XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me (24 page)

But it wasn’t.

“Wait a minute,” Scott muttered to himself. “You’re not thinking.”

Setting his Pudding Pop on its wrapper, he hopped onto the tall stool he had scavenged from the garage and leaned toward his TRS-80. He punched in the command to dial Mrs. Time and closed his eyes. The modem executed the dial, and he listened to the first faint ring.

Scott winced, gritting his teeth. It was the first time he’d exercised his ability in more than a month, and the sensation of his consciousness twining on itself tight-roped between lofty anticipation and crushing pain. Then he was inside, shooting along the lines, tandems, and switches, expanding over the network that connected him to Mrs. Time. Her automated voice crackled around him, blue and electric: “The. Time. Is… One. Forty-two.”

Scott extended himself as far as the connection would allow until he
became
the connection. The feeling was like that of someone who, having been crammed inside a three-foot-by-three-foot cell for a month, is allowed to stand and stretch at last.
Yes, this is where you belong,
a voice whispered.
Out in the greater networks
. He had to strain to remind himself of his purpose.

Reluctantly, he gathered himself at the terminal end, where the automated voice continued to report the time. From there he navigated the connection in reverse. Inside the 372 exchange, boxes hummed inside of boxes. Scott continued down the routing path to another exchange, the 376 exchange—his and Wayne’s central office. The exchange was box shaped as well, but characterized by a different arrangement of giant batteries, frames, and switches. Just like the cars in his neighborhood, each exchange had its own signature.

And now Scott encountered… something else.

The box was much smaller than a central office, its energy subtler, its signature nearly nonexistent. In fact, he had almost missed it, had almost sailed right past. But as he drew himself around the diminutive box, Scott became certain it was behind the delay he heard on the phone every time he went to make a call.

Was this what a tap felt like? he wondered. Could Wayne have erred?

Don’t let it stop you,
the voice whispered.
Short it.

Short it? Could he?

Scott concentrated, gathering the parts of his consciousness still spread across the connection. He focused on the box-shaped obstruction. Behind his closed eyes, a red point appeared. It felt warm. He redoubled his concentration. The point grew to the size of a small orb, changing from red to orange, becoming hotter.

That’s right, short it.

Sweat sprang from Scott’s brow and trickled behind his glasses, but he couldn’t stop to wipe it away. He was building something, gathering it into a single spot, like when you focused the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass.

He strained harder. The orb swelled, verging on white. And then…

Scott climbed from the floor, his consciousness swimming up from some black void, his body tingling. The stool was down on its side. He knelt beside it a moment and straightened his glasses. Blinking, he could see the white orb—or what remained of it—as a bursting afterimage.

Is that how I ended up on the floor?

He shook his head and stood all the way up, using the workbench for support. The room wavered. The modem’s red light blinked insistently. Beside it, his Popsicle sat in a spreading, custard-colored puddle. He faced the monitor and scanned the command lines. The final line indicated the call had been disconnected—he checked his watch—more than ten minutes ago.

Did I do that?

Scott turned on the cordless phone and lifted the phone to his ear. Just like with the modem, there was no dial tone. He mashed the phone off then on again, but still he heard nothing.

Both of the lines stayed dead the rest of the day, which agitated Scott’s mother to no end. “I have
clients
,” she kept repeating. At last, she turned her accusatory eye on Scott. “Do you know anything about this?” He shook his head and remained silent. From his bedroom, he could hear her testing the phone and then huffing or spitting out another curse. Finally, she announced that she was driving to the real estate office for a few hours’ work.

“And you can bet your Benjamins I’ll be calling Bell South while I’m there,” she said. “I have
clients
, for pity’s sake!”

That night, Scott dreamed about utility trucks rumbling past the house. In the morning, the dial tone was back on their phone.

But so, too, was the delay.

20

Citizen’s Field

Thursday, November 15, 1984

8:06 p.m.

