The Penny Drops (Sea the Depths Book 1)

by Karmon Kuhn

  Chapter 9

  F

  rozen in place, I sat still and silent behind the lifeguard outlook. I’d come to land expecting to woo a human, drag her home, and continue on with my life. It was a challenging mission, but we all had this responsibility. A tithe to pay forward for the comfort that our community afforded us.

  I never truly believed that I would fail and be sent back to the trenches of the Indian Ocean, but now, what else could I think? I’d lose my job, my home, and the respect that I’d cultivated for years of dedicated study and specialization. I’d be branded a failure and re-educated in the ways of our people like a child. Then, if I was lucky, I’d be given menial work to support the homeland.

  I was going to lose everything. I slumped down and pressed my eyes against my palms. Wetness built spilled from the corners of my closed lids and then streamed down my face. I touched my cheeks and stared at the glittering tears on my fingertips. My fist closed around the damp sadness, and I screamed.

  I was not this! I was not a sniveling human! I would not accept this! I, a creature of the deep seas, a hunter, an academic, an adult, would not stand for this!

  I checked my pack and took out the few pieces of clothing that I’d been able to fit inside and wedged them in between some loose boards of the outpost. Then, I stalked toward the outcropping of rocks where I’d first modified. I dug a pit with a loose rock, undressed, buried the boots, then covered them up and weighed them down with the biggest rock that I could find. I undressed and put that outfit in my pack as they were light enough, and I might need a backup in case I couldn’t get to the outlook when I got back. If I got back . . .

  With the tickle of that threat, I stood in silence. I didn’t see, hear, or smell anyone nearby. Besides, if that scream hadn’t drawn attention to me, then I was surely safe from the humans here.

  As excruciating as my previous modification had been, the fusing and stretching of my body that night was unimaginable. I clenched my teeth as they stretched into fangs and dug my growing claws into the sand beneath me. It took all of my strength to remain conscious, but I had the will this time. No one was here to save me.

  I laid in the sand panting for several minutes before I could collect myself, but as soon as my heart began to calm, I pulled myself toward the water. Once in the waves, the freeing weightlessness calmed me. It took some time to locate my juz̈uṣùs̈, but with a few vibrations of my body, I located it. Just where I’d left it.

  ***

  Despite being tired after my modification from human back to my seafaring body, the trip to my home was too short. I was sure that I’d have a master plan by the time I arrived, but no revelations had come to me. So, I went to my underwater cave and lounged in the wading pool to recover. As soon as I had the energy, I prepared to confront the situation at the tsez̈ø.

  Before leaving, I slid around the smooth slime-finished floor and touched the few possessions that I owned. I held my tattered and pasted books preserved in repurposed plastics; I hung my favorite sea glass necklace from my neck, a piece that my mother and I had made together; and I bounced for a moment on the round cushion of my sleep mat. If I’d still had the tear ducts of a human, they would have filled just as they had on the beach. Deep in my core, I knew this was the last time in my home.

  With miles of ocean between me and my cave, I missed it even more. As much as I wanted my chance to intervene, I still dove the juz̈uṣùs̈ with slow, deliberate intent away from my greatest comforts.

  ***

  On the ocean floor, I set my vehicle shields to camouflage near the ground entrance closest to my department and slid in between the layered coral and down into the trenches until I found the entryway, a covered hole in the ground. I pressed an etched symbol next to the indents of the entrance, and the cover slid aside so that I could enter.

  As if it were any normal day, I slithered down the chute, waited between two doors as the sea water drained around me, and then glided into the slippery, treated tunnels of my department. I peered at the office panes that lined the tunnel. All made of recycled human glass and crystal, they were darker than usual as my research colleagues weren’t working this late, thankfully. So, there was no one to spot me as I approached my study chamber. Just as I had at home, I spread my fingers across my favorite volumes as if to say goodbye. Just in case.

  While in my office, I stayed out of sight to keep from drawing attention to myself. I was supposed to be on land after all. I hadn’t left any scent markings to suggest that I was busy or even there, and I hoped that anyone passing by wouldn’t recognize any traces of me.

  Just as I was about to leave, though, a colleague of mine, Moztuhlih, stopped near my office for a moment and paused. He even went as far as to open my door, but then he continued down the hall tunnel. I let out a long breath when he was gone and almost laughed at myself.

  Moz was often at the labs late at night and preferred to pore over his manuscripts over all else. He also walked into my office by mistake on a regular basis. He would often crack the door, see my minimal stacks, and realize that his own famous collection awaited him in another room.

  I wished that I could speak with him. While we were not emotionally connected in any real way, he had served as one of my mentors throughout my professional training. He was intelligent and could solve any puzzle of language that was presented to him. I had a great deal of respect for him and had always been thankful that this great logicist had made time for me when he made time for so few things or people. I would miss him if this mishap wasn’t resolved.

  With measured and deliberate movements, I slithered out of my office and turned to the right toward the classrooms. If I could find my instructor and Darius, I presumed they would be somewhere near there. I planned to continue this path until a flicker of something caught my eye. A glint of metal against the sliding door into the human studies department that bordered language studies.

