Chapter Four

The sudden boot from the Domain left me reeling and confused. I shot upright. "'Information Vector Console'? What does that..."

Ellen turned to look at me from across the workspace. "What happened?"

"The Domain showed me something." I pushed myself to my feet and walked over to the artifact. "This artifact...it showed me what it can do."

"What can it do?"

"It can- it's a terminal."

"Do you know what that means?" Ellen touched my shoulder.

My eyes scanned the artifact. "I think so. When John and I were on Requiem, we met an imprint of the Librarian. It wasn't really her, but an AI with her memories. To talk to her, we had to step into a beam of light..."

I reached out, brushing my fingertips against the artifact. Feeling its connection to the Domain.

"And we were transported to where she was. But our bodies didn't move. It was like...our minds were separated from our bodies."

"Like when you enter the Domain," Ellen realized.

I nodded. "Exactly like when we enter the Domain. And when John and- when I was talking with the Librarian once, she told me one of my powers was getting into the Domain without assistance."

Ellen's eyes widened. She turned to face the artifact. "You think this is from a machine that could take other people into the Domain."

"I know it is."

"Okay." Ellen's voice shook with excitement. "Can you find out if any of the rest of these are a part of that terminal? If we could find out how to remake one…"

"I could complete my duty as a Reviver," I realized. "First-Light said it was the duty of the Revivers to restore the Domain. It needs contact with humans other than me. If we make another terminal, we can do that!"

"Exactly!"

I turned to face her. "Where are the other artifacts?"

She grinned, slamming her fist back against a control panel. Then she nodded her chin towards the counter behind me.

My eyes widened. A row of Forerunner artifacts, all about a foot long or smaller, held in gravity fields that had just opened up.

"This is...this is perfect!" I all but ran over to the first artifact. "We could remake a terminal. We could restore the Domain!"

Ellen watched, with rapt attention and a childlike eagerness, as I placed my hand on the first artifact. I called out any information it held within itself.

It was a chunk of a doorway. Cool, but not what we were looking for.

I turned to the next artifact.

John, who'd been silently feeling my excitement, brushed against me in question.

I opened my mind, letting him search through my memories himself while I moved on to the next artifact.

The Didact had searched my mind in a similar way. He'd made sure I could feel him rooting through my memories. I'd been completely weak against him.

And now, he knew me better than I knew myself.

No, he's dead, I reminded myself. He can't hurt you. Focus on the artifact.

And John would never go through my memories without my consent. He was safe. Good.

"He can't hurt you," John agreed, trying to help me calm down. "And I never will."

Every time I remembered the Didact's invasion of my mind...I felt so awful. It felt wrong, having him in my mind.

That was me, dammit! If I didn't want him there, what right did he have to dig around in my mind?!

"Tawny? Tawny, what's wrong?" Ellen's hand was on my shoulder.

I jerked away from her, stumbling back a few feet. My eyes were wide. "I didn't...I don't…"

My head hung.

"I'm sorry."

"What happened?" She looked a bit concerned.

I couldn't meet her eyes. So I looked over to the artifacts. "You saw my mission report, right?"

That mission report was packed. It covered everything from my initial deployment to secure the artifact near New Mombasa - which had actually been too big to move - to our emergency reassignment to the Forward Unto Dawn.

From there, it detailed the various offensives we did on Installation 00 in an attempt to defeat the Prophet of Truth before he could activate the Halo array. Including how I'd let myself get captured and then turned the Sangheili against the Covenant.

Then, how John, Thel, Johnson, and I had activated Installation 08's tactical pulse. The partially-complete ring did succeed in killing off the Flood, but it had shaken itself to pieces in the process.

And, in that deconstruction, it had destabilized the slipspace portal we were trying to escape through. John and I were sent flying off into space. But I'd learned that Thel had survived, and crashed on Earth.

Then, almost three years later, John and I were woken up from cryosleep.

It covered everything that had happened on Requiem, and after. Right up until John detonated the Havok nuke in the Composer.

So, if the Professor had read it, she would know what the Didact did to me.

