Proteus flexed the muscles in his tail. He needed to feed before he could fight anything off. They had passed by a few whales that would have done, but the orcas would put up a fight he knew he couldn't win right now. He'd have to find a decaying carcass and devour that whole to feed himself well enough.
That would be another day, though. Today, he would find out why he had been released.
He swam beneath the building, his heart already thundering in his chest. Metal screeched above his head as a panel slid open and revealed an entrance to the room within. There was only a meager light coming from above his head, but considering the flickering, he had a feeling it would take a little while for the power system to turn on. Once that did, he would have to squint his eyes to see through the glare.
Humans had always loved their blinding white lights.
It wasn't the first time Proteus had been inside a research facility. There was a time long ago when he had been inside many of them. Humans and the undine, as they called them, had never gotten along. Thus, their interactions had always been secret. But that didn't mean there had never been interactions between the two.
He remembered a scientist back then, a young man who had been so thrilled to be going against his government and even the world. He'd had so much money he didn't know what to do with it, other than indulge his own strange need to disregard what others wanted. That man had been certain he could use the undine to his advantage. The People of Water disregarded his attempts at contacting them. They’d seen him only as a human who was just like all the others, and unworthy of any conversation.
Proteus had seen otherwise.
He heaved himself out of the water, splashing liquid up and into the room that had been prepared ahead of time. The humans knew anyone entering would bring water with them, whether that person was human or undine.
The drainage system on the floor awakened. It turned on loudly, sucking up the seawater that would damage the electronics that covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The wall to his right was all screens. They were flickering on one by one, but it was taking much longer than it should have. Another wall was mostly panels, but he knew those would be good for summoning droids. Then there was a table against the back corner, but it wasn't really a table. The strange humming noise coming out of it was his first clue, and then clanking noise as the generator was turned on. He’d wondered how there was power down here. Apparently, the humans had created a generator that could run with water after all.
This was a research lab, no question about it. But what he didn't understand was why this would be the place the droid was directed to bring him. There was no reason for him to be here.
"You summoned me," he said, his deep voice echoing throughout the room. "Now what do you want with me?"
A few more lights flickered on at the sound of his voice. He dropped the droid, which immediately scuttled over to a control panel. The crab-like being connected to the main screen with an electrical cord that extended out of its stomach.
"Pilot, connecting. Package acquired."
Package? He was no package. He was a god of the sea who demanded to be treated with respect. How dare this droid refer to him as a package? He would crush it into oblivion.
A panel in the center of the floor flickered with light, and suddenly a hologram stood before him. It was the same man he remembered from long ago, although significantly older. The very wealthy man had thought money could control the world around him, and who had been very, very wrong in that thought process.
"Proteus!" the hologram said, a little too excited even though he had recorded this two hundred years prior. The man had always been oddly energetic and excitable. "I had hoped we would meet each other again under better circumstances, but I suppose that is what time does to a mortal body. I wasn't so lucky as to be in the early proceedings of the Longevity project, but the more I find out about it, the less I wish to be involved. Anyway. You're here because I want you to continue our work."
"Our work?" Proteus muttered, drawing his tail into the room to allow the door to seal. "We were never working together."
"But first, let me catch you up on a few things. The droid that awakened you is one of thousands I created just for this moment. They have all been keeping an eye on the world foryou. Recording it. Readying themselves to provide all the details you will need in a very short amount of time. You’ve been asleep for a long time and… well, I don’t imagine you’ll want to spend the next few hundred years hearing what happened in your absence." The man pinched his fingers together as though to emphasize how short a time it had been, but then stretched his hand wide to indicate how long he’d been away.
He didn’t need a reminder.
Baring his teeth in a snarl, Proteus looked over at Pilot, who was still plugged into the center console. "How long has it been?"
"Um..."
"How. Long." Proteus ground the words out, tired of this droid already. It shouldn't be able to argue with him, or stall providing information. The entire reason for its existence was to take orders and do what it was told. How someone had programmed it otherwise was a mystery to him.
"Nearly four hundred years, give or take. It's hard to go back that far and determine just how long it has been, and how long it's been since you were... you know." It lifted a metal arm and waved it in the air. "Only two hundred years of information is stored in this room, though. Essentially all the history after the fall of the humans. Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" he grumbled. The hologram of the man was frozen in place, blinking on and off.
It gave him a few moments to look at the man he had worked with over four hundred years ago. Even in this glimpse, he was older. Proteus remembered him with wild, curly black hair. Not the curls that were rather limp with gray streaks running through them. His face was thinner too. More hollow when it had been plump. He hadn't been remarkably tall or short, nor notably handsome or strong. This was a man who could walk through a crowd and no one would remember he had been there.
That had been his superpower. No one had ever questioned a man like him, who was so hellbent on destroying the world.
"Show me," Proteus snarled.
All the screens on the wall burst to life at once. There were thirty of them, each depicting many scenes of what he had missed.
"I have been assured that your ability to absorb knowledge is renowned," Pilot said, its voice floating around him like some kind of omnipotent being. "Thirty screens shouldn't be too much for you, is it?"
"No," he muttered, his gaze already flicking between each screen. "Track my eye movements. Once I have seen enough, change the screen."
