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Chapter Fourteen: Fallout And Flood
April 25, 2558 1614 hours
Abandoned ONI bunker
UNSC Reserve Base Camp Hayes
North America
"I am."
John heard himself speaking before he even realized it, but it really didn't matter; from the looks of things Laura had been about to say something anyway. Moving to Laura's side, he placed one hand on her left shoulder and took Sam from her arms. By now they can see the resemblance, he thought.
"And here I was hoping to keep people off your back," Laura cracked, the joke falling flat in the atmosphere. Though he had to admit, the fact that she was even attempting to joke was good, since it meant she was starting to calm down.
"Ackerson's probably already put the pieces together," Fred pointed out. "I know I suspected once you said they were yours, and if I could gather that then he definitely knows."
"And here I thought I was being subtle. Most people don't know, though—thankfully," Laura replied, shifting Kelly around; the little girl was wriggling all over the place. "I was hoping I'd have more time for explanations down the road, dealing with something like this isn't exactly my forte."
"Could someone please explain to me what's going on?" Mendez interrupted.
"You want the condensed version or the full story?" she shot back. "Either way, you're gonna find it hard to swallow."
"I think we can guess at the gist of it," Dr. Halsey interjected before tempers flared; John marveled at her ability to guess the situation. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to see when Laura's about to blow.
"What puzzles me is how this happened," the doctor continued. "According to my research, there was no mention of fertility after the augmentations."
"The Master Chief said the same thing when he found out," Lorienna interrupted, a small smile on her holographic features. "And as I told him, there was only a reference to a risk of sterility, not absolute proof. Both of them were perfectly capable of having children, as you can see."
Laura shook her head, her trademark half-smile making its appearance. "And as with anything involving these two, it wasn't easy. Then you throw in an impending Covenant invasion and the evacuation of an entire area….yeah, things got really interesting. Practically right after these two were born I had to single-handedly buy time for everyone to get down here. Almost died, but it would've been worth it." She laughed bitterly. "One life for many, code of the SPARTAN-IIs."
"'Almost died'"? Mendez asked incredulously. "What kind of odds were you facing?"
"About the same as the Master Chief did on Halo, only with less places to hide and/or run to. Only, lucky me, I had a few Covenant POWs on my side—they saw me go down and promptly ran to save my bacon. Then I got stashed in cryo until there was enough time to operate on me."
"And the children?" Dr. Halsey asked.
Laura looked down, as if she were ashamed to meet the older woman's eyes. "The Chief didn't know I was pregnant, and I couldn't send word even if I knew where he was. He wasn't here…he didn't get here until well after I ended up in the freezer. By the time I came back to consciousness, he already knew."
"Dr. Gedeon felt it was necessary, Laura. There was really nothing else that could have happened." Lorienna's voice was calm, acting as a mediator. "At any rate, what's done is done. All that matters right now is how it's dealt with. That, and protecting them from Ackerson." The AI scowled, and looked for all the world like she'd love to have something particularly destructive happen to the ONI colonel.
"Just find me a concealed spot and I'll take care of it," Linda offered with uncharacteristic vehemence.
"No can do, Linda," Laura shook her head. "If anything happens to that kel-shor it'll be from me." John watched everyone's eyes widen, and it took him a moment to realize she'd used a Forerunner oath: kel-shor was, according to the vague echoes he received from time to time, a pretty close translation to 'bastard' or 'jackass' or something along that mindset.
"Why would Ackerson be so interested in those two, apart from them being Spartan-bred? There has to be something else at stake," Dr. Halsey mused.
"Apart from trying to use them as leverage?" John pointed out, his grip on Laura's shoulder tightening slightly, forgetting that her scars from Holy Retribution were still somewhat painful; she winced and shot him a dark look. "Sorry."
"Just don't do it again, that hurts—or at least watch where you're gripping. That's my bad shoulder, ya know." Setting Kelly down and rubbing her shoulder lightly, Laura walked to a terminal and began typing. "Ackerson knows I have…difficulties…in certain circumstances. Maybe part of him is hoping my children will have similar experiences: to him it's a potential wellspring of tactical information."
"Information?" Mendez asked, still very confused. John couldn't blame him, remembering his own difficulties with this particular subject.
"For now, let's just say my head's not entirely my own. Datapad, please," Laura asked, holding her hand out to Dr. Halsey. Once she had said datapad, she hooked it up to the computer and began transferring files. After a few moments she grunted and disconnected the 'pad, returning it to the doctor. "This should explain things a bit, but good luck trying to explain it to everyone else. Took me a few days to wrap my own mind around it, and I was actually experiencing this!" She chuckled at that, though John knew it was mostly a cover.
