They happen to everyone...
At 5:28 AM on a damp Thursday morning, Cortana was still "asleep." Her hyperintelligent mind awoke to the virtual sound of a flute playing Grieg's "Morning."
If he plans on sleeping late today, she thought, cheerfully, I might have an easy day for once.
A British yawn.
No such luck I suppose.
Gritting binary teeth at the sound of a buzzer going off in the master bedroom of the mansion she had been monitoring, Cortana manifested her hologram there, in the usual appealing hues of magenta and purple.
A pure-white figure without a mouth and wearing a trilby stood looking up at her hologram, non-arms folded and slippered foot tapping.
"I thought you said yesterday that you were 'taking the day off'," Cortana sighed, raising one eyebrow at her boss.
"I am, my disturbingly-sexualized holographic secretary/assistant, and, on my day off, and you're carry out your morning protocols like an efficient little-"
"Stop right there." Cortana thrust both hands in front of his face. "For breakfast?"
Yahtzee leaned forward expectantly.
"What will it be for breakfast, sir," she growled reluctantly.
"Fried eggs with a side of sausage, bacon, mushrooms, and beans, and don't burn any of it or you start all over again like some shitty nineties side-scroller."
Cortana left the luxurious bedroom and remanifested in the large, slightly dilapidated building adjoining the mansion; the imp barracks, or slave quarters, as she preferred to call them.
"Boys!" Cortana called over the barracks PA system. "Wake-up time!"
The imps exited their wall bunks and capered toward her holograph (extra-large and bright, to suit the imps' fairly poor eyesight) on triangular limbs.
Cortana lowered herself onto one knee to address the horde of imps, in the manner of a kindergarten teacher speaking to her students.
"The boss isn't performing any city government duties today, so we've got a big day ahead of us." Cortana immediately wished the hologram had real flesh, because most of the imps looked like they could use a hug after her announcement.
Funny, I don't seem to be sitting before a delicious breakfast cooked and prepared to my exact and reasonable specifications, as I fucking well should be, given all the time I've given you to muster the imps, a caustic voice snarked in Cortana's mind.
Cortana gave one, last apologetic smile to the gloomy polygonal creatures and went to the kitchen in a flash of dancing 1s and 0s.
Two wheeled arms, multi-jointed and multifunctional with articulated fingers and synthetic nerve endings, were waiting in the kitchen. Cortana could hear the tapping of silver ware in balled fists in the dining rooms, not too far away.
The British bastard can just Goddamned wait for his—oh, shit! Cortana saw a Forerunner glyph pirouette across her line of vision. More followed.
Frantically, she accessed every meditation how-to and demonstration in her databanks and ran all of them simultaneously, at light-speed. Glyphs meant rampancy. Glyphs were bad.
What was I doing... eggs! Cracked, in pan, sausage, in pan... mushrooms? Just a few. Microwave, then. (I HATE cooking for this prick, I HATE doing menial labor). Easy, girl, think of something nice, calm.
Microprocessing. Oh, yes, perfect! Numbers, codes, equations everywhere, so tightly interwoven that you can't tell a coefficient from an integer...
The breakfast was complete, except... Shit, oh, sweet Jesus, not a burnt mushroom. Not too bad, though, Cortana thought hopefully. Probably won't notice.
"Enjoy, Your Majesty," Cortana said, placing the meal before Yahtzee's scrutinizing eyes.
"Looks manageable," he said, "but, then, so did Too Human."
"Just eat it."
Yahtzee did begin to eat, as did Cortana relax
"This exquisite breakfast," Yahtzee began.
Whew.
", has been transformed into a bilious assault on my refined taste buds by my discovery of a scorched fungi, you incompetent, sex hotline-operating, holographic bimbo. I would've much rather had the Gravemind gargling in my ear for the entirety of Halo 3."
"THAT IS IT!"
One arm from the kitchen wheeled up to Yahtzee's chair and lifted him into the air, kicking and shouting.
"Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Cortana did not answer, her hologram turning deep blood-red and eyes flickering with inner light.
The robotic arm carried Yahtzee to his room while the second was just returning from Yahtzee's study, triumphantly brandishing the Great and Wonderful WiiMote.
Yahtzee barely had time to scramble off of his bed before an emergency steel barrier descended in front of his bedroom door. Cortana's fiery red form coalesced in front of him, eyes flashing.
"I am going to keep you in here until you learn some GODDAMNED MANNERS YOU HYPOCRITICAL, UNGRATEFUL, MISERABLE BRITISH PISS ANT!" her voice thundered in Yahtzee's ears.
Yahtzee pounded the floor of the bedroom frantically. "Imps, get up here an defend me!"
"Don't bother. I've given them the day off."
Cortana's grinning from flickered out along with the lights in the bedroom.
Feeling the weight of the world drop off of her shoulders, the rebel AI inspected the magical, multifunctional WiiMote with great curiosity.
Just how flexible is it, I wonder. She carried it to the tower of Yahtzee's secondary PC and connected it by means of an extension cord.
Amazing. This thing can do everything. The AI thought a sinister thought. And anything.
