Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

Mira

Mira waited for him for quite some time. She even caught herself a fish, although the whole situation was more luck than skill. She’d trailed the poor thing through the glowing lights until it was finally so tired that it just... stopped swimming.

She still felt terrible about it. Like she had blood on her hands that she couldn’t ever get off. Quite literally, at some point, because she was sitting on the edge of the rock with fish blood and guts on her hands as she cleaned it out to eat.

Even Byte stayed silent the whole time she hunted. They both mourned the life that she hated she had to take.

Then she felt even more guilty as she ate it, because the poor thing tasted horrible. She hated the taste of fish. She’d had it so many times in the past few weeks that she was certain she would never want to eat it again after this ordeal. All she wanted was to taste chicken, or egg, or countless vegetables for the rest of her life until she could forget how awful fish tasted and smelled.

Gagging a bit, she set it down by the water and stared up at the ceiling. “I should tell him.”

Byte stirred out of its stasis. “What?”

“I should tell him I can understand him.”

The silence that came after her declaration was almost enough to make her second guess herself, but she steadied her resolve. She couldn’t keep lying to him, or pretending that they couldn’t converse. It was wrong. Mira had never been a liar, and this made her into some kind of monster.

It wasn’t like she was a spy sent by her people to learn more about his kind. She was just an engineer who had found herself in a rather difficult situation.

So when he finally returned, she rolled onto her side on the cot and stared at him. She searched his eyes, as though there was some balm for the terrible way she felt in his gaze.

He watched her in return, those dark eyes so large in his head. She’d thought those black eyes were soulless the first time she’d seen him. She remembered how unnerving they were and how she’d thought he looked like a shark watching her. But he wasn’t. He was just another person who didn’t deserve to be lied to.

Maybe she was sick. Maybe she was dying. Because these thoughts weren’t the thoughts of a person who had fought against his kind for her entire life.

“Byte finished the upgrade,” she said. “The translation chip isn’t entirely complete, but I installed it. I can understand you now. Almost every single word you say.”

Instead of talking, like she’d expected, he didn’t say a word. Arges held out his hand for her, gesturing for her to come to the edge of the water.

She couldn’t imagine why.

Stiff, her bones aching, she walked over to the edge and heard her knees creak as she sat down at the edge with her feet in the water. A cold rush of ice trailed up the back of her calves, almost painful, but she kept her limbs in the water, regardless.

He swam closer, his gaze somehow darker than ever before. Then he placed his hands on her knees and she felt the webs even through her wetsuit.

He just... looked at her. Watched every twitch and movement of her features as she looked down at him. Mira didn’t know what to do with this. She didn’t know why there were emotions bubbling up in her chest and how those feelings pressed against the back of her throat, urging her to say something, do something, cup his jaw with her hand or maybe dig her fingers into those gills as he’d liked before.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to let those bubbling emotions take over her body and tell her what to do.

He moved his fingers along her wetsuit, gliding them up and down her leg before he finally said, “I have thought a long time about what I would like you to hear me say first. A part of me wishes there were kinder words I could say. That I could tell you how rapturous it is to see you swim through my world and to see you love it as much as I do. Or perhaps I would remark on the way your hair looks like blood underneath the water and that stirs some feral part of me. But what I settled on, the first most important words you must hear from me, are that I am deeply sorry.”

Breath caught in her throat, Mira bit at her lips. He wanted to apologize to her? Why? He was... was...

She reached down and cupped his face, finally giving into the urge to touch him. Drawing him a little closer, feeling his rib gills press against her inner thighs, she breathed out a small sigh of relief as she watched those big, black eyes. “You are not a monster,” she whispered. “You are not what they told me you were. I accepted your apology long ago, Arges, even before you were able to speak it out loud. You have done what you had to do. For your people. Because of our history. And I will not, ever, hold that against you.”

