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“And you cannot live above the ocean either.”
Imber frowned, his eyes darting from achromos to achromos before growling, “And why is that?”
This time she translated for him, and Jasper turned to give him a look that clearly said her father wasn’t pleased with his daughter’s chosen mate. “We are all going under the sea for a reason, undine. There are many risks to staying above the water now. Our world is slowly dying. Between the storms, the volcanoes, the plagues, all of it. It’s sweeping across this world and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The only thing we can do now is to hide.”
“Then hide above the water,” he growled.
Jasper looked to his daughter for translation, then sighed. “I wish it were possible. There is nowhere left for us to hide. I could build my daughter a small home here in a few months, but within a year, it would be destroyed. For her to safely stay in touch with you, it has to be near the sea. And if it is nearthe sea, then the storms will rip it apart. She would die. Do you understand that? Above the sea, there is nowhere for her to safely live. And there is nowhere for us to go other than under the waves.”
So that was the problem. Her people were dying out, and they were fleeing in whatever direction they could to stay alive.
It posed a problem. Because he did not want to kill any species without cause, but he also did not want to share his home. Not with so many creatures who had no sense about them.
He grunted in understanding and then said, “Then you must bring the air to her.”
Alys translated, and her father nodded. “My thoughts exactly, undine. We will bring the air to her and that will be my parting gift to my daughter. A love letter made of metal and all the parts that will be needed to keep her alive into old age. Perhaps beyond. I have hope that maybe someday, our kind will see to reason that there is more we can give each other than battle and war.”
Imber did not share the same hope. Namely, because he didn’t believe it was possible.
Their kinds were designed to fight each other. To battle until the bitter end, until there was nothing left in the ocean but blood and salt.
Still, he nodded for the old man’s sake, and for Alys’s.
“Dad,” she whispered, and he saw that Alys’s face had paled as well. “What are you planning on doing?”
“I’m going to build you a home, my dear. An escape pod unlike anything else.” Her father seemed even more tired as he said the words. “But it will take time. Time that you need to stay here, hidden, so no one knows what I’m going to do. And then, at the last moment, I will set you free.”
It made Imber’s stomach roll, but he knew it was the best decision. So he swam closer to the window again, waiting for his mate to put her palm to the glass. “I will find you,” he said to her. This time, he made the promise. “And soon, my love, my mate, you will be home again.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Her father worked as quickly as he could. All the replicators were firing constantly, so much so that she could smell the molten metal most days. It still took months. Months on end while she hid in his home and pretended that she wasn’t listening to all the builders who came and went. That she didn’t care when they spoke about the progress they had made on Alpha.
Eventually, even she had to admit they had built something grand. An entire city encased in glass that would never leak. It was impossible to damage what her father had created. Three different bubbles, all encircling the city. If one was damaged, it was easy to fix without endangering the city. And even if they didn’t know how to fix it, there were still three shields between them and the world.
The oxygen remained stable. Everything grew quite well underneath the natural sunlight and also all the UV bulbs that they had throughout the entire encasement. Even on cloudy days, Alpha saw the sun.
They rushed the next project, already having her father working night and day on yet another iteration. This time, itwould be Beta. The city that was made like skyscrapers, all exposed to the ocean. They wanted a city to put the riff raff. The people who would fix everything they needed, the blue-collar workers who didn’t need to be with the people who had already built Alpha.
In less than a few months, they created a new world and segregated everyone within it.
Her father worked so hard. First to make her a home so she didn’t have to live with his mistakes, and then for his people to have somewhere safe to go after Alpha decided they were no longer necessary.
He lived, ate, and breathed work. Sometimes she went into his secret office in the water, trying to get him to eat something. But he didn’t often eat.
Most of the time, he spent his minimal hours enacting his promise to his daughter. She didn’t know if that was because he loved her so much, or if he felt guilty for what he had done.
There were only so many hours in the day, though. And his guilt ate at him.
Eventually, he finished. He came into her room late at night, like a ghost of himself. Pale and staggering, he braced himself on the frame of her bedroom door and nodded. “It is done.”
“I will start packing.”
“Everything you need is already in there,” her father said, his voice crackling with age and exhaustion. “You have to go now.”
Alys stood, clutching her shawl around herself. She was in nothing but her white nightgown with a pale yellow shawl to keep her warm before bed. He really expected her to leave like this?
