Time to talk about the cover yet again, though less on the wolf spider on the cover which sets my arachnophobia off like there's no tomorrow. We have a new, shorter haired Marco. Now, to my knowledge, there are no records of the child models who portrayed the Animorphs on the covers. They did rotate over time, most keeping their basic look down pat. But the original Marco had longer hair. The apparent reason per Applegate is that she was told by editor Tonya Alicia Martin that there was a new Marco model who had a haircut, so Applegate added in turn, giving him a shorter do for the remainder of the series.
We open the book with the normal preamble before revealing that Marco got a haircut. But more importantly he's trying to convince Jake that they should morph dogs to sneak into a concert featuring Nine Inch Nails, Alanis Morissette and The Offspring in case you forgot these books were from the late 90s. Jake is at first against the idea, but upon hearing that the Offspring will be there, he quickly changes his opinion. Yes, Jake is more fine with using his morphs for personal gain than he is Rachel morphing elephant to, and I'll say it once again, defend herself from a rapist. They head to the concert and morph dog, but since this is Marco's first time as an Irish setter, he acts all excited and runs around having fun, even getting scratched and rubbed by a girl. As he starts to settle himself, he and Jake notice a boy handing out flyers for The Sharing and recognize him as Erek King, a boy who transferred out of their school not too long ago.
Which brings me to a detour as to why the name Erek King is so important, besides the fact that he will be a recurring character in the Animorphs series. In the early run of Animorphs, they held a contest where the first prize winner would have their name added to an Animorphs book, while others would get morphed on a page of the book, similar to a contest Goosebumps held. That winner was named Erek King. Normally this kind of prize would just be for a quick one sentence cameo, but this was for a character that will be around up until the end of the series. That's pretty rare. Though I'm curious if the real Erek King got any royalties for this, or they were waived when he won the contest.
Marco notices that Erek doesn't appear to have any scent. He brings this up to the rest of the Animorphs later on in Cassie's barn. They think that lack of smell aside, if he's handing out Sharing flyers, he must be either a controller or affiliated with the yeerks. Cassie, Marco and Tobias decide to check the phone book to see if they can find Erek's family and get any answers as well as trying to actually find his house itself. They found Erek's place, and Marco found another King residence with a hot girl that he intended to play peeping owl on, because this is a book from the 1990s and that was considered innocent back then. Marco does remember Erek, mainly due to the fact that he attended the funeral of Marco's mother, who of course we now know was staged due to her becoming Visser One.
Marco, in osprey morph, flies with Tobias to spy on Erek. They spot Erek being accosted by three bullies and making a run for it. Suddenly, Erek full on gets hit by a bus. However, Marco notices that for a split second, Erek's body changes into some milk-white, almost robotic form. Then, just as quickly, Erek gets back up and walks off. This confirms to Marco that they're not dealing with a controller. Erek is something else. Something not human. Marco returns home to call Jake about a meeting later. He gets Tom on the phone however. Marco plays it cool, despite knowing he's talking to a controller. Tom mentions that The Sharing are planning a water skiing event, then mentions that Marco's father should come. This angers Marco who flies off the handle when he finally talks to Jake. Eventually Marco calms down, but he channels his rage with visions of one day taking out the Yeerks, even Tom.
All the Animorphs meet up and Marco tells Ax about Erek. Ax has no idea what Erek is, but if he can project a hologram, there must be some sort of energy source that they need to find out. With Erek hanging around The Sharing, that's the most likely place to find him and since human eyes can't detect the hologram, they need another morph. Unfortunately for Marco, it's another bug. Though thankfully after the whole ant and termite affairs, it's not anything close. But what it is instead is a wolf spider. They all draw straws to see who ends up going spider, with Marco unfortunately becoming the unhappy volunteer. When Rachel volunteers due to his complaints, he acts a bit more macho and acquires the DNA of the wolf spider. And with that, it's off to the mountains to infiltrate the Sharing meeting.
