75. Sound and Silence

The blinding sun of the desert soon sunk into the west as the truck continued to travel southerly towards Tiltspire. The scenery was ever-changing, and driving through the landscape as opposed to walking was a delight. Still, all the group felt the desire to get the crystal home safe and sound. The responsibility weighed on their minds and directed their thought. Nothing could be planned until the crystal was home.
 
So, they took it in turns to drive. As the heat of the day disappeared and the velvety night lay upon the desert, Marius took over driving for a while, turning on the headlights and staying hyper-vigilant for looming bounders and rocks. This awareness was only compounded as the truck headed further south into cooler, wetter lands. Trees now dotted the landscape, with scrubby bushes leaping out at the truck from the darkness. After a few hours driving, Marius was glad to hand the driving back to Fureva for a spell. In the dark Fureva had the advantage, her hearing adding details that her eyes could not pick out of the gloom.
 
Thus, the truck entered a sparse forest following an old tradeway or large animal track. The trees were thicker here, lining the track and hiding what lay beyond them with branches and bushes. Many of the trees in this space were covered in black nodules, much like the ones they’d harvested to make their rubber armour. Curious, Fureva stopped the truck a moment and climbed out. She poked a nodule, it did nothing, unlike the ones in the forest days to the west. Still, they were similar enough to make Fureva wonder.
 
Suddenly, she was aware of a…nothing coming up behind. She turned and focused her sonar on the spot, and the same information returned. A blob of…nothing…was headed along the ground towards them. Twenty metres away, she could sense a space with no sound or shape emanating from it. Marius, who had got out to stretch his legs, noticed Fureva’s attention.
“I know that look. You have your worried look. Should we be leaving?”
Fureva said nothing but picked up a good fist-sized rock and threw it at the blank spot. The rock sailed through the air and shattered into dust against…thin… nothing. The earth under their feet rumbled menacingly.
 
“Please, can we just get out of here?” Marius said, heading back to the truck. He pulled his light blaster and shot at the area Fureva had been interested in. He left a scorch mark in the grass.
Fureava watched as the nothing split into two, one heading for Marius, the other continuing towards her. Now she could just see the profile of a large stalking cat, a pure hunter made of…the lack of sound.
“Watch out!” Fureva cried, and Marius rolled aside in time to feel the cat spring past him. He turned on his embedded cyphers, and one crackled and snapped, burning his skin.
Forgetting the second animal to watch Marius’ success, Fureva failed to dodge the attack on her and felt the beast leap onto her chest and bite her in the arm. The teeth were like hypodermic needles, stilling the blood, muscle and sinew of her arm. If not for the electrical field of her armour, she was unsure if she’d been able to extract the beast. Feeling the shock, however, it leapt away and circled, looking for another angle.
 
In the truck, both Nox and Jaden were asleep. The lack of roars and cries had failed to wake them. There was no help to be found from that quarter. In frustration, Fureva sent out a Thunderbeam, a wave of concentrated sound that hit the cat stalking her and created a link. Now, the cat seemed wary of this new prey, its form seemed less defined, and there was more of a vibration into the stony ground.
“So, you don’t like sound, huh? Well, there is more where that came from.”
 
Marius was having a tough time sensing his cat. Without Fureva’s sonar, the cat was invisible. He lashed out with his new toy, a molecular rearranger. It hit the ground and turned the dust and dirt into bright, sparking crystal. The cats attacked. This time both jinking aside in time, with Marius landing a fist into the soft side of the unseen creature.
 
The truck jumped to Fureva’s Thunderbeam, and both Nox and Jaden woke up with a start. Unsure what their companions were fighting, Nox scanned the area Fureva was paying attention to. A cat the size of a large jaguar stalked around her, made entirely of sound energy.
“Animated soundwaves, “ She said to Jaden, “They’re fighting cats made solely of sound.”
Jaden pulled out an io and formed it into a bomb. Throwing it at a space near Marius, the bomb sent out a blinding flash as well as forcing dust from the ground to interact with the energy waves. Scintillating light beams and dust filled out the body of the creature, making it easier to see.
 
“Good one, Jaden!” Marius crowed and struck out with confidence at the cat. The molecular rearranger stuck the energy, dust and light, forming a type crystalline cat. Defined and visible now, the cat also had extra mass, which seemed to add to its speed and resilience. Fureva watched, knowing this was not a fight she could win with fast talk and a quick wit. “Nox, do you think we could make a chain link from this stuff?”
“Make it into a chainlink, “ Nox scoffed from the truck, “I want to make one a pet!”
Fureva charged the chain and drew upon her stronger Yung personality.
 
