by Leito, Chad
“They now have come out and said that they don’t know how Alfatrex could have invented this virus. They’ve searched the company’s buildings from top to bottom; they said that they even pulled up rugs looking for clues as to how this company got the stuff in the water supply. Or how they created it. They can’t find anything. Nothing.”
“Don’t they do all that kinds of experimentation here?” Asa said.
Teddy breathed through his mouth for a moment before talking; with the bloody nasal tampons hanging from his nostrils, he was having trouble eating, talking, and breathing, so he needed to take a small break to concentrate on the latter. “If it’s not here, it’s really well hidden. But people are becoming livid at that police officer that killed Robert King. Troy whatever-his-name-was. They say that this is why everyone deserves a fair trial.”
Asa shrugged. “I can agree with that. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Robert King got what was coming to him, but I don’t think giving everyone a trial is such a bad idea.”
Teddy began to giggle: It made a deep, muffled noise with his nose plugged up. “I’ll be honest with you, Asa. I’d kill every one of the graduates that work here, given the chance. EVEN CONWAY!” He laughed some more, and then calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. “Forget a trial! They didn’t give us a trial!”
“Well,” Asa said, standing. It was a bit early for him to leave, but he suddenly found that he didn’t want to stay longer. “If, after Robert King is dead, the Wolf Flu slows down, then they’ll know The Boss was the culprit. Right?”
“That’s right!” Teddy said, waving a hunk of bread in the air. “They’ll know the truth eventually.”
Asa put his plate in the sink and moved towards the door, already turning up the heat on his armband to deal with the frigid air outside.
“And,” Teddy continued, his red puffy eyelids widening with excitement. The only thing that Asa could compare the yellow-white color that Teddy’s skin was turning was the underbelly of a catfish. Or a dead man. His cheek was still shiny with grease from when he had scratched his face with the dirty spatula. “If they keep searching, maybe they’ll find us here, and rescue us. Hopefully.”
“Yeah,” Asa said, taking one more pitying look at his unwell friend. “Hopefully. See you, Teddy.”
“See you.”
Teddy was still eating as Asa exited. The air outside was even colder than the stone floor had suggested it might be. Asa loathed extracting his wings for the first time in the morning. The air was unmercifully cold, and his wings were so warm, crumpled up deep in his back tissue.
But, with no choice in the matter, he extracted them quickly, jumped, and began to flap over to his Winggame team’s meeting spot—right in front of Fishie Mountain. He thought about Roxanne’s comment to the newspaper and was glad to have a captain that would at least give him a chance; that was more than he had been expecting.
As the forest below turned into arctic jungle, Asa thought about how it was an interesting choice on the Academy’s part to put the most vulnerable, least mutated students in the region of the Mountains that had arguably the most dangerous wildlife. Artic monkeys swung over the branches, and snakes so poisonous that they’d stop a blue whale’s heart slithered in the foliage. It was a dangerous place to be.
He landed a few minutes later, crunching down on a thin layer of ice that covered the pebbled walkway. At first, he thought that he might be in the wrong place. He checked his watch, which said “7:21 AM,” in the cloth. He wondered if he had misheard what Roxanne had said the night before.
As a nervous tick, he brought his fingers up and rubbed his temples. She said in the interview that she wanted to give me a shot; if I show up to the first meeting late because I wasn’t listening, she could kick me off the team. No one would blame her. Think! What did she say yesterday? Where are we supposed to meet?
Then he heard someone sniff behind him.
Asa’s heart seemed to be caught in his throat. He turned quickly to see who had made the noise, but in that fraction of a second he had time to think all of this: How could I be so stupid as to not use my echolocation? If I had used it, I wouldn’t have been snuck up on. And, oh, please don’t let it be Volkner! Please, God! But I know it is. I can feel his eyes on me; it must be similar to how a zebra feels when a lion watches it from the brush.
