Page 27 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)

Twenty-Seven

Alexia

T he beeping was almost too familiar. How many times had she woken just like this? A hundred beeps, that was what she had always told herself. Count a hundred beeps before she opened her eyes. Then at least she got a few moments to herself.

She always started at her feet. Could she move her toes? Yes. They were moving. Slowly, achingly, but they were moving. Good, she wasn’t paralyzed then. Moving up her calves, she felt no pain there either. Her thigh ached. Both of them, now that she was thinking about it. They hurt like she’d gotten sliced into, so that must have been what happened. Maybe a knife fight. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Twenty-five... twenty-six...

Moving up past her hips, there were no wounds on her torso, at least. That didn’t feel so bad, although there was a strange suction-y feeling when she breathed that might be bad. Her lungs weren’t breathing normally, and that wasn’t a great sign, but she would take it. Lungs could heal. Hearts couldn’t.

Fifty-three... fifty-four...

Her hands and arms hurt a lot more than the rest of her body. Mostly just her biceps, almost as though there was something really wrong with one of them. She doubted that was the case, though. She healed so much faster than other humans, so she must just be a little tired from all the drugs they’d pumped into her body. Nothing a stretch wouldn’t fix.

Eighty-seven... eighty-eight...

Alexia had a horrible headache and there was a strange, cotton-like substance coating her tongue. She needed a glass of water, and then a few more meds to kick the rest of this pain. Then she’d be fine. She could go back to guarding or doing whatever it was she’d been doing.

One hundred.

Blinking her eyes open, she squinted them against the searing white light of the infirmary. It wasn’t the one in Tau, though. Most of her memories rushed in at that. She’d been attacked by a massive amount of squid who were far too big for their own good, and then Fortis had saved her. At least he hadn’t left her to die. She really thought he was more likely to do that, considering the situation was entirely her fault.

But she wasn’t dead. So he’d gotten her somewhere with healers who knew how to kick up her body’s healing process. She wasn’t entirely sure of the science behind it. All she knew was that those with genetic modifications could heal far better than the average human. Alexia had died a few times in her life, only to be brought back with a sharp electrical pulse to the chest and an injection of adrenaline that seemed to make it better.

She blinked the sand out of her eyes a few times, trying to get her bearings. There was glass above her head. Now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see it wasn’t all white. The light had just been the sun spearing through the water, although she wasn’t certain she would see sunlight for much longer.

There was a thunderhead in the sky. A black cloud that was dark as ink, menacing as it rolled overhead. She stayed quiet as she watched it, just staring up at the coils of darkness.

Tiny drops of rain struck the surface of the water that was probably ten or fifteen feet above her head. Then the wind hit. Soon enough, she couldn’t see the sky at all. Rolling waves overtook all of it and then the sun was really gone. It was almost pitch black in the room until the overhead lights flickered on, one by one.

Where was she? Fortis had clearly taken her somewhere safe where she could heal, but this wasn’t a familiar city. She’d seen them all with her own eyes, having traveled with Harlow to all of them at some point in her life. This was not a familiar place. Nor were any of the cities close enough to the surface where they could hear the rolling rumble of thunder and the sudden cracks of lightning.

A door opened and closed. The sound was a welcome reprieve to the storm that rolled overhead.

Turning her head to the side, she realized that this room was a dome. She’d only been in a few of these before. Giant metal beams stabilized the whole thing, glass coming all the way down from the ceiling to the metal floor. Plenty of medical equipment was stored in glass faced storage units, and there were two other tables in the room. Not beds. Tables. So perhaps this was more of a surgical suite, although she couldn’t imagine why they would have one of these. This had to be a small settlement, something outside of Tau’s control.

The door wasn’t even connected to any computer. No automatic functions here. Just a real old school door that the young man who walked into her room closed behind him.

He looked up at her with massive eyes magnified by glasses before he cleared his throat. “Oh. You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.”

“Fantastic. I’ll get Mira.”

Her voice was little more than a croak, but she still made it sound intimidating. “Wait.”

