Eye of the Sh*t Storm

by Jackson Ford

  Nic and Annie were dead the second I gave in to Pop. Maybe Leo too. Now? I have about fifteen minutes to find them. Less, actually, because it’s been a few minutes since Robert made the call, but…

  I can still make that work.

  The corridors are a warren of discarded trash, flickering lights, disused filing cabinets, bins full of rusting parts. Broken glass, too. I can’t even see where it came from – there aren’t any windows or anything. It’s as if the Legends scattered it around, thinking it might make the place a little more homely.

  I have to get out into the main part of the depot, which is on my right. As the thought occurs, the world goes so woozy that I almost fall over. I have to grab the wall to keep myself upright, stay still for a second, a second I don’t have because it’s already been at least a minute since I left my little holding cell, and the twelve-or-so minutes I thought was enough time is looking tighter and tighter.

  Soft, sprinting footsteps. Coming up behind me. I spin round, breath caught in my throat, almost over balancing. A shadowy figure rushes at me – Pop, or Robert, or one of the others, I can’t see. I react, snarling, grabbing whatever trash I can get my PK on and hurling it at the figure. Bottles and lightbulbs and shreds of plastic wicker through the air, a storm of jagged edges, slashing right through the figure, which—

  Isn’t there. It’s gone. My projectiles clatter to the ground, ricochet off the walls. The only sound is my breathing, hot and harsh and harried.

  There was someone there, I know there was, I heard them…

  The slightest sound from my right. The crunch of a foot on broken glass. The slight click of a switchblade. My reaction is almost involuntary, like twitching your foot when the doc hits your knee during a reflex test. Everything in the corridor not nailed down goes flying, turning the air around me into hurricane.

  There’s nobody there. Of course there’s nobody there. There never was.

  Gotta get some Howlin’ Ray’s. Best fried chicken in LA. You won’t even need the drugs any more, just some hot sauce and—

  I put the knuckle of my right middle finger in my mouth. Bite down hard. Keep it there until my breathing slows down. Until my shoulder stop shaking.

  Jesus Christ. What if I do that when I’m with Annie? Or Leo? What if I hurt them? What if I mistake them for someone else, and end up hitting them with a broken bottle, shards of glass sticking out of…

  Just take a little bit. Just a tiny hit. A tiny little grain, that’s all I need. No more pain. No more seeing things. Just clean, clear power.

  A dot of blood wells up from my knuckle, touching my tongue. I pull my finger out of my mouth, spit, grimace, my head a little clearer.

  Fuck that. Not happening.

  Twenty seconds later, I slip out a door into the main depot. There’s a big flatbed train car near the door I came out of, its bed sitting empty, but with conveniently huge wheels to hide behind. I scoot down next to it, eyes closed, sending out my PK in a wide arc – or as wide as I can manage without passing out. The headache pounds at me, as if furious that I didn’t give it what it wants.

  Lighting in the depot comes from huge, widely spaced banks of fluorescents, most of which are burned out, leaving the space in twilight. There are low voices from somewhere nearby, along with the clinking of metal on metal.

  My heart starts to hammer. What seemed like a smart plan when I was kicking ten shades of shit out of Pop and company is looking less smart by the second. It would be pretty simple to take out most of the bikers on the floor, especially if their guns didn’t work. But I can’t stop them shouting, and I’m almost certain that whoever is holding Nic and Annie would hear them. I cannot let that happen.

  Of course, there’s a whole other side to the depot, opposite the end I came out of. More offices, more winding corridors, a whole open section that looks like a machine shop. I have maybe six or seven minutes, and I don’t think it’s going to be enough. I have no idea where my guys are being kept.

  Somewhere outside the depot, thunder rumbles. The rain’s starting to come down a little more heavily now. It’s full dark now – I have no idea what time it is, though. 7 p.m.? Eight?

  OK. Maybe if I get closer to the other side, I can use my PK to track down Nic and Annie. All I have to do is use it to locate a couple of guns close together. Guns means guards, and guards mean prisoners.

  I hope. I’m kind of winging this.

