The Academy: Book 2 (82 page)

             
Allen’s expression changed. The happiness left his blue eyes and they suddenly looked cold and unforgiving. Straining not to break Allen’s intimidating gaze, Asa couldn’t help but think about how Allen had shot Bruce’s foot off while interrogating him. “Do you really feel that way, Palmer?”

             
Asa’s anxiety shot up inside of him. He thought that he had said the right thing—
but then why is Allen looking at me like that? Is he trying to trick me?
Not wanting to take too long to respond, Asa committed to an answer: “Yes. I want to kill someone tonight; I want to kill very badly!” He smiled as menacingly as he could; he tried to look brave despite how thoroughly scared and unsure of himself he was.

              For a moment, Allen just stood there, staring at Asa. Then, he picked up his right hand and slapped Asa on the shoulder. “See, Ned? He’s alright!” Allen began to bark out sharp chops of laughter. “You want to kill someone tonight, do you?”

             
“Yes.”

             
Allen grabbed Asa’s hair and his face grew serious—evil. “That’s ‘Yes, sir.’ Got it?”

             
“Yes, sir.”

             
“Good.”

             
Allen continued to hold Asa by the back of his hair. Asa looked over at Ned, whose eyebrows were still pulled together in skepticism. It didn’t seem like Ned believed Asa was now a Multiplier.
That’s fine,
Asa thought.
I just need Allen to believe me. No one will attack me without Allen’s approval.

             
Allen growled: “I’m only going to say this once, Palmer. So listen.”

             
Asa nodded. He looked behind Allen and saw that the rest of the Multipliers, including Edna, who was now conscious, were standing near the waterfall as though waiting on something. Edna and Rose were sharing a cigarette; both of them had terribly red eyes.

             
Allen continued: “There’s a lot you don’t know. You’ve only just been turned, and I know that you feel a little weird. You probably feel aggressive, and angry, and out of control.”

             
Asa nodded and took on an expression of slight amazement as though Allen were reading his thoughts.

             
Allen smiled, showing teeth that were still tinged red with Asa’s blood. “It’s a lot of fun being a Multiplier, but it’s also hard work. And, it’s a lot of taking orders. The Hive is a huge organization, and most everyone is taking orders from someone. A good Multiplier is an obedient Multiplier. Take Volkner, for example. He put his life on the line to give the Hive information about the Academy. He’s very useful. He’s very obedient. He’s a good Multiplier.”

             
Asa nodded again.

             
Allen let go of Asa’s hair and rubbed his hands together. “Tonight is going to be an exercise in obedience. You’re not going to understand everything that’s going on, and you’re not going to get to make any decisions. But your role in our mission tonight is going to be crucial in helping the Hive to achieve its goal, which is to turn every human on earth into a Multiplier.” A thin line of Salvaserum ran out the corner of Allen’s mouth at the thought of changing so many humans.

             
Asa nodded obediently. His mind was buzzing with questions.
If we’re not attacking the dance, what are we doing? How long can I keep this up? Should I try to escape out into the jungle? If I go through this mission with them, will they take me to the Hive after we’re done? Surely if they take me to the Hive they’ll figure out that I’m a human. There are a quarter million Multipliers in the Hive, wherever it is. How would we get there—using a helicopter, a car, on foot?

             
“I’ll give you a brief explanation of what it is we are doing. I find that if my teammates are well informed, they can make better decisions.” Allen checked his watch. “We need to leave here in two minutes. But I think I can give you a brief summary

             
“Your father, Edmund Palmer, created us. You know that much already, I’m sure. Teddy’s told me some things.

“Your daddy grew to be scared of us; he was afraid that we might try to take over the world,” Allen’s mouth spread into a vicious smile at this sentence. “So, he devised a little hiccup in our DNA that he thought would make it harder for us to reproduce until we had a good chunk of the world’s population. As you might have heard, we can onl
y Multiply once a month. So, for instance, I just bit you. Now, if I tried to bite a student at the dance, I could inject my Salvaserum into them, but it wouldn’t do anything. There’s a special solute that is only released through the Salvaserum whenever we are actually biting someone, and this special solute is what turns the victim into a Multiplier. This strange solute is what we can only produce once a month.”