The light inside Marius’ cat seemed to coalesce at its centre, and it turned to strike once more. This time, crystalline teeth sunk into unarmoured skin, and Marius' ablative electrical armour seemed to have no effect on the beast. Fureva dodged her cat and then drew upon the strength of the Yung. With a roar of anger, Yung glowered at the beast, waiting for her chance to strike.
 
Seeing Jaden’s success, Nox tried to cover Yung’s cat with dust with her Hedge magic. Though the dust rose around it, it didn’t ‘stick’, the waves forcing the particles away. Eventually, it fell to the ground useless.
“This is ridiculous!” Jaden cried and climbed into the front driver seat. She revved the still-idling engine into a roar to intimidate other fractious beings from the area.
 
Marius aims and fires his rearranger at the crystalline cat as its transparent muscles bunched, launching itself at him. The rearranger struck first, making the creature even denser than it was, solidifying it completely mid-pounce. Marius stumbled away as the cat froze in place, its crystal talon out slashing an arching rend that never occurred. The glow in its interior said it was time to get out of there and Marius climbed into the back seat of the truck.
“Time to go, Furry!” He yelled to Yung, chain whipping back and forward as Jaden put the pedal down and the truck disappeared into the forest, on the glow of its taillight swerve visible.
 
BOOM! A shockwave shuddered through the trees near the truck, making all three occupants duck. Somewhere behind, Yung braced for the impact that simply went around her, armour and her sheer force of will protecting her. Jaden’s foot did not release the pedal, however. She would have kept going if it hadn't been for the truck coming to a shuddering halt by itself. The engine wined, and the wheels spu,n but the truck sunk up to its axles and stopped.
“I’ll go out and have a look?” Nox asked Jaden, who nodded. She flitted out the truck window and into the air so she could get a little perspective. The truck was indeed bogged, but not in a hanging swamp or boggy land but in ground made liquid in a very neat and precise band between the trees. At one side of the path they were following, two crates lay, partially buried in the sludgy ground.
 
“Hey, look!” Nox pointed out the crates to Marius, “Possible shinies!”
“Yes, but that doesn’t seem to be our first priority at the moment, “He complained, climbing out of the truck to sink chest-deep in the muck. Nox shrugged and let him wade out as she flew up the crates. They’d been opened and raided recently. A discharged cypher lying nearby coincided with the instant bog and a convenient goat-like horn lying in one of the crates.
“Margr!” Nox exclaimed as Marius pulled out an intact cypher for her inspection.
 
Looking around, Marius confirmed two-legged hoof prints trotting away from the area to the north through a gap in the trees. He followed them to the mouth of a cave, and his mood soured.
“Well, whatever ran away may be back with friends. We’re responsible for the crystal.” He looked around, realising they were still missing a companion, “Where’s Furry?”
 
Fureva…now Yung was back at the blast site. There wasn’t much to see. The explosion of a creature made of energy didn’t leave much behind. She turned and could see the brake lights of the truck glowing through the forest. She was just about to start heading in that direction when another explosion, this time of wings caught her attention to the east. Bursting through the canopy, a flock of pigeons flew up, circling an area just east of the truck. Yung snorted, sensing something was up and jogged back to the truck.
 
Jaden was taking the opportunity to provide everyone with a new mutation for the day. Though random, they were often highly useful, and no one begrudged her, her daily prank. Marius was surrounded by a disruption field that messed with his enemy's thoughts, Nox’s vision brightened, and she could see clearly even in the dark forest. Jaden acquired telekinesis and was able to move things with her mind. Yung returned as was zapped by the capricious Jaden. A stinger grew from one of her fingers. Yung looked at it as if it were something alien and not her own finger.
“Nevermind. You’ll get a chance at something new tomorrow,” Jaden patted Yung and stepped carefully away.
 
Before any hunting of margr began, it was decided that the truck needed clearing from the muck in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Jaden was adamant she could help with her new mutation, and Marius thought he could probably help pull. Nox slipped in behind the wheel. She’d be of no use outside the truck, maybe she could help steer it. Yung looked at the problem, pulled out a cypher and used it on herself. She grew another half a metre taller and bulked out, making her stronger and heavier. She attached her chain to the truck and braced herself. Jaden started raising the truck. It was too heavy. She never could have budged it alone. But with her lightening its weight, it was less for Marius and Yung to pull, and it was soon clear of the muck.
 
They parked the truck outside the cave Marius found. If it had to be left unattended in a margr-infested forest, at least it was close. Yung led the way into the cave, her sonar mapping the system as she went. Nox followed, her new mutated vision perfect for the near-perfect dark in the cave. Jaden and Marius followed with torches raised, the flickering flames turning shadows into monsters.
 
