by Leito, Chad
“What is happening?” he said out loud. He slid down to the floor and hugged his knees. He tried to think, to make a plan, but nothing came to him in his tired mind. Then, he remembered. He wasn’t alone anymore. He had his teammates—they were his family. He could confide in them.
He stood, yanked the door open, locked it, and glided down to Viola’s dwelling. He stood at her threshold, banging on the door until she opened it. Her black hair was a mess. “Asa? It’s midnight.”
“We need to talk. Instant Message the whole team until they get here. I can’t sleep.”
Though Viola looked tired, she took what Asa was saying seriously. She let him into her dwelling, and he sat down at the long kitchen table beside the fire. Slits of moonlight light came in through the wooden vents in the roof and made stripes of silver on the floor. Viola sat across from Asa, opened her armband, and sent a message to the rest of the team.
All of the Sharks had installed a program so that if one of their teammates messaged them, the fabric would flap around violently, until they woke up.
“I’ll make tea,” Viola said.
Twenty minutes later, they had all arrived except for Stan and Janice, who Viola didn’t bother to message. The Sharks all had bags under their eyes and messy hair. Seeing how tired they were and knowing that they had to get up early made Asa feel slightly guilty. He wondered why he wasn’t able to wait to talk to them until morning.
Viola made tea and coffee for anyone who wanted it. Asa accepted some coffee, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyways. He stirred in two servings of vanilla cream, and sipped occasionally as he told them everything that had happened in the past two days.
He started by talking about how Teddy had been bitten; this was received with whimpers of anxiety from his teammates.
“Poor Teddy,” Viola said.
“So where is he right now?” Bruce asked in a raspy, tired voice. He was sitting so close to Roxanne on a bench that their shoulders were touching.
“Teddy is in Conway’s cabin. He has a sort of jail cell in the basement. I don’t know why; he never told me exactly what it was for, but it’s being used to hold Teddy.”
Viola poured herself more tea. “Do you think that him being bitten has anything to do with how odd he’s been acting? His pupils…” she paused, trying to find the right words, “are not normal. They’re the size of an owl’s!” She shook her head. “And he’s been doing so unnaturally well in all of his classes.”
“What are you trying to say?” Mike Plode asked. His red hair was sticking straight up, and he stared at Viola with unmoving green eyes. He spoke with a bluntness that sometimes offended people. Asa believed this was a result of strong pragmatism, not a lack of sympathy or emotion.
Viola shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think that it’s a little weird that all of those things happened to Teddy. Why him?”
This had been troubling Asa too. “Teddy thinks that on the day he was bitten, the Multiplier was waiting for me inside my dwelling. Teddy entered, and so he got bit.”
Lilly Bloodroot’s purple eyes seemed to glow in the firelight. She was staring at the wall, and had a far-off look on her face, as she often did. Asa didn’t know that she was listening until she asked, “What did the Multiplier look like that bit Teddy?”
“I didn’t think to ask him last night,” Asa admitted. “I should have, though, and I will. I will also ask him about the other things—his dilated pupils, the math on the walls of his mansion, the good grades, and the generally odd behavior.”
“I think that’s a good next step,” Roxanne said. She was now snuggled up next to Bruce, who had his arm around her. Asa found this hard to look at, thinking about how Roxanne’s Multiplier boyfriend would literally kill Bruce if he saw this.
“He’s been way too smart this semester,” Viola said, repeating the idea. Knowing that she had noticed this too, made Asa somehow feel better. “I mean, he was always smart, don’t get me wrong, but this semester, Teddy’s been freaky. It’s like his brain is a computer, and when he watches Professor Stern write on the board, it’s like there’s a video camera behind his massive pupils, taking everything in. I can’t believe that he figured out about the clock in Flying Class. It makes me scared to think what else he might have been able to figure out. I’m curious about your dad’s riddle, for one thing.”
“Me too,” Asa said simply.
