We put down briefly at a small airfield on the coast to refuel, then continue out over the Gulf of Mexico. In a little over an hour, we land on an abandoned oil platform. There are probably people within a hundred miles, but not many. I hadn’t been able to think of any place more isolated that I could actually get to.

I open the duffel bag the pilot had handed me before he left. It has a couple of heavy duty flashlights, what looks like an old-fashioned cell phone, a big battery, some water bottles, and some food. I’m looking at the phone when it rings. The number is familiar.

“Deputy Marshall Miller,” I say, “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Sorry, that just seems to be the new way to answer the phone. How am I getting service out here?”

“It’s a satellite phone. It doesn’t need cell towers. Are---”

He stops.

“You were going to ask if I’m okay, weren’t you?” I don’t wait for an answer,”I’m better than I was a couple of hours ago. With nobody close, the pressure is off a little. I could probably last a couple of weeks out here. If I don’t do anything stupid, or, well, anything.”

I think for a second.

“Thanks for not having your guy shoot me as he left, by the way. That would have been awkward.”

“I’ve told you, we’re not going to try to hurt you.”

He probably can’t see me shrug.

“So none of this stuff is poisoned or explodey?”

“No, Ms. Parker, it isn’t.”

“Huh.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about what’s going on?”

I’m torn. If I tell them about the body stealing plan, they might decide it’s worth eliminating all of the powered kids before it can happen. Probably not, but it isn’t my place to make that decision for them.

“Ms. Ramon has told us your theory about what’s going on. It seems far-fetched.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That the people who gave you all these powers are planning to steal your bodies.”

“Not mine, just the others. Anyway, do you have a better theory?”

“Why all kids? Why not rich or powerful adults?”

“It’s the brains, I think. Grown-ups’ brains are too, rigid, maybe? I think that they wouldn’t be able to adapt to the new minds. I don’t know what would happen exactly, maybe they’d go crazy, or just stop working. I think they picked the oldest, and hottest, people they were sure the switch would work with.”

“I’ll run that by some of our people. What are you going to do now?”

I tell him my two options.

“But I’m holding off. If I can think of any way to stop those guys, I want to do that first.”

“That’s very commendable. If you think of anything we can help you with, or anything we can do to help your friends, please call.”

“Thanks. I will,” I think, “Can I call anyone else on this thing?”

“Yes, but I should warn you any calls will be monitored. You can also text.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The view is amazing. I’ve never seen the sun rise over the ocean before. It’s yellow and orange and red and blue and a couple small clouds leave these amazing lines across the whole sky. It’s a little blurry, but that’s just from the tears.

The day itself is sort of blurry, too. I spread out a blanket from the duffel bag and spend most of the day lying on it, wearing a bikini that I’d never gotten the chance to try out, outside of my dress up sessions with Cindy.

I have the phone, but there’s no one I want to talk to. Okay, not true. There are several people I desperately want to talk to, but no one I’m willing to talk to. I can’t stand the thought of trying to be upbeat and cheerful.

The occasional plane passes. That worries me for a little while, but after an hour with none passing close enough for me to feel the passengers, I let it go. I don’t see any boats, but I do feel three groupings of people over the horizon, somewhere. They aren’t close enough to noticeably lower my time left.

I’m even bored, really. My mind drifts between trying to find a solution, and something like meditation. Just being there. Soaking up the sun. Feeling the wind. It’s almost nice.

I eat a can of tuna for lunch, with some crackers. I feel vaguely embarrassed. I hope no tuna are out there staring up at me eating their cousins. Dinner is the same. There are some canned vegetables, but I’m not going to be out here long enough to worry about good nutrition, so they stay closed. I “find” a candy bar in the duffel and eat it for dessert.

When night comes, I’m still no closer to an answer. Once the sun is down, I stop thinking about my own problems for a while. It had been a little foggy when I was dropped off, but now the sky is clear.

It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I’ve never really thought about why our galaxy is called the milky way. Now I know. I can see so many stars. I climb my way to the highest point on the platform so that I can see it all. Venus, then Mars, sink below the horizon. I count twenty-eight shooting stars (and make the same wish on every one).

I feel like I could fall up into the sky. Which makes me think of Valeria, who I’m never going to see again. Just like I’m never going to see Aunt Tabitha, my sister Jordan, Cindy, Kelly, Henry, Meg, Harlan, Sebastian. Any of them. But I don’t fall into self pity. Not this time.

I’m so glad that I got to meet them all. That my Aunt had been a part of my life again, even if it was for just one morning. That I had gotten to fly. To run so fast. Jump so high. That I had had so much fun. And that I had gotten to be the real me. At last.

If I reset, all of that will be gone. The memories wiped out. If I just walk through the door, something will survive. It isn’t death. Not exactly. The memories will still be out there, somewhere, with whatever I explode into.

If it weren’t for the people who needed my help, I would have opened the door then and there. I’m okay with it. With moving on. I almost do it anyway. I find the door. Pull it close. I turn off the ping. It doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe the best thing I can do to help them is to make sure I don’t hurt them. I reach for the door as it appears in the roof next to me.

