The Academy: Book 2 (7 page)

But instead of resurfacing above, Asa remained where he was for a moment. Something wasn’t right.

The last time Asa had been in the secret compartment, the water tunnel merely curved upward into the safe room. Now, instead of the tunnel making a turn, it continued on forward into the dark. The incline that led to the glowing surface was now an adjacent tunnel instead of a continuation of one tunnel.

Asa looked at the fork in the water passage. Above him was the surface, and before him the tunnel went on for an unknown amount of time into the dark. Asa stretched his fingers out into the darkness and couldn’t feel an end.

Has Teddy carved out a new tunnel?
To what?

His chest really hurting at this point, Asa released his breath and decided that he didn’t have enough time to continue exploring in the dark, cold water. His bubbles rose to the surface and he followed them.

Asa took a deep breath and crawled out of the water into the candlelight. After a few more yards of a widening, inclining tunnel, Asa reached the safe room.

It smelled wonderful. Asa saw the same kind of scented candles the Academy had furnished the rec room with glowing around the
enclosure.
I guess that Teddy stole those too.
A hammock made out of intertwining green and yellow jungle vines hung wall to wall. The safe room was relatively bare, other than that. Along the back was a small drain that ran off the side of the mountain, far away. Above this drain was a working faucet: Teddy had explained last year that, using wristband drill attachments he had made, he was able to make a long, narrow opening on the mountainside that led to a compartment in the middle of the mountain. Snow was constantly filling up this opening and dropping down into the compartment above the safe room. Due to the heat of the fires in the surrounding dwellings, the snow then melted and would run out into the safe room whenever someone turned the knob. Asa knew that there was probably more to it than that, but Teddy didn’t bother trying to explain all the architectural facets of the project to Asa.

The newest object in the room was the small television that Teddy had taken from the trash in the second-semester common room; the
flatscreen was propped up on a small, stone stand. There was still a mass of cracks along the right side of the screen, but not enough to make the image unintelligible. The power cord ran from the back and had been modified on the end so that the three prong electric plug had been cut off. The wire was stripped at the end, and the conducting metal within was twisted together with metal coming off of Teddy’s armband computer.

The television screen went from black to a glowing CNN.com homepage. Teddy turned and raised his eyebrows at Asa: “We’ve got internet now. Pretty cool, huh?”

Asa was so taken back that for the moment he forgot about the dark tunnel that had been added to the water passage in the past two weeks.

“It runs off my armband,” Teddy said. “I swear
, it’s like they wanted us to hack this thing. It can do anything.”

“Teddy!” Asa said, alarmed. “Aren’t you worried that they’ll be able to detect you using the
internet on your armband?”

“What’re they going to do, kill me?” Teddy let out a shrill laugh that Asa ignored.

“How did you get the television through the water passage anyways?” Asa asked.

“I found an ice chest in the rec’s kitchen. The television fit nicely inside; just barely fit through the water tunnel.”

“You stole an ice chest too!?”

“No,” Teddy said. “I borrowed it. It’s now back where it belongs. But come here, you’re going to want to check this out.”

Dripping wet and cold, Asa walked over to a spot in front of the television and sat down. He looked at his armband and thought about how there was an Academy meeting scheduled for later today in the middle of Town. His armband didn’t appear to have any messages on it yet. Asa returned his attention to the screen.

Teddy typed on his keyboard, and in the search box, the words “Robert King Death,” appeared.

“Why are you searching that?” Asa asked.

“Just watch.” The webpage loaded, and Teddy used
the arrows on the keyboard to select a news video from a list shown.

             
Asa remained quiet as the program loaded. He stole a glance over at Teddy, who was wearing a wide grin on his still dripping face.

             
Instantly, a long list of videos popped up on the screen: “What’s next for Troy Webber?” “FBI Under Fire,” and “Alfatrex Employee Speaks Out After Boss’s Murder,” were among the options that could be chosen. Teddy selected one that said, “Police Chief Speaks of Robert King’s Death.” He looked back at Asa in the dim, yellow light of the single candle and said, “Bet you weren’t expecting this.”

             
Asa shook his head, his throat felt dry.

             
As the webpage loaded, Asa noticed that the television screen was dimmer than normal, as though the armband that was powering it didn’t have enough power to make it light the screen the proper amount. He was still mildly anxious about the prospect of Academy officials somehow detecting the internet use.
Surely they monitor the armbands. And if they do catch us, the television is in a secret compartment over my dwelling!

             
The video began to play on the cracked screen. There was a sky image of an enormous mansion at night, lit up by harsh, white beams from a dozen helicopters circling above and the headlights from an army of police and government vehicles that swarmed the pristine green lawn, which was now marred with tire tracks. A set of three crows flew over the property. Even before reading the caption at the bottom of the screen—“Home of Dead Alfatrex CEO and Owner”—Asa knew that he was looking at Robert King’s house: the great expanse of clean white rock, which was rumored to be four times the size of the White House, the lawn of grass, which was kept in better condition than a golf course at a Masters tournament, and the clear, blue lake-sized pool that stretched well out of the camera frame could all only belong to the richest man in the world, Robert King.

