Scott suddenly remembered something.
“Hey!” he said. “I had this dream about him last year where his eyes did the same thing!”
Janis nodded. “Probably because you saw them do that in real life, if not consciously, then subconsciously. Your mind stored the information away and then played it back to you in your dream.”
“But how does he do that?” Scott asked. He caught himself thinking of Mr. Shine’s coin trick: now tails, now heads. Only now he saw the quarter flashing from light blue to dark brown.
“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Janis said. “He’s a Special. Like us.”
“A Special,” Scott repeated. “Of course…”
“Not only that, but a former Champion. I was having those visions over the summer, remember? Of a sphere breaking apart and only one fragment remaining? That fragment was him. Mr. Shine. That’s why his energy felt familiar that first time I tried to probe him.”
“Ho-ly cow,” he whispered. “Do you think the Program knows about him?”
Janis’s face pinched in concentration, and she shook her head.
“What’s he doing hanging around Oakwood, then?” he asked. “Hanging around school?”
Their watches beeped simultaneously, indicating their ten minutes were up. Scott stood and helped Janis to her feet. They began scuffing back along the fallen tree in the dark.
“Good question,” she said.
“Do you think it’s time to alert the Program?”
“No.” Janis’s insistence surprised Scott. He turned around to where she’d stopped walking. “Not a word. Not yet. I’m about ninety percent sure he’s here to help us, and maybe even a little more that he needs to keep his presence a secret.”
“But what if the truth falls into that ten percent?” Scott asked.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
18
The Barn
Saturday, November 9
2:14 p.m.
“How are they looking?” Director Kilmer asked.
“Ahead of schedule,” Agent Steel replied, “but don’t tell them I said so.”
He followed her cold gaze to where the Champions were engaged in a simulation involving scores of armored agents. Janis’s astral powers, Scott’s abilities to tap into computer systems, Tyler’s to create electromagnetic fields, Margaret’s to influence thought, even Creed’s quick maneuvers, were becoming harder for him to follow. His Champions were moving among and manipulating Steel’s men as though they were hardly there.
Kilmer’s gaze shifted to the one exception, standing near the far sideline. There was nothing subtle about Jesse Hoag.
“Any updates on our jumbo-sized friend?” he asked.
“Since we found him?” Agent Steel shook her head of cropped hair. “We’ve kept extra agents on him, but there’s nothing to report. He’s training as hard as ever. Strength continues to increase.”
As if on cue, Jesse seized an opponent and hurled him the length of the Barn.
“Harder to hurt, too,” she added.
“Something still prods my gut.” Kilmer’s gaze followed the agent’s trajectory as he bounced from the padded wall, shedding weapons and slabs of body armor. “I don’t like it.”
“We didn’t find anything back there,” Steel reminded him.
Kilmer nodded automatically. When Jesse regained consciousness, he claimed he had intended to go to his father’s garage but at the last moment decided to head to a salvage yard where he hoped to find a serviceable timing belt. He had gotten lost among the warehouses. While trying to get out, he’d lost control of his car. Jesse remembered the chain-link fence looming in his headlights, and that’s where his memories of the night ended. Further questions were only met with the dead stare Kilmer had become accustomed to.
Kilmer had considered authorizing the use of a neural device to probe deeper—as they’d done with Scott to discover Agent Leonard’s whereabouts—but in Jesse’s case, there wasn’t enough probable cause. Like Agent Steel said, they hadn’t found anything suspicious, and if Jesse was telling the truth, all a neural probe would accomplish was fresh distrust.
“Did the technicians ever learn why they lost electronic contact with him?” Agent Steel asked.
Kilmer stirred from his thoughts. “They’ve run some tests. Think it might have to do with radon concentrations in the area, which tells me they don’t really know. Even Janis had trouble reaching him that night, though that could’ve been explained by the fact he was out cold.”
“You suspect the Scale’s involvement,” she said.
“Ever since Missouri, they’ve gone silent, and that bothers me.”
Even with the Soviet threat looming, Kilmer sometimes wished the Scale would do something, if only so the Program could draw a bead on them. Instead, the Scale had become a silent reminder of past failures, a boogeyman—one that kept him awake nights. He’d started taking two sleeping pills and a beer before bed. Not exactly doctor’s orders, but it did the trick.
Only now, he was beginning to see the Scale everywhere, which, he realized, could be just as dangerous as not seeing them at all. He watched Jesse plow through a half dozen armored agents, impervious to their laser fire and blows. After all, here he was, distrusting one of his own. And Kilmer knew if he wasn’t careful, that distrust could come to run both ways.
“It’s been a month,” he told Agent Steel at last. “I think it’s safe to pull the extra surveillance off him.”
“Are you sure?”
Kilmer considered Jesse and the laid-out agents around him. “Yeah. And listen, after you conclude tonight’s exercise, I’m going to want the Champions for a half hour or so. Dementyev could make his European push any day now, and I need to begin formal briefings.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Kilmer took a final appraisal of Jesse, who was coming to resemble Titan more and more. I just hope this story ends better. He turned on the heels of his mirror black shoes and headed in the direction of his office, the commotion of the exercise receding behind him.
