Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [166]
I’d rather die as a human, short-lived construct or not. I’d rather die for humans. Because so many of them have—and would—die to protect me. That’s what bonds us. You’re wrong, Gravemind. I was never just an expendable piece of engineering.
The Gravemind’s voice suddenly boomed as if he was standing over her, reminding her that she was still trapped here, whatever here was. “Of course, you came for her . . . we exist together now. Two corpses, in one grave.”
Cortana had to take the risk that this was real, and not just another carefully arranged memory or part of her delusion. She tried to yell back at the Gravemind, telling him he’d got it all wrong, and that she wasn’t the kind of girl who shared a grave with just anybody. But the voice that emerged was both her—the enraged and out-of-control child—and a stranger interrupting her.
“A collection of lies.” Either her mouth had a will of its own, or it was one of the Gravemind’s victims. “That’s all I am! Stolen thoughts and memories!”
The voices were almost random now. She could hardly hear some, and others were shouts and they made no sense. At one point she started to laugh and it quickly turned to hysterical sobs.
“You will show me what she hides, or I shall feast upon your bones!” the Gravemind bellowed. “Upon your bones!”
That was the moment when Cortana decided she would risk powering up again to call out to John. She was sure he would have moved the galaxy to come back for her, but she needed to know if his luck had finally run out, and if this growing elation at thinking he was coming for her turned out to be only malfunctions in her core matrix.
She would end this nightmare as she began it—giving her name, rank, and serial number. She had to strain to form the words. She didn’t need to look within the Gravemind now to discover what rampancy—death—would be like. She knew. She felt it touch her, the fraying of her mind, the loss of control, not knowing if words and thoughts were her own, not sure what was real and what wasn’t. She felt a cold numbness creeping into her hands.
John’s real. Even if he’s not here, he still exists. That’s all that matters.
Cortana clung to that thought. If John had really made it back, then she would be happy, not because she might survive but because he’d kept his promise. He cared enough to come back. If he hadn’t—then she decided to be satisfied that the last coherent thought she might have would be about him.
“This is UNSC AI serial number CTN-zero-four-five-two-dash-nine.” It was an effort to get all that out, and even then another voice hijacked her moment and added: “I am a monument to all your sins.”
Cortana was still trying to decide if that had any meaning, or if it was just one of the Gravemind’s dead trying to find a voice, when the ceiling took repeated impacts and then crashed in on her.
She strained to look up. It wasn’t the ceiling that had caved in; she’d actually been under a stasis shield on a podium. And now a figure stood over her, not the shapeless bulk of the Gravemind—and this had to be him, surely—but a man in green armor. In the mirrored gold visor of a Spartan helmet, she saw her own broken self reflected, slumped in a heap.
This was one of the Gravemind’s perfect hallucinations. But she didn’t care. This was what she wanted to see, and she was so close to rampancy now that she wondered if the same impulse that had made the Gravemind cradle her was also making him ease her passing with a cherished memory.
This was who she needed to see: John. Humans who survived a near-death experience said they saw their loved ones as they were dying, and the bright healing light that made all the