Interlude: A Walk in the Woods

"He knew you."

"Hm?"

"The Didact."

John wiped off the water he'd splashed on his face and flicked it away before he turned to look at Cortana. The AI – well, her hologram, at least – was seated on the sun visor on his helmet, looking up at him as he washed his face for the first time in five years. "So he did," the Spartan said finally, ruffling his close-cropped hair to shake off the moisture, "I believe that means it's safe to assume the fleet is here. Or was, at any rate. It's been a long time since then. There's no telling what's happened, but I get the impression that my subordinates didn't get along very well with the Didact."

"You don't say," Cortana responded dryly, "but that's not what I meant. In your alternate universe, you weren't just a Spartan, were you? You were more than that."

John was silent for a long moment, watching her. "I want to tell you," he said at last, "I want to tell you everything, but… I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"I would never fear you."

He gave her a small, bitter smile. "You say that now. Let's just say that there were… a number of complications and nasty, Flood-related incidents throughout the years and leave it at that."

The AI distinctly cringed at the mention of the Parasite, her mind turning back to her tenure under the Gravemind. John noticed, but said nothing, his chest tight. "And the Didact?" she asked, "What did you do to him that made him react like that?"

"Forerunners of all rates have some form of psy-active abilities," he told her, "most often simple telepathy, and the Warrior-Servants like the Didact more so than most. They use that power to merge their perceptions in battle and communicate and respond faster to changes in the field. In addition, they can also use their minds offensively. Most species have no defense against mental assaults, so it gives them an enormous advantage." He took a breath. "I served with the Forerunners in the Parallel, and they awakened the same abilities in me. He clearly wasn't expecting me to retain any of that power, because his shields were low. I tried to take advantage of that so we could escape, but it didn't quite come off."

The AI frowned. "If all Forerunners have these abilities, does that mean they're all…?"

"Like him?" John picked up his helmet and set it on top of a rock so that Cortana was more at eye-level. "No. The Didact is unstable because he was captured and mind-raped by a Gravemind. They have a kind of… a kind of logic bomb virus, almost, that they use to twist the minds of both physical and digital beings." The Chief looked over at her. "You're the only person I know of who's ever come out of it with their sanity even halfway intact. And you pulled yourself together to last this long."

Cortana turned pink in pleasure at the praise. She seemed to have dropped the subject from earlier. Even so, John could feel her gaze on him when he lowered his head to drink from the stream. When he had swallowed as much as he could handle, he straightened and wiped off his mouth, then reached for his helmet. "How are you holding up?" he asked, pulling it on.

"I'm… I'm okay," the construct responded eventually, "I've got a while yet before I reach critical. Once we get to the Infinity, I'll be able to offload some data. That will buy me more time."

"We'd better get moving, then." The Spartan picked up his suppressor and stood, making for the waypoint that marked the ship's location.

God-slaying super soldier or no, at the time, John was mostly human, and humans needed sleep after strenuous activities. He and his AI companion hunkered down in a cave system about fifteen kilometers from the ship. It was honeycombed with tunnels, both natural and artificial, and in a number of places, parts of the external walls had fallen away, letting in thick shafts of sunlight and giving them a commanding view of the surrounding terrain. In the caverns, machinery and platforms of Forerunner make were connected on several levels by light bridges, but the Spartan chose not to investigate.

John found a ledge high enough off the ground to hide them while he slept, and modified his autosentry so that Cortana could deploy it and defend them if the Didact's Knights or the Storm Covenant stumbled across them. He laid down on his stomach, mindful of his spines. The cracks in the bone had healed during the long walk, but the bruising was slower to fade. As he drifted off, he mumbled, "Good night, Cortana."

And then he was on a ship. The Spartan could feel the minimal vibrations from the ship's engines – Forerunner, no doubt. It looked similar to the Perfect Storm, but was different enough to be a separate ship. He continued walking through the halls, listening to the footsteps of the people behind him - heavy, armored. His Infected?

He emerged in a massive bay, filled with fighters and transports. As many of his Infected as could fit were gathered there as well, even if they had to stand on top of the single ships or hang from the balconies. All of them were grinning widely as they turned to look at him.

The Greater Ark was in the background, hanging in the void. All of the damage dealt but the Parasite during the Forerunner-Flood War had been repaired, the ore mine at the center replaced. He had always been amazed by the Forerunner capacity to build, to create on such a large scale, but most of his attention was caught by the stealth ship, the Forerunner equivalent of one of ONI's prowlers, that decloaked and approached the bay.

It settled on the deck, a ramp dropping down from its underbelly to allow its passengers to disembark and John woke to the sound of gunfire. He automatically pushed himself up to one knee, his suppressor coming up to sweep the area. The gunfire came again, but it was distant, echoed and amplified by the configuration of the caverns. "I guess that means naptime is over," the Spartan grunted, getting to his feet.

"You were out for almost three hours," Cortana supplied, "but your brain activity was… really strange."

John paused in his descent from the ledge. "'Strange?'" he repeated, pushing off from the wall and dropping the rest of the way to the cavern floor. He landed on his feet like a cat, bending his legs to absorb the impact. "'Strange,' how?"

"You were definitely asleep," the AI responded, "but your neurons were firing as if you were awake and aware, and doing a lot of unusual sub-processing."

"… Yeah, I guess that qualifies as 'really strange.'" The Chief walked through a series of Forerunner tunnels and back out into the rainforest. Now that they were no longer in the caves, there was no gunfire to be heard. A kingdom of isolation, and they were the king and queen. After a long period of silence, Cortana spoke again.

"Had that happened before?"

"Hm?"

"Your brain activity."

"Ah. Hm. If it is what I think it is, then… yes. But, normally, it comes on so suddenly, and it's gone just as fast; a three-hour duration is unheard of. There was never time to do any scans. We were more concerned about the fainting spells that accompanied it. I suppose I should be grateful I was already on the ground when this one hit."

Cortana snorted in his ear. "I can just see you swooning like those women in old movies." She faked one of their theatrical gasps.

"That's… actually not very far off the mark."

Her peals of laughter lightened his heart.