Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Approaching Fates

The Arcadia central docking port was alive with bodies. Even with night casting the streets into dim shades of blue, there were still plenty of people and aliens passing past each other, bodies pressed together in roiling herds over shiny black stone. Blue light filtered out from the fake suns, perched atop towering pedestals at predictable intervals. Usually bright white, like the sun and letting off UV rays during the day, the orbs changed to blue light late at night, especially in high traffic areas and as a way to light darker areas of the city.

Blue light, was only used in public areas at night so as not to disturb the sleep cycle of humans. However, when choosing the color, scientific experiments had proven that the use of blue light in public areas at night reduced nocturnal rime by 12%, or at least it seemed to work on humans.

There were a few theories, but blue tends to have a calming affect on the human species. It is the most popular color across all the colonies, and scientists theorized because, unlike many other colors, blue Is almost entirely associated with positive objects, like the sky, clear water, and flowers, while other colors are often associated with negative objects or events.

Either way, blue was scientifically proven a calming color, and used in public spaces to light roadways at night, it had proven it's worth .

Atropos didn't care about the color of the lights, or she had cared, but that was yesterday and this was today. After she had learned everything she could about blue light, and then human color theory, and then the effects f different light colors on humans, she had moved onto soemthing different, though she kept those important tidbits in the back of her head just in case she were ever to need them. Like how the combination of red and black increased the likelihood of heart attack and stroke, or how a bright pink could reduce the physical effectiveness of a human, if they were surrounded by it.

The use of color was interesting in theory, but Riss had forbidden her from experimenting on unsuspecting people. He said it was unethical. She had been grounded for the improper use of ethics, and had to spend an hour in her room without anything interesting to do.

She almost went mad from boredom.

So, she had never tested her theories on unsuspecting humans again.

Today she was interested in causing a revolution.

Clotho peered out from behind the ventilation duct, and down on the launch pad from where they sat on the roof. All around them the grounds were surrounded by barbwire and open sensors, but that was all laughable when you could float, even more laughable when you put on dark clothing to match the night sky.

No one was any the wiser, except for uncle Conn, who had caught them about halfway through their little mission, however he seemed amused and even intrigued by their plans enough to let them go ahead with it. Lachesis had proffered up their plan, even including the intelligence information they had stolen from Conn's burgeoning intelligence operation. It was classified information that they most certainly shouldn't have had, but instead of being mad, Conn was just impressed, and agreed to let them go only if they promised to bring him back interesting secrets.

They had heartily agreed and continued to enact their plan.

Step one, infiltrate the Arcadia spaceport.

That part was easy, almost laughably easy.

Step two, steal a short-range cruiser. That part was going to be harder, but Atropos had hacked their mainframe in a matter of minutes using techniques she had witnessed being preformed by the old human Paula. It had worked rather well, and she now had access to the entire system including, information on all the ships, where they were docked, and which ones were not in commission at the time. She planned to steal one of the ships on the rear dock.