Janis stood in warm-ups with the other subs, watching the corner-kick go airborne off the Lyon player’s foot. The ball hooked inward as it sailed toward the goal. Theresa Combs, Thirteenth Street’s starting goalie, stepped out, her faced tilted skyward. The opposing team’s green jerseys multiplied inside the goal box, overwhelming Thirteenth Street’s purple. Janis strained onto her tiptoes to see. In the next moment, the Lyon players ran shouting from the goal, arms raised.

The ball sat in the back of the net.

Janis thudded to her heels and looked at the game clock. With eight minutes to go, Lyon, the state’s top ranked team, had just pulled ahead, two to one. That day, Principal Munshin had called an impromptu pep rally—a first for a girl’s soccer game—and pledged in front of the two-thousand-member student body that if the undefeated girl’s team won or fought Lyon to a tie, he would moonwalk the entire length of the field at game’s end. Never mind that Michael Jackson was considered “out” by then and Prince “in;” the students applauded wildly anyway.

Now, except for scattered shouts of support, the packed stands at Janis’s back had gone mute. From their silence, a murmuring tide arose. At the same time that the referee was waving his arms across his body to negate the goal, he was rushing toward Theresa. Janis brought her hand to her mouth.

Theresa, who had been one of the few players not to grumble when Janis, a freshman, made the varsity squad, who had remained after practice those first two weeks to help teach her the position, who had been playing her best game of the season, lay on her stomach, not moving.

And was that blood across her mouth?

Janis huddled with the other players on the sideline as the ambulance arrived and paramedics placed a collar around Theresa’s neck. A stretcher waited beside her. Janis wanted to be out there, holding her hand, speaking words of encouragement—
something
—but the referees had cleared the field save for coaches and medical personnel.

“I saw the whole thing,” Carol Hollis said. Janis and the other players edged closer to their co-captain. “I was right beside her. The Lyon player, the big one over there, smashed her in the mouth with her forearm. Had her eyes on Theresa the whole time. Never looked up for the ball.”

“Why wasn’t she ejected?” Janis asked, eyeing the refrigerator-sized player across the field.

“The ref said he couldn’t toss her without having seen the infraction himself. He’s going to give her a yellow card and award us a penalty kick.” Carol shook her head. “Big whoop.”

They watched Theresa being lifted into the ambulance. The doors closed and the ambulance eased from the field, red lights swimming across the stands.

Coach Hall stormed to the opposing sideline as the siren began wailing from the street. “Is that what you teach your girls?” she shouted up into the Lyon coach’s face. “Huh? Is that what you teach them? To break jaws and give concussions?”

The plodding coach shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

Coach Hall stalked back to the Thirteenth Street sideline and called her team together. “All right, we’ve got eight minutes left. I want you to play with the same intensity that got you here, but I also want you to play with the same integrity. No retaliation, understood? No cheap fouls. And protect yourselves.” She turned to Janis. “That goes especially for you.”

The words hit Janis like a lightning bolt. She was going into the game. Janis hurried to strip off her windbreaker and sweats, then scrambled out after the starters, shouts of support punctuating the applause from behind: “C’mon, Janis!” “Show ’em what the Titans are made of!”

Eight minutes.
Air steamed from Janis’s trembling lips.
Give them eight solid minutes.

She tightened her ponytail and clapped her gloved hands together.
Thwat, thwat, thwat.
Carol Hollis turned and gave her a thumbs up, then took the penalty kick. Thirteenth Street High worked the ball to midfield before Lyon stole it back and came stampeding the other way. And that’s what it looked like to Janis: a thundering stampede. Janis shuffled backward, her joints turning to ball bearings.

The shot came from the right side of the field, hard and low. Janis stumbled and stretched—
Watch the ball into your possession—
and caught the ball in both gloves as she landed on her side. The impact jarred the wind out of her. A Lyon player appeared above her. Janis grunted and curled around the ball. The player pulled up at the last instant, her thick leg cocked. She had meant to blast the ball from Janis’s hands, broken fingers be damned.

Janis stood with the soccer ball to a mountain of applause, her breath returning in bruised gasps. The game clock showed six minutes. She bounced the ball twice and got off a solid punt.

