Chapter 8

She had so much she had to get. And Bitsy was shrieking in front of her eyes, "Do not do this! What are you thinking? No. No. No."

And then it was just "No" repeated until she ripped the lens away from her eyes. "Bitsy, stop panicking."

The leg holding the lens slammed back down over her eye. "No. Danger. No. Stay."

"Bitsy, I'm going to put you in a waterproof box, okay? I know you got wet in the pool, but with the pressure down there, we don't know that you're going to survive. The box will be dark, but I will take you out of it as soon as we get somewhere safe."

The droid flailed its arms the moment she opened the box. But Anya had been preparing for this exact moment for months. Even if Ace was unaware of it, Anya was ready to leave. This place was a prison. It would be so much easier for her to get out of this area and then they could take it down from the outside.

"I know the plan was taking the city down from the inside out," she said, feeling like her throat was closing up as she placed the droid inside the box. Bitsy's hologram eyes blinked up at her, wide with simulated fear. "But I can't stay here. This is an opportunity I have to take."

She'd been trying to figure out how to escape on her own. It wasn't likely, though. Her father had people at the front of her door all the time. Hell, even her neighbors were watching her on a regular basis. There was nowhere she could escape to and no one she could go to for help.

This undine had no idea she was going to use him to her own advantage, but did it matter? He wanted to get her out of here, too. She didn't know why, but that was a risk she was willing to take. She wouldn't be here if she went with him. And that was good enough for her.

Rushing into her closet, she yanked out her wetsuit. It was rated for waters this cold, although the pressure would likely mess with her. She thought she had...

Grabbing the device her first doctor had given her, she shoved it into her ears. They weren't going to be perfect, but it helped regulate pressure in her ears after the accident. The plugs should help while she was diving.

She ducked behind the partition and hoped this would look at least a little realistic. Tossing the shawl over the edge, she worked the wetsuit up her body. It was hard work. The damn thing was tighter than she expected. But she got it on, eventually. Then she tossed her pale green sundress over it.

Her arms and legs were still visibly different, but she thought if she tossed the shawl back over her shoulders, the wetsuit might look like leggings to anyone watching her. Poking her head out, she thought maybe she was ready. Maybe...

Her door opened, swinging wide enough that the movement caught her attention. Wide eyed, she looked into her bathroom.

The undine was still there. He had his forearm on the cold tile of her floor, his chin propped on a closed fist as he watched her. Those black eyes didn't miss any details. He saw the wetsuit underneath her clothes. He had to know what the plan was.

Her father stood in the doorway, hesitating as he noticed she was behind the partition. She read his lips as he said, "We have to talk. Get decent. I'm giving you three minutes, girl."

The door closed, shaking the wall beside it so hard that a picture fell and shattered on the floor.

"Shit," she whispered. Or at least, she hoped she whispered it. Waving a hand at the undine, she tried to get him to understand that he needed to go.

He lifted his head. The gills along the sides of his neck flared. She was suddenly shocked to see... lights. Glimmering red lights burst into brightness around his face and down his chest.

The undine could make himself glow.

Her mouth dropped open as another painting fell onto the floor, she assumed because her father had knocked again. Right, she couldn't stand there looking at what was quite possibly the most amazing thing she'd ever seen in her life. She had to take care of her father.

Whining, she could feel her throat vibrate with the sound. Tucking her shawl around her shoulders, she lunged for Bitsy's box. She took the wiggling droid out and forced it to wrap around her head. Messages flew so fast she almost couldn't read them.

"Your father. Anya. More danger! We are in trouble!"

"I know, I know," she muttered, closing the box and then rushing for the bathroom. She didn't have a door for the damn thing. Her father said it was just in case she slipped and fell in the bathroom and someone had to save her. She knew the thin beaded curtain was only there to give her a semblance of privacy, though.

Yanking it shut, she turned toward the door and took a deep breath.

Acting. She could act like nothing was happening and there wasn't an undine in her bathroom. As long as her father didn't look between the beads, he might think everything was okay.

Other than the wetsuit she was wearing underneath her dress. Because that was... normal.

Breathing in a slow and steady breath, she answered her door.

Bitsy had two columns of text flying by her eyes. One was what her father was saying, although she could easily read his lips. Anya was so familiar with him, she didn't need to be wearing Bitsy at all.

"What took you so long to answer your door, girl?" Her father's eyes swept up and down her body. "And what the hell are you wearing?"

Meanwhile, Bitsy had added, "He knows! He knows something's wrong!"

She didn't have a second to mutter that her father had no idea what was happening. Even if the meddlesome man did sweep into her room like he knew she had an undine in her bath.

He didn't. He couldn't. Bitsy was very good at dismantling the cameras, and besides, who would dare watch the General's daughter bathe? No one knew there was an undine in her room.

Not even the man with all the eyes and ears of the city at his disposal.

Her father's gaze swept over her room before landing on her. She was always shocked by how old he appeared these days. With his bent spine and wrinkled features, he hardly looked like himself at all anymore. She'd even asked recently if he was feeling okay, but that hadn't gone over well at all. He'd yelled at her for the better part of ten minutes, even if she couldn't hear him.

Even though he was turned away from her, Bitsy still ran his words over her lens.

"I'm sure you've heard about the security reports lately."

"I have." She tried to move so she could see his lips, but her father knew what she was doing. He didn't like that she analyzed his face, his words. He didn't like her looking at him at all, really. Which made this all that much more difficult.

"Your security detail is going to be tripled. I want nothing threatening your safety, do you understand?" He turned toward her then, the false worry on his face almost comical. "We can't have the songbird of Alpha getting harmed, can we? Not after the last... mishap."

