Vivi

XXV

The next day Shockwave – or rather, Dan – spent a long time sitting alone by the rainforest pool. Vivi let him. He looked pensive.

Sometime after lunch, Dan came to Vivi, who had been practising backflips in the gym. "Vivi, can we talk?"

"Sure," said Vivi, reaching for a towel and wiping off her brow.

"We could talk later," said Dan.

"No, I'm good. What is it?"

"Do you think... you can take away my power? Or make it how it was before I went through all of that stuff to make it stronger?"

Vivi was surprised. She thought about it. "I think I can, yes. Is that what you want?"

"Yeah," said Dan. "I've been thinking and... I don't want it. It's like walking around with a gun the whole time, and the safety's always off. Who would want that?"

Vivi nodded. "Like this, you don't have to worry about hurting people when you get angry."

"Yeah."

"Okay... yes, I'd love to help you, Dan."

"So... what do... what do we have to do?"

Vivi focused. "I think... I think it's already done."

"What? Since when?"

"I'm not sure. I think as soon as we had both decided that's what we wanted to happen."

"Oh." Dan's face seemed to move a few different emotions; surprise, loss, relief...

"Want to go test it out?"

"Yeah."

Vivi took Dan back to his cell. Now, it had a door in it; one without a keyhole.

"Go ahead," said Vivi as Dan hesitated. "Just go in."

Dan turned the door handle gingerly, and the door swung open. He went inside, closed the door again, and looked at Vivi. "I can just... try?"

"Yeah," said Vivi. "The room is still blastproof."

"And you can heal my hearing if I go deaf again?"

Vivi laughed a little. "Yeah, of course."

Dan smiled weakly in response. "Okay." He paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and... screamed.

It was an inhumanly strong, reverberating scream, as if coming from a megaphone with perfect sound quality. But it was nothing more than that.

"You're not deaf, right?" asked Vivi, smiling.

"No," said Dan. He tried again. "MY NAME IS DAN MACCOUN."

The sound was immense, commanding, impossible to ignore; it reached all the way down to resonate in Vivi's belly. He could do something with this, she thought.

"What's going on?" asked Celine, who had come in from their bedroom.

"We're just testing," said Vivi, smiling. "One more, Dan?"

Now Dan tried out a few different sounds; he produced a police siren, then a lion's roar, then the sound of a hi-fi system blaring out an earth-shaking bass beat. It was all impressive – and it was all safe.

"I'm... done," said Dan.

"Cool," said Vivi.

"I mean... I'm really done," said Dan. "It's over."

"Yeah," said Vivi.

"Can I still fly?"

Vivi shrugged. "I think so?"