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ERIC NYLUND
247
"Done," Cortana said. The irritation at having been silenced
for the last five minutes was like barbed wire in her voice. "What
precisely was all that about? Teach the Master Chief a lesson?
Giving him a choice? Save one man instead of billions?"
Dr. Halsey ignored her and rapidly typed in commands on her
keyboard. "Give me access to your core coordinates
four-four-seven."
"Block removed," Cortana said with an exasperated sigh.
"Are you going to answer my question?"
"I'm tired of sacrificing others for the 'greater good,' " Dr.
Halsey replied. "It never stops, Cortana ... and we're running
out of people to sacrifice." She tapped in a final command for the
memory-wiping worm function and punched the ENTER key.
"What—"
"I'm erasing your files on this matter. I'm sorry, Cortana, but
with this, I cannot trust even you."
Cortana was silenced as the worm burned through her memory
and obliterated all inquiries and recordings pertaining to Ser-
geant Avery Johnson.
"Cortana, give me an update on your core memory."
"Recompiling of routines has resulted in a memory-processing
footprint reduction of sixteen percent, Doctor. Thank you. That
gives me a little more room to think."
"I'm afraid that's all we dare risk," Dr. Halsey said. "The Halo
and Covenant AI data could become corrupted if I do more. And
there is no place safe enough to store that information."
Dr. Halsey loaded mission reports from Admiral Whitcomb's,
John's, and Fred's teams. She frowned at the official UNSC inci-
dent forms as their highlighted time, date, and location stamps
scrolled across her screens.
"Are you done with the temporal analysis of these logs?"
"Yes, Doctor. You were correct: There is a discrepancy be-
tween the Halo team and the team on Reach. The time stamps are
off by an average of three weeks. I hypothesize that this was
caused by my gravity-influenced Slipspace transition."
The corners of Dr. Halsey's mouth flickered into a smile. "I'm
disappointed, Cortana. That's a guess ... and an incorrect one at
that."
"Really?" Cortana replied with a hint of challenge in her tone.