Allen waved his hands. “Now, again, we only have two minutes, so I’m being brief. The story is a lot longer than this. Teddy says that Conway told you some, but I don’t know how much. A while ago, your daddy made a riddle, and no one knew what it meant. It goes like this:”

Allen began to say the riddle as though he had recited it a millions times:

“
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”

             
Allen smiled. “What concerns us tonight is the first part of the riddle. We believe that your daddy made some kind of vaccine, a ‘weapon’ that is hidden in the middle of Town. Martin Chandler and Volkner have helped us in investigating this, and we now know that there is a secret passage underneath the Shop that has some very peculiar security devices attached to it; it’s as though someone specifically didn’t want Multipliers to be able to get in. When you see, you’ll understand. We have reason to believe that your daddy hid a serum under the Shop that will allow us Multipliers to reproduce more than once a month—we could reproduce every day if we needed to with this new mutation!”

             
“Wow,” Asa said. Now, he almost wished that they were simply going to Town Hall to kill Academy students. What was happening was much worse. Asa was going to have to help them receive a vaccine that, if they obtained it, would help them take over the world.

             
Allen shook his head—he couldn’t stop smiling. “If we get this vaccine, Asa, it would be over for the humans. We would be able to quadruple our already staggering forces in two days!”

             
“That’s incredible,” Asa said. He felt sick again.

             
Allen’s watch began to beep, and he pressed a button on the side of the face and turned it off. “We’ve got to go, now.
Is anyone not ready?”
he called. No one responded. Allen walked over and dug into a chest on one of the side walls. He tossed Asa something and he caught it. At first, he thought that it looked like a giant mosquito head.

             
“It’s a gas mask,” Allen said. “You’ll see when you get there. We’ve got to go now. We’ll be running through the woods. Try to keep up.”

             
Asa felt as though things were happening too fast. “We’re leaving right now?”

             
Allen nodded; “Right this second.”

             
“Wait! Where are we going?”

             
Allen looked back at Asa: “Just follow us. We’re going to the Moat. We have a small canoe that we’re going to float over the water in.”

             
Asa saw that the other Multipliers also had gas masks. Allen walked over to the waterfall, stepped around it, and then the others began to follow. Asa walked over to the mouth of the cave. His knees felt wobbly underneath him, but he willed them to move.

40

Back to Town

              As Asa stepped around the waterfall, he was surprised to see that the fog was even thicker than before. He was the last one out of the cave; the Multipliers were already running through the foliage towards the Moat.

             
Asa hesitated, thinking,
I shouldn’t follow them. I need to get out of here.
Asa felt lucky to have convinced Allen that he was a Multiplier up until this point, but wondered how long he could keep up the act. Many of the Multipliers violent and crude tendencies disgusted Asa; he felt that he couldn’t conceal his true beliefs forever. He looked around. He could hear the waterfall crashing into the river below him; he could feel the cold mist kissing his face.

             
Asa considered darting off into the jungle in the opposite direction of the Multipliers. He thought that they wouldn’t come looking for him.
What would they gain from coming after me? They would probably just go ahead with their mission and forget about me. And, even if they do come looking for me, there is no guarantee that they’ll find me.

             
Asa decided that running would be his best option. This was his lucky break—this was his opportunity to leave.

             
But for some reason, he stood still, considering running after them.
Even if I am able to convince Allen that I’m a Multiplier for the entire night, they’ll still find out at some point. After we leave Town, we’ll head off for the Hive.
Asa felt his stomach drop at the idea of being watched and scrutinized by two hundred fifty thousand Multipliers.
Surely someone will figure it out when we get to the Hive. My experience with Multipliers is limited—I would inevitably do something inconsistent with being a Multiplier. And, I’m not a very good liar.

             
Asa wondered if the Hive was carved out of mountains, like the Academy.
Or maybe it occupies a series of enormous sky-rise buildings somewhere. Or maybe it’s not in one place; maybe the entire Hive is spread out and they just communicate electronically. Or, did Robert King say something about it being underground?

             
Either way, Asa thought that his best chance of survival was to run away. He looked out into the jungle in the opposite direction that the Multipliers had ran. Still, his feet wouldn’t move.

             
He whimpered.

             
He knew what was wrong, but had been trying to push it from his mind.

             
It was Boom Boom’s argument, which said that they should take any measures possible to fight the Multipliers, because if they don’t, the Multipliers will proliferate and take over the world. So, in reality, the best option was to play offense with them—to try to hurt the Multipliers before they built up an army, and destroyed the Academy. Boom Boom’s argument was especially pertinent tonight, when Asa knew that the Multipliers were attempting to gain a serum that would allow them to Multiply over thirty times as often as they were now able to.

