Generations
**Toby**
Toby sat in her cage like she always did. Like a good little human. She sat on the cold,
hard stone calmly, unmoving, unblinking, except for the slight rise of her chest when she
breathed; in, out, in, out. That was all she knew how to do.
She watched her all too familiar surroundings with complete impartiality. Through the iron
bars that were too strong for any human hands to force apart was a world of despair and
destruction. A world Toby was totally unaware of. All she knew was that she existed. There
was no Toby, only the human body of Sub-visser Eight. The Yeerk slug that was taking a
break from the human mind and soaking in the pool a few feet away from the cage. The murky
pool, miles wide, full of slugs just like Toby's, darting around and feeding on the rays
from their home sun, light years away.
Toby was not aware of the generations of people who fought these Yeerks, in many futile
attempts to keep the parasitic slugs at bay. She was not aware that her own world had
fought to no prevail, and had been easily crushed by the vast Yeerk forces and their
slaves. Years had passed since then. Generations of Earth's creatures, humans, have been
tools of the power-hungry Yeerks. Earth, once a lush, fertile, life-giving planet, was now
barren, with only enough resources to keep the remaining human
population alive. Of all this, Toby was unaware. But it was still the truth.
And now, Toby watches calmly as robot-like humans are dragged to different piers, either
to have a slug wriggle out of their ear and land with a dull splash in the pool, or to
have their head mercilessly plunged into the pool and to have it yanked back out, a tip of
the gray-green slug still wriggling into the ear canal. It's all a familiar scene. Nothing
to worry about. Not even when it's her turn. There is no panic as a large, monstrous
creature with blades grabs her roughly and drags her out of the cage. As he pushes her
head into the water, and she can feel the slug finding its way to her ear. Her Yeerk, now
back in its place, uses Toby's arms to push herself out of the water. Uses her legs to
stand up. And calmly, coolly, walks away from the scene.
The Sub-visser confidently, if not tiredly, continues her regular duties. She orders
around her inferiors, obeys her superiors. And everything is as it should be. Until, that
is, the Hork-Bajir shows up.
This Hork-Bajir is strange. It is built, tall and strong, like all of the rest of the
Empire's soldiers. The blades shone, no recent blood staining them. But the eyes were
different. They were short-seeing red slits, of course. But they were still strange. Not
apprehensive, with the quiet, hidden intelligence that most other Hork-Bajir eyes were.
These eyes had intelligence, all right, but also a certain fire raging. The fire of
rebellion. Of the forbidden taste of freedom. And the want for others to have it. And
Toby's Sub-visser knew.
This was no Hork-Bajir of theirs.
The creature noticed Toby then. He glared at her with those cursed eyes. He let out a hiss
from his beak mouth. He lifted up his arm, the wrist blade glinting in the bright, hot
sun, hand shaking with the anticipated kill. He could not let the Yeerk warn its fellows.
And the Yeerk knew that.
She uttered a cry. A small cry at first, that elevated into a high-pitched scream. A
scream from the throat of a terrified young human girl. All heads, human, Hork-Bajir,
Taxxon, Mak, Gedd, turned to the direction of the scream. And still, as the bladed arm
came closer and closer, Toby's throat ached and
the Yeerk kept screaming for help. Screaming, as the world around her became muddy.
Screaming… screaming… screaming…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
"Toby!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
"Toby!!"
"AAAAAAAA--"
"TOBY! Wake up!"
Her eyes fluttered open. An alien movement. But one she would learn to do. And Toby
realizes, it's just a dream. Just a dream.
But also, she knows, a horrifying reality.
**Mary**
"TOBY! Wake up!" Mary shouted. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl stopped
screaming, open her eyes, sat up quickly, and shot a glance at Mary. Soon, the color
rushed back into her face. The girl apologized repeatedly for waking Mary up.
"It's alright, really," Mary lied closing her eyes so she could roll them
without being openly offensive. "I wasn't sleeping anyway." What a lie, she
thought to herself as the comment satisfied the girl and she settled back down into sleep.
Mary sighed and leaned back into the rickety wooden chair she occupied. Not the best bed,
but the dirt floor of the small cave was littered with newly freed people. Completely
useless.
