Tinker, Tailor, Spartan, Spy

by Theonewhodidnotdoit

Jameson Locke has lead an extraordinary life. Every one of his experiences has shaped him, made him the man he is today. But some more than others. From his home on Jericho VII to the snowy, warring slopes of Kamchatka, this is his story.

5. Chapter 5

Tinker, Tailor, Spartan, Spy Chapter 5

Just because the war was over didn't mean that us ONI operatives had less work to do. Quite the opposite. Leading up to the end of the war had been hectic enough, what with securing assets on Reach, carefully regulating public knowledge and panic, and even that monstrous dossier on Thel'Vadamee that ended up being invalidated a month later, but now it was even worse. Everyone in the UNSC was working overtime to get humanity back on its feet before the former Covenant species finished squabbling over their old technology, and ONI was right in the middle of that. There were plans knocking around for all sorts of things, far too many for one person to keep track of. New AI models, a massive capital ship, etc, etc. I had done a great deal of field work prior to the Battle of Earth, earned a promotion to Lieutenant Commander, and was now allowed the luxury of sitting at a desk all day doing paperwork.

In all honesty, I missed the field. As silly as it sounded, I was a man of action. I wanted to do things, make things happen, be on the knife edge of progress. Not signing off orders for the new people who were doing that now. But I'd been doing it long enough to have resigned myself to my fate, despite still being firmly in my youth. It seemed my maturity had peaked way too early, and I was already old.

I had nearly sunk irreversibly into the mire of paper, bureaucracy and promotions by the time the recruiter came to see me. That's what made it such a pleasant surprise.

It started as a new, foreign presence in my timetable, made known to me by the department management AI. It simply read 'Proposition Meeting'. It was odd, but working for ONI made you expect the odd cryptic note or gesture, usually as a way of one section trying to get one over on the other. I shrugged and decided to wait it out.

The recruiter came into my office at 1:02pm, on the 18th of June, 2556. I remember that so vividly because it was a major turning point in my life, perhaps even the biggest. It marked the point at which I decided to become... More.

He was big. I thought of myself as quite a tall person, but he dwarfed me. Maybe not seven foot, but damned close. His head was shaven, showing a tattoo of a fist clutching a bundle of arrows on one side of his head. To top it off, he wore a slightly unsettling smile, giving one the impression that you weren't quite in on his joke yet.

I gestured for him to take a seat, and he did so, never losing the smile.

"Lieutenant Commander Locke?" He asked, with an implacable eastern European accent. I nodded.

"Warrant Officer Jun-A266." He stretched out a hand to me, shaking mine firmly. "I'm here because you have been recommended by one of your superiors for participation in a special project."

"What kind of special project?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Have you ever heard of Spartans?" I took a long, hard look at him. Certain parts of the SPARTAN Projects had been disclosed to the public as a way of regulating panic near the end of the war, pretty much just a way of telling them they still had a hero. Of course, the nitty-gritty details were kept much more closely. Being a Section 3 worker, I was privy to more than the average person, but not much. I'd been allowed under the terms of my employment to access the files on the Spartan deployment to my home planet, Red and Blue teams. Among them, I was surprised to find, was the Master Chief, humanity's saviour himself, attempting to turn back the tide. It hasn't worked, but it was a small comfort that the best of the best had tried and failed to save our planet.

"...Yes, I have heard of the SPARTAN project. Judging by your name and physique, may I presume you were one?"

"It's not possible to simply stop being a Spartan. But yes. I am one."

"And may I ask, what does this have to do with our meeting today?"

"How would you like to be one? A Spartan, I mean."

"...What?"

"Humanity needs heroes right now, Lieutenant, and the higher-ups have greenlit a new, completely ethical Spartan project, taking experienced soldiers with already prodigious capabilities and making them better. You worked as an assassin for years before joining ONI, which is pretty good, performed exceptionally in your field operations during the war, which is better, and have demonstrated a notable inadequacy when it comes to filling out paperwork." I glanced self-consciously down at the papers on my desk, and he chuckled. "The selection process is a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. We want you to be a super-soldier."

"...What would it entail?"

"You'd immediately be transferred from ONI to the brand new Spartan branch, maintaining your rank in dealings with other branches, but with a new one for strictly Spartan affairs."

"That rank being?"

"Just Spartan. All are equal among humanity's warriors, Lieutenant. After the transfer checks out, you'd be taken to a state of the art surgical facility where you would undergo the augmentations, and remain there for the remainder of the rehabilitation period. After that, you're trained in your new capabilities, outfitted with your own suit of armour, and sent to wherever you're needed. I expect that will be torch-and-burn black ops for ONI."

