Freyr didn’t know how to react to things anymore. She’d been scared out of her mind so much in the last 24 hours that she felt her consciousness receding into a mental stronghold. The voice that emerged from her lips was merely a servant, a useful shade to deploy in critical moments.

She felt bad for the two people with her, as she was in essence dragging them on what could be a suicide mission. But Freyr knew enough about the Cradle to suspect that this power surge may never end. The horrors unleashed from the depths of the simulation may be here to stay, which meant New Antioch may continue on this road to ruin for a long time. Perhaps forever, if the Object figured out some way to eject them completely...

This could be her last chance to talk to the entities in charge, on her own terms. She had to get answers. At any rate, she allowed Vreta to pull her along by the hand.

595 brought up the rear, switching weapons to cross the park. She hobbled over the grass with her new assault rifle swivelling from side to side. The lights dimly illuminating the pathways flickered as they approached. Her breath rattled in her chest. In…Out...In...Out.

“Foreign contaminants in your bloodstream are resisting standard antibiotics. Strongly recommend visiting GCHQ infirmary for resupply.” Her suit informed her. “Copy that.” The Agent rasped.

The bushes around them rustled in the breeze as they crossed the patchily lit parks. Apart from that, the Cradle was deafeningly quiet. Freyr could smell freshly cut grass through her suit. She’d had smells disabled for the entire trip through the subway, for obvious reasons.

After a tense couple of minutes, the team reached a grassy bank that bordered the roads ringing GCHQ’s side entrance. 595 encouraged everyone to lie down with her, so they could survey the area without drawing attention. She could see that the glass swing doors had been reinforced with thick metal barriers.

“Look.” 595 whispered, marking a small hole that had been prised open near the edge of the entrance. The barriers had sustained heavy damage, with deep rents from massive claws along the entire face.

The Agent then marked two hidden auto-turrets high above the entrance. They were models adapted from Navy ships; designed to repel boarding craft. They still appeared operational, turning slowly this way and that. She then noticed that the road outside the entrance was a mess of blood and gunge.

“GCHQ, this is...um...Tangier One. Can you hear me?” Freyr asked over open comms. A low synthetic burbling responded, but nothing else.

Vreta certainly agreed with keeping out-of-sight on approach. He kept low, constantly pinging their surroundings to watch out for movement while his eyes scanned the entrance itself. The defensive systems were a concern, especially as 595 was receiving no response through comms. It could simply be that there was interference, or their communications were offline, but Vreta did not want to approach under the assumption that the headquarters’ systems were still under their control.

Already, Rhia started poking around through any wireless access port she could find in range to see if she could breach into the local network, while Vreta leaned in close and whispered over to the Agent. “I don’t like this. If we don’t have control of the headquarters anymore, then we don’t know who those guns are targeting. I don’t suppose your organization has any backdoors into their network, do you?”

Normally, 595 would’ve chuckled. But her throat was starting to hurt, so she tried to restrain her amusement. “Are you asking me to penetrate the headquarters of the most advanced intelligence and cybersecurity agency in the Diaspora? A building channelling so much processing power from the Cradle that it makes its real-world equivalent look like one giant cipher wheel for children?” The Agent did chuckle, and it ended in a throaty cough. “Ok, no problem. I do have a trick or two up my sleeve.”

A memory flashed into 595’s head. She was pushing 127 ahead of her, pistol in hand. He was wearing that distinctive black bag with gold thread over his head, and his hands were cuffed together behind his back. Two distracted embassy soldiers turned and confronted them in the hallway - who was that, where were they taking the him, they asked. They needed to see some identification. Connie and Gene, the Novices walking on either side of the new Agent, raised their weapons and opened fire on full-auto.

595 gently bounced her head off the grassy ridge in front of her, blinking and clearing her throat. “Ok. Let's go.” The G5 CSF virus had been clinging harmlessly to her suit and neighbouring systems since she unleashed it back in the tower block. At the Agent’s instruction, it skittered across the road towards the entrance. Sniffing every available access point to determine a viable entrance strategy as it went. “I may have just planted a virus. You should be able to see it - we can guide it together.” 595 coughed.

