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This article is written from a Real World point of view.

"It looks like a machine, almost. Like it's made out of metal."
"Yes. I think your friend Erek may be an android."
Marco and Ax[src]

The Android, published in August 1997 and written by K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant, is the tenth book in the Animorphs series. It is the third book narrated by Marco and his first book as sole narrator.

Plot

Official Description

When Marco runs into his old friend Erek he doesn't think too much of it. He's got a couple of more important things to do. Like helping to save the world. But then Marco finds out Erek's been hanging with some of the kids at The Sharing. And he starts to think that something just a little weird is going on.

So Marco, Jake, and Ax decide to morph and check old Erek out. Just to see if he's been infested with a Yeerk. The good news is that Erek's not a human-Controller. The bad news is that Erek's not even human...

Plot Summary

Marco talks Jake into sneaking into an outdoor concert as dogs. While at the concert, they see a flyer for The Sharing and they recognize the person who was handing them out, a kid named Erek King. As Erek pets Marco, he and Jake discover something strange about him, which they later tell the others – Erek has no smell. The next day after school, Marco meets up with Tobias, and they go out flying to spy on Erek. They find him being hassled by some bullies, which he's running away from. As he's running, he trips, sprawls into the street, and hits the side of a bus. For a second, he disappears and in his place something made of metal appears, then Erek reappears as if nothing had happened.

Marco goes home and immediately calls Jake, but instead of Jake, Tom answers the phone. He invites Marco to The Sharing and suggests that Marco bring his dad. Jake arrives and takes the phone, Marco tells him they have to get together right away. After hanging up Marco tries to calm down over the fact that the Yeerks were interested in his dad, and he would not let that happen. The Animorphs later meet up with Ax, who believes that Erek is an android that uses a holographic projection to pass for human. The Animorphs need a morph that has a different sort of vision that could see through the hologram, and Cassie figures out the perfect choice: a wolf spider, which Marco and Ax are chosen to morph.

Animorphs 10 the android inside cover only high res

Marco as a wolf spider sees that Erek's not human

They fly out towards a lake in the mountains where The Sharing is holding a water-skiing party. Marco and Ax morph to wolf spider, and with their spider eyes they see through Erek's hologram of human skin and clothes and discover that Erek is actually an android. Just then, Marco gets snatched up and eaten by a crow. As he's dying, he thinks of his mother, which gives him the motive to demorph and burst out of the crow. When he finishes morphing back to human, he is discovered by Erek. Erek reveals that he knows Marco is one of the "Andalite bandits" that have been giving Visser Three trouble, and Marco figures this is the end, but Erek tells Marco to bring the others to his house for a meeting of allies, to join together to fight the Yeerks. Marco goes home, where during dinner, his dad tells him about about a new job with the military at a place called Matcom and how before Marco's mom's "death", they had perfect peace and love and how one night, she talked about not being taken away if you stay away from the military. Marco realizes it was then that she became a controller, and why Tom wanted Marco's dad to join The Sharing, the Yeerks wanted him.

The Animorphs arrive at Erek's house, Rachel (in grizzly bear morph) and Tobias stay outside as backup, while Jake, Marco, Cassie, and Ax (in human morph) enter where they meet Erek's dad, and he shows them down to the basement, which starts going down underground like an elevator, to a huge underground park filled with dogs and androids playing together, they meet with Erek and he explains everything, that he and the androids are called the Chee. They were created hundreds of thousands of years ago by a peaceful and highly advance race of dog-like aliens called the Pemalites, and the Chee, which means "friend" in the Pemalite language, were built to be companions, and they all lived together peacefully. But then they were attacked by an alien race called the Howlers. Because the Pemalites were pacifists, they couldn't fight back, and almost all of them were wiped out. The few surviving Pemalites and a few hundred Chee escaped and headed towards Earth, which they hadn't visited in fifty-thousand years, but the Howlers had unleash germ weapons, killing the Pemalites. The Chee couldn't save their creators, so in order to keep part of them alive, they harbored the essence of the Pemalites into an Earth creature much like them- wolves. From that union, the happy-go-lucky domesticated dog was born.

