thelegion | [ TEXT ] SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. TO THE WORLD

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[ TEXT ] SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. TO THE WORLD

Quick Check in for Members of Project Freelancer, the UNSC, and our mutual associates- or anyone that wants to get word out about themselves having changed or not changed or...whatever. Has questions? This is Agent York and Delta, so far we're unaffected by this time ripple thing. Connie, North, Wash, Grif, Chief, Theta, Cortana, Locus, Azucar, Parker, Pidge, Fareeha, Amélie - and anyone else I'm forgetting, shoot me a text back, alright?

I'll deliver pancakes and blankets or other care package items if needed. If you'd rather come talk in person swing by my habitat, I'll be hanging in the bar. Directions are below. Also, Jason- buddy? Swing by, I feel like I owe you a beer.

[ In neat green lines there's a little holographic map showing how to get to York's dive bar from the recipient's current location, wherever they might be. ]

Specific refreshments are available upon request.

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[Cortana gives herself a few milliseconds to do the AI equivalent of closing the door of her office and screaming before she responds...over his helmet radio, not the Legion omnicomms.]

Spartan. We need to talk.

[She makes very, very sure his HUD is displaying her true IFF data; Cortana's not above using the family resemblance to her advantage, but she's not going to pretend to be Halsey. Well, not with John. She'd absolutely pull that trick on a non-Spartan.]

[ She can feel him startle. John's been augmented for a little over a year, though, and has already mastered the impulse to move. It exists as a flicker of neural activity, a tension across his shoulders, then dissipates.

An AI. ONI. Oh thank god. He's disoriented and lost and finally something is familiar. ]

What's happening?

[ What's happening is it's 2526, Circinius IV is burning, and he needs to get back to Blue Team now. ]

[Even if the much younger John had the proper neural implant to interface with her, the Mark IV isn't designed to hold her. Cortana's more or less just leaning through the metaphorical window to keep an eye on the armor functions...and grab the logs while she's here.

2526. The Circinius IV disaster, to be precise. God, he thinks WINTER CONTINGENCY is still in effect.]

Severe temporal distortions.

[This would be easier if he'd had enough socialization for pop culture. At least he spent an impressionable decade being trained to believe everything said in Halsey and thus Cortana's voice is gospel. That should help...right up until it makes things worse.]

We've both been pulled out of normal spacetime. We are functionally outside time as far as the universe is concerned. Your logs indicate you're deployed to Circinius IV. No time is passing for the rest of Blue Team, Petty Officer. They'll be fine.

[No, she can't read his mind, but she doesn't have to.]

[ That sounds so incredibly fake, but also he is being told this by an ONI AI and all the codes check out.

He doesn't relax much, though. ]

How do I get back?

[ Do they know how to get him back? If not, he'll find out. The pieces are clicking together for John.

The AI's voice is bothering him, it's too familiar, but he's completely dug in on the other concern first. ]

[Cortana sighs, much closer to her normal, casual self. Yes, Chie--John, she knows how fake it sounds.]

For the moment? Wait. Right now the spacetime continuum is like unnavigably high seas. We can't do anything but wait for the waves to die down.

[And then he'll snap right back to hell. Cortana's not sure how she feels about that. The galaxy needs him, but he is going to pay dearly to buy all their lives...and he wouldn't thank her for interfering.]

Edited 2017-06-06 04:30 (UTC)

I'm just supposed to sit here?

[ John disapproves and is, for a moment, very very very fifteen. ]

Edited 2017-06-07 04:02 (UTC)

[Cortana snorts. Like she didn't just have a long, totally calm and not at all freaked out discussion with York about how to keep a young John sane for the length of his stay.]

Give me a little credit, Spartan. The training facilities here are excellent, and there are extensive artificial biomes if you're more interested in challenging the environment than an opposing force.

[She then gets much less Halsey and more herself:]

You desperately need a firmware upgrade, anyway, and that'll take some acclimation time.

[Nothing against her creator circa 2526, but Cortana's got a quarter-century of Mjolnir improvements to work from, and she can give even the earliest iteration of the Mark IV a nice tuneup.]

[ Well. That's weird. ]

It was current four days ago.

[ He'd accept that maybe something new ha been put together quickly, but the desperately seems odd. ]

[Yes, partly it's that she's from ~the future~, but also: Cortana really is just that much of a finicky perfectionist.]

Yeah...I'm a better programmer than Dr. Halsey.

[Sorry Mom but it's true.]

You sound like her.

[ He's... feeling this situation out. John knows how smart AI's are made, and that's sort of worrying now that he's established nothing is on fire right now. ]

Yes. And yes, I'm a full smart AI, but Dr. Halsey's fine. She's way too valuable to the war effort for the UNSC to risk any harm coming to her, her brain's still safely inside her head where it belongs...and beyond that, you don't need to know the details.

[He might be able to figure them out, though.

It really is a sign of how desperate they were during the late war years that no one questioned the smart AI who was a near-twin of the still-living Catherine Halsey.]

Edited 2017-06-07 05:12 (UTC)

Good.

[ And he's off and chewing that over. ONI doesn't think he needs the details, fine, but that doesn't mean he's not curious. There's always a certain satisfaction in figuring out something people don't want him to know, even if those people aren't the enemy.

But for now... ]

I'll... train.

[ Fine, he'll go to his room and play with his toys, but you can't make him like it. ]

Edited 2017-06-07 05:17 (UTC)

[That is the most petulant thing Cortana has ever heard come out of John's mouth, and it throws her for a nanosecond or two. He's so young.]

Well. There's also the cafeteria.

[She knows you like dessert, kid.]

I'll be advised, ma'am.

[ ...That does make things a little better, though. ]

...No need to be formal.

[Translation: don't call her "ma'am" it weirds her out when you do it.]

Yes ma-

[ ...Wait. ]

-Cortana.

[ He's trying. ]

Heh.

[That's cute, and it's not really an adjective she'd considered applying to him before.

Annnnnd she's just not going to think about how ridiculously young he is.]

You need anything at all, just yell. I can't promise these temporal distortions won't affect me, but if I'm able to answer, I will.

[Even if she reverts to a time before meeting him, Cortana thinks that she'd at least respond out of curiosity, and her younger self will be able to evaluate their comms logs before he can finish phrasing a question, even a laconic Spartan one.]

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