As much as she tried to focus on the task at hand, Rhia found a memory inexplicably being brought to the surface. An armored Rothian ran through the halls of the strange, alien ship. As opposed to the smooth contours of a Rothian vessel, this ship’s design was dominated by sharp angles and unpainted metal. It was meant to be efficient, practical, though its technology was primitive compared to Rothian designs. Still, this primitive warship was a very real threat to the Rothian border colony it was advancing towards. These aliens had attempted and failed attacks against larger Rothian worlds, so a small colony would have to do to sate their bloodlust. The ship was towing an asteroid, and this colony did not have the defenses in place needed to protect from it. Reinforcements were too far out, so it had to be stopped, here and now.

The AI was doing her best to treat her agent’s wounds, though her options were limited. She had effective coagulants to keep her from bleeding out, and a cocktail of other drugs to encourage healing, but there was shrapnel spread all throughout her abdominal cavity. She could keep her going for now, but the odds of death were worryingly high without surgery. Her armor’s medical systems would be insufficient to deal with it, particularly since the armor itself was heavily damaged in the explosion. She wished the agent was equipped with the prototype medical nanomachines that were being trialed. Even with the bugs that were being reported, the AI would have liked to have some options at the moment.

In the present, Rhia brought herself to focus on Agent 595’s virus. Even at first glance, Rhia was unsettled by what she could detect of its design. Data from the event that led to her melding with Vreta’s mind made it seem…familiar. Regardless, their objective was more pressing than those concerns. Vreta acknowledged 595, while Rhia worked to help guide this virus.

“Let’s see if we can make sure those turrets haven’t been programmed to target us. And just to be safe, let’s try to rotate them around so they aren’t facing us. If this is a trap, that would mean they would have to traverse all the way back around to target us. It would give us time to react.” Vreta recommended.

“A fine plan. Let's see what we can do.” 595 purred, then clicked with her tongue as though sicking an attack dog.

The Agent’s companion virus had gained control of the office where the ambush took place in a matter of seconds. But the nature of that building meant there wasn’t much it could do to help. GCHQ by contrast, presented concentric closed-off layers of security, guarded by machine-learning antivirus and Human controllers. If their ragtag band had tried this maneuver yesterday, they’d have been mobbed by soldiers two minutes into the hack attempt, nevermind shut out of the system.

Yet no soldiers appeared as the virus latched onto the door control system. 595 made sure both Vreta and herself had a ‘hand up its ass’, as she liked to call it. From there, they could give the virus instructions and gain real-time information about the environment they would soon be entering.

The virus sniffed the exterior of the system from its toehold in the door control panel, and excitedly identified a slender gap in GCHQ’s defences surrounding the entrance. “That shouldn’t be there...Doesn’t look like we’re the first to try this.” 595 murmured, studying the graphs her virus was painting for them. “Looks like we’ll be able to control the turrets for a short period. Do you want to do the honours?”

“GCHQ, can you respond please? We need to get inside.” Freyr asked over comms. Just static again.

There was no mistaking that she recognized this virus at this point. They had learned some of its patterns from what Vreta recovered. While she would have liked to have learned more now, it was all she could do to focus through the memories being conjured up in her mind. Once the virus was in the system, Rhia prompted Vreta to give acknowledgement to 595 while she accessed the turrets. After a moment, the turrets turned to face the rear, and after taking in a deep breath, Vreta took the lead to advance on the entrance.

The memories surged forward to the front of Rhia’s mind for just a moment. The agent was running through the halls of the ship towards the engine room at a steadily slowing pace. If her AI could access the computers there directly, they could hijack the engines and redirect the asteroid they were towing.

“Agent, you need to stop and give yourself immediate treatment.” The AI commanded firmly.

The agent, however, was quick to shrug off the suggestion. “We do not have time for that. Everyone on that planet will die if we don’t stop this thing. That’s more important than some pain and blood loss.”

“Agreed, but right now you have a 73% chance of dropping dead before we even get to the engine room. A piece of shrapnel is currently pressing up against your femoral artery. It needs to be removed now.”

The Agent growled. “Have the suit’s medical systems handle it.”

“This shrapnel is from the medical systems.” She remarked. Strictly speaking, that was a lie, but it did drive home the point of how much damage her suit had sustained in the explosion.

