by Leito, Chad
He’s not going to do anything to defend this place. The Multipliers will probably be after Charlotte and me. If they don’t get us, the worst they can do is kill a large part of the student body. But he doesn’t care. He’ll do whatever he can to defend himself.
I’m going to place those bombs, tonight, Asa thought. And if Robert King, or Jamie, or one of Robert King’s assistants is monitoring me in The Boss’s living quarters, I won’t be able to.
“No,” Asa said. “I think I’ll stay at my place tonight.”
Robert King stood abruptly. “Very well. I think that you are making a very poor decision, but I must not force you into anything that you don’t want to. Good luck in your match, Mr. Palmer. And in everything else. You will need it.”
The Boss flicked Jamie’s leash, and the two of them walked briskly out of the building. Asa sat there for a moment, staring out the window. Then the second horn sounded, and he remembered that he had to report to the Starting Platform.
The Winggame Championship was about to begin.
35
The Winggame Championship
Asa looked out onto the cobblestone path, thinking that he was not mentally ready to play the most important Winggame match of his life. The wind was absolutely shrieking outside, and Asa knew that the team with the wind at their backs would have a huge advantage. But he did not dwell on this long. His thoughts were on Robert King.
Right after the second commencement horn sounded, Asa looked out the nearest window and had a feeling in his gut that Robert King was not being genuine. At first, Asa didn’t know for sure what brought on the feeling, but he knew that something wasn’t right about the conversation they had just had.
Knowing that he should immediately present himself at the Starting Platform, but feeling apathetic about this, Asa stayed seated for a few moments as he attempted to sort out what had just happened. The music and the crowd were incredibly loud, even from inside.
Asa’s intuition suggested that he ponder over Robert King’s claim at being functionally all knowing when it came to the Academy. This idea did not sit well with Asa; something about it rubbed him the wrong way.
Robert King had told Asa that he knew more than Asa thought he did. Asa had been frightened when he first heard this; it could mean so many things. Robert King’s statement could mean that he knew that Conway and Mama were housing Teddy, it could mean that he knew that Asa and Teddy used the internet to watch the video of The Boss’s clone’s death, it could mean that he was aware that Asa and Jen snuck in and spied on Robert King in his office; there were a great number of things that it could mean.
But how is he doing it? Asa asked himself. Cameras? Secret recorders? Does he have a mutated animal of some type that spies for him?
Asa thought back to when Robert King had acted as though he knew that Asa had been told about his father’s involvement in the Academy.
Conway, McCoy, and Avery are the only Academy officials that I’ve talked to about this issue, Asa thought. Conway told me the story of my father one day on the back of King Mountain, inside one of the thousands of caves. Surely neither Conway, Avery, nor McCoy was a spy, right? And, there’s no way he had wire-tapped the cave that Conway had told the story in—how would Robert King have known that Asa was going to go into the specific cave he went into to?
Those ideas seemed farfetched to Asa. He didn’t believe that Robert King knew that Asa was aware of his father. Robert King may have suspected it, but Asa didn’t think that the Boss had proof. He hadn’t given any specific examples. He was so vague in how he accused Asa of knowing Edmund Palmer’s past.
There was another reason that Asa didn’t trust Robert King’s accusations. This other reason was something that would be hard to prove, but that he believed nonetheless.
Robert King likes to play pretend, Asa thought. He wants to be a God, but he can’t be. So, he desires the second best thing—people thinking that he’s all-powerful and all-knowing; people thinking that he’s godlike.
Asa was feeling confident in this belief. He truly was beginning to think that maybe Robert King just used careful wordplay to make it seem like he knew more than he did, when a thought came to Asa that halted him.
But how did Robert King know that Stan had visited me last night?
That fact was tricky to dance around. Did that mean that Robert King did have cameras all over the mountainside?
Asa didn’t think so. He thought about how Robert King felt threatened by the Multipliers from the Hive, and yet they were able to live on the outskirts of Mount Two, killing Davids, without being caught. Joney has been living in the wild around the Mountains for a whole semester now, Asa reminded himself. If Robert King actually found Joney, he would kill him.
