clumsy, when his face changed. All of a sudden, he was my father again, looking concerned at his daughter. But this concern was no small matter. From his face, I knew that I would die. It was a desperate look . . . then all of a sudden it faded, and the cruel apparition of my father had returned to replace him. "Come," he said to the bladed monster, grabbing my wrist tighter and speaking quickly as if he was embarrased. "Let's hurry to the Visser's sector. This is my host's daughter, you know, and he is rebelling to this idea. The sooner I can get this over with, the sooner I can leave."
The monster nodded, and I was beginning to think that my father actually commanded this creature. But again, my "father's" words were my main concern. "The Visser." Somehow had had an ominous ring to it. "My host's daughter." So was he saying he was his own host? Or my father was the host to the creature speaking . . . but my logical mind protested. It was not right. This was not happening. Life was not like this. But all my doubts on this point were removed when I was roughly pushed before who I later knew notoriously as Visser Three.