Chapter 53: Planning for the Future
The nails creaked as they were pulled out of the wood, having the same effect on the ears as nails on a chalkboard, and Cortana gave one last tug with the crowbar before the first board containing the powered armored exoskeleton was wrenched free. She handed the crowbar off to Jake who began working on the other boxes and had her first look inside. The armor itself was arranged neatly on a metal manikin, all of its functioning parts on full display. It looked almost exactly like John 117's Mark VI MJOLNIR and superficially there was only one key difference. While John's old armor had been green, this one was completely grey with the exception of a yellow stripe running down the center of the helmet, and yellow shoulder blades. Cortana touched the helmet with her hand and felt the familiar jolt as her consciousness connected with the armor's systems. What she saw in the system caused her to pause. "Hmm, that's interesting."
"What is?" Jake asked, pulling the top off of another crate.
"A few things. First this armor is exactly the same as the UNSC MJOLNIR, and there are almost no differences to speak of. Second, this armor is almost an exact fit for John, which while it saves me time making adjustments, the odds of that happening are slim."
"Makes sense to me," Jake said, and Cortana turned around to look at him. He shrugged his shoulders, "With all the coincidences we have run into in mid-world I would think you would almost expect that armor to be an exact fit for him."
"I suppose your right," Cortana said, returning her full attention back to the armor and reentering the system. "It makes sense in an illogical way, but then again illogic has never been my strong suit."
"So what else is interesting?" Jake asked.
"Nothing really, except that the person who use to wear this armor had the call sign Agent Washington." She dropped her hand from the helmet and turned around to look at the crates Jake had opened. Cortana picked up a part to one of the robotic arms that would help assemble the suit over John's body, "Guess this gives new meaning to some assembly required. This thing must be a thousand pieces."
Jake scratched his head, "Any directions?"
Cortana shook her head, "Don't need them, I can do this from memory. I had a full five seconds to look at the schematics for the armor assembly on the Infinity before they blocked me out of the system which was more than enough time."
Jake looked at her and then back down at the crate in front of him which contained dozens of parts that he could not even begin to guess the function of, "If you say so."
…
The darkness of the room was almost like a blanket in and of itself, shielding John and Cortana from the rest of the world as they lay together in the bed. His arm was around her shoulder and she rubbed her head into his neck, closing her eyes and taking in John's smell. It was far from a perfect setting, the thin foam mattress provided little actual comfort, as did the blanket which itched and was made with a synthetic material that had the similar texture of wool.
"Are you still awake?" Cortana asked, and John responded by squeezing her shoulder. "Have you thought about what we might do after this is over?"
"We already talked about this in Fedic. We go to the Tet Corporation and then the writer," John said.
Cortana sighed, and he could feel her breath against his neck, "I'm not talking about after Algul Siento. I mean after everything. If we win what do me and you do? Where do we go?"
"We go back to the UNSC," John said. He began to close his eyes, thinking the conversation over, but Cortana continued talking.
"And if the UNSC has been destroyed, then what? I know you said we would have each other, but that doesn't mean we can stay there if our world is gone. We would need to go somewhere else."
John opened his eyes and stared into the thick, nearly tangible darkness above his head. "I have not thought that far." He turned his head to look at her, and could just barely make out the electric spark in her blue eyes. Two small pinpoints of light that was Cortana in the otherwise slate black night. "Where would you want to go?"
Cortana smiled, and although he could not see it, he could sense it, "We could go anywhere we wanted. Any time period, any reality, any place. If I can make portals into other worlds like I made the portal that brought us here then there is no limit to where we could go." She rubbed her hand along his bare chest, tracing any scar she found with her fingers, some raising above the skin and others as smooth as glass. "I would take you somewhere I could take care of you. Someplace I could keep you safe."
John closed his eyes and his forehead connected with hers as they lay there, "You have already planned where you want to go." It was not a question, and John knew that Cortana planned everything out well in advance.
"I was thinking Earth's mid 20th century," Cortana said, still tracing her fingers along his chest.
This caused John to open one eye, "Why? There is very little technology in that time period."
He felt Cortana nod her head on the pillow next to him, "That's exactly why I picked it. I need new data like an addict needs a drug. In many ways I'm still an AI. But if we go there, if we go to a place where the technology is minimal, then I can actually focus on being completely human."
"You are already human," John said. He ran a hand through her hair and tucked the few stray strands behind her head.
He felt Cortana shake her head, "Not really, not as much as I want to be." She took her hand off his chest and raised it into the air with the palm facing the ceiling. They were both bathed in a blood red glow as the equations raced up her arms, and electricity raced between the tips of her fingers. She closed her hand into a fist and the lines of code stopped flowing, casting them both back into the dark. "Until I can no longer do that, I won't consider myself to be fully human. I want to be normal, not something that is part biological and part computer."
"We have never been normal," John said.
Cortana brought her hand back down to his chest and continued her ministrations along his scars, "No, we haven't, and there is a part of me that knows we never will be no matter where we go. Wherever we go there will be fighting, and if there is fighting I know you will be somewhere in the middle of it. But if we go to the mid 20th century, then you won't be fighting Covenant, Flood, or Prometheans, and you will have your augmentations so I don't have to worry about you." She took her hand off his chest and began rubbing it through his graying brown hair, "You don't like my idea do you?"
"I don't dislike it," John said. "I'll think about it."
"Well," Cortana said. "If you come up with a better place to go then tell me." John closed his eyes as she rubbed his hair, and tried to clear his mind and focus on the sensation of her touching him. It mostly worked. Cortana bit her bottom lip, wondering if it was the right time to bring the next subject up to him. Her right hand drifted towards her stomach and she decided that it was, "There is something else. I took one other DNA sample after I took yours, Roland, and Jake's. I took a sample of my own DNA."
"Why," John asked, not opening his eyes.
Cortana bit her lip harder, "I wanted to compare my DNA with yours, in case…" She took his hand in hers and placed it on her stomach, "Well just in case." John opened his eyes and looked down at where she had placed his hand and then back up at her. Cortana continued, taking a deep breath before she did, "You know I always do my research, even when it comes to us having kids."
Kids, John thought. As he moved his hand away from her stomach he said, "I wouldn't be a good father."
"You would," Cortana said. "You care about Jake, even if you show it differently than I do."
"I put bruises on most of his upper body," John said. He turned fully on his back, but Cortana moved with him, wrapping her left arm around his middle.
"You did that to make sure he would stay alive when it comes time to fight the Brutes. He looks up to you. You know that right?"
"He is a lot like me. A lot like Roland," John said. "If he was a Spartan then he would be better than me, even at twelve."
Cortana yawned, John both hearing it and feeling her chin dig into his shoulder as she opened her mouth, and her arm gripped him tighter. "He is a gunslinger, and he is always going to see himself that way. Even if you somehow managed to get him to wear a suit of MJOLNIR." Digging her head deeper into his neck she asked, "So what do you think about what I said?"
"Kids?" John asked, and he felt Cortana nod her head before yawning again. "I don't think I'm ready."
Cortana closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off to sleep, "Well it may be a good idea to get ready. It's not like we have been using protection." John turned to look at her and Cortana's next words came out in a half coherent mumble, "I could be pregnant already." Her breathing grew heavy and John could tell that she had gone to sleep, his arm trapped underneath her already prickling with the needles of numbness. He laid there awake for several more hours, staring up at the pitch black ceiling overhead.
