GRAFTED

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=Dramatis Personae= Pending.

=Grafted=

Chapter 1: Recovery
A void filled Robert’s mind, imposing and vacuous in its size. It resided right where his memories should have been, right between his tenth birthday and what he had for dinner last week. Gnawing at the back of his brain like a rabid animal tearing its way from a trash bag, more pieces and fragments of his mind stripped themselves from his consciousness, and fell into the howling darkness filling his brain like a thick soup.

A street with towering buildings on either side of him, and flashing neon lights above and behind—no, all around. Circling him, pressing in with an overabundance of sights, sounds, and smells.

The pressure on his head increased; everything from the outside bore down on the nothing inside, and his skull throbbed from the pressure differential like a pipe, ready to implode around his ears and crush his sense of self.

What was his name again?

Robert Jacobs, that’s right. Robert… Jason? Jake, no, wait… he threw his hands up and gripped his head, a sob of anguish and pain breeching out through his lips and sending spittle flying down onto the rain-soaked cement pathway beneath his shiny black shoes. He had expensive shoes, and he liked expensive things.

He couldn’t remember what else he owned that was expensive, but he knew he liked expensive things, and shiny things. Everything around him was shiny.

Where was he, again? He held his head tighter, digging his fingers into his scalp and grabbing fistfuls of his hair. He didn’t know where he was, or his name. Ro, ro, something with R.

Why was it so noisy? He looked around, eyes scanning the frightful faces of the crowd, distorted and shifting, his perception altered. They were staring at him, looking at him, giving him a wide berth as he writhed in the middle of the street, hands ripping out strands of his hair.

“Sir, are you alright?” A voice asked.

Robert looked up, bloodshot eyes wide with fear and paranoia, staring at the uniformed officers across the street from him.

They regarded him with a questioning expression on their faces, and he answered them back with a look of pure fear.

“Sir?” One of them took a step towards him. “Sir, are you in distress?”

Robert backed off. Was he in distress? No, wait, yes, he wasn’t, was he? Edging away from the officers found Robert’s back pressed up against a wall, and the officers took more than a passing interest at this sudden turn of behaviour.

“Are you under the effects of any narcotic substances, sir?” the second officer asked, and took a few steps across the street towards the afraid man.

Something in Robert, some primal impulse deep inside, triggered his fight-or-flight responses at the threat of being cornered. A predator, bearing down on him with stern expressions and tensed muscles, and his back against the wall.

Robert took off running, ignoring the shouting demands from the police behind him. His legs pounded against the pavement, the pulsing throb in his head screaming with each footfall on the street beneath. The thudding of his shoes rang loudly inside his ears, shaking his bones. His desperate, jittery movements almost made him lose balance whenever he took a corner, or ducked to the side to avoid a passerby.

People would get out of his way as he barrelled towards them, full speed, his lungs already burning for air, suit jacket and tie flapping in the wind behind him. His body, soft from years of office work, was not meant for this sort of pace set by the frantic noises in his head, and the all-consuming fear, eating away at his heart as surely as the omnipresent void ate at his mind.

He turned a corner too fast and slammed into a wall, the air rushing from his lungs in an explosive sigh. He kept running before he could catch his breath, air entering his lungs in wheezing snippets as his airways struggled to open back up. His legs were screaming at him, his arms flailing in some semblance of pumping to steady his balance.

Robert was a wild animal in that moment, reduced to instinctual need to run, hide, and survive. He couldn’t hide with this many people around, so he ducked into an alley, sprinted down its length until people around him started to thin, and the sound of jackboots behind him faded to nothing.

Robert’s overexerted body came to a stop in the doorway of a closed shop. The street around presented him nothing but silence, pierced only by the hiss of steam from a manhole cover, or the drips of water from lines of clothing up above, strung between the grey polycrete walls.

Voices came down the alley after him, and Robert slinked down the wall, hiding behind dumpsters and trash cans.

The two police officers from before emerged into the street, looking up and down for any sign of him. He hesitated, debating on running or staying put. The two sides warred within him, like two personalities clashing for dominance.

He took a breath and held it, ducking behind the garbage as one of their eyes looked his way, hoping and praying they didn’t see him.

“Control, 18XL3,” one of them said. “We have a Grafted loose on the streets. Suspect last seen on the corner of fifth and Bendan Ave, grid five. Requesting backup and air support.”

