ANIMORPHS #28: THE EXPERIMENT
"the men who are young and restless do not wear shirts. i am young. and i am occasionally restless."
hi hello everyone and welcome back to a special nooner edition of animorphs weekly. this week, the cdc announced we can stop wearing masks if we’re fully vaccinated, and boy howdy, are they right. it’s been so long since i’ve socialized i’ve fully forgotten how to mask my reactions. the first time i see a mouth in public i’ll scream.
wanna read a book?
CHANGE IS A GOOD THING. A VERY GOOD THING. . . .
this is it! this is the cover that kills me. too many hands in little fists.
it’s an ax book!
SUMMARY
ax opens with the andalite version of the standard animorphs intro: he is alone on earth, with only five kids by his side to help fight against the yeerks. his main Quest in life is to avenge his brother elfangor’s death, and tobias is his absolute best friend in the whole world and also his nephew. you know. typical animorphs shit. ax also tells us he’s made a little “scoop” for himself — scoop is what andalites consider to be a home, and is just an absolutely adorable term. scoop!
inside ax’s little scoop is the world almanac his friends bought him, a photo of a cinnamon bun, human clothes, and a television. ax got a tv to learn about human behavior, and now he and tobias watch (canonically) the young and the restless every day. best friend shit! marco surprises them (not really; it’s hard to sneak up on a hawk and a creature with eyestalks) in the middle of their daytime program, bored and looking to hang.
(marco also tells ax he needs better taste in television, and recommends buffy the vampire slayer, which is just a fun little bit for me and me alone. i’m watching through buffy right now for the first time! marco’s right: it slaps!)
tobias flies away to hunt, and marco tells ax he needs a tv guide. they can go get one at the mall! and maybe a cinnamon bun or two while they’re at it. ax morphs into his weirdly attractive human morph, puts on some clothes, and then he and marco start strolling towards the mall. someone calls their name.
i turned my head to follow the voice. it was a truck painted with the word “fedex.” and it was talking to us.
sure
honestly why not get the cars universe involved
of course, the truck isn’t really talking to them. in fact, the truck isn’t even really there! it’s a hologram, projected by none other than everyone’s favorite, ancient erek. of course, ancient erek has plot. the yeerks have purchased both an animal testing laboratory and a meatpacking plant. why they would want either of these buildings is a mystery, but they were purchased around the same time and the yeerks have been very, very secretive about it.
“let me ask you this: how about if we just forget all about this and don’t tell jake, and we all go to the mall and see how many cinnamon buns ax can eat before he explodes?”
“i have already performed that experiment,” i said.
marco nodded. “okay, then i guess we go tell jake and the others and launch off into some dumb mission that’ll end up with me screaming and running for my life. sound good?”
yep!
the team assembles at cassie’s barn. it’s a brief discussion. of course they’re going to at least check out what the animal lab is doing — but they gotta hurry, because jake does not want to spend the weekend doing a makeup paper for old lady chambers’s class!
they morph birds and head over to the lab. along the way, they discuss the things they’re missing out on. marco’s missing an online chat with the cast of the x-files, cassie’s missing out on precious time to figure out how quadratic equations work. they’re just kids! they land in a clump of trees outside the lab. it’s surrounded by a ten-foot-tall fence with barbed wire. there’s a security guard by the gate. windows are barred, the doors are all heavy steel — there’s definitely Something going on over here!
there’s a bit where ax does a “soap-take” — he delivers a line dramatically and stares into the middle distance and all the animorphs just Stare at him for a minute. it’s fun. good for him.
his bit gets interrupted by the sound of an electricity zap. the facility is covered by a shock-front force field, courtesy of the yeerks. the only way in is through the gate. a truck rolls up, and tobias goes to spy. when he returns, he reports that the truck is filled with chimpanzees. six, to be exact. the driver told the guard they’d be back around four tomorrow. they could acquire chimps at the garden, for sure, but cassie’s quick to point out they don’t know exactly what kind of chimp the yeerks are expecting. and they’ll definitely be on high alert for any animals that look out of place. as the truck drives past, rachel notes it has a sticker from the university on it, maybe indicating where it starts.
