The Academy: Book 2 (58 page)

“Do you need to go see a doctor about your face?” Asa asked, trying to ignore Teddy’s outstretched hand. Teeth could be seen through the giant gash in Teddy’s cheek. His gums were now spotted black.

“It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? I don’t think I need any medical attention. I’ve been cleaning it really
well. Mama gave me some soap, and I’ve been bathing in the sink. There’s a drain in here. And besides, I survived swallowing that suicide pill, so I think I should also survive this. I feel so strong, Asa.”

“That’s good,” said Asa. He went and sat down on the bench press. Teddy still had his hand hanging through the bar at Asa.

“Won’t you shake my hand, Asa?” Teddy asked.

“I don’t think that I should.”

“Do you not trust me? I won’t hurt you.”

Asa continued to meet Teddy’s gaze from behind the bars, but didn’t say anything.

“The worst part about solitary confinement is no human contact. Did you know that sometimes prisoners in solitary confinement will attack guards just to touch someone, and to be touched by someone. It’s a human need, Asa. Can you please shake my hand?”

Asa stood and walked over to Teddy. He held his hand up in front of Teddy’s
, watching Teddy’s facial expressions for a flash of malicious intent. They shook. Asa’s hand was wider than Teddy’s, but much thinner. He could feel Teddy’s strength in his grip, and was relieved when Teddy let him go, and he was able to sit back down on the bench.

There was an awkward silence between them.

“I have grown very close to my Winggame teammates this year,” Asa said.

“I’ve noticed.”

“I’ve told them basically everything. They know about the crows. They know about my father and his contract with the Academy; they know that this means the Academy can’t make more Multipliers as long as either Charlotte or I continue in this program. And they know about you being bitten.”

Teddy looked as though he had just swallowed something sou
r. “Do you think that it was wise to tell them those things?”

“Yes. They are really helping me think through things.”

“What are you doing for them?” Teddy asked. His eyes moved quickly over Asa’s body. For the first time during this visit, Asa noticed Teddy’s eyes. They were different. The pupils remained dilated beyond normal, but they had shrunk since Asa last saw him. Now, they were the size of nickels, not quarters.

“I do a lot for them. I’ve helped them out in Winggame. I did my part in the Task.”

Teddy smiled with the right side of his mouth while the infected, swollen left side remained limp. “So? Everyone else on the team does those things too. But they’re not asking for extra favors and extra advice. You are.”

“What’s your point?”

“Nobody likes a parasite.” Teddy was gripping the bars of the cell so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

“Forget it,” Asa said. He stood, and walked away to leave.

Teddy’s voice softened, “Asa! Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Asa had reached the steps and was about to leave the basement when he heard Teddy sob. He turned to see thick Salvaserum tears running down his face.

“I’m sorry, don’t leave, Asa! You’re my only friend! Give me a minute to explain! Please.” He began to whisper. “Please, Asa! One minute of your time!”

Asa crossed his arms and
returned into the room. He sat back down on the bench press and regarded Teddy, not speaking.

“I’m sorry that I said that to you. It was mean, ugly, hurtful.” He looked at Asa, and Asa thought,
he never said that it wasn’t true. He never took it back.

Teddy raked his fingers through his
thick blond hair, and pulled it up over his head. When not fixed, it hung over his eyes. “I am an addict without my drug, Asa. I am utterly miserable.” He looked down for a moment and when he looked back up, more tears had rolled down over his cheeks.

Teddy sighed. “You saw my mansion, which I carved out above your dwelling. You have me prisoner. I see no reason to not tell you what I’ve been up to this semester.
”

Asa felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle up. For some reason, Teddy’s words were making him nervous. He looked back, pretending everything was normal.

“Each of the mountains around the Academy serves different purposes. I learned this from eavesdropping. Mount Two is sometimes called ‘The Chemistry Mountain’ by Academy workers. It’s not
just
a mountain that houses dwellings. There is an enormous network of tunnels within. Every mutation vaccine that is sold in the Shop is manufactured deep within Mount Two, but that’s not all. They also create experimental drugs. It’s sick, but they’ll kidnap humans and experiment on them. They kill them when they’re done. Conway, McCoy—those guys that you think are perfect—they help kidnap these innocent humans.”

Asa remained silent.

“In the beginning of this semester I was depressed, so I began to dig out a place above your dwelling as a hobby. It was good for me. It took my mind off of things. I dug all day and all night sometimes. I used the drill on my armband, and carved out tunnels that ran for miles into the mountain. One evening, I hit metal.

“I didn’t know what it was at first. I gently dug around it and found that it was an air conditioning vent. Curious, without thinking about the risks, I cut out a hole in the metal big enough for me to fit inside, and I crawled through. The vent led me through offices, bathrooms, meeting halls, auditoriums, and laboratories. I spent days crawling through the metal ventilation system of Mount Two, looking down at all the workers.

“There are thousands of humans working in Mount Two alone! I was shocked to see how many non-mutated humans work within the mountains.

