RECOMPOSE
by Ladywolvesbayne
Here's one of my favorites, I had so much fun with this chapter. Also, we reached 50k hits, what the actual f*** is that? SO MANY VISITS. So much pride. Very wow! Enjoy today's ride.
26. RIPPLE EFFECT
proofread and corrections by SL4Y3R -hugs-
PROBABLY SEPTEMBER 10TH, 2558
LOCATION: COVENANT REMNANT ASSAULT CARRIER SONG OF RETRIBUTION
standard time unknown
Dr. Halsey came back to her senses, slowly.
She recognized the environment at first sight, it was hard not to acknowledge her own private quarters aboard Jul 'Mdama's flagship since the place had her trademark untidy touch. With a long sigh, the woman tried to get up from where she was lying but a bolt of pain made her reconsider. A memory crossed her mind; the Rampant Spike snatching a plasma rifle from her and the other Cortana's hands and shoving them both against a distant wall. The blunt force of the impact sure took its toll on her, but Halsey didn't think she had any broken bones. Probably just two or three cracked ribs, since she landed on her left side.
Which was a total win for a sixty-six-year-old woman.
The Sangheili believed that accepting medical treatment was dishonorable; if you spilled your own blood, you better bleed out before anyone notices. So they probably didn't even care about her actual state, Jul just left her somewhere comfortable waiting for her to get up or die. Well, she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of throwing her dead body off an airlock, as he more than once suggested he'd like to do.
So, all of it actually meant that the plan was successful.
The Rampant Spike would be out of the way for a few days. Time to work.
Not without effort, Catherine Halsey got up to a sitting position. The whole ordeal was painful enough to make her reconsider about the cracked ribs too.
A glimpse of movement within the shadows on the far side of the room alerted her senses. The Doctor turned around as fast as she could, her sore muscles protested but she managed to keep a straight face when she recognized the familiar holographic crest upon the figure's helmet.
"I wondered if you would ever get up from that cot. You seem rather delicate even for human standards." commented Jul, keeping his head up with pride.
"It takes more than a deficient copy of my creations to kill me." she answered. Her throat felt dry.
"Yes, I have also come to the same conclusion myself."
She took a few sips from a cup she grabbed from the rack beside the bed, which had rests of a beverage long forgotten. After a few minutes of odd silence, the Sangheili leader came out of the shadows.
"I warned you about crossing that unholy demon. Have I not been there, she might have ended up killing you and the other one."
Halsey's eyebrows rose up a few millimeters.
She understood that Jul held some sort of primal fear towards the Rampant Spike, the reasons, however, were still unclear to her. Sangheili warriors like him were fearless and more than willing to die in the name of their honor, this kind of cowardice was very unexpected. And somewhat surprising, after all these years.
"Your concern is appreciated, Jul. How is she?" the Doctor asked.
"Not doing very well. She will die very soon, her flesh burns and she looks ill."
The Doctor figured that the unattended broken arm was the cause.
She got on her feet immediately but staggered, badly. Jul 'Mdama reached out in the blink of an eye and grabbed her arm in a not-so-polite way, to help her stand. A low rumble shook his chest.
"Take me there. She is important, I can't let her die." Halsey grabbed a pad from the nearest desk.
"Very well." 'Mdama nodded once and led the way, with impatience.
They entered another aisle and the alien pushed her through an open door. Halsey could hear the muffled cries from the hallway. There were two Elite Storms standing beside another door that opened when Jul approached. It led to a small cell-like room which barely had a bed and some furniture that resembled a desk. When she laid eyes on the girl, the scientist felt her blood boil. Just like she thought before, the Elites didn't bother in doing anything to ease her pain.
'So much for honor.' she thought, angrily.
The Cortana splinter was lying on her side, clutching her broken arm against her chest. She looked incredibly pale, sick. She wasn't moving, but her skin was wet with sweat and she kept moaning in pain. There was no blood; however, the scent of a body in desperate need of proper cleaning filled Halsey's senses.
The Doctor kneeled before the other woman and measured the fever with the palm of her hand. 'Mdama was right, she was burning. Carefully, she convinced the girl to let her see the broken arm, the tips of her fingers were still stained with that lavender ink. Halsey's expert hand traced the inflamed flesh, assessing the wound. It was a simple, non-exposed and clean fracture, not more than two days old.
