XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Read online

  “No living relatives,” Scott replied, directing her to the third page. “Both parents deceased since the early ’50s. No siblings. Never married. No children.” He sat back. “Doesn’t that strike you as a tad suspicious? That there’s no one around to vouch for his identity?”

  “It’s strange,” she said, “yeah.”

  “And then there’s the way he blocked you from his thoughts that morning.”

  Janis closed the folder and handed it back to him. “Do you think he’s connected to that group Director Kilmer warned us about? The ones who could try to recruit us to their side?”

  Scott tucked the folder back up under his jacket as the waiter appeared with their entrees. Scott considered the question. Mr. Shine had never seemed shady or conniving, but if his aim was to gain Scott’s trust, to eventually turn him to his side, the man would do his best to mask such impressions, right? And hadn’t he invited Scott to his house the last time they’d talked?

  “I don’t know,” Scott replied after the waiter had left again. He cut into his steak, not realizing how hungry he was until the charred scent of sirloin found his nose. “Can you pick up anything?”

  Janis chewed thoughtfully. “It’s weird, but ever since that morning I tried reading him, he’s been sort of blurry to me. I had the same impression when I was looking through his information just now, like I couldn’t get a clear picture. I’m afraid to push too hard.”

  “Because he might sense you?”

  “Right, and better he’s not on guard if you’re planning an operation…” Something rippled through Scott’s thoughts as Janis spoke, like a breeze over lake water. “A solo operation?” she said, setting her fork and knife down. “We were supposed to go into the field together!”

  “Hey!” he whispered, gesturing around his head. “Could you not do that? I was getting there.”

  “We had a deal.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before your probation.” Scott fought and barely succeeded in keeping the words from sounding like an accusation. “Look, I don’t have any strikes yet. If the Program catches me, I get a warning. Big whoop, right? But if they were to catch you…”

  “I’d like to see them catch an apparition.”

  Scott was about to ask what she meant, but understanding soon followed. His sigh turned into a snort of laughter. Something told me I wouldn’t be able to keep you out of this, he thought. He and Janis had made a few stabs at telepathic communication in the last weeks, with mixed results. But now her reply came through loud and clear: You can’t shake me, buster.

  “Would that be in your … range?” he asked.

  “My ability to project is still pretty local, but yeah, I should be able to reach across town.”

  “And it wouldn’t be pushing your capacity?” A chill passed through Scott as he remembered supporting Janis’s limp body in that Missouri field, blood from her nose painting her chin.

  “Mrs. Fern and I installed some psychic circuit breakers,” she said. “If too much energy starts coursing through me, the breakers will trip. My abilities will shut down before any damage can be done.”

  Scott nodded. Professor X had done the same for Jean Grey in Uncanny X-Men #136. “All right,” he said, “I’ll amend the operational plans.”

  Janis smiled, apparently satisfied, and resumed eating. “There’s something else I’d like to try first, though,” she said. “I’m not sure anything will come of it, but it might give us a clue on how to go forward.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Scott asked. “What?”

  “You’ll have to wait until we’re in the theater to find out. We’ll just need to make sure we grab a seat in the back row.”

  “Ooh-la-la.”

  “Control yourself, Mr. Spruel. This is a business meeting, remember?”

  Scott made his face fall. “What about starting the date over? Abracadabra hands?”

  When Janis’s stern expression broke around her laughter, Scott decided that, for tonight anyway, he preferred her amused face to the serious, contemplative one. He leaned in and kissed her smile.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw the hostess stumble forward. The man who had just pushed past her was running toward their table.

  15

  Thirty minutes earlier

  Jesse steered the Chevelle from University Avenue onto South Main Street, the car’s frame leaning steeply. The scrape of asphalt made him frown. He’d bought larger tires the week before, installed extra-heavy-duty shocks, but the car was riding low again.

  He’d also removed the driver’s seat to accommodate his expanding bulk. From his new position in the back, he glanced around at the Friday night crowd, their laughing, loud-talking numbers aglow in restaurant lights and neon beer signs.

