Kendall Davis is a student at USC, studying Interactive Media in the School of Cinematic Arts. He won a writing Fanfic Contest for Bungie's major release Halo. Click here and scroll down to the Long Stories section and read what the judge, best-selling author Eric Nylund, had to say. I caught up with Kendall since he's been on Winter Break and got to know more about him.
Josh Harris: Good to seeya man! Let's get to it. I've always wondered, when did you really start writing?
Kendall Davis: I started writing when I was
thirteen. My English professor, Melissa Hart, was great; she let
me substitute a few assignments for a short story I had been wanting
to write. The short story turned into a novella, and the novella
spawned two sequels. They’re pretty bad, when I look back on
them – but the seeds of what I am now are pretty clear; epic fiction
with lots of characterization, tons of explosions, and really big robots.
I love giant robots.
But to say I started ‘writing’
at that age is pretty inaccurate; that was only when pen met paper.
Writing, truly, is using your thoughts to create a narrative.
I did a lot of that when I was a kid, thinking about Star Wars or Transformers,
shows like Knight Rider and Mission Impossible too. My imagination
was in overdrive, so I already had a few stories ready to go when I
started ‘writing.’
JH: How many pieces have you written and what are your favorites?
KD: I’ve written at least twenty
short stories since I discovered that writing was my calling in life,
in addition to four feature length screenplays and three novels, all
in various stages of production or editing.
The project I just finished
working on, The Riot, is a feature film I just finished writing.
I’m producing it with my best friend, Nick Gyeney, and we’re looking
to secure about four million to start filming next November. It’s
a great story with a good marriage of themes and action.
My absolute favorite work I’ve
ever done is (R)Evolution: The Infinite Staircase, a podcasted serial
novel that will debut in Summer of 2008. It’s my favorite because
it’s partially a true story; another of my best friends, James Coudright,
is the main character and protagonist. It’s the first foray
into my Infinite Omniverse universe; it’s colored with almost every
tapestry and trope of science fiction but at the same time has a very
unique core. The Infinite Staircase is about 220,000 words, which
is about 410 pages, standard formatting; around 700 in paperback, if
the font’s really tiny. It’s an epic tale about realizing
there are no boundaries to what you an do in life, and plays with the
idea that time is two dimensional.
The project I’m currently
investing most of myself into is (R)Evolution: The Golden Shadow.
It’s a far future story about a boy, Michael, who discovers that he’s
the last in a line of kings that once conquered the galaxy six times,
and how he must grapple with that destiny. This will actually
be serialized in conjunction with The Infinite Staircase, which is pretty
ambitious, considering they are meant to dovetail at a certain point.
JH: I thought I had a lot of projects going on... so where were you born and how long were you in Solano?
KD: I was born in Los Angeles,
California, but I’ve lived all around the country. We moved
to Solano in the fall of 1997, and I lived there until I started going
to USC in 2005.
JH: So you basically grew from a kid to an adult here in Solano. When you write, what are your main inspirations?
KD: Fictionally speaking, I draw
from most of the pulp stuff I consumed when I was a kid. Transformers,
Gundam, Star Wars, the Matrix…if it’s science fiction, I’ve probably
seen it or read it. I read a lot of terrible Star Wars fiction
when I was a kid, but some of the really strong ideas I gleaned and
set aside. I read a lot of comics when I was young too, predominantly
Batman. And then when I was twelve I fell in love with Frank Miller’s
writing. Can’t forget Halo: Combat Evolved.
In broader terms, I draw inspiration
from a couple of sources. The world is a great place; I see a
lot of problems with today’s culture, and where it’s headed.
I like to discuss those problems in detail in my fiction. Since
I primarily write action, it gives my stuff a unique flavor because
not a lot of action pieces (Terminator 2 is something I can think of
write off of the bat, along with Bladerunner) grapple with the pressing
questions that will affect where our culture is headed. Tolkien
and Lewis did the same thing in their respective epics, and to some
extent Rowling in her Harry Potter books.
There’s also the people that
mean the most to me, specifically some of the women in my life.
My best friend Sarah is one of those and my mom is another.
JH: I understand that, where would we be without the women in our lives? Anyways, where do you see yourself in five years? Whats the five year plan?
KD: In five years, I should be
making my company’s first foray into games. That company, (R)Evolution
Digital Entertainment, is going to have its first seed money after the
Riot hits theaters. After, combined with the serialized podcasts,
I want my company to start producing low-budget, high quality TV shows
and movies. My eventual goal is to get work with Microsoft to
create a sort of ‘entertainment channel’ available on the net and
Xbox Live. In addition to all that, I’ll continue to write,
both screenplays, script treatments, and novels. I should have
the first (R)Evolution Trilogy done Fall of 2009.
JH: Hows school at USC and what do you do in your spare time?
I love being at USC, especially
this past semester. I’m an Interactive Media major in the School
of Cinematic Arts; we have world class faculty teaching us cutting edge
critical theory about games. Games are the future of entertainment,
so there’s no place I’d rather be. USC is remarkable as a
learning institution, not only for the quality of the faculty, but because
of the connections you’re able to make here.
In my spare time, I play as
much Halo as time permits and I love to play football.
JH: Awesome man, you're awesome. I'd also like to say thanks for the valuable help you've been working on my projects, most foremost The Quest, which is our first script of many we've written together so far that is actually registered with the WGA (so official...) I decided to just show your work below, just in case people can't find the link to the Halo story you wrote that won. Enjoy everyone!
ALPHA TEAM BLACK
By
Kendall Davis
Alpha
One brushed sweat from his brow, taking time to catch his breath for
a brief second. That one action was something that would give
on pause, if one knew what Alpha One was. An action such as catching
one’s breath…it conjures to mind the thought of being tired.
Alpha One is not tired…but he is getting there.
He
begins to run again, heart hammering, gradually accelerating in its
rhythm. Along with his heart, his legs accelerate as well, moving
from long elliptical strides to a blur of motion, the strides becoming
a vortex of motion. His boots, made from a soft mesh titanium
weave – light but strong, dig chunks of asphalt up, tossing
it about like a fine spray of mist. As he begins to reach the
limits of his velocity, the trees and hills around the road he runs
on begin to coalesce into one blur, but only for an instant – it comes
back into focus even stronger as adrenaline courses through his system.
As
his reflexes adjust to the newfound speed, Alpha One finds a rhythm
in his chaotic sprint. One step, two step. To Alpha
One, it feels as if he’s out for a morning jog, quiet and nimble in
his steps. To an observer, it appears as if he is running on a
stretch of moving road, each stride of his churning legs carrying him
forward several meters. He’s a black streak, the iridescent
obsidian of his armor diffracting the sunlight wildly as he moves with
inhuman velocity through the winding course of trees and hills, bisecting
the horizon as he continues to accelerate.
The
observer is one a woman by the name of Admiral Kate Silver, and she
is pleased by Alpha One’s run. It bodes well of things to come.
Alpha
One began to strip off his black body suit, first unhinging the obsidian
metal gauntlets that sheathed his arms. He walked at a fair pace,
even though his legs burnt from the strain of his run. His heart
was quietly slowing down, though it still felt as if it were persistently
knocking hard on his chest, ready to burst out at any moment.
But it would pass, he knew…just like all of the other times he had
made the marathon run. It was nicknamed the marathon, but it was
far from 26.2 miles. He didn’t know the exact distance, but
judging from the telemetry he had gathered it was close to sixty.
