Page 88 of Song of the Abyss

No matter what she did, she couldn’t save the city.

She couldn’t save her people. They would forever be in the clutches of the man who had made her life so terrible. And then she realized, they didn’t want to be saved.

Her father was no scientist. He wasn’t capable of finding the undines, cutting them up, or researching about them on his own. There were countless people who helped him.

Her own people. Good people she had always thought were worth saving. They had helped him, and then they had walked through those gilded streets with blood on their hands and smiled like nothing had happened.

It tore her up inside to realize that maybe her people weren’t worth saving after all.

She told the undines everything they wanted to know. Mira was quick to jump into learning about the city, and Anya had no intention of hiding anything. She hooked Bitsy up to Byte and let the two droids work. They downloaded every schematic and map that Bitsy had access to. Then Anya had her call up Ace to get her friend involved. It took a while before Ace even answered, but she had known her friend wouldn’t remain silent for too long.

“I know it sounds insane, but I need to know this is a secure channel,” she said as Bitsy projected the words up on the screen.

“Always.”

“Good. I’m working with the undines, and I think I know how to break Alpha.”

There was a long pause after she said the words, three bubbles bouncing on the screen, which meant Ace was typing. Considering how long it took, she assumed Ace was typing out an entire monologue.

Then all that came through was, “The fuck did you just say?”

Mira’s lips quirked with a wry grin. “Your friend seems nice.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty great.” Anya shrugged before replying. “I know it sounds crazy, but the undines are our ticket in. We’re going to destroy the city, and I need you to figure out refugee arrangements.”

Again, more bubbles. More time that her friend needed to figure out what to say. In the end, Anya decided to tell Ace everything.

It made the undines behind her bristle. Clearly, they didn’t want to trust yet another human with more information about their whereabouts or who they were. But Ace was someone she would trust with her life, and so it was pretty easy to hand that connection over to Mira and Byte.

Almost two days passed before she realized how tired she was. Before she stared down at the map of her city and realized there was only one way this was going to happen. She looked up at Mira once all the men had left, all of them agreeing that the two women needed to eat and rest.

“They’ll hunt the biggest thing that they can find,” Mira said, sighing as she cracked her neck. “They need to blow off steam and we both need rest.”

Anya didn’t need rest. She needed a miracle. “You see the same thing here that I see, don’t you?”

She didn’t have to ask twice. It was clear in the way Mira’s shoulders tensed and lifted to her ears. “Yeah. I think I do. But I’m doing my damnedest to find another option, because I don’t like what you’re planning.”

Neither did she. Anya knew there were such limited chances for them to attack Alpha. They would get one more time to make an impact before they’d be locked out of the city for good.

She couldn’t take that risk. Not with so many lives at stake.

Mira watched her, her eyes seeing too much. “You know he’s not going to let you fucking do this without a fight.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like the guy. He made my life a living hell when Arges first kidnapped me, and he’s tried to kill me multiple times.” Then she softened a bit, the wrinkles between her eyes easing a little and her shoulders dropping back down. “But even I can see how much you mean to him, and I’m not that heartless. You soften him, and I worry that if he loses you...”

“I will not accept that pressure,” she interrupted. “We’re both adults and we both have always had the same goal. I don’t like Alpha any more than you do, and I intend to save my people and yours by doing this. I know destruction seems insane, but I believe that this is the only path we can take.”

“So you really think you’re the only one who can set off a bomb?”

God, it was so much worse when someone else said it. Anya shifted Bitsy up so she could rub her eyes before nodding. “Yeah, I do. I know where my father keeps all the weapons in the city. That’s where I lost my hearing. I can get in. I can detonate the bombs before anyone has a chance to stop me.”

“And you think you can walk right in without your father finding you?”

No. She didn’t. She had a feeling her father would know that she was arriving the moment the cameras picked up on them. And there wasn’t a way into the city without someone seeing her.

But that was what she was hoping for. She wanted her father to see her. She wanted him to know that she was coming and that he needed to save face because he’d already told everyone that she was dead.

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