The Academy: Book 2 (54 page)

             
The only person who didn’t look at Asa as he entered was Charlotte. She stretched, contorting herself in super-human positions. Last semester she had obtained a mutation that allowed her to be more flexible. She picked her left foot above her head, facing the wall; Shashowt sat beside her. Asa noticed that she never looked at him anymore, and Asa couldn’t blame her. Asa had been unkind to her, rejecting her affection for reasons outside of her control. It was painful to see her thick brown hair and porcelain skin. He thought she was beautiful. Turning from her, he went to his own corner and began to stretch.

             
From just below the enormous barrel maze stood Stridor. He had one of his enormous hands resting on the wood and was stretching out his quadriceps.
He’s so competitive. He’s going to be upset if I win this today.

             
Asa was painfully aware that Teddy was not there. Again, he thought of what it must be like for Teddy to be slowly changing into a monster.
Maybe it would have been more humane just to kill him, like Conway wanted.

             
Derden the Multiplier was the only authority in the room, and he called names from a list, asking students to be shot up the vacuum tube beside the wooden platform before racing down inside of it. The names were called at random. Asa noted how much faster everyone had become. During their first Flying Class, Stridor completed the maze in the fastest time, at twenty-two seconds. Now, this was about average. Stridor could typically complete the course in sixteen seconds, and Asa was usually through in fifteen seconds.

             
Derden called Stridor’s name and Asa watched as he was sucked up into the tube to the starting platform at the top. High above, Stridor appeared to be smaller than an ant. Asa believed the wooden obstacle to be as tall as the Empire State Building. Stridor dove into the opening at the top of the maze, which was almost as wide as a tennis court. As he moved downward, blocked from view by the wooden structure, Asa could hear the air whistling off his body at the incredible speed. There was the ever-humming sound of machinery on the inside, where poles and hoops were moving back and forth, impeding students’ flights.

             
There was a loud
CRACK
, and Stridor cursed. The sound was unmistakable; Stridor had just broken through a wooden barrier. The whistling stopped momentarily as he slowed down within the giant barrel-like course. When Stridor flew through the end of the course and landed in the water on the other side, the digital stopwatch on the wall read “18:52.” Asa smiled. With a conservative flight, he would be able to shoot the spear gun today and implement Teddy’s strategy. 

             
Surprisingly, that was the day’s best time as Derden called Asa up to the platform. After Asa went, there was only Shashowt behind him, who was no threat. Shashowt averaged twenty-five seconds.

             
Even though Asa had been through the course dozens of times, he found himself nervous as he walked towards the clear vacuum tube that sucked students up to the top. He was a proficient flyer, which logically should have taken away his fear of heights, but this wasn’t the case. Every class when he stood on the rickety overhang that led out to the top of the barrel maze, his knees still shook and his heart still hammered. He wondered if this sensation would ever go away.

             
The transparent vacuum tube reflected and distorted the harsh white lights overhead. Asa’s feet were loud on the stone as he headed towards the door to the tube. His hand reached the knob and he was about to open it when Derden slid in between Asa and the glass.

             
“You look tired,” Derden said, his dark eyes unreadable. His nose was severely crooked, which was somehow unnerving on his otherwise symmetrical face. “After Travis and I left last night, were you busy?”

             
“Not particularly.”

             
Travis sneered. “Something funny happened. About an hour and a half after Travis and I left, the GPS told us that Teddy’s armband was no longer located within your dwelling. Isn’t that strange?”

             
Asa’s mouth was dry, and he felt the blood run out of his face. He shrugged, trying to look normal. “That is strange. Computers mess up, though. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out.”

             
Derden roughly tugged at his hair in frustration and emitted an unkind laugh. “Asa, I don’t think that it was a computer malfunction.” He lowered his voice and all the fake humor instantly faded from his face. “Even funnier, the GPS seems to think that Teddy’s armband is no longer with us. It’s as though it fell off the face of the earth.” His expression became more serious, still. The corners of his mouth were drawn down and his jaw was tight. The severity of his expression made it difficult for Asa to keep eye contact, but he managed. “Or maybe someone destroyed it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, Palmer?”

             
“No, sir.”

             
“Where is Teddy?”

             
“I don’t know, sir.”

             
“Very well. Have it your way. I suspect that you are aware that punishments for liars are strict.”

             
“I understand, sir.”

             
With a frustrated growl, Derden stepped aside, letting Asa open the tube and step in. Asa got inside and shut the door, thankful that the conversation with Derden was over with. Just as the different pressures were being built inside the vacuum, Asa saw Derden wipe the corner of his mouth off on his tweed jacket, leaving a black Salvaserum stain on his sleeve.

             
Then, there was a
WHOOSH
sound and Asa’s stomach dropped as he shot up through the tube. As his velocity slowed, Asa caught his breath before grasping the handle at the top, opening the door, and stepping out on the unsteady deck. He walked out onto the creaking wood and far below he could see that Derden and Shashowt were conversing. With the distance, there was no chance of hearing what they were saying; from so high up, Derden and Shashowt each appeared to be one millimeter tall.