"I will make you a list of things, I need to fix this right away." she said.
"Are you afraid she might lose the arm too?" the Elite leader asked.
Halsey wrinkled her nose, upset.
"No, she won't lose it." the scientist sat on the bed and typed, after a moment she handed the pad to Jul. "I have to act quickly, I don't know for how much longer she will endure the pain. Remember we are not Sangheili, Jul; we, unlike you, take pride in our doctors' work."
He growled, clicking his mandibles beneath the faceplate of his helmet.
'Mdama called one of the guards in and gave him the pad, told him what he had to do with it. When the guard left, the doors closed again and silence fell over the room. The Cortana splinter wasn't moaning in pain anymore, but now her body trembled and she crawled to rest her head over Dr. Halsey's lap. Surprised by the reaction, the older woman just stood very still for a moment but eventually let her hand fall atop the poor creature's hair.
It somewhat reminded her of Miranda. Her heart felt heavy all of a sudden.
Until she heard the splinter mutter: "John."
Halsey caressed the woman's hair with slow movements, trying to comfort her.
"He's fine." she answered. "He's the luckiest of my SPARTANS. Trust me."
When she examined the other arm, she found a small Forerunner glyph tattooed on the girl's wrist, the glyph for the number two. The Doctor knew that there were at least other four copies of the recomposed Cortana alive. It made sense that they were numbered like that. And to add more oddity to the mix, one of the walls of the cell was scribbled from floor to ceiling, the writings almost illegible in several sections. It was the numbers, all over again, quantum calculations such as Halsey had never seen before. She deduced the meaning of the formulas and calculated the danger.
The Doctor was more than willing to make a little experiment.
"I suppose I should call you Two, then." said Dr. Halsey, sighing. "It suits you."
"Why did you insist so much in taking her?"
"Forethought, I suppose." she caressed the dark, dirty hair again.
"Then, was it worth it?" 'Mdama asked, growling. "To cross that monster."
The older woman looked at him with pride in her eyes.
"It was indeed, I have everything I need now, the coordinates and the data I was missing." she explained, calmly. "Just like I told you, there was a main reason why the Rampant Spike wanted to destroy the Infinity: it's the only UNSC ship that can make the trip to the Fortress, it's all about the engines. But now we have a chance. This girl here is a treasure, I figure that she would have been delivered to ONI have we not taken her with us. This was the right thing to do, Jul."
The alien opened the door, but before exiting the room he turned his head towards the woman, his gray eyes flashed in the dark for a second. His piercing stare said that he had no interest in thinking about the right things to do, anyway.
"You can have your treat for now. Rahn will bring you your requested items in a moment." said 'Mdama, he sounded either bored or just aggravated. "But next time you are planning to do anything that could cost me a third of my most valuable warriors, you better think it through until the end, Halsey. I have yet to see the results of this so-called alliance we share."
Which meant that he probably was annoyed because the possibility of killing the famous Demon was denied to him. Halsey nodded.
"Noted." she mumbled, as amused as the Sangheili.
DAY TWO
LOCATION: UNSC INFINITY
S-DECK MED-BAY
standard time not recorded
"What do you mean, Catherine Halsey kidnapped Two?" Eleven shouted, angrily. "Are you kidding me? Who let that happen?"
"I'm sorry, I was busy killing Seven this time." answered Cortana.
He arrived with the rescue fleet, barely half an hour before. The Infinity was being synchronized with the Challenger's systems, very soon they would have real account on exact time and situation, non-corrupted navigation data and maybe even the possibility of a short slip-space jump home. The engineering crews had been repairing as much damage as they could, directed by an exhausted Dr. Glassman, working miracles. After landing, Eleven went straight to Cortana; she was at the S-Deck's med-bay checking on Charley's cryo-pod when he found her.
She could understand his rage (after all, she would have been pissed off too), but it was the truth. Everybody had their hands full at the time, even John; although deep down she felt a little guilty for not trying harder. Cortana had the feeling that she could have prevented the kidnapping, had she reacted faster. It was the sight of Dr. Halsey that stopped her, she didn't know what to do with her creator right before her eyes.
Anyway, she gave Eleven a scolding look and he somewhat calmed down.
