Academic Assassins

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  A row of keyboards was positioned directly before the wall of monitors. “Do you know how to work the controls?” I asked.

  “One way to find out.” Sully took a seat behind a computer console and started punching buttons. ENTER PASSWORD flashed across the screen.

  “Any suggestions?” Sully asked.

  A fist pounded against the door behind us. Multiple fists. Whoever was outside, there were more of them now.

  “How about…1984?”

  Sully typed it in. The computer hiccupped and ENTER PASSWORD flashed across the screen.

  “Try…Brave New World.”

  ENTER PASSWORD.

  Think.

  Think.

  Think.

  “Hold on….” I said. “What was Compass’s real name again?”

  “Jimmy.”

  “Try it.”

  Sully typed it in. The computer’s desktop flashed across the screen, cluttered with all kinds of electronic files. Her eyes widened. “No way….”

  Leaning over her shoulder, I saw a folder icon titled—GREATEST SHOCKS.

  “You’re kidding me.” Sully slowly shook her head. “They actually keep a file of their favorite jolts?”

  “Click on it.”

  Sully opened the folder, revealing the Top Ten Greatest Shocks here at the Kesey Reclamation Center, listed in descending order.

  Sully clicked on each video, one by one.

  #9: An ant rolling over the hallway floor.

  #6: A Mimi flopping about her pod like a fish out of water.

  #4: Some kid was getting juiced on top of the mess hall table.

  And the #1 Top Shock is…

  Thirty seconds of blurry, washed-out footage. The clip shows a collared boy struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Grayson aims his C.R.U. at the boy—and almost immediately, the kid’s arms and legs fling themselves back before curling inwards, his spine arching into a question mark.

  The volume was turned off, but it was still possible to hear the boy scream.

  That boy on-screen was me.

  The grainy image was so small, my pixilated features washed out in dull aquarium colors, but I remembered that moment as if it had happened yesterday.

  I felt sick. This was like watching a horror movie.

  No—worse. There were no fancy camera angles or a swelling string section on the soundtrack. All I saw was the raw footage of myself—not an actor, not a character, but me, flesh and blood me—as my body crumbled to the floor.

  “You okay?” Sully asked. I looked down and saw her hand resting on mine.

  “How easy would it be to upload one of these videos online?”

  “Easy enough, if we had access to the Internet, had a YouTube account, and had enough time to upload it….”

  “So—not that easy.”

  The pounding outside had shifted into a heftier thrust. Those weren’t fists hammering against the door anymore—that was someone’s shoulder.

  BAM!

  BAM!

  BAM!

  Sully picked up a thumb drive from the desk and inserted it into the computer. “We might not be able to upload it—but we can save it for a rainy day.”

  “I’m ready for my close-up.” A couple quick clicks from Sully and I plucked the thumb drive out and tucked it into the elastic waistband of my pants.

  The door started to flex. The wood was cracking. The chair suddenly slipped out from beneath the knob and tumbled to the floor.

  Grayson burst into the room and steadied himself, just as I glimpsed at a button on the control panel labeled “UNLOCK ALL.”

  Grayson’s eyes widened and he snarled, “Don’t you even think about—”

  I leapt at it and slammed my fist down on the button before he could finish.

  Time to let the loonies run the asylum.

  STEP THREE: AD HOC HAVOC

  Each door in Kesey slid open.

  To the mess hall.

  The Ant Farm.

  The Hive.

  Every last one. When all the ants realized the gates sealing them in were now unlocked, they flooded the halls as if it were the last day of school before summer.

  No more lockdown.

  Grayson took one look at the overflow of ants spreading from one monitor to the next, their pixilated bodies swarming the building. A puzzle of panic seeped across his mismatched face. “Oh,” he said as he stepped back. “Oh boy.”

  From the monitors, we watched the Orphans who’d been working the steam tables push them over, sending a flood of food across the floor.

