| #6: The Capture |
Detailed Plot: Jake tries out a roach morph, hoping to practice with it on his own so he'll later be able to convince his group to use roaches to spy on his brother. (Tom has been getting more important in the Yeerk organization, so spying on him is likely to yield good information.) Jake's roach morph didn't do so well when he got caught in a Roach Motel, though, and he almost got caught by his mother due to having to demorph behind the refrigerator in order to escape. Cassie is very upset with him for trying a morph on his own without anyone there, and she makes him promise he won't do that again. A scene depicting a "normal" family dinner at Jake's house comes next, and Jake and Tom trade some barbs. Tom keeps trying to get Jake to join The Sharing so he'll eventually get infested with a Yeerk. Obviously, Jake isn't interested, which draws insults from Tom. Later, the Animorphs meet at Marco's new apartment. (He moved with his dad after they were able to get a better place now that his father got his old job back.) Jake reveals that Tom's phone calls indicate possible Yeerk takeover of the hospital, and the other four Animorphs who can still morph practice the roach morph so they can get some practice with roach senses for maximum usefulness for espionage. After they practice for a while, Jake starts making suspicious comments about how he can do the mission alone, and the others start interrogating him until he has to admit he's afraid his brother is going to oppose them and their group will have no choice but to hurt him. He admits to having a dream in which he stalks his brother as a tiger. He refuses to say, though, what identity Tom actually has when he turns around. The group also fears that if they mess up the plans that Tom's Yeerk is building, Visser Three may kill him (and this villain doesn't tend to spare the host, either). What if they succeed in their mission only to get Jake's brother stuck with paying the ultimate price for their victory? Once in the mission, the roach-Animorphs get inside a meeting of the Sharing and unexpectedly encounter an address from Visser Three in human morph. Because they are roaches, they are unable to see him or hear his voice well enough to be able to recognize him again once they're human, but they can understand the words, and they find that Visser Three intends to make the front hospital into a process for taking involuntary hosts. They plan to focus on people who are in positions of power. But he also reveals that the governor of the state is coming into the hospital to get minor surgery, and he is going to be infested during the process. (And this is especially bad because said governor is currently on a track to run for President during the next election year.) Having completed their fact-finding mission, the roach-Animorphs begin to bail, but they are noticed by the Yeerks, and Visser Three demands that they all be killed. The roaches scurry and try to find safety; Ax and Cassie make it to a crack while Rachel ends up outside and Marco hides in a toilet. Jake is targeted with bug spray, and Tobias has to fly in and save him. He's poisoned, though, and has to be urged to morph out of his roach body to save himself. He's confused, though, and keeps flashing back to the dream he's been having. It's revealed that the disturbing ending of the dream involves him turning into the prey while Tom, as the tiger, attacks him. Helped by Tobias, Jake manages to morph out while semi-conscious, and becomes human again. Tobias alone has seen Visser Three's human morph, and he says Tom left with the Visser. They're all very concerned that bringing down the hospital operation will be looked upon as Tom's fault and that it will mean his life since Visser Three kills people who fail him. Nevertheless, they can't let people keep getting infested at the hospital and they don't want to lose the governor to the Yeerks, so they formulate a plan to turn into houseflies and get into the hospital. (Jake and Cassie make jokes about The Fly movie while discussing this.) The fly morphing process grosses everyone out, even though Cassie, the best morpher, tries it first. Ax is puzzled that morphing gives them "the willies." Being a fly turns out to be very fun and the flying is easy to control, but it's not very fast compared to how fast birds fly, so they ride on Tobias to the hospital. They continue to crack The Fly jokes and Ax is annoyed at being left out of the joke. Following their fly senses of smell, Jake, Ax, and Cassie manage to find what turns out to be a Jacuzzi serving as a miniature Yeerk pool, which contains about a hundred Yeerks who are in their natural state. Ax demorphs and ends up having to knock a human who was in the room unconscious. Jake decides to strike a blow by turning on the Jacuzzi and boiling the Yeerks, but he has to hook it back up first. He has Cassie in wolf morph and Ax in his natural body playing lookout, and Jake manages to turn on the machine. But then people end up coming in the door and spotting Cassie and Ax, and one of the new arrivals recognizes Ax as an Andalite. Jake crouches behind the Jacuzzi and tries to morph into a tiger while Cassie and Ax defend, but backup arrives with guns. A ricochet hits Jake in the head and knocks him into the Jacuzzi with his head under the water. When he regains consciousness Cassie and Ax are still holding off the attackers, but he's breathed some water and is trying to cough it out. He's also aware that something is causing pain in his head from his ear, but he hasn't figured out why it's happening. He's unable to think properly, and Cassie and Ax are getting overwhelmed; good thing Marco and Rachel arrive in gorilla and wolf morph. Rachel