XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me (23 page)

“Sweet dreams.”

His gaze lingered on hers as he wheeled to leave. And now Janis became aware of the darkness along the side of the house where Tiger had stopped to stare last week. She remembered the strong scent of cigarette smoke and the chilling sensation of being watched. She had spent the last week trying to explain the experience away, but as with everything else—the dreams, the soccer tryouts, the old man she’d saved from falling tonight—she was running low on rationalizations.

“Wait.”

She hadn’t said it loudly, and for a moment she hoped that Blake hadn’t heard. He turned toward her, eyebrows raised, then sauntered back and stood on the bottommost step to the porch.

“I was just wondering,” she started. “That movie tonight. This is going to sound weird, but… what do you think about ghosts and spirit worlds and all of that stuff? The paranormal, I guess you’d call it.”

“So it
did
scare one of us.” He laughed.

Janis smiled even though her heart was pounding madly. It suddenly felt important to her that she know. Was his mind open to such things, or was it as closed and resolute as Margaret’s? Now, as he took another step higher, she didn’t want him to answer. She didn’t want to know. She looked around, wishing she had the power to take the question back.

He reached forward and rubbed her arms up and down. “Listen, they’re great for Hollywood, but that’s all. They’re not real.” He kissed her forehead and lowered his face to hers. “Will that help you sleep?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

They said goodnight again. Then Janis watched him climb into his car and drive away.

19

The next morning

Sunday, October 14, 1984

9:22 a.m.

Scott woke up early for a weekend morning—early for him, anyway—and, skipping breakfast, climbed onto his ten-speed Schwinn. He listened to the neighborhood as he pedaled out of The Meadows, relieved to hear only birds. As he gained speed and the cool wind whipped his hair, his eyes flitted from house to house, marking places to hide should he hear the ominous belch of a certain 1970 Chevelle. It was more a precaution than anything. Jesse and company didn’t strike Scott as early risers.

When he cleared the Oakwood sign, he turned left and began standing into his pedals to climb Sixteenth Avenue. He had planned to confront Wayne that week at school, but on Monday he realized that Wayne had Craig and Chun to hide behind, not to mention an entire student body. And Scott wanted Wayne to himself. He knew from sleepovers past that Wayne’s parents were dutiful churchgoers who allowed their son to stay home and sleep in, provided he attend the Wednesday evening service. So not only would he catch Wayne alone, he would catch him by surprise, still groggy with sleep.

Wayne lived in a neighborhood not far from the high school. It was lower-middle class, Scott supposed: flat, one-story homes whose roofs were moss covered and most yards too sandy and limb littered to support grass, much less decent landscaping. Scott’s bike rattled as he steered down its gravelly streets. Pebbles of asphalt, spun up by his front tire, flicked into his hair and clinked off his glasses.
Maybe this is where some of Wayne’s resentment comes from
, he thought, looking around at dumpy cars in plastic carports.

But ratting me out to the feds?

Scott cruised by Wayne’s house once to make sure his father’s burgundy Mitsubishi wasn’t in the driveway. It wasn’t. He circled back and pushed his bike inside a cluster of yellowing azalea bushes that stood in the no-man’s-land between Wayne’s yard and the one next door.

At Wayne’s door, Scott knocked with what he hoped sounded like authority, sharp and rapid.
Give him a scare.
When thirty seconds passed, he rapped again. He was about to try a third time when he heard tired shuffling in the hallway and, seconds later, the lock being worked from the inside. There was no window or peephole to peek out, which Scott considered another advantage. He fixed his face and stood tall, arms bowed out to the sides before deciding to fold them across his chest, his fists pushing out his narrow biceps.

When the door opened, a caramel-colored face appeared.

Scott sagged from his stance. “What the…? What are you doing here?”

Chun squinted in the morning light. And now Craig’s face appeared beside him, flat and bleary, his T-shirt inside-out. Craig and Chun stood for several moments without saying anything. Finally, Chun spoke.

“We’re under orders from Wayne not to talk to you.”

“Is he here?”

“He’s sleeping,” Craig said.

“Well, I need to talk to him.”