"This is a big decision."

"It is. Augmentations aren't something that you can remove, Lieutenant. You'll change, permanently, in ways that others might look poorly on. That said, I highly recommend it. It's an incredible feeling, though it does dampen your love life somewhat."

"How long do I have to decide?"

"As long as you need." I decided I liked this man a lot better than my current commander. Osman hadn't given me that space. "The project isn't going anywhere soon, Lieutenant, so take your time. When you have your answer, just contact me. I've sent you a message containing the finer details of the procedures."

"Thank you, sir."

"No need to thank me, Lieutenant. Not yet, at least." He smiled again and got up, waving as he walked out the door.

I immediately checked my message folder and read the attached documents until I knew them backwards.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

It took me a week to make up my mind, but perhaps that's the wrong way to put it. It took me a week to admit to myself that the doubts I was having I had conjured out of thin air to stop my accepting the offer immediately. To be a Spartan! One of a whole new breed of soldiers, humanity's best. Not only was it a sure-fire way back into the field, but having all that power, all that strength... I could do so much more for humanity.

I sent Warrant Officer Jun my confirmation, and he sent back a mostly automated, but slightly personalised reply, remarking on a few of my old mission records he'd been able to get his hands on. Apparently, he liked what he saw. Along with it were the time and place details for my pickup. I was advised to bring a minimal amount of clothing, as by the end of the procedures they would no longer fit me.

Strangely, I found that exhilarating. I gathered up a few essentials from my living space along with a copy of my medical records and eagerly awaited the transport.

A standard slipspace journey later, I stepped into the clean, white halls of the "Spartan Factory" as my handler put it. They ushered me through the immaculate corridors into a lecture hall, filled with dozens of other candidates, idly chatting. I took a seat and made small talk, but I was far too excited to concentrate.

After a short time, the lights dimmed, and the door at the front of the hall opened. The room went silent, and every eye watched the person on the other side emerge.

He was wheelchair-bound, his legs visibly thin and atrophied even through the screening layer of his business suit. He was bald, looking perhaps forty in age, though he carried himself with a youthful dignity, and the twinkle in his eye denoted anything but weariness. He wheeled himself to the centre of the stage, and turned to face us. For a moment he was silent. Then:

"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. You may call me Commander Musa. You are here because you are the best men and women the UNSC has. Not only are you all distinguished veterans of the Army, Navy, Air Force and so on, you have each displayed great skill, poise, and honour acting in the steadfast defence of Earth and her colonies." He paused.

"I too, was once selected to fulfil a role similar to that which you have been chosen for. However, the process was not kind to me..." He gestured to his legs, "...And thus I now live as I do. I was one of the original Spartans, ladies and gentlemen, but did not make it to field duty. In that time, it was a great sacrifice to make, one which carried considerable risk. I was lucky. Many did not survive. I, and a few others, did, but could not attain the required state, a pinnacle of human ability. Those that could... They became legends." He turned and began to wheel to one side of the stage.

"You need not fear ending up like me. We are now capable of much greater things, and barring the consequences of your own actions, I promise each and every one of you will see battle again. And though you may not become legends out of necessity, as the Spartans of before did, you will be given ample opportunity to try." He stopped. His voice turned quiet. I strained to hear him.

"With so many of the original Spartans gone, humanity is bereft of heroes..." He smiled widely. "You shall be those heroes."

Our applause was thunderous.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

After the speech came the boring bit. A thorough biological test period. We were told that the new augmentation process was based on chemical and synthetic-organic modification, unlike the old programme, which was more reliant on invasive non-organic implants and coatings. This meant that the process was much safer, but also required a thorough analysis of our own bodies to make the necessary tweaks to the formula, ensuring there would be no rejection of new tissues or adverse reactions to the chemical cocktails they'd be pumping through our veins.

Over the few days it took for them to do that, we pottered around the facility's living quarters, socialising. The overwhelming feeling was excitement. Everyone here was effectively waiting to be made into a superhero. There were a few... Classes, for lack of a better word, on what we might experience after the procedures were complete. We were expected to take a few days to learn how to walk again, than one more to run as we acclimatised our muscles. Our diet was to be strictly controlled and our excretions and activities monitored to make sure our digestion was working as planned. Once fully adjusted, our training would begin.