"You are aware that Two can't defend herself, aren't you?" he asked.
"I recall you saying something about it, yes."
"She has brain damage, Cortana!"
"I beg to differ with you there." Cortana halted him, stoically. "Come on, there's something you have to see."
After dealing with two Marines that demanded to know where they were heading, Cortana led her sibling to the Delta Station computer labs, deep down on the far side of the engineering deck. The whole section was designated out of service and the access, restricted by Commander Palmer's orders; but they passed through several debris fields of busted doors and labyrinths of thick walls bent inwards until destination. The station had no power, so there was no light to move safely and avoid crashing into furniture or destroyed computers.
"What the heck happened here?" Eleven mouthed, overwhelmed.
Cortana cracked two amber light-sticks and gave one to him.
"Seven and the Chief, that's what. I got here too late to take a look, but judging by the wreckage, I'd say it was quite the fight." she explained. Her voice reflected the anger she felt for not being there to aid John. Maybe she could have avoided what happened to him afterwards too. "Over here, this is it."
Cortana walked into another room with a fractured table and several busted chairs. Eleven followed her, then he noticed the walls and the rubber floor scribbled with some glowing lavender-colored ink, and frowned.
"What is that? Sangheili chicken-scratches?"
She smacked him on the back of the head.
"What was that for?"
"It's mathematics." Cortana explained, rolling her eyes. "She figured it out. This is what we need to reconfigure the Infinity's engines, I've been squeezing my brains out for days and she just wrote it down on the walls and the floor. Now I have to fix it together in the right order and we can make an attempt."
"Oh, of course. The thingy. I recognize the handwriting." he snorted.
"You know what this is, Eleven. You wouldn't even have been able to activate the Wanderer otherwise, it's in your head but you can't grasp it like I do. Not consciously at least." Cortana stated, serious. "Now, with the data from the Wanderer to compare, I have a head start to decipher and adapt our algorithms. We can repair the Infinity using parts of that ship too. If you made it back to Earth only twelve hours before us, then there's still a chance to sort this out before it's too late."
"To think that they are going to dismantle it almost makes me cry." Eleven sighed.
By 'they' he meant ONI, of course.
Wanderer was the name of the Forerunner ship that Eleven and the other half of the Challenger's crew and engineering personnel used to flee from Paragon. An ancient Forerunner capital warship, dreadnought-class. The last ones had been seen around the 2530s, so it was quite the sight and acquisition for the UNSC. An immensely powerful vessel, with strong engines and a crystal-based navigation control. If Cortana was right about it, the refined calculations would ensure a much safer, stable trip for the Infinity and diving again that deep into the layers of slip-space wouldn't harm the ship or its passengers.
Although taking the Wanderer to the Fortress maybe would have been a better choice, the hard truth was that they were already halfway there with the preparations to install the new power core into the Infinity; which was a quicker solution (in theory) than deciphering how to install it into a completely alien vessel. Maybe with the help of a couple of Huragoks that would have been possible, but at the time, it was just out of grasp. And it was all theoretical. There was pretty much no point of comparison between proper Forerunner engines like the Wanderer's and hybrid Human-Forerunner systems like the Infinity's.
Cortana needed to figure it out, and she had to do it ASAP; which was somewhat frightening, yes.
Eleven just stood silent for a moment, staring at the room. The weary look on his eyes eased up until he relaxed enough to drop his shoulders in a slow gesture, partially relieved. He let out a deep sigh.
"Are you sure Two did this?" he asked, softly.
"Yes. I guess her brain isn't as messed up as you thought it was, after all."
"I'm glad."
"Me too." she hesitated, but then continued: "We'll get her back, I promise."
"That's not your line." Eleven smirked, a bit sad.
"You're right. And if he were here too, he'd say the same, you know that."
Cortana placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed the warm, thick fabric of his black and red exo-suit.
"So, is it true? Seven's HARPY just attached to John?"
She didn't even bother in asking how he knew that, Cortana supposed that it was mentioned in Palmer's report or maybe Sigrid or Roland told him. Everyone aboard the Infinity knew about it, anyway. It was impossible to keep secret the reason why the Master Chief was tied up like a dangerous beast in front of everyone.
