The Games Villains Play (The Academy Trilogy)

by Joshua DeBenedetto

  Donny felt something click in his head. “Maybe the key is not to take thoughts out of their heads, but to put thoughts into them.”

  “What do you mean? You know that isn’t in a Prometheus’s power.”

  “No, but it might be in mine. Let’s go take a look in the supply closet, I have a loose plan, but I need to know what supplies I have to work with in order to solidify it.”

  CHAPTER 1 4

  TUESDAY’S PRACTICE WAS not what the team was expecting. Donny and Duke met the team outside of the arena, with big smiles spread across their faces. As usual, Donny waited for the whole team to arrive before beginning.

  “Alright team, today’s practice will be a little different. Instead of working on specific skills, we are going to have a little fun. Inside, Duke and I have set up an obstacle course. When we go inside, I will review these directions, as if telling you them for the first time, except I will talk as if these are real exercises. Then you will line up, and run from station to station. At the first, you will pick up a small rock, and throw it at a disk which I will throw into the air. If you miss and the disk still breaks, don’t be surprised. After throwing the rock, you will run to the second station, where you will fire at a set of targets. Fire at them as fast as you can, in this case aim is not important, as you will be firing blanks. Again, if you see a burst of paint hit the targets, do not act surprised. Also, it is very important that you fire at the targets from left to right. Do not forget that!”

  Donny looked out at his team. Some were smiling, some were merely looking around at each other. One decided to speak. “Napoleon, I don’t mean to question your practice that you clearly spent a lot of time planning and setting up, but…what’s the point in pretending to hit targets? How will that help us?”

  Duke stepped forward to take the question. “Our practice today is going to be watched by someone who should not be watching. We want to make sure the wrong message makes it back. But please, do not look around to find the watcher, I guarantee you will not see them.”

  Those who had been smiling smiled wider at this thought, and those who had been looking around looked around all the more. Donny could see most seemed satisfied with this answer, so he would leave it at that. “Any further questions?” Donny asked.

  With no questions posed, Donny nodded, and the group entered the arena. He led them over towards where the two stations were set up, and began to recount his directions with a serious vigor, but this time he acted like the activities were real. He instructed them to hit the disks with the rocks as quickly as they could, then to hit the targets in succession. After his instructions, he walked over to the pile of disks, and Duke went over to stand by the targets. On Donny’s signal, the first person ran over to the pile of small rocks, and threw one at the disk Donny threw into the air. The rock barely missed, but the disk still broke in the air and fell to the ground. The thrower then ran to where Duke waited, took the paintball gun off of its stand, and began firing at the targets from left to right. After each shot, a paint ball could be seen hitting the center of each target. The next person ran to Donny’s station, picked up a small rock, and threw it in the direction of the disk. The disk broke despite another close miss, and after running to the target station, five shots once again saw five paintballs hit the center of the targets. This continued until the whole team had taken their turns.

  After the activity had ended, Donny told the group to run three laps around the outside of the arena, except the Hermes, who were to run ten. They dashed off, and Donny found it funny to see that they ran off in lines, as if part of a strict military regimen. He could see that they wanted to give a strong impression just as much as he did. As they ran, Donny and Duke conversed, and looked over papers that resembled maps. Once the laps were finished, Donny gave them instructions to go lift weights and keep active on their own for the rest of practice, but that he would need the arena for his own activities. Duke led them out of the arena, leaving Donny behind. Duke dismissed the team, telling them not to talk about the practice at all, not even to each other, and that they would meet up again in an hour for a more official practice. Duke then circled back to the storage room, and climbed the stairs to the catwalk.

  When Donny and Duke finished, they made their way back to the school with their finished project; a video of their practice, complete with scenes of Donny doing amazing feats after the rest of the team left. They watched the footage to make sure it all came out correctly, and were pleased at how realistic it looked. The disks, which were already broken and held together by magnets, pulled apart right as the new magnet disguised as a rock passed by and disrupted the connection. The target shooting looked great as well, and the paintballs were too small to be able to see that the shots were actually coming from the gun stand. The gun stand had five small paintball shooters inside, invisible from the angle of the camera, which were preset to be aimed at each of the five targets. They were controlled by a remote, which Duke himself would trigger, being sure to keep it out of view.

  The video continued, and they saw the results of their second part. After the rest of the team left, Donny was seen alone in the arena. After a few moments of him wandering around in thought, he walked over to a big boulder which was sitting in view behind the two stations. He walked around behind it, where they had connected a small stool for him to stand which was hidden by the rock from the camera, and stepping onto the stool grabbed hold of the top of the rock and began straining as if trying to lift it. The rock could be seen lifting off the ground, with the appearance of Donny flying up with the huge rock in his arms. They were relieved that the strong thin wire that they had found and attached to the rock were not visible by the camera.

  “Even with the pulleys, that thing was hard to lift,” Duke told Donny with a chuckle.

