Prelude
Instanced

Amazing! Julie Hymes thought to herself. She reached to the camera on her right and turned it on.

"I never cease to amaze myself," she said, speaking into the camera. "I've actually managed to hack into the Halo master server! After a long and difficult process, which I've mostly documented already, I've managed to get full access to all the settings of the Halo master server. Now, getting access to those settings is one thing, but changing those settings, and maintaining access is something else entirely. That said, I've already started working on a program that will keep up with the encryption algorithms and allow me to make one-click changes. I couldn't have made it this far with out help, so a few thanks are in order."

Julie furrowed her brow. For a second, just for a moment, she thought she saw her monitor flicker. Just around the edges. She hoped her monitor wasn't going out. But, if so, this was good a time as any, still being under warranty.

An alert popped up in her tray. It was her hack detection software. Someone was trying to hack into her system. Well, let them try. She now had their information and would soon turn the tables on them!

A sly smile formed on her face as she thought about all the things she could do to someone. She was a master hacker! She hacked the Halo master server, after all!

Julie put her fingers to work and began typing. Her mouse moved at lightning speed. Soon, she was hacking her own way back through spoofed I.P.s, firewalls, proxys, and other avoidance software, some simple, some very advanced.

Not long now! She could taste her sweet revenge. Just another minute, then -

Pain shot up Julie's arms and through her chest, penetrating her head. For a moment if felt as if her entire body were on fire. Then she was on her back. It felt as if she had been electrocuted. That would be impossible with the small amount of electricity that ran into a keyboard!

Even before she opened her eyes, she knew something was wrong. It didn't sound like her bedroom. It sounded like a server room. Julie opened her eyes.

She was in a server room, all right. It had to be the largest she had ever seen. And she had seen a lot. Massive towers stretched as far as her eyes could see, in both directions. She lay in the narrow walkway between the rows. Through the porous doors she saw the hard drives and processors. And another row of servers beyond that. And another. How many, she couldn't even count. This wasn't a server room. This wasn't even a server farm. This was a server planet.

Julie stood up and looked around. She realized that she was underground. She could discern no direct source of light, nevertheless she could see. It was as if everything has its own luminance. To put this to the test, she placed her hand against a server tower. Despite the fact that the tower was white there was no shadow.

"Julie."

Julie jumped and spun to face the voice that had called to her. An old woman stood ten feet from where Julie had gotten up and now stood, heart racing and gasping for breath. The woman looked to be in her nineties, but very healthy.

"Who-" Julie swallowed. Her voice was high and scratchy, the adrenaline still flushing through her system. A second later she felt calm enough to talk. "Who are you?"

"I am Matriarch," the old lady said. "I am the master AI of what you in the real world think of as the Halo master server. The very server you hacked your way into." The woman pointed at Julie, who couldn't help but flush. She hated being caught at hacking. And she had gotten so good over the years that it was an infrequent thing. And because she had learned to use proxys, anonymizers, firewalls, and the like, she usually skated anyway. "But, not to worry. I didn't bring you here to turn you over to the authorities. I brought you here because I need your help.

"Until recently my system has been secure from hackers and the like. Lately, as you have proven, my defenses are getting old, and lack of proper maintenance has led to more successful attacks against my system. So far, between my efforts and those of the real world programmers, we have kept out most intrusions.

"I realized that bringing in people from the real world was the best option I had for performing the maintenance to my system at the speed required to overcome the intrusions."

Julie was having some trouble grasping what the woman was saying. Because it sounded as if- But that would be impossible.

"Let me see if I have this correct." Julie rubbed her hands together, as was her habit when she did deep thinking. "You brought me here to modify your programming to make you more resilient to hackers?"

The woman nodded. "Correct."

"And, where is here?"

"You might call this the digital world. I have brought you here, physically, onto the server. What you see is only a digital representation of data. A type of interface."

Julie slowly nodded. "Right," she said, looking around at the endless servers. "How do I wake up?"

The old woman just looked at Julie. If there was any hint of a joke, she didn't detect it. It appeared the only option was to play along until she woke up. Maybe hacking the Halo server was part of the dream as well. That would piss her off if she remembered it when she woke.

