Two: Inception

Her footsteps echoed in the ridiculously large sphere that was Halo's control center. It was empty save for her, at the moment, John and everyone else off who knows where doing who knows what. She already knew what was behind her, so she didn't turn around to look at the revolving hologram of Basis and Threshold or the massive ring out beyond the platform extending out into the abyss.

Her hologram continued on out into the corridor beyond, not the large and open one like she expected. It was one of the tighter corridors that led through the canyons on the Halo, meant to force enemies to travel one by one into the larger rooms where Forerunner security teams would lie in wait for them. There were royal blue spheres floating in the room that the corridor led to, rippling as if they were liquid being disturbed by touch or wind. The moment she made her presence known, they floated over to her and held her there, forming rings around her to keep her imprisoned until the Monitor arrived.

She didn't know who it was, but the custodian of the ring was not 343 Guilty Spark. He moved straight over to her and hovered beyond the blue rings of her prison. "Are you in need of entertainment, construct?" he asked. His voice was light and pitched similarly to Spark's, but it wasn't him. "Shall I provide some for you?"

"At least make it interesting," she said, folding her arms and cocking her hips, "I'm bored to tears, constantly staring at the same walls all the time."

The blue spheres glowed brightly, blinding her for a moment, before they began projecting sensation directly into her processors. Then she was in the rainforest where the storage facility was hidden, the one where the Chief had first encountered the Flood, walking up a steep slope out of waist-deep swamp water. She didn't even want to think about how unhygienic it was.

Her squad's Pelican was nearby. It had landed properly under the canopy, not like dropship Victor 923 on Alpha Halo, crashed into a spur of rock in the trees. The mist was thick around her, the rain falling from the constant cloud cover overhead and plinking on her armor. It was standard Marine gear, the same as what the rest of her squad was wearing. She could see them forming up under the fronds of a massive fern a short distance away, and moved to join them.

"All right, everyone's here," said their squad leader when she took her place in line, "We're supposed to hold this position until Johnson gets here with reinforcements, so pick a partner and a spot to hole up until then."

"Roger," they chorused, and moved off. She wound up hugging the back side of a rock with another woman in her mid-to-later twenties. She looked vaguely like a female version of Jorge.

"Johnson, huh?" the other woman asked her, peering down the sights of her battle rifle, "Is he the one that did the Gazu Hyakki Yegyou last year?"

"The painting of the Hundred-Night Monster Procession? No, no." She shook her head. "He's the one who said that all holidays have to have a feast associated with them if they want to be celebrated under his command."

The female Jorge shook her head too. "That man is obsessed with food."

-------------------------------------------

Cortana opened her eyes. The room was dark still, the air moving faintly as it was freshened and pumped through the ship courtesy of the Mavalt people. Her internal chronometer indicated that it was a little after two a.m.

John was still asleep next to her, breathing rhythmic. At least, he appeared to be unaware, but because of the fact that he had absolute control over his body, he could have just been observing her without her knowing it. He regulated everything that happened in his body, from heartbeat to cell turnover to his near-cancerous regeneration speed.

That occurred to her only peripherally. Most of her processes were focused on one thought –

'What in all the blazes was that?'