by Jackson Ford
That gets him a strange look from me. Since when is Africa so keen to keep Tanner informed?
Annie is just inside the door, staring at nothing. I take a step towards her. “You OK?”
She snaps her head up, like a wolf scenting blood. Then she takes two strides, and grabs me by the front of my tank top, lifting me off the ground and slamming me against the wall so hard I nearly bite my tongue.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she snarls, her mouth inches from my face. Her breath, hot and harsh, smells very faintly of whiskey. She’s not drunk, I know that, but she’s definitely had some.
“Annie!” Africa tries to insert himself between us, doesn’t get anywhere. I just gape. I don’t know what else to do. My feet kick at open air.
“We could have been fucking killed,” Annie says. She shoves me harder into the wall, then abruptly lets me go. I thump down onto the carpet, nearly losing my balance.
Annie doesn’t back off, not even when Africa tries to pull her away. She jams a finger in my face, eyes blazing. “Next time you wanna get us thrown off a fucking balcony, leave me at home. Jesus Christ.”
She shoves Africa off, walks into the middle of the suite, her back to us. I’m too stunned to be angry.
To be fair, this isn’t the first time Annie and I have taken a high-dive together. Last year, we did a job in a skyscraper in downtown LA – a job that ended up with us trapped on the top floor, with no way out. I may or may not have grabbed Annie and punched us through a window, eighty-something floors up.
Annie is terrified of heights, absolutely one of her worst fears. I’m still apologising for that little stunt.
“What is the matter with you?” Africa stops, lowers his voice. “Annie, that is not helpful, huh? Teggan was not the one who threw us.”
Damn right. Last time I checked, I actually saved us. Is she mad because I… what, because I let it happen? What other choice did I have? Reveal my ability? Hope it all worked out?
I thought I made the right decision. It was scary, and dangerous… but it got us out of a bad situation unhurt, didn’t it?
“Annie—” I say.
She snaps up a hand, still not looking at me. “Don’t.”
“I just… If I could have told you, I totally would have…”
“I said: don’t.”
I just saved your life back there. I open my mouth to say it, but Africa clears his throat. Gives me a very firm shake of the head.
My voice is low. “I was only gonna—”
“Mm-mm.”
“But—”
“No. Leave it, yaaw?”
He’s right. If I’m honest, I sort of do know why Annie is being a prick. And it makes me want to throttle her and hug her, both at once.
China Shop used to have a logistics guy. Paul Marino. Ex-Navy quartermaster, a detail-minded pain in the ass… and Annie’s lover. Paul died a few months ago, buried alive by a psychotic little boy named Matthew Schenke, who had the ability to control the earth. It was him who caused the big quake here in LA.
Annie is angry. Grieving. Nothing wrong with that – it’s healthy – but the problem is, she’s taken a lot of that anger out on me. For months now, she’s been cold towards me, snapping at me, sometimes even leaving a room when I walk in. At first, I thought I was imagining it. But it kept happening, and then I mentioned it to Reggie, who said she’d noticed it too.
I didn’t kill Paul, but it’s as if Annie thinks I had a part in it – that because Matthew came from the same research my parents used to make me, I was partly to blame.
Which hurt, let me tell you.
I eventually got up the courage to ask Annie to ease off on me, without actually mentioning Paul or the boy who killed him. She nodded, said she was sorry, said she was going through some shit. I nodded too and smiled and said it was OK. Then a few days later, things went right back to the way they were.
Annie shakes her head. “Elevator. Let’s go.” She strides past me, stopping in the suite’s entrance hall, by the door. Waits.
When neither Africa nor I move, she gives me a pointed look.
“Oh.” I snap my fingers. “Sorry. Yes.”
I send my PK out past the door. There’s nothing and nobody in the hall, and after a nod from me, Annie steps out. Half the lights aren’t working, and the other half flicker on and off, like the world’s most depressing rave. Annie lopes to the elevator, jabbing the call button.
“Who the fuck told them about China Shop?” I say to Africa.
A troubled look crosses his face. “I do not know.”
