Page 42 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)
Forty-Two
Alexia
D octor Barker hovered over her a little too much. The man was incessant that she be completely healed before he even let her out of his sight, which she knew very well had to do with the massive undine hovering just behind him. It was like Fortis thought if he left her alone for even a moment, then she would die.
She wasn’t going to die. Alexia had survived worse than this.
“I really am going to be fine,” she reminded Fortis, as she leaned back on the hospital bed and looked up at the familiar ceiling. “I survived a stabbing where they cut into every single one of my major organs before I killed them.”
Doctor Barker hummed low under his breath. “I remember that one. That was a squabble between Harlow and one of the other Originals, wasn’t it?”
“Lester, I believe.”
“Right, Lester.”
Fortis leaned into her line of vision, his voice a storm cloud of anger. “Why were you stabbed by this Lester?”
“Oh, Lester didn’t do the stabbing. None of the Originals get their hands dirty. He had his guard stab me fourteen times for a slight from Harlow. He didn’t like her, she didn’t like him. They were always fighting about something. I took the stabbing that was meant for her, and they considered their differences settled for the day.”
She winced as Barker wove a thread through her sensitive skin. Usually stitches didn’t hurt this much, or maybe she was just better at handling them while she was on emotion manipulating drugs.
Fortis snapped his jaws at the Doctor. “Careful with that.”
“S-sorry,” Barker stuttered, but then the damned man’s hands started shaking. “I’m not used to stitching people with an audience.”
She sighed and reached for the doctor’s hands. Gently holding them in one of her own, Alexia gave him a little squeeze and a soft smile. “You are not used to working on people who can feel as much as I can now feel. It’s all right, Doctor Barker. Do your best. I have endured far worse pain than this.”
He stared at her, his eyes widening and his pupils blowing out until his eyes were little more than black. “I don’t know how to respond to this kind version of you, Alexia. You were always so practical and so insistent on doing your job and nothing else. It is hard to look at you like this and see the same person.”
“I’m not the same person.” Though that didn’t sit right after she said it. Alexia tilted her head to the side, looking at Fortis while Doctor Barker started stitching her back together again. “Or I guess I’m more myself than I ever have been before. I’m the same person, just... allowed to be me now.”
She stared into Fortis’s dark gaze the entire time Barker worked on healing her. She didn’t flinch again, because she didn’t need to be afraid of any pain while her depthstrider was here.
It didn’t take very long. There was medicine that accelerated her healing and was designed to work with her body. The genetics they poured into their guards were designed so that she could be injured a thousand times and wouldn’t take that long to be back in fighting order. She could endure more than the average person, but now, as she looked into her future with this massive sea creature, she knew she wouldn’t have to be as prepared to hurt.
Not, at least, unless she wanted to defend the people she now called family.
Doctor Barker held up a needle, but then froze when Fortis bared his teeth and all his gills flared wide.
“Alexia?” Doctor Barker asked, his voice once again shaking. “These are the steroids that should speed up your healing. Would you like me to inject you?”
“Yes please.”
“You don’t have to,” Fortis told her. “You don’t have to take anything again.”
Oh, this sweet, sweet man. He clearly didn’t trust that Doctor Barker wouldn’t inject her with all manner of drugs, or even try to kill her. Or maybe he feared that the doctor would try to put her back to the way she had been before, and that she wouldn’t be able to make decisions for herself anymore.
Alexia reached for Fortis this time, grabbing onto his hand and drawing it to her cheek. “He’s not going to hurt me, Fortis. They’re just steroids.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’ll help heal me faster, just like after the squid attack. It’s not the first time I’ve taken this, and it certainly won’t be the last.” She nodded at the doctor and held Fortis’s gaze as the needle pressed through her skin.
The steroids always worked fast, and these would be even faster than the ones she’d taken from Mira. Soon, she would be well enough to see the others. Because she could feel the apprehension in the air.
They’d done it. They’d taken over Tau, even though right now it was a tenuous hold, and now they weren’t sure what they were going to do with it.