While she continued to growl about it the whole time, the agent did eventually find a corner to duck into to start her field treatment. She leaned back up against the wall, then, with some effort, pried off the damaged plating covering her abdomen and upper right thigh. The state of what she could see underneath was…not encouraging. Although the coagulants had staunched the bleeding for now, her scales were still covered in blood, and she could see dozens of marks where shrapnel had pierced into her body. The cocktail of healing agents flowing through her veins had closed shut most of the lacerations, but the shrapnel itself was still lodged in her body.”

Grabbing her multitool, the agent revealed a small, precise blade that, under her AI’s guidance, she used to make an incision on her upper thigh to reopen one of the wounds. The painkillers kept her from experiencing the pain, so she still at least had a steady hand. Granted, her AI was the one doing most of the movements. The agent herself was not qualified for this operation, but with small stimulations to her muscles, the AI could guide her hand. She activated another part of the multitool that could grab hold of the metal shards, then pushed it slowly into the wound.

“Those bastards took out a whole company of their own soldiers with that explosion, just for me.” The agent remarked, mostly just to keep her mind off of the impromptu surgery while her AI did the work.

“They are unusually resolute.” The AI remarked. “They underestimated us in their first attacks, but most opponents would capitulate once they realized the technological superiority of their foe. They seemed determined to win a total war at all costs.”

After another few moments, she slowly guided the tool out of the incision, along with the jagged piece of metal that had been threatening her. Without wasting any more time, the agent pulled herself back up to her feet. “Well, the Rahn’Saki can decide what to do with them after this is over. For now, let’s just stop this rock.”

595 got up, then encouraged Freyr to her feet. “C’mon, we’ve gotta go.” A sound like whispering long grass wafted across the parks.

Turning her head, the Agent saw an MRAP burst out into the open from the forest of skyscrapers ringing the park and GCHQ. The truck careered off the main road as the turret fired bright bolts of energy at something chasing it. It churned up a few footpaths when it crossed the park, demolished a lamp post before flying off a raised bank into a public swimming pool a couple of hundred metres away. The plasma turret ceased firing.

“Keep your head down - let's move.” 595 urged, pushing the scientist in front of her while she covered the rear, assault weapon in one hand.

They crossed the road in a tight group. Silence resumed, after the short interruption. Freyr watched the turrets above - they twitched, but didn’t turn back around. “GCHQ, do you read me? We’re coming up to the side entrance. Can you see us?”

The hole in the alloy barriers sewed together slightly as they approached. Freyr watched keenly as the deep rents along the surface began to smooth over. “It’s self-repairing. See if you can get the virus to redo the damage maybe? Might be easier than getting the whole barrier to deconstruct.” She offered.

“Better make that quick. We have company.” 595 announced gravely, facing the parklands. Freyr turned from the wall, and followed the Agent’s outstretched finger. She gasped when she realised that the thing 595 was pointing at wasn’t part of the skyscraper next to it.

It was a large, pale yellow eye, sunken into a dark fleshy eye socket and faintly illuminating the otherwise black surroundings. It looked to be staring at the foundering MRAP, or something nearby. Freyr made out half of a jagged, gaping maw below the eye - that was faintly lit too. Under that, she noticed a clawed hand gripping the side of the building that it peeked out from behind. It was scarred with the same pale yellow phosphorescence as the face.

“Fuck me, It must be five stories tall.” 595 shook her head incredulously, an edge of fear creeping in her voice. Freyr couldn’t help her fascination. “Wow...I have never seen so much matter...organised into an amalgam like that.”

The eye moved slightly, to gaze right at them. “Uh oh.” Freyr breathed.

For the first moments as Vreta was crossing the grass towards the side entrance, Rhia’s mind was still caught in a moment centuries past.

Normally, the agent would have taken a more subtle approach to reach her goal, but one advantage these aliens did have was how exceptionally aware they were of their surroundings. Ironically, they were completely blind, given their lack of eyes, but the hard, plated organ on their heads emitted an exceptionally refined version of echolocation. They seemed to be able to make a mental map of their surroundings, and anyone in it, even out of a normal line of sight. The design of their ship’s hallways allowed sound to propagate even further, so stealth seemed out of the question for her.

