The Spartan took hold of the device, and pulled it up and out of its tubular sheath. He held it up to examine the glowing artifact – and was startled when a gray beam lanced from Spark. The Index was yanked from his hand and disappeared inside a storage chamber in the Monitor’s body.
“What the hell are you doing?” the Spartan demanded.
“As you know, Reclaimer,” Spark said, as if addressing an errant child, “protocol requires that I take possession of the Index for transport.”
343 Guilty Spark swooped and dived, then floated in place. “Your biological form renders you vulnerable to infection. The Index must not fall into the hands of the Flood before we reach the Control Room and activate the installation.
“The Flood is spreading! We must hurry.”
The Master Chief was about to reply when he saw the bands of pulsating light flowing down around his body, knew he was about to be teleported, and again felt light-headed.
It wanted something, Keyes realized. The memories that replayed like an endless library of video clips were being sifted for something. The buzzing presence in his mind sought... what?
He grasped at the thought, and pushed back against the wall of resistance the other that burrowed through his consciousness had erected. He brushed up against it and it almost slipped away...
Then he had it – escape. Whatever this thing was, it wanted off the ring. It hungered, and there was a perfect feeding ground to be found.
The other plunged a barbed-wire tendril into his mind and ripped forth an image of a lunar Earth rise, which blurred into images of cattle in a slaughterhouse. He felt the other’s tendrils eagerly grasp at the image of Earth. Where? It thundered. Tell.
The pressure increased and battered through Keyes’ resistance, and in desperation he summoned up a new memory. The alien presence seemed startled at the image of Keyes and a childhood friend kicking a soccer ball on a vibrant green field.
The pressure eased as the hungry other examined the memory.
Keyes felt a stab of regret. He knew what he had to do now.
He dragged all he remembered of Earth – its location, his ability to find it, its defenses – and shoved them down, as deep as he could.
Keyes felt the gaping sense of loss as the memory of the soccer field was ripped away and discarded forever. He quickly summoned up another – the taste of a favorite meal. He began to feed his memories to the invading presence in his mind, one scrap at a time.
Of all the battles he’d ever fought, this one was the toughest – and the most important.
The Chief rematerialized back on the walkway which seemed to float over the black abyss below – the Control Room. He saw the replica of Halo which arched above, the globe that floated at the center of the walkway, and the control panel where he had last seen Cortana. Was she still there?
343 Guilty Spark hovered above his head. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing.”
“Splendid. Shall we?”
The Spartan made his way forward. The control board was long and curved at either end. An endless light show played across the surface of the panel as various aspects of the ring world’s extremely complicated electronic and mechanical machinery fed a constant flow of data to the display, all of which appeared as a mosaic of constantly morphing glyphs and symbols.
Here, if one knew how to read it, were the equivalents of the ring world’s pulse, respirations, and brain waves. Reports that provided information on the rate of spin, the atmosphere, the weather, the highly complex biosphere, the machinery that kept all of it running, plus the activities of the creatures around whom the world had been formed: the Flood. It was awesome to look at – and even more awesome to consider.
343 Guilty Spark hovered above the control panel and looked down on the human who stood in front of him. There was something supercilious about the tone of the construct’s voice. “My role in this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units from my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with the Core.”
The Monitor zipped around to hover at the Master Chief’s side. “That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimer.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” the Chief asked. Spark kept silent.
The Spartan shrugged, accepted the Index, and gazed at the panel in front of him. One likely-looking slot pulsed the same glowing green that shone from the Index. He slid it home. The T-shaped device fit perfectly.
The control panel shivered as if stabbed, the displays flared as if in response to an overload, and an electronic groan was heard. 343 Guilty Spark tilted slightly as if to look at the control board.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Spark chirped.
There was a sudden shimmer of light as Cortana’s holographic figure appeared and continued to grow until she towered over the control panel. Her eyes were bright pink, data scrolled across her body, and the Chief knew she was pissed. “Oh, really?” she said. She gestured, and the Monitor fell out of the air and hit the deck with a clank.
The Spartan looked up at her. “Cortana–”
The AI stood with hands on hips. “I spent hours cooped in here watching you toady about helping that... thing get set to slit our throats.”
The Chief turned toward the Monitor and back. “Hold on now. He’s a friend.”
Cortana brought a hand up to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, I didn’t realize. He’s your pal, is he? Your chum? Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do?”
“Yes,” the Spartan said patiently. “Activate Halo’s defenses and destroy the Flood. Which is why we brought the Index to the Control Center.”
Cortana’s image plucked the Index out of its slot and held it out in front of her. “You mean this?”
Now reanimated, 343 Guilty Spark hovered just off the floor. He was furious. “A construct in the core? That is absolutely unacceptable!”
Cortana’s eyes glowed as she bent forward. “Piss off.”
The Monitor darted higher. “What impertinence! I shall purge you at once.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Cortana inquired as she waved the Index, then added the data contained within it to her memory.
“How dare you!” Spark exclaimed. “I’ll–”
“Do what?” Cortana demanded. “I have the Index. You can float and sputter.”
The Master Chief held both hands up. One held the assault rifle. “Enough! The Flood is spreading. If we activate Halo’s defenses we can wipe them out.”
Cortana looked down on the human with an expression of pity. “You have no idea how this ring works, do you? Why the Forerunners built it?”
She leaned forward, her face grim. “Halo doesn’t kill Flood – it kills their food. Human, Covenant, whatever. You’re all equally edible. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death. And that’s exactly what Halo is designed to do. Wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don’t believe me?” the AI finished. “Ask him!” and she pointed to 343 Guilty Spark.
The ramifications of what Cortana said hit home, and he gripped his MA5B tightly. He rounded on the Monitor. “Is it true?”
Spark bobbed slightly. “Of course,” the construct said directly. Then, sounding more like his officious self again, “This installation has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, but once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.