Page 96 of Call of the Fathoms

It wasn’t safe to be soft in this pit of vipers, where everyone wanted to see others in pain. They were testing her. She knew that. They were testing to see if she really was the person that she had once been, and if killing an innocent undine would make her slip up.

Well, they had no idea what she was going to do to them now. She would tear them apart with her bare hands, show them all exactly what the undine had taught her. She would be the nightmare that brought this place to its knees and she would bathe in their blood, just as Fortis would want her to do.

Straightening, she wiped her expression clean of all the thoughts she was having. They couldn’t see her anger. They couldn’t see the hatred bubbling underneath the surface of her being.

So when she turned, she looked just like her old self. The woman who would take quite literally anything from anyone as long as Harlow was happy. “There. Dead.”

Harlow clapped in glee. Her face had already creased into a bright smile, wrinkles forming at the edges of her eyes that she would surely kill a reborn to fix very soon. “Delightful! Now, I have a surprise for you. You got back just in time for it, and I cannot wait for you to see it.”

“A surprise, Harlow?” She followed her Original and told herself not to look back. Don’t look at the body of the man she had fallen so deeply for. But she did. She looked back at the scientists and narrowed her eyes on them. “Don’t fuck with that body. It’s not yours. Dispose of it.”

They glared at her, but she could see they were going to follow her instruction. They wouldn’t desecrate his body, at the very least. Now, she just had to shake Harlow for a few moments and get this plan rolling.

As they strode through the blinding white halls, Alexia found it harder and harder to not let anger overwhelm her. She’d seen Harlow’s picture on that wall. She knew this woman had been there at the start of the end of the world. And now, she acted like it had never happened. Like it wasn’t a big deal that humans were down here, experimenting on each other and everything else in the sea.

As they walked toward one of Harlow’s private quarters, Alexia had to make sure she wasn’t breathing hard. Already, the sound of her anger was perhaps a little too obvious.

She needed to distract herself before she did something stupid. Like angrily rage that this woman had made her kill the only man she loved. Or just outright murder the woman for everything Harlow had done.

Not that they wouldn’t just bring her back. Alexia was sure the Originals had a plan in case someone assassinated them as well.

“Harlow?” she asked. “Please fill me in on everything that I missed.”

“Oh, nothing much. There was a grand party. Everyone was there. I surely missed you while you were gone, though. The guards who were to be your replacements were all so dull. I didn’t like them.”

Boring. All of this was so boring. None of it actually mattered, and she didn’t understand how these people managed to live like this for hundreds of years. Who cared about a party or the people who attended? Who cared that someone had worn something so out of fashion that it was so last week?

But she played along. She kept herself in check, all the way to the back room where Harlow usually worked out whenever she got the idea that she might want to do that. The mats were still on the floor, dark blue, so they didn’t offend Harlow’s eyes. And then there were the tall glass windows, each one of them about as wide as Alexia was, stacked next to each other like dominos to look out into the dark sea beyond. Exterior lights illuminated the speckles of dust in the water and the nothingness that was out there.

“Good, we arrived just in time.” Harlow said. She spun in a small circle before sighing. “Listen. You’ve been gone for such a long time, and I wanted to do something special for you. I haveappreciated your companionship, and you truly are the best person to walk through life with me.”

She didn’t like where this was going. “Thank you, Harlow.”

“Now, I understand that there are going to be people who talk. You have always been a bit different from the other guards, but I liked that. So I let you be. Unfortunately, many of those people have a lot of power here and I need them to like me.” Harlow walked over to another door and hit the locking mechanism. It unlocked, and a person walked through. “So this is my gift to you.”

A person? What did she want with another person?

But then Alexia really looked at this stranger and stared into her own dark eyes. She traced the outline of her own dark hair, pulled back in a tight braid that made her features look even more severe. This version of her was slightly broader, a little heavier set with muscle, but this was... her. Except she was dressed in a pale grey suit, far more rigid than anything Alexia would have worn. This suit had black buttons down the center, and the new genetically enhanced version of herself started to unbutton them as they stared at each other, revealing a white tank underneath the blazer.

Alexia was standing in front of herself, looking at a woman who shouldn’t exist and yet, they both knew what had happened.

“Alexia?” she asked.

“Alexia the eighth, to be specific,” this woman said.

Her eyes were so dead, Alexia realized. No emotion in them at all, as though she wasn’t really alive.

Harlow seemed to realize what Alexia was horrified by. “Ah, yes. That. There’s always been a flaw in you, unfortunately, and it usually relates to emotion. They said if I wanted to keep you, I would have to fix that.”

“How is this a gift, Harlow?” Alexia moved as the other version of her moved, making sure the woman wouldn’t getbehind her. She knew what personal guards were meant to do. This creation would attack her at any given chance. That’s what this moment was for. Without a doubt, they were going to kill her.

“Because you get to meet your replacement! I thought you’d want to know that I am going to be well cared for. Your entire life has been about making sure that I am happy, and now, after your death, you can be rest assured that I will be fine.” Harlow lifted a hand and dabbed at her eyes, as though she was teary-eyed just thinking of it. “I’m going to miss this version of you. But time moves on and sometimes we make mistakes.”

“Harlow,” she hissed, but the Original was already walking to the door.

“No, no. I simply can’t stand it. Alexia the eighth, make sure your predecessor is dead before you come back out of this room.” Harlow took a deep breath and nodded. “This is the right thing to do.”

The door closed behind her, and then it was just Alexia and the newer version of herself.

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