  They watched as the boulder could be seen lifting a few feet, then Donny loosened his strained look and the boulder went back down to the ground. This was repeated a few times, to give the impression of a strange form of lifting weights. After this, Donny could be seen moving back around to the front of the boulder. He looked at it for a while, then turned his head to look at the targets. In an instant Donny disappeared from his spot by the boulder, and appeared next to the targets. After a quick inspection, he looked over at the rock again, and suddenly disappeared and reappeared at the rock again. With a nod, the Donny in the video turned toward the door, and vanished. The video showed an empty room for a few moments, then cut out.

  “Wow, that really did look like I was teleporting,” Donny said in admiration.

  “It did, but the time stamp will clearly show that we were just shutting off the camera and turning it back on when you reached the destination. I think they’ll be able to see through that trick.”

  “Don’t worry Duke, I’m pretty good with computers. I can edit the timestamp so that it flows. All we have to worry about now is finding someone who isn’t on our team that is willing to deliver this video to Hunter.”

  “You worry about editing the timestamp, and I’ll worry about finding someone to make the delivery.”

  DUKE DID FIND someone to make the delivery, and the results looked promising. Hunter apparently took the video immediately into a small media room that bordered the computer lab to watch it, and upon his reemergence began calling his team together for an immediate practice.

  Donny’s hopes were reconfirmed when he happened to pass Hunter in the hall later that day. Being smaller and quieter than many of the other students, Donny usually noticed others before they noticed him. In this case Donny was happy for this, because it allowed him to see the startled look that passed over Hunter’s face the moment he noticed Donny. Donny pretended not to notice, but it was clear that Hunter was torn between the desire to keep an eye on Donny, and the desire to keep away.

  With this encounter fresh in Donny’s mind, he arrived at practice with a smile. There would be no fake filming today, but rather a serious practice where Donny worked with the team on ke
eping low, and how to quickly duck and cover. They learned that they should spread their forces when being attacked from a distance in order to leave more space for the enemy to miss, and to keep their forces close together when being attacked at close range in order to limit the angles from which the enemy could attack.

  Each practice that week Donny turned the arena temperature down further, in order to get his troops used to the cold. When someone would ask Donny if it were possible to turn the air conditioning off, Donny would tell them he already looked into the situation, and unfortunately there was nothing to be done. For their last weekly practice that Friday, Donny stopped by the arena two hours early, and turned the air on full blast. By the time his team arrived for practice, the temperature was bordering on freezing, and still decreasing. Many of his team had figured out that the arena would be colder that week than the rest of the school, and had come prepared with thicker clothes. A few did not, and had a much more difficult day of practice.

  When that practice had ended, Donny brought them together to give them a few last instructions. He figured he could be a little less discrete now, as he did not feel like the school would change the game the night before, but he still did not want to disclose everything, as it would be far too difficult to explain, and the school could still make a last minute switch if they decided it were necessary.

  “Ok, tomorrow’s match is going to be a difficult one, but I am confident we can win it. The yellow team is a solid team, so we’ll need to work quickly to catch them off guard, and trick them into revealing their weaknesses. When you are with me, I want you all to act on my commands quickly and without question. If you find yourself in a smaller group, the same needs to be done for whoever is in charge of that group. You are all smart, and I have seen that individually you can all think on your feet, so if for any reason you find yourself separated from a group, do whatever you need to do for us to win. Tomorrow will not be a secret match. This time, I plan to actually tell you what’s going on during the match.”

  Many laughed at this, remembering their last match. Donny was glad they did not show any discontent over the way Donny had them play a week ago.

  “Before you are dismissed, there are a few things for you all to do before the game tomorrow. First thing, dress warmly. As you can see there is something wrong with the air conditioning in the arena, and I find it unlikely that they will be able to fix it before our match.”

  Donny hated to lie to his team, and hated even more that it came so naturally. Still, the truth was far more dangerous for them to hear at this point.

  “Second, Dress all in white. If you don’t have white clothing, find someone who does, or turn pieces of clothing inside out if the inside is white.”

  “Why do you want us dressing all in white?” One of the team members asked.

  Donny was hoping they would just follow this order without question, as he could not think immediately of a good reason for this request. The truth was because he felt confident that they would be competing in snow, and he wished for them to be camouflaged, but this would inevitably lead to a question regarding why he thought they would be competing in snow. Donny decided to answer ambiguously, and move on before too many questions could come up.

  “We’ll dress in white for the intimidation factor. The third point is to get lots of rest, and be at the arena door half an hour before our match is scheduled to begin. I plan to have a loose plan of action ready before we begin for us to adapt once we are inside, and I want time to go over it with everyone.”

  There were no questions to go along with this last request, so Donny went over who he would be using for the match the next day, then dismissed the group for the night.

