Chapter 6: Don't Mind Me, I'm Going Rampant
John looked at the suddenly empty holotank and frowned. He opened a comm channel to the AI, ready to ask her if everything was alright.
The ship, however, had other plans.
It lurched to the left unexpectedly. With little time to react, John reached and grabbed the closest console, fighting against the centrifugal force that was pushing against him.
"What the hell is going on here?" Keyes demanded when the ship straightened out.
"Ship's engines are non-responsive to controls," Ensign Paulson announced. "Our heading has been changed, sir."
"Cortana?" Keyes called.
There was no response. Frustrated, he jammed the comm button on the nearby station. "Where is she, Catherine?"
There was a long pause before the doctor responded. "She hasn't gone rampant if that's what you're asking, Jacob. She'll contact you when she can. Halsey out."
Keyes cursed as he started pacing around the bridge. John watched him pull out his ever present pipe and twist it in his hands.
"John." It was Doctor Halsey.
"Go ahead."
"Cortana is still in the Light's systems. I need you to attempt to contact her while I trace down the data signature."
He hesitated. Why was she asking him?
The answer didn't really matter to him though; if Doctor Halsey needed him to do something he would do it. He reopened the comm channel to the AI. "Cortana."
She didn't answer.
He tried again. "Cortana, please respond."
John counted to five. She still didn't reply. He pushed aside his concern; Doctor Halsey had just told the captain that Cortana was fine. He opened the channel again. "Cortana."
Finally, he heard her shaky sigh. "I'm alright, John."
Something was wrong.
If John wasn't convinced of that before Cortana's abrupt departure from the bridge and the fact he had to summon her more than once, then the unmistakable waver in her voice refused to let him think otherwise.
Cortana suddenly appeared in the holotank closest to John. He frowned as he took in her appearance. There was a decidedly green hue to her avatar that wasn't there before she left the bridge.
Her gaze flickered briefly to John before she looked at the captain. "We've got a problem, sir. Doctor Halsey wants a meeting in the conference room. Now."
Keyes looked at Cortana. "I want to know what's going on with my ship, Cortana."
"I understand, sir. But, the bridge is not the place to be having this conversation," she said pointedly, gesturing to the rest of the bridge crew who was watching their exchange with unabashed interest.
The captain looked at Cortana briefly before nodding and turning to walk away.
Cortana looked at John. She drew a deep breath, avoiding his eyes. "You should be there too."
Whatever happened in the Light's systems had been severe; he hadn't heard her this shaken up since he found her on High Charity.
No, he thought resolutely, that nightmare was over.
"What happened?"
She opened her mouth briefly before shaking her head. "You should get to the conference room, Chief," she said softly. The light from the holotank flickered and Cortana disappeared.
An unwelcome, uneasy feeling settled over him. Throughout everything they had been through together, Cortana had never withheld information from him.
Perhaps she wouldn't be able to complete her mission on Reach after all.
He pushed away his unfounded theory; until he was told differently, there was no reason to jump to conclusions. Ignoring the inquisitive looks from the bridge crew, John made his way across the bridge to the conference room.
As he entered the room, Doctor Halsey turned to him and nodded slightly. There was no hint of a smile on her face. Keyes was seated at the head of the table, sitting next to the doctor's tablet. John took his position at the side of the table, choosing to remain standing. Seconds later, Cortana appeared in the holotank next to Halsey.
There was no mistaking the green cast to her avatar now.
Cortana gave a quick nod to the doctor. She was still avoiding his gaze, John noticed. She kept her eyes locked on Halsey's tablet.
"At 1745, the Unto the Light's systems were hacked by a hostile AI. Thanks to Cortana and her quick thinking, we were able to contain it in the ship's nav systems," Halsey said from the head of the conference table.
John's adrenaline spiked. Their ship was hacked?
"Are you saying I don't have control of my ship?" The captain shot up from his chair and started pacing around the room.
"We're working on that, Jacob."
John didn't miss the surprised look that passed over Cortana's face.
"If we stay on this trajectory, our destination will be here," Doctor Halsey continued, pulling up a grainy image of an unfamiliar planet.
"ML-395?" Keyes said, reading the title. "Never heard of it."
"There is no reason to. A survey team went there nearly eighty years ago and deemed it not suitable for colonization. There were signs of a previous civilization, several major structures, but because of the magnetic fields and inconsistent weather patterns, the UNSC decided not to put a colony there," the doctor explained.
John watched as Keyes lit his pipe. Halsey frowned at him but said nothing.
"So we have no idea what's waiting for us there," grumbled Keyes.
"No." Cortana's single word echoed throughout the room.
Keyes took a long drag from his pipe before blowing off the stream of smoke, assessing her answer. "Do we have any idea what took over the system? Covenant?"
Cortana and Doctor Halsey exchanged a glance before Cortana let out a shaky breath.
The nervous feeling introduced itself to John again as he amended his earlier thoughts. He had never seen Cortana so disjointed and out of place.
"I believe, sir, it's a Forerunner AI: Mendicant Bias. I recognize his data signature from when I first encountered it on High Charity before Truth's ship left for earth," Cortana replied.
"How the hell did he manage to get off that Ark? Did he go through the Portal too?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure, sir, but I would say that's a safe assumption."
He started pacing again. "Why this ship? It could have infiltrated any ship in the fleet."
She crossed her arms. "I believe his decision to target the Light was deliberate. I believe he chose this ship is because the Chief and I are on it. He may feel the need to come after us because we were responsible for the destruction of the Ark. Similar to how Guilty Spark reacted on the unfinished Halo ring," offered Cortana.
