Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

“So… wait, hang on.” I get unsteadily to my feet. “You started a fight so I wouldn’t have to use my powers, even though I was using them already. And then I ended doing the exact thing you tried to stop. And you got your ass kicked for it.”

Annie puts her hands on her knees, like she’s just run a marathon. “Y’all both need to work on your communication.”

Slowly, the reality of what I’ve just done settles across me. I revealed my ability. At least four people now know there’s a psychokinetic in LA. I flaunted it, showing off exactly what I could, purely out of anger. If this gets back to Tanner… if she finds out…

Annie’s eyes meet mine. “What’s wrong? They’re gone, OK?”

“It’s not that.” I swallow. “Annie, I… Please don’t tell Reggie. Maybe Tanner won’t find out – maybe nobody’ll believe them.”

“The fuck you talking about?”

“Annie, they know what I can do.” The panic starting to crystallise now, jagged and brittle. “They saw. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Yo.” She reaches across, grips my shoulder, very tight. “Be cool.”

“But they—”

“But nothing. Tanner isn’t gonna give a fuck.”

“Yes, she will.”

“Look around you, baby girl.” She sweeps her arm out, taking in the ruined street, the torn tarmac and wrecked buildings and burning cars. “Do you think that shit even matters any more?”

I gape at her. “Of course it does.”

“Wrong. The rules changed the second the quake hit. If you gotta use your powers, then you do it. You don’t even ask questions. OK?”

Somehow, I can’t see Annie’s argument working on Moira Tanner, or the horrifying agency that employs her. All the same, I can’t help but like her for trying.

Man, what a mess.

“Did you see my tooth?” Africa says.

I grimace. “Yeah, but I think one of those dickheads stepped on it and broke it.”

He makes a face, spits another gob of blood. “S’fine. I think maybe I needed a filling in that one anyway. No more dentist visit for me!”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works, dude, but you do you.”

He gives me a disgusting, bloody grin, picking up his overturned bike.

People are fucking weird, man. Drop someone in the middle of an earthquake and they will freak the fuck out, even if they suffered nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. Pistol-whip them, knock a tooth out and they’ll walk away like nothing happened.

I expected the Santa Monica Pier to be wiped out. But it’s there all right, windswept ocean water clawing at it. Even the Ferris wheel is still upright, although the rollercoaster isn’t. Neither are the buildings and restaurants that dot the pier. We take a hard left, heading down the beach path away from it, just three people out for an afternoon bike ride. Cold wind whips off the ocean, driving rain into my already-drenched face.

By quarter to four, we’ve hit the Venice Boardwalk. Or what’s left of it. The strip of shitty stores, overpriced bars, bike rental places and henna tattoo shops is torn to pieces. The palm trees that line the strip between the beach and the boardwalk have been ripped up by the roots.

It’s the wrecked trees that gets me more than anything. I’m sure I’ve already seen some today – there are plenty of palm trees in LA, all across the city. But this is the first time I’ve really noticed them, and there are so, so many.

More people, too, in the same dull groups as before. None of them bother us. Most don’t even pay us any attention. A couple have shopping carts loaded with their belongings. That makes me think of Harry, the homeless guy who hangs around Leimert Park. I hope he’s OK. He has to be, right? He’ll have been out in the open, surely?

No point trying to guess. I’ll just drive myself crazy. I’m already working overtime on not thinking about Moira Tanner, black site labs or spec ops teams with my name on their briefing board.

There’s a road in Venice called the Speedway, which is a stupid name, because it has an average top speed of four miles an hour. It’s even slower today: there are two troop carriers, parked at an intersection and surrounded by rifle-toting guardsmen. They don’t look as we pass them, too intent on loading people inside.

“Sir, if you could just stay calm,” one of the soldiers is saying to an irate man. “They’re sending in vehicles as fast as they can.”

“You still haven’t told us when that’s going to be!” the man yells back. His tie is pulled down, his upper lip crusted with blood.

“Just stay in the vicinity.”

“I don’t see why we have to use the big trucks. Why can’t we drive there ourselves? I got family at the stadium…”

“Sir, the APCs are the only vehicles that can get through the streets right now.” A trace of annoyance enters the soldier’s voice, but there’s desperation behind it, too, as if he badly needs the man to understand. “Just stay here, OK? We’ll send more as soon as we can.”

“Where were you ten minutes ago?” I mutter, as we pass them. Africa, riding next to me, doesn’t reply.

We turn left, zigzagging up past Pacific Avenue, heading for the little alleyway the office sits on. Paul’s Boutique.

Earthquake-proof, he said. Tanner and I fixed that up – we didn’t want Reggie in a situation where she couldn’t get out . I have no idea what that means in practice – how do you protect a small house when the ground beneath it goes insane?

Still, I trust Paul. He’s a pain in the ass when it comes to the details, but it’s saved us more than once, and it looks like it might have saved Reggie too.

As we approach our end of Brooks Court, right where it crosses 7th Avenue, I see my Jeep. The goddamn Batmobile.

It’s not overturned. It’s not damaged – well, one of its tyres is popped, the rubber blown out, but that’s it. The ground beneath it is cracked and sloping, but my shitty-ass car is just fine. Sitting there like it’s a normal day, like I could hop in and take a drive.

“Yes!” I point. “Takes a lot more than a little quake to—”

Africa sucks in a horrified breath.

“Oh, fuck,” Annie murmurs.

“Jesus, guys, what’s with you?” I say. “It’s not like I can’t change a tyre.”

Then I see it, too.

Paul’s Boutique.

The ground around the office has all but dropped away. It’s fallen three or four feet. The house, and all the houses around it, have just dropped into the earth. The Boutique has collapsed in on itself, the top floor imploded, the walls ballooning outwards into what’s left of the yard. The garage is gone. Wiped out.

“Reggie.” Annie’s voice comes out as a horrified whisper. She abandons her bike, sprinting for the Boutique. “Reggie!”

Paul was wrong .

The words run on repeat through my mind, like a song I can’t shake. He was wrong about the Boutique, about it being earthquake-proof. The stupid fucker was wrong, and Reggie is under there, under the collapsed roof and bowed-out walls and broken glass and—

I don’t know who gets there first – me, Africa or Annie. But within seconds all three of us are pulling at the rubble, yelling Reggie’s name, scraping the skin from our hands as we dig. Annie vaults to the top of the pile, bracing herself against what used to be part of the roof, digging in with both hands.

The chunk of wall I’m trying to lift is too heavy, my feet unable to get a purchase on the slick, sloped concrete I’m standing on. “Help me with this,” I snap at Africa – only for my mind to clear, like a camera lens snapping into focus. “Actually, forget that – just stand back.”