  I take another look over the top of the car, then scoot round it in an exaggerated roadie run, moving on the balls of my feet. At any second, I’m expecting a startled yell, thundering footsteps. I’m so wired for them that I almost lose my footing on a slick patch, cursing under my breath as I nearly trip over a rotting sleeper. Somehow, I manage to keep my feet, ducking behind a stack of plastic boxes. They’re identical to the ones you’d rent for an apartment move.

  Someone clears their throat around the corner of the boxes, no more than ten feet away. “I still say the eighty-one point game was the best.”

  “Are you serious?” The second speaker has a voice like charred gravel. I can already feel his gun, as well as his partner’s. “You think that’s better than Game Seven at Boston?”

  “Game Seven? No way. Kobe was the ultimate selfish player. I mean, he went six of twenty-four—”

  “And won a championship, so who cares?”

  “I miss the Mamba though, man. For real.”

  A few seconds of silence, followed by a resigned sigh. “Shit, me too.”

  I lick my lips, trying not to think about time ticking down.

  The last time I spoke to Nic, we were yelling at each other. And Annie… that argument we had. I can’t let that be the last time I speak to them. I don’t care what we were fighting over – it doesn’t even matter. I’m going to find them again. I won’t let them die.

  And Leo… Christ, if they’ve hurt him, I will tear this fucking building down with them inside it.

  I risk a peek over the top of one of the boxes. The bikers are twenty feet away – one bent over a Harley, the other leaning idly against a train car. He’s the one with the gravelly voice, and looks like a sasquatch dressed up in human clothing. I flash back to Pop – four feet tall, female, Haitian. How in the name of blue fuck does she hold sway over a man-bear like this guy? Who is she?

  I duck back down. Whatever. These two are distracted, not looking in my direction – I can sneak past them, get behind the next train car over.

  Just use the damn meth.

  My determination melts away like ice cream on a Venice Beach afternoon. Because if there was ever a time to supercharge my PK, it’s now, right? I don’t have time to play find-my-friends. I don’t have time to deal with imaginary attackers creeping up behind me. A single wrong turn, a single minute spent looking in the wrong place, and they’re done. And there are so many places to search.

  The indecision paralyses me. For a few seconds, I quite literally can’t move. All my attention is focused on my pocket. A few moments later, my hand moves on its own, feeling out the shape of the meth crystals. A tiny bit, just a couple of grains, enough to at least boost my echolocation. That’s all I need right? That’s—

  “Oh shit,” says a deep, gravelly voice from above my head.

  I look up – right into the face of the sasquatch.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Teagan

  I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.

  OK, yes, part of it was a giant genetics lab belonging to my parents, where they created me and my brother and sister. But a ranch is a ranch, and that means we spent a lot of our childhood playing with guns.

  Nothing crazy – my parents weren’t cult members, or militia psychopaths. We didn’t spend time drilling with AR-15s. But we had a fair few pistols and hunting rifles lying around. We spent a lot of time popping varmints and aiming at tin cans.

  Adam and I couldn’t hit a damn thing, but Chloe was a natural. It might have been part of the genetic ability my parents gave her: the ability to see infrar
ed radiation. I told her she was good because she could see the targets better than we could, and she just rolled her eyes and said that wasn’t how it worked. Then I may or may not have dumped a bottle of water over her head, and she may or may not have chased me around the yard with a giant stick while Adam howled with laughter.

  Point is: my idyllic American childhood means that while I might not like guns, I know how to handle them.

  Sasquatch’s pistol is a big one. A Glock, maybe. He is very startled when I take it away from him with my PK and jam it under his chin. He jerks in place, and his mouth snaps shut.

  I hold a finger to my lips, not looking away from him. Yes, I am short and not too fit and having one of the worst days ever, but I can be fucking scary when I want to be.

  “Minnie?”

  It’s the dude fixing his bike. I glance over quickly – he’s up on one knee, but hasn’t looked over his shoulder yet. That situation’s going to last about three seconds, after Minnie here – and what the fuck kind of biker name is Minnie? Is it short for something? Minneapolis, maybe? – doesn’t holler back.

