| #27: The Exposed |
Detailed Plot: Rachel feels a little disturbed when a cute guy asks her out after gymnastics and she briefly considers taking him up on it even though she's supposed to be with Tobias. She feels angry at herself for even thinking about it--thought it would be a betrayal--so she goes to the mall to get a little shopping therapy. There she runs into Cassie, who was shopping for a present for her mom, but then they see that Erek the Chee is there and his hologram is flickering for unknown reasons. Cassie and Rachel race over to make sure he knows there's something wrong with his hologram, but he knows; his ability to walk is also hampered, so they help him get over to Spencer's where he won't be as obvious, and finally his hologram totally flickers out and he is obviously an android. Rachel sticks a $5000 price tag on him to deter shoppers, and then they call Jake and pretend he was supposed to meet them at the mall, since they have to encode their words somewhat due to Tom the Controller living in Jake's house. Between all of them (especially Marco's gorilla morph), they manage to dress Erek as a human and get him home. They get awfully lucky in the process, without attracting any unwanted attention. After getting Erek back with his "dad," they find out from the Chee that most of the frozen androids are hidden but a couple are in risky places. First they have to save a Chee who poses as a homeless woman, because some police and some criminals are about to have a shootout and at least one guy on each side is a Controller. Then they need to fix the problem causing all this: the Pemalite ship is hidden very deep underwater and its systems may be disabled, and it's giving off a signal that the Yeerks may have already intercepted, so they have to figure out how to fix it and turn the Chee back on again before the other at-risk Chee--a security guard at a power plant--is discovered at the shift change. So the Animorphs go on their mission to save Lourdes, the Chee homeless woman. They use battle morphs and end up in the crossfire of a shootout between the SWAT team and some criminals, and though they manage to get Lourdes out of there, they attract some attention and several of them get injured badly. Ax uses his skunk morph more than once to repel human-Controllers. They also nearly destroy the warehouse they're in. After the mission, they meet to discuss a way to get down to the Pemalite ship, but the only animal they know that can handle that depth is a giant squid, and none exist in captivity. Also, the only animal that EATS giant squid--a sperm whale--is also not in captivity. They all go home, feeling defeated, when it becomes even more obvious that somehow they're getting a bit too lucky. While Rachel is eating with her family, they watch the television (which is usually not allowed during mealtime, but her mother inexplicably lets them), and after a news story confirms that a gorilla was seen at the mall but there is no video of it because of security camera malfunctions, the story switches to a beached sperm whale. Rachel knows this is no accident. Someone is "subtly" helping them. And Rachel doesn't like being a pawn. Nevertheless, they figure it's time to go acquire the whale. The Sharing group is out there making a big humanitarian effort to get some media attention, volunteering to help out with the whale, so the place is full of Controllers. Rachel gets Tobias to help her cheat in the drawing of straws so she can get to morph the whale, and he does the same so he can go with her even though he hates water. They figure they only need two of them to morph the whale and hunt squid for the rest of them to acquire. Rachel and Cassie, while pretending to just be volunteers splashing the whale with water, manage to get the morph for Rachel, while Tobias lands on the whale to acquire it. Unfortunately his talon gets stuck and some of the others have to pretend to be seagulls and attack him, trying to dislodge his leg. It works out, but some of the Controllers (including Tom) recognized the red-tailed hawk and are very suspicious. So, out they go in seagull morph into the ocean. Rachel philosophizes about the size of a whale making her feel insignificant, and then the size of the ocean making a whale feel insignificant. Once out in the ocean, they morph back to their natural forms and then become dolphins, except for Rachel and Tobias who become whales. They dive, looking for giant squid. They can't find one at first, and they feel very close to giving up in despair, but they take another dive and Rachel manages to find one with her echolocation. Of course, it's attacking her too, because giant squid sometimes win against whales. Meanwhile, Tobias has found the Pemalite ship. Rachel does not fare well after being attacked by the squid, but Tobias saves her, and she manages to surface in time to not drown. Tobias dominates the squid and surfaces holding it, and they all acquire it. Then they morph squid and dive, having just a little trouble with their hunger and impulse to eat each other. Unfortunately diving as squid has a complication: if they encounter an issue or it takes too long to get down, there is a "point of no return," because