Cath

The Cradle

Freyr smiled, pathetically grateful for Marae's calming demeanor. It felt like right now, she was at the tip of a titanic spear, moving wildly of its own volition. With the Sliske protocol now being activated, she knew Outremer’s entire infrastructure would rapidly be locked down in preparation for potential volatility. This highly choreographed chain of events had been planned by Outremer’s civil service at breakneck speed over the last few months.

Freyr briefly regretted not ringing President DeWinter herself, to plead again for an evacuation. She wondered where the head of the government was right now. In a bunker somewhere, dealing with a bombing and potential disintegration of Outreman society? Contemplating martial law? It didn’t matter now. She had her instructions, and the authority. She just had to do her best now.

“Yes, thank you. We’ll use them.” Freyr replied to Marae. “The Facilitator will know the Vault inside out, I presume. Use him if you need him. Let's keep comms tight, alright?” She turned to look at the Rothian soldiers taking up space in her already crowded command centre. “Osman, would you take these guys to the Green Room please? Get them settled in. You two as well.” Freyr looked at 595 and Vreta’Sori at this point.

595 looked at the Facilitator, who was currently still on the phone. ”There’s no time for that call with the DG. Let him know I’ll come in once the dust has settled here. Proceed with the plan until then.” The bald man glared at her. ”Alright. Don’t screw this up.” 595 nodded in response.

The Green room was long, thin and tight, with a belt of extremely robust vertical harnesses facing an equally thin observation room through a thick glass screen. 595 applied the same dark red clay to her face in a spiral pattern, starting in the divot between her nose and upper lip. She then let the technicians connect her up to her harness next to Vreta and Osman. Her mind was racing underneath the calm exterior. It was finally happening. “This is history in the making, girls and boys.” She announced over the thunderous background noise. “Let's put on a show.”

Freyr walked in, having made last-minute preparations with her team, and got secured. “Good luck everyone.” she transmitted, just before the harnesses initiated.

The Cradle

“I can’t sanction that.” Freyr shook her head immediately. “The Cradle is nothing like the Rothia Sim for AIs - it's utterly unforgiving. However advanced you think you are, it will find a way to consume you. We can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

“Power expenditure rising!” Someone called out. Freyr’s gaze snapped away from Nirann immediately and identified who was reporting in. “Show me.” She commanded, moving quickly across the blue-lit room to a long row of consoles facing the Object’s porthole. The young researcher pulled up a larger graph showing energy the Object was deploying inside its hermetic chamber.

It was still tiny by comparison to the Cradle, but its effort was tightly controlled, and no longer seemed intent on the dummy array. “It’s sniffing the partition again. How does it know where the Cradle is?” They speculated, incredulous. Absolutely no signals from the Cradle could escape the confines of the Vault. The only way out for its emissions was through the nest of filters and comms equipment on the top face.

“It’s much cleverer than all of us.” Freyr concluded, poring over the details. “The engineers just sent their report; they can’t keep the doors closed indefinitely.” Dr Wetherall shot Freyr a serious stare from across the room. She nodded. “The countermeasures were worth a shot, but I’m afraid we need to go in right away.”

Freyr straightened up, levelling a troubled look at Marae before and clapping her hands loudly. “Ok listen up!” She shouted over a growing hum from machinery built into the walls and floors all around them. “I’m our timeline forward. Get set for doors open in one hour! Those of you entering the Cradle with me, be ready in the Green Room in five! Facilitator, inform upstairs to initiate the Sliske protocol, right now.” The bald man, sweating a bit, nodded before grabbing a hardline and began keying in a passcode immediately

Freyr then turned back to Marae. “Can you hold things down here while I go in?”

The Cradle

Freyr nodded, pretending to think it over and trying not to appear nervous. It seemed Marae had still not fully understood the powers this new codex afforded them. This had been Freyr’s hope and intention - the next part would’ve been significantly harder if she knew the truth. Her top-secret directive from the top of government was to eject the Object from the Cradle if things went badly.

