by Jackson Ford
If she’s still alive after Cascadia, he’ll make her really sorry.
He skids down a short slope on his ass, scraping his hands on a tree branch as he pulls himself up. He stops for a second at the bottom, listens for anyone coming after him. There’s plenty of noise, all right – mostly shouting, and all of it behind him. He’s a little too far away to have any real control over the dust cloud he made, but that’s OK. Dust hangs in the air for a while, and by the time they realise he isn’t there any more, he’ll be long gone.
A smirk worms its way onto his face. He should have buried himself. He could’ve put himself right under the ground with just the tip of his nose poking out. It would have been tricky, all right. He would have had to position the earth just right, so he could breathe, and so they wouldn’t see him. But it would have been awesome. Completely hidden, while they ran around trying to find him.
The ground is mostly flat now – a small clearing in the trees, with a steep drop maybe twenty feet away, on his left. He needs to get as far into the forest as he can. They won’t have read as much as he has, that’s for sure – they won’t know the right way to go. The whole way here, he was on the iPad, reading up on the Olympic National Park, looking at YouTube videos from hikers, browsing survival tips in case they got lost. The ETS zone is to the north-west of the camp, so all he has to do is keep heading in the right direction. He’ll sense it, sooner or later…
A rustle from above him, high in the trees. He spins round, craning his neck, expecting to see the woman who could fly. If anybody could figure out where he’s gone, it’d be her – she was high up, so she might have seen him pop out the cloud of dust and go behind what was left of the building. But there’s nobody – it’s just the wind, hissing through the leaves.
Matthew turns – and Amber is standing right there.
She looks awful. Haggard, exhausted, dirty. But she can help him – she can go find food and water for them, while he figures out the best spot to tap into the ETS zone.
“It’s this way,” he says, pointing at a gap in the trees.
Amber turns, very slightly. Raises the gun she’s holding, gripping it with two hands.
Points it right at him.
SIXTY
Amber
Amber has never been good at playing the long con.
Oh, she could make someone believe in her… for a little while. Enough to get a few bucks in her pocket. But she never quite knew how to string someone along, make them believe in her and keep believing her. She could never read those particular angles.
But then Matthew killed the trucker, the one who helped them get out of California. Jocelyn.
It wasn’t the people he might kill in a quake, who he would never meet. It wasn’t someone trying to stop them, like that government agent at the stadium. Jocelyn had been nothing but good to them, and Matthew killed her anyway.
It had broken something inside Amber. She was wrong to think of it as a branch, finally snapping against a hurricane wind. It was more like… like a stone, thrown at a window – one which doesn’t quite break through. The glass cracks and spiderwebs. The light passing through it bounces in strange directions, changing what’s on the other side.
And Amber had seen the angle.
She knew what she had to do.
She would never be able to control Matthew; she was a fool for trying. He was too powerful, too suspicious of her. But there was another way… and it needed every bit of skill she had.
That was what the soldiers hadn’t understood, and the woman, the one like Matthew – the one who’d lifted her into the air, dumped her on the other side of the camp building. You couldn’t take him down by force – not head on. You had to con him, make him believe you were on his side, until you reached the only time where he’d be completely focused – when he’d be utterly oblivious to the world around him.
Right before he caused an earthquake.
As they’d driven up to Washington, Amber had turned the thought over in her head. It had felt awful, poisonous, like holding a rotten fruit in her hands. She’d wondered if there was any other way she could do it – it felt insanely risky, waiting until he was on the verge of causing another quake – but she came to the conclusion that it was the only way.
To save the world, to save herself, Amber would need to pull off the con of her life.
She thought about waiting until he was asleep, but she had a sense that he wouldn’t sleep until it was done. And she wasn’t sure she could do it – stand over her sleeping son, in the dark, and murder him. And if she messed it up…
Driving them off the road was another option. She was in control of the car, after all. But that would kill her as well as him, and if she didn’t get it exactly right, he might survive. The consequences were too awful to contemplate.
