“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 [b]not[/b] 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 [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2t8atDQNr8]new song[/url]. 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.