Once Donny had made his rounds and spoken with all the groups, he knew it was time they did something physical. The last thing he wanted was for the games to come around and his team to be out of shape. Donny started out by sending them all out to run around the perimeter of the arena. In order to slow down the Hermes, he made them carry heavy backpacks full of supplies from the supply closet. When the Hermes’ still finished far ahead of the rest, he made them take the supplies out of the backpack, and carry them all in their hands while everyone ran a second lap. This proved more effective; the supplies may not have been heavy enough to inhibit them, but the need to awkwardly carry a pile of supplies without dropping them caused the group to run at a more normal pace.
By the end of the run, practice had already been going on for quite some time, with most of the time having been spent on their early discussions. With a reminder to begin their investigations, he dismissed the team for the night.
CHAPTER 8
IT WAS A while before Donny could be alone in the arena. Despite having dismissed his team, many of them stuck around to chat with each other. Even though Donny was looking forward to having the arena to himself, he could not be upset at his team for this, especially since most of the talk involved plans or jokes about how they would get information on the other teams. Finally the room cleared out, and Donny could be alone.
The arena had become the only place where Donny could have any degree of comfort. With his knowledge of the school’s real purpose, accompanied by his lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of his brother, everywhere he went he was reminded of how little power he had to do anything. The arena was the only exception, as he had thus far only spent time in the arena in a position of control, where he was in charge of a large group of children who wished to become soldiers. It was a false power, he knew, as it was a power given to him by his enemy the school, but he still felt like he could use that power to his advantage somehow.
Donny lay on his back and looked up at the domed ceiling above himself. He allowed his thoughts to wander for a while, thinking about Jay, about the school, wondering how it had started in the first place, and if it was begun with good intentions, or was evil from the start. He thought about the curvature of the ceiling, about the lights shining down from under the catwalk. He realized the catwalk ran in columns from one door of the arena to the other, with connections every few dozen feet (he would have to remember this, as it would allow them to maintain orientation by simply looking up).
Once he could not keep his thoughts away any longer, he thought about the stranger, who had told him Jay was alright. He had spent many hours already pouring over all possibilities of who it could have been, and finally he had reached the only conclusion that made any sense at all; he did not know them. Everyone he knew had their own ideas of what the most important thing at the time was, and Donny could not believe that any of them were hiding the knowledge of the school’s truth while still pursuing the goals they made so evident to cherish. But I know, and I continue. Donny thought. But still, even I could not stay interested in my own practice. I called a practice only to make up what to do on the spot. Donny hated to admit it, but it was true, he really cared very little about the games now. He held a practice because that's what he was supposed to do, and it was all he could do. He did not lie to his team, he really did plan to win, but he planned to do so because it was the only thing he had any influence over.
After a while of lying on the arena floor, he felt himself beginning to fall asleep, and decided it better that he head back to his dorm room. As he neared the exit door, he noticed a letter taped to the door, with a small packet of matches. He snatched the letter off the door and quickly began to read.
Donny,
DO NOT MOVE. I could not contact you sooner. You were being watched, and even still they have cameras on you. Right here at the door the cameras do not pick you up. Read the letter right here, then burn it thoroughly in the hole to your left before burying the ashes. Do NOT attempt to find your brother, or to contact me. I am working on a plan to help your brother, but he is heavily guarded right now. You have been wondering what you should do, and I will tell you. Learn as much as you can while the resources are available to you. Leave your brother to me – I will contact you if there is anything I need you to do. My one request, if you are able, would be to win the simulation games. It just might be the distraction I need.
There was no signature, but Donny did not expect one. He looked to his left, and sure enough a shallow hole had been dug next to the door. He knelt down, lit a match, and set the letter on fire. He held it as long as he could, until the flames began licking his fingers and he was forced to let go. After the letter burned, he decided to do away with the rest of the evidence, so he lit a second match, and with it lit the whole pack of matches before throwing that as well into the hole. The dirt lay in a pile nearby, and it was no trouble at all for him to push the dirt into the hole with his foot and stomp it flat.
For the first time in two weeks, Donny felt good. His position changed very little, but at least he was now included. He knew something was being done. From this short letter, he now knew he had someone on his side, and they were in a position to know the working of the Academy. They must be a reader, as they knew what Donny had been wondering silently, and stated this knowledge as fact, instead of speculation. For better or worse, Donny would follow the lead of this mystery helper. Donny would learn as much as he could as quickly as he could.
And with everything he had, Donny would make sure he won the simulation games.
