Cath

The Cradle

The blonde spook stopped mid stride as the airship appeared right in front of her. She sighed, hands on her hips as the doors opened. “What’s the meaning of this-" She trailed off as Vreta stepped out. She'd received word that he was alive a couple of minutes before, in Freyr's flat, but the sight of this half blasted alien lizard still shook her. Half of his face had been blown away, and she could see exposed innards glinting in the street lights.

Five Nine Five quickly smoothed over her surprised expression into something more closely resembling concern. "Vreta...Look what they did to you. I’m glad you survived.” She tsked, taking in the extensive damage to the alien’s exterior. “At least you had military-grade augmentations to save you.” She looked squarely in Vreta’s eyes.

“What is it you wanted to talk about? Would it be something to do with your curiously obscured conversation with one of our scientists?” At the same time as this, Five Nine Five was communicating non-verbally with her handler via implant. “We might have a problem. I need another agent to cover my VIP, right now. Transfer operational authority to them straight away.” The periphery of her vision flashed briefly, signalling her message had been received. The agent smiled sweetly at the Rothians.

The Cradle

Five Nine Five bustled into the lobby elevators behind Freyr and sent it hurtling up to the seventh floor. She poked her head out when the doors opened back up again and looked both ways down the hallway. Satisfied it was clear, the spook led Freyr out and marched her to her apartment door. She snatched the keycard from Freyr’s hand and opened the door herself. Walking softly into the dark room with her pistol raised, Five Nine Five pantomimed searching the room before eventually giving Freyr the all clear to come in.

When Freyr came in and turned the lights on, she could see the spook standing by one of the large windows. Freyr realised someone was speaking to her via an implant, as the woman was intensely concentrating on the floor under her feet. Looking Freyr’s way briefly, the agent motioned for her to turn the lights off again, which she did. “Understood, ETA on a perimeter for this building? Copy.” Five Nine Five confirmed as Freyr took her coat off.

After a few moments, the agent disconnected her comms and looked quickly out of the window again before walking over to Freyr. “I have to go. Police are sixty seconds away, they’re going to guard your apartment and the perimeter of the building. You’ll be safe here until we collect you tomorrow. The agent then quickly squeezed past Freyr and headed to the door. “Wait, where are you going?” Freyr called after, but the agent didn’t answer, instead exiting the apartment and locking the door after her.

---

The Human droid handler had just walked down the truck’s ramp after receiving the all clear from their surrounding area. He could direct the droids with just the use of a neural implant, so when the commander got to him the man’s eyes were rolled back in his head. His arms were slightly raised in front of him and all his fingers twitched relentlessly. When the Rothian spoke, his eyes rolled back and he looked decidedly annoyed at the interruption. “They’re out of action for at least a few days. Nerve agent.” He explained, glancing at the pair of droids inside the truck as they secured the pair of bodies for extraction. “File an incident report and we’ll let you know when they’re awake again.”

---

After confirming through Demeter that it was Human police trucks she could hear arriving outside, Five Nine Five opened up the security plating and stepped through the double doors. Half a dozen vehicles had arrived and parked in the middle of the road. Behind them, the agent could see a mixture of Rothian and Human vehicles circling the market and an area of the park a few hundred metres away. The air was electrified with sirens and airship engines, and she could feel a cold wind ruffling her coat. One of the officers from the closest truck approached her and saluted.

“Your orders, ma’am?”

“Take six and guard apartment 712, have the rest form a perimeter around this building. No one in or out tonight. The AI is expecting you.”

The officer nodded, and began relaying the orders to the other people. Five Nine Five looked around for her ride. After a couple of seconds she spotted it, an anonymous black flyer that had landed on the wide curb about thirty metres away. She half-jogged toward it.

The Cradle

Freyr and Five Nine Five were crossing the road to the front doors of her apartment building when small arms fire crackled across the wide expanse of the park. Freyr looked back, but it wasn’t long before the agent pushed her head down and hauled her inside. “Lock the doors, let no one in or out!” The agent ordered the concierge droid, who bowed as the double doors next to him slammed shut and a metal roller shutter began creeping down the glass.

---

Five Nine Five’s Skinner sighting and subsequent call for extraction created a high priority flag in the Babylon law enforcement command system. A team of special counter terrorism firearms officers, stationed a mile away from the park, were put into action after a short delay. Their armoured truck lifted off from a side street, rose to just above tree level and powered through the dark until they could see a brightly lit cobbled square underneath them. There was a disturbance in the park, but their primary objective was to extract the VIP. Five Nine Five’s extraction pin was located in this square, so without any further info they came in for a fast, quiet landing.