Jupiter rises over the horizon. I can’t see the red spot. My vision isn’t that much better. But I can see the moons. At least two of them. The door fades away as I watch Jupiter rise. That might be a third moon. I can’t be sure. Jupiter grows faint as the sun rises.

That’s when I hear them. They’re swimming in the waters below the platform. Then I can feel them. I realize that I’ve felt them on and off since I got here. I just hadn’t paid attention, since the minds aren’t human. I step to the edge of the roof and look down, a hundred and fifty feet to the pod of dolphins swimming below.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Compared to the cool morning air, the water is warm as I slice through it. A body builds up a lot of speed in a hundred and fifty feet, especially in a diving position, but I still only end up five meters under the surface before I arc back up. The dolphins form a circle around me, clicking and squeaking quietly among themselves, judging me. They finally seem to come to some agreement. One of them, the largest one there, addresses me with a sharp stream of shrieks and clicks.

As best I can interpret, they’re giving me a solid eight point five out of ten.

I love swimming with them. It’s a huge group. Ninety-three dolphins in all, although there are subgroups of ten to twenty-five dolphins. They don’t stay split into those subgroups, but it’s clear who belongs where.

They’re very impressed that I can stay underwater as long as they can. And that I can fish as well as them (after a little practice).

They are less impressed when I don’t want to eat what I catch. The first time, the big one accepts the fish as a gift. The second time he insists that I have it. I don’t want to be a bad guest. It turns out that I have a taste for sushi.

The day goes on. I get thirsty, and really do not want to drink salt water. I’ve heard bad things about that, and it tastes nasty. My new friends don’t like it when I start back for the platform.

They keep trying to steer me away. I can move almost, but not quite as fast as them, so they have some luck in that department. My hand gestures and miming of drinking don’t get any response from them. That shouldn't be a surprise, I guess.

I’m starting to understand them. It isn’t like the way I could just understand French without really trying. Their language, if that’s what it is, is too different. But it is starting to make sense to me.

I make some of their sounds back at them. I don’t have the same vocal cords or whatever they used to make sounds, but just like I could still produce Parker 1.0’s booming voice, I should be able to make their sounds. It works, mostly.

By the time the sun sets, I’m able to communicate with them, a little. I make another try at getting the idea of drinking across to them. Gestures haven’t helped, so maybe a prop will. I close my eyes and pull a plastic bottle from the water behind me.

The dolphins think it’s hilarious, the way I smack myself on the forehead repeatedly with the bottle. They finally get the message I’d been trying to get across when I unscrew the top and take a long drink. Then they laugh at me some more. As far as they’re concerned, that was one of the funniest jokes ever.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

They don’t sleep. Not exactly anyway. Each dolphin just closes one of its eyes and slowly swims through the waves. After a while, they switch eyes, and swim some more. They aren’t very good conversationalists when they’re half awake like that, and finally steer me back to the platform so I’ll let them rest.

It’s a cloudy night, so I don’t do much stargazing. I end up recharging my (non-satellite) phone from the battery pack, and playing two hours of Meteor Hammer. It’s a stupid game, but I’d downloaded it because of the name. After that I meditate until the dolphins call for me.

I wonder if anybody has thought of using swimming with dolphins as therapy for depression. It’s certainly helping me. It isn’t a cure all, but my mind is so much clearer than it has been the past few days. Of course, I still have the same problems waiting for me, and the dolphins notice.

I try to explain what’s going on. Not that I expect them to understand, but I have found that, at least sometimes, talking out my problems helps. I can’t tell if the dolphins are interested in what I’m trying to tell them, or if they just think it’s cute seeing their new pet trying to talk.

Then they start asking questions.

Sort of. It’s more like pointing out missing information, than specifically asking for it. I had expected that abstract ideas would be pretty much impossible to get across to them. I was wrong. Dreams are no problem. They have those. Although their dreams are usually only a minute or two. Explaining lucid dreaming takes me longer. That turns out to be because all of their dreams are lucid. Lucky fish.

I have to use props on occasion. I show them a door on a little model of a boat. I use the same toy to demonstrate an anchor. They don’t seem at all fazed by me pulling things out of nowhere. The only reaction I get is for Whistle-click-snort to shoot out a sonar memory of me hitting myself on the head with the bottle again. When the laughter dies down, I get back to my story.

We get into an argument over how many dimensions the real ocean has. I argue three. They insisted it’s a number I can’t quite wrap my head around. I can’t follow their logic (if that's what it is), but I finally give in and say they’re right. That means I can’t even give them a useful guess at how many the Depths have, but they get the idea.

By the time the sun sets the next day, they’re trying to talk me into taking them into the Depths with me. Not all of them. Most of the pod had drifted away during the day. Bored with their new pet, I guess. I’m left with a group of twelve, from three of the sub-pods. These are the crazy ones, in my professional opinion as a marine psychologist.

