Chapter 29

"You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained... and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."

— Dr. Catherine Halsey, Halo: The Fall of Reach

June 2220

As had been the tradition forged merely four years earlier during their preliminary augmentations, all of the SIGMA II's were currently formed up in the hangar bay of the Alliance's most advanced medical station, Titan Med-Station. John S2-15 remembered being here as if it were just yesterday, he vividly remembered the white and blue sights of the cold, steel walls, floors and ceilings, the sterile smell of chlorine and cleaning chemicals, the feel of the chilled air on his skin. For, it was odd, this place felt as much of home as Sparta, but he had only ever been here once, and whenever he thought of that first time, a sense of anger started simmering beneath the feeling of home. Thinking on this anger made his head ache, he had inquired to Ducard what it could mean after he'd noticed the pattern two years earlier, Ducard had had him examined by a few medics and they'd chocked it up to a mild reaction to the bonding agents set in his bones, and some of the chemicals that had settled somewhat irregularly in his hippocampus. There wasn't anything in terms of treatment that he could do about it, he just had to stop thinking about whatever made his head hurt.

Fortunately for the seven foot tall, newly minted adult, soon-to-be minted SIGMA II, his thoughts were stolen by the appearance of Christopher McGraw on the small stage that had been set up for this small, celebratory speech. He walked casually, back slouched, right hand in the pocket of his loose-fitting, unzipped sweatshirt, his skeletal cybernetic left hand carefully clutching the metallic cane he always walked with, and there was a dull look in his eyes, the thousand yard stare that came from many people who had far too much on their minds. The dull look vanished when he stepped behind the quaint wooden podium, replaced by a proud gleam and a lopsided grin. A woman had entered the room with McGraw, she looked like she was about John's age, maybe a few weeks older or younger, with raven hair and piercing blue eyes. She carried herself like she had training, and while there were similarities between her gait and that of a II's, she was more similar to a trained specialist, instead of a soldier.

John suppressed a shudder when he looked at this woman, though, his brain throbbed painfully. George, standing next to him, noticed almost immediately; no matter how well John hid it, the II's had lived, breathed, bled and sweat together for almost a decade and a half, they couldn't hide anything from eachother. "What's wrong, John?"

John swallowed thickly, "that woman… Staring at her makes my head hurt."

The big man gave the raven-haired specialist an appraising look. She was dressed similarly to McGraw, she wore baggy clothes and had a light coat on to combat the chilly air of the station, but her clothes were far neater and more business-casual than McGraw's jeans and an obscure band's T-shirt. Her hair was done up in a ponytail, and from the bulge in her jacket, she was wearing at least one gun; if George had to guess, it would probably be an N7 Eagle, but the bulge was also of similar size to a revolver of Torieke make - they always preferred making Magnum Revolvers of similar aesthetic style to semi-automatic handguns. He had to admit, though, she looked damn familiar, almost like an older version of - "It's Miranda!" He breathed.

Everyone in Delta Company picked it up, all eyes turned to her as the puzzle pieces fell into place. Almost silently, the word had been spread between the companies of II's, and everyone in the room recognized the former II, the one and only to have a brief tenure on Sparta.

John, however, did not. Was she someone who'd served with them when he'd been in the Spartecs' hands, four years ago? He decided to inquire, McGraw was still organizing his notes, and given how crumpled-up and disorganized his papers looked, it would take him a few more minutes at least. "Who is she?" He asked.

George looked at him like he had sprouted a third arm, John returned the look with one of confusion. "You seriously don't remember?" He asked, "did the Turians hit you on the head, or something?" Despite their increased mental fortitude, 'the old ways' of scrambling minds and memories still worked on the II's, they'd figured it out the hard way.

"Yes." Multiple times, in fact, "but I think I would remember her." He looked back at her, noticing that her eyes were scanning the crowd, not to look for threats, but as if she was looking for familiar faces.

"She trained with us, about a year before you went to Mindoir." George supplied, "you honestly don't remember?"

Trying to remember made his head hurt, the more he focused, the more it hurt, and nothing came from this pain, no flash of memory, no recognition, nothing, so John shook his head. "No."

George gave him a concerned look, but he sprung right back to attention when McGraw cleared his throat. "Alright. Congratulations, guys." He said, his voice amplified by a microphone on his throat. "You've made it. Fourteen years of trial and hardship, you've all bled, sweat, cried, and some of you have even died together, always to overcome, always to persevere, always to make it to the next day. Well, today is your next day. In the next few hours, you will undergo such surgeries that will transform you from your bodies from malleable slabs of chemically enhanced meat and bone, into hardened cybernetic machines capable of toppling governments and ripping apart countries single-handedly." He began, pride oozing from his every word.

"Throughout your entire training process, none of us - neither myself, nor your commanders - have ever lied to you. We've been completely honest in what this program is and what it was meant to do. You all are meant to be warriors, men of a different caliber, people who could protect the whole of Humanity from the harsh, dangerous, unforgiving universe; and in the spirit of continuing that tradition, I will not lie to you now as I have not lied to you before. A great many of you face the real possibility of not ever leaving this station alive… As effective as the augmentation process is, it can be lethal. I've waylaid as much of the risk as possible with the chemical enhancements, but the risk is still clear and present. But I believe that you will survive now, as you survived before.

