by Leito, Chad
I bet Boom Boom loved having something to blow up, Asa thought, and smiled.
“Damn,” Stridor said, the flames reflected on his eyeballs. Forgetting Roxanne, he extracted his wings and took off into the air in great thrashes of his wings.
Asa smiled, watching him. Boom Boom has destroyed their Home Base. They can’t turn our KEE in. I’m safe.
Stridor moved out over the water, high enough so that the leaping green fishes couldn’t bite him. With the pterodactyls and pterosaur dead and burning on the ground, he didn’t have to worry about flying too high.
Asa’s smile vanished as the flames calmed on the Vipor’s Home Base. He now saw that, while burning, it wasn’t destroyed. The majority of the structure remained intact and on the inside, multiple fire sprinklers were going off.
The blood drained from Asa’s face as he realized that Stridor could still turn in the Sharks’ KEE, redeem his 100 points, and electrocute Asa and the rest of his teammates to death. Asa leapt into the air, pumping his wings as fast as he could. In a moment, he was over the river, flying in the same trajectory as Stridor—they were moving directly towards the Home Base.
The two of them made their way across the water, and Asa looked down to see Bruce, sitting up, holding his bleeding head, and Boom Boom, lying on the lawn covered in soot. He was blinking, but slowly. The explosion had stunned them both.
During the flight, Stridor did not look behind him. He landed in the high room of his Home Base and began a confident jog over towards the glowing, floating orb where he could place the Sharks’ KEE. He saw that the Vipers KEE was still intact, and then slowed to a walk, thinking there was no reason to hurry.
When Asa landed on the tiled floor of the Viper’s Home Base, Stridor turned and smirked at him. The opponent’s smirk unnerved Asa: It’s like he enjoys this kind of kill or be killed scenario. I’ve never seen Stridor look more alive than he does right now, Asa thought. He contracted his wings and hurled the rock that he still held in his hand at Stridor. The projectile missed wide.
“Your aim isn’t as true as Roxanne’s,” Stridor observed. “Let’s see if I can hit one out of three,” and he aimed the rifle at Asa’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Stridor had forgotten to load his rifle back on the other side of the bank when the explosion occurred. Taking advantage of Stridor’s momentary surprise, Asa charged him. He tackled Stridor, who was much bigger than him, and pressed his face down onto the tile floor, which was scalding hot still. Stridor screamed, and bucked Asa off of him. Asa rolled over the hot floor and grabbed the KEE firmly in his hand.
Inside of the Home Base, it was as hot as an oven, but this did not concern either Stridor or Asa. They were locked in battle, mentally consumed with what was happening around them. Asa felt the KEE in his hand and looked around for inspiration. Much of the tiled floor was smoldering and uneven now. The glass windows were entirely gone, and Asa looked outside and saw the vast jungles and the fast moving river that housed the deadly green fish. Asa gasped, knowing what he should do.
As Stridor was standing up, Asa took two running steps and threw the KEE with as much strength as he could muster. It flipped, end over end, out the window, over the flatland where Mike and Bruce were, and over the fast moving river. Just before it made contact with the water, a fat, green fish leapt from the surface and swallowed the metal object.
Asa smiled, and a relief washed over him that was so uplifting he wanted to weep with joy. I’ve done it. Our KEE is gone. There is no chance that my suit will suddenly electrocute me. My team will find out what I’ve done and trust me again. And, I won’t have to die today.
Asa heard a click from behind him and knew that Stridor’s rifle was now loaded. He turned and Stridor kicked Asa heavily in the chest with the bottom of his foot. Asa was propelled backwards, arms flailing, until he landed in one of the flying chairs that the Vipers had flown in on. The chair had been burned in the fire and now it was only soot-stained hard metal.
Stridor’s eyes were as insanely cold and calculating as ever as he pressed the barrel of his rifle up under Asa’s chin, forcing his head back so that he was staring at the ceiling. Stridor kept the barrel planted firmly at the bottom of Asa’s jaw.
“That was smart. Very good move, throwing your KEE into the river.”
