Cath

The Cradle

Freyr blew out some vapour. It was a different colour to before, slightly green. She chuckled and shook her head. “At least then they’ll get back the time they lost.” Lights reflected off the dark, warm water as she ran a hand through it. Nirann might have been talking, but she wasn’t taking anything in. After a little while, Freyr leaned slowly forward from her position, sat on the side and entered the lake fully.

The comforting blackness engulfed her, and the cacophony of sounds around them changed into a muffled clang and hum. Freyr kicked her legs once, then twice, arms at her sides. Her fist closed around the stim-stick to prevent it floating away. Someone jumped in nearby, and began swimming around, nearly kicking her in the face. Freyr breathed out, feeling bubbles of air crawling along the top of her mouth.

The Cradle

Freyr followed Nirann’s lead, taking off her shoes and rolling up her leg garments before sitting with the warm water lapping at her knees. She smiled sadly while watching the video Nirann showed, drying her eyes as much as she could under her mask.

Eventually the happy scene became too much, and she looked up and past the screen at Réunion. It was late now, but the city was still lit up with a kaleidoscope of bright lights, snaking their way between platforms up to the mountains above.

“You make it sound so easy.” Freyr murmured, running her index finger through the water. “Like we can just bung my family into new bodies and life can go back to normal.” She sighed. “I’ve had…dreams. Or visions, I don't know. I can see them inside the Cradle - they’re being…chased, or tortured. I can’t tell if they’re asleep or awake, or where they are. But something is happening to them and being broadcast to me.”

Freyr pulled out her stim-stick and popped it in her mouth; the light lit up. “I sound crazy, I know. But it feels like a trap that I can't avoid. No matter how i approach it, none of us come out whole.”

The Cradle

Freyr nodded hesitantly in response to Nirann. She knew some of this already, but hearing it from the robot didn’t make things any easier. After a few shaky breaths, Freyr closed her eyes. A blurry image of her family entered her mind - they were running down a beach that didn’t exist, away from her. Tears rolled down both her cheeks as the concert boomed around her. Freyr couldn’t hear it anymore, only the sound of her breathing and a high pitched whine in each ear.

Slowly, she raised a hand and tried to wipe her tears. She felt instead an alien, rubbery texture against her face, where the mask had settled in. Reaching around her neck, Freyr pushed the mask up and away, using the back of her arm to dry her face. At the same time, she reached out another hand, searching blindly for Nirann’s.

---

Staring through the spyglass, the spotter up on the raised promenade zoomed in on the woman’s face as she wiped her tears away. The device matched this person to a high value target with a 85% probability. He put his secure phone to one ear, bulky transmitter pointing straight up. “I think I have something. On the beach.”

Hello!

Hello!

The Cradle

Freyr thanked the big robot, but quickly got annoyed when Nirann didn’t let her go. “Put me down!” Freyr wiggled her limbs until she touched the floor again. “I’ve noticed your kind love to manhandle.” She chuckled. “Lead on, I can walk behind. Let's go out onto those floating platforms.”

Faced with this freedom of choice on where to go, the scientist felt a pang of guilt. Her team were still stuck inside, and her family were still missing. A wave of emotion bubbled up from her core to her throat, and Freyr clamped her jaw in place to fight it back. We’re networking, with Wallace, to continue the mission. Just please relax She assured herself.

As they slowly navigated the flotilla, moving toward the stage, Freyr realised that each platform may have been primarily a collection of loosely affiliated friendship groups. Or cliques - some of the groups looked quite different from one another. While a lot of people were on the move, an equal amount of people were stood dancing together, yelling conversation into each other’s ears. The spine of a few platforms was raised, producing a few bits of seating which at the moment was swamped.

“What we just talked about back there - seems like an interesting lead, no?” Freyr yelled, looking back at the orb. Wallace was lost in the throng, but the ship was still putting on a light show.

---

A few miles away, a man in a suit leaned against the bonnet of his car in a quiet parking space. He pressed long range binoculars against his eyes and scanned the concert as it unfolded some way along the shoreline. Vapour rose and disappeared into the night from a stim-stick hanging from his lips. After a moment, his gaze returned to the mostly-submerged craft at the edge of the flotilla, then zoomed in further to watch the trio of obfuscated shapes moving through the crowd.

