[Thread] ' 'No More Dead Heroes ' '

[sierra_058]

Characters: OU Linda-058, OU Captain Keyes, Open to Halo characters
Where: the park/wandering around, the cafe
When: noon/early evening
Summary: Linda and Keyes arrive at just about the same time. Linda investigates the call for aid from a dead captain. Old friends unite. / Keyes, with Linda trailing, explores the new facility he finds himself in.

Comments

[tactical_loop]

Linda frowned behind her helmet, probably only a physical reaction to Halsey's words because the Spartan knew no one could see it. What Dr. Halsey made sense--in the abstract--but it also did not answer the question to her wishes. A glance at the captain confirmed she wasn't the only one to think in this vein; a soldier is a soldier is a soldier, and they all tended to think alike in certain matters.

Captain Keyes's face was a thoughtful frown. Emphasis on the frown. With a hint of--not quite confusion, but perhaps perplexity and slight disbelief combined together. The idea that Halsey was avoiding the subject--and yes, he could tell she was skirting around something--gave off a troubling air. He ignored that for now. More importantly, along the same lines the Spartan was thinking, he was more interested in getting a straight answer. Or at least something that made sense in a lateral sense.

"While I might get what your hinting at, doctor, please, if you would kindly remember who you're talking to--layman's terms, Catherine. I'm a soldier, not a scientist," the captain replied to all of that vaguely scientific babble.

[charlie_hotel]

Halsey looked at Keyes, with little to no changes in her expression after the Captain asked her for a straight answer. She expected it. As much as she would explain about the possibilities of Econtra, the two of them preferred a straight answer over an unelaborated statement, and over a beating around the sides of a bush.

"Before I tell you the truth, keep in mind that, in our known universe, energy doesn't exist by itself, which rules out the possibility that they would've been born in this one. With the powers they have shown here, they might as well be a species that have been evolving for at least several million years in a variety of alternate physical laws."

The Doctor paused. Neither Linda nor Keyes liked the hinting that Halsey and John were making, but she just knew they would hate the truth that they would soon realize about multiple universes. She sighed at the very thought of admitting that... magic... existed.

I'm really starting to hate magic, Halsey thought. While on better circumstances ONI would have gained an interest in Spectral Combatants, on their world Halsey would have lost every bit of credibility after speaking the now-bitter truth.

"So, if you want it on layman's terms," Halsey took a sip from her coffee, intentionally making a dramatic pause before dropping the proverbial bomb, with admirably hidden emotions at the face of the greatest insult to her knowledge in physics she has ever received in her entire career, "There is magic here."

((OOC: I wish I knew how to imitate Halsey's actual scientific babble from the books. ;_;

[tactical_loop]

Keyes frowned at the beginning of Halsey's statement. Again, she was using terms and tangents that hardly meant a thing to him. While he was a bright and learned person, he was by no means a scientist, and did not think in the terms generally used by such people. No doubt, Linda felt the same at the moment.

But Halsey continued and Keyes (and Linda) gave her the benefit of the doubt in explaining herself. And the captain was justly rewarded--

--with an impossibility.

He stared at Halsey blankly for a long, silent moment. There was no way he had just heard her correctly. "I beg your pardon?" he asked. When she simply stared at him, equally blankly, and he could feel that the answer was not going to change, nor was she suddenly going to shout out "just kidding!" on him, he had to lean back in his chair and accept the truth: she meant what she said, and what she said was absolute bull-shit.

Linda leaned forward a bit from her position, likely in a similar reaction to Keyes just shown in a different way. Her posture shifted slightly, became more focused, tense, and she seemed ready to pounce on anything. The excitement in her posture leaked into the open air of the cafe and made hairs stand on end. It was obvious, despite her silence, that she was also wary and disbelieving of the statement.

"Magic," Keyes said slowly, "is here. Magic."

((I think you do a fine job anyway. It's a hard character to play--trust me, I've tried Cortana. X_x))

[charlie_hotel]

Halsey only sighed at their reaction, understanding their hesitance to accept the existence of that art, and remembering she had the same reaction when she had heard it not from the Norn Urd, but from her Spartans. The Doctor had predicted how hard it would've been for the two of them to be told by her about... magic. If anything, however, she managed to keep herself calm and in stride as she talked.

On the outside.

On the inside, Halsey cringed at the fact she had just surrendered her logic towards accepting the existence of magic.

Luck was one thing, and no doubt it had helped them in their brutal war. Watching Mr. Stark turn into a small, joyful, anthropomorphic mechanical robot was a violation and an insult to all known laws of reality. It mocked all of her years receiving Doctorates. It made fun of even her most basic understanding of reality.

If there was a God watching over the Omniverse (at this point, she dared not to tempt fate by pondering about the possibility, though), it was laughing at the Doctor right now.

She nodded, seemingly unmoved by the shocked expressions of the Captain and the Spartan.

"On layman's terms." The Doctor answered, "The reason their laws might work here may be because the Keepers wanted them to work, and decided to build the facility in a world that was had similarities with the world they fought in. They could be great sources of energy, after all."

"If you remain doubtful about it, you can check the logs of Sierra One-One-Seven and Zero-Eight-Seven. They've been here for quite a while, and have kept an extensive amount of data, both from this world, and from many others."