Mary shook her head as she thought of this whole ridiculous matter. It wasn't her fault
her parents forced her to join watch duty. She jiggled the dimming, ancient flashlight as
she looked around at the different faces, all with eyes closed. All had previously had
Yeerks in their brains, and had only recently had any freedom at all. Mary thought it was
absurd. She did not understand how anyone could give up his or her freedom so easily. She
knew if she was ever taken (which she never would be), she'd fight the stupid slug all
that way. And she would win. She would not turn into some mindless blob of Jell-O that
didn't even know how to blink. No, not Mary. She suddenly shivered under the thin blanket
that offered no warmth.
In a sudden fit of anger, Mary wished all these wretched Controllers away. Former
Controllers, excuse her. She wanted to pick them all up from under their crude, thin
blankets and quilts, and kick them all of them, from the kids to the elderly, back out the
door they came in. Goodbye, see ya, don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
The vision of a big bunch of Controllers--former-- yelping as they got hit by a big stone
door made Mary smile and giggle. A nearby sleeper stirred in their dreams. Mary wondered
if he was having the same type of dream as that other girl. Would he wake up screaming
too? The thought soured her mood again. Then Mary scolded herself for being so moody.
She shut her eyes. And as she drifted off to sleep, she wondered what her best friend R.J.
was doing back at home…
**R.J.**
"That's me when I was eight." A slender, wrinkled finger tapped on the faded,
wrinkled photograph. On a little blond girl. "And these two girls here are my big
sisters."
"What's that thing you guys are standing in front of?" R.J. furrowed his
eyebrows in puzzlement. He stared at the strange picture, from before even his parents
were born. The clothes were strange. The people were actually above ground. He knew this
because Great Aunt Sarah always told him about
what it was like up there. There was a sun, one of the things R.J. never expected to see
in his lifetime.
Also in the picture were three girls, posing for the picture, smiling happily. All of them
were blonde. The oldest looked about R.J.'s age, very pretty, the middle one looked a
little younger than him, and the smallest one was the eight-year-old. Her grin was missing
two front teeth, but she didn't seem to care one bit. Behind the girls was a strange
object. It was large, purple and had rounded features. Windows, three of them, were level
with the oldest girl's head, and two wheels that R.J. could see were touching the ground.
He also saw a big crack running down the middle of the thing, from top to bottom.
Great Aunt Sarah laughed a raspy but warm laugh. "That's called an automobile. A car.
Almost everyone had one when I was a little girl."
R.J. raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What's it for?"
"Transportation," she said, smiling. She looked amused.
"What year is this, Aunt Sarah?" R.J. questioned. He knew it must have been
quite a long time ago, for Great Aunt Sarah was quite old. He never thought of that as an
insult, though. Just the truth. Sarah was the oldest person in their colony. She was still
young when the Yeerks invaded. All of the people in the colony called her Great Aunt
Sarah, although no one claimed any blood relation to her.
"Oh dear," she replied in her tired-sounded but gentle voice. She leaned back in
the rocker covered in pillows and shut her eyes, relaxing her wrinkled face. Great Sarah
rocked back and forth for a minute, then spoke. "Goodness, it's been so long I can't
even remember. In the 90's, I know. The late 90's. 1997, '98, '99-- I can't quite
remember."
R.J. stared again at the photograph. Wow. The 1990's? That was a pretty long time ago.
Nearly a hundred years.
He gingerly set the photograph back in the box. Inside the metal box were probably the
oldest objects in the whole colony. Photographs, dolls, ancient money, an odd-looking blue
cubic paperweight, even a book or two. "It's getting late, R.J.," Aunt Sarah
said suddenly, yawning. "Time for you to get back home before your mother starts to
worry."
R.J. grinned. She seemed to have an internal clock. She always knew what time it was and
when R.J. was wanted home.
"Okay. Bye Aunt Sarah. Thanks for having me over."