Speaking dolphin for two and half days straight must be doing weird things to my brain, because I actually consider doing it. I even think through how I would do it. The legs of the platform are just wide enough, and If I focus as hard as I can, I could probably hold together long enough to get at least a few of them through. I could probably even get myself through and avoid taking any random fishermen with me.

For the first time in days, I pay attention to my internal countdown. It isn’t as bad as I expected. Not nearly as bad. Although I had mostly avoided pissing off the laws of physics lately (other than pulling boats and bottles from nowhere), learning dolphin seems like the kind of thing that would really push me toward the edge. But I’m not noticeably closer to my inevitable doom than I had been when I landed on the platform.

Maybe speaking dolphin really has changed my brain. Or at least how I use it. Or maybe the connection I’m building with the dolphins is anchoring me. Or maybe I have no clue. The thing is, if it keeps going this way, maybe I have a third option.

Admittedly, a permanent home in the ocean is not in any of the life plans I’ve considered. But it’s actually sort of cool. Life is simple. There’s no homework. No laundry. Sure, I’d get lonely for my own kind. But having the opportunity to get lonely is a luxury I hadn’t thought I’d have for much longer.

Who knows? Given enough time, I might find some other solution. I have something I haven’t had in days. Hope. I can live like this.

That’s probably why the sea monster attacks.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Since I hadn’t pestered them the previous night, the dolphins stopped insisting that I sleep up on the platform. I’m just floating on my back, staring at the stars when it shows up. There hasn’t been any chime, but it still doesn’t take me completely by surprise. My weird senses give me ten seconds warning, even though it’s coming in at almost fifty miles an hour.

I shout a warning to the dolphins. Essentially “Shark!”, since I don’t know how to say “Metal scaled extradimensional sea serpent” in dolphin. That is not the right thing to say, because the dolphins know how to deal with sharks. But not with thirty foot long monstrosities from another world.

If I’d had the good sense to make friends with a pod of killer whales instead of a pod of dolphins, it might have been a fair fight. As it is, the dolphins are seriously outmatched. I shout, trying to get them to back off. After all, the thing is here for me. They won’t listen, though.

Click-click-whistle is the first one to get injured. Even when the serpent’s tail lashes through the water and opens up a gash along her side, she stays on the attack. It isn’t doing any good. The thing is just too tough to be affected by their attacks.

I try to hit it with TMI, but a battle axe is really difficult to use when you’re swimming in sea-serpent-churned waters. The monster is just big enough around that I can’t get a grip, with my arms or legs, to give myself a solid base to attack from. I slice a few scales free, but that’s all.

After my third attempt at grappling with the thing, I come up with a different plan. The pod had been keeping close to the platform at night, so I swim for its nearest leg. When I break from the pod, the serpent follows me. Good. It’s faster than me, but I’m more maneuverable. I make it to the leg without becoming snake food.

I’m ten feet up the leg when the serpent smashes into its metal surface, just below me. I keep climbing, not looking down until I reach the first level. The serpent is winding its way up the leg. Perfect.

It’s slower than me, climbing, so I keep going. Luckily this corner goes all the way up to the highest point. I reach my destination just before the serpent reaches the first level. Fighting it on a solid surface would probably be easier than in the water, but it’s still a massive beast, and I don’t like my chances. I don’t have time to think of a better plan, so I jump.

I’m traveling right at fifty miles per hour as I pass the serpent. It lashes out at me, but that just makes its head a better target. I swing TMI for the point where the head meets the body. It’s like chopping through a tree. A gross, gross, tree.

The serpent’s head hits the water almost a second and a half after I do. A few seconds later I’m already clear, swimming toward the injured dolphins when the wave from its body crashing into the sea rolls over me.

I can taste the blood in the water. So can the pod, and they are starting to panic. They need to get clear of here before the sharks come. Eight dolphins are injured, five of them very badly. Those five are all from my gang, the ones who had stayed with me. Listening to my stories. They’d been closest to me, so of course they were the worst hurt.

They are already trying to swim away from the pod. To draw off any predators that might be coming. To sacrifice themselves for the others. How can I do anything less?

I tell them to follow me. They hesitate, but it’s away from the main pod, so they don’t outright refuse. Snort-click-whistle-click wasn’t going to make it, though. She’s giving up. I imitate the tones of Big One, the closest thing that the greater pod has to a leader. I order her to follow.

The other four nudge and help her along. None of them are going to survive much longer, especially once the sharks get here. I don’t let myself hesitate. I don’t want time to second guess myself. I touch the leg of the platform and open the door.

I don’t even know if this will work. I’ve never taken anyone through the door with me before. Does it even exist for anyone else? I’m about to find out. I make calming noise to my little pod and urge them to the door. They helped Snort-click-whistle-click in first. It works. She slides into the now watery corridor on the other side. I can feel the whole pod now. I’m definitely on my way out.

I will a strong current of water to push the others through. It takes only seconds, and I follow, shutting the door behind me. The dolphins are still injured. Still close to death. I reach out to the door at the far end and open it directly into the Depths. 

The current pulls us all in, and I come apart.