XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation

by Brad Magnarella

  Blaat-blaat-blaat-blaat.

  She scrubbed her eyes and squinted around. The computer console in the corner of her room — the one a technician for the Champions Program had installed the week before — had turned itself on. Its screen was flashing white with each ear-drilling blaat. Janis lowered her legs off the side of the bed, staggered over, and plopped down in front of the screen.

  “How do I shut you up?” she croaked.

  She mashed the keypad. The alarm and flashing ceased, and a message appeared:

  > IDENTIFICATION?

  “Huh? Oh, right.”

  She pressed her thumb into the center of a soft pad beneath the space bar, just as the technician had shown her.

  > CONFIRMING IDENTITY…

  A blip sounded.

  > GOOD MORNING, JANIS GRAYSTONE.

  “Morning,” she mumbled to the screen, and immediately felt stupid.

  A message scrolled out:

  > REPORT TO TRAINING AT PROMPTLY 07:00. DIRECTIONS TO FACILITIES SHOWN BELOW. COMMIT TO MEMORY. NOT TO BE SHARED WITH THE OUTSIDE.

  “I don’t really have much of a relationship with the Outside anymore, but thanks.” The Outside was anyone not affiliated with the Champions Program. That included her former soccer and softball teammates, her friend Samantha, her ex-boyfriend, Blake.

  Scott and the others — they were the Inside.

  She studied the diagram and instructions, squinted, and read them a second time.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  She was reviewing the instructions a third time when the light to her bedroom snapped on. Janis turned, one hand shielding her brow, then nearly burst out laughing. In addition to the computer consoles, the Program had also issued them training uniforms the week before, and Margaret was dressed in hers. She ran her hands down the yellow jumpsuit’s sleek sides.

  “I’m not crazy about the color,” her sister said, “but it’s surprisingly comfortable.”

  Janis straightened her mouth. Although Margaret had learned about the Champions Program on her eighteenth birthday (almost two months before Janis), Janis had to credit her sister for how quickly she had adapted to the new reality, the incurable planner and control freak that she was. Janis worried, though, about how she would handle training. Margaret had never been much of an athlete.

  “Have you seen this?” Janis jerked her head toward the console.

  “Mine went off fifteen minutes ago. Neat, huh?”

  “The directions, though.” Janis scanned them again. “These can’t be right.”

  “Well, the sooner you eat and get ready, the sooner we’ll find out.” Margaret went to the closet, pulled a jumpsuit from its hanger, and tossed it on the bed. “We don’t want to be late for our first day.”

  Still the boss.

  “Aye, aye,” Janis said, signing off her console.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, Janis stood beside Margaret in the garage, both watching their father relocate lengths of plywood that had always leaned against a wall beneath the wooden staircase.

  “It’s here,” he said, removing the final length. A keypad appeared, like the one Janis had seen in the Leonards’ house before she had been shoved into their bathroom. “Did you memorize the code?”

  Janis and her sister nodded.

  Their father stood to one side. “I know I was strict with you two growing up, but this is what I’ve been preparing you for. Your mother, too. She would have liked to have seen you off on your first day, but she has a tendency to get, well … emotional. Anyway, you’re ready. And I can’t tell you how proud it makes me to say that. How proud I am of my daughters.” He hugged them in turn, kissing them hard on the temples.

  “Dad,” Margaret said, wincing away, “we’re going to be home for dinner.”

  The skin around his eyes wrinkled into a smile. And was he starting to tear up? Janis rubbed his arm. She’d forgiven him for the role he had played in the deception. She’d forgiven him for becoming a watcher. Right or wrong, he’d believed he was acting in her and Margaret’s best interests.

  Anyway, she was being allowed to make her own decision now.

  “Just give the Program a chance,” her father said to her, as though sensing her thoughts. “That’s all I ask.”

  Janis nodded and turned.

  Margaret punched in the code per the consoles’ instructions, and the wall slid open. The metallic room was the size of a broom closet. Janis followed her sister inside. The fact that Janis wasn’t surprised their garage suddenly featured a hidden elevator seemed an accurate gauge of how weird her life had become in the last year. Margaret pressed the lower of two round buttons. Beyond the closing door, their father saluted them.