As they fly to the location, Ax mentions a bit more about what becomes of one's mass when they morph, particularly when they morph tinier creatures. Their mass enters Z-Space, essentially the place where ships travel when they move faster than light. So, yeah, when someone morphs, their guts are floating around in space until they morph back. Unfortunately, this means their mass could be disintegrated if a ship collides with it. That's just wonderful to know. It's amazing how this book series continues to up the nightmare fuel.
They all make it to their location. Ax and Marco are to morph spider while the others are in fly morph, the perfect morph to compliment a spider. And, the spider morph, just like others in this book is pretty well detailed and creepy as hell. A plus to Animorphs is that morphs have been well detailed in these books to really sell the intense sensation of transforming into another creature. From the dissolving of bones to parts of the creature emerging, like the spider's extra eyes, large mouth and extra legs. Kinda amazing I bought these books as a kid with how messed up that is. See what I mean about upping the nightmare fuel?
Marco quickly realizes that the wolf spider is called that for a reason, as it's hungry like a wolf. He goes to eat a beetle when Ax snaps him out of it. He quickly finds the foot of Erek, but he can see inside the hologram, and inside is a shorter, somewhat dog-like creature made out of steel. Ax confirms that Erek is an android all right. Jake also notices another being just like Erek. But before they can do anything else, Marco gets snatched up by a crow and almost eaten. In fact, his body gets pretty banged up until he starts to demorph... exploding through the crow's throat. Have fun sleeping after that one, kids.
He awakens back in human form as Erek and a girl named Jenny are above him. They mention that Marco is one of the "Andalite bandits". Marco fears that he's finally gone and blown it for the Animorphs, but Erek lets him escape, telling him to bring the other Animorphs and meet with him later. Later, Marco is at home with his father, who tells him that he plans to aid a company named Matcom in defense systems, but keeps things top secret. That's enough for Marco to realize why Tom was after his father. Marco's dad also mentions the last days of Marco's mother, how she was acting differently, and how one night she told him to stay away from the military. A warning from Marco's real mother, not the yeerk in her head. But Marco's father just chalks it up to her having a bad dream.
The Animorphs decide to take up Erek's offer to meet at his house. Of course this being Ax, Jake, Marco and Cassie, with Tobias and a grizzly at the ready Rachel waiting outside. They get greeted by Mr. King and all seems pretty normal. He leads them into the basement which turns into a giant elevator that takes them into a tunnel. Out of the tunnel is what looks like a giant park with a giant yellow orb above them. There are tons of normal dogs, but also humanoid dog robots, one of them being Erek. He finally reveals what they are. They are the Chee, a race of ancient androids.
He brings up the history of the Chee, by, of course, creating a simulation of their pink-treed, giant mushroom home world. The Chee were the creations of the Pemalites, an advanced dog-like race, more advanced then even the Andalites. However, unlike certain aliens like the yeerks, the Pemalites were peaceful creatures not interested in world conquest. They had even visited earth in its primitive state. They created the Chee as their companions. However, everything changed when the Howlers attacked without any warning and without any known reason. They destroyed the Pemalite home world as the remaining Pemalites and Chee escaped. However, the Pemalites were also infected by a virus from the Howlers and were slowly dying. So, the Chee returned to Earth and more shockingly, they took the form of dogs. All dogs have the souls of Pemalites. The Chee, being essentially immortal, let their holograms pretend to be humans, right down to letting their holograms grow old and die, only to return as children later. Wow, after a lack of any major lore last book, Applegate is diving deep.
Erek also reveals that the Pemalites designed the Chee to be nonviolent, and that no Chee has ever taken a life. The other Chee are, understandably, bothered that Erek would just up and blab everything, but he tells them that the Animorphs can be trusted, since they also have issues with the yeerks. Speaking of, Erek reveals that he's been working as a double agent, pretending to be a controller. He even has a yeerk trapped in his head, but since he's a robot, it can't actually control him. It's through this that he's learned that the yeerks are in possession of a powerful device that can control all computers. A Pemalite crystal, which could also reprogram Chee to go against their non-violent directive. And that's why he also needs the Animorphs, to get the crystal from the yeerks. It's in the Matcom building, guarded by Hork-Bajir and a security system of pure darkness. If any trace of light touches it, it would go off. Marco is of course curious how the hell they could do that, but Cassie does have a suggestion.
