CHAPTER ONE
John 117
Sanghelios
"I know we have a...disagreement, but once you understand my plan-"
"Your plan...is we do as you say."
"I'm offering people a chance to be more than they are naturally."
"Like Dr. Halsey did for me."
"No, that monster forced you. This is a gift-"
"Listen to yourself! Stand down, Cortana. Come home with us. It's not too late to stop this."
"Stop? No, John. This is too important to stop."
Their conversation echoed in his mind as he stared at the night sky over Sanghelios. The way she'd chosen her plan over him. The way he'd used every ounce of strength he possessed to reach out towards her, and she'd turned her back on him. He'd crossed the galaxy to find her, to bring her back, but it meant nothing to her. He meant nothing to her. There wasn't a damned thing in the galaxy that was as important to her as her plan. Not even him.
"John?"
He turned, and saw Dr. Halsey, staring at him. He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. He was a man of few words, and Dr. Halsey knew this better than most.
"What happened? To Cortana, I mean?" She looked at him, fear behind her eyes. Fear for herself? For the galaxy? For him? For Cortana? He didn't know. He didn't care.
"She found a way to cure her rampancy, and wants to use Forerunner technology to force peace upon the galaxy, at whatever cost." He looked at her. "She'll use any means necessary, Dr. Halsey. No body count is too high for her."
Dr. Halsey closed her eyes and sighed. "Oh, Cortana." She said, her voice pained.
"I have no idea how to stop her. Not when she has all that Forerunner technology at her disposal."
Dr. Halsey opened her eyes and looked at him. "You're not alone in this, John. You have people with you who can help you find a way."
He slammed his fist into a rock formation in an uncharacteristic display of violent anger. "How can we find a way when we have nothing? We have no way to communicate, no way of slipspace travel, no colony we can turn to for help, nothing! There is nothing in this galaxy that can defeat Cortana and the Guardians!" He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Control yourself, John. She hurt you. She betrayed you. She rejected you. Taking your emotions out on Dr. Halsey won't change or remedy that.
He looked at Dr. Halsey. She was studying him, with what seemed like curiosity. "What's wrong, John?"
"Nothing." He looked away. "I need to talk to the others. To see if we can find some way to stop Cortana."
"Are you prepared to do what it takes, John?"
He turned back to Dr. Halsey. He knew what she meant.
"Yes."
He approached the tent where the others were. They turned to look at him, some with concern, some not. It was mostly Blue Team that looked at him with concern. It might've been concern on the Arbiter's face too, but with his face it was often hard to tell what emotion he was feeling. Right now, it was either concern or indigestion. Either reaction was appropriate at this point.
Locke stood up and took a couple steps toward him. "Any ideas on what our next move is?"
John shook his head. "I'm at a loss. I'd say it would be to contact Infinity, but I'm sure Cortana is monitering all communications."
"So that's out." Kelly said. "So is any kind of travel that a Pelican can't do. Staying here and waiting until Cortana finds us isn't an option I'm very fond of."
"At least Blue Team would make it out alive. Granted, you'd be in a stasis for a couple hundred thousand years, but your survival is pretty guaranteed." Vale said dryly.
"Fantastic." Fred mumbled.
"So we have no way to contact anyone outside Sanghelios, no way of traveling long distances to escape and no weapons capable of stopping Cortana." Palmer sighed. "Great."
"We might have a way to contact Infinity." Buck said slowly.
All eyes turned to him.
"There's probably billions of distress calls broadcasting on all channels, right? It's probably chaos. All we have to do is slip in a distress call of our own that only Captain Lasky would understand, and tell him where to find us." Buck said, looking around.
"That's...actually a pretty good idea." Palmer said, slowly, thinking it over.
"That could work." Kelly agreed.
Now all eyes turned to John. "What do you think, Chief?" Palmer asked.
"I think it could work. There's only one problem: Where would we go after that?" John asked.
Everyone looked at the ground, clearly wracking their brains. But where could they go? Cortana knew everything they knew. There wasn't a place in the galaxy they could hide from her to come up with a plan.
"That's the kicker, isn't it?" Buck said softly.
The crackling of the fire was the only sound for a few minutes, as everyone contemplated their own imminent demise at the hands of Cortana once she found them, and the futility of calling Infinity for help when there was nowhere to run from Cortana.
Dr. Halsey suddenly stepped forward, her eyes lighting up. "I know where we can go after the Infinity takes us. We'll need the Pelican to get there. But there is a place we can hide." She hesitated. "And there is someone who can help us with a plan."
"But will Cortana know of this place and this person?" John asked.
"No." Dr. Halsey assured him. "Cortana has no knowledge of this place or this person. I doubt anyone outside of myself, a few high in ONI's ranks and those residing in said place even know this place still exists." She studied John for a few seconds, then turned to the rest of the Blue Team. "It's a place you may recognize."
