by Jackson Ford
Then she shakes her head. Once to the left, once to the right, back to the centre. The very tiniest smile blinks onto her face, just for a moment.
And then, incredibly, she flips me a lazy salute.
In a daze, I return it.
Then she climbs back on her ATV, gesturing at Robert and the others to follow, and guns the engine. The crowd scrambles to get out of her way, and in seconds, the Legends are gone.
Africa is standing head, shoulders and chest above the crowd. He has the strangest expression on his face. A queer mixture of horror, pride and disbelief. He shakes his head, his eyes never leaving mine.
I fight my way over to him. He’s only about twenty feet away, but it seems to take for ever to get there. Everybody wants a hug, a fist bump, to give me a shoulder squeeze or a pat on the back. Someone starts chanting – the chorus of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win”, if you can believe that – and in seconds, half the crowd is singing along, wildly off-key, drunk on it.
I get within a few feet of Africa, and he reaches out for me, pulling me into a crushing hug.
It hurts. A lot. Every muscle aches, from my toes to my eyelids. All the same, it’s so, so tempting to just stay there, in the deep, warm circle of his arms, but I can’t. We haven’t won yet, I think. Because no matter how many faces there are in the crowd, no matter how happy they all are, I don’t see the faces I really want.
“Reggie,” I say. Thinking: Nic too. And Annie. And Leo.
“Huh?”
I pull away so my words aren’t muffled by his chest. “Reggie. We gotta go.”
He nods. “Ya, we go find her. Together.”
There’s no mistaking the question mark at the end of that word, hanging just out of sight.
I reach out, grip his arm.
“Always.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Teagan
There’s a lot Africa and I have to say to each other.
We need to talk about Leo. About everything that’s happened over the past few hours. We need to talk about whether or not we can actually work together any more: the ground beneath us was always a little shaky, from the moment he joined China Shop, and now it feels like it’s split into a huge chasm. One I have no idea how to cross.
Oh, and we also need to talk about how, exactly, we are going to deal with the goddamn fucking asshole known as the Zigzag Man. Personally, I’m in favour of holding him down and hitting him in the face until he stops moving, but I’m open to suggestions.
The problem is, I am finished. Done-zo Washington. I have passed somewhere beyond the point of total exhaustion. I pushed my body and my ability to the absolute limit, and as much as I want to have all of these conversations, I am completely unable to talk. The moment Africa drives the van away from the noise and chaos of the crowd, I pass out. There’s no slow slip into unconsciousness, either. One second, I’m awake. The next, it’s goodnight, Teagan.
At one point, I become aware of Africa trying to talk to me, his voice growing more and more frustrated when I fail to respond. It’s like a half-remembered dream. One filled with noise, bright bursts of distant lightning. Like I’m lost in the depths of a thundercloud.
Faces keep drifting in and out. Sometimes they look at me, but most of the time, they just pass me by. Nic and Leo. Africa. Reggie. Carlos, grinning at me, his face blistered and blackened. Jonas, with that enigmatic smile.
And Annie.
Africa is the last one. It takes me a minute to realise that unlike the others, he’s real. And then it takes me even longer to realise that he’s talking to me.
“Wake up. We are here.”
Even then, it’s not enough to pull me out of the darkness. It’s only when I hear the next sound he makes – a horrified intake of breath – that I finally force myself awake.
The van comes to a shuddering halt, Africa clambering out the door. We’re in a muddy field, lit by the van’s headlights. There are people visible in the light. And not all of them are on their feet.
I make a noise that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. A sick, desperate, animal gasp. I don’t care how done-zo I might be – I dig deep, find enough strength to clamber out the van myself. It’s a lot harder than it should be. My knee is in agony, jeans taught over swollen flesh. Dried blood crusts my face. It’s still pounding with rain, although I barely notice any more.
I don’t know where to look. Nic, Annie and Reggie, all down; no Leo, no Zigzag Man. Please, no. Please.
