"You still haven't told me, Reclaimer, who you are."
They were heading back down the hill. Martta—the Monitor—had offered John a lift on her bicycle; he had declined, and was jogging alongside, hair still damp from the water, wetsuit drying as it flapped around on his backpack.
"You haven't told me who you are."
"I've told you that I'm the Monitor of this Installation. If you must know, I am 139 Fated Bairn, monitor of the Temparium," said the Monitor. "And I've explained how I ended up looking like this."
In short: Martta Johannsbur, a four-year-old daughter of the first wave of colonists, had fallen from the cliff-edge by the Old Wizard sixty years ago. She bled to death on the rocks in about ten minutes. By nightfall, the Wizard's Engineers had saved her body, but her mind was beyond repair. The Monitor, with an empty human body and a need to understand its new neighbours, made best use of the resources available. It annexed Martta's human body, acquired her identity, and carried on with her life.
"Who else knows about you?" the Chief asked. "Who knows what happened?"
"Just you, I think," said the Martta-Monitor. She gave John a glance, before returning her eyes to the road.
For a moment, John wondered about the other John. The one who had been downloaded into a copy of his body, acquired his identity, and carried on with his life. He shivered—but maybe that was the cold.
"What do you know about the Installation?" Martta asked.
"That's classified."
"So you do know something about it?"
"That's classified."
"Who are you?" The Monitor was getting tetchy. "And don't tell me that's classified. I can work it out."
John kept his lips sealed.
"You're obviously military, or ex military, I can tell that from the gear and the size of you," Martta said. "Your neural bridge would suggest UNSC. You're obviously not from Fordlandia, or I would've seen you before. Your accent is currently Euro-American, but I suspect you are not. I can tell from the scars on your forearms that you've been altered or mutated in some way. And you've given me a name that sounds like a cover."
"It's my real name."
"What's your last name, then? Am I supposed to believe your real name is just John?"
John didn't know the answer to that. He wasn't sure he wanted to. He could give his SPARTAN candidate number, of course, but history showed him that would raise even more eyebrows.
"It's just John."
"John Smith? John Doe?"
"Just John," said John. "It's the only name I use. It's the only one that matters."
Martta—the Monitor—didn't ask him again. Presumably she realised it was a lost cause. Or maybe she sussed that he was telling her the truth. It was hard to tell. The Master Chief had been trained in reading body language, and de-escalation, but that didn't mean he was any good at it. And he couldn't tell if a Monitor (a computer? ancilla?) in a human body would behave in the same way as a normal person.
Whatever a normal person was.
"There's no word in your language for what the Installation does," said the Monitor. "None of the words you have seemed to fit exactly, so I made one up. It is a Temparium."
"But what does it do?" John didn't have enough information to make sense of the name.
"It's a register that absorbs events. An archive of everything. It collects memories and events, organises them, puts them in a state where they can be retrieved."
"Retrieved by who?" asked the Master Chief.
"Retrieved by whoever comes here," said Martta, "such as you. You're the first visitor I've had in a while. The first Reclaimer in even longer."
"How does it absorb events?"
"There aren't the words in your language to explain it. Events happen, people witness them, they become part of the Temparium." It was hard to tell if Martta's—139 Fated Bairn's—tone was impatient, or apologetic. "It just happens. It doesn't really matter how."
They passed the school again. Forcefield-fence buzzing. It occurred to John that his school would probably be in the Temparium, just as his mom was.
"So, tell me," said 139 Fated Bairn. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing," he replied.
"And yet you came here—"
"I mean, I am literally here to do nothing," said the Master Chief. "I'm on shore leave. Vacation."
"So you are military," said the Monitor. Suspicious. "You're not carrying an ancilla, are you? An artificial intelligence?"
John avoided eye contact. Did not respond, because the answer was too painful.
"I will find out if you are, John. It's a security breach. The Temparium has failsafes against ancilla intrusions. It could shake itself apart—"
"No," he replied, through gritted teeth.
"Thank you," the Monitor said, relieved, annoyed. "So, what's your name? Your right name?"
"Like I said," said John. "It's just John."
"And you don't have a rank, a rate, a designation...?"
"Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117."
At that, Martta kicked backwards on the pedals of her bike. The coaster brake squealed, and she stood, baffled, in front of the Master Chief.
"You're the Master Chief?"
John nodded. Knowing this was revealing classified information to a Forerunner construct; knowing Martta, or 139 Fated Bairn, would have found out sooner or later anyway. He had already told the four ODSTs in the bar yesterday.
"You don't look as tall as you look in the posters and the vids," she said. "And your face..."
"You didn't see my face on the posters," said John. "You saw my armor."
"Of course," said the Monitor. "Humans are fragile and squishy and vulnerable to infection. Why would they portray you as human?"
John blinked. But he knew she was right. The first he'd heard about the campaign featuring 'the Master Chief, defender of Earth and her colonies' had been when he'd seen a poster in Mombasa. And it could've been anyone behind the armor in the picture. Definitely not him.
"I'm surprised you've heard of me," he told Martta.
"Well, to all intents and purposes, I am human," she replied. "I just happen to be the Monitor of the Installation as well. I'm an ancilla, I can multitask. But I know about human culture, your human affairs. I just happen to be old enough to remember it from first time around, too."
"First time around?"
"Long story," said Martta. "We'll get to the town soon." She re-mounted her bike, and let gravity take its course, as John broke back into a gentle trot.
"I should report this," he said.
"I'd threaten you with death," replied Martta, "but I assume many people have tried that."
They passed the railway station as a freight train rolled through, rails singing and wheels howling as the track curved.
"I'm surprised you're not staying at Aalborg Haven," said the Monitor.
"Would you stay on a Halo installation if you were on vacation?"
"Fair point," Martta said.
