Page 39 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)
Thirty-Nine
Alexia
T hese fucked up people. Alexia would never forgive them for this. Never. He didn’t deserve to die, and they had taken the only good thing she had.
She just wanted him to live. That’s all. She didn’t want to beg for it or ruin the mission that she was on, but she wanted him to live so that she didn’t have to lose the only thing that had ever made her feel like a person.
He was everything to her. And as she watched his gaze slacken and his body go limp, she could feel herself dying with him. The person he had brought into this world, the version of herself who was soft and kind, died a long, sorrowful death. She went with him, wherever he was going, because she damn well wasn’t going to be that soft Alexia here.
It wasn’t safe to be soft in this pit of vipers, where everyone wanted to see others in pain. They were testing her. She knew that. They were testing to see if she really was the person that she had once been, and if killing an innocent undine would make her slip up.
Well, they had no idea what she was going to do to them now. She would tear them apart with her bare hands, show them all exactly what the undine had taught her. She would be the nightmare that brought this place to its knees and she would bathe in their blood, just as Fortis would want her to do.
Straightening, she wiped her expression clean of all the thoughts she was having. They couldn’t see her anger. They couldn’t see the hatred bubbling underneath the surface of her being.
So when she turned, she looked just like her old self. The woman who would take quite literally anything from anyone as long as Harlow was happy. “There. Dead.”
Harlow clapped in glee. Her face had already creased into a bright smile, wrinkles forming at the edges of her eyes that she would surely kill a reborn to fix very soon. “Delightful! Now, I have a surprise for you. You got back just in time for it, and I cannot wait for you to see it.”
“A surprise, Harlow?” She followed her Original and told herself not to look back. Don’t look at the body of the man she had fallen so deeply for. But she did. She looked back at the scientists and narrowed her eyes on them. “Don’t fuck with that body. It’s not yours. Dispose of it.”
They glared at her, but she could see they were going to follow her instruction. They wouldn’t desecrate his body, at the very least. Now, she just had to shake Harlow for a few moments and get this plan rolling.
As they strode through the blinding white halls, Alexia found it harder and harder to not let anger overwhelm her. She’d seen Harlow’s picture on that wall. She knew this woman had been there at the start of the end of the world. And now, she acted like it had never happened. Like it wasn’t a big deal that humans were down here, experimenting on each other and everything else in the sea.
As they walked toward one of Harlow’s private quarters, Alexia had to make sure she wasn’t breathing hard. Already, the sound of her anger was perhaps a little too obvious.
She needed to distract herself before she did something stupid. Like angrily rage that this woman had made her kill the only man she loved. Or just outright murder the woman for everything Harlow had done.
Not that they wouldn’t just bring her back. Alexia was sure the Originals had a plan in case someone assassinated them as well.
“Harlow?” she asked. “Please fill me in on everything that I missed.”
“Oh, nothing much. There was a grand party. Everyone was there. I surely missed you while you were gone, though. The guards who were to be your replacements were all so dull. I didn’t like them.”
Boring. All of this was so boring. None of it actually mattered, and she didn’t understand how these people managed to live like this for hundreds of years. Who cared about a party or the people who attended? Who cared that someone had worn something so out of fashion that it was so last week?
But she played along. She kept herself in check, all the way to the back room where Harlow usually worked out whenever she got the idea that she might want to do that. The mats were still on the floor, dark blue, so they didn’t offend Harlow’s eyes. And then there were the tall glass windows, each one of them about as wide as Alexia was, stacked next to each other like dominos to look out into the dark sea beyond. Exterior lights illuminated the speckles of dust in the water and the nothingness that was out there.
“Good, we arrived just in time.” Harlow said. She spun in a small circle before sighing. “Listen. You’ve been gone for such a long time, and I wanted to do something special for you. I have appreciated your companionship, and you truly are the best person to walk through life with me.”
She didn’t like where this was going. “Thank you, Harlow.”