A proxy from the President’s staff had opened a secure direct line to her via Captain Andersen, after the incident inside the Rothian asset’s simulation. It’d become clear to them that the entire venture was compromised, and that they couldn’t reasonably stop it without losing the confidence of the government. Apparently, the anti-Cradle faction within Parliament held strong momentum, and saw this recoupling as an opportunity for a new beginning.

The proxy asked for assurances that they’d be able to persuade the Cradle to stay in position, at least over the short term. Freyr said no such guarantee could be made. So they ordered her to make a contingency plan.

“Agreed. I’ve already got the three volunteers I need from my team. Just enough people to operate the essentials, who know it best.” Freyr turned to Vreta and 595. “You don’t have to come, but I could use a couple of sets of ‘layman’ hands, so to speak. I can’t guarantee your safety, but you already know that.”

595 smiled, standing up tall. “I thought you’d never ask.”

The Cradle

“Well…” Freyr tried to collect her thoughts. Marae made a lot of good points. Was she making bad choices right now? “We’re unable to influence the Cradle’s internal systems from outside. We’re only able to interpret and redirect the signals it emits...This docking array is the first step in...years of development towards some kind of exterior command module. But right now, if something were to go wrong, our best chance of correcting things will be inside the Cradle. New Antioch is something of a ‘cockpit’, see? Or at least a saddle with stirrups. For when we need to do more than observe.

Freyr chuckled, feeling exhausted at this point. “Whether it’s wise to go in or not... I think we all understand the risks by now. But I have instructions to superintend from wherever gives us the biggest element of control over proceedings. There are potentially millions of lives at stake above ground, which the government saw fit to keep in play. I intend to keep them safe.”

The Cradle

The scientists Freyr had chosen to descend into the Vault with her fanned out into the room, rejoining their colleagues. There were more relieved hugs and hurried conversations as they got up to speed. Freyr emptied a pill into her palm before throwing it into her mouth and swallowing. She took a few deep breaths, then leapt into action.

She approached Marae, who was in the thick of the action. “Hey, we’re here. How's it going? Did you get the array we sent you?”

The Cradle

They all trooped into the Vault access building. It acted as a control centre for all signals interacting with and being extracted from the Cradle, and more recently, the new asset found on Rothia. It was buzzing with activity, as hundreds of people worked to maintain the Vault’s unique homeostasis.

The Facilitator led them through the fray to a set of heavy blast doors down a narrow corridor, guarded by half a dozen heavily-armoured CraSec troopers and two drone-cannons. Sensors scanned the group one by one from all around, filling the air with green lasers. “Ordinarily, weapons are not allowed inside the Vault. But since our esteemed Rothian guests are part-weapon, we’ve decided to make an exception just this once.” The Facilitator pontificated before the blast doors swished open.

Freyr walked into the airlock along with some others and raised her arms. Decontamination jets sprayed them from all angles, but Freyr’s gaze was fixed straight ahead of her. The next few hours could determine the fate of Outremer, did she really have what it took? Could she trust herself to stand by her oath to champion the greater good? No one appeared prepared to stop her if she couldn’t.

The opposite door of the airlock hissed open, and the first group walked out into the lab. Nestled on the inside of the Vault’s thick mechanical skin, Freyr smiled when she caught sight of team members she hadn’t seen in weeks. They were similarly busy to the people outside, scurrying between banks of consoles under sickly blue light. CraSec guards and suits carrying close-quarter rifles were everywhere, watching on.

Freyr’s mouth dropped open involuntarily when her gaze shifted to the large, incredibly thick viewing port on one wall. It afforded them an uncomfortably close view of the Rothian Object, which hung eerily suspended inside the staging area. Like the feed Freyr had seen earlier, it was so black that light didn’t reveal its spherical nature; rather it appeared as a black hole in the wall behind it. A low humming sound trickled through the speakers listening to it. “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” The Facilitator cooed, walking around Freyr. “Dear gods.” Dr Wetherall muttered from behind her.