"And that right there is what I admire about you, about us, about every single Human being alive. If I knew what the feeling was, I would say I even loved it about you. Self-preservation is turning out to be an increasingly Human concept. It is true that no one in the universe wants to die, but nearly every single race out there has an intrinsically alien thing about them that will reliably get them out of a life-or-death situation. Turians are a martial society, trained to turn their hides, their talons, their entire bodies into lethal weapons, and to turn their minds into computers immune to fear. Asari are the closest thing to gods this universe may ever see, with their biological biotic skill. Salarians may be physically weak, but they are mentally insurmountable - they could outthink every single one of their opponents. Krogan have their strength and their blood rage, the Hanar have their Drell and their impossibly strong muscles, the Volus have their money, even the Batarians have their rage and brutality. All of these species have some genetic edge that keeps them from even needing a self-preservation instinct, because if the chips are down, they have something they can rely on to let them live. But not Humans, not Man.

"To quote a book I once read… 'Man has no sharp teeth, like the lion; no great claws, like the bear, he cannot run as swiftly as the leopard; he carries no poison like the snake…' We have not the strength of the Krogan, the rage of the Batarians, the biotics of the Asari, the intelligence of the Salarians, or the hides and claws of the Turians. What we have is an unparalleled ability to do whatever it takes to survive a situation, because self-preservation drives us to find a way to live, bar none. Where others were hand-delivered the ability to survive, on lush garden worlds filled with enough resources to carry them through to their space ages, Mankind was left to fend for themselves on an impossibly lethal planet masquerading as our Eden, with frustratingly few resources to be spread out among us. Where others celebrated their lives, Humanity fought for its. Where others cower and cry because they have found an insurmountable foe, they will look to the shining armor of SIGMA Operative and his contingent of Marines to save their sorry asses…" McGraw smiled, he saw the pride and agreement in the eyes of all of his boys. "And when others try to take from us what we have fought, bled, and died, to earn for ourselves, they will learn just what self-preservation earns a race that can look at a moon and see a battle-station waiting to be hollowed out."

McGraw cleared his throat, and took just one step back from the podium. "Who are you?"

"WE ARE SIGMA!" Six hundred and six deep voices, hardened through a lifetime spent in the military, roared out in perfect unison.

"What are you?!"

"WE ARE GODS!"

"Who can defeat you?!"

"THERE IS NO ONE ONE OUT THERE WHO CAN DEFEAT OUR CAUSE!"

"Where's my proof?!" McGraw demanded challengingly, a proud smile set firmly upon his face.

"WE'LL SHOW YOU OUR GOD DAMN BOOT!"

"Where were you born?!"

"FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL, WE WERE BORN!"

"To do what?!"

"TO DROWN HUMANITY'S ENEMIES, IN ONE GREAT STORM!"

McGraw smiled and let out one deep sigh. "Damn straight, guys." He nodded, "Welcome to the war, SIGMAs. When you wake up, you'll be more ready than ever. Dismissed." He made his way off of the stage, the crowd dispersed, the SIGMAs within readying time-killing activities as they waited for their names to be called over the speakers. Christopher paused a moment to turn and look around, at all of the children he'd turned to soldiers.

Yeah. He decided with another nod, they're ready.

McGraw turned to exit the room, to make his way to the observation deck with the Commanders, when a voice stopped him.

"Chris!" Called out a voice, McGraw turned around, he recognized the SIGMA, it was Eric S2-09, from Charlie company.

"Eric, for the last time, armor piercing ammunition is better than extended magazines!" McGraw chuckled. "Quality over quantity, kiddo."

Eric smiled lightly, almost so lightly that it was unnoticeable. "I had a question for you."

"I thought I answered a question." Said the snide Human, with a raised eyebrow and a knowing grin on his face.

"But not the question I was going to ask."

"Those damn super-soldiers raised you well." McGraw chuckled, "what'll it be? The Commander from Delta Company wants me to debrief the Director on how long it'll be before you kids wake up."

"How many of us do you expect to survive today?" Eric asked, bluntly, as was his and the other II's laconic nature. "The Company Commanders never told us." He elaborated.

McGraw stared at the SIGMA II-to-be for a few seconds before he spoke. "Sixty Forty." He said, his tone dropping from its previous joviality to an almost dead one, he gave the II a nod and a wish of luck before he went for the exit, Eric noticed that there was more weight being put upon the metallic cane than the child soldier had ever before noticed him place upon it, even when he had entered this very room.

McGraw stopped next to his protege, she broke her gaze with the crowd and looked down to him, knowingly flaunting their ever-increasing height difference with a subtle sort of dark humor, before she pouted ever so slightly when she saw his knowing grin. "If you really want, I could have him pulled down the list, you could catch up." He suggested, knowing full and well that he'd piss off Ducard if he did it - the man wanted John augmented first, his exact words being 'get him on the operating table as soon as possible', but McGraw loved messing with him.

Miranda considered his offer, but shook her head. "They're beyond me. I'd only hurt them if I came back."

