Better hope to hell you caught her.
“Is that any way to treat a sibling?” she taunted, but her voice was moving off.
Reginald slapped the new magazine in, released the receiver, and struggled to his feet, grains of rice spilling off him.
The front door opened and closed.
Reginald hobbled to the entrance to the spare room and then out through the living room. Bits of wood and insulation peppered the coffee table. He scanned the floor for blood. None. At his kitchen table, he drew the curtain back in time to catch sight of a gray van pulling from the curb.
In the bathroom, Reginald stared at a gaunt, oily face. Blood-crusted holes bored into his temples. He circled one with the swollen pad of a finger. Cells shifted, filling the wound from the bottom, topping it off with a layer of dark skin. He did the same with the other holes. He’d have to keep a close eye on them. They were still at risk for infection and gangrene.
But none of that mattered if…
Drawing open the mirror, Reginald was greeted by rows of empty shelves. She hadn’t left him a single vial. He hobbled to his bedroom dresser and accessed a hidden drawer, already knowing it would be empty.
He slammed it shut.
If you want more, you know who to call.
Yeah, goddammit. Yeah, he did.
27
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Prince Khoggi’s compound
10:38 p.m.
His head still groggy with sleep, Scott squinted forward in his chair, trying to make sense of the news being broadcast over the satellite feed.
“With the leak of the Al Karak takeover,” a news anchor was saying, “world markets plummeted, the DOW dropping a staggering forty-four percent in less than an hour of trading. To halt further selling, President Reagan ordered the markets closed. There’s no word yet on when they’ll reopen, leaving millions to wonder whether they’ve lost everything.”
Scott scrubbed his face with a hand. At his father’s behest, he’d invested every paycheck for the last three months in Honeywell stocks. Oh, well. Replacing his glasses, he peeked over at Janis and Margaret, who had arrived shortly after him. For some reason, they were wearing black dresses.
“Meanwhile, gasoline prices are soaring,” the anchor continued, the screen showing a city gas station log-jammed with cars. “The average price for a gallon of unleaded began the day at one dollar. By midday, that figure climbed to three, and there is no end in sight. In Los Angeles and other major cities, there have been a rash of gas station holdups as well as gunfights over fuel. Police departments are overwhelmed, prompting the president to issue an emergency order for National Guard troops to…”
Director Kilmer muted the feed. “You get the point,” he said. “Needless to say, this moves our timeline forward. Way forward.”
“Who leaked?” Janis asked.
“We don’t know,” Kilmer answered frankly. “And it’s not our job to find out. Our sole responsibility now is to take back Al Karak before the U.S. economy goes from crisis to collapse.”
“Is there any chance the Saudis and Soviets are collaborating?” Margaret asked.
“Like I said, not our concern. Focus, people,” Kilmer huffed. “The Saudi army is planning a diversion to get you inside the facility, but that’s going to take time to set up. We’ll use that time to take you through final simulations and get you rested. If all goes according to plan, we’ll commence Operation Sweet in twenty-four hours.”
“Operation Sweet?” Creed made a face.
“That’s what they call desulphurized crude,” Kilmer answered. “Agent?”
Steel strode to the screen and accepted the remote from Director Kilmer. A black-and-white image replaced the news feed, showing what appeared to be a large control room. More than a dozen people occupied the room, engineers and technicians from the looks of them. The still images proceeded in sequence, the people changing positions as they went about their duties.
“Looks like we have a new ratings winner,” Creed mumbled.
“Watch closely,” Agent Steel said.
The images advanced until the engineers and technicians were suddenly on the floor, holding the sides of their heads. In the next image, new people streamed into the room, wearing plated suits and weird-looking headgear, disk-barreled carbines in their arms. One of the men turned toward the camera. In the next image—the final image, it turned out—his right eye was glowing.
Some sort of ocular implant, Scott guessed.
“These were taken shortly after the occupation,” Steel said. “The invaders are Artificials backed by a unit of Soviet troops. No alarms were raised before they reached the control room, which speaks to their effectiveness.”
Scott caught Janis whispering something to her sister. He made eye contact with her.
What’s up? he asked.
We spotted Prince Khoggi and his brother in a meeting with some Russians earlier tonight, Janis replied.
Russians? Where was this?
I’ll, ah, fill you in later.
“The new generation of Artificial is a vast improvement over the old,” Agent Steel was saying. “The first generation was raw and clunky, the subjects all but brain dead, as was the case with Trips. The Soviets have since developed lighter, infection-resistant components that integrate seamlessly into the subjects’ central nervous systems. And they run on nuclear power.”
Scott straightened. “Did you say nuclear?”
“Yes, but it’s a stable source, as far as we can tell. In fact, with the quantity of material and its relatively slow rate of decay, Soviet engineers had to decide how to budget that power.”
“What do you mean?” Scott asked.
“All of the Artificials in this group have enhanced abilities: strength, agility, perception. But due to the limits of nuclear power, the potency of those abilities are disproportionate between them.”
“They’re specialized, in other words,” Scott said, captivated by this science fiction turned fact.
