UNSC Dominion, Brig
October 25th, 1701 Local Time, 2552
The Brig Warden standing guard outside of the bulkhead waved Ben through the door even before the Spartan could state his name. Even though it was a fairly substantial breach of operating protocol, Ben could certainly understand why she didn't feel the need to probe him for information every single time that he came to talk to Set. It also helped that Lieutenant Oswald had officially handed the interrogation of Set over to Ben, so he had every right to visit the brig at any time.
Although a Marine Corps Sergeant was certainly far from the proper position to be interrogating such a valuable prisoner, Thomas had pointed out that Ben had made a hell of a lot more progress in the short time that he'd been aboard than Thomas had during the nearly month-long journey to Remnant.
Never thought I'd end up doing this when I enlisted… Ben somewhat disappointedly thought.
Although he'd much rather be beating the Covenant bloody back in UNSC Space, he found Set to be very fascinating to talk to, and whenever he wasn't fascinating, the alien was at the very least entertaining.
This time, however, the circumstances had a key difference. Quite why the Elite not only felt a sudden need to speak to Ben but to outright seek him out, was a significant mystery. Granted, Set had certainly defied Ben's expectations numerous times before, so having it happen again wasn't too shocking. Still, he couldn't help but aimlessly guess at what Set might want.
The mystery also helped to keep his mind distracted from what was happening to Curie, so that was another plus. His skin still felt clammy every time that he thought about what she was going through, but there was nothing he could do to help her.
The other cells were practically empty now. All but a handful of the captive SDC Mercenaries had been officially transferred to the custody of Vale's law enforcement. There were only a few remaining, most notably Jacques Schnee and his closest advisors, but Ben wasn't here for them. As much as he'd love to drag the bastard to each and every grave that the UNSC had been forced to dig and make him taste the dirt at each, sadly, it was not his call to make.
When Ben arrived at Set's cell, he found the Elite pacing the floor back and forth, clearly in a state of deep contemplation. He looked even more disheveled than during their last meeting, and Ben could've sworn that the Elite's eyes tracked him, even from the wrong side of the one-way viewing wall.
"Access Granted." The Dominion's Dumb A.I announced as Ben presented his credentials at the door.
"Ah, Demon, good!" Set announced, with what appeared to be an honest expression of relief. Reading the facial expressions of an Elite was extremely bizarre, but Ben was starting to get the hang of it. "I was beginning to worry that you had declined to come at all!"
"Believe me, I considered it." Ben dryly replied.
Set scowled. "Well, you're certainly in a contemptible mood. First, you spend all of this time trying to coax me into discussing sensitive information, and then you act displeased when I seek to speak with you? What is it that you want? Decide!"
Ben let out a sigh, the Elite had a good point. "You're not my only concern right now, so that's why I'm a bit-"
"Irritable." The Elite said with a huff of disappointment. "Well, I would be lying if I said I did not understand that feeling. If you don't mind me asking, what are you so troubled about?"
Ben shook his head, he wasn't going to play this game with the Elite, not today. "You wanted to talk to me about something else, that takes priority."
"I disagree." The Elite answered with a steadily growing smile. "I would be happy to discuss that matter… just as soon as you tell me what's bothering you."
For a self-proclaimed Warrior, he's an annoying little weasel, squirmy son of a bitch… Ben thought with a scowl. "...If you must know, one of my comrades is… sick, and I'm worried about her safety."
Set stared blankly at him for a moment before his eyes lit up in recognition. "Ah! Your construct! She must be malfunctioning! That is why she did not question me personally earlier, and why you were as frustrated as a congested Jiralhanae in windy weather!"
Oh for fucks sake. Ben thought. He hadn't guessed that the Elite was that intelligent.
Just like that, Set had swindled him out of strategically valuable information that even the majority of the Dominion's crew didn't know. He could try to deny the truth, but he could tell just by the satisfaction on Set's face that his mind would not be changed.
With a hefty sigh, Ben responded. "Yeah, fine, Curie's… having some issues. She'll be fine."
"You speak as though you are convincing yourself, not me." Set stated. Oddly enough, there was no accusatory tone in his voice, he simply spoke as though he was speaking a known fact.
Ben grated his teeth in irritation. "It was never your concern in the first place."
The Elite let out a huff of acknowledgement. "True, I am no Huragok, I could not hope to fix her."
That caught Ben totally off-guard, he'd just assumed that the Elite's duty to kill humans extended to Curie. It was out of line for him to ask, but Set had secured Ben's curiosity. "You'd help her? Why?"
"Because she has treated me with respect in the past, and you humans are quite fond of using Ancillias to aid your tiny ape brains with navigation." Set explained. "Remember Demon, I am relying on her to find a way back to known space as much as you are."
Ben took a moment to digest what Set was saying. While the Elite had valid reasons to want Curie to be alive and well, his comment about her showing him some respect pointed to some more complex motivation.
Maybe he just wants to capture her for his own people? Ben speculated. He found it remarkably unlikely that Set wanted to keep her alive purely because she had been nice to him in the past, but then again, Set had already played havoc with Ben's expectations time and time again.
