The Academy: Book 1

by Leito, Chad

  They’ll never find me.

  The chain continued to tug and he was jerked through thick mud, hands first. The wet, cold lake bottom moved around his body, and he felt little resistance at the top. He took one last look up above to the surface of the lake, and then he was completely buried. He was in utter darkness. As dark as a tomb. Inside of the mud, the engine noises were almost deafening, and he thought that through it all he heard a man’s voice.

  A slurping sound reached Asa’s ears and then something jerked him downward with a force that made his neck whiplash in the mud and his stomach drop. Asa fell and landed on the weight plates and the chains.

  He gasped and pulled in precious air. His eyes seemed to sear in the light surrounding him. Compared to the dark tomb he had just been in, this room was as bright as the sun. At first, he couldn’t see anything but blinding light.

  He wretched in another breath of air and felt something cold and slimy run down his nose. Asa propped himself up on his knees and coughed and vomited. His face was still covered in mud from the lakebed and he had inhaled some of it into his lungs. He had an instinct to reach up and clean his face, but found that his hands were still locked securely in his handcuffs.

  Blood was pounding in his temples as he hacked and spat up mucus and mud onto the floor below him. He flexed his back and shoulders and the handcuffs dug deep into his skin but he kept pulling. He was still gagging and forcing himself to inhale between bouts of coughing and retching up lake content from his breathing passages. His lungs were screaming, and he found that no amount of air satisfied him. Tears were streaming down his face as he continued to cough and breathe, too preoccupied with his own body to pay attention to his surroundings.

  “Stop pulling on that! You’re going to break your wrists!”

  The voice barely penetrated Asa’s consciousness. He had no idea whether it was a male or female, and he certainly didn’t know what the voice was telling him. In his gasps and gags he was only dimly aware that there was someone else beside him.

  “Asa, stop!”

  Still, Asa was in his own world. He had coughed up all obstructions from his throat and now he was bent over, enjoying the sacred air that surrounded him. His body had been pushed to its limits of oxygen deprivation and now, sitting there, churning in and out as much air as possible, trying to save himself from brain damage, Asa couldn’t use energy thinking about something as trifle as who was talking or why. He was beginning to feel better. The tears were slowing, he kept his eyes closed, and he wondered why his wrists were hurting so much.

  “Asa! Stop it!”

  Someone grabbed him and he went into frenzy, kicking and pulling and screaming and writhing on the floor. The hands were off of him, and then everything was quiet for a moment. He opened his eyes and looked at the room he was in.

  He was panting, and so was someone else. Asa saw the girl sitting against a wall, still chained to the weight plates that had dragged her to the bottom. Her face was bruised on the left side and her hair and clothes were drenched and muddy. Her green eyes locked with Asa’s.

  The floor was trampoline material that stretched the between the four walls and was held up by a series of springs surrounding. Asa looked down and watched as a trickle of blood dripped off his wrist and onto the trampoline. The droplet sat there for a moment before falling through the pours of the substance and onto hard tile situated half a foot below the trampoline. The blood droplet, along with all the water dripping off his and the girl’s bodies slid down a slope in the tile and then fell down a drain. Asa saw that the weights attached to him pulled the trampoline surface down so much that it touched the tile.

  The room was lit with small, circular pads in the ceiling. All of them glowed blue-white and seemed to be a part of the surface rather than a bulb attached to it. It was as though every once in a while the ceiling decided to glow. The ceiling itself was a mixture of swirling shades of brown, and was shiny on the surface.

  The walls were ornately and beautifully decorated with a mountainous theme running throughout the room. The walls themselves belonged in a museum. They were painted with pictures of goats standing high atop mountainous peaks, looking below at sprawling landscape as though admiring the feat that they had accomplished. The detail was amazing; the animals’ beards moved with the wind, their hooves had indentions and textures to them, and their pupils were horizontal slits of black.

