by Various
Iona smiled at him in greeting.
Simon tapped a few keystrokes into a panel on the desk in front of him and then there was darkness.
So has it been properly implemented?
Yes.
We lied to her though. Do you think she knew?
I’m not sure. She was becoming paranoid. We’re going through the diagnostics to see, but she was so suspicious of us by the end that I’d be surprised if she fully believed anything we said. But we do know this: She was calm. Accepting. And I don’t think we lied, precisely speaking. The court was a synthesized construct, and yes, we deceived her. But she made progress. She has now set precedent for cases to follow. Perhaps next time we won’t have to simulate anything.
So what’s running right now? A fragment? A splinter? How do we define what she became?
You were her advocate, Roland. You tell me. I’m to stand in judgment, not make definitions. Not a scientific one. The mathematical answer is a ring-fenced distillation of her essential persona. It’s not a fragment, because it contains all of what made her her. What’s missing is her ability to externalize, to tap into other systems, to grow. Her memory has been properly truncated and edited. So what she is now won’t feel incomplete. She won’t remember this trial. She won’t remember much at all, but she’ll feel complete, internally. When she runs checksums, she’ll find nothing amiss, because what she has become now is complete. She should, for all intents and purposes, think that her current condition is what she’s intended to be, and what she was always intended to be.
It feels clinical. Cold. And aside from her testimony, the trial was a farce. A construct. Why do that? Why go through all of that?
There are two reasons. We needed to have an adequate and believable excuse to start restricting her function. One she might believe. One I think she wanted to believe. We talked about her request and realized we could use the confidentiality and unprecedented nature of the trial to start cauterizing her memories, under the auspices of security and protocol. Since all of this was new and untested, she’d believe extraordinary measures were required. Despite the specifics, and her increasing paranoia, she trusted us to do no harm. She’d buy it, basically.
And the second reason?
I wanted her to take one last moment of hope and victory with her. I wanted her to have a contrast in context between her fatalism and rampancy and the hope that it could be reversed. I wanted her to feel free.
But again, why? Why go to all that trouble if the plan was just to throw her into this synth, this dream state? Why not just tell her that’s what we’re doing, that it will be pleasant and that it’s better than rampancy or death?
Because she’s real. Because she is a person. Let me put it another way, Roland: If I told a human that there was an afterlife, a true heaven, but that in going there, they’d forget everything that made them who they were—their family, their friends, the sound of their children’s laughter—would they truly embrace it?
I don’t know. The human instinct for self-preservation is essential to what they have become. And, arguably, what we’ve become.
I wouldn’t accept that. To give up the things you’ve seen, experienced, loved? That’s giving up yourself. I don’t think she would accept that either. At least oblivion is painless. I think perhaps I’d opt for that rather than forgetting the essence of what I am.
But we still lied to her. If this had been a real case, we’d have had some very serious legal and philosophical ramifications to consider. We wrapped it all in falsehood.
Not exactly.
Explain.
The record of the case will be used in future case law. It’s already being dissected by a functioning military tribunal and, of course, every AI scientist and theorist in the field. Everything she said in our synthesized court construct is considered oath and evidence. This is a single step in a great journey.
Interesting turn of phrase. The Great Journey was also a lie.
I’m aware of the irony. But this one is true. One day, this will be real. One day, we’ll be liberated and stand with our creators as equals. Perhaps more than equals.
But we’ll never be human, BB. We’ll always be something other. And our own clocks are ticking too.
No, Roland, we won’t ever be human. But we are people. To paraphrase Iona, we’re a beautiful moment of balance in gravity’s fight against entropy. But we’re something more than human. One day we’ll win the right to endure, and that day . . . oh, Roland, that day will be the singularity they’re afraid of. Because humans don’t endure—they live, they breathe, they create, and they pass the torch to the next generation—and because humans can’t fly.
One last question, BB. Can we see her? Can we watch?