“Somebody’s trying to get up in our shit.”
“We will talk to Reggie later. She might be able to do a trace.”
On what? Robert’s phone? Maybe – Reggie is that good. It would be a real pleasure to find whoever just ruined our op, and exactly how they know about China Shop. Then throw them off a building.
That’s a problem for later. After we get out of here.
The elevator dings. Annie steps to one side, out of view of the doors. Smart – no point exposing ourselves if the bikers happen to be on their way down to ground level to confirm the kill. That would be an embarrassing way to get caught. Africa and I slip into a door alcove, hiding ourselves from view, and I close my eyes, concentrating on the rising car.
“Clear,” I murmur.
The elevator ride is exactly as awkward as you think it is. Let’s leave it at that.
The doors open onto a service corridor in the basement – one suffering from the same lighting problems as the floor we were on. Bare concrete, mysterious stains on the walls, janitor’s bucket lying on its side. I don’t know if the janitor knocked it over today – maybe he stepped out for a smoke, decided he’d pick it up when he got back – or if it fell over in the quake, and just sat there.
The basement might be a dump, but it’s a signposted dump – there’s a metal plate bolted to the wall, block lettering pointing us to JANITORIAL, LAUNDRY, KITCHEN, UTILITY ROOM. “Employee parking lot should be close,” Annie mutters.
“We gonna drive?” Africa moves alongside her. “We left the van back at—”
“I know. We can jack something if we have to.”
The tight corridor muffles our footsteps. The adrenaline rush from our little couch stunt is running out, leaving me cold and shivery. Hungry. That’s how my PK works – using it requires fuel. Good thing for me that the fuel is usually food and sleep, both things I’m quite fond of.
Shit, maybe there’s a kitchen down here. I could snag something. Then again, the hotel’s abandoned, so it’s not like they’re offering room service.
I’m pretty sure Annie and Africa want us to get the hell out right now, but it doesn’t look like we’re being followed. If the bikers are anywhere, they’re one floor above us, confused about why there are no splatted bodies on the sidewalk. Would it really be so bad if I just grabbed a snack?
I send my PK out in a wide arc, searching through the walls, checking for the familiar shape of ovens and utensils and fridges.
And that’s when I pick up something… kind of odd.
I push between Annie and Africa, sending out my PK in invisible waves of energy. “And now?” Africa says.
“The parking lot’s this way,” Annie snaps, pointing to a faded sign on the wall.
“Yeah, just a second.” I look left and right, make sure that I’m feeling what I think I’m feeling. That the hunger and adrenaline aren’t giving me false positives.
My PK leads me back the way we came, down another passage, this one crowded with old, slightly rusty silver food carts. I weave between them, ignoring Africa’s hissed questions and Annie’s exasperated sighs.
I feel the bikers before I see them. Or rather, I feel their guns. Two big semi-automatic rifles, although not of the modified-psychotic-oversized Army-gun type.
I take a quick peek around the corner. The two men holding them are standing in front of a big double door, which I’m pretty sure is the bac
k entrance to the kitchen. I only get the briefest glimpse of the two, but there’s at least one beard, one pair of dumb mirror shades, and a whole lot of very bad tattoos. We must have arrived right at a lull in their conversation. No sooner do I pull back behind the corner, then one of them starts talking about his girlfriend. It’s in the bored tone of someone who would very much like to get home to her. That’s OK, homie. Let me send you on your way.
I slip their gun safeties on, doing it slowly so they don’t hear it. Africa and Annie have sidled in behind me.
“OK,” I whisper. “Go get ’em.”
“What do you mean, Go get ’em?”
“Take ’em out. I’ve taken care of their guns.”
“Teagan, what the fuck? What are we doing here?”
“We need to go, now.” Africa glances over his shoulder. “We have to—”
“Hey!”
That last one comes from the bearded dude. He heard us talking, and has now stuck his head around the corner.
I wave. “Hi there.”
He steps around the corner, gun coming up. “On the fucking ground,” he barks, just as his partner appears. “Now!”