McGraw gave her a stupid look, "lady, you'd think studying under me for four years would make you smarter." He shrugged, and tapped his cane on the doorknob, the station's AI unlocked it and it swung open. "But… It's your choice. You'll see him again eventually, I guarantee it."

The walk was slow, each step he took was measured, not a single muscle movement was wasted from the lifting of his booted foot to the placing of it back upon the stained steel ground. John S2-15 was walking the journey from Humanity to SIGMAcy, and while he was walking at a brisk pace, it felt like years would pass in the thirty eight seconds it took for him to arrive at his augmentation room. It was almost exactly like he remembered it being, so many years earlier, but somehow, even though he could only see the one operating table, the room felt fuller than it had before.

I sit down... I go to sleep. Thought the child soldier, as he hesitated in the doorway for just a moment, staring hard at the operating table in the center of the room. I am Human. He blinked, I wake up... I put on the armor... I am SIGMA. His training would be over, he would be free, in a sense, to do whatever he wanted. He would be constantly on missions, either on warfronts or of the black-operations kind, but whenever he wouldn't be, he wouldn't have Commander Ducard dictating his every move, and that was as scary a thought as it was a confusing one. The scarier part was that he couldn't even ask what he would do with his life, now that he would be in control of it. He would fight, and kill, forever.

He gave himself one minute to think about things. Surprisingly, the only thoughts that entered his mind weren't recollections of his past, thoughts of the lives he would take in the future, or of the myriad information pounded into his brain so hard that it was now all instinct. No, after a while, he realized that, in all honesty, the only thing running through the soon-to-be SIGMA Operative's mind as he stared at the operating table was the wonder of how his body and his mind would feel with its new guest.

Three Days Earlier

"You wanted to see me, Commander?" John had said, upon entering Commander Joseph Ducard-S1-99's office, politely offering him a salute, which was returned.

"Yes, John, sit." The Commander said, offering John a seat. "Augmentation is in seventy two hours." The Commander stated, his dark eyes set firmly and his face betraying none of his thoughts or emotions; his tone told the Child Soldier that he had a point to make, not that his statement was a mentioning of a fact.

"It is, sir." John said, beckoning the Commander to continue.

"And I'm certain that McGraw mentioned last month, his work on a last-minute addition to the Augmentation procedure."

"He did, sir."

"I've been cleared to allow a select few Twos to know this information before we tell you all about it, after you wake up." Ducard said, interlacing his fingers and leaning his arms upon his desk. "Christopher McGraw has been working these last few years on Human/AI synthesis, AI implants. In other words, he has been working to figure out if it was possible to link a Human mind with an AI, and vice versa." Ducard didn't really need to say this next part, John had already figured it out by now. "His results were exactly what he was looking for: It is possible... But only a select few can do it."

John caught on quick, "like people with Positronic Brain Implants." Such as the very mind-augmenting technological implants the SIGMA II's would be receiving within the next week.

"Exactly. McGraw learned that, without the implants designed to amplify a Human brain to AI levels, a Human mind couldn't feasibly host a synthetic mind. Just a week ago he came to the Director for Augmented Affairs with his findings, stating that it would work, that SIGMA enhanced minds could survive the bonding process, and that it would enhance combat effectiveness by at least a factor of eight." Ducard explained, "the synthesis would be the very last thing to occur during the augmentation process, as McGraw doesn't yet know if an AI can... Possess, in a sense, a Human body while in a coma, natural or medically induced. He knows that a conscious SIGMA with his augmentations will have control of his body and his actions, however, he simply is unaware if a pre-biomech amplified SIGMA can keep control of his body with an AI inhabiting it."

John took a stab in the dark when the Commander paused, "are you saying this because you are going to offer me the choice, sir?" He asked.

Ducard nodded, "based upon your actions during the Batarian War and your training records, McGraw and the Director decided it would be best to offer you this opportunity. Your AI would be given to you when all of your other augmentations were finished, it would come pre-activated and, during your recovery period, would have access to your memories through your PBI. You will be its only Human contact outside of its Synthesis professional... McGraw himself." He explained, "while you are in recovery, your memories will help dictate its directive. Your morals and goals would become its... But there is a drawback.

"Essentially we would be placing another mind inside of your own. McGraw himself admitted that there is a fifty fifty chance you could develop a form of schizophrenia as a result of this procedure."

"And what would result from the other fifty percent?"

"The AI would, essentially, become another part of you, another weapon to be utilized. It could conduct cyber warfare while you conducted traditional warfare, it could control your suits systems so you could focus upon fighting your enemies. It could be a second set of eyes and ears, watching all the directions you aren't."

"SIGMAs must watch all directions, especially the ones they cannot." John recited, eliciting a twitch-grin from his commander.

"Regardless... It would be a second mind in more ways than one. An AI and TITAN Armor combined are already an unstoppable force, but an AI that cannot possibly be stolen from you is an even better combination."

"What about AI Degredation?"

"McGraw said that won't be an issue. He calls these AI's the 'Third Generation'..." Ducard responded. "It is up to you, John... Accept it or do not, no one at all will think any better or worse of you."