Great Aunt Sarah just smiled as she rocked slowly back and forth in her plush chair, eyes
closed. She looked much different from the eight-year-old Sarah in the picture. She was a
small woman, probably around a hundred years old. Fairly long, white hair, wrinkled skin,
age spots. She had the air about her of a person who has seen and experienced so much, as
she obviously had. R.J. wondered what it would have been like to know Aunt Sarah when she
was young, before the invasion, when all she knew was the wide-eyed innocence of a child.
Then he snapped out of his trance and realized that he'd better get back home before his
mom really did start to freak.
R.J. pushed aside the heavy fabric curtain that served as a door to Aunt Sarah's
"home". Now he was in a dark stone hallway. It was underground, of course, like
the rest of the colony.
He traveled down the dimly lit hallway, down a memorized path. There were lights installed
in the ceiling, because torches would have used up all the oxygen. The last thing these
people wanted after having successfully hidden from the Yeerks so long is for everyone in
the colony to asphyxiate.
R.J. counted the "doors". One, two, three, four, five… turn the
corner… six, seven, eight… and nine. His home. He pushed aside the pale blue
fabric and stepped in. Even from where R.J. had been outside he could smell food being
prepared. His stomach, suddenly realizing it was hungry, started to growl ferociously.
"R.J., honey, is that you?" His mother stepped around the corner and smiled.
"Of course it is. I can recognize that growling sound anywhere. You're just in time
for dinner."
R.J. looked around the room that was his home. It was fairly big compared to some,
especially the ones of those new people that keep coming in. This room was one of the
older ones, from when people first started living underground, but it was pretty nice.
They had furniture-- chairs and tables. And a place for a fire that was almost never used.
There was even a stone that was specially designed to be a stove. It was brightly lit,
compared to the hallway.
"Awjay!" a little voice cried. A toddler came running into the room from around
the corner, arms spread wide. R.J.'s baby sister, Melanie. He picked her up and lifted her
off the ground.
"Hi Mel!" R.J. replied enthusiastically. "Did you have a good day?"
"I drew pictures. You see them?" Melanie asked hopefully. She stared up at R.J.
with those big brown eyes of hers. Mel looked a lot like R.J., of course. She had dark
brown hair, still short since it hadn't had quite enough time to grow. It also had little
curls at the ends, whereas R.J.'s didn't. Melanie has slightly pale skin, just like R.J.,
as a result of living underground all their lives and never having been tanned by the sun.
"Sure, Mel. Lead me to them."
Melanie grabbed R.J. by the hand and pulled him toward a table covered with chalk
markings. He could just barely make little stick people, cats, and dogs out of the
scribbles. They were all standing in their own little rooms. Of course, there weren't any
suns or old-fashioned houses like in the framed and preserved pictures of Great Aunt
Sarah's. Melanie didn't know those things existed.
"R.J., come in here and help me set the table," his mom called.
"Okay, Mom."
As R.J. was about to turn away and go help his mother, one of the scribbles suddenly
caught his eye.
It was odd. He'd never seen anything like it before. It didn't seem like the kind of thing
that would catch R.J.'s attention, but still… It was a little creature, more like a
monster. It had strange spiky things sticking up here and there out of its body, and a
long tail with spikes at the end. Another odd thing was that one of the creature's hands
was up, in a gesture of greeting. Like it was waving hi.
R.J. just shook his head. His sister had a big imagination. Then he turned away and picked
up the ceramic plates, which were a luxury nowadays. He set three of them on the stone
table. As soon as he delicately finished setting down the last plate, he suddenly heard a
loud BOOM!
R.J.'s heart skipped a beat. The whole "house" shook, and the plates rattled.
One slid and fell off the table, shattering into a million pieces. Suddenly, in the
shocked silence that followed the ear-splitting sound, the sound of Melanie wailing
drifted into the kitchen. R.J.'s mother ran into the other room, and he could hear her
asking Melanie gently, but in a quivering voice, what was wrong.
"Muh-my pict-tch-ures," Mel hiccuped in between sobs. "I muh-messed them
uh-uuup!"
As his mother reassured Melanie that everything was ok, R.J. stared up at the ceiling. He
wondered.
What could that have been?
**Jacob**
“Yes!”
“We did it!”
“Oh yeah!”
“Come on, Jacob, be happy! We did it!”