             
Over the undulating sound of helicopter blades, a news reporter narrated: “I’m told that L.A. Police Chief Vincent Caltrone will be delivering a statement momentarily, but now here’s the footage we showed you late last night—can we zoom in a bit?—and if you look at the front door, you can see Los Angeles police officer Troy Webber, who has become a bit of a public sensation of late, being led away from Robert King’s mansion in handcuffs by his fellow police officers. He is being charged with first-degree murder after he live-streamed a video of him killing Robert King, the owner of Alfatrex, from a webcam late last night. Let’s frame over to the press conference, where it appears Vincent Caltrone is about to make a public statement about last night’s murder.”

             
The scene changed: Teddy and Asa were now looking at a crowd of reporters, all standing before an empty podium with thirteen microphones on it: each of these microphones had a different TV or radio station logo displayed on the side. On the bottom portion of the screen was the caption—“Police Chief Vincent Caltrone Delivers Statement About CEO Murder.”

             
A sick man walked from the right side of the screen. He was wearing a suit and tie, which he adjusted as he took his place behind the microphones to face the crowd. He didn’t look like police chiefs usually look—large, healthy, and intimidating—but underneath the suit it was clear that there was a body consisting of more bones than anything. The gray skin was taut over his cheekbones and his thin lips were stretched over his teeth. He was balding, but not in the usual male pattern that started at the front and slowly crept back over the top. No, this was the spotted, diffuse balding pattern of someone whose body was undergoing such a biological struggle that it didn’t have the extra nutrients to waste on such superfluous things as hair growth. The thin, patchy hair that still existed on random areas over his scalp was a washed-out blond color. His breathing rattled into the microphones. Surrounding his eyes were dark circles, marking blood vessel degradation: this made him look slightly like a raccoon—a very sick raccoon.

             
Asa and Teddy instantly recognized the signs of the Wolf Flu.

             
Despite his illness and impending departure from the living, there was a determination in the man’s eyes. He was going to work and do his job to the best of his abilities until the disease dragged him to the grave. The chattering of the crowd ceased as the man began to talk.

             
“There is a long list of things that have led us to this point.” The dying man looked down at his notes before going on. “First, the citizens of this country and others began to be afflicted by the Wolf Flu, one of the greatest tragedies to afflict human kind. Secondly, one month ago, news stations across the globe were all sent a letter, from an unknown source. Each of the letters were written in the same, scratchy handwriting, and they all accused Robert King and Alfatrex of the Wolf Flu epidemic, pointing to the M1CR mutated agents that have been found in the water. Thirdly, after efforts from the Ivy League, and a series of Federal investigations, a large amount of evidence suggested that the anonymous letters were true.”

             
The man brought out a napkin from his pocket, and had a horrible coughing fit. He crouched over the podium for a moment, wiped his mouth, and continued on, his voice a bit more hoarse than before. “These things lead us to what happened last night, in which an off duty police officer, Los Angeles’s Troy Webber, broke into Robert King’s home and killed him.” He took a small sip of water. “There are a lot of unknowns regarding the incident last night, but there are some things that we can be sure of.

             
“Number one: The government did not, in any way or fashion, sanction the murder of Robert King. Number two: Troy Webber has admitted to the murder, both on a live internet broadcast last night, and by signing a form admitting guilt this morning, in the presence and under the guidance of his team of lawyers. Number three: The government has no current intentions of giving any unlawful, favoring treatment to Mr. Webber, despite whatever his intentions for the murder may have been. Thank you.”

             
He turned briskly and began to walk off stage as he was pelted by an uproar of unanswered questions from the crowd of reporters. The video still had half a minute left to play, but Teddy shut it off.

             
“Robert King is dead?” Asa asked.

             
“Yeah,” said Teddy. “But you’ve got to watch this next one now.” He typed an address into the URL box that Asa had never heard of before, and then punched in a long series of seemingly nonsense numbers and letters. The webpage loaded, and a second video was displayed on the screen. Teddy hit play.

             
An image of a sweaty man came on the screen. His face was lit with orange lamplight and he was crying.

             
“Hello, hello. One, two, one, two. This is Troy Webber, L.A.P.D. streaming to you live.”

             
From the background came the muffled, gagged screams of a man that was not in the frame.

             
“I just want to tell my daughter that Daddy loves you… And…” He gasped for air, let out a succession of crying groans into his hands, and then regained himself. “I didn’t want to be the one who had to do this, but… there was no choice.

             
“My wife, my beautiful wife”—then his face turned into a grotesque snarl with his lips pulled back from his teeth and his nose folding up toward his brow—“was
TAKEN
by this
DISEASE!
”

             
There was a sharp scream, and Troy Webber pulled Robert King into the frame by his white hair. The Boss’s eyes were open as wide as they would go, and his mouth was stuffed with a pair of socks, held in with a belt. His nose was dripping blood onto the socks in his mouth and the silky pajama shirt he had on his torso.

             
He was just about to go to sleep, when this man broke in.