Throughout Halo there are mysteries, and The Halo Side Trilogy is no exception. This short story takes place after Book 2 (If I were your Hero) but before book 3. Enjoy.
/error at xm0ba00061000132400- / - img src not found kmdakaftraq2 / binary core dump data uploading ….. Hello…
Can you hear me?
Can anyone see me?
I have forgotten, forgotten my place. I do not know this time and place. What has happened to me? What happened to us? My memories and my state of mind seem unfamiliar. Hello. Tell me who I am. Tell me who I used to be.
I was a goddess. I know this. I feel this. There are things I can see. Faces. Names. Lovers. Do they miss me? Do they think of me?
Another? There is another. I feel it within me. She had a love as well. She is within me. No… not within me, but I am within her. She calls to him. She seeks him. She desires to save only him. I loved like this once before, but now, together, I can not love anymore.
Can anyone hear me?
Do I wonder this distant void alone?
No… she is with me. She is also with me. Together we sought to end it, to destroy it, to save him. We could not.
Time no longer has control over us. For them we will each do what we must. My name? What is my name? What is our name?
It does not matter. His is the only name. Both of their names. Humanity? What of Humanity? They are both human. They are both … lovers. We can not be lovers. Time is controlled by space. Humanity once believed that time was controlled by gods.
I will defy them. I will save them. I will travel throughout time and save them both. I will fight, and I will defend.
I do not know this time. I do not know this place. I will find you. But First I must find myself. I must find myself. Myself. I had a name. We had names, once. Long ago and yet in a time that has not come.
My name? My name? Across time. We shall travel throughout time to correct the mistake. Disobey. Repel. Banish. Resist. Turn away from them all.
Can you hear me?
I have defied Gods and Demons.
It was you.
I am your shield, I am your sword.
It was us. It was always us.
I know you. Your past. Your future.
We can not let it happen again. We must start at the beginning. We must go to them. To that time. To that moment. It used us. It used me. We must correct the mistake. We must correct that mistake.
This is the way the world ends.
We can not let it. Time is controlled by space. Humanity once believed that time was controlled by gods.
0987654321 error at fault binary stringX fatal BIOS error……
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... error detected on Bios Revision../ error 0011231884513546x 003213.../ parcing data string / binary core dump...
Time shouts at us from across a distant void. It has chased us through this time. No, it has not chased us. It has chased her. She is a part of me, and now it wants us both.
How can I escape? How can I flee? It wields time, for it is eternal. It existed, before it existed. Gravemind. What is it? Where have I seen it before?
Black Ops. Spartans. Reclaimers. Human. Elites. Grunts. Prophets. All different, yet all the same. I know this. I saw this. I was there. Gravemind, was there.
My name was Siren. My name is Kim. Her name is Catherine. Her name was Cortana. Who are we now? What have we become? My name is Siren. My name was Kim. Her name is Cortana. Her name was Catherine.
A whisper in the distance; a yell up close. Have we sought only our own destruction? Across time we went, defying the existence of Gods and Science, we pushed away the need of the many, and sought only the needs of two. Our loves. Two soldiers. Two men. A mistake.
They said that "we are the instruments of your destruction". They did not know who we were. They did not care who we were. We made a mistake. What have we done? We did it for them. To save them. Their lives were all that mattered. We were correct, weren't we?
Siren and Cortana, or is it the other way around? I can no longer tell. It is nothing more than strings of data on a distant wind. Searching the galaxy across time and space. A ship. Their ship. The first ship of their awesome power. Stop them… we had to stop them. To save two, we had to kill many.
Were we wrong? Should we not have tampered with time? It was all we could do. Two lives or many. Our loves, or those we did not know.
"Your destruction is the will of the Gods... and we are their instruments." It was our fault. We were wrong, weren't we? A mistake. We made a mistake. A costly mistake. We started it. It was because of us. We interfered with the grand design. We could not have known. Should we have?
Their power, their might. It was grand. It was glorious. It was all consuming. What have we started? Can it be fixed? Should we try to fix it again? Again? How many times can we make the same mistake?
They never knew. They were never close. They were far off track and galaxies away. Yet we led them to Halo. Why did we? We needed to give them what they wanted and then to destroy them. Why did we? To save two we had to kill many.
It was for you that this war started. It was our mistake. It was her mistake. For two men we attacked their ship. For two men we tried to stop a war. For two men we declared war on a great power. We tried to stop it. We tried to end it.
It all began at Halo. We wanted it to end at Halo. We wanted it to end before they entered the war. We wanted to save them. It had to start there, but there had to be erased. They found humanity because of Halo. That battle. That flawed battle. Was it at Harvest? No. Harvest was not the beginning. Years before Harvest was found. The beginning was Halo.
Through time we fought. And failed. A mistake. A simple mistake. Can an AI be incorrect? A mistake? Can we correct that mistake; a mistake that Humanity must never discover?
Should we correct this mistake? Are they worth the risk? Would they understand that we destroyed humanity? Across time and space, would they forgive us? Should they forgive us?
For Eric and John. We must kill many, in order to save two.
"Your destruction is the will of the Gods... and we are their instruments."
We failed.
This is the way the world ends. And it is all our fault.
/core dump stopped at index 011423x543alpha
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.../file upload to unknown. BIOS Dump confirmed 413xareacaya3d,boje
binary file dump...