As she neared the engine room, she saw two weapons suddenly appear from around the corner from two branching paths on opposite sides of the hallways. The aliens holding them barely exposed themselves and started firing, accurately, the moment their weapons came into view. They were projectile weapons, though, so the burst of bullets bounced off of her shields with only some damage to their integrity. The agent leaned heavily on AI assistance for her targeting. Taking a few shots with her pistol, she severed the arm of one of the aliens at the shoulder, and destroyed the weapon of the other. The uninjured one ducked back around the corner until the agent moved closer, then tried to rush out and surprise her with a jagged knife, only to be met with an energy bolt through its forehead. The second was still writhing in pain, but nevertheless tried to reach with its other arm towards the weapon on the ground. Had it not, the agent might have left it alone, but as it stood, it was a simple matter for her to point her pistol over with one hand and almost casually execute it as she walked past.

“There is no hiding from these people.” The agent remarked. “If they had better weapons, they would have killed me three times over by now.”

The AI in her head was already analyzing and comparing observations from this encounter with all the rest. “Their echolocation is remarkably effective. It may be worth some study, honestly.”

In any case, both of them quieted down as the agent finally reached the door to the engine room. If they could take over the engines, then they would hopefully be able to divert the asteroid.

Vreta was surprised that Rhia had not alerted him to the presence of this…creature. His echolocation implants would certainly have been able to detect something of that size. At this point, he wished Void Company was with them. They would have the firepower to deal with something like this. In any case, it did not change their plan. If anything, it made their plan more urgent. “Come on, let’s just get inside. I’ll cut our way in if we have to. Do we still have control of those turrets? If it is aggressive, maybe we can turn them on it?”

“I’d rather not piss this thing off. Let's just get inside - how are we looking?” 595 replied, glancing back from down the sights. The CSF virus had taken Freyr’s suggestion as a challenge; the gouges and hole reappeared alongside several new rends.

A light thump brought the Agent’s gaze back to the parkland. A mist was falling, but she could see the outline of a large humanoid shape stepping quietly out from behind the skyscraper. It began stalking closer to them, with the ground shaking slightly under each step.

“You can get in there if you cut away some of the jagged edges.” Freyr pointed to the hole in the barrier. “Hurry!” She looked back at the slowly advancing figure.

Without hesitating, Vreta switched on his plasma sword and got to work widening the hole that 595 pointed out. If he made it just large enough for himself, then the other two would be able to fit through easily. Fortunately, whatever material it was constructed from was not one that could resist his blade’s intensity. Their suits could handle residual heat from the plasma, so Vreta led the way by crawling through the opening himself.

On the other side, Vreta was not sure what to make of what he could see even before making it all the way back up to his feet. The lobby seemed like it was normally quite an open space, but it was now cluttered with all sorts of strange constructions. Spikes, barriers, and other obstacles oriented in seemingly random directions. It was chaotic, yet they all looked like they were part of the building itself. Vreta saw no bodies, though there were a few pools of an odd sludge that he spotted in a few places.

---

The agent approached the door, pulling a small breaching charge from a compartment on her armor that was, fortunately, still intact. The explosive attached readily to the door, then calibrated itself based on the size and detected material composition of the surface. She took a few steps back, weapon raised, then remotely triggered the charge.

While the door was reinforced, it still had little chance of holding up to the strength of the detonation. It immediately opened up a hole large enough for her to crouch through, though she started shooting first. The only light in the entire ship came from the agent’s suit, but her AI still identified multiple targets through the smoke. This was one rare time that these aliens were not immediately ready for her, as they had not been able to sense her through the door, so she was able to get shots on two of them through the smoke before they started returning fire.

As the agent did not have time for a methodical approach, she rushed through the breach as quickly as she could. The smoke did nothing to obscure her from her opponents, but moving quickly at least made it more difficult for them to target her accurately. In the larger, more open space of the engine room, she could maneuver more freely, though she took care to stay clear of the consoles that controlled the engines. She would need those soon enough. Neither the agent nor AI could readily identify which of the aliens were soldiers and which were simply crew of the ship, but all were armed, and all were firing on her without hesitation, so she was not sure that the distinction even mattered.

