The journey towards Zone 67 was a silent one. John had been forced to hand in his omni-tool and sidearm, then placed inside a transport warthog alongside Parangosky and the mystery Spartans. No time to say goodbyes. No time to warn anyone. There was a great hurry on behalf of Parangosky.

After a few minutes of silence, Parangosky finally spoke up. "John. I have an offer to make. Ever since this war started, ONI has taken its task to defend humanity as paramount."

"But. Things have changed with the arrival of the Citadel." Parangosky said, her voice laced with a poisonous edge. "ONI can no longer stay in the shadows and guide humanity if forces outside of humanity exist. Forces that we do not have control over. In a galaxy filled with foreign forces that might try to control and influence humanity, it becomes paramount to control utterly all foreign influence." Parangosky sounded utterly convinced in her words.

John nodded, still intent on hiding his true loyalties to humanity itself, instead of whatever hellish vision for humanity Parangosky had. "We must control humanity utterly. Cut off any outside influence that is not under our control. Ensure human moral and ideological purity at any cost."

Parangosky went silent to let the words sink in. After fifteen more minutes, the Warthog stopped again outside a large tunnel entrance, guarded by a dozen ONI guards in thick black armour. They briefly saluted Parangosky as she climbed out of the Warthog, but otherwise avoided everyone inside.

Parangosky continued guiding John through the ONI facility, passing through checkpoint after checkpoint. At each of which there were guards in black ODST armour with darkened faceplates, who scanned everyone before they could pass. John was trying to decide what the best course of action was. He knew that becoming a part of Parangosky's inner circle could give him more influence in affairs to come.

But he wasn't convinced ONI couldn't try to do to him what had happened to the other Spartans guarding Parangosky. Had those been brainwashed? He remained ready to pounce at any time. If need be, he'd rip Parangosky limb from limbs before her guards could open fire.

"I am impressed with your resolve, John," Parangosky said. Something approaching respect creeping into her voice. "You did not hesitate to hand Emile over to justice. I had always harboured concerns the Spartans would choose each other over humanity. It is good that even I can be proven wrong."

"What will happen to Spartan Emile?" John asked, concerned about the answer he would receive.

Parangosky smiled. "His defects will be mended, and his mind cured of weakness."

"Good." John lied. He would free Emile as soon as possible. He just needed the right opportunity to do so.

John was making a mental map of the facility as they moved through it, thinking of every possible method of attack that he and his Spartans could take if they had to shut it down. The lamps were all sunken into the ceiling, and the only things that stood out were the occasional alcoves that contained underground power transformers, as well as fire extinguishers and supplies of spare parts.

But he had no idea how an unaugmented human would navigate this underground maze of passages. Perhaps those were all issued datapads with maps on them?

After half an hour of moving through dimly lit hallways without any discernible direction markers of any kind, and no sound beyond a soft mechanical churning, and a distant electrical humming. There were what had to be hundreds of scientists and guards they passed along the way. It was like a small city the deeper they got.

The scientists and workers all stopped to salute Parangosky as she passed, before quickly getting about their business. John caught glimpses of signs that led to hydroponics, sleeping areas, power plants, and research labs.

After they passed through this area of the base, they once again slowly began to enter the darkness. The amount of ONI personnel decreases, slowly replaced by more and more armed guards, and even heavier security checkpoints. Even the elevators required every inhabitant to put their hands on a scanner before it would start moving.

John guessed they must have travelled at least two hundred meters underground by now. Below the underground city, and into a whole new section. The sounds of industry and heavy machinery echoed from all around. As well as ominous liquid sounds from inside the walls of the ship.

They approached a small unremarkable doorway, which slid open after one of the Spartans escorting Parangosky placed their hand upon a black section of wall. There was a momentary hum before the door slid open to reveal what looked like an office.

There was little if any decoration inside. Merely a solid metal desk, a computer, and a single chair sitting opposite Parangosky's seat. John cautiously followed Parangosky into the room and waited for her to give him leave to sit down.

She moved behind the desk to her seat and made a handwave to beckon John to sit down in front of her. John did so immediately, continuing to play up the mindless soldier Parangosky thought he was.

"Welcome to Zone 67, John," Parangosky said. "Few are allowed to live in Onyx City, and fewer still down here in Zone 67 itself."

