XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Read online

  1

  Gainesville, Florida

  Monday, August 26, 1985

  7:55 a.m.

  Dammit.

  Director Kilmer had been hugging a green ceramic bowl to his stomach, whisking the egg yolks inside to a froth, when he smelled something burning. Black smoke curled from the toaster.

  “Walter?” Mrs. Montgomery croaked from a table beyond the counter. “Is something on fire?”

  “No, Mother.”

  He rushed across the kitchen, the small whisk sliding and disappearing beneath the orange-yellow yolks. From the toaster, two pieces of wheat bread popped up, both charred. Kilmer set the bowl on the counter. His black tie, which he’d been careful to throw over his shoulder, fell and landed in the eggs.

  “You know, I think I’ll call and invite Ruby over for a game of canasta.”

  “Ruby’s no longer with us, Mother.” Kilmer wet a sponge and began scrubbing the phlegmy yolk from his tie. In his peripheral vision, he could see his mother’s head of orange hair tilting in question.

  “Did she go back to New Jersey?”

  He sighed and closed his eyes. “Ruby passed away twelve years ago, remember?”

  “Oh my.”

  Something on the stovetop behind him began to click. The frying pan was overheating. When Kilmer spun to turn the stove down, his elbow collided into a carton of orange juice. Minute Maid splashed onto his trousers. Oh, for chrissake. He righted the carton with dripping fingers.

  “Let me take care of that.”

  Director Kilmer looked up to find Agent Steel appraising the situation with cool blue eyes. She snapped the burner to low, then took a dish rag and wiped up the spilled juice.

  “Have a seat, sir,” Steel said, removing the burnt bread from the toaster.

  Kilmer rinsed and dried his hands, then paced to the table and sat beside his mother. “Thanks for coming. Her caretaker called in sick, and her replacement won’t be here for another hour. We’ll need to conduct our morning business up here.” He frowned at the pulpy spots on his trousers.

  Sizzling sounded from the kitchen as Steel poured the eggs into the pan.

  “You called this an Orange meeting,” she said.

  “I received a report from the president this morning. It seems our opening with the Soviets over the situation at the Sterling Launch Facility last week has slammed shut. General Dementyev is refusing to talk. U.S. intelligence suggests he’s planning something big.”

  “How big?”

  “Invading Western Europe big. He’s rabid about the recent deployment of the Viper II missiles, so it could be with the aim of taking them out. But he’s also hungry for territory. Either motive would challenge the U.S.’s and NATO’s resolve. No one believes Dementyev is above using tactical nuclear weapons.”

  “So we use them back.” Agent Steel took two plates from a cupboard and set them beside the stove.

  Kilmer shook his head. “That has the opening salvo of World War Three written all over it. The president doesn’t want an escalation if he can help it. He even considered pulling the Viper IIs out unilaterally, but European leaders feared the move would leave them more vulnerable, not less.”

  “You know,” Mrs. Montgomery croaked, gazing around the legs of the table. “I haven’t seen Boots lately.”

  “Neither have I,” Kilmer answered distractedly. Boots had been his childhood cat.

  “So the president wants to capitulate?” Agent Steel asked above Mrs. Montgomery’s murmured “Oh my.”

  “Not capitulate. But he’s concerned that the second we commit U.S. troops, the Soviets are going to cry aggression and strike U.S. soil. Our missile detection system went screwy again a few days ago. Whether the Soviets are using Artificials or some new technology, they’re getting closer and closer to knocking out our retaliatory strike capability. By the time we notice a hail of intercontinental ballistic missiles incoming, it could be too late to do anything.”

  Utensils clinked and scraped as Agent Steel moved back and forth in the kitchen. “What does that leave as far as options?”

  “For now, bolstering the armies of Western Europe. The president is already sending military supplies. He believes that, properly outfitted, our allies can repel a conventional Soviet invasion. But there are still those damn tactical weapons. In his megalomania, Dementyev is prepared to go to the brink. The West isn’t. That’s why the president contacted us.”