While the sounds of gunfire were deafening and the bullets came in rapidly, the kinetic force did not drain the agent’s shields too quickly, so she kept her focus and simply moved from one target to the next as her AI identified them. She took down the ones on the scaffolding above first, then moved on to the ones on her level. No matter how many she killed, nor how little obvious progress they seemed to make on her, at no point did the aliens show any signs of fear. They did not hesitate, and did not stop fighting until the very last was killed. The Rothians had not yet had a chance to perform much of a cultural study on these beings, so she was not sure what drove them to fight with such fervor.

Once the engine room was clear, the agent wasted no time. The enemy had not had a chance to fortify the engine room before she arrived, but reinforcements would certainly be incoming. Hopefully, they could complete their task before they arrived. The completely touch-based interface of the console was difficult for a Rothian to navigate, but fortunately, they had been able to fully decipher the aliens’ computer systems from previous engagements, so her AI could directly interface with their systems. The asteroid was already on-course for the colony, so simply disabling the engines would not be sufficient. They had to burn the engines on a new vector to redirect it away from a collision course.

After a few moments, the constant hum of the engines around them grew louder and harsher. “Okay, I’ve got the engines steadily changing the course. It looks like we made it in time; as long as we hold this room, it looks like we can pull the asteroid into a near-miss. Reinforcements are coming, so I would say you should…wait.”

“Uh, wait on what? What is it?”

The agent could feel the AI uploading more and more programs into the ship’s systems. “These fanatics set their ship’s self-destruct. If the ship blows before we can redirect the asteroid, nothing will stop it.”

The agent paced back and forth for a few moments in front of the console. “Okay…okay, what are our options? What’s the timeframe looking like? Can I get somewhere to disable it?”

“Negative, not without capturing the bridge on the other side of the ship. I have access to power systems, which is part of the self-destruct process, so I can delay if I’m in the system. For a while. You have to guard this room, though. If they damage the engines, it won’t matter.” The AI explained.

“Okay…so guard the engine room while you run interference on the self-destruct. What kind of timeframe are we looking at to evacuate the ship?” The agent asked. However, seconds passed with only silence from the AI. “Answer me, Sharah.”

“Your suit’s comm system is intact. I’ve made a connection with a receiver on the planet with enough bandwidth to transfer your mind.” The AI answered, her tone cold, but steady.

“My mind…no, no, no, no way. We’re both getting out of here, Sharah. I’m not leaving until…”

“Rhia!” The AI interjected, loudly and firmly. “The timing is going to be too close as it is. There just isn’t going to be enough time. I have to keep the self-destruct delayed until the asteroid has been redirected. You can stay behind and die pointlessly if you want, or you can get your consciousness out of here. Either way, I’m not getting out of this one. I’m sorry, Rhia.”

Rhia growled in anger, still trying to find some excuse to change the plan. “How do you even know I can upload? I haven’t been given final approval for full integration. My consciousness may still be tethered to my organic brain.”

“Come on Rhia, you know final approval is essentially a formality. No one who has come as far as you has ever failed it. You’re ready, and you can get out of this. I know you’ll miss me in Eternity, but…it’s me, or all the people down there. You know as well as I that’s not a choice, but you can keep going for me.”

Rhia growled and felt like putting her fist through the console in front of her, but regardless of what she felt, she knew Sharah was right. After a moment to catch her breath, she focused her gaze on the doors, then got to work fortifying her position.

---

Rhia wanted to say more, to have more of a chance for final words with her friend, but there was simply no opportunity. The enemy soon was upon them in force, and they both had their jobs to do. Rhia had Sharah’s help at first with targeting and spotting, but the more time passed, the harder it was for her to delay the self-destruct. Every second that passed had more of Sharah being put into the ship, and Rhia becoming more and more alone in her mind. Rhia fought back wave after wave, going through explosive traps, exploiting environmental hazards, and eventually running through the entire power source of her pistol to keep the engines protected. She resorted to picking up weapons from the fallen, or even her own claws when the enemy came close enough.