Nobody else could do this. Only her. It was her responsibility. It made her feel sick, turning her stomach, but that didn’t stop it being true.
Things might have been different. If she hadn’t slept around like she had, if she’d never ended up at the School, if, if, if. Her whole life has been a series of missed chances, opportunities she didn’t take – or ones she took that she shouldn’t have. It was crazy to think this would be any different.
She’d take Matthew where he needed to go. She wouldn’t fight him. She’d wait until the moment he was locked in, focused on releasing the fault line, and then…
That had nearly made her throw up, right there in the driver’s seat of that hotwired car. The how.
A rock would be best, she supposed – there’d be some of them around, surely? It felt almost poetic – her earth-moving son killed by a rock to the head. That had been the most horrible thought of all. But she couldn’t think what else to do.
Then they reached the campground, the soldiers ambushed them, and Amber saw the gun go flying off into the trees. She hadn’t planned for that to happen; it was if God had decided to make it a little easier for her.
And yet, she’s still messed it up.
He knew the moment he’d spotted her holding the gun. She could see it in his eyes. She should have kept it hidden, made an excuse, anything. Too late now.
The shouts of the soldiers are very distant now. The wind rustles the trees above them, whispering to the leaves.
And to Amber’s amazement, Matthew does nothing.
Just stares at her, aiming the gun at him.
He’s surprised, she realises. He never expected me to do it.
For perhaps the only time in Matthew’s whole life, she has the drop on him.
Amber holds the gun carefully in both hands, hardly shaking at all.
He’s a murderer. A demon. Something horrible that she helped create. She could blame the Facility all she wanted – maybe he would have turned out differently if she’d never gone there. But he still came from her. She has to kill him.
He’s my son.
The gun is pointed right at his chest. Her finger tightens on the trigger.
Do it.
His eyes are huge. Stunned. Uncomprehending. He doesn’t look like a monster. Like someone who would kill thousands of people. He looks like a scared, confused child. One who needs his mother.
Right then, all Amber can think about is the moment they placed him in her arms for the first time. She doesn’t want to, can’t afford to, but it’s impossible not to go right back to the way she felt. The wave of uncontrolled joy and terror, the stunned realisation that she had made this – this truly beautiful thing. If only she could have frozen time at that moment…
Before he began to kill. Before he became what he is now.
DO IT!
The rock that hits her is the size of a basketball. The second is only slightly smaller. They connect on either side of her rib cage, crushing it, launched hard enough to turn the organs inside to pulp. Amber jerks, the gun slipping out of her fingers. She tilts her chin up, and coughs a huge spray of blood. Matthew steps back to avoid it, his eyes narrowed in triumphant
slits.
Amber feels no pain: just a sudden, strange lightness. As she drops to her knees, the rocks falling away, she becomes aware of how hard it is to exhale. There’s a breath held tight in her lungs that she can no longer push out. That’s OK. She’s become very used to holding her breath. All she has to do is…
But her legs won’t move. Her body has stopped listening to her.
The colour begins to leach out of the world. Amber topples sideways, her head hitting soft moss, the blood from the enormous wounds in her sides soaked up by the good forest soil. She blinks, tries to speak, say her son’s name.
He isn’t even looking at her. He’s running, heading for the trees on the far side of the clearing.
Strangely, the way her body feels now is familiar. When she’d throw herself in front of a slow-moving car during a con, it always felt a little like this. No matter how carefully you timed it, there was always that stunned moment as you lay on the ground, that moment where the connection between your body and your brain shorted, sputtering like live wires ripped from a socket.
No. Diamond Taylor was the one who felt like that. Diamond Taylor threw herself in front of cars, and she got back up afterwards. What’s happened to Amber-Leigh Schenke is much, much worse. And Amber-Leigh Schenke – she understands this now, the thought flowing through her mind like ink through water – is going to die.