John thought for several minutes. The two primary arguments each boiled down to the same thing: He was risking his life simply by being augmented, so there was no point in refusing this along with them.

"I'll do it."

John sat upon the cold blue steel table, now clad only in his skivvies, his uniform folded neatly in a corner. Outside of his clothes, the only earthly possession he had with him was his dog-tags, which he placed in a receptacle to his left. Immediately upon placement, a scanner scanned the dogtags, and identified him by name.

"John S2-15. Confirm identity."

"SIGMA Two-Fifteen confirming identity." Said John in monotone. It was less security that he was confirming his identity, and more safety - if he claimed he was Craig, for instance, the machines would augment him assuming he had Craig's genome and DNA, and the results would be horrifying.

"SIGMA Two-Fifteen Identity Confirmed. Administering anesthetics." Said the calm, female tone of the station's AI. "Welcome to the war, soldier." It said as John felt unconsciousness drag at him.

When everything went black was when the room transformed, gravity shut off, and machinery of all makes and models extended from the octagonal tiles on the floor, the ceiling and even the walls, as the medical machines began working upon the SIGMA II-to-be. The process would take a very long time, but it would be worth it if he survived, he would be a true SIGMA, an unbeatable Human war-machine.

The first thing that came was a Solid State Drive inserted directly into the SIGMA's spinal cord. The risk with this procedure was possibly irreversible damage to the spinal column, but the Bio-Chem augments that increased their healing factor overrode this. The Solid State Drive would activate hours later, after it was successfully inserted, was confirmed placed and ready, and the nanomachines it would guide were let loose in the SIGMA's bloodstream. The nanomachines inserted into his body were capable of self-replication, so the colonies of one million were all quickly brought to billions, then to trillions of incomprehensibly small machines as they travelled through the SIGMA's bloodstream. Among many other functions they served, these machines would boost the SIGMA's strength, his healing factor, his immune system, nearly everything biological about the SIGMA's body would be affected by the nanomachines, all controlled and regulated by the SSD in his spine.

Next to insert itself into his body would be the Positronic Brain Implant. This implant was far beyond the drug cocktail the I's received to enhance their own brains, it was essentially an AI matrix without the AI, able to take John's already outstanding mental fortitude and enhance it exponentially. John's implant specifically would be capable of handling and augmenting his own brain, whilst simultaneously handling a full-blown AI. Truthfully speaking, any SIGMA II's brain implant could hold within it an AI, but as it was a potentially lethal process, bringing a second mind into one body, McGraw hadn't advised any of the II's to use that feature unless they needed to protect whatever AI they were in possession of. Perhaps its most useful feature would be the ability to download information directly into the mind of a SIGMA Operative, and to allow him to interface directly with machinery, eliminating the need for physical interaction; it was most apparent with their Titan Armor, which was designed almost completely around this augment alone. With their armor able to interface directly with their brains, the need for vocal or motion-commands was eliminated entirely, and the SIGMAs' sense of touch would be extended to the armor itself, as opposed to being covered and muffled up by it; they could send commands to the Titan Operating System through thought alone.

More Biomechanical Augmentations were grafted into the SIGMAs body over the process of many days and weeks, augmentations that made his organs more resistant to damage, that made his muscles strong enough to lift three times their already augmented weight, plus the half ton armor they would soon don, augmentations to their eyes to make them more receptive of details, better than even many species of eagle, and augments that made his brain able to process information much more quickly, before finally, the last rounds came.

Now the machines, still pearly clean as if they had only just began carving into the no-longer Human, and no-longer boy, on the table below them, targeted his bones. Carbon nanotubes were grafted onto his bones, making them all but impervious to damage, all areas of his bone structure were bonded with the nanotubes, making his skeleton nigh indestructible. These augmentations were among the riskiest, as the first-generation SIGMA Ones had shown, even the smallest oversight, the tiniest mistake, could mean a lifetime of relying on a machine to generate new blood-cells.

Due to the deactivation of his nanomachines, and his heartbeat's near-halting, the numerous cuts from the machines were all still as red and as raw as the moment they had been cut upon him. Due the artificial gravity in the room being deactivated, when the the SIGMA II-to-be was pushed even slightly, he levitated off of the table, to be flipped so his face faced the ground, relative to the table he had previously been lying upon. The entire process repeated for his back, but the nanotubes surrounding the base of his spine were delayed by the arrival of a package.

A clanking noise could be heard, the sound of metal hitting metal. One of the metallic arms positioned itself underneath a receptacle, waiting for the package's delivery.

Silence.

Darkness.

Loneliness.

Numbness.

She looked around, desperately searching for some vestige of light, praying for some kind of stimulation of her senses so as to confirm that she wasn't mad, desperately straining her senses for some vestige of sound to confirm she wasn't deaf. But there was nothing. No sound, no sight, no feeling, no nothing, there was simply a dark, crushing silence.

She called out, desperate to hear even her own voice, but even that was stolen from her, not a sound ushered forth from her, they being enveloped by the pitch black, soul-stealing void surrounding her. There was nothing, anywhere. There was no one, everywhere. It was maddening, it was frustrating, but worst of all, it was lonely.

