The Academy: Book 2 (83 page)

             
Asa thought of Allen saying,
devoid of useless, maladaptive emotions,
and thought of how cold and unflinching his eyes had been as he told Rose to kill Bruce. “It sounds like the Hive is pretty organized,” Asa said, trying to sound as though he wasn’t disturbed.

             
Allen pulled his shirtsleeve down. “It is. There are a lot of rules. Best advice I can give you is to keep your mouth shut for the first few months after you get there. If you piss someone off, they could kill you.”

             
Asa nodded. “I’ll remember that.” He looked up into the fog. “I have kind of a weird question.”

             
Allen grunted.

             
“I know that the plan of the Hive is to change all the humans, but what’s after that? Have the leaders of the Hive talked about what they want to do after they control the world’s population.”

             
Allen smiled, his black gums gleaming. “Great question. There is a lot of debate. We can reproduce, just like normal humans, so we would obviously start a superior society of our own, with Multiplier generations to come. Some people would like to keep a supply of human prisoners that we could use for enjoyment. For instance, we could buy a human and give him or her to a Multiplier for a special occasion. But that’s not decided. What we do know is that we need a bigger population before we could win a war against the humans. And our mission tonight is going to help us immensely in reaching that goal.”

             
Allen looked out over the water. High above, crows were cawing in the night sky. Asa wanted to keep Allen talking in hopes that he would reveal a part of the plan that could be exploited. “So how long have you been planning to do this?”

             
“Volkner came up with the original plan, I’m not sure when, though.” Allen inhaled deeply through his big nose and rubbed his hands together. “I’m nervous. Well, maybe nervous isn’t the right word. I’m excited, I guess.”

             
Allen picked up his gun and examined it before holstering it in his hip. “Volkner began doing private research about these vaccines on his own. He always told the Hive that your daddy had made some kind of serum that would allow us to Multiply every day instead of for every month. The response was, ‘Great! Where is it?’ Volkner never knew, until late last semester. You haven’t seen Volkner this semester, have you?”

             
Asa thought back to when he had spied in on Robert King’s office and seen Volkner come in, emaciated and tortured. Instinct told him to keep this story to himself. “No. Haven’t seen him once.”

             
Allen spat in the Moat. “Well, he’s in Robert King’s custody, so that makes sense. Our Academy informants tell us that King claims he’s punishing Volkner for giving you an unfairly difficult time last semester.” Allen clucked his tongue. “Which he did. We know Volkner did that. He was keeping the Hive very updated on his plans to kill you. But what we believe Robert King is truly punishing Volkner for is his connection with the Hive. We hear that he has tapped some of our phone conversation, and he was monitoring Volkner’s Academy database access. He caught Volkner looking at some extremely off limits files.

             
“Your father imbedded the vaccines he made deep under the Shop and he put some very odd, very specific security measures in place to stop Multipliers—or anyone, really—from getting to the vaccine. He also made some computer files in which he stored instructions for how to get past these strange obstacles. You are a second semester student, right? Did you have Flying Class this year?”

             
“I did.”

             
Allen spat again. Asa could see that his saliva was tinged black. “Well, you know how at the end of the course, there was that obstacle with the spear gun? And then you had to shoot a target, but there was an invisible force field revolving around the room, connected to a clock?”

             
“I remember.”

             
“Well, that’s a
copy
of something we are going to have to get past tonight. Looking at these specific computer files your dad wrote is kind of tricky—there are security traps, and Volkner knew that if he looked through them there was a good chance that Robert King would find out. So, he had a fallback—if he got caught, he was going to lie and say that he was actually looking for ideas for the new Flying Class. I guess I don’t have to tell you that Volkner read the files, and got caught. Robert King didn’t buy the Flying Class excuse, but by this time, the Academy’s education advisors had already approved the Flying Class curriculum, so the spear gun thing stuck. Robert King has been torturing Volkner ever since; he won’t let anyone talk to him. What The Boss doesn’t know is that Volkner gave the Hive all the information he had before he was taken into custody.”

             
Allen laughed without humor and spat darkly into the Moat again. “Sorry. I produce a lot of Salvaserum when I’m excited.”

             
Rose leaned back and blew smoke right above her head where it mixed with the fog. She slurred, “The craziest damn thing Robert King’s messed up on is that he still trusts his Multiplier’s!” Rose opened her mouth in a ridiculous grin and raised her eyebrows. “He’s an idiot! He let Martin Chandler organize this whole dance thing, and I bet he didn’t even bat an eye when he saw the request for alcohol.” Rose sputtered out a quick laugh. “Alcohol? Is he stupid? This is going to be the easiest thing ever. Most of the Academy is drunk, and we’re just going to slip in and get what we need! What an idiot!” She laughed again, took another drag of her cigarette, and then tossed it overboard.

             
“Quiet down, Rosey,” Allen said. “We’re almost in Town.”

