The Academy: Book 2 (28 page)

             
He knew that if he needed to, he could fly back to the ladder where they had come from. If, however, he slipped or the cable suddenly wouldn’t support his weight anymore, he would land in the water before he had time to react. Once in the water, he didn’t know if he would be able to get out. The beams were five feet above the surface, which was too high to reach, and he would not be able to fly directly out of the water—he wouldn’t be able to gather the momentum.
And what’ll happen to me if can’t get out of there?

             
The thought made him shudder.

The bottom of the tank was too far below him to be seen. From his vantage point on top of the water, he could visualize three sha
rks circling far below.

             
Asa and Jen wriggled along the beams for minutes longer, and Jen looked absolutely exhausted. Her hair was damp with sweat, and she was breathing very deeply through her mouth. She kept her mouth wide open, so that her quick inhalations and exhalations wouldn’t be noisy. The pressurized spouts were shooting water into the surface all around them, and Asa was so mesmerized by the whales, sharks and dolphins below him that when he looked up and saw that they were approaching the far end of the tank, he was startled to remember that they had come here to eaves drop upon a meeting that was supposedly between Robert King and Volkner.

             
The gently swinging beams that Asa and Jen were crawling upon reached all the way to the other side of the aquarium, and they could have slid to the end, and looked over the edge. Jen, however, stopped fifteen yards before she reached the edge, and looked down. From this point, through the water and the glass, they could see Robert King’s office below them.
Hopefully, if we don’t go any closer, he won’t look up through the aquarium and see us.

             
Robert King’s office was situated so that when he sat in his desk, the left wall was the aquarium. The aquarium had been placed there so that the richest man in history could work on his computer, listen to the water trickle into the massive tank, and occasionally gaze out at the leviathan-like creatures drifting in the absurd amount of space.

             
Asa’s heartbeat quickened. He turned to Jen and they shared a smile. It was incredible to Asa that he was able to look upon one of the most protected areas of the entire Academy, but it also made sense. Robert King hadn’t thought to put up any security measures that prohibited raccoons from getting to his office, and why should he have? They would only come in to clean. And who in their right mind would crawl through the raccoon dormitories and then balance over millions of gallons of mutated-shark infested waters to spy on one of the most dangerous men of all time?

             
Asa looked at Jen, who was now focused on the office. Her face was beaded with sweat.
She’s crazy,
Asa thought.

             
Robert King’s office was roughly the size of a tennis court. There was a bluish, soft hue about the place, due to the large amount of water that filtered the entering light. In the middle of the room, raised atop a golden platform, was Robert King’s desk. The man who could afford nearly anything had a rather simple desk; it was wooden, and well shined. In front of this desk were two leather chairs that visitors could sit in. These were not elevated, so that when someone came into Robert King’s office to speak with him, The Boss would be situated above them.

             
On the left side of the desk was the aquarium. The right wall was an incredibly large and intricate mural of the Academy’s five mountains, with King Mountain standing the tallest. Also, just higher than Robert King’s desk, there was a picture of Asa on the wall. This image was framed, and much larger than life-size. Asa was confused to see that this image had been photoshopped, just like the polaroid that the female David have given to Asa in the arctic jungle. It was altered so that Asa appeared older than he was, sporting a thick, black beard and wearing a lab coat. In the picture, Asa had his arm around the shoulders of an orangutan, which was wearing a flowery dress and a pearl necklace. They were smiling, posing for the camera.

             
The orangutan’s smile was odd, though. Instead of smiling jubilantly in a crazed laugh, as primates are known to do, it seemed to simply be pulling the edges of its mouth back from its teeth, like humans sometimes do when they don’t feel like taking a picture, but are obliged to. The orangutan’s posture was entirely polite, and though the posed smile was artificial, she did not look unhappy.

             
Asa had to stop himself from gasping when he saw what was transcribed in big, blocky, golden letters above the image.

Francine Black and Edmund Palmer

              Asa let the gravity of those words sink in for a moment. He had anticipated the lettering to say, “Asa Palmer,” not his father’s name. He suddenly felt a little cold and stupid, and he realized the polaroid that the ape David in the jungle had handed him was not of himself, but of his father.

             
Asa had never seen an image of his father so young before, so he had not recognized him in the image. He studied the face on the wall that he shared with the biological dad that he had never met. Asa considered how the wings that were folded into his back had been thought up by his father, along with the strength boosts, and probably the echolocation ability that Asa had. Edmund Palmer had been brilliant, and had stood up to Robert King and the other owners of Alfatrex when they had wanted to create more Multipliers. This act seemed like such a noble, fearless thing to do.