19
The Downs
Friday, November 15
2:49 p.m.
Jesse barreled around the corner in his Chevelle, sparks spitting up from the asphalt, and saw that something was bad wrong. Three squad cars were parked on the street in front of his house. Two more were in his driveway, where he normally parked. A sixth car sat on his lawn, between the driveway and front door. By its angle, it looked as if it had jumped the curb.
Jesse cut his gaze to the rearview mirror, expecting that view to fill up with squad cars as well—moving ones—but the street was empty. Slowing to a crawl, he began mentally thumbing through any of his recent actions that might have been mistaken for criminal.
Around the corner of the house sat a black sedan, Agent Steel’s car.
“Crap,” he muttered.
Jesse pawed along his beltline until his hand closed around the Walkman tape player. As he studied the windows of his house, he followed the cord from the Walkman up to where foam headphones hugged his neck. Even if Agent Steel took a backhoe to his room, she wouldn’t find anything, he told himself. He’d long since gotten rid of those transparent cards.
The contents of his stomach sloshed anyway. For a moment, he considered getting the hell out of there. Instead, he coasted to a stop in front of his house and drew the emergency brake.
He was slamming his car door shut when the garage door began to clunk and rattle open. Police boots filled the growing space. In the middle of them, Jesse spotted a pair of worn work shoes. He knew those shoes.
“Get your goddamned hands off me!” his father’s voice roared. “You’ve got no claim on me!”
His pink face appeared suddenly, pushed under the still-rising garage door by the uniformed men clamping either arm, their own faces hard and stolid. Jesse recognized the men from training.
“I said you’ve got no claim on me, goddammit!”
His straining
arms were cuffed behind him. When he kicked his legs up, the men lifted him so that his feet pedaled helplessly. His father’s eyes shot around and came to a bulging rest on Jesse.
“Do something, boy!”
Jesse stared back, not moving.
“We’re under attack, and you’re just gonna goddamn stand there?”
Jesse watched the two agents load his father into the back of a squad car in the driveway. One of the men gave Jesse an apologetic look before dropping into the front seat and backing the car onto the street. Beyond the rear window, his father swiveled his head and shouted something, but Jesse couldn’t hear him.
The car gained speed as it left the Downs. Jesse waited for the police lights to spin into action, but they never did. They weren’t real police.
“I told him this would happen.”
Jesse turned and found his mother snapping down the driveway in battered slippers, her bathrobe knotted snugly at her waist.
“What’s going on?” Jesse asked.
“Oh, he came home from work early with a head of steam. Called that director of yours and said today was the day he was pulling you and he’d like to see them try and stop him. Wasn’t willing to discuss it or nothing.” As she talked, agents climbed into the other cars and began motoring away. “When the director told him it’d mean us having to move, your father went crackers. Said if anyone touched him, he’d blow the whistle on the whole durn thing.”
“I apologize for the show of force,” Agent Steel said. She closed the front door and strode across the lawn in one of her pleated blue uniforms. She nodded toward the receding police cars. “We know about his gun collection. We had to err on the side of caution.”
Jesse’s mother mumbled, “Thank heavens he weren’t that big a fool.”
“Where are you taking him?” Jesse asked.
“We need to ensure he’s not a risk to carry through with his threat to inform the outside. We’re going to hold him until he cools down and then attempt to reason with him.”
“He knew full well what was in that contract,” Jesse’s mother said to no one.
“And if he don’t wanna reason?” Jesse asked.
Agent Steel appraised Jesse with a cold stare before speaking. “While you’re in his care, your father has certain…” She swallowed as though downing a bitter pill. “…contractual rights. Our only option will be to clean him and relocate your family. That would include you.”
Eddie’s pool hall
4:10 p.m.
“Tray of balls?” Loretta asked, already stooping beneath the bar counter.
“Maybe later.” Jesse pushed a trio of stools together and heaved himself onto them. He shifted around until his weight was evenly distributed. “Thought maybe I’d grab a beer.”
Loretta was wearing a white crop top, exposing two mounds of sun-freckled shoulders. One of her hoop earrings dangled down as she cocked her head. “How old are you again?”
“Been drinking beer since I was twelve.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Jesse studied her dark, no-nonsense eyes. “Seventeen.”
She sighed and spun away. “Underage, in other words.”
The word, and the dismissive way she’d uttered it, plowed Jesse in the chest. His gaze dropped, inadvertently landing on her stuffed Daisy Dukes. He watched them strut to the other end of the bar, where an old man in a trucker hat sipped from a tall gold can.
Jesse patted his pockets, already knowing he’d left his Marlboros at home. He craned his neck around for someone to bum a cig from, but the pool hall was still empty. It was less he needed a smoke and more that he wanted something to do with his hands. He tapped a finger against the bar.
We’re going to hold him until he cools down and then attempt to reason with him.
