by Jackson Ford
Hands shaking, I snatch it away, jamming the cups over my ears and adjusting the stalk mic. It must have some kind of noise-cancelling tech inside it, because the chopper’s engines go from a roaring din to a low hum. Immediately, I hear bursts of chatter, distorted by static.
“Four-niner, four-niner, confirm position.”
“Not detecting any—”
“—lack of activity on the ground here, confirm your—”
“Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on.”
That last one is me. Either nobody hears it, or there’s a button I need to push to transmit. I fumble at the cups, fingers hunting for a button or switch that may or may not exist.
“Everybody be cool.” Burr’s voice is loud and harsh in my ears.
“How bad is it?” Annie appears to have forgotten her hatred of him for the time being, her voice urgent.
Burr holds up a hand. There are more voices on the line, clipped and frantic, and so staticky that I can’t make any of them out.
“Shaking’s stopped,” Burr says.
“They sure, boss?” the soldier next to me says.
“Yeah, copy,” Burr replies to another voice on the line. To us, he says, “They’re not sure what it was, but it wasn’t the big one.”
The soldier next to me, the one with the goatee, slumps back into his seat. He reaches across, and grips the hand of another soldier, a hard-looking woman with a wicked scar down her jawline. They grin at each other, wild grins, like we dodged a bullet.
“It might not have hit yet,” Annie says.
“Nah,” Burr replies. “They’re not getting any quake activity from the actual fault. They say they’d be seeing some by now.”
For a second there, I thought we were fucked. Truly and completely fucked. This is what someone must feel like after a delay stopped them getting onto a plane that crashed forty minutes after takeoff. Or someone who just, just missed being creamed by a speeding car at an intersection. Wide-eyed, blood rushing in my ears, the world around me curiously sharp. A nice little cocktail of adrenaline and dopamine and pure, unfiltered terror.
I finally find what I think is the transmit button, on the underside of the left ear cup. “So what was it? An aftershock from the San Andreas?”
Burr ignores my question. The familiar grin is back on his face. “Everybody, this is the freak show. Freak show, this is everybody. If I’m not available when you make a break for it, they’ll be the ones shooting you in the leg. And for the record, they’ve been briefed on that little thing you do.”
The woman with the scar catches my eyes, then rolls her own, which makes me feel a little better.
“We’ll be there in a half-hour,” Burr says. “Hey, freak show, you wanna do some tricks to keep us entertained? Maybe juggle something?”
“Sure. Toss me your wedding ring. Wait, that’s right, you left it home. Why is that, exactly?”
The man next to me snorts, and Burr’s smile falters. He looks away, the chopper banking, heading for the horizon.
FORTY-EIGHT
Amber
“Why isn’t it working?”
Matthew sends huge, furious columns of dirt exploding into the air, showering him and Amber and the body of Jocelyn with hailstorms of dust and pebbles. He uproots a tree, a big Douglas Fir. Amber screams as it crashes down, the thump somehow more terrifying than what her son is doing. Matthew kicks the fallen tree upwards on a wave of rolling dirt, sends it crunching into the trunk of another, half-ripping the second one from the earth. Roots dangle, dust clouds drifting on the wind.
Amber huddles in a ball by the truck, arms over her head. And as she watches her son, something inside her…
Snaps.
She believed she could control him. The belief was like an old, toughened tree branch, bending against a hurricane wind. But it’s been bending for too long, and it’s finally broken.
She’d told herself no matter what happened, it was on her to find a way to make him better. She couldn’t rely on anybody else to do it – she was his mom, and it was her responsibility. Nobody was going to do it for her – she had to step up, take the weight. Every book she’d ever read had said the same thing: nobody can help you, only you can help you.
As she watches her son rage, tears trickling down her cheeks, huddled on her knees amid clouds of drifting dust, Amber finally understands.