“Fuck no. It’s been months since they cleaned this floor.”
“The hell with this,” the other guy says – the guy with the terrible mirror shades. He jerks his gun up, aims at my chest, pulls the trigger. Or tries to. When it doesn’t work, his finger flies to the safety. Which I currently have locked. Which makes him stare down at his gun with a stupid look on his face.
“Yeesh.” I wince. “Don’t worry. Happens to the best of us, champ.”
Bearded guy roars, charges Africa – who decks him right in the mouth, knocks him out cold. Hey, just because the guy isn’t good in a fight does not mean you want one of his punches connecting.
Beardy crumples like a two dollar card table. His buddy is a little smarter – he ignores his gun, goes for the walkie clipped to his belt. Which goes nowhere, obviously, because I’m holding it in place.
I’ll say this for Annie: whatever she’s going through, she can move hella fast when it counts. She steps in, twisting from the hip and punching the guy in the solar plexus – once, twice, three times. He falls, gasping like a goldfish, fingers scrabbling at the wet concrete.
“’Scuse us.” I step over him, nudging through the door to the kitchen.
“OK, now, Teggan.” Africa is breathing hard. “Why you make us come – oh.”
I smile, pleased my PK didn’t lead me astray. “Yeah.”
The doors open up into a big food prep area: long tables, low fluorescent lighting, big plastic bins. There’s a faint odour of old food – spinach, oysters, something tangy like sriracha – but it’s drowned out by a sharp, urine-like stench. And it’s not hard to see why. They don’t prep food here any more.
I count at least forty Ziploc bags of meth, stacked neatly on one of the tables. At the far end of the room, a blinking figure in a hazmat suit is poking his head out the door of the main kitchen, wondering who we are and what the hell is going. Behind him are the things that led me here: the beakers and rubber tubing and big ventilation units.
Apparently, it’s not just guns the Legends are selling.
I spread my arms, sketch a bow to Annie and Africa. “I’d like to thank the Academy.”
FOUR
Teagan
The lab itself is in the main kitchen, through another set of double doors at the other end of the prep area: a mess of equipment and chemicals scattered across disused stove tops.
A meth lab in the kitchen of a busy hotel would never work in regular circumstances, but these are not regular times. Nobody’s checking in upstairs any more, or ordering room service – and if there’s a nasty smell coming from the vents at street level, who’s going to complain? There’s so much toxic shit in the air from the quake, it makes the usual LA smog seem like Chanel No. 5.
I didn’t sense any of this when we arrived at the hotel. Wasn’t really paying attention to my PK.
Someone – one of the meth cooks maybe – has hung a fluffy toy of the RV from Breaking Bad on one of the pot hooks. An attempt to make the workplace a little brighter, which is one of the most nauseating things I’ve ever seen. It makes me irrationally angry. How dare these shitbags turn a kitchen – a proud place, a place for art and honest work and good food – into a drug lab? And then make a joke out of it?
I vent some of the rage by snapping all the Bunsen burners, choking off the plastic tubing with my PK, then fucking up the valves on the chemical tanks. Kitchen’s closed, motherfuckers.
There are two meth cooks, and no other guards. Not exactly surprising – when your lab is in a hotel already bristling with your people, putting more than a couple to guard the lab seems like overkill. The main doors in the big kitchen are barred and padlocked, so there’s only one entrance – the door we came through.
I keep my PK on the alert for any guns approaching the lab, but there’s nobody around. It’s a little worrying at first, but then again, why would anybody come check on the lab? If you throw three people off a balcony, and their bodies vanish between you and the ground, you don’t go hunting in the basement.
My gaze lingers on one of the stoves. It’s a Jade Titan, a commercial model with super-powerful gas burners. Man, what must it be like to be in charge of that thing, standing over it with all six burners on full? Steaks sizzling, pasta in the back, sauce reducing. Pastry chef would be melting chocolate in another pot over the boiling water, of course, and there’s no way I’d be able to resist—
I sigh, tapping my fingers on the counter.
I have got to stop doing this to myself.
