With the shock of their escape still fresh, Calistya and Khrystal flirted with danger like never before. This time, they weren’t careful when they got to The Deep. Feigning boldness, each daring the other to swim closer, they goaded each other to go first. They wanted in. Or out. Just.. away, really. Away from the violence, away from the harsh environs. Away to someplace calm. For ones who’d lost parents, nothing could be more appealing.

It wasn’t as if there was anything for them in there. Not really. But as a surface runaway might feel a taste of freedom in crossing city boundaries, so they believed, beyond reason, that there was salvation down there—if they could only gather the courage.

There wasn’t a lot of marine life this far down, the region being rather barren compared to a little closer to the sun. It was also cold down there, though their slipsuits took up most of the work in keeping the technos warm. As inhospitable as their sudden change in pressure might be, they enjoyed it. Their hearts pounded as they closed in on that looming shadowy beyond that promised adventure, and escape.

“Hey, you down there!”

The authoritative voice was so commanding, the girls immediately stopped, arms by their sides in a reticent floating motion. Moments ago, they’d believed they were in the right. Now they realized they’d gone too far. And in doing so, had caught the attention of some border patrol sentinels.

“You girls want us to call your parents?” an imposing second guard transmitted, swimming up to join the first.

“We don’t have parents,” Khrystal said, her tone sharper than it should have been.

“Oh?” said the first guard, “from the school, are you? Which one of you is Calistya?”

Cal raised her hand, a sheepish gesture, and hard to execute while treading.

“That’d make you Khrystal,” said another, pointing with a neoprene-gloved finger. “Yep, these are the ones.”

The girls looked at each other with confused expressions, quickly turning fearful as the gravity of the situation grew clear. They’d gone from escaping trouble to becoming the cause of it in quick succession.

Still another of the authoritarian-looking aquasentinels descended in a cascade of bubbles, joining the first two to form a semi-circle. It smacked of confinement. The girls’ breath fogged the inside of their glassplates as fear took hold.

“Your orphanage reported you missing an hour ago,” said the new arrival, “as if we didn’t have enough problems today. Drag us all the way to The Deep when half the city’s on alert—I’ve half a mind to site you both for vagrancy.”

He didn’t sound angry. Just irritated. He looked over at his fellow guards.

“Orphans, huh?” the first guard one, his tone softening. “Not worth the paperwork, I guess. Let’s get you back before you cause more trouble.”

* * *

The girls were cast as runaways, not escapees of a near-riot, and they had no choice but to comply. What else could an orphan do in such circumstances? Scapegoats were needed, and the aquasentinels treated them as such, marching them back with a flourish of faux concern and rigid authority.

A calm had fallen across The Shallows in their absence, as if nothing had happened at all. But whispers in the dorms suggested otherwise. Things had calmed down after Mr. Albi was struck down. Hospitalized rather than arrested, the authorities had scrambled to de-escalate, sidestepping blame as much as possible. The ventilation system had been restored in record time, and a desperate ‘all is well’ facade was quickly enacted.

The rest of the students had stood around a while, forced to wait for the Aquasentinels to take statements. All but the ones involved in the altercation, Khrystal overheard. They’d been taken away for their own debrief. The incident was being treated with some seriousness, at least, though there was no indication that they were going to be making any sweeping changes, either. They all just wanted to quietly put things back the way they were, no questions asked.

* * *

Calistya didn’t see much of Khrystal the rest of the week. Both had lost privileges for having left the scene without permission and had been grilled separately, leaving no chance to compare notes. Calistya was warned against following friends blindly. Khrystal, she imagined, got a talking to for overly influencing a younger girl.

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Since she’d lost swim privileges, there wasn’t much else to do besides schoolwork. Literature class was her favorite, thanks to Ms. Terri, a young, milky-skinned woman with a love for her subject. She was so sweet, too, prompting the students put out something extra so as not to disappoint her. Even Khrystal had remarked that it’d been her favorite go-around the year before, giving Calistya something to look forward to. Most of Khrystal’s other reviews weren’t so glowing.

Calistya sat and poured over the stories, Ms. Terri explaining complex passages from an obscure writer a hundred years gone. Although Ms. Terri’s explanations made sense, Calistya sensed that others couldn’t see the point. It just seemed like so many hard words and long phrases to most of them, but she loved it.