             
Asa felt like crying. Every ounce of him pleaded to go out into the jungle and hide—to save himself. He was emotionally and physically drained. Even though, for some reason, the Salvaserum did not work on him, he still had already gone through the mental strain of thinking that he would become a Multiplier today. And, earlier in the day he had played the Winggame championship, and had been dragged into the waterfall by Rose. He was exhausted. He was terrified of being found out by Allen. He thought of Bruce, lying dead on the floor of the classroom with his throat torn out and his foot blown off.

             
Asa’s eyes began to sting with tears. He was tired of being scared all the time.

             
He then thought of how Jen had begun to gasp and cry after the Multipliers left the Lab. She had walked over and cradled Bruce’s head in her hands.

             
She had cried so hard. She had been miserably upset. But what did she do next?

             
Asa whispered to himself, “She wanted to follow the Multipliers.”

After everything she had seen, she didn’t let her fear get in the way of what she needed to do.

             
It was settled. Asa took off into the jungle, but in the direction following the Multipliers, not running away from them. He didn’t know how he would be able to stop them from stealing his father’s serum, of if that was even possible, but he had to try.

             
The Multipliers were too far ahead of him to be detected. They were much faster than Asa, and were given a considerable head start. Still, he knew that they were headed toward the shore of the Moat, and he dug his feet into the ground, running as fast as he could.

             
As he ran, Asa tried to mentally prepare himself for how he would act when he next spoke with the Multipliers. He needed to act like there was nothing wrong—like he was supposed to be there—like he was one of them. The person he knew who could do this best was Jen. Asa knew Jen well enough to understand that her cocky exterior was sometimes just an act. She had been living by herself in the post-Wolf Flu world before being taken to the Academy; she was a young woman, who had to develop a tough exterior if she was going to survive in a world with no real authority to step in if someone wronged her.

             
Think like Jen,
he told himself.
Do what Jen would do.

             
Asa ran in between Mount Two and Fishie Mountain and then began the downward slope that led to the edge of the Moat. He knew that he could make the distance much faster if he flew, but he wasn’t entirely sure if Multipliers who had been in the Academy before changing could fly. Not wanting to take chances, he stayed on the ground.

             
He reached the shoreline a few minutes later and it wasn’t until he was just a few feet from the Multipliers that they came into view in the heavy fog. Asa was exhausted from the run, but he breathed through his nose, trying not to show it.

             
Act like Jen,
Asa thought.

             
“What took you so long?” Ned barked. Rose and Edna were sharing another cigarette behind him. Michael had his arms crossed, staring Asa down. Joney and Allen looked up to hear Asa’s answer; they were retrieving a hidden canoe from thick bushes by the shoreline.

             
“I’m sick, ass hole,” Asa said. He felt dizzy; the confident words that he had chosen felt heavy and unnatural in his mouth.

             
To Asa’s relief, Allen, Edna, Joney, and Rose laughed. Michael and Ned did not; they continued to stare at Asa and their lips didn’t so much as quiver. Ned’s expression was similar to the one he held just before he lost control of his anger and choked Rose out in the Lab.

             
And if he does that to me,
Asa thought,
I won’t heal quickly like Rose did. He’d probably just snap my neck.

             
Joney slapped Ned on the shoulder. “Yeah, Ned! You ever been sick before? Tha boy has got a point! Did yeh not see ‘im move his guts out into tha’ mop bucket? And yeh think he’d be runnin’ in tip top shape after sometin’ like tha’?” Joney squealed out another laugh. Ned still didn’t look convinced.

             
“Shut up!” Allen ordered. “We’re trying to not draw attention to ourselves, remember? Let’s get into the canoe; we need to set off. Asa, sit in the front by me.”

             
Asa walked by Ned. Ned scowled and his enormous shoulder muscles seemed to flair. Despite Ned’s demeanor and terrifying appearance, Asa forced himself to stare Ned down as they crossed each other. He hoped that he looked formidable; he felt terrified.

