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ERIC NYLUND
243
speak about your report on the alien construct—Halo. I've
pieced together a bit of the story based on Admiral Whitcomb's
recounting of your adventures, Cortana's debriefing, and the mis-
sion logs of Locklear, Johnson... and the curious partial mission
log of one PFC Wallace Jenkins."
The Master Chief shifted uneasily.
"There are inconsistencies that I must resolve before we get
back to Earth." She pushed her glasses higher onto the bridge of
her nose. "One of them is Sergeant Johnson." She tapped in
commands on her keyboard. "Please step closer, John. I want
you to see this with me."
The Master Chief moved alongside her chair. His massive
weight thudded through the thick deck plating. Two meters tall
and half a ton of metal and somehow Dr. Halsey couldn't help
thinking of him occasionally as the same little boy she had stolen
from his parents in Elysium City.
No. John had changed. She hadn't. She was the one who still
carried the three-decade-old festering guilt.
She took a deep breath and refocused her attention on the video
records before her. On screen played mission logs that showed
Covenant and Marines in firefights, the odd Forerunner architec-
ture in the interior of the Halo construct, and the terrifying
omni-parasitic life-form known as the Flood.
She replayed the mission record of Private Jenkins and the
first Flood attack.
John stiffened as Captain Keyes appeared on screen and as the
Flood consumed the Captain and his squad. Sergeant Johnson
was there, too, fighting and cursing ... until the hordes of tiny,
podlike Infection Forms swarmed over him.
"The Sergeant survived," she said. "The only human to have
direct exposure to the Flood meta-organism and walk away."
"I know," the Master Chief whispered. "I'm not sure how he
survived. How could anyone live through that?"
"That's the simple part," Dr. Halsey told him without looking
up from her displays. She tapped a key, and the Sergeant's medi-
cal records flashed on screen. "See, here?" She touched a file dated
three years before. "He was diagnosed with Boren's Syndrome."
"I haven't heard of it," the Chief said.
"I'm not surprised. It's caused by exposure to high-yield