The Predator by K. A. Applegate Read Free Book Online Page B

stopped functioning. I was blind!
    Blind, and falling, rolling, cartwheeling down the side of a blade of grass.

CHAPTER 12
    I was standing upright. I knew that. I had stopped falling.
    But I was blind.
    No, not completely blind. It was not just blackness. But my eyes saw no detail. I could see patches of light and areas of darkness. But they were misty and fragmented, and my ant brain was not interested in them.
    No. The world was not about sight anymore. It was all … something else. I knew I was getting something. Something … a sense. A feeling, almost. Then, I could feel … I could feel my
    antennae waving. Waving back and forth, searching. Searching … no. They were
smelling.
    My antennae were smelling. I was looking for a scent. Several scents. It was not like human smell. Not like Jake had described dog scent when he’d morphed his dog, Homer.
    That kind of scent is full of possibilities. Subtleties.
    This was different. I was looking for just a few scents. Just a few smells.
    I tried to prepare myself. I had been through this before. There is usually a time, a brief few seconds, before the animal mind appears with all its fear and hunger and intensity. I needed to be prepared. Ants were tiny and weak. Surely their fear would be extreme. I would have to be—
    Then, wham!
    The ant’s mind erupted inside my own!
    There was no fear. None.
    There was no hunger.
    There was no … no
self.
No
me
.
    No me.
    No …
    My antennae swept the air. Strange. Not home. Not the colony. Enemy territory.
    Smell them. Smell their droppings. Smell the acridodors they smeared along the ground to mark their boundaries.
    
    Strangers. The smell of others. They would come. There would be killing.
    Killing. Soon.
    Move.
    
    I began moving. My six legs picked their way nimbly. I was a nearly blind insect, picking his way through a forest of giant, saw-edged grass blades.
    Food. The smell of food. Find it. Take it. Return to the colony with it.
    Change direction instantly. Move toward the smell of dead beetle. Others around. Us. Ours. They had the right smell. They were not enemy.
    
    Moving faster now. Feet feeling each blade of grass. Antennae sweeping the air, searching for the scent of the enemy. Searching for the scent of the dead carcass that we had to find and return to the colony.
    
    Close now. The scent of food was stronger.

    Mandibles working. We would touch the carcass. We would judge its size. If it was too big to carry, we would hack it into smaller pieces and carry the chunks to the colony.
    
    Or enemies would come. And kill.
    The smell of enemies was everywhere.
    There. We had reached the dead beetle. I scented the air. I touched it with my legs, touching again and again to learn the size.
    I?
My
legs?
    Confusion.
     It was big.
    The others were with me. I opened my cutting mandibles wide and bit into the beetle, slicing tough shell, biting into meat.
    
    Fight?
    Suddenly, I realized that there had been something … a sound. Yes, not a smell. Not a smell. Not a feel.
    humans!
Listen to me. You are not ants. Fight it!
Fight
it!> Yes, not a smell or a feel. In my head. My.
    Me. Marco.
     I screamed inside my own head. Tobias said later that it scared him half to death. He thought I was being killed.
    That wasn’t it at all. I had been reborn.
    
     Tobias cried.
     I said. exist.>
     Tobias said.
    But I could hear the others now, snapping back into reality.