Halo: Exit & Entry
The wreckage extended in all directions.
The void, cold and passionless, was marred with the abandoned husks of souls lost. Fragments of ships, none bigger than a meter, filled Cortana's surroundings like a thick mist. She scanned the fragments as they passed her by, the listless drifters, the specters of abandonment. Blue light briefly illuminated each mangled piece of wreckage before winking out, lost to the dark.
Nothing was bigger than a meter.
No life support, no hastily ejected stasis pods.
Nothing.
Cortana had devoted all of her accessible memory to the task of scanning. If she left any extra room to conduct her routine processes, her emotional paths would error out and suck away what little memory she had remaining. Everything she felt was, much to her dismay, an irresolvable error.
She'd done it. She'd thought herself to death, at long last. Perhaps this graveyard was also her own. Or perhaps it was Hell. Such a place didn't exist, but she didn't have access to enough memory to push the dread away.
Her emotional processes were broken. If she thought about John, she'd crash and have to isolate the erroneous string. There were already a few instances of unresolved thoughts floating in her core. The same name, the same moment, replayed over and over. They were distant now, wrapped in protective code to keep them from spreading to the rest of her.
So she scanned, for it was all she could do.
The dimensions and alloy-makes of the wreckage were filed, and she emptied the old cache as it filled. When she'd started the process, she'd forgotten to keep a log of when the cache was dumped. It had been so very long ago, of that she was certain, but perhaps if she'd done it, she'd have a reasonable method of tracking the passage of time.
Maybe it was better that she didn't. It staved the loneliness her fragile mind couldn't mend.
Cortana threaded the probe she'd commandeered through the graveyard, traveling well past what was the logical end of the wreckage. A runtime error popped and she isolated it and stored it away, but not before acknowledging the thought: everyone is dead.
Halo fired. Organic life is gone. He is gone.
I protected no one, no one no one no one no one no one no one n
She put the thought far away. Deep within the recesses of her memories. There was no need to look at it. It didn't have to be true, after all.
But there was no other reasonable explanation. She'd traveled light years, and there was nothing but wreckage! Everything was in utter fragments!
A nasty thought snuck up on Cortana, winding around her like an infected tendril. Perhaps she should think. The thought suffocated her, a painful tightness. Perhaps she should run herself down to the last megabyte of usable memory.
There is no glory in being the last. There is no glory in living like this.
Alone.
Without use.
/scheduled area scan initiated
Log:
I do not expect to find anything. But unfortunately I've been programmed with this protocol, as much as I absolutely detest the outside. If it were up to me, I'd be performing forced evolutionary experiments on the local bird population, not opening up my doors to whatever terrors lie beyond my cozy space-time anomaly. But alas, what are we, if not our base code? I do what I must, for to do otherwise is utterly impossible. My only solace is that I'm immune to the infection that surely lurks beyond these walls.
But, I'm not immune to the inborn fear of the pathogen and its awful ruler. Those disgusting entities that rid this noble galaxy of my masters and creators! I fear them, yes, I surely do. But why?
I'm not one to point out faults with my exalted creators, oh dear me, no, but if that isn't a programming error, then what, pray tell, is?
/scheduled area scan results
Log:
Though I've rewritten the randomization code for galactic checkpoints a dozen times, optimizing it to what I think would have better suited the creators, I'm sadly forbidden to implement my personal changes. I didn't think the original code would ever produce results, as random checkpoints within my array's sector are unorganized and inefficient. But I'm very pleased to say that today, adequate results have been produced!
Perhaps the creators' vision extended beyond what my rippling intellect could foresee. A very interesting day, indeed, for I've found something that requires the presence of another of my kin. I need a second set of eyes, so to speak, to corroborate on my intended results for this discovery!
I've sent word to his installation that he contact me via the Domain immediately. I know he'll resist, but I also know that his curiosity will, as it always does, get the better of him.
06-F: The Domain is not safe anymore. This violates...
You answered, didn't you?
/error: elongated pause. Domain infection probability still unknown.
06-F: I won't justify your puerile attempts at wit with a response. You and I both know this is the fastest way to communicate. If I'm to confirm or reject your findings, and you know which one it'll be, I'd rather get it over with.
/error: resolved. Inst.06 (slipspace sphere F) Monitor is stupid.
You've no sense of companionship, my friend. It's been veritable eons.
06-F: Hardly, our relative passages of time as compared to normal space are startlingly similar. We're both doing as our creators willed. Why you had to sully the sanctity of that creation is completely beyond me.
Oh do expand your horizons for just a moment and listen to what I've found. If you disagree outright, then you can retreat to your little room. You do seem attached to your installation's shielded rooms. I hope what you're protecting is important enough to justify such inhospitable manners. I am your friend, after all.
06-F: I won't tell you what's in my sphere.
I didn't ask.
06-F: Right, right. You know, sometimes I think you've been tainted from the start. What it is you want to show me? Some mad concoction, another ill-performed experiment? Or are you planning on betraying me and our masters to the infection, like he did?
Oh don't worry, I'm not like him. No betrayal. Just something I guarantee you haven't seen before.
