Convergence Infinites: Halo

Chapter Seventy

"Stranded Log 214. Sole survivor of the Stranger Tide, Operative X here, again. I made a number of startling discoveries today. After my track across the cursed sand dunes, the farthest from the wreck I have ever gone, I finally found a Forerunner structure. It seemed like some sort of observation bay for a construction site or something. What they were building here, I do not know. The endless sandstorms have eroded away large parts of it. But I still managed to recover a number of things from the observation bay.

The first discovery is why I haven't been found yet after three years. As I suspected, this is a Forerunner Shield World, as shelter against the Halo Array. One of many the Forerunners never finished in time before the Flood came in this part of the galaxy. But something went wrong here. A subsystem failure or something, I don't know. Where in other such Shield Worlds time was slowed down compared to the rest of the galaxy, here it was accelerated. By my suit's count, I have been here for three years and six months. The UNSC thinks I've merely been gone for twenty four Days."

That gave Kelly pause. Keyes had mentioned the Cyborg's been gone for precisely a year, but the Cyborg had spent three years there in three weeks time? She did a quick calculation in her head, figuring out how long she'd been trapped there. When she finally came to the answer, she suddenly understood why the Cyborg hated the UNSC.

She'd been stranded and trapped on her own, with no one to talk to, for fifteen years. No wonder she was antisocial and borderline-hostile to everyone she encountered. But the Log didn't end there.

"The Second discovery I made was in the computer systems while I was searching for a way to potentially reverse the effects of that accelerated time phenomenon. There isn't, by the way. It called itself an Essence. But I saw what it truly was.

A Forerunner conscience, somehow stored inside the computer. I don't know how it survived, or what it did there, but it was a Forerunner incarnated in a computer, disguised as a Forerunner AI. It called itself the Librarian."

"Halsey'll love this." Fred commented for John's benefit. "Ever since she was here, she's found multiple files and logs mentioning her. And the Monitor mentioning her made that even worse."

"I managed to convince her that I would find a way for her to get a new body, if she would help rid me of the nightmares and hallucinations. I'm tired of seeing His face every waking and sleeping moment of my miserable life. Until that time when her body's restored, she's agreed to reside inside my suit for the time being

I managed to figure out what I need. A Forerunner restoration device, a prototype of which should be present at any Forerunner-built medical facility. It should be able to reconstruct her body if she sends her genetic code to it through a console.

A second thing I need is an empty AI core, to store her Essence while I process the orders on the computer and guard her from rogue Promethean Knights. The things have been hounding me since the crash, and until that odd remote I constructed from an empty Activation Index is finished, I'll have to rely on brute force to keep the buggers back. Shame the one of the Stranger Tide had been irreparably damaged during the crash. It would have come in handy. But I can always steal another one from my rescue ship if need be.

Last but not least, a self-restoring code to keep the Essence from disintegrating should I fail to protect her. Regardless whether she succeeds or not, I made a bargain with her. And my mother and siblings told me to always keep my word.