She pushed herself upright and swung her legs over the bed, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Doctor Barker, do you ever think about how delicate this city really was? For all those years, we thought it was entirely impenetrable. No one would ever destroy Tau, even if it was the only city left in the sea. And now...”
“Now we live to see it fall,” he murmured. The Doctor slumped in his chair and then ran his hand over his face. “I believe our folly was always in believing it was strong. There is no certainty in life, and no certainty in this. We created beings in these walls, manipulated our own genetics, played god for so many years, it was hard to imagine that it would last forever. I... I am glad to see it end. Even if it was far easier to tear it all down than I ever believed it would be.”
She smiled, but it was a sad expression at the same time.
Mixed emotions boiled through her. She was so glad no one else would get hurt. Thrilled that the reborns and genetically enhanced children would now have a chance to live a real life, one where they weren’t changed or tormented or torn apart for research. But this building, full of all its secrets and horrible endings, had been her home. It was the place where every childhood memory had been built, good or bad. And now, everything was going to change. All because of what she had chosen.
It was the right thing to do, and she was thrilled to have won. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t some part of her that was a little sad too. Not for herself, but for the future that could have been. The future that should have been, if this place had been filled with good intentions and not people who wanted to tear apart the world to satisfy their own curiosity.
Gently, she pushed herself upright. She had to grab onto Fortis’s arm to steady herself, but she could already walk without feeling like she was going to fall over.
She nodded at Doctor Barker. “I’m fine. Thank you. I think you should stay here while we meet with the others, though. Just in case. I’ll explain who you are and all the things you could help them with, but... You know.”
“I appreciate any kind word you can put in for me.”
Alexia wasn’t all that certain her word would mean that much to these folks. They barely knew her. Yes, she had helped them take down their enemy and perhaps a little easier than they had expected. But at the end of the day, their bond was just as weak as with anyone else in Tau.
As she walked out into the hallway with Fortis yanking himself across the floor beside her, she looked at him and said, “You know they all owe you their lives, right?”
He seemed confused. “Who?”
“Your people. The humans that were helping you. All of them. They owe you their lives.”
He shook his head as they turned a corner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alexia. They don’t owe me anything.”
“You were the one to convince me that this life was worth living, even if it was hard to shake off what they had trained me to be. You were the one who proved everything to me was worthwhile. And if they didn’t have me, they never would have gotten into Tau. This city would have ruled for another two hundred years while the Originals lived an unnaturally long time. Nothing would have ended. It would have been countless years of fighting until all of our kind was entirely wiped out. All of that changed because of you and no one else, Fortis.”
He didn’t have time to answer her, because they rounded a corner to see the others gathered together. All were faces she now recognized. Mira, Arges, Anya, Daios, Ace, Maketes, even Aulax who had somehow joined the battle, even though she was sure Fortis would be angry about that.
Glancing over at the massive undine beside her, she was pleased to see she was right. His face had warped into an expression of rage as he glared at his son.
Aulax just grinned and waved at him. “Sorry, Father. You were supposed to be dead.”
“That excuses your choices, how?”
“I am an adult now.”
“And I’m still bigger than you,” Fortis snarled. “We will have words about this soon enough.”
Right, they were going to get into a bigger argument if she didn’t step in. So she strode between them, toward Mira and Ace, who were both still muttering together in front of a large glass window.
Alexia knew where they were. The window looked down into the lower level where the mess hall was. The Originals had likely never been in it before, but there were plenty of guards who knew how fortified it was. There was food as well, and that would give them time to negotiate.
Ace said, “It doesn’t look like there’s an exit from the room, but I wouldn’t put it past them to be figuring out how to make one. I know they aren’t going to give up easily, so we need to consider that this room may have an exit.”
“Let them run! Where are they going to go?”
“Beta. There is a section underneath it that we discovered where people from Tau were working, remember? The same with Gamma. They could disappear and then take over another city. It’s a goose chase we don’t want to get into, Mira. What if they survive? What if they convince others to follow them again?”
