Ms. Terri ushered Calistya and Khrystal back to the school, wrapped them in blankets, and set steaming cups of tea in their shivering hands. She checked their water-things with practiced care, ensuring nothing had malfunctioned during their ordeal.

  “I’m sorry, we don’t have any of your things here, Khrystal. I’ll have to send to your school for them.”

  “It’s alright. I’ll get them later. I should be getting back soon anyway.”

  “Nonsense. After what you’ve been through? You stay right here where you belong.”

  Khrystal turned her head, not wanting the other two to see her blush. A warm rush spread from her chest outward—a sense of being cared for and protected, like with the Solarians. It felt even more heartwarming coming from one of her own.

  I never really knew how nice Ms. Terri was, she thought, turning away even more, as if Terri, like the Solarians, could read her mind. Would realize how affected she was right now by the simple act of caring.

  I never really knew how nice Ms. Terri was, she thought, turning further away as if Ms. Terri, like the Solarians, could read her mind and realize just how much the simple act of caring had affected her.

  “It must have been terrifying, trapped in The Deep for so long,” Ms. Terri said, her voice a mix of worry and disbelief. “Were you frightened?”

  The two girls exchanged a glance before letting out a soft, light laugh that filled the room. The laughter was affectionate, but it caught Ms. Terri off guard.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” she said, frowning slightly. “A lot of people were worried about you. You girls have been gone a long time.”

  The laughter quieted as the girls looked at her again, still smiling faintly but with an air of apology. What she said sobered them.

  “We didn’t mean to scare anyone,” Calistya said, her tone earnest. “But it wasn’t scary for us. They’re very nice, the Solarians.”

  “Solarians?” Ms. Terri repeated, expression clouded with confusion.

  Calistya glanced at Khrystal, the weight of secrecy thickening the air between them. Neither had spoken the word aloud before, and now that it hung in the room, it felt irrevocable, like casting a stone into a still pond. Even they themselves had never heard the term aloud, and yet when Calistya had voiced it, it had rung true. The Solarians of The Deep.

  “The merfolk, they’re Solarians,” Calistya offered, what she meant to her beloved teacher. Inviting her in. “That’s what they call themselves.”

  “You mean the other merfolk, don’t you, dear?” Ms. Terri corrected, her tone light, but with a subtle defensiveness behind it. She adjusted her posture, as if preparing to swim, her hands momentarily mimicking the motions of adjusting nonexistent gear. The gesture looked instinctive—born of years spent in the flow—but the starkness of her human form seated in an open-air room making such motions revealed an absurd dissonance.

  For the first time, Cali saw it clearly—Ms. Terri’s pride as a practiced technoquatic clashing with the unspoken shame of not being full-gill, nor would even that suffice to make her ‘real’, not in the way the Solarians were. The contradiction struck Cali as oddly poignant, yet at the same time entirely absurd. For the first time, too, she thought back to her old desire to be full-gill herself, with all that entailed, and knew it was merely the shadow of a true desire. Not only for herself, but for all technoquatics.

  “They’re real, though,” Calistya said, her voice trembling even as her conviction grew. “Real mermaids, with real gills and a real connection to the sea.”

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  “Oh, real enough, I’m sure. But haven’t you ever wondered why there are humans out there, living beneath the ocean like that?”

  “But they’re not human, though,” Khrystal argued, “they’re so much more.”

  “You really don’t think they’re human as well?" Ms. Terri’s tone was thoughtful, her eyes empathetic, accepting of Khrystal’s skeptisicm, but desiring to inform. "I once read an old text from the Pre-Pelagic. It described the great migrations—how some of us fled to the stars, while others took to the seas. Evolution played its part, of course, but the human need to adapt and overcome? That’s what truly got us here. They just… got here sooner.”

  The girls were intrigued. The hadn’t ever heard Ms. Terri speak with this kind of authority. She was usually so mild, even when it came to her teaching style.

