Jackson Ford - Eye of the Sh*t Storm

If my ability is to move shit with my mind, Annie’s ability is moving people. It was her contacts who put us in touch with the Legends. Annie’s Army, we call them – a deep network of connects stretching across California. Janitors. Senators. Construction workers. Doctors. Movie stars. Fluffers. Probably half the Lakers. Annie’s connects go deep.

Robert keeps glancing at me, and I’m pretty sure I know why. From his perspective, I’m the odd one out. A small-ish woman with short, spiky black hair, dressed in a bright blue Xzibit Restless tank top over skinny jeans and Air Jordans. Africa’s the muscle, Annie’s in charge… but he can’t work out what I’m there for, and it’s making him uncomfortable.

Good.

“Y’all want some coffee?” Robert rumbles, addressing Annie.

She shakes her head.

“You sure? I make a real good pot of coffee.” He gestures to a French press, bumping up against the bag of meth. “Nicaraguan Roast. I let the grounds bloom – that means you pour a little water in, let it sit for a minute before you pour the rest. It really opens up the flavour. You should try some.”

There’s a gun on the table, different from the ones the bikers have. A really freaking big gun, too, with a bulging scope and a stock you could use to split someone’s head open.

The rifle is a modified Heckler and Koch 416, if I remember the mission brief. The Legends are not supposed to have modified Heckler and Koch 416s. Nobody is, except the military. So it’s really worrying that this little gang of upstart bikers has a shipment of two hundred they are trying to offload in Los Angeles.

“How much?” Annie says. She sounds distracted, as if only just remembering why we’re here. That’s not good. She’s on point for this mission, and we need her to be on her A-game.

“Ain’t you gonna test it?” Robert asks.

“Later.” Annie yawns. “We got our own shop.”

Robert ignores her, getting to his feet and hauling the rifle towards him. One of his buddies passes him a magazine, which he inserts. “This is the gun that killed Osama.”

I can’t help myself. “That one in particular? No wonder you’re charging so much.”

One of the bikers stifles a chuckle. Robert gives him a dirty look. He swings the rifle up, points it into the blue sky and pulls the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. The shots are loud enough to set my ears ringing.

He turns around, grinning when he sees the looks on our faces. “Come on. Cops won’t do nothing. After the Big One, they’re running themselves ragged anyway. I could let off a rocket launcher up here, probably.” He pauses. “Are you interested in those, by the way? Because we could—”

“No.” Annie says. “How much?”

Robert falls silent, as if he can’t believe the disrespect we’re showing. He puts the rifle back on the table. The irony is, after the quake, government regs on guns are stricter than ever in California. Quite why the government never understands that making something illegal results in a massive black market trade is beyond me.

At last, Robert says, “Three grand per.”

Annie doesn’t hesitate. “Two.”

“Three. Best I can do, even wholesale. You can sell for four, and I got two hundred ready to go as we speak. That’s…” He frowns, glances at one of the other bikers, a short man with a really bad goatee and a beer belly, holding a rifle almost as big as he is. “Alan, what’s the profit on that?”

Alan rolls his eyes upwards, his mouth moving silently. Africa and I exchange a look.

“Two hundred large,” Alan says. His voice is nasally, monotone. Like he’s an accountant giving a presentation to the board. Hell, for all I know, that’s what he was before the quake. With what it did to LA, it wrecked a lot of lives. Maybe Alan’s was one of them.

Our mission objectives are simple. We confirm that the Legends are selling guns, and get a favour to take home from this party. We find out as much as we can about their base of operations, which is something I’m super-handy for – and we find out who their supplier is. Then we make an exit, report everything back to our handler, Moira Tanner, who then sends in a team of special forces to do the hard work while we go get a beer somewhere.

Why not just send in the special forces right away, you ask? Because America’s finest thick-necked goons don’t just go in guns blazing every time they get a whiff of something hinky. They want intel. Sometimes that means long stake-outs and planting bugs and ridiculous disguises, but it’s much easier to use your very own psychokinetic, who can case the entire building just by walking through it.

See, moving shit with my mind is only the start of my ability. To move things, I have to sense them, using my mind to track their position in space. That means I can easily build up a picture of my surroundings, even if I can’t see them.

I can feel the coins and phones in the pockets of every biker here, the shape of the rings on their fingers and the metal studs on their jackets. My ability also lets me know that there are bikers here we haven’t seen yet, other figures who will suddenly appear to tilt the odds if things do go south. I can feel the phone being held by the dude in the hotel room’s bathroom, feel it vibrate as he taps at the screen. Another two dudes in the suite’s bedroom. One of them is messing around with a pistol in a way that is probably going to get his dick shot off.

I call it echolocation, because I’m super-original and clever.

“Six hundred thousand.” Robert rolls the words out. He spreads his hands like he’s done a magic trick.

Annie drops her head, as if thinking about it. I sneak a glance at her, and what I see worries me even more. Her eyes are closed, her mouth set in a thin line. Like she’s having to gather herself.

I have a sudden urge to check in with Reggie – our boss, back at the office. She’s a former Army helicopter pilot who now runs China Shop, and is one hell of a hacker. There’s not a whole lot for her to do on this particular job, but she was still heavily involved in the planning, and she’s watching us right now. Each of us wear tiny, adhesive pinhole cameras on our shirts, undetectable by any sweeping devices. Sometimes, working for the government means cool toys.

Normally we have comms earpieces, too, but we left those at home. Hard to pretend to be gun-buying criminals when you have one of those in your ears. Anyway, the cameras have a very tiny mic, so Reggie can hear us even if she can’t talk to us.

Annie raises her chin. “OK,” she says. “Six hundred. But I am gonna run some tests, make sure these aren’t just stock.” She reaches for the gun. “Got a little setup out in Oxnard. Everything gravy, then we come back and settle up.”

Robert has the grin of a Hollywood actor: big and white and completely fake. “Hold your horses there. That little sampler doesn’t go anywhere without Pop’s say so.” Is it my imagination, or is there the very slightest waver of his smile as he says the name?

“So get Pop up here,” I say.

“Naw, Pop’s got more important shit to do. I will call though.” He pulls out his own phone… and stops when another biker pushes open the sliding door to the patio. He’s missing an arm, and the other is a forest of tattoos. He’s clutching a cellphone, and as he crosses the balcony to Robert, he gives me a completely blank look.

Uh-oh.

The guy bends down and whispers in Robert’s ear, like something out of a bad James Bond movie. Robert’s expression doesn’t change. A weird thought: he enjoys this. Enjoys the whole rooftop-balcony-meeting, Nicaraguan coffee, sophisticated criminal schtick. It’s the kind of thing he’d never have gotten to do when he was just a shitty street-level biker. For him, the earthquake represented a growth opportunity.