Page 97 of Echoes of the Tide

She threw up the video that she’d put together. Big. The entire glass wall was suddenly taken up with the sights and images.

“Byte, record my voice,” she said.

Mira walked up to them, her arms crossed over her chest. And as a trio, they watched the images of carnage unfold before them.

“This is Tau,” Ace said. “This is the city that has survived longer than any of us realized. A city deep in the sea, making decisions for you. Not in your best interest, not for your life to be easier. This city only has one thing in mind.”

The images changed to the vision of the founders of each city. Beta, Alpha, Gamma, even the ruins of Omega. Faces that they’d all grown up with, worshipping the ingenuity of the people who had brought humanity under the sea. The faces warped into onesthat looked eerily similar but were laid out in stasis pods, each one filled with seemingly the same person.

“These people used us as fodder for their experiments. Their clones exist in captivity. The originators, as they call themselves, have been ripping people apart. These are not just broken little toys for them to tear out hearts and lungs and plasma to keep them alive for longer than any human should have any right to. They are killing people. Actual people.” Ace’s voice broke.

Again, the images changed. This time, they showed all the research facilities that had been hidden by Tau. All the tubes filled with the bodies of the undine, not just torn apart, but laid out on research tables with their organs floating in beakers beside them.

“What you see here exists right underneath your feet. In every city, there is another city beneath it. Teeming with people and research teams who have hunted the People of Water and torn them apart. Tau wants more than just immortality in the form of replacing pieces of their broken bodies. They want the longevity of the undine. They have been researching this species for over a hundred years and soon, they will make a hybrid that they will use to their own advantage.”

She swallowed hard. Looking at the images made her stomach turn, because they could so easily be Maketes.

Slowly, she zoomed in on the face of a bright green undine. His eyes were closed, and to the unsharp eye, he might even look peaceful. Until one looked a little closer. A smear of blood on his cheek marred that handsome face that was so eerily human.

With her voice thick, she finished her speech. “If you can look at this person and not feel anything, then how far have you fallen under Tau’s spell? These are not animals. They look like us. They feel like us. They have families and hopes and dreams. We have been taking those away from them. So the question I ask you all is, can you live with yourself now that you know the truth?”

A small click echoed in the room as Byte stopped recording.

His head popped out of the box, the binocular eyes looking at all three of the women before him. “Mira? Shall I transmit to all the cities?”

“They’ll never play it,” Mira replied.

Tera rolled around Byte and clacked a few times. Ace picked her droid up and gently deposited it back into her pocket. “My droid can hack into anything, and already did. You say the word, and all of this will be broadcasted onto every single screen in the remaining two cities. They won’t be able to stop it until it’s played three times. Then the message will disappear, even from their records.”

Anya shook her head. “You think Tau will let us do that?”

Ace shrugged. “I don’t think they’ve discovered where we’re coming from yet. If they knew where the message was being transmitted from? Yes. They could stop it. But they don’t know we’re in this facility. Not yet, at least.”

She could see there was only one person she needed to convince, though. Because Mira wasn’t looking at her. Mira was looking out the door at Fortis. The massive undine hovered in front of the window, his arms crossed over his chest, and she was certain he was looking into her soul.

There were three lights approaching behind him. Blue, red, and yellow. She only had a little time before the overprotective brigade ruined everything.

Stepping up to the glass to make sure he heard her, she looked him right in the eye. “You know this is the right thing to do.”

Those dark eyes swirled with too many colors to count. “You risk letting Tau know where we are. Once that transmission is sent, they will send the full weight of their power upon this facility. Your message may not even make it to the cities.”

She narrowed her eyes, knowing those colors were coming from the place Maketes had talked about. Where the sea itself gave him a vision of the future. “What if I encode it? What if I send it through a droid, not a building?”

Mira hissed out a long breath. “Ace.”

“What if a droid was the one sending the message?” she asked again, her fingers creeping into her pocket.

Those colors swirled again, and he just nodded. “If you do that for us, I will keep your sister safe. She is with our people now, but I will ensure she is even safer than that.”

Everything in her twisted. “You have my sister?”

Ace reached for the console in front of her, bracing herself against it in shock. Because if he had her sister, that meant that Laura was alive. Jacob hadn’t killed her. Laura wasn’t even in Beta anymore.

She could see her sister again. She could hug her. She could hear someone call her Maura again, even though she hated the name.

But if a droid was sending the message, then it would have to be a sacrifice. She pulled Tera out, tears building in her gaze as she looked down at the beads that all turned their faces to look at her.

Breathing in a ragged breath, she whispered, “It was always going to end like this, wasn’t it? My oldest friend. I cannot make this decision for you.”

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