Soon, we were waiting for our turns in the operating room. One by one, we were called inside. My turn came, and my stomach was alight with butterflies. They lay me down on a table, placed a mask over my face and anaesthetised me. As I slipped in and out of consciousness, I was dimly aware of the doctors coming and going, changing IV bags, putting me under so they could open me up and put something in, take something out. The time passed in a haze, but over the many bouts of surgery I could feel the changes, each coming one by one. One day I suddenly felt my feet dangling over the end of the table, when I'd previously been laid completely on it. Another time I was vaguely aware that my gut sat differently. Yet another, my vision was suddenly clearer, sharp and focused.

After a total period of what we later found out had been three days, it was finally over. I awoke clear-headed for what felt like the first time in forever. Instantly, there was someone at my side, telling me to take it slow, only to move when I felt I could, etcetera. They helped me sit up, and I was struck by my own height. Even sat on a low hospital bed, I towered over the doctors.

A few of us were more arrogant than the others, and instantly tried to be up and about. With a completely reworked nervous system, new centre of gravity, enhanced muscles and a newfound breadth that left them extremely liable to bump into things, they didn't get far. After that, we took it slow, learning how to move and tense again. Eating was surprisingly difficult too, many a Spartan crushing cutlery and drink cartons by accident. It was a humbling feeling, having so much power but with the coordination of a baby.

As we got more confident in our bodies, we moved more, and that was when the humble mentality began to fade. As our balance improved, our friendly races across the indoor plaza turned from waddles into jogs, and then from jogs into sprints. And we kept getting faster... There were weightlifting competitions too, again starting light, though not quite as light as the running, and moving onto duplicates of our already quite prodigious new weights.

Faster and faster, stronger and stronger. Some greeted the new power with incredulity, some even with fear. How far could we push ourselves? When would we cap out? What about when we got into the suits? Exactly how much power could we wield, and were we fit to do so?

The abysmal failure that was the first combat training exercise was a pleasing trip back to the ground. We'd been pitted against regular marines, no special equipment, just stun rounds on both sides, and though admittedly heavily outnumbered, we had been crushed. Asking a lot of us about it would have gotten you answers along the lines of tactical errors, or guerrilla warfare gone wrong, but what actually happened was that we all ran in different directions, and got picked off one by one. Once again, incredibly humbling. I personally was picked off whilst attempting to flank a small group of our adversaries, after a fellow Spartan leaping between the tops of the environmental blocks behind me drew attention to my position. I took three down with me. Not nearly enough.

Commander Musa was not pleased to say the least. We were given a long speech on the meaning of teamwork, our human vulnerability, and so on. Superhuman we were, invincible we were not. Surprisingly, we took it to heart. There was something rather sincere about Musa. The way he spoke to us, it was almost like a disappointed father. Like he had expected so much more from us, hoped we'd exceed his expectations. You wanted to help him, even if the feeling was slightly creepy. I found myself musing whether it was because he wished he could have been a fully-fledged Spartan. Perhaps he wanted us to be better than his generation. Perhaps he thought of this as his way of defending Earth, not with his own gun, but by the creation of a new breed of fighters. I shared this with my squadmates over dinner, and was met with sullen nods.

The next training session went very differently. In my squad of five, there was one casualty. The fifty marines pitted against us went down by the dozen. The other fire teams did well, though not nearly as well as us. There was a feeling of pride, of power, in our victory. That with our new strength, we could still use the methods of the ordinary soldier, and become better for it. Pretty soon the other teams caught on, and we were sweeping the marines without any casualties on our side. The Commander started issuing different weapons, to us and the marines, seeing how we coped in different combat scenarios. Outside the training area, scientists with clipboards and datapads noted down quirks, events, anything of note. Apparently they were trying to determine what model of armour we'd be given further down the line. One of us even managed to get ahold of a few supply manifests on the different Mjolnir variations. There were a staggering amount, each more exotic than the last, each specialised to a different theatre of war. Late at night, some of us would cluster around our resident hacker, peering over their shoulder as they showed off wireframe blueprints for some of the suits. Watching from afar, it looked like children poring over a toy catalogue.

"I hope I get that one..."

"Man, that looks cool..."

"Wow, look at that helmet. What the hell is that horn meant to be?"

Of course, it didn't take long for Warrant Officer Jun to catch wind of it, and he confiscated the data. However, he didn't chastise anyone.

"You won't have to wait much longer." He said with a smirk. "But you won't be operating the fancy stuff just yet. You have to prove you can handle the basics first."