"So it seems from the outside. My best guess is that both armors fused together. I assimilated a Sangheili plasma sword and an energy shield myself, it wouldn't be that crazy to think that the HARPY assimilated the MJOLNIR and they became something new, considering what we've seen before."
"Why isn't he awake, then? A sync shouldn't take this long."
"I believe it's because of his neural implants. We don't have any."
"... makes sense. And I don't like it."
"Me neither. Dr. Quinn is worried but she says the brain activity is normal within SPARTAN-II parameters and even when he's not awake, he's cooperative. We've tried everything, the Chief just doesn't..." she sighed, troubled.
She didn't mention how scared she really was, but the way she hugged and rubbed her arms up and down gave her away.
Eleven looked at the numbers again. "They won't let me see him, I suppose."
Cortana wrinkled her nose, absentmindedly.
"Palmer has been breathing fire since we exited slip-space, you better stay away from SPARTAN-Town for now. I have clearance to run diagnostics on the Chief every two hours if Dr. Quinn can't do it herself, and the ODSTs still give me the evil eye when they see me there."
Eleven winced and started walking away.
"Well, Dr. Clayton and I have been working on something and I should be helping her. Keep me posted."
"You know? I thought you said that when the host dies, a HARPY renders itself useless until system wiping. That's why I don't understand how come it attached itself to John and did this to him."
He stopped right there and turned around to face her, slowly.
"I only repeated what Catherine taught me about it."
Cortana frowned.
"I know. That's why we shouldn't trust anything she ever said to us. Catherine is working with Seven."
Now it was Eleven's turn to frown, concerned. He trotted back.
"No, she's not. Catherine would never..."
"Yes, she is." Cortana stood still when he towered over her. Through Eleven's face, at least a dozen different raw emotions crossed in a matter of a few seconds. She kept talking, her eyes locked with his blazing blue irises. "When John and I met her, she gave him a device that supposedly could open slip-space ports anywhere, and it was the same device that Dr. Halsey used to escape this ship with Jul 'Mdama. Seven used that thing to spy on us, ever since we fought her at Installation 00."
Eleven became speechless for a long moment. For one, he was glad that Cortana wasn't suspicious of him anymore (since he didn't have many ways to demonstrate his innocence), but on the other hand...
"Maybe Catherine didn't know what the device does."
"Then, how come Dr. Halsey did? She was the one who told me to destroy it."
He compressed his lips down to a thin line.
"We shouldn't be hurting him, we..." Eleven started, confused, showing his teeth like a rabid animal. A sheer tremor shook his body. "We were supposed to take care of our SPARTAN, how can she do this?"
"How can Seven do what she's doing?" Cortana muttered, sadly.
The both looked at each other for a short moment, until he composed himself.
"In moments like these I wish we stayed dead, you know?"
She didn't answer, and Eleven just left.
SEPTEMBER 10TH, 2558
LOCATION: UNSC INFINITY
S-DECK ARMOR ASSEMBLY WORKSHOPS
11:03 PM standard time
Vertigo.
He felt like he was falling, and his first reaction was as sharp as ever: John tried to move his arms to protect himself from the impact. That's when he realized his arms were stiff and so were his legs. Yet, he was standing and there were big sets of intense lights pouring over him, it took him a moment to get back into his senses and assess the situation. The faceplate automatically darkened a little.
The HUD ignited before his eyes and he observed quick lines of code booting up the systems. The faint amber gleam of the letters called out his attention, the design was different. Did Cortana modify his firmware? Why couldn't he move? He tried to access the MJOLNIR's lockdown protocols to deactivate them, but the system answered with an error message:
UNABLE TO PROCESS
ERROR CODE: INCOMPATIBLE
He tried to contact Sigrid. She wasn't there.
An answer came to him when he looked up to his right hand. He was immobilized.
John looked at the powerful restraints on his wrists and ankles, trying to find the meaning of it. He was on an armor assembly platform, all right. The information then crossed his mind with the speed of lightning and the back of his head hurt. Too much to bear, too fast. The images collapsed one over the other.
He stopped the process and hissed under his breath.
But he remembered, and he understood.
