Cath

The Cradle

Despite all the stress of the last few hours, the team stared, awestruck, around them as they walked out of the thick entryway and into the main area. The Tower of Babel was completely hollow, with a yawning expanse over their heads towards the peak and a jet-black abyss below. The deafening quiet was punctured only by the clack of their shoes and claws.

An array of sensors mounted on top of a control room perched off to one side of the hole scanned the group. Freyr briefly looked and saw a technician in a white uniform at the distant controls within the brightly lit cockpit, flanked by two suited spooks with guns. More floodlights came on at that point, and gasps erupted from the group.

The whole interior surface of Babel was pockmarked with ancient alien dwellings, carved from the rock. Little windows looked out onto crumbling stone terraces facing each other around the whole diameter.

Freyr knew that analysis of the dwellings indicated the species which’d inhabited Babylon before them extended to just over a metre, with six legs and wings. Hardly any organic matter had been found to substantiate these creatures, and that only stretched up to a hundred thousand years before Humans arrived.

As they traversed the walkway jutting out over the hole below, Freyr noticed the dual-rail system fondly dubbed the Mono. It burst out of the depths below, with rails carrying on all the way to the top, with a junction stopping at the end of the walkway. As she watched, a giant transparent orb arrived at their station along the subsidiary rails, and the doors unfurled towards them.

595 motioned with her head and the half-dozen suits that still surrounded them got in. The orb closed back up and promptly retreated back down into the depths. Not long after, a second orb appeared, and 595 motioned for the scientists to get in. “Have half your men take the next one.” The Agent ordered Thrace, who nodded and picked them.

595 gestured encouragingly towards the vessel. Freyr and Vreta led the science team in - they were followed by half a dozen CraSec operators and the Agent, which made the space quite tight. Freyr sat down and fastened herself into one of the seats facing outwards, next to Vreta. “Impressive, right? They seemingly built their entire civilisation around the Cradle, just like we have.” Freyr murmured - anything was better than this uneasy silence.

595 gave the control room a thumbs up, and the orb dropped silently away from the platform, taking them into the depths of Babel.

The Cradle

They met back up with 595 and most of the other suits at the chrome security checkpoint guarding access to the Mono. Freyr knew that name was out of date now; they’d replaced the old mono with a dual-rail gimbal system a hundred years ago, but all efforts to change the name had failed. Dr Wetherall never failed to gleefully retell that story after a couple of drinks.

The Agent smiled with a tightly closed mouth, spreading her hands slightly to welcome them, pistol still grasped in one of them. “Safe and sound. Is this everyone?” She asked Thrace. “Some of my team are still in the HQ, to avoid concentrating everyone in one place.” Freyr answered for him, stepping forwards. “They need protection tonight, while we do this.”

595 nodded, then flicked her free hand at one of the suits standing by. “Double security up there - no police.”

“Wilco.” Some of the suits set off along the bright white corridor at a fast walk. 595 watched them go, then grinned at the assembled group. “Alright. Let’s get this party started, shall we? The rails are live all the way downstairs.” The Agent turned and led the way through the checkpoint.

Behind the checkpoint was a cavernous tunnel, half polished metal and half ancient rock. A faint breeze ruffled Freyr’s hair from inside, like the breath of some mountain dragon. She buttoned up her lab coat - it was cold down below.

Song Reference time

I don't even know who I am anymore
Or how to stay calm through the storm
Is it raining harder than before?
There's a sickness up there somewhere
I can feel it seeping through the fucking floors
Rotting me slowly to my core
Sometimes the earth takes control
It holds you tight, never letting go
But you're not choking, until the air you breathe becomes so sweet
That you'd do anything for a taste of a little more
The panic grows. This cycle flows
It's growing loud, and I'm further from home
Am I getting used to this drone?
Enthroned in grey
This feels like being buried in stone
I fall for the same shit every day, but it never gets old
Sometimes the earth takes control
It holds you tight, never letting go
But you're not choking, until the air you breathe becomes so sweet
That you'd do anything for a taste of a little more

The Cradle

“No, I want a chance to study it before this recoupling.” Freyr snapped. She keyed her access code into the console and relayed that directive downstairs. “That door is seven metres thick, with an isolated switch. I think we’re safe for a little while.” They watched the will-o-wisp extending from the side of the Object sniffing at the doors into the Vault.

Freyr was torn now. In theory, she could enter the Cradle from the very lab they were standing in - there was a room full of harnesses just next door. They could get this process underway immediately, rather than risk losing the initiative.

But this could be her only chance to study the Object up close before it joined with the Cradle, and going to the Vault was the best place to do that. The harnesses in there also had some special...features which could come in useful if she was to monitor proceedings from the inside.

In the end, her mind was made up for her, when Thrace boomed: “Coast is clear! Pack your things, those of you who’re heading downstairs. We’re moving out.” Freyr looked up, and noticed most of her team were staring at her, waiting for her orders. She cleared her throat. “Same teams as before. Stay in close contact and stick to the plan, alright? Lets go.”

