Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

Admittedly, our little 9.3 is a bigger job. It’s been slow-going. But it’s surprising just how much has been achieved, even after two weeks. Several freeways are still down… but there are also plenty that can now handle traffic. It’s going to take a long time for LA to feel normal again. Maybe years. But it’s a lot better than it was a month ago.

Whole sections of the city still don’t have power. But it could have been much worse – at least the fires were contained. The debris was cleaned up – or pushed to one side anyway, so cars could get past. The population plummeted in the days following the quake, but people have slowly been moving back.

We are not a post-apocalyptic wasteland. We are not Mad Max , or San Andreas . We’re a city that took the biggest punch the earth can throw… and we’re slowly getting back off the mat.

After our little adventure in Washington State, Tanner put us up in a hotel in Seattle. A good one, with a bed bigger than my living room. Weirdly, I didn’t want to be there at first – I wanted to get back after the kid. I’d positively identified him. I’d tried to talk to him, and it almost got me killed. But as Burr put it: what the fuck was I planning on contributing? He had his own people combing the woods, along with the entirety of the Air Force’s drone complement, and I was being ordered to butt the fuck out. They’d find the kid, observe from a distance, and take him out. Gives me shivers just to think about it, but it’s a good strategy.

I could have gone out there, I guess. I don’t see how in the hell they were going to stop me. Instead, I put on the complimentary bathrobe, the one so big it went down to my feet, and completely wrecked the room service menu, ordering everything remotely good. Then I got blackout drunk.

When I woke up, I stayed in bed for a long time, trying to process the fact that I can move organic matter. Something I had no idea I could do .

I practiced. Wouldn’t you? Tried moving some flowers in a vase. I got the same sensation – that tinnitus again – but I couldn’t actually move them. I needed adrenaline. Or fear. Or anger. Something. At that particular moment, all I had was bone-numbing exhaustion.

Annie stayed in her room. Whenever I knocked on the door, she just told me to go away.

I spent a lot of time walking around Seattle, trying to get my head straight. Ate at restaurants whose names I don’t remember. Got drunk at bars. Talked to strangers and waved off dudes trying to pick me up and waited for the world to end.

It didn’t. And after a while, Tanner sent us down to LA. The way today is going, I kind of wish I was back in that fluffy bathrobe, drunk out of my mind on overpriced minibar champagne.

I rest my arms on the low wall, beer dangling, and let out a low sigh.

“Hello there.”

Reggie makes me jump. She’s off to one side, by the corner of the lot. Her new chair is a slim, motorised model in hospital-white; it doesn’t look like much, but apparently it handles dirt and grass just fine. It’s nothing on the beast she had before, but as she pointed out to me, she doesn’t have a Rig to drive any more. Reggie’s chair: another casualty of that fucking kid. Along with just about everything else in this city.

“Scared the shit out of me,” I mutter, but without much feeling.

“Oh good. Thought I was losing my touch.”

I snort, despite myself. “Yeah. Even without your old super-powered stealth chair. I never used to hear that thing coming.”

She bursts out laughing, wheezing a little. “That piece of junk? Good riddance. You would not believe how often I had to plug it in to charge.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you a new one. If you’re really nice to me, I’ll make it fly. You can have a floating chair, like the bald dude from the X-Men.”

“Or MODOK.”

“Who?”

“One of their bad guys? MODOK? Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing?”

“That cannot be his name.”

“Of course it is. You’re half my age, how have you not heard of him?”

“Not a big comic book person.”

“Really?” She looks genuinely surprised. “Your education in the classics is lacking, young padawan.”

“That one I do know. Don’t you young padawan me. And is that really the guy’s name? Like someone actually wrote that, and people took it seriously?”

“Of course.”

“And you’d rather be him than baldie?”

“Professor X, yes. And of course. MODOK’s a big head in a floating chair. Describes me perfectly.”

This time, my laugh is genuine. Even so, there’s a sense that the little chit-chat we’re having is like skating on ice over a very dark, deep pond. We’ve got a shit-ton to discuss, and it feels as if neither of us really wants to go there yet.

I lift my bottle to my lips, right as I realise she doesn’t have anything. “Hey, what are you drinking?”

“Hmm?”

“The Coors is pretty nasty, but I think I saw some Buds in there somewhere – at least you can drink those. Oh wait, you’re wine, huh? I’ll get you—”

“Already got someone fetching me some.”

“Oh. Cool, cool.”

The silence between us isn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be.

She shakes her head. “I’m glad you’re OK, darling. I heard about how the boy…” She clears her throat. “How he did to you what he did to Paul.”

I haven’t told her – haven’t told anyone – about my sudden ability to move organic molecules. Don’t plan to either, not until I’ve got a handle on it myself.

“Yeah,” I say, draining the last of my beer. “Not fun.”

“That’s one way of describing it.” Reggie’s voice is a little harsher than before, more uneven. She’s not looking at me, gazing at some point in the distance. She blinks, then says, “Hell of a thing, you getting out in time.”

“Yeah,” I say, not meeting her eyes. “Annie helped.”

“Did she now?”

What was it she said, back when we were first arriving at Dodger? You think I haven’t noticed how much more you can lift nowadays? How much more control you have? You’re getting more powerful, and it’s starting to make people very nervous .

“Um. So.” I straighten up. “Whoever you sent to get you a drink obviously couldn’t find their ass with both hands, so I’m gonna—”

Reggie glances over my shoulder. “No need.”

I turn, and Moira Tanner is standing right behind me.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her in two years. I’ve spoken to her on the phone, gotten text messages from her, heard her commands relayed through Reggie. Seeing her here, standing in Sandra-May Cruz’s backyard, is like having a storybook monster suddenly pop into existence at the foot of your bed.

She’s dressed for DC, not Los Angeles. Leather flats. Dark, tailored suit over a white shirt, buttoned to the neck. No jewellery, not even an American flag lapel pin. Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure she was wearing the exact same outfit when she sat across from me at the Facility in Waco all those years ago, and told me that I was going to be working for her. It’s easy to picture her closet, nothing but five or six copies of the exact same suit. Maybe a dark blue one for the office Christmas party.

She has the blank, neutral face of an Easter Island statue. Long angles and hard bones, eyes the colour of old ice. Her hair is pulled back into a severe bun. There’s more grey there since the last time I saw her, but only a little. If the folks in the house were wondering why there was a Navy dude’s picture in Sandra-May’s living room, they must have bugged the fuck out when Moira Tanner walked through the door.