"It must have taken years to build this," John remarked. "Without anyone noticing."

"Forty years to be exact. Construction began shortly after we discovered Onyx. But I've expanded it greatly over the last decade." She looked around the room, before fixing her eyes back on John. "You care not for pleasantries. And neither do I. So we shall begin."

Parangosky coughed into the palm of her hand and began to speak. "The fact of the matter is this, John. ONI can no longer work from the shadows if humanity has insidious outside influences to deal with. ONI has to rise to the occasion and solidify its hold over humanity. And I believe you can aid us in accomplishing this."

"I serve humanity," John said. "Whatever is necessary to defend us from a subversive alien influence." He thought back to the history lessons from his youth, of the lessons on the dictators and warmongers in earth's history. He took little pride in how convincingly racist he managed to sound.

Parangosky nodded. "You brought Samara and Kirrahe with you because they would be assets to your training plans. But you keep them firmly under your control. That is the road forward we need to take with all outside influence." Parangosky sighed with disappointment. "I had grand plans for such a thing. But the schedule has moved up considerably with recent events."

Parangosky tapped a few keys on her keyboard, and a hidden holographic emitter in her desk activated, displaying a list of names. The names were all random words jumbled together and capitalized with dark red letters. John did not recognize any immediately. But he had little doubt they were code names for either ONI agents or targets.

"I had intended for ONI to slowly subsume more and more of humanity in the years to come until our control was undisputed. But the recent lull in the fighting with the Covenant has brought this to a sudden and unexpected stop. If a ceasefire with the Covenant is formalized. Then subversive elements within the UNSC will find an opportunity to focus their efforts upon ONI, and undo all our efforts."

"That can not be allowed," John said, sounding utterly convincing. This seemed to delight Parangosky. "If we win the war. We must win the peace as well."

"And that we do, John." Parangosky motioned for the surrounding room. "And it is in this complex, that I believe the future of humanity can be decided. You see, I have had an epiphany recently. A realization about the weaknesses of humanity, and the way to fix them." She stood up out of her chair and walked around the desk. She put her hand on John's cheek, feeling the cheekbone, a finger tracing across his lower lip, and lifting his jaw to look directly into his eyes.

"For humanity to be safe from all enemies foreign and domestic. We need to kill all weakness and dissent within humanity. To elevate them above our base squabbling nature, and to the perfection that you symbolize." Her hands slid uncomfortably down his neck and over his shoulders. If anyone else had done such a thing, John would have lashed out. But he restrained himself. He was a Spartan. Not a boy toy.

Parangosky continued. "Your training. Your indoctrination. Imagine humanity where all children are raised from birth like you were? Each the products of carefully managed genetic engineering and selective breeding. Each raised to be utterly loyal and dedicated to the cause of humanity. A world where all weakness is immediately culled without mercy. Where all thought is controlled and regulated by us." All life and humanity had gone out of Parangosky's voice as she continued to speak. "A society where every member belongs to ONI, body and soul. Where we all work towards the collective goal of advancing mankind."

The thought frightened John in a way that he had never truly felt before. Parangosky was speaking of nothing less than genocide on a scale utterly unheard of in human history. Matching the darkness of the 20th century, or the great famines of the 22nd after the Interplanetary war killed vast swathes of humanity through The Great Famine. Parangosky's plan would kill many, many more. Once he would have thought that a military education like his could be a gift to humanity. But not one as Parangosky described. Not one drenched in blood.

"How can we achieve this?" John asked, hiding his emotions.

Parangosky moved back to her seat and sat down. "There will be resistance. While much of my inner circle of ONI believes in my plan for a new society. Much of ONI's exterior cells and elements are not fully convinced yet. Section Zero and its ethics committee have already been purged and brought to heel. The Assembly has been forced to the brink of extinction. And Ackerson's treachery dealt with. But parts of dissidence might survive and be on the run. Then there is the matter of how much of the UNSC Old Guard will resist. Lord Hood has even begun to create resistance to my plans. He intends nothing less than open rebellion when the time is right for him."

John added. "And if an armistice with the Covenant is reached. Lord Hood will turn his forces upon us, and remove ONI from power." He concluded, finishing what he thought Parangosky was thinking. "His treason must be stopped."

