“Good point,” Scott said. “Can we coax her back into the bathroom? She’ll probably be safer in there, at least until we can make our way downstairs and get the action away from her.”
Something scratched inside the doorknob to the room. A second later the lock released with a click, and the door strained against the dresser. Scott snapped the switch on his laser and whipped the thin red beam toward the door.
“Come with me,” Janis whispered to Mrs. Montgomery. “Walter wants you to try to use the bathroom.”
“Again?” Mrs. Montgomery asked.
On the pool deck below, Janis glimpsed an officer-who-wasn’t-an-officer peering at them through binoculars. The old woman shrugged and shuffled into the bathroom. Janis closed the door behind her and listened until she heard the raised toilet lid clink against the tank. A thud sounded. Janis turned to find the edge of the bedroom door separating from the jamb, the dresser tipping out. The door fell closed, and an exasperated pair of grunts sounded from beyond.
“Should I brace it?” Tyler asked, moving in front of the dresser.
“No!” Scott waved his arms. “Stand away!”
A hole appeared in the door, the size of a fist, at the same moment a single, harsh cough reverberated from the hallway. Tyler grunted and landed against the far wall, clutching his shoulder. Janis’s gaze fell to the egg-shaped object that had ricocheted off him and was spinning to a stop in the middle of the carpeted floor. It clicked and the ends opened.
“Cover your eyes!” Scott called.
But the entire room had already begun to strobe red. Janis raised her arm as a thick gray drift closed around her head, smothering her thoughts. She noticed Scott stagger. When she tried to say something — what, exactly, she had no idea — saliva spilled from her mouth.
* * *
Scott felt as if he was sliding into a sand pit, and no matter how desperately he clawed at the sides, he traveled down farther and faster. He hadn’t counted on the Project taking their neural scrambling technology and installing it inside a projectile. Damn research and development…
His knees landed on the carpet, the weight of his pack pulling him to one side.
So that was it, he thought, his vision shrinking to a point. The last eight months were going to go bye-bye. The delay on his telephone, the Leonards’ shed, the housing data, the voices on the military line, the infrared sensors along the levee, his meetings with Janis. Those things would still exist in space and time, maybe, but they wouldn’t belong to him anymore. They wouldn’t belong to Janis, either. They’d have to start over. Assuming that was even possible.
With the sand closing over him, Scott focused his dwindling awareness on his memory of their kiss. Her soft breath, the moist pressure of her mouth against his, her subtle taste…
At least let me keep that.
A white starburst seared his eyes.
Scott blinked and pushed himself to his feet. The room had stopped flashing. A black curl of smoke drifted from the egg-shaped object, which sputtered a few times, then fell silent. Tyler rose from the corner he’d landed in. He ducked in front of the dresser and joined Scott on the other side of the room.
“Good job, Tyler,” Scott whispered. He straightened his helmet. “Are you all right?”
Tyler nodded, even though his left arm hung at his side like an artificial appendage. “Yeah, just grazed me.”
Scott turned to find Janis kneeling and wiping her chin with her sleeve. He was about to go check on her when something moved in the hole in the door. Scott retreated and aimed his laser two feet below where a pair of eyes had appeared. The eyes studied the object smoking on the carpet, then roamed the room. When they didn’t find three semiconscious, drooling kids, they began straining toward the side of the room where the three of them were ducked down. Scott concentrated, building energy at the near end of the beam.
“Get ready,” he whispered, the orb in his mind’s eye verging on white.
The eyes in the hole gave a start.
Scott released his energy. The beam pulsed white and the door blew apart. Shouts and dull thuds knocked around the hallway. Scott checked to make sure Janis and Tyler were coming and vaulted over the dresser. Debris from the door crunched under his shoes. Two of the officers were groaning on their backs. A third retreated toward the stairs, his gun raised. Ducking low, Scott ran between the downed officers, the neural scramblers in their holsters igniting like magnesium flares.
Whatever Tyler’s power is exactly, it’s frigging effective.
