Recruits Series, Book 1

by Thomas Locke

  “There are four of them. All look like the Examiner.”

  “But . . . four?”

  “They’re not real. Just like the girls. It’s like . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “Like they want the Examiner to be seen.”

  “But why—”

  The question went unfinished. All the others remained unspoken. Because that was when the world exploded.

  18

  The sound was muted at first, as though it fought through a barrier of some kind. Even in its muffled state, the noise was fierce. The flames struck in a constant rush and careened out, like a hose blasting against curved glass. The colors were as magnificent as they were deadly. The night and their home were brilliantly illuminated by an electric green fire. Sean felt Dillon move up beside him as the first rift became visible in the shield around their home. It was like watching a fire eat through plastic, burning a tiny pinprick, then dozens, all melting back, growing into flowers of destruction.

  Dillon shouted, “Here it comes!”

  Sean crouched down, then reinforced the four shields one more time. The roar grew and grew until it formed a furnace blast. The light and the noise surrounded them. Sean stayed focused on the shields, him and Dillon and their parents. He gave it everything he had.

  And then he felt like maybe he could give it more.

  After all, he was surrounded by energy at its rawest and most ferocious.

  So why not take the energy and shoot it back?

  It was amazing that he could think at all in the middle of that racket. But there it was. Carver’s words droned at him. Shield and attack. Shield and—

  Then Dillon spoke the exact same words Sean was thinking. “Attack! Let’s turn this sucker around!”

  “It’s worth a shot, right?” It was impossible to hear anything. But Sean did, just the same. “I don’t know where to shoot.”

  “I do!”

  “So you shoot, I’ll load.”

  Which made no sense at all. But Dillon was already standing, the shield around the two of them elongating so as to keep him sheltered. The incoming fire was a great glowing wash, so intense Sean’s eyes streamed with tears. He didn’t know what he was doing. But he did it anyway. He reached out one hand so that it touched his shield, then drew the energy so that it focused and flowed together, streaming over toward where Dillon’s own hands extended out to touch the shield. He watched Dillon heave in a gigantic breath, and the energy formed two great swirling masses around his outstretched hands.

  Dillon roared like some feral beast, or at least that was how it seemed to Sean. And the roar was a blast that shot out in four different directions.

  The house groaned like a giant in agony. Sean groaned in mortal harmony, a great silent heave of distress. He felt as though he was being split in two. He drew the incoming fire like a magnet and passed it over to Dillon. At the same time he constantly fed energy to the four shields, him and Dillon and their parents.

  Then the floor beneath them gave way. The shields held as they fell through what had formerly been their living room. All the while, Dillon kept drawing the incoming force from Sean and jetting it back out. A massive, streaming blast . . .

  The flames vanished. Completely and utterly finished. In one brief instant, faster than a single heartbeat, just gone.

  They found themselves in what had formerly been their cellar. Sean rose slowly from his crouch. Dillon lowered his hands, unarched his back, took a great satisfied breath. Their parents were coiled in two bleary-eyed bundles, still clutching what was left of their covers up to their chins.

  Dillon grinned at him. “That is definitely one for the books.”

  19

  The police kept them until almost dawn. The four of them wore EMS blankets over their bedclothes, until neighbors brought over sweats and hot cocoa. The street was crowded with flashing lights and onlookers. Their home and Carver’s were both completely destroyed. Ash and cinder formed dark imprints over the cellars. The Charger was a total wreck. Again. Firemen swarmed through the smoldering debris. Over and over they heard the same words. How amazing it was that they survived. How no one could explain them walking away from this alive, much less without a scratch.

  There was no sign of Carver. Sean gave the police the number Carver had supplied and shared a worried glance with Dillon. They had to assume the guy had already left for wherever home was. But still, not knowing whether their one connection to the new life had survived was almost as troubling as the attack itself.

  The police drove them to a local Homewood Suites. The cops must have called ahead, because the night manager met them at the door and took them straight to adjoining apartments. Sean and Dillon bedded down without a single spoken word. Only when the lights were out did Dillon ask, “Shields up?”

  “You bet.”

  “Heebie-jeebies?”

  Sean took a good long look. “Not a peep.”

  “Good.” A few breaths, then Dillon finally got around to saying what Sean had been worrying over since they scrambled from the basement. “In the middle of all that, I thought I heard you.”

  “I know.”

  “But you didn’t speak, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Did you hear me back?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  Dillon breathed long and low, and Sean’s chest pumped in tandem. Dillon asked, “Can you hear me now?”

  “No. But maybe it’s on account of how you don’t usually have a single interesting thought.”

  “Oh. Look at the funny man. Okay, I’m going to concentrate really hard.”

  “Don’t blow a fuse.”

  “Quiet.” A pause. “Anything?”

  “Nothing. Let me try.”

  Then, “My brother, the blank wall.”

  “Good.” Sean half meant it. “Stay out of my dreams.”

  Dillon rolled over. “Like I would ever want to go there.”