She offered another of her brief devilish smiles. "Quite so. And that means we will have to strike first. Luckily, I believe we have a means by which a civil war can be avoided."

Parangosky tapped a button on her desk, and the walls on the right side of the room began to slide down, revealing a thick layer of glass between the room, and a massive interior chamber of resplendent silver architecture, adorned with glowing blue lines of energy. "But luckily. With what we have discovered upon Onyx, Hood's effort will be futile."

John stood up to move towards the window, looking out into the alien architecture beyond. But as the wall fully slid up, John's heart skipped a beat as he saw a familiar dark metal

"What is that thing?" John asked, looking out through the window into the massive chamber beyond, and the nightmarish sight high above.

Hanging from the ceiling was a mangled creature of black metal, torn open in places to reveal an eldritch internal glow. John's mind flashed back to the abominations Ackerson had shown in the pictures of Far Isle. Except this one was far bigger than he'd ever thought to encounter.

The inhabitant of the chamber was at least two kilometres tall, looking like some sort of deep-sea invertebrate. Its massive armoured body had been torn in many places, but it had maintained its shape. There were three flickering red eyes upon the body and a fourth one which still shone with internal power. Extending from the central body were three large tendrils that hung limply towards the bottom of the chamber.

Further up the body, massive silvery pillars looked to be holding the thing in place, stopping it from plummeting into the dark pit below. There had to be dozens of smaller restraints, all holding the creature in place, even though it looked to have died aeons ago.

"That. Is the Leviathan of Onyx." Parangosky said, appearing beside John. The ageing leader of ONI had a spring in her step as she approached the glass overlooking the containment chamber. "It was discovered shortly after Onyx was first colonized. And the source of a great many discoveries in recent years."

John felt the oncoming rumblings of a headache.

"It doesn't look like it belongs in this chamber. The materials and design don't match." John muttered. His eyes were being attracted to the smooth blue and silver of the chamber. The design was almost like it had been sculpted from steel and silver, and looked more like art than architecture. Then he noted that what he thought had been docking tubes, were instead restraints that had burrowed into the hide of the creature. The Leviathan was hanging like a carcass on meathooks.

"This is a cage." He said. "This is a prison."

Parangosky nodded. "You are right. The Leviathan doesn't match the other technology upon Onyx." Parangosky said. "Originally we discovered another form of technology, more advanced than the Leviathan. There are other ruins belonging to them all over Onyx. But this one was different. It was sealed away beneath twenty meters of an alien concrete. We believed this chamber was originally housed to contain it. And we were content with letting it remain in place. But unlike the rest of the technology upon Onyx. This creature has been more willing to give up its technologies. And as the war progressed, we began delving more and more into its secrets."

John was horrified. Just how much of ONI had been in contact with the Leviathan. Just how much of what Parangosky was saying was her own opinion, and how much was not her own.

"In my darkest hour. When there seemed to be no hope in any way to fight off the Covenant. The Leviathan shared its mind with me, John." Parangosky said. "It spoke to me in my dreams and told me of its past. But the creature was fragmented. Decaying. There was little coherency to its ramblings."

John had to act quickly. He had to warn Lord Hood. Tell him of the danger. ONI had to be removed from power, before Parangosky or whatever remained of her, could enforce their hellish vision upon humanity.

Parangosky continued, all the while circling back to her desk. "The Leviathan was shattered in some ancient war. Its computer core was destroyed until all that remained were erratic sputters of life. That is until we acquired this." Parangosky said, walking to her desk and taking from her drawing a cold blue cylinder with a large spike at one end. It matched the description of the device Zaeed and Kirrahe had recovered on the Covenant ship. John's worst fears were confirmed. He felt the urge to react quickly, to lash out and fight. But he could not bring himself to move.

"We destroyed a duplicate of this device and spirited the real away to Onyx for study. It was the final piece we needed." She held the device up for John to see. "Inside was a single secondary memory core. Extracted long ago by another species that found Onyx, and also studied the Leviathan. Just enough to reactivate the Leviathan enough for its self-repair modules to activate."

The last functional eye of the Leviathan turned to look at the observation room, glaring down upon John. As their eyes met, John had a single overwhelming urge to run. A raw primordial fear deep inside his bones which told him to run and hide. That there was nothing he could do against the thing he faced.