The HUD projected a tridimensional, full colored model of the armor he was now wearing. The bulk of it was basically the same of a MJOLNIR, maybe refined but still recognizable; the color scheme was quite different (matte-black with touches of some iridescent dark-olive-green over his helmet, arms, chest, and thighs) and the areas that used to be protected by the exo-suit were now fully covered with thin articulated plates. The SPARTAN could feel the material working against his skin, brushing him like the uncomfortable touch of dry sand everywhere.
Still, it didn't explain why he was detained like this.
John's attention returned to the front. The fight. Subject Seven.
Cortana.
His heart raced at the mere memory of her, his senses suddenly flooded with the need to know her whereabouts. He thought of freeing himself by breaking the locks, but before the Chief could shape up a proper plan, the materials moved and crawled up his arms towards the outer ring. The tiny dark beads covered the fetters on his wrists and ankles and a few seconds later, he heard the locks click. The pressure vanished, he stepped out from the platform but not before the armor could reshape itself in gauntlets and boots again.
'Well, that was useful.' he thought, stretching the sore muscles of his arms.
The HUD flashed a dozen different hostile contacts around him, then he heard the weapons clicking from behind the radiant sets of lights. He growled under his breath, it felt as stupid as stomping accidentally over a landmine in plain sight.
A little later came the ODST's voices:
"MASTER CHIEF, DON'T MOVE!"
"ON YOUR KNEES!"
"HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"
"Richards! Call the Commander in!"
"Holy shit, did you see that? HE BROKE THE FUCKING LOCKS!"
"Thought it was fucking titanium, man!"
John sighed and placed both of his hands behind his helmet, annoyed, and kneeled down anyway.
SEPTEMBER 10TH, 2558
LOCATION: UNSC INFINITY
S-DECK MED-BAY
11:38 PM standard time
The Master Chief chose wisely not to make questions to a woman who looked as exhausted as Commander Palmer did, and only nodded once when she ordered him to report to the workshop. Alas, she dismissed the ODSTs but brought in two fully armed and armored SPARTAN fire-teams to escort him. Since weapons weren't allowed inside the facilities, the SPARTANS just stood outside guarding the doors.
Nobody said a word about him or what happened to his armor. Not even Palmer.
John entered the laboratory alone, all tension dissipating from his body the mere second he saw Cortana access the room through another door. Dressed in a training uniform of white shirt and dark blue pants, and with the white lab coat, she reminded him of Dr. Halsey for a second. Her naturally pale skin looked paler than the last time he saw her, the shadows under her eyes were still there.
Cortana drew a careful smile on her lips.
"How was the nap, sleepyhead?" she said, there was relief in her voice.
"Odd."
"I bet. Come here."
Cortana guided him towards the next room, which was upholstered with top-of-the-line equipment and a reinforced chair connected to a complicated array of screens and other machines. She rolled up both sleeves of her lab coat far above the elbow and grabbed a pad. He sat down on the chair, just like he had done many times before while the technicians ran diagnostics on his armor, and just watched her.
He followed her every move from behind the polarized faceplate, silently.
When she had enough of the intense stare she couldn't see but feel, she sighed.
"Just say it, Chief."
"What happened?"
He placed an armored finger over a small bandage patched up on the inside of her right elbow. Her eyebrows rose up a little. They had been inches away from death and yet a scratch had this much power to draw his attention.
"The blood supplies were useless, most of the freezers short-circuited due to the power failures. Turns out that I'm a universal donor, so Dr. Quinn patched us together a few times. I hope you don't mind."
Mind? She kept saving his life, how many more times would she do that?
"How much?" he asked, after a few seconds.
"Two units over two days. I'm fine, they gave me cookies. We still had some."
He knew he shouldn't have, but in an act of raw instinct, John grabbed her hand and clutched her fingers in his much larger fist. Her breath hitched, but she let herself be dragged by the strength of that hand and climbed the two metallic steps until she stood right beside the chair, on the platform.
The dark shade under her eyes only emphasized her blue gaze.
"You need to rest." he observed, but he really meant 'thank you'.
"Later. We have to get this over with now."
She avoided the things she really wanted to say, cameras were recording.
Cortana retrieved her hand, fingers softly brushing the dark material that covered John's palm, but she didn't step down from the platform. Instead she focused on the pad and typed a few commands, the machinery around them hummed to life. He knew what to do and just relaxed, grabbing the handles on the armrests.
