Ember and Morgan found each other as the students began to pair up. “You didn’t happen to develop gills on the way here, did you?” Morgan asked hopefully.
“No luck,” Ember sighed, remembering that her partner wasn’t a strong swimmer either. If anything, the heavy layers of scales on her head and shoulders would weigh her down in the water.
They exchanged a worried look and hurried to join the line for the outbuilding. Because the forest was particularly dense in the remote areas of campus, Ember couldn’t see the Saline Lake, but the smell of salt in the air betrayed its presence. From Hickory’s lectures, she knew that it was a hub for Mendel’s saltwater species, and—because of the difficulties with monitoring it—a hotspot for accidents on campus.
“We need to gather samples from the surface and from the lakebed,” Ember said, “and since neither of us can free-dive that far, we’ll need to check out level two equipment.”
Morgan agreed, but Ember noticed her leg bouncing nervously. They laid out the rest of their strategy as they waited, beginning with a list of materials and ending with the construction of their report.
The line moved quickly as the students rushed to pick up their supplies, and it was less than ten minutes before the pair passed over the threshold. Ember glanced around, comparing what she saw to the diagrams that Hickory had drawn on the board. The outbuilding was large, with two stories that served as equipment storage, a temporary laboratory, and a center for emergency medicine. It was humid inside, constructed from interlocking wooden panels, and more insulated than the other buildings in Mendel. In the first story, the students could check out level-one supplies themselves or request more advanced equipment from the staff at the window.
As per their strategy, the girls pulled one-piece swimsuits, masks, and fins from the clothing rack and picked up the basics for data collection in the level-one room. Then, while Morgan secured a pass to use one of the rafts on shore, Ember checked out a surface-supplied air system and a first-aid kit. They met up outside of the outbuilding, both breathing heavily, and struggled to load their provisions into a rolling cart.
They made their way slowly through the dense forest, following the other students and the smell of the sea. As the trees cleared, the Saline Lake stretched before them, vaster and busier than Ember had imagined. Bamboo rafts lined the eastern bank and many of the lake’s patrons were resting on the shore or interacting with the staff. Nearby, Ember saw a young Linnaean wearing a cork vest being led into the water by a man in a wetsuit.
After identifying their assigned raft, the pair set up their station and changed into their gear. Ember stumbled out from between the trees dressed in the slick swimsuit and bulky fins, drawing a giggle from Morgan, who had chosen to ditch the most awkward parts of the wardrobe.
“It’s safer,” Ember snapped. “If anything, it’s sillier not to wear them.”
Her partner shrugged facetiously, and the two set out to gather their data. Collecting the first samples was surprisingly simple; the water was pleasantly warm, and the ticklish patches of seagrass on the sandy bottom were easy to avoid. They pushed the raft out into five feet of water and surveyed the surface, taking their notebooks from the waterproof bags to write down their observations. For the quantitative data, they tested the water’s pH, finding it to be slightly alkaline, and crouched along the bottom to gather bits of sand in glass vials.
The task was trickier at ten feet but still manageable. After Morgan paddled them to the desired depth, Ember lowered herself into the lake, holding onto the edge of the raft. The dark, undulating water set her slightly on edge, but the closeness to shore and the number of people nearby made her feel relatively protected. After gathering her courage, she took a deep breath and plunged to the bottom, making a sightless grab for a fistful of sand and making it breathlessly back to the surface.
After she clambered back onto the raft, Morgan once again paddled them further away from shore. As they left the launching area, the conditions began to change rapidly. The sediment cleared, and rocks and coral heads sprouted along the bottom. Fish darted close to the raft, startling the girls, and dark shapes that could have been sea creatures or shadows from overhead moved across the sand. When the trees along the shoreline seemed to shrink in size, Morgan dropped their weighted measuring tape, then retracted it, shaking her head—only sixteen feet.
Ember shivered. They were two hundred feet from the banks now, and the voices of the other Linnaeans were faded and echoey. Although rafts and boats still dotted the lake’s surface, the water that lay between her and them seemed like an impassable wall. The red buoys sat a hippodrome-length ahead, forming a menacing triangle that promised deep and dangerous waters.
“Over here!” someone called, and Ember shifted to see another raft with two of her classmates. Morgan paddled over and one of the guys held up his measuring tape, indicating a depth of twenty feet exactly.
“Thanks,” Ember said. She donned her mask and leaned over the side of the raft, dipping only her head in the water. Below was a long and wide line of brightly-covered corals surrounded by a conglomeration of life: schools of fish of all sizes, many-legged crustaceans, and branched sea sponges that reached toward the surface like fingers.
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She sat up on the raft, breathless and stunned. “We’re over the reef.”
Morgan’s eyes were wide as she looked over the edge. “I don’t know about this…”
“I’ll go. Only one of us can use the equipment anyway.”
