Lustrous towers arched up from the bottom of the ocean and formed the tallest structures in the undersea city. Fish swam past, attracted by the many lights that covered the sides of them. Below the towers were smaller structures, mostly food stores for the Undine people, and homes that formed a web of lights when seen from above. The center of the city was an enormous structure originally built by the goddess herself. It provided the city with a limitless supply of power. Computers within each home displayed relevant information about the status of the planet to the Undine that wished to swim to the less populated regions, to explore and embrace life as an aquatic species, and tell stories of how the goddess brought them across the stars to this world. It was the only pastime the Architect allowed them to indulge in.
From time to time, rare births would occur amongst the Undine where a female would give birth to one child, instead of the female and male that they would normally have. This single child was always female, but appeared to be more human than Undine, often having a pair of legs. They possessed the memories of their father, and according to many unconfirmed reports, were able to activate the biometric technology that the goddess had used to prevent unauthorized users from using their dormant ships. These birth defected children were called the Nereid by the ancient humans that had discovered them on Earth in the past.
The Architect, enemy of the goddess and Undine, learned of the first Nereids that were born on Earth and their interactions with the humans. The Architect feared that if Nereids were to interbreed with the humans, their offspring might lead to the rise of a powerful psionic hybrid species. It was a well-known fact to the Architect that humans had been experimented on by the Lyonria before they vanished. The Architect’s ship, in response, arrived at Earth to remove all Undine and Nereids, preventing any further Nereids from being born without the Architect’s knowledge, and forcing the Nereids to activate technology left behind by the goddess.
They did as asked, but not before activating a trap left behind by the goddess, a damping field that encompassed the entire system preventing psionic thoughts from leaving it, and the activation of drones programmed to fire on, and destroy, any ship that wished to leave. The Architect was unable to return to Earth and punished the Undine by exiling them on their ocean world within the system, and forced them to research a means to deactivate the trap. No one knows what became of the defiant Nereids, most likely executed, or forced to breed with the land dwelling species that eventually evolved into the Poniga, under the Architect’s supervision of course.
Undine mating with Poniga wasn’t anything new in fact. The Architect encouraged it as it gave an opportunity for him to have a Nereid born loyal to his needs. Qirak’s were paid to lure men toward Undine women. Undine women that pleaded their loyalty to the Architect were allowed to rise to the surface and enchant the men to swim into her arms. No Nereid, however had been born, only Undine-Poniga crossbreeds. Humans were the key.
A Nereid being born within their society therefore meant one thing, the three men that Norauk had sold to Lysi and her sister Cinil were human. Humans managed to cross the stars and arrive at Sirius. The Nereid that Lysi gave birth to was proof of that. The leadership of the Undine, a puppet government controlled by the Architect, ordered the last remaining human male to be brought down below the ocean into their vast undersea city for questioning.
The Nereid that was born, spent her childhood days living an isolated life, her birth was considered to be too important for her to mix freely. The elders that controlled the Undine government feared the Architect’s forces would punish them heavily should something happen to her. Furthermore, Nereids were always born with their father’s memories locked away in their minds, therefore she had access to human information, though it would take years for her to recall everything.
She had a humanlike appearance, and like the Nereids born before her, borrowed a few features from her Undine background. Gills on her neck allowed her to breathe water, while her body was able to adjust to the temperature changes of water instantly, allowing her to swim through warm or freezing cold waters with little issues. She possessed strong psionic abilities, enhanced by the Lyonria genetic manipulations all humans possessed, but didn’t know.
Given the short lifespan of her people, she was an adolescent by age one. Her raven-blue hair grew quickly, reaching down to her knees. She required very few lessons from her first year in existence due to her having some of her father’s memories. She only needed to be taught about her people and their language, since she only knew of human customs and the English language. Lessons were all taught via the exchange of engram orbs from other members of her society.
At age two, she had the body of a fully developed adult, and was able to recall more of her father’s memories. He was an EISS agent named Sylvester McDowell, codename Test, masquerading as a navy commander. He was assigned to a human exploration ship, known as the Carl Sagan, in secret by the EISS to search for any threats to Earth, and to keep tabs on two members of the ship’s crew that might have been affiliated with a terrorist group. She couldn’t recall who, or the name of the group, but as the months went on, more of McDowell’s memories and personality came to her mind.
During her two years of life she heard stories of a third human that traveled with McDowell and Kingston to Meroien, he had been captured and kept within the central palace built by the goddess. Inside the palace were special chambers devoid of water and had fresh oxygen pumped inside. In the past it was used for a place where the Poniga people stayed when they were visiting the city, though nowadays such visits rarely happened, due to the bad blood between the Poniga and Undine.
With adulthood came the next phase of her life. Forging her loyalty to the Architect. Nereid were still too valuable, so even as an adult she wasn’t allowed to leave the city. She was in turn given the task of speaking to the captured human within the palace in hopes of getting it to reveal how humans had advanced so quickly, and trigger more of her human memories inherited from her father. And most importantly, discover if the human race worshipped the Architect.
She swam to the palace and caused a group of fish to scatter as she arrived at its entrance. The tubular halls inside led her to the chamber where she saw the human via a force field sitting on the floor in a miserable state. She remembered him from her father’s memories, Dr. Travis Pierce, or egghead as he called him from time to time, whatever that meant.
Pierce had a long, ungroomed beard; understandable since he had been held inside the chamber for two years. The Undine lacked hair on all parts of their body except their heads, so tools to shave were nonexistent. She was about to enter to speak with him directly when she stopped herself. She wore no clothes, her people had no need for such a hindrance. For humans like the Poniga and Qirak, however, it was taboo for one to appear without apparel on as she recalled. And with Nereid possessing a full humanlike body, she of all people would need to obscure her bare natural figure. She left briefly, and obtained robes left behind by a Poniga who was charmed into mating with an Undine several years ago.
Wearing clothing was a strange feeling to her and a confusing task. It took her twenty minutes to figure out how to put her arms through the sleeves of the robe. And when she figured out how, she discovered it was on backward. It took another fifteen minutes to get it on correctly, she didn’t bother trying to figure out how to tie up the front as she feared it would have been another hour before she got to her duties for the day.