As
he walked through the prep room – a circular room covered in sterile
white and with odd markings and computer stations arranged across its
radial walls – he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening to
him. He had run faster than ever before today…he had felt as
if he were running into immortality. Running to death. To
life. He didn’t even know sometimes…but he knew the run was
the start of something great.
In
the past few months, he had felt himself changing…in profound and
greatly disturbing ways. He could run upwards faster than 120
kilometer per hour, lift a considerable amount of weight (considerable
being more than five hundred pounds), and he could think so fast.
He saw everything in slow motion, and he saw strange things. Strange
purple gleams that appeared as scratches against his eye, odd patterns
and shapes. Shapes that meant something. He could add complex
math equations in his head, and he could keep track of things that sometimes
shocked him.
He
knew how fast he ran, and he knew the exact force the he
applied when he lifted the weight that the spooks told him to – he
knew it in mathematical formulae, in quantum and relativistic physical
terms. His brain, sometimes he thought, was a computer.
As
he removed the top section of his suit, an invisible door irised open
in the walls of the room, outlined by purple lines. From the door
flooded a white light, and sheathed in it, a figure appearing as a black-silver
silhouette, stepped into the room.
Admiral
Silver walked into the prep room, noting with the faint trace of wonder
how the door opened. It always amazed her. It was even more
fascinating than the doors of the Covenant cruisers she had boarded
while she had been in active combat duty. That thought brought
another fleeting, evanescent though: anguish. She winced as flashes
of men and women she had fought with were cut by Elite plasma swords,
burned by plasma, and exploded by needlers.
Her
hand traveled to a slight, pink scar that ran from beneath her left
eye to her jaw. It was barely noticeable, but it carried memories
with it. It had been caused by the shard of a needler – luckily
diffracted, else she would have died. It had nearly cost her sight in
her left eye. If the meds at Epsilon II hadn’t fixed her with
a cybernetic biotic one, she probably wouldn’t have been able to return
to combat.
When
she had returned, she had done so with a vengeance, leading Helljumper
squadrons in a vicious personal crusade. Her success, pushing
a small but noticeable amount of Covenant back from the Orion arm, had
granted attention from both High Command and ONI spooks. She had
been fastracked for promotion, and then she had been given a choice.
Remain
in the UNSC, making small but ultimately negligible successes in the
war, or join ONI, where she was enigmatically informed that she would
be able to make a “true” difference. Young, ambitious, and
naïve, she had accepted.
From
there, things had really taken off…
Alpha
One recognized Admiral Silver by the slight scar that did nothing to
detract from her beauty. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that
she had been a Helljumper once, leading men feet first into hell, against
all odds and facing certain death. True, she was tough – there
was a set in her jaw that told that and more…but there was also a
beauty that hadn’t been corrupted even by the deep, dark embrace of
war. She wore her hair in an elegant bun that flirted with UNSC
regulations, and her hair fell in front of her face in way that naturally
accented her beauty.
She
was a remarkable woman, and not only because of her uncharacteristic
beauty: Alpha One knew that she was the youngest Admiral in UNSC history.
In truth, she wasn’t much older than he was.
When
she spoke, he automatically analyzed her speech patterns, and detected
faint lines of chemistry that sparked his mind from its monotonous and
chaotic calculations – the inner workings of a clock being energized
with faint energy.
“Your
run was impressive, Alpha One. The fastest yet.” Alpha
One. The codename that had been given to him since he had
been carefully exfiltrated from the Third Angels Longsword brigade,
his apparent death faked when he had been abducted from his squadron
in the dark of night. He hadn’t understood exactly what had
happened, but it was clear from the nature of the briefings…he had
been exfiltrated to join an elite fighting squad, to be changed into
something that could best the paramount of the Covenant warriors.
Something that could win the war.
He
had assented.
He
had never liked the code name though: it deprived him of his humanity,
he thought. As his body and mind became less and less human, he
would have liked to have one vestige…one link to anchor him in the
stormy seas of transformation.
“Kate…do you really have to call me that? It’s bad enough,
running upwards of 100 kilometers per hour, feeling my steps tear asphalt
loose from the ground, without that name making me feel even less
human.”
She
smiled. The action took an eternity, in his vision. “You
know ONI regulations –“
“—We
both know regulations mean shit, where we are. Everything about
the project defies regulations.”
She
smiled again. It was something that would be emblazoned in his
memory. “Fine, Ryan. You were clocked well over
that, though – try one five oh.”
That
fast? Damn. He raised his eyebrows, his mind churning
over itself as the gears of his massive mental clock whirred to life
again. Fragments of a greater vision, of a green planet speckled
with blue patches and wisps of white clouds assaulted his mind, blurred
out by great blasts of azure-white light. The possibilities…
“Pretty
fast,” he said. “Does that mean the latest dose had the desired
effect?”
“It’s
too early to see…we need to run some tests. But yes, all indications
show that the latest dose is going to pass the benchmark, with flying
colors.”
He
removed the chest piece, and placed it on one of the benches.
He turned his back to her, and sat down next to it, taking off the boots
next. “When will we be clear for active duty?”
He
heard her move closer…or rather felt. That was odd…it
was as if his mind were feeling the space around him, correlating the
disturbances in relative space around him with neural synapse fires,
which were routed to his brain in a language he could understand.
That had never happened before.
“A
few more test ops, but all things are pointing to the green light.
ONI has already signed off on an op, but Fleet Command wants a bit more
testing before we go forward.”
The
boots were off now, and he was now in just the legs of the suit.
He began to undo the thin sheets of metal that protected his shins and
thighs, switching their faint glowing purple lights to off. “So
many damned tests. We need to get out of this place, to the Orion
Arm. And we need to get out now.”
She
moved closer, and before she placed her warm hand on his shoulder, he
felt the ripples in space as her hand displaced air and sent microscopic
shudders through the space around him. It was electric, her touch.
“We have to proceed with caution. We’re in uncharted territory.
Black territory. Without more tests, we don’t know what
will happen to us when we go in the field.”
He
turned to face her, standing up to his full 6’4 frame. He was
taller than her, but only by three inches. “We have all of the
proof we need. He waved a hand around her shoulder, and watched
the eye that wasn’t shrouded in her hair intently. He saw a
flicker of awareness. “You felt that, didn’t you? The
same as I did when you moved closer just now. That’s
all the proof we need. We can feel things…our minds are capable
of shit the ONI techs didn’t even dream of when they shot us with
that purple light.”
“Yes,
but better to err on the side of caution then one of us exploding from
the forces exerted on our bodies during a hot drop through the Orion
V, right?”
He moved the hand closer, near to her face. “Every second we
tarry is another step closer to the Orion arm that the Covies will get.
The closer that Hunters and Drinol are to rampaging through the streets
of the Protectorate worlds. The closer that their war machine
is to Earth.”
“I
know, Ryan, but it won’t do any good if we break down
in combat…if we stop working because of some malfunction in the transformations
that the techs couldn’t catch. We have
to wait…it’s the only way we can make a difference.”
“I’ve
waited long enough…I feel like I’m back around Gradient IV, picking
off meaningless Seraphs in my Nightingale, while the Percival
was being ravaged from the inside out by those Covenant boarding parties.
I need to get out; I need to make a difference.”
She
brushed aside the hair, revealing a shocking silver-black eye.
It glowed with orange circuitry. “You don’t think I know the
feeling too? I want to be back out there as much as anyone, but
for now the best thing we can do is train…push the limits of our physiology
as hard as possible, to let the techs to their job.” She touched
the scar on the side of her face. “I want to kill the bastards
as much as you do,” she whispered.