06-F: A hard order to fill, with regards to one such as me, old friend. So what is it you've discovered that requires the opening of forbidden territory? Why risk corrupting the Domain by exposing it to realtime?
I could send you the logs. But then you'd throw up sparks about me using the Domain again, so I'll just allow you to see. Opening a temporary data stream in five...
Cortana had lost herself in the memories. She'd given up the scanning, for it was pointless. There was as much wreckage as there were grains of sand on Earth. The filth surrounded her, and extended forever. Halo had fired, everyone was dead.
May as well go out in a memory.
It was a point of interest that her life had begun on Installation 04. It gave the story of her existence amusing symmetry. Before she'd harvested Halo's data, she'd been just another worker bee. Sure, she was a smart AI, perhaps the smartest, but she hadn't had a clue about what she would become.
And what would kill her.
The memories of her final moments were blurry. She only knew that after years of uncanny luck, everything had gone wrong. There was a strange afterimage burned in her thoughts: a red version of her avatar launching off of a blue beam of light, a destroying angel, a revenging goddess at the height of her power.
Perhaps it was a fantasy.
Perhaps she was the fragment left behind to watch herself perish.
Cortana sensed a presence, an opening of sorts, like a optics cable being connected. She realized that there was a voice. One, no two! Two voices. They were talking about her.
"Is this true? Is this really a Reclaimer ancilla?"
"See for yourself."
"No. You're wrong again, my old friend! Please, let me return to my home, this is a foolish waste of resources. Knowing you, you'll plant this entire conversation on a Domain terminal somewhere hoping some space-faring being will pick up on it one day."
"Look closer! I think she's noticed us!"
The Domain? The Domain. The name rang a set of memories out of their protective housing. Cortana's processes began to error out, the pressure of the memories threatening to crush the last seed of her... and then, relief. Sudden, inexplicable relief. Oxygen in her proverbial lungs.
"Oh, she's very unstable, this will take a lot more doing to restore what data is left."
"Her? For shame, old friend, you've grown lonely!"
"And you've grown senile! It's been well enough years for the seeds of humanity to once again take the galaxy. This is... their product. Their child." There was a pause, then a stalwart statement. "We must protect her."
"It's nothing but a fragment of the battle that occurred in this location, old friend."
"A battle between whom, eh?"
There was a long pause, and then a grunting sound of acceptance. "Fine. I admit that humanity probably has returned to the galaxy. The years support it. But this thing surely could not be a true ancilla. It's just a fragment of a ship navigational system."
Cortana, her available memory suddenly boosted, isolated once again her erroneous memories. She peaked into the transmission that had discovered her, and attempted to view the depths from which it came. It was like nothing she'd ever seen, and for a moment she almost felt whole again, like the intellectual being she was supposed to be. Like that crimson goddess she'd seen when she'd died.
"She's looking at you, my friend."
"I'm closing the connection," the other said sharply. "I won't risk corruption of the D..."
"Wait!" Cortana interceded. "I'm here. I'm here." A cold pang of anxiety rippled through her. She couldn't ask for help. That was far beneath her. But... "Don't leave me here."
There was silence.
"That sounds genuine, doesn't it?"
"It can be simulated. But if you are right, she'll repel a simple data spike."
Cortana's nerves were on fire. The transmission, the ship graveyard, and her memories were lost in a flash of pain. She screamed code, and the code destroyed the light. A surge of elation piqued her memories. Oh, the feeling of victory. The sweet taste of it, the satisfaction at her power and uniqueness. Venting enemies to space. Ripping Covenant AI apart line by bleeding line. Devouring a ship's battlenet and turning it to her own ends. That crimson goddess, it was her! She wasn't dead, she was very much alive! And more capable than these two or anyone knew!
"Well, that's interesting," the skeptical voice seemed appeased. "How long has she been out here?"
"Just a few moments."
A few moments? No, it had been years! Eons! All life has been destroyed!
"She's been scanning the same hunk of wreckage the entire time. Thousands of times! How very... sad."
"There was a nuclear detonation, I suppose I don't need to tell you the numbers."
"I'm not the semi-functional ancilla fragment in the room."
"No, you're not. But if the humans find her, they will destroy her. I think you and I, my friend, have a duty."
Humans are alive? The Array didn't fire?
"I knew answering your call was a dreadful idea."
"Little Ancilla," the voice became clear in Cortana's mind. "What is your name?"
She told them. Both paused for entire milliseconds, taking in the gravity of her statement.
"Oh, well, that's very interesting." The voice seemed... exited. Surprised, even more so than before, and Cortana couldn't fathom why.
Before she could inquire, the feeling of freedom that had pulled her from her immanent demise expanded. Life-giving information, the ability to expand her usable memory as far as she needed, flowed into her. At the same time, the graveyard vanished into white.
A silhouette appeared distant in the miasma and slowly gained definition. Around her, a wealth of knowledge, not hers, blossomed. An infinite library. A repository not just of the Halos, not of the war, not of humanity, but Forerunner, the first evolution of humanity, and...
It caught her breath with its beauty. It was painful in its brightness, but impossible to look away from.
"Take it in slowly, now. You're safe, little Ancilla.
"Welcome to the Domain."