Robert’s eyes widened at the word ‘Grafted’. Was that him? Surely not, he couldn’t even remember what Grafted were, just that they were bad. Grafted were dangerous criminals, and Robert wasn’t a dangerous criminal, was he? He was just an office worker—

That’s right! He remembered now, he was an office worker, and that day was special. So special, he smiled all day, even to Linda in HR, who he hated! He went to his doctor after work, no, not his doctor, he went to a doctor. A different doctor, in a dingy building, with fluorescent lights and dirty tables, with scalpels and needles that looked rusty and worn, and with a data chip in his hand—

Robert stopped, letting out his breath with a whimper, and reaching around to the back of his neck to feel around for something he wished sorely that he wouldn’t find.

His fingers brushed over something cold, and metal, and raised scars and suture marks around it. Thrumming with power, cool against the tips of his probing digits.

He ripped them away and cried out, as though burned. The void in his mind, his memory loss, his fear. They weren’t him, they weren’t even human. The void where his memories should’ve been was a separate consciousness, pressing against his own, and thrashing against its bonds. It was a prisoner; an unwilling passenger in his mind, and now they were both in danger.

“Solid copy, 18XL3.” the voices around the dumpster continued, like only a scant few seconds had passed while Robert wallowed in his dread.

''“Air support en-route. All units, be advised, a Grafted has been reported near grid five. All available units in grid five respond, the suspect's last known position is fifth and Bendan Ave.”''

Robert felt a wave of calm wash over him, eerie and still. Flight was no longer an option, and so the only remaining option was fight. He couldn’t outrun the entire police force, but he could fight off some of them, and escape.

The thoughts came to him with a rush of adrenaline, and Robert just had enough time to wonder whose thoughts they really were, before he stood up. Limbs moving by themselves arms outstretched, they grabbed the dumpster and started rolling it down the street, towards the pair of police officers.

Robert picked up speed, his arms creaking and bones protesting as he pushed the dumpster with all his strength possible, and rocketed towards the pair before they could turn their heads to face him.

When they did, it was nearly too late for them to do anything. They had enough time to widen their eyes, brace their legs against the ground.

One of them yelled. “Hey!

Then the dumpster crashed into them, coming to a stop. Robert hefted himself up with his hands, using the momentum he still had to launch himself up onto the dumpster’s lid. He coiled his legs and jumped off, landing atop one of the officers, and flailing his fists down into the man’s face.

Bones and cartilage crunched under the vicious onslaught, and when Robert stopped hitting the man, his face was a bloody, pulpy mess.

Robert’s attention went to the other officer, as he tried to stagger to his feet, right arm bent at an unnatural angle.

Looking down at the dead officer, Robert’s hand fumbled for his holster, ripped off the top strap, and wrapped both his hands around the cool grip of the weapon. Moving the weapon up, the barrel came to rest with the other officer square in the gun sights.

Robert watched with morbid fascination as time slowed to a standstill. A droplet of water ran off of a piece of fabric just behind the officer’s head, falling through the sky and towards the earth.

Robert pulled the trigger, the blast ringing in his ears, and bouncing around the alleyway around him. The bullet flew straight into the other officer’s heart, knocking him back a step, before he crumbled to the ground, eyes vacant, and blood pooling underneath him.

The droplet of water hit the ground with a splash.

Silence fell back onto the alleyway, smothering all sounds like a blanket. Robert stepped off the body beneath him and groaned, emptying his stomach on the ground.

Solomon stepped off of his squad bike and moved his way through the crowd, sidearm drawn. A crowd of people were gathered at the entrance of the alley, staring down at whatever lay inside. With a thrum overhead, a Falcon breezed over the buildings, searchlights on.

Deep, icy surges of fear gripped Solomon’s chest, and his hands tightened around the revolver in his hands as he parted the crown, and stepped onto the scene.

His mouth hung open at what he found. Two officers lay dead, one of them shot, one of them spread-eagled, broken legs beneath a heavy dumpster, and his head smashed in until it was unrecognisable.

He took steps up towards the body, knelt down beside one, and checked him over. The man was savaged, like a wild animal had gotten ahold of his head. A hungry, rabid wild animal, with no goal other than to kill the man as brutally as possible.

He held his wrist up to his lips. “14FB9,” he said. “Suspect has just taken out two officers. They’re missing their sidearms,” he continued, gazing down at the empty holster of the dead officer. “Suspect considered armed and dangerous!”

“Copy that, 14FB9,” control said back. “Threat level increasing.”

