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Gork swam forward into the warm waters at the mouth of the cave and blew twin streams of water out his blow holes to signal Alec. He floated patiently and waited for Alec, who was late as usual.
There was much to be done to ready the underwater city of Mercy for the upcoming battle with the Delphians. AFIT, Mercy’s head A.I., was predicting that the Dephians would strike within six weeks. Any later than that and hurricane season would begin, making an attack virtually impossible.
“Sorry I’m late, Gork.” Alec reached the edge of the water and tapped at his control band with flying fingers. Skin changed to iridescent scales as Alec was transformed into his amphibian manifestation. He waded into the water and nestled between two large soft spikes running the length of Gork’s back.
“No problem, Alec. I wouldn’t know how to act if you were on time,” Gork chuckled in that odd rumbling way. “AFIT instructed me to take you to the outer dome sonic array at Checkpoint B. The sensor keeps picking up an anomaly and he needs you to troubleshoot it.”
“That’s pretty vague. Is that all he told you?”
Gork hesitated before he answered. He didn’t like lying to Alec, but AFIT had given specific orders that no one must be told what was appearing on the sonar readings. AFIT’s data runs could come up with no viable explanation for what was occurring. “Yep, that’s all he said. I guess he’s leaving it to you find out what’s going on.”
AFIT was basically using Alec as bait by sending him outside the dome to work. Gork knew that AFIT and the other AIs had little regard for the few humanoids left alive. They were happy to use them for their manual dexterity and innovative way of looking at problems, but they had no remorse about sending them into danger. They were considered just another tool.
Gork didn’t feel that way though. He and Alec had been working as a maintenance team for the past few months and he’d actually grown attached to the humanoid.
They glided through the water moving ever downward. The light diminished to almost total darkness as they reached the wide split in the ocean floor. At the lip of the crevice, they could see the glow of the dome and surrounding area several miles below them. They stopped as Alec used his control band and programmed in the harder compression suit that would allow him to survive the pressure at the bottom. After the last interlocking piece had deployed and hardened they made their way over the edge and down to the dome.
A square mile was lit up around the dome but beyond that was pitch black. Checkpoint B, where Alec was being sent, was outside the reach of the lighted area. Working in that oppressive blackness always make him more than a little nervous. They entered the tunnel to the dome and came up in the airlock for arrivals and departures. Alec went through the usual checkpoints with the guards and proceeded to the maintenance wing to pick up his tools. Gork waited in the airlock for Alec, with an almost overwhelming feeling of dread.
AFIT sent a message to Gork’s subdural transmitter. “Take him to the checkpoint, then tell him you will retrieve him in one hour. I need him to be out there alone and observe what happens.”
Gork’s feeling of impending disaster increased.
Alec came back to the airlock with his tools in the carryall. He reattached his headgear and slid onto Gork’s back. Together they left the airlock and headed for Checkpoint B. “Alec, I received new orders to investigate a report of widening of the crevice at Alpha 4. I’ll drop you off at B and I’ll be back within the hour.”
“Sure, Gork, that’s fine. I’m probably going to have to dismantle the array, depending on what my preliminary scans show. Take your time.”
Alec deployed the accu-link from his control band and linked it to the array. Intent on watching the display on his band he was oblivious to his surroundings. All the aquatic life had left the vicinity, an obvious hint that danger was in the area.
AFIT was monitoring everything from his control module deep within Mercy’s data center. The sonar array was picking up information on all spectrums.
And there it was, the indication of a huge slow-moving mass heading toward Checkpoint B. It defied identification by any of AFIT’s systems and in the previous few cycles, this same signature had crept right up to the edge of the lighted area and stopped. Was it some new kind of secret weapon developed by the Delphians? AFIT had tried posting droids as bait but the thing had never approached the droids.
Alec stared at his screen with a puzzled expression. All the diagnostics came up clear, there were no anomalies. He sent an electronic coded pulse to Mercy maintenance to request further information. There was no returning pulse to indicate receipt of his message.
A thin tendril snaked along the ocean floor toward Alec. A huge pulsing blob was hovering in the complete blackness outside of the lighted area. Alec felt an uncomfortable tingling in his lower legs. He immediately thought something was going wrong with his compression suit. Therefore, he was totally shocked to look down and see his lower legs completely encased in a tentacle-like appendage slowly working its way upward on his body.
He sent out distress signals and struggled against the constraints to no avail. Another tendril floated over and began wrapping him up from the top down. Soon he was totally encased and paralyzed. Just as he had resigned himself to a terrifying death he felt the creature speaking to him in his mind.
“Humanoid, I will not harm you. This upcoming war will destroy our world. Together we will stop this war before it begins.”
This story was originally written by me in response to #blockurator's prompt post on Narrative.
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[credit@EdibleCthulhu]
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