Asa was breathing roughly through his nose. The barrel was applying painful pressure to his skin and he was reminded of Harold Kensing.
“I’m still going to have to kill you though, because my KEE is still in play. I hope you understand, Asa. I liked you, and I don’t like many people.”
Asa gurgled, thinking, this burnt ceiling is going to be the last thing that I see.
But instead of pulling the trigger, Stridor’s body seized with electric shock, and he hit the floor. A static laced hologram came on in the middle of the room and called out, “Stridor Akardiavna, halt!”
It was Conway, and his mouth was open wide in a white-toothed smile. Sweat covered his brow and he looked out of breath, as though he had been watching what was happening with nervous anticipation.
“Do not shoot, Stridor! Asa’s teammate, Stan Nuby, has just returned the Dolphins KEE to their Home Base. He is no longer a threat. Let him go.”
Stridor nodded at the hologram. “Yes sir.” He put his rifle down.
“Strap yourself into one of the chairs, Asa, you’re going back to the mountains.” Conway was beaming.
“What?” Asa asked. He couldn’t wrap his head around what Conway was saying.
“Your teammate turned a KEE in. You’re out of the game, Palmer,” Stridor told him. There was the ghost of a smile on his eyes. “I won’t have to kill you now.”
“Oh,” Asa said shakily. “Good.”
As Asa was situating the seatbelts on his chair, Stridor stood and offered Asa his hand. “Good game.”
Asa shook it, making eye contact with Stridor’s blue eyes. “Good game.”
And then the floor broke away and the flying chair took Asa back to the Academy.
20
How Mama Sees It
When the flying chair landed in the basement beneath Town, Asa still couldn’t believe what had happened. As he unstrapped himself from the chair, Stan walked passed and growled, “you’re welcome, Piggy,” before spitting blood tinged sputum on the floor. Janice followed him, her long, lanky legs easily keeping stride with Stan’s short, muscular ones. Her lip was busted and bleeding, but considering what they had just survived, the two of them looked well.
The other Sharks began to arrive through the floor. Bruce and Mike Plode were covered in ash. Boom Boom’s eyebrows and eyelashes had been burned off and his pupils were contracted down to pinpoints. He stood slowly, stumbled, and then Bruce helped him limp off, saying something about a nurse. Viola and Lilly sprouted out of the floor next, looking exhausted. Then came Roxanne.
“Roxy!” Came a cry from the center of the room. Travis, Roxanne’s Multiplier boyfriend, rushed over to her, and fell to his knees examining her. “Roxy! Roxy, wake up!”
He held her face in between his two massive palms and she remained completely unconscious, blood still dripping from the gash Stridor had made in the side of her head. The Multiplier stood and turned on Asa, growling, “What’ve you done, you coward?”
Asa took a step back on wobbling knees and was thinking about running when Roxanne spoke.
“Stop.”
“Oh, Roxanne! Oh, God, I’m glad you’re okay!” Travis began to weep Salvaserum before unbuckling Roxanne and helping her to her feet. “Can I carry you? We’re going to the nurse.”
“I can walk.”
As they moved out the doorway and up the stairs, Roxanne turned and smiled at Asa with her lion eyes.
They were gone and a hand slid into Asa’s palm and squeezed. Jen stood beside him, filthy and smiling. He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her towards him in an embrace. He buried his face in her hair and they held each ot
her.
He hadn’t expected it, but he started to cry.
“C’mon,” she said, tugging at his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Asa flew towards Mount Two, Jen dangling from his arms as they went. They landed on the shore at the base of the mountain, close to the Moat, and walked along the rocky bank as the water lapped and the surface and the sun—the real sun, not an artificial sun—began to sink behind the Finish Line Mountain. He couldn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t make him. He felt frazzled, broken. Violent images played in his mind, and the nightmarish taste of human flesh came to his mouth.
“I don’t know why I cried,” he said.
“What is with you, Palmer?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh! Don’t give me those wounded eyes,” she joked. “You’re too hard on yourself. You just went to hell and back. It’s normal to cry.”