The large vehicle crushed several of the stalls underneath it’s vast bulk. A ramp descended quickly at the back and a dozen heavily armoured soldiers crunched out. Their uniforms were black, with 'CTSFO' printed in white on the helmet and variations of ‘Caution’ printed on their chest in three languages. They were all droids, but it was almost impossible to gauge that from the exterior. Every inch of a human’s flesh would be covered by the armour they wore, from the gloves to the opaque helmet.

The droids fanned out, quickly moving to secure the extraction zone. They quickly identified two heat signatures on the ground and moved to them, looking to identify the VIP. It turned out these two were unknown, alive but immobilised by specialist nerve rounds. The order came in from their handler to detain them, so a droid easily picked up each of the prone figures and took them toward the waiting truck.

The rest of the officers moved to secure each of the entrances to the market. The gunfire from nearby had now ceased, and instead the droids detected the whirr of non-Human dropships overhead and the wail of approaching police sirens. Three of the droids were just moving to secure one of the archways when an unidentified, non-Human entity came running through it. All three of the officers raised their heavy rifles, and one addressed the alien in a deep, commanding Human voice.

“Firearms police! Get down on the ground!”

The Cradle

“Because your embassy is miles away, and her apartment is just there.” The woman replied, pointing to Freyr’s grey colonial mansion block on the edge of the park. “Come on, let's go.” She urged, rising to her feet and hauling Freyr up from the bench, pistol down at her side. Tightly holding onto Freyr’s arm, she began weaving through the last of the evening crowd, eyes on a swivel. Freyr looked back and could see Vreta following behind. There was a yell ahead and she whirled back around.

An old lady wearing a filthy apron appeared from round the side of one of the stalls brandishing a chef’s knife. She charged at Freyr with the knife at stomach height, shouting at the top of her lungs. The agent let go of Freyr’s arm, stabilised her stance, brought the pistol up and shot her silenced pistol. The old lady clattered to the floor and lay still, her knife skittering along the cobbles. Once they saw the gun, the crowd around them erupted into panicked yelling and began running in all directions.

All except a man, the one Freyr had seen earlier, who smashed through a bamboo partition with two meathooks and ambitiously swung one at the agent from her other side. Her hood coming off to expose her short blond locks, she pivoted and leant back, the first hook coming within inches of her face. The agent pushed Freyr roughly back towards Vreta, raised her left arm to parry the second swing. The hook scraped against something hard under her coat. The agent stuck her pistol against the man's chest and shot twice. He stumbled backwards, crashing back through the remains of the partition.

“Two hostiles down, moving VIP to her residence.” The agent whispered into her comms set, looking back to check on Freyr and Vreta. “Everyone ok?” She mouthed. Freyr nodded. The agent guided them through the now empty marketplace to the leafy arch Freyr had entered through not long before. After a look through, she rounded the corner with her pistol up, and Freyr followed soon after.

The first thing she noticed was the lanterns that usually lighted up the path through the park to the road on the other side were dark. The whole area was pitch black. Freyr nearly stumbled and fell, but then she could feel a firm hand grab her arm and guide her along the sloping pathway. The agent moved quickly, calling back encouragingly for Vreta. “Come on, let's move, quickly!”

---

Out in the gloom of the park, either side of the pathway, ten men and women with compact night vision goggles emerged from underneath their signal dampening blankets. They picked up their weapons and began sprinting toward their target.

---

Freyr estimated that the three of them were almost exactly halfway between the street food market and the road by her building when they attacked. The first thing was the sound of multiple sets of shoes thudding on the wet grass. Then she faintly made out shapes running at them from either side. “Run!” The agent hissed, yanking her arm and setting off at a run, taking Freyr with her. It wasn’t until ten seconds of solid running later that Freyr finally looked behind and noticed Vreta wasn’t with them. In fact, no one was. All she could see was a writhing mass of dark shapes in the moonlight, and the sounds of muffled shouting and the scraping of metal. "Where's Vreta?!" Freyr half-shouted, but the agent didn't reply as she pulled her into a run again.

The Cradle

Freyr was secretly pleased that the soft spoken alien liked her rationale. He seemed very knowledgeable, and it was so refreshing to share ideas with someone from an advanced species like the Rothians. She did have one other theory that had been gaining momentum as the data pieced together in her mind. It terrified her, but it didn’t pass her lips, as something told her to stop. Perhaps it was the medication, granting her clarity of mind, but she suddenly realised she’d said quite a lot. Her work wasn’t officially ‘classified’ top secret, but she had been instructed not to divulge technical information about the Cradle to anyone outside the ‘need to know’ loop. Vreta’s charming mannerisms and leading questions had gently teased information from her drugged up head like an angler fishing in river rapids.