Asa was then stuck with another question; if hidden cameras or microphones don’t monitor the Academy, how did Robert King know that Stan had visited Asa yesterday and then left the Academy?
The answer came rapidly to his mind: They caught Stan and interrogated him. It’s as simple as that. At this, Asa recalled looking out onto the plains past the Academy last night. They seemed to go on and on. Once you were out of the mountains, the land rolled on without a tree for miles in sight. Asa thought that it was possible that Robert King had lookouts that sat in different stations and monitored these fields to see if any students tried to escape.
They probably caught Stan, interrogated him, and that’s the only reason Robert King even knows about the upcoming Multiplier attack.
The horn sounded for the third and final time, which meant that Asa had one minute to report to the Starting Platform if he wanted to play today. He slid out of the chair, and left the building at a trot.
As soon as he opened the door, he was hit with a wall of noise that sent undulating pressure on his eardrums. The music was even louder than when he came in, and it sounded as though the crowd had tripled. Asa began to run, his heart hammering in his chest, nervous that he would be late.
When he came out from behind the last building and could see the crowd, he swore quietly to himself in awe. There were not hundreds of people on the bleachers, as there had been at every other game he had been to. Instead, the floating bleachers above the water looked like they had grown to a dozen times their original size, and on each side of the Plaid there were thousands of people.
Asa wondered who all these people were. Then, he remembered all of the Alfatrex workers that lived in the mountains, but were never seen by many of the students. These must be them. Robert King must have allowed them to come watch.
The majority of the crowd consisted of men and women in business casual attire. They gazed around at the scenery, and many of them were rowdier than the Academy students. Raccoons walked up and down the different aisles. Some were selling popcorn and candy, and others were giving out ball caps. The audience members were given a choice; they could choose the blue hats with the sharks on them, or the gray hats with a picture of a wolf attached to the front.
The supporters of the Wolves outnumbered the fans of the Sharks twenty to one. Asa couldn’t blame them. For one, the Wolves were a heavy favorite; it feels bad to cheer for a losing team. Secondly, the Sharks had some odd students on their team. They had Asa, who had been accused of conspiring to kill students. There was Mike Plode, who had blown up a bank before he came to the Academy. And then, before today, the Sharks also had Stan Nuby, who had killed his entire family.
Asa smiled at how unlikeable his Winggame team was, on the surface.
There was a howling wind blowing North to South that made the water choppy and was blowing people’s hair in wild tangles. As Asa made it to the Starting Platform, Jen informed him that the coin toss had been a success. The Sharks team captain, Roxanne, had won the toss, and the Sharks would by flying North to South. Having the wind on their backs was a great advantage.
Asa looked out over the water and thought that the wind might actually by blowing at twenty miles per hour. Asa furrowed his eyebrows and tri
ed not to get too excited about this; the Wolves were good enough that they could overcome such a disadvantage.
The wind tore at Asa’s suit like dragging fingers, and forced him to take a step back. I think that we might have a shot, though. This wind is really blowing.
He turned and looked at the Wolves. There were twenty-five of them, and they took up their entire Starting Platform as they buckled themselves in. Their uniforms were dark gray, and they had snarling wolves imprinted on their shoulders.
Asa looked over his own team, and was surprised to see that each player had undergone a complete change of attitude while he was meeting with Robert King. Gabby was scowling as she strapped herself in. She was staring at the ground, concentrating. There was a competitor’s intensity in her eyes. Viola Burns was flushed red; her eyes were closed, she was bobbing her head, and muttering something to herself that seemed to be exciting her for the match. Mike Plode had his fists clenched and was staring down the Wolves, even though they outnumbered the Sharks over three to one.
Asa sat down beside Jen and strapped himself in.
“We’re running play number one. Roxy is the defender.” Jen said. She looked determined and cocky as ever as she pulled her hair into a ponytail.