  DONNY HAD A difficult time getting to sleep that night. He felt like his team had a good chance of winning their game the next day, but somehow this made him feel worse. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the situation I have been preparing our team for will not take place. Donny could not keep his paranoia at bay. We stand a chance because we have strategy and are prepared, but our shooters are far inferior. What if the game is just a little off, and it is still a shootout, but not the one I’m thinking? Could I have missed something?

  His mind raced through alternative situations, and he tried as best he could to keep up with the questions. Sometimes he would think of a solution, but most of the time the doubt would expand on itself into something worse.

  When he was finally able to get himself to sleep, his dreams were even worse than his fears. He dreamt that he were waking up, and had overslept, and missed the whole event. He dreamt that the shootout was what he had expected, except instead of paintballs they were using real bullets, and his team was losing. Then the dreams began to drift from the games, and he began to see his brother, in many hopeless situations. First he saw him on an inspection table, where he was strapped down tight, and the professors were running tests on him. Then he saw Jay being tortured, in dozens of horrible ways. They were being administered by Captain Williams, who kept repeating a single line. “I have no power for you to take. You are powerless against me.”

  Finally the dreams drifted from Jay, but they got no better. Donny could see Michael, lost in the desert, still searching for Jay. Donny tried to call out to Michael; tried to tell him Jay was not out there. Then he realized he too was lost in the desert, searching for Michael, wondering if Michael too might not be out there at all.

  Donny awoke in a cold sweat the next morning. For a moment he was worried that he really had overslept, as he felt like that night had lasted days. To his surprise and relief, it was still 4:30 in the morning. Despite the time, Donny could see that the light was on in the room, and many of the first year Titans were already sitting up in bed.

  “…that’s not possible sir, he has been right here the whole night. I’m sure many of us could be witnesses to it as well, as he has been tossing and turning all night.”

  Donny realized the words had come from his resident leader, who was talking to someone from the school’s administration at the door. For a brief moment Donny wondered if they were talking about him, but his question was quickly answered when they noticed he was up and asked him to come over.

  “Donny, may I have a word with you?”

  He wanted to say no, but as usual, he knew turning down a request from the administration would only give them something to use against him, so he accepted. They left the room, and as soon as they stepped out into the hall Donny noticed Duke standing awkwardly just outside the door.

  “Is everything alright?” Donny asked Duke, ignoring the administrator who walked ahead a few steps before noticing that Donny had stopped.

  “It’s fine now Donny, don’t worry. Go on, we can talk later.” Duke was clearly a little angry about something, but Donny was relieved at least that he was not frightened or nervous. Anger means whatever had happened was finished, fear would have meant it’s still a threat.

  With a nod to Duke, Donny continued on with his guide, until he arrived at the last place he wanted to go; Captain William’s office.

  “Come in Donny.” The voice came through the door to meet him, calm and businesslike. Donny could not imagine a tone he would despise more; he wished the voice could have been raspy, or snakelike, so at least then it would fit the leader of the real villains.

  Donny went in and took a seat once more, taking care to block his thoughts from anyone who may be listening in on this conversation, as well as his expressions.

  “Donny, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt you? Maybe an older or bigger student?”

  “No sir,” Donny replied, surprised to hear this question come from the mouth of the person he felt most likely to do just that. “Why do you ask? I have heard nothing about what’s going on here.”

  “Donny, we think somebody tried to make an attempt on your life last night. They started by drugging the drinks of the professors who would be at the school tonight, in order to put them to sleep. I detected something was amiss and w
arned as many as I could, but there are those who drank before word could reach them.”

  “Will they be alright?” Donny asked, genuinely concerned. Whether they were part of the conspiracy or not, they were people, and Donny had grown fond of a few of his professors.

  “Don’t worry, the drugs were non-lethal. They were clearly placed to get us out of the way for something, not to harm us directly.”

  “And you think you were being taken out of the way so they could get to me?” Donny found it hard to believe. The only people Donny thought would be coming after him would have been from the school, not trying to get around them.

  “We have good reason to believe they were coming after you. Duke had apparently heard talk from members of the yellow team who said once you were out of the way the game would be an easy win. Afraid that they were planning to come after you, he hid near your door to wait. Someone did come after you, and when Duke stepped out to confront them, they fled.”

  “It was someone from the yellow team?”

  “No, we spoke to those who Duke overheard, and they said they meant within the game. Apparently they think you the only threat on your team. Duke also corroborated that the man was not a member of the yellow team.”

  Donny’s mind was racing, as he poured over anyone who could possibly want to do him harm. If it’s not someone from the yellow team…could one of the other teams be trying to take us out early? No, that can’t be it, it’s too much of a risk for them at this point, where they don’t even know if they will advance to face us. Could Captain Williams be playing with me? Could it be the school, and he is just pretending not to know?

  The silence Donny kept while he was in thought was enough of a response for Captain Williams. “Donny, the school thinks it would be safest if you would return home until we are able to clear this situation up.”