by Leito, Chad
Asa didn’t know what to say. He put the photograph back into his suit and stammered for a moment.
“This conversation never happened,” McCoy said. His voice had taken on an authoritative tone that Asa did not like at all. Asa felt guilty, and mentally reprimanded himself for doing something to anger McCoy to such a degree.
McCoy stormed off. His expression still seemed strained and his wings were very erect.
Why would an altered photograph of me in a lab coat with a beard offend McCoy so much?
“Okay, listen up! All of you!” McCoy said. He whistled between his fingers and everyone quieted. “This is Flying Class! You can address me as McCoy, I’m one of the graduates here.” His temper still hadn’t subsided. Asa remembered how McCoy hadn’t even seemed stressed at the end of last semester, when he had illegally left his post and convened with Conway, Asa, Charlotte and Avery in the caves in the back of King Mountain. What is so damning about the photograph? And why did the gorilla have it? “This isn’t so much of a class as it is a test. But, tests are sometimes the best forms of instruction.
“I’m only going to explain this once, so listen up! Everyone see this clear tube in the middle of the room? It’s a lift of sorts. Here’s the doorknob. You’re going to want to go in with your wings out. It’ll be a tight fit, but have ‘em pointed almost straight up and you should be able to squeeze in. Then, when you shut the door, air will shoot up under your feet and lift you high and fast—it’s an odd sensation. Makes me a bit queasy, personally.
“One person at a time, please. No horsing around.
“When you get to the top, step out of the door onto the wooden platform. Try not to fall, but if you do fall, open up your wings. I don’t want anyone falling to their death because they panicked and lost their wits. Stranger things have happened before, so try not to freak out if you slip.
“From the top deck, you’ll be able to look inside this wooden thing. It’s lit up inside, and there are some beams and different obstacles within. You’ve got to jump inside, and maneuver your way through the course. The instructions are that simple.
“When you come out, you’ll be in an adjacent room. I’ll explain more about that room when we get there, but just know that the fastest time through the course will get a reward of sorts. There’s an electronic sensor at the beginning and at the end, and it will track your time.
“Sound good to everyone?” McCoy asked.
No one spoke.
“Great. I’ll go first. You don’t have to go in any particular order, but let’s try to move quickly. We don’t want to be here all day.”
The students watched as McCoy entered the transparent tube, stuffing his wings into the area above him. He shut the door, and immediately he rose up into the air, hard and fast, until he was all the way at the top of the massive room. From Asa’s perspective on the ground, McCoy looked to be the size of an ant. He stepped out onto the platform with his wings still extended, and then dove sharply into the barrel. They watched the barrel expectantly, as if it might do something. It continued to hum from within, and gave no sign that its state had changed now that McCoy was flying through it.
“Who’s first?” A notably ugly Multiplier asked. “If no one volunteers, I’m just going to pick someone!”
“I’ll go,” Charlotte said.
“In you go, girly,” said the Multiplier, holding the door open for Charlotte.
She stepped in, rose to the top and, after a brief hesitation in which she stared at the barrel’s contents, dove in. Her fly through the obstacle course wasn’t nearly as quiet as McCoy’s had been. They heard her body bang heavily against the wood a few times, and once they heard her shriek. When all was silent again, the ugly Multiplier called: “Next!”
Shashowt stepped up without hesitation and was shot up the tube. He probably volunteered because he knows he’ll get alone time with Charlotte on the other end.
Asa’s entire body was beginning to stiffen, so he lay down on the floor and began to stretch. His muscles were warm from the flight over, which helped some, but his hips just didn’t want to bend much. Asa was sure a nasty bruise was building on his side from where Stan had tackled him into the ground. He lay on his back, grabbed one knee at a time with his laceration-covered hands, and pulled slowly, trying to loosen himself up.
Teddy plopped down beside Asa. He no longer had the nasal tampons shoved into his nose, but dried blood circled the rims of his nares. He looked up at the wooden contraption with tired eyes. “I don’t like the idea of this, Asa. We’ll be completely alone in there. Anything could happen to us. I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t think you’ll have an option,” Asa said.
Teddy was quiet for a second. He bit on his fingernails, and spat trimmings onto the floor. “I think that you should be able to get through pretty fast. Your echolocation should offer a big advantage. Bats fly through crowded caves all the time.”
Asa watched as Stridor was sucked upward in the tube.
“Yeah. But we don’t know what everyone else’s mutations are. And Stridor seems to have an iron will.”
Teddy chewed on his nails and didn’t answer. Above, Stridor dove in. Roughly halfway down the course, they heard a sickening thud. The ugly Multiplier laughed, “Might be a new obstacle in there, now, by the sound of it. Reckon he’s dead, Durden?”
Durden, another Multiplier, said: “Yeah. I bet he is.”
Teddy groaned beside Asa, and a slow stream of blood began to run from his right nostril.
“Next!” the ugly Multiplier called. He waited five seconds and when no one volunteered, he said, “Palmer, you’re up!”
Why does it not surprise me that I’m the first one they chose?