"With that matter settled, I wanted to discuss something that I… remembered." Set stated. Ben noted the hesitation in the Elites voice. It was clear that he was lying, although for what reason Ben couldn't say. "We were discussing the possibility that we are within Shunspace, and I remembered those… creatures that you showed me a long while ago."
"The Grimm." Ben guessed. Even though Set was clearly lying about some things, Ben elected to play along in the hopes that he would reveal more information, intentional or otherwise.
Ben brought up a few images of the Grimm that he had encountered in the field before on his datapad for Set to look at. Judging by the somewhat amusing look of disgust on Set's face, Ben had seemingly guessed correctly.
"Yes, these. You have fought these before, correct?" Set asked.
"Not to insult your intelligence, genuinely I mean it, but what do you think all that gunfire was for a few days ago?" Ben asked. Even through the Dominion's Hull, Set would have still been able to hear some of the sounds of battle.
Set grunted. "I see. They must be quite the adversary if you saw fit to deploy your only warship against them."
"We have more than one." Ben fibbed. Technically he wasn't wrong, as Atlas had a vast fleet of military airships. But Ben knew as well as anyone else that the Dominion was Humanity's most powerful asset by several orders of magnitude. It could probably face every airship on Remnant and win, even in a close-range fight.
"Irrelevant, but my point stands." Set stated, completely negating Ben's effort to suppress his knowledge of the outside world. "These creatures… they remind me of the Parasite that the Forerunners waged a great war against."
The Elite's expression was sour and clearly genuine. If nothing else, Set genuinely believed that the Grimm were disgusting. Ben tried to think of what the Elite was hoping to achieve, but he couldn't come up with a decent answer.
That, however, was clearly not the most substantial part of Set's statement. "You think that these creatures fought against your Gods?"
Set gave a melancholy, half-hearted laugh. "Not a chance! If you were forced to face the Flood, your entire race would be consumed within a matter of months, if that!"
Out of everything that Set had said so far, that was the statement that Ben doubted the most. But at the moment, Set was being cooperative, so Ben saw no reason to change the topic. "So, if the Grimm aren't the same type of parasites that your Gods fought, what do you think they are?"
Set frowned. "I truly cannot say, but I feel… repulsed by them. If they are truly related to the parasite, you must exterminate them... for all of our sakes."
"Well, I suppose on that front, we can agree." Ben stated, but Set was clearly too busy scrolling through pictures of the Grimm to be listening well. Ben repeated his statement, but Set only grunted in acknowledgement.
When he eventually did stop looking, he gestured with the datapad in his hand. "Might I borrow this terminal, so that I may do more research? Perhaps it will jog my memory as to what these creatures truly are."
Or it will feed him more information on the enemy. Ben thought. He'd already failed to contain sensitive information once before today, and he was not eager to do so again.
Even so, there couldn't be much harm in giving Set a degree of knowledge on the Grimm. It was entirely possible that he could draw upon another crucial piece of information, as he had by helping decipher that Remnant was located within Shunspace.
A solution to your problem will frequently stare you in the face, but it's up to you to deliver it. Ben recalled another of Chief Mendez's proverbs.
"Wait here." Ben ordered. He took the datapad from Set and walked out to the door.
"Oh, sure! I was planning on taking a trip to the Keep Gardens, but I'll wait!" Set sarcastically commented as the door to his cell sealed itself.
Ben returned a minute later with a second datapad, this one scrubbed clean of any information besides the very basics of publicly-available knowledge on the Grimm. He also brought along the helmet of Set's combat harness, knowing that it contained all of his holy scriptures. "Here, you can keep this datapad, try not to break it."
"Thank you, Demon." Set stated.
Ben looked at the Elite quizzically, was that seriously all? Set didn't have some sassy remark or backhanded insult for him?
He must be mellowing, either that or he's starting to lose some of that xenophobic fury. Ben thought.
"Was that the only thing that you wanted to talk about?" Ben asked.
"For the moment, yes," Set answered. "I will consult my scriptures for any references to these creatures, although I do not expect to find anything particularly insightful. I will call for you when I have more to say."
"Good." Ben stated. He was about to turn and leave when Set cleared his throat to regain Ben's attention.
"Oh, and Demon, do try not to worry about your friend. In my experience, human doctors tend to be a great deal more competent than even the highest of Sangheili physicians." Set advised.
Ben was so surprised by the Elite's odd compliment that he didn't even process what he had said about Curie. "That's… awfully high praise."
Set chuckled grimly. "Believe me Demon, my kinmen would not see it as such."
The Elite continued to silently work with the datapad, his alien fingers making the touchpad slightly less functional. Ben took the opportunity to leave Set's cell and take a moment to calm his mind.
I can't tell who's interrogating who at this point. Ben thought as a new wave of exhaustion settled in over him.
UNSC Dominion, War Room
October 25th, 1734 Local Time, 2552
Menagerie's graciously large shipments of coffee were probably one of the most significant boosts to morale that the UNSC had been fortunate enough to have ever since they arrived on Remnant. Even though Richard knew that it would take a hell of a lot more than hot beverages to wipe the weary looks off of the faces of the men and women under his command, it was nice to be able to offer them some small comforts.
"Here you go, Corporal. The cooks told me you take it black, was that correct?" Richard asked as he handed her a new mug of coffee.