"That's true enough—there've been a couple instances where she's had some close calls. Remember when we were scouting out that science facility?" John saw the wince, and just barely dodged the hand that whipped towards him.
"Watch it, hotshot. You're not completely irreplaceable, you know," Laura scowled. "You know better."
"You two argue more than any married couple I've seen," Kelly teased; Laura shot a small smile her way.
"Pretty good, considering we aren't married," she replied, a sad look in her dark eyes. "ONI nixed that one almost immediately, not to mention that'd be hard to explain to everyone around. This is as close as we're gonna get."
"Hate to interrupt, but we've got problems," Lorienna popped in, a look of alarm on her face. "Ackerson's on the warpath, claiming you attacked him without provocation, and I just found out something disturbing in ONI's networks. Top-secret sh--stuff, which meant Cortana and I had to collaborate just to hack the codes."
"You two still work together? I'm impressed," Laura smirked, then her face grew serious. Setting Kelly down and motioning for John to do the same with Sam, she looked at her two children.
"We have some grown-up stuff to do, guys. Think you'll be okay with watching cartoons for a while?" The twins nodded, and Kelly looked up at Dr. Halsey.
"Are you mad at Mommy? She didn't do nothing wrong, did she? Don't be mad, please don't be mad at Mommy."
Dr. Halsey chuckled, and bent down to gently pat the young girl's head. "No, not mad, just a little surprised. Don't worry your pretty head over it." The child grinned and ran off, hand in hand with her twin brother.
"Okay, now that the sensitive ears are gone, feel free to elaborate on our potential problems." Laura moved to a second holotank that had gone unnoticed, and activated it; a slender blue woman materialized within seconds, data scrolling across her body too quickly for anyone to make out.
"I'm not going to beat around the bush, guys," Cortana began, "so here it is. There are Flood forms on Earth, being experimented on by ONI Section III."
"Once I figured out where they were at, I took a look myself at the research labs—don't worry, they didn't see me," Lorienna reassured the group. "They have pretty good containment areas, but all it takes is one to get loose—they're good, but not good enough."
"Nothing is good enough when it comes to the Flood," Laura spat; in her agitation she started pacing, looking for all the world like a caged animal. "I don't even need to be Alaya to know—" she stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing too late that she'd said too much.
"Need to be Alaya?" Kelly repeated incredulously; John saw the worry in Laura's eyes and stepped in.
"Apparently the old Forerunners seeded dead worlds before the rings were fired, and as far as we can tell Laura—and all of us—are genetic matches to some of the old Forerunners from that time."
"That's the simplified version," Laura broke in. "What he doesn't realize is that genetic memory is included in the mix—I have a bunch of memories in my head that aren't mine, John has a few, and I daresay all of you S-IIs have them, though it's anyone's guess how deep they're buried. That damn circlet we found…I guess I wore it one too many times."
"We'll leave that for another time," Dr. Halsey commented. "In the meantime, we need to deal with the Flood. As Laura so bluntly pointed out, it only takes one Flood form to create disaster. How can we deal with this?"
Laura had started pacing again. "Lorienna, Cortana, any thoughts?"
"Stop pacing, for one: the ground's worn enough as is," Lorienna quipped; Laura shot her AI friend a very dirty look. "I was looking at one of the containment cells and saw it was rigged to deliver bursts of electricity—my guess is they're using it to determine tolerance levels. I could try wiping their previous tests or reprogramming the schedule to include batch testing at high levels."
"That wouldn't do much for the combat forms, though," Cortana interjected. "Carrier and infection forms would be wiped out pretty thoroughly…that might help. Problem is, the scientists would notice something odd happening and stop the test."
"Whoa, you two, slow down a sec," Laura interrupted, putting her hands on her temples to stall the headache she felt was starting. "First off, where's this place at? I know you two had to've found that out."
"Not too close to here, but not too far away," Lorienna mused. "I'd guess about three or four days on foot, a little less if you grab a car or something."
"If you managed to hijack a Pelican, you could be there in a little under an hour," Cortana picked up where Lorienna left off.
"Okay, you two are officially starting to scare me—I swear you're reading each other's digital minds." Laura shook her head, one hand raking through her hair in what was quickly becoming a normal habit.
"Well," Cortana smirked, "we did make some calculations as to what solution you would end up taking. The logical course would require some subtlety, but more than likely you're planning a direct assault."
"Not quite, but close enough." She smiled, the kind of smile that John and the others had learned meant trouble. "I might need some help pulling this one off."
Kelly, Fred, and Linda leaned forward, looks of anticipation on their faces.