Reggie is closest. She’s propped up on a backpack, and as I skid to my knees next to her, she says, “She took him.”
“I—”
“Annie. Help Annie.”
“Is everyone OK?” Africa shouts. My breaths are coming quick and fast, as if I can’t quite get enough air into my lungs. The rain is falling thick and fast now, and it makes the air feel too thick, almost soupy. Nic is slowly sitting up, blinking hard, bald head shining in the wet. There’s something wrong with his face. It’s covered in blood, and his nose—
“Teagan.” Reggie lifts her arm, gesturing. “Get Annie. Go.”
That’s when I see her.
Really see her.
The awkward way she is lying, with her legs cocked out, as if broken. The strange angle of her head.
She’s not moving.
I don’t even register the run to her body (it’s not a body, she’s alive, she has to be). I’m simply there, as if I teleported away from Reggie. I can’t breathe. It’s not just her body position, bent and awkward and wrong. Her shoes are gone. Parts of her clothes are smoking.
Behind me, Nic is saying, “The backpack bomb – it was fake. They—”
Reggie: “Doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here.”
Africa, thundering: “What is happening? Who did this?”
I barely register any of it. I kneel beside Annie, my hands hovering. We need a doctor. We need—
Africa moves me aside. Almost gently. Then he reaches down, and lifts Annie off the ground. In his arms, she looks as fragile as a baby bird.
I can move things with my mind. I can lift cars, shred concrete, throw people through the air. I can stop an entire flash flood in its tracks.
And I have never felt as powerless as I do right now.
FIFTY-SIX
Reggie
There is video.
It’s not very clear, the footage jerky and amateur. It doesn’t show Teagan’s face – whoever took it was standing some way behind her, at the bottom of the storm drain slope on the south side of the homeless camp.
Teagan told Reggie she’d taken care of the phones, but she must have missed one. The video captures her standing alone, facing down the flood.
And it captures the moment when she stops it.
Unseen spectators yell in disbelief as it happens, their voices failing to be drowned out by the roaring of the flood. The camera tilts sideways, drops, as if the person filming can’t keep it steady. Then it refocuses, zooming in on the wall of water. Reggie watches it in silence. On the other screen, Moira Tanner stares at her. Her face expressionless.
It’s now almost 2 a.m. The video is already spreading. Hundreds of thousands of views already, increasing by the second. It’s on every platform. The first news stories have begun to appear. The memes. The hot takes.
Reggie isn’t sure if Teagan knows yet. She suspects not. The poor girl could barely stay awake.
Annie is still alive. Just. Small mercies, Reggie thinks.
After Teagan and Africa found them, they loaded Annie into the back of the van, and drove like hell for Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Reggie called Moira on the way. Give her this: the woman acted fast. She didn’t ask questions, just told them to drive faster. By the time they got to the hospital, there was a full team waiting for them at the ER entrance.
They whisked Annie away. Nic was admitted, although a cursory check from an ER doc showed that nothing he’d suffered was life-threatening. Africa insisted on having Reggie checked out, but aside from exhaustion
and a fuzzy hangover from the drugs, there’s nothing wrong with her.
Nothing physical, anyway.
She and Africa gave Teagan a ride home. The girl nodded absently when Reggie said she was going to speak with Tanner. She kept passing out, her head tipping forward onto her chest.
The office in Carson is the same as before. Unchanged. It feels wrong – China Shop, the world it operates in, has been turned upside down. Such a series of events demands chaos, broken walls, physical damage. But there’s none.
Well, except for her chair. Another one gone, she thinks bitterly. Moira had acted fast there, too. Reggie doesn’t have the faintest idea how she managed to conjure up a motorised chair from the other side of the country at one in the morning, but she did. It’s not nearly as nice as any of Reggie’s previous chairs, but she’s certainly not complaining.
The video ends. An invitation to watch multiple reaction videos pops up. Reggie grimaces, closes the window. Africa stands behind her, silent, body as tense as steel wire.
