The Academy: Book 2 (33 page)

Roxanne’s punch was degrees more forceful than anything he had ever seen a human do. It was frightening to watch.

It was as though her elbow and shoulder joints had stored up a large amount of explosives, and their detonation caused her arm to extend; the punch absolutely crumpled the Armadillos face. His cheekbones were shattered, and his head rocked back with such whiplash that Asa thought he surely must be dead. He fell to the water, limp.

The Goo Shooter had scored the fourth goal, but Roxanne, now free of the blond opponent’s grip, was speeding after her.

The player that Roxanne had delivered the incredible blow to resurfaced, to Asa’s relief. His face was a bloody, bone-ridden mess, and he was crying.

This was the first suspicion Asa had that Roxanne Hurst was anything beyond the usual Academy mutant.

The Goo Shooter soared low over the water towards the final goal. Roxanne was closing the gap, moving quickly. They were both very close to the goal.

The crowd screamed. If Roxanne was able to take out yet another player and push this Goo Shooter into the water, she could then fly unopposed to the other goals and
zig zag through them, winning the game for the Sharks.

Asa held his breath as he watched. At first, it appeared as though Roxanne would be much too slow to make it. She picked up speed, though, and in the end Roxanne’s outstretched hand was just inches from the Goo Shooter’s foot as she sailed through the final goal.

The cheering grew louder. Dismayed, Asa looked up on the scoreboard as they replayed the event on the television.

The Sharks had lost their first game, which was a big predictor in how well a team performed for the remainder of the season. On the bright
side, they had only been one tackle away from winning. This was one of the closest Winggame matches that Asa had ever seen, let alone played in.

If the redheaded Goo Shooter hadn’t taken out Bruce so early with that very improbable shot, the game would have been completely different.

The Armadillos around him cheered.

As Asa and the other players waded back towards, Town, he felt a vibration on his forearm. He gazed at his armband and found a message.

The Task is now beginning. You must immediately report to Town Hall, with the rest of your Winggame team.

Robert King

15

The
Tropics

             
Asa felt numb as he waded towards the edge of the Moat and pulled his body out of the water. He had known the Task was approaching, and that it could come at any moment, but the suddenness with which the message appeared on his armband had jarred him.

             
He checked his armband again, and reread the message, hoping that he had imagined it.

             
I’m not ready. My team doesn’t trust me yet.

             
The faces of the Sharks and Armadillos around him appeared calm and somber; Asa wondered how panicked they were on the inside.

             
The bleachers above the Moat were emptying as some students flew off the metal and others descended down the stairs, and then sauntered over the walkway.

             
The male Armadillo whose ribs Asa had broken was climbing the ladder out of the water very slowly. He sneered at Asa. Asa felt terrible. If he had known that they were about to be put into a lethal, gladiator-style contest immediately after the game, he would have taken great precaution not to hurt anyone.

             
Asa thought about how he and Roxanne were possibly the only students in the entire Academy to know that this semester’s Task would be completed in Winggame teams. Also, he and Jen were the only students to know that Robert King was using this semester’s Task as a way of cleansing the student population. As he walked, Asa could hear Robert King’s voice echoing in his head; he could see Robert King’s dilated pupils as he explained how he was going to ensure that Asa Palmer and Charlotte Stokes were killed. He felt as though he had just watched The Boss inject that red serum into his foot. It was like he was back on the beam over the aquarium again.

             
“The solution is so simple. We’re making this semester’s Task much more lethal than ever before. Increase the number of students that die, and you increase your chances of killing Palmer and Stokes. And, if it doesn’t work, there’s always next semester: We’d just have to devise a task harder and more lethal then. And, if they survive to their final semester, we might just put all the students in a situation where they’d all die. Why not? It’d be fair, wouldn’t it? All would have an equal chance!”

             
“Asa.”

             
The voice tore Asa from his daydream, startling him. He looked up and was initially glad to see that Teddy was standing beside him. Then after looking at his friend for a moment, he became intensely worried. Teddy’s pupils were still dilated an insane amount, and he twitched his head to the right.

             
He looks just like Robert King did after he took that drug. What is happening to you, Teddy? What is going on?

             
Now was no time to ask this, though. There were hundreds of people surrounding them as they walked down the snowy streets towards Town Hall. This would not be the time to explain that he had spied on Robert King during a meeting with Volkner, or that Teddy looked disturbingly similar to how the Boss had looked after he injected himself with that strange drug.

             
Asa gave Teddy a wary smile.

             
“I saw the Winggame match; you played great, Asa!”

