The Pale Waters (#1 Reclaimed Souls) (6 page)

He opens another door, and I step into a
brighter room with gleaming instruments, white spaces, a radiation
chamber, and, in a corner, a table with six piles of books and
boxes labeled Research Assistant One through Six.

My lab. I don’t care that six came before
me. They failed. I will not.

I place the silver tray on a white table. I
find a needle and a medium-sized vial and quickly remove the black
ink from the cuttlefish. It squirms against my gloved hands, and
the creature expires soon afterward. Hopefully, the ink is still
potent outside of its host. If not, Alben Underwood dived into the
murky black waters for nothing.

“Tell me about your training,” Roland says
unexpectedly. “Why did you decide to become a bio-technical
engineer?”

Part of his question hurts because it shows
just how oblivious he is to the outside world and the realities
that face the continent’s poorer families. It also shows that he
doesn’t
remember me.

“I didn’t decide,” I answer truthfully.
“When I was thirteen years old, the king’s army arrived on my
family’s doorstep and forced me to join the infantry. If we
resisted, we would have been killed immediately. I remember
hearing, later on, that entire families were murdered. I suppose it
was an effective tactic. The fact that I’m standing here right now
tells you that
I
did not resist.”

Unlike Pareu.
I push the thought of
my brother away.

Roland’s face softens. I wonder if he
expected me to lie.

“I’m truly sorry. That was my father’s
doing. He was a barbarian, and if he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill
him again. What happened next?” He asks this quietly,
respectfully.

“I kept my head down and hoped that no one
noticed me. But that changed after a few months, but not for the
reason you might think. I wasn’t winning any beauty contests. I had
a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together
differently
. A broken radio became a tent heater. A truck
engine, combined with a couple of tubes, became a filter to purify
the black water. That was a big hit with everyone. I enjoyed doing
things that made our lives better, easier, or more comfortable. It
might sound strange, but it’s almost like I can control things, and
when I create something new, it feels… right.” I don’t know why I’m
telling him this. I pause and gauge his reaction. When he doesn’t
laugh, I continue on. “It’s silly, I know.”

Roland roams the room, listening,
straightening some of the books so the spines align. Busy work. I
wonder what he’s waiting for.

“No, not silly. Everything has a soul, even
objects. Maybe their souls liked your soul.”

I laugh a little before I realize he’s being
serious.

“I’m not a witch, if that’s what you’re
asking. I know the souls of humans and half-humans can be claimed,
but not
objects
… not
things
. Honestly, I don’t know
much about it. But my mother…” I stop, thinking.

“Your mother?” His eyebrows raise, and I can
tell he’s extremely interested in whatever I say next.

I shake my head. An old memory comes to
mind. I furrow my eyebrows, concentrating.

“I was just going to say that I think my
mother once told me something about claiming souls, but I can’t
remember. It was probably to scare me into not doing something
naughty.”

Roland nods.

“Probably,” he agrees quietly and for a
moment, silence greets us. “How did you get out the infantry?”

I smile to myself, remembering the first
time I met Prince Roland Rexus.

“There was a young officer who seemed to
favor
me, though he probably treated everyone the same way.
He brought me treats, food, warm socks. Stuff like that, and he
told me a story about the most wonderful city in the world, where
every citizen was treated equally. He filled my head with images of
rooms of fresh food, clean clothes, friendly faces, and how, one
day, a Queen would rule the continent fairly. Obviously, it was
utterly ridiculous. No such city could ever exist, but it allowed
me to dream of something other than trying to survive for just
another day. I’ll never forget his kindness to me,” I say as I
stare at him. “His was the only kindness I knew while in the
infantry.”
He was also my first love.
What thirteen-year-old
girl
wouldn’t
be in love with Roland Rexus?

“What was this officer’s name?”

“I—I don’t know,” I say quickly, looking
down, and placing the black ink vial into the subzero nitrogen
tank. “But it’s what he did afterward that changed my life. He
introduced me to an old scholarly man who paid for my freedom. This
scholar, my mentor, took me under his wing, moved me to the Old
City, and educated me. This is how I became a bio-technical
engineer.”

