The Cardinal Directive: Mission Log #46

Alone Together

[Start of Season 2]
[Previous]

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>> Supplemental Audio #?% -- This file includes transmissions on a ?MK2 ?????? /??// 01000001 01010010 01001110 01000101 01001110 // ??/
>> Due to PRIOR CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE, this file has suffered some amount of CORRUPTION, including supplemental audio #/.//.>? and its contents.
>> It is recommended that any audio disturbances are time stamped and sent for review
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>> Confirmed.
>> Now Playing Mission Log #46...

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The footage fizzles and shudders, a few images clicking by.

Sand. The ARNEN base, still surrounded by the swirling dust particles and endless golden light. The hum. The empty barracks, the beds and containers pushed aside as Solena and Jovis lead the last of the company’s dragons within the building.

Then — The Pit. The empty rooms reserved for the high-ranking teams. The collections of cots wall to wall in the lower chambers, moving and shifting bodies spilling out into the halls.

It’s only with a keen eye that Wendy can be spotted, weaving through camera blind spots and crowds as she makes her way deeper in.

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It was hard to imagine they were already almost a week into this madness. The anarchy of change had brought with it no small amount of stress and punishment to all involved parties. She rolled her right shoulder, gauging the ache it still had from a hand-to-hand combat trial a day earlier. She’d done well, she thought. She’d won, at least. It was anyone’s guess if that was enough.

And through it all, she hadn’t even caught a whiff of Cassidy or her Team. Different bedrooms, different schedules. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think Jericho was purposefully keeping them apart.

If the no-teamwork rule hadn’t been so expressly directed at the two of them, she might have even asked for an exception. Whether or not she believed he’d grant it… was another story altogether.

She doubted it. Or at least, she knew she should doubt it.

Finally, Wendy’s eyes landed on her target.

Slipping inside the final room, she opened and shut the door as quickly and as quietly as she could. Thankfully, someone had oiled the hinges. She had a feeling she knew who.

She used the crowbar to lift the grate, and pulled it shut behind her before proceeding down the ladder step by step.

The cavern opened up all around her, its walls and water familiar, even tinged with an ominous darkness.

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As the cameras in the Pit lose sight of her, her footage is picked up from another angle. The camera sits idly on the rocks, the shape of someone’s legs next to it. It catches Wendy’s descent and final hop down into the water, and the swinging of her flashlight as she clicks it on and locates the pair.

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“You got my message, then.”

“I did,” Wendy answered.

Caught in her flashlight beam was Cassidy herself, leaned forward on a rock sitting up out of the water. She was dressed in her usual black, though she’d untied her suit partially. Even still, her arms were covered by a long gray shirt and gloves with black grips on the palms.

Her flashlight was on one side of her, off, and a small camera sat on the other.

“…should I take it as a bad sign that you were sitting in the dark by yourself?” Wendy asked, panning her light around at the ripples coming off of her movements.

Cassidy shrugged, picking up her flashlight and moving it to her other side, patting the rock next to her. “You might like it, if you try it.”