assumes command immediately and tells them to cover Jake's face and take care of him. She morphs an elephant and creates her own door, and they begin to escape. However, while Jake is being roughly evacuated from the hospital, he's becoming aware of thoughts in his head that don't belong to him. A voice, amazed that humans are morphing, begins to talk to him and finally begins to taunt him. He realizes a Yeerk is controlling his mind and reading his thoughts, and he doesn't know how to warn his friends that he has been compromised. During a mental conversation with his Yeerk, Jake discovers he has been infested by the Yeerk that formerly controlled his brother, Tom. Now that this Yeerk--named Temrash one-one-four--is supposed to be infesting the governor next, a lower-ranked Yeerk has been put in Tom's head. During this conversation his friends have been trying to make sure he's alert and not hurt, and suddenly the Yeerk takes over his mouth and reassures his friends that he's fine. But they're very skeptical since he was non-responsive for so long. The Yeerk does a great job of saying exactly what Jake would have said, reading his mind and taunting him mentally as he does it, and Jake feels that he's in a hopeless situation. However, when Ax comes up in his Andalite body and Jake looks at him, he experiences the Yeerk's revulsion for Andalites, and an automatic reaction of hatred crosses his own face. Ax senses it and immediately puts his tail blade up to Jake's throat, announcing that there is a Yeerk present. Of course, everyone thinks he's insane to be threatening the Animorphs' leader, and Jake's Yeerk makes him go along with the incredulousness, but they slowly realize that everything fits; Jake's head was in the water long enough to have been taken, and his non-responsiveness during the takeover period is typical. They decide that if Jake isn't a Controller, he'll at least understand their caution, since if the Yeerk gets back to the other Yeerks and explains who the Animorphs really are, they'll be dead. They decide it'd be best to isolate Jake for about three days, which will kill a Yeerk if it's really in his head. (Since it will have no place to absorb Kandrona rays for its feeding, being trapped away from an ability to do so will solve the problem.) But there is the problem of Jake having to be out of school and away from his family if they're going to hold him. They decide to have Ax morph into Jake and impersonate him where necessary for the three days that the real Jake will be isolated and monitored. The Yeerk, speaking through Jake, tries to convince the other Animorphs that this is a dumb idea, but it accidentally reacts by calling Ax "Andalite filth" when Ax is acquiring Jake's DNA for the impersonation morph, and after that the others are sure of what's happened. Still the Yeerk tries to convince the others that Jake is just short-tempered, but they aren't buying it, and the Yeerk even tries to convince them that Ax can't possibly pull off a Jake act. Ax morphs into Jake to try it out and the others say they'll teach him how to be Jake. They tie Jake up in a shed that Tobias knows in the woods, and work out who's on what shift for monitoring him. Jake's Yeerk seems very confident still, even though it isn't in the best of situations, and it begins showing Jake his fantasies of how it is going to be promoted after it reveals everything it's learned from Jake's mind. Jake mentally makes fun of the Yeerk's fantasies, so the Yeerk gets him back by pulling out a few of Jake's fantasies and mocking him. Jake is disgusted by having his mind rummaged through by a hostile alien, but there's nothing he can do about it. To add insult to injury, the Yeerk shows Jake some of the thoughts Tom had, and how broken and hopeless he'd become after being a host for so long. Jake remains confident that his friends will be able to contain him in the shack for long enough for the Yeerk to die. During the night, Rachel and Tobias are on the first shift. Jake falls asleep and dreams (and the Yeerk watches his dreams), but when he wakes up it appears Rachel has also fallen asleep. Then the Yeerk starts using Jake's morphing ability to turn into a tiger! It escapes but gets lost in the forest, turns back into a human, and decides to try a bird morph so it can escape faster. But while it's in the middle of doing that morph, it's attacked by something it can't see, and it isn't able to complete the operation. Turns out Cassie is a great horned owl and has stopped disaster from occurring, and the group had expected the Yeerk would try to morph. Rachel had only pretended to be asleep, and the forest was full of hiding Animorphs who won't let the Yeerk get away. As a wolf, the Yeerk pilots Jake's body to escape the forest and get back to its kind, but it gets stopped by a real wolf pack. Coming up from behind, Marco and Rachel (as an elephant) arrive and convince it to go back to the shack. The Yeerk gives up in the impossible situation, and Jake observes that humans continue to fight even when they're doomed. The Yeerk thinks that's foolish. Jake is convinced that it's exactly that sort of foolishness that guarantees their win in this fight. During the time when the Animorphs are waiting for the Yeerk to starve, it tries to escape using an ant morph and a peregrine falcon morph, but both are unsuccessful. Jake taunts the Yeerk here and there, saying time is growing short, and the Yeerk thinks he is cruel for mocking it while it's dying. Soon enough something called "the fugue" begins; the Yeerk suffers terrible hunger and thirst while it spits out uncontrolled thoughts, and Jake learns a great deal while experiencing the Yeerk's final moments. Jake now knows that the