Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

“Now that’s not fair,” he drawls, more amused than anything. He’s unwrapping a piece of gum, long fingers moving. “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what God you pray to, or what colour your skin is. You refuse to eat with your left hand? Who gives a shit?” He smirks at the pun, then grows serious. “But if you are a threat to me, my team or the people I’ve been ordered to protect, and you don’t stop when I tell you to, then you’re going down.”

He pops the gum in his mouth. “Of course, I don’t expect you to understand that. You can try to breed a supersoldier, but you can’t give them combat judgement. That only comes through experience.”

“This again,” I mutter.

“What?” he says, speaking around the gum. “It’s the truth.”

“You know, for someone who claims he isn’t prejudiced, you seem fine with hating on me for who I am.”

“I don’t hate you. Truly. I just think the whole supersoldier fantasy is bullshit. You can give someone all the physical and mental gifts you like, but the only thing that makes a combat professional is training and experience. That’s—”

“Well, yeah. Duh.”

He gives me a strange look. “What?”

“ Of course you need training to make a soldier. I don’t know why you think my ability is gonna change that.”

“Way I heard it, you were supposed to replace conventional soldiers.”

“Oh, you are such a douchetard, Burr.”

“Is that even a word?” Garcia says.

I ignore him. “We weren’t supposed to replace conventional soldiers , you idiot. We were supposed to stop the world needing them in the first place. Did they not brief you on this? You seem to know all these things about me, but did they not actually tell you what me and my brother and sister were made for?”

Garcia’s head whips round. “There’s more than one of you?”

“Guess that answers that question. There was more than one of me. I got the psychokinesis, Chloe got the infrared vision, Adam never needed to sleep. They tried to put all of those things in one person, but it didn’t quite work out. The whole point was to create someone who could end a battle before it even started. If you shut down the enemy right at the beginning, you don’t need war.”

“So someone to replace soldiers,” says Burr.

“ No . It’s not the same thing.”

“It’s literally the same thing.”

“It kind of is,” Okoro says, not looking up from her scope.

“Whatever. The point is, nobody actually asked us what we wanted. Me, my brother and sister. We were just told one day that this was what we were supposed to do, like we didn’t have any choice. Well, let me set your feeble little mind at ease, Burr. I’m not going to replace you. My family’s dead, and the government don’t have the first fucking clue how to produce more of me. You can shoot as many kids in Afghanistan as you want.”

“Yeah.” Burr spits his gum back into the wrapper. “Doesn’t change the fact that there are more of you. Like the kid making the earthquakes.”

I bite my lip. “Nothing to do with me. I didn’t make him. I don’t even know where he comes from. And I still have absolutely no intention of getting involved in a war. You know what I’m going to do? I’m gonna go to chef school. I’m gonna learn how to work in a professional kitchen, and then I’m gonna open my own restaurant.”

“You’re what ?” Annie says.

“Surprise.”

“Tanner—”

“Would never let me, I know, Reggie told me the same thing. That’s not actually the point, though. The point is—” I look Burr in the eyes. “The point is I don’t want to be a soldier, super or not. I never did. Your job is safe, Kyle . Congratulations.”

The cabin for silent for a long minute. Outside, the wind has picked up, the leaves of the trees rustling softly. I go back to my binoculars, scanning the road. Willing the tight feeling of worry in my chest to stay where I tell it to.

“What kind of restaurant?” Burr says.

“What do you care?”

“Just curious.”

Another few seconds of silence. Then he says, “You like barbecue?”

“Yeah. So?”

“When this is done, go up to Mukilteo. North of Seattle.”

“And what, exactly, is in Mukilteo?”

“Barbecue, dumbass. Diamond Knot Brewing. Best outside of Georgia. They got brisket that’ll blow your—”

At that moment, his radio crackles. Santos’s voice, clipped and hard.

“Delta One, Charlie. Contact.”

They’d hitched a ride with a family in an SUV – a young couple and their baby daughter, who had taken them as far as Castle Rock, just past the Washington border. Amber had wondered if Matthew might force them to go further, use his power on them. The thought wasn’t a worried one – it passed through her with a kind of cold detachment. If he wanted to hurt them, she certainly wouldn’t be able to stop him.

But Matthew had let them go with a smile, then turned and asked – not told, asked – her to find them another ride.

They’d found an old Corolla in the parking lot of a self-storage unit, on the outskirts of town. Amber had been thinking she could track down a piece of metal to open the door, when Matthew had used a rock to smash the window. Amber had watched the glass shatter, blinking slowly. Then she’d gone to work, opening the door and clambering inside and reaching under the dash, her hands practised and quick.

Get him as far as he needs to go .

The interstate took them into dense forests, and Amber found herself calmed by the huge trees. Matthew had already told her where to go; unlike California, there was still cell signal in Washington, and he’d wasted no time in pulling up Google Maps on his iPad – there was still some battery left, enough for him to spend a few minutes memorising the directions. Matthew used the rest of it reading up on wilderness survival tips. When Amber had asked him about it, he’d been uncharacteristically honest. “We might be quite far in the woods for the next one.” His fingers danced across the iPad’s surface. “I know we have supplies, but we should definitely know how to find water and stuff, and which berries we can eat.”

They drove for hours, well into the afternoon. The landscape became more rugged, the forest greener under the gathering sky. Every leaf seemed to shine with an inner light, a dark green glow, offset by the deep brown trunks and the black shadows in the canopy. Amber thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Just one more, and I’ll never use my power again .

At around three o’clock, they’d turned onto a gravel road, winding through the dense forest. Less than half an hour later, Matthew spotted the campground through the trees, and a moment after that, they rounded a bend and entered the parking lot. The Corolla’s balding tyres crunch over the gravel.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone around,” Amber says, peering at the darkened building. A sign above the doors reads WELCOME TO VANCE CREEK CAMPGROUND.

The lot is deserted, and Amber doesn’t bother parking straight. She pulls the car over at a diagonal, close to the main building. She’s suddenly aware of how much denser the forest is here, how tall the trees are. The shadows between them shift and move in strange, unearthly patterns. The camp building is silent, deserted. A stack of metal sheets propped against one side creak in the wind.

A sudden thought occurs. “Matthew, honey… we don’t have any water. For the hike.“

He gestures to the main building. “We can get some in there. And if the water’s off or whatever, I know how to find some in the forest.” He taps the iPad again.