Set atop an almost perfectly flat underwater mountain, camouflaged by a variety of green native Keanosian plants, was Mesa Verde, one of the crowning achievements of the Cousteau Marine Institute. Mesa Verde was a research outpost that was carved into the underwater mountain, with only a fraction of it actually being visible. If you didn't know exactly where it was, you could be forgiven for piloting your submersible right on by or over it. The mountain was prime real estate, one of the few underwater surface areas of the ocean planet of Keanos where it wasn't pockmarked with enormous, labyrinthine lava tubes, while also not being at an incredible depth. Even for a planet as large as Keanos, it was a certifiable rarity, and it was by complete coincidence that explorers mapped this particular area in the earliest years of exploration.
What little could be seen through the thick forest of strange, flowing foliage, was colored a similar shade of green to blend in. Even without the foliage or coloring, from a distance, it would've looked like a pretty traditional underwater docking and refueling station. More than 200 of them could be found in the shallows of Keanos. On approach, however, it grew to be much larger, taking up nearly half of the available space on the mountaintop, and it would've become very obvious that this wasn't your ordinary refueling station.
Mesa Verde was enormous on the inside, built nearly a hundred floors down and steadily growing. It had enough room inside to hold at least 100,000 people. At one point, CMI attempted to win over the powers that be, suggesting that their underwater, underground cities would be the wave of the future and the perfect choice for Keanosian expansion, but it didn't quite take off like they'd hoped. Instead of replacing the floating cities, they gave the politicians and eggheads a good reason to simply stop making them completely. That, and most people preferred being able to feel natural sunlight on their skin, something that couldn't happen when you spent all your time underground.
Beyond that, there were just other planets in the system that were better suited for habitation. Keanos was useful for its resources, which it had plenty of and wouldn't run out for thousands of years, and that was about it. They'd put down eight floating cities, and there just simply wasn't much reason to have anymore than that. CMI knew that its money could be made there, discovering new agricultural and medicinal benefits, so it stuck around despite what could be considered as a colossal short and long-term failure.
The private CMI submersible that had picked up Rylan from Sea Castle was larger than anything he'd ever enjoyed in the past. Between the Blue Marine and the research crafts he knew how to pilot, this was at least three times the size, and yet still sailed cleanly through one of Mesa Verde's many entrances. It docked, was secured with numerous robotic arms, a common method of securing a submersible even here, and he and the pilot disembarked onto the metal platform that extended outward to the submersible's upper hatch. Outside of the dock were a number of individuals waiting for him, only one of whom he recognized.
Evelyn Quinn, the head of CMI's human resource department, was a short woman in comparison to him, coming up to Rylan's collarbone while wearing heels (which she was currently, he noticed). Her brown hair was tied up in a neat bun, and he noticed that she didn't seem to have a single stray hair noticeable. The sort of thing that made her look extraordinarily professional. Her features were as tight as her body, with luscious lips, light blue eyes, and a demeanor that just oozes confidence. She wore business professional attire: a white, long-sleeve, perfectly ironed button down top, a blue skirt that came down to below the knees, obvious pantyhose, and the aforementioned black heels. To round it out, she had glasses on, as well as an earpiece that he could barely notice sticking out of her left ear.
In comparison, the other men and women around her were fairly uninteresting or mundane, with nothing that stuck out to him as worthy of note. They also wore business professional attire, skirts and suits in various shades of grays, blues, and whites. It almost made it seem like Evelyn was the sort of girl to surround herself with people that weren't as attractive or interesting to make herself look better. Not to be rude, he approached her after sizing her up for a moment and took her hand as she extended it. She had surprising strength in her grip, certainly nothing he'd expect from the head of a human resources department.
"Mr. Larsen." She smiled at him. "It's a pleasure to have you here. I hope you don't mind if we walk and talk. The specimen you call Nixie has been quite anxious since she'd arrived about two weeks ago. She hasn't eaten, and we're concerned that it's because you or your team aren't present."
He returned the nod and walked along with her, the line of businessmen and women eagerly riding her coattails. "I'm not surprised. Nixie has sort of been attached to me almost from the very beginning."
"So we've noticed. We reviewed a lot of the research footage, and some of the security footage, and it seems she's quite enamored with you. You were a natural fit for a promotion, because she has been largely uncooperative with our attempted experiments. Naturally, we started looking at potential solutions, our reviewing of the footage showed that she was closest to you and, well, here you are. I spoke with the CEO and we both agreed that your knowing the most of anyone, combined with her affinity for you, was more than enough reason to put you in charge of the program."
