by Leito, Chad
“Did you say Carmen?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah, Carmen. The Multiplier Hunter. She came to warn Asa about the Multiplier attacks, and she asked him to leave. Do you think that she is working for the Academy also?”
Bruce shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
Asa considered this. He hadn’t thought of the possibility that Stan had been meeting with Academy Multipliers that were working under false pretenses. The idea made him feel edgy, like everything around him could be part of a big mind game.
Boom Boom waved his pale hands in the air; green veins could be seen through his palms. “This is too farfetched. Let’s walk through this. You guys are proposing that Multipliers from the Academy have been threatening Stan for months, pretending that they were from outside of the Academy, on the shaky hopes that Stan Nuby, the same guy that killed his parents, would start feeling guilty and come talk to Asa. No. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the Multipliers that Stan’s been meeting with are actually from the Hive?”
Bruce was nodding. “You’re right. I don’t think anyone could have counted on Stan acting on a conscious.”
“And they didn’t really need to do anything to get Stan to leave the Academy; he made that decision on his own, because of his bad grades,” Mike said.
Viola stood up and shifted one of the logs in the fireplace with a metal poker. She then went around and refilled everyone’s drinks. Asa would have helped her, but he got the impression that she liked being a hostess.
Roxanne shifted, crossing her legs. “I bet those Multipliers will be pissed when they go to the Lab tonight and find an empty classroom.”
“Yeah,” Viola agreed, taking her seat. She had gone pale.
Asa spoke: “I think the question now is, what are we going to do? We know that Multipliers are planning on attacking us tonight in the Lab, but where do we go from here? If we don’t show up, then don’t you think they’ll come looking for me elsewhere? Can we really plan on running forever?”
Mike Plode was smiling in the corner. “Asa’s right. We need to do something about this.”
Roxanne was twirling her hair around her index finger. “Why don’t we tell someone? You could go tell Conway, and he could plan some kind of an ambush. Maybe he could get a group of graduates together and they could be waiting to attack the Multipliers in the Lab tonight.”
“We can’t make this official,” Asa said. “Where is Conway supposed to say that he got the information from? We can’t rat Stan out; they’d kill him. I just wouldn’t feel right about that.”
Roxanne held her hands out. “Well then, what’s our other option? We’ve already decided that we can’t sit around and do nothing. We can’t run away from the Academy. And God knows we can’t fight them.”
“Why not?” Boom Boom asked. “It’s going to have to happen sooner or later, isn’t it?”
Roxanne looked like she didn’t know how to respond.
“Look,” Mike said. “There are eight of us. How many do you think they’ll send to take us down? Ten?”
“You can’t be serious,” Viola said.
Mike raised his voice: “I don’t think we really have another option.”
“But fighting them? Really? They’ll destroy us, you know that!”
An image of Volkner stabbing through a student’s skull in class last semester came into Asa’s mind. “I agree,” he said. “I think that we need to think this over, and consider our options more carefully. Unless we have better weapons, I don’t think that a confrontation is a good idea.”
“You too, Asa?” Mike said. “I know that it sounds scary, but I think it’s what we’ve got to do. Look at it this way—we can either attack on our own terms, or wait for them to come and get us. We just don’t have any other option to consider.”
Jen crossed her ankles up on the table and blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. “I can think of another option.” She had a devious smile on her lips.
“What’s that?” Bruce asked.
“We’ve already said that we don’t want to waste this information we have, that we want to do something proactive with it. And I agree. I also agree with what I’m hearing a lot of you guys saying—which is that it would be foolish to try to fight the Multipliers. But there’s another option.” Her smile grew. “We could spy on them.”
“Spy on them?” Viola asked.
“Yeah. A couple of us could go into the classroom in the Lab, hide somewhere, and see what happens.”
Viola scoffed. “And what do you think you’ll learn by doing that?”
Jen shrugged. “You never know what you’re going to learn when you go spying on someone. When Asa and I went and spied on Robert King’s office, we didn’t really have any expectations, and we learned about the Hive.”
The fire cracked in the corner, and everyone was quiet as they considered what Jen had said.
“I think she’s right,” Asa said. “I think that’s our best option.”
“I don’t know,” Roxanne said. “That sounds really dangerous.”
Mike Plode laughed in frustration. “Have you not been listening? No matter what decision we make, we’re in real danger. The only thing we can do is make the best decisions with what we’ve got.”
Asa was surprised to see Viola nodding in agreement. “I think that’s a good idea, Jen. Though it makes me nervous, I think that we could use some more information about what we’re dealing with.”
Asa looked at his armband. “It’s four o’clock now, and practice usually starts at eight. If I’m going, I want to get there really early so that the Multipliers don’t see me come in.”
Jen turned to Asa. “You’re not going!”
“Why not?”
“Out of all of us, they want you the most! You can’t go into a classroom, knowing there are Multipliers coming.”
“So?” Asa asked. “They’ll kill or change any of us if they find us. So what’s the difference if I go or not. Besides, I have echolocation.”
“I want to go,” Bruce said. “I’ve got my sixth sense too, where I can see electric currents. I really think that’ll come in handy.”