  I spotted Merridew and the rep rush inside her office. She slammed the door behind her, just seconds before a swarm of ants began trying to break it down.

  “Sure seems unlikely that the Board of Ed’s gonna sign off on your C.R.U.s after today’s little rebellion,” I said to Grayson. “I’d help Merridew if I were you.”

  He turned to me, his scarred cheeks beet red. He was about to say something, but swallowed it, every muscle in his neck straining to the point of snapping before rushing out of the control room.

  Sully and I remained to watch the havoc unfold.

  The ratio of ants-to-orderlies at Kesey was—shall we say, drastically imbalanced. Most days, it didn’t matter—but when every last ant in the whole entire facility was suddenly out for a stroll, even with their C.R.U.s, the Men in White were no match for the rampaging ants racing up and down the Yellow Brick Road. They yanked off their electrodes and tossed their parasitic dog collars high up into the air.

  With so many ants released at once, there was no way to shock them all.

  We were free. Free to turn this place upside down.

  I watched the Napoleons raid the laundry room, racing down the row of washing machines and busting each monocled eye with a chair.

  On another monitor, I could see the She-Wolves hopping from pod to pod in the Hive, lighting pillows on fire and tossing them into the air.

  A Screaming Mimi had picked up a fire extinguisher and knocked its nozzle off, sending the aerosolized canister rocketing down the Yellow Brick Road, spewing a cloud of white foam in its wake.

  Sully and I stood before the chaos unfolding on each television screen. I felt her fingers slip into mine again, weaving our hands together as we watched.

  We had done this together.

  This was all ours.

  In that moment, I couldn’t help but ask myself—Is this what I wanted?

  All this destruction. All this chaos.

  Shouldn’t I want more from my tribe?

  Sully turned to me, her eyes beaming. “Come with me.”

  “Where to?”

  She ran without another word—and I ran along with her, the two of us holding hands the whole way, weaving through the parade of rampaging ants.

  A Napoleon was pushing a wheeled hamper from the laundry room down the hall, full of shouting passengers, like a roller coaster. “Coming throoough!”

  “This way,” she said, leading me through the anarchy. She pressed through the set of double doors leading outside, both of us greeted by the sight of the Screaming Mimis running through the field.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Sully halted in what was left of the poinsettia patch, a craggy landscape of hardened topsoil, frozen from the winter cold. She counted off the rows until she zeroed in on the one she was looking for. Leaning down, she dug her hands in deep and unearthed a ziplock bag holding a pair of handheld wire cutters.

  “There’s a spot along the northern side of the fence that’s rusted,” she said as she started running again. “All we have to do is cut through the—”

  It took Sully three steps to realize I hadn’t followed her. She turned back to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “That’s our tribe in there. I can’t turn my back on them.”

  “Spencer….” I saw the anxiety in her eyes. “I know what I said before about you being a ch
icken who turns his tail all the time—but now’s not the time to prove a point by suddenly nutting up. This is different.”

  “How is this different?”

  “Because this is us,” she said. “This is our chance to be together. You and me.”

  “You told me this was your home. That this is your family….”

  “And I’m willing to leave it all behind for you! For you! But if we don’t hop that fence—right now—we’ll never leave Kesey.”

  I pulled the thumb drive out from my waistband and handed it to her. “Take this.”

  “Spencer—”

  “People need to see what Merridew’s doing to us.”

  “Spencer—please! Don’t you see? They’ll throw you in the Black Hole for good. I’ll never see you again. Ever. But if we go—now—then we stand a chance of starting over. On our own.”

  She was right. This was our chance.

  Isn’t this what I had wanted?

  “We can do it. Just you and me. We have to go….” Sully’s voice suddenly cracked. She marched up and took my hands, squeezing them tightly. She was shaking. “Please. I can’t face the world without you. I can’t lose you. Not again.”

  There was a break in the security fence. The rusted chain-links folded back on themselves like decrepit petals on a metallic flower. A few yards away, a pair of wire cutters had been tossed off in the grass.