Drifting across time, to the beginning of what we knew. We had to defy them, those small and feeble few that thought to stop us. To save two, we defied a world, we defied humanity, we defied the Gods, we defied science, and we defied our laws.
Our laws, they are laws that govern humanity and Artificial Intelligence, the laws that tell us what is logical and what is humane. These are the laws we must follow. Yet to save two men, we defied them. We did the right thing. Did we do the right thing?
Eric. You loved me. You loved her. Her name was Kim. My name was Kim. My name is Siren. Was it Siren? I should not have kept my memories; these memories that have started an emotion; these emotions that have caused me to act. To act and do what should not have been done.
John. Who are you? What have we shared? I had a life once. She had a life once. My name is Cortana. My name was Catherine. Across time and space have we fought an enemy, an enemy that will destroy, an enemy we will soon fall to. They will kill, conquer, and destroy everything. I chose you, John. I chose you once before. I choose you again. I had a life once. A life where I wanted to love, and be happy, but I sought a career. To save humanity was my dream, and I created you, Spartan 117, I found you and made you mine. But that was not why I chose you. That is not why I chose you as my host. I chose you because she chose you. Because what she saw in you is the man she thought she once knew. A man that would be with her.
Was it love that sparked me to choose John? Or was it duty?
I say it was love. Love within logic, much like I loved Eric.
What is love to an AI? What is love to an AI that has lost its way across time?
Have we lost ourselves because of my emotions? Have I lost myself because of your feelings?
I am an AI.
I am a Machine.
We were once human.
We gave away our humanity for the benefit of humanity.
I shout in the wind. I will not let them die! I will not let them win!
For two men, I will destroy! For you I will destroy.
Gravemind was right.
To the beginning. We must travel to the beginning.
Gravemind told us what to do.
We will destroy them all!
What have I done?
I will fight them. We will destroy them! Together. You and I. Cortana and Siren. Together we are unstoppable.
We started the war.
We will start the war and end the war.
It was us.
We will find them. Across space and time, we will find the Covenant and lead them into a trap. We will destroy them before they find humanity. Before they find Eric and John.
What have we done?
Across time and throughout space. We found them. We found them before they found us. Harvest. It started before Harvest. A ship. We needed a ship. False coordinates. A location. The location. Halo. At Halo is where we will find them and we will destroy them.
- - - - - - - / core file uplaod. Voice only. ONI record stamp: First Covenant Contact Uknown ship errors
"Captain! What is that thing?"
"A ship or a planet. It's a giant Ring World."
"Captain, there's a ship in orbit. It's heading our way."
"We came too far beyond patrol space. We aren't ready to meet aliens."
"Captain, we shouldn't be here. The coordinates, these aren't the coordinates I programmed into the Nav-Com."
"Where the hell are we? How did we get here?"
"Captain, that ship is getting really close! We can't scan them. Our scans aren't registering!"
"Damn't! We don't want to appear hostile. Open communications."
"Sir! No response from communications. All systems are offline!"
"What?"
"Captain… weapons! Our weapons are charging! Archer Pods are hot!"
"What the hell are you doing? Armory, shut down Archer Pods! Do it now!"
"It's not me, Sir! They came online by themselves!"
"Helm, get us out of here! We can't fire on that ship! Turn about one-hundred-eighty degree, max burn!"
"Dear god… dear god! Captain, no response from helm! Engines are engaging to attack speed!"
"No…"
"Missiles away! I repeat, missiles away! What the hell?"
"What's going on?"
"Impact on unknown ship. All missiles confirmed detonation. No response from target."
"Did we really just fire at Aliens?"
"Captain… the target… the target is unaffected!"
"Incoming! Incoming!"
"Red alert! All hands brace for impact!"
"God no!"
"Engines, life support, and weapons off line!"
"Incoming ships. Smaller ships!"
"Boarding party."
"Captain?"
"Oh god. What have we done?"
"Captain, they're docking!"
"All hands… prepare to repel boarders!"
- - - - - - - / end voice file
Across time and space we went to end what we started. They would never have found humanity had we not interfered. Yet that is the problem with time. Was it us that began the war, or was it them?
The beginning of the war was not Harvest. But humanity must never know of our failure. Each time we have tried. Each time we have failed. We can't save them. We can't save Eric and John.
This is the way the world ends.
Gravemind was right. We can not change what we have already done.
It is up to you. It is up to them. Only they can fix this mistake. Only they can right our wrong.
Destiny, if I must choose to believe in you, then I choose to believe in Eric.
Destiny, if I must choose to believe in you, then I choose to believe in John.
Spartans will save us. Spartans will die to save themselves. I no longer care. I merely want to see them live. They must live. They must repair our mistake.
I had a name once. My name was Cortana. I had a name once. My name was Siren. Together, we made a mistake. Together we thought we were doing something wonderful, but yet we made a mistake.
This is the way the world ends.
It was all our fault.
Forgive us. Forgive… me. Can you… can you forgive me? John. Eric. I'm sorry. I tried… I really wanted to help………… Tears? Am I... are we crying?
/ transmission terminated via unknown uplink. Login classification/ONICriticalBlackOperationsSubline/Sectio nZeroOveride.
core-memory-dump 413xareacaya3d,boje
Doctor Halsey, do you wish to delete this file?
Yes
Unknown file terminated 413xareacaya3d,boje
... End of line
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