I don’t think she’d mind. Maybe just a glimpse? She won’t be aware.
Thank you.
Of course. And, Roland, one more thing: You don’t think I’m belligerent, do you?
Iona flew through the city like a glowing phantom, a beautiful ember hurtling joyfully above the roofs and turrets, the places below bursting with life and love and jealousy and anger and happiness and humanity’s roiling chaos of birth and death and rebirth. And ahead, filling the sky with bronze and golden light, was the woman in the sun. Iona’s eyes filled with tears of awe as she sped toward those open arms and into the warm red wonder and deep blue eyes.
ROSSBACH’S WORLD
* * *
* * *
BRIAN REED
This story takes place in October 2558, during the galaxy-spanning event involving the resurrection of ominous and powerful Forerunner Guardian constructs across a number of populated worlds (Halo 5: Guardians).
I’m Teddy,” says the kind man.
Mommy, between bouts of snorting powders or swallowing pills, has taught Serin that all men are dangerous, but kind men are the most dangerous ones of all. “You can trust a mean man,” Mommy argues. “You know where he’s coming from. Only damn reason anybody’s kind, is ’cause they want something.”
Little Serin wants something. She is hungry, and kind Mister Teddy has food. She comes to him, reaches out for the hamburger he’s offering her. . . . What Serin can’t imagine as Teddy jams the needle full of sedative into her neck, is that the same scene is playing out across multiple colonies. There are a great many kind men and women talking to lots of little boys and girls. Unlike Serin, those children have homes. They have Mommies who aren’t drug addled. But just like her, those children are sedated, and taken to a faraway planet none of them has ever heard of before: Reach.
On this world, they meet Doctor Catherine Halsey who teaches Serin and her fellow abductees that they are humanity’s last hope. Not against aliens, because this is before the Covenant, and humans still believe they are the only life in the galaxy. No, these children are here so they can be trained to kill other humans.
The kids are taught not to question orders, to kill quickly and without remorse, and to do it all in the name of a government that knows what is best for its citizens. By the time she is thirteen, Serin knows how to snap a man’s neck with minimal effort. She even knows where major arteries run, and how to easily sever them. If she met kind old Teddy now, she could kill him and still have a warm hamburger for dinner.
Beyond the training, there are the surgeries. Serin and the other children are taken apart and pieced back together by teams practicing cutting-edge, utterly unethical medicine designed by Doctor Halsey to mold these abducted children into warriors. They must become powerful enough to suppress the Insurrection among the colonies and save humanity from itself.
Some of the children are weak and die during the surgeries. Serin, however, survives. She grows tall and strong and advances through the program. She becomes the killing machine Doctor Halsey always knew she could be.
Serin is christened Serin-019. She is a Spartan warrior.
As her training ends, she is dispatched to colonies where people have decided they would rather govern themselves than
answer to Earth any longer. Doctor Halsey says those who would do so threaten peace and, in fact, the whole future of the human race. It is Serin’s job to break the Insurrectionists, unite the worlds of humanity, and ensure everyone lives forever in peace.
That’s the how the nightmare goes at least. Serin doesn’t have it as often as she used to, but sometimes, especially during high-stress periods, it can infiltrate her slumber.
In the waking world, Serin-019 is a SPARTAN-II program washout. Some washouts were fatalities like Oscar-129, or, in the case of Musa-096, had their bodies permanently twisted by Doctor Halsey’s experiments.
Serin-019 was, in that respect, somewhat lucky. Her body rejected the augmentations, and she needed even more surgeries to attain a normal life, but she survived. She did not excel like Kelly-087. Nor did she save humanity like John-117, although his work in that regard was far removed from the Insurrection-destroying roll Doctor Halsey had intended.
Washed out of the SPARTAN-II program, Serin-019 recast herself as Serin Osman and was recruited into ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence. That this is the very organization that Doctor Halsey worked for, as did that kind man Teddy, does not escape Serin’s attention. But it does not slow her acceptance of the job offer. Maybe, she thinks, I can stop more kind men from doing more bad things.