  “Dad, stop,” Margaret said.

  The elevator descended with a soft hydraulic whir. Seconds later, the door slid open, and Janis followed Margaret into a cement corridor. A track of overhead lights provided dim illumination. The corridor was similar to the one below Mrs. Montgomery’s house, though smaller. Janis remembered the hologram by which Director Kilmer had shown them Oakwood’s extensive underground complex. They now belonged to that world.

  Margaret pointed to a strip of white tape that ran along the wall at waist level. “We’re supposed to follow that.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Janis said, her exasperation echoing down the corridor. “I read the instructions too, remember?”

  Their yellow jumpsuits (which were comfortable, Janis had to admit) swished quietly as they set off. The corridor ran a short distance, cut left, then right again. It was hard to tell, but Janis sensed the corridor was climbing. The white tape guided them through three sets of intersections. From the other corridors, new strips of tape — red, blue, and green — joined theirs.

  “Can you tell where we are?” Margaret asked.

  “I’m sort of turned around,” Janis admitted.

  Footsteps ran up behind them, causing Margaret’s eyes to glow green.

  “Can you believe this place?” Scott exclaimed when he emerged from the dimness in a matching yellow jumpsuit, his hair in mild disarray. “And we thought Oakwood’s storm drains were impressive.”

  “‘We’?” Janis said. “I’m pretty sure that was you. I could never get past the cockroaches.”

  As Scott came up beside them, Janis fought the urge to kiss his cheek. They’d had several long talks that week, agreeing to keep their relationship separate from Champions training. Her insistence that they demand answers from Director Kilmer had been running up against Scott’s “let’s wait and see” position, creating tension. And that was the last thing they needed — more tension.

  “Where was your elevator?” Margaret asked Scott as they resumed walking.

  “Oh, in the back of my parents’ closet, behind a pile of my father’s junk. I don’t think he put it there to hide the door, though. He just ran out of room in the garage. What about yours?”

  “Ours was in the garage, actually,” Janis said. “Under that staircase and platform.”

  Behind his glasses, Scott’s brown eyes shone with excitement.

  The corridor ended at an open elevator, larger than the one they had descended in. They entered, and Margaret pushed the higher of two buttons. The door slid closed, a familiar whirring sounded, and when the door opened again, Janis found herself looking into a cavernous room with metal rafters. A distant row of doors, each with a black window, lined the wall opposite them.

  Janis followed Margaret’s lead, stepping from the elevator onto a floor of gray rubber tiles, like in the gymnasium at Creekside Middle School. Except this floor was clean and smooth.

  “Must be the barn,” Scott whispered.

  At that word — “barn” — Janis’s compass straightened. They were at the top of the Meadows, beyond the end of the street that ran past Scott’s house. When they’d been kids, she and Scott had climbed a fence beyond the cul-de-sac and walked out into a pasture. Above the tall weeds, where crickets chattered back and forth
, a classic red barn and several outbuildings rose into their view. They were determined to check them out, but the pounding of approaching hooves halted their progress. Within seconds, a mean-looking man with a stubbled jaw and eyes that winced from the shade of a dirty white Stetson appeared on horseback. He swung the large horse around so that it blocked their view of the buildings.

  “You kids lost?” he asked in an ill-tempered voice.

  “N-no,” Scott answered, glancing at Janis.

  “We were just exploring,” Janis said.

  “This is private property. You’re trespassing.” As the man spoke, he nudged his heels into the horse’s flanks, causing the horse to snort and edge toward them and Janis and Scott to shuffle backward. “First time’s a warning,” he said, towering over them. “But not the second time. The second time I catch you out here, it’s a dozen lashes across the back of the legs with a bullwhip. You hear me?”

  After clambering back over the fence, she and Scott had never returned.

  Until now.

  “Welcome,” Director Kilmer’s voice called.

