"The Eyes of Dolls"
1800 Hours, 25 April 2558
117 Institute, Boston Harbor
United Republic of North America, Earth
While her friends were all back at that school, Andra mustered through the apparent permission work expected of regular midshipmen to justify a multi-day excursion off-campus. It was one thing to be on an Insurrectionist-hunting stakeout, but this requirement of not using her Spartan credentials to cut through red tape was an infuriating prospect.
Major Duceppe was a respectable man, a father figure even, and she understood what he meant by "no paper trail." However, she couldn't miss an opportunity to complain, even if it was to herself and the other pair of watching eyes.
The visitation was short notice and an invitation she didn't dare refuse. It was her… 'mother', sort of, after all. Saying that felt weird – Andra shivered as the words echoed in her cluttered mind while seated and waiting for a receptionist to let her move deeper into the facility.
She missed the outward efficiency portrayed by the Office of Naval Intelligence. AIs managed everything, calculating opportunity risk so no one wasted time unless a certain quality of emotional leverage needed to be exerted over a party.
The One-Seventeen Institute was established after the Human-Covenant War by ONI leadership but it was advertised and handled like a civilian operation; that meant resources went poof left and right. Andra wanted to pretend that ONI efficiency was an economical standard but the truth, apparently, was most people looked on their external orientation as clinically unnerving.
Spacious, unmarked hallways. Long empty spaces. Featureless fixtures. As if they wanted a squeaky-clean surface to cover their 'regular' business behind the scenes. Andra was a Spartan, she was familiar with the intelligence agency's closeted skeletons. Hell, her 'mother' was a skeleton-bearer and Andra one of the skeletons.
The One-Seventeen Institute shared ONI's love for clinical decorum but they mediated that, wrongly in Andra's opinion, with human clerks and attendants. Apparently, visitors and business partners didn't sit well with less-human experiences like cameras and unattended sliding doors. Even when contemporary society was full of less-human experiences, they were tweaked to fit a more empathetic appeal.
Andra ignored the well-dressed secretary when she arrived after twenty minutes through the sliding door and called for "Miss Andra Kearsarge" and "dear" to a receiving room of one. She whispered a quiet "thank you," leaving the attendant behind with short gratitude as she stepped into a cooled working chamber.
An artificial display covering the west and northern face of the office space that broadcasted real-time video of Boston Harbor and a submerged crater dated to the mid-twenty-second century. It was a beautiful distraction but it couldn't hide the narrowness of the ceiling or the lack of windows. Stale air whistled through ducts into the room.
Andra's old therapist and the recruitment head for SPARTAN-III Delta Company welcomed the young Spartan into the abode with outstretched arms. The words of Dr. Zhou-Romero were a distant whisper, something caught between a "hello" and "welcome." Andra didn't dwell on the older woman's slip-of-tongue and afforded herself the best of mental steel – she wanted to show this woman how far Andra-D054 had grown.
The conversation that followed slipped by as they discussed an assortment of tangentially related topics and on-the-spot questions. It was a cordial affair as they caught up as if no time passed; Zhou-Romero made intuitive remarks and Andra supplied the details. But at least something went her way and she managed a full-on conversation thanks to weeks of forceful exposure to normal human beings, even as the Spartan felt off-put by how little she got out of the therapist.
Andra talked about meeting her Gamma Company trainers. Her first-time seeing Earth in person. She discussed teaching refugee children how to swim in San Diego-Tijuana after a record year of avoidable drownings. She talked about living in the New Phoenix ghost town, picking fights with corporate supersoldiers in Seattle, hunting Sangheili extremists in Rio, and making fake friends at the academy along the Patuxent River estuary.
But the doctor didn't offer much back. Where did she go after Delta Company? What was she currently doing? How did she come into the employ of the One-Seventeen Institute? Was there to be another SPARTAN-III company? Had she heard from any other Gammas or Deltas?
Andra's unspoken questions were replaced by questions about "the weather" and "history of Boston" and "the requirements to become a therapist."
And then time ran out. Three hours felt like one. Andra quietly but respectfully and verbally thanked the doctor for her time, especially in view of the same secretary who stood in the ajar doorway at the other end of the room. The attendant never spoke to the doctor seemingly.
As Andra prepared to leave, the doctor pushed forward an elegant black box, like the efficient and well-dressed packaging she expected to encase a new smart device. The doctor called it "a late gift" and asked that Andra read the instructions and requirements carefully. That it was of classified value and to treat it with care. Andra nodded in understanding, adding some additional vigor to show she hung on every word.
The next words that followed as she made to step away from the desk gave Andra flinching, visible pause.
"I love you…"
Not an expected goodbye but one all the same. Andra froze on the spot for only a second before turning and rushing the woman who saved her from a crowded orphanage, dying to Covenant glassing, and giving her a new lease on life. Andra hugged her deeply and dared not let go.
The phrase haunted her nights after when Andra laid in silence, staring up at Merlin's bunk above her. But it wasn't the words that entirely drew her attention.
No, it was the following curse, she decided, that put her off in tandem. She now understood why people favored human experiences.
As a little girl at the Jasmine Hope Youth Treatment Center, she watched the other orphan girls play tea time with dolls they salvaged from their burnt homeworlds. The unblinking, jarring glass eyes that stared back as Andra crowd-watched. She hated those eyes.
When she finished reading the documentation tied to the little black box and examining the housing unit and data chip within, Andra synced the little device with her neural interface.
To say she suffered a panic attack after would be an understatement. But she didn't let anyone know. She decided it was her problem to bear – entirely. The doctor's directions encouraged her to share the duty with her teammates but Andra didn't dare follow through.
Not when everything she experienced was echoed in the back of her head. And not when the holographic phantasm dressed in a cloak stared back at her with eerily familiar, deep blue eyes.
It seemed Andra had a doll of her own now; whose eyes were her own. And she was afraid.
. . .
[SNI data entry cataloged to volatile memory.]
[User ID: ALT 5032-4 "Althea"]
A/N: With my busy schedule, I didn't expect this post to take form but circumstances dictated otherwise and within a few hours I had a new short story thrown together. Based on a Halo Fanon The Weekly contest prompt-based around the idea of the words "I love you" but treated as a dreaded thing rather than something welcome, The Eyes of Dolls was conceived.
Given how hastily it was written and due to the soft word limit set for the contest, some ideas and context had to be left on the cutting room floor and those unfamiliar with my Halo Fanon work I suspect might be confused. If there are any questions, I would be happy to answer them but for a simplistic answer regarding the story's summary: The Spartan Andra-D054 takes a brief break from a stakeout to visit with a parental figure and receives an unexpected gift, a Smart AI. Due to the circumstances of a little something called Project Lokiborn, the AI has a tendency to imitate its human symbiote pair, leading to the start of this particular mess and event. Althea is a character of mine I don't particularly get to use much but her relationship with Andra-D054 is complicated and one of my more enjoyable relationships to write that I hope to feature in other projects in the near future.
I hope the story was enjoyable otherwise, don't forget to read and review. Feedback is always appreciated, for better and worse.