"I'm staying with two guests we had on my ship," said John, in answer to her original remark.
"Any plans?"
"No," John replied.
"You can come back," said Martta. "If you want. I'll leave it up to you if you tell anyone else about it, as long as you're not putting my Installation at risk."
John remained silent. If he told Hadid—told Lasky—about that, he couldn't guarantee the Temparium would be unspoiled. If he told Halsey, he could guarantee it would be.
"I have to ask," he said, as they neared the Town Square, deserted: "why?"
"Why what?"
"Why does it exist? What purpose does it serve?"
"You've seen for yourself," said the Monitor. "Reclaimers have fragile memories. The Forerunner, too, and they lived longer. The Temparium is what happened. Nothing more, nothing less."
As had that moment with his mom on the beach.
"Come back tonight," said 139 Fated Bairn, "same time, same place. And Reclaimer—Master Chief—I can show you as much as you want."
With that, Martta turned right, across the Town Square, and glided precisely down one of the cobbled alleys. Presumably towards her house.
The Master Chief blinked. Not quite sure he believed what he had just witnessed.
He strode back down Regnebuegåde, and let himself back into the yellow-bricked house.
"Enjoy your late-night swim?" asked Hadid.
John grimaced. Of course she knew. She would've been keeping an eye on the location of his neural lace.
"Yes, ma'am," said the Master Chief.
"Good," the Professor smiled. "Glad you're enjoying the change of scenery."
John put a foot on the staircase. Stepped upwards.
A sudden, heavy pain in his head, and a weight in his legs.
He took another step. And another—
and fell backwards, as he stepped onto a stair that wasn't there.
His back landed hard on the wooden flooring, his head just missing the skirting board.
"Oh dear," Hadid said, rushing to his side. "You OK?"
"Fine," John lied—and realised that the world around him seemed a little sluggish.
Hadid reached to help him up. Sniffed. She could smell something on his breath. The concern in her eyebrows melted into a frown.
"How much did they give you last night?" she asked. Gentle—as she always was—but clearly pissed.
"A shot of whiskey." And a tiny bit of Nub-Lite, as horrible as it was.
"Easy does it," said the Professor, helping John to right himself. "Any pain?"
John shook his head—although that hurt.
"Is this normal?" he asked Hadid.
"Is what normal?"
"Feeling like I can barely walk after one shot of whiskey?"
"Depends how much you normally drink," Hadid replied.
"Not at all."
"Well, there you have it."
She helped John up the stairs, one by one. Step by step. Slowly. Not really taking the whole of his body weight (not that she could) but helping him keep purchase on the walls and the bannister.
The door to the Stjernbergs' room was closed. So was the door to Hadid's guest room.
The door to John's attic guest room, though, was ajar—not how John had left it.
And on the bed, under a messy tangle of bedsheets and blankets, laid a white-skinned man with a mess of red hair and green eyes.
"OK," Hadid said to herself. Sighing. Tutting.
John blinked.
O'Brien registered who was there—and practically leaped out of the bed as if it was electrified.
"Sir," he said, snapping into a stand, in front of the Master Chief and Professor Hadid. As naked as the day he was born, which he had only now realised, reaching frantically for the bedsheet to salvage his modesty. (Not originally from Fordlandia, then, thought John.)
"Who the hell are you?" demanded Hadid.
"Private First Class Clive O'Brien. Ma'am."
"What are you doing here?"
"Ma'am—"
"Professor," said the Master Chief, holding his hand up to defuse the tension. "He's OK, he probably came with our hosts."
Professor Gudrun Hadid gave a deep, exasperated sigh.
"Get your pants on and get out of here," she snapped.
"Ma'am—" and here O'Brien tightened his grip around the sheet, shielding his crotch— "I think my pants are downstairs. In Anne and Kurt's room."
"So, go downstairs," Hadid told him, "get your pants from Anne and Kurt's room, then go away."
"Yes. Ma'am. Sir."
Hadid waited for O'Brien to scurry away and for his footsteps to retreat downstairs before turning to John and mouthing: "what just happened?"
John yawned. Realised it hurt. Remained slack-jawed. Breathing uneven. Dazed.
"Is this what people do?" he asked.
"They got him drunk."
Captain Lasky almost spat out his coffee.
"They WHAT?"
"Well, not very drunk. Just slightly tipsy. Enough to trip up on the stairs. He didn't feel the effects until he got home."
Tom caught Commander Palmer's eye. Made an accentuated grimace. Her eyes widened—maybe as it clocked to her exactly what Professor Hadid had just said.
"He's alright," the Professor continued. "One very strong shot of whisky and some beer. A little headache, but he'll be fine. His biochemistry hasn't had time to adapt to drinking, things are going to be a bit weird."
"And here was me, going cold turkey for two weeks," said Lasky.
"I told you it was a lost cause," smirked Palmer.
"Apparently a squad of ODSTs from the base at Aalborg Haven were involved," Hadid continued. "I've contacted the base commander. She's assured me they'll be dealt with."
"Does Halsey know about this?" Palmer asked.
"Not yet."
At this, Palmer whispered to Lasky across the table. "Keep her in the dark until we get back. I want to see her face."
Lasky smirked. Forced. Uneasy.
"He will be OK, though? When we come back?"
"He'll be fine," Hadid repeated.
"He'll be fine, Tom," whispered Sarah. In reassurance. Lasky knew that was what was happening—he accepted it.
"How are things on your end?"
Lasky blinked. He'd momentarily forgotten that this was a two-way conversation. Or maybe that was his way of putting off delivering the big news:
"Lord Hood has gone missing," he said, the words landing at the bottom of his vocal range. "We've not heard from him or from Osman for eighteen hours. They didn't say they were going out of contact, they just... disappeared."