The harsh word made the man freeze where he was. She could see his shoulders were shivering with fear as he looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Water, please.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. I’m sorry, I forget that morphine can cause dry mouth with some patients. Allow me.” He walked over to the corner, where there was a jug of water. He almost dropped the plastic jug on the floor as he shakily poured it into a glass for her and then brought it over to her table. He hesitated before placing it down next to her. “Let me get you a straw.”

“I’m fine.” Alexia wedged her elbow underneath her and slowly sat up.

“You shouldn’t do that.” He lunged forward, almost placing his hand on her chest to hold her in place before he froze again. His hand shook. “I just think... You almost died, miss.”

Though she coughed as she sat up straight, much to his terror, she didn’t feel much worse for it. At least she could sit up straight and drink out of a glass. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “Get whoever you said you needed to get.”

“Mira. She wanted to know when you were awake first. The others were, of course, interested as well. They have all been popping in multiple times to make sure you were still alive. No one’s seen Fortis so...” He trailed off, those eyes somehow getting even bigger. “Right. I’ll go get Mira.”

She had no idea what had cursed her to end up in this place, but she would never forgive Fortis for bringing her here. Downing the water, she set the glass down and tried to stay upright. If she was going to meet someone important in this place, she damned well wasn’t doing it lying down.

Where was Fortis? She tried to look through the water surrounding the glass dome, but the storm above raged so powerfully that it churned at the surface. Foam filled her line of sight, making it impossible to tell if there was an undine out there watching her, or if it was just the nothingness of the sea.

Snorting, she remembered the last time she’d thought there was nothing in the sea.

Speaking of... Alexia looked down at the bandages on her thighs and arms. The squid had bitten into her in quite a few different places, it seemed. She was lucky they hadn’t gone for her throat. That likely would have been much more difficult to survive.

She peeled off the bandages while hissing through her teeth. The one on her left arm was the worst, although the muscle was already regrowing. Clearly, they’d given her a good boost of pain medicine for her to not be feeling that nasty piece of work. Her other arm wasn’t quite so bad, but it was slightly oozing, which she could only guess meant it had gotten infected somehow. Maybe the mouths of those squid weren’t so clean.

But her leg… her leg wasn’t good at all. She needed a good dose of nanites to get that to heal. The tiny robots were usually what Tau injected her people, straight into the bloodstream where they could heal. Those squid had nearly chewed right through to the bone with those sharp beaks. Sighing, she shook her head at the mess of it all. If she had just let Fortis carry her back to the ship, nothing would have happened. Her own stupid pride had gotten in the way. She really needed to learn how to manage that emotion better.

The door opened and closed again, this time with a sharper crack that suggested the person entering had a lot more strength than the last one.

Glancing up, she stared at the fire haired woman in front of her. This Mira was strong. She’d been right about that. Muscles bunched up and down her bare arms that she had crossed over her chest. The white tank top she wore was smeared with grease, and her bottoms were a wetsuit that had been folded in half around her waist. There were still drops of water on it.

“You were out in this?” Alexia asked, pointing up to the storm. “Seems dangerous.”

“Shit has to get done. So I get it done.” Mira leaned against one of the other tables, her eyes seeing more than Alexia wanted her to see. “You took your bandages off, I see. You don’t trust our healing?”

“Not a lot of people know how to heal someone like me.”

“Yeah, I had the idea of that as soon as I saw you. You aren’t human.”

The words stung. Alexia had heard them her entire life, but they still weren’t great to hear. “I am human, just like you.”

“Upgraded?”

“More than upgraded. Created in a lab, perfection personified.” She shrugged. “Or at least, perfect for the job they made me for.”

Mira’s mouth twisted to the side, like she was chewing on the inside of her lip. “What did they make you do?”

“Protect.”

“You good at it?”

“Better than anyone here.” Alexia glanced around them, trying to decide if she needed to find herself a weapon. Although she supposed she could just kill this woman with her bare hands. None of them would guess she could do that. “I wouldn’t suggest testing me.”

Mira held her hands up. “I wasn’t planning on it. I’ve seen you lying down. I don’t even want to know what size you’d be standing up.”

