Page 1 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)

One

Alexia

“ A lexia! Thank goodness you’re here. I am certain I am about to die.”

Even though she knew Original Harlow would not expire any point soon, Alexia still moved into the room with more purpose. She’d been seeking out new towels in Tau since her Original was certain that her own were not the same softness as before. She couldn’t guess what might have happened in the time between when she left and when she had returned.

Still, it was her job to ensure that Harlow lived the most comfortable and safe life possible. So she set the bundle of towels down on the nearest surface and strode into Harlow’s bedroom.

The room was elaborate in an understated way. Many of the Originals clung to old grandeur that made their rooms almost stuffy to be in. They preferred gilded edges, carved figures poured in molten gold, and paintings that had been saved for hundreds of years. But not Harlow. She loved to live in the new ages of their world. So instead of hiding that she lived underneath the sea, Harlow luxuriated in it.

Every surface of this room glistened. The floor was mother-of-pearl, crushed and inlaid into the tile. The furniture was dusted with iridescence, each arm and leg gleaming in the chandelier light from overhead. Crystal cylinders hung from the ceiling, sending dancing rainbows throughout the room whenever the light was on.

Three of the walls were entirely glass. Harlow had spent a good amount of money making sure that every single wall was strong enough to hold the sea at bay, while also giving her a view of the sea beyond. Of course, there was another glass wall about forty feet farther away, just to make sure no undine got ideas to come close to one of the Originals.

In the space between her glass wall and the second, fish and flora flourish. Coral and tiny schools of fish gave pops of color to the otherwise desolate space. But at one point, there had been a dolphin trapped in there. Harlow liked to make it do tricks until it had died.

That memory still made Alexia feel strange.

“What is the matter?” she asked, walking toward Harlow, where she stood near the glass.

Harlow was a stunning woman, always had been, and would continue to be. The Originals were ancient, and Harlow was one of the oldest, although only by a few years. She looked very much to be a stunning fifty-year-old woman. Though her hair was still a warm, golden brown, her skin was still pristine and her spine straight and strong. She was lean, with the slightest of curves in her hips. But beyond her physical presence, she had a way of looking into a person’s soul with a glare so severe it had leveled lesser men.

Now, she stood with the shoulder of her dress drooped down to her elbow, displaying unblemished, lightly tanned skin. She spent hours a week in a tanning bed, making sure she still looked like she lived Above, and then hours fixing that sun damage through other means.

“See this?” Harlow said, pointing at a faint red patch on the highest peak of her shoulder. “Look at it.”

She looked. Alexia had to do whatever Harlow said, even if it felt a little foolish to be looking at a slightly flakey patch of red skin. “Yes?”

“It’s a rash. A rash! One of the reborns must have slipped through the security checks on their genetics.” Harlow scoffed. “To think this would happen to me and not one of the others.”

Well, it was unlikely that the scientist in charge of Harlow’s reborns would make any mistake like that. However, if that was what Harlow wanted to think, then that’s what she was allowed to think.

Carefully, Alexia shifted Harlow’s dress over her shoulder again. “Come. Let’s get you tucked into bed. A rest will make you feel better.”

Harlow sighed. “I forget that having you around instantly eases me. You are a wonderful companion, Alexia.”

It was a lie. Alexia was a good guard, and that was all she had been created for. She towered over Harlow’s diminutive form, but then again, Alexia towered over everyone if they weren’t like her. At six foot seven, Alexia was a massive woman created for power and strength. She would put her body in between anything that attacked Harlow and had many times. Harlow was still very much alive, and thus, she was damn good at her job.

Guiding the Original over to her massive bed that was the color of sea foam and filled with so many pillows, it was hard to imagine how she slept at all. She helped Harlow into the bed. “Would you like me to brush your hair before you sleep?”

“Oh, would you? You know you’re the only one with a touch delicate enough to do so. The others always pull at the strands and I only have so many.”

Some part of Alexia stirred at that. She went to the nightstand, pulling out the brush that was also inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and stared down at her own reflection in it.

What had Harlow said? Years ago? When Alexia was finally ready to serve her, the first thing the Original had said at the sight of her was, “Damn, you’re a big brute.”

