Twenty
"So, I have good news and I have interesting news. Also, I need some beacons."
"...that sounds moderately ominous," Adrian said dryly.
"It does," Sypha agreed, nodding.
"Trevor, speak plainly," Anna replied with a small smile for her friends.
"Well, I found some deactivated portals on my last trip, which is why I needed the ion cubes. Turns out they all drop off in a different location... that can be reached by seamoth or Cyclops."
He sounded so damn smug, Anna felt like she needed to smack him through the radio.
"...you're saying that if you drop beacons at the exits, we should take the Cyclops and try to find one," Adrian said after a moment.
"Well, yeah. You should all see what's in here too, and that's the only way!"
"...Trevor, sometimes you are really exasperating," Sypha sighed.
"What? What'd I do?"
Anna just shook her head a little.
"I'll get started on the beacons."
"What'd I say?!"
"This one's probably best for you, keeps you down dark and all that, but we're going to have to be careful," Trevor said, pointing to the fourth beacon. "That damn ghost leviathan is in the area, and it'd probably lay waste to a seamoth, not to mention taking exception to the Nautilus."
"...you could use the prawn suit," Anna said thoughtfully, glancing at Adrian. "If it permeates the barrier, then you could just leave it inside. The rest of us can take the Seafood Trio, and hit up one of the other spots."
"That's... an option," Adrian said cautiously after a moment.
"I also learned how to make those tablets we've been wondering about," Trevor put in. "For the blue ones I grabbed some of the kyanite that was hanging out outside the plant. Purple just needs some diamonds, and the orange one needs nickel. Well, that and ion cubs."
"I thought you used up all the ion cubes?" Sypha said with a small frown.
"There's a machine in there that makes more. I got three more cubes off of it before it was depleted, and when I looked back, it was already in the process of recreating them."
Anna whistled lowly.
"Alterra will love getting their hands on that," she murmured.
"Does this mean we're leaving?" Sypha asked. "Leaving the area, I mean..."
"Well, there's not much point in hanging around here, so... yes?" Trevor replied.
Adrian nodded a little, and had to admit he felt some relief; while they hadn't suffered too much trouble from the sea life, the oppressive nature of the cave was actually getting to him. Getting back to where it was dark and blue-lit was much more preferable, even if it did put him and Anna at risk of meeting Scott's derelict again.
"Was there anything special about these four areas?" he heard Anna ask as he turned to start the submarine engine.
"Not that I noticed, but I wasn't exactly looking," Trevor admitted.
"They can't just be random chance, can they?" Sypha asked.
"Somehow, I doubt that," and Anna's voice was thoughtful. "Whoever the builders were, they had a plan behind everything they did... well, except the escape of the kharaa into the biosphere."
"So if they open into four spots..."
"Then there must be a reason," Anna said firmly.
"What reason do you think it could be?" he asked, watching absently as Trevor's reflection moved into the corridor. No doubt he was going to take another nap.
Anna looked over at him, met his eyes in the reflected glass, then offered a shrug.
"I suppose we'll find out when we see the interior of the thermal plant, huh?"
"If then," Sypha sighed. "I think Trevor has the right idea, I'm going to lay down for a while too."
"Okay. Sleep well."
Sypha dragged the hatch closed with a small hiss, and for a few minutes Adrian concentrated on piloting the sub. Anna was still there when he glanced at the glass, her injured leg propped up carefully on the console as she leaned back in the chair.
"...I don't know if I should be excited or nervous," she finally murmured. "What about you?"
He laughed softly, and shook his head slightly.
"I feel rather like this whole thing might be a dream," he admitted. "It probably won't seem real until we're all inside the thermal plant, seeing whatever Trevor saw."
He saw her reflection nod, and she brought her other knee up to her chest, hugging it lightly.
"...you could go and rest too," he suggested after a moment, cautiously shifting the Nautilus to avoid scraping up against a rock.
"Mm.. I'm okay. You need someone to watch the cameras anyways."
He did, but she looked... tired. No, not tired as such, but worn in a way that he didn't quite understand.
Still, he allowed the silence to fall, and found that it was actually quite comfortable.
"Madre de Dios," Anna said softly stopping short as she entered the main room of the thermal plant. "It's massive!"
"You're telling me," Trevor said with a grin.
"These are all the artifacts you scanned?" Sypha asked, peering curiously at the glass cases. "What do you think the nanites are?"
"The scan suggested they were far more advanced than anything we've got, and they should probably stay in the case until there's a way to get other people here without half-murdering them," Trevor replied.
"That's your ion cube fabricator then?" Adrian asked, gesturing to the tower in the middle of the room.
"Yup. Impressive huh?"
It really was. It looked almost like the model of a planetary skyscraper until one got close enough to realize the cube wasn't actually part of it.
