Page 37 of Echoes of the Tide

No one as smart as a doctor would let an important key just... linger. Not without knowing exactly where it was going. At least, if it was as important as Jacob thought, that is.

Tera clacked again, trying to get her attention as she wallowed in self pity. Or maybe that was a tap on the window. She didn’t know. The undine might be trying to get her attention, too.

At least, until Tera cracked a little harder and then bumped against her shoe.

“What is it?” she asked, looking down at the little droid. “I know you think I should still search, but there’s nothing here. I was lucky the desk even managed to not be as waterlogged as the rest of it. This whole room was reclaimed by the sea. There’s nothing here.”

Again Tera made the noise, and this time rolled underneath the desk. Then the little beads all turned in the same direction, almost as though they were looking at the bottom of the waterlogged wood.

“Oh, you little genius.”

Standing so quickly the chair went careening out from under her, she crawled underneath the desk with her droid. As she flipped onto her back, staring up at the bottom of the drawer, she saw a tiny piece of metal imbedded there. It wasn’t part of the desk build, that much was certain.

“A clue?” she muttered, grabbing onto it and moving both herself and her droid out into the light. “Or... A hologram?”

There weren’t many of these left, as far as she knew. A lot more people used to use them before they went under the sea, and now it was mostly just primitive ways to keep in touch with others. At least, that was as far as she knew. But a hologram was something she’d heard about, and apparently something Tera knew what to do with. The little balls were jumping, leaping for her attention.

So she handed the disk over. Magnets connected to it and all five of Tera’s pieces were rolling away with the hologram in their grasp. Right into the center of the room where they set themselves up into a circle and blue light flickered from the piece that had been hidden under the desk.

A man appeared before her. Well, not really. A holographic man who was made of blue lights and the sprinkling of flickers from where the chip had likely been damaged when it was underwater. But he was right there. A man with enough details that she could read the name on his lab coat.

Faust.

He was a small man. She wasn’t sure why she’d built up the image in her mind of a tall, handsome doctor who had likely done some terrible things in his time. But this man was so far from her imagined person. He was small. Mousy, even. He had tiny spectacles on his nose and was balding only on the crown of his head. He had a thin, pointed nose that was constantly wrinkled as he stared at something in the distance.

“It’s on?” he said. “Are you sure?”

Ace backed away, blindly reaching with her hand for the chair so she could sit down on it and stare at the absolute magic in front of her. A real hologram. It was like she was standing in the room with him. Even if it was a recording, it was still impressive to see.

“If you’re looking through my office, I can only imagine you’re here for one reason. And Jessup, if it’s you, then you putthis down and go back to your family. You’re wasting precious time.”

Doctor Faust slid his glasses back up his nose and the hologram glitched. She could see it roll up through the sparkling blue lights that made him up. One moment he was standing straight, and the next he was glitching in stages away from her. Walking through the room and then sitting down where there might have once been a chair on the opposite side of the desk for someone to sit in and visit with him.

It was odd, watching someone sit where there was no chair. But the look of hopelessness on his face made her breath catch in her throat.

“That’s why I can’t keep going,” he muttered. “This is wrong. It’s beyond wrong. What we’re doing to these people, and they don’t even know it? None of us should have done any of this.”

“Done what?” she found herself asking. But that was the part that had been skipped. Because the doctor just sighed and ran his hands through the meager hair on top of his head.

“I don’t know what to do. All I know is that the information you seek is in Tau.”

“Tau?” she repeated, watching the hologram suddenly freeze and then shudder. “There’s not a city named Tau.”

She didn’t think, at least. There were only three remaining cities that she knew of. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. There had been a fourth, but it wasn’t called Tau. And that city had long been lost to the sea. It was destroyed a long time ago. Now there was just Beta and Gamma.

There was another city? Was that what this key was meant to do? Open the doors to a city that she shouldn’t even know existed?

“Tera,” she said quietly. “Please replay what you can and fix whatever is damaged. I need to know more about Tau and about where the key is.”

Her droid made a soft cracking sound and then she could see it working. The doctor moved all throughout the room. His image was projected everywhere, from the door to the window to suddenly right in front of her like he had just stood. And then he started talking again, even if the sound was distorted, like it was underwater.

“The key to the vault is in my private quarters. That’s above the Painted Lady. But I caution you, whoever you are that found this message, to know that there are limitations to what you will find after you use the key. You don’t want to know the truth of all these cities under the sea, I can promise you that. And if you do find out the truth, then I pity you for what you will find.” Doctor Faust took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “And I hope you can find some pity for me when you find out all the things I have done.”

She watched the hologram start to shift and move again, glitching forward and back. “What did you do?” she asked quietly, watching this tortured man move throughout his office, talking to himself and recording messages that had been stolen by the sea. “What did you and whoever else was helping you do?”

There was the faintest click, and suddenly she was staring right at him. He had knelt in front of the office chair as though he knew someone would sit right where she was sitting. His beady eyes stared up at her, and she felt like he was looking into her soul.

“Do not trust anyone from Tau. Don’t believe them if they say their city has been destroyed. Tau is enduring. That is what it has always done and what it will always do. That city is full of villains and to underestimate them is to invite a massacre to your world. Do not trust them. Not a single person from that city.”

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