Amber blinks again – it feels like it takes a long time. When she opens her eyes, the gun is there.
It fell right next her. Less than a foot from her chest. Without fully understanding what she’s doing, she reaches for it, her numb fingers brushing the barrel.
No noise now. Nothing but the soft rush of blood in her ears. There’s no pain, and that’s good.
Amber-Leigh Schenke is dead. Diamond Taylor is still alive.
Diamond the con artist.
Diamond, who could never find a way out, who was born in Barelas and would die in Barelas and would spend the time between living a life that no self-help book in the world could fix.
Diamond, who might still be able to pull off her long con after all.
Somehow, she gets her hands around the gun. It’s only when she aims at her retreating son’s back that she registers how hard she’s shaking. Her arms shudder with the effort. She still can’t exhale, can’t get enough strength in her chest.
She’s looking down a long, dark tunnel. She doesn’t know how she entered it – perhaps it’s always been there, and she just couldn’t see it until now. At the very far end, a million miles away, her son is about to disappear into the trees.
Diamond doesn’t realise she’s squeezed the trigger until the gun jerks in her hands.
In the distance, Matthew – Lucas, his name is Lucas – falls. His arms fly out on either side of him, his back arching as his feet leave the ground. A split second later, he’s gone. Tumbling into the trees.
Diamond’s world is silent. Dark. She closes her eyes, just for a moment, just to rest them.
And finally, she exhales.
SIXTY-ONE
Teagan
Ow.
Fucking… oooowwww.
I don’t know if you’ve ever fallen flat onto your back from height, but it sucks. I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the signals from my body over the years, and right now, it’s saying: I am going to be bitching about what you’ve done to me for a long time, and you totally deserve it, you monster.
I stare up at the sky, blinking. It takes me a second to process that I can actually see the sky – it’s not hidden behind a huge dust cloud any more. I try to sit up, and get another message from my body: don’t you fucking dare – I’m still mad at you.
To try calm it down, I wiggle my big toes. I’m bracing myself for the inevitable lightning bolt of pain that will tell me I’ve broken something important, but it doesn’t come. Ditto for my fingers. And the fact that I can actually move them means I haven’t broken my stupid neck.
Slowly, I prop myself up on my elbows. It feels like it takes my head a long time to swing all the way up.
Here’s the one advantage of fighting a kid who can attack you with earth: his attacks create a lot of churned-up ground to break your fall. I wouldn’t call it a soft landing, exactly, but it’s not a hard one, either.
Ladies and gentlemen, Teagan Frost is alive.
Just.
There’s still a ton of dust in the air, but it’s starting to settle. The whole camp is a churned-up nightmare. I landed a few feet away from the destroyed woodshed – one of my trusty metal roofing sheets sticks up out of the ground, like a flag. Maybe I’ll take one home with me as a souvenir.
The camp building has no roof left, of course. Hardly any walls either. A toppled-over rack of trail snacks hangs out a smashed window frame, the packages swinging in the breeze. Dazedly, I wonder if destruction by superpowers is covered under the owners’ insurance policy.
Turns out, trying to look everywhere at once is a terrible idea. I might not have broken anything, but my neck is… not happy with me. After I’m done wallowing in agony for a few moments, I open my eyes to see Burr. He’s a few feet away, in a tight huddle with Okoro and Garcia. Okoro looks dazed, a huge gash on the side of her face still leaking blood. But her eyes are focused, her gaze steady as Burr points towards the forest.
I can’t hear what they’re saying. There’s nothing in my ears but a steady ringing. I squeeze my eyes shut, and slowly, the voices begin to fade in.
“… north by north-west,” Burr is saying. “Garcia, get on the horn. I want helos in the air from McChord, as many as they can spare. If they’ve got drones on-base, I want them too.”
Okoro steps to one side slightly. Annie is standing behind her.
The relief that floods through me when I see her is like a drink of ice-cold water.
