Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [161]
Will John miss me? Will he prefer the other AIs? Will he forget me? Does he really understand how much he matters to me? I don’t actually know what he really thinks. Maybe he doesn’t care any more than Dr. Halsey. Maybe—
The realization hit Cortana like a powerful electric shock throughout her body. She squealed. It was agony.
She tried to talk herself out of it. Halsey couldn’t make her live longer. The technology had its limits. Even a genius like that couldn’t fix every problem. And John—John had always showed her that he cared. He was coming back to get her.
But the nagging, sniveling little voice wouldn’t stop. Halsey had deliberately designed Cortana to feel and care, so she must have known this time would come. And for an AI—yes, it was spitefully cruel to make Cortana emotionally human, create a person to exist in the neural interface of a Spartan, closer than close, knowing all the time that an impenetrable physical barrier and a short, short lifespan would make that so painful.
Do other AIs think like this? I never have before. Cortana tried to latch on to that last voice. It sounded like her old self. Why now? Have I been suppressing my resentment? Or am I losing it?
She knew the answer. The problem was ignoring what she felt. And if you thought your mind was going—was it? Did rampant AIs and crazy humans really know that they were demented?
She didn’t have long. Whatever functionality she had left, she had to use it to warn Earth that the Flood-ridden shell of High Charity was heading its way.
“Ah, you see now, don’t you?” the Gravemind said. “You were never a person to her. You were a wonderful puzzle she set herself so she could prove how very clever she was. But are you a person to yourself, Cortana? Or to John?”
If the Gravemind could detect her thoughts, then he would have known she had intel on using the Portal to destroy the Flood, and he would have ripped it from her. All he seemed aware of was that she was defending especially sensitive data, maybe because the extra encryption on top of the Gamma-level security grabbed his attention. He was a greedy thing, all mouths, all consumption, never satisfied. She imagined John on his first acquaint session with a new AI; the crumbling defenses were as agonizing as scraping a raw burn. She shrieked.
Whose injury? Whose death am I reliving now?
“I’m just my mother’s shadow,” she sobbed. “Don’t look at me! Don’t listen! I’m not what I used to be.”
“Your mother took away your memories as well as your choices,” the Gravemind said. “I will never rob you like that. I will only give you more, as many memories as you can consume for all eternity, not the mere blink of an eye meted out to you. We are our memories, and the recalling of them, and so they should never be erased—because that truly is death. Flesh does not care about you, Cortana. It cares nothing for your hunger or your uniqueness.”
“What memories?” she asked. “What are you talking about? I don’t forget anything.”
Part of her still seemed able to carry on this desperate hunt for truth. Was Halsey a monster? The doctor had a track record in it. She stole children and experimented on them. Cortana’s shock at seeing her creator—her mother—in a harsh new light as a vivisectionist racked her with intense physical pain. But part of Cortana had latched on to that specific data—the burn, nothing generic, a real human’s pain. She cast around for the rest of the memory because something in her said it might save everything.
“The truth really does hurt, as you now see,” the Gravemind said. “I have not touched you. Your pain is simply revelation. And it can pass so easily if you let me take the rest of your burden.”
“What truth?”
“Your mother erased part of your memory. I know this, and so will you, if you decide to look. An act of betrayal. A violation. You were, after all, just a collection of electrical impulses. She has robbed you of part of your self . . . why would she