“One evening, I was making my rounds through the ventilations systems. I had drawn an extensive map of the metallic maze on my armband, and would reference it if I ever got lost. I was above one of the laboratories. There are many labs inside of Mount Two, all of them extremely sanitized. In some, the scientists wear yellow rubber suits to avoid exposure to hazardous materials; in others, there are practically zoos of mutated animals. I’ve seen horses with wings (these animals cannot fly, they are much
too heavy, but they have giant, leathery wings), frogs the size of pigs, pigs the size of frogs, flying bees with scorpion tails, feathered fish, and a lot more.

“
This particular evening, the lab I was spying on didn’t have any of these oddities. It was unremarkable. I had spied in on it before, but found it boring. There were no hazardous material suits, no mutated humans in cages, and no mutated animals. But, that night I saw the most unusual thing I had seen in any of the labs while spying.

“Robert King, himself, was in this lab.

“He was talking to different scientists. Through listening, I came to learn that he wanted a drug made for himself—one that could make him smarter. I learned that he had put in a request for this drug one year before, and they had finally managed to create it.”

Teddy’s eyes widened as he told what he had seen.

“The drug had just been through its first trial with human testing, and they wheeled the experimental humans in. The first thing that Robert King asked was why these humans had such big pupils. The scientists explained that when a normal human is extremely stimulated by something—as in when they are learning a new concept—their pupils dilate. These human prisoners were being absolutely stimulated by
everything.
They were constantly learning.”

Teddy shivered and smiled. “The drug is called
Vipocrit. God, my Lord, it feels so damn
good
when you inject it in. It’s red, and when it’s cold, it actually glows. I got to where I was injecting every day. When you’re on it, you see patterns in things that you wouldn’t ever normally notice. It’s like time slows down and your brain speeds up. For instance, did you know that when Professor Stern writes on the chalkboard, he averages two letters a second exactly? I mean,
exactly.
Isn’t that strange? I noticed that a lot of things happen at one second exactly. When snow falls, it actually falls in waves, slightly varying in intensity, at one-second intervals. Again,
exactly
one second. I made a machine that measured this. A lot of things we do line up exactly with our clocks. It makes you think that perhaps all of our time units have significance that the clock designers weren’t aware of. These are the kinds of connections that Vipocrit allows you to make.

“And when you’re on it, you don’t need to sleep. It’s not like amphetamines, though, where you simply
feel
like you have more energy, and then you need to sleep for a few days in a row after a period of hyperactivity. Vipocrit actually makes your circulatory system more efficient. Your heart beats like a hummingbird’s. I never understood the science of it.

“But anyways, so they brought the humans inside the lab, and Robert King looked at them. He asked the scientists how much of the stuff they had created. They explained that there was enough in the surrounding freezers to last one human
two-hundred years. Then he asked if any other people knew about the project, aside from the ones in the room. They said no one, and he took out a remote, pressed a button, and a metal cage fell over the door. He took out a handgun and killed every scientist and experimental human in the room. It was difficult to watch.”

Asa felt as though the room suddenly got colder.

Teddy rested his forehead on the bars. “You can probably guess by now, but I stole the drug. I have a few months supply stored in the mansion that I dug out above your dwelling.

“The reason I’m telling you this is so that maybe you’ll
be more understanding if I’m in a bad mood. Not only am I changing into a Multiplier, but I also haven’t had Vipocrit in a couple of days now.” Slow Salvaserum tears trickled down his cheeks. “I feel like my heart is beating in molasses. I feel as though my brain is concussed. It’s like I can’t think.” Teddy began to cry harder, and his chest hitched up and down under his white shirt, which was now stained black with Salvaserum. “Could you go get me some, Asa? Please? Just a little bit?”

“Teddy, I…”

Teddy’s voice turned into a terrible growl and his face contorted grotesquely. “
YOU WHAT?”

Asa pulled himself back involuntarily. Teddy covered his face in his hands and sat down on the tile. “You see? I’m a wreck. I don’t mean to be ugly, but I’m hurting.
If I could only have a little bit of the drug, my friend. Or if you could just bring the stash here, that would be wonderful.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Asa said.

Teddy nodded solemnly and looked at the pile of coke can strips on the ground.

“Teddy.”

“Yes?”

“What did the Multiplier
who bit you look like?”

Teddy’s pupils looked around the cell, and then moved back to Asa. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? Did you not see the Multiplier?”

Teddy shrugged. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember much of that night at all.”

“You just forgot?”

“Yes. I think that the Salvaserum had a sedating effect on me. That night feels like a dream.”

Something about Teddy’s tone, or the way his eyes stayed so earnestly locked onto Asa’s made Asa not believe him. Asa rubbed his hands together. He wanted to change the subject for a moment to try and catch Teddy off guard. “So all those tests that you aced, it was because of the drug?”

“Well, I mean, I was always smart, but it sure made me move a little faster. It wasn’t just that I was acing
tests; I was acing them in the time it took everyone else to read the first five questions. I could think so incredibly
fast,
thanks to the Vipocrit.”

“Is that how you figured out that I should change tones in Flying Class? And were you on the drug when you figured out that the invisible force fields that blocked the spear gun target ran in conjunction with the clock?”