“Exactly. We don’t have much footage, but by our engineers’ best estimates, these larger subjects are biased toward strength, the others here toward agility and perception.” Steel cycled through fuzzy close-up images of the intruders. “We’ve labeled them brutes and quicks, respectively.”
“What are those funky-looking guns they’re carrying?” Creed asked.
“Sonic disruptors,” Agent Steel answered, zooming in on one of them. “We believe the Soviets designed the disruptors with you in mind, though they’ll work on anyone. Such as these unfortunate Saudi engineers. They emit sound waves that scramble one’s ability to think—or in your case, to use your powers. At their highest frequencies, they’re deadly.”
“But our suits will neutralize their effects, right?” Scott suggested.
“That’s the hope.” Agent Steel answered.
“That’s the hope?” Scott repeated.
“Our engineers are testing some new features of your suits as we speak,” she said. “Now, here’s the plan.”
The image on the screen changed to a schematic of the massive oil processing facility. For the next two hours, Agent Steel talked the Champions through a strategy to retake Al Karak.
28
The next day
6:40 p.m.
Janis let her fingers brush along the smooth curve of stone wall. She had noticed the circular stairwell near her and Margaret’s room, and one of Agent Steel’s men had given her permission to ascend.
At the top of the stairs, Janis pushed through a door and found herself in a courtyard on the roof of the compound. Potted trees stood here and there like sentries. Two of Agent Steel’s men—the actual sentries—acknowledged Janis with nods before resuming their patrol.
She stood for a moment, then weaved her way among the trees, arriving at a low stone rampart. Warm desert air pushed against her face and stirred her hair. Janis squinted toward Riyadh, a fine suspension of sand tanning the city that oil built. Once more, she ca
ught herself wondering whether the violent scene at Hameed’s restaurant had anything to do with the information leak.
She glanced down at her watch, then propped her elbows on the rampart. In less than an hour, they’d be prepping for Operation Sweet. She needed to think, to gather herself, to breathe. The Champions were more skilled than they’d been back in August, better trained.
But though Janis repeated these reassurances, insidious thoughts undermined them. Our opponents this time have it a little more together than that rag-tag bunch we faced in Missouri. And even then it took some really lucky breaks for the Champions to eek out a win. With every breath, Janis felt more particles of sand sticking in her chest, squeezing off her air.
“I think a storm’s coming.”
Janis turned her body. Tyler was standing against a section of rampart twenty feet away. And there was that damn magnetic resonance again, too pleasant for comfort. She cleared her throat as Tyler took a final drag from a cigarette and flicked the butt away. Behind him, a hazy orange sun balanced atop the dunes, as though waiting for the sands to reclaim it.
Pushing a strand of hair behind an ear, she asked, “A storm? Here?”
Tyler walked up behind her, grains of sand crunching beneath his sneakers. “I can’t see any clouds, either, but I feel it coming. In the air. There’s a pattern to it, like a net stretching taut.”
“Sounds like my nerves,” she said with a strained laugh.
He leaned his forearms atop the rampart beside her. “All those things you can do, and you’re nervous?”
“You’re joking, right?” She twisted to face him but found no humor in the angles of his face. No anxiety, either. Only a vague sadness that haunted his hollow cheeks and eyes.
“I don’t know too many girls who can stop a nuclear warhead mid flight.”
“Well, the girl you speak of barely”—Janis pinched the air between her finger and thumb—“and I mean barely, pulled that off.” She remembered the violent sensation of energy roaring through her, vessels rupturing. “So, don’t expect a repeat performance anytime soon.”
Tyler smiled and squinted off toward the horizon. The evening call to prayer echoed from distant mosques.
“Anyway, how can you not be nervous?” she asked.
He seemed to think for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.
“No, really. What’s your secret?” she pressed. “I’d like some.”
Tyler patted the breast pocket of his jean jacket and pulled a pack of Marlboros halfway out.
“Cigarettes?” she asked.
He chuckled at her joke. “Would it bother you, if I…?” Janis shook her head and watched him place a cigarette between his lips and light it with the casual practice of someone twenty years older. He flipped the Zippo closed and dropped it into his pants pocket.
“I’ve been spending more time with my mom the last couple months,” he said, smoke drifting with his words. “She’s trying to dry out. She’s doing good. Can actually hold up her end of a conversation now, though she listens mostly.”
Janis caught herself nodding. She knew that somehow.
“Anyway, one night I asked her what she thought about this. You know, the things me and Creed can do, being in the Champions Program, going on these assignments. I thought she was gonna tell me she was afraid for us, all that. Instead, she sort of smiled and said it relieved her.”
Janis could see her smiling. “She was worried you’d end up like the burnouts she’d grown up with.”
Tyler hesitated, a question forming in his eyes. But then he nodded and turned back toward the city. “Yeah, like it was our destiny. I think that’s why she gave up for a while. There didn’t seem to be any other path for us. And you know something? She was probably right.”
“Are you kidding? With the way you can write?”