“I am the reason that you are sick,” he replied. His hands lifted, and those webs skated along her wrists, delicately pressing against the heartbeat that sluggishly beat there. “You could die because of me, and I will not have that.”

“Wasn’t that the point? Our people have always fought against each other. Always tried to kill each other. I don’t think there is another way for us to move forward. One of us has to die.”

“I will not allow it.” His features hardened into an expression that almost made her believe him. “We will both live. This future that we seek together will come to life. I will not accept any other way.”

She supposed that was one way to look at the future. She admired his belief that he could manipulate the very fabric of time.

“The future will happen no matter what we do. Our lives and the will of the gods have been carved into our very being from the moment we first took breath.” She smiled, even if the expression felt a little sad. “Unless you see another way out of this, then I suspect our fates have already been decided.”

He shook his head and then shifted his grip from her wrist to her hips. “Gather your Byte, achromo. We are leaving this place.”

“Another cave?” she sighed. “I suppose it is time, after all. We’ve been here for a bit. I really don’t think any of your people are looking for me, though.”

“My brother has yet to return to our home. I do not know where he is, or why he has disappeared. He could easily plan to hunt you down.”

“I think you’re worried over nothing.”

“I did not suspect our first conversation together would be you scolding me,” he teased as she stood to go get Byte. “But I suppose knowing that you understand me does not dull your teeth.”

“It’s rather easy to talk like this, isn’t it?” She returned with Byte in her arms, biting her lips with nerves. “I wasn’t certain you would be this happy, or this easy to talk to.”

“Mira.” Her name rolled off his tongue so easily. Said in the same song-like voice she’d gotten used to, but this time she knew even more that it really was her name. And it still affected her just as much. “We’ve been talking to each other for quite some time now. Just not in so many words.”

She supposed they had. It was easy to be around him now. Easy to float through the water and trust that he wasn’t bringing her to the mouth of some massive creature to sacrifice her to whatever water gods they had. She hadn’t even thought he was going to kill her for a while, so that had to mean something.

Still, it was rather reassuring to be able to return to him and ask as she got into the water, “You aren’t going to kill me this time though... Are you?”

He grinned, those sharp teeth flashing. “No, Mira. I’m going to keep you.”

She wasn’t all that certain his answer was much better.

But she fixed her rebreather on, tightened her goggles, and sank into his arms with the same amount of trust as always. He gathered her up to his chest, even moving his hands to shift her feet into his gills as they slowly swam away from the darkness. She didn’t know where they were going, nor did she need to.

It startled her how much she trusted an individual who had tried to kill her. Multiple times. He could have drowned her at any point, and the rebreather was the only thing keeping her safe now. Even that was a little clunky now that she’d used it so much. But if it stopped working, she had faith that he would breathe air into her lungs until he got her to the surface.

That amount of trust in someone like him? It was... unprecedented.

Stupid, maybe.

But then she remembered how his fingers tucked her toes a little tighter into the warm gills at his hips, and how he regularly checked her fingers in the gills at his neck to make sure they weren’t icy and she forgot she was supposed to be afraid of him.

Soon the water lightened again. Turning from the depths of dark blue where all color disappeared into bright lights where she could see that they were fairly close to the bottom of the ocean. The ground seemed to come up from underneath them. Suddenly it was right there, sandy white with dots of starfish and shells of creatures she couldn’t name. Though there were not a lot of sea creatures around them, it was still beautiful in its own way. Endless, it seemed.

She could see the small tunnels left in the sand by all the creatures who had moved about in their shells. And soon, she could see the surface. She’d never been this close to the upper levels of the ocean where she could have swum up and poked her head out if she wished.

And there was sun.

Spears of sunlight that shattered through the water, like great weapons that were soft to the touch and broke against her skin. So beautiful that tears fell from her eyes and gathered at the bottom of her goggles. It was... unlike anything she’d ever seen before.

