Once again Luce saw understanding crash through his face like a wave. “They’re looking to catch you, huh? Not just—to catch things like you? People from the government?”
After a brief pause Luce nodded. He’d already figured out that much.
“Why, though? They want to give you to their scientists? Send electricity through you and whiz you through their machines and find out how you tick?”
That hadn’t occurred to Luce before, but now that he mentioned it that seemed like a possibility. “I guess they might.”
“Good thing about ghosts.” He nodded emphatically, his haphazard gray hair twitching with the movement. “They know how to keep their mouths shut. Or if they do talk it just comes out like ‘whoooo.’” He cracked up laughing wildly, but when Luce didn’t join in he calmed himself just as suddenly. “Nobody listens to me anyway, Miss Mermaid. But I’ll keep quiet. Awright?”
It didn’t seem like she had much choice about trusting him. “Okay.”
“And your name is? Princess Autocrata Waveform? Mermaladia McSea?”
She hesitated again. “Luce Korchak.” Why had she given him her human name, though?
“Plain old Luce Korchak? Huh. And you can call me Seb of the Ghosts.”
Luce had the sense that she was humoring him, but considering how much he knew that seemed like a good idea. “You’re as alive as anybody, though.”
“You’re not the first one to say so, Miss Luce Mermaid. A pack of morons kept on badgering me with words to that effect after I got back from Vietnam. That just goes to show what they knew, doesn’t it?”
Luce couldn’t tell if he was serious. It wasn’t reassuring to think that her only human ally might be totally delusional. “If you’re already dead, then how could you almost drown?”
“Oh, that.” He grinned at her lopsidedly, and his pale eyes gleamed. “I’m not by any stretch suggesting that I won’t have to die again. Now, who ever told you that once was enough? Let me tell you something, Lucy Goosey. People always think that ghosts are spirits, right? But a man’s walking-around body can be a ghost a whole lot easier than his spirit can.”
15 An Appeal
The man on the screen had short-cropped hair, a stubbly chin, and wry cinnamon-colored eyes. Behind him was what appeared to be a sunny, comfortable kitchen with pale yellow cabinets and a large vase full of lilacs. “Hi,” he said, with an odd self-conscious smile. “My name is Andrew Korchak, and I just wanted to say something to anyone out there who’s been watching that video with that green-tailed mermaid swimming out from under the dock. The thing is . . .” He held up a photo, and the camera zoomed shakily in on it until a girl with short, dark, jagged hair and frightened eyes filled the screen. “That mermaid wasn’t always a mermaid. You can all see here it’s the same face, right? This photo here is my daughter, Lucette—Luce—and this is her seventh-grade picture from school.”
He choked up a little and looked down. From off screen a gentle voice said, “Andrew. Can you go on?”
Secretary Moreland squirmed in his heavy armchair and rapped his knuckles against the desk supporting the large monitor where this new and even more outrageous video was playing. With each rap his reddish jowls swayed and his stiff white hair vibrated slightly. Three other men in suits stood fidgeting behind him, their eyes carefully blank but their mouths twisting.
The picture zoomed back out and Andrew Korchak looked up. “Right. Well, I was away for a while. I couldn’t help it, and it’s too much to tell you all, but Luce was alone with my brother and he . . . he hurt her. He hurt her so much that she stopped being a human girl, and she changed into what you’ve all seen. Don’t ask me to explain how it works. But I saw Luce after she turned into a mermaid, and that’s what she told me. And there are more of them. If some young girl you used to know, could be your daughter or your sister or your friend, if she went missing, she might be one of the mermaids now too.”
There was a tiny moan from the person off-screen. The focus of the cinnamon eyes shifted slightly upward.
“Kathleen? I’m sorry. I—”
“It’s okay. Let’s just finish. Please.”
“Okay. See, our government—the U.S. government—has got some kind of Special Operations guys out there killing mermaids. Not saying they don’t have their reasons. I think the mermaids might . . . they might go around drowning people. But if one of those mermaids used to be some girl you love, I bet you don’t want them all dead any more than I do. You want them back and safe and human again, like I do.”
The camera was pitching a little. The man looked worried, and he started talking faster.
“And even if they drown people, I know they also might save people sometimes. So I’m here to ask: if that’s you, and some mermaid saved your life before, get up on this Internet and say so. Or if you think a girl you miss is out there with my Luce, get up and say so. They’re pretty much kids. There’s got to be something else we can do. That’s all I wanted to ask you. Okay, thanks.”
The camera veered faster, pointing first at the window and then at the floor. There was a sound that was probably a chair toppling over and the image went dead.
Secretary Moreland slid back his chair and stood up as slowly and imposingly as he could manage. He was a large man, tall and broad, and he tilted over his three nervous deputies as he turned to them. “Why,” Moreland growled very slowly, “did I just watch this?”
A thin man flinched sharply back. “We thought it could be significant, Mr. Secretary. It seems to indicate that someone might have leaked classified information. We were concerned that it could—”
“Of course someone leaked classified information! This”— Moreland grimaced—“this loser didn’t learn about Operation Odysseus by reading the newspaper. That’s my question. Why was this allowed to happen?”
None of the suited men answered, though tiny jerky currents seemed to flow through their arms and feet. Moreland scowled until one of them added, “We’re reasonably confident, Mr. Secretary, that the information wasn’t leaked by anyone in the Department of Defense.”
“I personally feel quite clear on who was responsible for this leak, men. If the miscreant’s identity isn’t obvious to you as well, then you haven’t been paying attention to the subversive drivel that two-bit fanatic has been going around spouting.” The suited men flinched. They were all too familiar, by now, with the uncontrollable rancor Secretary Moreland felt for Agent Ben Ellison of the FBI. If his superiors weren’t so determined to protect him, Ellison would have been dispensed with long ago. “But that doesn’t answer my question, does it? Why was that whiny mermaid sympathizer allowed to go and jabber to Lucette Korchak’s father of all people? If the FBI can’t keep their own agents in check, then the responsibility falls to you. Or didn’t that occur to you?”
There was an awkward silence. “Sir, are you suggesting—”
“I’m suggesting that someone who thinks we can solve the mermaid problem by bringing those goddamn tails mugs of cocoa at bedtime should not be permitted to run around undermining our work!” Moreland’s lips were working as if he was chewing something too big to swallow. “Where is he?”
“Agent Ellison, sir? He’s on a flight back to Washington. Even the FBI suspects that he might have had something to do with this.”
“Not him!” Secretary Moreland shook his head in apparent disbelief at their stupidity. “I mean that ragtag fool who’s putting out these touching appeals to the public, making them think that we’re trying to wipe out every cute little girl who’s ever had her face on a milk carton!”