“Imagine this, class,” Ms. Terri said, her voice turning wistful, “the author is talking about the old times, before the submersion, when we walked heavy on the land and had to bear the burden of farming the endless plains. He’s explaining how coming down here was a liberation, that we’d found our true calling. That we were meant to return from whence we came.”

“Lest we travail no more, to the depths and sweet surround, and through the bounty not of loam nor firmament, thus spake the truthseeker…” The words, resonant in her ears, swam in front of her eyes as her teardrops hit the page. Calistya slammed the book shut, horrified that she might’ve ruined it.

Ms. Terri looked hurt, misunderstanding Cali’s reaction. “Alright Cali, that’s enough for today. I hope I’ve made some sense of things, anyway.”

As the others filed out, Calistya stepped forward, head bowed in shame. “You made sense, Ms. Terri,” Calistya said, “it’s just a tough read is all.” She looked down at the book, now clutched to her chest, embarrassed that she’d slammed it. But she didn’t want to admit that the story of liberation had rung so false. The sea might well be their place of liberation, but not this school. And not The Shallows, either. No place but the open sea would do for her anymore—he’d had too great a taste of it.

* * *

It wasn’t until the end of the week that she caught up with Khrystal. By that time her worries about her outburst in literature class had been superseded by a wanderlust, making her all the more disappointed when Khrystal announced that she wouldn’t be swimming a while.

“What are you talking about? The curfew was only a week. We can swim at next light.”

“Not me. I’ve got things to do,” Khrystal replied, her tone clipped.

“What things?” Calistya pressed.

Khrystal paused a moment, then said, “Just things, that’s all. Stuff I have to do. You should get busy with your schoolwork anyway. You’re doing terrible in oceanography, aren’t you?”

Calistya had almost forgotten about that annoying rocks and seaweed class, so she bristled at the mention of it. “I’m not that bad. I went for tutoring.”

“Good. You need it. Now leave me alone a while. I’ve got stuff to do.”

Calistya felt a hot rush fill up her cheeks. Her friend had never talked to her like this before. She wondered if she’d done something. But other than their mistaken swim—something they’d both agreed upon—she had nothing else.

“Did they say something to you? About us? You mad?”

Khrystal shook her head, then rolled her eyes. “Look, Cal, you wouldn’t understand okay. It’s something for older technos. Mermaids really.”

Khrystal paused, glancing at her friend as if she wanted to say more. But then her face hardened, and she shook her head. “You wouldn’t get it, okay? Just… go do your homework or something.”

Calistya felt on the verge of tears all over again. She fought to keep the quiver from her lips as she said, “Okay, fine. That’s the way you want it…fine.”

It wasn’t fine. Not for Calistya. But what could she say? If her friend didn’t want to be around her anymore, what could she do about it? She suspected it had something to do with the headmaster’s comments, but she couldn’t know for sure.

Khrystal stormed off, just as upset as Calistya, though it’d been all Khrys’ fault. Cali had no idea what the cruelty was all about, but she wasn’t about to go running after her. Khrystal wanted her friend to swim without her, fine. Calistya would swim alone.

But as she sliced through the water, the reality of isolation robbed her of any enjoyment, the motions felt like work, the head-down silence, a solitary expanse. She felt both trapped and outcast at the same time. She finished quickly and climbed back onto land, her oh-so-human shivering and those chubby legs reminding her of all she was not. Just a lonely girl, hardly a maid of the sea, just trying to cope with rejection.

* * *

Calistya went out for her swim in the late afternoon, Khrystal watching her go. She’d been watching all day, from the viewport in the headmaster’s office where she’d been ordered to report daily.

She’d kept quiet about her past troubles, for the same reason. For going to the breach, and for diving too close to the darkness. That it wasn’t her first encounter with the border patrol, and that her punishment was far harsher than Calistya knew.

Worse, she’d been accused of being a bad influence. She couldn’t admit that to her friend, it was too risky. She’d hoped they’d let it go, since the girls had so few friends to begin with. But this breach had proved the last straw. They were threatening to kick her out. And for an orphan, that meant very few options. She could forget about recreational swimming. Disgraced technos had to work, cleaning up the city drainage system or some other demeaning labor. If she didn’t want that to happen, she’d have to mind herself, and stay away from ‘friends’ who were always getting into trouble.