Sharah had given her a timer, past which it was safe for her to evacuate. When it ticked over to zero, she fell back behind the consoles and dropped into cover. Sharah was no longer monitoring her health, so she had reopen multiple wounds, and her abdomen was once again covered in blood. Her body, however, no longer concerned her. For the first time in years, her mind felt empty. Ever since she and Sharah had been joined, they had been a constant presence to one another. They shared their mind and body to become as one. Slowly and steadily, Sharah had helped Rhia’s mind to learn to use the implants in her body as if they were a part of her own brain. It was not a natural thing for an organic brain to learn, but as the Rothians had discovered, it was certainly possible. Now, piece by piece, Rhia’s consciousness was moving from organic neurons to synthetic ones. Memories, thought patterns, subconscious instincts, all leaving their original home to claim a new one. The one Sharah had left vacant for her. Rhia was surprised at how…easy it all was. After years of acclimating, it simply felt natural. Activating the program for her suit to access the receiver on the planet’s surface took only a thought.

Rhia took one final breath into her own lungs before raising up her head to speak one more word: “Goodbye.” The connection was made and her body slumped over, a shell inhabited by no mind.

Freyr stood motionless as Vreta disappeared, gazing up at the massive biped as it crept quietly towards them through the mist. It wasn’t giving off any predatory cues, apart from a fixing stare like the big cats she’d studied. Part of her was tired of running, and wanted to see what the creature would do if she tried to communicate.

But when 595 glanced back and saw Freyr wasn’t moving, she made it clear that wasn’t an option. “Move!” The Agent shouted, motioning to the hole with her gun. This made Freyr jump, and she jolted into action. Her shield flared against the hot residue around the hole as she scrambled through. 595 backed up with her weapon up as the creature loomed over the pond with the MRAP in it.

The Agent’s suit detected Human shouting in the distance, and tried to clean it up before Freyr called back “I’m through! Your turn!” 595 hesitated for a moment, then pursed her lips and turned to slither through the hole as well.

An oppressive atmosphere cloaked them in the lobby. Muffled creaks and a soft breeze wafted through the maze of walls and spikes around the trio. Freyr cleared her throat softly, then tried comms again. “GCHQ, we’re inside the...West entrance. What is the building’s status?”

“My readings are all over the place again, like inside the Object.” 595 rasped, then coughed chestily. “I don’t like this.” She finished, once she was able.

Freyr took no notice, she was looking around. It seemed that two broad, tall ‘streets’ branched off from this lobby on either side of the entryway. They must have been part of the ring-like superstructure - Freyr could see open gantries with a hint of the floors above. There was a set of doors directly in front of them too. “Which way?”

As the others joined Vreta in the lobby, he had a moment of concern for Rhia. She had not given him any alerts, but he could notice when she was less present than usual. Not to mention the fact that he could “feel” her mind, in a sense. He could not feel her exact thoughts unless she shared them intentionally, but he always had a sense of her mood in the back of his mind. Rhia, talk to me. I can tell something’s going on. Vreta thought.

I’m fine. Right now, at least. Rhia answered. I think we’re being scanned in some way, or I am. There is something peering into my memory, I think. There was something that came to my mind, and I couldn’t seem to stop it.

Vreta hummed in thought. What she described was familiar to him, though he was not yet sure of what the implications of it were. The Entity on Rothia had that capability, so it could be indicative of the being integrating with the Cradle. Unfortunately, they just did not have enough information to know.

While he was curious if the others were experiencing the same thing, they had no choice but to keep moving. “I don’t have the blueprints to this place, so you will have to be the one to guide us.” He commented. Vreta took a moment to press one hand against one of the thick spikes jutting out at an angle from the ground to check its strength, then took a step back to get a running start. Sprinting forward, he ran up the side of the spike for a moment, then used it as an elevated point to leap up to the second floor above them. From there, he turned back around to help up the others behind him. “We should try to stick to the high ground as we move, though.” He recommended.

“I think the operations rooms are on the upper levels.” Freyr mused, thinking back to when she last visited. Admittedly, it had been a long time ago, and she’d only been cleared to access the ground floor.

“I was going to try and steal a copy of the floorplan, but I can't interface with the system anymore. In fact, I'm losing power now. We need to be quick.” 595 added, feeling a pressure in the back of her head which wasn’t there before. Was that something rifling through her mind as if it were a folder, looking at articles of interest? She looked around quickly, trying to spot signs for the infirmary or even a pharmacy locker.

Both of the Humans watched as Vreta vaulted up onto the level above. “I...can’t get up there.” Freyr said, nervous. “Stand over there.” 595 commanded, pointing to a spot directly under Vreta’s dangling arms. After a moment’s hesitation, she complied. 595 followed her, and crouched down, grasping Freyr’s thighs in a vice-like grip. The Agent’s suit whirred and clicked, with the pitch gradually increasing until she exploded upwards.