The Cradle

Freyr looked at the hand, then patted one of the claws gently. “Thanks.” She said, sniffing to regain composure. She slurped her tea, enjoying the fragrant taste. She let out a shuddering breath and nodded reassuringly. “I’m fine.”

“Dr Lang, can you look at this for me please?” one of her brightest new intakes she’d kept on Outremer called. Freyr got up and walked over to the young female scientist, what was her name again? Her implant confirmed it was Dr Girard. “What is it?” Several eyes in the room tracked Freyr as she moved, and people began making more productive noises in their groups.

“Check this signal cluster from the Object. Just opened up a few seconds ago.” Dr Girard pointed to a thin wisp of energy emitting from one side of the pitch black mass inside the Vault’s staging area. It was being tracked and dissected by the facilities state-of-the-art sensory equipment, but still represented one of the most sophisticated connections Freyr had ever seen.

“It’s searching for the Cradle. It’s awake!” Freyr exclaimed, temporarily forgetting everything else. In three hundred and fifty years, no one had seen active signals from a creature like the Cradle, this was history in the making! “This corresponds with the codex we uncovered in the thing’s mind - it’s how they join together, it must be.” Dr Wetherall murmured, gently queuing calibrations to the equipment for downstairs to implement. People crowded around them to get a closer look.

The Cradle

”That could work. People who’ve been inside the Object would have recent scans already. I think we could all use a psych-eval anyway, we’ve been through so much… Freyr looked around, thinking.

She could tell people were scared, and trying to cope by reconnecting with their peers. She just couldn’t imagine any of them bombing innocents - so much of their situation was a mystery, and Freyr just felt ill-equipped to solve it by herself.

She was glad of Vreta’s help, although he’d need careful management along with all the other interested parties. She couldn’t be certain any of them would favour the Cradle Dead over a new, shiny super weapon.

”I don’t know anything about the Skinners, I've never needed to. Surely we can find someone who does?”

Freyr looked back at the screen. “...viewers may find distressing.” The news had gone back to the studio, but quickly switched to cameras aboard press craft in orbit. The Barbarossa and an unfamiliar-looking Rothian craft were floating among a mass of radioactive wreckage. Colourful purple lights danced on Outremer’s upper atmosphere.

Distraught murmurs and some colourful cursing filled the lab. Freyr bit her lip as her eyes scanned the scene; a tear escaped down her cheek which she promptly wiped away. It's not your fault, she told herself, unconvinced.

The Cradle

“Ummm, i don’t know. You aren’t required to disclose modifications until you reach a certain clearance level. So many in my division are first-years, I barely know their names let alone implants. I could try and find out, but it may raise flags somewhere.”

Nearby, one of the scientists turned on a holo-screen projecting the evening news in 3D. “Turn it down! Some of us are trying to work.” Dr Wetherall complained, and the junior duly complied. The reporter in front of the camera was a familiar face, Freyr remembered finding him quite attractive before she met David.

Over his shoulder, she could see a raging fire and black flags of smoke curling from the brightly lit Parliament complex. Emergency vehicles swarmed overhead. “...Weekend sitting of the Cradle select committee, to discuss the recent power surges. Initial reports suggest at least one member of the committee has lost their life this evening. The influential Skinner’s Guild has taken responsibility for the attack, and said while it regrets violence, threatened further attacks until the government reverses key policy changes on Cradle integration. We are now waiting on an announcement from President DeWinter, who was not at Parliament this evening.”

The Cradle

Freyr nodded thoughtfully. To the casual observer, it would’ve looked like she was considering the new images of the Object on her screen. It had kept the same shape as the scans when it was underground, but you’d have a hard time figuring that out in person. In contrast to the Cradle, which displayed a pearly white exterior, the Object’s skin was like that of Vantablack, Humanity’s first attempt at creating the darkest substance in the universe.

On regular cameras, the Object presented as a black hole, whichever angle you studied it from. Freyr was idly mulling over the possibility of it being a camouflage response to being dragged out of hiding. Now that her heartbeat was slowly returning to normal, Freyr could feel herself drawn more to the facts and figures again. Even from up here, she could make a difference. She could direct the coupling from here, and then go into the simulation from the lab if necessary. But that’d be risky without first digesting the full dataset which was in quarantine down below.

”I think so. I may not agree with how your society is organised, but I agree with you. Whatever your actual job title. I may be in a minority though.” Freyr looked around, and noted the various faces who, having found a lull in the conversation, were regarding Vreta curiously. While everyone on her team knew who Vreta was in principle, they’d never met or talked to him.

The Cradle

Freyr huffed at Vreta’s forward line of inquiry. It wasn’t totally surprising he was asking her such a personal question. She knew from her time around Rothians that they tended to be direct and have no concept of privacy. She resigned herself to answering, growing tired even as she did so.

”Honestly, this feels like the new normal now. I’ve been swept up on the tide, with no time or perspective to plot a safe course. And how can I seek help, when everyone has their own agenda? No, best I focus on holding things together long enough to unravel this whole mess…”

Freyr took another long sip of her tea, savouring the hot liquid in her throat. ”This ‘traitor’, how can we possibly ‘protect ourselves’ from them if we don’t know who they are?”

Staff update

Thank you for everything!