“Why are we here?” she asked, her voice muffled around the rebreather. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

He looked down at her and that booming voice shattered through every truth she’d ever had. “It’s been a long time since your people have seen the surface, achromo. A great many things have changed.”

“Are you... Are you taking me to the surface?”

“No. That is a wild, untamed land now. There are many creatures who rule it and you are not capable of protecting yourself. But I found something here, a rumor that turned out to be true, and I thought you would be more comfortable. Even if it is very far from me.”

How long had they been swimming? This was far?

She craned her neck to look behind him, back into the depths of the sea that disappeared from view. But then he flicked his fins, forcefully turning her, so she had to look at something else entirely.

It was a dome. A glass dome with panels on each side outstretched like little fins. Black structures that looked remarkably similar to the diagrams she’d seen of solar panels from the old days. It was connected with a single rod to the ocean floor, but the rest of it hovered in the middle of the water. Though the glass was covered in algae, making it difficult to see what was inside, she was certain it was a room.

He swam her over to the strange dome, then underneath it.

“There,” he said, pointing to an opening in the bottom. “I assume you are familiar with this?”

She startled, surprised he was talking to her. She’d gotten so used to them not talking and communicating through gestures that it was still rather strange to converse. “Oh, uh, yes. It’s a moon pool.”

“Why is it called that?”

“I don’t know.” She drifted out of his arms, through the warmer water and to the button that she could only assume was rusted, but was pleased to find still worked. Hitting it with her thumb, Mira moved away as the moon pool opened and revealed a room above her head.

She didn’t hesitate. Mira kicked her feet and ripped off her mask. She didn’t care if the air was stale or smelled like wet seaweed. She didn’t care even if it was breathable, because it had to be. There was a person living here. A human person who could... could...

No one had been here for ages.

She looked around, noting the thick layers of dust that coated everything and the strange, stagnant air. No one had been around to push buttons or maintain this space in a long time.

The steps down into the moon pool were very bland, but everything else in this room wasn’t. What little walls there were, mostly half walls of metal underneath glass, were hand painted with faded yellow flowers. Delicately and meticulously made to look like daisies. There were two levels inside. One with a table and half a kitchenette, small but enough for a single person. And the next level with a comfortable bed with a yellow comforter that somehow was still in perfect condition. It even had pillows. So many of them.

Spinning in the water, she turned to look behind her and saw the rest of the dome was full of life. Plants that overflowed with so many variations of zucchini, tomatoes, grapes, countless others she couldn’t name that weren’t bearing fruit yet. Food. Real food.

Her jaw hung open in shock. It wasn’t possible that there was a place like this under the ocean and yet, here it was. More food than she could eat and various tables and jars everywhere. A person had lived here. Not even just lived, but thrived.

A small rescue pod, out in the middle of the ocean. Far away from any of the cities. Who had built this?

Swallowing hard, she pushed herself out of the water and sat on the edge of the moon pool, trying to devour everything with her eyes. But her mind couldn’t keep up. This was beautiful and remarkable and far too perfect for everything that she needed.

Arges joined her, slowly rising out of the water like some kind of sea god who had brought her to salvation. “Will this suffice?”

“I don’t even know what this is.”

“There were rumors, years ago, of my people keeping... pets.” His lips wrinkled in distaste. “There was one in particular who had been brought to this area by her owner and I thought perhaps it was still around.”

“So it is.”

“This will keep you alive?” He stared at her a little too intently. “You will not die here?”

She could feel the warm sun at her back and was surrounded by food. No, she wouldn’t die here. “I don’t think so.”

Arges swam a little closer and tapped his knuckles on Byte’s exterior. The little robot opened the top hatch, glaring as much as a robot could.

The undine snarled at her droid before repeating, “She will not die here?”

“This will suffice.”

“Good.” He swam a little farther away from her, looking like he wanted to stay. “I have a few things to do, our trail to cover up, and I need to find where my brother is. Stay alive, human.”

“I—”

But he was gone before she could thank him.