Page 7 of Call of the Fathoms

Doctor Barker muttered something under his breath and started the reborn algorithm that would pick the next clone that was ready for harvesting. The computer did most of the work these days, but the doctors were all required to look over the genetic sequence even after the computer chose it. Then he turned his wheelie chair and looked right into her eyes.

“Your vitals seem normal.”

“As I assumed they would be.”

“But you are uncomfortable in this room? That is unusual behavior for someone of your origins.”

She knew that, damn it. She knew it was strange for someone like her to think on her own. She hadn’t before this. At least, she didn’t think she had. There were a few years where they had put her back in training, but she didn’t think that was because she had been thinking for herself.

Fuck. Was it a bad thing to think for herself? Was it really all that bad if she looked into that room with all the reborns just hanging there, growing, and for her to think it was a little morbid? She wasn’t going to do anything about it. Alexia knew better than that. The Originals had this entire place locked up so tight that someone like her couldn’t get the reborns out, and even then, what would she do with them?

They weren’t real people. They didn’t have a life or learn as they were growing. They were popped out into the world as fully formed adults, with brains that still fired correctly for someone of their age, but who had no experience even breathing on their own.

Besides, she didn’t have a death wish. And death was all that would happen if she tried to move against the Originals.

Doctor Barker took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You know what they do to guards who start thinking for themselves, don’t you?”

She rattled off the information she had known since she was a child. “Guards who are no longer capable of performing their function are decommissioned.”

“Decommissioned, yes, that’s what they call it for you all.” He shook his head. “They kill them, Alexia. You can try to make it lesser if that’s what you want, but the reality is that someone like you who is thinking for herself will end up killed. We’ll reuse the pieces of your body that we need, take your genetic sequence, and make another you. A version who won’t have the flaws that you had before. There have been countless Alexias through the years, but none of them were as powerful or as perfect as your design. And the next one will be even better. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She didn’t, although it sounded like a threat and maybe something she didn’t want to understand. So she remained where she was and stared at him with what she hoped was a blank expression and not one of utter rage like it felt like.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t let them see that you’re different. That’s what I’m saying. In the meantime, I’m going to update your file with a different formula of your daily medication and that will help with these feelings. If they continue, come to me first. Not anyone else.”

“I have a doctor.” One specifically had been given to the guards, and he put them through rigorous testing regularly to ensure they could do their job correctly.

“You will come to me,” Doctor Barker said as the computer barked that the sequence was ready. “Now, I need to look over this reborn and make sure it’s ready for harvesting, since the other one apparently wasn’t. A rash, you said? Was it a food she was allergic to?”

Alexia jumped into the same job she’d always been doing. Protecting Harlow.

She rattled off all the food Harlow had eaten yesterday, making sure that she listed every ingredient in every recipe. She knew all of this information like the back of her hand. Every day she poured over everything that the Original ate, and she was good at her job. She was always better than the others, no matter how much work it took.

It took the better part of an hour to go through everything that might have made her allergic, but then Barker nodded. “Found the issue. Computer, terminate all reborns with this genetic mutation.” He clicked a few buttons and then she could hear the sound of glass shattering. Icy bodies fell to the floor, tubes whipping out of their mouths. Soon enough, people would enter the room and drag those bodies out. They would be tossed out to sea without harvesting a single one of those organs because Harlow might now be allergic to shellfish.

Wrong, a voice whispered in her head. This is wrong.

But she turned her attention from the glass and instead looked at Barker. He stood, twisting side to side to crack his back before hitting the final button on the computer. “Come on, the reborn should be in the right room. It won’t take long to get the right serum to inject her with. This will all be over by the end of the day.”

Thank goodness. An angry Original wasn’t what any of them needed in their lives.

She left all her complicated emotions in that room and stalked down the hall with him. No one would hold on to these thoughts willingly. She was not going to hold on to them, either. It was not her place to think about the reborns or the ethics of even having them. She had to shake this off.

At least, until they passed by the first surgical suite. Alexia slowed to a stop, staring through the glass at the creature they had laid out on the table. “Is that?—”

Barker stopped as well, freezing in place as his eyes widened even more behind those strange glasses. “An undine?”

“Why would they bring an undine into Tau?” she snarled, already reaching for the device affixed to her wrist that allowed her to speak to all the other guards. “Code Red. There is an undine on the premises.”

Another voice came out of her wrist, this one from a guard named Hyperion who was a personal guard to one of the oldest couples of the Originals. “Understood. Where?”

“Surgical suites.”

“We will stay clear of that area and shut it down for all the other Originals.”

Doctor Barker was looking at her strangely.

“What?” Alexia asked.

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