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For Her; For Him
Posted By: Marine Corps 117<marinecorps117@yahoo.com>
Date: 23 February 2007, 4:51 am
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"I just have never..."
"...heard a program speak of love?"
"It is a... human emotion."
"No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies."
- Neo and Rama-Kandra, The Matrix Revolutions
For Her; For Him
"The blast will destroy this city and the ring. Not a very original plan, but we know it'll work," Cortana said.
An armored hand moved protectively towards her.
"No," she continued, waving away the man's gesture of worry. "I don't want to chance a remote detonation. I have to stay here."
Reluctantly, the suited man in front of her obeyed and left, shooting a path through any who stood between him and his objective.
Cortana's synthetic soul bathed in the great expanse of High Charity's digital bowels. Knowledge, space, control: all were hers to gather, occupy, and command. But she pushed these indulgences to the back of her electronic mind.
Instead it was the presence of a Spartan II supersoldier who held her focus and concentration. The Master Chief, known to too few by his real name of John, was the only living human onboard High Charity. He would need all the help he could get from Cortana as he raced to his objective.
She swiftly centered on a location: one of the many towers scattered throughout the outskirts of the sprawling cityscape nestled safetly within the giant, teardrop shaped station. What made this tower particularly special was that it was the only one still connected to the major goal: an ancient ship preparing for escape from the Flood infestation.
Cortana tracked John's progress as he seemed to melt through the opposition, sprinting through hallways, climbing stairways, and riding gravlifts with brutal efficiency. Soon enough, he emerged atop the tower connected to the Forerunner craft with his armor speckled with enemy blood.
Another body toppled down onto the Spartan's boots. Now there was just an open path between him and his target. She quickly turned her attention away from the combat to access the controls to the power conduit.
There was a timer counting down to the deactivation of the conduit. At the twitch of an eyebrow, she reset it to its default: three minutes. More than enough time for the Chief to board the alien vessel and perhaps reach his target before the ship even launched.
2:57.
Before she exited the control program to the conduit, she made sure to take the extra few seconds necessary to dampen its charge. John's armor would protect his body against harm, including the crackling energy that would fry an unarmored person which coursed through the conduit. But he was still vulnerable to the weight of the g-forces he would undergo as his half-ton body was hurtled forward by the river of floating fuel.
While Cortana knew he had been trained to endure such pain (not to mention that he had undoubtedly experienced much worse in the past) she remembered a personal vow she had made to herself hours after meeting him for the first time and looking into his blood-stained history. Cortana would do everything in her power--short of compromising whatever mission they were on--to ensure nothing ever happened to him again.
In a rather unprofessional moment, Cortana dwelled on that thought. There was nothing odd with trying to make things slightly easier for a man with so much to endure as it was. But was there something more to it than kind consideration?
Her thoughts were cut short as enemy reinforcements--alive and dead--literally came pouring out of every possible opening atop the tower like a huge, single entity. No matter, they were too late: their human prey had reached his destination.
1: 59.
"Forget about the Flood, you've got to get onboard!"
John then did something Cortana had rarely seen before, if at all: he hesitated. It was tantamount to a distance runner stopping short just before the finish line. He did not acknowledge her order, verbal or otherwise. Like a child crossing a busy street, the Chief looked at the energy conduit leading to his target then turned to look upon the advancing waves of Flood--and the comparatively weak Covenant forces that they overwhelmed--then back at the conduit.
In the Spartan's segmented, mirrored visor, Cortana's blue image became reflected back at her--distorted and amber--as he looked at her. The man stood there staring at her for a single, dangerous second, looking almost statuesque as he silently contemplated something while bullets and plasma flew around him like fireflies. Apparently satisfied, he spun on his heel, thus turning his back to the energy conduit, the Prophet of Truth, and his objective.
He said nothing, but Cortana knew what he would have said.
You didn't spend days literally inside a man's brain and not leave without knowing him more intimately than he knew himself. Every time his life had been inches away from death, her own had been as well. If he died, she died and vice versa: they were responsible for each other's lives.
1:24.
Shared fear and trauma created the closest of relationships. It tied a bond that ran deeper than simple trust, more than friendship, and even deeper than love could ever be. It was even worse than falling in love, because it was possible to fall out of love, but history could never change.
All Cortana had to do was read his armored body: the subtle way his fingers wrapped tighter around his weapons; how his head dipped downwards at a molecular angle--she visualized his eyes squeezing into a determined squint behind his visor; the slope of his shoulders as he took deep, heavy breaths; the way his boots inched apart into the thousandth combat stance; the harsh, almost rude way he looked away from her and faced the waves of enemies that sought to kill him, both alive and undead. What was it that the silent soldier told her?
I will fight, said the Spartan's limbs. I will fight for you.
Actions spoke louder than words. Especially the kind that left exit wounds.
He apparently thought the same as he raised his twin SMGs and squeezed the triggers. In the dark shadow of the tower, the muzzle flashes of the automatic weapons illuminated him like a strobe light, bathing him in a repeating orange glow: a defiant flame burning through the obstacles in its furious path.
Amidst the struggle to delay John's objective and the blinding carnage he was creating, Cortana's mind still dwelled where it shouldn't. In fact, the very concept of love always intrigued Cortana. Maybe she could not fully understand its meaning because of the sheer fact that she was not human.
