XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me Read Online Free PDF

the power to create or delete accounts, change passwords, destroy files—hell, shut down the entire system if he wanted to.
    Instead, Scott reached across to power up his printer. This one would go into the box at the back of his closet along with the others. Proof. Sweet, indisputable proof. But when his elbow knocked over the cordless phone, the consequences of popping off about the hack gut-punched the rush right out of him.
    Dumb. Really frigging dumb.
    Because to lose Wayne as a best friend wasn’t just to lose Wayne. Wayne would turn Craig and Chun against him as well. He had done it before. And how was that for starting high school, which was going to suck as it was? Computerless, modemless, and now friendless.
    Scott eyed the phone, hesitated, then hit the speed dial for Wayne. He listened to the tones pulse out and waited for the ring.
    But before the phone could ring, he mashed the phone off. Scott stood frozen. The receiver droned in his hand. The monitor in front of him, with its incriminating command lines, flashed with each hard swish of blood inside his ears. Scott exited Army Information, logged out of ARPANet, and, in a fury of typing, deleted the backdoor account he and Wayne had created at the university.
    He turned everything off, even his modem. Especially his modem.
    The room went black. Behind his desk, Scott squirmed inside the snake’s nest of cords, yanking every plug from the power strip, already begging his parents’ forgiveness in his mind. His breath came in strangled gasps. He kept hearing—no, feeling —that interval between the final pulses for Wayne’s number and the ring. A matter of milliseconds, probably, but it didn’t matter. It had been milliseconds too long.
    When he stood, the room wavered around him. The corner street light came on, illuminating his blinds. At the same moment, something damp touched Scott’s calf. He nearly screamed. J.R. nosed him again and then gave a tentative lick. Scott collapsed to his haunches, the strength gone from his legs. He rubbed the stiff curls around J.R.’s vanity collar.
    “This is bad, buddy,” Scott mumbled. “Really bad.”
    Because those milliseconds too long meant one thing to Scott, and one thing only. His phone line, his calls, his hacks—it was all being monitored.

4
    “How well do you know Mr. Leonard?” Janis asked.
    Her mother’s face appeared over the top of the mustard-colored refrigerator door. Even from across the kitchen table, Janis could see lines forming between her brows. “Mr. Leonard?”
    “Yeah,” Janis said. “The neighbor behind us.”
    Janis edged her gaze to her father, who had paused mid-chew to listen to the evening news on the TV. Margaret appeared equally absorbed in the anchor, who spoke gravely over their dinner: “NATO is proceeding with plans to deploy six hundred new American missiles in Europe. The comments came following the Soviet Union’s announcement Saturday that it had conducted successful tests of its ground-launched cruise missiles.”
    Their father grunted and resumed eating.
    “Well, they both seem nice enough,” her mother said, closing the refrigerator door and returning with a fresh bowl of grated orange cheddar. She was wearing tan slacks and a print blouse—modern housewife attire, she called it. “Tend to keep to themselves. Why do you ask?”
    Because I think Mr. Leonard has been watching us.

    “Just curious,” Janis said, gesturing impatiently for her mother to sit and eat. Everyone else was almost done with their first taco while her mother had yet to even start dressing hers.
    “Did he say something to you?”
    Janis shook her head and pretended to become interested in the news. Her mother, who made it a habit to stress over everything, remained staring at her, worry lines proliferating around her pale blue eyes.
    Should never have opened my mouth.
    The news segment ended, and the ubiquitous commercial for Viper Industries came on: “In these challenging times,