Alpha
One moved to touch her, bring her closer, but she shied away from his
naked torso, brushing the hair over her eye again. “Debrief’s
in five. Don’t be late, Alpha One.”
He
took a step back, wincing mentally at her sudden coldness. “Aye,
ma’am.” She eyed him with a look of longing and regret, a look that
pierced through to the depths of his soul, then exited the room, back
into the light. He finished undressing, a silent melancholy permeating
his dark, brooding thoughts…Thoughts of a place called the Ark, connected
by patches of memory that he couldn’t thread together. It was
the project and the experiments, he knew – that was when he had started
having the dreams. Dreams of people called Forerunners, of giant
ring-like world structures, and of mass annihilation.
At
least those dreams weren’t nightmares like the ones he normally had…
--
This is Gale One, to Percival! Anyone alive, over!
Fire. Lances of light. Molten metal drift away from the
bulk, like a scarred and burned whale floating in a dark sea while sharks
carefully bring it to its death. There is no response…only screams
on the intercom, while he sends a missile bearing down on a Seraph that
has haplessly entered his angry sights.
--
Gale One to Percival! Respond!
More
silence. More fire. More lances of deadly light, curving
around the ship and devouring it. A response.
- Gale One, this is
Captain Soriano.
The
transmission is garbled, like crackled paper against screams of burning
men.
-
Gale One, you have an order to fire your Shiva-armed missile at
Percival’s reactors, compliant with Cole protocol. No second
guesses, no rechecks. Sending authorization code…Godspeed, son.
Tears
trickled down his face, forming rivulets that ended in neat puddles
on his cheek. A decision that would live with him forever.
But the protocol was too important to be weighed by any moral outpours
of sympathy or empathy. Decisiveness was of the essence.
He fingered the launch pad, typing in a coded sequence and waiting while
a console rose amidst the other controls, with a glowing red button.
He entered in the target, ignored the warning signals, and pressed the
button.
A
hot, angry missile tore across space, shaking his Longsword II as it
disengaged and fired its engines. He tore left, the rest of his
squadron left behind as they still engaged Seraph fighters. He
couldn’t risk warning them…it was too great a chance that the signal
would be intercepted by the Covenant’s superior communication technology.
If they learned that the ship had telemetry data, they could send AIs
to hack the ship in a matter of seconds. As the Captain had said,
time was of the essence.
He
pressed the button again, and the warhead detonated just outside of
the port engines, the EMP shorting the ship’s engines and the onboard
computers as a shockwave rumbled through space. There was no sound
– but he knew that if there were, it would have been great and terrible.
Alone, his ship drifted, as the
Percival was consumed in a roiling fire of nuclear flame.
Alpha
One exited the prep room in a gray military uniform, with several bars
on his left breast. He didn’t put on his medals…no one needed
to know about his “heroism.” As he strode through the faint
white corridors – the same sterilized white of the prep room, he couldn’t
forget the memories of that day. He had done a great deed, preserving
the protocol, but he couldn’t think about the price. Five thousand
UNSC men and women had died when the ship’s engines had gone critical,
building the inferno of the Shiva’s detonation to a near supernova.
The
explosion had torn a great hole in the Covenant cruiser that had been
attacking the Percival, and he had been the only one to survive.
A “victory.” If only he had been on the ship…he could have
repelled the boarders. If he had the power…the means to enact
his will…if only. The specters of that incident hung heavily
on his conscious afflicting his mind with visions and dreams of death
and nuclear fire.
As
he returned the salutes of the men and women who walked at brisk paces
through the corridors – ONI techs and spooks mostly, he thought about
the way he felt them ripple past him, causing invisible concentric patterns
that touched his mind in an oddly tangible way. The latest dose
had been effective, alright. He felt even faster, even stronger
– physically as well as mentally.
He
was strong now – strong enough to save the Percival. If only
he could get the chance to make another difference…another stand,
to succeed where he had failed. The desire gnawed at him, making
him irritable and restless. He needed to get out of the proving
grounds, and onto the field of combat. It was the only way that
he could make the ghosts of the past go away.
He
arrived at the briefing room, sliding his ID card through a receptacle
as the doors irised open, outlined by faint purple light. Kate
– Alpha Two was there, along with a couple of ONI techs and spooks,
and the rest of his team.
Alpha
Team Black – the next generation of human evolution, made with technologies
that were both mysterious and troubling to Alpha One. It was an
extraordinary team, he noted, as he took a seat at the circular briefing
table. There was an Admiral – Kate…a war hero – Fletcher;
tales of the ways he had single handedly sniped an entire legion of
Elites with twelve rounds were routine in the circles of UNSC combat
vets…a cold-blooded killer – Dmitri; an ONI black ops operative
who had neutralized several rebellions on the outer fringes of the Orion
Arm with tactics he enigmatically referred to as political cultivation…and
then there was Alpha One; the best pilot the UNSC had ever seen, and
a war hero in his own right.
All
had disappeared in apparently accidental and non-suspicious deaths,
taken into the infamous Black sector of ONI. Black sector had
taken the four and thrown them into the midst of an ambitious program
to “evolve” humanity, with stolen technology that was even more
advanced than what the Covenant had procured. Careful shadowing
of Covenant ships had lead Black sector operatives to odd installations…monuments
and artifacts of wondrous creation. Intel had been taken – lives
lost, and nukes detonated to ensure no Covenant fleets ever returned
with news of the Black sector dealings.
The
intel had been collated seven years ago, in 2545, by Black sector scientists
who had begun to see patterns…biological and technological leaps that
were capable by employing the stolen technology. Ways to make
ships faster…to make weapons more powerful…and to make humans stronger.
It was an extension of Dr. Halsey’s original research with the Spartan
IIs, but much more exotic and far more dangerous. Of the four
hundred non-voluntary applicants for the program, only four had survived.
Team
Alpha Black.
They
were even faster than Spartan IIs, stronger as well. They had
abilities that bordered on magical and mystical, as Alpha One was a
testament to. One could only speculate what would happen if the
ONI techs continued to harness the exotic technology they had stolen.
They
had used strange apparatuses of equipment, injecting the “applicants”
with strange doses of glowing purple and green fluid. The doses
had been simple at first, but now they were bordering on the macabre,
strange alterations of physical reality that altered matter so profoundly
that it frightened even the most apathetic and robotic of ONI techs.
The
latest dose that Alpha One and the rest of the team had received had
been such. After the needles had put the fluid into the marrow
of his bones, he had been wracked with convulsions and seizures, and
had lost consciousness for three days. During that period, he
had strange fragmented dreams, snapshots of odd events that were punctuated
by imagery that horrified him. His mind had changed.
And
from the looks in the eyes of the others, and his conversation with
Kate, they had changed as well.
Kate’s
voice interrupted his thoughts.
“As
I’m sure you all know, the latest dose was a success. Dr. Fukoi,”
she nodded at a small Asian man, with wispy hair and large glasses.
“Has informed me that we will be ready to start testing maneuvers
with Team Bravo within the week.”
The
team murmured assent among each other, as a rush of tension was released.
Action. It was what they all craved, even Kate. It was
why she alone was the only volunteer for the program, when she could
have remained in a clerical position. She had wanted to taste
the power, to be transformed even though she had known the risks.
But she had opted to choose Alpha One as the leader of Alpha team.
“The
techs still need to run tests, but for all intents and purposes, we
are going to be green in the next fourteen days. But before that
we need more tests. Dr. Fukoi?”