THE MORNING CAME faster than Donny had expected. He did not return to his dorm room the night before, but instead veered off to the computer room, in order to search through old battle videos between heroes and villains. He did this in the hopes of coming up with battle strategies that he could use in the games, but in this regard the videos proved quite useless. It was amazing to Donny that he had never realized how fake the villains were before. In all the videos, the villains were shown attacking without any sort of plan at all, just rushing at the heroes in a frenzy. The heroes were the ones with a strategy, but it was only the younger, newer heroes that were worth watching. As the heroes got older, they always seemed to realize that simple sidestepping and minor distractions would work every time. The new heroes were the more zealous, and would have complex plans to throw off their enemies and trap them.
Despite the inability to find good strategies, he still gained valuable information from what he saw. The battles tended to be very similar, except that the environments in which they battled changed drastically. Surprisingly few were held in public places; instead they tended to take place in deserted fields, or forests, or in the desert. One even took place in the ocean, where a group of villains apparently became pirates, and were intercepted by a boat full of heroes. The battles almost looked staged, all except for the fighting itself.
Donny remembered seeing some of those videos when he was younger on the news, but they had seemed so much more real back then. Now these videos looked more like they should be videos of simulation games, not genuine battles. When that thought arrived to Donny, he grabbed some paper and began taking note of the situations of each battle he saw.
Once Donny had a long list made, and noticed that the sun was beginning to stream in through the window, he logged off the computer and walked quickly down to the dining hall. He had to talk to Duke, and he did not want to wait any longer than he had to, so he positioned himself so he could see every person who walked in, and waited for Duke to arrive. The wait was longer than Donny had hoped, but at long last Duke walked through the door.
“Duke!” Donny called out, with no regard to the attention this gave him, and without allowing Duke to get his food first. Duke turned, and upon seeing Donny, came over and sat down across from him.
“What’s wrong?” Duke asked, clearly a little worried by Donny’s rushed attitude.
“Nothing, sorry to worry you, I just need to go ove
r something with you about the games.”
“Ok, would you mind if I got my breakfast first? Then we can talk while we eat, and kill two birds with one stone?”
“No problem, but one question before you go. What were the situations of the simulation games last year?”
Duke gave a quizzical look, because Donny should already know what the games had been. Still, he obliged with an answer. “Well, for us we started with a game where we were in a forest, and needed to capture an orb from the opponent. Then we were in a deserted city, firing paintballs at each other, until we could either eliminate all the enemy or capture all the buildings. The third was in the dark, with storage bins all around. We needed to find something in there, and keep it from the other team for a set amount of time. The last was in the desert, where we had to catch and immobilize all of the opponents.”
Donny circled things on the paper in front of himself as Duke spoke, then he turned the sheet around and pushed it over for Duke to see.
“What’s this?” Duke asked.
“It’s a listing of major real world battles between heroes and villains.”
Duke was silent for a moment. He looked down the list, and Donny saw his eyes begin to go wide. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“I don’t know Duke, I’m not a reader.”
“Does this mean…the simulation games are based on real battles?”
“Yes, I think it does. Your first battle was a replica of ‘The Rock-Bomb Hunt’, where a group of villains tried to blow up a forest with a small bomb that the heroes had to capture from them and deactivate. Your second was an early battle, back when they still used guns. I would guess your battle was copying ‘The Shootout at Old Mill’. The third would be when the villains tried to trap some heroes in an old warehouse, called ‘The Entrapment in the Warehouse’. The last was clearly a remake of ‘Battle of the Sahara’.”
“That’s incredible. I had no idea the Academy was simulating past battles, I always assumed they were making up new situations. How do you plan to use this information?”
“Well, I was thinking we could begin our own simulation games, where we set up similar situations and run through what we should do in each case. We can divide our team in half, and face them against each other. Maybe we can get lucky during the real games and end up with a situation we’d already done.”
“We don’t need to get lucky. We need to find the events that are most likely to be used, and run those with our team. Come on, I want to see these battles for myself.”
“Don’t you want to get breakfast first?”
“Forget breakfast, we have planning to do.”
DONNY ARRIVED AT his classes without having slept for about 28 hours, and without having eaten since lunch the previous day. It had not occurred to him that he had actually missed dinner the night before until he realized how hungry he was getting, but he knew he could eat soon enough. He kicked himself silently for not getting some food while he waited for Duke at the dining hall.
Donny dove into his studies with a new fervor. He had started the year with great ambition, but had quickly been grounded by the formidable task of catching up on the early material that he missed. His ambition had now returned, but this time he understood enough of the early concepts to keep himself afloat. Advanced Mind Distortion began a topic that particularly caught his attention. They had begun learning how to “burn” a reader who tried to enter their heads. Thus far they had learned different techniques for making a Prometheus think they are somewhere they are not, or to mask their thoughts behind other thoughts. This concept, where they would convince themselves they were burning in order to send those thoughts to the reader, was a new concept, and Donny was thrilled by the prospect.
