John wondered who he was before. Before he was an Artificial Intelligence. They had been orbiting an outer colony for weeks now. The team was made up of 3 ODSTs, Sergeant Vasily, Corporal Jack and Pilot Jennifer, One ONI officer and captain, Joseph, and a SPARTAN-II, Petty Officer Alice-021. Vasily, Jack and Alice were undercover, playing as UNSC deserters with the local insurrection. Nobody here liked the UEG, or anything to do with earth for that matter.
"J, How's our guys doing?" Joseph asked as a blue holographic projection of a ball appeared in the room of the ship.
"They're doing fine, aside from Vasily annoying Alice with his flirts."
"Too bad we only have one female soldier with two guys, it'd be good to divert attention between two woman instead of overloading Alice's system."
"Mhh… Yes. Oh, gotta dash, Floats is calling."
The holographic ball disappeared, and Joseph was alone again. He thought he was never alone compared to what Spartans had gone through. They always seemed… Inhuman. Hiding emotion so well, he didn't even think they had emotion. Maybe that's what Halsey did to them, Made them robots, slaves. God, they were torn away from their families. They were probably brainwashed out of remembering family. Alice always seemed distant from the rest of the crew, they had no way to relate to her. Except for fighting wars. Unnecessary, stupid wars.
"Here's the guy, let's sell him the weapons, and leave. No giving away your cover." Jack said, hopping down from the warthog and approaching a car ahead. Alice followed him over, and Vasily stood watch at the warthog.
"You the guys?" The driver asked.
"For the arms?" Jack confirmed.
"Yeah, obviously."
"Vasily." Alice said, observing the driver.
Jack glared at the drivers eyes. He recognised those eyes, green, with blue lining the pupil. Alice's eyes looked oddly similar to that.
"Money." Jack said to the driver. The man handed him 1000 credits, and Vasily loaded the weapons into their trucks.
The driver looked at Alice.
"You're tall… And oddly similar… Have we met before?" He asked her.
She shook her head.
"You remind me of my sister." He said, turning the ignition.
"Alice, let's get moving." Vasily said, much to the annoyance of Jack. Jack knew who the driver was.
"Alice..?" The driver quietly asked himself as they walked to their car.
They got in, and drove off.
"Vasily, You shouldn't have said her name."
"Why not?" Vasily asked.
"I'll show you later."
Alice rested her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the dashboard.
"You alright?" Jack asked her.
"Mhh." She groaned, nodding.
"Alice, you seem depressed, anything the matter?" Alice heard in her head, a few minutes later. J had a fragment on a chip in Alice's neural interface.
"I'm fine." She whispered
"Okay. I'll take your word for it." J felt as if he was riding passenger in Alice's head, a backseat driver when in combat.
It was morning, it had been a long night for Alice, and a longer night for J. Alice had only just closed her eyes to sleep as the alarm went off. She was exhausted. She didn't know wether her social anxiety and insomnia was due to the SPARTAN-II program or just who she was. J turned off the alarm for her, and let her sleep in. He could hear Jack and Vasily were making breakfast. And even smell bacon, it was weird being in a body again. Again? Why did I say again? I don't even remember who I was…
J connected to the house's system, and projected himself at the table as Vasily walked over to Alice's room.
"Don't go in there, She only just got to sleep." J said, stopping Vasily from entering.
"Serious? Damn." Vasily said, heading back to the table.
"Why isn't she sleeping?" Jack asked.
"I'm not sure, my guess would be insomnia."
"J, you read Alice's files? Specifically her father and his family?"
"No, I don't really want to know to be honest." J replied.
"Well, that guy last night, is her brother. He's never met her, he met the paralysed, dying clone ONI replaced her with. Though he was only 4 years old when she died."
"You forgot the spoiler alert." J said.
"You weren't going to read them anyway."
"I was."
Alice walked out from her room, and into the lounge through the kitchen, past the table they were all chatting at. She sat on the black sofa and planted her head on her hands.
"You ever wonder what goes on in their heads?" Vasily asked.
"Yeah, I can't tell if she's sad, happy, stressed, or just… Spartan."
"Well, I could tell you what goes on in their head if you want the complete analogical explanation." J said.
"No thanks." Jack responded.
"Anyway, I'll be back in a minute." J said, before moving himself to the lounge.
"Alice, are you okay? Need anything, Jokes, Conversation?" J asked her.
"I don't know… My head feels like hell…"
"Do your eyes hurt?" J asked, trying to make conversation. He knew Kaz was listening through the door. They barely ever head Alice talk.
"A lot."
"Hmm. What do you think about being tranquillised?"
"I've had my fair share of needles for one lifetime."
"You have a point." J said.
"I don't know what to do when I'm not in combat. What is there to do. There's nothing else for a Spartan to do but fight."
"You know that's not true."
"It's the only thing I know."
"Jeez Alice, you seriously need to talk with Jack and Vasily, socialise a little."