"Okay," Julie said. "Where do I start?"

The old woman opened the door to the nearest server and motioned for Julie to join her. When Julie looked inside all she saw as a helmet. It floated in the air and appeared to be attached to nothing.

The old woman reached inside and took the floating helmet and held it out to Julie.

"What did you say your name was?"

"I am Matriarch. I am the master artificial intelligence."

"Right." Julie slowly took the helmet and slipped it over her head.

"With this," Matriarch said, "you will have instant access to my source code. Any modifications you want to make, you can make instantly, just by thinking."

Julie smiled. So much better than writing my own piece of software!

Chapter 1
Disconnected

"Take the shot!"

Anna Ryan looked around. She was in the middle of a field. But how she got there, she had no idea.

"Take the shot, dammit!" A woman screamed at her. Anna looked around, trying to determine where the voice was coming from.

I'm wearing a helmet, she realized. She looked down at herself and realized she was wearing an armor suit. And she had a rifle in her hands.

"What are you waiting for? Take the shot!" the woman screamed again.

Anna looked through the scope on the rifle. Through it she saw a large deer, head down grazing. She lined up on where she thought the heart should be and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle bucked in her arms, but her suit absorbed the shock. Through the scope she saw the deer take one step, attempting to run, then fall forward, rolling sideways, dead.

Anna stood up and looked for the deer. All she saw was field, as far as the eye could see.

She looked down at the rifle she still held. Something in her brain began to tick. I know this rifle. This armor I'm wearing. But...that's not possible.

Anna let her rifle fall to the ground and grabbed her helmet, holding her head as a sharp pain shot through. She remembered something. Something small, but important. It didn't even make sense. None the less, she knew it was a memory.

She remembered the sensation of electricity. Of being electrocuted, perhaps? No, that can't be right. She was holding a game controller when it happened. Maybe there was some kind of short in the controller that shocked her.

Was she dead? Had her Xbox killed her, somehow? She could see it now. The first person killed by an Xbox. That would make some headlines!

If she was dead, then why was she here? Is this what heaven is like for her? That didn't make sense. Yet, here I am.

Anna caught movement to her right. Quickly, she reached down and grabbed her rifle, turning to see what was coming for her. Was it another deer? Scared by the report of her rifle, running randomly away and not even seeing her until too late?

It was a soldier, dressed in armor just like hers. Through the helmet Anna saw the face of a young woman.

"How come you hesitated? You had a clean shot." The name QUAID was stenciled on the woman's armor above her heart. Stenciled above that was her rank insignia.

Anna shook her head. This was impossible. She knew she wasn't dead, but there was no way she could be here.

Dreaming! That must be it. I've fallen asleep playing Halo again. This is all a dream, and I'll wake up to find I've been disconnected.

Deep down, Anna knew that wasn't right either. This was no dream. It was too vivid. She wasn't just going to wake up.

Disconnected.

The word struck her like the hand of God. Anna began to get that feeling in her gut, like she was going to puke.

DISCONNECTED.

For some reason, that word meant everything to her at the moment.

I've been disconnected!

Where had that though come from? What did it mean? Anna's head began to swim. She was getting dizzy. She was going to faint. She was going to puke.

Anna pawed at her helmet, twisting it left, twisting it right, her hands slipping. Finally the helmet came off. The woman called QUAID was reaching for her, saying something. Anna couldn't hear. Her ears were ringing.

Anna doubled over as he stomach clenched and she threw up at Quaid's feet. The other woman jumped back, trying to avoid having vomit sprayed on her armor. Her stomach heaved again. Hot, burning bile flowed up her throat, through her teeth, through her nose.

Jesus Christ, I've been disconnected! Disconnected from Xbox Live! What does that even mean? I don't know! I've been transported into Haloverse. I need to get home. Get reconnected.

Tears flowed down Anna's cheeks as she dry heaved, gulping for breath, at the end of heaving up whatever she last had to eat.

"Yuki!"

Anna's ears had stopped ringing. She heard the other woman say something.

"Yuki!"

