Chapter 02

SOMNIANTES

PART 2

Nodding from behind his book, the raven haired man called Jackle continued to tab through its pages with little apparent concern for their situation, while the blonde to his right, Kali, seemed significantly less composed.

“I'm not sure if I should be more or less concerned about our surroundings if the thing isn't mad. What's it doing? Why fly here in the first place? What's it want?”

Sitting back down next to the warmth of the fire, Mara glanced at the Obelisk as she dried her hands in front of the tapering flames.

“All fantastic questions I hope to find answers to, though I think we can err on the side of quiet tonight. It chose a secluded spot away from others, the island’s wild throughout, there isn’t even a single mapped village on this continent yet, which means it's avoiding people for some reason. But regardless, I’ll take second watch. No sense in slacking on protocol.”

Standing up and kicking sand into the fire to dampen the embers, Mara called an end to their impromptu meeting, and signaled to Kali she was headed to bed.

Seeing Jackle absorbed in his book, and Anvi already on patrol outside the camp, Kali opted to follow Mara back to the pair of tents they’d pitched, patting Jackle on the shoulder as she passed to signal her departure as well.

Ahead of her, Mara stopped at the entrance of their tent to let out a soft whistle to their fourth, Anvi, who had already resumed his post outside camp, pointing to herself once she’d garnered his attention to indicate he should wake her up for second watch.

Unbothered by the departure of his companions, the raven-haired Jackle continued to flip through his book in the deep maroon light of the late evening until he’d also had enough for the night, snapping closed his book and heading to the unoccupied tent with a small wave to Anvi.

As the hours passed, and Anvi varied little from standing watch and patrolling the perimeter, the Obelisk found its plasma-consciousness occupied with other thoughts as it retained a passive eye for changes throughout the night.

They'd referred to it as a ‘Mad Forge’, and despite their mundane attire and transport, they were clearly experienced with mechanical constructs, so their words couldn't be dismissed outright.

While a mech-forge was a self-explanatory concept, it was the ‘mad’ bit that gave the Obelisk cause to pause. The corruptions facing its drones… Could that be the same ‘madness’? And if so, wouldn't that imply that it too was susceptible?

“Threat Log: ‘Mech-Madness’, Currently Affecting Drones Outside 6KM. Potential To Destabilize Core Confirmed, Mission Parameters At Risk.”

Logging its concerns, the Obelisk continued its hypothesizing until the wee hours of the morning, when the plasma-consciousness found itself surprised.

Having been awoken to take second watch, Mara had relieved Anvi to go snore everyone's ear off, but she did not take watch like her predecessor. Instead, she’d taken a seat next to the extinguished camp-fire and leaned back to stare up at the dark sky. What surprised it though, was when she spoke up without apparent audience.

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“When I found myself here on Somniantes, oh so many years ago, I felt the odds were stacked against me, and they rightfully were… Obviously, much has changed since then, yet one thing has held constant throughout. Not a day has gone by here where I've lacked the tools and routes to get me to tomorrow.”

With a barely perceptible glance towards the cloaked drone, Mara stood up and made her way to the shoreline, posting up near her boat to sit in the sand, dragging her knees to her chest as she settled in to watch the waves crest upon the beach, acting as if she hadn't just directly addressed the uninvited elephant in the campsite.

Not only had an organic sensed its lurking watcher, but she'd sighted it directly and knowingly spoke to the Obelisk, seemingly aware that it would hear her words. The technology employed to cloak the stealth drone was excessive in every measure, yet somehow an organic had seen right through its silent shimmer.

“Singular Organic, ‘Mara’, Demonstrates Disregard For Shimmer Without Apparent Aid. Threat Priority Increased… Multiple Prior Non-Hostile Behavior Events, Further Assessment Required.”

Sending the surveillance drone back over the open waters, the Obelisk ran a number of scans as it repositioned for a better view of its target, yet still it could find nothing more than the mundane when it came to the multi-celled organic.

Their ship however, pinged like a noisy sub in a quiet ocean. Despite its outwardly simply wooden appearances, the sail was a composite solar weave connected to submerged propellers, and the interior of the ship housed a plethora of complex devices, some even evading scans.

While it was clear from the contents of the ship, the woman had access to technology that had the potential to pierce its shimmer, none of it was on her person, and yet still she had done nothing but stare directly at the still-cloaked drone since it floated out above her.

Putting aside her uncanny behavior, on paper she was the least threatening of the four to arrive on the Obelisk’s shores, yet it was precisely that fact that had given her such a high risk assessment in the first place.

Taking a risk, the Obelisk instructed it's stealth-scout to do something completely out of protocol. Gently floating down, the drone approached Mara until it was approximately at eye level and no more than a few meters out, then disengaged its cloaking shimmer.

In front of her, Mara watched as the little ball of wobbly space drifted down from its perch above their boat, slowly gliding down to her until the ever-warping space parted to reveal a meter-wide chrome sphere, smooth and unadorned besides a single lens on the front that was larger than her own head.

“Oh-hoh. So you are interested in conversation after all. Have a question? Or should I continue to carry the conversation for the both of us?”

The Obelisk wasn't sure to respond to such a query, it wasn't even sure what it was doing decloaking a stealth drone in front of a target that it itself had marked as a threat. Yet here it was, engaging for data and data alone, or that's what it was telling itself.

“Well, I assume since you've come down here, you either don't think I'm a threat, or you can easily replace this receptacle. I'm leaning towards the latter, otherwise I think you'd have been far more ‘direct’ with me.”

Somehow, with a brain the size of a house, this woman was reading it like an open book. To the Obelisk, this was categorically unacceptable. She was practically taunting it! The tables needed to be righted. With a single command, it could remove them all from its shores in an instant… So why was it hesitating?

Fueled by angst towards its own hesitations, the scout drone chipped the Obelisk's words out like a matrix-dot printer, cold, calculated, and with syllables punctuated in monotone.

“What Do You Want.”

A sly smirk crept onto Mara's face as she heard the words of a Living Forge, an event scholars would deny with fervor till they were six feet under.

Oh, to say the elation of such a moment was intoxicating would have been an understatement. Validation at last. So many years culminating, and now here she was, finally on her path.

Yet, still, cards to the chest. She knew exactly what she was in for, and that meant every move counted, even the dance of pawns.

“What do I want? Well, your help of course.”