“Now, I understand that there are going to be people who talk. You have always been a bit different from the other guards, but I liked that. So I let you be. Unfortunately, many of those people have a lot of power here and I need them to like me.” Harlow walked over to another door and hit the locking mechanism. It unlocked, and a person walked through. “So this is my gift to you.”
A person? What did she want with another person?
But then Alexia really looked at this stranger and stared into her own dark eyes. She traced the outline of her own dark hair, pulled back in a tight braid that made her features look even more severe. This version of her was slightly broader, a little heavier set with muscle, but this was... her. Except she was dressed in a pale grey suit, far more rigid than anything Alexia would have worn. This suit had black buttons down the center, and the new genetically enhanced version of herself started to unbutton them as they stared at each other, revealing a white tank underneath the blazer.
Alexia was standing in front of herself, looking at a woman who shouldn’t exist and yet, they both knew what had happened.
“Alexia?” she asked.
“Alexia the eighth, to be specific,” this woman said.
Her eyes were so dead, Alexia realized. No emotion in them at all, as though she wasn’t really alive.
Harlow seemed to realize what Alexia was horrified by. “Ah, yes. That. There’s always been a flaw in you, unfortunately, and it usually relates to emotion. They said if I wanted to keep you, I would have to fix that.”
“How is this a gift, Harlow?” Alexia moved as the other version of her moved, making sure the woman wouldn’t get behind her. She knew what personal guards were meant to do. This creation would attack her at any given chance. That’s what this moment was for. Without a doubt, they were going to kill her.
“Because you get to meet your replacement! I thought you’d want to know that I am going to be well cared for. Your entire life has been about making sure that I am happy, and now, after your death, you can be rest assured that I will be fine.” Harlow lifted a hand and dabbed at her eyes, as though she was teary-eyed just thinking of it. “I’m going to miss this version of you. But time moves on and sometimes we make mistakes.”
“Harlow,” she hissed, but the Original was already walking to the door.
“No, no. I simply can’t stand it. Alexia the eighth, make sure your predecessor is dead before you come back out of this room.” Harlow took a deep breath and nodded. “This is the right thing to do.”
The door closed behind her, and then it was just Alexia and the newer version of herself.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said, starting to circle the other woman. “They want us to kill each other, but we can both get out of here alive.”
The eighth version of herself pointed up. “They’re filming everything. You know even saying something so stupid is a bad idea.”
Sure, they were filming. Who cared? She was going to be out of this room before any of this footage got out. “You really don’t want to fight me,” she replied, ignoring the warning about the cameras. “You may have been training to serve Harlow, but I have lived far more than you.”
“They made me better than you for a reason.”
“They made you numb. Emotions are nothing to be feared. They are to be embraced.”
They circled each other, all while the eighth version rolled up her sleeves like that was going to help her fight. All it took was a twitch of muscle, and Alexia reacted. The two of them lunged for each other.
They came together in a clash of power and weight. She knew this version of herself would have more muscles than she did, but Alexia was now wiry and strong from swimming. She also had the added advantage of something to fight for, which this other version did not have.
Grappling with the bigger woman, she managed to get her in a headlock. “Listen to me, they have done something terrible to you. You need to snap out of it. The drugs in your system can be bested.”
“You need to die.” The eighth reached back over her head, grabbed a handful of Alexia’s shirt, and dragged her over her shoulder.
She hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but she had to move or be killed. Rolling, she just barely blocked herself from a boot to the ribs.
Alexia stood, making sure to shake out her hands before she landed a punch square in the face of the other woman. The punch made her hand ache, but it felt good to do it. So she did it again, and again.
But then her hand was caught on the fourth strike, and the eighth yanked her in close enough to wrap her arms around her. She squeezed so hard it became hard to breathe.
The eighth was breathing hard, but ground out, “You are an anomaly. They are fixing the problem with me.”
“Yeah,” she wheezed. “I never did anything they wanted me to do.”
And then she head butted herself.
Fuck, that hurt. The hard front of her skull connected with the eighth’s nose, and it cracked immediately upon impact. She felt it break against her skull, and damn, it felt good to do. The eighth reeled back from her, blinded momentarily by pain and blood that gushed out of her nose.