Alexia stood beside them, crossed her arms over her chest, and surveyed the room beyond. There were around fifty people in there. Some of them were more familiar than others. It appeared they had taken quite a few scientists and guards with them, but not as many as she’d thought. Really only one guard for each of the twenty-four Originals, and then a handful of extra scientists. They had run, but they hadn’t been able to gather as many people as they expected.
“This whole city is a blood bath,” Alexia murmured. “We’re going to have to clean the whole thing up for months to get it working properly.”
The two women behind her paused, but it was Mira who said, “Excuse me?”
“The city. You're going to take it as your main base, I assume. Your village will remain standing, of course, for those of you who want to be closer to the sun and the storms. But this city has everything you need. It has contact with all the other cities, and can control nearly everything that they get from a resource standpoint. All the programs here are how we get food and where it comes from. Not to mention you can work with the leaders of the other two cities much easier from here and could force them with the direct threat of the weapons that are stored in Tau.” She took a deep breath, her lips pressed into a firm line as she caught sight of Harlow down there. “Ace, hit that button on the wall beside you.”
Though there was a small amount of hesitancy, Ace did exactly that. She hit the button, and Alexia knew the people down below would hear her.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Which one of you should I kill first?” she snarled.
“Alexia?” Harlow’s voice echoed through the speakers on the upper portions of the walls. “Alexia, how are you up there? Did you trick them? Kill them all and release us.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“I just created you. You are the perfect version of yourself!” Harlow stamped her foot. “Alexia, you are required to listen to me!”
“Alexia the eighth is dead, if that’s who you’re referring to. I killed her when you locked me in that room and waited for only one of us to come back out. All of you knew what you did, and what guilt you carried on your shoulders. You’re the reason the world ended, and still here you stand, assuming you’re owed something by the people and the planet you destroyed.”
There was a long moment of silence and fifty faces staring up at her in shock.
“How do you know that?” Original Lester asked, his voice shaking with rage.
“I saw the museum you left as a cock stroke to yourself. You’re all idiots, you know that? You think you are so smart, creating a way to control the weather. But you just ruined the only home you had, and now seem to think that the sea is yours as well. But you’ve just been ravaging that too. All you know is how to destroy.”
The Originals started talking amongst themselves, but Harlow didn’t move. She stared up at the window, and Alexia wished she was closer so she could see if that was sadness or rage in her eyes.
“Alexia, you’re like a daughter to me. I’ve been with you through seven generations of your being. What would you have us do?” She widened her arms, as though waiting for a hug. “Seven generations of your life, and all that effort to make you the perfect being that you are. Surely that proves how much you mean to me?”
“That’s not good enough,” Alexia interrupted. “You made an eighth, Harlow. You were going to kill me.”
“Only because the others made me.”
“You want me to see you like a mother? Well, I do, Harlow. I spent my entire life looking up to you, dreaming that you were the woman I wanted to be, loving you as much as I could with all those drugs running through my system. You are my mother .”
She was done with all this. Done with the expectation of the people down below that she would help them. Over the expressions of the people surrounding her, who worried she would help those they had just defeated. But neither group expected her to reach for the old school gun at Mira’s waist. This one had bullets in it, and that was more than enough.
Arges reached for Mira at the same time she turned. All the undines lunged for their mates, grabbing the women like they thought she was going to harm the people around her, but she wouldn’t do that.
No, she spun and put a perfect bullet hole through the window, and right out through the glass above all the Originals. It was too high for any of them to patch. They’d never reach it time, anyway. Water gushed in, cracks forming around the hole as the pressure of the ocean compromised the entire room.
Screams echoed from the room as the Originals and their guards ran for the door. They all pounded on the sealed entryway, their cries of begging and pleading unanswered as water quickly filled the room.
“What did you do?” Mira hissed.
“I ended this.” Calmly, she handed the gun back to Mira and then reached for a droid that had been rolling around Ace’s feet. She held it up to the glass in front of them, and immediately, the droid started heating a tiny rivet gun and melting the glass. It would patch the hole long before the water reached their level.
And the entire time, she made sure to watch as all the Originals drowned. One by one.
“We could have used their knowledge,” Mira murmured.
But Alexia shook her head. “They had more than enough time to fix what they broke. It’s our time now.”