  “He wants to use the Champions.” Steel carried the two plates to the table, setting one in front of Kilmer and the other in front of his mother. Steam rose from scrambled eggs and freshly buttered toast.

  “He was impressed by what they were able to achieve in Missouri—aren’t you eating?”

  “I already did.” Steel returned with two glasses of orange juice, placing them beside the plates before sitting across from him. The light through the sliding glass door turned her staring eyes white.

  Kilmer had little doubt he had hired the most capable head of security, but did she always have to be so damned intense? He heaped egg onto his toast, took a bite, and sat back. Good cook, though. “He wants the Champions on standby,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “in the event of war.”

  “To disable their medium range launch capabilities,” Steel concluded correctly.

  “How long would it take to get them ready?”

  “Three months. Sooner if we pull them from school.”

  “No, no, that would draw unneeded attention,” Kilmer said. “It’s the illusion of normalcy that keeps them safe. I don’t want to jeopardize that. We’ll just have to hope the Soviets can be forestalled that long.”

  “I’m not sure anything’s coming out,” Mrs. Montgomery croaked.

  Kilmer looked over to find his mother’s plate coated in black pepper. He took the shaker from her trembling hand and dashed some pepper over his own eggs. “Here.” He switched plates with her.

  “Ooh.” Mrs. Montgomery bent low. “I can see the little specks now.”

  “Speaking of unneeded attention,” Kilmer said. “Any security updates?”

  “We’ve stepped up our vigilance, per your request,” Agent Steel replied.

  “No sign of the Scale?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Good. Were they ever to discover where we’re based…” His head ached at the thought of all the money, technology, and planning that had been dumped into Oakwood, the model neighborhood he’d first conceived of in 1961. “Look, I’m confident our jet’s stealth features kept them from tracking us to and from Missouri, but we can’t assume anything. They’ve already observed our team’s capabilities. Filmed them. And three of our kids lost helmets, so they got a good look at some faces, too. If there’s a weak link, they’ll exploit it. That’s what they did with the last team.”

  “There’s been no breach, sir,” Agent Steel assured him. “The neighborhood is as secure as ever.”

  Kilmer carried his plate to the kitchen sink. With the deteriorating situation with the Soviets, they couldn’t afford any missteps. The president, the United States—hell, the entire free world—were depending on them. And this shadowy group, the Scale, could upend everything. Again.

  And for what?

  Kilmer scraped his mother’s ruined eggs and toast into the trash and set the plate in the sink. In the years between programs, Kilmer had often told himself that if he had been at the helm instead of Director Halstead, things would have gone differently. He would have taken better care of those Champions, lobbied for more money and resources, upped the security.

  And though he’d done those things this go round, the exact same dangers seemed to be gathering.

  “Have you told them who the Scale are?” Agent Steel asked.

  “No.” He blew out his breath. “There’s no immediate danger, and we need to keep the kids focused on Soviet aggression. We start chasing non-Cold War threats, and the president could decide his executive fund is better allocated elsewhere. And look, the kids bel
ieve they deterred a direct nuclear strike last week. The real story would steal wind from their sails at a time when their commitment—not to mention their enthusiasm—is sky high.”

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “It feels like I’ve spilled something liquid on my lap. It’s warm.”

  Arms bracing the counter, Director Kilmer stared out the back window. “Agent, would it be asking too much…”

  “Not a problem, sir.”

  “There are some adult diapers in her dresser.”

  He watched Agent Steel guide Mrs. Montgomery from the table and toward the staircase to the second floor. The irony wasn’t lost on him. If he couldn’t even take care of his own doddering mother, how in the hell could he do the same for six super-powered teenagers?

  He surveyed the tidy kitchen, where the warm smell of their breakfast lingered.

  He was going to have to trust Agent Steel’s security assessment. With time and training, the six would become better able to care for themselves. They weren’t there yet, though. And there were three Kilmer worried about in particular—the “Troubled Trio,” he’d come to think of them—maybe because they reminded him of Henry Tillman from the last team. The Champions could ill afford to have another one of their own turn on them.

