Chapter 40
Forty
Ellie
Ellie floated up into the dome, helped by a very lovely female undine who was quite possibly the prettiest one she'd seen yet.
Her lavender color was exquisite, and the way she had braided her hair so intricately made Ellie want to try it herself.
Those braids were wrapped around each other in a way that looked like flowers that danced down her back.
With a soft smile, Ellie pulled herself out of the water and sat on the edge of the moon pool. Once she got the rebreather off her head, tearing out even more strands of hair in the process, she exhaled and said, "I really need to learn how to swim."
"Considering we live underwater, yes, you do." Anya's voice interrupted her with a soft laugh.
Ellie looked over to see that the room was full of four women. Alexia and Mira she knew, along with Anya, and the last must be Ace. The shorter woman stood off to the side, glasses perched on her nose, and a small robot in her hands.
"Hi," Ace said. "I don't think we've officially met."
"Not quite, but it's nice to meet you."
The droid in Ace's hands suddenly spasmed. It wriggled out of the woman's hands, dropped onto the floor, and headed toward Ellie with a quick movement.
"Enough pleasantries! Did you bring him here or not?" That was Pilot's voice, certainly. But it wasn't his body.
No more was the droid in the body of a crab. This was more like... well, a lobster, the more she looked at it. His body was significantly longer, although he still had quite a few legs. They were less spider-like and more centipede-like as he headed across the floor toward her.
Ellie picked him up with a delighted laugh, looking into the eyes that were still projected through a glass panel on his face. "Look at you! All new."
"I don't like it," Pilot grumbled.
Ace sighed, the sound filling up the room with exasperation. "I told you, Pilot. You'll learn how to use the new body just fine. It's just algorithms crossing. Soon enough, your directive will forget that you used to be in a different form."
He was all right. Ellie had been so certain that he'd died, and that there was nothing she could do to get him back.
She snuggled him close and pressed a kiss to the top of his droid head.
She didn't even know if droids could feel a kiss like that, but he certainly spluttered enough for her to think he could.
Setting him down on the ground, she patted his head a couple of times for good measure. "I did bring him. He'll be showing up soon, I'm sure."
"You should have run," Pilot muttered. "Left me here to my own devices. I would have escaped in my own time."
She smiled at him, but then looked up at the other women in the room. They were clearly holding themselves back, trying their best to give her a moment for their reunion before they all flooded her with questions.
"I think you already saw most of what I did in the files," Ellie finally said. "But there's more. There's so much more."
"There always is," Alexia replied. And then she gave her a little secret smile that felt like it was just for the two of them. "I'm glad you listened, Ellie. It seems like you figured it all out on your own, after all."
"More than that." She stood out of the water, shaking some drops from her fingers and shaking her head when Mira offered her a towel.
She told them everything else, then. About the creatures she had seen on the screens, and that she was certain Above was actually inhabited.
Then she told them about the mouse she had seen, the strange dog creature that had chased her.
All of them were wrong and certainly not what they had seen in the history books.
Somewhere in her stories, likely around the dog, the other undine showed up.
Arges hauled himself out of the water, sliding across the floor toward Mira and wrapping his tail around her. Maketes did the same, although he hauled Ace across his tail like that was where she was meant to be. Her cheeks turned bright red, but she leaned into him.
They'd done that a hundred times before, Ellie realized. The other two were looking at their mates intently. Daios clearly checked Anya over for any harm. And Fortis looked at Alexia like he worshipped the ground she walked on.
Finally, her gaze flicked to Proteus, and everything in her froze. Because the expression on his face was so soft. She'd never seen him look at anything like that before. He had been waiting to catch her gaze, so that all the love he felt for her could shine through his eyes.
Biting her lip, she tried to hide her grin before continuing on to tell them every detail.
The undine males who had joined them had a lot of questions about that massive dog thing that could have killed her. Proteus answered most of the questions about that. After all, he'd been a lot closer than her. And they all started guessing what these creatures meant.
Their words and theories started overlapping.
They were all speaking at the same time, their thoughts and expectations of Above growing more outlandish by the minute.
She could tell that Alexia was going to argue against their going up there at all.
Surprisingly, it was Anya, sweet, quiet Anya, who was arguing the most adamantly that they should go Above, regardless of the danger.
Finally, it was Proteus who got them all to stop talking.
The sharp, whip crack of his voice lashed through the dome. "You don't have a choice! To save your people, you must go Above."
They all turned to stare at him, and at least it seemed Proteus now understood why.
"I will help you as much as I can, but I think we all know that there is no guessing what has survived up there.
I would hazard a guess that the last decade of experiments that went on in that facility would shock all of us.
We can discover as much as we can, but in the end, there is nothing we can do to change what we will find out there.
There must be weapons developed, facilities fortified. And then we can move forward."
More quiet, until Alexia spoke next. "I can oversee the weapons construction.
Tau had plenty of those, and they weren't all aimed at killing the People of Water.
Plenty of those can be used in a physical fight, and if we arm enough people.
.. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll start training soldiers.
Many clones have already shown interest in it. "
Anya nodded, her gaze far away as though she were reading something on the screen of the droid attached to her head.
"I think the records from the experiments give me a good start in guessing what we might encounter up there.
I'll start pulling together diagrams and assess with Daios where these creatures might be weakest."
"Droids will be helpful," Mira said. She nodded over at Ace. "The two of us can get them going. We'll need flying droids, probably for the first time."
The others continued to talk about all their plans, moving seamlessly together.
They were a team, but more than that, they were a family.
Ellie watched them all bicker together. But none of the arguments had any bite.
