by Jackson Ford
She’s never been in a helicopter before. Never even been on a plane.
At some point on the road to Big Pines, there was a truck. A soldier in camo, helping her into it. A bumpy ride in the packed flatbed, a dozen people talking to her, asking her if the dozing boy in her arms was OK. When the soldiers finally let them all out, it was into the parking lot of a ruined Walmart, the destroyed blue and yellow frontage somehow still lit by flickering floodlights. And there was a chopper.
Matthew had taken in the trickle of people, the small groups of them being ushered to the helicopter.
“I thought there’d be more,” he’d mumbled. “The lady at the museum said so.”
Then the helicopter. Soldiers saying they needed to move people to a central location. Someone yelling about Dodger Stadium. At first, it made no sense to Amber – surely if they had helicopters, they’d want to get people further away? Then again, if you had a city full of folks in need of urgent help, you don’t waste time trucking them out into the countryside. You want to bring aid to them, and preferably do it in a place they can reach themselves, if they can’t get to a chopper.
And before she knew it, Amber was in the air.
Matthew is glued to the window, gawking at the view, his frustration over the earthquake temporarily forgotten. He says something to her, his voice lost in the furious whir of the blades.
“What’s that, honey?”
“How long does it take to get to the stadium?” he yells.
“The soldier said twenty minutes.”
She doesn’t hear Matthew’s reply. A shadow falls over her, and she looks up. One of the soldiers, thrusting something into her face. A clipboard, pen attached. He barks an instruction at her, one she can’t make out. The other passengers have clipboards too.
Amber scans the page. Name. Family members. Next of kin. Contact numbers. The helicopter’s vibrations make it hard to write legibly.
She starts to write, then stops herself, hastily scratching out the letter D she put down next to First Name. She’s not Diamond Taylor anymore – she has to remember that. Diamond Taylor was a con artist, and not a very good one. She’s gone. It’s Amber-Leigh Schenke now, and she’d damn well better remember that.
Across from her, the soldier is dealing with a woman in what used to be a neat skirt suit. The woman looks like she’s in shock, refusing to take the clipboard, tears pouring down her cheeks.
Matthew yells something in her ear.
“What?”
“I said, I want to get closer to the ground. I need to see.”
At that moment, Amber’s bladder gives a horrifying wrench. The pain overrules the fear she feels of leaving her son when he wants something, and she unclips herself, looking around for a bathroom. For once, she ignores her son’s angry look.
A sudden horror. What if they don’t have one? Planes always do, she knows that, but military choppers might not—
There. At the far end of the interior, someone – a soldier or relief worker more quick-thinking than the others – has dragged a porta-potty on board, tied it down with thick canvas straps. Amber stumbles over to it, yanks the door open. The hollow plastic shell dulls the roar of the chopper’s engines, but only a little.
When she’s done, she stands and wipes herself, almost primly. The single-ply toilet paper nearly dissolves in her damp hands.
Ajay had to have known the earthquakes would happen, or something like them. How could he have made them leave the Facility? She should have confronted him, told him to find another way. Too late now. Far too late.
In a fog, she stumbles back to her seat. Matthew glares at her. “Where were you?” he yells.
Before she can answer, he says, “Tell them to go down to the ground. I wanna see.”
She can barely hear him, has to yell her reply. “Sorry, honey, they’re not going to do that.”
“You’re an adult,” he says. In the few minutes she’s been away, he’s become even more impatient, anger building like steam trapped in a pipe. “They’ll listen to you. Ask them.”
Amber half-rises, wavers, sits back down. How can he think they’ll do that? There’s no way, no way at all.
She doesn’t need to look at Matthew to know he’s furious. Anger radiates off him. He twists to face her, straining against his own straps. “I wanna see the ground!” he yells.
There’s no dirt here, she tells herself. Nothing for him to throw.
But there is.
Mud slicks the floor of the chopper. Everyone is dirty, their clothes crusted with it. Amber’s jeans are almost black, all the way up to the knees. And on cue, as she looks down, the lumps of mud on her shoes begin to move. Trembling, like they’re alive, slowly rising upwards.
He’s going to do something, hurt someone, hurt her, unless he gets what he wants right now. She has to stop it. They are packed tight into the chopper, all these people… even the soldiers won’t know what hit them. And what if he hurts the pilot, by accident? They’ll crash, plummet out of the sky. Terror paralyses her, locks her to her seat. She can’t look away from the mud.
But then, it stops. Slops back onto her shoe.
She’s never seen him this furious. His eyes are tiny, malignant dots of light in the darkened cabin. His shoulders tremble, his arms ramrod straight, fists clenched tight enough to whiten the skin. His mouth is set in a thin line, lower lip trembling. The air around her suddenly feels thick, stifling, like it’s been turned to runny oil.
Why isn’t he—?
Because he doesn’t want to reveal his powers – not around other people, and definitely not around the military. Not in a helicopter, where he might cause a crash.
He can’t hurt her. There’s nothing he can do. The thought is so big, so impossible, that Amber doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s like a prisoner, held underground for years, finally being led out into the sun, blinking, flinching from the light.
And on the heels of this: satisfaction.