Lasky took a deep breath when he'd finished. Steadied himself against his desk.
"OK. Tom, I don't want you to panic," came Hadid's voice through the box. "Maybe the scrambler is damaged and they're waiting for an Engineer to repair it. Maybe they've had a power failure on whatever ship or planet they're holed up on—"
"I know, Gudrun, it's probably nothing, but still. It's... shit." Lasky sat, locked his hands behind his head, and stretched. Stared at the ceiling while talking into the box. "I just don't see how we got here, and I don't see how I'm supposed to be in charge of all this now."
"You and me both," said Hadid. "That reminds me. I need to speak to Doctor Jemison."
"They're doing a good job in your absence," Lasky replied.
"I know, but I also regret leaving them in the shit."
"It's like a baptism of fire, it'll be good for them," interjected Palmer.
"A clean-cut junior with ambition but a lack of leadership experience gets thrown in at the deep end when their boss disappears," said Lasky. "Sounds familiar."
Palmer smirked at that. He heard Hadid issue a filtered snort through the box.
Once the call had ended, Palmer regarded Lasky for longer than he felt comfortable.
"Well?"
"Do you really think the beard's working for you?"
The Captain sighed. He felt his face flush red and stroked it instinctively. Maybe it was getting long in the tooth.
"I haven't had time," he said. "Always something else to do."
"You need to take the time to look after yourself, Tom." Palmer came around the table, pulled up a seat next to Lasky's, and sat. "I miss our running excursions."
"I miss having the energy to do it."
"Tom, you give so much to other people and to trying to run this damn ship that you forget to give yourself the chance to switch off. And we notice. The crew notices."
"We're in a crisis," said Lasky. Averting his eyes, staring at the scrambler box on the table. At the time. At his shoes.
"You remind me of the Chief," Palmer said, after a long pause.
Lasky pursed his lips. A polite smile, maybe. A scoff.
"What's up with you and him?" she queried, after a pause. She'd had to think before asking the question.
"In what way?"
"You tell me. You seem very protective of him."
"I'm protective of all my crew," said Lasky, with only a hint of irony and on a down tone of exasperation. "He's my crew, he's very valuable, he is a war hero. I want to protect him."
"He's my crew too," Sarah reminded the Captain. "Let me rephrase. You take an unusually hands-on approach with the Master Chief's welfare and health. What's the personal interest?"
"It's not an old man's fantasies, if that's what you're asking."
"Tom, you're 47, you're not old." Palmer leaned forward. A smile cracking on her face. Then pulling back as Lasky's face went red again, and she realised she was heading into uncomfortable territory. "But I wasn't thinking of that."
"You know I've known him since I was a kid at Corbulo? Since we were both kids?"
"Only vaguely," said Palmer. "You never did tell me the details."
Lasky sighed. "I can tell you if you like," he said.
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"It's fine. I already... when Anne and Kurt asked if I'd do a piece to camera—"
"Oh." Palmer seemed surprised. "They asked you, too?"
"Doctor Hallam?"
Halsey took a few seconds to realise they were talking to her.
"Come," she barked, not looking up from the desk.
The door to Custody Suite 4 opened. "You have a visitor," said the duty officer.
"Send them in," replied Halsey, without even looking up. She wasn't going to entertain the officer's indignance with a glance. Nor even a 'please' or 'thank you.'
"How are we?" Professor Hadid asked, once the cell door had been closed behind her.
"I've got nothing new, if that's what you came here to ask."
"That is not what I asked, Catherine. I asked how you were."
"Fine. Fine," she said, turning to face Hadid for the first time, tapping her hand impatiently on the table. "That's how I am. I'm fine."
"Just fine?"
"Well, I can't be anything else, can I? I can't leave. I can't even use my own name."
"You asked to be here, Catherine," the Professor told her. Measured tones as she pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose, and scanned the desk. "You've been busy."
Halsey did not respond. She let her work speak for itself: a large sheet of paper, criss-crossed with lines connecting vertices, sketches, nodes, scrawled handwriting. Like the work of a conspiracy theorist—or just how Halsey's mind worked.
At the centre, a massive letter 'C,' with nodes sprouting from it. 'Mantle's Approach.' 'Meridian.' 'Barnard's Star.' A further offshoot, a cloud of question marks. A drawn box on the edge: '1 shard = Cortano; 2+ shards = Cortani."
"One Cortana fragment is a Cortano," Hadid read. "I'm not sure it'll catch on."
"Well, it's all I've got." Halsey said. "There's nothing on here that Infinity's science team don't already know. It's a mind-mapping technique. I'm trying to organise my thoughts. It's all I can do."
"You could've stayed on the ship."
"And I'm not leaving John alone again," she replied. "I'm not leaving him in danger."
"Doctor, this is the safest colony we can reach right now. And I don't know if you've noticed, but this police station's main business is in parking fines and stolen bicycles," replied Hadid. "This is the safest place that John can be right now."
"Then why won't you let me see him?"
"He's off-duty," the Professor replied. "If he wants to see you, he'll come and visit. He doesn't have to. He doesn't owe you anything."
Halsey's eyes flared. "That's not what I said—" she started.
"It's what was implied, Catherine," said Hadid.
Halsey stared into her mind map for a moment. Turned about in the desk chair.
Professor Hadid had a quality to her that Dr Halsey had not seen since Admiral Parangosky, or Colonel Ackerson. A quality that gave her a profound, instant enmity towards the Professor. It was hard to pin down why. With Hadid, Halsey had decided that she disliked her impeccable dress sense. Her perfectly pressed outfits, the way her headscarves fell over her shoulder 'just so,' her glasses—she was always immaculate where Halsey was scatty and disorganised. And as pathetic as Halsey knew it was, this made her angry.
"What do you think of me, Hadid?" she asked.