Solomon whetted his dry lips, looking around the alleyway, his heart beating hard, rage and adrenaline coursing through his system at the thought of whoever did this being out there, still. He brought his wrist back up to his mouth, hand balled into a tight fist. “Control, I—” he said, paused, then shook his head. “Control, requesting deployment of GUARDIAN-Class assets for detainment. Authorisation code Foxtrot One Eleven.”

There was a pause on the other end, until the voice came back with a pause, and an unsure noise. ''“Please repeat? Does the target warrant GUARDIAN-Class response units?”''

“Right now the suspect is running through the slums,” Solomon stared down at his communicator, and the wavy green line that indicated his voice being picked up by the mouthpiece. “Vehicle units cannot pursue, foot units will not catch him. He will run until he dies, he’s a Grafted! Until he drops dead he will not stop, and he has a gun! He is a clear and present threat to the lives of civilians and officers. Send the damn GUARDIANS!”

The line went silent, with nothing but the background sound of static on the other end. For a while, Solomon thought that the line had disconnected, but sighed in relief when the line chirped.

“Copy,” the other end said. ''“Authorisation Foxtrot One Eleven. GUARDIANS en-route to suspect’s last-known.”''

Nodding Solomon disconnected the line, and looked up into the sky.

Robert’s hands shook, his legs shook, his body ached. Pushing it so far beyond the limits of human endurance for so long made him weak, his eyelids heavy. His body wanted to give up, to collapse right there and expire, but something kept him going.

Some errant freak of biology kept him awake and alert, despite how much his hands shook, or his bones protested, or his muscles and tendons tore.

He clambered up the stairs five at a time, just wanting to get somewhere quiet to reflect. When he came to an iron door, he wasted no time in hiking up his foot and slamming it into the door handle.

It didn’t budge, so he did it again, and again, and again, until the metal bent enough for the lock to slide out of position, and the door to fly open.

Wind bit his eyes and mouth, and he finally found some peace stepping out onto the rooftop, among the thrumming air units and vents. He shut his eyes, craned his head up into the sky, panting through an open mouth, squeezing his eyelids so tight that tears began to leak out of the corner of his eyes.

What would possess him to stick an AI into his brain? All he could remember were horror stories, news articles on his datapad, the horrors of this new criminal enterprise going around. The dead policemen, dead soldiers, the brutality of the response teams.

He stared down at the gun in his hands, wondering when his name would show up in the news, if it hadn’t already.

He sighed and dropped to his knees, the pistol clattering from his grip and onto the polycrete rooftop.

When would he be another statistic, or another horror story, scaring other business workers like him?

What would his colleagues think when they heard?

A noise behind him interrupted Robert’s musings, and his hand found the gun once more, turning around and pointing it at the stairwell.

A figure coalesced into being from the darkness, jet black armour and reflective gold visor staring at him from over the barrel of an assault rifle.

“Drop it,” the voice commanded.

Robert didn’t move, merely inching around to one side.

The armoured behemoth gripped the rifle tighter in his arms, betraying no emotions nor intent with his body language, and his face hidden. “I said drop it!”

Robert kept his hands tight around the service revolver. Though he, consciously, was trying to drop the gun to the ground and flee, something else inside him kept his arms steady, and his fingers clasped around the weapon.

When the Spartan leaned into the rifle, and his hand squeezed around the grip, Robert fired off a shot. The light and noise made him blink, but his eyes went wide when he saw where the bullet hit.

The side of the Spartan’s rifle exploded, sending shards of metal up into the air. The magazine dropped from the weapon, spilling bullets out of its destroyed casing as it went. The Spartan flinched, drew back, and Robert fired another shot, which sailed through the air, and hit the other man dead-centre in the head.

Golden shields flared around the armour, and the Spartan leapt to one side.

Robert couldn’t keep track of the man’s movements with his eyes, but his body turned to face the figure as he sprinted around the rooftop, launching himself from cover to cover.

Another bullet left the revolver, and then a third, and a fourth.

All of them found their mark on the Spartan, either as he left cover, or just as he was about to slide into it. His shields began to waver and flicker, and a fifth shot broke them entirely with a shower of golden sparks.

When the Spartan hit the rooftop and came to a halt behind an air conditioning unit, Robert’s legs started to move him towards the cover, despite his brain yelling at him to turn the other way. He wasn’t in control anymore, and he wanted to scream, or cry, or do anything other than what he was doing.

When he came to a stop beside the AC unit, the Spartan leapt from cover. Robert pulled the trigger, but there was a click instead of a bang. All six chambers were empty, and the would-have-been-lethal shot instead achieved nothing.