“I need nanites.”

“We don’t have any of those here.”

Alexia frowned. Furrows appeared between her eyes as she took a deep breath and sighed. The sound was a long, deep wheeze, similar to a growl, as she realized she was stranded in the worst of circumstances. “Then I’ll need steroids. A lot of them.”

“We don’t have that many of those, and generally speaking, we keep them safe for those who need them after an infection. You’ll just have to heal like the rest of us.”

Yeah, she wasn’t going to do that. Taking another deep, steadying breath, Alexia threw her legs over the side of the table. The metal dug into the back of her thighs, making the wound on one ache worse than before. Not a big deal, really. She could make it through. That pain wasn’t as bad as she’d experienced during her training. Or the last time she’d died.

She’d been electrocuted to death when Harlow had fallen into a pool of water with a live wire in it. Alexia had thrown her Original out of the water and been stuck in it herself.

Wincing, she placed her feet on the floor and shook her head. “This is going to suck.”

“What are you doing?”

Alexia shoved herself upright. Her left leg took all of her weight easily enough, although it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. She stood still as Mira lunged for her.

“Let’s not do that,” Mira said, her hands held out as she stared up Alexia’s massive height. “Damn, you’re a big woman.”

“You can try to stop me.” She took another step forward, trying out her weight on the right leg, which wasn’t as bad as she’d assumed. “But I wouldn’t suggest it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Getting steroids. I assume they’re with all the other medication.”

“I told you, I’m not giving you any more medication. I don’t know what it will do with everything else the doctors here gave you. It’s not like we have a hospital here and you were quite literally dead.” Mira tried to grab onto her arm, then released it when Alexia shook her off. “Good lord, you are strong.”

“Stronger than most,” Alexia replied. She ran her tongue over her teeth as she reached the cabinet and rummaged through it. “What did they give me?”

“I don’t know.”

Could be worse. She’d had a lot of different drugs in her system throughout her entire life. A lethal dose for a regular human wasn’t a lethal dose for her.

Another person walked in, this time a blonde with a droid wrapped around her head. “What’s she doing up?”

“Giving herself a steroid injection.”

“She can’t do that! We had to give her anticonvulsants because she started seizing when we restarted her heart! Steroids could kill her.” The blonde woman stepped forward, only stopping when Mira grabbed her arm. “Mira, let me go. She’s going to kill herself again.”

“I think we let the big woman do what she wants,” Mira hissed.

Likely because if she died, all Mira’s issues would be fixed. Alexia knew she was a complicated problem to have. None of them trusted her, and she didn’t blame them for it.

“Did Fortis tell you who I am?” she asked as she found the box of steroids. They only had six vials. She took three of them.

“Only that you were from Tau, and that we could trust you,” Mira replied.

“A man of many words.” Alexia stuck the first needle in her thigh, sighing as the steroids immediately started to work. She could feel her body using it to address the wound on her thigh, and could even feel the ragged edges of her wound healing.

She turned toward the other two women, noticing their eyes widened as they stared at her leg. It was visibly knitting together at this point. The perks of being more than human.

“I am from Tau. You can trust me, however impossible that seems. I have no interest in hurting the people here and only want to seek revenge on Tau for all the things they have done to me. What you’re watching right now is only part of their experiments.”

She stuck the next shot into her left arm, the one with the ooze coming out of it. That one stung, but she just stared as the yellow liquid belched out of the wound before slowing and starting to heal. One last wound.

If she were back in Tau, they would have given her blood. This place didn’t have that, though. Or maybe they did, and they just weren’t interested in giving it to her. That was fine, too. She didn’t expect them to welcome her with open arms.

The two women’s mouths had opened as they stared at her, and then a third poked her head in. With dark hair cropped close to her head and glasses on her face, she was so far from anyone who lived in Tau that Alexia found herself liking her a bit more than the other two.

“What’s going on in here?” Her eyes turned toward Alexia and then moved up... up... up... “Oh. Fuck.”

Alexia sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh fuck is right. Now where is my undine?”