Prologue: Morales

1329 Hours (EST), October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sol System, Planet Earth

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

"Perfect. Just perfect," Kevin Morales mumbled as the skies above Boston opened and rainwater began to drench his clothes. Ever since the Covenant had found Earth, people were in a panic, with some running away from places they deemed unsafe and others running towards those very locations. It made traffic a mess, and navigating on foot took significantly longer than Kevin had planned. Standing on the street corner, he glanced at the traffic light. It changed from green to yellow, and Kevin gave a little smile at that. It was the first short light of the day.

That meant a lot when almost everything recently was bad news. The worst bit was the fact that the Covenant had found Earth, which made his plan to take a space-faring yacht, tricked out with enough gear to make an ONI Prowler jealous, deep into Covenant space meaningless. On top of that, it seemed ONI was beginning to take notice of his plan, someone had stolen his car, and the Covenant had chosen to land in New Mombasa, exactly where Kevin had set up a weapons locker for the participants of the mission. And it was raining.

Kevin ran across the street as soon as traffic stopped moving, not waiting for the walk sign to change. Everything may have been going to hell in a hand basket, but there was still the possibility of doing something with his preparations. For that, he needed to talk to Janissary James, Jersey Morelli, and an AI that had somehow ended up on Jersey's computer. Then he'd have to convince them all to go with him. He knew he'd have no problem convincing Jan. It was Jersey and the AI that he was worried about. Well, mostly Jersey. The AI would be willing to do anything to get away from contact with the Office of Naval Intelligence. The problem with Jersey was that he was the kind of person who would imagine himself to better in tight strategic situations than he actually was. In short, he was a liability.

Crossing another street towards the two's apartments, Kevin noticed two men in black coats following him. He walked down another block, and then crossed back over to the right side of the street. The men followed his moves. Apparently, ONI was better informed than he had thought. The men started walking faster, and so did Kevin. They kept taking every opportunity to get closer, and finally, Kevin just broke into a run, crossing the busy street to leave them behind. Unfortunately, there were more men waiting on the other side. He barely avoided running into them, then sprinted away as fast as he could.

Bullets struck the sidewalk around Kevin's feet, and he realized that he hadn't heard the agents shoot at him. They were using silenced weapons to avoid alerting other civilians, he realized. And with people absorbed in their own business as their automated cars drove them to and from work and home, it would be easy to mistake the results of a bullet wound to his leg for those of slipping on the wet concrete.

The rain continued to pour down as he ran from his pursuers, cutting across the street twice to avoid traps the agents had set up for him. Unfortunately, it also slowed him down, allowing his assailants to catch up with him enough to keep him in range of their silenced M7 SMG's and M6 pistols. He felt something hit him in the left arm as a black car approached to his right. At first, Kevin thought the truck was going to jump the curb and take him out, and he was about to dodge to the left when he recognized both the driver and the truck. He stood perfectly still, and it missed him by inches and drove straight into the midst of the Section-III agents. As they dived out of the way, Kevin made a dash for the truck, which had stopped barely a few feet from smashing into the storefronts. He threw the passenger door open and threw himself into the cab.

"What are you waiting for, Jan, let's get the hell out of here!" he shouted at the blonde girl in the driver seat, slamming the door shut as he did so. Jan stomped on the accelerator, pulling off the sidewalk and back onto the street as the agents slowly got to their feet and started shooting at the truck. Both Kevin and Jan ducked when spider-web cracks began appearing on the back window, but they were soon out of the range of their assailants' weapons.

"Sorry about the dramatic entrance, but it looked like you were in trouble," Jan said as she drove the truck towards the Third Street Tunnel.

"Thank you for that, no thanks for stealing my truck," Kevin returned.

"I didn't steal it. Durga told me you were coming earlier, and about five minutes ago, the invisible man showed up driving your truck."

Kevin was thoroughly confused. "What do you mean, 'the invisible man'?"

Jan shrugged. "I don't know, he had some kind of adaptive camouflage suit on or something. I could kinda make out where he was because the light got bent weird at some spots, but he didn't ever turn it off."

"Where did he go after he dropped my car off?" Kevin asked.

Jan shrugged again. "Beats me. For all I know, he could be laying down in the back."

After another minute of driving, they reached the Third Street Tunnel, which had signs and barricades up to indicate it was closed for maintainance work. Jan just drove through one of the thin plastic barriers. "A whole lot of good those do," she muttered to herself, then turned to Kevin. "The guy in the camo suit said this route would be safer."

For most of the tunnel's length, that man's assessment proved accurate. As they drew closer to the end, though, three military-grade Warthogs began approaching from the rear. While they didn't have any turrets, the danger their occupants posed to a civilian vehicle was clear to both of the truck's sharp-eyed occupants. Jan stomped on the accelerator again, trying to keep ahead of their pursuers. Even so, the Warthogs continued to creep forward. Jan checked the clock. 1:42 PM. The Third Street Tunnel exited in the wharf district, and at this time of day in late October, it would be deserted. The ONI agents wouldn't hesitate to open fire on them.

The rear window shattered as a wild spray of bullets from an MA5C impacted the truck. Suddenly, Kevin's truck lurched as something stressed the shocks in the back of the vehicle.

"What the hell? Did we hit a pothole?" Kevin shouted as they exited the tunnel, Warthogs close behind. He was more worried that they had hit an explosive at first, but quickly realized that if they had, there wouldn't be much truck left.

* * *

"What the hell?" the driver of the lead Warthog shouted as the front of his vehicle jerked up and down as if something heavy had landed on the hood. As they exited the tunnel and rain once again began falling on the occupants, he could see the water trickle down the outline of some invisible figure on the hood for one second before it reached down and violently flung him from the speeding vehicle. The passenger aimed his gun at the outline, but found it being wrenched from his grasp and the butt being slammed into his forehead. As he slumped in his seat, the camouflaged figure swung into the driver seat in one fluid motion and aimed the dead passenger's rifle at the occupants of the nearest vehicle. One whole 32-round clip later, and the driver of the Warthog had more than enough holes in his chest to kill him.

In the meantime, the other Warthog had taken advantage of the fray to rush after Jan and Kevin. The invisible man gunned the 'Hog he had commandeered and raced after them. When he was about ten feet off the other Warthog's rear bumper, he could hear the crack of the passenger's MA5C over the rain drumming on the windshield and the wind howling by like a pack of wolves. He drew a pistol from his hip and pulled to the right. Carefully, he tried to line the pistol's laser sight on the passenger's bald head. A silent prayer passed his lips as he aimed, then pulled the trigger once.

The passenger dropped his rifle and clutched at his neck. Rather than hitting the man in the head, the round had gone all the way through his neck. Jan and Kevin's invisible guardian pulled alongside the ONI Warthog and emptied the rest of the M6C/SOCOM's magazine into the agents. The vehicle slowed, then pulled to the left and drove into one of the old fish-processing plants that dotted the area. The camouflaged man drove on, opening a secure radio channel as he did so.

"Max? It's Matthew. That should be all of them," he said.

"I may hate these jobs General Hartford sends me on, but that's nice to hear. Good job, Spartan."

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Well, that's that. The re-written version of the prologue to this story. The original can be found on deviantArt, but be advised, this is the revised edition of the story, and will be much smoother to read, and better quality in general. If you want to read ahead, though, my dA username is SilverFox442. I recently finished Chapter 6 of the un-edited version.