The
wispy man pushed his glasses to his nose, brushed hair out of his eyes,
and stood. He waved a remote at the middle of the table, causing
a holographic image to rise. It was a depiction of the human body,
with outlined colors for both the skeletal and muscular parts.
“To validate Admiral Silver’s claims, the latest dose of the serum
worked. We expect a 200% increase in your normal operating faculties,
along with certain other…results.”
Alpha
One listened with interest, hoping that the ONI tech would elaborate
on the latest changes that he was going through.
“Moving
forward, the latest dose was a concentrated sample, the harbinger to
the last dose. We are close to isolating the physical abnormalities
in the fluid, and should be able to produce a relatively safe, highly
concentrated dose. The danger zone has passed…”
“That’s
all good,” said Dmitri, turning his piercing gaze at the frail man.
“Doctor, but what about the latest results, as you called them?
I don’t know about the rest of Alpha, but I’m curious about this
whole sense thing.”
Dr.
Fukoi turned his glance to meet Dimitri’s, surprisingly not wilting
under the intensity of the cold-blooded man’s visage. “I need
you to elaborate, please Alpha Three.”
“How
about this,” said Fletcher, joining in, the conversation awakening
him from his brooding thoughts. It was why he was such a good
sniper – aloof and alone, with no attachments, but a quiet, contemplating
mind. “You stop giving us the shit we don’t need to know –
we couldn’t give a fuck about ONI and Black sector’s tests
and whatever the hell our efficiency rating is. Personally, I
would like to know how in the hell I can feel space. I
want to know why I feel less human every day, why the shit I’ve done
in the past doesn’t matter anymore…I’ve got no sense of emotion
these days…I remember what I did as an ODST, and it doesn’t even
matter. The rebel uprising around the Orion Arm…I killed men.
I can’t even feel that.”
Alpha
One smiled. He wasn’t the only one who had reservations about
the program. “Your new awareness is…unexpected, I’ll admit,”
said Dr. Fukoi. At that, all of the team, including Kate, snapped
their gaze to him. Team leader, deal with the news – even the
there was an Admiral in the midst; they looked to him to guide
them.
There
was something up…ONI politics as usual, but this time Black sector
was playing hard with them…Dr. Fukoi hadn’t given a straight answer
yet.
“What
the hell do you mean unexpected, doctor? You’re
playing God here…you’re changing us into superhumans, and you can’t
expect the results?” He looked from the doctor to the ONI
spooks, dressed in their black, nondescript uniforms. They held
their poise, despite the tension leveling upon the room.
“We
can’t expect everything, Alpha One. We proceed with caution,
but we are unsure how the substance will react outside of simulations,
with biological components.”
“What
substance? You’ve been injecting us with that purple shit for
over a year, and you don’t know how it will react? Do you have
any idea what that does, when you feel yourself changing?
Do you know about the dreams? The nightmares?” He took
a look at Kate, and his eyes met hers briefly, but not long enough for
the ONI spooks to draw a meaning from the glance. “What about
the headaches? Have you any idea how that affects any of us, as
you strip us of our humanity, giving us these abilities…have you any
idea what the cost is? The least you could do is explain
to us what’s happening.”
Alpha
One, despite the characteristics of his mind…the abilities to control
his emotions, layering protective boundaries over the seething sea of
his mind – he was getting angry. There was a tension that had
been within the team for quite some time…unrest and angriness at the
lack of information while the project candidates around them died deaths
of organ failure and seizures so sharp that bones were broken.
Now, on the virtual eve of their being cleared for green action that
tension was spilling. And he let it, directing it at the ONI spooks
and their shadowed faces, hoping to gain some knowledge before he went
in the field, an untested prototype of terrible power.
Dr.
Fukoi looked at the spooks briefly, lost at the direction of heat from
the normally cool, apathetic Black operatives. He began to speak,
but he was cut short by one of the ONI spooks.
“Alpha
One, your concern is noted. But that material is classified.
It is for the good of the team that the nature of the technology that
changes you is not known. It is for the good of humanity, for
should that information ever be gleaned from you, and it could be uses
against us. This technology is even more exotic than that
which the Covenant employ – our ingenuity is greater. If that
technology is turned against us, then it will certainly mean the end
of the war. And not in favor of humanity.”
The
spook that had spoken was Admiral Anton Soo-tho, a member of the special
liaison to Fleet Command. He was, if there could be determined
one, the leader of Black sector. By rule, he was the ranking officer.
But rules seldom applied in Black Sector. The Admiral continued
to speak, his voice carrying a warmth that cut through the cold tension
of the room. He wasn’t the normal ONI spook – this man had
a soul – or something remotely human within his mind.
“I’m
sorry; Team Alpha, but you know ONI Black regulations. Compartmentalization,
on the need to know. However, I think after all you’ve been
through, we can allow a small relation of information.” The
spooks next to the Admiral, and the ONI techs with the doctor all breathed
audibly. Alpha One felt the tension in the room growing
again, odd patterns of emotive cycles filtering through his intricate
clock of a brain.
Dr.
Fukoi began to speak, but the Admiral cut him off. “The material
that we…Black sector, have been cultivating and analyzing is something
that we gained through intelligence stolen from Covenant cruisers.
Through severe violation of Cole protocols, we shadowed Covenant cruisers
to strange artifacts and worlds, and secretly boarded those ships –
which were lightly armed, mainly with unshielded Elites, with Spartan
IIIs. We lost a lot of the cloned soldiers, but without Ackerson’s
demons, we wouldn’t have been able to get that intel. They brought
back something…strange. It was a technology that had unique
effects on the local space-time, warping things and making them beyond
what they are. Our own techs here at Black sector were able to
cultivate this material into a fluid…something that they discovered
had unique effects on living, biological matter.”
“You
know the rest of the story, Alpha One…”
The
screams. Men who, like him, had been snatched in the dark of night,
because of their exceptional abilities. It seemed as if almost
every war hero in recent history had vanished our died, replaced by
deteriorating flash clones. But Black sector had brushed it under
the rug, the way only a secret division of ONI could. No questions
asked. Questions were met with silenced rounds to the skull, and
bribes and all sorts of other unscrupulous mechanisms of manipulation
were employed. It was a testament to the far reaching carte-blanch
mandate that Black sector carried with it.
Black
sector had been the birth place of the Spartan projects, and Dr. Halsey
was a member of the secret division of ONI. She had begun experiments
– the preliminary work for the Black teams…divisions of cybernetic
and neural pathways, combing AI and human pathways…shady experiments
into the limits of human abilities and consciousness. She had
abandoned that research, owing to the separation of empathetic qualities
that the test subjects had undergone.
She
had turned to a more “humane” approach of human augmentation
– the Spartans.
But
her research had been shoved under the highest levels of classifications,
deep under codes and restrictions. Triple-max security encryption,
and AIs with separate subroutines just to keep the information secret.
But Black Sector had access to it all…there was nothing its cryo-intelligence
computers couldn’t access. The less empathetic, less human ONI
spooks had harnessed the research…and from that, the Black mission
had been birthed. There had been chatter on the battle networks…the
Covenenant rarely encrypted their transmissions…and ONI had given
the green light to the mission that had broken all forms of Cole protocol.
It
was stupid, really…the ships had traveled dark, next to the slow moving
Covenant cruisers, but if one mistake had been made, everything would
have been for naught, if the Covenant had boarded the Black ships.
Luck, or fate, had not granted that to happen.