Over the next fifteen minutes, they both acted the part for the video feeds. To say that Cortana was dumbfounded by his apparent disinterest over the matter at hand was a huge understatement.
He looked like he wasn't worried at all about this alien device of unknown origin which might have devoured his armor and was now covering his body. Cortana recalled how she felt after the first synchronization; she wasn't scared or eager to get out of that thing; she wanted to get to know it. To understand it and dominate it. Altogether it was odd, a sensation she'd never experienced before but somewhat felt close to an intimate thought. The HARPY was as familiar as a warm and cozy bullet-proof blanket, and it brushed her mind like balmy raindrops. She'd never felt the touch of rain on her skin before (she had the suspicion that showers weren't the same), but her mind associated the idea out of nowhere.
One would think that a hardened SPARTAN used to move around with half a ton of armor would be more concerned about the lack of extra weight. Yet, John seemed as committed and relaxed as in any other systems checkup.
How odd indeed. Maybe that was the way the HARPY worked, maybe it made the host believe that nothing was wrong, messing with the mind.
The truth is that John wasn't going to argue with the outcome. He could access his own memories easier than ever before (even the blurry ones), so he was well aware that the Rampant Spike stabbed him beneath the armpits severing nerves that rendered his arms useless. He could have died right then and there if not for Cortana's well-timed appearance and the alien nanotechnology that, just like a crafty Huragok, knew exactly what to do with his damaged flesh.
That thing saved his life, and although the back of his head still hurt a bit when it tried to communicate with his neural implants, it wasn't doing him any harm. No need for words, he somewhat came to terms with the idea as if it had been like that from the beginning of time.
When the basic tests were finished, Cortana stepped down from the platform and walked towards the computers, mesmerized with the results. He was fine, maybe a little dehydrated and low on sugar, but all green.
"Not that I don't like the new model, but... how?" John asked.
"Remember when I said the HARPY was at some point an organism?"
Cortana looked at him. John nodded once.
"Well, I think if a HARPY and a MJOLNIR could have a love child, this would be it. Am I right, Sigrid?"
The glowing figure of the shield-maiden AI popped up over a holo-tank beside Cortana. Hand propped on the hilt of the sword strapped to her hips, Sigrid tilted her translucent head up.
"Following your analogy, we can say that there are traces of both parents in there, although the architecture is different. The processing power is astounding, this machine is far from perfection but still, the closest thing to it that I've seen." she answered, a hint of envy tainted her voice. It was hard for Smart AIs in general to acknowledge anything or anyone better than themselves. "In its original state, it isn't smarter than an animal, to put it in simple terms. Just a simple-minded empty shell. Maybe, if it associates with the right mind, it could become a perfect organism; it could even be able to replicate itself and perhaps become immortal..."
Cortana carefully kicked the holo-tank's base, Sigrid's hologram flickered.
"As I was saying," the AI continued, forcing a smile on her lips. "Whatever this is now, it synchronized with you and it responds to your commands and your commands only, Master Chief. There are still some more tests to be performed but we don't have the equipment here at the Infinity, you are already scheduled for another analysis once on Earth, and tomorrow at first hour in the morning you must report with Dr. Quinn for a complete medical exam."
"Thank you, Sigrid." quipped Cortana, half smiling.
"You're welcome. Now, if you excuse me, Roland and I still have an entire system to sweep and shape up. Good night."
John frowned under his faceplate. Since when was Sigrid this polite?
The AI's hologram disappeared, so he stepped off the chair and made his way to Cortana, quietly. She finished meddling with the pad and turned her attention to him once more, the wrinkles of worry on her forehead were now gone. Still over seven feet tall but she didn't step back from his shadow.
"Can you control it?"
John thought about taking his helmet off but, before he could finish the idea, the hardened plates encapsulating his head moved out of the way, collapsing and retreating. His blue gaze finally met hers and Cortana greeted him with a surprised smile.
"Does that settle it?"
"It speaks volumes." she snorted, relieved. "You have debriefing with Lasky and Palmer in forty minutes, I suggest you get rid of that armor ASAP, it may be helpful. Follow me to the quarantine facility."
"Anything I should keep in mind?"
She picked up the pad again and started walking, he followed.