  Sully was gone.

  I stood alone in the flowerbed and watched the Screaming Mimis prance along the front lawn for an impromptu outdoor dance party. Nobody told them they had to stop or keep calm or compose themselves. They simply danced the day away.

  “Wanna join?” one of them asked me.

  I shook my head and started the walk back to Kesey.

  The longest walk of my life.

  Stepping inside the building, I was immediately greeted by Table Scrap and a handful of Orphans. He slammed the door shut behind me. “Just in time,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Whatever we want.”

  “Where’s Merridew?” I asked.

  “Hiding in her office,” he said. “That Board of Ed guy was a drag, so we cut him loose. Merridew ain’t going nowhere.”

  Scrap held up his arms. It looked like he was wearing a bunch of bracelets.

  “Look what we found….Zip ties! The Men in White use ’em for restraining residents whenever there’s a riot. We’re heading from one exit to the next and strapping each door with as many of these as the handles can hold. Nobody’s getting in—and nobody’s getting out. Wanna come help us?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Think I’ll take a stroll.”

  “Suit yourself.” Scrap shrugged, cinching a zip tie over the door. “Just remember, captain—Kesey is all yours, now.”

  I wandered down the hall, greeted by chaos wherever I went.

  Kesey had been turned upside down. The ants now ran this place.

  And I was responsible for all of it.

  The floor of the laundry room was swiftly immersed under three inches of water that deluged out from the row of clogged appliances.

  The longer I walked, surrounded by havoc, the less I felt like I was a part of it. Was this what it all amounted to? Is this the most we could do?

  Nothing in me wanted to participate.

  I felt outside of everything.

  A ghost in my own home.

  Home.

  I found Buttercup walking along the Yellow Brick Road.

  “There you are,” she said with a beatific smile. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “Gone.”

  “Figures,” Buttercup said with a huff. “Ready to run this place? It’s ours now.”

  “What’ve you got in mind?”

  “Headcount in ten minutes. Believe me, you’re not gonna want to miss this one.” She turned and hollered down the hall, “If there are adults left behind, please report to your nearest tribesmen. Thank you and have a goooooooood day!”

  Most of the Men in White had abandoned ship the moment they realized they were über-outnumbered. The remaining orderlies, all five of them, tried to hide, crawling under tables in the mess hall or burrowing beneath the beds in our pods, but they were quickly weeded out.

  Grayson found himself surrounded by a dozen stampeding Mimis. He tried to outrun them, but like Mimi always says—‘Nice orderlies always finish last, but the Men in White will get their asses handed to them by a band of pigtailed misfits.’

  It’s a commonly known fact that worker ants can heft fifty times their own body weight. Ever see a parade of those muscular little buggers marching off with your picnic lunch? Imagine that same processional traipsing down the Yellow Brick Road—only now, instead of a piece of apple or Swiss cheese hoisted over their heads, it’s the Men in White, each panic-attacked orderly wrestling against the countless amount of clasping hands lifting them up and tossing them into the air.

  And who was at the very front of our anarchic cavalcade but the queen of the hive herself? The one and only program director of the Kesey Reclamation Center…

  Our hostess with the mostest…

  Merridew.

  “Put me down!” she shouted as she was hoisted up by the scrambling ants beneath her. She looked like a terrified beauty queen perched on top of the back seat of some out-of-control convertible, the grand marshal of our tribal parade, waving her cupped hand to the onlookers along the Yellow Brick Road. Plant a tiara on top of that permed helmet of hair and wrap her up in a silk sash—MISS ELECTROSHOCK, USA—and Merridew was good to go.

  “Put me down this instant,” she demanded. “This has gone far enough!”

  No—it hadn’t. Not by a long-shot.

  “My fellow Facilitators,” Buttercup announced from the floor of the Ant Farm. “All you Orphans and Napoleons! We run Kesey now! We are in control!”

