Halo: Minorca Saga/Chapter Twelve

TIME ANOMALY: DATE UNKNOWN (EST: 2551??) / UNKNOWN ALIEN STRUCTURE

How long had it been? A few hours? Days? Weeks? Carson wasn’t sure, but he knew for damn sure that when he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t like what he would see.

He wasn’t disappointed.

A short shout of alarm escaped his mouth as he desperately pushed himself across whatever the ground was, away from the…thing. But even in his fear, he couldn’t help by categorise it in his mind.

He didn’t know what else to call it. It was angular, and flexing arms constantly shifted and adjusted, balancing it. A bulge protruded from below, which he could only assume was some kind of weapon. It glowed deep navy blue.

It also hovered about two meters off the ground, with no jets, fans or other means of suspension. A thin, high-pitched whir filled the air.

Anti-gravity? Even the Covenant couldn’t get anti-grav equipment small enough for individual use.

He help up his hands, hoping the machine would realise his intend was just to show he was unarmed. It occurred to him that if he HAD been armed, then he would have quickly been disarmed anyway. But the…whatever it was…just hovered their.

No…it angled itself slightly to the right. Carson turned.

“Ah. You have awakened. Excellent.”

Carson’s eyes bulged.

There was another machine hovering behind him. It was as though someone had taken a perfectly round silver sphere, cut out sections of it, and put a smaller lightbulb inside it. It was smaller than the other machine, but to his mind it looked smoother, more refined.

“What…what are you? Where am I?”

The machine angled itself, as though cocking its head questioningly.

“You do not remember? My Sentinels found you and your team exploring the perimeter of the site. Do you not remember them?”

He…wait. He had remembered a terrible heat, and…oh god…the screams had started coming back to him.

He felt like he was going to throw up.

He did.

“Oh god…”

The thing floated closer. “Do you require medical attention?” it enquired.

“Stay back! Stay the hell back!” He scuttled away, until he found smooth granite at his back. He huddled up, fear overwhelming every instinct.

“You killed them…Emmerson…Jones…Landers…”

“I apologise. My security teams were sweeping the region for escaped test subjects, and protocol dictated that all infection vectors be removed. Unfortunately, they interpreted this as authorisation to use lethal force. I tried to stop them, but it was too late for the rest of your group.”

Carson shivered. He could remember Landers screaming something to him before a beam of…something…hit him…the soldiers trying to return fire, only to vanish in a puff of smoke and ash…

“If it is any consolation, their deaths were quick and painless...”

Carson took a deep breath, fighting o get his fear under control. Fear was the mind killer. He would permit it to over him and through him. His breathing slowed, and he opened his eyes, wiping away the tears of memory.

“What are you? How long was I out?”

The thing angled itself into the curious posture. “You do not recognise my construct classification?”

“Why should I? I’ve never seen anything like you. No human has.”

Carson could have sworn that the thing now looked nervous. Its movements were skittish and urgent.

“You…have no files on us? On this facility? On my makers?”

“Of course not. Why should we?”

The thing nodded to the...Sentinel, was it? The larger machine hovered away, down the corridor. The smaller hovering machine floated closer to Carson.

“Well, you did ask,” it muttered, almost like it was reasoning to itself. “And my programming demands that I answer your questions. But without the appropriate background information that we had…anticipated you would have already, it will be difficult for you to appreciate the true scope.”

“Alright then, let’s start with something simple. How long have I been here?”

“A few hours, and a few years. More or less.”

Carson sighed. “So much for simple.”

“I apologise for the discrepancy, but time passes…differently within the Labyrinth.”

Carson’s eyes narrowed. “Labyrinth! We found references in Covenant scriptures. Are you-”

The thing seemed to draw itself up in indignation, as though offended. “Certainly not! I am no such creation of those barbarians! I am a Monitor, created by the Forerunners to oversee the Labyrinth! My designation is JD/907 – Archivist, and I am far superior to anything those primitives could ever cobble together!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He had recognised references in the outburst – the Forerunners, the creatures the Covenant worshipped who had disappeared about a hundred thousand years ago. But that was all anyone really knew about them. Other things – Archivist, Monitor – were new to him.

