The Penny Drops (Sea the Depths Book 1) Karmon Kuhn (life changing books TXT) 📖

wanted my chance to intervene, I still dove the juz̈uṣùs̈ with slow, deliberate intent away from my greatest comforts.

***

On the ocean floor, I set my vehicle shields to camouflage near the ground entrance closest to my department and slid in between the layered coral and down into the trenches until I found the entryway, a covered hole in the ground. I pressed an etched symbol next to the indents of the entrance, and the cover slid aside so that I could enter.

As if it were any normal day, I slithered down the chute, waited between two doors as the sea water drained around me, and then glided into the slippery, treated tunnels of my department. I peered at the office panes that lined the tunnel. All made of recycled human glass and crystal, they were darker than usual as my research colleagues weren’t working this late, thankfully. So, there was no one to spot me as I approached my study chamber. Just as I had at home, I spread my fingers across my favorite volumes as if to say goodbye. Just in case.

While in my office, I stayed out of sight to keep from drawing attention to myself. I was supposed to be on land after all. I hadn’t left any scent markings to suggest that I was busy or even there, and I hoped that anyone passing by wouldn’t recognize any traces of me.

Just as I was about to leave, though, a colleague of mine, Moztuhlih, stopped near my office for a moment and paused. He even went as far as to open my door, but then he continued down the hall tunnel. I let out a long breath when he was gone and almost laughed at myself.

Moz was often at the labs late at night and preferred to pore over his manuscripts over all else. He also walked into my office by mistake on a regular basis. He would often crack the door, see my minimal stacks, and realize that his own famous collection awaited him in another room.

I wished that I could speak with him. While we were not emotionally connected in any real way, he had served as one of my mentors throughout my professional training. He was intelligent and could solve any puzzle of language that was presented to him. I had a great deal of respect for him and had always been thankful that this great logicist had made time for me when he made time for so few things or people. I would miss him if this mishap wasn’t resolved.

With measured and deliberate movements, I slithered out of my office and turned to the right toward the classrooms. If I could find my instructor and Darius, I presumed they would be somewhere near there. I planned to continue this path until a flicker of something caught my eye. A glint of metal against the sliding door into the human studies department that bordered language studies.

The metal plate by the doorway was shaped like an open palm, so I placed my hand on it. Nothing happened. The door didn’t budge. I didn’t know the departments were closing off from one another. Why would anyone need access to enter a department? Information was our lifeblood at the tsez̈ø. It was discovered for all and therefore available to all.

While I was inspecting the curious scanner, I heard running thuds coming toward me and instinctively jumped back. A bloody mass sped toward the door that stood between us and howled. A slashed human, naked and vulnerable. Her belly was swollen and bloated, and there was a fresh slice across her abdomen at the base of it.

I backed up and nearly fell to the ground until I hit something solid. I could barely peel my eyes away from the door but managed it long enough to see that I’d backed into another researcher while I crawled away.

“Don’t worry about that. It can’t get out of here. Are you the new intern?” he asked me casually.

I looked at him blankly at first and then asked, “Are you in the human studies department?”

“Of course,” he answered.

“Yes, I am the new intern.” I said, mystified by my own answer.

“Come. We will go to the other entrance.”

As I followed him away, I looked back just in time to see three other researchers on the other side of the transparent door stunning the poor creature with a weapon of some kind. In an instant, she was a pile on the ground being collected and dragged down the hall.

***

Once we’d reached the human studies department, I was guided through an entryway into a room with two other interns and told they would show me around. They left their project of what appeared to be meal packets, like the emergency food rations that every home was provided by the city, and took me through the department’s main tunnel to a large room. Wall to wall were shelves of liquid filled preserving jars.

I was surrounded by a collection of pieces of life. I could see infant hands like those that I had as a baby and tiny human toes on tiny human feet. In a few of the jars, I saw creatures that were horribly disfigured and tiny with abnormally small limbs or severe microcephaly. I even saw a creature that resembled a hodgepodge of humans and my people except that it looked weak and sickly.

I placed my palm on the glass and had to hold back a shudder. I wanted an explanation, but I couldn’t bear to ask for one. What was all of this? No one, to my knowledge, had ever been instructed to retrieve infants for their trials. There would be no reason to capture them as they could not provide any useful insight into human practices. And who was that woman in the tunnel? What in oceans was going on here?

I’d always been taught that the land trials were used as a way to bridge the gap between humankind and the oɦiṣod.