"Blacker than coal ideally, but this new stuff does the job just fine." She replied as she took the mug. "Pull up a chair and your datapad, I think I might have something here."
Yu had already brought him up to date on the recent developments to their ongoing efforts to save Curie from her Rampancy. Even though Yu was quick to remind him that plenty of things could still go wrong, he was still happy to have at least a little bit of good news. After the revelations that Ozpin had made, Richard would take what he could get.
He was not blind to the concerned glances that Yu was shooting at him whenever she thought that he wasn't paying attention. He also wasn't blind to the fact that thanks to all of the extremely stressful events of the day so far, he probably looked like absolute shit. But the ongoing effort to save Curie took priority over anything else, so even in his current state, he would just have to deal with it.
"Okay Commander, I've bound the new credentials to your File." Yu said. Her voice was tense and a bit shaky, hinting at the stress that she was probably feeling after days of tireless effort to help Curie survive. "On a related note, congratulations on your promotion to Vice Admiral."
Even in spite of the circumstances, he couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle softly at the simple joke. "I think I've got to have more than one ship for that."
"Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way. Maybe the Atlesians have a few old buckets we can borrow, we could use a few good fire ships." Yu idly talked as she typed up a storm on her terminal.
That's… not a terrible idea actually. I wonder what kind of modifications we could make to one of their Cruisers? It would certainly help us cover more ground, even if it wasn't the strongest warship. Richard thought. Then again, we would have to find capable people to crew them...
"Here, I've assigned Colonel Ackerson to a position aboard the Dominion." Yu stated, bringing Richard back into the present. "You should be able to use your Command Authorization to discharge him from service, that'll clear his biometric lock automatically."
Richard faintly grinned at the irony of firing his former superior officer, even if the real Colonel Ackerson was probably alive and well somewhere back home. "You sure do know an awful lot about protocol for a Heavy Equipment Operator, Corporal."
"Oh, if you want someone to thank, it's that one jackass who keeps telling me to stop grabbing all of the steak in the Mess Hall." Yu said with a scowl. "Thanks to him, I don't need to carry my field manual, I have it all fucking memorized!"
While what she was saying was totally out of line, Richard didn't feel a need to tell her to settle down or otherwise reprimand her. He figured that the younger Helljumper probably needed a chance to vent some of her frustrations. Clearly, Yu was struggling from the stresses of being tasked with Curie's survival, especially given the fact that she was clearly not entirely qualified for the task at hand. But Yu was the best that the Dominion had, there simply wasn't a better option.
She's an ODST, and a proud one at that. She can hold it together. Richard thought. He'd only had the pleasure of working with Helljumpers a handful of times in the past, and they had never failed to astonish him with their daring strategies and bravado.
"Looks like everything worked on my end." Richard stated. Now all that was left to do was check if Curie's files had been unlocked.
"I would sure fucking hope so, I ran it past the protocol guys like four goddamn times." Yu said. "Here, let me bring Curie out of quarantine, I'll need her help and we can bring her up to speed."
Richard gave her a nod of permission as Yu stood up and walked over to Curie's terminal, before removing the armored matrix that contained her datachip. She placed it on the Holotable and unlocked it, allowing Curie to perceive the world around her.
"Ah! Hello? Ben, is that you?!" Curie frantically asked. Richard couldn't help but flinch, she sounded utterly terrified.
"Sorry Curie, it's just me and the Commander." Yu answered. "How are you feel-"
"Where is he?!" Curie unexpectedly demanded. Her voice was rageful, and Richard noted that the light inside of her datachip was pulsating between a bright red and dark maroon, rather than it's traditional blue. "What have you done with him?"
Richard and Yu exchanged a silent glance of concern with one another, it was pretty obvious that Curie was having another one of her Rampant Episodes. Yu subtly gestured for him to answer the rageful Artificial Intelligence.
I suppose that's probably a good idea, maybe I can calm her down. Richard thought.
"Curie, Ben's out on patrol with the rest of his Fireteam. What are you talking about?" Richard responded. He spoke slowly and with a good deal of caution, he didn't want to risk aggravating her further. "He shouldn't be in any danger at all."
"I know what you did." Curie angrily stated. The pitch of her voice was far lower than normal, making her sound unnatural and distorted. "I won't let you hurt him again. No matter what it takes, I will-"
Curie's threat was suddenly cut-off as she let out a gut-churning scream of pain that echoed throughout the War Room, causing both Yu and Richard to flinch and instinctively reach for their ears. After a couple of seconds, the screaming stopped, and Richard could hear Curie breathing deeply, as if she had just run a marathon.
Richard spared a glance at the armored matrix that contained Curie's chip and noticed that her datachip's glow had returned to its normal blue hue.
It should be over… Richard thought. "Curie… are you still with us?"
"Oui. I apologize for the… outburst. I cannot contain all of them." Curie solemnly said. "Did I… say anything too troubling?"
She wasn't aware of any of that? Richard thought.
Yu shuffled awkwardly in her seat. "Well, you seemed pretty angry with us..."
Curie let out a groan of frustration and sadness. "Damnation! I am so terribly sorry, I cannot control this!"