The Cradle

Freyr had not been expecting any of this. After so long trapped in a high rise apartment block, the mosh pit party developing around them as more people scrambled over to their little orb was quite daunting. They were variously running in circles or jumping up and down as this niche band transitioned seamlessly to another angsty song. “Ok, ok. Help me out here! Let's go for a wander.” Freyr lifted her arms above her head, for the Rothians to pull her out from under the pile as another person joined in.

”Aching, she's feeling so confused, confused.
She can't breathe or believe she's useless
Right off the edge she'll walk
Just listen close you'll hear her screaming.”

The singer essentially couldn’t see through the mat of hair now covering his eyes as he swanned about the stage. Someone from the flotilla clambered up onto their stage and rushed over. The singer tried to juke around but got knocked over in a fan hug. He still managed to shout into the mic from on the floor:

“Take meee!”

The rest of the band, grinning at the chaos, chimed in with backing vocals. “Take me.”

“Take mee!”

Security rushed over and hoisted the screaming fan off of the scruffily dressed singer. He hopped up and carried on.

“Who's gonna miss me when I'm gone?”

He blew a kiss into the crowd, wiggling his head and stamping one foot in time with the music.

“Our hardest times, hold on.”

The Cradle

The ship nudged gently against the flotilla, and dropped down to allow Nirann and Marae to exit onto it if they wished to. Warm water sloshed onto the deck of their half-opened orb and quickly around the seating area until it was ankle high. Freyr squealed, partly from trepidation and partly from pure excitement after so long without stimulation. She leapt back onto the bean bag she’d been on before and laughed. “No! You go if you want, I’ll try in a minute!”

Wallace waved out to the wild mass of partygoers perched on the creaking flotilla, beaming as the music undulated around them. Several people jumped from the platforms onto their watery deck and rushed forward. Freyr didn’t notice, for she was too preoccupied with all the moving objects, but Chirtsey and Alderney flinched. Their hands started to move, but one tiny motion from Wallace stopped them dead in their tracks. Freyr did happen to spot a tiny thread of flickering light, like spider silk, connecting the back of the Plenipotentiary’s head to a shield generator hidden out of sight.

The audio quality from inside the half-exposed orb was excellent, rivalling that of anywhere near the band. So the revellers swept up their group for a drunken greeting and compliment of the grand entry. They then began swirling around the space, dancing and knocking jovially into each other to this energetic music. “Hello, nice to see you. Please, make yourselves at home. Hi!” Wallace called over the music, hugging and shaking hands with several people; servants never more than an arm’s length away. It was like the Plenipotentiary knew everyone at the event.

“This looks comfy!” A tall thin woman with dark red hair and a swimsuit shouted, falling into Freyr’s beanbag to hug her.

“Oh, hey!” Freyr laughed tolerantly, patting the woman’s back as the wetness seeped into her own clothes.

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar had always loved climbing, so pursued the dim light at the top of the Tengmaa’s chamber with vigour. Brissekh was packed full of cliff faces to scale, and in a way she could remember the routes up and down them better than her way around the frigid woodland. It was the excitement of knowing a shortcut which stuck in her head, Tar supposed.

The rock face here was shrouded in vines, but the Commando quickly figured out a way up, spotting hand and foot holds which jogged distant memories of this place before it became a death trap. The fresh water streaming in from above was cold and refreshing after the warm, smelly interior. The sound gradually built to a crescendo of howling winds and rain at the top, perfectly masking the sound of Tar hauling herself up.

As soon as she was away from the hole, she crouched down and drew her Carbine. The spikes on her feet scraped against the craggy ridge. Visibility was shockingly bad, but Tar knew that could all change in a moment if the wind changed direction. “If they have any sense, they will be inside until the storm passes - we should move quickly. We do not want to be up here if the wind speed increases.”