But it wasn’t Volkner. It was Stan, muscular arms crossed over his small frame. There was something odd about seeing all that muscle packed onto a small body—the oddity probably was that nature never intended him to be as strong as he was.
Stan spat. “Read what Roxanne wrote about you in the newspaper.”
Asa stared into Stan’s blue eyes. Stan had an attitude, and was small. Asa guessed that he was probably picked on when he was in human school; He seems to love intimidating people. Perhaps it’s his way of compensating for something that happened to him in the past.
“I want ‘chu to know somethin’. I respect my captain. That’s my captain, you hear? You gotta respect.” He was pointing a finger at Asa now, and his voice was shaking. He looked either very angry or very scared; Asa wondered if Stan was experiencing a combination of both emotions. “I respect her opinion to trust you. And I’ll do whatever she says. She makes the decisions, you know? But I don’t trust you. I don’t care. I don’t trust you.”
Asa was stunned by Stan’s flawed logic and poor grammar, but he kept his mouth shut; there was nothing to be gained by making Stan feel stupid. But, he didn’t have anything else to say, and so he just stood there, staring into the deep blue eyes.
The Fishies arrived a moment later, then Roxanne arrived, and before 7:30 AM the whole team was assembled before the front doors of Fishie Mountain.
Stan walked by Asa to greet someone he knew, and whispered to Asa: “You’re gonna answer me when I talk to you, Piggy.”
But again, Asa didn’t answer.
The Fishies were all silent, and it took Asa a moment to remember that they were now under the talking ban. There was one Fishie in particular, a redhead with a streak of purple running through her hair, who looked very scared. She’s probably seen someone die already. Asa did a quick head count and saw that the Sharks were still completely intact; everyone had shown up.
Roxanne looked rested and alert. The nasty bruise around her right eye had diffused a bit more, and was turning a lighter shade of yellow. It’s getting close to the color of Teddy’s skin. “Good morning, everyone. Second semesters, listen up: I assume you all read the bit that Benny Hughs wrote in the paper this morning. If one of you does well enough in Flying Class and gets to choose a talent, you consult me before choosing, do you understand? If you refuse, I’ll kick you off.
“Okay, now, let’s get moving. We have a five mile run today, and the starting point is a little bit down the road.”
Quietly, the groggy team began to trudge over the pebbles. Why do we need to consult her if we acquire the chance of picking a new mutation? Is she going to pick for us? Tropical birds were waking up in the arctic jungle around them, and beginning to sing their morning songs.
“The course we’re going to run,” Roxanne explained as she walked, “is a complete circle. Follow the orange flags, I’ve just gotten done putting them all up, but there should always be one within eyesight of you. Cardiovascular health is going to be crucial to us as a team; not only will it enable us to fly with more intensity late in games, but it will allow us to practice longer.”
Asa was walking in the back of the group, and Jen fell back to walk beside him. Stan shot a look over his shoulder at them.
Don’t come walk beside me, they can construe that as communication! Asa wanted to tell her this, but was afraid that she would respond. He remembered in the Assembly last year when they shot that Fishie down just for saying, “bless you,” to someone who had sneezed.
And then, to Asa’s horror, Jen whispered to him: “Good thing it’s a circle: you can cut through a circle.”
Asa’s eyes widen
ed and he looked around to make sure that no one had heard or seen her speak. The rest of the team trudged forward and apparently wasn’t aware that Jen had spoken. “You can’t cut through the arctic jungle,” Asa said. “You’ll get eaten alive!”
Jen waved a hand at him. “I’m not running the whole thing.”
“Yes you are. Now stop talking!”
“Palmer!” Asa looked up to see Roxanne’s eyes locked onto his. Her frizzy blond hair was wild this morning, puffing three and four inches off her skull. Asa hadn’t noticed how tall she was yesterday, but now he saw that she had a couple inches on him. “Are you trying to talk to her? Do I need to remind you that if she so much as utters one word, it would be reasonable for a graduate to kill her on the spot?”