"Did you bring the prawn suit through with you?" Trevor asked, glancing at the other man.
"Yes, though I'm curious as to why you wanted it."
"Can't take the whole cube," he replied with a shrug. "I need the drill arm to break it apart into manageable chunks."
"Ah..."
Anna limped across the room with care, approaching the forcefield control with mild trepidation and severe curiosity. Trevor had made a blue tablet for them to see, and she wanted to know just what was beyond this barrier.
Like the controls before them, the moment she held the tablet within range of the control panel, it practically yanked itself out of her hand, snapping into place, and the barrier beyond shimmered, then faded out.
Nothing had been holding air back, but she got the sense that something large exhaled as the barrier faded into nothingness.
She hesitated, looking down the hallway, then glanced over her shoulder; Adrian seemed to have only been waiting for that as permission, because he swiftly crossed the room to her side, his hand coming to rest supportively against her low back. He looked down that long corridor, and took in a slow breath.
"Down there, you think?" he murmured.
Anna nodded. Whatever had been waiting for them, whatever had called to them, it was down there.
"Do you think we'll find a power source down there, or is that the primary containment?" Sypha asked, peering over the edge into the cloudy blue water below.
Adrian peered cautiously as well, frowning a little.
The hallways had opened up into a large room, with the only remarkable features being what looked like a portal on the far wall that they couldn't hope to climb to, and this large pool of water. Anna was already carefully working her way down one of the side ramps, utilizing Trevor as her ballast so that she didn't fall into the water prematurely.
"Given that the water does not seem to be agitated in any manner, I would suspect that this is primary containment," he finally said. "And I think I'm impressed that the builders, whoever they were, were able to make a facility like this that powers all the other installations they might have in the area."
Sypha nodded a little in agreement, and they quickly joined Trevor and Anna at the bottom of the ramps.
He cast a concerned look at Anna; she had her eyes fixed on the water, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on her face. Plausibly from having to walk so much on her injured leg, even with the support of the cane, or her friend... but that didn't make it less concerning.
"We're going to have to get in to find out what's down there," Trevor said after a moment. "One at a time, or all at once?"
"All at once," Sypha said promptly. "Better to face this together than only hear secondhand what happens."
Adrian nodded in agreement; this felt like something akin to an ending, and while he hadn't known them very long, whatever end it was, he wanted to face it with all of them. He slipped up on Anna's other side, and tucked her arm firmly in his to give her another person to lean on. Sypha did the same on Trevor's other side.
"Breathers," Anna said firmly, freeing her arm briefly from Trevor's to pull hers on.
Sine it was a sensible reminder, they briefly untangled long enough to pull them on, then linked arms again.
"On three?" Trevor said with a grin.
"Just jump," Sypha retorted, and did precisely that.
Trevor swore a little, but Anna laughed; Adrian smiled, letting himself fall forward into the water that was pleasantly warm without being hot. Below them stretched a large square of metal, hanging from chains; visible just beyond looked to be some patch of the sea floor. Sypha and Trevor broke off from their small human chain, while Anna continued to hangonto his arm; since he knew she was trying to avoid kicking with her injured leg, Adrian was more than willing to tow her slowly along.
"What is it?" Sypha asked as they swam down.
"It might be a thermal regulator," Anna replied, though she sounded uncertain.
"Whatever it is, it's in the way," Trevor said with a snort. "There's got to be more to this place than-"
A strange chirping noise interrupted him, and a long, scythe-like appendage cam down hard onto the square. Anna gave a small shriek of surprise and her hold on Adrian's arm tightened; Trevor and Sypha both swore as they rapidly swam back. Adrian stopped short, pulling his arm back slightly to keep himself between Anna and whatever this new creature was.
The head that appeared was massive, but the face didn't look like something that belonged to one of the apex predators they'd faced in the rest of the ocean. He wouldn't say it looked kind, but it also didn't look like it was something that wanted to eat them.
Are you here... to play?
The voice was achingly familiar, and Adrian had to stare at her for a long moment as he realized that this was the being that had been talking to him for so many years. This ancient, massive creature that inspired both awe and fright at first sight...
"What. The fuck...," Trevor whispered.
Others came here once. They built these walls, and the creature looked around briefly. They played... alone. They bored me.
Adrian swallowed hard; had they made a monumental mistake in coming here, or was he just hearing inflections where there were none? Given the way Anna's grip had briefly tightened, the way he could feel her trembling just slightly, he wasn't the only one who thought that is sounded mildly threatening.
Now, they're gone. And instead, we have you. The arm moved off the box, setting it to wobbling slightly as she turned away. We wonder, will you swim with the current, or fight against it, as they did?
There was a rush of water as she disappeared below the box, and for a long minute, no one said anything.
"Was that the Sea Emperor?" Sypha finally asked weakly.
Trevor put an arm around her, touching his head to hers, then pulled her over to Adrian and Anna.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked.