  Especially…

  2

  Friday, August 30

  8:22 p.m.

  “Jesse Hoag!”

  Jesse swiveled his head from where he had been measuring a side-pocket shot. Loretta stood behind the bar, waving a phone receiver back and forth overhead, her eyes wide as though to say, I’m not gonna hold this damned thing for you all night.

  Jesse’s hips and shoulders groaned under his weight as he straightened and sidled past empty pool tables, the dusky light that fell through the plate-glass window paling their burgundy baize. It was still early. The place wouldn’t start filling up until nine, ten o’clock. Though Gus’s bouncing gig was over, he had arranged for Jesse, Creed, and Tyler to shoot at Eddie’s whenever they wanted. “Just no friction,” he’d warned. “I’m dead serious, guys.”

  Only this evening Jesse was shooting solo. Creed was out with a girl he’d met that summer, Star. And Tyler had wanted to stay home with his mom, who was trying to get sober again.

  At the bar, Loretta withdrew the receiver from Jesse’s ponderous reach. “We’re not a phone company, you know,” she said. A mishmash of pins held her bleached-blond hair from an accusing face.

  Jesse dropped his arm but not his gaze. Loretta was one of the reasons he liked shooting here, maybe the main reason. She had a good five years on him, but she was the only girl he could think of who wasn’t afraid to talk to him that way. She was pretty, too, in a hard-bitten kind of way.

  “Probably my dad,” Jesse muttered.

  Loretta relinquished the phone with an eye roll and ducked beneath the coiled cord. Jesse steeled himself as he raised the receiver to his ear, wondering what he was going to get yelled at for this time.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Jesse Hoag?” The voice was deeper than his father’s and rattled the phone’s earpiece.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Someone who wants to toss you a rope.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Ever wonder where you came from?”

  Jesse thought for a moment. “No.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  Jesse wheeled toward the pool hall, suspecting some trick. But all he saw were a few regulars, far more interested in their particular scatter of billiard balls than in him. The payphone near the dartboards stood empty.

  “Who is this really?”

  A harsh laugh. “The question, Jesse, is who are you?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Start by asking your parents. 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.”

  The line clicked off.

  Back at the pool table, Jesse watched his side-pocket shot miss wide. His head wasn’t into pool anymore. He emptied out the table’s pockets and placed the balls back in their tray, the six pack of beer he’d downed in the parking lot turning into a bubbling vat in his gut.

  Creed’s got a thumping coming.

  He turned the tray in, paid Loretta the three dollars, tipped her an extra buck, and pushed his way into the back lot. Around the graffiti-tagged Dumpster, rats scurried through the tall weeds for cover. Jesse leaned his back against the wall near the rear door to Eddie’s and lit a cigarette. He looked up at the dark blue sky, where a couple of stars had come out.

  Had to have been Creed. Who else would know where to call me?

  Jesse frowned as he took a drag. He’d probably confessed something when they’d smoked bud once, something about not looking like either of his parents, because Jesse did wonder about that from time to time. And now this was Creed’s idea of a joke: pretending to be a mysterious person with answers. Jesse snorted smoke and shook his head.

  Yeah, Creed’s gonna get himself a nice little thumping.

  If Jesse had learned anything in his seventeen years, it was that for a lesson to stick, the punishment had to be severe. Otherwise, the person would repeat the offense, become a bigger problem. Jesse had received plenty of lessons—and punishments—from his father. Most of them were deserved. Except for that time with the phone bill. That had been Scott Spruel’s doing, so Jesse had passed the punishment onto him.

  Nothing personal.

  He took a final drag and stubbed out the cigarette, spilling sparks down the wall.

  People had been walking past the narrow entrance to the rear lot as he smoked, sounds and shadows in the alleyway. Now a cluster of them paused, their necks craning. Jesse heard a rumble of laughter. Seven shadows entered the lot, aiming for where he was leaning.