When
the Ackerson’s Spartan III’s had returned with the intel, the official
Team Black program had begun. The abductions...then the experiments…the
terrible experiments! And after one hundred men and women had
been whittled down to four, Team Alpha Black was born. They weren’t
the only ones, either: Bravo, Epsilon, and Zeta teams existed.
Was
it really worth it? Alpha One sometimes doubted that. After
all he had been through…the incident with the
Percival and at Gradient Prime, he fear the loss of humanity that
occurred with the transformations. As his mind was rewired into
something more akin to a computer, he felt as if he was in danger of
forgetting the atrocities that had been committed in war. If he
couldn’t feel that, then what was the point of being alive at all?
If
he somehow lost empathy and feeling, he didn’t know what would happen.
Would he become a savior of humanity, or its worst atrocity?
Two
weeks later.
Alpha
One stared at his reflection in an iridescent visor, not unlike the
ones that covered the faces of the Spartans he had seen. In the
silver reflective mask, he saw a face he barely knew anymore.
His rough, handsome edges were gone – replaced by erudite lines of
aquiline nobility. He looked like a prototypical warrior, with
a sharp jaw line and traces of faint purple luminosity winding across
the brown of his skin.
What
am I?
He
had come to the realization that he was something that had been created
for a purpose. The purpose was simple – he was the latest in
human evolution – a warrior crafted for the end of a war. The
forging, in the crucible of Black Sector, was a long and arduous road
that burned into him things he didn’t like, and removed qualities
of his humanity. When he remembered the incident with the Percival,
he had to strain to hold onto the grief – the anguish. It was
his fuel, the catalyzing energy that propelled him to push the limits
of the augmentations, to become more than a mere man. To become
a legend, a burning glare in the eye of human and Covenant history alike,
the sword that would tear the curtain of war in two.
That
was the key – to hold onto the fuel, no matter how hard it got…no
matter how hard the increasing computerization of his mind made empathetic
pathways and operations difficult…it was of paramount essence.
He knew that he wasn’t the only one going through the difficult changes.
Fletcher and Kate had expressed slight dismay at the new “sense,”
which had only blossomed since the meeting in the de-brief room.
Now
they could feel the tremors of everyone walking through the Black sector
complex, and had to carefully tune it out so that they wouldn’t go
insane. Kate felt that the sense were unnatural and inhuman, and
Alpha One agreed with her. Even when they were alone, far from
the cameras or prying eyes of the ONI spooks, her hand upon his skin
felt different. It felt paradoxically and simultaneously more
electric than ever, and at the same time more distant. When they
were near each other, they could communicate almost sub-vocally, reading
each other’s emotions like a book.
It
was the height of human communication, and it was an abomination, in
Alpha One’s eyes. But there was nothing to be gained from embracing
the doubts and curses of what had been done to them. True, in
Fletcher’s words, ONI had “fucked us over.” But there was
nothing to be gained by denying that fact. What was done, was
done. It was time to move on – time to push ahead. The
green light had been given by ONI to engage the Covenant, and the only
thing that stood in the way of full mission readiness was the Proving
Grounds.
The
objective of the test was simple – create an obstacle course full
of danger and peril, then throw the Black operatives into the eye of
that storm, and assess their performance. There would be resistance,
he knew. Marines in large, domineering exoskeleton suits, with
enormous fifty caliber machine guns. It was a live-fire exercise.
Marines would die.
Alpha
One pushed the contemplative thoughts from his mind, and removed the
helmet from its rack, gazing into its silver reflection no more.
He carefully lowered it on top of his head, wincing slightly as his
implants connected with his suit’s sensors and computers via high
speed wireless network powered by infared crystal relays in the suit.
It was a lot less invasive than the old suit – the MJOLNIR model,
that required a port at the base of the skull to interface. It,
he had been informed, was not very comfortable.
In
truth, the suit that he wore was a variant of the MJOLNIR platform,
but enhanced by the exotic technologies from the Black mission into
Covenant space. The platform had been stripped down to the base
Covenant engineering, then bathed in a plethora of new technologies;
twin fusion reactor power plants, active camouflage, onboard weapons
systems, increased strength enhancement, and the beginning of an anti-gravity
propulsion system.
In
addition, the suit’s original crystal layer used to network with the
AI and the human occupant had been stripped, instead replaced by a layer
of strange mercury-like liquid that held impressive conductive properties,
along with incredible self-replication attributes. The suit was
sleeker, with an underneath layer made from a titanium mesh weave, covered
with blades of sleek armor, and then between the armor and the titanium
mesh was the computation layer – thin, no thicker than a sheet of
paper, but powerful.
Underneath
the titanium-mesh weave was another layer, this one consisting of piezo-electric
energy cells that grafted to the skin and send the replicating liquid
deep into the marrow of the occupant. It was a biting, stinging
feeling, replaced by a terrible cold, as the liquid wound its way through
bone and vein, forcing the outer skin and bones to become one with the
armor.
When
that happened, Alpha One’s already high-density, low weight ceramic-steel
alloy bones would become the closest thing to unbreakable, and a layer
of the liquid would infiltrate his precious life systems, surrounding
his organs in an oddly dense layer of protective fluid.
As
he fitted the helmet, strange symbols – fractal differentiations in
space appeared in front of him, outlined in glowing purple. Flashes
of the rings appeared again, this time accompanied by giant, elegant
beings of light. He blinked them away, and moved out of the prep
room, into the team room.
The
rest of Alpha Team Black was present, each in the same black and silver
armor. When Alpha One spoke, his voice was oddly distorted and
layered in two phonetic waves. “Today, we are one step away
from active combat – and the Orion Arm. If we execute here –
today, we are a step closer to ending the war. The Spartans are
occupied with Halo and defending Earth. We are the only ones who
can make a true offensive, tearing into the heart of the Covenant.
This exercise is all that stands between ourselves and destiny.
Let’s make it clean.”
“What’s
the objective?” asked Fletcher, moving with incredibly fluid speed
to the rifle rack on the far right of the sterile white room.
He selected a long and thin rifle, with glowing purple perforation on
its muzzle. It’s striking slenderness pointed to an alien design,
but it was clear as he slammed a large high velocity clip into the rifle’s
stock that it was a slug-shooter. It was human. It was clean.
Kate
spoke, moving to the small-arms station. She withdrew two jet-black
pistols, each with a long suppressor screwed onto the front and with
an electronic scope in place of its sights. “Objective’s simple,”
she said as she slammed fresh high-penetration rounds into the pistols.
“Capture the flag.”
“The
opposition?” inquired Dirt, grabbing trio of sphere-shaped explosive
devices and tucking them inside of his armor. He didn’t grab
a projectile weapon – he moved for a long and thin sword, with circuitry
inlaid upon its surface. The blade snapped to life in his grasp,
glowing with faint white and orange energy as the circuits thrummed.
“Marines
in exo-suits. Probably some nasty ONI surprises,” said Alpha
One. “We’re going to sub-vox on this one, team – stealth
and cleanliness are the name of the game.” Alpha One moved to
the rifle rack and removed a large, twin-barreled gun, along with two
small shotguns. He slammed a sight onto the twin-barrel, and loaded
a box of ammunition underneath it, pulling back a lever until a satisfying
click popped in the silence of the white room. The weapon
hummed and glowed to life, mist exiting its firing chamber.
He
put the shotguns away and shouldered the rifle. “Finish your
load out, team – Dmitri I want you on demos. Fletch – snipes.
Kate – I need you on cleaning duty.”