jake has an idea.
the next day, ax and tobias spend time observing a tunnel, timing traffic. once school’s out, the other animorphs arrive, all in seagull. it’s time to put jake’s plan into action. (one of the things i love about YA is a reference to a plan and never an explanation of a plan. what would be the point of reading about a plan after you know what it is, you know? the Suspense of it all!)
the delivery truck drives past them on the road below, and they all dive-bomb it. five seagulls and one hawk cling to the top of the truck. once inside the tunnel, they’ll have about seven minutes to break into the back of the truck and discover what kind of chimps are inside. the truck pulls into the tunnel. everyone starts morphing — all to human except ax, who morphs back to andalite. they make a human chain and slowly lower cassie over the back of the truck. (jake tries to volunteer for this bit, and cassie waves him away. she’s trying to be brave!) she pops the door open and swings inside, and one by one, the humans slide into the back of the truck. ax is last — and he realizes that he’s not going to be able to support his weight with his own arms and fingers. he needs to be human. and he’s running out of time.
he starts to morph to human. once he has arms, he swings himself over the back of the truck to the open door below — but his lower half is still andalite!! he’s too heavy!! thankfully his friends are strong :)
ax gets yoinked into the truck and fully morphs to human just as the truck pulls out of the tunnel. rachel slams the door shut while ax laughs hysterically, in the way one does when they’ve nearly evaded death. you know the one.
inside the truck are the animorphs and a handful of chimpanzees in cages. cassie finds a box with monkey treats and offers one to a nearby chimpanzee. as she acquires the dna, ax notices that it looks like she’s having a moral dilemma. that’s maybe cassie’s resting face, but i get it. in the past cassie’s had difficulty acquiring morphs from animals with intelligence. and i admire that she still struggles with it! once everyone’s acquired the dna, marco finds the keys to the cages. jake unlocks the first cage as the truck slows to a stop. cassie and marco slide the door up.
and the chimpanzee we had morphed, faced with freedom, decided to urinate.
classic comedy
they shoo the real chimps out of the truck, and then they’re off once more. the animorphs climb into the cages and begin to morph. it’s disgusting, as always. lots of hooves splitting open. once the morph is complete, ax realizes that chimpanzees are incredibly smart. and very close to human. he sort of understands why cassie was upset earlier — the animorphs try not to morph sentient beings without permission. he asks her about it: was it improper to acquire it?
cassie asks the rhetorical question, “could it have given permission, do you think? is it capable?” but marco points out that cassie’s avoiding the answer because she’s on her own mission to save the animals from experimentation. cassie doesn’t reply, probably because marco’s right.
i did not know what to think. i could only assume that humans do not believe chimpanzees are sentient. clearly, if they did believe it, they would not be keeping them imprisoned and using them for experimentation.
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: good ya invites kids to question what they are generally taught. this at least starts the conversation on animal testing, and is a gateway to asking why we dehumanize people, too. racism!
the truck finally arrives at its destination, and the animonkeys are loaded out of the truck and into the building. ax learns his monkey’s name is pumpkin. he gets a cookie for being good. in the holding room, there are cages lining the walls, and one large cage in the corner with a few toys. and a fuckton of other monkeys. a voice comes on over the loudspeaker, instructing the handlers to leave the room. they scatter pretty quickly, leaving the animonkeys alone.
cassie starts to demorph so as to bust out the other chimpanzees — but as she does so, the door to the holding room swings open, and reveals the reason all the handlers scattered when they could.