Yeerk's first host was a Gedd, then a Hork-Bajir, and then Tom. The Yeerk's hosts had become incorporated into its own personality. Jake gets to view the memories of how Tom got into The Sharing (had joined to get closer to a girl), and had been forced to become a full member. After upchucking a bunch of memories, the Yeerk finally dies, and Jake has a weird vision of an eyeball or a machine or something LOOKING at him, which is terrifying. After the vision is over, the slug falls out of his ear and shrivels away. His friends welcome him back. After returning to his family, he finds that Ax's standing in for him worked all right except that he ate a lot and surprised his parents with his appetite. His brother, now being controlled by a different Yeerk, is acting like always, but isn't suspicious. The new hospital closed without explanation, but the Animorphs know it's done so because the Yeerks know their cover is blown. Jake decides to do something stupid but important for his brother; he calls Tom on a cell phone and speaks while partially morphed into a wolf to disguise his voice. Jake tells him to never give up. Narrator: Jake New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: Cockroach, housefly, great horned owl, flea Marco: Cockroach, housefly Rachel: Cockroach, housefly Ax: Cockroach, housefly, human (Jake) Notable: This book contains an inconsistency; Jake's narration refers to Chapman as "the most important Controller we know," but considering in the previous book they discovered that Visser One is a human-Controller, that's not true. Cassie reveals that she has some social power with Jake due to their special bond; if she tells him what to do in a certain way, he will listen to her as a matter of course, even though she is usually not a forceful person. Ax's sense of humor is discussed in this book, but not conclusively. It's unsaid at this point whether he has a dry sense of humor or whether he actually just doesn't understand the jokes. Tobias is able to poke fun at himself and his half-and-half nature in this book, suggesting that he's getting more comfortable with what he's become. As "tough" as Rachel is, it's rather interesting that witnessing Cassie's fly morph causes her to run outside and puke. The Yeerk that infests Jake refers to his expectation that he might become "an under-visser" because of what he's done to enslave Jake. Later in the series this rank is called "sub-visser." When Ax acquires Jake's DNA, there is no mention of him experiencing the temporary sedation that normally happens when an animal is having its DNA acquired. In fact, he screams in anger during the process and doesn't appear to be affected by the sedative effect at all. This may be an inconsistency. Since Jake is narrating and experiences being controlled by a Yeerk, we now know that the Yeerks can read the hosts' minds but the hosts can't do the reverse; however, the hosts do automatically feel the emotions of the Yeerk as it reacts to what is said and what happens. Hosts and Yeerks can also communicate telepathically and have no choice but to "hear" each other. The Yeerk reveals that besides the Hork-Bajir, the Taxxons, and the Gedds, the Yeerk race has also conquered creatures called the Ssstram and the Mak. That's five races they've conquered, and they're working on the humans. Cassie is said to morph a great horned owl in this book, but has never done so before, which means she acquired it sometime during this book. However, either Rachel or Marco--or both--has also acquired an owl morph, because more than one other owl appears during the events and does not identify itself. It's possible they both acquired the owl, but it's also possible that only one did. At one point in Jake's stolen body the Yeerk tries to morph two birds and an ant. This may be a contradiction; because of information we see in a later book, it's clear that morphing to an animal with a skull below a certain size should prevent a Yeerk from being able to continue existing inside. They can't infest creatures who are too small for them to fit inside the skull, so if a Yeerk can make a morph-capable person shrink smaller than a Yeerk's physical body, something transformative that makes no sense must be happening to the Yeerk. Yeerks are said to be about two inches long, so fitting inside a bird skull might be possible, but an ant? No. Jake's vision of an eye looking at him during the Yeerk's final moments isn't something that can be interpreted using what we know at the time of this book, but this appears to be when a super-powerful evil creature called Crayak first takes notice of Jake. We will find out more about Crayak in a future book, but the big red eye is an homage to Sauron in Lord of the Rings, of which the author is a big fan. Best lines: Cassie: "Is it possible to die of total willies? I mean, do you think we could someday just gross ourselves right out of existence?" Marco: "Okay. We're bugs. Let's get this over with, because I have to tell you--I have a major urge to step on myself." Marco (After Ax suggests that being bipedal is very precarious): "You know, Ax, now that you mention it . . . I only have two legs! I'm falling . . . falling!" Cassie: "If you ever need to find poop, hire a fly." Jake (to the Yeerk, as they encounter an alpha male wolf while in wolf morph): "Go ahead. Go kick his butt. Of course, that's a real wolf there. An alpha male. Leader of his pack, which means he's probably been in a dozen fights and won them all. Go on, Yeerk. Tell him how the Yeerks are the masters of the galaxy. I'm sure he'll be very impressed."
Temrash one-one-four: "You are fools. It is madness to fight when you cannot win."
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