  Wearing another of his black suits (which was all he seemed to wear), he waved them over. Next to him, Creed and Tyler — the Bast brothers — stood in yellow jumpsuits. As Janis drew nearer, she noticed Creed was without his John Lennon shades and bowler hat, and his dark blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When he smiled, a pair of dimples divoted his cheeks.

  “Looky here, the triumphant return of Little Orphan Annie and Four Eyes McQueer,” Creed said, giggling. Then to Margaret, “Morning, gorgeous.”

  Janis had all but forgiven Creed for punching her in the stomach six years before, but now fresh anger stiffened her neck. Margaret placed a hand on her forearm then stared at Creed, the green in her eyes deepening until his weasel grin faded in confusion.

  Creed’s brother remained leaning against the wall, his arms folded. Since their assault on Mrs. Montgomery’s house back in April, Janis had only seen Tyler a couple of times around school. Scott had said the same thing, and they both wondered whether Tyler was avoiding them.

  “Hey,” Janis said, approaching him carefully.

  Tyler raised his bloodshot eyes and nodded. “Hey,” he answered, then lowered his gaze again.

  Director Kilmer glanced at his watch. “We’re waiting on one more.”

  Just then, the hydraulics of the elevator groaned as though from tremendous strain, causing the entire room to vibrate. The sound stuttered to silence, and Janis and the others turned, waiting for the door to slide open. Only it didn’t. Seconds passed. Suddenly, a pair of thudding clanks accompanied the impressions of two huge fists in the brushed steel door.

  “Goodness gracious,” Margaret said, her hand rising to her throat.

  “Hold on there!” Kilmer called.

  He rushed across the room as a line of thick fingers appeared between the door and frame. With a screech, the steel door folded inward until there was enough space for Jesse to squeeze through. He looked from the ruined door to Director Kilmer, who had stopped halfway to the elevator, both hands on his head.

  “Door got stuck,” Jesse muttered, and lumbered toward the group.

  “Fine, fine,” Kilmer said with a frown, walking alongside him now. “We’ll, ah, have the technicians take a look at it.”

  As Jesse joined the group, Creed giggled and high-fived him. Was it Janis’s imagination, or had Jesse grown in the last two months? His suit looked large enough for the remaining five of them to fit comfortably inside. When Jesse caught her sizing him up, Janis tensed her lips into a smile. He responded with the barest of nods, eyes hard and gray.

  If nothing else, the team dynamics should prove interesting, she thought.

  “All right,” Director Kilmer said, clapping his hands. “You’ve all found your way here, and that’s how you’ll report to training in the future. Never — and I repeat, never — come to these facilities from the outside. Are we understood? Now, the plan for today is to introduce you to your trainers, each one of whom is adept in your particular ability. Individual training will last five weeks before we begin integrating team training into the sessions.”

  “When do we get to start wasting bad guys?” Creed asked.

  “When you’re ready,” Kilmer replied. “And not a moment sooner.”

  “Balls,” Creed muttered.

  “But since you’re so anxious,” Kilmer said, “why don’t we begin with your trainer? Yours and Jesse’s, in fact.” He signaled toward the line of doors with the black windows. One of the middle ones opened. A stocky man, his head hairless save for thick eyebrows and a salt-and-pepper goatee, emerged and strode toward them.

  Creed blinked and then stared. “Gus? What in the hell are you doin’ here?”

  “Who is he?” Janis whispered to Tyler.

  “He bounces at a pool hall,” Tyler replied, eyes not straying from the approaching man. “Used to let me and my brother and Jesse shoot there, even though we weren’t old enough.”

  “Same guy who works at the auto body shop?” Scott asked, joining the whispered conversation. When Tyler nodded, Scott tilted his head toward Janis. “He was the one who put the tracker on Jessie’s car.”

  “Man, I don’t fucking believe it!” Creed said with glee. Even Jesse was starting to grin.

  “Why else do you think I’d be interested in a pair of delinquents like yourselves?” Gus said. As he seized Creed’s hand, then Jesse’s, his right bicep bulged from the sleeve of his black T-shirt. He clapped their shoulders. “Now c’mon, let’s start whipping you two into shape.”

