Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

“ Y ou know you’re worthless, don’t you?” The voice haunted her in moments of silence.

It was the same voice that always interrupted her moments of peace. The sound of her father hissing right before she’d been arrested. Of course, Ace had been arrested a lot of times. But those words were from the first time her father had realized that his daughter was beyond saving.

It wasn’t like Beta gave them a lot of opportunities. He’d been a man of few words and fewer talents, which meant he ended up working the odd jobs that literally anyone could do. Jobs that didn’t pay well. Her mother had been out of the picture for years, which left just Ace and her sister to pick up the pieces.

Laura. The prettiest girl in all of Beta, who never had to worry for a single moment because her bulldog of a sister had always been right behind her.

Sighing, she shook her head and tried to dislodge the old memories. They didn’t serve her now. She had to focus on the droid in her hands that needed repairing.

And still, the words came.

“Did you see Laura’s sister today? Looking more and more like a man every day.”

“A man? Hilarious. Those broad shoulders are there, but she’s got an ass on her. Some thick thighs, too.”

“That mug don’t ruin it for you?”

“Turn her around and it won’t be an issue!”

Snippets of conversations she’d overheard nearly every day walking with Laura, and that hadn’t mattered in the slightest. Until it had been her own father saying it. And then, all of a sudden, it had mattered.

She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, before hissing out an angry breath when they slicked over her skin and left a burning sensation in their wake. Grease. She had grease on her fingers because she was working on the damn droids, like always. It was so easy to forget. But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?

Grease monkey. That had been her nickname before she’d been arrested that last time, and now it still was. Grease monkey in the city of Gamma, where they sent all the miscreants to rot.

A light tap on the glass in front of her brought her back to the moment. She wasn’t in Beta with everyone laughing at her. She was right here, in the clockwork tower of one pillar in Gamma. And she had a job to do. Because her job was the one thing that defined her.

Her room was filled with bits and pieces of droids. Metal bobbins, wires, panels of droid pieces, all scattered around the floor haphazardly around her. A small cot in the corner was the only homey thing in the entire room, but then again, how was she supposed to make this homey? It used to be an attic. Empty, with a dented metal floor and heavy beams making up the walls and ceiling.

She’d chosen it for the giant circular window, though. Back when Gamma had first been made, this place had been a testament to the immaculate talent of artists. But then it flooded, and after it was turned into a sort of prison city. More like an experiment to see if they could throw people away without the guilt of murder.

The circular window had large bars through it, like the face of a clock. Hence the clockwork tower name that she’d given this place. Outside of that window was a small floating droid.

It had a cylindrical body, nearly a foot in length, with large flippers on either side that flapped in the water where it hovered. It wasn’t much of a droid, but she’d put it together for one reason and one reason alone.

Hurrying over to that wall, she hit a button for an arm to grab the droid. Rigging that thing had been a lesson in patience—Ace was no engineer—but soon enough, it grabbed onto the droid. Drawing the whole thing in through the pressurized chamber outside, she eventually got her hands on the droid itself.

“There you are,” she muttered, carrying the dripping metal to the back corner where her workstation was set up. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

Plopping it down on the table, she ignored all the water spilling onto the floor. All she cared about was the chip in the base of this droid that would give her the small details she needed to stay alive in here.

Grabbing the chip with stiff fingers, she inserted it into another box-like droid and greedily stared into the grainy screen.

Her sister stood in the same room where she usually was. Laura had become a gardener in the time since Ace had last seen her. The projection showed so many plants surrounding her sister, and she looked so happy. There was always a smile on her face these days. The room was decorated in art nouveau styles, with golden carvings of people surrounding her as she sat down on a bench and grinned at her plants.

This was the life that Ace had traded everything for. A chance for her sister to be something other than a grease monkey like her.

Touching a finger to the image on the screen, she blew a kiss to the only person who had stuck around after all her fuck ups. “Love you, Laura. See you soon.”

She said the words every time the droid came back with new footage of her sister. Maybe because she was surprised the droid hadn’t been blasted out of the ocean yet. No one in Gamma was supposed to have any kind of interaction with people outside of the city.

But she had already broken the law more times than she could count. Why not break it a few more times?

Replacing the droid before anyone realized it was missing, she returned to the job she was supposed to be focusing on. “Right,” she muttered, sitting down and staring at the smashed droid. “You’re supposed to be in one piece by the end of the afternoon.”

Which she couldn’t do by herself. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a string of magnetic beads that were anything but that. All the criminals here thought she kept a necklace with her. But Ace was significantly sneakier than that.

“You up, Tera?”

There were five beads in total. At the sound of the droid’s name, they all rolled to look up at her. When Tera was actually awake, she looked like a handful of eyeballs.

Grinning, Ace asked, “You wanna fix a bolt drone?”

That woke the droid up pretty quickly. The beads all rolled in her hands, detaching magnets so individual ones could zip around the room. It was the most genius droid she’d ever created. Tera was essentially multiple individual droids in each of those beads. Magnets and hard drives in each one made it so that it could latch onto anything metal, roll freely, and still drag whatever it was attached to. In a matter of seconds, she had all the parts she would need to put the bolt drone back together.

“Droids make everything so easy.” And that was why she loved them so much.

Then Ace got lost in her work, putting the drone together with hammer and screws until it was nearly as good as it had been before. The sounds of the workshop drowned out the memories that threatened her too still mind. No one could think when all they could hear was metallic bangs and zipping screws.

“Nasty little sucker,” she muttered, making sure it was off before she placed it on the ground.

A bolt drone fired electrical bolts at anyone that moved in front of it. The weapon was a necessary part of living in Gamma. Too many people with too much violence in their bones lived here to be without protection.

