[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/197415283?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Catalogue of Art, Profiles, and Fics related to Fireteam Daybreak[/url] [b]Word count[/b]: 2,333 [b]Characters[/b]: Cayde, Laila [i]Part 1--- [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/211065569]Thanatonaut: The Deep Stone Crypt (Prologue)[/url] Part 2 --- [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/219825893]Thanatonaut: The Deep Stone Crypt (Memory 1)[/url] Part 3 --- (currently reading) Part 4 --- [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/227633976]Thanatonaut: The Deep Stone Crypt (Sideshow 1)[/url] Part 5 --- [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/229905165]Thanatonaut: The Deep Stone Crypt (Memory 2, part 1)[/url][/i] Part 6 --- [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/243496257?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Thanatonaut: The Deep Stone Crypt (Sideshow 2)[/url] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Community/Detail?itemId=229052973][ Related Art ][/url] --- Blue eyes darted from screen to screen as stylus scribbled away at the tablet under her left hand and mouse clicked under her right. She’d been searching the coding for three days now, looking for inconsistencies and flaws- a misplaced period, an extra space in the margin, mistyped numbers in the formulas… any wrench in the cog they could have possibly overlooked. Laila’s eyelids drooped and she paused in her work, put down her pen, and blinked as she set down her glasses and rubbed the tiredness out of her eyes with her knuckles. Sleep called to her but anxiety had kept her awake. The rest of her team had gone to bed hours ago, and yet here it was, three forty AM, and she was alone in a dark lab, with only the glow of her monitors and a desk lamp to ease the eyestrain. She inhaled as she leaned back in her chair, looked up through the large circular skylight at the center of the room, and exhaled a heavy sigh. Phobos loomed overhead, on its first pass of the day, reflecting a glow so pale it could hardly be considered a moon. Moons were bright and beautiful, they lit up the sky; but Phobos was a dying light, the thought of which made her sad. Mars was beautiful and foreign, but it wasn’t Earth, it wasn’t [i]home[/i]. Blue eyes drifted down and settled on the dark space across the room and fixed their attention on the barely visible metallic gleam from Project Nirvana’s structural hub. So much hinged on its success, and she had made so many promises to a man who expected the secrets of the universe served on a silver platter. If only they’d had a little more time, and Clovis a little more patience, she wouldn’t be in this position: overworked, overwhelmed, and less than confident. What would Clovis do if something went awry? What if it didn’t work at all? What if only a partial transfer took? What if [i]did[/i] work... but she died in the process? What if she wound up stuck with the body of a machine for the rest of her life? Merric had already made his concerns quite clear- he wasn’t comfortable with Laila volunteering as the first to subject herself to Nirvana’s design. “Too many things that could go wrong”, he insisted, and he wasn’t wrong; seven percent was a large margin for error when one’s own life hung in the balance, which was exactly why she couldn’t allow the first subject to be someone that owed Dr. Bray a “favor”. [i]To gain the confidence of others you must first have enough faith in your own work to put your life on the line, if necessary, to prove your hypothesis.[/i] Words from a wise woman that had really stuck with her, words she’d uphold in the face of unethical procedures in the workplace. She would not make the same mistakes as her predecessors. But [i]what if[/i] something happened? Something irreversible? Her head rolled back over the headrest of her chair as she closed her eyes and groaned in exasperation. It was too late to change her mind now. All she could do to make sure she came out of this okay was check, and recheck, and recheck their work. [i]Thirty hours to go.[/i] “Don’t think I’m bein’ judgmental when I say this, but...” Laila jumped visibly, turned in her chair and blinked hard as sympathetic baby blues gave her a soft, coy smile and a hand came to rest on her shoulder. It was [i]him[/i]. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” “H-how did you get past the biometrics-” she stammered as he chuckled. “Please, that stuff’s child’s play,” he scoffed as he leaned over the back of her chair on his elbow and idly ran one nail under the other. “I could wire a lock like that in my sleep. “Well, regardless,” she huffed as she stacked her printouts and tablet into a pile, saved her work, and shut down her computer. “You shouldn’t be wandering around without an escort.” “Oh, but I’ve got one,” he replied, quick and casual. Thin black brows wrinkled in confusion and she tilted her head as her eyes scanned the room quickly for any other movement, but the lab was empty with the exception of the two of them. “And who might that be?” Cayde popped his eyebrows, tipped his chin and grinned wider as he gestured toward her with open arms, but the gesture just made her roll her eyes and shake her head. “Are you always this… coy with women you’ve only just met?” she asked in an exasperated tone as she pushed her chair out and stood. “Just the pretty ones,” he admitted truthfully with a pause as she gathered her things and exhaled with a loud huff. “Well-... that and the ones who save my life, anyway.” Laila’s hand paused momentarily as fingertips slipped over the edges of her three-ring notebook, then curled and moved it into the crook of her arm. “I haven’t saved anything yet,” she corrected. “No, but you’re [i]tryin’ to[/i],” he responded evenly as the smile faded to a more serious expression. Eyes darted from the back of her head to the books on her desk and back as she moved them. “And for that, I just wanted to say, thank you.” [i]Gratitude, sincerity[/i]. She certainly hadn’t expected that much of the man and his carefree but chauvinistic persona. Her head lifted and she turned halfway toward him while keeping her eyes focused on the floor beside her, now curious but not wanting to encourage him. “Well… you’re welcome,” she answered after a pause as she grabbed her tablet and coffee cup from earlier in the evening. “Now, back to your… hole or, wherever it is Dr. Bray is keeping you for the next six weeks.” “AH AH- not so fast,” he interrupted as she passed and reached out a hand to pull her arm with a gentle tug, at which she turned and leered fiercely for him to let her go. “Where do you think you’re goin’ with all those books?” “To log my data for the night, what does it matter?” she retorted as she wrestled her arm free of his grasp and badged out of the lab; Cayde didn’t miss a beat, turned on heel and followed. “Well if you want things to go off without a hitch, you gotta rest that brilliant mind of yours,” he commented as he trotted to catch up and walk beside her. “It’s important that I file my reports while the day is still fresh.” “What’s important is giving yourself a break so you don’t burn out.” Her nose wrinkled and she frowned in protest as she glanced up at him and stopped, noting the concern in every edge of his face. “I don’t think you understand-” “Look, I just wanna make sure my savior’s on her best game… that’s all,” he explained, very matter-of-fact in his delivery; this time she believed him. A smile of her own slowly made its way into the corners of her mouth and turned up into the apples of her cheeks. More than meets the eye, it seemed. “What was your name again?” The wild grin returned, spreading wider and brighter than before. “Friends call me Cayde, and I like to keep it that way,” he said with a slight toss of his head as he ran nervous fingers through short, sandy brown hair and fingered the longer locks in front to brush them off of his forehead. “Well Cayde, it was good to run into you again, but I suppose I should be getting back to my room.” “Good, glad to hear I could talk some sense into you… so which way you headed?” For a moment she was irked at what seemed like a forward gesture, and she scoffed and strode away from him. “I’m quite capable of getting there on my own… not like there’s ever any danger walking from one building to the next.” “So?” he replied with a friendly grin. “There somethin’ wrong with takin’ a walk?” “No, not really-” “Because I mean, that’s what I was doin’ before I found you,” he continued and motioned to her with one hand. “Don’t know about you, but I hate being cooped up in this place. I got itchy legs, gotta keep movin’, can’t stay in one place too long.” “So you wandered into a secure laboratory in the middle of the night because you were bored?” Laila laughed and shook her head as he grinned sheepishly. [i](cont. in comments below)[/i]