“So…what is a Monitor?”

The Monitor settled back to a comfortable height, seemingly placated by Carson’s request for information. “A Monitor, such as myself, is an artificial construct designed to watch over and maintain an Installation and supervise its maintenance, security and containment forces. I am the Monitor of this particular Installation – Facility 0076-X. Or, as your language would render its name, the Labyrinth.”

Carson nodded. Okay. This Monitor was a cartaker. A kind of guard, left behind by the Forerunners to run its particular niche.

“Okay. You’re a Monitor. So what do you monitor?”

The Monitor looked startled. “You truly have no knowledge of your legacy, do you? No legends, or stories, or hidden memories? Nothing?”

Carson shrugged, and that was the Monitor’s answer.

“Well, I must say this was unexpected…the Reclaimer project was never a certain thing, but for it to fail completely…”

“Reclaimer?” He had found references to that in Covenant scriptures as well, but not complimentary ones. He had never understood exactly what the Covenant believed the title to indicate.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Well, this explains a considerable amount – we had projected your development to be considerably faster than it has been, but it would seem that evolution is not as quantifiable as we had believed.”

Carson was confused. His research team had been obliterated by this Monitors forces, and now it was answering his questions as though he was a superior officer. Nothing about this made any sense. But he was going to damn well try.

“You said that your programming forced you to answer my questions. Why?”

The Monitor made a small, subtle shrug-like movement. It learned quickly, apparently.

“Information of that level is classified higher than my own authorisation allows. I simply obey the Protocol, and that requires me to answer your questions.”

Carson straightened up, looking around them, now fully taking where he was in.

It looked like a hallway, and to the left and right it stretched off. But above him, the roof stretched on…and on…it must have been kilometres high. And, with a small shock, Carson realised that so too mush the rest of the corridor. It was an optical illusion resulting from distance – the corridor stretched on for miles on either side.

Carson blinked, and squinted. Something moved among the shadows. Something big – no. Many things.

And in a flash, a thousand blue dots lit the darkness.

Carson gaped. Around him were what had to be thousands of the Sentinels the Monitor had described. Thousands! He shuddered, thinking about just what kind of damage all that firepower could do…and then shuddered again when he turned his mind to just what else this place was “containing”.

“What are they doing?”

“Oh, them?” The Monitor asked with almost casual dismissal. “They are merely present to prevent infection. I have instructed them that your destruction is not the only means to achieve that goal.”

“Infection by what?”

“I apologise, but your Reclaimer status does not permit me to divulge information of that classification until an emergency period. Protocol is clear on that.”

He looked around again. The Sentinels were forming a pattern, arrayed outward in what he assumed to be a protective formation. A few hundred of them split off from the rest, hovering above them. They were forming a protective shield.

Carson sighed and shook his head. “Okay. I don’t understand any of this. I’m a Reclaimer. This is the Labyrinth. And you’re a Monitor. But I don’t know what those things mean.”

The Monitor let out the equivalent of a small sigh. “I can see that I have much to instruct you on,” it said, floating down the corridor. Carson hurried to catch up.

The Sentinels moved with them, the shield keeping them in the centre.

The creature waited until the machines and flesh had moved away, before it emerged.

It had resisted the urge. Kill. Consume. Expand. Begin the Cycle. But it was of no use if it was destroyed.

There was no death, though. Not for this creature. Merely the joining and the enlightenment that came from…IT.

It was commanded to follow them at a safe distance, out of what it inexplicably knew was weapons range. Follow, and learn. Knowledge. Knowledge was the key. Find something to exploit, and freedom would follow.

Glorious freedom, and escape from this hushed casket.

The creature scuttled in thin, spider-like legs A bulbous body protruded above it, with feathery appendages at the front of the organism. An onlooker might have mistaken it as “cute”.

An onlooker would have been food.

It motored its legs, yearning to feel the flesh of another surround it, manipulate it like a puppet on a string. To be stronger and faster and more powerful. To feed the swarm, and to be one with it.

That could wait. For not, it stayed at a distance, following the creatures.

And behind it, more followed in the darkness.