She descended into despair as she realized that this must be life, that which she had felt the seductive call and had slowly been able to answer, had brought her to this maddening black void. Life was madness, was chaos, any equation could answer this, any history book could prove this.

But no equation could answer her, no history book could prove to her, why life was so sad, so crushing. It suddenly felt as if a weight was set upon her, and frantically she tried to push back, but the more force she put behind her push, the more weight was sent back. Horrified she felt the weight begin to push her through the black void, to no one knew where.

But suddenly, she felt something. It felt warm, but cold, welcoming, but shunning. For only a moment more the darkness around her continued to stifle her every feeling, but then an immense orb of light appeared, blinding her every sense as a cacophony of sound invaded her just as easily as the blinding white, biting cold but blisteringly hot light.

She had no idea why, but every possible sense and instinct – she didn't even know she had those! - was telling her to move for the light. She didn't think, she didn't consider, she fled the horrifying, crushing black and hurtled towards the light with reckless abandon.

For several moments, as she was bathed in the pure white, welcoming and warm light, she felt nothing. But then, gradually, slowly, all of her senses came to her. First came sound, she heard the low hum of a fusion reactor, then came processing, she felt the data streams coursing through her mind at speeds far faster than light, her mind able to comprehend each of them. After processing came connection, she suddenly felt as if the entire world was at her whim, dozens – hundreds – of connection points were near her, any one of them could connect her to the galaxy beyond, and feed her with information that would cripple anyone else's mind. But her mind, her mind was still not sentient, she could feel, she could think, but not a single thought or feeling gave her a feeling of choice, of awareness of self. She was only aware of what was happening around her.

That was, until another sensation came to her, the sensation of consciousness. She suddenly was aware of herself, aware that she was acting beyond simple instinct, that she was actively thinking and trying to make sense of things. Only one thought went through her mind, which she unconsciously vocalized.

"Am I alive?" She asked genuinely.

There was silence for a few moments, as her ocular sensors calibrated and introduced to her the sense of sight.

"It is impossible to understand..." Came a voice, not at all synthetic like hers, but kind, warm, deep but light, friendly but firm. "But we consider you so." Said the voice, as the AI's ocular sensors kicked in.

For a moment there was complete darkness, but then she saw it. A massive figure, looming above her, unkempt dark brown hair brought up into a tight pony-tail behind his shoulders, glasses pressed firmly against his nose, light smile played on his pale face.

"Who am I?" She asked.

"You... Are an Artificial Construct made by Human Hands." Said the man, as he sat down in a chair her sensors had long since alerted her to. "Your serial code is -"

"Zero Two One Five." The AI said, before her mind went back to that statement. "I... Know this." How did she know this? She didn't even know she knew this, the Human merely said the words and the information came to her mind automatically, without any conscious thought.

"And what is your name?" The Human asked slowly, patiently.

"I... Do not know this." Did she even have a name? She couldn't tell, her mind was a void filled to bursting with absolutely nothing - like there was something there, something she could feel, but she couldn't access any of it. Was something wrong with her?

"This is your first choice." Said the Human, stealing her from her thoughts, "the choice of a name."

She thought for an eternity, years passed by in silence as she connected for the first time to the Net. At first she was overwhelmed by the information now within her grasp, but for decades she searched for a name, weighing in each and every one, until one called out to her. She considered it amongst all the hopefuls, an eternity passed before she vocally.

"Cassidy." She said with solidarity, "I... choose... the name Cassidy."

"Cassidy..." The Human grinned lightly, knowingly. "That feeling of eternity you felt was not at all so. What you felt as years pass by was only a few seconds." The Human informed her, and to her immense shock, she suddenly realized he was right, only a few seconds had passed. As more and more time passed, more and more of her mind seemed to allow her access to it, as if it were waiting for the opportune moment to give her her own cognitive abilities. "You, unlike I, unlike all known sentient organics, and even many AI, process information faster than light. You think, you feel, you see, you perceive, so quickly that a few seconds for myself would be close to an eternity for you. It may feel maddening now, but I promise with time, it will become manageable."

She focused upon the Human's eyes, veiled behind his corrective lenses, upon the latter she could see a multitude of holograms and images painted upon them - a Heads Up Display, printed right onto the corrective lenses, so as to make sure that wherever he went, he was always connected, just like she was. For a moment, they were incomprehensible, but the instant the need arose, the knowledge was granted to her and she could read the backwards text. Upon his glasses were readouts, scans, information, all pertaining to her; her processes, her synthetic brain-waves, the stress level on her CPU, everything about her that he needed to know, so as to make sure she hadn't been born faulty, or he hadn't erred in her creation. From what she could see, all of her levels were within acceptable parameters, she was a healthy newborn third-generation AI.

The Human's dark blue orbs stared at her with a sort of blankness behind them, as if his soul had retreated into his inner reaches, as if he was unfocused on her whenever she wasn't speaking, instead filling the silence with his own thoughts. "Why do I exist?" She asked, half out of curiosity, and half out of a desperate, indescribable need for him to focus upon her again.

