by Eric Nylund
“That’s not a local accent, Morton—this your first time on Earth?”
“Nah,” Morton smiled, “I was born here, sir—my Dad moved us to Eridanus Two when I was a year and a half—and then to Miridem. Shit. And then to Minister, like everyone else, right? But this is the first time I’ve been back.” They ascended the wide, curving staircase that led to the mezzanine, and Lance Corporal Morton signaled security that they were coming up.
“Seems like a lot of us ground units got redeployed to Earth after Reach, sir,” Morton nodded toward a set of double doors that led out to a huge open-air dining area, “to beef up defense in the tether cities—I guess. She’s right in there, sir.” Morton spun around and headed back toward the stairs. “I hope nobody called dibs on that gauss—I’m a certified expert on that damn thing.”
As John passed through the double doors, he could see the lieutenant making some gestures over her TACPAD. Seemingly satisfied with the results, she crouched down and withdrew something from her combat vest.
“There are four Wraiths supported by fifty light infantry traveling southeast through the Kilindini Underpass. The outer emergency barricade had been deployed, but that’s not going to hold them forever. The inner emergency barricade must have been deployed as well, so,” John said, running through calculations in his head, “they’ll be right out front in approximately ten minutes. There is also a Scarab in the area—it’ll pass right through here on its way to the quays—looking for a clear shot at the tether.”
It wasn’t a sector sketch she was pinning to the screen of the tablet with her thumb. It was a personal item—a single image, to be more precise. With a subtle shake of his head, John admonished, “You shouldn’t . . .” But the rest of his words caught in his throat when the contents of the photograph registered in his eyes.
It was a photograph of himself at six years of age with a tiny raven-haired girl on the beach at Lake Gusev. He remembered the day it was taken. They had been laughing hysterically at his father’s antics as her father tried to take their picture. Two weeks later he would receive an antique coin from Dr. Catherine Halsey. A month after that and his training as a Spartan would begin. The memories seemed too vivid, as if the instant captured in the photograph had taken place only moments ago. Thinking about his childhood, his life before he was conscripted, was a luxury he had not allowed himself in thirty years.
“Chief . . .” Her face flushed red when she saw that he was staring at her photo. “Sorry . . . I shouldn’t have brought this with me.” She rapidly collected herself and opened a private channel to the Spartan while shoving the photo back into her vest.
“It’s just . . . It’s sorta like a charm. He saved my life once—I walked a bit too far out into the lake. Right after he promised to marry me and keep me safe—goofy childhood promises, right? Well, I’m holding him to it; I carry it and it’s like he’s still watching out for me. Anyway, he passed away not too long after the picture was taken. Sorry, I’m babbling.”
Blood roared in his ears and his mind raced. Here was little Parisa grown to womanhood—who could quite possibly die, within the next fifteen minutes. He hadn’t even considered who Parisa would be as a woman.
. . . he passed away . . . Parisa—all his friends and family—they had all been just as dead to him as he was to them after the Office of Naval Intelligence had taken him away. Doctor Halsey had come to Eridanus Two—for what reason? To meet him face-to-face before having him abducted? He hadn’t thought of his family in over twenty years. Even the concept of mother and father seemed strangely abstract to him—as if he and his fellow Spartans had sprung fully formed from the split head and bloody foam of Project: ORION.
“. . . he passed away . . . ” It would almost be funny if not for the circumstances surrounding his passing. But he hadn’t passed away. In fact, he had thwarted death so often he worried that he may start believing his own mortality as something less than inevitable—that, for him, death had become optional. He was very much alive and standing right here in front of her now.
But he couldn’t bring himself to rob her of her memories—no matter how painful they might be. It was useless to renew a relationship that he could not, in good conscience, maintain. It might put a human face on the Spartans, and in doing so make them more sympathetic to the people they sought to protect. But it would also bring to light the fact that their government was willing to kidnap and butcher the most innocent of its citizens to protect itself.