  Jesse grunted. He’d never been much for crowds, especially this kind of crowd. Deep down, he harbored a fear of mobs, and the well-dressed variety struck him as the most likely to turn on him. Down Second Avenue, he glimpsed Eddie’s, the pool hall where he liked to shoot. Leather vests, slashed denim, steel-toed boots—that was more his crowd. More his class of women, too. The thought of Loretta at the bar turned his palms slick on the wheel.

  His gaze lingered on Eddie’s, tempted to find out if she was working tonight. But he held the Chevelle steady on South Main until the bars and restaurants fell away, replaced by dark warehouses and seedy, garbage-blown lots.

  Drive like you’re going to your father’s garage, the voice on the telephone had told him.

  There’ll be people following me, Jesse replied.

  I’ll worry about them.

  Jesse slowed as he approached the red light at Depot Road, his gaze sliding to the rearview mirror. The closest car was a full block behind him, too far away to identify. The light changed, and Jesse pressed the gas, trying not to appear as though he was in a hurry.

  He was barely through the intersection when a tractor-trailer chugged in from Depot Road—its lights blasting through the Chevelle for a moment. It stalled in the intersection behind him. A car horn sounded, and soon a second joined in. Probably my tails, Jesse thought.

  He retrained his gaze from the obstructing tractor-trailer to the road.

  When you cross Depot Road do not turn into your father’s garage, the voice had said. Drive another two blocks and take a right onto that unmarked road with the pile of crap beside it.

  Jesse did as the voice had instructed, the “crap” being a rusting heap of scrap metal. The lights of the Chevelle swept past it, then trained themselves on a busted-up road that shrank into darkness.

  Deep in Jesse’s chest, his heart began to thud heavily.

  Then it’s left, right, left—like in the military, the voice had said. Can you remember that?

  Jesse remembered, and it was a good thing. With the first left, he was plunged into a disorienting catacombs of storage sheds and slumping warehouses. He flicked on the brights. The next turn came up suddenly. He took a hard right, swerving to avoid a busted shopping cart. Dark oak trees loomed in from the sides. A foul, swampy air flooded the inside of his car.

  Jesse glanced in the rearview mirror, past the sweat that glistened like grease across his brow, and saw no cars behind him. Just the faint spill of his own tail lights.

  The thudding in his chest deepened. He told himself it was from his resolve. He’d already calculated the risk of going to meet someone he didn’t know, someone who could be linked to the group Director Kilmer had warned him about, who could be out to hurt him.

  But the man knew things. About Jesse’s powers. About the Program. But more important than those, he claimed to know where Jesse came from. That’s what Jesse was after. That’s what he needed. Because with that information, he could get out from under his adoptive father, who just that morning had issued another threat to yank him from the Program.

  At the final turn, the Chevelle rumbled through a thrown-open gate. A leaning warehouse shone into view. Jesse idled, studying the corrugated-metal structure. Looks like something out
of a teen slasher flick. He half expected to see people dangling from meat hooks.

  You’re to drive inside and pull the door closed behind you, the voice had said.

  Gravel crunched beneath the Chevelle’s tires as they trundled forward. The car’s beams filled the warehouse’s interior. Jesse lowered his head to see better. He didn’t find meat hooks, just piles of graying construction boards, some cast-off furniture, and a row of stripped and defunct motorcycles that slanted along the far wall like toppled Dominoes.

  The Chevelle’s tires climbed onto a cement foundation. Jesse eased the car between two wooden posts that disappeared into the darkness above. He killed the engine but left the parking lights on.

  And then what? Jesse had asked into the phone.

  Then we talk, the voice had answered.

  Jesse opened the door and pried himself from the Chevelle. A baked-in air that reeked of bat piss pushed against him. Looking around and still finding the space empty, he plodded to the opening he’d entered by. He gripped a metal panel with wheels and walked the door closed, shutting out the blasts of frog calls. Jesse guessed there was a pond or swamp nearby.