"Shaken, but... otherwise fine," Sypha replied.
Anna just nodded, finally loosening her grip on Adrian's arm. He absently noticed his hand tingling as the blood flow returned to what passed as normal for him, and let out a slow breath. His head was reeling, though whether it was from the adrenaline or the fact that he hadn't been breathing for a few moments in shock, he wasn't sure.
"She's real," he murmured. "I would hear her so often in my head, but I never thought..."
"What's she doing now?" Trevor asked.
Sypha swam over to one of the chains, and held onto it, looking down.
"Swimming around the enclosure," she reported. Then, after a pause. "I think... she's trailing glitter?"
"...not glitter..."
Anna's head came up, and she released Adrian's arm entirely, somewhat awkwardly swimming her way over to Sypha.
"...that's the same glitter we find in the Peepers we need for the vaccine," she said after a long minute. Awe and excitement entered her voice. "This water must be filled with enzyme 42!"
"Okay, but what does that mean for us?" Trevor asked, swimming down to join them.
"It means that the longer we stay in the water, the more our symptoms will lessen," she replied. "I don't know if she can cure them completely just like this, but..."
Adrian blinked, then swam over quickly.
It was only a patch of the sea floor, but somehow, it managed to be big enough for the Sea Emperor to make several circuits. Every few minutes she expelled a cloud of glittering motes that Peepers and the other sea life in the enclosure would dart through.
If he could have sat down hard, he would have.
There really was a cure.
"...okay. So... what do we do now?" Trevor asked.
"...I think we should go down there and talk to her," Sypha said slowly. "And maybe look around some too. There's something else down there..."
Trevor nodded in agreement, and pushed off the edge of the square, heading down rapidly. Sypha looked at Anna, and offered her arm, which the other woman took. Adrian brought up the rear much more slowly, wanting to look at everything at once.
How long has she been trapped in a box, the way he had been trapped in his base? It was no wonder she'd reached out to him; as vast as her mind was, as alien as it was, she had been lonely too. And she had saved his life in more ways than one with her limited communications.
"There's eggs down here!" Anna announced, breaking him out of his introspection. "Some kind of incubation device... Trevor, we need an ion cube to turn it on."
"I think I have one left," he said, rummaging through the carry bag. "If we need more I can go back up and get them..."
The Sea Emperor landed on the floor, long squid-like limbs trailing out to all sides as she peered down at them. There was nothing threatening about her now, just... awe at her size, at the feel of her age. Adrian wanted to go up and touch her, thank her, for saving his life for so long.
There was a soft, sizzling snap as the ion cube was put into the incubator, and the Emperor lifted herself up from the sea floor, moving over to an arch that was mostly covered by sand.
My young need to hatch; to play, outside this place. We have been here so long, and Adrian winced at the sadness in that great mental voice. The others built a passage, to reach the world outside. I asked them for this freedom, but... they could not hear me. If you help us, I will give you freely what the others tried, in vain, to take.
She blew a hard gust of water at the sand, clearing away the dirt to reveal the arch in full, and the power box before it.
"...Right. Give me five minutes, and I'll be back with another cube," Trevor said, and pushed off hard from the ground, making for the surface of the enclosure.
The Emperor watched him go, her head tipped in curiosity as he swam swiftly by her face.
"He's coming back," Adrian said, though he wondered if she could hear them speak at all. "We're just temporarily out of the things we need to power the portal."
This seemed to satisfy her, and she returned to watching them. Cautiously, hesitantly, Adrian swam over and rested his hand against her forearm. He got the sense of warmth, of curiosity and pleasure at the touch, and had to wonder if she had suffered much in her own isolation.
"This is amazing," Sypha murmured as she swam off from the incubator terminal. "Nothing in here is even slightly infected."
"They must have isolated her to study the effects of enzyme 42, but when they screwed up with the sea dragon egg, every project got terminated," Anna theorized. "The builders must have died off before they could try and fabricate a cure because they were too afraid of the infection."
They left us... alone, the Emperor said, her voice achingly sad. But they could not hear us, and did not try.
Anna looked up, and Adrian thought she might be heavily empathizing with the Emperor.
"As far as we know, they were modified machine-organic hybrids," she said. "So that's not surprising."
"What is surprising is that we can hear you," Sypha put in.
You are like us. But not. I felt your arrival, but... reaching out over long distance is difficult. Tiring.
Adrian nodded a little in understanding; he could remember how short those early communications with her had been, her vast mind touching his delirium dreams to leave only brief messages. They had grown longer and more complex after Liesse had vanished, her touch staying with him for hours at a time.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
It seemed such a small thing to say, when he owed her so much. And she had been down here, waiting, for...
You are more like us than the others were. You had a greater need. I could not ease all your pain...