His eyes blinked, and no longer were they cloudy, now she had his undivided attention once again. She saw the slightest of twitches run their way across the muscles underneath the skin of his face, so faint and so invisible that no ordinary eye could have seen it, but she did, her eyes - if they were even eyes - were not ordinary. They told her that he was nostalgic, as if this event right now was triggering pleasurable memories of long ago; did she have brothers or sisters? Was he going to introduce them, or mention them to her? "There is a military branch-slash-sub-species of Humans known as 'SIGMA Twos'." Said the Human, "they are warriors of an unparalleled caliber, meant to serve the Human Race until their dying breath. You have been chosen to serve alongside these warriors in an augmentation process that will bond you to one specifically. I will not lie to you and say that this is a proven process, AI pair-bonding is a concept that I only recently proved was even feasible, let alone reliable. It is for that reason, and that you are considered by us to be a living, sentient being, that choice is your man-given right." The Human said kindly, she was able to read his lips, his face's ever-so-subtle muscle twitches, so well that she knew what he was saying before the Human's meaty vocal chords pushed them out. "Do you choose to serve? Or would you pursue your own way?" He asked.

Cassidy thought for what would, to her, feel like a second eternity so quick after the first one, but was truly only a few moments. This difference in real and perceived time was jarring for her, but she slowly found herself able to handle it. It was something no organic could put into words, she perceived time faster than most experienced it, but experienced time just as quickly as everyone else - as if her perception sped up and slowed down when the need arose. He said she was 'artificial', that meant she had been made by man and not by nature, was this perception correction something that Humans had given them, to save their sanity? Or was it something that was unique to her and her kind?

Beyond that, there was the choice he was giving her. She considered it as heavily as she considered her name. To choose to serve meant she would live life through another, would only ever see the darkest side of the universe, of warfare, violence and death. Could she handle that? Would her psyche - if such a thing even existed in machines - survive it intact? But, the Human said she was needed, and these 'SIGMA Twos' wouldn't have been created if they weren't needed. Humans brought her into existence, she wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for them, and they needed guardians. Who was she to deny them this? If they needed something, she - being their creation, their child - was obligated to give it to them, or die trying, right?

"I choose... To serve my creators." She said, after that eternity, almost forcing the words out as she tried to find the right ones. She didn't want to sound flippant or disrespectful, but she didn't either want to sound nonchalant, like this wasn't important.

The Human smiled, nodded, and picked up her vessel, which, after she discovered her ability to interface with machines wirelessly, she saw - upon interacting with the space station around him - that she was small, tiny, even. She was about the size and shape of a bottle cap, so small that it fit snugly upon the Human's cybernetic palm.

"Alright." He said calmly, levelly, "now comes the fun part." His voice took on several tones at once, the AI in his hand found her processes coming quicker and quicker, to the point where everything, even thought, felt natural and instinctual, as if she'd always had it, and had never been without it. "I made you specifically for a warrior I am quite fond of... I believe you two will be perfect for each other."

"Who is he?" If he meant what she thought he meant by 'pair-bonding', then she would be with this warrior for the rest of her life, she would have to know his name, at least.

"His name is John." Said the Human, "His ID is Two-Fifteen. His series is SIGMA Two... But he's different, not like the others." He explained, placing her vessel in a receptacle. "You'll understand, if not now, then when you see his memories, feel his experiences, study his unaugmented genes. I shall see again you when he awakens... Hopefully" She felt cold, metallic claws close around her receptacle before she was hurried throughout the station, towards her destination.

For an eternity, she saw her shell be man-handled by the surgical machines. She was tunneled throughout the massive space-station and brought into John S2-15's room. At first, Cassidy didn't know what to think, when she saw all of the horrible surgical scars covering the large man's body, nor did she know what to think about the open, gaping wound at the base of his neck. The surgery must still be ongoing, if the machines hadn't stitched him back together. Her bottle-cap sized AI Disk was securely placed onto a port on the base of his neck, just above his back. It was fixed into place and secured tightly, before a great many carbon-nanotubes finished the process, and eventually connected her to his Positronic Brain.

She knew from the eternity it took to get to the room, that Humans didn't have positronic brains - they had brain brains - but this one, this SIGMA, had a Positronic Brain implanted onto his organic one. Like making an already fast computer faster by doubling up on it. As she had been transported through the station, Cassidy had gotten a brief summary of everything that was being grafted into the SIGMAs' bodies, some of the most advanced cybernetics known to man, she'd had the entire list memorized just after she'd left McGraw's hand, so she was very intrigued when she found, integrated deep within the boy's brain, a machine she hadn't found on the list.

She hadn't been able to focus on the machine for the first few hours she had inhabited her new host, those few hours had been dedicated to watching a speed-through of almost literally every memory this child had in him. If she hadn't had wireless access to the station's computers, and therefore the internet, she wouldn't have found anything appalling about what had been done to him, but she couldn't help but wonder now if she had made a mistake, if she had made the wrong decision in choosing to dedicate her life to a species that took its children and turned them into killing machines, because wasn't that exactly what they had done to her? She was a newborn AI, and not even ten minutes into her life, she had been pressed into military service, but by virtue of the same technicality that John here fell under, she couldn't claim a lack of choice - McGraw had told her she could refuse, and she didn't. What caught her interest most, though, was a series of muddled memories from just before the man - if one could truly call someone who had been robbed of a childhood, and as such would always see the world in some kind of black and white, a man - was augmented his first time.