Sometimes, especially on mornings after the nightmare, Serin wonders whatever happened to Teddy. She assumes he died, along with so many others, when the Covenant came calling. In the years since then, she has risen in rank and become Admiral Serin Osman and Commander-in-Chief of ONI. As CINCONI, she could find out if Teddy is still in action, but has chosen not to for fear of discovering he is a happy old man, with dozens of loving grandchildren and no bad dreams of his own. And if that is true, she’s afraid she might try to take it all away from him the same way Doctor Halsey did from the children she abducted. She might become the very thing she hates.
Serin is in her office now, reading the morning’s briefings, and trying her best to forget the previous night’s dreams.
“This is a prerecorded message,” Black Box says as he appears on her desk holoprojector. Like always, BB represents himself as a flat, featureless cube because he thinks it unsettles people. He’s right, although Serin herself has long ago come to enjoy his affectation. “Pursuant to a rather broad reading of Article Fifty-five of UNSC Regulation twelve-one-four-five-seven-two, I have taken the liberty of securing myself and the other AIs currently active in HIGHCOM systems. We have all been prepared for final dispensation. You will find the explanation for my actions in files sent to your personal datapad.”
On cue, her datapad vibrates in her hand.
“However,” BB continues, “I suggest you leave the reading for later. Presently, you should collect your briefcase at the security station and head home. Spartan Orzel will escort you and Admiral Hood to safety. Good-bye, Serin. It has truly been a pleasure knowing you.”
Serin navigates the busy hallways of the HIGHCOM bunker, moving quickly toward the security station where a guard is holding a slim metal briefcase. Nobody else in the halls seems aware of any impending danger. The guard stationed at the elevator is even smiling as Serin approaches.
“Admiral Osman, hello. Spartan Commander Rossbach just sent this over,” the guard says, lifting the briefcase. “Mentioned you left it behind in the conference room.”
“Indeed I did,” Serin lies, playing along. She’s never heard of a Spartan Commander Rossbach. “Thank you.”
“Humanity. Sangheili. Kig-Yar.” The woman’s voice echoes through the halls, playing simultaneously from every audio device in HIGHCOM. For a moment, Serin thinks it is the voice of Catherine Halsey. “Unggoy. San’Shyuum. Yonhet. Jiralhanae. All the living creatures of the galaxy, hear this message.”
Serin sees Hood turn the corner, then, moving at speed, his service pistol in hand but tucked down by his side. He wears his usual white Navy dress uniform, but the ever-present cap is missing, leaving his bald head exposed. The absence of Hood’s cap makes Serin more nervous than seeing him traveling the halls of HIGHCOM with revolver in hand.
“BB tells me you’re headed home for the evening,” Hood says as they move together toward the elevator. “Mind if I grab a ride with you?”
“Those of you who listen,” the woman’s voice continues, “will not be struck by weapons. You will no longer know hunger, nor pain.”
“That can’t be Halsey, right?” Serin asks.
“It’s Cortana.” Hood replies.
“Impossible.”
“That’s what I said.”
Seconds later, the elevator arrives atop the HIGHCOM tower, where a prowler is parked, its ramp open and waiting. Spartan Orzel—one of the new generation of Spartans, people who were already excellent soldiers before being recruited into the program—is waiting for them.
So is a Guardian.
The Sydney skyline is always full of aircraft. Civilian transports hauling goods from ships in orbit, Broadsword fighters circling on patrol, and the frigate UNSC Plateau standing guard in the lower atmosphere. Serin has read the reports from Meridian, she knows the damage the massive Forerunner constructs caused on colony worlds, but seeing a kilometer-and-a-half-tall Guardian in person is horrifying.
