Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

Then again, given her aura of instant death, my guess is nobody said shit.

“Good afternoon, Ms Frost,” she says, leaning on the surname. After the whole thing with Jake and Carlos, I asked her to stop using my birth name. Well, asked isn’t quite right. I more or less told her, then hung up on her.

I find my voice, which was curled up in stunned surprise somewhere in my stomach. “You too.”

She’s holding two Buds. In her elegant piano-player fingers, the bottles look like a joke. She glances down at them, then passes one to Reggie, the one with a straw in it to make it easier for her to drink from.

“Apologies,” she says. “If I’d known you were joining us, I would have fetched a third one.” She looks down at her own beer, as if she can’t quite fathom how it landed up in her hand. “I represented us at the funeral, of course. And originally I wasn’t planning to come today, but I needed to be in Los Angeles anyway. I want us to meet as a team, talk about how we move forward. And offer Ms Cruz my support, of course.”

“That’s cool. So hey, listen, you can’t fire Reggie.”

Reggie, halfway through a sip, chokes on her beer.

Tanner raises an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know you were planning on firing her because you didn’t think she was doing a good job or whatever, and you absolutely can’t do that. It’s a stupid idea.”

Tanner frowns. “I don’t—”

“If you fire her, then you’ll have to fire me, too. I won’t work with anybody but Reggie. She’s the best computer person you’ve got, don’t try to tell me otherwise—” Reggie tries to interrupt, but there’s no way I’m going to let her cut me off. “—and I know there was that whole thing with Schmidt and the car arriving and Reggie not realising he’d left the hotel, but that’s only because she was checking out the earthquake thing, and if she hadn’t done that then we still wouldn’t know the kid did it and Cascadia would have gone off, so when you think about it it’s actually really lucky.”

Tanner tilts her head, examining me. Like I’m an organism under a microscope.

“Anyway,” I say. “That’s all I wanted to say. No firing. Reggie, I mean. She stays, or I go.”

Reggie clears her throat loudly, looks away. From inside the house, there’s the crash of a dropped bottle, followed by a gale of laughter and applause.

“Let me be clear on something.” Tanner’s voice is like a calm sea, with black shapes swimming just beneath the surface. “Any conversation Ms McCormick and I are going to have will be conducted in private, with all the proper protocol being observed. You will not—”

“Will not what? Defend my friend?”

“Teagan,” Reggie says. “This is not the time.”

“You didn’t come to LA for Paul’s thing.” I wave at the house. “You don’t give a shit about Paul. You came down here to can Reggie. Or am I wrong?”

Tanner looks away. “I don’t discuss personnel decisions with—”

Which is all the information I need. I turn to Reggie. “Wow. Your old Army buddy’s a cunt.”

Reggie gapes at me. Tanner’s teeth are gritted so hard I’m surprised her jaw doesn’t implode.

I don’t care. All the anger and horror and fear I’ve dealt with in the past two weeks is coming up for air.

“You are way, way out of line,” Reggie says.

“Actually, you know what?” I put a hand on the top of her chair. “I’m kind of done with giving you pep talks, Reggie. Because here’s the thing: she obviously knows about how you discovered the earthquake boy, and she has to know about all the stuff after. You were the one who kept us all going. You had the smarts to make us go to the museum. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. She knows that, and she still wants you gone? And you’re just gonna sit there and take it?”

On second thought, asking a quadriplegic if she’s going to sit there is probably not the best idea. Oh well.

“Ms Frost,” Tanner says slowly. “You’re going to go back inside. You’re going to drink your beer, and you’re going to forget you ever saw me today.”

“Do you get off on talking like this? Like you’re gonna vanish the second my back is turned or something? What are you, fucking Batman?”

“I am not—”

“She’s right,” Reggie says.

Tanner and I both look at her.

“Who?” I say. “Which one of us is right?”

Reggie doesn’t look at me. Instead, she tilts her chin up, eyes locking on Tanner’s.

“Moira,” she says slowly. “I know you believe I don’t have a hold on this operation. But if it weren’t for me, we simply would never have known about the boy. And beyond that…”

She pauses, as if gathering herself. I know exactly why. If there’s one thing I’ve gotten to know about Reggie McCormick, it’s that she has a real issue with talking herself up.

“After Paul was killed,” she continues, “I helped keep the team together. I did it without having the immediate ability to contact you and ask for orders.”

Tanner says nothing.

“If I hadn’t done my job, we would be in a different situation right now. You and I don’t always think alike, Moira, but that’s something we should use. It shouldn’t be something you view as a problem.”

“That’s right, go on, tell her.” I nod enthusiastically. It’s only a second later that I realise Reggie’s done.

Tanner is silent for a good fifteen seconds. Not speaking. Not moving. Just looking at Reggie. And Reggie stares right back at her, as if daring her to try argue this. If it wouldn’t look and feel really weird, I’d give her a little punch on the shoulder.

Eventually, Tanner takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Very well. We’ll continue as before, with the team structure intact.”

Forget punching Reggie on the shoulder. I feel like doing a victory dance. Reggie gives Tanner a small smile, nods her thanks.

“We still need to have a formal debrief,” Tanner tells Reggie.

“Wait a second,” I say. “How did you guys not know about the kid?”

“Teagan, enough now,” Reggie says.

“No, she doesn’t get off that easy. First she completely drops the ball on Jake, and then this kid appears out of nowhere, and—”

“Stop.”

Tanner’s voice is soft, so soft I shouldn’t be able to hear it over the noise from the house, but I do.

Her eyes on me, she bends down to speak to Reggie. “Would you give me a minute with Ms Frost, please?”

After a moment, Reggie nods. As she wheels past me, she nudges me with her shoulder. I find it, squeeze hard.

“I’ll see you folks inside,” Reggie says. Nestling her beer in the chair’s cup-holder, she trundles smoothly across the grass towards the back door.

It’s the first time I’ve been alone with Tanner in… shit, literally years. It is exactly as uncomfortable as it was the first time.

All the same, I’m not about to back down. “If you’re planning on giving me the runaround about me not being able to understand how this works…”

Tanner closes her eyes for a moment, as if steadying herself. When she opens them, there’s a different look on her face. It’s like she’s drawn a line under the previous conversation.

“First off, I wanted to say I think you did the right thing by bringing Mia Wong into the fold.”

Her praise takes me off guard, especially given the little rumble we just had. “The scientist? From the museum?”

“That’s right. It can’t have been an easy decision – you’re obviously aware of how seriously I take breaches of classified information. But… in this case, it was the right call. It resulted in actionable intelligence, and led us directly to the boy who called himself Matthew Schenke. I’m willing to give it a pass. This time.”