Hey, hello again everybody. Hope you find this one as good if not a tiny bit better than the last one.
I'd like to say thank you for the review i got and so quick after i published. I hope i don't disappoint and that you all find this story fun to read.
Disclaimer: I don't own Halo, if i did they'd be no Spartan IVs and Sergeant Johnson never would have died, but i won't deny he did go out in style.
Chapter 2: Where am I?
When I came too I was sitting in a chair with my head slumped forwards, sitting upwards. My eyes first focused on the legs of the desk in front of me and if it wasn't for the pain racing through me I might have thought I fell asleep in the head teachers office.
"You've sure taken your time in waking up, now we can finally start getting some answers." My eyes were only just beginning to focus as I scanned the room for the source of the slightly gruff voice.
As my vision was blurred with each movement of my head, all I could see was the brown blur that was the desk, the white blur that was the opposite chair and a slightly greenish blur that didn't match the walls standing next to the chair. I wanted to move my hands and rub my eyes to force them to focus, but I found myself very well tied down and my nervousness just escalated to minor panic.
"Who are you?" Again the voice rang out, but I was more concerned with my eyesight. It was slowly coming back and I could only focus on it's return, I didn't even hear the question.
"Who do you work for? Name the rest of your insurrectionist cell." The voice was getting louder and more agitated, but again I was more focused on my eye sight, it was definitely much better, I wouldn't be able to read for awhile but I'd at least not bump into things as I walk down corridors.
I looked around with my new vision and realised that the white chair was really a young woman in a lab coat sitting in the chair and the olive coloured blur was quickly approaching until.
"Are you even listening to me, how the hell did you get in here?" the voice screamed in my ear, leaving me dazed and slightly scared as he grabbed the headrest of my chair forcing me to look at him.
I tried to remember anything, but being put on the spot like that kinda left me a bit dumb, "I fell."
The man just looked at me dumbfounded and about ready to hit me when a young voice rose above the tension. "That's enough chief. I'll ask the questions from here, you may leave."
The scary man just turned around to face the woman in the chair as if looking for some unspoken sign and then promptly left, I tried to twist my head to see where it was he was headed but my efforts only earned a stifling laughter from across the desk.
"I'm sorry about that, Chief Mendez has his purposes and I'm sure he'd have much success handling an interrogation, but I don't think an interrogation is entirely necessary here. I think a couple of simple questions to get to the bottom of this would do a lot better than a load of shouting and threats of physical violence. Every tool has a purpose." As she said that the young woman that sat across from me, for a single instance, gave me the most intimidating smile. I knew in that second I was face to face with someone very dangerous.
"Uhrm okay?" Again faced with such opposition, my mind went numb. I felt so stupid, but I'm sure almost none of you would have done any better.
She stood up to pace in front of me and I felt tiny in front of this person, as if she controlled my life and death and I really felt she did.
"So, lets start with an easy question, who are you?" She stopped pacing long enough to face me and ask the question and then she went back pacing back and forth as if to try to hypnotise me.
I didn't know what to do in this situation, I could lie or stay silent, but I know neither of those would help in this situation, "Alexa. My name's Alexa. If I may ask, what's yours?" I don't know why I asked or why I sounded so timid but I really felt as if this woman was dangerous.
Again, she just pause her pacing and just chuckled slightly at my question until she found her seat. "Well my name's Dr. Catherine Halsey and I'm sorry but I just found the possibility of a spy that doesn't know what they're spying on kind of funny. But onto more serious matters Alexa, I want to ask you if you know your current situation?"
I thought back to the events of the past day or so and it'd definitely been one hell of a day and I had no clue where I was or what was happening. All I knew is that my head hurt when thinking about it all. So I shook my head indicating I had no clue. The doctor just smiled at me.
"Well allow me to guide you down the rabbit hole Alexa. You are currently in one of the most military secure base on Reach, where I conduct my experiments and gather my research. We do not tolerate intruders. But you are as much a mystery to us as we are to you. It would seem that you just appeared out of nowhere." I could only stare wide eyed and confused as she continued.
"Now usually what would happen is you'd be shot on site and then a thorough investigation could begin, with you dead or alive, and I will remind you that this is still an option." Damn I knew she was scary.
"But, you are as I put earlier a mystery and I like mysteries, but I prefer answers and I doubt I'll be any closer to them with your death, so don't give us cause and you'll see tomorrow. Now as to how you got here, I don't have a clue, not a sausage. We detected unknown energy readings and we thought it was going to be some kind of bomb but when the soldiers reported a small girl." She held back a bit more laughter at that, and if I was thinking clearly and if I wasn't the subject of this I might not have responded thusly.
"Hey, I'm not short you old meanie, just tell me how to get home." She just looked back to me and laughed louder. I should point out that when I'm not fully aware I'm quite childish in my insults and that probably didn't help as she only laughed louder.
"That's all you have to say, I've just told you that you've appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a military base where you are thought to be a spy and your only concern is telling me you aren't little. You certainly are interesting." She rested her head on the hands as she looked straight at me, almost through me, and all I could do was look away in embarrassment.
"I have four options, one I could shoot you and proceed with the usual procedure, but that holds no real benefit for either of us. Plus I don't like the idea of just shooting innocents, doesn't sit well with me." I found myself agreeing profusely with what she was saying. Maybe it was the situation I was in.
"Two, I could just hand you over to the higher ups and you'd never see the light of day again." Strangely I didn't like that plan either, it didn't involve getting home and it certainly didn't sound like much fun to be locked away.