SOUND THE ALARM / FINISH YOUR DRINK
VISSER THREE IS HERE
cassie’s cage is furthest from the door, but the risk is still high. she starts to morph back to chimp as fast as she can. the others try to distract visser three to buy her some time.
poop him! marco yelled suddenly.
it is a children’s book
yeah the animorphs throw poop at visser three
it’s funny i don’t know what you want me to say
of course, just like any fragile man in power, visser three cannot stand to have shit thrown in his face. he commands the handlers to kill all of the monkeys. he’s here to shut the facility down anyway, and all those mean monkeys threw poop at him, so they can rot in hell. he cuts off a hand for good measure. summon the taxxons!
well. the animorphs certainly don’t want to get eaten. cassie morphs fly then human and unlocks all of the animorphs’s cages — and then she starts to unlock the real chimpanzee cages, too. marco and jake are quick to protest. if the taxxons arrive and find nothing to eat, the yeerks are going to know they got got and things will be harder for the animorphs at the meat packing facility. but cassie’s not going to let these chimps get eaten. it might look weird if a grizzly bear takes down a taxxon, but what if they stay in chimp morph?
i looked at rachel. she smiled. “i’m in.”
“you always back cassie,” marco said angrily.
rachel shook her head. “nah. i just like the idea of the chimpanzees getting some back, you know?”
sure jan
the taxxons arrive and discover six armed chimpanzees. the animorphs go to town. ax guts one with a wrench; rachel rips off a taxxon leg to use as a weapon. this causes the taxxon to bleed, and since taxxons are cannibals, the others swarm it and begin to feast. there’s only one way out of the room: over the taxxons and into the lab. as they escape, ax sees other animals in other rooms: smaller monkeys, rats, dogs. he describes their treatment as torture. and he’s probably right.
sometimes the scariest villains are humans
that night in the meadow, ax does what most people do to distract himself from the impending doom spiral of thinking upon humanity’s cruelness for too long: he watches tv. tobias arrives and brings him a gift! it’s a universal remote! cute! they flip through the channels and catch the tail end of a friends episode before landing on a news report about the escaped chimps! they were corralled and sent to the gardens. hopefully there, they won’t be mistreated.
the next day, ax and tobias go to scout out the meat packing plant. what they discover is, of course, unpleasant. after school, they meet up with the others at cassie’s barn. there’s no force field around the meatpacking plant — it’s too big — but there are gleet biofilters at every entrance. you remember those things? they destroy DNA patterns that aren’t programmed to pass through the door. they’re outfitted on every entrance to the yeerk pool and also this meatpacking plant. and those aren’t the only problems.
a goose began making loud, distressed noises as cassie attempted to force a pill into its mouth. “so, what do we have? one: we need to acquire specific cows. two: we need to get their tags off and onto us. three: we need to get onto the truck and travel two miles without having to demorph. four: we need to get inside the meatpacking plant and avoid being turned into salisbury steak. five: we find out what’s going on there that has visser three so happy and bust it up.”
“it all sounds so simple when you put it in that nice one, two, three format,” marco said. “you forgot six: six cows in a meatpacking plant.”
true! cows aren’t known for their battle prowess, and docile cows raised for slaughter certainly aren’t the toughest animals around. but! cassie points out that they wouldn’t all need to morph cows. the gleet biofilters wouldn’t destroy organisms inside other organisms. two animorphs go as cows, the other four hide as flies in the cow’s nostrils. it’s a good plan. jake lays it out: ax and tobias will be the cows, since they wouldn’t have to reveal human identity if it came down to demorphing. everyone else is riding the nostril express.
that night, rachel, marco, tobias, and ax fly towards the feed lot to acquire some cows. rachel’s carrying a little device to affix ear tags, courtesy cassie and her vet parents. ax finds two cows that will be called up tomorrow. tobias acquires one. just before ax can demorph and acquire the other:
trouble! tobias said suddenly. car lights! coming this way!
of course
ax lands among the cows and demorphs from owl to andalite. he hopes to blend in, since he’s four-legged and vaguely steer-shaped. he even uses his stalk eyes to look like horns! now this is a great comic bit that i think would play so well for studio audiences. marco and rachel and tobias are all off to the side on the fence giving ax pointers on how to look more cow-like as the truck slowly approaches. and then out stumble a bunch of drunk frat bros!!!