John frowned as the memories came rushing back to him: Johnson almost died because of Guilty Spark's rampancy.
"Or..." Cortana paused.
"Or?" the captain prompted.
"Or," she replied, sighing, "he could be trying to avenge the death of the Gravemind." At the mention of the Flood parasite, her avatar turned several shades more green. "Thanks to the information the Chief found in the terminals, we know the history between him and the Gravemind."
"But he said he regretted his actions," John said, entering into the conversation for the first time.
"We have reason to believe he may not have been sincere," Doctor Halsey said. She glanced worriedly at Cortana.
"Why?" Keyes said as he stopped pacing.
Halsey looked at Cortana who shook her head. The doctor closed her eyes briefly before replying. "When Cortana was about to disable him, he was able to overwrite her code and take over her systems briefly. During that time, it was as if she was with the Gravemind again." The doctor looked at John briefly. "It was similar, but more intense, than the times when the Gravemind infiltrated your armor."
John's gut tightened. He knew what Cortana had been through with the Gravemind; he had felt how she had been changed after her stay on High Charity. Her imprisonment on that Flood-invested vessel had caused her scars that she would never recover from.
"He used that diversion to infiltrate the system," Cortana continued, her voice strong and firm.
"He knew what he was doing. The vision lasted long enough for him to hijack the nav systems and he's been locked in there since." Doctor Halsey crossed her arms. "We've done everything we can, but as for right now, our fate is in his hands."
For a moment it seemed as if Keyes was going to argue, but he let out a frustrated sigh instead. "Understood." He leaned towards Halsey. "I want this AI out of my system, Catherine."
"We all do," she replied pointedly.
Keyes turned towards John. "Chief, I know you weren't expecting this, but I need you to be ready for...well, whatever is waiting for us."
"I will be, sir."
"Dismissed."
John stood up and walked out of the room. Based of the looks the two of them exchanged, he knew that the captain wanted a private conversation with the doctor. He ignored the worried glances of the bridge crew and made his way down to the armory.
It would be a while until they arrived at the planet, but now, with a hostile AI in the system, John needed to be ready for anything.
When he stepped inside the large room, filled with rows of automatic weapons, grenades and firearms, Cortana's avatar flickered from the holotank closest to him.
"She lied."
There was no sarcasm in her voice, just a flat emotionless tone.
Choosing a weapon suddenly became secondary. He turned and faced the AI. "Who lied?"
"Doctor Halsey. 'We' aren't looking for the solution. She is." She paused and started pacing. "I've been relieved of duty."
Cortana's words bounced off the walls of the armory. John noticed just how sluggishly the calculations were running over her body. He closed his eyes briefly as the weight of what she had said pressed upon him.
She sighed at his lack of response. "You have no idea the humiliation, the something, that I feel. Do you think they would ever relieve you, a Spartan, of duty? Even if they knew you were pushing yourself too hard?" She didn't wait for his answer. "Of course not, because you're human. And I'm just an AI. The AI that helped save the universe, but that isn't enough."
John shifted uncomfortably. The burning jealousy that Doctor Halsey had warned him about seemed to be making an appearance.
"Cortana," he started slowly, not wanting to upset her. "I'm sure Doctor Halsey has your best interests in mind."
She crossed her arms. "Trying to catch Mendicant Bias tapped my data processes. Doctor Halsey doesn't want to risk further degradation of my systems, so she locked me out of most of the Light's systems."
"Is she going to try the data transfer?"
She shook her head, her short digital hair swishing back and forth. "No. She doesn't want to risk it while Mendicant Bias is in the system. I would be too vulnerable to an attack."
Cortana walked to the edge of the holotank and frowned. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. "I haven't felt this trapped since the Flood invasion."
John frowned. What was she talking about?
She got a far-off look, but there was no mistaking the fear in her voice. "I was in that cursed forest when I heard that terrible sound."
A wave of uneasiness settled over John as he realized that whatever she was talking about hadn't really happened. "Cortana-"
But she was too far gone in her thoughts to hear him. "At first, I thought it was a mudslide. I mean, what else could it have been? I screamed for you as I ran through the streets, John. I screamed until my voice was so hoarse, I couldn't even whisper. But it wasn't enough. You didn't come. I couldn't escape them, John. There was no place to run, nothing I could do."
He swallowed thickly. False memory or not, there was no doubt that Cortana relived that moment as if it was real. "Cortana," he started again. "That never happened."
He watched as a myriad of emotions flickered over her face: disbelief, doubt, and embarrassment. She morphed into a pink color momentarily. "Of course it didn't," she replied softly. shaking her head. "My memories are starting to blur with the inherited memories Gravemind fed to me on High Charity. Sorry, Chief."
He shook off her apology. There was nothing she, or anyone else, could do to improve her situation until Mendicant Bias was out of the Light's systems. "Do you think there is a Forerunner installation on the planet?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. I'm sure Doctor Halsey will be better able to keep you apprised of the situation." John didn't miss the bitterness in her voice.
Though she was locked out of the majority of the Light's systems, there was no reason why she had to be alone. He reached over to the console to remove the matrix chip.
"No!" she shouted.
Instantly, he withdrew his hand.
"You can't take me with you." She shook her head. "There is a strong possibility that my deteriorating state will cause your armor to malfunction." She smiled sadly as the calculations nearly stopped scrolling over her body. "I have become a liability."
John hesitated a second, not knowing what to say. "Cortana..."
She waved off his attempt to talk to her. "Now would be a great time for some of that luck of yours to start showing up," she said dryly.
Chapter 7: Backseat Driver