“Naw, I’m a crap student,” he said, and blew off a stream of smoke. “I don’t know if my head’s just not wired like other students’, but I could never process that stuff. Not the way it’s taught. I resisted the whole Champions thing, too. Truth is, though, if it hadn’t been for them, we would’ve burned out. Creed sooner, me later. You asked why I wasn’t nervous, and there’s your answer. ’Cause no matter what happens, it beats what would’ve happened, you know?”
She nodded. She understood.
Not only what he was saying but why she could understand what he was saying. Suddenly, everything made sense. The strange magnetism. The recurring dream. The desire to be near him.
And it wasn’t because she was falling for him.
That moment in Missouri when she’d gone into his thoughts to deliver him from Trips’s influence, something else had happened. A flicker of her consciousness had gotten left behind—enough to form an empathic bond between them. All this time what she’d been feeling was … herself.
“But whatever happens…” He dropped the half-smoked cigarette and crushed it beneath a heel. “I promise not to be a liability this time. Promise not to need saving. Maybe that’s what’s making you nervous.”
Janis’s eyes fell to his smiling lips. They wavered once, and she was inside his head, immersed in a jumble of faces, words, musical strains, abstractions. She even glimpsed herself, as though in reflection, but not the part she was looking for.
Beyond deeper layers of anguish and darkness, where a shimmering string played a serene, blue note, Janis saw it. A flutter of soft light caught in a riffle. She reached down to reclaim it, to pull it back to herself…
When she opened her eyes, her lips were pressed to Tyler’s.
She drew away with a gasp, heart hammering as though surfacing from a deep dive. “I didn’t mean to … I just needed to…”
Tyler held up a hand. “I know. I could feel what you were doing. It’s all right.”
Janis wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a trace of regret in his voice. What was clear, whatever emotion Tyler was feeling no longer resonated between them. He was a friend and teammate again.
The rescue had been a success.
“How long’s this been going on?”
Janis turned to find Scott standing outside the door to the rooftop. His bottom lip trembled as he crossed the courtyard.
Oh, great.
“It’s cool,” Tyler said. “It’s not what you think.”
“Scott, let me explain.” Janis stepped between her boyfriend and Tyler.
“Explain? Unless you’re long lost siblings in the tradition of Luke and Princess Leia, I think it pretty much explains itself.” His voice shook. “When did this start? Tallahassee?”
“Nothing started in the way you mean,” Janis said. “When we were in the nuclear facility in Missouri and Tyler was under Trips’s influence, I entered his mind to bring him back. Only, a part of me stayed behind, like an artifact. I just realized that a minute ago, so I went in to retrieve that part of me.”
“By locking lips?” His eyes looked half dead.
“I know how that sounds.” The muscles in Scott’s upper arm stiffened when she touched him. “But it wasn’t conscious at all. It happened intuitively, like some part of me knew it would shock his mind enough to let me in. It was how I was able to access him in Missouri.”
“Wait, so you have kissed before?”
Tyler moved around Janis. “Look, man. With the kind of shape I was in, it was more like CPR.”
Before Janis could react, Scott’s fist landed against Tyler’s mouth with a dry smack. Tyler dropped to a knee.
“Stop it!” Janis cried.
With a thought, she drove her boyfriend against the rampart. He struggled against her hold, the energy that radiated from him betraying both horror at what he’d done and a need to do more. Janis knelt beside Tyler and moved his hand. His bottom lip was beginning to pouch out where it had split.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
“I’ve been dealt worse,” he said plainly. He ran a tongue over the wound and spat off to the side. He stood without lookin
g at her or Scott. “I didn’t mean to get between you two.”
“No, no—”
Janis was cut off by the simultaneous beeps of their watches. She read hers. “Great. They want us all in the training room,” she said. “It’s time to suit up.”
29
Gainesville, Florida
Mr. Shine’s house
Reginald carried the telephone set at his side, fingers hooked beneath the cradle, receiver to his ear, as he limped back and forth between living room and kitchen. A mild breeze pushed through the screen doors and open windows. After nearly a week of being shut in and clamped down, he needed space.
He whipped the phone cord as he about faced. The line he’d dialed continued to ring.
“C’mon, dammit.”
He was about to hang up when he heard the click of a connection. “A-1 Insurance,” a woman’s voice said.
“Where is she going?” Reginald asked.
“On assignment.”
“Where?”
“So, we disclose everything, while you disclose selectively?” the woman said. “Is that how you think this works?”
“There was no call to send them here.”
“Oh, I believe there was. We’ve learned more about their cell in the last three months than in the eight years you’ve been on site. I’d say there was plenty of call to send them there.”
“I was gathering that information—”
“But not sharing it.”
“—if only you people would be more damned patient.”
“Patient?” Her laughter cut like blades. “We may have our vices, Reginald, but patience happens to be one of our shining virtues.”
He knew she was referring to the methodical way in which they had undermined and then destroyed his former team. In a flash, he saw Madelyn’s body on its side, her white-blond hair matted with blood. He leaned against the doorjamb between living room and kitchen.
XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Page 20