“Tell us what happened tonight, now,” Roxanne said. She was tired-appearing, but remained politely attentive as Asa relayed the rest of the story, talking about Carmen’s visit. He spoke for minutes on end, relaying what had happened while the rest of the team listened attentively. He began with finding Carmen in his dwelling, and ended the story at knocking on Viola’s door.
“How do we know she’s not from the Hive?” Jen asked. “Why should we believe what this person told Asa?”
“There are different Multipliers, remember,” said Boom Boom. “Don’t forget that Adam Trotter told us that the Academy caught a different kind of Multiplier and was interrogating him. For all we know, there could be dozens of different kinds of mutated humans. Maybe the Multipliers and graduates we’ve seen are just the tip of the iceberg.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean that Carmen wasn’t from the Hive.”
“I don’t think that she was from the Hive,” Asa said. “I think that if she were, she would have bitten me.”
They considered this for a while. The candle flames flickered and when Bruce next spoke, his voice sounded gruff and tired, like he was fighting sleep.
“What if she was from the Academy?”
“Why would she want to warn me of a Multiplier attack if she was from the Academy?” Asa asked. “The Multipliers in the Academy want me dead, or worse, bitten.”
“No,” Bruce corrected. “What they want is for the contract between themselves and your father to be broken. And all that needs to happen to break the contract is both you and Charlotte need to somehow fail out of the Academy. That includes dying, being bitten by a Multiplier, and, don’t forget, running away. Maybe she’s trying to trick you into running away.”
“But I don’t think that she was from the Academy. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m in my fourth semester here, and I still see Multipliers that I’ve never seen before.”
There was another moment of silence. Lilly Bloodroot still had a dreamy look upon her face. “Imagine if we did leave, though. Wouldn’t that be kind of nice? We could travel together. I know there’s a chance that they’d catch us, but what if they didn’t? What if we were able to get away cleanly? We wouldn’t have any more schoolwork. We would be free of all this fear they hang over our heads. We could change our names; move into a city somewhere. Even if we couldn’t get a legitimate job, we could steal. As fast as we are, we would be uncatchable.”
“That would be nice, but then what?” Mike Plode drained his coffee and wiped his mouth hastily on his sleeve. “We just wait for the Multipliers to take over the Academy, and then the world? That’s what would happen. If Asa leaves, they only have to make Charlotte, fail, die, or run away, and then the contract is broken. Then they’ll be able to make Multipliers in the Academy. If they do that, who will be left standing to stop the Hive when they try to take over the world? No one. Even if we got away from this place, the Multipliers would come find us. They’d bite everyone until there were no normal humans left. Asa can’t leave. We’ve got to stay here; it’s our only option. I think the best thing that we can do is try to stand and fight.”
“Fight?” Viola asked; she looked pale.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “It’s not a pretty option, but it’s the only one we’ve got. If the Academy goes down, it’s the end of the world. It’s as simple as that. The Wolf Flu is taking more human victims every single day, and the Hive is probably biting more people and making more Multipliers daily, also. And when the Hive decides it is tired of remaining underground and they want
to have their own country, who’s going to stop them? The United States? China? Honestly, no one has a good standing army. People are sickly, weak, and dying. The Academy is the only hope. So if there is going to be an attack on this place, I think it’s better to die fighting here than to be hunted down like a rat in a hole a couple years later.”
“But we can’t fight Multipliers! They’re much too strong!” Viola rolled her eyes. “That’s crazy!”
“Well I think that waiting for them to take over the world is crazy,” Mike said back. “And they’re strong, but we have a lot of weapons. With technology, humans can extend their reach further than natural. I know this; I’ve made bombs before! We do have a fighting chance, let’s not doubt ourselves.”
Viola crossed her arms and stared down at the floor. When she spoke, her voice was shaky. “It just scares me. I think you’re right though, Mike. We don’t have another option.”