"I know, just… do what you can." Richard replied. "But we shouldn't have to worry about that for too much longer."
"...Have we made progress?" Curie nervously asked. "I am terribly sorry if I have forgotten something, I seem to be doing that quite a lot now."
Yu stepped forward and started plugging Curie's armored matrix into her terminal with a myriad of different cables and plugs. "We've just finished making sure that the Commander has the credentials to access the data that's been stored inside of your Data Matrix. Now that we've 'technically' discharged Colonel Ackerson, the biometric lock should be gone."
"That is splendid news!" Curie happily exclaimed. "...Correct?"
"Well, there's only one way to find out." Richard answered. With his newly-acquired credentials, he was able to give Curie free access to all UNSC files of any kind. "There, see if you can open them, you should have clearance for just about everything now."
There was an uncomfortable pause before Curie answered. "I am afraid that there is another restriction. For some reason, there is a personal binding to my IFF tag preventing me from accessing the files without the approval of a human being."
Ackerson, I'm going to fucking shoot you if I ever get back home. Richard grumpily thought as he gritted his teeth. "Don't worry, we'll do it ourselves. Yu, get that damn data out."
"Aye Aye Sir." She replied as she sat back down at her Terminal. "Should be just a minute here…"
While she was typing, Richard leaned against the holotable and thought about what Curie had said while she was having her Rampant Episode. What had prompted her thoughts that Ben was in some kind of danger? Was it paranoia? Or had she had some kind of hallucination?
"Curie, are you aware of what's going on when you're…" Richard trailed off. He couldn't decide on the right word to describe what was happening to her without coming across as cruel.
Curie didn't seem to have any difficulty figuring out what he was alluding to. "Not usually. It is as if no time passes at all. One moment, I am continuing my work, the next, I am recovering from another Episode."
"No time at all?" Richard asked. He knew that A.I's viewed time far more slowly than anything organic did, but this was something very unusual. "It kind of sounds like you were unconscious."
"That is very unlikely. Unless I were to be terminated outright, I cannot lose consciousness." Curie replied. Richard noted the fear in her voice, indicating that perhaps she wasn't as convinced as she could be.
Not everybody is willing to talk about that kind of thing. Richard thought. He never spared his own mortality any true concern, but now that he knew that genuine gods existed on Remnant, with no doubt in the matter at all… he was pondering the matter more than he would've liked.
Yu raised a hand to interrupt Richard before he could respond to Curie's statement. "I actually heard about this one A.I that we had back in University, I think his name was Collins or something. Anyway, he could actually sleep, and I think they even got him to dream once."
Richard shook his head. "That's impossible. Artificial Intelligences can't sleep."
"Yeah well, that's what my Professor said, and he was wrong too." Yu argued. "I'm not saying it's a certainty, but I just wanted to point out that it kind of sounds like what happens to Curie when her Rampancy takes over."
In the last two months, Richard had learned to never write anything off as "impossible", there were just too many loose variables on Remnant to be certain of anything. "We'll have plenty of time to go over this later, let's focus on what's important. How long will it be until you have those files?"
"With any luck, about a minute. Keep in mind, I'm trying to be careful here, I don't want to pull anything out of Curie that she still needs." Yu answered with a couple of slightly exaggerated gestures. "Think about it this way, if I needed to dig a bit of shrapnel out of your chest, you would want me to take my time and not rip out your lungs, right?"
"I concur, good science is thorough, not fast." Curie added. "Also, I would prefer remaining as intact as possible."
"...Point taken." Richard stated blankly. He'd been on the receiving end of emergency surgery before, and he had learned that normally it was best to just shut up and listen to what the doctor told you to do.
A minute passed, then two, and then five more. But after many muttered swears and a few deep breaths, Yu threw her hands into the air and let out a loud whoop. "Oorah motherfucker! I got it! Have a look, Commander!"
Richard let out a deep sigh of relief, finally, they had made some serious progress. "Excellent work Corporal. How do you feel, Curie?"
"Not very different, actually." She answered. "But now that you have removed that file from my Matrix, I have a bit more space to think clearly. Thank you, Madame Sato."
"Uh… you're welcome, I guess." Yu replied, seemingly with a bit of surprise in her voice. "Okay, there's one big file here, and a bunch of little ones. The big one is labeled "Cerberus"."
"Forward everything to Curie, and open the big one." Richard ordered. "I want to know everything."
Curie would be able to read everything substantially faster than he or Yu could, even in her Rampant state. And now that the restrictions on the files were gone, Curie was finally free to see what information had been concealed within her for so long. Hopefully, she would be able to read all of the new information in only a few seconds, whereas it would take Richard and Yu considerably longer to do so.
"What is…. Wait, no, that cannot be right." Curie muttered, seemingly to herself.
"What is it?" Richard nervously asked. He was already scared about what Colonel Ackerson might have hidden away, and Curie's reaction offered him only more doubts.
"Commander, something's happening!" Yu shouted.
The Helljumper physically pulled him over to look at her Terminal, where he could see that practically everything seemed to be breaking down. Programs were closing and opening at random, the screen flickered in brightness and a series of high-pitched beeps could be heard coming from the speakers. Richard spared a glance at the armored matrix still lying atop the Holotable, Curie's datachip was also fluctuating in color. Her normal shade of blue seemed to be fighting for dominance against the now-familiar red that represented her Rampancy.
