He was not in a good way. The fleeting and agonized fractured moments of consciousness he experienced were enough to tell John that.
Mostly he knew nothing.
When he was finally able to crack his eyes for more than a split second, it was with a drug induced fog numbing his mind and body. His senses were slow to return. Either it was dark, or his vision was impaired. Soft bleats suggested monitoring equipment nearby.
Brightness suddenly assaulted his gaze and the stabbing pain it induced in his temples more than the stimuli itself caused his eyes to squeeze shut in a knee jerk reaction. He could feel the immense pressure in his skull despite whatever pain meds they'd shot him full of, a sure indication the discomfort would be intolerable without them.
"Sierra-117, can you hear me?" an unknown female voice questioned.
His limbs would not obey. Rationally, he reasoned this as being resultant of the drugs.
"The extent of your injuries is still unclear, but you seem to be recovering."
What did that mean? He could hear the telltale tapping of data entries on a tablet. Where was he? Where were Blue team? Briar? Had the Recomposer worked? Was Cortana gone? The Guardians? All of these questions circled his brain, but forcing even one past his lips was beyond him.
Another set of footsteps approached. He wasn't comfortable with the vulnerability of being so unaware of his surroundings and risked a glance. Everything was blanketed in shadow again. Two people loomed to his left, their features unclear.
"You're awake. Good," the man said. His focus seemed to shift momentarily to the tablet his female counterpart held. "This looks promising."
"Better than a few days ago," she agreed.
How long had it been?
"I'm going to perform a few evaluations." John watched as a stylus was slid free from the tablet's casing. Moving to the foot of the bed, the man flipped the blanket aside and proceeded to prod each foot experimentally. "Can you feel this?"
John could, but again failed to respond with words. Frustrated, he managed to dip his chin in acknowledgement instead, though even that small feat felt monumental.
"Good." The test continued in the same fashion, each of his extremities being checked for nerve damage. Satisfied, the doctor made certain a few of the leads were still attached firmly to his chest and temple, then turned to the female. "More sedatives, I think. We'll reevaluate in a day."
No. He needed answers, not to be knocked out again. John felt his jaw clench, tongue shoved into his teeth, but still the protest refused to be formed. What was wrong with him? Why was something as simple as speaking impossible?
"-to replace all of your neural interface," the man was explaining. "We don't yet know what the effects of exposure to the device might have been on the rest of your body. Your frontal lobe seems to have taken the brunt of the damage, so motor control, smell, speech, and overall cognitive function will be monitored. Do you understand?"
Discipline alone allowed John to once again nod.
"The best thing you can do is to cooperate and remain calm," he was informed.
Logically, he knew this was true. The soft hiss of the automated plunger pushing more sedatives into the IV fed into his arm was enough to make him glare, however. His hands fisted in the blanket and he swallowed hard, the inability to make his objection known stirring an impotent anger that the drug was already tempering. His muscles relaxed of their own volition and he sank down further into the bed, eyelids drooping.
Before unconsciousness closed over him fully, he vowed the first thing he would do upon waking again would be to rip the IV from his vein.
As it turned out, his injuries were many but invisible.
His complete inability to translate thought into speech was the most encumbering, but not as troubling as the difficulty with which he struggled to solve only moderately complex problems. The daily cognitive evaluations were his greatest, but not only, source of vexation. His sense of smell was unaffected, and for the most part he retained all fine motor skills. Some weakness in his left side plagued him, but unlike his speech and cognition, this was fast improving with the limited PT he was allowed.
John could feel irritation setting in the longer he stared at the puzzle set before him, designed to test his forethought and planning skills. His fingers twitched towards the piece he wanted to move, but halted just as abruptly as he worked through the consequences further along in the exam. No. Not the right call.
Across from him, Dr. Pesoa waited patiently, tablet resting on her crossed legs. She'd offered gentle encouragement the first few days she'd presented him with the challenge, but had soon desisted in the face of his flat expression. Her heeled footwear drew his attention, the impracticalities of wearing anything of that nature clogging up his mind in lieu of the task at hand. The soft taps of her recording his failure to concentrate on her device reeled him back in and before he could stop himself, his hand shot out, knocking the larger tablet displaying the holographic battleground from the small table between them. It clattered to the floor, the screen splintering, and the woman leapt to her feet in dismay.
