The Academy: Book 2 (78 page)

             
Asa felt her open mouth breathing on his neck. He felt the sharp points of her incisors running along his skin. She sat up hurriedly and closed her eyes. She slapped her face. “No! I can’t bite him! I promised Allen that he would remain untouched.”

             
She shook her head.

             
Asa couldn’t process what was happening. He lay beneath Rose, looking up at her in the fog, thinking,
it’s actually happening! They actually caught me!
He couldn’t come to terms with these truths.

             
Hurriedly, she reached her hand into the waterfall beside them, and began to splash water onto Asa’s neck as she washed her Salvaserum off his skin. “Don’t tell Allen that I almost bit you, okay?” She smiled at him.

             
Asa couldn’t talk.

             
“Okay, up you go.” With another display of her incredible strength, she tossed Asa up onto her shoulder like he was a doll, and then began to climb down the side of the waterfall. She was strong, but drunk, and her gait was unsteady on the slick rocks. As she went, she muttered, “Allen is going to be so proud. I got him! I got Asa Palmer! Just like the boy said, he’s here!”

             
When she reached the bottom of the waterfall, she turned and passed between the stone wall and the falling sheet of water, still carrying Asa.

             
She had taken Asa into the Multiplier’s lair.

38

Injection

Asa could feel the blood beating in his eyeballs as Rose carried him. He looked back and saw the waterfall roaring just outside the cave. He felt like time had slowed down. He could see that the water was actually moving in waves of increasing and decreasing pressure; he had never noticed this before.

Looking around the cave, he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

             
I’m one of the Multipliers most wanted targets, and they’ve caught me! They’re going to kill me! Or worse, turn me into one of them!

             
Asa was painfully aware that he could be breathing his last breaths.

Rose carried Asa further into the Multiplier’s lair. “I got him!
I got him, Allen!
Here he is! It’s the boy! It’s Palmer!”

             
“Pipe down, Rose! The game’s on!”

             
Rose stopped walking. “Allen, did you hear me? I’ve got Palmer. I caught him! Just like the other boy said.”

             
Allen responded. “Yeah I heard you, but I’m not dealing with him right now. Come, put him down in the chair next to me.”

             
“Can I bite him, Allen? Please!” Rose started to wiggle with desire.

             
Asa heard a whistle go off.
“Damnit!”
Allen cried. “
No, Rose, I already told you!
Bring him over here!”

             
“Fine,” Rose said shortly, and began to walk again. Asa was slung over her shoulder. He decided to allow her to carry him without protest, thinking that struggling would only heighten the Multiplier’s distrust, and worsen his chance of survival. There was no way that he could overpower these creatures, especially in their lair, so he didn’t even try.

             
Rose put Asa down on his feet fifteen yards into the cave. He looked around, sensing that he must be dreaming. Rose barred her black, slick teeth at Asa.
“Sit!”
she hissed, and then she walked over to one of the side walls, slumped down, and hugged her knees to her chest.

             
Asa obeyed. He sat down into a foldable, canvas lawn-chair and nervously straightened his tie.

             
He looked around at all sides, taking in the enclosure. He was surprised to see that the entire cave behind the waterfall was no bigger than a basketball court. He sat near the back wall. There was a high, pointed ceiling made of speckled black and pink stone.

             
With half-hearted dismay, he realized that he had been wrong about this place. It wasn’t nearly large enough to hold one hundred thousand Multipliers, or even a thousand.
So where are the rest of them?
Within the cave, he counted only six.
Is this just one of many hideouts?

Allen sat beside him
in another foldout chair, watching a basketball game on a large television that was sitting atop a wooden crate. The television was plugged into a big, bulky battery that sat on the floor with outlets running along the top. Asa realized that the television was the source of the whistle he had heard earlier. Allen’s blue eyes were intent upon the screen, and his hand continued to reach to a can of unsalted almonds before bringing them to his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully; his eyes looked intense. Also on the table was the large silver handgun that Allen had shot Ned with in the Lab. Asa looked at the gun, then back at Allen, and a series of thoughts raced through his mind.
Is it loaded? Is there a bullet in the chamber? Is the safety on?
Allen’s complete submersion into what was on television made Asa believe that he might not notice a stray hand reaching for the firearm. There were three minutes left in the basketball game on the television. Asa decided not to reach for the gun until he had surveyed the room a bit better.