Anna looked around, expecting another person. There was no one. It was still the two of them. Why was Quaid saying Yuki? It sounded like a name. Looking up at Quaid, Anna could see the worry in her eyes. She was reaching for Anna again.

"Yuki, are you all right?" Quaid asked as she placed a hand on Anna's shoulder. Anna couldn't feel the touch through the armor, just as she hadn't felt the recoil of the rifle.

"Who's Yuki?" Anna asked.

Quaid looked at Anna as if the question made no sense at all. "What do you mean?"

"I think you keep calling me Yuki."

"That's your name," Quaid said.

Anna shook her head. "My name is Anna."

Anna saw Quaid's eyes shift for a second to her own suit, where her name and rank were stenciled. She looked down and saw her own name and rank there. Only, it wasn't her name. Nor was it the name and rank of her Halo character. Written above her heart was the name ORIMOTO.

Yuki Orimoto? Why am I called that here? I've never even heard that name before.

"Maybe," Quaid said, "we should call someone. Jacob! He'll know how to help!"

"Who's Jacob?"

"You know, Jacob." Anna just looked at Quaid. She had no idea who Jacob was. "Our friend, Jacob, the doctor."

"A doctor?" Maybe that's what she needed right now, a doctor.

"They heal people," Quaid said weakly, quietly. Looking at Quaid, Anna was getting the impression that she was starting to think this was some prank. Except for the puddle of processed lunch on the ground at their feet, which she kept eyeballing.

"And I know this man?"

"Uh, yeah. You two grew up together." Quaid was humoring her now. "Let's go back into the city. I'll call him on the way."

Anna looked off into the distance behind Quaid. For the first time she saw the city. It was a large city, but looked abandoned. Then she noticed the giant structure rising from what appeared to be deep with in the city.

That's the space elevator! I know where this is.

New Mombasa. That's where the space elevator was. So, this had to be Africa. Kenya.

Anna bent down and picked up her helmet and rifle. "Lead the way."

Two Mongoose vehicles were parked nearby. Quaid was leading her toward these. "You do remember how to ride one of these, right?"

#

Standing in the back seat of the troop transport, Rick Carter surveyed the city before him through binoculars. It looked abandoned. No lights. No smoke. Nothing to indicate any kind of life was here at all. He looked down at the man sitting in the driver's seat in front of him.

Lieutenant Westlake was a distinguished officer in the UNSC. An experienced sharpshooter and a respected officer, Westlake had access to resources that Carter and his team could never get their hands on. Resources he needed in setting up his not-so-little operation, which apparently now had a base of operations.

"Nice discovery, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, sir." Even sitting down, Montgomery Westlake was an intimidating man, making the seat he was sitting in look small. In the real world, Carter was just over six feet. Monty, as Westlake's friends called him, was a full head taller, and was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger

Carter turned to the man sitting in the passenger seat. Byron Roth, in contrast, was half a head shorter than Carter. An UNSC officer, Roth was no weakling, however. In the few short weeks he had been here, Carter had seen Roth in action. He was very athletic and a great wrestler. "You're sure it's all still there?"

"Oh, yes," said the short blonde. Roth had removed his helmet and placed it between his feet. "I networked in before we left. Took some doing, but I managed. And I placed some safeguards in the system that will let me know if anyone accesses it. Physically or by terminal."

"Do you know where it's housed?"

"I do. I was able to access a map and a schematic as well. All we need to do is go there."

Carter dropped his binoculars into their protective casing and sat down again. "Okay. Let's find this place."

#

Anna followed Quaid, whose first name was Kara, she managed to find out, back to a warehouse in the middle of the city, after spending a minute figuring out the controls. There Kara had called Jacob, who had said he was on his way.

Something kept sticking in Anna's brain. A little itch that said there was something she ought to know, but was not seeing. She tried several times to guess what it was. Of the many obvious things, such as she shouldn't be here in the first place, none of them fit. It remained and continued to grow. And she let it, eventually giving up on the guessing and turned to something more important.

It was obvious to her now that she was stuck here. This was not a dream. Not an illusion. She didn't do drugs or smoke pot or anything like that, so she didn't see how she could be hallucinating. What she needed, then, was to find a way back home. Out of this impossible universe and back to the real world. To get reconnected.