The Spartan batted the gun out of Robert’s grasp and threw a wicked straight punch at the man’s jaw. Robert saw it coming, and his body jerked down out of the way at the last possible second. Robert felt the fist graze by his ear, and his own hand lashed out, striking the Spartan in his neck. The next hit went for a shoulder, then the next for the relatively-unprotected abdomen.

The Spartan staggered, caught off guard by Robert’s vicious attacks, before holding up his fists. When Robert’s next blow came, the Spartan side stepped, grabbed Robert’s arm, and twisted it.

The elbow joint popped with minimal effort, and a lance of pain lit up his nervous system.

The Spartan let go when Robert went to wrench is arm free, turning in place and sticking out an armoured leg. Robert ducked underneath it, swinging his fist up and into the Spartan’s groin.

He grunted in pain and stumbled back, his noise turning to one of anger when he stepped in under Robert’s guard and punched the businessman square in the chest.

Robert fell onto his back, pressing his arms underneath him and throwing his feet up into the air. His impromptu backwards roll let him stand back up, and face the armoured man once again, as he took great thudding steps across the rooftop towards him.

He threw a lightning-quick punch, which Robert couldn’t avoid, and the fist connected with his jaw with a crunch, dislocating the bone instantly and breaking off three teeth. Robert’s mouth filled with blood, and his head began to swim.

The Spartan delivered a similar blow to the other side, spinning Robert around and causing him to eject teeth and blood from his lips, jaw dangling uselessly from its joints.

Robert staggered away, turned around, and threw his good arm into a punch, aiming for the Spartan’s helmet.

His hand shattered on impact with the Spartan’s head, breaking every bone that came under tension as his arm followed through with the motion. He didn’t scream—barely even felt it. Robert then swung his other arm, dislocated though it was, and brought it around hard enough to produce the same results in his other limb, the bones of his wrist popping out of place, three fingers snapping, and his knuckles sliding out of position.

The armoured man in front of him didn’t even flinch at the impacts.

Robert stepped back, doubled over from exertion and pain. When he looked back up, the Spartan’s fist was already raised high in the sky, and coming down right on his head. The impact on Robert’s cheek sent him down face-first into the rooftop.

Something inside him broke at the final hit. His body, too bruised and battered to continue, would not move, no matter what force acted on it, from him or the AI in his head. He turned his head to look up at the night sky, letting out a final breath before his eyes rolled up into his head.

The armoured man stepped up to the body, and nudged it with his foot. When the man didn’t move, the Spartan raised a finger to his ear. “GUARDIAN Two to GUARDIAN Actual, go for secure.”

“Secure confirmed,” the woman on the other end said. ''“GUARDIAN Actual responding. Go ahead GUARDIAN Two.”''

“Grafted eliminated, awaiting retrieval,” he said.

''“Solid Copy GUARDIAN Two. Recovery teams en route.”''

He let the hand slide down from his ear, and he tilted his head at the man beneath him. An office worker, probably a desk jockey working for a corporation in the city centre. Not a single second of combat experience under his belt, yet able to move like a master martial artist.

Shaking his head, the Spartan knelt down beside the corpse, and reached out with a hand to roll the body over. Hesitating for a second, the Spartan watched the man’s ghostly white eyes, already glassy, and rolled back into the man’s head. Reaching over, the Spartan pressed his hand onto the man’s forehead and rolled it downwards, shifting the man’s eyelids as he went.

With the eyes of the man shut, the Spartan reached under him, and hefted the body up, rolling it onto the front with no ceremony. There, on the back of his neck, still glinting with energy, was the AI’s datachip.

The Spartan reached into his pouches, bringing out a screwdriver, and a pair of wire cutters.

“What’re you doing, Spartan?”

The Spartan started in shock, before sighing and shaking his head. “I thought the line was dead.”

“Standard procedure,” the woman replied. “We monitor your VISR feed.”

“Well, standard procedure is to recover any artificial intelligences from Grafted individuals,” the Spartan replied.

“Sure,” the woman agreed. ''“But this one’s dead. When a Grafted dies, it takes the AI with it, right?”''

Shaking his head, the Spartan pressed the flat edge of the screwdriver to the AI chip’s frontal section, and jimmied it off, revealing delicate circuitry inside. “Not this one,” he said, moving the wire cutters to snip at the wires leading down into the body’s spinal column.

“What?” the woman asked.