Freyr was thinking of ways to get the conversation into safer territory when something, or rather someone caught her attention. The man who had locked eyes with her a few moments before was looking her way again. He turned his head to track them as he walked across the market through thinning crowds, heading vaguely in the direction of the arch Freyr had entered from. When he saw Freyr was looking, his lips twisted into a malicious grin. Time seemed to slow and Vreta’s voice faded out. Freyr felt this must be the medication again, heightening her concentration. The man crossed his hand up to the left side of his face, by the cheekbone. His digits were all clenched apart from the index finger, which was crooked like a hook.

Pressing that crooked finger against his cheek, the man slowly dragged it down the left side of his face, ending at the chin. The sickening smile never went away.

A hooded figure sat on the bench next to them quickly got up and knelt down in front of Freyr, who wrenched her eyes away from the display to look down at them. The figure pushed their hood back slightly, and Freyr recognised the blonde female agent who’d showed up at her place with the pills and the body bag. “Dr Lang, listen to me very carefully ok? The Skinners are here. They’re here for you, so we need to get you out of here right now. Do you understand?” Freyr’s mouth hung open in astonishment. Why would they be here for her? What had she done to them? “Wait, why are you he-” Freyr began, but the agent obviously had no intention of replying as she quickly spoke to someone via her comms over the top of Freyr.

“Five Nine Five calling in a Skinner sighting at Boycott park. Have VIP seventy ten, need urgent extraction, over.” She obviously didn’t like the answer, gritting her teeth before looking back at Freyr. “I need to get you to get you to your apartment, right now. Lets go.” The agent pulled a sleek black silenced pistol out from her long coat. She looked up at Vreta. “Will you help me? I think we both want Dr Lang to make it out of here alive.”

The Cradle

Freyr sighed, none of this made any sense. “It sounds like the thing wanted to abduct you as well. Good thing I showed up!” She chuckled, rather morosely. “But you are right. We’ve had teams looking for other instances of the same technology, but found nothing in over three hundred years.” Freyr reached into the deep pockets of her coat and pulled out the sketch she’d been working on while talking to Vreta on the phone.

On a real-paper pad was one side of the legs, body and neck of the creature, in firm graphite strokes. “Despite its durability, the creature’s makeup leaves lots to be desired.” She traced the very end of the neck, where it connected to that ghastly visage. “There was a lot of rugged tissue where the face appeared to have been transplanted on, or grown at an unnatural rate. I think the beast would struggle to turn its head much without moving its whole body.” She moved her finger to trace the front right leg. “I believe the Cradle has actually devolved the leg layout to support more weight. But as a result the Coxa here...” She gently tapped the bulbous pack of muscle connecting the leg to the body. “It’s composed of much softer stuff than the rest of its body, which makes it vulnerable.”

Her pad got a few stray drips of rain on it, so she stuffed it back into her coat pocket. “What I'm trying to say is that while the Cradle appears to have used it’s massive potential to create giant killing machines, they have serious flaws. Flaws which it could solve if it had access to evolutionary data from other life forms...” She took another bite of her now cold Gỏi cuốn. “I don’t know, it’s just a theory. But it could explain why it wants to collect different specimens. It’s learning. Squeezing evolution from millions of years to months.”

Freyr pulled her coat around her tight. The sun had completely dipped below the horizon now, and a chill breeze was beginning to pick up. “The way it spoke to you… it feels like a patchwork of imitations. Potentially another instance of it ‘learning’ to do something. But the bit about ‘parents’, plural, is interesting.” Freyr took another bite, her eyes accidentally locking with a man watching her from the other side of the market. He took a long drag of his stim-cig and looked away. “During my time studying the Cradle…” Freyr continued, watching him start moving. “I’ve begun to suspect there is more than one intelligence in the Cradle. I’ve never been able to prove it; the code is bafflingly complex. But the ‘mood’ of the environment in general changes occasionally. I wonder if the creature has just nodded to that…”

The Cradle

Freyr nodded through Vreta’s unexpectedly thorough description of his work. “So, that’s what you were doing at the compound, checking out the facilities?” She had so many questions, she couldn’t contain them any longer. “What do you think brought them there? I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but the Skinners were going to plant an explosive device in one of the office blocks. That thing, along with others, abducted all of them and their bomb. Just like something took my baby and my husband...” Freyr looked at the floor, experiencing pure sorrow. But she didn’t cry. It must have been the pill she took, bearing the brunt of her grief.

“Do you think they’re connected?” Freyr turned her whole body suddenly so she was facing him. “I just don’t understand why they’d take my family and then use my husband’s face. It’s like they wanted to goad me! To get a reaction from me somehow... And now the Skinners have gone too, it doesn’t feel right at all. The Cradle has reacted negatively to us before - corrosive algae that spreads from the Border and rots buildings for example. But never anything so advanced, so malicious.” Freyr stared into Vreta’s face, unsure what she was expecting. Comfort? Advice? “What happened in the warehouse, when that thing was talking to you. What did it say again?”

