Page 15 of Whispers of the Deep

He’d never mistake the shape of her body. He’d had her pressed against his chest, her tiny hands skating over his gills even though he thought she had been unaware of the intimate touch. And this was... her.

Her body was covered in some silvery material, and it moved with her like a second skin. Bright and lightly colored, it mimicked fish scales in the light. Her hair was covered as well with the same material, and some strange device covered her eyes. But what covered her mouth had his attention like nothing else.

It was clear, like a bubble. He could see her lips moving as though she were talking to herself. But it was clearly doing something to allow her to breathe. He could see her chest moving in and out as she sank through the water toward the metal monster.

Some insanity pushed him forward. He had to flick his tail in the opposite direction, so he stopped swimming toward her, as if to... save her? No. He didn’t need to save her from that metal creation. If she approached it and it crushed her, then that was her own fault. And all his problems would be fixed.

But it didn’t attack her. Instead, she swam around the back of it and fiddled with something there. He moved a kelp frond out of his way to see her better, and yes. It appeared she must have spoken with the creature, because it turned around and reached for the glass pane.

His gills flared as he saw with horror that it picked up the side of a tube with ease. The entire panel, metal frame and all, as though it weighed nothing. Now he knew that he could likely have lifted it, but the achromo certainly couldn’t.

She watched the creature move and then made a gesture above her head toward the surface. He watched the panels close and thought this was his moment. He would take her now, but the damned metal creature certainly made that a little more difficult.

Instead, he resolved to watch her. And he was glad he did.

She had fins on her feet. Delicate and thin, like he did, but very narrow and very long. Shocked, he watched as she glided through the water after the metal creature that stomped across the ocean floor.

The gills on his neck flared as he watched her swim. She moved with an innate grace that he hadn’t expected. The first time he’d seen her underneath the waves, she’d been shivering and struggling for breath. When he’d breathed into her lungs, perhaps he had given her a part of himself. Because she moved like a fish.

Her body slowly rolling, she kept one arm in front of her as she swam, parting the resistance of the ocean as she followed the metal creature. And with the lights on the exterior of her city, she looked like she glowed.

Then she reached up and touched something next to her head. A beam of light erupted from her skull, and he was shocked once again. Did the achromos have the ability to create light?

Glancing down at his hands, he flickered his own lights in his palms. They were faint though, bioluminescence rather than the massive swath of light that now illuminated everything in front of her. She was creating light like some of the deep-sea creatures did. How was that possible?

He swam alongside them, following them across the ocean floor. And he noticed that his achromo did not flinch away from fish or the massive crabs that hid underneath the tubes of her city. She watched them with careful attention before dismissing their danger. If there were sharks in the area, or any of the other more aggressive fish, she would have been in trouble. But those were so rare in these parts, considering the sights and smells of the city.

These were terrible hunting grounds for any predator.

He soared over an outcropping of stone and hung over the edge, watching her work with a tilted head. She followed the metal creature without hesitation. His attention rarely strayed from that strange being who moved a little too stiltedly to be alive... Surely they had created it, not birthed a new species?

He heard the sound of something swimming toward him long before he scented one of his pod on the water. Maketes was one of his best warriors, and a strange one at that. His yellow tail made him rather easy to spot in the water, but if one had seen him, then they were already dead.

His warrior quietly swam up beside him, peering down into the depths before rearing back in shock. “What is it?”

“Hush.”

“They cannot understand us. the achromos have always been deaf to our language.” Maketes pointed at Arges’s achromo, who had yet to hear them or notice that they were watching. “It will not look up.”

“She,” he corrected, “has another creature with her. Do you not see it?”

With a roll of his shoulders and a flutter of his fins, Maketes showed he cared very little. “Another tool made of metal that would break down within five moons. It will fail like all the others. I do not fear their metal creations.”

“Hm,” Arges replied, staring down at the female and creature, who continued to stomp across the ocean floor. “I do not share your confidence.”

“She?” Maketes rolled onto his back, arms cushioning his head as he watched a fever of rays swim above them. “How do you even know it’s female?”

It was hard to tell. The achromos were not as obvious as the People of Water. The females he was used to had pretty frills along the fronts of their tails, and lovely colors that burst to life when they were ready to mate. They were delicate and fearsome all at the same time. Their flukes were wider than Arges’s narrow, sharp spined tail. Instead, they were broad and fluttered in the currents with a lovely grace. And of course, their females were significantly larger than Arges or Maketes.

Looking down at the achromo and her metal machine, he couldn’t compare the two species. She was finless. Completely incapable of protecting herself, no matter how many weapons she had. Helpless, even worse than their children.

Maketes rolled back over, his hair billowing around him like a cloud, and hummed low under his breath. The sound carried through the water, and would have easily been picked up on the opposite side of the achromos city. He would have heard it and known who had made the noise. But this achromo? She didn’t even look up.

His pod brother shook his head in disgust. “You see? Broken, these achromos. They think all the sound in the ocean is just that. Ocean. There is so much they do not know, and yet, they think they own it all.”

He nodded, agreeing with his brother. Still, there was something about her that caught his attention.

She might not have fins or pretty frills, but she moved through the water like she’d been born to it. She used her hands now, pulling herself up and over rocks as the metal creature took the long way around. It was still carrying that panel, and he couldn’t imagine what they were going to do with it.

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