by Ali Vali
“I promise, and I didn’t tell you because mine is so much a part of me that I sometimes forget it’s there. My parents gave it to me a long time ago, and I seldom take it off.” She took Vivien’s hand and laced their fingers together. “It’s like me introducing myself to you and mentioning I’ve got nipples—true, but I’m sure you’re not totally interested.”
“That would’ve certainly been memorable,” Vivien said and laughed. “For a long time I thought the shell was a peace offering from my mom.” Vivien’s voice was low, as if she was shy all of a sudden.
“Want to get more comfortable for your story?” she said as she sat and turned her body around. When Vivien didn’t refuse, she lay down and opened her arms to her, smiling when Vivien rested her head on her shoulder. “You okay? I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage.”
“No, I don’t think that. Do you think this is strange?” Vivien asked as her hand came to rest on Kai’s abdomen. “I don’t ever do this, especially with someone who works for us.”
“Want to sit up near the edge? I really don’t want to weird you out.”
Vivien moved closer and placed her hand on her hip. “That’s why I asked. I’m so comfortable with you, and I can’t figure out why. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not a touchy-feely kind of person. With you, though—”
Vivien’s hand tightened around her waist. “How can I take that wrong? Knowing you’re comfortable around me is a step closer to becoming good friends. At least that’s how I’m going to see it.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Usually when a beautiful woman wants to share the sky with me and be close, it’s not a bother.”
“So you wouldn’t share much with Steve?” Vivien asked, and she smiled at the hesitation in the words.
“If you’re asking if I like you better than Steve, the answer is yes in more ways than the obvious ones.”
Vivien lifted her head up and looked down at her. “Obvious ones?”
“Steve’s an ass with an ego that could sink this thing, but even if he were as nice as Franklin, I’d rather be out here with you.”
The answer was enough to get Vivien to put her head down and hum for a moment.
“You’re one of the only people I’ve met who doesn’t seem to want anything from me.”
“Tell me your story, for now that’s all I want.”
Vivien’s recollections of the day they met were fairly accurate, and she had no idea of the lengths the Palmers had gone through to make her and Franklin forget it. From the sound of it, the shells had been their comfort and one of the many things that had brought them together. “The girl was never found, and for some reason I think it was because she swam away.”
“Seems reasonable to me,” she said as she tracked a satellite overhead.
“No, I mean, she swam away under the water without equipment of any kind like she could breathe in the water.”
Kai didn’t speak for a few minutes, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t make Vivien’s nightmares of not being believed return. “You mean like a mermaid or something?”
“You promised not to make fun of me.”
“No. I promised not to think you’re crazy,” she said and pulled Vivien to her when she started to move away. “And I’m not making fun. I’m asking a question.”
“She didn’t have a fish tail or scales—she looked like a normal person who could obviously hold her breath for a really long time.” Vivien sighed and Kai rubbed her back in comforting circles. “The next morning Franklin and I had these, and we’ve worn them ever since.”
“Do you believe your life would be much different if you’d never seen that girl?” She heard Vivien sigh again and closed her eyes at the sound. “Do you think you’d be happier?”
“Granted, I don’t usually play what-if games after forced therapy, but I’d like to think I’d still be who I am with or without that experience.” Vivien seem to relax as she spoke since she slumped against her. “It wasn’t a great feeling to not be believed, but I’m glad that happened to us—to me. Franklin was my witness I wasn’t crazy, but the feeling I had when I looked at her in the water isn’t something I’d trade.”
“What feeling?” Kai asked, curious and glad they were having this conversation.
“That’s weird and personal, but I’ll tell you if you really want to know.”
“I would.”
“It was like finding something important and precious I didn’t realize I’d lost. Since I was so young I didn’t understand the full ramifications of that sense of belonging to someone, but maybe that was good. If I’d totally understood it and then realized it’d never happen again, at least not yet, I’d still be in therapy.” Vivien laughed, and for the first time since they’d met, her laughter actually sounded light and joyful. “Maybe you should send me a bill.”
“Good friends never charge for listening, and that was an interesting story.”
“It’s okay if you don’t believe me. Trust me. No one else did.”
She moved so she could see Vivien’s face but didn’t let her go. “If you said it happened, and Franklin says the same thing, why wouldn’t I believe you? I hope you find the answers you’re looking for. What exactly are you looking for?”
“I wish I knew for sure, but my gut tells me it’s in the depths. Every map I’ve found with similar markings always leads somewhere, but they never answer every question.” Vivien held a shell in each hand and seemed to study both of them closely. “Do you think this is part of an ancient alphabet? That’s the thing I’m most curious about.”
“It could be,” she said and smiled. “The joke will be on us if they turn out to say Made in China.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Just a little, but it’s because I like you so much. If this job ends tomorrow I’ll still be glad I met you.” She brushed back the strands of hair that’d blown over Vivien’s eyes and simply stared for a long moment. Vivien was truly beautiful.