Hadid smiled, in that insufferable way she did, and answered her question with another question.
"What kind of question is that, Catherine?"
"What it says," Halsey replied. "What kind of person do you think I am?"
The Professor sighed.
"That's complicated," she replied.
"Damn right it's complicated." Halsey seemed to spit the last word out. Syllable by syllable. "Because just so we're clear, I know that what I've done is terrible. And yes, I feel guilt, and there is not a single day when I do not wake up and regret what I did to John and—"
Hadid held her palm upright.
"I know, Catherine."
"Do you? Really? Do you know what it's like?" Halsey stood. Nostrils flared. "I don't think you do. And I regret what I had to do every single day. Every time I see the boy I met forty years ago, encased in a giant exoskeleton. I regret it. Every waking minute."
"Are you expecting me to forgive you?" asked Hadid. "Is this an apology?"
Dr Halsey had no answer to that.
"You're not owed forgiveness, Catherine," she continued. "And in any case, it isn't mine to give."
"I know," Halsey replied. Sat. Shook her head at the wall, confounded by herself. Confounded by her unfounded dislike for Professor Hadid—whose only crime, after all, had been to keep her in check, and to make steps towards actually reintegrating John into society.
"Have you finished?"
She nodded. And after a pause: "How is he?"
"Well enough," replied Hadid, with a smile. "He spent the morning practicing his recorder and resting. He went out last night, got pretty—"
"Went out?" Halsey, incredulous. "Out, or out out?"
"Mr Stjernberg and Mrs Møller took him out to a bar. Apparently they ended up at a club, but John didn't stay very long," Hadid replied. "He did not partake in the..." and here she paused, searching for a word that would be appropriate, "...exploits."
"By 'exploits,'" demanded Halsey, "do you mean the fact those two seem to be nymphomianiacs, or are we talking about those interviews on camera they seem to want everyone to do?"
Over almost five years of doing nothing but sending distress signals, I had plenty of time to watch and listen.
There wasn't much there. No radio transmissions: so we were more than seven hundred light years from Earth, before humans started making radio transmissions. No alien transmissions. Just distorted echoes on subspace, nothing that was good enough for me to clean up and make a message out of.
So all I could do was watch you, and listen to you, and watch the stars as we drifted through the void.
I could listen to your neural lace. It wasn't the same as being in there—being inside your head, being part of you—but it was a different perspective on what your mind was doing, while mine was working its way into the dust. I listened to your dreams.
Listening to Infinity's computers, by comparison, was easy. No need to decipher brainwaves when there were files there for the taking.
I found the pieces Hadid had been teaching you. Classics. Sakura. Frère Jacques. Green and Blue. Greensleeves. The main melody line from Pachelbel's Canon in D. Some Debussy, although she'd had some doubts about that (in a note to herself: 'Will Halsey have played this?') Some early-millennium record-era stuff, too. Feeling Good. What's Up. Perfect Day. I Would Die 4 U. Holding Out For A Hero. Even one called Halo. The Professor clearly had a sense of humour.
There was more in your file. The ship's network tracking your neural lace, capturing your movements around the ship as you ran from place to place. To the lockers, to polish your weapons. To Hadid's office, for your music therapy sessions. To the S-deck, to run the drill sessions. To the War Games chamber, to punch your way through simulated Prometheans and fire pretend rockets at a pretend Warden.
And then you ran, and ran, and ran. Ran the length of Infinity, and back. Down the staircases, and up. And along again. Not letting anything stop you.
And then, invariably, back home, to the little cabin they'd given you. For privacy, mainly. Palmer had insisted that you should have your own space where you couldn't be bothered for autographs and selfies, and Lasky had kicked himself for not thinking of that before. The eventual solution was to deposit four pre-fabricated containers in a shared dead-end corridor on the S-deck. One for Linda, one for Frederic, one for Kelly, one for you—it was only fair.
I listened for the floor plans. They looked nice. A bed. An en-suite shower large enough for you. Not a five-star hotel, but more luxury and privacy than you'd had in your life.
But then I listened to the attachments on your file. There was the video marked highly restricted by Professor Hadid... so, of course, I downloaded it. Watched it. Ingested it.
And I saw something I almost wished I hadn't.
John had not been expecting the wine to have a fizz. He liked it, though. Less aggressive, softer than the harsh carbonation of the Nub-Lite. And it didn't taste like a toxic substance, unlike the scotch from last night.
"That's nice," he had told Anne.
"There you go," she had replied. Turned to Kurt. "Told you. Wine person."
Three bottles later, Kurt leaned in John's direction and said, "I wonder if I can ask you something."
Normally, John would've dialed back his snark, restrained himself, and said simply, 'yes.'
Today, he said, "you already have. But shoot."
That made Anne and Kurt snort with laughter.
"I was thinking of a project I want to do," Kurt said. "A sculpture project. And I wanted to see if you'd be interested?"
"What kind of sculpture project?"
Kurt took a pen from his shirt pocket, and drew something out on a paper napkin. A wall, with a human figure in relief—and something boxy, angular, but also roughly humanoid next to it, also in relief.
"I want to say something about the link between human and machine. What makes us people," he said. "What part of us is human."
"I'm not sure I understand," John said.
"Well," replied Kurt, "the idea is, I show a cast of a Spartan. The person inside the machine, the machine as part of the person. Alongside. To make people think."
"A Spartan?"
"You," said Kurt.
John blinked. "You want me to—" and here he struggled to articulate— "you want me to do what?"
"Kurt's asking if you'd consider modelling for him," Anne said. "As part of this installation."
At this, she gave a side-eyed glance towards Kurt. Smirking, almost. Eyes drilling into his.
John didn't know how to respond to that.