  He turned back to the room. The Chevelle’s parking lights cast a burnt yellow glow.

  “Hello?” Jesse’s voice rumbled throughout the warehouse.

  In the ensuing silence, metal clicked and snapped, contracting after the day’s unseasonable heat. The voice had told him to arrive at seven o’clock. After 7:10, the voice had said, it’s off. Jesse consulted his Champions watch and was surprised to find a random pixilated display, as if the watch had been stepped on. He mashed a couple of buttons, but the display didn’t change.

  He peered around again, the thudding returning to his chest.

  He was wondering whether he’d come too late when he heard a groan of wood. Through a doorway to his left, up a flight of steps, a light clicked on.

  Janis observed the alarm on Scott’s withdrawing face, his kiss still tingling over her lips. She twisted around, one hand raised. The hostess was stumbling, arms pinwheeling for balance. A ghost image showed Janis a hard spill into an empty table accompanied by the snap of a collarbone. With a thought, she checked the hostess’s fall, landing the woman softly on her side.

  Then she swung her arm toward the robust man racing toward them. He was dressed as though he’d been out to dinner himself, a dark jacket flapping at the hips of matching pants, a slender tie streaming over one shoulder. His balding forehead had begun to knot with effort.

  Scott kicked his chair back and assumed a fighting stance.

  Throughout the dining room, heads rotated between the man and their table. An elderly couple, who had been none too pleased with Janis’s and Scott’s earlier laughter, harrumphed at this new disturbance.

  Can’t let anyone see my abilities, Janis thought.

  She pushed just hard enough to slow the man’s progress. His lips drew to one side. His arms and legs struggled forward as though he were wading through a pit of mud. Scott would be able to take him from here.

  Instead, her boyfriend relaxed from his stance and squinted. “Mr. Watson?”

  Janis took another look. She’d never seen the man in anything but a blue jogging suit, but it was Mr. Watson, Oakwood’s resident power walker and a member of Scott’s surveillance team. Janis released him. He exhaled and stumbled the final few feet to their table.

  “What is it?” Janis asked, standing now. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t explain here,” Mr. Watson whispered, his eyes moving between them. “But a situation’s developed. I’ve been instructed to bring you back to Oakwood immediately.”

  Janis picked up something in his stare: Code Blue.

  She reached for Scott, who was fumbling with his wallet, dropping bills between their unfinished plates of food. “Do you think that will cover it?” He started to paw through the green spill.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s plenty,” she said, tugging the back of his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  On their way out, Mr. Watson apologized to the hostess, who had regained her feet and looked more exasperated than hurt.

  “Family emergency,” Janis explained.

  She hoped to God it wasn’t. In the instant she’d picked up the Code Blue, her thoughts had shot to her sister. Though Margaret’s powers of mental suggestion were potent, she had no real offensive abilities. In many ways, she was the most vulnerable member of the team. And if there was a group out to undermine the Champions, Margaret would make a tempting first target.

  Mrs. Watson, who wasn’t Mr. Watson’s wife but a fellow agent, was waiting behind the wheel of their idling gray sedan. Janis climbed into the back and scooted across the leather to make room for Scott.

  As the car pulled from the front of the restaurant, Scott’s hand found hers. She squeezed him for support, wondering if he could feel the mad pulse of blood in her vessels. His voice sounded in her thoughts.

  What’s going on?

  It’s a Code Blue, she answered.

  She could feel Scott thinking. Code Blue … Code Blue … a Missing Champion?

  She looked up at his face, which was grooved with concern, and nodded.

  Oh God. Who?

  Janis shook her head and shrugged slightly. With the compartmentalization inside the Program, she doubted Mr. or Mrs. Watson knew either. Director Kilmer would have to fill in her, Scott, and the other accounted-for Champions once they arrived back in Oakwood.

  It might be nothing, Scott said in her thoughts. They’re probably just being extra cautious.