The two faces stared blankly from the half-opened door. Chun began to finger the mole above his nostril. It crossed Scott’s mind to knock their heads together like a pair of coconuts. They had been
his
friends, not Wayne’s. Hell, it was because of him that they even knew Wayne. And now they had Wayne, and Wayne had them, and Scott had… no one. The memory of Blake’s car idling in front of Janis’s house last night only deepened that notion.

“All right,” he said softly. “I see how it is. Just tell him that—”

Scott lunged at the doorway and was halfway inside before the other two knew what was happening. Chun recovered and tried to brace both arms against the door. Craig joined him, but the floor of the front hallway was covered in brown linoleum, and their tube-socked feet slipped and slid. Plus, a steady diet of D&D and video games had made dough of their limbs while Scott’s had toughened, thanks to his devotion to Bud Body’s program.

To want it is to become it
, Bud said throughout his booklet. Repeating the mantra, Scott dug in with the toes of his Nikes.

With one final effort, Craig and Chun managed to slam the door shut, but Scott was already inside, marching toward Wayne’s room. He was dimly aware of the familiar smells of his former friend’s home as he waded deeper into its vapors: a mixture of cigarette smoke and stacks of secondhand science fiction books his father had amassed, their pages spotted with mold.

Scott wasn’t sure if Craig or Chun grabbed his neck, but once there, the aggressor didn’t seem to know what to do. When another hand fumbled for his shoulder, Scott slapped it away and spun.

“Look, you little minions,” he panted. “This is between me and Wayne. I suggest you back the hell up.”

Scott spoke more menacingly than he ever imagined himself capable—especially toward friends. He must have sounded convincing, because first Craig then Chun backed away. When Scott turned and resumed his march down the hallway, the two followed passively.

Wayne’s bedroom door was closed. A sign tacked on the outside read VULCANS AT WORK, with a curvaceous Saavik giving the Vulcan salute. The doorknob wouldn’t turn. Scott raised his fist to pound, thought better of it, and reached into his back pocket. He had sworn off his alter ego Stiletto back in August, but he’d never removed the folding tension wrench and pick from the bottom of his wallet. A single hole pierced the center of the aluminum doorknob. The best tool for opening these, frankly, was a Q-tip with the cotton end cut off.

A metal pick worked too.

The lock clicked, and Scott threw the door open. He faced a familiar cluttered room walled in mahogany-colored particleboard and smelling of Fritos. A thick blanket covered the window on the far wall. He flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. His gaze moved to the right side of the room. The outline of the bed came into focus, its sheets tangled, its mattress half stripped.

But no Wayne.

Scott stepped further into the room, venturing a glance toward the closet. He could feel Craig and Chun breathing behind him. He took another step. Wayne must have heard him, must have hidden. He craned his neck around the far side of the bed, then bowed to look under the computer desk. When he straightened, a point of metal met his low back.

“So you made it past my sentry, I see.” Scott felt Wayne adjust his grip on his broadsword. “But you were foolish to underestimate my powers of perception. Now look at you! Fallen into my trap, like the stupid thief you are. Your disgrace and dishonor are complete.”

“Ow! Be careful with that thing.” Scott instinctively raised his arms out to the side.

“That’s right,” Wayne said. “Nice and easy.”

Scott watched Craig and Chun’s shadows on the far wall. His own shadow blocked Wayne’s, all except for the disheveled side of his head. Wayne had bought the used sword at a medieval fair the year before. Scott had been there; it was the real article. Wayne had even allowed him to handle it—not for long, but long enough that he could appreciate its keen edge. Even someone of Wayne’s small stature could do damage with it. And if Wayne had stayed up D&D-ing the night before, as Scott suspected, lord only knew how much caffeine and raw adrenaline were swimming through his system. He hoped that Wayne had taken his red pill that morning, the one for his hyperactivity, though he doubted it.

“I just came to talk.”

Wayne laughed, high and chopped. “Oh, is that what you call forcing your way in?” His shadow jerked its head.

Craig and Chun seized Scott by either arm, slaying the air with their morning breath. He probably could have shaken them off, but he let them wheel him around.

Wayne stood in front of the doorway, his back arched to counterbalance the cumbersome sword, his splayed toes grasping the shag carpet. A yellowing pair of Fruit of the Looms sagged from the brim of his pelvis. He tottered back against the closet and swung the sword toward the door.