 
 
 
 
 
A second group of crates were just inside the cave mouth. One had a few good iotum, which Jaden catalogued and carefully stowed into Bellyache. Scorchmarks showed where two small robots had fought back and were destroyed in turn. A pink outline of a medium-sized creature with one horn was spattered across a craggy wall. The margr had certainly tried out many of the cyphers.
 
A sound caught Yung’s attention and she saw two sets of rough stairs, one going up, the other down. Through her trunk, Yung sniffed for nanodevices, and she thought that possibly the scent and sound had led up. She took the stairs going up, and the group followed. In a small cave decorated with dripping stalagmites and stalactites, Yung found a small purple coloured worm the size of a cat. It initially cringed from Yung’s touch. When the hand did nothing, it grew curious and crawled towards her. The worm was warm, and it snuggled into Yung’s palm in response to her warmth. Gently, she picked it up for the hovering Nox to see.
“Squeee! It’s so cute! Can we keep it?”
“I refuse to take responsibility for another crazy monster you’ve picked up,” Jaden said, her serious voice echoing around the small cavern, “This is your problem.” She then fed the worm a piece of travel biscuit, and her cautious expression melted, “Oh! You are adorable!” She contemplated the worm riding bellyache until she noticed how much it liked the smell of something inside.
“Maybe it would be best if you stay with Yung,” She said, and the worm was placed on Yung’s shoulder. The worm sneezed. Both Nox and Yung were covered in pink sticky dust.
“At least we found out how the wall art happened,” Nox laughed, and they left that cavern for the stairs and headed down.
 
This was a much larger cavern with a pool of water lapping lazily over two crates, all on the ceiling. At the far end of the cavern, whatever was keeping the crates and water up gave way and a waterfall spilled from the pond down to the cavern floor. Spotting the crates underwater, Marius walked into the centre of the cavern. Here, he could feel the tug of gravity lifting him up. He jumped and found himself swimming upside down above the rest of the party. Diving…up, he reached the first of the crates and tried lifting it free. It was a struggle, especially underwater, but the crate did budge, and like breaking the seal on a suction cup, the force holding everything in place gave way. The pond, the two crates, and Marius came crashing down on the rest of the party. Everyone was swept off their feet and down through the cavern and over a ledge into the darkness below. Nox, blinked out of the water and hovered above the churning water as her friends, bellyache and the crates were swept away into a lower cavern.
 
Bruised and disorientated, the other three found their feet in an unusually circular room. They collected up around a rockfall that had once been the wall collapsed into the centre of the space. A small set of metal stairs led up to a well-carved passageway. Marius took in the dimension of the space. Though smaller, it had a very similar look to the circular caverns under Rockspire, and he started to wonder.
“Nox, could you…Nox? Where’s Nox?” He looked around, but the slight young girl had not washed down with them. He looked to where the water was now draining, but the ledge only showed more darkness.
“Ah…Nox?” He called down the second waterfall.
“Yes?” He heard from behind, and Nox, wet but unharmed, flitted down the waterfall to join her friends.
“Oh…good, scan this floor. Doesn’t it look familiar?” She scanned it and found the ground was very dense, with some sort of machinery far below. It was indeed very like the rooms under Rockspire. Maybe this time, they could find out what they were for.
 
Opening the crates, the bruises were forgotten as they found the remains of the gravity cypher, another punch glove cypher along with a third that Nox put in her satchel and a bunch of oitum for Bellyache. Now that much of the water had drained away, Jaden became aware of a repeating message. It could have been in an alien language, but the message was so distorted and garbled it was hard to make out what it was. She worked out that the locus of the sound was the centre of the room and figured out the rockfall was interfering with the signal. Marius and Yung quickly moved rocks and boulders out of the way. Jaden found the device and adjusted it until the sound suddenly burst around them into a rhythmic pattern.
 
CATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSANDDOGSANDCATSANDDOGSCATSAND
 
After the sonic device in the desert, Nox instantly blocked the sound, pulling down her helmet to stop its effects. Marius and Yung also brushed off the annoying sound’s rhythmic effects. Jaden…maybe because she was closer to the source, maybe it called to her, failed, taking damage and succumbing. The sound entered her mind and took control, making her limbs jump and quiver.
 
“What is it?” Nox asked, fearful of connecting to Jaden for fear of picking up the terrible dancing sickness.
“I think I’ve heard of this,” Marius said, dredging from his hidden depth the random piece of information, “They called it a weaponised meme, a type of sound weapon designed to take hold of someone's mind.”
Slowly, the dancing petered out. Marius took his chance and pulled Jaden aside. He made her sit and spent some time drawing Jaden’s consciousness back to the surface. The meme, either by programming or by guile recognised his intervention as an attack and took control of her limbs again, until Marius could find its source and deprogrammed Jaden.