“I guess, but you didn’t.”
She shrugged and smiled toothily at him. “I’m not very normal.”
No you’re not, he thought, and squeezed her hand tighter.
They walked on a few more paces then stopped. Asa bent down, selected a stone, and slung it hard over the water, putting his pain and frustration into the throw. Asa counted twenty-five distinct skips, though it was hard to count them at the end, and then watched the different waves move out in circles across the Moat.
“Advantage number three thousand six hundred seven of super strength: Being able to skip stones better than any mere mortal,” she said, and they both started smiling and then broke out into laughter. Once the smile came to Asa’s face, a weight came off of him, and he couldn’t help it as he was overcome laughter.
“I’m tired,” he said.
“You and me both. What are you thinking about?”
Asa answered immediately, “Conway. And about what Adam Trotter said about the Multiplier-thing that they found out behind the mountains. I’ve been thinking about where it could have come from, and wondering what Conway thinks about it.”
“Would Conway know about it?” Jen asked.
Asa shrugged, and then turned up the heat on his camouflage suit, which he was still wearing. He glanced uncomfortably at the suicide pill still situated on his shoulder and wondered if any Academy students had to use it in the Task. “Do you think that the Multipliers are going to attack the Academy?”
“That’s a good question. I’d say yes, but I have no guess as to when. In that meeting with Volkner, Robert King seemed pretty stern about the Hive thing; I think that he’s worried about it.”
“I do too,” Asa said. “And I bet that he’s especially worried after what Adam Trotter told us. Why would a Multiplier that produces less Salvaserum be on the backside of the Academy’s mountains?” Asa felt frustration growing inside of him. He wanted to go and talk to Conway, he was sure that Conway would have information he needed, but was reluctant to make the trip and risk being rejected. He was very tired.
“And where did they come from?” Jen said, her eyebrows raised. “You think your dad has something to do with it?”
“My dad’s dead.”
“Okay, had something to do with it?”
Asa considered. He knew so little of his father’s demeanor. In his dwelling, he had spent hours looking at the polaroid of Edmund Palmer, pondering what it would be like to be so smart. “I don’t know much about my father,” Asa said. “But Conway seems to believe that my dad was spending all of his time at the Academy. If he created this odd kind of Multiplier in the Academy, I think that Robert King would know about it.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Jen said. “Your dad could have been sneaky, like me? Could it be possible that he was working on something outside of the Academy and no one knew about it?”
“I guess,” he said. “But what does that mean? Where does that leave us? We know far too little.” He picked up another stone and hurled it across the lake, skipping it further than the first.
Jen took Asa’s hand. “Let’s go talk to Conway.”
“Conway won’t tell me anything.”
Jen smiled. “What have you got to lose, your pride? We’re at a dead end. Unless you’ve got a better idea, I think that we should talk to Conway.”
Asa sighed. “Give me your hands.”
“You’re frustrated,” she observed.
“Yes, but I think that you’re right.” His wings shot out beside him and he began to carry them to Conway’s cabin, flying above the arctic jungle of Fishie Mountain.
The wind chill made it feel much colder than it was, but the temperature was at a high for the calendar year at just over forty degrees Fahrenheit. As Asa and Jen walked up the pebbled path to the front door of Conway’s cabin, they heard the trickle of cold water falling from the snow packed roof to the ground below. The front door was flanked with two small gardens, each overflowing with genetically engineered plants that thrived in the winter. The petals were strikingly colorful against the white snow and the brown cabin; green-silver leaves and vines running up the rain gutter on the side of the house and circling the windows; blood-red roses with firm petals; flowers purples, blues, oranges, greens, and yellows; the flawlessness of these colors seemed out of place in reality, like they belonged in a dream.
Asa knocked heavily on the wooden door. His face was red and he was mildly anxious, anticipating an argument with Conway. The knock echoed softly back to them and then they heard a menacing growl.
“Ozzie! Hush now, child. Who is it?” They heard Mama’s voice from inside.
“It’s Asa. Asa Palmer. And I have a friend with me.”