  There was another person in the room. He was emaciated, pallor, and slumped over in a white coat. He was wearing a surgeons mask and had a stethoscope draped around his neck. His eyes were yellow, and when he coughed a deep noise rumbled in his throat. His skin was cracked and dry. Asa had an instant guess at what this person was suffering from.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” Asa asked. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have felt that asking those questions so initially and directly would have been rudely blunt, but after being kidnapped and nearly drowned, he thought they were appropriate. Asa saw that the beautiful girl was watching the man in the white coat, and he wondered if she was as nervous as he was.

  “I’m Dr. Varbas and you’re at Alfatrex Station number 63.”

  Asa noticed the black outline of a viper on the man’s coat—Alfatrex’s symbol.

  “Alfatrex?” Asa asked, confused.

  “Yes, I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same one that makes the Wolf Flu virus.” He paused. “Vaccine. The Wolf Flu Vaccine. Excuse me. I’ve been sick lately and when I’m sick I can’t think straight.”

  The man wasn’t lying. He was, Asa thought, very sick. He talked and moved slow, like a drunk. He reached for something on the inside of his coat and Asa saw that his fingernails were yellowing and that his hands were shaking.

  “Let’s get you two uncuffed. Conway and McCoy should be here any moment.” Dr. Varbas unhooked a key ring from the side of his hip and took the metal cuffs off the beautiful girl’s and Asa’s wrists and ankles. Asa’s wrists had deep cuts in them where he had tugged on the metal, and they were sore when he moved them.

  “Conway,” Asa said to himself, almost at a whisper.

  “What was that?” Dr. Varbas asked.

  “Nothing. I just think that I’ve heard Conway’s name before. He seems familiar.”

  Dr. Varbas’s yellow eyes stared at Asa from above the surgical mask. They did not move for a moment, and Asa couldn’t see what the man’s mouth was doing. They seemed to say something to Asa; or maybe he was just exhausted with fatigue from the deadly virus that was consuming his body.

  Asa’s thoughts were interrupted by another slurping sound, and two pairs of feet were hanging from the ceiling. Mud and water fell below onto the trampoline, and Asa realized that the brown, swirling ceiling above was the bottom of the lake, suspended there by some kind of reflective membrane. Conway and McCoy landed gracefully on the floor, looking around with goggles and a mask on. The goggles and the mask were both black, just like their suits, and they were sleek and thin. The lenses of the goggles were made of heavy glass, and Conway and McCoy’s eyes seemed to be magnified by the way the glass was curved. The mask portion of the goggles came down from the nose bridge to cover their noses and mouths. Each of them pressed on the side of the goggles and the mask retracted upon itself until it disappeared into the nose bridge. They removed their goggles and stored them somewhere in the sleeve of their arms.

  “I told you you’d be fine,” said McCoy. His blond hair was matted down with mud. He smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

  Asa and the beautiful girl didn’t say anything. Asa thought that it would be better to sit back and try to get a better bearing of what was going on before starting to add to conversations.

  Conway looked at everyone in the room except for Asa, his left eye turning above his scar. The man stood rigid, and beneath his clothes Asa could see the outline of each of his tensed muscles. He seemed comfortable in a military attention stance and Asa could sense that the man worked tirelessly, and that he couldn’t unders
tand anyone doing otherwise. There wasn’t a hint of fear or humor on his leader’s expression, and the strong lines of his jaw led down to lips pursed slightly together. He looked as though he were mildly upset, as though he had a million things to do and formalities were keeping him from doing those things.

  Where do I know him from? Where have I seen that scar beneath his left eye, or those veins on his arms? I’ve seen him, I know it.

  McCoy stood relaxed. He kept his hands behind his back and his feet spread wide, balancing himself on the trampoline surface. He wore a small smirk on his face, as though the formalities that bothered Conway only humored himself. He caught eyes with Asa for a moment and Asa saw in the way that he moved the deep blue irises that he was looking at a man who honestly believed that he could do anything.

  “What’s the plan?” McCoy asked the doctor.

  “We’ll have a quick meal and then send you on your way.”

  “Is anyone else coming?” asked Conway. He stared up at the ceiling, as if expecting more people to drop down.