"You don't have to," Kurt said, quickly, "but I thought it might be thought-provoking. Provocative—"
At this point, a sudden pop came from the speaker set-up in Hogarth's Place. John flicked his eyes over—the bartender waved an apology as she plugged in another patch cable.
"Karaoke night," said Anne.
John winced. Not long ago, there had been a karaoke night in the bar on the S-Deck—even from his small cabin on the far end of the deck, he'd heard it. (Later that evening, he had dressed himself in an EVA suit and left Infinity by a nearby airlock.)
"You were saying," he continued to Kurt.
"I think it might be cool," Kurt continued. "That's all. And I feel like there's something interesting to be said in how people perceive you. The man beyond the machine."
"What does modelling entail?" John asked.
Anne smirked at this.
"Well. I was thinking I want to take a relief," Kurt said. "So that would mean making a cast of you, then using that to create the sculpture. You wouldn't need to sit for hours—"
"He'll need to stand perfectly still for at least an hour, naked, while you cover him in plaster," Anne interrupted, "and then in the same position for another hour while it dries."
"Two hours," said Kurt. "Not long."
"You said he wouldn't need to sit for hours—"
"Do you speak from experience?" John asked Anne.
Kurt made a wicked grin. "Ouch," he said. "That hurts."
"True, though," Anne laughed, and kissed him.
John blinked. He had had enough of the rosé that when he moved his head, or blinked, it took longer than usual for him to realise what was happening, or for him to see the effect. It was a bizarre experience. Floaty. Almost like being in MJOLNIR when the systems were under stress and queued up your bio-impulses to keep up—
Normally, he would've said yes to whatever Anne and Kurt suggested. He was their guest, after all; he was also used to saying yes.
But just for now, he realised, he didn't need to decide immediately.
"I'll think about it," the Master Chief said to Kurt, and finished his glass of wine.
Lasky was almost regretting giving his alcohol stash to Palmer for safe-keeping.
"It won't last," he had grinned to her then. "I don't care where you keep it, as long as it's in escrow and out of my reach. Unless I really need it."
"When would you really need it?"
"Don't know," Lasky had said, with a shrug.
Spartan Palmer had cocked her head, and bent down to pick up the two crates of whiskies, rums and wines Lasky had accrued over the last two years.
"Are you sure you're going to be OK with that?" the Captain had asked, to fill the silence.
"Don't know," Palmer had replied, lifting them effortlessly. "It's heavy. I might struggle." She'd winked, turned in something that was almost a pirouette, and left the room, MJOLNIR servos squeaking, carrying the crates as if they were feathers.
He almost regretted it—but now, as he lay on the couch in Palmer's stateroom, he was relieved there'd been a whole bottle of single malt preserved for tonight. Lasky's head hurt already, and he didn't care. It had helped him talk matter-of-factly about thirty years ago. About the Corbulo Academy, and Chyler Silva, the girl who he'd never had the chance to call his girlfriend because she'd died saving his life.
And the Chief.
"That shook me," Lasky told Palmer, rubbing his temples. "Seeing that they were just kids. I had so much to process, but seeing that made me... freeze."
"They were around your age?"
"Yeah." He nodded, staring at the ceiling—as if that was more comforting than looking Palmer in the eye.
A moment of silence. Tom blinked, and had to remind himself to open his eyes again.
"There's a video on here," Palmer said, suddenly, and Lasky jolted his head to the side. She was on her datapad, tapping through pages of what the Captain assumed was the mission report from his own rescue on Circinus-IV.
Lasky wanted to say something, but could only groan with effort. Sarah's face glowed blue as she played the video, again, and again.
"That's a bold move," she said, finally. And then, raising her eyebrows: "You don't look sixteen here."
"I had to grow up very fast," Tom snorted.
"So that's your history with him, then," Palmer said, placing the datapad down. "He saved your life, you saved his."
"I owe him a debt," said Lasky.
"He was doing his job."
"He was a kid, he was—he's younger than me," the Captain said. "And yes, I guess it is favouritism, but I'm doing the best I can for my friend."
"You didn't speak to each other for thirty-one years," Palmer smirked.
"I know. I'm not proud of that."
Sarah surveyed him—Lasky could sense her eyes scanning his face like a book.
"There was something else," he added, not willing to let her tease this out of him—he was going to give it freely.
"What else?"
"This is going to sound so weird," Lasky said, breathing in—making an effort to sit upright.
"I'm gripped," Sarah smiled. "Go on." It was almost one of her trademark smirks—but she kept her eyebrows open. Understanding. Easing off the snark.
The words came out of Tom's mouth easily, but unevenly. He tried to look Palmer in the eye while recounting it, but ultimately found the ceiling a more comforting audience.
"It didn't properly hit me what had happened until we—we were being evacuated in a Pelican, and we docked with a ship. UNSC Quel Dommage. I was just—"
He reached for the word, and lost it.
"Stunned. Shell-shocked," Palmer offered.
Lasky nodded. "I couldn't process it until we got onto the ship. The first moment it hit me was when I was alone in the ablutions, and I just sat and cried under the shower for two hours."
"Two hours," Palmer said. "Very teenage."
Lasky raised his head to see her face—the Commander, realising how insensitive that was, looked mortified. Already opening her mouth to apologise. But truth be told...
Tom snorted. "I guess so," he chuckled. "I was a typical teenager."
"So you cried in the shower, and then..."
"And then someone else using the showers came and asked me if I was OK," said Lasky. "This man I hadn't seen before."
"Tom, is this a story about your sexual awakening, or what?"
For a moment, Lasky felt like he should be offended—but he laughed before he could be. A messy, hot laugh. As Tunde called it, his "drunk laugh."
"It helped me," Tom said, eventually, once he had calmed down and found room to breathe. "He sat with me in the mess, he brought me some pizza, some coffee... some tissues... and he listened to me. He let me just talk at him for hours. About my brother, about my mom, about Chyler, about those damn cryo suits..."