Asa didn’t know what to say; the only reason he had spoken was in response to Jen speaking, but he couldn’t tell Roxanne that. All he could think about was how he had been determined to take advantage of Roxanne’s open mindedness towards having the most hated student in the whole Academy on her Winggame team. Now, it looked like he was blowing his chances.
“Well I shouldn’t have to remind you,” she said. “And, while we are at it, what is play number ninety-five? It was in the handbook you were supposed to read.”
“I…Uh.” Asa had no idea. He had left last night’s meeting with intentions of reading the manual, but it slipped his mind when he had gotten home. He looked at Stan, who was relishing the sight of Asa being reprimanded.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” Asa said.
She shook her head. “You didn’t read? I gave you one command, Palmer. Stan, do you know what ninety-five is?”
“Yes m’am, it’s a three-three-fourteen split formation.” He glared at Asa, who wasn’t sure what a ‘split’ formation was.
“Perfect. And Palmer: you’re coming with me to my apartment after this. We need to have a talk. Chatting with the Fishie under the talking ban, and then not reading: I’m very disappointed in you.”
Asa’s heart was hammering. He nodded. His mouth was dry. He was given one incredible chance, and it was over after a single day. She’s going to kick me off, he thought. He was sure of it.
Roxanne’s mood changed quickly and drastically. She chimed off instruction as though nothing had happened: “Well, here we are. This is the road. Notice the red flags up ahead—you’ll just be following those; I don’t think that you all need any more instruction. Let’s get moving, we’ll stretch afterwards.”
Asa liked to stretch before his workouts, but he certainly was in no position to be making demands. He felt numb, and he looked at Jen, who was smiling, before setting off.
His muscles were stiff, but he pushed himself forward. He was angry and upset; these emotions seemed to put a fire in him to want to work hard.
Stan shot off at an incredible pace, and Roxanne followed close behind. The Fishies, not yet being mutated beyond human capacity, were moving at a crawl compared to the rest of the students. After only a few short minutes, the gaps between the twenty-six teammates were sizable. Asa puffed out fog as he moved onward. Another second semester student, named Viola (Asa had heard her addressed by one of their classmates), was one hundred yards behind Asa. Her skin was pale, and the exertion made her blotch. She had been on Benny Hugh’s championship team last year, and so had undergone more physical mutations than Asa. Even though this was true, Asa was running at a faster pace; he spent more time in the gym than most other students in the Academy, and so he was able to run faster than his mutations would have normally allowed. And, also, he was very upset.
A suffocating, nasty tension filled his throat and chest. Why didn’t I read that book last night? I had one chance, ONE CHANCE! As though I wasn’t at enough of a disadvantage, and now I’m going to get kicked off my Winggame team. And why was Jen talking to me? How could she!? Does she not understand the circumstances I’m in? Or the danger in talking while the ban is in place? And who does she think she is, saying that she’ll cut through the Arctic jungle? She’ll die!
Asa was seething. He was mad at Jen, the Academy, Stan, and most of all himself.
As Asa ran, he thought of Jen’s cocky attitude in the face of danger. I don’t care if I ever talk to her again, he thought. But, for some reason Asa couldn’t explain, he kept using his echolocation to track her position. Though the entirety of the five-mile track was a circle, there were aspects of it that cut back, and zig-zagged. This allowed Asa to shoot his cries through the jungle periodically to see where Jen was.
He saw her after they had been running for two minutes. She was far behind everyone else, and didn’t seem to be exerting herself too much, though she was still jogging. But she hadn’t dared to try to cross through the Arctic jungle. Dirty liar, Asa thought. You’re not as tough as you say you are.
Towards the four-minute mark, the track made a drastic cutback, and put Asa in another position where he could use echolocation to see how the Fishies were doing. He let out frequent screams through the trees to catalog all of the runners. Mentally, he marked them off in his head.
Viola passed Asa as he did this; the echolocation cries took up too much energy for Asa to keep up a competitive pace while sending off his cries.
