That was rather odd, wasn't it? She was very used to people being confused by her existence. In Tau, many people had actually seen Eleanor before. They'd spoken with her, worked beside her, so to see Ellie walking around was confusing. Eleanor herself was slightly older, much more cultured, and she knew even more than Ellie did. She was incredibly intelligent, and most people were honored to be around her.
Ellie was awkward in comparison. She didn't know how to talk to strangers, had never really been introduced to them, and had been taught her entire life to keep her head down and her eyes on the floor when anyone realized she was awake.
It was strange to even be here talking to them. Neither this creature nor the droid should want to speak with her at all. They should have ignored her just like the others, but she was starved for more of their attention.
More conversation. More chances to bring these memories back to the simulation and play them through her mind. For a few moments, she was a real person.
"So you're a clone," the creature from the corner said. "Ellie."
Her name dropped off his tongue both like a warning and a prayer. A shiver traveled down her spine at the sound of him using it. How strange it was to hear him say the vowels of her name. He caressed her through the word, even though he was all the way across the room.
"I am."
"What's that like?"
"What?" The question popped out of her before she could catch it. "I mean... I'm sorry, I don't understand the question."
"What is it like being a clone in Tau?" He leaned forward so a slash of light reflected in his eyes. The eerie glow in them reminded her she was staring at a predator. "I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. It seems like Tau abused those clones. You were meant to be nothing more than meat."
"I was more than that. Some of us were... were..." She closed her eyes and resolved to lie. No one was going to erupt out of the shadows with him and be angry at her, but it still felt like it might happen. Malcolm wasn't here, but these people could report whatever she said to him.
"Do not lie to me," he growled.
"Being a clone is an honor. I am pleased to serve Malcolm and to learn from his great knowledge." The words had been drilled into her head from a very early age, although most wouldn't call it an early age.
She hadn't been woken as a child. She'd grown in a test tube like all the others and become conscious as an already fully formed adult. He’d kept her frozen in time, using chemicals to slow her aging so he could teach her, train her, do all the things that no one was supposed to do to a clone.
"Malcolm is dead. All of them are."
The words lifted all the hairs on her arms. Dead? No, that wasn't possible. None of them would ever die; that was the whole point of the clones. They prolonged their lives through the use of clones. Malcolm had been alive for ages...
"Who is my new master then?" she asked.
"Me." A wide grin split across his face again, his mouth impossibly wide and full of jagged, sharp teeth. "Tau has fallen. Most of your kind have been released from their pods, brought to other cities to learn how to live as real people. Some of them are still frozen. And then there is you, little Ellie. Dropped into the pit of the sea as a sacrifice to an old god who has only just awakened."
No, that was something out of a story. He was trying to scare her.
She looked over at the droid, a creature that shouldn't be able to lie. Pilot looked back up at her and then slowly nodded his entire body. "The man you speak with is Proteus, son ofthe ancients. Lost god of the People of Water. He has been summoned to bring about a new age in our world. You will be the one to help him. Along with myself, of course. I was the one who woke him."
Ellie noted a small bit of pride in the last bit of what he said. As though the droid wanted to remind her that she might have the attention of a literal god right now, but that didn't mean she was the one who had saved him.
She was a pawn. Someone to do work for other people when they needed work done. It was the same role she had always played.
But somehow, this felt a lot more dangerous than what she was used to.
Her nostrils flared on an inhalation. She could do this. She knew how to pander to powerful men who gave her only a few moments of life. Ellie would suck out the marrow of every opportunity she had to be alive and not in a simulation. She just had to figure out where the marrow was here.
"You want me to help you?" she asked.
"You are going to do so whether you want to or not," Proteus replied.
Son of the ancients. She had no idea what that meant. But she had already recognized that he wasn't the same as the other undine she had seen. He was more than they were. Stronger. Powerful. Different in a way she likely would never truly understand.
"Then I will help you as you wish," she replied. "How often will I be awake?"
He stared at her as though the question confused him. It took him a long time to reply, and she could see it was like pulling teeth for him to even answer. "You will be awake until the task is complete."
"Malcolm..." He tensed, and she knew already that this was a conversation she shouldn't have. "I am used to being placed back in my pod once my work has been completed."