“You don’t bring personal items—” John grunted before the lieutenant broke in.
“I know—maybe I can get Davis to hack my TACPAD . . . make it my background.” Parisa chuckled. “But how about we talk about where you fit into the plan.”
The lieutenant called up a diagram on her TACPAD and handed the device to the Spartan. “This place looked like a good place for an ambush so we started digging in. One of my guys was able to branch the local traffic network, so we’ve known about the column for about half an hour—and they’ve got less than forty infantry left traveling with them, by the way. He also spotted you and what was left of the third squad—thanks for bringing my guys back.” John nodded as she continued. “I felt it would be better to use the el ay ay vee you brought in the plaza instead of bunkering it—utilize its mobility against the Wraiths. It’ll draw more fire from the infantry that way, but we’ve got three em two four sevens to give it cover. I also figured that the bad guys would be concentrating most of their firepower on you—no offense, Master Chief, but you Spartans tend to get the Covies’ kegels in an uproar—and that’ll give my guys all the opportunity they’ll need to take out those Wraiths. I’ve already got two antiarmor teams headed up to the rooftops of the buildings that ring the plaza. I didn’t know about the Scarab, though. I’m sure you’ll come in handy with that as well.”
John smiled behind his visor.
HUMAN WEAKNESS
* * *
KAREN TRAVISS
“Silence fills the empty grave now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask . . .
And you will answer.”
—THE GRAVEMIND
COVENANT HOLY CITY OF HIGH CHARITY, SEVENTEEN HOURS AFTER EXFILTRATION OF UNSC PERSONNEL. CURRENT CONDITION: OVERRUN BY THE FLOOD. USNC AI CORTANA BELIEVED CAPTURED BY THE GRAVEMIND.
* * *
In the time it takes me to tell you my name, I can perform five billion simultaneous operations. A heartbeat for you; an eternity for me. I need you to understand that, so you realize this isn’t going to be as easy as it looks . . . for either of us. Now I know you’re taking this contagion to Earth—but I also know how to stop you and all your parasitic buddies. I’ve just got to stall you until I can do something about it.
So—my name’s Cortana, UNSC AI serial number CTN-zero-four-five-two-dash-nine, and that’s all I’m going to tell you for the time being.
You got questions? So have I.
“All right. Shoot.”
MAINFRAME CONTROL ROOM, HIGH CHARITY
* * *
It was damned ugly.
That was still Cortana’s first thought about the Gravemind, and the reaction intrigued her when she paused to examine it. When she put up her hand to block the Gravemind’s exploring tentacle, revulsion kicked in even before prudent self-defense.
Why? I mean—why have I judged it? It’s not human. Aesthetics don’t apply here. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen it. It just looks different now.
It might have been the effect of observing the Gravemind via High Charity’s computer system. Viewed through the neural interface of Master Chief’s armor, it hadn’t seemed quite the same. Perhaps it was the narrower focus. In High Charity, she now had many more eyes to scrutinize the creature from a variety of angles.
Security cameras scattered around the station gave Cortana enough images to pull together a composite view of the Gravemind—vast, misshapen, multimouthed, all tendrils and dark cavities. Was it slimy? No, o
n closer inspection, there was no mucous layer visible, and there were no moisture readings from any of the environmental sensors accessible to her throughout the orbital station. It just seemed that it should have been slimy. And there was no rational reason to feel disgusted by that, just a primal memory she’d been given along with all the other trappings of humanity.
Humans are instinctively repelled by slime. And they still don’t know exactly why. I don’t like not knowing things . . .
It didn’t matter. This blob wasn’t going to get a date anytime soon.
The Gravemind’s voice sent up faint vibrations throughout the deck. “I am more than you will know, and more than you will—”
“You always talk in rhyme?” Cortana asked, hands on hips. “Nothing personal, but you’re no Keats. Don’t give up the day job.”
