XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop

by Brad Magnarella

  When Jesse heaved his arms up, the two guys who had been holding him went along for the ride, one with a surprised “Wha—!” A dull knock sounded overhead: skull on skull.

  Their bodies crashed to the ground as Jesse rose. “Said we’re even.”

  The remaining four looked at one another.

  “Hit him! Hit him!” Kip cried from behind, and Jesse realized Kip was still standing on his back, holding to the chain like a pair of reins. “Drop his lard ass!”

  A chunk of asphalt exploded against Jesse’s forehead. Might as well have been a clod of dirt. Someone rushed him with a dark wine bottle. Jesse booted the assailant off into the darkness. Then, with one hand, he pried the chain from his throat, pulled it over his head, and swung Kips flailing body around like a marionette, taking out two more of his brat pack.

  “Was willing to give you a fair shake,” Jesse said. “Was willing to let you even things up. But you got greedy.”

  Those who could stand stumbled away. The others shuffled backward on hands and feet. Above road-burned cheeks, Kip’s eye shone large and dazed.

  “How … how can you be standing?” he asked.

  Jesse lumbered over to the metal Dumpster and, getting one hand underneath and one around the lip of the opening, raised it to his shoulder. The lids banged the back of the Dumpster like giant frying pans as he plodded forward. Rats spilled and scattered, one of them racing down Jesse’s arm.

  “I don’t ever wanna see you again,” he said.

  “What in the hell?” Kip cried, as though Jesse were committing some gross perversion. His gaze bobbled between Jesse’s face and the eight-hundred-pound container. With a shrug, Jesse lifted the Dumpster overhead.

  Apparently deciding it a good time to leave, Kip got to his feet and scrambled from the lot, chasing the others. Jesse heaved the Dumpster after them. It slammed into the cinder block wall beside the entrance with the force of a bullet train, coughing out bottles and cardboard boxes.

  Someone—Kip, it sounded like—shrieked in the alleyway.

  “That’ll teach ’em,” Jesse muttered as the sprinting slaps of Docksiders and penny loafers receded.

  Jesse was dragging the crumpled Dumpster from the wall, back to where he’d first lifted it, when the rear door flew open. Yellow light glared out. Jesse raised a forearm and recognized the hip-cocked silhouette in the doorway.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doin’?” Loretta demanded.

  Jesse looked from the Dumpster back to Loretta. “Just taking care of some business.” He scooted the Dumpster in, making sure it matched the imprint in the weeds, more or less.

  Loretta drew a breath like she was about to lay into him, but then blew it out. “As if dealing with the lowlife’s at the bar isn’t work enough,” she muttered. “Use your own Dumpster next time, a’right?”

  She wheeled and released the door before Jesse had a chance to respond. He was tilting his head to savor the final sliver of her receding figure, when his Champions-issued watch beeped. Jesse raised the large, glowing watch face to his chin and read:

  Report to CC for exposure violation

  He heaved out a forlorn sigh. He’d broken the terms of his contract. Used his powers on the outside. He plodded over to his Chevelle to head to CC, the command and control center.

  “Time to face the music,” he muttered.

  Jesse lifted his car by the front fender and walked it around one hundred eighty degrees until it was facing the lot’s entrance. When the watch beeped again, Jesse realized he’d just committed his second violation in as many minutes. The message confirmed that.

  Dropping the car, he rapped his temple. “Need to think, dummy.”

  He was preparing to squeeze behind the Chevelle’s wheel when he noticed something on the windshield. Tucked beneath the left wiper was a rectangle of transparent plastic, the size of a business card.

  Jesse reached around and pinched it out. Turning it right side up, he squinted at the small typed print: a ten-digit phone number, nothing else. The earlier phone conversation came back to him.

  Start by asking your father, the voice had said. Then you might try your luck with that outfit you’re associating with. When neither have a good answer—and they won’t—give me a call.