With this new technique still fresh in his mind, Donny walked over to the arena to meet Duke. They had picked out a simulation to try, and they needed to set up for it. To their distress, they could not figure out how the school managed to set up for the games so fast. The arena was huge, and somehow the school was able to turn it into a city, a desert, a forest, or any other environment that they needed. With their time too limited to fill the arena accurately, they decided it was necessary to improvise.
The game they chose was something of a scavenger hunt. Both sides would be trying to locate a certain item. There would be clues around, but most of the clues would be useless without other clues to help decipher them. Each team would need to find the clues for themselves, as well as obtain missing clues from the opponent. Duke and Donny took anything they could carry out of the storage rooms and scattered them about the arena, placing the clues in as creative of spots as they could think of. Once they were satisfied, with most clues hidden and a few placed just inside each door to start each team off, the two of them went outside to wait for the rest of the team.
“Duke, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure kid, what’s on your mind.”
“You really seem to know what you’re doing out here, and you have great ideas for the team. You started the year with a list of people you felt you could trust, and you can think well on your feet. Why didn’t you take the leadership classes?”
“I guess being a captain just doesn’t appeal to me.”
Donny thought for a moment, but soon decided this did not answer his question sufficiently. “I don’t think I understand. How can it not appeal to you? You have a rare gift, don’t you think you should have used it?”
“Human’s aren’t made with just one gift, Napoleon. I like to think I have other things to contribute as well.”
“I’m sure you do, but leaving this school with leadership training is quite possibly the highest honor there is. That’s a gift that should not be ignored.”
“Kid, let me tell you a little story. There once was a wealthy family who lived in a big house. They had a young servant boy who they called on to do everything. The children needed a tutor, so the servant boy learned the material and taught it to the children. Chores needed to be done, so the servant boy would rush around, keeping the house clean. Things needed to be moved, he would move them. Items needed to be fixed, he would fix them. The family’s wealth increased, and eventually they decided to do away with the servant boy, and hire many grown men and women to replace him. The boy was cast out. Soon after, the family’s wealth began to disappear. They needed to fire their new helpers, but having never done any of the chores themselves, they could not cope. They spent the rest of their days hiring and firing servants, looking for someone who would take care of them like the young servant boy had.”
“That’s quite a sad story. I’m still not following though, what does it have to do with not becoming a leader?”
“Napoleon, I was raised differently than you. You see success as holding power, or acquiring power. I’m not saying you are power hungry, but I do think it is important to you that you are in control. That’s not the way I am. I don’t want to be the wealthy family, I want to be the servant boy. A leader is just one person trying to keep a group facing the same direction. I would rather be the person the leader can turn to, can rely on, to set an example for the rest of the group.”
Donny was surprised. This was not the answer he had expected to receive, but it was a nice one to hear. “You know what I think,” Donny responded. “I think that servant boy turned out well in the end. He would have become big and strong from doing all those chores, and he would be intelligent from tutoring the children. Someone who can take care of a family should be able to take care of themselves.”
Whether the conversation could have continued, Donny did not know, as they were forced to stop due to the arrivals of the rest of the team. Donny could not help but fear what will happen to this loyal servant after he graduates and the school gains full control over him.
CHAPTER 9
DONNY AND DUKE could not participate in the simulation, as they knew where all the clues were hidden, so they went up to the catwalk to watch from above. Duke started from one end
, and watched one of the teams, while Donny watched the other team on the opposite side of the arena. Donny had placed all of the new players (those who had been recruited after they were kicked off of their previous teams) on the team he was watching. He wanted to get to know them early, as they were all new to him. He already decided to put them each in the groups that would be researching their old teams, but how he would use them other than that he had yet to decide.
Donny was disappointed with what he saw. The team he was watching won the event, but this only made things worse, as Donny did not feel they played well enough to win. Look at them, they’ve moving in packs! They should be spreading out to look for clues. And look at that group over there, they are clearly lost. They are following their clue to the east wall, when it is telling them to go towards the north door!
When the event was over, Donny rounded everyone up to review. He pointed to one first year who he had noticed had been following in the back of one group throughout the entire event.
“You, how many clues did you find?”
“Oh, um, I think we found 11, maybe 12.”
“No, that’s how many your team found, how many did you find?”
“The group I was in found 4 of those clues…”
“No, no, you misunderstand me. I want to know how many you, and just you, found. How many clues did you pick up, bring to the group, and use?”
“Me? Um, well I personally didn’t pick up any clues, but I contributed to the group who found 4.”
“It doesn’t take a group to find clues, it takes one person. And even if you could get credit for the work of the group, there were eight of you there, so your share would only be half a clue.” Donny turned to address the whole group. “Nobody should ever be wasted during the games. Every single person needs to be used optimally, so that they can do the most good to the team.”
The Games Villains Play (The Academy Trilogy) Page 9