  The metal plate by the doorway was shaped like an open palm, so I placed my hand on it. Nothing happened. The door didn’t budge. I didn’t know the departments were closing off from one another. Why would anyone need access to enter a department? Information was our lifeblood at the tsez̈ø. It was discovered for all and therefore available to all.

  While I was inspecting the curious scanner, I heard running thuds coming toward me and instinctively jumped back. A bloody mass sped toward the door that stood between us and howled. A slashed human, naked and vulnerable. Her belly was swollen and bloated, and there was a fresh slice across her abdomen at the base of it.

  I backed up and nearly fell to the ground until I hit something solid. I could barely peel my eyes away from the door but managed it long enough to see that I’d backed into another researcher while I crawled away.

  “Don’t worry about that. It can’t get out of here. Are you the new intern?” he asked me casually.

  I looked at him blankly at first and then asked, “Are you in the human studies department?”

  “Of course,” he answered.

  “Yes, I am the new intern.” I said, mystified by my own answer.

  “Come. We will go to the other entrance.”

  As I followed him away, I looked back just in time to see three other researchers on the other side of the transparent door stunning the poor creature with a weapon of some kind. In an instant, she was a pile on the ground being collected and dragged down the hall.

  ***

  Once we’d reached the human studies department, I was guided through an entryway into a room with two other interns and told they would show me around. They left their project of what appeared to be meal packets, like the emergency food rations that every home was provided by the city, and took me through the department’s main tunnel to a large room. Wall to wall were shelves of liquid filled preserving jars.

  I was surrounded by a collection of pieces of life. I could see infant hands like those that I had as a baby and tiny human toes on tiny human f
eet. In a few of the jars, I saw creatures that were horribly disfigured and tiny with abnormally small limbs or severe microcephaly. I even saw a creature that resembled a hodgepodge of humans and my people except that it looked weak and sickly.

  I placed my palm on the glass and had to hold back a shudder. I wanted an explanation, but I couldn’t bear to ask for one. What was all of this? No one, to my knowledge, had ever been instructed to retrieve infants for their trials. There would be no reason to capture them as they could not provide any useful insight into human practices. And who was that woman in the tunnel? What in oceans was going on here?

  I’d always been taught that the land trials were used as a way to bridge the gap between humankind and the oɦiṣod. That our researchers interviewed the women we captured and learned about their habits and culture so that we could advance for our own betterment and also be sure that we stayed hidden from them. What in the world were they really being captured for?

  As if in answer to my internal query, one of the assistants stated, “This functions as a museum of research failures and discoveries.”

  What kind of experimentation would lead to these results? They led me, then, through the tunnel to a few more rooms. First, there was a medical room with windowless doors in all four walls. It looked like a high-tech emergency services room with many types of scanners, shelves of medications and medpacks, surgical equipment, and a cage full of compression suits designed for humans.

  Next was a resource room where sterile equipment was kept, and finally, we ended up in a library similar to the one that I frequented in my own department. The shelves carved into the walls held preserved leather bound volumes of human works as well as the recovered plastic books that my people created with human waste and renewable resources derived from the sea.

  I even saw some ancient-looking stone tablets and pressed seaweed volumes with fiber pressed letters. Some were written in the pictographic language of oɦiṣod (called Suzih), and others used similar communications from other races. I recognized a volume with written characters from a race in the Gulf of Mexico, but was unable to read the title. One of these volumes had a symbol that looked oddly familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. Two figures with offering hands.

  The titles I could read covered macro and microbiology, climate change, ecosystems, human anatomy and physiology, and reproductive sciences. There was one newly minted book, written in Suzih, that piqued my interest. I pulled it from the shelf, flipped through the pages, and saw diagrams of the female reproductive system of humans, complicated mappings of human genes, and mathematical equations that I couldn’t begin to fathom.

  Just as I advanced to a page with a pregnant woman and directions for surgical procedures, I looked over at the interns. They stood stiff but bent as if in confusion. I realized that I must have been holding a concerned posture and stood up straighter trying to look curious and serious.

  “Do you need anything from us, or do you feel that you can begin cataloging on your own?”

  “Cataloging?” I asked.

  “Yes. The volumes on birth defects and epigenetics need to be organized and accounted for.”

  “Are they not all in the centralized database?” I asked.

  I was answered with a concerned expression as both of the lab assistants exchanged glances. Then one of them laughed, “It is a joke!”

  “Of course,” I said, laughing along. “I will be fine, thank you.”

  They left me lost in this dark, mysterious library. How could there be preserved volumes that weren’t publicly available? Was this information the reason that the access had been applied to the door? Could there be more nefarious reasons for keeping people out? Or, perhaps in . . . ?

  I stayed silent in the lab and hoped that the interns would not speak with me. As soon as I could, I excused myself with a headache and rushed through the hallways, being sure to communicate illness in every way that I knew how. I no longer had any interest in whatever my instructor and Darius were doing. I needed to get out of that department.