“What’s our play?” she says quietly.
Moira’s voice is as calm and still as a frozen lake. Never a good sign. “We have assets in Moldova and Macedonia. They’re already working to spread as much confusion as they can online – it’s surprisingly easy to muddy the waters. In a way, I suppose we got lucky – there’s the just the one video, for now, and Teagan’s face doesn’t appear on it. Also, I wouldn’t call the eyewitnesses exactly… reliable.”
Reggie wants to tell her that just because the people under the freeway were homeless does not mean they’re unreliable, but she holds her tongue. Right now, that would be less than helpful.
Moira says, “Tell me everything.”
Reggie takes a deep breath, and does.
The Legends. The Main Street Bridge. Leo. Teagan and Annie dropping off the radar. All of it. The only part she leaves out is how Africa lied to Moira – she can read the coldness in the woman’s face, the lack of emotion, and she has a sense of what’s coming. Throwing him under the bus would not help anybody.
When she’s finished, Africa clears his throat. “Mrs Tanner – that woman, the one who took the boy. They cannot have gone far. I will take Teggan and—”
“You will do no such thing.” Tanner’s voice is a deadly whisper. “As of now, Teagan Frost is off the board.”
Reggie’s blood turns to ice.
The deal Tanner had – has – with Teagan is brutal in its simplicity. Teagan works for Tanner, and Tanner does not hand Teagan over to the government departments who want to cut her open and see what’s inside – the departments run by people who think she is more useful to them dead than alive. Teagan is not supposed to reveal what she does, to anyone, ever. Especially not on video.
“You can’t do this,” Reggie says.
For the first time, a flicker of annoyance crosses Tanner’s face. “For heaven’s sake. I said she was off the board, not in custody. Although it’s going to take every ounce of political capital I have to keep it that way – every subcommittee and review board in Washington with security clearance will want to burn me alive. And until I can pacify them, I don’t want Ms Frost near any sort of operation. At all.”
“What will you tell them?” Africa asks.
Tanner appears to weigh her words carefully. “That she’s an asset. That she saved lives. That she is the one individual with extranormal abilities who we can control, and that that means she will be more useful in the field. And she should consider herself damn lucky. If this had happened a year ago, she would already be on a plane to Texas. But things are different now.”
Her eyes find Reggie’s. “There’s a very good chance my intervention may not be enough for my superiors. They may want to take a different route.”
Reggie lifts her chin. “Those people, the ones in the camp – they’re alive because of Teagan. If she hadn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand that? We are fighting a war here, and right now, Ms Frost has made it exponentially harder for us to do so.
“As it is, her actions must have consequences. From now on, she will be continuously monitored. Location, communications, all of it. And in ways she cannot disrupt or remove. I have given her far too much leeway, and that ends now.”
It hasn’t escaped Reggie’s notice that Moira has yet to mention her, or what she did. And as if picking up on this thought, Tanner says, “Ms McCormick, you lied to me. You compromised the integrity of our operation, at the worst possible time.”
“I—”
“I am removing you from your post, effective immediately. You are no longer head of operations for China Shop.”
And there it is.
Africa sucks in a breath, grips the back of Reggie’s chair, as if steadying himself. Reggie knew it would happen quickly, but it still hits her like a punch to the gut.
“I understand,” she says, amazed at how calm she is. “I assume you’ll want me to continue to act as the systems expert for—”
“No. As of now, your clearances are revoked. You are not to participate in or advise on any missions conducted by this government. Your services are no longer required.”
This time, it’s Reggie who sucks in a horrified breath.
A demotion was expected. A punishment of some sort. But this…
She should argue. She should fight this. She is one of the best hackers in the country, and China Shop can’t possibly run itself without—
And yet even as the thought occurs, she’s questioning it. What good would protesting do? Even if she could convince Moira to let her keep her position, it wouldn’t last.