  Janis reached for Margaret anyway. The problem was that Mrs. Fern had trained them in the rudiments of mental defense. Janis had raised her own defenses the moment she’d seen Mr. Watson rushing their table. The other Champions may have done the same upon receiving their alerts. A glimmer in Janis’s mind made her exhale. Her sister was alive—Janis could discern that much, even if she couldn’t pinpoint her sister’s emotional state or location.

  She just had to hope what Scott said was true.

  She peeked over at him, thought about reaching for Tyler, but then didn’t. It would have been an innocent act, but she didn’t want to complicate things with Scott any more than they already were. In the restaurant, she’d almost told him about her and Tyler’s kiss. She had come this close. But as much as she wanted to move beyond it, the timing still felt wrong.

  Which makes you a hypocrite, she thought to herself. Weren’t you the one insisting this past summer that Scott share everything?

  The thing was, she had gone deep into Tyler’s psyche that day at the launch facility, had seen—had lived—parts of his childhood, the brutality of it. How could she not have experienced feelings? Not the romantic kind, but compassionate feelings for a fellow human being? For a friend? The challenge was going to be in explaining those lingering feelings to Scott.

  But how to explain the magnetism? And had she … dreamed about him last night?

  She nodded to herself as the dream took shape. In it, she was feeling her way through the dark, looking for something lost. A candle’s flame appeared. As it wavered nearer, she saw that Tyler was holding it, soft light suffusing his face.

  It’s here, he said, touching her hand to his chest.

  “What’s that?” Scott stirred beside her in the backseat.

  Janis felt her cheeks flush with heat. “Huh?”

  “Thought I heard you say something.”

  “Oh, no.”

  The sedan turned from Main Street onto Sixteenth Avenue, past the glowing lights of a Burger King. Free from traffic, the car sped up. Mr. Watson spoke into his jacket lapel in a low voice, probably to his coordinator.

  Scott took a deep breath. “For better or worse, we’ll know about the others soon enough.”

  16

  “In here,” a man’s voice called.

  In the warping acoustics of the warehouse, Jesse couldn’t tell whether the voice was the same as the one he’d spoken to on the phone. The imp
atience was familiar, though. Jesse craned his squat neck. In the room above, a shadow moved against the far wall. Jesse peeked back at his car, aware of the bulge of keys in his front pocket.

  “You scared or something?” the voice asked.

  “I’m coming,” Jesse said.

  He ascended the flight of wooden steps—much sturdier than the ones to his deck—and ducked through the doorway. The room must have been an office at one time. A metal desk had been thrown against the wall to his left, its cabinets sprung and emptied. Boxes of file folders sagged around it.

  Jesse swung his gaze through the light of a dangling bulb, toward the dim back wall, where junk was heaped. The end of a cigar glowed. On a bloated couch, one of his legs crossed over the other, sat a giant.

  The man chuckled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Who are you?”

  The man pushed himself to his feet, smoke pluming around him. A trench coat unfurled to a pair of glistening alligator boots. As the wooden floor groaned beneath the man’s heavy steps, Jesse wondered whether he had slain both gators with his bare hands and skinned them himself. Atop the man’s head, the outline of a hat took shape, the kind detectives wore.

  “You can call me Henry,” he said, stepping into the light, his right hand swallowing Jesse’s. “Henry Tillman.”

  Jesse looked from Henry’s grip to a stubbly face that had begun to groove with age. Above the man’s hard smile stood a chiseled nose. Jesse had expected the lumpy beak of a bruiser, but the only sign of injury was a black patch that covered his left eye, the bands disappearing inside tufts of gray hair. Henry’s right eye studied Jesse with a kind of mocking intensity.

  “Find this place all right?” he asked, releasing Jesse’s hand.

  “Yeah.” Jesse had to look up a little to meet the man’s gaze, not something that happened very often. “No problem.”

  Henry sucked on his cigar and chuckled around a cloud of rancid-smelling smoke. “It ain’t the Waldorf-Astoria, that’s for sure. But it was the best I could come up with on short notice. Come on over here.”