Asa withdrew his wings and marched towards the door in the tube, which the ugly Multiplier was holding open. Asa stepped inside, wriggling his wings above him. “Good luck, boy,” the ugly Multiplier said. He smiled, showed his black gums, and then slammed the door.
Immediately, the membranous flaps in Asa’s wings filled like sails in a hurricane and they jerked the place where they protruded from his shoulders, sending him high into the tube. He gasped with the sudden take off, and his stomach churned as he saw the floor sinking beneath him. An odd, tingling feeling took hold in his intestines and by the time he slowed down at the top, he felt sick.
He slowed until he was suspended in mid air, right in front of a door with a glass knob. Beside the knob was a notice in yellow writing above a clear handle. The notice said:
GRASP THE HANDLE FIRMLY BEFORE OPENING THE DOOR. PRESSURE WILL LEAVE CONTAINER UPON OPENING.
Asa looked down, past his feet at the incredible amount of space between his body and the bottom of the tube. He thought that his wings would slow his fall somewhat if the wind stopped, but he wasn’t sure with the angle at which they were situated. He grabbed hold of the handle, twisted the knob, and pushed. The door flew open, the fan stopped beneath him (Asa reasoned that it must stop when a change of pressure came to the cabin), and Asa’s body fell against the glass. He retracted his wings, pulled himself up, and stepped out of the tube onto the wooden platform.
There were rails, but they looked flimsy and were low enough that he could flip over them. He could see the ground between the cracks in the two-by-fours. It would take me ten to fifteen seconds to hit the ground if I fell from here. Though he had wings and could easily fly down from this height, his knees were shaking. He extracted his wings and stepped forward onto the platform.
The wood stretched out before him until it was actually over the gaping opening of the massive, circular, wooden obstacle course. The platform narrowed, and the guardrails disappeared over the opening. Towards the end, the deck triangled down to the width of a diving board.
Asa stepped forward, slid his toes over the edge and looked down.
“Might be a new obstacle in there, now, by the sound of it. Reckon he’s dead, Durden?” Asa could hear the ugly Multiplier’s words play in his
mind.
He could understand how someone could die inside this obstacle course. From where he stood above it, the humming noise was much louder. He could only see a hundred feet or so into the barrel, and then the rest was obscured by a turn in the wood. Inside the barrel there were many stationary obstacles, and moving ones. There were flipping metal rings, there were sheets of canvas strung up halfway across the course in some parts, there were hard metal platforms within and windmilling wooden beams that he would have to fly through.
He readjusted his feet where he stood; his heart was thudding.
From far below he heard someone yell at him. He guessed it was the ugly Multiplier telling him to hurry up.
“I’m going to break my neck,” Asa said, and he let himself fall, headfirst into the moving, obstacle-covered, flying course.
His first thought was, I’m going too fast!
His stomach dropped, he gritted his teeth, and juked left, feeling his wing clip onto a set wooden beam. Pain shot like electricity up his wing and through his back, but he had no time to think about this. The impact had sent him spiraling towards a three-feet wide metal ring that protruded out from the edge of the barrel. His wings would be much too large for it. The ring came up fast, and he sucked his wings into his body, flew through the ring, and then extracted them again. He dodged another wooden beam and then remembered Teddy’s advice to use echolocation.
Of course!
He shot out a scream, closed his eyes, and his brain was given an instant map of what lay ahead. The turn in the wood was actually the beginning of an s-curve, he saw, and he would have to wind back and forth twice before the next straight away. In between these things were similar obstacles to the ones he had already seen: Loops he would have to retract his wings and fly through, wind milling wood he would have to avoid, and planks and metal bars that stretched the width of the entire course. These things weren’t what made his blood turn to ice though, and his stomach shrink up to his throat; it was what he saw at the end that made him scared out of his mind—a wall. His mental map showed that at the end of the s-curve there was a flat, solid-looking barrier that spanned the entire width of the course. He saw no holes in it or ways around it.
But, he had no time to think about that, because the next objects were coming up fast. He dodged a pole, skimmed a wooden beam, and then made the first turn in the S-curve, which led to a small, wooden hoop that he had to retract his wings to pass through. He did so, gaining even more speed. The same glowing, white rectangular lights that had been in the room outside lit the course, and they blurred past him. He heard the cool wind, and the turning of the instruments.
As he pulled up into the next curve, Asa saw that a broomstick-sized wooden pole that stuck out in the course had been broken in half, probably by a proceeding student. He zipped past this object, and found an open path leading to the final turn before the straightaway. It was extremely fortunate that he had a clear path ahead of him because he would have been unable to change his path even slightly at the speed he was now traveling.
He had to use his entire, adrenaline-filled body to make it through the next turn, and he wondered what kind of a G-force he was experiencing. He felt light-headed. He made the turn upside down, using his wings as a pivot point, and felt that they were being pulled so hard from his body that his wings might rip out his back.
Asa’s cheeks flapped in the air as he made this turn and he finally saw the impenetrable tan object that he was going to slam into. His eyes searched madly for a hole in the object, but found none. At the speed he was traveling, it was impossible for him to stop before slamming into the thing.
Gene Gill lied! He wanted to calm my nerves before having me go to flying practice, so that my guard would be down and I’d fly into this object at a high speed, breaking my neck!