"Three, I could just set you free on a sort of provision, provided you don't come into contact with any other known terrorists and spies then you'll avoid prison and maybe find your place in this galaxy. Or option four is I could provide a place for you in this galaxy but you'll work for me. I like option four as it keeps you close for study but I'd like your input, no guarantees but what would you choose?" The smile she offered this time was the first one I'd seen that seemed genuine.
I honestly didn't know what to think, I'd like to say I chose freedom, but I was torn between options three and four. Freedom was nice, but she said she had no idea where I came from, so I don't know how far from home I might be and if someone went to the trouble of dumping me here then I wouldn't be too safe when they found me again.
Plus life without a purpose isn't much of a life at all. I'd learnt that while I was unconscious that a purpose is necessary, a place to belong in the galaxy. I think she knew what I'd choose when I saw the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth and the twinkle in her eye.
"What exactly is on offer in option four?" I think we both knew I'd chosen when I asked that question.
"Well, I take it that's your choice, but basically I'm giving you the choice to join a family and become strong, strong enough to protect everyone. Now I should warn you that this option may not work exactly. I'll need to form a cover story for you and you'll need training and you'll need to get a move on before the pelican takes off, we need to get you to the ship before it leaves for the medical station, we have a lot of work ahead of us but I assure you that you'll be alright and I'll look out for you. Now hurry up, we have to get going." As she was saying this she seemed to speed up, getting faster and faster as she scrambled to gather her fancy looking laptop and several papers and her bag and than she dashed out of the room telling me to follow.
I sat there for several seconds looking at the restraints wondering when she was going to realise. I could hardly judge though as I was hardly any better when my head was full of thoughts. About a minute later she came back in looking rather embarrassed as she untied my restraints. "Let's try this again shall we." She sounded calmer as she told me this.
She led me much more slowly through the doors and past the guards and down the corridors. The guards gave me weird looks so I simply returned them with a simple out stuck tongue. This place was a labyrinth of clinical walls and floors making me feel uneasy, I hated hospitals and such clinical walls and smells.
Finally she led me to an exit, we were about three stories up and exiting onto the roof and there was the strangest looking aeroplane sitting on the designated platform, with it's back hatch open with rows of seats. After I spent a minute staring at it I had to jog to catch up to it as the doctor approached it. We sat down next to each other silently and she opened up her laptop, not even appearing to notice as the loud ramp closed sealing out the noise of the engines starting up.
The small plane appeared to be quite versatile taking of straight up and continuing to climb. I could tell it clearly didn't faze the woman next to me, but I was beginning to get a bit nervous as we passed through the clouds and continued climbing. The sky outside began to fade and still the doctor didn't stop typing away at her computer.
Soon we got so far from the planet I knew we were in space, maybe not far in terms of gravity but I just hoped everything was airtight, it was as this thought came that I realised I was practically in space and we were still climbing. I looked back at the doctor and away from the rear window to see her smiling bemusedly at me.
"First time in space?" Her question was simple but I could offer no such answer, how could she be so at ease in such a tiny plane in space. How did we even get here on a little plane?
"How? How are we even in space, what's going on? Where on earth could we be heading in space?" I was almost panicking and it was clear from her facial expressions that she wasn't quite sure of my response.
"Well, this is a military grade ship, this small pelican has to be able to cope with space to carry people to and from ships in and out of combat zones. Why wouldn't it be able to get into space?" I looked even more confused at her answer to the situation and was about to point that out to her when she continued, "Also we are not headed to earth. We are headed to a UNSC medical ship for your entrance into the program."
I honestly didn't have a clue what to say or how to begin. All I could think is, "ships are on the ocean not in space," space ships only existed in science fiction and some people's ideas of the future. It was only after I completed this thought that I realised I spoke some of it out loud.
She looked at me as if I'd been living under a rock, and in some sense I guess I might as well have been. She went on to explain all about ships in space and their necessity and about the different planets and how they all come under the control of the UNSC. "Where am I?"
"What do you mean? What wrong? Just take a deep breath and explain." I could see the concern on her face but also the curiosity, as if more answers to explain my being were on the horizon.
I took a deep soothing breath an then formed some words to help explain my predicament. "How are we even in space, don't we need some kind of rocket? I've never heard of space ships or other planet. Earth is the only planet. Ships in space only exist in fiction, I don't understand?"
Doctor Halsey looked surprised at first but you could see in her eyes that she was working out a theory and was thoroughly enjoyed be this new piece of information. She almost didn't notice the pelican landing or the rear hatch opening.
When it opened there appeared to be several people waiting, four of them were in lab coats and the last one appeared to be a soldier like one of the ones I remembered from my last encounter with them. The doctor looked at me and mouthed at me, 'talk later', which meant I'd have to wait for my answers as she turned and walked down the ramp to greet the assembly.
"This here's the last one for augmentation, I kept her behind as it seemed she was very nervous about what is to come but I've calmed her down some. So if you'll take her with you and I'll check on all the others before coming to see if I can be of assistance." She signaled for the soldier to lead me away and as I followed quickly behind the soldier, the scientists followed me.
I don't know why but I had a sense of dread as they lead me into some sort of medical room with a single empty bed and several machines. I was told quite sternly to change into a sort of hospital gown and lie down. The soldier left the room as I laid down and the scientist placed some sort of mask over my face. A couple of breaths of that and my world went dark again. Couldn't I just go to sleep normally for once.
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