Environmental

Looking up into the fire lit darkness, towards the top of the pyramid and Kenneth's luminescent projection of Holly's disembodied head, Cass was relieved to see the shaman order a couple of cowed and apologetic-looking Huzards to untie and release Jade.
"Fucking hell" she groaned, shaking her head and taking a deep breath before blowing out a long, low sigh of relief "That was way too close for comfort"
"It should have been me up there" Jay said flatly. He was standing by her side, looking out through the bars of the cage at the scene unfolding at the top of the pyramid "I should have gone instead of Jade"
Turning to regard him, Cass wasn't entirely surprised to see just how pissed off he looked.
"Hey you" she reached a hand out to grasp one of his reluctant hands in hers, her fingers coiling and intertwining with his "There were no right answers there"
"All the same" Jay insisted "I should have gone"
"Perhaps it should have been me" Cass returned her gaze back up to Jade and Kenneth "The nanosuit would have given me an edge"
Silent for a moment, Jay disentangled his fingers from her grasp to give her hand a squeeze, before relaxing his grip and leaving go.
"I wouldn't have allowed that"
Cass glanced back at him at this, but his expression in the dimly flickering firelight was unreadable.
For a moment, she wondered what it was that had transpired between them before Jade had beat them to volunteering to be sacrificed
Had he been thinking what she had been thinking?
Had he been about to lay down his life for hers the way she had been for his?
Stupid girl.
She looked away quickly, the corners of her mouth tightening. She shouldn’t feel special - He’d have done the same for anyone.
A sudden susurration tossed the treetops as she turned away; the cold wind preceding the first few drops of rain, which smacked down into the ground outside the cage in a heavy staccato patter, which quickly increased in tempo to build into a torrential downpour.
"Whoa shit!" Cass had to shout above the roar of the deluge as she and Jay hurried to join the cyborgs under cover, in the back part of the cage which was built into the hillside "What's all this?"
"Weather control must have shorted with the electric storm" Jay yelled back, his hair already plastered to his scalp and his clothes clinging wetly to him "The precipitation valves must be jammed open"
"That’s not good" Cass called back as the fires and torches illuminating the Huzard settlement outside began to gutter and die beneath the onslaught of the storm "The system’s fed from reservoir six - There’s got to be more than a hundred thousand tons of water in there!"
"Jesus Christ; this place will be turned into a swamp!" Jay was aghast "We can't afford to loose the Arboretum; we need it for life support! Can you reach any of the others on your terminal?"
"No, the damn thing's completely fucked. Auto-repair will fix it in time, but it’s useless right now"
"Can you not tear the bars open with that nanosuit?"
"It's a stealth model, not a strength one"
"Fuck's sake!" Jay snarled, his boots splashing through the five centimetres of black water already pooling on the floor as he moved to hammer against the bars of the cage "Someone let us out of here!"


With the lights all shorted and last of the torches and fires extinguished by the storm, the Arboretum was suddenly plunged into an almost total darkness; the only remaining sources of light being the occasional cooking fire still burning inside the Huzard dwellings and, up at the very top of the pyramid, Kenneth’s holographic projection of Holly.
From Jade's point of view, lashed as she was by the cold, stinging rain, even in spite of Kenneth hovering nearby, the view from the top of the pyramid was of a uniform, roaring blackness; the intensity of the deluge having reduced visibility down to just a few metres.
"Please, Oh Great One," the Huzard shaman crawled pathetically on the floor near her feet "I beg you to end this storm - Torment us no longer!"
"It's washing away the blood of the innocents" Jade ad-libbed
"Yeah, what she said" Kenneth nodded "I'll do it in a bit"
"Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, Oh Great One" the shaman wailed above the noise of the storm
Truth be told, Kenneth didn't have the slightest clue how he was going to stop the storm, and more than that, he was getting worried.
His sensors unimpaired by the storm raging around him, he had been monitoring the area surrounding the pyramid and the data being returned was beginning to concern him. Scores more cyborgs had perished as the storm water, sluicing down off the hills, had inundated the pits they were imprisoned in; the rising water levels quickly drowning them before they could be aided; but that was the least of their problems. What was even more worrying, were the structural weakness he had detected in the sedimentary layers of the hill to the east side of the main settlement.
Years of the Huzards burrowing into the steep sides of the hill to excavate storage chambers, egg hatcheries and even the cells in which Mr. Chrysler and Ms. Jones were currently incarcerated, had left the hillside perilously close to collapse and the deluge was doing little to improve matters.
One of the larger trees near the top of the hill was already close to toppling over, the soil from around it's roots having been almost completely eroded away; and when that went, it would precipitate the mother of all landslips.
"Oh great and most noble Divine One" the shaman, still kneeling on the floor, held its hands up for Kenneth's inspection "See!? No more blood! Please stop the storm!"



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And you thought it couldn't get any worse - We've an environmental disaster looming
The precipitation valves are jammed open and there are thousands of tons of water pouring into the Arboretum
Jamie - Do you want to disconnect White Wolf or has he not finished cooking yet? - Is there anything you can do from the control room?
Kenneth - is there anything you can do to prevent a landslide?
Jade - It's safe up at the top of the pyramid (unless there's another electrical storm), but you might not want to be around a bunch of testy Huzards if things go badly
Jay - any ideas on how to get out of a cage that's about to be buried in a landslide?
Everyone else - just pitch in any way you like - get in touch if you'd like any suggestions, but lets have this mess cleared up so we can get on to salvaging the Sovereign and triangulating Plisken

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