Metatalent Quest

It didn't even start as a normal day.

Eyes closed, arms behind your head, relaxing in the sun. You can hear the yelling and splashing of the kids in the pool, birdsong in the distance, and the pulsing buzz of the skims passing overhead. It's a nice day. The first sun's at zenith, making it bright and sunny, and last you checked your almanac, you're in for a wonderful sight tonight- second sun's light scattering through the atmosphere should make for an enormous aurora- rare, this time of year.

It started as a beautiful day. More sunning, more lazing about. Not like there's much more to do during the day on a glitterworld. Relax all day, party all night.

Except for the poor fuckers who need to work for a living. Thank god you're not one of those.

You roll over as you hear a chime in your ear, glancing at the ancilla in your hand. A few twitches, and your display pops up. You've got a message.

Shit. It's work.

"Zhak?" You ask. Your synthetic assistant responds with a buzz. The graph that pops up on the display makes you raise your eyebrows.

Something's up with the EM field in the upper atmosphere. A few satellites are responding strangely- nothing to do with any Jumps coming in- the signature would be way different, and you like to keep an eye on the schedules, just in case.

"Zhak, what do you think? Might be something with the aurora?"

Zhak doesn't respond with its own opinion. You flex your ancilla again- and at your insistence:

"No conclusion; Not enough data." The synthetic voice buzzes into your mind.

"What do you mean, not enough data?" You grumble. "We've got our hands on everything in orbit right now."

Zhak doesn't even repeat itself.

Fuck. Now you actually have to get up and figure out what's going on before anyone else gets word of this. It's just a few ripples, nothing big, but the corps on glitterworlds like to be extra double paranoid. They don't want to worry off the extremely wealthy 'customers' that settle here. If it's not a Jump, and if it's nothing to do with solar winds, what else could it be?

And that's when the sky begins to darken- and you look up at the formerly cloudless sky.

Zhak beeps again. You check the graph-

It's a Jump. Something came in through hyperspace. It's a signature you'd never seen before, and with this much energy- it's big. The mass of a small moon. Bigger than any ship you've ever heard of.

The birds stop singing, and some of the children look up. You join them- and you see the sky darkening, a black fog poking in through the atmosphere.

The inky black tendrils embrace the sky, and gently close around the sun.

A chill rolls down your spine, and your gut drops.

The brilliant, summer day is consumed by darkness.

"Zhak!" You call. "Emergency broadcast, all bandwidths. Priority one."

You look up again, and then to the kids.

"Confirmed." It responds.

"The Eldritch is here." You say.

As you watch, the blackened, twisted sky roils.

"... confirmed." Zhak says.

You're already on your feet as the kids begin screaming, pointing up at the sky. You move, sprinting as fast as you can, vaulting over the small border between your yard and the yard next door.

"Everyone!" You call, gesturing. "To the shelters! Now!"

At your urging, your Ancilla's lights up- sending signals through the city. Gleaming, glowing arrows flash into life, holograms pointing the closest way to the shelters. You see the holograms spreading through the city, growing wider and wider until everyone knows where to go.

As the tendrils in the sky curl together, belching out a chunk of inky blackness toward the road near you, you curse. You knew it would be a bad idea to call a glitterworld Heaven Beta.

If it were anything else, you'd call it just another day at work.

But it's the Eldritch.

So it's the end of your world.

The chunk of inky blackness slams into your yard, not far from where you were just lying, and you step back- making sure to keep between it and the children running to the shelter. Brilliant, viridescent eyes peer open at you- too many eyes, far too many, alien pupils honing in on you. Hooked, bladed tendrils unfold themselves from the Eldritch's body, and you feel the pressure of its killing intent.

Behind you, the sky begins spitting out more abominations, all over the city. An endless, unceasing army.

In front of you, writhes an unkillable, undying creature, with impossible strength and a desire only to kill human life.

You, in just your swimsuit, with a personal computer implanted in your hand, and a towel tied around your waist.

Yeah.

>[] You can't leave the kids. If you stand in the way long enough, and live long enough to buy them time..
>[] You've got some small arms in your house... Except the Eldritch is between you and your guns, even if they won't do any good. It's worth a shot.
>[] You're pretty fucked, here. Get to your Skim. Time to get offworld, and hope you can get to a jump-capable ship.
>[] Even better. Get to your Skim, and crash it into the fucking thing. Your skim might be worthless after that, and you might not even kill the thing, and there are countless more pouring down... but screw that.
>[Write-in] Got a clever plan? Because you definitely need it.