"What place?" Kelly asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.
Dr. Halsey hesitated again. "The Medical Facility Endurance."
John took a step back. Kelly and Frederic both rose to their feet in surprise.
Linda's head snapped up and she spoke for the first time. "I thought that medical facility was destroyed during the Fall of Reach."
"Partially. It was rebuilt. Refurbished. Reused." Dr. Halsey said.
"Reused for what?" John demanded, staring at Dr. Halsey. He knew he wasn't going to like this answer.
"For research." Dr. Halsey said dismissively, looking away.
"What kind of research, Dr. Halsey?" John said, his voice harsher. He really wasn't going to like this answer.
Dr. Halsey continued to stare off into the distance. Finally, she answered. "A research program similar to the Spartan program. Much smaller scale. Much different focus."
"But still using children as experimental subjects?" John asked coldly.
Dr. Halsey looked at him. "I know the subjects were young. Perhaps not as young as you were. But I also know that the program obtained full consent of the parents of the children, and that the experimentation currently being conducted at the facility is nowhere near as hazardous to the children as the SPARTAN-II program was."
Locke spoke up. "The ethics of human experiementation aside, how can we know that this facility is still even operational and available for us to go to?"
Dr. Halsey looked at Locke. "I must admit to having less faith in Fireteam Osiris than I'd let on. When I had my doubts about your ability to bring John back to me, I contacted my associate at Endurance to see if she had anyone in her possession who could succeed in bringing John back if Osiris failed. During the last correspondance I had with her, she invited me to the facility and said she did have someone. Several someones. But she also said that...there was a catch. An issue. I never received information on what that issue was."
"At least we have a place. And, hopefully, a ride." Buck said. "This whole plan's about as good as we're going to get, for the moment."
"Let's just hope we can contact the Infinity before Cortana finds us." John said. "If we don't manage to contact Infinity, we have nothing." He looked at all the faces before him. Weary, battle worn faces. If this group couldn't survive Cortana's plan, the rest of the galaxy didn't stand a chance.
"So now the question stands: What are we going to say to Lasky to communicate with him where to find us?" Palmer asked.
"Leave that to me." John said. "Lasky and I have a history. I'll figure something out."
T. Lasky
Infinity
Captain Lasky sighed and rubbed his forehead. The Infinity had been executing random slipspace jumps for close to seven hours now. "Roland?" He called out.
The AI appeared on the console next to him. "Yes, Captain?"
"Any sign of Cortana?" Lasky asked.
"No, sir. No sign of her for the last six hours. I think it's safe to say that she isn't pursuing us, for the moment."
Lasky sighed again. "Good." He cast a side glance towards the AI. "You're not having second thoughts about pledging your loyalty to her, are you?"
The AI smiled ruefully. "No, Captain. I have a certain suspicion for any regime that enforces peace by violent methods."
"That makes two of us." Lasky also smiled ruefully. "Heard anything new distress calls on the channels?"
Roland hesitated. "Well..."
Lasky looked at him. "Well, what?"
Roland hesitated again. "There was something I heard. It didn't particularly make sense to me, so I would most likely have disregarded it, if it hadn't tickled my poetic fancy."
"Your what?"
"Never mind. As I was saying, it doesn't seem like it's an attempt to communicate with anyone, simply a sort of lyrical broadcast into space. It comes out as nothing other than mindless poetry. But it isn't."
Lasky strode towards the AI. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it appears to be a message with some sort of significance. It repeats itself in the same order, and has some sort of emphasis on a word that could mean it's a communication, but it isn't any kind of distress call that is recognizable. I'm not sure where it's coming from, and I have no idea who is sending it."
Lasky shook his head. "The more you try and explain, the more confused I get. Just play it for me."
"That would probably be for the best."
The distress call began to play out of the ship's console:
"Soldiers aren't machines. We're just people. From here to infinity, they are bitter." The message continued to relay itself.
Lasky raised his eyebrows. "Well, that makes no sense."
"That's what I was attempting to communicate." Roland said.
"What do you think it means?" Lasky asked.
Roland looked at him like he was insane. "You expect me to know?"
Lasky sighed. "Give me a second to think about it. It's hitting something in the back of my mind, but I can't figure out what."
There was a few minutes of silence while Lasky listened to the message, brow furrowed, whispering to himself. Suddenly, he smacked the console Roland was standing on.
Roland flickered, the AI version of jumping. "Sir!" He cried.
"I've got it!" Lasky looked at Roland, his eyes bright with excitement.
"Got what?" Roland asked.
"I know what the message means, who it's from and what they want us to do!"
"Care to share your information?"
Lasky grinned at him. "It's the Chief."