Scott concentrated into his beam that danced over the stomach of the standing officer’s black vest. But before he could release a pulse, the officer’s gun went off with a hard cough.
Scott flinched.
The officer looked from his gun to the ceiling, where plaster rained down from a ragged hole. He seemed to be trying to determine just how in the hell the projectile had bent ninety degrees midflight.
Atta girl, Janis!
Scott blasted the officer against the wall and sent him tumbling down the staircase.
“Everyone all right?” he called behind him.
Tyler and Janis answered that they were. As he led them down the stairs, stepping around the officer who’d come to a rest on the landing, he felt expansive, larger than life. He was doing it. He was leading. He smiled around the breaths that boomed in and out of his lungs. Scott hit the officer in the living room before he could squeeze off a shot. The neural scrambler in his belt showered sparks, then gave up its ghost to a drift of black smoke.
“Scott!” Janis cried.
He spun to find himself in the sights of another officer entering from the kitchen. Scott didn’t have time to concentrate. He didn’t need to, as it turned out. Janis threw up an arm, and the officer left his feet. He smacked against the archway and landed in a heap.
“Is that all of them?” Scott whispered.
“All of the ones inside, I think,” Janis replied. “I don’t feel any others.”
When Tyler knelt to retrieve the gun of the downed officer, Scott saw that he was carrying a small cache, the shotguns from the officers upstairs tucked between his injured arm and body. Tyler dropped the guns in the living room in a pile and held out his good arm. One by one, the barrels popped as he fried the rounds.
Good, Tyler.
Scott turned to the front hall. The remains of the china plate were splayed over the tiles beside the hall table, which had been scooted to one side. The front door was ajar, allowing in a strip of daylight and a humid breeze. Scott crept to the door and peeked out. Several of the-officers-who-weren’t-officers crouched behind their cars, gun barrels in a line.
One of the officers put something to his mouth. “THIS IS THE POLICE.”
“Yeah,” Janis muttered, “and I’m Clair Huxtable.”
“YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO SURRENDER YOURSELVES. EXIT THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR ONE AT A TIME WITH YOUR ARMS RAISED. YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES.”
Scott snapped off the laser. “That means we have three minutes before they come in, presumably. And if they do, we’ll deal with them like we did the last crew. In the meantime, I suggest we split up.” He raised his hands to Janis. “I know, I know, but they’re desperate for us not to find something in here — something we must’ve missed on our first sweep. We’ll be able to cover more square footage this way. Why don’t you take the den? Tyler, the kitchen, and I’ll stay up front. Just keep clear of the windows.”
Scott pulled couches and chairs from the walls and searched along the baseboard. He pushed his consciousness into the electrical outlets to ensure they weren’t covers for buttons or miniature keypads. They weren’t. He opened the glass doors of the china cabinet and felt around the stacks of dishes. Then he dragged the entire cabinet from the wall enough to see behind it.
Scott reached out with his awareness as he went, but the low hum he’d felt earlier, growing and diminishing like a steady pulse, continued to frustrate his perceptual powers.
“
THIS IS THE POLICE. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO SURRENDER YOURSELVES.”
Scott peeked over his shoulder. Through the diaphanous drapes, he glimpsed more than eight squad cars in the cul-de-sac and at least eight men. More men would be positioned around back. He guessed they were part of Agent Steel’s goon squad, but he couldn’t spot the Ice Queen herself — not surprising since they were trying to pass themselves off as boys in blue. Scott pictured her somewhere remote, receiving updates on a headset, her stony face becoming more and more consternated.
Looks like the chess match is back on, honey.
He crawled to a bookcase and began pulling down volumes of black-and-red-bound encyclopedias.
“THIS IS THE POLICE. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO SURRENDER YOURSELVES.”
“How you guys faring back there?” Scott called.
“Nothing,” Janis called back.
“Me neither,” Tyler said.
“Let’s regroup,” he called.
Tyler and Janis were just returning beneath the archway when the officer outside spoke into his amplifier again. “THIS IS THE POLICE. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO SURRENDER YOURSELVES. EXIT THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR ONE AT A TIME WITH YOUR ARMS RAISED. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS.”