  Flicking the card with his thumb, Jesse began to think that Creed might not have had anything to do with the call after all. He drew his thick wallet from his back pocket. The chain to his belt loop jiggled as he slid the card inside and returned the wallet to his sagging pants. Then he dropped into the Chevelle and cranked the ignition.

  Time to face the music, he repeated to himself. A deal’s a deal.

  He gunned the engine and rumbled from the ruined lot, shadows in the alleyway growing and receding in the sweep of his headlights. He was too preoccupied with the card to notice the one shadow that stood watching him from a recessed doorway before slipping off into the night.

  3

  Oakwood

  Monday, September 2

  7:05 a.m.

  The sight of the Chevelle creeping from the Downs detonated old, autonomic fears in Scott, like a burst of Blackcats. He flinched backward, catching the heel of a Nike on the lip of the storm drain, and dropped onto the seat of his pants. The Chevelle eased up and idled, blue exhaust rolling over its roof. Beyond the window tinting, Scott could make out the silhouettes of Jesse, Creed, and Tyler.

  Scott started to raise a hand to his teammates before checking himself. He nodded slightly. The car idled another moment, then rolled out onto Oakwood’s main drag, picking up speed as it descended the hill.

  “Man, this is going to take some getting used to.”

  Janis, who had been frowning over her class schedule, slipped it back inside a folder and raised her eyes. Even in a softball shirt, she looked amazing. “You mean not being able to talk to them?”

  “I mean not being terrified of them.” He beckoned her to sit beside him. “On the first day of school last year, I was trembling up there behind that bush, sure they were going to break my arm.”

  “And now we’re all saving the world together.” She set her chin on his shoulder and blew a tuft of hair from his ear. “Funny what a year can do.”

  “So you got the message too, huh? About keeping up appearances?”

  “‘With the start of school it is imperative that your relationships appear consistent to the outside,’” Janis recited. The message had shown up on their consoles the night before, courtesy of Director Kilmer. “‘If you had no reason to associate at the end of last school year, then you have no reason to associate at the beginning of this school year.’”

  “Good thing we smooched at the spring dance.”

  Janis snorted and peeked up at the streetlight across from the stop. “Like anyone besides them is even watching.”

  “Well, there are those Soviet mercenaries Kilmer talked about…”

  Janis pursed her lips. “I know we haven’t had our promised meeting about the Program becoming more transparent, but I’m pretty sure Kilmer used the mercenary bit as a ruse to make sure we’d commit—one of several ruses, I should add.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, I’m not complaining anymore. After the crisis at the nuclear facility, I see he had the right idea, even if his methods were dishonest.”

  “Yeah.” Scott didn’t want to think about where those missiles would have landed if either of them had declined the Program outright back in June. Anyway, that wasn’t what was nagging him now.

  “What is it?” Janis asked.

  “Huh?” He looked over to find her peering up at him, her chestnut eyes verging on green. She was getting better at reading him. “Oh, I just keep wondering what the story is on Mr. Shine.”

  “Your yardman?”

  He had come to their house the day before to mow, Scott watching him from his window, studying the man’s dark, weathered arms, his flat-top straw hat, his sweat-streaked face.

  “I was sure he was going to be my trainer wh
en Director Kilmer announced them on that first day. Instead my trainer was, well, you know…” Janis still hadn’t entirely warmed up to Gabriella. “Anyway, he’s around the neighborhood all the time, around school. And when I had Wayne gather that housing information on Oakwood back in the winter, he learned that someone else had been after the same information years before. A ‘colored fellow,’ according to the woman at the County Recorder Office.”

  The school bus groaned to a stop in front of them. Scott and Janis boarded and found a seat in the last row.

  “And you think the person after the data was Mr. Shine?” Janis whispered, scooting in after him.

  “Have you ever, I don’t know, felt anything about him?”

  “I haven’t ever thought to try.” Janis turned her books sideways on her lap and picked at the corner of a folder. “Well, except for that night at the spring dance, but I couldn’t be sure what I was picking up. Have you mentioned anything to Director Kilmer or Agent Steel?”

