Two Months Before Invasion (B.I.)
"Everything is a go Doctor Halsey," a rather buff scientist says, standing a good head taller than her as he goes through information on a holographic screen. "We spent over a year growing these babies... Time to wake them up?"
He looks up at the room beyond, inside is a revolving mechanical pillar with dozens upon dozens of life pods. Each is filled with a faintly blue liquid, and a single lifeform apiece... Human lifeforms. Clones, not the Flash Clones that have a set lifespan, but actual clones capable of living a life as long as a typical human's. Utterly illegal... Yet utterly necessary.
Yes, I believe so. Its fantastic that its actually ahead of schedule for once. Wake them."
With a nod he hits a switch, and the room beyond is illuminated with white light. The desynchronized revolution of the pods slowly stops with a hydraulic hiss, and mechanical arms slowly push the pods away from the central pillar. Racks await on the edges of the room where the pods are laid to rest. Then the topmost layer of pods are detached from life support tubes before being carried into the walls themselves.
The assistant leans in towards the terminal as screens illuminate his lab cost. On his left chest side is the words, "Travis-910." He smiles softly as he sees the pods sliding into medical rooms where doctors are waiting to make a physical examination.
"The first 24 subjects are ready for animation," Travis reports. "Shall w leave this to the medical teams, or are you keen on welcoming over a hundred new souls to life personally?"
"How about just the best two?" Catherine suggests and smiles softly at the forms beneth them.
"Two? Why..." He stops himself. He's worked with Doctor Halsey long enough to know not to question her choices. Scratching his head he says, "Well we won't be able to tell who the most promising subjects are until they're put into training. Basic medical examinations should take at least a week, then we'll know if the chemical augmentations we introduced to their systems during the final stages of development will have taken any effect."
Naturally she already knows all this, Travis just has a habit of thinking out loud. Shutting his eyes he runs a few estimates through is head. "Naturally the augmentation was mild so they shouldn't be anywhere near Spartan levels yet. But hopefully it will cut down on the number of subject whose bodies reject the process. You should have your chosen two in... A month at least."
"Well I have them now." Cathrine insists," But first, we obviously nees to see if they can even walk."
"Understood ma'am. We should have them all awake in under 24 hours. They've been asleep for quite some time so I imagine they can stay awake long enough to meet you."
"Yes, I know." Catherine sets her data pad down and heads for the door.
18 Hours Later
In the atrium of the facility, a large four story room that leads to several other branches of the facility, all the artificially grown subjects are assembled. The room is massive enough to house all of them on the ground floor.
They look rather diverse, all children on the cusp of puberty. Each of them wears a grey jumpsuit with black on the shoulders as well as their identification number on their left chest region. On ther hips is a belt with a few pouches, all of which are empty for the time being, as is the holster for a small sidearm that they will be commissioned when they're deemed adept to weild such a tool.
Catharine taps a com and clears her throat,"Hello Spartans, and welcome to your new home."
The mutterings of conversation die at her words as all eyes turn up towards her. Travis stands at her side, this time dressed in armor. Black, and green Scout armor to be exact. On his back is a shotgun, in his hands a drum fed machine gun. Both are loaded with rubber ammunition, though the standard sidearm on his leg has lethal rounds loaded. He looks over the crowd of children below him critically, knowin it will ultimately be up to him to make sure they're moded ino the soldiers humanity needs.
"As of right now, you are real soilders, not spartans. At least not yet." Catherine says and sits up straight, glancing at Travis.
He nods, and taps a wrist control. All around the room float Spartans in great of combat on holographic screens. One dodging around a Hunter to blast it in the back with a rocket launcher, another leaps off the top of a Scorpion to commandeer a Banshee, a lone Spartan standing on a crate with Elites rushing in only to be taken down with a shotgun or melee strike, a Brute assaulted from above as a Spartan dives from a ledge to drive a knife into its skull, and finally one Spartan ripping the turret off a Warthog to effortlessly mow his way through dozens of charging Grunts. Each of these soldiers have their own distinct armor, and color scheme with a number on their left chest.
All of this was captured from helmet cameras, and compiled by Travis to drive home one message for these future solders... What it means to be a Spartan.
"That is only a fragment of what Spartans are capable of." Catherine says proudly, "And I hope that you all make the the cut."
This makes some look excited, some look anxious, and there are varying levels of disbelief. Travis looks to Catherine Halsey, "Permission to address the cadets ma'am?"
"Permission granted."
He takes off his helmet to address the group below, his face now appearing on the screen. Silence slowly falls as he taking a slow breath.