“When I saw you I thought of that day. You made me feel something new, and I’m glad I didn’t totally screw it up.”
“I’m lucky you weren’t completely taken with Steve or anyone else.” The words slipped out, and for a second she thought she’d said too much.
“Maybe that’s been my mistake all this time.” She didn’t move when Vivien ran her hands up her arms to her shoulders. “Do you agree?”
The shells were doing their jobs in that they amplified feelings when a true connection was made. Kai knew all its secrets, but this was new, wonderful, and so different than her link with Oba. “I do,” she said, and despite knowing the risk and that it was wrong, she kissed Vivien with all the passion pent up inside her. She wanted this woman badly, but she cleared the fog in her head when Vivien moaned.
In a way she couldn’t turn back, since it would be like walking on a beach and trying to arrange the sand like you found it, but she couldn’t regret her actions. The burning in her total being was what both her mothers had told her to wait for, and to discover it was for a woman who couldn’t share her future shattered something inside her. Unlike Vivien during their first meeting, she was old enough to realize it might not ever be duplicated, no matter how long she searched throughout the realm. No one else in the whole of Atlantis would be Vivien.
“Are you okay?” she asked Vivien, since her eyes were still closed.
“I will be if you kiss me like that again.”
That, she was afraid, would be a bigger mistake than doing it in the first place.
*
“Scanning the area now, Highness,” the copilot of the large shuttle Hadley was in said as they reached the laboratory they’d built three thousand feet deeper than they had the city. The facility was most often used to study and care for the giant squid that man found so elusive.
“Anything?” Hadley studied the monitor, looking for a small anomaly, which is what the behemoth they were in resembled, if any of
the world’s navies noticed it.
“Only some of our squid friends and a US Navy bus about twenty miles from us.”
“Good. Contact us if you spot anything, and send out a group to search for any type of monitoring equipment, even if it’s ours. Mark them, but don’t move anything.”
“I’ll put swimmers in the water as soon as you disembark.”
Mari slapped her on the back as she led her group to the portal that would allow them to leave without flooding the ship. After retiring from active duty, both Mari and her mother Brook had taken an interest in conservation, so they’d visited this location often. The water was cold at first, but their suits soon regulated the temperature so they could swim the short distance comfortably.
The soldier who’d brought the box back was standing at attention when they stepped into the large lab space, until Mari gave her the at-ease command in a kind tone. The young woman had also neatly laid out all the tools they’d need next to the foreign box.
“Thank you for your speed in getting back,” she said as she put gloves on and picked up the X-ray probe. “Did anyone on the team open one or take it anywhere near the command post the princess will be working from?”
“No, ma’am. Our team leader sealed this one in a locker after spraying all sides with cloaking spray.” The spray jammed any spying attempts, if any such tactics were placed on the outside of the device. “I went ahead and submerged it, so nothing will transmit from the gel inside. Anything found, including all the others recovered, will be included only in reports to you and the queen.”
“Excellent,” she said as she watched the screen, their system collecting data that would be stored only here. “According to the composition analyzer it’s made of genga, and we know the only place to find that now is in our national museum.”
“How did it get here?” Brook asked as she put her glasses on to read along. “None of our systems detected an incoming ship, and judging from the number of these things, it didn’t get here yesterday.”
“A ship can enter without detection in a few ways,” Mari said. “We need to figure out what intel they’re gathering. They’ve used an odd placement pattern to try to find us, don’t you all think?”
“Let’s see,” Hadley said as she cracked it open and placed a probe in the gel that emerged.
Their system started downloading information, and Hadley gripped the table when the exact location for every colony they’d established and Galen’s daily schedule appeared on-screen. An invading force would have no trouble centering their attacks from space, if they planned to annihilate them. The fate of their world and every living thing on it could be in danger.
“How is this possible?” Mari said, her face tense from what appeared to be shock.
“Wait, let me think,” she said as she tried to remember Galen’s itinerary for the coming week. The most recent list, before Galen had actually cancelled all her activities, had two differences or updates from this one. That made it easier to pare the list of people who could’ve compiled this information. “It doesn’t matter now that we communicate with the palace, so, Mari, please call and have the palace cleared of all unessential personnel. Have Laud double the guard outside the royal chambers. If something happens to my wife, I’ll kill anyone who allows it.”
“Calm down, Haddy,” Brook said as she placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “It’s no time for idle threats.”
“That was more of a promise,” she said with force. “Natal, go ahead and see how this thing is communicating with all the other boxes found so far. I’d like to know how they could be connected without any of our systems detecting anything.”
“I’ve already run the analysis and that’s the strangest part of all,” Natal said as she typed. “The location of our assets and the queen’s schedule seems to be almost hardwired into it, but it doesn’t communicate with any of the other boxes, even when in close proximity like these were. They only gather location intel where the individual box has been. This one has schematics of the coast-guard base the ship was assigned to in Louisiana.”
“They can’t be hardwired,” she said, ready to get back to Galen even if they weren’t finished. “That schedule was correct three days ago.”