It’s like the discovery of the fault lines woke up something inside him, something more malicious than before. The state trooper he buried was one thing. Even the people killed in the earthquake, and that government agent at the stadium. But the trucker was trying to help them. And Matthew… he just…
She can’t control him. She never could. Maybe she might have been able to, once, but that was a long time ago. It’s just like every con she’s ever run. They might work, for a while, keep the money flowing in… but it’s not enough, and it’ll never be enough.
The strangest thing: with the branch broken, with the last part of her stripped away, she feels no guilt. As her son destroys the world around them, all she feels is relief. Through her tears, Amber finds herself smiling.
Matthew drops to his knees again, hands flat on the ground. The look on his face reminds Amber of what she’s seen on other children when they play: furious concentration, totally absorbed in drawing a picture or building a Lego castle. He’s breathing hard through his nose, forcing air in and out in quick, harsh gusts. Abruptly, he sits, cross-legged. Streaks of dirt cover his face, his fingers black with it.
“There’s not enough trapped energy here,” he says. His anger has vanished, snuffed out like a candle. Now his tone is thoughtful, considered. “I got ahead of myself.” In his young voice, the phrase sounds oddly formal. “And it makes sense. The closer I am, the better chance there is of letting it release. I shoulda thought about it first. That was barely a magnitude 7 quake.”
He nods to himself. “Cos with San Andreas, I was right over the fault. But Cascadia’s all the way out at sea, so I can only trigger it with an ETS zone. And I’ll have to be right in the middle. Or as close as I can get anyway. Amber, I don’t think you can drive that truck – it looks complicated. Go find us another car.”
Amber doesn’t move. She isn’t sure if she can.
Matthew says her name again, which means he’ll start hurting her soon. She doesn’t know what to do about that, and isn’t sure she cares. He was going to anyway, no matter what – she’d told Jocelyn to run, tried to save her. She’ll be paying for that, so why not just stay huddled here? Why not enjoy a few moments of calm, blissful nothing before the pain starts?
And then the oddest thing happens. Her son climbs into her lap, nuzzling in close. Stunned, Amber finds herself wrapping her arms around him.
“Do you love me?” he asks.
Her mouth falls open. It’s a question he’s never asked, not once. She’s not even sure he’s said the word love before.
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.” It’s automatic – but then, what kind of mother doesn’t love her son?
“I love you too.” He nuzzles closer.
A few minutes later, he says, “Just one more, and then I’m done,” he says. “I promise. I don’t even think there’s any more I could do, unless you take me to, like, South America.” He giggles. “And then… and then we can go live somewhere. We can have a house and a car and I’ll even go to school and I won’t hurt anybody, ever.”
“It won’t be the last,” she tells him through her sobs. “You’ll—”
“It will.” He looks up at her, his eyes wide, the same blue as hers. “I swear. Just one more, and I’ll never use my power again. I’ll be normal.”
Incredibly, he smiles. It’s the smile of a four-year-old boy, innocent and carefree and friendly. The smile of a boy in the arms of his mother.
It’s all a lie. Of course it is. He wants her there to buy food and get them rides and smooth the way. But Amber is no more in control of her response than she is
of… anything. She hugs him even tighter, lets herself fall into the feeling.
So it’s a lie. So what? There’s no point in fighting. No point in trying to control who he is. If she really wants to be a mom, a good mom, she’ll have to take him as far as he needs to go.
Amber kisses her son on the forehead, helps him to his feet. It feels like she’s given over control of her body to someone else, and she doesn’t mind at all.
“OK,” she says. “Tell me where we’re going.”
FORTY-NINE
Teagan
It’s mid-morning by the time we reach the Olympic National Park. The sky is overcast, and it’s still raining a little, but at least the sun is up behind the clouds.
All we need to do is identify Matthew. We don’t have to go near him – he shouldn’t even know we’re there. Burr and company haven’t actually explained the details of the plan to us yet, but it doesn’t really matter. I know how this ends.