“Back up now, Ozzie.” The door swung open to reveal Mama, wrinkles, and hypopigmentation covering her face. She had coarse looking bruises across her arms, her neck—the kind that you get from being on a blood thinner. Her nails, kept short for playing piano, were painted a gray-blue color that mimicked her glaucoma-clouded eyes that stared behind Asa and Jen and did not see. “Oh, honey! Get in here, it’s good to see you.”
As Asa passed over the doorway she wrapped her fingers around his arm and pulled him towards her, placing a kiss on his cheek with her lips, leaving a large lipstick stain. She wore a shawl tied around her neck and smelled strongly of perfumes and lotions.
“And your friend,” Mama said. “She breaths like a female, am I right?”
Jen looked puzzled at Asa. “Yes,” she said.
“I’m blind, honey,” Mama said, “and when you don’t have your vision, you have to find other patterns to recognize things with. It comes with its advantages. You’re from Toronto. Am I right?”
“I lived in Toronto until I was ten. How’d you know?”
Mama smiled. “I can hear it. I can hear textures in sounds as well as you can see textures in a wall. Voices from Toronto have a certain feel to them. That doesn’t make sense to you, I don’t think, but it does to me. Come in, honey. I want to touch your face. I want to see what you look like.”
Jen walked through the threshold and Mama ran her winkled hands up her arms, past her shoulders. She slid them over Jen’s neck and then began to feel over her face.
“Why are you smiling?” Mama asked, smiling herself, revealing a gummy mouth with a tongue that seemed too big.
“It tickles.”
“She’s pretty when she smiles,” Mama said. “You’re beautiful, darling. Gorgeous hair texture. Your face is entirely symmetrical. You’re healthy, darling. You have full lips,” Mama said, removing her hands. “Go sit by the fire, your ears are cold.”
Asa and Jen took a seat on the couch while Mama made them tea. Though Asa had been here before, there were still so many eccentric decorations that he hadn’t yet noticed. He thought it would take days to take stock of them all. There were lamps situated sporadically around the living room, covered in green, yellow, purple, blue, and orange shawls; these splashed colors that mixed on the floor, ceiling, and walls. From the floor, the massive polar bear, Ozzie, watched them with his black eyes; his paws w
ere the size of large baseball gloves. There was an old, rusty bathtub full of dog food situated on the back wall, with some of the kibbles scattered on the floor. Ozzie looked far from underfed, his heavy belly spreading out on the rug beneath him. The fireplace was cut into the wall next to the small kitchen area, and was bordered with black stone inlaid with red, glossy, triangular jewels that were arranged in such a way as to make serpents running up and down the sides of the fire. There was the constant tick from the hundreds of cuckoo clocks that lined the back walls. Asa now saw that there was an oil painting mixed in with the ornamentation of Conway and Edmund Palmer, Asa’s father, standing arm in arm on a mountaintop.
There was a hallway in the back leading off of the main room; one of the doors led down to the basement that held a reinforced jail cell and doubled as Conway’s exercise room.
“Is Conway home?” Asa asked.
“He’ll be home later,” Mama said as she sat two cups of steaming tea on the wide stump that served as a coffee table in front of the couch. Sometimes Mama moved so well within her own home that it was easy to forget she was blind. She sat down in an old quilt-upholstered chair and blew the steam out of her teacup.
“You two made it through the Task,” Mama observed. “Congratulations. Conway was worried about you, Asa.”
“His hologram came and let me know that my teammate has returned another team’s KEE,” Asa said, and he shuddered, thinking of the implications; some of his fellow Academy students had been shocked to death by the placement.
“You sound tense, Asa. Is it just because of the Task, or is there something more?” Mama said, slurping her tea and staring without seeing in the direction of her piano.
“I’m not tense.” Asa said.
Mama addressed Jen: “Tell me why he’s tense, dear.”
Jen looked at Asa cautiously and considered. Asa gave her a warning look, but she still spoke. “He’s afraid that Multipliers are going to attack the Academy.”
