Bat Morph

"Let's morph. We'll be able to see then," Cassie said. "Or maybe not see, exactly, but you know what I mean."

What she meant was that we would be able to echolocate. Kinda like the dolphin morph. We would be able to make very fast, ultrahigh sounds that the human ear would not even hear.

Those sounds would vibrate off any solid object and send back a sort of sound picture.

At least, that's what we hoped. We had been planning to practice and find out if it was true.

Instead, we were morphing without any knowledge of what we were getting into.

"Someday we'll think all this is funny," I said. "You know, if we happen to live long enough."

I focused my mind on the bat morph we had each acquired. They aren't as creepy as people think. Certainly not as creepy as morphing a spider. This particular bat was very small, just a few inches long. It looked like a mouse, with huge ears and the face of a Pekinese dog. If you forgot about the leathery wings, it was just another basic mammal.

But this was one case where the weirdness wasn't something you saw. I couldn't see anything. Nothing. I couldn't see myself shrinking, the ground rushing up at me. I couldn't see the way my legs shrank to almost nothing and brown fur sprouted from my body. I couldn't see the way my fingers grew so long and a paper-thin leather web filled the spaces between them.

I saw none of it. I didn't even know I was a bat, until my bat brain sent an order for me to open my mouth and chirp out a pulse of sound.

I fired a string of superfast sound pulses. Like making a loud machine-gun sound, only a lot higher, and way, way faster.

And then . . .

<Whoa, ho!> I said.

The entire black, pitch-black, invisible room, had just lit up.

It wasn't like seeing, exactly. It was like . . . like feeling, almost. Except it was like you were feeling from a distance. I felt a vast room. I felt thousands of wires strung taut, up and down, left to right, at angles.

And, at the center of the room, beyond the maze of wires, I felt a raised, flat surface, and a sort of pedestal. There were curling wires coming from the top of the pedestal.

All that came in a flash. Then it was gone. The others each fired off their own echolocating blasts, but I couldn't feel their sounds as clearly.

<Okay, that is cool,> Rachel said. <That is way cool.>

<The wires seem awfully close together,> Cassie worried. <I wish we'd had time to try out these wings. I guess all we can do is hope for the best. Trust the bat to do the flying.>

<Abandon yourself to the Force, Cassie Skywalker,> I said.

<Thanks, Darth. You first.>

<Me first? Oh.> Suddenly, I didn't feel at all like laughing. I licked my lips with my little bat tongue. Assuming I had lips. I wasn't sure.

I opened my wings. I spread them wide and thought, Well, this should be interesting. I tested the wings cautiously. They moved differently than bird wings. More like I was reaching out with each stroke to grab the air and push it behind me.

<Okay. Here goes.>

I fired an echolocating burst and took off.

Fired again! There were tight strings all around me!

Left!

Left again!

Down!

No, up!

Right, left, right, right, straight up!

Again and again the high-pitched sound machine gun fired. Again and again I dodged, millimeters from a wire.

It was insane! It was so fast my human brain was three steps behind. It was instantaneous. It was impossible! The speed, the agility, the instant translation of the echolocating blasts.

And suddenly, I was through! I was through the wires.

I landed on the table in the center of the room. It was all over in ten seconds of lunatic flight.

<Okay, now that is a roller-coaster ride! Yes!> I said, incredibly jazzed from having made it. <Yes!>

The others came, one by one. I could watch them fly, seeing them in my echolocating flashes.

Everyone made it. And we were feeling pretty good about it, too. It was a rush.

<We did it!> I said.

<These bats can fly!> Rachel added.