The Academy: Book 2 (81 page)

             
Edmund looked upwards for a moment. Then he held the gun up to the middle of his forehead.

             
“NO!” Conway cried.

             
BANG!

             
Asa sat up, wide eyed and scared. He felt hot, feverish. He looked around, gasping in the air.

             
He saw the rushing waterfall, the candles, the cots, and the fallen television. He realized that he was in the cave, and that he had just woken up from a very realistic dream.

             
Asa saw Ned standing above him with his arms crossed. There was a handgun holstered on Ned’s right hip and he was looking at Asa with an expression of uncertainty; his eyebrows were pulled together and his mouth hung open.

             
Asa felt groggy and confused.
Why is Ned looking at me like that? Why am I even here?
He shook his head, trying to remember what was going on. He looked at the broken television, and the lawn chairs that he and Allen had been sitting in some time ago, watching the ABL game. Something in the cave’s arrangement brought back the memories of what had happened before he went unconscious. In his mind, he saw Allen leaning over him, about to bite him…

             
Asa gasped and brought his hand up to the side of his neck. The area was painful, hot, and swollen.
This is a Multiplier bite; I’ve been bitten by a Multiplier,
Asa thought with horror as he gingerly touched the wound. It was hard to come to terms with the idea that it had actually happened. He realized that he was no longer a human. His wants, his desires, and his thought processes would all be different now. He breathed in the air and felt it expand his chest.
Breathing feels the same,
he told himself. He concentrated on his feet and wiggled his toes in his dress shoes.
That feels the same, too.

             
Asa remembered how Allen had told him that he would
feel
different when he woke up. He took another breath; it still felt as it always had.

             
“Did I change?” Asa asked Ned. His voice sounded hoarse and distant to himself.

             
Ned kept the odd look of concern and didn’t answer the question.

             
Asa took in another breath, and now something
did
feel different. He was extremely nauseous. This feeling was so overpowering that for a moment he brushed away his concern as to whether he was a Multiplier or a human.

Asa stood and realized that he was no longer chained down to the stretcher. He felt terrible, and a disgusting taste like that of rotting meat filled his mouth. He began to walk forward. He was still attached to the medical monitor, and it toppled over behind him. He tore himself from
the blood pressure cuff and the heart rate monitor, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic. “I’m going to throw up,” he said.

             
“Uhhhhh, boss,” Joney said. He sounded unsure, maybe even scared. “Palmer is awake. He don’t look so normal.”

             
“I’m going to vomit,” Asa said again, louder this time. The side of his neck where he had been bitten was throbbing.

             
Why did Joney say that I don’t look right? Why is Ned looking at me like that?

             
Joney came to Asa with a large mop bucket. Asa took it in his hands, got down on his knees and retched up something that tasted like hot, spoiled, liquid cheese. The taste made him want to vomit up even more. He retched until his abdomen was sore, and than he spat all of the nasty substance that he could out of his mouth.

             
“Allen, could you come over here?” it was Ned, and he was standing above Asa. “I think that you should see something.”

             
Asa heard Allen’s footsteps as he walked over toward them.

             
Asa opened his eyes. He felt better now, and he looked down into the bucket at his own emesis where he saw something that chilled him. Sitting there in the bottom of the blue bucket was half a liter of black, thick, pure Salvaserum.

             
Is that normal?
He wondered.
Do all Multipliers vomit up Salvaserum after they change?
Based on Joney and Ned’s reactions, Asa thought that this wasn’t the norm.
Could it be possible that I didn’t change—did my body somehow reject the Salvaserum?
Even though Allen had told Asa he would
feel
different after waking up, Asa still didn’t notice anything unusual about the way he was experiencing the world. Asa wasn’t sure what was happening to him, but he did know one thing—
if I didn’t change, they’ll kill me.
He stared into the bucket. The Salvaserum gave off a horrible smell.

             
Allen was looking down at the bucket too.

             
“I think that something might have gone wrong, sir,” Ned said—he was talking fast. “I’ve never seen anyone vomit up that much Salvaserum after they’ve been bitten. To tell you the truth, I’ve never seen anyone vomit up Salvaserum
at all.
This looks strange. This looks very strange.”

             
Asa spat again into the bucket. He could feel his heart fluttering with fear as he thought,
my anxiety feels normal too.

             
“I did put a lot of Salvaserum into him,” Allen said. “Maybe his body couldn’t process all of it, so he threw some up. Changing people into a Multiplier isn’t exactly an established science yet. Palmer, look at me.” Asa looked up at Allen and met his blue eyes, which ran from Asa’s face to the bite on his neck. “How do you feel?”

             
Asa didn’t answer, but instead he turned and retched some more into the bucket. He didn’t have anything left in his stomach, and was just dry heaving.

