Page 68 of Call of the Fathoms

“Getting steroids. I assume they’re with all the other medication.”

“I told you, I’m not giving you any more medication. I don’t know what it will do with everything else the doctors here gaveyou. It’s not like we have a hospital here and you were quite literally dead.” Mira tried to grab onto her arm, then released it when Alexia shook her off. “Good lord, you are strong.”

“Stronger than most,” Alexia replied. She ran her tongue over her teeth as she reached the cabinet and rummaged through it. “What did they give me?”

“I don’t know.”

Could be worse. She’d had a lot of different drugs in her system throughout her entire life. A lethal dose for a regular human wasn’t a lethal dose for her.

Another person walked in, this time a blonde with a droid wrapped around her head. “What’s she doing up?”

“Giving herself a steroid injection.”

“She can’t do that! We had to give her anticonvulsants because she started seizing when we restarted her heart! Steroids could kill her.” The blonde woman stepped forward, only stopping when Mira grabbed her arm. “Mira, let me go. She’s going to kill herself again.”

“I think we let the big woman do what she wants,” Mira hissed.

Likely because if she died, all Mira’s issues would be fixed. Alexia knew she was a complicated problem to have. None of them trusted her, and she didn’t blame them for it.

“Did Fortis tell you who I am?” she asked as she found the box of steroids. They only had six vials. She took three of them.

“Only that you were from Tau, and that we could trust you,” Mira replied.

“A man of many words.” Alexia stuck the first needle in her thigh, sighing as the steroids immediately started to work. She could feel her body using it to address the wound on her thigh, and could even feel the ragged edges of her wound healing.

She turned toward the other two women, noticing their eyes widened as they stared at her leg. It was visibly knitting together at this point. The perks of being more than human.

“I am from Tau. You can trust me, however impossible that seems. I have no interest in hurting the people here and only want to seek revenge on Tau for all the things they have done to me. What you’re watching right now is only part of their experiments.”

She stuck the next shot into her left arm, the one with the ooze coming out of it. That one stung, but she just stared as the yellow liquid belched out of the wound before slowing and starting to heal. One last wound.

If she were back in Tau, they would have given her blood. This place didn’t have that, though. Or maybe they did, and they just weren’t interested in giving it to her. That was fine, too. She didn’t expect them to welcome her with open arms.

The two women’s mouths had opened as they stared at her, and then a third poked her head in. With dark hair cropped close to her head and glasses on her face, she was so far from anyone who lived in Tau that Alexia found herself liking her a bit more than the other two.

“What’s going on in here?” Her eyes turned toward Alexia and then moved up... up... up... “Oh. Fuck.”

Alexia sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh fuck is right. Now where is my undine?”

Twenty-Eight

Fortis

Two weeks. That’s how long it took for the other achromos to bring her back from the dead, and the entire time Fortis argued with himself that it wasn’t necessary to see her. He didn’t need to look at her still form, count the breaths that rose in her chest, or linger in the water to make sure she was still alive.

His people had done everything they could to save her. They weren’t certain they could do it, but it was better than nothing. They hadn’t treated her any differently than one of their own, even though they had good reason to hate her.

He hated feeling so helpless. But he had trusted that his people would succeed. And they had.

She pulled through the pain and the endless torment of death standing beside her, and then he could breathe again. Of course, he couldn’t see her after that. She was still healing. He didn’t want to get in the way. So he stayed in the water, seeing her only when he was certain she was resting. It allowed him to check andmake sure she was alive, but also to know that he didn’t bother her.

On one of those occasions, Arges found him. He scented his brother long before the blue fin was in his sight, but he didn’t warn Arges away. Some part of him wanted to talk.

No matter how hard such a conversation was bound to be. His feelings were all jumbled, and it was so wrong to even have the thoughts he was thinking of. But also...

“Brother,” he said as Arges swam closer. Together, they headed away from the infirmary dome. Fortis found he didn’t like anyone else looking at her.

From what he had been told, Alexia had fixed herself. She’d stolen all the steroids they had and then injected herself with them. The drugs had made her flesh heal quickly, but exhausted her. She’d told everyone that she needed some time to sleep, and after that, she would be ready to answer any and all of their questions. He wasn’t sure if that was a good plan or not.

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