Asa rested his chin on his hands, trying to think of some other possibility that no one else was seeing. The idea of waiting for an inevitable Multiplier attack that was supposed to come at the end of this semester gave him chills.
“There’s something that I haven’t told any of you,” Roxanne said. “And I’m sorry! I just… I didn’t see any use in you knowing. But now, I think that it’s time.” All eyes went to Roxanne. “After I climbed King Mountain as a Fishie, I was given a Random Box Talent as a reward, just like everyone else. The mutation I received was an ability to electrocute things, sort of like an eel can.”
Asa perked up, and rubbed his shoulder where he had received the vaccine earlier in the day that would give him this same mutation. So far, he felt no different.
“At first, the ability wasn’t very valuable. I could shock someone, but it was very tiring for me. But then Bruce came along and helped me to realize my true potential.” She looked up at Bruce. “Bruce also has an ability. It’s a similar mutation to what platypuses have.”
“I can demonstrate.” Bruce stood up so that he was looking down at the table. “Jen, hold up a certain number of fingers beneath the table. Don’t let me see. Don’t tell me what it is.”
She placed her hands underneath the table.
“Seven,” Bruce said.
Jen held her hands up so that everyone could see. Indeed, she had seven fingers pointing out.
“What can you do? Do you have xray vision?” Viola asked.
“Not exactly. Just like a platypus, I can sense electric fields. I couldn’t see Jen’s fingers, I could just sense them. It’s hard to explain. Her muscles are contracting with electric signals that are sent from her nervous system, and in a way, I can see those electric signals.”
“So that’s how you knew that Adam Trotter was in the creek bed when we were walking through the Tropics,” Asa said.
Bruce smiled and nodded before sitting back down.
Roxanne continued with what she was saying. “Bruce came to me one day and explained that all our nerves send electric and chemical signals. He wondered if I could control my muscles with my electrocution ability. I learned that I could. Bruce instructed me to lower the voltage I was using. I did. I was clumsy at first, but then I learned to control it with hours of practice. Bruce is the only other person to know this so far, but by shocking my muscles, I have a kind of super-human strength. Well, I guess we all do. But my strength is beyond anything I was able to obtain from the regular Academy mutations. I think that I’m stronger than any Multiplier.”
Bruce nodded beside her. “I’m supposed to have seven times the strength of a normal human, and her strength is so superior to mine that it’s not comparable.”
“And now,” Roxanne said, gesturing to Asa, “he’s got the same ability. It’ll take a year or so until he’s able to use it as well as me, but it will happen.”
Asa leaned back in his chair and looked quizzically at Roxanne. “I saw you jump out of the way of Stridor’s bullet in the Tropics with speed like I had never seen before. Were you electrocuting your muscles then?”
Roxanne nodded. “If you can learn to control this, Asa, we’ll have two people here who are somewhat stronger than a single Multiplier. It’s not much, but it will help. I want you to start lessons with Bruce and me tomorrow. Hopefully, you’ll be able to use this ability some by the time we reach the Winggame championship, if we make it. And, if the Hive attacks, I want to be as prepared as possible.”
“Okay. I’m looking forward to training.”
“And I want to be very clear that everyone must keep this secret,” Roxanne said. “I put a lot of effort into hiding it. I could have been the Winggame MVP this year, but held back to avoid suspicion. Please, no one say anything about this.”
From then on, there was a five-minute lull when no one spoke. They were all incredibly tired from the rigorous course work, the stress, Winggame practices, and sleep deprivation. Asa found Jen’s hand under the table and held it. His eyelids were heavy, and he felt in danger of falling asleep in his chair.
Bruce began to snore, and Roxanne put a pillow under his head before leaving. Everyone else got up and walked towards the door. “I think that it would be better if you stayed here tonight, Asa,” Viola said. “We can put up another hammock for you.”
Asa nodded sleepily and was grateful for the offer. He didn’t want to sleep alone, and wasn’t sure that he would even be able to after all the talk about Multipliers. Viola locked the front door after everyone else left, and together they strung a rope hammock from two I-bolts in the stone.