A perfect opportunity. Alexia might have waited before, pride in her own fighting skill giving her opponent a chance to collect themselves.
But she wasn’t going to do that. Not when everyone’s lives were on the line.
Sweeping out her leg, she took the other Alexia onto the ground and crawled on top of her. Like Fortis had done to her so many times, Alexia locked her limbs around the other woman. Keeping the eighth’s arms pinned with her strong legs, she wrapped her arms around the woman’s neck tightly.
“As you die,” she snarled, struggling to keep her grip, but managing to pin the other woman. “I need you to know this. You are capable of far more than they tell you. You are strong, able to do whatever you want to do. Your emotions were never meant to be taken from you. They did that, and I will exact revenge for all of us. For every version they are still growing, and all the ones who came before us. They will die for what they have done.”
Finally, the last wheeze rattled out of the eighth Alexia’s lungs. She kept her hold for a few minutes more, making certain this version was dead. And for good measure, Alexia then snapped her neck.
“That feels so wrong to do,” she muttered as she finally released the dead body. It flopped away from her, and she stared down at her own dead body while telling herself that this was fine.
She knew she was going to have to kill people. She’d killed many other people before.
She just... had never killed herself. Or a version of herself. Or was this woman even her? They’d had completely different experiences throughout their entire life, so this really wasn’t her at all. It was just a stranger who wore her face.
“Still weird,” she muttered before reaching for her shirt and yanking it over her head.
Alexia made quick work of her pants too, tugging all the fabric off before she started stripping the dead body. All the while, she muttered apologies. “Really sorry about this. You don’t deserve to be treated like this, but... well. Duty calls. If anyone could understand that, it would be you.”
Somehow, staring down at a nude dead body that looked exactly like hers was even worse. And dressing one? That was particularly awful. She never wanted to do this again. Not in her life. This was wrong. So wrong.
“I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. You’re dead,” she muttered as she yanked pants on over the eighth Alexia’s legs. “But being in a room with a dead body that looks an awful lot like yourself is really, really terrible. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” She hesitated. “Or are you my worst enemy?”
Alexia shook her head and finished swapping their clothes.
“I’m really losing it. First Fortis, now you, and then the rest of the sea. I just have to figure out what to do next.” Straightening, she smoothed her hands down the blazer and then started buttoning it.
If she was a completely emotionless robot of herself, then she would not be seen without her jacket buttoned up to her throat. And for a moment, she let herself cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks and silent sobs made her shoulders shake as she donned new clothes and a new persona.
She had known this would be hard. Nothing about this had ever suggested that it would be easy, but she hadn’t realized just how awful it was going to be.
Her eyes went to the windows, and she unconsciously sought him out. Because her mind still swore that he had to be there. He had always been there. If she just kept looking, then soon enough, she would see that purple tail, or a flicker of yellow lights out in the depths.
But she was all alone now. Just standing in a room, staring out at the sea, with the dead version of herself at her feet.
And she was running out of time.
She needed to get her shit together and get out there. Someone would eventually look at the footage from this room. They would see that the wrong Alexia was walking through the city. She needed to get out, convince Harlow she was that emotionless version of herself, and then... off she went. Infiltrate the city and kill almost everyone inside.
Alexia leaned down to empty her old pockets of those tiny bead droids and dropped them all onto the floor. They knew what to do now that they were released. Each one of them zipped off in different directions, and they’d find the control room soon enough.
Taking a deep breath, she headed out the door into the hallway, where Harlow waited. Her Original looked her up and down, and then asked, “Was it grisly?”
“She put up a fight.” Alexia tried to keep her voice completely emotionless. “It is done now.”
“Good. Oh, the poor dear. I did really like her, you know.” Taking a deep breath, Harlow shrugged. “But there are so many of you. Killing one isn’t going to make me lose sleep. Now, do you mind picking up my laundry? I had my new dress dry cleaned, and he always irons it wrong.”
“Right away, ma’am.” She turned away from the woman who had made her life a living hell, and promised herself the next time she saw Harlow, she would kill her.