Prologue: Planted Memories

"And that's what you saw?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're sure?"

"Positive, sir."

Fred worked hard to keep his face impassive as all of HIGHCOM stared down at him and the rest of Blue Team. ONI had finally got around to debriefing them concerning the Battle of Installation Zero-Zero, but once they heard that the Supreme Commander was apparently another Spartan, the agents brought them straight to HIGHCOM.

Straight to HIGHCOM - all of them. Sam was only half in uniform, and Kelly had her toothbrush tucked in a pocket. Linda was still fully in her sleepwear but looked utterly unconcerned about it, while the rest of them were trying not to sweat.

Hood zoomed in on an image of the Supreme Commander, taken from one of the Spartans' helmet cams. His armor was sleeker and more streamlined than anything ONI had in even the earliest stages of development, and the shields they generated had taken a direct hit from a rocket launcher without even so much as a flicker.

(Even Linda had sighed with want when they saw that on the footage; they all had been looking elsewhere at the time.)

But for all that it was alien, the armor was still immediately recognizable as a cousin of the MJOLNIR, with "117" in white on the left side of the breastplate and also on his IFF tag: Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Shadows (The Last Fleet) and Director of Ecumenical Special Operations, Flood and Quarantine Division, SPARTAN John-117.

Hood eyed the image for a second. "And you said you dreamed about him as well? Before he appeared in the guise of 'Sergeant Smith'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mm."

Fred clenched his jaw, trying to keep silent, but it was too much. "I know it seems unbelievable, sir-"

"I believe you, Master Chief."

When Fred looked the man in the eye, Hood did seem to mean it. "It's just… there's so much we don't know. There are no mentions of this 'Sierra-117'; the records indicate Candidate 117 was definitely not named 'John' - and neither were any of the other non-conscripted candidates. So where did he come from? How did he get here? How did he acquire his fleet and all of the alien species that man the ships? So many questions, and to be blunt, what the hell is going on is definitely one of them."

A few of the other officers let out soft huffs of laughter. Against his will, Fred felt his lips turn up at the corners.

"And then there's the matter of Cortana," Hood went on, "Doctor Halsey has turned over all her records concerning Cortana's existence from the very moment of her birth to when she was brought onboard the Pillar of Autumn." He nodded to Rear Admiral Keyes, who returned the gesture. "At least as far as we know, she never had contact with this Spartan before meeting him on Alpha Halo. And while I'm sure that his and his team's CSVs are very thorough, I think if we question the people they claim to have served with, we'll find that they never existed."

"We knew he had some good AIs - very good," said Halsey, on hand as a consultant, "but I never imagined them being this powerful. To spoof the UNSC's and even ONI's systems so thoroughly that no one knew until now, when they chose to reveal themselves… We know our security is better than the Covenant's, so I can't even begin to contemplate the kind of skill and processing power that must take. But if I may…"

Hood gestured for her to continue, so she did. "Here, the Monitor refers to him as 'the Fleet's Compound Mind,' and he himself says that he has 'Venera and Kenera' with him, which we saw…"

Green Team's helmet cam footage played back on screen, the twins getting run through by the Stalker form, then being processed into combat forms. But then the playback changed, turning to "V" and "K" and their rock-paper-scissors match, both of them unharmed but entirely covered in armor.

"And that doesn't even begin to cover 'Ambience-of-Night'," she said.

Again the playback from Green Team, this time of Ambi in his UNSC gear being dragged screaming from the Truth and Reconciliation's brig. They hadn't actually seen the footage before, but now that they had, now that they knew, they could see that he wasn't necessarily struggling against the Flood as hard as he could have.

"I imagine that when the Fleet returns and we do a check," Halsey finished, "we'll find this 'Feriha' among them as well."

"I'd like to second that 'what the hell is going on'," said Keyes.

"I think we all would."

That night, they started to get their answers.

That night, the geas woke inside them all, triggered by the end of the war. They started to dream, first of the Origin and John's lonely path through it. Then the Taking, as it came to be called; his arrival in the Parallel.

And then… everything that came after.