There was some part of her that believed those words still. Her dark hair was pulled back severely from her face, tight against her skull and making her eyes appear slanted like a fox. She wore no makeup, not like the Originals, but her dark slashes of brows needed no addition to make them obvious. The permanent scowl on her face was intimidating to most, and then there was her height, of course. Bunches of muscles made her neck seem even thicker than it already was, and her shoulders even broader. As Harlow had once said, she was a brute of a woman.

But then again, she’d been made like this. It was hard to look away from her own reflection sometimes. She caught her own gaze and was sucked into it as thoughts that didn’t feel like her own suddenly jumbled in her mind.

She hadn’t been born. She’d been created in a test tube. Genetically engineered to be the person they wanted her to be. There were still thoughts in her mind, memories of a time when she had been growing. Blips of a history when she had been just a child, learning how to be strong, how to fight, how to not cry. All the things they told her she had to learn, but no one else did. Some part of her had resented that, then. But now, she could hardly feel a thing.

“Alexia!” Harlow’s tone was sharp now. “You were going to brush my hair.”

Of course she was.

Alexia ripped her gaze away from her own reflection and turned her attention back to Harlow. She walked over to the bed and knelt beside it, her knees already aching on the hard floor but easy enough to ignore. How many times had she done this? Kneeling while Harlow sat, brushing through the long strands of her Original’s luxurious brown hair. There were threads of gold in it, a fact that Alexia had commented on multiple times.

Usually, now was the time that she would lavish Harlow with compliments. She’d tell her how beautiful her skin was, and that she surely was the youngest looking of all the Originals, even though she had been one of the oldest when they had first come down here. The strands of gold in her hair caught the light prettier than anything Alexia had ever seen.

But tonight... tonight she didn’t feel like telling the other woman all that. A strange mood had overcome her, and she wasn’t sure where it originated from.

Harlow huffed. “Can you believe the geneticist missed something with the last reborn? Really, it’s not that hard to do his job. I could replace him just like that.”

The snap of her fingers made Alexia flinch.

The reality was that the Originals could replace anyone they wanted in this city. Unfortunately, replacing someone usually meant killing them. Alexia had done it herself with the last geneticist who had disappointed Harlow. The man’s neck had been all too easy to snap and the snap of Harlow’s fingers sounded eerily similar to the sound his bones had made.

Swallowing hard, she nodded. “I can give him a warning, ma’am.”

“Do you believe a warning will make him listen?”

“He’s been your geneticist for nearly ten years now. I do believe replacing him would be very difficult.”

There was a long pause as Alexia realized she’d given an actual opinion. Harlow didn’t want someone else’s opinion about anything. Her Original wanted Alexia to just agree with everything that Harlow said and parrot it back to her. That was their relationship, and it had worked for years.

What was she doing? Why was she even saying anything about this?

“Right,” Harlow said slowly. “You’re probably correct that I should give him another chance. But make sure you have him prepare another reborn. I can’t have a blemish like this for long.”

“Prepare—“

She felt herself freeze.

The reborns were identical to Harlow and the others. They were clones that were only awoken from their stasis when an Original needed them. There were hundreds of them deep in the heart of this city, surrounded by geneticists who made sure that every single one of them was a pure-blooded creation that was ready to be used for almost any illness or injury.

It was how the Originals had stayed alive for over two hundred years. They took pieces of themselves whenever they needed a replacement.

She hated going into that eerie place. All those bodies in various states of age, hanging there. Suspended in giant test tubes, nude, with their eyes closed. The first time she’d gone into the reborn center, she noticed that their eyes were still moving underneath their lids.

They were dreaming. And it had been hard to think of them as anything other than people when she recognized that small detail.

“A reborn?” Alexia finally managed to cough out. “Is a reborn necessary for this? I can get a doctor and have them prepare you a cream.”

Harlow stilled underneath her hands. A fraction of a second. That’s all it took for the Original to whip around on the bed and grab Alexia by the throat. She was surprisingly strong for an older woman, but it wasn’t her strength that Alexia feared. No, it was the rage in her eyes.

At any second, any Original could choose to have someone removed from Tau. It would only take a single moment for Harlow to bite down hard enough to activate the warning signal that every single Original had affixed to their teeth. Within seconds, an entire entourage of soldiers would appear at her door and they wouldn’t ask questions. They would kill any person who was near Harlow.

