Michael Grant - Monster

Natalie Green shrugged, tried out her scary millisecond smile again and said, “Maybe not out in the open in a parking lot? If you would come with us . . .” She gestured toward the second SUV.

“Really?” Dekka asked again, sounding irritated—which was hardly unusual for her. Patience was never one of her virtues.

“Ten minutes. Fifteen, tops,” Natalie Green said. “We won’t leave the lot.”

Dekka cursed, not quite inaudibly, and said, “Whatever.”

The driver of the second SUV got out and came around like a well-trained chauffeur to hold a door open for her, and remained outside as Green and Peaks sandwiched Dekka into the middle of the back seat and agent Carlson took shotgun.

“Nice,” Dekka said, looking around at the posh leather interior. The dashboard glowed blue and red. The heater streamed air onto the windshield, holding a line of condensation at bay.

“Ms. Talent, first of all, it’s an honor to meet you,” Green said. “I’ve read most of the literature that came out of the PBA, and it’s clear that you were very important to the survival of those people, very central to stopping the worst excesses.”

“Uh-huh,” Dekka said, slow and guarded. “Don’t tell me you want a selfie.”

Blank stare.

“Okay,” Dekka said with mounting impatience. “Can you just tell me what this is about?”

“It’s been four years, well, a little more than four years.” It was the first thing Tom Peaks had said. He had an odd voice, too high to match the serious face. “You’re what, eighteen years old now, a legal adult?”

That voice could get grating pretty quickly .

“Nineteen, and who are you again?”

“Tom Peaks.”

“Yeah, I heard your name, but who are you?”

He was in his late thirties, wore moderately fashionable glasses, and parted his sandy hair on one side with military precision. His blue eyes were overlarge behind the glasses, intelligent, alert, and almost rude in the directness with which he stared at her. “I’m with DARPA. That’s the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.”

“Okay.”

“Are you happy working at Safeway?” Green asked. She was annoyed by Peaks, thought he was pushing himself into what she, Green, should be managing.

Dekka gave Green an incredulous look. “No one is happy working at Safeway. It’s a minimum wage job. Half my income goes for rent.”

“You never went back to school? No plans for college?”

“I’m not very smart.”

Now it was the FBI agent’s turn, talking over his shoulder and watching her in the rearview mirror which he had tilted for that purpose. “All due respect, Ms. Talent, we have a pretty good idea of your IQ. You’re certainly bright enough to be doing something other than cashiering. You could take the GED.”

“Maybe I just love touching vegetables.”

“Or maybe you already got your GED, passed it in the seventy-fifth percentile, and were offered a full scholarship to Cal State San Fran and decided to turn it down and do various dead-end jobs: you delivered flowers, you worked at Toys R Us during Christmas, you temped . . .”

“And again: why are we talking? Why am I not on my way home to feed my cat?” Dekka was beginning to feel trapped. She glanced at the door handle and saw that it was not locked.

“We’ve done studies of the PBA survivors, especially the ones who acquired . . . powers , for lack of a better word,” Green said as Peaks and the FBI man watched. “Of the three hundred and thirty-two kids initially trapped in the PBA dome—”

“We called it the FAYZ,” Dekka interrupted.

“Of those three hundred and thirty-two kids, fifty-one developed one supernatural power or another. Most were relatively weak powers. Only nineteen of you developed major powers and survived. You were one. And of those nineteen, seven have since developed serious psychological disorders.”

“It was kind of stressful, what with the starvation and the violence and the forty percent death rate.” Dekka made no effort to tone down the sarcasm.

Peaks said, “Yes, there’s that, but we suspect there’s more to it. Some of you adjusted well to life outside the PBA . . . the FAYZ. You among them, even though your parents were not exactly enthusiastic about you rejoining the family. And yet you were among the most traumatized. Honestly, when I read about some of what you endured . . .” He shook his head in sincere wonderment. “Despite having a power, a significant power, and despite suffering terribly, and forming part of the leadership with all the additional stress of that, you seem to be well-adjusted.”

Emphasis on seem , Dekka thought. You’re not there when I wake up at three in the morning screaming with my bed damp from terror sweat, mister.

Or maybe they are, Dekka added, mentally scrolling through her memories, looking for any sign that the privacy of her little apartment had been violated. Not that the FBI would leave traces.

“Yes, I am a great big bundle of happiness and adjustment,” Dekka said. “Are we done?”

“Ms. Talent,” Peaks said, “May I call you Dekka?”

“Sure, Tom.”

“I would imagine you’ve tried to put all that behind you. You’re looking to get back to normal. Four years on, and you’re still trying to find normal.”

That was too close to the bone for a smart-ass response, so Dekka stayed mum, watching those intelligent, slightly lens-distorted eyes as they stared frankly at her.

“You are, in fact, among the least affected. Lana Lazar spent time in a mental health facility.”

“I know, she’s a friend of mine,” Dekka snapped. “She’s fine now.”

“Others, like Sam Temple, the supposed hero of the FAYZ, have had—”

“Hey!” Dekka’s finger was instantly in Peaks’s face. “ Supposed hero? Screw you. You don’t disrespect Sam Temple where I can hear it.”

She reached across Green for the door handle and popped the latch.

“I apologize,” Peaks said quickly.

Shaking her head, as if disagreeing with her own choice, Dekka closed the door again and rounded on Peaks. “If you’d lived through one tenth of what Sam Temple lived through, you might start drinking too, if you ever nerved yourself up to crawl out from under the bed to start with.” Then in a calmer tone, “Anyway, he’s on the wagon. Sober for sixteen months.”

“Fifteen months, twelve days,” the FBI agent said from the front seat. Then in an actual moment of humanity, he added, “I’ve got nine years, four months and nineteen days myself.” He superstitiously rapped his knuckle on a piece of wood trim.

“So you people do still keep an eye on us,” Dekka accused.

The FBI agent Carlson and Homeland Security’s Green both nodded. Peaks said, “Of course the government keeps track of you. At one time you possessed extraordinary powers. You, Ms. Talent, were able—as a simple act of will—to cancel the effects of gravity. Incredible! Sam Temple could fire killing energy beams from his hands. There was a girl who had the power to move at speeds just short of breaking the sound barrier. And—”

“Brianna,” Dekka said softly. Then with a wistful smile, “The Breeze.”

“You were friends,” Green said, not quite a question.

But Dekka was no longer listening. She was seeing Brianna’s wild, reckless grin; hearing her fearlessly proclaim that she was off to this fight or that; feeling a sudden gust of wind and catching just a glimpse of ponytail standing straight back as Brianna blew past.

Other memories were there too, dark and awful images, but Dekka brushed those aside. Four years and she still could not think about Brianna without crying. It was an unrequited love, maybe a ridiculous love, but love just the same, and it still warmed Dekka. And sometimes it burned her.