There were likely thirty screens on the wall. Many of them flickered on and off, and a majority remained black. But they were there.
"How did you do that?" he asked, but his eyes remained glued to the screens.
"They’re the same functions that Tau used. I had a feeling the passwords might be the same." She shrugged. "Maybe they knew about this place."
"If they did, then the people who ruled your old city knew more than they told anyone. How many of these screens are active?"
Running a few diagnostics took time, but soon enough, she had a report. "It looks like five of the cameras are still online. The rest are either non functional, that looks like thirteen, and a few of them are fixable but they need software upgrades. It looks like they used to use..." No, that couldn't be right. She leaned closer to the screen as if that would make the coding change. "Huh."
Proteus's gaze was like a physical touch. "I don't like that sound."
"It's just... Well, I'd swear it says they used drones to fix the old cameras. But there's no way they could have used drones. What could fly in weather like that?"
Nothing but silence answered her question. She looked up, confused at the expression of anger on Proteus's face. He should be happy, shouldn't he? At least they had five cameras that were in working order. And wasn't that the whole point of all this?
She felt all the blood drain out of her face as she realized that yes. Yes, this had been the whole point of it. Of all of it.
"The facility you first brought me to," she whispered. "You said there were supposed to be cameras there, but you needed the mainframe to be online."
"I did." He still wasn't looking at her.
"So the building where the other humans are, that's where the mainframe is. Now that it's online, and people are actively bringing it online more, we could come here. This is where all the cameras have always been."
"It has." He glanced down at her, his expression shifting just slightly when he realized she was looking at him with disappointment. "What? What is it?"
"Has all of this been about..." She gestured at the screens.
"Of course."
"But what about me?"
He blinked at her, clearly not understanding the question. "What do you mean, what about you?"
"I just... I thought some of this was maybe about finding out where I was from. The people who created all of this. Saving the planet. There are a hundred things you told me, but now it seems to all be about surveillance and... and..." She gestured at the screens again. "This."
"We have to see the surface. We have to know what is going on there so that we can bring the humans Above. That has always been what this is about."
She knew that. He'd told her that before. Ellie had just hoped maybe it was a bit more than that.
He was still staring at her, seeing that his words weren't getting through to her at all. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? You always knew the entire point of every move I have made was to bring humans back to the land. I want them out of the water. All of them."
Her shoulders slumped. "I thought that maybe there was more to all this. Maybe you wanted to save the world. Maybe you wanted everyone to see you as a savior, not just a god. But look at it, Proteus. Nothing we show them from these cameras will convince them to leave the water."
She looked at the five that were still online, and all she could think was that there was nothing there. Just sand. Dust. Heat. No one could live out there. She'd stepped out onto the sands herself and knew that blistering heat would sear the flesh off someone's bones.
But at night, it looked even worse. The cold would set in quickly. She remembered how frigid it was in that kind of cold, and how there wasn't anything at all that could warm her. Ellie had walked out there only once at night, just to try it, and the temperatures made her breath frost in front of her face. How could anyone survive out there?
"Wait..." she whispered, pointing at the top right screen. "Is that... Is something moving on the sands?"
Proteus leaned up, using his hand on the wall to brace himself as he stretched out his tail. He was right in front of the screen, watching it with true interest. "Not on the sands. In them."
"Lift me up."
"Ellie, you don't have to see it."
"Now, Proteus."
He sighed and picked her up. She brought the tablet with her so she could control the angle of the camera as they both stared at the sand. There clearly was something inside that dune. It tunneled through the granules, moving with a speed that was almost hard for the camera to keep up with.
