Freyr felt her ears and cheeks burning as the Speaker addressed her. She was talking about things Freyr had tried hard to suppress to fulfil her role as lead scientist. Freyr glanced up at the bank of screens and saw Outremer’s high command regarding her with...pity? Disgust? It was impossible to tell. Many of the top brass may not have been well aware of her conflict of interest. Freyr looked down at her arms and tried not to lose composure.

“How long would it take? Theoretically.” Benoit Souza spoke up. He was very soft spoken; so much that his microphone artificially enhanced the sentence. Freyr looked up, letting out a shuddering breath. “We’d need...a few months at least. Not including the lab setup.” She could tell that wasn’t the answer a lot of them wanted to hear. They had no doubt all been briefed that Outremer’s presence in the Cradle had little more than nine months left.

“I don’t want to rule anything out.” President DeWinter admitted. “How long can we resist this expulsion from the Cradle? Are there any more counter-measures we can take in the short term?” Freyr nodded, glad of the life line. “Yes, we’ve been making strides toward developing a ‘counter-insurgency’ terraform grid which will resist the corruption, and more effective weapons to-”

“Dr Lang, you’ve been away from the Cradle for weeks.” The Director-General stopped her. “The Cradle’s aggression is becoming more sophisticated faster than we can develop the means to stop it. The corruption is no longer limited to the borderlands - if i may, this is footage extracted from one of the labs in NA yesterday. Apologies, it is quite graphic.” 

After a short pause, the bank of people on the screen disappeared, replaced by a video clip taken from a CraSec helmet cam. It showed a long corridor with plate glass windows looking into sub-labs. A dozen scientists sprinted toward the camera, pursued by what could only be described as a giant post-aquatic cephalopod. The thing’s body was contorting to fit into the narrow space. Three fleshy arms reached out to grab people and shove them into a beak-like mouth. The soundtrack consisted of blaring alarms and screaming. 

The Director-General stopped the clip after about fifteen seconds. “That creature did not despawn after the surge had abated. It is still wreaking havoc as we speak.”