Chapter 2
Two
Proteus
The droid directed him through the sea to a place he had never been. Or at least, he had no memory of it. Proteus had seen many things in the years he had been alive, so he was surprised that there were still places in this water that he did not know about. The droid surprised him often, though.
He swam past ancient shipwrecks and signs of battle. This area had apparently seen much of the war between humans and the People of Water. He had known it would happen long before the world had been destroyed. Perhaps that had even been part of why they had locked him up.
Proteus hadn't asked. He'd been too busy fighting against them, snarling that they would not put him in that damned coffin and weld him inside of it.
The complicated locking system was one he still saw when he closed his eyes.
All the pieces and parts that he'd destroyed year after year from the inside.
He'd even bitten some of that metal off, taking hundreds of years to tear at it with his teeth that would always grow back. And still, the mechanism did not break.
Shaking himself free from the memories, he stared at a massive ship with masts so tall that it was clear it was very old. "How is that still here?" he muttered as they swam by it.
The droid in his hand wriggled. "Time is not the same in this place. I have only been here once before, when I was looking for you, and it is not the same as the rest of the world. This is an odd pocket of the ocean. A place outside of time."
He could feel it. The strangeness in the water.
The odd glide of sensation against his skin that wasn't entirely water.
He had seen the People of Water create a slick oil that oozed over their skin, allowing them to slip away from predators.
The water here felt almost like that. Thick and hard to breathe.
Still, he took a deep breath of it, forcing the ooze through his gills, and moved farther into the depths.
The droid pointed him in certain directions, but it never said much until he finally saw where they were headed.
The shadow looming in the sea before them was somewhat of a facility he recognized.
Back in the days before they had imprisoned him, Proteus had worked on many creations.
This strange box may have been one of them.
"The humans were the ones who wanted to wake me?" he asked, confusion turning his words a little guttural.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I do not know. They wanted you to see what had happened in your absence, though. And they want you to be the person to take control of the sea once again." The droid clicked its legs against his hand to get his attention. "We go there."
The metallic box was similar to how he remembered the research facilities.
The floating building was tethered to the ground by massive anchors.
Very out of place for where it was at these depths.
But considering it hadn't imploded, he could only imagine that it was built to withstand time.
Unless, of course, this place helped keep it whole as well.
He swam closer, surveying to see if there was any glass on the exterior he could peer through. But there wasn't. It was just a box. A large box. He imagined there were many rooms within, but he couldn't get a glimpse of what the humans had hidden inside.
"This looks like a trap," he snarled.
"It is not."
"How do I know I can even trust you? You are merely the droid who released me."
"The only thing that has done so in centuries," Pilot reminded him. "You were requested to be released for a reason. I cannot tell you what the reason is, or why they want you alive. The only answers you will get are inside that building."
He didn't like it. He didn't trust the humans any more than he trusted the People of Water. But he did want answers.
Proteus flexed the muscles in his tail. He needed to feed before he could fight anything off.
They had passed by a few whales that would have done, but the orcas would put up a fight he knew he couldn't win right now.
He'd have to find a decaying carcass and devour that whole to feed himself well enough.
That would be another day, though. Today, he would find out why he had been released.
He swam beneath the building, his heart already thundering in his chest. Metal screeched above his head as a panel slid open and revealed an entrance to the room within.
There was only a meager light coming from above his head, but considering the flickering, he had a feeling it would take a little while for the power system to turn on.
Once that did, he would have to squint his eyes to see through the glare.
Humans had always loved their blinding white lights.
It wasn't the first time Proteus had been inside a research facility.
There was a time long ago when he had been inside many of them.
Humans and the undine, as they called them, had never gotten along.
Thus, their interactions had always been secret.
But that didn't mean there had never been interactions between the two.
He remembered a scientist back then, a young man who had been so thrilled to be going against his government and even the world.
He'd had so much money he didn't know what to do with it, other than indulge his own strange need to disregard what others wanted. That man had been certain he could use the undine to his advantage. The People of Water disregarded his attempts at contacting them. They’d seen him only as a human who was just like all the others, and unworthy of any conversation.
Proteus had seen otherwise.
He heaved himself out of the water, splashing liquid up and into the room that had been prepared ahead of time. The humans knew anyone entering would bring water with them, whether that person was human or undine.
The drainage system on the floor awakened.
It turned on loudly, sucking up the seawater that would damage the electronics that covered the walls from floor to ceiling.
The wall to his right was all screens. They were flickering on one by one, but it was taking much longer than it should have.
Another wall was mostly panels, but he knew those would be good for summoning droids.
Then there was a table against the back corner, but it wasn't really a table. The strange humming noise coming out of it was his first clue, and then clanking noise as the generator was turned on. He’d wondered how there was power down here.
Apparently, the humans had created a generator that could run with water after all.
This was a research lab, no question about it. But what he didn't understand was why this would be the place the droid was directed to bring him. There was no reason for him to be here.
"You summoned me," he said, his deep voice echoing throughout the room. "Now what do you want with me?"
A few more lights flickered on at the sound of his voice. He dropped the droid, which immediately scuttled over to a control panel. The crab-like being connected to the main screen with an electrical cord that extended out of its stomach.
"Pilot, connecting. Package acquired."
Package? He was no package. He was a god of the sea who demanded to be treated with respect. How dare this droid refer to him as a package? He would crush it into oblivion.
A panel in the center of the floor flickered with light, and suddenly a hologram stood before him.
It was the same man he remembered from long ago, although significantly older.
The very wealthy man had thought money could control the world around him, and who had been very, very wrong in that thought process.
"Proteus!" the hologram said, a little too excited even though he had recorded this two hundred years prior.
The man had always been oddly energetic and excitable.
"I had hoped we would meet each other again under better circumstances, but I suppose that is what time does to a mortal body.
I wasn't so lucky as to be in the early proceedings of the Longevity project, but the more I find out about it, the less I wish to be involved.
Anyway. You're here because I want you to continue our work. "
"Our work?" Proteus muttered, drawing his tail into the room to allow the door to seal. "We were never working together."
"But first, let me catch you up on a few things. The droid that awakened you is one of thousands I created just for this moment. They have all been keeping an eye on the world for you. Recording it. Readying themselves to provide all the details you will need in a very short amount of time. You’ve been asleep for a long time and…
well, I don’t imagine you’ll want to spend the next few hundred years hearing what happened in your absence.
" The man pinched his fingers together as though to emphasize how short a time it had been, but then stretched his hand wide to indicate how long he’d been away.
He didn’t need a reminder.
Baring his teeth in a snarl, Proteus looked over at Pilot, who was still plugged into the center console. "How long has it been?"
"Um..."
"How. Long." Proteus ground the words out, tired of this droid already. It shouldn't be able to argue with him, or stall providing information. The entire reason for its existence was to take orders and do what it was told. How someone had programmed it otherwise was a mystery to him.
"Nearly four hundred years, give or take.
It's hard to go back that far and determine just how long it has been, and how long it's been since you were.
.. you know." It lifted a metal arm and waved it in the air.
"Only two hundred years of information is stored in this room, though.
Essentially all the history after the fall of the humans. Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" he grumbled. The hologram of the man was frozen in place, blinking on and off.