they can't demorph underwater without being crushed. Once they get down, though, they have trouble finding the ship . . . and when they do, they see evidence that Yeerks are already there. As giant squid, they use the stunningly complex access code the Chee gave them--which is just the number six--and get inside the ship. Ax communicates with the ship's computer while they continue to stay giant squid; the ship makes the environment fit them. But after Ax finishes returning the Chee functions to normal, a voice says that a destruction sequence for the Chee has been activated, and then the ship becomes transparent so the Yeerks nearby can see them as giant squid. What's going on? A creature that introduces itself as the Drode comes in to mock each of them in turn, calling Rachel its favorite Animorph because she is so violent. The creature basically tells them that this is payback for ruining the Howlers, and as the Yeerks pour into the ship to take care of the supposed Andalite bandits, the Drode tells them of course there is a way out of this but even if they don't find it it still counts as Crayak playing by the rules of not killing them outright. Rachel is comforted to know the sperm whale that got beached as a pawn in all this is going to survive, but she doesn't know how they're going to get out of this. Demorph and give up their secret, or just wait to die? So, first they use their squid ink to make the water in their environment bubbles black, and then they demorph to their natural forms, just barely able to breathe the air in the top of the bubbles. Then they morph to battle morphs, with Ax and Tobias already in theirs. They end up managing to get out of the bubbles to fight the Yeerks who are pouring in, but even though the battle goes well, Visser Three is morphing to something scary and they know they're going to lose. The Drode continues to mock them, but then Erek the Chee shows up and does something to the computer so that everything is moving in slow motion. Erek manages to reprogram the computer to do what they'd really wanted it to do, and the Drode seems disappointed, but before he takes his leave of them, he decides to make an offer to Rachel: If she ever decides to kill her cousin Jake, she can come to Crayak's side for "salvation," because she's supposedly more like they are than like her own side. She decides not to tell Jake about Crayak's offer. He has enough to worry about. And finally, Erek uses the ship to kick the Yeerks out, and the Animorphs team morphs the giant squids again to return to the surface. Erek moves the Pemalite ship somewhere else even deeper so it can't be reached by anyone but the androids, and the team all gets grounded when they get home. Rachel one more time encounters the cute guy who asked her out, and she again almost says yes because this guy isn't a bird and doesn't eat mice, but she also reminds herself that he's never done dangerous missions with her like Tobias has, and she tells him to leave her alone. Tobias happened to be overhead while that was happening, and he seems to appreciate that she turned him down. She feels angry about it, but her solution is to tell him she's coming up after him as soon as she gets some wings. He agrees that he'll watch for her, because that's what he always does. Narrator: Rachel New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: Giant squid Marco: Giant squid Rachel: Whale (sperm), giant squid Ax: Giant squid Tobias: Whale (sperm), giant squid Notable: This book was ghostwritten by Laura Battyanyi-Weiss. It's a bit odd that there only appear to be two Chee who are in danger when the holograms failed and both of them are close enough to where the Animorphs live to be able to help them immediately. Aren't Chee all over the world, not just in their city? The Chee android Lourdes speaks in thought-speak in this book, and it's unclear whether this was an editorial error or whether Chee actually can use thought-speak. Seems silly for Cassie to not get the sperm whale morph while she's there and so close to the whale. Rachel refers to going through her human form as "human morph" once in this book. Seems inconsistent. While they're in the Pemalite ship as giant squid, Rachel describes reaching "a hand" through a bubble, and she doesn't have hands at that point. Inconsistency? The Drode, a creature who works for Crayak, is introduced in this book. Erek says the Pemalite ship will now be hidden where only an android can get to it because of its depth. This somehow does not stop it from being revisited in a later book. Best lines: Rachel: There are few emotional problems that can't be made better by shopping Old Navy and Express. Marco: "Erek seems to have missed his scheduled maintenance. He's frozen up. I think it's the transmission."
Jake: "Mr. King gave us an access code that'll get us into the main computer. Everybody memorize it: Six." Rachel: It's not that the ocean is an enemy. It simply doesn't care. It feeds you, it makes the oxygen you breathe, it gave birth to your species, and, if you get careless, it kills you. All without the slightest personal interest.
Marco: "Talk about a face only a mother could love!"
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