“That’s all that’s on here, though. All the memory is just a week old,” Natal said. “We only recently detected the strange blips, but the locations and the queen’s schedule were the only things shared with this box. It was an incoming transmission, with no recorded outgoing messages.”
“Is it possible for it to send something and not record it?” Brook asked.
“This technology is antiquated, so I’m certain that’s not the case, ma’am. There seems to be enough of these for someone to get the information they need no matter where in the world they are. The only mass communication was the locations and schedules, which makes sense if you’re trying to be covert.” The system finished extracting everything it could, so Natal removed all the probes.
“Destroy it,” Hadley said. “Whoever placed them has to know they’re compromised, so it won’t make any difference now.”
“Let’s get back,” Mari said.
“Head to the shuttle and order the swimmers aboard. I’ve got one more call to make.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“Oh my God,” Vivien said when she opened her eyes. It was ludicrous that a kiss would put her life into perspective, but something deep inside her seemed to have come alive.
“That was inappropriate—I’m sorry,” Kai said but didn’t move away.
“Don’t say that. It’s not like you forced yourself on me.” She’d never begged for anything in her life, but she’d be willing to now. This had been like someone opening a door and saying “this is the promised land,” then slamming the door in your face. “I wanted you to do that.”
“Don’t think I didn’t want to—I did, but maybe this isn’t the best time.”
“I’m sorry, but the company and whatever all these things are don’t take precedence over this,” she said, placing her hand against Kai’s cheek. “Maybe we don’t have a definition for it yet, but I’d like to find one.”
“Answer something for me first. Have you ever looked at a woman twice, much less kissed one?”
“Is that the route you’re taking to blow me off? Seriously?” She pushed Kai away and got up. “When you decide to stop acting like a jerk, come find me.”
“Wait,” Kai said, jumping to her feet so quickly and gracefully it made her stop. “I’m not acting like a jerk. Just the opposite. I don’t want you to do something you might think differently about when the sun comes up tomorrow.”
“That’s mighty chivalrous of you, but let me ask you something. Why butter up a girl with stars in a secluded spot, skinny-dipping, and dinners if you weren’t interested?” She put her fists on her hips to have something to do with her hands, but that wasn’t helping her get rid of her anger. “You’ve led me to an inevitable conclusion, then backed off. Deny it if you want to, but that’s what this is, and because that’s what this is, you’re a jerk.”
Vivien took the steps two at a time, needing to get away before she did something as juvenile as cry. She shut the door to the room next to Kai’s and sat on her bunk breathing hard. When the phone rang, it startled her enough to break through the irrational despair of Kai’s rejection. “Hello.”
“What’s wrong?” Frankie said.
“What are you talking about?” She loved him, but now wasn’t the time to get into this, even if it was Frankie. “I’m fine but tired. It’s been a long, strange day. One of many, actually.”
“That’s all? It doesn’t feel like that’s all.”
The knock on her door made her want to blow him off, but when they were young she’d vowed never to do that. When they were growing up, a lot of who Frankie was or thought of himself was tied to that cursed wheelchair, but she’d refused to let him buy into that. Not that she believed she missed out on a lot—it’d been im
portant to her to be the one person in Frankie’s life who not only loved him, but also pushed him way beyond the limits of his legs and chair.
“That’s all. I promise.” She opened the door and put her finger up to Kai. “Did Dad make it back okay?”
“Did you slip something into his drink? He’s back and acting like a caring human being for a change.”
She stayed on her feet and kept her eyes on Kai as she sat on a bunk. It didn’t really matter to her libido that she was angry—the sight of Kai on her bed was turning her on. She shook her head when Kai smiled as if she’d read her thoughts. “He might’ve come to the conclusion on this trip that he needs us more than the board and Steve. Granted, someone might’ve pushed him in that direction, and we might owe a little something for it, but I don’t mind.”
“You mean you didn’t win him over with your bulldozer personality?”
“Actually, Kai Merlin did with her charm and logic. I’ll be happy to tell you about it later.”
“Have a good night and I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, her eyes on Kai as she put the phone down. “If you’re here to apologize or to protect me from myself, good night. I’m old enough to understand the consequences of my actions.”
“I’m not that much of a slow learner.” Kai leaned back and stretched her legs out.
To Vivien she looked like the definition of power, if the word had to have a human face. “You might be too late if you changed your mind.”
“I thought we could go for a ride and talk. That’s it. Whatever you think, I’m not a tease, jerk, or asshole who’s yanking your emotional chain for laughs.” Kai stood up and got close enough to her that she could sense the energy Kai possessed. Strangely, it accumulated as much in her shell as in her groin. “Maybe Triton isn’t the best place for the conversation we need to have.”
“Your boat or mine?”
“Yours is moored downstairs and will save us a dinghy ride,” Kai said as she stepped behind her and placed her hand on her abdomen. “I’m sorry for upsetting you.”