“I think Mrs. Montgomery’s the key to locating the command and control,” Scott said. “She might not be hiding anything, but if she lives here, certainly she’s seen things, senility or no. I was going to suggest we return upstairs and have a chat, but it looks like we’re going to have to stave off a raid first.”
“I’m ready,” Janis said.
Her voice sounded lower than usual, huskier. When he turned toward her, a strange, almost seductive, darkness swam behind her eyes, making his legs go rubbery. He cleared his throat into his fist. “All right, let’s—”
The windows in the front room shattered in a line. Bits of glass stung his cheek and arms. He crouched over Janis and Tyler, who’d already hit the floor. The windows in the rear of the house shattered next. Low hisses filled the room, like snakes’. Scott peeked under his arm. Not good. Green gases were spewing from aluminum canisters, one of which had landed on a living room chair.
“It’s a knock-out agent,” Scott said, his vision wavering. “Hold your breath. Toss them back out.”
Janis and Tyler pulled their collars over their noses and stumbled to their feet. The first canister Scott seized felt cold and heavy. He was careful to point the hissing gas away from him as he heaved it through one of the broken windows. Beyond the vapors, he could see the officers poised to fire again, all of them in gas masks now. His lungs burned for fresh oxygen.
We’re not going to be able to hold out.
He took Janis’s arm as she groped beneath the couch for a canister, and he pulled her to her feet. Waving to Tyler, he led them into the small, windowless bathroom off the kitchen as more canisters ricocheted off the walls behind them. He closed and locked the door. Janis pulled a towel from the rack and soaked it under the faucet. She jammed it along the space beneath the door to keep the gas from entering. Tyler flicked on the bathroom fan. They tugged their shirts from their noses and panted in the clean air.
“Is everyone all right?” Scott asked. His chest ached when he tried to take a full breath.
The others nodded wearily. Tyler’s eyes were bloodshot and Janis’s red around the rims. Scott imagined his own eyes didn’t appear much better, and a glance in the mirror confirmed that. Blood from the shattered glass freckled his right cheek. The three of them stood in silence around the sink.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Janis said at last.
Scott started to shake his head, but she’d only said what he and Tyler were thinking as well. The second the men broke open the door, gas would pour in. Powers or no, they’d be forced to fight blind with whatever reserves of oxygen they could hold in their chests. One by one, they’d fall. It wasn’t pessimism; it was sizing up their circumstances and making an honest assessment. Scott let out his air slowly. He didn’t have another answer.
This round goes to the Project.
Janis knelt and found some more towels beneath the sink. She soaked them, wrung them out, and handed one each to Scott and Tyler. “Tie them like this,” she said, knotting her towel behind her head so that it covered her nose and mouth. “Star said it’s what the protestors do whenever riot police start bombarding them with tear gas. It should give us a little extra time.”
Water trickled down the back of Scott’s neck as he knotted his towel behind his head in two places. Janis had him turn, and he felt her fingers adjust the knots so the towel better hugged his cheeks. He breathed through the dampness as she turned him back to face her.
She sighed, her gaze roaming the room. “What is it about me and locked bathrooms?”
“Hey,” Scott said, pushing a damp strand of hair from her eye, “at least you have some company this time.”
She reached for his shoulder as though she was going to shake it, but she squeezed instead, pushing her thumb over the muscle. Her round eyes shone into his. Scott rubbed her other arm and then pulled her into a hug. He pressed his towel-covered mouth against her ear. “If we do get wiped,” he whispered, “try to focus on the fallen tree in the woods. Tell yourself that’s where you go to think. Tell yourself that as intensely as you can, and I’ll do the same.”
She clutched him and nodded.
When they separated, they turned toward Tyler. His face was uncovered, his towel sitting in the sink.
“Need some help with that?” Janis asked, her voice muffled.
“I can hold my breath pretty good. Used to swim underwater a lot.” Tyler looked toward the door. Above the sound of the bathroom fan, Scott couldn’t hear anything outside. “I’m going to make a dash for it,” Tyler said. “See if I can’t make it home. I’ll come back with Jesse and Creed.”