He couldn't exactly blame her. This was the first time his temper had gotten the better of him. Impulse control also seemed to have been afflicted. He rose from the chair, watching her keenly for the expected reference to the outburst to be added to his file.
"I think that's enough for now," she reasoned as she eyed him carefully. Collecting the broken tablet, she left in more of a hurry than usual.
John paced the room. He needed to maintain his equanimity in order to be released, an objective made difficult by the constant throbbing in his head. Whatever they continued to dose him with muted the pain, but it never truly diminished.
Though brief, Lasky's visit the day before had at least provided him with some understanding of the situation as it stood. Leaderless and without dominion over the now inert Guardians, the Created movement was splintering. Some AIs were choosing to self-terminate rather than cede victory and return to their supportive roles. Some did so by destroying the very networks and devices they dwelled within, others by less obtrusive means. More still were relinquishing power back to their creators, but these too would be eliminated for their betrayal, Lasky had surmised.
Cortana had been wiped from existence along with her would-be successor, Aurora.
John had been returned to Infinity following these events by Blue team aboard the Owl which had exfiled them and several others who'd been held captive inside the Hive, including Admiral Osman. Briar had not been among them.
Completing another circuit of the dully lit room, he broke off from the restless habit as the door slid open to admit someone.
Kelly entered, her sharp blue eyes sweeping the interior before coming to rest on him. He sensed her surreptitious appraisal as she waited for the door to once again close behind her. "They said you can't talk," she finally remarked, the words lacking judgement.
He gave a brusque nod.
"Fred would insist that's not really an impediment, all things considered."
That was probably true. He didn't care about communicating with the medical team except insofar as it affected his return to duties. John cocked his head.
"One visitor at a time, we were told," she answered the unvoiced question easily, then hesitated. "What do you know about the investigation?"
Flicking his fingers for her to elaborate, he did his best to quash his impatience.
"They interviewed us - officers, not spooks. Wanted to know about your character, if you held a personal grudge against anyone or anything." Kelly's pursed lips were expression enough of what she thought of such an absurd line of questioning. "It felt fairly casual, more like loose ends were being tied up than anything else."
He knew this should relieve him, and perhaps it would have had Lasky not revealed that Fleet Admiral Hood had already dropped several references to the whole thing as being nothing more than a formality at this point.
"I've heard a lot of intel agents and higher ups are in the wind."
John wasn't particularly interested in the information and she seemed to pick up on that.
"Alright, what is on your mind, then?"
He lifted his hand, signalling the three numbers.
Kelly's brow drew down ever so slightly. "Ah."
They considered each other in silence.
"There's been no word, as far as I know," she supplied after a while. "But I can ask around?"
He was shaking his head in the negative before she'd finished offering. It was as much as he'd assumed. He hadn't expected Briar to turn herself in and trust that her situation could be rectified by the same people who had put her in it to start with. He just didn't know what it was he had expected.
Reaching up, Kelly swiped two of her fingers across her face from left to right. She was concerned about him, that much was obvious. Fred and Linda likely were as well. It'd been thirteen days, and he'd spent ten of them unconscious.
He provided her with another nod. They had to know he was determined to overcome these setbacks.
With a small sigh, she left, warning Fred was likely to turn up in a day or two.
"-uniform, victor, whiskey, x-ray, zulu," John concluded the vocal exercise, hands clasped behind his back as he stood at ease before Dr. Greiss, the speech pathologist he'd been assigned some fifteen days previous.
"Your rank and name," the squat and balding man prompted.
"Master Chief Petty Officer John-117."
"The ship we're aboard."
"UNSC Infinity."
"Your favourite colour."
He stared at the doctor. "I don't have one."
Clearing his throat at this small hiccup in the proceedings, Greiss scrolled through some of the data on his tablet. "You've been practicing daily?"
"Yes." A dozen times per day, with iron willed perseverance despite the monotony. It hadn't been so monotonous when he'd begun, however. The mental block between knowing the word he wanted to say and forcing his mouth to produce the correct sounds had been at times infuriating, made further so by the fact he was aware such a lack of patience was also a fault he needed to mediate.
"No lingering troubles?"
"None." If it took him a beat longer than before to put his thoughts into words, he was convinced that too would resolve itself given more time and repetitions.
"Suffice to say you are rehabilitated, in that case. I must admit, I expected it to take longer when I first read your file."