Asa paled as he heard the play call. Bruce used to joke with the Sharks that he hoped they would never have to run play number one. The formation was intended to only be executed when absolutely necessary, in dire situations. Bruce had written the play up for when they were in a competitive game and there seemed to be no chance of winning, unless something remarkable happened. It was a Hail Mary.
The play was simple. Every player but one would attack and try to score, while the one defender stayed back and did his or her best to defend one goal. But, the offensive attack wasn’t conducted in the usual manner. Typically, a player will dive low off the Starting Platform, gain speed as they are crossing mid court, and then coast towards the goal. In play number one, the players were instructed to fly almost horizontal until they passed the Plaid. Then, they dove towards the goals. It wasn’t the quickest way to score—gaining speed at the beginning and then gliding across over the water was the fastest way to score. But by diving so late, the Sharks would be reaching the other team’s goals at near-terminal velocity. This type of maneuver wasn’t exactly against the rules, but it was very frowned upon. It wasn’t unreasonable for students to collide going 150 mph when this type of play was run, and students had broken backs and died before while executing similar plays.
One of the things that you counted on when you dove so late across the field was that the other team might get scared and get out of the way. Defenders were often not willing to risk their lives for a Winggame match.
Asa looked over at the Wolves again, and for the first time he noticed their mood. They were laughing. Joking. No one was rallying them up. To them, this game was a pre-celebration technicality.
We could actually do this, Asa thought to himself again.
He turned to Jen, and was about to ask her why there had been such a change of mood in the Sharks. When he left to see Robert King, they had been sulky; now, they seemed ready for a battle. But then Roxanne returned to her team after a word with the referee. Her eyes were still puffy, but there was an insane fierceness about her, like a feral cat. Her green and yellow irises seemed to glow with an inner fire.
Before she sat down, she yelled, “What would Bruce want, huh? Us to give up? Or for us to play our damned hearts out! Let’s do this. These guys are cocky! They’re not expecting us.”
She sat down and slammed her seatbelt into place. It was as though she was converting every emotion that she had about Bruce into anger and determination to be used in the match.
The wind picked up behind Asa, and then, with everyone strapped in, the Starting Platforms flew up to opposite ends of the Winggame court, above the choppy water. The Sharks were in the North; the Wolves were in the South.
Once they were in position, Roxanne stood up and began to scream and cry, “FOR BRUCE! HE WANTED US TO WIN THIS GAME!”
I’ll do you one better than win this game for Bruce, Roxy, Asa thought to himself. I’m going to go and try to kill those bastards for what they did to your boyfriend. Asa looked up into Jen’s face, and thought about leaving her tonight at the dance to go drop the bombs. This increased his anxiety, and he turned, deciding to put all his emotions into the game.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” The announcer boomed through the speakers, and the cheers of the crowd reached a new height. “This is Chandler Martin speaking, and it is my pleasure to present, this years WINGGAME CHAMPIONSHIP!”
Chandler Martin, Asa thought. I haven’t heard of him in a while. Asa wondered what ever happened to the Gill Initiative. He supposed that it may have just been an act to make the crows believe that the Academy was changing—moving towards more fairness, so they wouldn’t release anymore incriminating information about Robert King or Alfatrex.
The crowd roared, and Asa moved closer to the edge of the Starting Platform. He let his toes hang over the edge that was hundreds of feet above the water below. The wind ripped at his back, threatening to tear him into the open air.
He looked over, and could see Robert King sitting in the front row of the bleachers on the right. From such a distance, Asa couldn’t be sure, but he thought that The Boss was staring at him. On his left sat Jamie. He scratched the chimp behind his ears. On The Boss’s right sat someone else who Asa hadn’t seen in a while—Ned Pudman. Pudman’s black hair was gelled straight back, and Asa wondered how Robert King got along with the other owners of Alfatrex. He also wondered if Ken Pudman had had any threats on his life, like Robert King had. In the same row sat Travis, Roxanne’s Multiplier boyfriend. Asa wondered if he had any idea the emotional trauma that his girlfriend had suffered in losing Bruce.
Hopefully he doesn’t.
