Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

“Nothing.”

The smile gets wider. “Come on. I can tell y’all from around here. We gotta look after each other, you know?”

There’s the sound of a very soft footstep at my five o’clock. Two – no, three more. Lining up behind us like a firing squad. They’re not as big as the dude in front, but they don’t look friendly. One of them wears a Rams football jersey, and there’s even one guy in a suit, tie pulled down.

Come on, man .

“That’s how it is?” Annie says, fiddling with something on her handlebars.

“That’s how it is,” says the big one. And just like that, he has a gun in his hand.

I see the pistol before I feel it, my PK registering the shape in his waistband as he reaches for it. If I wasn’t so goddamn freezing, I might have picked it up earlier. Behind me, one of the others draws a second gun.

“This ain’t gotta be hard,” Warriors Jacket says, sauntering towards us. “Just redistributing the wealth, that’s all.”

“ Redistributing the wealth? ” Annie glares at him.

He shrugs. “Saw it on CNN once.”

“Eh, eh, eh,” Africa says. It comes out like an animal growl, a bear clearing its throat. But his eyes are wide, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin neck. “Go away, yaaw ?”

“Look at you, man.” Warriors Jacket tilts his head, appraising Africa. “You their bodyguard, right?”

“Hey, Teagan,” Annie says. “You got us covered?”

“What, her?” His gaze lands on me. “She packing?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” I say. I hate guns. Fortunately, they are made of metal, with lots of moving parts. Like safety catches, which can be held in place. Like firing pins that can be twisted and bent.

I’m not planning on revealing what I’m doing. The last time I used my powers in self-defence, Moira Tanner ended up sending a black-ops team to bring me in. I only escaped because they didn’t realise how powerful I’d gotten – and if I hadn’t taken out the other psychokinetic who had framed me for murder, she would have made them keep at it until they succeeded. But a locked safety won’t arouse suspicion, and really, what the hell else are they going to do?

Footsteps, behind me – and then there’s cold metal against the back of my neck. “Off the bike. Now.”

Slowly, I raise my hands. “Buddy, take it from me. This isn’t gonna work out well for you.”

“I said , off the bike,” the man behind me growls.

Ugh. I’ve already got his gun locked down, so this is just a waste of time. I’m kind of tempted to do something stupid, let him hear the impotent little click as he pulls the trigger. See that stupid look in his eyes.

Which is when Africa throws his bike.

He just launches it. Yells like a goddamn banshee, and hurls the damn thing. It careens through the air, peddles whizzing. For a split-second, everybody just stares at it.

Then it hits the guy in the Warriors Jacket, sends him sprawling ass-first into the mud.

The guy holding the gun to my head pulls the trigger.

I admit it: I flinch. You would too. Fortunately, I’m good at my job, so the safety catch stays locked. The dude doesn’t even realise it’s on, because he’s been wandering around with the safety off. He’s lucky he didn’t shoot himself in the dick. He pulls the trigger again – just as Africa crashes into him.

“No!” Annie yells.

I may have mentioned that Africa is a big dude. The other guy doesn’t know what hit him. The only thing he can do is try to get his arms up to protect himself from Africa’s flailing telephone-pole limbs.

Which doesn’t stop the man in the Warriors Jacket from stepping forward, cocking his arm back, and pistol-whipping Africa across the face.

He’s smart. Smarter than the others maybe. He’s figured out something is wrong with his gun, and he’s adjusted. Africa happens to have his mouth open, yelling furious Wolof curse words into his victim’s face, when the gun hits him. His head snaps sideways, a spray of blood arcing through the air.

All of this happens in the space of about three seconds.

The blood spatters onto the rain-soaked pavement, Africa going down like a felled tree, face screwed up in agony, more blood gushing from his mouth. Annie takes a step towards him, only to be stopped by one of the others. Warriors Jacket tries to grab Annie’s backpack, darting out of range, laughing as she takes a swing at him. She’s exhausted, haggard, not nearly as quick as she normally is.

That does it.

Every rational thought I have about not revealing my power is pushed to one side by a blinding, furious rage. No more subtlety. No more keeping my ability under wraps. Moira Tanner is a very long way away. I am cold and tired and worried and pissed off and ready to wreck something.

I take their guns away. They don’t even resist when my PK rips the weapons out of their grip. It takes their blown minds a full second to catch up, to understand that the guns they’d previously been holding in their sweaty palms are now floating on either side of my head, barrels to the grey sky.

I release the clips, pull the slides back, eject the rounds in the chambers. The confusion in their eyes, the dawning horror, is sweet, sweet, sweet.

“Holy shit,” says one of them. I don’t even bother to register which one. In a few seconds, they’re going to be nothing more than specks on the horizon.

“You’re doing it wrong,” I tell them. “Let me show you how to pistol-whip someone.”

I spin the gun on my right at the nearest dude’s head. It crashes into his temple, and I catch it on the rebound, send it swinging in a long arc towards Warriors Jacket. The second one follows, both moving like big metal pinballs, bouncing between targets. It’s a goddamn festival of ouch. And in that instant, I don’t care about the consequences. My city is hurting, my friends are in trouble and these fucks – these assholes – are trying to take advantage.

In seconds, they’re running – or limping anyway, all four of them yelling in terror, hightailing it the fuck out of there.

“Mic drop,” I mutter. Then, with a thought, I hurl the guns into the air, in opposite directions, as hard as I can. They vanish against the dark grey sky, whirling out of sight.

Africa is up on his elbow, blinking, one hand to his mouth, Annie on her knees next to him.

“Jesus, bud.” I skid to my knees too. “Are you OK?”

He spits. A huge glob of blood. One of his front teeth is gone, snapped off, and his top lip is already ballooning.

“He look OK to you?” Annie says.

“M’good,” Africa murmurs. “Just… just some blood. I have worse before.”

I decide not to tell him about the tooth. He’ll find out soon enough, anyway.

“The hell were you thinking?” I say.

“Huh?”

“With the bike. We had it under control.”

“He was gonna shoot you.”

“No, he wasn’t. I had the safeties locked.”

“Huh?” His eyes are rolling around in his head like pachinko balls. What if he has a concussion, like Paul? Bleeding on the brain? What do we do then?

“The safeties,” I tell him. “They couldn’t use the guns. We were fine!”

Those wild eyes focus on me. “Then what you make them fly for?” He waves a hand around his head, like he’s swatting a fly. “The guns.”

“Um. Because we were about to get our asses kicked? Because you decided to play hero?” Christ, I can hardly follow this conversation.

“I was trying to make it so you don’t have to show them,” he mutters.

“Africa, what—?”

“You not supposed to tell people what you can do, yaaw ? So I try and fight them off first. I didn’t know you…” He coughs, hacks a gob of blood and phlegm onto the pavement.