  “No, this is the entire party. This way, please.”

  Dr. Varbas had a hard time walking over the moving surface. He took slow, careful steps and everyone else stayed still as to not make the floor bounce more until he had made it across the room and had his hand safely on the doorknob. He was perpetually stooped over, his spine exhibiting premature arthritis. He turned and spoke casually through the surgical mask. “C’mon, now.”

  He pushed open the door and walked through. Conway and McCoy quickly followed, making their way over the trampoline without any apparent difficulty.

  Asa was alone for a moment with the beautiful girl. They shared a glance and he saw fear for a fleeting second in the green eyes, and then she walked out the door looking calm and composed, water dripping from her clothes and hair onto the floor. Asa followed.

  Asa’s mouth fell open in awe as he entered the next room. This one, like the last, was painted with the skill and attention to detail that one would expect to see in a museum. Asa looked up and saw that the smooth surface of the ceiling was painted like a sky on a perfect, spring day. Clouds were weightless in the sky among a series of angels playing harps and singing and dancing. The angels were all children, and all of them were naked. They had red, cheery cheeks, curly blond hair that looked like McCoy’s, and plump bellies, legs, and arms.

  The walls surrounding were painted to look like a Roman marketplace. People were bartering with vendors at wooden stands beneath huge straw umbrellas. In the painting, men and women were entering and exiting stone structures and talking with their hands while laughing. One boy was in the process of throwing a ball high into the air. A few feet away, a group of ten children and a dog were all gathered together, tense and ready to volley for the ball.

  A chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, and beneath it sat a massive wooden table with appropriately massive wooden chairs surrounding it. The table’s legs were carved to look like angels holding up the central piece of wood. These angels were all adult men with bulging muscles with swords attached to their hips, and folded wings behind their backs. They looked much more serious than the angels painted on the ceiling.

  As they sat, Asa looked above them and wondered how many thousands of pounds of water sat above them, and who would want to bring, or create such beautiful art work so far underground. Not for the last time, Asa suspected that he was among criminals. It was the only explanation that made any sense to him.

  Dr. Varbas sat at the head of the table, and McCoy and Conway flanked him. Asa sat beside Conway, and the beautiful girl sat beside McCoy so that Asa was directly across from her.

  Conway sat down just long enough to unfold his napkin before standing up and announcing that he had to use the restroom. He disappeared behind a massive oak door at the side of the room and they heard his footsteps disappearing behind a hallway.

  McCoy, Conway, and Dr. Varbas didn’t look sinister to Asa. They seemed as relaxed and calm as men going about their daily, boring routine, and yet Asa did not trust them. They had kidnapped him and the beautiful girl and brought them down to this lair beneath the biggest reservoir in the history of man.

  Why us? Why me? Asa thought. The girl seemed normal enough, but he knew nothing about her. She could be the daughter of some kind of celebrity or government official. But he, fourteen year and eleven-month-old parentless Asa Palmer had nothing that would separate him from others in the eyes of a kidnapper. He had no one who would pay a ransom for him. He doubted that anyone would even notice that he was gone if they killed him down here.

  Asa looked over the painting of the Roman marketplace. Directly above the beautiful girl’s head there was a church painted on the wall. In front, there was a fountain, and a series of wide stone steps leading up to open doors that revealed an aisle and an alter beneath stained glass window. The building rose with flying buttress arches and stone patterns of gothic architecture to the roof, which was painted high up on the wall, and almost reached the dining room ceiling. Just below the top of the structure, gargoyles jutted out on small stone platforms with grotesque faces, angry eyes, and claws that gripped to the stone. Atop the center inanimate object perched a crow, gazing up at the angels in the sky. The black bird’s beak was shiny and half open, as though it were smiling at the heavenly children above.

  Asa’s stomach dropped at the thought of the crows as he realized that there was something different about him. There was something that set him apart. He had no way of knowing how, or if any of this was connected to his relationship with the winged creatures.