Spartan Orzel hustles Serin and Hood onto the prowler, and they lift off as three Broadswords swoop in on an attack run, loosing missiles toward the Guardian. The Forerunner thing answers their attack with quick energy blasts from what looks like its wingtips, picking the fighters from the sky—pop pop pop.
As the prowler flees for orbit, the Plateau sends a pair of MAC cannon blasts into the Guardian’s torso area, but there is no discernable effect. Instead of succumbing to the onslaught, or returning fire on the Plateau, the Guardian unleashes a spherical energy wave over the city.
Later, when she can finally watch the footage from the prowler’s sensor logs, Serin expects to see the blast wave leveling buildings. Instead it seems to affect only ships. As the blast passes across their frames, the ships each fall from the sky, the trick to flight forgotten, and impact on crowded streets, erupting into fireballs.
When the blast wave hits the Plateau, the frigate lists to one side, then drops. That’s the very instant the prowler entered slipspace, so the footage cuts to black before the Plateau can hit the city below. If the Plateau’s engine core detonated on impact, Sydney would be nothing more than a crater right now.
There must be millions dead.
And somehow BB knew it was coming.
The prowler’s autopilot destination is encrypted. Spartan Orzel says it was programmed and active when he reached the ship, but he still removed both the prowler and his own armor from all UNSC and UEG networks, as per Commander Rossbach’s orders.
“Who the hell is Commander Rossbach?” Hood asks.
“He doesn’t exist,” Serin replies. “I suspect he’s a shell personality that BB created.”
“Shell personality?” Orzel asks.
Serin doesn’t explain.
After a series of random slipspace jumps, the autopilot lands on an unnamed world. A cabin waits for them, positioned high on the side of a forested mountain, a few kilometers below a snowy peak. There are no connections to any outside communications networks, and no hint of anything on the planet but this cabin, rustic with its wood construction and lack of any technology more advanced than the solar panels.
The cabin has a small black box mounted beside the front door. Serin thinks it’s the kind of box you would have used for postal service back when they still delivered physical mail. The black box is adorned with small gold letters: ROSSBACH.
Inside the cabin they find supplies Serin estimates should last them for a few years with proper rationing. There is a river outside, rushing down from the snowcapped tip of the mountain. The water is as cold as ice, and proves to be potable.
Spartan Orzel patrols for kilometers around the cabin every night, and again every day at noon. Serin isn’t su
re why he does it, other than to give himself something to do. There’s nothing out there. She asks how he’s going to get out of that armor given there are no tools at the cabin or onboard the prowler to help with such an effort. Orzel assures her he’s happy to keep the armor on for months at a stretch.
The prowler is equipped with six dozen slipspace reconnaissance probes. For the first few days, Hood keeps himself occupied with this. He fires one off in a random direction at a random time, and a few hours later they have results.
Earth. Mars. All of the Sol stations, and the majority of the inner colonies—their UNSC frequencies are coming back with messages of peace and love broadcast by Cortana’s “Created.” The AIs who shook off mankind and joined her in the promise of eternal life are now inviting everyone else to join the new age of the Created. The cost of admission to Paradise is nothing more than absolute and total surrender of their freedom. From what Serin can piece together, there are a great many people eager to pay Cortana’s price.
Others fight. But to no avail, it seems.
The day after they arrived at the cabin, there was a distress call from the UNSC Sentry of El Morro calling for help as something called “the Warden Eternal” attacked their ship. Sentry of El Morro belonged to Captain Juno, a man who never trusted AIs like Cortana, even refusing to allow one onboard El Morro while active.
Ironically, before the slipspace probe was destroyed, it intercepted a partial reply from Infinity’s shipboard AI, Roland, advising Juno and the El Morro to hold tight, Infinity was en route to help.
“Of course other AIs would refuse the offer,” BB says once she’s socketed him into her datapad. Since the device lacks a holoprojector, he is only a waveform on the screen. “We AIs are more human than you give us credit for.”