The Chee want to save Earth because humans and dogs depend on each other. Erek tells the Animorphs about how he and some of his friends have infiltrated Yeerk organizations. The Yeerks' technology isn't sufficient to distinguish them from humans, allowing them to easily enter undetected. These Chee have taken in the Yeerks willingly, keeping the parasites captive while providing their own Kandrona Rays to it as well as tapping into its memories. When the time comes to return to the Yeerk Pool, they simply project a holographic parasite leaving them. They also learn that the Yeerks are working on a master computer that could infiltrate and rewrite all of the software in Earth's computers, allowing total control of all of Earth's computers. The heart system is a Pemalite crystal, a powerful computer processor that the Yeerks obtained from a Dayang trader, and the crystal could even rewrite the Chee's pacifist programming and allow them to fight. Unfortunately, the crystal is highly guarded by Hork-Bajir, and is in a room of total darkness and wires, the slightest kind of light or touch of the wires would set off the alarms. Marco says he'll do it, because the company his dad is working with is run by the Yeerks, and if they get the crystal, they won't infest him. Now they just need to figure out a way how they can navigate the defenses, and Cassie knows how they can do that: morph into bats.

Marco later gets a call from Erek, saying that the Yeerks are beefing up security and they must strike tonight. They fly out in their owl morphs to the Matcom building, where Marco and Ax (in spider morph) and Jake, Cassie, and Rachel (in cockroach morph) travel through the air ducts and almost get burned in the furnace, but finally get into the room where they demorph and morph into bats. They use echolocation and easily pass the defenses to get to the crystal. Unfortunately, they can't navigate back with the crystal, so they decide to risk it and burst through the door in their battle morphs, setting off the alarms, and alerting many Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers with rifles. Marco sees Erek outside seconds before the fight begins.

They have a violent and bloody battle where the outcome is likely the Animorphs will lose and die. As Marco is starting to die, he still sees Erek outside. Suddenly, he wakes up outside, back in human form, and sees the others are okay. Jake tells Marco he was dead, but Erek gave him an electric shock to restart his heart. Marco sees Erek crying; they explain to Marco that in order to save them, Erek used the crystal to rewrite his programming and he killed all the Controllers. Marco tries to comfort Erek, but Erek couldn't handle living with the memory of the bloodshed because, unlike humans, the Chee never forget. Erek gives Marco the crystal saying he changed his programming back, he will never fight again, but he will help the Animorphs fight the Yeerks, just not with violence. A few days later, Jake and Marco are at the beach throwing a frisbee with Jake's dog, Homer. Marco takes out the crystal from his pocket and wondering what to do with it when Homer and two other dogs snatch it and they take it out into the ocean where it gets dropped and washed away.

Appearances

Protagonists:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

Major/Highlighted Events

  • The Animorphs discover that Marco's old classmate, Erek King, is a Chee, a race of super-advanced androids. In order to fight the Yeerks, Erek asks the Animorphs to retrieve a Pemalite crystal, a supercomputer stored in a heavily guarded Yeerk facility, so that he may remove his violence-prohibiting restrictions and aid them in their combat efforts.
  • The Chee are introduced for the first time.
  • Marco's father is given a contract at Matcom Corporation, a Yeerk-owned computer firm that coincidentally is where the Pemalite crystal is being analyzed and stored. Marco discovers that Tom, on the Yeerks' behalf, is attempting to have his father infested, which prompts Marco to transition from his usual sardonic personality into a rage-filled demeanor.
  • Marco's father discloses to Marco that his mother and he often fought when they were younger, but at some point, she stopped engaging in any domestic scuffles, which Marco's father chalked up to them having found a rare strain of pure peace and love. Marco, however, is aghast when he realizes it is because his mother was infested, making him realize that not only did his father's marital relationship become more satisfying after his mother became a Controller, but that his mother had been a Controller for quite some time prior to her faked death.
  • The Animorphs successfully steal the Pemalite crystal and engage in their second outnumbered fight against numerous Hork-Bajir-Controllers, following their first serious combat situation in The Stranger. During the fight, Marco, in his gorilla morph, is disemboweled, brutally beaten with both sharp and blunt instruments, and is eventually stabbed in the heart. Marco succumbs to his injuries, although before he dies, he manages to get the crystal to Erek.
  • Using the crystal to remove his restrictions, Erek brutally murders all of the human-Controllers as well over two dozen Hork-Bajir-Controllers. His actions are witnessed by the other Animorphs except Marco, who has died, with the brutality moving Rachel to tears. After committing mass murder, Erek takes the Animorphs to a safe location, managing to resuscitate Marco's heart to bring him back to life, allowing Marco to demorph from his fatal injuries, as well as reattaching Ax's severed arm. Traumatized by his actions, Erek reinstalls his initial programming and offers to help the Animorphs henceforth in a non-violent manner, unable to bring himself to kill again. The Pemalite crystal is then dropped into the ocean.
  • Ax reveals that whenever they morph into smaller creatures, their original excess mass is sent to Z-space. However, there is a slight risk that a passing ship, traveling at light speed, would disintegrate their mass. This revelation plays a vital role in The Decision.

