The academy book 3, p.1
The Academy: Book 3, page 1
The Academy: Book 3
By Chad Leito
Copyright 2015 Chad Leito
All rights reserved
Cover Design by Chelsey Bateson
I want to quickly thank a few people:
First off, I want to thank my terrific editors, Tom Crouch and Judy Kamykowski! These two have been extremely generous in offering their time to give storyline suggestions, proofread, and give general encouragement. Their contributions have been phenomenal, and this book is MUCH better because of them!
Secondly, I want to thank my family. Kattie, my wife, is incredibly encouraging and understanding when I need to spend a lot of hours dreaming up fantasy stories. My dad, my Aunt Sharon, and my grandma, Nana, have read every story I’ve ever written (including four early, experimental novels that were so bad they aren’t published) and been unwaveringly supportive of me. You four have played a huge role in this, and I’m not convinced that I’d still have the courage to be writing if it weren’t for your support.
Thirdly, I’d like to thank all of my fans. Watching reviews come in and receiving critical and supportive emails are some of my favorite things in the world. I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks about this one!
If you’d like to be emailed when I release a new book, email me at chadleito@yahoo.com
You can also stay up to date by following me on twitter, becoming my fan on goodreads, or following my blog.
Other Books by Chad Leito
Mungus
The Academy: Book 1
The Academy: Book 2
The Academy Book 4 (in progress)
Outlive (The New Rome Series, Book 1)
The Servile Wars (The New Rome Series, Book 2)
The Civilians (The New Rome Series, Book 3) (in progress)
The Academy: Book Three
Chad Leito
1
Trembling Hands
Mama lowered her lips to her teacup and slurped warm honey water. It was rude to slurp—she knew that. However, it was fun, especially because she was blind. Mama had begun to lose her sight when she was four, and had been practically blind by the time she was six. Being blind did limit her experiences in some ways, but it also heightened them in others. People never understand that, she thought.
She was eighty-one years old. In all those years, she had developed some ideas about people. She didn’t have unbiased case studies, or double blind experiments to prove her ideas (as Jul was fond of reminding her when he disagreed), but she believed in her heart of hearts that she was in tune with people a bit more than others—just as she was a bit more in tune with music, or sound in general than other people.
She had a theory that most people didn’t like to believe that others had a heightened sense of awareness that they themselves lacked. Most people, for instance, thought that they were smarter than most people. Statistically, this idea is simply impossible. Most people cannot, by definition, be smarter than most people. And yet, in all her years of talking to people, she found that it was true. People don’t like admitting that others can see things that they don’t. Mama thought that for this very reason people never seemed to believe her when she said that she didn’t mind being blind and that her disability offered her the opportunity to notice things that seeing people simply could not.
When I try to tell them this, I hear them smile. I hear their lips slide over their teeth and then the air bubbles moving from between their lips and teeth, because of the pressure. They smile smugly. A smug smile pushes the air bubbles out a little faster because people smile too big, and the pressure is greater on those pockets of air in the gums. A nervous smile sounds similar to a smug smile.
Mama blew the steam off her honey water.
There were some people who were good at recognizing when other people had abilities they lacked. Asa Palmer—the boy that Conway is so fond of—is one of them. He delegates better than anyone I’ve met. He listens to me for wisdom. He trusts Teddy and Mike with science things. He looks to Jen when he needs courage. He looks to Conway for information. He doesn’t assume that he knows everything, and because of that, he gets by like he does. Because he admits he needs help, he goes through life with all of the power of the people around him. He’s scared a lot. He has anxiety—much more than most people. But in a way, that’s his super power. Him being ordinary and being able to call upon those around him makes him special. It sounds easy, but not many people can do that.
Mama slurped on her honey water again and enjoyed the sensation that came to her ears. She heard the soft gurgle that the water made when her lips touched it. She could hear the warmth in the echo of the waves in the water. Warm water sounds different than cold water, she knew. It sounds a little softer. The sound of the slurping bounced off the walls around her. She could hear the sound coming off the cluttered walls, the comfortable armchair that she was sitting in, and the ceiling above her. It doesn’t matter if they believe me, I suppose. I know that I can sense things that they can’t.
She sat still for a moment, listening to the sounds of the room. She could hear the mechanisms inside the dozens of clocks on the wall. Ozzie, her pet polar bear, was lying on a mattress behind her. She could hear his heart thudding in his chest. She couldn’t hear human hearts from feet away, but she could hear Ozzie’s, and other polar bears’. She assumed that their hearts were nosier than human hearts because they were bigger, more powerful, and surrounded by bigger ribs that vibrated as a result of the heartbeats. She listened to Conway breathing. He sat on the couch, and she noticed that he was fidgeting more than normal. She could hear that he was grinding his teeth.