they’re coming cow-tipping!!!!
rachel tells ax to cut off their heads — girlboss! — but instead he just knocks them unconscious. there’s no time to fuck around with frat bros — the brady bunch is on and ax can’t miss it!
not a bit that is the canonical joke applegate uses to close out this chapter
ax starts the next day with his typical morning ritual, swearing his allegiance to his people: the andalites and the humans. aw! tobias arrives, and the two of them fly towards the feed lot. the plan: last night, they’d used the stapler to remove two ear tags from the right cows, and today they’ll use the stapler to attach the ear tags to themselves as cows once they’re morphed.
a simple plan.
or so we thought.
always!!! if the plan is simple it’s gonna get fucked
this is the animorphs!!!
tobias lands and morphs first. he feels surprisingly antsy and restless, but chalks it up to first-time jitters. then it’s ax’s turn. the other cows try to move away from him as he morphs to andalite, but tobias plants himself on the edge of the knot of cattle and the cows chill.
it was odd. it was as if the steer were afraid of tobias. or at least deferential. it should have been a clue that we had a problem.
uh-oh!
ax morphs first to a cow — which is not the right animal! they need a steer! so he demorphs, acquires a steer, and remorphs. no problem! except he spots another bull. he snorts and paws the ground. the other bull snorts and paws the ground. from above, jake calls out: they look like they’re gonna charge each other!
cassie’s on it. she puts herself in between tobias and ax and talks in her most calming animal girl voice. apparently when bulls get neutered, they become docile steers; but since DNA doesn’t take neutering into account, both tobias and ax are fully territorial. a truck is approaching, and cassie definitely sticks out like a sore thumb in her morphing outfit. there’s no time. she grabs ax by the horns and literally says, “i don’t have time for this crap.”
good for her!!!
she tags ax and then tobias. but the problems don’t stop there. cassie points out that since they aren’t steer, the handlers are going to notice something’s up. they’re going to call the meat-packing plant and the yeerks will be alerted and everything will have been for naught.
for a long moment no one moved, and no one said anything. then prince jake said something that even i found frightening.
marco? think you can drive their truck?
last time marco drove cassie’s dad’s truck ended up wrapped around a tree
but that does technically count as experience driving, something none of the other animorphs have
when the truck rolls in, marco’s morphed gorilla and knocks their heads together. jake steals their clothes and they load up the truck with cows and tobias and ax. rachel and cassie morph fly and hide in nostrils, and then jake and marco get dressed in their newly stolen clothes. marco does stay in gorilla morph, so imagine that.
he has to go in gorilla morph, cassie said. the seat’s jammed back and he can’t reach the pedals.
sure!
it’s a fucking circus. marco has to drive the stick shift truck through two fences and onto the road. he gets flipped off a few times. finally, the meat-packing plant is on the horizon. marco takes a Sharp left and all the steer in the back go swinging to the left. the truck nearly tips over, then slams back to the right, and then finally straightens out as marco pulls up to the gate.
everything’s under control
the guards let him in after giving him shit for being such a bad driver, and then marco has to back up to a ramp. it goes awesome. jake and marco morph to flies and swing around to the back. two men come out of the meat-packing plant and talk about how wild the drivers were!!! even andalite bandits couldn’t drive that bad!!!!
the air smells of blood. as someone who went to college in a town that boasted a college and a meat-packing plant, i can tell you firsthand what a terrible smell it is.
the animals get led into the meat-packing facility. the flies stay safe within the nostrils until they’re through the gleet bio-filter, and then they buzz off. tobias and ax walk. above them, dead cows are strung to an overhead conveyer belt. it’s a living nightmare. even worse, up ahead, they watch a man with a gun shoot cattle in the face. well! tobias and ax certainly don’t want to sit around and get shot and strung in the air!
