Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

S he stayed in that hidden research facility for hours with the other two women. The undines were quick to get them food and Arges apparently had some idea of transporting blankets to them so they could continue working. Fortis was the only one who remained behind, and she swore he was reading through the glass even though the others assured her that none of the undine could read their language.

Not that it mattered. The documents that were on this keycard were so horrific, it was hard to think straight.

The undine deserved to know what was here. They deserved to know who their real enemy was and that their battle wasn’t over yet. But she thought the rest of her people deserved to know, too.

So while Anya and Mira gathered all the useful information they could, Ace took her droid aside and worked with Byte. Together, the three of them ripped apart all the documentation and historical information that would sink the people who were tied with Tau.

At least, she hoped it would.

Anya staggered over to her, Bitsy now affixed to her face. “What are you up to over here?”

“Making a video. Just like we had planned to do for your father,” Ace muttered, making a few tweaks to what Byte had already suggested.

“Do you really think that’s going to work?”

“It has to.” She warped a bit more of the video, using more of the images that were attached to the keycard. Ripped up undine. Torn apart human bodies. All the terrifying things that no one should ever do and yet, somehow, these people thought it was okay that they had done so. They’d even recorded it.

Anya’s hand came down over hers, stilling her fingers as she worked on the projection. “Ace. I don’t know if this is going to work.”

“You don’t understand. If this doesn’t work, then it means there are no good people left. If anyone can look at this video, this massacre of the human and undine form, and still feel like it was the right choice, then what monsters have we become?”

Ace felt the weight of everything they had discovered sink onto her shoulders. Because there was so much of it.

She threw up the video that she’d put together. Big. The entire glass wall was suddenly taken up with the sights and images.

“Byte, record my voice,” she said.

Mira walked up to them, her arms crossed over her chest. And as a trio, they watched the images of carnage unfold before them.

“This is Tau,” Ace said. “This is the city that has survived longer than any of us realized. A city deep in the sea, making decisions for you. Not in your best interest, not for your life to be easier. This city only has one thing in mind.”

The images changed to the vision of the founders of each city. Beta, Alpha, Gamma, even the ruins of Omega. Faces that they’d all grown up with, worshipping the ingenuity of the people who had brought humanity under the sea. The faces warped into ones that looked eerily similar but were laid out in stasis pods, each one filled with seemingly the same person.

“These people used us as fodder for their experiments. Their clones exist in captivity. The originators, as they call themselves, have been ripping people apart. These are not just broken little toys for them to tear out hearts and lungs and plasma to keep them alive for longer than any human should have any right to. They are killing people. Actual people.” Ace’s voice broke.

Again, the images changed. This time, they showed all the research facilities that had been hidden by Tau. All the tubes filled with the bodies of the undine, not just torn apart, but laid out on research tables with their organs floating in beakers beside them.

“What you see here exists right underneath your feet. In every city, there is another city beneath it. Teeming with people and research teams who have hunted the People of Water and torn them apart. Tau wants more than just immortality in the form of replacing pieces of their broken bodies. They want the longevity of the undine. They have been researching this species for over a hundred years and soon, they will make a hybrid that they will use to their own advantage.”

She swallowed hard. Looking at the images made her stomach turn, because they could so easily be Maketes.

Slowly, she zoomed in on the face of a bright green undine. His eyes were closed, and to the unsharp eye, he might even look peaceful. Until one looked a little closer. A smear of blood on his cheek marred that handsome face that was so eerily human.

With her voice thick, she finished her speech. “If you can look at this person and not feel anything, then how far have you fallen under Tau’s spell? These are not animals. They look like us. They feel like us. They have families and hopes and dreams. We have been taking those away from them. So the question I ask you all is, can you live with yourself now that you know the truth?”

A small click echoed in the room as Byte stopped recording.

His head popped out of the box, the binocular eyes looking at all three of the women before him. “Mira? Shall I transmit to all the cities?”

“They’ll never play it,” Mira replied.

Tera rolled around Byte and clacked a few times. Ace picked her droid up and gently deposited it back into her pocket. “My droid can hack into anything, and already did. You say the word, and all of this will be broadcasted onto every single screen in the remaining two cities. They won’t be able to stop it until it’s played three times. Then the message will disappear, even from their records.”

Anya shook her head. “You think Tau will let us do that?”