Jesse knew his father. There’d be no reasoning with him. When they talked, he would spit. When they pushed, he’d push back—and then throw a haymaker. His father had been agitating for a knock-down, drag-out with the government, and now he had one. Everything else had been skirmishes.
While you’re under his care, your father has certain … contractual rights.
Jesse wondered how long it would be before the Program gave up, sent the family packing. Jesse pushed the thick nail of his first finger into the bar wood. Once he was on the outside, he would be barred from coming back here—even when he turned eighteen. An expelled Champion couldn’t be monitored as closely, Kilmer had explained to them. The risk of compromise was too great.
“Got a big goddamned decision to make,” Jesse muttered.
A green bottle landed beside his hand.
“On the house.”
Jesse looked from the sweating gold label to Loretta’s smirking face. “Ginger ale?” he said.
“Go on,” she whispered, “give it a try.”
When he tipped the bottle to his lips, a familiar taste broke through the foamy head. Cold beer. That’s what he’d heard while he was brooding: her emptying the bottle in the sink and refilling it from one of the taps. Budweiser, if he knew his beers—and he knew them pretty well.
“Thanks,” he said, licking his upper lip.
“At your size and with that five o’clock shadow, you could probably pass for thirty.” She hopped onto a stool on her side of the bar and blew a spill of hair from her face. “It’s so boring when it’s this slow.”
Jesse took another sip. “Yeah.”
They both stared where sunlight slanted through the old man’s smoke at the end of the bar. Jesse hardly noticed the passing traffic on Second Avenue. A pleasant warmness had grown around him, and it wasn’t coming from the beer.
“Whatever happened to that wild dude who used to come in here with you?” Loretta asked. “The one with the long hair and sunglasses.”
“Creed? He has a girlfriend now.”
She chuckled. “Maybe that’ll mellow him out. Gus used to ask me to help keep an eye on him—on all of you, actually. Remember the time Creed slashed that guy’s shirt? Then didn’t you go and lift him by the neck or something?” She frowned in a show of disapproval, but in her eyes, Jesse caught a flash of something else—interest? Admiration?
“Yeah, I think so,” Jesse replied.
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
She slid one of her elbows forward until it touched the knuckles of his left hand. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Naw.”
“Really? Big, strong man like you?”
“Do you want to be mine?” He was aware that his response was as blunt as one of his punches, but she had asked him and he’d answered. He wasn’t one to beat around the bush. If these were to be his final days in Gainesville, he wanted to make the most of them.
Loretta laughed as though he was joking. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She showed him the back of her left hand and thumb-wiggled the dull band around her fourth finger. “Three years this December.” She stood and straightened her shorts. “I’m not gonna say it’s paradise, but it’s a commitment, and I aim to keep up my end. You’re sweet for asking, though.”
Jesse nodded and drained the beer. He knew about commitments.
“Bathroom working?” he asked, all thoughts of supporting her so she could quit the pool hall disintegrating from his thoughts.
“It’s still a bit of a crap shoot,” she replied, “but you can give it a try.”
Jesse watched sadly as she wheeled with his empty bottle. He worked himself off the stools, skirted the pool tables, and pushed through a door off the back hallway. A foul, wet smell hit him full in the face. He squeezed inside. The windowless bathroom featured a sink, half a mirror, and, in the far corner, a clogged-up toilet.
He know about those, too. He backed from the mucky porcelain bowl.
Locking the door behind him, he slid the Walkman from his waist band. He then pinched the headphone cord between a thumb and forefinger, pulled it free, and stuck it into the adja
cent slot. Foam hugging his ears, he popped the On switch. Static burst into his hearing. He thumbed the dial to the far right, to the “stealth channel.”
“Tex reporting,” he said into a tiny microphone in a corner of the Walkman. “Tex reporting.”
The voice that answered seconds later sounded as huge and hard as its owner. “I was starting to think I’d scared you off. So, had enough time to think things over? Ready to run with the big boys?”
The final moments in the warehouse district marched through Jesse’s mind. Henry explaining the communication device to him, helping to simulate the car crash, telling him not to worry, that he had professionals who would remove all traces of them having met.
He’d been right. The Program hadn’t discovered Henry’s presence that night, and Jesse knew this because the questions put to him by Kilmer had been the general, grasping-at-straws kind.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “I’m ready.”
“Attaboy.”
“You gonna pick me up or something?”
“Whoa there. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Jesse tensed with suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“We need something from you.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“The deal isn’t mine this time,” Henry said. “It’s coming from the boss. The head honcho needs some kind of proof to know you’re committed to this, that you’re our man.”
Jesse watched his recessed gray eyes in the broken mirror.
“Whaddya need?” he asked at last.
“Information,” Henry said.
20
Thirteenth Street High
Junior Parking Lot
9:40 p.m.
“Do you see him?” Scott asked.
Janis’s fingers hooked through the cold diamonds in the fence behind her as she shook her head. “Just students, teachers, and a couple of our surveillance folks. I can’t even feel him.”
“So it’s plan B, then?” he asked.
XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Page 13