None of the insults seemed to stick. They ribbed each other and joked about who would be best at doing the jobs.
Alexia pushed off the wall, coming toward Ellie with clear intent in her gaze. "And you? What are you going to do to help us, Ellie?"
Everyone quieted a bit, looking over at her. But Ellie was looking at Proteus.
It was as if he'd already read her mind. She could tell that he wasn't pleased with what she was going to say, but nodded at her anyway.
She swallowed and said, "I'd like to lead the expeditions heading to the other facilities.
I just... I want to know what's out there.
I want to see the world and to know what we're bringing people into.
And then... Well, once we get a stable place to live, I think I'd like to stay in Sanctuary.
I can be close to Proteus, and welcome people to the land as they arrive. I think I'd be good at that."
Alexia grinned. Pride turned her expression a little warmer than before.
"I think that's a great idea. You know, most of the people who have volunteered to go Above are clones.
Just like you. They all saw it as a chance for a new life, to start somewhere no one knows who they are or where they came from.
I think you'd be the perfect person to welcome them. "
As the others started talking again, more plans bursting through the air, Ellie felt something inside of her click into place. A puzzle piece that she had been missing, maybe. Or perhaps a reason for being that she hadn't had before.
Quietly, she moved through the crowd of people and walked over to the water's edge.
There wasn't any privacy in this room. But when Proteus flicked his tail and came closer to her, it felt like they were the only two left in the room. She sat down on the edge, and he braced his arms on either side of her body.
With a gentleness only she got to see, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and asked, "Happy?"
"I think so. Are you?"
He nodded. "There is a future for us here, Sisu. Not an easy future, but I don't think either of us would like a happy ending handed to us, all wrapped up as you humans dream of."
"No," she replied with a soft laugh. "I don't think either of us would like that. We need a purpose."
He nodded toward the others. She knew he was saying something, but all she could focus on was the strong line of his jaw and the hard look in his eyes.
A muscle on his jaw jumped, and she wondered what happened to it when he fully opened his mouth like she'd seen him do so many times.
Was that muscle one of the ones that helped peel his mouth open like a flower?
He looked back at her, and a hint of amusement made her blush. "Did you hear me, Sisu?"
"No."
"What were you thinking?"
"Just about you." She brushed her fingers over the lines of his cheeks and then sighed. "Right. What were you saying?"
"I was telling you that I don't think any of this is going to be easy.
A long road awaits all of us, but I do think we'll get there in your lifetime.
" He curled his fingers close to her hips, his claws grazing her wetsuit.
"And that I'm not sure they're going to need us for a little while yet.
You and I could perhaps explore ahead of them.
There are a lot of facilities out there, and we could be the ones to see if they're safe. "
"What about the mutant dogs?" she asked.
"Those aren't dogs."
"What would you call them, then?"
"Just mutations. I think that's good enough." Proteus tilted his head to the side. "What is it with humans and incessantly needing to name things? You've seen it. Surely that is enough."
"Proteus, you're going to be around humans a lot more. I think you need to stop asking questions about us and understand that you aren't going to understand us."
He rolled his eyes. "That is because logic is never part of what you do."
"Sometimes it's just a feeling." She looped her arms around his neck. "I think I proved that to you very well, not that long ago. Didn't I?"
She swore the water was suddenly much, much warmer.
Proteus leaned closer to her, his gaze locked on her lips.
And she knew he was thinking about her mouth wrapped around his cock, her fingers toying with his slit, all the things that had made him make that lovely groaning noise that she still thought about when she was daydreaming.
"All right, you two," Alexia said, her voice breaking Ellie out of her daydream. "If you want to start ahead of us, that might actually be a good idea."
Ellie cleared her throat and leaned around Proteus to look at the other women. "Do you have a preference of which direction we go in?"
It was Anya who replied, but she was still looking into the glass of her droid, not at anyone else in the room.
"Actually, yes. I can send some coordinates to your droid.
There are a lot of facilities listed in these documents, areas they used as testing sites.
If we can convert one of those into a livable space, that's the best opportunity until we can determine how difficult it will be to build Above. "
Proteus snorted. "I imagine you'll find it far easier than building underneath the waves."
"Maybe." Mira patted Arges's chest. "But it will be a lot more difficult to build without the help of the People of Water. You're all a lot stronger than any human I know. That'll take some figuring."
Once again, they all devolved into trying to figure out the logistics of building on land, rather than in the water.
Clearly the topic was of great interest, and everyone was thoroughly excited by the idea.
Even the undine in the room were talking about all that it would take, and how they could prepare the humans to pick up significantly heavier items.
She watched all of it with amusement. At least they were excited about something. Ellie was just happy to have helped them all in some way.
Then her attention turned back to Proteus, and he had eyes only for her. He wasn't looking at the others in the room. She wasn't even certain he was listening to their conversation anymore.
He stared at her. His gaze moved from her eyes, to her nose, to her mouth. And then back up again. He took in every inch of her like a man obsessed.
"What do you think?" he asked quietly.
"About what?"
"Do you want to go on an adventure together?" He quirked a brow that he didn't have, but she knew the expression was meant to tempt her.
Ellie realized she no longer had to question why she wanted to do something with him. She got to do it whenever she wanted.
Reaching for her rebreather, she slid it over her mouth even though she knew the whole contraption was going to rip out her hair. Then she gestured for Pilot to join them. The little lobster once crab, clambered onto her arm and then clung onto her shoulder.
"I am very ready for that," she said, the words muffled through the rebreather.
As they both dove beneath the waves, she knew she'd never been more ready for anything in her life.