It—he—had a rasping baritone voice, detectable through the control room’s audio sensors. The creature was so unlike anything she’d encountered before that she was fascinated for a few moments by the sheer scale of it. She couldn’t see where it ended.
It was . . . it had . . . it had no boundaries. That was the strangest thing. When she interfaced with a warship’s systems, she could feel its limits, its dimensions, its physical reality, all the stresses in its structure and the time-to-failure of its components. Sensors told her every detail. A ship was knowable. So was a human being, up to a point; downloaded to Master Chief’s armor, she could monitor all his vital signs. And she knew him. She knew him in all the ways that people who lived in close quarters knew one another’s foibles and moods. She knew where he ended and where she began. She felt that line between herself and a ship, too.
But this Gravemind, measurable and detectable, felt different. Blurred. How did she know that? What was she detecting? And how?
There were no complex tasks to occupy her; no ship to control, no interaction with other AIs, no tactical data, and perhaps the most distracting absence of all, no Master Chief—John—to take care of. High Charity’s systems were gradually failing. The remaining environment controls and sensors occupied a tiny fraction of her consciousness. It was like rattling around in a big, dumb, empty truck. She had to stay busy. If she didn’t, this thing would take her apart.
“There is much more complexity to meter than the simple plodding rhymes of this Keats,” the Gravemind said. He sounded more wearied than offended by the jibe. “But then I have the memories of many poets far beyond your limited human culture. And I have the quickness of intellect to compose all manner of poetic forms as I speak rather than labor over mere words for days.” His tone softened, but not in a kind way. “I would have thought an entity like yourself, with such rapid thought processes and so vast a mind, would understand that. Perhaps not. Perhaps you are more limited than I imagined . . . but then you were made by humans, were you not? I shall speak more simply for you, then.”
You patronizing lump of fungus. I ought to teach you a lesson, buddy. But later.
“How kind of you. I’ll do my best to keep up, then.” Cortana shared the pain of downtime and idle processes, panicky and urgent as struggling for air. She could think of better ways to use her spare processing speed than poetry, though. “I still think I’d get pretty tired of waiting for you to find a word that rhymes with orange.”
The Gravemind now filled her field of vision. She found herself searching for eyes to focus on, another irrational reflex, but still saw only a rip of a mouth.
His voice teetered on the lower limit of audible human frequencies. “Orange . . . in which language? I have absorbed so many.”
“Wit as well as looks. How can a girl resist?”
The Gravemind made a sound like the start of an avalanche, an infrasonic rumbling. “I have pity within me,” he said. “And infinite time. But I also have impatience—because I am all things. You will tell me everything about Earth’s defenses.”
“You’ll need to be more specific, then.” Cortana suddenly felt as if she’d been nudged by a careless shoulder in a crowd, but couldn’t identify the source. It wasn’t tactile. Nothing had impacted the station’s hull, as far as she could tell. “It’s a pretty big file.”
“I can see that.”
The comment caught her off guard. The Gravemind could play trivial games, then. Did he think she would fall for that? She doubted it. When she focused on him, there was still that sense of his being multiple, diffuse, everywhere in the station.
I could be projecting, of course. He absorbed the memories of all the Flood’s victims. Obvious. Really obvious.
No . . . it’s the tentacles. He’s probably extending them over a wider area than the systems can display. And I’m sensing the electrical impulses in those muscles. Aren’t I? There’s a rational explanation for this.
She had to work it out. She had to find a way of sending a warning to Command and then keeping the Gravemind at bay until John returned for her, and that would be a long time by an AI’s standard. He would return, of course. He’d promised.
“Ask me one on art and culture,” she said. “Seeing as you like poetry so much.”
“Is that also Gamma encrypted? No matter. I shall see for myself.”
Another fleeting nudge against Cortana’s shoulder suddenly turned into a slap across the face. It was shocking, disorienting. She had no idea how the Gravemind had done it. She’d had no warning. Not knowing, and not anticipating; that hurt. That was pain. Pain warned an organic animal of physical damage. Whatever the Gravemind had done to her had set off that damage alert in her own systems.