Of course, it didn't cover everything. John and I were still keeping his powers under wraps. We both felt ONI would exploit them in a way we didn't like.

Because I was a civilian, I technically didn't have to do anything they said without a long process on their part. John, however, was a soldier. If they said "jump", he was legally obligated to ask "how high".

John was dedicated to the UNSC - to an incredible degree - but he knew ONI was treacherous. He didn't technically work for ONI anymore, since he was in the SPARTAN Branch, but ONI had a lot more power than it showed on paper.

So we just didn't tell anyone John had powers.

Snapping me back to the present, Ellen nodded. "I did. It was a lot."

I blinked heavily and looked at the ground. "Yeah."

"What's bothering you?"

I caught her drift; there was a lot of shit that could be bothering me. What specifically was wrong at this moment?

"Ur-Didact knows everything about me. I know he's dead now, but when he wasn't...it felt so wrong. I've never had someone else in my mind before."

She put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. But you're right; he's dead. You did that. In the end, you did fight back."

"I...I guess." I wiped at my eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She was trying to be sympathetic.

It wasn't her strong suit. But she liked me. Which was good, because I liked her, too.

She was the first person with ONI to treat me like a regular person. Or a person at all.

I guess it was because they'd kidnapped her, too. Now, though, it seemed she was staying of her own volition.

I blinked away tears and shook my head. "I'm good. I promise. I-I just got distracted."

Wiping my eyes, I turned to face the next artifact. My hand pressed against it, drawing out any information it held.

"Okay...this was part of a control panel for a Forerunner excavation site. They were digging for...something- where did you find this?"

Ellen shrugged with tired indignation. "They won't tell me. Somewhere in the outer colonies, I think, but I can't say for sure."

The door to the lab hissed open. "Knock knock."

I knew that voice.

"Sergeant Forge?" I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my tone.

"SPARTAN Forge." He walked in.

He was certainly taller. Not that he had been short before, by any means. But now, he was well over a foot taller than me. Almost a foot taller than Ellen, who was 5'10" to my 5'4".

He was one of the new SPARTAN IVs.

Forge walked up and clapped my shoulder. "Good to see you, Clark. I came to ask the lady if she was busy, and I see she is."

"I'm just watching." Ellen brushed her black hair out of her eyes.

"Yeah. What's that?" Forge nodded to the artifacts behind us.

I put my hand on one metallic chunk. "Hopefully, something that can take people into the Domain. It's kind of a new thing we're working on."

"And, uh, when did you find this out?"

"Just now." Ellen crossed her arms. "So we're a little preoccupied; if you would stop distracting us."

They dissolved into a minor argument that I tuned out. Honestly, they were like siblings.

I returned my attention to the artifacts in front of me. I knew I should have been looking for parts of a console, but this excavation machine was interesting to me for some reason.

The information was hard to access. I was tapping into the Domain without fully entering it, using the relic as a filter.

That process, as I was beginning to realize, was far from consistent.

"Hey, guys. I found something," I eventually said.

Ellen pushed away from Forge. "What is it?"

"This was used to dig up relics of the 'Ancient and Most Exalted Ones'."

"Sounds like those Covies talking about the Forerunners," Forge scoffed.

Ellen nodded. "It does. What kind of race would the Forerunner worship?"

"Something even older than them," I guessed. "I don't know...this is connected to the Domain. Somehow."

"You could ask the Librarian."

I looked up at Ellen. "That's a great idea! I need- I need to lay down."

I'd just entered the Domain, but I had reason to go back. I was praying the Domain would let me see what these 'Exalted Ones' were without a fight.

Hopefully it would.

I turned to the back of the lab. "I'll be right back. Hopefully, with new information."

Ellen nodded. "I'll keep running scans on these things."

"And I'll...hell, what am I doing here?" Forge put his hands on his hips.

"Keeping me company, get over here." Ellen nodded for him to join her in front of a relic.

I smiled a bit as I watched them. They really were good friends, even if they pretended otherwise.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Once again, I apologize for the length of this chapter. Hopefully the next few will be longer, I'm still struggling over how to divide the next chunk up :/

Anywho I love you guys!