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“I should have . . . ,” Dekka began.
“Nah,” Diana said. “No should haves, okay? They taught me that in therapy. Don’t waste time regretting, just find a way to undo whatever harm you’ve done, as well as you can. This is my thing. My little penance.”
“How have you been, Diana?”
Diana shrugged. “I have a job. Y
ou are looking at a semi-competent Peet’s barista. I have my own place, finally.” The wry smile appeared. “I am seven months and three days sober. And I haven’t tried to kill myself. Lately. You?”
Dekka hesitated before answering. The vacuous “fine” was on the tip of her tongue, but she owed Diana more than that. Diana was one of the very few people she could talk to about what was happening without being taken for a madwoman.
“Got a few minutes?” Dekka asked wearily.
“Help me place the flowers and we’ll talk.”
Dekka smiled at that, happy to help, happy to have a few minutes to collect her thoughts. When they were finished, the two of them walked the few blocks to the beach. Armo followed at a discreet distance, like a bodyguard. The beach was as long and beautiful as ever, curving away to the northwest. The debris of Albert’s water-purification device was gone.
Dekka shaded her hand against the lowering sun and looked southeast. “Have they got Clifftop open?”
Diana said, “It’s a Sheraton now.”
“Huh.”
“The bar there serves themed cocktails: the FAYZ, the PBA, the Sam Temple—that’s something with vodka and limoncello, for some reason. The Lana is vodka and some nasty green tea drink, you know, for healing supposedly. You and I didn’t rate.”
Dekka shook her head slowly. “I guess the irony that FAYZers have a tendency to drink too much is lost on them.”
“Big hotel chains don’t do irony,” Diana said. She led them to a bench, and the two old not-exactly-friends sat side by side and looked out at the ocean as the horizon rose to meet a reddening sun.
Without further preamble, Diana said, “You’re in some kind of trouble.”
“How do you figure?”
“Suddenly you’re back here. And you’re actually talking. Dekka Talent, who had never been known to speak more than a dozen words a day.”
Dekka smiled. “Well, I’m all about action.”
“And I guess you know there’s a big white dude in sad overalls following us.”
“Yeah, I . . . I sort of picked him up along the way.” She sighed heavily. “He’s all right, so long as you don’t try to tell him what to do. The boy makes me seem easygoing.”
Diana laughed. “Right. You. Easygoing.”
“Diana,” Dekka said, her grin disappearing, “it’s all starting again. But this time it’s not just a twenty-mile-across dome, it’s the whole world.”
She told Diana all she’d seen, all she knew. From time to time she glanced at Diana and saw the young woman’s face grow red from the sunset, then dark from shadows and darker still from concern that deepened into worry.
“Well, that’s all . . . bad news,” Diana said at last. “You were good to keep Sam and Astrid out of it.”
“Yeah, well, now that I’ve gone rogue, HSTF-Sixty-Six may take a run at him,” Dekka said regretfully. “But I didn’t have a choice, Diana. Peaks and his whole operation are an atrocity.”
“So now you’re right back in it,” Diana said.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“In the old days I could have held your hand and told whether you were a three bar or a four or a five.”
“Five,” Dekka said flatly. “Maybe six if there is such a thing. This power is . . . it’s incredible. But each time I use it, I have to change into this . . . thing, this creature. And when I’m morphed, I sense . . .” She shook her head. “It’s something dark, Diana, very dark. It watches. Sometimes it’s like it’s laughing. Other times it’s annoyed or impatient with me.”