I leave out the parts about the mentor
training me to destroy the Rexus Dynasty.

“So, this officer changed your life, but you
can’t be bothered to remember his name?” Roland says coldly. He
pushes himself off the table he was leaning against and strides
toward me. His body is strong, virile, taut, and I imagine myself
molded against his skin. I can still feel where his lips pressed
against mine, the way his skin tasted against my tongue, the way I
know he’ll feel perfect inside me.
Traitor. Traitor.
Traitor.

I shake my head, hoping to rid it of these
thoughts.

Roland stands before me now. His face is
unreadable when he asks in a low voice, “Is this the same old
scholar that instructed you to kill me?”

I suck in air.

“Why would I want to do that? I don’t even
know you.” I block the lies to make them feel real. Seem truthful.
I study his reddening face.

“Of course
you
don’t know me… no one
knows the dark prince,” he says coldly.

His green eyes cut through me when I ask,
“What happened to you?”
Why am I asking?
I lift a hand to
touch him, but he jerks away from me as if I burned him, as if
I’m
the reason for his deformity. I’m not supposed to care,
but dear Goddess, his rejection hurts.

“Your first test is in—” He checks his
communicator tablet. “Twelve hours. Have a working prototype or
else.”

Roland stalks from the room, and a trail of
silent hurt and pain lingers. I find myself staring at the dead
cuttlefish to avoid the multitude of feelings broiling inside
me.

I reach over and pick up a scalpel.

THIRTEEN

SEVERAL HOURS PASS BEFORE A NOISE cuts into
my attention. In the corner of the room, a small door slides
sideways,
into
the wall rather than
away
from it, and
a small service robot glides in effortlessly. It’s a tiny thing. A
plain yet shiny round body, wheels for legs, and, in its skinny
outstretched arms, it holds a tray loaded with toast topped real
butter, a meaty royaltrail gravy, and coffee so aromatic that I
should have smelled it coming long before it arrived.

The service robot gently slides the elegant
silver-etched food tray onto the white table.

“Thank you, little one,” I say to the robot
as I study it, wondering if it has a name or a name tag. It
doesn’t. It performs a small salute-type gesture and
disappears.

As I eat, I pick up the tube I’ve been
working on and drop some of the liquid on an inspection slide. At
first, the liquid is black and then, as I observe it under the
microscope, the color begins to fade until it’s almost clear—like
the clear glass inspection slide.

Even hours later, the black ink continues to
transform itself—colorwise—into whatever I’ve placed it on. I skim
over the other researchers’ books and take notes. There isn’t much
there, honestly, and none of them used cuttlefish, but I study the
ingredients they applied to their prototypes. Mostly they tried to
create masks and second-skin silicone, but the latter only worked
on children and not adults.

I don’t want to mask. I want to
transform.

In a mortar, I crush white magnetic rock and
blessed lava stone. Then, adding it all, including the black ink,
into a glass tube, I cut my finger and add my own blood.

It boils instantly.

Interesting, I think. It only began to boil
when I added my blood.

I cap it and watch it intently while the
small robot reappears to take the food tray away.

But when its shiny silver fingers reach in
front of the prototype, something happens.

The robot’s hand appears to change from
silver to gray to pink and finally into a fleshy peach color. I see
fingernails form and, as I look closely, tiny, colorless hair
sprouts on the back of the hand. Dear Goddess, the robot’s hand is
transforming into a human hand.

I gasp. And it’s not just any human hand,
it’s
my
hand.

Glancing away, I see that nothing else on
the robot has changed. Only its hand had moved in front of the
prototype, and only the hand transformed.

I feel like dancing.

The prototype works!

But a small pop erupts, like a child popping
balloons, and the flesh is gone and the servicebot’s hand is back
to its normal self: metal, tiny, and clicky.

Then, as if on cue, the servicebot turns and
exits the room the same way it came in.