ax starts to demorph. he gets tazered once, twice. he’s in so much pain he can’t morph. tobias is freaking out and screaming as ax gets shoved towards the gun. and then:
hey, buddy! take the rest of the day off, rachel said. she swung one massive grizzly bear paw.
yay!
it gets brutal. ax demorphs to andalite in time to cut off the hands of a man wielding a chain-saw. tobias morphs to hawk, and rachel directs him to where the others are in trouble. a clump of human-controllers have cornered the animorphs against a door. ax and rachel slice their way through human-controllers and hork-bajir to get to them. ax is, understandably, shaken. he almost died!
even worse, rachel can’t break through the door, even in grizzly morph. the small army of hork-bajir and human-controllers surge forward. and then visser three speaks.
how fitting, visser three exulted. the end of the andalite bandits comes here in a slaughterhouse. take them! seize them! butcher them! yes, butcher them!
dark!
rachel slams into the door again. nothing. but she does notice a keypad! she points it out to ax, who is quick to hotwire it. the door opens and the animorphs pour inside, quickly shutting the door behind them. ax destroys the keypad on this side of the room, buying them a few more minutes.
and then they take a look around.
it was, in most respects, identical to the room at the animal testing laboratory where the chimpanzees had been caged. rows of cages.
left and right. a concrete floor and white tile walls. bright lights.
but there was one very significant difference. where there had been cimpanzees, there were now humans.
two dozen humans occupied the cages.
they did not move. they did not turn to look at us.
(what is this? a criminal minds episode?)
they’re in bio-stasis. cassie looks at the chart hanging on the outside of the nearest cage. project obedience is written across the top. medication effective is written beneath. ax finds a computer in the room and boots it up. he asks the computer to define project obedience. it is designed by visser three, and is intended to erase the portions of the human brain responsible for free will. formula seventy-one has been proven to be hundred percent effective humans, and will now be disseminated through the human food supply.
yoinks!
cassie laughs. there’s no way it works! everyone else is like, you heard the computer!! one hundred percent effective!! look at these sleeping humans clearly it works!! but cassie doesn’t believe it. she Knows there’s no way a person can erase free will from a human being. the others are quick to argue with her. ax interrupts: if the humans have no free will, why are they being kept in bio-stasis and cages?
before they can discuss that great question, an older human man enters from the far end of the room, holding a dracon beam. jake knocks the beam out of his hand, and the man collapses into a chair and starts sobbing. he’s going to get killed by visser three! of course, he was already going to get killed by visser three. why? well, he faked all the results, of course! there’s no way to separate a person from their free will, but visser three wouldn’t listesn, so they faked the lab results.
point for cassie
there’s pounding at the door. they’re running out of time. the scientist tells them he’ll show them the way out — better to starve of kandrona rays than die at the hands of visser three. jake, rachel, and ax take post at the door. cassie, marco, tobias, and the doctor start working on freeing the people from their cages. they follow the scientist out towards a back door. while they’re escaping, ax asks the scientist a question: the computer said the formula worked on chimpanzees. did it? are they, in fact, sentient?
“the chimpanzees? the formula had no effect. but was it because their will remained unaffected? or merely because there was no free will to affect? we do not know.”
the next day, the animorphs cool down at the food court. cassie gets to gloat about being right about the humans, marco gets to complain about them risking their necks for a failed yeerk experiment. ax gets to eat a cinnamon bun. everyone’s happy.
for now….
REVIEW
3/5. ax books are hit or miss for me, but this one was pretty fun. another filler book (though, again, i recognize the merit of “filler” books - they’re good for character development and just getting to see the animorphs growing together as a team and as friends). hope that scientist is okay!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
well? do chimps have sentience? i’m inclined to say yes.
PREDICTIONS
marco’s mom
tobias’s mom
maybe they’ll date!
that’s all i have for you this week, folks! sorry for the delay on getting this out to you, but better late than never, right? take care of yourself.