Annie’s still holding her rifle. Her face and clothes – that damn TSA uniform, same one I’m still wearing – are smeared with dirt. She’s scanning the trees, as if looking for—
Shit – the kid!
He’s nowhere to be seen, which means he got away. I try to get to my feet, but my body decides this is a terrible idea and drops me right back down.
Annie and Burr are getting into it now. “You need us out there,” Annie says.
“The hell we do. You’re a civilian. I want you –”
Burr frowns as he spots Annie’s rifle. He grabs it from her, twisting the barrel away from him. She tries to fight, but then Okoro puts a hand on her shoulder, hissing something in her ear.
OK, sick of being an innocent bystander. And how dare these assholes try tell Annie to butt out, after she and I saved the day? The kid is still out there, and they’re going to need as much manpower as they can get.
On instinct, I reach out to the rifle with my PK, thinking I should put it back in Annie’s hands—
And get nothing.
I am tapped. Out of juice. Donezo Washington.
Ah, fuck.
Annie spots me. She pushes past Burr, almost falling as she stumbles across the torn-up ground. She yells my name, skids to her knees next to me. “We gonna get you an ambulance, OK? Just—”
“I’m all right,” I tell her, vaguely surprised I’m still able to speak.
She wipes her face. “Jesus. That was—”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Frost.” Burr walks up, looking murderous. “Both of you, get inside.”
He points to the wreck of the camp building. I’m about to say that it doesn’t exactly have an inside any more, but Annie gets in first. “Hell no. You don’t get to cut us out of this.”
“Sure I do. Get your ass to cover, wait for extraction.”
“Uh, hello?” I wave – an act that makes the muscles in my arm file a formal complaint. “Do you not think maybe having someone who can move shit would be useful? You know, like it just was two minutes ago?”
The familiar smirk creeps across his face. “You’re out of gas, Frost.”
“I’m
good.” I spit a glob of dirt-flecked saliva. “Let’s do this.”
“Really?” He taps a heavy, black flashlight, squirrelled away on his belt. “Move my torch.”
“I—”
“Go on. You bump it even a little, I’ll let you come with us.”
I stare back at him, waiting for my PK to kick in. After a few seconds, I drop my head. “Fuck you.”
“Thought so.”
“That shit don’t matter, man.” Annie speaks through gritted teeth. “He’s still out there.”
And then Burr does the damndest thing. He drops to one knee, looking intently between us.
“You guys did good,” he says, his voice a low monotone. “For real.” He glances at me. “That was quick thinking, with the… you know.” He wobbles his hand in the air, imitating my little hoverboard trick.
“Yeah.” Annie still sounds furious. “So let us come with you. We can help.”
“Frost is done, and you’re a civilian. Both of you are. You’re not gonna be any use out there. We’ll find him, and this time, we’ll nuke his ass with a hell-fire missile from thirty thousand feet. See him try block that shit.”
Burr looks at me again. I’m expecting the usual scorn, the almost amused contempt. Instead, there’s something else there. Not respect exactly – it’s more like he’s seeing me for the first time.
Huh. He doesn’t know that I bumped Okoro’s rifle, right before she shot at Matthew. He must think she missed – if he thought otherwise, he’d be a lot more pissed off. Christ, what does Okoro think? Does she know? I look past Burr, but the sniper is turned away from me, deep in discussion with a shaken Garcia. In the distance, a helicopter is approaching, the whup-whup coming in above the trees.
Annie is still furious. “No, see, that is some bullshit. We—”
“Annie.” I put a hand on her arm. “It’s OK.”
“Are you serious?”
“… He’s right.”
And he is. Without my PK, I am next to useless. The fear is coming back now, the fury that I let the kid get away – that we let him get away. But it doesn’t change the fact that I would be precisely zero help right now. And while Annie can definitely handle a weapon, she doesn’t have the training for this kind of thing.