I pick up the small prototype tube and
slowly rotate it between my fingers, marveling at its black-cloudy
contents. I’m on the right path. A few tweaks, and it might be
ready. With the robot, the change lasted about ten seconds.
Certainly not long enough. I need it to last hours, maybe days.

I wonder what Roland would think about my
progress

Stop thinking about what Roland thinks.
You’re here to do a job. Two jobs.

I gently replace the prototype back into a
hollow sleeve I built earlier, and the cloudy contents reenergize,
much like a battery recharging, and the black mist swirls round and
round like a miniature tornado. Faster and faster, and then it
suddenly stops rotating, the black-cloudy contents reset until it
resembles the black water from which its ebony color came.
Silently, I thank my lucky stars that Alben Underwood found the
cuttlefish. He isn’t going to like it when I ask him to find more
of them.

***

As I write down the items I’ll need to
improve the prototype’s duration of effect, I hear a voice behind
me.

“You look as if you have a world of thoughts
brewing, Rahda,” Cat’s voice purrs from the door.

Her silky silver-gray hair is pulled up high
into a loosely braided ponytail, the undersides of her scalp are
shaved—probably plucked—and dark tattoos dot the base of her neck.
Whose markings are they?
I wonder.
Who claimed her?
She seems taller. I didn’t think it possible, but her robe is
sheerer, and I see dark tattoos around her breasts, threading
haphazardly like tree roots. Colored jewels dot her feet.

She doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Even as I admire her figure, I resent her
ability to sneak up on me.

“Please disable everyone’s access, including
the robots, to my lab. No one will have access without my approval.
I will call for food when I require it.”

She tilts her head slightly and a small
smile plays at her lips, giving her that perfect feline appearance
that seems so lovely and exotic while also giving me a sense of
unease. I do not know if she is a friend or foe, and I’d rather not
find out the hard way.

“I see,” she says slowly. “What about
Roland?”

“What about him?”

“My thoughts exactly, Rahda,” she says
noncommittally with an unreadable expression as she pulls out her
communicator tablet, presses a few buttons, and then says, “Place
both of yours hand flat against the door.” She points to the door
to the hallway. I walk around her, see the screen—which is in some
sort of programming code—and do as she asks. The door is cool to my
touch, but after she types a few commands into her tablet, the
surface warms up considerably and just when it gets to the point
where I think it will burn me, she instructs loudly, “Pull
away.”

My palms are red, and the door, which I do
not expect to do anything, sears my visible palm prints into its
DNA and I watch, wondrously, as the door seems to absorb them
slowly.

“The door knows you and
only
you now,
Rahda. Naturally, you’ll have to open it for me now so that I may
depart your company. Though welcoming as you are, I must be about
Roland’s business.”

Cat sounds as if she’s offended, but as she
walks unhurriedly to the door, a quirky smile plays at her lips.
Cat turns her attention to the six sets of books on the opposite
side of the room and studies them for a half second. I get the
feeling that she wants to tell me something. Something about the
other six.

“Before you go, there’s one more thing,
Cat,” I say coolly. She turns her gaze on me expectantly. “I need
to leave the Palace Skyscraper for a few hours.”

I can tell she did not expect this and
internally, I smile.

FOURTEEN

CAT’S SMILE SLOWLY FADES. “ONCE HERE, you
cannot leave without Roland’s permission,” she says finally.

“Sounds like your problem, not mine. Clear
it with Roland if you must, but I’m leaving.”

Turning away, I secure the prototype inside
a lockable cabinet. I place the key on a chain, wrap it around my
neck, and then tuck it underneath my black button-down shirt. The
key is heavy and cold against my skin.

“It’s not that easy,” she says to my
backside.

I turn around and say, “Alben Underwood
seems to be able to come and go as he wishes.”

Cat groans. Surely she knows I met Mr.
Underwood last night. Or maybe she doesn’t.

“You are not Mr. Underwood, Rahda, and as
such, you are not afforded the same privileges.” She types
something into her communicator tablet.