And then there were the octopi that called this place their home. She’d counted three of them, very different in color, although they were constantly changing. She’d tried to poke at one, only to have it ink at her in frustration before it moved on.

Snippy little things.

She’d spent what must have been an hour sitting on a rock at the bottom of the ocean floor, holding another rock in her lap to pin her in place, and just… watched. Two turtles swam by, eyeing her with curiosity before they kept going. All the fish eventually ignored her and drifted off. She even got to watch a crab catch a meal and then slowly eat it.

This place was... otherworldly. She didn’t even feel like herself sitting here. She was warm enough, and she’d learned to tuck her toes into the backs of her knees, sitting cross-legged so she didn’t get too cold. Otherwise, she’d pull herself into the strangely warm bells and anchored her feet to the sticky walls.

But when she sat on this rock, she didn’t feel like Mira. She felt like some sea goddess who watched her entire kingdom move in slow motion. After a time, she’d even foolishly taken off the hood of her wetsuit just to feel her hair billowing about in the water.

It was a fantasy, and one she would likely pay for if her hair never dried. But something deep in her soul wanted to experience this like the undines. She wanted, for just a few moments, to be something other than what she was.

She couldn’t get her hood back over her head. So she left it down, instead, focusing on getting herself something to eat. Unlike Arges, she still refused to eat mystery fish raw, even if they were easier to catch. Once she’d cupped one in her hands, watching the tiny thing swim around in circles like it had no other care in the world, she just couldn’t kill it.

But she’d had raw oysters before. And she knew what they looked like.

It took a bit for her to find the right kind of rocky outcropping. Mira was hesitant to leave the bell plant area for very long, or even to go very far. It would be too easy to get turned around in this kelp forest that looked the same from every angle. However, she found the oysters not too far from where she was.

Surprisingly, there was enough to satisfy her for a while.

The only problem was that she didn’t have a knife. Not even something sharp to open them with. So she returned with an armful of oysters to the bell shaped plant with a plan. Some of those bags that held fresh water could be emptied. So she did that quickly, then filled them with air from inside one of the nearby bells. Bringing those into the bell, she used them as a simple flotation device and then plopped Byte onto them.

Still not in the water, and therefore it could open up its metallic plates without injuring the delicate wires inside of it. Precarious? Absolutely. But did it work?

It sure did.

“Byte,” she said, letting her rebreather drop into the water at her chest. “You’re okay to open up now.”

The top panel cracked only slightly before she heard an angry voice mutter, “This is too dangerous. You’re going to kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you. I just need you to open these oysters for me and then you can seal yourself back up.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she replied with a laugh, holding one of them up. “I need to eat.”

“Figure out something else.”

“I don’t have a knife. There’s nothing else for me to eat. I will starve, and you’ll end up on your own again.”

Though the robot grumbled, it extended one tiny arm and pried the oysters open for her. One by one, she slid the sweet meat into her mouth and rolled her eyes into the back of the skull. They tasted so much better than any other oysters she’d had before.

Maybe that was some byproduct of hunting them on her own. Or maybe they were better this far from Beta. With no human waste to contaminate them, the oysters were absolutely divine.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Byte said, and she swore it was somehow glaring at her. “This is a terrible situation for us to be in. We probably won’t make it out of this alive.”

“We’re alive now, aren’t we?”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll be alive in a few hours. Let alone days. The undine has left you to your own devices, and soon you will realize that humans and robots aren’t meant to live in the sea.”

“I think I’m doing all right.” She sucked down the last oyster, making a face as she let the empty shells drop to the bottom of the ocean floor. “If he doesn’t come back in a couple days, we’ll figure out something else.”

“Like what?”

Shrugging, Mira refused to allow the anxiety to come back into her mind. “I don’t know. Somewhere else. There have to be other cave systems like I was in before. Clearly, people were mining or researching something down here. There has to be more.”

“And you’ll be able to find them so easily in an entire ocean’s worth of space to search.” Byte chirped, the sound almost like a snort. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I know someone who has spent a lot of time on the ocean floor.” Arching a brow, she tilted her head so she could peer into the box. “Care to share any of your vast knowledge?”

“No.”

“But you do know something.”

It sealed the box shut with a very loud snap, and Mira rolled her eyes. Of course, it knew somewhere they could go. But that was perhaps also dangerous, and droids were always the type to pick the easiest route. If there was too much danger, they simply wouldn’t do it. Which was the reason it had remained on the ocean floor for such a long time. Too much danger, therefore, it froze and did nothing at all.

Placing her rebreather back over her face, she sank out of the bell and left Byte where it was. If the bags popped, it was easy enough for her to find the box. It sank like a stone, and there wasn’t much to compete with that shape on the bottom of the ocean floor.

Once she got down there, the only thing she wanted to do was sit on that rock again. She ran her fingers through her hair, and they got stuck in the snarled strands. Already the ocean was causing tangles that she might have to cut out if she didn’t brush them.

And what better way to feed her undine fantasies than to sit on a rock in the middle of the ocean, brushing her fingers through her hair?

When she was a little girl, she’d used to dream of undines doing this. Their graceful tails all folded up beneath them, humming a haunting song through the water. She’d thought they would look so beautiful, even if everyone told her to hate them.

A little euphoric thrill ran through her veins that she could do this. She’d feed that inner child who had always wanted to live in a fantasy world. This exciting, this... beautiful.

She didn’t know how long she sat before she saw the shadow in the kelp forest. It was very long, and a different shape than anything she’d seen thus far. But she wasn’t going to move. Nothing so far had been dangerous.

Then the shadow lunged out of the kelp, so quickly it was hard for her to even get an idea of what it was before it struck her. Her ribs screamed in pain, but the water seemed to cushion her wild slide before she hit rocks.

Shark, her mind screamed. There’s a shark and there is nowhere for you to hide.

She grabbed onto the stones with her hands, shoving herself farther away from the creature and kicking her feet. But she wasn’t a fast enough swimmer, not even slightly.

Black water bubbled around her, and she didn’t have time to wonder where all the ink was coming from. Perhaps it was an octopus trying to help hide her. She didn’t care. Again it struck her, shoving her into the kelp forest and away from the safety of the bells. Away from Byte.

Away from anywhere Arges would find her.

Panic swirled, making it hard to focus on anything but the terror that ran through her veins and the way her mind screamed to hide.