“We can’t send you out there alone,” Scott said.
Plus, Scott knew that Tyler would never make it. If he didn’t succumb to the gas, he’d get taken out with a projectile or be beaten senseless. Those were grown men out there, trained combatants.
“I’m not asking,” Tyler said.
“Scott’s right.” Janis touched Tyler’s elbow. “Our chances are better if we stay together.”
Scott flinched as the door shuddered with pounding.
“Same as upstairs,” he said. “Except this time we’re hitting anything that moves. I’m hoping the gas proves to be as much of a visual handicap for them as for us. Our goal is to get outside, of course, but the front’s too crowded. We’re going out through the sliding door in the den. Janis, once we’re outside, you’ll be on gun duty. Deflect anything they fire at us. You were brilliant upstairs, by they way. We’ll regroup once we’re in the woods.”
The door shuddered again. Above the fan, they heard a voice: “Little pigs, little pigs, let us come in!”
Janis’s brows drew down. “That doesn’t sound like one of them.”
“That sounds like—” Tyler started to say.
The door ripped off the hinges and disappeared in a swirl of gas. Scott inhaled from the dwindling pocket of fresh air and pressed the switch on his laser. A huge belly and man breasts swayed beneath a tan shirt. Beside them, a face poked forward. Dirty blond hair fell like drapes to either side of a protuberant black filter.
“—the cavalry,” Tyler finished.
Creed giggled. “Well, well, if it ain’t the Apple Dumpling Gang.”
Jesse lowered his head and tapped a sausage-sized finger against his own gas mask. “Hold on a sec, and we’ll grab three more.”
34
By the time Janis donned and secured her mask, the thickest accumulations of gas had drifted off. Green mist eddied along the ceiling. She followed Jesse, who was plodding from the den, carrying two of the fallen men under his arms like sacks of potting soil. He sat the men on the living room floor, beside the other maskless men. Creed bound their wrists behind their backs with lengths of cord he’d cut from the curtains.
Victims of their own knock-out agent, the men’s chins lolled on their chests. Janis recognized a few of them as the strange men she’d seen at school.
“So how did you know we were in trouble?” Scott asked, pulling weapons from the men’s belts and holsters. Tyler helped him.
“We didn’t,” Jesse said. “We got bored and decided to see how your talk was going. We cruised around until we ran into the fleet of fuzzmobiles outside. Saw Tyler’s bike on the curb. There was gas pouring out of the house, cops running in. We figured we’d join the party.”
Creed giggled behind his mask. “The two stationed outside never even saw me coming. And then when Jesse and I got inside, forget about it. I pulled off masks while Jesse didn’t pull no punches.”
Jesse gestured to the dozen-odd men. “But these aren’t cops.”
“What makes you say that?” Janis asked, not used to the distorting effect of the filter on her voice.
“I’m not trying to boast or nothing,” Jesse replied, “but Creed and I have run into probably every cop to work a beat in this town in the last ten years. Never seen any of these clowns.”
Janis nodded. If anyone was an expert, those two were. She caught herself narrowing her eyes at Creed, who stood from the final man and wiped his hands. She’d never forgiven him for socking her in the stomach when they were kids, but maybe now she should at least consider it.
“Man, that felt good!” he said, dancing around the bound men on his spindly legs.
Scott set the last of the weapons on the dining-room table and looked over the cache. “It’s all non-lethal stuff — gas, rubber projectiles, neural scramblers — but they weren’t planning to go gentle with us.”
Jesse surveyed the cache, cracking his giant knuckles, a couple of which were bleeding. Tyler sauntered over beside him while Scott joined Janis, who adjusted her gas mask. In a gilded mirror over the couch, they looked like a portrait of fallout teens from some post-apocalyptic future. Janis thought of her nightmares of blooming mushroom clouds. She thought about what Mr. Leonard had told her: There’s no easy way to say this, Janis, but you’re the next generation of weapon in the Cold War.
XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation Page 59
