Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Ellie
Ellie hadn't thought that telling the truth would hurt so much. She'd tried her best to tell the story as accurately as she could remember it, but at the end she still felt like she had done something irreparably wrong.
It didn't matter that Anya thanked her profusely. The words, "You might have saved a lot of people, Ellie. Thank you for telling us," was a small consolation prize for what she knew Proteus would say.
She had gone against everything that he had told her to do.
It was a direct order. He'd made it very clear that he didn't want any of the humans to know about the cameras or the creatures.
He hadn't even wanted them to know what the real reason for the facility was.
He wanted them out of the sea, and any lie they had to tell to get that to happen, he was happy to tell.
Had she ruined everything? Their time in that golden temple made her feel like they had built something special between the two of them. There might have been a future if she hadn't screwed up by telling the humans what he hadn't wanted them to know.
Anya had taken notes. It wasn't like Ellie could say she'd made it all up. She’d told them too much in far too much detail.
Alexia stood, cracking her neck from side to side before jerking a hand toward another exit from the room. "Come on, Ellie."
"Wait," Anya said, tapping her pen on the tablet she held in her hand. "I have a few questions. While she's here, we might be able to get through a couple of the encryptions that have been stopping us from accessing more documents. If you don't mind, Ellie, could you perhaps help us with—”
"No." The harsh snap of Alexia's voice was firm, and it was very clear she would not accept any arguments. "Ellie is going to rest. We have a day or two before Proteus finds us here, and the others are preparing for that. She needs to sleep."
Without even looking at the other woman, Alexia grabbed Ellie's arm and hauled her out of the room.
They headed down another glass hallway, this one decorated with silver fish that darted over the top and then disappeared on the other side.
Ellie tried to focus on those, but all she could think about was how her guts felt like they were twisted inside of her.
She'd done something terribly wrong. And there wasn't any chance for her to crawl her way out of that. Proteus would never speak to her again.
Humans thought of her as a monster. That had been clear with the others working in the facility. They didn't even want to be around her. So where did that leave Ellie?
The one person who had treated her like a person would be so angry with her, she wouldn't be surprised if he just ate her and was done with it. If he spared her life, he wasn't going to stick around and talk to her. Which meant Pilot would leave with him.
Then she was stuck here. With people who thought she was little more than a droid herself. No one wanted to be her friend. No one talked to her. They'd just order her around, and she'd be forced back into the same role she'd been in before.
Doll.
Not even real.
Tears burned in her eyes as Alexia brought her to a room that was furnished with a pretty bed.
It had a lovely quilt on top of it, clearly made with loving hands.
The amount of colors and textures and patterns on it were obviously not even meant to go together.
They were only there to be riotous and colorful.
There was a workbench in the corner with all kinds of gears and scraps of metal, and then paintings on the wall.
All kinds of paintings of undine, the sea, fish, and a sky that the artist had likely never seen before.
"You can sleep here," Alexia said. "I doubt Mira is coming home anytime soon."
In a daze, she sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to ground herself. The quilt was soft underneath her fingers, at least. It felt good to rub her fingers over the edges.
Her heart was thundering so hard in her chest. Every pound sounded like Proteus’s voice, telling her not to say a word to the humans.
She should try to control her breathing.
Or at least try to drink some water. But every time she even tried to count her breaths, all she could think of was one word that kept repeating over and over in her head.
Betrayal. Betrayal. Betrayal.
Alexia pressed a button on the wall. A door hissed closed, leaving the two of them trapped inside the room together.
Ellie stared up at her, wondering if maybe now was the time that she was going to die. After all, she'd told them everything she knew. Her usefulness was entirely and utterly gone. She had no reason to be kept alive in the plan moving forward.
But Alexia leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. "What is going through that head? I can see your thoughts running over your face."
"It's all right. You don't have to ask me if I'm okay."
"I'm not asking if you're okay. I'm telling you to speak to me. Get through all those thoughts. You have to talk them out, or they're going to fester." She lifted a hand and waggled her fingers. "Come on."
That anger bubbled in Ellie’s chest again. She didn't owe this woman anything. She didn't want to tell Alexia all of her deepest and darkest secrets.
An ugly side of her soul awakened, and the words that came out were cutting and harmful. "You don't have to take care of me just because I look like an Original. I'm not one of them."
"Why would I want to care for an Original?"
"I know what you are." Ellie couldn't stop herself. The venom kept pouring out of her mouth. "You were designed to take care of people like me. But I don't need you to take care of me."
"Maybe that is part of why I feel the way I do about the clones, or maybe it's because I’m just like you.
" Alexia took a few steps into the room, taking up so much space with the sheer size of her body.
"Did that ever occur to you? Neither of us is the original of ourselves.
I am the seventh generation of Alexia, and there was an eighth that I killed myself.
So when I knew the clones were going to be woken in the other cities, I knew I had to take care of them.
Because I remember what it was like. Waking up out of that tank, hitting the cold floor, no one caring in the slightest that I was terrified and alone. "
Ellie shuddered. The same memories ran deep in her own mind. She hated them. Hated what had been done to all of them.
Alexia crouched in front of her, her knees on the well worn rug. "You feel like you betrayed him. Is that it?"
Miserable, she nodded. It wasn't the same as admitting it. Not really. Not if she didn't say the words.
"You didn't. You're allowed to have your own thoughts, and you looked at the situation with critical eyes. No one can say you didn't think about what you were telling us. Do you know how few people would even remember that much detail?" Alexia slowly reached forward.
