Chapter 11: Was There Something You Wanted to Tell Us?
"Chief! Chief? Can you hear me?"
A sense of deja vu washed over John as he listened to Cortana's panicked voice. Slowly, he opened his eyes. The bright glare from the overhead lights in the med bay were shining in his eyes. He struggled to remember what happened. One moment, he was putting Cortana's matrix chip in his neural lace and the next, he was laying on the floor.
"Chief?"
"I'm here," he answered.
"Al last!" The smile was evident in her voice. "Can you move?"
He nodded as he pulled himself into a standing position. The world around him was spinning violently. He closed his eyes and waited until the wave of vertigo passed. Halsey was looking at him, concerned.
"I guess I'm too much for you to handle," Cortana cheekily replied. Her voice softened slightly. "You alright?"
"I'm...fine."
Though the room had stopped spinning, John couldn't ignore the feeling that there was something wrong. Normally, Cortana's presence in his armor was noticeable, but not distracting. Now, it felt as if she was constantly looking over his shoulder. If he concentrated, he could almost feel her processes running through his neural lace.
"That sounded convincing," she said dryly through his helmet speakers.
"It feels different," he hedged.
Halsey looked up from her tablet with an inquisitive look. "How so?"
He shook his head. "Before, I knew when she was in my armor, now it feels as if she is in my mind." He paused. "It's slightly disorienting."
"It could be the buffer," Cortana suggested. "More of my protocols are interacting with his neural lace. I tried to strip out as many commands as I could, but with the algorithm, it was the best I could do."
Halsey considered Cortana's words for a moment. She set down her tablet and crossed her arms, taking a position that John had seen Cortana taken numerous times over the past year. "It's your call, John. Now that the initial transfer has taken place and some of Cortana's subroutines will always be in place in your armor, the threat of losing consciousness has passed. However, this feeling you describe is more than likely not going to change. It is up to you if you want to continue acting as Cortana's custodian or not."
Regardless of the awkwardness of the connection, John couldn't imagine working in his suit without Cortana. "I'll be fine, ma'am."
A whisper of a smile passed over her lips. "I thought you would say that." She looked back at the computer. "Go ahead and transfer Cortana back to the Light, John."
He held his hand over the holotank. Cortana appeared less than a second later. She smiled apologetically at him. "Sorry about that, Chief."
He waved off her apology.
She took a seat and crossed her legs. "It seems as though Bias is finally letting me have a crack at the Forerunner database," she said, pleased. "I'll let you know if I find something interesting," she said, flashing a wink at the two of them.
She might have been missing a large amount of data, John thought, but she had lost none of her personality.
"Unorthodox," Halsey muttered.
John looked at the doctor and nodded. He had used that very same word on Reach when Halsey had asked for his preliminary assessment of the AI. "Yes, ma'am."
"Please take a seat and remove your helmet, John," she instructed, getting back to business. "I need to make sure there was no damage done to the interface or your neural lace when Cortana transferred her systems to your armor."
Nearly a quarter of an hour passed. Halsey was running a final scan on his neural lace when Cortana suddenly shot up from her position. "What's the Hive?" she demanded.
John and Halsey looked at each other, confused. Was this some random piece of information Cortana's system had created during her rampancy?
"It's a Forerunner installation?" Cortana prompted.
Halsey shook her head first. "We've never been there."
Cortana pressed her lips together, annoyed. "We need to talk to Bias. Now."
John watched as she stood there motionless for a second, no doubt summoning the AI. She started pacing in a tight circle. Neither he nor Halsey asked her for clarification; it seemed that until the Forerunner AI appeared, Cortana was willing to keep the information about the mysterious Hive to herself.
Several minutes later, the doors slid apart. Keyes walked in the room, Bias was floating several feet behind him. Before the captain could ask what was going on, Cortana pinned the AI with a stare. "When were you going to tell us?"
To his credit, he didn't feign ignorance. "The Sentinels should be able to deal with this unexpected encounter," replied Bias, unperturbed.
"So that would be never," Cortana shot back.
"What's going on?" Keyes asked, looking back and forth between the two AIs.
Bias ignored the captain and floated directly in front of Cortana. "You have managed to pervade the Forerunner infrastructure faster than I anticipated. I didn't expect for you to be linked into the security protocols so soon."
"I'm not to be underestimated," she replied coolly.
"However," he continued, "I was going to tell you once the threat had been eliminated."
Keyes moved to stand between the two of them. "Tell us what?"
Cortana looked away momentarily; John knew she was accessing the information from the Forerunner network. "There is a Forerunner installation called the Hive. It's there that the Forerunners developed their technology. Artificial intelligence, the Halo array, the Portal...everything. Somehow, there is a group of Covenant who have discovered its location and are on their way there. The proximity sensors on the installation's surface detected them an hour ago."
She turned to the captain, her face grim. "There is a Key there, sir," Cortana explained. "If they find it, then they will be able to control the Halos."
John's gut tightened at the implication of her words. All they had done going through the Portal was a waste?
The captain shook his head in disbelief. "But you activated the Index and the Ark was destroyed. I thought the other Installations worked in tangent with it."
"The Ark has an ability to regenerate itself just like the Rings do, sir. It will take more time, but Installation 00 will be rebuilt," replied Cortana.
Keyes rubbed his chin, considering Cortana's words. "OK, so we need to get this key before the Covenant do."
Bias huffed indignantly. "I have already told you, the Sentinels are-"
"You wouldn't know," Cortana accused, crossing her arms. "You were locked out of the system a hundred thousand years ago when you defected to the Flood."
Several tense seconds passed, before Bias conceded. "They should be able to defend the installation without your assistance," he corrected.
"I'm not willing to try the 'let's wait and see approach'," replied Cortana. She turned to face Keyes. "We need to get there, sir. It is the only fail safe against the Halos from ever being activated again. The Forerunners created the Key to lock the Halo's weapons down after the Flood threat past. After all, the original purpose of the Halo rings was to support and encourage life."
Keyes turned towards Bias. "How do we get this key?"
"You cannot. Your Construct-"
"Cortana," she corrected testily.
"-Can. The information she is uploading contains specific instructions of how to recover it, but I would encourage you to wait and see if the defense systems will take care of the threat itself," Bias replied.
Keyes shook his head. "So the Covenant can have an advantage over us again? I don't think so."
Chapter 12: Lovely Parting Gift