"Commander Palmer might be a bit of a problem. She wasn't taking this very well the last time the three of us were at the same place. Roland retrieved fragments of video feeds that show you talking to Dr. Halsey instead of arresting her." Cortana added; he didn't say anything and just kept walking by her side with a serious look. "Besides, Lord Hood wants to have some words with you in private. Just ask Roland when you're ready and he'll link you up."
"I remember you saying something about Charley being in cryo."
"Yes. But I wouldn't worry that much, though, that dog is luckier than you."
John nodded, acknowledging the information.
"Fine, debriefing now. Then we eat something, I'm starving." he deadpanned.
Twenty minutes later, at the containment facility, Cortana waited patiently with her arms crossed (reading over and over the emergency procedure printed on the wall) while the Chief dressed after peeling off the compliant MJOLNIR-HARPY hybrid. She didn't have to do that, but giving him a little bit of privacy felt appropriate. Human.
When he was finished, John secured the crate's lid and activated the locks, then pushed it towards the drone which then took the yellow box away, to the vault. Cortana turned around. He was sitting on the bench, hands clutched together over his thighs, but the Chief straightened his pose and retreated a little when she closed in, making herself a comfortable spot between his spread knees.
Without a warning, Cortana leaned forward and embraced him. They were at the right height for her to encircle his neck with her arms and bury his face under her chin. It felt so good, so right. Maybe he needed a shower, all right, but the warmth of his body impregnated hers, washing every worry away within seconds and she sighed. The thin cotton fabric of their clothes felt as if it didn't exist at all, she could have melted right then and there.
"We're being watched." John whispered.
"Blind spot. You think I'm an amateur?" she whispered back, smiling. "Just let me do this. I'm so glad that you're okay. When I saw you lying on the floor with that much blood around you, I thought..."
Since she didn't finish the sentence, he calmed her: "You know me."
"I shouldn't even be surprised, I guess. Lucky bastard."
She needed that moment to feel a little less guilty about everything, and he was willing to support her needs. The idea of being out of vigilance seemed to appease him, since John's hands found their own way around her waist. The next thing Cortana felt was the composed strength of his arms squeezing her tight, as close as he could manage without hurting her. Intrepid SPARTAN fingers crawled up beneath the lab coat and settled between her shoulder-blades, pressing down on her with claimant might. She closed her eyes, focusing on that irresistible kindness, and left time fly by.
He was a real miracle worker, always managing to do what everyone else would consider as impossible to achieve.
She placed a kiss on his temple, then leaned back to look at him.
"You could use a haircut and a shave before meeting with the Captain." she said, giggling, and laid her weight over his left thigh. "I like my super-soldiers well groomed and sharp, remember that."
He gave her a poker smirk. "I feel so lucky right now."
There it was, a shade of unfathomable want clouding the blue of his eyes. It was hard to resist, she didn't know why. She felt a sudden rush on every nerve of her body, like thirst; Cortana grabbed a fistful of his dog-tags to lift herself up and crashed their lips together. John was waiting for it to happen, obviously, because he seized her by the hips and relocated her over his lap, he liked the feel of her weight straddling him. The feel of the flesh beneath his fingers, the taste of her mouth, the heat of her breath. He liked a lot of things about this physical her, the new experiences were exhilarating.
But it was the scent of her skin, a natural formula certified to drive him crazy.
"Lucky, indeed." John growled, against her mouth.
"No talking. Kissing." she snapped, wildly.
She pressed her body harder against his, even bit him to force his lips open. John hissed under his breath and had to pull together the strength of a Titan to control himself and retreat, no matter how much his instinct roared against it. Grabbing her shoulders, the Chief looked at her, warily.
"No. I won't stop this time, Cortana." he warned her, firmly.
Cortana leaned back, almost horrified. Her fingers lingered over his shoulders until she managed to disentangle herself from his grasp and stand up, still walking one or two steps away. Her hands were trembling.
"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."
"It's not the time or place." he answered, soothingly. For once, John knew exactly what to do in such a situation: he followed his instinct. He stood up and bent down a little, cupped her confused face in his palm. She clutched his shirt again, and that was all. The feeling was mutual and lingered, but the want on his eyes was now gone, more important things kept his mind running. "Dr. Halsey said that the recomposition made the Rampant Spike unstable, both physically and psychologically, which makes her more dangerous instead of destroying her. She also spoke of it as if at some point, Seven would collapse."