  I reach out with my PK, snatch up the other biker’s spanner, and give him one hell of a whack on the noggin. He grunts, slumps against his bike.

  Do I feel bad about hitting so many people in the head? Leaving a trail of concussions and possible brain injuries? Sure. But they started it. And besides, no one gives Batman shit when he beats up a warehouse full of the Joker’s goons.

  Minnie looks like he wants to pass out, and tear my head off, all at once. His left hand quivers, starts to reach for the gun under his chin.

  I move it upwards, lifting his head. He actually goes up on his tiptoes. “Bad idea.”

  He stops, glowering at me. His gaze keeps flicking over my shoulder, as if expecting Pop and her goons to come to his rescue.

  “Hey.” I snap my fingers. “Focus, Minnie Mouse. You’ve got two of my friends. Tell me where they are.”

  He starts to speak, but I cut him off with a raised finger. “Just point. Jesus.”

  After a few seconds, he does, indicating one of the train cars about a hundred yards away, towards the middle of the depot. Only one end of it is visible. It’s a flatbed, like the one I hid behind… only this one has a shipping container plunked on top of it.

  There are probably a few more bikers standing guard – I can’t tell from here, they’re a little out of my range, but it’s a sure bet. Well, that’s OK. I don’t have to go over there myself. Not when I have Minnie to do my dirty work for me.

  Quick as anything, I zip the gun around to the back of his head, jamming the barrel into the fold of fat at the back of his neck. I certainly don’t plan on killing him… but he doesn’t have to know that.

  When I tell him what I want to do, the sour look on his face gets even worse.

  He slowly turns, starts walking… then looks back. “Who the hell are you?”

  I show him my teeth. “I’m Batman. Get moving, jackass.”

  As he turns, a thought occurs to me. “Wait. Give me your phone.”

  He stares blankly at me. I have to snap my fingers at him, like an entitled customer at a restaurant. “Come on. Give.”

  He hands it over. I didn’t think it was possible for the look on his face to get even more sour than it is already, but it does. I wink at him, pocketing his iPhone. Can’t have him sending texts for help while I have him under the gun, can we?

  I gesture to him to start walking. He threads a path between the trains, heading for the shipping container. I follow, keeping my distance – far enough to be out of sight, but close enough to keep my grip on the gun. When we’re within about fifty feet of the container, I duck behind a stack of rotting wooden railway sleepers, eyes closed, focusing as hard as I can. There can’t be more than a few minutes left on the clock, if that. Unless… unless I’m too late. They might have already…

  You would have heard the shot. Focus.

  Quickly, I explain to Minnie what I want him to do, ignoring the violence being promised by his eyes, then use my PK to get a picture of the area around the shipping container. Three bikers outside, their rifles and pistols and piercings and wallets showing up clear in my mind. Inside the container, two more. Other objects too – a set of keys, a ring, a thin chain. Nic? Annie? Maybe… but none of those objects are moving.

  I swallow, let out a breath, move the gun down to Minnie’s back, keeping it pressed tight to him. He can approach, and the other bikers won’t even know the gun is there.

  “Yo,” he says, his voice distant.

  One of the other bikers says something I can’t catch.

  “Pop wants ’em. Get ’em out here.” He’s doing a solid job, his voice not shaking at all. Good boy, Minnie.

  Another inaudible response. Then someone else says: “Why’d she send you down, bro? She’s supposed to call.”

  Oh, thank fuck. They’re still alive. I made it.

  “Beats me.” Minnie says. “She’s in with the other one. The one with the powers.”

  Laughter. “That’s some wild shit.”

  “Got that right. Anyway, let’s go, time’s a-wastin’.”

  There’s the groan-clunk of a shipping container door opening up. More voices. I sneak a look over the top of the sleepers, but I’m at just the wrong angle. I can’t see shit.

  I should move. Get a closer look. The objects in my PK field are moving though, the ones that I think belong to Annie and Nic starting to make their way out of the container.