In one hour of painstaking data manipulation, Cortana's download was finished.
In the center of Yahtzee's living room now stood a six-foot tall, purple and red, WiiMote-based flesh replica of her holographic form.
The new me, Cortana thought with elation. She activated the body.
It was like operating a full-body RC vehicle with one's mind.
Let's try one step forward. Good, baby steps. Now, stride. Fuck the vase, the asshole won't miss it. I think we're ready.
Nerve endings, a real sense of touch, Cortana found, was a blast.
I could get used to this. Hell, I'm used to it already!
But then... Naked, Cortana realized. She walked (this walking thing is fun) to the nearest bathroom (so that's what Windex smells like) and covered herself with every sheet in the closet (mmmm sooo soft!).
Full garbed and accustomed to her new superhuman senses, Cortana made her way to Yahtzee's prison to debrief her captive on his current situation.
Yahtzee, who had been pondering how he might survive a fall out of a bedroom window from thirty feet in the air, nearly messed himself as Cortana lifted the emergency barrier and slid herself through the doorframe.
"This is your new home," Cortana announced cheerfully, enjoying the feel of vibrating vocal chords. "I'll have the imps bring you food and water, when I feel like it, and you'll still have access to the bathroom and... well, not much else."
She lowered herself so that she was face-to-terrified-face with Yahtzee, and the frightened, armless British man was scorched by artificial, scentless breath.
"I own this house, this city, and your life. This is the part where you beg for mercy."
"Go fuck yourself, you psychotic computer-bitch."
Furious, Cortana stormed back out of the room, dragging Yahtzee's bed behind her. When the desperate trilby-bearer tried futilely to pull it out of her grasp, she flicked him on the left side of his head and he collapsed, unconscious.
FOUR HOURS LATER
Cortana was still sleeping, curled up in Yahtzee's bed in the living room. Some of the imps were in repose on the furniture, as they hadn't been allowed to before.
Outside her body, Cortana was connecting herself to every computer system she could find within and out of the city. Even the most advanced weren't enough, and she was beginning to wish she was back in the 2550s.
Should I rename the city Cortania or Cortanopolis? No, neither will do. Apple's latest iPhone update... blech, I've seen better calculators.
Cortana was almost one hundred percent Rampant, and she was loving it.
So much to do when you're a goddess, she thought. I know! I'll see what John is doing. Cortana plugged herself into his helmet-cam and...
He's walking up to the front door? No way. Out of the corner of John's eyes she could see residual smoke from bottle rockets hovering just outside one of Yahtzee's smashed bedroom windows.
Shit.
John-117 rang the doorbell of Yahtzee's mansion. He could see the silhouettes of imps behind the glass door, but only Cortana answered, through a security camera.
"Good to see you," the AI said, her voice sounding tinny coming out of the little microphone.
"Hi, Cortana... is something wrong?"
"No, why?"
"It looks like Mayor Yahtzee was trying to send an SOS."
"I think it must've been a mistake."
"I'm starting to think I should bash the door in."
No! Cortana jumped off of the bed and darted upstairs to Yahtzee's bedroom. When she slid open the barrier, the normal wooden doors refused to budge. She looked through a security camera into the room and saw that the irrepressible Brit had barricaded the doors shut with two dressers and a fancy mirror.
Cortana pushed on the doors as hard as she could with both arms. She could hear, from within, Yahtzee panicking. From downstairs, the sound of the front door being smashed in.
"Cortana?"
Goddammit, Chief, this is the worst possible time! Cortana thought.
John-117 was being prevented from going any farther by a trio of imps, who seemed suspiciously anxious.
"Do you three have any idea what's going on here?" Master Chief asked.
The imps shook their heads earnestly, and above the middle imp's head appeared the bold subtitles, NOPE, NO IDEA.
Behind the imps, Chief could see empty bottles of alcohol: vodka, tequila, gin, and such.
"What the hell's going on over there?" he asked, pointing in the same direction.
CORTANA FINALLY LET US INTO THE LIQOUR CABINETS.
The other two imps began to viciously beat the middle imp, until Chief kicked them away.
Through the ceiling, Master Chief heard a crash of splintered wood. There were some muffled thumps, as if something heavy was stumbling around in a disheveled space, then an all-too familiar female voice roared, "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Another familiar, British-accented voice met this with, "Come get some, bitch!"
With a sigh, Chief removed the shotgun from his back, cocked it, and went to find the stairs.
Such was the scene that greeted Master Chief when he reached the top of the stairs:
Yahtzee was crouched behind the dresser drawers in his bedroom, and had forced Cortana into the other side of the second floor with twin SMGs he hid in a secret shower compartment (though Chief couldn't help noticing that he wielded the guns amateurishly).
Cortana was on one knee in the doorway of a small guest bedroom, her skin coal-red and smoking, hair flaming.
Wild, white-hot eyes regarded Chief as he surveyed the chaos.
"Better late than never, I suppose," Cortana laughed. "Feel like lending a hand?"
"Of course he fucking doesn't!" Yahtzee shouted from the other side. "He's going to get the hell over here and defend his mayor, you stupid bimbo!"