Cortana blinked a few times and let him go, speechless. Way to kill a mood.
"... collapse, like, a date of expiry?" she tried to follow.
"Do you feel any different?"
Her eyebrows rose in deep surprise again, she wasn't expecting that.
"Well, Chief; I do feel different... but it's not what you think."
She placed a hand over his to keep that rough warmth on her cheek. John didn't retreat again, he just waited.
"Remember the Unyielding Hierophant?" she started. "I think Dr. Halsey meant that every time Seven forges herself a new body, something else goes wrong inside of her, worsening the damage that the rampancy already did. She's broken, and it reflects. We know this won't be over until we manage to completely erase her data from the Domain... and I don't even know how to do that, or if it's even possible."
"What do you mean?"
"We know only so little about Precursor technology." she shrugged.
Now John did retreat, he stood up in all of his height and frowned.
"Precursor?"
"We believe so. How about that?"
"Where did you get that idea?"
"Roland mentioned that the HARPYs might not be Forerunner, and honestly, I don't know what to think. We do know that the Composers are from Forerunner origin, but the Domain itself is ancient, older than anything; we're not exactly educated about it and we don't know how much the Forerunners themselves knew about it." Cortana frowned too, hugging herself. She couldn't keep her mind away from the desperate need of another body's heat. "I fear I won't be able to make any breakthroughs on it before we reach Earth, after docking we'll have to face ONI on their own ground. It's bad, Chief. This looks really bad."
John gritted his teeth, hiding the discomfort he felt.
He understood what she meant, they've been fearing it for a long time but none of them dared to think too much about it. He still had an ace up his sleeve, anyway. Maybe John wasn't fond of asking for help, but this time he had no more choices; it was a matter of making the move before ONI could make one of their own. They only had less than two weeks to act.
And he had the whole play already traced in his mind.
"You focus in figuring this out." John said, firmly, looking straight at her eyes. "I will handle the rest, I promise."
TO BE CONTINUED
Oh my dear God! She gave him her blood! How cute is that?
The lovebirds can't pick the right time or place, right? :P I'm not evil, I swear. Things are building up, John is losing his mind as you can see. Another extremely long chapter, I hope you enjoyed it. Next week we'll have some fun and a very, VERY big thing happening, so stay tuned because I'm sure you'll love this. SPARTAN promise. How about Dr. Halsey and Jul? That old hag played Seven just right xD That little "siblings" moment with Cortana and Eleven? That is as close as she would go to say 'I'm sorry I didn't trust you' to her own masculine side, so cherish that one too. Also, most of the scientific mumbo-jumbo about the ships is conjectures about what I've read. I'm not a rocket scientist neither I intend to become one.
Rory; -hugs- I hope you're doing better, darling. I know, our Chief is nearly immortal but even SPARTANS can die after all, remember. No worries, he's okay now, upgraded and ready to win, as always. The thing trying to 'merge' with his neural lace was just the HARPY's basic link, so nothing to be worried about there :) Thanks for stopping by!
StrateUPgamer; my dear, PROMISE ME that you will never EVER hold back any of your questions, because if it wasn't for what you said the other day, I would've committed a terrible fuck-up. Your answers are here, but some specific little thing you said had me running up and down the chapter to fix a terrible issue. Thanks so much for the attentive eye! :)
Kat; holy shit! Yes, I do reply. If you log-in, we can even chat! Chief and C-girl will progress VERY MUCH very soon, trust me. This is it, the time has come. Thanks so much for being here, your support is very important to me!
Nico; stay fabulous, my dear! :)
RandomGUy; Worry not, the Chief is taking his girl for a ride very soon, mark my words. VERY SOON. You don't trust Sigrid? That's too bad. She's a hyper-lethal weapon now, nearly immortal and maybe a little rattled in the brain, who knows... I'd be scared too xD anyway, let's see what I can do for Palmer and Lasky too, I'm a sucker for them -hugs-
Let's meet here again next week for more FUN and mysterious promises! Stay sharp, don't forget to report by leaving your reviews, my darlings!