The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(2)
My mother’s lab is on the second floor of the building, fortified by cement walls and a scanner that reads my palm before unbolting the massive steel doors. A blast of warm air hits me as I step inside.
“Mom, something’s up with Durga,” I call, peeling out of the top half of my wetsuit.
Artificial wombs line the walls of the lab, nearly all of them occupied with incubating Reckoner pups. They float in the canisters, tethered by an umbilical line that supplies them with nutrients. At this stage, they’re nothing but little nuggets of flesh and nerve, each ready to develop into a beast capable of ripping a pirate ship to shreds. Some of them are brand new, barely the size of my thumb, with no distinguishing features. Others have already gestated to the point that their type is obvious. My gaze lands on a terrapoid embryo whose forelegs are twitching as if the little turtle-type is already dreaming of the day he sees battle. In the womb next to it, a cephalopoid slumbers with its stumpy tentacles wrapped around itself. Farther down, I spot the familiar knot of a serpentoid embryo’s twisting coils. We’ve developed so many breeds, each uniquely crafted to serve the companies that commission them for their ships.
The gel in the womb gives off a soft glow. It keeps them at a suspended stage of development, curbing them until the day we transfer them to a big, leathery purse and let them grow until they’re ready to hatch. Ready to train. Ready to destroy.
Until then, they’re all just waiting.
I’m so stuck on the eerie sight of baby Reckoners that it takes me a few seconds to realize my mom’s not alone in here. She stands with her back to me, her arms folded as she stares down at a cryo-crate, and Fabian Murphy is at her side. He glances my way and motions for an extra minute.
I nod back to him, a flush building in my cheeks. Murphy is our International Genetically Engineered Organisms Council liaison. One of the biggest figures in the Reckoner business. A man who controls the entire industry. And I definitely shouldn’t have traipsed into the lab in nothing but my wetsuit.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Leung,” he tells my mother, giving her a consoling pat on the shoulder. He looks worlds out of place in his tailored suit. “I know it reflects poorly to lose so much of your stock, but you’ve got to remember that by catching unviable embryos early, we minimize the risk of disappointing our investors. Between that and the recent … security concerns, we need to be taking extra steps for the good of the business. There have been reports of theft, of break-ins at some of our top stables. The new crop of pups has to be stronger than ever.”
Mom shakes her head, and I don’t need to see her face to know that she’s got her lips pursed the way she always does when she’s calculating something. Finally she turns to Murphy and offers a hand. “Thank you. Your business is appreciated, as ever.”
He grasps her hand and gives it one firm shake, his gray eyes sparkling in the lab’s bright lights. “Until next time,” he says, wearing the grin of a man who’s gotten exactly what he wants. The IGEOC agent grabs the handle of the cryo-crate and begins to drag it toward the massive doors. “Cassandra,” he says, nodding to me.
I nod back, folding my arms over my chest.
“Good luck out there tomorrow,” he offers, but there’s something strange caught in his throat as he says it, and for a moment he looks profoundly uncomfortable.
As if I needed another reason to be nervous about what tomorrow holds.
Mom waits to speak until the door’s bolted behind him. “How many times do I have to tell you to change before coming up here? You’re dripping everywhere—did you even towel off?”
“Sorry, it’s just—”
“Cas, I’ve said it before. Think things through before charging in.”
“Mom, something’s wrong with Durga.”
That gets her. I see the shift happen in her eyes, her parent-brain batted to the side as scientist-brain takes over. “Symptoms?” she asks, gliding over to the computer and dragging up Durga’s records with one elegant swipe of her finger.
“She seemed unsteady when I was checking over. Tremors in her legs.”
“That’s it?”
I nod.
“No discoloration? No signs that she hasn’t been eating?”
I shake my head.
Mom peers closer at the charts. “I’ve never known her to be unsteady, but there’s a first time for everything. Do you think she’s fit for duty?”
Mom’s asking for my judgment. Durga’s in my charge. Tomorrow afternoon, she’ll ship out with her companion, the Nereid, and for the first time in my life I’ll be working as her sole trainer. Her life in my hands, and my life in hers. It’s my call, and mine alone.
“I’ll keep an eye on her, but I think she should be fine. No need to worry the Nereid.”
Mom smiles, and I feel like I’ve just passed a test. Like I can be trusted with the monsters she creates. Granted, Durga’s probably the easiest charge she can give me. The Nereid is a cruise ship, not an important cargo boat like the one Fae escorts. Durga’s been with the ship for twelve years, and in that time she’s sunk only ten pirate vessels, most of them in her first years on duty. She’s an old titan now, and none of the NeoPacific’s worst want to tangle with her.
And this is my big opportunity. My chance to show Mom and Dad that I’m ready, that I can be a Reckoner trainer full-time. After seventeen and a half years of waiting for the day I finally become the person I’m meant to be, it’s almost here.