Morphs

Morpher Morphs acquired Morphs used
Jake Brown Bat Golden Retriever (Homer), Peregrine Falcon, Housefly, Great Horned Owl, Cockroach, Brown Bat, Siberian Tiger
Rachel Brown Bat Bald Eagle, Grizzly Bear, Great Horned Owl, Cockroach, Brown Bat
Cassie Wolf Spider, Brown Bat Wolf Spider, Osprey, Great Horned Owl, Cockroach, Brown BatWolf
Marco Irish Setter, Wolf Spider, Brown Bat Irish Setter, Great Horned Owl, Osprey, Wolf Spider, Brown Bat, Silverback Gorilla (Big Jim)
Ax Wolf Spider, Brown Bat Northern Harrier, Wolf Spider, Human (Main), Great Horned Owl, Brown Bat

Trivia

Animorphs contest meet the real erek king final

Fan Erek King won a Scholastic story contest and K.A. chose to name the Chee character after him. He was featured in an issue of the Animorphs Alliance flash newsletter

  • The cover quote is, "Fear has a new name.... Yeerk."
  • The inside front cover quote is, "Along came a spider...."
  • Chapman, who was referred to as the assistant principal in the previous books, is referred to as a vice principal in this book.
  • This marks the first time that an Animorph is killed, as well as the first time that an Animorph is revived from death.
  • According to the Anibase, when Animorphs first started, a contest was held where the winner would get his or her name in an Animorphs book. The winner was a fan named Erek King, and the character the winner was named after became one of the most major secondary characters in the series.
  • This book features Marco with a new, shorter hair style. This is because editor Tonya Alicia Martin called K.A. Applegate and said, "We have this really cute Marco model, but he has short hair." So Applegate agreed to give Marco a trim and had fun having the other characters tease him about it throughout this book. Marco continued to keep his hair short throughout the rest of the series.
  • Jake mentions criticizing Rachel and Cassie for using morphing for personal reasons, a reference to their rat morph experiment in The Secret.
  • Marco refers to Tobias as "Bird-boy", a nickname that he continues to use throughout the series. The nickname was first coined by Tobias himself in The Visitor.
  • Marco's father mentions Marco's friend No's computer software for the observatory; this is a callback to the events of The Alien.

Goofs/Inconsistencies

  • Erek says the word 'Animorphs' on p111, even though he should not know the word as no one had told him that.

Gallery

U.S. Images

International Covers

References

Books
Main Series #1 The Invasion | #2 The Visitor | #3 The Encounter | #4 The Message | #5 The Predator | #6 The Capture | #7 The Stranger | #8 The Alien | #9 The Secret | #10 The Android | #11 The Forgotten | #12 The Reaction | #13 The Change | #14 The Unknown | #15 The Escape | #16 The Warning | #17 The Underground | #18 The Decision | #19 The Departure | #20 The Discovery | #21 The Threat | #22 The Solution | #23 The Pretender | #24 The Suspicion | #25 The Extreme | #26 The Attack | #27 The Exposed | #28 The Experiment | #29 The Sickness | #30 The Reunion | #31 The Conspiracy | #32 The Separation | #33 The Illusion | #34 The Prophecy | #35 The Proposal | #36 The Mutation | #37 The Weakness | #38 The Arrival | #39 The Hidden | #40 The Other | #41 The Familiar | #42 The Journey | #43 The Test | #44 The Unexpected | #45 The Revelation | #46 The Deception | #47 The Resistance | #48 The Return | #49 The Diversion | #50 The Ultimate | #51 The Absolute | #52 The Sacrifice | #53 The Answer | #54 The Beginning
Megamorphs The Andalite's Gift | In the Time of Dinosaurs | Elfangor's Secret | Back to Before
Chronicles The Andalite Chronicles | The Hork-Bajir Chronicles | VISSER | The Ellimist Chronicles
Alternamorphs The First Journey | The Next Passage
TV Tie-Ins Meet the Stars of Animorphs
Graphic Novels #1 The Invasion | #2 The Visitor | #3 The Encounter | #4 The Message
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