She stood, cracking her back and trying to get feeling back into her numb ass as she stood in front of her window and looked through the water at all the other towers that made up this city. She’d heard once they looked like old skyscrapers, whatever that meant, with glass bridges that connected them. But each bridge was protected by another gang or segment of a gang that ran that particular tower.

Making friends with a gang was the best way to survive, and it was certainly what she had done. Fixing up drones so they could shoot anyone that tried to cross their bridge? Sure, she could do that. Make the bolts with higher electricity? Easy work. Whatever it took to stay alive in this place, even if that meant killing folks.

No one was innocent in these cities. Not even herself.

The trap door that opened into her room banged open. A dark, greasy-haired head stuck through it, and the man grinned at her. He was missing teeth, quite a few of them, but that grin somehow still made her smile back.

“You got it done?”

“Just in time.”

“Good, the boss wants to see you again.” He hauled himself up through the trapdoor and sat on the edge while letting his legs dangle. “So you really got it done? With the upgraded bolts?”

“The bolts I did awhile ago, Gregor.” Ace wrapped everything up together, each in its own package, so the bolts didn’t accidentally activate and then kill them all in a chain reaction. “What’s he want with it, anyway?”

“Boss didn’t say. I got a feeling it’s something to do with those undine coming to see us.” Again that gap-toothed grin. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Was that today?

Fuck. She hadn’t realized it was today, and she wasn’t prepared at all. The undine were coming here to make a deal, and she’d been part of that conversation. Ace had been talking to them for a while now and that... well, it had made everything a little complicated.

Talking to one in the same way she’d talked with Anya had spun her head for a bit of a loop. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was feeling about it still. The undine had been capable of using technology. He had talked to her like a real person, and asked questions about things that she hadn’t even realized they understood, let alone knew about. And then she’d worked with him to bring Alpha to the ground, which, on top of everything else, was the most surprising.

She had her own reasons for wanting to destroy Alpha. So did Anya, most likely. But the undine were an entirely uncontrollable part in the plan.

“Right,” she muttered, looking around for Tera before gathering up all the steel pearls and sliding them into her pocket. “I know enough about it to be nervous. They’re coming right now?”

“You’re the one who set up the meeting.”

“I know I did, I just... I lost track of time.”

She looked out her window, and every thought in her mind trickled away.

The undine weren’t just coming, they were already here. She could see their dark shadows sliding through the murk. Their undulating movements were so graceful and mimicked how she’d seen whales swimming in the depths. And these creatures were huge. Massive beasts with the torsos of men and women. Their tails moved up and down, flicking a silhouette of a massive paddle shape that propelled them through the water with ease. Each one of them had long hair that flowed behind them. Even at this distance, she could see the webs of their hands that slashed through the water and helped them swim even faster.

“Wow,” she whispered, and Gregor stood behind her.

He whistled low under his breath. “Those are some big beasts.”

“I heard they can get up to twenty feet long.”

“Never seen one this close before. I’ve only seen them from far away, when they’re lurking in the depths looking at our city.” He pushed air through his teeth, then shook his head. “Never thought I’d be this close to one, either. Aren’t they supposed to be real dangerous?”

“You’ve seen what they can do.” All of them had. One of their own had been mad enough to swim out there on his own. He’d thought it was a good idea until the undine had caught up to him. She’d never forget how quickly four of them had grabbed onto each of his limbs and just... pulled.

He’d come apart like they were pulling on cotton candy. So easy that it seemed like there wasn’t muscle, sinew, and bone holding him together.

“Come on,” she said, her mind already fraying at the edges with that memory. “We’ve got to go see what the boss wants, right?”

“You’re supposed to be managing the meeting, I guess.”

“I don’t know all that much about the undine. I just had a contact who knew them.” But she went down the ladder after him, shutting the trap door above her head before heading into the main section of their tower.

They had one of the smaller towers, but that didn’t make them the weakest. There were enough supplies here to last them several generations. Of course, this was a prison city. So what had once been a rather utilitarian area of Gamma was now in ruins. Store signs had fallen on the floor, some of the neon still blinking as they walked past. Barbershop. Butcher. Nail salon. She’d walked past them so many times that she hardly noticed them anymore. The stores were now empty, lights hanging loose from the ceiling and wires already torn from the walls. They were useful, these stores, but not for anything other than their parts.

Most people here lived in the ruins of old stores and homes that had once been beautiful. Some people lived in the alleyways or made the old dumpsters a bed. But everyone used the streets for fire and food. As they walked past small groups of people all clustered around burning trashcans, she filled her lungs with the scent of cooking meat.

Rats, mostly. Everyone here loved rat. They were easy to grow fat and strong, and they were quick to cook. She’d been so afraid to eat it when she’d first gotten here, but time had worn her down. A couple years in Gamma, and her stomach didn’t turn as much when she smelled it. Rat just smelled like food, now.

She hated every second of living here, but it was necessary. Her sister needed her to do everything she could to ensure the safety of her last remaining family. Her father? He could rot in hell for all she cared.

Sighing, she skirted around another large group who had built their fire on the ground. They were all dirty and greasy, like the man beside her. Fresh water was hard to come by, and if they had any, it was for drinking. Cleanliness in this place was rubbing a dirty towel over her head and hoping she didn’t look like a freshly drowned creature who had just come out of the bowels of the sea.

“Boss man said you know this undine?” Gregor asked, snagging a skewered rat from a fire that no one was tending.

“Sort of. I have talked with him a few times.”

“They talk?” He ripped a chunk of the rat’s back off and chewed loudly.

She’d never get used to that. “Seems like.”

“Can’t imagine what they have to say to us. Nothing good, I’d wager a guess.”

She wasn’t sure either, but she could only hope it was good. Because as she approached the large glass windows that had once been a dining area four stories high, the massive shadows of the undines chased her across the floor.