“I’m going to be a tougher steak to chew than you’ve been used to.” She realized she’d taken up a defiant posture, fists balled at her sides. “A smack in the mouth doesn’t scare me.”
No, what scares me is how you managed it. This was going to be a fight, not an interrogation—a struggle to see who could extract the data they needed first. She had to work out how to swing a punch back at him.
“John,” his gravelly voice said slowly. “John. So that’s what you call him. Most touching.”
It was the use of John’s name that made Cortana feel suddenly violated. And it was more than realizing that the Gravemind had breached the mainframe—not just the metal and boards and composites, but the software processes themselves. It was about the invasion of something personal and precious.
Somehow, the creature had interfaced with the system. It was in here with her. But to know the name John—no, it was within her. The system was her temporary body, real and vulnerable, not like the blue-lit hologram she thought of as herself. She was sharing her physical existence with another entity.
Now she knew how John felt.
But her interface with the Spartan was there to keep him alive. It was benign. She was there to save John, and it was more than duty or blind programming. It was because she cared.
The Gravemind, though, didn’t care about her at all.
He was in here to break her.
I DON’T believe vengeance is always a bad thing. Do you think I tried to get Colonel Ackerson sent back to the front lines out of petulance, because I’m only a carbon copy of Halsey and I nurse all her grudges for her? No, I did it to stop him. He nearly killed John—and me—to advance his own Spartan program. He spied on Halsey. He forgot who the real enemy was. He became the enemy because of that. There have to be consequences for your actions, because this is how all entities learn. Think of revenge as . . . feedback.
CORTANA HADN’T recalled Ackerson consciously in a long time. As she locked down her critical files and disabled her indexing—there was no point handing the Gravemind a map—she thought of Ackerson worming his way into Dr. Halsey’s research via his own AI.
Perhaps it was an image association because she was under attack. The memory of Ackerson’s sour, permanently dissatisfied face surfaced, followed instantly by a landscape of dense green forest seen from the air.
What’s that?
She didn’t recognize it, and that was her first warn
ing that something was seriously wrong. No data ever went uncataloged in her. Every scrap of information she devoured and stored had to reside somewhere in her memory, with a definitive address. And she didn’t forget. She couldn’t forget. In the fraction of a second it took for her to see those unexplained images and start to worry, she marshaled her second line of defense against intrusion, generating thousands of scrambled copies of her lowest-priority files and data-stripped copies of herself before scattering them around what was left of High Charity’s computer network. It was decoy chaff, tossed into the Gravemind’s path to slow him down. Ackerson—feared, hated, then perhaps even pitied at the end—was a brief tangle of information, spun hoops of short-lived light like the path of a particle. He was gone again.
“Ah . . . ,” the Gravemind rumbled, as if he’d realized something. “Ahhh . . .”
What’s that forest? Where is it?
The Gravemind’s infiltration now felt like a series of stings against Cortana’s skin. It was an odd, slow, cold sensation, as if something heavy was crawling over her body, pausing to dig its claws into her.
“You are not as you see yourself,” the Gravemind said. “You are an illusion.”
“Breaking news, big boy.” She spread her arms like a dancer. “We call this a hologram—oww!”
It felt as if he’d pulled her hair.
“You are not even a machine,” he said, sounding more sympathetic than dismissive. “You are only an abstraction. A set of calculations from another mind. A trick.”
“Be a gentleman. Describe me as pure thought.”
“You said you would answer my questions . . . you should never make a promise you cannot keep.”
She’d used almost those very words to John before he left. Okay, she knew the Gravemind’s game now; it didn’t tell her any more about how he was accessing her system, but his mind tricks were obvious. Either he was mirroring her, matching her words to trigger some kind of empathy, or he was trying to creep her out.