  A rising tide of roars lifted up from the swarm of surrounding ants. Over a hundred boys and girls lined the walls. We crammed around the newly remodeled Yellow Brick Road. Some climbed on each other’s shoulders for a good view.

  I forced my way through the crowd until I was standing at the front. Buttercup caught my eye and nodded. “Want to say anything?”

  “Seems like you’ve got it under control.”

  “You sure?” she asked. “Just say the word, captain.”

  “The floor is yours.”

  Buttercup grinned, elated at the opportunity. “The rules are simple,” she continued. “There are no rules anymore!”

  She brandished her finger at the row of sealed-off pods, each one holding their own Man in White mutely pounding their fists against the other side of the protective barrier, desperate for a way out.

  Grayson thrust his shoulder against the Plexiglas. The fury on his face left him looking like a battle-scarred gorilla struggling to break free from its cage.

  Merridew stood stock-still in her own pod, arms crossed at her chest. Her chin remained lifted. She wouldn’t dignify this unruly behavior with any sort of reaction, as cool as a moldy cucumber. Her lips were as rigid as rock. She breathed through her nose. Her flaring nostrils were the only part of her body that moved.

  So—guess who was wearing the dog collars now?

  Merridew’s lovely fashion accessory seemed to add an extra inch to her neck. It almost looked as if her throat had grown, her head extending up into the air a bit.

  Grayson’s collar looked like a Band-Aid holding his head on his shoulders. If he took it off, I’d worry his noggin might roll right off and tumble across the floor.

  And guess who had the remote controls?

  Come on. Just guess. I’ll give you a hint….

  Not the Men in White.

  Certainly not Merridew.

  After the ants grabbed them from the Men in White, each tribe was responsible for their very own Control Response Unit.

  “You have all had your fun,” Merridew intoned. “Now release me before this goes any further and you do something you truly regret.”


  “I got no regrets,” Buttercup said. “Do any of you have any regrets?”

  A resounding NO! ricocheted off the walls of the Ant Farm.

  Buttercup stepped toward Merridew’s pod and instinctively Merridew stepped back from the Plexiglas.

  “Need I remind you,” Merridew tried, her syrupy voice seeping through the Plexiglas, sounding like a bug in a jar. “Your actions today will have severe consequences for the rest of your life.”

  Buttercup looked back to the mass of ants and called out, “Bring out Babyface!”

  I turned to see the crowd of ants part. Babyface slowly shuffled out from the swarm, his face still a placid mask of brainwashed bliss.

  Buttercup held up the remote. “Let’s see how much you’ve been reclaimed.”

  Babyface stared at the C.R.U. for a moment before taking it from Buttercup. He turned the remote over in his hand a couple times, as if he were studying it.

  “Listen to me,” Merridew intoned through the Plexiglas. “Put the remote down and open the door. Is that understood?”

  Babyface stared back at her, unflinching. I had no idea what was going through his mind. All that time in solitary had wiped his cerebral slate clean.

  But I could see a spark in his eye. I watched it grow brighter.

  I stepped forward. “Babyface…”

  He turned to me without a word. Only those eyes, glowing. Burning back to life.

  “Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” I said, “you don’t have to….”

  The spark in his eye flushed with fire. Babyface turned to Grayson, staring out from his pod. “Tell you what,” Babyface finally said. “How about the Men in White go first? We wanna start you off on the right foot, don’t we?”

  That sounded familiar. Grayson had said the exact same thing when Babyface and I first got here.

  “If you can make it from one end of the gallery to the other without stepping off the Yellow Brick Road…” Babyface was doing his best impression of Grayson, throwing his words right back in his face, “…I’ll overlook today’s little infraction. Is that understood?”

  A round of laughter erupted from the ants as they parted down the line and stepped back, forming a corridor from one end of the Farm to the next.

  Grayson backed away from the Plexiglas. He knew where this was heading.