What
about you? A thought echoed in his mind, directed from all three
of Alpha Black. They were sub-vocalising. It was something
that he had known would be incredible, but he hadn’t expected the
intimacy – the brooding darkness of Fletcher, the cold remorse of
Dmitir, the calm fire of Kate…it assaulted him at once, making him
wince at the mental contact.
I
will be on crowd control.
Admiral
Soo-Tho watched with interest as the Marines – all ex ODSTs, positioned
their exo-suits around a tall, waving red banner. There were a
lot of them – most of them would be dead at the end of the exercise.
The loss of life was necessary, though…until now, Alpha Team Black
had never exerted its full power. He had to see, and ONI
had to see, just how terrible the monsters they had created were.
He
wouldn’t be disappointed.
The
team quickly deployed from the team room, out onto soft soil.
There were large, scalable structures, all leading in a jagged mountain
to a summit – where a single flag stood, waving with a red banner.
Warthogs with Gauss cannons hovered around the top layer of the summit,
and somewhere in between the jagged outcroppings were ODSTs in exo-suits,
gatling guns ready to rip the armor of Alpha Black to shreds.
But
they wouldn’t be ready for Alpha Black. Nothing ever would be…they
were inhuman, straddling the line between myth and fiction – reality
and fantasy. They were illusory powers that struck in the darkness
and then retreated…quick, deadly, sure, and steady.
Alpha
One conducted a symphony of sorts with his sub-vocalised instructions,
sending Dimitri in active camouflage to scale the artificial mountain,
Fletcher to a perch where he could snipe, and Kate was with him, covering
his six. He stepped quickly and lightly through minefields and
laser grids, quick and fast.
Fletch
– what’s your position?
Fletch’s
voice, normally dark and quiet, resonated softly in his mind.
[Zeroing the scopes via auto-calibration – thirteen hundred meters
from the target. Did you know that there would be Spartans here?]
Over
their neural network, Alpha One felt his squadmates’ apprehension.
Spartans? On exercise? What the hell was ONI trying to pull?
No,
the Admiral didn’t say anything. Kate did you hear any chatter
on FleetCom about this?
[No.]
Her voice was quiet as well, honey soft as it normally was, belying
the toughness of the warrior within. [Nothing. Spartans…they
must be IIIs. Not enough IIs left around to gamble with their
lives by having them fight us.]
Dimitri’s
voice joined the neural conversation, cold – like frozen salt.
[It would appear that ONI would test one superhuman competitor against
another. The IIIs are cloned nightmares. We’re inhuman
cyborgs. Fair match?]
Alpha
One placed waypoints on the team HUD, marked for each individual member
of the team. He ordered Fletch to move his snipe position thirty
meters east, Kate to cover him on cleaning duty, and Dirt to place two
of the bombs near the Scorpion tanks at the base of the mountain.
He
thought a bit, then answered Dirt, and the whole team: No match for
us. I don’t care what they are
– the IIIs are cloned…not human. But that’s beside the point;
we’re here to prove to ONI that we’re ready to make the final steps.
Marine, S-III…doesn’t matter. Use your rounds clean and free.
He
advanced cautiously toward the base of the mountain, grabbing his rifle
he continued to send directions to the rest of the team. His ability
as a pilot to see patterns and construe daring formations was the reason
he was the team leader – why even an Admiral like Kate could handle
taking orders from him: he was brilliant. A tactician first, warrior
second.
He
pulled up his radar, noting the signatures of two Scorpion tanks and
a shitload of normal combat ODSTs. Why the hell was ONI
sanctioning a live fire exercise against its own men? Couldn’t
they see the danger of doing whatever was necessary to win the war…innocent
blood never rested easily on a society’s conscience. But, this
was Black sector – territory uncharted on any map, silent and unsanctioned
by any moral misgivings.
He
clicked back the safety of the modified BR-55C rifle, the subtle
hiss telling him that the weapon’s acceleration core was speeding
up to firing speed. The BR-55C looked almost like a normal battle
rifle, save for its length, which was considerably greater than the
original model’s. Like all Alpha Team equipment, it was used
using the stolen and reconstituted technology from the groundbreaking,
Cole shattering Black missions. It used a core of electromagnetic
coils that rotated around a solid, piezo-electric firing chamber.
The
coils, bound together with a material fabricated from the Black missions,
imparted strange space and time altering properties to the firing chamber,
whose piezo-electric material would then harness the energy. A
shell would be loaded into the firing chamber, locked in place by a
bolt-restraint and released by a tiny amount of chemical combustion.
As the bullet sped to just under supersonic speed in a fraction of time,
it would enter the piezo-electric chamber, where its momentum would
be changed into self-propelling energy; the bullet would almost instantaneously
reach three-tenths of the speed of light.
Because
the chamber was magnetically sealed in a vacuum, no air would be displaced
before the bullet reached supersonic speed, and thus no sound would
be made. It would accelerate out of the lengthened suppressor-compensator
screwed onto the end of the rifle, hovering the state of solid matter
and that of evaporated metal. It would hold stability until the
stresses keeping it together were released – upon impact it would
splatter as if it were mercury against a hard surface – with great
momentum as well.
It
could fire rounds extremely fast, yet could be used with the precision
of a scalpel. In short, it was Alpha One’s type of weapon.
He
quickly calibrated the short range 2x magnification scope, and zeroed
onto the ODST troopers, who were looking alert. Against the background
air and silver-gray of the artificial mountain, Alpha One saw the cloaked
form of Dirt slide between the two tanks, then off again. A slight
reflection caught his eyes as the cold killer slid the blade of his
suit, its circuitry glowing subtly between hot orange and an almost
translucent white.
In
the back of his mind, he continued to provide Kate and Fletch directions,
finalizing the targets on the radar readout that Fletch needed to snipe,
and the one’s that Kate needed to mop up. Apparently the resistance
on the mountain grew more intense as the ascent increased, with Spartan
IIIs and marine’s in exo-suits occupying the upper levels.
They
would deal with that when the time came.
For
now, he was carefully finalizing the first of the assault. Kate
and Fletch would attack concordant with what himself and Dirt did, also
synchronized with the detonation of the two Scorpion tanks. He
selected targets and ordered the rest to do the same…then started
a countdown timer, set for five seconds. As the timer began to
tick off of his HUD, it felt like an eternity as the hundredths, then
tenths places of the digital clock fell down.
Fletch
waited anxiously in position, also watching the clock on his HUD.
He went back to his scope, finger hovering just nanometers from depressing
the trigger for the first shot. A human being without the amazing
control of Fletch would have sent off a mission-ruining shot by now
– but Fletch wasn’t normal, even before the experiments. When
he had been an ODST, on sniper detail, his comrades and superiors had
always remarked about his inhuman ability to toe the line between anticipation
and recklessness, leading targets into precarious positions but never
once losing his cool. At the last possible moment, he would take
the shot, sending an Elite to hell.
It
was an art, to Fletcher…the ability to craft an almost beautiful death
for the creatures he hated most. He could lead a wild grunt into
a pack of jackals, then take a shot at the grunt’s methane tank with
a high-explosive round, causing a fairly powerful explosion. Or,
he could line two Elite’s up…at the precise moment when a line bisected
both of their heads, he would fire. That was Fletch’s way –
to create the impossible with a single shell…a single portent of death
that could hang multiple fates in the balance, both friendly and hostile.
As
he sighted on an ODST’s head, he briefly thought about the consequences…what
he was ending. It was for a greater good, he knew…but that was
almost irrelevant. What mattered now, in its most immediate state,
was the shot, and how artfully it was taken. As the timer ticked
down, he decided that there were worse ways to die.