Jacob just watched sullenly as his friends leaped up and down, shouting and cheering in
jubilation. Yeah, he thought. They did it. And they'll do it again. And again. And again.
He knew nothing new would happen to the rest of the Tribe. Except maybe losing three more
people to the Yeerks. Or just losing the people altogether.
Nearby lay the smoldering remains of what had, about five minutes ago, been a transport
ship full of Yeerks in their natural state.
Jacob's friends had sabotaged it. They used the radio that had been stolen from the Yeerks
recently. They simply gave the ship the wrong directions, and this resulted in the crash
that lay before him.
"Yay," Jacob finally remarked unenthusiastically.
Amalia, one of his friends, just shrugged and tossed her dark, curly hair out of her face.
"Fine, Jacob. Be that way," she replied. Amalia ran over to the other three kids
and they all started talking happily. She didn't understand why this whole running from
the Yeerks and playing the rebel thing wasn't appealing to Jacob. He, on the other hand,
couldn't understand how Amalia could like it.
"Guys," Jacob said finally, bored with the redundant cheers and
self-congratulations. "We need to get back inside before the slugs come out to
investigate."
Amalia, Jared, Hope, and Toni all agreed. The five walked back across the wide dirt field
into the run-down city.
Jacob took in the sight of the ancient city around him. He always did on the way back.
There were skeletons strewn across the ground, as if a morbid decorator placed them in the
perfect places to make the whole scene more dramatic. Here and there, sprinkled among the
human and animal skeletons, were what looked like dog-like robots. Along the street lay
old, rusted cars. Some had doors hanging open. Others were crushed so badly Jacob wasn't
even sure they were cars. Some were chopped in half. Jacob shuddered as he realized he did
not want to know what had happened to those cars. Or their
passengers.
The high buildings were weathered down. They had obviously lost a few stories in the past
hundred years of neglect. Rust ran down the sides of the buildings, and any paint had been
worn off years before. Glass still lay on the streets from broken windows in the
buildings. Jacob had never been inside those old buildings before, and he hoped with all
his heart he would never have to do so.
As Jacob looked around him, he stepped over a broken power line, completely oblivious. He
didn't have to worry. No electricity ran through the lines now. Judging from the number of
bones gathered about the ends of the broken lines, though, Jacob assumed they had done
their fair share of harm in their time.
Next, Jacob craned his head to look up at the bright sky. It was a habit for him to always
look up when he was outside. The sky was exactly the same as it had been since before even
his parents were born. A dull blue and yellow, with pale wisps of green mixed in here and
there. Jacob noticed no clouds. Of course, there were not any animals in sight. The sun
was very bright, and extremely hot. His shirt was beginning to cling to the back of his
neck.
"Come on Jacob," Toni suddenly urged, yanking Jacob's head from the clouds and
back to Earth. She gestured toward the sewer hole, and Jacob realized all the others had
already gone in, not having enough patience to wait for him.
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry."
Jacob walked over and swung his legs down into the hole. He climbed down the rungs of the
ladder and into the deep darkness. If it weren't for the familiarity of his surroundings,
Jacob would probably be frightened. But he wasn't.
Toni followed Jacob down the hole, and he watched her pull the lid slowly back into place.
The lids were terribly heavy, but after a few years of moving them back and forth, one can
develop enough strength to manipulate them easily.
Jacob heard someone fumbling in the darkness, searching for a flashlight.
"Oh. Here it is," a boy's voice said, the familiar sound piercing the absolute
darkness. All five of the kids there were breathing hard, their hearts racing. They were
used to the excursions away from their tribe and out into the world, but a person could
still get nervous out there. The enemy could be anywhere, watching them without the five
even knowing.
Jared flipped on the light, found his way, and began walking down a tunnel, gesturing for
the other four to follow. The sewer system was completely empty, for it had not been used
in years. The only creatures that still had a use for these barren tunnels besides the
five kids were rodents that somehow found food in the underground pipes.
"How many slugs do you think were in that ship?" Hope wondered in her quiet
voice. She never got as excited as everyone else did when they did something defiant, but
she still didn't understand Jacob's point of view. She never talked to him anyway, so he
didn't have an ally there.
