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At six thirty came dinner, which she had delivered to her room. General Tso’s chicken, dan-dan noodles, and a fortune cookie. The fortune read: Great changes are coming your way. That seemed a bit too spot-on, and she grinned at the image of Peaks or his people carefully culling fortune cookies, checking to make sure there were none reading, Run! Get the hell out of there!
At eight o’clock she pulled a beer from her mini-fridge and drank it slowly while listening with eyes closed to Brody Dalle, whose husky voice Dekka found wonderfully sexy.
Inspired, she tinkled away at the grand piano in the living room but discovered no hidden talent for music in herself and gave up, acutely aware that her pitiful efforts were stored on some hard drive somewhere.
At ten she turned out the lights and lay with eyes open, staring at the ceiling, her emotions in turmoil. She’d done her best to self-medicate her anxiety with TV, music, and beer, but with the TV off she was left alone with reality, a reality that could be changing drastically.
Or not.
And which was more frightening? she asked herself. The outcome that had her once again in possession of powers? Or the outcome that had her wandering around the Safeway parking lot looking for her discarded name tag?
Which life do I want?
She drifted off with that thought running around and around in circles in her head.
She woke at seven thirty a.m. She made coffee, toasted an English muffin, and spread butter and orange marmalade on it.
She took a deep breath, felt the caffeine kicking her nervous system awake, and tried to cancel gravity and make the coffee machine float through the air.
Nothing.
She tried to cancel gravity beneath herself, something that four years earlier she’d have done with almost no effort. But she remained resolutely seated.
“Okay then,” she said aloud, and considered calling to have her electrodes removed so she could shower. But now she heard a sound, a noise, a metallic sort of shriek that grew louder like some poorly wired speaker system blasting feedback and coming down the hall outside.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
“What the hell?” Dekka asked, talking to the unseen microphones.
The noise grew louder and she covered her ears; not that this helped much, as the sound penetrated, rising, falling, picking up harsh percussives.
Screeeee-clang! Screeee-Rrr-Rrr-Rrr-Screeee-thump!
“Hey, are you people hearing this?” she shouted. “Peaks! What the hell?”
There was no answer, and if anything that awful, brain-ripping noise just redoubled in volume. Dekka went to the door and hesitated, with one hand covering an ear and the other hand on the knob. Should she open it and see? Or should she do the sensible thing and—
Wham!
Something massive slammed the door with such force that it bruised her hand on the knob.
“Hey!” Dekka yelled, though her cry was inaudible in the metallic howl of noise that jacked her pulse and blood pressure up through the roof.
Wham!
Dekka backed away from the door fast, looking around for a weapon, any kind of weapon, but she couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, rage and fear and the pain of the noise and . . .
Wham!
Hardest yet. The jamb splintered! The brass strike plate stuck out. One more hit and it would fly open and . . .
And what? What was happening? What kind of—
Wham!
The door burst inward, revealing three people in steel-gray jumpsuits bulging with body armor. Three faces were concealed behind helmets with black plastic visors.
And there were three automatic weapons, leveled at Dekka.