For the next three minutes, the action remained on Lyon’s side of the field. Janis used the opportunity to jog in place, windmilling her arms. Her muscles began to loosen. When Carol juked a defender and darted toward the goal, Janis’s scream joined those from the stands. But the trailing defender recovered in time to knife Carol’s legs, sending her tumbling. The fans’ tenor changed from rapturous to outraged. “You’re worse than Cobra Kai!” one student bellowed. Coach Hall threw up her arms. Another yellow card for Lyon, another penalty shot for Thirteenth Street High.

Janis watched the ball sail high, over the far net.

With two minutes to play, the Lyon coach signaled for his players to push up. Even the huskiest defenders trotted out to midfield, eyeing the large net Janis defended. Their hard-bitten faces said it all. They weren’t leaving Gainesville without a win, even if it meant more ambulances.

For the second time since Janis entered the game, Lyon stampeded. The ghost-image was fleeting—almost too fleeting—but Janis reacted. She dove and tipped the ensuing shot out of bounds, a solid blast that would have grazed the near post en route to a score. She stood, heart pounding, breaths flaring her nostrils.

The side judge pointed her flag to the corner of the field to indicate a corner kick.

“Hey,
Cherry
.”

The menacing whisper came from behind. Janis glanced around and found the Lyon player who had broken Theresa’s jaw staring at her, eyes red-rimmed and wild. Up close, her mud-smeared thighs looked as thick as truck tires. Janis turned and squinted toward the corner flag.

“What’s your pain tolerance, Cherry?”

Janis kept her eyes on the girl poised to kick the ball even as her skin crawled.

“Hope it’s better than your starter’s.”

The shot went skyward, starting out a distance from the goal but quickly hooking inward. It traced the same path as the last corner kick, the one that had doomed Theresa. Grunts and sharp cries rang out. Dark green jerseys collapsed toward the ball, and Janis made the same assessment Theresa must have. She needed to get there first, needed to jump high enough to punch the ball away.

Janis moved forward, gloved hands tensing into fists. The ball hooked nearer. She crouched to leave her feet, even as she sensed Theresa’s assailant watching her from inside Lyon’s thudding mass.

The image came an instant later: broken teeth and…

Janis planted hard and staggered back to the far post, nearly losing her footing. The ball shot off the head of a Lyon player. Janis knelt low, elbows almost to the ground. A row of dirt-caked cleats raked her cheek. The ball bobbled between her hands and chest—
Watch the ball, Janis!
—then stuck.

Cheers crashed down from the stands. “Way to go!” Coach Hall yelled.

When Janis looked over, her coach was signaling for her to hold the ball, to burn clock. Janis nodded and bounced it, scanning the field. She bounced the ball again. Less than thirty seconds to go. Tie score, one to one.

“I’m counting to five then I’m calling a delay of game.”

The referee’s voice startled Janis.

She stepped into the punt quickly, too quickly. It careened off the side of her foot and straight toward the player who’d just threatened her. The player saw her gift before the Thirteenth Street defenders did. By the time she met the ball with her chest, she had a five-yard lead on everyone else.

And she was fast.

Janis dashed out to meet her. It was what a goalie was supposed to do in a one-on-one situation. The nearer the other player, the larger the goal became, and the more angles she would have to score from. Still yards away, Janis was already bracing herself for the slide, the brutal collision. But the Lyon player had anticipated Janis’s coming out. She cocked her leg.

The image for Janis this time was crystal clear.

She tried to beat a retreat, but the ball was in flight—lofty, with a tight backward spin. It was going to meet the net high but squarely in its center. Janis was that far out of position. The chip shot had come off the forward’s foot that perfectly. Shouts climbed from the Lyon sideline.

Janis grunted and launched into her fading leap with everything she could summon. She stretched her arm—no,
pushed
her arm—until it felt like her shoulder was wrenching from its socket. She just needed to get her fingers on it, even one finger.

The ball spun above her.

Push!
she screamed inside.
PUSH!

And then the ground thudded into her. Up behind, she could see the movement of the net. Her fingers hadn’t touched anything. And now the referee was blowing his whistle.

Janis closed her eyes and lay still. Seconds to go and she’d just blown the game.