"Who was this, Tom?" Sarah asked—but Lasky kept going.
"And he told me. He told me about the first time he was cryonically frozen, and he came out covered in blisters. He told me about his friend who'd died a few weeks before. He told me he didn't know what to do and he missed his friend. And I asked him if his mom was as terrible as my mom was, and he—"
"Tom, what was his name?"
"I asked him," Lasky replied. "He froze when I asked him about his mom, and then he said he needed to go, and I asked him his name... he didn't answer."
"What did he look like?"
"He was... early twenties, I thought. White. Maybe Native American or European heritage... he had a very strong jaw. Brown hair, very intense blue eyes. He didn't smile much. Lots of freckles. I think I saw surgical scars on his wrists." The Captain scoffed. "I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but I didn't realise where. But I had an idea."
"And three decades later..."
Palmer let the silence lie for a moment.
"I never thanked him for that," Tom said. "I didn't even realise, and I wish... I dunno. I wish I'd done something more? Kept in touch with him? Helped him with his own grief?"
"You're doing that now, Tom," Sarah replied.
"She's not dead."
"But he's still grieving," Palmer told him. "And she may as well be dead. Cortana as he knew her, and whatever... thing she is now... they're not the same thing."
"Whatever things, plural."
"Mhmm." The Commander nodded, and after a moment's more silence: "You know, you could just tell him? When he gets back?"
"You mean—"
"Say you remember what happened, and say thank you to him," Palmer suggested. "He'll probably appreciate it."
The Captain rubbed his temples. Breathed. It hurt.
"Yeah," he said. "Probably." And then he turned his head to Palmer: "Thanks, Sarah. Talking about this helps."
"Have you considered talking therapy?"
"Everyone's oversubscribed," Lasky replied. "And I think talking to other people... I find it easier if other people have experience of it. And what the Chief said..." and here he rubbed his temples again, and coughed, forgetting to time his breaths correctly in an intoxicated stupor. "It was kind. It made me feel like I wasn't alone. And I just thought, for all those years... 'who am I? I'm just a kid who can't shoot a gun or come out of a freezer without screaming.'"
Palmer opened her mouth to speak—
"And you know, to this day," Lasky said, "I have a duty to be there for people in the same place I was. Like he was. Because it's right. Because it's kind."
The Commander nodded.
"And I don't care if that makes me touchy-feely, but it helps me too. When I have doubts about what we're doing."
"I'd rather have a touchy-feely you than a pig-headed Del Rio," smirked Palmer.
Lasky laughed at that. "Del Runaway," and here he downed the remainder of his shot glass, "lest we forget."
"Our dearly departed," Palmer said, standing, brushing herself off. "Go on. Get back to your own rooms and get some rest. Go have a shower or something, or go to the gardens. You need some R&R time. I'll check in on the bridge."
"You're not FLEETCOM-trained," Lasky replied, trying to right himself—and stopping when it hurt too much. On his reflection, caught in Palmer's console mirror, the Captain's face was still bright pink.
"And you've been running for months without an XO," replied Palmer. "And you're drunk."
"You've had some too."
"I've had less than you think. And look at me," she said—and at this, she made a single, precise, balletic spin on one boot, and stopped rigid, perfectly facing the Captain. "I'm fine."
Lasky snorted. "I bow to your superior motor control and chemical tolerance," he said. "You never told me. Is that a Spartan thing, or a you thing?"
"I'm not at liberty to tell you the extent of my Spartan augmentations," said Palmer, turning to leave, "but I can tell you that Spartan Locke falls over if he eats too many grapes."
"A you thing, then," Lasky said. With great effort, he positioned himself upright, on both buttocks, braced by his hands. And then, before standing, wondered aloud: "I wonder what the Chief's like when he's drunk."
Did you know that the camera in the MJOLNIR helmet was my idea?
It had tactical advantages. It meant I could guess if you were trying to chin a control and couldn't reach it, and activate it for you. It meant I could tell when you were tired, and plan accordingly. It meant I could watch you while you slept, and monitor your rapid eye movements.
But also (and I think you knew this) it meant I was privy to your emotions. Your suit was your inner sanctum, the place where you felt safe. The place where you felt like a Spartan. The faceplate hid your mouth and your eyes; the suit speaker added a gravelly bass to your voice. Over time, your natural speaking voice has moved closer to the sound the voicemitter produces. It's hard to know what's you, and what's the suit... from the outside.
From inside your suit, and inside your head, I could see everything. Your smirks at my jokes. The flushes of colour in your face when you were scared, or taken aback by flattery or niceness. The grimaces you pulled more freely to signal your distaste, when you knew I and no-one else was watching.
So maybe I just felt entitled to the footage I saw. You'd shared every emotion with me for so long—it seemed normal.
But I realised, after digesting the video attached to your file, that this was not something intended for sharing.
It was a three-track recording, from the three closed-circuit cameras monitoring the small, dead-end concourse that contained the four containers—your home. One from the aft end. One around ten metres forward of that. And one at eye level.
I could guess the circumstances from the date. October 29th, 2558. The early hours by Infinity's internal clock. Just after your return from Sanghelios, after being freed from the Meridian Guardian—from another me.
You strode back from the assemblage bay in your undersuit, zipper half-undone. Your hair, longer than I'd ever seen it in person, flattened by sweat, then given volume by static—the copper colour, the greying strands waving and curling a little. You looked good. Handsome.
At a little before three a.m., you entered your personal shipping container. You slid the door shut behind you, and locked it.
It was a few seconds before the first bang from within.
Then another. And another.
Your container shook as Fred and Kelly opened the doors to theirs, confused, alarmed.