"Mhh." Her eyes closed and her head slowly dropper to the right. She'd fallen asleep.
J returned to the others.
"Go through in 10 minutes and take her back to her bed." J said, reappearing on the table.
"Is she okay?" Vasily asked. He took a bite from his food.
"Just a little sleep deprivation is all. At least I hope that's all." J said. The room went silent for a few minutes as Jack and Vasily finished their breakfast. J was looking for any warrants in the city. A little door kicking might cheer up Alice.
"Jack, where we heading?" Vasily asked Jack, sitting passenger in the warthog. They'd left Alice back with J in the house a few hours ago.
"To the bar, need to keep up appearances." He said as they pulled into a car park. They hopped out, and walked into the bar. No heads turned to look at them, and they continued to an empty table. They sat, and looked through the menu.
"Interesting menu they got here."
J had ridden radio waved to Jacks radio, and listened in to the conversations around. He respected his squads privacy, so blocked out anything they said. He filtered in their voices as a man approached them.
"Hello there. Where's that girl'a yours?" The man asked. He had been passenger in the car they were selling a few rifles to the other night.
"Not here, why?" Jack responded.
"She looks nice. Hope you guys aren't with her." He smirked.
"I'm trying the hardest I can, don't think she acknowledges flirts." Vasily said, reading a book on his PDA.
"Jack, you gotta tired Spartan closing in. Have fun." J said quietly into his ear.
"That's a shame, maybe your flirts are bad."
"Speak of the devil…" Vasily said as he watched a tall, brown haired woman walked into the bar. Several people turned to look at her as she walked quickly to the table.
"Wassup, Angel?" Vasily asked, grinning. Alice didn't seem to recognise that as a flirt, just a friendly compliment. She thought Angel would always be a nice callsign.
"Migraine… H-… How're you guys?" She asked. Jack looked really surprised when he heard her speak. Something must have been up, she never spoke to them with more than a one word reply.
"I'm good, day got better when you walked in." Vasily said, receiving a nod from Alice. She looked to Jack. He shrugged. He opened his mouth to talk, but no sound came out. She looked to the man standing by them.
"Alright."
"So, who was that man you were with last night?" Jack asked the man.
"Graham Blake." He replied.
"And you are?"
"Jonathan Deon."
"I'm Vasily, that's Jack, and she is the single star in which my life orbits." Vasily said, pointing to the corresponding person. Alice maintained her blank expression, but he could tell by her eyes that she was smiling in her head.
"I don't know wether to take that as a compliment or an insult." Alice said.
"Compliment, babe." Vasily said.
Jack lightly punched Vasily's arm.
"Knock it off, all you do is pointlessly try to get in with her, and it's not working. It's annoying that all you constantly do is try and fail." Jack said. Vasily burst out laughing.
"Somebody's jealous!" He said.
"Vasily, shut up." Alice said as she saw people beginning to stare.
"I'm sorry, that was just too good."
"Really, it wasn't." Alice said, sitting back slightly and crossing her arms. She did not like strangers staring at her when she wasn't in armour. At least in armour nobody could tell anything about her.
"Well. I'll be off now. Have fun, don't go showing the UNSC where you live." John said, walking away, staring at Alice.
"So. It's not often we hear you talk, What's the occasion?" Vasily asked.
"J suggested 'socialising' was a good idea." She replied.
"How about a beer?" Jack asked. Alice had never had alcohol before. She'd heard it was good.
"Sure." Alice answered, casually looking around.
Jack walked up to the bar, and came back with three beers. He placed one in front of Alice, Vasily and himself.
"Drink up, boys 'n' girls." He said, smiling.
Vasily downed half of his beer in one go. Alice lifted the glass to her mouth and hesitated, before taking a sip of the beer. Jack saw her reaction to the taste on her face. This was the first he'd ever seen anything but that blank Spartan expression on her face. He laughed quietly as she forced the beer down her throat.
"How do you drink that!?" She asked.
"How don't you?" Vasily asked. He didn't like the thought of not being able to get a girl drunk.
"Drink it all, seventy credits say you can't take two." Vasily challenged, extending his hand.
"Don't agree to that bet, Alice." Jack said.
"You got yourself a bet." Alice then remembered, she had no use for money.
She sighed, before lifting her glass to her mouth, and drinking. It felt like an eternity till the glass emptied. It was good they had the next twenty four hours to fuck around in, J knew that this would hit Alice's system hard. She took Jack's beer and drunk it as well.
"That was disgusting…" She said. It was odd for J. He felt the alcohol slowly invading her system.
"Well, you're not driving." Jack said. Vasily checked the time. It was going to get dark soon.
They left and headed for the safe house. Alice fell asleep, accompanied by Vasily who had had three beers too many, on the sofa. Jack just laughed when he saw Vasily sleeping on Alice's shoulder. Gotta make the most of the people who are around you.