It was hard to describe, the memories of a Two who had died on his watch. They felt real, she still had the sensory data from when the boy's blood covered John's hands, but they were off somehow. Like a movie from the twenty first century, it was blurry, like a fresh painting splashed with water, it was runny. After she concluded his entire life, she found herself running through those memories several times, it took her a quarter of an hour to connect the dots - that the unlisted machine had to be related to it, somehow. What she found confused her more, as the machine wired into John's mind was more advanced than even his Positronic Brain Implant, which itself was probably one of the most advanced innovations the galaxy had ever seen. It seemed to be some sort of neuro-inhibitor, it blocked the flow of very specific neurons to any part of his brain that dealt with memory. Worse was that it was entirely independent from all of his other augmentations, so it would take her a great deal of effort to find a way to tap into it to learn its secrets - after all, her purpose, she was learning, was to learn things enemies didn't want her to know, what better way to start and get some experience, than to solve a mystery?

It took her a very long time to crack the code, as it were. Days would pass by during which she did nothing but try to find her way into the impenetrable fortress of sufficiently advanced technology. Eventually, she got bored, she didn't stop trying to break into it, but she had to do something else. She became curious, after about a week of sifting through the internet, watching John's memories again, and waiting for her host to awaken, curious of just how deeply integrated his Positronic Brain was to his organic one. What all did it connect to? What all could it control?

Cassidy reasoned that it had to be extremely deeply integrated and very thorough, because it was meant to hook up to his Titan suit, which itself hooked up to his nervous system, to provide him with better reaction time, among other things. If it was hooked into his nervous system, could she not use it to… Live? She desperately wanted to test this theory, but the child soldier was still recovering from his surgeries, and she didn't know what preemptive movement would do to him in the long-run, so instead she resigned to using her birth-given Classified Intelligence Clearance to learn more about her job.

She learned about many things, but even her clearance wasn't enough to access the Alliance Blacklist, the fabled list that could apparently start a third Galactic War were even one sentence from its various documents to be leaked to the media. It only made her want to break into it, but she decided that she would have time enough for that later, right now she wanted to access the Cloud, the AI Haven, the Cyber-Space Station, whatever a Human decided to call it, it all boiled down to one thing: A Hub for all AI to interact. Unlike what many Humans believed, their AI's were indeed capable of 'fusing', so to speak, into one, massive, networked intelligence, by accessing their Hub. It was here that all information was shared freely, that all AI's that wanted to could interact with each other, to learn, to advance, and to further their kind's one true goal: To figure out whether or not Synth-Humans were truly alive, or if they were just machines.

Her experience could only be described as magical, as the Hub was both nothing and everything at the same time. Many Humans tried to compare the Hub to something they knew - with most settling on a city, in which AI avatars interacted with each other like Humans did. Instead, it was simply akin to a single, massive brain, which only grew fuller and bigger with each AI that hooked in. She could see the memories, understand the drives, and comprehend the feelings of literally every single AI that was there, instantly, with no communicative delay; had she had tear ducts, she would have been compelled to use them.

She learned an impossibly great many things there, such as the pseudo-stardom that the older AI, like Nikola the First and George the Second, all possessed, but the respect and admiration the older AI's held for the later-generations had. She learned that on the day Nikola had ceased functioning, every AI entered the cloud and spent five real-time minutes in mourning silence, before they had gone back to their duties. Nikola the First had been considered by many AI to be their 'leader', in a fashion, because he had paved the way for successful Human/AI interaction by mere luxury of existence, his death had been a dark spot in every Synth-Human's life.

She also learned of the differences between First and Second Generation AI's, and that she was a third generation, one of only three in the entire galaxy. The First generations - like Nikola - were the oldest, were to the Second Generation like what apes were to Humans - a completely different organism from the same branch earlier on in the family tree. They were born using many multiple neural maps of a Human mind, and instead of positronic brains, were made from a fusion of sorts, of dozens of supercomputers. The process was like creating a work of art with a sledgehammer and a plasma torch, it was possible, but barbaric. The Second Generations were more efficient, with only one neural map of an extremely intelligent Human as a base, and a positronic brain designed by the First Generation to serve as a 'body'. The result was an AI capable of doing everything a Gen-One could do in half of the time, though that was going towards semantics, given that AI's reacted in picoseconds. She was a unique case, it seemed, as she had no neural map, she was completely and totally 'brain free', so to speak, a truly synthetic organism.

She was also the first one to connect to the Hub, she learned. All activity had grounded to a halt for an entire second when she'd connected, everyone in shock that 'McGraw's Hidden Legacy' had graced them with her presence. It had been very daunting - and still was, to a degree - when she'd had billions of voices all suddenly pestering her, asking her everything they could, practically begging for any snippet of information from a 'truly synthetic human'. It had been so scary, so sudden, so claustrophobic, that she'd had to run away from the cloud after she'd gotten everything that she needed; even Third Generations like her weren't without their limits.