“Bruce…” Roxanne began. “You don’t have to do this.”
He leaned over and kissed her in front of the whole team. Roxanne pulled back, and an expression between shock and delight rose to her face.
“I’ll be okay,” he told her.
“Travis will kill you if he finds out you kissed me,” Roxanne said.
Bruce looked around the room, a grin on his face. “I think these guys can keep a secret. And don’t pretend it was the first time.” He stood, his knees popping. “Jen, Asa, you guys ready?”
“Now?” Asa asked. His mouth was dry.
“I think the sooner we get into hiding in that classroom, the better the chances that the Multipliers won’t sniff us out.”
30
Spying in The Lab
Bruce, Jen and Asa arrived in the Lab just after six. Each of them had pockets full of calorie-dense candy bars that they could eat while waiting. They had all learned a lesson about their mutated high metabolisms from the Task, and didn’t want their alertness or concentration to waver due to hunger while they were spying on the Multipliers.
As they walked over the threshold into the building, the sun was setting outside, and the sky was the color of burning charcoal. Faint orange light shone in through the windows, but the facility was otherwise very dark. Broken class crunched under their feet as they made their way over the tile, and small monkeys skittered out the windows at the arrival of humans.
“I hope the Multipliers weren’t watching us come,” Bruce said, his low voice rumbling.
“I think we made a good decision to walk instead of fly,” Jen said, looking out the windows.
“I do too,” Bruce responded. “Walking made us less noticeable, but it didn’t make us invisible.”
Asa kept on thinking, we’re here to spy on Multipliers
from the Hive. Those freaks bit Brumi and Teddy, and they’re planning on coming here to bite us. He kept reciting different versions of these words to himself, because it was hard for him to wrap his mind around what he was doing. He also thought—what could we learn by spying on them that will be worth risking our lives? As they walked through the dark foyer to the classroom the Sharks often met in to discuss strategies, he felt unsure that they were making the right decision.
Asa looked over at Bruce, who was breathing through his mouth. In the shadows, his gums looked black.
Even though it couldn’t help his situation, his mind jumped over to thoughts of Janice, Stan, and Charlotte—all of whom had gone out into the woods behind Mount Two for various reasons. Asa would have no way of knowing if Stan and Janice were able to escape the Academy with their lives, but Charlotte had told Asa she would be at tomorrow’s dance. If I don’t see her there…
A wave of nauseous guilt overcame him and he wasn’t able to finish the thought.
Harsh voices whispered in his mind—it would be your fault, Palmer. You could have warned her not to go into the woods, but you didn’t. And why? Because you were getting emotional, because you were having a hard time talking to her. Terrible, really. You know…
Bruce turned his key in the lock of the classroom door and the sound echoed with a sharp suddenness that broke Asa out of his contemplations. Jen must have sensed his nervousness, because she took his hand. As usual, Jen looked calm and collected. Her head was held high and she was relaxed, as though she was walking into an ice cream parlor, instead of into a classroom where they would wait to spy on Multipliers who had intentions of killing them.
Maybe someone like Jen would be better for me than Charlotte. Maybe I need someone with such a strong personality.
Bruce opened the door, flicked on the lights, and the three of them entered.
Asa looked around the classroom, searching for somewhere he would be comfortable hiding when the Multipliers came. The room had sixteen school desks; each of these was bolted to the floor and had shackles coming from the armrests and the desk’s legs.
Asa had always been curious about the purpose of this strange configuration. He knew that the Lab had been used in the past to mutate different animals and to test them. It was odd, though, to see shackles in a classroom. It suggested that the Academy had created some kind of being smart enough for academic activity, but too dangerous to trust to sit unrestrained in a desk.
There was a sprawling blackboard on the back wall, with different Winggame plays that Bruce had written in X’s and O’s last time they had met. On the left side of the room, there was an overturned leather chair and a huge oak teacher’s desk shoved against the wall. Atop the desk were scattered pens and a leather notebook, gathering dust. On the right side of the wall was an odd closet that the Sharks had all looked at during practices in the past. The door was not flush with the floor, but was slightly lifted so that there was about a foot of unpainted wall in between the threshold and the ground. Asa thought it looked like the kind of small closet that a hot water heater might be held in. The door was four inches thick of solid, heavy oak, with a lock on the metal handle. Inside, the walls were lined with dense metal chains that snaked from the walls and ended in shackles. Boom Boom had suggested that this might have been used as some sort of restraining closet to give time-outs to whatever violent creatures the Academy taught in the classroom.
As they surveyed the room, Bruce’s stomach growled loudly. “I hope that doesn’t happen while I’m hiding from the Multipliers.”
“No shit,” Asa said. He wondered if Jen and Bruce could see how pale he had gone.
Jen was staring up at the ceiling. “I wish the ceiling was tiled, that way we could hide up above without much risk of being caught.
Bruce grunted in agreement. The ceiling was not tiled, but was made of one large slab of concrete.
Asa walked in between two columns of desks, thinking, if Stan hadn’t warned us, we’d all die tonight. Or worse, we’d be bitten.