The last Fishie Asa saw was the red head with the streak through her hair. She was walking at this point, with her hands on her hips. She was far behind the others, and Asa guessed that he would detect Jen soon. He slowed down even more and continued to shoot out his cries into the jungle.
He didn’t detect her in the next half-mile. She’s got to be back there, though. Surely she didn’t try to cut through the Arctic jungle.
Asa couldn’t figure out why he cared. If she wanted to die, why not let her? He had warned her; how far did his responsibilities extend?
In addition to the Fishies on the other side of the jungle, Asa’s echolocation allowed him to see all kinds of creatures in the wild. There were spiders as big as dogs, with webs the diameter of a barn. Asa’s echolocation told him that monkeys lined the canopy, thicker than he would have ever guessed; some branches held as many as twenty. There were bears as big as rhinos in there, and smooth, dark ponds that his echolocation could not see into, but his imagination wouldn’t stop guessing what slithered beneath.
At last, Asa found Jen. Asa was alone on the small straightaway when he saw her. She wasn’t on the road, but was in the jungle, as Asa had feared.
Asa saw the picture so clearly. Her head was back, and she had something in her mouth—A stick? She stepped over a log and was moving forward, back towards where she thought the track began. She was going the wrong way. From Asa’s experience with running these roads he knew that she wasn’t making the progress she thought she would. And, more immediate, she was about to walk into a spider web. Asa had seen one of them up close before: in the dark of the jungle, they were almost impossible to see. The thin filaments had a tinge of green to them that blended in with the foliage surrounding. And these spider webs weren’t made for insects; they caught big things, like parrots, monkeys, and snakes. They were much stronger than a normal spider web was. Asa didn’t think that the enlarged spiders would consume Jen, but if she destroyed a web, they might get mad and inject her with lethal venom. And she was very close to one.
Asa took a quick look behind his shoulder and considered his options. Still, he thought that if he saved her this time that she would just put herself in danger again; there was no reasoning with Jen; she was too stubborn. But, what’s the risk? I’m going to get kicked off this team anyways. So what if they catch me in the jungle? Could my teammates view of me get any worse?
Asa shot out another echolocation cry and saw that Jen had gotten even closer to the web. She was now holding the stick-thing by her hip, in between her index and middle finger. Asa saw that he was still alone on the road. He cursed quietly, and slipped into the jungle.
Instantly, he felt that the air was more humid. It was a cold humidity, and felt odd to Asa. Insects chirp
ed and birds cackled and sound seemed to travel differently under the canopy. The light trickled down in small, pointed beams that shone on the jungle floor. A small, black cat hissed at Asa as he ran by it. Though he didn’t think that getting caught running off the set path would make Roxanne madder than she already was with him, Asa didn’t want to shout for Jen and give away their location to his teammates.
Or whatever animals might be around.
He felt somewhat suffocated by the thick, moist air, but he ran deeper in after Jen. The leaves atop became denser, and closer together, and soon he had reached a part of the jungle that was as dark as dusk.
He visualized Jen ahead, walking towards the spider web that stretched across two massive trees.
7
The Polaroid
The air was cold, thick, and humid as Asa ran towards Jen. His breath fogged out of him in the chilled air, and yet, due to the humidity and his recent exertion, he was sweating.
He visualized her a bit further ahead—her short hair, her new stark-white suit, and the stick-like-thing in her mouth. It was white.
As he grew closer to her, he regretted the decision more and more, and went over the reasons in his mind that coming out into the middle of the artic-jungle to save Jen was a bad idea. Asa was a perceived murderer who had been given a remarkable chance of redemption by his Winggame captain, and already blown it.
When she had asked him to come to her apartment after the run, he was sure that she would kick him off. In his mind, he laughed at the idea. No, he thought to himself. NOW I’m sure that she’s going to kick me off the team. Leaving the track to go help Jen, what am I thinking? It’s not as though she’s going to learn her lesson; she’ll probably just put herself in the same situation next run, no matter what I say.