             
“Tha…”

             
“Listen,” Teddy cut him off, and then gazed around. Teddy was talking fast, just as Robert King had. All of the tired wrinkles that Asa had grown accustomed to seeing on Teddy’s face were gone; it looked as though he had recently undergone Botox. “I’ve figured out why your echolocation doesn’t work in the big barrel in Flying Class. I’ve been thinking about it A LOT, Asa. All you have to do is change your tones while flying.”

             
“My tones?” Asa asked.

             
“Yes, tones, like musical notes. It has to do with the Doppler effect. When you cry out in the same tone multiple times in an enclosed area, the echoes get all jumbled and your brain can’t tell them apart. Can you change tones when you make your echolocation cries?”

             
They were now moving with the crowd into Town Hall. To the left and right were the long, polished hallways that led to the rooms from which captains drafted Winggame players at the beginning of the semesters. Multipliers and graduates were ushering the students not down these hallways, but through doors into the center of Town Hall where they were instructed to descend down massive flights of stairs. The inside structures were filled with marble and stone; there was not much to absorb sound, so the footsteps reverberated loudly as the students moved.

             
“I’ve never tried,” Asa said.

             
Teddy nodded, and then, without saying ‘goodbye,’ began to walk at a faster pace than Asa, and was soon lost in the crowd. Teddy had walked away in the middle of their conversation. Asa was worried about him.

             
The students were ushered lower and lower underground, through large, open doorways with enormous locks on them. The students around Asa kept their distance, as though there was a force field surrounding him. Time had not washed away his reputation as a heartless psychopath.

             
The Multipliers and graduates hollered at the students like they were a pack of animals. “Keep it movin’! Don’t slow down. Keep steppin’, move forward, that’s right. Keep it goin’!”

             
The stone hallways were dark and scarcely lit. Asa heard the flap of wings, and then saw a crow fly overhead. This was the first one he had seen in over a month, and he was glad to note that his guardians hadn’t abandoned him completely.

             
“Keep walkin’, nothing to see here. Forward you go! Just keep stepping.”

             
They kept moving, deeper and deeper, with many slowly curving hallways so that by the time they reached a room with the kiosks, Asa was extremely disoriented. The room was expansive with high, rough stone ceilings. Multipliers were barking orders.

             
“Hurry up! We’re on a time frame! Each of you, get into one of the kiosks, and follow the commands!”

             
Hundreds of kiosks lined the walls. They looked similar to portable lavatories, except constructed of chrome, not plastic. Asa found one with the word “Vacant” above the doorknob on the outside, and entered.

             
“Welcome to the Task,” came an electronic female voice from no particular area inside the machine. “First, say your last and then first name.”

             
“Palmer, Asa.”

             
“Palmer, Asa,” repeated the computer. “Six feet, one inches, second semester, Winggame team is the Sharks, Winggame captain is Roxanne Hurst. Is this correct?”

             
“Yes,” Asa said.

             
“Welcome, Asa. Take off all your clothing, including your suit, your armband, and your shoes, and place them into the slot.”

             
A small chute opened inside the kiosk and, reluctantly, Asa stripped naked and discarded his clothes. As usual, the heat had been turned up on his suit. Now that it was off his body, he began to shiver.

             
“Hold your breath,” the machine said. Without questioning it, Asa obeyed.

             
Piercingly cold water gushed over his body and down a drain that opened up in the floor. The water then grew hot so that it scalded Asa’s skin. He couldn’t take it, and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. At first, the water was soapy, but after a few moments, it was clear. The water stopped as fast as it had begun, and steam came up from the ground, burning Asa some more. After a few moments in which Asa cried out in pain, these things ceased, and a vent brought the humidity back to normal. Fans blew from all over, drying Asa. When he was dry, the fans stopped and the voice came back on.

             
“Bathing is essential to ensure that you do not transport any outside skin bacteria into the Task environment. Here is the suit you will wear in the Task,” said the voice, and a drawer opened. Within, Asa found new clothes, which were still warm as thought they had just been gotten out of the dryer. Asa reflected that it was odd how small things like the feel of warm fabrics made him miss his mother so immensely.

             
He put on the suit, the shoes, and the new armband. All of these things were the same as his normal suit except different colors. His shoes, suit, and armband were all made of digital camouflage, which was comprised of small, interspersed pixels of color. The dominating color was deep green.

             
“Sit,” came the next command, and a metal, cushionless chair rose out of the ground. Asa obeyed once more, and straps automatically whipped down from over his shoulders and latched into sockets beside his hips, so that the straps made an X over his chest.

             
Then, Asa’s stomach lurched and he started screaming. Without warning, his seat had dropped through the floor and he was falling in a dark cave, in which he could not see the bottom. Other students’ screams joined his, and he felt the air flutter around him as he counted the seconds he was falling in his head.