Kate
crept silent, some hundred meters below Fletcher. He was about
eight hundred meters away on the horizontal, perched in a raven’s
nest that would be raining death in five short seconds. She moved
to where Alpha One directed her, placing complete faith in his tactician’s
skills. Before, it had been hard when it was announced that he
would be the team leader…she was an admiral.
But
she knew she didn’t deserve the rank. FleetCom had fastracked
her because she had vital intel relating to the Covenant, and because
she was a war hero. She held no illusions about the importance
of her rank, though; on missions she could authorize wide scale nuclear
strikes and order entire starships into position to turn the tide of
planetside battles. But her skills on the battlefield were her
best asset…made even more formidable with her eye.
The
eye was something that was a gift from ONI for her service during the
Orion Belt crusade…when the needler had explosion had sent lances
of glass into her ocular region and thoroughly obliterated her cornea.
It could see in multi-spectral sight, could interface directly with
her HUD and combat suit defenses, and most importantly, the cyber-eye
could auto-track multiple targets, enabling her to fire at multiple
targets at once.
She
continued to creep in active camouflage around the marine positions
until she was actively placed to eliminate the ones that Fletcher wouldn’t
be able to get to. Cleaning duty. With a pang, she
realized that the sterile task was being applied to the killing of men
she had considered brothers…fellow ODSTs and Helljumpers. The
pain of that task, she knew, was necessary. As Alpha One had brief
moments alone, it was the only thing that prevented them from becoming
the cybernetic machinations that ONI had deigned for them to become.
Cleaning
duty with a side of pain.
Dirt
laid the charges underneath the Scorpion tanks and slipped out, the
cloak that bent light around him keeping him invisible. He slipped
through the ODSTs as if they were stuck in time, moving nimbly and quickly
like a ninja. Unlike his fellow soldiers, he felt no qualms about
the deed – it had to be done.
He
had done far more unpalatable acts during his time as a PSU agent for
ONI. He had killed a lot of innocent men…and he would honestly
be lying if he said that he did not enjoy it a tiny bit. The thrill
of the kill was what Dirt lived for…it sent heat through his ice cold
veins. As he slipped the sword – the cyber blade, out of his
armor, its circuited metal folding out in a ripple of black grains,
he smiled. It was a rare and dangerous thing for a man like Dirt
to smile. It meant that he was enjoying himself.
Three.
Alpha One readied the rifle, behind cover while Dirt crept into position.
Kate was ready. Fletcher was ready. Ready to kill the marines…men
he had run bombing missions for, and men that he knew deserved better
than this. A pang of cold remorse shuddered through his system,
almost making him tremble.
Two.
He
suppressed the emotion, but did not bury it. Somewhere distant,
he clung to it, tucking it away and letting it weigh him down just a
bit. It anchored him in reality, kept him from slipping into the
realm of ONI, devoid of moral conundrum’s and quandaries. It
kept him sane.
One.
He
sighted an ODST, leveled the scope of his battle rifle in the middle
of the man’s head, and fired. The rifle kicked slightly, as
a wave of energy shuddered through its body, the shell within being
accelerated to terrible speed.
At
the same moment he saw the marine’s head explode in a slurry of liquid
metal, glass, bone, flesh, and blood; he saw two go limp in the corner
of his vision. Dmitri’s blade had struck, at his favorite spot:
the spine. He turned, fired. Turned, fired again.
In a rhythm, shots of deadly precision sang from the rifle one after
another, downing the marines while Dirt slipped about with deadly agility,
slicing and dicing this way and that.
Before
the ODST’s knew what hit them, a white-hot explosion tore through
the base of the mountain as the Scorpions were consumed in a vaporizing
glare of fire.
Fletcher
fired, almost like a robot. His sniper rifle barely kicked as
suppressed rounds buried themselves in the skulls of helpless ODSTs.
He was so precise, so damned deadly
with the weapon; in a matter of three seconds, eight were dead.
He was inhuman.
As
he moved his scoped, he saw other marines crumbled, the holes from high
velocity, high explosive .45 caliber rounds removing large chunks of
mass. The rounds that Kate fired, he knew, were silenced – but
their visceral impact was noisy as hell. She, too, was human,
as multiple targets fell at the same time. Unreal.
Alpha
One stepped over the wreckage of the Scorpions, Dirt at his side.
The two cyborgs ran swiftly and powerfully, covering large distances
in a matter of seconds. Stealth was over…they had taken out
the key positions of the ODSTs guarding the flag, but now the time for
brute force had come.
As
they rounded the spiraling path that led to the top of the artificial
mountain, the resistance increased. However, their speed and prowess
proved unmatchable. With his battle rifle, Michael effectively
mowed down marines in exo-suits, at the same time directing the other
three members of Alpha Team into a press upon the flag. At his
side, Dirt ran cloaked, running is blade through the marines like they
were soft, churnable butter.
Kate
and Fletcher doubled down from their perch, next to the corpses they
had just made. They too moved with speed, Fletcher sniping on
the run, while Kate used her magnum pistols to great effect. They moved
from the opposite end of the mountain, in the press that Alpha One had
designed. From two sides, they would assault the Spartan IIIs
guarding the flag, and would destroy the Gauss warthogs that patrolled
the Flag summit.
The
initial attack had been clean. It spoke of a training regimen
that was incredibly intense, as well as abilities of inhuman angels
of death. Now, as Fletcher fired the sniper rifle on the run,
each shot true, and as she tore through opposing forces like a hurricane
through a swamp, it was becoming apparent just what ONI had created;
cybernetic nightmares beyond anything it had hoped for. As Admiral
Soo-tho watched, he had a lingering sense of fear at what he saw –
he saw lives being lost so quickly that it was almost cause for
pause.
At
least they had used Ackerson’s Spartan IIIs…better for his soul
less machinations to experience the fury of Alpha Team than for living
Spartan IIs like 104 and 117. They were too valuable. And,
ONI had plans for them as well. If only Alpha could continue the
mission at this pace…the true green light would be given. For
what…he didn’t know the entire story. He only knew that if
all went according to plan, the war would be very, very soon.
The
press continued, through lines and lines of marines in exo-suits, warthogs,
Scorpions, and ODSTs. Finally, Alpha Team reached the summit.
To no surprise, there were a dozen Spartan IIIs, each ready for battle
– in synchronous stances that were frighteningly similar and eerie.
Spartans.
They were the epitome of military engineering, the pinnacle of artificially
induced human evolution. Until Alpha Team Black. ONI had
rewritten the book on genetic experimentation with its latest batch
of cyborg warriors. The Black program was considerably darker,
reflecting research that Dr. Halsey had wanted secret. The reason
that the Black teams were so powerful was because of their brains.
In truth, it all went back to language.
The
human mind processes language in an odd way…underneath barriers of
idiomatic and regional dialects, the core processing model remains the
same. Responsible for this is are the left temporal and left front
lobes of the brain, near the auditory cortex. At the core, it
is this part of the brain that constitutes sounds and words into meaning
and language that can be understood by the human mind. It is an
existence of duality, a sloppy division between comprehension and production.
In
her early research, Dr. Halsey examined how a computer processes language.
It is binary, and in some key codes, duplicate binary. The computer
does not have a sloppy division between comprehension and production,
between sound and meaning. It is simply on, or off. Fascinated
by this difference in human and cybernetic processing, Dr. Halsey sought
to make brains that could process language neatly, greatly speeding
up thought processes and analyzation factor in the brain.