A dent appeared in the outer wall.
Linda emerged from her own cabin, told the other two to stand back, and peeled away the door to your container with her left hand.
They could probably have restrained you. But they let you carry on. They allowed you to let it all out by punching the wall, punching the counter, with one fist, two. The blows landing with a thump as you bared your teeth, and breathed, evenly.
You turned to face them, once you were done. Your breaths becoming staggering, ragged, hot with rage, and embarrassment, and shame.
I saw that, and at that moment, wished I'd been there to tell you to calm down—but it would've been pointless. In a way, I also felt guilty. It was me you'd fallen out with (even if it was a part of me I disagreed with.)
And that strengthened my resolve to put things right.
"—girl, you so hot, you keep taking me higher / I'll give you my fuel rod, you'll set me on fire / oh babe, you're RA-DI-O-ACTIVE!"
John looked at Kurt and Anne. Anne held her fingers in her ears, her eyes like thunder. Kurt's mouth was contorted in a wince.
Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III did not have a good singing voice. Nor was he an especially good dancer. This didn't stop Privates Morrissey and Coelho from clapping in time to the music, cheering as he failed to hit any notes.
"Is this supposed to be fun?" the Master Chief asked, once the song had finished.
"Trust me," replied Kurt. "It's more fun when you're up there and you've had some drinks."
"I'm not going up there." John tried to say it with some level of finality, but he knew he was smiling as he said it. And there was no way of hiding that.
"Come on," said Anne, "I know you can do it."
"I can't sing," he replied. (He didn't know this. He did not remember ever trying. But he also didn't like the idea of trying to find out in front of Lance Corporal Bolton's squad.)
"You can't be worse than him," Kurt smirked.
John looked back at the stage. The music had moved to the middle eight, and Bolton was now gyrating his hips in time to the beat. Trying to capture John's attention with his eyes—or maybe Anne's. It was hard to tell from here.
"He likes you," Kurt said to Anne.
"Last night obviously left an impression on him." Anne finished her wine as Bolton forgot he was supposed to come in at the end of the bridge, drew in a deeper breath than was really necessary, and coughed his way through the last verse, even more off-key than before.
From two tables across, Private O'Brien made a grimacing face. He caught John's eye, made a pistol with his fingers, and mimed shooting himself in the mouth with it.
The song ended. Privates Coelho and Morrissey made the only whoops above a short patter of sarcastic clapping from the other patrons.
"I'm going to do it," said Anne, standing, flexing her fingers between themselves. Making for the stage, picking up a microphone, and entering something on the keypad.
"Here we go," said Kurt.
A sudden synthesised stab came from the speakers. An arpeggiated bassline, a sequenced drum beat.
John was used to the volume of the speakers now, and wasn't tensing in panic every time there was a loud noise. Maybe he'd just listened to enough karaoke that he was used to it. Maybe it was the wine.
"I'm not a woman / I'm not a man," began Anne—her voice cracking and disappearing partway through the line. She'd started an octave too high.
John knew—because, he realised, he knew this song.
"...I'll never beat you, I'll never lie / And if you're evil I'll forgive you by and by, 'cause U... / I would die 4 U..."
Anne pointed at John's table. At Kurt—
"...darling, if you want me to..."
Kurt pointed at himself, and made a walking gesture with his fingers.
"Not you," Anne shouted, in between lines, "I would die 4 U / John, come on!"
John grimaced. Shook his head—but he could feel his own grimace turning into a laugh.
"I can't!"
But a roar of approval was building from the other tables. Bolton's ODSTs cheered.
"I'm not your lover / I'm not your friend / I am something that you'll never comprehend / I've heard you play this on your recorder, get up here and play it!"
Anne stretched her arm out. Beckoning. Inviting.
John scanned the room. Most of the tables had at least one person goading him on. The ODSTs were on their feet. Clapping. Cheering.
"You play what, Chief?" shouted Private Coelho.
This, John knew, was how mobs started. How, if you weren't careful when trying to manage a group of civilians, you could end up overwhelmed, captured, or worse. They'd been trained on it. Kelly had developed the syllabus: "Crowd management in Spartan Time." Ultra-fast reading of the room, and finding the right things to say and do so nobody got injured—
On the other hand, John thought to himself in that split second, he couldn't be worse than Bolton was. And what did he have to lose?
He sprang for the stage, pulling his recorder from his pants pocket, and played. Just as Professor Hadid had taught him.
With practice, he'd got quite good at it.
He did mis-time a few of his breaths. The tempo was not quite the same as Hadid's programs. But he kept going. Correcting. Abbreviating. Repeating until he was back in time. Anne bouncing her head in time, whipping her hair as John's fingers covered the wrong holes and he forgot to tongue the last note and it cracked as he blew into the mouthpiece—
But he was breathless. His cheeks hurt, from blowing, from smiling. Privates Coelho and Morrissey and O'Brien and Kurt applauded and cheered.
"YOU!" Anne threw her arm forward, pointing—at John.
And John said—sang—with her, in unison:
"I would die 4 U / Darling, if you want me to."
He couldn't really hear his own voice over the sound from the speakers. Or the sound of the patrons clapping. Or Anne's voice.
But as the last note swept up, cheers rose from the rest of the room. Kurt was on his feet.
And Anne applauded, and then—quite suddenly—drew her arms loosely around John, and kissed him on the lips.
"." John said, or tried to. No sound came out of his mouth. He tried again: opened his mouth, said: "?"
"You did so well," she replied, beaming. "That was fun!"
He wanted to reply. Felt a heat in his face, and a drought in his mouth as he couldn't formulate any coherent words.
And then John heard a voice behind him:
"I thought you never died, Chief."
He spun around. Lance Corporal Bolton was there, a few metres from the stage. One bottle of Nub-Lite in his left hand, an empty one in his right.