  “No, no. Because what if he’s exactly who he appears to be—an aging man trying to make ends meet? He’s getting steady work in Oakwood. I wouldn’t want to mess that up for him. Anyway, he wouldn’t be working in Oakwood at all if they hadn’t already checked him out.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Janis said, “he doesn’t strike me as mercenary material.”

  Thinking about the man’s coin tricks and rich laugh made Scott chuckle. “No, I guess not.” When Janis didn’t respond, he glanced over to find her eyes narrowing, color flooding her cheeks. He followed her gaze toward the front of the bus. “What is it?” he whispered.

  It didn’t take long for him to see. Two boys whose hair tapered to rattails were taking turns flicking the lone kid ahead of them in the back of his head. The victim, clearly new to high school, faced one tormentor only to be thumped from behind by the other. With his disheveled hair and crooked glasses, he could have been Scott a year ago. The victim’s chin began to quiver.

  Anger knotted up Scott’s stomach as he straightened. “I’ll go say something.”

  “Wait,” Janis said, not taking her eyes from them. “I know we’re not supposed to do this, but…”

  The bus slammed into what felt like a pothole, jarring everyone. One of the rattail boys had been poised to thump the back of the kid’s head again; instead, his own head rammed against his partner’s, a sound like stone on dense wood. The two slumped against the seat back.

  “Janis,” Scott whispered.

  She looked over, eyes wide in mock innocence until she relaxed them. “Oh, come on. I masked it by rocking the bus. Anyway, look. They’re resting peacefully. No longer making a nuisance of themselves.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with what you did,” Scott said, peering from the pair of lolling heads to Janis. “It should just be more of a last resort kind of thing. I mean, I know Kilmer hasn’t been the poster child for straight talk, but maybe everything he told us shouldn’t be tossed. Maybe there are people out there hunting us. And until we know for certain…”

  “The less risk taking the better?”

  “It’s why superheroes’ real identities are always kept secret. Spider Man has the Goblin to worry about; the Fantastic Four have Doc Doom; the X-Men, Magneto…”

  “And the Champions have an aging yardman.”

  Scott compressed his lips in pretend anger. She laughed and nudged him, then nestled her head against his shoulder. The fresh scent of her hair enveloped him. Scott hooked an arm around her side.

  “I’m sure I’ll come across him at some point today,” she said. Scott watched her touch the buttons on his Champion-issued watch. Designed to look like a standard digital model, the watches concealed a wireless sender/receiver so the command and control could communicate with them and broadcast alerts. “I’ll see what I can feel and I’ll let you know.”

  “It’s not a huge deal,” Scott said, “but yeah, that would make me feel better.”

  “Though I’d hate to see this thing go away.” She sat up and touched her fingertips to his forehead.

  He crossed his eyes to see what she was doing. “What thing?”

  “Your nervous wrinkle. It’s kind of cute.”

  “All right, all right.” He pulled her hand down and straightened his glasses, his cheeks flushing with warmth. “I’m sure the wrinkle will become a permanent feature by the time we graduate, so you don’t need to miss it too much.”

  Though Janis smiled, a faint shadow passed over her face. He didn’t have to ask what she was thinking because he was thinking the same thing: With the kinds of dangers they would face, three years was a really long time. There were no guarantees any of them would make it to graduation.

  Pulling her close, Scott pressed his lips to her temple. Janis took his hand and massaged her thumb deep into his palm.

  Janis watched Scott’s head recede and then disappear into a current of fresh faces and alien hairdos. She sighed and dragged herself toward D wing. Except for lunches and the couple of minutes they’d be able to steal between classes, she would have no refuge in Scott’s company this semester. No talks with her sister, either, who had graduated in June. And per the rules, Tyler, Creed, and Jesse would be off limits to her. No associating.

  She remembered the talk her sister’s friends had given her at the beach a year ago: avoid nerds and losers at all costs. Funny how things turned out.