  I worked my way through the tunnels until I was out the same sea floor entrance in which I’d come. I swam quickly to my juz̈uṣùs̈ and whipped my way inside. My chest filled with a clogged, unfurling pain, and a fog shaded my thoughts.

  What if I was in real danger here? Not just my job, my pride, my home, but my life? If someone in the tsez̈ø would treat a human tribute, one of our most valuable resources, like that torn woman in the tunnels, what would they do to me?

  I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t be next. So, I ran.

  Chapter 10

  I

  ditched my juz̈uṣùs̈ in a high sand drift in camouflage mode and swam to the beach toward a cave with my satchel closed as tight as possible. I ate a nutrient pack and practiced deep breathing. Modifying twice in less than twenty-four hours was reckless, but I didn’t feel safe in the ocean. I had a better chance of hiding on land. The process was slow and deliberate. Each tendon, nerve fiber, and blood vessel split and resituated individually. To this day, I’m not sure how I survived so much suffering.

  By the time I’d finished modifying, the sun peeked through the cave. I laid naked for some time to fully regain conscious thought. I dug out my clothes from the day before. Wrinkled but dry due to the waterproofing of the satchel. I struggled to dress myself and by increments, pushed myself up off the ground.

  I wandered along the beach and then heard a whipping along the waves. I stumbled and fell into the sand. I crawled away in terror to find it was only a piece of driftwood washing ashore. That close call was enough for me to drag myself away from the water’s edge.

  Eventually, I began to recognize my surroundings. An ice cream shop near the boardwalk, the outcropping of rocks from my first modification, and then, the lifeguard post. Before approaching my clothes, I dug up my boots and then sprinted back to the safety of the land. I slid them on, and the sand granules pressed against my bare feet.

  The closer I got to the lifeguard post, the more people there were around me. I had an overwhelming urge to warn them. To tell them they needed to stay away from the water. But why? They wouldn’t believe me anyway.

  Once I reached the hiding spot for my things, I began digging. Someone yelled at me to stop, but I ignored him, dug up my clothes, and turned to go. A hand rested on my shoulder as I did so, and I dropped the clothes onto the sand at my feet. Before I could consider my actions, my body wrenched the fingers from my shoulder and twisted.

  He squinted in pain. I let him go and backed up. “I’m sorry.”

  I picked up the clothing and he let me leave this time, but his eyes followed me until I was out of sight. All of the bodies I passed were too far for me to smell them, and it unsettled me that some of those eyes might belong to one of my own kind. I began to run and pushed my body as hard as it could go on its feeble parts. Once I was out of sight of the beach, I collapsed onto the sidewalk. Where was I even going?

  ***

  Without direction or even hope, I found myself nearing Penny’s neighborhood. I passed Mug and Muffins and was tempted to curl up in one of the chairs and imagine that I was Alice again. Imagine that I could defeat the Red Queen and make everything alright. Pretend that anything could be alright.

  Instead, I trudged on to her apartment. At her door, I stopped and was unsure of how to proceed. I’d broken my device and thrown it out of the juz̈uṣùs̈, so I couldn’t send her a message. At the tsez̈ø, we would scent mark or call out. Scent marking was ridiculous in this situation, so I tried the latter.

  “Penny?!”

  Nothing. I cleared my throat.

  “PENNY?!”

  Nothing again.

  “PENNY?! ARE YOU IN THERE?!”

  At first I didn’t know what to expect, and just as I was about to leave, feeling lost, I heard her froggy croak, “Hello?”

  “Penny?” I asked.

  “Who’s this?”

 
; “It’s Natalie,”

  There was a pause, and I could feel her mind trying to work out why I was at her doorstep.

  “Could I please come in?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  I heard some clicking noises and then the door swung open. Penny backed up deeper into the apartment with messy, silver strands hanging in her face, dressed in an oversized t-shirt.

  “Is everything okay?” she started with a yawn and then shouted, “What happened to your eyes?! Are you . . . sick?!”

  “What?”

  “Have they always been yellow like that? I thought you had gray eyes! Here.” She pulled me inside and shoved me in front of the mirror by the door.

  She was right, instead of the clear gray my human’s eyes had been before, they were now a serpentine amber. The transitions had been too stressful. My body had been unable to complete the full modification. I inspected them, pulling the skin away and looking deeply at them, and then, I looked down at the rest of my body, turning my hands back and forth. Were my eyes the only unmodified part of me?

  “What the hell happened? You look freaked out.” She was watching me observe myself.

  “This is not why I am here. I discovered something difficult to handle, and,” I hesitated, “I don’t have anyone else.”

  “Why didn’t you just call me?” she asked.

  “I lost my phone.” I lied.

  “Okay. Um . . . What happened? What can I do?” She asked and offered me a seat on the couch next to her. It was one of few pieces of furniture in the whole apartment. Just the sofa, a bookshelf, and a table with two chairs all in the single, large living area. There were three doors which no doubt led to the wash area and sleeping area.

  “Do you need a second?” she asked me after my pause.