Freyr found herself flying up into the air, and her extended hands being gripped by the Rothian above her.

“I need to find an infirmary - I'm not doing so good.” The Agent coughed, looking up to make sure Freyr made it onto the gantry. “We’ll have a better chance of spotting it if we cover both floors.”

Once Vreta ensured that Freyr was securely up on the second floor, Vreta leaned over the guard rail and looked down on the Agent below. The only injury he had seen her take was a piercing strike through her leg. While traumatic to the muscle tissue in the area, that was not the kind of injury he would expect to send her into a coughing fit. Granted, they had been through multiple fights, and he had not been watching her the entire time.

“What kind of injuries have you sustained?” Vreta asked. “Maybe my field kit can help you? Your suit has medical systems, yes? If you have your suit send a report to me, I might be able to program a nanomachine injection to help you.” He suggested. Medical nanomachines had pre-loaded programs to deal with common battlefield injuries for Rothian physiology, but if she knew the problem, Rhia could likely custom write a program to help the Agent.

“I’ve been poisoned.” 595 slurred. She was feeling decidedly light-headed all of a sudden. It was hard to delineate whether this was because of the wound, or the heady environment they were in. “Use of foreign nanites is against protocol - it has to be the infirmary.” The Agent looked about again, her suit compensating for her unsteady footing and blurring vision. “Give me overwatch, we’ll sweep both floors at once.”

“Agent!” A male voice called from the entrance. Freyr rushed to the gantry and leaned over as far as she could go to look at the exterior doors. Through the gloom, she could just about see a white-haired man in a tactical vest standing up after crawling through the hole.

He brought his gun up to his eye as 595 slowly turned around to face him. Freyr spotted another person crawling through the gap behind him as he stepped forward.

595 paused for a second before answering. When she responded she sounded drunk. “Gene? That you?” Then the Agent’s visor slithered off her face, she doubled over and threw up on the ground.

Vreta growled under his breath as he looked down upon the Agent. “How to best put this...screw your protocol, you need help. These are exceptional circumstances, and exceptional circumstances require adaptation.”

“Wait here.” Vreta remarked to Freyr beside him before jumping over the railing back down to the ground floor. As his feet touched the ground, however, there was another pair of Humans that appeared from the same entrance they had used. Regardless of how familiar they seemed to be to the Agent, Vreta was immediately suspicious. Where had they been before, when they were outside? And how did they get past the massive creature outdoors without being seen? Freyr had broadcasted on comms multiple times to try and make contact with anyone at the headquarters, granted, but then again, why had they not answered? Vreta was not sure what it meant, but he was on his guard. For now, the Agent’s health was a more pressing concern. He eyed the new Humans cautiously, but let the Agent handle speaking to them.

“Look, Agent, just send me your suit’s logs. If the poison is even vaguely recognizable, I should be able to at least reduce its effects to something manageable.” Vreta insisted.

“Step away from her!” The man named Gene bellowed, knuckles white on the grip on his SMG. Twin blue lights blinked on through his eyes, looking squarely at the Rothian. They were dimmer than what Freyr had seen from the Agent, but still disconcerting.

As he came closer, Freyr made out that the man had olive skin and a stocky build. He was wearing a formal dress shirt and tie under the tactical vest, with rolled up sleeves that exposed muscular arms. Dark patches of what looked like blood stained the white material. His face was all cut up, like broken glass had sprayed in his face.

The second figure stood up and immediately raised their pistol. Freyr saw she was a woman, with nut brown hair pulled back and down in a ponytail. She was also wearing a tactical vest over her blue formal shirt but under a black business jacket. Blood dripped from a gash in her left arm.

“It’s ok, it’s…” 595 coughed, raising one hand to stop them from her hunched position. She spat out more phlegm, then instructed her suit to send diagnostics over.

“Where is Dr Lang? Is she here?” Gene asked, lowering his gun slightly as they both moved towards them.

