Page 8 of Call of the Fathoms

“You’re uncomfortable in the reborn center, but you aren’t uncomfortable looking at that?” He gestured toward the massive body on the table.

She was. She was very uncomfortable looking at the massive, limp fish who had been laid out on two surgical tables and still his tail was somehow drooped onto the floor. His pale purple skin was odd to look at, not to mention the darker shades of his tail that ended in little bulbous yellow tentacles that dripped down his sides like beads. His hair was long and tangled over hisface, obscuring that from her view, at the very least. There was somethingwrongabout looking at a creature like him.

He still had a human form. His chest was familiar enough, although there were no nipples to speak of. His hands were webbed, and one of them had fallen off the table and nearly trailed along the floor. The black tipped claws on that hand were intriguing, but there was something wrong about staring at a creature who was unconscious and thinking about the veins on his hands.

“Let’s go inside,” Doctor Barker said, before putting his hand on the door and starting to push it open.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s plenty of time. They have to thaw the reborn, anyway. I haven’t ever been given the opportunity to see one of these beasts in person.” He looked over his shoulder at her, mischief glinting in those massive eyes. “Unless you’re afraid? I thought you weren’t having those feelings?”

Damn it. He had her, and he knew it.

Sighing, she followed him into the room, which already smelled distinctly fishy.

Four

Fortis

The sea had not warned him about all of this. Fortis allowed the second membrane over his eyes to close, leaving the world slightly foggy but convincing the idiot achromos who surrounded him that their drugs had worked. He had been preparing for this moment for years. Of all the depthstriders, Fortis was the one who had taken the most sulfur. He’d inhaled a significant amount of numbing mist in the deepest sea. He’d even punctured his skin with lionfish barbs.

No achromo drug would make him sleep. But he wanted them to think that he was resting, because he wanted them to make a mistake.

Already they were speaking, giving him more information than any of them likely wanted him to know. He knew this place was Tau, that he had found the correct city to infiltrate. He knew the Originals were the ones living here, confirming all the achromo mates’ theories.

This place was run by ancient achromos. Achromos who had been alive for much longer than was natural. The Originals, asthey called themselves, were unnatural beings who had designed all these cities underwater. They were the ones who had brought the metal to life underneath the sea, and somehow, they had not yet died.

He needed to see this for himself. Or at least find proof that this was possible. So he stayed quiet. Even when they hefted his body with six men out of the net and onto a wheeled table. Even when they brought him into this room, that smelled like antiseptic and metal.

He kept his eyes looking like they did, kept his breathing low and still. What were they going to do to him? Were they going to tear into his body exactly as they had planned for his son?

A flare of anger burned white hot in his chest. Aulax had suffered as no depthstrider ever deserved to. He had shared his son’s memories after he had gotten back, taking some of the anger onto himself so that Aulax could function without rage determining every single choice that he made.

Fortis hoped they would try to experiment on him. He wanted the pain to ground him when he knew that there was a part of himself that could fracture at any point. He hoped they would give him a chance to destroy them.

Instead, they did nothing. The groups of achromos stood around him, looking him over and murmuring thoughts to themselves.

“I wonder if the gills are capable of breathing in air?”

“No, we tested on one before, remember? They have a set of lungs as well. He must have expelled the water from his gills already, because he’s still breathing. See? You can see his chest moving. That is a good sign. He’s not dead.”

“How would we know if he died? Is the only sign of life its breathing or do their colors change as well? Some fish do that. Their scales lose their luster after we bring them in.”

“Good question. We should try it on this one and see if the colors dull.”

He heard the door to the room open and close. More achromos coming in to peer at him like he was a spectacle just for them to leer at. He would never understand these creatures. They were so interested in his people, but they also did everything they could to eradicate his kind.

Frustration brewed and he could already feel some of the electrical signals in the tips of his fins aching to burst. He wanted to glow and terrify them. He wanted them to see how large he was, and how the sight of his lights made him seem even bigger.

But he wasn’t in the water, and those electrical lights wouldn’t make him look larger here. So he kept them off as these newcomers walked over to him.

The first one reeked. He could just barely see the man as he strode into the room, but his lip nearly curled at the scent that clung to him. Blood, drugs, and the strangest scent of something sweet underneath all of that which gave him a rather rotten smell. He was a small male. So small that it was, perhaps, concerning. He should have been able to be larger. How was he supposed to protect a mate when he looked like... that?

And then the second person walked up behind his head. He couldn’t see who this was, but he was suddenly blasted with the scent of the sea. Saltwater, the fresh sea air that so rarely cleared his lungs when he was above the water. And something else. The comforting scent of sea grass and vetiver, a scent he’d only smelled once in his entire life. When he was young, he’d traveled throughout the entire ocean and he had stopped at a marshy area. That place had smelled like this person.

Whoever it was, they smelled good. They made him want to fill his lungs with their scent.

He hated them for it. Immediately.

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