Freyr sighed, none of this made any sense. “It sounds like the thing wanted to abduct you as well. Good thing I showed up!” She chuckled, rather morosely. “But you are right. We’ve had teams looking for other instances of the same technology, but found nothing in over three hundred years.” Freyr reached into the deep pockets of her coat and pulled out the sketch she’d been working on while talking to Vreta on the phone. 

On a real-paper pad was one side of the legs, body and neck of the creature, in firm graphite strokes. “Despite its durability, the creature’s makeup leaves lots to be desired.” She traced the very end of the neck, where it connected to that ghastly visage. “There was a lot of rugged tissue where the face appeared to have been transplanted on, or grown at an unnatural rate. I think the beast would struggle to turn its head much without moving its whole body.” She moved her finger to trace the front right leg. “I believe the Cradle has actually devolved the leg layout to support more weight. But as a result the Coxa here...” She gently tapped the bulbous pack of muscle connecting the leg to the body. “It’s composed of much softer stuff than the rest of its body, which makes it vulnerable.” 

Her pad got a few stray drips of rain on it, so she stuffed it back into her coat pocket. “What I'm trying to say is that while the Cradle appears to have used it’s massive potential to create giant killing machines, they have serious flaws. Flaws which it could solve if it had access to evolutionary data from other life forms...” She took another bite of her now cold Gỏi cuốn. “I don’t know, it’s just a theory. But it could explain why it wants to collect different specimens. It’s learning. Squeezing evolution from millions of years to months.”

Freyr pulled her coat around her tight. The sun had completely dipped below the horizon now, and a chill breeze was beginning to pick up. “The way it spoke to you… it feels like a patchwork of imitations. Potentially another instance of it ‘learning’ to do something. But the bit about ‘parents’, plural, is interesting.” Freyr took another bite, her eyes accidentally locking with a man watching her from the other side of the market. He took a long drag of his stim-cig and looked away. “During my time studying the Cradle…” Freyr continued, watching him start moving. “I’ve begun to suspect there is more than one intelligence in the Cradle. I’ve never been able to prove it; the code is bafflingly complex. But the ‘mood’ of the environment in general changes occasionally. I wonder if the creature has just nodded to that…”