Because at the end of the day, even though she had served this woman her entire life, Alexia was dispensible. There were hundreds of other genetically enhanced guards ready to take her place. Some were more willing and biddable, and perhaps even more qualified.

“You’re thinking an awful lot for yourself today,” Harlow murmured. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Alexia’s. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“When did it start?”

“This morning.” It was the first thing she’d noticed when she looked in the mirror.

She’d woken up, looked at her own reflection, and wondered why she looked so different. It was like she was looking at a stranger. Her reflection wasn’t her. That hardened woman who had seen too much surely couldn’t be her .

“Interesting,” Harlow said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. My thoughts are very foggy and I have been trying to understand them.”

“You’re trying to understand your own thoughts?” Tilting her head to the side, Harlow seemed to peer into her mind. “What kind of thoughts?”

“I have yet to put a name to them, ma’am. It’s hard to follow them when there are so many. They’re quite jumbled.” It was the best explanation she could offer, even though she knew it was the opposite of what Harlow wanted.

All the Originals preferred hard truths and logic. But human thought was rarely that.

Harlow hummed under her breath before loosening her grip on Alexia’s neck. She rubbed her thumb along the carotid artery there, as though in threat. “You have been thinking too much. That is a burden, my dear.”

Alexia didn’t think it was a burden. More of a blessing, really. She had a feeling that free thought wasn’t something she’d been afforded for a very long time. And now that she had it, she wasn’t all that certain she was willing to give it up.

“You shouldn’t be thinking on your own.” Harlow released her with a sigh and then stood from the bed. “My dear, I have told you that you are my very favorite guard, haven’t I? All these years, going through your kind over and over again, it’s so easy to think of you all as one being. But you’ve always stood out to me as my favorite.”

That didn’t feel like a compliment. And yet, she couldn’t free herself from her kneeling position on the floor as Harlow opened her night table and drew out a syringe.

Her medicine. Or at least, that’s what they always told her it was.

Alexia had been injected by people her entire life. Needles full of chemicals became so normal it was hard to imagine life without them. When she was a child, they were full of vitamins and all the other pieces and parts that made her body grow bigger and stronger. Maybe if she hadn’t been tested and poked and prodded, she would have been a normal sized woman. Maybe she wouldn’t have stretched and had such growing pains that she was up late at night screaming as her legs grew faster than they should have. Maybe her hands wouldn’t have been the size of a human head if they hadn’t stuck her day in and day out, injecting her full of poison that twisted her body into something unrecognizable.

Her heart rate sped up as Harlow came closer with that needle in her hand. A voice she didn’t recognize in her own head screamed at her to run. She shouldn’t just wait here, kneeling, for all that poison to yet again affect her thoughts.

But there was another part of her that only listened to Harlow.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to no longer have those thoughts?” Harlow murmured. “I would hate to lose you. You know you are, and always have been, my favorite.”

She stayed where she was, watching that needle come ever closer. Because it would be easier to not have any thoughts. Especially these thoughts. These whispered words in her head that nothing was actually fine, and that everything was wrong, and if she wasn’t careful...

“Shh,” Harlow whispered as she wrapped an arm around Alexia’s neck, holding her head to the side. “Let me take care of it for you.”

She shouldn’t. She should fight this. But instead of struggling, she tilted her head to the side and allowed it to happen. The sharp prick of the needle pierced through the muscles where her shoulder and neck met. A long time ago, she would have winced at the pain, but now it was so familiar she didn’t react at all.

Instead, she remained frozen in Harlow’s arms as she felt her emotions drain away completely. Disappearing into the ether of darkness at the back of her mind where all bad thoughts gathered to be tossed into the sea.

“There we go,” Harlow said with a tight squeeze before releasing her. “You don’t have to think, Alexia. All you have to do is be here for me.”

And that was easier than thinking.

“Thank you, Harlow,” she replied, standing. “Would you like me to speak with the geneticist now?”

“Yes. I will rest and you prepare the reborn for me. Oh and, Alexia? You are ever so good at your job.”

She was the best at her job.

Alexia turned and walked out the door, leaving all those dark thoughts in the room with the Original who had caused them all.