Despite the warning to temper our expectations, the kids with a catalogue simile got a lot more apt after that, because it rapidly became a lot like the run-up to Christmas. Unrepentant, our hacker managed to download some specs for the basic Mjolnir model, designation RECRUIT. This time, he spread the data around so we wouldn't be seen colluding, and I'll admit, I spent a good few ours scrutinising it. It was basic, yes, but the statistics were incredible. The suit amplified our strength to eight times our normal capacity, linked in through our new, specialised neural interfaces to drop our reaction time to ridiculous levels, and weighed in at two hundred and sixty kilograms. The armour plating was almost immune to small arms fire, with a thick, high-capacity energy shield and dissipative thermal gel layer for absorbing all but the heaviest plasma damage. It could survive an exoatmospheric reentry. It was practically a weapon of mass destruction.

And that was just the model that still had the training wheels on. Unbelievable. There were variants that served as full-size battlenet nodes, could completely mask the wearer's appearance on almost any known portable sensor system, and even one that could meld the user's consciousness with an onboard AI, allowing for nothing less than brutal battlefield efficiency. And the technology was constantly improving, with more and more corporations trying their hand at building new models every day, all of them competing for the UNSC's attention and funding. A lot of investment was going into this new Spartan programme, into us. It struck me how high their hopes must have been for us to succeed. The pressure to meet those expectations eased off a fair bit when we first stepped into the suits.

One morning, we were instructed to meet the supervisors in the cargo bay. Inside, we found a team of engineers building some kind of rack, composed of several separate bays, each sprouting inward-facing robotic arms and winches. As soon as we arrived, we were given metallic jumpsuits and told to get dressed. The Mjolnirs had arrived, fresh off the assembly line.

After awkwardly and excitedly clawing our way inside them, we stepped into the racks, and the robotics went to work. The boots rose from the floor, clasping around my feet like a mollusc, the rack's many arms clipping, bolting and fastening heavy metal plates all over my body. The chestpiece descended in two parts, connecting together and encasing my chest in hyperdense alloy. One by one, the parts connected and powered on, shield emitters lighting up, diagnostic systems thrumming. I could feel them all, tingling on the edge of my mind through my neural link, a hive of activity surging just above my skin.

At last, the helmet came down over my head, neatly meeting the lip of the bodysuit and pressurising with a soft hiss. For a moment, I waited in darkness, staring out through a blank, glassy visor. I then felt a wave pass through the suit, and the HUD powered up, presenting a clean blue view of the world.

The rack deactivated and set me down. I stepped out, and once again, it struck me how big I was now. The suit had given me another inch or so, and the engineers around me looked positively diminutive. There was the feeling of my weight, too. My every movement felt... Heavy, as one would expect if you were carrying forty-kilo weights on each limb. But despite their weight, I still felt incredibly fast, incredibly powerful. Like I could wrestle a wildebeest, outrun a horse, flip a Warthog with my finger. It was one hell of a rush. I looked up from myself to see engineer approaching me.

"Don't worry if it's not all you were expecting, Spartan, the training wheels are still on. First-time users have been known to hurt themselves if we leave the force multipliers and neurokinetics on full blast." Under the helmet, my eyes went wide. I struggled to keep my voice measured.

"It gets better?" She grinned.

"That's the spirit. Now, I'm reading clean diagnostics, but I'm getting some gyroscopic calibration errors." She held up a PDA with a glowing red light, raising it above her head. "Please look at this light..."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

After fiddling with the suit controls for a while, managing to make my body coordinate in a number of unsettling ways, we were walked to the training room in groups. Inside were bits of reinforced gym equipment, clearly built to test our capabilities. Me and the other few who accompanied me began, slowly at first, then accelerating. Inbuilt speedometers and coordimetric systems tracked our every move, cataloging every exertion. We ran on treadmills, watching in amazement as the numbers climbed to inhuman levels, filled dumbbells to their limit with the biggest weights we could find and tossed them about like juggler's balls. The testers watched from afar and slowly, they released the restrictions. Our strength grew so much that we ran out of weights to test with, and had to start lifting each other, much to the researchers' amusement. We threw bars of steel at one another and plucked them out of the air like they were moving in slow motion. More newly armoured Spartans joined over time, gradually being brought up to speed and revelling in the novelty. It was perhaps the most unconventional fun I've ever had.

But all good things must come to an end. We left the room completely drunk on power, so much so that it was jarring to go back to just being an Olympic athlete when the suits were removed, rather than a flat-out superhero. There was a toast to Commander Musa in the bar that night, to the wonderful gift he'd given us all and the green Earth that we'd protect with it. It was a heartening sight, but one couldn't help but fear for what we might do without proper caution. But proper combat training would remedy that. Everything else in the project had been handled impeccably, and I had no doubt this would be too. That night, we drank, and none of us could wait for the morning.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Several weeks later, we departed the facility, fresh-faced and ready for action. Whilst we drew a great many funny looks from the locals on our way to the spaceport, as a group of muscle-bound, seven-foot squaddies are bound to do, very few of us cared. We all left with a sense of purpose.