They leave the Chee's hideout only to see a grizzly Rachel locked in a full nelson by the Chee posing as Erek's father. Of course, it's a non-violent lock. After filling Rachel and Tobias in, they have an argument over the ethics of removing a species' nonviolent tendencies. Guess which side Cassie's on? But unlike morphing dolphins, this is a good point. Is it fair to relieve a species of centuries of peaceful behavior? Would the Pemalites had survived if they had fought back? It's one of those "is world peace truly a good thing?" type arguments, which makes for a lot of discussion. But I'm not the person to do that. I just recap old 90s books and maybe make an occasional quip that lands. Back to Cassie's suggestion as to how to navigate through the yeerk security system. And that is by morphing bat.
The Animorphs plan to retrieve the crystal over the next weekend, but soon get called by Erek to get it done that night, due to the yeerks possibly adding a more advanced security system. They fly to the roof of the Matcom building and morph spider and roach to run through the vent. Unfortunately for them, they also run into a rat that gives chase. And even worse for them, the vent leads into the furnace, which also turns on, which means that this little mission has become a literal trial by fire. They manage to make it out alive and find the room holding the crystal. They morph bat and manage to navigate their way to the crystal. Slight flaw to their plan, how can they grab the crystal in bat form without screwing with their echolocation?
Well, with that plan foiled, the group morph their attack forms and grab the crystal, which means a fight with controllers and armed Hork-Bajir. And to say the Animorphs get their asses kicked is an understatement. They get torn to shreds by the Hork-Bajir, to the point where they are almost about to die. For as horrific as the ant affair was, this was somehow even worse. Marco wakes up, demorphed with the others. They fill him in that Erek saved them. That Marco had managed to get the crystal to Erek and he reprogrammed himself into a killing machine. He destroyed the human controllers and Hork-Bajir, as well as saved the Animorphs. However, the whole situation has left the android haunted, unable to forget the horrors he caused. He tells Marco that he used the crystal again to return his programming to its previous form. He will continue to help them when needed, but he vows to never fight again.
The next day, Jake and Marco are playing with Jake's dog Homer at the beach. Marco mentions that Erek gave him a number that the yeerks can't trace, for whenever the Chee have anything to aid them. Marco also still has possession of the Pemalite crystal. He gives it to Homer and a few other dogs, who drop it into the water as it washes away into the ocean.
Well, Marco is two for two on great books. Where The Predator was a deeper look into the mind of Marco, The Android doesn't delve much further than what we already were aware of. What it does instead is a lot more world building. Particularly with the Chee and Erek, who serve as much needed allies in this fight. Powerful allies that due to their programming, cannot actually help them in this battle. Which does suck because, as seen in the penultimate chapter, the Chee are a powerful race and if given that power to reprogram themselves, could decimate the yeerks, But what Applegate tries to enforce in this story is the biggest ethics question in the series. Is a life of peaceful pacifism worth it if you're defenseless? Is the freedom to be violent worth it as well if it means you have to live with what you've caused? And the book asks this question through dog robots, yet it still feels resonant.
This book is also one of the more disturbing books, which is a lot to say considering some of the stuff we've seen so far. From the description of Z-Space to the encounter with the rat, right down to MARCO BURSTING THROUGH A CROW'S THROAT! As someone whose read a lot of Goosebumps, it's incredible to see these two series from the same publisher, with the supposed horror series being far more tame than the sci-fi animal book. I know, I know. Different demos, but it's food for thought. After The Secret felt like middling filler, it's good to see the story back on track. And when this series gets back on track, it really feels like they reinforced the wheels on that train. The Android gets an A.
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