He hardened his mind by thinking about the other Spartans who depended on him. The ones who had given their lives for him. He felt the headache lessen as he focused himself on blocking out the influence.

Parangosky continued. "With the technology taken from Leviathan. We will recreate humanity in your likeness, John. Spartans one and all. All weakness purged. All doubt removed. All rebellion cut. No luxury. Only duty and subservience to ONI. The entire galaxy will belong to humanity."

John grit his teeth and turned towards Parangosky. "What has to be done?"

"You need to kill Lord Hood," Parangosky said.

John nodded. Then kicked Parangosky in the jaw and sent the small woman flying across the room and into the doorway with a sickening crunch that left a red smear down the wall.

Before the other Spartans could respond, John rushed forward, punching his fist through the faceplate of the nearest Spartan, cracking it, revealing a hideous face of blue cybernetics and pale lifeless eyes. But he recognized the eyes. They were of a Spartan that was supposed to have died in the Augmentations. Carris-137. John's stomach turned at the desecration.

Before the Spartan-simulacra could stop John, he pulled a pistol free from its belt, and shot it through the faceplate, then whirling it around as a shield before the other guards could open fire. Two of the Spartans rushed to Parangosky, grabbing her body and rushing it out of the room.

The body of his shield was being riddled with bullets, and it would not survive for long against the heavy rifles of his enemy. John reached for the grenade belt on the dead Spartan's chest, pulled the pins, and kicked the body forward towards the last remaining Spartan, before leaping out of the way, jumping behind the desk to put it between him and the grenade blasts.

There was a mighty blast as four grenades went off at the same time. John got to his feet, pistol at the ready. The second Spartan was stumbling, dazed by the blast, and bleeding profusely. John put two high explosive rounds through the chest of the empty husk, then put another through its head before it even hit the ground.

Not wasting a second, John slammed a fist down on the button Parangosky had used to open the shutters to the prison. He opened her computer, which she had not been able to shut down. He raced his fingers across the keyboard, searching for a method by which he could contact the outside world.

Footsteps outside. Rubber on metal. Two of them. Guards rushing to examine the noise.

Without taking his eyes off the screen for more than a few seconds, he aimed at the doorway and opened fire at the Guards, shooting each of them in the head, resulting in showers of red blood and blue cybernetics. John frantically copied every file off of the computer he could, moving it into a hard drive for easy movement. He was lucky Parangosky had been too arrogant to think someone could steal her hard drive.

Two things caught his eyes.

First was a list of people previously invited to this same room he was in now. And John sucked in a breath and cursed. Some of the most influential politicians, scientists, and leaders in human space had been brought to this very room. Parangosky had been filling the new planetary governments she had been establishing with indoctrinated agents. No Inner Colony had been spared.

Next was a mention of a Slipspace COM Launcher. A rare piece of technology which could fire a messenger probe through Slipspace. John nodded with approval. That would be how he got word back to Lord Hood about just how deep the rot ran.

He ejected the hard drive and slipped it into a pocket. He opened a communications channel and contacted Camp Currahee. He needed to contact someone who would believe him immediately, without a hint of suspicion. He called Linda immediately.

"This is Spartan-117 to Linda-058, using enemy comm."

There was a pause before an incredulous Linda answered. "John? Why are you using Parangosky's terminal?"

John had no time to answer. "ONI is compromised by alien infiltration. Seize Camp Currahee. Assume all ONI personnel to be under the effect of hostile memetic subversion. I am inside Zone 67 and require backup. We have to seize its COM so we can warn the UNSC."

There was a brief pause before gunfire rang out on the other side of the line. "Affirmative, Blue-One," Linda said without a moment of hesitation. "I'll organize the walking wounded and instructors to guard the trainees. The rest are moving to assist." She paused. "If you're not right. We're all getting shot."

John nodded. "Noted. Send an in-field armourer. I need new Mjolnir Armour.." He paused for a moment. "Disable all incoming signals to your Mjolnir. ONI might try to lock our armour."

The signal was cut off before Linda could respond. Another group of guards approached the doorway. This time seven of them. John rushed to the most intact Spartan corpse in the room, and pulled free its combat knife, and picked up its rifle. He examined it more thoroughly. It was one of the new MA5E rifles. A mass-accelerator version of the old MA5 series. He grabbed the body's heat sinks and sank them into his pockets.