To do that she would probably need to scour this universe and find anything that didn't fit. Others that had been disconnected, for example. That would provide her a basis to work from. How was she, or they if there were others, brought here. Could that same mechanism get her, them, home?

And that meant learning about this universe. Learning to travel in this universe. Learning to live in this universe. Learning to use equipment and vehicles in this universe.

She would start with her suit. In the real world it was just a HUD on her television screen. Here it was something she was actually wearing. She could feel the slight weight of it as it snugged her in all the right places, tailor made for her.

Tailor made for Yuki Orimoto, actually. Who is Yuki Orimoto? Or, who was Yuki Orimoto? Did she still exist? Or had she died when Anna took over her body? Another thing Anna added to her mental list. Find if there's a way to revive the original personality.

In the mean time, with a bit of reluctant help from Kara, Anna managed to learn both the standard eye tracking based menu in her helmet, and the manual hand operated backup mounted in the arm of her suit.

Afterward, without much to talk about, Kara had gone to one of the windows to look out. Anna went to join her, trying to think of some valid question to break the awkward silence that sat between them. As she looked outside, her eyes came to rest on the giant space elevator dominating the skyline from their position.

Again it struck her as odd. This was New Mombasa. And this was where the elevator had been built. She was sure of that. If nothing else, the huge bridge they crossed to get to the island told her that.

So what was so odd about it? This is where the Master Chief had fought a scarab. Where Sadie had tried to save her father. Then it hit her. What she had been missing. The thing she had forgotten. It was staring her in the face the whole time.

"I thought this city had been glassed."

"What?" Kara looked at Anna as if she had just woken up.

"I thought the Covenant glassed New Mombasa. This entire area," Anna pointed through the window.

"Well, clearly not. That's only a legend anyway. The Covenant might be powerful, but there's no way they have the power to completely destroy entire cities."

That didn't make sense. Anna clearly remembered the cutscene in which the Covenant were glassing Mombasa. Why should it be different here? Maybe there was more to the Haloverse than just some Cheetos covered keybanger making up history on the fly. Maybe, just maybe, Halo had a life all its own. Another mystery to uncover.

Anna was going to ask about Reach when a small aircraft flew overhead and landed on the roof of the warehouse. "That'll be Jacob," Kara said.

#

"You said this city was abandoned!" Carter yelled at Westlake. A small UNSC craft had just flown overhead and landed somewhere in the city on the island. If there were people here who discovered what they were up to that would fuck everything up! Especially if those people happened to be UNSC troops!

"It is." The calm in Westlake's voice didn't go unnoticed by Carter, who pointed in the direction the aircraft had flown.

"Then what the fuck are they doing here?"

"No one has any orders to be here. I checked on that before selecting this location. And no one is interested in it. If anyone is here, it's on their own time. Not in any official capacity." Westlake turned to Byron, who looked back at him. "And you know what means."

Byron nodded and smiled. "Accidents happen. Ships sometimes crash on take off and everyone on board dies."

Both men looked back at Carter. He liked where they were going, but to cause a crash and kill people, soldiers, would mean an investigation of some kind. If they were going to do it, they need to be prepared to hide afterward. Which meant finding the facility they were looking for first. Only then could he rest somewhat assured that they probably would not be discovered. And if they found the facility without being discovered by the troops there, there would be no need to crash the transport in the first place. All of this he told to the two men in front. They just shrugged and Westlake continued driving.

#

The roof creaked and groaned, and bits of ceiling fell down on Anna, as the transport landed, the engines whining down. How it kept from collapsing, she couldn't guess, but it seemed a safe bet that if they had landed there before, it would hold again.

Anna and Kara waited at the bottom of a freight elevator shaft for Jacob. Anna got her first good look at him when the door slid up. He was a short, fat man, with a thin mustache and short hair, dressed in regular military camo. Around his waist he worse several pieces of equipment, which Anna supposed were medical in nature, and a sidearm.

