That made his eyes narrow, but he still didn’t move.

She didn’t know what he wanted. He clearly recognized the weapons they used to get the undine off their city walls. So why was he not swimming off into the distance to go do whatever it was they did all day.

“Come on, man,” she muttered. “You have got to go.”

Then he pressed a webbed hand against his chest and drew it back toward her. He repeated the motion, as though he wanted her to see or understand something that he couldn’t convey. But she didn’t know what he was trying to say.

He wasn’t thanking her for anything, that much she knew for certain. He didn’t know the cameras were attached to the guns. And he definitely didn’t think she’d saved him. Maybe she had in the beginning, but then he could have left her for dead.

She cursed. Right, that was the correct way to think. He owed her now, because they were even up until this point. He would have died in the tube with her. She’d gotten him out, he had gotten her to the lift. They were even. And now she’d gone and helped him again.

“Fuck me,” she muttered, looking back at the door to make sure no one had come in. “You need to leave. Both of us are going to be in serious trouble if anyone realizes we’re trying to communicate with each other.”

He did the motion again, looking a little frustrated this time before he swam even closer to the glass. She stood, the chair rolling behind her into the room. But she felt like a magnet pulled her closer to the glass and then he put his hand flat against it.

She stared at that palm, so unlike her own. His fingers were massive, long, and tipped with those deadly claws. The webs between his fingers were thinner than she’d thought, and light pierced through them.

Without thinking, she reached up and put her hand on the glass as well. The size of his hand dwarfed hers, but for a moment, she let herself believe that she could feel the coolness of his skin through the glass. Like that icy touch could reach her, even in here.

“Hey, Mira!” The sound echoed down the hall, but they were too close for comfort.

Flinching away from the glass, she turned to stare at the door, her breath ragged in her lungs. Someone was going to see them. They were going to see him, and every part of her screamed that she couldn’t let that happen.

“Go,” she hissed, but when she turned, he was already gone.

Licking her lips, she pressed herself even closer to the glass and peered out into the ocean. He wasn’t there, though. Not even a trace of him.

“Ohh, Mira,” she muttered to herself. “You seeing things, girl? I didn’t think the pressure got to people if you’ve spent your whole life in the ocean.”

“Hey, Mira?” One of the younger engineers poked his head through the door. “You got a second?”

“Considering we’re all out of commission for a while, yeah.”

“What are you looking at?” He walked up to her side and looked out the window. She couldn’t remember his name, but knew that his whole face lit up when he smiled. She’d always thought he was handsome. And tall. Tall always made people more handsome.

“The ocean.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, then rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Guess there’s a lot of it to look at.”

“Sure is. What did you want?”

“Oh.” His eyes hardened a bit, but then he leaned forward like he didn’t want anyone else to hear what he had to say. “Do you remember the new suit the techs were working on? I thought... Well, with your little project...”

“How do you know about my project?” She reared back, looking him over again. She hadn’t told him about that, had he?

“People talk.” He shrugged. “Look, I thought with one of those new suits, and if your project is working, we could probably get that glass wall fixed. Pretty easily, actually. The drones could carry the new plate over and then it would just be sealing it from the outside.”

“What new suits?”

He grinned, and she just knew he was about to get her into a lot of trouble.

OceanofPDF.com

Six

Arges

Watching her was incredibly boring. How did the achromos live like this?

Arges had never wasted his time trying to understand her people. He was more interested in finding flaws in their city. Dents in the armor that he could use to his advantage as he attacked and destroyed. Now, he was forced to watch them. He had to see what they did with their lives as he tried to find an opportunity to steal her away.

And by all the seven seas and the gods within them, they were boring. How did the achromos survive like this? They did the same thing every day. They walked the same corridors. Seemingly performed the same jobs. Day in. Day out. They even seemed to eat the same food. Some wet looking gloop that made him want to vomit the first time he’d seen it.

No wonder they were so aggressive. He’d have gone mad long ago as well if he was forced to live such a life.

Of course, his achromo did the same thing as the others. It only took two days for him to know everything she was going to do every day.

She got up and went to one of the halls where there were many achromos. She ate that horrible, wet substance, then walked down the same corridor. They appeared to meet with large groups of achromos often. She didn’t make a lot of effort, nor did she often speak at those gatherings. Instead, she did a lot of head bobbing, which he assumed was meant in an agreeing gesture, not aggression.

Then she would sneak off with another male, one he already hated, and they would disappear into one of the rooms he couldn’t see.

Was she mating with him? The idea shouldn’t be so frustrating, but it made him very angry the first time he’d seen the pattern. Why else would a female and a male disappear into the same room? The thoughts dug through him like puffer fish spines, angering him even more.

He told himself it was because he would smell the other male if he had to steal her away. She’d smell like someone else, and her scent was the only one he found... tolerable.

It took days for anything to change. the achromos bored him with their monotonous schedule and never ending patterns. At least until he saw his achromo disappear with the other. Not to the same room that they had been going before, but to a different part of the city. A deeper part. Nearly at the bottom, where they had never been before.

At least, not while he watched. So he followed them, alone this time rather than with one of his pod. The others had given up on hunting with him.

After all, nothing ever changed. They weren’t learning anything about the achromos other than that they were boring.

They’d already known that.

Arges swam to a hidden part of the city, ducked deep into the kelp and behind a very large boulder while he listened to his achromo and the male wander over his head. They chattered in that horrible speech, and he almost wished he could understand them. Perhaps then he would know their nefarious plan.

But then he saw the opening into their city.

How had they missed this? He remained where he was, watching as two metal plates shifted and then revealed bright lights and metal panels. There was an opening inside the city that he’d missed.

An opening that could easily be pried open with sharp weapons. And the achromos had hidden it from their eyes for such a long time.

He ground his teeth in anger. Who was supposed to be watching this part of the city? Likely, no one. He’d never assigned anyone to the very bottom of the city because there was nothing here. Just a wall that dug into the stone and leaked rust into their gills.

Arges was the fool, then. These achromos had tricked him well enough, and now there was nothing he could do about it.

They’d wasted so much time. He could have attacked them from the inside. And he’d proven himself within their tubes. He could fight them even there, and a whole pod of his people? They would decimate the city until their corridors ran red with blood.