The Cradle

“Those which weren’t covered in black bars.” Osman purred. “The Cradle is less predictable now than when you left. We will need to keep our wits about us, and look out for each other. Like you two did for me, back when this all began. Thank you for not leaving me to die, by the way. I won’t forget that.”

”Why did you attach her to these two? They have history.” 595 asked her counterpart.

”I didn’t - she volunteered. Why...are you expecting problems?”

”Maybe. I don’t want them making more friends. Run a background check on the Major; i’ll keep an eye on them in the sim.”

”Before you go in, the DG wants to talk to you about next steps. We need to be prepared to move fast. Do you know where the other assets are?”

”You don’t need to know anything about that.”

”If you’re withholding information, there’ll be very serious questions to answer”

595 didn’t reply.

The truck bounced one more time, before rumbling to a halt. The doors opened, and they exited out into a vehicle park outside a low building that hugged three bottom edges of the cube. Freyr’s neck twinged looking up to the top, and her eyes flickered across the lifts that scaled the faces with people inside. The Vault itself was a shiny chrome colour, with darker shades indicating access plates. “The rest of the team is already inside. Shall we join them?” The Facilitator asked. Freyr nodded.

The Cradle

“Relax, champ! Let the good doctor do her work, eh? The asset is snug like a bug in a rug, as they say.” The Facilitator smacked Vreta’s knee heartily from across the aisle. 595 chuckled. “There's nothing to fear, we’ve made sure of it.” He continued. Freyr stared at the two of them. Were they a couple?...Perish the thought.

Osman inclined her head in a polite gesture. “Thanks. I needed therapy, but I'm in fighting shape now. Someone has to keep the lights on, don’t they?” She gave off a haunted grin. “My sub-unit will protect you while you’re inside the Cradle, and get you out again if things go sideways. Just a warning though - New Antioch is a ghost town right now, so bring whoever you’ll need to pull levers with you. Any questions?”

The Cradle

Like so many things on Outremer, the trucks waiting to take them to the Vault were not designed for Rothians. This was especially true for the Datius, who ended up sitting awkwardly on the floor of the eight-wheeled transport.

The vehicle was meant for twenty four Humans, but only five other people joined Rareth in the back: Vreta, Freyr, the CraSec officer who coyly reintroduced herself as Major Osman from the Cradle bomb investigation, 595 and the bald Vault Facilitator.

As soon as they sat down in the lead truck, it powered away from the Mono terminal and through the bustling command complex. The inside shook violently on the uneven ground, with Osman nearly flying into Rareth with a worried expression flashing across her face. She managed to grab hold of a hoop at the last moment and stashed her weapon so she could grab one more.

Freyr was pleased to see Osman again. She was a sort-of-friendly face in an otherwise uncertain sea of people. “Four, six hours, maybe? This might be our last chance to collect data, so we can’t rush it.” Freyr reiterated. “We will get an indication of the Object’s condition once it begins interacting with our dummy array. It’ll be perfectly safe, while we try to piece together what will happen next.”

”Don’t make any sudden moves in here, Agent.” The Facilitator remained completely motionless while talking to 595, who sat next to him. ”Naval Intelligence, the Skinners, the Rothians, Earther scum - they’re all trying to crawl up your ass to learn our next move. You can keep a secret, can’t you? Just like you’re keeping secrets from us about your latest interface with the Navigator.” 595 turned her head to look at the man, who returned her stare.

”Nice try. My report was comprehensive.” She replied.

The Cradle

“It’s not a true connection, so the working hypothesis is that Object will try to troubleshoot the array’s missing piece. We can then create a bottleneck through which it will test our defences. Makes it easier for our engineers to keep it stationary, so to speak. Should keep power usage to a minimum too.” Freyr explained. Some of her team nodded along with her encouragingly.

“This operation has a green light from the President, so we don’t need to be ‘ok with that risk’. We’re here with a job to do. Get the asset to stabilise the Cradle, then convince it to stay and work with us.” The bald man reminded the group, arms crossed. “Now, if we’re all done with this tea party, the trucks are ready to get you into position.”