  “You see, just as we’ve got full-gill citizens, those who embrace the full-swim lifestyle, and regular merfolk—mer merely means ‘sea’, you know, not ‘legs’ or ‘water breathing’ or any such elaboration—well there was a third group who were interested in carrying things even one step further.

  “But I’ll tell you this much, from all the texts I’ve read and information I’ve gotten my hands on, I’d bet dollars to fisheggs that they’re created human, just like the rest of us. They just employ some sophisticated technology along the way to help things along. Much like we do with our full-gills, and everyone else with our enhancements. And maybe someday, when we’re all getting along better, we can ask them all about it.”

  “Do you think we’ll go to war, Mr. Terri?”

  Terri paused, thoughtful. “I don’t think so, no. Our peoples have lived side-by-side for quite a long time, and with incidents from time to time which test our good neighbor status to be sure. But I don’t think we’ll go all that far. Not like the people of the surface did. That’s why we all came down here to begin with, right?”

  “Right,” said the girls together, both sets of eyelids drooping. They’d been awake far too long.

  Just as they were falling asleep, a low rumble started beneath the floor, barely noticeable at first, a tremor felt more in their bones than the air. Then, it surged—a seismic roar that sent Calistya’s silver hairbrush clattering to the floor. The walls groaned in protest, and the once-still water resting in the school’s channels churned into restless vortexes.

  Alert sirens rose into the still air, beginning low and guttural, then spinning into an urgent scream that echoed through the school. Calistya’s eyes snapped open as the floor began shaking more violently—a tremor beneath her bed quickly growing stronger.

  Ms. Terri didn’t hesitate. In an instant, the warmth in her eyes was replaced by a steel-edged determination that cut through the girls’ drowsiness. 'Get up! Now!' she commanded, her voice carrying a rare authority that brooked no argument. She moved swiftly, her hands steady as she pulled Khrystal to her feet and grabbed Calistya’s arm, her movements as precise as an aquasentinel.

  Khrystal’s eyes widened, panic building as she clung to Ms. Terri’s other arm. “What’s happening?” she cried out.

  “Just go!” Terri ordered, her focus split between guiding them and assessing the growing chaos.

  The school’s floor bucked beneath their feet as a deafening crack split the air. Water erupted from one of the nearby channels, gushing with violent force and surging across the floor. Khrystal shrieked and grabbed Ms. Terri’s arm tighter, pulling her off balance.

  “Hold on to me!” Ms. Terri yelled, but in that brief distraction, Calistya stumbled, screaming as she hit the floor just as the waters surged.

  A second break burst open behind her, the flood pulling her toward the channel’s edge. She fought to regain her footing, but the water was too strong.

  “Cali!” Khrystal screamed, her voice barely carrying over the rushing floodwaters.

  Terri lunged, but the torrent swelled with brutal force, sweeping Calistya towards the second inexplicable gash in the otherwise vacuum sealed channel. Her fingers slipped from Terri’s grasp as the current carried her towards the opening.

  “Cali, grab something!” Terri shouted, but the surge was relentless.

  For one fleeting moment, Calistya’s wide, terrified eyes met Khrystal’s, and then she was gone—dragged into the channel with a heart-stopping finality as the fracture auto-sealed itself behind her, leaving nothing but stillness in its wake.

  Terri froze, staring at the now-silent water as guilt twisted in her gut. Khrystal collapsed to her knees and screamed.

  All around them, the tremors subsided, as if the chaos had ended the moment its toll was taken.

  Khrystal’s screams intensified. Her voice turned into desperate words of denial.

  “Get her! Get her! Go in and get her! Ms. Terri, get her! Please!”

  Terri clutched to her other student, but made no move towards the waterway. Sealed and unbreachable, as before, there was no reaching her. Deep inside, Khrystal knew as much, which was why she continued screaming and clinging to her teacher rather than claw at the duct herself. Calistya couldn’t survive even a few minutes, not without gear—and both her guilt-ridden protector and grief-stricken best friend knew it.