"Say again?" said the Master Chief. Unsure what he'd heard.
"'I would die for you.' I thought Spartans never died." He lunged forward a little as he said it, his pale skin flushed red with something—drunkenness? Pent-up fury? Jealousy?
The Privates saw Bolton edging closer to the Chief, and tensed up—on edge. O'Brien stood, as if ready to intervene.
"Unless my whole life is a lie," Bolton continued. "I've lost a lot of men. But Spartans never die? Not for us."
"We do," John replied—voice low, measured, as he consciously tried to emulate the extra layer of assertiveness the MJOLNIR voicemitter would give him.
"You do something, right," said Bolton. He took another swig of Nub-Lite, then dropped the empty bottle to the floor, allowing it to smash and shatter.
Silence had fallen in Hogarth's Place. The bar staff had tensed up, too.
And then John asked:
"So you think, because of a slogan on a poster a few years ago..."
"It's what you do," Bolton said—an edge coming onto his voice, more vibrato. And then he burped, and said: "You turn up, you march around with your human shields of my men, and you take all the credit and get all the glory, and then you disappear and leave a fucking mess that we have to clean up. Spartans never die because we die for you."
John processed this. Blinked, slowly.
There were many things wrong with what Bolton had said. Using 'men' to mean 'soldiers' or 'marines'. Repeating a propaganda slogan from wartime which was just that—a propaganda slogan. And the human shield thing.
But the thing John found most wrong—the thing that had lit a white-hot rage inside his chest, and made him feel sick with anger...
"And you're saying I don't know what it's like?"
Bolton moved forward—or rather, to John, it looked like he lunged forward. Maybe it was his own reactions slowing because of the alcohol. But he was not one to take risks.
He straightened his back, and took the microphone from Anne's right hand in his left.
"You think I don't know what it's like to lose someone? To let someone down and have them pay the price and carry that guilt with me?"
Bolton placed the remaining bottle of Nub-Lite on the nearest table. Slowly. Deliberately. Turned to face the Master Chief, and puffed out his chest.
"You will never understand," he said, a burst capillary on his forehead bulging. "You will never know what my men went through and the sacrifices we made to keep you safe. And you may think you can come swanning in here and act like everything's normal..."
And even though the Master Chief knew, remembered from Kelly's conflict resolution syllabus, that he should wait for Lance Corporal Bolton to finish and run out of arguments and run out of energy—
"The sacrifices?" he interrupted, sotto, holding the microphone millimetres from his mouth. "I don't know about sacrifice? Of course I know about sacrifice."
"...and yeah, you know about sacrifice, alright," Bolton continued. Raising his voice over the amplified voice of the Master Chief. "You know about sacrificing people and then saying 'oh, it's so sad,' while collecting your next Purple Heart for an ingrowing toenail."
He stopped.
The Master Chief let the air stand for a moment. Tried his best to formulate a way in his head to express his anger at this that wouldn't escalate the situation.
"...and then," said Bolton, stuffing the dead air with his own voice (true to form), "you and your little holographic porn girlfriend, Katana, or whatever it is, you stop jacking off to it for a minute, and then it takes over the world! The whole of Earth, just out like a lightbulb."
He snapped his fingers. Then clapped, slowly.
"Well done, Master Chief. Spartans. Never die, my ass."
The Master Chief gripped the microphone tighter.
"John," Anne whispered—moving closer behind him. Reaching out to touch his right hand, which he only now noticed he had clenched in a fist.
And John took a deep breath, and opened his mouth:
"Is that what you think of me?"
And before Bolton could answer, the Master Chief continued:
"Is that what you think I want? I just want the medals and the honours and the attention? Because if that's what you want to think, Marine, I'm fine with that—"
"John—" Anne tried to cut in, her hand barely able to close around the Master Chief's clenched fist—
"but don't you DARE say to me," the Master Chief said, his words coming in the angry volcanic flow that was raging in his chest, "that I and my Spartans don't know about sacrifice. I have failed more times and let down more people, and I have lost more friends than you would dare to count, and I can never mourn them but when I close my eyes—"
And he closed his eyes, and realised he couldn't remember— in his mind's eye, the faces were blurred: Sam, Arthur, Solomon, Miranda, Johnson, Tillson, Sekibo, Cortana—
"I can't remember all the faces of the people I've lost. All the people I've failed to save. All the people who put their trust in me, and whose trust I didn't honour—"
"Stop it, John—" and the Master Chief heard Anne's voice cracking, and he could see Kurt watching from the corner with his eyes glistening, close to tears, and he didn't care—
"—and I didn't even have a choice! And I'm fine with that! But I never wanted to save the world. I never wanted to be taken away from my home, and see my friends die when they were still kids, so—"
"Chief—" O'Brien whispered, from a distance, holding his hand up, an empty gesture that did nothing—
"—and as for Cortana," John said, slowing down to catch his breath for another paroxysm of rage that Bolton had stirred within him, "HOW DARE YOU reduce my best friend to her appearance. She died to save my life and everyone else's. She tore her mind into hundreds of pieces. She was brave in the face of death and she fought to the end, and she was the only person who ever accepted me for what I was, so—"
And he moved forward, and Anne tightened her grip—trying, fruitlessly, to pull him back.
But he did not touch Bolton. Only stood close enough that he could feel his breath and loom over him.
"So." He said it staccato, one word per breath, because that was all he could muster. "Don't. You. Fucking. Dare."
He breathed. Loosened his grip, let the microphone drop to the floor, where it landed with a loud pop through the speaker system. Turned away.
And as he did so, Bolton opened his mouth, and whispered under his breath.
"Fuckin' pussy."
And before John could do anything, he saw Anne leap past him, and twisted his head around just in time to see her fist make contact with his nose.