He opened fire through the doorway, riddling the oncoming guards with bullets. The MA5-based mass accelerator roared as he fired it on fully automatic, flicking it to unlimited.

The fully automatic mass accelerator ripped the armour of the ONI guards to shreds, blowing them apart with satisfying meaty chunking noises. He rolled aside, continuing to fire as he did, but spoiling the aim of the first guard to enter. The final guard fell, just as the weapon chimed, and a heat sink hot out the end, sizzling as it hit the ground. He walked up to the fallen attackers, and one by one, stomped their skulls to paste. He wasn't taking any chances with hostile cybernetics.

He re-armed himself with additional thermal clips, grenades, and knives. If he'd had more time. He would have put on some of their armour. But every second was precious. He was alone in an ONI base filled with perverted science, an army of angry cyborgs, an unknown number of reanimated Spartans, and an alien leviathan that was trying to brainwash him.

He carefully made his way down the halls the way he had come, heading towards one of the transformers he'd spotted on the way in. He pulled it open, turned off the power, and began moving the cables around so it would short-circuit the moment he turned the power back on. He flipped the switch, and as he had predicted, all the power on this floor of the facility failed.

He moved through the hallways, sticking to the shadows where his augmented senses gave him an advantage. The doors were indistinguishable from the walls, unless one knew where to look.

Then a sound caught John's attention. It was the sound of a man hyperventilating, and pained tortured weeping. Blasted the lock off the door and tore it to the side, violently wrenching the door open.

It was a small but well-supplied laboratory. Inside were several ONI scientists in white labcoats. A few drew handguns, and he mercilessly gunned each of them down. Only one had refused, a man who was now cowering in the corner.

The sight inside the room was disgusting. There were a dozen medical beds, on each of which lay a human who had had their body cut open and exposed to the tender mercies of dozens of small carving knives and laser scalpels. Each of the bodies had had glowing blue nodules implanted throughout their nervous system. They made soft crying and wailing noises. But barely any sound came out. Then John noticed the scar tissue across their throats.

John prodded the cowering scientist with the tip of the rifle. "What are you doing here?"

The man's eyes were frantic and wild, as he held up his hands feebly to shield himself. "Biotics! We're trying to give humans biotic abilities. Please. I was forced to be here!"

"I think your test subjects would feel the same," John said. Now growing angrier, his voice a low menacing growl.

"Please. They're just flash clones." The man said, huddling in the corner and shielding his body with his arms.

"They are screaming in pain," John said, anger boiling over. He grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him up to his face. "But you cut out their vocal cords so you wouldn't hear." He slammed the man's head into a wall violently. "Now tell me how I can get out of here."

The man wailed. "There is a ladder to the surface. It is used for evacuations. But you need my handprint to open the door. " John tightened his grip a bit to emphasize the man should speak faster. "One floor up. At the other end of the hallway from the elevator that brought you down! Let me live and I'll take you there."

"How long have you been here?" John demanded.

"Two months." The man yelled, now crying profusely and snottering. "I was forced to be here. Please!"

John crushed the man's neck and ripped off his arm for the palmprint scanner. The man was a monster. Two months was far too long to not be at risk of mental compulsion. John walked up to each of the patients and shot them one after the other.

Then, he caught a glimpse of a light switch next to one of the walls. A switch that looked like the one Parangosky had pressed to retract the shutters to the silo. He cautiously approached the button and pressed it. The wall slid upwards, revealing what had to be a square kilometre of nothing but cold blue metal and automated machinery. Massive industrial flash-cloning tanks were churning out clone after clone, each of which was immediately sorted by mechanical arms and either distributed to one of the many surgical suites that John caught glimpses off.

Others were fed into the black metal machinery from which emerged the reanimated corpses he'd seen in the images of Far Isle. They were empty husks, used for menial labour. Those clones who weren't immediately useful were thrown into what looked like a macerator, ground up, and reduced to base biomass. John nearly gagged when he recognized the type of food recycler that the macerator was connected to. He'd seen them on spaceships before.

John had to link up with his Spartans, find the Slipspace COM Launcher, and warn the UNSC. Nothing else mattered now. And after that. He was overloading every reactor in this hellish place.