Chapter 8
Eight
Ellie
Ellie worked hard, even though he had told her in so few words that she didn't have to work as hard as she had been before. Both he and the droid expected perfection, and she was going to give them exactly that.
Her entire life had been spent working to be perfect. No mistakes. Making sure that any task she had been given was completed exactly as expected and within the correct timeline that had been outlined. She was good at this. She had trained her entire life for this.
The longer she was here with this droid and this sea god, the more she really believed that this was what she'd been training for. Malcolm didn't do things without reason. He wouldn't have died without ensuring that she was taken care of.
After all, he'd spent countless years with her. She knew he had looked at her as a man did a woman he loved. He'd never touched her, but she'd seen him with other clones that looked just like her. Those were the ones who were given that kind of attention. Ellie was meant for other things.
She'd never let herself think about it too much, but now that she was out of the pod, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
There had been so many versions of her that Malcolm used to his own benefit.
He was everywhere all the time. He'd brought out versions of Eleanor for sex, some for entertainment, some for experimentation, others to do his work.
Was that all she'd been doing? His work so he could live a life of leisure?
The more she thought about it, the more frustrating it became.
Because yes, she had just been doing his work.
The signs had been there; she had refused to see them.
Steve had been his coworker. No wonder the man hated her so much.
Malcolm had been one of the few lead scientists on the team, and he had clearly been trying to do too many things at once.
So he'd trained her to take his place, to do the work that he should have been doing, so he could.
.. what? Wake up other versions of her and go on dates they couldn't say no to?
It was all vile. Every bit of it.
But then her mind would swing around to the fact that she had been abandoned.
Proteus said everyone in Tau was dead, and that clones like herself had been spread across the underwater cities.
There was nowhere for her to go, because they likely hadn't factored in a lost pod in their repopulation efforts.
If she went back to them, they would put her back into stasis until they were ready for her. That much she knew for certain. No one, not even someone who had gotten away from Tau, was that different from the people within those walls. She was still a mistake, regardless of what Proteus said.
Just a number that hadn't been factored into an equation. She was certain anyone would rather ignore her existence than rewrite the entire problem.
Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the binary code she'd been struggling with. The numbers all made sense now. They were written so intentionally, it would have been hard not to understand exactly what the droids had hidden.
Sure, it was a riddle within a riddle. But she'd spent her entire life figuring out riddles exactly like this.
"Pilot?" she said, pointing to the screen. "I think I got it."
The binary code had been jumbled. The words it hid were in the wrong order, which made everything even more difficult to figure out.
So she'd had to write everything down, and then figure out exactly what each sentence meant until she had it.
It was simplistic what the droids had done, but only a human could figure it out.
Pilot headed over to her, clearly still a little disgruntled that he even needed a human to help him in this matter. "Well?"
She pointed to the screen. "It looks like they chose to shut down both the solar and hydro power that they used to power the facility.
Once they turned those offline, they were able to ensure that no power grid could be turned back on.
Nothing is broken, just… dormant. Someone has to physically step foot into that place and turn everything back on. "
"But they destroyed it. I can see them breaking things in all the surveillance that I unlocked."
Ellie lifted her thumb to her mouth and started chewing on the nail.
It was a terrible habit, and one that Malcolm used to swear would get her sick.
"This makes it seem like the assumption was always that someone had to actually be there to turn it on, so that they couldn't control everything from another location. The logs state… I don’t know.
Something about destroying other facilities.
Are you sure the footage is from this one and not another that they laced through the surveillance logs? "
Did Pilot… swear? He immediately turned back to the screens, and she could see him comparing the video footage to other parts of the facility.
“Would you look at that,” the droid muttered. “They spliced the videos together.”
Another voice interrupted them. "So we need to fix what has been broken first, and then we can turn it on remotely?"
Proteus.
She had forgotten he was coming back any second.
But it didn't matter if she remembered he was returning or not.
He always showed up at the worst opportune moments, startling her with his size and the amount of space he took up.
He didn't care if he startled her either.
Sometimes it seemed like that was his intent.
She’d had a hard time forgetting his hands around her throat, reminding her that she was alive. Even though it had been painful and perhaps terrifying to stare into his black eyes and see her own bitter end looking back at her... he'd been right.
Ellie had been told her entire life that she was only a copy of a great woman and that she wasn't needed. She didn't even exist if she peered too closely at herself.
But this sea god told her she did exist. She was breathing, she was here. That meant she had worth and value. It was more than anyone else had ever given her.
"Ellie?" Pilot asked, tapping on her hand.
"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry, what was the question?"
Proteus pulled himself out of the water, all glowing bones and scaly skin. "Do we need to fix the broken parts, and can we then turn everything on remotely?"
Right, that was the question.
"Fixing the broken parts means going to other facilities. There’s a map here, and it appears those are the ones that are part of this complicated locking system.
Once we fix what’s been broken there, the solar power, the hydro power, the electricity from those facilities seems to power this," she replied.
"We'll still need to be in the main building to turn everything on, which I realize complicates things.
But it requires certain codes to be put in, and unfortunately, I don't think just anyone could put them in. "
"Why is that?"
He wasn't going to like this. "The requirement is a human voice. I have to be the one, or another human, to say the code that will allow everything to turn on."
She winced as he cursed and turned toward the hatch. She fully expected him to slip back into the water, enraged at what she had said, and disappear for hours on end. He tended to do that when something went wrong.
What a refreshing change from her old life. Malcolm had merely raged in front of her. Breaking glass beakers and uncaring if she was caught in the crossfire of broken glass. Her pod would save her, he always said. And sometimes it did.
"Fine," Proteus muttered. "I will call in some help then."
"Are you sure you want to contact the People of Water?" Pilot asked. It skittered over to the hatch, almost as if it was trying to prevent him from leaving. "We are not prepared yet to make them believe that you are a god. I think we should wait."
"I'm not contacting the People of Water."
Were they talking about the undine? That must be what they called themselves. She'd always been fascinated with them, of course. But she hadn't thought to see a live one up close.
Was he one of them? Now that she was thinking of it, he really didn't seem like he was one of them. He looked different from any of the creatures she had seen under the waves, and that was saying something.
Proteus headed into the water, dropping beneath the surface but not quite leaving.
Ellie could see his head still and the dark locks of his hair that somehow looked like kelp.
Then a rumble started from underneath the water until the surface looked like it was boiling.
The sound was strange and low, like the keening call of a whale, that he sent out into the sea.
"What is that?" she asked.
"He's summoning someone," Pilot replied, sounding exhausted. "You might as well relax for a bit. This will take some time."
Relaxing wasn't something she knew how to do.
A little confused, she walked over to her pod and hit a few buttons.
In the bottom, there were survival rations that could keep her alive for a month or so.
She didn't want to be a bother, after all. The liquid packets were an entire day’s worth of nutrients, and she hadn't sucked one down yet.
In the simulation, there had been solid food. She'd eaten apples and all manner of delicious meats and cheeses. But here, and every time she was awake, she ate this.
Sucking on the bag, she turned to find Pilot staring at her.
"What?" she asked.
"What in the world do you have in your mouth?"
"Nutritional paste?" she said, although the words might have come across like a question.
Pilot made a sound that almost made it seem like he was disgusted. But there was no way she had disgusted a droid with what she was eating! He ate... well, she didn't think they ate. He used oil to keep himself running, so that had to be nearly just as bad.