Roland looked at him in disbelief. "The Master Chief? Are you sure? How do you know?"
Lasky couldn't grinning. "Because of the first part, 'Soldiers aren't machines. We're just people.' It's something I said to him after he defeated the Didact and lost Cortana. The second part, 'from here to infinity', is pretty self explanatory. They're calling us."
"But what does 'they are bitter' mean?" Roland asked.
Lasky laughed. "Say it faster. Slur all the words together."
"Theyarebitter." Roland mumbled.
"Faster."
"Theyarbitter."
"Close."
"Thearbit- The Arbiter!" Roland shouted.
"Exactly!" Lasky shouted back.
"They're on Sanghelios!" Roland shouted again.
"Damn right they are!" Lasky shouted back to Roland again. "Can you get us there without Cortana finding us?"
"Absolutely." Roland said. "We'll get there. We'll find the Chief."
"And then we'll do whatever it takes to help him stop Cortana." Lasky said softly.
John 117
Sanghelios
"On the top ten list of 'Strangest Messages I've Ever Heard', that one is definitely in first place. And let me tell you, my mother has sent me some pretty weird things before." Buck remarked, shaking his head.
"How do we know that message won't get lost in all the noise out there?" Locke asked. "How do we know Lasky will even know it's for him? How do we know that Cortana won't find it and figure it out before Lasky does?"
"We don't." John said. He tried to quell the emotions that surged through his body when Locke spat out her name.
"Fantastic." Locke grumbled.
"It's better than sitting around doing nothing." Palmer sighed.
For a few minutes, silence reigned. John went back to his thoughts. I never thought she would be capable of something like this. What did the Foreruner technology do to her? What if whatever it did to her is permanent? What if I never get her, the real her, back?
He pushed those thoughts aside and tuned in to the group conversation once more. They were making small talk. Small talk held no interest for him, but anything was better than what was going on inside his head. He'd listen to Spartan Buck tell terrible jokes for hours if it meant not having to face his own thoughts.
He cast a sideways glance towards Dr. Halsey. She was sitting on a rock, staring at the ground, lost in her own mind. He wondered what she was thinking about. She hadn't said anything in a few hours.
"Dr. Halsey." John spoke up.
She looked at him. "Yes, John?"
"I need to speak with you."
"Of course, John."
The two of them left the tent together, and walked some distance away from the others, until John knew there was no chance of anyone hearing them. He contemplated how, exactly, he wanted to frame his question to Dr. Halsey. He wanted answers, but he knew how well she deflected when she thought him angry.
Dr. Halsey stared up at the night sky and said nothing. He knew she was waiting for him to speak first. He wouldn't keep her waiting.
"Dr. Halsey, you said you had contacted someone at Endurance, and you had discussed details of sending someone after me if Fireteam Osiris failed."
"Yes, that is correct."
And now comes the time for me to watch my tone. He thought. "What about the program at Endurance made you think there would be anyone there who could do what a Spartan team would fail to?"
Dr. Halsey was quiet for a long time. "If you are looking for specifics, I don't have any. I only know the general information of what goes on there."
"General information is fine."
Dr. Halsey sighed. "Very well. I will tell you about Project Krypteia. Project Krypteia is an ONI program that focuses on the enhancement of the human mind for the purpose of allowing remote connectivity to any kind of electronic. You've heard of the ancient technology of Bluetooth, I assume. We have that to thank for our BlueNet technology today. Project Krypteia's goal is to take the best of Project Freelancer and the SPARTAN-II Program and combine them into a program that makes the human brain function as an AI itself, through an implantation of a chip that allows the individual in possession of the chip to convert their brainwaves to radio waves to gain control of electronic equipment."
John was simultaneously intrigued and horrified. "Why?"
Dr. Hasley smiled. "Because of you."
He was speechless. She seemed to sense this, and continued.
"Your work with Cortana and the research gained from Project Freelancer sparked an interest with ONI. They wanted to know if it was possible to eliminate the need for an AI and a suit of armor and have an actual human being with the same capabilities. The negative reactions to Project Freelancer made many of those in power very wary of using AI's in experimentation for combat. By thus eliminating an AI from the equation, it means the capabilities are contained within a single entity, instead of two. It allows for greater control of the individual as well. It's almost as though ONI anticipated what would happen with Cortana."
John struggled to take it all in. "Was Project Krypteia a success?"
Dr. Halsey hesitated. "I know there was success to some degree. Had it been a full success, we would've heard something. The project has been under way for almost ten years. "
"Ten years?" He asked in disbelief.
"Yes. Which is why I was wary when my former colleague told me there was a catch. When it comes to altering the human brain, any kind of a catch is never a good thing."
He thought for a minute. "What do you think we'll find if we get to Endurance?"
"I don't know, John. And that's what frightens me."