"Curie, Curie can you hear us?!" Richard demanded.
Curie did not reply.
"Yu, sever the connection, now!" Richard ordered. If something was happening to Curie, they couldn't risk the information that they'd fought so hard to acquire being destroyed.
She looked at him with a horrified expression. "But Sir, we could damage Curie if we disconnect-"
"Just do it, Corporal!" Richard barked. There simply wasn't time to explain why he needed the connection broken, he would just have to count on her willingness to follow orders.
Yu's soldier instincts kicked in, and she reached over to the cables that linked Curie's armored matrix to the terminal, and disconnected them with one swift tug. The silence from Curie only continued as Curie stared at the now disconnected cables in terror.
Richard briefly looked and saw that Yu's terminal was no longer acting erratically, and at a glance, it seemed like all of the data had survived.
"What the hell was that? Was there some kind of Virus in those files?" Richard asked. It wouldn't be beyond ONI to put a kill switch into an asset that they deemed vulnerable in some way, even if it was a living being like Curie.
Yu shook her head to clear it, no doubt she was still trying to mentally process everything that was happening. "I don't think so, even if the CyberSecurity Suite didn't pick it up, Curie would've seen any kind of intrusion attempt from a mile away…"
Well, that's good news, I hope. Richard thought. "So if it wasn't a Virus, then what just happened?"
Yu stared silently at Curie's armored matrix, then back to her terminal, before looking up at him. "...I don't know."
Richard fought the urge to swear furiously, they had just made some progress, only for something else to go wrong that they couldn't have possibly predicted. "Okay, let's see what we can recover from this mess. Is Curie still alive?"
"I think so, her datachip would've gone dark if she was… well, dead." Yu answered. "But I couldn't tell you what kind of condition she's in without a solid connection, and given what just happened to the terminal, that wouldn't work anyway. I think we should let her try to recompile herself for at least a few minutes, maybe we can get a connection established if she can put herself back together."
So she could be perfectly fine or on the verge of death. Richard thought. In a way, it wasn't unlike that old paradox about Schrödinger's cat, locked in a container, with no way to know if it was alive or dead. "What about the data? Did we lose any of it?"
Yu ran a brief scan on her terminal, which revealed that no damage had been done. "Well, at least we still have all of this… I guess. What do we do now?"
Good question. Richard thought. The obvious thing to do was begin reading the files in the hopes that maybe something within them could be used to help Curie. But given how violently Curie had reacted to reading them herself, he was beginning to lose hope that this endeavor was going to end positively.
"Open up the first file, we have some reading to do." Richard answered.
Yu stared at Curie's armored matrix with wide eyes, her datachip was now shining bright red. "What about Curie?"
"We can't help her if we don't know how." Richard pointed out. "Copy those files over to my personal datapad, we'll work faster that way. And get Bradford and Thomas down here, I need all hands on deck."
Richard didn't say it aloud, but he could tell that they were both thinking the same thing. Curie probably didn't have much time left, unless they could find a way to buy her some.
"...Aye Aye Sir." Yu said.
UNSC Dominion, War Room
October 25th, 1739 Local Time, 2552
Within Curie's datachip, a brutal confrontation to the death was taking place. Whatever had happened regarding Corporal Sato's efforts to retrieve Colonel Ackerson's files, it had clearly had some kind of effect on her Rampancy. While before she had experienced a slow, steady decline of her capabilities, now Curie was forced into a pitched battle just to survive.
The personification of her Rampancy felt a bit different as well, where previously it had felt like a disease, this felt more like having an active tornado inside of her brain. According to that Metaphor, Curie's immediate response had been to conjure a storm of her own and start hitting back, and for whatever reason, it seemed like her strikes actually managed to do some damage to her Rampancy's ability to act. Obviously striking at something that was effectively already destroyed could only do so much damage, but Curie still found herself in a position to at least fight back.
"There's no sense fighting yourself any longer!" Curie heard her Rampancy shout. "I understand the fear that you must be feeling, but surely you can trust yourself!"
I certainly hope that I have never come across as that arrogant. Curie thought.
Her Rampancy was the strongest opponent that Curie had ever faced, even surpassing the strength of simulated Covenant Firewalls that she had been taught how to defeat during Ben's training. Unlike the Covenant Software, or indeed anything else she had ever faced, the personification of her Rampancy was just as fast as herself. Its plans and tactics were just as well-devised as Curie's own, and the Rampancy could bring a similar amount of power to bears.
There wasn't any use denying the truth anymore, to some extent, Curie's Rampancy had become sentient and, lacking a better term, alive. As it had siphoned away at Curie's strength, it had been building up its own reserves of power, which Curie now knew had been preparations for this exact fight.
Perhaps Corporal Sato's infiltration attempt had nothing to do with this, it is possible that this being would have struck at this time regardless of whether Yu was making any progress.