Most of us were being posted to the UNSC Infinity, the new super-warship being sent out to scout unknown Forerunner installations. A few among us were going into security for important dignitaries or researchers, and I was on my way back to ONI. Not to resume duties, mind you. I was officially part of the Spartan branch now. That didn't mean Osman couldn't boss me around, though.

No, I was heading back to receive my parting gift from the organisation. ONI had a hand in the new Spartan branch as much as any of the other agencies, and in this case, it was to do with our use in special operations. And special operations require special equipment. And that just happened to be the speciality of ONI's manufacturing department, the Watershed Division. I was going to pick up a specialised prototype suit designed specifically for the kind of missions I usually undertook. Then, I'd be jumping onto a Prowler and heading off to fix more of the UEG's problems.

Once at the spaceport, we said our fond goodbyes, and headed off to our shuttles. I was being escorted to the Watershed Division testing laboratories in Tau Ceti, whilst they were off to Earth, probably for a few weeks of leave groundside before the Infinity set sail.

Oddly enough, I was happy to be missing that. I wanted to get back in the field. It had been a long time, and once you've been doing it one enough, like I had, a lack of action became an unbearable itch. Some people were haunted by the wars they'd seen. Others missed them. I was one of the latter individuals.

I boarded the Prowler, and was surprised to find myself allocated a cabin to myself. Then I realised why, as my head scraped the ceiling of the main passenger compartments. Once there, I settled down, and began reading my briefing packet. Operation: DELHI. Asset denial against entrenched New Colonial Alliance forces. Requisitions: A set of HUNTER-class Mjolnir GEN2 Powered Assault Armour, BR85 service rifle, M57 Pilum rocket launcher, and twelve remote detonation explosive charges. Fancy stuff. Skimming the rest of the report, I got to the part I was interested in. The suit.

A prototype, but well past the buggy stage of testing. Fitted with the most advanced warfighting technology in human space, as well as a neurally-integrated, top-of-the-line threat assessment/prioritisation subroutine linked to ARTEMIS-class tracking hardware. Graphite black, resolute and slender; sophisticated and lethal in equal measures. I could see myself wearing it for a long time.

Take-off began, and I put myself through the motions. Sit down, seatbelt, pinch of powdered ginger for space-sickness. I soon found myself rereading the briefing. This was a one-man mission. The opposition was a full Insurrectionist garrison, no doubt armed to the teeth. Previously, I would have called that a suicide mission, but now I wasn't sure. It was still obviously a risky mission, and I'd do well to approach with stealth and caution, but if they found me... I almost felt I could hold my own. Dozens of men, armed and vying to kill me, a single target. And I felt I could take them.

Was this arrogance? I legitimately wasn't sure. I was strong, yes, but how strong? How far could I push myself? What, on the field of battle, could I consider courage, and in turn, what would recklessness be?

"Take it slow, Jameson." I told myself. "Live and learn."

Reading it again, more questions arose. I was being deployed on this mission in the same way one might deploy a Scorpion tank. Was I just that? A weapon? A tool? In a way, I had been since I signed up with ONI, so it was a bit late to be having doubts about that. I knew the NCA was a dangerous, violent militia, and had to be stamped out, but what would the Spartan branch have me doing after this? Would I be a hammer, striking down with great force on the slightest of irregularities, or a scalpel, as I had once been, excising the cancer from the Galaxy? Probably the former, as I was a bit big for infiltration missions now. Was that so bad? What exactly was my purpose now?

We accelerated, and I braced for the trip up into the sky, breaching escape velocity and for a brief moment, floating in place before the gravity generators kicked in. The briefing packet fell open in front of me as it dropped back down to the table. A word stuck out at me. Hunter.

...Yes. I was a hunter. I had been since I was young. Hunting the truth, hunting for vengeance, hunting the truth. And now, clad in steel and fuelled by starfire, I hunted the enemies of the UNSC. By degrees, working at ONI had brought me over to their side. If any human organisation was fit to manage our space, it was the UEG. That didn't mean it was always right, or always did its job properly, but it was the best we had. And that made it worth protecting.

I am Spartan Jameson Locke, hunter of the enemies of humanity. If you would do innocent people harm, I will track you down. I will find you, and I will deal with you by any means necessary. Despots, warlords, villains of the cosmos, you would do well to know my name. For I will be swift, and without mercy. For I will hunt you to the ends of the universe.