Her partner’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thanks. I’ll work on our report in the meantime and make sure we don’t drift into deeper water.”
With her heart thumping, Ember turned to the equipment in the center of the raft. They’d studied the surface-supplied air system in class, but actually using it was a different story, especially since most of the lesson had been dedicated to troubleshooting. It was one of the most advanced pieces of technology that Ember had ever seen, consisting of a mouthpiece, a long tube made of twisted fibers, and a metal cylinder that supplied compressed gas.
Ember fitted the mouthpiece between her teeth as Morgan checked the regulator and the hose. After a thumbs up from her partner, she eased herself into the water, trying not to think about what might be lurking below. Air bubbled through the mouthpiece, allowing her to take shallow breaths. She turned, slowly, remembering how important it was to make a controlled descent. The water pushed against her on all sides, embracing her, cooler than in the shallows but not uncomfortable.
She windmilled her arms to keep herself afloat and dared to look down. All around her, the lake was bustling with activity. A school of yellow and blue fish darted around her feet, disappearing into a structure of coral, and a crab-like creature with a fanned tail scuttled across a patch of sand. There was motion in every corner of her vision, and she spun in a circle to keep anything from sneaking up on her. Above, the bottom of the raft was a dark rectangle, dwarfed by the vastness of the water.
Awkwardly, Ember lowered herself onto a patch of sand and scooped a pinch into a vial. When she stood back up, an unexpected current sent her floundering into a tower of coral. She mumbled a curse, causing the mouthpiece to shift between her teeth and eliciting a flurry of bubbles.
She froze as the water cleared. Directly ahead, part of the coral structure began to pulse and shift, detaching itself from the reef. The bright yellow of the coral faded to a dull grey, materializing into a ghost-like creature that glided onto the sand patch and shook itself off.
Ember stumbled backward, holding the mouthpiece in place and trying to breathe normally. The creature was about her size, draped in doughy skin with no discernable face or limbs. Disorientated, it turned around and changed colors again, this time to a ruddy brown.
Ember held her hands in front of her and moved them up and down in what she hoped was a calming motion. After a moment, the creature reached up and pulled back a flap of skin, revealing a face that was distinctly human. She clutched her chest with relief and forced out a garbled apology, watching the Linnaean carefully for any indication of violence. The sea creature—obviously male—regarded her cooly, then shot toward the surface like a cannonball, stirring up the sand so that it blocked Ember’s vision.
She clutched the sample in one hand and followed haphazardly, hoping that she wouldn’t annoy the other Linnaean more than she already had. The moment she breached the surface, she pulled the tube from her mouth and pushed her goggles to her forehead.
“Hello,” she panted, already struggling to tread water. The sea creature half-swam, half-floated a few feet away with his color-changing skin flared out like the tail of a startled cat. He was otherworldly, and his unlidded eyes gazed at Ember like she was stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe. But as she turned to face him directly, his eyebrows rose and his face softened inexplicably.
“Hello,” he said, and Ember had the sense that she’d avoided a tongue-lashing. His voice was soft and raspy as if he had a sore throat.
“I’m so sorry I disturbed you, I’m not a strong swimmer.”
“I can see that,” he replied, gesturing in a matter-of-fact way that revealed an arm covered in coin-sized suckers.
“You can breathe underwater?”
He chuckled condescendingly. “Not for long. Like it’s rare for birds to have a set of wings, it’s rare for pisces to have fully-functional gills. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to napping.” Before she could say another word, he sank back under the surface and disappeared from view.
What a strange conversation. Ember rubbed her head, dehydrated and dizzy, and paddled back to the raft. She grasped the bamboo shoots and plopped the sample on the deck, letting her upper body slump over with exhaustion.
“You’re back!” Morgan exclaimed, helping Ember clamber to her knees. “Who were you talking to?”
“Some pisces. I woke him up, and he was a little rude.”
Morgan paused. “Did he change colors?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Shit, Ember,” she replied, bending over with her hands on her thighs. “That was Orthus.”
“Who?”
“He’s a third-year, an octopus, and pretty well-known around here. Supposedly he knows everything about everybody, and if the rumors are true, he’s even been in Corax’s laboratory. But he’s nearly impossible to find, and he doesn’t deal with just anyone. So why the hell did he talk to you?”
“That all sounds illegal,” Ember sighed, too exhausted to care that she’d run into Mendel’s information dealer. “Have you finished the report?”
“Sure thing,” Morgan smiled, holding up a notebook page covered in data and calculations. “Alkalinity, wind strength, noise levels, lake floor composition, qualitative observations… it’s all accounted for, except the most recent sample.”
Ember looked to the sky, letting out another deep breath. Finally, at long last, exam week was over. “Let’s head-”
“Help!” Someone shouted, and Ember whipped around to see one of the students who had directed them to the reef. He was leaning over the side of his raft and pointing at something in the water. “Conrad hasn’t come up yet!”