"No one could have," he said, offering her a sad smile. "Humans... don't do very well in dark solitude. Your contact saved my life more than once. I'm... sorry I couldn't have gotten here sooner."
A hand dropped onto his shoulder, startling him enough to look away from the Emperor; Anna offered him a small, sympathetic smile.
"You had no way of knowing what was real and what wasn't," she pointed out gently. "Nor did you have any way to get down here. That's not your fault, Adrian."
He made a noncommittal noise, though he couldn't help smiling when she hugged his arm.
"She's right you know," Trevor said; his voice was accompanied by a splash as he re-entered the water. "Hell, if we didn't have the prawn suit, we probably couldn't have made it down here, and that didn't get sold to Alterra until about five years back."
"Six," Sypha said.
"...whatever. The point is, you lived. And you got damn lucky we showed up."
Adrian had to chuckled a little, if ruefully. Anna looked like she wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose in irritation, and just settled for rubbing her hand over her mask as Trevor swam down and put the ion cube in the box.
As the portal powered to life, the Emperor pulled away from Adrian's hand, returning to circling the large tank.
With the passage you have opened, my young can leave this place. And while it was not overly emotional, the projected contentment was clear enough. But first, they must feel that the time is right. This is what the others could not take from me... but to you, I give the secret willingly.
Anna squeaked a little, and when Adrian turned, he saw her staring up at the Sea Emperor, as if in awe. Then she looked at the three of them.
"I know how we can hatch the eggs."
"So we need a ghost weed seed, an eye stalk seed, a fungal sample, a sea crown seed, and a bulb bush sample," Trevor said. "That's all?"
They had all been running low on air, so they had been forced to retreat to the surface.
Anna nodded, tapping on her data pad to make sure everyone got the file. It had startled her to realize that the Emperor had given the knowledge directly to her, not all of them... but she felt flattered, warmed by the attention.
"We've seen most of these," she said, pointing at the relevant data files. "And I think the builders might have been close to figuring it out, if the drop locations for all the portals is correct. The only thing that stands out is the sea crown... and I have a sneaking suspicion it's down there."
And she gestured to the tank.
"So, do we split up?" Sypha asked.
"That would be the fastest way to get everything," Adrian said, though his tone was... subdued.
"Might not necessarily be the safest, though, Trevor said.
Anna looked up at her cousin in a mix of surprise and suspicion; since when had he put thought into what was the safer option?
"Sypha and I will go looking for these seeds and things," he said after a moment. "You two stay here. See what all is in the base, and keep the Sea Emperor company."
It was tempting to protest, but in truth, it wasn't half bad of an idea. Adrian looked thoughtfully pleased, and Anna had to admit that even with trying to be careful, her leg was hurting more than a little. Resting here wouldn't be so bad...
"Just don't take any foolish risks," she said after a moment. "We left the Nautilus back at the base, and even with these portals, it'll be a swim if someone gets hurt."
Trevor grinned at her, pleased, and Sypha got to her feet with a nod.
"I'll make sure nothing bites him," she said with a wicked grin.
"Hey!"
Anna giggled, shaking her head a little as they headed back up the ramp before looking at Adrian.
"...are you okay?"
"I'm..." after a moment he shook his head, and shifted to lean lightly against her. "She's real. For so long I depended on her as something to keep me grounded, anchored, even though she was only ever a vague shape, and a kind voice. There was a time or two when she asked if I could come to her, but..."
Anna put her arm through his gently, squeezed lightly.
"It's really not your fault, Adrian," she said softly. "And I'm sure she doesn't blame you. Why don't you go back down there and talk with her for a while? I'm sure she'd love the company."
He hesitated, then nodded.
"Will you be all right alone?" he asked.
"I'll be fine. I might even nap, though it won't be that comfortable," and she unhooked her arm, then gave him a gentle push. "Go on. You spent nine years talking to a voice. Go talk to the real thing."
Survivor's log, Anna Torres
How long has she been trapped, I wonder? Probably years beyond years, if the artifacts in this place are any indication. It's cruel that they left her here, unable to escape in any manner. That square panel keeps her from emerging from the top, and the arch is too small for her to get out that way.
….what will happen to her, when we hatch her eggs?
I know Trevor suggested splitting up to delay getting all the pieces together. It's probably one of the nicer things he's done for Adrian. I think he knows, too, but I'm inclined to let it slide for a while. I get the feeling there's a lot Adrian wants to discuss with the Emperor, and... well, after being in that water for a while, I actually do feel better. My arms don't hurt as much, and when I looked, the cysts seemed smaller. Adrian actually had some color in his face when he came up to trade air tanks earlier, and he certainly seemed more energetic than usual.
It's not a full cure. I think I can say that much for sure, just based on the research I've found. But maybe when we hatch the eggs, we'll find out just how potent the builders managed to make enzyme 42.