Michael Grant - Monster

Dekka took several deep breaths and cursed herself for the need to wipe at tears.

You were brave one too many times, Breeze.

“Our point is,” Peaks persisted, “you are almost uniquely normal, stable. No alcohol or drug issues aside from the occasional joint or beer. No psychological breakdown. No wild or reckless behavior—other than speeding violations on your motorcycle. Of all the people who gained—and then lost—these supernatural powers, and endured the PBA, the FAYZ, you, almost alone, seem to have avoided going . . . becoming . . .” He searched for the right word, so Dekka supplied it.

“Crazy. That’s the scientific term: crazy.” Dekka felt a sudden longing for her dinky apartment and especially its tiny shower. Four years on, the FAYZ left its marks: she ate too much, a common problem for people who’ve been close to starvation; she still had nightmares, though less frequently; and she took two long, hot showers—drought be damned—every single day, reveling even now in the luxury she’d been denied for that one-year lifetime in the FAYZ.

Peaks nodded, accepting the word. “You didn’t go crazy. There’s something about you, maybe genetic, maybe psychological, that made you particularly resistant to whatever the powers do to those who possess them.”

“It’s not about the powers,” Dekka said. “It’s all of us who were there. It was a whole lot of bad things we had to do to survive.”

“No,” Peaks said flatly. He shook his head by millimeters so that it was more a vibration than a back-and-forth. “The numbers don’t lie. Among survivors of the Perdido Beach Anomaly, who did not have any mutations, thirty-six percent have had serious psychological or behavioral problems. Among those with major powers? The number is closer to ninety percent.”

Dekka stared at him. Then at Green. And at the eyes of the FBI man watching her in the rearview mirror. “What is this? What is this about? What do you people want?”

“We will be happy to tell you.” Green again. She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “There’s a document on this screen. Read it, sign it—thumb print will do—and we can tell you everything.”

Dekka took the phone and read, flicking down the page. “This swears me to secrecy.”

“Under penalty of law, and we are very serious about prosecuting unauthorized statements,” the FBI agent said without turning around.

“Yeah?” Dekka said with a short laugh. “Well, it’s been fun, folks, but I’m sweaty and I smell like the vanilla almond milk some brat spilled on me. So, goodnight.”

Again Dekka reached for the door and when Green didn’t move aside a hard look came over Dekka’s face.

Peaks leaned into her, to an intimate distance, an uncomfortable distance that conveyed just the hint of threat. “We need one of you, preferably you. But if you refuse, our next stop is Sam Temple. And I think we both know he’ll agree to help us.”

“Hey, Sam’s sober, and Astrid’s got her head screwed on straight, so leave them the hell out of this. Leave them both alone.” Peaks met her gaze, unflinching, and Dekka sighed. “Ah. So it’s like that.” She shook her head, realizing she was trapped. “You have any idea how many times that boy, that man , saved my life?”

“Many times.” Peaks again, and now the pitch was lower, lending an almost compassionate tone. “I’ve read all the published stories, Ms. Talent, and many unpublished statements. So I know as well that you saved him. Many times. I know that you were his strong right arm whenever things turned dangerous.”

Then Green spoke up, sounding disapproving. “You’re a lesbian, and black, and yet you’re inevitably referred to as the ‘strong right arm’ to a white male. Doesn’t that grate on your nerves? Aren’t we supposed to be past that—”

Dekka let go a snort and sat all the way back in her seat, willing herself to remain calm. “A white male?” she echoed, her voice vibrating with suppressed anger. “He’s not a white male , he’s Sam freaking Temple. You can read all the accounts you want, but you don’t know what he did, and how . . .” Tears threatened to well again. Dekka stabbed a finger at Green. “Every single person . . . every single one . . . who came out of that hellhole alive is alive because of him. Sam Temple’s strong right arm? You can chisel those words on my tombstone, lady, and I’ll be a proud and happy corpse.”

“We’d rather have you,” Peaks said, and took Green’s phone and held it out for Dekka. The document glowed up at her. “Press your thumb on the button.”

Dekka did it, because if she didn’t, Sam would. He would of course be furious if he found out she was protecting him. The thought brought a small smile to Dekka’s lips. Sam and Astrid didn’t need more of the FAYZ, they needed college and work and lives and hopefully, someday, a bouncing little baby that they’d name Dekka if she was a girl.

That was Dekka’s fantasy for them, anyway.

“Am I going back to work tomorrow?” she asked.

Tom Peaks shook his head.

Dekka unclipped the name tag with her cover name—Jean, her middle name—reached across, rolled down the window and tossed the tag out to clatter on the blacktop.

“Wherever you’re taking me, my bike had better get there too, and without a scratch. Oh, and fill the tank.”

ASO-2

ANOMALOUS SPACE OBJECT–2 struck planet Earth after its million-year trip, landing precisely where it was expected to land—in a section of the North Sea just off the coast of Scotland that had been surrounded by NATO ships—American, British and Dutch. Below the water one British and one US submarine were holding the perimeter around a French deep-sea exploration submersible. Ships from the Russian Navy and the Chinese Navy looked on from a barely discreet distance, their surveillance equipment all atingle.

But the meteorite played a trick on all of them. The seventeen-pound object hit perfectly in the target zone moving at about ninety thousand miles an hour, but like a rock slung sidearm toward a pond, it skipped.

The first skip carried it six miles.

The second skip carried it just two miles, but that two miles took it to the Isle of Islay where it struck a rock outcropping—still moving at fantastic speed—and broke apart.

Homeland Security Task Force 66 immediately diverted every resource at its disposal—the international naval force and their marines, land-based police and military forces—and turned the sleepy Isle of Islay—pronounced “eye-la” and best known for sheep and Scotch whisky—into something between a war zone and a bad action comedy. Within an hour the coast of Islay was beset by dangerous-looking ships, while helicopters buzzed around like bees who thought Islay was their hive.

All the activity brought the islanders out of their homes and fields and businesses to see what was going on. Once they had deduced that the military and police of several nations were all searching for a meteorite, out came the metal detectors and the sifters and the shovels. The locals might not know what the rock was, but they knew it had value.

Yet it was not greed that caused the biggest problem, rather it was kindness. It was young Delia Macbeth, fourteen, who saw her little brother, Sean, just three years old, playing with a chip of dark rock. The chip was oddly shaped, in that if you held it a certain way it looked a bit like Mickey Mouse. Sean was sucking on the rock and at first Delia did the proper big sister thing and took it from him. Then Sean started bawling, so Delia did the easy thing and gave it back.

After all, it was just a rock, and if Sean wanted it that badly . . .

Search teams swept the lower half of the island and eventually recovered sixty percent of ASO-2.