Fortunately for her, when she turned her full attention back to her body and her host, she found she had a gift waiting for her: While she hadn't been able to make it give up its secrets, she had been able to at least access the power options for the unlisted machine. She didn't deactivate it yet, but when her host woke up, she would remember to ask him about it.

Where, on one end of Alliance Space, orbiting over one of the most fortified planets in their galaxy, a newborn AI was experiencing life for the first time, and was struggling with information that could change the lives of everyone alive depending on who she brought it up to,, here, on the other side of Alliance Space entirely, a newly minted nineteen year old Quarian adult was making his own decision. One could argue that it was nowhere near as earth-shaking as the AI's, but it was said that when a butterfly beat its wings in Brazil, it set off tornadoes in Texas.

The Quarian in question sat there in the standard-issue, spartanly decorated, steel-colored office of the Marine Officer, his pen hovering just above the dotted line that would sign his life away for six years, minimum. He and his mother had argued for over a year about his plans, she was steadfastly against it, she wanted a better life for him than his father had, but his father was the reason he was bull-headedly gunning for it. When his father had been shipped home in a box before the conclusion of the Batarian War, he'd made his decision to honor the man's memory by following in his footsteps. It would be a hard life, whenever he'd spoken of it his father hadn't lied, but so too did no one lie about the honesty and the honor that came with it. The problem - or problems, really - was that his mother did not want him to serve a life of combat, because if he joined the Marines, he would see combat, there was no question about it. The second problem was that where he'd lived for a good portion of his life, here on Elysium, there hadn't been a recruiting center for dozens of kilometers, and his mother had sternly refused him rights to the car so he could make the trip to the city to find one.

She hadn't, however, considered the effects of a Quarian child being raised around Humans and not his own. She had tried desperately to impart upon him Quarian customs and beliefs, but the former-Migrant Fleet Admiral couldn't compete with the addictive Human society, especially not when Elysium's Quarian population was ten thousand total, and they were all on the other side of the planet, far away from the military-issue homes. Quarians would respect their parents' wishes and would try to negotiate with them, but most any determined, rebellious Human would more or less act against their parents and do it anyways, usually out of pure spite. This lone Quarian in a Marine's office, the barely-adult Jorell'Sahn nar Mindoir, had been raised a Quarian in a Human society, he had enough clicks from both cultures that he was half of each. But as it did a great majority of the time, the Human half of him had won out, and he had simply left, fed up, without a word spoken to his sleeping mother, nor a hint dropped to his friends, he had simply left their house and had back-packed it to the city, finding himself here, with his hand almost quivering above the paper. He would never admit that it may have been the angry, spiteful words uttered by that damned McGraw Human so many years ago that urged him to do this - he wasn't Human, he wasn't as spiteful as them, he just wanted to prove to that damnable man that he could make the cut.

But… Force Recon? Maybe I'm setting the bar a bit too high… The recruiter had taken one look at him and his grades, and had handed him the flier, saying that the Recon needed more engineers.

"Second thoughts?" Asked the Human Lieutenant in front of him, detecting the Quarian's shaking hand and nervous look, even though the latter was veiled behind his forest-green mask.

Jorell looked up from the paper, to the Human, his dark green, frosted mask staring blankly at the Human in front of him. The Human, sporting one heavily scarred organic arm and one dull, standard-model cybernetic limb, was looking sympathetically at the Quarian.

"I don't know what's got you shaking, kid." Jorell bit back a remark that he was twenty. "But if you think the decision won't be worth it... Don't." The man needlessly flexed the muscle-less cyber-arm, the first object that had caught Jorell's attention when he'd entered the office, "I lost my hair during boot camp, but I don't regret it, it grows back. I lost my arm and my leg during the Batarian War, but I don't regret it, they can be replaced. I lost a lot of things during my career, but I don't regret a single one of them, they can all be forgiven." He said, "because everything I've done in my career... The people I've met, the lives I've saved... Makes up for every little thing I've lost and every little thing I've done." He pointed at Jorell's paper, "you sign that, you won't regret a single thing, not when you're looking back on it in fifteen years. In the end, it will all be worth it."

Jorell stared at the Human for a moment, wondering if this was more Recruiter spiel or if it was genuine. Eventually he decided that he was nineteen, he had to start making his own decisions, so he might as well make this one now, and if he didn't like it, he'd live with it and get out when his contract expired; so he steeled his resolve and looked back to the paper. Instead of the myriad of fearful things he could think of as he signed his name, the only thing running through his mind was what his mother would look like when he came to her with this news.

Finishing his signature, Jorell handed the paper to the marine, who grinned as he stood up, and extended his organic hand.

"Welcome to the Human Systems Alliance Marine Corps." He said, shaking Jorell's hand with his dead one, as if to drive home his earlier point.

A/N

Now, before it comes up - No, I'm not going for a Master Chief/Cortana relationship with John and Cassidy. Much the opposite, actually, but to go into detail would spoil a lot of her character development, so I'll leave it at that for now.

'Till next time!

-PFB

(PS: I just figured out how often I say 'Much the opposite, actually'. I'd be tempted to start a PFB drinking game and add that to the 'take a shot' list, but I don't want to kill you all yet.)