Jen was moving along the wall, looking at the large desk. “Two of us could hide under the desk,” she said. “We could put it up against the wall. Look, there are even little holes in the back for electric cords to run out of that we could watch through.”
“If we can see out of it, they can see into it,” Asa said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Jen asked.
“There’s always that weird restraining closet. That at least has a solid door to stand behind.”
“I think if one of us has to hide in the closet, it should be me,” Bruce said. “I’m the one that can see electric currents through solid objects.”
Asa looked anxiously at his armband. It was still early; he could still back out if he wanted.
There was a screeching sound as Jen slid the desk out away from the wall, and examined the leg space where she was planning on hiding. “Asa, you and I could fit in here.”
“Won’t they be able to see us through those little electric wiring holes in the back?”
Jen shrugged. “Maybe if they’re looking right at it. But it’s not like they’re going to be looking for us. These Multipliers are going to be expecting to find our entire team in the middle of Winggame practice when they barge in. I think that if they find this place empty they’ll just assume that practice was cancelled. I doubt they’d think to look for hiding students.”
Bruce was nodding beside her.
“All right,” Asa said. “Let’s see if we fit.”
Jen and Asa crouched down in the desk’s leg space, and Bruce pressed the desk against the wall. Because the desk was so large, they both fit, but the area was by no means roomy. Asa was sitting on his ankles and his shoulder was touching Jen’s.
“Can you see us?” Jen called out to Bruce.
Bruce took a few steps back into the classroom and surveyed the desk. “If I look into those holes just right I can, but I agree with Jen, I don’t think that the Multipliers will be looking that hard for us.”
In the darkness, Jen smiled at Asa, as though the danger of the situation was exhilarating to her.
“I think that I’ll get into place in the closet,” Bruce said. “We should keep talking to a minimum from here on out. I know that it’s a couple hours, but the Multipliers could show up here at any time. They could be planning on coming a little early to scope out the area.”
Bruce walked to the front of the room, turned off the lights, and then closed himself off in the closet.
Jen picked up Asa’s hand and put it against her chest. He could feel her rapid, strong heart beat. “I’m so nervous,” she whispered excitedly.
Asa took her hand and put it on his chest. “I am too.” Instead of being excited about his nerves, Asa felt like he might throw up.
It was so dark that Asa couldn’t read his armband to see what time it was. He and Jen sat in silence, and after some period, Asa’s knees began to ache from the odd position he was seated in. He sat there, hearing his own breath and considering the option of leaving. As the arrival of the Multipliers drew nearer, he became more and more sure that spying on them would be fruitless—Asa did not want to die today, or be turned into a Multiplier.
He procrastinated leaving by going over all the reasons that spying would be a good idea. For one, the Multipliers were planning some kind of an attack on the Academy—Carmen had said it would come at the end of the semester. If this was true, his chances of being bitten or killed were very high regardless of his actions, so there was sense in risking his life on the small chance that he could gain valuable information.
But what on earth could I find out from spying on a classroom in which Multipliers planned on attacking tonight?
He didn’t know. His palms were sweaty, his heart was racing, and the nausea was only getting worse. He waited for a period longer, still worrying about his decision, thinking of what to do. Asa ate a Cliff bar, and discarded the wrapper in his pocket. He sat there, contemplating, fr
ozen by fear.
Finally, Asa decided that he couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted out. He pushed the desk out a couple of inches before Jen firmly grabbed his arm.
“What the hell are you doing?” she whispered.
Asa’s mouth was dry. “I want to leave.”
“It’s too late now. It’s ten past eight. They’ll be here any second.”
Jen pulled the desk back, and took Asa’s hand. She made him run his fingers over her armband. Because the armband’s display was comprised of computerized threads, Asa could feel the time on the armband.
8:11 PM
Asa’s heart felt like it was beating in his throat. He looked through one of the holes in the back of the desk and didn’t see anything but darkness in the classroom, and in the foyer beyond. All was silent. Jen was right; it was too late to back out now. Asa wondered if Multipliers had a heightened olfactory sense. If so, they’d be able to smell that there were three humans in the classroom.
If they do, Asa thought, there is nothing I can do about it now.
FLICK
Asa’s breath halted where it was in his throat. I heard a noise, I’m sure of it. He felt Jen’s body tighten beside his; she had heard it too.
All was quiet for another moment. Asa’s eyes scanned the thick darkness for Multipliers. How many of them will there be? Two? Ten? Fifty?
FLICK
There’s that noise, Asa thought, but again, everything was quiet and there was nothing to see in the dark classroom or beyond the doorway. Asa wondered how Bruce was doing in the restraining closet. Asa supposed that Bruce would be able to use his power to detect both himself and Jen under the desk, along with any Multipliers that entered the vicinity.
FLICK
Asa was certain that he had heard something that time. His eyes locked on the area in the dark foyer where he believed the noise originated, and it happened again.
FLICK
Asa was now able to see what was making the noise—a lighter. There was now a green-blue flame issuing from the top of the lighter, which illuminated the surrounding areas in a soft, aqua light.