The announcer continued to speak with increased excitement. “AND NOW! FOR THE TEAM LEADERS!
“From the Wolves: A MERE FOUR FEET, ELEVEN INCHES TALL. She’s one of the fastest players of all time, and has been known to reach speeds of ONE-HUNDRED SIXTY MILES PER HOUR, THUNDERING TARA TRUMAN!”
The crowd temporarily picked up their level of enthusiasm, whistling and cheering for Tara. Asa thought that Tara was overrated; she hadn’t scored as much as Asa had this semester, and because of how small she was, she was often times thrown into the water by defenders.
For the most part, Asa didn’t think that the Wolves had any great players, except for one. The Wolves were good because they outnumbered every other team, and because they didn’t have any bad players. Their team was comprised of 25 merely competitive members. There was one exception to this, which was Jordan Hall. Asa thought that the only reason Jordan Hall did not receive MVP this year was because he was on such a good team. He was, in Asa’s opinion, the best defender in the league. Because the Wolves had so many players, they didn’t need to rely on Jordan as much as another team would, and so his statistics did not reflect his astounding performance this semester.
“From the Wolves: A SOLID SIX FEET, FIVE INCHES, AND THE HEAVIEST PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE AT THREE HUNDRED FIFTY POUNDS!” The crowd began to roar even before the announcer went on; they knew exactly who was being introduced.
Asa thought it was impressive that Jordan weighed so much. With all the mutations, the Academy students had very high metabolisms, and it was hard for them to put on weight. Jordan was built like a professional linebacker.
“He’s one of the best defenders in the league: JORDAN HALL!”
Fans of the Wolves began waving their hats in support. Jordan stepped forward, almost a head taller than anyone else on his team and as wide as a barrel. Even with the favorable wind, someone’s going to have a very hard time getting past him, Asa thought.
“From the Sharks: STANDING FIVE FEET, ELEVEN INCHES TALL. She’s skinny, but still one of the best defenders in the league. She was third place for this year’s MVP award. TEAM CAPTAIN, ROXA
NNE HURST!”
The crowd cheered and whistled, and Roxanne stepped forward and gave a stiff wave at the onlookers. Asa hoped that she remembered not to use her electrocution ability too much. He thought it wouldn’t be worth it to reveal her special power just to win this Winggame match, even if it was the championship.
The announcer then presented the last player:
“From the Sharks: STANDING SIX FEET, ONE INCHES TALL, AND WEIGHING A SOLID ONE HUNDRED NINETY POUNDS!” Asa’s face went red. Some of the students were already booing him. “He leads the Sharks in scoring this season. ASA PALMER!”
There was a mixture of boos and cheers from the crowd, and Asa gave a small wave.
As the timer counted down the start, Asa extended his wings and had a surreal moment where he looked around, thinking, what am I doing? He tried to explain it to himself. I’m a mutated human with super-strength and wings, competing in a sport that involves flying with other mutated humans. It sounded insane to him. A year ago, he had never even heard of this place.
The starting horn sounded and startled Asa. Every Shark except for Roxanne dove off the Starting Platform like competitive swimmers dive into the water at the beginning of a race. Asa, being the Sharks current best scorer, was supposed to attack the Wolves middle goal. He hoped that Jordan Hall wouldn’t be defending him. He wouldn’t be able to set the bombs tonight with a broken back.
Ten of the twenty-five Wolves left their Starting Platform. Unlike the Sharks, they proceeded in the usual fashion, and dove low over the water, gaining initial speed and then coasting. Jordan Hall stayed on the Starting Platform, wings out, a huge shadow against the sky.
Asa didn’t look long, but he thought that the Wolves’ dive had been sloppy. This was uncharacteristic for them. They’re cocky, he thought.
Asa flew as fast as he could on a horizontal route towards the Plaid. The Wolves, traveling far below, passed beyond the Plaid before the Sharks even reached it. The Wolves would get to the Sharks’ goal before the Sharks reached the Wolves’ goal. It all depended on Roxanne. If she were able to defend just one of the Sharks’ five goals, they would have a chance.