  He continued to stare up at the crow, examining its every feature. The sharp claws, the way the knee joints bent slightly, the way its relaxed wings matched perfectly with the rest of its body. Asa was so absorbed in examining the attention to detail that he jumped, startled, whenever McCoy spoke.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked the beautiful girl. He leaned back, smiling, and watched the two people he had helped kidnap.

  The beautiful girl crossed her arms and looked at the wall painting without responding. The only evidence that she had heard was a trace of defiance in her green eyes.

  She’s strong, Asa thought.

  “What about you?” McCoy asked Asa directly.

  Asa kept his hands beneath the table at his lap so that no one could see that they were shaking. He looked at the beautiful girl and then McCoy. “Yeah, I’m scared,” he said. Saying it made him feel better.

  “Don’t be,” Dr. Varbas said. “We’re not here to hurt you, only to help.” Asa couldn’t see the doctor’s mouth, but his yellow eyes were warm and smiling.

  McCoy rapped his fingers on the wood, as if pondering what to say. He tilted his head. “You know, I wish I could tell you why we brought you here, but protocol says that I can’t. You’ll find out soon enough, at the assembly.”

  “What assembly?” the beautiful girl asked. “There’s an assembly of you people?”

  McCoy laughed. “What do you mean, you people? You guys are one of us too now, if you pass. I was in your shoes once before. I was scared to death whenever they took me from my mum’s house in the middle of the night. Back then the Retrievers would tell the recruits exactly where they were going. Protocol’s gotten a lot stricter lately.”

  “If we pass what?” the beautiful girl asked. “We’ll be like you if we pass what?”

  McCoy was about to speak when Dr. Varbas interrupted, putting a sick, emaciated hand on the English man’s shoulder. “That’s enough Rob. They’ll find out at the assembly. If Conway walks in and you’re talking about this with the kids, he’ll lose it.”

  “Conway’s too uptight,” McCoy said.

  “That may be true, but he’s also the best.”

  McCoy smiled and looked at Asa. “Your Dad was quite fond of Conway. He helped him get to where he was, you know?”

  “McCoy! Hush now!” Dr. Varbas reprimanded. “Don’t say things like that! You’ll get us fired!”

>   “I didn’t say anything. Did I, Asa Palmer?” McCoy flashed a threatening smile and his eyes grew dark.

  Conway’s footsteps were returning and Asa could feel the beautiful girl watching him. Asa shook his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Good.”

  Asa could feel the beautiful girl glowering at him. He felt weak for giving in, but he thought it had been the best decision. His life and safety were worth more to him than his pride.

  These people have me confused for someone else, Asa thought. They think that my father was an important man. But he was just a truck driver who died of a heart attack. Acute myocardial infarction, they had called it at the hospital. What will happen when they find out that they kidnapped the wrong Asa Palmer?

  Conway came in, sat down, and was followed shortly by three people in chef uniforms. They each balanced two huge metal trays on their hands, and they came around and organized food and drink throughout the table.

  Each person was given one liter of chilled bottled water, a plate, and silverware. An absurd amount of food was placed throughout the center of the table in decorative bowls and plates. The food was served family style, and everyone was encouraged to help him or herself.

  If they’re going to kill us, or if they’re trying to make ransom money from us, why serve such expensive items?

  There was enough food to feed a small army, and Dr. Varbas, McCoy, and Conway immediately began to pile their plates high with different items. There were melted flatbread steak sandwiches, mashed potatoes with cheese and bacon cooked inside, green and red peppers stuffed with various meets and cheeses, piles of lobster and shrimp, entire loafs of freshly baked breads, sliced apples, sliced pineapples, bananas, muffins with grains and raisins cooked inside, steaming bowls of macaroni and cheese, steamed vegetables, bowls of stew, and a chocolate cake topped with banana cream icing. Asa wondered how much all of the items had cost, and what kind of people these were to not be morally or financially opposed to wasting so much food.

  Dr. Varbas ladeled some stew onto his plate and took a muffin. He pulled down his surgeon’s mask and took slow bites of his stew. Asa saw that his lips were blue and chapped.