Cath

The Cradle

595 regarded Rareth silently for a moment, her expression grim. “No need.” She replied finally. “I’m perfectly healthy. We’ll scout the place together.” She looked around at the various openings to hollows nearby. None of the centipedes had followed them back out. “I think we’ve neutralised the threats here. Let’s return to the fork and investigate the main path.”

595 turned to leave just as a wave of dizziness crashed into her like a speeding bullet. She stumbled through the pile of ash and put a hand on one of the cavern walls to support her. Nausea punched the Agent in the stomach, doubling her over. She peeled back her visor and ejected a small amount of bile onto the floor. Keeping her back to the Datius, 595 straightened up slightly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She tasted metal.

Putting her visor back in place, she reversed the field to get a view of herself. Blood dripped slowly from one of her nostrils, which she’d now smeared across her face. She was feeling a bit better after being sick though, so she straightened up and turned back to Rareth. “I’m fine, really! Just felt a bit nauseous is all.” She insisted.

“Agent, Datius - come in.” Thebes crackled over comms. 595 jumped on it, surveying their surroundings. “Yes?”

“Ma’am. We’ve made contact with the outside.” Thebes crackled over comms. “They want to speak with both of you.” 595 looked back at Rareth. “Can you patch them through to our suits?” There was a short delay, presumably so Thebes could ask. “Negative. They need to work on all our suits.” 595 huffed. “Ok, we’ll be there shortly. How is the transit station?”

“They’re still tinkering with it, ma’am.” 595 kissed her teeth. “Copy that. Maintain your position.” She signed off, thinking of how best to proceed. “Do you want to scout the other path, while I make my way back? I’ll deal with whoever wants to talk to me before you get back, freeing up the line.”

The Cradle

595 propped herself up with one arm as her suit powered back on. She looked woozily around her as items appeared back in her HUD one by one. This must have been where they birthed new centipede things. There were different sizes of creatures here, from tiny handfuls to adults about half the size of the monsters that’d attacked them. They all kept their distance, writhing over one another as far from her prone form as they could. It didn't seem like they had any fight left in them.

The Agent got clumsily to her feet as Rareth came and towered over her. “What happened? Did you get them?” She brushed past the Datius, back out into passage and over to where the centipede corpses lay dead. She picked up her pistol from the ground and inspected it for damage, before clocking the heap of black ash on the floor. She recognised what it was immediately, but didn’t remember creating it, which was unusual. She noted that her urges were sated, at least right now. She must have been knocked out right after feeding.

595 turned to the Datius, who had followed her out. She wondered what the Rothian had seen. “Well? Did you see what happened?"

Song Reference time

See, he, tastes like you, only sweeterrrr.

Song Reference time

Instead of love (instead of love), she only saw dollar signs

The Cradle

She opened her eyes slowly, blinking in the light. She could see her own bare hands laying on a moss-strewn stone floor in front of her. Pushing down on the floor, she rose to her knees. Her breath billowed away from her in clouds of vapour. She groggily looked around, trying to focus on her surroundings.

She was in a vast square pergola. Detailed stone pillars surrounded her, holding up a heavy roof. Icy wind howled through the gaps between pillars, dredging up constellations of dust from the floor and whipping the sconced torches into long thin needles of fire. In front of her, up a few steps, was an exquisite throne.

Something was sitting there, but she couldn’t see what. Rays of light blinded her when she tried, like how she imagined looking at a sun would feel. “Tell me.” a voice commanded, in a strange language that she somehow understood. She tried to clamp her mouth closed, but the words forced their way out. Long streams of them in the same tongue.

Her back stiffened and her face rose to stare at the ceiling as information poured out of her mouth. She tried to hold onto what it all meant, but it’s meaning slipped from her grasp as quickly as it’d arrived. Despite the freezing wind, she was sweating.

She flitted in and out of consciousness, but eventually the talking stopped. She collapsed onto the floor, face to the ground. A cool hand stroked her forehead, like she imagined a mother would’ve done. “Shhh...shhh.” the voice soothed. She slept.