So then why did you kill yourself, dad?
Asa thought.
Why did you leave the world to go on without you? Were you scared? Did some obstacle seem too big for you to overcome? Is that why you gave up and left me and mom to navigate this wolf-flu ridden world by ourselves? Is that why you gave up?

Asa then realized that his father probably also helped to create the Wolf Flu that had killed his mother.

Why?
Asa thought.
Why would someone do such a thing? And why, if the polaroid was of my dad, was the David in the arctic jungle carrying it around?

Next to the image of Edmund Palmer and the orangutan was a poem. As Asa looked at it, he again had a hard time containing his surprise. It was a riddle. Conway had told him about this in the caves behind King Mountain last semester, and Asa had not thought of it again until this point.

The memory came back to him now. He recalled that before his father killed himself, he requested that the Academy be moved to the middle of a series of mountains, where it now was. According to Conway, Asa’s father had buried something of importance deep underground in the middle of the mountains, and then dug a moat (which is now The Moat), around it. Whatever it was that Asa’s father buried, he demanded that it be in a guarded place. No one knew what was in the vault. Also, before he died, Edmund sent out this riddle to all Academy members. Just as no one knew what is in the guarded vault, no one knew what the riddle meant. Asa read the words on the wall of Robert King’s office:

Solutions and weapons that are known

Can be used, or worse, destroyed

Best keep them in the void

There are two spaces that these secrets are maintained

One is metal, it’s locked away

The other, though, isn’t so easily disposed

You can’t see it, it doesn’t say hello

It doesn’t make a difference

It’s never seen

It doesn’t affect any pedigree

Where two come and give half each

This is where it will be

You’ll find that I’ve only stolen from me

              The poem struck Asa as nonsense. But, his father, one of the smartest men in history, had written it—so surely it had some meaning, Asa suspected. And why did Robert King put the poem up there on the wall, right next to his desk? Quietly, Asa used a pen function on his armband to transcribe the poem. He didn’t want to forget it.

             
Also of note along the right side of the wall was a large cage made entirely of gold. Inside the cage, the floor was carpeted with a red-and-blue-checkered rug. Also inside of this cage, there were building blocks, various picture books, a beach ball, yellow and blue beanbag chairs, a small table with plastic chairs and crayons and a coloring book atop it, a miniature slide, and many stuffed animals.

             
A young chimp was sitting at the table and coloring. Asa assumed that this chimp must be a David, one of the primates that were genetically engineered to be smarter than usual. He was wearing jean shorts and had a yellow baseball cap atop his head; his hairy torso was bare, except for a red bandana around his neck. There was also a metal apparatus around his neck, with small, glowing red light in the center of it. He colored with his crayons patiently, not making much noise.

             
Robert King was sitting at the desk in the middle of the room, not dead at all. Asa hadn’t seen that face since he had watched the video of Troy Webber, the police officer, killing someone who looked suspiciously like The Boss. The memory was burned into Asa’s brain.

Troy pulled the man close again and with tears still streaming down his cheeks screamed: “BEG FOR ME! BEG LIKE MY WIFE BEGGED THE DOCTORS!” Caught in the moment, Troy pulled the restrained man’s face closer and sunk his teeth into
his cheek; he bit hard, pulling and tugging at the grotesquely elastic skin.

             
Blood ran down King’s face and his screaming reached a new level of panic. “I’M NOT ROBERT KING!”

             
“OWN UP TO IT,” Troy yelled with bloody teeth.

             
“I DIDN’T KILL YOUR WIFE!”

             
Troy was done talking. The rage in his face was beyond reason at this point. He lunged at Robert King, tackling him out of the frame. There was more yelling, and the sound of a struggle. Then “Please, please.”

             
A series of seven gunshots followed. After the first three there was screaming, and the last four were followed by only Troy crying.

             
Asa felt sick. If Troy Webber had not killed Robert King in that video, who had he killed? And if he
had
killed Robert King, who was this, sitting in his office?

             
Whoever this person was, he looked just like Robert King.

             
Yeah, but so had that other guy!

             
The man was reading paper documents by the light of a metallic desktop lamp. He looked tired, older than Asa had remembered.

             
There was an abrupt, loud buzzing noise, followed by a voice coming out of a speaker: “Boss, we’ve got Volkner outside your door. Do you want us to bring him in?”

             
“Hold on, I’ll buzz you in after a couple seconds. I appreciate you, David!” Eerily, Robert King’s words sounded cheery, almost jubilant, but his face looked miserable. It was hard to believe that the voice and the facial expression were from the same being.

             
“Thanks, Boss. I appreciate you.”

             
Robert King opened up his desk drawer, and took out a blue elastic band, a vile of blood-red liquid, and one of many plastic-wrapped, sterile syringes. He unwrapped the syringe, poked the needle through the porous cap of the vile, and carefully drew out half a syringe.