B21C20 - Acquire Human

"Get ready," I said quietly, rousing the others, some of whom were half asleep from boredom. "Let's get these guys' suits and ties. Um . . . not you, Rachel. Or Cassie. I kind of think this is a job for the boys only."

It took about five minutes, but soon we had three suits of clothing and three unconscious guys in boxers and undershirts.

Ax, David, and I each acquired one of the unconscious Controllers.

I know what you're thinking. We have a rule against morphing other humans. But to my mind, these weren't really other humans. The bodies may have been. But their minds were pure Yeerk.

Besides, there was no other way. Even Cassie had agreed for this one time. If we didn't pull this off, the leaders of the free world would be made into slaves of the Yeerks. That couldn't happen.

Ax began to morph a guy in his late twenties. David and I began to morph into what could almost have been some version of ourselves twenty years from now. Rachel and Cassie turned discreetly away.

It was an easy morph. But to tell you the truth, it was weird, anyway. There was something just wrong about using someone else's DNA like that. Something . . . creepy. At some level, we were doing something very close to what the Yeerks were doing: We were taking control of a human being.

Not their minds, of course. Because morphing just gives you the body and the instincts, not the memory, the thoughts, the soul of an individual. Basically, we were cloning these three unconscious men. Making exact duplicates of their physical selves.

For me, the actual morph was a big nothing. I looked different, but I didn't feel any different. Just taller, heavier, and like I needed a shave.