“Deliver this louse from my sight,” he ordered.

“C’mon,” Craig whispered near Scott’s ear. “I think he’s serious.”

Scott waited until they’d stepped into the hallway before calling over his shoulder. “I know about the tap, Wayne. I know you were the one who tipped off the feds. I know everything.” He felt Craig and Chun’s grips falter. “So who’s the louse now?”

“Halt!”

Craig and Chun released his arms, and Scott turned unimpeded. Wayne clasped the sword’s pommel at his sunken navel and glared at him with his smudged-in eyes. Scott glared back.

“Say that again.”

“Oh, choke on it,” Scott said. “I know what you did.”

Wayne’s laugh was a single sharp note. “Oh, do you now?” He looked at Craig and Chun. “You remember the fabled tap, don’t you, men? Scott’s little ruse to worm his way back into our good company?”

“Sure,” Scott said. “That’s what you want them to believe.” He turned from Wayne, who was struggling now to keep the heavy sword aloft, and faced the others. “Who’s he going to rat out next, I wonder? Maybe you can make a little game out of it.” He moved his finger between them. “Eenie, meenie, miney, mo.”

Scott had pulled his bike halfway out of the azaleas when Wayne came after him. He’d stashed the broadsword and pulled on a pair of crumpled blue shorts with red and white racing stripes along the sides. He half ran, half pranced across the yard to avoid fallen limbs and bursts of stinging nettle.

“Wait!” he cried.

Scott wrested the rest of his bike free and huffed. “What is it?”

“You weren’t crapping about the tap?” Wayne was hopping on one leg now, trying to brush something from the underside of his foot. “That was real?”

Scott had half a mind to punch Wayne in his clogged-up nose. Instead, he threw his leg over the fork of the bike. Wayne stopped hopping and blinked at the morning sunlight across his face.

“There was no tap, Scott. I checked.”

Scott stopped. “What?”

“Not on my line, not on yours. No pens, no shoes. Nothing ordered through Bell South. I even went out and physically checked the corresponding B boxes. If our lines were any cleaner, we could eat off them.” Wayne smirked at his own cleverness and smoothed his mustache.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just thought you were being a putz. I thought you’d made it up.”

Scott shook his head. “I didn’t.”

“Why did you think you were being tapped?”

“After the hack that night… you remember, the one I told you about… I thought I heard a delay on the line. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough that I was sure someone was listening. And I know you don’t believe me when I say stuff like this, but it
felt
like someone was listening.”

“It’s called hacker’s intuition.” Wayne recovered his conceit. “I’ve heard of it.”

“But now that you tell me we’re clean…” Scott laughed once. “Who knows? My brain was so burnt that night I could easily have heard something that wasn’t even there. I mean, we’re talking about milliseconds. And now every time I use the phone, I’m already convinced those additional milliseconds are there. I guess that’s why I keep hearing them.”

“
That’s
called paranoia,” Wayne said. “Next stop, Chattahoochee.”

Scott smiled as his eyes met Wayne’s. Both their gazes quickly fell back to where Scott was pushing his bike back and forth across a patch of sand. A self-conscious silence followed.

Then an idea occurred to Scott. “Hey, um, can I check something on your phone?”

Wayne shrugged his sloped shoulders and jerked his head. “Why not,” he said. “Yeah, come on in.”

* * *

Scott paced his secret workshop, his brain balling into a fist. He pulled the phone from his back pocket and for the twelfth time that afternoon, dialed Mrs. Time. Seven series of pulses, a delay, and a ring—and
still
the delay was too long. He hadn’t imagined it. And yet it wasn’t tapped. Wayne had been exhaustive.

Doesn’t make any flipping sense.

He suckled his vanilla Pudding Pop, going through Bell’s schematics in his mind. He and Wayne belonged to the same exchange—376—which meant a call made from either one of their houses went to the same central office. As it turned out, their homes were roughly equidistant from that office (he and Wayne used to sift through their dumpster looking for cast-off equipment and technical manuals until a security guard ran them off), which meant the time discrepancy between pulse and ring couldn’t be explained by distance.

And from that central office, the path was exactly the same. It went from the 376 exchange to the 372 exchange and finally to wherever Mrs. Time’s computer lived. The time it took to connect should have been equal.