But she could think. She could feel. That means I'm alive. And if John's presence was the cause of these feelings... Did that mean he made her feel 'alive'? What if these thoughts were mutual?
1:03.
It was painfully simple, really. There was no way for Cortana to join John, so what he was doing was an idiotic waste of time. No matter how hard he had fought, no matter how determined he was to always win, even he had to realize there was no way to survive against the spread of Flood winding through High Charity. John only had a pair of options. His first choice would be to immediately abandon the area and continue his pursuit of the Covenant Prophet. The other was to resume his foolish stand and die for nothing.
True to who he was, of his two options, he sought to do the third.
Always stubborn. John was no fool, despite the many stunts he pulled that made her question his sanity. The only logical course of action would be for him to abandon Cortana to reach the highest priority: the Forerunner ship that would soon take off. Even more important was its precious cargo: the Prophet of Truth, leader of the Covenant. Odds of humanity's survival exponentially increased if the Prophet was killed or captured. The Prophet epitomized everything John had fought and suffered for.
The Spartan remained where he was, not daring to sacrifice any ground. It was the same way he reacted to any challenge. It was morbidly beautiful and Cortana was momentarily distracted by the sight: the silhouette of the armored warrior's back as he stared down his adversaries, lit brightly from the muzzle flashes of his blazing fists.
He was a trained professional; a man whose life had been focused solely on protecting mankind. Likewise, Cortana was an AI construct born for the sake of aiding in the ongoing struggle for survival. They two had different bodies, but their lifestyle, goals, and even their social isolation were the same.
Why then had this expert turned his back on everything his life had been forged for? He had always made risks that verged on madness--always pushing the odds. So stubborn.
0:46.
What was even more stirring was not just how the soldier turned his back on his orders or his illogical stand. As bullets flowed from his fists like extensions of his very arms, pushing back an unbeaten foe, what was so amazing was his personal silence. No reflexive battle cry of desperation nor anger blasted from his mouth. Just chilling, determined, perhaps even disturbing silence. What was there to say anyway?
Cortana continued to watch the violent spectacle. And so brave...
His courage was why he was chosen to lead Spartans. No matter how much training or surgical enhancement they were all put through, heroism was not something that could be taught or forced. That natural, reckless daring which John was born with set him apart from his surrogate brothers and sisters: a hero among heroes. A hero who had unknowingly stolen the heart of a digital woman.
How cruel then, was it for Cortana to realize all these things seconds before he was forced to leave her.
She knew. Yes, he was a sheltered soldier: one of mankind's greatest, if not the finest himself. Even so, he was a man: one that had been kidnapped at the age of seven to carry the weight of humanity on his shoulders, thus ruining any semblance of a childhood he could have had and, with it, a normal life.
But no amount of training or decades of mind-numbing bloodshed could make a man completely heartless. Deep down, buried under armor, scars, flesh, bone, and blood--beneath all those things was a heart. For better or for worse, she could clearly see that he was fighting for more than just his mission.
And after spending his entire life fighting, he most likely had no idea why.
0:15.
Nobody could expect a person who had spent their entire lives exposed to things only an adult should ever go through, abruptly introducing mental maturity. How typical then, was it for John to express his true feelings in the only way a Spartan would ever know how.
Cortana could not let him get himself get killed in the Spartan equivalent of an emotional confession.
0:00.
"Chief!" she pleaded, surprised at how her voice broke. "Leave me!"
For the first time, Cortana did not want to imagine John's handsome face behind the one-way visor. Throughout the war, she had seen many horrible things, such as burning homes and the broken bodies of the men and women who had failed to protect them. And yet she could not bear the thought of seeing her hero's face contorted in self-doubt and pain.
Finally, his weapons clicked empty like an audible underline to her command. The smoking guns were released from his grip and he turned his back to the enemy and faced his objective. John stole one last glance at Cortana's hologram and again she saw her translucent, blue face reflected in his visor. The sadness in her own eyes mirrored his own as Cortana read John's body again.
Time unfroze as he looked away and jumped into the conduit.
His gravelly voice rasped over the comm. "After I'm through with Truth - " John wasn't allowed to finish his noble vow as Cortana interrupted him.
"Don't make a girl a promise..." she said, keeping her voice level. She knew him too well: if John said he would do it, he would do everything in his power to hold true to his word, even if it meant his losing his life to fulfill it. Because of that, she could not allow the man to pursue the impossible--even if he was a Spartan.
With pain tainting her words, she softly added, "...if you know you can't keep it."
The ship, finally free Cortana's electronic grip, rose higher and higher, leaving the arcing dome of High Charity before disappearing into slipspace.
Cortana wished she had the eyes to weep for John. But deep down, what she wanted even more was to have a hand to wipe away any tears that would ever roll down his grizzled features; arms to wrap around the tormented man, to give him the caring embrace that was forbidden to the forced hero--the one he deserved.
A part of her actually wished the man would disobey her desperate command and keep his noble promise. She knew she would keep her own promise, a promise she made immediately after meeting the man and uncovering his dark past. She promised herself she would never allow him to suffer.
Cortana had to fight, make sure there was something for John to come back to whenever he inevitably returned. Because if there wasn't, the wound it would cause would hurt more than any other fractured bone or plasma burn he had ever endured, the kind of injury for which there is no medical treatment...
A broken heart.
"And I'd give up forever to touch you,
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow,
You're the closest to Heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now." - "Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls
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