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April 25, 2558 1945 hours
Unknown ONI Research Facility
North America
"Okay, NOW!" an urgent whisper cut through the stillness.
The sound of gunfire split the air, aimed toward a silent and seemingly harmless building; none of it made any difference to the black-suited figure dodging and weaving its way towards the target in question. They're only blanks anyway—but enough to scare anyone inside. Sure enough, armed guards started pouring out—two flashbangs later and they were comatose.
"I'm in position, ready when you are," Laura whispered through the COM. In less than a moment four other black-clad figured appeared beside her.
"That was fun, what's next?" Kelly joked.
"Next we break in—who's got the lockpick?" Fred nodded and moved to the door—in less than a minute he'd gotten it open and the team of five had slipped in the building.
"Lorienna said the labs should be this way," John motioned with one gloved hand; the group nodded comprehension and moved out.
The young woman moved briskly through the lab, a report clutched tightly in one hand. The Flood were spreading faster than she liked, especially since there was very little that she knew of to stop the creatures.
"Thaddeus, are you in there?" she called.
"Here, young one. I assume you have the results from the latest test?" the old San 'Shyuum asked; he was far calmer than she would have liked.
"I have them here. All we have is consistent with battlefield reports, nothing new. They dislike high amounts of heat, and electricity, but there's no biological weakness to be found! As long as they have a food source they'll continue to spread uncontrollably!"
"Calm down, young one, panicking will do no good."
"Blade? Blade?" A hand was shaking her shoulder, and she realized she'd fallen on the floor somehow. Sitting up, Laura found herself in a lab surrounded by something out of her worst nightmares—which for her didn't mean much, since her worst nightmares were memories of these creatures. Squid-like infection forms skittered around their containment cells; carrier forms waddled up to the glass and tapped two deformed tentacles; combat forms beat against the almost meter-thick walls in an attempt to escape.
"I'm alright, believe it or not. Just flashbacks." She accepted the hand that Kelly offered and stood, shaking her head to clear it. "If it helps, I got some ways to kill these things. They don't like heat or electricity in large amounts, plus it's not too hard to beat holy hell outta the things."
"We have plasma grenades, would that work?" John and Laura both nodded. "Now how do we get them in there?"
Laura frowned as she considered the containment cells. She was familiar with the design, since her mom had to work with some serious bacteria; cells like these were used in quarantine procedures. Usually there was a slot to provide food to the person in quarantine, which meant that there was probably a weak spot in the cell, but where? Standing in front of the infection forms, Laura ran one hand over the glass, and then to the paneling above it. Success! She crowed mentally when her fingers found the hidden catch.
"Quick, hand me a couple grenades—and get the real guns ready, just in case." Laura waited until the other Spartans were in place before manipulating the panel. Hope this works, she thought, priming the grenades and dropping them in. If we're lucky we won't blow the cell up, if not we're screwed.
John noticed the set of Laura's shoulders: she was uneasy about the plan, which was odd considering it was hers in the first place. There wasn't time to say anything, though, since as soon as she dropped the grenades she bolted to the far side of the room. The explosion was lethal, contained, and quite satisfying—infection forms popped and sizzled, and there appeared to be minimal damage to the containment cells.
"Odd, I was expecting a lot more damage done to the cell," Laura muttered. "Something's not right."
"Right or no, we have a mission to complete," Fred pointed out; Laura rolled her eyes and went to the next cell. The combat forms were her next targets, considering the damage a carrier could do with their suicide attacks. The last things we need are combat forms AND infection forms in one sitting. These were spread out over three different cells, and she knew it would be a lot harder to fool them—they were a bit smarter than the average Flood form. Still, somehow she managed to prime and drop the grenades.
"Two down, three to go," she quipped as she braced herself for the carrier forms. If these blow open the cells, we're SOL. "Everyone ready back there?" John nodded confirmation, and she knew if he was ready, everyone else would be too—he was the kind of person that made sure all areas were secure before moving on to the next room.
Here goes nothing, Laura thought as she dropped the grenades. The explosion was spectacular, and in a matter of minutes the cell was coated in green goo.
"Looks like HALO after I was done with it," John commented approvingly.
"Looks like my room when I was a teenager," she quipped back. "Let's get out of here." Dropping enough evidence to point the blame elsewhere, the team left the room.
"So who're we pinning the blame on?" Linda asked; Laura smirked, the trademark half-smile making her appear slightly diabolical.
"I pointed a finger at insurrectionists, and another one at a separate ONI cell—just enough to confuse the issue. Even if they suspect my involvement, there's not enough proof I was even there. We're as home free as it gets." Laughter rang out as the team boarded the Pelican and headed home.