The Cradle

“1,100 years? Wow, that is a long time.” Freyr confirmed politely, taking another bite. That was one of the figures she’d memorised while gaining her doctorate, but she didn’t mind keeping that foresight to herself. She'd had precious little time talking with alien species since moving to Babylon, so it was fascinating to watch Vreta in action. The xeno-biologist in her studied everything from the movement of his jaw to the way his oversized hands manipulated the roll into his mouth.

Freyr detected a hint of humor as Vreta went through his list of past professions, so chuckled. “That’s an impressive career! I’ve only ever been a biologist, specialising in alien & machine intelligences.” Freyr admitted, feeling somewhat inadequate. “That’s how I ended up working in the Cradle. It’s the ultimate combination of organic and synthetic...Oh, it’s all grown protein here. Animal meat is an acquired taste, for the most discerning, and uh...murderous gourmet.” She laughed.

After another couple of bites, she looked at him again. “The fact that i’ll have to go back in there soon, it… it’s not a nice thought. Did you say most of your business is in the Cradle too?”

The Cradle

Freyr couldn’t help but smile as she heard the Rothian (she finally placed the species name) speak. “Well, i’m glad i could add to your time here!” She grinned as they walked to the stall. The owners recognised Freyr immediately, and greeted her fondly, but cast a wary eye over her alien companion. Freyr returned the greeting in their own language, the words and their pronunciation being fed into her mind via her comms implant. She then slowly introduced Vreta’Sori to them, before moving on to order two portions of Gỏi cuốn. They arrived quickly - three semi-transparent rolls each, sat on giant lettuce leaves in a takeaway box. The stallholders didn’t seem keen on handing the second box to the giant lizard, so Freyr quickly took it from them and handed it to Vreta.

With their food now served, Freyr guided them through the crowd to a cluster of long wooden benches which they could sit on and eat. Freyr mopped up some of the rainwater stuck on the bench with her napkins before settling down. “So, Rothian huh? I remember studying you guys in university. How does eternal life treat you? I think I'd go mad after a while.” Freyr realised that was slightly morbid but couldn’t row back now, so she leant into it. “I guess there are ways of ‘mixing things up’, in a manner of speaking?” She wrapped the first of her rolls in a lettuce leaf, dipped it into the little pot of sweet sauce provided and took a bite, savouring the delicious mix of flavours.

The Cradle

After giving Vreta the name of the park and it’s nearest transport links, Freyr went to the hall and put on a warm, waterproof coat. She eyed the pistol hanging up on it’s hook for a couple of seconds before electing to leave it. She didn’t want to be that person who was packing heat the whole time. The street food market was only a few hundred metres from the door of her building, and it was well lit the whole way. Crime was very low in this part of Babylon, but something about this meeting was still making her uneasy. Freyr was blown away by how effectively the pill she’d just taken was working; she wasn’t a ball of tangled emotions anymore. Her fear and grief and anger were still there, but they were cold, manageable objects that she could store at the back of her mind. So that’s what she did, at least while she could.

Freyr left her apartment and went down a lift to the tastefully appointed lobby. “Going somewhere nice, Dr Lang?” Demeter politely asked, inhabiting the concierge droid by the front doors. “Just to the street food market, Dem.” Freyr smiled. “Won’t be long.” The droid bowed slightly, and threw a small orb gentle into the air. It quickly expanded into a thin, wide covering that moved to hover above Freyr’s head. “For the rain, ma’am. Enjoy your walk.” The AI purred. Freyr got a notification from Vreta, informing her of his arrival, so she just nodded and moved past the droid.

She pulled her coat together and stepped out into the rain, the majority of it being deflected by her covering. She crossed the road and entered the familiar lantern-illuminated path to the centre of Boycott Park, where the street food market hid behind an arrangement of manicured bushes. The panoply of delicious smells greeted Freyr as she walked through a leafy archway into the wide cobbled square. One of the store vendors recognised her and called a friendly greeting. She smiled clumsily, aware they were probably curious why she hadn’t shown up for so long when this place was previously a nightly excursion. She’d stopped coming when David & Amy were taken; she couldn’t face all of the memories of them.

Freyr found Vreta standing awkwardly among all the hungry people moving between stalls; she noticed some were giving him funny looks and a wide berth. She approached the tall alien. “Hey. Thanks for coming.” She smiled, trying to be friendly. “Are you hungry? That neo-Viet stall I love is over there.” She pointed to a colourful wooden stand with a laughing couple chopping vegetables and meat into large pans together.