             
The canoe was rocking back and forth in the edge of the Moat with the gentle waves. Asa hopped into the boat and walked to the front, doing his best not to stumble.
Multipliers don’t stumble.
The rest of the group quickly followed him. Michael got in last, pushing them off the shore before jumping in. Ned took up the paddle and began to row them across the water. Asa was thankful that he wasn’t the one asked to row; he didn’t want there to be a clear-cut display of his strength.

             
The fog over the water was so thick that when they were thirty feet away from shore, Asa couldn’t see land in any direction. He had never seen a foggier night in the mountains. Even if Robert King had lookouts posted to watch for Multipliers, the visibility was so poor that the chance of someone spotting the group was very slim.

Ned kept paddling and a humid wind blew over Asa, as cold as ice. The frigid gust made Asa want to gasp, but he refrained. Without the warmth of his suit, Asa’s body was shivering and his teeth were chattering. He looked around at the Multipliers; none of them seemed to be cold. Ninety percent of Rose’s legs were showing and yet she sat smoking another cigarette with Edna as though it was a mild summer day. Asa clenched his jaw and willed himself to stop shivering.

He looked up at Allen, searching for any sign of suspicion, and found none.
He really trusts me. He really thinks that I’m a Multiplier.
Allen was leaned forward with his big hands interlaced between his knees. He had set his gun on the bench between him and Asa.

Asa’s eyes flickered to the firearm. The weapon was large, powerful.
I could probably put a bullet in Allen’s blond head before he even noticed I was going for it.
Asa clasped his hands and looked down at the creaking wooden frame of the boat, trying not to shiver. Going for the gun wouldn’t be wise.
It’s true, I might be able to get one shot off, but then what? Michael has a gun too, and so does Ned. I’d live only half a second longer after shooting Allen. And, they’ll probably just go on with their mission as planned after they kill me.

Asa decided that it would be best to wait and see if a better opportunity to sabotage the Multiplier’s plan presented itself. He even allowed himself to indulge in the idea that Robert King could have graduates waiting at the shoreline to take down the Multipliers—to stop them from completing their mission.

             
But they won’t be there,
Asa thought. He remembered talking with Robert King earlier in the day, and being offered protection for the night. Offering Asa protection was a move that only made sense if he thought the Multipliers were going to
attack
the dance, which they weren’t. Robert King’s only informant had been Stan Nuby, and Allen had been smart enough to insure that Stan didn’t know about their true intentions.

             
Asa looked up, past Allen, at the spot where Mount Two could be seen on a clear night. Even though he couldn’t see the Mountain, he visualized it in his mind; he could see the configuration of dwellings along the Mountainside. Near the middle, there was Viola’s, and if you walked upwards and to the right a couple hundred paces, you would come to Asa’s dwelling. Asa thought about how he hadn’t entered the place since running into Carmen, the Multiplier Hunter.

             
He raised his eyebrows at the thought of her.
What if she is on the shore? What if she and an army of Multiplier Hunters are going to try to intervene?
After considering this for a moment, Asa decided that it was a possibility. There was so much that he did not know about the Multiplier Hunters, however, that he was not able to predict the likelihood of such an intervention.

             
The paddle dipped into the water, and Ned rowed them towards Town with his thick biceps and back.

             
“Do you still feel sick?” Allen whispered beside Asa. There was no sympathy in his blue eyes, just curiosity.

             
“A bit,” Asa said. He wanted to be able to use the excuse of an illness later if there was another display of his weakness or incoordination, in comparison to the Multipliers.

             
“That’s going to leave a nasty scar,” Allen said, indicating Asa’s bite mark with his eyes. “It will be very important to you when we get to the Hive tonight. Mine is on my arm.” He pulled up his white shirtsleeve to show a hard area of discoloration on his forearm. “They turn lighter with time. After your scar heals, it will immediately be black, and then after a few years, it will be dark gray. After a few decades, it’ll be white. No one knows why. When you get to the Hive, you’ll probably be at the bottom of the pecking order. Your scar lets people know how long you’ve been a Multiplier. The fresher ones have to show respect to those who have been Multipliers before them. That’s the way it usually works, at least. It’s a good system; it’s not just about having a hierarchy for the sake of order. The longer you’ve been a Multiplier, the less
humanlike
you are. Your body will go through the entire physical change of becoming a Multiplier in the next month, but your mind will continue to change for decades. The longer you’ve been one of us, the more devoid you are of useless, maladaptive emotions. That’s why we like to have our leaders be those who have been Multipliers longest.”