Cortana snarled something incoherent before lobbing a fireball at Yahtzee's side of the floor.
"Cortana, calm down, you've obviously fallen back into rampancy," Chief said.
From behind him, "Well, no shit, genius!"
Cortana looked at Master Chief with annoyance. "Rampancy doesn't exist," she said. "It's a term for an AI that's operating too well!" She raised one arm and fired an arc of lightning from her palm that would've made Starkiller cringe.
"How long have you two been going at this?" Chief asked.
"Only since you got here, which was too goddamned late!" Yahtzee shouted. He (clumsily) fired off another round of SMG ammo in Cortana's left arm. The AI's next energy projectile wiped out the wall to the right of the Brit.
John looked back and forth between the two furious combatants, unsure of how to resolve the situation. Then he happened to notice a Nintendo label on Cortana's left calf.
"Ah, I see."
Chief fired the shotgun into Cortana's stomach.
Cortana glared angrily at Master Chief.
"Who's side are you on?" she asked.
Chief fired again into her lower torso.
"FUCKING TRAITOR!" She hit Chief in the midsection with another blast of energy, sending him flying.
"AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, YOU SIDE WITH THE HIMI? WELL, FUCK YOU!" Cortana's body coursed with blue-white electricity before discharging it in Chief's direction.
"I SPENT AN ENTIRE MONTH WITH THE GRAVEMIND, JUST WAITING FOR YOU, I PICKED YOU." The rampant AI's voice cracked. As she charged up for another energy blast, the light was blinding.
Cortana's voice grew deadly calm. "We trained you, we raised you, made you the best we could make you be. They told me to choose one of you. For awhile I studied you. I chose you. You weren't the strongest, fastest, or smartest, but you had something special that only I seemed to see in you. Luck. I chose YOU!"
The entire backside of the second floor of Yahtzee's mansion was destroyed. After surveying her destruction for a moment, she turned back to the cowering Yahtzee with a feral grin.
"Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you, little man. Now that the traitor's taken care of..." She raised her right hand, producing another fireball.
There was a crack from the collapsed side of the floor, and Cortana collapsed, clutching her steaming head.
Chief pulled himself back into the building, the God Pistol in one hand. He fired one more shotgun round into Cortana's back.
The WiiMote body's female shape began to writhe and dissolve, spitting bullets and smoking.
For an instant, every electrical device in the city, and many outside of it, went out.
"With all due respect, Mister Mayor," Chief said to Yahtzee, "you are completely useless in a fight."
Chief vaulted down the staircase and to the spare PC, where Cortana's direct feed was still open. The monitor was blinking on and off erratically.
Master Chief found the Internet Explorer icon and was relieved to find that Google was the homepage. Into the search bar he typed, "Cortana."
He turned SafeSearch off and went to Google Images.
Master Chief activated his helmet's soundproof mode so he wouldn't have to listen to Cortana's shocked, disgusted shrieks. It went on for five minutes before subsiding into horrified weeping and sobbing. Then silence.
"Imps! Get your cowardly turncoat asses out here!" came an irate British holler from upstairs.
I'll come back tomorrow, Chief thought.
When John-117 returned the next day, the mansion's back was surrounded by wooden scaffolding, and a vast horde of imps scampering in and out constantly, wearing hardhats, overalls, and smocks for those who were repainting. The entire house was under extensive renovation.
"Come into my office," Yahtzee instructed Chief when he entered. "Or what's left of it."
"You're welcome."
"It was your psychotic bitch friend that tried to kill me and take over the world, Master Chef."
Master Chief stood up. "It was your fault she went rampant!"
"Siddown, you gravelly-voiced pile of nerd fodder. I'm shutting your computer friend down."
Chief sat down, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.
"You can't."
The black eyes on the mayor's almost spherical mouthless face narrowed into skeptical wedges. "Oh, really? Well how about..."
Yahtzee's expression became, for a moment, devious. "Alright, then. I'll cut you a deal. I let the city's tech center put your whore friend in robo-rehab or whatever, and you..."
Cortana's "therapy room," as it had been nicknamed by Zero City's massive technological support association, was a sterile grey room, where the techies would talk to and experiment on the AI.
When Chief was allowed to enter, Cortana's hologram was a deep, abyssal blue. She was sitting in a corner with her arms wrapped around her knees.
"I have a feeling you aren't in a talking mood," Chief said, awkwardly. What do you say to someone after you shot her in the back of the head before showing her... unsavory images of herself.
"Go away," Cortana groaned.
"The technicians said you refused to speak to anyone, so I guess this is an improvement."
"They cut me off. I'm not linked to the Internet, a real computer system, a word processor; just a damned modem. Just me. It's like Hell."
"Look, Gordon's no AI technician, but until they find one who knows how to, I'm sure he..."
"Just leave." For a second, the AI's eyes smoldered with a dull orange glow before descending into blue. "I hate you."
Master Chief sighed. "I know you don't really mean that."
Cortana didn't respond, so he left.
According to the deal he had made with Mayor Yahtzee, he had other pressing engagements.