             
Asa walked forward and extracted his wings slowly, trying not to jostle his body too much at such great heights. He walked out on the deck until he was directly over the top of the barrel-maze. Looking down, he could see one hundred feet into the barrel before the obstacle course had its first curve, making the rest impossible to see. There was a mechanical hum rising up to him from inside, and wooden rings and poles were automatically rotating within. He looked down and emitted an echolocation cry. Immediately, the odd sensation returned to him. For a second he went deaf, and then a moment later he had a vivid picture of the course in his mind. He saw that directly after the turn there was a canvas tarp that stretched from one side of the course to the other. There had never before been a tarp in this area of the course, which was reconfigured for every class period so that the students had to react as they flew instead of merely memorizing the order of the course and flying accordingly. He had learned that the barrel maze was repaired nightly (probably by raccoons, he suspected), but injuries that the course sustained during the day remained until the end of class. Through his echolocation, Asa was given a clear picture of the tarp. He could see that it was riddled with punctured gaps from where other students had flown through before him.

             
Taking a deep breath, Asa let his toes hang over the edge. He leaned forward until he was falling headfirst into the maze, feeling the wind rush over his body.

             
He flew at a breathtaking speed towards the tarp, and as he approached one of the punctured gaps, he retracted his wings, making himself smaller, and shot through. Once on the other side, he immediately shot out dozens of echolocation cries of all different tones—it was a bit like singing, but with fast, terse notes. As the sound waves returned to his mutated ears, his brain was given an image of the different rings and windmill formations that the moving wooden barriers created. Adrenaline pumped through his body and for the time he was in the maze he wasn’t tired at all. He extracted his wings and continued to rush forward.

             
He twisted, turned, maneuvered his wings, and by the time he came out the end and landed in the water at the finish line, he was panting. The speed at which he had been traveling propelled him forty feet deep in the cold pool of water, and it wasn’t until he came up for air and saw the digital clock say “16:11” that he knew he had finished with the day’s fastest time.

             
He waded over to the edge and pulled himself out onto the slick stone floor. “Mr. Palmer, fastest time yet again. Good job,” said McCoy.

             
Stridor watched Asa as he climbed the bleachers and took a spot next to Viola at the top. He was still panting and dripping wet as he sat down.

             
“Good job,” said Viola, who didn’t look up from the book she was reading on her armband. In the Academy, the students didn’t see an act like this as rude. Studying for hours on end was necessary, and sometimes being nice was an unaffordable privilege.

             
“Thanks,” Asa said, and let her get back to studying.

             
He sat quietly and watched as Shashowt came through the finish line at a little over 22 seconds, which was a good showing for him, but did not change the fact that Asa had the fastest time.

             
After Shashowt pulled himself out of the water, McCoy waved his arm at Asa. “C’mon up,” he said, asking him to approach the spear gun at the end of the room. Only the back end of the gun was in the room with them; the barrel was lodged through the wall, facing a round, stone room with circular target twenty yards away.

             
As Asa made his way off of the stone bleachers and over the floor beside the pool, his heart was thudding. No one else seemed excited. Some were watching Asa quietly as he approached the spear gun, while others studied on their armbands. They had seen Asa, Stridor, and others shoot at the target over fifty times, and the result was always the same; even if the shot was perfectly aimed, the spear struck an invisible barrier and crumbled before making it to the target.

             
Asa looked up at the clock positioned directly above the spear gun, which showed that it was 9:45 AM. He rubbed his hands together and tried to concentrate. He knew that he might only get one shot. The night before, Teddy had explained to Asa that it was curious that there was an analog clock situated just above the spear gun; most other clocks in the Academy were digital. Teddy also explained that the invisible barriers that Stridor and Asa often times hit seemed to move. Some days, when they shot the spear gun the spear only went a few feet before crumpling. Other days, it went almost all the way to the target before striking the invisible barrier. It was Teddy’s belief that the hands of the analog clock corresponded with the movement of invisible barriers within the circular room.

Asa sighed, and tried to imagine a clock face drawn onto the circular room. He imagined a giant “6” next to the spear gun, and the far back area being where the “12” would sit. If these things were true, the target was currently sitting behind an invisible barrier that corresponded with the hour hand, and the minute hand. He thought that if he could wait until 10:20 that he would have a fair shot at the target, after the hour and minute hand moved out of the way. He sighed. If Teddy’s ideas were true, Stridor could get the best time the next day, learn from Asa’s tactics today, and hit the target. He would have to shoot perfectly.

He waited, trying to calm his nerves. After ten minutes of doing nothing McCoy came up and put a hand on Asa’s shoulder. “Asa, we haven’t got all day.”

“Let me take my time,” Asa said, and then stared back into the circular room. He didn’t want to reveal his strategy. He wanted to make it look like he was simply thinking, not waiting for invisible barriers to move, so that his strategy wasn’t revealed.

Not saying a word in response, McCoy stepped back on the damp stone and watched Asa.

Ten o’clock came and went without a word spoken in the room. Asa knew that all of the students would be late to their next class, but it didn’t matter. As the minute hand swung around to the “4,” making it 10:20 AM, Asa stepped up to the spear gun. Now, all of the students were staring at him; none were studying.