My stomach lifts – we’re descending, the chopper banking low over the trees. The pilot puts us down in a dirt parking lot – there are big metal trash cans, a picnic table or two, the distant glint of a lake through the trees. We land with a thump, the soldier with the goatee reaching over to pop the door. The chopper interior goes from calm and still to full action in under five seconds, the soldiers hefting packs and weapons, scrambling out the door. We run, hunched over, heading for the picnic tables.
As soon as we’re clear, the chopper lifts off, the pilot flashing a quick salute before vanishing over the trees.
“He’s not sticking around?” I ask Burr.
“Negative. Don’t want to tip our boy off when he arrives.”
If he arrives. I shiver. Tanner can talk about logic and intelligence all she wants, but we are still gambling here. Trying to outsmart someone who doesn’t think like we do.
The parking lot is adjacent to a campground office. What is, in fact, a campground office: a log cabin with the words WELCOME TO VANCE CREEK CAMPGROUND on a big sign above the door. The building has a huge porch, empty of chairs and tables, and a vacant carport next to it. A thick stack of metal sheets sits propped against the side of the building – I can already feel them with my PK. They’re the kind of sheets you’d use for roofing on an outbuilding. Maybe the owners were planning on building a storage locker, and never got around to it.
There’s a firewood shelter, like we used to have on our farm in Wyoming, but there’s not a lot of wood in it. Hardly surprising – the camping season is long since done, so whoever owns this camp has probably shut up shop and gone somewhere warmer. When we’re finished here, I might do the same. I’m thinking an island – one very, very far from any fault lines. An island with a cocktail bar and a hot bartender.
Trees crowd in on all sides, big Douglas Firs. A slim road slopes down from the parking lot, cutting through them. Two hundred yards away, it dog-legs right, vanishing in the shadowy forest.
“OK,” Burr shouts. “Let’s get to it. Santos, on the perimeter, make sure the neighbours aren’t gonna complain. Grayson, De Robillard – pick your nest. Garcia, Okoro – get inside. Start setting up.”
“What you gonna do?” says one of the soldiers – the woman with the scar.
He grins. “Catch up on my podcasts, Okoro. Hustle up.”
She rolls her eyes again, heading for the building. When she gets there, she crouches, pulling a pick set from her pocket and going to work on the lock. I want to shout to her that I could save her the trouble, but I don’t quite know how to phrase it. The other soldiers head for the forest, carrying bags of gear.
Burr turns away from Annie and me, pulling a radio off his belt. “Control, this is Delta One Commanding Officer Kyle Burr. We are on site, awaiting contact. Confirm Deltas Two, Three and Four are in position and timeline is still as discussed, over?”
“Delta One, control, copy that. Mission parameters unchanged – you have a green light. Over.”
“Copy, Delta One out.” He looks to Annie and me, as if noticing us for the first time.
“Your name is Kyle?” I say.
He ignores me. “OK, ladies. Head on over where Okoro and Garcia went, and I’ll just need your passports and credit card details to get you checked in.”
“Uh… yeah, what exactly is the plan here?” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” Burr says, scanning the edge of the forest. “Just do what I tell you, you’ll be fine, freak show.”
Anger flickers across Annie’s face. I get there first. “Number one,” I tell Burr. “You call me freak show again, and I will find a way to break every finger I missed last time. Number two: you idiots wouldn’t even be here if we hadn’t blown the whistle. So let’s cut the need-to-know shit.”
“Little touchy there,” Burr says, still smiling. But he doesn’t call me freak show, and there’s a very slight wariness to his words.
“So? How about it?” says Annie, spreading her arms.
Burr rolls his shoulders. “If this kid wants to get to the main pressure zone or whatever it is, he’s gotta hike a little way into the park. Not all that far –” he points at the trees, to the northwest “– but still a couple of hours. This camp right here is the easiest way in – or at least, the closest entrance to his target area. It lets him cover the majority of the distance by road, which is what we assume he’s doing, especially if he has a parent with him.”
“If we know what road he’s coming in on, why hit him here?”