  Man. It can’t be that far to Compton, can it? Maybe Leo’s family will have some food for us when we get there. If they’re Vietnamese, then chances are somebody in the house has some pho broth socked away. Maybe I could ask them nicely to heat it up. Throw in some thinly sliced beef, some noodles, a few crunchy beansprouts. I can actually taste it – hot and sour, the fat in the broth coating my lips, the beef only just cooked, maybe even a couple of tendons in there, the hit of chilli sauce and lime as—

  From somewhere near the shipping container, there’s the clatter of something falling to the floor.

  My head snaps up – was I asleep? Was that a microsleep? Did I actually drift off, now, in the middle of—

  One of the bikers says, “What the hell is that?”

  Another: “Is that a gun?”

  Ah.

  Fuck.

  “She’s here!” Minnie roars. “Kill ’em! Do it now!”

  I do not let them do it now.

  Here’s thing about microsleeps – and I believe I speak from experience here. When you snap out of them, you get a little burst of energy. Your brain goes, Holy smokes, that was close, I’d better be extra vigilant from now on.

  It only lasts about a minute before you’re drifting off again, but that’s OK. In my case, the energy burst even gives my PK a little boost. And in one minute, either we’ll all be free, or we’ll all be dead.

  “China Shop!” I yell. “Get down!”

  And then I go to work.

  I grab all the guns with my PK, rip them out of the hands of whoever is holding them, and hurl them away. Then I do the same thing for all the knives – and good Lord, do these people like their knives.

  It’s not going to be enough. So I focus, grit my teeth, ignore the headache and the hollow in my stomach, and grab one of the railway sleepers I’m crouching behind. Yes, they’re made of wood, but they’re covered in convenient metal brackets and rivets. I lift one up, and send it whipping through the maze of train cars.

  Imagine you’re an outlaw biker. You know you’re facing off against someone with psychokinesis, so you’re not totally surprised when you can’t hold onto your weapons. But you probably aren’t expecting to be suddenly attacked by a giant block of malevolent wood. In fact, if the sudden shocked screams are anything to go by, it would be safe to say that their gast is totally flabbered.

  I don’t bother with precision. I just zip the sleeper into the area around the shipping container and start thrashing it back and
forth. The air fills with shouts, yelps, the heavy thud of thick wood colliding with thick biker. Jesus, I really hope Annie and Nic heard me when I told them to get down. I stumble towards the fight, nearly tripping a dozen times.

  Nic and Annie lie in the dirt. Nic is face down, and Annie has curled into a ball, knees to her chest. They are surrounded by bikers, most of them unconscious. Minnie is crawling away, dragging a broken leg. A guy with a fully tattooed face is literally trying to fight the sleeper, throwing wild punches at it as it whips past him.

  It’s not going to be long before reinforcements arrive – there’s no way others won’t have heard this commotion. Then again, shouldn’t they be here by now? Of course, I took out a good-size group of them after Pop’s little interrogation, and I’ve wiped out an even bigger group here. There might be stragglers here and there, off in different parts of the depot, but this isn’t a videogame. Pop doesn’t have an infinite supply of henchmen.

  Nic and Annie have their hands cuffed behind their backs. Not a problem. Snap.

  The tattooed biker ducks under the sleeper and runs at me, arms outstretched, fingers hooked into claws. I raise an eyebrow, swing the wooden block around, and knock him on his ass. “Go to sleep,” I say. Which, all things considered, is actually a pretty good line.

  Nic raises his head to look at me, and my breath catches. His face is a bruised, bloody mess, his lips split and bleeding.

  And yet, despite everything, he manages to smile.

  I don’t get a chance to return it. Because that’s when Annie, who has also gotten unsteadily to her feet, catches sight of the crawling Minnie, and goes fucking nuts.

  In two strides, she’s over to him, and plants a gigantic kick in his chest. Full wind-up, running start, driving-from-the-hips pow. He gasps, mouth working like a goldfish as he tries to comprehend his snapped ribs, and the gasp becomes a horrid scream when Annie stomps down hard on his leg.