  He stood from the wall and peered toward the group.

  “Yeah, it’s him,” one of the shadows decided, stooping for a discarded sign post.

  The others bent down as well, picking up cast-off bottles and chunks of asphalt. The one in the lead veered over to retrieve a length of thick chain. He wrapped it around his fist.

  “Recognize me, fat ass?” he asked.

  Jesse didn’t, actually. The streetlight over the back lot had been smashed, and he couldn’t make out their faces. He sidestepped to draw them into the light over the rear door.

  “Aw, whatsamatter?” The end of the chain that dangled from the speaker’s fist scraped over the busted-up asphalt. “Don’t have your psycho friend with the blades this time? Too bad.”

  The guy was wearing a green polo shirt tucked into blue jeans. Light fell over chubby cheeks and a stylish tangle of dark red hair. He looked college-aged. They all did. Jesse concentrated through the stench of their cologne, and then he had it. The speaker was the same guy who’d punched Creed in the stomach New Year’s Eve night. The same one Jesse had hoisted by the neck.

  “We’ve been casing this place,” he said, “hoping we’d spot one of you. And now looky here.”

  “What do you want?” Jesse asked, backing up another step.

  “Watching you pick your teeth up off the pavement, for starters.” His cheeks tensed into a pair of hard apples. “Nobody manhandles Kip Kirby.”

  “I don’t wanna fight,” Jesse said. Not only was he holding to Gus’s “no friction” rule, but the Program forbade them from using their powers outside of training and official campaigns.

  A deal was a deal.

  Kip laughed sharply. “Don’t wanna fight, huh? Well too fucking bad.”

  The post swung toward Jesse. He threw up a forearm, snapping the solid length of wood in half. But he didn’t see Kip’s chain-wrapped fist until it was too late. It came from his blind side, slamming into his chin. The faces before him tilted sharply one way and then the other, like they were on a rollercoaster.

  “And he’s down!” Kip yelled gleefully.

  And he was down, Jesse realized. Th
e skin beneath both fists and one knee were grinding into asphalt. A bottle shattered against the other side of his head, bits of glass tinkling off into the night.

  The shadows of Kip and the others closed around him.

  “Just go away,” Jesse grumbled.

  “Oh no,” Kip said through excited breaths, “you don’t get off that easy. Nobody manhandles Kip Kirby and gets off that easy.” Then to the others: “Soften him up a bit more for me?”

  Stomps and punches thudded into his shoulders, his back, both ribcages. Jesse wrapped his head inside his arms. A second bottle broke over his crown, followed by a chunk of asphalt.

  “All right, that’s good,” Kip said after another minute. “Now pull his arms down.”

  Pairs of hands seized each of Jesse’s wrists and wrenched them to his sides. Jesse heard a rapid clanking behind him: the chain unraveling from Kip’s hand. Cold links wrapped Jesse’s throat. A foot dug into the middle of his back—leverage—and the chain drew taut.

  Jesse contracted his squat neck. “Enough,” he managed. “We’re even.”

  He hadn’t punched, kicked, or broken any bottles over Kip’s head that New Year’s Eve night. He’d only strangled him a little. And now Kip was getting to strangle him back. By Jesse’s calculation, they were square now. If anything, they were beyond square.

  “Maybe I’m not interested in even,” Kip said.

  The pressure of a second foot manifested itself beside the first, and Jesse realized Kip was standing on him, pulling the chain with all his weight. A worm of anger squirmed in Jesse’s gut.

  Aside from the one solid shot to his chin—his weak spot—he’d hardly felt the other blows. In addition to his size and strength gains that summer, Jesse had also seen his capacity to absorb damage increase. The brawl at the nuclear launch facility with the bozos in the armored suits was a good example. He’d been punched, rifle-butted, hit with laser fire, and none of it had done more than irritate him.

  A similar irritation rankled him now.

  “Maybe I won’t be happy,” Kip said between grunts, cinching the chain tighter, “until they’re dragging you off to have your misshapen face ID’d.”