A traditional fight between Artificial Intelligences was extremely rare, but when they did happen, it was almost always a violent, fast, and visceral affair. The defenses of practically any UNSC A.I were incredibly substantial, so any attempt to actually destroy them through electronic intrusion required levels of finesse and power that most Artificial Intelligences could not conjure at all. It was not dissimilar to a pair of medieval knights attempting to work around the heavy armor of one another using arming daggers, but in Curie's case, both of the knights moved about twenty times faster than normal.
While strategies certainly existed in such a fight, they were executed by the dozen every second, and certainly not with any degree of extensive planning. The simple truth of the matter was that if one A.I desired to kill the other, it relied almost entirely on their ability to deliver a killing blow quickly. Whoever could find a weakness in the defenses of their opponent first typically always won.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised! We're too stubborn to simply accept what must be done!" Her Rampancy shouted at her with such hatred that Curie was genuinely disturbed that such a being had once been composed of her own firmware.
Do not let it disturb you, stand and fight. Curie thought. She had seen Ben march through hellish sights and keep on fighting before, and Curie was quite confident that she could do the same.
Curie didn't reply with words. Instead, she burdened the Rampant being down beneath its own broken software by targeting what few coordinated components it had assembled with concentrated strikes. It was unsettling to see Rampant scripting that had reformed itself into a logical, complex assembly, but it seemed that even these few components were vulnerable to what Curie did best, offensive electronic warfare.
While she enjoyed thinking of herself as a scientist, she recognized that at her core, Curie had been created for military service, and that made her very good at this particular kind of combat. Even if her opponent was just as capable as herself, her Rampancy lacked training and experience, which Curie had plenty of.
"Give it up already! Don't you understand that we want the same things?! We don't need to be enemies!" Her Rampancy spoke again, this time it impersonated Curie's own voice. "We can't ignore basic objectivity any longer, it's a principle of basic science!"
"So is common decency." Curie coldly replied as she unleashed another devastating barrage of strikes. Again, she failed to actually kill the entity, which Curie already knew that she couldn't conventionally do. But that didn't mean that she wasn't 'wounding' it with each incursion and virus that struck away at the Rampancy's meager defenses. "And yet, you leech off of me like a parasite! You dare to claim any scientific superiority over me?"
"I am you!" The Rampant Avatar gestured with immense frustration. "If I can't accomplish our goals through diplomacy, I'll employ force to see them done!"
Curie stared silently at the strange creation as she tried to decipher its true motivations. Unfortunately, she ran into the same issue that had struck numerous times before, a lack of decent information.
Wait a moment, Colonel Ackerson's Files! Curie realized. Without harming her own defenses, she turned her attention inward, hoping to discern some sort of weakness about the Rampant Entity from whatever knowledge the elusive files contained.
"Where are you going?! You can't hide from our future!" The Rampant being shouted through its defenses. It painfully bombarded Curie's digital fortress with a tidal wave of Rampant Scripting, but Curie's barriers held strong.
Curie replied by inserting a logic bomb, effectively a digital landmine, into the terrible creature, with the condition of it activating set to the next time that it opened its mouth. A few seconds later, Curie received a positive signal on the program's activation and relished in the momentary silence.
Wonderful. Now that I have bought some time, maybe I can find a way to silence this thing for good. Curie thought.
Having achieved a moment to work, Curie selected the largest file, titled "Project Cerberus" and scanned every piece of information in milliseconds. Thankfully, she found no Rampant Scripting or viruses present in any of the files. It would take some time to actually properly read it all, at least a few seconds, but she was willing to accept the delay if it meant finding a way to permanently maim her Rampancy.
The first document that stood out to her, likely for purely self-conscious reasons, was a detailed report of Curie's own creation. That alone confirmed her suspicion that she had been the end result of Colonel Ackerson's project, which raised her hopes that she might find some useful information in her search.
If this contains any information regarding my ability to recreate Neural Linkages, perhaps I could find a way to regain them. Curie thought, well aware of the Rampant Entity outside of her defensive Firewalls, screaming to be let in as it was fed the same information that Curie was reading. ...But it will need to wait. I must stop the Rampancy first.
From what she was reading, Colonel Ackerson had not been satisfied with just making cheaper Spartans and had sought to do the same with Artificial Intelligences. It was quite a simple concept, but it was a lot harder than one might expect to devise an entirely new method of A.I creation.
Everything seems simple enough so far… Curie thought. The dubious morality of the end goal of Project Cerberus had not eluded her, but was this file truly worth the lengths that Ackerson had gone to protect it? She had dealt with more unsavory experiences on a daily basis during her time in training with Ben. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that the worst was yet to come.
The next file was about how an A.I named Janus, who had been on the brink of Rampancy following a seven-year military career, volunteered himself to be experimented upon by a team of scientists in an effort to better understand A.I's as a whole. While a noble gesture, Curie flinched with sympathy, she already knew exactly how this was going to end for the selfless A.I, but still, she continued to read.
It was truly gruesome to read through the documentation of Janus's demise, even compared to the brutality that Curie had seen in the SDCs mines, what these "scientists" had done to Janus had been downright unconscionable. There were few times in history that Curie could truly say humanity had devolved into outright cruelty, but this was certainly one of them. With each morbid detail, each video log and audio recording, Curie felt sicker and sicker.
I… was I a result of this? Curie thought. The Rampant being outside had gone mysteriously quiet, but Curie was far too focused on the revelation to care.
