The Cardinal Directive: Mission Log #50

Head Above Water

[Start of Season 2]
[Previous]

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>> ...
>> Confirmed.
>> Now playing Mission Log #50...

The camera flickers and shifts as its view is revived, flitting chaotically through several scenes.

Fast moving water, something slamming heavily into the camera and its bearer as Solena is carried down the river. The entire surface of the water is lit with shafts of golden light, but the darkness below is deep and unending. The dichotomy of color spins endlessly over itself.

Wendy, back that night outside the biodome, watching Jericho fly towards Olympica, finally allowing herself to shiver and shake with the cold and tears.

Water.

Finally, darkness.

And a voice.

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Solena’s eyes didn’t open immediately as she laid there, no strength in her limbs to do much of anything else. It wasn’t clear when she’d lost consciousness. Pain throbbed in her temple, and her entire nervous system was still tingling like someone had connected her to a low electrical current.

Somehow, she’d made it into the mud along a riverbank. Her training had kicked in and allowed the current to take her to the side rather than fighting the river. She imagined, at least. Thumbing slowly through her databanks, she had no memory of it.

The voice came again, garbled and distant, but at the same time somewhere right in the middle of her head. A light ripple moved down her spine, but she barely felt it. She imagined her entire nervous system looked like it had been teased with a comb.

It took effort to remember what had happened. The river, Oreo, the chase.

The voice came a third time, with a sudden and frightening clarity.

“Solena.”