Cath

Halo: Aegis Team

While listening to the others discuss options, Tar sniffed the air and looked around. A tingle ran all the way down her arms and into her chest, taking cues from atmospheric pressure. Thinking back to when she was last here, Tar finally understood what was coming. “A rolling bank approaches… I say we use speed over stealth; take those buildings to shelter if it passes over.”

She scraped a couple of steps forward and looked through her carbine’s scope just as the rapidly darkening sky suddenly lit up like daylight for a split-second. Tar studied the platform, looking for any signs they had been spotted. After a few seconds, a deafening boom washed over the mountainside they were on. The sky lit up again, and Tar growled. “We’re exposed - whatever we do, we have to do it quickly!” The Commando looked over at the squad leader.

The Cradle

The hit from her stim stick moments before rushed up Freyr’s spine, like a thick fog. The music slowed in tempo slightly and rose in pitch.

“Who says we need Wallace? We have a bar right here, all around us!” As if to demonstrate, Freyr snatched a square green bottle away from the lips of a teenager with orange trunks. She effected a sweet smile when he looked angrily her way, and pushed him off the side with one almighty shove.

The soaking wet biologist upended the bottle and took in a mouthful of the pungent liquid. It tasted like liquorice and chilli peppers. Freyr winced as she swallowed, then took another smaller sip. “We can make our own party.”

---

A long bike whirred out of the long lines of air traffic above the city centre and dropped down to the promenade overlooking the lake. A girl in a full body protective suit and helmet parked it next to the man who was watching the concert and hopped off the bike. He looked over and offered her his binoculars, which she took wordlessly and moved to the parapet.

“I marked them. The mask is back on now, but body language matches known records.” He remarked. The girl quickly rewound the footage recorded in the device until she got a look at half of Freyr’s face. “Any shields?”

“I can’t detect anything. The lizards might.”

The girl clucked her tongue softly, tapping the parapet with a fingernail.

The Cradle

Freyr hung awkwardly in Marae’s embrace for a moment, feet softly kicking to help them float. Then she wrapped her arms around the scientist’s muscular form and gave her a squeeze. She wanted to say ‘thank you’, but couldn’t. The mental congestion was the same as if she were crying out of the water.

“My son is missing too. Wallace’s voice entered Freyr’s head. It was clear she had been listening in, somehow. ”That was why I called on you specifically. You may not know it yet, but you have influence with our people, Dr Lang. More than you know. We can help each other.”

Freyr didn’t say anything, but released Marae after a few seconds. ”Let's go up. I’m ready for a drink.” She signalled in a monotone fashion. The music had been in a lull for a little bit, but was building up to a crescendo again.

“Just forget
All about fate
While I unlock this gentleman’s promise.”

The sound of the band exploded back into Freyr’s ears as she broke the surface of the water. Turning her head, she could just about see the singer on their raised platform, holding onto the microphone stand while knocking their knees together.

“With flesh like fire, but it lacks the colour
And chemical laughs fly round like drama.”

Freyr grabbed onto the nearest pontoon and dragged herself up, clothes releasing large amounts of water back into the lake. ”I don’t understand what you mean.” Freyr sent back to Wallace. She looked back at the ship, which was mobbed by partygoers.

The Cradle

Freyr did smile a tiny bit at Nirann’s deadpan humour. It didn’t last long though. “I’m just finding it hard to be optimistic right now. I spent my whole adult life so far trying to understand the next phase in synthetic life. Now we have the greatest chance I'm ever going to see, sitting in my lap, and all I want to do is find my family and get far away. Go live in the wild somewhere. As long as I have them, the rest of this galaxy can burn for all I care.” Even as she said it, Freyr was surprised by the vitriolic words emerging from her head. But she knew they were real, if buried deep down like white embers in a dying fire.

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.”