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I tapped the wristband control, fingers flying over the miniature screen, and felt the familiar tingle as my skin morphed into a covering of scales. The time I spent on the little remaining dry land was growing shorter and shorter. In all my searches to date, I had found no traces of any other humans.

“Gork, I’m ready to head back to Mercy,” I transmitted through my communications array. In a few short minutes, Gork surfaced and slapped his tail on the water.

“Hurry up, Alex, we’ve been in this latitude too long. We need to get back to the base before AFIT notices we’ve been out of our vector again.”

This was the last piece of wretched rock I needed to search. Though I hadn’t held high hopes, there was always the possibility that I could find other humans like myself who had mutated for survival under the sea. I climbed on Gork’s back and settled behind his dorsal fin on the smooth glistening back.

We submerged and headed down into the deep blue sea. I experienced the normal disorientation as my body fought the thought of breathing in the water, but soon had acclimated. The sea was alive with all manner of creatures now that the waters had reclaimed almost all the dry land. The beauty was breathtaking with the waters now being crystal clear and cleansed of all the manmade pollution of the prior centuries.

Gork swam effortlessly toward our destination, the underwater city of Mercy, and used the time to lecture me on the futility of these off the grid excursions to find other humans. Since I’d heard this particular song-and-dance several times in the past few months I let my mind wander to where I might search next.

AFIT, the AI in charge of operations in Mercy, pinged me and informed Gork and I that we were several hours overdue back at the city. I heard Gork groan and felt his consternation at being pinpointed by AFIT. “We are almost back to Checkpoint D, the sonar array was giving us some funky readings, so we took some extra time to scout the area.” I patted Gork’s side with reassurance and held my breath awaiting AFIT’s response.

“There will be a mandatory meeting of all outpost workers in the CommRoom at 0-fifteen hundred. Make arrangements to be in attendance.” AFIT transmitted his announcement and promptly disconnected.

“What do you make of that, Gork?” We haven’t had a mandatory group meeting since I’ve been a part of the Mercy community.”

I could feel Gork’s relief at not being reprimanded for being out of vector again. He responded cheerfully, “I don’t know, Alex, I’ve never heard of a mandatory meeting ever being called. Maybe we’re all getting a raise!”

As we approached the fissure that led to the downward route to Mercy we could see a strange orange glow emanating upward out of the fissure. Floating debris and foreign particles seemed to spread out in all directions from the huge crevice in the seafloor. I felt an immediate stirring of emotions from Gork, the most prevalent being fear. He emitted a high shrill keening, which was his version of DANGER - DANGER - DANGER!

Gork made an abrupt one hundred eighty degree turn and began hurtling us toward an outcropping of rocks and caves that we had explored many times.

Gork slowed to a stop and glided into the mouth of the large opening that concealed a fairly good-sized cavern. I slid off his trembling back and walked forward to caress his snout soothingly. We both tried to contact AFIT through our telecoms but met with the same result of dead silence. As I looked into Gork’s eyes I could see the same realization reflected back at me, the Delphanians had struck. After months of battle planning and preparations, it seemed the Delphanians had destroyed Mercy before the city knew what hit them.

I sank slowly to a seated position and felt the beginning of panic and despair start to take over. How would I live now without the underwater city of Mercy to take care of me? Gork would be fine, he was an amphibian after all, but my scale permutation and water breathing ability were not endless.

Gork sidled over and gave me a slight shove with his snout. “You can’t just give up, Alex! We have to find a way to fight back. We can’t let our city and all our friends be destroyed by those fiends with no attempt at retribution. We have to calm down and make a survival plan.”

As I picked myself up from being shoved over by Gork my hand landed on an odd-shaped pulsing object covered with the silt we had stirred up with our abrupt entry. The main body was a hexagon with a rounded knob at each joint and a forked attachment at the bottom. It fit easily in my hand and I could feel a faint vibration as well the rhythmic pulsing.

“Gork, could this be what I think it is?” I tapped at my wristband control, heartened to see that the screen display came up. The power grid surrounding the city was still functioning. At least that part of AFIT’s battle preparations had worked as intended. I scanned the item I had found and the results were what I had suspicioned. It was a Delphanian Key Control. Members of the attacking party must have used this cavern for a staging area.

A DKC would unlock any gateway in the Delphanian domain. If I could program my control unit to morph me into a likeness of a Delhanian I could gain access to their city. Once inside I would spend every waking second finding a way to avenge Mercy.

“Come on Gork, let’s head back to the surface. We have work to do!”