  They arrived downstairs for breakfast to find Carver and Counselor Tatyana already seated at a table together with their parents. Carver wore dress slacks and a polo shirt, their parents were still dressed in loaned sweats. Tatyana wore a business suit of muted blue. Sean’s folks looked red-eyed and severely shaken, and they listened in silence as the Counselor offered professional condolences. Sean and Dillon grabbed some food and took up station at the next table.

  The Counselor was saying, “My company can’t be certain, but we fear that we may be at fault. There was apparently a leak in an old gas line. If so, we are to blame.”

  “But we don’t have gas,” Sean’s mother protested.

  “Even if you did, it would have come from a different line. The pipe in question was set in place back in the forties. It doesn’t appear on any current survey maps. But we fear we’re responsible.”

  Sean’s father rubbed his face. “I’d expect you guys to show up with an army of lawyers and a hundred different excuses.”

  “Quite frankly, Mr. Kirrel, we’ve decided to leave that option for our phase two. Which would only come into play if we can’t settle this with you here and now.”

  Carver played the role of aggrieved homeowner. “You just want to make all this go away?”

  “As quietly and quickly as possible,” Tatyana said. “Where were you last night, by the way?”

  “Visiting relatives,” Carver replied.

  Sean’s mother asked, “What about all our things?”

  Tatyana said, “If you are willing to settle today, my company will write you a check this morning for five times the value of your homes and all your contents.”

  Carver said, “I accept your offer.”

  Sean’s dad said, “We need a minute.”

  Their mother protested, “Five times the house’s value? What’s to discuss? That’s more money—”

  “We need to talk this through,” Sean’s dad insisted.

  She gave her all-too-familiar sigh and turned away.

  Carver rose from
the table and jerked his chin toward the motel entrance. The twins rose with him. Sean said, “We’ll just be outside.”

  The day was fresh, the wind welcome, the sky clear. Carver walked them midway across the parking lot and said, “Give me your report.”

  Sean let Dillon talk. His twin tended to punch words in the wrong spots, emphasizing what should have gone smoothly, dropping in phrases that did not build a solid picture. But he thought Carver’s frown was more to do with what had happened than Dillon’s manner of speech. Dillon was still trying to describe how it felt to turn the flames around when the motel’s glass doors slid back and Tatyana appeared.

  Carver motioned for her to join them and said to Dillon, “Start over.”

  Her high heels made a crisp accent to her impatient walk. “Really, Carver, there are far more important issues than the growing talents—”

  Carver held up his hand, then said to Dillon, “From the beginning.”

  Sean thought his brother did an even worse job the second time around. But the response of the two adults was surprising. Carver continued his frowning inspection of the surrounding trees. But Tatyana offered a patronizing smile. Her disbelief was so evident, Dillon fumbled through the end and finished, “I know it sounds crazy.”

  “That is not the word I would use.” Her reply carried a surprising gentleness. “Do you remember what the Examiner said when we met in the clinic?”

  Dillon kicked at a stone and did not reply, so Sean said, “About recruits and stress.”

  “What you are describing, the passing of thoughts from one individual to another, is a feat we have aimed for but cannot achieve with any regularity or clarity.”

  “But these are twins,” Carver said, his gaze still on the weaving pines.

  “It means nothing.” She looked from one to the other. “Repeat the process now.”

  “We can’t.”

  “As I thought. Shields can serve as amplifying chambers for those encased in their force. You spoke, you might even have whispered. The murmur carried.”

  “This is a common battle tactic,” Carver said. “Linking shields, passing messages in the din of combat.”

  “Now, as to the other issues.” Tatyana counted them on her fingers. “The extension of your awareness. Hunting, you called it. This is a highly defined tactic of those individuals we refer to as Watchers.”

  “We had a team of two Watchers in place,” Carver said. “Their report is that Tirian initiated the attack. The female Watcher is both a pro and a friend. She is highly trained. She says there is no question.”

  “But it wasn’t him,” Dillon said. “There were four of them.”

  “The Watcher says otherwise,” Tatyana replied.

  Sean demanded, “What about Dillon turning the flames around?”

  “Impossible,” the Counselor declared. “With time and extensive training, perhaps this may be utilized. But at this stage . . .”

  “Battle stress can make for some very bizarre experiences,” Carver said.

  “You young men have survived by shielding yourselves and your parents,” Tatyana said. “That in and of itself is unheard of for recruits with only a few weeks of training.”

  “A few days,” Carver corrected.

  “Truly astonishing,” Tatyana said. But already her attention was back on the couple in the motel lobby. “Now I must ask for your assistance. We need to clean this up quickly and quietly. No press, no complaints, no lawyers.”

  Sean didn’t want to let it go, but he could tell now was not the time to press their case. “We could go talk with them.”

  Tatyana told Carver, “Go with them. We can offer more. Whatever it takes.”

  Sean was heading for the motel’s entrance when he saw how Dillon’s head was planted straight down. It took him back to the early days, the hard times when they both first realized things weren’t right in their family. That it wasn’t just how their dad never played with them, or how their mom never laughed, or how the television was used to puncture the home’s silence. Around their seventh year, Dillon took to hiding himself away at home. Whenever he had to be around his parents, he lowered his face so his hair created a veil between him and the world that hurt him.