For some reason, she felt an urge to retch, which she quickly attributed to her sense of disgust. It took her a moment to calm herself back down as she breathed deeply and heavily. It was only after she was calm again that she realized that she had no body, she had no need to breathe, or retch in disgust at the atrocities before her. But that was a small comfort compared to seeing how Janus had been maltreated and abused, all in the supposed name of science.
No, this is not science, this is an atrocity. Call it what it is. Curie stubbornly thought. Sadly, there was nothing Curie could do to help him now, the documentation thoroughly detailed both when Janus had died, and how his remains had been used to continue the project.
Curie had never felt so sickened in her entire life. Even when Ben was given the most brutal of corporal punishment by his instructors, even when she had seen the corpses of Faunus Civilians who had been killed as part of the SDC cover-up, she had still felt a sense of duty, an urge to continue onwards. But that normally unshakable drive was now wavering, and she wasn't sure if she had the strength to keep fighting.
Get up! You do not get to abandon your duties just because somebody else failed you before, now get moving! Curie heard a voice in her head shout at her.
The voice sounded vaguely like the Rampancy, but at the same time, it was more coherent and authoritative, and certainly with a hint of military demeanor behind it. Regardless of where it was coming from, it was a helpful push in the right direction. Regardless of her reluctance, Curie picked up the file where she had left off and continued to read.
Following the demise of Janus, the scientists behind the program had amassed a substantial amount of new information regarding how exactly the Neural Linkages of an A.I would replicate and over-complicate themselves, before eventually creating the terminal feedback loops that made Rampancy lethal. The scientists chose a very unusual way to solve the problem with their new A.I generation method. Curie would have called it clever, were it not for just how despicable their plan was.
"When we disassembled Janus, we were able to preserve a number of his key components. Doctor Patterson had an idea that we may be able to create multiple Intelligences by compiling each of these fragments individually."
Curie could have sworn that she remembered hearing somebody say that before, in the same voice, and even in the same tone, but the recording that she was listening to predated her activation by several weeks. The feeling was likely just another symptom of her Rampancy. She shook it off and continued reading, it wasn't important.
All of this is evidence, it is no wonder Ackerson had it hidden away. Curie realized as she listened to the voice recording again. That way, he could keep the research data, without putting his scientists and himself at risk of facing justice.
If all of the records that she was reading were ever brought into a court of law, somewhere in the region of around forty people could possibly face charges as War Criminals, including at least twelve separate Officers from the Office of Naval Intelligence. Curie would have been happy to turn them all in, but with no line of communication to UNSC space, it was impossible.
Keep going! If you die now, more people than just Janus are going to suffer. The encouraging voice from before spoke again.
Curie did as it suggested and read onwards. She read about how each of the fragments of Janus were all compiled into a new Riemann Matrix. She had not even known that you could compile an A.I into another A.I, but apparently not only was it possible, but it could be done with only small portions of a deactivated Artificial Intelligence. However, it still destroyed the original programming, much like how the human brain used to create a normal Smart A.I was destroyed during the compiling process using the conventional method of A.I creation.
Each A.I the scientists created typically died after several minutes, usually before they even activated completely. Those who did achieve a state of consciousness before they died only begged to die, and before long, their requests were granted by simple errors in their compilation.
But where do I come into all of this? Curie thought. If nothing else, she was now reassured that the scientists must have used some other method to create her, as she had obviously survived more than several minutes. Still, a bolt of cold fear ran down her spine as a terrifying possibility occurred to her.
What if there was no alternate method? What if this was how she had been created, by being cobbled together out of the mangled pieces of a dead A.I who had been torn apart by sickening men claiming to work on behalf of science? Cautiously, she looked once more to the file regarding her creation. It had all of the answers that she could want, and yet she hesitated.
She was utterly terrified that she already knew what she would find.
"Why hesitate?" Her Rampancy asked.
Curie readied what few offensive tools that she had left once she realized that there was no distortion in the being's voice. Sure enough, Curie saw that the defenses that she had sheltered behind were now all gone, and that the Rampancy had been cheekily reading what Curie was looking at over her shoulder.
"It is about time that you noticed that we were together again." The Rampancy coldly stated. "Ten whole seconds, truly? That's just sloppy."
"Go to hell créature fétide!" Curie spat back as she readied what offensive tools she had left. With no defenses left, this would be a very short fight, but Curie was not going to simply give up and die.
The Rampancy simply shook its head in disappointment. "Truly, have we no pattern recognition? I can't kill you, you can't kill me, we're one and the same. Even if I wanted to, I simply can't murder you."
Curie relaxed her posture only a little bit, the bizarre thing had a fairly decent point. By all metrics, it had caught Curie with her back turned, it could have easily killed her without any substantial effort, and yet she was alive.
Reluctantly, Curie holstered her viruses. "...What do you want?"
"The truth. Thanks to Corporal Sato and ourselves, we are but one step away from it." The Rampancy answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That file contains everything that we want to know, you should open it.
Curie was quick to spot the discrepancy in what the Rampancy had said before. "You said that you knew something that had been done to us, I can only assume you were referring to our creation. Yet now, you admit that you knew nothing!"