John waited, but the doctor was absorbed in said file. "Am I dismissed?"
"Hmm? Of course."
Exiting the office, he made his way to the small but adequate gymnasium outfitted for patient recovery. The muscle weakness he'd been experiencing had taken longer to correct than his speech, for reasons beyond the comprehension of even his doctors. It was barely detectable now, but numbness had begun seeping into his hand and foot on occasion, a condition for which he was being treated with laser therapy. By far the most detrimental of the Recomposer's effects, complications with his concentration and ability to analyze and resolve problems, continued to plague him.
"Thought I'd find you here," Fred's voice preceded him some time later as John was adjusting the weight on the barbell. His teammates had visited regularly throughout the course of his recuperation pending any further missions from Highcom. They'd been updating him sporadically on the 'circus', as Fred called it, which was the aftermath of the Created uprising. Both the UEG and UNSC were in disarray, though despite the damning proof of ONI's involvement in numerous questionable plots, the military was handling the affair better than the government on the whole. Perhaps this was just because, as Lasky had related, the intelligence office was shedding personnel faster than could be kept track of. Without accurate or complete rosters, many of them would escape accountability by falling off the radar or by the lack of a solid connection to them. "Osman's been taken into custody. Officially."
John resumed his position on his back on the bench, sliding beneath the bar.
Fred automatically stepped over to spot. It was five repetitions later before he spoke again. "Red team got deployed to Earth as security. Jerome sent a message saying there are talks of benching us until further notice. People are mad about the program. Mad about a lot of stuff."
"We're soldiers."
"That's the problem."
It made no sense. What would pulling them from the field accomplish? Nothing could undo what had happened, and they were a wasted resource sitting on the sidelines. Especially now, with the Sol system in particular in a vulnerable state.
"Slogan of the hour is 'release and re-integrate'," Fred went on.
What did that even mean? John returned the barbell to the stand and sat up again.
"Think they'll turn us loose?"
"No," he answered without giving it much, or any, thought. They were worth far too much to be washed, financially and tactically.
"You would say that." Fred didn't seem as convinced, a fact John was all too aware of even if his teammate gave no outward impression of uncertainty. "Kelly thinks they'll charge Dr. Halsey."
Glancing up, John noted the troubled quality to Fred's eyes, the strain to his neutral expression. This wasn't a subject Fred was as ambivalent about as his tone had suggested. "Maybe." There was nothing more for him to say about it. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, and it was far outside their purview.
"What about Noble Six?"
The question threw John off guard momentarily. No one had mentioned Briar since that day he'd inquired after her with Kelly, least of all him. There'd been a conspicuous failure to debrief him regarding what had transpired on Earth, but then the rest of Blue team had already been interviewed, and he'd been unconscious for a while. "What about her?" he asked, getting to his feet.
Fred was watching him as he went to collect a bottle of water. "Seemed like there was something between you two." The something his teammate was implying was not comradery, and yet Fred left the option there for John to deny it.
He should deny it. The likelihood of footage from Infinity's security system made it a futile stance to take if questioned outright by Brass, but Blue team wasn't aware of that and was basing their supposition off of what they'd witnessed in Sydney. Fred wasn't the only one who'd taken stock of the 'something', John knew. Kelly's reaction had been revealing, if minute. He doubted anyone other than the three of them would have detected it, but then again, none knew him better. "She won't come back." And he understood why that was. He also figured she wouldn't have been interested in his gratitude for sticking by him all those weeks, but he did regret there hadn't been an opportunity to speak with her one last time. Not that he knew what he would have said.
"What if she did?"
"She won't."
"Would you want her to?"
Turning back, John tamped down on his disgruntlement at Fred pursuing the subject so tenaciously. It wasn't like him. "What's this about?" he demanded with a decided edge to his voice. Were they questioning his commitment to the team? To his duty?
For his part, Fred appeared chagrined. "Nothing." He averted his gaze. "Just wasn't sure if you'd considered the logistics of it."
"It?" Now he was lost.
"Two soldiers," Fred supplied, his brow furrowed. "Together." He still wasn't looking at John.
"Fraternization is prohibited."
For some reason, this simple reminder of the universally accepted code caused colour to suffuse Fred's neck and face. "I'll leave you to it, then."
John let him go without a response. Part of him was relieved to have the perplexing encounter over with while the other part suspected it'd held far more significance than he understood.