  She looked around at the next generation of Tinas, Kellys, and Feather Heathers. Their thoughts and emotions burst in and out of her awareness like radio stations. One girl was stressing that the pink shades of her shirt and pants weren’t sufficiently complementary. Another was horrified over her end-of-summer weight gain—a whopping two pounds.

  Janis laughed dryly. What I wouldn’t give for those kinds of worries.

  The impressions petered out as she rounded a corner onto the backside of D Wing. To her right, a stretch of woods separated the south end of the campus from a low-slung apartment complex. Janis dug her schedule from her pocket and rechecked the room number for her first period chemistry course. D-107.

  When she raised her face again, a custodian’s cart was emerging from a classroom several doors down. Janis slowed to a stop. The man who followed the cart wore blue coveralls, his sleeves pushed up above a pair of dark, knotted elbows. A straw hat topped his head.

  Mr. Shine.

  He began limping his cart toward the far end of the wing. Janis followed, matching his measured pace. She didn’t know how a person could appear more harmless, but she’d made Scott a promise. Trying not to appear obvious, she concentrated along the glowing lines that connected them.

  His outer layer was … comforting, like steam from a cup of coffee on a cold day or the scent of pipe smoke in a grandfather’s sweater. And it wasn’t just comforting, but familiar.

  She pushed deeper.

  The aging man’s shoulders tensed, and Janis felt something push back. Mr. Shine released the cart and pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket. As he wiped his brow and the back of his neck, he squinted around behind him. Janis withdrew and pretended to consult her schedule.

  Did he sense me?

  Her heart slugged in her chest. The question would have seemed foolish even a minute ago, but in the moment before he’d turned, a wall had gone up. Janis had felt herself being blocked—even repelled—from his thoughts. In her peripheral vision, she sensed him watching her.

  “Janis.”

  She spun toward the whispered voice, a cry caught in her throat. The call had come from the stretch of woods where a faint trail slipped into the trees. She caught a dissipation of smoke and what looked like a stone-washed jean jacket. The person stooped a little so she could see his face.

  Tyler?

  He waved her toward him.

  She glanced back down D Wing. Mr. Shine and his cart were gone. She hesitated before descending the short, sloping lawn. When she ducked into the tree cover, a damp coolness enveloped her.

  The fain
t trail at her feet continued to a chain-link fence at the rear of the red-brick apartment complex. Tyler had withdrawn several feet along the trail, where they wouldn’t be seen from the school. He had ditched his cigarette, but Janis could smell the baked-in smoke on his denim. As she neared him, he slipped his hands into his pockets. The right shoulder of his jacket bulked with what must have been bandaging from the gunshot wound he’d suffered the week before.

  “I don’t mean to sound like a prude,” Janis whispered. “But the Program doesn’t want us…”

  “Associating. Yeah, I know.” His blue eyes remained locked on hers. “It’s just I haven’t seen you all week. I’ve been wanting to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For what happened at that launch facility.”

  In a flash, Janis recalled Tyler’s voltage exploding through her muscle tissues, dropping her to her knees. If she hadn’t been wearing her protective suit, the energy would have roasted her.

  “That wasn’t you, Tyler.”

  “Yeah, well.” He picked at the bark of the pine tree he was leaning against. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

  Janis waved a hand. “If I’ve gotten over it, why shouldn’t you? And Tyler, those were unique circumstances. I was there too, remember? In your head? I could see what Trips was doing to you.”

  “That’s the other thing. Thanks for doing what you did, you know. For making me sane again.”

  Janis’s gaze inadvertently fell to his lips, and they both glanced away. The week before, she had kissed him. Not out of passion, she told herself. She had acted intuitively, without forethought, and the kiss had returned Tyler to himself. That’s why she had done it. That’s all that had mattered.

  Then why haven’t you told Scott?

  “Tyler—” she began.

  The long, brassy ring of the warning bell cut her off. Janis glanced toward the school.

  “Hey, just one more thing.” He gripped her upper arm gently. “I got something for you.”