Animorphs - 10 - The Android

"Then I guess I'd better go, just to cover your butt," Jake said. "You'll have to figure out how to cover that hair."

I made a face. "Real funny."

"I thought so," Jake said, grinning at his own wit. "I'm going to morph Homer, I guess.

You're right. Dog is the way to go. No one will even think anything about us being there, since there are always dogs at outdoor stuff. And dog hearing is great.

You need to acquire a dog morph."

"Already have," I said smugly. "An Irish setter. Girls love Irish setters. Heh, heh, heh."

I laughed my "evil" laugh and gave Jake a look, and he laughed, too.

There are these moments in your life that seem totally innocent at first, you know? Like normal everyday life. But then it's like you stepped off a cliff, and before you know it you're falling.

Suddenly you realize your innocent little decision has gone spinning out of control.

I had decided to sneak into a concert. I had not decided to uncover one of the greatest secrets of human history, or become the person who would decide the fate of an entire race.

I just wanted to hear some music.

It should have been no big deal.

here are a couple of big problems with mor- phing. First of all, there's the two-hour time limit. If you stay in morph for more than two hours, you stay forever.

Second, there is the fact that all of the ani mal's basic instincts come along with the body.

Sometimes when you jump into that animal brain it's like grabbing onto a power line.

Finally, there is the total creepiness factor.

I mean, major, Stephen-King-meets-Ann-Rice creepy.

The concert was taking place at this big outdoor arena that's at one end of the city park. We needed a private place to morph, but that turned out not to be so easy. There were people every- where. Thousands of people. Kids in black T-shirts.

Displaced Deadheads with little granny sunglasses and dreadlocks. Parental units carrying babies and trying to look cool in their Dockers.

And hardcore punk rockers with pierced every- things.

Across from the park there was this little street with coffee shops and restaurants and an ecology bookstore.

There were alleys behind the restaurants, and we headed there.

Down one alley we found a little dead-end area stuffed with Dumpsters.

"Wonderful," Jake muttered. "The two of us and the garbage. This is already fun."

"Come on, let's do it," I said. I was impatient.

I could hear a warm-up band racing through a power set.

"You haven't morphed a dog before, have you?" Jake asked me.

"No."

He smiled. "Don't get too happy," he said.

I didn't really pay any attention to him. I looked around and saw some hippie girls walking by. They couldn't see us. I removed my outer clothing and stripped down to my morphing suit.

I stuffed my clothes and shoes into the bag Jake and I had brought along and shoved it behind the Dumpster.

I focused on the dog I had acquired. I saw it in my mind. And as I focused, I felt the changes begin.

I've morphed much weirder things than dogs.

But every morph is strange. Every morph is un predictable. You really never know how it's going to go.

I expected the first thing to be fur. It wasn't.

The first thing that happened was the tail. I felt it just sort of spurt out of the base of my spine.

I turned to look back over my shoulder. "Oh, guh-ross!"

The tail was sticking out. But it had no fur yet. It was just this kind of grayish, chicken- skinned whip.

I looked back at Jake. His face was bulging out like something was trying to climb out of his mouth. At the same time my own muzzle started to grow. There was a weird grinding sound from inside my head as the bones of my jaw stretched outward.

I felt an itching in my mouth as my teeth grew bigger and rearranged themselves.

I saw my fingers shrink up inside my hands.

At the same time, the little stubs of fingers grew these gray-black nails. My palms became thick and calloused.

I felt the bones in my legs and arms stretch- ing, changing directions, and I began to grow slightly smaller. Suddenly, I couldn't stand up anymore. I fell forward onto my calloused pads.

Only then did the fur begin to grow. It was a good thing, too. I was one ugly animal without fur.

The reddish fur sprouted quickly, like the world's fastest grass. It just seemed to explode out of my skin, long and silky.

"Cool." I said to Jake in thought-speak. "Check out this fur. Every girl in that concert is going to want to pet me."

He said something back to me, but right then the dog senses kicked in.

I've morphed a wolf, so I was prepared. I knew the hearing would be amazing. I knew the sense of smell would be incredible.

But what I didn't expect was the dog's mind.

It was not like the wolf. The wolf was a cool, in telligent, ruthless killer.

The dog was just a big goof.

You remember that old song, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"? That could be the theme song for dogs.

Dogs just want to have fun.

That's what fooled me. The Irish setter's brain didn't feel like some strange animal. It felt like it was just tapping into a part of my own mind. It was a perfect fit with the goof ball part of my own brain.

I looked over at Jake through my slightly dim dog vision. He had become his dog, Homer. I lolled out my tongue and panted. Jake/homer panted right back at me.

"RUFF!" I barked, for no reason. I did a little dance. Sort of like I was going to run away, but then I stopped suddenly and crouched down on my front legs and grinned like an idiot at Jake.

I was inviting him to play.

I tore off down the alley at a run.

"Marco, wait up!"

"Catch me! Hah-hah! Like you even could!"

I scrabbled away at top speed, my nails click ing on the concrete, my floppy ears flying, my tail held high and wagging.

I raced down the alleyway, totally ignoring the rich, wondrous smells of rotting garbage.

I turned toward the park and raced across the street. Jake fell back, caught up in a small knot of people.

SCRRREEEEECCCCHHH! A car slammed on its brakes and missed me by a couple of feet. A couple of feet! I mean, if the driver had been one millisecond slower to hit the brakes, I'd have been roadkill. But my complete dog-brain reaction to that near-death expe rience was, "Cool! I smell something!"

I'm totally serious. The fact that I smelled some other dog's pee on a curb was about ten thousand times more interesting to my dog brain than the squealing car was.

The driver got out and started yelling. I gave him a happy dog grin and trotted on my way.

"Marco! Would you wait up?"

Suddenly I was surrounded by people. But they were totally different from the people I'd seen before when I was still human.

For one thing, I wasn't really looking at these people. I was smelling them. What they looked like was so totally not important. But the smells! I smelled sweat, I smelled shampoo, I smelled bad breath, I smelled what they had been eating, I smelled what they had stepped in, I smelled laundry detergent, I smelled everyone they had touched or shaken hands with.

And I could smell all their animals. The humans might as well have been wearing big neon signs that said i own a dog, or i have cats. I could not only smell who owned dogs, I could smell whether the dogs were male or female, young or old, fixed or not. Just by sniffing the people walking past, I knew if their dogs ate canned or dry food.