Rhia started to analyze the diagnostics in short order after Vreta received them. She recognized that a toxin of Cradle origin could have unexpected properties, but she hoped that it would follow some kind of biological analog, as many other aspects of the Cradle appeared to do. Based on the data she had, she quickly devised a stopgap treatment to at least improve 595’s condition. The suit diagnostics had identified the types of cells that the toxin was targeting, so she could have the nanites repurpose excess red blood cells and reshape them using materials from the blood plasma into “decoy” cells. By mimicking the toxin’s target cells, they could “trick” the toxin into binding to the decoys instead of useful cells, which would effectively reduce the dose of the toxin available to harm the Agent. Rhia decided to assume direct control of the nanites at first until she knew she had a working treatment, then she could leave the nanites with standing instructions. While Rothian nanomachines were quite advanced, they were still not adaptable on their own. They could not deviate from the sets of instructions programmed into them. Without pre-written programs to load into them, it took a digital intelligence like Rhia to modify their purpose in the field.

As Vreta took out the syringe, Rhia took control of the nanites inside. As long as she remained in close proximity, preferably direct physical contact, she would be able to puppet them without trouble. Nanite injections were a common treatment option among Rothians in both a military and civilian context. Agents like Vreta had implants to be able to sustain a population of nanites within his body, but such injections could still be useful as either a backup in case of a loss of his normal nanite population, or a “booster” in case his body sustained enough trauma to require a temporary excess of nanites.

“Okay, just give me an injection site. There is a treatment that should work here.” Vreta said softly as he placed his hand on the Agent. Once she complied, Vreta finally brought his attention to the new pair of Humans that had just arrived. “Yes.” Vreta answered cautiously. “Who are you, and do you know what has been happening in this place?”

“Where is she? We heard you were attacked. We’re here to help.” Connie continued, scanning the area. Her voice was quite gruff, like she’d been shouting. “Right here.” 595’s suit opened a panel in the crook of her arm. She moved into a crouch for her shot with her arm raised, gun laid out in front of her.

She turned her attention to her novitiates. “Just you two? Where is the cavalry?”

Connie and Gene were fanning out either side of 595 and Vreta, checking the surroundings. “Currently indisposed - we took a beating just to get here. Where is Doctor Lang? We need to make sure she’s safe.” Gene replied, turning to look at the Agent.

“I’m safe. Who are you?” Freyr answered, revealing herself on the higher gantry. Both of the novitiates looked up and identified the VIP. Connie waved, teeth gritted against the wound on her opposite arm. “Hi. I’m Connie, and this is Gene. Glad to see you’re still alive.” Gene identified a stairwell a little way down one of the halls, and headed for it while Connie stayed put. “So what’s the plan here? Go and speak with the entity?” Connie continued, looking round at everyone.

Freyr nodded meekly, just as a thunderous boom echoed around the area. The superstructure of GCHQ rattled. “That must be our friend outside.” Gene remarked, before disappearing up the stairs to the first level. “We should get you to safety.” Connie continued, pointing to Dr Lang.

The thundering sounds from outside were yet another thing that seemed to rush the team along. They needed to avoid delays. The timing of these new Humans’ arrival was still suspicious to Vreta; they had already been attacked once by Humans during this mission, so just the fact that they were not Cradle creatures did not necessarily mean they were trustworthy. He supposed it was true that 595 seemed to know them, but he was not sure if that should be enough for him, at this point. They still had their own names, which would imply that they were not part of the same organization as Agent 595. Or, perhaps they had not yet completed the process of initiation that Vreta had seen a part of when he viewed her memory?

Once Vreta had delivered the injection, and one of the others started to head for the stairwell, he whispered quietly to 595 as a favor to her. Since this was against protocol for her, he did not need to let the others know exactly what the injection contained. “My implants are directing the nanites right now, so we need to stick close while it refines the treatment. You should start feeling better soon, just…play along.”

When Vreta stood up, he picked up 595 in his arms, then finally gave Connie an answer. “We need to get to our objective, quickly. Just stay alert, and keep Freyr safe.” Despite how the Agent may have felt about it, carrying her would be legitimately faster than allowing her to try to walk in her current state, at least until the treatment could take effect.

Still carrying 595, Vreta ran up the same spike had first used to leap up to the floor above, though he had to use thruster assistance this time to overcome the extra weight he was carrying. Being that he took a more direct route, he reached Freyr first. “Let’s get moving. We just need to find the operations rooms.”