  Gus led them toward the room from which he had appeared. Creed practically danced alongside him, peppering him with questions. When the door closed behind them, Director Kilmer pointed one door over. Another man appeared. This one was thin, with short rust-colored hair and a rapid, almost mincing, gait, as though he was arriving late for an appointment.

  Janis heard Tyler’s breath change tenor.

  “You know him, too?” she asked.

  “Chad,” Tyler said in what sounded like disillusionment. “Works at a record store downtown.”

  Tyler’s trainer stopped in front of him. “My apologies for the subterfuge,” he said. “As you’ve probably deduced by now, I’m not a record store clerk. I’m an expert in physics, namely electromagnetism. But I do dig music — that much was true. I can recommend albums like nobody’s business. And if you give me a chance, I’ll teach you to use your powers for something far nobler than halting would-be record store thieves in their tracks.”

  When Tyler smirked — a halfhearted one, it seemed to Janis — Chad chuckled and play-punched his arm. “Ready to get started?”

  “I guess,” he said, and the two of them disappeared beyond another of those mysterious doors.

  “Any idea who your trainer is?” Scott whispered.

  Janis had been mentally flipping through the adults in her life. “I have an idea,” she replied. “You?”

  “Mine has to be Mr. Shine,” Scott said. “It would explain a lot… Why he was hired to work on our yard, how he seemed to turn up in odd places — like at the tennis courts that day Jesse and Creed came after me, or at the spring dance, when you spotted him. Plus, he just seems to know things.”

  “Sorry to break up your private conversation,” Kilmer said. “You’re next, Scott.”

  He signaled to another one of the back rooms. But when the door opened, an aging yardman did not appear. The young woman wore a professional gray skirt and a white blouse. Her heels clopped softly, the overhead lights growing and receding against the lenses of her secretarial glasses. Despite her bookish dress, aspects of the woman looked almost … seductive. The strands of dark hair that had escaped her bun, the open button at the top of her blouse, the gentle roll of her hips.

  Janis became aware that her cheeks had begun to smolder.

  “Hello, Scott,” the woman said, stopping before them.

  Her voice sounded professional — and y
et, it was just breathy enough to bother Janis. When Janis glanced over, she found Scott’s Adam’s apple leaping up and down. She pistoned her elbow into his ribs. Scott jerked and shot his right arm forward, eventually grasping the woman’s offered hand.

  “Oh, ah, hi, hello.” Scott squinted at the woman. “Do I know you?”

  “You do, actually.” Her glossy lips pinched into a smile. “But you know me as Goblin.”

  “Goblin…” Scott repeated, still squinting. Then a bulb seemed to ignite in his brain. “Wait, Goblin?”

  “What are you two talking about?” The question felt hard in Janis’s throat, like an accusation.

  “Oh, ah, back when I was computer hacking, I used to frequent these online message boards. It’s where you’d go when you wanted logins, passwords — illicit access, basically.” Though he was answering Janis, Scott’s eyes hadn’t moved from the woman. “And Goblin here was an absolute god — I mean, ah, goddess. Sorry, but I always pictured you as a man. Anytime you got stumped, Goblin had the answer. Usually five of them. Everyone wanted to be him. Her.”

  The woman’s lips pinched into another smile that made Janis’s face smolder even hotter. “That’s sweet of you to say, Scott. But to avoid anymore gender confusion, why don’t you call me Gabriella?”

  “All right, Gabriella.”

  When she suggested they begin their assessment, Scott nodded eagerly. They were halfway to the room when Scott seemed to remember Janis. He turned and acknowledged her with a small wave before hustling to catch up with his new mentor. When the door closed behind them, Janis’s heart gave a final jealous kick.

  Relax, she told herself, she’s at least ten years older than he is.

  But for Janis, it was less that Scott might become attracted to her and more the idea that the woman had been selected for the very reason that he might become attracted to her. Something was up.

  She eyed Kilmer, who was telling Margaret she was next. She studied his inscrutable eyes and intelligent nose and mouth. Janis and the others had thrown the curtain back on the existence of the Champions Program, but she was pretty certain that plenty of curtains remained. And if the Program had its way, those curtains would stay tightly drawn.