"I'm flattered. I think it was luck or coincidence that all these things had happened in just the right order, but I appreciate the opportunity to continue to work with Nixie."
"Don't be so modest, Mr. Larsen, you're one the most talented people here," Evelyn reassured him. He didn't agree with her. He knew she was saying that just to make him feel better, or at least more comfortable, but he did his best to make it seem like he didn't know any better.
The group stepped onto an elevator platform and began to descend deeper into Mesa Verde. It was a short trip down to where they were keeping Nixie, and they allowed him to enter first. It was a two floor section of the facility, wherein an enormous tank was set, and filled with Keanosian sea water, if the salty smell was any indicator. Numerous native plants lined the sandy floor, including that strange flowing foliage that resembles seaweed that populated a vast swath of the mountaintop. Not quite as prominent as outside naturally, but still thick enough to hide in.
There he could see her, swimming around slowly, resembling more of a dolphin than he remembered only two weeks ago. There was an anxiety to her movements, and she looked through the windows below from time to time. He suspected she was looking for him, Mei, or even Kim, anyone she could recognize to put her at ease. He didn't bother to go to the window. He climbed the grated metal stairs to get to the top of the tank, zipped up and sealed his uniform, and hopped into the tank. He heard the yelling and warnings of both the marine biologists and even some of the HR drones. Evelyn looked on in growing amusement without a wrinkle of worry on her features.
The sudden commotion got Nixie's attention immediately. He saw a streak of dark red shooting straight for him like an arrow fired from a bow, but it suddenly stopped inches from him. He got the first good look at her in nearly two weeks. While her body was more akin to a dolphin, her face was starting to take on more human-like features. For example, where her eyes once remained wide, pure black, unblinking, now she had eyes that resembled a human's, with bioluminescence that changed the colors of her irises in perfect harmony with the rest of her body. She had eyelids now as well, lips, and the beginnings of a nose.
Thankfully, the face looked nothing like anyone he could recognize, and he wondered how she'd managed to create unique feminine features like that. In truth, it was a little unnerving, more uncanny valley than anything he'd seen before in his life. Perhaps it was because it was attached to something that looked distinctly dolphin-like. Maybe it was that the features simply weren't complete yet. Whatever the case may be, he pushed those thoughts out of his mind for the moment for Nixie's benefit, largely because he had a sinking suspicion that she could read his mind.
"Hey." Rylan smiled at her, opening his arms in an inviting gesture. "They told me that you haven't been eating, so I came right over."
"You liar." That was said more with relief than anything else. She rapidly bridged the gap between them, barely inches, and collided with him firmly in a sort of headbutt, rapidly glowing a rainbow of colors in her excitement. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, softly running his hands soothingly, reassuringly, along her sides and back. He noted another interesting thing now, that her body no longer had scales, but instead, was perfectly smooth. Well, there were some scales remaining near her face, but it was likely those would disappear too in due time. "I've missed you a lot."
"I know." He whispered to her. "I've missed you too." He remained like that. He didn't really have to kick to remain floating, she flapped her tail in short, powerful bursts, just enough to keep them both afloat. "Have you been giving the nice men and women here trouble?"
"No." She also lied, but began to glow a gentle purple, her emotions giving herself away. "I thought you were mad at me. You stopped talking to me as much, and then you left like you usually did. Then they took me back here."
"Do you at least like it here?" Rylan asked calmly.
"There's more room, and more food."
"Yeah, well, I think you'll be here a while, and I'll be here more than just for two weeks at a time."
"You promise?" She glowed a bright white all over her body. It was the first time he could remember seeing her do that, and it didn't take a marine biologist to know that the color likely represented an overwhelming sense of hope from her, or at least positivity.
"Promise." He smiled down at her. "But you have to be good, okay? If you don't cooperate with me and the team, I'll have to leave."
She gasped lightly, a sharp intake of air through her mouth, and buried her face against his chest. "No! I'll be good." This made him realize something. She hadn't been speaking through her mouth, or using her lips, though it sounded that way to him initially. It took that sudden contrast for him to realize that she had gotten so adept at speaking to him telepathically that he damn near didn't realize she wasn't actually talking to him.
