Chapter Ten

Scratching the Surface

Dr. Grey placed the last piece of her gear on the floor near the operations table and dusted off her hands.

"Thank you so much guys for helping me unpack!" She thanked in her giddy tone as the reds all heaved and were breathing heavy leaning against the warthog, the pile of her massive gear finally off of it.

"Not a problem." Simmons responded.

"Speak...for...yourself….Should breathing be this hard?" Grif asked.

"Probably not, but this could be because you are out of shape." Dr. Grey answered.

"That was...a Rhetorical...question." Grif wheezed.

"Alright, sissy britches, lets get back to base and leave Dr. Grey to her experiments and whatnot." Sarge barked. Simmons and Grif both climbed back into the Warthog. As they were driving off Dr. Grey could make out the distinct happiness Sarge had at being able to press the gas and the warthog actually go now without all her stuff in it.

Dr. Grey turned to the helmet that supposedly housed Church.

"I'll crack this open yet."

Nevada woke up, and had a slight headache. She groaned while sitting up. That sleep was needed, but it wasn't exactly restful either.

She glanced around the makeshift bunker, and everyone but Oklahoma and Arizona were in their cots. It was Oklahoma's turn for duty and Arizona's for patrol since he took her shift for that tonight.

She stepped over everyone and stepped outside for some fresh air. Oklahoma cleared his throat to get her attention.

"Looking for me?" He asked.

"Maybe." She said strapping her helmet on and climbing up to meet him on the top of the compound.

"Couldn't sleep? It's the middle of the night, I know you weren't asleep for long." Oklahoma asked.

"Bad dreams." Nevada answered. "You know, up here Arizona would say you're a sitting duck for the enemy." She chuckled.

"How? We are the biggest threat on this planet." Oklahoma retorted.

"He seems to believe if we are too far from one another or the base, like 200 yards far someone's gonna get shot." Nevada answered. "At least that's the vibe I am getting."

"Oh please we all know why he's on your ass. He cares more about you because you barely care about yourself." Oklahoma said.

"Yeah, I can't step away for a moment or god forbid I get a bruised rib, its the end all be all of my life." Nevada complained. "Like, I appreciate what he does but seriously, sometimes I don't want to sleep." Nevada added.

"Why's that?" Oklahoma asked. Nevada sighed.

"Since we woke up from Cryo, Lambda's stability has been faltering. He used to only if I was ruminating and fixated on thoughts but now, its all over the place. I get these strange flashes of images that feel like they're memories, but not mine. I get headaches and it just isn't getting better, despite Psi helping Lambda out." Nevada elaborated. Oklahoma nodded.

"Zeta has been rather out of it as of late also. He gives me some mild headaches but nothing to cry about. I don't get images as much as I sometimes hear a recognizable voice, but it isn't the voice of the person who is speaking to me." Oklahoma shared. This sent a chill through Nevada.

"So, I think it's not just you and I experiencing these with our AI's." She said. "Joel-Arizona," She corrected sounding a smidge mad at herself for using his first name. "says that Upsilon had never gone dormant during Cryo, that he was bombarded with activity through out the voyage slightly and then upon awakening was rushed with it all. He said it wasn't intense cause it seemed like Upsilon had done it all sporadically over the journey and he absorbed it well enough. Lambda flickered yesterday when I was talking to Arizona," She put so much effort into making sure she said his agent name. Oklahoma rolled his eyes at her. "That thing you were talking about, hearing a different voice..." She trailed off.

"Yeah?"

"I was already straining Lambda by trying to focus my thoughts off of things bothering me about this mission, at the point Joel," Nevada sighed from exasperation.

"I know, you know, the team knows, it doesn't matter..." Oklahoma reassured.

"Joel was talking to me and when I thought about "what about him, what about love", Lambda shorted and caused me to flinch. He had never done that before, which is weird since I have done more than think about Joel. When he was speaking to me, I heard him calling my name, but I didn't recognize it as my name. I can't remember what I heard, but I saw a different face and heard a different voice. I didn't feel like myself." Nevada said sounding more tired than when she went to sleep. "Lambda and Psi have conversations, that are clearly about me, but don't include me..."

"How do they do that?" Oklahoma sounded confused.

"They talk about things while I am otherwise occupied or asleep or barely asleep. I hear them talking about a metaphorical wall, and the cracks in it, the power Lambda needs to borrow from Psi and Psi getting upset about it all." Nevada said.

"So, you think that we were given AI with expiration dates on them?" Oklahoma asked.

"Possibly." Nevada replied. "I think it is more probable we got faulty equipment, or perhaps our equipment is more taxed because of something they are keeping from us." Nevada looked over at him

"You think that Project Revenant has got some kind of secret agenda behind our AI? I mean, secret special operations aside I think they had enough to hide." Oklahoma said showing sign of disbelief.

"You remember that one day you and I were in mission control and we were rummaging through files on the AI's, way way back in the day Todd..." Nevada began.

"Here we go..."

"The name 'Project Freelancer' ringing a bell?" Nevada asked. He stared at her.

"What about it? Because all I remember of that shit was getting notice 3 days later we were going under cryo to reach our next mission safely. Now we are here. We were the only two on the team who knew about that shit." He said in a hushed and angry tone.

"Well, on board the Elysium I was restricted from certain access keys on the web. When I was studying up on our opponents here, two of the names were familiar to me, Washington and Carolina. They were a part of Project Freelancer." Nevada replied hushed and hurried. "I could only have Psi bring me back the information I needed. Project Freelancer resembles us so much it is uncanny, but they also experienced AI issues, and ultimately faced shut down. It was not long after they're compromise that we were under cryo. The captain of the Elysium was less than generous with my freedoms on board and I have take it into matters here." Nevada finished.

"What are you fucking plotting?" Oklahoma asked, concerned and interested.

"I've got it under control. I'll keep you posted as I know how it is unfolding. It's multifaceted, I'll tell you that much." Nevada answered. "I'm fearful if I explain the whole plan to everyone at any given point it won't go accordingly. I think there is something bigger going on, something bigger than this man's pride that stranded us here." She said.

"Understood." Oklahoma replied. "I'll stick by you. I what to know what's going on too."

"I appreciate that Todd." Nevada said.

Thank you guys for the awesome reviews! I in fact have an answer to that question (and by the way GREAT question because I guess I skipped something in my brain about miraculously bringing a character back from the dead because Sarge was brought back from a head shot wound with CPR in the RvB Universe!) I promise a more sensible answer. Far fetched but logical in nature at the very least :)

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, it was a quick and necessary write, I had a busy week and had to slow down in my writing. Also, I plan on publishing in the near future a Washington/OC pairing fic as well, so if anyone likes Washington and Project Freelancer antics, I'm on that too!

And I made the BEST find on the web when I wanted to have a list of armor descriptions and names in front of me for this universe and I discovered an ARMOR GENERATOR. I attempted for the link, but this site doesn't allow it lol If you want it I am more than happy to PM it:) otherwise good Halo Armor Generator and the one I am talking about is from Halo 3 Archive!

Best thing EVER. So if you were curious after I get better descriptors in here or needed it for your own fic it is at your finger tips!

Thanks again and I can't wait to finish the next chapter, which should get things moving a bit more. :)

~Sahara