Because that's all his worry ever was. His image. His city. They couldn't trust a man who didn't even keep his own daughter safe. Let alone have her injured twice. And if he didn't know how to take care of his children, then he certainly couldn't take care of them.

An image. That's all this was about. And that meant she had to play her part.

If that didn't cut right through her heart, she didn't know what would.

Sighing, she nodded. "I'll stay in my area of the city then."

"You'll stay in your room until we've caught this monster. Once it's dead, then we can talk about letting you out again." He reached for a lock of her hair, gently twisting it between his fingers. "My greatest creation. It's such a shame you listen as poorly as your mother."

What was she supposed to say to that?

Her mother was apparently a paragon in this city. Everyone always told her how much Anya looked like her mother. How everyone had always loved her mother. That if only she was a little more graceful, she'd have been the spitting image of the woman that had made all of Alpha fall in love.

But her father? He hated the mere mention of the woman. If anyone even brought her up in front of the General, he lost his mind. He grew red in the face and that vein on his forehead popped out far more than usual.

Anya didn't even know her mother's name. It was like he had scratched it from the history books and terrified anyone who thought to maybe mention her name to her daughter. Not that her father ever went by ‘Jonathon'. He went by ‘General'. That's the only thing that anyone ever called him.

She stood there, letting him tug on the lock of her hair before he started back to the door. His words flashed in front of her eyes.

"Just try to be good for a few more weeks, would you? Can't have anything happening to my daughter. The undines would tear such a little thing apart."

Then Bitsy added, "He's an ass."

It took every bit of her willpower not to laugh at that.

The General turned around and frowned at her expression. "And stop dressing like that. You look awful."

The door closed, and she stuck her tongue out at the flat panel. For good measure, she also flipped it off. At least her back was to the cameras and no one would see her small act of rebellion against the man who kept her under lock and key.

Spinning, she rushed toward her bathroom and ripped the beaded curtain open.

No undine.

Not even the faintest stirring of water that would suggest he was still here. But she walked up to the edge all the same, peering into the water where the pipe came into her pool. She still had the hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd waited for her.

He hadn't.

"Damn it," she muttered. "That might have been my last chance."

"Safer here," Bitsy flashed, the words then outlined with a growing heart that popped at the edges of the screen. "We stay safe!"

"I don't want to stay safe here. That safety is a lie. There is only a cage that I need to get out of."

Maybe there were other options, though. Now that it was in her head, it was all she could think of.

She didn't want to stay under her father's thumb for the rest of her life. She didn't want to help Alpha be this paragon of a city where only the rich lived. And she sure as hell didn't want to be the figurehead for all the people to look at and say, "Wow, I want to be just like her." Not when she wore the chains of an entire city around her neck.

"Bitsy, try to connect with Ace."

Bitsy repeated Ace's name in bright yellow.

"Yes, contact Ace. And do you still have that translation chip he gave you?"

Sitting down at her desk, she took the little droid off her head and let Bitsy splay out on the table. Obviously, the droid knew what Anya wanted to do. Bitsy stretched out her spindly legs and got comfortable while presenting the underside of her unit.

The lens she laid flat out on the desk so that Anya could still see it, even while fiddling around.

Her message was almost immediately received. "Queen of Hearts?"

"Hey Ace," she said, pulling out all of her tools. "Any chance you know how to add a translation chip to a droid model Terra Lingua 4275?"

There was a long pause before more words appeared. "No, but I can find out. How soon do you need the information?"

"As soon as possible. I've got the droid open right now."

"Let me get somewhere private and then I'll figure it out. Why do you need this information?"

Anya had always trusted Ace. Since the first message had shown up on her lens and Ace had told her they weren't a threat. The message had been sent in the hope that Anya might help them, and the rest was history.

They'd talked hundreds of times since. She knew that Ace was in another city, and that Ace had spent most of their life trying to figure out how to take Alpha down. Together, they had come up with a plan that was foolproof. Get someone into the city. Hack the systems. Spread all the terrible information about her father that they could.

Once that was finished, they could throw up their own candidate to replace the General. Someone who wasn't the head of the military. Someone who wouldn't take every problem and answer it with violence or death. That was the only way to heal what had been broken. They were both sure of it.

But she wasn't sure what Ace would say if Anya said she was trying to speak with an undine. "Might be nice if we had a code. I found a new translation chip, not sure what language it is. But if I install it, no one will know what we're saying to each other.."

"Smart."

"Yeah," she said quietly, popping Bitsy's bottom off and exposing all the delicate wiring inside there.

She wondered what was going through Ace's mind. Did the other side of their operation believe her? Then the guilt set it, sinking into her gut like a fist wrapped around her intestines. They had a lot of plans and it might be harder for her to help make sure those plans happened if she wasn't here.

But if she was here, she was risking her life. At any point, her father could figure out what they were doing. He could catch her, and then she'd really be in a cage. He'd only let her out to see the fake sunlight when he needed her to parade in front of his people. Other than that, she worried what her life would be like.

"Good for you." The words danced over the screen. "I was wondering when you were finally going to grow some balls."

A bright grin spread across her face. "Well, I had a good mentor to teach me how to be brave."

"You'll make me blush. Stop."

"It's the truth, though. I don't know what I would do without you."

Another long pause before Ace said, "Enough mushy shit. I figured out how to hack your droid's translation chip and add that new one. You want to know how to do that or what?"

Even if the undine never came back, she wanted to know. Because Anya wanted to know how to do everything that would make her father angry. Lifting her tiniest pair of needle-nose pliers, she replied, "Yeah. Let's do this."