The Cradle

595’s suit alarms pinged as the massive centipede rolled her flat. “Pressure warning. Twenty eight thousand kilopascals. Please remove..-” The Agent left her pistol lodged in the thing’s head and pushed against the thing’s body with both her arms and legs. Her grunt of exertion turned into a shout as its mass gradually began rolling off the other side.

The beast must have sensed it was going to flip back over, because it decided to right itself. The roll accelerated rapidly, with 595 providing more encouragement as she freed her right arm and leg. It’s head crushed the wedged pistol against the floor, driving the bayonet and barrel deep into the soft tissue.

The centipede gurgled, thrashing about desperately as it completed the roll. 595 didn’t waste time, jumping to her feet and leaping onto its neck again. She hung on for dear life, yelling angrily as the creature careened around the narrow passage. They crashed against a wall and clung on by virtue of the bayonet stuck in it’s armour. She yanked it out and shoved her hand in the cavity instead.

Suddenly, she could feel the thing’s primitive thoughts and feelings, it’s pain and drive to protect the hive. She grasped her hand around that consciousness and squeezed like she’d been taught, all those years ago. Their mouths opened simultaneous and the same incandescent burst emitted from both. And then, the centipede disintegrated into a heap of black particles with one last screech and 595 disappeared in a flash of light.

Song Reference time

I guess I'm not funny
I guess that you don't like the way I think
It's not about money
But I've been buying dinner twice a week

I know that you love me
But we never say it when we speak
It's really unlikely
To think that I would do what's best for me

The Cradle

595 ran through the gap Rareth had created past the first two creatures. With the ease of someone who practiced weapon assembly in their sleep, she attached her energy dagger to the front of her spook pistol like a bayonet while on the move.

The third beast was advancing more slowly and cautiously, but lifted up it’s impressive head and lunged for her as she approached head-on. The agent turned on a coin, juking around the massive pincers. She skirted the cavern wall, pushed off of a stalagmite with one foot and landed on the creature’s armoured back.

The thing chittered manically and bounced from one side of its legs to the other, trying to throw her off. But 595 perched in place, one hand gripping the edge of it’s armour plating to stabilise her footing. Picking her moment, she clambered forward until she was right behind the creature’s head. She could hear that it was spitting acid at Rareth while trying to throw her off, and could see the other creatures had untangled in quick time.

595’s suit identified two potential weak points to try. The first was on the sides near it’s legs and the second was underneath the armour plating on its head. From where she stood, the agent could see a crack in it’s armour where two plates overlapped on the back of its ‘neck’. This seemed like the most promising bet to her.

Using her bayoneted pistol with both hands like a shovel, 595 reached up and jammed the energy blade between the two plates repeatedly, firing her pistol until she suddenly it was stuck. She kept firing. The creature screamed and rolled over suddenly, taking the agent with it.

The Cradle

The creatures disappeared in the massive ball of plasma-fire as it filled the narrow space. 595 fired her pistol gleefully into the inferno, until all three of the beasts charged out of the maelstrom.

They were closer now, and coated in plasma. They screamed and chittered, rushing forward with their front halves raised to trample them. The creatures were bigger than both of the soldiers, and angrier too now.

The Cradle

The many-legged creatures didn’t react to Rareth’s call in any discernible way. They carried on shuffling forward, their heads rippling slightly from side to side and their segmented bodies following. The loud chittering continued.“Fuck that. We’re getting through this cavern.” 595 spat.

She activated a lighting sequence she’d quickly pieced together on the walk after the lake. Her suit flashed bright red in an aggressive, undulating pattern. Dr Ngata had assured her in private that it replicated many of the same defence mechanisms that animals used back on Outremer. 595 turned up her external speaker and stepped forward before talking. “Stop right there! DO NOT MOVE.”

The creatures immediately cried out at the sound and light. They erected their front halves in the air, mouths and pincers pointing toward the interlopers. “They’re going to attack!” 595 yelled, firing her pistol on automatic at the first creature from about twenty metres away. The shots connected with it’s mouthparts and eyes, sending chain lightning between all three of them.

The whole area erupted with frenetic screeching. All three of the creatures began spitting viscous green blobs of material at them, one of which landed squarely on 595’s head. “Acid!” She yelled, glancing at her readout. It fizzled against her shields, using up power in the process.