"I bet there were a few hundred," Amalia replied.
"A few hundred?" Jared repeated incredulously. "I'm guessing more like a
few thousand. Those slugs can fit a lot in one ship." Jared, the only other guy in
their little group, had a huge ego. He did more talking and bragging than doing. He also
didn't really pay much attention to Jacob, since he
thought Jacob was just being a wuss.
"Well, a few hundred, a few thousand, at least we wiped out a whole lot of
slugs," Toni remarked. She was one of the two people in the group that actually cared
that Jacob existed. Her and Amalia were his real friends, though they never really liked
how he was always the way he was.
"Yeah, but there will be more," Jacob chimed in. "There always are."
Toni groaned. "Jacob, why do you have to be so negative?"
"Yeah really," Amalia agreed. "We have this talk every day. We hurt those
slugs. That means a few hundred--"
"Few thousand," Jared corrected.
"--less human hosts. Don't you see?"
Jacob sighed. "Whatever you say, Amalia."
The five reached another ladder. This ladder was newer than the rusty old rungs they had
descended on. In the dim glow of the dying flashlight, one could not see the shine of
brand new metal, but anyone could tell the ladder was installed less than a week ago.
"Hold this," Jared said finally, handing the flashlight to Hope. As the light
danced around the room, Hope adjusting the flashlight to fit in her hand, Jared made his
way up the rungs of the ladder. Up the ladder, to the ceiling, and… right through.
After a minute or two, Jared's head reappeared from the ceiling, so it looked like it was
mounted there. A startling sight if one did not know how it was done.
"All clear, guys. Come on."
Toni, Amalia, Hope, and Jacob all followed Jared through the hologram cover the hole in
the ceiling. They emerged into a large group of dead trees, most of them charred from wars
fought a long, long time ago.
This time, the five kids walked through the trees. Obviously, another hologram. Many
measures were taken to protect the only surviving humans on Earth.
Hidden inside this hologram was a camp. Cloth and plastic tents were pitched and small
fires were burning in a small clearing that was surrounded by the dead tree trunks with no
leaves or occupants.
Jacob, Toni, Amalia, Jared, and Hope had all spent their lives running and hiding. Their
ancestors has stolen technology from aliens that they have used to survive for the past
century, including holograms. Sometimes the Yeerks use devices that can see right through
holograms, in which case the whole Tribe has to run like prey animals. Because that's what
they were to the Yeerks-- prey.
"We're home!" Jared called out loudly. Toni's little brother, Timothy, came
speeding out of one of the tents, chattering excitedly.
"Jared! Jacob! Toni! Amalia! Hope! Did you guys char some slugs? Will thinks you guys
were just kidding. But I know you were for real. How many were there? Did you get a
Visser? How many-- I already said that. Wow, I can't wait 'till I'm big enough to join you
guys. How do you think--"
"Tim!" Jared interrupted, laughing. "Careful. Don't suffocate
yourself!" He seemed to be enjoying the praise and the hero worship.
"I'm sorry Jared, really. It's just so exciting. I mean, you guys are so cool! You
all-- oh. Sorry."
"Amalia? Is that you? And your friends? Jacob? Hope?"
"Yes, Mom, it's us," Amalia replied to the dark-haired woman, an older version
of Amalia, stepping out of another tent.
"Oh, good. I don't see why you kids like running off like that. It's so risky.
Sometimes I wonder why I ever let you do it…"
"Mom, it's okay. I'm almost fourteen. I can take care of myself," Amalia
insisted. "Besides, I've got my friends on my back."
"Well, except for that little wuss, Jacob," Toni remarked. She made a face, then
grinned at Jacob.
"Funny," he said sarcastically.
"You know," Jared replied. "I bet next time we--"
But even as Jared was talking, a loud roaring sound outdid his already loud voice. It was
the roar of a ship soaring overhead. Even though the hologram protected all of them from
view, everyone still went completely silent and stared up at the sky, frozen in fear, awe,
or both.
The alien ship was flying slowly, and very low. Almost like it was searching for
something. The question was, what was it they were searching for?