             
Asa looked behind him and saw the tall, stone buildings take shape out of the fog. His heart picked up its pace at the sight of land. They were one step closer to getting the vaccine, and Asa still didn’t know what he could do to stop them. Hearing about the extensive planning that went into this mission made him feel sick—hopeless. He had known something was wrong when alcohol was being served at the dance.
How can Robert King not notice this? He’s smart, so why could he not see that Martin Chandler was tricking him? Why would Robert King ever trust a Multiplier?

             
Asa felt a lump gather in his throat, as he reminded himself that the same thing happened to him with Teddy. Teddy had deceived Asa—he had even convinced Asa to walk over to the Multiplier’s lair, like a package for delivery. Asa’s eyes burned with held back tears as he thought of his friend’s betrayal. He had trusted Teddy. He had loved Teddy.

             
As the canoe landed on the shore and Asa stood up he tried to engrain a thought into his head:
Never trust a Multiplier.

             
With his gasmask attached to his hip, he stepped out of the boat and onto the stone shore.

41

The Shop

              Asa could feel Ned and Michael’s suspicious eyes upon his back as he led the Multipliers over the cobblestone. Asa checked his Rolex; it was 10:45 PM, which meant that the students were probably thoroughly drunk by now at the dance. The wind pushed through the holes in the back of his shirt and chilled his torso.

             
After landing on the shore, Allen had leaned the canoe up against one of the buildings and ordered Asa to lead the way. Allen had a large, paper map in his pocket, but decided that following Asa, who was familiar with Town, would be more proficient.

             
The fog made the lanterns look larger than they were by diffusing the light. The first three minutes of the walk was entirely without incident, and with every step Asa became less and less sure that someone would intervene. By the time they were passing behind Town Hall, Asa had come to the realization that he had been delusional when hoping that Multiplier Hunters would come in, stop the Multipliers, and save him.

             
They passed behind Town Hall at a casual walk. Allen had ordered them not to move fast; that would attract too much attention. He had said, “I’ll waste someone if I have to—but I’d rather this just go smoothly.” Asa looked up and the fog was so thick that he couldn’t see the top of Town Hall’s dome. Yellow lights shone out from the Dungeon below, and Asa saw movement on the exercise mats.

             
He crouched down a bit, looking into the lower level, and could see Stridor Akardiavna pounding on a punching bag. He was shirtless. His port-wine stains were prominent and every inch of his skin glistened with sweat. He was hitting the bag with vicious intensity and the glass windows muted loud rock music that pumped from the Dungeon’s speakers.

             
Asa was shocked.
While other students are enjoying the dance and getting drunk, he’s exercising.
Asa looked around at the Multipliers and saw that no one else had noticed Stridor. Asa wondered if there was some way he could get Stridor’s attention, to convey that he needed help…

             
Asa’s thought process came to a halt as one of Town Hall’s backdoors opened up and Jules, a tall, blond, graduate female came outside carrying trash bags to the dumpsters. She was whistling, and Asa thought that she looked tipsy. She did not see the Multipliers until Allen spoke.

             
“Hello lovely,” he growled.

             
She looked up and just had enough time to go wide-eyed before her head snapped back as quick as a cobra strike as a bullet flew through her skull. Allen smiled and watched as she collapsed with a bloody face to the floor. She was dead.

             
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Rose reflected.

             
Allen holstered his gun, which was now equipped with a silencing cylinder on the end. The silencer did not mute the gunshot completely, but did help in keeping the noise down. Asa guessed that Allen had been saving the silencer for when he was in Town. With the casualness of a man doing the dishes, Allen walked over to Jules body, picked her up, and flung her into the dumpster. Asa didn’t hear her hit the bottom. The trash receptacles in Town looked normal, but were actually chutes to an underground dump.

             
Allen dusted off his hands and clapped Asa on the back. “Let’s keep moving.”

             
Asa nodded and walked forward, leading them closer to the Shop. He was aware of his hands, his feet, how far his back was arched, the way that he was holding his head, and how much his hips moved as he walked. He was insanely nervous, but didn’t want to show it and was putting an immense amount of effort into walking normally.

             
He still didn’t have a plan, or see any possible way that he could stop the Multipliers from getting the vaccine under the Shop. Allen’s intelligence and motivation made stopping him seem impossible. Asa thought of the clinical nature with which he had tossed Jules’s corpse into the dumpster. Thinking of such an act chilled Asa.

             
He remembered Allen telling him that the longer you have been a Multiplier, the more devoid you are of human emotions. Asa believed this. He wondered if this was the reason why Allen trusted Asa, but Michael and Ned did not.
Maybe Ned and Michael can understand my fear and motivation to lie because they are closer to human. Maybe such a fear is so foreign to Allen that he can’t understand why I would pretend to be a Multiplier when I am not.

             
There was no way of proving this, but Asa found the idea interesting.

             
They came to the Shop, and dread fell upon Asa like a thick curtain.
We’re here.
His eyes darted around, hoping to see someone emerging from the fog to help him. But he was on his own.