Hunger

looked around, fearful that someone might overhear. “Diana?” he whispered.
    “Mmmm. Yep. Like the new hairdo?” She rubbed her hand over her brush cut.
    For a boy with the strength of ten grown men, he looked awfully nervous.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I need you, Jack.”
    “You? You need me?”
    She tilted her head to the side and sized him up. “So, you like Brianna, huh? And here I thought I was the girl of your dreams.”
    Flesh tones were all blue in the harsh streetlight, but Diana was sure he was blushing.
    “Come on,” she said. “Let’s walk on the beach. We’ll have some privacy there.”
    He followed her obediently, as she knew he would. He might have a crush on cute little Brianna, but Diana had missed none of the covert looks Jack had sent her way over the months she’d known him. She still had some power over him. They climbed the low sea wall and labored across the sand under the night sky. Diana wished she could live down here, close to the beach. As shabby and damaged as Perdido Beach was, it was still so much more alive than the Fear Factory, as some kids called Coates Academy.
    “What is it you want?” Jack asked. His voice sounded desperate.
    “So. You got the cell phones working. I was wondering what was taking you so long,” Diana said. “You always used to tell me it would be fairly easy.”
    “I can’t talk about it,” he said miserably.
    “Sam won’t let you do it, will he? Why?” When he didn’t answer, she provided her own explanation. “Because we’d be able to use it, too. Interesting. Poor Caine: always underestimating his brother.”
    Jack plodded along beside her. The strength in his limbs drove his feet too deep into the sand.
    “Caine knows about you now, of course, about you being a mutant. With a serious power, no less.”
    “He knows?” Jack’s voice rose an octave.
    Diana smiled to herself. Still scared. Good. “Yep. He knows everything. He knows it’s not your fault you ended up over here. He knows that was me.”
    “Did he make you cut off your hair?”
    The question caught Diana off-guard. She laughed. “Oh, Jack. No. Caine forgave me. You know how he is. He gets mad, but really he’s very forgiving.”
    “That’s not how he seemed to me,” Jack said.
    Diana chose not to argue that point. “How’s the internet project going?”
    “I need a decent server. I need a serious router.”
    “Are those pieces of equipment?”
    The question allowed Jack a moment of superiority. She heard the familiar pedantic tone in his voice. “Yes, those are pieces of equipment.”
    “Have you looked everywhere?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you look at Coates when you were still with us?”
    “Of course. I know every piece of technology at Coates, and probably every one here in Perdido Beach.”
    So, Diana thought, that was the bait she had to lay out for Jack. Of course. What else? He might lust for Diana, and long for Brianna, but Jack’s true love was made of silicon.
    “Even if you got a router, what makes you think Sam would let you set up your own internet?”
    The long, long hesitation was all the confirmation Diana needed.
    At last he said, “I don’t know.”
    “I know Sam is a nice guy,” Diana conceded. “Nicer than Caine. But Caine has always had respect for what you can do, Jack. Even back before the FAYZ. You know he always let you do your thing.”
    “Maybe,” Jack muttered.
    “I mean, put it this way: do you imagine, even for a second, that Caine would give you a job as hard as setting up the cell phone system and then just blow you off?”
    His silence was eloquent.
    “We need you, Jack,” Diana said. “We need you back.”
    “I have stuff to do here.”
    She put her hand on his arm and he stopped walking. She came around to stand face-to-face with him. She stood too close. Close enough that she could be sure that the hard drive he had in place of a heart was whirring away.
    She stroked his face with her fingers. Not too overt, not really a promise, just enough to disorient him, poor boy.
    “Come back, Jack,” Diana breathed. “Caine has a job for you. The biggest job you can imagine. The ultimate technological challenge.” She spoke the last three words slowly, pausing dramatically.
    Jack’s eyes widened. “What is it?”
    “Something only you can do,” she said. “Only you.”
    “Can’t you tell me?” he pleaded.
    “It’s huge, Jack. Beyond anything you’ve tried so far. Bigger computers. Far more