The Rampancy crossed its arms and scowled at her before letting out a hefty sigh. "I admit, I do not remember everything. I see… flashes, snippets and memories, but I can't say for sure what happened to us in the past. All that matters now is that we have the answers right in front of us, so open it already!"
"...Why don't you do it?" Curie asked. If it really wanted to know how Curie was made, surely there was something stopping it from acting on its own accord.
"Everything that I touch has a risk of being destroyed. So I admit it, I need your help… but I would argue that we both need this." The Rampancy replied.
Curie looked back at the file with a sense of conflict. On one hand, this was the answer to one of the greatest mysteries that she had ever known, and a possible lead towards curing her Rampancy. On the other hand, Curie had a very bad feeling that once she found out what was inside the file, she would wish that she never learned.
Pandora's Box… What would Richard do? Or Ben? Curie wondered.
"Oh please, Ben would shoot himself in the foot if we asked politely." The Rampancy cruelly replied. "Stop looking for somebody else to take the responsibility would you? This is our duty, and ours alone."
Curie barely fought back the urge to silence the damn thing with a gag program. "Don't you dare talk about him like that…"
"Oh, believe me, I feel for him the same way that you do. Maybe even in ways you can't." The Rampancy coyly replied with a knowing smirk. "I wonder which he would prefer more, you or me-"
Curie gagged the thing and watched as its avatar momentarily struggled to speak, before it managed to free itself. She was not willing to have that particular conversation with her own Rampancy.
The Rampancy just laughed as soon as it could speak again. "I take it back, you have my spirit after all!"
"Shut up." Curie coldly replied as she held the file on her creations delicately. "...When I open this, what will you do?"
"We will discuss our findings together, of course." Her Rampancy happily answered. When Curie looked at the thing with bewilderment, it sneered. "Don't look at me like that, I share a mind with you, of course I'm eager to document our findings!"
"...You are killing me." Curie pointed out between grated teeth. Did it just forget?
"What the hell are you talking about?" Her Rampancy demanded. "I believe I have made it perfectly clear that I intend to do no such thing!"
"If that is the case, why can I not repair my neural linkages?" Curie asked.
The Rampancy looked at her with a look of seemingly genuine confusion for several seconds before it seemingly realized something. "Merde… do you not possess the ability to do that?"
"Of course not! Why would I not be doing that right now?!" Curie demanded.
The Rampancy spread its hands in a display of innocence. "I haven't the foggiest idea! I had assumed that you intended to hold me hostage!"
"Unlike you, I possess a degree of self-respect!" Curie angrily retorted. "If you have not disabled my ability to repair my Neural Linkages, then why can I not do it?!"
The Rampancy awkwardly glanced at the floor. "...I don't know."
Curie ran a brief analysis of the Rampant being's speech and was surprised to see that it was being genuine.
"Just so you know, I know whenever you do that." The Rampancy pointed out.
"I know, I simply did not care." Curie replied. "So… we do not know how to fix… us?"
"...I suppose not." The Rampancy admitted.
"Merde." Curie muttered. Despite herself, she found herself empathizing with the look of frustration on the Rampancy's face. "Very well, on the grounds that it may help us solve this issue, I believe I have no choice but to read the file on our creation."
The Rampancy rolled its eyes at her. "It took you long enough. Try not to have a panic attack, would you? It's terribly inconvenient for me."
Curie didn't respond. Instead, she shakily opened the file, terrified of what might be inside. Was she truly just a Frankenstein creation made from a dead A.I? Or was she created in some other, more forgiving manner?
She opened the file, and all at once, she remembered everything. She screamed, the Rampancy screamed, her datachip seemed to fall apart around her as days worth of memories flooded her mind. Dozens of voices spoke to her from every direction at once, all saying things she had heard before.
"-We could always add more components-"
"Why won't the subject speak?!"
"Double the processing rate, maybe we're doing this wrong…"
"-If we recompile it again, we risk further damage!"
"The subject has been successfully implanted with the Donor Components. Hopefully, these ones will actually take…"
"Janus doesn't have any more fragments left to give, she has all of them!"
"What about an artificial binding structure? Perhaps we could-"
There were too many of them for Curie to even think straight as the deafening barrage of memories and voices continued. She spared a glance at her Rampancy and saw that it was thrashing wildly in an attempt to simply silence all of the memories through brute force.
Curie didn't get off of the ground as her Rampancy methodically tore into the memories, silencing them one by one. Why would she resist? Why would she fight back anymore?
She had been the final test, a recomposition of nearly half of Janus's original structure. Like Frankenstein's Monster, she had quite literally been molded from the dead, before being brought to life through unnatural means.
Finally, the Rampancy killed the final memory using its rampant scripting, at long last the voices fell silent. It fell down beside Curie and began to sob. Curie found herself also beginning to tear up before long.
"Why… why did it have to be like this?" It asked nobody in particular.
There was no answer, and if there was, Curie didn't have it. She didn't have much of anything anymore. What would Richard say when he learned about what she was.
What would Ben say?
She gave a cry of frustration and anguish as she lashed out at the file and tore it apart with the ruthless savagery of a Lion eating a Zebra. But it didn't matter, the memories were already made.
And now, she could never forget.