The Cradle

“Bravo!” Wallace clapped her hands together and began manipulating the controls again. “I think we have some full-body masks somewhere…” After a few moments, a quartet of mannikin type shapes appeared behind the Plenipotentiary. Two were entirely obfuscated like the ship, two just had blurry faces.

“I am not swimming out there.” Freyr laughed, pouring herself another cup of tea. “I’m certainly not dressed for that.” Wallace looked at her, raised one eyebrow and rolled the control ball over with one finger without looking. The concert began coming closer, with the ship silently navigating the placid waters. “Don’t worry! If you want a full suit, it will repel the water. But I was thinking we could bring the concert to us in the beginning anyway. It's safer like that.”

Chirtsey and Alderney, Wallace’s servants, wafted back into the room via newly reformed blast doors. The faint sound of raised voices followed, but was abruptly cut off when the doors closed. They landed gracefully back on the floor and walked in tandem over to the suits.

“Help our guests with their gear, please.” Wallace instructed without looking, fiddling with the controls. The music from outside was of a lower volume for the moment, but Freyr noticed the band reaching the end of their song. The scruffy lead singer waved to the crowd, other hand resting on his guitar.

“Thank you! You’re awesome. Thanks to Kaftari for letting us play for you at such short notice too. There’s nothing like a humanitarian disaster in the capital to shake up the set list eh?” He turned and laughed with the rest of the band, who were either hydrating or tuning their equipment.

Alderney came over and offered Freyr a blurry mask. She nodded and the servant went round the back of her chair to attach it. After an initial moment of disorientation, the mask moulded her face and her vision returned. It was like the mask wasn’t even there anymore. Freyr gingerly felt her head and confirmed that it was, in fact, still there.

“We have a special guest at our little gathering, folks!” The singer suddenly announced, scanning the water beyond their little flotilla. “If you’re here, get outta my head and give us a wave!”

“The good thing about a camouflage ship is that it is…customisable.” Wallace grinned. Accessing the neural lace of most everyone in the vicinity, the Plenipotentiary first marked the outline of the ship. As everyone turned to look at them, now only a couple of hundred metres away, the outer surface of their craft rippled with a kaleidoscope of colours that mingled with the dark background of the mist upon the water. Wallace knew it would be different for everyone, finely balanced to stimulate the amygdala.

The crowd burst into rapturous cheering, and as if it were planned all along, the band burst into a new song. Detecting the rhythm, the ship automatically synchronised. “They love it!” Wallace announced. “Time to meet our adoring fans - everyone suited up?”

“This is attracting a lot of attention, maybe we shouldn’t-” Freyr began, but their host had already set the process in motion. The orb’s outer shell began peeling back as the ship floated the last few yards toward the flotilla. Wallace stood up and adopted a show woman's pose, her silent attendants standing at attention behind.

The Cradle

“We love to dig up the past!” Wallace called over the music that now filled the room, conducting a quick search. “This type of music really is old - so much so that they thought to name it ‘rock’. How dynamic!”

“I’ve got no prior experience of dancing to music like this.” Freyr admitted, still swaying from side to side in her seat. “How is everyone else doing it?” Wallace duly obliged, shifting the lens from the singer’s sweaty face to the dimly lit crowd. Freyr noticed that the Plenipotentiary’s ship enhanced the scene until it could’ve been under floodlights.

The rickety flotilla contained hundreds of people in swimming shorts or bikinis, jostling against each other. Most of their hands were in the air. Dozens of people were either jumping off or climbing back aboard at one time. “Oh gods, do they need rescuing?” Freyr asked.

“I think they’re doing it on purpose!” Wallace laughed, taking them silently a bit closer. Freyr hadn’t noticed, but the ship had actually rotated in the preceding few seconds so the aft orb was the only part protruding from the water. Their room acted as if it were gimballed, but for the rest of the ship (now pointing toward the lake bed), magnetic fastenings and anti-gravity were enabled to keep people safe.

“Shall we go and join them?” Wallace turned to look at her guests with a mischievous look etched across her face. “We can wear masks, so no one will recognise us - it could be fun! I do so enjoy mingling with the masses.”