Nemila was one thing. There was a time when Reggie would have called the bond between her and Moira unbreakable. The six days they spent in that forest had forged them in steel. They were closer than friends. They were sisters.
But it’s been a long time since Nemila, and both of them have changed. She knew this, even if she didn’t want to think about it. The bond between them had become as fragile as spun glass, and the last twelve hours have shattered it. From now on, every briefing Reggie gave would be suspect. Questioned. Interrogated.
Doubted.
That’s how Moira thinks. Why continue with her, when they could hire someone almost as good – and who, more importantly, will play by the rules? Moira is nothing if not a pragmatist, and what could be more pragmatic than that?
Tanner’s face softens almost imperceptibly. “Your medical insurance with the federal government will continue for the notice period, per your contract. Your final pay cheque will still arrive. And you have your settlement from the Army, of course. You can remain in the office quarters until you find suitable accommodation. But you are not to take part in any operations, in any capacity. Am I clear?”
She does not, Reggie notices, mention that this is the third destroyed chair in two years. Her version of being generous, she supposes.
“Mrs Tanner…” Africa’s face has gone grey. “This… I don’t think…”
“Mr Kouamé.” Tanner’s attention snaps to him. “You are the only person in China Shop who obeyed orders, and worked within mission parameters. As of now, you are the acting head of operations.”
Reggie can’t stop a stunned gasp from slipping out. Africa. Head of China Shop.
But why not? Why the hell not? China Shop as it stands is finished. Paul is dead. Annie may soon follow him. Teagan is… not herself. Reggie is no longer part of anything. So why not have Africa run things? What harm could he possibly do?
She finds herself embarrassed at the thought. As if he’s an imbecile, an amateur. She has to remind herself just how far he’s come, how seriously he’s taken his new role. He’s a long way from the damaged homeless man Teagan first made contact with. He has a life now, a steady relationship, a home, a job he clearly cares about and wants to be good at.
But this isn’t what he wanted.
Africa has always lionised Moira Tanner. Why wouldn’t he? She gave him everything he ev
er dreamed of. But as she looks him, Reggie is more sure than anything: he never saw himself doing it at the expense of the team. He probably thought that he might one day take over when Reggie retired. Not when she was pushed out, in the wake of a failed operation.
A spiteful part of her – a part she would have utterly ignored yesterday, but which is heard far too easily today – wants him to throw it back in Moira’s face. To say no, that is unacceptable. That he will work with Reggie, or he will not work at all.
But of course, he doesn’t. He straightens, and with only the barest glance at Reggie, says, “I understand.”
Reggie tries to be angry, but she can’t do it. Can’t even fake it, mostly because what she feels is relief.
Cold, calm relief.
A worrying thought tugs at her. Before she can get there, Africa voices it. “But so I am clear: you are saying I am acting head. Who is—?”
“It will take time to wrap up my commitments in Washington, and to meet with the various stakeholders to give them answers on what happened today.” There’s no hint of emotion from Tanner now – it’s as if she’s reading from a script. “Until I can relocate, you will take point on our operations.”
Until she can relocate?
“You are coming to Los Angeles?” Africa says.
“China Shop has not been as effective as it should. And given recent events, it’s clear that that is a situation I cannot allow.” She narrows her eyes, very slightly, as if steeling herself to begin an unpleasant job. “I will be taking command of the operation directly.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
Reggie
“Mr Kouamé,” Tanner says. “Your mandate is simple. You are to gather as much intelligence as possible on the man who attacked your team today, and his handler. Who they are, what they are planning, where they are located. If they were in Los Angeles, then they will have left a trail – accommodations, vehicles, supplies.”
Africa seems to be struggling to take this all in. “What about Annie?”
“If she recovers, Ms Cruz can join you. She will be subject to the same restrictions as Ms Frost, in terms of monitoring and communications. I will be sending additional staff in due course to implement that, and assist you in your duties.”