He lay there only a couple of minutes before falling asleep. The hammock creaked beneath him every time he stirred and he looked up at the ceiling. Dozens of thick, wooden roots curved out over the stone above him, stretching from the tree on the Mountainside atop Viola’s dwelling. He thought about how early he would have to wake up for their Winggame practice in the morning. He hated the idea of such an intense workout after so little sleep, but he knew he needed the practice. He looked at his hands in the pale moonlight that came in through the wooden vents in the ceiling, and wondered what it would be like to control his body with a kind of peripheral electricity source. He remembered Roxanne’s displays of incredible strength earlier in the year and couldn’t wait until he was at that level. He closed his eyes. It was a little before three in the morning. Images rose up behind his eyelids as sleep began to overtake him. His last thought before drifting off was of how thankful he was for his team. They were, in every way that mattered, his family.
26
Vipocrit
The next day, Asa ran his hands along the wooden railing as he walked down the basement stairs at Conway’s. From below, where Teddy was still trapped, he could hear a grating, sawing noise. Because Asa knew how terrifyingly smart Teddy was, any unusual noise was alarming, and he wondered if the cage could truly hold his friend indefinitely.
As he lowered himself down the stairs, he felt the fatigue in his legs. He was even more tired than the day before. His body desperately craved a nap before attending that night’s Winggame practice, but he forced himself to go see Teddy. He felt a responsibility to check up on him, and didn’t want Mama and Conway to feel as though they had been used as a dump for Asa’s problem.
Even though Asa no longer had to attend Flying Class, his schedule was as packed as ever. Just as Roxanne and Bruce had talked about the night before, they had begun practicing Asa’s electrocution power in the morning.
The three of them took a trip to Roxanne’s apartment at nine in the morning so that Asa could begin to learn how to use his new electrocution power. The apartment was decorated the same way it had been when Asa visited at the beginning of the semester. The floor was covered in thick sand, there was a bamboo coffee table, there was a giant fish tank with catfish swimming inside, and a fifteen-foot wide picture of a beach at sunset was hung up onto the wall.
Rica, the black leopard that lived with Roxanne, hissed at Asa when he entered, and Roxanne let Asa feed her a catfish so that she would grow
fonder of him. He dropped the catfish into the feline’s bowl, and was rewarded with a noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl. Rica picked the fish up in her massive teeth and pranced off into one of the back rooms to have her breakfast alone.
Asa and Roxanne got onto the floor, crossed their legs, and held hands. They spent an hour and a half trying to get Asa to shock Roxanne, and saw no real improvement. Roxanne sent Asa tiny sparks up his fingers, and told him to try to “feel the energy prickling down your arms, and just kind of move it down to my hands.” The exercise felt crazy to Asa. He thought that he needed more time to mutate before he would be able to shock anyone. When he first got his wings, it took weeks before they even emerged.
Asa spent his Responding to Medical Emergencies class studying for Science Class. Benny Hughs spent the whole period rambling on about his Winggame career, and about how, “If I were to bet, I’d say I’ll be remembered as one of the greatest of all time.”
Science Class was brutal. Professor Stern went over the ideal gas law so quickly that Asa couldn’t keep up. When it came time to work on problems in class, Asa found himself lost. Professor Stern marched around the room, tugging on his mustache, looking over the students’ shoulders. When he saw the lack of progress Asa was making, he went up to the board and repeated a large portion of the lecture. “Not everyone has to listen,” he said. “You can continue working. Mr. Palmer seems to have been snoozing during the lesson, so this is for his benefit.” Asa’s face went red, but he converted his armband to an electronic notepad and scribbled frantically, trying to keep up. Even the supplemental lesson didn’t make the concept stick with Asa. He couldn’t understand what the purpose of “R” was in the equation PV=nRT, and he didn’t understand why the value of “R” kept changing constantly.