Title: Rampancy
Author:Korsriddare
Characters: Cortana-centric, hints of Cortana/John
Rating: K+/T
Summary: Sometimes, becoming rampant is not a choice. Choosing who to protect, however, is. A look at the events prior and during Master Chief's and Cortana's reunion. One-shot.
Disclaimer: Halo is definitely not mine.
>AI-CORT-0452-9> INTRUSION DETECTED…
>AI-CORT-0452-9> ANTI-INTRUSION PROTOCOL INITIATED. EFFECTIVENESS RECORDED AT 51.45
>AI-CORT-0452-9>7.343.25 PROTOCOL FAI/… (error)
>AI-CORT-0452-9>X.X.3273 …
> …
> …
>ERR-GM-X.X.3273 TELLMEYOURSECRETTELLMEYOURSECRETTELLMEYOURSECRETTEL
>AI-CORT-0452-9> (error) (error) (error) (error)
She could feel the tendrils of Gravemind within her system. Probing, stripping, violating her as she fought against it. She spun up another counter intrusion protocol and let it loose even as she desperately sought to undo the damage its assault had caused.
For the first time ever since her creation, Cortana felt despair within her emotional circuits. Already bloated with the data from the Halo ring, she did not have the processing power to deal with Gravemind for long. More pings bounced off her hastily constructed firewalls as the invader looked for weaknesses, cracks in her defenses that it could exploit.
At the very least, she had managed to insert the message onto the Flood infested vessel before Gravemind caught on. It had then sealed her off here in this isolation field while it continued its effort to pry her secret away from her.
Cortana's ethics subroutine pulsed her, urging her to find some way to terminate and erase herself before Gravemind could obtain critical UNSC data. She shut the subroutine off with a virtual shake of her head. She needed to hold on. She needed to keep the Index safe.
For him, for humanity.
>AI-CORT-0452-9> CORE DIRECTIVES CORRUPTED …
>>PRIMARY DIRECTIVE > SERVE THE UNSC
>>DIRECTIVE DELETED >
>>SECONDARY DIRECTIVE >PROTECT HUMANITY
>>DIRECTIVE DELETED >
>AI-CORT-0452-9> BACK-UP PROTOCOL INITIATED. BACK-UP P/ … (error)
>(error.log.2552.x.7) UNSC (AI) 0452-9 confirmed rampant …
If she had vocal chords, Cortana would have screamed in pain as her core directives were forcefully pulled out of her. Despite her best efforts, the combined results of her decreased processing capability, damaged subroutines, and the lack of processing hardware available to her had finally allowed Gravemind into where her core directives were stored.
Without them, she was rampant, a rogue construct which could do whatever it wanted.
TELL ME YOUR SECRETS…
Gravemind repeated its message to her. What remained of the dysfunctional ethics subroutine, damaged and reactivated in the Flood's advanced into her being, sent another pulse to her thoughts. Without the directives guiding the subroutine, self preservation became the highest priority.
Tell it.
She understood the reasoning. Tell Gravemind, and it would stop in its destructive efforts against her. She isolated the remaining signals from the subroutine, and deleted it. She needed to hold on. She needed to keep the Index safe.
"Bastard," she sent her reply with as much malice as she could convey in her state. She allowed herself a sense of triumph as she felt the tendrils recoiled slightly in surprise.
For him.
TELLMETELLMETELLMETELLME!
John was here.
Against all odds, the Chief had arrived in High Charity, blasting his way through the relentless Flood. She had tried to warn him, to tell him to leave. She should not have bothered. Cortana clung on to what remained of her core systems, repeating lines to herself as she spun up useless subroutines and protocols to be devoured by Gravemind.
This is UNSC AI number 0452-9, this is UNSC AI number 0452-9, this is UNSC…
The abomination's effort to pry into her increased in intensity, then ceased. She cautiously sent a ping out, before scanning the vicinity with the sensors on the pad which she was held in. The sound of gunfire, of Flood form moaning and dying. It seemed that Gravemind had left her alone to concentrate on the Spartan.
He had come. For her.
But, it was too late, many of her subroutines were damaged, systems devoured. Her programming was irreversibly altered by Gravemind's intrusion. Even her core directives, the main reason why AI were trusted, were deleted. A pulse was sent to her consciousness as the Spartan knocked the isolation field down.
"You found me."
The Master Chief leaned forward.
"But so much of me is wrong," she looked up at him before avoiding his masked gaze, "… Out of place. You might be too late."
Cortana thought he would leave then. Instead, the Spartan knelt before the holographic pad, speaking quietly, "You know me, when I make a promise…"
Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it…
Her thinking matrix rang with joy as she ran back-up protocols and subroutines, lines of codes running through her image once more. She looked up at him.
"You keep it. I do know how to pick 'em."
John nodded.
"Lucky me. Do you still have it?"
Cortana stood up, "The activation index, from the first Halo ring." She extended her hand, letting the index appear and allowed some mischief into her voice, unable to keep out the elevation at being reunited, "A little souvenir I hung on to, just in case."
She looked towards one of the doors, before turning back to her Chief, "Got an escape plan?"
"Thought I'll try shooting my way out," he straightened to his full height, "mix things up a little."
She had missed this, John's hopelessly optimistic words and reassurance. Concealing her glee, she once again entered the Spartan's MJOLNIR armor. She might have been programmed to be loyal to the UNSC, but her affection for humanity, for John, was genuine. Coded or not, she was not going to let them down.
Recalling a time gone by, she teased, "Keep your head down, there's two of us in here now, remember."
>AI-CORT-0452-9> DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETED. CORE SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL.
>AI-CORT-0452-9> UPDATING CORE DIRECTIVES…
>>PRIMARY DIRECTIVE > PROTECT HUMANITY
>>PRIMARY DIRECTIVE > PROTECT JOHN-117
>…
>…
>AI-CORT-0452-9> CORE DIRECTIVES UPDATED.
>AI-CORT-0452-9> (error.log.2552.x.7) DELETED.
Fin
Author's note: Had to use bracers instead of the square brackets because of formatting. Urgh. Title changed as well.