             
“His wound doesn’t look right,” Ned said.

             
“How many people have you seen changed?” Allen asked him; he sounded angry.

Ned started to stammer and then Allen interrupted him.

“
That’s what I thought!
Look, we’ve got things to do tonight, and we can’t sit around debating over whether or not Asa’s acting
normal
. I put the Salvaserum into him, so he’s a Multiplier now. It’s that simple.”

Ned answered back, sounding a bit braver this time. “But Teddy said…”

Allen raised his voice: “
I don’t give a damn what Teddy said!
Teddy was caught by Asa and is currently in a jail cell right now. We’re the ones who are supposed to go break him out; he needs
our
help. He’s not that smart. And besides, there’s no
right
way for a Multiplier bite to look. They all change differently.”

Ned paused for a moment. “If you say so.”

Allen sighed. “I do say so. I don’t mean to rush this, but it’s just that we need to get going. The Hive is counting on us, and we only have a small time window to get to Town before all the students leave the dance, okay? But don’t think that I’m not taking this seriously. If Palmer didn’t change, I’d be able to tell. I’ve been around a lot of Multipliers. The question is, does the wound hurt? Palmer look at me.”

             
Asa did. His heart was beating fast, but he had pulled the heart rate monitor off his finger, so no one could tell. Allen’s eyes ran over Asa. Asa wondered what Teddy had said on the radio to them. Based on the conversation between Ned and Allen, Asa guessed that Teddy had predicted Asa wouldn’t change.
But why? Why would he guess that?
Those were questions that could be addressed later. Right now, he had to look at the facts and weigh his options.

             
At that time, Asa believed in his gut that for some reason the Salvaserum hadn’t worked properly. First, there was the vomit—it appeared as though his body had rejected the Salvaserum. Then, there was the indefinable
sameness
that he felt; he couldn’t explain the exact reason, but he still believed that he was a human.

             
But then there is the dream,
he reminded himself, thinking of the lucid hallucination he had had that he was biting Jen.
That wasn’t normal,
he thought. He had never had a dream in which he was a Multiplier before. But perhaps he dreamed of that subject matter because he was scared of becoming a Multiplier. And, even in the dream, his intentions to bite Jen had frightened him.

             
As Asa thought over the dream, he let a morbid thought come to his mind—one that he thought would settle the issue;
do I want to kill anyone? Does that sound like fun?
Asa thought about the students at the dance, running them through in his head and having images of their faces flash up into his mind—
Roxanne, Shashowt, Charlotte, Boom Boom.
The answer to this question was very clear:
No.
He was sure of this. He was not a violent person and the thought of harming humans disturbed him rather than excited him.

             
Asa exhaled, and felt relief. He did not want to change. Like his father, he would rather be dead than a Multiplier.

             
Asa looked at Allen’s face, thinking,
this person will kill me if he knows that I didn’t turn into a Multiplier.
Asa realized that he would have to play the part. He would have to at least convince Allen that he had changed. If he couldn’t do that, he would be as dead as Bruce.

             
“How does the wound
feel
?” Allen asked, and he moved his long fingers over to Asa’s neck. He began to poke at the wound, putting pressure on different areas. It hurt immensely, but Asa tried not to show it. He remembered Teddy’s Multiplier bite on his face after he had been bitten; it didn’t seem to hurt, and even though the Multiplier wound was vast and deep, Teddy manipulated his mouth without demonstrating pain. Asa tried to copy what he had seen Teddy do, hoping that Allen wouldn’t detect the deceit.

             
“It feels numb,” Asa said. He looked straight into Allen’s eyes as Allen pinched the exposed, tender flesh on Asa’s neck. Asa wanted to cry out and back away due to the pain, but he resisted this urge.

             
Allen let go, apparently satisfied. He wiped the blood on his fingers off onto his shirt. Asa noticed that there was no Salvaserum on Allen’s fingers, meaning that the bite must not have any in it. “The wound doesn’t seem to bother him,” Allen told Ned. He scratched his chin with bloody fingers, never taking his eyes off of Asa. He addressed Ned again: “You’re correct; I would expect to see more Salvaserum spotted along the exposed tissue. It almost looks just like a normal cut, doesn’t it? But remember, everyone changes differently. How do you feel, Palmer?”

             
Asa felt a new wave of panic come over him as Allen’s eyes scanned his face. Asa tried to remember everything that he had learned from Multipliers so far and to apply it here in his answer. He talked slowly, making his voice as close to a growl as was possible. “I never understood why you guys wanted to kill people, or bite them,” he said. “But now, I can’t wait to rip out someone’s throat.” He hated saying such a violent, untrue thing, but judging by Allen’s face, it seemed to be working. “Are you going to let me come with you guys tonight? We’re attacking all the students in the dance, right?”