Her
experiments were successful to a degree, but the human cost had been
too great. That was the reason she had abandoned the research.
But ONI had no concern for human harm…the idea was too enticing.
After
Dr. Halsey left Black sector, ONI conspired to create a cyborg program
separate from the Spartans, with its soldiers utilizing the great advantages
of parallel brain language processing – by gradually replacing the
brain with cybernetic implants, to the point where the brain would be
indistinguishable from the AI computer patterns that they were attempting
to emulate.
They
had succeeded. But at what cost?
As
the Spartans’ synchronized movements and formations were no match
for the raw speed and foresight of Alpha Team Black, it wasn’t clear
what victories and triumphs had been gained. The Spartans, while
proficient, lacked the advanced brains – the leap in artificial evolution
that Alpha Team Black possessed. It was chilling, to say the least…
Alpha
One felt hollow, as he leapt high into the air, propelled by the slight
anti-gravity systems in his combat suit. He tried to hold onto
the pain, but it was difficult. As Kate soared through the air,
pistols at opposite targets – both of them reflective visors of MJOLNIR
mark VI armor, he felt nothing. Even as the Spartans, who while
cloned, were still humans, fell with cracked visors and blood pouring
from terminal wounds, he felt nothing.
He
raised the flag in triumph, but there was only victory in the physical
act. It was not a mirror of his insides, which were wracked with
pain at the killing machines he and his team had become.
The
following days were mellow. Alpha One spent most of his time in
the company of his mates, who were also rather cold. Something
had happened on the training exercise…something profound. It
was like the soul of the unit had been taken away, as they killed
humans. It was the step towards the Covenant, toward the tear
they would rip from the Orion Arm, all the way through the glassed worlds,
and to the Covenant home world itself.
But
the last steps were weary and tragic. Alpha One didn’t know
what else he could do, even as he held onto the pain that slipped away…like
slippery and loosely tied knots of rope…
Alpha
One was alone in his quarters when the door to his quarters slid open,
and Admiral Soo-tho stood silhouetted in the door. Behind him
were two ONI security officers. Alpha One had a bad, foreboding
feeling…
“Admiral,
sir!” He snapped to attention, putting away the holopad he had
been reading.
“At
ease, Alpha One.”
“Sir…why
are you here? Is the mission finally a go?”
“Yes.”
He
was elated. He began to send a message to his mates on the neural
link, but found that it was strangely blocked. He looked at the
Admiral, who was wearing a strained look on his face…as he examined
the man’s face closer; he saw a great amount of tension…of deceit.
In his hand was a small, circular device. Alpha One tried to send
the sub-vocalized message again, but it was drowned by out by a buzzing
noise.
“Sir…what
is the meaning of this? Aren’t we going to the Orion Arm?”
The
admiral shook his head, and waved to the security officers. They
entered the room, entirely unafraid of him. Alpha One tried to
fight them off, but the buzzing turned into a vortex of whirring, sonic
razor blades that threatened to kill him. He could do nothing
but spasm chaotically as the officers dragged him away. He felt
angry and hot…human again.
He
knew what was happening. Another experiment.
When
he came to, he was in a room that he knew very well. It was sterile
white, like most of Black sector, but the room was wide and circular,
with a strange apparatus in the middle of it. It looked like a
medieval torture device, with long racks and a cross-shaped bed.
It was all so disturbingly white.
He
was on that cross, arms spread out while medical servitors with long,
dangerous needles hovered around him. Latches closed upon his
bare torso and legs, while his arms were bound in a similar manner.
Not another experiment…
He
looked around, turning his head as much as he could against restraints
that were latched to his forehead.
He
saw the admiral directly in front of him, wearing the same pained look.
“Sir…” he said, at a loss for words.
“I’m
sorry; son, but the brass from up high gave the order.”
“But
you said…Dr. Fukoi…no more experiments. No more doses…we
were green!”
“Green
for this last experiment, son. The strongest cultivation of the
lost technology that we’ve ever been able to procure. It’s
in such good shape…the Covenant would kill for Forerunner technology
of this nature.”
Forerunners?
What the hell? He distantly remembered the flashes
– the rings…somehow it was all connected.
“What…you
promised, sir!” The medical servitors began to hover closer,
dangerous and ominous with their long needles.
Alpha
One thrashed violently, but was held in place by the strong restraints.
There was something wrong with this experiment…it was wrong.
“Sir!
Stop it! It’s not right!”
“I’m
sorry, son. ONI has to do what is necessary to ensure that the
war is finished.”
“At
what cost?” The needles were close to the skin now, and his
arms were held still. “You bastards are taking my
humanity! Our humanity! We’ll be no worse than
the squid bastards if you keep doing this shit! Sir, please!”
“ONI
will do whatever is necessary. At any cost.” The admiral
breathed the words so dramatically…Alpha One knew that he believed
them. He had been wrong about the admiral…he was a soul less
as the rest of the spooks. As the needles buried into his skin,
sending burning white-hot fluid through his system, he began to scream…
When
he came to, he was wracked immediately by tremors of pain. The
last dose…it was so strong. So concentrated. It
felt as if he was being ripped apart from the inside out. And
there was something else…an alien presence so strong that it almost
immediately began to meld with his mind, transforming his brain and
making him into something more…
When
his vision came, he saw the small man, Dr. Fukoi, standing in front
of him. He felt a spasm…whether it was of anger and hatred or
physical pain, it was indistinguishable.
“How
are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
Alpha
One shuddered again as he coughed up something – it wasn’t blood…it
was silver-mercury, thick and dense. Alpha One ignored the
question as the doctor repeated it…
He
shuddered again as the war within his mind stopped, a cool serenity
flowing over the now remade landscape of his brain. What had happened?
ONI had gone too far this time…they had created something…him –
that was monstrous and terrible.
He
coughed the mercury substance again, and began to tremble as liquid-black
scales of metal began to crawl and slide over his skin, sheathing him
in armor unlike anything he had ever seen or worn before. Distantly,
he heard the doctor’s screams for security officers. He heard
screams of containment protocols and tranquilizers…electric stunners.
He
laughed. If ONI had truly understood the purpose of the Forerunner
technology, they would not have been so quick to harness it. If
they understood that by taking away his humanity, they had given him
a burning, powerful anger that anchored him even further to reality,
making him all the more dangerous.
He
got up, feeling the liquid metal scales adjust over his body as armor
ten times more powerful than the advanced MJOLNIR platform that he had
worn began to take form. He thought distantly about the war between
Covenant and humans…how inconsequential it was, now that he knew the
truth. He sent neural feelers from his mind, looking for his team.
He found them…asleep and in cryo, no doubt having been experimented
on as well.
They
had done it to Kate, as well. Did their cruelty know no
bounds? Would they ever understand what they had robbed him of?
Something as great and profound as the ability to call himself human…he
could not do that anymore, because he wasn’t remotely human
anymore. He began to walk, extending a hand and widening his fingers,
causing gravitational forces to swell in the room and compress around
the metal door of his room, blowing the one-ton door five meters from
where it had been anchored in the wall. He had to get out of Black
sector…first with his team to the Orion Arm, and then…
He
knew. It was a place that resonated in his mind, a place that
he felt like he had been before. It was called the Ark.
He would put the pieces together later…
For
now, as he heard ONI techs screaming in terror at the power he had just
displayed, he remembered Kate, Fletcher, and Dirt. Robbed of their
humanity, just as he had been. Those ONI fools. They knew
not what they had trifled with.