Conway was someone who had trouble fully understanding that her blindness made her more perceptive in some ways. For example, he still tried to lie to her sometimes. Mama didn’t know exactly what gave her the impression that people were lying, whether it was subtle changes in the voice, or the sound a person’s fingers make when they touch their lips after they say something that she knew was false. She just always knew.
And right now, he’s lying.
A few moments ago, Mama had asked Conway if something was wrong. He had said that there wasn’t anything wrong. Now, she was sitting, sipping on her tea, and waiting for him to gather his thoughts and to confide what he would in her. She knew that he wouldn’t tell her everything. That wasn’t Jul’s nature. If she was lucky, though, she might be able to piece together the whole story from the clues that he gave to her.
Mama sat there, listening carefully to her son. Another advantage of being blind was that people had a harder time telling what you were focusing on. When a person who can see is focusing on something, they look at it. This gives them away. A blind person, however, doesn’t have to do anything that gives their focus away. When listening to something, Mama sometimes moved her head to hear it from several different angles, but people couldn’t tell what it was she was concentrating on. Now, Mama was concentrating on her son’s hands. They were trembling slightly as he held his tea. Conway was not aware of this, though. Mama appeared as though she was staring at the floor, thinking.
Mama heard Conway shake his head—this was signaled by the sound of his collar rubbing against the back of his neck. He’s thinking. I’ll give him time. Whatever he has to tell me, it’s important. He’s been acting strange ever since he learned that Teddy escaped and took Asa’s DNA with him. I can’t force him, though. Jul Conway doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want to. I need to give him time to come to me at his leisure. He wants to tell me something, he just doesn’t know which pieces I need to know. He’s so secretive.
It took a long while, but Mama was patient. She listened to a bird making a nest against the side of the house. She heard Ozzie’s stomach begin to gurgle as it digested the dog food he had eaten an hour before. She listened to Conway draw in breath multiple times, as though he was about to speak, only to then shut his mouth and continue contemplating. She heard the icemaker in the freezer dispense ice into the tub. She noticed that one of the cubes didn’t fall out of the tray and into the tub; it was a cube on the side of the tray closest to the wall. This happened every so often.
“I think that Robert King doesn’t realize how dire the situation is,” Conway finally said. He spoke in Edo, a language that he and Mama both knew and that he had learned growing up in Nigeria. Typically, they spoke in English when they were alone. That was the language they were most comfortable with. Mama thought in English, most of the time. They spoke Edo when they were discussing things that could get them in trouble. They didn’t think that their house was bugged or anything; it was just a precaution they took because it had no harm and some potential benefit.
Mama nodded. She slurped on her tea and waited. She knew her son and she knew that it wouldn’t be wise to respond now. He would talk more if she didn’t interrupt him.
Jul shook his head again and then rubbed his hands together. She could hear that the fingers were long and covered in thick calluses. “Even after all that’s happened, he still wants Multipliers to work for him. I can’t understand it. Why would he do that, Mama? Multipliers are dangerous and deceptive. None are loyal to him. You would think that after what happened with Volkner he would lose faith in the creatures, but he would make more if it wasn’t for the contract. Why can’t he see how dangerous they are?”
Mama could sense that Jul actually wanted her answer here. She knew that there was something he wasn’t revealing beneath his agitation—she didn’t know what, but something new had happened. It wasn’t that Multi
Mama knew that, for most people, a simple idea wouldn’t cause so much distress. Jul wasn’t most people. He was honest with himself, for one thing. He never represented things in an untrue way just to make himself happy; Mama suspected that most people did that more often than they would like to admit. Ideas could be scary to Jul because of this. If an idea led him to believe that the world would be better off if he killed her, he would do it. He wasn’t afraid of difficult truths. My suspicion is that he’s come across a difficult truth and that it scares him. He doesn’t know it, but I may be able to help him.
“Mama?” he said. “Why do you think he can’t see how dangerous they are?”
My son is impatient, she thought. Now he was talking in a way that he only talked to her when they were alone. When other people were around, he didn’t like to seem needy. Mama cleared her throat and began to speak in her croaky voice. The answer she had was directly related to what she had been thinking about her son. Perhaps that’s why I started thinking about him in that way. “I think that he wants to trust the Multipliers. If they are good and trustworthy, then he can justify using them as guards.”
“Why would he want to think that, though? It’s wrong. Can’t he see that? No matter how hard he imagines that they’re good, the Multipliers are still malevolent creatures.” He shook his head again.
“I see your point. It’s not advantageous for him to continue to believe what he believes. A lot of times, though, people believe things because it makes them feel better, not because they are true.”
Jul nodded as though he was listening, but Mama suspected that he had only been half paying attention to her. Whatever this new idea is, it’s bothering him greatly. She could still hear that his hands were trembling by the waves in his teacup.