Ace shrugged. “I don’t think they’ve discovered where we’re coming from yet. If they knew where the message was being transmitted from? Yes. They could stop it. But they don’t know we’re in this facility. Not yet, at least.”

She could see there was only one person she needed to convince, though. Because Mira wasn’t looking at her. Mira was looking out the door at Fortis. The massive undine hovered in front of the window, his arms crossed over his chest, and she was certain he was looking into her soul.

There were three lights approaching behind him. Blue, red, and yellow. She only had a little time before the overprotective brigade ruined everything.

Stepping up to the glass to make sure he heard her, she looked him right in the eye. “You know this is the right thing to do.”

Those dark eyes swirled with too many colors to count. “You risk letting Tau know where we are. Once that transmission is sent, they will send the full weight of their power upon this facility. Your message may not even make it to the cities.”

She narrowed her eyes, knowing those colors were coming from the place Maketes had talked about. Where the sea itself gave him a vision of the future. “What if I encode it? What if I send it through a droid, not a building?”

Mira hissed out a long breath. “Ace.”

“What if a droid was the one sending the message?” she asked again, her fingers creeping into her pocket.

Those colors swirled again, and he just nodded. “If you do that for us, I will keep your sister safe. She is with our people now, but I will ensure she is even safer than that.”

Everything in her twisted. “You have my sister?”

Ace reached for the console in front of her, bracing herself against it in shock. Because if he had her sister, that meant that Laura was alive. Jacob hadn’t killed her. Laura wasn’t even in Beta anymore.

She could see her sister again. She could hug her. She could hear someone call her Maura again, even though she hated the name.

But if a droid was sending the message, then it would have to be a sacrifice. She pulled Tera out, tears building in her gaze as she looked down at the beads that all turned their faces to look at her.

Breathing in a ragged breath, she whispered, “It was always going to end like this, wasn’t it? My oldest friend. I cannot make this decision for you.”

Tera clacked a few times and then seemed to head toward Byte. The other droid reached out its arm and gently slotted Tera against his side. The glass cleared in front of them, and then words replaced the video she had made as Tera spelled out words.

I love you.

Let me do this for you.

A sob broke free, and Ace slapped her hand over her mouth. She stared at the words, imprinting them on her memory so that she would never forget the bravery of this droid. The one and only thing that would save her people for good.

Mira reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. “Your droid is remarkable.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “They really are.”

The other undines joined them, and she could see the troubled expression on Maketes’s face through the glass. Something had happened. They were rushing toward them too fast, and all of them looked angry in some measure.

“I think we’ve run out of time,” Anya said, placing her hand on the glass for a second before turning. “We have to decide what to do now.”

“We send the message,” Ace said, determination hardening every muscle in her body. “We must have faith that there are still good people out there. That even with all the struggles they’ve been through, there are enough people in the cities who will look at this tragedy and see it for what it really is.”

She made eye contact again with Fortis through the glass. All those swirling colors had stilled, and finally, he nodded. It was all the reassurance she needed.

This was the path forward. She would stride down it with confidence, even if it meant she had to lose something she dearly loved.

Grabbing Tera from Byte, she placed the droid in her pocket. Instantly, the entire room flooded with movement. Bitsy held onto Anya’s head as her owner stripped down and started shoving her limbs into a wetsuit. It was the first time Ace noticed there were three laid out by the moon pool, just waiting for them.

Mira started boxing Byte up, closing all his compartments with rushed movements. “Go ahead of me, Ace. I’ll get this place all set up.”

“Why?”

“I think we’ve been found out.”

She raced for the wetsuit, setting Tera on the ground while she shoved her limbs into the stretchy fabric. Daios was already in the moon pool, reaching for Anya the moment she was ready.

It brought more tears to Ace’s eyes, seeing how gentle the big man was with Anya. Yeah, he was kind of an ass. He’d been gruff and hard to deal with, but he loved Anya. That much was so obvious.

Maketes’s head appeared next to his brother, right before he lunged out of the water. He propped himself up next to her, the sea splashing up and over her knees as he reached for the wetsuit to help.

“Quickly now,” he muttered, forcing one side up and over her shoulder and nearly lifting her off the ground. “They’re coming.”

“Who?”