Ellie watched the woman's hand approaching hers and had the thought that she should stop her. She shouldn't be manipulated by the thought of a calming touch, but she was. She very much was.
She wanted to know what it was like to have a friend. A friend who wasn't a droid. A friend who could grab her hand and tell her that everything was going to be all right.
Blowing out a breath, she met Alexia and laced their fingers together. They stayed like that for a little while. Ellie felt as though she was clinging onto this monolith of a woman who had certainly never been afraid in her entire life.
"You did the right thing," Alexia said. "No matter how hard it felt like it was to do.
Creatures like him... If I've learned anything about the people who live underneath the water, it's that they have a hard time seeing past what they want.
He sees a future for his people, and I don't think he's wrong about it.
He knows how much destruction humanity has brought.
He has seen what we can do, and if he's anything like Fortis, then he has seen what we will do. And he wants to stop it."
"But what if he's right?" Ellie whispered. "What if he was correct and the only way to bring that future to fruition is by not letting any of us know what is to come? Or what is out there?"
"We will all still see the sun." The firm statement echoed throughout the room like a vow.
"Some humans might stay below the waves, but I'll be honest. Things are getting tighter.
Food. Space. All of it is getting harder and harder for the rest of us.
That's why we were so suspicious when Proteus showed up.
We need this more than you or he will ever understand. "
And maybe that was a blessing in disguise. It sounded like the humans in the cities didn't have a choice. They had to move out, or overpopulation would kill them all.
"How much time do you all have?" she asked.
"Another generation," Alexia replied. "Maybe.
Now that there are only two cities surviving, and one of them is mostly still a prison city, there isn't a lot of room.
Beta wasn't big to begin with. We can house some people here, but not as many as we'd like.
Space is a luxury that none of us have when we can't breathe in water. "
Ellie rolled it over in her mind. She realized two things at once.
Proteus was wrong.
And humanity had no choice but to go Above.
She nodded a few times, her thoughts telling the story that neither side had told each other.
Proteus wanted them gone, with good reason, so he hadn't told them the entire truth.
But Alexia and her people had been desperate.
So they hadn't told him that they needed this to be true, because if they did, then maybe he would take this as an opportunity to punish them.
All of it was so jumbled and such a mess. But she also wasn't confident that either side would tell each other the truth if they were put in the same room together. So much animosity ran between them that it would be hard for either side to trust the other.
Scratching the back of her neck, she said, "I see there are a lot of problems. We all need each other, though."
"Yes, we do." Alexia nodded towards the bed. "Why don't you lie down?"
"I'd like to keep talking, if we could."
Something happened in Alexia's eyes. An emotion that Ellie couldn't name, but one that softened the hard woman's expression. It was like a mother realizing that a child of hers finally wanted to speak with her again.
Alexia braced a hand on the floor and then lowered herself onto it.
She pressed her back against the bedframe, staring at the door as though keeping watch over Ellie.
"I can keep talking to you. But why don't you lie down, still?
There's going to be a lot more questions tomorrow, and we'd like to get as much information as we can before Proteus gets here.
I'm sure he's going to take you away from us again. "
"He might not." She lay down on the surprisingly comfortable bed, dragging the pillow closer to her. That also was so soft it was like she was lying on a cloud. "He can be reasonable."
"None of them are particularly reasonable when it comes to their mates," Alexia said with a snort. "And he's got his sights set on you."
"He just likes me."
"Does he, now? What does a sea god like about a clone?"
Ellie took her time thinking over the answer. For some reason, she wanted to tell Alexia the right story. "Well, for one, he said that he likes how smart I am."
"That's a good reason to like a person."
"Oh, and he thinks that I'm very resilient." She was quite proud of that. "He calls me Sisu. He said that's because I show grace under adversity."
"It's a good name," Alexia said. "Fortis gifted me Virago. It means a war-like woman."
Ellie wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure that's a compliment."
"For me? It absolutely is." Alexia chuckled, and even that sound had so much power in it that it was hard to deny that the name fit her.
"Now, what else do you want to talk about?
I can tell you everything I know about the People of Water, but I don't think the man you've got wrapped around your finger is exactly that. "
"He's not. Not really." Then common sense stopped her tongue. "I'm not sure we should keep talking about him. Can you tell me more about the cities?"
She'd say too much, and then Proteus would really be angry at her. If she blurted out all of his secrets or weaknesses, then he'd likely bring her right back to that kraken and tell it that he'd brought the creature a tiny snack.
Alexia did something with her hands, and suddenly the lights dimmed in the room. One moment they were on and the next, it was only the meager light from the blue sea around them. It turned the entire room into a secret place, as though everything they said wasn't real, anyway.
Dreamy already, Ellie felt her eyes closing as Alexia spoke about Beta.
She said that the remaining city was still impressive. It was where most of the engineers had lived, but no one from Tau other than the clones had survived. There were quite a few refugees from Alpha. Apparently, that city had also been destroyed.
She drifted off to sleep thinking about all these different people smashed together in a city that wasn't built for them.
People who wore pretty dresses and jewels dripping down their arms, mingling with those who were soot covered and still working hard to keep a city running while it was slowly wheezing.
And then clones. People like her. Trying to pass themselves off as twins, when they knew they were so much more than that.
They were people who had been forgotten.
People who were hoping for another chance at life.
Sleep claimed her as Alexia started telling her about Tau. How she had grown up there too, and that there had been beauty in the cold metal.
Just as much as there had been cruelty.