Twisted and strange, but still satisfaction. She handled the situation. She controlled her son. She managed to stop him from doing what he wanted. And if it happened once, then it could happen again. She—
Matthew punches her in the face.
It’s not a hard punch. For all her son’s powers, he’s a skinny boy, almost scrawny. It glances off her cheek, rocking her head back, leaving her more dazed than hurt. It takes her by surprise, and so she doesn’t get her hands up in time to deflect the second punch. This one lands right on her upper lip.
Amber’s been beaten before. Sometimes they were small – a slap, a shove. Other times they were… bad. She learned very quickly which ones she could stop, and which ones she couldn’t. The ones where fighting back would only make it worse. And so when instinct leads her to grab his wrists and hold on tight, she doesn’t let go.
He howls, pulling as far as he can against his seat straps, trying to wrench out of her grip. When that doesn’t work, he starts kicking her, sneaker-clad feet hammering her knees and thighs. He spits in her face, the glob of saliva landing on her swollen upper lip, mingling with the blood. Matthew’s own cheeks are wet with tears, his mouth twisted in an animal grimace.
She’s aware of bodies around her – soldiers, civilians, concerned faces, hands reaching out to hold Matthew back. Nobody appears willing to touch him, even as he kicks and scratches and bites. “I’ll kill you!” he yells, his little-boy voice pitching higher and higher with each word. “Leggo. Leggo me!”
She pulls the two of them tight together, wraps her arms around him, locks him in her grip and whispers soothing words into his ear, ignoring his angry, anguished cries.
Because he is skinny. He is scrawny. And as exhausted as she is, it’s easy to lock him down. Amber’s breathing hard, almost gulping air, her shoulders hitching and her lip fat and throbbing. But she holds her son, holds him until he’s still.
Her thoughts are a hurricane, howling and raging. This is her fault. Of course he’d try to hurt her, even if he
couldn’t use his powers. She should have seen it coming – goddamnit, she should have controlled it. She could have asked one of the soldiers, or… or…
She has to stay calm. It’s just a temper tantrum, like any kid would throw. It’s all part of being a mom. Another quote from one of her books – one she’d actually written down on a Post-it, stuck on her fridge – When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
If she can hold onto him tight, show him that hurting her doesn’t work, that it doesn’t always get him what he wants…
He’ll learn. He’ll become the still child in her arms, face pressed into her shoulder. He’ll see how much she loves him, and maybe she can stop him from hurting anyone else.
And he needs her, even if he doesn’t realise it – no matter how smart he is. There are things she can do that he can’t. He can’t drive, or pay for a meal, or check into a motel. He can’t even walk down the street by himself before a cop or a well-meaning passer-by asks if he’s OK.
For all his powers, he’s still just four years old. And she can still be his mom.
It’s crazy. All of it. But that thought is easily brushed aside, a cobweb that vanishes into nothing and is forgotten almost as quickly.
There’s a change in the engine pitch. Amber’s stomach lurches a little – they’re descending. They’re dropping. It takes her a few stunned seconds to realise that the chopper is coming in to land.
Matthew’s realised it too. He wiggles out from her grip and presses his face to the window, scanning the ground, the past few minutes already forgotten. And yet, as they swoop towards the glowing bowl of Dodger Stadium, Amber tucks the knowledge away. Hoarding it.
TWENTY-SIX
Teagan
Seven p.m on the worst day in the history of LA.
We’re in the back of a troop transport, on the way to Dodger Stadium. I didn’t think it was possible, but it’s actually colder inside the truck than it is outside in the rain.
Maybe it’s because we were moving before. Now we’re just sitting still, crammed into the back of this troop transport, perched on freezing metal benches and trying not to move in case we accidentally elbow our neighbours in the ribs. Mine is a grouchy dude in a business suit, tie still done up. When I squashed down next to him, he gave me a look that said not to move even one inch into the space he’d carved out for himself.
I didn’t have the energy to insult him properly.
Reggie got a five-second examination from a harried medic, enough to establish that she didn’t have any life-threatening injuries. Maybe. Possibly. We won’t know for sure until someone can give her a ten-second exam at Dodger. We’ve been heading toward the stadium for the past two and a bit hours, the truck regularly jerking to a halt as the soldiers clear debris out of the road.
I’m freezing, starving, and more tired than I’ve ever been in my whole life. And yet, somehow, I can’t sleep. My body won’t drop off. Africa is conked out, mouth open, leaning on Annie’s shoulder. She and Africa are on the opposite side of the truck to Reggie and I, Annie tapping at Reggie’s laptop, ignoring the curious, shell-shocked looks from the other survivors. “Trying to see if I can boost the range of our comms,” she tells me when I ask her what she’s up to.
Reggie’s asleep too, snoring gently. I have to stop myself from waking her up and asking her what the secret is. I keep thinking back to the office – to the living room we’ll never have another planning session in, to the roof I’ll never again climb up to enjoy a sunset beer or three.
As for what I – or we – are going to do about this kid who can apparently cause earthquakes, I don’t have the first clue. Keeping myself sitting up is hard enough.
