Academic Assassins (27 page)

Sully and I looked at each other, winded from the exertion.

“Miss me?” I asked.

“A little. Maybe.”

This, you would imagine, would be as good a time as any to kiss.

Right?

You wouldn't fault me for trying, would you? I leaned forward, head titled to one side. I closed my eyes and—
Lips, here I come….

Sully took my hand and yanked, dragging me down the hall. “Get your head in the game,” she said, charging ahead. “Let's finish this first and kiss me later.”

STEP TWO: RELEASE THE ANTS

Kesey's main monitoring station was located at the center of the facility.

“There are five cameras between us and the control room,” Sully said over her shoulder as she led me through a tangle of service tunnels. The concrete corridor was laced in pipes and
steam valves, snaking off in various directions. I had the sudden feeling that I'd been shrunk down to a microscopic speck and was now drifting through the main line of some asphalt artery,
all the way toward the heart of this building. Toward freedom—or our death sentence.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked.

“Yep.” Sully abruptly halted and kneeled before a steam grate screwed to the wall. She yanked the vent off with a swift tug, as if the bolts had already been loosened. She reached
into the flue and pulled out her slingshot. “Always come prepared.”

Sully flipped over the waistline of her uniform. I noticed a pouch no larger than a coin purse sewn along the inner elastic band of her pants. She emptied a stockpile of ammunition into her
palm—a pebble, two marbles, plus a penny.

“It's not much,” she said, “but it's all we've got.”

We made our way up to a service door. Sully slowly pushed it open, trying hard not to make a sound, and lowered herself onto one knee.

“Watch out for glass,” she said and brought up her slingshot. Yanking the rubber band back, she took aim at the camera perched at the far end of the hall.

I heard a slight crackle as the lens shattered from ten yards away.

“One down,” she said, “four to go. Once we're on the Yellow Brick Road, we'll have to get to the control room before the—”

Bells started pounding throughout the corridor like a four-alarm fire.

“So much for keeping it a secret,” I said.

Kesey was going on lockdown.

The two of us raced down the Yellow Brick Road. Somebody had repainted it since I had been sent to the Black Hole. The vibrant track slipped underneath my feet like the divider lines on a
highway and I was some car zipping by at sixty miles an hour. I could feel my heart rev against my chest.

“We're here.” Sully pressed her back against the wall beside the control room door. It abruptly burst open as a Man in White rushed into the hall.

“Now!” Sully grabbed my hand and slipped through the door just as it clicked shut behind us.

A wall of windows.

I saw a dozen different screens mounted on top of each other, floor to ceiling. For a split second, I thought each screen was a different window.

A lone orderly sat at the controls. He froze at the sight of us. “Wh-what're you doing in here? This room's off-limits.”

Sully put on her best Peer Facilitator impression—rigid spine, glazed-over stare, robotic monotone. “Miss Merridew wants all orderlies to report to the Solitary Housing
Unit.”

“But…” he started, unsure of himself. “I'm supposed to stay—”

“Merridew needs all hands on deck! Residents are escaping right now!”

The Man in White slowly stood up from the console, hesitant over what to do. “You two, uh…You two better come with me.”

We dutifully followed him to the door, lockstepping alongside him like perfect little automatons—but just as the orderly waltzed out into the hallway, Sully took a step backwards, slammed
the door shut, and bolted it, locking him out.

The handle began to jiggle. I heard the rattle of keys from the other side.

“Hurry,” Sully said as she dragged the Man in White's chair over to the door and jammed its seatback underneath the knob.

I caught myself looking at the monitors, momentarily hoping to see the world beyond these cinder block walls.

What I saw instead was a bird's-eye view of the hallway. The monitor was set at a low resolution, so I could see grainy images of those ants who had escaped from the Black Hole racing down
the hallway. The Men in White were close behind, their C.R.U.s already pulled out and electroshocking. Their features were blurred, like they didn't have any faces at all. I watched my fellow
ants dance that familiar electric slide, no longer in control of their bodies, their limbs jerking through the air.

I stepped back from the monitor and took in the dozen different torturous home movies playing out all at once. All of Kesey was on full display here.

Twenty-four-seven.

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 chicken 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.”