The Twice Lost

help we can get, if any of us are going to survive . . .” Yuan had seemed so calm through all the craziness and violence that Luce was startled to hear the raw emotion surging in her voice.

“Look!” It was the mermaid who’d introduced herself as Eileen, pointing her freckled hand back in the direction of the bridge. “It looks like those humans are sending some guy over the side? What a weird thing to do!”

They all crowded together at the edge of the shadowed zone under the platform, watching while the cameraperson dropped in his harness. Luce realized that the camera would capture a beautiful image: the top of the standing wave leaped and fluttered, delicate wisps of foam spilling from its crest, while sheets of sunlight wavered on its flank.

“This is our chance!” Luce said, so suddenly that it took her a moment to realize what she’d meant.

“Our chance to do what, Luce?” Imani said softly just beside her, and Luce reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

“Our chance to talk to all of them,” Luce explained. All her joy rushed back at once. Maybe there was loss and terror and trouble all around them, but she suddenly felt absolutely certain that the Twice Lost Army was doing better than anyone could have dreamed possible.

“Talking to more humans? Luce, can’t you control yourself?” Catarina snapped.

“Talking to them is the whole point, Cat!” Luce’s tail gave an abrupt swirl of excitement, and she grinned around at everyone, almost quaking with the force of her inspiration. Now that she knew exactly what she needed to do, she wasn’t about to let Cat talk her out of it. “Hey, Imani? Do you think I could borrow your scarf for a few minutes?”

“Are you serious, Luce?” Imani asked. But her black eyes were gleaming with delight.

“One thing I know about Luce”—Yuan laughed—“if she says something that crazy, you better believe she means it!”

Almost everyone was giggling now, half-nervous and half- delirious. It was all just so different from anything mermaids had ever done before. It was strange to feel such happiness in the middle of a war, but Luce couldn’t stop herself from laughing along with the others in sheer astonishment at her own daring.

“Of course I’m serious,” Luce managed through her laughter. “I’m going to go up there and say hello. To every single human who’s watching this!”

Extraordinary as that night and morning had been, Luce thought that what came next was the most wondrous thing of all. And yet it was so simple: just the glow on Imani’s face as she reached back and untied her headscarf.

“Tell Pharaoh’s army I said hello too, okay?”

“If you want to, Imani,” Luce told her, “you can come up and tell them yourself.”

* * *

Luce launched herself into the heart of the rising wave.

She rose above San Francisco Bay, her view of it wrinkled and disturbed by the glassy curves passing in front of her eyes. Skyscrapers warped and shimmered to her right, glass panes glittering like fish scales. The power of the mermaids’ singing propelled her upward, and she had to use her tail only for balance. Tiny currents torqued and jarred around her, and she had to concentrate to keep herself from being flipped through complicated somersaults. She didn’t want the humans to get the impression that she was out of control in any way. So much depended on the coming moments, and she had to be strong and graceful and persuasive.

After all, she was there to represent the Twice Lost Army.

Luce twisted to a halt ten feet in front of the cameraperson, jouncing a little with the water’s irregular impulses. The man yelped and thrashed against his ropes as he caught sight of her. Luce couldn’t help grinning to herself at his eyes rounded into astonished Os, his legs kicking as he tried to run through empty air. Funny as his panic seemed, she felt enough compassion to wave the white scarf. She didn’t actually want him to be afraid of her.

In the widening sky behind him a dozen helicopters stuttered, but none of them appeared to be the heavy military helicopters that had attacked the night before. Luce looked again and saw that they were all pointing cameras of their own.

The cameraperson had stopped kicking and instead flopped weakly in his harness. But he wasn’t looking at the white scarf; his eyes were locked on her face. The hungry adoration in his gaze almost sent Luce diving back to her friends, but then she remembered why she was there. She tipped her upper body forward until the water- wall sliced open around her face. It felt sleek and cool, like bubbling silk against her cheeks. Her fins flicked continuously to hold her in place.

“Hi,” Luce called, raising her voice to be heard over the mingling rush of water and song.

At the sound of her voice his eyes bulged and he twitched again, his lips moving around the shapes of silent words. Then he seemed to find his own voice and screamed.

Luce jarred back in shock before she understood what he was shrieking: “A mike! A mike! Get me a microphone down here! Get a mike! Carol! Sam!”

This is our chance, Luce reminded herself. This might be the best chance we’ll ever have. If there’s ever going to be peace . . .

Was peace enough, though?

Now that the opportunity was in front of her, shouldn’t she try to save more than just her fellow mermaids? The mermaids weren’t the only thing in danger, after all. She thought again of that field of death she’d seen on the seabed.

Above her there were confused shouts, a clatter of equipment, and then a jointed metal stalk leaned out into the air. It crooked halfway down like an insect’s leg, and at its tip there was a large black microphone coming straight toward her face.

If she chose this moment to let her voice spiral into her death song, Luce realized, it could easily have an effect equal to a nuclear bomb going off. What was happening now was so extraordinary that countless humans must be watching her. If she sang that particular lethal melody, literally millions of people would probably drown themselves. The human governments would agree to whatever she asked out of sheer terror. Mermaids all over the world would expect nothing less of her. It would be terrible—but wasn’t it possible that more lives would ultimately be saved if the war ended now?

The microphone lurched awkwardly forward, brushing right against her lips.

“Hi,” Luce said again, her voice clear and definite—and completely free of any music. “We’re not here to hurt anyone.”

Something swished through the corner of her vision, and Luce noticed that she wasn’t alone in the wave anymore. Imani was pirouetting in slow, elegant spirals on her right, and incredibly enough Catarina had swum up too and was hovering a few yards to her left.

Luce was looking to the cameraperson for a response, so she was surprised when the reply came from above her head.

“Who are you?” a woman’s voice boomed, and Luce gazed up to see a carefully coifed woman in a cobalt blue suit bent over the railing clutching a megaphone. She looked both terrified and fascinated. Luce suddenly felt sorry for the woman, and a little heartsick that she’d even contemplated killing people like her.

“I’m General Luce. We’re the Twice Lost Army. And these are two of our lieutenants, Catarina and Imani. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and you don’t need to be scared.”

“Are you mermaids?” the woman bellowed back.

This was such an absurd question that Luce couldn’t bring herself to answer. Instead she let her long body catch the movement of the water. She swam in suspended, curling loops for a few moments then pulled herself through the wave’s flank to face the microphone again. Then she realized that the question was actually important: it was another chance to make the humans understand.

“We’re mermaids now,” Luce explained, “but we haven’t always been. All of us used to be human.”

That seemed to cause a minor uproar. Luce couldn’t quite make out what the people above her head were saying; without the megaphone their voices blended with the babble of the water and the rich swell of music. But it