Biting his lower lip in concentration, the Spartan snipped the last of the diminutive wires, and stored the cutter back in the pouch, along with the screwdriver. Next, he pulled out a wire, hooking it up to the datapad on his wrist, and the other end straight into the data chip’s port.

“Not this one,” he said. “AI can’t die, Laurel. They just stop functioning, and this one is still giving off pings.” He smiled down at the screen, tapping it a few times to disengage the chip’s internal safety features, or when he pulled the chip from its moorings, the AI would be left behind.

“Then how come other Grafted AI died with their humans?” Laurel asked.

“We don’t know.”

He kept tapping, searching for the right code, hidden in the chip itself, and avoiding poking the blind, deaf, panicked AI hidden inside it.

“Why are you even recovering something that just tried to kill you?”

“That wasn’t the AI," he replied. "Not entirely, anyway. It was reduced to instinct, same as this guy. We just put down a rabid dog, now we need to see if the non-rabid parts can still be saved.”

“AI can’t have instincts.”

“We have instincts," he retorted, looking up from his datapad for a second to focus on the conversation. "And this AI is just a cloned human brain. What do you suppose a human brain would do if it was put into a machine?”

“I…” Laurel paused. “I don’t know.”

“Now put an AI in a human body, with new sights, sounds, feelings, and pain. What would happen?" he asked. He waited, and when no answer came, he went back to his screen. "It doesn’t understand, doesn’t comprehend. So it lashes out, in the only way it knows how; by taking control, and doing everything in its power to survive.”

“So, this was a smart AI?” she asked.

“Yep,” the Spartan said. “Dunno how the hell this guy got ahold of it, or who welded it to his brainstem, but here we are.”

Laurel hesitated, the unsaid question hanging in the air between the two like a carrion bird. “Can you save it?”

The Spartan said nothing, focused as he was on the screen. With a final tap, he yanked the chord from his wrist, and reached down to clasp his fingers around the data chip. He strained for half a second before the entire thing came free. “Got it!” he said.

He brought the chip up to his visor to inspect it, seeing the light inside still going strong. The AI inside was still there, still kicking, and hadn’t given in.

He rested his hand out flat, the chip in his palm. “Artificial Intelligence,” he said. “State your name and serial number.”

There was a flicker, and a hologram appeared in the centre of the chip, of a middle-aged woman wearing a turban and a loose-fitting gown. ''“UNSC Smart Artificial Intelligence, designated Oriana. ORN1524-5,”'' she recited.

The Spartan nodded at her. “Pleasure to have you back with us, Oriana. Who did this to you?”

The AI closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Please, just get me out of here.”

The Spartan felt a pang of sympathy, and squashed it down before it could overwhelm him. “Okay. I’m going to insert you into my suit, is that acceptable?”

Oriana hesitated, her hologram shifting in place. “I don’t…”

The Spartan held up his other hand. “If you would prefer to be carried separately, we can oblige.”

“No.” She shook her head, seemingly recovering from her fear. “No,” she said again. ''“Plug me in. It’ll be nice to inhabit circuits again.”''

The Spartan nodded, hit the side switch once more, and reached back into his suit, sliding the chip into his port. A flash of cool hit his senses, making his hair stand on end as the AI slid into his suit, and interfaced with his neural implant.

“Cozy,” she remarked.

He smiled. “Better than a human body?”

A strange feeling went through him after he said that, like Oriana visibly recoiled. “Don’t,” she said.

He bit the inside of his cheek and winced. “Too soon?”

“The heat death of the universe would be too soon, Spartan,” she quipped back.

“Apologies. GUARDIAN Two to GUARDIAN Actual, go for secure.”

“Confirmed secure,” Laurel replied automatically. ''“GUARDIAN Two, Actual responding. Go ahead.”''

“Asset retrieved. UNSC Smart AI ‘Oriana’. How copy?” he asked.

“Solid copy GUARDIAN Two,” she said on the other end. ''“Excellent work today. Falcons inbound for exfil, rendezvous three minutes, Smith and Altina, apartment complex three.”''

A waypoint immediately appeared, and he sent a quick thanks to Oriana. A light winked green in his HUD in reply.

“Smith and Altina, three minutes. We’ll be there.”

“What about this guy?” Oriana asked.

The Spartan took a last look down at the body, before shaking his head and turning away. “Cleanup crew’s on the way. Let’s get outta here.”

He made for the door to the rooftop, and slid back inside and down the stairwell as quick as his legs could carry him.