Mama waited for him to speak for the next half hour, but he never did. Finally, he drained the rest of his tea, stood up, took the empty teacups, and washed them in the sink. He’s not going to talk to me about it, Mama realized. If he would just be more like Asa, he’d be more effective. He would also be less trustworthy, though. Conway is a vault that no one gets to see inside of. If you get close to Asa, he confides everything in you. At least, I think that he does.
Conway finished the dishes, walked over to Mama, and kissed her on the head. He was about to go to his room when Mama spoke and stopped him. “Jul?”
“Yes?” he said.
“You’re planning something.” She spoke in Edo.
Her son did not respond.
“You’re planning something that scares you. I wish that you would talk to me about it.”
Jul still did not respond. Mama waited a full minute.
“Can you promise me something, Jul?”
“Maybe,” he said back. He was no longer letting her see himself. His voice was deeper. He sounded older. He had again taken on the clinical, protective, responsible persona that everyone else saw.
She smiled at that. He’s always been so serious. “Promise me that, whatever you’re doing, you will consider involving Asa Palmer.”
“I know that Asa has done some things for us, but he’s a…”
“A child, yes,” she said, finishing his sentence. “I know. He’s not even sixteen years old yet.”
Jul Conway continued: “When I told him about his father, I didn’t want anyone else to know. His whole Winggame team from last semester knows about the contract now. It’s out of the question. He broke my trust.”
“And what harm has come of that?”
“A lot of harm could come of that!” Jul said. “If Robert King catches wind that I was talking about his past…”
Mama interrupted her son again. “JUL! Listen to yourself! You should be ashamed! You’re saying ‘if.’ If Robert King catches wind… Why don’t you consider what actually happened. Asa confided in his friends against your will and they ended up saving his life, and maybe the whole Academy at the end of last semester. Let’s look at what else actually has happened—none of them have talked. Asa evaluated the situation and decided to go against your wishes. The actual consequences of what happened were beneficial, regardless of the what if-scenarios you can come up with might result in.”
He began breathing hard. That bothered him, she thought. I think that it bothered him because it is true.
She continued: “So if you decide to involve Asa Palmer in whatever it is you’re planning, you can expect that he’ll keep his mouth shut about it unless he has a very good reason not to.”
Conway continued to breathe noisily behind her. It wouldn’t have been noisy for most people, but Mama could detect a definite increase in the volume.
“Consider it, please Jul,” Mama said. “I know that you have a bias against the young sometimes.”
“That’s not true! I was planning on getting a student involved.”
She had to try hard not to smile. Unintentionally, he had revealed a small part of his plan. She wanted to know more. “And it wasn’t Asa?”
“No. It’s someone that’s proven himself. It’s someone that I think I can trust.”
“He’s proven himself more than Asa? Asa was brave enough to try to set bombs on a Multiplier camp a few months ago. Asa Palmer has a bit of Edmund in him, whether you like to think so or not. Please consider him.”
Conway rubbed his face with his right hand. She could hear that he needed to shave. “I’ll consider,” he said. He then disappeared into his room and shut the door.
Mama smiled. She closed her eyes and listened as Conway paced in the back room. At least he’s considering using Asa. I wish I knew what he was doing, but at least he’s considering Asa.
Odd as it was, she felt that her fifty one year old son would be safer if he worked alongside the fifteen-year-old boy.
There’s a little bit of Edmund in him.
2
Buster
Asa Palmer was lying in bed, awake and perturbed by the sound of a hard brush scrubbing away at tile. Can’t he give it a rest? The raccoon was in the bathroom, cleaning even though it was well past midnight. I’ve got to get up in the morning, Asa thought. It was a Wednesday, and though he was on summer break with no official responsibilities, Viola Burns would be at his door at eight o’clock in the morning. He and Viola worked out each morning to prepare for the upcoming Winggame season and for whatever tasks they might be thrown into during the next school semesters. The alarm clock on his armband was set for seven.
Asa didn’t even want to look at what time it was. Late enough that I’ll feel fatigued and sluggish in the morning.
A soft light fell from the bathroom door where the raccoon was cleaning. Why can’t he clean that while I’m out tomorrow? There’s another bathroom in my apartment—couldn’t he clean that one now? Asa could see the furry creature’s shadow on the back wall of the bathroom from where he lay. The silhouette made the mammal look grotesquely enlarged; on the wall, its lolling tongue was the size of a human arm, its ears were both the size of rounded chair backs. The raccoon’s headlamp, which he wore on an elastic strap that ruffled his hair, was on and caused the shadows in the bedroom to shift every time the creature moved his head. The creature’s headlamp automatically turned on when he entered a dark room so that he could clean any room he wanted, without needing a light on. The reason for the headlamp wasn’t that the raccoon was conscientious of Asa’s need for REM, but that he didn’t know how to turn on the wall light switches. He had flipped a wall switch by accident once that Asa had witnessed, when he was dusting the walls vigorously, and the raccoon had looked up surprised when the room magically illuminated. He didn’t seem to have the brainpower to realize the connection between the switch and the light.