Mira blasted past her, handing Byte over to Arges, who tucked the droid under his arm. She was faster at putting the wetsuit on, but she’d had a lot more practice than everyone else. “Tau,” Mira grumbled. “I wasn’t as good at hiding us as I thought.”

“How do you know it’s Tau?” Ace asked, but then she turned and saw what was coming for them.

Lights in the distance. So many of them they looked like a giant band of white. So many lights that all she could think was that those were the people who were going to... Fuck.

“Oh, we’re so screwed,” she muttered, yanking the last bit over her shoulder and zipping the suit up to her chin. Tera clacked at her feet, and she gripped the droid in her fist.

“You’re with the fastest male you could find. We’ll be fine.” Maketes’s hands landed on her waist. “The others, though? I pray they learn how to swim.”

Arges gave his brother a dirty look and yanked Mira into the water. It was rather strange to watch someone else put a tube in their throat. Ace watched Mira’s throat bulge with the tentacle in it and wondered if that’s what her own looked like. It was a surreal thought as Byte poked his head out one last time. He threatened ruining his functions with water, all to toss out a few words of wisdom.

“I transferred all information from the keycard to a secret location. Your droid absorbed the tracking of the keycard, but all information is now maintained within Bitsy and myself.”

Those tears burned again. “Thank you, Byte.”

Arges and Mira sank underneath the churning waves and then Maketes dove in with her as well. She could feel the cold sinking over her head, and everything inside of her burned.

He held her close to his hearts, closer than she’d ever thought possible. She curled into him, needing to be held and reassured that they were going to be okay.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “They aren’t going to catch up to us.”

She pointed toward the dark abyss. “I need you to bring me to the deepest part of the ocean. There’s one last thing we need to do.”

He didn’t question her. He just drew her deeper and deeper into the sea. All the lights went out, and that made her feel even worse. Tera moved in her palm, though she could barely feel it through the wetsuit, and she wished that her hands were free. She wanted to hold her friend, knowing that the loss of them would forever mark her soul.

When Maketes finally paused, she lifted Tera up to her face so she could look at the little droid in the faint light glow of Maketes’s scales. “You have been my best friend since I was a child. Every step of the way, you were here for me. Letting you go is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“What?” Maketes asked. “What are you doing?”

“Tera has the tracking on it. The signal for the video to be transmitted to all the cities. If we want to promote even the promise of an uprising against Tau, Tera has to do it. And we can’t keep running.” Already the lights of Tau were so much larger. They only had a few moments for this goodbye. “We’re dropping them in the sea, Maketes. The abyss will keep them safe until Tau can find them, but it won’t be easy to find something smaller than a thumb print. It’s the best chance we have. Each bead will fall separately, and the message will be sent with each bead.”

Tera rolled in her fingers, looking at Maketes and then her. Two of the magnetic balls detached and snuggled up to her thumb, almost as though the droid was hugging her.

Maketes’s hand came down on top of hers, trapping the droid between them. “We’ll never get them back, Ace. If you drop them... they’re gone.”

“I know,” she whispered. If she had been above water, tears would have streamed down her cheeks. Instead, all she could feel were her eyes growing painfully hot.

“You don’t have to do this. We will find another way. You do not have to sacrifice any more than you already have.”

She hiccuped, drawing water into her mouth before expelling it roughly when she remembered he was breathing for her. “I know.”

He peeled his hand away from hers, and she looked down to see that Tera had gathered all of its pieces together in a small cluster. As though the five pieces wanted to see each other one last time before an eternity alone at the bottom of the sea. All by themselves. Without anyone to talk to them or joke with them or bring them on adventures.

Another sob wracked through her chest. “I can’t do it,” she said, staring at her dearest friend. “I can’t do it.”

Tera bumped against her thumb one last time, and then all five pieces rolled off her palm. Ace tried to catch it, but the weight of the droid dropped through the water faster than she could move. They disappeared out of sight, and she felt like she’d left a piece of her soul behind.

Another sob. Another cry that echoed through the water as she screamed out her loss. Because even though it was the right thing to do, she had never felt such pain.

Maketes scooped her against his hearts and then swam. Faster and faster. Behind him, she could see the lights of Tau were even brighter. Then the little zips of lasers firing at them, but Maketes was too fast. He swam like the sea itself guided him, and all she could think was that her entire life had been about sacrifice. She just wanted, for a few moments more, to not have to sacrifice everything .