“Sure, we’ll just open fire on a public road. Nobody’ll notice.”
Ugh. Fine. “What happens when he arrives?”
“Only one approach.” Burr nods to the road, curving away behind the trees. “Santos’ll give us a heads up if there’s anybody coming. Grayson and De Robillard have the area covered from the trees. The three of us will be in the main building, with Garcia and Okoro as a secondary team.”
Which is when I understand. This isn’t a camp any more.
It’s a sniper’s alley.
“After both of you positively identify the target,” Burr says, yawning. “Okoro executes.”
“So, what,” says Annie. “You want us to be spotters?”
Burr raises an eyebrow. “You? Please. You don’t have the training. No, you and the fr—” He catches my warning look. “You’ll both be alongside the team, with your own scopes. You both give a verbal OK, we’ll do the rest. If we’re wrong, and he hits one of the other locations, then I’ll have a video feed running for you to eyeball. Any questions, class?”
Annie says nothing. Neither do I. I’m still trying to process the insanity of this situation. And trying not to think about what happens if he decides to go somewhere other than the four spots Tanner picked out.
“Good.” Burr nods, eyes back on the forest.
“That wasn’t so tough, was it?” I mutter.
His expression hardens, his eyes cold in the dawn light. “Know why I didn’t want to tell you? Go on. Take a guess.”
“Because you’re a giant tool?”
“Cute. No, I didn’t tell you cos I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. I wanted you to have exactly one thing in your minds at any one time, so your pretty little heads wouldn’t get confused.”
“Oh, fuck y—”
“Because,” he says, talking over me, “the entire success of our operation depends on you positively identifying the target. We get exactly one shot at this, and I am not going to let it get screwed up because a couple of civilians got ideas above their station.”
“Like what? What is it you think we’re going to do?”
“Don’t know. That’s the thing about having non-military personnel involved: you haven’t been trained to think under pressure. We have. So how about you let us do the thinking, and you two just do exactly what you’re told?”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
His eyes are narrow slits.
“I got family in Seattle, ” he says slowly. “I’ve seen what you can do
, moving shit all over the place, so I’m ready to believe there’s a kid out there who can cause earthquakes. I am not about to let what happened in LA happen over here. Now: you got two options. You can either shut the fuck up and follow my orders, or you can shut the fuck up and follow my orders. Are we clear?”
In the silence that follows, a flock of birds rise up from the distant lake, cawing in the still air.
“Good.” He jerks his chin at the camp building. “Get inside.”
FIFTY
Teagan
I read somewhere once that the life of a soldier is all about long periods of waiting, followed by short bursts of terror.
I don’t know if it’s true for all soldiers, or for all missions. If I asked Burr, he’d probably make a bad joke about how I’d never understand it, on account of not being a real soldier boy. But judging by my limited experience of military operations – i.e. this one – it’s a hundred per cent accurate.
It’s now around 3 p.m. We’ve been in the camp building for hours, doing absolutely zip. The rain outside has stopped, but the air is freezing cold, even inside. I’ve had nothing to eat but a few rock-hard strips of beef jerky, and I am starting to get mighty antsy.
And with every minute that goes by, every moment without sight of a car or a person at the bottom of the drive, my nervousness ratchets up. The little voice in my head gets louder and louder. They got it wrong. He’s not coming. He’s going somewhere else. They got it wrong. He’s not coming.
The inside of the building doubles as a general store, with racks full of camping supplies, sleeping bags, rolled-up foam mattresses and trail mix. There’s a wooden counter, a chalkboard behind it covered with an untidy grid detailing trail conditions. An ancient computer – the kind with a monitor that extends back at least a foot – sits on the counter, a keyboard and well-worn mouse on a pad beside it. I got a look at the pad when I came in – it’s one of those custom printed jobs, with two grinning little girls on a beach somewhere, both wearing floppy hats. Grandkids, maybe. Everything is covered in dust, the place long since shut up for the winter.