Weirdly, what’s getting to me the most is the lack of information. I want to know how bad it is – just how much of my city is gone. What we need is a TV, like Schmidt had on his plane. Some more words from Molly Zuckerman – that was the reporter’s name, wasn’t it? A strange little detail lodged in my mind. Good old Molly. She could give us the skinny from up there in her chopper. That’s right, Gina, we’ve learned that the earthquake was entirely natural and nothing more than a result of tectonic plates shifting. It definitely wasn’t caused by a small boy with abilities beyond his control. Our sources tell us that I know absolutely fuck-all, and that I have an annoying voice and terrible hair. Back to you in the studio.
We hit another bump in the road, the truck’s huge tyres carrying us over it. Reggie snorts awake suddenly, blinking next to me. She licks cracked lips, her unfocused gaze darting around the truck’s interior.
“Here.” I pull out the one bottle I still have on me, half-full of water. Reggie tilts her head back, accepting the drink. Annie looks up, concerned, then flashes me a quick smile of thanks.
“Got any more?” the businessman next to me says.
“Nope. Sorry, dude.”
He lapses into sullen silence.
“I never said,” Reggie tells me, when she’s drunk her fill. “Good job on Schmidt. That was quick thinking.”
“Paul didn’t think so.” Man, I hope he’s OK. Just because we don’t see eye-to-eye on stuff doesn’t mean I want him hurt. And Annie… she’s doing a good job of not showing it, but she’s clearly worried about him. She’s even more tense than normal, which is saying something.
“Paul doesn’t know everything.” She coughs. “I’m truly sorry, by the way. I should have been paying more attention to… to what Schmidt was doing. I should have spotted how he left his hotel.”
I’m about to tell her that it isn’t important – however she messed up, we’ve got bigger things to worry about. But before I can, she says, “I knew this would happen.”
“You… knew a kid with earthquake abilities would show up?”
“I knew someone with abilities would, eventually. We were caught unprepared last time, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.” A deep, trembling breath. “I wanted to show Moira. Prove to her that we were ready for anything.”
Tanner. She won’t know about the kid, that’s for sure. Will she be looking for us? Trying to get us out? I doubt it. She’s always been practical – chances are, she’ll let the National Guard do their thing.
“You don’t have shit to prove to Tanner,” I tell Reggie. “And you can’t plan for everything. Besides, that’s not what China Shop is for. We go out, we do jobs, we take down bad guys. Right?”
“I suppose.”
The defeat in her voice rattles me, more than I want to admit. “Reggie, it’s gonna be OK. This quake wasn’t our fault – there’s no way we could have known. If anything, Tanner’s the one who should have known about it. We’ll get to the stadium, we’ll figure out what to do about the earthquake kid, then we can worry about El Jefe. She’s not gonna get mad at us for this. How could she?”
“She won’t.” That same listless tone. Is it shock? Has to be. Annie will know what to do about it. I look around, trying to find some more water, half-sure that dehydration is part of the problem.
Reggie says, “She’ll keep China Shop around in one form or another. No doubt about that. It’ll just look… different than before.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
File that with Stay calm and Your ass looks fine in that dress under Things that never result in the intended effect, ever.
I’m saved from having to answer when the truck lurches, tilting upwards as it climbs over some obstacle. The back of the vehicle is open, and it looks as if it’s stopped raining. I don’t have the first clue where we are. Koreatown? Crenshaw? Hell, maybe even Leimert Park – if it is, I could hop off here, go see if anything’s left of my house. It’s probably pulverised, but at least I’d know for sure…
“I think Moira’s going to fire me,” Reggie says quietly.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“That’s why I was digging into the first quake. That missing trooper. I wanted to find… some
thing, I don’t know. I was distracted during the job, but I just…”
“Hold on. No no no. Tanner isn’t going to fire you. She can’t.”
Another sigh. “Sometimes, I forget how young you are.”
“OK, number one, fuck you, and number two… she can’t fire you. You run China Shop. You’re the whole reason we exist!”
“Technically, you’re the reason we exist.”
“You know exactly what I mean. And anyway, what the hell have you done to justify firing? Our jobs are going fine! Is it because of Carlos? Listen, that was as much her fault as anyone’s. I even told her after—”
“Would you keep it down?” grumbles the man next to me.
“Zip it, cupcake. Reggie: you’re wrong. Sorry, you just are.”
“Moira and I go back twenty years now. I know exactly how she thinks. She doesn’t just want good performance – she wants the right people in the right positions. Even more so now, after what happened with Carlos.”
“So she was asking you to come to Washington to can you?”
“I suppose she thought she owed it to me to do it face-to-face.”
“But you can’t know for sure!”
“I have a pretty good idea. Just things she’s said, the way she’s phrased certain emails. I can read between the lines.”
The idea of Reggie not being with China Shop is so dumb I can’t even begin to see how it would work. “You’re literally the best hacker in this country—”
The ghost of a smile. “You know that isn’t true.”
“The hell it is. Who the fuck is she going to get to replace you? I don’t think the guy who invented the internet is available.”
A thought occurs – and not a comfortable one. “Reggie, this isn’t because of – I mean, there’s no way Tanner would use your disability…”