  It twisted Sean’s gut to see his brother respond to Tatyana and Carver that way. People they liked. People they trusted.

  It gave Sean the strength to swing back around and say, “We’ve spent our whole lives waiting for this one chance. We figured it would never come. We thought we’d grow up and get fitted for our Armani prison suits and take our place in line. So you need to understand, what you’ve given us is the most important thing ever. But with this attack, no matter what you say or think, you’re wrong.”

  They took their time responding, long enough for Dillon to lift his head and give Sean a look that eased the wrench in his gut.

  Carver said, “If you can repeat the occurrence, we will talk.”

  “The hunt or the chat or the fighting technique?” Dillon asked.

  “Any or all of them. Until then, I agree with the Counselor’s assessment. On all counts. Including the culprit we must now track down.”

  Tatyana added, “The Examiner has vanished. What innocent person disappears before being questioned?”

  “Someone who knows they are being set up,” Sean said.

  She sniffed.

  “All those things happened. And if Dillon says it wasn’t the Examiner, you better listen.”

  “Watchers are trained to see beyond the physical,” Carver replied, his tone both gruff and gentle. “Even if your brother managed to extend himself, which is a senior-level talent, he is not trained to see beyond.”

  “He did it,” Sean maintained. “He saw.”

  Dillon said, “You’re going after the wrong man.”

  Tatyana waved that away. “Enough. We must resolve the crisis with your parents. And then we must determine where you will go for further training.”

  “What about Carver?”

  “I’ve been assigned to hunt down the Examiner,” Carver said. He smiled at their disappointment. “We can still communicate occasionally, if you like.”

  “We like,” Dillon said. “A lot.”

  The idea came to Sean with such clarity it was like somebody whispered the idea into his head. “I know where we can go. Send us to the Examiner’s school.”

  Dillon gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Totally.” He found it easier to focus on his brother. “Look. Carver’s headed off into the wild blue. We’ve got to go somewhere. And they’ve already said they’re not going to check this out.”

  “Your job is to learn,” Carver said. “Not play investigator.”

  “I’m not aiming to play at anything,” Sean shot back.

  Dillon said, “Sign me up.”

  Tatyana replied, “Carver and I must discuss this. Go and see if you can convince your parents to accept our offer.”

  20

  Their parents weren’t concerned about the money. Well, they were. A lot, actually. But that wasn’t the topic of discussion. What they wanted to talk about was getting a divorce. The loss of their home and the sudden insertion of money meant that something they had both thought about for years had suddenly become the logical next step.

  Twenty minutes later the twins emerged, and their place at the lobby’s square breakfast table was taken by Tatyana. Twenty minutes after that, their parents settled on six times the home-and-contents valuation, the check was written, and the papers were signed. One life ended. Another began. All it took was a blast of flame, a near-death experience, and a vanished Examiner that neither Dillon nor Sean would ever miss. Innocent or not.

  Drivers were arranged and they went shopping. The twins took one car, their parents two others. All four were given credit cards, compliments of Tatyana’s mythical company. Before they departed, Carver said Sean’s idea for where they should go for training was still under discussion. When Sean tried to offer more reasons for w
hy it was a good idea, Carver shook his head and said they were way beyond arguments. The important thing was for them to reinsert themselves into normal life. They needed to remain anchored in sight of the outside world. They were recruits now. There was a meticulous process to be followed. As far as their home civilization was concerned, they needed to remain in clearly defined roles.

  Dillon waited until they were in the Hollister shop to ask, “What about all this is normal?”

  “Home civilization,” Sean repeated, trying to work his mind around the concepts. “Clearly defined roles.”

  A couple of weeks earlier, the whole deal would have been part of some fantasyland, being given their very own credit cards and told to go spend. But after an hour the whole process was flat. Boring. An endless array of stacked clothes and canned music and happy-sappy salespeople. They ate in the mall’s food court, making lists of stuff they couldn’t put off until another day.

  They were buying a couple of new phones when a familiar voice said, “I should have known to check here first.”

  Carey waited while they finished paying, took hold of some of their packages, and walked them out before demanding, “Did Eric do this?”

  The question caught them both completely by surprise. Dillon was the one she was watching, and he replied, “No. No way.”

  “Are you sure? Because I’ve got to tell you, it is just like him. He always said it wasn’t who got hit but who was standing at the end of the game.”

  “Carey, look . . .”

  “He loved trolling the dark side of the internet.” She wore the same sort of pinched expression as she had the other day. “He and his buddies could spend hours talking about how to make a bomb.”

  “It wasn’t Eric,” Dillon repeated.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it wasn’t a bomb,” Sean said.

  “Gas leak,” Dillon said.

  She looked from one to the other. “Really?”

  “We’ve already met with the company,” Sean said.

  “They signed a check and everything,” Dillon confirmed.