No matter what his thoughts were, and no matter how badly he wanted to stop or how unfair he thought his predicament was, he was going to slam into the object. In a useless gesture, he put his hands out in front of him, as though that would stop him from splattering his body in a fifteen-foot circumference across the tan object that he was rushing towards.
Time seemed to slow. He held his breath and felt his wings hit the object first. They didn’t slow him down at all. The object pressed into his hands, and his arms collapsed under the pressure, leaving his head to take the impact.
He hit the object, hard, and the next moment he was tumbling in the air summersaulting. His head pulsed, his neck ached, but he was alive. He shot his wings out, stabilized himself, and was able to see that he had flown through a hard, tan tarp. He also noticed that after the impact his speed had slowed down considerably.
More objects were coming up. He righted himself and used echolocation to see out ahead of him. He dodged over a wooden plank, flattened himself between two metal bars and went forward.
Dispersed along the walls were ten by ten feet tarps, just like the one he had already flown through. Asa picked up speed, moved through a hoop, and then came into another curve. He kept his eyes closed and was shooting out echolocation cries at the rate of a machine gun.
He glided over a wooden beam, and then was out in what he thought was open air. He let out an echolocation cry, and received the echo, which told him that he had a one hundred yard drop before he would reach the next obstacle. He gritted his teeth and fell through the opening, gathering up speed. He was only halfway down the straightaway when
BANG!
he hit something. The familiar headache returned, and he looked above him, using his eyes this time, and saw that he had gone through another tarp. My echolocation missed it! His anxiety worsened. What if that had been a beam! I would have died! And why did my echolocation give me false information?
Asa decided that for the rest of the course he would trust his eyesight. He maneuvered in and out of the obstacles and every time he felt that he was going too fast, he would slam into one of the tarps to slow himself down. He hit the walls a few times, but luckily he was able to come out the other end with nothing more than a bloody cheek.
The course ended in an enormous pool of warm, bubbling water that came after a blind curve. He sliced deep into the water, swam up for air and heard McCoy call, “Twenty-nine seconds! Not bad, Palmer!”
Asa put a thumb up in acknowledgement, and began to wade to the edge of the pool. He was too out-of-breath to talk.
He found himself in a large, dripping cave with the other students who had completed the course and McCoy. There were large stone bleachers that occupied a wall, and the students were filling them up. The students were wet, and many of them were dripping blood.
Though Asa wasn’t exactly friends with Stridor, he was glad to see him sitting up, watching the end of the obstacle course for the next student to slam into the water. His head was bleeding considerably, but he was conscious after the blow he had taken in the course.
Asa pulled himself out of the water and said to McCoy, “It felt like a lot longer than twenty-nine seconds!”
McCoy pat him on the back. “Your first time through is always the scariest. You did pretty well, though. Stridor made it in twenty-two seconds; he’s got the fastest time so far. Go, sit down, and catch your breath.”
Asa obeyed, sitting high above everyone else, and he watched as the students slammed into the water. He looked around, saw no one was watching, and took out the polaroid. It was wet, but the picture was still intact. He set it aside to dry.
Every half minute, someone would come slamming into the water, and they’d come up out of breath. As more and more students came out, the water turned a darker shade of red. No one died in the course, though. No one died that day, at least.
On the far wall was something that Asa found equally as interesting as the splashing bodies of his classmates. There was a huge, glass panel, and inside, roughly fifty yards into the well-lit room was a large, round target. The room was perfectly circular, and the target was near the left back of the room. On Asa’s side of t
he glass was a rifle’s trigger and handle, and on the other side, the barrel came out with a spearhead on the end. Above the glass window that looked into the other room was a clock. It said 09:15:12, and then the seconds ticked onward from there.
Teddy came through screaming, and his cries ceased when he hit the water. He crawled out, nose bleeding, vomited in a trashcan, then came and sat by Asa. “Enjoy the ride?” Asa asked.
Teddy looked at him, blood streaming out of his nose and over his mouth. “I oughta kill you for saying that,” he said, smiling. His eyes didn’t look like he was joking with Asa, though.
Asa was quiet and they didn’t talk for the rest of the time. Asa wanted to know what Teddy thought about why his echolocation didn’t work inside the course, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to talk to him.
After the last student had collided with the water and made their way to the bleachers, dripping blood, McCoy stood before them. “Great job, everyone!” he said. He had relaxed some since he had first spoken with Asa. “You all flew well today; I know that this course is a bit intimidating, but you’ll get the hang of it.”
McCoy studied his armband for a second. “By the way, has anyone seen…oh, I hope I’m pronouncing this right…Brumi Ann-bah-rah-see?”
“It’s Ann-bah-rah-sue,” a girl said near the front. “I’m her best friend. I saw her this morning; she was running late, though, and I left before her.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Jessica Stine.”
“Was she planning on coming today?” McCoy asked Jessica.
Jessica nodded fervently, her dried hair bouncing up and down. “Ah-yuh! She said that she was following me out the door.”
McCoy nodded somberly. “I see. Well, it’s unfortunate that she couldn’t make it.”