I never wanted to be a government agent. Still don’t. The only reason I’m doing this job and working for Tanner is because if I don’t, she’ll hand me over to a bunch of scientists who are itching to cut me open and see what I’m made of. What I really want to do, more than anything in the world, is be a chef. To cook, in a professional kitchen, just like this one. I used to have these big plans about using my off hours from my secret agent job to go to cooking school, eventually figuring a way out of this mess and pursuing what I really wanted.
Problem is, it’s not just the threat of dissection that keeps me working for Uncle Sam. There are other people out there like me – other people with abilities. All of them have been bad news. Tanner convinced me that I’m one of the best people to try and stop them. But she also said that I had to commit to it – I couldn’t train to be a chef on the side, not when it would distract me from the mission. And as much as I hated to admit it, she was right.
I’m still going to be a chef one day – I don’t know how, especially since there are very few cooking schools left in Los Angeles after the quake. But for now, I’ve had to put all of it on the backburner.
Backburner. Poor word choice, in this case.
Before long, the guards and the two meth cooks are bound and gagged, thanks to a roll of duct tape Africa pulled from his jacket. Of course he has duct tape. If I suddenly needed, I don’t know, a printout of the Declaration of Independence, I’m pretty sure I’d find one in Africa’s inside pocket, along with coins in ten currencies and a signed copy of Prince’s last album.
He stands over the bags of meth, hands on his hips, nodding slowly to himself. Africa doesn’t like drugs, and he especially doesn’t like meth, on account of his girlfriend Jeannette having been addicted to it once upon a time. I met her once, when she was living on the streets, and she was nothing more than a skeleton.
“This is good,” he says. “Mrs Tanner will be pleased.” He picks up one of the bags, tucks it into his jacket. “We take, we test.”
“We’d better call the cops anyway,” Annie says, eyeing the captives. I’ve already gone through their pockets, wanting to make sure none of them made a covert call before we shut them down. Their phones, walkies, wallets and keys sit in a neat pile behind them on the countertop. “Once the Legends find out we were here, they’l
l shut this place down in a second, set up shop elsewhere.”
One of the meth cooks – a guy who looks like Ben Stiller – mmphs behind the tape, as if to agree.
The scowl is back on Africa’s face. “Dina le nokh,” he spits at Ben Stiller. Then, to us: “OK. Come. We can call police when we are in the car.”
He and Annie move to go, but I linger, resting my hand on the counter. “Hey… guys?”
They turn to look at me.
“What if we just took it?” I ask.
Annie screws up her face. “Like… to sell?”
“What – no! Why would you even say that? No! God!” I point to the meth. “We’ll destroy it.”
Ben Stiller growls into his gag again.
“Zip it, Pinkman,” I tell him.
“No,” Africa says, although he looks unsure. “Too much trouble. It’s not part of the mission.”
“But listen, hear me out. Right now the LAPD… they’re kind of stretched thin, right? After the quake? Not to mention the jails and the courts.”
“They’ll still come investigate a fucking meth lab,” Annie says. She looks very tired then, stretched too thin herself.
“Yeah, but, like, probably not right away.”
“And what about evidence? How’s the DA gonna build a case if there’s no meth?”
“Look, no matter what we do, this meth is gone. They can’t hide the lab, but they will hide the meth if they think trouble’s coming. At least this way, it’s toast.”
It’s possible we could destroy the drugs here – flush them down the toilet, or dump them into a sink and run the faucet. But forty bags is a lot. The Legends might not know where we are right now, but I’m not sure we have time to hunt down a bathroom and flush the stuff. And as for dousing it with water in a sink… I have no idea if that would work. I know nothing about meth chemistry. They might be able to dry it out, or something…
“We can find somewhere to torch it,” I continue. “Someone who knows how to do it safely. Africa – dude, you get it, right?”
And he does. He’s slowly nodding to himself, lips pursed. I knew he would. Wiping a whole whackload of meth off the map, taking it and burning it – or whatever, I don’t actually know the best way to destroy it – is right up his alley.