"Cadets," he says. "I am Travis, Spartan-910 of the Spartan 2 program, and from this day forward I am going to start your training to make you better than the best soldiers... I am going to make you Spartans, the next big leap for mankind. You will be taught weapons, history, tactics, and above all else Honor, and Duty. Some of you will not succeed, many of you will not survive, but for those of you who do you will uphold not just the legacy of the Spartans, but the legacy of humanity itself."
With that he steps aside to let Catherine have the floor again.
"Not much else to say Cadets. Your training begins at 0400 hours tomorrow. Dismissed."
Lights shine on the floors, bpulsing through the hallways, and up the stairs. Taking a hint many of them start following them towards their bunks.
Travis speaks again, "When you reach your sleeping quarters each of you will find a chest at the foot of your bunks in which to keep your belongings. Press your thumb to the blue pad to key it to your own thumbprint. Inside you will find a headset which is to be worn at all tims outside your quarters. It is equipped with a basic learning program to begin your training in the use of Artificial Intelligence, a map of the permitted areas of the facility, and several other functions that will be unlocked as you progress your training."
He notes that while a many had stopped to listen a few had carried on regardless. The headsets will be key to handling the children, constant monitoring of their surroundings, location, biological status, and how they chose to learn. Every action these future Spartans make will be used to judge their capability, and make their profile for the record.
He turns to Halsey as he puts his helmet back on. "Looks like it's starting all over again."
"So it seems. How are the special augmentations for our future two elite Spartans coming along?" Catherine asks.
"The Kinetic Repulser, and the Matter Transceiver are still in the Alpha Testing," Travis responds. "But they're not like my Phase Shifter. We will want to carefully select which Spartans get them from the data the Headsets collect so we can plan their biological augmentation accordingly for maximum efficiency. The corresponding armor implants should need a few months still, a year at most if we suffer setbacks."
Cathrine nods and types something on her data pad. " Alright then. I'll see you tomarrow then." She turns on her heel and walks out.
Cadet Barracks 2-A
When the cadets broke for bed they left seemingly at random, though they seem to posses the sense to sort themself by gender at least. In the first living quarters on the second floor a group of 6 girls have taken up residence. Some have listened to Travis, and are inspecting their headsets. One of them however... is not.
Subject 2114 is practically bouncing on her toes in excitement, and shadwboxing. Then she backflips just to see how far she can bend. Her landing however leaves much to be desired as her face meets the floor. "Ow!"
One of the girls snicker and sets her headsetto the side,"Are you alright?"
2114 sits up, quickly getting to her feet. "I'm better than okay! Did you see that out there?! That's gonna be us!" Sh dances in place lie a heerleader until she hits her toe on a bedpost. At which point she start hopping on one foot as she rubs her injured toes gingerly.
"Okay...Well I'm 392. Aren't you gonna get you headset?" 392 tilts her head.
She blinks, and hobbles her way to the trunk at the foot of her bed. Opening it she pulls out the headset, a fancy band f metal that fits around the back of the head with a thinner band on top. When she puts it on a holographic visor sparks on over her eyes.
"Scanning retinal data, connecting to data mainframe... Match found, hello Kate-2114."
The female robotic voice speaking in her ear only loud enough for her to hear makes her blink, and smile. "Uh... Hi! I guess you know me then... Kate... Nice name I guess. What's yours?"
"I'm sorry but this construct is not made for social interaction. My function is as a quick-reference knowledge resource, and a guide around the facility. At least for the time being."
"Sweet! " 392 says as she slides her head set on," Ruth-392...Has ring to it I guess."
Kate slides off her headset, "Nice to meet you Ruth. What about the rest of you?"
"Mia," replies a dark skinned girl in dreadlocks.
"Sierra," a fair skinned redhead with tomboyishly cut hair waves from her bunk.
"Avaline-218" is the last replie, another ginger with apple-red hair, and pale skin that made the hundreds of freckles on her face stand out and bright green eyes.
The last girl, the one that has yet to speak, is already alsep ignoring the rest.
Kate smiles at them all as she puts he headset back into her footlocker. "Nice to meet you all! Well uh... goodnight?" She shrugs as she sits on her bunk, slipping under the blanket.
Avaline lets out a annoyed huff and rolls over in her bunk, pretty soon, the entire room is filled with light snores.
End Transmission
Footnote:
Dear UNSC Councilmen,
Please forgive the briefness of this initial report. Not many resources carry data of the Spartan NextGen project, and even fewer subjects survived its the glassing of Reach making witness testimony a rare commodity. We are lucky that no apparent efffort was made by Doctor Halsey to destroy any evidence of this project, most likely due to her predicting that Reach would fall, and she believed all traces of Spartan NextGen would be buried with her facility maling it lost frever. As it was she was half right.
We will compile my next report as soon as we find the evidence to back my hunches. We hope to find something more enlightening to report next time.
Sincerely,
Agent Wolfe, and Agent Star Splice