             
Against the left wall, closer to the waterfall, there were six cots lined up. Three of them were occupied. Asa could see Joney, either resting or feigning sleep with his head on a pillow. Michael was sitting up, reading a leather-bound bible in the light of a small candle. Ned was also on a cot. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Asa could see the area on his rib cage where he had been shot the night before.
Jesus!
Asa thought.
That wound looks a decade old!
There was a small area of pink scar tissue on Ned’s chest, but there was no active bleeding or scabbing. Ned had been bleeding heavily after being shot; the wound was inflicted only 24 hours ago. Asa was in awe at how fast Ned had healed. He was sitting up in bed, playing on a handheld video game console. Blue and red lights flashed up onto his face, and he wore headphones. His bare chest was covered in short, prickly black hairs.

             
Asa looked at these three, resting Multipliers. He thought,
I’ve just been caught and taken prisoner here, and they haven’t so much as gotten up! Does it not surprise them that I’m here? They’re acting as though they knew I would come.

             
Rose was still clutching her knees while leaning against the wall, staring at Asa like he was a hamburger and she was starving. She rocked back and forth.

             
There was another Multiplier slumped against the right wall. Her eyes were open, but they were not focused on anything. She was swaying slightly where she sat. Her eyes were red, and twitching. She was drooling saliva and Salvaserum absently out of the corners of her mouth. There was a bloody syringe and an elastic band on the floor beside her. After a moment of staring, Asa realized that this was Edna, the blond Multiplier he had seen with Joney on the first day of the semester.
She looks so much thinner.

             
Allen spoke; “We don’t all do drugs, you know?”

             
“Huh?” Asa responded.

             
“I noticed you looking at Edna,” Allen said. Although, Allen having seen this seemed impossible; Allen had never taken his eyes off the television screen and was sitting slightly in front of Asa. “Not all Multipliers use drugs. I don’t. But a lot of them do. I understand that you’re aware I’m from the Hive, which is a large gang of Multipliers that work together. We need money, just like everyone else. We sell illicit street drugs, among other things. It’s a great business for us; there’s such a high return, and we don’t face the dangers that humans in that industry have to endure.” He threw a large helping of almonds into his mouth and talked as he chewed: “For example, if we want to sell on another drug lord’s turf, what can they do to stop us? We’re not going to be intimidated by a human. The worst they can do is put a few bullets into us. Ned, the shirtless one over there, he got shot last night.” Allen gave Asa a knowing look. “But I guess you already know that. Well, anyways, look at how well he’s healing. Bullets aren’t a big deterrent for us. Neither is law enforcement, especially post-Wolf Flu.
OH, C’MON!”

             
Allen stood up and waved his hands in frustration at a play called on the television. He was watching a professional basketball game, hosted by the ABL, or American Basketball League. Like all other industries, the Wolf Flu was radically altering the sporting world. Players were dying, coaches were dying, and owners were dying. Five years ago, the ABL wasn’t in existence. But after seeing the status quo of major professional basketball associations begin to decline in popularity due to misfortunes related to the Wolf Flu, some entrepreneur decided that he or she could start a competing league, and they did. The ABL players and coaches, by total luck, managed to get sick less than those of other leagues. The ABL was now considered the premier basketball league in the world, attracting the best players, coaches, managers and owners.

             
On the television, the New York Cats were playing against the Boston Lions in the Northern Division Championship, according to the logo on the bottom right hand side of the screen. It was game seven of a seven game series. The Lions were up by four with two and a half minutes left. They had just committed a foul on the Cats, who were shooting free throws. The stadium was packed, by post-Wolf Flu standards; almost one quarter of the seats in the stadium were filled.

             
Asa watched the player shoot, and miss. He was amazed that a professional athlete could miss such a shot. He found human sports boring after playing in the Academy’s Winggame league, where he played against fellow mutants who were much more athletic than even premier humans. And these were premier human athletes in the ABL. During its rise, the ABL took the best players from the NBA; there was no league as competitive in the world.

             
Allen leaned forward, watched the Cats player shoot the second free throw, and make it. He cursed quietly, and then leaned back.

             
“Where was I? Oh yeah, drugs. So, we’re in the business of selling drugs, which means that we are around them a lot. We have to handle them. A lot of Multipliers choose to use them. There are very few side effects, because we are such hardy creatures, and I have been told that they make their users feel good. But I don’t use them. And don’t worry, when you’re a Multiplier, you won’t have to either.”

             
Allen said the words
when you’re a Multiplier
as a clinical matter of fact. Asa’s eyes moved over to the gun on the table again. Allen continued to stare at the television. Asa had another surreal moment where he came to terms with where he was, and what was happening. The floor tilted beneath him and he grasped the armrests, overcome with a fit of dizziness.

             
When you’re a Multiplier…

             
The words echoed in his brain, and for a time, all he could think of was what that meant. It meant that he would have to endure being bitten, and changed.
And,
it meant that instead of going back to the Academy, he would be going to live with the Hive; with Edna, Joney, Ned, and thousands like them—violent people who made drugs and salivated at the thought of killing innocents.