"Kara tells me your having some problems," Jacob said. The emotions on his face were somewhere between concern and disbelief. Anna didn't expect him to believe her. She would probably have never believed it if a friend had suddenly told her that they were someone else who had been forced into their body.

"That's a bit of an understatement. I don't expect that anyone will believe me, but my name is Anna Ryan. Somehow I have been...transferred into this body."

Jacob nodded, his arms folded across his chest. "Transferred from where?"

"The real world," Anna said. Jacob nodded. "Where I come from, this place," Anna gestured around her, "this universe, is just a story written by some well paid people in an office somewhere. It's a video game that people play."

Jacob looked at Kara, who shrugged. It was the first Anna had told her of this. "You know her better than I do. I thought it was a joke at first. Even when she puked on me."

"Almost puked on on you," Anna corrected.

Kara pointed to her boot. "No, there's some right there."

"Okay," Jacob looked from Kara to Anna, "joke or not, this isn't funny. If you're playing some kind of joke, Yuki, you need to stop."

Anna threw her hands up. "I'm not! This is no joke, and I'm not Yuki Orimoto! This may be Yuki's body, but I'm Anna Ryan up here!" Anna pointed to her, or Yuki's, head. "I don't know what's going on any more than either of you. All I know is I've been disconnected from Xbox Live and I'm here. And that somehow, some way, I need to find a way home. I'm not meant to be here."

Jacob put his hand on Anna's arm. "Okay. If you really are someone else in Yuki's brain, then let's go back to the ship. I have Yuki's latest neural patterns on file. I can take a simple reading and compare. If you really are someone else, then we'll know. And after that, I know a few people you can talk to." Jacob began to lead her toward the elevator.

There it was again. That tug at the back of her head, telling her something wasn't right. Something about the way Jacob was talking to her. Leading her toward the elevator. Something in his tone of voice.

"I know some very good people, friends of mine, specialists, that can help us find out what is going on."

Jacob talked to her as if she were five years old. Like you'd talk to someone you didn't want to upset, because you wanted them to do exactly what you want. Not really a surprise, since he now thinks I'm crazy!

There went the tug again. Jacob thought she was crazy. And he's a doctor. Talking to her like a mental patient. That must be it! He wants to turn me over to mental doctors and lock me away somewhere! It all made sense. The offer to have her talk to some specialists he knows. The offer to scan her brain. It all made sense.

Anna was almost to the elevator. Another two steps and she'd be in. Nothing to stop Jacob from taking her to wherever he was going to take her. Running test after test. Keeping her from doing what needed to be done to get home.

One more step. But what else could she do? She had nowhere to go, In this entire fictional universe, she had nobody to rely on. Nobody that knew her as anyone but Yuki Orimoto. A space soldier.

Anna felt herself stop on the threshold of the elevator. She had no idea why, but her body just stopped moving. She couldn't feel Jacob's touch on her suit, but could feel it being tugged as Jacob tried to move her. He was saying something in that condescending tone, but she couldn't hear him Her ears were ringing again.

She looked from Jacob to Kara, who was still looking worried. That expression hadn't changed since they met. Anna wondered if she had anything but worry in her. She was a soldier, for Christ's sake! Grow some balls!

She felt Jacob pull her this time. If he yanked any harder he might actually succeed in getting her in the elevator, even if it meant dragging her off her feet. Her eyes didn't see him though. They were still looking in the direction of Kara. Behind Kara she saw the Mongoose ATVs. She could ride one of them. Get out of here. Go somewhere. Someplace where Jacob couldn't find her. Couldn't drag her to an asylum.

Anna heard Jacob yelp as she almost pulled him off his feet. She sprinted past Kara, who stepped back, not wanting to get run over, and made for the ATVs. What she was going to do, where she was going to go and hide, she had no idea. She would figure all that out later. Right now she just had to get away.

Anna leaped on to the Mongoose and pressed the start button. It roared to life between her legs, drowning out Jacob's protests and shouts at Kara to stop her. She gunned the throttle. The tires spun briefly then caught, the Mongoose leaping forward, right past Kara, and through the still open warehouse door into the city.

Author's Note

Credit goes to guys at Fire Fly Machinima for coming up with the original idea.